Behind the Bastards - Part Five: Vince McMahon, History's Greatest Monster

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

Sean, Tom and Robert discuss the WWF steroid abuse scandal, the end of kayfabe, and Saddam Hussein. Behind the Bastards is once again funding the Portland Diaper Bank! You can donate here to make sure families suffering financial hardship have one less thing to worry about: https://www.gofundme.com/f/ah24n-btb-fundraiser-for-pdx-diaper-bank?utm_campaign=p_lico+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer You can now listen to all Cool Zone Media shows, 100% ad-free through the Cooler Zone Media subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. http://apple.co/coolerzoneSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So, there is a ton of stuff they don't want you to know. Yeah, like does the US government really have alien technology? Or what about the future of AI? What happens when computers actually learn to think? Could there be a serial killer in your town? From UFOs to psychic powers and government cover-ups, from unsolved crimes to the bleeding edge of science, history is riddled with unexplained events. Listen to stuff they don't want you to know

on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you find your favorite shows. What's up y'all? I'm Brian Ford, Artisan Baker and host of the new podcast FlakyBiscuit. I'm going to help y'all learn how to cook and bake new things as we get to know our guests through their favorite nostalgic meal. If you are ever at a place in your life where things are too busy or your head gets too big, having a meal like this,

it reminds you of who you were and also who you still are. Listen to Flaky Biscuit every Tuesday on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. From I Heart Podcasts Supreme, the Battle for Row, tells the story of the unlikely champions behind the landmark case, Row V Wade, starring Maya Hawke as 26-year-old lead attorney Sarah Weddington for challenging the Texas abortion laws in federal court. And Academy Award nominee William H. M, as Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackman. Time is not the most important factor, getting it right is.

Listen to the podcast Supreme, the Battle for Row, on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Robert Evans here and we'll get to the Vince McMahon episodes in a second. I wanted to let you all know that for the fourth year in a row, we are doing our fundraiser for the Portland Dipper Bank. Behind the bastard supporters have been helping to fund the Portland Dipper Bank since 2020 and bought millions of diapers for people who really need them. So if you go to GoFundMe and type in BTB FundRaser for PDX DiaperBank or just type in BTB FundRaser

DiaperBank, GoFundMe, Indigoogle, anything like that, you will find it. So please, GoFundMe, BTB FundRaser for Portland DiaperBank, help us raise the money that these people need to get diapers to folks who need them desperately. Ah, boy, you know, Robert Evans here and I was just thinking the other day, it's been more than three years since I watched a man die last. I think I'm gonna go to Applebees. Hey, Tom, Sean, you wanna go to Applebees and witness the vast monopoly of human suffering? Ah, you know it, man.

Never ending ketchup bowls. There's no place you can wallow like an apple, please. No place you can wallow. And man, if you want to get just absolutely housed on the worst long island iced teas you've ever had in your life, and then get into a knife fight in a parking lot. There's no better place than an Applebee's next to a truck stop. Can I just say I'm partial to chilies?aming this woman for getting like $1,500 worth of chilies as her meal for her guests that are wedding.

And you know what? That's awesome. Can you imagine a more crowd pleasing choice than that? Yeah, can you? Can you? Can you? Can you? Can you imagine sharing what food you'd eat at a wedding?

Yeah. Right. Look, man, like, you know, I do the righteous thing. You know, I don't pay for Chick-fil-A, but man, back when I was like a teacher and stuff, like sometimes we would just get, they would cater and event or something at the school. And yes, I did leave with armloads of their food.

Like, of course, you know, bitch about free food. Like, you just take it. You take it like a squirrel, and you hide it in your cheeks, and then you fill up backpacks with it, you just take it. You take it like a squirrel and you hide it near cheeks. And then you fill up backpacks with it and you go home. You only remember we're half of the chicken nuggets you buried are, but that's still a good enough result to get you through the winter.

Yeah, exactly. Thank you, Tom. Robert, I had one more Applebee's joke. Oh, please. It's if you want to replicate the experience of getting drunk at your parents house, there's no other substance. There's no nothing like Applebee.

Nothing like that. They'll just hand you a bottle of Drambouille. And you don't know that you're not supposed to drink it straight. So just go, go wild. This is because in all of the wrestling clips we're using today, there's Apple B's ads and now we're thinking of Apple B's, but this is behind the bastards.

A podcast about the worst man who ever lived Vince McMahon. Um, for the last time in this series, we will briefly be referring to him as Vincent Jr. because we have to talk about how Vincent Sr. died. Good stuff. Good stuff. good stuff. Not, I mean, so I don't know, I don't feel particular. You really made a promise by saying it that way.

Yeah, it's not good stuff. He contracts a fast moving cancer that defies all attempts at medical intervention. Um, and yeah, in a way. You said it, I thought a train was involved. I shouldn't have started the talk about a man dying of cancer that way. You are right. That was the...

That was the... That was the evidence, Princess is the grief, by killing many, many muscle men. Yeah. Just really should have them together, like, two dollar actions a year. Like a scythe through corn that can't put its arms down all the way. So, Vince McMahon senior, a side through corn that's being fought over by two carp in the Mississippi. Nice call back, Tom.

So Vince and Senior takes ill at the end of 1983, and in about six months he is on his deathbed. Vince goes to Vince Jr. goes to visit him right before the end. And, you know, in interviews since he has expressed that he felt shock, Vince goes to Vince Jr. goes to visit him right before the end. And you know, in interviews since he has expressed that he felt shock, particularly at seeing his father without his hair, quote, it was like mine. He had a hell of a head of hair, he called it.

He gave me those jeans. And like, obviously, you know, expressing shock at seeing a loved one, you know, physically changed through cancer isn't weird. He does talk a lot about his hair though. And one of the interviews that makes that about yourself. He framed his father's cancer battle to be about his. His awesome hair. That is a little, little, little thing.

But anyway, and Vincent's telling of their last moments together. He hugged and he kissed his father. He claims that he's always been very demonstrative when it comes to expressing love for his family, especially his children. But that is the old Irish in his father wouldn't let Vince Sr. respond this way. And he's Vince Jr. says that the very last time they saw each other in that hospital was the first time his dad ever said he loved him. Vince was leaving for the night.

Like he's like, you know, dad, I love you. And then as he's kind of like leaving the hospital room, his dad shouts, I love you back at him. Now, that's a very first time. Yeah, that's the first time his biological dad ever said, I love you to him. That's what Vince says. And that's a powerful story, or at least it would be from a normal person. There is some peculiarity around the edges of this, because most places that we'll write about this and like Vincent's reaction, just kind of tell that story and

let it be this kind of strong emotional beat. But like, like, Josie Reisman talks to Vince Senior, like his, his other family, right? So he, he marries this lady Juanita, who by the way is super tight with Andre the giant and is why Andre doesn't have to sign a bad contract later on because she's able to pressure Vince Jr. Kind of cool. She seems like she ruled. But yeah, so he marries this lady Juanita and they don't have kids together, but Winita has a sister, or sorry, Winita has a niece who has a family, and they've all been abandoned by their father. So basically there's this young family and a bunch of kids that Vince Sr.

is kind of adjacent to when he marries Winita. And he kind of adopts those kids as his children. And he basically raises them. Like those kids will say like we considered him to be a father, you know, essentially. Maybe it was him like kind of making up for the fact that he'd sort of like left his first family. I don't know. I don't know what was going on in his head, but like they speak very highly of him. And in the summer, this blended family would take to the coast in the Northeast where they had a beach house. And one of Vincent's adopted kind of daughters

told Josie Reisman, quote, we used to go around the house and just say, I love you, I love you, kind of announcing to everyone that you love them. Uncle Vince was the most loving person you'd ever want to know. He was very genuine. He'd sit and listen to whatever you had to say,

no matter what, extremely a family man. Family, family, family. And there may be some conflict that I'm not super aware of between Vincent's seniors, other family and Vince McMahon. But her story of how Vincent's senior is, could not be more different from Vince Jr. She does not describe him as old Irish, she doesn't describe him as unable to express love.

In her telling of events, he's super warm and open with all of them. And she says, by contrast, quote, I never saw any warmth in young Vincent. So that's kind of, yeah, interesting. I love that it's such an innocent story about my dad said, I love you for the first time. You're like, well, powerful. And then someone just like poked it with a gentlest of july.

And like, that story just fucking exploded. Like, yeah, anything you don't lie about. Yeah, no, he said that all the time. So there's, I think there's two possibilities, kind of broadly here. One is, oh, sorry, Tom, you want to talk? Yeah, say it. Well, I just think, I would, that's, I think you're probably just about to say what I was thinking, which is the other possibility is that they're both telling the truth. Yeah, exactly. And I'm this fucking kid. Well, I kind of, it's very sad for me. Not necessarily hate, but I do actually kind of think

that might be the most likely version of the truth, which is that like Vince Sr. thought, especially because of Juanita pushing him, thought it was important to reconnect with his first biological kids did and like put a lot of effort into it, but also never quite connected with Vince Jr. Like, and maybe some of that's because Vince Jr. is kind of like a weird dude,

but maybe some of it's just that they were separated for so long, and maybe he was super affectionate with this kind of blended family that he has later on in his life, but he's never able to feel that way for Vince, which is probably something that would have an impact on you. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Like, we'll never know, but it is interesting that you get these two very different versions of the man. I think they can coexist potentially, though. Yeah, for sure. So yeah, that's the indivisible.

That's the indivisible. Just that we have a good reason to doubt this story. At least they're saying love you. You're a indistinguishable. It is wild that you can like poke a hole in that one. Oh, no. All the things to not embellish, why on earth? Yeah.

That's how dishonest a life this man hasth. Yeah. That's how dishonest a life this this man has led. Yeah. Uh, even this seem as a theatrical as possible. There's a ton of stuff they don't want you to know. Does the US government really have alien technology? And what about the future of artificial intelligence, AI? What happens when computers learn to think? Could there be a serial killer in your town? From UFOs to psychic powers and government cover-ups, from unsolved crimes to the bleeding edge of science, history is riddled with unexplained events.

We spent a decade applying critical thinking to some of the most bizarre phenomenon civilization and beyond. Each week, we dive deep into unsolved mysteries, conspiracy theories and actual conspiracies. You've heard about these things, but what's the full story? Listen to stuff they don't want you to know on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your favorite shows. The Road Testers and Supporters alike are lined up outside the United States Supreme Court this afternoon, as the decision in the most hotly debated case in years is set to be delivered. From I Heart Podcasts Supreme, the Battle for Roe, tells the story of the unlikely

champions behind the landmark case Roe V Wade. Sir, I graduated the top quarter of my class. We just don't have a spot for you. Starring Maya Hawk as 26-year-old lead attorney, Sarah Weddington, for challenging the Texas abortion laws in federal court and Academy Award nominee William H. Macy, as Supreme Court Justice, Harry Blackman. My chief qualification being, I'm uncontroversial. You know how we both ended up on the Supreme Court? Politics?

Damn right. This may be the longest of shots, but it's also the last chance for a lot of women. Time is not the most important factor, getting it right in. It's trying to get you to stand for something, man. Now go do it. Listen to Supreme, the Battle for Ro, on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? I'm Brian Ford, Artisan Baker, and host of the new podcast Flaky Biscuit.

On this podcast, I'm gonna get to know my guests by cooking up their favorite nostalgic meal. It could be anything from Twinkies to moms Thanksgiving dressing. Sometimes I might get it wrong, sometimes I'll get it right. I'm so happy it's good, because man, if it wasn't, I'd be like, you know, everybody not my mom. Yeah. Either way, we will have a blast. You'll have access to every recipe

so you can cook and bake alongside me as I talk to artists, musicians, and chefs about how this meal guided them to success. And these nostalgic meals, fam, they inspire one of a kind conversations. When I bake this recipe, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Does this podcast come with a therapist? They can. Listen to flaky biscuit every Tuesday on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Starting in the late 1980s, as part of his takeover of the regionals, Vince had embarked on a difficult and cunning maneuver to build wrestling into something that his eyes was better suited for the modern era that was coming. It was obvious to him that K-Fabe needed to either change or kind of go at some point. Not only were all of the steroids making his wrestlers look larger than any but the most Russian of Olympians, but the exploding market for cable TV kid shows meant that there were new kinds of opportunities wrestling had not seen before. And it's one of those things where like he kind of recognizes that this sort of weird position wrestling is in

where it pretends to be a real sport, but like most people know it's not particularly the kind of people who like run networks and run advertising. No, it's not. Kind of keeps some folks, so it kind of keeps money away from it in certain ways or certain types of money away from it. Because it's for ten year olds. Yeah, because it's for ten-year-olds. And if you can kind of like, if you can admit to some of the fakeness of wrestling as a sport, you can get toy companies in Hollywood to treat it as a real business, right? And advertisers and stuff. So this is kind of the thing that he embarks on next.

One of the first moves he makes in the mid 1980s is he introduces exclusivity contracts to the WWF. This locks wrestlers at our performing in other regional syndicates. And it's also one of the most legally questionable things because like there's a lot of, well all of these guys are independent contractors, but you're like telling them they can't work for other people in the same field, and you're like, you are telling them what they have to wear and like when they can perform and like, you're not treating them like a indefinite employee. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you're treating them like employees that none of this should be working the way

that it does. And he also, this is one of the real fucking things Vince does. He starts to mandate as he's doing this process where he'll start giving away to local TV networks, wrestling shows, and then he'll throw a Vince there. Once the events get big, he'll start mandating that Vinny's stop, not basically like, I will not have WWF events in this venue

if you host in WA events, in WA events, right? Right. Which like cuts the knees out from these guys basically. It's a real fucked up thing to do. It's some Disney shit. It is some Disney shit. Hey everyone, I think my kind of summary of how Vince killed the regionals left some important stuff out

for a couple of things. The process by which he was sort of offering up shows in order to use them as advertisements and local markets, that's called bartering. And he was not the guy to invent this. We do kind of mention that a little bit later, but I wanted to be super clear. He was kind of doing it with more weight behind them than most people, but he didn't start the process. It's also worth noting that the way he got into a lot

of these smaller local markets where he would then bring in WWF shows and kind of choke out some of these regional competitors was not by bartering with local TV networks, but by spending a ton of money buying airtime and basically paying more than the local smaller regionals were able to do so. Um, and that's kind of how he was able to build up audiences for live events in those areas. So bartering wasn't kind of the way into the new markets. He did pay for a lot of that. And

while all this is going on, he also licenses the identities of his wrestlers for a whole Kogan-focused cartoon in 1985. Yeah, he does. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And one of the things that this does, because it's not like, I don't think it is, like the wrestlers voicing themselves here, he's kind of like divorcing pro wrestlers from their personas for cash purposes

for the first time in wrestling history. I think Hulk Hogan was Brad Garrett. Yeah, I mean, that is a good pick. Which I'm not saying like, I don't think it's an ethical and a really, like, especially by the context of wrestling to have like Brad Garrett do Hokokan's voice, but it is an interesting change for the business. I honestly think Brad Garrett and Hokokan should be legally forced to swap lives like every six months.

Yes, and you know what that means, Sean, maybe that means a shot for shot remake of everybody loves Raymond. Oh, God. But with the whole. Yeah. And suburban command. Oh my God. Yes. This is what AI should be doing. Yeah. Putting just brand gear in this. And also putting the whole story. And everybody loves Raymond. We're like every argument between Ray and his brother. He just gets fucking suplexed. Yeah, I can just get rid of him. Peter Doyle is going on about some shit. Oh man, yeah.

And then he goes through the fucking window. Absolutely, that's a TV show. That's a fucking TV show right there. So Vince also launches WrestleMania, which we've talked about in previous episodes. Today, WrestleMania is the eighth most valuable sporting event on the planet. Although there's a real big drop off after the first few

because it's worth like a hundred something million and like, man, the fucking, you look at like the Super Bowl or whatever, you know. Which is obviously, WrestleMania is a very successful business, Vince has succeeded in making that valuable, but there's a big drop off after number five or so. At the time, WrestleMania is a huge gamble.

It's so expensive, it's such a spectacle, and it relies entirely, and this is very new for them, it relies entirely on pay-per-view to be worth the cost, right? Right. And he's sort of pushes it at least the first couple as like a big pop culture event. Like he's trying. Yeah.

Isn't that right? Like he still keeps bringing in all these celebrities. He's trying to give it like this. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what I'm talking about. General to peel as he can. Yeah. And this is, there's criticism, I think, from a lot of old wrestling heads or people

who are really into technical wrestling, because one of the things he does is he starts bringing in famous people who absolutely do not know how to fucking wrestle. And kind of the first of these is BA Barakas, Mr. T, who is a man I have absolutely no qualms with, but it is fair to say not really knowledgeable about like wrestling techniques. Fair.

Yeah, fair, fair. Nothing against you, Mr. T. I don't know, a bouncer competition before this. So I mean, that's close. Yeah, that is. I mean, that's saying he doesn't know how to fight. My dad saw that bouncer competition. Oh, yeah?

Yeah, yeah. I remember he told me that story once when I was a teenager. He was like, you know, I saw this bouncing competition. Mr. T was in before he was famous. What a crazy thing to do to have is a bouncing. No, I got to know for like the people the bouncers are bouncing. Are they like actors or are they legitimately drunken problematic people?

I feel like my brain might have conjured this, but I think there was dwarf tossing. Okay, well. And the rest was mostly obstacle courses. Right, don't kind of. Huh, the way my dad explained it, it would sound like a lot of obstacle courses, which is just confounding for a bouncer competition.

Yeah. Someone's doing cocaine in the bathroom. Don't you listen to gritties. You've got to solve some riddles to throw this goat down to the, out of the bar. I mean, we are in the middle of a writer's strike, and I want to tell Hollywood, if you guys want a free, unscripted reality show, launch a bouncing contest where every week a new group of bouncers

has to stop me from ruining some people's nights. Like, because I guarantee you, there aren't gonna be winners. I am, I am slippery and I can projectile vomit on command. Like bring it on. Bring it on. 25 Applebeasts.

There's no Applebee's is strong enough to hold me anyway. So yeah, before this big inaugural WrestleMania that is kind of a lot of people will say, he's basically betting the farm on WrestleMania one in 1985. And before this happens, as we said, he goes on this big PR blitz. And he starts getting particularly Mr. T. and Hulk Hogan, who are gonna have this huge showdown. He starts getting them to show up all over like kind of like mainstream entertainment news shows.

And yeah, in March of 1984, there's this episode of a show called Hot Properties, which is a talk show hosted by conspiracy theorist and beloved TV detective Richard Belzer. That's right. Tom, have you heard about this? You've seen this? Oh, I've seen this clip. Okay, glorious. So the bells, if you're not aware, as I'm sure we, all of you all are, the bells is, it was a, a number one like, at this point, I guess he has a talk show, but he's, he's like an extremely successful like TV detective actor. And kind of the famous, probably the most famous really as in pop culture is that because his character is on so many, like the same detective

characters on so many different like TV dramas and stuff from like the late 90s to the mid-Auts, he kind of connects the universes of a bunch of shows that like sort of by default are now in the same universe. This includes arrested development, the ex files, law and order, and law and order SVU, 30 rock, the wire, and the unbreakable chemo shmit. In addition to this, he's also a semi-regular guest on Info Wars. Wow, two episodes in a row, we got Info Wars guests. But this one's not a wrestler.

And in fact, the bells was kind of outspoken. One of these things, you know how we had like in the early 2000s, like the kind of online atheist community where like it starts with people who are like reasonably, you know, questioning of religion and it turns into people who are like kind of insufferable. Um, yeah. You have that, this is something that's kind of been forgotten. You have that about wrestling in like the 90s and like 80s and 90s, where there's these kind of pseudo

and intellectual guys will be, you know, it's fake, right? We have, of course. Like, of course it is. Yeah, there's a couple of real ghouls. I can't remember their names, but there's one guy in the steroid case that's really gung-ho about, oh, these guys are using steroids,

and it's anyway, like, fuck Vince, but also like, fuck that guy. There's some, there's some, there's some, and the bells is kind of, he can be a dick about it. He's like, really insistent that it's not real. I get very frustrated by these people. I once watched a Vince McMahon wrestling match with someone who was in a bar, everyone's enjoying the wrestling show and this one person was like, this is fake and everyone's like, well, obviously it's fake. Yeah, man.

We know Vince got it. Vince got his head busted open. I want to say he was fighting the one-legged kid that they hired wrong. That's another 10-part podcast series. But they had the wrong one-legged kid and he like busted open Vince's head the hard way, which means he did not mean for the hit to bleed. Yeah.

And he was hermaging blood. And so Vince McMahon was in his wrestling uniform, which is like black slacks and no shirt. Like went over to the ring apron and was just gushing blood out of the ring because this would have turned the entire ring red. And this person is still saying wrestling is fake and everyone's trying to explain to them, no look, the man's bleeding from their head. No, like, yeah, it's all fake.

I'm like, well, you can get in here. A blood pump in his like naked chest. How did he do this? Right. What world are you living in? So I guess that's what I equate with this type of person who are like, they're so dumb. They think they're smart because they spot it the fakeness, but it's like, you're like eight steps away from being just the base level of

non-dump. And look Richard Belzer, an actor who we all have a lot of fond memories of, not the smartest man who ever lived. And it's kind of evidence for that. Mr. T. and Hogan are on his show. And he starts insisting over and over again that he wants to be put in a wrestling hold and he goes after Mr. T first but Mr. T is number one not an idiot and number two doesn't know a lot of wrestling so he's like I'm not going to put you in a hold on life TV. He's not gonna tear white man's head off on TV. He's a little too skinny for that. Yeah, my career things are I am Mr. T and it's the mid 80s things are going well for

me. I'm not gonna gamble on this. But Hulk Ogan has, you know, the brain of a goldfish. And so this is like, okay, I will put you in a wrestling hold. And I'm gonna play the audio of this. Sean, would you announce what's going on to the audience? It's a pleasure.

Okay. Can you just tell me brother what Bowser's punch over when Cogin's got in front headlock. Oh wow, okay he's not doing it on the other hand. He's got a figure floor on it and Bowser looks like he's passing out. He's completely limp and he's on the floor. He's seemingly dead. He's sleeping.

Really? Mr. D not surprised. Mr. D has watched many rock housing engagements and this way. So this is like the dumbest asshole of party wants to play wrestle. And you're like, well, this is only going to end with someone like nearly dying. And it's like guillotine jokes.

And it's one of those things. It's Belzer's fault that this starts, Hogan fucks up, cause like it is possible to put a man in a headlock and even to choke somebody into one consciousness and not seriously injure them. People do it with some regularity, not that you should, cause it's also very easy to kill them

if you don't know what you're doing, but you can do it. The problem here, I was gonna say, I had heard a version of the story where Hogan may have done this on purpose because he was kind of sick of bells or running his mouth. I don't think we'll ever know because like, there are a lawsuit results from this. So Hogan's not gonna be like, yeah, I dropped him on purpose. He says that he slipped out of his hands.

Maybe Hogan let him go hard. Like, I can't prove that one way or the other. But either way, the problem in this is not that Belzer got choked out. It's that Belzer gets dropped when he is unconscious and he smacks his head into the ground and suffers a significant head injury. He's pretty serious shit. I can probably should have explained to this idiot like, hey, you gotta tap me when you're running out of air. Or sit down and do it.

Let's hold a second. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Turn the neck away from the blood choke. Yeah. Just to prevent an instantaneous like death.

Yeah. There's a number of things that could have been done. Like, if you're gonna do this, okay, let's get on the ground, you know. So you maybe have less to fall. I was gonna say, yeah, I was like, for instance, don't do this at all. Don't do this at all would be ideal.

Do not choke a man in into unconsciousness on life. Television's arm is wired to the browser. Yeah, like each of his biceps is 50% of Richard Belzer's body weight. Like those 24-inch pythons. It doesn't take hindsight to think, how is this gonna end? What are the end, what's the end game of this?

Will it be an awkward, like he'll release me and I'll say, well, that kind of hurt. Like that's not fucking TV. Well, it's because it's also like, even if you think wrestling is fake, do you think Hulk Ogan isn't much, much bigger than you? Like do you, do you Richard Belser disbelieve that Hulk Ogan could choke you into unconsciousness?

Right, it's not outside of the realm of possibility that Hulk, the Hulkster, a giant dumb guy, might accidentally knock you out. And I want everyone to be care. And I want everyone to be care. And I want everyone to be care. And I want everyone to be care. And I want everyone to be care. And I want everyone to be care.

And I want everyone to be care. And I want everyone to be care. And I want everyone to be care. And I want everyone to be care. And I want everyone to be care. And I want everyone to be care. And I want everyone to be care. And I want everyone to be care. This was not like a wrestling choke, like generally a fronthand lock and wrestling is a resting hold, which means you just kind of hang it out, kiss, and your breath. He locked his hand over his other arm to like, to get his forearm to cut off his fucking blood hairs. Yeah, he, he definitely wanted him unconscious. Yeah, this is a real like, guy choke, not a wrestling choke. So if you, oh, sorry, I think that fucks up any story. Hogan's telling because he's he's did this with intention to choke him out. Yeah, I think definitely

with intention to choke him out. I think the question is like, did he intend for him to like hit the ground? I don't know, right? We can't prove it. But it is, if you want to watch a guy get choked, the fuck out and drop like a sack of potatoes. Like instantly, this is a pretty good one. So somebody granted a wish that he'd be unconscious. Like he's just a needy of hell. Richard Belzer, suffer ahead and jury. It's like wishing to get into a fist fight and then going to an Applebee's at one in the morning.

You know, it's just like granted by a genie. How many times has a guy that looks like the Hulkster choked out a guy that looks like Richard Bell is an Applebee's? Almost a daily encounter. Almost a daily encounter. So somehow, because the universe is occasionally giving in the exact same year, another TV journalist is assaulted by a pro wrestler

and suffers at least allegedly a series injury. John Stassel. John Stassel. Yeah, this is the other guy. This is the other guy I was thinking of it's kind of a dick. Yeah, and it puts all three clips after this. Yeah, yeah, let's just watch.

Let's just watch. Let's watch dudes get smacked on watch. It's smack dumps you. Yeah, you'll love to see it. So Stassel is the host to 2020, or at least one of them. And he's got a rep, he's like a hoax buster, right? That's like one of the things that Stassel does. And like there are real problems. Like people are starting to get really concerned

with like steroid abuse in the WWF and the impact of having a people's health. And Stassel is like kind of on that beat, but he's much more interested in proving that wrestling is a hoax. Yeah, and I jump in real quick. What police? Please.

Oh, sorry. No, I said, please. Oh, please, okay. What bugs me about Stosel is like, the guy he gets to like help him demonstrate how wrestling is choreographed. I forget the wrestler's name, but like that wrestler has a very legitimate grievance

about the fact that there's no union and no healthcare. And he's like, if you watch the dark side of the ring episode on this, that guy's talking about all this stuff, and he's telling Stossel this, but you said Stossel is way, way, way more interested in this is fake and not pointing out the actual

problems with the industry. It's like who gives a shit if it's fake? Like, it's not actually a problem if some people are pretending a thing. Right, not a sport when it's a sport. It's a problem if guys are dying. Yeah, that's what you should care about. Exactly. Like, he treated the fact that like wrestling is choreographed as this big bombshell scandal.

And it's like, bro, who cares? It's like if one of those Renaissance fares, if there's a fucking cholera outbreak because of some infected food, and you go there to prove that the knights aren't really knighted, like, no, man, there's a problem here. Somebody needs to look into this. People are dying. It's like a Chinese genocide, and you should open me like, Jackie Janden really killed those guys with a letter. Yeah, it is just, I don't know, it's wild.

So John Stassel, host to 2020, is on in his trying to bust the wrestling hoax era. And on December 28th, he shows up outside of a match at the Madison Square Garden to do a segment on pro wrestling. And for reasons, I haven't really found a convincing explanation why I think it's just that he wants any kind of press he can get, Vince lets him in. Now, this is not a good decision because again, he's very much like Vince knows he's going to try

and like make the business look bad, but also Mick Mann is fine with this. He wants to kind of generate conflict. So he sends out David Schultz, David wrestled under the name Dr. D and David's kind of like getting dressed in the locker room when if Mann comes in and he's like, hey, we got a guy out here making a joke of the business. I want you to go out here and interview with him. Blast him up, tear his ass up, stay in character, Dr. D.

That's what he tells him according to Dr. D. Like blast him, right? Like that's Vince's exact words here. Yeah. I wanna be clear, Dr. D, tear his penis off. Yeah, yeah, your hands. Right off, straight off, like a paper towel. Mm-hmm.

I've been reading a lot of books about, you know, these different, it's called a Unic Units in the, in the Ottoman military. I think it's a lot of books about these different sort of unique units in the Ottoman military. I think it's a good idea that we should try it here. So why don't you, why don't you get this TV journalist? One or something. I was gonna say this, the thing you need to understand about David Schultz, if you've never seen him before, those of you listening is that he's like

the shit kickin'est shit kicker that's ever lived. Oh my God, yeah. Like, yeah. Because, yeah, he looks like the kind of guy you would bring with you in a fight if you needed backup, but who would need like an explanation of how your car door works in order to get out. Like, he looks like he's been questioned

in every unsolved murder in this campus. Yeah. He's always two gallons of chewing tobacco spit every day. So I'm going to play you this clip here, or at least I'm going to make Sophie do it and then take credit for it, because that's how the entertainment industry works, baby. I asked Shultz questions that I assume all wrestlers have been asked dozens of times. What is a good business? Yeah, it's a good business.

I wouldn't be in it if it wasn't. Why is it a good business? Because only the tough survive. That's where you ain't in it. And this punk home in the camera, he ain't in it. Read these red and ex out here ain't in it. Because there's a tough business. That's terrific.

What, is that all you got? I ask you the standard question. You know, standard question. I think it's just fake. You think it's like, it's just max. Number two is going. That's an open hand slap. He does kind of play it off like I'm showing you a move. Like, isn't this like, you think it's not real? Here's like a slap that we take. But it's so funny. It's a second time. He does get him a second. I believe he does get him a second time. And it's like it's one of those things. Obviously, Dr. D horrible decision.

You should do that. But also, you can't just hit boss. He should have done a nice hand chop or something. Yeah. Let me show you one of our moves that we do. And then just fucking put a hand print on his chest or something. Or like, you're big and terrifying. He's John Stassel, like throw a fake punch and get him to like, back up and flinch and be like, I don't know, looks real to me. You flinched, you know, I don't know, something.

You can, in fairness, also on the list of things you don't do, is go up to a guy that looks like David Schultz and tell him, hey, I think you're fake. Yeah, I think you're a liar. It was no hesitation. He said fake in a fucking hand, his mouth before the co-sound was out of his lips. Immediately.

And, you know, there's a cobra strike. Like, stuff. So you got this far in life without like seeing that guy and thinking that do the seconds away from punching. Yeah, you can see it in his face. Yeah, just back off, stuff. So it is like, it's like somebody trying to pet a rattlesnake while it's making the noise. And you're, yeah, it's the confidence of somebody who's never been punched before.

That's exactly what it is. And unfortunately, John Stossel has a platform and is able to sue. I'm not saying what Shultz did is wrong. Also, I think some of this is Vince's fault because if you have a man at Shultz's level of like smart capacity and you're like, go out there and fuck up this journalist and then he hits him. Some of that is on you, Vince. Like, this is not entire just Schultz that is who is the player.

It was a lot of bad decisions leading to this, but that reporter made the worst of them all. Like, I feel like nothing could have been made more clear to this man than like, if you fuck with him, you're going to get punched in the face and he still did it. Well, it's like natural selection at best. It'd be one thing if like shouts had been involved and something like, you know, we talked to, or yeah, we talked about the, um, um, the snookie case, right? Were he fucking murders a woman? If you're going up to like a fucking gorilla, like that because of a serious crime and

you ask him that kind of question, knowing you're going to get fucking hit. Well, that's that's kind of heroic. But like, Stassel, the thing he is trying to bust is that like wrestling is not real. Like it's pointless. You know, it's it would be like interrogating a mall Santa. What's your end game here? Why are we? Yeah, it's like waging.

In this case, it would be a mall, Santa with lots of tattoos. It's like waging a desperate and ultimately fatal insurgent war against the stormtroopers at Disney World. Like, there was no need for this. There was a saying in camera to bust the Easter bunny for... Yeah. Why are we here? Why are we here? Anyway, Stossel claims that he suffered permanent ear damage.

And that is quite a slap, maybe he did. I'm not questioning him on this. McMahon settles with him for, I think it's like $450,000. Like it's a significant amount of money. That's insane. That's so... Too much money to pay for a bitch ass ear. So despite the fact that Vince was allegedly happy to provoke violence to protect K-fabe and, you know,

you can say, but I don't know that Vince is to blame. I don't like, I haven't seen any evidence that like Vince is really to blame for what happens to fucking Belzer, but he's definitely a part of Stosel getting assaulted here. And I think you have to describe that as like, he is happy to have violence occur in order to protect K-Fabe in 1984. Despite this fact, and despite the fact that he like damages Dr. D's career forever by sort of inciting him to go out there,

Vince spins the 1980s, the mid to late 80s, and an active and engaged campaign to kill it, to kill the concept of K-Fabe. If you have forgotten, in the late 1980s and early 90s, wrestling was mostly treated as a real sport under the law. Referees are licensed by the same reps, the same way that reps for the NFL are,

like there's no difference to the state between them because people are saying wrestling's real, right? So why would there be matches are the subject to the same kinds of health and safety requirements. And you know, and it's a little silly to have like the same sort of reps for wrestling, but it's totally reasonable that like the NFL and WWF would have the same health and safety requirements, right? They're both huge guys slamming into each other, presumably a lot of the same problems are going to occur. Now, despite the fact that vents and other promoters have a big issue with this state of affairs,

it is not particularly strict. There's a lot of like wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Dr. George Zahorian, who is going become the WWF Steroid dealer, is like Pennsylvania's state appointed medical doctor for wrestling. So not necessarily the strictest situation imaginable here. Still, the modest regulation that wrestling existed under cost money, and the McMahons weren't about to stand for that. They started by lobbying in Connecticut before the first WrestleMania, and they succeeded in getting Republican State Representative Lauren Dickinson to introduce a bill ending

all state government oversight of wrestler health and in-ring safety measures. A lawyer for the WWF appeared in the state legislature to make the argument that, quote, we consider ourselves in the same class or league as the circus and the Harlem globe trotters. Resilvers, this lawyer argued, were quote, terrific athletes engaged in complex performances, but they shouldn't be regulated because there wasn't a real competition going on. This past, this bill passes without much talk. And it, you know, it's significant, obviously, for the business because now they don't

have to deal with like these additional taxes that you have to pay in Connecticut for running a sporting event. It doesn't get a lot of attention, but this is the first time that a wrestling promoter publicly acknowledges that wrestling isn't real, right? This is the first time that there's an official break in K-Fate from one of these big wrestling organizations.

The state legislature buys the argument, which is kind of insane when you think about it because like, well, again, the question isn't whether or not there's a competition. It's like, are people endangering themselves? Right. And they need health and safety standards. But the McMahon's win. So next, Vincent, it's a good thing no wrestlers die in the ring after this. No, no, that's not what this entire series is building towards. To compare themselves to Harlem Globetrotters,

I mean, for those guys lose a leg every month. Oh, God, the graveyard of the Globetrotters limbs. It's like one of those burial pits for severed body parts in the, at Waterloo. What are the pulse chainsaws out of his hair? I don't know if anyone knows this, but his hair is filled with weapons. We'll do our globe trotters episode soon. So Vincent Linda next move on to Delaware, where they win a similar victory in 1987, and they follow by pushing anyone who will listen to them into Jersey politics to deregulate wrestling there.

This is kind of like a long process for them, but they started in the late 1980s, and while they're kind of slowly trying to build support there, they move on to attacking the wrestling regulations in the state of Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission there has a sunset provision, and it was about to expire, so the whole state is having this debate of like, do we keep having a state athletic commission? The McMahons wanted dead and they hire a fancy law firm to try and ensure this happens. So said law firm is put to the task of arguing that Pennsylvania should kill their athletic

commission and they put this job on a brash young lawyer who has a real hatred for government regulation. Now, who here wants to take a guess as to which modern political shithead this guy is? Giuliani. No, no, thankfully it's not Giuliani. Although it could have been. I've got a guess. You got a guess. You got it. It's Rick Santorum. Oh, never would've got that. Yeah, I guess that wouldn't have got that. Rick is Vince McMahon's like, trigger man to kill wrestling regulations in Pennsylvania. Pretty cool stuff.

No, no, he's into it. Yeah, exactly. Like, that's safety, yes sir. It hurts people, I'm there, that's my bat signal. Get those kids back into those minds. It is very funny. So in true Rick Persa fashion, he says shit like this to reporters about the case. Pennsylvania was the most pernicious of states when it came to regulation.

They made you pay all this money to the boxing commission. They used to just rape these guys. What? What? Not how I would have put it. No. Good guy. Love that his career ended there. Oh, what's real? Not how I would have put it. No. Good guy. Love that his career ended there.

So one of Rick's trips. I think the boxers have had it too easy for too long. I think we can agree on that. Yeah, boxers, I think with too much regulation, boxing. But you know what isn't regulated. Yeah, I saw Sophie. You know what's not regulated in any way. It's pretty true. Podcast advertising. Yeah, whatever ad you're about to hear.

By their cold. Yeah, don't tell the FTC. There's a ton of stuff they don't want you to know. Does the US government really have alien technology? And what about the future of artificial intelligence, AI? What happens when computers learn to think? Could there be a serial killer in your town? From UFOs to psychic powers and government cover-ups, from unsolved crimes to the bleeding edge of science.

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In the podcast Alphabet Boys, we take you inside undercover investigations. I'm Trevor Aronson. And in our second season, we have an Alphabet suit. With the DEA, the CIA, and the FBI all mixed up in the same case. At the center of this story is Flavio. But who is Flavio? I see movies with arm dealers on TV. Okay, I'm going there for C.A. But I'm gonna die. When I land, there's Flavio in a suit. It's like, follow me. And he slams down his badge in my passport. And I'm like, uh, something's going on here.

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What's up, fam? I'm Brian Ford, Artisan Baker, and host of the new podcast, Flaky Biscuits. On this podcast, I'm going to get to know my guests by cooking up their favorite nostalgic meal. It could be anything from Twinkies to mom's Thanksgiving Jurassic. Sometimes I might get it wrong, sometimes I'll get it right.

I'm so happy it's good because man, if it wasn't, I'd be like, you know, everybody not my mom. Either way, we will have a blast. You'll have access to every recipe so you can cook and bake alongside me as I talk to artists, musicians, and chefs about how this meal guided them to success.

And these nostalgic meals, fam, they inspire one of a kind conversations. When I bake this recipe, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Does this podcast come with a therapist? They can. Listen to Flaky Biscuit every Tuesday on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So we're back. One of Rick's tricks as he's lobbying to deregulate wrestling is to take state law makers backstage at WWF events where they got free food and liquor in a way that didn't

technically violate the law. That sounds like he's trying to whine and dine some nine year olds. It's a backstage. They got to meet the ultimate warrior and shake the snake and big boss man. And the driver was there. We're great. We're joking about this, but when I get into politics, like I will vote on anything. If you take me backstage to meet Hulk Ogan and get me drunk, you know,

it is anything. Anything. You want to invade a rack again? Let's do it. I'm on board. No, no body count too high. If I get to meet the holster and talk about suburban commando with them, I'm fine with it. That's that's my limit. And that was these guys limits, right? Because you know, Santorum takes these guys backstage. They all get to take their photos with Holker, whoever this all culminates

as they're kind of doing this charm offensive in Lindemick Mann's June 11, 1987 testimony in Philadelphia to a committee reviewing this commission. Josie Reisman writes, quote, she was preceded by two executives from the athletic commission who pleaded with legislators to allow them to make sure the wrestlers were safe and healthy. The chairman of the State Athletic Commission, James J. Bins, argued that if the state got rid of wrestling regulations, they would be replaced by the good ol' boy system of live and let live, and let's just see what we can do to get beyond this problem. The committee members were less interested in worker safety than they were in trying to parse out the question of whether or not wrestling was real. After Bins delivered this

opening statement, the first question from a legislator was, do you believe honestly that wrestling is a competitive sport? It is not Serb, and it's replied, wrestling is an exhibition. No reasonable person, like it's so insane. It's the same stossal shit where it's like, you've been harassing that they're this hung up on it. The only adult in Philadelphia state government is like, well, these, these men are really encountering dangers. And like we need to have health and safety regulations. And the entire state legislatures like, but is wrestling real? Are you real? Fire.

Some of us can really talk, right? Can the undutaker really bring back the dead? Yeah. I don't know about that. Is he some form of necromancer? If I had his earn, could I control him? Why, you can still choose what you want to know. Yes, it's remarkable how dumb these fucking people are

and how many bad consequences there are to it. But everybody's like, yep, this is a reasonable thing to be debating on. And to her credit, not credit, because this is an awful thing to be debating on and to her credit not credit because this is an awful thing to do But it just shut Linda is very savvy at what she's doing She's much better at certain aspects of the business than certainly than vince is and she follows up with an extremely disingenuous argument, but a very successful one and this is me pretending to be Linda McMahon But I'll just I'll just I know Yeah, I'll do my bench appearance. Probably.

Yeah. I'm listening. I'm, I'm letting the, uh, the illusion take me over. Just, just, just close your eyes. We provide quality family entertainment for all age groups and for people from all walks of life. Unlike professional boxers, professional wrestlers are not competing in contests where points are scored and the winner determined by potentially Injurious blows struck at an opponent instead like the skilled athletes you see in the circus or the Harlem Globetrotters Our athletes are well-conditioned professionals who are the best at what they do and what they do is entertain people

Does the liquor control board assign an agent to every tavern? Does the game commission assign a game warden to every hunter? To such questions the answer is obviously no. And these are areas where real dangers exist to society. There is no such danger in wrestling. There's a lot that's silly about. For one thing, every hunter might encounter a game warden. There are game wardens out there.

If you shoot a deer and a game warden is there, they will make you show your tags. They'll check to make sure it's like a part of hunting. Yeah, I absolutely do not understand that part of the argument. And also, yes, there's not one game warden for every 100. No, and like, yeah, like the liquor control board doesn't have like a sky martial guy in every bar, but like every bar could be investigated by a liquor control. Every bar can have its license pulled if you break the rules. Like that's a, that's a nothing argument.

It's, it's a nuts argument, but you can see why this could sell to a roomful of guys who are dumb enough to like listen to a man beg them to take seriously the health consequences of wrestling and going, but is it real? Like, it works. Yeah, it's, and one of the things that's like that. I know I just hooked on everyone as today and then like take them back 30 years when they just like didn't know anything.

Yeah, like nothing at all, not a single brain in the room. They are all like, all of these guys cognition is like 60% old-fascens and 40% camel cigarettes There is there is just not a thought in their head Their brains look like the inside of a playboy spread Yeah tragic so After this kind of big testimony,

you start to get a little bit of leak into like the public consciousness that like some, like some people who are paying more attention are like, well, actually like WWF's claiming that like what they're doing isn't real. That's kind of interesting. That's a change. But it has no impact on how Vince treats

his own people when they break K-Fape, right? Like they're still very aggressive about it. In fact, the month before Linda's testimony, the iron shake and hacksaw Jim Duggan get into a traffic stop, and there's like liquor and drugs in the car. They're supposed to be bitter rivals in the ring and Vince fires them because like this is like

an unacceptable breach of K-Fape. He does not care that like, this is like, we just talked about, you know, the murder, that he doesn't care that they're drunk driving, you know? Right. Um, the issue is they're not supposed to be friends. Now in the middle of all this, in 1988, Vince is getting ready for WrestleMania four. This is the one that has the epic showdown between Andre and the Hulkster.

It's a very famous event, although because there's so much cool shit happening in the event, it's often not being remembered as like as much of a shit show as it was. And part of why the actual event itself is kind of a shit show on the ground is that it's held in Atlantic City. Now if you're not a springsteen fan or from the East Coast, Atlantic City is Las Vegas without any hope at all, right? That's that's kind of how I would describe it. Yeah. Vegas without any hope at all, right? That's that's kind of how I would describe it. Yeah, yeah. It's also where a certain real estate mogul named Donald J. Trump had a casino in

the late 1980s. And there's kind of a little bit of wonders like how this exactly happened, but basically one day at an event, Trump and McMahon meet and they get to talking. And McMahon is like, you know, we're doing a a wrestling of it, you know, one of our WrestleMania's and, and Trump is familiar with wrestling and is like, well, you know, I got this casino, I got this hotel, you know, you should do an Atlantic city. I'll sponsor it. And this is in fact what happens? Trump agrees to sponsor WrestleMania for the future president record some awkward promos for the event. It is, they kind of lie about it on TV and they say that it's being held at the Trump casino, even though it's actually being hosted quite a while.

It's like at the pier or something like that. There's a little bit of like fuckery with that kind of stuff, not a big deal. There are also some really awkward moments from that time. And my favorite is this video featuring Gorilla Monsoun and Bobby the brain Heenan who are both like wrestlers who have become like commentators. And it's like a video of Bobby Heenan trying to check into the Trump Hotel in Casino. This is part of like a 20 minute thing that's like basically supposed to be an ad for Trump properties, you know, because he's sponsoring this shit. But it's

like deeply off-putting and to show that here's just a clip from it. This is a clip from like what Trump is meaning to be an ad for his property of Bobby Heenan, like, checking into his hotel. Oh, boy. I have any reservations and we are completely sorry. No, no, I got the whole top floor here. I got the sweets on the top floor here. Don't give me that bimbo. You have all the sweets on the top floor? That's right.

Excuse me, there's no reason to be calling names, okay? I'm just sitting here, I'm trying to wear a wig. You'll be out in the park, I'm parked in cars in about 20 minutes. Please just bear with me. It's just like, really kind of, but I... Wow, that's just really unpleasant. Yeah, just go straight to Bimbo. It's a heinous doing his heel stuff.

Yeah. That is the way. Not like a charming way. He's just being really mean to this woman. He's being deployed in a weird way. Like this woman's clearly not an actress. And it's not like, it's like, it's exactly.

Get exists. You get like a lady wrestler or something here and maybe like they have a conflict or something and like there's some between back. This, she does seem like someone who works the front desk at a casino and is just really uncomfortable and scared. Like, it's just very off-putting.

But what else do you expect from Donald Trump's casino and hotel? This is why he grills him on soon next to it all times to go, would you stop? He does come in eventually, a rescue, the situation. But yeah, it's awkward. So despite Trump's friendliness to the sport,

Atlantic City has one big downside for Vince, which is that it is in the state of New Jersey and the state of New Jersey charges a tax on TV sporting events. The bill comes to like $61,000. And you know, WrestleMania four, the first couple are really big hits. He's seeing kind of declining revenues in the late 1980s. So like the fact that he's just kind of getting annoyed with all of these additional

charges he has to deal with. So again, the McMahon's call up a lawyer. And this is a lawyer with more firepower than Santorum. And this lawyer successful or starts to lobby a Democratic state senator, Francis McMahonaman to try and like, in some of these Jersey state laws. That guy's name probably led to a man in McMahon and McMahon calls. Yeah. It is frustrating.

So they play the lawmaker and his staff with gifts and tickets to WrestleMania four. They like put Macmanaman and his aide right next to Donald Trump. The the aid, I think, Ryzman talks to the aid and the aid is like years later, like we were so close that Macho Man, Randy Savage fell into our laps.

God, that's a dream come true for anyone. It is for him. It is for him. He's so happy about this. The senator and his staff have this kind of perfunctory thing where they talk to a couple of wrestlers about health and safety backstage. And the aide recalled, quote, they told us, look, we've got a lot of money invested in those people.

It's in our best interest to make sure they're safe, you know? Well, that's enough research for me. Yeah, sure. He a bunch of men I want to talk to you about making it less safe. And putting more toxic waste in the rivers. Yeah, I don't want anyone to scan my head to see if I got CTE. You better not do your due diligence. That was so much better.

Mucha man. Really good, mucha man, Tom. Yeah, damn, that was exceptional. We got to get you into a Trump casino to abuse of one of the staff members. It's haunted. Yeah, like a giant man was falling into my lap right there. So spring 88, Senator McManaman introduces a bill to deregulate wrestling in New Jersey, New Joysy as it's more accurately known.

He took the McMan's out, McManaman took the the McMahons on a tour of the Capitol, and they in turn started like finding other lawmakers as like he's showing them around. They're like, you guys want tickets to some wrestling shows? You guys want to see some shows? So they try the same thing. It doesn't work this time, actually. And I very rarely say this, to New Jersey's credit, the Bill Dyson Committee, and wrestling actually stays regulated in the

Garden State until 1997, which makes it later than most. It is a technical loss for the McMahons, but also, I'm not entirely sure why I guess maybe just because like Jersey is bigger news than Philadelphia or Connecticut or whatever. But this is like this kind of the crusade in Jersey to deregulate wrestling by admitting that it's fake. This is the thing that actually blows up and becomes like massive like national news. And I'm going to quote from the book Ringmaster by Josie Reisman here. Now it can be told, those pro wrestlers are just having fun to clear to front page headline

in the late edition of that day's New York Times. Care began his article by writing, the promoters of professional wrestling have disclosed that they're terrifying towers and spandex tits. Massive creatures like Bam Bam Bigelow, Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant are really no more dangerous to one another than Santa Claus, the Easter Buddy and the Tooth Fairy. But please don't repeat this. Millions of grown men and women just don't want to know.

And like, you see, it's like the subtle side bastard here. In addition to Vince is like all of these journalists and law makers who either like just desperately want to know themselves if it's real, but like really what's the worst thing to me is these journalists who are like ignoring all these serious issues and like the dangers of the sport to its performers and being like, ha like, we were right, it's wrong. Look at these idiots, you think wrestling, don't tell these idiots it's fake.

Like really, you need our times to, like it's like it's no more dangerous to each other than Santa Claus or the East of the year, the tooth fairy. It's like, come on guys. It's fucking, they're just like offended people are watching wrestling and not reading Camille Paglia or some shit. It's like stop being like there's a real thing to investigate here guys several real Yeah, a lot of shit. Why are you writing this article? Yeah, they're getting so up in arms about it being fake and whether or not wrestlers were using steroids when they were legal. It's like Jesus Christ Part of when we talk about all of the guys whose hearts are gonna fucking explode,

who get like CTE and, you know, as one guy does, kills their entire family, behind it, there's a lot of things behind it. It's not like, you know, just the times has fallen here, but behind it is like years of people whose job was to take this stuff seriously and who couldn't get over the carnival, right? Right.

They couldn't get over this reputation built in kind of carny stuff to be like, well, but these are still human beings. Like this is real what's happening. Like even if the game isn't a real game, like, and that's watching so and so on. Towers get tortured to death while they're like, you know, I think they're using mirrors

to sign up. Lady in half. Yeah. It's like there's a anyway, that's pretty gross. So once again, the news media is a side bastard in this story. Cool. So despite fighting in court to declare,lair wrestling just entertainment, Vince had his wrestlers leap to K Fabe's defense yet again. So they have this guy, he has

this press he has guys go on shows and be like, you don't gonna be this fake, you know, this isn't fake. And kind of likewise, the only other big game in wrestling, which is so at this point, Ted Turner is kind of the functional heart of the very weather withered in WA, right? He's like running a lot of shows and stuff on his network. And they declare the NWA launches a new tagline, which is like the NWA, we wrestle.

So it's like the WWF have admitted that what they're doing is fake, but our wrestling's real here in the NWA W.A. Very funny. That said, McMahon still plowed ahead. He never kind of entirely gives up K-Fabe, but he also starts introducing new terms to describe what his wrestlers are doing. And the ultimate conclusion of this is eventually kind of the somewhat replacement

of the term wrestling with the phrase sports entertainment. This is first added to the introduction logo of televised WWF matches, I think at the late 1980s. And as the logo appears on screen, a voice reads the tag line, the recognized symbol of excellence in sports entertainment. And that's kind of the, that's what sort of replaces, you know, the, the, the, the, the the era of like KFA being taken seriously is like the sports entertainment era, right?

Which you could say we're in now to an extent, although there's other terms that you get used. But like, yeah, that's kind of, that's a, you know, not a bad thing that he transitions away from taking it as seriously as people did, but like a bad thing that it's in order to end regulations. Yeah, and there's gonna be some consequences of this. But there's gonna be consequences to a lot of Vince's decisions, because as a serial entrepreneur in 1990,

he decides to launch a new enterprise. Now, you are a recognized expert in this one. So you know where I'm going here. If this is 1990, that would be the world bodybuilding federation. That is exactly correct, sir. And this was Vince who decided that what bodybuilding needed was more steroids.

Yeah, these guys aren't huge enough. Yes. Capes, top outs, commanding outfits, shirt. But more steroids is really what we're going for. He walked into a competition and saw a man who was almost able to reach his pocket with his hand. And was like, absolutely not. Not on my watch.

So every year prior to this point, the Mr. Olympia competition crowned the best bodybuilder in the world. And afterwards, after you get the winner declared or whatever, there's closing ceremonies. And a big part of the closing ceremonies is all of the different companies that had sponsored the event get to like, give, say shit in order to kind of like try and pump whatever products they're selling, right?

That's a pretty normal thing to do in a competitive event. That year, McMahon had paid $5,000 for a booth at the event in order to promote a bodybuilding magazine he'd launched called Bodybuilding Lifestyles. You know what? I already know this booth. It's a trap. It's not, it's not going to go right. So Tom Platt is a bodybuilder working for McMahon at this time. And he addresses the crowd on his behalf on Vince's behalf. And he kind of surprises everyone by directing a tie raid against the international Federation of Bodybuilders promising we at Titan Sports and Bodybuilding Lifestyles magazine are pleased to announce the formation of the World Bodybuilding Federation. And we're going to kick the IFBB's ass.

And this is kind of gauche because it's the IFBB putting the sh- Oh, and he's like, fuck these guys and fuck your event. We're going to kill you in an article for the late great spy magazine. Irving Muchnik wrote quote, the audience fell silent and leaky models and slinky black evening grounds, gowns and bodybuilding lifestyle sashes emerged from the wings to distribute handbills promising bodybuilding. Is it was meant to be a code phrase some thought for no drug testing? A code phrase some thought for no drug testing. We know what that means. Yeah.

Vince McMahon had thoroughly upstaged the whiter's who ran the IFBB at their own event. And he still had one more trick up his sleeve. That evening, when the bodybuilding contestants returned to their rooms at the McCormick Center Hotel, they found WBF contract offers slipped under their doors. Really, really, really, Balsey. Now, look, the whiter brothers are our bodybuilding promoters. So they're not like morally peer here, right? Like we're not, this isn't the battle

between good and evil. Yeah, but it is like a pretty tasteless thing to do to go to an event promoted by this organization you're trying to destroy. And almost needlessly evil. Like, every sport or sports entertainment has multiple promotions where it's like, hey, I'm this promotions champion and I'm this promotions champion. Vince McMahon like made it so adversarial like before it even existed.

He's just like, this sucks. This is the real one. And that's, it's still, I'm going to poach all your best talent with exclusive contracts. It is interesting kind of that strategy of like before I'm even off the ground. I'm going to start this with a fight is a very wrestling thing to do, right? Yeah. Like it's very much like a challenge promo between a heel and a face here that he's kind of like logic. You can see that like he's just got wrestling so deep in his bones. Yeah, it's a real it's carny thing. Yeah, it's the way his it's the it's the just the only way ideas occur to him. Like this was also something that Vince McMahon genuinely thinks bodybuilding is more interesting

than most people. Oh, you can love me. You can love me. Sure, this is going to be a huge hit. Yeah. And so he was throwing money at it. And so, like, these were offers, these men couldn't really say no to in a lot of ways. No. Because he's like, here's, I'll give you a fucking million dollars a year. I don't know one of the numbers.

The numbers were stupid. Yeah. The numbers make no sense from a business standpoint. And so, you're just a bodybuilder who, if I'm understanding industry correctly, kind of who's really unregulated, I think a lot of bodybuilders are considered amateurs, even at this point in their career, meaning that you can just do whatever you want to them. None of what they do with counts, right? These are just like, anyway, so Vince is offering these guys real money for the first time

it's their life. Yeah. And he does find some ways to fuck them because like the money sounds real good, but like there's restrictions on other stuff that you're allowed to do and all so people, when they get into it, they find out that like, if you win a prize, like that's basically

taken out of your salary, so you don't get extra money on top of it. Like he does fuck around with them, but like it's one of those things where like people don't realize the contracts not as, this is always the case with Vince. People don't realize the contracts not as good as it sounds like it is until they're already signed, you know. It is by the way worth noting, I said in an early episode Vince was probably on steroids.

He was absolutely on steroids and it has admitted as a result of some of the court stuff we're talking about later that in this period of time when they were legal, he was using them. He says he stopped when they got made illegal. You can find no reason to. No reason to doubt the word of Vince McMahon. That's a person who's watched Vince McMahon on television for, I don't know, 25 years. Yeah. You can absolutely tell he's doing sterile.

No, no. So that's not for a seven year old man to have 4% body fat and be 100 pounds. Yeah. So no, when I look at, Guy in his late 70s, look at the turbo. Vince McMahon in like the early 2000s, a 60, 50 year old man, I see that's a guy who's not on gear.

That's a man who doesn't spend like a nice new car every month on fucking gear. He just loves a jog. He just like, yeah, he likes to jog. There's a couple of push ups, you know, stays in shape. Maybe fights to come home or a race, you know, yeah, yeah. I got his hand full of mar Marines. Yeah, drops a platoon or two, you know, on the weekends. Good stuff. So and again, so critics will say that basically Vince's plan is just to throw more steroids at bodybuilding than the other guys who actually the IFBB is at least attempting to like provide a visual show of being against steroids.

I think there's a lot of debate as to like how serious their testing program was, but they do have like a testing program at this point because people are starting to really, in 1990, really get concerned about steroids and like legal regulation is coming. So kind of part of what Vince is doing, it's actually so like, you know, the NWA response to the WWF saying wrestling isn't real by being like our wrestling's real Vince responds to the IFWF saying wrestling isn't real by being like, our wrestling's real, Vince responds to the IFBB taking some steps to regulate steroids by being like, well, you can do all the roads you want here.

You shouldn't downplay the costumes too. He also had a costume, say the SSC vampire guy. He shared that Indian chief guy, the small, small guy they called Warping, got him at Indian chief. Find it Italian. No, this guy they call it warping. Got to have an energy. Find an Italian. No, this guy had like a blonde crew cut.

Like he should have been a surfer guy, but they already had a surfer guy. They're like, fuck it. We got to have an Indian. Yeah, my God. Every single time, you know, like a sorcerer, a warrior, they have full D&D party. That part I do appreciate, because I get bored by normal bodybuilding.

I want to see them, I want to see like fucking a barbarian in fishnets, you know, called them Hone and the Barbarian. Like let's go with it. Anyway, critics, basically are like, yeah, he just wants to roid people up even more. And by the start of the 90s, steroids have become a regular topic in the news, due in part because like a bunch of guys, some of whom are wrestlers, die, right? Like people have their hearts fucking explode from steroids. And even more than that, a lot of people who had been like Vince seniors, big wrestlers,

like his kind of like top guys, their bodies are starting to fall apart. You know, some of that's just wrestling's bad for you, but like it's not, they also were like taking a bunch of steroids in a period of time where they didn't realize how much damage they were doing. And, you know, the butcher's bill has come due by 1990. And so they are starting to speak out against the WWF because they realize what they've done to their body and that more is being done to the bodies of young guys that are in the field right now. And I'm going to quote from Muchnick again. According to superstar Billy Graham, a retired WWF champ, crippled by bone and joint

degeneration from steroid use, and Bruno Samartino, who had us had a falling out with McMahon, nearly all of today's WWF stars are on the juice. I love this business and it's really sad to see what's happened to it, Samaritino says. With all the drugs they take, the guys are now like zombies. Resilier Jim Hellwig, a former chiropractor and one-time Venice Beach Habit II, who calls himself the ultimate warrior, is perhaps the ultimate example of the WWF's bigger is better ethic. Even though he can barely pose and mug without getting winded,

Hellwig was last year given the lead of the WWF troop when Hogan was temporarily detained by Hollywood commitments. I eat the chemical toxins that other men fear, the warrior huffed and puffed in one TV interview. Dave Meltzer, wrestling columnist for the National and published a new sletter called the wrestling observer, now refers to Hellwig as the anabolic warrior. Goes for it.

They have his number. Mm-hmm. Yeah. He was, he was winded, I mean, Ultimate Warrior is so great. What a great, beautiful, beautiful disaster. Yeah, he runs out to the ring like a jackass.

He's already winded by the time he gets there. He cannot do, he's, he can do less wrestling than Hulk Hogan. Pins, people in 38 seconds and sprints to the back. And then becomes like a right wing crank, right? He goes on as an older man. Yeah. He goes real hard.

Yeah. And so that's the real way. Like he has a phobic way. Yeah, super homophobic racist. And again, the way like he is a so-beak way. Yeah, super homophobic, racist. Yeah. It's all the above. Yeah. It's it's good stuff. We all love the the anabolic warrior. Yeah. In fact, here's a here's here's in

2005. Here's the ultimate warrior talking at the University of Connecticut. Oh, good. Summing up his life philosophy. As Reismman says it. Liberals believe in a utopian society where everything is equal. Life doesn't work that way.

It's a good for nothing joke that it can and worse an oppressive evil fraud to then pursue it as a goal. The extra money. The extra money coming from a guy who had the briefest of flash in the pan careers in a industry that he knew nothing about and didn't respect and was only propped up by other guys covering for the fact that he

was fucking terrible. Yeah, he was willing to shoot the most steroids into his ass. And so he had a brief career and then his brain melted out of his ears. Yeah, for him to start talking about some kind of meritocracy, it's like, buddy, you are the last person. There is absolutely no merit. I'm convinced. I don't think we should try to make the world better.

I think you might have. I told you, I think the dead maniac with a lot of problems might be right. Yeah, you know what? You know what, you're right, Sean. Behind the bastards, it's now a podcast where we find people like filling potholes and just start kicking them. I mean, I mean, kickin' the shit out of them. Like Applebee's.

Does it have bumps, idiots? Yeah. A guy who wore that many bicycle streamers around his biceps cannot be wrong about this, about him on social issues. No, absolutely not, never. So during the period in which steroids are spreading throughout wrestling

and Vince is getting into bodybuilding, he also develops this kind of, this is when it becomes really obvious that he's like on the gear. Colleagues would note that in between minor matches or meetings, he would leave the room and do barbell curls and then come back sweaty and shirtless. And people who wanted to manipulate him,

it became known that if you told Vince that he looks better than his wrestlers, like that's the line, right? Everybody uses it on them like, wow Vince, you're bigger than your wrestlers. He'll do whatever for you, right? His $4,000, thank you. Yeah, that's how you manipulate him.

The IFBB, meanwhile. Can I get more toxic waste in your community? Yeah, I know. I know a seven. Yeah. Well, we really want to poison some kids. Can we do it? Um, so, uh, yeah, the IFBB during this period kind of has like a number of public firings of bodybuilders who are testing positive for steroids. And the public concern is enough that in 1988, the United States had made it illegal to distribute anabolic steroids.

I think without a prescription. And in the middle of 1990, Congress felt motivated to pass the anabolic steroid control act of 1990, which is why you can't pick up Deca de Roblin with your cratum and hot pockets, heart breaking. They go great together. Oh my God, two great tastes. So while Vince is at war with the IFBB, the United States is going to war with an even deadlier foe. Saddam Hussein. Ah, friend of the pod Saddam Hussein, Al Tukreedy. Are you guys aware

of his intersection with the world of wrestling? I remember the search in slaughter gimmick. Oh, I remember when he switched to the Iraqi side, yeah. Yeah. We are, we will be talking about that. But it gets much worse than that. So also, I think Saddam did more steroids than ultra-oreal, right? He was like the king. Yeah. Yeah. He was. He was. That's what he thought he could have. He could have co-weight. And just several months title run in the WWF in 1991. That's not quite true, Tom, but he does nearly murder Andre the giant. So, stripping for this one, boys. So there's this guy named Adnan Al-Kaisy, right?

You will know him later because he's the shake, not the iron shake. He's the shake. So, yeah, the iron shake and the shake are both noteworthy because they are the kind of the racial stereotype wrestlers who are actually from where kind of where they're supposed to be. Both of them like the shake is Iraqi, the iron shake is Iranian. Now during the Gulf War, the iron shake, they're going to pretend he's Iraqi, which is kind of problemat, very problemat. But whatever, whatever. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll

we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we Kreeti. Both young men were intellectual and prone to debates in coffee houses, so they kind of like were friendly for a while, and then they eventually drift apart, and that way you do when your friend goes off to become the dictator and like, you go to Oklahoma State University and a study abroad program and fall into pro wrestling as a psychic because you're huge. So Alkaiji loves wrestling, He does it for a while in the US and then he comes back to Iraq in 69. When Saddam finds out that like a real pro wrestler, because Saddam loves wrestling

and apparently believes it's real, he invites his old friend for an audience. Adnan later claimed he said to me that he really enjoyed pro wrestling but had never seen it in person only on television. He wanted me to bring it to Iraq as soon as possible so everyone could enjoy it. Now, this is pretty in character, first of all,

and unfortunately, like again, he's kind of bought the K-fabe line, or at least that's the allegation from Adnon, who is not an entirely trustworthy source, but we're gonna choose to believe what he says here because it's amazing. So Adnan recruits some Western wrestlers, and they come and fight and bagdad,

you know, bagdad holds a number of like big wrestling expos and stuff. There are some problems though. Adnan is obviously the most popular Iraqi wrestler, and he's not supposed to lose matches. So near the end of 1970, he brings one of his friends from the US over to Iraq, a guy who was very used to wrestling in foreign countries named Andre the Giant. Now, the match they've got planned, normally Andre is going to win, but in some of these

like local exhibitions, he'll lose to like foreign like wrestling heroes, right? Because that's just kind of the way it goes. And so they set up and they're like, all right, you know, me and Andre will go together, we'll do three bouts all win the first, till win the second, all win the third. That way we can keep everyone on the edge of their seats, you know, pretty standard stuff, right?

There's a problem with this. One of the problems is that this match is scheduled for a major military holiday. So the entire stadium is filled with Iraqi soldiers with their guns. So that's an unsettling scene to wrestling. And Josie Resman writes, Saddam too was armed and seated in the front row.

Adnan went over to him and received a wish for good luck. Then Saddam pulled Adnan close and whispered forcefully into the wrestler's ear. Be victorious Adnan, he said, we are all counting on you. Be victorious. This guy is big, but he is a pussy. I know that you can beat him. If he hurts you in any way, he's going to get this.

Saddam lifted up his coat to reveal a solid gold pistol. I will put every bullet there in his fat head and send him back to France and a pie in box. Oh my god. Now again, I don't know if I think this is 100% true, but it's not impossible, right? Not impossible. So a real trade, according to Adnon at least, a real tragedy is avoided because Adnon like gets Andre into a headlock early on and was just like, all that stuff we had planned about like making this look like a fight, don't do it.

Like just go flat. Like dude, like Saddam will murder you if you are seen to fight it all. And so Andre terrified huddles on the mat wondering like, am I going to be shot to death? Jesus Christ. Especially since the crowds celebrates ad nuns win by firing into the air. So this is shattery situation. Andre the giant's gastrointestinal system to know that seared diarrhea from Andre the Giant

could kill that whole stadium. Oh yeah, no, it's a real problem for everybody. A lot of lives at risk here. Thankfully, it ends fine. And for several years, Adnan is a big Iraqi star. But obviously, if you don't believe that Saddam, Adnan's not gonna stay in his good books forever. And eventually he has to flee the country.

Yeah. Before that becomes a terminal condition. So you fast forward August 2nd, 1990. Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait and George H.W. Bush finally gets an opportunity to bust those rumors about being a wimp that have dogged him for years. We get our operation desert storm and the USA goes nuts with war feet, feap, all that good shit This is kind of wind up being super convenient for vents because wars distract people and in the late 1990s

He needed a distraction and this is where we get back to the story of anabolic steroids But you know what's even more addictive than anabolic steroids. The great flavor of Applebee's. Yeah. Well, that is true, Sean. The Apple is doing the same. The Applebee's. One 900 hot dog and gamefully unemployed.

Both the only comedy website left on the internet and the podcast network that features such great shows as Fox Mulder is a maniac. Oh, yeah. That's glorious. Glorious. Do you guys have, do you guys want to plug to, you want to, you want to expand on the plug idea?

I'll add just a little to my plug at 100 hot dog. I run that with Robert Brockway. We have all star cast of writers, including Tom Reiman, who is here today. That's me. Yeah. And Alex Schmidt, who you both know, who is here today. That's me. Yeah. And Alex Schmidt, who you both know, and Lydia Bug, are Dale Brennan, McKinley. Just a few heroes.

Super star comedy writers. That's all I want to add. I've crashed on his couch a bunch. Oh, that's very nice. Yeah, very nice guy, Brennan. Great, Tom. Oh, yeah, I'll just add that he had a Gamefl and Employance

podcast and streaming network I do with David Bell. You guys know him. Yeah, just check it out. Head over to our Patreon, patreon.com slash Gameplay and Employed. We have a bunch of tears you can get in on. You can commission your own podcast series, or you can just listen to episodes for free, wherever

you find podcasts. So yeah, do that. Do that, and remember, folks, if you want to know what it's like to stare down the barrel of Saddam Hussein's gold-plated handgun, tragically Saddam isn't with us anymore. But you can always find a man with a handgun at an Applebee's near a truck stop after 10.30 at night. So good luck and God bless everybody. That one is fake.

Oh yeah, listen to this podcast without ads if you go to Cooler Zone media, it's on Apple or something. Really threw that one away. Behind the bastards is a production of Cool Zone media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website CoolZoneMedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So there is a ton of stuff they don't want you to know.

Yeah, like does the US government really have alien technology? Or what about the future of AI? What happens when computers actually learn to think? Could there be a serial killer in your town? From UFOs to psychic powers and government cover-ups, from unsolved crimes to the bleeding edge of science, history is riddled with unexplained events. Listen to stuff they don't want you to know on the iHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your favorite shows. What's up y'all? I'm Brian Ford, artist and baker and host of the new podcast FlakyBiscuit. I'm gonna help y'all learn how to cook and bake new things as we get to know our guests through their favorite nostalgic meal. If you are ever at a place in your life where things are too busy or your head gets too big, having a meal like this, it reminds you of who you were and also who you still are. Listen to Flaky Biscuit every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. From iHeart Podcasts Supreme, the Battle for Row, tells the story of the unlikely champions behind the landmark case, Roe V Wade, starring Maya Hawk as 26-year-old lead attorney Sarah

Weddington for challenging the Texas abortion laws in federal court. And Academy Award nominee William H. Macy as Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackman. Time is not the most important factor, getting it right is. Listen to the podcast's Supreme, the Battle for Row on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.