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0:04
Back with
0:18
the
0:55
The Hey,
1:17
hey, it's Conrad Thompson and you're listening to
1:19
what happened to win with
1:21
the voice of your childhood, Tony,
1:23
what's going on, man? How
1:26
are you? Well, here we are
1:28
back together again. Uh, Conrad, how are you
1:30
doing? Uh, happy new year to you and
1:32
everyone. How about it? 20, 24. Is it
1:34
new year? New you, Tony. Is that what
1:36
it is? It's
1:39
new year, same old shit hit. Well, uh,
1:42
you know, uh, let's
1:44
see January. What's
1:46
it going to be? Uh, when we celebrate another
1:48
year. I mean, right now, all right. I
1:51
mean, it's this month here and in the month is
1:53
January, right? Who
1:56
would have thought as you're watching, uh,
1:59
the guy we now know. is big bill in
2:01
the Royal Rumble in San Antonio, all these
2:03
years later, you would personally
2:06
know that guy and be
2:08
so knee deep in the wrestling business. Yeah.
2:10
Nobody would have ever guessed that. What a fun little
2:12
ride this has been here on what happened when, huh?
2:15
Yeah. And a shout out to big bill
2:17
who, uh, really put his life
2:19
back together on a personal note for him and
2:22
has become a, just a real great
2:25
guy to have at AEW. Uh,
2:29
big bill, of course, big cast at that time. And,
2:32
uh, I went
2:34
on to, uh, I went
2:39
on to, to be in this business. Uh,
2:43
fuck you for that, Conrad. And he's
2:45
a tag team champion. Look, everybody's, uh,
2:47
in a much happier place most of
2:50
the time. Maybe. Hey, listen,
2:52
we, uh, we got to
2:54
suffer through bowl season. I say suffer through because
2:57
all those hapless Florida state Seminoles just
2:59
got. Just
3:01
destroyed by your Georgia Bulldogs. And,
3:04
uh, somehow, some way Alabama did
3:07
not make the national championship. Michigan
3:09
dominated Washington. They are the new
3:11
champs. Did
3:13
you watch any of the bowls at all Tony,
3:15
or are you just divorced from college sports? Yeah.
3:19
I'm divorced from sports to
3:21
be honest with you. Didn't watch,
3:25
didn't watch any of that. Uh,
3:27
didn't watch any of the world series, uh,
3:30
last year, didn't watch any
3:32
of the Superbowl I'm
3:35
going to be in Las Vegas
3:37
on Superbowl Sunday kind
3:39
of well, kind of. And I won't watch
3:41
any of that. Um, so
3:44
I, I really don't watch sports at all
3:46
anymore, Conrad. I just, well, that's,
3:48
that's not true. I got the NFL package and
3:51
I will turn on the Jaguars now and then. Uh,
3:54
you know, they, they obviously really,
3:56
really, uh, choked it at
3:58
the end. Yeah, man. Boy, did they
4:00
ever. Yeah. I,
4:03
uh, I
4:05
saw perhaps the best use of the Kurt
4:07
angle meme of all time in, in,
4:10
in regards to the Jags missing the playoffs, but I thought
4:12
for sure they were in. I mean, it feels like just
4:14
a handful of weeks ago. I saw
4:16
lots of people saying they were Super Bowl contenders
4:18
and darn it. They missed it. Uh,
4:21
so I'm excited to see next season.
4:23
I know that, uh, you know,
4:25
the NFL still continues, but I
4:27
think next year is going to be an interesting year as a college
4:29
football fan. You know, we've got Texas
4:32
and Oklahoma coming into the SEC. I
4:34
don't know if that's going to work out the way Jr. Maybe hopes.
4:38
I'm not so sure how it's going to work out.
4:40
And of course we're going to have a 12 team
4:42
playoff as well. Mm-hmm. Uh, next season for
4:45
the Georgia Bulldogs. Uh, it's going
4:47
to be one of their toughest seasons. Uh,
4:49
I know I saw on ESPN now. I
4:53
don't really watch sports because I don't know.
4:55
I just, but I
4:57
will read about it and I
4:59
will go on the app on the ESPN app
5:02
and read some things and it's,
5:04
uh, it, it
5:06
humors me to, it humors
5:08
me to look on the ESPN app and
5:10
see all the headlines a lot of times
5:13
and a lot of times the headlines, most
5:15
of the time the headlines on ESPN are
5:17
not about the games. It's
5:19
about people being in trouble or
5:23
doing something illegal. It
5:25
just, to me, it just kind of is a
5:27
snippet of the, of the sports world now. Uh,
5:31
but so I'll go on and I'll
5:33
read about what is going on, but I won't
5:35
watch it. And, uh, but,
5:38
uh, for our Georgia fans, I
5:41
read that they are favorites to be the
5:43
national champions next year already. I
5:45
don't know how you can do that. Uh,
5:47
but they must play at Alabama and play
5:50
at Texas. It's going to be tough. Regular
5:52
season next year. Holy
5:54
smokes. Yeah. I saw a little,
5:56
uh, preseason talk about early preseason.
5:58
I mean, like. the night
6:00
of the national championship. I saw a prediction
6:02
of the top 25 Georgia was
6:05
number one. Texas was number two. I forget who
6:07
was number three Alabama was number four. So
6:09
it's like, you know, three of the top four
6:12
being in the SEC next year. Woo.
6:15
It's going to be interesting. And speaking of
6:17
interesting, it's not just regular sports that
6:19
have happened since you and I hooked it up. AEW
6:21
had their last pay-per-view of 2023 and what a show it
6:23
was. AEW
6:26
seemingly always over delivers on pay-per-view. I don't
6:28
think this was any exception. I
6:31
enjoyed the, uh, uh, Andrade Miro
6:33
match and certainly enjoyed Washington
6:35
Swarff Strickland do his thing. Sting
6:37
back on pay-per-view. Always find Adam
6:40
Copeland and Christian cage tore it up, but
6:43
I'm really happy for our friend Eddie Kingston.
6:46
Now the triple crown winner. He's won
6:49
the continental classic. He's got
6:51
the ROH world title. He's got the new
6:53
Japan strong open weight championship and
6:56
now the inaugural AEW continental
6:58
championship. You talked about what
7:00
a great story big bill has in wrestling.
7:02
Eddie Kingston's got to be right up there for one
7:04
of the best feel good stories since
7:07
you and I started doing this podcast. Eddie's
7:10
one of my favorites. Uh, will
7:14
you agree? Yes, absolutely. I
7:18
mean, when, when I, when I think about, uh,
7:22
and when I, when I think about all the, all the,
7:24
uh, different guys that I've worked with, the
7:27
Eddie is, Eddie's one of those real guys,
7:30
real guys that
7:33
what you see is kind of what you get.
7:36
Yes. On TV. So I have
7:38
a lot of time for Eddie Kingston. A lot of time.
7:40
I'm so glad. You know, when he first
7:42
came aboard, you, you were, I didn't know anything
7:44
about him because I had been out of wrestling.
7:46
Right. And you said, I'm so glad Eddie Kingston
7:48
is getting a chance with a major promotion. Uh,
7:52
and he continues just
7:54
to perform well. And his match
7:56
against John Moxley was tremendous. His
7:58
match against Trent. of the other night was very
8:01
good. Uh, and, uh,
8:03
he just gives you, it gives you good
8:05
performances every, every time. So never
8:08
disappointed with Eddie Kingston in the ring and
8:10
in the main event, unbelievably, somehow, some
8:13
way we've got a new world champ
8:15
MJF felt like the forever AEW champ.
8:17
He was the longest reigning AEW champion
8:19
in their brief history. And now
8:21
Samoa Joe is the top guy. Uh,
8:24
Samoa Joe has obviously been to the mountain
8:26
top before and ring of honor and TNA,
8:29
but now in AEW, and
8:31
this is years after a WWE
8:33
basically decided, Hey, let's make him an
8:36
announcer. It's really awesome to see
8:38
him still doing his thing and at a high
8:40
level in AEW. Samoa Joe is
8:42
special. I know that this AEW experience is
8:44
really one of your first, uh,
8:47
encounters with him. What'd you think of, uh,
8:49
the performance he and MJF put together? Uh,
8:52
it was a great match. And
8:55
I'm thrilled
8:58
that Samoa Joe is our
9:00
champion because, uh, backstage wise, he's
9:02
a pros pro. There's
9:05
nobody backstage, uh,
9:07
that is better and a, and a leader backstage
9:10
for the boys than Samoa
9:12
Joe. And he just,
9:14
he leads by example. And,
9:17
um, I think it's, it's a
9:19
great move to have him as our world champion. I'm
9:22
all about Samoa Joe, buddy. I'm
9:24
all about Samoa Joe too. It's a fun
9:27
time to be an AEW fan. They're coming
9:29
to a town near you. Pick up tickets
9:31
now. AEW T I x.com. Uh,
9:34
Tony, I'm excited for us to talk about our
9:37
topic today because our topic today, I thought
9:39
maybe we should do something a little more
9:41
timely since you and I have, uh, enjoyed
9:43
the holiday season, a fabulous
9:46
new movie, maybe the best wrestling movie
9:48
ever has come out the iron
9:50
claw. And it's sort of
9:52
the story of the Von Erickson world-class championship
9:54
wrestling. I saw it in the theater
9:56
the first day they showed it in my market and
9:59
was thrilled. to say that I thought they
10:01
did a pretty good job. I mean, obviously there's
10:03
some creative license and you can't include
10:05
every piece of every story and there's some timeline
10:07
things. If you want to nitpick, you can find
10:10
some things to nitpick, but as
10:12
far as really telling the human element,
10:15
I thought it was pretty good. Have you had
10:17
a chance to see it or what have you heard about it, if not?
10:20
I've heard it's been it's very good and everybody
10:22
has really been talking about it backstage. Of
10:24
course, I haven't seen it. The pandemic just
10:27
kind of changed the way I watch
10:29
movies. I haven't gone to the theater
10:31
in a long, long time. I'm
10:33
the type of curmudgeon that says, I'll
10:36
wait until it comes out on video.
10:40
I mean, look, I was a
10:43
gigantic growing up
10:46
and for a long time and really still
10:48
am a gigantic James Bond fan.
10:51
When that new James Bond movie came out,
10:54
No Time to Kill or something like that, I didn't
10:57
go to the theater and see it.
10:59
It's the first time I never went
11:01
to the theater or that I ever
11:03
missed a James Bond movie in the
11:05
theater. My theater days, I guess,
11:08
a combination of the pandemic and getting into
11:11
the habit of not going, I'm
11:14
not going to theater, but I'm looking forward to
11:16
seeing it. And who knows,
11:18
maybe I'll convince Lois to go
11:20
and watch the movie with me in the
11:22
theater. Well, I
11:24
sure hope you can pull that off. And if
11:26
you do, I hope you have a pocket full
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Tony, I thought we would watch a
12:49
little old school world class championship wrestling,
12:52
but I have to admit, I'm not
12:54
really a world class expert, are you? I've
12:58
watched a lot of it
13:02
since a lot of it
13:04
was put on the network. But
13:07
no, I'm not. With the exception of, I
13:10
was working back
13:12
in the 80s back and got
13:14
to meet Kevin and
13:18
David. And of
13:20
course, Gary Hart worked with us and was working
13:22
at world class at the same time. I
13:25
think it was booking world class and still making
13:27
appearances for Jim Crockett promotions back in the 80s
13:29
as well. But
13:34
no, I'm probably
13:36
no more familiar with it than you are,
13:39
Conrad. Well, I thought, hey, if we're
13:41
going to watch world class and some of their best
13:43
moments, we need to call an expert. As they used
13:45
to say on who wants to be a millionaire, we
13:47
need to phone a friend. Oh, wow.
13:50
I pulled out the old handy dandy
13:52
Rolodex and I found somebody who knows
13:55
more about world class championship wrestling
13:57
than probably anybody, ladies and
13:59
gentlemen. when Mr. David Manning, the life of the
14:02
party is here. How are you? Mr. Manning? I
14:04
am fantastic. Appreciate you guys having me on
14:07
man. Thanks for coming on. I greatly appreciate
14:09
the opportunity to talk to you. Have you
14:11
seen the movie? What did you think of
14:13
the iron claw? Yeah, I
14:15
saw the, uh, uh, the Dallas premiere
14:18
and, um, uh, my
14:22
son Sean went with me and,
14:24
uh, you know, he's a mid
14:26
thirties. So it
14:29
was hard for me because I know
14:31
every detail. Yes. And
14:33
so you couldn't
14:35
tell the Von Erich story in two days. That's right.
14:38
Okay. And so I
14:41
finally had to just step back and say, Hey,
14:43
look, look at it from kind of like everybody
14:45
else is, um, you
14:48
know, cause the timelines and the death
14:51
and, you know, and
14:53
nobody, nobody, everybody knows I'm the one that
14:55
actually told friends that David was dead. And,
14:58
um, so, so it was hard for me.
15:00
And I told, um, Dirk
15:03
and I saw him that night at the after party and,
15:06
you know, and I told, uh, Zach Efron and all them,
15:08
they did a good job and which they
15:10
did. And, um, it
15:13
was funny because they didn't, they didn't consult with
15:15
me or Kevin. Really? And we're only two really
15:17
alive that lived it. Uh,
15:20
you know, a lot of people can tell the story. We
15:22
lived the story. And so,
15:24
um, I, uh,
15:27
they thought they got all the tragedies in, but they
15:30
didn't. And I, I told him a couple others, they
15:32
missed and he was kind of shocked. I said, you
15:34
should have talked to us, but overall
15:36
my son loved it. So
15:38
that tells me right there. Fan is
15:40
going to go see it and they're going to love it. Um,
15:43
and, um, like you said, I think
15:45
it's by far the best wrestling shows ever been produced.
15:47
Yeah. Uh, David, let me
15:49
ask you if they did not consult with you
15:51
nor, nor Kevin. Where did they get
15:53
their information from Wikipedia? Well,
15:56
you know, uh, when
15:58
we got to the after party. Um, uh,
16:00
J.R. Schumann was there and he, he wanted
16:02
to introduce me to Durkin. And when we
16:04
got over there, he immediately said, Oh, David
16:07
Manning, blah, blah, blah. So he grew up
16:09
a big, big, big fan. Okay.
16:12
And, um, the best I can say is.
16:17
You know, I, I don't know where they got
16:20
their info. I was a matter of fact, Kevin
16:22
called me, he had talked
16:24
to him early and he told them,
16:26
you need to talk to David Manning. He
16:28
said, because a lot of it, I don't even
16:31
remember, but he said he remembers everything. Yeah.
16:33
And so Kevin called me and said, you're going to
16:35
get a call from these guys. I, it seems as
16:38
though they're really going to try to do, you know,
16:40
do the story, right. And, uh,
16:42
you know, not try to bash the
16:44
Von Eric's. And so,
16:46
um, I, I
16:48
expected to call, never got it. So, but
16:51
I liked the movie and I thought some of
16:54
the casting was phenomenal. I thought Fritz was
16:56
dead on. I did not
16:58
like the way they portrayed Fritz. Um,
17:00
he was a phenomenal businessman.
17:03
And I give you a great example. He did
17:06
not want Kerry to leave Houston. He wanted him
17:08
to finish school and
17:10
he was adamant. He wasn't getting in that
17:12
ring until he, he graduated. And then after
17:14
the Olympics got boycotted, Kerry immediately
17:16
said, I, you know, dad, I want to
17:18
get in the ring and Kerry pushed and
17:20
pushed and pushed and finally got him. Hmm.
17:23
And I think the other, the other big thing in the movie
17:25
that was all based was Kevin's
17:28
wife, Pam, he
17:30
didn't meet her at the wrestling hatches. She,
17:32
she was a grade behind Kerry and them.
17:35
And so Kev met her through
17:38
school with the boys and
17:40
chased her for about three months, trying to get her to go out
17:42
with him. So,
17:45
so I kind of felt sorry for her
17:47
the way she was kind of portrayed in the movie.
17:49
But, um, it's
17:52
like Kristen said, you know, uh, Kevin's
17:56
oldest daughter. She said, Hey, I
17:58
didn't even exist. Well,
18:04
listen, I think we've got a lot of our listeners
18:06
who really just grew up probably
18:08
watching the WWF or WCW and
18:10
now of course, AEW, but
18:12
if they go back and they watch on the
18:14
network, they'll see that you're running around counting one,
18:17
two, three, a bunch, but you had a lot
18:19
of roles behind the scenes. Uh,
18:21
tell everybody what else you did for world-class
18:23
besides your referee from time to time. Well,
18:26
um, as
18:28
Tony said, when I came in, Gary Hart was the Booker
18:31
and I started in the late seventies and
18:34
learned a lot from Gary, phenomenal mind as
18:36
far as being a Booker. And,
18:39
uh, so when Gary was there,
18:41
um, you know, I
18:43
kind of always had an act for finishes and so I got,
18:46
I got plugged in real quick to the booking meetings.
18:49
And, um, and then,
18:51
uh, later on when, when Gary
18:53
left and Ken Mantel came in,
18:56
um, Ken and I were co-bookers.
18:59
And so, uh, but he, he kind of took
19:01
the reins as the, as the main Booker. And
19:04
truthfully, I just did all the finishes, you
19:06
know, Ken was good at hearing a finish
19:08
and then like add into it or, you
19:10
know, and so, but I was also, uh,
19:13
for the last, gosh, 12
19:16
years I was there. I was Fritz's right
19:18
hand guy. I got a call
19:20
back then you had a beeper and I
19:22
actually had a beeper and one person
19:24
had the number and
19:27
if it went off, I better make a phone
19:29
call. Yeah. Uh, because it was Fritz and he
19:32
would call me every Thursday. Sometimes it'd be Friday
19:34
morning. And he, if he didn't come
19:36
in that week to the
19:38
office, he'd want to know how everything went and
19:41
you know, what'd I think and stuff like that.
19:43
So, um, and then I
19:45
also promoted several towns. Matter of fact, David, before
19:47
David died, Fritz, let David and
19:49
I have Lawton, Oklahoma and Tyler, Texas. And
19:52
we were promoting those. And then, um, after
19:55
Dave's death, I continued that. And then I
19:57
picked up some others. I went and promoted
19:59
boss. You know, up in the, uh,
20:02
the backyard up there, actually we, we did a big
20:04
show in the, it was called Manning Bowl, believe it
20:06
or not. I
20:08
went up there and, um, yeah, we kind of got
20:11
blocked from being able to use the gardens. Yeah.
20:16
So, uh, but, but you know, things were
20:18
great. And, um, so I,
20:20
I just kind of had a jack of all
20:22
trades. Obviously I got all the television
20:25
exposure being a referee and
20:27
a lot of people thought that's all I was. And then from
20:30
all the podcasts and, you
20:32
know, the different things. And unfortunately
20:34
I was a pallbearer many times. Um,
20:37
so, but it, you
20:39
know, wrestling was good to me and, um, um,
20:43
I'm glad to see the one
20:45
good thing here is this ex this exposure
20:47
of the Von Erich movie is
20:50
really going to help Ross and Marshall. Yes. And
20:53
they're both great workers, as you know, Conrad. And
20:56
so I think that's going to open a lot of doors for them.
20:58
I told him, I said, you better be ready. If you
21:00
go sign a contract with, uh, you know,
21:03
New York or a W I said,
21:05
because things change, it's no longer
21:07
a once a month deal, right? You
21:10
know, you're, you're at their beck and call and they're,
21:12
believe me, they're going to use you. And
21:15
Tony, you've had an opportunity to meet those guys
21:17
a couple of times. They've done a few shots
21:20
for a W. What's your experience been like with
21:22
the next generation of the Von Erichs? They
21:24
are, they are great and respectful kids,
21:28
really, really well-mannered. And just,
21:30
uh, you know,
21:32
I met them briefly in a MLW
21:35
when they were there. That's right. And then of
21:37
course they came over to AEW recently and when
21:39
we were in Texas and we used them and
21:42
just, uh, as nice and polite
21:44
and respectful of the business as,
21:46
as anybody can be. And, uh,
21:49
I agree. I think they're talented
21:51
kids that, uh, have a great
21:54
heads on their shoulders. And I think we're going to be
21:56
seeing a lot of them. Great. I
21:58
do. You know, you got Marshall. I
22:01
think Marshall has a little bit of,
22:03
uh, Kev and Dave together, you
22:06
know, when you look at his agility and
22:08
stuff like that and his size, and then
22:10
Ross to me is just a smaller version
22:12
of Kerry. Right. Very
22:15
well said good kids. Uh, I hope, I hope
22:17
we see more of them. I really do. Well,
22:20
I'm excited to see more world-class championship wrestling.
22:22
And when we decided we were going to
22:24
cover a little old world class, I thought,
22:27
not only should we phone a friend, we should ask, what
22:30
do you want to watch? And so
22:32
I asked David off air, what's your
22:34
favorite memory, like your favorite moment? What
22:36
would you like to watch with
22:38
Tony and I and kind of relive? And
22:41
man, you didn't hesitate Dave. You had one lined up.
22:43
What are we watching and why are we watching it?
22:45
Why is this one of your favorite moments? You
22:48
know, there were, and there was a lot
22:50
of favorite moments. Uh, obviously when the
22:52
free birds turned heel, that was,
22:55
that was the biggest event that ever happened
22:57
in world-class set us on fire. And,
22:59
uh, but, uh, this particular match
23:02
that we're going to watch today, uh,
23:05
it's, it's Kevin and Kerry taking
23:07
on a gorgeous
23:10
Gino Hernandez and
23:12
a gentleman, Chris Adams, and
23:14
what's really unique about this match and
23:16
everyone that watched world-class, these are all
23:19
good looking guys, big head of
23:21
hair. And,
23:23
uh, it's a hair match. And
23:26
so the fans were, they
23:29
weren't sure who was going to win this match. And even
23:32
me, I would hear the talk, you know, behind the
23:35
scenes, there was like, there's no way they're going to
23:37
find a way out of this where none of
23:39
them have to cut their hair. And,
23:41
uh, as you'll see in the match, it
23:44
hair got cut. Now,
23:48
Dave, this was the second big, uh, cotton bowl
23:51
show, right? Second year of it. Yeah. Also the
23:53
big one we had over 30,000. We,
23:56
uh, this was our, this was our second
23:58
biggest event ever. With Texas stadium,
24:00
right? Uh, the David Von Erk Memorial, that
24:03
was the biggest with 42,000 people. This
24:05
one, you'll hear on the tape. They say it's about 39,000 people.
24:10
That's just tremendous. And I love when you said,
24:12
uh, and hair was cut. And by the
24:14
way, hair will be cut. If you're rocking
24:17
a Henson razor, Tony and I are
24:19
big fans of Henson. You will be too. We want
24:21
you to try it. Uh, like
24:23
world-class, it's going to feel a little old
24:25
school, but like the movie, it's
24:27
got the benefit of new school tech. Let
24:29
me explain Henson shaving as a
24:31
family owned aerospace parts manufacturer. These guys
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have actually made parts for the international
24:36
space station and the Mars Rover,
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but what they decided to use is fire
24:41
up their aerospace grade C and C machines to
24:43
make the thinnest razors you've ever seen. I know
24:45
what you're thinking. Well, how thin can it be
24:47
0.0013 inches to be exact. That's
24:51
thinner than a human hair. And what it
24:53
means for you is a more secure and
24:55
stable blade with a vibration free shave. That's
24:58
going to give you less bumps and
25:00
less nicks and less scrapes. Not only
25:02
that, this Henson razor also has built
25:04
in channels to evacuate hair and cream,
25:06
and that makes clogging virtually impossible as
25:09
a business guy. What I really liked about Henson
25:11
shaving is man, they just wanted to focus on
25:13
making the best razor, not the best razor business.
25:16
There's no plastic here. There's no subscriptions.
25:18
There's no proprietary blades. There's no
25:20
planned obsolescence. If you're watching with us
25:22
over on YouTube, you can take a look and you'll see a Henson
25:25
razor works with a standard dual edge blade
25:28
that well, every wrestler is
25:30
very familiar with, but it gives
25:32
you the benefits of new school tech. Pop pop never
25:34
saw a razor this thin. And once
25:36
you own a razor from Henson, it's only like three
25:38
to $5 to replace the blades. And I don't mean
25:40
three to $5 a month or three to $5 a
25:42
quarter. I mean three to
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$5 a year. Let's say
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no to subscriptions and yes to a razor
25:49
that will truly last you a lifetime. Visit
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Henson, shaving.com/Tony to pick the razor for
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26:00
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blades. When you head
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to h-e-n-s-o-n-s-h-a-v-i-n-g.com slash
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Tony and use our promo
26:09
code TONY. So folks,
26:11
if you're watching along with us in the description
26:14
of this podcast, we've got a link where you can
26:16
watch along with us over on YouTube. And
26:18
when you do that, we want you to go to one hour, 12 minutes
26:21
and 51 seconds. That's one
26:23
hour, 12 minutes and 51
26:25
seconds of the link below. It's on
26:28
YouTube where you can watch this big
26:30
second Cotton Bowl attraction. It's
26:32
a hair versus hair match. Do you
26:34
want to sort of set the stage for who
26:37
all's in this match? And I mean,
26:40
obviously we get the enormity of
26:42
it's a stadium show and it's
26:44
the second follow-up Cotton Bowl event. And there's
26:46
nearly 40,000 people, but some of our listeners,
26:49
I mean, I think everybody by now is at least
26:51
familiar with the Von Erich legacy, but guys
26:53
like Chris Adams and guys like Gino Hernandez,
26:56
can you speak about their legacies a little
26:58
bit, David? Yeah, both
27:00
of them, phenomenal workers, young guys,
27:03
very athletic. And
27:05
they made the
27:08
perfect team. You know, when Chris Adams turned heel,
27:11
he immediately joined up with Gino.
27:14
And when they would come to the ring, they
27:16
would play bad to the bone. And so, they
27:21
were just flamboyant. I mean, they
27:23
had the charisma. And the
27:26
one year before when we did the Cotton
27:28
Bowl in that match, Kevin
27:32
fought Chris Adams. And that's the match where
27:34
Kevin left in an ambulance. Chris
27:37
hit him with a chair and I mean, hit him with
27:39
a chair. And, you know,
27:42
no Cape ave here. Kevin
27:45
had said, lay it in and he did. And there
27:48
was a bar on the chair that ran across it.
27:50
And it literally split the back of Kev's head. And
27:53
so, he ended up
27:55
going, he had a concussion. And boy,
27:59
set these guys on. fire. So as we come
28:01
back one year later, we got
28:04
everybody, the feud with
28:06
Kevin and Chris has continued. And now
28:08
you throw in Gino Hernandez, and
28:11
you also throw in, you know,
28:13
Kerry. And so great,
28:16
great match. I had refereeed the
28:19
same guys over in Fort Worth.
28:22
That's when I took the bump and got
28:24
my head twisted and caught in the ropes.
28:27
And while I was doing that, the Gino
28:29
and Chris had thrown powder in the
28:31
Bonner's face. And
28:34
so they got the win. And so
28:36
we were coming off of that into the stadium
28:38
and then the hair went up. They had been,
28:41
Gino and Chris had cut about, you're going to see
28:43
about five or six of the guys here leading
28:45
up to this match. So they had the heat. Also
28:48
in this match, we introduced
28:50
for the first time Lance Von Erich. Oh, wow.
28:53
And so you're going to see Lance at ringside. This
28:55
is the first time the fans got a chance to
28:57
really see Lance. And this
29:00
is where we actually involved him in the match. Well,
29:04
I'm excited. Tony, are you ready on your side? Do
29:06
you have a special countdown for us today? Yeah,
29:08
I got a special countdown. I think it's the
29:10
last countdown that we got from
29:14
DJ turn up. I'm not so sure. He'll let me
29:16
know. I'm sure. But I do have a countdown before
29:18
we go. I, I, I really smiled
29:20
with David said, he said, lay it in.
29:23
Yeah. Yeah. If
29:25
you tell one of the guys, lay it in, they're
29:28
going to lay it in. Well, especially Kevin, cause he ditched
29:30
a lot of it out. So the
29:33
chance to repay that, right? Yeah. He
29:36
laid it in. Right. Oh
29:39
yeah. I got a countdown. Well, let's do
29:41
it. So we're going to give us a countdown
29:43
and then we'll all press play together. Here we
29:45
go. Yeah.
30:00
a world-class
30:26
championship wrestling at the cotton ball on this
30:28
beautiful day and it's a beautiful day
30:30
because just a month ago the show man right here mike
30:32
binary was lying critically on the
30:34
hospital very are back it is certainly miraculous
30:36
and it's certainly great to have you with
30:38
us the ability to great to be back
30:40
with the all band and my family and
30:43
everybody out i'm not really grateful
30:45
to be here you know if you were
30:47
everybody present but i've been new conferences all
30:49
over that i've done a it is
30:51
great to be back in thank you for all the
30:53
prayer first but
30:55
eric uh... miracles can happen and uh...
30:58
good people come through very tough times
31:00
the largest one to do that they
31:02
like all my kids accident resurrected he's
31:05
back in given time he
31:07
surprised the doctors immensely already they thought he'd
31:09
be in the hospital for months right dr
31:11
such a result of the most of the
31:13
map but here is
31:16
a lesson will look very very small and
31:18
story he's back out the
31:20
shoulder that we have the surgery over rehabilitative
31:23
that right now you get like
31:25
a few months to be back just like he was
31:27
before we thank god we think all of you people
31:29
for your purchase like all mike said mike
31:32
would be with us today there's no question about that
31:34
in my mind anybody else it
31:36
is certainly a tremendous day and i think
31:38
it's a good chance here to and time
31:40
to uh... welcome in lance one eric wall
31:42
those son and uh... because the mike in
31:45
the little american great
31:47
you would it's great to be alone star
31:49
state i uh... gonna be here for today
31:51
and tomorrow nine i have some
31:53
wrestling i've got to take care of the europe and
31:55
i'll be back in the next few weeks to help
31:57
out family that's great love
31:59
it I just want to say one
32:01
thing when Lance and Waldo of course heard about Mike and
32:04
the rest of family were right here Lance right
32:06
then went to council every day up north You
32:08
know Lance had been around here working out with the boys in
32:10
and out for some time But the
32:12
Waldo especially in myself though Lance is ready to
32:14
assume the Von Erich name We
32:17
don't know what he was born. He's now
32:19
the new Northwest everywhere champion. He's
32:21
ready. What great timing He's coming
32:23
in just his own mics down. He'll
32:25
be here in just a very few weeks to help us out Great
32:27
and Mike will see you in action Very
32:29
soon as soon as possible Mike
32:32
Von Erich right back with us here a
32:34
world-class championship wrestling and we'll be right back
32:36
with more So David, let
32:39
me ask you about Lance because I've heard
32:41
before that maybe that didn't go
32:43
as well as planned Well, what can you tell
32:45
us about? Lance Von Erich and what
32:47
was supposed to be and what wasn't supposed to
32:49
be and all that jazz well, I
32:52
Could tell you here. Here's one thing. This is
32:55
the magazine. It's a big magazine here in Dallas.
32:57
Mm-hmm And if you
32:59
right up here, it says The
33:02
fake Von Erich. Oh Wow, and
33:04
in here there's about eight page story
33:06
about long and So
33:08
I'm the one that found Lance we we made
33:10
the decision In
33:13
a booking one of the booking meetings that
33:15
you know, we had Dave's death and we had just brought
33:17
the birds in and we
33:19
had the perfect scenario and And
33:22
Mike wasn't in a position to be able to
33:24
step up and so We
33:28
needed a Von Erich and Kevin
33:30
was dead set against it But
33:32
you know, I I
33:35
was for it Fritz was for it. We thought
33:37
it would work out I found the Lance on
33:39
a golf course I'm watching him play golf and
33:41
my god, he was built and had to look
33:44
and you know, he was a bodybuilder Yeah, it
33:46
had a lot of records. And
33:48
so I went up and he
33:50
probably wondered about me because I kept staring at him all
33:52
day But finally
33:54
I went up and told him who I was and I
33:57
said man I think I got a great opportunity for you and I
33:59
took him down and He bet Fritz and
34:02
then we, you know, uh, it was hard
34:04
because he was from, you know, Dallas area,
34:06
but we sent him up to Portland, uh,
34:09
with Don Owens and he worked up
34:11
there, uh, basically it was
34:13
a crash course because he stepped right into
34:15
the main event. I mean, when he came
34:18
back, he was literally. Uh,
34:20
and then when Carrie got hurt, I
34:22
got a lot of times him and Kevin
34:24
were doing two shows on Saturday night. We'd
34:26
do our spot shows. We'd send Kevin to
34:28
one Lance. The other, they both go on
34:30
first, then Chris cross to the, uh,
34:32
and then they would go on last at each show. What
34:37
a fascinating story. I don't, Tony, I don't remember
34:39
hearing another story like that before of we create
34:42
this guy, we throw him in the main events. I
34:44
mean, not, not to be funny, but it almost sounds
34:46
like Zeus, right? Like we found this
34:48
guy, we needed an opponent. We had an opponent.
34:51
We needed, I don't know. It's just wild. And by
34:53
the way, if you're watching along with us on the watch
34:55
along, man, well, what a crowd
34:57
you guys have here. What do you think the
34:59
attendance for this one was again, David? Uh,
35:02
they estimated 39,000. It's
35:05
at the cotton bowl. Um, you know, it was
35:07
during the state fair. Uh,
35:09
I mean, it was just perfect timing. And then, you know, we were, like I
35:11
say, we were on fire in 85, uh, uh, 83, 84
35:17
and 85 were just huge for us. It's
35:20
interesting too. And then Tony, when you take a look
35:22
at the guard rails, it's just, uh, it's a piece
35:24
of string. Yeah. It's a different
35:26
time. Oh, look at that handsome devil. That
35:29
referee right there. Mr. David. How about that?
35:32
Yeah. Whenever I talked to Bruce David,
35:34
he always just goes on and on
35:36
about Gina Hernandez, that Gina Hernandez could
35:39
have been, you know, and obviously we were proud
35:41
of what Ted DiBiase did, but he was like
35:44
the, for the, for the
35:46
Texas area, he was the OG million dollar man.
35:48
Would you agree with that? Yes.
35:50
Yeah. Yeah. And he, he, he could
35:52
come. He was great on the mic. Okay.
35:55
Uh, truthfully, um, you
35:59
know, there's no. better on the mic than, than,
36:01
than obviously Rick flair, but
36:03
Gino was right in there and he could come
36:05
up with stuff. I remember when we did that
36:07
show in Boston, when
36:10
he went out to do his interview, you know, he's talking
36:12
about how much money he had and all this. And he's,
36:14
I'll never forget. He said, uh, you
36:16
know, and one day maybe I'll
36:18
be rich. And if you want to
36:20
know the definition of rich, turn Larry bird's nose upside
36:22
down and fill it up with nickels. Oh
36:24
my God. What a great line. What
36:28
a great line. Yeah.
36:31
He got immediate heat. I'd
36:34
say you get over, dude. That's how you
36:36
do it. You come up with those memorable
36:38
lines and you know how to talk and that's, that
36:41
is absolutely how you do it. I, I was
36:43
interested, I, the cameramen were in the
36:45
ring and, and you know, today, David, if a
36:48
cameraman's in the ring, you're told, Oh,
36:50
don't shoot the cameramen, shoot around the cameramen,
36:52
but they were in the ring. They got some great shots. And
36:55
I know you work with Keith Mitchell a lot. Yep.
36:58
Uh, uh, Keith was really ahead of his time.
37:01
Yeah. Keith, Keith and, uh, actually
37:03
every, every, uh, Thursday I would
37:06
have lunch with Keith Mitchell and
37:08
Harrison Gillum. And,
37:10
uh, they were the ones really that
37:13
did the show. I mean, they put it, put
37:15
everything together and we would go over, you know,
37:17
we did our little vignettes where we would maybe
37:19
go see the wrestlers at a bar. We might
37:21
go see Jimmy Garvin and sunshine at a spa.
37:24
And, um, so, uh, they,
37:27
they, it's phenomenal. Matter of fact, I
37:29
think the best piece of work Keith Mitchell
37:31
ever did was when
37:34
Carrie and flair were getting ready to wrestle
37:36
date, he's the one that put that video
37:39
together of Carrie riding the horse and
37:42
working out and getting ready. Uh, and they
37:44
were playing, uh, one of the Rocky songs.
37:48
It was great. Yeah.
37:50
World-class was way ahead of the times with their
37:53
production, not just Keith Mitchell, but Dan buying them
37:55
the way they mic the ring, the way they
37:57
shot. I mean, dude, There's
38:00
so much innovation here. How
38:03
about Chris Adams? I
38:06
mean, you talk about a guy who has
38:08
influenced generations of wrestlers. As far as I
38:10
can recall, Mr. Manning, he's the
38:12
innovator of the super kick. Is that the way you
38:14
remember it? Yes. Yeah.
38:16
And I remember the person I, uh, we, we
38:19
had a little monitor in the, in, in, in
38:21
the office, you know, where we could see the
38:23
matches going on. And, uh, so
38:25
when Chris came in, you know, uh, he. Sharp
38:28
dress man. I, that's what I would call him.
38:30
And when he went to the ring, um, and
38:32
he had the match, I remember everybody in that
38:34
dressing room, when he did the super kick for
38:36
the first time, it
38:39
was just like, everybody was like, wow. Um,
38:42
he had a way to hit his leg as he did it.
38:44
And it looked like he tore the guy's head off. And,
38:46
um, and like I
38:48
say, he could talk. And
38:51
so, uh, we, we had a great run with Chris, both
38:53
as a baby face and as a hill. Chris's
38:55
problem was, uh, many people
38:58
know that kept up with world class. Uh,
39:01
when he got with alcohol, he, you
39:04
know, it would control him. He didn't control it became
39:07
really bad. He, he actually did a little
39:09
bit of time because he had butted a
39:11
pilot on a plane coming back in Puerto
39:13
Rico. Oh, wow. And
39:16
so, uh, they were waiting for him when he
39:18
landed in Dallas. Um, and,
39:21
uh, he ended up getting, I
39:23
think about six months. Tony, you ever
39:25
headbutt a pilot? No, no,
39:28
uh, I never had butted a pilot,
39:30
uh, pilots never headbutted me. Uh,
39:33
but, uh, I know a lot of
39:35
passengers that pilots should headbutt. Yeah.
39:38
I'd a lot better. Okay. I'm
39:40
all for that. Yes. My
39:45
goodness. Well, we're watching a, hopefully you're watching along
39:47
with us and man, what have, uh, what
39:50
a crowd this is. And one
39:52
of the things I've always wondered whenever you have
39:54
a show like this, David is what is the,
39:57
what's the backup plan if this thing does.
40:00
and cooperate weather wise, like, you
40:02
know, if it just starts pouring rain, as I mean, it
40:05
just business as usual. It's a football game. We're going to
40:07
do it anyway. I think we would
40:09
have, we would have had to do it. I mean, you
40:11
know, you got 39,000 people there and,
40:13
uh, and the cotton
40:15
bowl, as you hit it right on the head, it's not
40:18
covered, you know, it's an open
40:20
stadium and we got really, really lucky. Now
40:22
it was in, it was in, uh, uh,
40:24
you know, it was a time of year where we, it's
40:27
like drought here. And so
40:29
we were pretty confident of how it was going to
40:31
be, but you know, you never know
40:34
it, Texas, it could snow today and be 120
40:36
tomorrow. October
40:39
6th, 1985 is when this one went
40:41
down and you know, it's
40:43
funny that I didn't even really think about it
40:45
until just now, but of everybody involved in this
40:47
match, it's just you and Kevin. That's still with
40:49
us, right? Yep. Wow. Yeah.
40:54
I thought, uh, I was, I was coming
40:56
home, uh, back from Japan one time and ESPN had
40:59
a tape on and I was watching
41:01
the tape and there was, uh, uh, three
41:04
matches, um, two
41:07
single matches. There was
41:09
a tag team main event, uh,
41:12
counting the announcer and
41:14
counting, um, uh,
41:16
the other referee. I was the only one alive
41:19
on the tape. Wow. Yeah.
41:23
You know, if there was any, any curse, that was
41:25
the other thing, you know, Kevin, Kevin will say
41:27
right now, we, there was never a thing about
41:29
the vulnerable curse, uh, that's Hollywood.
41:32
Right. Right. And so, um,
41:36
yeah, I was telling Kevin the other day, if there
41:38
was a curse here, maybe it's when Fritz bought, uh,
41:41
the land out and eat them, you know, it
41:43
had the arrowheads all over and stuff like that.
41:45
I told someone that I said, maybe that's where
41:47
the curse came in because when he bought it
41:49
less than a month later, when he's building the
41:51
home down there, he's in his motor home. That's
41:53
when Dave died and every day has took place
41:56
while he was in eat them. Do
42:00
you think this is some sort of Indian burial ground? I
42:03
know it is because Chris would go out and
42:05
search and find all the little arrowheads, you know, they
42:07
had a heck of a collection for him. And
42:10
so I, I said, if there was a curse, it
42:12
had to come from there. Of
42:15
course, we're watching a Kevin wrestle barefoot
42:17
here. Um, I
42:19
don't know, man, Tony, can you imagine? I
42:22
mean, I know we've seen other wrestlers like
42:24
super Fosnica and Yoko Zuna and a few
42:26
others wrestle barefoot before, but can
42:28
you imagine that? Tony, like in the gym,
42:31
Crockett promotion days, a guy making towns and
42:33
all these different buildings and wrestling
42:35
barefoot, that's just hard for me to wrap my hand
42:37
around. Yeah, me too. And
42:40
of course, Marshall does today. That's right. Yeah.
42:42
Yeah. So I, that's a, that always
42:45
has. How
42:48
I've always wondered about that, but, uh, I
42:51
mean, that's, that was his trademark. It was.
42:54
And you know, for people watching this, just to
42:56
set the stage a little bit more, you'll notice
42:58
all the wrestlers around the ring. We had lumberjacks
43:00
around the ring. So we had brought just about
43:02
all the guys that had worked, including Lance, even
43:04
Chris Von Er was outside at that time. Gosh,
43:07
he couldn't have been probably 12, 13,
43:09
but, um, we had them on the outside
43:11
and, and in this match, there
43:14
was really, um, I mean, obviously
43:16
there was rules, no gouging and that kind of stuff,
43:18
but pretty much everything else. We were just letting go.
43:20
There had to be a winner. Wow.
43:25
Uh, let's see, let's see if
43:27
we could track a little bit of this and listen
43:29
to, uh, to Bill Mercer. Yeah. Absolutely. He's on the
43:31
commentary. You know, he is. Here we
43:33
go. Yep. Well,
43:54
that's not any real proof. Roll
44:00
again. I was carried by the earth, got it wrapped up.
44:03
Are you still in any communication with Bill Mercer? You
44:06
know, I saw him at the premier, uh, I
44:09
was in a wheelchair. He's in his nineties
44:11
now. Yeah. And, uh, boy,
44:13
they didn't even come close, uh,
44:17
of the guy on screen and right Mercer, uh,
44:20
in the movie, but what a phenomenal guy.
44:23
I mean, he's a legend up at the university of North
44:25
Texas. Uh, pretty much just
44:27
ran the whole, uh, film department. And,
44:30
um, uh, you know, and
44:32
he, and obviously at one time he
44:34
was also the boys of the Cowboys, so, uh,
44:36
you know, before we brought him in for the
44:38
wrestling. Right. Wow. He did, he did the Cowboys
44:41
before they were the Cowboys, right? Exactly. When they
44:43
were named the Cowboys. Wow. I
44:45
didn't know that. Yeah. I think
44:47
there were the Texans or something like that. Uh,
44:50
yeah. Great guy too. And I, and you
44:52
know what? His memory is still sharp as heck. I got
44:54
a chance to talk to him at the premier and,
44:57
um, in the nineties, one of the
44:59
good guys. Yeah. Well, God blessing.
45:01
Cause I'm in my sixties and I can't
45:03
remember shit. I
45:08
noticed and we were tracking the, the, uh,
45:10
the, uh, the play by
45:12
play there. I haven't thrown
45:14
that chair on him with the legs. It's
45:18
not, it's not the chair you're used to in
45:20
wrestling. It's not a fold up chair. No,
45:23
it is not. Just the
45:25
fan response. Unbelievable. It's
45:28
on it's incredible. The
45:30
absolute fan response is. Some
45:34
blab. He's wielding that
45:36
chair man. Those four legs. Oh
45:38
yeah. Yeah. Stuck him in the back with
45:40
it. Yeah. David,
45:42
obviously a big part of the Von Eric
45:45
story, especially Kerry story is the accident and
45:47
he loses the foot. And of course I
45:49
know timeline wise that wasn't accurate, but the
45:52
big reveal in the movie that Kerry has
45:54
lost his foot at this point, is
45:56
he working with both of his feet or has he lost
45:58
the foot by this point? Uh,
46:03
this was 85. No,
46:06
uh, no, I don't think
46:09
he's lost it yet. I don't think so either because it felt
46:11
like there was always a sleeve on that one side. Yeah.
46:14
Um, yeah, I don't think he's lost it yet.
46:17
Um, of course, these days it's impossible to keep
46:19
secret in wrestling. You know, it's very rare when
46:21
there's a real surprise in wrestling, like it feels
46:24
like everything comes out, but that was
46:26
one of those where it was
46:28
largely a secret in the wrestling industry
46:30
is, but I assume that the most
46:32
of the performers had to know, right?
46:35
No. Wow. They,
46:38
they, this is crazy. The,
46:40
the, see what a lot of
46:42
people don't know is when, when Carrie, um,
46:45
and this is when I'm booking, how,
46:47
how fair is this? I become the Booker.
46:51
Um, and, uh, Ken and Ken
46:53
lab went up to work for Bill Watts.
46:56
And so literally I'm
46:58
the Booker for like two weeks and I get the
47:00
phone call. Fritz calls and says, you got
47:02
to do something. Carrie won't be there tonight. He was just
47:04
in a motorcycle wreck. I don't know
47:07
the details, but I'll let you know. I
47:09
said, okay. So I'm having to shift everything.
47:11
And then I got ahold of Rick hazard
47:13
and Rick had been to the hospital and
47:15
he said, Dave, you're not going to believe it. He said,
47:17
man, it looks like an alligator chewed on his leg for
47:19
about an hour. And so
47:22
they came in and
47:24
obviously they didn't want to take the leg. Um,
47:27
so they, they did surgery for about, gosh,
47:29
I want to say 10 hours. And
47:32
he came out of the hospital with
47:34
his leg and they
47:37
were saying the leg was not getting blood
47:39
circulation like it should. And
47:41
they didn't know if it was going to, you know, be
47:45
sturdy enough. But anyway, he came out and,
47:48
um, at the sport,
47:50
uh, sportatorium, you had to go up these stairs
47:52
and go up top. And that's where we would
47:54
watch the matches in this cage. And
47:56
Carrie was up there and it was time for his match and
47:58
he come running down the stairs. They got
48:00
about halfway down and hit and that leg snapped. And
48:03
so we had to take him back to the
48:05
hospital. They took him back to the hospital. And
48:08
at that time, I didn't even know they had taken the
48:10
leg until
48:14
Fritz confided in me and he said, they made
48:16
all of the doctors sign a form and
48:19
anyone that was in that operating room that
48:21
basically they'd get sued if they told anyone
48:23
he lost the leg. And
48:25
so, um, and you know,
48:27
I have to say, I was
48:30
against that. I was for telling people he lost
48:32
the leg because I saw, man, it would be
48:34
for people out there, you
48:36
know, that need a prosthesis, whatever, I thought
48:38
it would be a great story and how
48:40
much heat you're going to get now when
48:42
someone starts banging on the leg. You know,
48:44
so I thought I, that's one
48:46
of the decisions that I was, I think we
48:48
should have told it. Yeah. Man,
48:52
speaking of telling, they're telling the story here.
48:55
All the fans are on their feet. My
48:57
God. Um, let's try just a minute. How
49:21
about that?
49:47
All the lumberjacks Lance fine, Eric,
49:50
making sure he's got a hold of the GNO. You're
49:52
not going anywhere. You're getting a haircut. And how about
49:54
multiple calls for the media? Come on down to ringside.
49:56
I love it. Yeah. We
49:58
got a one of the top ready. stations was there
50:00
for this event. And we were getting a lot
50:03
of free publicity from them. So we allowed them
50:05
to actually be at the ring when the hair,
50:07
the hair took place. There
50:09
was one kid that pushed Gino and security.
50:12
Did you see that? Yeah. Put a
50:14
headlock on him. Yeah. And
50:17
you know, what happens here is, uh,
50:19
also you'll see, um, who
50:21
was it jumped out of the ring and, um,
50:24
Chris Von Erich tackled him. Oh, so
50:28
everybody, everybody kind of got in on that. Yeah.
50:32
It was super fun to see as they were
50:34
teasing the match and set up next the main
50:36
event, M A N E and
50:39
then, uh, they positioned it for a commercial and
50:41
said, when we come back with a hair cutting,
50:44
it's super silly, super fun, but
50:47
man, you guys were doing unbelievable ratings. What
50:49
kind of ratings do you remember world-class getting
50:51
at its height, David? Uh,
50:54
we were pulling a anywhere from 15 to 17. My
50:57
gosh. Yeah. Holy smokes. We
50:59
were pulling, um, three points higher
51:02
than Vince was in New York. It's
51:05
unbelievable to think about, you know,
51:07
what was happening here. And, uh,
51:10
you know, this was just one of the many
51:12
territories. This is really without, uh,
51:15
full blown national television. I know ESPN
51:17
became a thing for you guys, but
51:20
at this point, this is still all just
51:22
syndicated. Right. Uh, am I right? Yeah.
51:24
We would send out a 40, 40, either
51:26
45 or 46 tapes every Tuesday morning. Let's
51:33
track a little bit here. Angel's
51:42
still going just bananas here. And
51:46
now the electric server. I'm going
51:48
to sit back. Carry on. And
51:51
there goes, I have some long
51:53
man from England. Hey, Chris
51:56
Adam, one ball right here on
51:59
the wall. on the floor of the cotton ball. So
52:02
who all is in the ring right now that
52:05
we can see David that you recognize. We got
52:07
a referee. We got ice and King Parsons. Right.
52:09
Uh, that's Bronco Lubrich to the right. Um,
52:13
I know Scott Casey was in the ring. Uh,
52:16
and they had ice, man, they all, uh, the
52:18
people got to see, they all got to get up and
52:20
take scissors and take a piece of hair because all of
52:23
them at some point over the
52:25
last two or three months, uh,
52:27
either Geno or Chris had taken some of their hair
52:29
and you see that's Rick hazard in the middle there.
52:31
And you hear Chris Adams telling each and every, uh,
52:34
each one of us, he's going to kill us. So,
52:38
but Chris learned the hard way. Be
52:41
still because those clippers, you know,
52:43
when you don't have any kind of protection
52:45
on them, it's just the, it can cut
52:47
you and it hurts. Right. And he
52:49
was, he, I mean, he
52:51
fought it and fought it and fought it. And
52:54
it was crazy. What you'll see, do you know, when he gets
52:56
in, uh, he saw what was going
52:58
on and I whispered to him when he got in,
53:00
I said, I, I'd find you out. Be still. Your
53:02
head's going to get cut. So he, even though he
53:04
screamed and yelled, he hit, he kept his head perfectly
53:06
still. I noticed I
53:08
saw Brian Adidas in there as well. Yep. Brian.
53:10
Adia. Cause he was, Adias was, uh,
53:13
with us, us as Jim Crockett for
53:15
a little bit. That's
53:17
one of the other guys that lived it. Cause he,
53:19
he and Carrie, you know, grew up together. Uh-huh. Oh
53:21
wow. First grade, they were,
53:23
um, best, best friends. Yeah. We
53:26
know, of course, the carry got his shot to
53:28
be the NWA world champion, David. But of the
53:31
other Von Eric boys, did you think there was
53:33
another that was probably a shoe in to be
53:35
on a short list for that? Oh, there you
53:37
see Chris Von Eric getting in on the
53:39
action, tackling Gino on the escape that's super
53:41
fun. That was good. Yeah.
53:45
We, um, you
53:47
know, originally they were going to put the
53:49
belt on Dave and,
53:51
um, they
53:54
hesitated, uh, putting
53:57
the belt on Carrie and,
53:59
um, You
54:01
know, Fritz just put his foot down
54:03
because with everything we had going on, we needed
54:05
one of the boys to win. And
54:09
Kerry was over the biggest at that point. I
54:12
think Dave would have had a longer run with the
54:14
belt because Dave could work
54:16
heel really good. Okay.
54:19
And when he was up in Florida, you know, he
54:21
worked heel up there. If you go back and look
54:23
at some of his interviews, he was great. So
54:26
he was up there. And
54:28
I think, as you know, it's hard
54:31
to draw with a baby face. You
54:34
don't draw near as good and there's not near as
54:36
much excitement in the local towns if
54:39
the world champion has a baby face. Yes. And
54:42
because, you know, you want to pull them for their hero.
54:46
And so... Look at that visual.
54:48
My God. When they really pan out
54:50
and you can see, you got 40,000 people
54:53
standing on their tiptoes to watch a guy get a
54:55
haircut. Yep. Yeah.
54:58
And you know what? Like you said earlier, when
55:00
the match was over, the people, I guarantee you
55:02
that they were still like something's
55:05
going to stop it. Yes. I
55:07
mean, because look at these guys, you know, when you look at
55:10
this match, I mean, beautiful heads of hair. Yes.
55:14
And, you know, I, real quick, I had a
55:16
hair match against killer Tim Brooks and
55:19
I had a nice big head of hair back
55:21
then. And everybody was like, you know,
55:23
you're not going to lose your hair. You know, you're not going to
55:25
lose your hair. And Brooks, his
55:27
hair was real thin and Brooks
55:30
was going to do the job. It was a, it
55:32
was a gimmick match. And so it was funny because
55:35
the night of the match, I
55:38
called Fred and I said, I'm changing the finish. I'm
55:40
going to do the job.
55:42
And he said, why? And I said, just
55:45
because everybody thinks there's no way I'm going to
55:47
lose. Right. And
55:49
so I did the job and man, I remember
55:51
Bronco saying, you got to, you got to sit down and let
55:53
them cut your hair. Cause they did a screw job. And he
55:55
was like, you got to let them cut your hair. They're going
55:57
to riot here tonight. So Um,
56:01
but yeah, and we
56:04
got big dollars out of this, uh, match
56:06
obviously, you know, with the, uh, both of
56:08
the, both of the guys got hats and,
56:10
uh, it was good.
56:13
It was good stuff. Yeah. This is, and
56:16
Gino's doing such a great job here selling
56:18
this to you. His facials are phenomenal. They,
56:20
they really are. Just
56:23
seems like, and
56:26
he's, you know, and he's lunging towards some people,
56:28
which, you know, which
56:30
means he could get a lot of nicks and that blade.
56:34
Wow. Yeah. It's like the Kevin
56:36
hold holding it. That would scare me a little bit. Wow.
56:42
This is good stuff. Old school,
56:44
man. David,
56:46
I want to ask you, and I know
56:49
this is, this is something that completely different,
56:51
but obviously, uh, Christmas night when the, when
56:53
the free birds turned, uh,
56:55
and they, they slammed the door and
56:58
the, and the head of, uh, one of
57:00
the Von Eric's carry carry, uh,
57:04
that had to be pretty crazy that night because
57:06
I've, I've been told that almost had a riot
57:08
at reunion arena that night, is that correct? Yeah.
57:11
Michael Hayes was special referee with me.
57:13
Right. Um, and then, uh, he kind
57:15
of turned on flair at the end. Right.
57:18
Michael is a big baby face here.
57:20
And, um, and, and,
57:23
and the way we did the finish, it was
57:25
actually very, very dangerous because, you know, it's a
57:27
still, it's a still cage door. Right. And we
57:29
had to make sure, you know, it had a
57:31
thing that come down around the post. It looked
57:33
like a U. And so. I
57:37
don't know how many times we told
57:39
Terry Gordy, you got to make sure
57:41
that's down. So when you slam the
57:43
door, that'll catch first. Right. Otherwise you're
57:45
going to kill Kerry. Sure. And, um,
57:49
I thought, and Kerry still took a lot
57:51
of the blunt because what happened to Terry
57:54
slammed it so hard that thing, you
57:56
know, it's just on there were screws. It turned.
57:59
And so Terry. So, uh, Carrie still got
58:01
pretty good blunt, but, uh, man, some
58:05
people may hear flare at the roast, Conrad.
58:07
You remember, um, that
58:09
we talked about that match and someone said, you know, were
58:11
you scared going to the back? And he said, no, I
58:14
just got behind Manning. Yeah.
58:18
That was pretty crazy. Yeah.
58:21
Yeah. It was close. We did a
58:24
lot of reunion. You know, we sold it out probably
58:26
more than anybody. I mean, it was crazy. Everything given
58:28
in every Christmas. Right. Our
58:31
show's there for about three and a half,
58:33
four years. We're selling out period. Right. When
58:35
you think of a high
58:37
watermarks for world-class, obviously
58:40
this, this hair match is on the list because
58:42
you've got so many folks that are there. The
58:44
first cotton ball show, the night
58:47
with a flare and the cage with Carrie.
58:50
Are those, are those the big three, or are
58:52
there some others worth mentioning? If somebody is just
58:54
now getting down the world-class rabbit hole? Um,
58:58
well, you know, Fritz still made appearances every now
59:01
and then. And he was obviously a legend.
59:03
Right. And, uh, when,
59:06
when, when Fritz fought Kabuki, that was a big one. Um,
59:10
you know, Gary Hart brought Kabuki in and, uh, it was crazy.
59:13
Here's, here's, this guy shows up. That's like five, seven. And
59:16
we were all like, we built him up to be this, you know, and we
59:18
were all scared to death, but what
59:20
a worker. Oh my God. And
59:23
so, um, we
59:25
would do that with, when we had the right hair, like
59:28
Brody, uh, when Brody
59:30
was a Hill, obviously the final matches, it's going to be
59:32
him and Fritz. And so, um, that was big. Uh,
59:36
I would
59:39
say the other real big one was, um, we did, uh,
59:41
for the first time
59:43
ever in reunion, we did a two man, a
59:46
two ring battle Royal, which had never been done.
59:48
So it sounded great when we put it together, but once we
59:51
got those two rings together, I
59:53
felt, we felt sorry for the people that bought a
59:55
ringside ring. I'd see on this end and the match.
1:00:00
was in a ring totally on the other side of them.
1:00:02
And if you're right up front, as you know, you can't see over
1:00:04
the ring. Right. And so
1:00:07
that mistake and the other big
1:00:09
mistake we made that we got
1:00:11
a lot of heat for every union
1:00:14
arena on Christmas night. We
1:00:16
had Santa Claus come out with all the kids and this
1:00:19
and that. Well, it was Michael Hayes in the Santa Claus
1:00:21
outfit. And when he got the carry, all sudden he started
1:00:23
beating the hell out of him. And
1:00:26
oh my god, we got so many letter. We didn't
1:00:28
think about it. Here's all the kids and they're like,
1:00:30
Oh my god. Oh
1:00:38
yeah. I'm a steak. As
1:00:41
it was happening, we were all like, Oh,
1:00:43
this wasn't a good idea. That's great. I
1:00:45
love that. It was freaking Michael Hayes too.
1:00:50
I, uh, I love hearing about
1:00:52
the good old days and stories like that. I
1:00:55
wanted to ask your opinion. It feels like the
1:00:57
biggest controversy. If there is such
1:00:59
a thing out of the iron claw movie,
1:01:02
I mean, it was trending there for a few days. People
1:01:04
were pretty upset about the portrayal
1:01:07
of Ric flair. You had
1:01:09
a chance to see the movie, your friends with the
1:01:11
nature boy. What'd you think of the Hollywood
1:01:14
interpretation of Ric
1:01:16
flair? I thought it was horrible. Um,
1:01:20
I don't even, you know, you
1:01:24
would think, you would think of all people matter of
1:01:26
fact, I would love to be behind that movie being
1:01:28
made the Ric flair story. Oh my
1:01:31
god. But yeah, that was
1:01:33
not, that was not, that was not good.
1:01:35
And the guy that played Carrie,
1:01:37
I think I'd have got someone a little
1:01:39
bigger. Um, you know, in real life, Mike was
1:01:41
not even close to the size of Carrie and Kev.
1:01:45
Um, but, um, yeah, that
1:01:47
was, I remember seeing it in the
1:01:49
dressing room and, uh, when, when the
1:01:51
flare guy walked in, I was like, Oh, uh, yeah,
1:01:54
they, they missed the boat there. Hey,
1:01:57
if you ever, uh, get an
1:01:59
ink. that there's gonna be a movie
1:02:01
made about Ric Flair. Would
1:02:04
you alert me so I can just buy a
1:02:06
condo in Grand Cayman and live the rest of
1:02:08
my life away from all this? Yeah
1:02:12
you know I can't
1:02:15
read as you know I
1:02:17
don't know that you could tell all the Ric
1:02:19
Flair story. No you can't. I mean I've been in
1:02:21
a lot of bars
1:02:25
with him and holy smoly the stories you
1:02:27
hear are true. And
1:02:29
so but man what
1:02:32
a story he would be you know because I
1:02:34
was telling someone the other day I had a guy
1:02:36
call me wanting me to be he
1:02:38
was like I'll give you any title you
1:02:41
want producer director and he wanted to do
1:02:43
a movie on Gino Hernandez and he already
1:02:45
had a guy that's in gosh
1:02:47
what's the name of that show on TV the
1:02:50
bikers I can't think of the name of
1:02:52
it. Yeah they already had a
1:02:54
guy from that that was gonna play Gino and
1:02:56
they still say they're gonna do it. I called
1:02:59
Gino's daughter and I'm trying to have lunch with
1:03:01
her and put it together
1:03:03
but yeah they were off that one they did
1:03:05
want me to consult and they said we'll give
1:03:07
you any kind of title you want I was
1:03:09
like yeah yeah
1:03:12
thank you. I could hear less about titles what's this pay
1:03:15
and so but but see here's the
1:03:17
thing and and this is
1:03:19
kind of surprising with the Von Erich's
1:03:22
like in California our tape wasn't big there
1:03:26
and Michael Bell you
1:03:28
know managed to keep everybody
1:03:31
putting our show on out there. Wow. And so
1:03:33
we weren't big there and
1:03:35
the thing with Gino you're gonna draw
1:03:37
basically where the Super Station hit in
1:03:39
my opinion but
1:03:41
flair that's a worldwide name. Right.
1:03:44
And so I honestly believe like
1:03:46
I say I just don't know how much of history
1:03:48
you could tell. Well
1:03:51
we appreciate you coming on and telling some
1:03:53
of your story today and of course these
1:03:55
days you're no longer counting pinfalls and hair
1:03:57
matches you're helping people with their travel extreme
1:04:00
travel.com that's X T or there
1:04:02
you go. Look at, look at our
1:04:04
guy, they've silver. He's ready here. It's
1:04:07
a X and then stream like a river
1:04:10
stream travel.com. Uh,
1:04:12
what's up with extreme travel.com and how are
1:04:14
you keeping busy these days? Well,
1:04:16
uh, you know, we booked
1:04:18
travel, but the main thing we do is, uh, we
1:04:21
have an online travel university where
1:04:23
people can go through the online university.
1:04:25
Some people go through it and in,
1:04:28
you know, 30 days, some people
1:04:30
take some three months, but they can become a
1:04:32
travel agent. And, uh, you
1:04:35
know, we, we furnish everything, their websites, their
1:04:37
booking engines, and, uh, you know, we
1:04:39
pay them, uh, anywhere from 75 to 85% of the commission
1:04:43
that comes in for, uh, for being an agent for
1:04:45
us and they use our buying power, uh,
1:04:47
you know, we did over a hundred million last year
1:04:49
in travel. And, uh, it's a fun
1:04:52
business. I've been doing it since year 2000. I
1:04:54
had two other companies and I sold them. Um,
1:04:58
you know, life's been good. Matter of fact, now I'm in the,
1:05:00
I just bought 1500 acres up
1:05:03
on big cypress river in, in,
1:05:05
uh, Karnak, Texas, Marshall, Texas, and,
1:05:07
um, it's got seven miles
1:05:09
of waterfront. Wow. So I'm actually
1:05:11
kind of getting into some
1:05:14
development there and, um,
1:05:17
just having fun. Seven miles of
1:05:19
waterfront. Goodness gracious. What are you going to
1:05:21
do there? We're going
1:05:23
to divide them up into lots and have
1:05:25
waterfront lots. Um, you
1:05:28
know, some of it's wetlands. Matter of fact,
1:05:30
it has 300 acres of cypress trees. And
1:05:35
if you, if you've ever seen cypress trees, Oh my God,
1:05:37
it's just gorgeous. Yes. And so, um,
1:05:39
my cousin's a logger and he, he stumbled
1:05:41
onto the property. He was having trouble getting
1:05:43
financing. And so he called me and timing
1:05:45
was right. And so I said, Hey, I'll
1:05:47
finance it and give you a piece of
1:05:49
it. How about that? And
1:05:51
so, um, we bought it. We've had it
1:05:53
now for about a year and
1:05:55
we've probably only cut, uh, and we're not,
1:05:58
we're not clear cutting it. Obviously,
1:06:00
I mean, we just take and trim the trees out.
1:06:03
Um, and it just looks phenomenal. And
1:06:05
so actually I'm going to build a home there and
1:06:07
my wife and I are probably going to move down
1:06:09
there. That's awesome, man. Well, listen,
1:06:11
I know that not too long ago, you hooked
1:06:13
up with Kevin and y'all did a theater show.
1:06:15
I think there's one of those happening in the
1:06:18
not too distant future. Do you have any details
1:06:20
about that? Yeah. Del Hanson
1:06:22
is the host and we
1:06:24
did, um, the majestic theater
1:06:26
in Dallas, uh, over
1:06:28
2000 people came. I thought
1:06:30
it was crazy. And, uh, the
1:06:32
average ticket was $60. I
1:06:35
said, who, who would have thought people
1:06:37
would pay, you know,
1:06:39
30 to a hundred dollars to come here,
1:06:41
me and Kevin BS and,
1:06:44
uh, but they did. And,
1:06:46
um, so we're following it up and that's
1:06:48
where Kevin and I will truly give our
1:06:50
opinion on the, on the,
1:06:52
uh, iron cloth, and
1:06:54
it's going to be March 29th and we're doing
1:06:57
it at the will Rogers auditorium for
1:06:59
anybody. It's a world-class fan. Every Monday
1:07:01
night we wrestled in the real will
1:07:03
Rogers Coliseum. So, uh, it'll
1:07:06
be good. Um, it'll
1:07:08
be good. We did San Antonio San Antonio also
1:07:10
drew about 1800 there. And,
1:07:13
uh, it's crazy. Del Hanson does a
1:07:15
great job. He was one of the top anchor
1:07:18
people here for sports for years and years and
1:07:20
years. So, uh, he was around
1:07:22
during the modern arcade. Well,
1:07:24
when it comes to sports, we want to remind everybody that we're excited to announce
1:07:28
a new affiliate partnership with fanatics, the world's
1:07:30
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merch.com. Or
1:07:46
if you're watching along with us on YouTube, just hit that QR code.
1:07:48
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1:07:51
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1:07:55
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1:07:57
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sports, just use our special link
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shop, sports, merch.com, and it helps
1:08:09
support the show as well. Tony,
1:08:12
I never know what to expect when we, uh, we
1:08:14
watched some old school wrestling, but I learned
1:08:16
a lot today. I had no idea some of the
1:08:18
backstory with Lance and how all that came together. This
1:08:21
was, uh, this was fun going down memory
1:08:23
lane, talking about world-class today, Tony. Uh,
1:08:25
call me stupid, but I didn't even know that Lance was
1:08:28
not a Vauderic. Really? I
1:08:31
didn't. I really backfired at the end. You
1:08:33
know, the, I think they made a mistake. I was already,
1:08:35
I didn't already left the business, you know, um, uh,
1:08:40
Lance kind of went in and demanded more pay. So
1:08:43
he got crosswaves with Fritz and, uh,
1:08:46
they didn't want him working anywhere. He went over to
1:08:48
Israel and as you know, wrestling with huge in Israel.
1:08:50
So, um, Fritz literally
1:08:52
decided that they went to the
1:08:54
ring and they took
1:08:56
the microphone and they said they screwed up and
1:08:58
they apologized to the fans, but they've been lying
1:09:00
to him and there was no, Lance
1:09:03
was not a role-runner. Wow. Wow.
1:09:05
But that, yeah, I
1:09:07
think I would have just let him go wrestle. It wasn't worth it. Yeah.
1:09:10
He buried him on TV too. I mean, I
1:09:12
think I remember seeing somebody write in or have
1:09:15
a question or whatever. But there was, I remember
1:09:17
seeing video somewhere where he was
1:09:19
seated. He being Chris just telling the whole
1:09:21
story before we let you go, David, you
1:09:23
know, lots of people are going to watch this movie and,
1:09:26
and certainly there's been documentaries made and there's
1:09:28
books out there and all that you lived
1:09:30
it. Though when you see sort
1:09:32
of the retelling of these stories that you
1:09:34
live, whether it's in a book or it's
1:09:36
in a documentary or it's in this Hollywood
1:09:38
dramatization, what do you think the biggest
1:09:41
misconception about world classes and what
1:09:43
do you think the biggest misconception about
1:09:45
the Von Eric family is? Uh,
1:09:48
I think the biggest, um, I
1:09:55
obviously, you know, in the movie, the biggest
1:09:57
misconception is Fritz. Um, And,
1:10:01
you know, he came across as
1:10:03
an abusive father and he just wasn't that. But,
1:10:11
you know, it's just hard to say with world-class, if
1:10:15
I could go, would we change anything?
1:10:17
If we could go back and do an over-died say no.
1:10:20
Wow. If, I
1:10:23
wish Fritz would have listened to us. Kevin and
1:10:25
I tried to get him to pay for view,
1:10:27
Texas Stadium, the David Von Erich
1:10:29
Memorial. Yes. And
1:10:31
because we had people all over the world
1:10:34
wanting to come. Right. And, uh, if
1:10:36
we would have done it, you know,
1:10:38
now the fact we
1:10:40
got three more dead Von Erichs and,
1:10:43
and, you know, Kevin and I talked, uh, he's
1:10:46
honest about it. Uh, the
1:10:48
wrong Von Erich died in Japan. If
1:10:50
Dave would have lived, Dave was
1:10:52
the business person in the family other
1:10:55
than Fritz. And
1:10:57
so who knows if they would have lived
1:10:59
and was able to step in,
1:11:02
uh, you know, and take
1:11:04
over basically as the head of
1:11:07
world-class. We'll
1:11:09
go out of your way to watch that special. Um,
1:11:12
I guess it was called the first
1:11:14
Von Erich Memorial parade of champions, May
1:11:16
6th, 1984. Uh,
1:11:19
that's the match that David suggested maybe should have
1:11:21
been on paper. You would have been
1:11:23
just, he, it was funny to think about time,
1:11:25
Tony. Because, you know,
1:11:27
November Thanksgiving night, 1983, that's,
1:11:30
that's the first Starrcade, right?
1:11:32
May of 84. That's the
1:11:34
first big parade of champions, the Texas
1:11:37
stadium show for world-class March
1:11:39
of 85. That's when
1:11:41
Vince runs WrestleMania. It's interesting
1:11:43
to think, you know, because when people talk about the
1:11:45
super show and the big show and all that sort
1:11:47
of thing, it feels like a lot
1:11:49
of people just think it all really got kicked off
1:11:52
with WrestleMania, but in reality, Starrcade
1:11:54
and the parade of champions,
1:11:56
they predated WrestleMania. Right. Absolutely.
1:11:58
Yeah. Well, you didn't. So we didn't pay-per-view
1:12:01
it. Right. And, um, but you know, 42,000
1:12:03
people, that was the biggest, uh,
1:12:05
attendance ever for a wrestling, uh,
1:12:07
a wrestling event at that time. And,
1:12:10
um, so, um, you
1:12:12
know, and then Vince obviously broke the record up in,
1:12:15
uh, Canada with
1:12:17
WrestleMania and pay-per-viewed it. So,
1:12:22
you know, if we
1:12:24
didn't have the tragedies, it'd be interesting. Right.
1:12:28
I agree. It would be interesting to see what,
1:12:31
what could have been, do you think, you know,
1:12:33
in an alternate universe, have Kerry
1:12:36
didn't have the leg issue. His
1:12:39
WWE run would have been different. I mean,
1:12:41
I didn't grow up with a
1:12:43
lot of Kerry, but Eric, the first time I really remember
1:12:45
seeing him as a fan was as the Texas tornado in
1:12:47
the WWF. And I was a fan
1:12:49
of that, but I've heard from people who lived
1:12:51
it, who said he was just not
1:12:53
the same performer by that point, if
1:12:56
he really had a full go. What do
1:12:58
you think, uh, his ceiling could have been for Vince?
1:13:01
Um, if, if Kerry didn't get the injury,
1:13:03
I don't know
1:13:05
that we couldn't have, um, you
1:13:08
know, um, I'm not going to go
1:13:10
into why or any of that, but you know, I left world
1:13:12
class and I was
1:13:14
literally, gosh, probably doing 80% of
1:13:16
everything. And so, um,
1:13:20
there was a lot, a lot of stuff happened
1:13:22
then. And, uh, I
1:13:24
just wonder, you know, if
1:13:27
we could have kept it together and a
1:13:30
healthy carry, I think it's
1:13:32
a different story here with world class. And
1:13:34
then obviously up in, um, New
1:13:36
York, you got to remember when the
1:13:38
Vonnegut boys went outside of this territory to
1:13:40
work, there was
1:13:42
a lot of animosity with a lot of wrestlers about,
1:13:45
they felt like, you know, these guys didn't earn it,
1:13:48
that it was handed to them. And then there was a
1:13:50
lot of times you could talk about they
1:13:52
were stiff, but sometimes they had to be stiff. Yeah.
1:13:55
Um, and so, um, I
1:13:57
think they, they really didn't you talk about.
1:14:00
about misconception, I don't think they really got
1:14:02
the respect from a lot of the boys
1:14:04
that didn't work here, uh, about,
1:14:07
you know, did they really earn it? Wow.
1:14:12
How about that? Paranoia and jealousy. Who
1:14:15
knew that exists? And it transcended the
1:14:17
years in wrestling. Well,
1:14:21
Mr. Manning, thank you for all the time. I
1:14:23
hope everyone enjoyed this trip down memory lane, talking
1:14:25
about world-class. Be sure to check out extremetravel.com. If
1:14:28
you want to keep up with Mr. Manning or
1:14:30
catch him live at will Rogers in March,
1:14:32
we'll have a link in the description for
1:14:35
you so you can make an
1:14:37
appearance there and go see Mr. Manning in person,
1:14:39
man. I appreciate any time we get to a hookup.
1:14:42
This was a blast and can't thank you enough for
1:14:44
the time. Well, I enjoyed the
1:14:46
heck out of it. Conrad send me an address. I've
1:14:49
got about four of these. They sent me and I'll
1:14:51
send you this article about lamps. Heck yeah. I appreciate
1:14:53
that. Thank you very much. And thanks for taking the
1:14:55
time and Tony Schiavone. I hope
1:14:57
you have a great time and some safe
1:14:59
travels. Of course, tonight at AWW is live.
1:15:02
You can still pick up tickets. It's
1:15:04
at awtix.com. Of course,
1:15:06
another collision coming your way this weekend, man. We're
1:15:09
on the March to Sting's last match right now in
1:15:11
a big way. Are we not Tony? Yeah.
1:15:13
We're in Jacksonville tonight. Don't ask me where we
1:15:15
are on Saturday because I, I don't know.
1:15:20
But I do. I just, I look at the
1:15:22
calendar like on Wednesday and go, Oh
1:15:25
yeah, we're going to. Oh yeah, we're going to
1:15:27
Norfolk Saturday. That's it. What the hell? How
1:15:30
about this man? You're, you're knee deep in,
1:15:33
uh, in Ric Flair, uh, old school, Jim
1:15:35
Crockett promotions territory. You know, you just had
1:15:38
the big show in Charlotte this past Saturday,
1:15:40
this coming Saturday, your Norfolk and then
1:15:43
next week dynamite is going to be
1:15:45
in, uh, North Charleston, South Carolina. These
1:15:47
are old school
1:15:49
JCP towns. What was
1:15:51
it like going back to, uh, to Charlotte with
1:15:54
the nature boy? It was,
1:15:56
was very cool. I
1:15:58
mean, he was so well received and it. was,
1:16:00
it was done so well. And, you
1:16:02
know, I've, uh, Rick has been back since, uh,
1:16:06
obviously, uh, whenever
1:16:09
it was. Philadelphia,
1:16:14
Philadelphia. You
1:16:16
know, whenever Bush was on his campaign, Bush
1:16:19
junior, he made an appearance in
1:16:21
Charlotte and flair was there. And it
1:16:23
was really pretty neat. Whenever he got the microphone up
1:16:26
front, he said, Hey, I'm glad to
1:16:28
be here, but let's talk about the main guy in
1:16:30
the room. Yeah. Yeah. He
1:16:32
said, Rick. Yeah. He
1:16:34
always has a presence. There's no question
1:16:36
about that. And, and now in his
1:16:38
advanced age, ugly ass suits. Good
1:16:41
God. Yeah. That's that he
1:16:44
wears my God. Okay. But it's
1:16:49
out of the Michael Hayes playbook, it feels like, but
1:16:51
at least it fits. Yes. And,
1:16:53
uh, and we hope that we fit what you
1:16:55
were looking for with a little nostalgia wrestling, we'll
1:16:58
be back next week, having a blast in the
1:17:00
meantime. Be sure to go see David
1:17:02
Manning at will Rogers and check them out
1:17:04
at extremes travel.com. I got a link in
1:17:06
the description and we'll see you
1:17:08
guys next week right here on
1:17:11
what happened when the
1:17:13
voice of your childhood, Tony, my
1:17:17
last number, three, two, four, one six equal
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conrad.com. Hey,
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hey, when you do, the first
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wrestling really works and how you
1:19:16
get the ratings. Eric Bischoff and
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Conrad Thompson explain on 83 weeks.
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I mean, I
1:19:22
dig J. Uso because he's born out of great
1:19:24
storytelling and he lived up to the opportunity and
1:19:26
exceeded it. The LA Knight, he's way up on
1:19:28
my list because here's a guy that's been around
1:19:31
for almost ever, should have probably quit a half
1:19:33
a dozen times and he just forced his way
1:19:35
into their life. And now he's making money hand
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over. That is a story I love. 83
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