A Geek History of Time - Episode 223 - Hulk Hogan Media-Made Media Murderer part II

Episode Date: August 5, 2023

See people when they click on this, they'll see the title, so they'll be like, poor head. However, because it's England, that's largely ignored and unstudy. I really wish for the sake of my sense of moral righteousness that I could get away with saying no. He had a god-damned ancestral home and a noble title until Germany became a republic. You know, none of this high-falutin, you know, critical role stuff. So they chewed through my favorite shit.

No, I'm not helping them. I'm gonna say that you're getting into another kind of, you know, Mediterranean or psyche archetype kind of thing. Makes sense. Also, trade winds are a thing. Uh-huh, just serious. Like, no, he really has a mat on it. I'll be able to go up on a tangent. As we keep doing. Like, yeah, this is how we fill time. 1.5-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1- This is a D-C history of time.

And where we connect, another re-tutory of the world, my name is Ed Laylon, I'm a world history and English teacher here in Northern California. And as you may, as listeners, may remember from the end of our last episode, when our guests mentioned, tears of the kingdom, I made barely restrained, squeen noises. And so that's what I have been spending an awful lot of my free time doing over the course of the last week. And it has actually affected my way of looking at the world. If I see random objects like on my drive to and from work on the side of the road. I immediately start wondering, you know, what could I make dicks out of this? Yeah, I'm not in that crowd, but yeah, I do, I do start

thinking, you know, could I, could I make that into a plow on the front of the car? Like what, you know, I need, I need to get these people out of my way. Can I just grab that? Yeah. So, it's yeah. So that's what I've been spending my free time doing to the detriment of lots of other things. So yeah, that's why I have going on. How about you you sir? Well, I'm Damien Harmony and I am a Latin and high school history teacher up here in Northern California and It's funny. You say that because I actually have that same reaction anytime I drive by anything that has like piping or or chain link fences or Like that because I play mech warrior so much. I'm like, oh, I could blow that shit up. Which is probably not a good thing to admit on a podcast.

Luckily, like the dozen listeners that we have won't turn us in. But no, I actually was watching the Muppet show with my children tonight. Because I love the Muppets. And I remember and my daughter, as you know, loves D D&D and we're listening to the song and I turned to where I said. This could be the invocation for calling an elder god. And she said what do you mean it's time to play the music time to light the lights. I mean that's candles honey. That's and it's time to lift the veil upon the elder God tonight. And then, and she and I looked at each other, I'm like tomorrow, we're making a warlock subclass of Muppet kind.

Oh, so she went to bed and she's already written up the pantheon and all this. And she's like, what about Waldorf and Stahl? I'm like, they're a pair of gods. They never appear alone. And they're cast on par gods. They never appear alone. And they're in parks. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

And so she's hopefully fallen asleep by this point, because it's late. Yeah. But either way, we are setting that shit up because I have also begun playing the college of the idiot. We finally get to level three. And the DM let us let me use the the home class that Julia has made. Oh my God. Yes. So I'll report. I'll get to be Steve Martin in D&D. I'm gonna use that.

That's fucking brilliant. The next time I introduce my my party, I'll be like, here's two wild and grazing guys. Yeah, there you go. Per se. Yeah. Come on. Yeah. Oh, my God. That is so good. Yeah. So anyway, so good. Now I, I recall saying last time that we would have a guest and lo and behold, we do have a guest yet again, Mr. Andrew Sutherland's fresh from his first year of his PhD studies. He is still chasing the dream, the very weird dream and sad sad dream that it is made sadder only by the pair of ways. Talking to two people who will probably always be paid more than him despite being educated less. Mr. Sutherland, take it away. Let me take a moment to reflect on my decisions and then realize that it will be worth that

at the end. It will be, because I take a pragmatic approach and my hope is my research will be practical and useful. Hi, my name is Andrew Sutherland. I am a first year, just finishing up my first year PhD program. I study media literacy, psychophysiology, and what did I say last time? Media literacy, psychophysiology, and the cultic malew. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, which looks a lot at conspiracy theories, but I'm really interested in those who spread it.

Yeah, which looks a lot at conspiracy theories, but I'm really interested in those who spread it. And oh, I, first off, I'm going to make this point. I love the Muppets. I recently geeked out because the Lego is opening up for a vote, a build for the Muppets studio. Yes. And I want it so badly. I'm also going to say something sad. I never played D&D, but I absolutely want to. And I'm so happy because as one of your dozens of listeners, I love the lore around the college of the idiot. And I want, and I talked to my partner because we both watch various

different shows, D&D shows together. We're in a long-distance relationship. She lives in Texas at the moment. I live in where I go to school in Washington. So that's so what we like to do is watch D&D or other shows together and we really got pulled into dimension 20 when we were together and we recently finished the most recent season the never after and we had a lot of fun with that. We're trying to decide if we want to watch their new series or if we want to go back to one of the older ones, but we both want to eventually try to do D&D together. And now all I'm thinking about is creating a warlock muppet.

And just be like, and just be like, Eldrigg blast. Ah! Yeah, he just, that's going to be, was expedited retreat. Yeah, expeditious retreat. Yeah, that's going to be a was expedited retreat. Yeah, expeditious expeditious retreat. Yeah, yeah, I love it. That's going to be so good.

Oh my God, Gonzo and full on hooded cowled. Right. You know, I mean, it's someone familiar. We'll bring in the chickens. Chickens? Yeah, works way too well. Yeah, works way too well. When I cast a spell, I'm just going to go walk a walk.

Nice. Nice. Perfect. Perfect. That's your verbal component for literally everything. Absolutely. Literally everything. Oh my God. And you'll get, you'll get like some monk like abilities. If you, if you take the, the, the aspect of the piggy. Um, because she has. Oh, there we go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You get, you get, uh, I improved on arm strike for free. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. I like it. I'm trying to always have to help me. What's the swell work? I can like just sum in a feast. Well, here is, there's a cleric spell here is feast. Yeah, but that's that's the fun. Yeah, I don't know what you'd be able to do there, but anyway. Well, I'm just thinking by itself, just become Swedish fish or Swedish fish.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, talk like him, the talk like him during the entire campaign. So in the game that I ran for my children, they ran into a smuggler who dealt in magical goods, etc., etc. And one of the things that they ran into and put on and used was the Weedish Weft Watt. Oh, no. And the Weedish Weft Watt. Oh, no. And my son really put it on and he made the most delicious food but it was all the word and it is still a thing they talk about very fun was the weavers left what I love that yes that's too funny I love it. Oh, that's so great. So speaking of puppets, yes, Hulk Hogan. Yeah. Yeah. So when last

we left it, the, the, what we were starting, we were leaving off on April 24, 1983. Yes. Hulk Hogan defeated Nick Bachwinkle in the middle of the ring after about 16 minutes in a fairly one-sided Hulk Hogan friendly match. It was a decisive victory and it was a clear victory and it was unfortunately what we have come to know as the Dusty finish is something that Dusty Rhodes was famous for booking and it's where the good guy wins 100%. I brought this up back in episode five of our podcast. Forever, yeah. Yeah, and it's where the good guy wins. Finally, he wins.

Everybody gets what they want and at the very end, you take it away from him and there's an attack to Cality and you, you, yeah. So what happened was that Hulk Hogan had thrown Nick Bachwin called over the top rope prior to finishing the match. And then he suplexed him, which back then was called a suplay, um, back into the ring for the finish. This means therefore that Hulk Hogan was disqualified such, uh, as, therefore, that Hulk Hogan was disqualified, such as such a toss over the top rope was illegal. The only time it's legal to throw somebody over the top rope was during a battle royal. That's why they were so dangerous.

So the music played, the crowd had erupted, Hogan had celebrated, and as it turns out, it didn't matter. Hulk Hogan appealed to the crowd, who was then chanting his name. And he kicked Nick Bachwinkel out of the ring. He threw down the belt. Mean Jean O'Kerlin interviewed him afterwards and stepped into the ring and Hogan shouted, this is your belt to the crowd. And the AWA was having its hottest period in years due to the Hogan storylines, but also a lot of talented workers who worked with him. So this was a moment. And I think I said it three times in there. He appealed to the crowd directly. He is made use of that. Yeah. This is kind of getting into like, in a weird way way populism. Yes. Yes. Yeah. No, he's he's he's creating his persona around the audience. He he becomes I represent you in a way.

I am your fiance boy. Yeah. Okay. So wait 83 83 83.'re post a assassination attempt. Good call right. Yep. No, we're post. We're post assassination attempt. Reagan is back in the good graces of of the American people because you know, he took a bullet and survived. He was deep in the popular after fucking fucking with the unions of yeah, air control breaking the air traffic controllers union. That's what it was after after super lexing the air traffic controllers union. He gets shot pulling a bane on them. And then he gets shot and his popularity rallies. And all of a sudden there's this, yeah, and all of a sudden there is this popular, well, and part of his, his original campaign had been built around this manufactured cowboy populist kind of image. Yes.

And so now we have this self-made, by which I mean self-manufactured, hero figure, who is now taking that same path of, you know, look at me, I'm, I'm, this is, you know, it's not me, it's you kind of kind of tactic in a self-conscious, uh, uh, or subconscious mirroring of that. Now I'm sure he, it sounds like Hogan or whatever is real last name as I don't remember Terry Remember remember the first name. Bole. It's Balea. Yeah, it sounds like yeah Terry Eugene Balea Teb I'll call him Teb It it sounds to me like, you know, he is savvy enough that this isn't this, you know, this is your belt. That isn't, that is, there is an artfulness to that decision, to that choice.

Oh, yeah. His, the fact that it is mirroring what's going on in the larger political spheres is the part that's unconscious, but he is consciously choosing to frame himself in this, as you say, populist way. And don't forget it's Harsanya who's booking these, right? Yeah. Also after the assassination attempt on good old iron pants, Margaret Thatcher and her saying come at me, bro. This is true. Yeah.

So, yeah, you remember, keep in mind, Hulk Hogan having this interview, this none of this is spontaneous. None of this is a shoot. All of it is a work. It is all K-favor. This is, however, this is, I think, where I think Vergonia miscalculated. Because you want to give the audience what they want

and then have him get it stolen a little later. You want them to, you want them to, to get to finish at least once before stopping. You want to, you want to give them, you want, you want them to have the moment and be able to hold the moment. Yes. Before you then advance the plot line by taking, by taking the mcguffin away. Right, you don't switch a route. You can screw him over a bunch of times, but when it's a big blow off like this, you make a lot more money going the other way.

So. Okay. So that's what he's doing. He's getting international bookings from time to time. He's selling merch, which again is damn near unheard of. It's not much merch, but it is merch, like I said, and one of the reasons that Hogan keeps not getting the belt according to Hogan, so take it with the Salt Lake, but also according to Jim Cornette. And Jim Cornette, a Serbic as he is, seems to have a really razor sharp understanding of what's going on.

Now Jim Cornett is a wrestling historian, only amateurly though. He, he, but he is in, in as much as he lived all of the experiences, um, because he was a wrestling manager, um, for the vast majority of his career, like probably more than 50 years now. Um, and he has been everywhere and talks about everything and he gets interviewed quite frequently. I think he's got his own podcast. But according to Cornette and also according to Hogan, that Gagnet wanted a bigger cut of Hogan's Japan tour monies.

I'm letting you go out there. You're under contract to me, even though you're an independent contractor. And he also wanted more of Hogan's. Oh, yeah, it's incredibly. Oh, my God. Andy wanted more of the merch monies. And the part of the Japan problem was that Hogan got booked in Japan with new Japan. And that's with Antonia Nookie.

with new Japan. And that's with Antonia Noke. Bern had a relationship with with all Japan, which is run by giant Baba. And those are two like, I mean, that's Coke and Pepsi. So, Hogan is working with a non-partner to Vern and not wanting to cut him in on it. And so, Ganya is like, no, fuck you, you don't get the belt. He also, according to Vern and according to Vern's son, Greg, he didn't think that Hogan was an actual wrestler,

a shoot wrestler, a wrestler like Andrew was. And Vern was that. Vern was, I think, on the Olympic team in 48. But I know that Vern was nationally recognized as a wrestler. So, so for him, yeah, sorry, but so, so part of part of the motivation could have been that he was like, he's not, okay, yeah, you don't, you don't actually have the, the chops to be that guy. Yeah.

Cause back then there was the fear that somebody would go into business for themselves and would take the belt off you when you weren't, when it wasn't supposed to happen. To the point where when Rick Flair went overseas, they would send Harley race to second him so that Harley would step in and stop anything uh, because every of Harley race Andre the giant feared two men. Harley race was one of them Really? Yes

Oh, oh shit That means he refused to cross Harley. He also refused to cross a guy who would come to be known as Haku. Also, let's see, for you growing up Andrew, he might have been known as Meng by that time, ME and G. Okay. Yep. But he was also King Haku, Prince Haku, Prince Tonga, King Tonga. But Haku is famously the most most feared wrestler along with Harley race so But yeah, so gone you refused to put a belt on an attraction he would only put it on legit shoot wrestlers Which is gonna limit the field by quite a bit and this is getting his own money

so and and at the same time, it's meant to control like various narratives, various storylines and stuff like that. Yeah. Okay. Absolutely. Hogan goes to Japan shortly after that. And Vince McMahon also goes over to Japan and cuts a deal with Hogan to come back to the WWF, and to be the centerpiece. And this is Vince McMahon, Jr. Not senior. The senior never would have done

that, because senior respected territories. And junior was like, fuck, territories. I'm going to blow those up. Yeah. So he goes, I tell anyway, I'm going to handle it like a mob boss. Fun. Right. Yeah. Um, and uh, actually, here's a really fun story that Jim Ross tells a lot. I don't know how true it is because it's all wrestling. Um, but the NWA would have an annual meeting. This was the true thing. And uh, Vince McMahon, Jr. basically made his pitch to everybody and said, ban junior basically made his pitch to everybody and said, I bought the controlling interest of my father's territory. I am going to offer each of you a large sum of money. And I would like to expand nationally. We need to do away with the old ways, et cetera, et cetera.

And this is my plan. Please come along with me on this. And this has also been verified by Brett Hart that this meeting happened that this this happened because Brett was there with his father who runs the Stampede territory up in Calgary. It's too hard. And Vince says, you know, this is what's going to happen and essentially you can either come along and get rich or you can get fucked. fuck. And Jim Ross says that he was in the bathroom and sitting on the commode. And two of the NWA guys come in and they're pissing next to each other. And they talk about killing Vince McMahon. And Jim Ross says that he pulled his legs up so that nobody would see that he was there. This is a Jim Ross story. So I, I, I, I don't know. Um, nobody else was in that

bathroom. He's the only one that that has said this story over and over. Um, Stu Hart apparently told Brett, because Brett, Brett has this in his autobiography, that Stu told Brett on the way out in this, this is going to be a war and Vince is going to win. And Brett said, why? He said, because he has more money. And so now it's only about how can you make sure that you've got and keep the integrity of what you got. And evidently, Stu was one of the very few people that Vince genuinely respected.

And he cut him a pretty decent deal in exchange for a whole bunch of talent coming from Calgary, which included the dynamite kid, David Boy Smith, known as the British Bulldogs, Jim Knighthart, Brett Hart, known as the Hart Foundation, bad news Alan eventually, Mock and Sing, Don Morocco, like there were a whole bunch of people who came through Calgary. One of the people got a start in Calgary was Roddy Piper, but he didn't come via Calgary at that time. Yeah.

But, yeah, you've got a whole bunch of... So anyway. So I have to interject this or it's going to get... Turn Malignant and kill me. You talk about that meeting and all I can picture is Vince McMahon in a purple suit. It's green hair. Very Joker-like. Yeah. Yeah. picture is Vince McMahon in a purple suit. You've green hair. Very Joker-like. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, I'm going to make this pencil disappear. Like, like, like, like you talk about that meeting and get that vibe. Like the TV's a squealer. Like, yeah. And it. Yeah. Yeah. And some reason. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah.

For some reason, I was thinking about that one story. You told us a little bit ago, or in the last episode, where you uh, mentioned one of the wrestlers getting acid thrown on them. I'm wondering which one who was planning to throw acid. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Really does feel like somebody just walked into the like the Legion of Doom. Not in a hawk and calle all the way to butt like the bad guys in DC and said this is how we're

gonna do things now. Yeah, pretty much. That's, I mean, we're like a scene out of any classic gangster movie. Like, all all right no look right I understand you've you've been breaking this up this way until now but right now you gotta do what I'm gonna tell you to do or you know I'm gonna make an offer you can't refuse yeah you know I know where your family's fucking live and you're gonna do something you're gonna say there. Well, I was trying to remember like, I think it was an old Justice League episode with the animated my 2000s time,

but like, it kind of reminds me of like, how the League of villains, is that their name? Yeah, it's been a while. Legion of doom. Legion of doom, I'm sorry, I'm dumb. But like, I can't remember who is the original leader of it in the animated series, but then like Lex Luthor comes along is like, I'm gonna buy you all out.

I have more power and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. Lex Luthor famously became president and sold his company because he had ethics. Oh man, I wish man. That's on her. Yeah, you can't even write it. Man, only it can only happen if you write it. Right. Pretty much a moment. Yeah. Anyway, screaming. Uh, so Hogan is, is meeting with Vince McMahon in Japan and, uh, Hogan was big, he was big in AWA, right? He was very much aggrieved at what had happened.

And he had the media exposure that Vince McMahon wanted and Hogan made a good name for himself the last time he was in WWF. And according to Hogan, again, come back from his Japan tour and found that Vern had been selling his merch and not cutting him in on it. In fact, by many reports, Hogan suggested that they go 50-50 on both and Ganya rebuffed him. So on both the Japan tours and the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the merch. And again, this is like the puffy print shirts. They're not, it's not really good merch.

It's shit you could get at like a swap me that says, you know, I eat pussy, you know, like it's not, it's not very good merch. Now according to Greg Gagne. Yeah. According to Greg Gagne, the son of Verne Gagne, Hulk Hogan came back. So this is where it's it gets really interesting. Um, according to Greg, Hogan comes back from Japan with a deal in hand from McMahon. So it's not just Hogan telling a story.

Greg is telling a story and Greg Greg's dad is Vern Ganya. Hulk wrote a letter to Vern Ganya quitting. Vern gets a letter on December 21st from Tampa, Florida, 1983, and it said I'm not coming back signed Hulk Hogan. Vern Ganya saw it and he said, quote, Tampa, Florida, that damned Eddie Graham. He and Eddie used to play ribs on each other all the time. So Vern thought it was a rib and threw it away. And quote, like, that's what Greg Ganya said happened. No, yeah, that's what Greg is saying. And then Greg. Okay. So yeah, go on. Okay. Well, like, I can believe this. Like this, this is this is a detail I can, I can like, no, okay, considering the search, right? Yeah. Carry on.

So Greg continues and says, quote, so Christmas night comes, Saint Paul's sold out. Hogan doesn't show up. I called him on the phone. And I said, Hey, big man, what are you doing? We've got matches down here. And he says, I'm going to go with WWF and quote, this is, this is an interview with Greg Gagne. Now, when this happened, Vince McMahon used the fact that he had Hulk Hogan to quickly edge Gagne out of the San Francisco market specifically. This affects me personally because the very first wrestling I ever watched was a W a wrestling and after night, uh, and, and I watched it on a W a wrestling on

TV as a young man, um, until 1987, uh, which is damn shame because the midnight rockers Kurt Henning, Big Scott Hall, Playboy Buddy Rose and pretty boy Doug Summers all were amongst my favorites. Now you might remember big Scott Hall as razor Ramon. You might remember Kurt Henning as Mr. Perfect. You might remember the midnight rockers because one of them was Sean Michaels. The other one is the cautionary tale of Marty Genetti. So and if you ever want to get depressed about pro wrestling, go ahead and follow Marty Genetti's story,

because at one point, he gets, he and a gal get tested to make sure that she's not his illegitimate daughter so that then they can fuck. Ah. Oh, it's good times. So also in December of 90, horrified cap like noises. Yeah. You don't know where to start there. Um, I, wow. Also in December of 83, Hulk Hogan gets married to his first wife, Linda at the wedding, Vince McMahon Jr. Andre the giant Antonio Anoki and Adrian Adonis,

all that Hulk Hogan's wedding. No, Vern. Okay. Now, from there, legend has it. Well, yeah, would imagine not. Right. Um, um, and at one point, he didn't respond to the RSVP. I don't know why he thought it was another rib. I would have loved it if they did because you know, shit would have gone down. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

That would have been. Yeah. And Vern, remember, was a shoot wrestler. Like he was a legit wrestler to the point where when he was in his last days at whatever euphemism for death, uh was in, hospice care or retirement community, he was a danger to everyone around him because he was still attacking people and shoot wrestling on them. He'd injured several of the residents there and he had no idea what he was doing.

Oh really? Yeah, it's a really scary. Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah, it's a really satisfactory. Oh, that's a shame. Yeah. Oh, that sucks. So he literally was like thinking he was in a match and all that jazz. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, no. From their legend has it that Vern was planning to pay off the dusty finishes and actually give Hogan the belt so that Hogan could then feud with Andre. That's of course according to Vern after the fact. I cannot find anything substantive in that statement. However, because Andre was booked in the later part of 83 in the AWA though. So it is possible. But Vince had locked Andre down from 84 forward. So it is possible that Verne did have that in mind, but everything else points to he Want he he basically was trying to control Hogan much much more

Now Greg even reports this which is fucking wild He reports that Verne and Hogan get into an actual fight in in Verne's office. There's so much legend going around though. So, but Verne, Verne's son claims it. Hogan claims similar. And according to be Brian Blair, Verne got, so again, Brian Blair, Verne got into Hogan's face, tried to do a double leg take down and Hogan grabbed a front face lock on him and did to Vern Ganya what he would later do to Richard Belzer a couple of years later.

Hogan had wrestled enough and had enough wrestling chops that this is a believable story by the people telling it. So Hogan and Ganya had a bad relationship from that point forward, which leads to the letter and it leads to the no show and it leads to his return under Vincent Kennedy McMahon who'd bought out his dad. So that brings us to the WF in December of 1983. Hulk Hogan is at a televised taping for WF in St. Louis. And again, again, he's in St. Louis. And yet he's under the WF because the WF is starting to buy people out.

McMahon has got all the local stuff in January, Bob Backland, who'd come to the WF from the AWA years prior to become the new champ. He had just lost the iron chic in December 26, 1983. This makes the iron chic who would also come from AWA. He makes him the new champ. Bob Backland endorses Hogan at this at this televised taping, simply saying that he changed his ways and he was a good man now. Quote, you don't have to introduce this man to anybody. Everybody knows the Hulk. Everybody knows the Hulk. He's changed his ways.

He's a great man. He's told me he's not going to have glassy around. And quote, now it also might have helped that Hogan had just rescued Bob backlin from a three on one attack by the wild Samoans too. Yeah, you know, probably. Yeah. Now, the wild Samoans, by the way, are the grandfathers and uncles of the current wrestling stable known as the bloodline Roman Reigns, Joe and Jay Uso, and Solo. Okay. Also tied to that family through marriage and stuff like that is Rocky my idea. Um, also known as the rock, Dwayne Johnson, the only man immune to Medusa's charms.

Nice. Yeah. Well, play. Thank you. So Blassy is now in the eye. Yes. Blassy is now in the iron cheeks corner when Hulk Hogan dons the yellow and red to take him on in January for the WWF Heavyweight Championship in Madison Square Garden. Okay. Now wait a minute. Hold on. Okay. Yep.

So give me the date on that again. January 23rd 1984. Okay. It is a fateful day. So, yeah. So, so, Hogan red and yellow. Yep. Primary colors. Yes. Which we have, we have gone over time and time again. Yes. Talking about the 80s and the bright primary colors. And he's, he's wearing, Um, and he's he's wearing, um, essentially a speedo, not, not, yeah, he's just got the regular long shorts. Right.

He's got, yeah, um, cause I know earlier photos, like when you were talking about super destroyer, I tried like, like, okay, I've never seen this part of his career. I want to see what the hell this looks like. And he was wearing longer, longer trunks, like almost not quite knee length. So now he's in the regular size trunks, primary colors, yeah, undies.

Yeah. And is this like visually when he comes out Is this like visually when he comes out? Is his appearance with again the red and yellow? Is that a departure or was the culture in which he was operating already in the bright primary colors mode? At this point.

So the standard wrestling attire tended to be red, white, or blue trunks of varying kids. Again, didn't exclusively Don, the mustard and ketchup. He was gonna wear white trunks from time to time with a red shirt. Okay. It is usually white trunks with a red shirt or the red and the yellow. He ends up settling on the red and yellow about a year later. Finally, just kind of zeroing in on that and that becomes the iconic outfit. Sting. Yeah. Other wrestlers tended to wear also black trunks. Other wrestlers tended to wear the blues, the dark blues typically.

Sometimes a powder blue, depending on the wrestler, whites and kind of like just a crimson red. Okay. Those who wore just the short trunks. The long pants tended to have a little more variety to them as you can because there's more fabric and more material going on. But they're still fairly solid colored. A lot of people aren't marketing themselves all that much until Vince McMahon really gets things behind Hogan and keeps going. So he's a harbinger of it and things develop behind in his wake.

So he's kind of a leading indicator. Yes. Yes. Okay. That was that was what I was trying to get at. All right. Thank you. Sure. Now after his six minute match in which he becomes the champion, champion, Gorilla Monsoon announces out loud. Hulkomania is here. Now the match itself, Hogan, a terrible. Yep. Yep. Now remember, he had mentioned Hulkomania in the Johnny Carson thing, but now it's being picked up and run with by the announcers, Monty televised is national. And this was this match was shown was shown fucking at all the different arenas. They would show the match and then have wrestling. Were you gonna say something Andrew? No, no, that was it. That's all I was gonna say is like, oh, there was.

That was the moment where it became, what I was gonna say is while he already announced it nationally for the purposes of marketing himself on Johnny Carson, this is more solidified in wrestling lore. Yes. Shope codifier, if I'm right. Yeah. Yeah. This would be the codifying moment for it.

What also strikes me as this is the moment at which it becomes officially, it becomes the official line of the organization. Yes. It's not just him as an individual, it is, no, no. This is the thing. Yes. Now it is coming from the banner bearer for the sport.

That's supposed to just an individual competitor. Yes. Yes. He is WWFWF is him. Listas, Tim Waw. Hogan attacks the Iron Sheek just after the bell rings. But while the champion is still taking off his a gall in his kefya, um, which brings up an actually interesting thing. When you look at what the way the whole Kogan wrestles, um, there are always heel tactics that he employs. He is almost always healing. Um, the whole time he's doing, he's scratching people's backs. He is, um, sneak attacking them on some level like this, this always happens, but this begins the reign of the incredible whole Cogan.

And I say that I'm talking about about him healing all the time. Yeah, yeah, even though I mean, he is, he is the face here. He is. And he's booked because he's because yeah, he's booked is the face. And he's going up again, obviously in 1984, the heel would have to be there and cheek right. Because we're still not over the hostage crisis at this point. And, and so what I, what I find interesting is I feel like this is a foreshadowing of all of the later anti-hero shit that we see a decade later in the 90s and when he goes to WCW and it becomes yes, you know, NW Hollywood, the world, that's right. Yeah, Hollywood, Hogan like this was always there. It was the style of wrestling seems to have been fairly consistent.

The only difference is between the holds, what he does. And when he's NW, Oh, Hogan, when he's Hollywood, Hogan, um, he does a lot more chicken shit tactic stuff too. He runs a little bit more. He begs off. He backs down. When he's face Hullhogan, he doesn't, but he still does heal shit. And it's not necessarily illegal things. Or it is illegal things. And when the ref goes and confronts him, he kind of blows past the ref's objections and moves on and the people are with him. All the witchers found fast. Yeah.

Which goes back to the idea of his populace persona in many ways. He can do no wrong because he represents the people. And when he loses, and when he loses, and when he loses, it's the people who've lost. Right, so the only way, what's the terminology, I can't remember it, but it's, it's, it's basically like this, it's like, I'm the only thing that is preventing them

from getting to you in a weird way. Yeah, so he's gonna find excuses to play this. Sometimes you got to, you got to pull a approach. Yep. Absolutely. So, right now, a little bit of context right now, I'm teaching my students in sixth grade world history about the Roman Republic. Ooh. And the tribunes of the people, the tribunes of the people

and tribunes of the of the plebs. Yep. The person of the Tribune was sacriofs act. Yes and the anybody anybody who fucked with a Tribune of the plebs and there were like 10 of them at a time anybody anybody who assaulted a Tribune in the course of doing their job as Tribune. Your life was forfeit. Yeah, it was the response. It was literally written into the codes. That was the responsibility.

Everyone has to kill you. Who saw it happening had to rush the individual doing it and kill them. Yes. And, and that is mirrored in what you're talking about here. This, this populist, this populist, you know, I, I am the avatar of the people, because that's literally what a tribute was, was the avatar of the plebeian class. And that, that legitimizes whatever he chooses to do. You can't stop him. Right. It's, it's bad. It's weird. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. It's, it's bizarre. So yeah. And again, he gets away with it because they're located that to himself.

Well, he is doing, you know, there's, there's a guy who used to write for cracked and who's written several books under the pseudonym of, or the nom de plume of David Wong, his name is Jason Pargin. And he makes this point several times in the podcasts that I've listened him to a month and on TikTok, he said, all you need is somebody to give you permission to be shitty to them over there and let you do what you really want to do to a unprotected class. And in many ways, that's what he's doing. Every, every heel he goes against has it coming by virtue of the fact that they're worse than he is so whatever cheating he does is okay in the name of justice

And I think Andrew found the name or the word for it Yeah, yeah, I couldn't remember the rhetorical strategy It's associated with and then like oh there was ad pop you lump. Oh It's literally like play to the pay play to the audience play to the people. Yeah. Okay. So yeah. And it all honestly, and we can point this out, Trump, former president, Trump, hopefully never president again, does this a lot with his base. He literally, one of his literal tweets was memes, whatever, was literally him pointing at the camera, being like, I'm the only thing that's preventing them, the swamp, the mysterious cabal, or whatever, from getting to you. Wait, yeah. The deep state. He said it when he accepted his nomination back

in 2016. I and I alone can do such and such. I and I alone can protect you. Right. And fix it. Yeah. And then which no. And if you look at what he said out on January 6th in the morning, it was very akin to that.

And he pulled the Mussolini, which in many ways, but in saying, all right, go march. I'm going to be with you and then he went off somewhere else. I just want that story about Mussolini who like he's like watching it from a totally different city while it's happening. Once it's successful, he's like, all right, now I'm going to come in and we're going to stage the pictures. So now everybody thinks that he led the march. Yeah. So, anyway, so the incredible Hogan starts and they call him that.

That matters a lot because you remember the Lufurigno TV appearance in Memphis. You remember when I mentioned that the TV host pointed out that Terry Boulder had a more impressive physique than L Ferregno's. And this was while he was still a local talent in Memphis. So it didn't matter to Marvel. And they probably didn't even notice because it's in Memphis. Despite a TV shot promoting him as the Hulk Terry, Terry the Hulk Baleia slash Terry the Hulk Boulder, um, quote, this man, this is from, by the way, a, a TV commercial

for the wrestling that aired in Memphis is a local commercial. And I found it. And it said, quote, this man is not a television illusion. He's not an artist's conception. He's not a figment of the imagination. He is real. He is the Hulk and it's Hogan posing with the backlit and all kinds of shit. That was a commercial from 79. That's when he was in office. Wow. Yeah. Jesus. Okay. So we, you know, the idea that that, you know, somebody was saying that Hogan Terry, what's his name's, physique was more impressive than the new for ignos. Um, for Rick, no, was legit a championship bodybuilder. True. Like I, I can only imagine that when that was going on, for ignore must have been like in the off-season. Because, I mean, or taller than him, but yeah, Hulk is taller and he's bigger.

No, okay. All right. Virgo is cut as fuck, but he's smaller. All right. You know, so that makes sense, I guess. But yeah. Now, like I said, that's from a 79 commercial in Memphis. Didn't keep the name the Hulk consistently because he was also called Strilling Golden

when he went to Georgia, but when he gets to the WWF, remember, I've so I've kind of rewound a little bit for us here to 79. The man Irishized him and gave him the last name of Hogan and gave him an alternative quality that Stan Lee or gave him an and a liter of quality that Stan Lee would have had to appreciate. And once Rocky three got big and Hulk Hogan was a bigger star than merely being a territory wrestler who had a lot of media exposure and was big in the same market that Marvel got at start. That is New York.

Things like names begin to matter. The incredible Hulk Hogan continued to be announced as such for the first six months of his championship reign in 1984 So January to June and at this time Vince McMahon is also And at this time, Vince McMahon is also nationalizing the hell out of the WWF and Hulk Mania. He's buying up all sorts of airtime. He's producing shows all over the place. And he's beginning all kinds of merch and marketing. And within a, which by the way, most wrestlers were tricked into signing over the rights. Within a couple years, Hulk Mania is leading the charge for all sorts of things that kids can buy, multivitamins, ice cream bars, shirts, bandanas, foam fingers, rubber

dolls, cuddle plush toys, plastic rings, bendable rubber dolls, thumb wrestling dolls, those were my favorites, a cartoon, countless live appearances and guest appearances in other media. And at this point in the summer of 84, Marvel executives took notice and they struck a deal with the WF. They smelled money as Vince McMahon likes to say. And starting on July 9, 1984, Marvel and WWF had a licensing agreement going forward. He would never be called the incredible Hulk Hogan again, and there would be other terms. And I went and found the contract. And so here's some excerpts from the licensing agreement between Marvel Comics and Titan Sports, which was McMahon's name for his company.

Quote, the term of this license shall commence on July 9, 1984, and shall continue until the earlier of A, 20 years from the date of this agreement, or B, when Terry Belayas ceases to be involved with wrestling. The limitations bestowed upon the WWF by Marvel included, Quote, Titan may not use the term incredible in connection with Hulk Hogan. Marvel recognizes that the use of the word incredible

might be used by announcers on TV or radio in connection therewith, and such use will not be considered a breach. When using Hulk, it must always be used with Hogan. When used together, Hulk may not be more prominent than Hogan. So you couldn't go Hulk Hogan. When used together, Hulk may not be more prominent than Hogan. So you can go Hulk Hogan. I can cannot use the colors green and purple in connection with Hulk Hogan or his logo. That any logo created for Hulk Hogan must be different from the Hulk Hogan from the Hulk logo.

That any logo created for Hulk Hogan may not be such so as to be confused with or be similar to in any way the logo of Hulk. So there's there's there's stuff. Now here's some terms. Marvel also got $100 for every match that Hulk Hogan wrestled during that time. Just any time he wrestled a match, Marvel will get $100 check. Nice. They also got a cut of his merchandise sales. 0.90 of 1% of merch sales for Hogan were paid in royalties to Marvel. Now this doesn't sound like a lot, right? But keep in mind, but wrestling 300 times a year for those first three years So in the years 300 times a year So that's that's Reena's

That's yeah, that's that's 30 grand. He's wrestling in arenas where there are 20,000 people attending so the merch that they buy I mean and the merch that they buy You know 90 cents well, no wait, 9.9% of one, yeah, 9%. So it's, it's a little bit less than penny on the dollar. Yeah. Yeah, 9 cents for every 10 bucks, depending on how much they're charging for a shirt. Right. Yeah, that's not an insignificant revenue. In 1980s money, that's $85,000 of today's dollars a year, just because another guy wrestled somewhere, I would love to make. Yeah, can you make a quarter of that for past the income?

That's more than I make in a year from active income. And the very next line I wrote, like, imagine getting your annual salary as a teacher because another guy wrestled a bunch of house shows. Shit. Quote. Hulk Hogan is a trademark of the Marvel comics group licensed exclusively to tighten sports ink.

That gets. Whoa. Yep. Get hold on. Okay. reread that. license exclusively to Titan Sports Inc. That gets whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, get hold on. But reread that. Sure. Hold on. Hold. Hold. Hold. Kogan is a trademark of the Marvel Comics group licensed exclusively to Titan Sports Inc. End quote. So, so ownership of the name. It's trademark, yeah, was agreed to belong to Marvel. Well, on the understanding they were that they were licensing it. Yes. To the W W F exclusively.

Yeah. That's a big deal. That gets printed on all things W W F that tie to Hulk Hogan. So at the end of TV shows, at the end of just that gets put there as an afterline. Now that doesn't matter to you or me or the consumer. But my God, when you're building a case for who owns what brand legally and who gets cuts of what asset, that's fucking golden. That is sterling golden. Yeah, I saw that coming.

The moment you said that's fucking, I was like, I know what's coming. Oh my god. Oh, it gets better. It gets better. This includes video games in the late 1980s. What? So now you remember 0.90 of 1% of sales not profit sales Goes to Marvel so if a video game cost $50

Which was true in 1990 even even Even just one video game that's 45 cents going to Marvel right now Remember what the rental store market meant for video game sales? Oh, shit. Now, I couldn't find. I could not find I search for hours on the, I could not find sure. Yeah. What, what the actual numbers of items sold of WrestleMania challenge, for instance, or any other games that had them on it. Yeah, but that's that's a lot of fucking money. That's that's a lot of that's been big bucks. That is a lot. That's a shit ton of money.

The good deal. And Vince signed all that money because he knew he was going to be making a hand over face making the other 90% with hogas, right right? Like, yeah. Yeah. This also means that Marvel has to see what it could get away with when it came to the names and likeness uses. And on March, 1990, all right. Marvel comic. Yeah. And in 1990, Marvel March 10th 1990, Marvel comics presents issue number 45 came on the stands. Okay, so I paused so that we can get these reactions on here. I sent you both the the screenshots of a comic book. So you have the first one up? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Could somebody please describe what we're seeing? Well, number one, we're seeing a gray Hulk. Oh, uh, go which that catches my attention. Okay. See if you didn't find one above that. Uh, Hogan comic one. Hogan comic one. Okay. Here we go. Hold on.

Okay, here we go. I'm rowdyer than Roddy. Number one, there's, there's, there's inside baseball references to, uh, uh, uh, to what was going on in a WF. Now notice what is decidedly missing from, from this, this comic though. You don't actually see face, right? Yeah, that's a little bit of a, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, notice what is decidedly missing from from this this comic though. You don't actually see face right? Oh, yeah, that's a little weird. Granted, you've got his hair.

And you don't even have his hairline, right? Well, you have, you have a flattering, you have a flattering portrayal of his hairline. You do. And what is he saying? Exactly. Yeah, after throwing the guy down, I'm the, I'm the, he says, I'm an incredible Hulk. I'm the incredible Hulk. Yeah. Everybody's chanting.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah. And then you see the winner and still champion the blonde barn stormer himself. And then you go to the next one. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, is the gray Hulk. Uh huh. I'm going you out Hulk.

Right. And then you go to the next one. Yeah. And what does that, I'm gonna find the Hulk say, you gotta probably gotta zoom in a bit. I've seen your posters. I've seen your videos.

I've seen your posters. I've seen your videos. I've seen your stupid cartoon show. I've seen enough. Every time I read Hulk next to your ugly mug, it makes me and that's an angry and get angry. I get, well, you get the idea. And then he says, I don't know how to put literally is. Yeah, oh my God. It's a beating. And then, and you pick the wrong name.

Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then the very last one is leaning over the ropes. So, so any of you other any other View clowns want to swipe at aim you don't deserve just to get ahead right and by the way He is throwing hole hole. Well, we're the roof of the building. We're the ceiling. Yes, the roof of the building. Yeah Yeah Speaking of speaking of comic book physics, but this is what's called a squash match by the way

Did you see Hulk Hogan get any offensive moves in? No, that's a good way. No, at all. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Now it ended painfully. And before he I'm hurting. And before he launches Hogan into the stratosphere, the incredible Hulk says, you picked the wrong name, right? Yeah. And then he's looking over the ropes, but he's looking right at us, the readers. Yeah. And says any of you other clowns want to swipe a name that you don't deserve just to get ahead. Yeah, no. Literally, this is telling the audience what to think, what to know.

When it comes to the literacy, it's all about really understanding a tent. What is the intent of the message? And in this case, it's literally saying Marvel's literally saying, we have more power. Right. Now we own this name. Yep. We own him in all the ways. Right. Now we don't we own this name. Yep. We own him in all the ways. Right. All right. Now to move forward for just a second, just because we're talking comic books for just a second. And I want people to be so fun. WCW did consider working with Marvel again in the late 1990s when Hogan was in charge of the NWO, and concept art was produced,

but it died quicker than the cancer patient who asked sting for help in defeating cancer. And that's a thing that happened. Let's get dark, dude. Yeah. Like, thank you for that. Right? Let me, you know, if this, wow, yeah, go ahead.

I'm just saying, like I've gotten, I've gotten far enough into my beer with it. Like I don't, I don't, I don't want to finish it off, but I also want to keep drinking because just what you just said. Oh, no, no, God, fucking really. Oh, it was not joking. No, Julie Sting is only human like the rest of us, but he can't make you an official stinger. What the fuck, bro? So Sting is shown up no shirt, but his hair is painted or his face is painted and he's he's wearing these surfers sting. He's wearing Hogan's colors, by the way. Um, yeah, face, answer patient says, Sting, can you help me be, can you help me be better?

I help, can you, can you help make me better? And Wow. No, but he can make you a singer. Thanks. Wow. Oh, this is the ultimate make a wish moment. I really feel like the writers were looking at this like we got to write what now. Yeah, I'm also looking at Sting and I when I first saw it. Yeah, and then died laughing. I thought that was the ultimate warrior for a second. You know fun fact and see that

Sting and the warrier got started as the blade runners a tag team. I believe for Memphis, maybe Texas, one was named rock and one was named steel scissors and they both unicorn. No, no, but they both were face paint and well done. They both were face paint and then they went their separate ways went to different federations. When the ultimate warrior showed back up in WCW, he and Sting cut a promo together and he starts with, oh, what a big difference a little bit of face makeup makes. Because Sting was crosting. I love that. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It was, it was, it was it was it was something so yeah, those two guys worked together briefly Well, yeah What the fuck man? Like this is amazing I want that is I want that is such shitty dialogue that I can't help but think I like I

Want to believe that the writer? Literally looked at Zeditor and said oh, oh, you want me to believe that the writer literally looked at his editor and said, oh, oh, you want me to write that? Okay. Fuck you. I will. I'm getting this framed. Yeah.

The cancer patient is a woman who is missing most of her hair. It's clear. This is this is the most like honest to God. I have read some ugly Japanese comics. I'm just going to leave that hanging there. This is no kidding. The ugliest, the least panel I have ever seen. Oh yeah. Literally, literally, Sting has no hope in his face. He's like, yeah, I can call you a sticker. You're gonna die. Yeah. Yeah. He went, let's go with that. Yeah. Like, like, like, like, Jenny Edo, this and says, I can't do horror this good. I like.

Nope. I need to put down my pens forever. I'm done back to the licensing deal. Yeah. What's really clever about the licensing deal is that it's tied to Hulk Hogan wrestling. It is not tied to the WWE of employment of Hulk Hogan. Therefore, as long as Hulk Hogan is wrestling is involved in wrestling, WF has to pay Marvel, which means that when Hulk Hogan goes to WCW,

Marvel keeps getting paid. Fuck. Uh-huh. Now this is not as awesome as the Bobby beneath. What? What it's close. Yeah. Oh love this. Yeah. Oh my God. I can't help but imagine the Ted Turner. Like at some point thought about that.

Yeah. It just cackled. I think so. We've reached up just like, oh, Hogan's other ring. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. A second, McMahon.

Like, this is, it's so funny to me because it's literally like, oh, we're, you're going to pay us and we're going to just constantly insult you. Yes. Two. Like, yeah. And you're going to, oh, my God, I love this. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. This ends up being so stuck. I'm still stuck on Ted Turner. You just be like, because we had we had an episode that was basically focused around the petty, petty bullshit of two rich men, you know, try to try to outdo each other. Yeah, like I'm still stuck on that, but wow. So WWF ends up spending somewhere north of $500,000 over a 20 year period in payments to Marvel. This is this is 20 years of found money between 1984 and 2004.

I found another 20 grand. The couch cushions because Hogan never stopped being involved with wrestling. We're not. And no, it never said he would wrestle. It just said, he had to, he had to be involved with wrestling. So he's making appearances at a show and not wrestling. Now, they also got a hundred dollars for every every time he was wrestling in the ring, but plenty of times he didn't, he's still involved. If he's going and giving autographs for being Hulk Ogan, he's still involved. Having a promo. Yeah, I have a question now. Go for it. He's in the WWE Hall of Fame. He is. So does that mean he's always going to be involved, no matter what?

Technically, yes. But remember, the deal was a 20 year deal. So it ends. It ends. Okay. Okay. 2004. Yeah.

Now, interestingly enough, after that agreement ends, it's only after that agreement ends. Terry Balea purchases the rights to his stage name, Hen has owned it ever since then, although now it's through his own LLC, Hogan Holdings LLC, and he owns all the things tied to his name. It is all his now. He waited until that contract ended, though. Okay, so was part of that. Yeah. No one, super short. Do you think part of that was motivated by, oh yeah, no, uh, fuck my man.

I want, I want to see him like maybe. No, I, I, I would say that Hogan and McMahon have a love hate relationship for much of their career. They make money together and they bug each other and they make money together and they bug each other. And it's very upcy downsy. And when they both get over it, then they make money together again. And then one of them bugs the other and then they they depart. So I think it's less about sticking it to McMahon and more about like, well, I don't want to fucking pay that money. Now, McMahon do it. And so then afterwards he buys the name.

Now that means, uh, that, uh, you know, he, he's the one buying the rights to his name. And McMahon could have gone into a bidding war over it. And it doesn't, I found no evidence that that McMahon stuck him on, on that purchase because that was something that was exclusively licensed to WWF But you know on and on and on so I'm not entirely sure But it seems to me that he's being shrewd and not wanting and and it also shows a very clever understanding and use of

Intellectual property and media's functions on his part. Yeah, definitely, which is why I brought in the big guns with Andrew here. Yeah, am I off at all here? Or is there no? I, well, I can't talk about legal stuff in this case, but yeah, I can't talk about legal stuff in this case, but yeah, most of the things that he's pretty much doing is kind of pre-planned in a lot of ways in my view. He's thinking everybody's playing checkers, but he's playing chess, basically. But he's thinking, how can I best maintain my image in a lot of ways and still kind of continue on? I don't know where I'm going with this, but it's...

You're touching on my face. It's pretty much that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He's basically trying to maintain his image in whatever way that would benefit him the most. Exactly. And when it doesn't, he steps away from it. And when it does, he leans into it. Yeah. And this is a pattern. He's ebb and flow is absolutely a pattern that pays off throughout the entire. And it just keeps making me think about like that, that, that the earlier stuff you talk about in the last episode where he would go to those bars and he would go to Oh, yeah, we go to Jim and Make it's make me and then like how he modeled himself after

Who was the wrestler what was the super star What was the title again? Super star brand. Yeah. Yeah. There's like eight brands. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's so many brands. Graham, superstar, cracker.

Yeah. Yeah. And thank you. Yeah. And so basically what I'm thinking is he was reading the room. He identified, okay, these guys, these are their weaknesses. Here's how I will, how I will adapt. Here's how I can present myself more effectively, like even like him coming out with those primary colors of yellow and red,

yellow and red are bright and they're identifiable. You can I see them from a distance. Exactly. She sees concede too. Exactly. Every, yeah, and even in the comic photos hold on. I could, I pulled up the wrong one. I am saving that photo of the cancer kid that is so funny. Yeah, right there. Okay. So even in the comic photos, I don't even think the more I think about it, I don't think this is bad for him. No, it's not like, okay. Yeah. He's, he, he, they're still using his colors. It is in a way advertisement for him, even though it is benefiting Marvel.

Yeah, and in wrestling parlance, you got beat by the incredible Hulk. It took the incredible Hulk to beat you is another way to put it. So you can still spin it as like, you know, yeah, it took a guy who held up a mountain once to beat me. I would point out in that very first frame that I sent you. Look

how small his dick is in that picture. Like Marvel, Spare, you come out there, say it again. I said, look how small his dick looks in that picture. Marvel Spare, no expense in there. I don't know. I think it's pretty average. I will say having watched a lot of Hulk Ogan's matches, his shit hangs lower. And that'll actually come into play in a few episodes, sadly. I am. Yeah. We're going to talk a lot about Hulk O Oh, great. Oh, another one for this podcast. Oh, oh, oh, damn it. You two really. I'm coming in subtle.

I love this. I really do have podcasts. I, oh, I did absolutely love the episode of puns. So I came in very prepared or ready to go keeping up. Good. All right. Next time we record, I'm just going to not go with bourbon barrel agent beer. I'm going straight to the bourbon bottle. Or it right. I'm going to make this point probably I'm probably going to be listening to this on like the card right because with

my partner, we're going to be driving from Texas to Washington. I can just see at that moment, she just hits me like, ah, what's wrong with you? As she should. Oh, damn it. I mean, okay, hold on. Let me go on the record. Partner, but use is wrong. But fighting words is a legal concept. It's true. There's no, we don't kink shame. Yeah, okay. Okay. Yes. If you're listening, it's legal to do that in Texas,

less so in other states. Yeah. And it's a big enough state that if you start the podcast, I mean, I'm not going to find our leaving the house. Yeah. Okay. You're still going to be in the state when you get to that point. Uh, so let's get back to Holkhogan's. Yes, yes.

Yes. Um, so from Holkhogania comes, WrestleMania. Um, and with those things paired up, Holcomb's star rockets upward. And from 84 onward, one could accurately claim that Holcomb was responsible for an increase of over 45% in paying audiences at live shows. Was it, okay, wait, stop. Was it that small? Was it over 45?

So the government estimate would be 45. Okay, because here's the thing. Until I was nine. So until, until 84, I was in, I want to say I was, I was in the fourth grade. Mm-hmm. It took until I was in the fourth grade to have an awareness of professional wrestling, and my awareness of professional wrestling was entirely because of the WWF, and my first to the milieu was Hulk Hogan Ricky steamboat. I remember who the other stars were. Those

were the two biggest because my best friend in the fourth grade was a huge Ricky the Regan C-Mode fan. Rodney Piper. Yeah. I believe I forgot. Rodney Piper. But, you know, that whole crowd at that time was, that was my first exposure to the sport and to the medium, like at all. And for me, I just, I find it fascinating that there is this, like Vince McMahon figures out, okay, no, seriously, I'm going to take this national, I'm going to turn this into a media fucking empire.

And I'm going to use this guy as the platform to do that. You know, he's going to be the face of this. And there were so many things that came to a conflict at the same time. There was wrestling, there was MTV. Oh, I'm going to get to all of this. Okay. Yeah. But, and then you say, and, of at least of more than 45%.

I'm like, how is it not at least 100%? Well, you remember prior to this, he was, he was involved in shows that had 20,000 sellouts. Yeah, okay. Yeah. No, you're so 45% interest to that. There's a list. There's 30,000. Yeah.

There's, there's only so many seeds you have. All of that. So like, yeah, I know and get that. Yeah, but like while you're talking about the, the, I'm sure that the quote that you're using there is because that's a really that, that's an easy metric to look at. Mm-hmm. Like I want to know what's the change in viewership of the sport? Oh, we're going to get to that too.

Okay. Yeah. Bitch and Camaro. I'm. Yeah. All right. So according to Hulk Hogan himself, he was making about $10 million a year at his peak from $87 to $89.

Okay. Wait. Hold on. 10 million in $87 to $89 money. Yes. Talk me gently with a chain sauce. Seriously? Well, according to him, the problem with this is that all the sources I found

pointed back to Hogan's own admittance. And short of a FOIA request, I can't seem to find his tax returns for those years. They're hanging point. So I'm gonna be a failed livy and say, fuck it. Let's go with it. 10 million a year, which is not outside the realm of possibilities. The dude had a lot, a lot of merch. And WWF was in full ascent. Hulk Hogan was involved in the main event of every WrestleMania from one through eight. He was in the main event in all of them except for WrestleMania four,

and he came out after the main event of WrestleMania nine to defeat the newly crown champion, Yokozuna in a squash match to end the show. During this meteoric rise, there were efforts to get him even more mainstream attention per your request. After Rocky III, he was in a made- TV movie length pilot on ABC in August of 84 called Goldie and the Bears. You see, I had not thought of that for literally forever, but you mentioned the title. And I'm like, Oh, shit, I remember that. Yeah. So the plot is so, Andrew, you probably don't know this story, but the plot of Goldie and the Bears is simple. It's a simple one. It's a tale is old as time. A former football player turned private.

Yeah. dies causing his daughter played by Stephanie Ferrisy, whom you might recognize as John Candy's wife from the great outdoors, causes her to join up with three of his former players to take over his business. Right? I mean, when when haven't we seen who's among us? Yeah. Has that seen this story? Like this is not a variant of Ted Lasso. Yeah. You can see the connection. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The whole. He stars alongside the guy who used Conan's dad sword. Ben Davidson, the one who would also be the show gun of Harlem, Julius J. Kerry III, a full year before

he changed movie history forever by playing show enough himself. The tagline in the advertisement that I found for this movie was quote, when I go after the bad guys, three hulks are better than one. Oh shit. Nope, dead fucking serious. That was like in like a TV advertisement on in a newspaper or a magazine. I can't remember which. I just, I, okay, I had to look it up. I had to look it up. Sure. And what I find remarkable is the lead actress is, is, I mean, she's got like five, seven,

five, eight. And the picture of the three guys standing next to her, they are like, armpit, head shoulders ahead of her. Yeah. Yeah. Two heads tall. She is. Yeah. It's like a hobbit. It's a TV pilot. Yeah, Goldie and the bears. Yeah. What was it? Say Goldie and the bears and the bears. And there she comes up like the bottom of their packs. Like it's ridiculous how huge these guys are.

Christ, I watched so many parts of this fucking thing. I am so sorry, because I can tell just from the publicity photos. Oh my goodness. Gotta be awful. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just looking at the poster, right?

No, it's bad. Oh, it looks bad. Oh, it looks cheesy as fuck. Yeah. Again, when's bad. Oh, it looks bad. Oh, it looks easy as fuck. Yeah. Yeah. Again, when he's starring alongside the guy who helped falsa doom and the guy who would become show enough, the guy who helped falsa doom was nearly a spit take on this end. I saw that. I saw that. Like crap. Yeah. So, wow, three hulks are better than one. His name is becoming just it is fucking every. It's mimetic. It's mimetic. It's a viral. It's a mimetic viral agent in terms

of the SCP foundation. Now by the time of this pilot, he had been billed as Hulk Hogan in the credits for Rocky III. He has been on Johnny Carson as Hulk Hogan. He's been the new WWF champion for eight months by the time this movie has come out. They are fully banking on his media appeal. It's not like someone said, man, I sure wish Conan's non-malot wielding opponent would do a show, right?

They're not begging for him. Stephanie Ferrisy was two years away from becoming whatever level it is below a household name. This was stunt casting and Hulk Hogan was at the center of it to bring viewers. It, of course, did not get picked up, leading to the second greatest tragedy on TV. The first, of course, being when Mark Green died of a brain tumor. But right after that is that this didn't get picked up. And by the way, trying to research this show was harrowing, not because of the quality of the show, but because it kept turning up bisexual erotic thrillers. of the quality of the show, but because it kept turning up bisexual erotic thrillers. Well, okay, hold on. Okay. Really? Heroine? I don't go for bears. That makes sense, actually. Oh, all right. Never mind. Sorry. I am a bear. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I was like, wait a minute.

Come on now. All right. Okay. Yeah.. Okay. So now I'm sorry. There was a assumption on my part. That's okay. That's bad on my part. I'm sorry. The whole Cogin didn't have that much to do because he didn't have that much time to do anything outside of his wrestling media duties and matches from 84 to 89. He did a couple episodes of a soap opera called Search for Tomorrow. He did an episode of the to 89. He did a couple episodes of a soap opera called Search for Tomorrow. He did an episode of the Love Bo. He did a few music videos. And of course, the cartoon, which I still say is wrestling duties, considering it was a cartoon called Hulk Hogan's Rock and Wrestling. But he and his fellow wrestlers were only in the first couple episodes

providing voice work after that. It went to voice actors, but it's still his likeness. It's still a voice similar enough to his. In the rest of the time he was actually you want to know who voiced him. It was the brother from everybody loves Raymond. What? Yeah. Really? I can hear it. I can hear it. I can, okay, yeah. I mean, I mean, I can buy that, but it takes me a moment to switch mental years and like, okay. I, yeah, I just, the only thing is I can't think of him

like eccentric. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, no, I can buy that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But but yeah, no, I can buy that. Okay. Now this cartoon ran for two truncated seasons and featured comedy vignettes with the live action wrestlers between the scenes of the cartoon. The WWF logo appeared at the end of each episode and at the beginning, we saw

Hogan himself walking to the ring with the music overlaying the cuts, and it ends with him walking down a downtown street in his yellow and red, getting mobbed by a ton of kids who loved him. The cartoon ran from 85 to 86 and came about as an effort to get more eyes on wf and what it was doing. It's not wf's rock and wrestling, it's Hulk Hogan's rock and wrestling. And yet rock and wrestling connection was the one was one that was created initially without Hulk Hogan at all. And that kind of gets to my main point here. Hogan is never the originator of the thing that he ends up using to enrich himself and increase his brand.

And then eventually hold others down with it. to enrich himself and increase his brand. And then eventually hold others down with it. He never starts it. He comes into it once it's already going along. Okay. What a great opportunist. Yes, just. Oh my goodness.

Well, and on its own, I'm just going to say on its own, that's not necessarily a bad thing. No, not at all. It's his face, it's his likeness, it's his voice, it's his persona that is making him and Vince McMahon and CBS NBC, whichever network did the cartoon. I don't remember anymore. You know, like it's him, his charisma, Mojo, whatever you want to call it. And so him, him using that to his advantage on its own.

That's an important caveat. him him using that to his advantage on its own. That's an important caveat is not a bad thing. But I have a premonition of where this is going. Oh yeah. Yeah. And based on what I know about that, it's the development from there, where this is going to wind up, you know, turning into a genuine like no-kitting dark side. Beyond, beyond just, you know, him getting into a fight with the guy who was his manager territory runner.

Oh yeah, yeah. So that's all true. So here's what's interesting about this timing, right? The VHS cassette market and rental market were just heating up, as we talked about, I'm not gonna go through the stats again, if you want, go listen to the dark crystal episodes. But suffice to say, the VHS

rental store was gaining in popularity and regularity. And as he's on his ascent. So there's a bit of luck involved there. Good fortune. But before we can even get to the first WrestleMania, we have to look at the rock and wrestling connection and the A team connections. Both of these are more thanks to cross promotion with Hogan coming in at the end and heating it up to 11. But built by the efforts of other people initially namely, Roddy Piper and Vince McMahon. So Hogan's champion in 84 January of 84 right MTV by that point had been on the air for about three years largely just being a place to show videos of white musicians. Now this doesn't mean there weren't black musicians in the rotation, but it does mean that it was largely the same 12 artists, although

I had trouble tracking down one of them during that time period. This was true to the point where David Bowie specifically called it out in a live MTV interview in 1983. James had also called it out. Vogue as his music video for Super Freak was straight out refused by MTV because it didn't fit their ideas on album rock. This doesn't mean that there weren't black musicians and some of the bands that were focused on culture club had a black musician and at Thompson Twins, they both had black band members. But the first head of talent acquisitions at MTV at the time, Carolyn Baker, later admitted, quote, the party line at MTV was that we weren't playing black music because of the research.

But the research was based on ignorance. We were young, we were cutting edge. We didn't have to be on the cutting edge of racism. Anyway. All right. Interesting. Interesting. What's that? to be on the cutting edge of racism. Anyway, interesting. What's that? I was trying to remember, like, wasn't what was the tagline for MTV back then?

My MTV. Yeah, that was it. They tried to create themselves, like, as something new, something different, something innovative. Yeah. And yet, they were still kind of like going back to the old ways still to. Yes. Yes. How can we appeal to the largest number in the middle? So we have to get into the Southern markets. It's it's the same. Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, interestingly, if you look at the w Wiki article on WrestleMania, it mentions MTV twice.

MTV's Wiki makes zero mention of wrestling. Ooh. I know. I found I just, you know, it's good to take a pulse every once in a while. So I mean, it could be like, it could be a factor like, oh, did somebody not edit it in like, sure? Fun fact, I used to get bored and I used to edit Wikipedia. There was a time when Wikipedia was about,

the Wikipedia for silence of the lambs was about quiet sheet because of me, it only lasted for maybe a week or so. Yeah, my brother was the first man on the moon for about four hours. Congratulations. But also at the same time, I'm just throwing in media literacy stuff. I'm actually one of the instructors who would be like, yeah, Wikipedia is great. Don't use it as a primary source, but use it as like a resource tool to like fact check or like check for other sources and stuff like that.

I always like look at the bibliography at the end of the article. It's so pretty. And I was really good to be able to. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, God. But also like you can get some backgrounds on certain types of organizations. Like, oh, this organization's publishing this.

What's their background? Are they credible stuff like that? Yeah. Absolutely. What's their background? Are they credible stuff like that? Yeah, absolutely. But it is interesting like MTV doesn't mention wrestling. Right. Even though it came in at MTV's Nacency. Yeah.

So now, 1950s and 1960s wrestler later turned rubber band aficionado and manager Captain Lu Albano was on a trip down to portorico to work for the cologne's he met Cindy Lopper on the plane and she dug him and she asked him to play her father in her music video girls just want to have fun which he did now given that he wasn't working for Vincent uh uh, J. McMahon and that he was in between W. W. F. and Puerto Rico, Lou went for it. He's like, well, I'm not wrestling right now. So sure. And this video comes out in September of 1983. Remember, Hulk Hogan shows up in W. W. F. in December of 83. So we're going to leave Hogan alone for a little bit. Now, I've read

some reports to say that this video came out in 84, but that compresses things too much and it seems overly simplified to be perfectly honest. So I'm sticking with the video releasing around the time of the single release. David Wolf, Cindy Loppers manager suggested that they continue to collaborate as opportunities come to the come came up in the future. And sure enough, right after Hulk Hogan wins the belt in January of 84, and he needs a strong heel to go against the collaborations begin. Enter Roddy Piper. In 1984, June of 84, Cindy Loper appears on Piper's pit. Now by this point, she'd also released time after time. And she's as New York as they come, which absolutely

helps the storyline along. Lu Albano comes out while she's being interviewed by Roddy Piper during this interview and he tells her Lu Albano tells her to tell everyone how he found her in Queens and made her a superstar. She played it off as he was kidding and he gets more and more misogynistic killing her, telling her to tell the fans how women belong in the kitchen and can't do anything for themselves. Now he's obviously being the heel here, right? Quote, tell them how you came off my reputation, Cindy, how all women are slime. They have a big argument.

And then you have two men towering over Cindy Lauper and she's trying to keep her cool. And she says, I don't want to get mad. Don't get me mad. And at this point, Piper says that he doesn't care who gets mad. Albano said that she was abroad and she took tremendous umbridge to that and slapped Lou with her purse, rips Roddy's t-shirt and she attacks these two behemoths. David Wolf comes out to pull her off of him. Now, that's a big deal. There's a New York promotion. It's Piper's pit. You're getting

so many eyeballs on this, right? Because Cindy Loper is huge. Now, the next week is June 23rd, Piper goes to Cindy Loperers recording studio to confront her for her behavior and ask her for an apology He does so with a microphone and a cameraman in hand Piper heals it up and at this point She looks to the camera and cuts a promo on albano and Piper Quote, let me tell you something mr. albano. I challenge you. You big fat bag of wind Now at this point Hulk Hogan hasn't been mentioned at all, right? From February through March, champion Hulk Hogan goes to

Japan and wrestles all over there. When he gets back, he has a few heater matches, a heater match is something that will keep you in the public eye, but it's not a huge feud. And they're trying to kind of see what sticks to the fans. He has a short, short feud with Dr. D David Schultz. You might remember him as the guy who slapped the shit out of John Stossel. So I like him. Yeah. He has a few matches with Tiger Chung Lee and Paul Orndorf and Header feud with Big John Stud. This one is the foray into the Piper and Hogan beginning their feud. And then in May Hogan goes back to Japan for about a week where he even teamed up with

Big John stud because they're both Geijin, they're both American wrestlers. And then another trip to Japan in early June. And when he comes back, he's involved in a few battle royals. He puts over Big John stud a few times through those. So okay, to get thrown out during a battle royal, you don't have your title online He wrestled moon dog Rex, but not moon dog spot and yes, I'm serious Meanwhile On July 13th 1984 on MTV there was a panel hosted by VJ Allen Hunter who asked Captain Lu albano Quote why should anyone believe a man who has rubber bands on his face? a panel hosted by Vijay Allen Hunter, who asked Captain Lu Albano, quote,

why should anyone believe a man who has rubber bands on his face? Lu Albano's response because my honesty and my integrity is beyond reproach. And so you've got all this happening. He then goes on to chide Piper, calling Piper's pit, and he being Allen Hunter, calls piper's pit,

quote, a disgrace to professional wrestling and journalism. So piper gets up and comes around the desk and begins to cut a promo. You sit there, 140 pounds, obviously been taken female steroids half your life, you're going to come and insult me. We can do it right here. You skinny little geek and he grabs Hunter by the tie and drags him over the table. Now, behind them, Luel Bano can be seen giving David Wolf a few shots, working punches, while Cindy Lauper jumps over the table to a tack Roddy Piper, which then causes Roddy to flee, quote, get this witch away from me." She picks up a chair and attacks captain Lou with it. All of this work through

this point has been to cross promote WWF and MTV. WWF is still largely a regional promotion trying to become global and MTV was riding the cable wave into households across America. So to have WWF wrestlers on MTV is a big deal from 80 to 84 cable households had risen by 23% of the country up to up to 46% of the country. And MTV was right there with it. And by January of 85, that represented over 32 million subscribers. So WWE is pushing hard, it's main villain. And MTV is all too happy for the programming because originally

they had trouble keeping up with programming, often going to a black screen while they switched VHS cassettes for the videos. And what this brings to mind for me is there was a period of time period of time in my youth between like age nine and age 10, where wrestling was ubiquitous. It was, it was, it had suffused the media landscape. We are getting to that moment. Okay. Getting to that saturation point. Because, because, you know, the idea that are the moment, I guess, where MTV is giving an international cable, you know, satellite to everywhere on the planet kind of platform for this. Yeah, okay. Carry on. Carry on. And there's no whole Kogan at this point still. No, not involved in this at all.

And actually, that's where I'm going to stop it because that's going to get us, that's going to set us up nicely for the brawl to end it all, which spoiler alert doesn't end it all. Well, no, of course not. So yeah, Hogan's kind of disappeared a bit, but don't worry, he's going to come in. And again, he will crank it up to 11. But everyone else can do the work first. Well, I mean, uh, yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. So what have you all gleaned? Okay, as our guests, do you go first? So I'm trying to think about like how do I can explain this? They're the way the this type of like, this is basically an advertisement for the WWF at the time. And it's really supposed to, from my perspective, it's supposed to like set a perception for their audience.

This is what the WWF is about. It's about this, this wildness, this nitty gritty type of like entertainment. Bombast. Bombast, exactly. And it's completely, and it's trying to present itself as like completely different than the past. We are not just, we're not just coming in,

wrestling and then leaving. We are creating this narrative. We are creating this story, but stuff that you won't see. And it's really kind of like reshaping this idea of like the traditional list, the type of mindset in a lot of ways. What this makes me think about is this theory known as cultivation theory, or theation theory hypothesis, which argues that like heavy media users or heavy TV viewers believe in stereotypes that is ultimately distortion stereotypes distortions and a selective view of reality or in other words, heavy viewers of television will be more likely to hold certain types of conceptions of the world consistent with that what they've seen on TV. They're narrowed in the search.

The reason why I'm bringing this up. Yeah. The reason why I'm bringing this up is I'm feeling like this is kind of like the era where after they're seeing this stuff, the audiences are straight in starting to see this stuff. We're starting to see more like backyard brawls and stuff like that. Kids starting to imitate these types of behaviors or certain types of expectations that are starting to emerge a lot more to about like what wrestling is about.

Okay. Yeah, they're starting to develop more of a stereotype towards wrestlers and that type of attitudes, or when does the attitude era begin? 97. So we're still almost 15 years out. Yeah, yeah. But it's starting to be the precursor there.

They're starting to dip their toes. Yeah, the groundwork is definitely being laid. Yeah, what we're seeing also is a nationalizing and therefore a crystallizing of it. So the local flare, the local perceptions and the local prejudices are no longer being reinforced. Now this broader, I'm gonna say cartoon because literally that a cartoon too.

Yeah. Type of wrestling is becoming what's known. When I first started watching wrestling, I had friends who only watched WWF and I was watching AWA. AWA was a wildly different style than WWF. And it was so much more cartoon, so much more over the top, so much more broad-based, so much less violent. And then when I moved to Florida, I was a

W.W.F. fan and I got down there and they were NWA fans. And that was a very different kind of wrestling. And you're seeing this ebbing away at that. Yeah, exactly. And there's a ton of other theories I can bring up, like framing effects and stuff like that. But another big one I thought about is agenda setting. Now agenda setting basically argues that like it mostly focuses on news media. I disagree personally that it's just news media, but it's like any form of media, whether it's you sending a tweet all the way to like television shows, but its media indicates to the public what the main issue is of the day.

And this is reflected in what the public perceives as the main issue. So what we're seeing kind of in a lot of ways is that they're starting to form narratives around various topics like you began with like this feud beginning based around like a lot of sexism but also in the sense of like how Working with music tell MTV in a lot of ways to help promote their Set themselves as well. Yeah, yeah, so we're seeing that mishmash and starting to show like, hey, this type of entertainment is reshaping reality and you want to watch it and and

Also taking in various different types of topical issues. I'm Gonna book sure it. I'm thinking like this is during the time of second wave or third wave feminism Starting to merge as well. This is Second Wave. Second Wave, yeah. Third Wave is not for a while yet. This is right around the time the handmade stale comes out. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. The other thing is real quick, Cindy Lauper is very much a primary colored

caricature of a star. And music videos are themselves K-Fabe. And they're new K-Fabe to people, right? Like there have been stuff that's been discussed, I've heard and read before, where music videos really changed how people took in media because we could cut between things. I understand them still.

And so you could have a reality and a hyper reality. Like I'm thinking of Madonna's Truth or Dare tour, when you watch that documentary, the stuff on stage is in color and the stuff behind the stage is the reality is black and white. Why? Which is damn shame, because that's when she gets naked.

But yeah, you know, it's, but there's like, there's this cutting that happens and, and music videos are inherently K-fabe. And what an easy blend. You've got primary color K-fabe, cartoonish stuff. Hell, half the, the videos work cartoons. I'm looking at you, aha. Yeah. So, you know, you've also got that going on too, which is nice. Yeah. And so, like, they're setting up these agendas, they're setting up like future directions in a lot of ways. And, and it's really for the purpose of like pulling in their audience, building it up. But I also think like in a lot of ways, like Hogan, Hulk, uh, set that whole thing up. But I also think like in a lot of ways, like Hogan Hulk set that whole thing up. He's

kind of that early adopter of this type of narrative structure and use of media to help promote themselves. Yeah. And he's bigger than life. Oh, yes he is. The whole thing about him is that he's bigger than life. You know, so cool. Ed, what have you gleaned? Well, to kind of piggyback on what you're talking about, about, you know, hyper reality and MTV, it's also interesting how MTV changed the medium of popular music. Uh, what immediately comes to mind thinking about that

is Billy Squires career was destroyed. It's by the video, the videothec cut made for his, for his song, Rock Me Tonight. You know, he, he was an amazing guitarist and had a huge fan base and was incredibly popular. And then he had this video that got made where the director was a moron. Like, you know, didn't, didn't understand who he was working with or didn't understand like what it was, you know, he had this, he had this conception of what he wanted to do. And he put Billy Squire through this process of really looking like an idiot

in this video. And it, and it destroyed his career. And so there was now this new layer of reality involved that had to be confronted. Mm-hmm. You know, within that medium and then that bleeds over into the way that like generationally and like the way we encountered music was affected by that.

You know, and so the relationship between that and the way we encountered the rest of the media was changed. I know. And what I keep coming back around to is you wouldn't look at Hulk Owen, Terry what's his face? Bola. Yes, thank you. Cause I, the last, yeah, the last name, I keep for whatever reason, it just doesn't stick. But you wouldn't look at him and think that man is a fucking genius. But clearly he's really goddamn smart. Here's where I would point out that genius is a noun and we should change it back to what it used to be which is he has a genius. That's a good point Um, I also have a genius. And there's very similar genius also has a genius.

And there's very similar geniuses, a stable genius. Very, very, very stable. I say I have a genius, because then you can't get away with shit like that. Yeah, with, with, with, you know, all the best words. Right. Oh, which is, which isn't it. Perfect. It's just like, oh, fuck. God. I would say that they both have a genius,

have a genius. Yeah. Oh, well, well done, sir. Thank you. But, you know, clearly, you know, looking at all of this and looking at the way that Hulk, Hogan, Terry has managed to, has, has surfed his way from wave to wave to wave over the course of all of this and managed to catch things Maybe not at the crest maybe before the crest maybe slightly after but has managed to ride those waves yes consistently and Keep himself in a position of relevance, and in a position of, I mean, like the era that we're in right now is the absolute apex, you know, hottest point of his burning, of his brilliance, his flame is most lambent at this point. And just the way the way that he has managed to maneuver himself into that position, like,

yeah, he has, he has some level of gift. Now, I would figuring that out. I would say the, if that were, if that were only, if that were the only case, I would say if that were only, if that were the only case, I would say, hey, cool. But where we're going to find out in the next few episodes are that he, in fact, rides that wave and then makes sure to pull all the water with him and leave the rest of everybody else literally high and dry.

Okay. He uses that time and again to hurt other people. Okay, sure that he's the only it's when I raised pigs. I saw this happen all the time. There's a feeder that's got two lids. They would both open up. One pig could stand here. One pig could stand here.

They'd lift it up with their stout. And they'd eat one pig would stand here. Lift it up with his snout and then turn his body to block the other one. That's more of what Hogan does. Wow. We'll see how. Okay. All right. Does just for my purposes, does he ever, does he fuck over Vince? Like, man, yes. Thank God. Oh, I'm looking forward to it. Oh, yeah. Like, like, if it's meant to be, it's harmed in any way, I made it all about it. All about it.

Yeah. It's my man. Yeah. That's another recurring theme. Like, you heard it, but it doesn't take. Damn. Yeah. Well, because, because, okay.

So, so Hulk Hogan has a genius for, for, you know, pulling all the water with him as he rides the wave. Vince McMahon is a cockroach. Yes, he cannot be killed. Yeah. Yeah, very true. Very true. So, yeah.

All right. So, what are you recommending for people this week, Therid? What am I recommending for people this week? I don't really have any recommendations this week other than. Yeah, I don't really have any recommendations this week. I got nothing. All right, so I'm going to give you guys a choice. Should we go into conspiracy theories examples or into information warfare warfare? Awesome. Does that fit what we're doing next time? Perfect. Perfect. So it's a great book. It's called Me More Fair or yeah, by John Joan Donovan. It is,

it basically kind of talks about like how the media landscape has shifted in a lot of ways. And how we basic, oh, I'm sorry, hold on. I'm trying to remember the book name. I don't have it on me. Jesus Christ was wrong with me. Well, here I will write it down. Oh yeah, no, me mores. I'm sorry, me mores, not me more fair.

It basically talks about how the use of memes have become more useful in the sense of spreading mis and disinformation, but also talks about really how, what's his name, Steve Bannon. Basically, Cap used what was known as Gamergate to basically help shape Trump's campaign and using information warfare through the use of what we perceive as humorous memes to better like help with that campaign.

Yeah, it's awesome. People up for accepting horrible shit. Yeah, it's a fucking nightmare of a book, but I love it. Okay. Okay. I'm going to recommend that. I was thinking of a book, but I love it. Okay. Okay. I'm going to recommend, I was thinking of a second book at the same time. Oh, do that for the next episode. Go on, I'm sorry.

I'm going to recommend Scott Beakman's ringside, a history of professional wrestling in America. It is, I think, the best comprehensive history of professional wrestling all the way up until the last chapter, last chapter I think is kind of a throwaway and part of the problem is that it's harder to write the history of a thing that's ongoing at that moment. You know, you just don't have enough time to wait. But the first several chapters, all the, all but the last chapter are phenomenal history of professional wrestling. So I strongly recommend that. I recommended it about 200 plus episodes ago, but it's time to re-react. I vaguely remember. Yeah. Yeah. So Ed, do you want to

be found anytime soon? I do not. Okay. I'll go ahead and tell people where to find me. By the time this airs, the July July seventh show is probably already happened in Sacramento of capital punishment. So you're probably going to be looking at the August fourth show of capital punishment in Sacramento at Luna's bring $10 plus merch or plus money for merch. I strongly recommend that you bring a mask because even if it was endemic, which it's not, it's still killing people. So do your part if you can. So yeah, that's where you can find me. Luna's at 8 p.m. on August 4th in Sacramento. Andrew, where can people find you if you want to be found?

Yeah, I want to be found because I crave attention. You can find me at TikTok. I'm not podcasting. No, not at all. You can find me on TikTok at prof.suds or you can follow me on Twitter at prof underscore suds. If you somehow find my Instagram, that's cool too. I think mine is at AD suds.

So thank you. Cool. Well, it is as always a pleasure. And we look forward to having you for the next installment of this when we get to the brawl to end it all. Yeah. And probably several episodes thereafter because this thing just exploded. Oh my God. I'm going to be putting this on my CV so you're just helping me make it longer. Yeah, let's pat that shit. Cool. Well, thanks again for being with us, Andrew Sallow and for Geek history of time, I'm Damien the Weasel Harmony. And I'm Ed a little harmony. And I'm Ed Rumpyface Blalock. Until next time, keep rolling 20s.