Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Time for the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel podcast.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: We've got lots and lots of things to talk about and to do today,
[00:00:08] Speaker A: 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.
[00:00:27] Speaker C: The cream. Yeah, the cream of the crop.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: And now, here's your host, Tony Richards.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Yes. Ring that bell. Let's get this thing started. Hello, everybody. I'm Tony Richards. Welcome back to another edition of the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Show. And today I am joined by the one, the only, the guy you probably have heard on the Stick to Wrestling podcast. And you've also heard him on plenty of our shows here in the Time Tunnel, Mr. Steve Gennarelli. Hey, Steve.
[00:00:58] Speaker C: Tony. Thanks for the invite and it's great to be here with you for this special show, the Mailbag Show. And we have lots of great questions to go over today.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Yeah, just before we get started, I just want to tell everybody I'd like to do a couple of these a year and every, oh, 12, 13 weeks or so maybe. And so this is the first one we ever do this year. We got plenty of great questions that came in on the Mailbag and you can submit those. Usually I'll put a prompt out on all my social media channels about the Time Tunnel Mailbag and you can do that with us and put your question on there and we'll answer it here on the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Mailbag Show. And hey, before we get started here, also, I want to promote that a little bit later on this year. You and I are going to do a 1976 WWF.
Of course, you are the guy that works with me on those Worldwide Wrestling Federation shows, and we're going to be in 1976 here in a few weeks.
[00:02:01] Speaker C: I'm really excited about that. That's going to be the 50th anniversary of me becoming a fan. And you know that I look back upon. 1976 is probably my favorite wrestling year, or arguably my favorite wrestling year for that very reason. That is what helped me get into wrestling. And we have a lot to talk about and, and you know, thanks to you and what we've kind of discussed behind the scenes, I, I really done a lot of research and learning about the Ali Enoki match or fiasco, however you wanted to describe it. And I'm sure that will be a focus on our discussion as well.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, we're going to cover that at great length. Bruno had another phenomenal year in 1976 with a lot of great challengers, including kind of the beginning of. I know they had one match in 75, but the superstar Billy Graham feud with Bruno really heats up in 76.
[00:02:58] Speaker C: Yeah, that was for the. For us fans in the Northeast, that was kind of the epic battle of the ultimate good guy against the ultimate bad guy. And. And as a young fan watching, for the very first time that year, we had another epic confrontation. The young semi green Stan Hansen breaking the neck of Bruno Sammartino. And it created Stan Hansen, turned him into a legend in Japan.
I mean, he became one on his own through his own merit, but he became a name in wrestling because of the injury. And what happens with Bruno being sidelined and then the comeback and Shea Stadium and the cage match, MSG afterwards? There's so much to go over, and it's just a remarkable year.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: And that's going to be part of our 1976 Territory Review Series that we're going to be doing throughout the rest of the year, as well as there's another special show coming up, I believe, next week. I'm interviewing Ian Douglas, who has written, it seems like a whole line of wrestling books. He did the Steve Kern biography. He did the Bugsy McGraw biography. He did the book on Bahamian wrestling. He's done the book on African American pioneers in wrestling. He's now come out with a new book that we're going to be talking about, but we're going to be talking about what I call the Ian Douglas universe of wrestling when he comes on the show here next week. So we're going to do that. Also, we've got a show coming up about the WWE hall of Fame.
So they should have all of their hall of Fame inductees announced really soon. And when that happens, Brian Solomon and Steve generally here is going to come back. We might invite another person or two, I'm not sure, but we're going to talk about the inductees. I mean, so far there's Stephanie McMahon. Who else have they announced? They've announced the Demolition tag team, AJ Styles. AJ Styles just the other night when they did his big celebration of his career on television.
So we should have that filled out here in the next few weeks, and we're going to talk about that. Herb Simmons is going to be here because I want to talk to him about his St. Louis hall of Fame, which is coming up in May with the Bruiser Brody Memorial.
And his big event, the Fan fest event in St. Louis is coming up.
Darla Staggs is going to be here, who is on the Cauliflower Alley board.
She is a longtime St. Louis wrestling fan and she was going to the matches in 1976 and she was going to the television tapings at Wrestling at the Chase.
So she's going to be coming on the show. Jerry Oates is making a return.
He wrapped his career up in Kansas City with his brother Ted, and they moved down to the Georgia Territory in 1976. So we're going to be talking about that. Michael Norris is going to be back to talk about Gulf coast in 76. Mike George is going to be back to talk about Kansas City. Larry Lane is going to be back on the show this year. Last year he was in the Stampede Canada wrestling territory. This year he's moved to the Amarillo territory. So that should be a really good show. We got a lot of great things coming up and I've got a lot of great ideas that I haven't quite got nailed down yet. But hopefully we will get some of those done, including one more little plug about something that's coming up.
Championship Wrestling from Florida in 1976 with the talented and lovely Howard Baum. And we will be. I hope we don't have it exactly nailed down yet, but I hope Steve Kern will be on the show with us to talk about 1976. And this is about the time his career is really going to take off in Florida. So should be some exciting shows coming up this year and some more that we will put together before the year is over. So I'm excited to get started here today with the mailbag, though.
[00:07:07] Speaker C: Oh, awesome. Awesome. Let's get started.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: Steve has all the questions and they're in that hermetically sealed mayonnaise jar.
[00:07:16] Speaker C: And these are very good questions.
So the first one I'm going to go with is actually from Bob Miller. And Bob is asking of a group of three comprised of Dale, Dale Lewis, Don Leo, Jonathan and Billy Robinson, who would have been the best choice to have a run as NWA champion in the 70s?
[00:07:37] Speaker B: That's a really good question.
And really good wrestlers. I mean, technical wrestlers.
Well, let me just take each one of them. Professor Dale Lewis was a great amateur wrestler.
He was, I believe, I think he became. I think he came before Briscoe or he might have been after, I'm not sure. But he. They were both after Danny Hodge. So those great wrestlers from Oklahoma. He's one of those great amateurs out of Oklahoma. He was a great technical wrestler. He was one of those guys who would do the pull a fan out of the arena gimmick. And if you can beat me in five minutes, you can win $100 guys. And, I mean, he was just a really tough customer, but he didn't really have any kind of personality at all.
He didn't do a really good interview. He was just a great technical wrestler. And if he had a manager with him, he would have been.
You know, he's a great heel in that setting where he has somebody do the talking for him and he's just so good, he can't be beaten. Real arrogant type type wrestler, plays that character. But NWA Champions didn't have managers, so I would say that he's out for that. Don Leo Jonathan, probably, I guess the most famous Mormon wrestler of all time. He.
His dad was. Was a professional wrestler. He would have been good, but he was so big. You know, I go back to the fact that the NWA champion has to look beatable. He has to look like you can win the title from him on any given night. And everybody you have in your territory has to be able to pin him. And Don Leo looked like he was. I mean, he was the Andre Giant. He and Haystack Calhoun, they were the Andre the Giants before Andre the Giant, who went around different territories and were just really big guys that you're like, oh, my God, who can ever beat that guy? So I think that probably would have left him out.
That kind of applies to Billy Robinson, too. But out of the three, I think Billy Robinson would have been the closest one. Out of that three, who could have been an NWA champion? Billy's interviews weren't all that great. He was a great technical wrestler, and he could wrestle with anybody, so he could.
As a matter of fact, right now, in the early part of 1976, when Terry Funk brings the title to Florida, that's his opponent, Billy Robinson, through the state of Florida. And Billy could work with anybody, which is also a requisite for the NWA champion. But Billy didn't look beatable either. I mean, he was.
He was a badass. So. But I think out of those three, I don't know what you think. What's your view? I think he probably would have been the one.
[00:10:39] Speaker C: I agree with you about Don Lee and Jonathan in the sense of.
There were promoters of that era in the 70s, they didn't have the mindset that a super heavyweight could be a world champion. Like you said, he has to look vulnerable. So having a guy who's like 6 foot 7 or above his champion, it's not really your preferred choice.
Billy Robinson, again, the English and the accent. And I don't think he was really that good on interviews. And also he had that kind of a reputation of a bully behind the scenes that.
Would he have been the type of guy to go into a Portland or go into a NWA city and want to make the local guy look good? I don't, I don't. I don't know if he would have done that.
It's a shame that Dale Lewis apparently didn't have really the gumption or the characteristics of a champion because he may have been the one out of the three to really deliver because he was. Definitely had the amateur credentials.
Who was that one NWA champion. And I think in the late 50s or early 60s that Luthes kind of vetted. And he was like a Luther's guy, but he was really scientific.
Dick Hutton, I mean the way you described him, he's. I think Dale Lewis would have been like a Dick Hutton, you know, a great wrestler, but didn't have the other criteria that the charisma or some of the other elements.
Um, so really all three are kind of difficult choices. But I guess, I guess, I guess I would go with Billy Robinson as maybe a short term champion. And the edges is a transition champion.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: I mean, he, Billy was a champion pretty much. I mean, he didn't work everywhere. But the places he did work like the AWA and Florida and, you know, a few places like that they did. And Tennessee, they did put their singles title on him in those territories. But I don't know. I mean, I've specifically talked to Jerry Briscoe about Dale Lewis and Jerry describes him as the most dry wrestler of all time. You know, so he. You're very correct. It's a good comp with, with Dick Hutton for sure.
[00:12:48] Speaker C: Yeah, actually, actually Gorilla Monsoon, Brian's guy, he had a list of top 10 wrestlers. The Gorilla Monsoon top 10 of all time, and Dale Lewis, because Monsoon actually liked anybody with the amateur credentials. But yeah, I think we've covered this one. And I don't think any of the three are really a great NWH no, they wouldn't have.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: None of them would have made my list. And that's a pretty short list that I have about who should have been the champion. But the way he phrased the question is like, you got to pick from these three. So if it got a pick from those three, I'd say it's Billy.
[00:13:29] Speaker C: Fair enough, Fair enough.
Let's see. So I'm going to give you another question that is really.
This is one that you could probably talk about. For 25 minutes. But if you want to tell me.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: Well, don't let me do that, Steve. Don't let me.
[00:13:44] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Let's go with a concise answer on this one, if we can.
Michael Chirichala is asking. He's interested in wrestlers who throw fire. So that's how he worded the question.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: I'm not sure who.
I'm not sure who.
You know, anytime you start talking about the first of anything, it's subject.
Because right after that, you'll discover that somebody did it before. Right.
But I think it's a pretty well received thing that the sheik was the first guy to do it.
And, you know, it's a matter of having flash paper or maybe you've got some tissue paper that you've soaked with light, lighter fluid, anything that can flame up quickly with some kind of little ignition device. Now, I don't know if you caught my interview with Scott Teal about the Great Mephisto. I did, but he talked about that he wished he would have talked to a Mephisto about the way he had the fire thing, because he could throw fire all the way across the ring.
[00:14:51] Speaker C: Right.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: But he never found out from him how he did it.
And that would have been cool to know, but the one. The guys that I've known, which are only a couple or I'm familiar with, I didn't really know them.
The fire goes quickly. You know, it's like if you're not very good at your pitch, you know, it could just burn up in the air, you know, and don't. It wouldn't get anywhere near the other guy. But if you throw it in another guy's face, you know, it really kind of. It's a. It flames up and it's gone, but the guy sells it, right?
But the sheik, as far as I know, probably, I guess, was the first. First guy. And what was interesting about him was he didn't talk.
So when he had the fireball, he had the. The hidden spike or whatever he would use, he would have those. He just made him a menacing heel, you know, that he could do those things. And, you know, back in those days, in the late 50s and the mid-60s, when he really got his chic brand going, you know, people from the Middle east were kind of mysterious and, And. And dark. And then, you know, you had the mystique there of being able to throw fire on a guy or get him down and stab him or something, and it made him just really fearful.
Now, I think what happened was the sheik Came down to Tennessee and I think 74 or three. Three or four. And he taught Jerry Lawler how to do it.
And so Lawlor began to do it a little bit as a heel in Tennessee.
And.
And then, of course, later on in the 80s, you know, Cornette threw it on Ron Garvin in a tag team match with Garvin and Barry Windham in the Midnight Express, and they sold it and burned Ronnie's face. And that's when Jimmy Garvin turned babyface and all that. And I think Kevin Sullivan did it a little bit in Florida with his occult cult leader deal. But can you think of anybody else that threw fire besides those three or four guys?
[00:17:11] Speaker C: There was a more recent example in the early 90s, WWF, when they were trying to get the belt off of Hogan. And Hogan probably didn't want to do a clean job. But it was the transition from Hogan to Yokozuna. I think it was Akiyo SATA, who was dressed up kind of like Kim Chi or dressed up like a reporter.
He gets up with this kind of gimmick camera. He takes a picture and the camera threw a flame at Hogan. Hogan sells it collapses, and Yokozuna gets the quick pin.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I kind of. I can kind of remember that. Yeah.
[00:17:47] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: That's cool.
I don't know, you know, the fact that not many guys did it, and those particular guys, Kevin Sullivan, the chic Lawler, it was just kind of added to his heel thing. But the Sheik and Sullivan, particularly because of the gimmick they were doing, I think the fire made them seem more evil, maybe.
[00:18:11] Speaker C: Right, right. Yeah, it really. It seemed appropriate coming out of the cheek for sure.
[00:18:16] Speaker B: But I think he was the first guy that I know of that did it. Now, I haven't researched it fully or anything, but just off the kind of cuff, I think.
[00:18:28] Speaker C: Now I'm going to give you a question that is.
This is a question that we've heard probably many, many times, but I've never heard you tackle this one. So I'm excited to hear the answer.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: Oh, boy.
[00:18:38] Speaker C: This is from. This is from Anthony Johnson. He says, is there anything that could have been done to avoid the NWA's downfall after the retirement of Sam Mushnick as the President?
[00:18:51] Speaker B: Was there anything that could have been done to avoid the downfall?
Hmm.
You know, it.
I'm so sort of one of those. I'm not a huge what if guy. So my mind doesn't really go in those directions. It really goes into what actually happened. You know, it's almost like what could have been done to save the Roman Empire, you know? Well, nothing. You know, it was gonna fall, right?
[00:19:22] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:19:23] Speaker B: And so it's sort of like that. Like it was gonna fall.
Now, I could draw a little bit on my business expertise and tell you if the NWA would have been a little bit different, culturally different organization, they could have had a better succession plan.
I don't think.
I think the whole time, this is just my theory. I think the whole time, Sam Mushnick wanted Eddie Graham to be the president, but Eddie had issues and problems, and so Sam wasn't quite ready to turn it over to Eddie when he retired.
He. He put Fritz before, and then Eddie got it after that in 77, and then he couldn't even finish his term because of his personal issues.
But I think. I think Eddie Graham was the closest thing Sam had to a mentored successor.
[00:20:23] Speaker C: Right.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Like, I think they talked a lot, and I think they. You know, there's. There. We have surviving letters from Eddie Graham to Sam Mushnick, and vice versa. And you could just tell in the correspondence, back and forth, there's a. There's a mutual respect, and I hate to say love. It was more like an admiration, I guess, or respect for each other.
[00:20:45] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: And I think Sam always kind of looked at Eddie as maybe that kind of guy, but they didn't really do a very good job of putting that in place.
[00:20:55] Speaker C: Right.
Yeah. I think, you know, after reading, you know, the stuff I read, I mean, I guess Frank Tunney up in Toronto had been the NWA president, I think, around 1960 or the early 60s. Yeah. And. And he was a guy that really was kind of out of that Sam Mushnick mold. Just a respected businessman, very honest, you know, very grounded, established.
And if we had more people like that in wrestling, maybe even Paul Bosch could have been that kind of a person, because he seemed very established and very normal and very honest.
Some of the younger guys coming up, like an Eddie Graham, for instance, they had skeletons in their closet, or they had things going on behind the scenes that kind of made them problematic as an NWA champion. But, you know, it's just. I. I think that there isn't really an answer to this question, I don't think. I mean, it's just like the NWA was this group of promoters, a co op, and. And before you knew it, like, areas like Detroit and Los Angeles were just falling off the map. Not because of invasions of other promoters. It was just through the economy or bad promoting from within or overexposure, all those things.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: Yeah, you're right, you're right. And honestly, Steve, I can tell you that I've gone into plenty of organizations. I mean, we're talking about outside of wrestling, we're talking about just in the regular business world where there's no succession plan for the CEO, and you hear about it all the time, you know, that so and so CEO has stepped down and there's going to be a search like they had. They're not prepared for it.
[00:22:48] Speaker C: Right.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: You know, not like then on the other side of that coin, you know, companies for years, like a General Electric, they had the next three guys picked.
You know, for the next 40 years, they knew who the people were going to be. And I don't, I'm not being guys in the male gender. I mean, guys as male or female, but, but they have the next two or three picked. So somewhere between nobody and that kind of level of clarity on who the leader should be, if they would have done a better job of that or if they had had better candidates to even pick from.
I mean, to your point, I mean, it wasn't going to be Mike LaBelle. He was going to be out of business in the next five years. It wasn't going to be Roy Shire. Good Lord. He wasn't going to, you know, he was barely able to, you know, keep San Francisco going for the next three or four years. Amarillo was going to go out of business. Wasn't going to be one of the Funk Brothers, Eddie, you know, it was going to be him, but he had issues. It eventually became Bob Geigel. And I've got that asked before, like, how in the world did Bob Geigel become president? Well, because there wasn't anybody else.
[00:24:00] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: It makes sense, you know, there wasn't anybody else. And at that time, Jim Barnett's lifestyle was not conducive to, for him to do it. It was not conducive to the NWA organization to have him do it because of his orientation, but he would have been probably the best candidate, to be honest with you.
[00:24:23] Speaker C: Yeah. And plus, plus Oli basically made Jim Barnett go to the wwf. I mean, it's just unfortunate, but true.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah, I, I just see if they'd have done a better job of figuring out. You know, it's weird. They, they, they begged him to stay so many times that by the time he did leave, it almost like the situation Disney's in today. They begged him to stay so many times by the time he left, they, they just didn't have anybody. And they, and I don't mean to say Fritz was nobody, but he, he wasn't oriented to, to be a Sam Mushnik.
[00:25:01] Speaker C: Right, right. That makes sense.
I'm going to throw you a curveball here and I'm going to ask the question. It's not on the list.
[00:25:08] Speaker B: Let me get my back foot in the batter's box.
[00:25:11] Speaker C: Okay?
Yeah, yeah. Get your, get your dirt on your hands here. And anyhow, but anyhow. So you've been doing this show for roughly about a year.
You went through the 1975 of the territories and you had many, many good guests on. You covered many, many territories.
So what my question to you is, from doing all those shows on various territories, what did you feel like was your biggest surprise as far as like, what territory do you think has the most biggest bank of information or most things that just haven't been unearthed yet, or information that's just dying to come out but nobody has?
I'm kind of thinking it's going to be Amarillo.
What do you think is like when you did all these shows, like what Bell went off in your head and said, gee, this is one area that is really full of information, but nobody's talking about it?
[00:26:11] Speaker B: Well, it's a limited universe because I didn't get to do all the shows I wanted to because I didn't get the people I wanted to do them to agree to do them.
So I didn't have a Los Angeles show last year or a San Francisco show because the person I wanted to do it was busy doing other things and couldn't do it. But I always wonder about those two because, well, it was Rock Rims was the guy wanted to do it. And he's written two great books, one on LA and one on San Francisco. And I'm constantly amazed at what he was able to find out about those territories in those books.
Amarillo would be probably an answer because that's the one I've done the most digging in and that's the one that a couple other people have done a lot of digging in that I've been fortunate enough to have access to all the stuff that they did, all the work they did.
But I think it's the one because there's such a limited amount, it's almost the number one territory in as much as what territory has almost no video.
Right. It's probably, that's probably it because. Because you can go on YouTube and you can find LA, you can find San Francisco, you can find Portland, you can find Texas. Well, there's not a lot of pre world class Texas A little bit.
You can find Jim Crockett, you can find Georgia, Florida, Alabama, you can find all those. You're not going to find Amarillo. I mean, they're just.
There's two or three clips and both of them have Dorie Senior in them. But.
But there just isn't much, I guess. Amarillo.
[00:27:58] Speaker C: That's a great answer
[00:28:00] Speaker B: because I'm amazed at what I've been able to find.
And most of it is not from digging it out anywhere other than from people, you know, people who were still around with us that, that were around back then that, that were able to tell me things here and there.
[00:28:20] Speaker C: For those that don't know, Tony's working on a book about Dori Funk Sr. And that era of wrestling. And that's going to be a phenomenal book. And I can't wait till that is released.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: Yep. And if I could ever learn to say no, we'd get that book out.
I just can't say no.
[00:28:38] Speaker C: Absolutely. Well, let me go back to my questions here and choose another one, which
[00:28:45] Speaker B: is the number one weakness for most people, I might add.
[00:28:49] Speaker C: Rich Richardson asks, do you think if Fritz and Verne could have played nice in the 80s, that they could have taken over the middle of the country and expanded from there?
[00:29:00] Speaker B: Rich Richardson, did you say yes, if Fritz and Verne could have gotten along?
How did he say that? If they could have gotten.
[00:29:11] Speaker C: If they had played nicely, taken over the middle of the country and expanded from there?
[00:29:17] Speaker B: Well, I mean, this is a great what if question and I don't know that I've ever heard it. Have you heard this question before?
[00:29:25] Speaker C: No, I haven't.
[00:29:27] Speaker B: So I guess combining world class and the awa, something like that.
Well, I know what you would have. You would have.
And a lot of people forget that Fritz had the equivalent to WTBS at TVT Channel 11 in Fort Worth, which was a satellite delivered television station. It was a superstation in Fort Worth, Texas. And so he had nationwide distribution through that. He had just as much penetration as the Crocketts did.
TBS has become in these years much more legendary.
But back then when I had one of those huge satellite dishes in your yard, those, those huge ones that sat in the backyard and pointed up and rotated around.
I mean, you would get a magazine every month that you could subscribe to that had all the satellite programming in it.
And KTVT Channel 11 in Fort Worth was always in there. And it was just as marketed and promoted as WTVS was back then. KTLA, Channel 5 in Los Angeles same thing. WOR in New York. Same thing. WGN in Chicago, Same thing. You had these satellite stations. So Fritz had that and Vern had espn.
So from a television standpoint, they probably could have done really well with each other, and they could have traded talent like Jerry Jarrett did later on in the 80s when he went in there and worked with the USWA. And Jerry Jarrett actually tried to buy the AWA at one point when he had the World Class and he had Memphis, which would have been an even stronger combination.
But here's. Here's what I will say about this.
Folks have a tendency to think tactically.
In other words, they have a tendency to think about what people will do.
Like the how. Like, how would you do that? How would you go about doing that?
I tend to think into the why would they do it?
And I tend to think about the people involved.
I don't think it had anything to do with money or television or the tools or talent or any of that. I think most of these guys just weren't capable.
Like, I don't think Fritz Von Erich was capable of running a larger organization. He wasn't really capable of running what he had.
I mean, World Class was a disaster. He was kind of an absentee owner.
All of these things were going on. His own sons were on drugs, you know, and they were getting put in jail, and all of these things were happening right there in his company under his own leadership and backyard.
Vern didn't even have cable television in his house.
I mean, he didn't even understand what cable was. And his promotion was on one of the biggest cable stations on cable.
And he never had anything more than UHF or VHF on his television in his home. I mean, he was.
Vern was a still of the 1960s mindset.
[00:32:55] Speaker C: Right.
[00:32:56] Speaker B: So those two guys and their mindsets and the way they thought about business was never going to be successful.
Nobody was. Except Vince McMahon.
You know, no one thought about the wrestling business like he did. And I know people don't like to hear that, but that's the truth.
You know, this whole thing about he killed the territories, that's not true.
The technology killed the territories.
[00:33:27] Speaker C: Right.
[00:33:28] Speaker B: Vince was just. He had a better grasp on what was changing in the business, and he took advantage of it.
Did he do some things along the way? Sure he did.
That's been documented. No, no doubt about it. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying from a business standpoint, he was better positioned mentally and conceptually to take advantage of what was changing.
[00:33:53] Speaker C: Yeah, from my understanding, I don't think Fritz Von Erich had any interest in really expanding the world class promotion beyond what it was, a regionalized promotion catering to the people in Texas and in Dallas specifically.
I mean, they did go out on tour. I mean, John McAdam has told me about them coming to Massachusetts. They've, they've gone to other parts of the US with, with some success.
But I just don't think, you know, it definitely wasn't Fritz putting those wheels in motion. It may have been, you know, Ken Mantel or I think Gary Hart was gone by then. But I just don't think he had it in him to, to, you know, have these big dreams of making his promotion bigger. And as far as Vern, I mean, you said it all. I mean, they, they were on espn, which was, you know, an up and comer at the time. It wasn't the ESPN we know now, but they were on there. And, and they certainly didn't make the most out of being on there.
[00:34:57] Speaker B: The better product didn't, didn't, didn't win.
You know, I mean, Vince's wrestling product was not superior to some of the others, but it was, but it was more relatable and it was more culturally acceptable to the whole country.
[00:35:18] Speaker C: Right?
[00:35:19] Speaker B: And he knew how to market it. And he had a better team on his side. He had a better group of leaders on his side who were specialists in every aspect of the business. And he let them do their job.
You know, all of the, you know, Jimmy Crockett, if it was all about better product, he should have won.
[00:35:38] Speaker C: Right?
[00:35:39] Speaker B: But the better product didn't have anything to do with it. It had to do with business expertise and management ability and the ability to build a great team who could, I mean, Jimmy basically went out of Crockett Promotions, basically went out of business because they had no team, they had no leadership, they had no expertise.
And no one knew that all of these media bills were going to come in 90 days after you thought they were going to come in. And the payment on those were going to come in even later than that. So he ran out of money.
[00:36:17] Speaker C: Right?
[00:36:18] Speaker B: And that was because, and that was because he didn't have good management in place, you know, because, you know, he didn't know what he was doing.
[00:36:26] Speaker C: I don't think there was anybody there that could say no. I mean, everybody was saying yes, yes, yes. I mean, and Dusty had a great appetite, as we all know, not just for food, but also for, you know, extravagance and grandeur. And, you know, we're going to Be making motion pictures, baby.
[00:36:44] Speaker B: Well, I mean, if you go back to his directive, you know, his directive was the product. And the product was good, but the way he built up the product and what that product was requiring in order to be marketed and branded and taken around the country and transported and televised, that expertise was totally absent.
[00:37:09] Speaker C: Right, Right. Yeah. I was watching an old interview with J.J. dillon the other day, and he was talking about 1988, and he was talking about even in 1988, his final year with Jim Crockett. And that was the year, of course, of the sale.
They were having the hardest time, like marketing something like Four Horsemen vitamins or Four Horsemen T shirts. And meanwhile, you know, Vince is like in year four or five of those LJN dolls. I mean, he's got the entire roster has a doll, including himself. I mean, it just like you said, if it's had the infrastructure, he had the Jim Barnett's, the Jerry Briscoes, the Blackjack Lonzas, the people behind the scenes who could help him make those decisions. And Jim Crockett had a core, a small core of really good people. But. But the infrastructure, the. The accounting people, the marketing people were just. Were not there.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: He. Jimmy had a couple of the components of being a great president or leader of that organization, but he didn't have all of them.
[00:38:12] Speaker C: Right.
[00:38:12] Speaker B: Like, he had the vision.
Like he had just as much of a vision of going national as Vince did. I mean, he. And he told Dusty, I want to be. I want to stop doing all these little towns in the Carolinas, and I want to do these big towns. I want to do one or two big towns a month. Like, I want to do Atlanta once a month. I want to do Greensboro once a month. I want to do Chicago once a month. I want to do Los Angeles once a month. And I want this great product.
Well, they had that and they did try to do those things. And he said, I want to be on 100 television stations. Because 100 television stations was the benchmark that you had to reach in order to get advertising money in the industry. I was in the television business at the time.
And so they got there and they could have. That's the whole reason they bought the uwf. They didn't buy the UWF for the wrestling rings.
They didn't buy it for the area or the territory. They bought it for the television network.
UWF had a television network that was built by Jim Ross of, I don't know, 40 or 50 stations. Well, they just added that onto what they already had at JCP and created the Wrestling Network.
And then that was advertising sales is what was going to propel the company. They were trying to make the same transition that Vince was making, but he just didn't have the people and it ran off the rails and ran in the ditch. It wasn't because they had two airplanes.
I mean, it just wasn't.
[00:39:47] Speaker C: Well, I'm going to give you a question that's going to be completely different than that last question.
[00:39:52] Speaker B: Okay, good.
[00:39:54] Speaker C: This is from, this is from the Substack page. Matt Walsh is asking which wrestling magazines, if any, do you trust to tell you the truth about what happened in the territories.
[00:40:05] Speaker B: Well, hey, Matt, thanks for being a subscriber. You know, we just hit 500 subscribers for the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel substack and Matt's one of our, one of our believers there. Matt, thank you for the question.
I'd say none.
I mean, I don't think any magazine really.
I mean, not to say there wasn't some shooting things or truth in some of the magazines, but how would you ever know?
There was so much over the top stuff that Bob Smith will readily tell you. It was made up, you know, I mean, they, they, they made up all these stories, I guess, I guess they did tell you if wrestlers were wrestling each other and in certain territories because they had photos.
You know, I mean, I guess that was truthful. But as far as, I mean, there are some stories and angles in those magazines that never happen and I guess there are some that did happen, but it becomes hard to.
I don't know. There was a magazine and I've got some of them here that I've collected. Wrestling life from the 1960s. Those are really good magazines. I mean, I've got the, the special Comiskey park issue with Buddy Rogers and Pat o'. Connor. That is a fabulous magazine. Wow.
And I, I think most everything in there is pretty factual, but you know, I think Wrestling as you like, it was a pretty good publication.
I've got some of those as well.
I don't know if you would count Scott Teals thing, I guess that's more of a newsletter than a magazine. But if you're talking about like the Pro Wrestling Illustrated and the Wrestler and those kinds of things, I don't know, it's, I don't know. I mean, it's almost like the real wrestling historians would just go, oh my God, no, no, no, no. But, but the people who look at wrestling as entertainment and fun and as a neat hobby and all that, it's they're wonderful things, you know, So I think there's a mix in there somewhere.
I'm not saying they're useless. I'm not saying they're not. They don't have their use and they don't have their place. They. They were wonderful. I bought a lot of them. I had a stack of them I wish I still had when I was a kid, because I just. I love looking at the photos and reading the stories and all that. But his question was about telling you the truth. And I don't. I don't know that you can do that.
Well.
[00:42:45] Speaker C: Well, the one thing I can add to this conversation is the Ring wrestling with Nat Lobay as the editor, the publisher.
To me, that was the gold standard.
I became a fan in 1976. That was one of the regular magazines that would appear at my drugstore or magazine store, drugs, bookstore.
It really.
He had a. He had a editor, editorial in each issue, talking about the state of the game, the state of the business. It was always genuine and reflected on what was really happening in the business. I mean, not exposing the business, but talking about it in a respectful way.
[00:43:25] Speaker B: Yeah, like boxing.
[00:43:27] Speaker C: Like boxing. And they covered. They covered major events in wrestling, major matches. I remember they covered in particular Jack Briscoe against Bobo, Brazil, scientific match that occurred. And they had matches from all over the world that they covered. I mean, Africa, Africa, different places. And, you know, and I always go back to the backs of the magazines where they'd have the, you know, in small, small print, they would have these detailed arena reports where fans would say, okay, the Worldwide Wrestling Federation was in Steubenville, Ohio. And these were the matches. And not only would they give you the winners and the losers and sometimes the times of the matches, but they would go into detail and talk about, you know, how. What the finish was and that, you know, how did these matches end? And they gave you such detail. You really appreciated it. And I would say that as Ring Wrestling kind of faded out over time, the Norman Kaiser magazines kind of came in, took ownership over those, and those magazines kind of continued the tradition into the mid-80s of giving you information about every territory known to man and giving you as much factual information as they could provide.
[00:44:41] Speaker B: Man, that's a good. That's a good call. I didn't even think about that one. But you're right.
That. That was. That was fantastic. I've got some of those. I had some of those back in the day also.
You can tell that as my life in wrestling has moved on, I'm not as I'm not the magazine file. You know, we've got one guy in the, in the Facebook group for the, for the Time Tunnel, Mark Matsuo. He is fabulous. I mean he is always posting stuff that he has collected from, from magazines and such and I'm just not a big expert in that area because when I first started moving over into historian area, it was like, oh, you know, stay away from that because you know that's inaccurate information. But as I've evolved and used more of my storytelling abilities and skill sets, I see real value in some of it.
[00:45:43] Speaker C: Right. Yeah, I do too. I, I had the magazines too and I really don't have any anymore. Not that I'm going to go out and you know, blow money I don't have on old wrestling magazines, but a part of, part of me is nostalgic that I don't have them.
[00:45:58] Speaker B: So I did, I did spend a fair amount of money on a lot of wrestling magazines about Dory Sr.
Oh really?
Because I just felt like I couldn't write a biography about him without knowing a lot about how he was covered.
[00:46:15] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:46:16] Speaker B: Like how did the wrestling media treat him back then? Like, especially during his World Junior title run. Like how did they respond to that? Did they make it out to be a big thing or was he hardly mentioned? Like I, I needed to find that out.
So I did. I probably just like maybe 10 of them, you know, but, but it did give me kind of a idea of how respected he was in the total wrestling infrastructure of the time, if that makes sense.
[00:46:46] Speaker C: It makes a lot of sense.
Tim Price is asking. We hear a lot about the managers back in the day, Albano Heenan, et cetera. They get a lot of exposure in the magazines. But who do you feel were some of the more notable name that didn't get a lot of mention, if any at all in the smaller and maybe lesser known territories?
[00:47:06] Speaker B: Well, it wasn't a smaller or lesser known territory and my, our mutual good buddy Brian Solomon has done as much as anybody to talk about Bobby Davis, who was a huge wrestling name back in the day, but there's not a lot out there about him and I wish there were.
And Brian even got an interview with him that he's played on his show before, before he passed.
But, but him. Most of the managers in the southern territories that I grew up with the Saul Weingrass.
Saul Weingraft was a huge manager in Tennessee. He was a huge manager all throughout the south with the Von Brauners and with the Mass Dominoes. And with some others.
And he was a legend or is a legend for the Welch Legacy Series. I did with Briscoe and Bradshaw. I talked to his son, George Weingroth, when I was doing some digging on Saul. And I'd like to do more.
All those guys. Dr. Ken Ramey was a fabulous manager, probably the best. One of the.
One of. Along with JC Dykes biggest heat getting managers you could imagine, which in the south was a big deal. There was a lot more heat in the southern territories than there were in the North.
A guy that a lot of people have completely forgotten. A lot of people know about Sam Bass, who was Jerry Lawler's manager until he was killed. That's another 1976 event that we're going to be covering this year. Sam Bass was killed in a car accident between Memphis and Nashville.
And then Jimmy Hart, of course, came along later. But the guy in between Sam Bass and Jimmy Hart was Mickey Poole. And Mickey Poole was Jerry Lawler's manager there for a few years that Lawler brought into the business. And he got a lot of heat and hasn't really been talked about a whole lot or whatever.
There was just a whole bunch of them in Tennessee because Roy Welch and Nick Goulis did not like magazine coverage from the national magazines. They had their local television shows and they had their own programs that they put out in the arenas. And they thought, you know, why does it. Why do we need. Two things that they would always think is like, why do we need somebody in Los Angeles to read about what we're doing in Tennessee? Like, they're not going to be buying any tickets to our show, so why do we care about that? And second of all, they thought if they got too much coverage, they'd get competition.
They. That the. Too much. Too much publicity. Then some promoter be like, hey, there's money down there. We could go down there and get some of that money too. And so they just liked keeping a low profile.
Do you think Gary Hart has had a lot of publicity?
A lot of.
[00:50:18] Speaker C: I would say. I would say right now, Gary Hart is vastly underrated. I mean, the, the. The average older fan like in. In our age group just probably remembers him in 1989 in the NWA with the. The flare and funk angle.
But he did so much more. I mean, he was a big name in the 70s in Detroit. I mean, he was huge in Texas and other areas.
I mean, to me, he's vastly underrated.
And I know, you know, you mentioned Bobby Davis. I mean, Bobby Davis from. For what I Can see from the little bit of footage there is of him. He was really the prototype for Jim Cornette. I mean, guy was, yeah, he's like a mama's boy. He's what you would have called back then, a real pussy.
And you know, Jim Cornette became him just again 80s version of a Bobby Davis.
[00:51:13] Speaker B: You know, I've written lately because I started it up on Twitter or formerly called Twitter Now X I talked about, I was posting some wrestling ads with the Pafo brothers, Lanny and Randy against the British Bulldogs.
And people are like, there was a British Bulldogs back in 1976. I'm like, yeah, they were the original British Bulldogs.
And it was Heath and Foley. Well, after the Bulldogs broke up, JR Foley went to Canada to Stampede and became the Dynamite Kids manager. And he isn't talked about a lot. J.R. foley was a big time heat getter in Stampede Wrestling during the late 1970s. People wanted to kill him. He, he dressed, he dressed a lot like Paul Jones did in the 80s when he was a manager. He wore the little Hitler outfit and he had the little, he had the little slim black mustache here.
And he was kind of marketed as a rich, too rich playboy, but he looked like a Nazi.
But, but he got a lot of heat. But he, I don't know that he's got a lot out there about him.
[00:52:26] Speaker C: We know, we know success didn't spoil Rock Hunter, but do you have any memories of Rock Hunter?
[00:52:31] Speaker B: Rock Hunter, yeah, he was big time in Georgia.
Don Carson.
Don Carson, the original manager of the Mongolian Stomper. Both of those guys, Rock Hunter and on Carson. I don't know that a lot of people know a lot about.
[00:52:47] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I'm going to take you down another path. You mentioned Mark Matsuo and I agree. I love what he posts. I love those old clippings, the magazines. He always finds the best ones. But he had another question for us. He says, what is your holy grail in your memorabilia collection?
[00:53:11] Speaker B: Well, again, if it's not directly related to something I'm researching, I don't, I'm not a big memorabilia guy. Like, I'm not, I'm, I'm not a big wrestling action figure guy. I don't even own one single action figure.
And if I'm listening to a podcast and they're going to do a wrestling action figure segment, fast forward, I mean, I mean, and I don't have anything against it. And I think it's wonderful. There's a lot of people that love it. It's big business, but it's Just not my thing, you know, and that's okay.
[00:53:49] Speaker C: Understandable.
[00:53:50] Speaker B: I think everybody has their thing in whatever that they like, and that's. It's not my thing. And most of the magazines and things like that that I have, and probably the biggest Holy Grail in my memorabilia collection, I got it last year, and that was a.
As authentic as you can get.
Replica belt of the crown jewel NWA title.
I mean, it's. It's heavy like the original title was. It's not cheap like a lot of replica belts you get. I mean, it's.
It feels like the original title belt that Luthez and Buddy Rogers and Gene Kaniski and Dory Funk Jr. Had. And.
And right under the crown jewel nameplate here, I got Dori Funk Jr. Signature magnificent. And that's. That's over there in a box. And it's going to end up right back here on this wall. As soon as I can get some of these things hung, I think I'm going to take this plant out of here and. And put some framed things and that. That title belt is going to go in a case, and I think I'm going to put it right back here. But it. I think that's probably my.
That was probably the thing I wanted the most, and I got it last year, and I got Doris. I got Dory Jr. To sign it in St. Louis last year when we had a chance to spend some time together. So
[00:55:19] Speaker C: I personally don't really have a Holy Grail in my collection. I mean, I do have the original Bruno San Martino autobiography from 1988 or 89. He put it out. And I do have. It's autographed. It doesn't have a certificate of authenticity, but it was autographed.
I do have a ton of wrestling books, just like I'm sure Tony does.
And the books, to me are like the most valuable things, because if I didn't have these books, and I really got to thank people like our friends up in Portland who sent me some books, you know, the Frank Culbertsons of the World, and
[00:56:04] Speaker B: first of all, for just writing them.
[00:56:06] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Mike Rogers and Frank Culbertson, those guys are so tremendous. And I feel like I've learned so much, and I need to crack those books open even more and make more time for them. But to me, those are like my. Like my precious jewels that I can go back to when I have a rare day off or a rare moment of I can sit on my couch and open up a book and read. And to me, that's the greatest gift. I mean, you're taking all this new knowledge and you're keeping your mind sharp just by reading. And I really love that.
[00:56:39] Speaker B: I. I do this thing called gap reading.
And it's just the fact that I will open up a book, either electronically or hard copy, in gaps, like, so if I've got 15 minutes before my next meeting, I'll read 10 minutes, and I'll just read, you know, there for 10 minutes, and then I'll close the book and put it away. And. And because I get that question a lot, because I. I do read a lot, and people are like, well, how do you make time for reading? I just do it in between a lot of things, and then I'll do it first thing in the morning, and I'll do it last thing before I go to sleep at night. Because I don't. I don't like going directly from a screen to bed or on the television or the computer or whatever. So I'll just read a book, preferably a real paper book that doesn't have a screen attached to it. But I cannot read any of those books, Steve, to your point, without learning something.
[00:57:34] Speaker C: I just love them. And the fact that I have some that I haven't really completed, and they're just sitting there, and I know that they're there for me when I need them, that kind of excites me, too, because it's like, you know, what if I get the flu and if I get sick? What if I have a long airplane flight? I have something to go back to, and I have something to learn, and I'm very excited about that.
[00:57:56] Speaker B: You can always tell people who read because they're always people that don't think they know everything, right? They're always learning something different or they're learning something they thought was different. Like, oh, my gosh, I thought it was that. Oh, really? It was this way. Oh, okay.
But the people who don't take in a lot, they think, okay, I know everything I need to know, you know, and that's dangerous.
[00:58:21] Speaker C: I think, with wrestling, I don't think you could ever really get that way. I mean, even somebody like a Dave Meltzer, who is, you know, one of the great sources of information, you can tell that he. He wants to learn more. He wants to know about the classic Days from Beyond. And I mean, in his day, when he got to meet with Paul Bosch and other people, I mean, he wanted to soak in as. As he could. But, you know, now that a lot of those grace are gone, it just gets More difficult to, you know, go to a source. Now you have to do what you're doing, which is doing lots of research, lots of phone calls and other things.
[00:58:57] Speaker B: Dave has not lost his hunger to learn.
And I'll tell you, John Bradshaw Layfield is one of the hungriest guys I've ever met for wrestling history. I mean, he, he absolutely loves it. And that's one of the reasons we are very good friends, because he, he has such an appreciation and respect for the business overall. But he just wants to know more. You know, he just, he likes learning about it. And both of us learn something every time we talk to Mr. Briscoe. I mean, because he just had been in the business for so long and been so many places and done so many things right.
[00:59:35] Speaker C: Well, I get another question that could be another 25 minute answer, but I know you'll cut back on this one. Adam Parsons is ask, he's from our Facebook group. He says, who is the first masked wrestler?
[00:59:50] Speaker B: Well, a lot of people would say that it was the mass marvel in 1915, Mort Henderson. But actually there was one before that in France at the World's Fair in 1865, Theobald Bauer, who a lot of people maybe if you're into the pioneer era of wrestling, have heard that name before.
He competed as just simply the masked wrestler.
And he then that concept of that came across the Atlantic in the early 20th century. And Mort Henderson did wrestle at the Manhattan Opera House as the Mass Marvel.
I won't give, you know, the long, lengthy answer, but I did get fascinated with Cyclone Massey.
Cyclone Massey was a guy who was trained by Doc or by the original Dutch Mantel out in West Texas is another thing I discovered in my West Texas research.
And he became the Masked Marvel and Salvatore Luderoth in Mexico.
This is in 1933, by the way. Salvador Luderoth booked him to come to Mexico City. And Cyclone Mackie got over to the point in Mexico City as the Masked Marvel that, that created the whole lucha libre masked wrestler that still goes on today.
And then ironically, this is what I think is ironic about it. And you can find a whole feature that I written about this in the substack for the Time Tunnel. But when Cyclone Mackey came back to West Texas, Dutch Mantel booked a whole series with the Masked Marvel, but he put a different guy under the Ben Sherman under the mask as the Masked Marvel. And they had a whole little series there between Amarillo and Lubbock and some of the other towns that sold out and drew a lot of money and sold a lot of tickets. And then Cyclone Mackey and Ben Sherman went out to the west coast and wrestled under a whole bunch of different masked gimmicks. And it sort of took off from there in the United States.
It's interesting right now because, you know, I'm studying 1986, 76, 66. And in 1966 at this time, the famous Oklahoma feud between the Masked Assassins and the Kentuckians is going on. And I just wrote a whole thing in tomorrow. Well, it won't be tomorrow when this comes out, but this week in the pro wrestling Time Tunnel substack Daily Chronicle, I did a review of some of that, some of that booking and from 1966 in March.
And that seemed to really.
The Masked Assassins really started a whole big deal of masked tag teams, specifically in the Territory era. I mean, you had the Masked Infernos, you had the Masked Medics, you had all these masked tag teams that were evil heels that came after the Masked Assassins because they got over so huge all over the country.
So the whole mass wrestler topic is, is really interesting and I, I would bet that you probably will hear a series about that on a Briscoe Bradshaw deal sometime down the road, because Jerry Briscoe is really wants.
[01:03:35] Speaker C: That's very interesting.
[01:03:38] Speaker B: And I, I've got a whole list of masked wrestlers.
[01:03:43] Speaker C: Wow. Well, I, I'll give you a different take on this.
In recent years, or maybe over the last couple years, I, I had seen a shoot interview with Billy Graham, superstar Billy Graham, where he talked about wrestling mil masques. And he, he said that it was, you know, definitely not one of his favorite challengers. And it just talked about those matches. And he made, he made a very good point that really kind of resonated with me. He said that, you know, how can you really wrestle a guy who is in a mask and he can't show emotion?
You can't see the look on his face. You can't. You know, it takes away from the drama. You know, if you can't see this guy's hurting or in pain or the emotion. I mean, I agree that it adds something else. It adds an element of mystery and intrigue. But I agree with what he's saying in the sense of. It takes away a lot of the emotion of the match in the sense of you can't see their face, you can't see their expression. And I never really even thought of that about that until I saw that shit interview with Billy's point of view.
[01:04:53] Speaker B: So can I give you my thought about that?
[01:04:56] Speaker C: Sure, please do.
[01:04:57] Speaker B: Well, I agree in that scenario because Superstar Billy Graham was the heel and Mill Masqueras was the baby face. And that's what a baby face should do.
You should see the emotion and the selling and the Ricky Morton type selling of a baby face. They're supposed to create sympathy and a heel isn't trying to do that. So with like the Masked Assassins or the Masked Medics, it added to them because you couldn't see them, because you imagined in your mind these probably more evil than they really looked because you couldn't see them. Right. There was a whole new theater of the mind. But if that masked. And there weren't many masked baby faces, you know, I mean, that's why.
Because you don't get that sympathy and that selling for, for the Babyfish wrestler. So I totally agree with Superstar. I'm sure it was frustrating for him because if he wrestled Bruno, that was Bruno's whole thing, you know, is to create the. Get people behind him for the big comeback. And it's hard to do that when you can't see what the guy's going through.
[01:06:05] Speaker C: Yeah, but part of me is a longtime fan, you know, having watched wrestling for 50 years now, part of me feels sad that the mass wrestlers are not like what they used to be. I mean, right now there are some in WWE who are doing quite good. So maybe I should have said that. Well, but, but, but there's not any that are like main event guys that are like a Mal maskers type. I would say that's safe to say.
[01:06:28] Speaker B: Well, it's because they've embraced Lucha libre, you know, and because they've gone global and Lucha libre is such a Latin American, you know, phenomenon, they really have no choice than to embrace it. And I think that's good.
I think the big deal why it disappeared for 40 years is because they couldn't trademark the, you know, I mean, it was too easy to copy.
And even in the territory days, you know, there would be a mass super. There were like five mass superstars working around the country at the same time.
Really. Bill Eady was only in one town, you know, and it was just no one knew because they didn't know who the mass Superstar was.
And because Vince couldn't, couldn't keep a lid on that. He didn't really want to.
Want to have that. You know, he thought too many people could copy what he was doing. It was too easy. But right, I, I agree with you. I miss parts unknown in the introductions.
[01:07:33] Speaker C: Well, listen, I think we really went through most of the questions. I. I think you did a really good job answering this question. So kudos, Tony, and a lot of fun. A lot of fun doing this with you. And I hope maybe we could do this.
Yeah, maybe more than even a couple times a year, maybe every quarter, we could do it. Who knows?
[01:07:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's do that. Let's do that. I enjoyed it. It is a little bit different kind of show. And. And I'm interested in what the enthusiasts out there that are part of our community are interested in and what's on their minds and all that. And this was a great show today because they're involved, you know, the people that follow, the people that are part of our groups and that are participating with us, and they. They enjoy what we do and they support us. We got. We had some new members this past weekend that were just wonderful in some of the things they said. And I like this kind of show because it brings them in here with us. You know, it isn't just us talking at them. It's them participating in the show, too.
[01:08:37] Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. So if anyone listening to this has some great questions, you know, get them ready. Tony will put something up in the Facebook group or on the show in the link, and we will do this again in the future, and we'll be happy to answer your questions.
[01:08:55] Speaker B: Let me tell everybody a little bit about where you can come and join our communities and you can leave those questions for us, and you'll. You'll see my post asking for them. But we have a Facebook group called the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Group. It's growing exponentially. We're almost up to 3,000 members. We grow, you know, 50, 60 members a week.
And all you have to do is put that in your little Facebook search engine and we ask you a couple of questions about what territory you grew up in or what wrestlers you like, just so we can get a handle on, you know, the people in our community and the kind of posts they like to read and things like that. You can come over and watch our podcast and some of our other video clips. We post a clip almost every day in the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel YouTube channel, which is.
It's almost to a thousand subscriptions, and I'd appreciate it if you'd come over and like our videos and subscribe and you can follow me. Probably my biggest social media community is X, and you can follow me there at Tony Richards 4.
Our substack channel is Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel, and we have a daily wrestling history newsletter that comes out every day called the Daily Chronicle where we list wrestler birthdays and wrestlers who have passed away on that date. And I usually have some kind of feature article. Sometimes it's a mini biography of one of the wrestlers from. It's a wonderful little thing that I've, I've come to enjoy because it introduces people to some of the wrestlers from the Territory era, maybe you've never heard of or maybe you don't know much about. So come over and subscribe. We do have a paid subscription if you want to support the work that we do.
We are a wrestling history enthusiast supported entity and so if you want to help us, you can subscribe for just $5 a month or if you want to sign up for a year, it's just 50 bucks and that'll save you $10. So those are our various parts of our community. Steve, thank you so much for coming by and being on the show with me this week. This was a lot of fun.
[01:11:01] Speaker C: Thank you for the invite, Tony. It was a lot of fun and I want to give a shout out to my friend Dusty Hansen, who's one of those new members and he really glad that he found your show. He's really enjoying it.
[01:11:12] Speaker B: Dusty, we appreciate you being here, man. Thanks for joining us. Get us a question next time we do a mailbag show because I know you want to know more about Sputnik Monroe. So thanks for joining us everybody. Until next week, here on the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History show, he's Steve Gianna Rally. I'm your friend and your host, Tony Richards, reminding you that if you want better neighbors, just be a better neighbor because we need to support each other where we can. Thanks everybody from the Richards Ranch in Western Kentucky. So long from the Bluegrass State, thanks
[01:11:44] Speaker A: for tuning in to the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel podcast. Tune in for another great episode next week, interviewing wrestlers, referees and media personalities that have made the sport of professional wrestling great. We'll release a new episode soon. Don't you dare miss it.
