Jim Cornette Experience - Jim Cornette Experience Special - From The Files Omnibus

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

A Holiday special for Experience listeners today: Here is Jim Cornette's From the Files Omnibus! Send in your question for the Drive-Thru to: [e-mail]  Follow Jim and Brian on Twitter: @TheJimCornette @GreatBrianLast  Visit Jim's official site at www.JimCornette.com for merch, live dates, commentaries and more!  You can listen to Brian each week on the 6:05 Superpodcast at 605pod.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello again, friends! And you are our friends, the great Brian last here. You there, we are back on the bus. This time, volume one of From the Files, Jim Cornett's omnibus, our look into the files, discovering wrestling history with this man, the leader of the cult of Cornett, Mr. Jim Cornett. And of course, Brian, we are uncovering nuggets never before known about the nonses that, uh, once occupied the world of wrestling, and thanks to your voluminous files in my amazing computer-like brain, we pull things out, we talk about them, we reveal these tidbits, it's something, get nowhere else

in the world of wrestling, and boom, and here's just oodles and oodles of it. That's right, the first in what will certainly be a continuing series, let's get to it now, from the files, the omnibus. knowing that we have to travel through time at some point can we do one classic wrestling thing here before we wrap things up? I think, well, not before we wrap things up, but before we travel through time

and then reconvene to continue this program that will be seamless in terms of the listener experience. I call it wrap things up because I have to, you know, tie everything down before we, you know, hit the air. But, uh, Jim... Tie me kangaroo down, sport, tie me kangaroo down. If this works, this is a new, segment, if this is bombs, this was Jim's idea.

Hey, what, huh? The other day I was out, I was smoking a joint, I was hanging out, and I decided to just start going through the files. The files of the wrestling news, which comprise Ring Wrestling, Wrestling Review, wrestling monthly, various other publications, as well as correspondence, and I have a file here. This is from the files. Yes, from the files. So we'll see if this is interesting because I have not completely looked through it.

I just saw that it was thick and filled with correspondence. This is the Christopher Love file. Oh, my God. Okay, and for those of you who might not know, Christopher Love was the managerial nom de plume and persona of promoter Bert Prentice. And at various points, he was Queen Christopher Love, especially in the LPWA, where he managed Lelani Kai and Judy Martin, the Glamour Girls. And Bert, during his manager days...

Honey Love. Honey Love was another persona. Bert was a very flamboyant individual during his younger days and also his manager days. But Bert was gay. And he wouldn't even like Ronnie Gossett, where Ronnie Gossett would say, I'm not gay, I'm just friendly. Burr was gay, but he didn't let that get in the way of business most of the time. And he was, he ran great shows. He was the classic definition of an indie wrestling promoter and a hustler and a go-getter and a, he could,

well, remember, I did, this was even, this was after you joined the podcast. I did a show for him or went to a show that he ran. Yeah, he was on the show. Yeah, down in Jackson, and we talked about his operation and everything that he had down there. He was working with the city running regularly. And, of course, he passed away a couple years ago. He won me over because he ripped off Howard Baum and Howard Baum's dad in like 1984 or 1985 somewhere in there, took a bunch of money to help them run shows and left town.

And when they opened his briefcase, it was like filled with women's underwear. There were the briefcase that he had left as collateral for the money, right? Yeah. And years later, he was on social media and Howard brought it up. I hate that was a real scumbag thing to do. Burt Prentice sent him a check. And it cashed. Yes. So he made good on it. So that impressed me. That was actually really classy, I think, after ripping him off initially and leaving him all that underwear.

But the interesting thing about this file, as I look through things, There's a lot of different addresses and names. Oh, he was all over the place. Bert started Music City wrestling in Nashville. He had Ozark Mountain Wrestling. And I can't remember where he was headquartered over in Arkansas. He had a territory in Kansas briefly for a while. He, so, I mean, he was just, he was everywhere.

Well, in 1988, Christopher Love was at Box 201. Is it Gredinger, Iowa? Your guess is as good as mine. Well, that's where he was in 1988. This is, what year is this? This is 1990. The envelope says the International Association of Independent Promoters, Resslers, and Fans. How does that abbreviation break down?

The I-A-I-P-W-F in Greensboro, North Carolina. Yes, he was in North Carolina for a while. Norman Kiteser wrote his reply on here. Christopher Love received your brochure on your 1990 convention April 13 through 15. Unfortunately, since the wrestling news is quarterly, it didn't come out in time. So I could plug it in the next issue before the date as wrestling news 131 won't be out until late, April at the earliest. Anyway, for the future, send us info well in advance and we will plug it. Or if you wish something on what happened at the convention and your future plans for organization.

I don't know what the hell that's supposed to say. also would appreciate your payment of the $225 that you owe me for the magazines you got from me in 1988. Wow. And here's a letter from the organization. For Bert to send out stuff plenty in advance in those days, he may not have known what state he was going to be living in three months out. I have a letter here on the official letterhead of the International Association of Independent Promoters, Wrestlers, and Fans. February 15th, 1990, dear wrestling fan,

I have enclosed for you all of the exciting information on Convention 1990. Please read it over carefully, and I sincerely hope that you will make every effort to join us in Greensboro and April. This will be a dream weekend for many wrestling fans. Additional wrestlers that will be at the convention

that we did not get the mention in the brochure include Tully Blanchard, Tim Horner, Hector Guerrero. Now, wait a minute. Hold on now. Pause one second. Chris Love at one point in San Antonio actually managed Tully before Tully went to... That's right. Went to Crockett, but go ahead.

Did he manage him again at this point in 1990 when Tully briefly... Did he manage him for Vern? Where am I thinking of him in Tully in 90? But anyway... I don't know. And the list grows each and every day. there will be fabulous exhibits. And if you would like to reserve a booth for yourself,

please call us today. Christopher Love, 1990 convention host. And when they called him Honey Love, because that was a thing he did when he was cutting promos, and let me tell you this, honey. And you know, here comes Honey Love. Convention 1990, April 13, 14, and 15th, the Holiday Inn, Four Seasons Tower Center, Greensboro,

on the front cover, Buddy Rogers, Lou Thess, and Bill Aptor. Hey, that was, when he was in, I'm going to say it was 1995-96, because right about the time Smoky Mountain closed down, Burt was doing, I think that was when he was Ozark Mountain Wrestling. He was in Missouri or wherever he was, a boot heel down there.

And a bunch of the, you know, he brought Buddy Landel over, and the headbangers, Thrashor and Mosh, Glenn and Chaz, he moved them out there at one point. I'm trying to think, was it when they were still the spiders? Maybe I'm confusing, but the point is, there was like 8, 10 guys somewhere in Missouri or Iowa

working this little small wrestling territory with this little small weekly TV or whatever for Burt Prentice. And suddenly they got up one day and Burt was gone in the town. There was no promotion anymore. And they were all living in fucking Iowa or whatever. It started calling around like,

can anybody book us so we get the fuck out of here? I have here. This is from 1983. June 6th, 83, the postmark. And it has his business card, as well as the official envelope and letterhead of Shirley Dillon's

Mid-States Championship Wrestling. 2315 South 58th Court, Chicago, Illinois. The business card says, Chris Love, event coordinator. Yes, and Shirley was, Bert loved to find an angel. When you found a financial backer,

both on Broadway and the carnivals and in wrestling, you were finding an angel. And Bert loved to find angels. America's fastest growing wrestling organization, mid-state championship wrestling will bring you the top TV stars available with the best percentage paid per show offered anywhere. Well, no, best percentage, that's a...

This is to the venue. Yeah, that's basically looking for sponsors, for spot show type of things. We will pay more. In those days, if a local group wanted to sponsor the matches of a territory, we've talked about it, they'd do a 75-25 split or an 80-20 split where the sponsoring group provided the building, sold the advanced tickets, did the grunt work of whatever, and they'd get 20% of the gate. But Burt would give them bigger percentages, but it was

still, you know, 80% of Jack's shit is still fairly shitty. We also provide top-of-the-line advertisement promotions, including window posters, newspaper, and radio features. We will guide you through an exciting promotional event

that will want you to make it an annual happening. Say again, this is written really weird. We require no large deposit money in advance. It's like a translation from See, I guarantee I bet Bert even had

Because Byrne was better than that Byrd had people doing this shit for him Because, you know Because remember he could write better than that The promotions that Bert started doing In the late 90s, especially with Music City in Tennessee And some of the other things he was doing

and he had some longevity with and drew some houses and was doing some business. But back in the 80s and 90s, because he wasn't that much older than me. So in his younger days, he was all over the page. Once again, we require no large deposit money in advance. And with our stellar lineup and your enthusiastic support, together we will make this a gigantic success.

This reads like a Ponzi scheme letter or something. Professional wrestling is drawing bigger live, audience is now that in the history of the sport, Mid-States Championship Wrestling is a consistent winner at the box office. Depending on the general population of your city or town, mid-state championship wrestling can offer you up to 30% of the gate receipts.

See, there you go. Not to be matched by any other reputable organization. However, some crooked ones will give you more. When booking a live wrestling show, make sure you are dealing with a legitimate promoter. Check other local organizations for references. We will provide you with excellent references. Yeah, we'll tell you exactly who to ask about us.

The wrestler's photographed here on this copy. Fabulous Mula, the assassin, I don't know who, but it's an assassin mask. The Mighty Warrior, appears to be a little person. Bambi, I never saw her last name before it, Momtages. What? You know Bambi, the women's wrestler? Yes, but what's her last name? It says M-O-N-T-A-G-E-S.

I've never heard that before. I never saw it before either. And finally, Mr. USA Tony Atlas. For Shirley Dillon's... I don't think Bambi ever used that name. I think he probably may just gave it to her. Well, this is 1983. three, that's early on.

You know, hold on me. The other side here, there's a poster. What's this? I know her real name, and that ain't it. Oh, this is a different organization. And has the results of the TV taping and a poster. Oh, boy. Bloomington, Minnesota, the Carlton Celebrity Room, USA Pro Wrestling TV taping,

February 27, 1984. The results? Todd Cooley defeated Rick Rinslow. That's Wendell. Cooley, by the way, because it has his photo here. Seriously, Todd Cooney. 666 defeated Glenn Liskey. Okay, as strange as this may sound,

that could possibly be Jungle Jim Star, one of the interns with Dr. Ken Ramey, because I think he worked that gimmick in the Central States at one point. Jerry Valiant defeated Bobby Colt. That would have been Guy Mitchell and Bobby, and they were both in Indiana at the time.

Bill Ash defeated Patty Ryan. George Wells defeated Joe Stark. Good Lord. What date was this in 84? February 27th. That's before George Wells got booked by Mid-South when they were trying to replace dog. The New York doll defeated Tom Zink. Listen to this fucking match. The Amazing Zulu, Ron Pope.

Ooh. And Bill Dromo defeated Mike George and Mark Crowell. Tommy Gilbert Wait, wait, wait a minute Hold on back up Mike George Obviously again Most famous in the central states

But he wrestled Louisiana That territory for a while I don't know who Rodney Crowell was Or his partner or whatever But can you imagine the team Of the magnificent Zulu and Big Bill Dromo Dromo Dromo is one of the best big guy workers

In the business at one time What year? Oh, in a 60s, late 60s, early 70s but at the same time, Zulu was the worst big man worker in a business, and this is 10 years later from both of it. In Minnesota, not like this was like a hotbed for this promotion, but anyway, the remainder of the card, again, from Minnesota, Tommy Gilbert drew Bill Howard.

Good Lord, Bill Howard was Radamias in a lot of places. 666 defeated Mark Crowell and Mike George defeated Rick Rinslow, the poster here. USA Pro Wrestling featuring wrestlers from around the world Body Slammin These are the body slamming men You've heard so much about Who will emerge

The USA Pro Wrestling Champion And the photos here Gary Loller It's spelled L-O-W-L-E-R But that's Gary Lawler Dressed like Jerry Lawler With the little beard And the entire look

Yeah Patty Ryan Kostia Kourchenko Oh my God 6,500 pounds, Moscow Glenn Linsky The Amazing Zulu, Todd Cooley, and again, that looks like

Wendell Cooley to me. I could be wrong. Tom Zink, George Wells, Joe Stark. Joe Stark was a Memphis job guy that, again, as I recall, was from somewhere around Missouri down at that end,

close to Memphis. This has a very Kansas and Missouri Central States flavor for something going on in Minnesota. There's a pudgy referee without a name here. Bill Ash, Rick Rinslow, and finally... Bill Ash was from Paris, Arkansas, by the way,

and he was famous at that point for making the boys' boots rather than wrestling. Go ahead. And like you said, and this is so interesting to me, Minnesota 84-666-6-6-6-6-6-D, Dr. Ken Ramey manager. There you go. Wow. So who was the promoter that was trying to fight Vern Gagne with guys from the Kansas City territory from 10 years before?

Dr. Ken Ramey, Reverend Pro Wrestling Manager. Reverend? Excuse me. Reveread pro wrestling manager of such greats as superstar Billy Graham and now 666 offers $1,000 to anyone who can stay in the ring just 10 minutes with 666. All right, well, that's this promotion. Again, there's like stuff from all over. So is this working so far? Are you interested in this?

I would like to see the show now. Oh, you mean the segment? Yeah, I'd love you to pull things out of your files. I don't know who this is. Cecilia Fontana. Lady Cecilia Fontana. It just looks like a woman. Cecilia, you're busting my balls.

Here's a picture of Peggy Lee being interviewed by Chris Love. Here's Chris Love early in his career with Sherry Martell in Texas. photo by Sue Carpenter Well here's some really flamboyant ones Norman's story for magazine thanks Christopher Love He was sending in his own stories obviously Christopher Love Iowa Shirley Dillon

Christopher Love here are the 50 copies of the wrestling news 123 you wanted I'm sending them in return for the story you sent that appears in that issue As far as additional copies purchased in bulk the cost is 75 cents per copy for 10 or more copies purchased at one time. Thank you again for your help. I apologize and always being behind and everything recently, Norman Kiteser.

And then it's just like almost like a pen pal thing. It's tons of like, this is an orange marker. Well, the guys in a lot of cases in those days would try to stay up with the, to stay caught up and in contact with the people that did the magazines because that was the way you got publicity to the wrestling fan base. There was no internet. If you weren't on TV in a particular market, you had to rely on the magazines,

not only the newsstand magazines, but the ones that were sold in the arenas in various places. I don't know what this is about. Let's see. There's a lot of things attached here. This is from December 23rd, 19, Burt Prennis. Per your recent letter about not getting the latest issue of the wrestling news,

I checked our files, and the only issues I can find that you ordered were number 120 in April and 121 in October. Both those issues were mailed out long ago. As far as I can determine, your previous subscription expired with issue number 24. And these are the only two issues that you purchase from us, since that time. A hundred issues ago.

Now, you know, it's interesting, too, he's writing this in 86 to Burt Prenas, a lot of the other correspondence from before this and after it is the Christopher Love. Would Norm Piteser have already known that... Well, the first time that I heard that Burt Prennis was trying to get a hold of me to book me, I didn't know who the fuck it was. And then I found out that it was Chris Love because I had known him as Queen Christopher love in the LPWA in 1990. This is almost 10 years later.

Burke Prentiss is running Nashville. He wants to get a hold of you. Who? But, you know, it changed over a period of years. Whatever the case, and because it is cheaper than writing back and forth, I have enclosed a copy of Issue 122, which certainly should square us on everything. Per your comment about rumors, I've been publishing wrestling magazines for over 20 years, and have no plans on quitting, nor did I ever tell anyone that I was.

I think that is just some more of the garbage put out there by a former editor who worked for me, who I caught trying to pull a fast one. Oh, who would that be? In any case, the magazines continue to cost, in bulk. That is for 10 or more copies of the same... That's the same thing you said before. I hope that answers all your questions. I apologize for the recent delay.

Did he do it on the same typewriter, Norman, that filled in one of the zeros or one of the O's and dropped a letter every now and in? Here's an address in, yeah, that is the one here, but this is an address in Birmingham, Alabama now, Highland Avenue South. Now here's a photo of Rick McCord who had a bow tie on. Why do I have this here? You may be asking yourself. Well, it was either in San Antonio or the Central State. states that they try to make some type of male stripper gimmick out of Rick McCord, which I don't think it fit his personality. He was a very nice, polite young man.

I have the picture here. July 6, I don't know why this is in his folder. July 6, 1987, Mr. Kiteser, thank you for your prompt response to my letter concerning the Rick McCord picture in issue 123 of the wrestling news. I am anxiously awaiting the next issue of your magazine. Sincerely, Janet Ray Banks. Sadalba, Missouri Sedalia Sedalia.

It's hard to read what she wrote here. Sedalia, that's right around Gus Karas' backyard. So yeah, this is the kind of, oh,

here's a Christopher Love envelope. Here's the, it's the laugh riot that you'll experience every time you go down last alley. Dear friends, this is June 29th,

1987. Dear friends, a big hello from Birmingham, Alabama. things here look great for a B-I-G summer. I am now working with a very competent and new wrestling organization presented by North American Sports.

And who was running Birmingham in 1987? We will be running regular shows... Besides the southeastern or continental is what I'm talking about. We will be running regular shows throughout Alabama. We premiered in Birmingham on Sunday night, June 28th. We were at the Batwell Auditorium, home of Fuller wrestling. We'd expected maybe 200 people our first show. Surprise, surprise.

We had nearly 800. Fuller sometimes doesn't do that good. Their average is 950 to 1100. Rumors about that threats were made to all boys working the show that if they showed up, they would not work for Fullers. Who cares? Fullers are not doing... He doesn't say the Fullers, just Fullers.

Fullers. Fullers are not doing that great of business now at all. Also, the supposed sale of this territory to Ron West or anyone else at this time is just a work. Totally untrue. Wasn't that about the time David Woods bought it? Not to say they... You know what? That's right.

Not to say they aren't wanting to sell and don't have anyone interested. it's just that no sale has been completed. Then on the side it says, direct all my mail to Chris Love, Milford, Iowa. It will be forwarded. Thanks. And then he has the results here of his show. And Birmingham, the Blue Infernos, beat the Duke Boys by the Squabiscuitous. Okay, who the fuck are these?

Already. The Blue Infernos, unless it was Gypsy Joe and Frank Martinez from the 60s in Memphis, That was a gimmick. Well, don't forget about the Duke boys, but also Nikki Leathers drew Larry Clark. Mike Jackson beat the Midnight Cowboy in a fabulous match. That's all in caps. The Mass Nightmares beat Ranger Ross and Dino Manelli. Butch Rhodes beat The Terminator.

Wendy Richter beat Joyce Grable. Ricky Gibson and Randy Rose, no comment. with Gypsy Joe and Joe Rossi. Holy shit, I was right about Gypsy Joe at Lee. Wow. What the, this is 1987. Okay, Gypsy Joe was even old even then, but Joey Rossi, Lynn Rossi's son, had been retired for over 10 years at that point.

I'm surprised seeing Ricky Gibson on this show, too. Well, I was, Ricky Gibson. That may have been one of the last matches he ever wrestled. if that was either right before or potentially right after the car wreck that he had? I can't remember exactly, but he was almost done at that point. Or Randy Rose turned on him in this match. Also, J.T. Southern was incredible with a win over Goliath, Atridge Street, Pincentims,

and Southern and Gibson won a 16-man two-ring battle royal. Jesus Christ! How did he talk all these guys into being on his show? He had a two-ring battle royal right away. Did it really happen? I guess that's the other question. Well, I don't remember ever hearing. Why were these people working opposite Ron Fuller at that point? Why would Adrian Street and Randy Rose...

Fuller. They've been working opposite Fullers. I think we need a backup that this actually happened. Here's a postage do envelope sent the Kitesar Publishing Company, Mankato, Minnesota, 1988. Christopher Love 904 13th Street Milford, Iowa Undeliverable

Whatever he said that Chris Love was undeliverable and it came back To the address that Chris Love had said Please send all my mail to this address January 20th 88

Enclosed this 124 Wrestling News Just want you to know I have another issue available Also a reminder There is still due $225 of his stuff I sent you in Alabama in July.

March 88, so just a few months later. Christopher Love, per your calls, your check arrived on Saturday. I tried to call you this morning and left the message. I'm sending you the magazines you wanted via UPS this morning. Since your shows are on April 8th and 9th, they should be there in plenty of time. I've, and he blocked out the word,

so I don't know exactly what it was, three boxes of 75 copies each, which totals 225 copies. The extra 25 copies should more than make up for any spoiled copies or miscounts. Your bill, $150 for 200 copies of the Wrestling News 124 at 75 cents each, would appreciate prompt payment. Thank you, Norman Kiteser. Is there any evidence that the bill was paid there? You know, he usually does have receipts.

I don't see one here. But that's one of the great things about these files. He kept everything. This is going to be like the, the Pfeffer collection at Notre Dame. Instead of it's going to be the last collection under Nutter Dome. Well, speaking of Nutter Dome, any closing thoughts on this? Christopher Love, Bert Prentice, did this work? Should we do this again?

What do you think? Well, I don't think we'll do it again with Byrd. I think we've plumbed that well. But, yes, we should open up those files every now and then and see who the deadbeats were. Actually, you know, I just follow up real quick. March 21st, 1988 from Christopher Love, Grattinger, Iowa.

Dear Norman, received the latest issue of the wrestling news. It was the best. Four exclamation points. Thanks for remembering me. I had no idea that you had not gotten paid for the magazines you sent to me in Birmingham. My roommate was to pay you

way last August after we sold them. But there were also a lot of things he didn't pay, so I guess I'm not really that's surprised. At any rate, Norman, here is a money order for $225. I'm sorry for any confusion. If you would like to send me 200 magazines, I will gladly sell them for you. Is my cost still 75 cents? Please enclose an invoice. If you wish not to send them, I understand. And then he wrote in hand, this is typed out, with an arrow where it says please and close an invoice. Send them soon.

I am shows 4-8 in St. James, 49 in Pupstone with zinc. So, Burt Prentice was making some big moves in 88 with Tom Zink, apparently. But there it is. I think now we'll travel through time

mercifully. Hopefully this was a little bit interesting to everyone. I'll start revving up the motor. All right, Jim, you know what time that is. Good Lord, it sounds like rush hour at romper room. It's time to romp on, to move on before we get to more contemporary wrestling, a quick classic wrestling topic.

From the files, I've gone to the files, and I've pulled something from the files. This is the Brian Hildebrand file. Oh, no. I have a letter here. It's not dated. Jim, which would be to Jim Melby. Here are some pictures. Now, wait, wait, wait, you must explain to the news.

listeners in the audience, the wrestling news files is what you're digging into, that you have purchased and curated there from the various estates of Norm Kiteser and all the rest of these folks. And this is a file, is this a file of pictures that Brian Hilderbrand has sent in as a photographer or of himself as a manager or talent? This is the correspondence file. So any of the photos he sent in, some would be filed away, someone may be in the unfiled area. Someone may be in the unfiled area, but this is specifically correspondence. Jim. Here are some pictures from Steve Curtis of

Lawler versus Bach from Louisville, Kentucky. No DQ. Result? Reflect? Ref gets knockout. Bach drops Lawler groin first on top rope and pins him with feet on rope. By the way, two ends he puts in pins. I find interesting. Had an opportunity to talk the Bach, three hours.

It was great. He speaks very highly of you. Take care, Brian. Do you know why? That was the night. Why weren't you shooting in Louisville? Because I was already managing. That was that Brian came down to spend some period of time. I can't remember if it was five days or a week or whatever on the road with me in Memphis.

And in Louisville, the main event was Lawler and Bach Winkle. and that's the night that I ripped I want to say I was managing the Galaxians that would have been early 1983 so that makes sense with Lawler and Bach Winkle because I was managing the Galaxians

against Cowboy Jim Dalton and one of the other baby faces and Dalton had just got there and I didn't know that he had actual blank pistols as part of his cowboy gimmick, and when they introduced him,

he was going to fire two of them off in the air, right? And I've got my back turned talking to it as Danny Davis and Ken Wayne, the Galaxians. And all of a sudden, this motherfucker fires those guns off and I dove out of the ring for a shoot and ripped the seat out of my pants from asshole to appetite,

all the way the whole crotch out on the way down and had my head covered up. And fucking Danny jumped down next to me and said, Stand up straight. Your pants are ripped. The point is, well, here's where I was going with this, is Brian Hilderbrand took a picture of Nick Bokwinkle

pointing at my ripped out seat of my pants and laughing at them at the days in when we dropped him off at night after the matches. And it says here that he was talking to Bock Winkle for three hours. Were you there with him? I don't know if it was three whole hours, but yeah, we rode Nick over to the, hotel and that's probably stopped and got something to eat with him.

Because a couple of times when Bach Winkle came in, I've talked about it. I was able to have dinner with it one night at the Kingfish. Not the Amos Nandy character, but the restaurant. You know, and we assume everyone knows who Brian Hildebrand is. Brian Hilderbrand was referee Mark Curtis, first in Smoky Mountain wrestling. He was a manager on the Indies before that trained as a wrestler, but famous as a referee, Mark Curtis and Smokey Mountain, and then in WCW, maybe the most popular referee, really when you think about it, maybe those popular referee of a long period of time,

he was really, the fans got behind him. Yeah, not only with the fans, but with the boys. All the boys love Brian too. And, of course, he was Mark Curtis. He was never Brian Hildebrand. He was Mark Curtis. I think his middle name was Curtis, and he said he was always a Mark. So that's how he got the name.

It says here the pictures were from Steve Curtis. I think, I don't know whether he, that's another assumed name, because he took the pictures, I think I have some that he took that night of me and my guys. But I don't know why he was using Steve Curtis as a photographer unless that may be a period of time where he was doing a lot of independent managing in West Virginia and eastern or western Pennsylvania. And he may not have wanted Mark Curtis to be seen in a byline as a photographer. I have a letter here to Brian Hildebrand from Jim Melby, December 18th, 1979. Hi, I just thought I would drop you a few quick lines and closes a copy of Wrestling News No. 57 and a check for your three stories.

I hope you like the way they turned out. I will be using your story on the Huntington card and the third issue of Ring. please read over the enclosed form letter and contracts, sincerely Jim Melby, and attached as a receipt, a check for $50 to Brian Hildebrand from Pro Wrestling Enterprises. And that was top pay for Norman and Jim back in those days, so they must have been impressed with Brian's stuff.

How did that compare? You were shooting for all the different magazines. Now, again, you kind of got yourself into a nice position of leverage, but not counting Japanese magazines, the American magazines, and there were still a lot at that point, how did they pay? And I can't speak for all of them,

because even with my wide reach, with the wrestling news magazine, at first it was just a mere pittance, and then I started, you know, Norman would say, can you please shoot a special color slide for me for a center fold or a cover or whatever, blah, blah, blah.

but if you got a check for more than $50 or $100 at any one time for a number of things from them, that was significant money. With London Publishing and Bill Aptor's magazines, they had different deals with the photographers, as I've mentioned in the past, sometimes they would just pay a photographer a flat fee to go to, if it was Bill Otten was in Florida, well, go up to the Omni and shoot, and just send us all the film and we're going to pay you X amount of dollars for this trip. But since I was using them for the programs here, for the concession stands here for multiple purposes,

Bill would just have me send stuff either that he wanted specifically or that he thought, I thought that they would be able to use. And if they used the prints, they sent me a check. So they never got my negatives or whatever. but that was you know is that still maybe twice as much I think I got 250 bucks

for shooting a color centerfold of Lawler for Pro Wrestling Illustrated in 1982 that you know but it still wasn't ridiculous money and what about the Japanese magazines well the Japanese magazines I might not make as much from them as I did from

from actors but it was more per picture I just I'd send I knew who they liked and I would send those to Koichi Yoshizawa if the funks came through or pictures of guys with belts or anybody that

had been to Japan before was familiar to the Japanese audience I just sent him a stack of prints and they'd send back checks for not only the magazines that they were in but checks for two or three hundred dollars and this was 1979,

1980, 81 so that wasn't bad I have a letter here from Jim Melby to Brian Hildebrand February 5th, 1980. Dear Brian, hi, it was good hearing from you. I'm returning your story on Benello and Scott. I've never heard of these guys. I doubt if they would be of interest to my readers. Oh, my God. Indirectly, Terry Justice is doing some stuff for Eddie Gilbert for Bill Apter.

He called to explain to me that Eddie had given Apter permission to reprint stuff from the club calendar. Yes, I did see Darla in Kansas City. We had a few... Darla Stags was one of the smart fans in Kansas City, one of the five or six of them back in those days. We had a few drinks with some of the wrestlers and some fans, and you had better believe that I'm all set to taxi down that terminal in Atlanta.

Sincerely, Jim Melby, I'm not exactly sure there. I think they were talking about the Atlanta upcoming wrestling fans. International Association Convention, that would have been the summer of 1980. Again, we don't want to go too long with this. This is something we could always return to, but going a little forward in the folder here, I have an envelope postmarked November 30th, 1983, to area close-ups. Care of the Wrestling News from Brian Hildebrand, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Mount Troy Road. Mountain State Wrestling run shows in Morgantown and Terra Alta, West Virginia.

Recognized champions, West Virginia champion, J.W. Snake Man Hawk, the World Junior Heavyweight champion, Zoltan the Great. That's Kenny Jugan. And the West Virginia tag team champions are Bill Berger and Buckwheat Jackson. The big news here is the feud between manager Greg Punk Rock Mason and Mark Curtis. And at this point, Curtis has two S-Zs. at the end of it. Yes.

Curtis refereed a few shows, and Mason tried to take a few shots at the self-proclaimed master of disaster, who is now hearing cheers as he feuds with the manager. Curtis is teamed with Mike Savilly and Buckwheat Jackson to get at Mason and his protege Zoltan and Hawk. Other wrestlers in the area? Buddy Donovan, the Beast,

The bulk. The bulk, yes. He was a giant fat guy. You never would have guessed. Bob Beecher and Rusty King of Payne Jones. That's all the news for now. Sincerely, Brian C. Hildebrand. And that was actually, that was his,

Brian Curtis Hildebrand was his full name. And he also sent along the results for the Cardin Altoona for World Championship Wrestling November 3rd, 83, Les Thatcher beat Joe Lightfoot, Ron Garvin, over Paul Ellering by DQ, Road Warriors over Wrestling 2 and Pez Watley, Brett Wayne over Jake the Snake Roberts by DQ, and the main event in a cage.

Tommy Rich beat Buzz Sawyer, reported to be a sellout. Promoter Gene Dargan is doing great in Pennsylvania with WCW wrestlers Next card, 1130 in Johnstown. Home of the flood. That was Johnstown, Pennsylvania. That old building was probably my least favorite facility anywhere in a state of Pennsylvania.

What a dump. And you could see where that town could be flooded real fucking easy with a catastrophe like that. That's one of the things I love about the Norm Kiteser magazines, especially from that, period, it's the only look you get in a lot of cases of some of the smaller, not even territories, but you want to talk outlaw groups. Yeah. Guys running shows with skinny wrestlers and wrestlers you haven't seen in a while and people, you don't know who the hell they are, but there's more reports of that stuff in those

magazines. I mean, you read about Randy Savage in there before you read about him anywhere else. Well, and see, that was because Norman, for a lot of that time with the wrestling news, Ring wrestling was a different thing, and later on he got newsstand distribution, but the wrestling news was primarily sold in the arenas by the promoters. And so he tried to cover as much as he could because if you didn't have any of the local guys, and like even then, though, you can only go so far, like Bonello and Scott, right? We're not exactly household names, but the more he covered, the more promoters would want to get,

Well, send me 50 of your magazines so I can sell them at the matches. And he would give the wholesale price to the promoter and then blah, blah, blah. That's why that I started doing my own magazine in the Memphis territory because originally he sent magazines to Pat Malone and Christine Jareth, the wrestling news. And I started sending pictures and stories for them so that the Memphis fans would want to buy those magazines in the arena. but then gradually it became well there's only you know

four or five stories of the Memphis guys in this particular wrestling news because he's got to cover you know Atlanta in this territory and that territory so I started doing a little 16 page magazine championship wrestling magazine that he printed for me and it was all Memphis guys

and I wrote stories took the pictures but then after the first three of them, he said, well, now everybody's buying your magazine, they're selling out, and nobody's buying the wrestling news, so how about for the same price, I'll print you God damn, what was it? It was it a 48-page magazine or whatever with all of the

wrestling news advertising in it, and if you'll just sell those, so that way I don't lose my advertising customers. Okay, so that he doubled the size of the magazine and only put in half again, you know, as many pages as ads, so I had all kinds of space to fill up now for nothing, extra. But that was the deal as if he couldn't sell in the newsstands, he had to cover all of the territories that he could, so the promoters would buy the magazines and sell them into matches.

Well, Jim, we will close this edition of From the Files with this final thing here, because I clarify something earlier. typed letter from Brian C. Hildebrand, May 1st, 1983, Dear Jim, once again Jim Melby, as always, I hope this letter finds you in the best of health, mind and spirits. And Brian still at his spelling issues even then. In other words, I hope that you will be taxiing down the runway into the open space of the mind any day now.

My, my, what college does to a person. Sorry that I haven't written sooner, but school is a bitch. And now I'm finished with it for another year. So now I can sit back and get some articles written and get it sent out. Listen, when I graduate, if I graduate, do you know of any promotion that needs anyone for anything? I mean that as long as I've been in the business, I've done just about everything except Suck Barnett,

who he miss spells the name of him. He adds an E at the end. Is there any positions opening up in the magazine? Keep your ears open, please. I might have an opportunity to be the commentator for the ESPN Pafo show. Huh. Oh, my God. But I'm afraid of being blackballed from the rest of the wrestling world.

Let me stop there for a second, because this is May 83. I had never heard any rumors or anything about the Pafos getting ESPN. Well, and that's what jumped out at me. And because Brian was working with the outlaw promotions, the early independence in West Virginia, there really was no territory except Crockett shows in West Virginia at that point. And, you know, Western Pennsylvania, Johnstown, Pittsburgh, etc. A lot of those guys would go to work for the Pafos ICW, even if only to do jobs on T's. or just, you know, whatever. So there was some back and forth.

I don't know that there was any ever, any legitimate chance or close chance or even talks have not been uncovered between the Pafos. And I'm telling you, folks, and again, I love territory wrestling, but their television show was low budget. I don't see how that ever would have been,

possible at that stage of the game. They were almost ready to go out of business, but was Angelo telling people that he talked to somebody, or did he talk to somebody? And he was just telling him his part of the conversation to get people

to think, you know, hang on, we got something big coming. That might be possible. Let me go back to this letter from Brian Hildebrand May 1, 1983. I've been roughing for the WAA occasionally, but I have to lay off for the summer due to me being in PGH. Pittsburgh.

And plus the fact that I broke my foot moving back. And guess what Brewers in his infinite wisdom has me booked for a number of dates in Indiana? What's even funnier is that he won't give me his number. So how am I supposed to get a hold of him? I called Colt to tell to brew what my condition is. And that would have been Bobby Colt, who at the time Bruiser was using as his top heel, because they were about to go out of business, and Bobby Colt knew Brian from the Indies. I don't know. I still think I'm going to get heat.

So what's up with you? Done any more traveling to any exotic wrestling areas? Do me a favor. If you see Peggy Lee anywhere down the road, give her my regards. I have included to you the mighty of all. editors, a story for any one of your magnanimous. I've been listening to Paul Ellering too much. Publications. I've got a lot of stuff from the WWA, so you won't have to worry about that area for a while. Well, it's about the time that I get back to what we call work here so I can dream up a couple more stories. Take care and keep in touch. Brian, and then in parentheses,

Curtis, Steve Cutus, you see, I can't even spell my alias right. P.S., why don't you come on down the Pittsburgh some weekend. It would be great to see you again. And there it is. That was, Brian was always wanting to get in the business, anything that he, when he would come down and go on a road with me. He did it twice in Memphis when I started and then,

you know, later on toward the end of the run, He spent a week down there shooting pictures with us in Louisiana when I moved there. And then, you know, when I started working for Crockett, we went to Pittsburgh regularly. So I've told the stories about when Brian's dad was a Pittsburgh cop. And he would drive, you know, me and Bubba or me and the Midnight Express to the building, you know, from the airport hotel and then back. And we'd eat at the Eaton Park. and goddamn coming out of the civic arena one night it was me and Bubba and Brian and his dad was driving

and the people swarmed the car and his dad just got out with that fucking his police gun and held it up over his head like oh god damn it oh shit people fucking scattered and climbed lamp posts and everything and off we went his dad was such a nice guy yeah but old reage but he was He was a licensed to kill kind of individual up here in Pittsburgh. But, yeah, Brian always wanted to be into business, and he did everything, literally everything, as he said.

Yeah, you see, there's a couple of interesting things there. One is, I think a lot of people, and I did for a long time, too, I didn't, you know, think about it too much. When you hear the stories about Dominic Danucci's school, you always hear Cactus Jack and Shane Douglas and Brian Hildebrand, almost like they came up together. He was already there for a long time. Yeah. He had been doing, I mean, he was one of the trainers, wasn't he? Yeah, because, well, I mean, well, think about it. You've seen pictures of Mick, or video of Mick Foley's first match in the WWF as a TV jobber.

What was that, 85, 86 with the Bulldogs? 86 or early 87, but probably 86, I think. Well, yeah, that's when Mick was just breaking in. Brian had been trained by Dominic. As you saw those letters there, he'd been since the late 70s. when I met him at the 79 WFIA convention in Memphis he had already been wrestling and managing on these little independent shows he had pictures of him the incredible bulk guy was like

5 foot 2 and 400 pounds and the exact opposite he and Brian standing next to each other look like the number 10 and you know he had already been doing it so yeah he was one of the guys and he knew he wasn't going to be a full-time wrestler in any major promotion but he did it because he loved it, and he kept going to the school so he could work out with all the guys as they came through and came up and everything. So this letter is 1983. He's, you know, asking for any help he can get from Jim Elby or the wrestling news in terms of a job anywhere in wrestling doing anything other than sucking Barnett. It's interesting, and even in 83, people behind the scenes were making jokes and writing about that.

Oh, they were doing that in the 73, but go ahead. But you would end up hiring him with Smilky Man Wrestling in 92. And he probably didn't think of it. Well, who knows what he thought? I was going to say he probably didn't think of it as his big break, but it ended up being his big break. That's a long time from 1983. What do you remember about when you hired him? I mean, was it immediate?

I'll drop everything and be there. Oh, yeah. Well, it wasn't an immediate because I wasn't just giving him like a deadline of next Friday. And see, remember, he had still kept doing photography all through the 80s for a variety of the magazines. He was also managing and working on independence. There's tape out there of me and Stan Lane against Mark Curtis and Jerry Lawler on one of Dennis's shows in Cherry Hill, New Jersey from 1991. And he managed bad company. Paul Diamond and Pat Tanaka against the midnight in 89 in that show in Ohio when we were on

break from WCW. So he had still been doing everything he could around a wrestling business. And finally, when I knew that we were moving forward with Smoky Mountain Wrestling, I called him and I said, hey, for the first three months we're going to do a weekend where we do a TV taping and then a couple spot shows because guys are in town. And then we're going to try to do a bigger schedule, but you'd have to move to Knoxville. He said, no worries. and at first his dad came down with him on those first weekends

because his dad was his number one fan and videotaped all of his matches and everything so his dad and he came down for the weekend trips and then he scouted out places to live and when we were ready to go not full time every day of the week but fuller time he was he already was able to move down Well, there it is. Brian Hildebrand from the files, referee

Mark Curtis. And we'll definitely do this again, From the Files, but that was a classic wrestling break. All right, well, Jim, let's do a little From the Files. Uh-oh. I got a bunch of papers here. Let me move this. Let me move this.

Oh, did I hit the wrong thing? And then it bounced off this. I'm still connected. Let me see what I have here. This is the Dave Meltzer file. Let's see. Oh, boy. now from the wrestling news archives.

From the wrestling news archives, for instance, this goes back pretty far. October 3rd, 1982, Dear Mr. Kiteser, I apologize for the paper noise, Jay sent everyone at home, I'm enclosing a check for $16, which you can forward to your subscription department

to extend my subscription for another year to the Wrestling News Wrestling Magazine. When he told Norman he could forward it to his subscription department, that means Norman would put it in drawer. That's very true. Thank you for listing my name in your recent magazine per videotape swapping. Although I haven't heard from anyone from Japan, I have made some new contacts in the U.S.

By the way, I hope you could list once again that I would like to trade VHS mode videotapes with fans in Japan, St. Louis, Texas, and Louisiana. Right now I'm receiving weekly tapes from WWF, both shows, Florida, one show, Georgia both shows, Mid-Atlantic both shows, and AWA One Show, and can trade any of those shows with anyone who contacts me. As I wrote you earlier, I will be starting a bulletin in January 1983, and I'd like to hear from people who are interested in being correspondents. you have my name, address, etc., with an application on file. By the way, I've noticed your series on the various title histories in the magazine. I have a very complete records of the U.S. title recognized here in the Bay Area dating back to the mid-60s through 1981.

I don't know if you're interested, seeing as the title was dropped when Roy Shire stopped promoting, but I could do a very complete story on it if you're interested. The actual belt, by the way, was the oldest in existence as the same belt which was originally worn by Vern Gagne, called the US TV title.

In the 1950s. That's the same sentence. In the 1950s was the same belt that Shires recognized throughout the 60s and 70s. I don't have photos of the guys with the belts. So with the story,

however, most of the champions are internationally known competitors Bill Watts, Fritz van Eric, Patterson, Stevens, Mosca, Morocco, Lonnie Main, My Via, Dusty Roads. So I'm sure you have shots of most of them on file. Dave is trying to spend this much time to pitch and sell Norm Kiteser on him writing an article about a defunct promotion that Norman Kiteser probably wouldn't pay more than $15 for to begin with. But there was no way for Norman to sell any magazines. San Francisco for the Roy Shire promotion because it was already out of business. And that's why, as we've talked about, Norman wanted to put articles in his magazine about the

different territories that were active that would buy magazines from him. Sincerely, Dave Meltzer, it's actually stamped David Meltzer with his address in San Jose, but he wrote Dave above David. P.S., I also have complete records from 67 to 80 of our World Tag title. And I have a response here from Jim Melby, November 3, 82. Dear Dave, hi, I would be very interested in publishing a story on the old U.S. Heavyweight Championship.

I'm sure we have the photos in our files of the resters involved for illustration purposes. There are some things I need from you first. Please read over the enclosed contract and letter of explanation. Also, I need your Social Security number for pay purposes, if you decide to submit the story, please make sure it's typed and double-spaced. Thanks, Jim Mill.

You know, they did take your Social Security number, but the thing is, nobody ever made more than $600 from that company in the course of one calendar year, so you never actually had to report it on your taxes. Well, from January 14th, I have Dave's signed contract here. Dear Norman Enclosed is a debut issue of our publication Wrestling Observer Or I should say Observor O-B-S-E-R-V-O-R

I've filled out the application I'll be putting out a monthly publication but would like to warn you ahead of time that our publication date is the 20th of each month this issue is coming out early so to speak just for future reference The price is $150 per copy or $5 for four issues.

As the bulletin gets more popular, I will actually lower the price. But for the next four issues, the price will stay at this rate. This is why I'm only accepting subscriptions up to four issues. I wasn't particularly satisfied with this issue, although I do feel it's a damn good debut issue. Things will definitely pick up in the next issue, and coincidentally. Incidentally, I'm pretty sure by April that this will be the best bulletin going. Wait, do you see where we are in 40 years? Thanks for your help.

Yours in Wrestling. Dave Meltzer, editor. And I have a signed contract here for... So he's always been humble. I guess you can look at it that way. I guess so. What is a lot of stuff here? There's a lot here, more than I thought would be here.

So bear with me for a moment. writing to pitch stories. Did you ever have to do that? No. Basically, the idea, as I said, was that Norm Kaiser sold all the magazines to the promotions who would then turn around

and resell them in the arenas. So the more content there was on the Memphis guys, the more that they would sell in the Memphis territory. That's why Norman did different additions. there would be the main wraparound of the magazine

that would have some stories that everybody would get, but there would be the NWA East edition where it was primarily for the NWA territories in the east or NWA West was out in Texas or the AWA edition. He even did a stranglehold edition for Bruiser's WWA

just in the state of Indiana, maybe Chicago. But I would just, when I got some pictures or had an idea to write a story on one of the top guys in the territory or somebody new coming in, I'd just write it, put the pictures in, and send it to him. And he'd run it because Taney told him

to run shit about the wrestlers in the territory so she could sell more books. I never pitched anything. All right, I have another letter here. This is after that first one I read back from Jim Melby, November 30th, 1982 from Meltzer. Dear Jim, received your letter the other day. Thanks for the prompt reply.

Also, much thanks for your listings for the awards. I'll keep them in the strictest of confidence, Jim Melby sent in his submission for the Observer Awards. I'll be sending you our yearbook in late January. I'm pretty excited about putting together a bulletin once again. That's fine about sending programs in exchange for it. One more thing. If you ever want to do stories concerning activities in Japan,

I'm sure I could do a good job in that area. I have traveled there in the past and have a decent knowledge of the language. And from this area, I do receive videotapes of all the TV shows and many clippings and magazines through friends in that country. I don't know how regularly you receive photos

from Coichi and any of the others, but I can write stories about the various feuds and matches from that area. I think that an interesting article concerned the feud between Inoki and Fujianami versus Russia-Kamora, Anna Mojuchi, and Isamu Taranashi. Lots of interesting twists and a very wild bout, not to mention good crowds, have resulted from that. Aside from that, the only real major things going on are the tag tournaments, and I'm sure you're aware of that.

I also heard that Anoki and Shinma had bought out LaBelle's promotion in Los Angeles, Oh, good Lord. But have yet to hear if they are promoting any shows or anything else, I am sure you know more about that situation than I do. Please keep in touch, Dave Meltzer. Some things never change, do they? That's one of the earliest, I guess, examples of Dave trying to pitch his expertise in Japanese wrestling. I mean, there weren't a lot of people in America.

I would have to think until videotapes that could monitor what was happening there properly. Yeah, well, and also, I wonder how many issues of, of the wrestling news that Norm Kiteser was selling over in Japan. But that, you know, that's the thing is that the wrestling news magazine covered a variety of eclectic things that the London publishing, the Bill After magazines, didn't cover because Apter and under instructions from, you know, the corporate hierarchy, they wanted to put on the cover the NWA champion or Bruno,

or masquerous or somebody national that was going to sell magazines or blood sometimes or whatever and most of the articles were the big geographic territories with the major population centers

WWF, AWA, Georgia because of TBS, etc. And so Norman filled a niche that the newsstand magazines didn't fill that he would cover the, there'd be something from Amarillo, for heaven's sake, you know, and they were underrepresented.

Well, here's a letter from Norman Kiteser to Dave Meltzer, as it says here, David Meltzer, July 21st, 1987. I have written to you several times, along with the complimentary copies of the wrestling news I've been sending you, but I have not heard from you in over a year now. Well, so Dave was all fucking sweetness and light, son, shine lollipops, rainbows, and waterfalls when he was trying to get printed, but now a few years later, he don't want to hear from his buddy Norman. Possibly the address I had was wrong, as I got a notice from the post office today that

the last issue of the wrestling news that I sent you was forwarded to the address I am sending this letter to. At one time, when I started to curtail the publishing schedule of the wrestling news, I sent you payment to make sure that you continued to send me your newsletter. That was over two years ago. At that time, you wrote me that I didn't need to send you payment because you would continue to send me the newsletter because my plugs in the wrestling news are what helped you get it started in the first place.

And because I was continuing to give you free advertisements in it. I guess you changed your mind, which I can understand. But I have written to you several times saying I would like to be a paid subscriber and receiving no reply. Nor am I even sure I have your correct address at this time. Whatever the case, I am in hopes that this will reach you, and I've included a postage paid envelope so that you can write me back and let me know the cost of getting to be a paid subscriber to your newsletter.

Thank you, Norman Kiteser. Oh, man, here you can't even fucking back out. out of it because I didn't send a stamp. Here's a stamp self-addressed envelope. Well, I wonder what happened to drive a rift into their relationship. It appears someone has made a mistake, too, in the middle of the Meltzer file of a bunch of pictures of Sam Menaker. Let me put these. Someone filed wrong before it got to me, ladies and gentlemen, going through a bunch of these papers here as they pop up. November 4th, 1985, Dear Dave, Below is a copy of your advertisement as it will appear in the wrestling news.

number 120. Please let us know right away if you want any changes in the wording of it. Otherwise, it will go in just this way. Also, always let us know if you want any changes in the future issues for your advertisement other than updating as far as new material received. And then it has his plug here. And at that time, what was it? Dave Meltzer, Turlock, California, sent us four issues of his wrestling observer newsletter during the past two months. He doesn't promise an exact schedule, but it appears that it comes out about twice a month. Each of these four newsletters contain eight letters-sized pages packed with news, results, inside information, and opinions on the major promotions. Dave charges $5 for a four-issue subscription.

I thought he was going to lower that price when it took off. He also asks that we mentioned that he has videotapes, and he charges $2 for a copy of his 50-page VHS tape listing of more than 500 hours of main event matches. You know, you forget about that, the idea that it wasn't as simple as, hey, you have a tape, bottle of tape, let's trade. Sometimes it was, but you had to get catalogs, you had to look through things,

you had to have a conversation to pick out what you wanted. Someone wanted a compilation tape. that was a big pain in the ass? Oh, a pain in the ass. Any thoughts on any of this? Yes, it was a pain in the ass. That's why Weasel Dooley was doing all of my duplication at that point. I was on the road.

He was calling it down into what I needed to see and sending it off to me at that point. A lot of interviews from the AWA program. But poor Dave, it seems that he's left a trail of broken relationships trips everywhere he goes. Here's a checkmail to Dave Meltzer for $50. December 26, 1987, right after Christmas, Campbell, California, from Norman Kiteser. Above check is for a 50-issue subscription to your newsletter.

I haven't received an issue since last month. So I assume I am off... He was cutting this son of a bitch off right. He said no grace period whatsoever. So I assume I am off your accomplice. Again. I want to get the newsletter, so I am subscribing. Encloses a copy of my latest issue number 124 with your free ad in it. Also a copy of the ad I plan to run in issue 125, which I am working on now.

And there's a check for $50, a copy of it. What of no good. He's running free ads for Dave and having to send checks to subscribe for a year because Dave won't send him his shit. And it appears this right here is this the U.S. title story? Here's a letter from Dave Meltzer to Jim Melby, February 11th, 1983. Dear Jim, got your letter last week and always interesting hearing from you. Agree with most of your comments, particularly about the Japanese wrestling. I enjoy Anoki's group, particularly the junior heavies, the best also. And noki's success at the box office shows also.

These are written really poorly. Really, he has by far a better group of Japanese wrestlers in his stable, which is the main difference as both groups books similar number of quality Americans. As I think I told you, I'm familiar with the Georgia problems, but I don't know the reason. I do know people who see them live don't seem to like the promotion nearly as well as the people from out here who only know of them through the cable. To the fans out here, it seems the Georgia promotion is like the ideal promotion, so to speak. Other things may be good, but nothing can compare with Georgia. Although I don't know the reasons, I will assume that you're right in saying, if they live there, they wouldn't hold the same opinion. Let's stop there for a second because Georgia TV was on cable and you could see it in different places.

This is 1983, February 83. This was really the beginning years of world championship wrestling being seen nationwide. People in other places thought it was great because it was different than their wrestling. At the same time, people in Georgia were rejecting it. Well, that's true. And with a lot of places where they got over in the Sheik's old territory, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, not only had, as we've talked about many times, that had been dead and the Sheik had stopped running,

but the product the last few years of his promotion was just horrible in ring. Everybody was 80 years old. Or, you know, let's face it, Vern had major names and stars, but they were all old. And he didn't have a lot of action in his territory because it had been built that way and he didn't have competition. But when they see the Freebirds in Georgia, all this new young talent and an NWA style, promotion with a ring that wasn't made out of concrete and guys taking bumps and cutting these wild promos that appealed to Roy Shire's promotion had gone out of business a couple

years before in Northern California and it had been on its ass for a couple years before that so where there wasn't a strong promotion or a strong youthful promotion the Georgia TV was the thing everybody had to see but in the state of Georgia where they had not only been used to that style and that method of presentation but every major

name in the NWA had been in there regularly for the previous 10 years they were harder to fucking please and Oli's booking at that time that 1983 period guys were going to Japan and he'd just

fucking they'd be off and then they'd come back. It was kind of like Tony Kahn's booking. You'd see them, and then you wouldn't see them, and things wouldn't make sense, and phantom title changes, and, well, the road warriors are here, but goddamn, last month,

it was a completely different team, and somebody else was champion, and it just, it was a mess in Georgia where they had been watching it weekly and going to the live matches weekly for years and years and years. That was the summer, we went to Georgia from Tennessee,

me and Dundee and the Georgia wrestling superstars because the state of Georgia, every town was on its ass. Columbus, Macon, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Augusta, Georgia. Nothing was drawn because they'd burn it out and it didn't make sense.

Well, back to this letter from day, February 11, 1983, most people who get videos from everywhere seem to say that Memphis has the best TV show. I know they get incredible ratings, but I never liked the show. It was always a little too uncontrolled for my taste. Uncontrolled for my taste.

They certainly get more mileage out of their talent than any other group I've seen. My favorite show is also Mid-South, which combined an interesting and somewhat unpredictable hour with at least some first-rate wrestling, although I'm disappointed in their hero side, with staggerly and two. Their hero side. Let's remember, ladies gentlemen, Dave was a stone cold mark at one point, didn't even know

the lingo. You know, Dave has always pointed to this example that when he used to have a problem and when you guys would even try to talk about it about Dave's changing thoughts. on all this, he would point out that there were wrestlers who hated Memphis wrestling, that they thought it was Lou Thess or who, who did he say, Harley or Thess, I forget who it was, guys who all ended up working there, Thess ended up opening a promotion at Nashville, but it was like guys looked down on Memphis wrestling. This is the first time I've ever read Dave say he looked down on Memphis wrestling.

Well, see, it always comes back to what Dave felt, and then Dave tried to find people that agreed with the way that he felt. but the guys looked down on the Tennessee territory more because of the payoffs, especially because Nick Goulis had set that precedent, but Jerry Jarrett wasn't going to go hungry at the expense of taking care of a wrestler. And the guys didn't mind working there

except for a Lou Thess who had somewhat, you know, high standards. But it was the money, not the style of the wrestling. And Dave didn't get that. They would knock it just because they didn't want to come out and say, well, I didn't make any money there. They'd say, ah, it's a bunch of bullshit. Yeah, and I didn't make any money doing bullshit. Other people made money doing bullshit, so they must be better than I am.

And by the way, for the record, attached to this letter, which was a little more, too. A copy of the check sent to Dave Meltzer San Jose for the U.S. title history used in number 93. How much did he make for that article? $35. Okay. I said 15, I was undercutting it. I'm quite interested in how WWF draws next month in L.A. AWA may get a good crowd on March 5th in San Francisco.

I've heard a decent amount of comment about Lawler, plus Hogan v. Ventura has been very well promoted. Here's my social security number. I'll be sending you my bulletin. What is that? Can you read that? I am not going to do that. That is not allowed.

I'd be most interested in programs from Mid-South with Southwest and any AWA programs that aren't sold in this area also of interest. Don't know your publication frequency, but we often have shows every six weeks, so I may not see all your issues of the AWA program. I really enjoyed the Japanese wrestling the most because it was so unique.

I treated in such a high-class manner etc. I have tired of Abdullah and Singh's antics, although at first they were great. Sometimes, when they don't have good Americans, Baba's show is just tough to watch because it doesn't have the first-rate Japanese wrestlers. And Noki's Japanese villains make his show almost never tiresome, although they abuse that double countout ending a little too much. That's all for now, keep in touch, Dave Meltzer. You know, the Japanese TV shows in 19, I first started seeing them 1980.

80, 81, 82, 83, they were incredible. And we've talked about you saw not only the best Americans, which Baba had the best Americans, and then his top Japanese two or three guys were okay, and then it dropped. Or Inoki was stuck with only having mostly WWF guys, but he also brought in the Mark Rockos and the guys from England and it had more international flavor. It was a great show to watch wrestling matches and you got to see,

like we never got to see goddamn Ricky Steamboat on television in Kentucky, but we got to see it on tape from Japan or Nick Bockwinkle or the Funk Brothers or every top American and the matches were good to great but when I was watching

I was like, this great, I'm getting to see I liked obviously Tiger Mask was a thing and Dynamite Kid was crazy but as far as the Japanese talent Inoki was good we knew Baba you know was past it at that point

and nokey had an aura about him and his guys seemed like they wrestled harder but there was an element of interchangeability and there was also no promo no interviews. So you liked being able to see the American wrestlers

and the top stars that you hoped one day you'd get to see live or in your own territory and wow, this match. You know, Dory versus Terry going 56 minutes. That was a curiosity that you enjoyed seeing, but... Didn't live up to the hype. When you saw the pictures and heard they wrestled each other, I don't know what I expected when I eventually saw that years after the fact,

but it wasn't the match I saw. Well, and they had to put Dory over, even though Terry was the more exciting at that point, because seniority. Dory was the more well-respected guy because he came first. But point being, you got to see all that stuff, but it didn't replace Memphis wrestling or Mid-South wrestling or Mid-Atlantic wrestling where you'd have a Rick Flair or Jerry Lawler or a junkyard dog or fucking whoever coming out and cutting promos and the personal issues and the angles and the fuck finishes to be. build a stipulations. That was what I liked about wrestling. And then, you know, when you watch the Japanese tapes, which I still have every single one,

I have a tape of every Baba and Anoki show from 1980 through 1992 or so. The matches were great, but you also, you wanted to, I always liked seeing the American guys go against people you never got to see them work with. That, you know, Nick, Bokwinkle wrestle some other great talent that only wrestled for Crockett never went to work for Vern or whatever.

That was the appeal of the, and also Japanese wrestling is the only place then anywhere you got to see main event arena matches, which was wild and off the charts as far as holy mackerel, look what they're doing. So there was an appeal to it, but at no time did I or anybody that was watching or viewing it, me, Norman Dooley, or whoever think that that program or that promotion could replace Memphis wrestling in Memphis or the Crockett's in the Carolinas or whatever, it was a curiosity from Japan that was cool to watch on video, but it wouldn't fly here and nobody ever thought that, except Dave. Well, this is going to be the end of part one of from the files, Dave Meltzer, because I have a long, long back and forth here I have found.

And he do love to type, don't he? Well, this is from 1984. It's pages and Norm Kiteser's reply of him having issues with Norm Kiteser's reporting and when he's reading in someone else's publication. So we'll get to that next time on for the files. From the files. What a tease. Dave's first foray into antisocial behavior.

All right, Jim, well, as we begin to wrap up this episode, we'll wrap up after this. As your attention begins to wane. It's time for From the Files. Uh-oh. This is part two of the Dave Meltzer one. It could be a multi-part, but we're going to stop at two for at least now.

This is a long letter, and I got a long reply. And by the way, the From the Files segment for the folks who haven't tuned in recently, Brian is going through the wrestling news files of Norman Kiteser and Jim Melby that he owns and possesses has the rights to, and Norm Kiteser kept every letter and communication he ever got and a copy

of everything he ever sent out, much like the Jack Pfeffer of the wrestling magazine industry. And on a recent program, we went through Dave Meltzer's attempt to sell Melby on the idea that he could do a story on the San Francisco U.S. title and the Japanese wrestling scene that he was well connected with. This was from 1982, I think, right? And then Norm Kitzer's attempts in the 80s to get issues that the observer sent to him. Yes, even when he was trying to pay for him. Well, this one, we're going to take a step back.

September 5th, 1984. So this is before WrestleMania. This is after Cindy Lauper. A little over a year after Norm Kitzer lost the WWF business. Dave Meltzer's observer's been going for a little while now. Let's go to this. Dear Mr. Kiteser, I received the most recent issue of your publication, October 1984, today, and had a few problems with it. Uh-oh.

Which I thought it would be better to contact you personally about than air any of these gripes publicly. GRIP, now wait a minute, this guy, he was writing, Dave was writing a year and a half earlier. Please plug my newsletter that I'm going to do that I think will be the greatest newsletter ever. and also can you please let me write some articles for your magazine. And if he didn't complain about the $35 that he got paid for that one article, then what's he got to complain about now? A few minor points. In the fan club column, you have continued to list the observer as being monthly,

when in fact it comes out every three weeks. The subscription price is $13 for six issues, with one issue for $2. The reason being... What, now wait, what? Back up, what? The subscription price is $13 for six issues with one issue for $2.

What if I just... If I send you $2 a week at the end of six weeks, I'm a dollar ahead, aren't I? That sounds like that's exceptional. Well, look, they're $10 each or $2. for 50. Well, the reason being that this, excuse me, that the mid-January issue will be the annual yearbook. The yearbook will be about 50 years.

The yearbook will. Well, wait a minute. Again, I don't mean to bog you down here, but that fucking pricing scheme seems to be year-round. And we're not just talking about, why doesn't he have a set price for issues and then in the add-on a la carte the annual. I'm just spitballing here. I don't know.

The yearbook will be about 50 pages and individually cost $5. I've also asked a number of times recently to mention I am interested in trading either VHS or beta tapes with anyone. Right now... Especially if you have a good-looking girlfriend.

Right now, especially the Mid-South area. Actually, I am now receiving regular tapes from every major circuit except Southwest and Mid-South, thus can offer WWF, AWA, Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Memphis, world-class, all three Japan groups, when the third gets its TV outlet. Wait a minute.

He said he's not getting Mid-South television in 1984. September 84. Had he moved from Wichita Falls, Texas, because he was there in a couple of the towns where we had the last stampede. He was working at a newspaper. I didn't know him then and had never met him and had even heard of him. But he has since talked about working at a newspaper, I think along with Mark Nolte for a brief period of time.

Yeah, that's right. And he was watching the Mid-South TV in 1984. He was going to some of the shows, I believe, in Oklahoma City, I want to say. Yeah, Oak City is where it was. He was at the last stampede. Well, anyway Well, it says here San Jose He's trying to con somebody

Well, it says San Jose He's back in San Jose now They ran him out of Texas And Calgary until it disbands Along with Portland in exchange Actually, the main issue I'm writing Is because of the nature of your past issue In regards to the real story

About what is happening in wrestling Uh-oh Now, I'm sure my personal feelings About what Vinnie is attempting to do To the business He's calling him Vinny already? Once again, now I am sure my personal feelings about what Vinny is attempting to do to the business are pretty close to the same as yours.

Since you have more of an economic interest, you probably feel even stronger about it. But being an avid fan and one who sees the business going into a major slump next year, my thoughts are similar. Wait. He called for a slump. In 85. Well, okay, I didn't know anybody in 84 was calling for a slump. They were calling for trouble, but things were just heating up.

At the same time, I think your issue moved into Bill Apter journalism with its making up facts in order to get across the point. I realize I take a very strong stance on the current state of wrestling, but never, and that's underlined, have a, I made up a fact or printed anything that I guess he originally wrote what so he crossed that out. That's what screwed me up.

Anything that at the time I printed it. I didn't believe it to be the truth. It's wrestling publicity. Norm Kiteser was doing magazines to be sold in the arenas by the promoters and on the newsstands for wrestling fans that wanted to

fucking know about their goddamn favorite wrestlers. They didn't want non- K-Fabe shit that they didn't understand. Dave has been narrow casting since the start, hadn't he? I often make mistakes. And my buddies, and that's in quotes, at Titan Sports continue to swear I'm never right more than 50% of the time.

But because of the nature of the business, it's impossible to print anything meaningful without occasionally being an error. I certainly agree. It is insulting to fans to tell them that the wrestling they have supported for years is minor league. I also agree, WWF has a horrid record for developing new talent, which I believe would be the worst effect if McMahon's pipe dream becomes reality. So let's stop there, that's interesting.

1984, McMahon's pipe dream, which was eating up the entirety of wrestling, which kind of happened, and it killing the pipeline for talent. Yeah. Which is exactly what ended up happening, which is why they needed OVW. And that's... Everybody was assuming that Vince was nuts with what he was trying to do. Well, not nuts, but that he wasn't going to succeed in 1984 and running everybody out of business. But they were in sense that he was not only damaging the business by running opposition to everybody,

but by openly making it more entertaining and silly, which did her. I don't think that Vince running against some of the promoters, Mid-South, Crockett, Memphis, world-class, the strong territories, I don't think the bigger production or the major league is what swayed people. I think that the very point of Vince's product,

that it's kind of over-the-top and simple, and not to be taken seriously and it's not a blood struggle for revenge hurt the territories that were booming where everything was a blood struggle for revenge because it kind of took the head. It's like, maybe they're not as serious as we thought. You see what I'm saying? I do. A lot of the fans felt that way into Carolinas when I was actively speaking to them

and seeing them walking into the fucking building every night. But that's the thing is I don't think the promoters thought that he was going to succeed until him taking so much of the over-talent and so many of the key places hurt the businesses to the point where they were on the verge of, and then it was like, oh, shit. And by then everybody's getting smart. Not everybody, now everybody's smart, but people are being smartened up. And kind of entertainment wrestling was the thing that was bulletproof because you already knew

it was bullshit. But the other promotions were harmed by the revelation that it was bullshit. And again, this is that period of time pre-Ressomania, just months before Mr. T would get involved, months before David Schultz and John Stossel, and they got a ton of publicity. Yeah. There was a perfect storm at the beginning of 1985.

But how about Dave writing a guy that's been publishing magazines for 20 years, and he's like a 23-year-old journalism, graduate and he said I had a few problems with your recent publication I'd be like motherfucker you were asking me if you could write for me a year ago and now you've got problems with my publication let's go back to Dave

whether the WWF has more top talent working for it than the NWA, AWA and Mid-South combined is of course opinion and you are entitled to it I disagree however when it comes to meaningful talent which really counts, the few with real box office appeal, the WWF has a distinct majority with only a few real draws.

Kevin and Kerry Von Eric, Rick Flair, Jerry Lawler, the Road Warriors, and a very few others left. Let me turn the page here. Your first knock against Titan is they have bought... So now he's holding up for him. is that they have bought TV time out from existing AWA or NWA promotions. While I'd rather the business didn't operate this way, I have grown accustomed to the business practices in wrestling,

which are like an old-style Texas death match. Anything goes until one man is left standing. The fact is, tracing history, the TV time slot that WWF bought from the AWA here in San Francisco, which is really the only direct theft, shall we say, KPLR TV in St. Louis. Yeah, KPLR is at St. Louis station. Was going to drop Geigel, whether Vince had come to town or not, was originally an AWA theft from ICW.

He was probably going to pick up Mattozik, though. They would have picked up Maddozick, and then Vince came in, and they forced Vince to to work with Maddozig, and then Vince pushed out Larry Matasik. but again to end this sentence and there was a lot in between he's saying that Vince the TV Vince is being that they're saying Vince stole the AWA stole from ICW when the Pafos somehow got TV in San Francisco if you remember that oh good Lord that's right that's when they started saying on TV

in Lexington they were having big matches at the Cow Palace in fact for all the multitudes of complaints from the AWA when WWF first came to this area, the AWA came in when an existing NWA group, Roy Shires, was still operating regularly. If you look at crowd figures from this area, it is obvious the wrestling public is quite happy with the change, at least at the present. I realize your publication will never print anything negative about the AWA, but when you realize the AWA only averages 800 fans monthly and WWF has topped 10,000 three straight

times, you could see which side the fans have chosen. So I'm guessing Norm Kiteser wrote an editorial saying they're not doing good everywhere and Dave's taken up for the San Francisco part of it? I believe so because Norm again Norm lived in Minnesota. He had known

that's how he'd got started was doing AWA publications and Vern and etc. So with Vern running the but at that point in time when Vern made money in San Francisco and going out to Northern California Shire

was really only running the cow palace his territory had fallen apart and he had stopped even producing his own television was using another tape and bringing in talent and that's what Vern invaded and

you know took over and did well for a while in California and then Vince came in and snatched the whole roster. I always say, what side is Leo Nommolini on? And that's where I go. There you go. You can't go wrong with Nommelini. The next knock is Titans ticket prices. I lived in Texas and know that for a big show in Dallas,

the best seats go for $30. I don't know anywhere McMahon charges more than $20. $30, by the way, that would have to be front row at Texas State. Because you could still get front row at the Sportetorian Dallas in 1984 for like fucking $10. Well, yeah, the next sentence says McMahon charges no more than $12 for any tickets. $30 for 1984. It doesn't seem like a lot now. That's an extraordinary amount for ringside for a weekly territory or anything.

I don't even think that that was front row at Reunion Arena for a Christmas or Thanksgiving Star Wars. He had to be talking about Texas Stadium. We'll see what we can find out about that. The Mid-South shows in Oklahoma City charged $12 for ringside for a normal show and $15 for a special show special show. Yeah. It quotes. The special meaning...

Whenever the Midnight Express was in a main event, they got 15, baby. Special meaning any card after a previous sellout at $12. You know what? That's true. Yeah, yeah. The AWA here was charging $12 dollars and the crowds got so bad,

they got so desperate and chopped $2 off. In most competing cities in the AWA region, the prices between both groups are comparable. WWF charges $3 more in Miami. Why is he telling Norman Kiteser this

who could give two french-fried titty fucks about it to begin with? WWF charges $3 more in Miami than the NWA group and charged $1 more in what had been Lollers region, but your blanket statement is false. In fact, it was Bill Watts, not McMahon,

who had to nerve the charge $50 for the recent Superdome show. Was that ringside at the Superdome? $50? Well, okay, at $50, then that would have been the front row at the Superdome. That's not ringside. That would just be the front row. Second row would probably be $25 or whatever. It was in Florida on NWA soil

that they had to nerve to charge $100 for the Orange Bowl show. Holy shit, really. I didn't know that. No wonder they didn't do a fucking major house there in addition to the fucking inclement weather. No wonder, Dusty said, hey, Eddie, I'm leaving unless you give me the fucking money I drew on this fucking show. And you know what?

When they gave Dutch Mantell the book in Florida, and he got things going kind of good, they had a sellout in one of the medium-sized towns. and they told him in the office they said, oh, well, you know, that's almost the best we've ever done. Well, fuck, if it was sold out, how's that not at least equal to the best you've ever done? Oh, well, we had a show there before.

We raised prices. That was the first time Dutch had been to Booker. He said, hell, I didn't know you could raise the prices. Let me, we'll raise the fucking prices. Anyway, go ahead. Now, for action received, I agree. Titan shows are overpriced. which is why I will no longer attend them,

but they aren't higher price than all the other promotions, as you indicated. Your knocks against Hulk Hogan, I won't waste space on because of how unimportant in reality wins and losses are. However, to my knowledge, Bob Backland never pinned Hulk Hogan, and I'm certain Santana never pinned Hogan in WWF territory. And even if he did, those bouts took place three. years ago, thus aren't valid in anyone's mind, except for the precious few wrestling historians.

So probably Norman is doing the old thing where, well, Hulk Hogan has been defeated by Bob Backland and Tito Santana and this and that guy. And Dave's got to tell him, no, he hasn't. Norm probably knew he hasn't. Again, Jack Feffer, where do you think his shit came from? More interesting, he says it hasn't, then he says, well, even if it did, no one. would care except for the precious few wrestling historians. That's Dave putting down the historians. Oh, God, damn it.

Next, in the past most top, this is a quote from Norman, in the past, most top stars move freely back and forth between all the major organizations, end quote. Quit spewing the party line when it's a bunch of crock. If somebody writes you, no wonder, no wonder there was heat. If somebody writes you out of nowhere, some fucking college kid to your, well, quit spewing the party line in your magazine.

Are you going, what the fuck are you? Once again, quit spewing the party line when it's a bunch of crock. They move back of crock. They moved back and forth only at the line. I thought a crock was the container. They moved back and forth only. If you can't have a bunch of containers, can you? You'd have to have a bunch of shit or a crock of shit, but the shit would be

be integral to be the stuff that's inside the container. I think he's trying to say shit, but he went with Croc. But anyway, the wrestlers moved back and forth only at the whim of their controlling promoter. What? Don't talk about all the freedom these wrestlers have. He still didn't know how the business worked then in terms of if guy fucking then gave his notice and left, he could do whatever the fuck he wanted with anybody that would hire

him. Don't talk about all the freedoms these wrestlers have, when in reality, They have little. And McMahon's competition actually gives them more options. In your Georgia section, you stated how, quote, through a corporate takeover and corporate decision, end quote, McMahon got control of Georgia Championship Wrestling Incorporated. Why don't you just say he bought the stock out from a majority of the shareholders

and the courts ruled there was nothing illegal in the way he did, it. Vince may have done some crooked and unscrupulous things, but as far as legality is concerned, that certainly wasn't one of them. A lot of it seems like semantics, too, but let's continue here. A lot of it seems like how much free time did he have to, again, Norman Kiteser had nothing to do with any wrestling promotion, and he was operating a nice little magazine there. and he didn't want to hear any of this shit.

He didn't give a shit. The biggest complaint I have is your coverage of the Anoki Hogan bout from Japan. Oh, here we go. Don't touch Japan. First off, you left out several important details of the match,

the two double count out endings. But even worse, you claim that the bout was for the WWF title. You must have known full well since you receive the same reports from Japan as I do that this was billed as for the IWGP title. I realize your magazine apparently has a very personal grudge against Hogan for reasons I don't know.

But this pathetic attempt to downplay his WWF title using non-factual material really bothered me. Do you think that it may have been that since Hulk Hogan was the WWF champion and they had pictures of him and Anoki in Japan that since nobody in the goddamn United States of America had ever heard of the IWGP title, they just, oh, here's Hogan defending his title. Because it was fucking wrestling.

See, that's the thing too, and I have to go back and check because I have everything. I have the finished copies and all the contents, the contents of everything that made up the copy. But Coichi was sending all the photos and the reports, and, you know, again, I don't know. Well, we do have Norman Kiteser's response to this, but I don't know exactly what would have caused this,

but Dave was very upset, of course, as we... Very upset, perturbed even. I realize your magazine has a personal grudge against Hogan for reasons, I don't know. But this pathetic attempt to downplay his WWF title using non-factual material really bothered me. Hey, I wasn't complimentary to Hogan covering the same match. being that his massive ego forced a ridiculously contrived ending,

which damaged the promotion greatly. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Wasn't that the fucking thing that everybody thought was a shoot where... I think that was the year before, because this is 84. That was 83, okay, I'm sorry. And by the way, 83, if you remember, it was a tournament, but technically the IWGP championship is separate from the IWGP tournament.

So in terms of what title he was talking about here, anyway. Yes. You then say, quote, we are not sure where the claim originates, end quote, referring to Cobra's NWA Jr. title. Well, Cobra's belt is the same one less Thornton lost in Japan in 1982 to Tiger Mask. Does that refresh your memory? God damn it. And I ask you again, Mr. Kiteser and I remind you you, you're under oath. Dave has been an insufferable fucking spectrum rider since even before. I never saw this in his younger days, but I fortunately,

apparently didn't have to have these marathon letters written to me. He liked your magazines. When Sayama retired, Cobra and Davy Boy Smith were placed in an elimination match and Cobra won. You also state, quote, in cities,

WWF is going head to head. The crowds have been fair. to pour in most cases, end quote. Okay, there have been some major failures and there will be more for reasons I've outlined a million times in the observer. However, this area has been a major success. St. Louis is still generally doing better

for WWF than NWA. In fact, even your beloved Twin Cities. Oh, God, even your beloved Twin Cities that you ginia fleck too. Have shown the WIPCityite. Have shown the WWF beating the AWA solidly two of three times. It was two out of three falls and the WWF got it. The Miami crowds are nothing great,

but are about what the NWA does weekly. The Atlanta debut drew better than 90% of the Georgia Championship wrestling shows had in that city over the past year. If you were going to tab WWF road crowds as fair to poor, wouldn't it be responsible journalism to mention the home promotion is doing poorly or fairly as well? My last disagreement... So he wants to freelance for this magazine and change their entire editorial policy and stance. To his slant on things, and again, if you're listening to this,

he had a hang on a lot, but not a... Not as much of a hang as he would in a few years. We have to talk to a lot more wrestlers. So, let's finish this off, though. My last disagreement is your suggestion that McMahon has a staff of more competent announcers than himself, and his ego makes him take center stage. Well, yes, his ego makes him take center stage. But what more competent announcer are you referring to?

Monsoon is even more obnoxious on the air than Vince Gene doing play by play is setting standards for incompetence And the rest of the crew are thoroughly worthless The only more competent announcer on Vince's staff than himself Is an unnamed individual Who what Is an unnamed individual Who he is keeping off the tube completely

For that very reason. Who was that? I don't. The only more competent announcer on Vince's staff. So already working there in 84 than himself. But now announcer, ring announcer would be Howard Finkel, but Finkl was always ring announcing. But he's saying commentary and he keeps him off TV because he's better than McMahon. Not talking about Paterson.

No, and he had been removed from commentary a year and a half earlier or so. Well, boy, Dave, Dave leaves these teasers. I don't know who that might be at that time frame. And by the way, we're going to end with his last little bit here. And we'll pick up, we'll do a part three next time with Norman Kiter's response to this. My last question will be answered. Did it begin with, hey, motherfucker. I'll go ahead.

My last question will be answered probably in your next issue. Will you try and create a federal case when reporting the results? of the July 25th match when Jumbo Saruda beat Rick Martel via countout to keep a title, but not the AWA title? In fact, the whole match has been ignored by Ganya and his promotion here. And there was no interference in that match,

nor two double count out endings prior to that. And he signs it about all. What? About, it's about all. Last time it was yours and wrestling. Now it's, yours and wrestling, comma. Now it's about all, period. Dave Meltzer, San Jose, California.

So again, you know, I think in terms of communication skills and interpersonal skills and being able to take what you truly believe is the only way to see things, I guess what I'm trying to say is it doesn't seem. too dissimilar than the way he behaves on Twitter right now. Well, but he's been doing it since before he knew anything or should have thought that he knew any goddamn thing. Because now he's all inflated because he's been doing this for 40 years and he's talked to everybody and smoked everybody, whatever.

But then he was still, he was telling this guy's been doing this for 20 years, doesn't give a shit about what he's saying. Oh, yeah, you ought to do all this way. He's always been like that. Huh. Again, noticeable is the ending. yours in wrestling versus about all. About all.

That's about enough of you. It's not what I got to think of you right now. You're dismissed and I will call for you when I need you again. Well, like I said, next time on the drive-through, Norm Kiteser's response from the files, Dave Meltzer, Volume 3. Then let's go to the files. Uh-oh. Let me grab all this.

Of course, set the files down on the desk. Yeah, there's a few things here. from the files is where I go through the archives of the wrestling news, wrestling review, pro wrestling enterprises, and we talk about some of the interesting historical tidbits that we're able to find looking through the correspondence files of pro wrestling enterprises. Yes. Does that sound correct? Yes.

For one side, you're doing it, and I'm saying yes, you have encapsulated that correctly. Well, I think we have to start where we left off. Norm Kiteser's letter to Dave Meltzer. Well, okay, you should mention that we have done from the files part one and part two on Dave Meltzer because it is such a thick file because when last we left our space travelers, Dave had written Norm Kiteser

about a four-page typewritten letter telling him what was wrong with his fucking magazine. And that was dated September 5th, 1984. Here's Norman Kiteser's response. Number 14, 1984. David Meltzer. Per your letter. First of all, here is the entry I plan to use in the wrestling news number 114, which I am now working on.

David Meltzer, I will not give his address in San Jose, sent us to September 10th issue of his wrestling observer fan club bulletin. It consisted of 26 legal-sized pages with complete reports on virtually every major area, also some photos and clippings. Included were a lot of opinions from Dave and from his members. Dave charges $2 for a single issue or $13 for the next six issue. God damn it.

$2 a piece or $13 for six. How the fuck? He promises a new bulletin every three weeks. Dave plus also that's written weird. Dave Plus also to put out a yearbook in mid-January that will cost $5 per copy. Plans. Dave plans also.

Oh, that's what it is. He also asked that we again mention he is interested in trading videotapes, either VHS or beta, and is especially interested in obtaining Mid-South tapes. So after that whole letter, he starts with, by the way, here's your plug. Yeah. In the next issue. Norm Kiteser was the most unconfrontational, not assertive or aggressive person. Probably good for Dave in that instance, because I was the first of all, motherfucker, but go ahead.

It is always best to write me a note. Just attach it to the bulletin when you change your frequency or price. I sometimes miss things like that, although I do attempt to read through every bulletin. Now, as to your other charge in your letter that I make up facts to support my opinions Basically, the things you take issue with me are On my opinions, clearly labeled by me as my opinions. On attendance, I have stated that WWF is outdrawing the AWA in San Francisco. That is not the case here in the Twin Cities.

The first two WWF cards reported by Vince Jr. sellouts drew less than half a house each at the Met Center. And once again, this is September 84. So they had just started going into Minnesota. They had Hogan, they had Mean Gene, David Schultz, but Vern wasn't dead right away. No. And he had the Roat Warriors. 84 was a strong year for them, still.

Their last card with Hogan and Oakland versus Fuji and Steel, which they reported at 17,000 on TV. and you reported at 15,800, drew about half of that. After three rounds, the AWA drew clearly larger crowds the first two times and about the same the last time. On average ticket prices, from the information I have, which I admit is not a complete compilation of all tickets sold,

as I don't think anyone has all the figures from every card promoted, I believe that the average WWF ticket price is higher than that of other promotions. On Japan and Hogan, first of all, I don't hate Hogan. While I do have some lack of respect for wrestlers who cut interviews for one promotion saying that they will appear on a card

and then jump to McMahon, I think that the primary reason they have done this is that McMahon feels getting someone to come over to him in that way is the way he can most damage the opposition. Nothing wrong there. Yeah. If Hogan, Ventura,

junkyard dog, and others do that, you can't blame them for making a decision that they think will make more money for themselves, but I think the long run is that McMahon is doing more damage to the sport of wrestling as a whole than he is damaging his individual competitors. And that a lot of people he has made promises to

are going to end up not getting what they were promised. Let me stop there for a moment. What do you think of his insights into the state of wrestling in 84? Well, the thing is, Norm Kiteser had dealt with promoters and been around a lot of these guys, especially in Minnesota, but all over the country for

a period of it lived, 15 years or more at that point, and he dealt with Vince. He'd printed and produced the programs for Vince Sr. for years from the mid-late 70s to the early 80s when Vince Jr. banned everybody and took their stuff in-house. So he already had an inkling of how these people operated, and that was his opinion of what Vince was doing. And he turned out to be right. And again, the idea that he doesn't hate Hogan, but he has a lack of respect for people that walk out on the promoters they were doing promos for you were there when junkyard dog did exactly that yeah and norm kaiser was up there in minnesota when hogan did it for all those towns and then didn't come

back from japan went to work for vince and it does hurt it and it hurts the wrestling business and the way that norman is talking about from a business perspective especially back then fans they didn't give what promotion they were going to see wrestling And if you go to see a wrestling show and you buy a ticket and one of the main people or more than one of the main people on the card that you went to see doesn't show up, then the next time instead of thinking, oh, I got to go back and see some more of that, the last time they got to show, eh, that's the way he's talking about damaging the business. because that sentiment will spread, you know, the more often that it happens. And it wasn't the wrestling business and the fans didn't look at it then like they do now where the fans now, they don't even know who's going to be on the fucking card. They are going to go see Dynamite or Raw or whatever.

In that era, they read the entire card that you were going to see at the house show on television and God damn it down to the first match and those things better happen that way and people got mad when they didn't well back to Norm Titzer's response to Dave Meltzer on Japan there has been a lot of 1984 style statements

made there by New Japan McMahon Shinma and everybody connected with WWF during the past two years telling the people basically one week that black is black and then the next that black is white. Let's go back and look at things. Two years ago, when Titan and New Japan left the NWA, they announced the first Grand Prix

tournament to name an undisputed World Heavyweight Champion. They made these announcements in both the U.S. and Japan. The tournament was to culminate with the finals in Japan with the winner of the competition to meet Backland at MSG. for the undisputed World Heavyweight Championship. McMahon Sr. appeared at the opening of the finals in Japan and repeated that basic statement. Then Hogan won, but no match was scheduled.

Hogan came to the U.S. and wrestled on AWA and NWA cards, had had World Heavyweight Championship title matches in each organization in which he failed to win those claims. Then he went to MSG earlier this year and won the WWF title, making him undisputed champion, according to Junior's statements. Both Titan and New Japan recognize him as the World Heavyweight Champion. Then we had the fiasco when Junior tried with Shinma to start a separate WWF promotion in Japan. That's the UWF, if you remember.

I heard so many conflicting statements on that and on the UWF that I don't know what the true story is in fact, the true story probably changed from day to day as everyone seemed to be double-crossing everyone else involved constantly. Anyway, the end came with McMahon Jr. saying New Japan was back as a WWF member.

The New Japan promotion announced a second Grand Prix, Grand Prix competition with the winner to meet Hogan for the World Heavyweight Championship. Nothing was said at that point about there being two separate titles, a WWF World's Heavyweight title and a Grand Prix world heavyweight title. Now they and you are saying there are two separate titles and that Hogan only lost the Grand Prix World Heavyweight Championship to Anoki. the descriptions of that bout are also somewhat confused with interference and countouts,

but in the end, Anoki was declared the winner and the champion in Japan. From what I have heard, I could see several reasons why a title would not change hands in that bout, and why it would. I thought I covered them, but I didn't ignore the bout in my magazine. So let me stop there for a moment, Jim, and take a pause.

What are your thoughts on him defending himself here? Well, and he's trying to be nice as he could, because remember when we read and we encourage anybody didn't hear the first segment, go to the YouTube channel, or the clip is up. But he's trying to be as reasonable as possible as he could to Dave, as you will recall, we said, what is this fucking, why is he telling this shit to Norm Kiteser who don't give a shit? He's just trying to sell some magazines. He doesn't care about these minute fucking complains. that Dave has brought up,

and now he has to go through and explain his rationale to a guy that he's given plugs to for a fucking newsletter. I think he's bending over backwards to be understanding to the guy that said his magazine sucked, which by at the time Dave had never

published anything that didn't come out on copy paper. And he's talking to a guy that at least they run a magazine. You also fault me on the junior title saying that Tiger Mask was undisputed world junior heavyweight champion when he retired. And I agree. So that New Japan had right to create a new WWF Junior Heavyweight champion with a tournament,

which they did with Dynamite Kid winning, which I'll agree to. But how could they run a separate elimination for an NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship with the COBRA winning when they were no longer members of the NWA and was sanctioned? by the NWA. The NWA itself gave the title back to Les Thornton. Now, I believe the NWA says the title is vacant, and there'll be a tournament. I agree that all acted badly here,

and that wrestling in general, especially here in the U.S., does not do a good job of promotion, the junior division, I guess, of promoting, the junior division as a separate entity. A lot more wrestlers did more back and forth between promotions before Junior

attempted to take over everything, even McMahon Sr. Showcase wrestlers some other areas off and on, even had NWA and AWA title matches on his cards. I guess that's defending. Remember, Dave had a problem what Norm Kites are saying wrestlers could go

from one territory to another? Yeah. And also, as Norm points out, Vince Senior not only had the pipeline to Florida with Eddie Graham where he had Florida guys guest starring at the garden

and making the shots every now and then and dusty on a kind of a regular basis but also he brought the Funk's in. Dory Funk Sr. And shortly before he died, wrestled in Madison Square Garden. Vince Sr. would bring the top

talent in from other territories when he was a member of the NWA, other promoters that he would work with and give their talent a showcase in a garden, but also it made the garden look different than every other town in his territory, because that was the place where stars came from all over the world. And as the topic of Japan is concerned, it was a big deal in Japan. MSG. They had MSG tournaments for years.

And apparently just the tournament winner didn't go on to get the title of shot that he earned. Well, the problem is if you're trying to logically follow what they're saying and they just change things, you know, what are he supposed to do if you're reporting on it? Yeah. My point on Hogan is that he did lose to others the first time in the WWF area, the ones I mentioned, and that logical matches would be against those challengers who faced him before. Both Flair and Martel have faced a larger variety of challengers, both in numbers and styles,

than as Hogan. This is not the fault of Hogan, and I don't say it because I dislike him. I say it as a comment on Junior, who has declared war on me, not the other way around. Return a page, and of course, Norm Kiteser was the producer

of World Wrestling Federation, WWF, and WWWF programs from the early 70s until 1983. Vince wanted him to only cover his company, Norm Kiteser said, no way, and that began Vince's journey to building his own magazine. Yeah, and that's when he banished the people from the Apter magazines, London publishing, the former

Stanley Weston publications, and all photographers for many magazines except the ones in-house with Vince were banned for a while there. So then all the shots in PWI and the wrestler and all that was like with a telephoto lens from the stands. I go to wrestling matches to be entertained, and Junior's cards just are not as good as the other cards. Part of this being because even though he doesn't lack talent,

he doesn't use the talent he has well, or in enough variety of ways. Basically, the next Twin City card is a main event for the WWF of Hogan and Mad Dog Vashan, versus Jesse Ventura and George Steele. Ventura has had so many different confrontations with the other two here over the years, and Steele is a part-timer

who doesn't do that much other than stick out his green tongue at this point in his career. I think very strongly that the new talent in the AWA these days, the fabulous ones, the Road Warriors, Brody, Atlas, etc., is better than the talent the AWA lost to the WWF. Certainly more entertaining as it is presented

here in Minnesota. Can you imagine Hulk Hogan and Mad Dog Vashon is a tag team. Mad Dog's 5'7. Hulk's 6 foot 7. Hoke was not even 35 years old then. Mad Dog was close to 60. Mad Dog could have torn Hulk Hogan

to shreds within seconds with his bare hands and eating him. What a fucking tag team. The idea that they lost Hogan, they lost me and Gene, David Schultz, by this point in time, they'd even lost Al Dhrusha for a period of time. Lots of people, and it wouldn't end here. Norm Kiteser, a lifelong AWA fan, although he lived in New York for a time, saying that the road warriors, the fabulous ones, Brody, et cetera, coming in, the talent's better.

Again, 84, the AWA did not die in 1984. But what do you think of this? Because you saw the fabulous ones before they got there. Well, and I mean, he's right in that Mad Dog was an icon and was a huge star, but at that point, age had caught up with him. And George Steele, Minnesota was not the venue for George Steele. He had been primarily a WW and WWF guy and a Detroit guy because he lived in Detroit. he taught school for all those years.

He didn't start wrestling all year round and give up the school teaching until the early 80s when he could make enough money in the Northeast to make the difference. But it wasn't a Minnesota thing and when you've got the fabulous ones and the road warriors,

those guys who were so much younger and so much fresher, even though Mad Dog was an icon, Jesse was an icon, and in the AWA at that point, Hogan had drawn big money. It was just, it was an odd slapped together thing

based on personalities that were over rather than an issue per se. So, you know, and that's, you know, we talked about that. That's why the Crusher didn't work in Georgia in 1979 because he didn't have 20 years of history like he did in the AWA,

and they were just seeing this guy in his 50s with a beetle haircut. Let's go back to Norman. Kitzer, that is my opinion. I go to cards for entertainment, the same reason I attend events of other professional sports, football, baseball, etc. In my opinion, colored by many influences, I admit, the AWA is the better promotion here. Time will tell if enough ticket buying fans agree with me, and who knows what changes will be made by both organizations in the future. You certainly have a right to your opinions, and I plug all publications who ask for free ad space in my magazine, whether

I agree with all the opinions held by the person putting out the bulletin or not. Is that Norm's nice way of saying? I think I'm going to say, I think you're full of shit, but I'm going to plug you anyway, because I'm a nice guy. I don't tell you to give up your opinions or claim that I am always right, or you are always wrong when we disagree. And I do always try to label my opinions as that. my opinion.

I don't even rate wrestlers, as I have stated, for some 20 years, that ratings are simply opinions that are not valid. Let me stop there for a second. Considering all we talk about with Dave's ratings, I don't rate wrestlers, as I've always said, ratings are opinions that are not valid. Yes, and they never had, he never had ratings in the wrestling news or ring wrestling or whatever, only under, ring wrestling did under a different edit.

and that although I think I know as much about the sport as any who do publish so-called official ratings, my opinions would be no more valid than theirs. In short, I don't try to foist off my opinions as being the ultimate truth, but at the same time, I don't try to hide my opinions and claim to be an unbiased reporter, a unique and probably extinct species in that I have never encountered same in any publication on any subject if such a thing existed. I do tend to go on and on when I write, so I'll close. And it's signed by Norman, but we have a PS. P.S. One last self-serving point.

Whether the other promotions always spent a great deal of time on their television programs talking about what is happening elsewhere or not. In the case of the AWA, Mid-South, and some NWA promotions, they do allow the wrestling news, which covers wrestling everywhere, to be sold at their matches, and don't attempt to make people believe that the other promotions don't exist. That, when compared to a promoter who says that he is going to run me out of business, because I refuse to cover only his promotion

in my national magazine that may have a tendency to make my feelings towards that individual less generous than I am towards others my quarrel specifically is with Vince McMahon Jr because of actions which he has taken against me which I have elaborated on in my magazine not against everyone who works for him

and there's Norm defending his coverage of Vince McMahon of the WWF from Dave who bizarrely started defending Vince McMahon of the WWF. Any thoughts? And again at the age of 24 doing a newsletter

on copy paper telling the guy who's been doing a magazine for 20 years, what's wrong with his magazine? Now admittedly it wasn't the goddamn heyday of time Norm's publication, but it was

at least it had some color on the cover. I just, the gall of Dave even then to be writing letters and telling these people, well, you ought to do this and not any other thing. We'll shut the fuck up. Well, we'll close from the files with this last letter. This was post-dated July 11th, 1986, from Dave Meltzer in California to Norm Kiteser.

So after the previous one, Norm, I would be interested in writing a column for your mag in exchange for an advertisement in the magazine, or being allowed with a regular column to plug the observer, and book that's coming out soon. I'd really like to do a regular column concerning Japanese wrestling. Oh, good Lord. But if you have another idea of a column I could do for you, let me know.

Thanks. I will have a special 150 to 160 page issue out on August 1st for $15. It will have profiles of about 330 wrestlers with age, career background, and real names. And it'll also have 14 pages telling you what you ought to do with your magazine. So even after all that, he still wanted to write a Japanese column in 1986. Well, again, Norm Kaiser in various magazines that he published would have pictures from Japan or Japanese news. it wouldn't be the majority of the magazine and most of the pictures

he would try to have some American talent in the in the picture because he was still selling to an American audience can you imagine if Dave was writing a column on strictly Japanese wrestling and we've seen the way that he

does it with just the names and who beat who and sell that on the fucking newsstand in Chicago or Atumwa, Iowa, and people are going what to fuck? It's not the same market. Norm was going for wrestling

fans in the United States of America where he sold his magazine. It wasn't any slight against the Japanese folks that he didn't cover to cover embrace it. And you got more coverage of Japanese wrestling there than any other magazine

in America. Well, yeah, because all the Bill Apter magazines, the London publishing that were on the newsstands, except if a big American star went to Japan, they might have pictures of that, or if a big Japanese star came to the garden or wherever. But otherwise, there was no coverage of what was going on in Japan. Well, Jim, let's wrap up here today with a little bit from the files, from the files, from the files, in the files, Mildred Burke, the file for Mildred Burke. The file for Mildred Burke I have in the Wrestling News Archive.

Ah, the subject of the Queen of the Ring movie in which I am starring in a scintillating part with the premiere taking place Tuesday, February 25th at AMC Stony Brook in Louisville with many of the stars, including myself, where I will put my handprint, footprint, and b-print in cement in front of the theater before the showing. Because they've just redone the parking lot. If I wait too long, the cement will dry. How the hell are you going to do that? You're going to just lay in the cement, or are you going to individually put your...

Put your hands down, then your feet down, then you're down. I'm just going to kind of fall face first and waller around in it for a little while. It sounds like a happening. Be there, folks. But Jim, let's go to the Mildred Burke file. There's a bunch of interesting things in here. Here's a folded-up copy, Sunday, July 8th, 1990 from the National Sports Daily,

wrestling with the devil by Frank the Ford. Mildred Burke created a sport and became its greatest champion. all in spite of the man, her husband, who was trying to destroy her. So there's a little bit of, from 1990, the story was already starting to get out there. Well, of course, Frank DeFord, the mentor in the journalism category of our friend Uncle Dave, he was the guy that Dave looked up to. Yeah, but when you put it like that, people are going to dismiss it. He's a legend in terms of sports journalism.

Well, I didn't say Dave could replicate that ties that he looked up to it. Frank DeFord was a big-time sports writer. Dave wanted to be like Frank. Don't be like Dave, folks. Be like Frank. I have a stack here of original Mildred Burke 8x10s, all stamped with the ring on the back of it. Here's another... That's back from the Nat Lubet Days. Here's another one, this one, Mildred Burke World Champion Wrestler, 1955, another 8x10.

Here's an interesting letter. It's kind of a part of a two-part thing here. January 1st, 1973, and this is also initialed at the bottom, I, Marilyn Bender, do hereby make the following statements of my own free will, and will declare it to be the absolute truth. Mildred Burke, the manager for the following girl wrestlers, Betty Mahaffney, aka May Weston, Opel May Ernst, aka Rita Bennett, Gilda Marie Vanyone, Marie Vanyon, and myself, Marilyn Bender,

booked us all in the state of Kentucky for a Mr. Saul Weingroff and a Mr. Phil Golden. Phil Golden. Marie Vanjone or Vanyoni was the girl that Phil Golden's All-Star Wrestling was using as their women's champion.

They would have four matches on all these outlaw cards. It'd be a tag match, a single match, a girl's match, and an opening match of either two midgets or two guys from the tag match. And she was used on almost all the shows,

and May Weston, not to be confused with May Young, May Weston was one of the pioneer girl wrestlers that worked with Mildred Burke years before, but she had become Maugh Bass and was the, like a Maul Barker type, but was the manager of Ron and Don the Bass Boys. And she used to get so much heat, she got them shot at. Did you get to see her?

On TV, but not ever live. But on TV you got to see her. Yeah, she had, God, I think it was a cane that had a lead tip on it and dressed in the Western string tie sometimes in the hat. And Ron and Don Bass were either from Oklahoma or Texas or whatever and the cowboy types. That was real early in both of their careers. But anyway, yes.

So the point is because they were an outlaw group, and Saul Weingroff was booking probably for Phil Golden. They couldn't get Mullah's talent. So they went to Mildred Burke, who in the early 70s was trying to train her own girl stable to try to replicate the glory days. And these girls that are being talked about here were those girls. And she did send them at one point on a tour of Japan for, it was the IWA at that point, right? the third group over there. When we go back to this letter,

Mildred Burke told May Weston that she could keep all her money if she would look after her business and send back the booking fee from the other three girls. May Weston immediately started to double cross Mildred Burke by telling the girls

that our contract with Mildred was no good and could be broken at any time. As Mildred Burke's contracts read, 25% to manager after transportation, she said she would book us for 10% and drive us around to the matches. Hold on, we stop there. What do you think of that?

Mildred's deal was 25%, and then Mayweiss said she'll do it for 10% and she'll drive them. Well, Ed, could Mildred's debt, that was Moola's deal, wasn't it? 25%, maybe a little more if she could get it. Ed, but May West is like, no, fuck you.

I'll do it for, and I'll drive you. She wanted to take over the girls so she could get the girls booked in all of those towns. And Mildred Burke at the time, wasn't she living in California? That's right. It was just, it was her name and her reputation in, especially in Japan, but in some of these outlaw groups that got the girls booked. But May Weston was the one on the ground that had been with her since the start.

But now she's thinking I can take this thing over from Mildred. back to Marilyn Bender's letter here. May Weston also said that Mildred Burke would soon be out of business. And no time did she let us know that she was permitted to keep all her money and still complained about the contract. We were overcharged on our transportation, and at times she opened our envelopes,

and we did not even know how much we really had been paid, but had to take her word for it. We did not know that we had worked for six weeks before May Weston sent any bookings to Mildred Burke or even contacted her only one time at Mildred Burke's insistence. Everything she did or said was detrimental to Mildred Burke's business

and moral character, even to the point of causing friction between Mildred Burke and the promoters. For one thing, knocking all of Mildred Burke's other girls in order to keep her from getting any more bookings for this or any other area. One instance, I know for a fact, that Mildred Burke had booked a new girl into Kentucky to replace me when I had to leave for Japan. Her name was Valerie Griffin.

I know that Saul Weingroff had agreed to this booking because I heard them talking about using her in a tag team match. excuse me, and tag team matches. When the girl arrived, she was told that Mildred Burke had not booked her there and she was stranded. After several weeks, she was, Jesus, after several weeks, she was given a few shows so that she could return home,

still believing that Mildred Burke had lied to her about being booked. I know that she was booked because I heard the promoter and et cetera talking about the booking of Valerie Griffin. I personally intend to let Valerie Griffin know that Mildred Burke did not lie to her. Let me stop it here for a second.

Again, dated January 1st, 1973. What are your thoughts on this women's wrestling drama here? Outside of the Moola camp, less popular, less publicized than the Moola camp, all this happening? Well, again, it's, you know, somebody trying to undermine a booking agent and take their talent away through hook or crook and then make a profit by turning around and booking them with the promoters. That's as old as wrestling.

And the thing with Mildred, or the girl getting stranded and not having a way home, I'm wondering, did they just have her sleeping in a fucking sleeping bag under the overpass, or they let her hang around in this town for a couple of weeks to starve her to the point, where she'd take the job of blah, blah, blah, blah. But the same thing happened to the headbangers once,

when they were the spiders before they came into, I think it was before they came to Smoky Mountain. They went to Arkansas for Bert Prentice, where he had started a territory, and they were working six nights a week in his territory for very little money. But then one morning all the wrestlers woke up, and Bert was gone, and the territory was closed

and some of them didn't have enough money to get home. I think that maybe they came to Tennessee from Arkansas because it was halfway to New Jersey. At least they'd be further home. But sometimes you'd get stuck in those days. Back to Marilyn Bender's letter slash declaration. There is no doubt in my mind that May Weston is trying to steal Mildred Burke's business

girls and even her champion that she has spent three years trying to build up we are speaking of Marie Vanyone is that how you pronounce that I'll I'll go with that V-A-G-N-O-N-E for those of you who are wondering why we're trying to figure it out

who has now sent in her written notice to quit wrestling it is unfortunate that May Western and apparently she did because he never heard from her again It is unfortunate that May Weston is Marie Van Yon's aunt. I'm signing, it's all just so incestuous. I'm signing these statements in the hopes that it will stop some of the injustice that May Weston is doing to Mildred Burke,

who has a legal contract sanctioned by the California State Athletic Committee. These contracts are valid worldwide and apply to May Weston, Opal Ernst, aka Rita Bennett, Marie Van Yohn, as well as myself. Mildred Burke has many girls, and most of them are better wrestlers than any of those mentioned above, including myself.

Including me. In my opinion, May Westidge should be made to pay her percentage of her booking fee to Mildred Burke for all of her matches in Kentucky, as she did not look after the business, to Mildred Burke, excuse me, to Mildred Burke's best interest. But to bring her great harm, I know I was there.

I was there. I knew that's the way it was going to end up. I know who you are and I saw what you did. Obviously, it ended up in this file, but we don't know who it was sent to and how it got here. So it's an interesting little artifact. Here's a picture of Mildred Burke and May Weston. Here's a one and only world champion girl wrestler Mildred Burke, eight by ten with her famous belt.

Here's her sunbathing. Mildred Burke, world champion lady wrestler, sun tanning at her California home. A lot of these photos or photos you may have seen. Here's Mildred. You know, do you have any May Western bikini photos? From what I remember, they used to put those in prison to cure the sex offenders. Here's a photo of Mildred Burke with a headlock on Al Jolson of radio and screen fame. and as I

Mammy! He said Mammy! Again, lots of photos from all over the place. Some of these are labeled. I am looking for here's an article on Queen of the Mat but this appears to be quite old. Here is something from the desk of Stanley Weston. He appeared to doodle a lot.

Lots of drawings of men on here. Here's a girl wrestler, Mildred Burke's protege, Holly Howard, girl wrestler Sun Valley, California. It's a picture of her with a man in an airplane spin. You familiar with Holly Howard at all? Never heard of Holly Howard, or Holly Howard, or Holly Hawk, for that matter.

But that was, unfortunately, what the last, you know, 15 or 20 years of Mildred Burke's involvement in wrestling was, was living in California as a kind of a kindly grandmotherish type, training girl wrestlers that didn't really ever go anywhere or make any names because she was shut out from booking them anywhere important. There's some black and white photos that aren't even good or, I mean, something of them blurry, but they're all stamped for booking, contact worldwide women's wrestling association. The WWWA, yes.

Van Nuys, California, or call Middred, or call Mildred Burke. And it has her phone number with a 213 area code. A lot of these are stamped. And a lot of these feature women I've never seen before in wrestling. And an older Mildred Burke, it's weird seeing her with the belt as a little old lady. Here's a picture. This is from a tribute to Jim Lundas. It's Mike Miserkey, Mildred Burke, Jim Lundis, and George Pernassas.

while Jim Landa's cuts a cake. And then there's another one here. George Parnassus, Mike Merzherke, Mildred Burke, Jane Shirel, Scarlett, Hardy Crust Camp, and Ramafranco. So this tribute to Jim Landa, sounds like a real party. Yeah, boy, I tell you what, they stayed up till all hours that night.

So I got these photos here of a protest in front of the Olympic auditorium, and I got the letters that correspond to it. The main event at the Olympic was Rivera versus John Tolos. Victor Rivera versus John Tolos, roller games Saturday and Sunday, and Mildred Burke and her women wrestlers are in their, well, they're in their gear, she's just dressed like an old lady, but they have placards. We want minimum pay of $50 for each girl per night. Another sign says unfair to local talent

Another sign says We want equal rights for women wrestlers Mildred Burke holding up a sign that says If you like girl wrestlers Please write the Governor Ronald Reagan Sacramento And then another sign We won a girls wrestling match

On every wrestling event These photos were taken by a photographer Phil Miller, Highland, California. Well, and that's the thing at that time. That was 1975 if the main event was Rivera and Tolus, right? 73. 73. Sorry, I was two years off.

That at 1973, if memory serves me correct, like the Iron Chef, was where they lifted the ban in New York on women's wrestling. Mula made the first appearance in the garden. Was there a ban on women's wrestling in Los Angeles? at that time or was it just as I'm because I remember seeing pictures of Mullah's girls and Peggy Patterson and etc.

in the Olympic auditorium was it just they weren't using Mildred Burke's wrestlers and she wanted to push the issue why won't you book local talent we live in California they're bringing these girls in from South Carolina that type of thing So the earlier letter I read was from January 73. This Phil Miller letter is from June 11th, 73, so later in a year, six months later.

Dear Norm, got your first issue under the new format. Looks really good. Incidentally, I received two copies, so check your mailing list. Enclosed are a couple of stories. Norm, I wish you would really blast Mildred Burke. for her tactics in trying to get her incompetent girls' work in L.A. In case you're not familiar with the case, here's the background. A couple of years ago, Mildred started a girls' wrestling school in North Hollywood.

While Mildred was a great wrestler in her day, she's in no physical condition to teach wrestling personally, and the girls she trained were really exceptionally poor workers. The Olympic used two of them, and found them so bad that the guarantee was paid after the first match and they were dismissed, not finishing the five shows covered by the money. Let's stop there for a second. So they were booked for the Olympic, a five match guarantee to use women wrestlers.

They were so bad that Michael Bell, who was really famously, you know, tight with a buck, he was like, you know what, just keep the money, don't come back. Well, and obviously they had them come in for a week. The deal for five shows, that would have been a week in the L.A. territory. And, you know, they said, oh, fuck, we can't put this out in front of people again. Here, just go away. When the forum tried competition to the Olympic, Mildred had several of her girls on the two cards the forum had before they shut down. This double-cross angered Michael Abel, and he would not use the game.

Mildred's girls, even though she had acquired contracts on a couple of good workers trained elsewhere. Finally, LaBelle did use a couple of Millie's girls. Jane O'Brien did quite well. She had received training by Panama Franco. And things... Well, right there, it looked no further. And things for Jane looked good.

Then, Jane went to Mexico where she picked up the Mexican style. too acrobatic to be believable to American fans. Jane also brought back a Mexican girlfriend, Perla Gonzalez, and caused some sensation in the Olympic by practically performing lesbian acts in the ring. Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets. Sure, I'll book you guys again.

Just don't do anything outrageous. Can you just just drop the same? 69 spot. She's been in that leg scissors for a long time, hasn't she? Let's go back to this letter here. Jane also brought back a Mexican girlfriend, Perla Gonzalez, and caused some sensation at the Olympic

by practically performing lesbian acts in the rig. That finished her with LaBelle. It's well known that except for Panama and War Star, all Mildred's girls are lesbian. Later, Panama and her daughter, War Star, were used in Bakersfield, California. After the match, which was quite good, Motow, that's Mr. Motto, found out that War Star is only 14 years old. Oh, boy. Millie's gym is open to the public and has large signs on the store-type front.

people walk in off the sidewalk, watch the girls' training, and immediately become, in quotes, smart. The girls bring their friends and families to watch, and they get, again in quotes, smart too. About a year ago, Millie made a deal with an L.A. night spot to have her girls' entertainment. The bout, bouts in quotes, ended with one girl having the top of her tights ripped off and exposing her breasts. The commission stopped this performance after two shows. Let me stop for a moment. Once again, it sounds like a lot more fun than Moola's girls were at the time. There's a lot going on here.

War Star and Panama are the only girls that weren't lesbian, according to Phil. And of course, Warstar was the 14-year-old daughter of Panes. is that an uncommon thing? Not necessarily the age, although... What, for them not to be lesbians? No, for a mother-daughter team to work together. Well, no, I've seen a few mother-daughter teams work together, but you're talking about wrestling.

Not in the Danny Hodge sense, I'm talking about in a wrestling sense. Hey! I actually met one of Danny's mothers and daughters. And there was a granddaughter by that time. But nevertheless... Stay tuned to the Mid-South schedule as we pick it. back up soon. That's going to come into

Little Rockin' about May or something. Uh-huh. Anyway, back to this, I don't know what was going on with the 14-year-old girl. Well, I mean, see, in all seriousness, and we're not trying to cast aspersions, but Soraya, Paige,

her mother is a wrestler also. She was second generation. They made the movie fighting with my family. How old was Debbie Combs when she started working with her mother? I would think she would have had to have been, you know, maybe she was certainly almost 18. Maybe she was 17 in a state that didn't require a, you know, athletic commission license,

but she's working against her mother and riding with her mother. The mother was under a mask. but I've never heard of Panama Franco or War War Star or War oh five Neither one of them have I ever heard of And so they were just it was local indie Southern California Lucha shows in a barn somewhere probably What are your thoughts on again this is Phil Miller he's a photographer He's not necessarily a promoter or a wrestler

but the photographer is noticing a problem with people off the street and then their family's becoming smart to the business. What do you think of that? Well, I mean, if the photographer has to fucking be the one to report this, I've never heard of Phil Miller as a Southern California wrestling photographer, but maybe he was just doing some independent stuff and kind of on the, you know, you've heard of Theo Erit. You've heard of some of the other California photographers.

Oh, yes, what was his name? Dan Westbrook. Dan Westbrook, yes. Mike Lano. Well, let's not go too far, Cowboy. But, you know, that's why I'm saying is it's the same thing in, especially in indie wrestling, or as we used to call it in those days, outlaw wrestling, whether it's the East Tennessee outlaws or the Texas outlaws or the, you know, California outlaws, it's just constant

drama and bullshit and infighting and nattering at each other and trying to steal a town or steal a talent or just fuck the other person around and you know and just trying to again poor Mildred trying to regain the glory day she didn't really train any of those girls the first go round she just

sometimes you know those who can't do teach, but those who teach are not necessarily the best doers, but they're the best teachers. Well, let's go back to this letter from Phil Miller. In March of this year, the front page of the sports section to the LA Times Valley edition had several photos of Millie's girls and an article about the school.

In the article, Millie was quoted as saying that wrestling was a show, and that the promoter determined who the winner in each match would be. She also exposed all the wrestling terminology. Oh, Jesus. Babyface, heel, go over, K-fabe, high spot, wow, et cetera, et cetera. So this shows one of two things,

and I don't know which came first the chicken or the egg, but it shows both why the established promoters didn't want to deal with her and or how mad she was that the established promoters weren't dealing with her. Did she say all those things because she got shut out probably or did they not want to use her

because she was saying those things but I think it was the other way around. Yeah, is this Mario Galento on the radio? Yeah, it's like, fuck you guys, you're fucking me around and I've put up with this for 15 years. Well, here's your goddamn deal. In the enclosed photos,

note some of the signs. Unfair to local talent. Minimum of $50 per night. This is disillusioning to fans who believe wrestlers have unusual backgrounds and earn thousands of dollars a week, especially girls. Let's stop there. That's an interesting takeaway. The idea that them protesting exposes that wrestlers aren't glamorous, successful making lots of money athletes. Yeah, and exactly. And that's what even, you know, they didn't need to put a figure on the, you know, minimum guarantees or whatever. They didn't need to put a figure on.

But some of the guys and girls, especially at the indie level in the business, they don't understand, they think that everybody, because everybody in their social circle and everybody on their internet bubble thing is smart to the business and knows how much everybody makes and what, you know, how the business works and all this other stuff. The average person, especially in those days, had no idea how much a wrestler made. And to, they did know that baseball players and football players and Joe Namath and these type of people, they're on TV, they're probably doing pretty good. but here the pro wrestlers have to strike to get 50 bucks a night.

And then the average jackoff doesn't differentiate between, oh, but, you know, the NWA world champions in the main event in the Olympic, he's making a fortune, and they're just paying these fucking goofy local girls 50 bucks. It's just everybody's devalued. Back to this letter here. About the only place Millie's girls can work is Japan. where they're used to make the Japanese girls look good knocking them off.

Millie has sent 14 and 15-year-old girls with only three or four weeks training to Japan for six or eight-week tours. The Japanese girls just beat them in almost shooting matches. It's crazy seeing all these terms in a letter in 1973. I don't know if I've ever really seen that before. Millie is also the world's best double cross artist, frequently getting a 50% kickback from promoters then taking 33 and a third percent

from the girls remaining 50%. Recently, two of her wrestlers traveled to Phoenix, stayed overnight, and got a grand total of $15 each. I think she's a real liability to wrestling and her operation should be put out of business. You can check all the above info with Jeff Walton.

Enclosed her a couple more photo stories. Well, yeah, would Jeff Walt just happen to be the publicist for the L.A. office that they were striking against, but... I'll shoot some more color soon and send the negs to you. Regards, Phil. Once again, Phil Miller, June 11th, 73. So they... Do unto others as they do unto you.

In January, she's getting screwed around, and in June, she's screwing somebody else around. That's a wrestling business. Here appears to be the master photo of her and Jack Pfeffer with her with him in the airplane spin. Oh, good Lord. Yeah, see, there's a lot of stuff here you can tell based on the handwriting he came from Pfeffer. Here's a believe it or, Ripley's Believe it or not with Mildred Burke. Mildred Burke, Kansas City, Missouri, champion woman wrestler, never lost a bout,

can do 80 body bridges in succession. Believe it or not. and I think that's about it because the rest of these, here's a bunch of more photos and here's a bunch of Billy Wolf photos. Have you seen the photo of Billy Wolf playing cards by himself? Wasn't that reprinted in a book

at some point in the modern era? It seems like I remember something about it, but not specific. It may have been, but there it is. From the files, Mildred Burke, and in a period of time where people were going to learn a lot about her, you know, she really struggled later in life, all because of everything that went down,

everything that people were about to see in the movie. You know, she didn't die right after the movie ends. Yeah, no, it wasn't over at that point. When did she, she lived into the 80s, did she not? I think so. Let me double check that. Hold on. I believe she did.

But that was the thing is after... 89. Wow. 1989. After 1956, her own... involvement or presence or impact in wrestling was doing that early 70s Southern California wrestling school thing that didn't take off she never was able to get back in anywhere except in Japan because she was the girl when

they discovered pro wrestling she was the female champion and had a reputation there like Carl Gotts so that was pretty much it well you know the interesting thing, too, from the two letters, obviously a very polarizing figure at that point. There were people that were appreciative of her. I mean, I assume this woman didn't write this declaration under duress. And then there are people that are working with the office, I guess, that see her a completely other way. And again, I look at it as someone who's struggling to take the one skill she has and make some money with it. Yeah, and that was, that was the thing, is that she never was able to do anything again. She was completely shut out after that split

on a mainstream basis. You know, that was it. Let's get onto some other things here. You know what? Why don't we start with From the files? Because I got a wopper of one here. You used the word Whopper before and you were tantalizing me thinking that you were going to send me a coupon for free Burger King or something, but it's a whopper of a file from the Arcadian Vanguard files of the Wrestling News, Ring Wrestling and the assorted, assimilated products there within. That's right. And these are from the archives of the wrestling news. It's actually two files. One is the photo file. One is the correspondence file, which is massive. For Lil Al-Vavasor, Oh, my God. Who was the primary photographer for Leroy McGurk's wrestling company throughout the 70s. Well, now, and he was based in Louisiana.

Yes. And that is the time where McGurk had not only his tri-states territory up there, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas, but also he promoted Louisiana and most of the, from what I understand, because I used to see, and I was fascinated by that name, but I used to see his work in the magazines, and a lot of his work was done when the guys were in Louisiana. And he sold just about every picture he took to the wrestling news, so I have one of just about everything.

And in the photo... I don't know whether he sold him to him or sent him to him. Well, no, I have the receipts. Oh, okay. I could pretty much say we got the rights to these. This one here is his car. He had a station wagon, and on the door of the station wagon, he's posed here with his camera.

It says, Lil Al's wrestling photos, Port Allen, Louisiana. It has the phone number in the P.O. box. World's largest supplier of color photos of professional wrestlers. This, he's driving around town in this car, and then it has him and his assistant. My fortune, his photo assistant. Do you have any insight on his name? Because obviously being from South Louisiana,

there's the French and the Cajun influence down there, but Lil L-I-L-L-L-A-L-L-A-L-L-A-L-V-A-V-A, I believe, S-S-E-U-E-R? Is that it? It's a EU-E-U-I-U-R. Okay, I added an E. But what kind of fucking name is that? Well, again, I have a couple photos here from, uh, I'm guessing the 174 WFIA convention.

You see why they call me little. It's him next to Jim Melby and Norm Kiteser, and he appears to be a smaller man. Here's another photo where he appears to have a couple inches on Tom Burke. He's standing next to Danny Goddard at the 1974. Here's him and Bill Apter looking over a camera. So obviously he was in. with all the hipsters of the day. The cool cats.

But let's get past the photo file. Let's go to the correspondence file, because this is some interesting stuff here about when it ends, I guess, is a way to look at it. Again, this is a very, very big file. We're going to go to 1979. And now at this point in time, Watts has started Mid-South wrestling, right?

In 1979, or is this when it's about to take place? That is right. Mid-South has started. Here's a letter from North. Norm Kitzer to Lil Al, June 4th, 1979. Dear Lil Al. Not Dear Al. Even then, you can't just say, hey, Al. I have been holding this check waiting for more money to come in

and just wrote you another check, which I will hold as well. I wrote you a message on it, but I decided to send it right away with this one. My wrestling publications business is just not doing well, and I have had to make some very tough decisions. One is that I'm going to hold back on buying any more photos until the business picks up. I've been trying everything to generate more business, but nothing is working,

and the way the economy is, sales are down everywhere and show no signs of changing. Therefore, I have decided to try and keep things going with the material I have from new photos I get, from those photographers who provide them to me and return for free advertising.

I will buy any photos you have already taken from me, but please hold off taking any more, as I don't have the budget to handle more. Well, and by the way, also, part of the thing was, Norman never paid that much to begin with, but that's why you would sometimes see in the programs or of that particular period of time,

pictures from 1976 that he had the color separation made for, already that he would just put that in and the guy might have a different gimmick or not look like that or whatever, but sometimes it was behind the time he was stretching is what he was doing. Hopefully things will pick up again or something, but for now I am cutting back and trying to survive. This year has been the worst one ever for me, and I just will try to ride out the situation and hope things pick up. But as you realize, I have left you waiting a long time for payment on your most recent shipments, and with things getting worse, I think it is best if you hold off on doing more work for me

until I can afford to pay you. He's asked him to do that about three times now, hadn't he? He did, and he also wrote a very similar note on the actual check. And then that was June 4th. What was the check for, by the way? This check here is for $159. Holy shit, that may be the biggest check he ever. wrote.

And it has photos that were purchased. 1433, Randy Tyler. 1434, Tom and Lane versus Cassidy and Kid. 1439, Scoot. 1440, Stan Lane. 812, Prince Tonga.

14441 Patton and Sing with Usher. Does that say Usher? Jerry Usher was the referee. Oh, yeah, that's exactly right. And action, Charlie Cook and Black Atlas. Black Atlas, Rick Flair, Cookin Atlas, Brody, Diane Devine with Mad,

with, as I said, Mad Dog Boyd, with Boyd, it's not Mad Dog Boyd. That'd be Boyd Pierce. And so on and so on. It goes on the photos that were purchased, a list of them. The next letter from Norman to Al, July 16th, 79.

Dear, Lil Al, he wrote Lil La. He actually, wrote his name wrong here. Lila. Dear Lilla. I wrote you over a month back to hold off on doing more new stuff for me. Since that time, I have not received anything from you,

even though you said when you called more than a month ago that you had a package about ready for me, and I agreed to buy it. I hope you will send it soon, before the stuff I wanted becomes outdated. Things that picked up a bit with the programs, and I have a new deal going. He was still reporting news

from the Lincoln shooting at Ford's Theater at this time. I don't think it would be too outdated. Things have picked up a bit with the programs. And I have a new deal going which will give me control of a national newsstand wrestling magazine. That's when he took over

the ring wrestling enterprise and got on the newsstand with wrestling magazine and the Rings Wrestling. So I can again start buying new photos from you. However, there will have to be some changes as I just can't afford to buy a black and white 8x10 of every photo you need. So here is my new proposal. Does that make sense?

No. I think you can make out as well on it, and it will give me what I need. Instead of any prints, I need to have color slides. Ectochrome transparency. Yeah, that's his one. Transparency. Transparencies or whatever you call them. I can make the screen prints for the magazine

and the color separations directly from them. See, and let me give some insight on this. If he wanted to do stuff on the covers, he needed a slide that reproduced better when making a color separation for the printing process. I took some slides for him every so often, but most of my stuff was on film because of the picture business that I had going. And because my stuff looked fairly good anyway,

he would use my color pictures on the covers because the separation would come out okay. But he still wanted slides for most people. My new proposal to you is this. First, I'll still pay you $35 for each trip to New Orleans for the Superdome Cards and $50 for each. trip to Houston. Oh, hold on. Wait a minute now. God damn, $35. Even then if he shot four rolls of film on a Superdome show, there was $35 plus gas and going and coming. And Houston, Port

Allen, Louisiana, if it's in the New Orleans area, which I think it is, South Louisiana, Houston would be 200 miles at each direction. And same thing, but nevertheless. Well, again, that's not for photos. That was actually to pay him just to go and cover the events. Then we can work the rest two ways. First of all, you would shoot color, slide film. Then we can go one of two ways.

He just said that. What the fuck? You could send the film direct to me, and I would develop it. and of the pictures I needed, I would make duplicate slides. I would pay cost of developing and 50 cents for each slide I made a duplicate of and return the complete original set of slides to you. That sounds like a lot of work. That way, you would be getting 50 cents per slide,

and since you told me that the 8x10 paper now costs you over a dollar a sheet, and that the time and labor you put into making the 8x10s, and the cost to you to develop the film would all drop off so you need to make more, probably, and I would have what I need. God damn, he's doing this shit himself. Full-tone photo company was processing my stuff and for apparently around the same price.

I figure paying for developing, and cost of duplicate slide, and 50 cents to you, would cost me about $2 as now, as now. but then I would have exactly what I need for everything. Or my second proposal would be for you to develop the film and pick out... Blow me! My second proposal would be for you to blow me! Would be for you to develop the film and pick out what you want to send me

and then charge me for what it costs you to develop. I would then make duplicates and pay you 50 cents each and return the original as above. Either way is fine with me, although I felt the first way, might be better as you often get busy, and if all you have to do is shoot the film and send it to me, it might be easier for you, and I would get what I need when I need it. Yours, Norm. Is there any response from Al?

Well, here's another check. Well, here's, this is kind of where things change. We'll get Al in a second. One more from Norm to Al, September 10th, 79. Dear Lil Al, I finally got information on the new promotion setups for the... area. The way things stand right now, I will not be able to buy more photos from you of Louisiana wrestling, but I'll buy the ones I agreed to on the phone last week. Mid-South Wrestling is the new promotion of Louisiana and Mississippi. I will be doing the programs for them, but they have

picked out another photographer who they want to do all the photo work for that program. Mr. McGurk will continue to promote in Oklahoma, but as yet I have not made a deal with him to do the programs. However, that is outside of your area. I don't know how things will work out for the future, but that is the way they stand right now. If there are any changes or any other projects where I can use material from you, I will let you know, but as things stand right now, I will not be able to buy photos from you until there are some changes. Norm. And hold on here, and the reason for that for people whose heads are spinning with Norman's kindly tone.

When Watts took over from McGirk, Lil Al had been with the McGirk operation for years at that point, and he was probably heavily loyal to the McGirk side, and Watts taking over Louisiana and Mississippi, while McGirk still had Oklahoma, Arkansas,

and part of Missouri, wanted new people involved, didn't want a mole in the locker room. but if Norm had still wanted to really do business with Lil Al he was already going to Houston he was talking about Houston Houston at the time was affiliated with neither McGirk nor Watts

so I wonder why that was not an option possibly because somebody had nettled someone I have here a letter a handwritten letter from Lil Al Vavasor it's Stam. Lil Al's photo service Al-Vavasor, P.O. Box 4, 542 Avenue B, Port Allen, Louisiana, and the phone number. December 2nd, 1979. Hi, Norm. As you will note, I write void on both tickets. My failure, delay, and et cetera, is your gain.

So he voided a couple of checks he got from Norman. Note with three exclamation points. trying an experiment, I'll take two or three more weeks to complete. If I'm successful, I will call you immediately. I thought you might be able to use these in the meantime, he sent some photos. Do you still need only color slides for all your future photo needs? Didn't he just get fired a minute ago? Oh, as per Grizzly Smith, words to me, didn't say, Smith's, just Grizzly Smith words to me. Tommy has taken over from me.

I spoke to Jack Curtis, and he told me, you said I was very slow, and you were not getting photos from me. That is true, underlined and read. I won't try to deny truth and facts. But remember, I told you, I told Jack, and I pleaded with Grizzly for help and assistance to get photos I need. all Grizzly wants to tell me, and this is a quote, the boys don't want me to sell their photos.

Aha! Then it says in red ink in parentheses, Who in the damn hell is the boys? Now let me stop there for a second. Have you been shooting photos for years around wrestling? Is it crazy to you that he wouldn't know that terminology? Well, yeah, of course. And I think he's saying it in terms of, well,

Who the hell are they? Like to, you know, I've been around here. But the thing is, the guys wanted to be in the magazines. The guys wanted, especially in Bill Afters magazines, because they were newsstand, they were national. But the guys wanted to be in the magazines, and it didn't mind being in the programs most of the time, but in places where, for example,

I've done Dundee every once in a while, I get pricklish. because when I was doing my magazine that Norman Kiteser was printing for me and had a picture of him along with the fabulous ones on the cover, that was a picture that they weren't selling on the merchandise table. That's why I put it on the magazine. It would be exclusive. But then Dundee and some guys would go,

well, why would they buy the picture of me when they could get the picture of me and the other guys for, you know, the guys didn't like that sometimes. and if they had, that's if they had the right to sell their own pictures in a place, or just the idea that maybe they thought this guy, Lil Al, was making a fortune off of selling their pictures and they were pissy about it. Driving around in his wrestling car.

Driving around in his red, maybe he called a little too much attention to himself. But maybe also it was just that they were telling him, whatever they were telling him, because Watts wanted new fucking people. He didn't want a McGirk mole in the locker room. Let's go back to this, what Grizzly Smith was telling him. He even remarked, I could not sell photos by mail anywhere if guys were in the area.

Now, I was told that Buck Robly is also an owner of Mid-Southwood, Watson Curtis, and whoever. There's three question marks there. Well, Buck Robly at one time was the Booker. I don't know if it was during this particular period of time, but he was never an owner of any of the company, nor neither was Grizzly. But also alerted to fact that Grizzly probably won't be here very much longer. I was told, here's a quote, hang in there, keep your mouth shut and ears open. Well, now, and actually, is that when that Grizzly got sideways with Watts and started booking for Jack Curtis in Mississippi?

In 79? Was that about that time? I don't know. No, it would have been earlier. It would have come back, I think. would have been earlier, yeah. So, so then Grizzly, well, when did he send him the book for Leroy? When did he send him the book for Leroy McGirk?

Would it have been here? Maybe, but was Leroy folded up? Well, not by then, no. Watts got the rest than, what, late 82 or early 83? Yeah. Let's go back to this. This isn't bigger text than everything else. Okay, three exclamation points.

I suspect that Grisd that Grizzly Smith and Bill Watts are the two key people I need to overcome. But I don't know what is wrong or how to reach them to discuss a solution. If you know, won't you please tell me, please underlined. I was told by someone that my ex-wife, Mike Fortune, the kid that worked for me, and or Tina, Sigfried Stanky's, wife or girlfriend. May have had something to do with my problems,

especially Ethel and Tina. Ethel and Tina. Now, who would have thought that Ethel and Tina would have been involved in this? Someone is locally trying, trying underlined and red, to reach Grizzly Smith and learn the truth, and or problems. That's written so poor. I'm sorry.

So, three exclamation points. No wonder he just took the picture. pictures and didn't write the stories. If I succeed in my trial and experiment, will you be able to continue using color slides and whatever from me? You can call me at night after 7 p.m. Or I can call you collect. You refuse and call me back.

Waiting to hear from you soon. Wait a minute. That's even better. I'll call you collect. You refuse it than call me back. What kind of cloak and dagoning fucking. bullshit is this anyway. No wonder he liked dealing with me.

I just sent him fucking pictures. I didn't engage him in any sociological experiments with Ethel and Tina. If I call you up, hang up the phone, and then call me back in a special number. And then give me the code number and knock three times. And then say wink, wink, nod, nod. I'll know it's you. And apparently with this, he sent photos. So that's the story there of effort.

Are any of these letters put together with clippings from a magazine like a ransom note? Well, no, but if I go a little bit ahead, one last interesting thing I'll hit you with, or a couple. November 9th, 1983. So four years later, dear Lil Al, it was nice hearing from you by phone the other day. I looked at your file and realized it had been four years since I've written you. there have been a lot of changes since that. And because by the way, at that point, around about the end of 1979 is when you stopped in any of the magazines

or where you stopped seeing Lil Owl photos, most of which were taken in front of a curtain that hung somewhere. I never did find out where it was, but this big stage curtain that he would take for years, everybody, it may have been in the downtown building in New Orleans with a good lighting setup. I don't know, but go ahead. Well, you know, let me stop for a second, just because of that topic, I mean, you never experienced it.

But the idea that you're a regular photographer and just all of a sudden shut out. Now, obviously, it was a different promotion. It was a change, but it was all the same people. It wasn't like Watts started up with new people. It was the same local promoters. It was the same booker. It was everything was the same. A lot of the same talent.

Yeah. Can you even imagine of one day you showed up and you were told you can't shoot and you can't sell any of your photos anymore? Yeah, well, that would have been quite inconvenient. And, you know, that was the same. the thing is that in Tennessee there was never any interruption in ownership or change in administration like that but in a lot of cases in different territories when things happen things changed like that guys would get on the outs or guys that were on the outs would get on

the ends you know Dave McLean ended up of Dick the Brewser's son-in-law right he was the photographer one of the photographers no it was Scott Romer. I'm sorry. I don't tell a lie. Yeah, I don't think that would have worked out. No, Scott Romer was Bruiser's son-in-law. I'm sorry. But Scott Romer and Dave McLean were both the ringside photographers

in Indianapolis. And honestly, about the time that they got adults, because they were teenage wonders like myself, but their problem was, is that the whole territory went out of business about the time that they got to be

adults and they had to freelance shoot for a lot of the national companies that would come through Indiana. Scott went around the world. Dave chose a different path with glow or whatever. But anyway, yeah, you could be on the ends or you could be on the outs. Let's go back to this November 93 or November 9th, 1983 letter from Norm Kajzer to Lil Al-Vavasor. We are still doing programs

for the Mid-South Wrestling Association. And also they are selling the wrestling news magazine. at their matches. But, as I told you on the phone, I am no longer in charge of buying new photos from the Mid-South area. They make the arrangements to obtain the photos, and then send me what they want used as far as new material is concerned. So I don't have a budget out of which I could buy new material.

I just thought I'd make that clear up front so that you were aware of that. So you're not going to get fed out of the back of the meat wagon here. As I told you on the phone, any and all arrangements for you to again be a photographer in that area would have to be made through the promotion, specifically Bill Watts. And by the way, I can testify to what they were doing there because the Superdome programs from 1984 were printed by Norm Kiteser and the, you know, his company, pro wrestling enterprises. But in some cases, those programs that year, I did some of the photography. uncredited, but they needed pictures, the new baby faces. They needed fresh stuff of Hacksaw Duggan. They needed the Rock and Roll Express.

They needed Terry Taylor. So I had my camera with me. So a couple of days where I went out and shot Magnum on a motorcycle out in Alexandria, Louisiana, somewhere out in the woods where people couldn't see us together. And I brought a backdrop and did the rock and roll and some of the other guys. in Oklahoma City one afternoon, and those ended up in the programs. I hope things do work out for you, but then in any case, I've enclosed a copy of the most recent issues of my magazine, number 106, and the Mid-South program, number 86, to come off the press,

which I hope you will find of interest, sincerely Norman Kiteser, and then finally... You know, Norman writing these letters, how much free time must he have had for himself? I just talked about 79 up. I have, I mean, it's a giant stack inches deep of Lil Al correspondents going back to the early 70s. Finally, let's end with this one for, from the files. February 7, 1988. Ooh, dear Lil Al, nice talking with you on the phone today. I guess it's been five years since I heard from you.

The most recent address I have for the promotions you asked about are. Jim Crockett Promotions 421 Breyer-Bend Drive Charlotte, North Carolina 28209 Titan Sports McMahon Promotions 81 Holly Hill Lane

Greenwich, Connecticut 06-830 And finally Fred Ward promotions Oh my God 1028 front street Columbus Georgia 31901

I hope these addresses are still correct as I have not had any recent direct dealings with any of those promotions. I've also enclosed a copy of the wrestling news number 124, which is the most recent issue I did, Norman. So do you think Lil Al called him and said, hey, you think I can get a job with any of these other promotions?

Because Crockett was run in Louisiana at that point. Beyond the actual business of selling photos, and I'm assuming he did all right, Is it something you can get addicted to, the idea of shooting from ringside and being there in the middle of, you know, you're the only thing separating the fans and the wrestlers is kind of you're in that little zone where you can feel the heat, you feel everything. Well, yes, I mean, that was, it was fun. And you got the best seat in the house. But I think in this case here, because like I said, Lil Al disappeared.

I don't know what he did for a regular living. He may have been a regular photographer or do other things. whatever was going on with Ethel and Tina, I don't know. But if Norman Kaiser didn't hear from him for five years, and all of a sudden he's asking for addresses for Crockett, who at that time was on TBS and had just bought Mid-South and was running Louisiana, Vince, who was national, and Fred Ward.

Where did that come from? Because, well, I'm thinking that maybe Lil Al didn't keep up with all the goings on in wrestling. and maybe he had been to because Columbus, Georgia, if you were going to go from Louisiana to the Georgia territory, you'd hit South Georgia, making it in Columbus first. Maybe he'd been up there before,

worked for Fred Ward, but Fred Ward had been out of the business since 1980-fucking-3. So it sounds to me like he was trying to fall back on something if he was needing a part-time or a full-time job or whatever, and he's seeing all the wrestling on, national TV and think, oh, shit, you know, maybe I could get somebody to actually pay me to do this. But it doesn't sound like he was addicted or he would have been beaten down everybody's

door. When I went to Louisiana, I thought I'll finally see who this fucking Lil Al Vavasor is. And he was never at a show, never darkened the doorstep, didn't take photos, didn't introduce himself to anybody, his name was never mentioned. I blame Ethel. I blame Tina. Sigfried Stanky's Tina? We ever around him, Sigfried Stanky?

Never met him. Great name, but I never met him. Well, here it is. Inside Mid-South drama that you never knew you needed to hear about. From the Files. Jim, let's get away from your mother-in-law, and let's get to... That's what I'm trying to do. Before we get to Raw, which more than likely because, of the extra pay-per-view review here this week

on the show. We won't get to any questions. It'll probably be raw, but some classic wrestling before we get there. I have here a file, Jim, from the files. Yes. Yes. This is a file from the Wrestling News Archive, which comprises the various correspondence and

photos of Norm Kiteser Pro Wrestling Enterprises, wrestling review, the Rings Wrestling, Wrestling, wrestling, monthly, major league wrestling. What am I forgetting? There's a whole bunch of other publications too. Yes.

This is one of the big files in here, the Pat Malone file. Oh, my God. And because I swear to you, I am working on writing in my spare time, ha, a piece on Pat Malone. Oh. So this is very serapitian. Is this for Time magazine? Uh, no, it's actually, it's, it's for look.

Look is coming back. No, for something that I'm working on, I was writing some passages on Pat Malone, and I was thinking, you know, I'm going to run this by Brian before I show it to anybody and see what he thinks of it once I'm finished with it. And here you are with a full file on demand. Well, there's multiple parts of this file.

There are two different files of photos going back to seemingly the beginning of his career, and then him as an old man backstage at the shows. It's a picture him in Roy Welch, picture him in Norm Kiteser. This is the correspondence file I have here. And are there any pictures of him as the green shadow? I believe so, but I can go back and check. Because, okay, not only do I want to see him, and we'll do that off the air,

but also Scott Teal in his research, the green shadow was so mysterious. and folks, the reason why I'm writing a piece about him was he was one of the, and I think we mentioned it on the show, one of the biggest draws in history of wrestling that absolutely nobody talks about or remembers, and that's sad. But Scott Teal, when he's researched his Nashville book and Knoxville book, there are very few publicity pictures or any kind of pictures of Pat Malone as the Green Shadow still existing. but we did an account for your files that you have curated there

that have been around since the 1960. Well, I'll see what I have. Again, there's a lot of stuff here, and this is one of the big files and a lot of correspondents. Here's a... Because, of course, Pat, as we've talked about in later years, was responsible for selling the magazines, the wrestling news and the arenas around the Tennessee territory,

including getting the little kids, hey, boy, come here, sell 10 of these magazines. You can get in and watch the matches. Yeah, and I have here, this is a letter from Pat Malone typed to Norm Kiteser November 10th, 1976. Please find and close a cashier check in the amount of $500, half of the amount I owe you. I will send you the balance with just $500 in a few days. I want to thank you, I think he means thank, for the copy of the letter.

I don't think it will create any problems for me. I will call you soon. Go ahead and get ready for me. The 2,500 magazines issue number 39. Thank you for everything. Sincerely yours, Pat Malone. And I guess he would be, I have a letter, I have two... Yeah, and if I recall, because the wrestling news was the magazine,

as we talked about that was sold in the arenas back at that time, when I started going, I think the first issue I got was like, issue number 30, maybe it was, it might have been in late 20s, early 30s. And that was in spring of 1974. So around that time, that may be one of, right about the time that he started using some of my pictures also, but he was getting 2,500 of the magazines that he could sell around the territory. And I believe the price at that time was, I want to say $2, but maybe.

Maybe it was a dollar, but I think it was two dollars. And it's coming on the heels of this, a letter from Norm Kitzer to Pat Malone, November 5th, 176 to Pat Malone, Ezzell Road in Nashville. Dear Pat, Mr. Nick Goulas called me yesterday, and he was unhappy about issue number 38 of the wrestling news. He said that Armstrong and Fuller had left the area, and Diamond was not important enough for a cover. And also that Don Green had left the area and was working opposition to him.

and that he didn't like having any photos of green. Hold on, hold on, because the diamond he's talking about was Buddy Diamond, who was a, I remember this magazine, who had just done a deal where he was becoming the private and Jerry Lawler's, the General's Army, Lawler's Army. And Fuller and Bob Armstrong had indeed left and gone back to Knoxville. and Don Green was working for the company that Luthez had spearheaded with, who was at the time, it was it Buddy Lee, or was it Danny Davis, not my Danny Davis, but the Nashville Danny Davis that was back in the UWA in 1976.

Yeah, that's 76, yeah. Yeah, so that was, yeah, he featured all these guys that fucking Nick was on the outs with for some reason or another. Anyway, to make a long story short, he wants me to check. check out with him who goes on the cover each time from now on. Also, he said either I or you should check out with him any stories about his area I put in. I covered all he wanted in a long letter I wrote back to him. I've enclosed a copy for your information only.

He wants me to use a photo he is sending me of Tojo Yamamoto, George Goulos, Jerry Jarrett, and Jackie Fargo on the front cover of number 39, that color picture that he had Mike Shields take I believe at the TV studio in Nashville they actually right as I was getting started taking pictures all the other stuff was 8 by 10 black and white and sometimes not even on photo paper just printed but this one was printed like real

card stock and in full color of Nick's four stars Jerry Jarrett Tojo Yamamoto Jaggy Fargo and George Goulis. And they had that at every merchandise stand. Go ahead, I'm sorry. And to use the one you sent me of Tommy Rich on the back cover.

Since Mr. Goulis is the boss, I will go along with what he says and check out all the stories with him from now on. I don't think this system will be hard to live with, and I hope you think the same. I did want you to know what happened on this, so I sent you this letter and a copy of what I wrote back to him. let me know if this will create any problems for you or anything. I think everything can work out okay,

and I can satisfy him and give you a good magazine to sell. So issues from the office. And also the picture of Tommy Rich, as I recall from the back, see, a lot of these pictures were Mike Shields was taking them. Because Mike Shields at the time would take post-still pictures back in the Mid-South Coliseum locker rooms, and then he was doing the video, the film camera for the matches. And as I said, I was just starting in Louisville to take pictures the other end of the territory.

But Pat would just get pictures and send them in. And Norm Kiteser, as we talked about, would credit photo by Pat Malone. He never picked up a camera in his life. But that was Pat's interest in. And here's the kicker. Six months, not even after this letter, Jarrett and Goulis would split. and Pat went with Jarrett. And because Pat was, Pat and Roy Welch had been close friends since the 1920s.

And they were intertwined with training the wrestling bears. And Roy Welch, when he established the booking office, he's the one that made Pat Malone the green shadow. And Pat Malone put Nashville on the wrestling map for Roy and Knoxville. He did incredible. business and Birmingham. So the loyalty was with Pat and Roy. When Jared

split off from Goulas, Pat still came to Louisville and still went to Memphis. He just stopped going to Nashville because Nick kept Nashville. And because Taney had been in the

office with Nick and Roy and Jerry had been Roy's protege, Pat felt more loyalty to them rather than Nick who was not always well liked by everybody. Nick was like the photos he was sending into the magazines. Yeah, Pat, it didn't have to worry about what Nick thought. And then I don't know whether Nick was selling many copies of the wrestling news in Nashville, Chattanooga, and Birmingham, because that's all he had left and he wouldn't have those for two more years.

Well, Jim, the next letter I have here, correspondence, this is from Norm Kitzer to Pat Malone dated December 20th, 1976. Dear Pat, I received your check for $500, which pays for what you owed on number 38. Thank you. For number 39, I still have not located the 400 copies that were lost by my printer, but will keep looking for them. If I find them, I will send them immediately, but for right now, your bill stands at 840.

for 2,100 copies of the Wrestling News No. 39, NWA East Edition, at 40 cents each. I have the two slides you sent me. I'll have to get prints and negatives made from them. In the future, please send me color negatives rather than color slides as they work much better. Not knowing that he didn't take any of these photos, it's funny to me. Yeah. Just use color negative film rather than color slides. film. And see, that's because in that era of printing

to make the color separations, they like negatives, but I couldn't send them any of my negatives because I goddamn needed them to print pictures here, so they had to deal with it. Now, as far as Knoxville is concerned,

I got a call from Mr. Dick Steinborn who I met while there. He wrestles there, and he also handles the program sold at the matches for the area. He was interested in selling magazines for me. I told him, you are the exclusive distributor for magazines for that area, and that any deal would have to go through you.

I know that you sold some magazines to the ring many who stopped to see you. I'm not exactly sure what he was trying to say there. The ring man who stopped to see you. Oh, the ring man. I bet you. You know what? It's crossed out after that. I thought it was a why.

Who's the ring man? well whoever was hauling the ring here's the thing Pat never went to Knoxville in the modern era to sell magazines that was wasn't part of really either of Jarrett's territory or Nick and Roy's

territory remember Kazana ran it till 1974 Ron Fuller bought it and opened up southeastern wrestling and since this is a couple of years later Dick Steinborn at the time was wrestling as

I think Mr. Wrestling or was he the gladiator under a mask at that point, but also he was a photographer, was shooting some of the pictures, and helping Les Thatcher with the programs and things while Les was doing the TV show. So they were probably wanting to sell some of the magazine's same thing, but I bet you whoever was hauling the ring, was it Mac McMurray, the referee who was partners with Ron, or somebody had stopped in to see Pat if they were going through Nashville, Bill. Hey, let me take some of those and sell them or whatever.

And he sold him to something like that. All right. Well, back to this, the ringman who stopped to see you. Maybe it might be possible for you to make some sort of deal with Steinborn. I know he does all the programs that handles that end of the business as Ron Fuller told me this. He might be able to put the magazine on sale using the same people uses to sell the program. What I couldn't give him was a price for the magazine. Why don't you offer him the same price you sold those other magazines for if you are interested? This might be a way to get more sales up there and have the magazine on sale there all of the time

and yet save you from having to make the drive down there. See, that's a thing. I think Norm is confused about the geography of the state of Tennessee and what territory was what. and he was thinking because Pat was exclusive for the Tennessee territory, he didn't realize that there was two already and fixed to be three different territories in the state of Tennessee. If you are interested in this, Mr. Steinborn's telephone number is, and he has two different phone numbers listed here,

I'm not sure, as I wrote it down twice and they were different. Also, I had an idea which might help sales up there and also give Nick Gullis what he wants. To explain my idea, I've enclosed a copy of another edition of the wrestling news called the Stranglehold edition. If you will notice, we use the same covers for the Stranglehold edition as we do for the AWA edition. Look inside the back cover of the magazine enclosed, and you will see this. We just fold the cover the opposite way so that each area gets someone from there on the front. In that way, we could use the same magazine.

and covers for the Nashville and Knoxville areas, but staple the magazines the opposite way so that each area had their man on front. And also, with these different additions, they had NWA East, NWA West, stranglehold for the WAA in Indianapolis, AWA edition. The first, you know, when you print a magazine

is stapled in the middle, so the first eight sheets, 16 pages on each side would be the same thing and then they would insert new copy just for that specific edition of the magazine for the pages in the middle

and then staple it like that. Yeah, they reused a lot of shit. He was a master at cost-cutting was Norm Kiteser. This is all just ideas and maybe you don't think it is worthwhile. However, I think it might work out If you want to contact Mr. Steinborn and work out a deal with him on the wrestling news, you can. If not, just forget it.

I gave you the deal, so do what you want. So do what you want. I guess that covers it for now. I'll be planning out the next issue soon. We'll call Mr. Goulis about what he wants on the front cover and go from there. Thanks, Norm. And I have seemingly the reply from Pat Malone. Again, typed November 20th, excuse me, December 22nd, 1976.

Dear Norman, I just received your letter in magazine. In close, please find a cashier check in the amount of $500 on issue 39. At this time, I will have a balance of $340 that I owe, and I will send as soon as possible. As far as the Knoxville side, I intended to go there and have a talk with Mr. Dick Steinborn and Fuller, but they change every few weeks of who is in charge. As you might not know, they have a new booker, or a new booker. man in charge every few weeks. That makes it hard for me to do business with any one person.

But I intend to go over there. We'll call you in a few days. We wish you and your family a Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year. Thank you for everything, sincerely yours. Pat Malone. And two questions. And number one, I wonder who the revolving Dora Bookers was at that point in time.

This is 70. Were they going back and forth between... Yeah. Well, Dick Steinborn, Bob Armstrong, Robert Fuller at that point. Ron Fuller himself. Ron. But the second thing is, is that hand sign Pat Malone? Yes, it is.

It looked like kind of neat handwriting? It does. Okay, that's his wife, Sammy, is typing at four of him. And I'm not like Pat was an invalid, but he didn't give a shit to sit down at a fucking typewriter. This is a goddamn old shooter that used to fucking carry a knife in his boot to fend off the fucking fans that were trying to attack him. His fucking knuckles and the calcium deposits were like golf balls.

He wasn't sitting down at a typewriter sending Christmas greetings to Norm Kiteser when he was 77 years old. His wife, Sammy, was typing that. They even typed out the envelopes because I have the envelope here. Postated December 22nd, 76, Nashville, Tennessee to Mr. Norm Kiteser. Medellia, Minnesota. And then in red it's typed out, attention, important.

Make sure it gets to the right department there. You got me actually interesting. I'm just going to go a little forward just to see if there is anything about the fallout with Google. Anything from late April, early May, 1977. And by the way, here's another while you're looking at that, another little factoid that I've come up with, and one of these days, we'll talk about why I've been doing this research.

Pat Malone as the green shadow was responsible for, as the top heel for popping, the wrestling business in Nashville in 1940 and 41, when Roy Welch had first taken over and established a booking office there. And in those days, they had the matches at the old hippodrome, which was a big, they had no sports arena in Nashville. The hippodrome was a big roller skating rink with permanent. Bleacher seats and they had concerts, they had political conventions and rallies. Any kind of live entertainment, that was the place that indoors you went in Nashville in those days.

And if they were selling and jamming what we believe Scott Teal has tried to investigate this and, you know, I've heard Christine Jarrett talk about it, but the building supposedly could see. about 2,000 people, but if everybody was standing and they would do this all the time, you could get almost 3,000 people in this thing. And their tickets were like an average of a little bit less than a dollar. But if you'd use the old-time promoters formula and there were six guys on these cards, and Pat Malone was in the main event, and he was either wrestling the Booker or the Booker's brother, the head of the office, he was best friends, he was figured.

in he had a run there of years. If they drew a $2,500 house and you use the old-time promoters formula that Sam Muchnick used to use, you can see Pat Malone, this is where I'm going with this,

getting two payoffs in 1941 out of the Nashville Hippodrome and $200 in fucking today's money equals like $4,000. So these

old fucking shooters set this office up and Roy kept it between himself and his brother Herb and wow Bill Caney and Tex Riley and a few of the other Tennessee mainstays for the next 15, 20 years. And these guys were making what even today in the wrestling business would be considered legitimate money of the equivalent of thousands of dollars a week. It was a fucking amazing. If you go back and look at this that far, what they were able to do with no television, no interstates,

and in the middle of the Depression and World War II. But bring us back to 1977. Yeah, let's go to here. We'll hit on a few things. It may be slightly out of order because this, again, this is a massive file, a paperwork, and some of this in this area seems to be, it's all there, but out of order,

chronological, in the chronological sense, I guess. Here's a letter from Norm Kahneman. or to Pat Malone, February 16th, 77. Nice talking to you on the phone today. Hope that you are feeling well and your health is good in the future. I'm sorry that issue number 40 was delayed, but I wrote Mrs. Jarrett a note and asked her to decide who they want on the cover for issue 41 by March 1st. And if they want someone other than Lawler to decide by then, so that I can then get the next issue out on schedule. I've already received some color of stuff from Dick Steinborn of boys in the

southeastern area, so we should have no problems there. I'm shipping you this week. $1,000 for 2,500 copies of number 40, the Wrestling News, NWA East Edition, at 40 cents each. I guess that covers everything right now. Hope the magazines arrive quickly. Send him a bitch about five years later he was charging me about 8. for my magazines. Here's another one from Norm

on March 2nd, 77. Just a note to let you know that Jerry Lawler and Jimmy Golden will be on the front cover of Wrestling News No. 41, which will come out. In time, I assure you. I'm then closing the slides from color photos in issue 40. And then see, it goes a little out of order here, but here's March

2877 from Pat Malone. Dear Norman, and close fine to check for the amount of $400 balance due on issue 40. I would like very much in the future, Norman, if you would let me know who you are using on the front and back cover. As I sell most of the magazines in this territory, if I don't get a picture on the front and back cover of someone from East Tennessee,

I can't sell the books over there. Let me know at once, when to expect the books. Thank you. Pat Malone. That's a little turst. But if I go a little bit forward here, this is where I said they're a little out of order. Here's a letter from Pat Malone to Norm Kiteser May 25, 1977.

Oh. Dear Norman, I received the magazines. I will send you a check in a few days for at least half of them. I'm going to tell you something. I guess Miss Christine told you. Don't use anything more of Nicola's boys. End what, I think he means end. It says R, but there's a lot of misspellings here.

End what Scott Thiel sends you, as we don't. don't work together anymore. But be sure and always have some good pictures of the East Tennessee boys, which is Fullers on the front and back cover, also Jerry Jarrett's boys. Can I give some insight on that? Yeah, please. Also, because we said we don't work with Nick anymore,

don't use it. Scott Teal, unfortunately, was the suffering for that because Scott had moved to Nashville from Florida in the early 70s and had been doing the slamagram programs for Nick and taking pictures of Nick's guys in the Nashville end, while Mike Shields did a lot of stuff for Memphis, as I said. And when Jarrett split off from Goulas, it became the Jarrett Welch Wrestling Company

because even though Roy was got, Roy died right about that time anyway, did he not? But Buddy Fuller, who was Edward Welch, had agreed to partner with Jarrett so that Jarrett could use the Welch name. And, you know, Buddy had kind of taken over at that point the head of the family status since Roy was in ill health and the other brothers had retired. And so from Goulous Welch Wrestling, it became the Jarrett Welch Wrestling company because Buddy Fuller was involved. and obviously says buddy's son, Ron, owned the Knoxville territory. Jared and Ron were working together,

bopping talent back and forth, because it was all in a family, and neither one of them was particularly beholden to or, you know, enamored of Nick. So they were, Nick was in the middle in Nashville, but the Memphis on the west end and Knoxville on the east end was trying to, squeeze him and also didn't want his boys to get any publicity in the magazine.

And Scott Teal had a good relationship with Jerry Lawler, and Jerry Lawler secretly had Scott Teal do the programs when they first broke off and then Jerry Jarrett put the kibosh on that because Scott had the long time. Scott Teal's the one person doesn't say a single bad word about Nick Ullis. He said he was always honorable with him, always treated him good. No, Michael St. John will not say anything bad about Nick too, because he did the same thing. Nick treated him not. He was his TV announcer. Nick, you know, usually try to take care of the people in the inner circle in the office.

But the opinion amongst the wrestlers varied. But as Michael St. John said, I'll tell you this. I can't remember what it was, but he came on a point where St. John, maybe his, was it his wife sick? He told me the story. But he just happened to mention it. And Nick got in his safe and gave him some large amount of money in cash and said, Yeah, boy, don't worry about it.

But that's the thing. Nick, even he was still planning on being in business, you know, forever. Because he'd done that for 40 years. Why wouldn't he do it forever? He had a new office building built in Nashville after the split with Jared and paid cash for it. Like a couple hundred thousand. I'm talking cash that he had in his fucking safe in his old office. The old-time wrestling promoters, they kept ludicrous.

amounts of cash around. Well, back to this letter. This will be the final letter of this edition of from the files. In close, you will find a program from Memphis and Louisville. You can see the boys we use in Jerry Jarrettstowns.

I suppose you get material from East Tennessee of the boys that work for Fuller. Thanking you, I will close. Sincerely yours, Pat Malone. Yeah, thanking you, I will close was not a sad. off that Pat would come up with on his own. Oh my God, it has it here too.

Here's the next letter, June A, thanking you, I will close. Yeah. I love that. That's great. Pat's favorite expression was, boy, I'll either fight you, fuck you, or run your foot race. Who took this photo of Paul? I'm sending you a couple of programs. You will see the story on Paul.

Orndorf in front of a white, Orndorf in front of a white concrete wall. Either he's got the old Southern Junior heavyweight title belt on. or perhaps he's in either short trunks or blue warm-up pants? It doesn't have the photo here, but it says, I'm sending you a couple of programs. You will see a story on Paul Orndorf, all in caps. I would like for to use it in the magazine with the negative. I hope you have received by now.

I would like for you to use the picture of Orndorff on the front cover, along with Fuller. Every time the word end is supposed to be here, it says R. Almost like a B.K. Sir. Fuller are someone from the East Tennessee side. Be sure and have them on the cover. Let me hear from you.

Thanking you, I will close. That is my new favorite sign off. Thanking you, I will close. But we will close there with this. Obviously, this is a massive file. This is 77. And it goes until, I didn't realize he was still doing stuff.

86? Yeah. 87, 88. So it goes until 1988 and here is... I think that's the year he died. And here is his obituary from the paper. Oh, my God. March 15th.

Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, I was just going to say, you and I got off the air got to do some business. Your files will get a big plug in what I'm producing. But I need that information. Go ahead. Well, here's March 15th, 1988. Do you know his real name?

Because I'm about to say it. Well, Edgar B. Davies is the consensus of what most people think his real name was. Here it says Edgar Brian Davy, 87, a retired professional wrestler who used a professional name of Pat O'Brien, died Tuesday at Southern Hills Hospital after a brief illness. Davy, who wrestled in Nashville for several years wearing a mask and using the name the Green Shadow, won the title of World Light Heavyweight Wrestling Champion, in 1936.

Funeral services, it goes into the information there. A native of Carbondale, Illinois, Mr. Davy was the son of the late, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Davy. Good Lord. He first came to this area in the early 1930s and wrestled at the old hippodrome

drawing turnaway crowds. He had wrestled in New York City and other cities in this country and around the world. Later, he promoted wrestling in Miami and six. South Florida. After his retirement, about 20 years...

And by the way, that was in the 40s between 1945 and 44 and 47. Oh, no way. Wow. Roy Welch had taken over Tampa. Yeah. And Lake Mary, Lake Worth, a lot of towns in Florida. Florida wrestling was on its ass and not drawing. This was before Cowboy Luttrell. And at various points, he sent Pat down there not only to wrestle as the green shadow,

but to run towns and... book for him and even sent Nick down for a year out of Nashville. And it was too far away. It didn't work. And so they came back because Nashville and Tennessee was making more money. But they were the promoters in Florida, most of Florida, right after World War II, right before Luttrell. After his retirement about 20 years ago, Mr. Davy continued to stay close to the

sports world. In recent years, he, he's. He had worked as a guard at the sports arena at the state fairgrounds. Survivors include a daughter, Patsy Davy, Nashville, three sons, Clyde Davy, Tampa, Edgar Davy, Nashville, and Patrick Davy, Alexandria, Virginia, 18 grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. So there it is. It doesn't say which paper this is from, but I'm sure it's a net. By the way, he was still, he did fill in matches every once in a while in the

early 1960s when he was past 60 and he was still taking ginger the bear around in the 60s and I think to the early 70s it was he was fucking a man he had the legendary stories but nobody got more heat than the green shadow as far as with the fans there are numerous instances of the fans rioted the fans tried to pull the green shadow out of the locker room. Green Shadow was hit over the head with a broken bottle and slashed in the face. He was stabbed. He had a fight with he was arrested for kicking his shit out of a fan. Everywhere he fucking went. And there's no video. There's no film. There was no such thing as television. There's no audio recordings. There's very few pictures. But he was inventing all of the,

he and Roy Welch inventing or the first one to do all of the fucking heel wrestling tricks that have come to be blasé in front of these people they'd never seen him of soap and the eyes we're going to lynch this motherfucker so he was

the fucking saltiest old son of a bitch that ever walked the earth here's a letter from Pat Malone again very nice handwriting I'm guessing it's his wife this is all handwritten informing Norm Kiteser of falling and breaking his right hip on March 30th. This, we'll end with this.

I just bumped into this. There was one time he was in the hospital in the 70s and Taney got mad because she had called up and she had asked for Pat Malone's room and oh, I'm sorry, Edgar Davy. And so why does he have two names? It's a professional name. She was like, she didn't want anybody to think anything about wrestling was, you know, phony or whatever. It's a professional name.

Go ahead. Well, we'll end with this. is in the file. This is dated January 10th, 1987. It's signed sincerely Christine Jarrett, handwritten. Dear Norman, please believe me when I say that my grandson, Jeff Jarrett, is number one box office. It is not just from a grandmother talking. Whenever you see fit to put his pictures on the front page, you can automatically send me 700, magazines for shipment. Hope you are well, and I wish.

Trying to bribe Jeff's way on the cover of the magazine. And I wish for you all great things in the new year, signed sincerely Christine Jared. That's the whole letter. Believe me when I say he's number one. Put him on the cover. I'll buy 700 copies. Well, you never know what you'll find in the Pat Malone file. this has been from the files

Pat Malone Jim let's end today with four in today there's still about another seven hours of it left but I'm in favor of calling it here we might miss the severe storm well first let's do some from the files

and I said I'll do this I have the Eddie Gilbert file here from the wrestling news archive and oh if you have Dennis's which is actually apropos because the dark side of the ring on Eddie Gilbert is about to air For the Eddie Gilbert Memorial Show in 96 that you and I both went to, it says Jerry the King Lawler in the official thing, not Jerry,

Thinking Lawler. Thinking Lawler. Full page ad, $150, half page 100, quarter of a page 75, or a business card size, $50. Payable to the National Wrestling Alliance. That's not the typical thing that you see in here, but it's a lot of pictures. Eddie sent in a lot of pictures. of himself. They were 8 by 10s. This is a letter

to Jim Melby. Jim, thought I would send you a new color photo of myself. Thanks very, very much for the photo on the front issue of review and story. Also, thanks for the programs you've been sending home. Thanks again, your friend, Eddie Gilbert.

Eddie loved to send pictures to all the magazines because he was promoting himself. He was, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. He wanted to make sure that if he was going to get some press, he wanted to cooperate. And also, unlike any other wrestler, by and large, he had been schmoozing with all these people for years.

They all knew who he was before he broke into the business. Yeah. There's another one. Jim. Hello, old buddy. How's everything going? Fine, I hope. Here's some things on Puerto Rico.

We won the North American tag titles from Moon Dogs, June 5th, Kangaroos, Don Kent, and John Heffernan. Who's John Hefferman? Uh, that was, oh, God damn it. Managed by Al Costello, the World Tag Team Chavians. The original kangaroos were Al Costello and Roy Heffernan.

And then Heffernan went back to Australia or whatever he did, and Costello had a couple of different partners, maybe not as kangaroos, then found Don Kent and, Costello and Kent were the kangaroos from, what, say, 6970 through the early 70s, and then when Don Kent went out as a single, Costello was a manager for a little while, but then he kept putting groups of kangaroos back together, and I'm trying to think John Heffernan was somebody else under another name. Well, obviously, and I can't remember what other name he used. But in Puerto Rico, would that have been 1980, the date on that?

Because had they just left, it would have been 80 or 82? It doesn't have a date or a year on this? No. Tommy and they won the tag team title, meaning Tommy and Eddie Gilbert, they were the tag team champions in Puerto Rico, in between runs in Tennessee, I believe. And the Moondogs, that would have been, maybe it had been 82-ish, because the Moondogs had a run.

first in the WWWF. That's where they got the gimmick and then went to Puerto Rico, I think. I sound like I'm playing guest to program now. Tell Norman, I said hello. Maybe we'll get together sometime like we did in Kansas City. Take care of your friend, Eddie Gilbert.

And again, lots and lots of pictures here. Lots of rare pictures. Pictures I've never actually seen before. And then some of these look like yours. This has to be yours. Yeah, this is yours. lots of setup photos of Eddie there's lots and lots of photos

that you can't really read lots and lots of photos of Eddie you can't really read hold on let me go back here there's a big file I have a letter from Norm Kiteser to Eddie Gilbert oh this may answer your question slightly

July 27th 1982 Mr. Eddie Gilbert St. Tropey apartment 3F Ila Verda I believe that's how you would say it Puerto Rico 0-0-0-913

Dear Eddie, it was nice hearing from you. Thanks for the program and photos. I will see to it that they are used in our publications. The program is also of a help in compiling area close-ups. I was glad to see that you and your dad were being put over. Evidently, you guys are popular with the fans, winning the straps and all. How long do you plan on staying in Puerto Rico?

Rico. Also, what is the attendance averaging? I've heard from other guys that Puerto Rico is a fun place to work if you can make the money. It must be nice to at least cap some beach action, excuse me. Puerto Rico not known as a well-paying territory, Jim? Well, no, if you can make the money, that's, I mean, it could be good or bad, and I don't have any personal experience down there, thankfully, and on purpose. I wouldn't go to Puerto Rico and be. set on fire by those people. But I've talked to a bunch of guys and Dutch booked down there for ever in eons.

And what they would do is they would, let's say you were supposed to make $750 one week, but they'd give you $500. They say, oh, we're doing a little slow. We'll give you the $250 next week. Well, next week you're supposed to then make $1,000. Well, but then they'd give you $600. And they'd say, oh, well, we'll give you $400 next week.

You would get so in the hole on what they owed you that they were trying to catch up, but they weren't catching up properly that it would be a situation where you couldn't afford to leave their company. And you couldn't afford to give your notice because you knew if you gave your notice that they'd fuck you on the rest of the money. So you kind of hung around trying to chase that carrot. And that's how they kept guys from leaving the island. Well, back to this letter to Eddie Gilbert. The people that we do business with all seem to be doing pretty good. The last Superdome show did their all-time dollar record.

I don't recall the exact figure, but remember the crowd was 22,000 plus. Of course, the WWF remained strong. Buddy Rose is next up for Backland around the horn. I'm glad to see him getting the push. I've known him since before he got in the business. We are now doing programs for Joe Blanchard, and San Antonio is doing okay too. They've been running some real big cards in Amarillo and Houston. Recently, Bok Winkle versus the Junkyard Dog set the all-time dollar record for a Houston house show.

How big was dog in Houston by the time you got there? Giant. Because he had, before Watts annexed Houston, when Paul split off, from getting his talent from the San Antonio office, Bosch could still bring in individuals that he wanted. So he'd bring in some of the Hispanic stars for that group of the audience. And he'd bring in dog,

or he'd bring in Mosquist, or he was using Bachwinkle as the AWA champion. And he got dog before that Watts, as I said, took over Houston. So dog was already made by the time the rest of the Mid-South guys got there. But yeah, it was definitely big. And I don't know what the record dollar figure would have been at that time. But I know that when we got there at the end of 83,

the best house for our first couple of appearances in Houston was the same thing. Was dog was on a card, I think, against Bockwinkle. But then later on that year, we jacked up. ticket prices, we did 89-8 for the scaffold match with the rock and roll and 102 grand for the last stampede. I think the best they had done beforehand was like in the $70,000 range. Locally, Vern and Wally are having their best year ever. We have been selling out the St. Paul Civic Center on a regular basis, which is 18,000 plus when you sell standing room. I've enclosed latest card so that you could see who is working here.

What do you think of that main event? It was one of the few times I've seen four Babyface worked in a tag team match, let alone on top, and draw a sellout no less. Who was this? The match itself was excellent. The finish was Santana being counted out after missing a flying body block on Brunzel. I think that was the high flyers versus Tito and Rick Martell. I bet you're right.

Which the footage I've seen, I think, of them in San Francisco is incredible. I'll close for now. But remember, if there's anything specific that I can do for you, just let me know. Please give my regards to your father for me, your friend Jim Melby. Once again, July 2, 27. And boy, he's right. In 1982, everybody was doing great business for the most part. and Jared, 1981 was the biggest year that Jared had had in business since he'd started his company

because of Lawlers come back in all those giant houses in Memphis all year. Well, that's going to wrap up from the files, like I said. Just looking through, there's a lot of picture. I'm trying to find anything with writing. There's so many pictures here. But there we go, and that was a letdown. That was a complete letdown. I should have brought the other file that I wanted to, but I didn't.

You know what? I won't make any comments in case you want to edit anything later. I'm dropping stuff and I'm picking stuff up. And I'm dropping other stuff. And I'm picking other stuff up. Oh, boy. Hold on. This is a mess.

Ladies and gentlemen, Brian Last has been lost in the San Andreas fault. All right. Take two. We're going to have an addition. from the files today. Surprise sneak attack. This is from the files. This file is labeled the Tommy Rich Fan Club. Let me see if it goes this way or this way.

It starts, okay. I think it goes both ways. October 11, 1982, Norm Kitzer sends out two letters. One to Carol Barry, West Columbia, South Carolina. Dear Carol, I understand you operate a fan club for Tommy Rich. We would like to include it in our fan club section in the wrestling news. and close it's an application for you to complete, so we may do this. Sincerely yours, Norman Kiteser.

Same day, a letter to Karen Langley, Fairborn, Ohio. Dear Karen, I received your letter concerning the Tommy Rich Fan Club. Since Miss Barry has not filled out an application for listing it in our fan club section, since I have taken it over, I've written her for information about her club, and I will let you know what she says when I receive, a reply from her. I don't know what that's.

Oh, okay. This explains. And for the people who don't even understand this whole thing, in the old days in wrestling, going back to the 50s, fans, if a guy was wrestling in the Georgia territory, some fan from Columbus, Georgia would say, I want to run your fan club and be the fan club president. And the magazines would actually promote this if you provided them with a, a permission slip from the particular wrestler being honored signed that, okay, it's okay for this person to run my fan club,

which guys would do all the time or whatever, you know, they didn't give a shit. But you would have different ones because the way the guys moved around until you got the real established fan club, like in the early 70s when it was probably the biggest deal it had been, everybody knew that, oh, this guy, the Pedro Morales fan, club is run by so-and-so or whatever. And otherwise, you just get them when guys switched territories, other people would want to start them.

And the other, meanwhile, the other fan in the other territory would lose interest because the guy had left. So it was always moving around. Well, it seems this was prompted by a letter to Norm Kiteser from Karen Langley, October 8th, 82. I'm writing to you concerning a fan club in particular. particular Tommy Wildfire Rich fan club run by Carol Barry. In February 82, I sent $6 yearly dues to Miss Barry for what was supposed to be monthly

bulletins, membership card, etc., etc. In April, I received a very nice letter from the West Columbia Postal Service containing the... It's hard to read. She's a very nice cursive, but it's hard to read everything. the remnant of what I had been a packet of pictures and had, and who knows whatever. It's hard to read a little bit of this. Sorry, folks.

They asked me, if possible, to tell them what the contents were so that they could try and find them. Since I had no way of knowing what it had contained, I returned the remnant and, and Postal Service letter to Miss Barry, hoping she would replace it. I, as of yet, have received no response. In May, I received volume one, issue nine, February, March, 1982. It was very nice. In August, I received volume two, issue 10, June, July 82.

It was also very nice. It included some Brad McFarlane photos of Tommy. I still have received no membership card. I wrote to Miss Barry offering to help her with her problem. Tommy comes to Ohio at least once a month, and I could help her out with pictures, etc. I also asked for the price list of McFarlane's pictures, but I've still received no reply.

Poor Brad McFarlane being drug into this. By the way, the world's only deaf, Pro wrestling photographer, he was also a manager, handsome Johnny Bradford, but he took great pictures. I have written to Miss Barry a few times asking her to please send the membership card. The woman simply does... The woman simply does not answer letters from the members. Frankly, I'm beginning to be steamed. I'm trying to give her the benefit of the doubt.

I know that Tommy Rich hasn't been on a Southern tour for quite a while, and it must be a pain to gather information on someone, excuse me, she has no access to, but couldn't she at least send my card? She's making herself look bad. Would it be possible for you to contact her and maybe get this mess worked out? Also, do you have any addresses for other times? Tommy rich fan clubs.

Maybe I'll have better luck with one of them. I would really appreciate your help on this matter. Thank you for reading this. I hope to hear from you soon, Karen Langley. So then... And that's the thing is that people would take this task on and then it would be over their heads and they've got a real life or their teenagers or whatever. But normally you'd get, you know, a membership card.

get the bulletins, which were X-Roxed, you know, stapled together, you know, do it yourself type of things. But, Brian, I've told you how I became the Bob Armstrong fan club president, haven't I, before? How you did, no. Because, and I won't mention this guy's name because he has actually written me in modern times, like in the last several years, that he's up in the north now and has a successful business. but I joined all the fan clubs that were plugged in the in the magazines because I wanted to get like autographed pictures or I got one of Larry's Obisco from 1980 or whatever and the bulletins and all the stuff so I joined everything well one of my join was the Bob Armstrong fan club and this guy down in Ackworth Georgia outside Atlanta he was the president and he did the bulletins and you know all the bulletins of the fan most of them were look like fan club bulletins, but every once in a while you'd come across a real sharp one. But anyway, I got about four or five or six of these. And then he wrote me a letter and said, hey, would you like to take over the fan club?

I don't have time for it. I'll send you the entire club treasury. And if you want to do this, I said, okay, because I wanted to do the bulletin, right? I'm a frustrated writer, magazine publisher, whatever. This is my first shot at that. Am I 16 yet? Maybe, whatever. So, and Bob also had just started in the Tennessee territory, so he's going to be around here.

So I said, okay, I'll do it. And he sent me the entire club treasury is like $2.77. And I was, so I started printing these, doing these bulletins with my friend Walt Milanski sent all the results and everything from the WWWF and somebody else would send the results from here and there and I'd do Tennessee and I'd have features and I'd have pictures in there that I was taking at the time. I was starting to take pictures and I would do them on legal size white copy paper and with my typewriter I would leave room to put the pictures in with double stick tape and all this stuff. And then it'd be 20 pages of legal.

size. My mom would drive me down. I didn't have a driver's license yet. My mom would drive me downtown to this copy shop she knew from working down to the Chamber of Commerce. And they'd do the fucking bulletin for like three cents a page, but it still was like $30 to have all these fucking bulletins done. So I think I did like three or four of them. And I'm like, fuck, I was making money taking pictures and spending money doing the

bulletin and something had to go. But it was fucking fun. Here's a follow-up letter from Karen Langley to Norman. Dear Norman, hello again. Have you heard from Miss Barry yet? I highly doubt it. I still haven't heard anything. Maybe she left town.

I had a brainstorm, and maybe you can help me. I figured that since Miss Barry is such a blankup with her club, maybe I should start my own here in the Dayton area. That leads to a few problems, and that's where you come in. I hope. I know that I would have to contact TR, obviously Tommy Rich, first, and get some kind of

permission from him, right? The only address I have is World Championship Wrestling Suite 110, 100 Techwood Drive, Northwest Atlanta, Georgia, 30303. If you think that Tommy Rich would get a letter from me out of the thousands that go through there every week and actually read it, is there another address that would be better? Maybe someone I could call.

I tried calling the NWA in Atlanta. All I got was some dipstick, in quotes, who knew nothing except where the wrestlers were. I already knew that. I tried to get in to see him and get things started on this club. I'm thinking did she get like Charlie McGowan on the phone or something? He's like, go to the Omni on Friday. But have you ever seen the size of the goon squad they have?

It would be easier to see Ronald Reagan. Who would want to do that? Anyways, to make a very long and getting longer story short, I'm sincerely considering starting a Tommy Rich fan club, and anything you might be able to tell me would be much appreciated. P.S., have a happy Thanksgiving, and in case I don't get a chance to tell you, Merry Christmas! Had a Happy New Year, too.

Hope to hear from you soon, Cameron Langley. What about Valentine's Day? Way to how did she feel on that? Titzer responded November 15, 1982. First of all, as I told you earlier, we have never received an application from Ms. Barry, nor have we ever seen any material concerning her club. I wrote to her and received no answer. So other than your earlier letter to me, I'm not aware that she's even running a club.

And since she doesn't answer my letter, there is no other way for me to find out. The address you have for World Championship Wrestling in Atlanta is the only one that I have. I would assume that Tommy Rich would receive any mail sent to him, care of that address, but I have no idea whether he's able to answer any or all the fan letters he must receive. I do not have another address for Mr. Rich. I have to close an application for listing in our swap and sell section, but in order to start a fan club, you would need to first get that individual's permission, and I really am not able to help you more than that.

I'm sorry to not be able to be more of help to you. Signed Norman Kiteser. So Norman... Actually, I've just typed into the Google machine, Carol Barry and Tommy Rich, and I get Tommy Rich's Wikipedia and Carol Barry, who is a candidate from the Australian Labor Party.

I don't think it's the same one. Here's a letter from a third person. Kathy Schuster, Mansfield, Ohio. I wrote in a few months ago for an address for the Tommy Rich fan club. I received one newsletter and a picture. It said I would receive a newsletter a month.

Mr. Kiteser, I spent $15 I could have used for a lot of other things. I called this number on my membership card, and it said the number was disconnected. I don't know if you could do anything, but I would like a fan club that won't rip off a Tommy Rich fan. Here's the fan club, and it's one in Graydonville, Michigan. I don't know if, it's hard to read what she wrote here. Gardenville, Graydonville? The president is Sharon Kane.

The vice president, Julie Damagood. I'd really like to join a legitimate fan club, not one who rips you off, sign Kathy Schuster. Well, it's crazy hearing it's like, just within this period of time, there are multiple fan clubs. There's no one delivering the demand for more. And then here's a letter from Norman Kites to Sharon Kane.

I understand that you operate a fan club for Tommy Rich. We would like to include all fan clubs in the wrestling news magazine, which we publish and closes an application for you to complete and return. So he's just blindly telling me letters to fan club presidents. This is the response to Kathy. Nothing new there. And then here. We'll wrap it up with this pile.

This is from 1983, Garrick Ballard. Dear Mr. Kiteser, I'm interested in placing an advertisement in your swap and sell column. Would you please send me an application? P.S., in October 1981, you listed Carol Barry as the official fan club president of the Tommy Rich fan club. After joining the club,

I received only a few bulletins during my entire year's membership, the bulletins were supposed to be issued monthly. So another complaint there. You know, Carol sounds like she's running a sloppy shop. Dear Mr. Bowerd, March 2683, per your complaint concerning Carol Barry's Tommy Rich Fan Club, I can only answer by saying that since I have over,

he left out the word taken, taken over as fan club editor and required an application to be filled out by each clubly list, We have never listed her club. I've had several complaints concerning her club, and have been written to her several times for an explanation, but I've never received any from her. I really don't know what else I could do. I suggest you file a complaint with the postal authorities,

if you cannot get satisfaction elsewhere. And then this is... Now, according to this on the internet, Tommy Rich's net worth is, uh, five, million dollars. Yeah. That's last updated on December 11, 2023.

It's almost like he can't trust the internet. And here's something from Garrick Bauer. It looks like it's a pitch for a Tommy Rich board game. I can't even read it. If I said those words, I can't read it. A Tommy rich board game. Game one is an exciting board game with Tommy wrestling against a variety at top Georgia area

opponents, including Super D, Buzz Sawyer, Ivan Kohloff, Iron Sheik, and Rick Flair, what happens to Tommy and the punishment he must endure depends on the squares you land on. It depends the squares you land on determine whether you're going to jail or whether you're going to be able to rent a rental car from that company anymore. Whether Tommy wins or not depends on the way you roll the dice. Game two is a combination board and card game where Tommy wrestles the opponent of your choice.

You advance Tommy on the board as he performs all of his favorites. favorite wrestling holds, but there are illegal moves by the opponent, which hinder Tommy's progress. Whether he wins or not, depends on your strategy and luck. Game one, $4, $4, both games for $6.50. And here's his application. And there's a, yep, then that's the Tommy Rich fan club. Information there. Any final, oh, here's another.

Oh, hold on. Here's one final one. Let me open this. August 29th, 1983. There's an envelope and I thought it was empty. Dear sir, I would like an advertisement application for the Tommy Rich Fan Club I started, signed by Carrie Bailey, the co-president, Ironton, Ohio. Wait a minute, Carrie Bailey and Carol Berry? What kind of scam is this woman operate? Yeah, I don't know. But there it is. From the fan club day. from the files. Tommy Rich.

Jim, let's get to some classic stuff before we get to some questions. I have a file here. This is from the files, ladies and gentlemen, where I go through? I was bad to say you're not a carpenter. Where were you on the third? No, this is from the wrestling news files,

the archives of the wrestling news, wrestling review, wrestling monthly, the Rings Wrestling, major league wrestling programs, and so much more. This is the George Grant file. Oh my God. Now, I'm sure none of the listeners have any idea who George Grant... Well, some of them do, but a lot of them don't.

The younger ones probably don't. We do have one of the smarter historical audiences. That is true, but we do also have a lot of young wrestling fans listening. I have here... George Grant. By the way, we left... that dangling was one of the imitation gorgeous Georges that popped up in the business, especially since George died unfortunately early at an early age in 1963. But a lot of people didn't get the memo.

George Grant was still doing a gorgeous George ripoff in the mid to late 60s, I think, and then later on became some type of bogus evangelist. Am I correct in that? Well, this is a really interesting file. Something here is a photo that was sent back. It still has the National Enquirer stuff from 85. George Grant versus Tony Nero. I have a letter here to Norm Kiteser,

Pro Wrestling Enterprises Mancato, Minnesota from Mark J. Lieberman from Yucinville, New York, December 12, 1982. Dear Norm, Enclosed is an article that appeared in the Sunday December 12, 1982 edition of our local newspaper, the Poughkeepsie Journal. Written by a Marshall Fine of the Gannett News Service, it's all about the wrestling career of George Grant, who wrestled as Gorgeous George. I know for a fact that the first and original Gorgeous George was George Wagner,

who passed away in the early 1960s. This Grant character did wrestle, but not as the original Gorgeous George. But yet, as this article is written, this grant is taking the full credit as being the one who made the moniker Gorgeous George famous, and I feel this is wrong. Being Mr. Wagner is dead, I feel someone should set the Poughkeepsie Journal and the Gannett News Service straight on the facts as to who was the original Gorgeous George. In the best interest of professional wrestling, I also feel that the one of the one of the one of the first of the one of the first guy's judge. organization to best accomplish this is your pro wrestling enterprises. Yeah. Please send them a letter stating the facts, and I will pay the postage for the letter.

Please find the stamp enclosed. Yours truly Mark J. Lieberman have here the article. Let me just see if the stamp is still here. And I have the self-address. By the way, I know a Mark Lieberman and it can't possibly be the same one. But Mark Lieberman, if that is you, send me. an email saying that's you and I will talk about the incredible coincidence. Here's the article from the paper December 12th, 1982 by Marshall Fine.

That's the thing. Not only did this fucking guy do that and told people that he was the gorgeous George, but when he died, newspapers ran the obituary like he was the goddamn Gorgeous George. In the wrestling ring of life, Gorgeous George has a stranglehold on sin and a hammerlock on salvation. But gorgeous George Grant, 58, a pioneer of professional wrestling, now spends his time in the preacher's pulpit,

grappling with the wave of godlessness he sees overwhelming America. Here's a quote, I was saved in 1965, Grant says, in his growling drowl. After being resurrected in 1963. I kept wrestling. and promoting until 1973, when I started preaching full-time. The last few years, I was just

using wrestling as a means to make a living while I was studying and preparing to go into full-time ministry. At his peak in the early 1950s, however, Gorgeous George was a gloriously outrageous villain, one of professional wrestling's first national stars. He was a mincing pretty boy, with long bleached locks, and flowing silk robes. My image was true, Grant says. I was brutal, sadistic, self-centered, and vain. I would beat a guy mercilessly and then prance around the ring to aggravate the crowd. A native of a small Texas town northeast of Dallas, Grant learned to wrestle while working at the carnival.

He joined at 15. He dropped out of high school, then joined the Navy during World War II, when he was discharged in 1946, He entered the professional wrestling ranks. Although Grant was one of the first professional wrestlers to adopt an attention-geting gimmick, it was more an accident than a plan. One of the first. It was more an accident than a plan that vaulted him into the National Lime Light. It started by accident, Grant says.

I intended to use this sissy gimmick for two or three days, and it just exploded. After that, some guy got a hold of me and started telling me, me stories about how I was going to make lots of money. I did too. And he stole most of it. At that point, I hadn't even bleached my hair. That didn't come for about six months. I just had long hair. But in 1947, long hair was an absolute novelty. Let me stop right here. Was it that hard in, because this was what year? 1982? 82, December 82. Okay. You would have had to have not done any fact-checking whatsoever. Now, I know that, again, the average person on a street didn't know that Gorgeous George Wagner died in 1963 and all of his trials and tribulations and et cetera.

But I guess people just, this guy accepted this guy's story without even going to the library to check out whatever happened to Gorgeous George. or any contemporary newspaper, if he was in the newspaper business, he could go down to the morgue and look at the files. How do you not fact check when somebody claims to be a former celebrity that they don't really look at anything like otherwise than they have bleached hair or used to have bleached hair? I don't even know if he was still bleaching it then.

You see what I'm saying here. Eventually, wrestling lost its sparkle for Greg. the expansion of television changed a sport from a national phenomenon to a regional one. Each territory had its own stars and even its own world champions. Grant discontinued the gorgeous George persona in 1963. And quit wrestling altogether in 1972. It buried the body in the desert. That was the year gorgeous George died, I believe.

You know the bad thing is he didn't. quit that gimmick in 1963. He did it all through the 60s. And he didn't even, at least gorgeous George Jr. called himself gorgeous George Jr. I'm convinced we're in the last days. I've reached a point of utter disgust. There's a growing ungodliness in this country because we've gotten so far away from the precepts of our founding fathers. People need salvation. Now, wait a minute, hold on here. He's mixing his metaphors. The founding fathers wanted nothing to do with organized religion. That's why they wrote it out of the Constitution. He's thinking of the real rules you've got to follow. The Ten Commandments. You know, the stuff that says, thou shalt not lie. Well, I'm moving to the next thing here in this file. Here is an article. What is this from? Does it have a date? No date. Gorgeous. 3. Oh wow, this is coming

this is coming close to home. Pastor John Michael of Mancato's Grace Baptist Church thinks George Grant might be getting a bum rap. Though Grant was not the original gorgeous George, the wrestler turned evangelist did perform during the 50s and the 60s as gorgeous George.

And Michael believes Grant did not intend to misrepresent himself when he spoke in Mancato November 7th through 12th. Let me just see if this is in order here because, oh yeah, this follows the article. But wait a minute, isn't that like saying yes, isn't that like saying even though he impersonated a famous person

at one time, he didn't mean anything by it? Yeah, and here's, so here's an article, here's the whole paper actually, November 16th, 1982, the free press man, Cato, Minnesota. Gorgeous George by Michael Larson, the managing editor. Ever since I started in evangelism, I've carried a whistle. If someone starts talking in tongues while I'm preaching, I want to see if it's real. If it's the Holy Spirit, a blast in the ear won't hurt him at all.

Oh, good. I never heard that before. If it's the Holy Spirit, you can just blow whistles in people's ears? That's whether they tell whether they're faking it or not. What in the world is going on with these people? Trying to see where it actually starts with him. Here's the, I guess the original article, Pro Wrestler Coming to Grace. George Grant, known to professional wrestling fans as the blonde, carefully coiffed, gorgeous George.

I think it's quaffed. We'll be in Mancato next week, preaching at the Grace Baptist Church, sixth. Avenue and Lynn Street. Grant will tell his life story during the church's 25th anniversary meetings that begin 7 p.m. Wait a minute, he'll tell whose life story? At the 25th anniversary show for them, a carnival wrestler introduced Grant to wrestling when he was 15 years old. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he began his career as gorgeous George. A villain quickly recognized by his colorful robes and golden bobby pins worn in his long blonde hair.

his talks next week will tell how he came to change careers in the mid-60s from pro wrestler to gospel preacher so he came into town traveling from church to church lying to people claiming to be he was a pro wrestler but he claimed to be one of the most famous ever when he was not he's talking about it he was impersonating a dead man and then taking up collections from these people that he had just duped. Well, I guess he's following the M.O. of every traveling preacher, but nevertheless. Well, again, the person who sent in the original letter I read, I read here Mark Lieberman, that was December 82, Pekipsey.

So here's the follow-up to that Mancato article, Great Imposter. I saw stories on Grant in the Louisville paper that was on a wire service in a 70. and knew it was bullshit, but go ahead. By Michael Larson, great imposter, question mark. Norman Kitzer of Mancato and Gary Campbell of St. Peter want to set the record straight on Gorgeous George. Both have stepped forward to challenge evangelist George Grant, who bills himself as the former professional wrestler Gorgeous George.

Grant was featured in a column here last. week following his appearance at Mancato's Grace Baptist Church. Here's a quote from Norm Kitzer. While George Grant was a professional wrestler, and it is a fact that the word gorgeous is an adjective, which could be used to describe anyone, gorgeousness being in the eye of the beholder, and his first name is George,

he is not the wrestler who was internationally famous as gorgeous George in the 40s and 50s. That man was Gorgeous George Wagner, and he is the wrestler who headlined the major wrestling cards in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, etc. It was Gorgeous George Wagner, who became the top wrestling star on early television, and who starred in several movies, etc. George Grant used his own name except for a short period of time during his career where he called himself Gorgeous George. He was strictly an imitation of the more famous Gorgeous George. who was an international star, and was soon exposed as such, and returned to wrestling in preliminary matches,

as he had been for most of his career. Wow. While George Grant's religious work is to be commended, he gives the impression, as did your article, that he was once the internationally famous wrestler, Gorgeous George. He is not. That man died in 1963.

can you imagine if you are norm kiteser you run this pro wrestling enterprises and this guy comes to your hometown he's in his hometown well besides it can you think of with all these churches here that oh he wasn't the guy he said he was well he seemed like such a good Christian well what's it say here who's this Campbell guy this over. Campbell brought in a copy of a Playboy magazine article entitled Gorgeous George M.D. The article quotes from the publisher's preface to Gorgeous George's autobiography, It was Gorgeous George who almost single-handedly transformed professional wrestling from a sport to a spectacle, who ushered television out of the electronics laboratory and into the

living room. No one who has grown up in the unremitting hot-house glare of the commercial tube will ever be able to imagine how brilliantly those first feeble sparks of video at home illuminated the spirit of post-war America. Yet even then, when a simple test pattern was a miracle enough to command our rapt attention, gorgeous George was special. a pioneer in scarlet tights and golden ringlets. He pranced and he preened his way across the barren plains of the American consciousness, breaking the hard ground from which has since sprouted such unlikely and exotic fruit as Liberace, Little Richard, Muhammad Ali, and Monty Rock the Third.

Get dancing Dancing The Playboy article describes George Raymond Wagner as a highly sophisticated New York cycle analyst who traded in his clinical gown for an embroidered wrestler's cape

and transformed himself into the outrageous killer slash fruitcake I remember this now they wrote an article like Gorgeous George was really a fucking psychiatrist that on the site moonlighted to do this is a sociological

experiment. The author tells of a fascinating confrontation between gorgeous George and a policeman at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. Wagner had finished dressing for a match at Madison Square Garden on March 7, 1950, when he was

summoned by one of his patients at Bellevue. Wagner, in flamingo silk shorts, Carmine tights, and long flowing cape found himself blocked as he entered the hospital. He tried to explain that he had to hurry quickly to see his patient and then return for his match. For one tense moment, the careful equilibrium in which the separate characters of Dr. Wagner and gorgeous George, and gorgeous

George, have been maintained teetered wildly. Then, in a flash, he slammed a patrol trollman to the floor with a deft flying scissors kick, followed quickly. I gotta turn this, and it's stapled. God damn it. It's a real page turner. By a crushing spread eagle pounce and a bruising half Nelson. The nurse's shrieks brought a pair of burly black orderlies leaping into the fray, only to be sent reeling by a world-win barrage. of rabbit punches.

Locked by rage into his gorgeous George persona, the caked psychiatrist pranced wildly up and down the corridors, delivering head shrinkers and fairy mind waves to staff members who tried to subdue him. Nurses wept, patients howled, an alarm wailed out over the intercom.

Finally, a flying squadron of residents and Orrtle, Porterlees managed to pin the madman and a drab straight jacket enveloped the tattered remnants of his splendid costume. It was Gorgeous George's final bout. After the Bellevue match, Gorgeous George retired from both his professions and opened a small bar and grill in Los Angeles. In the decade before his untimely death at 48, in 1963, the Playboy article relates, he tended bar, worked on his autobiography, is there a doctor in the ring?

And according to his source, watched an awful lot of television. So we started talking about George Grant. Now this is other... Playboy magazine did. What year was that? Does it have a year on it? It does not mean. Again, this is 82, but that's before this.

They did that article that I remember hearing about it and seeing it or reading it at one point. I hadn't thought about it in a long time. But yeah, and people bought that too. Some people, oh, wow, I never knew that. You know, it happened a lot. Who am I thinking it? Was it the Little Rascals?

Where, like, there was like a bullshit Spanky that died, and it was a bullshit buckwheat. There was a bullshit buckwheat. Yes. There was a bullshit buckwheat. Yeah. And like, Spanky called him out, because Spanky McFarlane was still alive.

And he's like, that's not buckwheels. What a fuck? I remember there was some bullshit Stan Lane. Bull Ramos. How about when one time there was a lot of him? get together at Slammers, Vernal Angdon's place, and a bullshit Bull Ramos showed up.

Victor Rivera wanted to fight him in the parking lot because it was some guy saying he was Bull Ramos. I don't know how they think they're going to get away with it, but I guess some of them do for a while. And by the way, the pictures here, I have George Grant by Lil Al Vavasor. Oh, well, you knew that was

going to happen. That's in here. And then there's a couple more pictures of him. He doesn't look too gorgeous in these shots from the 70s. and then here's a little press write-up and a photo for George Grant 510, 216 pounds, Los Angeles, California, and his tag team partner, Gypsy Joe Rosario, 511-218, Havana, Cuba. He worked George Grant worked East Tennessee in the 60s for quite some time, and I think he even may have had a brother at that point where they were a brother team. I believe I have his record.

He put out like a vinyl record of his preachings or whatever. whatever is sermon, whatever it is. But here it is from the files. If a UFC fighter becomes a preacher, does that mean they give a sermon on the mount? This pair could cause some of the other teams plenty of headaches, and it's an unusual combination. See, if you don't agree. George Grant was a one-time gorgeous George character

when under the name gorgeous George Grant. He was a success in his pursuit of the day, dollar in the grappling game too, because he decided to retire for a few years and spend some of his profits. George might not have returned to the game as an active participant if he had not run into Gypsy Joe Rosario. This long-haired and whiskered individual had that something that Grant knew was box office, and he let himself be talked into forming a team with the unpredictable Gypsy Joe.

and with Grant's poise and know-how to keep Gypsy Joe from flying all over the arena in pursuit of anything from a straw hat to a pretty face. George has welded as tough a tag team as you can imagine. Grant is sure and safe with his sound wrestling fundamentals

but Rosario is so wild and unorthodox that fans say that he doesn't know himself what his next move will be. This is an exciting pair to watch. Don't miss their antics when they appear in your local arena. Well, there it is a press write-up for Gypsy Joe and... You know what? That's another thing.

Not enough antics in the wrestling business these days. We don't have antics like we used to. When you would receive... Let's talk about Smoky Mountain just because OBW, it's a little late in the game at that point in terms of how people communicated. But when wrestlers would send you videos to come into Smoky Mountain, did they usually write up like a one page in KFabe explaining who they are? Like what came with the video usually? Some of them did, unfortunately, yes. I mean, you know, the guys,

the guys who are professional would have an 8 by 10 picture of them looking halfway decent and a sheet with their contact information and maybe who had trained them or examples of places they had worked and a videotape with highlights, not two hours of shit with 30-minute long matches, shot with a camcorder from the back of the gym that nobody's going to fucking watch. And they were trying. It was the modern, more up-to-date version of, you know, Stu Hart said, Bobby Fullden say if you called Stu Hart

wanted to get booked in Calgary it's say send some pictures, send some pictures. Like you can tell how you can work if you send pictures, but that's what they had before video, right? But it was an updated version of that, but some guys, yeah, would go, I am

and I saw this more again as time went on into the OVW era, but you know, I hail from the planet Neptune and I have landed on a spaceship and I am Gork the destroy. and or whatever or going into detail like I have worked with the following people or I've this was even better I've worked on shows with the following people and then they list a

bunch of names I what god damn one time Stacy took a piss with Reba McIntyre we were at Calhouns in Nashville Hendersonville actually or maybe Goodlettsville I'm not sure what the suburb is considered littered. Then she went in the bathroom and son of a bitch. She came out of one stall and Reba McIntyre came out of the other stall. So Stace could put on her resume that she once took a piss with Reba McIntyre, but that doesn't really tell you whether she's a good pisser or not, does it? But so, yeah, so when they say, I've worked on shows with this name and that name and the other name, I don't really think that's a, you know, goddamn clear recommendation. But, yeah, you'd get a lot of

that stuff. All right. Well, that was the Pissing with Reba McIntyre segment here on the show. But, you know, Jim... Well, it is an unusual occurrence. How many other people can say that they took a piss just and listened to Reba piss at the same time?

There was audio on this also because they were right next to each other. To conclude the George Grant slash bullshit, bogus, gorgeous George from the file segment, what do you think of the way they morph the history, the way they use his actual death in 63. One says it was him. Actually, I guess they both say it wasn't him. The second guy... What are they both saying?

Because the first guy was saying that... George Grant was saying that in 1963, he stopped using the gimmick when, in reality, Gorgeous George died. The second guy was saying he had like the exact same background. He left the business and he opened the bar in California. Yes. Well, and it was all bullshit because George Grant used the gimmick even after Gorgeous George was dead, because as we said, not everybody saw the newspapers. And the other thing at Gorgeous George did have a restaurant bar in the Los Angeles area before he died, Gorgeous George's ringside, right?

Yeah, I got a bunch of stuff from it, allegedly. Well, and allegedly, you know, that wasn't exactly a great financial success either. They're all just lying because in those days, in 1982, unless you were a wrestling fan and knew even to go to the library of what to look for, unless, you know, you were on the newspaper, then there's some element, if you're a journalist, there's some element of integrity involved in trying to fact check. But if you were just a regular jackoff on the street, you couldn't readily check and see that Gorgeous George was really dead.

So you might believe it. but there's a little bigger burden of proof to be able to fool reporters and journalists. But, you know, for a long time, it is, again, it happened with like the little rascals that's happened for famous people. But with wrestling, it seems that it is a place where, like, con artists, outside car art, not even the internal ones, like outside con artists say, you know what, I can lie my way in by saying I'm someone else.

Because, you know, there have been other, you know, the hangman Bruce Poe bands, obviously. that great example yeah you know what was the other one the one from Canada fuck what was his name oh I can't remember the other guy's name now but there's always been these phonies

these complete phonies who had nothing to do with anything but want to pretend that they did but you know what most of them have been they haven't been tried to do it for great monetary gain they've been doing it

because they were marks and they wanted their family or other people to believe that they were really somebody. And they would do it that way rather than the con people who have misrepresented who they are that have gotten into wrestling or the money backers and the Olu Oliani's and people like that, not, nobody ever tried to impersonate a wrestler to actually make a lot of money at it. Maybe the gorgeous George Grant was getting publicity for his preaching scam, but there was no

money to be made by making anybody in a business, especially believe that you were somebody because it wouldn't hold up. But in the public, you could get attention and people would say, oh, he's somebody. You know what you did, Brian? I'll tell the people. I hate to know. You hate to find out about the things that you did. Well, what you did was you demanded that we delay the start of this recording 15 minutes earlier before we started recording. You demanded it or you wouldn't go on. I said, all right, I acquiesce to your demand. So while I had the 15 minutes sit here and twiddle my thumbs, I opened one of these file cabinets that I have yet had the time to fully go. I mean, I got a lot of file drawers up here.

and a lot of the old 30-year-old, 40-year-old paperwork is not filed as as nicely and neatly as possibly my, you know, federal income tax returns, although both of these things, all these things can come back to haunt you. But I just stuck a hand in and pulled a few things out that I thought that I might present to you and the listeners and the cult of Cornett, the people out there and they may like to hear some of these. Would you like to hear what these things are? Yeah, considering we have no context whatsoever for what it could be,

let's find out what it is. Well, that's because I didn't know what it was going to be until about 20 minutes ago, and I stuck my hand in there and started pulling shit out. I found a postcard. This postcard was written, or postmarked August 18, 1986, from Scarsdale, New York. and it is a

it is a motherfucker. It's a picture of the punk rock folks with the spiky hair and the spiky pink hair and like the lady Maxine type of outfits and they're wearing the Sid Vicious

and Johnny Rotten type of stuff and it says scenic sights of New York City. Right? And it says, Jim, thanks for the best time I've had. had in a very long while. Oh, wait. Wait a minute.

Wait a minute. Hold on. There'll be some context in the next sentence. Now the pictures make sense. Don't shut up. Yeah. Thanks for the best time I've had it a very long while. By the way, do you think they'll ever let us back into Sabatinos?

Hmm. I wonder. Your friend, Paul Heyman, and I found this, and I looked back in the Midnight Express scrapbook. Of course, obviously Sabatinos is in Baltimore. Paul was living, as we know, in the greater New York metropolitan area at that time. But we had been to Baltimore since July 19th. That was the, during the Great American Bashes that year. I looked in the scrapbook.

It was us against the road warriors. house was $106,000, by the way. But I seem to remember that I know that he was doing the, you know, photography and doing, I think, at that time editing his own magazine, and he got wrestling eye for a period of time. And I know he had come to the Meadowlands and et cetera, but I remember now, I think him possibly coming down to Baltimore because we went to Sabatinos every month,

but I don't remember. What was the date? Well, this was postmarked in August 86, but the previous time we'd been in Baltimore was the month before in July. I don't remember being in any kind of incident in Sabatinos with Paul where they wouldn't let us back unless we ordered too much food or he had some issue. I don't know what. But I wonder if he has the same post office box. Post office box, ble. Scarsdale, New York,

10583. Well, I reacted before because... Yes. And we'll just do this now. Let's start on a fun note. I told you, let's go from the files today, or go to the segment from the files, and it wouldn't be a comprehensive one,

because the file's too big. It'll be a 50-parter. I'm going to get the Paul Heyman file. I didn't know that you had already done this, so... Yeah, completely independently. It explains your reaction. This is one of the things I had, yeah, had pulled out. This is such a gigantic file because it has everything he ever sent in,

including all the programs he was doing. And I guess for the people who may have just staggered across the program at a drunken stupor, Brian is the owner and curator and preserver of the files of the wrestling news, ring wrestling and a whole bunch of other publications. There was at the time under the curatorship. of this era with Paul Heyman, Norman Kiteser at Pro Wrestling Illustrated over, or pro wrestling enterprises, I'm sorry, over in Minnesota. And he, like Jack Pfeffer, saved every piece of paper he ever came across his desk.

So we've been finding some very interesting things from all kinds of different people in a wrestling business. You know, one of the problems is Hayman sent a lot of stuff in. Heyman is not someone who put dates on things. No. So Norm Kiteser, everything is dated. I'm looking at all this Hayman stuff. Nothing has a date on it because I'm trying to find

if he sent anything in around that weekend at 86. Lots of photos. But let's, I'll pick an interesting one here from, whoa, it's a gigantic file. Ladies and gentlemen, Brian Last is secretly a hoarder and one of his stacks just fell over on top of him and smothered him. Here's a letter from Paul Heyman, the Norman Kiteser. Dear Norman, the April 19th show at the Meadowlands was the host for what could become a major problem.

Including myself, there were 16 photographers at ringside, a situation which made it difficult for the regular photographers, not to mention the wrestlers, to do their jobs properly. Let's stop there, because 16 was all in caps here. Have you ever heard of that many photographers at ringside? no that's ridiculous and hold on because one of the I have pictures that Paul took of us in the Meta lands I think that was the February show I'm looking in my book you can continue reading if you want but I'm looking up that time period to see if we were on that April show I don't think this would be you because I think this is April 85 oh that's 85 well in that case then fuck that out of those 16 three were representing

your publication, exclamation point. I was there, as usual, and two other gentlemen, partners, I believe, named Bob Epstein, and I can't remember his partner's name, were there with authorization to cover for the wrestling news.

Gary Juster told me you okayed them. He gave them up right away. This creates a potentially dangerous situation. One of the reasons Vince McMahon Jr. threw the press out in February 1983 was because he was tired of the shenanigans that went on each month involving who represents whom. Bill Apter would have two guys at ringside. This guy would complain. This paper wanted to get in. This guy's credentials were questionable, et cetera. And although Junior's primary motive was his magazine, the fact remained.

that he was not lying when he told us that the press situation was ridiculous. So let's stop there because obviously you've seen footage. You never shot ringside at the garden. There were regulars on top of any special guests like local media for the newspapers or whatever. At what point as a promoter or a booker do you not want? I mean, you want some kind of action, I guess maybe at ringside, someone's shooting pictures. It makes it look like a big deal, especially when you had flash. but when they're bumping into each other

and fighting for the shot, what do you do? Well, and there is a happy medium and there has to be a limit and all of these things can be true at the same time at the garden for the people who have seen God, not only the stuff that's out there from the 70s because of the WWE collection and the stuff they've got in the vault

and everything, but even the pictures back in the 60s, the garden was always a close area around ringside, close, not roomy, not spacious, is what I'm trying to say. The seats were pretty close to the ring, and there were the press tables. Bill Aftor, even into the 70s, because it was, in the up through the 60s, it was set up like boxing at the garden theme for wrestling, even down to, you've seen the pictures, they had four ropes.

boxing ring. There were four ropes on the Madison Square Garden wrestling ring through the 60s. And after he used to talk about having to stand up because of the height of the garden ring, but lean over the narrow press table they had that ran down one whole side of the ring and stick his head under the bottom rope to try to get a good picture. It's like he got scoliosis. So they didn't do or encourage until really the Vince Jr. era, guys fighting outside the ring in the garden because of the riot in 57 and all that other stuff. And so that's why, since they hadn't done a variety of stuff like that for so long, when they started doing it, it was, you know, they had to give you some more room, but still people were, it was tight around there. So to the

photographers, yes, you always had your main guys, Bill Apter obviously, George Napolitano for his section of the wrestling magazine universe. The photographer, the Frank Amadoes of the world and all of the guys that shot at the garden that were regulars,

you had to allow access because the magazine publicity was still you know, very important in those days, but you couldn't go down the line to everybody that wanted to get in. That's how, remember Paul admitted himself that he called up and bullshit at Vince Senior and said he promised to give him a press pass

when he never had to shoot pictures. That made him the fourth or fifth photographer at Madison Square Garden right there. But, you know, so you had to draw a line And usually, usually because of the closed nature of the business, in one, you know, any particular market, if they had somebody shooting picture, me in Louisville, Mike Shields was doing Memphis, Scott Teal was in Nashville,

this other, you know, you had one or two photographers in a territory that did everything needed to be done, it's just because the garden was such a big deal. Everybody wanted to get in on that. But again, and modern-day TV tapings also, before when they were still trying to use old-fashioned ring setups with not a lot of room around ringside now with guys with TV cameras and cable pullers and still photographers and ramps,

and it was a goddamn pain in the ass. Anyway, I'm sorry I'm droning on. Well, no, back to this letter here, again, about the situation. and Vince McMahon Jr.'s response to it, I see the same thing happening here. If enough wrestlers complain to Vern Gagne and or Gary Juster, the press may start finding it more and more difficult to have their cooperation in future months. Already, the press has been banned from their most recent TV tapings in Wayne, New Jersey,

and the only way to prevent this from expanding into a bad situation is to limit the number of photographers at ringside. If possible, from now on, please be extra careful about giving additional authorizations out for Pro Wrestling USA Northeastern Matches. Except for me, we would like not to have anybody else around. One photographer per magazine is adequate, and it keeps the situation around the ring under control. I would hate to see Vern get mad one night and start throwing press members out arbitrarians. currently. Thank you, Paul Heyman. P.S., the Metal ads material and early material for next

month's programs will be on their way in two days, because he was already helping with those programs. And, well, and that makes sense, it's 85 because that's when Vern and the pro wrestling USA guys were in charge, hence Gary Jester. And by February the next year, the first time we went up, Crockett had, they were still working with Vern, but Crockett was the primary person flowing forward for that. For all the reasons, pro wrestling USA as a concept, didn't work. Yeah. I have Norm Keitzer's response, April 26, 1985.

Paul Heyman, per your letter, I understand the situation about too many... Paul Heyman, Paul Heyman, Paul Heyman. I understand the situation about too many photographers being not good. That's a base sentence. I am well satisfied with your stuff and want to explain what happened. The only person I vouched for was Mr. Bob Dorer, D-O-E-R-R-E-R-E-R. I've never heard of any of these people.

A correspondent I've had for over five years. He wrote me and asked if he and his friend could get press passes for the matches, and he said he would send me some photos. He and Norman Blake. They are the ones who have sent me some photos. photos from Madison Square Garden. I relayed his request to Gary Juster. I can't find any one of my correspondence filed name Epstein. Although, when you've been publishing wrestling magazines for over 25 years, I'm not sure if at some point or another someone by that name did do work for me or one of the

magazines I've taken over. There was this one kid named Juan. I think, though, that Bob Dorer must be the person at the Meadowlands. I didn't realize there was a problem with too many photographers. but realize how that could happen, and I won't okay anyone but you for the Meadowlands in the future. Basically, I just ask Gary and he can say yes or no to anyone, but I did ask about Bob Dorr.

I'm sorry if this contributed to the overcrowding, and from now on, I'll just tell anyone who asked that you are sending us the photos we need. The other side was at the time this came up, excuse me, At the time this came up, I didn't have any photos yet of everyone, specifically the Tonga Kid, that Gary wanted in the program. I have a photo of him from you now.

I guess being in the situation where I am at the present, I look for help from anyone that I can, since without newsstand distribution, basically, I have a very small budget to work with and can't afford to buy material so I accept help from anyone I can. but you are doing more than adequate excuse me but you are doing more than adequate job

oh that is the way it's written of supplying me with excellent material from your area well it's always nice when a guy that's almost bankrupt tells you you're more than adequate I'm just happy to have your help and that you are willing to give it in return

for free copies of the magazines I think I've explained some or all of this in the letters to you before, but if not I will hear. If this letter seems a bit disjointed, I'm writing it late Friday at the end of a long work week. I apologize for the errors. Anyway, by way of explanation, my setup is as follows. You know what? Even though he's tired and he's had a long work week, brevity was never Norm Kiteser's ace in a hole. As far as wrestling is concerned, my basic business is the wrestling news. I

I purchased the subscription and editorial files of Ring Wrestling and the Wrestling Review from Ring Corp. And then, Jim, it goes into detail here. It's a little, uh, the carbon copy's a little messy about his deal with Ring Corp. Uh, previously. They owe him a substantial amount from when they did something, his percentage, but he agreed, but I agreed to take my payment from their profits of future issues. That leads me with subscriptions and area sales, also the program business. The programs I give to promotions at cost.

basically for two reasons. One is as part of the deal, I have a subscription ad for the magazine in each one, and the other is I gain material for the magazines. Oh, good Lord, but hold on now. So he wasn't making a profit on the actual... He was having programs... In 85.

In 85, he was having programs printed for a variety of the territory still, was that he still at that point was doing stuff for mid-south for Watts? Yeah, 85 he was doing stuff for Watts. He was finishing up with Vern because Vern was going to start doing other things. But he wasn't even making a profit on selling them their programs that they were turned around and selling for a profit. And see, that was just so you know, when I started doing the championship wrestling magazine for the Memphis territory here, remember it was the 16-page thing.

we just wanted something extra to sell at the matches. And I was, God damn. If we sold them for $2, I was selling them to teeny for like a dollar. And I was getting them from him for like 65 or 70 cents, let's say, whatever. But then the reason why he offered me,

wait a minute, it was all 16 pages of my stuff. He said, I'm not getting my ass. for the wrestling news magazine in this, and they're out selling the wrestling news. So he gave me for the same price, like a full-size magazine.

The same size magazine as you would buy on the newsstand. In fact, what was it? 68 page or no, it 50-something, whatever. If he could put his ads in, and I got more content for the same fucking price so he could get his ads in. That really was the way he was making all of his money. He was just with the fucking ads.

Let's go back to the end of this. There were quite a few correspondents who helped me by giving me material in return for copies of the magazine, although no one has given me as much as you have of late. I just wanted you to know that I really do appreciate all your help. I'll follow your suggestion about photographers for the USA and the Northeast. I should have thought of that earlier. I thank you again, and I'll close for now. but it's like nothing you can write to him that he won't write back a kind of pleasant

yes he was a very pleasant fellow here's an example of what paul haman would be writing up for indie promotions to hype them up 40 years ago nineteen eighty five independent championship wrestling the icw is headed by bob raskin of raskin sports productions and holds cards in new york new jersey connecticut pennsylvania and delaware this promotion is shaping up to be the biggest and best independent promotion on the East Coast, and promoter Raskin has announced that he will soon be holding a tournament to decide heavyweight and tag team champions. Certainly among the favorites to win the tournament is Private Rocky Jones, the muscular youngster who is the latest protege of Sergeant Slaughter's.

Never heard of Private Rocky Jones. I've never heard. Apparently, he never even made Corporal. always a good wrestler Jones has shown remarkable improvement since his training under the Sarge. Another favorite,

though not of the fans, is the former Rikers Island corrections officer Smokin' Steve Sandor who recently had a run-in with Jones in Portchester, New York. The 6-foot-2-355...

Where we're at the mall? The 6-foot... ...over at Dairy Queen? Where did they have this run I've never heard of any of these names. The 6'2-315-pound rule breaker has vowed to become the first ICW heavyweight champion. Dominic Danucci has also announced his intentions of winning the tournament. Good Lord! A seasoned veteran.

No kidding. He's seasoned. He's positively cured and pickled. By that, 1985, what would Danucci have been 65? Dominic is more popular now than ever. Many people think, the best. Best bet for the tag team title is the team known as the Executioners. These two well-built grapplers have done very well of late and have announced they will indeed enter the tournament.

They may, however, be upset by the exciting new tag team of Larry Winters and the Leopard Mask. is one of the best scientific wrestlers in the independence today and leopard mask with his backflips, flying head scissors, double flips, and drop kicks from the top rope

that has to be Ted Petty. May very well be the finest high flyer on the independent circuit. Yeah, that's got to be Ted Petty from Guatemala Tiger Mask before he became the Cheetah Kid,

wherever the Cheetahs are from. I can't be Tiger Mask. He was the Cheetah Kid. Before that, he was Leopard. mask? I didn't know that. These two make a dynamite team. Other wrestlers who have appeared on recent ICW shows include The Terminator, Davy O'Hannon, Damian Kane,

Crystal Monroe, Nature Girl, and Pete Sanchez. In a lake-breaking development, promoter Raskin has announced that he has reached an agreement with Pro Wrestling USA as America's heavyweight champion, Larry Zabisco, will be defending his best.

belt on several upcoming shows. They will be on May 10th, 85 in Heights Town, New Jersey. For the America's heavyweight championship, Larry's Abisco versus Private Rocky Jones. Special attraction, Smoke and Steve Sandor versus an opponent to be named. Tag team attraction, the executioners, versus Larry Winters and Leopard Mask, plus a lady's attraction, and a special midgets match, plus an appearance by the basher. The Basher! There's a Paul Heyman indie press right up from there.

Forty year. What a difference 40 years makes? What is this? Oh, wow, look at this. And this is a sign too. This is two Norman Kiteser, May 1st, 84 from Jim Crockett promotions. It's signed by James A. Crockett, Jr., president. Carbon copy, Paul Heyman, P.O. Box. Same one you got. This is on the letterhead with the Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling logo, the Charlotte Orioles, and worldwide wrestling. or as it says here, wide world wrestling. Dear Mr. Kiteser, regarding press privileges for Paul Heyman.

Thank you for your correspondence of April 24, 1984, wherein your requested press privileges from Mr. Paul Heyman at the upcoming event to be held at the Meadowlands in New Jersey. Mr. Heyman should direct his request to Michael Rowe at the Meadowlands. Sincerely, Jim Crockett, Jim Crockett Promot, Inc. Which is another way of saying. Leave me alone. I don't give a shit.

Leave me alone. I don't know who any of these people are, and I don't care. I'm fighting Vince. Why the hell you call it? Yeah, I don't care if they fucking have the police photographer there to draw chalk outlines on the floor. Oh, here it is, too. This is April 24, 1984. Dear Mr. Crockett, I am writing this letter to request press privileges for Mr. Paul Heyman

at the upcoming card that you are promoting at the Meadowlands in New Jersey. Mr. Heyman regularly contributes material to our wrestling publications, and any courtesy you would extend would be appreciated. I ask that you grant his press privileges for this wrestling card. Sincerely, Norm Kiteser, Paul Heyman, Carbon copied on this. This is a little bit after that. Studio 54, one night only, in person. Rick Flair!

You are invited to join NWA World's Heavyweight Champion, Nature Boy Rick Flair, as he accepts the first annual wrestling press International Man of the Year Award. I have that around here. He sent me one. I have that around here somewhere. Friday night, August 23rd at New York City's famous Studio 54.

Doors open at 9 p.m. This flyer entitles you and a guest to complimentary admission until 10 p.m. Come early, stay late. Bring this flyer with you. And you are entitled to a special discount after 10 p.m. $12 per person for you.

And I guess any time after 10 p.m. For more information, called the Studio 54 hotline, 24 hours a day. And now some people have to go, what the fuck? And Paul was doing publicity for Studio 54 or had them convinced he was doing some kind of publicity. So he could get pictures of himself with celebrities. And meanwhile, he was getting into wrestling by getting the wrestling, by getting the wrestling people into Studio 54. So when they told Flair, oh, come to Studio

54 and get an award. He's like, oh, and it was, you know, woo, these things actually happened. I think he got Dusty and Magnum there too, either around a Philly show or a Meadowland show. It may have been Philly actually. But he got them there too. And then that's where Ban-Bang Bigelow

debuted. Yeah, I was about to say the studio 54, was that not the site of Bam-Bam Bigelow's debut match in pro wrestling? See, there's a ton of of like early Bam Bam Bigelow stuff in here. There's a ton of like early everyone that Paul Heyman encountered. Does he have pictures of the manager pictures of him on the stool with the Motor City

Madman? I got the original mint condition, one of those. What is this from? December 2nd, 85, front page of the Torrington Register Citizen, Dr. D. Schultz and fan charged after scuffle at wrestling match. And he was a patron David Schultz walking out of the police station. Was the police station on fire at the time, or does everything look peaceful? Professional wrestler Dr. D. David Schultz already the target of a lawsuit after striking television reporter John Stossel got into another scuffle after a wrestling match Sunday night.

According to 22-year-old Leonard Rinaldi, a fan in the audience at the Torrington High School gymnasium, Schultz 35, attacked him and struck him. him on the head with his boot as the wrestler was leaving the ring for the dressing room. All I did was touch him. Wait a minute. With his boot in his hand? Yeah, I don't know. I guess he'd kick him. I don't know what exactly that's supposed to me, but let me go back to this.

All I did, this is Rinaldi, all I did was touch him. And the next thing I know there was a size 13 boot coming down on my head, Rinaldi said, at the Torrington police station after the incident. both Schultz and Rinaldi were charged with breach of peace. Police would not comment further on the incident Sunday night. Schultz, who lives in Woodbridge, was released on written promise to appear in court December 16th. Rinaldi, and has his home address here, who lives in Torrington, received a court date of December 6. Rinaldi, who said he had touched other wrestlers at the event?

and shook hands with a female wrestler said Schultz shouted Don't touch me, you punk, during the scuffle. A slight man weighing about 150 pounds, Rinaldi, clearly shaken by the incident, says he covered his face when he hit the floor and later complained of a throbbing head

and pain in his upper body. William Montableau, a fan sitting near Rinaldi, No. What is his name? Montembeau? It's... Montembleblo?

It's a mighty name. A fan sitting near Rinaldi said wrestler Jim Brady pulled Schultz away from Rinaldi. Police later arrived at the scene and brought the burly wrestler to police headquarters. Brady and other wrestlers followed him. At police headquarters, Brady and other wrestlers expressed considerable anger at Schultz's situation. after Schultz and Rinaldi left headquarters Brady invited the fans to his next scheduled bout in Washington, D.C., which happens to be with Schultz.

Montemblow, Montembout, whatever this guy's name is. Who earlier vowed, never to watch pro wrestling again, said he and Rinaldi would attend the fight in Washington. We have to, the 19-year-old said. It's a grudge. Schultz is being sued by ABC TV consumer reporter John Stossel after an incident in a taped interview for 2020. And it goes into that. American Legion Post-28 sponsored the wrestling event at the high school, attended by more than 500 people.

Schultz made his wrestling debut in Winstead in October at a trans-world wrestling match sponsored by the police union. Well, there it is. Heyman sending in all sorts of reports that, uh, oh, he's a stooge too. found out. He wants to make sure that Schultz's misfortune makes the papers. Well, it made the front page. It made the front page of the papers. Heyman just sent in a copy of the paper. How many fight? You know, we always

hear about wrestlers did this and that. How many are there that we just have never heard of, like, from this era? Like, you think you hear everything. Oh, good. No. No. You haven't even heard of mine. And I've been telling them for 30 years. No, that was, you can go back through,

any city's newspapers that had regular wrestling and you will find the you know i've got some from the 70s at the louisville gardens where the fan was arrested disorderly conduct or assault or fan suing you do the same thing for every town in america that had a newspaper you'll find them every so often or or the the fan had a heart attack fucking at the matches you'll find those in every city through the 20th century that had fucking wrestling periodically and you know and nobody knows about them

today and many of them were not reported a lot of shit that scuffles that I either saw or was in just in the 80s was never reported in the paper or you know

a public topic of discussion bam bam I hit that fucking guy that he hit me or kick me, I hit him, whatever. That happened constantly. Well, I'll tell you, well, let's end this edition of From the Files with real quickly two cards for programs that were done by Wrestling Press International, publisher and editor, Paul Heyman. This one, a night of professional wrestling, Tottenville High School, Staten Island, New York, November 19th, 1985, Johnny Rods versus Kurt Von Hess.

Jesus Christ. Good Lord. What? Can that be the original Kurt Von Hess? Certainly not. It does not say, Steve Sandor versus Larry Winters, Special Girls Attraction, Lady Adonis

versus Jody Shields, The Road Warriors versus Larry Sharp and Mike Kalua, and the main event, Sergeant Slaughter versus Boris Zoukov, and then a couple days later, November 23rd.

And again, it obviously for people going, what? He had arranged through probably Gary Jester to get four guys from Vern, Road Warriors and Zuccoff and Slaughter. Slaughter. Yeah, and it's a night of professional wrestling featuring Sergeant Slaughter and the Road Warriors on the cover. A couple days later, the 23rd, Carteret, New Jersey, the high school,

publisher and editor, Paul Heyman's, N-A-W-W-F consultant, Chuck Richards. That's Chris Candido's grandfather. Yes. Yeah, does it say anything else about him in here? It doesn't say, doesn't say, but... Oh, he is the... And he's the promoter, actually. He says consultant.

He is the promoter, as it turns out. Midgets, midgets, midget... It just says the word midgets over and over about ten times. Tiger Jackson versus Poncho boy. Larry Winters... Tiger Jackson, by the way, later on, would be one of the doinks, wouldn't he? Well, he was dink. He was dink.

It was d' dinks. One of the doings. One of the dinks. He was dink. A dinka dink adi-doo. After that big feudal Little Louie that he had for a while. Larry Winters versus Jim Londis. What? Obviously there was a second Jim Lundice.

There were a few Jim Londis, I guess. Tom Rice versus Jeff Grippley. Bonus match. Bam Bam Bigelow, B-I-G-O-L-O-W. versus Sailor Eddie Shore. A special challenge match. Pretty boy Larry Sharp versus the Cheetah Kid

spelled C-H-I-T-A. The Cheetah kid. Because Cheetah Rivera was booked. And the main event, a super special tag team attraction. The Masked Russians versus the Tonga Kid and Samoan number three

in parentheses Samu. So there we go. A look at a part one of a multi-part that we may do other ones in between of From the Files, Paul Heyman, any closing thoughts here? Paul Heyman's got so many parts we could go into now. Oh, here's a nice business card, an original Monster Factory business card. They got color on it and everything. Here's Paul Heyman with a healthy head of hair.

Precious argues with reporter Paul Heyman as the interview comes to an abrupt end. And then it's Hayman and Jimmy Garvin and Precious and she's... He was shooting angle? with himself when he was a fucking reporter. That's right. All right. Well, that was from the files, Paul Heyman, getting us off on a good note. Let me put this giant file down.

I'm glad I was able to kick that off with the postcard from my dear friend. It's funny how that was banned from Sabatinos for whatever. What were you about to say? I was going to bet say it's funny how that worked out. It worked out. The only other time that happened recently was when we both ended up doing something about Pat Malone independent of each other and came in from the files too, actually. now they think about it.

Yes. All right. Well, Jim, let's go from Cynthia Plastercaster. That's actually not who we're talking about at all. But let's go from that segment. Yes. All the way over to this segment. To Saudi Arabia.

No, what's that? Why don't we pick this up? Why don't we do a little from the files, part two of something we talked about last week? Paul Heyman. I have the giant file here from the Wrestling News Archive. This is a compilation of everything that was a part of Pro Wrestling Enterprises. And Paul Heyman, for a few years, was a big part of it. You said it was the fattest file.

It is gigantic. You know, the other interesting thing... The other interesting thing here, too, is, in a lot of ways, it's a document of what was happening on the indie scene in the Northeast in 84, 85, 86, 87. There's stuff here that Paul Heyman sent in himself, although he would say, I credit this person. Yes. Like, when he was working for, like, windy city wrestling. or even when... Or that big staff at, what was it,

wrestling press international? Wrestling press international. I just found the actual invitation for the Bam Bam Bigelow debut match. A professionally done invitation from Studio 54. But I have here a letter... But the problem was when they licked the envelopes for to send them out, everybody die.

This is from... And there's not a date on it. Paul Heyman did not date these. But this is from the end of 83. Dear Mr. Kitzer, Enclosed, please find several photographs and an article pertaining to the recent death of the Grand Wizard. I was a very close personal friend of his for many years, and as a matter of fact, it was he who broke me into the business, hooking me up with Vince McMahon Sr. and Jr.

I ran a bulletin for four years, wrestling time, later renamed The Wrestling Times, and also ran fan clubs for Ivan Putzky, Louis Albano, and Freddie Blassie. Besides this, I also ran, at his request, the Wizards fan club for the last two years of his life. Ernie himself asked me to run it as a personal favor to him. I recently spoke with a man, with whom I believe you are familiar, Frank Amato, who told me that your publication usually doesn't print long obituaries. Thinking that letting a man like the wizard die without proper tributes, I decided to enclose the aforementioned article.

Please look it over and get back to me at your convenience. If necessary, you can call me collect. At 914, and there's a phone number here, I look forward to hearing from you soon. Very truly yours, Paul Heyman, P.S. Proper postage and a large envelope is enclosed in case you cannot use the material.

So let's stop there for a second because we're going to get into now the origin story of Paul Heyman. Well, yeah, also, it's funny because when he says, Amato said, you don't print that. Norman would print most things that if people would write them and send him, he would print them. I mean, it's not like if Bruno Samertino had died, he wouldn't have printed a big story.

on him or whatever. But yes, Paul was, he was closer to the wizard than he was anybody else and, you know, was kind of felt that he was a disciple of his, but I loved the many years they, Paul was, what is this?

1980, what was that? The end of 83. Paul's 19. Many years. I've been, many when I was three. Well, the other thing, too, was Paul always had a deep, not necessarily deep, but he didn't always sound like a kid. He sounded like someone

older and he knew how to project his voice. So if you got him on the phone, he didn't actually know, you know he's a kid. I mean, he's putting out a whole act here about wrestling press international and all this. And he had some gravitas the way he worded things also in letters. But yes, that is true. You know, that was, because he was a New York kid, so he loved the New York managers, Albano Blassie, Wizard, especially Wizard, that was who he, you know, grew up watching, like we all did in our various places. I have the article here, but here's Norm Kiteser's response, December 2nd, 1983. Dear Paul, I received your article on the Grand Wizard, and thank you so much for sending it and thinking of us. It would be the type of article I might publish, and you

indicated that Frank Amato had suggested you send it to me. I don't know if Frankie told you this, but the situation here is that we have gone through quite a reorganization. He's starting to let him down easy about getting any money whatsoever, right? And I don't at present have any money in the budget to purchase outside material from. The only outside material we are using in our magazine at this time is that which we get in trade in return. for free advertisements and free copies of our publications,

and since you didn't indicate that was the basis in which you were submitting this or what you would want in return, what I'm going to do is hold on to this, making sure you are aware of our situation here, and then, when you can get back to me and tell me either to return the material to you, or we can make some arrangement to use it on that basis

if you are interested. Thank you again for thinking of us hope to hear from you again soon sincerely yours Norman Kiteser like you said lowering the boom right there What we could actually do

We can send you some beans and corn from our garden The Grand Wizard passes away at age 57 by Paul Heyman The Grand Wizard Known the world over as the manager of champions passed away in his sleep on October 13th. The cause of death was listed as heart failure.

Born Irwin J., and then in parentheses Ernie, Roth, on August 30th, 1926 in Campton, Ohio, he attended Brown University, graduating at the top of his class. Getting involved in radio, he worked as a disc jockey all over Ohio and Michigan. One of his fans was, the controversial grappler Buddy Rogers

who introduced him to pro wrestling. His first job was as a ring announcer, but he quickly went on to become a blow-by-blow commentator on television. First, let me stop there. I didn't know that. Did Buddy Rogers discover the Grand Wizard? I never knew that. It would have been...

I mean, it's entirely possible. I have not read any biography on him to either confirm or deny it, but Ernie Roth started again as not only a DJ, but also he was an announcer and he was a television commentator. And this was the Al Haft era late 50s. So, you know, it's entirely possible that it was Rogers that may have done a radio spot and said, oh, you got to, you know, you got to come over here and meet the boys or whatever the case. but for several years before he became the first incarnation of a manager was what the first thing he did was Mr. Clean right with the bald head and well let me go back to this and it comes up here well and it probably will because this is his life but but yeah that was that was the way he started in 1957 ray stevens who had been impressed by Ernie's knowledge of the sport asked him to become his manager accepting Stephen.

Stevens's offer, but wanted to protect his private life, he took the name Jay Wellington Radcliffe. That's right. That was the first one. Once Stevens had moved on, the now successful manager went south under the alias Armstrong K. It was during this time. And that's when he was, had the long cigarette holder and he was wearing the capri pants like Laura Petri on. That's right. Like, like Rick Van Dyke.

Like Laura Petrie. That's right. And the thing is, as I guess people, everybody knows now, I'm not, you know, say anything out of school, but Ernie Roth was gay. And at a period when that was frowned on in a variety of places in and out of wrestling, but he got by with some of these early gimmicks, the Armstrong K's and things of that nature. Gay and Jewish. I mean, that couldn't have been an easy combination in various places.

There you go. Let me go back to this. It was during this time that he met Johnny Berend and magnificent Maurice. The three of them went to Indiana with the manager using the name Mr. Clean, and the tag team won the title in record time. While in Indiana, he was sought out by the Sheik, who was looking for a manager and was aware that Roth was multilingual. The Sheik asked him to handle his career, accepting the new role.

he took on the name Abdullah Farouk and soon rose the national prominence as Sheik won titles from coast to coast. His eight-year tenure with the Sheik came to an end and Abdul Faruq reappeared in New York as the Grand Wizard.

That's crazy just how many different names he had just by that point. Yeah, and well and the reason why he didn't stay as Abdullah Faruq in New York is because Abdullah Faruq was created specifically to be with the Sheik. And he may have had interaction with some other heels

over that eight-year run or whatever, but he was really just known as the Sheik's guy. And the pictures of them together were in all the magazines and et cetera. They didn't necessarily want an Arab beheel manager in New York, but with the turban, they just made it more generic. The Grand Wizard, he had a giant sequined turban. But he also had those glasses. Like there was something like wizardly about him.

I don't know what to say. Like there was like something. It wasn't just like he's an Arab manager. It was there something, you know, mystical almost about this weird guy. And the other thing is, other than the clan, did anyone use the term like grand wizard? Was that a thing in society beyond the KKK? Well, yes. Because of various of the moose lodge.

I mean, I don't know specifically. There's elks. There's mooses. There's meses. whatever the fuck. There's all these, you know, in the fucking honeymooners, grand poobobb the moose lodge or whatever. There's some type of grand wizard of these organizations, but the clan pretty much doomed it. I don't know if they do that now, but that was done in the past. They didn't just make that up, I don't

think. After proving himself in the WWF to be an astute manager by handling such notorious rule breakers as Blackjack Mulligan and beautiful Bobby, he pulled off the managerial coup of 1972 by convincing young Jimmy Valiant to double-cross Chief Jay Strongbow. This touched off a feud between the Indian and the Wizard, which lasted 13 years. And it felt like every bit of it to the fans in the Northeast. On December 1st, 1973, the Wizard led Stan Stasiak to the WWF World Heavyweight Championship when the Master of the Heart Punch defeated Pedro Morales in Philadelphia. The rain was short,

as Bruno San Martino defeated Stasiak only nine days later at Madison Square Garden. For three and a half years, the wizard looked for someone to overthrow the living legend. His dream was fulfilled. On April 30, 1977, when superstar Billy Graham defeated Bruno in a controversial match in Baltimore, Maryland. The validity of Graham's claim to the title was questioned

because his feet were on the top rope when he pinned San Martino. The colorful duo was the toast of the East Coast as Graham tore through all opposition for 10 months until Bob Bakken won the belt in February 1978. Well, they really did give him... I mean, I never thought about the timeline. He gets to New York. Right away, he's managing top people.

They give him Stasiak. Albano had Cole off a few years earlier. Blassie was just about to become a manager, I guess. Yeah, Blassie didn't start till 73, because that's when he had to leave California. He couldn't get licensed after the age of 55. Since the day the title left his stable, the wizard brought in an amazing array of talent to the WWF. Although he never saw Backland defeated, he did lead Paterson, Ken Patera, and the magnificent Morocco to the Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship. At the time of his death, Sergeant Slaughter and the mass superstar were both under his management,

and no replacement has been named as of yet. Though he was roundly booed and jeered, the wizard was, without a doubt, the most respected manager in the history of professional wrestling. His wit, eloquence, and showmanship will be remembered fondly by the wrestling community for many years to come. And there's obviously a very personal write-up at the Grand Wizard by Paul Heyman, who, you know, So Paul does have a sentimental side. You know, we always talk about Heyman being around the garden, Albano and Lassie were there,

but Wizard really, for a lot of people, not even just Hayman, Wizard, Ernie Roth was someone who opened doors and got people involved somehow. Yeah, well, he was, again, he was more of a guy that wasn't one of the boys, per se as much as the manager, the announcer, an office type of guy who was apparently level-headed and had been around for a while, had experience with a variety of talent. So, you know, he had people's ear because he had been around so long at a high level and communicated with people. All right.

I can't speak to the validity of this. Uh-oh. Because I have here, there's a few different things. Is this another one of those contracts that Paul signed in disappearing Inc. Well, no, I have a picture here, a couple pictures, and let me pull this up here. I have what claims to be a transcript of an interview that Paul Heyman conducted with Richard Belzer, 1985 wrestling press international. But again, I just don't know, it wouldn't, you know, it wouldn't be like anyone would be surprised if I said, Haman may have made something up.

Could this be like one of those Mike Lano interviews? Now there's a picture here of Richard Bells who apparently reading the wrestling news. You could barely see what magazine it is. It's almost like someone like snuck a camera and it got a photo without Richard Bellsard knowing about it. But there's a couple things here. It was either the wrestling news or porn. Let me go to this. I have the letter, Dear Mr. Kitzer,

and close, please find two color slides that could be used as cover shots or color supplements or for whatever purpose you may find them. The first slide shows Hulk Hogan and Mr. T with Richard Belser on Bellsor's cable talk show Hot Properties, which is shown on the Lifetime Network. I'm sure you're aware of the incident that occurred involving Hogan and Belser. The second slide is an exclusive of Richard Belser reading the wrestling news. I recently conducted an exclusive interview with Bellsor and we'll be sending you to story

and some black and white photos that goes along with these slides tomorrow I wanted to rush these slides to you in case you can use them we'll speak to you soon, Paul Heyman and here's the... I gotta hear the interview I got to let's see if we can

smell the good, strong smell of bullshit first question from Paul Heyman first of all, you did ask Colchogan to put you in a hold why would you do such a thing? The answer? Why did I do it? Because I had no idea that he would hurt me.

I thought he would just demonstrate the hold in a non-violent way. It's an entertainment show and I thought it would be fun for him to show it to me and not execute any injuries upon me. I just did it in a very gracious, naive, host-like way. The next question?

What happened? He put me in a chin lock, a front chin lock. It's not a sleeper hold. It's a different hold from what I found out. As soon as he put me in the hold, it cut off my oxygen. And I was hurt. I was in severe pain. I couldn't breathe.

I passed out. And then, from looking at the footage, I see that after I passed out, he just took his arms away and let me fall. And I hit the back of my head on the studio floor and got eight stitches in the back of my head. Next question. When you hit the floor, were you out? I was unconscious when I fell,

and then this is all in bold, in caps, and underlined. I fainted in his arms, and then he dropped me. So let me stop here for a second. That is clearly what the attorney has told him to emphasize. It doesn't seem like, I mean, could be a fake, but it kind of works out so far. It could be something. Yeah, I mean, it's, it sounds legitimate. And again, you know, if you know something about wrestling, you could concoct that, but it doesn't sound like that he's making anything up. Your eyes start to open

and Hogan helps you up. What's going through your mind? The question from Paul Heyman. Well, at that point, I was in shock. And when I came to, I knew that I couldn't continue. I knew that something was wrong. I didn't know I was bleeding, so I figured we better go to commercial. And then I went backstage and was taken to the hospital. Here's a question. Right before Hulk put you in the hold, he said to Mr. T, and Richard Bellsor cuts him off, let me know when you think he's had enough. And then Paul Heyman's question continues, he mentioned squealing. At that point, did you think he was kidding? from Belzer, I'll tell you, I met Hulk before the show and he was very nice to me.

He had seen my film and said he was a fan of mine. So I, of course, thought he was kidding. The farthest thing from my mind was that he would hurt me. I wouldn't have been out there if I thought he would hurt me. I think this is legitimate. And what do you think today? Asked Paul Heyman of Wrestling Press International. I think he knew what he was doing, and I'm kind of sickened and shocked by that.

But by studying the tapes and his remarks before he did it, and his remarks afterwards, and the whole climate around this thing, it appears to me that it wasn't a case of him not knowing his own strength, or of it being an accident. He fully intended to do what he did. Again, bold, underlined in caps. So he hurt you on purpose? The answer? Yeah, I think so.

In my opinion, he did. Do you have any idea why he would do this? The answer? I think it's because him and Mr. T. got caught up in their macho posturing. You know, they say they don't know their own strength. I think they don't know their own mental strength is what it is. I think there might be something wrong with these guys. Again, bold, underline, and caps.

I think, I don't know. I mean, I'm not a psychiatrist or a doctor, but I think these are disturbed people. And they have to visit violence upon to prove that they're a man. Let me stop there for a little bit. What do you think of the quotes here from Belzer? Well, I'm believing this interview more and more because this, actually, when you think about it, he obviously either knew he was going to file suit

or was in the process of doing so. And so this is a great defense. this is a firsthand account of everything that you would say in a deposition on the side of a lawsuit. So he was probably giving these interviews everywhere he could. I don't know where else he gave these interviews. How didn't Hayman get this interview? That's the big question. But let's go back to this.

Well, but think about this. Was this an official interview or did Paul find him hanging around Studio 54 or the fucking China club or whatever these goddamn clubs are? And this was bullshit that, you know, they were bullshitting back and forth. It says your interview conducted in a bathroom stall at LaBarbat. There you go. No, but let me go back to this. There you go. The question, Paul Heyman, pointing to an article which states, at no time did Hogan or Mr. T

offer apologies, Hulk Hogan has offered no apologies? And then Richard Belser says, uh, he, he apologized right after on the air. But if you see the tape, I mean, it's, it's, I don't know, I didn't take the apology seriously. Here's Haman, and in today's paper, Mr. T called you a jerk. Belser says, well, I'm flattered by that. And that Hayburn says, why is that?

And Belser says, well, because someone who has so little intelligence perceives me as a jerk, that I must be doing something to make them think and evoke feelings from them. So I'm not disturbed by him. Once again, bold caps underline. That was kind of an unwieldy comeback, but... I'm disturbed.

that he's a hero to children. That he has an effect on impressionable people. That's what I'm disturbed by. You see, no one can say anything to hurt me. That's the point. But just that I was hurt physically, that's why I'm so insulted by this.

Here's a question. You say you're disturbed that Mr. T is a hero to children. Do you think he's a bad example for children? The answer? Yes, very much so. Because he's a cheerleader for violence. He celebrates violence. He talks about inflicting pain on people. Once again, this is underlined, in caps and bold. He wraps himself in crippled children and God. And he thinks that by mentioning those things, he can go out and be uncivilized and beat people up or intimidate people. Wow. I think, you know, not only is it wrong, it's not. not even American to be like that. If he's a hero in this country,

we should look at ourselves. It's the wrong kind of hero in my point of view. So, of course, the follow-up question from Haman, he's a bad example? Yeah, I think he's a very bad example. Anybody who celebrates violence and who is looked up to by children is a bad example by definition, in my opinion. Question, what was your opinion of wrestling before all this happened?

Answer? Well, I'll tell you, when I was a kid, I used to go see Dr. Jerry Graham, Ricky Star, Antonino Raucca, Haystacks Calhoun, all these people. Jesus, he knew everybody! And I have very fond memories of wrestling from when I was a kid. Me and my friends used to go to the Knights of Columbus Hall in Bridgeport, Connecticut, when wrestling was on Channel 5. And my mother would say,

At least I knew where you were tonight, because I saw you in the audience on wrestling. So wrestling was a very wholesome, fun form of entertainment. There were real heroes and real villains then, and was clearly defined. And the resurgence of wrestling, to me, has kind of a mean-spirited side to it. This incident with John Stossel, and now me? And as far as the controversy over whether it's fake or real, I don't care if it's fake or real. I just care that the guys, some of the guys, in it are so insecure about whether it's fake or real

that they have to go out and beat people up because they're working out their own mental insecurities. I mean, if people get enjoyment out of it, that's fine. But when the real violence spills out into the real world, then it's not the wrestling I knew as a kid. There's a different mentality here, and it's very intimidating. And it's not entertaining to me

that the threat of violence is in the air. I think that wrestling should be controlled. There should be warnings with it when a kid watches it on TV, that these men are experts at what they do. And I don't think there's enough safeguards around wrestling the way it is now. Because if the people in it are taking it so seriously, and then kids will think it's real. See, the adults know it's a put on.

I know you're not supposed to say that, but the wrestlers know it, and any intelligent person or semi-intelligent, in person, knows that these guys are great athletes. He's starting to lose me again. And they know how to throw each other around. And it's predetermined who wins and who doesn't, which is fine. But if children think it's real and they see people like vice presidential candidate

Geraldine Ferraro at the wrestling matches and Gloria Steinem and Cindy Lauper, and impressional people look up to these people, and they'll say, well, I wasn't sure about wrestling, but if they're there, I guess it's okay. Then we have to be careful and qualify it. Because it's contributing to a trend of violence in this country that's not healthy. I really think there should be some controls on wrestling. Let's stop there. What are your thoughts now?

Well, my thought is I bet Norm Kitzer didn't publish this whole thing in its entirety, did he? I don't know if this got published. I have to double check that. Because that's a, I don't remember Norm Kites or ever publishing anything directly admitting at wrestling was a work. You mentioned John Stossel in the incident with David Schultz on 2020. Stossel is suing Schultz. Are you planning a lawsuit against Hogan?

Uh-huh. We don't know. My attorneys are talking about that now. So I can't really talk about it. We're definitely considering it. How many stitches did you get? eight. How come they didn't cut your hair off? I didn't let them. I begged the hospital not to. Well, they cut it, but they wanted to shave it, and I said, no. Bellzer adds to a previously

asked question. You see, I think wrestling has lost its innocence. Either there was some Bolivian marching power in that powder in that bathroom stall, or elsewise, Polly may have embellished some of that. Do you think he rattled that stump? beach off top of his head in the bathroom at the bar of the bats? There's a letter here. That's a little weird. It says, What is the public reaction to all this been? And Belzer says, actually, I've been very moved by it. I can read you a typical letter if you want, and then it has the letter printed here. But again, that Heyman, I guess if he had a tape recorder going, he would, uh...

Dear Richard, my husband and I are both fans of yours, and until last night fans of Hulk Hogan and wrestling. We were aware that wrestling was staged, an act, staged strictly for, entertainment and never took that so-called violence seriously. We were outraged at the horrible incident that occurred on 2020. We were so disgusted that we decided to boycott wrestling. About a week after 2020, we decided that one barbarian like David Schultz, I believe that was the wrestler's name, didn't make everyone associated with wrestling a barbarian.

We started watching it again, enjoying the ridiculous antics of the rest of the wrestlers. We liked Hulk Hogan, WrestleMania, the Rock and Wrestling Connection, Cindy Lopper, Lou Albano, etc. But after what happened last night, we are never watching wrestling again. Never! We are just sick that such a thing could happen. Mr. T was rude to you during the whole show,

which was bad enough, and which we tried to excuse as an act, but for you to be injured by Mr. Hogan is just inexcusable. and then Bellzer says anyway, that's pretty much the tone of every letter I've gotten. What are they going to do? They're going to write it. Yeah, you got what you deserved, you son of a bitch. I wish you to broke your fucking neck.

I honestly lived through that in real time, as the kids say. And I remember the kerfuffle about the whole thing and obviously the incident itself and it was reported on news reports everywhere. And

then the resulting lawsuit that did happen and didn't he's a was it him or stossel that named a house they bought after their lawsuit that year it was a that was a that was also no it was belzer it was a villa in the south of France called shea hogan there you go uh and it's stossel the one that said that his lifelong hearing problem cleared up a lot better once that he got his judgment I don't remember there being a groundswell of fan sympathy for poor Richard Belser that not a lot of people knew how bad he was hurt unless you were the wrestling nerd that delved into it when he got the Hogan cranked up on the front face lock then let him go

Belser slipped like a wet rag to the floor cracked his head on the floor got right back up and pitched we'll be right back because he didn't know he was at and turned around and you could barely see the blood dripping down his jacket at that point. So most people thought it was some stunt that happened. Then the wrestling community focused in on it when it became a thing. And, you know, people heard about it otherwise in the gossip column in the newspaper or whatever. But I don't think they were, they didn't start a charity go fund.

for Richard Belsor's hospital bills. People weren't trying to, you know, set up sniping locations at Hogan for that. That would come later on in years to come. Let me go back to the, we're getting to the end here. Here's a question from Paul Heyman. You must be bitter. The answer? Well, um, you know, I'm starting to get all my senses back after this.

I was in shock for a few days. But the thing that really, frankly disturbs me of course I'm angry and upset and I feel violated I feel raped I mean the guy came on my show

and this is all in caps again and underlined and bold as a guest and smacked my fucking head against the floor so I am pissed off but I'm more concerned about children looking up to these guys

yes I mean I mean that makes me focus on it even more. I've been focused all night. The fact that I was injured, and these guys are heroes. I mean, that's very unsettling. So my jury, my personal jury, is still out as to what to do about that, but I'm concerned

about that. I've been concerned for three days now. Do you have a warning for children? Asked Paul Heyman. Yes, I do. Yeah, I have a warning for parents, not children. I think it's the obligation of the parents. If they're into wrestling and their kids are into Mr. T and the Hulk and all that stuff,

then I guess it's up to the parents. Because obviously, the wrestling community is not taking the responsibility. So it's up to the parents to really set kids straight. It's like the Three Stooges. You know, it's cartoon violence. In other words, it's not real, and the children should be told to be very careful and not emulate these guys.

It's weird how his focus is like this, it's not even about him he's kind of making it a you know look at the bird over here look over here it's not about this it's about the children Richard Bell's well also I think I think the bird of paradise has flown up his nose but even more so than that it's the attitude of Mr. T and the Hulk about hurting people

and inflicting pain and the way they openly talk about it and advocate it that to me is sickening you know Mr. T says I like to hurt people I mean, who likes to hurt people? Psychopaths like to hurt people. It's okay if they're talking about wrestling in general, but it's another idea saying you're going around the streets and beating people up.

Mr. T was noted for that in those days. One night he's on network television on the A team, the next day he's out of the street beating people up. And that everyone's a wimp if they don't weigh 300 pounds. I mean, what is that? that's really mindless thug behavior. So I don't know. It's sickening.

I never was for the glorification of violence. Now it's being endorsed by celebrities. Which makes it even scarier. I think these people should wake up. Celebrities that are kissing wrestler's asses. It's not good. Anyway, what else? Is there anything you'd like to add?

I don't know, just that this is a trend in our country, then America better wake up. Control wrestling and put it in its place and make sure the children are protected from the indiscriminate use of violence outside the ring. The children! I mean, I think that if wrestling has any inner kind of intelligence, they should get their act together and organize

and not be controlled by one personality. But they should have a board and have insurance for the wrestlers and protect the public against this. Good Lord. He's all over the place. It seems like it's a trend that all of a sudden exploded on the scene.

And people are very impressionable and they see celebrities involved in it. You know, I think wrestling is a chance to really clean up its act and be safe and be a helpful form of entertainment. But it seems they are going in another direction and it's scary to me, frankly. Richard, thank you very much.

Okay, thank you. And then it says here, after the... That'll be $100 for that last eight ball. After the interview, Richard requested that an unofficial poll be taken as to whether or not Hulk Hogan was at fault and what people really feel about this incident, and the situation that has arisen with Stossel and now Belser's own harrowing experience.

Please send all comments to the Wrestling Press International, Scarsdale, New York. Interview and comments, quotes, copyright 1985, by Paul Hayman. and the Wrestling Press International, interview conducted in the Lifetime Cable Studios, New York City. So there we go. I thought it was in a bathroom at a bar. There we go. Paul Heyman, Enterprise.

I mean, that's the thing, I guess, when you look back at all the early stuff with Hayman and everything now, he's an enterprising guy. He's a bullshitter, but he uses his bullshit to get in the door and, you know, eventually he had his own thing. But just always networking, always presenting, always. performing. And it got him here. So, I mean, obviously he must be happy with how it worked out, but these early years are pretty interesting. And that transcript validates what I've always thought about the front face lock incident. Because remember, I've always said, when Hogan, I believe Hogan cranked up on it to let Richard Belser know, al-alaha, you know, hey, type of thing. but it was three seconds at most,

and then Belzer flopped like a goddamn circus seal. The only way that a hold like that can put you out that instantly is if your heart's beating a million miles an hour, then I have a feeling. Richard Belzer's heart spent a lot of time at that time period of the 80s, beating 100 million miles an hour. That, you know, kind of gives you. me more evidence.

Well, there it is. Do you think it's a real interview? Would you talk to some 20-year-old fucking wrestling press numb nuts for that long if you weren't just in having a talkative day? And again, the photo I have of Richard Belser reading the wrestling news, if we're going to assume that Paul Heyman took that photo there that day. Again, how do you get in? If this guy's talking to the Times, the Post, the Daily News, Newsday, all of a sudden, the wrestling news?

He said it was conducted at the lifetime. cable station. It was somewhere or another. Paulie got in there and convinced him that he was somebody to do with something and got an interview with him. That's just while he's waiting to shoot some kind of cable show. Well, there it is. From the files, Paul Heyman, I guess part two of the Paul Heyman files. I think next week we need to read the Rockford files. Well, there it is, Jim. Our opening and I guess closing of the files for today, our look at wrestling history as it was put into the files of the wrestling news. Any final thoughts?

Yes. Just keep listening to our various broadcasts, and every time that we can find a file, we're going to bake it into a cake and serve it to you. Yeah, something like that. And of course, you can hear us on the drive-through and experience in the official Jim Cornett YouTube channel. But until next time for Jim Cornett,

I'm the great Brian last. Tally-ho!