WEBVTT - Part Three: Vince McMahon, History's Greatest Monster 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:04.840 Robert Evans here and we'll get to the Vince McMahon 0:00:04.920 --> 0:00:06.920 episodes in a second. I wanted to let you all 0:00:06.960 --> 0:00:09.160 know that for the fourth year in a row, we 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:13.160 are doing our fundraiser for the Portland Diaper Bank. Behind 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:15.560 the Bastards supporters have been helping to fund the Portland 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:18.680 Diaper Bank since twenty twenty and bought millions of diapers 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:20.919 for people who really need them. So if you go 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:24.040 to go fundme and type in bTB fundraiser for PDX 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:27.440 Diaper Bank, or just type in bTB fundraiser Diaper Bank, 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:30.640 go fund me into Google anything like that, you will 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.720 find it. So please go fund me bTB Fundraiser for 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:36.960 Portland Diaper Bank. Help us raise the money that these 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:39.680 people need to get diapers to folks who need them desperately. 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:50.400 What's vincent, my McMahons, And that's great, Yeah, courageous, courageous. 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:53.120 This is Behind the Master. It's a podcast about the 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:55.880 worst people in all of history, and today I've got 0:00:55.880 --> 0:01:00.640 two McMahons here to talk with me about. Vince McMahon, 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:02.640 did you did that work? 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:06.000 Let me tell you something, brother, that's the gotten I'm 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:07.120 showing baby from the internet. 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:11.040 Good news, Sean baby, we will be talking about Hulk 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:11.800 Cogan today. 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:12.520 Yes. 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:17.119 Hm, let me tell you some dude. 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:19.559 My name's Tom Rayman. Mm hmmm. 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.760 And do you do you both have a lump of 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:27.160 scar tissue in your asses from injecting steroids the size 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:27.880 of a softball. 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:30.600 I do, and several on my forehead from cutting it 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:31.560 up with raisin lights. 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.560 Oh you know a brother. Yeah, yeah, my forehead looks 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:37.720 like a grotesque topocryphal map that looks like a look 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:38.640 Abdul of the butcher. 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:42.480 We call that the hulkster. When you can, when you 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:46.000 can read, and braille on my forehead scars. 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:50.000 Yeah, you might not be, brother. No one knows about it. 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:54.920 Uh, Terry Terry bolea Hulk's real name. 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:55.640 You know. 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:58.040 When I was a little little kid, you know, before 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:01.920 I made my friend and in the Attitude era, I 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:04.360 was not a fan of wrestling because I don't think 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:05.840 we got any of the channels that it was on. 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.200 But I loved Hull Cogan because I would watch almost 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:12.120 every single day when I was like sitting in the 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:14.320 back room of the donut shop where my parents worked. 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:19.959 The movie Suburban Commando, of course, hell yeah, absolutely a 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:21.600 fucking legendary. 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:25.760 I have long stretches of that movie memorized. 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:32.280 Hule Cogan. So we are back for part three. We're 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.840 talking about Vince Senior still because he is still the 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:38.919 one running the wrestling business. When we left off, Vince 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.120 Junior had just started using the name Vince McMahon as 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:45.520 he got sent to a military school, possibly for being 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.560 too racist to be in an integrated high school, but 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:49.399 it's unclear. 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:52.080 He's so more likely than him beating up a kuma 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:52.960 te full of marines. 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:57.880 Yes, that is probably true. You have to separate him 0:02:57.880 --> 0:02:59.960 from the general population. After that, he's far too damy 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:05.280 interest So Vince was well regarded. Vince Senior was well regarded, 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:08.440 as I said, in the national wrestling business. His company 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:12.239 was an affiliate of the NWA, the big wrestling organizer 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:14.920 union that ran most of the country, but he wasn't 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:17.360 a member at first, and when he became one, he 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:20.480 very quickly fell behind on his dues and threatened to resign. 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:23.760 He seems to have understood the value of such an organization, 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:26.000 but disliked the fact that being a member of it 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.160 would mean he had to inevitably seed some of his 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:32.640 control over how storylines of his wrestlers proceeded. Vince Senior 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.040 was also different from most of the other promoters and 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:39.160 owners across the country. While while his competitors generally booked 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:42.280 technical wrestlers above all else, guys who were really good 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:46.880 at kind of the choreography of ringwork, Vince Senior grew 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:51.120 increasingly obsessed with bringing in giant, muscle bound monsters and 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:54.760 was willing to sacrifice ring skill for having the absolute 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:58.800 biggest dudes that he could hire. Now, this actually worked 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.240 out really well for everyone for a while, because by 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:04.160 this point the government had slapped the wrestling industry with 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.160 some anti trust regulations, which meant that owners had to 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:10.080 let their play their wrestlers travel around the country more 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:12.920 or less at will. This was great for everybody because 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:15.600 it means that audiences got a lot of choice and variety, 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:17.800 and even the whims of a guy like Vince Senior 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:20.800 couldn't exercise total control even in the region. 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:21.160 That he owned. 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:24.279 So Vince preferred to hire muscle bound, giant guys, and 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.719 because they got to start with him, those giant muscle 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:28.880 freaks would get to travel around the country and wrestle 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:32.040 at other places. But also Vince would have to hire 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:34.279 people who came in from other regions of the country, 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:36.360 so he got a lot of technical wrestlers. It worked 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.360 out really well for people who like to watch wrestling, right, 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:41.560 You got a lot of variety in the kind of 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:44.320 people who were, you know, taking part in wrestling matches. 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.280 In nineteen sixty two, Vince Senior wanted to keep the 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:53.359 National Championship belt on his champion, nature Boy Buddy Rogers. 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:56.880 And I believe Rick Flair also gets called nature boy later, right, 0:04:56.960 --> 0:04:59.200 isn't that he sure does? Yeah, yeah, he's sure. There's 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:01.479 a couple of nature boys in wrestling history, is what 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:05.080 I'm saying. At this point, nature Boy Buddy Rogers, who's 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:07.440 Vince Senior's wrestler. He wants to keep the belt on him, 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:10.839 but the cartel, the NWA, has other plans. And there's 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:14.080 this big dispute between the cartel, who's like, we want 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:17.080 to give this to Luthez, you know, who's their big wrestler, 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:19.159 and Vince Senior, who's like, no, I want to keep 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.760 the belt on my guy. And this argument between the 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:26.719 NWA and between Vince Senior's kind of wrestling syndicate actually 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:29.599 puts the future of Kfabe at risk. For a while, 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:32.960 there was a fear that Capital Wrestling, Vince Senior's company, 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:35.080 might take the belt so that they could keep it 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.839 on Buddy Rogers and leave the NWA, putting belief in 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:42.800 the reality behind established KFA to risk. Right, If like 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:45.360 he's able to just like leave the NWA and keep 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:49.160 the belt, then it means that wrestling's not really a sport. 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:51.960 So eventually they came to an agreement to kind of 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:55.799 rescue Kfabe that Rogers would in fact lose to luth 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.360 As after all. But the next year, Vince Senior and 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.520 Toots Mom, who's his business partner at this point, decided 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.680 to leave anyway and launch an independent wrestling federation of 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:11.080 their own. They call it the WWWF or Worldwide Wrestling Federation. 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:13.760 That eventually dropped one of the w's, giving us the 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:17.400 WWF that most people listening grew up with. It's called 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:19.240 the WWE now, but we're just going to call it 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:23.279 the WWF for our purposes today. While all this was 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:26.279 going on, Vince was acclimating to military school and the 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:29.799 departure of his stepfather, Leo, who bounced and got divorced 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:33.159 from Vincent Vince's mom around the same time. She got 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:35.520 remarried to some other dude about a half year later, 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:37.839 But this doesn't seem to have impacted Vince as much. 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:38.520 He was old enough. 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:40.919 Now he's spending all his time with his biological father, 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.480 and to his credit, Vince Senior seems to have legitimately 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.000 committed to being a part of Vincent's life, even though 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:49.800 he never kind of got over his awkwardness with his son, 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.719 who he doesn't really seem to have fully understood. It's 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:56.720 worth noting that four years later, in nineteen sixty six, 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:00.280 Leo Lupton would marry Vince's cousin, the young kid he 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:04.640 put leaves in in his early childhood. He was twenty 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:07.400 eight years older than her. So that's oh, that's good. 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:09.560 That's good. 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:15.480 That's like the four d Chess of Troubling. 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:20.920 But they marry in Florida, so at least this one's 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:23.680 not on North Carolina, so hey, you know, that's good. 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:25.640 He didn't even have to tell us that. I knew 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:27.320 from the story where they got married. 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:30.760 I assume most of these stories take place in Florida 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:32.600 because it's pro wrestling. 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:36.040 It is prominent in nearly every wrestler's life. 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:41.760 Those dry Florida leaves. When you're stuffing leaves into your bride. 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:47.560 You're twenty eight years younger cousin Brian and details the story. 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:51.520 It's fine anyway, every one of those details is significant. 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:56.280 Back in nineteen sixty two, eleventh grade, Vince tried his 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:59.680 first attempt at becoming a wrestling promoter. Now he's in 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.960 military school. At this point, he's become pretty muscular. You know, 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:07.160 he's working out with the weight set that uh doctor 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.160 Graham gave him, and he's you know, he's done some football. 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:13.280 He's an OK defensive tackle. But he doesn't really like 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:17.160 actual competition sports. He doesn't seem to like super engage 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:20.160 with him. Wrestling is what his bio dad did, and 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:24.080 so wrestling is what Vincent Junior loved. He decided to 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:26.800 create a youth copy of his dad's league at Fishbourne 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:30.520 Military School. Now Vince McMahon's first shows were carried out 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:33.000 in a high school gym after hours, and included the 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:35.600 costumes and ring stunts that were already such a part 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:39.800 of the past. Time Vince wrestled himself as ape Man McMahon. 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:42.360 One friend at the time explained that's not a bad 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:45.280 name to be honest, like solid wrestling name. 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:49.360 Yeah, it's it's you know you. You you graduate from that, 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:52.920 you evolve, But it's not bad for a first first try. 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:55.640 As a high school wrestling starting point, perfectly acceptable. 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:56.439 You become. 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:02.720 Some of the people listening think Gorilla Monsoon's a joke 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:03.679 that you came up with. 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:05.560 He is not. That's a real guy. 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:10.360 That is an absolute real guy. One friend at the 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:12.960 time explained he was just into dress up, putting on 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:15.520 masks or something, and he would wrestle just to have fun. 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:19.320 Sometimes people would participate, sometimes they just come watch Vince 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:19.839 was Vince. 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:23.280 He loves the first part LF. 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:26.920 He's just choking, pop gouging his own eyes out, throat 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:27.920 punching himself. 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:30.680 This is what I did to those Marines. 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:37.160 They coming. This is I have to say. 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:40.040 One of the things that's actually really interesting about Vince McMahon. 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:43.000 He is a cutthroat businessman. He is like, uh it 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:45.320 does a lot of terrible things in the name of prophets. 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:48.439 But he's also not one of those bloodless weirdos who 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:52.120 just lives to soak money out of wrestling. Like he 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:55.560 loves to wrestle like he becomes a very prominent in 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:59.079 ring character because he just can't stop himself from being 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:00.160 like physically an. 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:00.760 Involved with it. 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:04.080 A lot of people argue he ruined wrestling, and there's 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:06.120 certainly a case to be made there, but you can't 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:09.880 really argue he's not like enthralled by everything that is 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:13.280 involved in in pro wrestling, Like this is an obsession 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:16.800 for him and it kind of always has been. Kids 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:19.440 who wrestled with him would later talk about his strut, 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:22.079 like the strut with which he walked into the ring, 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:24.240 which you can still see in like videos of him 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:26.040 from the nineties and early two thousands. 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:26.840 Yeah, you can. 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:31.240 They describe him as walking like baby Hueye and it 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:33.360 would still be part of his ring presence half a 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:35.680 century later. That is a great way to describe the 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.520 way he walks, like one of the kids from Ductails. 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:42.360 It really sits well. Baby Hughey's a different character. Oh bough, 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:46.120 we're not talking about Huey Dewey and Louis no. Oh okay, 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:51.440 but maybe Baby Hughey is the great big one. 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:55.840 I don't know who that is. See, this is this 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.200 is me learning something. I'm going to google it. Yeah, 0:10:58.240 --> 0:10:59.199 google it. Google baby. 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:01.640 I assume this was this was a duck. Oh oh, 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:02.280 oh my god. 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.040 Okay, no, I do know this guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:10.720 the gigantic weird baby duck. Yes, okay, that also works. Look, 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:14.920 both of these work, is what I'm saying. Cartoon cartoon 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:19.400 duck generally a good thing to compare to Vince McMahon. Yeah, 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:21.920 has never been a more apt comparison. 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:24.240 No. Interesting. 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:27.200 So wrestling was not the only kind of performing that 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:31.000 teen Vince was into, as Josie Reisman found when she 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:35.200 interviewed his friend Dutch for her book Quote, we would 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:37.959 go over to Fairfax Hall, the girls school across town, 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:41.400 and he would put on a healing show over there. 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:44.800 He had a fellow named Dutch Lindsay Charles Lindsay. Dutch 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:47.320 was kind of short, stocky guy, and he'd grabbed Dutch 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:49.760 by the head and he'd do this healing routine and 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:53.040 Dutch would fall to the ground and Vince would heal him. 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:57.240 What the book, I did not call medicine shows being 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:00.520 part of his early life when I started doing this, 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:01.079 but uh. 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:02.400 Yeah, neither did I. 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:06.160 But of course, yeah, absolutely, Scance. I love that it's 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:08.480 a girls school. So there's this implied motivation that that 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:10.040 he was doing it to get laid. He's like, you 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:12.760 know what ladies love. Yeah, well that's interesting. 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:17.040 That's interesting trying to see because and this is something 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:19.040 that the when Josie talks to other kids at the 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:21.200 military school, they'd bring up is that, like, you know, 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:23.800 we're men in a military school, our access to women 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:27.160 who are our age was very strictly curtailed at this point, right, 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:30.560 So these performances at the women's school was kind of 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:33.320 like one of our few chances to mingle with with other, 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:35.280 you know, girls who were kind of in our same 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:39.680 age group. But Vincent doesn't seem to have been into this. 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:41.800 He is at this point in love with the woman 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:43.840 who will become his wife, Linda McMahon. 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:47.400 Uh. I can already see the scene where she's like 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:49.920 watching from her dorm window of this this maniac and 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:52.520 the parking lot, like healing his friend from a wheelchair 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:54.760 and thinking, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna murder that man 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:56.440 one day, and then. 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:59.880 I'm gonna somehow become a member of Donald Trump's White House. 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:02.080 My god. 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:04.880 So they had very specific dreams. 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:09.160 Yeah, friends, recall that he talked about Linda constantly, even 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:13.360 though he generally didn't talk about girls, Wrestling was pretty 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.280 much all Vince chatted about, like they thought. They noted 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:18.040 that he talked about Linda and that it was kind 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:20.640 of weird because he otherwise did not seem to notice 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:22.120 that female people existed. 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:25.120 Maybe she had a real crisp. 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:28.720 Man. 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.120 She plants your head in a canvas like something you've 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:31.880 never seen. 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:38.000 Now, as we have come to expect, always keeps a 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:42.920 razor blade in her palm, now, as we've come to 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:45.720 expect from our boy adult. Vince would later claim to 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:48.959 have been a bed dude at school, constantly in trouble, 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:51.599 in committing crimes. I wasn't caught for some stuff that 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.560 would have been immediate dismissal, like stealing the commandant's car. 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:56.560 He also had a dog he was nuts about. I 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:58.640 love animals, but one day I couldn't resist giving that 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:01.600 dog a laxative. With the laxative and some hamburger, and 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:04.040 the dog did his business all over the commandant's apartment, 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:05.120 which thrilled me greatly. 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:13.360 Now it thrilled me greatly. Yeah, when no, he absolutely did. 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:17.440 When did he When did he give this interview? Oh? 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:21.560 This was decades later. So it's in like the nineties, right, Yeah, 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:25.160 at the eighties ninety, I think, not like the eighteen. 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:28.760 He chose to describe giving a dog a lax to 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:33.800 ship all over a guy's apartment was it was quite thrilling. 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:37.040 We got crazy friends on her head. We make a 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:37.560 girl with a. 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:41.320 Computer, our friend Bluto. You should have seen the one 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:44.920 in That guy could rain a whole handle at once. Anyway, 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:45.880 it killed me greatly. 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:50.360 It is also interesting to me we're focusing on the 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.000 even weirder things that he wants us to believe about him. 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:55.280 But he really wants us to think he stole a 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:58.280 lot of cars. And that's that's such a strange thing 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:08.480 to what people. It's it's okay, man. He claims that 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:10.800 he was the first student to be court martialed at 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:15.520 Fishburne over depending on the interview, either in subordination or 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:19.000 a threat he made that he might somehow sabotage sabotage 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:22.960 finals week again sabotage, Yeah. 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.080 Threat of a bomb threat is what he's claiming. 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:28.320 I think it was more like a prank. Okay, but 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:32.160 but yeah, this is like and he like. So he 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:36.600 says that basically the administration thought I was gonna sabotage 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:39.120 Finals week. So they court martialed me and they were 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:41.320 gonna kick me out, But then all of the other 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:45.120 students and teachers rose up and like threatened to leave 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:48.320 the school if they didn't clear me of all charges. 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:54.720 Like there was a rebellion. No, absolutely, none of they didn't. 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:58.400 Fucking Dead Poet Society, for as you. 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:02.960 Are accused of threatening to shut down the entire finals 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:07.640 week with your pranks. What's this clapping? Everyone is in 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:10.480 support of you, captain. 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:11.880 My captain. 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:20.040 Has a feed a dog laxative. I know this is 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:23.680 you the dumbest ship. 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:27.960 Yeah, he wants to believe it was Dead Poet Society 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:29.400 but also Animal House. 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:32.880 Yeah, and yeah it's it's it's very funny. He is 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:40.720 such a liar. So Fishburne the school has like Josie 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:44.160 Riseman again, the author of Ringmaster, Uh talked to a 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:47.440 bunch of his former classmates at fishburn and none of 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:50.560 them recall any of this happening. She also like reached 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.440 out to Fishbourne and was like you, he says, you 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:56.360 court martialed him. You guys keep records. Do you have 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.760 any records that he was ever court martialed? Uh, they 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:03.840 did not have any records, and Vince has never presented any. Instead, 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.040 interviews with his peers portray him as a decent student 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.399 who simply wasn't a great student because he wasn't that 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:12.200 interested in school. Right. He was one of those kids 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:13.919 who was like, he was smart, so he could do 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:16.679 okay if he didn't work too hard at class, and 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.120 so he devoted you know, he kind of scraped by 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:21.600 and spent most of his time on wrestling. Right that, 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:24.520 I'm sure that kind of dude is actually pretty familiar 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:27.320 to our listeners, right, Like, that describes me without It 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:29.360 wasn't wrestling for me, but that describes me in high 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:35.080 school pretty well. Yeah, So once again Vince lied to 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:37.679 make himself look like a badass. The reality is that 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:40.320 he was a nerd. He was a wrestling nerd, and 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:42.520 he was more jacked than we tend to associate with 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:45.080 that term. But like most nerds, he kind of did 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:47.840 what he had to at school, avoided trouble, and spent 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:49.800 all of his free time on the stuff he was 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:52.760 obsessed with. Right Like, for me, this was Warhammer, but 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:57.200 it's the same pattern. Yeah, he graduated and he got 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:00.880 into college at East Carolina University. Around the same time, 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:04.040 his dad took on a new championship wrestler, a guy 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:08.120 named Bruno. Semartino still regarded today as maybe the greatest 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.639 pro wrestler of all time, although there's a couple of 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:15.199 people who folks wind up throwing out in that category. 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.399 Bruno conversation, he's in the conversation, right. Yeah, he was 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:23.159 a obviously, he's huge, and he was an extremely skilled 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:26.040 technical wrestler. Bruno was also the kind of person who 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:30.320 trained like a world class athlete, and as a result 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:32.639 of how careful he was about his training, he was 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:35.359 able to remain a high skill technical performer for more 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:39.240 than thirty years, which is a lot of longevity, especially 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:43.320 for this period of time in pro wrestling. With Bruno, 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:46.840 Vince Senior pioneered a strategy totally new to the field. 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:48.800 And I'm going to quote now from a book called 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:52.760 Death of the Territories by Tim Hornbaker. The central idea 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:55.920 was to build up a succession of threatening challengers for Sammartino, 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:59.120 and Bruno would show his vulnerability in near defeats, only 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:01.639 to rise up in the to conquer his opponents. His 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:05.160 performance never failed to capture the imagination of audiences. Among 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:07.480 his villainous rivals were a three hundred and fifty pound 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:10.720 Guerrilla Monsoon, the six foot five Bill Miller, and the 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:13.600 six foot three, two hundred and seventy five pound Bill Watts. 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:17.040 As Semmartino worked through one feud, McMahon pushed several other 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:19.760 prominent challengers at the same time to keep the cycle 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.280 going all over the circuit. Now, while this is all 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:27.560 going on in the wrestling world, you know, Linda graduates 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:29.800 high school about a year after Vince, and the two 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:32.439 of them get married when they're both in college in 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.960 nineteen sixty six, which is, interestingly enough, the same year 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:40.919 that Leo marries Vince's cousin. Linda joins him at ECU, 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.840 and because she's an excellent student, she qualifies for an 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:48.880 accelerated program in French, which is I wouldn't have called 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:53.280 as Linda McMahon's focus in college, but there you go. 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:57.040 They graduated in nineteen sixty nine, which is the same 0:19:57.119 --> 0:20:00.920 year that she got pregnant. Now, Vince tell another possible 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:03.199 lie about his time in college. He claims that his 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:05.800 grades there were so low because he was spending so 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:08.480 much time fighting. I guess that he had to talk 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:11.280 several professors into bumping his grades so he could get 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:14.040 a two point zero zero one and graduate. 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:16.560 I was just so tough, I kept punching my books. 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:20.040 Now, I will say, of all of the things he's 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:22.440 told us that might be lies, I think this one 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:25.160 might be true because this relies on him being good 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:29.040 at like manipulating people, and that is his actual skill. Yes, 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.320 so yeah, I could see him manipulating his teachers to 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.399 giving him a passing grade. I'm not gonna say that 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:39.960 one's definitely fake. The year after he left college, Vince 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:43.880 got a job working for his father at the then WWWF. 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:46.520 He'd initially wanted to be a wrestler, but again, his 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:49.840 dad sees what happens to wrestlers when they age, right, Like, 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:51.879 he knows that this is a job that kills you, 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:54.160 and he's like, the fuck no, you are not going 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:58.000 to do this for a living. And yeah, at the 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:01.119 start of the nineteen seventies, though, Vin Junior joins his 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:03.639