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Sounds Music Radio podcasts,

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I met him hills and I invented the soup Lakes,

1:19

but I never took credit for it. And

1:22

for Sport strangest crimes from Bbc Radio

1:24

Five live. This

1:26

is the ballot of Bruiser Brody. Episode

1:30

Six: Invader. When.

1:38

We left off. Last episode Jose Gonzalez

1:40

was about the face off with bruiser

1:42

Brody. In. The locker room before a big

1:44

fight in Nineteen Ninety Eight. He

1:47

was armed. And. Bruiser was blissfully

1:49

unaware that he was in mortal danger.

1:52

But while I told you all about what had brought

1:54

Bruiser to that fight for moment. There. Is

1:56

a whole other side to this story? And.

1:58

to understand what happened next next. You

2:01

have to hear that first. He

2:04

is wrestling podcaster Luis Cuevas. Jose

2:07

Gonzalez was a wrestler from Puerto

2:10

Rico. He started wrestling in Chicago

2:13

in the 1960s under

2:15

a different name during that time.

2:18

He got to the World Wide Wrestling

2:20

Federation and he started working

2:23

in what they call Midcard or Middle

2:25

of the Cards and

2:27

the World Wide Wrestling Federation. That's where

2:29

he first met Bruce Brody. During

2:33

that time they had a

2:35

match and that match the legend

2:37

says that Bruce Brody took some

2:39

liberties and actually hurt

2:42

Jose Gonzalez. His

2:48

wrestling expert, Daniel Rendon. Brody beat

2:51

him up so bad that crushed

2:53

his ambition of being a household

2:56

name in WWF

2:58

like Pedro Morales did at the time

3:00

in the 70s that became world

3:02

champion and was a star. Maybe

3:05

he was looking forward to become

3:07

the next Pedro Morales and didn't

3:09

happen because Brody basically crushed him.

3:12

That resentment carried over

3:15

to their relationship in

3:18

the WWE in the 80s. So

3:20

that's where supposedly or allegedly the

3:24

rivalry between them started.

3:28

In this episode we'll try to follow

3:31

Jose Gonzalez's story. His life

3:33

leading up to that fateful incident in the summer

3:35

of 1988 and the

3:37

origins of his feud with Bruce Brody. We

3:40

tried to contact him but it seems he doesn't want

3:42

to talk about what happened back then and he

3:45

rarely ever has talked about it in the

3:47

past. So we contacted people who knew him,

3:49

his wrestling character and the

3:51

story surrounding him. One

3:54

of those people is Luis Cuevas. He

3:57

has a podcast called Del Terre

3:59

Torrios. from the territories, which

4:01

covers the history of the so-called territories that

4:03

originally made up the world of wrestling in

4:06

the 60s, 70s and 80s. He

4:08

says that while Jose started his career

4:10

as a mid-card guy in the US

4:12

in the 70s fighting on tag teams

4:14

in the nascent WWF, he

4:16

came back to Puerto Rico, now

4:19

with a mask and a new name. Apparently

4:22

he'd been given this name by the

4:24

same guy who renamed Frank Goodish, Bruiser

4:26

Brody, Vince McMahon Sr.

4:29

Jose Gonzalez became... Invader

4:31

One. He started as

4:33

a bad guy wrestling in Puerto Rico

4:37

with his partner Invader Two. But

4:39

then in the mid-80s, late

4:42

79, early 80s, he turned

4:44

a good guy, a baby face. And

4:46

he started representing himself

4:48

as this wrestler who was

4:50

from the countryside. His nickname

4:52

was El Hiberito de San

4:55

Lorenzo. Hiberos

5:00

are the countryside people of

5:03

Puerto Rico in the 19th

5:05

century that are mainly

5:08

venerated and revered in

5:11

our local literature as living

5:13

off the land, being self-sufficient, being

5:16

capable of overcoming everything that

5:19

is thrown at him, working in

5:21

the coffee industry, being

5:23

poor but proud. That's the

5:25

kind of character he sold himself

5:27

as. El Hiberito de

5:30

San Lorenzo. I was brought

5:32

up in a very poor town called

5:34

San Lorenzo. My parents didn't

5:37

have money and I had to leave

5:39

off goat's milk and boy tubers. And

5:42

I had to go to the States to prove myself as

5:44

a wrestler. And that struck a

5:46

chord on the lower classes in Puerto Rico,

5:48

you know, because he was

5:50

El Hiberito, the hillbilly from San Lorenzo who

5:52

made it great, who made

5:55

big time in local wrestling. He

6:00

became like really, really popular. He became like

6:02

the number two guy in

6:04

the promotion behind Carlos Colon.

6:07

During the 80s, where he was this incredible

6:10

baby face, where his main

6:12

ability was his promo

6:14

or his ability to talk and

6:17

bring people and people

6:19

for some reason connected to him the way

6:21

he talked and the way he expressed what

6:24

he was saying and his

6:26

fire and everything. So he became really, really

6:28

popular. He later definitely

6:30

was perceived at the time as

6:32

a local folk hero, el

6:35

hiva, or the guy who

6:37

despite adverse circumstances made a great

6:39

deal of wrestling. His

6:43

uniquely Puerto Rican character worked perfectly

6:45

in the context of storylines of

6:47

locals pushing back against racist gringos.

6:51

This discourse was, I

6:53

will do everything that is possible and

6:55

I will spill my

6:57

last drop of blood to get

7:00

this no good bastard out of

7:02

Puerto Rico. I will let this

7:04

guy disrespect Puerto Ricans because I'm

7:06

Tej Doritos de San

7:09

Lorenzo and he would break his

7:11

shirt off, throw it to the

7:14

camera, take a piece of barbed wire

7:16

and cut himself and not scared of

7:18

barbed wire and he would scrape himself

7:20

with barbed wire and you would see

7:22

him bleeding. So he

7:25

took his character seriously

7:27

and that's all he did. The

7:31

invader as a character

7:33

proved what a civilized

7:36

man could do if he could

7:38

be pushed beyond his limits. That

7:40

was the character who said it. In

7:44

Puerto Rico he fell in with capital

7:46

sports promotion. It was really

7:48

the only game in town and it

7:51

was mainly run by wrestlers and co-owners

7:53

Carlos Colon, Victor Jovica and Victor Quinones,

7:56

the kingpins of Puerto Rican wrestling. Jose

8:00

took a big career step to start not

8:02

only starring in the ring but calling more

8:04

and more shots of his own behind the

8:06

scenes. He became both a

8:09

shareholder in capital sports and the booker

8:11

of the promotion, the matchmaker. He

8:14

was writing the stories, he was the leader

8:17

in the dressing room telling this is your

8:19

time to go out, this is your time

8:21

to go in, he called the

8:23

shots and the moves for every match so

8:25

he had plenty of

8:28

power within the promotion. He

8:30

is former wrestling promoter Herb Simmons. Booker

8:33

is a person who works underneath

8:35

the promoter. He puts the matches

8:37

together and will tell the promoter

8:40

what type of talent that we need to

8:43

get us to the next storyline. So

8:46

those are your two main people in a

8:48

promotion as a promoter of course and that's

8:50

usually the owner and then your booker is

8:53

the person who controls your locker room, makes

8:55

sure that people show up when they're supposed

8:57

to and the matches go on and the

8:59

booker is really important in that, the

9:02

creative writing and so booker is a

9:04

very important position in a promotion. And

9:07

that's where the story with Bruce Abrotti started

9:10

interwinding again. Jose

9:13

was one of capital sports key players.

9:16

One of its most prized mainland

9:18

imports was Bruce Abrotti. However,

9:21

rumours had long swirled that there was bad

9:23

blood between the two, stretching back to that

9:26

infamous fight in 1976 which

9:28

had left Jose, reportedly, badly injured.

9:32

But the world of wrestling is rarely that simple.

9:34

There's also lots of evidence that the two

9:36

had a long history of working together professionally,

9:39

including in the ring itself. It

9:41

was hard to tell where the kayfabe ended. And

9:44

regardless of any personal ill feeling,

9:47

capital sports domination of Puerto Rican

9:49

wrestling and Bruce and Jose's respective

9:51

roles within that scene meant

9:53

that they were inevitably thrown together. Luis

9:56

Cueva says there are a lot of little things

9:59

that during this scene, period prior to 1988

10:02

could have soured Jose Gonzalez's opinion

10:04

of bruiser and there are

10:06

specific incidents which showed that the relationship

10:08

between Brody and the capital sports promotion

10:11

wasn't as good as it used to be. One

10:13

of those was a match in late 1987. There

10:16

was a tag team here in

10:18

Puerto Rico called the Ninja Express

10:20

which is stereotypical Japan tag team.

10:23

It was Ken Lo Naiya Saki and Mr. Pogo.

10:26

The promotion had spent a lot of time building

10:28

them up as this great tag

10:30

team trying to make money out of them

10:33

and there was a match in the

10:35

three Kings Day card in January of

10:37

1988 where

10:39

it was them two against Rocky Johnson

10:41

who's the rocks father

10:43

and bruiser Brody and

10:46

in that match the plan was for the Ninja Express

10:48

to look good because you know they were detecting that

10:50

they were But with a

10:52

Japanese tag team there are also

10:55

Japanese reporters alongside the ring and

10:57

Brody didn't want them to get any pictures of

10:59

him looking bad. So just

11:02

like he had in a 1976 fight

11:04

against Gonzalez Brody went

11:06

off script. The

11:23

owners of the promotion weren't going to

11:25

let this one slide. There

11:27

are even accounts that Carlos Colon completely lost

11:29

it at Brody and yelled at him after

11:31

the match. He

11:51

asked for forgiveness and you know

11:53

he I'm sorry I will never

11:55

do it again and he even

11:57

accepted to lose a match. February

12:00

of radiates something that into that

12:02

time had never happened In per

12:05

week or so in February eight.

12:08

Trying to make peace he he

12:10

came back and last two Dory

12:12

Funk Junior in a tournament but.

12:15

You could tell that the relationship wasn't

12:17

the same. And the following

12:20

months, the promotion, including part owner and

12:22

book a Jose Gonzalez, wanted Brody to

12:24

lose a few more matches, but Bruises

12:26

still wanted to get back on track

12:28

in Japan. They. Want to him

12:30

to. To be

12:32

more a company guys and he

12:34

understanding what was happening in Japan

12:36

that time when he was trying

12:38

to get back to see why

12:40

it looks strong. There was also

12:42

rumors that he might try to

12:44

go to the doctor told us

12:47

to have that rematch against Hogan

12:49

so he wasn't really copper ratings

12:51

and specially been though Booker the

12:53

matchmaker of say One solace he

12:55

had to deal with our he

12:57

will go to Brody and say

12:59

hey are. You

13:01

know we need you to make this guy look

13:03

good and Brody will be like know that you

13:05

know that really the some work for me I

13:07

can now make him look good So sorry. So

13:09

there was that. Thing going on

13:11

Between them were one one on one

13:14

thing, the other, one one and another

13:16

one and Das Wird things start turning

13:18

to the worse. They.

13:23

Work together several times since Nineteen Seventy

13:25

Six. Am cyber

13:27

attack same? So what do you think? this

13:29

happened exactly at this point in time? I.

13:31

Don't know the answer that question and I

13:34

really think the only person that noses and

13:36

greater one and he still lives so. I

13:40

don't know if you just reached

13:42

a breaking point with Brody and

13:44

you know it's just all of

13:46

these things that I had mentioned

13:48

before. We're sort of this checklist

13:50

of for murder or something. I

13:52

mean I. It's hard to know

13:54

it. It's really, it's impossible to

13:56

know unless we we talked to

13:58

him. an invader one. My.

14:02

Understanding was. He.

14:04

Loved to Carlos cologne. He absolutely

14:07

loved him. He loved being the

14:09

number two guy undergoes cologne. He

14:11

looked up the Carlos cologne he

14:13

bled blood and guts for Carless

14:16

cologne every week. He loved that

14:18

company and that man. And he

14:20

was. He. Was now

14:23

leader. He was a follower and colors

14:25

cologne rewarded him by giving him the

14:27

book has a Gonzales would. Come.

14:30

Up with the story lines and

14:32

you know the outcomes of the

14:34

match. So.

14:37

I. I

14:39

just don't know. I don't know. Wrestling

14:44

and Porto Rico with grappling with

14:46

the same problem that had complicated

14:48

Bruises own Us Korean, the rise

14:50

of the W W F, Vince

14:52

Mcmahon, increasingly global and dominant outfit

14:54

was hoovering up a lot of

14:56

talent from the territories restless that

14:58

would usually have done runs in

15:00

Porto Rico. For

15:04

a lot of the time there

15:06

was still free. agents are available.

15:08

were a little bit past their

15:10

prime. Oh we're not as good

15:12

as.the quality of time there was

15:14

coming down here wasn't as good

15:16

as before and also some of

15:18

the feud. Some matches were turning

15:20

a little bit. Repetitive.

15:23

You know you start seeing the same

15:25

matches over and over again amongst boozer

15:27

Brody versus of July was a gray

15:30

mash, but. After the twenty five

15:32

time, you know it's like okay and

15:34

we seem this already. It was

15:36

also when some young wrestlers in Porto Rico

15:38

started becoming more popular. On. The

15:40

other hand invite a one belong to the

15:42

old guard who tried to protect their spot

15:44

in the business. It was a

15:47

bad time to big names like Bruce and not to

15:49

fall in line. Has I

15:51

was almost certainly feeling the pressure of

15:53

the moment with the difficulty of getting

15:55

interesting talent and increasingly low attendance. And.

15:58

Then. Tragic. struck. During

16:03

that time also Jose Gonzalez had a

16:05

family tragedy. He had

16:08

lost his daughter. She

16:10

drowned in a swimming pool

16:12

in his house. So

16:14

he was in a bad state mentally

16:17

too. So it

16:19

just added up to what was

16:21

happening backstage politically with Brody and

16:24

everything that was going on during that

16:26

time. So there was a lot

16:29

of crazy things going on in capital sports

16:31

promotions during that year. After

16:33

the death of his daughter who was said to have been

16:35

around two years old at the time, Jose

16:37

took a little time away from the wrestling business. But

16:40

according to Luis Cuevas it was

16:42

only about a month. Then of course

16:44

he came back right away and

16:48

tried but it

16:51

wasn't you know I can imagine it wasn't

16:53

easy for him to be dealing with that

16:55

and dealing also with a

16:58

promotion that was

17:00

successful but were having a couple

17:02

of lean months attendance wise.

17:04

It wasn't as popular. They were kind of

17:07

staking him for a little bit. A

17:09

lot of Brody's friends and family say he never talked

17:11

about Jose. To him it

17:14

seems there was no conflict. At

17:16

least not more than with a lot

17:18

of other bookers and promoters. I think

17:20

it was more one-sided because Bruce's Brody

17:22

history has always been kind of hard

17:24

on promoters and bookers and matchmakers. That

17:26

was his style. It was

17:28

more about business for him. It wasn't personal.

17:31

He was more about what makes

17:33

sense, what makes more money and

17:36

how can I make more money out of this. So

17:40

I think for Bruce or Brody seeing

17:42

his history I don't think it was ever

17:44

personal. It was just business for

17:46

him. According to Luis Cuevas it

17:48

was a weird time for Brody and Puerto Rico.

17:51

The promotion had long relied on him but

17:53

suddenly it didn't seem to have

17:55

any new big plans or vision for his character.

18:00

lost in the shuffle during that time.

18:02

He was a big guy they would bring

18:04

to try to get the houses up, but

18:06

he really was in a big huge field

18:08

during that time. One experiment

18:11

came from actually pairing him with

18:13

a public rival, Jose Gonzalez, and

18:15

they fought together a few times as a tag team.

18:18

There's a famous promo between

18:20

them, and Bruce or Brody and Jose Gonzalez together,

18:23

you know, looking back

18:25

at it, it's kind of surreal. The

18:31

interesting thing is you could see

18:33

the tension between them. It

18:35

was palpable, right? You see the face of

18:37

Invader Juan Jose Gonzalez looking at him like,

18:39

man, this guy is completely

18:42

nuts. You could see Invader

18:44

doing his promo as usual and

18:46

Brody doing his show. Huh,

18:49

huh, screaming. And he deliberately took

18:51

a camera shot to block invaders

18:53

from the camera shot. It

19:02

was deliberate, like teasing him, you

19:05

know? And when

19:07

Brody's turn to speak

19:09

came in the promo, you could

19:11

see Invader's face.

19:14

He was not happy. You

19:16

could tell in his face he was not

19:19

in happy place. I

19:21

don't know what word to use to

19:23

describe the video of Gonzalez and Brody.

19:27

I think bonkers is the only word I can

19:29

possibly use to describe it. And

19:31

look, fair play to Brody

19:34

because he's totally in character. He's

19:36

got all his hair scrunched

19:38

up in his hand pointing out the front of

19:41

his head like a weird top

19:43

knot. His eyes are mad

19:46

and he's screaming at Abdullah the Butcher over

19:49

and over again. He's like he's totally in

19:51

character. But the problem with a

19:54

character that is completely wild and

19:56

out of control is how

19:58

do you pair that with another character? Listen,

20:01

this is coming from a stand-up comedian who has totally

20:03

gone off script to

20:06

the detriment of other people around me. So

20:09

I get it. But I

20:11

find it fascinating watching that video because there's

20:14

the clash of the character and the real person.

20:17

And the character is doing exactly the right

20:19

thing, hogging the camera. Like he keeps going

20:21

huss, huss the whole

20:23

way while Gonzalez is trying to

20:25

speak. He's talking over the top of him,

20:27

he's putting his head in front of him. There's

20:31

an argument to say Brody could have

20:33

stayed in character and also let Gonzalez

20:36

shine. But he doesn't. And

20:38

that must have been really annoying. It's

20:41

an image which more than most makes you

20:43

want to look past the mask, behind the

20:46

kayfabe, and see what's really

20:48

going through their heads. But

20:50

of course, we can't. These

20:52

are professionals. The mystery is

20:55

the point. On

20:59

the 16th of July 1988, Jose

21:02

Gonzalez had booked Bruce of Brody

21:04

to fight Dan Spivey, a

21:06

so-called journeyman, someone who

21:08

is an experienced and reliable wrestler who

21:11

can deliver a decent performance in the

21:13

ring, but who has nowhere near

21:15

the stardom and draw of the likes of Brody.

21:18

Dan Spivey was never like a big

21:20

star, like say, you

21:22

know, carrier promotion, like a Ric

21:24

Flair or Hulk Hogan or Savage

21:26

or if you want to go into

21:28

the territory, Jerry Lawler. He

21:31

wasn't a proven guy

21:33

who could make money. And

21:35

even in Puerto Rico when he came, he

21:38

wasn't really as successful. He

21:40

had a few with Carlos Colon that

21:42

really wasn't attendance-wise, wasn't

21:45

that great In short,

21:48

Dan Spivey was a solid wrestler, but

21:50

not a charismatic celebrity like Brody. But

21:54

according to the experts in Puerto Rican wrestling we spoke

21:56

to, Jose wanted Brody to

21:58

lose to him. So here

22:01

you have Bruiser Brody who's a

22:03

major star who draws a

22:05

lot of money everywhere he goes where attendance

22:07

goes up and you're asking him to lose

22:09

to a journeyman. Money

22:12

wise it just didn't really make sense.

22:15

It was just mostly because oh we want to use

22:17

Danny Spivey as the main event when

22:20

you have a proven major star

22:23

Brody there that you could do many things with

22:25

him. So if I was Bruiser

22:27

Brody I would be like wait a minute

22:29

this doesn't really make any business. You're

22:32

just doing it just because you want to do it. And

22:36

if I was him and they asked me to

22:38

lose to Danny Spivey I probably

22:40

would be like Bruiser Brody. That really

22:42

doesn't make sense. And

22:46

that really is what we

22:48

know about Jose Gonzalez in

22:50

VEDA 1 and what he

22:52

was thinking and feeling on the 16th

22:54

of July 1988 when he asked Bruiser

22:57

Brody to chat in the locker

22:59

room shower. In

23:07

the baby face locker room Bruiser is

23:09

relaxed. When

23:11

Jose asks him for a word he's

23:13

about to hand a photo of his son to Tony

23:15

Atlas who has promised to

23:17

sketch him a hand drawn picture. Tony

23:19

Atlas would do art and Bruiser Brody

23:21

supposedly said hey maybe you can do

23:23

a sketch of my son. I'll

23:26

get you a photograph of my son. Outside

23:29

the crowd has been filing in and

23:31

the hum of the arena can be heard in the locker

23:33

rooms building anticipation. And

23:37

Invader 1 came in with a towel over

23:39

his hand for some strange reason and

23:41

said hey Brody can I talk to you.

23:43

According to several witnesses Jose

23:46

Gonzalez is holding a towel unnaturally

23:48

seeming to cover his hand. So

23:51

the two of them went into the shower

23:53

which I guess to

23:55

the outside sounds kind of strange but

23:57

that was sort of where they went

23:59

generally. have a little privacy if you

24:01

needed one-on-one talk with somebody.

24:03

Bruiser follows Jose into the shower

24:05

area. According

24:08

to later interviews with Tony Atlas, the

24:10

photo of his son is still in his

24:12

hand. They're in there talking, pretty

24:14

soon they're yelling. After a short discussion, a

24:17

fight of some kind breaks out. The

24:19

next thing you know, Bruiser Brody

24:21

is yelling out, you know,

24:24

just sort of making sounds, screaming. The noises

24:26

alert the rest of the locker room that

24:28

something is wrong. The exact

24:30

sequence of events is concealed by

24:32

a frosted glass door. The

24:35

mystery is the point. By

24:38

the time anyone comes in, it's

24:40

too late. And

24:46

during that discussion, Jose

24:48

Gonzalez stabbed Bruiser Brody

24:50

in his stomach. He

24:52

stabbed Brody, I

24:54

don't know how many times, but

24:56

he come out and then Brody

24:59

come out and was all bloody. You

25:01

know what I mean, like from where he had been stabbed. And

25:04

then Tony Atlas was there. The

25:06

commotion came, everybody went to the

25:09

dressing room to see what was going on. Brody

25:12

was bleeding, bending over,

25:14

he fell

25:17

down. I

25:19

can't speak for Tony, but he tells the story

25:21

that he being in

25:23

that locker room, that he saw that

25:25

Brody had been stabbed and he was like

25:28

holding Brody as he was bleeding out.

25:32

Dutch Mantel is sitting in the hideout of

25:34

the baseball stadium. After

25:37

he had arrived with Brody and Tony Atlas, he

25:40

didn't feel comfortable in the locker room. He

25:42

decided that he needed to get out for a bit. But

25:46

now it's time to get back. As

25:49

he makes his way back, he hears the

25:51

commotion. He

25:54

walks through the door and the first

25:56

thing he sees is Bruiser Brody, Frank

25:58

Goodish. the locker room floor.

26:02

The man his friends describe as

26:04

a gentle giant is bleeding from

26:06

two stab wounds. One

26:09

is in his chest and one

26:11

is in his abdomen. According

26:13

to several accounts, it

26:15

sounds like Frank knows it's serious. He

26:17

talked to Carlos Colon and told him, you

26:19

know, please tell

26:22

my wife and my kid that I love him. At

26:24

this point, Jose is probably already gone.

26:27

Shortly after the incident, he left the stadium

26:30

and witnesses from the night say he left

26:32

with the knife used to stab Frank. Jose

26:35

Gonzalez picked up the

26:38

knife, put it in a

26:41

t-shirt or something like that and

26:43

walked off the stadium.

26:47

Where the knife went, what

26:49

happened to that, to this day is

26:52

one of those big mysteries. According

26:58

to some reports, there is a local doctor

27:00

present, but he's probably the

27:02

one who usually patches up some of

27:04

the razor blade cuts wrestlers give themselves

27:06

to bleed during matches. So

27:09

it's possible he didn't have much more to work with

27:11

than band-aids. Also, there

27:14

are reports about some police officers being there

27:16

because they were usually around during wrestling matches.

27:19

But according to some US wrestlers, they didn't

27:22

have any medical training. And more importantly,

27:24

they didn't really take the situation seriously.

27:28

At first police thought he was an angle

27:30

or storyline, you know, they

27:32

thought he was fake. So imagine

27:35

that commotion the wrestlers trying to get him

27:37

to the ambulance, trying to

27:39

save him. Policemen

27:42

start there not really

27:44

believing what's happening. Brody's

27:46

colleagues try to stop the bleeding. Time

27:50

ticks away and the wait for

27:52

the ambulance drags on. They had trouble getting

27:54

an ambulance to the stadium because there was

27:56

a concert on the other side. Menuro

28:00

The boy band had a show right

28:03

across the street. So it

28:05

was hell in San Juan that night.

28:08

So it was impossible

28:10

to get there. In fact,

28:12

the narrative of Sonny Atlas

28:15

and Toshmentel says that

28:18

one of the reasons Brody didn't have

28:20

a prompt medical attention was because

28:23

of the traffic jam. The

28:25

ambulance couldn't make a quick arrival to

28:27

the stadium because, imagine

28:30

wrestling at Maduro same night in

28:33

very nearby venues. So it

28:35

was the perfect storm at the time. Upon

28:38

the arrival of the ambulance, the

28:40

medics are confronted with another challenge. Puscher

28:42

Brody was about six, six, six,

28:45

eight, 300 pounds. So

28:48

he was kind of hard to carry. Frank

28:50

is too big. The medics

28:53

have trouble lifting him. According to

28:55

Tony Atlas, in the end, he

28:57

helps them get Brody's wounded body into

28:59

the ambulance. Finally, they take

29:01

Puscher Brody to the hospital and they

29:03

try to do everything they could. Here's

29:06

Emerson again. So Tony

29:08

Atlas rode in the ambulance with Puscher

29:10

Brody to the hospital in Puerto Rico.

29:13

And while he

29:15

was in the ambulance, he knew that Puscher

29:17

Brody was a fan of country and Western

29:19

music. And he was singing

29:21

a song by

29:23

Hank Williams called If Heaven Ain't A Lot Like

29:25

Dixie. And so he was singing that to Puscher

29:28

Brody and holding his

29:30

hand as the ambulance went

29:32

to the hospital. And

29:35

by the time that he got in there, he

29:37

was already, everything was starting to shut down because

29:39

he had just lost so much.

29:44

Back at the Juan Ramón Lubriel Stadium,

29:46

for thousands of fans, the

29:48

show goes on. But

29:50

Puscher Brody never shows up. Sometime

29:53

during that night, Jose Gonzalez came back

29:57

and wrestled his match like nothing

29:59

happened. And the

30:02

car was not canceled. They proceeded

30:04

to have the wrestling card that night,

30:07

while Bruce's buddy was in the

30:09

hospital fighting for his life. In

30:14

the end, Frank Goodish dies at

30:16

4am on the operating table at

30:18

Centro Medico in San Juan. It's

30:22

not a storyline. There is

30:24

no twist. No resurrection.

30:28

No surprise return at the next big match. The

30:31

world of fantasy that made Frank Goodish

30:33

into Bruce Abrodi has collided

30:36

with reality. And

30:38

he's paid the price. But

30:42

that doesn't mean the ballot of Bruce Abrodi is done.

30:46

Because as the night ends and

30:48

the sun rises over San Juan, one

30:50

question starts to press. What

30:53

becomes of the man who killed him? The

31:04

ballot of Bruce Abrodi is presented by

31:06

me, Adam Hills, and the producer is

31:08

Ilona Tola. The assistant

31:10

producer is John Rogers, and the

31:12

executive producer is Robert Nicholson. Emerson

31:15

Murray was our consultant. And

31:18

special thanks to Ezekiel Rodriguez-Andino for

31:20

reporting assistance in Puerto Rico. Also

31:24

huge thanks to Marcela Pizzaro

31:26

Coloma. This is

31:28

a Whistle Down production for BBC Radio 5 Live.

31:57

We got through with it, huh? A trillion dollar

31:59

thing. Which never took off.

32:02

Broadsters of this level, they

32:04

will never stop. And an ill-advised

32:06

errand, changing F1 forever. It will

32:08

haunt the people involved for as

32:10

long as they live. For strangest

32:13

crimes, listen on BBC Sounds. Tired

32:22

of ads interrupting your gripping investigations?

32:24

Good news! Ads

32:33

shouldn't be the scariest thing about

32:35

true crime. Start listening by downloading

32:37

the Amazon Music app for free

32:40

or go to amazon.com/true crime ad

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free. That's amazon.com/true crime ad free

32:44

to catch up on the latest

32:46

episodes without the ads. How

32:48

do you solve a crime in reverse? When

32:51

you believe that someone was murdered but

32:53

have no clue who the victim was. We

32:57

have to do our job. And we

32:59

have to find out who

33:02

did they kill? If it's possible.

33:05

How are we going to do that? I'm

33:07

Jake Halpern. And this is

33:10

Deep Cover, The Nameless Man. Listen

33:13

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

33:16

or wherever you listen to podcasts.