A Geek History of Time - Episode 112 - 1990s and Wrestling Part VII

Episode Date: June 19, 2021

So thank you all for coming to Cocktalk. He has trouble counting change, which is what the hands think. Wait, wait, stop. Yes, but I don't think that Dana Carvey's movie, um, coming out at that same time, was really that big a problem for our country. I still don't know why you're making such a big deal about September 11th, 2001. Fucking hate you. Well, you know, they don't necessarily need to be anathema, but they are definitely on different ends of the spectrum.

Oh boy, how do you say I have a genetic predisposition against redheads. So because you are one, yeah, combustion, yeah, we've heard it before. The only time I change a setting is when I take the hair trimmer down to the nether reaches, like that's the only time. Other than that, it's all just a two. I'm joking, I use feet. After the four gospels, what's the next book of the Bible? Acts.

Okay, and after that, it's Romans. That's a chapter. Yeah, okay. And if you look at the 15th chapter of Romans, okay, and if you look at the 15th chapter of Romans, okay, you will find that it actually mentions the ability to arm yourself That's why it's AR-15. Thank you. Checkmate-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8 This is a history of time. Currently having to make a drive of a little more than 50 miles each way to go to my classroom to have two or three kids show up on a given class period. And between recording sessions I was just mentioning to Damian that I have gotten notified of an interview possibility, but the school that would be interviewing me probably will not be able to offer me enough money for me to

afford to take the job, so I'm kind of right back where I started. And on that, wonderfully not at all depressing note. Who are you and what have you got going on? I'm Dam a lot of people. I'm not a lot of people. I'm not a lot of people. I'm not a lot of people. I'm not a lot of people. I'm not a lot of people. I'm not a lot of people. I'm not a lot of people.

I'm not a lot of people. I'm not a lot of people. I'm not a lot of people. I'm not a lot of people. I'm not a lot of people. I'm not a lot of people. And it's always an idea. Yes, and yet I am encouraging my members to save up for a strike because despite the fact that we had one a few years ago because our superintendent wouldn't enforce the contract that was legally binding and enact it, he has decided by Fiat to state that our current MOU is just outdated and we're going to change things. So I don't think we're striking anytime soon because there's no point in it with 10 days left. But the

odds of a strike happening sometime next fall, I would be surprised if it didn't happen. So I'm telling people, save up and I'll start organizing meal trains, which means I'm right back where I started. Lovely. So that's fun. Hey, so last time I kind of ended the story. I ended with the thesis statement essentially of what Jerry Lawler said during a match between the New Age Outlaws who were bad guys turned good guys because the crowd changed their minds, not because they changed their wrestling style. Yeah. And they were wrestling a, a, a flaccid attempt at having tradition,

uh, who were supposed to be bad guys, who kind of stayed, we don't give a shit about you bad guys. It's called go home heat. Okay. Or, or popcorn heat. Oh, this is the match where you go get popcorn because this person's out there. But or go away heat. You don't hate them for any other reason than you just wish they would go away. Like you don't want to see them get their ass kicked. You just don't care.

You just said wow. Yeah. Um, that's the worst kind of it's divorce heat. Really. So I think they ought to adopt that I think so but they they were called Oh boy, oh boy, but yeah, they were called the the new midnight Express which was a new version of an 80s group That was really really good and really really popular anyway during that match Which happened the same night that make Foley got thrown off of, then climbed back up and then thrown through the hell in the self structure. So, okay. But yeah.

Okay, the ring is elevated up off the floor. About six feet? No, no, no, no's the sea. The ring, apron guys are pretty much up to their waist, maybe a little up to the middle of their back. So roughly four, three and a half, four feet. Okay, four, so it's four feet. Yeah. Then from the mat, the hell in a cell structure was how many feet? The top of the hell in cell structure was 16 feet in the air. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Now it's grown. It's grown but yeah, from from the ring from the top of the yeah from the yeah from the surface of the ring. Yeah and then so he he got flung or he fell or I? I would say hurled.

Hurled. Hurled. He got hurled. Yeah. 16 feet. Yes. What broke his fall? The Spanish announcing table as his tradition.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And. Oh, okay. And because at that time, remember the barricades were basically just steel bike racks? Yeah. Uh, that was better for him because half of his body ended up sliding under that, whereas if they had a solid barrier, it would have snapped his back in half,

because he would have just folded it up backward. Oh my god. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, and he separated his shoulder in that fall. And then with the separated shoulder He hold his 289 pound body back up He had to get off a stretcher first by the way and by the way to get the stretcher and they had to lift the hell in the cell and

The undertaker was still on top of that So then they get the stretcher out and then they start lowering it and and McFill is like, no, I got more gas in the tank. So he gets up off the fucking stretcher and legit, not K-Fabe, people are trying to stop him. And he climbs back up with a separated shoulder. Now by the time he gets back up there, he is so exhausted that he, the undertaker does a good job of reading the room and realize

Oh, I'm gonna have to carry this part of the match. So he starts walloping him with the chair Okay, like you do which which I mean yeah Being that both of these guys are clearly experts at what they do. Yes, you can wall up yeah I'm gonna have to carry this part of the match. So he starts walloping him with the chair Okay, like you do which which I mean yeah being that both of these guys are clearly experts at what they do yes Yes, you can wall up in air quotes a guy with a chair in a way that you can wall up in air quotes, a guy with a chair in a way that looks like you're about to murder him. Yeah, well, I mean, he's hitting him on the flat of the back.

But that's still raising welts. You're still smashing a guy over the back with a steel chair. So he's doing that. Now, the undertaker is about 328 pounds at this time, and McFulley's 289 pounds at this time. So that's 600 plus pounds. On top of a structure that was not made to hold human beings and as they're walking across it, these zip ties are just pling, pling, pling, and you see them just crush through.

And so the undertaker goes to Chokeslam him, one of his moves, Chokeslam him through the ring. And I don't know that he meant to actually open up that part of the ring. I can't quite tell honestly. I don't know if it was rigged. My gut says it was not, but he goes to choke slam and Mick Foley is so tired that he doesn't normally a wrestler will jump up so that the choke slam looks more impressive. Yeah. They fully had no gas in his legs. and so he just, and that saved his life because normally if you go up, you go back and you rotate, well, he would have over rotated and probably died right there.

So instead he just collapsed backwards. He said it was the worst Chokeslam he ever took. Well, the problem was he was getting Chokeslam, and here's why I don't think he was meant to be Chokeslam through the ring He was chokeslam onto the chair Okay, well the chair and Mick and and they just stood there and they'd weakened it and the whole thing collapsed through and Mick falls and hits the the ring the chair smashes him in the face 12 feet up and that ring does not have that much give no

In fact, it's rumored that that ring finally got changed to have more give once Vince McMahon started taking bumps on it as part of storylines Damn do something spring yeah, yeah, but so yeah, he gets he gets slammed through that That smashes one of his few teeth left. He's got plenty of teeth, but smash is another one And he en hails it and it comes out his nose and lands on his mustache. He's a fully bearded fellow and he's out cold now now he's the match has kind of stopped again. More people come out to check on him again, and he kind of crawls to the middle,

or to the, what do you call it, the turnbuckles. And he's also bit his lip so much so that there's a clear hole in it. And so he's trying to stick his tongue through that hole because he knows, oh, visually, that would look really cool. But what it looks like instead is that he's just smiling because he's trying to stick his tongue through that hole because he knows, oh, visually, that would look really cool. But what it looks like instead is that he's just smiling because he's doing this. And it looks like a smile, a bloody toothed smile with a tooth on his thing.

And so Terry Funk, remember Terry Funk, he comes out to buy mix some time and takes the choke slam from the undertaker who has now come into the ring and then Undertaker kind of leads Mick through the rest of the match Mick at one point gets his it gets his shiny starts to beat on the undertaker quite a bit It uses a chair and all kinds of stuff because who fucking cares about rules And then Mick fully goes and grabs thumbtacks

and about a thousand thumbtacks. Galvanized, shiny looks really good. And he gets, I think, chokes slammed and then tombstone onto the thumbtacks. Wow. And then he finally loses. Okay, so just to refresh everybody's memory. Sure.

Mick Foley of course spent a significant amount of time Okay, so just to refresh everybody's memory. Sure. Minkfuly, of course, spent a significant amount of time wrestling Puroreso in Japan. Yeah, deathmatches. Deathmatches. Yep. And... And... Headbed in the ECW.

Yes. So... Oh, yes. Okay. So, to him, this was a rough day. Yeah, I mean, he actually said that they needed to make that match the spectacle that it was because he didn't think they were gonna have a good match

and that would fool the audience into thinking they saw a good match. Well, in the very ECW kind of, the violence is the story, as you said. Yep, absolutely. Because it was kind of a cold start of an old feud that had already been settled at least a year before. Oh, okay.

So he's got some grounding there. Now I don't remember if he brought out the barbed wire baseball bat or not for that one. That might have been a different one. Because why not? Yeah, well, you know, if you're, if you're, you wanna get nuts? Let's get nuts. Oh, yeah why not? Yeah, well, you know, so you want to get nuts? Let's get know. Oh, yeah, boy, howdy. So, uh, now the fun thing is later on in that match, Stone

Cold Steve Austin, uh, has a first blood match with Kane and, uh, whoever bleeds first loses. Yeah. And Mick Foley and Undertaker are supposed to interfere in that match. So Mick goes back out there, with a separated shoulder. Oh yeah, you know, and a concussion. I imagine. Updoubt. Yeah.

Um, yeah. And yeah, and and he still goes out and interferes in that match. He doesn't remember any of this. There's video of it. So he's reconstructed it. But yeah. And he's toured with the story of this match, by the way, for years now, and it's so compelling. Because he is such a down-to-earth guy that, like, when he talks about it, it's like listening to,

I don't know, your favorite uncle talk about, you know, when he worked at a carnival or something. Wow. It's wild. It's, it's nuts. So, so at that same king of the ring, yeah, uh, Jerry Lawler had said that basically, uh, they don't really care if anybody likes them. They're just being themselves and that's why people do like them, right? So it's no longer about pleasing anybody else.

It's about declaring and defining yourself. Finding your bliss to get kind of hippy to get. Yeah, you know. But yeah. But it's in an aggressive and confrontational kind of way. Yeah, so that's what I ended it with and I wanted to tell you a quick epilogue here. In fact, I think I have, yeah, I think this is kind of the only epilogue because I think that last part was a good button on it. There's a guy named Brian Pellman. He was a professional wrestler and I think his career and his life story is

probably the best encapsulation of the 1990s and its impact on wrestling. I think you could personify it and grind it down into one person it would be Brian Pillman. By the way, Vice did a thing on him as well. It's kind of fun that Vice is lining up with all the stuff that I'm noticing. Now his life story is one of hardship like I said. He was maybe six feet tall and in the 190s of weight, and he ended up playing nose tackle in football. Wow. Yeah.

And I mean college football, and I mean semi pro football, and I mean pro football. He worked so hard in football that he ended up making the special team squad for the Cincinnati Bengals. He was also the last guy cut on the Buffalo Bills. And he'd grown up, here's the wild thing, he'd grown up having dozens and dozens of surgeries to remove polyps from his vocal cords. So there would be weeks and weeks where he just couldn't speak. And like from childhood on up. And so his voice was always very raspy.

And he had trouble expressing himself in some ways. So he ended up in Calgary, playing Canadian football. And once that career ended, he was already in Calgary. Now, fun thing about Calgary, it's the hometown of the heart family. Yes. And so the heart dungeon and Stampede wrestling, which was its own territory, is where he goes.

So here's a guy with a ton of pluck and a ton of courage and a ton of like, I've made it through all this other stuff. And a wealth of old school wrestling training from a dynasty family. Oh, yeah. This guy is steeped in tradition. Right. Okay.

Within a few years, he'd found his way through the NWA and WCW in 1989. Uh, remember, it was NWA slash WCW and then he was what you would call the white meat baby face. Uh, and he was known as Flying Brian. So people liked him. He had a good moveset. He was exciting. But he didn't really stand out. And he was a good moveset he was exciting but he didn't really stand out and he was a good guy because he was a good guy so standard

white meat baby face he was a high flyer at least for the standard back then and dude could work but ultimately WCW as always uses good people poorly and despite his having some amazing matches he never really got out from under the shadow of shitty creative control. His matches against Juicion Thunder Liger were amazing. Juicion Thunder Liger was IWGPA. Now, feel free to correct me on that if somebody finds that. But he was like the light heavyweight champion.

Basically what a cruiserweight would become. Okay. Juition Thunder Liger is amazing. Truly good high flying wrestling and storytelling. Like both of them were able to do both. But mostly he was on the lower end of the card. He'd excite the crowd maybe, but nobody had any faith in him to go further. And sometimes he'd rise up to the mid card, but as often as faith in him to go further. And sometimes he'd rise up to

the mid card, but as often as not, he'd end up on lower part of the card. Now in 1992, flying Brian turned heel, and so now he's just Brian Pilman. And still he's not getting that much heat since he is so poorly used, right? You turn someone heel supposedly when they're a pretty good face. So people will hate you more. So it was tepidate best. But in 1993 he was teamed with a very technically sound but ultimately journeyman wrestler that the bookers bookers, uh, that the bookers couldn't figure out. Okay. Uh, you might have heard of him. His name was Stunning Steve Austin. Oh wow. Okay. Now both dropped their adjectives, so it was no longer flying Brian Pilament, it was just Brian Pilament, it was no longer Stunning Steve Austin, it was just Steve Austin, and they became the Hollywood Blonds.

Neither man was from Hollywood. They were both blonde. Okay. Yeah, Steve Austin had flax in hair, but very thin. Okay. Look like thin. Okay. Looked like straw. Okay. So, despite the fact that neither one wanted to be in a tag team, they became actually good

partners, and they were really pushing the bar as far as getting heat. They did a good job getting heat when they were given nothing. They took on the forehorseman who at that time were good guys because tradition because they've been around so long. Yeah, yeah, okay. And because the south is just a weird fucking place. But after five months they were broken up because why keep a good thing going. So Brian, right. Yeah. So Brian goes over to ECW very briefly in 94 before he comes back in 95 WCW. He has a couple matches there.

He comes back to WCW at this point. He's a low card guy again, but he was ceasing to be a heel and he was becoming more of a cool heel, a tweener. Now it kind of makes sense. He was dipped in the river ECW and so he comes back. Yeah, come as well. Yeah. But he was allied with Arn Anderson. Dipped in the river ECW. Yeah. I don't want to think about what's in that river or what sticks to you.

Or yeah. Yeah. But you know that a kayak will be used. Yeah. Well, yeah, you're going to, yeah, it's the only way to travel down that river. So Arn Anderson and Rick Flair are the core of the four horsemen, right? Yeah. Brian Pilman is allied with Arn Anderson, but and Rick Flair are the core of the Four Horsemen, right? Yeah. Brian Pilleman is allied with Arn Anderson, but against Rick Flair, which is kind of an interesting thing because now you've got an actual match between Flair and Anderson

for once. And they're friends, but they're just disagreeing over this one thing, and Anderson believes, you know, he's a good kid and bubble and he just keeps insulting Flair and all this. Also, at the end of 1995, he begins to feud with Kevin Sullivan, who was the actual booker at the time who was loosely allied with Arnanderson, but like more like we're both old timers, we're both have a respect for each other. And if you think that's confusing, here comes his loose cannon gimmick at the end of 95

leading into 96. Loose cannon. Now you know what a loose cannon is. You know your military history better than I know. Well, yeah. So please tell us what a loose cannon is. Well, a loose cannon would be a disaster aboard a ship. A loose cannon is wanted to come off of its gun carriage.

And the moment you fire it instead, well, it's gonna propel a cannonball in one direction. But you have no way of reliably predicting what it's going to destroy within the very crowded, very volatile gun deck of the ship. As dangerous to you as to your enemies. Yes. Yeah. So Brian's gimmick was that he was a loose cannon

Okay, and he was a maniac and he was not able to be controlled by veterans who respected his talent So our nanderson is giving him a lot of leeway, but he just can't control this guy and Then Brian begins to blur the lines making making up worked shoots. Now, worked shoot is where you basically go off on someone about things that are real about them, but you agree ahead of time. And you know that you're working. So you're just going to sprinkle a little bit more reality in there. But really, we're blending the lines between performance and the reality. And so the thing was his work shoots were only work shoots to him. Everybody else thought he was shooting on his promos. He worked the boys, which there's kind of a fraternity backstage.

So if you're working the boys, you're kind of, you're not violating K-Fabe, you're keeping K-Fabe up too much. Okay. Okay. The reason why he was working the boys was because he knew about the dirt sheets, like I talked about in the last episode, and he knew that the boys would report his antics to the dirt sheets, and then he could bend the reality of wrestling more and leverage himself into making more money. Tactics into strategy. Yes.

1996. Okay. Mid-90s. Now at no point should we forget that this was an effort of Brian Pilman's to maximize his value and it's because he had suffered a number of injuries and he had five children. Okay. Yeah. So he had this motivated to find a way to bring in the cash. And quickly and early because he's not going to last as long as this career as he wanted to, which makes it like the second or third career that he's not going to last as long as it is he wanted to. Incidentally, his home life was an absolute mess.

The documentary about it does a really good job, but his ex-wife committed suicide. His current wife was mentally unstable and drug addicted. He was drug addicted. There were threats of divorce. There was domestic abuse. So he's a loose cannon more and more. The lines are blurring. In January of 1996, Pillman goes off script and he grabs Bobby Heenan by the shoulders and neck. Now, this is a problem because Heenan had had neck surgery and was very wary of any

physicality by this point. And Heenan, on live TV, had a headset on, he said, what the fuck are you doing? And he got up and walked away. He thought Pilleman was a maniac. So he worked Bobby Hinen. More importantly, he got Bobby Hinen to swear about something that he had done.

So he knew that by rattling Bobby Hinen and getting Bobby Hinen to think he's truly nuts, that more people will think that he's weird. So in this weird, carny world, Pillman is convincing the other carnival workers that he really is that nuts. In February of 1996, Pillman had an, I respect you, strap match.

Okay. It's, it's WCW. They're just all about stipulations. All the goddamn time. So strap match is you have a 10 to 15 foot strap linking you to the other guy. You have to go around the ring and hit all four turnbuckles in sequence to win. And if you do that in an irrespective strap match, then the other guy has to say irrespective you. So we had this match with Kevin Sullivan. The other thing is you can use the strap to beat the shit out of people. Well, yeah. Right? I mean, duh. Yeah.

Now, what's interesting here is that Arn Anderson is playing the frustrated father figure to Brian's antics the whole time. And this was a match that Arn Anderson K-Fa booked him into because Brian's got to learn some respect for the business. Okay. All right. I'm going to have to teach him a hard lesson. That the business. Okay, all right. I'm gonna have to teach him a hard lesson. That's right.

Okay. Get strapped. I mean, talk with Southern Justice. Holy shit. Okay. So, again, this is February of 1996. Now, I would also point out that Brian Pilleman was as traditional a wrestler as they came. And yet because of his inability to get anywhere using that tradition, he had to go farther

and farther afield. Okay, this is just makes sense. Yeah. Now Brian had other ideas about this strap match, by the way. He comes out to the Four Horsemen's music. He was, which was interesting at one point, he was kind of in the Four Horsemen, but then he antagonized Flair, so he wasn't. And the WCW's use to the Four Horsemen was really, really like slip shot and not very clear.

But he comes out to the Four Horsemen's music. And he and Kevin Sullivan, that's the guy he's supposed to have the match with, that's the guy who's the booker. They start brawling before the strap could even be put on them. So in the ring, they're brawling. They don't brawl outside of the ring. They're brawling in the ring, but they're supposed to put these, supposed to put the strap on. Yeah. There's no, there's no way to get that phrase. No, you've got me pegged. Yeah, but... Well done. Thank you. Not even mad. Not even mad.

So, but before they are equipped with the strap, Yeah, there you go. Yeah, they start brawling. So they're already breaking the rules in 96. Again, the mid 90s, it's getting everywhere. And they start brawling. The braw is what wrestlers would refer to as a potato harvest. Why, why, why that? So if you are wrestling, you're supposed to give a working punch. A working punch looks like it does a lot of damage, but it should be gentle as a breeze.

a working punch looks like it does a lot of damage, but it should be gentle as a breeze. Okay. Not everybody can do that and make it look good, so you can kind of stiffen up your punches to make it look good. You just gotta stick around the thick parts of the skull. Right, so it can still be a working punch. Which is why we see so many of these guys

getting punched in the forehead all the time. Yes. Okay. Yes. And also along the sides of the jaw, because then you can open your hand up at the last second and make a nice slapping sound.

It doesn't really hurt much. Now, a working punch in order to...it has to look good. In order to look good, sometimes a working punch can be known as snug. Snug means not quite stiff, but it stings. Stiff means you're hitting me kind of hard. Okay. And you got a receipt coming. A receipt is where I'm going to hit you back,

and you're going to calm the fuck down. This is wow. There's so much. It's carny. It's so carny. Now, a potato is where you hit someone's stiff. So potato harvest is where you're just trading, you're punching the shit out of each other.

Now, I love the edamalladj linguistic drift. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Snug. Just potato. Yeah. You gotta get stiff. But yeah. Two two potato harvest. Yes. because it's just potatoes everywhere. Frederick the Great would be proud, you know. And I love picturing guys talking about it to each other. Yeah, using like, yeah, yeah, listening to the vernacular. It's like thieves can't. Yeah, it really is.

It really is because if you really think about it, wrestling is thievery. You are pretending to fight. Oh yeah. To get people's money. Yeah, it is. It is. Yes. The thievery, in that sense.

The fan is the mark. Yeah. You're trying to con him. You are pretending that it's, it's simulated combat made to look real unless you're in Japan and see other way around. But did I ever tell you my... I'm sorry, I'm just saying, man, yeah it was a total potato harvest. Yeah.

I'm just wailing on each other. So, which happens? Sometimes wrestlers will agree to work stiff because it's good for the match. Yeah. Sometimes they'll agree to work stiff because they got some shit to work out between each other. Okay. And you know, varying degrees. Now there's a couple fun stories. One, I just occurred to me. I think the simulated combat made him look real, but Japanese wrestling is real combat made to look fake.

I think I got that from Jim Cornette. I think you did yeah, and and did I ever tell you my favorite quote to his I mean Jesus Christ. He's got a thousand. I mean he's he's he's from Tennessee So you know his guy or no he's from Louisville. Sorry Kentucky and so like what was one? They What was one? They, Oh, her name was Virginia. They called her a virgin for short, but they didn't call her that for long.

Okay, you know, still like that, right? So my favorite one though is he was talking about, I think his uncle, his uncle was one hell of a lawyer. He once got busted in Texas for sawdemy, but he talked him down to tailgating. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, I don't know that that travels across time very well, Texas for Sodomy, but he talked him down to tailgating. I don't know that that travels across time very well, but people have to understand that in Texas, Sodomy was a crime until 2002. Yeah.

So, you know, but okay, so the other story I have about this is, and this is a very common one wrestlers tell this about other people all the time they said they said it's become apocryphal it's it's almost mimetic um You'll be wrestling an old timer and the old timer says hey Why don't you go ahead and hit me with your shoot punch? And guys is really wise is cuz your punch is killing me. So yes, the brawl between Ryan Pilman and Kevin Sullivan, and Kevin Sullivan is the booker. I keep pointing this out. So the guy who knows how contrived it all is

because he wrote it down. Right? Yeah. A lot of people say the most important, the most powerful finisher is the eraser. Yeah. Because you can erase the guy. In fact, the name for a booker was sometimes called the pencil. Yeah. Like you just call him the pencil. Yeah. So it's, know metonomy um in fact uh if you if you If you book somebody into a bad match and or a bad payoff. Yeah, it's called you pencil fucked me Just fun Okay, so okay, so but he he manages to get into a genuine brawl with the booker within the confines of a match that is constructed to be brutal as fuck because it's a strap match.

And they're giving each other potatoes. Yes. Wow. Again, the layers, the revolutions, the sublimations of this. After less than a minute of action though, which I'm sorry, getting punched in the face for a minute sounds like a long goddamn time to me. To me, yeah, it repeated, but... But... Yeah, so the... And I think in this particular strap match, it was, you didn't have to hit

the four corners. You just had to beat the guy so badly that he would, uh, he would speak into the mic and say, I respect you. I think that's what it was. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Which means the, the referee had the mic. Okay.

After about a minute of action, Brian Pilman chases the ref around the ring and grabs the mic from him eventually. Before they're even strapped up and he says, I respect you, Bookerman. Now when he did that, he broke K-Fabe. Wow. And then he leaves the ring. Pilman had just pulled back a very venerated curtain in February of 1996. And Arn Anderson ends up going out there in his street clothes to do the match.

Because you promised this match. So Arn get out there. What? Well, you know, talk to Brian after. So now, who's Brian not working? You know? He's working the fans. He's working his opponent who is the booker. Are we seeing this last name?

Wasn't Moriarty. Right? Oh, it gets much more Mori already from there So from there Brian Pilleman is trying to create more controversy and blur the lines even more He convinces Eric Bischoff than the VP and the guy Yeah, you gotta talk to yeah, he convinces him to fire him for this. If not for this, then close to it. Now, he'd been bargaining with Eric, or negotiating with Eric Bischoff for a better contract. And Eric was like, I can't justify paying you more

to the people above me, I'm sorry, you know? Yeah. Do something. And then Brian Pellett was like, oh, fucking do something. And then he starts putting on the lines, right? So he says, look, Eric, what you should do is fire me, but like actually drop termination papers and sign them,

because then the people in the office will talk to the dirt sheets. And then the dirt sheets will report that I've been fired and this loose cannon thing can really take off. So, Pilman gets Eric Bischoff to go with him on this. Now, Eric Bischoff claims that he was in on it the whole time. I think that Eric Bischoff has a thing about not wanting to look foolish or like he got worked, but he gets Eric Bischoff to actually fire him in real life for a storyline.

Right. Real contract, real papers, everything. Yeah. Now, Brian Pilman is getting the reality to back up the fiction. So then he's like, okay, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to go invade ECW. So then he goes and he invades ECW. Brian Pilman invaded ECW. Remember ECW fans and ECW, yeah. It's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy.

He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy.

He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy.

He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a work shoot, right? Yeah. So he shows up, I think they buy him a ticket and stuff like that. So he has an actual ticket to hold up to the camera and stuff like that. And they, they're like, he shows up on camera. It looks like he wasn't supposed to be there. And you know, he's starting to make trouble, you know, just kind of like how Taz got in

there, you know, San Man fears Taz. Same kind of thing. Now, he, and he gets interviewed by ECW. And so he gets pulled up into the ring. So now he's breaking that magical barrier, right? Yeah. And ECW, it's much less a barrier, but it's still symbolic, you know. And after his first interview, he threatens to take out his penis and make trade on the canvas. Of course he says I'm going to take out my Johnson and piss all over this place.

Um, and then he starts to unzip and reaches in. Uh, he gets removed by security. Okay. Even the smart fans of ECW were tricked. Because of all the shit that they had been reading on the dirt sheets, because of all the shit that he'd done in WCW, because he kept blurring the lines so hard, even the smart marks get tricked. So now Brian Pilleman is not under contract with any of the three main promotions, which by the way, ECW is a distant third, but it is the third promotion now. Okay. Tactical becomes strategic, right? But now all three of them are very hungry for him.

And because of loose cannon, gimmick was getting over, right? So he'd also crashed. He went to Dave Meltzer. Dave Meltzer is a journalist who writes one of the dirt sheets, a lot of wrestlers don't like him a lot of wrestlers do like him He's kind of the inquirer meets the sports illustrated guy, right? And he gets a lot inside dirt from a lot of wrestlers. So he was at an insider cable industry event Brian Meltzer was and Brian Pilman's like hey, can I borrow your credentials?

He's like, yeah, I'm done with him. So he crashes it and he completely got one over on Vince McMahon. So Vince McMahon is there advertising for what they're doing and all this and it's a cable insiders thing. So I can't imagine how shitty this is, but Brian Pilman gets up there and is like,

oh my God, you're Vincent Manning shakes his hand, and gets a picture with them and stuff like that. So now he's got a picture with Vincent Man. He risked getting arrested to do this. Oh, oh, oh, completely blurring the lines. Okay. Now while he's in talks with WWE at this point, because Vincent Man turns to Jim Ross, and maybe other people, he's like talks with WWF at this point because Vincent McBantern is the Jim Ross and

maybe other people and he's like who the hell was that? And that's Brian Pilman, he's really good down on WCW, he's like he's fucking crazy, he's like you know, that makes good TV. So now he's in talks with WWF. But while he's in these talks with WWF, he falls asleep behind the wheel of his Humvee and crashes and has a terrible terrible crash to the point where they have to fuse his foot into a locked foot position because it is 1996. So he's basically walking around on a foot that doesn't hardly bend at all, which means all the wrestling that he was capable of, he's no longer as capable of, and also

he's pretty fucked up from his car crash Which means more drugs which means yeah So that was April of 96 The resulting accident curtail's the style he comes to wwf on a guaranteed contract But as a very damaged person and I mean he's hobbling in on crutches when he first appears To wwf's credit divin's with man's credit, he must have smelled enough money to go ahead and go forward with it. Okay. And Vince McMahon's an interesting tale of two cities, like on the one hand, he's screwing

over his best wrestler ever, Brad Hart in 1997. On the other hand, he's paying people their guaranteed money, even though they're coming to him incredibly damaged So Brian Pilman acts as a commentator for a while which All those Paula promoules Yeah, it's not really his thing And but at the same time he's he's recovering from his broken ankle. What he would do is he would

Be on IV fluids and then he'd go work and then he'd come he would do is he would be on IV fluids, and then he'd go work, and then he'd come home, and he'd get back on the IV fluids. But also, he is pushing forward the Wildman gimmick, the loose cannon gimmick. Now, he's transitioning to a wrestling role after he attacked an unruly fan during a TV taping in Detroit of 1996, in June of 96.

Now previously, Brian Pilman, like I said, had been in a tag team with Steve Austin, but by November of 1996, Austin is involved with a very good feud as Brett Hart. Austin was now a nasty hill known as Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Brett Hart was all that was good about wrestling because this is November of 96 And yet Brett Hart had to deal with this nastiness from Stone Cold Steve Austin One of my favorite things was Stone Cold because he's talking shit on Brett while Brett's away So that this is already made for you, right? And by the way Brett requested this fear He's like I want to work with Steve when I come back

Okay, he believed in him that much, because Steve could fucking work at this time. It's before his broken neck. Yeah. So, but he actually said in one interview, he's like, if you put the name, if you put the letter S in front of Hitman, you have my exact opinion of Brett Hart.

It's pretty good. Wow. Yeah, and Austin's still kind of finding his level as far as the nastiness goes, but Steve Austin is a nasty heal. He'll fuck over anybody. He doesn't care. Brian Pillman and Austin had been really good friends, but also Brian Pillman is an ally of Bret Hartz. So in October of 96, to get more heat on himself Austin brutalizes Brian Pilman and he lays it in snug Oh wow super stiff. Yeah, but Brian knew and and Brian was like yeah, this is how it has to be but he also

puts Brian Pilman's broken ankle in between a chair the folding chair on the folding part and stomps it. Now this was a work. Okay. Didn't actually hurt him, but K-Fabe, he broke his ankle, buys Pilman more time. Okay. All right. So yeah, I'm going to brutalize your face, but you know, I'm going to take care of your ankle and honestly, you're going to get more time off. So now the angle between Austin and Hart gets a bit sideways from that and it becomes about Austin's nastiness

attacking even his old friends. So this is what's called a heater feud. So it's you take a short break away from your main feud to heat yourself up more and then you go back into it. Now this leads to something called, now anytime you stop someone's ankle in a chair it's called, Pylmanizing. Now this leads to Brian Pylman. It's called the Pylman's Got a Gun episode. Okay that's not good. No wrestling is needed

for this. Okay. Austin goes to Pilman's home in Kentucky, which is actually his real home in Kentucky. He goes there and there's already a TV crew and an interviewer in Pilman's house. One of my favorite parts about this was that despite Pilman's friends surrounding the house, Austin beats them all and then breaks into the house.

Wow. Pilman produces a handgun, points it at Austin, and then the feed gets cut. I was watching this with producer George in our apartment. I was like, it was an unsettling feeling. Now I'm going to go back in time to when i was about eleven and i lived in florida we had three channels on the tv it was august

and there was it looked like a newsfeed that we were watching okay um... and they they were it was the anchor and they were talking with the reporter who is in oman he's talking about how oman has declared war in the United States and the attack is going to happen and then the power went out in our house. Now we didn't have radio, we didn't have anything and we all legit got war of the world's for a few hours. Yeah.

And it was, I mean, I remember it very viscerally. My parents might not remember it at all, but I remember very much the sinking feeling of what just happened. Oh my God, the power went out. Wow. During a time. Yeah, but during a made for TV movie,

it was, you know, it was fake. But this kind of had that same feel. Like I had that same singing feeling. I'm like, I know this is all the work. But like he produced a handgun. Like again, wrestling is supposed to happen in, what's that called, a wrestling ring. Yeah.

You know, not in someone's house. Yeah, not like, hey, by the way, we're roving reporter and we're following the action here. And he gets a gun. You were going to say something. No, okay. So there was talk by the the announcers that maybe they'd heard gunshots or maybe explosions and

Eventually the feed was restored and when the feed was restored Austin was being dragged away and pillment was Yelling kill that son of a bitch and get out of my fucking way both of those made it to live air. Oh wow It's the only storyline wwf has ever actually apologized for both of those made it to live air. Oh wow. It's the only storyline WWF has ever actually apologized for. Okay. Which only made it seem more loose canony. Yes. Right?

Now, Pilleman was off TV for a while after that and Austin went on to feud with Brett, the WrestleMania. Yeah. You know, we're just amazing. He comes back as Heal disease going to get in May of 97. Okay. Now, he had wrestled in the Survivor Series. He had he wrestled or was he just accompanying them?

I forget. But, uh, the Heart Foundation, wrestled against, um, Ken Shamrock, I want to say Gold Dust and the, uh, Road Warriors, or maybe instead of Gold Dust, it was Ahmed, Ahmed Johnson. Anyway, they were, it wrestled against four pretty solid guys, um, in Calgary during the WWF in your house Calgary Stampede. Tour the roof off the place. It was amazing and Brian Tillman was a part of that in November of 96. Yeah.

So now, fast forward to May of 97. He comes on to the screen. He's still allied with the Hart Foundation, by the way. But by this point, they turned completely heal. heart foundation by the way, but by this point they turned completely heal, mostly owing to the turn that happened with Bret Hart at WrestleMania with the Double Turn, Austin as an anti-heroes and full swing and Hart's traditionalism is now fully healed, and Brian Pilman is a part of that. is now fully healed. And Brian Pilman is a part of that. Okay. And he was often referred to as like a sibling to the hearts, which is wild because they're like 13 of them. Wow. Yeah. And if you're in the heart foundation, you're supposed to be family, like

Bret Hart, Owen Hart, brothers, David Boy Smith, brother and law, Jim the Anvil Knight Heart, Owen Heart, Brothers, Davy Boy Smith, Brother and Law, Jim the Anvil Knight Heart, Brother and Law. Brian Pillman affiliated with us can't really say that he's with us, but he's always with us. Okay. But he was like a sibling. He and Owen had a pretty good bond. So traditionalism is fully a heel thing now. Pillman then feuds with the one person who pushed the envelope as much as he had. If not farther, Gold Dust. He defeats Gold Dust in September of 1997 and he got to have one night with Gold Dust's manager Marlena. She was his real wife at the time. The reason why this feud even happened was because Brian

Pillman in real life had actually dated Terry Rennels prior to her dating Dustin. Just the lines keep. Yeah. So after one night he turned her into his own personal sex pot, further scandalizing gold dust. And I think they had an evening gown match that was going to be set up. I can't quite remember. At the October paper view, he was going to wrestle dude love in a heater match. Keep him relevant, but give him a little bit of time away from his primary feud opponent, who had previously been mankind. Well, his primary fute opponent was Gold Dust at this point. And yeah, there wasn't even in Gown Match.

I forget exactly what happened with that one. But again, gender bending. So his opponent now is dude love, who had previously been mankind, who had previously been cactus Jack, who would shortly who had previously been cactus Jack, who would shortly thereafter turn back into cactus Jack, and then back into mankind, and then somehow become McFolly the whole time. Remarkably grounded individual.

Yes. It just has totally embraced the carny nature of the whole jack up. In the 1999 battle royal, no, was it 1999 or 98? It was one of them. He came out, I think it was 98. Yeah.

I can't remember. It might have been 99. Anyway, Mick Foley came in as cactus Jack got eliminated. No, it was 98 because he was number one and number two was Terry Funk. Chainsaw Charlie. And they brought chairs to the ring during the Royal Rumble. And invited each other to hit each other in the head with the fucking chairs.

Like he waps the shit out of Terry funk and Terry funk's like, and then, and then he bows his head for Terry funk to hit him upside the head. And it staggers him. And then Terry funk's like, come on. And he hits him in the head. Eventually, Mick full or a cactus Jack getsed. Around the 14th or 15th entrant, mankind comes out. And then he gets tossed out. And then somewhere in the mid-20s, dude love comes out. And his kids told him, damn dad, you had three entries

and you couldn't win. He's like, have you ever been to a Broadway show? You know how long it takes to change clothes? Like think of what I did there. Sweaty! So, anybody with theater experiences like yeah. Yeah. So, at the October pay-per-view, he scheduled to wrestle dude love.

They never really got to that match because Brian died of a heart attack at the age of 35 the night before, or the day of. Now, it's not like he wasn't doing drugs at the time, but also he had congenital heart problems galore throughout his family. So the next night on Raw, Vince McMahon interviews Bryan's wife on TV, who had been in the process of leaving Bryan for another man while still pregnant with, we're not sure who's baby it is. For real.

For real. For real. Now at no time was it ever clear where Brian's pretend madness and personal madness picked up and began. You couldn't tell exactly where and that's wrestling in the 90s in the nutshell. You start fairly conventionally but definitely you evolve into something far more dangerous and forever different from what had come before Here's a second and maybe even more telling epilogue so he Absolutely personally yeah, seems definitely like yeah, I totally buy your yeah idea that he's the avatar of exactly I want to bring up the election of 2000 Because it all broke down Our system clearly did not work. Votes weren't counted in the recount and those who claimed to be traditionalists

were seeking power in any way that they could get it, including not honoring the tradition of democracy. And those who claimed to be progressive were really just centrist who trusted the institutions to the point of letting the other side get away with cheating, despite winning a popular election. And in early December 2000, the election was decided by a Supreme Court ruling as it effectively stopped the recount in Florida, even though you can count fucking votes. That was December of 2000. In January of 2001, WCW was almost bought by another company.

Everything was on the right path to do soCW to the WWF for less than what WCW had paid Bret Hart for his annual salary in 1997. They sold AOL Time Warner was taking over Turner. Okay. They sold WCW for $4.2 million to Vince McMahon. Because he wanted to purchase their entire wrestling library because he figured someday there would be a network of just wrestling. He has since sold that to NBC. The network? Yeah, the network. Yeah, WWE Network does not exist anymore unless you have a VPN from Europe It's the peacock now. Oh wow, and the peacock has been started like they didn't put all the stuff up And they're like now we're gonna censor some of this so like there's a lot of history being lost

Wow, so Vince McMahon for $4.2 million, bought out his competitor. Yeah. From a corporate glomerate. That was trying to offload it. By the way, he didn't have to pay the salaries of the people who didn't come over. As I recall, those weren't his liabilities to keep, but I might be wrong. Now, the guy who found a way to control the chaos,

Vince McMahon. In order to monetize the chaos that someone else started, who went against everything his predecessors had stood for and who claimed to be a part of that same grand tradition, when it suited him was now in charge of all of it. Yeah, I see the parallel you're drawing. Yeah, yeah. So... Chaining.

Oh, I was just going to say W. Yeah, well. I mean, being flip. Yes. Yes. Everything that happened afterward would be successor failure based on his abilities. Unless he found a way to spin it otherwise by controlling the media surrounding what he inherited and taken in a new direction.

Like start, you know, co-opting a network print. There you go. So you have the personal epilogue, but then you also have the very political epilogue. Yeah So yeah, yeah, and and the combination of that You know say what you will All right, so there you go. So What have you cleaned? Because I'm done with this I got to say it is really eye-opening the extent to which all of these guys and gals,

but the lion's share of the attention and the money go to the dudes the the extent to which what they do as part of this performance sparkly merge gymnastics is like what other athletes do up to 11. They, they, so funny you say that because all the successful wrestlers say that they're most, uh, they're most successful character is always themselves turned up to 11. Yeah. Well, that makes sense. Yeah. Because you know, yourself, better than any, you know, manufactured, you know, uh, garbage truck driver or college professor, you know, professor, whatever job-based thing.

Man, I still remember that from a couple of episodes ago. But what I'm talking about is one of the most powerful stories that that I've heard about the experience of being a professional athlete is my dad worked for a guy who for some period of time was a quarterback in the NFL. When my dad worked with him it was you know 20 plus years after this guy had been in the league. He was an airline pilot at this point, but he had been so badly beaten up on gridiron. I bet. That it took him,

like when dad would go to the airport to go on a trip. Mm-hmm. You know, you park in the employee lot and you gotta walk a quarter mile. Sure. It would take my dad, I don't know, a quarter mile, five minutes. Yeah, five, ten minutes. Yeah.

At least you would pay five minutes to walk, you know, from his car to, you know, catch the, catch the shuttle. Mm-hmm. This guy's knees were so badly beaten up that he had to spend the same amount of time just getting out of his car and warming himself up. Yeah. Once he got up and moving, he was ambulatory and he was okay. Right. But he had, I mean, the arthritis he had in his knees from getting knocked around so badly,

it was just that bad. And so thinking about it as you're, as you've been talking about this, you know, listening to what Mick fully had happened to him, you know, thinking about it. Terry Funck's knees, by the way, I mean, you just type in Terry's Funck's knees on YouTube and you will find two or three different things

talking about how it is bone on bone. And he lives in unrelenting pain. Oh. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. And, you know, you, in passing, we mentioned Chris Benoit.

Yep. Last episode. Yeah. And we're talking about Pillman. Yep. This episode, you know, no wonder these guys wind up having addiction issues. No wonder these guys wind up having, you know, such drama in their personal lives outside of the ring with their spouses and their kids and whatever. Look at,

look at the amount of damage they're suffering. Yeah, physically and mentally. I mean, the level of neurological trauma involved in faking getting the shit beat out of you. It's quite something. Like, yeah. I mean, on a psychological level, your adrenal glands don't know that, no, no, he's not really hitting me with a chair.

Right. You know, um. Well, and also he not really hitting me with a chair right you know well and also he's really hitting me with the chair but yes yes you know the the the the comparison that that got made when when my wife and I were going through pre-marriage counseling for the church the The pastor who was doing that with us talked about when you are threatened your body we evolved in order to deal with leopards. Right. Right. You're adrenal gland and your nervous system and your brain, they don't know the difference between the threat of your partner being angry at you and the

leopard. Yeah, you know, and so you have to kind of do a little CBT to deal with that. Yeah, the the the context of that conversation was so the advice he gave us was don't fight when you're in the car. Don't fight when you're right about to go to bed. Don't you know like don't not fight. You're gonna have to do it. You're gonna have to have to hash it out. But for the sake of the long term health of your relationship, don't do this before these times. Also for your physical safety. You're driving and you're having a adrenal reaction, you know, bad juju.

Yeah, sure. But, you know, but the same concept has to apply to the amount of psychological strain. You know, you talk about heart and Michaels getting into a fight in the bathroom. Yeah. Like, just think about in any other industry, in any other kind of workplace,

like I've had significant disagreements with my co-workers. Like I have been legitimately pissed off at my co-workers. I have never been driven to the point of physical contact. And I don't think it's just because these guys are physical, athlete type people. I'm gonna say, I genuinely think it's just because these guys are physical athlete type people. I'm going to say I genuinely think there's a level of trauma and you know,

constant fight or flight reaction that's involved in that kind of thing. Well, and also the stakes are really high. The ego is there and it is a zero sum game and some levels, you know You know your ability to feed your family is based and the reputation that you can build in the ring With the audience and that includes winning at times and you want to win and you know even though it's contrived you want to win I have a friend who actually got in a fight with a guy at work Okay, yeah, you know and and I have a friend who actually got into a fight with a guy at work. Okay. I do. Yeah, you know, and I think also, you know, I didn't get in any fights when I was young, you know, and so it's not in any way normalized for me to fight much.

I did Kung Fu and I just thought, but again, there are rules, you know. But, you know, I think that there's, you know, different, different folks get wired differently. But I would also say that, you know, you brought up Chris Benoit. I think the early 2000s was paying in blood for the excesses of the 80s and 90s. Okay. And I don't know that it's any different than it had been in the 70s. I really should take a look at what stars died in the 70s and when they wrestled. You know, and taking to account the inflation of life expectancy now because we have better medicine.

But for instance, Bret Hart, he gets injured in the ring by Bill Goldberg and his career is over. It gets kicked in the head and basically separates all of his neck muscles in his head. He's massive concussion. Yeah, because Bill Goldberg was poorly trained and pushed too hard too fast and didn't understand how to work. Okay. So, Mr. Intensity, too snug. Okay. Oh, maybe.

Yeah, and regularly people would be like, God damn, do I owe you money? Like... But, I mean, you know, that's... That was, but it looked great on TV, right? You know, so Bret Hart is career ended there. Um, he had a stroke the next year and it's it's damaged him in a lot of ways. Obviously and and ways that he's never fully recovered. Um, but more importantly, he's also the only remaining member from the

Heart Foundation. Pillment died at 35. Owen died in 99 from an accident over the ring. Jim Knighthart was the most recent one to die. The British Bulldog died of an overdose in the mid 2000s. So many wrestlers that were great in the the the 80s and 90s. Yeah. Died of overdoses and or heart attacks in the 2000s. So I think that there's a life shortening that happens in wrestling because of the constant grind. They're working 300 days a year at a very physical thing where they're falling and they

talk about something called your bump card. That thing will get filled someday. You will not need, you will not be able to take another bump. You just won't. And you know, there's, you know, there's no real, you know, the thing they say quite often is, is not how much you make, it's how much you save. Yeah. And a lot of them don't have good financial planning. It's like any other sport, you know, when it comes to that. But so yes, you do have the traumatizing effect of their job. Absolutely. Um, but also you have the lifestyle of their job. And the self-medication that comes with that and the physical hazards of their job.

Yeah, even if you're being completely safe, it running into the ropes, those ropes are still cables. That shit hurts, you know? And so, you know, when you take a flat back bump, it's still, you're still hitting, you know, and then you increase that from where you are, you know, some of the moves that Brett used to do, he'd land on his knees.

He'd make it look like he punched a shit out of a guy, but he landed on his knees from the second turnbuckle. Oh, he's got knee pads on, but I don't care, you know, that shit hurts. And that's before Vincent had put more give and a- Absolutely. So, yeah, I know- I love that anecdote, but I'm not sure. What's the boss realizes it? Yeah.

So, yeah, I mean, I think all those things are also true for that. So yeah, and I think in many ways politically the 2000s were us paying for the sins and the excesses of the 80s and 90s. Yeah, I can see that. So, you know, the bill comes due and unfortunately it's young men who pay the price. So, by the way, Chris Benoit, there was a wrestler named Chris Noinsky who got a concussion and never got cleared again. And he was a Harvard graduate, so he's actually a smart fella.

And he played on that to be in, you know, in wrestling, he was a heel, of course, because he's educated. But he started studying what had happened to his brain. And he started really a lot of the research. It ties back to a trauma doctor in Pittsburgh. And it ties back to Chris Nowinsky as well. And he started a foundation where they are studying the brains of traumatic brain injury

football players and wrestlers and stuff like that. And so he asked Chris Benoit's dad, can we please have your son's brain so we can study it? And his debts, yeah, absolutely. And he had lesions on it as though he had Alzheimer's and was an 80 year old Alzheimer's patient. And that's not to excuse what he did in any way, shape or form, but he did have a move where he would jump off the top rope and headbutt you while you're on the mat.

So he would still land on your shoulder. Yeah, but his body weight is still falling at I can't do physics, but yeah, you're rattling, you're fucking brain. And like you watch him and he's not just selling that shit is clearly hurting him. He's doing that for the thing. He was also one of the few wrestlers who was willing to take a back of the head chair bump. Um, yeah. He didn't do it often, but like, you know, if the story called for it, he was okay with it. And he took that move, the swan dive headbutt from Harley race. Harley race did it, and he, um, he ended up with all kinds of neurological troubles too like

and and also no he took it I'm sorry not from really race hardly race did it and had all kinds of neck issues okay um dynamite kid did it and he had he ended up in a wheelchair and tiny my kid gave his boots to Chris Benoit and you know Chris Benoit I analyzed the of my kid and the way he worked. I mean, that's a whole other kettle of fish. But yeah, it's real sad what happened because of the 80s and 90s, specifically the shifts in the 90s and how that impacted the 2000s. So, yeah, and believe that. That's true musically. That's true politically. And that's definitely true and wrestling. So all right. Well, that was depressing.

A little bit. There at the end for Dune, where I'm sure it's just cheerful as fuck. People playing in, you know, there'd be a lot more abstract. Okay. Well, there'll be a lot more abstract. Yeah. This was pretty visceral. This album literally, you know, talking about ECW was quite literally visceral. Good God, now I'm amazed there weren't people disemboweled and some of the crap they were doing. Yeah, yeah. Did you ever look up the mass transit incident?

I did. I'm sorry. Sweet, shimmy crickets. You're the dad screaming in the background. I'm sorry. Sweet. Too many crickets. You're the dad screaming in the background. I didn't watch video. Oh, okay. I didn't fall for the schmuck bait quite that hard. Okay.

All right. I knew well enough, you know what? No, I don't want to, you know, video bad. I want to sleep. Video bad, yeah. Haha. But I did look up people talking about it. Yes. And, yeah, that's awful and then and then the kid that it happened to

wound up dying of complications from bariatric surgery. Yeah, so yeah, no Yeah, so literally visceral at that point Yeah, no, dudeune is going to be more akin to our comic book episodes. Cool. So yeah, I'm gonna go with that right now. I'm gonna say, the biggest issue I'm having right now

is figuring out, okay, do I wanna go through the synopsis of the book first? Or do I want to do the history, or do I want to get into themes first? And that because there is literally so much shit going on in this book. Like... I remember I've never read it. I know. I know.

And... Talk to your English teacher friends and see which thing you should explain first about a book that a student has never read. Okay. And then teach me that way. Okay. That's good advice. Where can people find you on social media? I can be found on social media at Mr. Blaylock on TikTok and Instagram.

I had to think for a moment about that. And then I can be found on Twitter at ehblalock and where can people find you if they need to correct some detail you've gotten wrong. And I feel like I've gotten a few wrong. I think I compressed a few things and maybe make some things around because thematically yeah but please correct me at duh harmony on the Twitter and on the Insta don't correct me on Insta's pictures of shows that I'm on or my kids doing cute things but like Twitter yeah Twitter absolutely come at him

I was for yeah but you can find me there you can be a lot more fun if you come at him for this stuff rather than the other people have come at him. That's what it's for. Yeah. But you can find me there. You can find me there. It's gonna be a lot more fun if you come at him for this stuff rather than the other people have come at him for. Boy, howdy. Recently. Anyway, sorry. Be more interesting at least. You could also find me on twitch.tv-capital-punds every Tuesday night at 8.30pm, Pacific Standard

time, or is this daily savings time? Right now. PDT. PDT. You could also find me at iMac PUNS every Friday at about 4 p.m. PDT. Okay. And you could find me on the YouTube's at Excelsior Gaming Presents Marvel Strike Force 999 Problems, but a stitcher ain't one. You type in some combination.

There are, you'll find us. Okay. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. Hey, did you have a book you wanted to recommend or no? You type in some combination thereof you'll find this okay a lot of fun Yeah, hey, did you have a book you wanted to recommend or no? No, I it doesn't matter what book I have to recommend Good rock rappers. Yeah, thank you. I'm gonna recommend fully is good Okay, Mick Foley has written so many of his own books and This one is a really good memoir of his experiences in wrestling. If you're interested in hearing his tale of the

hell in the cell and stuff like that leading up to it, honestly have a nice day. A tale of blood and sweat socks a really, really good read. So, that's the first one. That's the first one. The Foley is good is the second one. Okay, he's written about three or four. Okay. So I recommend those books. Yeah, I gotta say, after all of this, I think, I think Mick Foley is probably my favorite one of these guys.

Like, as an individual. Easy to have as a favorite. I don't know enough about the athletics or any of that, but based on just the story of, okay, and so these guys then went and did this thing. Yeah, no he's definitely a really well-balanced individual. Yeah, so very cool. Collectively working they find us.

They can find us collectively at Geek History Time on the Twitter machine. So. Cool. Yeah, also, obviously, you've found us here. So hit that subscribe button, tell your friends, send them an episode that you think they would like. It's a perfect, send it to them.

It's a lot of fun that way. And yeah, you can give us a review. That'd be great, rate, subscribe. would like. I'm Deemian Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock, and until next time, keep rolling 20s.