The Dogg Zzone by 1900HOTDOG - Dogg Zzone 9000 - Episode 120, World Bodybuilding Federation 1 With Dan McQuade

Episode Date: April 26, 2023

Seanbaby demands that Brockway and guest Dan McQuade from Defector strip down to their panties, lube up, and get ready for the Jetman. Get your mind out of the gutter, we're talking about Vince McMahon's World Bodybuilding Federation! He spent millions of dollars trying to restart wrestling without the wrestling. It lasted two years.

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Joy will die if you don't do it. I'm TV Sean. Maybe I'm the internet and I'm here with Dick basket magazine's hot pants model of the year. Robert Brockway. Here's a super relevant Brockway fact in Los Angeles. I actually lived next door to Tom of Finland. So my neighbors were ripped to the tits 12 foot tall gay bikers. We traded dogs one time.

No follow up question. I had none. Why wouldn't you? Our guest today on his triumphant dog zone return is the co-founder, writer and visual editor at defector. One of the only feel good media success stories of the 21st century. Dan McQuade. Hey, what's up? Thanks for having me again.

I will. I will try not to talk for like 20 minutes about nonsense before we get to the topic. That was our favorite part. You're the greatest guest you've ever had independent podcast. We loved it so much. You know what? We loved it so much. We made it a tradition in your honor.

And that's why we've been doing that every time. Trying to catch that. I still have to send out the prizes. I named a couple winners because I don't know a few people got it right. They were able to guess what the podcast was about because I did mention mannequin once. Yeah, that's why it was a great contest is because they could get it. Yeah, there was a clue. And then someone else saw someone say mannequin and they were like, oh, mannequin is already taken.

I'll take today's special, which is another mannequin themed, you know, piece of media. So I said that was a winner too. That seems fair. Like they got it. Generous on top of it all. Yeah. Magnanimous. Dan Magnanimous McQuaid.

That's it. That would not be my WBF character. I think we've given away what we're talking about today. But real quick, does anyone have any ideas for their WBF character? So I've thought about it because you said like, oh, well, we'll just end up talking about that. And I was like, yeah, I probably could talk about like my ideas for like, you know, hours and hours. You know, not that I have any interest in doing bodybuilding, but they did sort of create like really shitty wrestler characters for the WBF. Like, like characters that you wouldn't like that, like the lowest level indie promotion might have.

Or like a few years ago, I went to micro championship wrestling. And it was, you know, little people wrestling run by a guy named Johnny Attitude. And in like, in some way 2023, you did this. This was it was right before the Mayweather McGregor fight because they had like a reenact or like a they had like a mini Mayweather fight. It seems like something you'd see in a Singapore bar. This was an episode of Game of Thrones. It was like really, really, you know, there were maybe only like 75 people there. And, you know, 20 or 30 were like friends or family of the world champ of micro championship wrestling.

But but so, you know, and like the characters were like a cowboy of policemen. You know, there was one guy who was basically just like Sting. He was definitely the best. He was like. Okay. Yeah. Little Sting is enough. That's enough of a gimmick.

Yeah, I think his name was blicks. I don't want to, you know, disparage him too much because he named himself after the fairy from legend. He was the best. But yeah, it was a so I would have gone with like a cute variation of Sting like poke. So the that show had very like, you know, simple characters. Like there was like, you know, one of the guys was just like, here's the pimp character. Here's the cowboy. And that's sort of what WBF, you know, sort of fell into is like, he's the iron warrior.

And I mean, like they sort of even fell below that because the gimmicks like weren't full gimmicks. They just sort of were like half past California. Yeah. But anyway, now that I've meandered around the question as as I like to do. So I've thought a lot about like what my wrestling gimmick would be. And I think like I have like long hair. I can do sort of like a like an Andrew W. K. Ripple.

Okay. Like a party guy. Yeah. Like a like a real party like headbanger. Yeah. I was a pro wrestler for a little while in Portland, Oregon. And my character actually was captain party. Like I was like a super Andrew K guy.

No, you can have it. I'm going to, I can, I can do something different. It took Sean to carry. I just took your gimmick. I actually was out of those shows and this was my plan all along. I will replace him. I've found one day that I will be captain party. Yeah.

I was supposed to be a heel, but like people like got it too. Like I was like too fun. I had beer on my belt and I was like throwing PBRs to the crowd. They're like, well, I get you're the bad guy. But we like this. Well, you were supposed to be the bad guy. Yeah. I was like a super powered frat boy was the concept behind it.

Like, like genetically engineered by a fraternity to party hard, but in like a douche bro kind of way. But people were like, no, no, there's fucking rules. Yeah. On paper, you could see that coming. Does this just rule? No, it rules. Was your character name actually just captain party?

Yeah. Like I had no human name. Cause that does sound like a WBF. I mean, like it would be like captain party, Michael Smith or. Yeah. They all had real normal headed names, but yeah, it would have been a pretty average WBF character. I don't know.

It wasn't my greatest work of genius, but we had fun. Yeah. No, I mean, I think it would be one of the better WBF car. Not quite a compliment, but I would be the best, the best short student short film to run before, before posing. I love that we're doing all this and have not explained what WBF is at all.

Like we're already just riffing on it and having, and it takes so much explanation. So to continue this without explaining it, of course, I would, I, you know what I didn't see there. Considering this was 1992. I did not see any problematic Japanese appropriation. Oh, shit. In 1992, I did not see that.

So I would be, I think I would be like a samurai businessman. Oh. Like that, that felt like the piece, like the missing piece of the heart that this, that this just didn't have. I feel like it's one too many things for the WBF though. WBF is very much like little person fight before a Mayweather fight.

You want a cowboy, you want a surfer. All right. Samurai, but I would be all business. Okay. Saying that, I am surprised that there was not some sort of Native American stereotype based on when it was in the early 90s. No, there was. Is that what that guy was supposed to be in the first one?

Yeah. Oh, shit. Okay. We have, we're already getting into it. We have to, Okay. Let's talk about the WBF. This is the World Bodybuilding Federation.

This happened in 1991. It was Vince McMahon's idea. And he saw a gap in the market for an unethical madman, which is kind of his business model. What happened was everyone was cracking down on steroids at the time in all sports. And that included bodybuilding up until 1990. We just didn't care.

We're like, we kind of know what steroids are, but we don't care when people do them. And then we all decided, no, no, no, no steroids. And so Vince McMahon saw this and said, what if we did a bodybuilding federation with fucking maximum steroids? And so while everyone else, Hold on, Vince.

You mean like we've been doing for 30 years? Right. Cause we decided that steroids, steroids, the idea of no steroids was like good, like pure, like competition, but then it sort of sucked to watch all these 270 pound men like melt into marshmallows and chronic pain. Like I felt that was sad.

And Vince McMahon, of course, saw it as a market opportunity. So, so he did this WBF and he even like kind of dropped Koi hints, like when he announced it, which is a whole story unto itself, he dropped this Koi hints like, oh, this is how bodybuilding is supposed to be. And everyone's like, oh, you mean with tons of steroids.

Cool. Yeah, we get it. We get what you're saying, Vince. Did you guys read about the story that like led to the announcement of this? Yeah. The way he launched it was actually amazing that he went as a, he hired that guy, Tom, Tom Plats, who's the analyst for both of these pay per views,

a former or maybe current bodybuilder. What a generous title. The, the, the, the like spokesman for his new magazine, bodybuilding lifestyles at an international federation of bodybuilding event. Right. And at the end, like this guy, Tom's on stage to like as one of the sponsors,

like this magazine, and he says that like the new world bodybuilding federation is going to kick the IFBB's ass. And then like models come out in like WBF sashes and handed out pamphlets. The one story I read and I'm sorry, I didn't write down where this was said that like they slipped contracts under the hotel doors. I read that too.

Bodybuilders. And they signed away 13 guys that the IFBB, then at their next competition, like had a bunch of tombstones with the guy's names on it and had the current bodybuilders like smash them. See, that's better. That's better. That's much better.

But yeah, I guess to, to put this in like nerd language, this is like, if you are at a Star Trek invention selling calculators and then you suddenly started shooting sequest shirts into the crowd, you're like, fuck you, everybody. This is actually a sequest booth. Everyone watch sequest. Fuck Star Trek.

And then you slid sequest contracts under Denise Crosby's hotel door at night. Like that's, that's what we're talking about. That was like a competitor's booth in the convention of the competitor. That's how they got that dolphin. That dolphin was a scab. Yeah.

Fucking scab dolphin. That was Mike. That's Mike WBS. He had done similar things to sort of achieve his wrestling empire. Obviously nothing quite like this, but he had done similar like, I don't know, anti competitive tactics.

God, he makes, he's the best. And I mean this sincerely. He's the best at making enemies I've ever seen. Like I genuinely respect that about him. Like if you are going to make enemies in an industry and as Vince McMahon, you absolutely are. Just take control of it. Just be like, yeah, hi, I'm Vince McMahon.

Let's fight right now because we're gonna. Yeah. He's a fucking business gal. He would absolutely destroy your life in perpetuity if it made him 15 bucks or if it made him negative 8000 bucks. He does. He does not care. Profit almost doesn't matter at this point.

Profit's almost accidental. I mean, like they lost maybe 15 million on the world body building. Yeah, I couldn't get a real number, but it's not even about it. It would be like if he had an alignment, it would be business evil. Because the numbers that got thrown around for their salaries were fucking absurd.

They were giving these guys three and $400,000 a year for bodybuilding contracts, which was as absurd as you might think it might be. Like that's so much more money than they were making. A lot of these guys in the WBF were making their pro debut, meaning their salaries was $0 up until then. And so, and that's like more than most wrestlers made. And the wrestlers were also on WWF at the time,

like promoting the shit out of this. So they're like, hi, I'm Brett Hart here to promote this WBF. And I'm the British build dog. You gotta go see this. So these guys aren't even like, all of their marketing time is being spent on this. So they, they hate Vince McMahon. And these bodybuilders have pissed off the IBFF because they,

a lot of them had contracts with them and Vince McMahon bought them out or had them, you know, break the contracts or whatever. So they've now been blacklisted. So he's definitely ruining the careers of some of these bodybuilders. Basically, everyone other than like a dozen super beefy sellouts hated Vince McMahon for, for this thing that he's doing. And as, as is the natural order of the world. Yes.

That something would be really wrong if like most people didn't hate Vince McMahon. Right. There's always a small handful of giant dudes who are like, if Vince McMahon turns this back on me, I will die. And everyone else is just, yeah, fucking that guy sucks. That's, that's how it goes through life. Every, every guy, every guy over a certain size is just like,

yeah, fucking Vince McMahon. It's so funny because like I was like seven or eight when this first started the world bodybuilding Federation. I was like a huge wrestling fan and I have like zero memory of anything about it. Like from my childhood, except for the ICO pro banners that would be at wrestling events, which was the integrated conditioning program that was like the like shitty supplements that they sold.

So like, I don't think there was any, like I feel like I must have watched every WWWF show as a kid and I have like no memory of them shilling for the world bodybuilding Federation. So like my, it must have just gone like in my brain and like right out like, oh, this is boring. Like I like the guys pretending to fight, but I do like the muscle man, but I don't want to see them just flex. Right.

See, if you were anything like me, your brain automatically searched for the times, which, which was most wrestling shows where they would just be, they wouldn't even be threatening each other to be promoting the show itself or some event or whatever. And you would intrinsically like know when that time was and you would use that time to flying elbow drop like a little brother.

Right. Like that's, you were doing something else. You were doing like, you were trying not the move you just saw and it was fine because you were eight, but you would have killed yourself if you were 14 even. I got to ask, what is our strategy for this going into this because I, I know all three of us and we're already, we barely talked about it.

It's 20 minutes in. I have like 2600 words of notes. I'm going to assume each of you has more. I have several. I don't know. I just have. Yeah, it might be 2600 words. Way more notes on the first one.

Cause I, my like, my, I, there wasn't enough like, uh, there wasn't enough Adderall in the supply right now to get me to pay attention. I have way more on the second one. This is what I'm saying. So much better. Cause the second one is nuts. We have to talk about the first one to give grounding for what

went fucking crazy in the second one. But we need a strategy or this is going to be four hours long, which is fine, but we can, we gotta split it up. Okay. Here's, let me give the quick bullet points of, uh, the disasters that, that made this such a spectacle of failure. So, uh, first was the steroids. Uh, now in 1991, Vince was like, fuck yeah, steroids.

And then he got named as a client in a huge WWF steroid scandal. So they started cracking down. So in the second pay per view, uh, there were no steroids and it was kind of obvious, like a couple of the dudes looked like a bodybuilder who hasn't been on steroids for a year. It was pretty obvious the way they kept saying in every single set.

And now without steroids, like it's like, there was one part where like Vince was like, this shows what you could be if you're drug free. And it was like a guy who like looks significantly worse than the previous year. I think he knew what he was doing. Every single set. He found a way to say no steroids this time.

And then like Tom, Tom Plats every single time was like, ooh, I think he was better last year. There was a couple of times when he was like openly contradicting him, which is a big no-no for like a broadcast team. He's like, dude, shut the fuck up. You're wrong. He looks awesome. Uh, uh, okay.

So that was the first one of steroids. So we'll keep that in mind as we talk. The second one was, uh, no one wanted this. Uh, the second one was the lowest grossing event in the history of American pay per view, according to one of my sequences. Do you have that? 3,000 people bought it. That's fantastic.

They had more people in the crowd, which, you know, they did not charge you. They never charged for that. They absolutely gave those tickets out for free. Yeah. Uh, they actually, they didn't show many crowd shots. The first crowd shot they showed was a mean gene started talking and it was like two people just having a conversation.

Yeah. They were not into it at all. And it was weird. When the guy who like shoots all the people now, now if you're just going to hear that, you're like very confused. But yes, when, when, uh, when major guns, Eddie Robinson, like shoots all the terrorists ninjas, you can see like so many empty seats when they come to like the one shot and it's like,

they're like, oh, there's ninjas here. This isn't safe. I got to get that. That's what's so fascinating to me because from, from watching like pumping iron, especially what I took away from that was like, this is way bigger, at least in its prime. Right. Than I ever thought it was.

Like I always assumed this was these shows were like 12 dudes in the audience and you're all just maniacs. Like nobody can possibly be into this. It made no dent on pop culture. And then every single show they showed was like, like 600 people crammed in this little room and they were going fucking nuts for a guy like twisting his arm a little bit. Yeah.

So the fact that they could not get the more than like 3000, the fact that they could not fill those seats when they were giving tickets away for free during this time, during the early nineties when we didn't even have internet pornography to like fill the time. It's insane. Like we were so desperate for shit to do. It's.

And for a lot of people, I feel like this had to have been pornography. Like this is seems really close to pornography for a lot of people. They made pretty close to pornography. It is definitely porn for Vince McMahon. Absolutely. I was watching this and my wife was sitting on the couch next

to me, not watching it, but she like, she looks up at one point and she was like, oh, I really don't like the noises Vince is making. Yeah. Nobody's more into it. That was what like he just couldn't accept or understand that the world didn't also think this was awesome. Yeah.

You almost have to admire it. He's just like, I'm going to, this is the thing I'm into. I'm not even going to check with the second person. Before spending all of my money. Right. I think he liquidated a hundred million or maybe I'm thinking of the XFL. I think that was for the XFL.

Yeah. Which, which obviously didn't, didn't. A lot of bad decisions with big men. Yeah. That's the name of his biography. It's gotta be. Yeah. I was going to say this is the same business model because it's

like, what if football was a middle-aged man's idea of super badass, which is what the WBF was for bodybuilding. Yeah. Anyway. XFL too was like, he was trying to do like, we're going to make our players stand for the national anthem thing, but like, didn't want to be super explicit about it. And then like, obviously that like controversy, you know, died

down as being like such a big thing for people. And then, you know, what, I mean, obviously COVID shut down the league the second time, but yeah, it didn't look like it was going to work out. Perfectly bad timing. He started a XFL league right at COVID and he started a bodybuilding league rig when they said no more steroids. No politics thing.

We also had like a no criminals thing, which you're like, oh cool. He wants to get rid of the wife beaters, but it's Vince McVance. You're like, I feel like this is more of a get rid of the non whites thing. Yeah. It's definitely like his, his line he kept saying was like, we're going to bring football back to fans. Like that was in the press conference for XFL too.

XFL one was like, we're going to stick it up the NFL's ass. Like, and it's like all the, like you're trying to get NFL fans to watch this. Like the idea of like just bashing the NFL. And same thing with the IF, IFBB, like, I know you're trying to make like a bigger audience, but like you don't want to bash the old competition because you're trying to get those people as fans.

You would assume that the already bodybuilding fans would be your biggest, you know, possible audience. And, you know, he sort of went with, you know, I think it's funny. The first one they were trying to make it seem more like a competition. It's really like, obviously very rigged so that Gary Stridham was going to win. But like, you know, like, I mean, it was funny, like the stage,

if you've ever seen the, it was like a YouTube video called like this aerobics video wins everything. And it's like a, it's the Crystal Light National Aerobics Championships. Oh yeah. Key and Peele did it. It's parodied in the Lego Batman movie. The stage looks exactly the same as the stage for in the WBF

and Crystal Light aerobics championship stages are exactly the same. And they're like, you know, like the vignettes, like they haven't been yet before every person. And it's like, basically they're like, what are your hobbies? And the guy's like, well, my hobbies are. I like dogs. I cut the vegetables.

I like dogs. The one guy's like, oh, this in this sport, you never see your family. I'm like, is it bodybuilding a sport where like, you really can see your family? Like get a home gym and isn't the whole year. Yeah. You can't fucking go lift some weights with your kid nearby.

It brings up my other two bullet points of one that was plainly stupid because I mean, fuck. And then two, it had a bunch of enemies. Like you mentioned that like Vince McMahon has made a man, made an enemy out of everybody. And that includes bodybuilding fans and the bodybuilding federation that like runs this industry. This thing, you like sucks.

Come watch something really close to it. Yeah. The other things I liked about the initial show is one, Trump, macho man, ultimate warrior and Liz were all in the crowd. So fantastic. The entire time. The first one was at the Trump Taj Mahal.

Right. And then like it, like they, one of their themes for the night was like, like it opens with the guy, the announcer who was named Greg Lewis. I don't know anything about him, but he says it's just under a decade to the year 2000. But for the bodybuilding, the next millennium is here and now. Like how can you do like a new millennium thing in 1991?

Yeah. That was such an insane thing to say. That announcer was fucking nuts. I'm convinced he didn't have a script and he was just fucking doing paupers. To me, that felt like one of those joke books I always make fun of where someone is staring at the same line like for too long that they've like lost like footing in reality and they're like riffing

on like an idea that's like 20 layers deep. He's like, I gotta do something about the year 2000 millennium. Fuck. Where am I in this thought? I got it. Corey Feldman. We get Corey. No, that's not it.

Fuck. From, from my notes, from the first one, just like skimming through it. I think my favorite thing in any of the vignettes, like introducing the bodybuilders is the Jetman, Tony Pearson, who I do think was one of the guys with a little more charisma. Like he at least was like, I'm doing art as my bodybuilding. And it's like, okay, like you have, you have like a thing, you

know, but he goes, one of the things I like to do is go shopping. He's like, you can just go from shop to shop. Like, yeah, you don't need to explain what shopping is. I love that too. I love that so much. His whole package was so funny to me because like it showed him like sketching these horse statues and then conspicuously did not show us what he had drawn, which I thought was hilarious.

And how he's talking about like, he sculpts his body and then he's like, yeah, I do all these unorthodox people look at me and they say, Oh, what's he doing? It's like, cause I do a special thing to sculpt my body. Never give a single example of that. It's just like, in his mind, he's just fucking changing the field. And he's just fucking doing some pull downs, doing some like leg

curls. You know what, uh, you know, my favorite part of the first WBF special was Regis Philbin. Okay. Yes. He is what the fuck was Regis Philbin doing there? And he met those barbarian brothers. He's like, I know beef.

You guys listen, I can stand your beef. I'm great at it. I met beef one time and it was a disaster. It's just that like Vince McMahon like wanted to be, be loved in the New York media market. So was Regis there for legitimacy? No, that was supposed to be Lou Ferrigno, I think. And Lou Ferrigno.

That's the second one. Okay. So what happened with the drug testing before the second one? So in like, in like August of 91, two months after, no, no, no. So, so in August 91, two months after the competition, the first paper view, two months after, uh, the WWF's Dr. George Zahorian was convicted of Roids.

And he like said in his trial that like I shipped steroids to Vince McMahon personally, you know, um, so they signed Lou Ferrigno. They said it was going to be like drug free. And in fact, like Ferrigno went on Carson to be like, I'm doing this because it's the like, it's the most like drug free testing in all of sports. And so then, uh, in March 1992, uh, Vince instituted a very

strict drug policy. Um, the, so Lou Ferrigno just quit. Uh, he was just like, well, I'm not doing this. Uh, so I guess that they were just not going to drug test people. But then I read in the wrestling of observer, which is a long time, uh, pro wrestling newsletter that writes from like a behind the scenes perspective, um, that like, you know, they got

like fine. So they did drug test a bunch of people and they failed, you know, the tests obviously, and they got like fines or whatever. And then like, they just let them all compete anyway. Like the, the quote about, uh, the second paper view from the observer is, well, the idea of promoting a show where the majority of the participants had recently failed a steroid test as drug free on the surface was both ludicrous and fraudulent.

The funny thing is when showtime came, it appeared that in the preparatory period for the show among the crew, man, he is a hell of a writer. There was less steroid use than at any contest of that level in recent years. And he is correct. It really showed that there was like, it, it wasn't like that there was less steroid use.

It was like, oh, these guys had to abruptly end their. Yeah. Three weeks ago and in the middle of a cycle, you had to stop is what that look was. Yeah. And I believe almost word for word. Tom Platt says that at every single set. Let's go look better on steroids.

Yeah. I miss those steroids. Damn it. I can barely jerk off to this. I'm joking off to it. Fuck you. You're wrong. But like the.

Second one is very much leaning into the character thing even more than the first one. And it leads into the wrestling thing more. Like we had like a VHS rip of the initial one. So maybe that like cut out, uh, like wrestler. Well, in the first one, the, but the second one has Bobby Heaton and mean gene, Oakland and Vince, like the regular wrestling announcers doing almost all the commentary besides

Tom Platt's who butts in to, to tell you how this guy sucks this year. For some reason, for some weird reason, like the first one, I kind of, I didn't like as much because it was so nothing. It was like, it was trying to be a little bit of wrestling, but like their, their packages weren't leaning into their character. They were just like, I like my wife, but not as much as I like

my dog in weights. Like, I was going to say there's so fucking like slow and like intimate and sincere. And it's just like for a packed casino crowd. And so they're like, Hey, let's watch this guy like chop up his vegetables to prepare his meal. Like a bodybuilding is hard work. And you're just like fucking seven minutes of that.

And you're like, right. Then they'd call him the dark angel and he's lower from the ceiling in a Dracula cape. And you're like, what the fuck? So the second one, the second one rules because they just fully leaned into that. They said, you know what, this guy doesn't live outside of, outside of this arena.

He is, he is a muscle Dracula. No last name. He eats coyote meat in a pit. And we've let him into society for this one night. He watched a five minute short film. So you can understand his muscles. Yeah. I guess I let's maybe just go through the pay-per-view.

We all, I know we all have a ton of notes. The first one opens with just flash frames of beef. I made a note of how it's just kind of, you know, it's kind of, you know, just flash frames of beef. I made a note of how it's just kind of almost an, an electric storm of veiny bulges. Like you can't identify anything.

And it feels really like dangerous for epileptic viewers. And they have these dancers. They're called the body rockers. And they're not like fitness models. It just seems like any collegiate dance team, just in leotards doing dance aerobics, doing like unsexy, just cabbage patches and running man's like, they're not even trying to be sexy,

which only makes it hotter for me. And I think it goes on like the packages. It goes on for what most people would call forever. Like you're just like, fucking watching. They all have like amazing, like it's 1991, but they all have like amazing 1980s perms. Like even the,

like even the black women appear to have gotten like, like perms on this. They share a hairdresser for sure. They did not say, oh yeah, yeah. Let's bring in a, someone for the black hair. It's like, no, no, no. Tease that shit up. I want that blown out eight feet high.

The most, the early nineties were the most eighties. Like until. Yeah. It was peak eighties until 93. Let's see. I guess the first guy to come out was the flexing Dutchman. What's his name? Can we already stop?

Please. That's the best. Why did they even have other names? That's the best God damn name I had ever heard. Can you imagine if you were like picking your persona and that's generous that I'm, I'm suing they allowed to pick their persona, but the very first guy that comes out is what's your name. I'm the flexing Dutchman.

And then you have to follow that. Oh, I'm, what's my character? Uh, big Mike is what I put down. Fuck. One of the things in the flexing Dutchman's little video is that he says he likes to look at the ocean. Yeah. A lot of them like to look at the ocean.

Yeah. I like to look at the ocean, but I don't know if I'd like, if I, if someone asked me like what my top hobbies were, my dog likes to look at the ocean a lot too. Yeah. It feels like something you'd say to like, like a woman, if you didn't know her and you were trying to like banger, like it felt, I guess that's what these like little vignettes felt like is,

is sort of like these guys on a date, like trying to like put their best foot forward for like their girlfriend's parents or something. I don't know. These could have been, absolutely could have been reused and remixed as a, as dating as video dating early night video dating. I made the note that while he's like out there flexing,

one of the announcers said his veins are like a garden hose. And he's like, it's a good thing. Yeah. I think it's a good thing. He says, I was up close to him in the gym. I must have been an inch thick up close. I was like, God damn, that's great.

And the other announcer says, you've heard him a Dutch oven. Well, this Dutchman's got them heating up. I don't think. Oh, that's great. So good. And again, it's just like a touch of showmanship. Like they come out and he's like,

I've got a cool wrestler name, but I'm just in my underpants flexing. Like there's no. Well, hold on. He has some of the dancers and they like take off it, like his towel. Yeah.

He's in his like little, but they also flex to the music. They have advanced choreography where every one of their flexes is to like a little beat or like a little, a little drop in the song, which is so whimsical and silly. I kind of, I kind of love it because that's not the normal thing.

I checked because I don't know shit about this. I was like, do am I into this? Do they all just do a little choreographed dances? No, just here where they do their little dances and they seem happiest when they get to drop the pose and just like cabbage patch a little bit. Yeah. I want to say that this is not bodybuilding and pro wrestling though. This is like bodybuilding and figure skating.

And I don't mean that as an insult. I mean, like when you watch an Olympic figure skating event, they have little costumes and themes. They're doing little stories and movies while they ice skate. And that's what this felt like to me. It's like, I'm kind of a whimsical beach guy and I'll like stop and wink. And then an announcer for this is like, oh, the fuck he just winked.

No unprecedented bodybuilding. So I guess bodybuilding is real square. Just real by the numbers. My wife and I were calling it like it's like RuPaul's drag race. If it were like much more boring or like much less theatrical and had some sort of like allegedly like objective like scoring system. RuPaul's tractor pole. Sounds great.

I love it. The next guy is dark angel Aaron Baker and he kind of rules. He's got like a show enough hairdo from last dragon. He does. He does. There's a lot of really good. Yeah. I mean, like the mullet may have been on its way out by 1991.

Maybe it wasn't, but like in wrestling, it was going to stick around for much longer. So I assume bodybuilding is the same thing. Yeah. There was some great mullet hair. But yeah, Aaron Baker, he draws comic books. He clearly is like into this. He's like, I'm going to be like a, like a dude.

Vampirella. And he kind of comes out with like his cape covering his face. He's still up. He's lowered from the ceiling. Lowered from the ceiling on a platform. Very burlesque show. And then, you know, cute, cute little smirk. He's my favorite by far.

But his package was also him just like playing a guitar, talking about his like magical herbal tea ritual. You're like, dude, come the fuck on. He has like a really weird tea kettle. Like it was a tea kettle shape I had never seen before. Because it's his emperor tea for ancient vanished ghost emperors that have been lost to time. And only he knows his secrets.

One of the announcers does have a really good line about him. He says, I think he really believes in this character. It's why it works so well. I think he thinks he's kind of a muscle Dracula. Yeah. Like a friend, a friendly one, a friendly muscle Dracula, if Dracula fed on love instead of blood. This was the early nineties.

We still thought nerds like were magical, like that they thought their Dungeons and Dragons games were real. So that could have been what he was referring to, like. Oh, maybe. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, oh, this guy's a nerd.

That's why he really believes this shit. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But normally when I watch something weird like this, especially for an article podcast, I'm like super riveted. Like I'm finding unique details and subtle strangeness. But I'm fucking my mind is wandering so bad while I'm watching this.

Like this is in my nose. Just like what the fuck is going on. I think 10 minutes has passed and you've just been dating me. Yeah, I agree. I'll be right down. However, I wrote down at least one piece of Tom Platt's feedback and announcements for each one. He really captivated me with this.

The expert takes he brought as a former champion bodybuilder, I think they said. Yeah. I think he was Mr. Universe one year. Yeah. So it was good to have an expert's eye on things. And for I wrote it down here for for Aaron Baker, the Dark Angel, he said, huge back.

His commentary was almost always just like, ooh, nice. Good. Yeah. Like nobody, no one taught him to be like, hey, like why don't you explain what he's doing? Yeah. And then like the new viewers might like understand this a little more.

And instead he was just like, oh, unreal. I can't believe this stage. You know, like this is incredible. Yeah. I couldn't definitely use something to say like, oh, this muscle group is like really hard to work. Like that's sort of the job of a color commentator is like, hey, people at home, I know you're not into this.

Like who the fuck would be into this? But like, let me explain why this is important and why this is like uniquely good or whatever the fuck. Or even the name of the muscle that you're praising would be good. There's a part where like the announcer says like, like says, like Tom goes like, oh, you know, he's new, he's known for doing like lighter weights, but like lots of reps, whereas most guys do like heavier weights,

but fewer reps. And then the, the announcer guy is like, it's like, oh, well, what's he, what's the advantage of doing that? And then like, he doesn't really have an answer for it. And it's like, come on. It's just the one thing I wanted to know. He says some different muscle fibers. He's got the white fiber.

And he says that makes one of them like a football athlete, the other one like a track athlete. I'm like, what the fuck? They're both bodybuilder athletes. He just made it up. Once again, before the internet, you could just, God, you could just lie. You could lie with absolute impunity and nobody would ever call

you out on it. It was a magical time in America. And speaking of these giant men sucking at other sports, the next guy is the Zook and he's a beach guy. So if he does beach stuff, they show him playing volleyball. And I was like, fucking live it. Like guys, fucking lifting is the first clip. He like jumps straight into the goddamn net.

And I'm like, cut that one. The fucking guy made it. The first, the first thing this guy says is he hates team sports. And then later they show him playing volleyball really poorly. So it's like, oh, well, I understand why. That's why, because I'd kick him the fuck out of the city. This is also the guy who says he spends a lot of time away from his family, which I feel bad, bad.

Like that's, that stinks. If that, if you want to spend time with your family, I just think that bodybuilding is a sport where you could do that. I'm 100% agree. I related to him the most cause he's a motorcycle guy and they showed him on his ninja. He talks about how fast his ninja is. And then it shows him blasting helmetlessly on the PCH in his

skull hammer pants, just flapping in the wind. The reflection of the beach in his Oakleys. It's just the most fucking 90s moment I've ever seen of this huge man on, if I should explain the ninja is a very small bike. And he is a very huge man. And it was very much a, a, a, a, an oversized twin on a little scooter kind of moment. It was great.

God, if there was, yeah, if there's two of them like that, that would have been a really funny visual. I wish they all, I wish everybody would get together and form a little motorcycle gang. Just all on tiny sports bikes, tiny Japanese sports bikes, meant to hold Japanese people blasting around under 300 pounds of bulk. One of the announcers says this guy's been on several episodes

of doogie house or MD and that acting experience helped him with his poses is what he explains. Tom Plats actually chimes in with some expert commentary here and he says, Oh, this is nice. Nice back. Great back. I looked him up on IMDB and he played a bodybuilder on an episode of full house and he played muscle man on an episode

of doogie house. Amazing. And he played Dr. Dr. Hammerstein on an episode of the movie. He also was in a movie called kill point from 1984. Let me guess. Let me guess. He played human headed gorilla.

Now, unfortunately he played muscle man. My second guess. Just one word. He's, I think that's an upgrade. Fantastic. I do like how, um, how wrestlers, my friend Brian always makes his observation how like wrestlers look like gorillas when they put on suits, like when they try, when they aren't wearing

it. It always looks like cosplay. Yeah. It looks like the thing, like trying to blend into the crowd. Like, it's funny. I'm not a nature turtle everybody. I'm a regular human like you. Every once in a while in like a Marvel comic, they'll do the

slice of life thing and it'll show like the Hulk in a tuxedo or something. It's exactly that feeling of like, you shouldn't be in that. But we're having a good time. Yeah. Yeah. Some of these guys come, they carry like an awkward nude energy. Like normally it's bodybuilding.

You're like, oh, they're supposed to be wearing a speedo. But some of them like, this feels like a guy in his underpants to me. I don't, I can't put my finger on it, but it feels like a very like Marvel, uh, swimsuit special type of shot where I'm just like, I don't feel like this guy needs pants. I don't, I don't know. Some of them are smaller than others.

Like, I don't think there's a regulation panty, a regulation muscle panty. Like, I guess the next guy, Mike Christian, uh, who's the, the iron warrior. And, uh, he also loves to hang out on the beach, but he does like a chain mail thing when he comes out, but he, he, but not like, like you're picturing, like it's, he looks like a video game character one hit away from death.

He's got like a chain mail hat and a chain mail club, like on one hand and then like a shoulder thing on the other. Like he got chased through a medieval clothes line. And it's only for like a, like four seconds. And he's just like, can we get this shit off of me? And then he's like a tiny white song. And you're like, well, now it looks like I just watched a man undress. It looks like I watched like, like somebody get this

guy's clothes. You watched him be undressed. You watched somebody steal his clothes. I had that in several of these, like where they have the woman come in and like wrench the clothes off of him. And then he was like, it looks like somebody stole your clothes. Yeah.

Like it makes me feel bad for you now. It looks like someone's really sucks at ghosts and goblins is what this guy looks like. Tom Plats comes out for Mike Christian and he says, you could lose your wallet in that back. I remember that. Great back notes. Thank you for taking such detailed back notes.

Regis comes on. He's like, this is a shootout. And luckily the next guy is from the old West. From the old wet from lost in time. He's been lost in time was sucked into a wormhole. He's terrified at our modern world. So don't clap too loud for. Don't scare him.

So you're thinking finally we get this cowboy guy is going to throw to a cowboy guy. He's going to be like, no, he's another beach guy. And he says his biggest muscle is his heart because he has two dogs. And then you're like, okay, now here comes this cowboy thing. But no, he's a fucking Indian. He's like a fucking like savage, like war paint Indian leather

panties. Little fucking cowboy and cloth. You're right. You're right. And he's a five foot four and he looks like Ram man. And they will not shut up about his full belly muscles. Just, oh, this guy's dense. He's thick.

He's just like a little fucking rectangle of a man. He is. He is also the guy who says, I can be myself around my dogs, which is, it's just like, I was like, oh, that makes me feel, feel bad. Try to not be a five foot four bodybuilder anywhere else. Like, like try to just blend into society and not be that. I think you're around.

I think you're yourself around everybody buddy. They show him playing golf and that's, I felt bad for laughing at that. Like you should be able to just play golf, but it looks hilarious. Like it looks like you're making fun of golf when you're that big and you do something like that. He was in red hot pants and like a little muscle T-shirt.

So I mean, like, it did not look like a golf outfit, but if he wasn't a golf outfit, it'd be twice as funny. I guarantee. All right. Let's get the, the backup date. Tom Platt says, nice back. And the, the other guy, I forget the other guy's name, but he chimes in to say it's ironic that he has wrinkly dogs.

He doesn't have a wrinkle on him. Doesn't look anything like his pets. That is ironic. He has a really good like bleach blonde flat top. He has like a, like a, like a Brian Bosworth haircut. Yeah. Which is really good. He is our first competitor who is dead.

He died in 2014. He had a heart attack at his gym. Tom. I found an obituary of him on the website, musculardevelopment.com. It appears to be a magazine too. They ran a nice eulogy on, on that website. Yeah.

It's an interview for, it's, it's an, well it says like, if one phrase summed up Vince Comerford, it revolved around the organ that finally failed him. Vince Comerford had heart. Oh my God. That is like. Dark and haunting. So I've, I've written, I've written obits.

You know, like I spent a year as an intern in college, like a summer as an intern in college. And I wrote a lot of, of obits for, for a newspaper that summer. And like the, the, the like two rules I got from the regular obit guy who was like, you know, taking some vacation days that summer was like, look, these are easy because everybody wants to talk about the person who, you know, who just died. The only thing is like the only hard question is ask them how they died.

And then the, like the other thing is don't do any fucking puns. Don't get cute. Yeah. And the third thing was like, the only real hard thing is you'll, you'll learn about some people and you'll learn that no, some people never did a fucking thing in their lives. They say he had a great head on his shoulders. Unfortunately, that's not how he ended his life.

He was beheaded by a train. So I found a, so this, this guy who wrote the obit also wrote a little, like he found an interview with him that he had done in 1993 and posted that as well. And here, here is how he says about, here's what Vince says about the world bodybuilding Federation. Thinking over the last two years, the word that motivates me the most is discussed,

discussed it myself. I want to regain respect. You know what discussed me most? I became civilized. What the hell? A bodybuilder who's civilized. A pro bodybuilder's got to be nuts, frenzy, fighting and scratching for every break.

You have to be an animal to be certifiably mad to go after the extremes we try to achieve. In bodybuilding, you have to go to every extreme to be extreme. Physique wise, I want to be somewhere I've never been before and the just hold on tight and hope I survive. In the IFBB, you got to get hungry to compete. You got to have the attitude of getting up on that stage and screaming. Now just fucking try and take it from me.

This is about, he got too much money from Vince with Vince. I don't know, but it does say at the end that he never did compete again in bodybuilding. Because Vince was given these guys like $300,000 salaries and I feel like that if you're just like barely scraping by and you get that, you're like, okay, this is who I am now I'm spending this money every year in my life until I die. And then it all gets taken away from you.

You have to do some real like rationalization. Like, no, no, this is actually good. This is like, I'm hungry. I'm an animal now. Like that's what it feels like to me. Yeah, no, I mean, I think I sort of get what he's saying, but it's also like kind of sad. It's like, I can only do this like terrible sport if I'm,

I mean, like he's saying it's terrible kind of right. You have to be poor to do this sport. Like, or else you're like to like live it high and like to do it. Like, I don't know. It's just like, it's a strange thing, but like, I do sort of get it. I don't know. I heard that all the way back. That was the, that was the central theme of pumping iron.

And then pumping iron's answer was no, you don't. Next up, we have executioner Johnny Morrell. Oh, I'm skip, skip something. You want to? No, I just, this is the, this is the most problematic one. Yeah. He comes out an executioner's hat with a, well, that looks, it does look like a picture negative of a KKK

Klansman. Yeah. It's not an executioner's hood. Like every single person is picturing. It's the other one that we don't show for a reason. And he is a black man. Yes. It's not a great look.

I mean, the second year, Bobby Heenan makes a David Duke joke about it. Yeah. I have it. Yeah. Well, we can, we can get to that. No, if you have it go, it's, it's tuned for part two, where we tell you the David Duke joke about Bobby,

the brain he didn't made about a black man. Yeah. You know what? Stay the, stay the later in the podcast. You can hear that joke later. Do you have anything about his back? Yeah. Tom Plats says huge back.

I really feel like he was impressed in that one. Some of these, he's like phoning in, but it was like actually interesting to see who he was impressed by. I just wish that like he had then given a follow up thing as to like why he was impressed. Just anything. He did seem like legitimately impressed, but then like we didn't know why.

So it wasn't all that helpful. Yeah. I got the idea that like having a good back is maybe unusual or the sign of a thoughtful bodybuilder because, you know, I'd say I thought it was maybe like the most difficult thing to do is have like some sort of really visibly muscled back or something just by the way he was talking about it. But in, he never explains.

He's even in part two and he never explains. It seems like the three of us should know after watching two entire pay-per-view bodybuilding. After watching four hours. Four hours. His huge backs. I have in my notes that they did a little, this is when they showed a package of the choreography rehearsals.

And I feel like this took, this did more to take away the magic than anything they've shown so far. He's like, cranky bodybuilders working with like these theatrical men, like showing them that, then you step here and step here and then shake your thigh at the crowd. And you're like, oh, this takes, like, I thought they were improving a lot of this stuff. And it turns out, no, no.

All of this was carefully choreographed by professional, by professionals. They were so unhappy. It was just, you could just see it on there. Like, I don't want to do this. Yeah. Just way out of their element. The next one is Mighty Mike Quinn.

And he's got like, what he claims to be a very big personality, but he's like, I had never heard a quiet audience here because of my giant personality. I'm really likable and cool. I don't know. I wasn't getting it. He says, I'm the psycho. And then he says, but I'm a rebel with a cause.

So I think you know, I think you know who he is. He also says, I've built a career based on love. And says that his parents have been at almost every competition he's ever done, which is nice. It's just, I don't understand how you can be the like psycho and also be like, and I'm really into love. He just hasn't thought through it all. Psycho for love.

And it's in the middle of his show. This is super fucking weird. He gets shot. He just sort of falls and the music kind of has a drumbeat. And so one of the announcers clearly scripted and says, like, oh, he's been shot. Like, let me help sell this narrative. And then he gets resurrected and it's as Jesus as you might

expect, like his arms are out like Jesus and these ladies help pick them up. And then there's like a fucking like razzmatazz beat drop. Like it's like, okay, now it's time for a jazzy dance number now that I've been resurrected. And then it gets kind of sexy. Like he humps these two girls. He humps the skanks that resurrected him.

The holy, the holy skanks. And I think this is where they got the, I think this is where they got the idea for part two, where they were like, oh, okay, hold on. This, this was the best part. It all has to be this. Yeah. The color commentator in the middle of all this says that he's

the kind of guy who will like feel down before getting on the stage and then light up once the competition's ready to start. So it's like a really sad story about how even his casual acquaintances recognize this guy's chronic depression. And then it's all an act. Oh, made me so sad. I have some, some verbatim quotes of the announcers during his, his routine.

So the one guy goes, get shot. Then like very creative kind of routine here. Then the other guy says the resurrection of Mike Quinn. The first guy says dancing. This is great. He's good at it too. And then this is no foxtrot. So that's, that was the riveting announcing.

And then Tom Platt says a super muscled guy, dance back. You know, I actually have an audio clip of Mike Quinn's performance in the second WBF. I'll go ahead and play that here. It seems like the perfect time. This is how it got upgraded. My name is Mighty Mike. I'm a fight goes through and through.

I'll make you tremble in your feet just by looking at you. That was not a thing by the way. Those were the announcers laughing at him. Don't be afraid. I'm not here to steal your soul. So DJ hit that music. It's time to funk and roll. Wow, baby.

What is going on? Oh my God. I think I'm going to take my shirt off. This is the kind of action you get. This is me. Bob Sled team. Mighty Mike wins with this lady. Wild.

I am. Get it on. Great performer. The bad boy of bodybuilding. Most definitely. Amazing. He's. Okay.

Before we even get to it. We can talk about that routine because that's like a. It's an all timer, but he's not the only one. Not even. There's not even two. There's more than two that do their own song. And rap. I just there.

There has to be this has to be after the time that Vince McMahon got his. His taste. Of making albums like he had to. This was targeted. I don't think it happened, but I feel like this was targeted where Vince McMahon was like, and then we can make an album. Out of their entrance song.

Yes. No question. He was going to have a soundtrack to this. Because there was also a magazine for this. And like a line of diet pills and all that. So Vince McMahon diversifies his merchandising. Next up, I have David Durth in my notes. He's the rock and roll wild child.

And he loves to rock. So they show him making veggies and playing with his beloved son. You'd think he'd come out with like, you know, some glam rock hair or something, but he comes out as a leather daddy, like a. Full on leather dad. Yeah. Like it's second. It's the second.

Of the competition that is just straight up in bondage gear. Right. Right. He's like a dancer for a gay bachelor party. And he does the jumping splits in a flying psychic. Well, he tries. Yeah. He's like, what?

What agility from the big man? That's a very difficult for a gymnast. Let alone a bodybuilder. He did. He did the like Pete Townsend like guitar, like playing where you like roll your arm around thing during this routine. I have a, I have a quote from his like, from his little vignette. And it was, I'll start visualizing the day ahead of me.

Sometimes I just like to go fishing and just think about, you know, normal things. I like to fish. I like to eat them and I like to catch them. And I think, I think normal things like you probably. Like a humon, like an earth monster such as yourself. There's a passionate slowdown in the middle. It was really weird for like 10 seconds.

He just, the music drops to like a ballad and he kind of just pauses himself. So I think there's stories being told in these performances. I don't understand. I don't think anyone does. A little bit there. I thought I read that as like, am I that buff? And then he kind of feels around and is like, no, I am.

And then the rock and roll kicks back on. That's the story. I thought he was sort of dressed like if like D. Snyder were in, in the village people. Okay. Yeah. That is perfect. Exactly.

Right. And also mostly. Which is like what Vince McMahon would think rock and roll. So that's pretty, that's pretty obvious. Do you want to hear Tom Platt's commentary? Please. This guy's in shape. Got it.

Nailed it. The next we have giant killer, Danny Padilla, the five foot two guy from pumping iron. And his package is like, this is just a fucking normal guy. He's got a bodega. He loves to bowl. He says, we used to go to a place and the lady was so nice. We used to bowl until four in the morning.

They included that in his package that he used, no, he used to. He does not anymore, but there was a time in his life when he would bowl until four in the morning. But those days are over. Nice bowling lady. He comes out and he's got like a Latin beat and the announcer says, Padilla comes alive to the Latin beat. Which I really love.

No, not allowed to do that. They also talk a lot about how he's 40. Looks great. 40 and he looks great. Tom Platt's commentary is look at those muscles aged like a fine cheese. He is 40, so he's not like as vascular, but I feel like he has like a dramatic silhouette. Like I would put him as one of the top guys, but the announcers don't

seem to agree with me because with everyone else, they're like, what the fuck is that on his back? That muscle doesn't exist. But with like Danny, they're like, it's all right for an old guy. His dancing's fine. Great bowler. I kind of liked his dancing. I'm like, yeah, you're right.

I don't know how to score bodybuilding. Right. But I looked it up and he was like, you know, did like really well in like lightweight and middleweight divisions. They didn't want to give any of the spots to a little guy is obviously what that was. All the spots went to not only the biggest guys, but the tallest guys. Like there was this was about being physical.

Which again is a very Vince McMahon. Yeah, he likes the big. And I love the evil. I have another note from the commentators. One of them says living proof. There's no correlation between height and heart. We always believed it. That short people were mean.

We've always believed it people. Oh God, I thought of the darkest joke. Cut all of that. Cut that thought I had. Is it a callback to the man that died of a heart? Yes. Yes, it is. It's called back to the short man who died of a heart attack.

I just I'm glad you could hear me thinking that. Immediate as soon as you said it. Yeah. So the next guy forget I said any of that is Jim Quinn and he's the future of bodybuilding and he's doing like a like a universal soldier thing, a terminator thing. They haven't been set a bug zapper. Maybe it's a tanning booth.

I don't know. Yeah, I didn't know how that was supposed to be a cyborg. It was like they just found whatever props they could. Yeah. They could find. Do you have his little introductory speech while he was in the bug zapper? I didn't take it down word for word, but he had like a bit he was doing about how LA bodybuilders are always like concerned with matching their

sweats and their hats. And he's just like, look, I'll just lift weights and whatever. I look like shit. Oh, we're still in the path that we were into the routine. Okay. Let's do the routine then. Like what? Okay.

It was just, I assumed I was so sure. Like in my notes here, I just put Sean baby probably has this clip. You don't have the clip of his speech when he starts. No. What did he say? The future of bodybuilding is here. I am Skeletor. I am the master of the universe.

I am he man's worst adversary. He's afraid of me. It's so fucking weird. I'm sorry for disappointing you. Oh man. There was an early draft of this where it was all he man themed. I'm sorry we didn't update you. You're just going to have to go on.

You're going to have to go on. The only guy saying shit about how you're in he man. Cause it's a, it's a crazy thing to say, but just embrace it. It is funny that Skeletor was weirdly buff. Like the Skeletor had the exact same mold as he man. So you're thinking, oh, Skeletor is a skeleton. No, no, Skeletor was jacked. He also says,

I believe the future of the sport is big, big people. It's a good prediction. His outfits are like, he comes out with a laser tag helmet and Oakley's in purple panties. And he looks like Ben Stiller in a comical muscle suit. And here's the weirdest compliment. I'm a hundred percent sure you guys have this in your notes. They all go, we has very thin skin.

They're like, oh yeah, look at how fucking thin his skin is. Like it's a very high compliment. Yeah, that was, that was my, that was my feedback. That was your Tom Platt's comment. And they said this was his pro debut, which was weird to me. So I looked him up and he won the year before in the IBFF. And I guess an amateur competition. And then after this, he didn't get in the top 10 except for a

couple of times, like several years later. So I don't think this destroyed his career, but it seems like it was not great for it. Like this guy was like top of the world. Then Vince McMahon threw him in this and he got blacklisted for a couple of years and just didn't come back a hundred percent. I just, I feel like this is one of the, one of the stories that like, oh, this guy could have been the next Arnold,

but Vince fucked his life up. Yeah. I looked him up. He ran for nearly 2000 yards in his college football career at the University of New Hampshire. He recently fell out of their top 10 all time, leading rushers. Yeah.

So he had several promising careers. Yeah. Vince McMahon ate them and they were delicious. He rubbed his belly and went numb, numb, numb your careers. Next one I have Eddie Robinson. My notes for him is he is 26. I did not take down any other notes. I don't know if that's an insult to Eddie Robinson or if I was

very distracted. Nope. There was nothing. I, so I looked everybody up to see who was still alive. Most, most of them were still alive. Which is like, like if you watched a World Wrestling Federation pay-per-view from 1991, you'd have a much higher death toll. So Eddie Robinson is still alive.

And I went to his, I found him on Instagram. And like literally the first thing is a cameo he purchased from Dan Bongino, like a, like who's like a right wing. Yeah. But then the whole rest of the Instagram was like, just like being like, I love my wife. I love like lifting. Like life is great.

I love standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. Yeah. Like I was shocked at how the rest of his Instagram feed was like perfectly like trail. Yeah. Tom Platsy even agrees with us. There's nothing to this guy. His, his, his feedback was he looks strong.

You're in a bodybuilding competition. And the best thing you have to say about it, guys, he looks strong. Fucking three year old would say that. And you wouldn't be proud of them. You'd be like, yeah. Tony Pearson's next. He's the one who's an artist.

He's a sculptor, not a bodybuilder. And I thought this was pretty good. He makes super bad music of himself, like sexually moaning. I really liked that. It's gimmick. It's this top gun thing. We're just like, what, what is this? But they never say that he was in the Air Force or anything.

Yeah. Why he's the jet man. No, in fact, there's a little section where he says, I believe in destiny. I was destined to be a lifeguard. So that's why they made him the jet man, of course. Maybe he gets like diarrhea when he eats too much protein shake. He's the one who explains what shopping is.

I love shopping. You go shop to shop. You spend a lot of money. So he's doing a top gun thing. He's the shopper guy. You think, oh, his costume is going to be great. He takes it off before he's out of the shadows. It's just like a sheet.

A man undressing. By the time you see him, he's in his underpants. The least of all the gimmicks is just like, gosh, you remember top gun. Let's do a top gun one. Also, for the jet man, I thought he was going to fly in on something or at least be like, they do have a ceiling thing. He took off a jacket in the shadows.

He's wearing a high jacket. We don't know. It's very much like if you wore a cowboy hat at home and then took it off before you left for your stripper job. That's how deep his gimmick went. Oh, do you have notes about his back? Oh, yeah. Tom Platt says known for his back development.

Soon, everyone will be known for their back development because he will not shut up about backs. But Gary Stridham is next. And he's obviously like the chosen one. He's the guy that they've picked to win. He also notes that he likes to shop and sort of explains what shopping is as well. And then they cut to him on Rodeo Drive.

So he likes to shop for a very fine thing. But then he also says, I don't always buy because it's a lot of money. Yeah. He also has like an industrial kitchen in his condo, he says. It's in the building of his car. It's a Rodeo restaurant at the bottom of the condo. And he goes into the back to yell at the chef.

Right. Can you make me a burger with no cheese on it? Yeah, I got it. You don't have to come into the kitchen. Yeah. Go fucking sit down. He seems like he was not just pushed by Vince, but he's like a hugely successful guy.

He was in the top three of basically every competition in the last two years, sometimes placing first. And this did tank his career. Like after this shit fell apart, he took a long break. He came in 12th at some competition five years later. And that's basically it. Like he basically never like competed again after this. And Vince McMahon grew an inch and a half.

Yes. I liked his gimmick. He had a little top bat and cane, which is almost the funniest thing you can give to an almost naked man. Was it a magician or was it just a rich man? I don't know. I don't know. But if you, if you, if you know, if you know one thing about the

WBF, it's like, you may have seen this YouTube video of Vince McMahon. I believe it's the same clip, but it's like from like the WBF TV show. And it has Vince like announcing over and he's like, top hat and cane talk about going out for a night on the town. And then it's, you know, and then like they've, they've turned it into, it's like a, it's an animated GIF of like him, like being

like, you know, like freaking out at some like diva, but they, they've interspersed it with him and Gary Stridham. And it really works well. He like is jacked as fuck. Like he carries an uncomfortable sense of impending danger. Like something on a mic pop, like a resident evil weak spot. Like, like, I think he's legitimately the best bodybuilder because he looks fucking absurd.

Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't look structurally sound. Or as Tom Plats puts it, very thick muscles. He also has a bit at the end. He's one of the few they stopped to interview him and they make him talk about everything. And he is so not qualified to talk about, I don't think they told him they were going to do this because he says, nothing surprising now, we can do anything we want.

We got, we got the body and we got to communicate. And then he pauses for a long time and says, like out there, they think they think we're some kind of freaks or something. And then Tom Plats looks at him and says, no, nothing exchange between this. He says, they think we some kind of freak or something. And Tom Plats looks him in the eye and says, you're one of the biggest monsters I've ever seen in my life.

I had it down like at the start of the interview, he says, I've never known you to be entertaining like this. So fucking good. So I guess I was talking about bodybuilding competitions. As I looked it up, I noticed that the 1992 WBF isn't listed on anyone's competition records. So I guess it's, I guess it's officially recognized as like a work or a farce or whatever.

But I think at the end of this one, the top three guys were the top three paid guys like in the, in that suspicious order. So I think it's a clue that Vince like, it's like, you're if number one, you're number two, you're number three, you're way too short. They do single out the short guy Eddie Robinson and they reiterate shorter than the others, but at 220 pounds, he stands just as tall.

No, no, I just, so I guess I like just to sort of recap, I think none of this went far enough. Like it just sort of added a touch of glamour and whimsy to this esoteric competition. And it's not enough to make me as a, someone who's not a fan of it, say, oh, this is fun now. It's like watching a biathlon or some weird sport where like one guy wears ultimate warrior face paint.

You're like fine, that kind of makes it better good for him, but it's not enough. And then someone says, what if we put all 12 of them in ultimate warrior face paint and call it the ultimate biathlon thrill hour. It's like that's fucking stupid. It's not enough of a show. And it kind of undermines the integrity of the competition,

which I think everyone can appreciate. Even when a sport is stupid or weird, and I think body building is definitely either one of both of those. You can still admire, like these are the greatest athletes competing to be the best. And even if I don't get it, like I can feel the passion here. And this like undermines that is what I'm trying to say. It's fucking crazy because Vince McMahon really just wanted to

highlight men with crazy bodies, but he already did that and also added many other things. Like almost every wrestler is definitely somewhere in a bodybuilding competition and maybe they don't win. I don't know. I don't know how it's judged. I have no qualification. But they are exactly this.

They're absolutely built beyond reason and beyond health. So he already got what he wanted, plus added storylines and characters and like rivalries and all of these things. And everybody loved it. And he said, what if I did wrestling again, but way less? What if I just took everything else away? And what if I did exactly what I've been doing and but one third of that, the man, everybody was like, well,

that would be worse. Wouldn't it? I have my notes. One of the judges was named Jim Davis. And when they cut to him, you could see macho man right behind him and like full macho man, American flag. Yeah. And Liz.

Liz. Yeah. Miss Elizabeth. Beautiful Elizabeth. Just watching. He has no lines. He never comes on to do anything in any part of the show. Are we at the pose down?

Because my favorite, well, my second favorite line. The pose down is so awkward. I'll let you explain the pose down. I just want to do the line. There's nothing to explain. The pose down was the five finalists like posing all at once on stage. And like, and like, that doesn't sound like it's that weird,

but it really was. Like they were all kind of close to each other. Like I'm just cracking up just thinking about it. It's like a competition. Kind of close to each other. And like, we're like, like, like, it was like, they were all trying to, like they were all like 14 year olds who thought that's how you like impressed a girl.

Like they're like pick her up or something like. They make such a big deal out of it. Like it's the, this is your last heat for judging. But then they also explained that this whole thing is pre-judged like before the show. And they already know. So this is like the lowest stakes. Just we're having fun now.

And the other, the other announcer, not Tom Plats. I forget his name. He, he pauses for a long time and then says, they made a movie called the magnificent seven. This is the most magnificent five. I could have done fabulous five or fucking buff five. I don't know. So it also came on the tail end of like 10 minutes of

reintroductions. Like they slowly had them all come back out and you're just like, the momentum is gone. And then they all come out. Yeah. Boss rush. And so all of this feels like, like a huge scam. Like it's a big awkward ending.

Gary Stridham is like a hundred thousand dollars. And half of these guys are making their pro day viewing quotes, but they're also very accomplished bodybuilders and everybody knows who they are. And they huge prestigious wins. So I looked into it and you can turn pro. And the way to do it is you give $250 to register with the IBFF. And I feel like that's, this is just part of a bigger grift.

But also this gives you one free quarter of the car with the purchase of full fras meal and a piggy short max. And it's like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what you get at with for your fucking card, but I don't know. It's sad.

It's dark. My wife watched this Netflix documentary called killer Sally about a female bodybuilder. I watched that. Yeah. And there was a part that gave you sort of an insight into the struggle of these bodybuilders. And she's this lady saying, yeah,

like we used to go to men's homes and like kind of wrestle them. And she was married at the time. So the interview was like, dude, you were married. Like, didn't all these men try to fuck you? And then she got real weird. And she's like, no, never, absolutely never how absurd. No, never.

And so I feel like a lot of lower end bodybuilders suck a few stranger dicks along the way is like what I really took from that documentary. Like it's a, it's a, it's a hard life. A rock hard life. I just don't think it's something you really can make a lot of money doing unless you like graduate. To pro wrestler.

And that's not a high paying job. Or you're like Arnold, you know, or, sure. Lou. For a note. Well, even Lou. Yeah. Even, even Lou didn't have like a long acting career.

I mean, he had a little bit of one, but sure. I feel like, like personal training is a thing that it's, it feels like, oh, I mean, all of these guys who are, who are still alive still are like personal trainers at their gym. Of course. Yeah. So for anybody that gives a shit, should we announce the winner?

I can't imagine. There's anybody. Oh, I thought I already said it. Oh, did it. It's Gary. It's Gary Stridham. What a surprise. What a surprise.

Everybody's shocked. He, he does a little thing where he's pretends to be like surprised for just a half second. It's terrible acting. He's right through it. And then the last line again by the other, the other announcer,

he says, you know, you know, you know, the other, the other announcer, he says about the competition, he says,

truly, it's found a champion to match the dreams of everyone. Fucking. And then the next line is the 4,000 people in this audience. So, so not everyone. Fucking just ends it on some anime ass shit. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. One Night Handlet Hot Rock. There's nothing so tragic as when the young die before the old. Here at Hot Dog Space Camp, we know that all too well. A moment of silence please for the late Hot Dog Space Class of 2023. Three Finger Louis. Aaron Crossley. Adria N'H just wanted to see the stars.

Buck. We told her that's not how it works, but she was a dreamer. Aidan Muatt. Alpha Scientist Java. UnAndy. Armando Nava worked hard, hearted harder, and they say, died the hardest. Badger. Benjamin Sironin.

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Hot fart. Jaber Al-Aden died how he lived on the moon. Jeff Haraski. We've lost every one of our precious Johns. John Dean's family asked us to say may he rest in the peace he hated in life. John Hector McFarlane's family asked us to say may he rest in war. John McCammon's family asked us to say may the bastard find no rest. John Minkoff's family chased us off their property with a thresher.

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Mike Stiles. Mojoo. N.D. Neil Bailey. Neil Schaefer will miss your laughter most of all. It went like this. War, war, war, war, war. Like a horny walrus choking on a smaller walrus as wild as crazy stuff. Nekku 104.

Nick Ralston. Ozzie Olin. Patrick Herbst, you asked in every class what would happen if you stuck it in the lunar rover. What was the answer, Patrick? Rachel. Rain Vardis Rianni Sarkovsky

Sean Chase is the one who started the deadly rumor that Huffing Space got you high. Spotty Reception Supernaught had a theory that, in zero gravity, a fart could propel you forever. Still going as far as we know. Ted H Thomas Kovatsos Timmy Lehi overdosed on freeze-dried ice cream. You can only eat four of those in a lifetime, you know.

Toasty God Tom Sikula Tommy G Whelan Russell Yossarian Yannis Ionitis You were our best, our brightest. The live feed showed you weren't that way, too.

Dr. Awkward, all of your instructors said it was impossible to do a kickflip in space. They said you'd never land it without gravity. I guess? I guess? I guess the joke's on them because you're kickflippin' forever now!