Chekov's $100,000 Drawing of Ultimate Warrior w/Alex Steed

[00:00:00] Speaker A: You know, I haven't seen a USA chant in a while. [00:00:04] Speaker B: Thankfully, he's fighting what I imagine a Fourth of July sale at Home Depot would look like if it's a person. Welcome back to Monday night Fake Fights where I, Garrick Taylor, she. They am doing a rewatch of the Monday night wars and making it your problem. This week's esteemed victim is. [00:00:33] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Alex. Steve. [00:00:35] Speaker B: Yeah, he. He. [00:00:36] Speaker A: Him. How are you? [00:00:37] Speaker B: I'm so good. Thank you for being here, Alex. I feel like normally I'd be like, give yourself a little intro. But I feel like people should. You should need no introduction. You're Alex. [00:00:46] Speaker A: I'm a. I have a podcast called you are good. A feelings podcast about movies. I have another podcast called the O.C. again, that one I hosted my great friend Nico Stratus. You are good. I host with Sarah Marshall. I produce a show for former Siri doll called First Thirst, and I produce live events. Like, that's kind of my whole thing. [00:01:07] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and you are awesome at it. And I feel like we've been mutuals on social media for a while now. And like I. Before I. I will admit, before I heard your show, my partner got into your show before I did. I. I always loved. I used to listen to your wrong about a lot. [00:01:24] Speaker A: Right on. [00:01:24] Speaker B: So I. Yeah, so I kind of came along the Sarah Marshall train and it was like those. Alex person is what? Wait, wait. I think we're following each other on. [00:01:32] Speaker A: Twitter for a while. Yeah. [00:01:35] Speaker B: Yeah. So I'm so happy to have you here. I was like, oh, my gosh. I have a. I have podcast friends. I podcast now. Hey, podcast friends. [00:01:44] Speaker A: I'm really excited. I mean, when I saw that you were doing this show, I got extremely excited. And you know, I'm. I'm really interested in like, the newly emergent. Not newly emergent, but like newly deeply pronounced, like queerdo culture of wrestling to me, because I got in. I got. I wasn't into wrestling at this time that we were. That we're talking. [00:02:10] Speaker B: That's my next question is what. What, if any, is your history with wrestling? [00:02:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I mean, I was into. In the way that you couldn't escape the culture without encountering like, Hulk Hogan, macho man, Ric Flair, et cetera. Like, like, they were obviously everywhere, like, in the way that like, Freddy Krueger and Pee Wee Herman were everywhere. Like, there was like, no escaping it. Yeah, very much that part of the culture. But like, the people I knew who were in a wrestling were. We just weren't we just, like, kind of like, weren't in the same circles. And it was like. It was like hyper. The irony of the mask, the hyper masculinity wasn't being picked up at this time. Like, this is like before we even broke the fourth wall. And like the sort of, you know, the triple H times, like. [00:02:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:58] Speaker A: So was like, still, like, highly literal and to be frank, like a little scary sometimes with the people who. Who I knew who were hyper into it. But then I moved a couple years ago to the Bay Area and started going to Hood Slam, which. Which I. As a sort of. As a local promotion. I refer. I just started to refer to it as Queer Mass because like, once a month, just like the gaudiest, trashiest, gayest performance in all of Oakland would happen, and it would center around wrestling. And at this and a little bit before that, like, like you. I think, like, in the lockdown time in particular, you know, these. These signifiers of simpler times. [00:03:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:03:50] Speaker A: Felt comfortable. [00:03:52] Speaker B: So it's a perfect story. [00:03:54] Speaker A: Well. [00:03:54] Speaker B: And I have more time on my hands. We all did. So I could go back and be like, hey, there's 20 years of wrestling that I. I didn't watch. I can watch all the pay per views and see what I missed. And yeah, it turns out, girl, you know, and these things may be related. Yeah. And then I got up. [00:04:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Maybe this performance. Yeah. Is related to some stuff. [00:04:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Maybe I learned how to perform form masculinity the way that these folks are performing masculinity. Maybe. Maybe I read Josie Reisman's book where. Where she lays that all the way out. [00:04:34] Speaker A: I mean, that. That to me is a. Is a bible. That book is a bible. [00:04:38] Speaker B: It's required. I call it required reading on this show. Basically. [00:04:42] Speaker A: It's required. It's. I mean, it's especially. I. I was saying this for a full year. [00:04:46] Speaker B: I mean, I'm not. [00:04:47] Speaker A: Not saying it now, but I was enthusiastically saying it the full. First full year after I read it, which is. I was like, it is. You know, it's the. And she's written about this specifically, but it's the key book to understanding the culture of. The political culture of this time. You know, as much as about McMahon, you know. [00:05:05] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And it's. I mean, God, that's a good segue into nitro. We'll get there. I wanted to say, though, because you talked about the excitement of talking about the queerness of wrestling, and I don't think. I don't believe we got gold dust at all on this raw. So I, I do want to make sure we talk a little bit about it because, like, that's. Oh, my God, that's why you're here. And you mentioned Hood Slam. I found out one of my five to six horse people, as I call them, Woo, came into the chat and was like, hey, we were talking about Gold Dust last week replayed Shawn Michaels did the Playgirl. You remember that? And he had the belt. Yeah, right. He had the belt over his junk. And then last week, Gold Dust did it with the IC belt and it was just unreal and like, I mean, that was my first drag queen. Like, it was Gold Dust. That was the first time. And I didn't realize that was what it was until I was like, oh, my God, no, he's doing drag. That's what's going on. But like, he really was like, that's what was great about Dustin. He really was just doing drag and he got the assignment in a way that a CIS boy from Texas. That's wild. [00:06:18] Speaker A: I was just, I was just in. In not just Austin, like San Marcos and surrounding areas. And I, you know, you've a lot of. Texas still is like very much in the 1900s. [00:06:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:31] Speaker A: And. And there are few places. There are fewer places. And not so much in Austin anymore because Austin's just like a, Like a tech city now. [00:06:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:40] Speaker A: But weird. Yeah. Yeah. You really do see the. The drag element of performed, you know, both like masculinity and heteronormativity and in this place in such a big, like, unironic, almost funny if it weren't so menacing way. So I'm not surprised that someone from Texas could pull. Could. Could meet the assignment, you know, that's. [00:07:07] Speaker B: That's excellent. And we got one of the best people to do it. Dustin to this day, still working. One of the best ones he got. He just got even better on all this, I like to say. I like to think it's because he went out there and got all the harassment he would have gotten if he was a gay man in drag. And it's just like you get a laminated pass to the party. You know what I mean? Like, if you. Yeah, we've both gotten the f. Slur screamed at us in public. I feel like that brings us a little closer, you know, like, so, yeah, it makes sense. But to bring it around full circle and the. This resurgence we're in of. Of queerness. Hood Slam. Kid Bandit, who is this amazing non binary wrestler who does like anime. Oh, my God. Kid Bandit. And Kid Bandit's having a resurgence. She was off for a while and they're back. But I guess, apparently it was brought to my attention that they redid the Shawn Michaels thing with the hood slam bell. [00:08:08] Speaker A: Oh, great. [00:08:09] Speaker B: And I was just like, oh, that's fantastic. So, yes, sure enough, wrestling has always been queer. Just now we're unironic about it, and it's intensive. Like, it's intentional. [00:08:21] Speaker A: And there's the whole. I'm sure you must be familiar, but there's the whole there. There are all these catchphrases at hood slim. And one of them is like, is. Is an ironic, unironic yelling of this is real. And I feel like. Like, I feel like that's like part of this reassessment of the past 25 years is it's like, what truth was this speaking to in me? [00:08:43] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely, Alex. And like, that's. I mean, it's part of why I do this show, because it hit me so hard that I was like, I need to talk to people about this. Like, what the hell? And, like, not just my therapist, the poor cats named after a wrestler. Like, it's just terrible. I know, Moxley, you'll never forgive me. But no, it is, and it's important and it says a lot about. And you can take that on that personal level and like we said, blow it up to the macro level of what we're going out into now and. And Nitro. Let's go into it. I'm gonna say. I'm gonna say we start with Nitro, because we are in the episodes where that blurring of kayfabe that becomes Josie's Neo kayfabe is really, really taking off. [00:09:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:33] Speaker B: Because Scott Hall's here in that whole thing. And I. This happened before I was aware that wrestling was still happening on television. I was young enough that I thought it was this thing in the past that you can get on VHS but doesn't happen anymore. And. And now it was like, wait, no, this is happening live on tv. So we start with our. Our nitro intro. It's Tony and Larry for hour one. These are certainly a couple of men in blazers, is what I would say. [00:10:06] Speaker A: Like, was that was there in looking them up just to sort of like, catch up a bit. Like, was their signature look. Like their look was like. Was like boxy blazer in either turtleneck or like. Or like high neck collar and like, not even. [00:10:21] Speaker B: Yeah, not even like a full turtle. Yeah, high neck collar. Like, not quite. Quite like, he didn't want to commit to the turtle. [00:10:26] Speaker A: It was TNT formal, you know, Good for. [00:10:30] Speaker B: Alex. I'm so happy that you were just right into what happens with me on the show, which is. I'm gonna talk about the fashion. I'm sorry. [00:10:38] Speaker A: It's all like a. It's certainly all I could notice. Also, like. Like, I know we're not at Cornet yet, but like, also, like, just like Cornet style at this time is like, he's just, like, dressed like a rectangle all the time. I'm really excited. [00:10:52] Speaker B: It's like dish steel, but with pastels. It's like, oh, my God. Yeah, I love it. But we'll get there. Because what made me want to jump in is the talk of that blending. That boys show us last week where Scott hall shows up again and gets slapped and talks about a big surprise. So we have that to look forward to. And I mean, I'm no writer, but I'm on the edge of my seat if I'm watching this in 1996. [00:11:16] Speaker A: Amen. I also just like, like, I mean, I. There is a Ramon character problematic, say the least. [00:11:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:25] Speaker A: But there's. And I think Scott hall as a lived person, problematic. But there is no one I think is hotter than Scott Hall. [00:11:36] Speaker B: It's a problem. Alex. It's a problem. [00:11:40] Speaker A: Like when we open and he's there and they're sort of like, doing, like, sort of like the promo setup or whatever for what's coming up. I was like, oh, yes. I remember now, like, 96 is like the hottest man on the planet. Have you ever seen that? Have you ever seen him on Jerry Springer? That one? [00:11:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Where he gave. Oh, my God. Do you know the story about that? [00:12:01] Speaker A: Oh, I. Bald. Yeah. No. Can you. [00:12:04] Speaker B: Can you. [00:12:05] Speaker A: I'm. By the way, I'm sorry. If we're going to try to go linear. Linearly, because my brain is fucked in this direction and I'm already in Jerry. [00:12:14] Speaker B: Springer territory, but I'm gonna do my best. But same, you know, so it happens. But no, he. I know the Jerry spirit you talked about. He went on there and he had this intercontinental title belt, and they had a pay per view the next day, and he gives the title away to a kid who had, like, cancer or something. It was like, oh, man, I feel real bad. And then he gets off and he has to call Vince, like, hey, make sure you got another belt in the town. What'd you lose it? I gave it away. I felt bad. [00:12:44] Speaker A: Gave, like, as sort of to even boost the level of interest there. The kid had aids. [00:12:50] Speaker B: Oh, that's what it was. [00:12:52] Speaker A: And he on television gave these kids hugs. [00:12:56] Speaker B: That's amazing. [00:12:57] Speaker A: And if you just think about like the time and him and the, and the people who are watching the show, like it was, that's huge. It's hugely touching like when you think. But I love that he was like Demi Newfeld. [00:13:12] Speaker B: So good because people have lost them. But I think it's the first time I was like here to a kid with aids. And if he's like, Vince was like, yeah, you're right. Like I can't even be mad at you for that one yet. You're right there. In the interest of trying to go linear though, we'll at least talk about the first grabs of the night. We are eating well. Booker T. And singles action and scooter pie. What I put here, Scott, I never liked a growth hormone. I didn't love Steiner yet. Human bovine it. What makes hippos big. Gimme whatever it takes. And I mean this match is great. I'm gonna just say it's not one to miss. Sickos. Watch it. It's as exquisite as you imagine be being. It's two guys with big power moves. Booker T kicks real, real pretty like. And most, most importantly, the energy they give, it's. It really feels like they're trying to beat each other. And it's like a six minute match, but it really, really goes. Yeah. The only notable spot I had as far as that goes, I want to make sure I mention, is there was this great spot where the two big dudes are doing a, A, a test of strength. You know, like they, sometimes they, they grab the fingers, but they did it with the arm hook and Scott Steiner's trying to backslide him into a pin and Booker's like really fighting it and I was like, that's good old fashioned phony fisticuffs. So for that alone, folks, check it out. How did you feel about this opening match? [00:14:41] Speaker A: I was less like. So these are two characters. I mean Booker T. I have like a little bit more history with, but like these are, these are two characters that I like kind of had no investment in and so I had to like re, like go and sort of like check out who is who. I was more taken. And again, this just shows sort of like A, how bitchy I am and B, where my interests are. Like, I was more taken by the fact that is it like Mongo's wife. [00:15:08] Speaker B: Who comes out to like after this. Yeah, finish up Scott. Scott ends up winning it and they, after they finish up, Scott's breathlessly Talking to Gene. And it's Mongo's wife, Deborah. [00:15:20] Speaker A: And it is. At acting like it is. [00:15:24] Speaker B: Yes. Exquisite. Yes. [00:15:26] Speaker A: She. [00:15:27] Speaker B: She is what's wild to me, Alex is like, I knew her in the Fed. Later on, she gets way better. [00:15:35] Speaker A: I'm glad to hear that. [00:15:36] Speaker B: She gets so much better. She's like, real green here. The thing that floored me is that when she comes in, Scott Steiner bows out gracefully and says, wow, she looks real upset, you know. And I was like, that was downright gentlemanly. I don't expect that from Scooter Pie Steiner. [00:15:52] Speaker A: It was actually. It was actually surprising. [00:15:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it was actually. That was a little heartfelt. You freaked me out here. But yeah, she says that Mongo's very upset and about Rick Floyd Flair trying to make sex times happen with her on national television. And that makes sense, you know, while he's busy working and you know, gosh, golly, she's just worried he's gonna hurt someone real bad. And the crowd like, goes. And I was like, you know, I was trying to be a boy at the time. I feel like this would have been emasculating. But the crowd seems to love it, so who knows? Obviously, I don't know. And sure enough, it seems like that's what they're going for. Because when you get back on comment, like, Larry Zabisco tries to do that and say, like, oh, his wife has to fight for him. I was like, I don't think that's what was happening here at all, like, at all. [00:16:45] Speaker A: I do feel like. I mean, I feel like just being reminded of like, how much happens, like, between matches and like, sort of side, like between matches, promos. Like who, like, commentary about like a. Like a. A B pull, like a side B plot setting up something else. I don't know how commentators stayed, like, understanding what was happening like this. Like, watching a two hour nitro really made me appreciate a one hour romp. [00:17:16] Speaker B: Right. No, thank you. And I think that we're. As the show goes on, we're really gonna get to the point where I. I think that an hour of wrestling television might be perfect. Perfect. Yeah, I. Right. [00:17:30] Speaker A: By the time this is over again. Yeah, by the time this is over, I'm like, okay, but like Raw Ends in a cliffhanger. Like, it ends in like a. Like a snappy cliffhanger. Like, it's like, it basically feels like it should be still going and then just freeze it and it's done. [00:17:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And it's all good. And it. [00:17:48] Speaker A: I hate to give. I Hate to give Vince any credit ever, but in this case, I think an hour is good. [00:17:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I do think an hour is good. And it's like, you know that what. This is a war. Damn it, Alex. They're gonna get in a arms race and this is the start of it. And because of it, we now have three hour raws that I don't watch. I just do not watch too much. It is. It is way too much. But it's a good little in between bit. Kind of weird feminism. I'll take it. You know, like Deborah's trying to blame herself and they're like, no, no, no. Ric Flair is a piece of. And your husband is right to cause him bodily harm. And we move on to DDP versus Jim Powers. A wild jobber appears. And it's Jim Powers. I don't know what to say about this guy other than imagine a professional wrestler in 1996 named Jim Powers. You got him. [00:18:39] Speaker A: That's it. [00:18:40] Speaker B: That's it. Yeah. [00:18:42] Speaker A: I didn't. I. I felt this was unmemorable. Like, I can't remember. [00:18:48] Speaker B: Yeah, no, absolutely. [00:18:49] Speaker A: It's a lot of circling the ring. It's like five long minutes. [00:18:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it was like four. Four minutes and four long seconds, according to my notes. But yes, but it's deep. I will. I do want to give it a couple of. Of notable things because on this show we are tracking the evolution of diamond Dallas page into his final form. And the great yogi is. Is out for a romp. He does like four minutes on heel wrestling. That's. It's like an insult comic. Technically. He's there for a different job. He spends the whole time with the crowd. Like, it's beautiful. But he ends it with his diamond cutter. And Tony calls it a diamond cutter for the first time. Yep. So I have to make sure to let everyone know at home, if you have the. The advent calendar, you can mark off that bit on one step closer to his final form. That. That's. I should absolutely sell those in the merch shop. [00:19:45] Speaker A: You absolutely should. [00:19:48] Speaker B: But yeah. Then we get to more exposition corner with mean Gene. And this is really cool because he's in the locker room, which is unusual. And you get Conan, who's the u. S. Champ, and he's talking on elgato in English and Spanish. And I like this. I wish people would do this more, like, personally. And it's just. I love the luchas in wcw and I'm. We didn't get to see him fight, but I'm happy that they're still represented. And like, unfortunately, it's one of those things where I regret to inform Conan in real life. True of a human being. Loving his early work on nitro though, you know, I believe it that that's the nature of the beast here is that you can't don't meet your heroes. [00:20:38] Speaker A: Totally. Yeah. Sometimes it does not pay off. Yeah. [00:20:41] Speaker B: But I mean this nitro continues to cook along. We get Sting versus Meng and I looked at my notes here and said it's a three minute match. I was like, no, because like the first like three, four minutes or four matches of this show are all. They're really good. It cooks. It feels like they're trying to keep the energy up and like by the end of it, like these are two really great guys. Stinging maggot rhymes. You know, like, I. This has banger qualities, but in the end it feels like a squash with extra steps and that's really weird. So, you know, I, I will you. I try to give people a watch it or skip it at the end of every match. This one. Your mileage may vary. It's. [00:21:26] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like one of these things where it's like the, Again, like as a person who appreciates this as a whole, but isn't necessarily granular, like I think like the, the one benefit. Even though, like, I mean Sting notoriously, like, like, I don't know, it's hard to like Sting. [00:21:50] Speaker B: It's hard to like this Sting specifically. [00:21:54] Speaker A: But he's cool. He's cool to look at. Like, I, I, that's like the thing that I enjoyed as I was like, I like looking at him. He looks menacing thing. [00:22:02] Speaker B: It's important that he doesn't talk into the microphone. But yes, he looks very menacing. [00:22:08] Speaker A: Do you run into this too where it's like, you know all of these people's like personal histories. So you're like, I'm watching them in 96 and I'm like, enjoy it, guys. Like, like, like, like Randy, Miss Elizabeth and Sting. Enjoy this time because y' all are in for a world of pain. Like it's just so or. And then, and then, you know. Crispin, while later in the. [00:22:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. That of it all is, is just. [00:22:33] Speaker A: Watching all of this and being like, holy you guys are. Some of you are gonna make it out and some of you. It's rough. [00:22:43] Speaker B: Hi. Hello. This is Garrick from the future. Editor's note. Alex was in Miami at a porn convention. Like Alex's do. Went to a flea market and saw a vintage Sting action figure. Small aside on my aside here, this vintage Sting action figure is post WWE acquisition. Me, I'm old. Anyways, he realized he got this wrong two weeks ago. All of this. He was thinking about Lex Luger, Macho man and Elizabeth, which made sense and I was prob. I feel like, like I was about to correct him at the time. And then he said Benoit and I just got sad and we tangent like we do on this show. So anyways, Alex wanted to make sure I got it in there because no beef with Sting. We love our Stinger. But I, I still say that this era of Sting is hard. I stand by my words on that. Love Sting, but God, liminal Sting. Anyways, back to the show. It, it. It really is and it's. It's. I love doing this show. Be kind of because of that. Because it's wonderful to have hindsight, wonderful to watch this stuff as a grown up and, and all that. But yeah, every once in a while, anytime, anytime that like, like a couple weeks back, someone made a joke alluding about Lex Luger hooking up with Ms. Elizabeth. Elizabeth and I went. [00:24:20] Speaker A: Yeah, you. Oh my God. Just like speaking of difficult, Very, very few redeeming qualities. The. Yeah, all of these. I'm sure in some of these episodes you're like, oh, this ends tragically for everybody. [00:24:35] Speaker B: Like it's one. I've had to turn it into a weird fun where when I get people on who don't know anything about wrestling, I get. They'll be like, oh wow, I really like this person. I'd be like, you're sitting down. Okay. Sometimes it's. Sometimes it's so much fun. Yeah. [00:24:54] Speaker A: I think some of these episodes are like watching the first half of. Of what's that wrestling movie I really loved that came out a couple years ago about the. The Texas Brothers. [00:25:05] Speaker B: Oh, Iron Claw. [00:25:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of these episodes is just like real life Iron Claws. [00:25:11] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Which. Oh God. Real life Iron Claw. We'll get there. Those guys will show up eventually. But yeah, this is it really is. And, and speaking of the. The Miss Elizabeth of it all. Deborah goes into the back to try to talk to Flair. Gene hooks her up with Bobby who is like, okay, close enough just to get to it into this because I guess it's going to make sense later. They throw her into the locker room. She instantly starts screaming. And like you just said, knowing the full stories, I'm just like sick to my stomach here. Knowing the Ric Flair of it all. I'm just like this reads so differently. And then they quickly Kick her out. And yay. But there it. It gets washed down by an example of a suspension of disbelief that we like to embrace in this fake sport. Because Ric Flair puts a figure four on Renegade in a backstage fist fight. And I just. The Internet has ruined my brain. So the first thing I think of is that gif of Andy Daly from Comedy Bang bang. Like the 555. Come on. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you're gonna be in a bar fight. Like, let me. Let me twist it. Let me do a spinning toe hold here. And like, no, it's not. It's not happening. [00:26:36] Speaker A: Yeah, Absolutely not. [00:26:39] Speaker B: But yes, The. The. That was a little weird. Nitro keeps cooking, though, with these quick matches because it's Jim Duggan and Squire David Taylor. They want to end the first hour with some good, good 1776 heat. So we got some blue bloods. [00:26:59] Speaker A: I was just gonna say we had a. You know, I haven't seen a USA chant in a while, so that was. Was good to be. [00:27:04] Speaker B: Yeah, you gotta replenish the. Replenish those batteries. Yeah. [00:27:09] Speaker A: I was glad to hear. [00:27:10] Speaker B: Thankfully, he's fighting what I imagine a Fourth of July sale at Home Depot would look like. If it's a person, just, oh, it's Jim Dugen. And like, this guy. I mean, there's not much to say about Jim Dugen. He. He's. What you see is what you get it. La. This thing lasts all of two minutes. It ends with Dugan hitting him with his roll of penis tape. There you go. You know, the only noticeable thing of this whole thing for me was at one point, Dave Taylor is, like, trying to do some character work with the crowd and, like, some crowd work. And he just. I don't know if it's genius or lazy. He just starts quoting Churchill angrily at the crowd. I'm gonna fight him in the air, in the sea. And I was like, what are you talking about? I'm not even convinced that man's British. If I was a more professional podcaster, I would look it up. But it's very strange. On the way to commercial, though, they give us. Speaking of our luchas, they do a promo for the pay per view coming up Patreon, for folks who want to be around for that watch party. And it's a montage of D. Malenko kicking ass and Rey Mysterio Jr. Kicking ass in Mexico. And I did a happy dance because Ray. Him and Ray Ray. This is the start to, like. How did I put this? I'm. It's the Monday night fake Fights version of edging until we record the bash. Because the program, the program between these two is so good. [00:28:46] Speaker A: I feel like. I feel like you probably generate like a good, A good merch option every 10 minutes on the show. [00:28:52] Speaker B: Oh, God, no. You know, if I, if, if I kept that again, if I was more professional. Sure. Last one we did was Rack Me, Bro, which actually made me laugh very hard. Yeah, that's good stuff. But, yeah, I'm excited for that. And, yeah, Nitro's cooking. It's very strange. I guess it's good because it's an hour and a half. Like, half with commercials cut out. And it's like, I still, like we said, I, I. Alex, I think an hour is right. I think just. I think an hour. [00:29:23] Speaker A: It gives it a little more. Like, by the end of this, I'm like, okay, who. Who fought? Like, I. Because if you see so many faces and they're all like, you know, three to five minute matches and added up, you're like, okay, a lot just happened. But I mean, I could see that being like, again, to put this in context, and I'm sure you've done this a bunch of times on the show. It's like, you know, I, by the time I got out of bed, watched like 40 reels. And so in 96 or 97, like, this is all the content you're watching in a day. Like, you get home, you know, you probably, like, watch whatever the news you, like, flip around or whatever. And then you put this on and this is just all the media you're consuming. [00:30:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, maybe you had some radio during the day, depending on, on your job. [00:30:11] Speaker A: Or like, like an hour and a half must have been like a blessing because you're just getting more like moving pictures, doing things, which is nice. [00:30:19] Speaker B: Sitting your ass down for two hours. Like, like, you can't even hate the commercials because it's just. You're done, you know, like, that's. [00:30:25] Speaker A: He's sitting down. I'm watching this. I'm eating one of those, like, gallon cartons of goldfish. [00:30:33] Speaker B: Oh, let's go. I don't even care that that mean jeans on the screen, talking to Jimmy Hart. And I look at Jimmy Hart. What the is a Jimmy? I don't care. I got goldfish. [00:30:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't care. What is your take on Jimmy Hart overall? [00:30:46] Speaker B: My take on Jimmy Hart overall? I think that Jimmy Hart I used. I feel like he's. I feel like, oh, God. You know how they have those stories of, like, the Appalachian, like, cave goblins, You Know, I feel like he's the Memphis version of that. It, like, it's like he. He's a Tulpa of. Of. Of month, Memphis good old boy. Wrestling was like, we need a manager. And they just. And he just sprung up and is perfect. Yeah. He annoys me and he's perfect. [00:31:23] Speaker A: I love him. I think, like, I'm. I'm enchanted by him. Anytime he's on screen doing anything, I'm like, I'm here for what it's like. And speaking of drag, it's like, what does he do? He's like Little Richard, like, Paul Bearer. [00:31:42] Speaker B: Later. It's. Oh, my God, I see. I can do. See, I can do Nonlinear too, Alex. But no, it's the weird little dudes in wrestling. He. [00:31:53] Speaker A: He's. [00:31:53] Speaker B: He's WCW's perfect weird little dude. And some listeners will be like, you don't love Jimmy Hart. I'm like, no, no, no, no. I love to hate Jimmy Hart. [00:32:04] Speaker A: Oh, sure. [00:32:05] Speaker B: That counts because. Because in wrestling, that. That means he's doing good. Yeah. [00:32:11] Speaker A: If it inspires a strong feeling that that stays moderately consistent over time. [00:32:19] Speaker B: You're winning. Yeah, you're. You're drawing, pal. You know, that's. That. Yeah. Vince likes that, so. No, my thought on Jimmy Hart is he's one of a kind. He's legendary for a reason. I love to hate him. I think he's absolutely ridiculous, but he's ridiculous in a camp way. The airbrushing of, like, he used to just go to. To, like, Goodwills and stuff in whatever town they land in, find a suit that, that, that matched him, and then airbrush whoever he was managing that night. I'll do it. And, like, that became his whole thing. And like, he's right. He is still riding that out. Good commitment to the bit. Go for it. Like. [00:33:03] Speaker A: Well, it's also like, you need. I mean, this is like, speaking of Paul Bearer, like, if you have a wrestler whose whole thing is they lack affect, like, you need someone to have affect on their behalf. [00:33:17] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:33:18] Speaker A: And that's, like, often what you get with. I don't know who decided giants are like, kind of like, mute or without affect or, like, with a very specific affect. But, like, yeah, you need someone to be like, the toady on their behalf. [00:33:31] Speaker B: Well, I'm gonna tell you right now why this specific giant be. Because it pisses me off, Alex. But yes, you are so right. Good transition. You're. It's like you're some sort of podcaster or something. But no, Right. Yeah, I'm familiar with the Concept. But yeah, Jimmy Hart is that for the Giant? Because the Giant is green. He's like 27, 28 at this point. He's younger. He did. He was. You won't surprise you. He play basketball. He was this big tall guy. He had the same thing as Andre. The same thing that. That caused Andre the Giant to. To grow. But he had his taken out when he. The tumor taken out when he was 27. So he stopped growing. Andre kept going until it eventually killed him. But like, all anyone could see is like, well, you're Andre the Giants kid. That's what we're going with. And what sucks about that though is he's actually an athlete. And the reason that Andre was near the end there, this big, lumbering kind of guy. And the reason he had that affect is because he was French and didn't speak very good English for a promo. He needed Bobby Heenan to talk for him. And he was in constant pain. That's why he walked like that. Is because he was in a lot of pain at that point. When you see matches of younger Andre the Giant wrestling in Japan, he looks a lot more like Paul White and he's moving a lot. It blew my mind. Like, Andre could work. It was really something. But people fell in love with that lumbering thing. So you have the Giant show up in Paul White with. In this stuff in wcw and he wants to do more. And he. When he first got there, they were letting him. They're like, just go do your thing. And he was doing more athletic stuff. He would get on the top rope and. And fly. He did it like twice. And it's really why. And it's like, you don't see that. And then he got the belt because he's the champion here, right? When they. When they put the belt on him, they're like, no, no, no. You Giant. You gur. You are. [00:35:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:49] Speaker B: And they wouldn't let him do anything else. So he comes out here and he does that to Scott Norton. And it again, it's. It's a squash match in with extra steps. It's, you know, under two minutes. Does not. Scott Norton, God love him. He tried like, he tries to get some offense in, but he gets choke slammed on the outside and that's it. But, you know, it's. It's unfortunate that they did. I refer to it as what they have done to the Giants because he used to be really cool and then this happened. And I love that you noticed it. Like, you're like, why are they all like that? I'm like, because it worked for Andre and they decided that that's what a Giant has to be now. [00:36:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is we. I mean, yeah, at some point they were like giants. I don't know if it's like. Yeah, I mean, with regard to like how the paradigm was set, all of that like makes total sense. And I don't know if there's any additional where they're like, well, the fear is in the stature and like, we don't need to hear the talking. But like, I, I don't know. I would love to hear a talkative giant. [00:36:53] Speaker B: A talkative giant would be great. And like we could have had that. The things we could have had. And sometimes you get it. But not, not in the wwf you won't have a talkative giant. Vince likes his giants large and, and, and not white if he can help it because like, it's even more exotic and racist and gives people chances to do that, you know. [00:37:15] Speaker A: Wait, Vince McMahon? [00:37:17] Speaker B: Yeah, that guy. No, I don't believe it. There were signs. Yeah, so. But yeah, no, good call it. That's solid stuff. But yeah, this match, it's a squash. He kills him. He kills him dead. That's all you have to know. Yeah, kills him dead. Feel free to skip it, sickos. Luger does come out to try to. To kick his ass though. And Giant does not want to use his big boy words. He just. And it works. I kind of love this next though. This is really sweet. And this is wild Alex, because this is the shortest match of the night. But so much happens. Yeah. [00:37:59] Speaker A: Was it even a minute? [00:38:00] Speaker B: 57 seconds, literally. Good call. Lord Steven Regal, the greatest villain to ever do it. And he's fighting like a super baby jobber, Billy Kidman. And it was like, oh, his nitro debut of this little guy. He looks like he's 12. He's gonna go on to have a pretty sweet career, but this guy is a master of he. We have a great episode for heel work, basically. Unfortunately though, it's 57 seconds. It's too fast paced. He don't get time to play it too much. A lot of wild happens. It ends with Regal doing some nasty business. It's almost a. A lion tamer style Boston crab. Folks will know what that means with a boot on the guy's head. Like he's just got a boot on his head like an extra you. But yeah, this was a squash and a half, but it was a squash where like seven to eight huge spots happened, you know what I mean? Like the fast pacedness of it was. It was breakneck speed. Yeah. The. To. To that point, I wrote down one notable spot here. Kidman goes for a 450 splash. So he does, like, a full front flip and just lands on his knees. You can see he lands on his knees, but the way he snaps his head back and sells it, it looks like he, like, bounces and. Holy, that was so great when he does that. Eric says after, there's a brain buster. And Eric's like, oh, God, he landed on his head, Bobby. Like, that's okay. It was like, oh, God damn it. Bobby was. Bobby was on fire tonight. But, yeah, no, it was quick. It was. It was painless. Well, for some of the. Some of us, it looks like it hurt. Might have hurt Kidman a little. And apparently, though, while hot dog boyfriend Lex was running out in that previous match, golden retriever puppy boyfriend Sting was in the back taking notes, and he's like, I see Lex. Do. I do. He runs out, like, right at the end of this to get his receipt on Regal. Uh, and he does, in fact, backfist the. Out of him in the middle of the ring. Regal, he sells it like he's been sullied. Like, his beautiful face. And the crowd's like, all right, let's go, America. Woo. The USA Chance again. Yeah, but this feels. Oh, go ahead. [00:40:31] Speaker A: I was just gonna say the olden times. [00:40:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that. Better time. No, not better times. I do not want to return, but I was gonna say this. This marks the end of the. Holy. This is a lot of nitro. Really fast. Like, I feel like. And because we get two more matches and they're both pretty more laid back. [00:40:54] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like, dude, these last two matches take up the last half hour. Like, it feels like it was like a, like, breakneck hour and a half. And then the last two matches have, like, a lot of breathing room. [00:41:04] Speaker B: It's. It's weird. I appreciate it. I like my wrestling with more breathing room. It was kind of like just, wow. I. I was just kind of like, we're. We're flying through this. But I was like, well, they flew through it. This is only, like, the third episode that they've done the two hours, so I feel like they're still kind of just figuring it out. [00:41:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Figuring it. [00:41:23] Speaker B: They've been doing a lot of. Of video vignettes that I. I would rather they not. Yeah, there's a lot of, like, minute and a half. Two minutes of Hulk Hogan grunting at people to American made that I just don't need to see. Again, that's fine. [00:41:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't like what was. So I didn't pay much attention. I mean, speaking. I didn't pay much attention to wrestling at this time at all. But I, as a person who wasn't paying attention, I wasn't fully. I did not fully know about the Monday Night Wars. Like, I didn't know that we were sort of establishing sort of a whole other sort of alternative property to then wwf, now wwe. And then, like, I just couldn't. It was like, very. As a person who wasn't paying close attention, but these people were very. I was still aware of them. Like, it was very strange to have no context for, like, why Hulk Hogan suddenly had a new personality or, like, why, like, Randy Savage more or less just stayed Randy Savage, although he was just wearing black. Like, that was the difference. [00:42:29] Speaker B: But, like, the most part. Yeah, he's just. He was. He was wearing black and he was beating up different people. That's it. [00:42:34] Speaker A: But like, there was something about, like, I think, like, was Hulk Hogan's look that, like, he had just the darkest on earth, five o' clock shadow and a. But also a bleach blonde mustache. Like, there was like, it was so strange. It was like if, like, suddenly, like, again, as these characters who are always around, it was like, it's like suddenly, like Freddy Krueger was wearing a tank top. You're like, when did this happen? Like, when. Or like. Or like Elvira has like a. Has like now like a bob. You're like, what. Like, what is happening? [00:43:08] Speaker B: Santa and the Easter bunnies switched colors. You know, like, this is wrong. [00:43:13] Speaker A: Exactly. And it's like, it's what I've enjoyed in going back to all this is, like, making sense of all of it and, like, being like, oh, okay, there was, like, a rationale for this. Like, there was all this stuff going on in the background. Like, Ted Turner's trying to make as much money as possible. Like, all of these things are happening. But, yeah, that's what I. That's what I've enjoyed most about going back is going like, oh, there was a rationale to all of this. [00:43:35] Speaker B: Yeah, there really was. Even if, you know, we've been breaking it down over 41 episodes now. And the more we do, the more I go back to what we figured out in, like, the first or second episode, which is that this entire war is about the fact that that Hulk dumped Vince and. And. And don't. He's not mad about it at all. He doesn't miss him at all. Don't Tell anyone. I'm not going to make sketches about how awful Ted Turner is because I don't miss Hulk. I'm not going to, like, make fun of him for being old because I don't miss him. You can't tell me I miss him. You. I don't miss him. Him. And like, like, that's the whole thing is that Hulk left and Vince was like, now what do I do? But then Hulk got to WCW and was like, well, now what do I do, brother? Like, I don't. Like, I don't. Yeah, I need a big guy to slam. It's the only thing I know. Me and Vince made money one way. Well. [00:44:26] Speaker A: And I need a container. Like, Hulk. Like Hulk Hogan isn't out there, like, imagining how to be featured. He just needs to be featured. [00:44:34] Speaker B: Yeah, he's not that smart. Yeah. He's not that good at this. Like, he's that. [00:44:38] Speaker A: That whole. I mean, God damn. Just the. As I've always threatened, starting my podcast, Psychosexuality Today, where we look at the news through this lens, but just this whole God damn. And again, like, seeing how it applies to modern politics, like Vince's whole thing of taking in these sons and him being a son that was taken in by a guy who precedes him, and taking in these sons and using them up until they are not usable anymore. Anymore, and then not missing them at all or throwing them under the bus or like, doing whatever. [00:45:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:10] Speaker A: For decades is so brutal. [00:45:14] Speaker B: It's so up. The worst I. The worst I can think of is Bret Hart. [00:45:20] Speaker A: Oh, my God. That breaks the Bret Hart. Every. The Brett heart of it all breaks my heart. [00:45:25] Speaker B: Yeah. The Brett heart of it all is. I mean, that's. We've just started to touch on some of that here, folks. Spoilers. It gets brutal. Yeah. So, yeah, Hearts. [00:45:38] Speaker A: Another God. There's more than one wrestler in your family. Someone's gonna die, and the rest of the story is going to be deeply upsetting. Yeah. [00:45:46] Speaker B: Holy. No. So I, like, I loved Iron Claw. I would love for someone to do the hearts to do the Calgary, Alberta Iron Claw. [00:45:55] Speaker A: Well, that's where I became on. Because I know the histories. I don't. I don't necessarily know them in real time. And when I became un. Insufferable to everyone around me was being like, oh, that's just one family. Like, every wrestling family has a. Maybe not as. As almost. I mean, biblical. A. A. [00:46:17] Speaker B: As smiting. Like, Like God was mad at you for that Nazi gimmick. [00:46:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:46:24] Speaker B: But. [00:46:24] Speaker A: But there's always, if there's, if there's three wrestlers of note in a family, one of them will die tragically. Like that's just how it goes basically. [00:46:34] Speaker B: And I mean, the only time I can think of so far, fingers crossed, that hasn't happened, is the roads. [00:46:40] Speaker A: Oh yeah. [00:46:41] Speaker B: Dusty got to live a good life where he got all of his flowers and got to train kids until the end of his days. And both of his sons are successes. Like his one son just finished a year long reign as the champion, holding a belt that he never got. Like, if, if I was him, I'd be happy. [00:47:01] Speaker A: I'm so, and I'm so glad that a guy who looked like Dusty Rhodes. [00:47:06] Speaker B: That'S what I'm saying. [00:47:09] Speaker A: A did it and then B, made it through to the end. [00:47:12] Speaker B: Like in, in, in spite of Vince, with him at every corner, at every corner. He, he just got to live his best life even though he looked like that. Yeah, absolutely. [00:47:23] Speaker A: So good. Love him. [00:47:24] Speaker B: Ah. A, we should finish out. [00:47:28] Speaker A: Sorry. [00:47:28] Speaker B: No, no, it's okay. We're doing the things I told you. It wasn't just you. That being said, there's not much to say about this one, folks. It's the Public Enemy versus the Nasty Boys again. And this is just Nasty Boys versus cultural appropriation. Nasty Boys, they're the same team. It's just one of them has are Italian guys with box braids. Like, that's it. So that's it. This is not a great match. I'm gonna say skip it because we've watched it so many times already. There's not anything notice notable they brawl. Y' all know what happened. That's it. [00:48:05] Speaker A: So. [00:48:05] Speaker B: Yeah, right. We come back for our main event though, and this one's a, a lot more fun. It's Flair and Arn. They were supposed to fight Renegade and, and his uh, buddy Joe Gomez, but they sent him to the hospital in the back. [00:48:20] Speaker A: I kind of love this, this era of flair in that, like, he looks, he looks like the senior manager of A all the time. Like, and he just like took his shirt off to like wrestle with you. Like, he looks like, he looks like your dad. Like that, that friend that has a scumbag dad. Like, he looks like that dad. [00:48:39] Speaker B: We've seen him fighting khakis, Alex. I've seen him do it. [00:48:43] Speaker A: Like what was happening in the like Ric Flair style department in the mid-90s. [00:48:51] Speaker B: I have an answer for that one. Tonnages of cocaine. [00:48:56] Speaker A: This is also, also right when Metallica cuts their hair off like, and like this is like the time when if you had, like, a feathery. Whatever that was, like, you cut it into whatever. This is. Like, this is. Yeah, it's a. This was a very interesting cultural time for hair. [00:49:13] Speaker B: Yes. He's not the worst to do it, but this is a weird cultural hair for Ric Flair. Very. He. He. He is a dickhead. And he kind of looks like a dickhead. Yeah, yeah. He'll say, not complimentary. This complimentary. [00:49:29] Speaker A: He's. He's. He's someone. I have such a complicated relation. I'm sure we all do. But, like, he's like. I love his character so much, and I know that he is his character, and that's hard because you're. I'm like, I hate him. I love the character. [00:49:44] Speaker B: He is. [00:49:45] Speaker A: It's like. It's like deciphering the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. It's like, who is what, The Holy. [00:49:51] Speaker B: Trinity of Ric Flair. Yeah. [00:49:53] Speaker A: I don't approve of anything he did, including maybe laying the groundwork for his son dying young. [00:50:00] Speaker B: But the. Yeah, we have. We've. Oh, thank you, Alex. We've barely touched on that. We'll get there. [00:50:07] Speaker A: He's such a. I mean, but he's such a tragic and charismatic figure that it's like, what do you even do? I mean, he's. He's. He, to me is like the. The. The signifier of the entire art form. Right. Is that it's like. It's like something extremely entertaining to watch, something extremely entertaining to engage in someone who's extraordinarily talented and deeply unlikable in large part because of the system that they went through. Like. Yeah, anyway, sorry. We haven't even gone to the fight. [00:50:37] Speaker B: Oh, my God. No, that's. This is. No, don't apologize for your art. This is it. This is what the show is. That's such an amazing point. Like, I could not have said it better. Like, he is the. I think that's why I'm so fascinated with him, too. I hate. Because it's one of those things where it's like, I hate him. I hate him so much. But also, like, he's Rick Flair. And you gotta love what. In context, it would be so great. Like, in case of this match, he walks out looking amazing in that, like, his pink, flowery get up. And I love it. [00:51:16] Speaker A: And, like, a dike, too, which is great. [00:51:18] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. With. Especially when you put them with Liz and woman, and, like, Liz is in, like, a little black leather, like, polyester dress and, like, give me that band. Oh, My God. I'm like, yes. No, this is. I could see y' all at the gay 90s. Let's go. We should. [00:51:35] Speaker A: You know, what you submerged should be is you should have a picture of the three of them together and have it. And have it be the slits like as the van. [00:51:42] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. Holy. All right, I'm gonna write that down when I'm editing. Well done, Alex. All right. Excellent. [00:51:50] Speaker A: You. [00:51:50] Speaker B: You. Congrats. You've joined. You have joined the ranks of guests who have made merch happen. [00:51:56] Speaker A: That. [00:51:56] Speaker B: That is too good. You and Erica can just fight about it. Yeah. I predict that this is gonna be one of those matches where it's cookie cutter but the cookies hard. So I'm all right. And like, kind of as I permitted or predicted, like, it's 18 minutes of these guys just getting their in. Yeah, but those guys are Arne Anderson, Ric Flair, Sting and Lex Luger. So their is really awesome. [00:52:22] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like a. It's fun to watch. It's like, cool to watch. Like, you're like. You're like, what's gonna happen? They're all like. Again, they're all difficult people who look great. [00:52:32] Speaker B: Absolute difficult people look great. [00:52:34] Speaker A: Great. [00:52:35] Speaker B: It's like, no, it's like, yeah, it's like if Dawson's Creek had more fighting, like. Yeah, it's difficult people that look amazing. [00:52:42] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:52:43] Speaker B: I mean, what was that old mad TV bit? Pretty people with problems. That's it. [00:52:49] Speaker A: Totally. [00:52:51] Speaker B: But this match is. I'm gonna say watch it. Even though, like, folks, you've probably seen it already. I don't care it like. Like, it's one of those things. If you've seen these guys fight, you've seen. Seen this match. But it's still so good. Watch it. It's good. Lex is even. Lex is having a good time. And you can tell because he's not making his usual Lex noise when he gets hit this time. He's. He's locked in. He's like, no, I'm having a good time. I got my. My boyfriend here staying. We're gonna win. And. And, yeah, it's fantastic. But also 18 minutes. I was like, I'm having a great time. This is sports entertaining. This is. I'm having a wonderful time. Obviously they must. This with a cluster of an ending. And sure enough, Giant just shows up and. And, like, doesn't even touch anyone. And the ref's like, it call it. We're done. Let's get out of here. I'm being told we need to get out of here. And yeah, there's not much to it. Scott. Scott Snider comes out with a chair and all the baby faces try to slay the giant. But eventually, little Jimmy Hart nipping at their heels, gets him out of there and does. Does the right thing. And, yeah, that's. That's it for Graps, for Nitro. And there was a lot of graphs, a lot of short grabs. But now going home, we. We get the. What's gonna. Kind of be the new thing here. And I love it though, is it's like, what's the new NWO Drop? You know, they don't even have the name yet. But what. What's Scott gonna do? We get back to the boys in the booth to send us out. Bobby is angry because he is terrified that Macho Man's gonna kick his ass at Bash. Great American Bash. Honestly, it's amazing because he spent months talking about Randy this whole time. So now, like, in these two weeks leading up, he's been getting, like, increasingly desperate. Like, please don't kick my ass. I love it. I miss Bobby Heenan every day. But sure enough, Scott comes out. He has turned in his Denim Dan outfit. Now he's a weather daddy. And that. That's fine with me. The last two. The last two weeks, the. The. Oh, my God. The Canadian vested tuxedo was very weird. But he comes out to do the harassment with his big surprise. Bischoff says he doesn't want trouble, but also he wants to point out that you threatened me with surprise. Where is it? Well, he turns around and there's Kevin Nash in all black buddy. There's. There's big baddie Diesel there. Big, uh, Big daddy Cool. And, uh, I did kind of love you mentioned the war of it all last week. Vince said, hey, we heard that Razor Ramon and Diesel are over at the other company and pretending that they still work with us. And they do not work with us. Diesel hadn't come out yet, so that was them doing corporate subterfuge. He gave away the big surprise. And I just noticed that, like, as I was watching this, I was like, wait a minute. He gave away the surprise last week. Unfortunately, it didn't work. They still beat him. The last thing to say about this, though, you ever have a moment where, like, you're on, you're on, all the whites are on you. Like, everyone's been waiting to hear what you're gonna say, and you just totally it up? [00:55:59] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, for sure. [00:56:01] Speaker B: Well, Kevin Nash has become a meme forever because he grabs the mic and he's like, we've been watching you run your mouth for six months. This is where the big boys play. Look at the adjective play. We're not here to play. And no, he's never gonna live that down. Yeah, if you said verb, that would have been a real hard line. But he didn't, did he? So that's. [00:56:31] Speaker A: That's so good. [00:56:34] Speaker B: But, yeah, that's some television. They. They show up and they. They tell them like, we're here just like we told you. And you find your three guys because we're. We might show up for a fight. And Eric's like, all right, I'll get. I'll get a fight for the bash. And I'm guessing that I'm gonna look it up before we record the show proper, but I'm guessing that this pay per view sold well because. Holy hell. But that's it. Do you have any final thoughts on Nitro, Alex? [00:57:00] Speaker A: No. I mean, this is certainly the first. I think that this is like the first full Nitro I've sat with in a while. And. And it was. Yeah, again, it's like. It's like. Like, I know about. And I just watched the, like, long Ted Turner documentary. So, like, I also. I also know a bit about, like, in addition to. From Josie's book. And I've read pretty much every seriously written wrestling book that is, like, on the market. So, like, I'm. I'm more. Yeah. I mean, I've even read. There was like a bad one I read that was like just stats. Like, it's like just. It was like once I. Once I find out. So we can talk about it. [00:57:36] Speaker B: But yeah, I was gonna say send me a link, but I'm pretty sure I know the one you're talking about. [00:57:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I was like, is this just stats in narrative form? But the. I. I was much. I was. You know, it was good to see these guys at these times and the women at these times. But it was. I was more just interested in experiencing. Experiencing the Artifact of Nitro and remembering sort of like what's going on in television history at this point. Because there's, like, a lot of happening. [00:58:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And I'm so happy. That's a lot of why I love doing this show. And like, the show has changed format a little bit. We're going through more of that. Stay tuned, folks, that we're switching things up a little bit coming up here. But hell, Nitro is too. I figured we're catching up. Right? But it is that because some people see it for that Some wrestling fans see it like you have the sickos like me who are, who just love every minute aspect of all this. And I'm fascinated by the war aspect of it, by those things. I pointed out the subterfuge by the, the, the capitalist like corporate and fighting that they were doing on top of this entertainment as well. And I love this stuff and I love having a lot of different types of guests on because like you and you've. We. We're about to get into Raw, but just on Nitro, you've noticed stuff I wouldn't have noticed. So I appreciate it. [00:59:03] Speaker A: And I mean if you think of it also just like the, the, the history of selling stuff in America especially, especially in the later half of the century are battles between brands. And so, you know, you have the cola wars in the decade prior, like Tupac's gonna die three months after this airs in like a huge, you know, which represents sort of like a coastal battle between, between, you know, between rappers. We're now seeing that again with the Drake Bloodbath. [00:59:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, the blood. Yeah. We can't call that a war. [00:59:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. [00:59:41] Speaker B: But it's like there is well deserved massacre. [00:59:43] Speaker A: There is absolutely. But there is this element of, you know, there's the thing that you're selling and then the format through which you're selling it and, and you know, creating, creating teams for consumers is like a really big thing. It's like a really big part of selling stuff. And so we're kind of seeing that as much as we're seeing these matches, which is fascinating to me. [01:00:06] Speaker B: Absolutely. And what I love about this show is, is is tracking all that and seeing kind of what happens when you win. I'm just getting there now. Yes. Well, she wasn't at that lovely community kitchen I tracked her to, but the food was really amazing. We really should tell listeners to visit opencollective.org communitykitchenmpls. They can make tax deductible donations to keep those folks going. But I'm besides the point. I'm telling you, she has to be here. I mean, you saw the viral video. That barista dropped that guy with a DDT and then puffed her chest out and strutted like a coked out cockerel. It has to be her. Yes, ma' am. And a like subscribe and review you as well. I'll report back when I have her. You can tackle that guy. It was so cool. Oh. [01:01:02] Speaker A: Oh, hi. Welcome to Badger Brews. [01:01:05] Speaker B: What can I get started for you? Well, actually I was Hoping to ask you about. You know what. Yeah, I'll have a grande red eye with a shot of Irish cream and hazelnut. Thank you. Vince wins and then what happens? He has to invent a second brand in order to compete with himself because everyone lost interest because the war was over. Because. Yeah. And it's like, it's that. That victory of what does the. What does the dog do when it catches the car? You know, now what. And it turned into like 20 years of a monopoly where. Where the product kind of sucked for like it had its ups and downs. You know. Your summer of punk was cool because you had a guy who came in and tried to shake it up and, and, and try to get rid of that hegemony. And like now we have, like you said, the return of this in ways. But in the 90s it really was. Everything was a battle. Everyone was looking for a war to fight. Especially in capitalism and branding. Absolutely. And they played into that. And it's funny because it's almost like culture was catching up to what wrestling was always about to a certain extent. But as especially what Vince McMahon Junior's wrestling, they used to be a lot more unioned. There was a union of bosses, but not workers. The nwa. Funny how that worked. The bosses got together. It's like we can work together to make more money. Not that but yeah. But it's all cyclical. We're getting now. Aw. Is. Is back and we don't have that monopoly anymore. [01:02:43] Speaker A: Absolutely. [01:02:44] Speaker B: Option. And it's really great. And to kind of bring it back to where we started. 2. It's. It's gay, it's queer. Aw. We just. Last week, Toni Storm, the women's world champion, ended her promo by going out on the balcony overlooking Atlantic City and yelling, I'm here and I'm queer and I am timeless. This is a woman who's pretending that she is like a, a, A full time silent movie actress. They hail her as coming from Warner Lot 7. Like, you know, like that's you should. [01:03:25] Speaker A: I have to finally get into aew because everything I hear. [01:03:30] Speaker B: Historical aspects, I. I wrote here on the intro. How's that weird 90s rock theme treatment? Because you're talking about the nostalgia of it. Wow. Nope. Throughout. [01:03:51] Speaker A: And I was like, do I know what this is or is this just an emulation of things? [01:03:56] Speaker B: You asked me too about Jimmy Hart earlier. One thing I forgot to mention I love is that he did a lot of the theme music. He was a musician. He had hit songs with like real groups and so DDP comes out and he has a. His theme song is called Self High Five. When you listen to it, you're like, God, that sounds like Smells like Teen Spirit. That's on purpose. Yeah. [01:04:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, yeah, I was like, I know these riffs for sure. They were in the ether four years ago. [01:04:32] Speaker B: You know him with a song he liked and said, give me something like this for the. The raw intro. And that's what we got. But. And yeah, needless to say, we're here. It's Raw starts tonight showing ultimate warriors painting that he did the ridiculousness that this. [01:04:56] Speaker A: See, this is what I was missing in Nitro is I'm like, like Lawler. Okay, guys, Lawler draws a picture of. Of the ultimate warrior and he says out loud he believes it too. [01:05:12] Speaker B: Alex. [01:05:13] Speaker A: That market value 100. [01:05:15] Speaker B: When I say Carney, I don't mean that like derogatorily good stuff, but that is totally. [01:05:29] Speaker A: Lawler looks also looks like a like a soft Minecraft character. Like he's like, he looks so, so funny. I love him so much. He's such a dick. [01:05:38] Speaker B: When he's on, he's on. And I actually totally love this bit because. Because it allowed Vince to be like, do the like ass. Ain't that nice? You know, like, yeah, I'll put that right on the fridge. The one in my office that holds my special growing medicine. Yeah, yeah. [01:05:57] Speaker A: Lawler. Okay, so Lawler in this episode has a checkouts gun in the shape of a. Of a port of a hundred thousand dollar portrait of the Ul warrior. [01:06:10] Speaker B: Yeah, we're good, we're good to show. [01:06:12] Speaker A: To show the ultimate warrior. [01:06:14] Speaker B: And he's like, does the Mickey. Does the, the Mickey Mouse is like, we're gonna need that for later. I'm g. Set that aside. [01:06:23] Speaker A: It's so funny. And that's kind. This is. Watching these side by side was actually helpful because like again, not to give. None of this is to give Vince credit, but the fact that they, that we have existing on television at least 15 years of lore at this point makes. Makes their ability to be like self referential and referential of existing stuff or whatever. Because like in Nitro, I mean you, you notice and I don't know how this works, but in Nitro they're like, that's what they're laying down mythology in reality real time. [01:06:59] Speaker B: And for the most part. [01:07:02] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. And then this, you're like, I know all these guys. I know like what their beef is. I know like who, what their character is and stuff. And so Just to settle into. It was like, a little easier, obviously, because it's like. I know. It's like why some people will go to McDonald's even though they know it's McDonald's. It's like, it feels good, you know, Like, I know what I'm getting. [01:07:23] Speaker B: Whereas Nitro does exposition with Jean, they do it by showing replays and having Vincent Lawler just tell you what happened. [01:07:38] Speaker A: Well, right. And they have a. They have a. Like, I was listening to. I. I'm so bad with names. The director of Sinners who's talking about Coogler. Yeah. He was talking about when he made Black Panther and he was talking about how, like, you know, like. Like Marvel has all of their IP up for recall, like, computerized. So, like, if you're like, I want every issue in appearance of Black Panther, they'll, like, press the button, print it out, like, in a beautiful bound thing, and you can have it and you can work with it or whatever. It's like, that's what this property has, is. It's like their exposition is pulling from their archive and so you're, like, able to see it in real time. They have the existing narrative around it. Like, it's just. They just have the luxury of it being more seamless because they've been doing it for a long time. [01:08:27] Speaker B: It's an older company, but they're new to what Vince has been doing, which is narrative. [01:08:32] Speaker A: Right. Totally. [01:08:35] Speaker B: On a. On a wider national scale, they've been doing it territorially where they don't have to work that hard. [01:08:41] Speaker A: Totally. [01:08:41] Speaker B: Because it's a small territory. Everyone literally knows. It's. It's the one thing on tv, you know, so, like, they're not sure yet how to do that. Like, yeah, great. You have great eye for that. It's awesome. Because, like, again, in case of point, this first match, we got Owen and Owen Hart and Yoko. Everyone knows who Owen Hart and Yokozun are at this point. Like, at. By the end of this match, Yokozuna is talking, like, talking about how he. He feels like he's having a rough time and he's like, you know, might be getting out of it and stuff like that. This is like the end of Yokozuna's career. Junior. It was Jim Ross, wasn't it? [01:09:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I like, who. Who interviews him? Is it Jim? Is it who. [01:09:24] Speaker B: Who. [01:09:25] Speaker A: Yeah, Junior interviews him. He's like, I love Junior so much. He's like, you must be pretty. You must be pretty despondent. And then he says this, you know, he's like, he basically is like, at the end. And then. And then I think it's like, Vince and commentary is like, he is pretty. [01:09:40] Speaker B: Exactly. No, and I will say this is. I've. It's bad, but it's like, the writing is hilarious. [01:09:45] Speaker A: Like, it's so funny. [01:09:46] Speaker B: Vince is earnest. He does all of this in earnest. He does. [01:09:57] Speaker A: He reads like a guy who lost a million dollars on an evil convention. [01:10:01] Speaker B: Owen and Yoko. I say, watch it. It's a quick one. But, like, it's. It's Owen and Yoko. I'm not gonna say much about Big, big guy fall down, go boom. Yeah, great. [01:10:16] Speaker A: Yeah, they talk. They talk. They talk a bunch of. About size in the. In the thing, but it's a. It's a good. It's a good match. [01:10:25] Speaker B: Oh, Jesus. Which can't be true. I mean, maybe they keep saying that. [01:10:29] Speaker A: Yoko is 666 pounds. Sounds like a joke, guys. [01:10:32] Speaker B: Yeah, they wanted to. They went there. In between that, that match and the next one, though, there's a lot. This poor kid. This is very like. Like, video design is my passion, level of how this guy did this. But this kid's wearing, like, Cerebro headset. Oh, my God. I. I don't even understand. And I was like, all right. And then we go. The whiplash from that. We come back to Jake the Snake telling us in GR detail about how he parties too hard. [01:11:13] Speaker A: I was like, I honest to God thought, like, you know, because we watched this on, like, some tube service or whatever, and I honestly thought I accidentally hit the, like, click forward button. And it did, like, videos. Because Jake the Snake is talking about. He says at some point, okay, Jake the Snake says he feels bad about the position he put his wife in because at least at one point, she had to reach into his mouth and pull vomit out of his throat. While you're watching this, like, with your kids. And like, Jake the Snake is like, I, like, OD'd in front of my wife. [01:11:48] Speaker B: Humanist stories. Like, he's trying to, like, bring some humanity to this character. He's say some. Up. [01:11:59] Speaker A: He says, literally, she had to dig. I wrote it down. She had to dig the vomit out of my mouth. Yeah. Did you also. Did you catch the line. I mean, this is such a niche reference about what was going on at the time, but did you catch the line when Lawler says of Yoko's outfit, I wonder how many kids in Kathy Lee's South American sweatshop it took to make the robe for Yoko. Kathy Lee got in trouble this. This time, like, around this time because she had a. She had a. She had a line of clothes that was exposed to be, like, made in, like, a, like, extraordinary sweatshop position, like, conditions. And. And so it was like a. And so Letterman piled on her a lot for that. And then Vince responds to Lawler by being like, it sounds like you jumped on the Letterman Ben bandwagon, because Letterman sort of made jokes about it forever. [01:13:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I. [01:13:03] Speaker A: Now I'm old, and so I can't wait to re. Watch some of these to catch their references and just do like. [01:13:11] Speaker B: Like, just. [01:13:12] Speaker A: Just do like a. Like a ghost newsletter of references from RAW96. [01:13:17] Speaker B: Here's Alex with what the. Vince was talking about. Yeah. Yes. There you go. Our 1996 correspondence. Jake had a problem, and Vince is like, trauma. Sounds like a storyline, pal. We're gonna. We're gonna go with it. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then we get Mark Mero versus Skip, but I just call him Chris Candido because, like, that's his name and that's what everyone. That he was more famous as Chris Candido. This is one, kids. This reeks of banger for the sick was playing along at home. Watch this one because, like, this is. Mark Mero has given us some of the best matches of our podcast experience so far. He just did it in WCW as a different character. Johnny Be Bad, however, like, he is so good, and Chris Candido is the younger dude here. He grew up a fan, and, like, he is so, so good. And he had this run in the Fed, and it's really. I think he's really underutilized, underappreciated. He kind of is one of the things. He came in with Sonny because they were dating, and Vince was like, I want hot blonde. I guess you here too, you know? And then, like, I don't know what to do with you, but I got your hot blonde, so. And it's funny because the same thing happened to Marc Mero. He shows up at having just left WCW with his wife Rena, who we now know is Sable, and he's just like, oh, my God, look, hot blonde. I. Wait, you wrestle? Okay, sure, sure. Fine. Yeah. Like, we're paying for the package. [01:14:57] Speaker A: Is this. Who Is this who Jake was referring to when he said, yeah, this. It was in this match, right, where he says, literally, I think Sunny wants to sleep with the winner. [01:15:08] Speaker B: And then. [01:15:08] Speaker A: And then they call them out. Like, Lawler calls him out on it is like, what the. Basically, yes. And then. And then. [01:15:14] Speaker B: And then Jake says a lot of this. [01:15:16] Speaker A: She needs to pledge allegiance to one flag. Not the man. [01:15:19] Speaker B: And Vince Russo have never had a consensual friendship, let alone relationship with a woman. Like, don't understand how their brain do work. And they just see. They just see woman. Whoever have power. This is why I have power. So their whole thing for Sonny is whoever has the tag team belts is who she goes to manage. [01:15:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [01:15:41] Speaker B: So she dumped her boyfriend when he lost the belt and went to the pig farmers and then dumped the pig farmers to go with the smoking guns. And whoever the smoking guns lose to, she'll go there. And this is all she gets. Like, this is her whole thing. It's awful. Yeah. Yes. No. [01:16:03] Speaker A: And then they go in on the says of her. And this tendency. [01:16:09] Speaker B: Match. Don't skip it is my one thing and everything else I have to say about this match in my. Under a section in my notes labeled Chuckle, where I talk about any. Anything notable noticeable that Jerry and Vince said. Yeah. They start going in on the quintons and they. When I was a kid, I did not get this, but this was all the time, Alex. All the time. They would say stuff. My dad would be like, what the. You know, like, what did. You can't just say that. Like, you know, and they're on usa. They don't care. That that's part of the fun of the show is. Is showing people. Like, this was on television, you know, wild. So long story short, folks, paying attention at home because this is a king of the ring match. Damn it. Totally Mero. Or who puts it Mero wins this one. Oh, God. I didn't even put that. This is how much I cared about this one. Yeah. No. Marrow wins. Skip loses. Marrow goes on. And next week, we get Owen and Marrow. And if that doesn't cook, I will eat Jared the King's crown. I. I'm. I feel weird because I was like, they show us the updated bracket, and it's working for me in the way that I was like, is this what March Madness is like for normals? Because they showed it, like, all the matches coming up, and I was like, oh, yeah, this is. Oh, it's working. Okay. Like, this is weird. Raw is good. This is strange. I'm having a great time watching Raw. This is really strange. And then they ruin it because we come back from commercial and there is a vignette with Jerry the King. This was gonna replace the whale in my nightmares. Yeah. Jerry not. Not allowed. Within 800ft of a school in the city of Memphis. The King Lawless lording it up with two small, starving Children. Yes. [01:18:02] Speaker A: It was. There were other icons. This was a fever. [01:18:08] Speaker B: He gives a dog a whole turkey leg, which is not good for dogs, folks. That's very bad. He's doing it. Yeah. They splinter. It's not good. Thank you. I'm happy you know this. He's doing it all bare chested in a crowd. [01:18:20] Speaker A: Splinter. [01:18:21] Speaker B: And in this moment, I just want to ask you, is this the first time you regret coming on the pod yet? [01:18:35] Speaker A: I was again. This was one of those things where it's like, this is not a thing I have seen before, but it's so of the time. Is this also presented? [01:18:48] Speaker B: It gets me every time, my little millennial heart, to hear that little rock. But thankfully, King chokes on his bone and he ends up in heaven in a ring in the clouds and then proceeds, gets ass rocked by what I believe you were correct. Historic. Other Kings. Now I paused and tried to catch them all. So Kings I recognized. We got Elvis, we got Don King, we got King Kong. Yes. It's just a dude in a gorilla costume. It rules a mummy. That I'm guessing is King Tut, another pharaoh of some kind. I believe King David. And I think it was played by Barry Horowitz. And that feels up because it's Vince McMahon. I think that's what they're going for. Holy. There was a lot of kings. But yeah, they did that. When we come back and I just wrote Vince Lawler and Warrior. Ew. The. This is a whole quick little segment where Vince is like, all right, we have to do something with. With Warrior because he's still on contract. I made a mistake. He'll be gone soon. Huh? Yeah, you have to. Yeah, we have to do. Remember Chekhov's picture? So we have to do Warrior. If he was about anything, it was about putting in the least amount of effort possible with the most energy possible. Oh, this is. [01:20:18] Speaker A: This is from. This is from PDR Wrestling. But you must. You must check that. I assume you're familiar with this website, but it has recaps of all of these. Yes. And he says, he says Vince McMahon introduces the ultimate Warrior. Big reaction for him. Why is he wearing that ball, Captain? It takes away like 75% of his. [01:20:36] Speaker B: Mystique in a hat. And it's like kind of in Warrior is shape. And then also he's just wearing a hat. He couldn't decide, do I want street clothes? Do I want full gimmick? I don't know. He. Yeah, he. He's been here for three months and I'm ready for him. To go back to parts unknown. [01:20:56] Speaker A: It's so funny. Yeah, it's so funny. Just like the id. I mean, the war. I unders. I like, know the whole history with the. With the warrior and the contracts and all this stuff. But like, just like you look at Jerry Lawler and you look at the ultimate warrior and you're like, well, we know who's gonna win again. Like, Jerry Lawler, like, looks like a janitor and like the ultimate warrior looks like a killing machine. It's fun watching. [01:21:29] Speaker B: No, I'm just trying to believe it. But this one's. This is rough. Yeah. He tries to sway Warrior with his painting. Fresh off Vince's roid fridge, Warrior says, nah, unfortunately, I must kill you. Yes. [01:21:48] Speaker A: He does say, though, in a very weird polite turn. I can appreciate the time that was put into it, but you're the biggest on our notes. Yeah, he's like, I could appreciate. It's so funny. He's like gonna. He's basically like, all of his body language is like, you know, he's gonna turn it down. He. [01:22:08] Speaker B: He ultimately calls him there, you know, Totally true. And then sure enough, we. This nothing burger of a segment reaches its inevitable end when the painting is shattered over. Warrior who. No. Sells it and acts like nothing happened. Me. You. You called it. You're not even on the show every week and you called it. Yeah, right. I am sorry because, like, I tried to find good bits, but these are like. Like wish the eternity of hellfire and flesh rending. Wasting our time in a ring. So I was like, I have enough. I hate all three of these guys. On a deep personal level, I'm done with this. Like, I could take it in small, small amounts, but when they're all there together, I'm just like, this is too much. So sure enough, we get now British bulldog, who I love dearly. Unfortunately, it's another one where it's like, I know you're a monster, but I just. I love you. And the Nazi Lich. I mean, the undertaker, the. The first thing I write down for this. This endeavor. I can't help it. Diana Hart Smith looks so good. Again, that outfit, the white dress, like I want it. I. Simple. It's so cute. And friend of the pod. Piper is gonna get mad at me because she does every time I say Diana Harkins could get it, but Diana, absolutely. I have a problem. Okay. Like, it's an issue. I know, but they come out and they got like his whole Jim Cornet's there again, looking pastel and de steel and Oxy. And unfortunately he, he hops on the commentary. But then the light goes out and the crowd loses its collective. I, I know when I was a kid this worked on me. How. What are your feelings? Re. Undertaker? Yeah. [01:24:30] Speaker A: I mean, I know, you know, I know who and how he is obviously as a, as a human being, but like, I, I, even then as a, As a person who like, did not care about wrestling itself. Like, I remember like playing some W again at the time. WWF Super Nintendo game. And I'd always pick him. Like, I, he's. He's like. I think like all of these people are obvious archetypes and so even if you are not into it, like, you get the archetypes, but like, he is like the archetype. Like, he is cool. I think just like looks wise. Cool as hell. Like, you turn the lights off, he's. He's massive. I think it's like, this is the time that he looks best. [01:25:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:25:19] Speaker A: Routine. Because he's got, he's got this like. [01:25:22] Speaker B: Little, like, he's my undertaker. And I was like. [01:25:30] Speaker A: Yes, total. And like, it's, yeah, it's, it's. I think it's remarkable. And like, I think like, again, like the lights go out, there's like ceremony. Like, it's not just like you like play a song. It's like I find this like one of the most convincing cores of an act and a character and an enduring character and a person who, again, like, regardless, I mean, it's not surprising to know that someone in. Involved with this, this industry is. Has a deplorable series of views or whatever, but is also seemingly within the industry. Among like a. Many of them is like kind of like an older elder statesman, sort of respected person and. Yes. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Like, I, I'm stripping aside everything known. Like, I'm for it. Like, when I see this stuff happen, I'm like, yeah, this is like my, like, I was like in 1996, I. [01:26:30] Speaker B: Was like really into Maryland. So, like, this is like my partner earlier, 1 16th Goth. I think I've always been like, I've just always had a little bit in there. [01:26:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh. See, I was like, I can't. I'm not going to commit aesthetically because I don't believe in buying. Buying accoutrement. But like I say, it's like I was, I've always been spiritually got like from the minute I knew it was an option. [01:27:00] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [01:27:02] Speaker A: No, no, I'm wearing like a pink shirt with strawberries or something on it right now. So like it's like almost antithesis, but it is like my, like, this is my. [01:27:11] Speaker B: She'll work for me. The. The wrestling does not anymore. That's one thing I will admit to me. I don't like his matches as much now as a grown up. I. Some of them are great. But this is the thing. This is what I'll give Undertaker his best matches are in relation to who he's fighting. [01:27:38] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly, exactly. Yes, like, he is exactly. Like, he's sort of. He's almost like the ultimate straight man, even though the thing is. So, yeah, camp. Yeah, totally. But like, he like, you know, like he against like mankind or something. Like, like something where his presence allows for exactly the other person just to kind of do all of the stuff that they're doing. [01:28:04] Speaker B: I don't. You're like him as like his wrestling as like its own thing. Like, I'm not excited about an Undertaker match just because it's an Undertaker match. I'm excited about an Undertaker vs Man kind match because I know that mankind's gonna get some really good out of him. And our Undertaker and Shawn Michaels had two of the greatest WrestleMania matches back to back, two years in a row. They just ran it back and just did it again. And like, and, and it was unreal and good because like, if. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Who doesn't feel pain? [01:28:44] Speaker A: Well, geez, I mean, to our point. [01:28:46] Speaker B: Earlier, he's just a giant, like super tall. [01:28:49] Speaker A: He's just like an extraordinarily well, branded. [01:28:52] Speaker B: Guy who doesn't feel pain and doesn't sell anything, you know, and, and it's like that's what he went with is he's an undead zombie controlled by his little fag hag who's got the. The urine. The urine, you know, the earth. No, it's. That's not urn, it's a urine. It's a urine. There you go. It's not an urn, it's a urine. Writing that down. All right. [01:29:14] Speaker A: Oh my God. It's true. I mean, as far as acts go, like, it's. It's hard to beat. Like the dynamic is so. And again, it's like the, it's like the, you know, you need the. You need the gaudy and that. The campy manager, if the person who. [01:29:31] Speaker B: Has like very little, he did kind of save it. I hate cornet on commentary sometimes, but that's what I was starting to say. This one, he. He. He saved what was otherwise a cookie cutter match. That was. The cookie cutters were okay, you know. He's got, he's just having so much fun. He's, he's, he's with Jerry Lawler, which always makes me happy. He's accusing Shawn Michaels of destroying Jean Claude Van Damme's marriage. Like, yeah, he might have something. I, I've always thought, like, to any of these celebrities. Yeah, I love them. [01:30:07] Speaker A: He's like, he had something to do with it. I don't know. [01:30:10] Speaker B: Because. Yeah, and Vince and all that probably. No, you're not. You know, you're kfab. Because they think everyone's constantly lying, you know. As far as this match goes, you watch it. If you want sickos, I will say it's cookie cutter. Like I said, one of Davey boy's cookie cutters is the stalling vertical suplex, which is difficult to do when you're. To a guy who's seven foot tall, like Taker. I wrote down this as notable because he does it. He doesn't hold it for like 10 seconds like he usually does, but he does it and that's impressive. So, like, that's impressive enough to take note of. Otherwise, that was the main event and I was just like, okay, as far as the match, whatever. Now, however, after the match, the end of the match, you mentioned Mankind fighting the Undertaker. This continues. At one point, Bulldog and them are out of the ring. Bulldog gets back in and the ref starts counting. Taker tries to get back in, but Mankind reaches out from under the the ring and holds his foot and he loses by count out. What? Maybe. Yeah, yeah, possibly. We don't know. Yeah, he could. He just keeps showing up. This is. And I love this. That's why I wrote next. They do this because this gets huge heat. The crowd is pissed. They're like, what the. And they're, they're. The. All the heels proceed to beat the out of Taker Together. They take off. Mankind pile drives them and gets ready to do his foreplay finisher and shove his fingies in his mouth and. And the refs stop him to close out the show, which is, I think, a great finish. Like you said, it ends on a total cliffhanger. You don't know if he's going to kill all these refs and keep going after him or what. But they. This is how they've been building him. It's really, really, really great. It. They. Because he, he keeps showing up and like with Taker getting in his head in a way that usually Taker does. You know what I mean? Like we talked about the, the pageantry, the. That all that's there to get in people's heads. That's how they talk about it. And now you got this guy who is so like, you got Mick Foley and it's like, we need you to be so weird that people will cheer for the Undertaker, like, he's Luigi Mangione. Like, like, I know I can. I need the. We need him to he. This man was going to be a folk hero because you're so up. Clear. Right. Clearly Mick was confused because it's 1996 and that joke doesn't make sense yet. But I'm not deleting it from my notes, so there's. But, yeah, that's the end of that. And like, I don't know. My, my final thoughts on Raw is just to circle back to what you said. An hour is good. An hour is right? Yep. [01:33:08] Speaker A: Yeah. An hour where it feels like a literal clip. Like it stops in a freeze frame. Like it's like it feels like old school clips. [01:33:16] Speaker B: Two and a half minute long vignettes. And that's where I'm going to give Nitro another bump. Is. They, they, they, they extended the time, but what they're filling it with isn't great. And even when they filled it with more wrestling this week, it was like five matches in a half hour. It was like, you, a lot of, you know that, that, that Regal Kidman match being 57 seconds long was a crime, Alex. Like, that. That was a crime. [01:33:48] Speaker A: Yeah. There aren't. There aren't like sticky moments in those matches because it's going so fast and there's not. It doesn't necessarily feel like there are moments that like the next day. [01:34:00] Speaker B: But I feel like I, I enjoyed Raw overall more this week, but I liked the Graps a little more on Nitro, and that's very strange. That is very strange thing for me to say because normally Raw is a goddamn nightmare. But, like, I enjoyed this Raw and that is up. I don't like being made to Enjoy a Vince McMahon product. Yeah, yeah. Someone else. [01:34:33] Speaker A: Anytime they hit, I'm like, well, it can't be responsibility. [01:34:37] Speaker B: That's awesome. But holy. We did it. We did it. Alex, you came on the. [01:34:43] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm so stoked. What a delight this has been. It was great revisiting and. And your commentary really is magical. [01:34:55] Speaker B: Is to throw problematic 90s wrestling at a wide swath of people and see what it does to their brain and see what they have to say about it. Because I learn more, you know. Nice. [01:35:13] Speaker A: I'll. I'll share with you. I'LL I'll send you links. I used to have a show called Nashville Demystified. Yeah, and part of that I, I studied some of the history of the regional like Memphis wrestling and I have absolutely. I have interviews related to that from people who were there at the time and stuff. So I'll send that over to you. Yeah, we were. I was remembering with my mom the other day when we would watch, you know, she was like, oh, we used to watch, you know, when you were a kid, like kid. Kid like little kid like my dad and I and, and her. We would watch like the, the wwf. But then we were remembering that in Boston and this was the case all over the place until cable took over everything. You could get closed circuit wrestling matches from like the, the local gym and like we would just watch like wrestling that was like streaming from some rec. [01:36:10] Speaker B: Cent which was wild mostly. Well, literally one from my general region and survived. Mostly, mostly backyard wrestler who I knew people went to school with, grew up and got on the Fed is Hornswoggle. The, the. [01:36:25] Speaker A: The. [01:36:25] Speaker B: The little person who actually. Character did live under the ring. There's a leprechaun. Yeah. And it was like I used to watch him at 2am like jump off of fences in my hometown. Like, you know, like this is. That's very strange. Yeah, exactly. [01:36:45] Speaker A: Yeah, well, and that's what, you know, that's in. You know, but that's what like Hood Slam was born out of. Was like that thing. So. Yeah, I, I love it. It's a. I think it's the, the best, most problematic, clearest picture of what our culture is. And it's important. [01:37:03] Speaker B: Our world wouldn't be the same without it. And it's something that's all over the world. Probably not it. Who knows if that's for the good or the better, you know, or the better or the worst. [01:37:17] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I was especially conscious of it again having just, you know, and like at the end of the day, like, like a Ted Turner is a billionaire, quote, good guy, capitalist. Like that's like just what he is or whatever. But just like thinking about that being like, it was like for a minute it was like Ted Turner versus Vince McMahon and Vince McMahon. [01:37:40] Speaker B: And he did. Right. [01:37:41] Speaker A: Like, and you feel that in every fiber of your. [01:37:44] Speaker B: Three months before 9 11. Yeah, see, and now like you start to see how all of this for some reason really did help build the. The hellscape that we are in. Yeah. [01:38:02] Speaker A: It truly, it truly, truly did. I mean it is like in like non. Even non conspiratorial thinking. It's like it is the fabric of the culture we landed in. And. And, you know, and it's like, like, like that people doing real, like, what he made. There are all these nuggets of good and interesting things that the evil happens. [01:38:25] Speaker B: That the only game in town was run by the literal devil, you know, and. Yeah, sometimes that happens. Oh, my gosh. [01:38:37] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Well, I would. I would love it if you would come visit us on you are good. At some point. It would be. It would be so nice to have. [01:38:45] Speaker B: I am very excited for. I haven't gotten a chance because I've. [01:38:48] Speaker A: Been busy, but figure out a time and a title. I really. [01:38:50] Speaker B: This episode will come out in a couple weeks, so this is dated, but y' all. I. I was unfortunately raised Catholic. Blew my little mind. Oh, my God. Oh, I. I'm excited. So. Yes. Yeah. And I. Yeah. On that note, folks, go. [01:39:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:39:09] Speaker B: It was. [01:39:10] Speaker A: It was certainly a conversation people have been asking for for years. [01:39:13] Speaker B: Check out. You are good. So. [01:39:19] Speaker A: Go check out. You were good. Check out the OC Again, which we say of the. The hour and a half that we talk about 15 minutes about of it is about the OC and then check out Siri Doll's new podcast, First Thirst, which is about people's first pop culture crushes. Yeah, the first one came out last week. We had Crystal, the UK drag queen. [01:39:44] Speaker B: And then check out all the other things. I don't have to tell you about that. I have a whole laboratory sub basement that takes care of my promotion for me. You all know what's up. So thank you for hanging out. Thank you, folks, for listening. We will see you next week for more Raw versus Nitro. On Monday night, Fake Fights. [01:40:06] Speaker A: It.