A Geek History of Time - Episode 290 - The Fall of the Hitman and the Rise of the Rattlesnake Part I

Episode Date: November 16, 2024

Okay, so there are two possibilities going on here. One, you're bringing up a term that I have never heard before. The other possibility is that this is a term I've heard before, but it involves a language that uses pronunciation that's different from Latin it and so you have no idea how to say it properly. It's an intensely 80s post-apocalyptic schlock film. Oh, and schlong film. You know, it's been over 20 years, but spoilers. Oh, okay. So, so the resident Catholic thinking about that. We're going for low Earth orbit.

There is no rational. Blame it on me after. And you know I will. They mean it is two o'clock in the fucking morning. Where I am. I don't think you can get very much more homosexual panic than that. No. Which I don't know if that's better.

I mean, you guys are Catholics. You tell me. I'm just kind of excited that like you and producer George will have something to talk about That basically just means that I can show up and get fed I'm going to go to the bathroom. This is a Geek History of Time. Where we connect in artery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history teacher up here in Northern California at the middle school level. And my son had his tonsils out at the very beginning of this week and so I have been home with him as he recovers

from that and you don't think about how often your six-year-old child puts himself in a position upside down like like putting his head down and putting his body above his head, until you get told by the doctor specifically not to let him do that, and then you have to ride herd on him all week about, hey buddy, no, none of that, no somersaults, Stop it. You know you can't do that. Knock it off. Yeah. And so it's been a week of that and stuffing them full of ice cream, which has been a lot

more fun. And yeah, we still have a week to go of recovery. And yeah, so that's what I've been going through. How about you? Well, I'm Damian Harmony. I am a US history teacher up here in the Northern California area at the high school level and a little bit back I got my daughter a lock picking kit Okay with one of those clear locks that you can kind of Like that, yeah And for the first like four days she was obsessed with it and just wasn't finding success but she understood the mechanics of it right and

I had a friend who is Well, he's an anarchist who you know Things that locks on dumpsters are really stupid so he learned how to pick them Okay, and so he sent me a manual on how to pick locks for my daughter my my Not quite a teen daughter so

Yeah, okay the whole point of it was largely to give her a newfound respect For the rogue class in D&D. Oh, okay. Yeah, so now she understands. Has she been shitting on rogues? No, but now she understands what lockpicking actually entails and like if someone's good at it, holy fuck. Okay, all right, yeah, well, as I have said before

in earlier editions, the thief class, because a rogue is a description of someone's character. It's not, it's not a profession, but anyway, the, the thief class, uh, you know, seriously, no, take pride in that because if, if that is your class, you are a trained technical professional and, and, and should be proud of that is all I'm saying no matter what guy gags thought about you know city dwellers Yeah, yeah, so cool. Yeah nice so um There's no easy way to ask this um and

I fear that the answer will be 15 minutes in the making. So in 100 words or less, what do you know about American political culture during the second term of Bill Clinton? Oh, wow. Let's see. see It's a period during which we see the overton window shifting dramatically rightward It's when the Democratic party really Really dove in on neoliberalism In order to try to steal the center away from republicans and successfully done so in 92

Yeah, yeah and and solidified that. I would say, um, which, which then shifted everybody who was left in, in conservatism toward batfuckery, uh, crazy. Um, I think this is the period of the contract with America, which we've talked about any number of times I don't remember that was here in his first term, but I'm remembering it being in the second term This is okay. All right. This is the height of Rush Limbaugh's Ascendance in the landscape.

So you are out of words. So let me ask you this. If you were to describe it in one word, one adjective to describe Republican political efforts, what would you use? What would you use? Mm. Revanches. Okay, fair enough. That will help a lot in the next several episodes to come.

Okay. I hope I'm using the term revanchist right, because that's the... Yes. Yeah. All right. Yes, yeah, all right. You are. So I need to kind of rewind it a little bit, but largely I'm going to be focusing on the second half of 96, so leading into the election proper,

through the spring and just a little after the spring starts of 97. So I'm actually focusing on a very narrow slice Yeah of everything Okay, but it's not gonna feel that way because I'm going to do it in the Damian way. Yeah. Well because this this means that Rather than a mile wide and an inch deep, it's an inch wide and to the Earth's core. Yes, yes, we are going to be getting samples.

Yeah. So we're going to rewind it to March 31st of 1996. So barely spring of 96. A boyhood dream came true. Okay. Shawn Michaels beat Bret Hart in an Iron Man match at the main event of WrestleMania 12. All right, nice, nice. It was a 60 minute most falls wins match.

And so for 60 minutes, these two men battled, they withstood, they contended, they struggled, they strived, they toiled, and they fought for the WWF at the time title. I will be saying WWF for the most part because- Historically speaking, that's what it was. WWF is not a thing yet. 2002. Okay. So actually it was a pretty fucking boring match to be honest, despite it being my absolutely

two favorite stars of all time. Like when I started wrestling, Shawn Michaels was in the AWA, which was a Midwestern territory, and he was part of the Midnight Rockers with Marty Gennetti. Right. You've talked about this before. And I also, like months later, I started watching the WWF, which was a Northern territory, but it was kind of becoming more national. I also, like, months later, I started watching the WWF, which was a Northern territory, but it was kind of becoming more national. And they had a wrestler part of a tag team called the Heart Foundation.

His name was Brett the Hitman Heart. What's funny about both of those tag teams was that despite these two guys being my absolute favorites of all time, I genuinely liked their partners better on each team. I was a huge Marty Gennetti stan. I was a huge Jim Ne'anvil Nightheart stan. That's funny. Picking losers from day one. Missing the play since the game started. But I love both of these guys. They were are two different things. They were both tag team guys I love tag teams more than I actually liked

one-on-ones But this match so so this match is 14 years no 12 years after I started watching wrestling Give or take and okay, and I I mean, it's March of 96. So it's my senior year of high school. I've kind of fallen away from wrestling as people do in high school. And I kind of am glad that I missed this match

because it was dull. It was a lot of headlocks, a lot of slow grinding struggles. Frankly, of all the Ironman matches that I've seen, this was probably the most disappointing, to be perfectly honest. There have been others that I haven't seen that they were probably better too.

Quite honestly, I'd say this is at the lowest. Several of the Ironman matches either involved Sean or Brett, by the way. In fact, from January of 1993 through August of 94 Brett was involved in five of them of which he won all of them. This match told a hell of a story but it was really boring. The thing about an Iron Man match is that the time limit becomes a player in the match. And so you then get into the strategy and psychology of what the first fall is going to mean to the match.

How much energy do you expend to avoid it or to get it, et cetera? And that could be a cool story. Because that means you've got build-up, you've got shine, you've got all kinds of things. And most of the Ironman matches in the WWF at that time to that point Had been matches that went two to one or three to two Okay, okay, and you can imagine at the end. That's when the tiebreaker is gonna happen, right? Right, right Yeah, only one of them went into overtime and it has two and two it was two to two by the one hour mark

So that means on average you had about 15 minutes per fall, right? There'd be okay for one and then there'd be two rapid successful falls, right? Yeah, but that means then every 15 minutes you've got on average a rhythm going of build up shine heat Etc. Etc. You can really tell a good story in a 15 minute match. Yeah. You could tell a really good story in a seven minute match, to be perfectly honest. But these guys told a long protracted story that was dull.

The one for Mania may have been good for the story of them being so evenly matched. And I actually do agree with that. But it's one of those issues of, wow, that was really well acted, but terribly directed. You know, like... Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Somebody puts everything they have into a bit character

off to the side, and you completely get mesmerized by that guy on stage instead of actually the people who are, you know, the stars. Yeah. So, Brett? Yeah. The, the, it's really important in direction and in rehearsal to pay attention to anything that might steal focus. Right. So, but, but this, I mean the focus is obviously on these two guys so we're not worried there. Yeah. But how are they telling the story of how evenly matched they are?

Brett had better technique, Sean had better speed. Brett had confidence, Sean had determination. Brett had experience, Sean had youth. And yet it was really fucking boring. But over that one hour boring fest, a story began to emerge, and both of these guys were faces at the time. They're both baby faces Now the last time that WWF had had two baby faces in the main event was WrestleMania 6

Okay, Shawn had recently turned baby face he turned baby face in May of 95 When he wrestled King Kong Bundy whom I I'm sure you know, forever heel, to a raucous applause in a King of the Ring qualifying match. After he and Diesel, also known as Kevin Nash, had split, he had wrestled Diesel in WrestleMania 11, so in March of 95. But he had been a heel. Diesel was the face, Sean wrestled as the heel. Then shortly after Mania,

Sean ends up wrestling against King Kong Bundy. He gets established as a face. Sean had disappeared actually for about a month after Mania 11, so when he came back, his fans, the fans missed him. He's an incredible performer even then um and he was wrestling the human Shamu who was always a bad guy And of course this set him up for a babyface turn in that he would keep until September of 97 now That's gonna be outside of the scope of Of what I'm talking about. Yeah. Now, Brett had been a babyface since 1988.

And when he was at WrestleMania four, there was a 20 man battle royal in in the opening match. And he and Bad News Brown, Bad News Allen to basically everywhere but the WWF. But Bad News Brown, he and Bad News Brown finished the match finished the the battle royal together and Since they were both bad guys. They both looked at each other and they're like no, you know what? Let's just split the person, you know, and so they were you know mugging to the fans like hey, we won we won and then Bad News

Brown immediately betrays him and Brett comes back in and Destroys bad news Brown's trophy and all this and this makes my face and he's been a face ever since then Okay, okay So Shawn Michaels who still came to the ring doing a lot of what he had done as a heel that is the stripper moves Wearing leather daddy hats He He really wasaring leather daddy hats he He really was wearing leather daddy hats With like hearts that have been broken in mirror form

But he was a baby face that the fans really really liked and Brett on the other hand Still in the pink and black attack. He would come to the ring with no nonsense Black Attack, he would come to the ring with no nonsense. Sergeant Pepper-style jackets that were leather, with like epaulettes on them. Pink sunglasses that he would give away to kids at ringside. And he was a babyface that everybody really liked. So you have two guys that everybody really likes

and everybody acknowledges these guys are at the top of their game. These guys are amazing athletes. These guys are tremendous wrestlers. And like I said, the last time they had done a face versus face like this, it was a very different look. It was Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior. You couldn't get more steroid-y if you tried, right?

Yeah. Thinking about the way those two look and, and the steroids reminds me of, uh, standup comedy routine about, uh, Barry Bonds. I think it was Barry Bonds spontaneously turning into a cheeseburger in the middle of the baseball field. But yeah, like you'd expect the same thing to happen to one or both of those gentlemen. Yeah. They, they were, they were huge.

That is not a natural body right. Right. Yeah. But, and, and they were, you know, like six, three and above, right. Whereas I think Sean, it was five 11 and I think Brett was six one six two. So the story was clear. Okay. And the match was dull, but at the end of the match, it's counting down. Brett has Sean in the sharpshooter, which many actually know as the scorpion deathlock or the Sasori gatame. And it's basically your back is to your opponent's head. You've crossed their legs in front of yours, and you're basically causing strain on a knee.

Oh, yes. Okay. And there's ways to lock it in and make it look like you're really wrenching that fucker and yeah you've done no more. You're not really. Yeah. It's a move that genuinely hurts though. Like a lot of these moves really do hurt if you actually apply any pressure. The figure four will break your knee in a second. Yeah, so The timer is counting down the audience is getting excited Brett finally has Sean it's kind of like Brett was waking Waiting for Sean to make a mistake the whole time and he was playing defense the whole time playing the smart Because he had something called the champions advantage Right right right right your job to beat me not my job to beat you I can just hang out here right

All I gotta do is not lose. I don't have to actually win I have to just not lose yeah, and you have to beat me by pinfall or submission You cannot beat me by disqualification or count out for it to count so The timer runs down Brett has Sean in that move. It's again, incredibly well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, do, I just happen to be bored by it. But. The result is that timer counts down to six down from 60 zero. The bell rings. Brett gets up, leaves with the championship.

However. The idea of the getting no falls was never something that was established by then kayfabe president of the WWF guerrilla monsoon who then comes walking out of the ring or out to the ring as Bret's going back okay so Bret's like cool rules of the match I win I was excellent excellence of execution here we go. Yeah Brett had every right to think that the match was over In and Sean didn't give up But that's because the bell rang at the one-hour mark if if he had been in there for 15 more seconds He would have given up because everybody gives up to the sharpshooter. Nobody gets out of the sharpshooter

Sean didn't give up Brett grabs the title, walking to the back of the locker room, and then Howard Finkel announces that the 60 minute time limit has expired. However, this match has been ordered to continue under sudden death rules. There must be a winner. Now the camera's on Brett and the camera's on the ring. Was was this another are we gonna be talking about another screw job we're not Cuz that that sounds to me like the beginnings at the very least the beginnings of a screw job

Oh, yeah, yeah And I mentioned the two guys that are involved in the Montreal screw job and this has nothing to do with that I mean this has everything to do with that, I mean, this has everything to do with that, but this also is not the point of it. It is not, okay, all right. So Brett shouts back to the ring, it was 60 minutes. He is incredulous and he's a little aggrieved here. And then he says, fuck,

and heads back to the ring shouting why. And they're like, there has to be a winner. And so he gets back in the ring and he argues with Gorilla monsoon a little bit more and all of this gives Sean more time to recover When the bell rings and says you got to start the match again Brett goes right after Sean some more goes after his back He seems reluctant, but also decisive fine. You're making me do this I'm gonna look at this quick. All right On the back this done exactly starts fucking up Sean's leg again

He doesn't want to do it. But okay, let's end it quick during the next three minutes Sean Michaels picks a few spots to get a mover to in To buy himself some space and some time to recover and since he's the more explosive of the two He gets off his finisher sweet chin music music Which nobody got that got up from back then but he didn't get it all He didn't catch Brett flush on the chin. He merely like grazes him now. It's a powerful kick, of course You know, Brett goes down. Yeah, and it's a two count Brett gets up Sean gets another one in, pins Brett, middle of the ring. That's it.

Sean's boyhood dream has come true. Brett walks out visibly dejected. He goes and sits down in the locker room and he mourns his loss. The cameramen follow him and he's pissed and he just he and he then tells him, guys, just get out of here get out of here And they don't do it right away, so he continues to shout and walk toward the cameraman now at this point I'm going to show you the video of this Did you notice how he left the venue

Got into a car and peeled out on his way out right, but what clothes was he wearing? He was still in his tights. He was still yeah. Yeah, he didn't shower. He didn't do anything He just he just left up and left right just got out like right. Yeah, so He told the cameraman to you guys fuck off for a while as he's getting in the car, right? Yeah, and there was and there was commentary off for a while as he's getting in the car. Right. Yeah. And there was and there was commentary. There was commentary from from ringside. Yep. Was that was that Gene O'Curlin at that point? No, that would have been Vince. And if there's somebody who's being like, oh, I'm glad he lost, blah, blah, blah. That would have been Jerry Lawler. No. Vince McMahon and Jim Ross.

OK. So the Southern voice is Jim Ross. Yeah, Jim Ross Made a remark about you know, the media Some about the media being parasites, which I'm like there you're fucking cameraman. Yeah, like okay, babe Anyway, so yeah total kayfabe. Yeah. Yeah, he, the thing is, if that was a kayfabe reaction on his part, he's a really goddamn good actor. That was a kayfabe reaction. This was all orchestrated. This was part of the angle.

He left like this. And by the way, the fact that he left like this actually played the boys. They didn't know. Oh, really? Yes. He was working the boys. Yeah Wow Yeah

So the next week in bonn germany on the banks of the rhein river He got interviewed by the wwf crew and he said the following so i'm just gonna give you the quote because otherwise it's gonna be the audience Hearing me pause it and hit play again and we're're talking about a thing they never heard, right? Yeah, right. And this is verbatim. I think I might have left out a few things here and there, but... Okay. Okay, so Brett was visibly pissed, you would agree? Oh, yeah.

Okay. And Sean, by the way, is crying in the ring, because it's his boyhood dream to have won the title, and this is the first time he won the title and it took 60 minutes and all the emotion Yeah Here's quoting Brett. There's a lot of things that were wrong about that match the match itself wasn't beneficial to me, but that's fine I accepted that and I still accept that the fact that if it was going to be an hour An hour 60 minute Ironman match. Well, it wasn't a 60 minute Ironman match. It was a 62 minute Ironman match.

And if there was going to be overtime or sudden death or anything of that nature, why did they ring the bell in the first place? They should have just I wait and I wait and I wait. And I promise myself that I'm going to wait until this guy makes his one big mistake. And he does. He makes it at the 59 minute mark he Gets careless just like I always I know this guy and he's gonna get careless and he makes that mistake and it's almost like They have the nerve to come up after I've beaten him. He didn't give up But don't tell me no one can convince me that he wasn't history

He was done. He was finished in the middle of the ring There was no ropes. There wasn't anyone who was gonna save him There's no way he's gonna kick out or kick me in the face or anything. He was a beaten man He knows it and I know it they ring the bell and it's not my job to beat Shawn Michaels I've said that from the very very beginning. It's my job to keep the title It's his job to beat me and he never did in the 60 minute Ironman match. I walked out of that ring I should have kept going back to the dressing room it's that delay that little delay there of about two or three minutes of getting the match restarted and

Kind of getting my blood boiling and that's where I made my big mistake now. I'm just gonna break in here real quick Nothing that he has said here is without merit. He's got very good points all around and that's why Brett is an amazing wrestler He in this promo put over Shawn Michaels. He put over himself and he was gracious after all of his very legit complaints He even said that's where I made my big mistake. He speaks like an honorable champion Okay, now he goes on in the interview Quote I could never ever see working for another organization because I think it would be a step down But I'd like to make it very well understood that I'm not somebody that's greedy for money I'm a person that's greedy for respect and the only place I'm ever gonna get respect is in the World Wrestling Federation.

I think there's a certain part of me that has less and less yearning to even come back to it. I feel a little betrayed. As always, seems like every time I lose that damn title, I'm a little betrayed. But yeah, I'd like a title shot first thing tomorrow morning. You wake me up at five in the morning, and so you can see that there's grievance here

There's a feeling of not getting respect that he thinks he's due. There's a ton of legitimate points that he has But there's also a slight edge to his plaintiveness Yeah Well, he he's he's been wronged. He has And at the same time he knew what he was getting into right has and at the same time he knew what he was getting into. Right. This episode isn't actually about Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart. That'll be a whole other episode someday down the road. And this episode isn't even about any kind of a screw job.

OK. This episode is about the ascendancy of a wrestler heretofore unmentioned. The ascendancy of the rattlesnake stone cold Steve Austin and the fall of Brett the Hitman Hart. The title of this podcast will be the rise of the rattlesnake and the fall of the hitman, a harbinger of the Brooks Brothers riots and the Bush presidency. Or Brett Hart versus Stone Cold, how grievance politics made wrestling's hottest draw. All right. Still playing with it.

Yeah. So I've gotten you up to date to April of 1996. Yes. Okay. So there's your prologue. Now, back in the mid-90s, it was a pretty common thing to do a European tour right after WrestleMania. Some of this is a holdover from the fact that domestically wrestling was not doing well. Remember it was 95. The economy's it's it's the

most trailing of indicators for some reason that in comic books. Yeah, yeah. Comics weren't doing well, right? Everybody was about to go bankrupt. Yeah, or was going bankrupt, right? Depending on who we're talking about. Yeah. Yeah now It was common to do the European tour because that's where they made money actually now Brett was a huge draw overseas He he always had been And so he was on that tour and he wrestled Steve Austin four times in Europe in April of 96 Once at the very beginning of that tour And he wrestled Steve Austin four times in Europe in April of 96.

Once at the very beginning of that tour, once at the very end and twice in between. He also wrestled Hunter Hearst Helmsley, now known as Triple H. Triple H, yeah. Twice. He wrestled his brother Owen five times because they had ongoing feuds that people had been, you know, very much enjoyed because they had incredible matches. And he wrestled his brother-in-law, British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith who is a European? darling because he's from

England the UK yeah and Brett had an incredible match with him in 92 Okay, so it's his brother-in-law. Mm-hmm. Just because I'm idly curious was the Bulldog married to Brett sister Brett sister. Yeah, or Diana. Yeah, okay. Yeah one of one of the 12 sibs one of the yeah Wow, I know So he won every single match which is not really a surprise Hunter was still in the mid card But coming up so testing him against the proven talent would give him a chance to sharpen himself.

Yeah. Owen and Davey were both heels at the time. And Brett had a history of wrestling, both of them specifically in Europe. So those were known money making matches. Steve was somebody that Brett had specifically told Vince that he

would love to wrestle because he thought that they could have great matches together. And he said that when Steve was known as stunning Steve Austin in the WCW, he said, try to get that guy. Okay. Um, and so he's like, yeah, I want to wrestle him on the European tour. Okay. Yeah, absolutely.

You, you, you are one of our top draws. What would you like to do? You know, you're going to make money for us. Yeah. Because we do pretty much whatever our first-class passengers ask for right? Yeah, and this was a message to Austin as well that he was well thought of by top talent And so Steve Austin was able to prove his capabilities being in the ring with Brett and being able to hang with Brett And again Brett was crazy over in Europe.

He had been for years. Now, also on that tour was Shawn Michaels, and he was wrestling as the champion, but he never actually wrestled Brett. And the idea was, we're not going to let these two get in the ring together until next year, because we're going to build to a rematch. Brett left in a huff he's gonna be off TV for a while etc okay but we don't even want

European fans seeing them wrestle each other okay okay and so now you you mentioned that he had been he had been jobbing, uh, even, even the other talent. He had been putting this over on everybody else in the organization. That is, is no, no, no. Brett one against everybody. Oh, okay. Yeah. He, he won against me because again, Europe absolutely wants.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I mean the overarching plan that they had to work up to a rematch was something that even the other talent in the organization Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, he was working Yes, yeah, he's working the other talent He just he wanted them to think that there was legit frustration between the two of them Okay, because then when they talked to their family they talked to their friends like it becomes a stronger Okay, stronger storyline overall.

At this time, Brett and Owen hardly ever spoke in public and hardly ever hung out at each other's houses because they were protecting the business. They were kayfabing. They would see each other at Christmas at their dad's house, basically, and stuff like that. There were stories of the two of them being in line to get their luggage at like the luggage

Tram, you know, yeah and like they would be like so in rest in in the wrestling ring They would find ways to talk to each other not these two brothers But just wrestlers would find ways to talk to each other without moving their lips, right? Yeah They talked like that to each other You know like you know doing pretty good. How are you kids? Oh, they're good. And they did this and, and then one woman one day caught them talking to each other and she's like, I knew it. You guys are fine.

Like it was, you know, it keeps coming up when we talk about this but The the talent who do this don't get enough even even amongst wrestling fans I don't think they get enough credit now for the the level of commitment that's required to do this Like Jesus okay, okay? so to do this. Like, Jesus. OK. So, you know, the reason that Brett had done all that work after the Ironman match was

to set that up down the road, not even right now, because he was going to do the European tour and then he was going home. OK. So on TV, it just looks like Brett just went home. He went to Europe to do some publicity. They got some interviews, and then he went home and that's why he did this interview. So it makes it seem like he's pissed off and he's frustrated

and he's gonna go home and sort some things out. Yeah and possibly he's out. We don't know. Right. So you know really he sets up for when he comes back. Yeah, I Find the the bit about you know I can't ever work for another organization, but I really just don't know right is is Well cuz remember WCW was buying up top talent at oh, yeah Yeah, and and there was a question as to who was going next you know yeah Cuz that's a lovely way to throw shade, too Because also on this European tour the last guys that that Sean worked with on the European tour were Kevin Nash and Scott Hall

Who then I mean that's March right yeah, then there I think they're I? Think it's late April that Scott Hall shows up on WCW Nitro. Wow. All right. Yeah. Damn. So There you go. Yeah in in March of 1996 Steve Austin had shaved his head He grew goatee and he started wrestling a more aggressive nastier heel style he knew that the ringmaster gimmick that he'd been saddled with wasn't working for him and He knew that the ringmaster gimmick that he'd been saddled with wasn't working for him And and the ringmaster was like he's this technician who can out technical wrestle anybody and blah blah blah And it just wasn't it wasn't clicking

Okay, um And he began a program with a guy named sabio vega sabio vegas a puerto reagan wrestler. He is one of those undersung heroes of just Makes everybody look dynamite And gets over pretty well himself So he starts wrestling against Savio Vega with his new gimmick stone-cold Steve Austin The reason he gets this name is because He talked events about like I need to be able to do this thing instead And here's this idea of a character that I've got.

And Vince was like, okay, run with it. What are you gonna call him? He says, I'll get back to you with names. And they gave him a whole sheet full of names, a very famous story. One of the names they gave him, like they gave him a list of names. It's almost like Jerry Dorsey picking Engelbert Humperdinck.

One of the names they gave him as an idea was Frosty McFreeze. Wow. Yeah. But just, just, just throwing everything at the wall there. Yeah. But Austin, he, he was watching a documentary on a psychopathic killer. I forget whose name it was. Um, but, uh, okay but he was watching a documentary him he's like I could do that I could be this like cold-blooded motherfucker and then his wife brings him some tea and tells him hey drink your

tea before it gets stone-cold boom there we go yep anyway by the way I'm sorry Steve Austin drinks tea his wife was British Okay, yeah, I think she was his second wife so okay. Yeah, yeah but yes Like I shouldn't be surprised but okay, I'm so give me something that'll gray hot but uh So I would love cuz Captain Picard's bald too I would love to see Stone Cold in the in the red with the pips and just be like You know going off on the Ferengi son. There are four lights

I'll stomp a moth hole in your ass. You tell me there are five lights again You know, but so Savio Vega was his Puerto Rican wrestler who was a hell of a hand, right? He makes everybody look good, very good at getting a shine on him. Austin's program with Vega got more and more violent and nasty. They kept not wrestling to a conclusion. Their first match goes to a double countout, but they don't stop fighting. They continued fighting after the bell outside of the ring like it's starting to move for him, right? Now this was the first match of theirs toward their program that would include a match that didn't

That would include a match at WrestleMania 12 actually where the Iron Man match was Austin defeated Savio Vega on that same card Okay, so Austin wins, Brett loses. Nobody thinks anything of it, and that doesn't end their feud. And Savio and Steve would wrestle at multiple pay reviews after that.

There were other matches where Austin's viciousness was highlighted, kicking the shit out of Bart Gunn on Raw, signaling Austin's new nastiness, his new stone cold psychopathy. Steve Austin showed up just to interfere with Savio Vega's match against Goldust

for the Intercontinental Championship. So now I don't just want to beat your ass, I want to make your life hard. Savio got sent to the ropes by Goldust and Goldust's valet Marlena was distracting the referee on the other side. And Austin waffled Savio Vega, cost him the match and the chance at the title. Now, why would you do that other than to make this personal?

Which of course means another match. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in late April of 96, Austin's still wrestling, right? So Vega and Austin had a dark match after the pay-per-view went off the air, where Vega won. So the audience there saw Vega beat Steve Austin, but the TV audience did not. And I think this is kind of some clever booking.

Because you can show clips from that match without talking about the results, and you can keep the interest going, and the TV audience, you know is none the wiser and Then the next night Savio Vega came out on raw to do guest commentary during Austin's match against Scott Taylor Now guest commentary is always a chance to fight right? Yeah, so during the commentary Vega challenged Austin to a Caribbean strap match not to be confused with a Yavapai Indian

strap match, not to be confused with all the other fucking strap matches. It's the same idea. Right. Yeah. It's the same concept. Yeah. And he talked about how much he wants to whip Steve's ass and whip Steve Austin with this strap at May's pay-per-view.

So Savio gets up on the mic and after the match to challenge Austin, Austin said no, turned his back to leave and then Vega used. So yeah, this is a guy who's a bad guy. He's a heel. Right. Yeah. Yeah. He's nasty when he's got advantage. Otherwise, no. And I'm going to make sure I give you not what you want right so Vega then takes the strap to whip Austin as they go to commercial and Shit, there's no way to fake getting hit with a strap when all you're wearing are trunks. Yeah, no kidding Holy cow now when they got back from commercial there was a video package where Ted DiBiase still Steve Austin's manager at this time There was a video package where Ted DiBiase, still Steve Austin's manager at this time, and Steve Austin accepted the match, but that if Vega loses, he's going to have to be DiBiase's new

manservant, his new Virgil. Okay. Okay. We accept, but here's a stipulation. Now, Austin then goes on to wrestle Mark Mero, and he continues his nastiness. There's lots of holds and lots of moves He's still very technical wrestler at this time, but at the same time. He's starting to do a little bit more kicking and punching Right and his moves that he does seem to be more designed to inflict pain instead of get leveraged to move to the next move Okay, so he's wrestling a heel style. He's shifting. So it's dirty. Yeah, it's dirty without breaking rules most of the time too, which I love. Yeah. Steve Regal was masterful at this.

I think he's called William Regal in the WWF when he comes over. But he would break the rules without ever breaking the rules like You know you're locked up and you're doing the test of strength thing and he would put his foot in the crook of your heat In the crook of your knee to make your knee bend and then he would have leverage on you and he would be winning the test of strength Now he's kind of cheating the test of strength, but it's not against the rules

Yeah, and he would regal would wrestle entire matches that way he would set that as a challenge for himself oh wow really yeah just be as as sus without going over the edge as he possibly could exactly how do i get the crowd to think that i'm a cheater without ever actually breaking the rules um he would do that on the regular uh it's kind of like when i'm on my pun tournament and like the topic of anatomy might come up or something and I'm like I'm only gonna work on the organs or Right. Yeah, I'm gonna start from the toes and work my way up to the shoulders, you know, like just by mentioning joints You know stuff like that and in order, you know

So anyway, Austin is doing shit like that and he's really big on using elbows on people Which is the hardest part of your body, right? So yeah grinding it in there, which is not illegal No, but it's nasty but a dick move. Yes Okay, so He's doing a lot more kicking and punching when Austin was ready to go for the win Vega came out and whipped him again Costing Marc Mero the match Okay, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, this leads to the

late May pay-per-view the Caribbean strap match during which so a Caribbean stat match is any strap match is Touch all four corners of the ring in sequence without being stopped by your opponent. Okay. Obviously it's helpful if they're helpless. Yeah. And by the way, you can use the mat, the strap, any which way you want, which of course means whipping the shit out of each other. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that sound will carry and the welts will show

um yeah oh it's it's amazing theater uh-huh it's you can't fake that like there there have been guests behind uh the scenes who like after somebody comes back from being whipped with a belt they're like oh my god who does the makeup around here and they're like those are real welts Like oh my god, who does the makeup around here and they're like those are real welts How long you gonna recover oh I've got a show to do tomorrow like So The problem with this match was that the power went out right at the beginning of their match There had been like a hurricane nearby Okay power so they had the match anyway.

Hardly anyone literally saw it. And then the next night they continued the pay-per-view and had to have the strap match again. Oh shit, really? With two nights in a row, Savio Vega and Steve Austin had to beat the shit out of each other with a leather strap. She many Christmas. Yeah. Now this match had an added stipulation that if Savio Vega won

He like I said Ted D. Oh, so if Austin won Vega would have to become DBS his man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Dbossy had to leave the WWF. Whoa. Yeah. So short version is this, Austin was especially nasty with the strap, as one gets. He wrapped it around Savio Vega's neck and dragged him all over,

touching the different turnbuckles, but couldn't quite finish the sequence. Savio Vega also got to the point of having touched all three, and then Austin waffles him again, and he falls back into the fourth. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, that's a really good finish, right? Because Austin looks strong, even though he gets beat. Yeah. And this is important because it's the beginning of a pattern. Austin was beaten, but he was not beaten. Okay.

He lost, but he didn't lose due to physicality. Right. The rules just didn't work out in his favor. Also, Ted DiBiase was leaving the WWF. This is how you take care of that, right? This is the narrative you use to explain that. The other thing is Austin had gone to Vince and he's like, look, I can talk for myself.

Having me have a manager is hamstringing me. I don't have much else Ted wants to leave anyway, and so this is how Austin Got to be alone which was good for Austin because Stone Cold didn't really work with having a mouthpiece for a manager It's it's really wild But back then Vince didn't actually know what a mouth Austin had on him. And I don't think he ever actually saw Steve Austin's ECW promos. And in an interview the next week, Steve Austin spins the defeat as his own machinations to finally get his independence from Ted DiBiase. So even in losing, he's really winning. Wow.

Right. Now, we're now in June of 1996, and a very, very important month. Okay, so this is the King of the Ring Tournament. Now this was supposed to be the coming out party for Hunter Hearst Helmsley, who was playing a blue blood, he'd come out to like classical music. He had a ballet His tights looked like writing writing crops

You mean he was like They they evoke the idea of shod pours. You mean writing writing no more like, you know the padding on the inside Okay. Yeah looks really hot on certain bodies. Yeah His his tights were that okay? But they were still spandex um, but he was supposed to win it but because of the Madison Square Garden curtain call incident Now this was a few months earlier when it was the last match that

Kevin Nash and Scott Hall would have televised in the WWF. They'd still do the European tour. Yeah. But it was their last match. And let's see, Razor Ramon and Diesel. Right. So Razor Ramon is Scott Hall.

Right. He, Razor Ramon, and Hunter Hearst Helmsley had a match. Now Razor Ramon was a face and Helmsley was a heel. And Shawn Michaels and Diesel had a match, a cage match actually. Okay. Michaels was a face and now Diesel was a heel Okay. Um, now this is shortly after Michaels has won the title, right? Right, right. Okay, so So, um At the end of Michaels's and Diesel's match Razor Ramon came back to the ring and so did Hunter Hearst Helmsley and the four men hugged it out in the middle to the ring and so did Hunter Hearst Helmsley.

And the four men hugged it out in the middle of the ring. They were besties behind the scenes and all four broke kayfabe to say goodbye on the WWF's grandest stage of them all in terms of venues. They were at Madison Square Garden. Right, right, yeah. Yeah, home court. Yeah. Yeah razor and diesel Yeah, the razor and diesel were hauling ash and they were going to WCW in the next couple weeks

The fifth member of their group called the click KL IQ Because it was the 90s, right was Sean Waltman also known at the time in WWF as the one two three kid or simply the kid He later goes on to become six and then comes back as X-Pac. Okay. Yeah. All right. He's an amazing wrestler, by the way. But he was in rehab at the time, so he didn't actually get to be part of this. And he would actually come back from rehab and be like, WWF, you guys got nothing for me creatively. And they're like, no. He's like, I'm gonna get my release then. Cool. And they're like, yeah, go. Go to WCW.

And so he joined Hall and Nash down there. Okay. So to Vince, it looks like he's just losing talent, losing talent, losing talent. But because of the curtain call incident, which Vince knew about, but we have actual footage of it because people had snuck cameras into Madison Square Garden,

and then it got into the dirt sheets, and it got into kind of the underground magazines and stuff like that Yeah, that was a an embarrassment to the the profession etc etc. They broke a fabe Okay, well Vince can't punish Shawn Michaels. He's the champion right he can't punish Holland Nash. They're gone. He's so much Helmsley. Right. So Hunter Hearst Helmsley gets dropped down the card

card, doesn't get to win the King of the Ring tournament, ends up in pig slot matches for the next three or four months. Wow. And actually, interestingly enough, this is what gains his respect by most of the guys in the back because he took it without complaining. Took his licks. Yeah.

Now, it wouldn't be until he had a series of matches against Mankind that he would get another push the following year. But back to Steve Austin. So in an interview with Mr. Perfect, who has come back to be a commentator and he's getting ready to wrestle against Triple H in a feud. OK. Steve Austin,

this is the same interview, actually, where Austin points out that his loss to Vega was his way of getting rid of DiBiase, Steve Austin said, quote, I've been held back for years and years and years. This is a chance of a lifetime. If you think I'm gonna drop the ball, you've got another thing coming. He's speaking about his chances of the King of the Ring. Now the 1996 King of the Ring, which was originally a tournament that Bret Hart had won years prior, was supposed to be used to elevate the next big push to show the audience that a wrestler had what it took to get pushed to the main event. And Austin was the one who now got pushed to to win it because Triple H was taking his punishment. No curtain call.

So if no curtain call then we might not have gotten. Okay. Whoa. Oh and there's a lot more things that happened because of this too, okay, so His first match because you have qualifying matches, which is great because you can add to the drama his first match is against Sparky plug Bob Hawley Okay, because they were still transitioning from everybody has an occupation Okay, because they were still transitioning from everybody has an occupation

Right now and and Bob Holly was a NASCAR racer who turned wrestler was the gimmick So he had a match against Bob Holly Austin spent a lot of time targeting Holly's leg Which is standard psychology leg, which is standard psychology, but he did it nastily. And then he sucker punches Bob Holly, throwing him out of the ring and then gestures for Holly to get back up after kicking him down. Like kicks him, kicks him and come on, get up.

Really vicious heel shit. And at this point, Austin was still using Ted DiBiase's million dollar dream sleeper hold, which was actually just the Cobra clutch that Sergeant Soder had used. In the next round, Austin fought against, you guessed it, Savio Vega. Because of course he did. Right. For a spot in the semi-finals, which would then, the semi-finals would occur on pay-per-view.

Austin rushed him, being incredibly vicious about it, but Vega used more wrestling skill to stop Austin. Austin ended up outside of the ring where he suckered Vega into being dragged out and again focused on a leg. And he's really targeting body parts in 1996. Now this is good psychology, but also this is a way of showing nastiness and just like persistence and and right right I injured you and now I'm gonna focus on that Part I want to hurt you Now which goes all the way back to the very first ever screw job. Yes work a leg. Yeah Now interestingly at that time, there's a guy named Brian Pillman who?

Was old friends with Steve Austin, which would come into play soon, but he was advertised as signing up with the WWF. His whole story is fucking wild, maybe someday. But during Austin's match with Vega, Austin showed that he was willing to use his own hurt leg to continue to damage Vega because he hurt his leg too and it doesn't matter because I'm going to cause you more pain which establishes toughness. It establishes that he's willing to endure a lot of suffering to get beat up or to

get to beat up his opponent and it's during this match that we first saw the stone cold stunner in the middle of the ring as a retaliation counter move to Sabio Vega's attempt to get a chin lock on Austin. Okay. So now the secret to having a good finisher is one that you can use on anybody. Right. Grabbing somebody and falling to your butt on the on the mat Absolutely works on everybody Okay. Yeah, okay the mandible claw by by by mankind right where you like what's his yeah his fingers in your mouth and Does a nerve pinch? Perfect you can use that on anybody right the sharpshooter

You can use on anybody Brett had to find that out though shooter you can use on anybody. Brett had to find that out though, because he was wrestling Yokozuna and he asked him, he's like, Hey, let me put this on you and see if it works in the locker room. Cause if I can't get you in this, we have to do a whole different match. So it turns out it worked on him too. Nice. Switch in music works on anybody. The leg drop works on anybody.

A sleeper hold could work on anybody right right But like a gorilla press slam You'd better be really fucking song strong. Yeah, right. Yeah, okay, so it's June of June 23rd 1996 Steve Austin has a quarterfinal match against Marc Mero again. Who's made it to the quarterfinals. Okay. During this match Mark Marrow kicks him in the lip and puts a little too much mustard on the kick and legit splits his top lip open. Okay. And so real blood. Yes. And they finish the match and Austin actually has to go to the hospital for stitches before returning to wrestle in the next match. Oh wow. Right in the final

match of the tournament. Now, the tournament is, you know, semifinals, right? So this match, then the championship, and then, you know, or this match, then the finals, right? Right. So on the other side of the card, on the other side of the bracket, Vader, the 450 pound mastodon from from Colorado

Right is the guy who got his eye literally put out Remember it was dangling that Yeah, he's wrestling against Jake the snake Roberts Jake the snake Roberts had recently made a comeback Right. Okay, very public and upfront like part of his gimmick part of Jake Jake Roberts is gimmick Was this comeback? and so Austin's going to the finals Vader gets disqualified for brutalizing Jake Roberts and not breaking when the when the ref

You know does it and he keeps beating the shit out of Jake Roberts So now Jake Roberts has just like, you know, oh, we don't know if his ribs are broken or not, you know, that kind of thing, right? So you got all the sympathy on Jake. Yeah, yeah. Roberts had come back in worse shape than years before, but really pushing the story of having one last run, this redemption arc from his substance abuse days,

complete with a new snake named Revelations, because nobody reads their fucking Bible and gets the name, right? It's singular not plural Yeah, and he's incorporating his religious salvation into his character all right Jake had survived and eliminated Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Justin Hawk Bradshaw in order to get to the pay-per-view Then he has his match against Vader in the semi-finals,

and it was a three and a half minute DQ squash, where like I said, Vader just beat the shit out of him. So the real question going in is, will Jake have enough to be able to gut out a match against the most cold-blooded wrestler in the WWF? Nice, okay. And the answer is no, he didn't. And when Austin returned...

And Jake had even said something about John 316 and I'm here to wrestle and as long as the Lord will let me, et cetera. And when Austin returned to the building. Yes, you see what's coming. When Austin returned to the building, he asked the producers backstage, he's like, what did Jake say in his promo so I could respond to that in my victory speech

Now prior to the match with Jake Roberts Brian Pillman who was legit injured like legit injured. Okay. Yeah Really fucked up ankle and leg like I think actually he was on IV antibiotics he unplugged himself to go out there and then came back and sat down and he was exhausted and they plugged him all back in. What? Yeah. Shit is bonkers.

Okay. Oh, God damn. Again, just Roch McFauley get knocked out twice in a match and continue. Yeah, I know. Yeah. But I should no longer be surprised by these stories. Yeah, but it's okay to be stunned by them too.

It is still shocking even though it is not surprising. Wow. Now, Brian Pillman, who was legit injured, had an interview in the ring to hype himself up. Like, hey, I'm happy to be in the WWF. Here I come. You know, I'm, I'm, everybody wants. Brian Pillman's story is a tragedy unto its own.

And someday if I feel like getting really depressed, I might do his story. But yeah. But anyway, Brian Pillman and Steve Austin were old friends. Austin walks past him. Now Brian's coming down with a crutch, if I recall correctly, he's leaving the ring. Austin's walking up to the ring and they walk past each other. And Austin looks at Pillman with this mix of distrust

and disdain on the way to the ring. Okay. And then he hears Roberts' music cue up, Jake the Snake Roberts' music cue up. And his look goes from like distrust and disdain of Brian to disdain, disgust and fucking zero respect for Jake. Wow. He goes to the outside and he starts attacking Robert's

and beating up on his kayfabe injured ribs before he even gets in the ring. And he keeps yelling at Jake to get up, cursing him, kicking him in the ribs the whole time. He even starts ripping off Jake's bandages to continue the assault to the point where, yeah, oh, I mean, just nasty, right? And so it's like you're watching Jake Roberts

who was just, oh God, just trying to gut it out and just ran into the fucking Texas rattlesnake. Roberts is rolling around writhing in pain and Gorilla Monsoon comes out to check on Jake to make sure he could still continue the match. And what I love here is the whole time they're highlighting Jake the Snake Roberts' advanced age. Like, should he even be in the ring at this age?

He's 41 yeah We didn't start this podcast until I was like 43 Yeah, I do okay So but it's a very different business. It should be noted. That's true. That's true Um, but he's only actually a couple. It should be noted. That's true. That's true. But he's only actually a couple of years older than Bret Hart at this time. OK, OK.

Yeah, it's not the age of the miles, though. Like, it's not even the miles. It's the grams, if you will. So Austin then beats Jake with a stunner. It was a very short match. And it makes sense that it was that short because Austin was dominant. So Austin then beats Jake with a stunner. It was a very short match and it makes sense that it was that short because Austin was dominant and Austin was walking around celebrating and you can hear you can see him saying fuck him To the ref about Jake like just wow super in character really playing it up Okay, and this led to the famed promo that would launch Austin

He walks out of the ring he walks up to the throne for the king of the ring and they ask him They ask him, you know, what do you think how do you feel about being the king of the ring and He says and here is the promo. He says, the first thing I want to be done is to get that piece of crap out of my ring. Referencing Jake the Snake Roberts. Wow. Don't just get him out of the ring,

get him out of the WWF. Because I've proven, son, without a shadow of a doubt, you ain't got what it takes anymore. And he's doing the head waggle. Right, right, right right right. Yeah, you sit there and you thump your Bible and you say your prayers and it didn't get you anywhere Like Hey, you remember remember bread being hella gracious like yeah, this shit was unfair This is not okay, but I made a mistake Yeah, this is the guy who won

Against an old guy and then he says talk about your Psalms talk about John 316 Austin 316 says I've just whooped your ass Wow and then so So here's the thing very often a thing will happen in wrestling and people don't know the lightning that they've caught yet. And so he had lines to go further in his promo. So he says Austin 316 says I've just whooped your ass.

All he's got to do is buy him a cheap bottle of Thunderbird and to try to dig back some of that courage he had in his prime. As the king of the ring, I'm serving notice to every one of the WWF superstars. I don't give a damn what they are. They're all on the list, and that is Stone Cold's list. And I'm fixing to start running through them all. As far as this championship match is concerned, and he's talking about HBK versus the British Bulldog at the time, son, I don't give a damn if it's Davey Boy Smith or Shawn Michaels. Steve Austin's time has come.

And when I get the shot and you are looking at the next WWF champion, and that's the bottom line, cuz Stone Cold said so. All right. Now it's clear from this promo that the last line was the one that he thought was gonna be his catchphrase. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. He said it, he wagged his head while he said it, And he would continue to say that. And as a closer to future promos. Yeah. It frankly didn't hit nearly as well as the Austin 316 one did though. The next night, there were like dozens of Austin 316 signs. Wow. Wow. That was what sold so many T-shirts, according to Kurt Angle, who was OK. OK, so Kurt Angle said he heard this like Austin told him.

The next year, Steve Austin made 12 million dollars in shirt sales. Buck me. What? Twelve million dollars in shirt sales and shirt sales, Engel said, because he was highlighting the difference, he's like, I was paid to wrestle, Steve was paid for merch. I didn't make very much money off of my merch. Steve did not get paid as much to wrestle. I got paid for wrestling. Wow.

According to, Austin himself has said, and Austin seems to have have that kind of like I don't talk about finances privacy thing Yeah going on but he does let let in on some figures Austin said he he made somewhere between seven and eight figures off of the shirts off just that one shirt Just just the Austin 316. Uh-huh The black shirt the Austin 316 316. Uh-huh. The black shirt, the Austin 316. So I'm going to assume that Kurt Angle is not puffing him up. And so I'm going to assume he made $12 million. Here's what Austin later would say about what happened. Quote, in WWE, so I mean, this is like way later, you got your royalty checks every quarter. All of a sudden they came out with that shirt and those shirts were everywhere.

I went and had a conversation with Vince. I said, hey man, I see a lot of t-shirts out there and I noticed that my royalty check doesn't reflect that. He goes, well Steve, what do you think we should do? I said, well, I think we need to kind of change the percentages. He came up with a number. He goes, what do you think about that?

I said, I like it. And so it was a fair deal. That became known as an Austin deal. It was time to come out with the royalty checks for that quarter. And Vince wanted to hand deliver this one to me. He handed it to me and said, Steve, I'm just giving you this because I've never given out a check like this before to anyone. Now I heard tell that wrestlers at one point, this is me talking, not Steve. I heard tell that wrestlers at one point got a quarter per shirt they sold.

Okay. Okay, and back in 96 and 97, shirts sold for about $15 a shirt. Okay, yeah, that's not, all right. So that's possible. It's also possible that wrestlers would earn about 5 percent of the profit that the WWF made from the shirts Okay, okay. So if a shirt sold for $15 it likely would have a profit of ten to twelve dollars Yeah, okay five percent of that would be about fifty to sixty cents per shirt

5% of that would be about 50 to 60 cents per shirt. Okay. So let's low ball the number and say Steve made a quarter per shirt. That means to get to $12 million in royalty checks in one year, the WWF sold about 48 million shirts. Now, if he bargained up that number, obviously the number drops, but I'd say the best deal he'd get

would be maybe a dollar per shirt. Yeah. Because Vince McMahon would not want people getting FU money. So the most conservative estimate I can make was that in one year, the WWF sold over 12 million Austin 316 shirts. Ah, what? Out of a population of how many people in the United States at the time over 300 million? Okay

That's still a remarkable proportion Like like that effectively means if you went out in any Major metropolitan area and hung out for an hour one in nine people or one in eight people You would see it on So 300 million divided by What? 48 yeah divided by 12. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, but like

Jiminy Christmas, uh-huh That's a lot of fucking shirts. Yes Christmas. That's a lot of fucking shirts. Yes. Wow. Okay. So they were fucking everywhere. And so so this this credo because the thing is what gets me about this is knowing where it's one in 25 people by the way. Okay. Yeah. What? Yeah. 4% of the population has Steve Austin shirt. God damn. Yeah. Oh, so, um, the, the, uh, the, the, it's, it's very pithy. You know, Austin three 16 says, I just kick your ass, right? Whooped your ass. I just, I whooped your ass, but all it says is Austin three 16. Well, yeah, I know. That's it. Yeah. But the, the, the, the context behind it.

Right. Is, you know, it is. Wow. Like, there's something going on. Like it's, it's a wonderfully pithy catchphrase. Like it's, it's like, like you said, he didn't know the lightning he had caught in a bottle, right? I don't think he understood just exactly the genius of that

Of that turnaround like he knew oh, this is gonna be a good burn Yeah, but there's something like scientifically elegant right about that You know I think if his name was only one syllable it wouldn't have worked as well That you know I think if his name was only one syllable it wouldn't have worked as well Like there's so much going on there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, by the way Do you know who the top merch seller on shop WWE their main store? online was in 2021 Was it still stone cold still stone cold Steve Austin? Oh, you know who number two was

The rock john cena Okay, dude sold more than john cena who is a merchandise fucking machine machine. Yeah, yeah And still wow Like crap, it's insane Wow Um, yeah, okay. I I just have to point out sure that Well, you know what I'll wait to point it out, okay cuz it's cuz it's it has a later Genesis But yeah, anyway, yeah one in twenty five people. Yeah on average on average Oh, and so on the part of the country you were in I suppose the density would increase or decrease sure sure

You know right? Oh wow, but Jesus considering that you've got crowds of like topping out at like 14,000 yeah like Well, but there's there's how much how big was the audience? That's what I'm saying. You're like that. Oh, I mean, I mean the TV. Sorry. Sorry the broadcast audience for that. Oh God, these are the Monday Night Wars. So we're talking like 5 10 million people a week. Okay. Yeah like huge numbers But there's no online sales yet So these are storefronts. These are they're marketing out to stores and show like that Yeah, so people are going to malls and basically going to hot topic. Yes. Bye. Yes. My god

Yeah, so Austin has won the king of the ring 1996. He's put the WWF on notice He started selling a fuck ton of shirts and he continues to win viciously and nobody could stop him Although hilariously on the next TV tapings. He lost the undertaker Let's be fair though. That's the undertaker. It's not really that odd. It doesn't count Taker doesn't get right you get mulligan his his whole meme is yeah That's true. He wins. He wins because he's the undertaker right right? Yeah Yeah, Batman is gonna win because his superpower is being Batman. Yeah, it's the same. Yeah, the Dark Knight the Dark Prince. Yeah, um, so But he does try sneak attacking the Undertaker and he spends a lot of time getting beat up by the Undertaker in a very long

Match for Monday Night Raw at the time. Okay, but then he starts focusing on a body part of the Undertakers again. Goes back to form. Exactly. So he's looking strong. He's looking vicious, even if he's putting Taker over. Taker chokeslams him, and he's set up to give Austin the tombstone.

But then gold dust shows up and throws glitter into Undertaker's eyes. Austin escapes, and he only loses via DQ. I'm sorry, that's a sentence that would only happen either in professional wrestling or JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Right. Like, you either have to be in professional wrestling or on him like bug nuts on him, right?

Well and and especially when you realize that gold dust is actually the son of dusty roads That's Dustin Rhodes there like yeah, you know So yeah, so Austin loses, but he loses only by Disqualification doesn't write beat in the ring. He doesn't visually get beat Right Austin provided commentary the next week on raw and he spent most of his time as commentator He most of it he spent telling Vince McMahon to shut up and not to interrupt him Most of his commentary about marrow his opponentero, again his opponent for the next pay-per-view was running Mero down, but not in any kind of like analytical way.

He just called him stupid, things like that. Quote, I've got a mind to take this headset off and take care of Mark Mero tonight. So like very much putting himself over. Then Austin lost to Aldo Montoya and Sonny Rodgers at house shows Aldo Montoya was briefly known as the Portuguese man of war but he ended up being just incredible in ECW in WWF. He was a low Carter Sonny Rodgers best I could find was actually a journeyman And like as journeyman as it got but he did run a few wrestling schools.

So it's entirely possible Steve Austin jobbed to him out of respect for the work that he did for others. Okay, wow. But these are house shows. Right, right, right. You're not seeing this on TV anywhere. And honestly, if you're a good worker, you can lose and still get over strong.

Yeah. Then he wrestles almost nightly in July, losing very, very little and almost exclusively wrestling against Sabio Vega. The push has started. He is getting over in front of lots of audiences. Now in advance of the Mark Merrill-Steve Austin match during the July pay-per-view, known as International Incident, they ran a promo where Steve Austin talked about having to get 63 stitches in the King of the Ring You remember it was from a Mark Merrill kick, right? Right, right. So now let's turn red into green Let's turn that into money. Let's make that a personal issue

I love that phrase. Oh, that's not mine. That's that I know Yeah but so he gave a promo where he said he was gonna make sure that mark Marrow suffered and paid for each and every stitch That he got and then he threatened sable mark Marrow's valet No out everybody loved her so Just in case you forgot that Steve Austin was a bad guy. He's now threatening a woman He says quote you're gonna pay dearly son for every single of these stitches. If Sable even thinks about sticking her nose in

the ring, I'll knock her flat on her can as soon as I as soon as I would you. And you can mark my words because I am still cold Steve Austin. Oh, well, all right. Does not care if you're a man or a woman. He will beat the shit out of you. This is another another step up in his viciousness, right? Right, right, yeah. The week after that, he spoke in an interview with Vince McMahon about how he's not a pretty boy or a heartthrob. This is obviously a dig at the champion,

Shawn Michaels at the time. Quote, if I can't get it done by wrestling, I'm the best cheap shot artist there is. Mark Marrow is gonna pay and he's gonna pay big time and that's the bottom line. Now, sure enough, Steve Austin beat Mark Marrow is gonna pay and he's gonna pay big time and that's the bottom line. Now, sure enough, Steve Austin beat Mark Marrow in a vicious but very decisive fashion. And here's where Austin continued to grow

on the vicious, nasty character. On the very next night on Raw, right? So you got the pay-per-view, then you've got the next night you've got Raw. Right, right. The very next night he came out to mock the man that he had just beaten Mark Merrow was wrestling the goon who was hockey player Okay, right the prior week mark Merrow had fought TL Hopper the plumber so oh my god. I'm not joking

Yeah, I know I know you're not So they they congratulated him on his victory over Marc Merrill and he his response was quote Congratulations, what I did was open up a can of whoop-ass and serve it to Marc Merrill in front of several million people You ain't got to congratulate me son at all So putting himself over by tearing everyone else down They then set his sights past the undertaker, whom he had a return bout against. He then went on to challenge Ahmed Johnson verbally for the Intercontinental title and then Shawn Michaels for the world title.

And then, and then, okay, so this is the night after the July pay-per-view. Right. Right, right. Still in in july july of 1996 right, and then he he does it he Finally mentions bret hart Quote that goes without saying the only other guy would have been bret hart. He's here and gone. I guess that'll never happen either The interviewer I believe was vincent said, what about Bret Hart? Quote, well

he's gone. That's what the deal with Bret Hart is. He says he's the best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be. Zero. I'm the excellence of execution, son, and that's all there is to it. Then Austin and Lawler took care to mock Jake Roberts for his alcoholism, which set up Lawler's feud with Jake Roberts. And Austin continued putting himself over through the rest of the match.

But this was it. It was July 22, 1996. And it's the first inklings of the feud to come. And I'm only about seven pages into this. And I will. Yeah, there will be more on this specific night in a few. I'm only about seven pages into this and I Will yeah, there will be more on this specific night in a few but here's a good a good breaking point to be honest, okay So he's just mentioned Bret Hart These two men have not had any promo time. They've only wrestled in Europe. So it's not been on TV It's not even acknowledged on TV that they've wrestled each other.

Right. Austin is ascendant. Brett Hart is actually home, um, rehabbing, I think a knee issue, uh, as well as, uh, basically, uh, doing, doing some acting on TV for Lonesome Dove. Oh, okay. All right. Okay. And, uh, actually getting ready to renegotiate his contract. So he's actually resting for the first time in like a dozen years in forever.

Yeah. Yeah. So which must've been a foreign experience for him. Oh, right. So, yeah. So like, you know, um, just even thinking about, you know, what, what do you, what do you do after you've been working at the high pitch and pace that these guys do for that long? Right. And you're not doing it anymore. Yeah.

Like, how, yeah. I mean, on the one hand, it must be wonderfully relaxing, but after about a week. Yeah. And there's, there's often, I I mean Steve Austin talked about this when he finally retires After WrestleMania 19 because he has spinal stenosis from an injury. He suffered from Owen Hart in 97 like Here's a man who burned hot white hot and then burnt out right and again Through no fault of his own. Yeah but anyway, he, when he retired, he would actually go for 200 to 300 mile drives during the day because he was that used to

the road life. And he was making his, I think, third wife at the time or fourth wife at the time. Kind of crazy with being around so much. So, like, he started going out for the day and then coming back. Well, you get out of the fucking house. Yeah. I need you to go somewhere. Right. That was actually kind of what I was afraid was going to happen with my parents when my dad retired from being an airline pilot. Oh, I bet. Like, what the fuck are you gonna do? Yeah, turns out they didn't have that problem thankfully but like

That's Wow So yeah, that's where I'm leaving it there tell me what you're thinking a couple of things And a couple of things. Um, number one, like every time we do an episode or in this case, clearly a series of episodes on any part of wrestling as an industry, as a medium of entertainment, as a sport, whatever phrase you want to use for that. Um, the, just the sheer balls out commitment

yeah. That is involved in every aspect of performing in it is, it never ceases to, to impress me. Yeah. Like, like all of these, all of these guys, um, I mean, it's, it's obvious why the substance abuse issues are as frequent as they historically have been because like, how do you do that without, without burning out instantly? Right. Right. And, and, and the ones, and the ones who manage to not fall prey to that are like in here, like God help us. If any of them got ahold of a green ring, like, right.

You know, what? Yeah. So there's that as, as ever. And then it really strikes me. It really, really two things that you mentioned. One of them just a second ago and one of them a little bit ago. The, the extent to which it's possible for somebody like Steve Austin to capture a moment in the popular consciousness. Yeah. Without realizing what it is that he had. I don't necessarily want to say captured, but that he had managed to distill.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, accidentally, too. Yeah. It's like he discovered osmosis. Yeah. You know. Yeah. like he discovered osmosis. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And, and then, you know, the, the burnt white hot and then burned out on, you know, from, through no fault of his own, right? Just the, the amazing intensity of that, of his position in that specific moment in

time as an avatar of of his position in that specific moment in time as an avatar of what you're gonna get into over the next six episodes. Too many episodes, yeah. Yeah. It's one of those remarkable crystallizations. Yeah, I don't know if he would have been as over in the 1980s. Oh, he wouldn't have been.

Right. Because the 80s was... And not because the WWF was different, which it was, but because the culture did not need him the way that this yeah The really attracted to him the whatever whatever the subconscious anger Yeah, was oh, we'll get there. Oh Yeah, what's not there in the 80s right the 80s was team America fuck yeah? Yeah, within the American consciousness it was we were we didn't realize that we were about to win the Cold War But we were like subconsciously convinced we were winning it all our heroes were very pro-america Yeah, yeah, you know the Austin was had nothing to do with national

No, there's there's no nationalism. Yeah. Yeah, and yet and yet and yet and It's all it's all all of his nationalism is sub rosa. Yes. There's there's Subconscious identity stuff going on here. This feeds into it is it does not feature it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, you know, whereas like Hulk Hogan was you know, each of you say your prayers American-made, you know comes out to I am a real American. Yeah. I saw foreigners all the time. Yeah. Like, hi, nationalism here. How are you? You know, right. Yeah. Super machismo.

Like you talked about in fantasy movies. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, we're still dealing with with Austin. We're still dealing with with a very specific avatar of masculinity You know quite so but it's it's it's an avatar of masculinity that we are much more familiar with now It's also more attainable for people at the time like yeah Yeah, Hogan was larger than life. Oh, yeah was not Yeah, and I'm not really even going to get into the Austin, honestly, like I'm stopping this discussion

after about April or May of 97. So I'm not even gonna get to Austin's neck getting broken. I'm not gonna get to his rise to the actual championship or anything having to do with his feud with Vince McMahon right none of that it's a whole own thing yeah yeah this is specifically watching these two people in verse yeah and honestly it it kind of now that I say that out loud it kind of reminds me of the work that I did I think over a year ago now with dr. Cruz on speedball and spider-man Yeah, the rise and fall there is there is yeah, there's definitely a apparently I have a type

Yeah, the dynamic is different. Well, the the specifics are different. The dynamic is still those two trajectories passing each other Yeah, okay. Yeah, I'm trying to say yeah But yeah, so no that's that's that's kind of what that's what hits me That's what's hitting me right now. Sure sure is is the intensity of it and And just the the way that Something like that could happen by mistake. Yes Fall backward into yes selling 48 million t-shirts Making 12 million for yourself. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, and again, I just you know kind of come come back to it

He's a bad guy at this point. He is absolutely a heel Yeah, and people are rooting for him. No, not yet. No, no, no, no, okay. He's getting big booze Okay, I will get into when they start cheering him now There was a bit of a pop when he said Austin 360 and said I just whooped your ass But then he healed it up like crazy Okay, so he is Absolutely 100% the bad guy. All right. Okay. Oh cool. So all right cool Well anything you want to recommend for people to read Right now what I'm gonna recommend for everybody to read and it's a good thing

We're gonna be spending the amount of time we will be on this because it's a big book I recommend in preparation for my next series that everybody find a copy of and read Shogun. You know that I release these out of order sometimes, right? Yeah, I know you do, but on the off chance that you don't. What you should have read by now was Shogun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's...

I, yeah, we'll see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, we'll see. Yeah, we will see. But yeah, if, if, if this is, if these are going out in the order I anticipate them doing, um, and even if, and even if they're not, um, I strongly recommend, uh, going out and reading Shogun. It is a large book but It is going to be number one. It's a compelling read. It's a great story And it's it's what I'm going to be talking about sort of Or have already yeah, or have already all of this has happened before and all of this will happen again

So say we all and that's the bottom line That works way too goddamn. Well really I want to see Kevin and Donna cut a promo now like yeah All right How about you? What are you recommending? I'm gonna recommend people read hitman my real life in the cartoon world of wrestling It is Bret Hart's memoir in many ways. It was his autobiography at that time But he has since released another book called the best there is the best there was the best there ever will be This one though it it details this period of time Okay, but it's largely because of when he wrote it and what was on his mind and all that it was largely in a lot

of this stuff gets lost in the shadows of the screw job of the monster job and in just like I Don't believe in curses, but like if I did I would point to the heart family Right be the third most cursed family in wrestling Because like the shit that happened to the hearts in rapid succession is just yeah tragic, but But yeah hitman the my real life in the cartoon world of wrestling. It's a really good book I would put it in the top three of wrestling Autobiography type books nice. All right, so Cool, I assume you are a shadow in the warp. I am at present. However

We of course can be found on our website at wubba wubba wubba geek history time comm Where you can find an archive of? Every episode we've we've put out up to this point We are running at Edging up close to 300 at this point And so find a title or a topic that you're interested in and you know pick and choose go through the buffet We of course can also be found on Spotify and on the Amazon podcast app and the Apple podcast app

Wherever it is that you have found us please take a moment to subscribe and give us the five-star review that you know Damian deserves for his exhaustive research And where can you be found sir? Uh, let's see by the way, we're big in Venezuela right now All right, which is cool. Hello, Venezuela. Hola. Yes We we we're sorry for the last three presidents Or more You can find me November 1st, December 6th, January 3rd, February 7th. You can find me at The Comedy Spot at 9 PM with capital punishment, slinging puns as we've done for more than eight years now.

So I recommend you go to the Sacramento Comedy Spot's website and buy your tickets now. Hell, you know what buy them each month and That way you've got them There you go. And yeah come see us there slinging puns. We've got a hell of a show Set up for the November show. We just came off of an incredible October show So really really encourage you to go out there and do that. So yeah. Well, for A Geek History of Time, I'm Damian Harmony.

And I'm Ed Blaylock. And until next time, can I get a hell yeah?