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00:00:01
Offseason Off Topic Wrasslin with the Yankee Marshal
25 Plays6 days ago
Aloha and welcome to this live episode of Offseason Off Topic! This week Iowa Joe will be joined by TheYankeeMarshal to talk wrestling!
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction and Guest Appearance
00:00:20
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of OAP. I am Iowa Joe. This is another episode of our off-season off-topic. I can't even talk tonight.
00:00:32
Speaker
This week I am joined by my guest. I was going to say special, but I don't know if I highly regard you enough to call you special. Maybe like short by special, but my guest Yankee Marshall.
00:00:46
Speaker
Yanks, thanks for joining me.
Wrestling Nostalgia and Preferences
00:00:48
Speaker
Well, don't want to be here. I'm being blackmailed just so everybody knows I'm being blackmailed. Well, you you don't want the, the, yeah, I know I got pictures.
00:01:00
Speaker
All the pictures. I don't care about the pictures. I mean sooner or later, people are going to find those. It's the old VHS tapes that I'm more worried about. But Yank, we're here to do a little bit of talking about wrestling.
00:01:14
Speaker
I'm a bit of a fan. I know you're a bit of a fan. i don't follow it as closely as I used to. I'm pretty sure you said you don't really follow it as close as you used to either. But, you know, it's still I try. I I've tried. I tried to like AEW when AEW came around. I tried for a couple of years to like them.
00:01:33
Speaker
it was almost impossible to to like them. And WWE, I've just, I don't know most of the people that are there now. And now that it's run by tk o or whatever it is, it's, it's just a different feel.
00:01:48
Speaker
But, you know, I sometimes try to get back into it, but I just really haven't had much time lately. I prefer old stuff. I like to watch the podcast with like, Jim Cornette and Stevie Richards and all this other stuff where we talk more about like stuff that used to happen in wrestling and then a little bit of the new stuff, but, uh,
00:02:08
Speaker
I like the Yeah, I feel kind of the same way. i try to watch AEW now and again just because for the most part, they have wrestlers on there that I view as you know pretty solid wrestlers.
00:02:20
Speaker
you know i Yeah, a couple of them. and And I think we both can agree that certain EVPs of the company i that we can't stand. Young Bucks, not really big fans.
00:02:35
Speaker
Yeah, those guys... i'm not Something like that. And I'm not a big fan. I don't mind Kenny Omega. I don't see him as like a big superstar like all these other people do, but I do see him as a solid i in-ring competitor.
00:02:54
Speaker
I see him as someone who could be a good wrestler if he had the right mindset, but he doesn't have the right mindset. And then, you know, there's guys over there that have good gimmicks that are the I kind of do like.
00:03:08
Speaker
But other than that, storylines are just, you can tell it's similar to the WCW days where they had the guy that really loved wrestling just pumping tons of money into it, even though he didn't know what he was doing with it.
00:03:22
Speaker
And so, and then what it's even worse because he was a fan of indie wrestling and indie wrestling sucks. Yeah, but everybody's got to make
Wrestling Storytelling and Styles
00:03:32
Speaker
their bones somewhere. I view indie wrestling similar to the old territory days where you know that's where these guys would start out and then you know the big time, you know that you'd have that one company in each territory that was the big dog and all these little guys would want to get to that big company like WCCW and well, it was WWWF
00:03:59
Speaker
and then what was uh uh championship wrestling yeah you had those places that that was the big times for these guys to go to but you still had the smaller groups that we had georgia you had georgia you had memphis you had uh texas you had you know there were all kinds of portland was a hot spot at one point in time uh roddy piper started just tried to start portland back up of course uh so did uh Matt Bourne and them, but i just never took back off again. it just wasn't the time for it.
00:04:33
Speaker
But yeah, the territory days I liked better. I'm much more fan of Georgia Championship Wrestling and NWA and, you know, all those groups. Then I Memphis Championship. brand That was more my time frame of wrestling when I was really into it. Like Mr. Wrestling No. 2 and Tommy Rich and Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair and, you know, all those guys. Those were, you know, ah bit the Jimmy Boogie Woogie Man and all those. Those were Jimmy Valiant. And those were all my favorites back in the day.
00:05:05
Speaker
The only thing about Ric Flair, and don't get me wrong, I i was a bit of a fan but i because I watched more of WCW. Growing up, we didn't have USA in the house. We only had TBS, so we could only watch WCW.
00:05:20
Speaker
But the thing about Ric Flair, it when he started towards his second or third retirement or whatever you want to decide on it, he wasn't made for modern-style wrestling.
00:05:35
Speaker
the stuff that is on TV all the time because he was having the same matches every match. And it worked better for him when he was doing house shows and traveling the circuit and stuff like that because he was hitting different audiences.
00:05:49
Speaker
But when you're in front ah TV and you've got the same audiences tuning in week in and week out and you're having the same match and you can pretty well know what his calls were.
00:06:00
Speaker
I'm going to chop you. I'm going to knee chop you. I'm going to go up to the top. You're going to throw me off. I'm not going to hit it Woo woo, dance, dance. Then we're going to go home and figure for it.
00:06:12
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I mean, he's he was from the old school where the vast majority of your matches were seen by only a college or an auditorium full of people.
00:06:24
Speaker
And those people didn't have any contact with the next auditorium with the people you're going to see. So they would do the same match in like 10 different auditoriums over the course of two weeks.
00:06:34
Speaker
And nobody knew any better because they thought they were the only ones that saw it. And then when they talk about it on TV, You know, they always made sure for continuity, like that was one of the reasons why you always wear the same trunks. You always did this because when they would say, oh, last week, you know,
00:06:52
Speaker
Ric Flair and Steamboat did this. They would show you one clip from it that they they that they recorded like in ah Birmingham. But everybody who saw it in Birmingham, Huntsville, Tennessee, everywhere else thought, oh, I was there. I saw that.
00:07:09
Speaker
Yeah. So I tried not to be too specific with things. So. I actually watched the other night at work. I came across my YouTube feed and it was war games was it 91 91 and it had stunning steve austin uh rick no not rick flair arn anderson it was the uh polly dangerously's uh uh group so there was stunning steve rick rude arn anderson
00:07:46
Speaker
Oh, there's one that i'm and that's just not coming to mind. But halfway into the match, Austin's busted open.
00:07:57
Speaker
Then on the other side, you had Dustin Sting and and d and uh Barry Windham and there was a couple other guys and it was like halfway into the match they were almost all of them were busted open and that was and you saw Rick Rude tried to take apart the the ending of the match was he was taking apart the the uh the corner turnbu yeah the turnbuckle and he was going to hit the guy with the the the steel rod and
00:08:32
Speaker
the good guy ducked and he nailed the other guy and the other guy got rolled up one, two, three. And it just, it's amazing how easy and was to be a wrestling fan back there and and the mystique of it all.
00:08:46
Speaker
that There was two different worlds of it too. If you were someone who just watched, you know, Georgia championship wrestling on WTBS, you saw a very clean, sanitized, good guy versus bad guy wrestling matches. You didn't see blood. You didn't see anything like that.
00:09:03
Speaker
if you followed it, like you actually saw it live or you better even yet, you followed the magazines. It was all blood. It was just bloody, bloody, bloody back then.
00:09:14
Speaker
And people who didn't read the magazines and see stuff live, they had a way different experience in the stuff they saw, unless you did a pay-per-view or something. But if you just watched the studio feeds, well, those were sponsored by local Chevy dealers or and they had to meet the standards of the local TV station. They couldn't do blood stuff like that.
00:09:34
Speaker
So it was two totally different worlds of wrestling back then. It was. And the other thing that really i really liked was the old style war games had the roof on top of it.
00:09:47
Speaker
So was similar to a two ring tail in the cell. Whereas now when a and NXT tries to do the war games, they don't have the the ceiling to it. So it's just two open cages.
00:09:58
Speaker
So I wonder if- I think they don't want anybody repeating the Mick Foley stuff and getting themselves killed. Well, I also got to wondering if it was a little bit of the Arne Anderson thing, because Arne Anderson's career was shortened because of the hell his cell, because he took that bump off the top of the ceiling.
00:10:16
Speaker
I think it was against the Outsiders, Nash and Hall. And he went up for a powerbomb and smacked his head across the top of it. And so I wonder if they're wanting to limit that a little bit.
00:10:31
Speaker
Well, I'm sure it's a lot of the stuff. It's liability. ah ah and If you put that top on there now with the the guys now who were glorified acrobats, they'd be trying to like, I'm going to one up Mick Foley, you know, and it ended up dead. And that would be a black eye on the industry. So just take away the temptation, I think.
00:10:49
Speaker
Well, and the one that I watched, the rewatch the other night, the war games the other night, they had Alundra Blazer.
Modern Wrestling Critiques
00:10:56
Speaker
She was going by Medusa and WCW climbed up to the top.
00:11:00
Speaker
and then sting chased her up to the top and you could tell it was not sturdy at all because it was buckling and everything else so it's just yeah it's easier to do all that undertaker and mcfoley were doing theirs on the top of the cage they were like every step they would take they would hear the ping ping ping because the zip ties that were holding the cage together were breaking as they were stepping do you think and i know they've tried to do it with some of these other guys but do you think they could have a character similar to taker or mankind in today's wrestling
00:11:35
Speaker
they could i guess uh whether they would have the gumption and the skills to get over i don't think so but uh because Both Mankind and Undertaker were pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing.
00:11:50
Speaker
Mick Foley is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime kind of guy. Mark Kallis is obviously a once-in-a-lifetime kind of guy. mean, how many six foot ten guys who can really pull their character off that can still move and do the things he did?
00:12:04
Speaker
and then how many people like mick foley can you know fall two stories onto a table and get back up and fight you know so uh today it's just not the same thing so selling the story would be different because nowadays people you know everybody's too uh keyed in on what's going on and they know it's a character and everything.
00:12:27
Speaker
Back in the day, it wasn't so much. I mean, people believed in all this stuff. Now, though, you can still sell it as in like, hey, this guy's got a very cool character and we like it if they could pull it off. But I think most of them nowadays can't pull it off.
00:12:42
Speaker
We got a bunch of I mean, I hate when I watch wrestling. One one of the things that bothered me watching AEW is when I sat there and I said, when I was in my prime, I could whip pretty much every one of these guys asses.
00:12:57
Speaker
And right now, even as old as I am, I could whip half their asses like the guys like the Young Bucks, you know, and and Darby Allen. I'm like, you know i could beat the shit out of these guys when I was in my prime.
00:13:08
Speaker
So I don't want that from a wrestler. I want a guy who looks like he's tough. I want to sit vicious. I want, you know, a junkyard dog. You know, I want people that can sell their character.
00:13:21
Speaker
I cannot take. The Young Bucks is tough, even though when they get in the ring, they choreograph their matches as if they're the road warriors. I it's not you can't buy it. You can't suspend disbelief. I'm like, well, you weigh 205 pounds and it ain't muscle.
00:13:38
Speaker
So I don't buy you being able to do these things like stop this guy. And when you're writing it in a way that isn't believable, it's really hard to get a character over. So I just don't know if they have the the people that could do it these days.
00:13:53
Speaker
do you think maybe one of the reasons why wrestling isn't the same as before is because of the broken kayfabe that now you can go online and these guys are palling back and forth and all that stuff whereas before kayfabe you didn't see these guys traveling together you didn't see these guys traveling together or fired like Shiki and Hacksaw.
00:14:20
Speaker
Hacksaw, yeah. Well, they wasn't just the traveling together that was the problem with them. It was the traveling together with cocaine and quaaludes and or everything else. cool But kayfabe is something that, you know, you just couldn't possibly maintain full kayfabe in today's society.
00:14:37
Speaker
But even when I was a kid, most people were realizing it was scripted. Most people knew this is a show, but they didn't really care. Nowadays, i think they could do the same thing where most people know it's a show.
00:14:53
Speaker
You know, the probably the only people that believe back when I was a kid were the kids. A lot of adults had already figured it out. There were some kids and it got more so as I got older. And there are the occasional adults who believed every bit of it.
00:15:05
Speaker
But today, if they didn't allow the the performers to just be so blatantly, I'm telling a story, um I'm an actor in a ring, that kind of ruins the mystique of it.
00:15:18
Speaker
It just kind of blows it ah ah out of the water as far as entertainment value. Because even with, you know, like you go watch a movie, you know, they're an actor. But you don't all day long hear them saying, oh, here they see this part, me and him were really buddies. And you know I don't mean this when I'm saying this or doing that. You don't hear that all the time.
00:15:39
Speaker
These performers on like AEW and stuff, they go out of their way to make sure you know that none of this is real, you know we're but we're just gymnasts. I don't want to watch gymnasts tell a story.
00:15:52
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's why I like the luchador way a little bit better than what they do at AEW, because at least the luchadors make it seem believable with what they're doing. you know Because, like you said, AEW seems so, okay, well, I got to stay here for a minute while everybody around here gathers, and then I'm going to do this double somersault off the top rope. All the time.
00:16:15
Speaker
Yeah. Whereas the luchadores like AAA and stuff like that, or even been back in the WCW days with with the cruiserweights, they just went for it. There was hardly any thinking with it. They just were up.
00:16:28
Speaker
oh I did watch when Ray Phoenix's debut for w WWE, and I was amazed by him because it it was that same way where You know, he was just jumping. And if his guy was there, his guy was there. If he's not.
00:16:45
Speaker
Unfortunately, the guy wasn't there very much. Yeah, that was one of the reasons Ray Phoenix looks bad when he first came in, because he had to adjust to the slower, more methodical style. And he just that's just not how he wrestles. He's used to I go bang, bang, bang. The guy with me goes bang, bang, bang. And we try to bang, bang into each other two out of three times, you know, and that's not what the the modern American style was. It was slower paced.
00:17:10
Speaker
And that was one the I think really killed modern wrestling is trying to incorporate too much of the luchador and the Japanese style into American wrestling. that's It's just not good.
00:17:22
Speaker
used to be, you know, if you're in the ring and you're running across, you bounce off the rope and you come back and they're not in position where you don't do the move. You think of something else to do.
00:17:34
Speaker
Nowadays, if you go bounce off and then you kind of slow walk it until they get into position and then you do the move because what matters is doing the move, getting the high spot. It didn't matter in telling the story or making it believable. it was the What matters now is getting the high spot and that makes it so choreographed and so cooperative and just so boring to watch because as soon as you can sit and watch an AEW match,
00:18:00
Speaker
And based on where the one guy is standing or where people are moving to, you can tell exactly what the next move is going to be. Because it takes them so long to get into position and they won't move on to something else or fill. They will wait and until everything is in position because they have to wait and do the high spot. They can't improvise and do something else because it would ruin their the way they want to present it.
00:18:24
Speaker
And that's the truth. And, you know, I'm kind of curious at how this purchasing of AAA by w WWE is going to to play out because Are they going to let them continue doing what they do down there?
00:18:42
Speaker
are they are they going to try to institute the w WWE way? Well, I hope they don't because that's not going to work down there. And plus, that's not what the people down there want to see So I would hope not.
00:18:54
Speaker
But i i what I would love to see is more, i would like to see, i don't like Lucha Libra style. it's just too fast. And it's there are too many misses. therere whole Their whole point is if you give them 10 things a sec, if you give them 10 things every minute,
00:19:08
Speaker
they won't notice that you missed four of them. Yeah. And that kind of gets on my nerves after a while. ah But I do wish they would get back to a slower, more improvisational type of wrestling to where, you know, like not John Cena level of improvisational where you can see him literally telling every move of the match before it goes.
00:19:28
Speaker
But you know, where you can hear him yeah if you're coming off the rope and you're going to do a swan dive over the rope and you expect your guy to catch you. But as you're coming, you see he's not in position. His back is to you. Well, then improvise and go under the rope and kick him in the back and knock him into the rail and tell him you weren't in position. So I had to kick shit out of you and then go on from there.
00:19:47
Speaker
Don't be like, no, no, no. We got to get that flip. I got to flip over the rope. That's that's why got to wait for him to get in position. That ruins wrestling.
00:19:55
Speaker
Do you also think the overuse of certain moves have ruined them? Like, you know, every match seems to have six or seven superkicks or seven or eight DDTs or, you know, back in the day, those were finishers.
00:20:11
Speaker
They weren't to be used in every bit of math bit of the matches. Do you think that's kind of hurt? Because now they're having to look to, okay, what can I do now? Because now the DDT doesn't have the mystique anymore. Now the superkick doesn't have the mystique anymore. And that's symptom of the problem I was talking about.
00:20:29
Speaker
When the match isn't about, okay, here's the story. We're starting our match with this, and by the end, this is the story. This is the impression we need to give people. That's not what they're doing anymore. They're not worrying about the story or the continuity or anything like that.
00:20:42
Speaker
They're only worried about we have to get in these eight high spots. We have to do you. we You do your finisher. I'll do my finisher. We'll kick out of it. Those are all high spots. We'll get pops from the crowd when instead of so instead of telling a story the whole time, they just do high spot, high spot, high spot, and it gets to where none of it matters anymore.
00:21:02
Speaker
It's like when the young bucks are kicking out of, what's the guy, the the big guy who was with the motors, that he was with with Jake Roberts was his manager for a while. He's one of their big AEW.
00:21:15
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Lance Archer. Lance Archer, when when you when you got the young bucks kicking out of his finisher like three times in a match, you know, well, then what's the point of that? I mean, now his finisher means nothing.
00:21:28
Speaker
you're even doing it to each other four or five times during your match and you're each getting out every time, you know, ah it's just stupid. and And like I said, it's the substitution of story with high spots. And I don't want to, I don't need to see 15 high spots per match.
00:21:42
Speaker
I would rather see I don't need a 20 minute match where everybody does 13 Hurricanranas and seven flips over the top rope and, you know, three where they cooperate and get their hands under his feet and flip him in the air. i don't need to see that, you know, 100 times over 20 minutes.
Comedy and Storylines in Wrestling
00:22:00
Speaker
Give me a seven minute match where two guys get in the ring. You think these guys really dislike each other and they're telling a story about how they're treating, know, ah ah how they dislike each other and what they're going to do to each other. And, you know, that was just so much more interesting. I would much rather see seven minutes of good story with two or three high spots than I would 20 minutes of high spot, high spot, high spot, high spot.
00:22:24
Speaker
But that's all AW is. It's not even there's no story there. When was the last time they followed through on a storyline or even had a storyline? the only one right now is whatever the death riders are doing and that's even limited in the story uh i guess they've got a little bit of one going on with ftr being the being heels now but yeah they're still the best ones they have and ah ah and they they should be used a lot better.
00:22:54
Speaker
But instead, they're used as fodder for high spots because they can take it. They can make this these other kids acrobatics look good. So that ends up lessening them, though. They've been ruined in AEW because now instead of being the badass team,
00:23:09
Speaker
They're the guys that they use to go out there and make the acrobats look good because they could make it look decent because they're such good wrestlers. But that ruins their mystique, ruins their gimmick, because now they're just the guys that put everybody else over.
00:23:23
Speaker
It's like, what what do you how many matches has he won as a single every time they put him out there by himself to make one of the high flyers look good? He loses every freaking time. Yeah. What do you think about like comedy in wrestling?
00:23:39
Speaker
comedic wrestlers well there's always been some comedy in wrestling uh uh it wasn't you didn't used to be like a skit like we're going to a skit where we're like in a restaurant and we're going to break out into song and dance and do stuff like that that's ridiculous but it used to be the comedy was hey this guy's an asshole and he just pulls this prank on the guy you like and oh my god the guy you like is mad and you're mad too because that was a dirty thing to do it was childish blah blah blah you know like hit them in the face with a cake or something, you know something they set up a prank, a dirty, nasty thing to do to somebody.
00:24:15
Speaker
And that was where the comedy came from. It came organically from childish interactions between the good guy and the bad guy, where the bad guy is just taking advantage of the situation, doing something mean, and you it made you mad.
00:24:28
Speaker
But it was funny when it was happening. And it was really funny when you got them back. Like, you know, when Jim Cornette would try something and then the guy would get him, you know, he would try to do something run away, but he would they would fuck up and he would grab him by the shirt tail and drag him back.
00:24:43
Speaker
You know, that was funny. It was funny because the bad guy was getting his uppance and he was acting like a fool while it was happening.
00:24:51
Speaker
Well, I guess my question is more like the comedic wrestlers like a Dan Housen or a Santino Morella or like Santino Morella. Don't I mean, it was OK. Even R-Truth, you know.
00:25:05
Speaker
he you know He can be funny, and it's fine to have the oddball wrestler who can be funny. Occasionally, it's good. But they have to be able to connect with the crowd to the point where the crowd is like, oh, this guy is he's so funny, and he wants to be a wrestler, and he's just a little bit weird, but he always gets his ass kicked, but we like him.
00:25:26
Speaker
Or he's got to be kind of funny and weird, but he can back it up, you know, and really do some good storylines and stuff like that. If they're just sent out to be a clown to distract the audience between matches, well, not for that at all.
00:25:38
Speaker
And that's unfortunately Santino Morala. I mean, he could back it up in the ring. He was kind of a legitimate tough guy, but the the act got a little old after a certain amount of time. They kept pushing it too far and too far. We got some laughs. Let's get more laughs.
00:25:53
Speaker
It's OK to have a funny character who's interesting and funny, tells good jokes, has smart comebacks, you know, acts like a fool in the ring when he's getting the upper hand. That kind of funny is fine.
00:26:04
Speaker
But if all you are is a clown, well, that's a little much. And Dan Houset, it's like he's a clown. That's all he is. I don't mind him. And like I said, he could be used properly.
00:26:16
Speaker
Like if he was the guy who like, hey, this kid really believes his character and he gets out there and he tries, but who he's one of these days is going to get killed. You know, you can get a lot of support behind a character like that. You're like, oh, my God, don't let him get hurt. Just don't let him get hurt.
00:26:31
Speaker
But they don't do that. That's that's not how they do it. That's like they fired every single person that knows anything about writing wrestling and hired a bunch of, you know, Hollywood writers.
00:26:42
Speaker
ah ah who don't know anything they just want to i'm going to write a sitcom basically for this wrestler that he's going to act out on stage and that does not work i agree and in some sense i mean i do agree that that maybe overuse can kill some of that stuff you know once in a while santino was pretty good with the whole messing up their name and the broken italian a little bit there but when you or I know his most famous spot is when he tried to do Molina's entrance and did the tried to do the splits and just ended in nothing but him writhing in pain.
00:27:22
Speaker
ah ah but like with danhausen i've found he's more entertaining outside the room well he's more more like a manager role or supporting you know so it's okay for me weird because they're just managers they're there they're heat magnets uh and they're there for to well like i said generate heat and they're there often to be comedy relief uh uh uh Jim Cornette, Bobby Heenan, Jimmy Hart.
00:27:56
Speaker
Three quarters of the time you saw them on screen, they were either doing something illegal or running around like a chicken with their head cut off trying to get away from the good guy while almost pissing their pants and all this other stuff.
00:28:09
Speaker
They were there for heat and comedy relief. The wrestlers didn't need to be that funny. But I don't mind when a wrestler is funny. There's some wrestlers. very Diesel was very funny. lot of people forget that before they made him the baby, you know, bubble gum baby start baby face ah champion.
00:28:26
Speaker
it was very funny. And then after when he went like the NWO and everything, he was very funny. His jabs, his time on the mic. I mean, he was incredibly entertaining.
00:28:38
Speaker
only problem with that though is it got to be where even when they were trying to make him a bad guy the crowd was on his side yeah would be so funny and so entertaining and they had to you know you have to work around that so it's a balancing act yeah and you know to the point of with with Nash that he his comedy even got to the point where he was pissing people off in the back referencing the uh where they went out there as the four horsemen And ah ah yeah, he I guess they went back there in ar and Arne was come completely upset with how that was portrayed.
00:29:15
Speaker
And it's like, it's a joke. but But it wasn't a good joke is the thing. was It wasn't in good taste is the thing. So what do you, how do I want to put this?
Changes in Wrestling Over the Years
00:29:31
Speaker
When do you think wrestling was the cream of the crop, the best it was ever going to be. Well, as like I said, I like the territory days.
00:29:42
Speaker
And I like that because there was more ability to be creative and you had more things to pull from because, you know, you had different territories and you ran this storyline, let's say, in Texas with Terry Funk and everybody.
00:29:55
Speaker
And then, you know, crowds got tired of seeing him. He got a little stale there. So they would bring him to Georgia and then they could run the same thing again. these You know, basically because it was all new to the people there because they didn't see the wrestling from Texas.
00:30:08
Speaker
uh but they could just modify the story a little bit and and use it again and you had such a variety because you had like these 10 15 know areas where you could pull little bits from and interchange people and you know you had more combinations you can put together that people hadn't seen now it's you see everybody every week and it gets so old and so boring when you had 15 different territories that each employed 30 wrestlers.
00:30:37
Speaker
Well, that's, you know, three, 450 wrestlers that you have to put together in combinations over, you know, years. Whereas now there's two big companies that each employ like, you know, 50 guys and every one of them has worked with every one of them already.
00:30:52
Speaker
So and you don't see a move from one territory to another to where new audiences see in their stuff. Now, it's always everybody seeing their stuff every time they do it. And they've seen them do it 10 times with every other guy on the roster. And it's they really when Vince McMahon made it a nationwide thing, he really ruined it. So I think.
00:31:13
Speaker
you know The rock and wrestling timeframe, to get back to the question, that was great. I loved it. But I was at the right age to like it, you know like Cyndi Lauper, et cetera, like the Iron Sheik, Hulk Hogan, all these people.
00:31:25
Speaker
So some people would say that was the golden age of wrestling, you know the rock and wrestling. That's when it was really going national and everybody was. But I would say I think it was actually better during the – ah Gordon Sully and Georgia Championship Wrestling, you know, Arne Anderson, Four Horsemen, Ric Flair.
00:31:43
Speaker
That was actually better storytelling and better wrestling. The early era of WWF, you know, just two W's, one F. That was probably the golden age of wrestling, you know, the Hulk Hogan's Andre the Giant, all that stuff.
00:32:00
Speaker
But to me, and then, you know, course, the Attitude Era, the Attitude Era was also great. I loved the Attitude Era. But I still think it was better back in the territory days when new people came and went and storylines, you know, were different and it was more about the story.
00:32:15
Speaker
You know, what you saw on TV was a lead up to the live show. So you know you begged your parent or you waited for for Sunday so you could see what or Monday so you could see what happened at the Omni on Saturday.
00:32:29
Speaker
you know So that was more exciting to me and more interesting. But nowadays, you know you don't have that. you know You can't beg your grandparents to take you to the Omni to see, you know, Steamboat and Flair, you know, because most of it's on TV now. They give everything away. So you just watch it on TV. And I find that a little, a lot less exciting because when was the last time you sat around and you'd like, I got to tune in on Sunday night because I got to find out if Junkyard Dog killed, you know, this person Saturday at the Omni.
00:32:59
Speaker
The only, the only time that I have any Kinda, okay, well I gotta i gotta tune in And any more, it hasn't been great was always the Monday after WrestleMania.
00:33:11
Speaker
Because the Monday after WrestleMania was always the marquee. That was the reset of everything. That was when the new stars came in. That was when returning stars came in. And now it's just kind of a, you know, just another Monday night.
00:33:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's just another Monday night.
Pay-Per-View and Story Build-Up
00:33:29
Speaker
Uh, and even the pay-per-views are the same way, you know, the pay-per-views, that was another thing I kind of liked about AEW. They, they did the old pay-per-view style stuff where it wasn't once a month. It was once every two, three, four months.
00:33:43
Speaker
I think they're up to like every two months or something like that now, but you know, that's when stuff was supposed to pay off. Back in the day. near you but It's probably me. My internet's been acting weird.
00:33:58
Speaker
at least i think you're breaking up
00:34:03
Speaker
i can see you now my internet's been acting weird yeah yes i didn't hear all that you just said basically just what i was saying was you know with aew the pay-per-views were a little bit more meaningful back in the day the pay-per-views were more meaningful because You know, you have the storylines week to week, and then the pay-per-views was where everything was supposed to pay off.
00:34:30
Speaker
And now they're not the pay-per-views are just another. you know, they'll make up totally new stuff for the pay-per-view. Like, why are these two people fighting?
00:34:41
Speaker
You know, I mean, what what led up to their pay-per-view match? Well, it's no, it's just Tony's dream match. Oh, I always wanted to watch Kenny Omega wrestle Danhausen, you know, whatever, you know, but that was what was on there. And you're like, well, there was no lead up to this. There's no rationale behind this. This is just you making scorecards of your dream matches and working them down. And it doesn't have any story behind it.
00:35:04
Speaker
like why are they mad at each other why are they competing what what common goal do they both have that they're trying to get to first it just doesn't make any sense there's no story behind it and and i think wwe's fallen into the rut where they're getting too predictable with stuff yeah uh one of the things that really turned me off on wrestling uh and this is something a lot of people love but when i would tune into raw And the first thing that hit was the Rock's music.
00:35:35
Speaker
I'd be like, oh, fucking God. uh because i knew it was not going to be he's not come out and get in a wrestling match or a fight or anything right he's gonna come out he's gonna do a 20-minute presentation on stage you know we're in the ring a 20-minute soliloquy you know where he told jokes and stuff and i'm just like oh god i'd be like oh i well we don't have to be here for the first 20 minutes of the show uh we can go you know make something eat or something because it just got to where i got tired of monologue after monologue after monologue it just got ah ah old to me well when he was actually wrestling it was a lot more lot better but yeah now that was too much well i mean there were times that when he was wrestling that at least you know there was going to be some kind of action at some point
00:36:26
Speaker
Yeah, but I'm like five minutes giving five minutes on the mic tops and then have some something happen. You know, 15 minutes. Right. Whereas now it's like you just said, it's just going to be a monologue. It's going to be he's going to throw in this. He's going to throw in that. He's going to.
00:36:43
Speaker
It's like he sits back there with the script saying, all right, well, i got to touch Rudy Pooh and Smackdown and I got to do this and then we're going home. yeah So But before it was at least, okay, he's going to hit this guy at some point.
00:36:59
Speaker
You know he's going to hit this guy. And then with him and the whole WrestleMania thing with Cena and Rhodes, now there's no reason behind it.
00:37:10
Speaker
Yeah. I never really thought there was a reason for the extent of it, even in the Attitude Era. I mean, I liked the Attitude Era. I loved it. But I didn't need the extent that they just let some people go out and talk because it got old. It got same thing with Triple H. I got to a point where i was like, OK, I don't need to hear Triple H talk for 10 minutes.
00:37:32
Speaker
You know, give them three to five minutes. That's all you should. You should be able to say everything you need to be able say in three to five minutes and then some consequences or come out, talk three to five minutes, drop the mic and wander off. And now we got to wonder what the consequence is going to be.
00:37:48
Speaker
But after 15 minutes of somebody just talking, I'm like, well, if anybody was going to do anything, they'd have done it by now. I mean, yeah someone could have drove from across town and came in and responded to him.
00:37:59
Speaker
So it got on my nerves.
Promos and Character Development
00:38:02
Speaker
I think that's the point when they started bringing in the Hollywood writers to write scripts for these guys, because that just kind of justified their jobs for Vince McMahon. So, yeah, they they had to script it at some point, whereas...
00:38:18
Speaker
before that and you know i gotta say the the promos were better back in the day just because they came off the top there was no scripting to it they said what they were going to say there were some people they had to they had to kind of guide and what they said like right you didn't let sid go off ah you told him what he needed to say or else it would just be a nonsense jumble but uh warrior Warrior. Well, Warrior, you just knew you weren't going to get, you weren't hoping you got something you could use. You pre-taped his interviews because otherwise you were getting nothing. and
00:38:51
Speaker
But back in the day, the people had a character and they knew how to play their character. So they knew rod ah Roddy Piper knew this is what Rowdy Rod would say. This is how he would react to this situation.
00:39:04
Speaker
Mick Foley knows this is what mankind would say. This is how he'd react to the situation. Jim Cornette, he knew this is what a heel manager would say. I know how to lead this situation. nowadays, they don't they don't know anything about character. They know about, well, I know how to do a triple axel back somersault. So that's what makes me a wrestler.
00:39:22
Speaker
There's not as much of the knowing how to present a character these days as there used to be. And it kind of ruins it. Another thing that ruins it for me is everything happening backstage and there's always someone there to watch someone be assaulted.
00:39:36
Speaker
There's always a camera crew and there's always a mic. And I'm like, in old days, you know, something would happen in the parking lot like, oh, no, a ah You know, somebody Dustin Rhodes or Dusty Rhodes just went out and slashed Ric Flair's tires, you know, and they'd go out there and you'd see kind of the aftermath and Dusty running away or you'd see them running out and getting into a fight with him.
00:39:58
Speaker
But yeah nowadays it's like you would see a little skit of someone going out. he I got a knife and I'm going to slash their tires. And I'm like, this is not a sketch show.
00:40:09
Speaker
Why is there somebody following them while they're doing why they're And especially when someone's committing assault. you know, like outside the building jumping someone and beating them with pipes. well Why is there nothing being done about this? You know, that they're trying to kill someone outside the the studio.
00:40:27
Speaker
Or my favorite thing is, is when they always have the camera set up for the cars coming in, because, oh my God, who's showing up now? And it's like, and you knew to be there and have the camera rolling and the sound guy going and the lighting set up just right. And Or the another thing that bothers me is whenever in WWE, w and I don't know whoever came up with this idea, it was so stupid.
00:40:47
Speaker
You would always see him watching them watching a monitor. Yeah. But the monitor's over here at an angle, and they're all standing over here at at an opposite angle, looking at it kind of sideways. I'm like, who watches a monitor like that? And why are you set up with the TV? So the monitor can be seen by the camera, and you can be seen by the camera, and the mic's in the middle. you know Who watches a monitor like that?
00:41:11
Speaker
And then the monitor was usually only like that big. Yeah. Getting those big flat screen TVs for them to watch. And they had it off to the side where you could see what was on the monitor and you could see their faces because they're not even facing the monitor. They're like both facing the camera and it's just kind of off to the side.
00:41:30
Speaker
Uh, so. I do want to do a little bit, and I know you listen to some of the same podcasts I do. I like listening to Storytime with Dutch. I like Dutch. And that that that British kid that does all those, is when he did shoot interviews with all those guys, they were great.
00:41:52
Speaker
That guy really knows his stuff when it comes to wrestling. But he always does one thing with the name associations. So he'd always throw out the name and then the person would, you know, say what they thought about that person.
00:42:07
Speaker
So I was going to do a little bit of that with you real quick and we'll go from there. So the first name that pops in my head is Arne Anderson.
00:42:19
Speaker
Oh, I loved Arne Anderson. I was a kid, I hated him. I thought he was, you know, just mean and tough. and i was i was so He was one of those guys, though, you looked at him and you're like, oh, I hate his guts, but you were like, I would never say that to his face.
00:42:34
Speaker
you know So I always liked Arne Anderson. I liked Ole Anderson. Ole Anderson was one of my big guys back in the day. And I was young and I actually believed, hey, that's Ole's brother, Arne, and they're a tough couple. I liked them as ah as a tag team. I always liked Arne Anderson.
00:42:51
Speaker
He is kind of the epitome of late Georgia Championship Wrestling, the the the the late end of that type of wrestling. He was that's when he really got big. You know, he was kind of after like the Buzz Sawyers and all those guys. He kind of came in at that time and built his reputation.
00:43:08
Speaker
So I really liked him. Yeah. And i I think he was very underrated. Cause the way that guy could throw it a DDT or a spine buster, that's ultimate spine buster.
00:43:22
Speaker
He could work. He could talk. And when he talked, you believed he meant what he said and he didn't get overly crazy. He just sounded like a man who was pissed off and was going to take care of business. And I always liked Arne Anderson.
Wrestling Icons and Influences
00:43:38
Speaker
Jerry Briscoe. Jerry Briscoe to me, you know, I never had a whole lot of interaction with Jerry Briscoe, different, different territory when I was a kid, you know?
00:43:50
Speaker
Uh, so I never knew him as much of a wrestler as I did as a stooge. I mean, I was aware of him through the magazines and stuff, but Jerry Briscoe was one of those guys, the Briscoe's period.
00:44:02
Speaker
I have been to their body shop that they own but when I was younger, friend of mine took his car to their body shop to get it fixed. But, uh, i just He never struck me as anyone that was that entertaining or that was as big a deal as he as he is because I was like, well, why is he a big deal?
00:44:22
Speaker
You know, he just looks like some guy from The Office to me. He never looked like a, you know, he never did have like a really flashy gimmick or anything, you know. Even though they're actually got the bloodline to do it, he wasn't like a Wahoo McDaniel or anything like that.
00:44:37
Speaker
So I always just kind of wondered, like, why is this guy as big a name as he is blah, blah, blah when I was a kid? Because like I said, I didn't see his territory days, didn't know a lot about him, just knew what I saw in the magazines.
00:44:49
Speaker
And he just seemed kind of bland. It's kind of like Bob Backlund. Yeah. You know, I see Bob Backlund and I'm like, he was the WWE champion? and like for a long time yeah I'm like what the fuck was going on when when I wasn't watching him Terry Taylor oh Terry Taylor he's got to be the most unlucky man in wrestling because I mean when you get stuck with something like wasn't he the red rooster yeah yeah so I'm good do to do like who did he pissed off to get stuck with that uh but I thought Terry Taylor had the look
00:45:26
Speaker
He had the skills in the ring. He wasn't the greatest on the mic, but he wasn't like, you know, Sid Vicious stumbling over his words and not making any sense. I thought he had all the skills to be a good wrestler.
00:45:38
Speaker
I just think maybe the time he came along, he might have pissed off some people. And plus, he was another long, blonde-haired, big dude that was... kind of just part of the pack. You know, it was kind of like he was the modern day Tommy Rich kind of, you know, like ah ah a new like 2.0.
00:45:56
Speaker
And because that, I never got too into him, his wrestling or anything. and I mean, I know he does a lot of work behind the scenes these days, so he stayed in wrestling. He's still, you know, agent and all that other stuff.
00:46:10
Speaker
But he just never made a big impression on me because, like I said, I think he just got stuck with a lot of the worst gimmicks you could possibly get. And I think it was a not a not ah not ah not a matter of him not having the skills.
00:46:23
Speaker
It was just wrong look at the wrong time where he blended in too much and, like I said, probably didn't kiss the right asses. Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff.
00:46:33
Speaker
Oh, he's true classic, Paul Orndorff. Everything from his early stuff up to, you know, was it OVW or Smoky Mountain that, you know, he was doing at the end there.
00:46:44
Speaker
But, I mean, he's one of the true wrestling giants as far as I was concerned. He was one of those guys you didn't see on TV every week. you know he showed up once every month or two and it was like oh my god paul orndorff is here some people are gonna get their asses kicked uh he was kind of like you know how like back in those days you didn't see the world champion wrestle on tv you might see him show up at the studio make a make a promo and then him and his boys would jump somebody in the ring to set up a match later but you didn't see him wrestle so when uh
00:47:20
Speaker
someone like him showed up. It was a special event. And I he definitely had the goods. He was one of the strongest people you'd ever see in a ring and could really toss people around and put them where he wanted them.
00:47:32
Speaker
So looked good. He's probably not the greatest intellectual storyteller of the of the of history. But I really liked Paul Orndorff. And when he showed up, you knew he was going to kick some ass. So that's what I liked about him.
00:47:48
Speaker
Do you think the how do you think the fight between him and vader really went down i don't know because vader's a pretty tough guy too uh uh but here's the thing i know when you have two really tough guys fight Whoever gets lucky. It's not like in the movies where, you know, you trade 50 blows and then finally someone gets the right one.
00:48:11
Speaker
It's whoever gets the first hit that actually makes good contact is usually going to win when there's two tough guys fighting. So I probably think, you know Leon didn't know that this was going to be as severe a fight as it was. And he ended up getting his bell run.
00:48:26
Speaker
Uh, but it doesn't take anything away from him. You know, he just got hit by a really tough guy. I've seen guys that were super goddamn fucking tough go down because, you know, the little guy in the bar threw an early punch, got him right on the right spot on the jaw, you know, and this guy who he would have normally picked up and ripped in half whooped his ass.
00:48:46
Speaker
So I, like I said, I think it was just two really tough guys went at each other and Leon got the worst of it because Orndorff hit for, because Orndorff went to Leon knowing there was going to be a fight.
00:48:57
Speaker
because Orndorff was going there to, I'm going to kick his ass. Leon was doing business and just kind of figured out, oh shit, he's about to kick my ass and had to reta you know try to prevent that.
00:49:09
Speaker
So I think it was just a you know w right place, right time for Orndorff and not so for Vader.
00:49:15
Speaker
This is my personal favorite when I was growing up. The icon stinged.
00:49:21
Speaker
To me, Sting was a gimmick wrestler with a lot of face paint, you know with the blonde spiky hair. i never really followed him into the WWE and all these other things.
00:49:33
Speaker
that that The days of, what's his, you know, the Crow Sting. See, that stuff, I never saw any of that. when it was The only time I saw him is later in like WCW when he was coming down from the ceiling and stuff.
00:49:48
Speaker
And it was very gross stuff. Yeah, that was the the last end of it. But, you know, I hadn't followed his career up until that point. You know, not like, you know, I knew everything he did or anything.
00:49:59
Speaker
To me, he was the guy that t he was teamed with Ultimate Warrior. ah ah And they were just, you know, muscle gym boys that came in with painted faces. And that was kind of new to me at the time, you know.
00:50:12
Speaker
The Road Warriors were an anomaly back in the day. You didn't see big, flashy, muscular men all that much. It was mostly you know Dick Murdoch's and Jimmy Valiant's and things like that. Those were the tough guys. And Paul Orndorff was a big, muscular guy. Tony Atlas was a big, muscular guy.
00:50:28
Speaker
But these these big, flashy face painted tag teams that was relatively new to me. And that's when I first what i first knew of him. And my opinion of him probably never went much beyond that.
00:50:40
Speaker
I was never a big sting fan when people are like, Sting is the goat. i was like, yeah, he's OK. But yeah, I just never, never jived with staying all that much. Though, like I said, growing up, we didn't have USA in the house, so it was always ah ah TBS with WCW and You know, I grew up in that time of, I remember surfer sting, you know, blonde hair, little rat tail in the back and yellow or red trunks or leggings. He always wore the long pants back in those days. yeah
00:51:12
Speaker
yeah But, and then I grew up through crow sting and all that stuff and a little bit into the TNA when he was there too. So, and then, you know, what they were able to do with him and AEW, even at his age and with his back problems, you know,
00:51:27
Speaker
I loved it. he He threw a hell of a drop to drop kick. I have to give him that. He he got the height. he He had a little bit. You could tell he was more of the bodybuilder type because he wasn't the quickest. He wasn't all that.
00:51:40
Speaker
But he still had the, in my eyes, he still had the ability. So just a couple more here real quick. but We're going to do these two back to back because I just i just got to see what you're going to say about it.
00:51:53
Speaker
Jim Cornette. Oh, I love Jim Cornette. he was all He was one of my favorites when I was a kid. I loved his whole Mama Cornette act. and I loved the spoiled rich kid with the racket. I loved seeing him get his ass kicked.
00:52:08
Speaker
His promos, I don't know of anybody that actually equals his promos other than maybe like a Bobby Heenan or maybe Jerry Lawler in his prime. But even then, they weren't as sophisticated as his promos.
00:52:23
Speaker
He was the best at... Really telling a story and making you care about what was going on in the ring and making you think that the bad guy deserved to get hurt. You know, so i one of my favorites of all time, always has been.
00:52:39
Speaker
And of course, I got to throw this one back to back with him, Vince Russo. You know, I don't know all that much about Vince Russo. I did not like a lot of the stuff he did in WCW. When he came to WCW, he ruined WCW.
00:52:53
Speaker
It was awful. And it was just awful, self-aggrandizing bullshit. He should never have been on camera. Never. he Him and David Arquette should never been in a ring.
00:53:05
Speaker
much less part of main storylines. Same thing with Eric Bischoff. I'm like, he should have been the guy who came out of the now and then as the commissioner, but should never been in a ring, should never been like one of the head honchos of a group or anything.
00:53:17
Speaker
But yeah, just, I don't despise him. like Jim Cornette despises him. but And it's mostly because I don't know most of his stuff. You know, like back in the day at the time he was writing for WCW or WWF. I mean, it was it was decent and I like some of it, but it started to go off the rails and then he went to WCW and went further off the rails.
00:53:40
Speaker
So I don't think he's that good. I think he just happened to be in the right place at the right time. And I do watch him Every great once in a while, which I would want Jim Cornette know this, but every great once in a while I will watch a podcast he's on, but only because Al Snow's there also. And I'll watch it just because it makes me uncomfortable listening to Al Snow talk because I'm like, it sounds like it hurts for you to talk. But I will sometimes watch that. And I always come off with the impression of,
00:54:09
Speaker
Well, he's the biggest Vince Russo fan ever. ah He's the biggest fan of himself ever, which is not an endearing quality. And I also find a lot of stuff he says to just be stupid.
Controversies and Influential Figures
00:54:20
Speaker
So I don't really find him as anyone. I would never go to him for his opinion on wrestling, period. I might go to him and be like, you know what's a good B-horror movie to watch? Seems like he might know something about that.
00:54:34
Speaker
But wrestling, I just don't like his take on it. I can't listen to him talk because every other word is bro. Bro, yeah. And it's annoying as hell. But I do know one of the reasons why Corny hates him so much is he blames him for Owen Hart's death.
00:54:51
Speaker
so yes Yeah, he does, yeah.
00:54:54
Speaker
and right so many I don't know if that's actually 100% fair, but he did have, you know, was his idea. And, you know, I kind of say, though, that it was a bad story. But, you know, Sting had come from the rafters. Lots of people have come from rafters before.
00:55:09
Speaker
The problem was, to me, the people that really should be blamed is... w WWE decided instead of getting the right people to do this, we're going to get some local people that really don't know what the fuck they're doing.
00:55:22
Speaker
That's where the blame lies. I blame yeah Vince McMahon, Stephanie, mc especially Stephanie McMahon, more than I blame the writer who wrote the bit. So just to add a couple of women in here, just because, you know, there are a lot of great women involved in the sport.
00:55:40
Speaker
And I just watched I've just finished up all of the last few seasons of um Dark Side of the Ring. So sensational Sherry, Sherry Martell. Oh, I love Sherry Martell.
00:55:53
Speaker
Sherry Martell. It would probably be hard for me to say, who did I find more enjoyable, Sherry Martell or Luna? But I loved the character she played. Plus, both of them, you know, it wasn't like I like i hated Miss Elizabeth.
00:56:10
Speaker
You know, because all to me, all she was is like, oh, she's oh, the damsel in distress and all this other stuff. And I'm like, don't come to a wrestling ring if you're the fucking damsel in distress. Sherry Martell.
00:56:22
Speaker
She's one of those people that looks like if you crossed her, she'd kick the shit out of you. Then she could probably beat most men in a fight. Same thing with Luna. She looked like she was fucking crazy. Luna scared me.
00:56:34
Speaker
She'd beat your ass. So I, I liked Sherry Martell a lot. And I think she should have been ah ah bigger name in the industry. Like maybe not as big as Moolah, but she should be right there next to Moolah as far as the important women of wrestling.
00:56:52
Speaker
be man and i agree May West, Luna, you know, Sherry Martell. And I agree with that. I liked Sherry. Uh, the most I got to see of Sherry was when she was with Harlem Heat so you know I got to see her on the down end of things but after watching the dark side of the ring of of hers I didn't really know she was an actual wrestler before yeah being when you see her back in the days of uh what's his name Kevin Sullivan and when he was the booker yeah that was that was different stuff and she really proved her worth
00:57:28
Speaker
all right so this one is going to be a controversial one and a not really in a way but what happened around her Nancy woman Nancy uh uh well it'd be Ben Wah but I can't think of what her other she's not married to I honestly don't know that much about her to be honest uh she never really got on my radar So she was never like one of my favorites or anyone I paid attention to or knew anything.
00:57:55
Speaker
Like ah she's one of those, you know, I was aware that she had a career, but it wasn't something I followed or he because, you know, you don't just because you watch wrestling doesn't mean you follow every person. There's certain people when you're like, oh, their match, I'm going to the bathroom.
00:58:09
Speaker
Yeah. and And she was more like that to me. Like, so I can't probably even make a real, uh, Now, if you said someone like Sable, I'd be like, hope she burns in hell. But someone like woman, I just don't really have much of an opinion about her.
00:58:24
Speaker
I just know from all the stories I've heard about her, as she had a tremendous wrestling mind. That when she would help, like Sandman always talked about how Nancy would would help him out with stuff.
00:58:39
Speaker
And wasn't that she married to... Kevin Sullivan first. Kevin Sullivan, yeah, before he... Yeah. So, so that's kind of where I knew her from was when the Kevin Sullivan more related stuff. Cause it was always a conspiracy that Sullivan got revenge on Ben wall years after their mixings.
00:59:01
Speaker
So I'm going to finish out with this young Yankee gets into wrestling. What's your gimmick? What's your entrance music and what's your finisher?
00:59:14
Speaker
Well, I was never I'm not a really big guy. i was like, I'd be like i if I was young and I got into wrestling, I'd be like six foot one and maybe at my biggest 180 pounds, you know, in really good shape.
00:59:28
Speaker
I wouldn't be a big wrestler. I'd have to be something more like a a smaller guy, more like a Stevie Richards or something like that. I would definitely want to be a heel. I would want it to be a character to where, you know, to the point where, you know, like, what's his name?
00:59:45
Speaker
Kind of like Papa Shango or something like, what's his name? the Not Sandman. What was the guy? Candyman? Or what was his name? one ate the worms. Oh, Boogeyman.
00:59:55
Speaker
Boogeyman. I would want a character like that. And I'd probably, my finishing move would have to be something, oh since I'm not real big, it would have to be something, you know,
01:00:07
Speaker
like high impact like something off the top rope like a stomp or a current rana or something uh because because i'm not big enough to like just take a clothesline to someone and take them out you know im not uh bradshaw or kevin nash so uh or big enough to be like hogan and just drop a leg it would have to be a high impact top rope move which would probably shorten my career lot you wouldn't even go with like a submission something on them.
01:00:33
Speaker
I don't know if I'm big enough to sell a submission on a lot of these guys because I don't know, man, anybody gets somebody in an arm bar as long as they got the strength to hold it down. Yeah, but you know, but someone my weight size and weight, I think lot of like, like, could you see me try to put an arm bar on Andre the giant?
01:00:53
Speaker
Yeah, but that that's kind of bad. Not a lot of people could have put up. Yeah. Or even you see me putting an arm bar on. oh Big John Studd or any of those guys, I think I would want something high that I used.
01:01:08
Speaker
I would have to use speed and impact over something like that. i don't think I would be a submission
Wrestling Personas and Themes
01:01:12
Speaker
wrestler. Plus, submission wrestling is pretty boring. You know, the days of the claw and the figure four and stuff like that are kind of gone. You don't see a lot of, you know, I think Kurt Angle was the last big submission wrestler that you really got popular.
01:01:29
Speaker
sir Yeah, kind of. I mean, there's some that have some interesting, you know, like CM Punk uses that. Oh, the shit. What do they what do they call it? The.
01:01:42
Speaker
Oh, I can't think of it, but it's like. He has the arm back up this way, putting torque on it I can't think what it's called. Yeah, ever allowed but I'm just not a big submission fan.
01:01:53
Speaker
It was always to me, it was kind of like a letdown in a match where someone got a submission hold. Because to me, that was you know kind of a cop-out ending. I just didn't care for it. And usually, submission when someone would go for a submission hold, usually what you'd see, that gave time for you know people to come in from like Jim Cornette to run in and hit you with the racket and run back out or something. That's what it was used for more often than not.
01:02:15
Speaker
I just have never been a big fan of submission wrestling. Like if if they were going for the claw or something, and it's like, oh, he's got even the claw. i would always be like, well, I hope someone intervenes, because that would make it more interesting.
01:02:27
Speaker
I just never a big submission fan. And then the final question was, what are you going to use for an entrance music? Ooh, entrance music. Well, back in my day, entrance music wasn't that big a thing, really.
01:02:40
Speaker
Back when I was big into wrestling, it got to be more big as, you know, WWE took over or WWF free birds. Of course, the free birds back in the day. I don't know. we would have to i would I'd want it to be something it's going to sense that my character would have to be something darker and more mysterious. it would have to be something along those lines.
01:03:01
Speaker
a I've always liked pretty much every bit of music The Undertaker ever had. I always liked it. But I don't know what I would use. i don't know if it would just be a mood music or if an actual song.
01:03:12
Speaker
But trying to think back in the day, what would be available? I don't know if I can have an answer for that, to be honest, because there's too many options. And if I say something now, I'll think of something else later. So I don't know what my ring music would be. I'd have to think about it.
01:03:25
Speaker
There's so many good things from the 70s that would have worked great when I was younger and coming in like in the 80s in wrestling that the 70s songs would have been perfect for it. But I'd have to think more. yeah if you wanted a darker character then you'd have like ozzy and maiden and black sabbath and even as you see or something but yeah but that's all i'm gonna have you for for a little bit hell's bells would probably be a good one for a dark character or something like that even though it's a little bit right here but yeah especially if you wanted a darker tone otherwise you'd go like highway to hell is the obvious one
01:04:04
Speaker
but that's a little bit more of an upbeat style yeah it's it's
Closing and Social Media Shout-Outs
01:04:09
Speaker
rocky so so but yankee we're a little bit over an hour i don't want to keep you too much longer because you did your your live earlier today appreciate you coming on uh you can tell people where you're at and where they can find you and all the good stuff you're doing lately don't do anything good don't do anything good
01:04:30
Speaker
All right, well, you can find Yankee over on his YouTube anyway. You can find us everywhere. You find your social medias, Ohana Packers, wherever you want to look. Yank, like I said, appreciate you coming on and talking wrestling once a year with us or with me.
01:04:45
Speaker
i suppose I'll keep the VHS tapes hidden for another year. And so thanks, everybody. go Pack Go and Aloha.