Crime in Sports - #297 - One Big Pose - The Boastfulness of "The Total Package" Lex Luger (Larry Pfohl)

Episode Date: April 5, 2022

This week, we check out a very well known wrestlers, who worked for both WWF (at the time), and WCW, being on tv, just about every week, for more than 10 years, after his football career ended. He was known for his incredible physique, and also his incredible arrogance. It all came tumbling down, in a haze of pills, booze & steroids. From driving 167 MPH, to having a large stash of drugs found in his house, after an equally well known female wrestling star dies, in his condo. It gets even worse for him, after he is confined to a wheelchair, and had to struggle just to have some mobility. A Tell the Green Bay Packers that you don't think it's working out between you, live up to your character name of "The Narcissist", and suffer the stinging horror of karma with "The Total Package" Lex Luger!! Check us out, every Tuesday! We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!!  Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman  Donate at... patreon.com/crimeinsports or with paypal.com using our email: [e-mail]  Get all the CIS & STM merch at crimeinsports.threadless.com  Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things CIS & STM!!  Contact us on... twitter.com/crimeinsports [e-mail] facebook.com/Crimeinsports instagram.com/smalltownmurderSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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It's an all-new season. Judy Justice. Only on Freebie. Hello everybody and welcome back to Crime and Sports! Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I am Jimmy Westman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us on another wonderful, crazy, insane edition of Crime and Sports. And today, extra fun, because it seems like everyone's favorite episodes are the wrestling episodes

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stuff for crime and sports for small town murder for everything and this week we have some amazing ones for we have the greatest april fool's hoax maybe of all all time, I think, here in the Sid Finch story, which is a story of a Mets pitcher who they found in Tibet on a mountain. And it can throw 168 miles an hour because he's learned how to focus the energy of the universe. It's crazy. You've got to hear the story. Or he's an art teacher from Maine. Or just an art teacher who was friends with a photographer who worked for Sports Illustrated. It's hilarious.

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And you get shout outs for that too. For sure. Shout out at the end of the show where Jimmy's going to mispronounce your name. So that, sign on up. We can't wait. That said, let's get into this because it's a lot of show,

as it always is with a wrestler, especially one who had such a, kind of a storied, not storied, but a mainstream career like this guy. Long career? Let's talk about him. Lawrence Wendell Fole. You know who I'm talking about, Jimmy? Is that Mick Foley? That is Lex Luger.

Close enough. Mick Foley. What? His name is Mick Foley. That's his real name. That's his real name? Mick Foley. What? His name is Mick Foley. That's his real name. That's his real name? Mick Foley, yeah. That's Michael, I think.

Michael Foley. Lawrence Wendell Foley. P-F-O-H-L, by the way. That is a terrible name. Terrible. P-Foley? P-Foley? What the fuck is your name, young man?

Larry P-Hole? What is that? I think you're Larry P-Hole. That's what I'm going to call you from now on. Larry P-Hull? What the fuck is your name, young man? Larry P-Hull? What is that? I think you're Larry P-Hull. That's what I'm going to call you from now on. Larry P-Hull. What kind of nickname? Better known as Lex Luger, obviously, or in the total package, Lex Luger, or his other nicknames, the Narcissist, as we'll get into in WWF later on. He is born June 2, 1958 lex is here um now his parents roger and marion uh here they they're all buffalo is where this all starts he's born in buffalo his parents are big buffalo people yeah his parents were students at the university of buffalo when they met and uh by the way a lot of this we lex is such an arrogant motherfucker okay he's so he's the most arrogant like not to spoil it but later on he'll go to wwe

f at the time and they will give him the character of the narcissist and in the beginning literally bobby heenan carries a fucking a fucking body length mirror with him so Lex can stop and pose and look at himself in the mirror and they gave that to him because that's who he is he armed it everybody in wrestling said he could not

walk by a mirror without stopping and admiring himself not seeing something just being like, looking and like being like, mm, you sexy motherfucker and like posing and flexing to himself.

They called him that because Vanity Smurf was taken. Yeah, sorry, we can't do that. The Care Bear with the compact on their stomach is not, we can't do that.

The Selfie Filter bear is not. We already have one of those. So Lex writes this book, and a lot of this information about his background comes from this book. So there's a lot of quotes I have to read right from this book because they're just ridiculous. The way he says it even with you know a ghost writer writing the actual words down for him and then an editor going through it

even with two filters he still sounds insanely arrogant i can't i can't imagine what the tape recordings of him saying this shit were like it's got to be amazing drag his words through the the fingers typing of two extra people. Still an asshole. Still an asshole. Yeah. He says, quote, my dad was a brilliant musician with his sights set on becoming a concert pianist. My mom was brilliant academically.

She had been valedictorian of her high school class with the added distinction of carrying the highest grade point average. Great. Of all the students in the Buffalo school system throughout her entire education. So from K to 12, constantly the smartest. Number one always. Best grades ever. Good for you, Mary.

Good for you. She would go on to excel in college, both as an undergrad while getting her master's degree. So that's nice. His parents met in their first year there. They were in choir. Her mom was, his mom was singing in the choir.

Dad was like pianist accompanying the choir type of deal. They, everybody came, everybody, he would, after practice, practice, after rehearsal,

he would like fuck around on the piano and they'd play kind of name that tune type of shit. And so all the girls would gather around. And this guy knew what he was doing. In the 60s, this guy would have been sitting under a tree with a guitar. You know what I mean? Like he knew it was up here. Yeah, he would do all this type of shit. And they got along because his mother knew classical stuff.

So he'd play classical stuff and she would know what the hell that shit was. And so he was like, oh, look at you. So so um yeah they started talking and they had a lot in common he says that his dad was a child prodigy on the piano which i don't know if that's true or not but anyway uh his mom his grandfather his mother's father played tuba in the buffalo philharmonic orchestra wow so that's why i've never have you ever heard i've seen people playing tubas but i've never heard of someone being a tuba player i assume those people are they make them in a petri dish we need more tuba players and they just get a dish out and mix some shit together and yeah they gotta put a tube in his hand there's i think

worldwide there's probably only a need of like 11 of them. Yeah, there's a tuba farm somewhere. They just farm out these tuba kids. We might have a surplus. There's that and the kid who does the pshh at the end with the cymbals. We need 11 tuba players. The crash cymbal guy. 12 of the crash cymbal guys.

We only have that many gloves. We're always wearing white gloves. We only have that many pairs. So, always wearing white gloves. We only have that many pairs. So, sorry. The bass drum guy, too, in the marching band, that seems like an easy job. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.

That guy doesn't have it too tough. No, it's attached to his chest. He just gets to smile and be a part of this shit, and he's going to get laid because his noise makes the most noise. You hear it a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the snare drum guy, he's gonna get laid because his noise makes the most noise you hear it a lot yeah yeah yeah well the snare drum guy he's more fancy or girl they're fancy because they they're loud as fuck and they can get like fancy with it because it's like a right it's not a like a low it's not a beat but that seems like it takes effort oh yeah you gotta learn that you gotta be good at that yeah the yeah the fucking triangle guy is just like, I mean, I could teach you to do that if I knew how.

At least the bass guy has to, he keeps up with them. Yeah, he's got to keep a beat going. He's got to at least keep a straight rhythm. That seems fun as shit. It seems, yeah. Boom, boom, boom. And only worrying about the one drum. Boom, boom, boom.

So easy. Imagine if a band, like a regular band, had like five different drummers. They all just concentrated on one guy's the bass guy. The other guy just does the snare at the right time. Other guy's all cymbals. One guy's doing the toms and shit like that. Has anyone ever tried that before? Could you syncopate fucking like four people doing that?

Because that would be amazing because they could do shit that nobody else could do. If five guys together played Tom Sawyer, I want to watch that. One drum set. Yeah, that'd be incredible. Five guys on essentially one drum set broken down. I've never heard of that before. I don't know.

People do weird shit music with that. I've heard of bands having multiple drummers, but they all have one full drum set. What the fuck is that? You're just fighting with each other. That would be so distracting to watch. It's stupid. It's so dumb.

But if you had four or five of them back there, each with like one, two drums set up, it would be you could actually keep a beat, I bet. Five guys playing Tom Sawyer, playing Rush's Tom Sawyer. I want to watch that. Put that shit on TikTok. Five guys playing fucking

seek and destroy by metallica so uh um anyway uh they end up dad here they get married in college and then they have a son pretty quickly named barry who is lex's older brother here and dad dad has to drop out of school and starts working at as a security guard at the trico factory where windshield wipers were made that's to go from prodigy to watching the windshield wipers after hours is a different yeah it's a big from playing fly to the bumblebee and getting laid yeah to throw in some new rain x together you're not even throwing them together you're just overseeing the area where in four or five hours people will come in and make rain x you don't even oh he's not he's the guard he's a security night security guard oh jesus so

he's just like yep hanging out here we are look at that i am look there's the stuff that people will use eventually make sure no one will break in and steal all the windshield wipers at night. That's his job. So he said three years after that, his sister came along, and then while she was less than two years old, Lex is born in 1958. So they start pumping the kids out. They open a piano store, his parents do, called Rogers Quality Pianos and Organs, which seems like a good name for a piano store owned by a guy named roger it's on main street in buffalo and um yeah he said he wanted

to be just like his dad and his dad would wear a suit and tie to work because every man wore a suit and tie in 1960 when they went to work like that, especially when you want people to spend $1,000 or $5,000 on a piano. Yeah, you have to dress nice. You're wearing flip-flops and some O'Neal shorts to sell me a fucking Yamaha. What do you know about this shit? I'm giving you money. So Lex said he wanted to be just like his dad,

so he insisted on wearing a suit to kindergarten every day. Really? Yeah, when he started going to kindergarten, he's like, well, that dad leaves the house like that. That's how I know people leave the house. Why? Why are you trying to put me in fucking culottes? No. You'll grow into different suits in kindergarten.

Mom, I need a power tie. It's fucking Friday. And I really want to let these people know through the weekend that I've dominated their shit for the week one of those people who who's in charge of the farmer and the duck it's both listen mom it's uh we're having it's a little there's some strife in the sandbox and i have to talk to some people today so i need to look my best and be real presentable to to do this so eventually though he said the kindergarten teacher called his mother and said that quote mrs foale it's really difficult for the class to finger paint paint when larry is always wearing a suit it's kindergarten there's messiness they run outside

yeah he's got fucking shoulder pads on yeah talking about hey you're messing with my fucking pocket square asshole what's going on here he got crayola on his vest a lot of oh when that's going on oh this kid got fucking smuckers jelly on my goddamn tie this is bullshit so um yeah uh by first grade he said he outgrew his suit phase. He was like, oh, all the other kids are. OK, so it's only when my dad goes to work. So, yeah, he said, though, business started to pick up and the store was open seven days a week. And he said before the store opened on weekends, he and his sister had to, like, clean the store and shit like that. He said he was the youngest, so he had to mop the floors and clean the windows, the bathroom, all the shit jobs. All the janitor shit. Dusting the pianos and shit like that yeah he said he was the youngest so he had to mop the floors and clean the windows in the bathroom all the shit jobs all the janitor dusting the pianos and

everything like that he said that you know his dad would pay him and he'd get some burgers and some you know fucking milkshakes and shit like that and he'd feel yeah he'd feel like hot shit he'd go buy a superman comic and he'd be like yes i'm king of the king shit you know i got paid there and uh also a lot of candy because he likes candy and he always will like candy he said though the store took up so much of his parents time that after school his the kids were kind of on their own to so he got to be able to go fuck around he said that uh his brother and sister were probably supposed to watch him but they didn't basically they just you know back then you let kids run wild what are they gonna do yeah and that was in the

fucking 60s in the 80s it was still like that yeah in the 60s it was like get out don't come get out of here until it gets dark i don't want to see you in my on the property till dark you tell kids what the fuck get out it's like in the sandlot the the mom uh adrian told her son to go go get in trouble yeah go do things that's what they want you to do like a normal kid yeah in mad men the one kid comes over and don goes i think there's a bb gun and some peanut butter sandwiches outside here go ahead i don't know which one parents would dive and knock out of your hand first if you tried to hand it to their kid now. Oh, God.

Little Austin. He's allergic. Austin's allergic to peanut butter. Oh, my God. Freak out. Not that peanut butter allergies are good. No. I have a cousin who has to carry a pen with her.

There's no shit. Some people have them real bad and they will die. That shit's for real. But some people, people i think are afraid which is more dangerous though you know losing an eye or not where your throat locking up they're just like kids like bb's and peanut butter back then fucking go outside and play with that shit i don't know get out there get out there if you find a wild animal try to pet it. If you're allergic to the sandwich, shoot it. Shoot it, yeah. And if that animal won't let you pet it, shoot that too.

So he said he would go out and explore the world after school and run around. He said it was in Buffalo. He said it was kind of an urban area, a lot of concrete and chain link fences and all that kind of shit. He said that there was a plaza with a Woolworths, a barbershop, a drugstore, a strip mall, an old school strip mall. And he said he became a regular there. And he said he was very happy about that. And he wanted to be able to do things on his own when he wanted and be independent. He's 10 now.

He's grown out of his suit phase. He's ready to be independent. He said that there was a lot of expectations on him musically because his family on both sides had musical talent. So they were like, you must be good at music. Play music. He said that they had to take piano lessons. They were all forced to take piano lessons. He said that they had to take piano lessons.

They were all forced to take piano lessons. He said Barry started with piano, then switched to guitar, and Barbara became very good at piano and as a singer. But he said he hated doing anything musically. He said it was like being marched to his execution to go to piano class. He fucking hated it. to his execution to go to piano class he fucking hated it he said uh when he was 10 and he was determined to make piano lessons miserable for everyone so he wouldn't have to do it anymore he vowed to wear he said he vowed to wear his teacher and his parents down is what he did here so um he said that he uh had to give the piano teacher credit she didn't try to encourage him and then he'd just do it terribly on purpose.

And she'd be like, it's okay. You can do it again. Like she must have thought he was fucking brain damaged or something. And he was just like, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Like what the fuck? Billy Joel used to do that. Did you know that? What?

He used to. So he learned piano and was really good at it. And his mom would hear him playing. So she got him like a teacher. And the teacher would come over and show him things. And he would play like shit on purpose because he didn't want to learn what she was teaching him. That's fair. Everything he does, he learned on his own.

The guy's a fucking genius. That is very interesting. I wish I would have seen that, though. A 10-year-old Billy Joel banging on the keys because he doesn't want to learn tchaikovsky that's like prince played every instrument but everyone said he couldn't read music fast but he was he could play everything he'd do fucking everything on his own when he'd record at home half the time like he just nothing cooler than a fucking street musician that's. That's pretty goddamn cool, man. That's so rad. Very talented and crazy. Yeah.

I guess that's what you are, though. I mean, some people have that gift. Some people can jump really high. Some people are funny. I mean, it's just one of those things. It's true, yeah. Which magic trick are you good at? You know what Prince isn't?

Funny. Or wasn't funny. There you go. Not intentionally he was funny, but with the whole pancakes and all that kind of shit that's hilarious but that is hilarious but he didn't do that as a joke on purpose no no it's just him living his life uh yeah so anyway the piano not for him athletics are more for him he's into that um here's a quote directly from his book. Quote, not only did I have lightning speed, I soared over the high jump, breaking the third grade school record handily. What school keeps records of third graders athletic accomplishments? Yeah.

Where is that? Where are these record books? Who is sitting there as children try to jump high? And I got to write down that. He's fucking and i think that the high jump of an eight-year-old is vastly different than that of an adult and it certainly depends basically on how tall you are in third how tall you are how that's not fair quickly you're developed all anything youthful like that doesn't matter till puberty anyway we have to get till

everyone's full-on into puberty before it matters before that it's all could all your growth spurt you can stop growing you could grow a foot who the hell knows what's gonna happen it doesn't matter when i was 12 i was fucking five seven and chubby and then when i was your high jump when i was not as good as it was when i was 13 and a half when I was 6'2 and skinny. Got a lot better then. A year later when I shot up and became a different human. That's so weird that you would be so much better at it. Isn't that strange? It's really, really weird that I got a lot better at sports all of a sudden when I was taller and less chubby.

Weird. So he broke the third grade school record. I want to see the records i want to see who keep show me who's got the best 40 time let's see and tell me what are they doing today yeah now what if they were eight you were an athletic eight-year-old isn't something that helps you as an adult at all right never if someone said i was a really athletic eight-year-old you'd be like so like what the fuck happened why are you telling me this now who cares you work with me Right. Never. If someone said I was a really athletic eight-year-old, you'd be like, so? Well, what the fuck happened? Why are you telling me this now?

Who cares? You work with me. Why are you? I'm Nick Morton, you. Yeah. Yeah, right. Hey, I'm your boss. What are you talking about?

What's happening, dude? Why are you saying this all of a sudden with these people? Yeah, that would be fucking amazing. So he said, quote, I excelled in every fitness test, scoring above 100% across the board. How do you score above 100% on a fitness test? I got extra credit. I got extra credit for being so much more head and shoulders above the other children. That's what happened.

I did it well, but I also looked good doing it. Well, I was a very sexy young man is the thing. I had sex appeal at eight. I got a high thing i was a very i had sex appeal at eight was i got a high jump great 40 time and sex appeal at eight that's the thing that's how lex thinks of himself though sure always he said that uh oh this is good too um my playground cred skyrocketed everyone began treating me differently i often heard my closest friends defending me to older kids larry is the fastest kid in the whole school and he's only in the third grade yeah and he can Everyone began treating me differently. I often heard my closest friends defending me to older kids. Larry is the fastest kid in the whole school, and he's only in the third grade.

Yeah, and he can jump the highest, too. He's their hero. He's a hero, Jimmy. A hero. He said he would smile and just be like, ah. He thought to himself, I'm really talented. Yeah, this is good. He literally said he would sit there and think, quote, I really am talented. That's what he would say to himself.

So much for humility. Third grade, super pleased with himself at eight. Yeah. That's interesting. From his accomplishments, that's the other thing. So basketball is the sport that he liked to kind of play a little bit on and off. He didn't play a lot of organized sports in school here in the younger days. He said he never played basketball until sixth grade.

He said he saw some kids shooting hoops there, and he said it looks like fun and looked pretty easy. He thought I could do that. Looks easy. So he asked if he could try a few shots. He said, I dribbled a few times to get a feel for the ball i didn't make any baskets on my first attempt but i was hooked so he said he would just play basketball for hours and hours and hours and you know that's all he wanted to do after that he also said at this point he started becoming a bit of a juvenile

delinquent as well uh he said uh shop, you know, at the mall with him and his friends. He'd be doing that sort of shit at middle school. Him and his friends seeing what they can steal. He said that we'd spend hours in the stores trying on the newest athletic wear, jewelry and clothes. The first time I successfully swiped a pair of Converse tennis shoes. So he's stealing like sneakers. That's not like stealing knickknacks here he said i was pumped the thrill of defying the authorities especially pulling off something right under their noses was exhilarating before long we were taking orders

from our classmates stealing the merchandise and selling it to us it was a game that's actually a stolen property criminal enterprise yeah that is what you've just described you've it's not shoots and ladders that is fucking felonies and misdemeanors it's a different game decided to steal and sell the shit like that's a that's a criminal empire yeah that's crime and punishment as opposed to shoots and ladders different game that's what the mob did yeah this is this is, this is called a stolen goods ring. That's what the police would call it. You're stealing property and fencing it.

And fencing it to children, through children. Wow. So he said it went on for weeks and weeks. You know, just kept going. He said then one night, he and a friend were caught. He was busted. And the security guard called his friend's parents and he said that he gave him the number to his friends to his parents store the piano store and they said i have your son in my office he was caught

stealing would you like to come get him he said the guard seemed taken aback by the response he hung up the phone and looked at me he said to lock you up and throw away the key, is what his dad said. His dad said, I know it's racketeering. Lock him up on RICO charges. Sounds like a racket. Tell him to ask one of the other Gambinos to help him out. I don't know what to tell you. I'm not helping him.

Oh, he's got a racket going on? Holy shit. He's not chipping in for any rent, though. No, he had a racket. See if he's paid taxes on that and lock his ass up. Yeah, what's up with that? Evasion, bitch. So he said to the security guard, quote, you must have talked to my dad.

Call back and ask for my mom. She's nicer. She wouldn't do that. So he said, eventually eventually the mall never filed charges they thought it was his first offense and they felt like going easy on him he was like 12 so they were like we'll go easy on him he's just being a jerk off kid he said that his mom eventually picked him up but uh was pissed off at him he said that his dad came home and he was ready to get a whooping he said he was ready bracing himself for a belt beating he's ready to take that and he said lawrence i'm beyond disappointed with you

i don't even recognize you as my son jesus you look real italian to me today you're looking swarthy and italian i don't know what it is about it is it what are you do you have do you have oil in your hair what is going on here? Racketeering, wearing suits. What are you, a gangster? You look tanner today than you did yesterday. Are you getting an olive skin tone now? What's happening to you?

You smell of garlic, you little bastard. You just told your mom her veal parmesan is for shit. What's going on here? She's trying her best, Larry. You threw a spoon of sauce at her and said, this isn't San Marzano. What is this? What are these, Roma? Shit?

San Marzano or nothing? And then he grabbed the pot and threw it into the front yard. Sauce went everywhere. All over the buffalo snow. I picture the red sauce splattered it's a trick mom's looking at it while steam pours up from the melting snow with a sauce upon it meatballs sitting in little clumps on the snow or in the sauce a couple of sausages here and there handful of dusting of parmesan right in her face and then he flexes

he's just the Hulk Hogan. Take that. You're probably the longest for shit. We don't appreciate this, Larry. I'm sorry. Larry, your back talk's enough. It's enough. My son will not turn Italian under my roof.

I swear to God, I will not have this. Ah. Turn Italian. Turn Italian. Think so. Let me say it so you can understand it, Lawrence. Disgraziad. What is that?

Do you get it now? This is what I'm getting at here. He said, I don't even recognize you as my son. No son of mine would steal something that wasn't his. I didn't raise my children that way. Apparently you did because he came out of your den. There he is. He's tiny still.

He's still a child. He's a child. He said that that was worse than any physical punishment he could have taken. It was terrible. He felt awful about it. And so he played more about sports. He wanted to play football. His basketball coach talked him into playing football, he said.

So he wanted to play football. And he said that his dad refused to sign it. He said, that isn't a sport. What's sporting about putting on pads and running into other people? What good could possibly come of that? That's a hilarious, what good could come of that? It could be said about anything.

What good could come from anything, really? Why bother? I mean, why leave the house? We're going out to dinner. What good could come of that? I don't know. How is that? You have food at home, don't you? They have stores and you have a stove. I don't understand. It're going out to dinner. What good could come of that? I don't know. How is that? You have food at home, don't you?

They have stores and you have a stove. I don't understand. It's a very weird thing. So he said that he really wanted to play, though. By the way, everyone called him Lar back then, which is the most annoying shortening. Unless it's Susie in Curb Your Enthusiasm. Yeah. It's the only person that's allowed to say that.

She does, doesn't she? She always calls him Lar. enthusiasm. Yeah. It's the only person that's allowed to say that. She does, doesn't she? She always calls him that. Lair? Lair? Yeah. So people would call him Lair because it was short and he says,

his dad would say, look at your birth certificate. I did not name you Lair. I did not name you Larry. I named you Lawrence. That's the name we chose for you. If you don't know when Crystal Pepsi was discontinued,

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God damn it. Sorry the other kids don't want to use that many syllables and larry's shorter what do you want from me also dad lawrence gives gets me wedgies yeah can i just go by larry please larry sounds kind of tough lawrence sounds like not very tough at all no unless you're taylor that's the only one yes i don't know if that's tough either so he said he started fucking around with a jcenney weight set at home, a plastic set. You remember those weights that have sand in them you could hear? Or concrete.

Yeah. So you're like, what's in there? Broken fucking bones of the deceased? The people that made this? What's happening here? He said so. He didn't know what he was doing. He knew he loved doing push-ups. So he was already more muscular than the other kids and he he says quote i just hadn't

realized how physically developed i was becoming but other people were definitely noticing oh who are they here we go he said the summer of his freshman year they moved into a new house and his parents said they would pay him to paint the exterior as his summer job. Yeah. Okay. That's hard fucking work, man. That's real hard work. A house painting in the summer?

I mean, I know Buffalo, the summer's only a week and a half long, but still, it's a long week and a half. It's the only time you can. That's when everybody's painting. They're like, oh, it's raining today. Never mind. The season's blown, everybody. Maybe next year. All the houses in Buffalo are unpainted.

They've never been able to do it. It's just always. They're all flaking. All flaking off. He said that he used to do it with his grandfather who used to paint houses on the side. So he'd do that with his grandfather. So he says, this is amazing. It was a sultry summer, so I often worked shirtless.

Hold on. I need to get the what's-his-name's wife's, Leon Spinks' wife's fucking book voice for this. It was a sultry summer, so I often worked shirtless. As the weeks passed, my tan got darker and my blonde hair got lighter. Soon, I became the subject of neighborhood gossip, especially since we were still getting to know everyone. Finally, someone said to my mom, where did you find that Adonis to paint your house? Oh, him, she laughed. That's my youngest son, larry he'll be a sophomore in high school this fall he's in high school the woman said completely flabbergasted i can't believe i want to fuck a

child i was i was about to go over and seduce him like i was literally gonna say you look hot want to come over for some lemonade and i was was going to be sucking his dick. Why sip three? Do you understand? I was going to be all over that shit. 16? I can't believe I almost fucked a kid. Wow. That was a close one, eh?

You elbower. That's crazy. Imagine, picture two guys standing in the road. The one guy goes, where did you get this hot piece of ass to paint your fucking look at the tits on this fucking i'm gonna put them together and put my dick between them i'm gonna fucking thrush so fucking oh that's my daughter she's in high school oh oh that's so silly of me so anyway did you see the jets game this weekend no wouldn't happen you could be like i want to fuck your son and women are like oh i

know he's handsome you're not gonna rape him you know you could physically he could physically overtake you so no he's an adonis yeah he's look at him for god. You'd be lucky to have him. It's crazy. Look at the fucking ass on that bitch you got washing your car. Yeah, I know. Oh, I know. That's my daughter. Look at her. I know.

I told her. I told her. Smaller, smaller bathing suit. That's how you do it. I was right. So for three summers, he attended the five-star basketball camps for elite players. He said they're comparable to the Nike basketball camps and Adidas Phenom America camps held today. I don't know if that's true or not.

Probably not. But we'll see. So he said, more than once, I was asked if I played football because he looked like a football player. If you look at him, he looks just like a football player. But he said that he didn't. He said high school football was all he said it looked like it was all hanging out and killing time. That's the only reason he played

football was to play basketball. Kill time before basketball. His coach, though, he said, believing that I had unlimited potential is what his coach said. It was basketball. His football coach. Because of my athletic ability, I played tailback, fullback, tight end, linebacker, offensive guard, defensive end, and on special teams.

I went both ways and did well in almost every position. You can't say that sentence. No, you can't. You can say those sentences separately with a sentence in between them, but you can't say I went both ways and did well in almost every position. What are you thinking when you say that it's hot as shit we can't that's what i mean you can't no one hears that and doesn't go oh come on you know what i mean like that's just it's just no i'm so i don't care who you are how mature you are when you hear that it's just too much sitting on your face while the chick rides you and they're kissing up top yeah well he went both ways not them though and he's

doing great yeah he said i like guys girls doesn't matter and you could bend me over i'll bend you over i'm fucking flexible peg me i don't care wow and playing peg me you won't you won't yeah so i'm just daring him dare i dare you he said that he did well in his senior year yeah he said all the college coaches were taking notice and they do as we'll find out he said by the end of the season he's up to 235 pounds and he's running the 40 and 4 6 okay which we find out is probably true because later on he's running the 40 in 4.6, which we find out is probably true because later on he's a little heavier and his official time at an actual football thing is 4.7. So if he's 2.35 doing a 4.6 sounds about right. He said schools had been at interest in him for football and continued to pursue him. He went on recruiting trips and all that kind of shit.

He said he had a torn ligament in the thumb of his shooting hand during a passing drill right before Christmas and he couldn't play basketball. So that's when he was doing all of his football recruiting trip trips here. He narrows his schools down to five. Okay. Yeah. Penn state. Oh boy. Boston college. Yeah. Penn State. Oh, boy.

Boston College. Yeah. Wake Forest. The Naval Academy at Annapolis. Yeah. And University of Miami. Heard of every one of them. These are all major schools, and they're very different.

The Naval Academy and the University of Miami couldn't be more different. That's like saying I'm going to Neptune or Mercury. I can't decide. Depends on if I have a jacket clean. Like, you know what I mean? It's fucking insane. Those are very different. So he said that he was treated great everywhere and everybody had nice options to go.

But Penn State was the one he was. He said he liked the Naval Academy because he wanted to be a Navy pilot possibly. So he said, maybe I could do that and then be a commercial pilot after that. His dad wanted him to go to Annapolis, which, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of like, you know, pageantry and all that shit there and like the uniforms and it's a very, it's an impressive thing so it's where you would think a guy that plays piano would want his kid to go no exactly um and he said miami great weather that's he's from buffalo so yeah that's that's why jim kelly played in miami and that's why he didn't want to play in buffalo originally is because he's from pittsburgh and he was like i don't want to fucking play in buffalo i'm from pittsburgh no i've been there yeah don't want to play there sorry i'm gonna play out somewhere else so um yeah he said that uh they all wanted that but he ended up choosing uh uh penn state here in the end joe paterno at the time you know so he said quote i could definitely get a

party started even though i was underage getting beer was never a problem because my physical size fooled everyone he's fucking 240 of solid muscle so they're everyone thinks he's at least older he said he'd drive to the local kmart and pick up a six-pack without being asked to show his id as i as he checked out the cashier would often ask what position do you play and he'd say linebacker he'd wear his bills t-shirt and pants so they think he was on the bills that's that was his oh smart that was his goal yeah he was like if i'm on the bills i'm i'm obviously you know old enough and uh he said that that impressed his friends too he said quote we never drank to get drunk just two or three beers each

to get a little buzz when we were really bored we'd add some shooters like Bacardi 151 Blue Flamers. Light them up and drink them. And while... What? Yeah, just, you know... Well, maybe three beers, but... But then we're going to... If we want to get a little drunk, we'll fucking hammer the most aggressive thing on her.

Then we're going to drink grain alcohol. You know, we won't feel like getting a little tipsy. If we're going to drink grain alcohol. You know, we're going to feel like getting a little tipsy. If we're trying to shit our pants, that's the level of buzz we go from. From smile or shit our pants. One of the two. Either one. Yeah, just a happy, fun buzz. Hey, what's going on?

Hey, how's it? We're puking the gutter. Do you end up hooking up with that chick? From that to fucking, i didn't fucking say i didn't punch your mom okay i swear i didn't do it she had a black eye when i got here it's a very different thing but she didn't call me a don it's all fucker i'm still gonna talk to her later. It's okay. So he said in March of his senior year, following this is, I believe, in Buffalo here in his senior year of high school. He said following an unusual ice storm that knocked out all the power.

He said that in one particular neighborhood, residents would compete against each other for the nicest mailbox. They had these handmade wooden mailboxes, and they all had them. Okay. He said, so while all the power was out, he and his friends decided that it would be a good time to take a sledgehammer and axes and bash and destroy as many of these mailboxes as possible. Oh, you assholes.

So they would do this, and yeah. And they said they would do this kind of shit all the time they do like break car window windows and do graffiti and shit like that they're just being shitheads he said that his parents were out of town during this time so some of his teammates from the football team came with him and uh you know to carry the sledgehammers so he said with the headlights off they went for a joyride in his dad's car, which is never a good idea, drinking and driving and swinging sledgehammers

out of the window. So it's dazed and confused, essentially, is what's going on here. Exactly. They called that something. My friends used to do that. Is it box bashing? Is that what it is?

I don't know what the name of it is. I don't know. There was something. i only knew one guy who did that he had a 72 duster with holes in the floor that i've talked about on the show before he used to just swerve and take me out he'd just be driving he'd go to plink and then he'd just keep no need for a bag where'd that come from no he just used his car because it was a piece of shit he didn't care it's like you just gotta try not to hit the headlight because those are fucking like 20 bucks and you can keep driving. He was an idiot. So anyway, he said that this was the idea

and they're going to do it. And he said, though, they pull up to, he said they fucked up dozens of them and they pulled up to the last one. And it was somebody they went to school with and she was in the car with her boyfriend making out in the driveway and she saw them do it and she ran inside and told her parents and they called the cops oh you rat so she got pulled they got pulled over in a few minutes

and he said that it was a big story because it involved him uh and two other outstanding players on the team so it was like a big big story locally and all that kind of shit. So he said it was the first actual arrest for all of them, and they were fined and given 9 o'clock curfews legally. If they broke curfew, they were going to jail, it said. So, yeah, it didn't really affect anything in college. Back then, something like that, they'd go, oh, but he was hanging out with his teammates, right?

Oh, well, yeah, boys will be boys. That's team building. That's what they'd look at it as. At was hanging out with his teammates, right? Oh, well, yeah. Boys will be boys. That's team building. That's what they'd look at it as. At least he was with his teammates. At least he wasn't like with some schmuck, you know, some schmucky, some schmuck potheads from the campus. You know what I mean? He was with his teammates.

They're just having, blowing off steam. That's what they do. So he said he went to Penn State, gets there in 76, and he said it was, it's different. Penn State, that's all they care about there in that area is Penn State football. So it's really different. He said that it was so immersed in

football. It was just weird for him. He said that he was hanging out when he first got there and his friend came up and said they met a couple girls and you know, you guys want to come hang out. I got a couple of girls here.

I need a little help here. So he ends up meeting this woman, Peggy Hall, who's a track star from Unionville, Pennsylvania. She runs track there. And they end up hooking up. And they'll end up getting married later on and everything. Really? That's how they met. Yeah, just like his parents.

They met in school. College sweethearts. College sweethearts. College sweethearts, baby. So Lex is playing offensive guard at this point, and they said, just try playing nose guard, which is defensive line. So they move him to the defensive line,

and he thought that it was easy. He's like, this is great. It's a lot easier to play defensive line than offensive line. Offensive line, you have to remember every play that that happens there's an intricate blocking scheme you have to remember you might be going right while someone else goes left there's a lot going on in defense on the line they just it's literally fucking right right or right left or up the gut like that's all that they're which way they're going that's all they tell them to do. So he ends up saying that he ends up hurting himself here.

He said he turned his head and he saw a huge offensive lineman coming right at him and he said he went low at his left knee and fucked up his knee. So he said it was x-rayed and they said that the medial, his MCL was torn by the head. Really? By a chop block? Yep, torn MCL. They said to have a wait and By a chop block? Yep. Torn MCL. They said to have a wait and see approach. And they didn't know if they were going to. Back then.

Wow. Now they do that arthroscopic. They hook you right up. You're on the field in two weeks. Back then, that could be a major issue that will fuck your whole career up if they do a surgery. Yeah. So they might just wait and see how it heals. And so they never ended up getting surgery for

it he just kind of healed up a little bit so uh he's still hanging out with peggy uh he gets a bad case of mono while in college oh no now he's got a fucked up knee and mono yeah did peggy do it or was he kissing someone else i don't know who he was kissing he might have been kissing the coach for all i know to get him and jerry Sandusky's a coach on that team. And showers, yeah. I was going to say, if you're a defensive lineman, that means that Jerry Sandusky, the linebacker's coach, is definitely standing behind you.

Let's just put it that way. We don't know how it happened. Mono in practice. That's what I mean. Anything's possible. So he said he was all fucked up and Peggy, you know, Peggy took care of him. He had to go to summer school to remain eligible for football. Yeah.

So he took classes at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, because his parents moved down there. And that's where he was going for the summer. So that's where he took the classes to make up for shit. So while he's there, though, he noticing that florida is a lot nicer than western pennsylvania weather wise sure is yeah weather wise weather yeah yeah so he said that while he was there one of the recruiters from annapolis had since gotten a job at the university of miami and uh so they got hooked up somehow and le Lex said, do you think maybe Miami here, U of M,

or Miami Hurricanes, will be interested in me, and they said, maybe, and so ends up, they wanted him, so he tried to get his girlfriend to transfer there as well,

but she was on the track team at Penn State and all this shit, so she didn't want to transfer, so she ended up staying, and they were going to have a long-term relationship, a long distance, there this shit, so she didn't want to transfer. So she ended up staying, and they were going to have a long-term relationship, a long distance. There you go.

So, yeah, he'd have to transfer immediately, and he said that he told the coaches at Penn State he wanted to be closer to his parents in Florida. He said he knew Paterno was a devoted family man. It's for the children, everybody. Said so. Something is. Something's for the children. My linebacker's coach, he's for the children everybody said so uh something something's for the children my linebacker coach he's for the children he said that uh that might help you know grease the whole deal so he said he finally he convinced them to do it they to let him go basically so he wouldn't have to sit

out a year and all that kind of shit so um anyway she's not leaving though so he's gonna have to have a you know long distance relationship he's like i'll visit her during christmas break he gets down to miami okay things are way different down here sure this is pre-80s miami football by the way the miami hurricanes were not a powerhouse until the 80s in the 70s they were not even a thought they were way just some garbage program so there is literally no pressure on these guys it's not like hey we're 10 and 2 this year we need to be fucking 11 and 1 this is ridiculous and none of that shit this is and a beach a mile away yeah if you beat the rival or come close or have a 500 record. Everybody's pretty happy at this point. Right. So he said that, this is right out of the book, one of the hotspots for students was the quadruple-sized swimming pool

with the adjacent smoothie bar at the heart of the campus. What the fuck kind of college is this? Sounds awesome. That sounds like a resort in a movie where people are sitting there with a pool. That's like a hotel resort. That's not a college. Quadruple-sized pool. With a smoothie bar in the middle of campus.

That sounds great. Girls would wear sarongs over their bikinis to class. To class! Gee, wonder why a 19-year-old kid would want to transfer down here. Can't imagine. He said it was surreal, to say the least. He said the focal point was the athlete's cafeteria. From 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., he said they could go there and get whatever they want to eat,

as much as they want. Is that right? Yeah, because they're the football team guys. So he said he was in a co-ed dorm, and he said that he's shared a room with another player. Neither of them wanted to go to class. That's stupid. Class. That sounds awful.

It's Miami. We don't have to go to class. No, thank you. He said when he arrived there, he picked up a bundle of books for his classes and never opened them at all. Here's a quote for any Miami football fans here. It was a Miami football tradition not to quote break the seal on any textbooks. Not even to open them. I don't want to ruin that crack.

Once you crack it, it's no good. He said, I'm not sure how such a wretched tradition ever began or if it's around anymore today, but it was expected when I attended the U. So there you go. That's the type of place Miami... What are you, opening a book? Get that out of your hands right now.

Lower the value of that thing. Jesus, you could sell it as new later on. He said he couldn't worry about school. What are we doing? They had to get certain grades to stay eligible. So he started figuring out how to cheat. That's easier. He said that trying to outwit the professors was a big deal.

He said they have devised elaborate creative schemes of cheating that utilize the help of the Hurricane Honeys. I love that. Who's a group of female students who would show visiting recruits around campus. So they'd go and go, ha ha, look how caught all the girls are here. You should come here. And then they'd also like do these guys homework and cheat. Yeah. Jesus Christ.

He said that I often thought that if we had spent half as much time studying as we did preparing ways to cheat, we would have all gotten A's. That's the truth. Yeah. That's the thing. This is really with almost anything that you do in your life. If you just do it, it, it'll, look better, it'll turn out better, and it'll be a lot easier and quicker.

Besides Ponzi schemes where you can make billions of dollars or something, there's really not a lot of worth it. Besides a lot of criminal activity, just doing work will get you paid and better. And it's easier. It seems a lot fucking easier than doing all of this. So much less time. You got to worry about getting caught. It seems like a lot, but that was part of the fun, I guess, for him of getting around the law here or the rules. getting around the law here or the rules.

Yeah. He said on Friday nights, they'd load the cars up with girls and drive to Big Daddy's. Oh, what's Big Daddy's? He describes it as the local hot spot, and Friday night was drink and drown night. What? Yeah, it was a big draw here. They could drink all they wanted for a certain price. It's like an all-you-can-drink buffet. An all-you-can-drink buffet where there's college kids from the University of Miami involved.

That's a problem. Yeah. He said, one night after drinking at Big Daddy's, we started talking about the rich kids at school with their luxury cars that their parents had bought them. He said, quote, they drive around in their Mercedes and BMWs trying to look cool in their Ray-Bans. Let's have a little fun with them, is what he said was going on. What do you think that price would be? 80 bucks?

For Ray-Bans? Yeah. No, no, I mean for all-you-can-drink buffet. It wasn't even, I think it was cheap, too. We're talking, this is probably, they're giving you like Old Crow and fucking you know their shittiest their meister brow keg and like this is this is like unload all the shit all the shit inventory of the week that nobody wanted let's unload it 99 1495 and you get chips and peanuts and shit too probably throw that in there so they don't throw up on the floor the piss the piss popcorn yeah the piss popcorn yeah what does that smell is that butter nope

so he said that they're doing that and he said they parked down the street from a number of sports cars grabbed the beer cans they had been drinking and began stacking them on the hoods beer cans of people's cars yeah then he said come on i have a better idea follow me and he said he scrambled up onto the roof of a mercedes and started jumping up and down oh you dick and he said a few of my buddies joined me and with two or three of us jumping simultaneously we could stomp the roofs roofs of the of the cars down to the seats i'm sure you could so they could yeah have you ever seen like a parade where somebody left a car there and people are on top of it?

It's flat. He said, we didn't consider how much destruction we were leaving behind. It was just too much fun. Oh boy. Yeah. He said over the next few weeks, we changed the game and started flipping cars on their roofs. Oh my God.

It only took us about 15 seconds per car. He's wow uh when we finally got bored and stopped we had damaged a half a dozen cars without getting caught uh for all the goofing off we did you know when football came we were ready for that well jesus i goofing off goofing off you're causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage. That's not goofing off. Goofing off. Goofing off. You know, just goofing. New boot goofing. Just goofing. He said that he shared an apartment with Jim Burt, actually,

who's going to be on the Giants for years and also San Francisco. Jim Burt was the guy. He wore number 64, and the six and the four would touch on his ribs because he wore the jersey so tight it would take like three people to get the jersey on so nobody could hold him or throw him by his jersey it was stretched to its last fabric being like his chest had no number on it because the six and the four were in his ribs his armpits yeah and so he was famous for that shit so uh he said that one night jim got into a fight on the phone with his girlfriend from back home a few weeks into football season here he said he and peggy had broken up over the phone and he was

still pissed off about it too and then tony his other roommate was also having girl problems so they're all upset um he said suddenly jim picked up his brand new tv and hurled it onto the floor smashing it to pieces. Awesome. Oh, my. Tony and I looked at each other for a second, then joined the mayhem. We started punching it. We went on a rampage, trashing everything in sight.

We ripped out the built-in bookshelves, the bathroom sink, and the toilet. You live here. You live here. In about three... because the woman somewhere else is an asshole yeah so now i'm not gonna have a toilet now your girlfriend is making you upset and you have to shit at the gas station so now you've doubled your problems i feel like yeah being sad while shitting in a public restroom is not a good look for anybody. It's just not. I can't believe the bitch is making me do this. Yeah, and then blaming her for it.

He said three minutes the place was trashed. He said then someone was banging on the door, and he said that Tony, the one guy who ran out of the bedroom window, Jim Burt went and hid in the fucking bathroom. He said, I went to the door and looked through the peephole, and it was the fucking resident assistant, which I think is the RA there. He says, a former football player who identified himself and told me to open the door. He said, I've called the police.

Yeah. He said, so I hopped out the same window Tony had and nearly fell into the guy's arms, the RA. It was dark out, and my size was intimidating enough that he didn't say a word, so I just turned and walked away. That night he stayed at his brother's apartment so he could establish an alibi. So he said, then all three of them got called into the coach's office. They had woke the coach up in the middle of the night,

the school did, to tell him about this. To tell him about it. So he was real fucking pissed, and they even took him over to the apartment to show him the scene of the crime oh fuck um yeah and he said jim and tony said quote it wasn't us a coach somebody else got into our apartment and we weren't there and destroyed it i was in fort lauderdale last night so they all just said it wasn't us yeah um jesus christ um then he says that something else happened his a week later his buddy tony there he said i was dressed and ready to go to the team meeting when tony doused me with a bucket of ice water oh boy he said he was super

pissed off he didn't have a change of clothes so he had to skip the meeting and seek revenge, obviously. So he went to the front desk, said he was Tony, and said he had misplaced his key. You know, he has IDs up there. It's all in my room. It's all in me? Yeah, so they gave him a duplicate. He knows his last name. He knows his info, shit like that.

So he gets his duplicate key. He said, once inside, I went crazy, spraying shaving cream on the walls and the bed linens and throwing water everywhere. So he just fucked it all up. He said, first thing one day morning that he and Tony got into the coach's office and they said, what the hell is wrong with you? First, the apartment. Now this. He said, you've embarrassed us all.

And they were putting all the blame on Tony and saying they were talking to suspend him. So he said he jumped in and said how it happened. Lex said that he did it and all that. He said, I thought maybe he'd admire me for taking, for standing up, you know what I mean, and taking responsibility. But he said, quote, you're off the team. He was like, what?

No, coach, don't take it out on him. I did it. Look at me. Responsibility, responsibility, responsibility. You're off the team. Huh? Get the fuck out of my life. Wait a sec. I thought you were going to. No, but I'm a man.

I'm standing up. I'm a stand up guy. I thought you were going to take a deep breath, stand up, walk slowly around the desk toward me, look at me sorrowfully, and then put your hand on my shoulder and go, son, it took a lot of guts to say what you just did. You're our starter. I respect you right now more than I did before. You're going to be starting to nose-tag over me or on me.

So now he's out of school. He got kicked out. The class isn't really a thing. So he said that he's the class isn't really a thing you know so he said that the he's not eligible for the nfl well also you haven't played in games that the nfl would be able to look at you and want you so that's the other problem you have with the nfl Taylor Swift is soaring high her every move captured in the news cycle and devoured by her devoted fans she's broken billboard records and made

Grammys history, not to mention becoming a billionaire in the process. But along the way, Taylor has had to wage war, first by taking on a very powerful, very famous manager, Scooter Braun, and then by going up against the biggest live events company, Ticketmaster. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery's show Business Wars. We go deep into some of the biggest corporate rivalries of all time. And in our latest season, Taylor Swift will shake up not only the music business, but Hollywood and the NFL. Follow Business Wars wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Yeah, he said he wouldn't be eligible for two years.

Back then he had four years before he could go. So he said he needed a job. So he said ideally he was looking for something that didn't interfere with his daily workouts. You know, he's got to work out a lot, so jobs can be a thing. He said so there was a Gold's Gym franchise there that he went to nearby,

and he wanted to stay close by and be able to work out. He said he ended up working at two of the most popular clubs in fort lauderdale pete and lenny's and mr pips they always named after a guy back then always some dude pete and lenny who the fuck are they who cares he said the managers were impressed that i came with experience from a high-end miami club the one that joe namath frequent frequented. So they both hired me. I began working every night, alternating between the two locations.

And he said it worked, fit nicely with his time at the gym. And he said he was going to continue his hopes of an NFL berth. You've got to play college first, dude. Yeah, you're going to walk on? He said at this point, he started making friends with drug dealers as well.

Okay. Because he's in Florida and working at nightclubs, and so that's kind of where they hang out. He said that the drug dealers never had to wait in line. He said they'd greet me saying, how you doing, and slip a $100 bill and a handshake. He said that was it. Come on in, everybody. So he would let them in. He said that one night one of the guys asked him if he'd be

interested in house sitting his place for him while this guy was in new york said he only came to florida a few days each month so would you mind staying at my house he said quote i need someone i can trust to keep an eye on the house he said i'll leave the keys to the lamborghini and the ferrari and the cigarette boat you can bring your friends over if you want to. Essentially, my house is yours. You just need to make sure that the cleaning staff is doing what I'm paying them to do. Other than that, my colleagues and I would like you to meet us at the airport when we get back in town. How does that sound? How does a grand a week sound to stay at my house? And I'll pay you to live there and i'll pay you so he said he did

that for a while four grand a month to make your cleaning people clean your house i mean yeah wouldn't it be cheaper just to hire a better cleaning he's probably not paying the cleaning people that much just hire really good cleaners and i bet they'll clean the shit out of that house or a grand a week i'll bet you some lady would love that or the guy who's driving your ferrari and lamborghini and fucking college girls in your house maybe he can clean up after when he's done getting paid a grand a week how about that maybe he can just get rid of the cleaning service entirely yeah that's what he should have said i'm tired of these cleaners i want you to do it and that would sound reasonable still just clean your jizz off my drapes and you can drive a Lamborghini.

He said that he's six weeks into this whole thing, though. He was loving the arrangement, but he got a phone call from a guy he knew at the University of Miami, an alumni, who knew some coaches and scouts for the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. for the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. Oh. So he said that, you know, the guy said, I know you want to play in the NFL, but, I mean, this team wants to look at you. Maybe come over there. Yeah, so go up there and take a pay cut.

Let's go. Maybe. So, yeah, you're going to definitely, and a fun cut, definitely. Right. So he said that the Alouettes mailed him a contract without ever even talking to him or seeing him or anything like that. Two-year deal, $30,000 the first year, $36,000 the second year, plus a couple thousand signing bonus. It's a pay cut. It's a pay cut. He said that, you know, what was he going to do?

He didn't know, but he said he should. He decided that he should do it because that you know if he's going to get in the nfl he should probably be you know playing football along the way so teams can know that he exists still uh wasn't there a guy who's injured as a freshman at penn state eight years ago no one's looking also there is there is a stipulation on the career he has right now of whether or not his boss gets caught for the bad shit he's doing if that guy gets rocked up then that house gets seized and i'm homeless he's quickly he said he needed to gain weight he said he always had a fast metabolism and he could eat tons and tons of food he's oh fuck you he said in my senior year my voracious appetite

earned me the title of class's biggest eater, along with my female counterpart, a petite figure skater. We were featured together in a yearbook photograph that showed us lying in mounds of ice cream sandwiches and bags of potato chips. It was pretty common for me to swing by McDonald's between lunch and dinner, between lunch and dinner, and grab a Big Mac, a filet of fish, a quarter pounder, a large order of fries, an apple pie, and a milkshake. That mac a filet of fish a quarter pounder a large order of fries an apple pie and a milkshake that's a snack jesus christ he said when he went out for pizza he would order his own large deep dish pan pizza with all the toppings and a pitcher of coke for him that sounds delicious for all for him he said he had a couple of months before he had to report to the camp here and he wanted to he said he's 235 240 and uh you know most of the time at that point all the offensive linemen were 265 to 285 and then he's going to play an offensive line so he needs to gain weight quick how do you do that jimmy

for the first time cocaine that's the opposite effect for the first time. Cocaine? That's the opposite effect. For the first time in my life, I considered steroids. So here he comes. He said, it wasn't an easy decision. I had taken personal pride in the fact that I had never touched a steroid before and had managed to break records at Miami without them. What records did you break? You didn't play football. What fucking records were you breaking?

Highest jump? I mean, what are we talking about? Did they have that from the third grade great he said that uh the guy at the gym sold him a bottle of little blue pills my cock was so hard forever it was weird i was like any weight but my cock was constantly throbbing i'm not really feeling stronger, but man, do I just want to fuck everything that moves for like three, four hours at a time. I don't know what it is. It's crazy. All the muscles going to my cock. They're strong.

They're strong. He said they told him, take five pills a day for eight weeks. Eat all the food you can, especially protein, and you'll put on a few pounds. So he said he put on 20 pounds at that point and uh quickly and he said he walked in at 255 which was respectable and all that he said he was running a 4640 and the coaches were very impressed with that which they would be if you weighed 255 and you're running four six especially back then so yeah he uh he ends up uh doing pretty well he said that uh they kept him on the team

here he played his first game and then he was hidden on the injured reserve list he said he said that uh later on though somebody was injured in the playoffs and he was activated to play in the super bowl of the cfl the gray cup game wow he said so he was at left offensive tackle and he said that he did well against a guy there and they uh he said the whole thing was amazing it was super surreal and he loved it and uh unfortunately though the other team was the eskimos who had warren moon at quarterback oh and he turned out to be pretty goddamn good in the nfl so you can imagine how good he was in canada pretty damn good. Yeah, against fucking Lex Luger.

So they lost the game 17-9, but he was still doing well. So December 15, 79, he gets married to Peggy. They get back together again, even after his destruction. They get married at Penn State University. He said 1981, it's his third season in Montreal. He said Peggy finished school and all that sort of thing. He said, my job was to eat, train, and then eat and train some more. Okay.

Pretty solid job. That's a decent job. He said, once again, I also turned to my reliables diana ball and deca for my off season this time for a 12-week cycle from now on this is what he always does uh the deca diana ball uh 12 weeks on 12 weeks off that's that's always what that's like the standard kind of thing that's what jose canseco would tell you to do you know what i mean yeah 12 on 12 off so he said that uh he was starting left tackle for the alouettes and then he started getting a neck injury so uh the neck injury kind of progressed and they said that uh they ended up releasing him on waivers because of his neck injury saying that

when it gets better they'll resign him and get him back um Everything will be fine, he said. But at that point, he said, okay, I guess I'm a free agent. So they moved back to Buffalo, and he was working out with a power lifter who was Don Reinholdt, who's the 1979 World's Strongest Man winner. Wow. And he said it was a mentor of his, of his. And he said that somehow through that connection, the Green Bay Packers ended up hearing about him and flying him in for a workout in January of 82. Wow. And this is coach Bart Starr at the time. This is when Bart Starr was coaching. Is that right? Absolutely. He said that he was measured and weighed and all that kind of shit. They said they were very impressed with his 40 time. He said they offered him a two-year deal that paid him $55,000 the first year and $65,000 the second year

and $10,000 signing bonus. And they said, told him, if you do well, you're going to make the team and we'll see what happens here. So they bring him in and he felt he did great. They signed him up. He said it was his dream.

He said, I was definitely aware of the history and legacy when I got there. I didn't even look around at the other teams because I understood and was excited to have an opportunity to play for the Green Bay Packers. Fuck yeah. Fuck yeah. Especially if you grew up in the 60s, you just watched them win championships your whole childhood. 58 he was born. From the time he was five on, they were just dominating football for the next little while.

He said he entered training camp confident. He said, though, but he was moving to guard, so he was a little nervous. But he thinks he could do it. And he's ready to go. And he said, quote, this is one of the coaches here, our right tackle, Greg Koch. He said he showed up at camp looking like he did for wrestling. He said, I mean, this guy was chiseled. He looked more like a bodybuilder.

He was just an impressive athlete, though. He could run like a 4'7", 40. He was just big and impressive. So that's some other guy who was on the team. He said he runs a 4'7", 40. That's no shit at 260 of muscle. That's pretty impressive. He said he runs a 4.740. That's no shit. At 260 of muscle. That's pretty impressive. How did he not play football?

The guy said we got to be friends because we worked out a lot together, and he's just an all-around good guy. So he said that he had a great time. He said he didn't even – there wasn't like tons of hazing or anything like that, just having to sing your college fight songs and all that bullshit. Stupid. A lot of NFL training camp. You sing a song.

That's all it is. They make people sing songs to show that you'll do it. So he hurt his hip flexor and groin muscle in training camp on July 1st, which is the fucking beginning of training camp. Yeah. He said that every time he thought he was ready to come in, if he was better, he would re-injure himself. So the team said they placed him on injured reserve in 1982.

And he said he would lift weights and all that sort of thing. One of his coaches said, I wish you played football as seriously as you work out. So the Packers ended up releasing him. So he ends up in the USFL in 1983. Is that right? Chip, any idea that lex luger played this much football he played it for everybody everybody yeah he plays for multiple teams here by the way tampa's his main team but he also has a spot at jacksonville for a second he bounces all around

he said the tampa bay bandits owned his usfl rights because they used to do regional rights and he played at mi. So they owned him. So Tampa, he thought, well, shit, I like Florida. Sounds good. He said that I told Coach Starr, Bart Starr there, that I appreciated the opportunity the Packers had given me, but I didn't think things were working out how everyone had planned. No, you didn't tell the Packers it's not working out. They cut you.

He told the Green Bay Packers he resigned? Yeah. I was like, it's just not working out. We should see other people. I'm going to see someone down in Tampa. I'm going to go play in the USFL. Yep. He said he and Peggy bought their first house, three bedrooms, two and a half baths.

Nice little thing. He took a little bit of a pay cut to go down there, but that's okay. Then he got traded four games into the season after he bought a house and got settled. They traded him to Memphis. And yeah, so he was like shit. And then halfway through the season, he fucked up his ribs. And so they replaced him. And then he ended up on Jacksonville after that.

So in one season, he ended up on three different teams back in florida so he's in florida now and kind of washed out of football at this point yeah so he starts looking around now he wrestling is huge in florida oh it's a it's the biggest championship wrestling from florida cwf is a big deal eddie gra Graham had built up this very good circuit down there that was excellent. So this is the time. Eddie Graham kills himself in 85. So this is right now when this is going on. This is all happening.

He says he was never a wrestling fan ever. He said that he remembers running around his grandparents house like on a weekend, you know, on the weekends. And he said that his grandfather would be fixed on, fixated watching wrestling on TV. And he said, we'd be running around. I'd stop by now and then just to kind of look at it, see what had grandpa's attention so much. And it just never caught my attention.

Never paid attention. I got to go. But he said, this is 85. So WrestleMania just happened, which was Mr. T and Hulk Hogan hosted saturday night live like that's how fucking big that was the deal on every talk show hulk hogan was on the cover of sports illustrated sports illustrated yeah so it's big and he said fuck maybe i could do that all these guys look like me i look as good as them. So he said that he stopped by

the office of Championship Wrestling from Florida a few times. Doors were locked. He said on his fourth visit, a guy opened the door and invited him and took a look at him and said, come on, you look like a wrestler. You must be from somewhere. Are you a wrestler? Come in.

So he said, I introduced myself. Now, if you know how the wrestling business works, it's very insular. It's much like the comedy business. If a stranger walks up to one of us on the streets after a show and says, hey, I'm looking to do that. I'd like to perform for a thousand people in a theater. How do I do that? I'm sure you would.

I'm sure you'd love that. How do I do that? We'd be like, Jesus Christ. Is this a career option for me? We'd be like, yeah i don't know like that's crazy this is the equivalent of what he did and we're very lucky to do what we do that's that's the answer that's the answer exactly if he this way if he didn't look like he did they would have kicked him in the ass out of the place but the way he looks it doesn't matter how stupid he is so yeah he said quote i'm larry foale i'm a pro football player but i'm looking for some off-season work some off-season work i've been seeing and hearing a lot about wrestlemania

which by the way you have nothing to do with as championship wrestling from florida not the other company he said uh but i don't know much about the pro wrestling industry or how do you get into it is there someone i could talk to about a possible career option is the hr department yeah that's what he did this isn't like you could probably do that in wwe now they probably have an hr day i know they have hr department and all that championship wrestling was florida's like from florida's like some little back office with it's not like that at all. There's no HR department. So he they end up here. Oh, Matsuda says that he'll talk to him and he goes and here.

Oh, Matsuda owns like a garment factory or some shit. And he goes, that's where the workouts were was in his garment factory. Wow. And it was no air conditioning in the summer heat in Florida. You got to earn it. Well, Matsuda is one of the top trainers of all time. Matsuda trained Hulk Hogan. Matsuda trained Paul Orndorff.

Matsuda trained tons of people. When you talk about lineage of guys, who came from where, two trainers are big. Vern Gagne and Hiro Matsuda. One's Flair, one's Hogan, you know what I mean? Those are the big ones. But Matsuda. Those are the, because one's Flair, one's Hogan, one's, you know what I mean? Like those are the big ones. But Matsuda's guys are always, they're always stars. Not always.

I'm sure he's trained some mid-level guys, but he's trained. I'm sure there's some bums in there. He's trained a lot of stars. He's famous for, Hogan always says that the first time he went in,

Matsuda snapped his leg to see if he would come back. And then he came back and he trained him. So Matsuda here, they said that they would run and run and run like crazy. They'd run five miles to start out. That's what they'd do.

And then they'd get back and do 10 sets of 30 push-ups. That's 300 push-ups. He said, though, Matsuda did everything with him. And he's an older guy. Really? He's been doing this forever. So, yeah. He's running and doing push-ups, too.

Yeah, absolutely. He said he only counted the ones where your chest hit the ground, too. Otherwise, running and doing push-ups, too. Yeah, absolutely. He said he only counted the ones where your chest hit the ground, too. Otherwise, they didn't count. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, he said that. The goal was 10 minutes or less, too. He said two push-ups per second is the goal, which I don't know how you do that.

That seems really difficult. That doesn't make any sense. No, maybe one push-up per two seconds, but I don't know. He said, though, that's what he had to do it had to do two months of this conditioning these hindu squats that they do they're called back then these crazy exercise he had to do two months of training before matsuda would make you pass his conditioning test before he would teach you anything about wrestling they haven't even mentioned wrestling. This is all just conditioning for months. Just to see if he'll break. Yeah.

Finally, he said he passed the test after a couple months because he was in good condition. So he said that the wrestling part of it, here's the steps from Hiro Matsuda, if you wanted to be a wrestler in the 80s. Here you go. Step one, getting in and out of the ring. You don't think about that but no it yeah it seems like it's tough to do stepping up there's ropes you can't

look like oh these you can't look goofy you have to have a certain thing or macho man would put his two hands on the second rope and hop through the ropes remember you just do that little hop thing and it was very distinctive or he'd do the thing where he'd bounce over the top rope with it but they were very distinctive entrances people jake the snake would slide under the under the bottom rope like a snake you know is yeah guys had different things andre and big john stud would step over the ropes right so um yeah and some guys the audience getting into the ring is like grabbing the microphone out of the stand in comedy sure you can tell immediately if that comic doesn't know what the fuck they're doing absolutely by how they grab that mic if they're like concentrated on it yeah the comic

should be looking the mic stand should be like like you are when you're driving you're not staring at your steering wheel no you're looking as far ahead as you can that's what you're looking into the audience and you should be able to just grab that if you see a comic kind of not look like that You're not staring at your steering wheel. You're looking as far ahead as you can. That's what you're looking into the audience. You should be able to just grab that. If you see a comic kind of not look like that. Or look at the back of the mic stand. Yeah. If their first struggle is the mic stand, you're in a bad for a bad fucking time.

And that's what wrestling is, too. You have to look like you know how to get in and out of the ring smoothly. Next thing up is hitting the ropes. Now, again easy but it's not those fucking ropes hurt and yeah and as a kid you assume that they're made out of rubber bands you know what i mean no no no fling off of them wwf has real ropes and the all the other southern ones had had fucking cables with rubber all over metal cables with rubber over them so very different that's wild that that that can still fling somebody and i've said i've had access to a ring as a kid i learned how to do that run the ropes like that it fucks your goddamn rib cage up bad i'm sure back it gets all bruised so he said i was black and blue from my lats to

my thighs from hitting hundreds and hundreds of times on the ropes because he'd make you do it hundreds of times oh god because you look goofy if you like run up to the ropes then stop and lean in you look like a goofball you have to be able to take the two steps smooth into the ropes and bounce off smooth or else it doesn't look fucking fluid he said then hitting the ropes jumping up and landing on your. He said this is an exercise to simulate a body slam. You had to jump high or the guy would make you repeat it. Do it again. You have to go bounce off the ropes and then act like you're being body slammed and land on your back. So, yeah, taking a flat back bump.

That's all it is. It's just flat back bump. See, can you keep your fucking chin tucked and not knock yourself out when you fall down every time? That's all. He said number four was the turnbuckle, which is in the corner there. He said that was to run into the turnbuckle and hit the turnbuckle hard with your back and get a good pop out of it so you could hear it. And then from there, bounce back out so then the guy could do something to you. He's teaching you how to bump and feed

at this point, which is when you well, this would be feeding and the other would be bumping, but not putting the two together at this moment, but I guess it would be, you hit the fucking, that's a bump hitting the turnbuckle if you want to be real ticky-tacky about it, and then feeding into the guy doing something

else to you. Because the training is always teaching a guy how to lose, not win, because at first they're going to need to know how to do that most of the time. Winning seems like the point of wrestling, but a guy's got to lose, too. And the loser is the one that's selling the match. Yeah. Well, absolutely, especially if the loser's the heel. He probably, back in those days, he led the match.

Whatever happened in the match was his fucking idea. And the match is only important because they want to see him get his ass kicked. Right. So that's the way that works. He said number five was body slamming. And he said Matsuda, his philosophy was you had to learn how to take bumps before you could learn how to dole any out. You have to know what it feels like. That's like they make the cops get tased before they are allowed to carry tasers type of thing.

That makes sense. It's one of those. And it teaches you the correct way to land and all that shit. And step six, testosterone and DECA, 12 weeks on, 12 weeks off for Lex. Also, all this awful shit. All this awful shit. All this awful shit. They're talking about him like he's not even there, they said, the bookers and shit.

Like, well, what are we going to call this fucking guy? And we'll call him this or that. They said, where are you from? Buffalo? They're like, the people down here don't even know where the fuck Buffalo is in Florida. Blah, blah, blah. You're from Chicago now. There you go.

Chicago. That's the closest big city. There you go. They said Detroit or Chicago, and then one guy goes Chicago. So then they're trying to come up with a name, and he says he came up with his name, Lex Luger. He said that very simply. Superman. No. Magnum P.I. was on at the time.

It was 1985, and that was the biggest thing in the world was Magnum P.I. And Magnum is a gun. Thomas Magnum. So he said that's cool with a gun last name. So I picked another gun last name. Luger. And he said Lex came from Superman comics. He liked Lex Luger. So there you go. Lex Luger. Perfect. And they were

like, alright, sounds good. It's got alliteration. Why not? I doubt Southern wrestling people said it's got alliteration why not i doubt southern wrestling people said it's got alliteration i like it so they said it's two l's two l's those are both l's good so actually eddie graham was pretty smart but i think he was dead by now so oh where 85 halloween 85 is his first match did eddie graham kill himself in November? When the fuck did that happen now? God damn it. That's a big deal. Do you need a Google?

Google Eddie Graham Florida Wrestling and just see what the date of his death is. Is it IE? I think it's IE. And Graham like the cracker? Graham like the cracker. Graham. Wrestling.

Graham, yep. Wrestler. There you go. Son Mike too is in there, yeah. He died January 21st, 85. Okay there yeah he's the he died uh january 21st 85 okay so he's been dead this whole year and uh they're running it it's being ran by some other people i know kevin sullivan was trying to help and mike graham was involved in this so that's what i wanted to know is eddie graham here he's so scary looking eddie graham was a very scary man

very smart and frightening individual he was a badass he looks like the guy that played uh frankenstein and young frankenstein but like yeah more like frankenstein he's one of those old-timey wrestlers that like if he got mad at his son's little league game he beat up all the fathers you know what i mean like i had to beat up 14 fucking guys he's breaking my balls and then he would go to like take the kid to mcdonald's afterwards because it wouldn't be that big of a deal for him so his first match was around halloween of 85 lexus and when i say his first match i mean not his first match performed the first time he's ever been to a wrestling show

the first time he's ever watched wrestling is in a fucking match he's participating in now if you've watched lex luger over the years this is what i'll say about lex luger he looks amazing there you go that's the end of it that's that's about lex luger and wrestling he looks great he looks like a fucking Adonis. I mean, the guy looks like you fucking literally chiseled him from stone. There's not an ounce of fat on him. Everything's jacked. He's fucking looks perfect.

But when he gets in the ring, he's a little bit stiff because he's so fucking jacked. And he's just not the greatest worker. He's just not. You can watch his matches. There's like watch some of his like I think if you look up, like, Lex Luger, like, WrestleCrap, you'll find that. It'll have, like, his lowest points. But there's some things where, like, part of, like, how he acts like he's being hurt

here, part of how he sells is he just yells a lot. You'll hit him and he'll just be like, ah! Like, it's just this weird Lex Luger yell. Or you're like, what are you doing? He's just this weird lex luger yell or like what are you doing he's just goofy he's loud he's just goofy he's a very goofy worker and maybe he's selling bullshit because he he can't you know i mean like when the loudest people that are that are that are fakers being loud distracts you from the fact that they're not good at whatever it is that they've got that's a good point it's a very good point and i think that's part not good at whatever it is that they've got. That's a good point.

That's a very good point. And I think that's part of it maybe. He's just, that's how he thinks to do it. If I just go, ah, rather than show it on my face and be, you know, acting. Distracts from the movement. Be an actor. So he, the problem is like, can you imagine, we always say wrestling and comedy, very similar. Okay. Can you imagine a comedian doing his first show in front of a paid audience, and he's never even watched a stand-up comedy show before? He or she has never been to a comedy fucking show before.

And they're going to go up on stage now. They're going to do it. How good do you think that comic's going to be? They're going are the wrong reason they're gonna be telling knock-knock jokes and fucking shit like that it's gonna be a disaster and it's there they have such a hole to dig out of that i don't know how they would ever get good at it they would have to have such an incredible natural talent inside of them that has been untapped you know not tapped that it's ridiculous for that to make any sense it's the same thing with wrestling the guys who were not fans when they were kids who didn't come up loving it and being interested in it and pretending to do it with their friends in the living room and all that if you weren't doing that you're not

going to be a good wrestler you're not you can be successful if you look like lex luger but you're not going to be a good wrestler you're not going to be you know all the good guys are second generation or guys who love the fucking love the business they grew up being in love with it is a big deal the passion yeah they grew up loving it i fucking loved it i went to the matches when i was a kid i liked it i went here i went there the guys who didn't the guys who looked at it like a business in the ring you could tell they looked at it like a business kevin nash looked like a business and that's exactly what it was to him lex luger same thing there's no passion there there isn't there just fucking isn't i'm sorry this is not a passion and you can see it whereas you get a guy six seven and worth it yeah that's it look at look

at me i'm amazing whereas a guy like scott hall's a different story he was a fan and he dug it and he was into it and thought it was cool and it showed in his fucking shit you know sean michaels was just to use the whole click there he was a great fucking worker because he was a big fan he loved it yeah it was that so i mean that's how it Now, in his first, one of his first early here, first couple months, he has a cage match with Bruiser Brody. Oh, no. If you don't know who Bruiser Brody is, there's the Vice documentary on his killing. Bruiser Brody, beloved guy in the business, very well known. Everybody knows and likes him, but the problem with him is in the fucking ring

there's no fucking around with bruiser brody yeah he uh he's what they call stiff which means that shit's real like it it fucking hurts it hurts he's not punching in the nose or the teeth but if he's hitting you in the head he's fucking hitting you in the head period you you got to be able to take it and the thing with brody is you got to be able to fight back with him he if you don't fight back he's just going to eat you up and take the whole match because why would he why would he act like he's being hurt by you if you can't even fight back you know what i mean and that's what he would say your character is not going to make my character look like a bitch basically that's the long and short of it yeah so new guys were very very frightened of bruiser brody not only is he a veteran and a

guy who's known as a stiff guy but bruiser's a fucking enormous person he's six foot six huge yeah he's six six he's 285 he's got crazy long bushy hair a big fucking beard he makes his eye go cross his one eye he's got big fur things on boots. And the way he walks out is like you've released a man from a cave and he's walking toward dinner. Like that's it. For the first, yeah. He's like, ha, ha. He's yelling, you know, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, yelling shit. People are, in Japan, he would go like at the crowd and they would scatter.

They'd fucking run away like ants. Going into the stands and such, they'd all move away like yes like going into the stands and such they'd all move around jesus christ look at it he's a frightening man nobody would be like i'm gonna go fight that guy like nobody he's a fucking looks like the guy exact the guy you would never fight unless you had many guns in case this one misfires i need to have another he looks like a mental hospital just opened its door. Yeah. And they let the biggest guy out first.

Right. He pushed to the front of the line. Let me out of here. He killed everybody inside the mental hospital and broke out. That's what he looks like. King of the mental hospital hill. He looks psychotic. He comes out.

They're like, anyone coming behind you? They're all gone. And he keeps going. Who? Who would be coming out And he keeps going. Who? Who would be coming out? Who? Who's left? So Lex doesn't really know the business that well.

And the other thing about Lex at this point, by the way, is everybody says he's very disrespectful to other workers in terms of not so much in the ring, but outside the ring. He makes everybody feel like they're inferior to him you know look at me i'm better well obviously he'd say things like well alex luger would do this sort of thing gross and he's not even like he's been doing it a year like he's not you know six months these guys before they get a shot like he gets he got thrust into like a main event situation when he never wrestled before it takes guys roddy piper was wrestling for nine years before he was a main event outside of portland you know what i mean like this is a this is crazy equivalent of somebody doing 12 open mics

and moving to la moving to la and then having an attitude about yeah and then have and actually getting a job on a fucking show or something like that's what it is because they throw but he looks so good he's the example whenever they say a guy looks so good and they thrust him in they use lex luger as the example of like looks great don't care if he can work thrust him in there and florida was in big trouble eddie graham died and it was just a fucking mess down there dusty roads and left and all this shit so it was a it was a disaster that they were trying to rebuild quickly so they were just trying to get new talent vince mcmahon was taking all their fucking talent away that they had so i mean it was like it was on fire

down there basically so they were like that guy looks great throw him in the ring great and it worked because he was on the cover of wrestling magazines because he looked like a million bucks so uh anyway in this cage match with brody brody lex gets in first then here comes brody he gets in the cage they lock the door because it's a fucking cage match and i guess what happened was apparently lex charges adam and pushes him in the corner or whatever and starts like hitting him starts hitting but he's not hitting apparently bruiser the way bruiser needs to be hit to sell it you gotta fucking lay him on he'll hit you hard but he expects you to hit him hard too otherwise he's not going to sell your bullshit because it looks weak so why would he act like a weak punch hurt

him that's his thing i'm a strong guy so he wasn't selling shit apparently he wouldn't sell for lex and lex got fucking scared and thought that bruiser was gonna beat him up for real so he climbed the cage and ran back to the dressing room and left brody in the ring in the fucking cage by himself he ran away he got fake match he got back to the fucking dressing room going that guy's fucking crazy man he's out of his fucking mind i'm not going back out there with that far you fucking crazy put me in the ring with that psychopath this is fucking ridiculous they're like frank that's frank frank goodish is his real name they're like you're what you should have worked with him like what are you doing he's great at this he's the best that's why he's here asshole so that was pretty funny i thought that whole story that's a big one in the wrestling

business the time lex luger ran away out of the cage it's never been done before no one's ever climbed the cage and ran away and didn't come back it's never happened it's awesome but that's how little he knew about wrestling though right that's how what i mean how inexperienced and it's really not his fault when you throw a guy into like a main event situation that has no business even being an opener that you know skill wise you're throwing the wolves and then expecting that a physical a physical fight or fake or not uh the the athleticism that he has to pull off and sell while maintaining a a healthy uh not really fear for his own safety you know what i mean he's got to he's got to feel comfortable at the same time as selling that shit and he wasn't absolutely

he's scared he's scared fucking shitless yeah this is the equivalent of a comic having a you know a 30 second tikt that's popular, and then they're like, you're going to do an hour and- We're in the headline now. You do like an hour five every night. Yeah, make sure it's an hour five, because we've got to do check drop and shit. You're dead. That's what you are.

It's fucking dead. Get out there and tour. Get out there and get on tour. We've got agents whose house payments require you to be on the road. Hustle up. So, New Year's Eve, 1985. got agents whose house house payments require you to hustle up so new year's eve 1985 this is going into 86 he has a uh his he and his wife have a son named brian so now he's got a son here yeah son is born didn't name him lawrence so that's good he said that his money started to rise as his you know status did in wrestling he said about a thousand to fifteen hundred bucks a week he started making hey not bad down in florida in the 80s

he said in house sitting that's much better it's legal anyway so he said he was starting to get noticed by the other territories everybody noticed him immediately who the fuck is that guy i mean he stands out like you can't even believe so jim crockett really liked him and especially dusty really wanted to steal him from florida is what it was and uh dusty roads i'm talking about and that's where nwa that was the kind of the heart of the nwa at that point was crockett's territory he had rick flair was his guy he's the champ you know the whole deal they're doing Starrcade and everything. So it's a big deal here, which is their equivalent of WrestleMania. So in 1986, he is named Rookie of the Year by Pro Wrestling Illustrated. Is that right?

Look at him. Yeah, and he's on the cover of a ton of magazines that year, too. He's big. So he ends up being stolen. He goes up to the Carolinas to work for Crockett. And this is where his finishing move the torture rack comes from do you remember that yeah john is back rack him yeah rack him up so the torture rack comes and uh one of the they were trying to work on a finishing move for him

and somebody said how about like a backbreaker thing that way you could show off his strength and all that and um basically flexing yeah yeah yeah so that's what it is it's look at your your arms and everything your biceps so he said that uh the point was that he would he'd slam his opponent then flex his upper body to show that he's going to do it and that was it he'd come up behind grab him lift him up and he'd go bounces up and down and that's called the torture rack and uh he said dusty roads said that's it we all loved it that's your finish that's it this was five five minutes before a show so now go do that now go do that in front of people and on television so he becomes

very popular again especially in nwa nobody really looked like him you know they just didn't so they actually it's at this moment where the four horsemen you may have heard of at the time being rick flair tully blanchard arn anderson and ollie anderson at the time so ollie anderson at this point wanted to step back some and uh what like his son was a high school wrestler and he wanted to like go to all of his meets and do all of that. Yeah, you can't really do that. So basically, Oli kind of took a step back and they needed a new horseman.

And they decided that Lex would be the perfect guy because he's so different than all the other guys. You know what I mean? And he looks great and all that. And he said they told him, Dusty said, you need to show a little more swag in front of the cameras. Kind of bravado that makes the horsemen the most loved and hated group. Confidence.

You need confidence. Confidence, Lex Luger. You know what I'm saying? You need confidence. Dusty there. The thin line between arrogance and confidence. He said, let everybody know that you have the brains, the brawn, and the professional football pedigree. You're the total package.

Next Luga. That's you. He said it with his lisp. That's you. Yes. Total package. So he said everybody loved it. Total package with a torture rack.

Boom. One thing he needs, though, his ring gear was he wore black tights and a white tank top to the ring. They said, no tank top. Hulk Hogan has a tank top. And you're like a smaller Hulk Hogan. He's 6'4". He's huge, 6'4", 260, but Hulk's 6'6", 6'7", fucking 300.

So he just looked like a little, like a tinier Hulk now. So they had to come up with something. They said, something classy. So he looked around. Ric Flair is the king of these robes. So he shelled out $5,000 on a robe. Oh my God.

Five. Is that what those cost? Absolutely. Some of Flair's cost 10. Holy fuck, man. Whenever you see one of those robes with the rhinestones all over them, that's at least a $3,500 robe in the 80s. In 80s money, we're talking. So way more now.

Those are so expensive. And the guys had to buy those for themselves. In 80s money, we're talking. So way more now. Those are so expensive. And the guys had to buy those for themselves. That was you were investing in your own self to get over better. So he and his wife there, they moved to Charlotte. And while they're doing this, the horsemen, this was good for him because he needed to learn shit. And the horsemen are all great workers. I mean, Arne Tully, Ric Flair, those are three of the best in-ring workers you can imagine.

Especially like Arne and Tully. Those are guys where you don't look at them and go, oh, pro wrestlers. Look at how big and muscular they are. Their movements and attitude have to get it over for them. And they do. So that tells you how good they are at it. So it's a big deal. He said he would come up with an idea once in a while and arn would shout shut up eggplant what does that mean don't know just you have the brains

of an eggplant apparently just nothing you're just a vegetable it was i think the the connotation here he said you just stand there and look good and let me do the thinking he said that arn also teased him about the size of his teeth because he had kind of horsey-ish teeth. He said he would go Wilbur and fucking make fun of him and call him Mr. Ed and all that kind of shit. Call him Eggplant or Wilbur all the time. Those were his two names. He said that I laughed at and answered to both. You had to.

Those are the veterans. What are you going to do? And he said he could break balls back. That's fine. Then at one point, he's returning from a wrestling event in Vegas, and he was at a gym somewhere and randomly bumped into Vince McMahon.

Oh. Vince McMahon's cock immediately became so hard that the loss of blood from his brain caused him to pass out on the floor when he saw lex luger you have he loves lex luger from this point i mean he's like he's the guy that everybody said that this is where the line of look at him look how vascular he is that's where it came from lex luger when he met, he goes, he's just so vascular. Look at him.

He'd go, his genetics are perfect. He's got perfect genetics. Look at him. Oh, God. And he'd just come. Do you think he accidentally was there, or he heard about him and showed up there? Come on, man. You think anything's an accident with Vince? There's no way he accidentally popped into the same gym.

Absolutely not. Especially because this was the time he was trying to take everybody from Crockett he had offered flair contracts even tried to take the midnight express he's just trying to hurt Crockett you know that sort of thing so he said that he met Vince and he said that they exchanged pleasantries and talked for about five minutes about his our families he said wrestling was never brought up which is exactly how vince would do it if he met you somewhere by accident too because he already knows that you wrestle we don't need to talk about didn't even bring it up he said uh uh you know he didn't want it to get back to fucking crockett that you know he was talking to vince mcmahon but it did and uh crockett

was like oh what the fuck here you know what's going on? He said, look, we've got you on TV. You're one of the four horsemen. We got to get you under contract. We can't have you just run away to Vince McMahon. And so he said, sure, I'll fucking sign a contract. So the contract, they were trying to give him a regular contract in wrestling. Back then, a regular contract was you wrestle for us

where we tell you when we tell you. That's it. There's no compensation. There's no this is the rate you're paid or per hundred. It's just whatever we feel like paying you, we'll pay you. You just can't work anywhere else. That's your contract. That doesn't sound good.

Not a great contract. It's still unless you're a star. It's up until five years ago. Ten years ago was still the contract Vince was handing people unless you were a star. Now they have it. Then they started with downside guarantees where you're guaranteed to make 75 grand, but that's if

you don't work at all, but then you can build on it from there. But that was only after they went public and everything. Before that, he said, you'd say, well, where's the money? He'd go, I don't offer money. I offer opportunity. That's what he would say. I offer opportunity. In other words, I won't take any risk risk here but i'd like you to risk everything that's what yeah that's that's a club booker

saying think about the exposure think about the yeah it's only 50 bucks but think about the exposure exactly fuck your exposure now 400 people know your name oh boy thank god for that yeah oh hey i just bombed that sucks i mean they'll forget about it by the time they leave they are drinking Now 400 people know your name. Oh, boy. Thank God for that. Yeah. Ooh, hey, look at that. I just bombed. That sucks. I mean, they'll forget about it by the time they leave. They are drinking in the dark, but still, you know. And here to see David Spade.

Yeah, don't care about that. So he said, I don't see any kind of compensation here. And they said, yeah, we don't do that. He was like, so let me get this straight. I signed with you. You own my rights. I can't wrestle anywhere else, but there's no money stipulated no minimum guarantee and they said yeah that's how it works yeah that's how it works yeah you know independent contractor that's how that is right that's how

that works right familiar with the 1099 get the fuck out of my office um so he said you know this is a great opportunity but i need to be sure i can provide for my family so i don't know they said well what do you think you should be making? And he said, I'd like to be able to make what Ric Flair or Dusty Rhodes makes. You know, guys who've been in the business for 20 years and have fucking have proved that they're perennial stars and draws. I just got here, but they seem to like me, so I'd like their money. But I mean, what are they going to do? He's got him between a rock and a hard place, though, because if he fucking leaves, it looks terrible for them. They don't want to lose him. So they're like, what are they going to do? He's got him between a rock and a hard place though, because if he fucking leaves,

it looks terrible for them. They don't want to lose him. So they're like, what do we do? So they said, well, give me a figure you consider to be fair. So they ended up coming up with a three year deal paying a minimum of 350

grand a year. Not bad. That means he started at like seven 50. Yeah, exactly. And they got to 350. Yeah. And they said, as well as first class airfare also here.

So he said, that's where the other. He said, hey, you want the four horsemen. You want us to maintain a level of we're supposed to be jet flying, limousine driving, all this shit. I'm not going to pull up in my, you know, Geo Prism rental car and be like, I'm one of the horsemen. That's not going to work. So they said, OKoprism rental car yeah and be like i'm one of the horsemen that's not going to work so they said okay we see your point that's fine and they agreed to the whole thing so this is his contract is like the tip of the the crockett iceberg of why all these big guaranteed contracts that he couldn't pay for because his network that he was trying to build and get all this advertising money didn't work out. And then Starrcade 87 was supposed to be his big moneymaker, where he'd get all this money back from the whole year,

because he had all these balloon payments due for contracts. But that's when Vince McMahon decided to run the Survivor Series to fuck their pay-per-view and told them, Vince McMahon told the cable systems, if you carry their pay-per-view, you can't have WrestleMania next year. Is that right? And out of all the cable systems in the country, hundreds of them, think about it, back in the 80s, only four carried it. Only four. Is that right?

So completely fucked them. They had no money. Just wiped it. Wiped them. And it was at that point how do you how do you do that as like a guy that's in business and doing the same thing as somebody else i get monopolies and business uh competition but how could you be proud of yourself if you wiped them from everything just based on you won't be able to host what i do yeah if you carry their shit that's fucking gross

that is disgusting that's some like mob shit you know what i mean yeah if you carry their shit that's fucking gross that is disgusting that's some like mob shit you know what i mean yeah you know you're not gonna get my stuff if you carry this guy's goods in your store you know what i mean you're not gonna get my may tags if you carry these whirlpools like that's fucking ridiculous i'd want to go up against everything great if i think i'm the best well that's the funny part vince always talks about competition competition but he would do every dirty trick and he considered that part of competition rather than just eliminating competition. That's not what competition is.

It wasn't. Let's just put out, let's both put out our products and see which one's the best and have people come. Cause at that point, I mean, Crockett had great matches and good wrestling, but the presentation looked like garbage.

It looked like fucking, I mean, as a kid compared to, I like it now actually because it's a more of that from back then it's a more kind of real looking thing it feels dirtier and more real but as a kid one felt like the major leagues and one felt like this is great wrestling but i wish they had more money for their their cameras and stuff because they're grainier and shit you know what i'm saying yeah so it was kind of like that like vince had the advantage he didn't need to do that but he wanted to bury everybody this is where he

pretty much verne gagne was dying so he had already slayed that one and crockett was next on his fucking list and uh watts had sold to bill watts had sold the uwf to jim crockett too so that was another big expenditure that he had sure so crockett was going down hard and the only way that it could possibly be saved is if a billionaire felt like buying them on a whim and lucky for him one was in the market for a wrestling company ted turner so ted turner didn't want them to go out of business because he wanted that on his station he wanted that programming really yeah got got good ratings and he liked it he said i

like he told people i like wrestling i think it's fun and i like it and i want it on my station and he said when i first started out if it wasn't for wrestling i wouldn't have been in business he goes they were they wrestling built tbs he said you're probably right in the 70s it was the most popular show they had by far it was the only one that drew it was that or braves games and the brave sucked so you know or or reruns of fucking andy griffith that's literally what they had on so um yeah he met so jim crockett is sold to uh turner in 1989 he and sting hook up the wrestler sting yeah and they become they're like best friends for years. He and Sting. So they become business partners as well.

And they opened their first gym together in Atlanta called Main Event Fitness. That's what they were doing, huh? Yeah, Main Event Fitness. They had a bunch of them and they were the owners. So I think they still have one or something, or one of them does. Those still exist, right? I swear I've seen them maybe they sold them off i don't know but yeah the main event fitnesses are they're out there i mean i

thought they're out there anyway that was alex luger huh yep to him and sting together open that fascinating so um now his matches by the way we have to say like flair kind of helped make him a match with flair sting really helped make him as well in this one match with sting it won the 90 1991 pro wrestling illustrated match of the year is that right made him look like a good worker which is not easy to do with lex so yeah he's limited let's just say that in 1990 he is featured as a guest star in an episode on season three of super boy so i never watched super boy so i don't know in 1990 it was on for like five seasons though so yeah i don't know what the fuck i don't even i didn't even recognize the

names on there it was just like not macaulay culkin no i feel like it was some kind of like syndicated show you know one of those straight to syndication deals yeah they just sold them around september 24th 1990 they have another child he and his wife here and it's a daughter named lauren so there's that so now oh there you go there's a junior kind of yeah so son and a daughter now yeah so they're doing okay well no it's peggy yeah no for him lawrence lauren lawrence oh my god how do i not even think of that i'm looking at the next thing because I'm fucking trying to figure out our time. And we don't have a producer.

So I got to look forward. I don't have time to think about Lauren Lawrence sometimes. Lauren is the female junior of Lawrence. It is. And absolutely. You're 100% right. So he becomes the WCW World Heavyweight Champion after Ric Flair goes to the WWF. Ric Flair goes, takes the belt with him, does that whole thing.

So then they make Lex Luger the new champion to replace Ric Flair. So while that's all going on, he loses the title to Sting in February of 92 because he's leaving because Vince McMahon has finally got a hold of him he has made a good deal finally I finally get to have that vascularity right here right in my lap right in my lap right in front of me Lex do me a favor put these overalls on would you I don't want you to wear them to the ring I just want to see you in them for my own let me I'm going to take a Polaroid of this real quick hold on just for my own personal collection don't want you to wear them to the ring. I just want to see you in them for my own. I'm going to take a Polaroid of this real quick. Hold on. Just for my own personal collection.

Don't worry about it. That's okay, pal. Don't worry about it. So he signs him. He is still under contract with WCW. When he steals him away from WCW, he's not under contract, but he has a non-compete clause. Now, the non-compete clause now the non-compete clause though only counts for wrestling it does not count though if someone were to i don't know uh constitute a bodybuilding

federation and call it the world bodybuilding federation like we did in that bonus episode i remember that very well that's what vince did and he signed him to a world body fed by the world body federation bodybuilding federation contract and he was supposed to come in and be one of the World Bodybuilding guys. One of the Adonises. For a few, six months until his contract, the non-compete was over, and then he'd come in and wrestle. That was the whole point. And this is how you continue to make me money, whether you wrestle or not. Boom, and how I can take you.

Yeah. Yeah. So what ends up happening, though, I'll let him describe it. June 1992, said wife was cooking some salmon and asparagus for dinner. He said, I'm just going to go out

for a quick spin on the bike. I'll be right back. And yeah, he grabbed his full motorcycle helmet and all that sort of thing. So he got on there. He said, I thought my customized turquoise and white Harley was beautiful, but I didn't feel Peggy shared my enthusiasm.

I had taken her out for a ride right after I bought the bike. When I tried to make a tight turn in the cul-de-sac, the bike tipped over. We both jumped off in time, but Peggy never got on the bike again. I'm sure she wouldn't. You can't control the fucking thing. You don't sound good at it is what it is.

That's why. Tried to make a sharp turn? What? Why would you do that? Why? It's a motorcycle. You gotta lean. Don't turn the wheel, bud. What are you doing? Oh, watch out. So he said it was dusk and he started down a two-lane road

and he said, I had a route I like to take from our residential area to the more rural, forested Georgia countryside. So that's what he wants to do. He said, as I approached a route I like to take from our residential area to the more rural forested Georgia countryside. So that's what he wants to do. He said, as I approached a long, sharp curve at 45 or 50 miles an hour, I realized I was going too fast to hold the bike on my side of the road. So he's about to go over the high side. That's what that's called.

So enjoy. He said, with the sun disappearing, the curve had snuck up on me. So midway through it, I started moving to the middle of the road, still blind to what was coming ahead and hoping no one was coming the other way. So he's going to go even quicker over the eyesight. So he said, but someone was coming out of the curve. I saw this the car with two teenagers inside. The young driver's expression was wide-eyed in panic and the girl next to him was screaming like me the driver had drifted into the middle of the road to execute

the curve oh god with these back roads so i steered more to the left and gassed it hoping to avoid a head-on collision in that split second i also lifted my right leg up so it wouldn't get crushed between the bike and the car the impact catapulted me into the air i was soaring like superman for a few seconds i was aware that my feet were flying up over my head and for my years of wrestling i knew what that meant if i didn't do something fast i would land on my neck or my head so i put out my right arm to break my fall oh god amazingly i didn't hit any trees i just bounced about 150 feet down the wooded slope wow oh dear lord doing Oh, God. pointed up the slope. My first thought was, am I alive? Yeah. Fair thought. Once I had established that,

I looked at my left arm, which had been gashed in several places. Since I was only a few weeks away from appearing on Vince's WBF pay-per-view extravaganza as a guest poser, my only thought was, man, these gashes won't look good on stage under the lights. Wow.

My next thought was, don't lie here, get back up to the road i could move my legs but i had trouble sitting up i felt a strong stinging sensation in my right arm i was wearing a tank top under a baggy three-quarter sleeve workout pullover i pulled up my sleeve pulled up my sleeve and my right arm looked like it was going to fall off it was dangling like a wind chime nearly severed above the elbow. Oh, Jesus. Below my elbow, bones were sticking out four or five inches.

Oh, shit. So he went to the hospital. At first, they said they were going to take his arm right away. Yeah. And somehow, they got talked out of that. He said that he'd lost so much blood, it was necessary to delay surgery. So Dr. Andrews, who is the guy who works on all the football players and baseball players, he said, Dr. Andrews worked wonders inserting a titanium plate into my arm.

Now, from now on, his setup move for the torture rack is the forearm to the head, which is the titanium forearm. He actually had metal in his arms. It was so solid it would knock you out if he hit you with it. Sure. So you have a fucking crowbar. Yeah, yeah, exactly. He said, when I first saw the damage, this is the doctor,

I thought, I can't do anything with this. But then I put that together and then that together and I realized maybe I can do something with this. Wow. So anyway, he comes in. Finally, they do this fucking interview with him from his hospital bed because he's supposed to do the pay-per-view. So on the pay-per-view, there's an interview with him. And it's it's WWF does a lot of cheesy shit like

they did ricky steamboat back in the day in his quote hospital and all that when it was bullshit this is this guy's really in the hospital he's like he's in bad shape he's had his arm rebuilt yeah he's in terrible shape but he's there and he's like i'm gonna come in and kick everybody's ass what do you think of that nobody looks as good as me yeah minor setback with this little motorcycle thing but don't worry about it next week i'll kick everybody's ass and then he was like i'm going back to not knowing where he is from being in so much pain when vince says like you still got to do it pal your contract's really obligated then they did weird promos with him before the w uh bf like they would do promos where he would be like him and some chick i don't know

if it was his wife or not but but it would be him and some lady and she would hand him a glass of milk and he would drink it and then say really annoying arrogant things after he drank milk. It was a weird, real weird. So when he comes in to wrestle, they're like, we don't want you to be the total

package anymore because Vince needs to own your trademark. So, you know, come on. You can't have that. He said be something he said so he said everybody knows you as lex luger the total package i believe me you are pal oh just ask my loins they're quivering he said but let's get them thinking of you as the narcissist which he is he's narcissist. Then he explains to him, in Greek mythology, Narcissus, Narcissus was his name, was known for his physical beauty.

One day when Narcissus passed a pool of water, he was drawn to his own reflection and became so enamored with it that he wouldn't leave. So that was the whole point. So the whole marketing is, look at me, I'm perfect in every way i have the perfect body i have the perfect everything and it's look at me i'm a you can't get any better than my body and he the big mirror and he would pose in it and shit well hogan's too tall yeah

he's too tall so once hulk hogan leaves in 93, he moves on after the whole Yokozuna debacle with him. Yokozuna is being the champion at this point. They decide Vince is like, I need a new Hulk Hogan. You're blonde and have muscles. You're Hulk Hogan now. That's what he did. Basically, you're going to go from the narcissist who's just this. You're garbage and trash.

And I'm the best. This outlandish stupid character you're gonna go from that to the all-american patriotic fucking flag waving kid holding good guy from from overnight the lovable overnight overnight with no like there's no like giant angle that turned him naturally it was just like we want you to be well there is a giant angle that sort of turned him naturally but okay the point is one day he's the narcissist he's wearing these weird silver trunks and he's like this unrealistic character holding a mirror and then the next minute he's on a fucking aircraft carrier body slamming yokozuna wearing like a shirt made out of the flag and being a good guy out of nowhere.

Where did that come from? Yeah. So what they did was the 4th of July, 1993. Yokozuna's the champion. If you don't know who he was, he was like a 600-pound Samoan man that they pretended was Japanese and called him Yokozuna. Pretended he was a sumo. And it was a challenge to anybody in America, anybody. And they had it on an aircraft carrier, like the whole deal.

Anybody, any of you weak Americans can body slam me. You bet you can't. I'll stand here all day on the 4th of July until someone does. And all the wrestlers came in and they had nfl players came in i remember lee roussan who was a running back for the giants was doing it for some reason i was like the hell are you doing here so they brought in all these people and they all tried oh my back and oh i can't do it man he's too big and then out of nowhere a helicopter flies in jimmy a helicopter grand entrance a helicopter flies in and lands on the aircraft carrier and out pops the new and improved all-american lex luger and he's ready

to body slam yokozuna and he walks up and uh well i'll let him tell it uh well what yokozuna was saying is just the best america has to offer and you guys are so weak and all that and then lex comes in and lex says when they were nose to nose he started to panic he said yoko i'm not going to be able to do it i'm not going to be able to do it he's in they had him wearing cowboy boots yeah because he had to look you know like boots like that and he said it was so And he said it was so slippery with the boots on and the footing. He goes, I don't have any footing, man. I've got to lift 600 pounds up.

He said, I feel like I'm on ice skates in these boots. I can't do anything. And he said that Yoko said, no problem, brother. I got you. Just do your best to stay on your feet. That's all. Yoko was like a great worker for such a big guy. And it's the worst slam in history because Lex looks real uncomfortable.

He basically, basically Yoko jumps up, turns himself over and lands on his back, but it's all a foot and a half off the ground. It's really, but it was the, they made it out like he finally did it. So at this point,

he's going to challenge Yokozuna. He's going to become the champion. And what they do is the corniest and worst thing in the history of wrestling it's the worst thing ever it's so bad this is why like ecw became popular and like the nwo later on it's corny shit like this they put together a thing it's a tour bus called the lex express oh no and he is gonna go from coast to coast stopping in every small town to come stop at the town square and have all the kids run up to him and be what hulk hogan used to be able to do without thinking about it but they're gonna have they have to like set up press events for him to do it hulk hogan back in the day could just walk into any town stand there and within 10

minutes there'd be a hundred kids around him like that's not like food court at any mall any mall that's the mall is over everyone's while looking at hulk hogan in 1987 or whatever but this they're trying to force it down your fucking throat and nobody's buying it nobody's buying it it's fucking lousy um yeah it's really lousy they did all these autograph signings and the worst part of it is the song i'll be your hero oh no jimmy i need you to do something right now while i explain this no thank god it sounds like it almost i can't even describe it. It sounds like it's somebody that's, you'll recognize the voice when you hear it.

Yeah, it's one of those. And look up Lex Luger, I'm your hero. Just all you need you to do. And I need you to play about five seconds of it into the mic because. I am your hero. Is it it american american hero yeah it doesn't fucking matter it's you'll see it when you get there and fast forward about they remastered it you have to be kidding me about 30 seconds you gotta fast forward because otherwise

otherwise you're gonna get like just the swelling like keyboard in the beginning which you don't want that you want you want the passion of the song but we can't play much of it because wwe is super litigious okay well they got the that's all the you know where you can't see tour bus is coming and it's coming at you from like miles away on a flat desert road and while the that's where it swells in the beginning and then it's like we need a hero as they say hero in the first verse there over the fucking tour bus coming at you they do like the half like kind of ghost image of the fucking soldiers raising the flag okay then hero they cut to george washington's face from the washington not cut to it's just overlaid then it's abraham lincoln after that ghost faces i'll be a hero he's he's fucking lincoln jimmy

and then it's got a kid's face and then they show him hugging the kids they show him his face him and his wife and his two kids he's holding, and he's in his big Zuba pants. It's terrible. Look it up. You need to Google it and watch it, because it's the worst thing that wrestling has ever fucking done. And then it's got him slamming Yokozuna.

It's just him being a dad. That's it. While wearing a shirt with a flag on it at all times. And like stars and stripes Zubas as well. i don't know how much we can play of it we gotta that's what it is bad shit very funny so he's got this big fucking thing this big swelling thing the 1994 royal rumble comes it's for a shot at the belt. And there's a tie with Bret Hart. It's the dumbest thing ever. They both tumble out together and hit at the exact same time.

It's so stupid. Bret gets three times as loud of cheers as Lex Luger, by the way. Yeah, because Bret was so much fun. Well, also, Bret came in in like 1985 and built his way up to getting all this respect this guy came in he's a bad guy one second next second he's the hero fuck you next second he's george washington yeah he's george washington so he's got the big title match at wrestlemania while he's going across the country in a tour bus being your hero grace that's grace okay my god what a life he's had quick downfall here don't worry about this is going to be fast and furious coming at you here but i had to build up how famous this guy is so

he doesn't win the belt the whole thing is he if he doesn't win it this time he's can't have any more shots so what they do is they make him win by count out so they have like you know one and everyone's counting along and he's acting like he's excited about a count out and then he celebrates on 10 you didn't win the belt stupid you can't win by count out so they just fucked him but still sort of made the fans happy that he won they had balloons coming down and everything they made it the people came out to celebrate with him he didn didn't win anything. It was ridiculous. So he turns into a shit nothing for the WWF. They decided that he wasn't worth shit.

They tried to push him as hard as they could, and the fans went, meh, don't care. Yeah, and he's got a steroid face. You know what I mean? It's just an expand. He looks awful. He does, especially now. So he ends up being in a tag team with Davey Boy Smith where it's it's like the british american connection bullshit you know what i mean one of those not good at all they have a mash-up song of like stars and stripes forever and the british they have like those mixed together

it's really weird so um anyway from then on he talks Sting on the phone. He's always talking to Sting. It's his buddy. They own businesses together. And he said, it's August 95, or 94, I think it was. And he said that, yeah, I mean, technically I'm not under contract even with WWE. And Sting's like, what are you talking about? You're not under contract. And he said, I haven't been under contract for six months.

We've been working it out, but it's just kind of a handshake month to month until we're going, until we figure it out. So Sting was like, so you're not under no written contract with Vince McMahon, but you're on his shows every week and all that sort of thing. There's no non-compete period, nothing. He's like, I have no contract. I'm just doing whatever. So they said, okay, hold on. Sting goes to Eric Bischoff, who's running WCcw and says lex is fucking available we can get lex

luger he's got no contract yeah eric bischoff goes not really interested don't like him eric bischoff doesn't like lex luger whether the fans like him whether he draws are in a matter he said he was an asshole to him back when he was a shit when he was like a second tier announcer and lex thought he was hot shit he treated him like garbage and he treated everyone like garbage so he goes i don't know i got no time for that guy that's one of those he stepped on the wrong toes on the way up because this guy was now his boss who he shit on before so uh and we told the story with buff bagwell about lex luger and buff talking in the hallway yeah and that fucking guy they wouldn't let some maintenance guy get through with his shit and buff talking in the hallway yeah and that fucking guy they wouldn't

let some maintenance guy get through with his shit and buff ended up roughing him up well lex was standing there too and he wasn't moving either that's the kind of asshole he is but sting said give him a chance you know he's he's a different guy he's better now you're gonna like him he's a hero are you kidding me bring him in so bischoff said i'll bring him in but for no money he's like i'll have nothing he said as out of respect for sting i gotta offer him a contract because that's my main guy and i got it so he says but i'll offer him such a shit contract that he definitely won't take it and lex took it he's into his credit he said to him well tell you what that's fine and i'll prove to you that i'm worth more than that and the next contract you give me more than that and eric said if you do that great

sounds good and he did lex ended up making a lot of money in wcw because fascinating became a big star there he comes in the most amazing of ways here this is this was a huge moment in wrestling history for whatever that's worth so this is the first monday nitro episode wwf had wwf raw monday night raw which is still on and they decided we want to go head to head against them ted turner decided it actually you're going to go on monday nights right against the other guy so exactly what vince used to do to people now he's getting it done to him so they decide that they're going to do that and on the first monday nitro episode it's from the Mall of America in Minneapolis, which is super weird. It's fun to watch just because you're looking at this.

You're like, is that a chess king in the background? What am I looking at here? That anti-ans is looking good. Nitro was so much fun, though. It was great. Nitro was a blast. So the first episode, now mind you, he is on monday night raw the week before he was at a house show for wwf the night before okay so he's doing that he comes out on live television in the middle of hulk

hogan's match and walks out and stands in the aisle and the announcers play it what the hell is he doing here he doesn't work here what's going on with this? What's blah, blah, blah? What's happening? What's going on here? We're security. We're security. Yeah, what's going on? And one guy goes, it's a mall.

It's a free, I mean, it's a public place. He can come wherever he wants. Like, who knows? Yeah. He ends up- He's just getting something engraved at Things Remembered. You don't know that. He could be buying his dad a Zippo for his parents' wedding anniversary.

Two dad. Needs a cake knife. Yeah, come on. For this parent's wedding anniversary. Too dead. Needs a cake knife. Yeah, come on. So he said he gets in the ring with Hogan and challenges him to a match the next week and all this type of shit.

And it's a huge deal because Vince had no fucking idea it was going to happen. Oh, God. The one stipulation of him coming here was he was not allowed to say a word to anyone, including Vince McMahon. It had to be a complete surprise. He had to come out there and have people go, holy shit. So he flew down there in secret. They put a hood over his head to bring him into the building and hid him until it was time to come out. They hid him in a closet, Jimmy. He had to sit in a closet and wait.

As a guy who's very narcissistic and proud of himself that probably is his crowning achievement that is yeah no shit i'm just whip it off it's me yeah here i am so he came out and it really was a big surprise vince mcmahon lost his fucking mind and who do we not have a what the fuck is going on how the fuck is he on there he lost it this is one of the times when vince really went nuts and he was so mad at lex luger that he's still not with them anymore like he's started working with them in the wellness shit but like they rejected him for the hall of fame like vince never rehired him when wcw closed he was a huge star still. Never got a sniff because Vince was so fucking mad at him for doing this. He's the only guy who never came back, ever.

You can say Macho Man, too, but once he was dead, they took him back. This is a different thing completely. This guy could die and Vince won't say a fucking word about him. So he said, are you saying I can't give Vince any kind of notice? And Bischoff told him, that's right. And he said, I don't can't give vince any kind of notice and bischoff told him that's right and they say he said i don't think i'm comfortable with that he goes well if you want to do it do it if not go fuck yourself go back there and fucking team with davey boy smith all you want enjoy i don't like you anyway i don't like exactly what he said i don't really care but this is the way

you can help me if you don't want to do that then i'm not interested in you so he ends up doing it becomes a big star there he actually wins the title on nitro from hogan with a torture rack which was a big fucking deal like uh that didn't happen very often hogan losing on television by submission isn't like a thing that happens so uh you know it's a big deal he wins the title on nitro he loses it at the next pay-per-view six days later to hogan again but still yeah six days so uh this is really he's really into pills and booze and shit too as time goes on here i mean you're going to if you're abusing your body like that i'm i'm surprised that there aren't more of i'm surprised to be

honest with you that more die of heart attacks than a drug overdose yeah it's true i don't know we yeah really it's shocking it is i guess they they they pill and booze like crazy to deal with the pain but that's why their heart stops yeah it's pills and booze and they don't od on either one of them but the combination together stops their heart is it all down here happens a lot and uh he has one other interest besides wrestling pills and booze and and that is fucking Miss Elizabeth. Oh, really? You can't do that. Elizabeth Hewlett, who is the former Miss Elizabeth, who was married to Randy Macho Man Savage and was his manager forever and had come back into WCW where she was a part of the NWO and all this type of shit.

He's banging her? Yeah. Well, they had divorced in 92, Macho Man and Liz. But her and Lex got together. Now, Lex is still married and living with his wife and all this and having an affair with Liz on the side. Okay. A pretty decent one, too, here. He said, I spent time at the gym and training and checking on the business side of things, but I also made time for Elizabeth. And he said, however, we weren't being as discreet as we had been to begin with um he said that uh sometimes after my midday workout when i knew my son brian was at school elizabeth would stop over the apartment and he said they'd catch a

buzz together before eating they'd drink and take some pills because that's what they were into he said one afternoon i heard b Brian's key in the door. And he's like, why is he home early? I scrambled and rushed Elizabeth into a closet in the spare bedroom. It hurt. Unbelievable. I tried to act nonchalant until Brian told me that he didn't have practice so he was home for the rest of the day.

He said, so I started catching a light buzz to calm my nerves. He said, if worse comes to worst, Elizabeth will have to stay in the closet until Brian goes to bed. So a few hours later, I suggested to Brian we should get some carryout for dinner, hoping he'd go with me. And he did. While we were gone, Elizabeth slipped out. Poor Elizabeth. Poor Elizabeth. It gets worse.

out poor elizabeth poor elizabeth it gets worse february 14th 2002 uh valentine's day elizabeth asked him for a ride to a range rover dealership to drop off her car for some work before we left she said he said that she surprised me with valentine's gift gifts i left them sitting in the kitchen table thinking i would stash them when i got back in a few minutes brian was at school and peggy and lauren never stopped by the apartment during the day so it seemed safe yeah unbeknownst to me while i was down the street with elizabeth peggy stopped by the apartment with a surprise for brian and me a special valentine's dinner she had prepared for us instead she saw elizabeth's purse and her gifts to me sitting in plain sight on the table. Oh, no. So she said that now the wife was calling him, blowing up his phone, saying, what are you going to do, Lex?

What are you going to do now? What the fuck is your problem? You're an asshole. So she said, Larry. Larry. He said, I told her she just asked for a ride to the car dealership. I was helping her out. You know, she brought me those gifts.

I was as surprised as you are. Why would she do that? That's crazy. Please forgive me. So she gave him a second chance. By the way, during all this, he has so many speeding tickets, it's not even funny. He drives as fast as he possibly can all places at all times. There's a story here where he is pulled over on the way to tanning.

He didn't want to miss his tanning appointment because it's hard to get in there, he said. He was pulled over going 167 miles an hour. To go tan? In a Porsche. Holy shit. It's one short of Sid Finch. That's fast. That is moving.

He said, the guy said, you were going, the cop said, you're going 167 miles an hour. Why were you driving that fast? He said, I have a tanning appointment. This place is always booked. And I got to do it. And the guy said, do you know how many people you endangered, including yourself, and then didn't give him a ticket? Wow. You should have been arrested for that.

So 2003, this is WCW's close down. He's got no wrestling. He set his resolutions to clean up his act. He didn't need to go to rehab. He'd fix it himself, though. He's going to stop drinking and taking pills in the mornings and afternoons and just catch a buzz before dinner. He's going to rein this in a little bit.

He's going to wean off. He said he'd vowed to himself that he would get things under control. He said when he decided to do something, he always got it done so he could do this too. Now, back to Elizabeth. He's had to hide more, so now he has a secret phone. Oh, and a secret condo. Get out of here. He said that was pretty easy to arrange.

I just used some banker that doesn't go through us and a separate person. It was easy. So he's got a secret phone, secret condo the whole deal eventually they move i guess they're living together she definitely lives there and i don't know if he lives there half the time or if he's always there or what they move into a townhouse it's a three hundred thousand dollar plus home nice townhouse big you know big nice house. It's really nice. We'll put it that way. The neighbor of his, a guy named Glenn Robbins, said when he saw Lex Luger was moving in and then Lex held a block party to introduce himself to the neighbors, he said, I was hoping he'd show me his famous move, the torture rack.

Flip those burgers and then rack me, would you, Lex? Pick me up so april 19th 2003 liz wanted to walk the dog this is lex's story from his book okay this is what i'm just telling you from the book he said she liked walking the dogs but they get the dogs are assholes and tangle the leashes up so he said don't take her with the leash. Take them outside without the leash or whatever. So April 19, 2003, he said, I walked out into the garage to see them off with no intention of going along. About 10 feet down the driveway, the two dogs began romping after each other. Okay, so this is exactly what he said he warned about. And the leashes wrapped around Liz's legs. She became hogtied and fell on the driveway, hurting her arm and shoulder and scraping her face under her right eye.

That's the claim here. He said, it all happened in an instant. When I ran over to help her, she insisted she was fine. When we went inside and put a bag of ice on her eye, she was concerned about the scrape. So I suggested putting some Neosporin on it. A few days later, we had both gotten buzzed before going to our favorite pizza place to pick up dinner. When we got home, I pulled into the garage. Elizabeth got out of the Porsche with the pizza box still on her lap,

lost her footing, and stumbled. The pizza box flipped open, and the extra-large pizza loaded with everything went all over the inside of the car. Okay. Oh, God. She got up and began heading into into the townhouse i was definitely upset hey we need to clean this mess up now you clean it up she responded when she headed for the

door that led into the house i blocked her way we continued to argue and elizabeth trying to kept trying to get past me into the house as our voices got louder a neighbor called the police we were both in the house when several squad cars pulled up i opened the door one officer asked me to wait outside while he talked to elizabeth i didn't think much of it standing outside and chatting with the other policemen a few minutes later the officer came back out through the garage and said you're under arrest for domestic abuse he said what i was stunned i had never laid a hand on a woman in my life i was read my rights and taken to jail he said so he called his lawyer um and all this the arresting officer

he said had seen liz's black eye and the abrasion on her cheek and believed that i had harmed her elizabeth emphatically insisted that i never touched her uh and that she was very upset the officer arrested me so there you go he got arrested that. Saying that for the dog injury is what he says here. He says that Liz had. Had nothing to do with the pizza all over the car. Nothing to do with that at all. Check the Porsche for pizza. He says that Liz had been crying because of the argument.

But it wasn't a physical thing. You know he says. His theory is. That when talking about the Cobb County police. He believes that he's on their radar and that's what it is. He said Luger coined a phrase and says that he would quote, get Lex Lugard referring to when the smallest thing, an exaggerated number of cops would show up to his house,

just to trying to find a way to send him to jail is what he said. So that's all it is. So they're trying to Lex Luger me, everybody. He said, one car shows up up then there's seven more and then there's an ambulance and even a fire truck you guys got to be kidding me it was the most ridiculous stuff i've ever seen in my life just unbelievable he said he also felt the cops on the numerous visits to his house what yeah numerous he said they enjoyed hanging out because he was very well-known at the time,

especially in Georgia, because Atlanta, WCW is Atlanta-based. He said, though, he hated the fact that dozens of cop cars would constantly show up and make a scene. Yeah, but they can't just show up. There's a reason for showing up. Give me a fucking break here.

They're not allowed to just pull up in front of your house right i mean 12 cop cars not with 12 every not all the time for no reason just coming to say hi lex got any extra pizza usually there's a phone call that gets them there that happened to my little brother and my sister-in-law actually though they were watching tv one night and then cops came and knocked on the door and they were like hello yeah and they were like we need to talk to you outside sir and they like separated them and they're like are you are you afraid right now is he hurting you and they're he's she's like what the fuck are you talking about we're watching tv what is happening apparently there's some neighbor up neighbors like three four doors down that were arguing loud and always argue

loud given the wrong address you know how that well you know how that his neighborhood is like those hills and like all from his backyard there's like you can see like 20 houses looking in on it so sounds travel weird and apparently one of the houses behind him had heard these people arguing all the time and the way it traveled they thought it was his house oh no so they gave the wrong address and it happened they twice, two different times. And he's like, what are you talking about? They're like, are you okay? What's wrong with that big Italian guy and that little girl?

And you know her. She's like, trust me, he'd be the one in trouble. You'd be fucking coming for me if you were coming. Trust me. He's going to need ice. He's going to need ice. She's tough. She wears a fucking motorcycle helmet with horns on it she's

a badass so you don't need to worry about her with him um especially with him because he's so nice and that's just he's so docile they were like what like they were just like stop coming here please like they had to make a report he's like what do you mean you have to make a report like this is we didn't do anything make a report i'm a manatee he said the report should be we went to the wrong house that's the report sorry like this is crazy we fucked up our bad so that was yeah they always laugh about that because like jesus christ so uh i mean it's good if they show up if someone needs help but it's nice yeah they just showed up so we're just watching tv and we're like oh who's here that's weird what like we weren't even arguing because we weren't even talking we were

just watching tv so uh two days later april 21st 2003 lex is arrested for dui after rear-ending a car oh that's that's real drunk then. Yeah. Apparently he had- Death perception is gone. Gone. Yeah. Slurred speech. And he drives so fast everywhere too. Slurred speech, bloodshot eyes, and could not locate his driver's license even though he had it on him they found later. That's how drunk he was. Liz was a passenger in the vehicle and was sent home in a taxi as well.

Now he was also driving on a suspended license for not appearing in court uh for a previous offense of having drove uh driven with no insurance and expired tags hilarious now they get him out he's all drunk oh by the way he's got a loaded nine millimeter in the fucking car as well which when you're that shit faced you shouldn't be anywhere around guns and uh they don't know if he had a permit for it or not. But it really doesn't matter because your permit or not, you can't be around guns when you're shit-faced. That's usually part of the – isn't that part of the –

Well, I mean, you shouldn't be. I thought that was an extra charge. I don't think intoxicated with a weapon is an extra charge. Are you fucking kidding me? You're allowed to be drunk with fucking weapons in public? That's crazy. You shouldn't be drunk in public you're allowed to be drunk in public as long as you're not causing a stir but you can't have a gun and be drunk that's i don't think i know that bars in arizona you're not allowed to have uh weapons in bars where uh where there's alcohol served you

can't have weapons with you yeah tombstone figured that out 140 years ago maybe bad idea home you could probably you're probably allowed to have it on your hip while you're drinking but in public probably should that's me carrying it i don't think you can carry it while you're drinking so that's crazy so he ends up back in jail so he got arrested now he's arrested again two days later yeah uh he gets out of there he doesn't know what to do with himself yeah he doesn't know what to do with himself he's he's sitting there yeah what do you do man he's just. He doesn't know what to do with himself. Yeah. He doesn't know what to do with himself. He's sitting there. What do you do, man?

He's just waiting. He doesn't have a job right now. He needs a drink. He's got the gyms, but he needs a drink is what he needs there. And the weirdest thing is he hears a knock on the door. He wasn't expecting anybody. He's like, oh, the cop's here to Lex Luger me again. And it's something much weirder.

It's Paul calhoun shit pipe enthusiast he's there and he says uh how is it you come to arrive here guy what the... I'm looking in your shit pipe right now. There's like needles and pills and shit. I don't know. I got the bottle of cheap vodka in here I'm finding. Hold on a minute. What is this?

Oh, there's an arrest warrant for domestic violence. What do we got here? Dog leashes. I found dog leashes in here. What is this shit? I know a guy named Bobby. He's going to be very upset you're blaming your fucking dogs for that, by the way. He's going to be very upset. Your shit pipes

are clogged. Your whole life is clogging up your shit pipes. You're a fucking disaster. Look at you. Look at you. You were in jail two fucking days ago. Now you're back again. What is this? What are you, some kind of a fucking moron? Has all those blows to the head from football, has that

made you this fucking stupid? It made you this stupid is this the problem with you you know what i can't even get the syringes out of there you're gonna have to get somebody else to do it i can't do it i clean your shit pipes and smack your wife you've already done that sir i'm gonna get the fuck out of you see you later poof you know in a cloud of uh pvc and shit and pipes he's gone lex is like i took too many pills i think i'm i'm surprised you didn't find elizabeth in there the kids must not have come by today they weren't there yeah she's hiding in there elizabeth's hiding so may 1st 2003 yeah here it comes so this is like 10 days later he says he didn't get home till around nine o'clock that evening and elizabeth uh he

said elizabeth seemed to be somewhat high when i found her sitting downstairs in the home theater okay he said i'm gonna run over to blockbuster and grab some movies and uh what a sentence that's a sentence right there and he said to be honest i was getting buzzed myself and then i wanted to enjoy my one of my favorite boston market meals meatloaf and mashed potatoes. That's one of your favorites. Gross. Good God, man. Learn to cook.

He's been boiled down to Blockbuster and Boston Market. Jesus, what a consumer. Yeah, he's a big star, Jimmy. When he got back from Blockbuster, he popped in an Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick. We partied with a few pills and cocktails but kept it light. I was talking about Brian and the Scouts and Elizabeth was happy I had the opportunity to be there. I was really into the movie but I did notice Elizabeth kept dozing on and off. She'd wake up during the loud action scenes then close her eyes again.

I didn't think too much of it since it was late. I figured she was tired. By the time the movie was over, I was starving and decided it was time to microwave our meatloaf and potatoes. Why didn't you eat it when you got home and it was fresh? Elizabeth was hungry as well, so she got up from the couch and walked over to the microwave to help. Go ahead and sit down, I said. I'll bring it to you. I took her plate to her on a tray and then sat back down on the couch and started digging into my dinner.

took her plate to her on a tray, and then sat back down on the couch and started digging into my dinner. She had taken a few bites of food, but the next moment I looked over, her head was rolled back as if she was sleeping. Hey, Liz, wake up. And later on he'll say, Hey, Liz, wake up, eat your grub.

That's what you want to tell your wife. Hey, eat your grub. Fucking ridiculous. That's one step above gruel. Yeah. Which is what Boston Market market is it is gross uh it is mac and cheese is semi-edible but it's not preferable put it that way it's bad food it's not bad it's not good food so he said that uh she didn't answer her move she said i lit i said it

again louder and there's no response said i went over and walked over knelt down in front of her moving the tray off her lap i nudged her but she didn't move man she's really out i thought i nudged her again on the shoulder she made a gurgling noise and some saliva came out of the side of her mouth but she didn't open her eyes something's not right when she didn't open her eyes something's not right he said he's a real this guy drool something's not right, he said. He's a real, this guy. Gurgle, drool, something's not right. Not unresponsive. This is, I'm sensing something. I'm not a doctor. I didn't go to medical school, but I am a hero, so I think I can figure this out.

Something's not right. Unreal. Wow, he's calm. He said, I decided to gently pull up one of her eyelids. I was immediately startled. Her eye was completely dilated. I was immediately startled. Her eye was completely dilated. Something was terribly wrong.

I could feel it in my gut. I ran to my phone and dialed 911. So, he said, right before all this, yeah, he said, according to the 911 tape here, he said that it was around 5.30 a.m., he told the operator. So, he rented movies. Blockbuster.m., he told the operator. So he rented movies. Blockbuster closed at fucking midnight at the latest. So they watched movies, got to Boston Market, and they weren't going to eat the dinner until 5.30 in the morning from Boston Market. They were partying hard.

That's so hard. He said, I have an emergency medical. My girlfriend has passed out, and I can't get her to come to. He said he couldn't tell if she was breathing. He said, quote, we were eatingurgling i don't know why please send somebody please so he uh told uh which is that those are truthful statements that this is what happened and we need help that's not the 911 statement of i i know she's not making up a story or building a narrative distancing himself from it yeah we're eating and she started gurgling don't know why she needs help get it here that's it yeah so if you said the address would be perfect he later told them that she drank about two glasses of vodka and took some medication for her back pain and that's what happened so uh he said he started

shaking her hoping the food would come up because because that's the best method of helping a choking person, is shake them from the front. That usually works. She's like a Pepsi. If you shake her enough, it'll come to life. He told the 911 operator, I couldn't get her to focus her eyes. She's like totally limp.

And he appeared less sure about the choking during the call. When they asked him if he saw her choking, he responded he didn't know. When they tried to have him perform CPR, he responded that when he breathed into her mouth, he could not see her chest move. He said, when I blow in, there's just gurgling, probably from the food. So the emergency people got there. She's now purplish.

Okay. got there she's now purplish okay um and uh they take her right to wellstar kenneth stone our kenneth stone hospital where she is pronounced dead yeah that's that for liz um which was so fucking sad that was terrible man i felt bad for her oh shit she died choking on terrible boston market in their condo man man. That's what it was. Yeah, they took her. They left him on the front steps for a while. They wouldn't let him go in and get his car keys. He said, why can't I go back inside?

And that's when they told her, hey, she didn't make it. She died on the way to the hospital. So he said he was very obviously distraught. And then they said, well, we got to talk to you, motherfucker, because this is a drug thing and it's at your house and you're here. So they said they have a few questions and they said, you know, is there anything in your townhouse that you can think of that shouldn't be there at the police station? He said, no, not that I can think of. He said, are you sure about that?

He said, I'm sure. He said, Lex, I want you to think about this very carefully. And he said, we've already seen it. So say it. Couldn't think anything. They said, Lex, the guys you to think about this very carefully. And he said, we've already seen it, so say it. Couldn't think anything. They said, Lex, the guys on the scene did find something. Do you have any idea what it might be? And he said, no, I don't. And they said, we found a considerable amount of anabolic steroids on the premises.

Uh-oh. He said, that's news to me. I have testosterone and human growth hormone, but I have legal prescriptions for those. And he said, that's not what we mean. We did a thorough search of your house and found steroids. And yeah, he said that they, what did he say here? Yeah, he said it was the spare bedroom. That's when it hit me. Back in 98 when I started going on the testosterone, they just moved into this condo.

So he moved in garbage and it was out. I bring trash from five years ago with me. Yeah. in garbage and it was i bring i bring trash from five years ago with me yeah he said that i had i'd stopped using anabolic steroids at that time and got hgh therapy but at the time i just received a shipment of them from europe and since i wasn't using them anymore i threw the heavily taped package into a zippered pocket in a gym bag and instead of throwing it away uh i threw it up in the closet so he said that was just i was the storage room in there and that's all it was he also found more than a thousand pills as well found tons of pills uh he's

charged with 13 counts of felony drug possession steroids other bodybuilding drugs maskers for tests painkillers anti-anxiety drugs that is not prescribed for him. All sorts of shit they found there. Liz's autopsy shows no sign of foul play. Just shows a forensic pathologist here said she described a common scenario called a cafe coronary, which people who are drinking alcohol and eating lose their eating, eating coordination and choke on food and die of asphyxiation. Horrible. Yeah yeah she said if some food blocking her airway became dislodged at some point the autopsy might not be able to determine the exact cause of death and the final cause could be listed as undetermined if shit like

this happens her blood alcohol level was only 0.29 but she also had a mix of painkillers nausea medication and tranquilizers in her system. She was super sleepy. Hydrocodone, Alprazolam, and vodka. So Xanax, hydrocodone, and vodka she's got and some other shit. So Lex still fucked up at this point, by the way. After this happens, he is one of 700 patients from several different sports who a California doctor arranged for steroids and human growth hormones to arrive to. This was a doctor that got in trouble. They found him because Chris Benoit is the guy that he got it from.

This is the guy he got it from. So that's how that happened. So he says at that point, he said he would buy a six month supply supply of controlled substances when he was upping his stash, just re-upping. He said that's so he didn't have to buy them all the time. He said he was definitely a pill popper and a drunk and an alcoholic and came close to overdosing dozens of times, he said. He attributes having a fast metabolism to saving him on numerous occasions. He said he's at the gym all the time, and people who saw him at the gym probably thought he was fine.

He said, but he wasn't fine at all. He'd get home, and he'd pour vodka down his throat and fucking pills, and that's what he was doing. So in court, in January 2005, he ends up having to go to court for this whole thing, for the drugs and everything. So the judge gives him, you, sir, may fuck off five-year sentence. Wow.

Okay? So the good news is, though, he's a nonviolent first-time offender for this sort of thing. So it was up to the judge what to do. The judge puts him on probation, and that was that. So he gets probation. Lucky him. So, yeah, he said while he's going through his mail, though, at home, he saw a letter from Cobb County that he had missed a court date for one of his many traffic violations that he's accumulated. He said, my driver's license was suspended, so I was hoping to clear it up and get it reinstated.

He went to the Cobb County jail to take care of it. They said, otherwise they'll issue a warrant for his arrest. So he got a job ride down there and everything. And when he did all of his stuff, they go, yeah, we have a active warrant for you.

We have to place you under arrest. So yeah, he's got an, a warrant for other traffic shit that he didn't do. And he said, it'd been a while since I paid alimony and child support to Peggy and the kids. My plan was that once I got back to work, I would bring things up to speed. However, I hadn't informed the judge and Gwinnett of my attentions, and he had issued the warrant.

Yeah, you can't just not do that. You can't just not. That's what happens. So, yeah, he ends up in jail here. They told him you could do one of three things in jail we'll give you three options placed in a cell by yourself 24 hours a day no interaction with inmates solitary you could share a cell with one other inmate and have very limited interaction with other inmates in a common area more like kind of hybrid or share a cell with three others and be

in gen pop and do whatever you want right so uh he said to be on it, they said, the guy told him, 24-hour isolation is rough, even for the most hardened criminals. Since you're a celebrity, I'd probably take B. That way nobody bothers you. And he said, no, no, I want Gen Pop. So he ends up in Gen Pop. Which I'm sure everybody loved him everybody watches wrestling in there that's fucking lex luger give me the torture rack yeah he's probably torture racking people when he gets out he ends up isolating himself and living in an

extended stay hotel hell yeah oh man he's divorced from his from his wife. Now he's a divorced single man here. Now it's not good. And he admits that his life has become a complete train wreck by my own bad decisions. Yeah. February 3rd, 2005. He is on Interstate 575. His vehicle is off on the side. It stopped.

his vehicle is off on the side. It stopped. And he's found because a police officer finds him slumped over the steering wheel of his vehicle on the side of the fucking interstate. What? He just pulled over and fell asleep. Yeah. As the guy, he woke up as the guy was coming up and just drove away. Oh, shit, the cops.

Oh, shit, the cops. Oh, shit, the cops. So he said this cop called the neighboring county sheriff for assistance there. They charged him with drunk driving, driving on an expired tag, alteration of tag, no proof of insurance, and open container. Unbelievable. December 2005, he's trying to go to Canada to wrestle a guy named Mike Davidson an AWE promoter it's him, Buff Bagwell and Scott Steiner

quite the crew they had to be taken off the plane in Minnesota due to a disturbance or once it landed they were taken off the plane Buff, Scott and our guy here Lex for committing acts of disturbance um he says that they it's just they misinterpreted ribbing of a flight attendant they're fucking with a flight

attendant ripping what did they say breaking balls yeah so the poor promoter didn't hear about any of this until it happened and so his show was all fucked up and he was like great perfect thanks a lot fellas yeah um he says naturally the frustration was with customs officials at first but now it's with lex luger because he found out that uh you know canada doesn't let people in with criminal records especially if by the way there's an active warrant for you and there was at the time an active warrant for him so that's the problem. You can't keep your shit together for fucking three days. Nope, he's on probation.

He hasn't shown up for court for things he's supposed to show up for. So the judge tells him, quote, probation is a privilege, not a given. I'm going to give you four months in the Cobb County Jail with one month taken off for time served in Minneapolis. If I see you again, you will spend the remainder of your five year sentence in our state prison system.

Am I clear on that? You sir are an asshole and you definitely may fuck off. So he goes to jail, Cobb County jail. And he says, he remembers thinking, wow, this is a really dark time.

His lowest point here, man. He said he contemplated suicide, thinking about a way to end it all. He thought about climbing a divider wall that was in his cell, putting his hands behind his head, and falling headfirst onto the cement floor to end it all. It's a crazy way to try to end it. You just might fuck yourself up. That is aggressive. So instead of doing that he finds god jimmy yeah hard hard his book is put out by like christian productions or something

like christian book uh publications it's like lex luger and the devil uh the fucking name of the thing yeah if i have the name of it at the end i'll tell you about it but it's fucking crazy so yeah he finds god he met a persistent jail chaplain a baptist a baptist pastor named steve baskin that'd be worse than jail having a baptist pastor coming to my cell every day trying to sell me on shit like motherfucker i'm gonna shank you and i will do 20 years if you don't stop this shit leave me alone he would lex would wave him away uh but then the chaplain started beginning to smuggle small containers of peanut butter for him. Because Lex said he was always hungry.

So then that was to try to help him a little. Try to get in with him a little bit here. So once he gets out of jail after three months, he went again to live at the extended stay. And he ran into the pastor at a Gold's gym. I think if you want to run into Lex, you just go to a gym and stand there, and he'll eventually run into you, whether you're Vince McMahon. I'm sure the pastor was not working out. No, Vince McMahon, a pastor, it doesn't matter.

He asked Luger to get him into shape so that he could become a physical trainer himself. Luger thought that if he trained him hard enough, Baskin wouldn't want to come in the gym and he'd leave him alone. But he didn't. He kept coming back. So a couple months later, he says that his life was transformed, Lex said. He said over time he felt redeemed and he was going to be able to forgive himself. He said, I felt like God was speaking through me.

I could see all my stuff on the sand with no foundation. All my life was building on shifting sand and was nothing more than a house of cards. My empire was not built on a rock, but sand. Yeah. That's right. He said, I move forward in my life in a direction with a purpose that only God can give us. And I'm very thankful for that. This shows there's hope for any of us.

there's hope for any of us well 2006 he uh appears on a uh episode of praise the lord which is a talk show on the trinity broadcasting network network declaring himself a born-again christian and also uh sting is there with him too because sting's a huge born again now they talk oh yeah we have at the end the sting does the foreword of his book but they're like we did tons of drugs and fucked around on our wives so much that only god can help us praise god 2007 he has a double hip replacement surgery all these wrestlers have to get their hips done and all the steroid guys have to get their hips done he's on a flight to san francisco in late october when he had trouble moving his neck. He thought it was just having sat in an awkward position on the plane seat.

He tried to jar his neck back into place, made it worse. So he arrived in pain, and he said he was still able to function, though. But he woke up the next morning, and he was paralyzed from the neck down. He couldn't even call for help. He said he somehow maneuvered onto the hotel floor where he laid there for more than four hours. Oh boy. Finally, when the house cleaning came in,

he was, they took him to Stanford University Hospital. They said he had massive swelling of his spine from the C6 to T5 vertebrae. Oh boy. Attributing to the damage of many, attrib the C6 to T5 vertebrae. Oh, boy. Attributing the damage to many injured discs and bone spurs that he's collected during football and wrestling. Sure.

The doctors told him that previous substance abuse problems have nothing to do with the spinal trauma. He's like, is it because I did all those drugs? No, dummy. Probably not. Maybe steroids. We don't know. So he remained a quadriplegic for more than two months.

Holy shit. Without as much as even bladder or bowel control. Nothing. Oh, my God. They said the swelling usually takes about six months to recede, but they said they have no idea how much or when he'll regain any function. He gradually improved. He started to be able to stand on his own for brief periods and use his Walker at times.

Yeah. Uh, motor and other finger skills are usually the last functions to come back. They said though, but a complete recovery is a long shot. The doctor said, now he even has to relearn everything, how to go to the bathroom,

how to feed himself and address himself. Everything. Uh, Luger said, you just have to the bathroom. How to feed himself. How to dress himself. Everything. Luger said, you just have to rehab every day and take great blessings with what you have to do back. Rehab and try to make what you have stronger. It's up to the Lord to do the rest. Well, none of this happened until you got religious. So maybe this is the Lord's plan. Maybe he's hitting you with penance for all your bullshit.

I don't know um but he he gets out of the hospital he said i was one of the strongest guys on the planet i was freaky strong before i was bench pressing 450 pounds my senior year of high school i was a freak now i can't lift a one pound dumbbell but god tells me that the mind body and spirit and what we are as a man is not measured by our physical strength, but by our inner strength. So what he suffered is a spinal infarction. Infarction? I-N-F-A-R-C-T-I-O-N.

Infarction. They said essentially it's a spinal stroke due to disruption of the blood supply to the spine. So he's basically paralyzed at this point until he starts coming back here. Stunning. it's a spinal stroke due to disruption of the blood supply to the spine. So, uh, he's basically paralyzed at this point until he starts coming back here. Stunning. He said, I was trying to be 27 at age 47,

but God had to get rid of my vanity. I had trouble letting go of the old Lex physically. My human fleshy nature didn't want to let go of what had become to be billed as the total package. I guess God had to help me get rid of the last remnant of that vanity and pride. So, yeah, that's what he says. He said, I was making millions of dollars and had lots of fancy stuff and never realized why I wasn't satisfied.

I chased a life of folly, a course of trivial pursuit. I had a feeling of invincibility. So it's at this point that he retires, which, duh, you're in a wheelchair. He says when he retires, people like to see freaks. It's like a live cartoon character. He said

Vince McMahon sells bigger than life. And bigger than life, what does that mean? A lot of chemically enhanced heroes and villains. Guys my size, my height and size are bigger. You can't see that on the street every day. You have to buy a ticket to see that. So he basically sells the freaks, the modern era giants, the Hulk Hogan's too.

And I don't mean that disrespectfully. This is meant as a compliment until it today's lingo. They're so out of the ordinary. He said steroids were there as a shortcut to get size. So, yeah, he said with my generation, there was no accountability. We left the building at 11 o'clock and you live dual lives on the road. We were like big, a big dysfunctional family. We fed off each other and then we'd go home and sober up. But unfortunately, drugs are drugs and the guys

let that spill over into their home lives. And if the families didn't get intervention and stuff, a lot of us died. Yeah, no shit. Then he says, you start with a painkiller for bumps and bruises. Then you need more. It's never enough. Wow, I believe I was so close to dying so many times from overdoses. He says, I was a heartbeat away. I almost overdosed probably dozens of times.

I had a really fast metabolism. Part of why Lex, yeah, so that's what he said. He said part of why Lex stayed so lean wasn't just drugs. He's referring to himself in the third person. I had to make sure I didn't float into another person's quote, but it still is. God blessed me with a very fast metabolism. I metabolized drugs quickly. That is not good, but it saved my life on a bunch of times.

I went in deep a bunch of times with pills and alcohol. I was a real pill popper and I abused alcohol toward the end real bad. And I got caught with steroids in my house. I'm a convicted felon and I deserve that. I take all accountability for that. He also says, uh, it's the ends justifies the means in sports. We're taught that since that taught that since we're little, the old do whatever you got to do to win, to be the best step over, step on and step through. He said, so that is how all the performance enhancing drugs got into our culture. And it led guys to wanting to take shortcuts and then cheat until you get caught and then

lie. So, uh, yeah, this doctor, he, uh, talks about him. And so he, now he's, he's got a lot of problems here. He can't walk. Oh, my God. His life is spiraling. It's pretty fucking tough. It really is.

I mean, and everybody, you know, it's affected people around him, obviously. He's got two kids that have to deal with this. They're older now, but still, they still have to deal with their dad having all these fucking problems. Sure. It's tough. I feel bad for all these people jimmy all these people but not nearly as bad as i feel for larry foale who's a p people uh there he is same guy a millwright at republic steel it's in buffalo so maybe this is one of his relatives or something that That's where he's from.

Has to be. And finally, Larry Fole, this definitely is an R guy, self-employed living in New Zealand. So other side of the world. And self-employed. And self-employed. So they said that in 2008 he started to be able to stand for short periods of time, that sort of thing. 2010 he was able to walk again. Oh, it's a miracle. He believes that God walked him through this

and that the injury gave him a whole new perspective in life and helped him have empathy for other people. One day, or he said, one of the things I do is to try to get a positive message out there in the local schools and tell my story. I do a lot of faith based speaking, sharing my story and testimony to help show what God has done in my life and what God can do in other people's lives. Damn it. Fuck. And he's doing that, too.

He's doing that the rest of the week's dedicated toward rehabilitative therapy. And also he does other shit too here charity stuff he says that he's trying to help various ministries which with with which he's become associated he said i'm involved in quite a few ministries as a bridge builder trying to match generous givers and donors to other ministries based on my past i'm also involved in mainly uh mainly in the prison ministry. I go to jails and prisons and share my story and try to get them some hope. Yeah, he says that.

He says years of wrestling and football were a factor. He says sometimes I miss the old Lex that walks into a gym and bench presses half the gym. But if I could go back, I wouldn't change a thing because God sent me to so many wonderful places in my life as a result of this injury. He got me in a good place now. He also says he feels guilty for Liz now.

What happened to her? He should. She said, Miss Elizabeth, I take a lot of responsibility for that. My influence in her life. Her little heart and body couldn't take what i was doing i was just too strong for everything i was just i was just too massive and powerful for her that was the problem much bigger than her and we took the same amount that's why i'm here she's not yeah he said over the years he's been criticized by many and even hated by a lot for

letting liz die and being abusive toward her until the very end. He was a dick to her and everybody said he was kind of a jerk to her. And there's a lot going on there. I gave you his version from the book because we don't know what happened. That's the only version we have. All we do know is that, you know, that relationship was pretty fucked up and everybody involved in it around him said that. He says his response is people will say, say what they want to say about you. Boy, if they get on you in the news or they want to take something to be true and make it sound like it's true, they can really run with it, man.

He said about hitting Liz. My lawyer asked me not to respond to it. So I kept quiet throughout it all. I kept quiet about Liz's death out of respect for her family who had asked me not to say anything out of the love and respect I had for her I never responded to any of that bullshit so then they said do you feel like they were questioning you were putting blame on you for her death and he said I can't stop people from doing that but I know in my heart uh what she felt toward me and what I felt towards her there's nothing but love there and uh yeah then he he cries. So there's that. You bet. 2012, they are inducting the Four Horsemen that year.

And Lex Luger, it is announced, will not be inducted because of his involvement in the death of Elizabeth. And that looks like shit. Plus, here's what Vince doesn't want. Here's what Vince does want. Hall of Fame ceremony. He wants older guys to come out in wonderful suits looking like they've been successful their whole life and say how great wrestling is. What you don't want is a guy who's 130 pounds shriveled up in a wheelchair fucking wheel out there and say how sad things have gone for him. But Jesus will help you. That's not the speech you're looking for.

That looks like, oh, God, that's what happens to wrestlers who wrestle for 20 years. That's not what he's trying to advertise. And professing all your regret for how you've lived your life for the past 15 years. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah. All of the wrestling. Here's the official quote.

Luger not being included stems from, who's this a quote from here? This is, what the fuck? Oh, this is according to Rings. I don't know if this is a quote from WWE or what, but Lex not being included stems from some negativity that surrounds his legacy due to his close relationship with Miss Elizabeth at the time of her death, and then explains that. So they said,

we have learned that Luger's name was brought up in a conversation about the Four Horsemen, but his name was later scrapped as there are many people in the business that view him as helping Liz die, basically. So they said that it's often believed that him leaving, it's the nitro thing. That's what it is. He fucking left and pissed them off. He could kill 12 people. If he didn't piss Vince off, he'd be in the Hall of Fame, period. So he's the one guy Vince will never take back and never would and hates him.

But the good news is for him, he might not be able to get in the WWE Hall of Fame and get a Legends contract for merchandise and stuff. They do have figures of him. good news is november 20th 2012 he appeared on season 6 episode 15 of hardcore pawn selling him selling his ring robe oh no for 3500 bucks so it's less than he paid for it yeah and uh to less gold with the cash going to charity apparently it was a charity gig uh the robe was later purchased by uh some other guy I don't know. It doesn't matter. Okay. So 2013 is when he came out with his memoir, Wrestling with the Devil. The true story. It's called, yeah, just Wrestling with the Devil.

The true story of a world champion professional wrestler. His reign, rune, and redemption. Wow. That's a lot. He's also started becoming in all the video games from about 2011 on. He's in all the WWE games. He's always a downloadable guy. You don't want to use him, though, because he's also started becoming in all the video games from about 2011 on he's in all the wwe games he's always a downloadable guy you don't want to use him though because he's boring and lame do they give that money right his moves suck yeah they're got to be paying him something yeah for

that um so sting wrote the foreword to lex's book and he said that uh he never stopped trying to reach out to him he said the only time that he called me was when Elizabeth Hewlett died from an overdose of alcohol and pills, a tragic event that rocked not just the wrestling community, but Lex's own world. Lex Luger, one of the toughest, most powerful pro wrestlers, was shattered and wrecked. To the world, it seemed like his story was over, but God was just getting started with Lex.

Oh, boy. And then he talks about, it's all about god for that's every other word is fucking god here he actually brings up corinthians 517 to corinthians 517 so we all know that one i know that's your favorite jimmy i know it's a favorite of yours i think that one's actually a hacky one that uh is quoted a lot a lot of times it's if anyone is in christ he is a new creation old things have passed away behold all things that have become anew so you can that's the born again shit is what that is that's you can wipe it all away it doesn't matter what you've done so uh 2021 he became completely relying on a wheelchair for mobility. So now he never gets out of the wheelchair. In a wheelchair, going to church, can't get enough of Lex Luger?

Well, you can watch pretty much everything he's ever done in wrestling on Peacock on the WWE Network on there. You can watch Nitro. You can watch all the WWE. You can watch the Lex Express stuff. You can watch it all. He's in a wheelchair permanently. He's bound, bro.

He's in that chair. And there's a million figures, too, if you're a collector of those figures. There's a ton of Lex Luger figures. The narcissist one's pretty cool when I was looking it up. It's got his whole shoulder pad outfit on and shit like his big robe. It's kind of neat. So anyway, that is Lex Luger. Larry Lawrence Wendell Full, I'm sorry.

He is going to die a terrible death. Yeah, Lex is not going to. The rest of his life is going to be physically very difficult for him. Yeah. So, I mean, Jesus, he had the greatest physical life for so long. He's jumping on cars, having girls do his homework. He's got a lot going on. Flipping cars over.

Jesus. Flipping them over. That is Lex Luger. If you enjoyed that, our WrestleMania week treat here, you can do lots of things about it. You can go on whatever app or platform you're listening to and give us

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There's Crime and Sports Show in August and Sacramento at Ace of Spades if you're looking for that. Also, tons of merch, like I said. You can follow us on social media. We are at Crime and Sports on Twitter and facebook and at small town murder on instagram i started at the end so uh also patreon this week good stuff oh my goodness patreon.com slash crime and sports god damn it or the show's good this week we have um really good shit five dollars or above. Anybody on those, you get access to Crime and Sports and Small Town Murders.

Patreons are all in one, and it's good stuff. This week for Crime and Sports, we covered the best April Fool's hoax ever, maybe. Fooling an entire Major League Team's fan base into thinking they've gotten the greatest pitcher in the history of the world. fan base into thinking they've gotten the greatest picture in the history of the world and he's just an art teacher from maine who takes pictures because he knows the si photographer so it's pretty goddamn amusing very funny and then for uh small town murders we talked about one of the worst people ever diane downs who shot all three of her kids and then slightly wounded herself one of her kids ended up dying and the other two were very badly wounded. And then made up a whole story that's ridiculous,

and she won't move off of it, and she's clearly lying, and it's just disturbing to hear this lady's life. Several stories. It meanders. It's a fun one. We really concentrate on an appearance where she was on Oprah when the whole crowd is just laughing. Just 45-year-old women laughing at her and then shaking their heads in disgust at her. Amazing. You can get all of that, patreon.com slash crime and sports.

And you're going to get a shout-out, which, goddammit, we're about ready for that. Oh, boy. I think it's time for that. Yes, you'll get your shout out if you'd want to shout out and uh just to have great karma you can do that as well over at paypal using our email address crime in sports at gmail.com it's time jimmy i want you to hit me with the names of the people who would never ever ever ever let us choke to death on their couch while not paying attention jimmy hit me with that list this week's executive producers are raptor One, happy birthday from Raptor Two. Mark Wimmer, David Cook, Chris Brown, happy 40th birthday.

Not the girl beater. David Barnhart. Actually, it's Chris Brown with a K. I think that's a lady. David Barnhart, John Codling, love you, bud. Molly Fletcher, happy birthday. Jordan Bennett, Amanda Elledge, Thomas Codling, love you, bud. Molly Fletcher, happy birthday. Jordan Bennett, Amanda Elledge, Thomas Connelly. Yeah, Connelly.

Other producers, executive producers are our favorite. You guys are fucking amazing. Truly, thank you for everything you do. Other producers this week are Haley Hoffman. She's now Haley Kroll. Congratulations on your marriage, I imagine. Or just your... Decide to change your name. You start. hoffman she's now hayley kroll congratulations on your marriage i imagine or just uh your uh decide to change your name you start get that shitty family away from the program possibly

justine mcneil in order in honor of uh good dads everywhere she misses her dad uh it was an anniversary of him passing away uh shit a pearlman happy birthday. 91st birthday. I don't think that person exists. No, I doubt it. But still, we'll take it. Povelus Basavius. His wife, Deborah Francis Phipps. Was it his wife? It was in memory of Deborah.

I don't know if it was his wife or his mom. I'm an asshole. I think it was his wife. Come on, Jimmy. God damn it. Peyton Meadows also. Cody Levercy? Yes, it's Levercy. The kid from fucking Michigan. Can't wait to see you, bud.

Centeno Kennels in Canada. Mama Dick's enormous. Are you proud of yourself? Corporal Carl Kirshner Hoare. Shlomo Gleckstein. Pamela Solig. Kelly Ann Collin. Happy anniversary. They're engaged for eight years. Maybe get on top of getting married. Jesus Christ.

Troy Moriarty, Janice Hill, Frank the South African bird washer. Alicia, Alicia Pillmore, moving to another state. Hang in there, Alicia. This life isn't easy. John Justo, happy birthday. Raya, the sky cat, sky rat calling champion bradenburg that's who it is uh evan adkins adkins yes jay it was sky rat caller pigeon i don't yeah i think that's what those are or bats i don't know new york sky rats a pigeon that's what you guys got

it's a rat with wings all right joshua brandyberry uh and his brother jake uh see you guys got? It's a rat with wings. All right. Joshua Brandyberry and his brother Jake. See you guys soon. Braden Hovelman, Jay Young, Bethany with no last name, Tiana Green, Tyler Hamm, David Helmsley, Angel Taco Salas, Peyton with no last name, Lorraine

Genko, Kyle Kirsch, Nicole Hoople, Phil with no last name phil phil garrett with no last name pedro ruiz reagan hollier eli cade aiden wolf christopher anthus rebecca seager what what a sweet niche what whatnish. I don't know what that's supposed to say. Patrick Cunningham, Matt DeYoung, Tyler W.S., Raven Ori, Cassidy Velo, Brandon McCarty, Christopher Phelan, Thomas Atkinson, Stephen with no last name, Patrick Drain, Tina Ward, Ginko with no last name, Lonely Factory. Dustin Miller. Angela Pruitt. Jacob T.

Whisper Means. Sherry Seifert. Nick Cowpert. Cowper. Jessica Jones. Jessica Duss. Kit Kat B83. Brian Ribby.

This is tough this week. Maricela Padgett. Karsten Dews. Karsten Don'ts. Benjamin Hall. Tyler Skaggs. De'Aja Johnson, Kelsey Spanhauer, Sarah Ertz, Daniel Gade, Andrew Reed, Donna Mildrum, Christina Kolka, Billy Lee Walker, Brittany Ireland, Sue Randall, Anita Schneider-DeVries, Lindsay Weiss, Chancellor Bailey, Stephen Wolfgang, Jake Klaber, Hillary Wolfe, Mary Jo Bullock, Kaylee Carlton, Lindsay Smith, Alex Baldwin, Lieutenant Dan Zlegs, Don Moritz, Patrick Mosley, Emily Harris, Candy Stacey, Zachary Ogle, Megan Zabatini, Nick Tracewell, Fro Zastro, Jasmine Thomas, Patty Tamble, IndieGal1218, Kristen Spires, Michaela. Nope, that's just Kayla. Bo Spathouse.

Got that. Bo Fasuth. Megan with no last name. Daryl Roskam. Disco with no last name. Elizabeth with no last name. Justin Lawrence. Hamp with no last name. John Keith no last name justin lawrence hamp with no last name john keith ben kastelski uh sky uh cody weigand we weganant alice uh allison

melcher uh brandy cavett cavane cavane don mcmanus damian wilkinson christopher garza lee menzi don maritz cassidy claridge john tyus tina with no last name, Jessica Greer, Jacob Keene, M. Richard, Hunter Bibb, Jesus Christ, Tony Cuffee, Sutherland, Danny Holmstoter, Jen Parker, Veda Elizabeth, Barbara Averill, Leslie Palmer, Dylan Bowler, Michael Donnelly, CJ Dellis, Julie Williamson, Lauren Ford, Rebecca Kane, Arexie Arezki, Welker, Tracy Thomas, Grace Morris, Shannon Monroe, Steve Howard, Jared Mead, Tracy Frodequoier, Anna Marie Kopskaklandi. Kopskaklandi? Yeah, that's the one. Totally correct. Kyle West, Brian Buntane, Aaron Hegelund, Terry Hahn, Amber V. Knight, Mike Johnson, Terry Peterson, Joseph McMuglian, Johnson, Terry Peterson, Joseph McMuglian, Madison DeBoer, Ghostwriter No More, Jason V. Roman, Madeline with no last name, Jason Winters, Eric Molnar, Smith with no first name, Ronnie A. Cox, Annalena Dressler. Oh, she's fantastic.

She's been around for a long time pat hogan christina roysom uh leslie shoyer schuyler schuyler schuyler uh melanie twitty conway's daughter hannah hannah zito that's uh chuck's daughter or barry's either one there you go ashley smith lisa gordot uh jay bison uh kelly knopp andrea kosmak Cedar Wilkins, Danny Markham, James LaBouffe, Tyler DeRouche, Kevin Sullivan, Erica Sacco, Chris Arsenault, Benjamin with no last name, Richard Powells, Jessica Craig, Dallas Perkins, Oregon Trail Besties, Nick Heumann, Harley Harrington, Blake Calloway, Melanie Black, Jacqueline Eman, Ben White, Tom Houle, Amanda Rosario, Jack Spirit, Kevin Gross, Garrett Williams, Pi Jacobs, Antonio Rico, Dougie Fresh, Jenny LaJoya, Samuel Hopwood, Jesse, nope, that's Louis, Louis Bates, Jessica Marie Kelly, Alexandra Conrad, Greg Neamy, Maureen A. Burt. What is this? Joseph Bartolotta. Zachary with no last name. Jessica Elwell, Cassandra Nicole, Justin Hansen, Christine Red CCC, Equiano Ultra, Liz Upton, Atifa, and all of our patrons. You guys, you're unbelievable. Thank you so much.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts. We do appreciate it. Thank you. We really, really do appreciate you supporting the show and supporting us. And we hope you love the bonus content because yeah we want you to love it that's why we put it out otherwise what are we doing it for so yeah hope you like it thank you honestly and uh you want to follow us on social media easy to do it just find us after it shut

up and give me murder.com all the links are there we're there we're not gonna fucking go anywhere so that said thank you so much for joining us for a wrestling episode one of our favorites and we'll keep coming back and we'll keep coming back because live from the crime and sports studios, we will see you next week. Bye. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Crime and Sports early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.