Episode 27: 2025 The Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame with The Panel

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Time for the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel podcast. We've got lots and lots of things to talk about and to do today. Covering the territories from the 1940s to the 1990s. [00:00:13] Speaker B: It's the best thing going today. [00:00:18] Speaker A: Interviewing wrestlers, referees, authors and other media personalities that have made the sport of professional wrestling great. [00:00:26] Speaker B: The cream, yeah, the cream of the crop. [00:00:30] Speaker A: And now here's your host, Tony Richards. [00:00:34] Speaker C: Hey again, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel. I am Tony Richards, your host, coming to you from the Richards Ranch in Western Kentucky. It's a beautiful day. It's always sunny at the Richards Ranch and always great when we get to talk about the territory era of pro wrestling. That's what the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel podcast is all about, is that we cover the era of the territories and the territory system during the days of the National Wrestling alliance and the American Wrestling association and the Worldwide Wrestling Federation. And each week here on the show we cover a territory or we cover a happening or we cover a wrestler profile. Today is a special day because I've invited three of my good friends to come on the show. There are also three experts in the area of professional wrestling history. Steve Giannarelli, who does the WWW F shows with me on the history of that federation. Brian R. Solomon, who just come out with the Guerrilla Monsoon Irresistible Force book. And also Greg Klein who wrote the book the King of New Orleans about the life and career of of the junkyard dog. And Greg comes on and talks about East Texas with me here on the show. I've invited all three of those guys to come on with me. And the four of us are going to talk about the Wrestling observer hall of Fame, the non wrestler category where people are more involved in the business side, either as a promoter or a booker or a manager or an announcer. And there is an impressive list of people on the ballot for this year's hall of Fame ballot. And so I've got my seven people that I'm going to vote for. We don't necessarily cover that. However, we are going to talk about at least one person that I think is a priority to me to get in the hall of Fame, which is Roy Welch, the founder of the Gulas Welch Wrestling Company. We had a massive territory based out of Nashville, Tennessee and the Welch family was renowned for all the four different generations in the wrestling business. And I'm advocating for Roy to get in the hall of Fame this year. Greg is going to be advocating for the junkyard dog in the historical category of the ballot. And Steve is going to be talking about the grand wizard, one of the big three managers in the WWW FW days. And Brian, of course, is going to be talking about Gorilla Monsoon. And so we're going to discuss those four plus others that are on the ballot for this year's Wrestling observer hall of Fame. It's the first hall of Fame show that we've done since we've been doing the podcast. And I hope you'll enjoy today's show. Let's get to that conversation with my three friends right now. Hello again, everybody. Welcome back to the Richard's Ranch and the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel podcast. And this week we are going to have episode where we're talking about the Wrestling Observer Newsletter hall of Fame. And it's that time of year again where people are having discourse about who should be in the hall of Fame and who they're going to vote for and the rationale behind those votes and things like that. So I decided to invite some of my regular folks here at the Time Tunnel to come on and we'll have a public discourse about our ballots and the people that we want to vote for and the people that we think are very deserving to be in the hall of Fame and to be recognized for their contributions to pro wrestling. And this is one time where I really enjoy this. I enjoy when any hall of Fame discussion comes up because our show focuses mainly on history and it focuses mainly on the territory era of professional wrestling. And that's where a lot of these folks that we're going to talk about tonight came from. So on the show tonight, we've got Brian R. Solomon, who is the author of the new book about Gorilla Monsoon called Irresistible Force, the Life and Times of Gorilla Monsoon. We have Greg Klein, who is the author of the King of New Orleans, the book about the life and career of the junkyard dog. And we also have Steve Giannarelli from the Stick Wrestling Podcast who has got some of his favorites that he wants to talk about tonight to go into the hall of Fame. So welcome to the show, everybody. [00:05:15] Speaker A: Happy to be here. Thank you. [00:05:17] Speaker C: Thank you for making time to be on here. I think it's a very important discussion. I think any time that we folks who have done the work to dig into these people's lives and careers can help educate other voters who perhaps didn't live during that time or did not get to experience these people in real time as many of us did. It's important for us to be able to share our experiences because at some point when we're gone, we're gone. And so I think for everybody on the show tonight, it's a really important driving force that we leave some kind of record that's beyond what you can just maybe find or research on your own. And so what do you think about. Just. Let's start off the discussion with just what do you think about the overall candidates for this year's hall of Fame? Anybody weigh in that would like to. [00:06:13] Speaker A: Well, I'll just say that, you know, Dave has even said this himself, Dave Meltzer, is that for many years, there was this kind of bottleneck where there were so many people that hadn't gotten in or that needed to get in that sometimes they would take away votes from each other and they would cancel each other out. And, you know, a lot of us, people like us who have a knowledge of the history would look at it and go, how are some of these people not in already? And I think it's too. And I think maybe we might say that about all the people we're campaigning for today, but we might. He tried. I think in the last couple years, he's tried to help that along by changing some of the rules, increasing the amount of people you can pick and that sort of thing, which I think is a little bit helpful. But I think there's still that issue happening. And that's just for me. I'll just say that's one of the reasons, and I think I've discussed that with some, if not all of you, is I never vote for active performers. That's just my policy because there are so many inactive ones from years ago that deserve to go in first. It's not that they don't deserve it. I will, if I live long enough. I will vote for Roman Reigns one day. I will vote for CM Punk one day. Actually, Roman Reigns went in already. I will vote for CM Punk. I will vote for those people. Cody Rhodes. I will vote for them one day. Just not now and anytime soon. [00:07:36] Speaker C: All right, who's next? Weigh in on your general thoughts about the hall of Fame and the ballot and everything. Greg, how about you? [00:07:44] Speaker B: So I will say right up front that I am not a Hall of Fame voter. I'm not an observer subscriber at the moment. Probably haven't been in 15, 20 years. Getting out of the business was a change for me. And then there was an era of deaths that had an impact on me in the. In the zeros that just kind of drove me away from the business. And it was only by happenstance and the success of the King of New Orleans and things like that that I got back into, you know, the history of wrestling at all. And, you know, with the podcast, I sort of ran out of my own stories and started talking about the history of wrestling, as, you know, Tony. And a couple of years ago, I got angry at Dave for something stupid, and not even stupid, but tangential to this, which was, you know, his opinions in the observer and journalistically, how some of the stuff he does wouldn't fly at a newspaper. And then Dave was Dave and thin skinned online as he is, and shot back with all of his credentials, which I didn't need to know and he didn't need to say. And I thought to myself, you know, I can continue to just agitate it, Dave, or I can see what really might be the heart of the issue. And I think for me, it was the junk food dog stuff. And how for years and years and years, rather than use the name Sylvester Ritter or use the performing name Junkyard Dog, he literally would just call him the junk food dog to the point where I think he probably prejudiced a lot of his readers. And, you know, we'll get into the whole Sylvester Ritter, Junkyard Dog career later. But, you know, so at that point, I decided I would work within the system rather than just be one of those guys who was tilting at windmills and piping at Dave. I didn't like kind of how he handled his end of the transaction. So when that happens online, I tend to just withdraw and see what I can do better in life. And this was what I came up with. And at the same time, I was discovering Morris Siegel and the Texas wrestling wars and all the stuff that's sort of populating my life right now? And then I realized that, you know, I think I had heard Brian last say it originally. How can more Siegel not be in when his protege Paul Bosch is in for a career, you know, half as long in the same, you know, promotion and everything that was there was essentially given to Paul by Morris. So at that point, you know, I became an advocate for both guys again, outside the system more than anything else. So rather than know anything more about the ballot, you know, I will say I'm not up on the modern wrestling. I have a real problem with guys getting in. Well, we'll again, we'll get into this, but if you can get in for 15 years, then, you know, we're not talking about a whole career anyway. So I find that a little odd. And now I have a real problem with the tag team thing for a very similar reason. And we can get into that. But tag teams don't have a long shelf life. So I mean, like my favorite tag team, which is not anybody's favorite tag team for either one of these guys, but being a Mid South Guy, DiBiase and Williams, you know, they were together what, like 18 months, maybe over two stints. So how do you evaluate that compared to, you know, a 15 year career, which is what Dave says is hall of Fame worthy, or, you know, a guy like Orndorff or JYD that really had a 10 year peak? You know, even the Road Warriors, I said this on my podcast. How many years do you really credit the Road warriors with? And they're probably one of the longer ones. I mean, the Andersons, guys like that. But, you know, you start to talk about Tully and Arn. Tully and Arn had what, a two year run? And their WWF run was meh. I mean, you know, the Horseman was a thing before Tully and Arn was a thing. So I just don't know. It's not apples to apples, obviously. So, yeah, I'm just here to advocate for my guys, as it turns out. You know, two cool cats, Sylvester and Morris, and away we go. [00:11:42] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a, I mean, it's, it's not a perfect science, of course. And also video very much affects the way people look at it. And the thing is, and I just realized this myself, but I was telling someone in one of my X exchanges with someone who was challenging me on something, which happens quite often, I said, if you saw the territory area era by video, you saw maybe 20% of the territory era and you didn't see the best part of it. So, you know, it's almost like, well, I've seen a lot of territory wrestling. Not if you've only seen it on video, because it only happened. I mean, we really can say the territory era started making video available in 1980. That's kind of when we got most of our footage. Right. Well, I mean, how many territories shut down in 1980? At least five or six of them of the main ones. So that, that skews it too. And I think that's, that's kind of, in the case of Bosch and Siegel, that happened because no one's ever really seen Morris Siegel on video, but they've seen lots of Paul Bosch. So, you know, that's a television host. [00:12:54] Speaker B: You know, even, even in Morris Siegel's Houston Wrestling, the voice in the face of it is Paul Boss. [00:13:00] Speaker C: Paul Bosch. Exactly. All right, Steve, what's your thoughts, man? [00:13:04] Speaker D: Well, I'm Kind of like Greg in the sense of I haven't been observer subscriber in this century. It's been back to the. Probably the early 90s when I was a subscriber to it. And that was even way before the hall of Fame even existed. But I. I know each one of you were fans of the old 605 Super Podcast. Brian, last show, and every year it seemed like he would have an episode devoted to this very topic, the observer hall of Fame. And for whatever reason, those types of shows have ended. Maybe it's because of how Jim Cornette feels about Dave Meltzer, I don't know. But I thought those shows were always very compelling and interesting. And the four of us here, we all have our favorites, we all have our list. So I'm very happy to participate with you gentlemen tonight. People who I admire and respect. And I can't wait to dig into this and we can all give our opinions. [00:14:00] Speaker C: Well, one thing's for sure, I mean, we've all spent, you know, we're at heart, all fans. I mean, that's who we really are at our core. We're Super Times 10 fans who've done a lot of dedicated work to digging deeper. I mean, that's the thing that separates us from your average fan, right? And so, you know, a lot of what we're talking about is, is. Is because of our fan interest, you know, and we became drawn to some of these people for. For various reasons. Brian, let's start with Gorilla Monsoon in the non wrestler category. I mean, just a super performer, but really, again, going back to the video era, really known for, you know, all of his WrestleMania calls and things of that nature. So you wrote the book on the guy. So what's the case for Gorilla Monsoon this year? [00:14:57] Speaker A: Well, you know, I was talking before about this whole concept of seeing people on the ballot and not believing that they're not already in. Right. And I think Gorilla might be at the very top of that list or close to it. And, you know, you talked about, Greg, you were talking about the bias against jyd. And we all know Gorilla Monsoon won worst announcer of the year in the Observer Something like 6 or 7 times. It is a record. Michael Cole has a chance of beating it in his career. I'm not kidding. But it's a record. And so I think that biases people. Now, he fell off the ballot in 2015 for not getting enough votes. He was put back on. Dave told me specifically because of this book, just to give it a chance and to see what happens. I predict he's going to go in in a landslide. Some of that is because of nostalgia and reappraisals over the years. You have a lot of voters now who grew up with him, even wrestlers who grew up with him and were influenced by his calls. But I want to focus on, you know, since he's in the non wrestler category, I didn't want to talk too much about his wrestling credentials. However, about that, I'll just say I would even. And I'm glad that Dave, by the way, didn't put him in on both, because then he would have canceled himself out and probably not gone in to put him in in the historical category. However, I would actually say that even if he, if he would just put in on the historical wrestler category, I think he would still deserve to go in based on what he did. Because one, one thing is, I look at this hall of Fame and I don't know if I'm supposed to look at it this way. It's hard for me to look at it as a strictly sports hall of fame, like say the baseball or boxing, where you're only looking at numbers and things, you're only looking at stats. Look, professional wrestling is and has for a very, very long time, before any of us were born, been also a huge part of it, show business, entertainment, even when they didn't admit that it was, that's partly what it was. So I tend to look at it more like something like the Rock and Roll hall of Fame, where some of it is. You're looking at the intangibles. You're looking at how entertaining they were, what a big name they were as a performer. And so for me, Gorilla Monsoon in that category, you talk about one of the most famous wrestling names of all time. You're talking about a guy who, you know, was Bruno Sammartino's arguably greatest rival in the ring. Seven main events at Madison Square Garden. I would have to say, even if you talk in numbers, and this is even based on Dave's numbers, I think in 1963 and four, he might have been the top drawing heel in wrestling. And certainly in 65, 7 and 8, I think it would have been the chic, but he would have been right up there on the short list. And so for things like that, you know, I think he should already go in as a wrestler. But for the non wrestling stuff, you're talking about somebody who was a cornerstone in a very real sense. Not just in a respectful, admiring way, in a very real way, a cornerstone of the company. That's now and has for a long time been the biggest, most successful wrestling promotion in the history of the world. And he was one of the foundation members. He owned a quarter of it at one point. And it wasn't just a no show job, he was running television. He was the crucial linchpin of WWF week to week TV production from about 1970 until Vince Jr. Took over. And even at that point he was still highly influential in a real way behind the scenes from at least 1984 until probably basically the end of the 80s and then his health started to fail and at that point he was more just basically an on air talent. Now to focus on that as a commentator again, you want to talk about a reappraisal. I tend to think, and I try to say this in kind ways, I'm not a confrontational person, I'm not a arguments I always try to defuse. But I think we have smart fan opinions. These newsletter fan opinions that are taken for granted is a tiny minuscule portion of, of the fan base and you have to get outside the bubble. And what I mean by that is to say to the average wrestling fan who grew up in the 80s and 90s watching the WWF, if you said to them, 9 out of 10 of them, if you said to them, oh Gorilla Monsoon, God, wasn't he horrible? They would think you were out of your mind. They would think you were out of your mind. Because he was so cherished as a commentator and so respected and loved and not only that, but he did, he wasn't just respected and loved in a Phil Rizzuto kind of way. Like, you know, he did his job so well. He called it like a sport. He, he, he called it in a way that put over the, the talent, but at the same time did not give up his own credibility and reputation like a lot of wrestling commentators do, where everything is the greatest of all time and no one ever makes a mistake and every match is five stars and he didn't do that. And I think that made him some enemies, which according to Dave, that's part of the issue. It made him some enemies in the locker room who thought he was burying them on commentary. And those people would complain behind the scenes. But I think, and by every category of what he did in a non wrestling capacity, whether it was as part owner of the company, TV producer, a promoter in his own right, running eastern Pennsylvania, North Jersey, Delaware area, his own, you know, I'm sorry, South Jersey, Jersey Shore, things like that, plus the commentary stuff that people saw is to me makes him not Even a question, not, not even a question that this person should be in there. And I hope that most people that vote this time around will look at that ballot and have the same reaction I had years ago when I first saw it, which is, how is he not in there already? We have to fix this. [00:21:26] Speaker C: You guys, what are your thoughts? [00:21:29] Speaker D: Steve would say? I mean, I definitely agree with Brian. He should have been in a long time ago. Part of me is thinking that, you know, yeah, it's obvious. We remember him with Heenan, we remember him with Ventura, but I, I think he deserves to be in for being that, you know, guy at the Guerrilla position, actually running the TVs like Brian said, from 1970 until, like the end of the 80s. I mean, if you look at any other promotion, anyone else that would have had that job would probably have been canned. You know, if they made it through one year would have been magnificent, much less nearly two decades. And, you know, as someone who's read a lot of the observers, and, you know, each one of you have too. I mean, I remember those old observers from 84, 85, where people were, you know, jumping on Guerrilla. And like Brian said, it's a very, in the grand scheme of things, it's a very minuscule amount of people. But I think that those people didn't even really dislike Guerrilla. I think it was more a sense of, oh, you know, he's pushing the promotion because we were so used to announcers just pushing the matches or the good guys or the bad guys. He was hyping the federation just like Vince was. And just because pushing, saying it's a happening or, you know, they're hanging off the rafters or this is an event, you know, these hardcore nudnics were jumping down his throat. I, I mean, you know, he, he took the wrestling that we loved from the past and brought it into the modern age. He really did. And, and you know, what Brian did with this book and what, what, what? He, he, he got, you know, Meltzer to put him back on the ballot. And, you know, it actually motivated me to think, you know, Jesse Ventura is not in the hall of Fame. That blew me away. [00:23:22] Speaker A: I mean, to me too. Yeah. [00:23:24] Speaker D: I mean, Jesse Ventura is like, is like John Madden of the NFL. Like, would John Madden not be in the hall of Fame? I mean, we know John Madden was, was a great coach. He coached the Raiders to his Super Bowl. That's nearly impossible. But you know, what Madden the announcer did and that inspired the video games and stuff. I mean, Jesse was just as important I mean, my head offensive fell out here. [00:23:52] Speaker C: It's all right. [00:23:55] Speaker A: And I didn't even bring up Jesse and Heenan. I mean, the work that Gorilla did, bringing out the best in those two guys. And you know, that was because Jesse was brand new, Steve. Right? I mean, like, as an announcer, this was a new thing for him. And when he started, you know, he started on primetime wrestling with, With. With Jack Reynolds, that was rough. I mean, you could tell that Jesse was uncomfortable and Gorilla helped him along, so. Yeah, I didn't even mention that, Steve. But you're right. [00:24:25] Speaker D: Yeah, Jesse. I mean, I mean, I mean, let's look at. Look at him. Try to look at him objectively. Let's say that we have all the WrestleMania, you know, like a box set in front of us. And let's say that we had the power to take Jesse Ventura out of every. Every one of those DVDs. And then let's watch WrestleMania again without the voice of Jesse Ventura or even the voice of Gorilla Monsoon. I will tell you, I would bet my bottom dollar, our level of enjoyment of these events would drop significantly. Oh, yeah, they would be much, much less historically important or rewatchable if those two were removed. And. And so it blew my mind that Monsoon and even Jesse are not in the hall of Fame. [00:25:10] Speaker A: You know, can I just say something about that, Tony? Because, Steve, what you said there about the enjoyment factor being enhanced by them being a part of it, I think that's what, you know, the greats could do, that Gordon solely could do that. And the thing about it was, like, if you, Gorilla Monsoon, could make a match that was kind of dull, and sometimes between wrestlers who weren't really that inspired, or especially on some of those Spectrum and Garden House shows, you'd have some early matches that were just nothing matches. He'd make them more interesting. You would actually be interested hearing the things he would say about what was going on in the ring, which is also what Gordon solely could do on some of those Georgia championship wrestling matches, where it's like, okay, this is kind of so so. But he made it compelling. And I think that's a great measuring stick for these guys. [00:26:05] Speaker C: I could make a science out of studying Gordon Soley's calls. I mean, when. When. When a guy would work slow in the ring, he would say they were methodical or they were deliberate. You know, I mean, he would find a way to put them over, even if, you know, it was not the pace that you would expect in championship wrestling from Florida or, Or in Atlanta. One thing about Gorilla Couple things. One, I know we're not supposed to take the in ring career into account. I can't help it. I think we're voting for the guy. [00:26:37] Speaker A: I agree. [00:26:38] Speaker C: And you know, he did travel. He was in other places besides the wwwf, which is often a criticism of guys like ole Anderson and people like that. But you know, Gorilla did travel. He was on the west coast. And for goodness sakes, I mean, Jim Barnett and Johnny Doyle put their world title on him. I mean they didn't just give that to everybody, they put it on him because they believed he was the right guy to be on top at the time. And the other thing was, you know, I was a fan in the 80s when Heenan and Ventura and Heenan and Gorilla were all working together. And it's almost like the same way I felt about Hulk Hogan. Like I was firmly a Crockett fan and I didn't like them because they were good. You know what I mean? You know, I'd watch the television, I'd be like, I hate those guys because they're, they're really good. I mean they're really doing well. I mean their chemistry was fantastic. The way they were putting over the matches was great. And I'm like, I wish they weren't as good, you know, but. But the fact is, the fact is back to refute the worst announcer thing, that is in no way accurate. It. I don't think. [00:27:50] Speaker A: No, no, I, I would. From a fan standpoint, it was like, I, I guess Steve, what you said might be partly true, that it was because he was, I guess they were trying to characterize him as a shill because he was, you know, hyping up. First of all, that's what he's being asked to do. [00:28:05] Speaker C: That's the job. [00:28:06] Speaker A: That's what Vince is doing. And look, maybe I'm biased, but I, I wouldn't even have called Gorilla. He's not even close to the worst commentator even in the WWF of that period. He may, in fact he may have even been the best at that time, which is so strange. I mean, I know people. Vince as a commentator has his big fans. I think, Steve, you've sung his commentary praises on stick to wrestling. And maybe John has to. He was ne. I was always more of a Gorilla guy. Like I liked Vince in the years before I was a fan when he was trying to be Howard Cosell. I liked him. I like him during that period. Actually, I don't like, like for me, this is the thing. Everything they criticized Gorilla for is more what Vince Embodied for me like he was just constant ballyhoo nothing. Whereas Gorilla had a more measured kind of thing. Yes, he would celebrate the company. Yes, he would put over Hulk Hogan, but he would call things, he would call things out. He would call people out. He didn't always just praise the baby faces, he would praise the heels when they did something that he thought was worthy of praise. And yeah, it did feel like it was spiteful. It was spiteful that he was winning that award in the observer every year. [00:29:29] Speaker C: Well, I had an interaction on X again with a fan because every day in October I'm featuring a Territory era announcer. And one of the reasons I'm doing that is because I don't think people realize how many of them there actually were. I mean, I made a list of 31 and I had like 60 guys written down. And one guy, he says, well, Gordon Solely and Lance Russell were the best. And I'm not arguing with that. But at the same time, did you hear or see them all? No, you didn't. And Gordon and Lance were readily available to see and that's like Gorilla in the other direction. I mean, you can't really say he was the worst because you're not really comparing him to all of them because you didn't see all of them or hear all of them. He was the most readily available one. And so I think there is something. [00:30:19] Speaker B: To take into consideration there, which is why I think. [00:30:23] Speaker A: Yes, Steve, go. [00:30:24] Speaker D: Sorry, sorry, sorry. Brian made a good point though. I mean, Brian and I have this other show we enjoy with Joe Morata and Joe Morata is this one guy, he show lot of wrestling from the mid-80s and, and he was recently featuring a lot of Vince with, with Bobby Heenan. And you know, Bobby Heenan is, is doing his usual shtick, you know, a lot of humor, a lot of, you know, onliners. And Vince is missing every opportunity to make the show better to, to somehow tie in with Bobby Heenan. Like it's, it's going completely over Vince's head. And you know, and with, with, with Jesse, I think Vince Von Fallen fell into this routine of hey, let's be the Bickersons. I'm going to complain about this and you're going to complain about that. And it just got old. I mean I, I preferred Vince with Bruno. The two of them could just talk about the match in the ring and just move on. I mean it just, it just got so silly with Vince. So I think, I think Gorilla was actually somebody. I mean, Gorilla and Laura Alfred Hayes were wonderful. Together I thought they could call a good match and tell a good story. [00:31:31] Speaker C: Well, you know, another thing, moving away from the announcer thing for a sec, I mean, I think as far as his legacy is concerned, I mean, he was the mold and the model for the modern agent. [00:31:45] Speaker A: Yes. [00:31:45] Speaker C: I mean, so he was backstage, he was a former wrestler, he was somebody the boys respected. He was someone that could talk to them and give them advice and, or give them improvement oriented feedback if it was necessary or reprimand them. And they would take it seriously because he was a former guy who had been in the ring and taken the bumps and that is what became the modern agent job. And he was, I can't think of anybody that was doing that before off the top of my head. [00:32:16] Speaker A: And Tony, that's really important because I think that a lot of younger fans and even younger people in the business, they may not realize that, you know, there weren't always road agents or as we would think about them, as they're called today, producers, that that whole concept was invented as we know it today by Vince McMahon, the current Vince McMahon, because. Well, partly because he's, he was always a control freak and he wanted every match individually produced, not just completely leaving it up to the boys to work out their own matches, which is what was typically done. He would have agents that he would assign, as we all know. And you're right, Gorilla was the model for that. And he had been doing that unofficially going back to the 70s. And not only that, but the other thing is, and I don't, you know, one thing I say a lot about road agents and this is nothing against them or anything, but most of the time road agents tend to be guys that didn't have the most enormously successful wrestling careers. They may have been mid carders or lower mid carders. Part of that is economics. I mean, if you're a huge star in wrestling and you are smart with your money, you don't need to be a road agent, okay? There are exceptions to that. You know, Pat Patterson, a big exception. Gorilla Monsoon, a huge exception. So you could sit and talk to a guy who is not, let's say again, no offense, not a Tony Guerrilla, right? Somebody who sold out Madison Square Garden, was in multiple main events, you know, was a huge, huge name in the business and somebody that people would really seriously take seriously and respect for that reason. [00:33:58] Speaker C: And yes, there were bookers and they did fit that a little bit. Most of the time bookers were former wrestlers and things like that. But Gorilla was not the singular only booker. And he was kind of the first one who was not the single Control source. And he was booking his towns, but he wasn't booking the overall promotion. And so that is what I think separates him a little bit from people who were the bookers before. And it kind of started this. This trend that you're right. Now we just take it for granted, like it's always been that way. [00:34:32] Speaker A: But it wasn't because the other companies started following suit and doing that. [00:34:36] Speaker B: Yes. [00:34:36] Speaker C: Right. All right. Anything else about Gorilla Monsoon, guys? [00:34:41] Speaker B: Well, you know, I would just echo a couple of things that you guys said. First of all, I think he's a Hall of Fame wrestler. Me, too. You know, and for me, it probably brushes right up against, you know, convenient for me to talk about Junkyard Dog in that, you know, for a decade. A guy being a headliner, being a significant headliner, being a policeman in that federation, you know, being a guy that they could always count on for whatever they needed, being really a unique heel in that era. I mean, obviously, we don't have the tape, but, you know, reputed as a big guy that could move, that could transform what you thought of from a big guy, what you could get in a Bruno match. I mean, you have to imagine those matches in that era are pretty revolutionary for what you would see in a Bruno match, in a main event with a big guy in the Garden, which is probably why they went back to it so many times. I mean, it had to be entertaining in and of its own. Right? And then again, to a guy with that reputation, I don't know how much they played. You know, obviously they're not touting him as being from upstate New York and a championship wrestler, but, you know, again, the name of the mark, you know, who is better than the other guy. So you have to match Bruno with somebody the fans actually believe can beat Bruno. So that's where Gorilla and Bill Watts and people like that came into effect and were such great heels with him. So, you know, for me, it's sort of silly that he wasn't in as a wrestler from the beginning. And. And, you know, that's where there's just. There were a lot of oversight. Some of your concerns, too, Tony. Just people that should have been in the first class and somehow didn't get in, and Morris Siegel is in that class as well. But then, you know, again, I compare a little bit to what I'll say about Junkyard Dog. When you have a guy that is on the fence in three or four different ways, then that adds up to, yes, like okay, He's a main event headlining wrestler for 10 years plus, that probably deserves to be in as a wrestler in his own right. Revolutionary wrestler in his era. He's a revolutionary guy behind the scenes in wrestling, as you just said. That transformed what we think of his wrestling and how wrestling works, you know, to the point where there's something named after him that now we all know what it is, and it's an important thing. And it signifies power and it signifies wisdom, and it signifies, again, that policeman, the guy that will hook you by the neck when you come through the curtain if you did something wrong. And. But then the announcing, like, Steve said it again, I'm like you, Tony. I'm a Southern wrestling guy. I grew up in the Northeast, and as soon as I got away from it and saw something else, which was Mid south slash Houston wrestling, I became a different kind of fan. But I, you know, I lived in Maryland. I still. I still grew up with the wwf. And when I think of that era, it's Gorilla and Bobby and Gorilla and Jesse. Those are the voices. I'm not a McMahon guy in any way, but. But more so than anything else, I wasn't a McMahon announcing guy. He was the dorky. You talk about guys that got made fun of. Like, you know, I would have been one of those guys that didn't get a job there because I would have hated him his entire life coming up as he was the boss's son in those dorky suits. And I never thought he was particularly good on commentary. For me, the arc of his wrestling is Saturday night's main event. And I know McMahon's all over that, but, you know, it's. And it's Tuesday night with Bobby and Gorilla and the banter. And, you know, the crazy thing is some of that still holds up. I mean, it's vaudeville, right? It's shtick, and a lot of it's Bobby. But. But like you said, Gorilla held his own. I mean, so much so that you'd get angry at Gorilla if you were a heel fan like I was, you know where it would be, and he'd be dismissive of Bobby. And now you go back and you hear the stories about how much they loved each other. And I was listening to Brian talk about it on one of his many appearances this last couple of weeks about, you know, they had just met and they had this instant chemistry. And it's. To me, that's the entire heart of 1980s WWF. And it makes it good in a way that it's not good, you know, For a guy like me or a guy like Tony, it really does, because it does hold up in a way that still makes it fun. And, you know, I mean, how many times, like, it's not the match, it's the bumper. It's these two guys that are watching the match. Like, it's Mystery Science Theater or, you know, Beavis and Butthead for wrestling. But it's Gorilla and Bobby, and they're great. I mean, you know. And so here's again my Meltzer axe to grind. So one day, Dave decides he doesn't like when Gorilla says he's giving him punches to the head area. And then every day or every episode or every issue for the next 10 years, every time Gorilla says they're literally hanging from the rafters, Dave has to point it out, and then his fans, you know. And again, I mean, at its heart, the observer hall of Fame is a hall of fame for Dave's readers. And I have to accept that and just say it is what it is. I don't know why I care. I don't know why I'm advocating, but I'm going to, because it. Because I'd rather fight within the system than to. Not to. Right. But, you know, I do think there's a little bit of, like, these are the people that are Dave's readers voting based on the prejudices and the teachings and the stylings and the preferences that we've all been sort of groomed to have through reading Dave for decades. And for me, Guerrilla is much like jyd, where there was just a little too much editorializing and a little too much repetitive editorializing to the point where, yeah, it became cliche, and we can laugh about it, but in the grand scheme of things, like, I've just named three or four different things that, you know, could all be hall of Fame worthy unto themselves, and then you add them up, and actually the sum is greater than that, you know, because it's one guy from the 1960s all the way to the 1990s that, you know, he didn't change wrestling himself, but he had the gorilla position. [00:41:10] Speaker C: Mm. [00:41:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And the thing that gets me, the one thing that gives me hope about the hall of Fame thing is that, you know, it's not the people that vote on it. It's not so much strictly just, you know, it's not observer readers per se the way that the. The yearly awards are. There's certainly overlap, but it's more like. And this is what Dave does, like a legit hall of Fame. It's more like Invited voters, you know, you get about, you don't have to be a subscriber, you don't have to. But that not everybod, everybody does. I, you know, when I first started getting one, when I wrote Pro Wrestling faq, all of a sudden, boom. I didn't ask for it. I didn't know. I looked in my inbox, said, holy crap, I have a ballot. Wow. Yeah. And was because, I guess because of that book, I'm assuming. But the thing about that is, though, like, so you get a lot of people in the industry who vote, wrestlers who vote, some writers who vote, historians who vote. So hopefully it's not just people. I love Dave, but Dave's opinions are Dave's opinions. And like I always say, the problem is not that there's, that there was a Dave Meltzer. The problem is that there wasn't 10 of them, you know, with all different viewpoints on the wrestling business. So like. But what I hope is that not everybody's just voting based on Dave's opinions. I certainly hope not. And as far as Gorilla the wrestler, just really quick, I mean, you're talking about a guy who had seven main events at Madison Square Garden with Bruno Sammartino, you know, between 1963 and 1967. One of them was, not to mention they had like four or five in Philly. They had a couple in Boston. They wrestled each other hundreds of times throughout the Northeast. Gorilla was Bruno's number one most common challenger for the world title, more than Waldo Von Erich. As a lot of people say, it's Waldo Von Erich, but it's Gorilla. And, and not only that, but one of them was that big 70 minute draw they had at the Garden in 64, which both men cited as the best match of their, both of their careers. Always, always. So, you know, that stuff is important too. [00:43:18] Speaker C: I did have someone ask me the other day why I was advocating for the Wrestling observer hall of Fame. And it was one of those people looking for a fight, you know, And I, I just said, I'm for all hall of Fames, I'm for all of them. And I probably support the one in Waterloo the most, and I probably support the one in St. Louis after that the most. And I was honored to get a ballot to vote in the hall of Fame. And the reason I got one is because I had some other historians lobby for me to get one. And that meant a lot to me. Right. So, I mean, I just, I want to see these guys that bumped all over the place and put their blood, sweat and Tears get recognized. Recognized for it. I, I don't, I don't care how. I just, I want to see him get memorialized and, and recognized and remembered. Let's go to Junkyard dog. So Greg, keep, keep on with your line of thought there about Sylvester. [00:44:10] Speaker B: Yeah, so here's the way I frame it. You know, growing up in Houston or growing up with my dad in Houston, my favorite football player was Earl Campbell. [00:44:19] Speaker C: Right? [00:44:21] Speaker B: Now, Earl Campbell had about a nine year career and he petered out when he got to the Saints. And his last year with the Oilers wasn't great, but you know, for seven or eight years he had 2,000 yards rushing and he was like nothing we had ever seen. And you know, he was the first ballot hall of Famer in the NFL. Now think about if Earl Campbell had to keep playing football after his body gave out and he had to earn a living through football and he ended up, you know, in the World Football League or something like that, or football league Europe. And the last view you got of him was as a, you know, 40 year old man who, you know, couldn't gain three yards. You know, sometimes we have that view of the wrestlers and it's unfortunate. And you know, with Sylvester, you know, I feel like he gets judged in the last five or ten years of his career when what we miss is how spectacular the first 10 years of his career were. And again, like I said with gorilla, there's three or four elements that you really have to consider. And the first one is the historic nature. You know, you talk about the territory system and you know, Tony, you and I are the Southern wrestling people. You know, black wrestling in the south was on par of, you know, the women's wrestling or the little people wrestling. It was an attraction that you brought in to help, you know, bring in extra fans, to bring in different fans, to bring in the black fans. But it was not integrated in the 40s and 50s. And you know, in the 50s it starts to get integrated, but it really was a very different thing. And so you didn't have territories. I was thinking about this, you know, you could have a territory with a Hispanic champion, so you could have, you know, a brown skinned person who was the head of the territory. But you didn't get a territory with a black wrestler with a black baby face. You know, we could talk about the chic as a brown skinned person as well, but he was a heel. And that territory was centered around the owner of the territory who was a heel obviously. But to have a black baby face be the center of the Territory was not something that happened. I mean, you know, Bobo was second in the Detroit Territory, right? And he was the baby face who only got the run, you know, when it was convenient because of the news or, you know, because of what else was going on. The Bearcats, you know, were featured attractions, but nobody ever made them the star of the Territory. Same with Sailor Art, right? One time in the entire Territory system, it happens, and somehow it was in Louisiana and Mississippi, for goodness sakes. And it happened with one guy, and that was Sylvester Ritter. But even that's missing kind of, you know, the full arc of his run. You know, he starts when he gets out of trying to make it in football in 76, 77. He's not an instant sensation. I mean, he's in the business by all accounts for six months and he doesn't know how to work. But everybody sees something in him. They send him from North Carolina to, you know, famously, he has the run with McGurk where he loses all his matches. I think I heard them say the other day, 69 straight matches, you know, before we sent him away and told him to go learn how to work. So they send him to Memphis. They send him to Memphis. Everybody thinks he can't work. He's in a semi main event, six months into the business with Tommy Rich against the Bicentennial Kings. They send him to Knoxville. He learns how to work in Knoxville, you know, in a mid card capacity. Working with Ron, working with Rick Collins is what Bo James told us, the first guy to say, hey, are you smart? But again, you know, then they send him to Mississippi. He starts to get semi main events, main events. A year into the business, he's with Nick Goulas and he's Leroy Rochester. He wins his first title on Christmas night with Gypsy Joe. Basically a year into the business, maybe 13 months into the business. And then he's a regular with Goulas and you know, talk about missing footage. My holy grail of missing footage is now Mid America from 1977 with Randy Savage and Bobby Eaton and Lany Poo and Pez Watley, backyard dog as Leroy Rochester and Andre the Giant coming into feud with him. You know, I saw somebody making fun. It was a melter thing, of course, of, of Andre and JYD in 1987. And I was thinking, yeah, you might not want to watch that match. But you know what I would like to see Andre the Giant and Leroy Rochester from Birmingham or chattanooga in, in 1977. I would love to see those matches with JYD as a heel for the, you know, in his first big run. And Andre coming in to, to deal with big bad Leroy Rochester. So that's, you know, that's his second year in the business. Then he goes to Calgary. Two years into the business, he's North American champion now. We all think the world of Calgary. Right. What does it tell you that they, you know, took him in and you know, any he filled a spot, they needed a guy in that spot. But, you know, they didn't have to keep him a year and they didn't have to make him North American champion twice. And you know, like I said recently on my podcast, when they go back into Montana for the first time, the I think they said for the first time in 15 years they were in Billings, Montana. The main event was Harley Race and Junkyard Dog, you know, or Big Daddy ritter for the NWA world title. So that's 1978. That's before he is three years into the business. He's getting NWA title matches against Harley Race. I found a match that was him and Dynamite Kid against Bret Hart and Jake Roberts. How much would you like to see that match? And the week before when they got crossed up because it was two singles matches that became a tag team match. And then what becomes of the tag team match? So again that's, you know, so that's three years into the business, filling him in. How's he doing up there? Oh, I think he might be ready, you know, and then it starts a five year run. So we all love Mid south, right? Most of us, you know, that's my baby with along with Houston wrestling. [00:50:52] Speaker A: I love it. [00:50:53] Speaker C: Yep. [00:50:54] Speaker B: It's, it's, you know, we don't even think about it as like the last of the territories. Some people say it's, you know, Smoky Mountain or whatever. It's 79 to 86 and not even much of 86. Right. So junkyard dogs, part of that is 79 to 84. And statistically you can't look at it and say that, you know, it's the best part. I mean, it's absolutely the best part of that run. You know, obviously first of all, the Superdome shows, you know, I documented it, I'll send it to Jake, you know, the stats that I have on it. But the top 16 and the bottom 16, if you color code them as I did, all the Junkyard dog ones are green. The top 16 are all blue or green, which is before Junkyard Dog or during Junkyard Dog and everything after Junkyard Dog is red. You know, it's like The Superdome just dies after he leaves. And, you know, in 1982, they double the size of the territory. They add Oklahoma, Arkansas, they add Houston. You can argue they were going to get Oklahoma and Arkansas anyway because of McGurk and because Watts paid McGurk. But it wasn't a sure thing. I mean, Dallas was hot at that point in time, right? But in 1982, Houston is just as hot or Mid south is just as hot because DiBiase has just turned on Chunkyard Dog. They're doing the tag team stuff with the Rat Pack and Olympia and jyd, they're doing the loser leave town stuff, which is very innovative in that era. And, you know, we absolutely know that Watts uses the success of Junkyard Dog to get into Houston. And that changes the history of Houston. I mean, Nick Bockwinkle was going to own that territory and instead Watts uses JYD as leverage. And ultimately Nick Bockwinkle ends up selling his shares and getting out of Houston. And the history of Nick Bockwinkle and the history of Houston is changed for years and years and years. And sometimes I talk about what kills New Orleans being the knee lift in Mr. Wrestling too. But, but really, if you look at the Superdome shows, that's not 100% true. What kills New Orleans is JYD leaving. You know, in fact, even the August show that he know shows does very well. It's still in the top 16, but he's advertised as teaming with Dusty Rhodes against the Midnight Express on that show. And then it, you know, so it's pretty amazing. And then the other thing is the arena. And Tony, you're an arena guy. We love talking about cities, we love talking about the arenas themselves. What happens when you move from, from one arena two miles north or west to another arena? And does it work? Does it not work? The Junkyard Dog had his own arena in New Orleans. And I married into a New Orleans family. They're West Bankers. So I, I feel like I, I can speak on the city a little bit. Even though as a non native, none of us can speak on the city of New Orleans. Let me make that clear. So I don't get letters, but so they mostly in this before Junkyard Dog, in what you might think of as the Bill Watts Killer, Carl Cox, Dick Murdoch era of baby faces, right? Let's, let's very rough, rednecky, you know, type of Southern wrestling type of, you know, guy, right? They were in a suburb, what you would call a county someplace else except New Jersey, where you call it a borough. They call it a parish. It's called, you know, St. Bernard. Parish is the name of the parish. Chaumet is the name of the city. So they were in the civic center there. It's, you know, a small arena, maybe three, 4,000. But it was perfect for a Dick Murdoch. It was perfect for Bill Watts. It was. It was the poor white section of town. And actually, it's just a couple of miles south of the Dog yard in Treme. Historic black section in New Orleans. What some people would call downtown. They call it, like, the central business district. And Treme is right on the edge of that, essentially also on the edge of the French Quarter. So right in the heart of New Orleans. You know, very music musical area, very historical area, especially if you're into the black history of New Orleans, obviously. And so they literally move a couple of miles north to a black section of town to accommodate the junkyard Dog. And, you know, Cornette has said it, that building, you know, you could seat like 7, 800, or you could cut it in half and do, like, you know, 34, 3550. You know, when Courtney gets there, it's always filled. And when he, you know, when Dog leaves, they cut it in half, and it's almost never filled again. And, you know, again, a lot of people attribute that to the knee lift and Mr. Wrestling, too. And I think that's some of it. But, you know, a bigger part of it is just, that was Dog's arena, and when he's gone, you know, again, they shift who their baby faces are. That's not an arena for Hacksaw Duggan. That's not an arena for the Rock and Roll Express. Right, right. That's not an arena for Magnum ta. But if, you know, then they move to Lakefront, which is very suburban college campus, and they do gangbusters that year, actually, with the Rock and Roll Express in Duggan. So, you know, I mean, different crowd, different building, different stuff. But again, as soon as Dog leaves, though, they do fall off in terms of the Superdome shows, and it's really never the same again. And, you know, I was talking about this with my buddy Mark Cole, because we always make fun of, like, the UWF stuff that we loved. And, you know, then we're starting to get like Dave Meltzer, where we're like, yeah, but it didn't draw. You know, we're all going Mark y about the Georgia stuff. And Dave has to chime in and tell us, yeah, you know, that promotion. But, you know, we do it, too, because it's like, I loved Steve Williams, but, you know, I go back and I look at those Superdome shows and Steve Williams drew like 3,000 people. And that's not his fault. Maybe, you know, you can say that's Dusty or that's Crockett or that, you know, that's the oil business falling out or whatever, but it's just so clear what the draw was in New Orleans and it never is again. And then, you know, the last component is the WWF stuff. So he leaves and he specifically cherry picked, you know, to hurt that territory, to bring him back in and draw in Houston and New Orleans, you know, when they can. But, you know, think about the WWF at that time. They had Rocky Johnson, they had Tony Atlas, they had Bobo Brazil, you know, all of those guys. I mean, Tony's more of a recent sensation. You know, Bobo might have been the biggest black star in the history of wrestling. Right. And, you know, Rocky Johnson was one of the biggest stars of the 70s. Underrated. I heard you say it the other day. Tony, you know, talking, talking Florida with Howard. Rocky was a huge star in the 70s. And because his son was a bigger star than him, we lose that. He's like Fritz Von Erich. We've forgotten how big Fritz Von Erich was as a star in his own right. And then Tony Atlas was the superstation, the cable TV sensation. None of those guys have dolls. None of those guys were on the cartoon. None of those guys were on WrestleMania. The only guy that's still with the company in 85 is Tony. And he's doing a job for Paul Orndorff on the Madison Square garden show before WrestleMania, 30 days before WrestleMania to set him up for it. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but he didn't even make it on WrestleMania. And I get that that was him being unreliable. But, you know, Sylvester is for three years in that position as the big black star. And it's a little bit of a throwback to the previous era. He doesn't quite get to be the guy, but he's in a position where a lot of other guys could have been in that position. And McMahon was just buying up talent, Right? [00:59:09] Speaker C: Right. [00:59:09] Speaker B: But who does he pick? He picked the junkyard dog. And, you know, this is where he's. He's getting older. He's going to be, you know, over 35 at a certain point. He started with bad knees from football, you know, develops a bad back. We all know he develops a drug problem. But again, you know, for the three year peak in the wwf, I Mean, you know, if there was a problem with him, he wouldn't have still been headlining the shows as long as he did, you know, and I mean, they put him over in the wrestling classic and think about it, they put him over Randy Savage in 1986 in Chicago. I mean, was that just to send the fans home happy or. You know, and they could have given him a little run in 85 with the IC title, but you know, that was a workers title. I get why they didn't do it. They could have given him a little run with the tag team titles, but he wasn't a guy that needed a title in that federation. He obviously, you know, was a big star for a long, long time there and, and we forget that. And so again, you know, when you, I mean, I, I can't defend 1988 Sylvester Ritter or 1990 Sylvester Ritter, but by the time he's there, I mean, WrestleMania 3, you know, as John McAdam pointed out when I was on his show, he's still in an important position. He's putting over Harley race on WrestleMania 3 to set Harley up for Hulk Hogan all summer long. And then the next year he's putting Andre over, you know, as Andre is, is being a heel. And I get it. I mean, even I make the joke, you know, he looks more like Pez Whatley than Tony Atlas by 1988, you know, but by that point he's between 35 and 40. He's had one of the greatest 10 year runs in the history of wrestling. I mean, you know, I compared him to Paul Orndorff. Orndorff has a slightly higher peak because he has that Toronto show in 1986. Right. But you know, after 86, 87, they're both headliners of the past essentially, but, but they're both such important wrestlers to the history of the WWF and the history of wrestling and the history of territory wrestling. And you know, I sometimes bristle, I get what people say when they say Sylvester wasn't a great worker or again, I'm not defending him in wcw. You know, they put him in a spot he shouldn't have been in. Right. Flair wasn't having a great match with him. Oli was trying to recreate the past. Watch. Was trying to recreate the past. I get it. But, but for that 10 year run, there are so many good junkyard dog matches, you know, and Elliott's wrestling Twitter, it put out a whole thread of them. A lot of them are WWF matches. Him in Slaughter against Sheikh and Volkov, him and Santana against The Funks. Him and Hogan against the Funks. You know, how many times can I say this is a great match with Junkyard Dog? And somebody else chimes in. Yeah, but it was somebody else. You know, it's like, yeah, it takes. Okay, so it's always. Every single time, it's butchered Ted DiBiase, Tito Santana, the Funks, Hogan. Now we're giving Hogan credit, but not JYP Slaughter. You know, there's Olympia, Mike, George. I mean, you know, and here's the other thing again. If I stipulate that his peak in the ring was 1982, we don't have any of the footage before that, right? So we don't have 81. We don't have his feud with Ernie Ladd and Bad Leroy Brown. We don't have the Dick Murdoch, Junkyard Dog. I'll introduce you to the Klan and you introduce me to your people in the hood stuff, which was revolutionary. I was thinking about it. Tommy Rich posted something about him and Tony Atlas today. And I thought, you know, the Georgia version of integration was Tommy Rich and Tony Atlas being party boys, you know, partying with women. And the Louisiana version was Dick Murdoch and the Klan and Junkyard Dog and the hood. [01:03:17] Speaker C: Well, 1981, they actually tried to recreate that in Atlanta. I mean, they tried to bring the. The Mid south feud with the Free Birds and. [01:03:27] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. [01:03:28] Speaker C: And they tried to work Dibiase into it instead of Buck Robley in. In Georgia. So, I mean, that tells you they thought. How much they thought about it. Steve, let me ask you. Go ahead, Greg. [01:03:41] Speaker B: Well, I was just going to say the one last thing. And this goes back to the history. And when we had Ricardo Coleman on the show, he was so eloquent, both speaking about his experience growing up in Treme and growing up with Junkyard Dog as his hero, but also his professor at Southern University, talking about, if you want to know the history of America, look at the history of wrestling. And so we're talking about a black man in the south who transcends race, you know, to the point where, I mean, I really think the reason we had a rock is because we had somebody like Sylvester Ritter, who was so popular with everybody that it wasn't. He became a guy that wasn't about his race, right in the Deep south. It was just. You liked this guy, he was cool. Everybody wanted to cheer for him. But the other thing is, look who they programmed him with. Look at the history of Mid south wrestling. You get the Freebirds, right? The Reconstructionist era Freebirds with the Confederate flags on their robes, you know, who take away his eyesight, his livelihood, you know, make it so that he can't even see his daughter being born. I mean, how symbolic was all of that? But then you get Ernie Ladd. And as Ricardo pointed out, Ladd's a light skinned black guy. He's always classist. He's always talking about how he's better than people and what does he do as soon as Junkyard Dog is injured, he takes advantage of that injury and, and, you know, puts one over on him to get what he wants. Then you have the best friend. You know, Junkyard Dog was good enough to be Ted DiBiase's best man. But as soon as he has something that Ted Dibiase the white man wants, Ted Dibiase turns on him, right? Then you have the black protege. Same thing with Butch Reed. I mean, it really, if you look at what you know, you throw in Jim Cornette, the Nepo baby, you know, Mama's boy at the end of it. And again, you know, when I say this all the time, one of my favorite feuds, and this is just because of when I was watching Mid south, when I could be there, when I was, you know, at my dad's, but it never happened. It was Hacksaw Duggan and Junkyard Dog against the Midnight Express. And that's what he runs out on. I mean, I know it was going to be Dusty Rhodes at the Dome, but you know, one of the greatest matches I've ever seen was that summer. And it's a gimmick match. I mean, it's, it's, that's the match, but it's like 10 people get involved. Cornette, the Express, Sonny King, Hercules Hernandez. And it ends up with Sonny King hit with the two by four. And then the next week they banned the tennis racket, the two by four, the chain, the chair. And then that leads, in typical Bill Watts fashion, to them bringing back the coal miner's glove. Because, you know, if everything is banned, the heels have to think of new things to use that are, you know, that they can use for foreign objects. So, you know, even when we talk about, yeah, Junkyard Dog didn't look good in the fall of 83 or, yeah, you know, he's fallen off in summer of 88 or whatever, there's still a lot of good Junkyard Dog stuff out there, you know, up to and including his very last runs in Mid South. So, you know, again, when you talk about his history, you can't talk about Mid south without him, but I don't think you can talk about that era of WWF without him either. [01:06:50] Speaker C: Well, Steve, I was going to ask you. You know, I'm always amazed at how some narratives stick to some people and they don't stick to others. Like, Vince gets the narrative stuck to him that he was robbing all the territories of the talent. But Crockett doesn't get that narrative stuck to them. And they were doing the same thing. They took half of Mid south in 1985. But my question to you is if Crockett would have, and I know you're studying all this right now in 85, but if Crockett had started their national expansion in 84, don't you think they would have wanted the junkyard dog? Don't you think? I mean, there was a reason Vince wanted the guy, right? [01:07:27] Speaker D: Well, absolutely. They would have got him if they could have gotten them. And I'll just add to Greg's wonderful dissertation there on the, the. You know, as a longtime WWE fan or historian of wwf, I would just say that, you know, when I think of 84 to 87, which is their glory days or the golden era of the wwf, I would say that the four top baby faces of that era was Hogan, jyd, Steamboat and Santana. That's your, that's your, that's your Four Horsemen of WWF babyface guys from that golden era of 84 to 87. And JYD is such a huge part of that. And you know, like Greg said, I mean, you have to give JYD a huge props for what he did in wwf. They couldn't. I can't think of another black wrestler who would have filled the role that JYD did. And, and he did transcend wrestling. I mean, people, people gravitated toward him, whether it was in Mid south or the other promotions or in wwf. And when his era ended, when he retired from wrestling, I know he, he wrestled until his untimely death. I mean, there was never really a replacement for jyd. There was never anyone with that much charisma that could have replaced him, honestly. [01:08:51] Speaker C: What about you, Brian? What are your thoughts on jyd? [01:08:55] Speaker A: Well, I think that a few things have, have hurt him as a person to vote for, unfortunately. And Greg, when you were on my show, we talked about some of these things. It's like, you know, one thing that hurts a lot of people. And I learned this interviewing a lot of wrestlers and researching a lot of wrestlers who were successful in territories and then, let's say, came to the wwf, for example, is you'll get These guys who they're mostly known by most people for that period when they were on a national platform, right. Even though the things they did before that, they certainly weren't making the same money. But if by certain metrics were much more impressive, their placement on the card, main events, the money they drew, pound for pound titles, they won, big matches they were in, that they would do a lot of their best stuff before they even got there. And so then when people look at them now, they. But they're only looking at what they did when they got there. And so we could argue about this back and forth, but maybe if you're only looking at what he did in the wwf, you might say, okay, you know, I don't know, I'm kind of on the fence. There were a lot of other guys at that level that he was at or higher. And this is the same reason why, like when I did the book about the chic and everybody would always want to talk about the Iron Sheik and that's the only chic they ever heard of and wanted to talk about. The problem with that is, you know, the Iron Sheik had the national platform, and I know that the Sheik was a national star too, but it wasn't simultaneously like the WWF is a national presence. So the Iron Sheik was never as big of a star and as big of a deal in the pro wrestling business as the original Sheikh was. But because he was on that national platform and he was on lunch boxes and ice cream bars and things, he completely overshadowed the original Sheik. So what I mean by that is, with guys like jyd, the biggest, I would say, I don't know if everyone would agree with me, but the biggest argument for him going in is what he did before he got to the wwf. Not that it wasn't important when he got there, but his biggest argument for going in is what he did before. And I think the issue there is it really tests one of the criteria of the hall of Fame, which is, and I don't let this bother me, but I think some people it does bother is at what point do we say that somebody was so incredibly hot in one territory or one area that they absolutely deserve to go in? Do you know what I mean? So, like, there were, there were periods during that early 80s era where you could probably say that the junkyard dog was hotter in Mid south than any other wrestler was in any other territory. Right? But it. But the appeal was in that area. So does that person deserve to be a Hall of Famer? I would Say yes, right. I would say also that it depends on the area. So like what I said to you, Greg, long ago was if you're the hottest thing ever in some little town in Montana, you know, okay, I get that you're not, you're not a Hall of famer, but if you're the hottest thing ever in one of the biggest, most well known territories, the hottest territories doing the biggest business. Yes. You deserve to go in, in my opinion. [01:12:19] Speaker C: Yeah. Because, because those territories, we were talking about two different dynamics. The national stage versus the territory stage. Well, the territory stage was engineered for those fans specifically. Yes. So when, so when you're a big deal in a territory, you're getting over with most of the time, four or five states, I mean, that's a region of the country. But yeah, I think it's almost like trying to do the Mount Rushmore thing. I don't think that's a possible. I think you almost got to do the Mount Rushmore of the 40s and the Mount Rushmore of the 50s and the Mount. You know what I'm saying? [01:12:57] Speaker A: So the Mount Rushmore of a specific region or territory or the Mount Rushmore. [01:13:01] Speaker C: Of the NWA champions or the, you know, whatever it is, you know, but I think you can't do it broadly and get, and get everybody in where they should be. [01:13:12] Speaker B: But yeah, I would, you know, concluding sort of my end of this and sort of not rebutting what Brian said, but from my perspective, it's, it is very much like gorilla, where there's several different things that you have to add in, you have to have, add in the historic nature because you can't talk about any other black baby face who was the star of a territory like that, the whole story of how they decided on it and who they picked and it being him. But then also, you know, the WWF stuff for me is like the cherry on top of the 10 year run of greatness. And so I always point that out just to point out like he was on top for those three years. Now after those three years, that's his peak in the WWF. But that's again, so that's, that takes us to 87 and WrestleMania 3. So we've, we've started in, you know, November or December of 1976 and in 10 years he's, you know, in a semi or, you know, middle card match on the biggest card in the history of wrestling. And that's his era, you know, and it's stipulated and so forth. And let's not talk about 90s Sylvester without the charisma and put in a spot on a national, in a national promotion that he shouldn't be in. But you know, but then the other thing that I always talk about at the end and this came up. People are constantly baffled by Bugsy McGraw for some reason. And because I wrestled him and because he was my boy's boy, I always feel like I have to come to his defense. But you know, long after you could put Bugsy McGraw on TV in a meaningful way, you could put him in a high school gym in Florida and draw 500 or a thousand fans and they'd still think Bugsy McGraw was, was the biggest thing in the world because they had been so conditioned in the state of Florida to think Bugsy McGraw was a star. So you know, even after Junkyard Dog can't work in WCW or he's not on the Monday night Wars. And I get that another 44 year old in better shape or without a drug problem might have figured into that, right? But you know, for me, even when I was coming up in wrestling, you would see JYD out on the indie shows and it wasn't like he was in the opening match. It wasn't like he was doing a job for me. He was the main event guy. He was getting his $300. The promoter was happy to have him there, the fans were happy to see him. You know, you have to still take into account that he was till the day he died, the junkyard dog, you know. And so to me he just was a special performer. And all the little intangibles add up, you know, the history, the ten year run, the Mid south thing, the transition from being a, one of the best in the territories to being one of the lead stars in the WWF as the WWF takes over the world. You know, and you know, as Tony said, if he had been in Crockett, they probably would have used him in a very similar way. And you know, I think, I think. [01:16:19] Speaker C: They would have wanted him, you know, if the timing had been right. Which my whole point. [01:16:23] Speaker B: Well, they had him, I mean, right before he jumps basically because he goes away when he's Dagger Lee and that's kind of where he is. He's with Dusty and Adrian street. And remember they have that famous picture of the three of them all blowing kisses or whatever. [01:16:35] Speaker C: I mean, I think, you know, my, my thought there was, is that Vince wanted him and to Steve's point, he put him in one of the top four positions for the next three years. So I don't completely discount his WWF run. The other thing that I think you had to think about a little bit, and this is a hard one to get your. Your arms around, is that in the mid-80s, when companies were going, even if it was Watts, if it was Fritz, if it was Crockett, if it was Vince, they're transitioning out of this territory era where guys have anywhere from 2 years to 3 years lifespan in a territory, and then they have to go somewhere else. I mean, that's. People are tired of them, they're worn out with them. You know, now you got it down to where there's only one, two, three companies and guys got nowhere else to go. Well, obviously, you know, they're going to get on the downhill side after three years in a national company. I mean, it's what happened to Crockett. You know, he kept guys around that had helped him build this monster, and then they got nowhere to go. And then he can't even use UWF guys because he's still loyal to the guys that got him where he was. And, you know, even now in modern wrestling, they just send you home for a year. I mean, when they think people are tired of you, they just say, don't come back to work for a year. You know, we'll. We'll still pay you and everything, but we got to. You got to get off television. You know, it's time for. To get a fresh coat of paint or whatever. And so in that whole period of the mid-80s to 90, it's. It's an adjustment where people are not used to booking national stars. I mean, we had three of them maybe before. Now everybody's a national star because they're on national television. And what do we do with them when they've kind of run their course? We've got nothing to recycle. We've got, you know, unless we've got a new guy or something. It's. It's. To me, it's a very unusual problem that I don't think anybody in the wrestling business anticipated when they decided to go national. True. [01:18:44] Speaker A: Certainly Vince did not even think. Think it through himself, you know, when he got to the point where it had to be like, okay, now what. [01:18:52] Speaker B: Where. [01:18:52] Speaker A: Where am I getting the next guys from? [01:18:54] Speaker C: I mean, in 89, I mean, Hulk is worn out. I mean, he's. People are tired of him, you know, and, you know, that's after, what, five years? And so it's a very unusual unintended consequence of going national that I think was very difficult for them to deal with. [01:19:11] Speaker A: I had somebody on recently on my show where we were talking about, I think it was after Hogan passed and how everybody takes for granted exactly what you said, Tony. Like, well, you know, and it's true. After five, six years, you know, they were getting tired of him, which we all take for granted. But in the grand scheme of things, that seems like an incredibly short time. When you think about today how people stick around that company forever and a lot longer than that and they're still doing okay, CM Punk, whatever, you know, guys like that. And so Hogan was almost like a rare situation of somebody that was in such a high profile spot that he burnt out shorter than most people actually do. And he had to reinvent himself completely. [01:19:54] Speaker C: Two great examples from 1975, since that's the year I've been immersed in all this year. But I mean, Jerry Lawler got hot in 1972. He was, he was the new hot heel in the Tennessee territory. Well, 1975, they sent him out like he, he wasn't in Tennessee almost the entire year of 75. After about three years. Same thing with Dusty Dusty had the hottest year after he turned babyface in 74 and Eddie sent him to the AWA and he sent him over to work for Barnett in Georgia. He wasn't in Florida almost the entire 75 and then 76 for both of those guys was almost the biggest year of their career. Because they came back, everybody was glad to see them, they were glad to have them back, and it was fresh again. And so once there's only a couple of places there's. You can't do that anymore, you know. [01:20:45] Speaker A: Steve, I wanted to put, I wanted. [01:20:48] Speaker D: To put one final thought on jyd. I would say that as far as wrestling fans go, probably the ECW fans, I think would be the most cynical group you could think of. There is rare footage out there, I think it's on YouTube, of JYD showing up at the ECW Arena. And everybody that is there marks out for JYD. The place explodes for JYD. So I mean, I'm not just saying because of that moment in time, he belongs in the hall of Fame, but it's just another exclamation point. I mean, the guy was so over to such a huge degree. He's definitely on my ballot as well. [01:21:25] Speaker C: And one, one more thought. I can't believe I didn't think about this. But I mean, the Funks had Japan, you know, so they, they'd go to Japan and leave Amarillo for, you know, and then they'd come back and go to Florida for A while and be out of Amarillo from anywhere from five to six months. And then they'd come back and it, you know, they'd be throwing babies in the air. The funks are back, you know, and they did that for, you know, 20 years. All right, Steve, let's talk about the Grand Wizard. [01:21:50] Speaker D: Okay, so, so for me, another guy that he, I don't know why he wasn't put in a long, long time ago. I mean, a wise wrestling fan on the Internet at one point said, you know, who was Hogan's greatest heel opponent? And somebody wisely said, well, it's got to be Bobby Heenan because they defuted all the time throughout the 80s with Hogan and Orndorff. But if you go back further to the Bruno era, to the Backlin era, the three managers, the three wise men were really our three major heels when you think about it. And going back to, you know, the earlier days of Ernie Roth, I mean him as, as Abdullah Farouk in the nwa. I mean, there he is in LA in the cage with the Sheik against Blassie. I mean, you know, these historic matches that we still talk about today. And, and then eventually he comes to New York and he, you know, gets involved with the Boston part of the promotion and he kind of brings that back to life. Boston becomes like the second biggest market for wwf. Yeah, he, he kind of nurtures Vince along as Vince becomes a promoter. He, he shows Vince the ropes of promoting and then he becomes the grand wizard who's, you know, arguably as good as Blasio Albano. I mean, I, I think Albano had the most heat of the group, but you know, the wizard was the most unique. I mean, here's a little pip squeak of a guy who you couldn't really use him in angles. I mean, he couldn't get touch. But you know, I think the only time he really physically got involved, Craig Valentine and Jay Strongpo were in this feud and he got like a thing of water and crash it over Valentine's head to revive him from something. But other than that, he never really got involved in matches. But he was so integral to the promotion. He was so involved. I guess he was kind of like Vince Elder's Man Friday. Did a lot of the business stuff in Fort Lauderdale and he was just so over. I mean he managed Stasiak and Superstar, the two heel, heel champions of that era. I mean, to me he's a no brainer hall of Fame manager. [01:23:54] Speaker C: I don't know. [01:23:55] Speaker D: What do you fellas think? [01:23:57] Speaker A: Well, I. Grand wizard is A big one for me, too. I vote for him every year. The weird thing, and Steve, I'm sure you're aware of this, he's the only one of that, of those three wise men of the east who's not in. And it's odd to me because you, you can quibble over who was better and who had more heat and who was better at this or that, but I don't think. I think most people would agree that all three of them were at least on a comparable level. There was none where you said, oh, that guy didn't belong there, or this guy was way better than the other two. They were all very good at what they did. I think one thing like, well, Blassie had a whole wrestling career as a main event star, so that also gave him momentum. I'm not sure if either of those other two guys were written in by Dave or got voted in. I don't know. Albano did not have the huge main event wrestling, you know, career. But he's generally, like you said, Stevie's considered to be the one that had the most heat. He was probably the top heel in the company in the 70s. And he also had that big mainstream WWF baby face thing with Cyndi Lauper. The grand wizard died right before the national expansion, or rather just as it was getting underway. My understanding, the thing I always heard is that Vince had planned to put him with Orndorff. And I think that if the grand wizard had not died, I don't know if Bobby Heenan would have come in. Because even though he came in a year later, he really was basically the replacement. I mean, in the same way that Mr. Fuji, you know, took Albano's place when Albano went face, and then years later, a couple years later, Slick would replace Freddie Blassie. Bobby Heenan was basically the delayed replacement for the Grand Wizard. To me, I think, and it's not even forget about the fact he was the manager of the Sheik. You know, he was Abdullah Farouk, the manager of the hottest heel in wrestling. And a big part of why he was the hottest heel in wrestling, because the Sheik couldn't talk, you know, and then he comes to New York. And I think that. I know, again, this is a matter of taste. And there might be some people who say Albano, I think he was the best talker wizard of the three. I think he was the best talker. He was very different. Albano is hilarious. I mean, even as a heel, the way he would just spout all this nonsense at such high Speed that you couldn't, you almost couldn't dispute it because it was just so much bs. The wizard to me was more sinister. There was real evil there like, and it was interesting because they would put him with guys who very often could talk themselves. It wasn't like they needed him. I remember I talked to superstar Billy Graham when I worked at WWE and I interviewed him, I did this huge interview with him. Superstar Billy Graham is one of those people, he just loved to talk about himself. This will be not a shock to anybody. And if you brought up anybody else he would almost get annoyed. Like if you ask him his opinion of other people he'd be like, well, what are you asking me about him for? You know, isn't this about me? And I remember when the wizard would come up he would say in a way like they were friends, they got along but he never understood why he had to work with him. And, but the reason was I think that because obviously Superstar could talk better than almost anybody. But the wizard, he added that edge of pure menace and that's one of the things that makes a wrestling manager, you know. And so I, I think that's another one. That is an easy, easy vote. He was also, he was tight behind the scenes. He was, I, all three of the three wise men were really plugged into the promotion because they were the long term heels. Like everybody else came and went and so they were really plugged in. He was trusted. Like you said, he was a mentor to Vince Jr. That's whether we thank him or blame him for that, I'm not sure. But he was a mentor to Vince Jr. So I mean all these reasons why, yes, they all should have gone in together but it needs to be fixed for sure. [01:28:01] Speaker C: Greg, you got a thought here? [01:28:03] Speaker B: Yeah. I think, you know, there is a philosophical thing about this. You know, again, this is the era where I'm discovering the WWF and then losing the grand wizard soon after. But as a little kid I was fascinated with him. I didn't, I don't, you know, both him and Albano to this day someone needs to explain the gimmick to me, you know. But, but that's okay. I don't mean it in a bad way. I just mean if I have to explain it to somebody else, I, well, he's got this turban that kind of covers his eyes and he, he has this thing and he's got these rubber bands that stick out from his face and like it just what wrestling was, you know, if we get to bul Curry, well, this Is this is my one sentence about Bul Curry. You look at Bul Curry and he says professional wrestling, like that's a professional wrestler. Like that's the guy you don't want to fight in the alley. If he comes towards you through the crowd, you're going to be the one that gets out of the way. When you looked at the grand wizard in Albano and Blassie like they were wrestling heel managers, and again, it's a preference, like is it better a guy that looks like Albano or Jimmy Hart, where the whole feud is that guy and he gets all the heat. To me, I actually like the grand wizard type of guy better because he almost elevated all of his performers by being their manager. And sometimes they would be the best guys. Like you said, he did get the champions. Albana was the tag team guy. You know, you always knew if a single guy was really hot stuff, usually it meant that he was going to one of the other guys, you know, at least in my era. So, you know, maybe it was a little different before. But then again, you know, you add these things together. The fact that he was the sheik's manager, the fact that he has this history in other places, other gimmicks, other, you know, I mean, he just was somebody. And I, I, you know, there's always these guys. When I was in wrestling, you always looked at them a little odd. But now I look back and see it differently. These guys that weren't wrestlers or they were old wrestlers, but they just couldn't get away from the business because they just loved it so much or, you know, some of my favorite people are the referees that I knew, you know, that never could have been wrestlers. I mean, even in today's era with everybody can play, right? Like, they still couldn't be it, you know, I mean, unless you're Brian Hildebrand and now you get the shot. But you know, some of the guys I knew were just sickly little people that wanted to be around wrestling. And I love those guys the most in some ways. And you know, to me that wizard was one of those guys. And again, it's not just the managing, it's the behind the scenes stuff. It's how integral he was in that era of transition and had he lived, you know, and I mean, that's a what if you can't factor in. But to me, again, he did enough things in enough places as a top level manager. That was unique. Not just once, but several different gimmicks. I mean, to me that's, that's a Hall of Fame guy. [01:31:21] Speaker A: Well, I want to add a couple things to the. About the Wizard I think are important because I did a lot of research on him for the Chic book too, because he managed to she. [01:31:30] Speaker C: He. [01:31:31] Speaker B: I could. [01:31:31] Speaker A: I could shed a little light on the gimmick, actually, if it helps now, when he. When he was with the Chic, because before that he had been a couple of other. He had. I think, yeah, Mr. Clean or he had this kind of foppish like. Like J. Wellington III kind of gimmick. Right. So what they wanted to do was. So if you're a fan of old horror movies and things, which the Sheik was. He was a big fan of movies of the 30s and 40s. They would have things like the Mummy movies where you would have this exotic foreign menace who didn't speak and he would have this weird little caretaker who was like the only person who could control him. And very often the guy would have like a fez and he'd sort of kind of swarthy. The actor George Zuko would play this part a lot in the old Universal movies. That's what they were going for originally with Abdullah Farouk, that type of character. He was like the Sheiks, literally his manager. You know, he was taking care of him on behalf of his family in Syria and managing his oil interests. Now, when he came to the wwf, though, I think what happened was they. They liked the kernel of that, the core of it, but they wanted to put their own spin on it. And it sort of mutated into whatever the grand wizard was, but it was originally based on that. And the other thing too, that I've read, and I can't confirm this, but one of the things was that Ernie Roth 2, when it came to the name. Because the name raises some eyebrows if you're not a wrestling fan, right? When it came to the name, because a lot of people go, why is this guy called the Grand Wizard? Part of it was this ironic sense of humor, of art. So I've heard on Ernie's Roth's part that this little gay Jewish man would be calling himself the grand wizard. Somebody that the KKK would have hated for various reasons. And he took great pleasure in that. So I think that might be part of. Part of that whole thing. The other thing I wanted to say too is that the wizard had two out of the three transitional heel world champions of that era. He had. He had Graham, who was a long transitional champion, but still transitional, and he had Stasiak. So, I mean, he was Kind of put in that position in a way almost like, oh, he's the most successful from a kayfabe point of view of the three heel managers. And I don't want to say about that whole thing about him dying early was he was. Vince Jr. I'm pretty certain, was looking to him to play a major part in the expansion as a heel manager, more than the other two, because Albano was very unreliable, as we know. He had a lot of issues and things, and I don't think that him and Vince were the best of friends. Blassie was getting old and couldn't really move around that well. He was really certainly clearly at the end of his time, wizard was the youngest one, I believe, and the smartest one. And I think that Vince really wanted to have him be a big part of that Hogan era if he had lived. Yeah, that's it. [01:34:43] Speaker C: I don't have a whole lot to add here other than my exposure to the grand wizard was primarily through the magazines and just what Brian just said. I thought he was the primary guy because he was always the guy with the world champion. And so on the COVID of all the magazines, it was him and superstar Graham or him and Stasiak and. And I remember thinking, as a. As a kid buying magazines, I remember thinking, well, Albano's kind of a comical. I kind of look at him and chuckle, you know, he kind of made me laugh. And I look at Blassie and I would think he could still get in the ring and work like he, He. I kept thinking he, he could make a comeback at any minute, you know, but when I saw the Grand Wizard, I thought, that is an evil dude like that guy right there can't. He can't get in the ring, he can't wrestle. He's got to manipulate these guys into doing his bidding for him. And that guy's pure evil. I mean, that's just what I thought as a kid when I saw him in magazines. And for that, that makes him the perfect wrestling manager to me. But that's about all I could say about the grand wizard because I didn't even really see any. Even when I started trading tapes in 83, 84, there still, there wasn't a lot of WWWF stuff out there to trade for. And by the time I saw it on satellite, he was gone. So most of what I know about him is from reading Brian's book. And, And I think when the sheik came to Tennessee, he had the other manager by then. So the interviews I saw on television wasn't even Farooq. It was the. It was. Yeah, it was Creature. So. Okay. Anything else on the Grand Wizard, Steve? [01:36:42] Speaker D: No, I'm good, but thank you, guys. I enjoyed everyone's feedback. It was very, very good. [01:36:47] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm going to say a little bit about Roy Welch, and then we can kind of wrap things up by just doing a potpourri of various guys. We want to say something about Wild Bull Carry or whatever. I mean, look, I've got a specific advantage in this area with Roy Welch, and it's because I grew up here in this area which was at the heart of Goulas Welch wrestling. And I'm old enough to have seen their company before, what people now refer to as the Memphis territory, which was Jerry Jarrett's company. I mean, I was a wrestling fan six years before that, so I saw Goules Welch wrestling. I, growing up here in Kentucky, I actually saw the Nashville, Tennessee show. I didn't. We didn't even get the Memphis show here. The syndicated show we saw was the Nashville Show. Now, that's why I'm kind of familiar with all of the announcers is because from the Nashville show, they would show clips from Birmingham, which would have Sterling Brewer, and they'd show clips from Huntsville, which have their announcer. It would show clips from Memphis with Lance and Dave, and they would show clips from Chattanooga with Harry Thornton. And so I got to see them all because the territory was so big, and Roy Welch and his brother Herb were my grandfather's favorite tag team of all time. And my grandfather would say things like, you know, I used to watch wrestling and these crazy. And he's talking about the heels. He's talking about these crazy bad guys are running rough, shot over everybody. But when Roy and Herb got a hold of them, they left town. You know, I mean, they. They were really over here. And it was because this is kind of the area here in Kentucky where Roy started building his empire. You know, he was trained in West Texas by Dutch Mantel, the original Dutch Mantel. He wrestled in Amarillo in West Texas for about three or four years, from 1928 until 1932, he showed up here. Then he went to Ohio in Al Haft's Beginnings. And I'm thoroughly convinced that what he saw Dutch Mantel doing in the small circuit in West Texas and what he saw Al Haft doing in Ohio gave him the idea to move south to where there was not a formalized wrestling circuit. He came to Paducah in 1932 and started wrestling actively, and he partnered up with a Guy who became the promoter in Paducah, he formed this little gasoline circuit, I think it was called back in that day, Paducah, Union City. All these towns that back in those days, before the days of interstate transportation, were major towns and major regional trade centers for the particular area. And it wasn't until 1940 that they got really. He partnered with Nick Goulis. And at that point, you know, he had. He had wrestling towns that he was booking talent into in Kentucky and Tennessee and into Louisiana and even in Florida, you know, he had partnered up with Nick Goulis In 1939, when Nick Goulis was working in the booking office for Chris Jordan in Alabama. And he made Nick his front man. And I think that's something that hurts Roy, is because back in those days, you know, you couldn't be a licensed wrestler and licensed promoter. You had to have a licensed promoter. And so he chose Nick to partner up with. And they got their first major town in 1940 when they went into Nashville and partnered. Partnered up with the VFW there. In the days where you had to be partnered up with a nonprofit organization in order to run a wrestling show and they had to be sponsored. And a lot of those events took place at the buildings that were owned by the VFWs and the various nonprofit organizations. And in 1950, he got the. The entire state of Alabama. He bought the wrestling license from Joe Gunther. He also got Chattanooga in 1950. It wasn't until 1956, in July, that he bought the town of Memphis from Sam Mushnick and Sam Avey. He was one of the first out of the original seven who formed the NWA to join in 1949. And he is the one that joined the NWA, not Nick. And so even though he wasn't recognized as the promoter by the fans, he was the NWA member. He was the guy who represented his territory and his booking office. He has four generations of family members that he is the patriarch of all. His four other three other brothers got into the business and his sister's husband got into the business and all their family members. I think I'm preparing to do a series on him for Briscoe and Bradshaw. And I think the other day, I was counting up at this one specific time, there were 32 family members working in professional wrestling in the various territories. He basically formed the Gulf coast wrestling territory in South Alabama. He was in Louisiana, and he sold that off. He was in Florida, and he sold that to Cowboy Latrell. He was. He affected the wrestling business in ways that unfortunately, modern Voters can't comprehend. He is a lot like Morris Siegel. He was a pioneer. And almost everyone who works in professional wrestling today owes him a debt of gratitude because he was one of the guys that got in there and made towns out of nothing. I mean, and these were not big towns, like I said, they were small towns. He eventually moved up to big towns. He moved up to Nashville, he moved up to Birmingham, he moved up to Chattanooga, he moved up to Memphis. And then, you know, when they got on television in the mid-50s, first in Nashville and then in 1959 in Memphis, you know, and he turned the promotion of Memphis over to his son, Buddy Fuller. He, you know, I mean, it revolutionized wrestling in. In the South. And, you know, his. His work with this. And I know we're not supposed to take the wrestling career into consideration, but I mean, his work with his brother Herb, they were one of the top tag teams in the country in the 40s and in the 50s. And he, you know, even. Even he mentored Jerry Jarrett. I mean, he's the one that got Jerry Jarrett into becoming a booker when he turned Memphis over to him in 1968. And he mentored Jerry and he taught him the business. We were talking about Mid South Wrestling in 1984. When you're watching Mid South Wrestling in 1984, you're watching Roy Welch, Tennessee wrestling. And, you know, when people talk about the Tennessee bullshit, that Tennessee bullshit gets over, you know, and anybody who's ever booked it correctly. And Jerry Jarrett proved that when Jim Barnett bought Atlanta and bought Georgia Championship Wrestling, he bought Jerry in and Jerry made it go. And it's because he booked that Tennessee bullshit. And Bill Dundee learned and was mentored by Jerry Jarrett, who was mentored by Roy Welch. Even when Jerry Jarrett broke away from Gulas Welch and started what's now known as the Memphis territory and he took Buddy Fuller as his partner, they didn't call it the Jarrett Fuller territory. They called it the Jarrett Welch Wrestling Company because the Welch name carried that much weight. And Jerry knew that throughout this whole region. And so it's just, to me, it's, you know, I won't. I won't go to the extreme of saying it's a terrible injustice or anything like that, but Roy Welch should be in the. It should be in every wrestling hall of fame that there is. And so I. I'm writing an article right now. I'm putting the finishing touches on it to be a case study of why Roy should be in the hall of Fame. That will cover a lot things in more detail than we have time to go into here. But I mean, when you, when you think about the Welches, which then spawned the Goldens, which then spawned the Fields and all of these people that are legendary names, it all comes back to the oldest guy who was a oil field worker from Oklahoma, who decided that he was going to be a professional wrestler. And he went through the school of hard knocks with Dutch Mandel to learn to be a shooter. And he came and carved a wrestling territory out of basically nothing. So I think Roy Welch should definitely be in the hall of Fame. [01:46:01] Speaker D: Well, I have Roy Welch and Morris Eagle on my ballot, so I have. [01:46:05] Speaker A: Both on my ball. [01:46:06] Speaker B: They both should have been first ballot guys. They should have been put in by decree with that first class. And, you know, for. I hear you when you say that Dave is working to fix some things. I know that he models it after the Baseball hall of Fame. I always point out there is a veterans committee for the Baseball hall of Fame. You don't have to go through all the voters educating themselves on the history of baseball. You know, they have several committees for several different eras of people who are specifically educated on those eras. And I, I. This is the one thing that I wish Dave would do is just make it, you know, eight or 10 people who are historians to evaluate the historical guys. The other thing that I think of, it's interesting, Morris Siegel and Roy are opposites in a way, and yet they're both not in, you know, does it mean more to be in one territory for 40 years? Or is Roy hurt by the fact that he starts territories and moves on to other places? Isn't associated necessarily with one place over another. Isn't associated with something that we can watch on TV necessarily because we don't give him credit for Memphis or whatever, you know, you will. There's nothing that we can see of, of Mid America where people go, oh, that was his, you know, and it's associated with Gulas as the face, I think. Whereas Morris Siegel is the granddaddy of Texas wrestling and built the Texas wrestling circuit as we know it. You know, Roy is the guy that built most of the south as we know it. And, you know, for that, you, you know, again, you don't want to get into the, I don't know, grandstanding. But how do you have a Hall of Fame without that guy that built Southern wrestling? [01:47:53] Speaker C: Right? Yeah. It's the same thing that hurts Doc Sorpolis. I mean, he's not the front man. He's the behind the scenes manipulator. The guy that's coming up with the tag team match for the first time, he's the guy that's coming up with the false finish. He's the guy that coming up with the blading. You know, he's not the out front, front fella. Even in Amarillo, he's listed as the promoter, but he's not really given credit for the. Any of those innovative things that even took place in West Texas. And Roy's. Roy's kind of that way too, because he. It was by design, you know, Roy didn't really want people to know too much about his business. But I can tell you this. If we were measuring dollar for dollar and taking into account inflation, I would put up their income statement of the money they made from professional wrestling against any promoter, no matter if it. If it was in New York or Philadelphia or anything like that. I mean, they were pulling major cash out of these small southern towns. And that's at 50 cents and a dollar ticket prices. [01:49:00] Speaker B: And the, the lost art that we don't have in the 21st century of going to these places weekly. [01:49:05] Speaker C: Right. [01:49:05] Speaker B: Going to these little bitty towns every week or every month regularly and doing solid business. And, you know, I mean, in the case of more Siegel, we're talking about ultimately for 40 years of promoting Texas wrestling. So let me just jump in on him for a minute since we are talking wrestling promoters. [01:49:23] Speaker C: Well, let me just say before you do that is, you know, I'm one of the few people. Cornet's another one. There might be a couple others that when we see. I mean, Jim was even in the angle when he gets his face shoved in the birthday cake. I saw that in 1974. You know, I mean, it was. They were all Tennessee angles, you know, that had been done, you know, for years before on television. So, yeah, there were just so many things that were innovated under Roy that, you know, because you had to have something interest. And I was listening to Jim a little while ago, and he was making a great point, you know, that. And I watch some modern wrestling from time to time, but for me, it's just so slow. I mean, the thing about territory wrestling is it was so fast and that hour, you just didn't want it to end. And it just went so fast. And it was because you were moving on to the next week because you had to have something for fans to come back for every single week. All right, let's go to Morris. [01:50:25] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and you know, just to piggyback on that, you wanted them to stay in the habit of coming to the matches. You don't want them to stop coming to the matches every week. So you had to have something hot, you know, and, you know, that's why we always talk about, like, the wwf. They had a slower pace because they come once a month or every six weeks. You didn't have to entice them back the next week. You just had to keep them watching the tv and, you know, the TV would tell them when to come back. So, you know, obviously, I've been doing a lot of research on Morris Siegel and Texas wrestling in the 1950s. But one of the most interesting things that I found, you know, with our friend Al Getz retiring, I was downloading some of his stuff, and I downloaded his East Texas 1971, I think it was, you know, triptych. And it starts with the map. And I was looking at the map and the map of Texas. Tony, as you know, you're the West Texas guy. You keep calling me the East Texas guy, but really, the map of Texas is West Texas is its own thing. And then there's two triangles. There's the triangle from Dallas down to San Antonio and Houston, and then there's a triangle from San Antonio and Houston down to Corpus Christi. So the way that Al Getz has his map set up in 1971 is exactly the way that Morris Siegel built the Texas loop in 1930. He was. He. He and his brother started working in the office in the 1910s. By the mid-20s, Julius Siegel, the older brother, has taken over. And by 1929, Morris has taken over, and he promotes until 1966 when he dies. Now, he's not only the Houston promoter promoting 50 weeks a year for those four decades, but he also builds the Texas wrestling circuit. And so some of the research that I've figured out is, like I said, that loop that Al put pictures up in 1971, Morris Siegel is building that in 1930. He announces at the end of 1929 that he's going to promote 50 shows in Houston in 1930. Or he's going to try, is what he Sundays, to promote 50 shows that year. But at the same time, San Antonio and Corpus Christi announced that they're going to promote weekly shows in 1930. And then the next year, I believe, Fort Worth comes on, and soon after that, the sportatorium is built, and you basically have the five big cities in the Western Loop in Texas. You know, you know, throw in Austin in the middle, throw in Wichita Falls, throw in Waco, throw in, you know, Brownsville or Harlingen, down even south, farther than Corpus. But that exists for the next 50 years. And for most of that time, Morris Siegel is not just the Houston promoter, but he's also one of the owners of the Texas Wrestling Agency, which books out, like we talked, about 70% of the state throughout West Texas, which is too far away to go from Houston to El Paso reasonably in a loop or something like that. And then he is a star maker. He's an innovator, whether it's Doc, who's his matchmaker, or his brother in law, Frank Burke. So much of what we know about Texas wrestling comes essentially from these three guys or, you know, four or five people. The brass knuckles thing, which was created for Bul Curry to have a title so that they could have a tough guy title in the 1950s, the use of blood, the use of blading, this idea. And we've talked about it so much on your show. Tony, what Texas wrestling is what we all know as Texas, Texas wrestling. What it is, you know, right up until the 1980s, it's stiff, it's two guys fighting. It's battle of the bullies. It's, let's see, who's the tougher guy. It's two oil men in a field that have nothing better to do than see who's. Who's going to win a fight. And that starts in Houston in the 1930s. Then you look at all the guys that either got their start with Morris Siegel or became stars. Gorgeous George, who he discovered on the streets of Houston, obviously, now you can quibble on where, you know, where the gimmick comes from, where he develops it. But he was plucked off the street by Morris Siegel. Dizzy Davis was the guy who used the gimmick before him in Houston. Another Houston guy, they go way back. Buddy Rogers we can quibble about, you know, was it Jack Pfeffer? Was it Buddy himself? But Buddy's first title is the Texas title. You know, his first push is in Texas. Vern Gagne comes to Texas with like a half dozen matches under his belt. His first title is the Texas title. Morris Siegel put it around his waist, reportedly himself in Hooker. In Lou Fez's book, Vern Gagne is quoted as saying he was about to get out of the business because he wasn't making any money in it. And they had a main event in Houston, and it was the first time that Vern got paid real money. And he went, maybe there's something to this wrestling thing, right? You know, Ray Gunkel. [01:55:51] Speaker C: Ray Gunkel got His start there, he. [01:55:54] Speaker B: Ray Gunkle, was a huge star in Texas. I'm going through that right now. He was the policeman I trained. The Texas wrestling wars when things were going on. Yeah, you know, I just want to. [01:56:05] Speaker A: Add, I think the sheets. Yeah, I just wanted to quickly add, I think the sheik's first singles title was also the Texas title, if memory serves me right. I'm pretty sure it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. [01:56:16] Speaker B: You know, Argentina Rocca gets his breakthrough in Texas and then famously stiffs them and runs out. But Morris Siegel's best year of business was with Argentina Rocca. And he was the guy that brought him over from, you know, from South America, you know, Whisker Savage. When. When the depression hits, they create this hillbilly wrestler, you know, more popular in Houston. As I said, probably the second biggest star in Houston wrestling history, right behind Wahoo McDaniel. So right up until 1969, 1970, the biggest star, you know, created whole cloth by Morris Siegel in the Texas Wrestling Agency office. And the perfect, perfect star for that era, you know, this. Couldn't afford wrestling gear. Wore a, you know, old burlap bag with a tie rope around it, bring his coon dog into the ring. But he was the toughest guy in the building. Right. That was the gimmick again. Texas wrestling to a table. And then again, you know, we all know Houston wrestling because of Paul Bosch. Well, Paul Bosch was Bombshell Bosch, the war hero wrestler. Then he got injured, and Morris took him under his wing, made him his office guy, made him the voice of Houston Wrestling on radio, made him the voice of Houston wrestling on tv, to the point where even when it's Morris Siegel's Houston Wrestling, we still associate it with Paul Bosch, because Paul Bosh was the voice of Houston wrestling. But here's the thing. Paul Bosch owned Houston wrestling for 20 years. Morris Siegel owned it for 40 years. And every single thing we know about Houston wrestling that guys like me grew up loving about Houston wrestling, the. The TV show channel, the TV show format, the Sam Houston Coliseum being the venue, being the big venue of, you know, the. Gets up to 12,000 seats at the end when they reconfigure it, the time of the TV show, the way they formatted the TV show, the stars of the TV show all happened, you know, the Friday nights, the weekly Friday nights dates back to 1930. So all of that that we think of as Paul Bosch's Houston wrestling was Morris Siegel's Houston Wrestling. And so the idea that his protege was a first ballot guy for 20 years. But the guy that hand picked him and, and his family sold him the promotion and Paul did essentially just did the same thing. And Paul's a hall of Famer, but Morris isn't. It doesn't make any sense, you know, and it's just, I take it as a good faith thing that it was an oversight. But it's a crazy oversight, especially because Paul was known to be close with Dave. So I don't understand why Dave didn't know that Morris was the guy that made everything that Paul had. It's crazy. [01:59:16] Speaker C: But anyway, in the last, in, in the last five minutes or so that we've got here on the show, I'm gonna hit some emotional picks for me and just curious what you guys thoughts are. Cowboy Bob Ellis. [01:59:34] Speaker A: For longevity certainly. I mean another one of those really long careers and main evented in a lot of different places. An innovator of. Of course people know him maybe as the inventor of the bulldog headlock, World world champion. I mean he's one of those people that I have had him on some of my ballots, but not all. It kind of depends on because you know, they're always adding new people or whatever. But I could absolutely see him as a deserving hall of Famer. [02:00:04] Speaker C: And we just found out not long ago that he. Yes, we just found out long ago that he's actually not with us anymore. [02:00:10] Speaker A: I know. Yeah. [02:00:11] Speaker B: Ultimate baby face. It just, you know, I mean it's, it's a basic gimmick. But it was such an over gimmick. And when you got the right guy to play it, you know, I was watching, I think it was like a 1980 McGurk tape. I mean it was something ridiculous. And he was on there and obviously he's so far past his prime. [02:00:30] Speaker C: Right. [02:00:30] Speaker B: I mean it's, he's bald and he looks, you know, he's in his 50s or 60s maybe even. I mean he just, he looks like an old guy. But he got in the ring and he was, you know, again we're not watching him in his prime, but he was one of those guys that just everything that he did made sense. Everything that he did got a reaction. And again this is 1980 in a dying territory. [02:00:55] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:00:56] Speaker B: And the fans just ate him up. You know, it reminded me of when you see Killer Carl Cox in a mid south ring in 1982 and you can't figure out for the life of you what they're cheering for. And it's just that there's such a connection with this guy because they've Loved him for so long. And, you know, the thing about Cowboy Bob is he has so many territories where he's that guy. So to me, I just think, again, it's an oversight, a different era. The thing. The very little we have of him, he's just an old man. But for me, the things I look for in wrestlers, even as an old man, you can see it in the way that he interviews. You can see it in the way he moves in the ring. He just was a very, very good worker and a very good emotional baby face connecting with the crowd. [02:01:47] Speaker C: He was the driving force behind Jim Barnett and Johnny Doyle's 1958-1964 mega territory. [02:01:57] Speaker B: So many different territories. So you got, you know, do. Do we. Which way do we go? Is it important to do that? He did it. [02:02:03] Speaker A: Yeah. He was on top at Madison Square Garden. Had several main events with Buddy Rogers and tag team things. Yeah. [02:02:10] Speaker C: Somebody else that's come to the forefront here in the last year because of the Queen of the Ring movie is June Byers. [02:02:21] Speaker B: Scholarship on that, obviously, that we've all gotten to be a part of and look at. Yeah, you know, it's hard to evaluate, again, apples to apples, it's hard to know. But I think in her category, historically, how can you shut her out? [02:02:36] Speaker A: Yeah, sorry. [02:02:38] Speaker C: No, I was just gonna say I have a heart for the female performers, so I. I almost want to include her because I think she needs recognition, but. Go ahead. [02:02:48] Speaker B: Underrepresented as a category, probably you would say. [02:02:51] Speaker A: And she played an important part, you know, in that kind of limbo between Mildred Burke and Fabulous Moolah. I mean, she kind of. I mean, everybody knows the story now because the Queen of the Ring, even though they completely got it wrong in that movie, as wrong as you could possibly get it, but still very, very important. And was a major star. Certainly not as. As Mildred Burke was, but nobody was. And I think it's one of those people, too, that unfortunately, I think the whole moolah effect, it kind of obscures everything that happened before her, which I think was partly by design and her intention. And so June Byers was hurt by that even more than Mildred Burke, because Mildred Burke is much more undeniable. You see what she's done and everything. I mean, one of the biggest stars in wrestling history, male or female, you know, you'd have to have her considered there. So it's easy to see that June Bars would slip through the. Through the cracks. But she's also somebody I vote for every year. [02:03:54] Speaker C: Wild Bull Curry. [02:03:56] Speaker A: So I'll say something about that because he, he was a big Detroit guy. So again, he popped up a lot in, in the Chic book. But you're talking about, you want to talk longevity. I mean, this was a guy who was not just in wrestling, but an attraction in wrestling for 40 years. 40 years from the depression to the 70s. I mean, it's almost unfathomable to think about. He was a major star before television. Television made him an even bigger star because of the way he looked and then even beyond that into the 60s. And the chic loved him, the Sheik loved him because they were both Lebanese, you know, they had that. I call it in the book, I call it the Lebanese Model Mafia. And you know, there's also Lou Sahadi, the magazine guy, also Syrian. They all loved each other and put each other over. But I mean, part of the reason the Sheik loved him was because he was the Sheik before the Chic. You know, he was the insane wrestler in Detroit again in, during World War II. He was. And of course we know too about how big he was in Texas. I mean, arguably even bigger, you know, and I think, I think actually it was Paul Bosch who was the first one who started calling him Wild Bull Curry, because I think he was just Bull Curry before that, you know, because people talk about the Chic when they say hardcore wrestling and the Sheik kind of start. Bull Curry was doing that before him and the Sheik knew that again, that's why he was so loyal to him. Bulk hurry, Irish Danny McShane and those guys feuding with each other, that's like popular, you know, today, unfortunately, I guess when people think pro wrestling, almost the first thing that comes into their head is people hitting each other with steel chairs. Right? That's Bull Curry and Iris, Danny McShane. I mean, all that kind of like. And the blade jobs and everything, they really helped to popularize that style. And whether you love or hate that style, it's incredibly important to, to wrestling as a performance. So I mean, yes, so many reasons. Also the godfather of the Curry wrestling family and generations of. Of that. And yeah, for so many reasons, he's another one. Absolutely belongs to me in there. [02:06:08] Speaker C: Yeah. Sarpolis. Sarpolis was getting upset because the Texas wrestling fans were calling it fake. And he's like, you guys are going to have to like hard way yourself. I mean, you're going to have to really hit each other, you know, here a little bit because we can't have. That's going to kill our business. And then after that didn't go well for a while. It's like, okay, what else can we do? Which didn't cause blading to come in. But I mean, yeah, you talk about guys laying everything out on the line for getting their hard earned money. [02:06:39] Speaker B: Gosh, yeah. Like I said before, you know, they, they literally created a tough, tough guy title for Bulk Curry. That's where the brass knuckles title came from. Him and Danny McShane feuding over it in 1953. And you throw in Dizzy Davis and some of those other guys that were on the circuit in Texas at that time. And again, that's Texas wrestling. Those are the guys that develop Texas wrestling. And for me, when you look at Wild Bill Curry, there's no doubt that he's like this wrestling heel and a scary one and a main event one. To me, again, those are the things. The very fact that he had that gimmick, that it didn't rely on his body, he was going to be a scary heel. Like, he's the kind of guy that if I had seen in the 80s, I still would have been scared of him as a little kid. It wouldn't have mattered how old he was. You know, he just, he's quintessential wrestling to me. [02:07:36] Speaker C: Go ahead, Steve. [02:07:38] Speaker D: Well, it's just amazing that here's this diminutive guy who's one of the original monster heels. I mean, you think of monster heel, you think of Abdullah or the Sheik or whoever, but he, he fits that mold just like they did. [02:07:51] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [02:07:53] Speaker C: I can't, I can't go here. We're about out of time. But Sputnik Monroe. [02:07:59] Speaker B: Again, history of wrestling guy. I mean, the integration of the south and, and just. Yeah. How could he not be in. [02:08:07] Speaker A: Yeah, he's a guy that almost. He's one of those guys where you, you even have to think about, you know, outside wrestling things, how important he was in integrating wrestling and, and, but, but also being a huge star. I mean, be, you know, in, in, in places, but from that earlier era. You know, I know people act like there was no wrestling in Tennessee before Jerry Lawler. Right. That's kind of how. That's the conventional wisdom now. But was a big, big star. I know one of the things about, when you hear these stories about wrestlers who were pushing for integration in the south because the chic was another one who, who was not comfortable with the, with the segregation of wrestling in the South. There's a story about him with that. I, I sometimes, I don't know if I'm just Cynical. And I'll just say this about it. And I think Meltzer has said this sort of thing, too, almost every time you hear about this, because Blassie did this, too. It's always a heel. And there's a certain line of thinking. Again, it's terribly cynical that these wrestlers. And I'm not saying that Sputnik McGraw was doing this because I don't think that he was, but that they were doing this to get he. They were doing this because they knew that the white Southern fans hated it, so they would do it to piss them off. Now, I know, like, for example, Freddie Blassie was most certainly doing that in Georgia when he would say things like, hello to all my. My dear black friends up in the balcony, you know, you're my real true fans. And he would do that to piss off the white fans, and then the black fans would hate him because he was putting all that heat on them. So it's like everybody hated him because of it. So, I mean, like, I don't know if that's why Sputnik McRoe was doing that. I don't believe it was, because I know a few things about, you know, his personal life and the way he carried himself in general, and I don't think he was. But it's something I think maybe I'll be devil's advocate and say we always have to keep in mind when we hear these stories about wrestlers in the south pushing for integration. [02:10:06] Speaker C: So the reason I wonder that he wasn't doing that, Brian, is because there's just so much documented evidence of him actually going to Beale Street. That's what I mean, Going to bars. And he actually, like. He kind of like me, when I go to New Orleans, I want to go to the Treme. Like, I want to hang out down there where the real, like, black music you like. I do. I like it all, you know, and I like to go into the jazz festival and hearing all the black performers. [02:10:35] Speaker B: And all that, you know. [02:10:37] Speaker C: You know, Roy. Roy Welch, I'll mention this, too, is, you know, Roy did that kind of crafty because he saw what Sputnik did in Memphis from 59 to 61. And so when he got ready to try to integrate a little bit in Birmingham, he used a babyface. So he used Lynn Rossi, who was the white baby face in Tennessee, and he put Bearcat Brown with him. And they were the first integrated tag team in the South. And so, you know, there were some attempts, you know, to be done by non heels. [02:11:13] Speaker B: Well, and that's where the cynical thing comes in. You know, we're talking about wrestling and wrestling promoters. You know, I mean, you know, Bill Watts wasn't trying to make a statement, except I want to make more money. Right. You know, JYD's football coach wasn't trying to make a statement. He wanted to win football games. You know what I mean? The thing is, whatever the reasoning behind it, who was the guy that did it and it was Sputnik. I mean, you know, like, that's the thing that's fascinating to me. And, yeah, we could get more into his biography, but I think when you do, it does lend more or less to the cynical with him than many of the others. [02:11:49] Speaker C: All right, I'll give each one of you just, like half a minute for your final word on this year's hall of Fame. Steve, why don't you go first? [02:11:58] Speaker D: One name we haven't mentioned, but he's. He's long a favorite of mine with Spiros Arion, who's on the international ballot. And, you know, he was the major star for Jim Barnett in 1970 in Australia. [02:12:10] Speaker C: Yes. [02:12:11] Speaker D: And that was arguably, along with the Sheik's promotion, maybe arguably the biggest promotion in the world at that time. Then in. In your. In Tony's favorite year in 1975, he's in New York, and the hottest feud in wrestling with Bruno, and. And then. And you go on YouTube, he's wrestling on World of Sport in 1980, against again. Yeah, Ariane wrestling in Britain in 1980. So, I mean, the guy's done so much. He's got a great body of work. He was a great baby face in 60s WWF. He's somebody I'd like to see considered. I know he probably will never get the votes, but I liked him. He was a very, very good heel in the 70s. [02:12:53] Speaker C: I just interviewed Lib Ayub, who has released a new book on the AWA world title belts, and he has all this great footage from Australia, and he sent me some great interviews, Spyros Arian did. And I mean, he. I mean, he's a heel, man. I mean, I loved him. I love those interviews. And 1975 is only my favorite year for the next two months, by the way. Then 1976 will be my favorite year. All right, Greg, what's your final word? [02:13:24] Speaker B: Well, again, I just. I'm advocating for my two cool cats, Sylvester and Morris, you know, for the junkyard dog. What I would say is, as for 1976-1987 is as great a career as you could get with the historic Nature of being the one and only black baby face to have a territory centered around him, one of our favorite territories of all time. And then add in the, the great WWF run on top of that. And Morris Siegel really was a, should have been a first ballot guy. The granddaddy of Texas Wrestling, the promoter of Houston wrestling for 40 years, and one of the great guys in terms of building the foundation of wrestling. So many of the wrestlers that we grew up with owe their start to that Texas circuit or that Houston office. [02:14:14] Speaker A: All right, Brian, so two really quick things. One name that hasn't come up. I'm a big magazine guy, obviously. I worked in Wrestling Magazine. Stanley Weston in the non wrestler category, it's sort of like saying, you know, how is Paul Bosch in and not Morris Siegel? How is Bill Apter in and not Stanley Weston? And I think Bill himself would agree wholeheartedly with that. You're talking about, you know, the whole London publishing thing, 40, 50 magazines a year. On top of that, he launched Wrestling Review, which was the first majorly distributed wrestling only newsstand periodical. You know, all the ring wrestling, all of that was his that he helped to get going at least. And he had his hand in so many different things. So I would say Stanley Weston. And as far as the gorilla thing, I again, if, if my book and the work that I have done could be responsible for getting Gorilla Monsoon in the Wrestling observer hall of Fame finally, I would consider that to be an awesome achievement that I would really be proud of. So we'll see. [02:15:19] Speaker C: And I will just end by just mentioning that I think George Scott should be in the hall of Fame. I mean, his, his booking run from 73 until 1980 in Jim Crockett Promotions was probably the best stretch of business until you get to 1985 when they get WTBs. But combined with John Ringley, I mean, they were the Triple H and Con combo of their era. I mean, John Ringley and George Scott was a business dynamo. With John Ringley running the business side, he wanted to transform the territory to Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling. And he wanted to transform it from a single, from a tag team territory to a singles. And he put George Scott in charge of doing that. And that's not really an easy feat. And he did it without losing any of the tag team Steam. And if you want to say Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboats is one of the greatest combos of all time, well, George Scott's the guy that put them together in 1976. And in the WWF in the national expansion years, George Scott was The guy who had relationships with Roddy Piper, he had relationship with Greg Valentine, he had relationship with Tito Santana. All these guys that came to the wwf, George Scott had relationships with them that I think that if you listen to any shoot interviews at all and you listen to these guys tell their story, they'll say why did you go the wwf? And they'll say I you told trusted George Scott. So I think George should be in the hall of Fame and I think he's very worthy. And I would suggest you maybe cast a vote for, for George. All right, guys, thanks so much for joining me tonight. You gave me a couple hours of your life and a whole lot of your expertise and I know our listeners will really enjoy this show. And if there are any voters that are listening and watching and I'm most surely there are, then I hope we have swung some some votes for our favorites tonight and looking forward to the next time you guys can come back and be on the show again. [02:17:27] Speaker D: Forward to it. [02:17:28] Speaker A: Thanks, Tony. [02:17:29] Speaker C: See you. Well, I hope you enjoyed today's show about the Pro Wrestling hall of Fame that the Wrestling observer does every single year. And I gave my rationale for Roy Welch. We talked about Gorilla Monsoon, we about talked talked about the Junkyard Dog. We talked about the grand wizard and a few others that are in the contention for this year's observer hall of Fame. I hope that if you're a voter, I hope we swayed you and persuaded you of why these people should be voted into the observer hall of Fame. And as I said on the show, I'm for every hall of Fame out there. I mean, whatever it is, I support the hall of Fame in Waterloo very heavily because my friend Jerry Briscoe and John Bradshaw Layfield, they're heavily involved in there. I like going to Waterloo and being a part of that hall of Fame. I support the one up in New York that a lot of people support and go to. If there's a Hall of Fame out there, I'm for it because that means these historical performers that added so much and gave so much of their blood, sweat, tears and bodies to this business are honored and recognized and memorialized as heavily contributing to the sport of professional wrestling that we all love. All right, let's do a few plugs here and then we'll get out of here and be back again next week. Come join our Facebook group. All you have to do is search for pro Wrestling Time Tunnel. Been running that group for about a year now. We've got a couple thousand members in there. It's growing I think I had 16 member applications or requests yesterday to join the group just in one day. And so I'm always happy that we have people to come over and be a part of our Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Facebook group where we recognize these matches and these performers from the past. On YouTube, you can search for the Tony Richards Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel channel. We have snippets of our podcast. We have videos on there. We put our whole video podcast on YouTube and you can just search for Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel or throw my name in there. You should find it. You can follow me on x at Tony Richards 4. We have pretty good wrestling conversation and discourse on there about history and wrestling history and historical performers. And of course, the Substack Channel where I write a daily pro wrestling history newsletter called the Daily Chronicle. It comes to your email inbox every morning about 5am Central Time, where on that date in history I recognize birthdays, I recognize when people have passed away, when there are historical title changes or matches. We do wrestler profiles of their life and career. There's one thing I learned about pro wrestling history that's included in a lot of our issues. It's the Daily Chronicle. It comes out every single day about pro wrestling history. And then for my premium subscribers at just $5 a month, there is special content that I write that comes out a couple of times a week. I do a series called the Evolution of Pro Wrestling where I document. We did one the other day on the history of the dropkick. We've done one about the first masked wrestler in Mexico in 1935 that created the entire masked tradition in lucha libre. We talk about world title changes that occur on certain dates and other things that have been very influential in the evolution of pro wrestling. That's available to our Premium subscribers at substack. $5 a month. If you want to save $10 a year, it's just $50 for the year to get my research and my writing on Substack. Well, that wraps up this week's show. I hope you enjoyed our hall of Fame show. The other thing that we're thinking about doing is we're thinking about doing a Q and A show. And if you have questions that you'd like to ask me or questions you'd like to ask one of my experts and guests. We're trying to figure out an email address where you can send those. You can also post those in the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Facebook group. If you have a question you want answered here on the podcast, post it there. Or you can do it with me on x @ Tony Richards 4. Or you can post it in our YouTube channel or on Substack. If you have questions that you would like answered about pro wrestling history, send those in because I'd like to do a whole show of Q and A if we get enough participation. Thanks, everybody. We'll see you again here next week on the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Show. I'm Tony Richards. Thank you so much. I got gratitude in my heart that you come and watch and listen to us every week. And remember, if you'll be a better neighbor, you'll have better neighbors. So long everybody from the Bluegrass State. [02:22:34] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel podcast. Tune in for another great episode episode next week, interviewing wrestlers, referees and media personalities that have made the sport of professional wrestling great. [02:22:48] Speaker D: We'll release a new episode soon. [02:22:50] Speaker A: Don't you dare miss it.