The Hey Yo heard 'round the World w/ Sophie Edwards

[00:00:01] Speaker A: How do you feel about the American males theme song banger or the most banger? Hey. Oh, you people know who I am and why I'm here. It's Monday night fake fights where I, Garrick Taylor, she they. I'm doing a rewatch of the Monday night wars and making it everyone else's problem this week. Historically, even in many ways, our esteemed victim is. [00:00:43] Speaker B: Hello, I'm Sophie. She her. I am mutuals with you on blue sky. And I guess. I guess I got your attention through my YouTube channel. I do video video essays on transgender ancient history. I'm also a voice coach and a novelist. [00:01:03] Speaker A: Yes. And you are wonderful at all of these things. [00:01:06] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:01:07] Speaker A: Thank you for being here and thank you for being my mutual, which, as we all know, is all it takes to have me ask you on the pod. And sure enough, you got the call and absolutely everyone go check out this YouTube channel. It's fantastic. If you ever wanted to learn all kinds of wonderful things, I get to occasionally blow my kiddo's mind with things like how. How folks used to get estrogen back in the day, things of that nature. And like, yes, yes. As far as we could tell, yes. Go check out those wonderful things. Is so much fun. So I'm very happy you're here and. And welcome to a different sort of history show. A history of, in a lot of ways, the world's worst people and especially in my country, various dominoes that are have led to the hellscape that we are making everyone's problem as well. Yay. So is. What is your relationship, if any, with wrestling? Are you a fan? Are you not at all a fan fan or us? [00:02:19] Speaker B: Yeah. So I've, I. I've watched wrestling here and there. I would not say I'm a fan. I'm not. Not a fan. It was not really something I was ever exposed to. My mom when I was a kid was very. She's gotten a lot better now, but she was. She really bought into the like. Like, I was born in the 80s and so the, like, 80s hysteria about, like, oh, my God, these things are gonna corrupt our children and turn them into violent maniacs and stuff. So I wasn't allowed to watch the Simpsons. I wasn't allowed to. I wasn't allowed to watch. So I wasn't allowed to watch the Simpsons. But Ren and Stimpy was. Okay, make that make sense. [00:03:07] Speaker A: That is a wild one. Especially given. Especially given, you know, hindsight. [00:03:13] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Yeah. Big time. Big time. So, yeah, I was. I never really watched it When I was a kid, when I got older, I came to really enjoy watching some of the promos that they did, especially Macho Man, Randy Savage. I've always loved his promos. He is such a character. But yeah, yes, yes. Um, so we, um, we were going to watch, were going to do a podcast. You had. One of us had to cancel and then the other had to cancel. So I ended up watching four episodes of wrestling. And I have watched more wrestling, my friend, in the last, what, two weeks, three weeks or something, whatever it's been, than I have watched in like the rest of my life put together. So that tells you my background in this very strange world. [00:04:08] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, you know, that's a fantastic way of putting it. And also further proof that someone in the business with money should be giving me some of it because I keep doing this for y'all. I keep sending people your way and I'm just saying, pay me. No, that is fan tastic. I'm so happy to have corrupted you. This is my version of Mystery Science Theater and I'm just seeing what I can do to my mutuals brains. And my good friend Kennedy has been on three times now and they have said they, they are, they're just like, I'm seeing stuff that I don't quite understand, but I'm starting to understand it and I don't like that. So imagine how I feel doing this every week. So thank you for underdoing undertaking this undertaking, though. No Undertaker this week, thank God. But yeah, it's a historic night in a lot of ways, folks. It's, it's the, the end of Act 1 and the beginning of Act 2 of the Monday Night Wars. In, in a lot of ways, if we were to do this like a ancient Mediterranean opus, like I, I, I feel like we are, we're out of the Iliad, we're heading into Odyssey, like, like, you know, you thought the war was won, but now the real battle begins sort of deal. So, like, this is, this is a wild night. And on that note, do you have a preference on which show we start with? Because it could go either way here. Do you have a preferred one, which. [00:05:49] Speaker B: Was the one that had Razor Ramon. [00:05:53] Speaker A: Insulting Eric Bischoff giving away the game Nitro? Yeah, well, we might as well start with Nitro. [00:06:01] Speaker B: Okay, sounds good. [00:06:02] Speaker A: The way you put that makes me so happy because, like, isn't that great? Yes. No, keep doing it. I'm fine with this. [00:06:09] Speaker B: Right on, right on. [00:06:11] Speaker A: So, yeah, right off the bat, everything has kind of changed because we're Live, which is normal for Nitro. It's not Bischoff. It's Tony Schiavone. That's right, kids. AW's own Tony Shivs. He's now on commentary for the first hour of Nitro with the living legend, Larry Zabisco. I can't help, Sophie. You can tell everyone that I instinctually did the. The thing he does with his hand to his head and the little twirl. I can't say his name without doing that because I'm that type of nerd. I am so sorry. It will happen again. So we have to wait a whole hour for Bobby Heenan, which is the worst part of all, really, for longtime listeners. But for you, it's pretty all right, because we get straight to the graps. We have Horsemen versus the American males. [00:07:04] Speaker B: I can't imagine, like, I. I can't imagine, like, a more generic, boring, uninteresting Persona than American males. Like. Like, what the hell is their deal? Like, I mean, I know, I know. [00:07:20] Speaker A: It's a. [00:07:20] Speaker B: Like, every culture seems to have their own form of, like, weird ass wrestling, right? Like, there's Mexican wrestling. There's like, there's, there's, there's. There's sumo. There's like. There's a bunch of them. Right? But, like, is Nitro. Is that WCW or wwe? I forget. [00:07:40] Speaker A: Yes. [00:07:41] Speaker B: Okay. Well, either way, it's. It's like a distinctly American form. And I know, like, different. Different guys play at the nationalism angle in different ways. There's. What's his name? Hulk Hogan, with his real American song and everything like that. But, like, it's. It's like the most like, distilled down. So. So I live in Canada. There is a. There is a. There's a grocery store chain here called no Frills. Anybody who is Canadian who's listening to this might know where I'm going with this. No Frills. They have a. And loblaws. In general. There's. There's a bunch of different brands. So they have a type. They have a, like, store brand. It's called no and no name. Products are all like this very. It's. It's a like, primary yellow background black text. And it just says the name of the thing. So if you have a, like, I don't know, a can of beans, it'll just say beans in, like, big black text. And it's. It's like. There's something like, distinctly Soviet about it in a way. It's. It's like. [00:09:01] Speaker A: It's what? It's what My country, it's what my country thinks communism is, is. It's all you get. Every, Everyone gets the same toothbrush and it says toothbrush on it. Like, you know, and like that, that. [00:09:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:09:18] Speaker A: But, yeah, you want beans? [00:09:20] Speaker B: You have beans. [00:09:21] Speaker A: Here, beans for you. [00:09:23] Speaker B: This is a bad Russian accent. I'm sorry. I've probably just offended millions of people. I'm very sorry, everybody. [00:09:29] Speaker A: None of them listen to this show. [00:09:31] Speaker B: That's fine. So anyway, the point I'm trying to get at is like the American males Persona is like the like no name brand of like I, I just imagine like a no name rapper and it just says like wrestler on it. Like it's so boring. Everyone else has a shtick and like some of them are stupid, some of them are fun, but like, they're all kind of interesting sort of. But like American males, like. [00:10:00] Speaker A: No, this is. I, I was eight at the time, so I came to the American males very late. By the time I knew of Marcus Bagwell, he was Buff Bagwell and he was already a whole different thing. So all I knew about the American males is that their theme song is just, you know, I asked here, how do you feel about the American males theme song banger or the most banger? Because everything on the tin, you know, it's just. These are boys. These are American boys that look like Amber Combi and Fitch models. You know, it smell crazy in there. That's it. Like. And I don't know, I. People seemed to like it. I can only go off of what the audience is giving us when we watch these historical documents. You know, the audience seemed to like these boys a whole lot. I'm not into it as far as a gimmick goes outside of the song. The whole thing just makes me go to John because people, certain, certain authors on, on the Internet, SE Ransdale looking at you, Liz had tried to come on here and not let us know that they were actually Canadian just because they live in the country now. There's laws against that. You can't do that. It's called the, the heart clause. You have to let us know. If you're a Canadian icon, you have to let us know. Otherwise it's entrapment. So. But way to get that, way to get that one in under there. I appreciate that. [00:11:39] Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. [00:11:41] Speaker A: But all that to say, I agree with you. That being said, though, they're good as far as wrestling goes, this match is very solid. They're young, but they're good and they're fighting Arne Anderson and Ric Flair. Who famously can get a good match out of anything. I've seen them have match with matches with guys I'm not sure realized where they were and it went great, you know, so like they're very good at this. Oh, you probably don't know. Do you know what Yoshihiko is? Probably not. [00:12:17] Speaker B: I sure don't. [00:12:19] Speaker A: Oh gosh. Yoshihiko is a, a wrestling. I, I think it started as like a sex doll, like a blow up sex doll. But it's like a crash test dummy, like beanbag doll with a face that wrestles this. It has a record. They, they have, they them pronouns. They have won championships in Japan and. [00:12:44] Speaker B: It'S, it's, it's like it's a, it's not a person, it's a, it's doll. [00:12:49] Speaker A: It's a doll. There's, there's a person who wears all black who will walk him out to the ring and do like the movements but then like you get him in the ring and it's just a doll. And just this last weekend, a man who is known lovingly as Murder Grandpa tells you everything you need to know. He's an old Japanese man who is a shoot wrestler. This guy will kill you so many ways. Minor Suzuki. He's amazing. I love him. Apparently he's also low key, one of the greatest comedy wrestlers of all time because he had a match against this doll and it was brilliant. And, and I love this. A lot of people, a lot of guys, a lot of American males will say with fragile like egos in the business will, usually older ones will on this kind of stuff because it gives the game away. Because you go out, you're showing that, that most of what wrestling is, is the, the person who's doing most of the work is the person who's taken. Because the doll will DDT this guy and he sells it like he just got DDT'd by a person. You know, the doll will have an arm wrapped around his leg and he's selling it like he's got him in an ankle lock and it gives the game away. But it was a great match. He has great matches. Well, they pardon me, they sorry. And like I would love to see these guys flare 90s flare wrestle that guy. Because it's, it's exactly. Maybe not Flair because Flair's whole thing is getting his ass kicked in style. So maybe that wouldn't work so well. But it's proof that like you can, I think it came about because people used to say Flair could, could have a good match with A broomstick. And people in Japan were like, what? Wait, can we get a broomstick? Can we, can we test that? Sure enough. It's good stuff. [00:14:44] Speaker B: Yeah, that, that sounds like fun. I, I, I, I noticed, like, one of the things I thought was interesting was, like, it kept trying to push Ric Flair as, like, a ladies man and, like, like, Mr. Handsome and, like, I don't know. He looks like such a doofus. Like, I, I'm not into dudes, so, like, I'm not, I'm not really one to be making such calls. No. But I can appreciate a handsome man when he's a handsome man. There are some of these guys that are like, okay, well, you know, men aren't my thing, but if they were, maybe I could see that Ric Flair just seems like such a doofus. I don't, I don't get it. I don't get it at all. [00:15:24] Speaker A: I think that, well, that's the kind of, the thing is that he, he's, he says all this and they play it up, but in reality, if he's a ladies. Ric Flair isn't playing a character. That's just who he is. He wants you to think he's playing a character, but that's very much just who he is as a person. Yeah, not great. Not a great guy. And, like, they played up because in the 70s, it, it played in the 90s. It is goofy, which is. Yeah, that's kind of a sign of the times and a lot of why tonight is historic in a lot of ways. As far as the match itself, it's, it's pretty great. You know, the train take team offense. It's. Player keeps running away to his VIP table to hide behind woman with a champagne bottle. That's great. Yeah, that's what he, He's a heel. He's the bad guy. He likes to, he runs away and lets everyone, you know, not brave about it. Basically, I asked myself, if Ric Flair were in the Coliseum, would he have begged off from the tiger about Tama Face? You know, like, he was sold it. That's what he's good at everything. He's like, please don't kick my ass. And getting his ass kicked very well. It's his whole thing. What if you want, he would have worn a white tunic so it looked good when he got color. You know, these are the thoughts that keep me up at night, you know? So we, we come back from a commercial. Bagwell is sending Flair flying with black backdrops. This match continues to cook. But while this is going on, I guess at one point, Flair is, like, serving Tony and Larry champagne at the booth while his partner is, like, in the. And stuff that love. I love wrestling because it's so pain. Meanwhile, he's probably gonna get his ass kicked, but he wants you to think he's on top of it, you know? But, yeah, as far as that goes, Larry says it's a class act. Matt made me giggle, and apparently I think it made Tony try not to giggle. You can hear him, like, trying not to giggle at how ridiculous it is. And I'm just happy he's here. Tony Schiavone is now, in the future, an institution. You know what I mean? Okay. Yeah, we. We are in the era of this fandom, where institutions are continuing to be made, you know. But that's also kind of what's fun about wrestling. And what made me kind of want to have you on, too, because I was like, all the stuff you talk about, I'm like, these are just people making myths in real time, you know? Like, that's a lot of what wrestling is, is. You're telling these stories as though they happened a thousand years ago because you have this pomp and circumstance to it. But really, it was. It was last week, you know? [00:18:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And like. Even if. Even if I'm not, like, everybody knows who a lot of these characters are. Like, everyone's heard of Ric Flair, right? Like, even though I, like I said I watched more wrestling in the last couple weeks than I have in the rest of my life put together, I still knew who Ric Flair was. I still know who, like, Stone Cold Steve Austin is. And, like, all these, like. [00:18:42] Speaker A: Like, you know, bigger names. [00:18:44] Speaker B: A bunch of them. So. And, like, I'm into heavy metal, so I know who Triple H is, and I like. And. Etc. So, like, it's almost like it is making mythology, but it's like, this is mythology because we've decided that it's mythology, and enough people collectively have decided that it. This is a. This is unimportant story that's being told, and that really kind of gets to the core of, like, what these stories, like, what stories in general are. They are important because we decide that they're important, and enough people have made them important that they become important. It's. It. It is. Because it is. It's. It is a. It is a. From a, like, logic perspective, it is a. Because of a. Which is true, but it doesn't really go anywhere. But in this case, it doesn't matter because it still works. [00:19:50] Speaker A: Yeah, right. And I think that. Oh, that gets into a lot. Oh, God, Yeah. Exactly. And that gets into why tonight is a domino towards the regime we're dealing with now. Oh, we'll get there. So to. To skip over the rest of this match, because, honestly, folks, just watch it. It's the Horsemen, and, yes, the American males are the American males, but they can go. It ends with some. Eventually, woman pokes Buff's eye out behind the ref's back, and he goes to yell at her, which is enough distraction for R to DDT the other guy for the win like you do. The Horsemen bring in this new nitro with the win, and they head to the VIP table to talk to me and Gene about it. Eat some fake food, you know, waxy cheese, as Bobby later calls it, because there's no way they're putting real food to just sit out there and that. We're. We're getting to the end of this. Like, you mentioned the. The Ric Flair as woman. Like. Like, ladies, man. It's more womanizer at this point, and this kind of lets us know all about it. Like, because Arn lays out this straightforward player. I couldn't walk over for a better fight. That's a hell of a line, in my opinion. But then, after that, poetry. What does Rick have for us? Rambling, sweaty, breezy singing of afternoon delights and, like, munching on Liz's arm and letting us know how he's these women so much and spending all of Macho Man's money. And I'm just. [00:21:24] Speaker B: They're so mean to him. [00:21:26] Speaker A: I hate them so much. They're so mean to Macho Man. They are. They're very mean to Macho Man. [00:21:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:32] Speaker A: No one's mean to Rick, and that's a problem. More people should have been mean to Rick. I. I'm so. For a while, when we're watching, starting the show, we're 39 episodes in, I was still like, you know, I know Ric Flair sucks, but I appreciate what he does. This whole arc has broken me. I am just so sick of Ric Flair, the wife collector. Like, Pokemon. I'm so done with it. And it's coming to an end because, like, we come back and they show lifting. Who was then on commentary for a while, and then for every week, Rick would go out to the crowd and try to mongo. They've run this for, like, a month now. I. Yeah, I saw the face he made there for a second. Went, yes, exactly. Like, really? Yes. So this is what passes as storytelling right now in 1996. So we get to see Mongo and his football buddy pumping weights, being straight. [00:22:31] Speaker B: Oh, my God, it was so funny. [00:22:33] Speaker A: It was so wild. [00:22:35] Speaker B: The video quality, too, it's, it's like, I don't know what it is. Like, there's a filter on it. And also they, they've slowed it down to like four or five frames per second. It's so weird. [00:22:46] Speaker A: And that's like a thing. And I'm trying to think if. Did more stuff in the 90s do that or was it just wrestling? Because, like, wrestling does it a lot. [00:22:55] Speaker B: The. I, I think other stuff did. Like, I, I, I, I could fully just be making up this memory right now. But yeah, I feel like there are, like, episodes of Saved by the Bell that have a similar sort of, sort of filter to them. [00:23:08] Speaker A: Yes. [00:23:08] Speaker B: But I, I could be wrong. Somebody, you know, leave a comment below if I'm wrong. I don't know if there's a comment section of this, but whatever there is. [00:23:16] Speaker A: There is on, on most pop places, feel free to do on Spotify or yell at us on Blue sky, where, where we exist. But yes, no, I would like to know, because you say Saved by the Bell and all of a sudden it tracks. I'm like, yes, no, I do remember this. But no, that was a thing in the 90s, I think, and now I'm remember. No, I'm remembering more. See? Funny how memories weird like that. At one point, Kevin Green looks at the camera and says, oh, yeah, coming hard, baby. And I just. All right, cool. Yeah. To quote a former guest. Really? Like, really? You're still really. This is okay? Yeah, this is okay. Yeah. I don't, I don't know what else to do with that. We, we, we come back from commercial and it's starting to look a little weird. And, and now I'm starting to kind of like, okay, because it's graps, but there's this guy named Steve Doll, Beautiful head of hair. And I'm like, okay, yes, Steve Doll. Yes. Yes, she is. Get it, girl. His opponent is a Colonel Parker joint, a guy named the Mauler. I don't know the. I know these guys as well as you at this point. I didn't know these guys either. So I did a little bit of goog. The Mauler is Blake Beverly, a former WWF wrestler who folks would know as Blake Beverly. And the other guy is also a WWF guy. So these are like his. Steve Doll is his actual name. He was Steve Dunn in the wwf, part of a tag team called well Done D U N N which says a lot about the state of Wrestling in 1993. So like, I don't know, it's one of those things where it's like, why are these guys here? And then all of a sudden I'm like, oh, it's losing their. But not for the match. Here comes Scott hall and a denim Dan fit for the ages, walking through the crowd. Do you know much about this moment or the NWO at all? Sophie? [00:25:13] Speaker B: I. Not really. I saw the T shirts that kids wore when I was. When I was a kid and. [00:25:24] Speaker A: I. [00:25:25] Speaker B: Don'T know, I mean, I think you and I were talking about it a little bit. I was just briefly looking up to make sure that Colonel Parker is not the same as Colonel Tom Parker who was Elvis Presley's manager, who he is not. In case anybody else listening is also unfamiliar with this. [00:25:43] Speaker A: Colonel Rob Parker. And yes, that's why he stole the gimmick. [00:25:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I see this. His Wikipedia page says he. He is a takeoff of Colonel Tom Parker of Elvis Presley fame. So not the same. GU would have been impressive, impressive fall from grace if it were from Graceland. But I'm bum. So, no, I don't know much about. I don't know much about the nwo. [00:26:12] Speaker A: Well, this is. This is the start of it. This is. He comes out, everyone's acting like, what the hell's going on? He asked for a mic. Everyone's confused. It's my understanding though, like I. He just gets right in the ring and everyone kind of lets him. And this is where the disconnect for me as a grown up is. Because my understanding is that one of the great joys of being a pro wrestler is that someone who is not working for your company comes out of the crowd and rushes the ring. You are within your right and encouraged to beat the ever loving fuck out of them to protect the business, to make them think that it's real. So the fact that no one did that is. Should tell anyone that. That Scott's working here, which is like. Yeah, I've seen many shoot interviews. These guys talk about it as a perk, which I think is very funny. So I think also he's. Scott hall is huge. So it helps. The other question though, I have for you as the current Canadian. [00:27:12] Speaker B: Sorry, sorry. Scott hall is Razor Ramone, right? [00:27:15] Speaker A: Yes, Razor Ramon. So you know, you know him as. [00:27:17] Speaker B: Razor Ramon because I didn't recognize him. I'd never seen him before. So I looked him up and I saw Razor Ramon, but I didn't know that was his. Yeah, I didn't know he had an IRL name. I figure his mom just called him Little Razor. [00:27:32] Speaker A: Little Rays. Yeah. Maybe it's because I'm so used to like living and existing in queer community that once these guys jump forward from one promotion to another, I just forget their old names. It's like, oh, nope, that's his dead day now. But no Ra. Vince Mc. Yeah, right. It's it. We're trained. Vince McMahon being the monster that he is, he has this thing where like if you work for his company, he owns you now. And that means that you need a new name that he can trademark. Like Scott hall came in like we, you gotta have a gimmick and we'll come up with a name. And Scott hall was like, I've been making the boys laugh by doing an Al Pacino and Scarface impression. So he just, he, he throws it at Vince and Vince is like, this is great. Yeah, Razor Ramon. There you go. [00:28:21] Speaker B: Is that what he's going for? Pacino? [00:28:24] Speaker A: So like that his whole Razor Ramon's whole thing is Pacino and Scarface? [00:28:31] Speaker B: Oh my God. I thought he was just a Spanish guy. [00:28:35] Speaker A: Yeah. No, not at all. [00:28:37] Speaker B: No, this is, this is my first and last experience with him so far. This, my knowledge of this man begins and ends with the footage we've watched here. [00:28:47] Speaker A: Oh, that's exquisite. See, this is why I love doing this show and getting those reactions from people who have no idea because it's wild to me. So he got you. You actually thought he might have been Cuban? No, Scott hall is from like Florida, I think. Like, he's like, he's very, very white dude. Yeah, right. I mean, he used to work in, in my neck of the woods in Minneapolis in the awa. And he was big Scott hall. And he had like a big mustache and looked like a lumberjack. And like he did not look Cuban at all. Did not talk. Amazing. He gotcha, folks. Write it down. Market Scott hall got, got, got the, the accent over on at least one person. That's fantastic. So no, he. [00:29:32] Speaker B: Is that why. Is that why he's such a God awful actor then? [00:29:37] Speaker A: Yes. [00:29:37] Speaker B: He's doing like, he's doing like a stupid voice at this. Okay, okay. I didn't realize. [00:29:42] Speaker A: Yeah, and he's going real. He talks real slow because it'll piss off everyone that wants him to finish his sentence. Like, that's why he talks like that. It's a heel move to piss people off by wasting their time. These are tricks of the trade, you know? Like this is. And he's good at what he does. First and foremost, though, as the current Canadian here, I have to ask thoughts on the Canadian tuxedo. He has going on sleeveless denim vest with the jeans. You know, it's a choice. [00:30:12] Speaker B: I mean, it's a good look. It's a good luck. I vibe. I vibe. [00:30:16] Speaker A: I know I will probably get me put on a list, but let's be fair. I was already on one. I love it. I love the denim. I love maple syrup. I love me the Hart family. Joni Mitchell. Great stuff. You know, we. We got a lot of good stuff from Canada. Your YouTube, you know, there you go. Like a good handful of posters. I like. All right. I could go on forever. Please stop tariffing my friends. Please stop. Uh, so you people, you know who I am? You don't know why I'm here? He says, we'll. Where is Billionaire Ted? And where, oh, where is the Nacho Man? And this is reference to. We've been at perfect. Man was totally not mad. Don't put in the paper that he's mad. And he would, at the end of his show have these little skits where he would make fun of Ted Turner, who owns wcw, with a character called Billionaire Ted. And he would make fun of his former wrestlers and his friends Macho man and Hulk Hogan by calling them Nacho man and the Huckster and Scheme Gene. So these are references to WWF product, right? That's important. That will be important for later. And it's also important that he's doing the Razor Ramon voice. That's key here. Because people at the time, you know, they thought that this is Razor Ramon. He doesn't come out and say, I'm Scott Hall. He says, you know, that punk came and get in the building. Says all this stuff. People are meant to think that this is a WWF wrestler showing up unannounced at a WCW show. And I've heard of people at the time watching Raw and, like, getting calls from friends saying, switch to Nitro now, now, now. Razors at Nitro declaring war. You know, like, they thought that this was Razor Ramon coming over from the other company. So he actually. He ends his promo with a line from Scarface. Like everything else, you want to go to war, you want a war, or you got a few. But there's instant heat there. And it's. Everyone's just kind of trying to figure out what's going on. Tony's like, what about the match? And Larry's like, the match left, you know, like, they're gone. But what's wild about this is like they come back and they try to act like it's business as usual. But this is the beginning of what Josie Reisman would call Neo K. Fabe. What I have a friend named Carl who is a academic who does far right research. He has this concept he calls weaponized unreality. This is the beginning of that. Because what they're doing is they are blending what people know to be reality and the fictional realities in such a way that the average person watching this wasn't entirely sure which was which. And basically that's. That becomes. That becomes the modus forward because of this night. This night went so well. It created such a bang by this happening like 20 minutes into the show that it changed how wrestling knew to be real and what the fictional story was. And they started taking elements of people's real life stuff and putting it into stories and it create. And it was basically the wrestling business adapting to the fact that everyone knew what was going on and we had more connection. You know, the Internet starting to be a thing. So, like people who are smart on stuff can talk about it. Right? It's so like, basically. And the problem is, is that this basically has become the playbook of the fascists that are now inhabiting my government. Is. They're like, oh, we can flood reality with bullshit to the point where no one knows what's real and what isn't. And that makes it literally impossible to do a democracy by breaking reality by doing Neo kfab. And they all learned it from wrestling because Trump's best friend is Vince McMahon and he's been a friend of like. Trump has been going to watch WWF wrestling since he was a small child. He. This is where he got it. And like, he is. Yeah. So, like, again, Josie Reesman has a whole book about it. Go check it out. It's. This is the night that kind of. Yeah, it's a. It's a domino. It's a. It's a domino in that meme. You know what I mean? I'm. I'm blabbering, but like, yes, that's what makes this historic. It's not just a guy in a snazzy denim Dan outfit as a guy doing a terrible Alino accent, though. It's also that he, he's breaking reality and showing people that you can and getting. He's gonna get a lot of people really rich doing it. So, yeah, that's. That, that's the. There's. And we're only 25 minutes into Nitro, so. Yes. Look, you're here For a history, you did it. Wild stuff. But much like them, we come back and have to kind of act like it never happened, which is, you know, interesting. Meanwhile, sai, though, we get Craig Pittman. Larry Sabisco says that he was mean and badass and knew what bugs to eat for protein in the wild. And I'm declaring him my new Mongo because. Holy. [00:36:06] Speaker B: Your new what? [00:36:08] Speaker A: Michael, the guy who was doing the. The. The weightlifting, he used to comment, like, kind of like Larry Zabisco does now, and he would just say the most outlandishly nonsensical. Made me realize that he's an agent of chaos. Like, you have to embrace the fact that this man just. Just says, like, it's. It's like. It's like Mongo McMichael is like the Charlie Brown head hose of. Of wrestling commentators. You can just say things on the Internet, like, you can just say whatever. And he. He embodied that. And Larry seems to be taking that over. This pleases me. And out comes DDP to the song Self High Five. Which it's familiar. It's not Nirvana. We swear to God. It's not Nirvana. Please don't sue us for ripping off Nirvana. And this match is also. Even DP is being very ddp. Ish. Yeah, he. He calls him the new American dream. And I'm like, if the American dream is. I don't know. You're Canadian. Is the American dream a curly mullet and a big cigar? I don't know. You tell me. [00:37:17] Speaker B: I don't. I don't know what the American dream is. I. I think it's. I mean, my American dream is to not be American. So I don't know. Does that. I guess I'm living the dream. [00:37:32] Speaker A: I was gonna say I love this for you. I could tell you the American dream is currently a nightmare. It was never a dream. It was always horseshit. [00:37:40] Speaker B: Yeah, it always has been. As far as I'm. As far as I've been old enough. I mean, I was born here. I was born in 1985. My parents lived in Florida until 1984 and they moved back to Canada. They were both born here, but they moved back to Canada because they wanted to have kids here. And every chance I get, I thank them for. [00:38:02] Speaker A: Yes. [00:38:03] Speaker B: For not having me. Not just in the U.S. but in Florida. In the U.S. oh, my God. [00:38:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:09] Speaker B: No, I have friends in Florida. I have. You know, I. There are wonderful people in Florida, but. Yeah, there's a lot of knots. So. [00:38:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna say there's wonderful people. Floor In Florida. And I worry for them every day. But yeah, speaking of Florida, ddp, I think he's actually from Georgia, but he, he, he's an honorable mention Florida man. DDP is interesting because he's at this point, he's getting into wrestling. Wrestling. He's like in his 40s already at this point, which is old, especially back then for him to like be getting into it. He was just a. He worked at a strip club. Like, he was like a bouncer at a strip club. That was his thing. And he knows all these wrestlers because they'd hang out at the strip club and they're like, dally, you should get in on this. He's like, all right, I'll do the thing. So it turns out, point, at one point he's making fun of Pittman and tries to get him to do push ups, says, drop down and give me 20. And Pitman does like one and a half, one arm push ups. And DDP goes to kick him. Now when Pitman moves, it's like the perfect Charlie Brown missing the football. [00:39:22] Speaker B: Yeah, Very goofy. [00:39:24] Speaker A: Nailed it. And I was just. Again, professional wrestling is better than that thing you like. I like because he did that to himself and it was beautiful. And this whole match is kind of that. That's the whole story is DDP making Pitman look good? Because Pittman sucks. And DDP is amazing. He's a hidden gem for me. No pun intended. I didn't know how great he was growing up. And now going back and watching this, I'm like, oh my God, he's. This is awesome. Almost to prove my point, Pittman tries to put his own finisher finishing move. Like he doesn't even know how to do his own move right. He does this like arm bar, but it's backwards. [00:40:06] Speaker B: Amazing. [00:40:07] Speaker A: I. I'm sighing deeply because long time listeners, I know I, I had like written this guy off. I thought he was gone. I thought I was done with Pitbull Pittman. Apparently not. Thankfully though, done with him for tonight because he gets the diamond cuttered out of him out of nowhere, as DDP will do. [00:40:29] Speaker B: Yeah, it's pretty quick. [00:40:30] Speaker A: It's pretty quick. He just kind of boom, hits him. And that's gonna become a thing for him. Like part of his signature is this. He can hit that finisher out of anywhere. And it becomes a meme later on the Internet because another wrestler takes it and calls it an rko. So like the idea of an RKO out of nowhere becomes a meme. Mercy killing. I need, I need this. I Need this guy to be done. So we could. We come back from that. There's a rocking video monitor torturing Macho man and calling him crazy while torturing him in all. Finally, they put it in just a tight music package. Yay. And that's that. [00:41:11] Speaker B: There's another mean to him. [00:41:13] Speaker A: You're so mean to him. [00:41:15] Speaker B: I don't like it. [00:41:17] Speaker A: No, he's good. He's savage. Like, just leave him be. He's just trying to live in his madness. Yeah, he just wants to eventually drop an elbow on a hamster. You've seen the gif. If you haven't, go on Blue Sky. It's there. The guy. The guy's weird, but I love him. He just wants us to snap into Slim Jims. He's just trying to. [00:41:42] Speaker B: You've heard his album, right? [00:41:43] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:41:46] Speaker B: My girlfriend hadn't. My girlfriend hadn't heard it. So we were. We were eating dinner, and I was telling her, I'm gonna be doing this tonight. And. And so I mentioned the. The. The album, and he was like, wait, what? I'm like, yeah. And 50 Cent produced it. [00:42:06] Speaker A: She's like, what? [00:42:08] Speaker B: So we listened to it, and it is. It. It. It is an indescribable music experience. [00:42:17] Speaker A: Did you. Did you play for her, Be a Man, Hulk? [00:42:21] Speaker B: Of course I did. [00:42:22] Speaker A: Oh, God. The great. Like, I know. We. We all. We all know the wonderful Drake's a pedophile song, and we all sang it at the super bowl, and it was wonderful. Before that, the greatest, greatest feat in hating of all time. Macho Man's Be a Man, Hulk. He hates Terry Bellea, as he should. [00:42:47] Speaker B: I mean, he's. It seems like he's in good company. [00:42:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. As we should. Speaking of people who hate Terry Bellea, we come back from commercial, and here's Shark. This man. [00:43:00] Speaker B: I'd never heard of this guy before. He's so goofy. [00:43:03] Speaker A: Oh, my God. It hurts you. Exactly right. Like, you see this guy, and you're like, what's up with this. This man with shark teeth painted on his face? Would you believe me if I told you that this man is a celebrated athlete and a beloved member of the sumo community? [00:43:21] Speaker B: At this point, I'll believe just about anything. [00:43:23] Speaker A: Yeah, right. See, you're smart, Sophie. You're getting wrestling. You understand? Suspend that disbelief, because you never know this guy John Tenta was a football player in America, and he ended up going and doing sumo and was pretty well respected in the sumo community. And, like, he wrestled in Japan as well. They love an athlete. He's really good. He was in the WWF as Earthquake. He was one of the Natural Disasters. Or Earthquake. And oh, my God, I'm forgetting the other natural disaster. Was it Tsunami? No, I can't. I know. I can't think of his. Can't think of it. He eventually became Tugboat. Oh, my God. I can't believe. I can't remember for. Oh, my God. The Natural Disaster. [00:44:11] Speaker B: Avalanche. [00:44:12] Speaker A: Avalanche. Thank you. [00:44:13] Speaker B: I just. I just looked it up. [00:44:15] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Thank you. You're better at this than me. Thank you for coming on my show and making it work. I. I'm the worst. I think of him as Tug. [00:44:25] Speaker B: Oh, wait, no. His name used to be Avalanche. [00:44:29] Speaker A: Oh, he was. [00:44:30] Speaker B: His name used to be Avalanche. In the Natural Disaster, he was Earthquake alongside Typhoon. [00:44:36] Speaker A: Typhoon. Okay. Typhoon, who became Tugboat and eventually the Shockmaster. And then they called him Avalanche. And. And WWF is like, that's cute. Stop it. And they're like, okay, we can't call him Avalanche because it's too close, but it's John Tanta and, like, man, they did him dirty in this whole. This whole match. Is this them doing him dirty? Because, like, I guess he's been thrown out of the Dungeon of Goon, which, honestly, is probably the best thing to happen to them. Those guys are no good. [00:45:10] Speaker B: Hold up. The Dungeon of Goon. [00:45:13] Speaker A: They're here called the Dungeon of Doom, but we call them the Dungeon of Goon because they're Goons. [00:45:18] Speaker B: Okay, okay. Because I was going to say, in the year of our Luigi 2025, goon means something different than it would have back in 1996. [00:45:28] Speaker A: See, this is in 1996. They would have called themselves Goons, probably, but they wouldn't have known what it meant. We call them Dungeon of Goon because in the year of our Luigi 2025. Yes. This is very good stuff. And them all, they're awful. And again, I forget. I just forget that they have an actual name and not the silly one I gave them. I'm sorry, folks. I hope. Kicked out, which good for him. And okay, he's. This is painful. This is very bad. First, they give us Hulk Hogan a video package, talking about all the famous people he knows. This sucks. I have a couple thoughts on this real quick. First of all, now that they're two hours long, they're filling more time with video vignettes, and I don't appreciate this. Secondly, this Hulk is sad. And I'm starting to understand even more how the broader fan community back then hated him so much because, like, he's not Even there, he's off filming movies and sending these. Thank you, Moxley. Sending these video packages about how awesome he is and he knows all these companies. And he gets booed, which is going to make what eventually happens make sense because he's gonna turn bad guy. And it's like, that's all they needed you to do because they're gonna hate you anyways. So we come back from that ridiculousness. Bischoff is introing round two of Nitro because he lives in. In Zabisco. And now we get Bobby and Eric, which. Yay, Bobby. Boo, Eric. There's just a fire in the middle of the ramp. For some reason, I had to take note of that as like the laziest pyro. Like someone just paper bag on fire. But yeah, The Shark is swimming his way to the ring, hailing from. I wish I was making this up. Tsunami. Followed by the world champion, still wrestling for the dungeon of Doom with the head gooning hype man person himself, Jimmy Hart, the Giant. Now this. This match should have banger qualities. If it weren't for the reality of what I'm. I think I'm gonna call the. What has been done to the Giant. Like, basically, he's a big guy. You can see this, you know, Paul White, very tall, very giant. Before he. Yeah, yeah. Hence the name. Also, they wanted to try to make people believe that he was Andre the Giants kid. That that's a real thing. Talking about myth making, it's like, no, dude, no. You don't even have a French accent. Once they put the belt on him, like, he used to do a lot more in the ring. He's. He's a newer guy. He doesn't know a lot about wrestling. But what's cool about that is that he would try a lot of different stuff. What has been done is they make him act like a big monster. They make him act like a giant. And it kind of hurts, in my opinion, more than works. Especially because he's fighting John Tenta, who is huge. You know, like, you see him. [00:48:18] Speaker B: Yeah, they're both enormous. [00:48:20] Speaker A: Big guy. They're both enormous. Especially you see, like, the ref next to him, and he's just like, so tiny. And it doesn't play well because it's just like it. It's John Tenta. Like, you can't treat John Tenta like Ric Flair. Ric Flair is so tiny. So this match was kind of a snore for me. At one point, though, Tenta goes for a power slam. Can't pick him up. And then Giant does something actually really cool and walk around with him before slamming him down. And, uh, that's. Yeah, Yeah. I was gonna say, you have the look on your face of someone who's like, that guy's 500 pounds. [00:48:56] Speaker B: Yeah. At some point, the. The announcers were like, there is almost a ton of. Of man in that ring. [00:49:02] Speaker A: Right? That's a. [00:49:04] Speaker B: Like, these are enormous men. [00:49:06] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a ton of man, which is more weightage of man than I ever wanted anyone one time. So 10 to, you know, really giving it his all. And he's really good at this. And they have him painted like a shark. Yay. Oh, it bothers me. So Eric tells us a little bit about the new format again. As the second hour starts, Bobby does hissing. He says, the second hour gets so hot, you gotta wear asbestos. And I was like, all right, cool. I missed you. The giant does something for the win and, like, gets him up on one arm. And, like, the. The trick to the choke slam is that the person taking it is holding on to the person's arm. So they're not actually being picked up by the neck. They're being picked up by the point of contact on their hand. So, like, that's the. That guy up with, like, one arm and a hand on the back is wild. And that. That's why. Staged. And it's important to make that difference because, like, it's still. They're still doing strong man, but now something's happening. [00:50:14] Speaker B: Yeah, like the. The. That's. That's. That's something that I thought was really interesting was like, like, it's not a. I. I. Yes, it's staged, all that stuff, but at the same time, like, it. That, like, the acrobatics and the athleticism are really impressive. And, like, I don't know, it makes me think of, like. Like, I don't know, Cirque du Soleil or something like that, where it's like. Like it stayed. It's fake. It's fake. No, it's not fake. It's just. It's like you said, it's. It's staged, which is. I don't know. It's neato, maybe. This is a boring thing that everyone talks about on every. Anybody. Anybody who's new to wrestling is going to talk about it on a wrestling podcast, but you'd be surprised. [00:50:58] Speaker A: No, it is neato. And I like showing people how neato it is. It's. It's very much just theater. It's. It's very literally, stage fighting different than knowing how to throw A work punch where like you're pulling it but it still looks like it. It's hit. So it. It's an art. In the medium is John Tenta, which makes this very sad because out of nowhere a new gooner named Abuba comes out and shaves half of Tenta's hair. This is one of the saddest things to happen to John Tent in my opinion. It's a disgrace, as Eric says, but for the different reasons, because story keep his hair like that for like a month. Like in real life. Like, this guy's has to like go out with his kids and like half of his hair is oh, geez. Yeah. And it's like this guy was a celebrated athlete, you know, like Bobby likes it. He's laughing hysterically as we go to commercial. I am sad. We come back for a TV title match. We have Max with two X's. I don't know this guy, but holy heck. And meat. It's just meaty, man. Google tells me this is Max Muscle and he has a new share, like one name gimmick. I was like, okay, I know this guy with one X. [00:52:23] Speaker B: Yeah, Lex Luger's the. The. He's the blonde guy, right? [00:52:25] Speaker A: He's the blonde guy who is very pretty boy. Yeah, very pretty boy. He makes his boobies dance. You know, he flexes and makes him dance and stuff. And he's got the tassels. Whereas Max had bullet and then he shaved just the sides in like a two wide mohawk kind of deal. And yeah, he used to just go, yeah, he went by the name Max Muscle and he had like a mullet. And it looks like they're like, we're just gonna shave the size of your head and call you Max and new gimmick, I guess. And it worked. It worked. I had to look him up. I was like, oh, wait, he was here before. What the this match is? It's meaty men slapping meat, some sloppy power slams, lots of headlocks. It's not much to write home about. So I didn't write much. But in the middle of the match, Eric keeps talking about how he's like, well, the guy wants to come out here to them. They are acting their asses off. Like, I kind of love it there. This is the most effort any of these guys because. Yeah, so. [00:53:33] Speaker B: So maybe you can answer this. And like, again, I know it's. It is. It is staged and to a certain extent, I don't know how much you ever watch Whose line is it anyway? [00:53:44] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, back in the day so. [00:53:46] Speaker B: Where it's like the, what is it? The, the, the, the rules are made up and the points don't matter or something like that. How did Lex Luger win this match? He didn't pin him. [00:53:58] Speaker A: He didn't pin him. [00:53:59] Speaker B: So how did he win? Like what's happening here? Did they just decide that he won? [00:54:05] Speaker A: All of a sudden he, he got him in. So what eventually happens is a lot of this happens. We get a lot of the Neok fave again because they continue to talk off screen. They have a mad picture rack now. He did what is called a submission. So basically he made him say uncle. He made him give up. Going like this a bunch hurts so much that the guy said I give up, I give up, I give up. So like that, that's how he won. He didn't pin him. He made him give up by putting him up. Okay, so yeah, that's. That match really is just, that's the whole thing. So. Yes, happy to explain that. It's a little goofy. Generally you can, you can win by pinning them for three or making them say uncle or if you knock them down and they can't get up for a 10 count. But all that is usually kind of like by the ref's discretion that it's very much like whose lies Anyway, at a certain point it's the rules become whatever we need to get the match across. You know what I mean? Whatever we need to make it work. So like there's a rule where if you throw the guy over in wcw, only if you throw the guy over the top rope intentionally, theoretically that's a disqualification and you lose because you could hurt the guy. Nowhere else is this a rule. Nowhere else. And in WCW it's only a rule when they need it to be. And like it's very funny watching this stuff going. That should have been like, that should have been. That should have been. But only when it makes sense. They say, well, that it very much is kind of improv in that way. They're like, whatever makes it work. So Lex wins, blah blah. He gives a okay promo. I, I don't really care that much. Alex is. It's fair enough. It's. It's an 8 out of 10 for him. Not very good at it. And it's like he got it. He got across. They show him getting choke slammed through a table. That's very cool. All this is good. Mean Gene says that putting Giant in the rack would be almost an impossible mission. Reminding us that Mission Impossible just came out the first one. So we all feel old watching this. Of, like, the seventh one just came out. Yeesh. And then, yes, after commercial, we got another new guy that, I don't know, tells us that he comes out of the power plant, which is like WCW's wrestling school, basically. So they're like, I think that this. I don't know, it's two hours, I guess. They're like, let's throw a lot of new guys out there, you know, because there's a whole lot of, like, guys I didn't recognize on this show. Might as well, you know. [00:56:53] Speaker B: I like this guy. I liked his vibe. [00:56:55] Speaker A: I like his vibe a lot. And he was fighting Brad Armstrong, whose vibe I dislike. And then that also helped, you know, like, to kind of show us if he can work. And he absolutely does. I don't recognize his name. Which doesn't bode well for him, like, you know, being around for a while, unfortunately. But it was a really good match. Eric at one point says that Bobby is known for Bobby, not Heenan. Bobby the wrestler. Bobby Walker is known for watching film and studying it like a thesis. Because they want to make it seem like real sports. You know, like football players, like, watching film. And Bobby Heenan taking this opportunity, he's like, you know what that is? Yeah. Bobby says, yeah, I know, Phil. Eric's like, no. A thesis is like, isn't. Who is she? Isn't she the one that does the dance with the monkey? I was like, God damn it. [00:57:55] Speaker B: Bobby clever. [00:57:57] Speaker A: I love him. He's the best he's been at. Bobby has been at this. He's a veteran at this. And, like, he's got that old humor where it's like. It's like, stand up, you know, back in, like, smokey clubs kind of vibe. And, like, just. It's so no one does it quite like him. Larry's trying. Larry's at best goes trying. We'll see if he gets better. Bobby tries to work out Rick's plan while this is going on, too. In. He thinks that adding Deborah to his collection so he can ride high on Mongo's pension money. This is. This is it. This is Wrestling in 1996. That's. Yeah, it's awful. But what isn't awful is Bobby Walker going for Lucha. He, like, tries to do a double jump to the top and he slips a little. [00:58:45] Speaker B: But everyone doesn't he. [00:58:48] Speaker A: Yeah, he does it. And, like, everyone kind of gives him, like, the hell yeah. And I was like, see, this is great. It's a new guy doing new. And the crowd doesn't like, destroy him. So I hope he comes back. I. Because, like, I feel like if he went out there and slipped, he's gonna go in the back and they're gonna be like, you're never working again. You know what I mean? Like, like, sometimes the business back then especially was that rough. More so in wwe because Vince is a maniac. Yeah. And also very racist. Well, everyone. The whole business was at this point, but I was just like, God, I hope they don't hold that against them, because he went for it. And that's cooler than a lot of guys were doing. And he. And it works, too. He goes for the finisher. It's great. The crowd loves him. I want to see more of this man. We come back from commercial and Lord Steven Regal and Jeeves, I guess, apparently your countrymen, as Canada isn't technically Commonwealth of England still, isn't it? So I don't know how this works. [00:59:55] Speaker B: I mean. [00:59:59] Speaker A: No comment. [01:00:00] Speaker B: I don't want to be associated with those people. Yeah, there are some wonderful people in England. Of course there are. There are lots of wonderful people in England, but there's good people both sides. [01:00:13] Speaker A: Both sides. Wonderful people. [01:00:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. But that's not. [01:00:18] Speaker A: Neither here nor there. [01:00:19] Speaker B: And we're not British. [01:00:21] Speaker A: Yeah, we're not British, Damn it. Soon. Soon, in my country, we won't be allowed to learn the difference. So, yes, this guy. I love this guy. He's a lord. But he. He speaks like. Like, he was raised in, like, the lowest of low class in England because he was. I love this. [01:00:41] Speaker B: But it doesn't matter because to, like, the average American, like, they just hear British accent and they're like, oh, this person is so posh. [01:00:49] Speaker A: What is he, some sort of royal. Yeah, make him a lord. That's literally it. They're like, you're British. You're a lord. And he's just like, I'm. And poor Steven Regal is like a journeyman wrestler. Like, he's, like, really good. He. He's. They talk about it. He's like. They talk about how he fought in India and stuff. That's real. Because in England, in English wrestling, that's what you do on the off seasons. You would go to Germany and Japan and India and all these other places and wrestle on the off season, then come back and wrestle on the on season in England. So, like, that's true. And, like, Regal is amazing, which is what makes this match really pretty good. It's a Euro match because he's fighting and he comes out and he has the leather and the hair. And he says, whatever, I am das cool. And there's no way that this does because, like, these guys are both really good. Sometimes I don't take many notes because the grabs are awful. That's happened once already, I think, so far. Sometimes though, I don't take many notes because the grabs are. Are just exquisite. And this is the latter. So, like, folks, watch this match. Steven Regal is perfect basically, at everything he does because he's out. He knows what he's doing. He's out there to make all these Americans hate him and does a very good job at it. And yeah, it's just Americans love hating. [01:02:17] Speaker B: People that are not born in America. [01:02:18] Speaker A: We make it very easy for him. It's true. And he just goes very pompous. And, yeah, it's good. Watch it. Bobby Heen's drop it. All manner of heat. Too much to the right down go. Listen. Speaking of heat, though, after this match, Regal gets the win and proceeds to drop a promo where, like, telling the truth, like, you're shooting is like the vernacular. He was shooting here. Like, he says, this place sucks. Our champion him is a Barnum and Bailey escapee. And like, like, he's, he's. He's having none of this. And I think this is all probably his actual feelings because. Well, because he got the job here and like, he got put on like the mid card and that's it. And they just said, you're this now this. You're gonna be the. The Brit never be champion and you're never going up from here. Like, this is it. Enjoy it. And he probably just hated it. Like, he was like, I give me sting him. I want to be him. I want this shine sideshow freak. I want the gold. And I was like, this is great. He calls Alex Wright Jr. Adolf said his dad would be proud of whipping him. And I was like, this is amazing. Brutal. What? Brutal. One of the best to do it. So, yeah, really good. He also, you know, he talks about how wild is they got someone coming from a different organization. And like, all this, all of this will, as I said, remember, this will be important because, like, they didn't use his name, but he uses the accent. He makes references to WWF skits. And he says here, Regal says, this guy comes in from a different organization. So this ends up in court. WWF takes them to court and says, what the. You are not doing enough to make it clear that this guy doesn't work for us anymore. Like, they got pissed to be like, you're making it look like this is this thing that's happening and we're involved and we're not and they had to sue them to get them to. So he had to stop talking like that as much. So like, thankfully. Well, maybe not thankfully. Scott hall had alcohol problems amongst other things. So he always continued to kind of just talk a little slow. It's just that he was really up the whole time, so you can't really tell the difference. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. Yay. Regal's so called painted fla. Clown Sting is fighting Scooter Pie Steiner, the single most steroided man in the history of the world. Yeah. And I did have a quick question for you. I was like, this is good about trans HRT in ancient times. I'm wondering, do we know anything about CIS HRT in ancient times? What did gladiators do? Anything to get those, you know, a little extra boost for those sweet gains because all of our gladiators are jacked to the gills on human growth hormone and various testosterone. Yeah, that was gonna say. Do you know of any in all of your. If you come across anyone like doing the, the mare's piss but for testosterone. [01:05:41] Speaker B: That's a really interesting question. I've. I, I must say I don't know a whole lot about gladiators and gladiatorial games. I haven't studied it a whole lot. However, from, you know, from what I know. Again, not even that might be me. I have microphone issues. My. Anyway, it doesn't matter. It's a, it's a boring story. [01:06:02] Speaker A: So not knowing much about gladiator stuff, which I wasn't sure, but possible the HRT of it all. [01:06:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I do know it was nowhere near as deadly as we think it is. Like we found like, like, like unary epigrams of, of like, like tombstones of gladiators that say here lies. He was a beloved gladiator and fought in the arena for 25 years. You don't last 25 years in a place where somebody is trying to kill you every day. You just don't. And so like we think like it, it's. We think it is very similar to like kind of like professional sports entertainment wrestling where like it is, it is acrobatic. Yes. It is athletic. Yes. It is nowhere near as painful as it looks. [01:06:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:58] Speaker B: Does it still hurt? Yeah, probably, but not as much as it looks. [01:07:03] Speaker A: Yes. And we've talked about that before. See him and like some, A tour guide told them that and they're like so like pro wrestling. The tour guide was like, God damn it. Yes. Yeah. Like pro wrestling. I was like. And now I wonder, did people have signs in the Coliseum? You know, were they on steroids? Again, these are. I was like. And I was like, you know, if the dogs. [01:07:23] Speaker B: It would have just said John 3:16, as opposed to Austin 316. [01:07:27] Speaker A: Yes. And again, they would have been talking about, like, the actual guy. Solid point. But, yeah, I was like, no, I have you here, and you. You taught us about the magic of estrogen. Horse piss. I was like, how are trans mass guys getting steroids? I must know. How are you getting your testosterone? Or how were CIS dudes getting steroided out? And were they. I need to know these things. Like, so, yeah, that's fantastic. But, yeah, where was I? I got myself distracted with my own tangent. Oh, no. This match, again, not many notes, because it's just great. Go watch it. As far as Sting versus Scott Steiner, I did need to take a few, though, because there was a few. You know what will eventually become his finishing move? The Scorpion Death Drop. Everyone watch it. It's awesome. I jumped around, I squealed. I was like, hey, it's his thing. I did the Leo, pointing at the. The screen meme, like, I know that move. That's his move. The second note, Ricky Puppy Boy Steiner. The brother comes out and he looks like he just got back from Margaritaville. Apparently, he's a parrot head. And I just. I needed everyone to know that he's looking for his soap clip on a rope. That's terrible. Oh, my gosh, folks, I. I got so excited talking about professional wrestling in Roman times. I've worked myself up into a flurry. Good match ends in a cluster. Lex and Rick, when our friends are fighting, so we have to fight, too. And then. Then the referee's like, you can't do that. And there was good stuff before that. Sting mostly just getting thrown around like he weighs nothing, because to Scott, he doesn't. At one point, he. Scott hits a STF on him, which is that move where he kind of, like, laid on his foot and then stretched his neck back, which is like, not a move I was expecting to see from him. And Bobby said. Bobby says if he keeps doing that, he. Sting's gonna be like a Great Dane and he can scratch his face with his back foot. That was worth taking note of. I wish I had that power. But, yeah, we. I've reached the end of Nitro, basically. So we come back from commercial and Bischoff's like, finally, we'll let this other guy say his piece. So Scott Hall Razor Ramon comes out one more time and, like, does the thing. You want war? Calls him Ken Doll again, which. Yes. Where he makes fun of Bishop. So here you go. You know, he says he wants to be. You know, he wants Billionaire Ted to get three of his best guys, Maybe Sting, maybe Nacho man, and two of his friends will. Will beat their asses because Bischoff's like, what do you mean, we going up? And it's like, this is. It's great television because, like, you're telling them, I showed up. There's gonna be more. So of course people are gonna tune in next week for that. So I am sure that, like, in the middle of trying to plan a second take at a Show somewhere, Vince McMahon is. I just did this, like, literally, his. His contract was up at Sunday at midnight, and the very next Monday, he did this, like, the next day. So, like, that's how, like, it's on. It's war, baby. It's on. So, yeah, that was. Any final thoughts on Nitro before we move on? [01:10:55] Speaker B: It was a lot of fun. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. [01:11:00] Speaker A: It was. It was a lot. It's the first long one, and again, thank you for getting through the first long one. Hey, sickos. Your girl got Kendricks is thinking it might be time to pack it in. Maybe I made a mistake thinking I could be my own woman, living my truth. You know, be a feminized clone of Michael Hayes that sells podcast listeners on supporting this [email protected] through my little transmissions, living free in this world outside of, you know, that toxic lab environment I was born in. Every time I try to get help, though, the people here, they. They treat me like I'm some sort of social pariah. Whatever happened to the tolerant left of Minneapolis? Well, I made my way to the campus. If there's a bad street, it has to be around here, right? This lady looks super smart. Maybe she doesn't have a mean right hook either. Excuse me, ma'am. I'm terrified. Terribly sorry, and please don't kick my ass, but I'm just trying to find my friends, maybe a queer coffee shop or something, and people have been very unhelpful. [01:12:11] Speaker B: Your eye makeup is the rebel flag, and that's actually pretty racist. [01:12:16] Speaker A: Eye makeup? You mean my birthmark? Oh, well, I had no idea. I was literally born last week. [01:12:24] Speaker B: Oh, no, honey, come on. I'll tell you all about it on the way to the nearest Sephora. [01:12:31] Speaker A: And now we are on to Raw, which is fun in its own way. Basically what happened with Raw? It's post pay per view, which normally Raw wasn't done live, it was taped. And that was like a big thing because Nitro was always live, so they kind of had that upper hand and they were able to get away with stuff like this. So the. But after they would do big shows, the pay per views, they would have a live Raw because I'm guessing because they have all the. The stuff to do it already, so they're like, it, well, you know, we have the stuff on hand to broadcast live. Let's just keep doing it, you know, so they would do that to kind of like save money. So we come in to Raw and it, it's just mid gold dust getting freaky with it, basically. So, yeah, that leads me to a question for you. How are you feeling about this very straight bastion of American masculinity that is professional wrestling so far? [01:13:31] Speaker B: It is really something. I mean, it. Is it. [01:13:43] Speaker A: Semi rhetorical. [01:13:47] Speaker B: I mean, like Goldust notwithstanding, It's basically like the dude version of drag. [01:13:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, basically. Yeah. It's. It's them being hyper masculine in a sense where it's like no one, no one's actually a guy like that. You know that. Right, but we didn't know that, so, like it. Absolutely, but. And then at the same time, you have gold dust giving us gender of us who have transed our gender and like look back and go, I wonder if that did something to me because, like, gold dust in a lot. And like, here he is being just flamboyantly gay because that's his whole thing. We had a previous guest who had a. Had an awakening because the cold dust was like, I am not normally into men, but it moved like, what the. Like, so, yeah, he's like that. So we start with the first. A first round matcher for King of the Ring, which is like a tournament that they do used to do. And it's Ultimate Warrior, who. This guy sucks. It's. It's like imagine if you met Hercules and he couldn't lift, you know, like, even bench bro. Like, it's like he's. He's sold as this amazing cosmic being and he can't even wrestle. Everyone hates him. He sucks. [01:15:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I was, I was looking him up because, like, we were chatting and you said like, he's. He might be the most like, universally hated man in all of wrestling. And I was like, okay, well, like, I mean, I knew he was a like irl, but I didn't realize he was. Yeah, apparently he's bad at Everything. [01:15:33] Speaker A: They didn't like him in the. In the business either because he couldn't rest, make it look good. So it. Basically, it's on everyone else to make Warrior look good. No one likes that guy who doesn't, you know, a guy on the group project who's not pulling their share, you know. [01:15:48] Speaker B: That's right. [01:15:49] Speaker A: Yeah. That's. Though Goldust is doing a great job. Makes him look amazing because that's. Dustin's good at his job to the best of his ability. Like, this is a decent length match. Like, this is a hard thing to get out of. Warrior is a match that goes on for almost 10 minutes because, like, he can't do anything. So this is pretty wild. But it ends like all of these matches do in like a count out and. And a draw because Warrior refuses to lose. And like, it's. It's really that. It's just that it's his ego. He won't. He won't put a guy over. He won't let the guy pin him. And. And it. So it doesn't make sense for you to just squash this guy. Because we need to not make him look weak because he has to have a job next week too, you know, and that's why everyone hates him, is because he's impossible to work with in all of his matches. And like this. And everyone's just kind of like, whatever. And this is a tournament. Like, what are you gonna do? So Vince tells us that because of this, it gets tossed out and whoever wins, whoever was supposed to face the winner, gets a buy. And that makes sense because I am sure there were plenty of buys in that locker room. Thank you. Thank you very much. Crickets. Okay. Yeah. That's why I have terrible. I don't. I do it to y'all and I do it to myself. We come back and they tell us about the failed pay per view. Lights went out as the strap match got going. And that's unfortunate. So basically what happens, they had a pay per view and there was a thunderstorm and it knocked the lights out. So they have to do the pay per view again the following Tuesday to, like, make it a whole show. Which is kind of funny because it's like, it's totally real. We're just gonna replay the whole show as if it didn't happen, you know, because that's how this works. And it. Patrons, you can check that out on Patreon. We just recorded that last night. That'll be out this week. Well, last week, if you're hearing this. So it's weird. They're having a weird. Vince is having a weird night while he's getting screwed by all the stuff on Nitro already. And this pleases me because him they go back to. They show us a very unhappy Ted DiBiase and Stephen Austin of the Stone Cold Steven Austin's. His goatee has not yet grown all the way to full power. Uh, he's got a little silly facial expressions. He's not. He's not the mean beer drinker yet, you know? [01:18:16] Speaker B: Yeah. In fact, he doesn't. He doesn't say a word. Do you notice that? He doesn't say anything. He's just there. [01:18:23] Speaker A: He's there. [01:18:24] Speaker B: It's like alcoholic William Riker just like, you know, yelling. Whatever he's yelling. And like. Like Steve Austin, he's like. He doesn't say anything. Which was really interesting because, like, if you don't know wrestling like me, you still at least know who Stone Cold Steve Austin is. And he has this whole Persona. He's that guy, the, like, hardcore dude, but not there. He's not. [01:18:53] Speaker A: No, man. They weren't letting him be that yet because, like. Yeah, no, that Steve Austin never shuts up. This guy didn't say anything. Dibiase, though, says he's so confident in Stephen that he will leave the WWF if Steven loses. And Steven gives him a wonderful, like, what the look like he does not want public. Please. This is happening because Ted DiBiase is absolutely leaving the company. So that's how they. He didn't. Basically, it's like, okay, your contract's up. You're gonna go tell everyone if you lose your leave, like, loser leaves town. And that's how they used to get rid of people, basically, a lot of ways, you know, not be over WCW managing the NWO in like a month. At this point. We have. Let's see here, what else? It's a weird raw, but it's a quick one. We got what Hillbilly Jim on commentary table. I don't know what else to say about that. There's nothing else to say about that guy. His character is explained in his name. You know, who is that Hillbilly Jim. Enough said that. That's what he is. It's what he does. [01:19:54] Speaker B: He's hillbilly American male. [01:19:56] Speaker A: He's an American male. Very much so. He's a West Virginian male, which is some of our finest. At some point, I guess, the. The. The Smoking Guns beat the pig farmers who Hillbilly Jim manages for the titles because I don't remember them like Losing them. Which is weird. We. But we are in this wonderfully gross arc for Sunny, the. The wonderful blonde lady who comes out with the guns. She initially used to be the manager for the Body Donnas because she's the girlfriend of one of the guys in the there, but they don't know what to do with her. And because they are a bunch of misogynistic who hate women, they're like, why don't we just have Sunny be the manager for whoever has the titles and whenever the title changes hands, she dumps them and goes to the guy. To the new Chad. And. And later we will have incels. And. And we won't think about how we might have done this to ourselves. But yeah, they. Sunny's arc is what if incels. That. That's her character. What. What if we. What if incels. This show is great to talk to people like you, but I hate doing this podcast because the rose tinted glasses are smashed. They are. I love Sunny as a child and now I'm going, oh, Sonny, really? They. They did you so dirty girl. Like, they do appreciate that. Yeah. Like they did. [01:21:24] Speaker B: I can appreciate that. There are. There are shows that I liked. Like the show Californication, for example. When it first came out, I liked it. I liked it a lot. I was a lot more ignorant back then. In retrospect, I am sure it is super problematic and I would find like a hundred different things wrong with it. I'm not going to rewatch it. I'm not going to revisit it. I'm not going to critically feminine it. I'm just going to remember it as a show that I liked and not think about it any further because that's just what I. I don't want to re. Watch it. And I don't. It won't bring me any positivity to learn about all the reasons that it's bad. And I know it's bad, but yes, I. I remember liking it. And you can't take those feelings from me. So there you go. [01:22:19] Speaker A: So in that boat, because I didn't also enjoy that show and even though I no longer drink, I'm choosing to. The only thing I take from that show is the three W's. Weed, whiskey and Warren. He finishes writing a book. Weed, whiskey and Warren, Ziva. I'm like, that's okay. That's. That's a good combo. But yes. So that's. That's what I'm doing on this show. We get a little bit of a look at Sean and Bulldog's Match the night before. This is a whole story about to. Long story short, they're trying to insinuate that Sean attempted to cuckold the British Bulldog. Oh, no. They did a whole thing about it. There was a whole match. It was so wild. The match ended the draw, and basically Sean does a German suplex and doesn't bridge properly. And he is technically shoulders down, pinned by the Bulldog while Bulldog is also pinned. No title change. Poor Bulldog. Back to the chair. That was the whole thing, folks. We've been doing this Jerry Springer bullshit for a month just to have it end in a draw, huh? So have that again, patrons, you have that to look forward to. But more, it's Ahmed Johnson versus Vader with Owen Hart, Canada's own on commentary, making the other commentators look bad because he's so good at this rip in peace. Yeah. Rips. Oh, kid, I love Owen now. I unfortunately, sadly, was watching that show live as a child when Owen died. So, like, yeah, so, like, Owen is. I love Owen commentary. He's the funniest guy in wrestling. Most importantly, though, before this match gets going, there's a Sega Saturn commercial and they showed the Claymation cockroach. [01:24:16] Speaker B: Ah, yeah, yeah. It's the weirdest thing. [01:24:21] Speaker A: But did you get a kick out of that too? Because I remember that as a small, disassociated child, I was like. [01:24:30] Speaker B: Well, it made me think too, of, like, I don't know if you guys probably didn't have it in because there. There is a. There's a Canadian pizza restaurant chain called Pizza Pizza, and it's not good. It's like. It is among the crappiest pizza I've ever had in my life. And I'm Sicilian. My family members, we've owned a lot of pizza restaurants in our time. People ask me what my ethnicity is, and I say, my cousins Johnny and many on a pizza place. So, you know, do the math class. But anyway, anyway, so Pizza Pizza sucks. I'm not. Not, Not. This video is not sponsored by Pizza Pizza. But they. They had a. A commercial with Bret Hart on it. And the. The promo was crack the cardboard, which was like. It was you. You know, you get a pizza box and there was like a strip you would tear off of the pizza box, and it would tell you, like, you just want a free pizza or you want a trip to Mexico or whatever it was. And in the commercial, Rhett the Hitman Hart walks in and he's like, I want a pizza. And then the. The kid. The kid at the. At the. The. The. The counter is like, hey, hey, Brett, do you want. Do you want two pizzas for only 15.99? And he's like, yeah, I'm gonna crack the cardboard. And then. And so he like, tears off the piece of cardboard. And in, like, in the, in the, the foreground, it's like him, like, being really tough because he broke a pizza box. I mean, I did one earlier when I took the recycling out, but I'm super macho, so it's like him like being like, look, look strong on him. And then the kid in the background being like, oh, my God. It's pretty amazing. I'm gonna look it up. I'll send it to you. [01:26:28] Speaker A: Please do. No, please send to me so I can link to it in the show notes. Because people need that in their lives. That's fucking amazing. Yes. [01:26:36] Speaker B: Really something. [01:26:39] Speaker A: National heroes. The fucking Hart family, I love them. God damn. American national wrestling heroes are way less cool and way more. Canadian national wrestling family history heroes are dead of Vince McMahon, which is unfortunate. This match, though, also wild. So Ahmed Johnson, he has a reputation for hurting people because he doesn't know how to work yet. And his moves, like, he, he just, he doesn't know how to make his moves hurt less. He just actually does it, which is not great. And then you have Vader, who is known for hurting people because he does know how to work and chooses not to. You yay. And to be fair, that's how he was taught in Japan, because you stiff, you lay it at the end, it looks more real because it is, basically. And in Japan they would have, like, shoot style too, where, like, the end of, like, the finish is. Is predetermined, but before the finish, you just go out there and fight, basically. And you would have to make it entertaining, but, like, you're actually getting hurt. It's wild. I love watching that for my own weird reasons, because it's, it's, it's like, what if UFC was also scripted, like wrestling basically. Which is weird to think of because, like, people lose, like the ability to do second grade math from ufc, you know, like, why would you, why would you do. Yeah, why would you do that if there. If you weren't trying to actually prove something? I don't know. Seems weird to me. So. But that's where Vader comes from. So he broken men's backs in the ring with a power bomb. He broke a guy's back once. [01:28:32] Speaker B: Oh, geez. [01:28:33] Speaker A: Yeah. And. And I guess he felt real bad about it after the fact, but, like, that doesn't unbreak the guy's back. And yeah, there was a dark side of the ring on Vice recently. It was a recent episode. Did an episode on Vader, and they talked to the guy who. Whose back he broke, and he was like, yeah, no, he. It was. He just kind of. Something switched in his brain and he just started bullying me, basically, like, you. Piece of you. And like, all of a sudden, he wasn't working anymore, and he was just actually later. Not a great guy. Yeah, apparently not a great guy. Other people say he was a big sweetheart. Other people say he's a bully. That's wrestling. You get everything. Everything a wrestler tells you in an interview should be taken with a grain of salt. That's just it because, like, they. For a while there, especially as you go further back, because, like, lying for a living was absolutely a part of it, they were expected to, like, keep up the lie. Even, like, no. No one. Like, but you were in on it. You know, you're. Everyone's lying to each other, and that's the fun. But, like, you get people who take it so seriously that they, like, beat up on people, and it's like, don't do that. So this is a weird match, and for the most part, it's just the two of them beating the. Out of each other for the rest of the show. And it kind of rules, in my opinion. I can't. And Owen Hart's in, like, a white shirt and tie, playing sportcaster. It's amazing. Like, this is also. Watch it. This is another one to watch. This is. It's been a very watchable Raw for a show that has Ultra Ultimate Warrior on it. That's saying a lot, to be honest. But, yeah, this match, Ahmed is. Is tough with Vader. He throws him around a little bit. He suplexes them, even, like. Like, wow. But Vader basically no sells it, though. And then power slams them and goes for a Vader bomb. But he does it again, folks. Vader is, as you can see, a very large man. So very large men don't generally do back. Vader was known for doing backflips in the air every so once in a while. So he did it this time, and it's like, holy. He went for it, but he missed. And that. That had to hurt. Again, not fake staged. That has to hurt. There's no way that doesn't hurt. Just landing on nothing. So, yeah, right. So Ahmed uses this as a. As a good way to get some upper hand out of it because, you know, he up. That was stupid. You should have just Done. The Vader bomb, sir. I like seeing you do flippy, but don't. It takes too long. He clotheslines the out of Vader a few times, slams him. This should be it. But then corny, the manager does the distracting thing. Ahmed pulls him in. It's a big cluster. We've seen this so many times already. Because they did it a bunch in nitro, too. It's another distract the ref so I can him up kind of moment so he gets distracted. [01:31:40] Speaker B: It's always so obvious, too. [01:31:42] Speaker A: Yeah, right? Like, all these refs need to get their eyes checked. Like, just right behind you, just over there, and you have a crowd of people going, look behind you. Ah, silliness. Yeah. So it works again, though. Owen comes off the top rope and hits Ahmed in the head with his cast covered arm. It looked beautiful Again, Owen Hart, you made that look so good. It knocks out Ahmed. It knocks him out so bad that they have to do a stretcher job on him. And here we go. 90s queerphobia. [01:32:20] Speaker B: Yeah, this part sucked. [01:32:22] Speaker A: This part really sucked. This part. This part got glad involved. This, like, they weren't wild. I said, this is like, they got to the point where they're like, look, people die because of the. The. The gay panic defense. Like, Like. Like, people die because of this. You can't just make a joke about it or do it for an angle because basically, Ahmed gets stretchered out and Goldust shows up. And I will give him this, too. I've heard people talk about this happening and, like, oh, Goldust comes out and kisses him while he's passed out. That's not what happened. It's very silly, but from what I watched, Goldust looked like he was actually trying to blow air into his mouth. And I'm like, you know, it's a thin line, but I want to give Gold Dust credit for playing it that way. You know what? [01:33:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, not to brag or anything, but, like, I've kissed girls before and, like, candle, right? And like, yeah, the kisses don't look like that. Or. Yeah, yeah, kisses don't look like that. It's. [01:33:28] Speaker A: It's. [01:33:28] Speaker B: It's. It's. That's not the same thing. [01:33:30] Speaker A: It's not the same thing. Like, you. He looked like he was actually trying to do mouth to mouth, which is, you know, probably not helpful. You know, like, he's clearly not an emt, but he's like, I'm gonna show up and I'm gonna save your life. Wakes up. Ahmed wakes up and realizes that there's gold on his Lips and puts two and three together and freaks the out. And the queer saved his life and it freaked him out so bad that he tried to murder Bob Holly, which was, you know, I get it, love making fun of Bob Holly. He had a look going and he goes after Mark Mero, who again, looks fabulous, but we're not going to talk about it. I could get eyeliner tips from Mark Mero. That's neither here nor there. But yeah, he, he's just looking for him. Mark points in towards the right door. There's a dude with a mullet and a mustache who's like, she's not here, man. And they. I gotta give you this. This is a freebie, folks. Last night for the pay per view watch party, we had a lot of former guests who come and watch. Arturo Garcia was there last night in the chat and he said it looked like there was an outrunner backstage for AEW fans. They will know what that means. You don't know what that means there, but there's a, a wrestling tag team who are current wrestlers who look like that guy did. Like their whole, their whole thing is like they shave their head to look like Hulk Hogan going bald. Like, they look like they're like old 80s wrestlers, but they're the youngest guys in wrestling. Like, so they like, it's. The joke is that they've been around for like decades, but not really, you know, it's, it's, it's just an 80s nostalgia gimmick. It's very fun. But he looks like this guy. So, yeah, all of this sucks. It's gay panic horse. I feel like it. It's the only idea they have for Gold Dust is this. They don't know what to do with him outside of this. They just keep doing versions of this. I don't think they expected the fans to continue to like him as much as they did at this point. Like, I think they figured that he would have been back to the drawing board at this point because, like, Vince gave Dustin Rhodes this gimmick because he's the son of Dusty Rhodes, the American dream, who Vince hates with a passion. So Dustin Rhodes showed up and was like, ah, I'm gonna make you the and be queer beard and all this and all this because I hate your dad and you forever. And instead Dustin's like, I'm gonna be the best drag queen of all time. And I'm gonna like, do these performances where I quote movies and, and make it all double entendre. And it's gonna be amazing. And people are gonna Love me anyways and yay. That's what he did. And it worked. But because of that, I feel like they don't know what to do with them, so. Because that's so, like, that's how they ended raw. It's just that. It's just them being here Today. A historic week of Wrestling in 1996, and it ends on a hate crime. Yay. [01:36:37] Speaker B: Unfortunate, because I kind of like that Ahmed Johnson. I kind of liked his vibe, too, until that. Like, he seemed like. I mean, he. He was. [01:36:48] Speaker A: He. [01:36:48] Speaker B: He looks like a bulldog, right? Like, yeah, he's got, like, a. He's not British bulldog, but he looks like a bulldog. And, yeah, I liked his vibe until that and was like, oh, no, I don't like you now. [01:37:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And a similar thing happens to him, too, where, like, he. He's got a lot of potential, but they don't listen, you know? Like, they're like, you know, I write what I know, and all I know is racism and misogyny, so I don't understand what to do with you, but you look amazing, you know, like. And it just happens again, right? Holy crap. [01:37:22] Speaker B: Oh, boy. [01:37:23] Speaker A: I mean, we did episodes. I'm so proud of you. Four episodes, really? [01:37:28] Speaker B: I did. I did. It was fun. It was fun. I liked it. [01:37:31] Speaker A: Yay. I'm so happy. Did you have any final thoughts on RAW overall before we. We round this out? [01:37:39] Speaker B: I'm just sending you an image here of. [01:37:43] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:37:44] Speaker B: Ahmed Johnson and wondering how on earth he could possibly be homophobic. [01:37:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, my God. [01:37:52] Speaker B: And I'm. I'm sure you'll put this in the show notes as well so that people can understand that this man being homophobic doesn't make any. Doesn't make any sense. This is very silly. [01:38:07] Speaker A: This is very silly. This is he. This is the writer. He. He is too sexy for most fabrics. Ahmed. Like, God damn, that is. Again, I love wrestling. The. The wrestling where it's so hyper masculine that it just loops back around to gay. It's the greatest thing. Wrestling is gay, and it will always be gay. Wrestling is queer, and that's why I have a show. So the last last two questions before I let you out of here, did you have a favorite match this week? Something that tickled you more than anything else? [01:38:44] Speaker B: I liked the one where, like, everyone came out at once to start fighting. Like, just, like, what? Who was it? Where, like, two of them were fighting, and then, like, I think it was Sting and What's his name? Poodlehead. [01:39:01] Speaker A: Poodlehead. Scott Snyder. Scooter Yeah. Because eventually. [01:39:05] Speaker B: And just like everybody who'd been on the show thus far came out to like, stop each other from fighting and also fight. [01:39:13] Speaker A: Yes. The. The run in of everyone. I love that. [01:39:16] Speaker B: Which was very funny. [01:39:18] Speaker A: Yes. And like, it works so well. That's another one of those things where, like, it works so well and then Nitro's gonna do it to death. But it worked this time. It's very fun. I. They recently did that at an aew, like a recent show where, like, the. The evil. The evil heel champions lost and the baby faces won the belts back after like this long reign of the evil guys being in charge. And all the good guys ran out to the ring and celebrated together. And I was like, more of that. Like, I love when people run out to the ring and like, like pop champagne. Like, that's good stuff. And then I would ask what you. Because this is a war, we ask who won this week between Nitro and Raw. Which one did you like more? [01:40:06] Speaker B: The WCW one is Nitro, right? [01:40:10] Speaker A: It's Nitro. Yeah. [01:40:11] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. I'm just trying to remember. I think that one. Because the, like, undercurrent of like, something is happening behind the scenes sort of thing I think is really interesting. I didn't know that Razor Ramon, Slash, whatever his not Razor Ramon name is Scott Hall. Yeah. I didn't realize that he was not a WCW guy. And so I didn't realize, like, I'm sure at the time that would have been like. [01:40:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, but it did. Yeah, but it did. It didn't hit you. [01:40:51] Speaker B: Yeah, that was lost on me. That that would have been like, I don't know, like the guitar player from your favorite band showing up to jam with your other favorite band. Like, that would have been like. Yeah. Where it's like, if you're not a fan of either of those bands, you'd be like, what's the big deal? It's just some dudes playing guitar. But like, it's like, don't you understand? Like, Courtney Love is jamming with L7 right now. Like, this is really awesome. Right? Like, it. [01:41:19] Speaker A: Everyone is amazing and we are all doll parts at the same time. It's fantastic. No, exactly. [01:41:27] Speaker B: So. So it was. It was lost on me to a certain extent. But yeah, it's. Yeah, I. Now that I understand that more. That's clearly. [01:41:39] Speaker A: Clearly one. Yeah. I was gonna say his. It's odd because historically we can look back and say Nitro Very one. Like you said, like, clearly, historically, in the long run, Nitro won this night because it was such a big deal and I gave it to them too. But I will say for the record, for those playing along at home on the wrestling alone, it was hard to call for me and I want to take note of that. If anyone is taking note of these things, someone should be taking note of these things. I'm giving it to Nitro. But it was difficult. The graps were good all around and I'm happy to say at the end of this that on a historic week there was good graps. It wasn't all story and I think that's a really cool thing. Even if the the end is the complete and utter downfall of my country and inevitably the way the world works and I hate it. We will build back better. But Jesus. Precisely. My gosh. The neokayfabe of it all sucks for everyone. And on that note, what would you like to plug if anything? Tell people where to find you to watch your things. Yay. The other half of the reason I have my mutuals on so you can tell people where to find their stuff. [01:43:02] Speaker B: What a what. What a segue. Yeah. On that note, the world is ending like. Comment? Subscribe yes. Good lord. So my YouTube channel, it's called we have Always Existed. It is a history of transgender lives in the ancient Mediterranean. I touch on the near east occasionally as well, but it's mostly the Ancient Mediterranean. It's YouTube.com transgender ancient history. You can also follow me on Blue sky at Transgender History. And I don't know, buy my book too. It's going to be out of print pretty soon because my publisher is going out of business, so I'm going to have to self publish it from here, which is fine. It's whatever. So if you want a copy of it through the publisher, buy it now because you're not going to be able to get it again soon. It is called what the hell is it called? Wow. Good job, Sophie. You wrote a book and you don't remember the name? It's called the Bottom Line is what it's called. [01:44:09] Speaker A: I was gonna say. I know, I know. [01:44:14] Speaker B: Yes, the. Yes. The. The. The. The weird kid in the back. [01:44:18] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, the Bottom Line. The weird kid. [01:44:23] Speaker B: It's called the Bottom Line. The book. It's a novel. I wrote it. I took a long time to write it. I. It took me about a decade to write the damn thing. So I don't know, somebody buy it and read it because I don't know. [01:44:39] Speaker A: Yeah, it's behind you. I can see it. [01:44:42] Speaker B: It's a. Yes. Yes. Well, this is not a video for those of us, those of you listening at home. But that's true. It is on my shelf. Yes, it's a story about, it's about identity. It's about how we find meaning in the world, how we find meaning in our lives, and what happens when that's taken away from us. And I explore that through automation. So my characters are construction workers whose jobs are being replaced by robots. And in the book there's a. Call it a universal basic income, something like that, where if you leave your job to automation, it's not, oh my God, how do I, how do I feed my family, how do I pay my bills, whatever. It's what do I do with my life? [01:45:31] Speaker A: And which is its own kind of thing to really be thinking about, huh? [01:45:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean like, if you have hobbies, if you have interests, if you are a well rounded individual, that might be awesome. I don't have to work for a dollar anymore. I can spend time, time reading more books or doing more wrestling podcasts or whatever it is you want you, you like to do with your spare time. But if you're somebody who really defines themselves through their work, believe it or not, I used to work on a construction crew once, once upon a time. And if, if you are, if you really define yourself through your work, then such a world might be horrible. So, you know, just, you know, just some gentle existential questions to be pondering while you gently allow yourself to doze off to sleep. [01:46:23] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I, I think that is all good things. You should go get it, buy it, you should read it. You should send money to Sophie. You should watch Sophie's things. I have declared it. I don't have much power and thank y'all for giving me this power. I am drunk with it now by being here and listening. Thank you for hanging out. Thank you for making it happen. After various back and forth, it was a very wonderful time and we will see you next week for Act 2 of the Monday Night wars and more raw versus nitro on Monday Night Fake fights.