A Geek History of Time - Episode 109 - 1990s Wrestling Part IV

Episode Date: May 29, 2021

I'm not here to poke holes and suspend at this belief. Anyway, they see some weird shit. They decide to make a baby. Now, Muckin' Merchant. Who gives a fuck? Oh, Muckin' Merchant, who's a trickleman. Baby, you know what I mean? Well, you know, I really like it here. It's kind of nice and, uh, it's not as cold as Muckin' Merchant.

So, yeah, sure, I think we're gonna settle. If I'm a peasant boy who grabs sword out of a stone. Yeah, I'm able to Open people up. You will yeah any time I hit them with it, right? Yeah, so my cleave landing will make me a cavalier If sysful thought it was empty headed I thought it was empty headed, plubian trash. It's not really good to grow one. Because cannibalism and murder, we'll go back just a little bit,

build walls to keep out the radiance. And it's a little bit of a ground tunnel. A thrill and tent doesn't exist. Some people stand up quite a bit, some people stay seeing the white spots. But it just... [♪ BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, BELL RINGS, B This is a history of time. Where we connect nursery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock, I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California and the

father of a little boy who is going to not know what to do with himself tomorrow because I'm taking him to a local spot called Fairytale Town. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Damien is familiar with it and they have a display tomorrow of dinosaurs. And he will probably know the names of every one of them far better than I will. I need to reiterate again that he's three years old. And he can say, Pacquiao, Sauros, better than his mother can. There are any number of other words he has trouble with, but he can do Pacy cephalosaurus and a number of others. Yeah, I it'd take me too long to remember him off the top of my head right now, but yeah, no, he's he's a budding dinosaur

scientists paleontologists. Thank you. And so yeah, I'm very much looking forward to that. I'm very excited there. What do you got going on? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm very much looking forward to that. I'm very excited. There. What do you got going on? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin teacher up here in Northern California. Let's see. What could I tell you? My kids both know how to cook according to Marvel and Dungeons and Dragons, which is just so amazing. So delicious. Yeah. We had hand burgers last week because he wanted to eat cookie cookie.

Okay. I think we're taking a hiatus. So it's just going to be dad cooking this week, which is fine. Okay. But they're both going to get back into it. And I'm going to make them start doing breakfast in the summer. Okay. Because I will give them skills and we will fun getting those skills. Okay. And they're getting confidence. You should, you've seen the pictures of my daughter, stirring at a stove that's like taller than oh not taller than she is but like no eight-year-old should seem that competent. Yeah. In not the 1930s. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh I love it. My kids it's it's it's so fun. It's really cool to see them enjoying that. Well good. Hey so last time we talked about Rocky Horror Pictures show. And really when we were talking about cool to see them enjoying that. Well good. Hey, so last time we talked about Rocky Horror Picture Show. And really when we were talking about him, he was getting people with kayaks. Yeah. So I have to ask about that.

Sure. Did the kayak actually get picked up? I don't recall. I did not chase down the kayak aspect of that story. OK. I just found a list of things that they brought. A kayak. A kayak.

Like, Celine Dion did say to take a list of things that they brought. A kayak. A kayak. Like, Celine Dion did say to take a kayak and go to those walls. Now, she was talking about her in Katrina, but you know, these people predated her by a decade. Yeah. You know, I got to, yeah, I see, okay, as somebody who spends a little bit of my hobby time, you know, swinging swinging kind of actual weapon around um I kind of wonder about like I get into the technical aspects it's like okay so imagine that I'm a six foot I don't know

what very athletic sure very muscular very strong dude I don't have to imagine I'm looking at it okay Ehh, okay. I'm sure. Yeah. So we're moving on. Um, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but But like where is the balance point on a kayak as a weapon like where? Where is the where is the striking point gonna be what?

Gravity gonna you're gonna hold it from the back end and you're gonna Using the back part of the seat like yeah, okay, right or you just ram it like a swinging battering ram Okay,, all right. Which is then essentially, you're using the point or you set it up across the entryway and you run a man into it. Okay, yeah. You treat it like, you know, a beat. Or you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, center. I cannot play with you, you're my thorn enemy. Your thwaith, wha, yeah'm talking about like wrestlers or performers, like whatever they got to do to make a buck, okay cool.

But the crowd, the fact that the crowd is demanding this. The crowd is demanding this, and these are people who go back to ordinary day-to-day jobs. Like anybody else in the United States, they would look like civilized people. Yes. On any other day of the month Yes, then they go into this arena and they're They're a contained riot as we as we talk a scripted yes barely contained riot

Yes, they don't deviate from the script, but sometimes they perform way over the top Well, it's like wrestling. Yeah, okay, granted. But I'm gonna pause the show for just a second to show you some of the violence. Okay, okay, so now that you've cleaned the throw up out of your mouth. I have been herod. Like, so we just watched about seven minutes of oh my god moments from ECD. Yeah, um, so okay, I take I take a few things away from that.

Okay. Um, first off, first thing you would take away is that you had no idea. Like none, none, like and and and if you and I know that you're going to tell me that that Japanese deathmatch wrestling is even crazier than that. Yes, but it is very very It's not every damn match. Okay. It's not every you know, it's it's more traditional than that. Yeah It's got the bread square kind of thing. Okay. You will have a deathmatch tournament on occasion. Okay. It is a very specific thing These things that I showed you were matches throughout the cards.

Yeah, you saw all over the place. Yeah, like. Okay, yeah. So, okay, number one. Yeah. Number two, how is it that within wrestling lore, it that within wrestling lore, now we don't have stories about guys dying in ECW because I'm looking. Okay, well, I understand that.

But like, how did they with the shit they were doing? Yes. they with with the shit they were doing yes i i am amazed like watching watching the number of times new jack in that series of clips which was a highlight real ladies and gentlemen that that not not an exhaustive cataloging and we didn't even get to the weapons you know we didn't we didn't even get to the three year-on-weapons. We didn't see the cheese grate. Because I know better. I knew to protect you.

God. Or the kayak. Yeah. I'm still more butly curious about the kayak. Now I know it's more butly curious. But like, because I know if it actually got used, I know that I may regret seeing it, but I have to. got used, I know that I may regret seeing it, but I have to. But I find it amazing that like the next point is related to this is I kept thinking about how absolutely incredibly

athletic all of those guys were, even the ones that were fat. there is an amazing amount of body strength involved in all of that. And there's an amazing amount of, like if you look really closely, you can see they're always landing the same way on the table. Yes. They're always, you know, making the hit on the same region of the body in the same kind of like when the guy jumps and you know He's jumping out of the ring the land on his opponent. It's like if you watch closely you can tell no He's jumping out of the ring and being half caught by his opponent. Yeah, or group of opponents Yes, and it's really clear that no no this is as a matter of fact uh you know sparkly murder gymnastics and there is there is choreography and there is

an amazing amount of athleticism involved in that but like shit goes wrong yeah like we know the stories about how you've told several you've related several of the stories in other episodes about wrestling, about how men have died. When shit has gone wrong. Like I know, and I don't remember whether I got it from you or another source, but the story of, you know, Stone Cold Steve Austin breaking his neck in the ring and having to maintain K-Fape. And the miracle that's involved in him not at the very least being paralyzed from the chest down. Because of that, look at what these guys were doing. Like how do we not have, and this is the paraplegic era of professional wrestling. Well, and there was a wrestler who was made a quadriplegic a few years later from a botched spot of just a very simple power bomb.

Now, I say a very simple power bomb, but I mean, it really was like a freak accident that had happened. And it was nowhere near to the level of chaos that this was like, yeah, literal murder gymnastics. Like, if something goes wrong, somebody's gonna wind up, you know, taking a railing to the bridge of the nose, or caving in their whole head.

Caving in their whole head, or, you know, miss a catch, and New Jack is just gonna splatter himself across the pavement from, you know, 20 feet up from the balcony. Well, there was a, and you didn't see this spot in that video, but there was an incident where a wrestler fell through a series of tables

and landed right next to the ropes. And he said, if I had been off by even a little bit, I wouldn't be here today. There are so many near death experiences that they then were just like, okay, I guess we've got this down and You keep going So my god you can get lost to anything

cactus Jack did use the two-man kayak That's okay, and he said that he felt obligated to use it because they had gone to such trouble to bring it It would be rude not to that That is the most makefully thing. Yeah, so and that's all of what I just said about things going wrong. We don't have anybody like left wearing an eye patch forever. Nope, because of the barbed wire. Right. Now, I need to mention this to the audience because it took it took Damien a back I

Gag yes, he did watching watching the the barbed wire stuff because Just just having my my mother grew up on a farm. Okay going back to visit my grandma there was barbed wire every place and and There was an occasion where as a small kid. I was trying to get through the lines of barbed wire and get through the fence. I got hung up on it. And of course, this was old barbed wire that had been there for forever.

So it was like, okay, did you get scratched? Do we need to take a very dead shot? I'm just sure. There was all that going on. But that experience has left me with a very healthy respect for barbed wire. For barbed wire ever since and the thought of Like being wrapped up in it. No wrapping yourself up with it No, no, no, I understand that but then your physical yeah, yeah

And and and oh my god. Yes, like Stahels fighting fighting. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what else could you say? Right. Yeah. So many times Literally my Gorge Rose I I I gagged like it was And I am amazed that nobody lost an eye Nobody like nobody was left with with you know a Nobody lost an eye. Nobody was left with a really wicked scar that they'd be able to use to get free beers forever.

Oh no, Sabu is really wickedly scarred up. He absolutely is. Like he could get his chest and it just, oh my God. Okay. Took quote Joey Styles. Yeah, so I have my own story about BarbeWire. And so just so you know, here's a picture of Sabo's chest. Now you can kind of see it.

He's got scars in the work. Oh my God. Yes exactly. Okay, yeah. He really does. Okay, he looks like he's been through it. Yeah, and he has Sweeties. I'm living on the family farm in early 90s. I'm living in Florida with the family. Yeah, a chicken kept leading all the other chickens out Okay, and leading and escape it was the Steve McQueen of chickens

And Madad How many chickens are we talking about? We had a coop full. So okay, okay, no so my dad, my brother and I, how many chickens are we talking about? We had a coop full, so the cousin, you know. Okay, so my dad was chasing after this chicken at some point. I forget exactly what got him spurred on to go chase after the chicken on the one intended. But my brother and I were playing in the yard right near the house. Okay. And then a little further out, like across the yard, pretty the yard pretty far yards a big quarter acre yard Okay, maybe half acre yard and across from there's chicken coop so

And and I can't really give you a good visual of it But just understand that there is a lot of open space and then there is an area that we have penned off with with you know, barbed wire. Okay. So my dad is running and he is, it's the early 90s, your shorts were actually shorts, they weren't really, you know, breaches. And he's running, I can see where this is going.

And so could we, that was the thing. And you see him come tearing out from behind the shed and that chicken is just running as fast as anything with two legs and dad is gaining on the little bastard and he's gonna get the fucker and he's gonna ring its neck and all this right and he's just tearing after it and the chicken being a chicken runs straight through and and just jumps between the the barbed wire dad doesn't see it I'm watching this happen in slow motion and thinking he's got to see that He's gonna slow it. He's not slowing down. Oh, we can't oh no and he goes full on into it and then hangs And it goes I mean waste to ankles is where he gets him with it treads his

Treads his his shorts quite a bit. He's bleeding everywhere and you just see him go ass over T kettle and just stop there Yeah, it was oh now he only as far as I know he only has one scar on his ankle from that and that's it Because that would be the point of the Yeah, but yeah, he and oh He had dove under the house to get this chicken and you hear his head go Thunk As he's diving under and and the chicken keeps running under the house and he crawls out from under the house And that's what it was he chased it around the back of the house around the garden up by the sheds

So he got he got target lock. Yeah, well what we're talking about He got hard core target lock. Yeah, okay. Yeah goes down over by the the dog kennels and is just be lining for yeah and and just and just oh my god. Yeah, so we saw guys jump across the ring to kick a chair into the barbed wire into a guy's fit. Yeah, well so so of course Vince McMahon here's about all this and he serves money. Yeah, because as we mentioned in the last episode, he has the shark like ability to smell a dollar falling from a thousand miles away. Or blood and, or well, blood in wrestling blood money. Yeah, it's one and the same.

Well, they actually say red makes green. Yeah, okay. There you go. So but again, you do it sparingly, right? Yeah, you see it as the appropriate time. So by May of 1994, which is Slambury for WCW, okay? I believe it's Baltimore, but hey Geek history Geek timers, let us know. The two promotions, WCW and ECW agree to a talent exchange. The fans came too.

Now sometimes you do have talent exchanges. It didn't really look like a talent exchange because Terry Funk had previously wrestled in WCW, but he was an ECW and he was in a Legends match with Tully Blanchard. One of my favorite guys. Okay. But the crowd let everyone know that ECW was there and this is the first paper view where it was picked up on camera that ECW fans were there because they started the following chance. We're not hostile. We're not hostile. Or ECW. ECW. That was another one. Okay. Or we want blood. We want blood. Wait. Yeah, you just set a minute ago. You're not hostile. I know like wait. Yeah, Philly actually This might have been in Philly although it is far south as as Baltimore

Okay, but the fans were not just passes observers that playing their beautiful part of cheering and booing They were changing the way that the viewing was happening Okay So by 1995 Vince McMahon had seen that business was way down, way down. And you'd also notice that ECW fans in the Philly area had started invading WCW and WWF events. So at King of the Ring in 1995, which was the worst ever King of the Ring tournament. Fans began chanting ECW, ECW, ECW during a match, and other chants started picking up as well, similar to what had happened at Slambury the year prior.

At Survivor Series, Brett Hart and Diesel had a match that went to no disqualification match. Now you're taking away one of the things, which by doing that, you are saying we're gonna get violent. Okay, well yeah, this clearly. The chaos is seeping in to WWF. Again, Brett Hart is a traditional wrestler,

but even he is starting to have these kinds of matches. Okay. This match for the first time that I can find is where a wrestler goes through the announcer's table at ringside in a major promotion. Okay, it is significant. It is match altering action that was happening outside of the ring. Yes. Okay. In WWF, the symbolism isn't lost here either. Bret Hart is the babyface of the company. He's a wrestling traditionalist and he's being destroyed in a new way outside of the ring by a man who's beginning to directly interact with the fans, not just I'm performing in front of you,

but directly interact with them by flipping them off. Diesel. Okay. Okay, who would later leave for WCW in late spring of 96 and wrestle under his real name, Kevin Nash. Oh, okay. But before he leaves, we have to talk about WrestleMania 12 and what happened thereafter. So there was a match in WrestleMania 12 where Sean Michaels and Bret Hart had a one hour wrestling match.

Jesus, yeah. Right man. And I am a huge Brett Hart fan and I get the story that they were telling and it was dull. I will be honest, it was a dull match. I get the story but good lord, there have been better matches that have come since then that were one hour long. Specifically it's called Iron Man match. Okay. I frankly I think the the Kurt Angle Brock Lesnar Ironman match from Smackdown in 2004.

Yeah. Probably the best. Okay. But because it told a much better story. But okay, you have this one hour match. So you only have six matches on the card. One of the matches is a match between Gold Dust and Raudi-Raudi Piper that was called the Hollywood Backlot Brawl. Okay. Now, to understand Gold Dust, you have to go back to, I mean, he is the perfect mid-1990s character, but you have to go back a little bit to realize he's actually the son of Dusty Rhodes. Yeah. And if ever there was a traditional wrestling hero, Dusty Rhodes was that hero. And his son Dustin seemed to be ready to follow in his father's footsteps. However, Dustin came to the WWF and came in as Gold Dust, an androgynous

character that was as bizarre as he was skilled. He wrestled in a golden full body outfit with gold paint all over his face and his hair. His entrance was singularly spectacular and he pushed the homophobia button really hard, especially in the mid 90s. He was taking on Roddy Piper, partly because he'd started doing a program with Scott Hall, who at that time was Razor Ramone, who also wore a lot of gold was all about Machismo. Well, gold does really liked him and how machismo he was and pushing that button. And they wrestled. And at one point, there's a it's called a go behind where you're wrestling and a guy grabs you from around the waist, right? And then you you you switch it and you go behind him, right? Right. Well, as soon as gold does

did that, then he starts feeling up razor Ramon And pushing it hard well the thing is razor Ramon is Scott Hall and Scott Hall didn't like being in that program Even though he and Dustin Rhodes would have made incredible amounts of money He also was on his way out to WCW because he's being offered new money or good money for Half the dates. Yeah. So because of that story, Gold Dust ends up having to wrestle Rady-Rady Piper, okay? And so they kind of bring in Rady Piper as like the commissioner of wrestling for WWF and Gold Dust switches his focus from Scott Hall to Roddy Piper and Roddy Piper is a man's man What's interesting because Roddy Piper had in the 80s?

Bin an iconic last and now he came to the ring wearing a shirt that said icon on it. Yeah So now he represents wrestling tradition Yeah, even though he's Roddy fucking Piper, the chaos magnet. Yeah. But in the 90s, he represents tradition. And so you're seeing this inversion. Yeah. The match took place largely away from the ring.

And it involved an attempted vehicular homicide. Uh, whoa. Okay. Okay. It was a Hollywood back-lap role. Okay. All right. Um, and it also invited to have involved the high-speed low-speed chase

Okay, and the footage from that chase Roddy Piper had pulled up in a white Ford Bronco. Oh my god Okay, so they used borrowed clips from the OJ low-speed chase from a couple years earlier and Eventually the action gets to the ring involving Piper kissing Gold Dust and Then stripping him down to his lingerie Okay back up. You know you heard me right hold on and I literally have that right starter belt. Yeah, you heard me right okay Because you knew yeah Like okay when you say lingerie.

Yeah, I mean, like, go to the big, because gold does like six, six, yeah, 280 pounds. Okay, yeah. Okay, go to the biggest part of Fredrick's a Hollywood. Okay. And then put that on gold dust. Okay.

And then zip up the gold suit. There's a gold suit over that, huh? Okay, all right. They really committed to that. They did. Wow. the uh... the goal is a gold suit over that okay alright they really they really committed to that they did wow because piper was quote gonna make a man out of him it so

yeah and this is at the same event that bread heart and shaman michael's have their famous ironman match sixty minutes most of the ins okay and it was billed as the traditionalist Brett heart against this new and exciting young talent Shawn Michaels and Shawn Michaels one the new is replacing the old right yeah also in ninety cents in ninety six Vince McMahon begins running these skits called the billionaire Ted skits and he sets himself oh god Skits. And he sets himself, oh God, it's garbage.

And he sets himself out. That is so clearly. Vince McGrath. Like, you know, my P.P. is bigger than yours. Wow. So he sets himself out as the poor, lonely, independent promoter who's had to contend with a rich, bumbling money mark.

A money mark is a term in wrestling for the guy who's got the money who will pay you for garbage wrestling Money Mark who was initially trying to improve his WCW product compared with the perceived superiority of WF programming By buying up all the big name old talent that had defected to WCW And now he's naming these characters. There's the Huckster The Nacho Man Scheme Gene And now he's naming these characters. There's the Huckster the notchal man Scheme Jean And he references oh wait wait wait wait he went after me and Jean Okarlin

You do not go at like I'm not even a hardcore fan you do not go after me. He did holy wow the man. All the audacity. Yeah. And in these skits, here's where it gets really funny. This is 1996. He had just defeated the the steroid case in 1994. Yeah. And and and and and the income of the terms of sports entertainment. Yes. Yeah. of sports entertainment. Yes. Yeah. And he'd actually done that earlier to be around the licensing industry. Yeah. But he references in-house drug testing at WCW

as opposed to the independent company that the WWF uses, which is true. And if you have it in-house, you can certainly hide the results, cook the results, lose the results. You have an independent company, you've got more. But it's interesting that the guy who had literally been on trial for handing out steroids to wrestlers. Is using that as a kind of, yeah. Well, it's a Finnsberg man.

Yeah, like. Another sketch had billionaire Ted wanting to buy some WWF new generation wrestlers to which a WWE voiceover says it's not for sale and in referencing to Turner buying older assets like wrestlers also movies and repackaging them or colorizing them. confession through accusation though because what advanced McMahon do throughout the 1980s really those same stars from other territories the final billionaire Ted skit involved a wrestling match between the Huckster and the Nacho man with billionaire Ted being the referee. And all the characters die from heart attacks because they're so old get it new generation. Wow. Now the reason I made this up. Lame is because this

skit showed up on the free pre-show for WrestleMania 12. Okay. So tradition chaos. world. So in May of 1996, at Madison Square Garden, the most traditional traditions in wrestling happened there. Okay, that's where it's Madison Square Garden. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash wrestled their very last matches for the WWF at that time. They, along with McMahon's permission, they had his permission, did a curtain call with their best friends, Hunter Hurst Helmsley and Sean Michaels.

He allowed them to break K-Fabe and have a moment. It was not a big deal. But in the 90s, tape trading fandom was so big that people would bring tapes, cassette, you know, video recorders and record what happened. And it was caught on tape. And you can type in Madison Square Garden curtain call. And you'll find the tape of this. And it went viral in the way that tape trading went viral. And what's notable is that McMahon was fine with it until he lost control of the

narrative due to the tape trading community. So due to this like, yeah, yeah, yeah, polished grassroots thing, the audience was driving the product entirely here as a result. So McMahon punishes Hunter Hurst Helmsley. He can't punish Kevin Nash in Scott Hall. They left. Yeah, you can't punish Shawn Michaels. That's your champion. He can punish Hunter Hurst Helmsley because Hunterhurst Helmsley was the only one who wasn't a world champion who was still at WWF He changed the storylines around Hunterhurst Helmsley and had him involved in a bunch of pig slop matches Okay, since he's a blue blood. He's going against a hillbilly named Phineas I Godwin And his brother

Henry oh Godwin Godwin God I got it. Okay. Uh, and uh, you get some in these these pig slot matches where he ends up getting thrown into a pig pen that they have next to the ring and all kinds of wacky shit. Okay. Also, Hunter Herselmsley was supposed to win the King of the Ring that year. And he doesn't. The whole thing gets re-booked. Instead of Hunter winning it, it goes to this new upstart nasty heel named Stone Cold Steve Austin. There'll be more on him in a bit. Well yeah. Now in September of 1996, so that's May of 96, you get the curtain call.

September 96. I don't know. You know what else is happening in 96 is it's an election year. Yes So in September of 96 and at your house mine and at I'm sorry It's called in your house mind games. This is before you had a set There are 12 paper views and this is what they are yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, they were still fuzzin with this So this one was called in your house mind games, and it's a really good match between Shawn Michaels

and Cactus Jack, it's really good. But there is also a Caribbean Strap match between Stone Cold Steve Austin and Savio Vega. Okay, what exactly does that mean? It's a Strap match, but because Savio Vega is from Puerto Rico, it's a Caribbean Strap match. Okay. So basically you have to incapacitate your opponent enough that you can run and touch all four

corners of the ring. All the action is contained in the ring. It might spill over, but you're attached by a 15 foot strap. Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. And a 15 foot strap is not long enough for the hip-hop news, and it's not long enough for the length. Okay.

You got to drag the guy. But you could also hang him by it, you know, and still. But even then the action is still adjacent to the ring or on the ring, you know. But two of the most famous ECW wrestlers ever were ringside and on camera and got involved in the match. That is Tommy Dreamer and Sandman. Sandman is the one you saw getting kicked in the face. Okay. Then they get thrown out. Okay.

This had the feel of something spontaneous. McMahon worked the whole thing. Well, okay, yeah. Okay. He even acknowledged ECW status as a, quote, local up and coming promotion on the air. Oh wow, okay. It's weird.

It's weird that he's doing that, but he's doing that. The following night on Raw, Raw at this time was pretty new still. Monday night Raw at the beginning of the match between the body Donas and the British Bulldog and Owen Hart, Taz, he's a guy that you saw suplexing Bam Bam Bigelow into a hole. Oh right, yeah, Taz, he's the guy that you saw suplexing, Bam Bam big low into a hole.

Oh right, yeah. Taz and Bill Alfonso, the guy that you saw maybe with a whistle on his mouth blowing a whistle. Oh yeah, okay. Yeah. They were able to quote successfully jump the security rails and Taz was able to prominently display a bright orange sign with black letters

that read, Sabu fears has ECW So it's okay Rilla it's looking like a gorilla promotion. Yeah, and and it's furthering a storyline In EC it's a crossover. Yes, but it's it seems so chaotic. Yeah, okay jump the guard rail They invaded the now okay hands at this time were ECW fans. Oh my god. This is amazing. You know because because WTF was the big time right? Okay, now I believe both of these incidents were in Philly. I could be wrong. It could be a Jason but fans continued this type of thing

Anytime WCW or WWF came to Philly, they would send ECW fans would show up and make their chance. And as ECW got more media reach, the fans started coming out beyond Philly. You start to see ECW fans elsewhere. And they would start chance like, boorin. Okay. Or you fucked up. You fucked up. Or holy shit. Holy shit. Whenever they, as fans, saw something worthy of a chant, it wasn't just passive consumption.

They were leading the wrestlers now instead of the wrestlers leading them. Okay. And the new generation stuff in WWF was not working. The dalliance with chaos would grow and grow until it altered wrestling forever. And remember what I said about tactical and strategic. Remember what I said about power? Yeah.

ECW had no fucking power and they changed the juggernaut of the wrestling business. Yeah. What's especially interesting here is that a couple months before the 1996 election, and this time it was clear that Clinton was going to win, that the boomer president was going to defeat the war veteran candidate and that traditionalists were being made to take a back seat again. However, they weren't going quietly in the legislature. They continued to show a sharp partisanship, refusing to work with Democrats, affecting

a government shutdown in December of 95. And many rightly think that big one. Yeah, this is a huge deal. And many rightly think that this same shutdown is what helped seal Clinton's victory in 96. Oh yeah. So, petulence was the new governance. In Transigence was the new crossing the aisle. ECW invading WCWF, a government shutdown,

comic books combining, NAFTA and the Zapatista Declaration of War on the Mexican Government, huge paradigmatic shifts in the zeitgeist toward youth culture, the allure of nostalgia turning into chaotic versions of itself, the tremendous racial tensions, all of these things highlight this growing instability found in America culturally, economically, and politically, and it's showing very clearly in wrestling, even if it's not explicitly stated. And all of this has an actual impact on the wrestling itself. When Cactus Jack came over to the WWF because he did, and when he left ECW it was hilarious because he did this whole thing about how he hated the fans of ECW.

Now he had been a fan favorite and then he decided to go bad guy and then in order to Obscald, you know to leave you always want to leave when you're at your peak and if you can turn heal and make them hate you at your peak You can do that because then you can go back eventually maybe okay, but he he cut a promo on on how the ECW fans went too far And they wanted too much and he refuses to Exceed to their wishes anymore and and he's gonna wrestle the worst matches you've ever seen. And to the point where a referee comes out and says, well, it's his constitutional right to wrestle a bad match. It pisses off all the Philly fans.

And he starts begging Uncle Eric for his job back. Because he'd gotten fired from WCW. And so Uncle Eric is Eric Bischoff. So he's begging on Clark and that was the boogey man for them. And then he started talking about how he's gonna go on to WWF and do great things. And he's so glad to be getting out of this shitty promotion and all this kinds of things.

So then he gets to WWF and he becomes mankind. Yeah. Right? So not cactus jack, but mankind. And now he's wearing a mask. He's very different character And they don't even acknowledge him as cactus Jack in any way, okay? WWF was famous for not acknowledging Prior, like when Harley race came to the WWF in the 80s

They didn't acknowledge that he was a seven-time world champion They just made him King Harley race and it was like a ridiculous buffoonish kind of thing Wow, yeah, okay. It was nuts They just made him King Harley race and it was like a ridiculous buffoonish kind of thing. Wow. Yeah, it was nuts. So, uh, but when he comes over, he becomes mankind and mankind starts a feud with the Undertaker and one of the first matches he actually has is called the Boiler Room Brawl in August of 96. Okay.

All of the action occurred outside of the ring for that match. So mankind is coming in chaos in August of 96. At the end of it, you have to go, you have to get to the ring and Paul bearer is standing there in the middle of the ring with the undertakers earn. Right. Which is the source of his power. And at the end of it, they get through it. Undertaker makes his way out to the ring, battered and bloodied and all this from mankind who just, you know, they had one hell of a brawl in the boiler room. Paul Bear turns on Undertaker. So you have a subversion of tradition again, not what you expected. Now turns happen. But the next month at the

mind games paper view I mentioned earlier, Mick Foley is now blazing trails as hard as he can as far as the out of the ring action goes. Okay, the match itself between him and Sean Michaels goes all over the place in the arena or at ringside rather, brings in stuff, and instead of a clean finish, it ends with a disqualification and several run-ins, which is kind of rare for WWF at that time. Okay, but it's really common in ECW. So ECW made tactical choices

that are changing the strategy. Now at this point, it's pretty clear that WWF is trying to co-op some of the ECW's approach. And again, the chaos and disregard for the rules is beginning to deepen its roots in the WWF. There are more vignettes outside of the ring that are getting shot in lieu of telling stories with what do we call those wrestling matches.

Yeah. More backstage interactions are happening and getting filmed to show the home audience and more and more violence outside of the ring. You'll be in the middle of a promo and then the bad guy attacks you or what happened. Yeah, okay. It's not like let's get in the ring

and you have the social contract, no. Yeah. And now you get to the stone cold Steve Austin era. Right. As I'd said above, Austin was a nasty heel who'd been rising through the ranks. In the fall of 1996, he'd picked a fight with the returning Bret Hart. So Bret Hart lost at WrestleMania and took six months off.

Okay. Okay. To heal up, but also to shoot Lonesome Dove. Okay. But Bret Hart returns, and he's a traditionalist, right? During an interview with Steve Austin's best friend K-Faib, this was brought up as well, which is interesting Brian Pilleman And I'll get into Brian Pilleman quite a bit in a bit

Austin attacked and brutalized Brian stomping his ankle in a steel chair, Kfe breaking it. This then leads the infamous gun incident in November of 96. I'll get there. Which heard the words bitch and fuck on the USA Network. And now entire segments weren't wrestling. It was Brian Pilman in his house and Steve Austin doing a home invasion. And it involved increasingly violent aspects. In fact, Vince McMahon had to apologize for that whole storyline.

Really? Yeah, which frankly I think added to its cache. And the stakes for wrestling in W.W. have got more outlandish too. Brian Pilman had gone into a feud with Gold Dust. If he won, Marlena Gold Dust's wife, which was now known to the audience, would have to spend a night with Brian Pilleman, whom she had in real life had dated previously.

If he lost, he'd have to wear an evening gown. Oh, that's not... He won. Okay, you okay. And the videos that he made afterward were from his hotel room and were very sexually provocative of him with Marlena leaving a suggestive way in the dust. Okay. And in the ring, the violence was stepping up too. There's more liberal use of chairs in the WWF, Stone Cold Steve Austin, the very nasty hill, would actually turn face at WrestleMania 13 in March of 97. As Brett Hart, the traditionalist would turn heel.

It's a famous famous match, it's one of the top five best matches of WrestleMania history. It's a really good match and it's what's called double turn. Normally one character or another will turn this time they both turned. So Bret Hart had been a fan favorite since 1989. Yeah. And he turns bad guy. Okay. And Stone Cold Steve Austin had been a heal the whole time he'd been a WF and he turns good guy. Now to do this it's really quite something. And like I said, it's one of the best matches ever. The action goes all over the place. It's supposed to be a submission match.

Okay, Stone Cold Steve Austin doesn't know fuck all about submissions. So he's just gonna beat Brett Hart until he gives up. That's his goal, right? Brett Hart is all about submissions, but could Stone Cold Steve Austin tough as he is ever let himself give up?

So action goes everywhere. A lot of fighting through the crowd, a lot of chairs, guardrails, electrical cables, soda, and it ends in a puddle of Austin's blood. So heart has him in a submission match and Austin has been bladed. Yeah. It looks like he got hit, but no, he bladed. Which Brett Hart said, for this match to work, you're going to need to juice. And Austin was like, okay, I mean, if you're going to take the blame for it, because at that time, WWF had a no blood policy. Yeah.

Okay. And Hart's like, I got you. And he slices them perfectly. So he's got, Brett, Brett has Austin in the middle of the ring. The middle of the ring brought the action back to the original. The middle of the ring, he's got his sharp shooter move on him.

The, the, the famous submission move that broke everybody, right? And Austin is just bleeding down his face, and his blood is pooling. And he tries to fight out valiantly and he can't. And he tries again and he can't. And he finally just collapses from the pain and faints. He never gave up.

And he's in a pool of his own blood. Wow. After the match was over, Hart continued his assault on Austin. Now Austin is firmly a Logan-like character. Yes, the traditionalist is now a bad guy who wind about getting screwed over all the time. He was petulant. He's a traditionalist, he's become petulant, okay. All right.

The really interesting thing is he's actually a good guy everywhere except for the United States Really? Yeah, and then that starts this whole Canada U.S. rivalry. Now a lot of these changes in WWF We're driven by the success of the cool heel faction running rough shot over everybody in WCW the end. N-W-L, yeah, okay. I spoke at length about them last time, but for review, they rarely had matches that ended like traditional matches. They were more active out of the ring than in it, they were much more about promos and the entire second hour of WCW was given over to such things. And I cannot overemphasize that both promotions had cool heels as their main focus. And all of this goes back to ECW's iconoclasm. And all of that goes back to the dominant culture's fear of being pushed aside by youth

culture and reacting with huge effort to try to control what was happening and more and more to the point, they ceased to be what they claimed. Okay. The Republicans were the party of tradition and yet they are breaking the system as hard as they can to hold power. But in WCW, their first hour was actually bringing in new stuff. While WWF was focusing on Canada, Brett Hart was, you know, he basically was a Canadian, he is a Canadian hero,

and he had a whole Canadian stable called the Heart Foundation, we'll get into it more. But so they were feuding with various stars from the USA. And so we got this cross-border thing. WCW focused on Mexico by highlighting a lot of luchery Libre. OK. So you have two United States promotions

focusing on Canada and Mexico in the mid 1990s. NAFTA. Yes. OK. Eventually, this was also fed to the NWO machine, quite honestly. But they were bringing a new and different style of wrestling to the traditional Southern territory with a lot more spectacle

and still the NWO took over everything. There was a match in July of 96 right after the NWO got started where Kevin Nash threw Ray Mysterio in the back lot of the venue and they just launched him into the side of a trailer and the actual police were called to the scene by concerned fans. Holy cow. Okay. That's how real the NWO angle seemed to people in the South and WCW fans. I think this was in Florida actually. And that's how much the Luch Libre wrestlers were regarded by WCW fans, I think this was in Florida actually. And that's how much the Luch Libre wrestlers were regarded

by WCW at the time. You are literally the object through which we will prove our bad assery. Wow. Also, also in WCW when Hulk Hogan turned heel in July of 96. Yeah, player, remember, fans threw tons of trash into the ring to show their displeasure again. You're breaking down the wall.

You're doing the rocky. Horliding the fourth wall. Yes. And it's also an echo of what had already happened in ECW with the chairs. Yes. And it only increased as the NWO gained in popularity. Hogan also started spray painting NWO on things, especially on the big gold belt.

Once he wanted it hog wild in 96 up at Sturgis, he re-christened it the NWO championship. Does this sound familiar? Yeah. Combine in living colors in TRO with Shane Douglas's rejection of the NWA belt. Spray paint. Yeah, okay. And the big gold belt had been the NWA belt prior to 1991. Really? Yes. Okay. And then Jim Hurd came in and took over and just a wild story. Anyway, so you're seeing all this churning. And in January of 1997, NWO took over WCW's broadcast, took over in finger quotes. And the story ceased to be about the wrestling in the ring at all. It was about the chaos being fomented at the announcer's desk, at the very core of where we hear the lyrics to the music that they're playing in the ring as it were. So if you think about the match being the music, the announcers are providing the lyrics.

Okay. Right. So the chaos now is focused where the media touches the people, not where the audience is focused. Right. Where the event is being interpreted for the audience. Can we say postmodernism much? How meta can you get?

Right. Now, this happens and Hogan spits on the WCW logo. Big deal. Okay, yeah. Now, in January, this is January of 97. Hulk Hogan, the former hero who is now called Hollywood Hogan, West Coast, spitting on tradition in January of 97. Clinton has been reelected and the traditionalists have been defeated.

This is absolutely pulling on those sentiments, reenacting in a carnival wrestling kind of way what was happening to the country in those people's minds and those people, demographically, love WCW. The spray paint, the random attacks outside of the ring, all of it was a fear that the dominant culture would have about the youth and the non-white culture. And as anti-heroes were in, villains became cool villains. So everybody's rushing to the middle, morally. Sean Michaels, who had long been an arrogant

semi-chicken shit heel quite honestly, until his match with McFolly, then he showed that he had a brutal side too. He now was in charge of his own faction, which grew little by little until it became a host unto itself. You may have heard of degeneration X. side too. He now was in charge of his own faction, which grew little by little until it became a host unto itself. You may have heard of degeneration X. Yeah. In mid 1997, degeneration X wasn't much. It had been a bit of a throwaway line by Brett Hart during their heated rivalry. He called them degenerates. Okay. So here is the script of what happened. Brett, why don't you two degenerates come down here right now and step in the ring with me right now Traditionless come down to the ring. They're not in the ring come down, right either one of you

I don't care either one of you right now He's talking specifically to Shawn Michaels and Hunter Hurst Helmsley. Okay, Shawn And he says and you talk about us being degenerates. You know what? I'm tired of generation X Getting a bad rap And he says, and you talk about us being degenerates. You know what? I'm tired of generation X. Getting a bad rap. And then Hunter says, okay. And so they're up on the ramp, I believe. And Hunter says, you think you're degenerate? Sean, well, do you think you're degenerate?

Hunter, well, I mean, Sean, I'm positive, I'm one. Hunter, I guess, so I'd have to be one too then. Sean, well, you know what? Generation X always gets a bad rap. Everybody always calls us to generation or to generate. Degeneration X. Is that us? Degeneration X. Triple H, HBK, that's Sean Michaels, who's known as the heart rate kid. Okay. Triple H, hunter her sounds like China and ravishing Rick. Okay. Which is interesting because Rick Rude wasn't allowed to wrestle because he'd broken his neck in WCW like the previous year.

Okay. But he still had enough cash. And he actually, he only signed nightly contracts. Oh, wow. That was his preference. But you know, he says we are degeneration X you make the rules and we will break them Boy, you can't get much more explicit than that can you yeah? Yeah, well, and then they did they got much more explicit So a stable was born you have degeneration X they were soft moroc in their pranks

They were crude in their humor to the point where USA Network told WWF hey guys tone it down Really yep in their humor to the point where USA Network told WWF, hey guys, tone it down. Really? Yep, there was one where he had a state of the union address and basically he says, okay, we've been given a list of words not to say and then he says them all. And of course they get beeped. Yeah. Their bodyguard was a woman who was a bodybuilder and shortly thereafter she got implants her name was China Okay, they would refuse like they'd be putting the matches with wrestlers and they'd say no, I'm not gonna wrestle him Like there goes the social contract, yeah And they would have matches where they'd make a mockery of wrestling itself at one point

They were made to wrestle each other and they spent the first five minutes of the match. It's so good. They didn't touch each other. They just kept pretending to do like the little things that wrestlers would do before they locked up. You know, like pulling the ropes to kind of stretch a little bit and they jump and then they, and then they'd move around again. Like five minutes is great. And then like one guy laid down for the other and they called it. Their leader, Sean Michaels, was gunning for the championship that Brett Hart held. Actually, Brett Hart didn't hold it at that point. Well, let's see, what month was that that they did that mid 97. So yeah, Brett Hart has the belt by summerlam. So he has the belt in August of 97. Prior to that, it was under takers. So Sean Michaels has gone in for the belt. And they were rebels. They were clearly villains, but the audience loved them. And Sean Michaels was a villain, sure, but Bret Hart had turned villain.

Yeah. So the line is blurring entirely. And moral ambiguity is the rule of the day. Yes, and it's 1997. And Sean Michaels is a bad guy, and Brett Hart is a good guy whenever they go to Canada. And Brett Hart is a bad guy when they go to the United States.

And Sean Michaels is still a bad guy, but at least he's our bad guy. The line is so blurred and they're feuding with the man who was a heel in the US but a face in the rest of the world. Meanwhile, Brent Hart, seeing all this and by the way, he'd gotten injured, he'd had a knee injury, he reforms the heart foundation and he expands it. So the original heart foundation was him and Jim N. Anvil night heart And it started about 1986. Okay, he lasted to 89 and then he turns good guy and then he kind of hangs out with Jim night heart through

91 and then breaks away on his own And he'd been feuding with his brother his own brother since 1994 maybe 93 okay, but he reforms a heart foundation he expands it. He brings Jim Knight Heart, Owen Heart, David Boy Smith, and Brian Pillman in. Okay. Now the first three I mentioned Jim Knight Heart, Brett Hart's brother-in-law, Owen Heart, Brett Hart's brother, David Boy Smith, Brett Hart's brother-in-law. He had a lot of siblings. Brian Pillman trained at Stuhard's dungeon for a long time, he had a lot of siblings. Brian Pillman trained at Stu Hart's dungeon

for a long time, and he was considered a pseudo sibling. And these were all old school traditionalists who were fantastic workers. I'm gonna have a bit of an epilogue on Brian Pillman, by the way, because nobody embodied the change in chaos of the 1990s, like Brian Pillman. He really embodied it, except maybe Terry Funk. But Funk was at the end of his career

and looking for ways to extend it, whereas Pillman embraced it in ways that were emblematic. But more on him. Okay. So the fight between the Heart Foundation and degeneration X was clearly a struggle between order and chaos. But the forces of order were the bad guys in the US

and the forces of chaos were the bad guys too, but they were more beloved because they had dick jokes. The summer in fall of 97 was a really fun time to be a wrestling fan. And by the way, I'd moved out and was living on my own with George, producer George, in June of 97. Okay. And so, and he had a cable descrambler.

So I got to see all of this shit. Yeah. It was my Monday nights, man. We'd come home from work and I would be watching. But it was also confusing time to be a wrestler because if you like good guys and bad guys, you're fucked. If you didn't care about good guys and bad guys, you could pick your temperament and enjoy that struggle.

But basically, you don't have more morality plays anymore. You have a group that used the rules to its advantage to win, not a very babyface tactic quite honestly, but technically it's very solid. That's the hard foundation. And you had a group that did whatever it wanted and also not particularly baby face, but fun to watch and their degeneration X. So you have order versus chaos and neither one is a good guy. Okay. So SummerSlam of 97 is probably one of my favorite matches. Okay. It was a fantastic and chaotic main event. Okay. Sean Michaels was a guest referee. He inserted himself as a referee in a match between

Bret Hart and the undertaker. Undertaker was a champion. Bret Hart wanted the championship back. Sean had promised that he was going to call the match down the middle, even though he hated Bret. And by the way, all of their hatred toward each other was real life. And I'm going to explain that in just a minute. But they had done what's called working yourself into a shoot. So Sean Michaels is a guest referee. Brett Hart goes to use a chair and Sean stops him and Brett yells yells fuck you and hawks a lugi at Sean now that's called cheap heat But Brett spits on Sean now Sean had promised again if I don't call it down the middle

I will never wrestle in the United States again. Oh wow, okay Which and and Brett actually describes it as I brought up two giant oysters from my gullet because he'd been wrestling for 20 minutes. Wow, yeah, so he's very keen. So he's, yeah, okay. And he didn't mean, you know, he claims he did not mean to spit at Sean's face

because that was, you know, the agreement is like, I'm gonna spit on you. He's like, just don't hit me in the face, you know. And they'd already had so much animosity between each other. And he hits him right in the face, which is two giant oysters. So Sean, he's, he's grabbed the chair away from Brett. He's got the chair in his hand, loses it and goes and hits Brett in the head, but Brett ducks at the last second right as the undertaker who'd been on the ground and Brett was going to hit right as the undertaker gets up and Sean waffles him right in the head.

Brett covers him and forces Sean to call it chicken shit. He'll move. Yeah. Yeah. It's in the United States. Brett is now the champion. Tradition has won. But not with tradition.

No. Could this have been a harbinger of how a traditionalist party takes power? Could it be an echo of what Gingrich had managed in 94? Could be. And that's where I'm going to stop tonight because the very next episode is going to deal with the Montreal screw job. Okay. So, there's a lot.

Holy shit. So, what have you gleaned so far? We didn't glean anything last time because I left you horrified. Because just in kind of visceral shock. Which I only got worse after I actually watched video, but so I mean I'm curious about the root of the not KFA animosity between that's going to come up with the one-hell screw. I got you. And the way in which sparkly murder gymnastics winds up being a subconscious passion play of our own guest-alts,

subconscious kind of anxieties. Sure. Is remarkable. And the, oracular nature of looking at, like now I wanna find out, like you know, there's an index that gets used. Every time there's a presidential election, there's some professor, I don't remember

whether he's economics or statistics or what. But his indication is, no seriously, look at the S&P 500. Oh, interesting. If the S&P 500 is up, the incumbent's gonna win. If the S&P 500 is up. The income, the income is gonna win. If the S and T and 500 is down, we're gonna see a flip.

Interesting. And so I remember back in November of last year, every afternoon, I was listening to the financial, financial broadcast going like, you know, okay. And the S and P, tell me about the S&P. Like, I wanna find out, is there anything similar in wrestling? Like, can we point to, all right. So in 92, when Clinton won, you know,

was there a specific through line, trend in story lines, across promotions that we can look at and be like okay so if we see a lot of you know turn over in the belt right in the month before the election we're gonna see oh you know we're gonna we're gonna see what's going to lose right like you know where as no no if the champions hold on to it across promotions, then, you know, the income is going to win or some weird, because it's, because it's sparkle burn or gymnastics, it could be some other weird, like, if there are more chair matches, right? In October, like, I want somebody to do the statistics on that. Yeah,

that would be fun. You know, I don't know how much it has to do with presidential elections as a harbinger. I do think that it has a lot to do again. I think like I'm laying out pretty well. I think it is a reflection of not a not a it's not an oracle right, but a reflection. Yeah. Now, now it's not an of its immediate reflection. Yeah. Now, now it's not of its immediate time. Yeah. Now, I would say it's a regular for a generation later.

Okay. I absolutely do think once, because, and what we're doing is we're heading toward the attitude era because we're not in the attitude area yet. Jesus. Technically, this is just before, this is on the precipice of the attitude here. And it's kind of like, the Civil War didn't start on January 1st of 1860. And in December 31st of 1865, like nothing's ever that neat, tidy, right? So the act of the Battle of Seki, a horror happened in 1600, which like is so neat,

that's the one. So neat, like, you know. But you know, it's, it's, nothing's gonna be that neat and tidy as far as, you know, stuff like that goes. Yeah. But I do think that once the attitude era happens, that change is wrestling forever, but it's also happening at a time where internet is growing. Yeah.

And so you have a more immediate feedback. Feedback amongst the media. Yeah. Surrounding wrestling and its fans. And as a result, you do start to see a lot more. I'm going to say chaos, but you do start to see a lot more responsiveness from wrestling. Faster turnaround between what worked, what we did, what direction. Honestly, if you look at the bad guys in wrestling, you could tell who we're having national

beef with. Oh, well, I mean, forever. Yeah, in the 70s, you had the iron chic. Yeah. You know, he was a madder, a haouille, you know, and I kind of think. And in the 80s, you, I mean, from like the 50s forward, you have Russians, you had unreconstructed Nazis. Interestingly, shortly after Let's Roll speech, you know,

2004, you had a tag team called La Resistance. Yeah, um, you had a tag team called Law Resistance. Huh. So you do have that. You also had a bad guy who was an Arab American, who was complaining about the racism that he was encountering as an Arab American, starting in about 2004, played by an Italian actually. It wasn't even an Arab. But and his mouthpiece was actually speaking far see the whole time.

So, I mean, it's wrestling. It's not like they're that woke when it comes to race. But you had, I mean, he was, and it was so interesting because they could have gone such a cool way with it and then they ended up not. And then the bombing happened in London. Oh yeah. Right, during the same day that,

because SmackDown was always pre-recorded by a few days. And so SmackDown aired it. And there was a crawl that went across the bottom saying, you know, we do not mean in any way to be disrespectful to what happened in England and basically an apology as it was going on. But so there's the bombing in England of the bus, right? Yeah.

And this guy, Muhammad Hassan, was the name of the character. He had a bunch of guys in ski masks and fatigues attack the undertaker who at that time I think was doing his biker gimmick. So you know that asked American. He might have actually been gone back to being the dead man. I can't remember what he was. But Muhammad Asan felt to his knees and he's got his arms up in supplication as all these guys carry the undertaker's body out of the ring. It immediately killed the angle because of what had happened in the world. Yeah.

So you do see wrestling like no longer being an emotional catharsis for anxieties and actually pulling back in real time in response to some of that. Now that doesn't mean that they didn't take five steps backward afterwards by having the character Eugene come out who was developmentally delayed guy who yeah and they used the R word to describe his strength and he would he would get really angry describe his strength. And he would, he would get really angry. And his whole thing was he would imitate a bunch of the wrestlers.

It sucks because he was actually a really good wrestler. And he was saddled with that gimmick. And I mean, it was a way of getting cheap heat. And it really showed triple H to be a really bad heel and stuff like that. Okay. And there were some really cool come up in moments, but at the end of the day,

you're using it still. Yeah, it's still. Yeah, rank ableism. And you know, he wasn't the only character that was like that. There's also Festus who would come around a few years later. That when the bell rang, he would go into a rage and when the bell rang again, he would just go back to being slack drawed and kind of dumb. Huh. Yeah, it says, again wrestling, not particularly progressive on most things. But as they got more media savvy and more media interactive and just kind of more, both things feeding each other, they were a little bit more reactive and not so much a trailing indicator of what was going on culturally. But also I think what we're seeing here is they are at the forefront of what's happening. And in many ways they're responding to youth culture and helping to shape it because I remember seeing a bunch of kids in a airport. I think I was flying down to LA or something

at that, and there were a bunch of kids in an airport, and they were like middle schoolers. And the boy was doing the rocks' stick of like, it doesn't matter what your name is. It's so like that. Because it had become part of the popular culture, you have the highest ratings every. You had 10 million people watching every night.

Maybe not every night. Yeah. Maybe not every night, but that was at its peak. Yeah, yeah. But you had, you know, you had this permeation of wrestling into the popular culture. It was white hot in the late 1990s. And so I do think that it had a hand in legitimizing. Well, Stone Cold Steve Austin became a touchstone in science fiction nerddom.

Really? I got to tell you about Farscape sometime, but the main character on Farscape, John Crite and Astronaut, winds up, he on a couple of occasions, you know, in a moment of confrontation with a villain would shout out, can I get a hell yeah. Oh wow. Okay. Like there was an episode as I'd have to explain it off a lot of far escape backstory, but he's involved in an internal war in his own head against a neural construct of one of the big bads of the series.

It has literally implanted himself in John Greiton's head. Okay. And this has been an ongoing storyline for like an entire season, and finally, Greiton gets the upper hand. And it's like he's lucid dreaming. Nice. And so it's like,

it's like, literally surreal. Buddy winds up throwing the big bed into a dumpster slamming it shut and shouting, can I get a hell, yeah? And he's wearing a black vest of a short sleeve black T shirt. And, you know, there was a dumpster match at WrestleMania 14

that occurred. Yeah, and then I'm gonna get to it next, probably next time. Yeah, but yeah I mean they're absolutely pulling on on that and the rock ended up in a in a Star Trek episode too in Voyager. Oh, yeah, they had a wrestling thing. He wrestled 7 of 9 and the rock showed up in that 70s show as well. Yeah, So, I mean. Was he playing his dad? He was playing his dad. Yeah. Yeah. It was good.

All right. So, what do you want to tell people to read? Or, well, I'm going to reiterate. Please, please do your homework ahead of time. It's not like you don't have enough time. Yeah. We're going to be clearly

this is a magnum opus. And so, I mean, it's not going to go to Batman length. Hopefully. It won't. Okay, good. Thank God. It'll probably get to 70% of a Batman length.

Okay, all right. Well, there we go. But again, and I just, I recommend it because again, it is an important part of the science fiction canon. Sure. And it's worth reading. So I, yeah. That's my recommendation for reading. Now, if people want to find you, to remind you that, I mean, you didn't, I'm sure,

but if you got a date wrong in your timeline of who had the belt in a particular month of the year. Right, you said, where would they find you to berate you for that error? Well, before I get to that, I'm gonna actually give a recommendation. Oh, right. Okay. So, Roland, Roland or Roland Barth's B-A-R-T-A-G-S. Okay. Could be Barth. I don't pronounce well. He wrote in 1972 he wrote an essay called The

World of Wrestling in the journal called Mythologies. If you just type in Roland Barth's B-A-R-T-H-E-S, the world of wrestling, you'll find it. It's usually on MIT's website, and it's a wonderful essay on professional wrestling. It starts off with here, the virtue of all in wrestling that it is the spectacle of excess. Okay. Here we find a grand eloquence which must have been that of ancient theaters. And I do say that I think that one of the reasons that I love wrestling so much is because I think it does pull on archetypical aspects of our personalities. Okay, and I would like to think that as I'm,

you know, and he even says later, there are people who think that wrestling is an ignoble sport. Wrestling is not a sport, it is a spectacle. It is no more ignoble to attend a wrestled performance of suffering than a performance of the sorrows of Arnold and Andromache. Okay, which, you know, just, I, first off, I love the legitimization by a literary scholar, but also, I really do think that it is Greek theater at the end of the day. I, I frankly think it would be very difficult to argue against that.

I think elitism would be the only recourse. One would have. And in fairness, it's carniness. I think elitism would be the only recourse. One would have. And in fairness, it's carniness. Like, I mean, it has a long history of being carnie. Yeah. Which is still Greek theater, just on rails. Yeah, that's kind of what I was gonna say is like,

I don't think that's a legitimate argument against it. Yeah, I mean, it is, it is thoroughly theatrical in nature and spectacular. It is, it is a spectacle and it is designed to provide emotional catharsis. Like, even though, even though, as you said a minute ago, it's no longer providing catharsis for anxieties. Right. It is still immensely cathartic. The storylines, the bloodletting. Yes. I mean, you know, the the violence.

The ultimate go off. I mean, you still even though by the mid 90s you blur all the lines, you still ultimately do have a Good versus evil aspect. It's just that all the lines shifted underneath that. Yeah, paradigm and it took a while to catch it again. Which is what we're going to get to. But, so if people do want to find me, you can find me at duh harmony on the Twitter and the Insta. You can also find me pretty much every Tuesday night doing stuff on twitch.tv forward slash capital puns. Also on YouTube, if you type in Marvel Strike Force, Excelsior Gaming, you'll find my channel with Ian McDonald. And yeah, I think that that should do it as far as where you can find me. Where can they find you?

Not nearly as many places. Thank goodness. Because I'm not the dynamo of creative energy that you are. And I have a toddler, which is why I don't have the dynamo of creative energy that you are. And I have a toddler, which is why I don't have dynamo of creative energy that you do, but I can be found as Mr. Blalock, MR, B-L-A-Y-L-O-C-K, on TikTok and on Instagram, as at present my TikTok is pretty minimal, but you can find me there what presents I have and on Twitter I can be found at EH Blalock.

And if you want to talk to both of us about something, if I have somehow made a remark that is heretical toward the canon of wrestling in a comparison I've made, or if, again, Damien got a date wrong, which I'm sure he didn't. Then you can find us collectively at Geek History of Time, or Geek History Time, I should say, on the Twitter. And so until next time, I'm for Geek History of Time. I'm Ed Blalock. I'm Deeming Harmony. And until next time, keep rolling 20s.