Grubstakers - Episode 45: Vince McMahon feat. Benel Germonsen

Episode Date: December 11, 2018

This week we cover the master of disaster Vince McMahon. We cover how this trailer park child of abuse goes on to create an empire of people who are in various stages of drug addiction, CTE issues, and sexual abuse. Sean and Steven are absent on our discussion of this megalomaniac, and fortunately we are joined by wrestling savant Benel Germonsen! Follow him @Benel_Germosen check out his podcast Talking Naruto. Enjoy!

I think we disproportionately stop whites too much. I taught those kids lessons on product development and marketing, and they taught me what it was like growing up feeling targeted for your race. I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican. You know, I went to a tough school in Queens and they used to beat up the little Jewish boys. You know, I love having the support of real billionaires. Yeah, yeah. Right. In five, four, three, two. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Grubstakers. I'm Andy Palmer and with me is...

Yogi Poliwog. And Sean McCarthy and Stephen Jeffries couldn't be here. Sean is currently in Brazil doing his... I guess he's at Brownshirt Fantasy Camp. Undercover story for us, Brownshirt Fantasy Camp. Yeah. And the same thing's going on with Jeffries. He's currently hidden underneath Wall Street. Yeah, he's hiding under Wall Street. He had an execution, an assassination to carry out, and he can't be here today. But joining us is wrestling superfan, because we're talking about Vince McMahon, Benel Jemosin. Hey, guys.

How's it going? Good. How you doing? I'm very excited to be here. Did Andy butcher your name? No, he got it right. Oh, nice. Great.

No, he's got it right. But I do love when a white guy butchers my name. What are the best name butchers? Bernard Gramorson. Benny Jermuson.

And Bernie Jamoon. That's my favorite one. Have you had someone butcher your name as you're being brought up on stage but the person saying it also has stage fright? Has that happened to you before? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Oh, man. That's the worst.

Because it's like, you know, they fucked up your name, which is understandable, but then they have stage fright. So they're so mortified. They're just so like, I had a guy shaking once because he was messing my name up. And I was like, guys, just say something. Get off the stage. Don't fucking. Yeah, it's fine.

Don't make this long. The thing I like about it is like i like when white people apologize to me it's like my favorite fucking thing in the world it's like i'm so sorry man i'm like well thank you so glad for that all right enough insider stand-up baseball yeah so today we're talking vince mcm Now personally, I don't know shit about wrestling. Yogi, I mean, everyone was watching when I was growing up. I just never, I don't think my parents would have let me watch it, honestly. My parents would not let me watch it, but I occasionally snuck a couple of peeks in, if you know what I mean.

I started during Hulk Hogan rock era was when I was really sneak dipping in, but my favorite, Stone Cold Steve Austin. Of course, absolutely. That, I think, 316. I think that's my main man, if you know what I mean. Yeah, definitely. I started, okay, so the reason I was- Yeah, so we have Bunnell here to steer this shit.

I've been watching since I was seven. Wow. So I'm 30 now, and I've watched pretty much consistently for the last 23 years. You're 31, Bunnell. We have the exact same birthday. Fuck. Actually, yeah, you're right. I am 30. Yeah. I keep forgetting my own birthday sometimes have the exact same birthday. Fuck. Actually, yeah, you're right. I keep forgetting

my own birthday sometimes. It's hard to remember 31. Yeah, it is. For those of us born on November 18th, 1987. Yeah, we have the same birthday. Why didn't we get

each other presents? I don't know. We should do that. We should fucking do that. I thought y'all jerked one another off. Yeah, but we don't do that on our birthday.

That's the one day we don't do it. Wait, okay. Question, though. How did you remember my birthday? No one remembers my birthday. Because that on our birthday. That's the one day we don't do it. Wait, okay. Question, though. How did you remember my birthday? No one remembers my birthday. Because it's my birthday. It's the same birthday.

That's amazing. He literally, but no, he said like 80% of what you were questioning while you were questioning him. Hey, you know what? I'm not smart. And that's why I'm a wrestling fan, because I'm not smart. I like it. I'm into it. Yeah, I started watching wrestling when I was seven,

and I got into it watching Coach Hulk Hogan, but then the guy I really latched onto was Bret Hart. Right, sure. Yeah, because he came out and gave kids glasses. That was my favorite fucking thing. I'm like, you could just get free shit by showing up to wrestling shows? But now, so when you were at- Wait, wait. Were they like prescription?

No, they were like wraparound sunglasses. They were dope dope as shit he came out in a military jacket they were prescriptions that would be awesome if he came out and just that would make like he had the kids prescriptions and so like he's handing him out one by one that would make him a bad guy that would make him a bad guy fucking sponsored by lens crafters ladies and gentlemen coming in the ring the optometrist now okay so when you first started watching wrestling did you think it was real uh i knew it was probably fake okay like i had a strong suspicion and then when uh like a third grade teacher was like oh yeah i sat next to sean to Shawn Michaels and he told me wrestling is fake. And I was like, yeah, that makes sense.

Sure, sure. See, I had suspicions of it not being real. And then I went overseas to visit family in India and they asked me, is it real? And I didn't want to break their hearts. So I was like, nah, it's real. It's all real. So I convinced myself in the lie.

Yeah, fair enough. And then your cousins grew up and they're like, It's all real. So I convinced myself in the lie. Yes, fair enough. Fair enough. And then your cousins grew up and they're like, wow. You go to America, you just learned to lie. Yeah. Well, Andy, they're on ISIS. Fair enough. Fair enough.

And also, India does not like wrestling. They've tried so often to get India to like wrestling. And there's just too many people to like wrestling like oh really yeah like the they they put wrestling on and then it's like 80 million indians watch wrestling and it's like yeah but the highest rated show is american idol india and it's indian idol yeah sure yeah not american idol india just indian idol just indian and it's like oh 100 million people watch that it's, it's never been successful in India. Like is what I'm saying.

And they've tried, they've put it, they just recently put the world title on a guy called, uh, Jinder Mahal, who's an Indian Canadian. And they spent six months just going, this guy is big in India.

He's the Russell Peters of wrestling. Right. Pretty much. When he's just like, oh man, he's really important to Indians. And Indians are like, meh, fine. Yeah. Yeah. Like he, he does wrestling moves that like everyone's been doing for years but like

for whatever reason he breaks through yeah yeah yeah well he does wrestling moves in the style of his parents so i've yeah i've been watching wrestling since i was seven years old and i've like consistently been watching it like from from there to to now like i dropped off a few years and like in high school like 2000 like i didn't watch the rock versus austin at wrestlemania yeah that was like the period i was in it and then like i don't know i i just i started playing i i left after that yeah once once the rock fights fights Stone Cold, I was like, you know what? I think we're good here. I also, I went to WrestleMania, I think it was 13 maybe at the Tacoma Dome.

And the Rock fought Hulk Hogan there. Yeah. And that's kind of like, I mean, it's kind of blown you up. And you were like, one of these guys will have a film career. And the other one will say the N-word in his sex tape. No, they both have a film career. Only one of them has one will say the N-word in his sex tape. No, they both have a film career. Only one of them has been captured saying the N-word in his sex tape.

We don't know. We don't know how the rock gets down. You know Dwayne Johnson says the N-word when he fucks. But he's like challenging the woman too. He's like, say it. Say it to my face right now. It's huge.

He's an action figure, man. Girl, you want this Moana dick? Come on. Then he sings and dance. Because that's really what he wants to do. That's what I want to see. That's my favorite thing about him. He's a huge action figure, man.

But he actually is like inside. Oh, he wants to do musicals and stuff? Yeah, fuck. Of course he wants to do musicals. Oh, man. That's his fucking thing He loves like Right but you also

Gotta realize that Like comparatively Even though you know Singing and dancing Is difficult It's easier than You know getting your Body beat up

Oh yeah Whether it's wrestling Or an action film Yeah no what's fascinating Is that because he's like This almost like A-list celebrity now But he's like

Had all those years In the ring getting hit Like you have to wonder Like if he's had all those years in the ring getting hit. You have to wonder if he's just going to suddenly have a CTE thing where it's like, oh, murder Suey by the law. One of the things he did really smartly in his career

where he knew when to start saying no to taking bumps. He knew when to stop hurting himself. By the way, when i mean taking bumps i mean falling down that's what i'm going to use a lot of wrestling jargon for people that don't like wrestling uh so one of the terms is bumps bumps is whenever you hit the canvas like and by falling flat on your back you could fuck yourself up a lot so what will rock learn to do

is find different ways of taking hits so he'd fall in his face he'd fall inside right and therefore he was able to keep his career going longer and a lot of wrestlers didn't do that and a lot of them ended up killing themselves or killing other people than themselves and you know when it comes to vince mcmahon the main thing is is that uh he controls an empire of jocks yeah and when it comes to making money well Well, they're like nerd jocks. Jocks who are secretly nerds. Yeah, yeah. Or not so secret now.

So, starting at the beginning, Vince McMahon, he was born in 1945 in August. For whatever reason, there's like a documentary about him where they're like, the atomic bomb went off in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and then Vince McMahon was born. I think that's... You gotta goddamn put that in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Make sure you talk about atomic testing when you're saving my husband.

They need to know where I came from. The nuclear fallout. Yeah, his whole MO is that he's just as impressive as weapons. So I wouldn't doubt that. I mean, from his decades of steroid use and Botox, he definitely has a nuclear fallout. Absolutely.

Not like a literal one, but what you would imagine one to be. Oh, definitely. And so his dad was a wrestling promoter. His grandfather was a wrestling promoter. So he's third generation. But then as a baby, his dad peaced out. And he had a series of stepfathers who would beat his mother and then when he would try to defend his mother they would beat him too

yeah he grew up in like essentially uh double white trailer he grew up in north carolina in trailer park he grew up like dirt poor getting bullied and getting beaten up by his stepdad so he developed this idea of masculinity at a very young age right right yeah and he also developed this like anti-authoritarian streak at a very very young right and he was dyslexic too and so he had trouble in school and so that probably also instilled a lot of that as well it's crazy how vince man's upbringing like you know because he grew up in a trailer park and stuff and had dyslexia and had an abusive uh stepfather how how almost American his upbringing is. What WWE becomes is a reflection almost of a terrible childhood.

Because it's like he deals with abuse and just a fucking horrid childhood and then continues to live a life where he's making people beat up. It's crazy. Most people that grow up in in uh drug addled homes don't end up becoming drug empires you know it's like it's just that it never happened i am the one who knocks no and uh i i don't know it's crazy to think about because like essentially he you know

in his early late in his early 20s he doesn't have contact with his father who's a wrestling promoter yeah apparently he didn't meet his dad until he was 12 yeah until he was 12 yeah and he loved his father immediately like as soon as he met him like and it seems like his father didn't really give much of a shit about him not until he realized that his son was good at promoting okay well one thing i found interesting is that uh when he was 27 he decided to work for his dad and um before that he married his uh wife and like a few a few uh moments of his life had occurred at this point so he was a traveling cup salesman according to wikipedia he worked for uh he worked for mr softy and really yeah and he worked for i believe dixie cup oh okay yeah that makes sense but you know

what's crazy reading traveling cup salesman in my head i was just like what the what the fuck does that even mean like it was like you knock on doors and go y'all need cups yeah basically or like you you like walk into you know like a gas station and you're like is this what you're selling people coffee into and you just like poke a hole in the bottom of it with your pinky and you're like let's try and fill it and coffee just comes out and you're like you need better cups right right right yeah i mean uh he he tells us one story like when he knew he wasn't doing it when he was talking to a guy at like a a warehouse and he's like yeah i don't give a fuck about these cups i don't care he's like but do you want a better deer or not and he's like i don't know and he's like fine i don't care right right right he starts working

for his dad at around 27. And in one of the interviews I saw, he was saying that his dad said that, I'm going to give you one shot. When Vinny was 27, his father gave him one chance. My dad told me that he had a promoter in Bangor, Maine that was stealing too much. Not stealing, stealing too much. He knew some money was going to get stolen. Not stealing, period. Just stealing too much money, right?

So what was it his dad said? His dad said, I'll give you one shot. Yeah, you got six months to turn the territory around. Right, right. Andy, why would you start this song? All right, anyway. So he said he would give him one shot, and he's like,

and to promote the wrestling event in Bangor. And needless to say, that show was successful. And it's like, you mean you didn't steal money? It's not, you didn't do shit. You just didn't do the crime. And instead, I guess he made the connection where he's like, all I need is just someone who's not going

to steal money to promote this. And then like, Vince McMahon's like, Dad, can I, can I, can I promote wrestling for you?

No, shut up. I just need someone who's not going to steal money from me. Can I, can I just hang out? Vince,

Vince Senior's like, someone in the wrestling business needs to, I need to find one person that won't steal money from me. A wrestling promoter in a wrestling business. Right, I need to find one person that won't steal money from me. A wrestling promoter in the wrestling business.

Right, right. Dad, what about me? No, not you, Vince. Somebody credible who would never take anything from me. Somebody who shared my blood and my thoughts. Dad, I absolutely love you

and I'd do anything for you. No, no, not you, son. Yeah, go away. But this brings up... I abandoned you for a reason. How for you. No, no, not you, son. Yeah, go away. But this brings up- I abandoned you for a reason. How the wrestling world was set up, which I'd like to talk to you about, Benel, but the territories essentially were, you know, like you had the Northeast, which was, you know, Maine to, I think around Pennsylvania, the Southeast, which was Atlanta, Georgia,

Florida, and those states, and the Midwest. I mean, you had, I think, between like eight and 12 different territories of wrestling areas uh according to some of the maps that i saw yeah there was a total about like 33 like wrestling territories that were part of the national wrestling alliance which was the governing body of professional wrestling at the time it was a governing body in that it was a monopoly of just uh it was basically a no no compete right monopoly on wrestling promoters they agreed that they would share talent and they wouldn't try to run shows in anybody else's uh area yeah in the same vein that the internet has like a stalemate of like the like because like amazon owns like add to cart like that function of the internet is owned by somebody i

think it's amazon i'm pretty sure maybe somebody else but there's like a no no no one's suing each other over certain aspects of the internet that are copywritten by certain people that might not be the best analogy because everyone on the internet suing everyone else over every technology aspect and everyone's trying to get the biggest monopoly the point i'm trying to make like it's more of what vince mcmahon did sure sure sure um but at that time, wrestling was set up like the mob, let's say. There we go. Where you allow people

to be corrupt in other areas if it's not your territory. Is the mob a better analogy for you? Piece of shit. Cut a promo on him, Yogi. Goddamn chooch. But so, you know, essentially once Vince McMahon

gets into the wrestling industry, from 27 to 37, works with his dad, and then I think at like 32 or 33 is an announcer for his dad for a little bit as well. He's an awful announcer. Yeah, he's so bad. He's so bad. He doesn't know what to call things. He's blown away by everything.

He's a goddamn little maneuver. It's like a guy that's clearly trying too hard to be an announcer which you don't realize how natural announcers are until you watch Vince McMahon

trying to be an announcer but it's a lot of like can you see him punch? Wow! It is great watching like he's like next to like Jesse the Body Ventura

and superstar Billy Graham people that know how to talk to people in the camera and they're just like Billy Graham's just abusing him the entire time.

Right, right, right. Like god damn it man what are you smelling like right now? Like you smell weird. But then when Vince began turns 37

he buys the Worldwide Federation which was his dad's company which was the Northeast territory of the wrestling world territory of um the wrestling yeah the new york and tri-state area yeah that makes sense he buys that from his dad and then essentially uh starts a war on all of the other territories literally fucks everyone up literally

he just buys up talent like he looks at all the main eventers of all the nearby territories and goes i will offer them contracts right now to steal them away from you just so I don't have... He does this to this day, by the way. Yeah. He did this recently. Oh, they're like people who are trying to make their own kind of... Oh, no, that's not trying to. They had been for decades.

Yeah, for decades. Oh, I know, I know. But even now, there are people who are like... Because it seems like he ultimately like spoiler like won he took over the world like yeah basically what happened is that basically the

WWE is the biggest wrestling territory in the world it's a global entity but there are other global entities there's New Japan Pro Wrestling who's making inroads to America and there's smaller companies that are like that have their own control over their like various fiefdoms uh and he will just go into a place and buy the all the talent and then go like you all work for me now it's it's a divide and conquer strategy and one of the reasons why he was able to do this

was because he was one of the first wrestling promoters to get a cable contract so whereas most of the other wrestling territories were doing their programs on network and i think i think was the either it was the midwest or the southeast territories that had like a wrestling show that had been on tv for like a few decades i'm pretty sure it's the same wrestling network that put andy kaufman wrestling a woman it was Memphis wrestling by that was run by Jerry Lawler yeah at the time I believe it was Jerry Long Jerry Lawler's father at the time we were booking yeah they had Memphis wrestling and Jerry Lawler was still huge in my friends Memphis wrestling like there's right a traditionalist southern Memphis wrestling scene out there and like but

Jerry Lawler was the guy and he had local TV from Memphis wrestling scene out there. But Jerry Lawler was the guy and he had local TV for Memphis wrestling and the draw for most of like the 60s into the 80s. That's nuts. So Vince McMahon would come in and he would buy up wrestling talent in a region

because it wasn't like there weren't these huge superstars back then, I'm guessing. There were just like local stars. Well, there were traveling superstars that would work all the they were just like local stars well they were traveling superstars uh they will work all the time like rick flair for instance for the natural wrestling alliance would work somewhere for six months uh and then leave and then work somewhere else for six months and that's the way you get people to pay money to go see wrestling is to have this

draw the guy that that will main event a show and get people to come in he would draw the fans and then he would bugger off and stuff like that and then the guy that he lost to would become the main event right and so what vince did is he bought the guys they were in the main event every time and just start running shows there oh and so then if like a region wanted those people to come back, they had to go through McMahon instead of the local. And just close talents. Just close promotions left and right. Right.

I mean, it's a poaching. He essentially took the best of everywhere. And I think that it's easy to, in hindsight, look at the territories and be like, oh, those were the local. In the same vein that you're describing, it's easy to look at it and be like, oh, those were the local superstars, but then they're not national. But at the same vein that you're describing it's easy to look at it and be like oh those were the local superstars but then they're not national but at the time that was

national yeah like if you're the best in the northeast region there's no thought of i want to be best in the country because that doesn't really exist until vince mcmahon creates and he was helped along by cable yes is that later no this is the same time. Okay. He cuts the contract with Cable, and essentially that makes it so that the programs he's creating are seen on a national level, whereas earlier you were only seen in your territories. Essentially, you know, your local news network versus fucking CNN. Yeah, your local affiliate will run wrestling probably between 10 and midnight. Right. Or like 4 4 45 on a

on a saturday you'd get wrestling and stuff like that and then what vince did is like he put it on national tv yeah like saturday night's main event was on nbc like when on the nights where there was no saturday night live you'd get professional wrestling right and i mean you know he just took something that people liked and put it on the next And I mean, you know, he just took something that people liked and put it on the next level. Which I mean, you know, to his credit, I think that his whole breaking up of the territories thing might have eventually happened.

Yeah. And there's an interview with him where... McMahon bought out his father's business. Immediately, he set about transforming a regional business into a global enterprise. My dad, I don't think, would have ever sold me the business if he knew really what I wanted to do with it. He had no idea that I would go off and compete with a lot of his friends

in the rustling business. And drive them out of business. They drove themselves out of business, I'd like to say. Yeah, Jim Crockett Promotions was already making inroads. Ted Turner ended up buying Jim Crockett Promotions and making a WCW in the 90s. Oh yeah, Turner was trying. And those companies were already talking to people. They were already trying to get national deals because to see people really thrash and brawl out are going to watch wrestling.

Whereas Vince McMahon kind of toned it down and made it to where a family it could it could be a family affair in the same vein of las vegas or times square he toned it down to a way where it could be a lot more profitable but take out the intensity or in some cases authenticity and like in a few of the interviews i saw right right he he took out the um the kind of hand job uh booths and replaced it with uh elmo with a shit stain yes yes precisely i mean like you know hulk hogan in an interview he's talking about like you know because they you know they were superstars and they were like what are you doing why are you toning down our art i mean it would hogan's not Hogan never liked wrestling and he was a bassist and a failed bassist

but someone saw him at the gym. He was a failed bassist around his beach and someone saw him at the gym and go like you'd be good at wrestling because that's how you became a wrestler back then. Oh really? Yeah that makes sense. Someone just tapped you? Someone just went like yeah you'd be great at wrestling come here. As opposed to nowadays

where like nerds love wrestling, so they just become hipster nerds who work at bookstores, just work out. And I was like, I love wrestling and anime. But I mean, this is an example of how even I got into wrestling. My first memory of wrestling

was a holographic Hulk Hogan card where it's him ripping his shirt off. And so I don't know how that ended up at my house. My brother might have gotten it or my parents. I don't know at what point Hulkamania entered my existence. I don't know how it did, but it was a holographic card. I'm like, this is fucking cool.

And from then on, it was something that I liked, but my parents didn't like violence, so I didn't get to watch it regularly. Yeah. Hulk Hogan was a huge – he was going to be huge anyway. He was going to be huge anyway. When he was working at AWA, people would fucking be throwing flowers at his fucking feet. And he was a bad guy when he worked for AWA.

He was like a big, brutish heel. When he worked Japan, when he worked at Antonioio enoki he worked as a heel and he was also pretty good he's like not a bad wrestler he threw it on like inseguris and shit like that but by vince taking him and sort of making him into like this undefeatable superman and really toning down his style so he worked with little kids really well sort of galvanize these little kids and getting them to watch wrestling on a sun on a sunday morning on a saturday morning and really getting them invested into this superman character american hero yeah basically at that time they needed someone to replace

bruno san martino who was kind of a legit like new york act like bruno samuel is one of like the like in the he's like the yogi barra of fucking uh new york wrestling because he's so like new york all the time mr new york this big fucking greek immigrant that came in fucking sounded like a sounded like the subway like he sounded he sounded like the a train and shit like that and would just go around beating people never lost kick the shit out of anybody drank and never drank and never smoked right right i was like that was a guy hulk hogan replaced and he just became a superhero version of that so i mean when vince mcmahon is setting all of this up he's not you know he's giving them better contracts but he's giving

his star uh wrestlers hulk hogan i think andre the giant and a few others he's giving them residuals but he's fucking everyone else over and so one of the ways he makes a lot of money in the early 80s and early 90s and even to this day probably is that you know you might fight for wwe but you might not be making residual money. And if that's the case, you've got no retirement. You've got nothing. Oh, yeah, yeah.

And there's a great clip of Jesse Ventura talking about the amount of times he sued Vince McMahon. And I won't do terrible Jesse Ventura. Oh, maybe I will. Ladies and gentlemen, James Domian. But I mean, the interviewer was like, so what happened

when you sued Vince McMahon successfully? When it was over, did he call you at all? Yep. And what was that conversation like? He screamed and hollered at the phone of me,

that's my money, that's my money. And I just held the phone away until he was done. When he was done, I brought the phone back in. I said, Vince, I said, the jury said it was my money.

The federal judge said it was my money. The appeals court said it was my money. And the Supreme Court of the United States said it was my money. Vince, I think you're of a minority opinion. Wow. Looks like it's my money now. It's great because it's... I'm starting to suspect that that um they're really good jesse ventura by the way jesse ventura just ran for governor to get health insurance i mean it wouldn't surprise me wrestlers have done amazing things to get

health insurance yeah yeah definitely and they're like the least insurable people in the world oh yeah yeah absolutely their job literally is, go get bruised. Yeah. Go get brain damage that will be a ticking time bomb. Yeah. To either the health industry or your family. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for real. And that's, and Yogi makes a great point. Like, Vince,

like, he's settled in this method, like, if you are able to be popular enough to get a t-shirt, they'll split the t-shirt royalties with you. But otherwise, they own your fucking likenesses. There's nothing you can do about it. So if you're in the background of a t-shirt with a lot of wrestlers, then you're not.

You better get so popular they put your name on a fucking t-shirt. That's the only way to make money. Otherwise, you're working 300 days a year for scale. There was an interview with this Canadian. There was a Canadian interview i saw with vince mcmahon and it was when it was right around the time when stone cold is retiring the before they brought him back for certain a few events but the first time he kind of like left the wwe or maybe not the first point is they are asking vince mcmahon like hey like what what's going on and vince mcmahon is like well we own Stone Cold he owns Steve Austin but we own the

likeness and the concept and Stone Cold Steve Austin didn't want to not be that wrestler in WWE so he essentially said I thought because he couldn't do it because of health reasons he couldn't he just physically couldn't wrestle anymore. Yeah, his neck and back were fucked. Right. And so apparently Vince McMahon wanted to do like a rock-like

spinoff with Steve Austin and they had like a military-esque script written for him. But Steve Austin wouldn't do it because it's through Vince McMahon again.

But I mean, essentially we were robbed of a Steve Austin action flick. To be fair, essentially, we were robbed of a Steve Austin action flick. Yeah, yeah. To be fair, we did get Steve Austin doing Battle Royal, which is pretty fucking dope. I'm a little pissed off.

Yeah, but you know what, though? I would have loved 50 movies with Steve Austin. I would have loved, whatever this bullshit rock running through a burning tower movie is, I want the Steve Austin version where he's running out of a trailer park that's exploding.

What we got instead was, instead of Steve Austin running through a burning building, it's Steve Austin asking, well, who set that building on fire? Why did they do it? Fair enough. It's Steve Austin getting down to the truth of why that building's burning.

Yeah, I mean, there's a good example of Vince McMahon actually doing that to wrestlers' lightness. There are two wrestlers, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, when they worked for WWE, they were Razor Ramon and Diesel. Razor Ramon was basically Carlito's way. He was like Tony Montana ripoff, and Diesel was a big guy who drove a truck.

Literally, those are the characters. When they left to the competition, WCW, Vince McMahon just replaced them with other wrestlers and used the name and likenesses of Razor Ramon and Diesel. And so there's whole storylines of everyone pretending that these were the same guys. It's great. I think it was the Dan Harmon Channel 101

when it was on Comedy Central. They were doing a show where it was like they're running through a hill and then the next scene they're like all right so this actor fell and like really fucked up his foot so we just had to replace him it's like it still works but like this guy's not that guy it's basically it was basically that but they just everyone pretended it was like oh yeah diesel has different eye color. Like, he's just a different guy entirely. They did that with the Undertaker where the storyline was Undertaker wasn't sure whether or not he was going to come back because he was injured. Seven-foot-tall guy shouldn't be leaping over.

Right, right, right. Shouldn't be leaping over ropes. but so he left and he was replaced by another guy called brian lee who looked enough like him right to come back as the under faker what was his uh colloquialism he was the undertaker who was fake and then the big match was the undertaker comes back and beats up the exact same person there's a story of um basically at one point vince mcmahon pinned uh kurt angle yeah and kurt angle is a wrestler andy who uh actually won a medal in the olympics yeah he was an olympic medalist so he would he that was his uh character persona he was a he was a um olympic winning uh wrestler right so there's a story of vince mcmahon pinning kurt angle once and just like bragging

about it for months just being like i, I fucking pin Kurt Angle. And Kurt Angle got real pissed once. And so when they were taking a flight, Kurt Angle just flipped and started choking out Vince McMahon. And The Undertaker woke up from a nap and didn't realize it was Kurt Angle and just started beating the shit out of Kurt Angle. So it's chaos. That has happened before. Wait, wait. But is this – here's the thing that I noticed when like trying to research Vince McMahon is that because he has made himself into – A character within – Yeah, a character within his world and everyone is a character.

Like is that – but it's also a violent world that he's a character in. Was he actually getting choked or was that just a thing that they were playing? So this is an off ring story. This is a real thing that happened. The only thing real in wrestling is anything that happens in an airport or in an airplane.

Because those are the only times those people can be people. Everything else. Everything else is bullshit. But if it happens on an airplane or an airport, it's real. People can be people. Everything else. Everything else is bullshit. Everything else is bullshit. But if it happens on an airplane or an airport, it's real. Yeah. And Vince McMahon has some very odd quirks.

He doesn't like when people sneeze. You know about this one? Oh, my God. This is my favorite fucking Vince McMahon thing. He thinks it's weak. He's weak. Oh, the word weak comes out of his mouth. Yeah.

God damn it. It's weak. He's strong. He'd be strong. He doesn't like when people sneeze. He only eats steak wraps with ketchup. That's all he eats. Really? That's the only thing he eats.

He only eats steak wraps with ketchup. That's the only thing he eats. He doesn't like when people sneeze, but he loves farts. I wonder what looks like that. Oh, he loves farts. I wonder what he looks like that. Oh, he loves farts. Gerald Briscoe, former World Heavyweight title and producer in Raw backstage, wouldn't shit his pants. And then, no, Vince McMahon wouldn't shit his pants. And since Gerald Briscoe has a weak gag reflex,

he just chased him around with his shit-covered pants on a stick the entire backstage. Because he's a crazy person. He's a psychotic human being. And like we mentioned a moment ago, he only sleeps a few hours a night. Yep. Like he only sleeps. Wait, so let's get into how he went from announcer to character. Yeah.

So he was announcing for years and it was on the download that he was the owner of the WWF. Well, so he was an announcer before he owned yeah uh the the company that his dad oh yeah right right so he that didn't last too long i don't think well i think he was an announcer until 1997 oh really yeah he was in and out of announcing gotcha some people would leave he would come in do announcing for for right people and then he would go back like he would fart on an announcer and that person would be like i gotta get the fuck out of here he's like god damn he just keeps calling me weak i'm sorry i sneezed there were fucking you know you could tell he's in the room this man looks like a guy that literally throws

around the word faggot like you could tell yeah yeah he throws around the f word like hard all the time yeah like he said the n word on live tv like he has no fucking fear there's a clip of him at one point and he's like, this is for the show, but he's like, he's so mad at The Undertaker that he's like, she's going to be raped

by a motorcycle gang right in front of The Undertaker. That's a fictional statement made in a reality that is our world. And that guy has to answer to the board of directors afterwards. He said that and then had to go like, Ted on line two.

All right. Yeah. No, we got the numbers in this week. Yeah. Taker, first name under is on the line. He's not happy with what you said about his wife. That's his real wife. What do you mean?

That made that storyline better. You know, I always make things better so uh vince um yeah vince is like like the thing i want to like impress upon you guys is like his his he's the most interesting billionaire to me because his psychology is available to view like right you can just see what his mind is because he's a chief creative officer as well right and so on on one hand he's like playing a character but to maintain that character that long right in in a way that's partially i assume it's partially improvised yeah a lot of like the things that they do absolutely like and he talks about like he's not himself sure whether the vince

mcmahon character's a real guy or if he's the real guy. Or if he's the Vince McMahon character. The best evidence of this is apparently at one point he tried to slide into the ring and he tore both quads. Yes. And so your quads are very important. You can't stand if you can't, right? So he's trying to stand but he's falling. And there's like four or five wrestlers in the ring and they don't know whether he's fucking with him or if he actually just injured himself yeah and that is a perfect moment of what wrestling is it's like i don't is this real what i don't know what's going on here the best part of wrestling is when you go was that

was that supposed to happen and uh the thing that the the turning point really is when uh something called the montreal screwjob oh yeah yes yes that is the turning point of when when something called the Montreal Screwjob. Oh, yeah. Yes. That is the turning point of when the Vince McMahon owner and the Vince McMahon person, the Vince McMahon character sort of became one. Right. So it was sort of an open secret that he was the owner of WWF until this happened. Yes. What happened is the world champion Bret the Hitman Hart

was scheduled to lose the title. Sponsored by LensCrafters. Sponsored by LensCrafters. Was scheduled to lose the title to Shawn Michaels in the rematch of Survivor Series. Bret had not signed a new contract then. He didn't want to lose in Montreal

in his home city. He was wanting to lose it the next night on Raw. So there was a debate back and forth. Bret had not resigned. to lose in montreal in his home city he was wanting to lose it the next night on raw so there was a debate back and forth but had not resigned uh and there was pressure to keep brett away from the competition of wcw so with vince in this sort of precarious position of like if brett is a man of his word which as we all know wrestlers are all liars and untrustworthy because he had been like vince had been fucked over by another wrestler whose contract he let lapse and then she went

on the competition and threw out their world title in the garbage oh my god yeah so vince was now worried about this uh he decided that without telling bre Hart he was going to ensure that Brett lose so he brought in the referee he brought in Shawn Michaels and he brought in Triple H Shawn Michaels best friend and one of the workers that he is most trusted who ended up being his son-in-law

weird yeah Triple H is a wrestler who ended up marrying Vince McMahon's daughter Stephanie McMahon yeah which is not wrong but it's just odd oh yeah which is not that wrong but it's just odd oh yeah no it's a it's a Julio Ponce LaRue move yeah for real yeah yeah Triple H is

an interesting character on his own uh so well so what happened is during a match Brett is the match is almost over Brett has Shawn Michaels in the signature. No, Shawn Michaels has Bret in the signature. Bret Hart submission to hold the sharpshooter and Bret without tapping loses.

The referee calls for the belt, awards Shawn Michaels the title. Bret is no longer the champion and Bret throws a shit fit

live on air. Yeah, and Bret is from Canada and this is happening in Montreal. Yeah. So he's getting the shit on his face. starts booing because he's like their hero he is their hero and the audience

is incensed bret hart spits on vince mcmahon in his face destroys the monitor equipment down at ringside goes to the back and this is documented in the wrestling documentary wrestling with shadows he punches vince mcmahon in the face oh yeah and says i fucking quit fuck you and leaves the company shows up later in wcw and that all was unstaged right and it it went kind of it made national news so it went in its own like 1990s way it kind of went viral yeah it kind of went viral in in its own way it's like but it put the writers in the juxtaposition because they now have a high profile incident and they have to wrap it into the storyline which is something that at that point they they'd never done yeah which is where the madness of vince mcmahon i think begins yeah that's where you begin to see Vince McMahon, the character, show up.

Right, right. He goes on Raw the next night and goes, I didn't fuck over Bret Hart. Bret Hart fucked over Bret Hart. Later on, Bret Hart's brother would die in that ring. Oh my God. The fucking irony. Because wrestling is fake.

Everything is not real. Everything in wrestling is not real. Except the deaths. Except the deaths are too real. If you die in wrestling, you die Everything is not real. Everything in wrestling is not real. Except the deaths. Except the deaths are too real. If you die in wrestling, you die in the real world. Yeah, yeah. Except The Undertaker.

He'll come back. No, The Undertaker will always come back. That is true. Kane, not so much, but The Undertaker will. So what we have is the creation of this Vince McMahon character who is a duplicity, manipulative,

egomaniacal uh sociopath which is a great character yeah but when it's a character that's named your name yep you might start believing your bullshit and he does and while he was doing this one thing I found interesting was like so to like play up the character they were like the billionaire vince mcmahon and he he became a billionaire but then like the value of of wwf stock would go like up and down so there would be times where they'd be like the billionaire vince mcmahon and then he would just be like you know 700 million yeah like the multi-millionaire vince mcmahon yeah yeah and so like the our boss is vince mcmahon and by the way that's anytime you hear someone, like when you hear the commentary on Vince,

that's Vince McMahon still doing, producing segments, writing segments for wrestlers, being in matches. He got headbutt recently, like a year and a half ago. And he's in his 70s now. Yeah, he's in his 70s. And he asked a wrestler, hit me in the head as hard as you can. But I think that the issue is not necessarily Vince's ego, but truly the adrenaline of performing. I think that we see this in billionaires often, but certainly with people like Donald Trump.

I mean, obviously with Vince McMahon, we're talking about him. But with people who are literally, they literally can't handle the adrenaline of the limelight, especially in a physical contest. And so it's like, you know, it's fucking heroin. Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, a lot of these, you know, when we talk about like the CTE issues with sports, you know, we don't actually think about how it's,

well, they endure so much physical pain because they love the adoration so much, they push themselves too hard and literally become psychopaths. Yeah. I mean, that's what happened to Dynamite Kid. That's definitely what happened to Chris Benoit. Yeah. Certainly.

Do you know what happened to Chris Benoit, Andy? Murder Suey? Yeah. Yeah. Well, also, he got holes in his brain from the CTE. Yeah. Yeah. Because he... And the guy he amputated recently died.

He was paralyzed for the majority of – Dynamite Kid was paralyzed since he was in his 30s. Oh, wow. Because he went so hard. Oh, went so hard in the wrestling. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. And I mean like so we know there's like I think 10 to 30 big high profile suicide and

deaths and stuff. But then there are, before Vince McMahon even is running WWE, there are multiple wrestlers that have committed suicide during that period as well, if you look up. So regardless of if it's a hard sport or not is not the issue. The reality is that one man is literally profiting off the deaths of his employees. In some cases, covering up those deaths. Let's talk about Jimmy Superfly Snuka and his dead girlfriend.

Yes, I don't know anything about this. Please tell me. So Jimmy Superfly Snuka's girlfriend was found dead under mysterious circumstances, and the next day a WWE lawyer shows up and bails him out. Really? Yep. So, man.

Because Jimmy had to work the goddamn territory that night. I can't have him in goddamn jail. He's working the main. Goddamn it, get down here. Get him out of there. That's crazy how much murder you could get away with if you have enough rich friends. Yeah, that's really what it is. Imagine the mindset of also being like, all right, you killed your wife.

Okay, but it's showtime your wife, you killed, okay, but it's show time. Yeah, boom, let's go. Let's go, I gotta get, he's gotta get fucking out there.

He's working the undertaker. I might cut this out, but there was this Reddit post recently about, there was a basketball card and the Menendez brothers are in the background. Yes, I've seen that.

according to the time frame, it's when they committed the crime of killing their parents and before they got caught. So it's just them sitting at a basketball game but it's like what the fuck man? Why are you going to a basketball game and sitting in the front row? That was the big

thing about the story was they killed their parents and then they just took all their money and partied it away in like a couple months. Yeah man that's why you after you murder your rich parents you put that money in the savings account. Yeah. Like in our 401k.

Yeah. You invest the murder money. Your parents' money. Yes. That shit's going to come. This is what the grub stakers are all about, ladies and gentlemen. Physical investments. Our strategy.

Our biggest criticism of the Menendez brothers is they were not fiscally responsible. If only they have gotten the stash out. They might have been able to guys why should i put it in the money market not not the stock market because we know how volatile that is if you don't want to do 401k do a roth ira it's just as good why aren't you guys uh sponsored by a stash i guess because you want to kill like the whole thing is billionaires should die i guess yeah that that kind of puts a little that puts a damper on it. Yeah. Fair enough.

Or maybe some of us are making backdoor deals. You don't know what's going on. You see where we record. You don't know what's going on here. This podcast about billionaires is very odd. Yeah. They're anti-capitalism, and yet they have a view of Manhattan skyline.

It's beautiful. It is wonderful. Yogi's told me like 20 times about how he's profiting off of this, and I forget about it every time. Well, I have scans of all their DNA. I figured out their socials and their mother's maiden names, and honestly, it's working out to my benefit immensely. Oh, man, the new Andy Palmer is better than the old Andy Palmer.

He's actually a new version every time we do an episode. You're going to get Andy Palmer's going to leave, and then you're going to replace him by a guy named Andy Palmer. Andy Palmer's going to come back and they have to fight. Every time it happens.

The new version doesn't do enough drops. I'm telling you. That's the only thing that the first Andy was best. He could do drops for days.

That's your fault. I'm decaying like the moon guy. You're still ruining me, damn it. Everything's kayfabe. Everything.

So it's the early 2000s. It's the early 2000s. Actually, we couldn't talk about WCW, how back against the wall they were in the early 90s. In the early 90s, Vince McMahon's company was in jeopardy because here's one thing about Vince McMahon. He's not a great creative director. No, he's not.

He just likes pumping up the same shit all the time. He will definitely just drill an idea to a ground. He has no need to be subtle. Absolutely not. Right, right, right. Yeah, and one of his ideas he does in the early 90s is essentially a bodybuilding competition, but Vince McMahon style.

Oh, yeah. So there's a lot more boobs and pecs and dicks everywhere. Oh, yeah. It's the World Bodybuilding Federation. It's my new invention. Two things that kind of come out in the 90s, and one of them is he kind of undermines the Ted Turner competition by just sexing the shit out of everything.

He has actively copied that from what Turner was doing with WCW, but they were both copying from the local regional promotion ECW. Oh, really? Which was a huge influence on WCW and WWF. Oh, Turner was trying to sex it up? Yeah, Turner was also trying to sex it up. The through line is steal ideas that work yeah right so it doesn't matter who's doing it first it's uh they got more boo we're gonna have

more boobs than they do yeah they got they got eight tits we're gonna have 16 yeah so they were both aping off of a uh extreme championship wrestling which was at the time trying to get a teenage to 20 something demographic right okay and so what worked for them uh wcw took and like started going uh on on the air an hour earlier uh getting tits out earlier and then basically taking all the wwe's top talent and signing them to exclusive deals. Yeah, because WCW, although they did crumble, the thing that they did slightly better than WWE was give them better contracts.

It's a very simple formula. He gave them better contracts to some of the people. Yes, yes. Hulk Hogan had a sweetheart deal where he made 10 million sitting on his couch. Yeah. Yeah, but Rey Mysterio,

who was working his ass off in the undercard got paid scale like right wcw uh and also the first hour of wcw is way better than the second hour a bunch of geriatrics throw fake punches at each other and talk for 40 minutes like that was well the analytics only make sense for the first hour anyway so it gives a shit would you say that's why they uh they fell out yeah basically what happened is after the young guys left w uh to wwf they the wcw just had a bunch of old dudes and goldberg that's it that's all they had yeah i mean i do love goldberg but i will say that uh the wcw's i mean you know it's talent't dry up, but if you have two companies vying for the best, who's got more ideas and more money?

Yeah. Who can steal more ideas and more money? That's true. And at that point, because I think that Vince McMahon knows how to sell. And it's not that Ted Turner doesn't, but Ted Turner kind of goes, I'm going to set this up and then we'll see what happens. Yeah, basically. Vince McMahon doesn't sleep. Turner likes to take a nap every now and then, I'm going to set this up, and then we'll see what happens. Yeah, basically. Vince McMahon doesn't sleep.

Turner likes to take a nap every now and then, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Vince McMahon is an, Dana White has said, oh, Vince McMahon's an animal. He will fucking rip your throat out if he can. Turner takes a break to watch some classic movies.

Yeah, basically. Ted Turner, like, wrestling wasn't his only passion. He had other shit to do. And so Vince McMahon just went for the juggler when he could. And when finally Ted Turner realized, how much are we spending on this wrestling shit? Cut this shit off. Yeah, and then Vince McMahon would eventually buy WCW.

Just buys them out. And, I mean, to be fair, Ted Turner is making money from other avenues. This is only Vince's. Right, so Vince had more stakes. Yeah, this is the only thing Vince has. And around the time that he purchases WCW, I believe a year before or around the same time is when Vince McMahon starts the XFL.

Right, but before that, and this was the other thing that happened in the 90s, is he gets busted for making all of his employees do steroids. Yes, that's a thing he does. Yeah. And what's the story there? Basically, Vince, New York has always been the land of the giants when it comes to wrestling. Basically, the idea that the bigger you are, the more muscular,

the more presentable you are to an East Coast audience. The bigger your draw is, the more fans will want to see these superhuman men. Up to even Bruno Sammartino. Bruno Sammartino is like 6'5", like 250, all muscle, jacked to the gills at the time. Which is now he just looks like... Now he looks like he's melting. If he looked like a strongman back then he's just like that's just a fit dad that's just a dad that just lifts heavy heavy barrels and throws them around so like but new york to present a bigger than life superstar you had to be like fucking chiseled

right you had to be hulk hogan the only way to do that for a lot of guys like jake the snake roberts or like or well for all of them yeah for all of them like for like yeah and it's it's just about quality control yeah how can we make these athletes that are working tirelessly to make me money i don't know let's literally give them drugs oh what about drug tests we run the drug tests yeah we run the drug well listen they also had that, like, sort of, it was kind of a coup with, like, American, or some regulatory agency where Vince McMahon was like,

oh, it's fake, so you can't test our athletes. Yeah, basically. That's why the term, that's why it went from World Wrestling Federation to World Wrestling Entertainment, and the term sports entertainment was calling it. Yes. So to avoid New York regulatory health and safety standards for athletes.

Oh, I thought they had a turf war with the World Wildlife Foundation. That's also something that happened. Oh, okay. Yeah, that is something that happened as well. That is also something that happened worldwide. So they did lose to the panda bears. They did lose to the panda bears. Lost clean.

But ultimately got their heat back. Right, because if they won that war, then they'd have to stop taking steroids. Yeah. And you know those pandas have to stop taking steroids. Yeah, yeah. And you know those pandas wouldn't stop taking steroids. Yeah, Vince went like, look, do I want to fuck with these pandas some more?

Or do I just want to admit I want my boys taking steroids? A lot more people get angry when you deny pandas health care. There was a moment where we were going to have panda on panda violence every Sunday.

I mean... With boobs. People get way more mad when a panda dies on camera. Yeah, for a wrestler? Yeah, absolutely. But pandas can't work.

They don't know how to throw fucking fake elbows. We almost had the Shanghai screwjob. You know, Ling Ling doesn't job, job, brother, brother. Doesn't do the job.

You know what's funny? Is that like, we could all make up fake Chinese panda names and it's kind of okay. But the moment we start being like, oh, you know that Asian guy? And say those names,

it's like, what a racist piece of shit. Oh yeah, that panda. Pang pang or dong dong. It's like, oh, it's fine. The irony is that the Chinese people are giving them stereotypically racist names. Very irony. You can't call us on it.

You know, all pandas are born in China and then loaned to the zoos that they go to around the world. Oh, really? That's very interesting. Yeah, China's got a fucking

panda market locked down. I thought Berlin had like a panda birth or something and then it died. Yeah, because China didn't want that shit around. Yeah. Oh, it was a fucking hit.

It was murder. You think the Republic wasn't going to let that shit slide? Oh, this German panda was hit. You think the Republic wasn't going to let that shit slide? This German panda died due to poisoned bamboo. Interesting. Future episode on Newt the Panda. Just Ip Man walks away from the companion cage very slowly.

So one more thing I want to mention is that Hulk Hogan, because he was such a star for WWE or WWF at the time, he would go on TV and be like, hey, don't take drugs, kids. And the other wrestlers would always laugh about that because it's like, oh, the pharmacist. Yeah. Don't take drugs.

I'm just going to... Look, I just need something real quick, dude. I just need something for my arms and for my legs and also for my back. Also for this mullet. Thank you, dude. You think you get a goatee like this without steroids?

Yeah. So then in the early 2000s, I believe the beginning of 2001, Vince McMahon, without any arena connections, without any teams lined up, announces the XFL. The XFL. It's better than football. It's the XFL. The XFL.

It's better than football. It's the XFL. It's like football, but better. I made it. Yeah. It's like America is mourning 9-11. Anything goes. It happened before that, incidentally.

Oh, okay. Let's be honest. 9-11 might have happened because of the XFL. Okay, they just saw the he hate me and they were like, no more of this. Muhammad Otto was like,

no more of this. They saw he hate me and went, you know what? We're taking the motherfucking towers out, son. This is what we've been waiting for.

I'm not going to have any Arena League football fuck up my Sunday night. So he announces XFL and at the time- With Dick Ebersole. Don't forget. Oh, that's right. Yeah, Dick Ebersole partnered with Vince McMahon to make this happen.

For NBC, correct? For NBC. Yeah, well, so apparently I was watching the thing and it turns out they announced and the announcement's over and then NBC called and was like, well, hey, so what connections do you have? We're like, we're talking to people. And like, don't sign a contract until you talk with us. So the announcement, NBC buys into, essentially.

And the XFL, you know, I'll be honest, as a company and as an idea, I don't mind another football league. Because I do think a monopoly in sports allows terrible things to happen. Just a monopoly in general. Unfortunately, the XFL rules were a lot more CTE friendly. Just naked head shots. Oh my God. You're allowed to take the safety arm off with a weed whacker if you can. Well, when the CEO endorses steroids,

I don't think that you're going to have a better or safer sport. I mean, I was excited for their Super Bowl, which was in a hell in a cell. Two teams enter, one team leaves, maybe. Maybe. I mean, like, you know, so like I certainly don't agree with what the XFL was, but I do think that more sports leagues of the same sports should exist because it's idiotic that American sports are used as a funnel for the military and that 90 of people that don't end up in the professional sport end up either uh

committing a crime and going to the military or realizing i got nothing to do i might as well go to the military but enough of that vince mcmahon at this point essentially um is a womanizing creep while married. And his wife, Linda, who he's been with since she was 17. 38 years. Yeah. We've never had an argument. Whenever someone says we've never had an argument. You know that relationship's terrible. Oh, God bless.

Well, it seems like they have just this crazy business relationship. It's a Bill and Hillary situation. It's a Bill and Hillary situation. They met in church when apparently just this crazy business relationship. Like, it's a Bill and Hillary situation. Yeah, it's a Bill and Hillary situation. Like, what was it? Yeah, they met in church when apparently he was 16, she was 13 or something. Oh, my God.

I love how he describes them. He describes them as like, this beautiful voice coming out this box some young woman. I wanted to fuck her right there. They got married when she was 17, which is a minor. Yeah, she is a minor.

Depending on the state they were in, though, which I don't know. Which was North Carolina, I believe at the time. Actually, no, it's D.C. He was living in D.C. at the time. Interesting, gotcha. But Linda is very interesting because, boy, this woman puts up with a lot. I'm not shocked that she lost her political campaign, but I'm happy that she doesn't have more power.

Yeah. Well, she's now the head of the Small Business Administration, which is part of Trump's cabinet. Yeah. Listen, I'm not happy about... The only person not leaving that cabinet, right? Yeah. I'm just saying a woman scorned...

That's because she's the only one in the cabinet that knows how to keep kayfabe. Right. I honestly think she would be a great Secretary of State. But Vince McMahon has done some terrible shit to this woman psychologically, I feel, because Vince McMahon, the character,

is making out with women and fornicating with people behind closed doors and stuff and also getting sued for sexual assault from time to time. Apparently he raped a lady in a limousine. people behind closed doors and stuff and also getting sued for sexual assault from time to time. Yeah, that's what happened. Yeah, apparently he raped a lady in a limousine. Yep, at one point.

I'm amazed he doesn't get more sexual assaults from the male wrestlers that he ogles. Yeah, I mean, but that's the thing though. His industry is literally dealing with people with naked bodies constantly. Men hugging each other in tight pants. Right, right, right, right.

So it's a thin line between sexual assault and the job that they're doing. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? It's basically sort of like the Harvey Weinstein type thing where some of the things he did was just force women to do these nude scenes they didn't want to do.

And it was like people didn't notice because there's so many nude scenes in movies they're like yeah well it's like you know oh the what happened to you uh a lady who's claiming vince mcbride sexually assaulted you oh well he grabbed my chest well he was performing a suplex so who knows right what he was actually doing you know and i think that um when you have the capital that vince mcbride certainly has uh there's a plenty of people that probably probably paid off eventually. Or not paid off, actually. I'm sure he's covered up for not only himself, tons of wrestlers.

I bet Linda's doing it. I bet she's the one cutting checks in the back. Oh, yeah, absolutely. What did he do to you? She's kind of a business genius. He kissed you and he rubbed you? All right, $50,000. Here you go.

Here you go, kid. I mean, literally, yeah, she's the business liaison when it comes to the McManuel. They also talk about how women who are announcers or something, they'll be assaulted, and then they'll come back to WWE, and people will be like, well, look at that. And it's like, well, I'm guessing they probably can't get a better job. Yeah, no. Women in wrestling have it awful. They have it awful, because there's no other place to make money in wrestling.

How did Chyna die? Do you know this? Drug overdose. You can't technically say that's suicide or whatever, but it's like the life condition she had made it so that she overdosed on drugs. That's the thing. There's so many gray areas of abuse when it comes to Vince McMahon that it's really horrifying because the sad reality is that we don't know how many people must have had terrible lives due to Vince McMahon's nonsense. And those are the people that he likes.

Yeah, I know. We know what he's done to people. We know the things that are published are awful. Imagine the people that aren't wrestlers, that aren't fucking on camera. They are just regular people. They're people that are on the crew of the WWE team, I guess. And because he doesn't sleep,

he'll call them at three in the morning the night before the show and be like, this is the idea I have. Get that guy from Detroit to drive to fucking Toronto. I guess that's not

for that part of the show. We get a small, because we know enough comedians that are writers for WWE and we know how awful that fucking job is. That they have to fly into the arena on their own dime, put themselves up, show up to work. And their boss would just come in at 430 going, we're changing the whole fucking show.

Right, right. I'm writing everything. You guys are all assholes. Anytime people talk about how stand up, it doesn't make sense how we get paid and stuff. I'm like, well, it was created by the mob. So we literally get a bit off the top. That's literally how the payment structure works. And in the same vein, wrestling is a similar thing where it's like, it's the mob, guys.

One guy runs everything, and if you're good, he'll take care of you. But if you fuck him over, he will kill everyone you know. Yeah, and I'm pretty sure Vince can kill everyone I know. Yeah, I think so. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Which I know. Yeah, I think so. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Which is amazing. I'm a wrestling fan.

I would be so happy if Vince killed everyone I know. I'd be like, dude, Vince McMahon chucked the shit out of my girlfriend. It was amazing.

It wouldn't be Vince. It'd be your favorite fucking wrestlers. Yeah, no, it'd be like John Cena. Hulk Hogan? What are you doing at my mom's house?

You're going to find out. You want to know why John Cena does so many make-a-wishes? He's the angel of death. That's why he shuts up little kids that seem too much just pull just puts the plunger into the ivy oh my god you you can't see me but the reality is is that this man is a a megalomaniac whose staff is mostly gigantic humanoids that could murder. I mean, it's like he's the general of an army that's unregulated and making money from just being an army.

Well, it's sort of like people like to... Imagine a military coup with just WWE wrestlers. That'd be awesome because they're all fucking nerds. I think they're all nerds that want healthcare. A lot of them are socialists. It's great. It would be the movie Gladiator. He's basically like the modern day Coliseum

magnate where he runs America's blood spectacle. You could have a gladiator if Trump because he does wrestling. That's true. This is Vince McMahon after he comes. And you could have a gladiator if Trump, because, you know, he does wrestling. Right, right. That's true. This is Vince McMahon after he comes.

Are you not entertained? Goddammit, Lindahl, are you not entertained? I just came on your face. What if, like, if The Rock kills Trump in the wrestling ring, does that make The Rock president? Honestly, that's how I would make our elections. Like, if I was in charge,

you get to be the president, but you also have to face The Rock in a steel cage. If he wins, he's the president. I think Mike Pence gets a chance after that. I think Mike Pence then gets to fight The Rock. Pence gets the money in the bank briefcase where he can challenge at any time. You know Pence is, like, covered in knives. Like, he's got, like like he's got a thousand tiny knives that he'll you break his arm he doesn't feel it yeah yeah no he just looks at you with sick doll

eyes yeah you can replace that whole jaws monologue about mike pence talk about mike pence pence's eyes they're like a doll's eyes. Yeah. Like the thing about professional wrestling, and I guess Vince McMahon, as there's not, in professional wrestling, no one else looms quite as large. Like it's going to be a thing where it's like you, for better or worse, when he dies and he can't,

because he has to fight the death himself at WrestleMania 31. Like that's, I think that's his goal. Vince McMahon versus Father Time. Goddamn, I'm going to beat the shit out of you, Father Time. Here's how I'm going to do it. Every year I have at least one stroke, and then I push it back down. Because I'm a fucking man.

If the stroke tries to sue, Linda takes care of it. For good or ill, when he dies, wrestling will be different forever. Sure, certainly. Forever. And it's going to change the way wrestling fans even watch wrestling. Vince McMahon is not there anymore. I mean, you know, that's certainly a true statement, but that's also just time in general. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, all genres of sports will change once the people that innovated them will pass. One thing I will mention, his daughter, Stephanie McMahon, because there was an episode of, I think it was Raw, after 9-11. And there's a quote of her at this, and she's like, A few years ago,

some people tried to destroy my family. They attacked my father's reputation. They attacked my mother's reputation. And they attacked the World Wrestling Federation. They tried to rip us apart. But all they did was make my family stronger. And that's exactly how America feels right now. Because on Tuesday, America was attacked.

But America is a united nation. And together, we stand strong. She's comparing 9-11 to people being like, your dad sucks, bitch. Like, what? Cue to an entire arena calling her a slut. Add that drop in later. Yeah. He makes his kids do weird things like throw themselves off of cages.

He made his son kiss his ass, literally. Yeah, he made his son kiss his ass. Not even the most embarrassing thing he's done on that show. Honestly, I will only respect him if he dies on stage. That's literally, I think that's what he wants. I think he wants to die in the wrestling ring. Like he's a psychopath. Legitimately, I think he wants to take one too many stunners and die in the ring.

That's how he gets immortality. And then he lives forever. Yeah. Then you'll never get rid of me, goddammit. I'll be in your fucking hearts until you die. Or you could put my head in a jar like Walt Disney, that faggot. In my mind, Vince McMahon

just says all the awful... He uses every slur for everyone. Why wouldn't he? Why wouldn't he? Who's going to call him out? Hey, Vince, we live in 2018, progressive times now. We can't.

And I'm the most progressive guy in here. I gave a job to that gook over there. What the fuck are you talking? And it's true. He's somehow the most racist son of a bitch in the world. But his show, out of every popular fucking show on television, has the most rainbow color coalition of fucking people available all shapes all sizes more than any other featured programming in the america there's possibly the

world possibly the world they have so many different types of people they've given women a platform that other shows still have not had to this day fucking day. It's amazing. Yeah, I mean, it is one of those things where he's kind of like Michael Bay, where he's done a reflection of society, and the world goes, that's terrible and racist and horrible, and it's like, yeah, that's life. That's what you are. It's a reflection of what we are. It's literally us giving you what you want.

We're going to have a brown guy in after 9-11, because obviously we hate brown people now, and we need to have a Middle Eastern guy beat people up so we can beat the shit out of him. Yeah, Michael Bay's gonna make a Transformers with black robots

and people are gonna be like, that's kind of racist. It's like, yeah, society's this way. I think that's totally fine. Yeah, and Vince just,

it literally is, I give the audience what the audience wants. It's a yell, homophobic slurs at a wrestler painted in gold. That's what he wants.

That's what the audience wants. I don't know what you want, people. If you haven't seen that documentary, Wrestling in the Shadows. Wrestling with Shadows, I recommend. Beyond the Mat is also, I recommend, if you want to get, you want to watch the wrestler,

but in real life, watch Beyond the Mat. That has Jake the Snake Roberts stories in it, and it's fucking sad. There's also Resurrection of Jake the Snake Roberts, which is his fucking sad. There's also Resurrection of Jake the Snake Roberts which is his sort of comeback story which is great.

It's about him finally getting into rehab and detoxing and trying to fix his relationship. Al, who would you say don't call it a comeback? Don't call it a comeback. But, Bono,

do you have anything you want to plug? You can check out my podcast Talking Naruto where I mean my friend. What's it about? It's about Dragon Ball Z.

It's a fucking fuck you. How dare you? Interview over. Did Yogi turn heel? Is that what happened? Yeah, Yogi just turned heel on me. Nice. I'm like Dwayne The Rock Johnson.

You start out as a baby face and then you learn, you know what, I'm going to be a heel. He learned that if I just. One of my eyebrows has been up for the last 30 seconds. He was so great as a heel, too. He was great. He was really great. I had to field somebody's question because I'm the wrestling guy, so someone will dig up just the son-in-law of the owner in blackface,

and I have to explain it to people. Sure, yeah. So, yeah, Talking Naruto is my podcast. It's a podcast where me and my friend Lawson Leon watch every episode of Naruto and talk about it. Do you record it with the headband? Yeah, we record it with the headband.

We do all the stuff. That's all I know about it. In fact, when we record, there's multiple copies of me around the room. We just pass the microphone back and forth. I saw Bunnell at the gym the other day, hands behind his back on the treadmill. Just running. Just running.

That's what we're doing. We're also doing Talking Smart, which is a wrestling podcast where it's two guys talking about wrestling. Who would have thought? What? That is the two guys talking about comedy podcast of wrestling podcast. That's what I'm doing.

Nice. Yeah. And with that, this has been Grub Stickers. My name's Yogi Pollywall. I'm Andy Palmer. This has been Benel Jermosa. Oh, I'm sorry. Before we go.

I'm sorry. Before we go. For a long time now, we've had a politics where our leaders go after each other like they're competing to become king of the ring. Well, I've got one question. Do you smell what barack is cooking this has been grubstickers god damn it that's a great promo get this barack kid in my locker room