Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and my name is Julie
Speaker 1: Rowdy Roddy Douglas. Okay, yeah, that's your that's your gimmick
Speaker 1: this week. That's my handle. Yeah, a little homage to
Speaker 1: be famous Rowdy Roddy Piper the wrestler. Yeah, yeah, he was,
Speaker 1: is was and is great. He was in of course
Speaker 1: John Carpenters, they live and Hell comes to Frogtown and
Speaker 1: other great Hollywood gyms. But of course, first and foremost
Speaker 1: a pro wrestler. And uh and yeah, we're gonna chat
Speaker 1: a little bit about pro wrestling in this podcast. But
Speaker 1: do not let that scare you away, um, because I
Speaker 1: know most of you, probably for most of you, wrestling
Speaker 1: is not your thing. And if some of our listeners
Speaker 1: are wrestling fans, a couple of our listeners are actually wrestlers,
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly. But but but trust me, trust
Speaker 1: me on this journey we're about to take you on.
Speaker 1: That's right, because by the end of this podcast, you're
Speaker 1: going to say it all makes sense. Now. I know
Speaker 1: Robert and Julie wanted to talk about wrestling because I
Speaker 1: now see how it has everything to do with my
Speaker 1: life and my reality. Yeah, I mean, it's a big
Speaker 1: ticket item to try to fill, but we're gonna try
Speaker 1: to take you through that with wrestling and something called Kabees.
Speaker 1: So first of all, I mean, you mentioned Roddy Piper,
Speaker 1: so your memory is of pro wrestling. You're not a
Speaker 1: pro wrestling fan, but you have you you grew up
Speaker 1: in the eighties like me, and you had a brother exactly,
Speaker 1: which meant that I've spent a lot of television time
Speaker 1: rooting for some of these characters in the eighties, most
Speaker 1: notably Hulk Hogan for the Giant I mean soft spot there. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: of course there was the Princess Bride tie and so yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, and that that's where we got
Speaker 1: to see his tender heart right there. Wendy Richter, okay,
Speaker 1: she she was backed by Cindy Lauper. Lauer was in
Speaker 1: in the WWF yes to try the rock and wrestling thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, So, I mean I was drenched in Whole Comania,
Speaker 1: which sounds kind of gross that I was. Well, um,
Speaker 1: I was a little late for Whole Comania, not because
Speaker 1: it wasn't on TV, but because I wasn't really allowed
Speaker 1: to watch it like I was. I remember like it
Speaker 1: would come wrestling would come on that like at odd times,
Speaker 1: like suddenly it would be a Saturday night and they
Speaker 1: would just be wrestling on it, and and I'd be like, Oh,
Speaker 1: what's this. This looks kind of interesting and uh, and
Speaker 1: then my parents would be like, Oh, you don't want
Speaker 1: to watch that, don't don't worry about that. They put
Speaker 1: pds on for you. Yeah. And of course when we
Speaker 1: lived in Canada, we had no access to pro wrestling
Speaker 1: that I remember. But but then eventually, like junior high years,
Speaker 1: I started, you know, I had a little more time
Speaker 1: to an access to a t D on my own,
Speaker 1: and then I started really getting into it and exploring
Speaker 1: it and uh. And to this day, I still I
Speaker 1: don't follow it religiously. I mean I kind of followed religiously,
Speaker 1: but I don't watch it religiously. I just I keep
Speaker 1: an eye out, keep my ears peeled, and if I
Speaker 1: hear about a match it's that's really good, then I'll
Speaker 1: go and check it out. And it might be something
Speaker 1: from the US, it might be something from Japan or
Speaker 1: Mexico or what have you. Um, I'm even tempted. I've
Speaker 1: even been out to a couple of wrestling shows here
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. I'm really intrigued. There's one, uh that just
Speaker 1: started up where their whole gimmick is, um that is,
Speaker 1: the wrestlers are all monsters. So it's like Dracula versus
Speaker 1: a wolfman. Oh. Nice. Nice. So that's kind of like
Speaker 1: the Lucha libre concept just taken to another level. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So to just to give anyone who's not really familiar
Speaker 1: with with what pro wrestling is on on a large,
Speaker 1: larger national and international level, you have varying shades of it.
Speaker 1: Like here in the US, you have the whole sort
Speaker 1: of whole comania, larger than life characters that are to
Speaker 1: the naive you or they're having a big fight, a
Speaker 1: big crazy fight in a ring and then at the
Speaker 1: end somebody wins and then uh. And then in Japan
Speaker 1: they have it there. It's it's pretty big there as well.
Speaker 1: It's a little more steeped in honor in tradition, but
Speaker 1: and and at times it's just utter wackiness. So it's
Speaker 1: very Japanese and that that sense. Uh. And then it's
Speaker 1: also huge in Mexico where we have, of course Lucha Libre,
Speaker 1: which I think everyone has at least been introduced to
Speaker 1: the the the visual flare of lucha libre by this point, um,
Speaker 1: you know, crazy costumes, guys flying all over the place.
Speaker 1: But then at its at its roots, it all comes
Speaker 1: back down to guys grappling with each other. Now, pro wrestling,
Speaker 1: here's a big spoiler for everyone. Pro pro wrestling is
Speaker 1: quote unquote fake. Now you get into trouble Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I know, you get into trouble with with the with
Speaker 1: the term fake because fake is such a big word
Speaker 1: that it's it often takes on this negative connotation of
Speaker 1: uh that that implies that what's going on does not
Speaker 1: involve talent, does not involve um, you know, skill does
Speaker 1: not involve physical wear and tear, uh and and pro
Speaker 1: wrestling involves all of those things. It's it requires highly
Speaker 1: skilled individuals to do it right. Uh. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of thought that goes into it. It's it's ultimately storytelling
Speaker 1: in the ring, like a physical storytelling, and it's very
Speaker 1: well choreographed and it has to wait you choreographed and
Speaker 1: or um improv because there are guys guys that have
Speaker 1: worked with it with with each other enough. They go
Speaker 1: out there and they don't necessarily know what all the
Speaker 1: little moments are going to be, you know, the big
Speaker 1: moments that are gonna happen. They know how it's gonna end, maybe,
Speaker 1: But but there's a certain feeling each other out and
Speaker 1: going with the flow of it that's really kind of
Speaker 1: an improv kind of vibe um And I say choreographed
Speaker 1: in this sense, because you and I were talking about
Speaker 1: this yesterday that you have to have a feeling for
Speaker 1: what's going to happen and how to execute certain moves
Speaker 1: in order not to actually hurt the opponent or do
Speaker 1: in a way that you don't hurt yourself. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a cooperative battle, a cooperative fight, a cooperative wrestling battle
Speaker 1: between two individuals or four individuals or what have you.
Speaker 1: A referee thrown in there. It's also part of the act.
Speaker 1: And but and then there's but again, it's a lot
Speaker 1: of wear and tear involved, and individuals do become injured.
Speaker 1: So you can read more about If you want to
Speaker 1: know more about pro wrestling, go to how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. We have an article called how pro Wrestling works.
Speaker 1: We have an article called how Lucha Libre works. They're
Speaker 1: both find um fine articles that really give you a
Speaker 1: little more in depth about what they are and how
Speaker 1: they work. But we're not going to spend a lot
Speaker 1: more time on that. Instead, let's also go back in time.
Speaker 1: Let's go to a time before pro wrestling. Well, before
Speaker 1: we go to our time for pro wrestling, can we
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the universality of it, Like
Speaker 1: why wrestling, I mean, why did it, um take such
Speaker 1: a hold of you as a youngster and as as
Speaker 1: a man. Now, yeah, well pro okay, so pro wrestling?
Speaker 1: What is it that captivates people? Um? I think, I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of it does come down to conflict. Um. Like,
Speaker 1: I'm I've never been one for like team sports. I'm
Speaker 1: really not into sports. But if I watch a sport,
Speaker 1: I'm more inclined to watch something that is more about
Speaker 1: one person against another, like say singles, tennis or something.
Speaker 1: Um and and so pro wrestling you have you Generally,
Speaker 1: it's to varying degrees, it's almost always a good guy
Speaker 1: and a bad guy in the ring, locking up, engaging
Speaker 1: in this pure physical battle, a test of strength and
Speaker 1: a test of wills to see who is going to
Speaker 1: be the victor, and uh, and then and then there's
Speaker 1: a lot of and they're basically also using an unreal
Speaker 1: form of martial arts, like it's the roots as will
Speaker 1: discuss their in actual wrestling and actual um, you know,
Speaker 1: physical grappling. But they are all these layers of fiction
Speaker 1: that have built up over it, and so many of
Speaker 1: the moves are are fantastic and just would would never
Speaker 1: occur outside of a fictional environment, and that just adds
Speaker 1: to the to the flare. That's what I like about
Speaker 1: wrestling is because it does have that universality of struggle. Right,
Speaker 1: everybody struggles, and it's highly symbolic because you don't actually
Speaker 1: want to go mono mono with someone normally right, um,
Speaker 1: it's slay him or her, but you may want to
Speaker 1: release your aggression, right or your frustration. And that's what
Speaker 1: I think is so um basic to wrestling is this,
Speaker 1: as you say, this man against man, the struggle. And
Speaker 1: I think, and this is kind of a joke, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of not. Um. I think this is why
Speaker 1: festivals took people's imaginations, at least here in the United States.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is the Sinfeld thing. This
Speaker 1: is a Sinfeld episode about wrestling, your father during the
Speaker 1: holidays to air the grievances of the past year. And
Speaker 1: I won't go into the long history of that, but
Speaker 1: you know, once that aired on television, people began to
Speaker 1: actually have festivals, celebrations, And I do think that, um,
Speaker 1: it's struck a nerve there in and airing grievances and
Speaker 1: again this highly symbolic act. Yeah, and it certainly when
Speaker 1: you throw in the characters. I mean in pro wrestling,
Speaker 1: you especially say in Mexico, where the masks are so rich,
Speaker 1: and you'll have like one character and there's an even
Speaker 1: bigger divide between good guys and bad guys. There's less
Speaker 1: in between, there's less gray area. It's the the rudeo's
Speaker 1: and the technicos. So on one hand you have, you know,
Speaker 1: guys in like devil maths and skulls and snarley beast faces,
Speaker 1: and then the other more you know serene and u
Speaker 1: and positive images like guys with crosses on their face.
Speaker 1: It's because you know, a heavy uh, you know, a
Speaker 1: Catholic element down there. Um, you know, guys with would
Speaker 1: say like a cat face, like like blue Panther comes
Speaker 1: to mind as a mass that was in a week
Speaker 1: like embodying like an animal spirit and something like positive
Speaker 1: that you would you would strive for. And so these
Speaker 1: these symbolic characters are are locking up in the ring
Speaker 1: and it brings to mind um like non wrestling uh
Speaker 1: passion plays, you know, where you'll have a certain members
Speaker 1: of a village dress up as like an evil outside
Speaker 1: force and then others um dress up as the victor
Speaker 1: and and reenact myths of that that are vital to
Speaker 1: a community or people, so that you have that basic
Speaker 1: tripe that's so important to humans because versus evil, and
Speaker 1: you have all this pageantry. And we're going to discuss
Speaker 1: in a little bit why this pageantry matters, why it
Speaker 1: matters to aspects of science or economics, um. But before
Speaker 1: we do that, we need to unpack the sport a
Speaker 1: little bit more and tell you about some of the
Speaker 1: basics behind it. Yeah, because again, you watch pretty much
Speaker 1: any pro wrestling product on TV now in any country,
Speaker 1: and there's gonna be something that's that's unreal about it.
Speaker 1: And ultimately it is uh. It is to some degree
Speaker 1: like choreograph or at least cooperative. It is a it
Speaker 1: is a performance. So how did we get to the
Speaker 1: point where we have this performance of this sport versus
Speaker 1: its original roots, because you don't see this in every sport.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can make a case for say Harlem Globetrotters,
Speaker 1: isn't is an exposition a fake team having a fake
Speaker 1: basketball game against another team. But you don't see that
Speaker 1: in most sports. So so what is what is unique
Speaker 1: about about pro wrestling? Okay, so you go go back
Speaker 1: in time to like the earliest aspect of human culture,
Speaker 1: and you have people law king up. You have people
Speaker 1: wrestle like wrestling is is pretty much as old as
Speaker 1: humans because at the very base you have conflict, be
Speaker 1: steel conflict between people that involve clawing each other, dragging
Speaker 1: each other to the ground, biting, jabbing, butt, punching the
Speaker 1: whole nine yards but punching, but punching band in most
Speaker 1: most most combat sports. So so so just imagine that
Speaker 1: I want to just like cave me in tearing each
Speaker 1: other up and rolling around the ground trying to kill
Speaker 1: each other and strangle each other. Out of that, out
Speaker 1: of the basic skills involved in that, you end up
Speaker 1: developing a metaphor for that kind of combat. Because you
Speaker 1: live in a society that needs cooperation, right, you can't
Speaker 1: go around just brutally beating each other to death. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you need to, like you say, are your grievances and
Speaker 1: open a way that doesn't end up with somebody dead.
Speaker 1: You end up with this this kind of proxy battle
Speaker 1: in the same way that sport itself is ultimately kind
Speaker 1: of a proxy war. Uh. Wrestling is like a proxy
Speaker 1: tooth and nail battle to the death. It's a metaphor
Speaker 1: for that. So everywhere around the world you have some
Speaker 1: sort of tradition of wrestling. And and if you want
Speaker 1: anyone who wants to learn more about the various types
Speaker 1: of wrestling out there, I highly recommend you check out
Speaker 1: the blog wrestling roots dot org. Uh. They go, they
Speaker 1: go into just all these different they travel around, they
Speaker 1: their photos, there's video, and they go into the different traditions, like,
Speaker 1: for instance, there's traditional Turkish oil wrestling, which a number
Speaker 1: of you're probably familiar with, but I was not aware of.
Speaker 1: I was it does it sounds like, you know, Turkish delight, um,
Speaker 1: But I was not aware of just how much oil
Speaker 1: is involved. Like it's not just like a little bit
Speaker 1: like greased yourself up for the tanning bat or something,
Speaker 1: but lots of olive oil like leaders of olive oil
Speaker 1: poured over them and also down their leather shorts, just
Speaker 1: you know, because it makes it harder for your opponent
Speaker 1: to get a grip on you. I guess adds the
Speaker 1: passion of it um. Then likewise, there's also India's uh
Speaker 1: Kushti wrestling, which which is it is neat too because
Speaker 1: there are no points in this. You can only win
Speaker 1: by pinning, and you can also grab onto the shorts,
Speaker 1: like some wrestling traditions are like don't grab onto the shorts,
Speaker 1: and this tradition it's okay to use the shorts for leverage,
Speaker 1: which I guess is like a sumo in that regard,
Speaker 1: because I think in sumo wrestling, yeah you had to grab.
Speaker 1: You had to explain that to me because I kept
Speaker 1: thinking that people were getting pants. Yeah, there's no pantsing
Speaker 1: and custi. But Kusti is also interesting because they they
Speaker 1: the wrestling takes place on softened earth where they've poured
Speaker 1: out this ge mixture to the soil um, which which
Speaker 1: is neat. You have this element of ritual to it
Speaker 1: a well, and there's just any anywhere on Earth you
Speaker 1: can go you can find some sort of culture of
Speaker 1: wrestling but as far as the the transition from these
Speaker 1: cultural folk wrestling traditions, uh, the transition from that into
Speaker 1: professional wrestling, we end up looking at European models. They
Speaker 1: are all these different European models of of of wrestling,
Speaker 1: of folk wrestling that were popular and continue to be popular.
Speaker 1: But but certainly back in the nineteenth century you had
Speaker 1: a couple of things of note. You had you had
Speaker 1: the the catches catch can style of wrestling, and you
Speaker 1: had the Lancashire style, and they're closely related. They're closely related.
Speaker 1: There's this guy named J. W. Chambers and he was
Speaker 1: kind of a minor celebrity and he editor, he was
Speaker 1: the editor of Land and Water, and he started promoting
Speaker 1: a new grappling system UM that he called catches catchcan style,
Speaker 1: first down to lose and uh. And this was this
Speaker 1: was a folk wrestling tradition that also wasn't completely groundbreaking
Speaker 1: because it was based on earlier models, but it involved
Speaker 1: guys locking up UM and you could pretty much apply
Speaker 1: any type of hold above um above the waist and
Speaker 1: and first down to lose is a big part of
Speaker 1: this too, because this actually changed the sport quite a bit,
Speaker 1: because otherwise if you're looking at past traditions. You could
Speaker 1: have wrestling matches going on for days, meaning you know,
Speaker 1: the person hadn't submitted yet said hey, I give up,
Speaker 1: and so they would break for the day and resume
Speaker 1: the next day. Well, the Lancashire style, Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: was like that. I was reading this book Wrestling by
Speaker 1: Walter Arms Armstrong, which is an eight nine book where
Speaker 1: he's just so it's this is a pre pro wrestling
Speaker 1: book talking about these different folk traditions and he has
Speaker 1: some a couple of bits I want to read from
Speaker 1: that about the Lancashire style. Um quote. Sometimes a wrestler
Speaker 1: will apparently make an unsuccessful attempt to wrench off the
Speaker 1: other's head, twist his arms from the sockets, or break
Speaker 1: his fingers, finally rolling him bodily over, all of which
Speaker 1: are eluded in a simply marvelous manner. Their elasticity of
Speaker 1: their movements is at times something remarkable, as they struggle, ride,
Speaker 1: and twist four hours together before obtaining a fall. Uh,
Speaker 1: it would go on. Not only would have gone for hours,
Speaker 1: but here here's another quote from the book. When a
Speaker 1: match is not concluded on the day appointed, the referee
Speaker 1: orders the competents to meet again and commenced wrestling after
Speaker 1: being waited at the same time in place every day
Speaker 1: except Sunday until the decision has arrived at So you
Speaker 1: would have this this match that would go on for dates.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, and they were like, you know, their
Speaker 1: their minor breakes as wells't it just constant action? But
Speaker 1: still it's just goes on for days and then and
Speaker 1: then there's the brutality of weary. I read the part
Speaker 1: we're talking about people's heads being twisted. Um, but this
Speaker 1: is a quote from a book called Fencing that had
Speaker 1: a number of authors, but Walter Armstrong also contributed to this,
Speaker 1: and the quote goes with regard to Lancashire wrestling, there
Speaker 1: can be no question that it is the most barbarous
Speaker 1: of the English systems, and it more nearly approaches the
Speaker 1: French dog fighting and tumbling than any other. A fair
Speaker 1: stand up fight with the naked fists is the merest
Speaker 1: skim milk, in fact, a perfect drawing room entertainment in comparison. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the the rules of it were pretty laxed. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: basically like tried, don't crush your opponent's fingers, right, like
Speaker 1: this was sort of it would happen, It would happen.
Speaker 1: They would tend to say, please, don't break each other's bones.
Speaker 1: And the reason why the especially the fingers that are
Speaker 1: the hands that they frowned upon that is because a
Speaker 1: lot of the people who were doing this, we're working
Speaker 1: class in parts like Shire, England, they're working in coal mines.
Speaker 1: So obviously if you crush your opponent's fingers then you're
Speaker 1: putting that person out work for a while. So there's
Speaker 1: a cultural contract here. It's like this is wrestling is fun,
Speaker 1: but we all have other jobs we need to do.
Speaker 1: That being said, the Lancashire style involved struggling on the ground,
Speaker 1: catching legs, which the catch system that is described in
Speaker 1: this book does not, catching legs, twisting limbs, bending fingers, um.
Speaker 1: And so it was so you had two things going
Speaker 1: on here, three things. Actually. First of all, there's something
Speaker 1: about it. It's really entertaining. People really getting into this.
Speaker 1: They enjoyed doing it, they enjoyed watching it, but it's
Speaker 1: super long. They commitment commitment to to to act in
Speaker 1: and commit it to watch. And then it's really violent,
Speaker 1: and you would have situations where you know, individuals would
Speaker 1: become really badly injured in this sport. So how do
Speaker 1: you make money off of something like that? Right? You're
Speaker 1: trying to your promoter. You want to carry this around
Speaker 1: from town to town and and have these matches and
Speaker 1: people pay to watch them and and all of this.
Speaker 1: You don't want it to be that long. You want
Speaker 1: it to You want of a product that you can
Speaker 1: market a little better. Um. You know, it's like how
Speaker 1: many people really have it in them to go see
Speaker 1: Wagner as the ring cycle where you have to go
Speaker 1: like multiple days to see the whole opera. You want
Speaker 1: to you know, condense version. You want something smaller most
Speaker 1: people do, you know. So so let's find a version
Speaker 1: of this that fits into a smaller package. And let's
Speaker 1: find a version that doesn't injure the participants as easily,
Speaker 1: because these are ultimately the people that you're you're making
Speaker 1: your money off off. You know. It's like we were
Speaker 1: podcasters and uh and writers and editors here at how
Speaker 1: stuff worth and general only the risk of injury on
Speaker 1: the job is low. It's more like you know, carpal
Speaker 1: tunnel syndrome and strained eyes, paper cuts. Well, there you go.
Speaker 1: What if we were using a type of paper that
Speaker 1: was like just cutting fingers off left and right. You't
Speaker 1: want to eliminate that paper because you need these people
Speaker 1: to run the business, to keep the business running. And
Speaker 1: likewise with the wrestling, you need to make it a
Speaker 1: little less brutal. But you but the thing is when
Speaker 1: you take the if you take too much of the
Speaker 1: brutality out of it, if you say, all right, well,
Speaker 1: don't touch the fingers at all because we don't don't
Speaker 1: want to risk that, or alright, no grabbing the legs anymore,
Speaker 1: then you end up taking away from what is attracting
Speaker 1: people to it. So what do you do? You start
Speaker 1: tweaking it a little bit with you start layering just
Speaker 1: a little bit of fiction on it. Right, and this
Speaker 1: is where you start to see some of the manipulation, uh,
Speaker 1: coming into the sport and just sort of mounting and
Speaker 1: mounting as it progresses through history. Um yeah, like maybe
Speaker 1: it starts with all right, guys, when you go out
Speaker 1: there tonight, Um, just go like one hour instead of six,
Speaker 1: just one hour and also just kind of work together
Speaker 1: a little bit so that you don't, you know, injure
Speaker 1: one another in a really horrible way. Right, It becomes
Speaker 1: so much more about showmanship. But what I wanted to
Speaker 1: point out is that this is something that became very
Speaker 1: popular all over the world. Um, as you already noted,
Speaker 1: in various forms, but this sort of catches catch can wrestling,
Speaker 1: and this Lancashire was actually exported when immigrants went to
Speaker 1: different countries like in the United States. Became very popular
Speaker 1: and it even hit the big time at the Olympics
Speaker 1: at one point in nineteen o eight, it showed up there.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to point this out because this is
Speaker 1: just seems so fictional, but it's not. Abraham Lincoln actually
Speaker 1: was uh one of the stars of catch wrestling in
Speaker 1: the United States. Yeah, I mean, he apparently was a
Speaker 1: big dog in the sport. In fact, this is from
Speaker 1: a Sports Illustrated article The Civil Warrior Lincoln with this
Speaker 1: was described as an onlooker as quote the big buck
Speaker 1: of the lick, and um, this onlooker saw Lincoln give
Speaker 1: the notorious county wrestling champion Jack Armstrong the worst thrashing
Speaker 1: of his life one hot September day, more than one
Speaker 1: sixty three years ago. The article goes on to say
Speaker 1: that that was the future president's most celebrated victory. Frustrated
Speaker 1: from the start by Lincoln's tremendous reach a k a
Speaker 1: his height, Armstrong began stomping on his opponent's feet. Lincoln
Speaker 1: lost his temper and a few tosses later, Armstrong lost consciousness.
Speaker 1: So I mean here Lincoln was a brawler, is what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, And and had some throws, he had some
Speaker 1: like that. Maybe there was a Lincoln suplex in there.
Speaker 1: And I wish I could have Linken the pile driver. Yeah,
Speaker 1: who knows what he innovated? Yeah, And that the article
Speaker 1: that you were looking at there, it also mentioned that
Speaker 1: a few other presidents UM were involved with some type
Speaker 1: of wrestling at some point, like of course Teddy Roosevelt
Speaker 1: was was up to grappling around with the boys of
Speaker 1: the dust, UM, I would have been surprised he not.
Speaker 1: But but Lincoln was into the rough stuff. He was
Speaker 1: into the catch wrestling. Yeah. And I think that that
Speaker 1: kind of points to the popularity of the sport and
Speaker 1: the fact that again it was exported and it started
Speaker 1: to show up at these county fairs. And then this
Speaker 1: is where you began to see these various counties loosely
Speaker 1: organizing themselves and producing winners from different regions of the country,
Speaker 1: and believe it or not, these regions eventually coalesced into
Speaker 1: what is now the World Wrestling Federation. Well and well
Speaker 1: now it's the World Wrestling Entertainment, World Wrestling as the
Speaker 1: big billion dollar industry that it is today. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: mentioned the Olympics that, like, the history of wrestling in
Speaker 1: the Olympics is pretty interesting. Um. That was the first
Speaker 1: modern Olympics and Greco Roman wrestling was there. But the
Speaker 1: interesting thing about Greco Roman wrestling, it's basically European wrestling.
Speaker 1: It's based in European folk wrestling traditions, particularly some French traditions.
Speaker 1: So it's really not all I mean, you can you
Speaker 1: call it Greco Roman, but yeah, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: more like the central you know, Western Europe kind of
Speaker 1: vibe to it. Um. But it's only been in the
Speaker 1: Olympics regularly since nineteen o eight and uh and then
Speaker 1: in the nineteen o four Games in St. Louis, Uh.
Speaker 1: In that particular year, UH, a limited form of catches
Speaker 1: catch can wrestling was there, but Greco Roman was not. UH.
Speaker 1: And it was the nineteen o eight London Games where
Speaker 1: we saw both Greco Roman and catches Catch can finally
Speaker 1: coming back. So um yeah, it is a sort of
Speaker 1: casual observer of of wrestling and Olympics. I always kind
Speaker 1: of thought, oh, I guess Greco Roman that's the real deal.
Speaker 1: That's the old stuff and and that's and it's been
Speaker 1: around forever, and that pro wrestling was the new stuff.
Speaker 1: Is that were you thinking? Yeah, yeah, just kind of
Speaker 1: you throw it into that kind of dichotomy. But but
Speaker 1: it's not quite that simple. Um So anyway, but back
Speaker 1: to blayering the fiction on. You know, like you said,
Speaker 1: you're going around to these differ and counties, You're you're
Speaker 1: you're letting the guys know, you know, work together, put
Speaker 1: it in a certain time frame that makes sense, and
Speaker 1: then all the other changes become naturally, like you can
Speaker 1: imagine all the every step of the way on on
Speaker 1: the journey from from catch wrestling to pro wrestling, because
Speaker 1: you might say, all right, well, you know, um, it
Speaker 1: would really make more sense if the hero one tonight
Speaker 1: rather than the villain, or rather the villain should really
Speaker 1: win tonight, because then it's gonna make it all the
Speaker 1: more awesome when the hero wins the next night. So
Speaker 1: you start end up you end up throwing in narrative flows. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, think of things like everyone loves an underdog story,
Speaker 1: so that that you it's if you wait for underdog
Speaker 1: stories to emerge organically in a sporting environment, you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta sometimes you gotta be pretty patient. But if
Speaker 1: you can orchestrate it, if you can spin it, and
Speaker 1: if you can you can say, hey, you're the underdog
Speaker 1: tonight and it happens, then you're improving the product that
Speaker 1: you're selling. So you keep going and then you can
Speaker 1: then you get to the point where you're throwing. You're
Speaker 1: adding element to the physicality of the match, to the
Speaker 1: even the physics of the match that make it more flashy,
Speaker 1: that make it more entertaining, and decade upon decade, it
Speaker 1: just builds and builds into this into the largely unreal
Speaker 1: martial art that that you see in the the fictional
Speaker 1: performance sport of pro wrestling today, which he sees a
Speaker 1: system in place right that is giving us a measure
Speaker 1: of predictability, but also giving the audience what it wants.
Speaker 1: And roll Ebarts, you sent me that's great article or
Speaker 1: rather essay by the French philosopher Roll Embarts, and he
Speaker 1: took on wrestling, and he talked about why it is
Speaker 1: um so intoxicating to people, and basically it was saying,
Speaker 1: you know, it's an I'm paraphrasing here, but he was
Speaker 1: physically saying that it's not a real image of passion
Speaker 1: that the audience wants. They just want an image of passion.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to come from a real place. And
Speaker 1: that's really the contract that the audience has with the
Speaker 1: performers is just give us a show. And um, we'll
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about this in a moment,
Speaker 1: about how this show aspect is really reflected in our
Speaker 1: daily lives. But before we do that, we should probably
Speaker 1: take a break. Yes, let's take a quick break, and
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're just gonna talk briefly about
Speaker 1: the kind of death of Cafe um And well, I
Speaker 1: guess we'll talk about what Cafe is. We really didn't
Speaker 1: totally describe it. And then also we will hear from
Speaker 1: an actual pro wrestler and podcaster, Colt Cabanner. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back, All right, yeah we are. And you know what,
Speaker 1: I don't think that people realize, but when you were
Speaker 1: talking about stamps dot com, you were actually wearing your
Speaker 1: wrestling outfit and your cape was waving in the wind
Speaker 1: behind you. That was my my promo I was cutting there.
Speaker 1: I felt like he sounded very like w W E
Speaker 1: that that that would actually be great. I would. It's
Speaker 1: too bad the Macho Man is no longer with us,
Speaker 1: because I would love to hear a Stamps dot Com
Speaker 1: advertise for much of man of course, because he's he's
Speaker 1: got or he had a lot of moxie. Right. And
Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about here when we're talking about
Speaker 1: how pro wrestling, what we think about it today, that
Speaker 1: the sort of fakery, uh, the illusion that's put forth
Speaker 1: or not so much the illusion anymore is predicated on
Speaker 1: this moxie and this ability to put forward a character
Speaker 1: and put forward these tropes and act them out. Um.
Speaker 1: And this is related to this term called kape. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because like we said, the gradual um addition of fiction
Speaker 1: to catch wrestling. Uh, you can't just like the first
Speaker 1: night you did it, the first night that that you're
Speaker 1: out there and say and you say, hey, you guys
Speaker 1: are gonna work together on this and he's gonna win.
Speaker 1: You don't amount announced that to the crowd and likewise
Speaker 1: that it you just don't market the product like that. Uh.
Speaker 1: So you have this thing, this cape this uh this
Speaker 1: Carney talk for keeping the secret. You don't let the audience.
Speaker 1: You don't let them marks know what's up. You don't
Speaker 1: you don't explain to them how the magic trick works.
Speaker 1: You don't let them know that there's a magic trick
Speaker 1: at all. If if one dude is acting like he's
Speaker 1: the you know, the healish villain, and the other guy
Speaker 1: is that is the face, the baby face, the good guy,
Speaker 1: they have to keep fooling everyone. They have to keep
Speaker 1: the act up because it's it's the act is what
Speaker 1: they're selling. But yeah, that's this idea of cafebe and uh,
Speaker 1: it's spot that the etymology of this has its roots
Speaker 1: in a sort of pig Latin, right, So fake kbe,
Speaker 1: keep it fake, keep it fake um And that there
Speaker 1: apparently are various ways to say this, like kee fib,
Speaker 1: like that might have been the way that Carney's would
Speaker 1: have said it back in the day. It is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is some straight up Carney stuff we're talking about
Speaker 1: here with this is but this is what has colored
Speaker 1: pro wrestling, and this is what is so interesting about
Speaker 1: and as you had pointed out, you've got the heel
Speaker 1: who is the bad guy, right, um, and you've got
Speaker 1: the face who is the good guy. So whole Covin
Speaker 1: was your tip goold face right yeah. I mean he
Speaker 1: was America, he was you know, and he was he
Speaker 1: was our hopes and dreams. He was our vitamins eating, um,
Speaker 1: muscle gaining good guy, just out there fighting the good
Speaker 1: fight against you villains and of course foreigners. Um. Because
Speaker 1: that's that's another thing about restumes. You see it invoking
Speaker 1: various cultural fears and worries and topics, um, often in
Speaker 1: a cheap or exploitive way to generate heat from the crowd.
Speaker 1: That's right. And again though that this provides that catharsis
Speaker 1: right to see this pageantry played out before you. Um.
Speaker 1: And of course a lot of these characters too, As
Speaker 1: you had said, they build up these narratives and these mythologies,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them turn right, so that the
Speaker 1: good guys, the faces sometimes might get overwhelmed by their
Speaker 1: egos and start acting like a heel. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: later on maybe they have some sort of redemped and
Speaker 1: so you get to watch characters fall from grace and
Speaker 1: then to send back to two Hero Doom. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's that those are that's the kind of drama people
Speaker 1: want to see, and that's so that's the kind of
Speaker 1: drama they orchestrated and presented. Now. The thing about KFVE, though,
Speaker 1: is that as time rolls on, as the product becomes
Speaker 1: further and further removed from actual grappling, and also and
Speaker 1: also when you're throw in TV and it just exposure,
Speaker 1: it really becomes more and more obvious that what is
Speaker 1: happening is something that's orchestrated, and especially to if you're
Speaker 1: if you know, you're involving people of different skill levels.
Speaker 1: So there maybe two guys who can go out there
Speaker 1: and put on a like a totally believable match, and
Speaker 1: even the unbelievable things they can make seem real. But
Speaker 1: then you get some guys out there who are green
Speaker 1: and don't really know what they're doing, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's like watching a um a, a poor magician
Speaker 1: trying to do a trick with coins falling out of
Speaker 1: their pockets. Right Anyway, eventually it's not that well kept
Speaker 1: a secret. Everyone really knows and you know, it's more
Speaker 1: like us Anna Claus level thing. Even among children, you know,
Speaker 1: where someone's like, hey, you know that stuffs fake, right,
Speaker 1: and they're like, no, man, it's not fake at all.
Speaker 1: But but but then it reaches a point though, uh
Speaker 1: in nine so the McMahon's have built up um, they've
Speaker 1: taken all these like independent territories, and they've really built
Speaker 1: up this this World Wrestling Federation. Then they're they're beginning
Speaker 1: to roll in the dough again. These are the territories
Speaker 1: that were established in the nine hundreds in the United States.
Speaker 1: So again loosely organized, but this is what he evolved into.
Speaker 1: The McMahon family became sort of head of that. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and part of keeping cafeve though was that they
Speaker 1: were also there were things like the state athletic commissions
Speaker 1: were regulating the business in large ways, Like there was
Speaker 1: I remember reading that this guy Milmascaris, who is a luchador.
Speaker 1: He would come up and work matches and there was
Speaker 1: like some sort of like some sort of law in
Speaker 1: New York where no one could wear a mask in
Speaker 1: a match, and so he couldn't go there to do
Speaker 1: to do his his matches because the Athletic um Commission
Speaker 1: was had this rule. So it really reaches the point
Speaker 1: that where it comes down to money, and so vincement
Speaker 1: man h breaks cafame in a big way. He hated
Speaker 1: to pay state athletic commissions to regulate his business. So
Speaker 1: he just finally admitted, Hey, it's not a sport, so
Speaker 1: back off, and I'm not going to give you all
Speaker 1: of this money anymore because it's sports entertainment. It's not sport.
Speaker 1: Right into the audience care now because at that point
Speaker 1: everyone really knew. It's kind of like it's like Santa Claus.
Speaker 1: You know Santa Claus. You reach a point where you know,
Speaker 1: Santa Claus isn't isn't real. It is not a physical
Speaker 1: reality that there is. It's fiction and myth and uh
Speaker 1: and and and you have to suspend disbelief. But it's
Speaker 1: still it's still entertaining. It's still something that you can
Speaker 1: involve yourself in. And so yeah, people still watch it.
Speaker 1: They suspend disbelief when they watch it. Uh. But it
Speaker 1: does make for a really weird kind of area because
Speaker 1: it's it's not quite like watching a movie where you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a there's an actor playing a character.
Speaker 1: Like it's more like there's this actor, but he's pretending
Speaker 1: to be the character all the time. Um, and it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's we'll we'll discuss uh here. It's there's more of
Speaker 1: this gray area between truth and fiction. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of like that's kind of what the modern cafe is
Speaker 1: all about. Well, should we hear from Cult Cabana here? Yes, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's uh, let's hear from Cult. Just a little introduction
Speaker 1: to those of you who are not familiar with Cult Cabanah.
Speaker 1: He has about fourteen years in the pro wrestling business.
Speaker 1: He's wrestled for World Wrestling Entertainment, Ring of Honor, Pro Wrestling. Noah,
Speaker 1: that's a Japanese promotion, Uh, Juggalo Championship Wrestling, which is
Speaker 1: exactly what it sounds like. The Insane Clown Possible, um Chakara,
Speaker 1: which is a really cool, like family kid friendly promotion,
Speaker 1: UM up North, uh National Wrestling Alliance, and then countless
Speaker 1: other you know, independence because there's still a lot of
Speaker 1: independent wrestling out there, uh, but more notably to a
Speaker 1: lot of you. He also hosts the Art of Wrestling
Speaker 1: podcast where he interviews other wrestlers and they just kind
Speaker 1: of talk about wrestling but also about life and all.
Speaker 1: And it's a It's it's A it's a It's a
Speaker 1: really entertaining podcast. He has also been on Mark Marrin's
Speaker 1: WTF podcast, and he's also been featured on the Sound
Speaker 1: of the Young America. And if you want to learn
Speaker 1: more about him and find out and also check out
Speaker 1: some of his episodes see where he's performing, you can
Speaker 1: go to we love cult dot com and he has
Speaker 1: all that information there. So I recently spoke with with
Speaker 1: Colt on the phone, and uh, and we were wondering
Speaker 1: to what degree we should keep Kfebe here and and
Speaker 1: I could act like I'm actually speaking to him live
Speaker 1: when actually I'm rereading my questions that I asked him,
Speaker 1: and then we're cutting in his his answers. But but
Speaker 1: I guess we should suspend Kfebe a little bit since
Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about. Uh So here we go.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask the first question, and Colt is gonna
Speaker 1: can you ask in a wrestler voice? No? I think
Speaker 1: that disrespectful. Well, no, I'm just in the spirit of
Speaker 1: kfe No. Alright, So, first off, do you have a
Speaker 1: specific character in mind when you perform in the ring?
Speaker 1: I have a specific persona or character when I go
Speaker 1: out in the ring, it's it's a lot like who
Speaker 1: I am in real life. But I know that I
Speaker 1: have to be on and I'm not going to break
Speaker 1: away from this character and I'm going to commit no
Speaker 1: matter what because I'm on stage or you know, slash
Speaker 1: ring and so so. Yeah, I want to keep to
Speaker 1: my character and and what I have going through my
Speaker 1: head for what I want to do in a specific
Speaker 1: match or instance. So based on your experiences, do acting
Speaker 1: and wrestling go hand in hand? I see, uh, I
Speaker 1: see a big parallel. I definitely see a big parallel
Speaker 1: to acting and wrestling. And I see it now more
Speaker 1: than ever that I've kind of dabbled or I'm putting
Speaker 1: the two together and correlation. More than ever, I see
Speaker 1: that they're the similarities between the both. I guess what
Speaker 1: once I started once I was wrestling. As I was wrestling,
Speaker 1: I was never like, oh, I'm an actor. I see
Speaker 1: the similarities. But then when I started doing a little
Speaker 1: bit of acting in comedy, then you realize, holy crap,
Speaker 1: I've been acting and doing company for the past ten
Speaker 1: years in the wrestling ring. Now imagine a number of
Speaker 1: listeners at this point may have kind of Wikipedia and
Speaker 1: you look up Cold Cabana and uh and over there
Speaker 1: on the right, you'll see a list of aliases that
Speaker 1: he's used in the ring. Different because most some guys
Speaker 1: in wrestling may go in and they're only ever like
Speaker 1: one name, but most end up using various names, various gimmicks,
Speaker 1: various personas that they take on in the ring. Uh.
Speaker 1: Just looking at the list for Colt, he has wrestled
Speaker 1: as Chris Guy, as Colton Nevada, as the Goon, as
Speaker 1: Matt Classic, as Masked Flipper Number seven, as Officer Colt Cabana,
Speaker 1: as Punchline, as Scott Colton, which uh this is really
Speaker 1: as Scotty Goldman, as Twinkie the Kid, and Colt Daddy.
Speaker 1: Uh so Colt of all these characters, and granted some
Speaker 1: of these are just one offs that you know, maybe
Speaker 1: only existed once. Which one is the furthest from the
Speaker 1: real you. I do character called Officer Cold Cabana, and
Speaker 1: I do that for the Insane clown Poss's Juggalo Championship Wrestling.
Speaker 1: And the greatest thing about it, and what's the most
Speaker 1: interesting thing is that people have learned to love the
Speaker 1: character Cold Cabana, the fun lucky the fun, loving, happy,
Speaker 1: gold lucky professional wrestler, the nice guy of professional wrestling,
Speaker 1: and then they know it seems like it's almost like
Speaker 1: they're in on the joke of when I go and
Speaker 1: I become the bad guy at the insane clown Posse shows,
Speaker 1: and now I'm the Officer Cold Cabana and I'm swearing,
Speaker 1: and I'm vogler and I'm rude and I'm vowing to
Speaker 1: take the Juggalos and arrest them one by one. And
Speaker 1: it's so completely different not only from who I am
Speaker 1: the person, but who Cold Cabana the wrestler is. Is
Speaker 1: that this character has taken on like a life of
Speaker 1: its own and in each of its own, and people
Speaker 1: really seem to love it, I think because they know
Speaker 1: that it's so far from who I am and what
Speaker 1: I am as a person. Now, do you ever find
Speaker 1: yourself carrying Officer Colt Cabana with you outside of the
Speaker 1: ring when you go back in the locker room? No, No,
Speaker 1: I know I'll never come back after a performances Officer
Speaker 1: Cold Cabana and find myself in the same character. I
Speaker 1: think because I've been doing it for so long and
Speaker 1: I know exactly when I go through that curtain when
Speaker 1: the matches ended, to switch it right off. But when
Speaker 1: I'm in the middle of the action and the adrenaline
Speaker 1: is going and I'm allowed to do whatever I want,
Speaker 1: I definitely get carried away. And I definitely, I definitely um.
Speaker 1: I love the fact that I can do everything I
Speaker 1: want and I and I. What people don't know is
Speaker 1: that almost like my real interpersonality will come out because
Speaker 1: I can swear and I could be vulgar and it's
Speaker 1: accepted and it's fine. So any like real life frustrations
Speaker 1: that I really have is allowed to come out in
Speaker 1: this character of Officer Cold Cabana, the bad guy. Because
Speaker 1: as Cold Cabana, the good guy, the fun, lucky, happy,
Speaker 1: go love, you know, loving guy, I could never let
Speaker 1: that out or else my character would be ruined. But
Speaker 1: when I let it out as Officer a Cult, it's
Speaker 1: what it's expected. So when I mean, I'll get carried away,
Speaker 1: and for me it's almost therapeutic because I'm allowed to
Speaker 1: do it, and and honestly, the more carried away I get,
Speaker 1: the better the character is. So can you speak a
Speaker 1: little more about the blurred lines between fiction and fantasy
Speaker 1: and pro wrestling it's just that's the one big difference
Speaker 1: between you know people. It's interesting because I think that's
Speaker 1: where the line of quote unquote fake comes from a lot.
Speaker 1: Is that your favorite movie that you go and in
Speaker 1: the middle of it, If um, you know Brad Pitt
Speaker 1: is in Fight Club, no one's going in the middle
Speaker 1: of that movie. This is fake. This is that they
Speaker 1: get drawn in there, enthralled and they love it and
Speaker 1: it's the greatest thing. And then afterwards you take yourself
Speaker 1: out of that world. You know that that was Brad Pitt,
Speaker 1: not what was his name of the movie I forget,
Speaker 1: but Tyler And I think, yeah, right, that was Brad Pitt,
Speaker 1: not Tyler Dirten. But for us it's funny because as
Speaker 1: it's kind of as a as a businessman myself, and
Speaker 1: you know, I have to portray the character Cold Cabana
Speaker 1: at all times and that's I'm not I don't My
Speaker 1: business card doesn't say Scott Colton. It says Cold Cabanna.
Speaker 1: And that's how I make my money. And it's a
Speaker 1: twenty four hour business, not only with the wrestling at shows,
Speaker 1: but then outside the shows and podcasting, and I have
Speaker 1: to keep up this, uh, you know, and the YouTube
Speaker 1: and Twitter and everything. It's all done under the guys
Speaker 1: of Cold Cabana, unlike where Brad Pitt would you know,
Speaker 1: tweet or do his business as Brad Pitt, but then
Speaker 1: he goes and has a two hour block of Tyler
Speaker 1: Dirton where he's performing is that character or if he's
Speaker 1: in seven or another movie. He's going from character to
Speaker 1: character to character, whereas I am always going to be
Speaker 1: Cold Cabana and that's always going to have to pay
Speaker 1: my bills. So I asked, I always have to protect
Speaker 1: that character of Cold Cabana, and that's kind of where
Speaker 1: Kid comes into into play, is my protection of that character.
Speaker 1: So this is more or less the modern Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's hard because a lot of wrestling obviously has kind
Speaker 1: of been exposed. People enjoy it for what it is
Speaker 1: now and the right the idea of KFB was to
Speaker 1: keep that secret of what's going on in the wrestling industry,
Speaker 1: so everyone thinks it's on the up and up and
Speaker 1: that it's a it's a full fight, you know, it's
Speaker 1: a full exhibition, I guess, or a fight and not
Speaker 1: an exhibition. And now there's yeah, there's different I guess
Speaker 1: ideas of Kape. Also, I don't want I think it's
Speaker 1: so insulting when someone's like, is it fake, just tell
Speaker 1: me or whatever. And you know, a magician, no one
Speaker 1: ever said David Copperfield was fake. A magician is not
Speaker 1: going to go out. We all get the idea of
Speaker 1: what magic is and what illusions are, and if you're
Speaker 1: a good fan or if you're someone who loves that
Speaker 1: idea of magic or illusions, you're not going to be
Speaker 1: screaming that this is fake or I don't you know,
Speaker 1: obviously this isn't real. And that's the same idea of wrestling.
Speaker 1: And the magicians have their world of cape of keeping
Speaker 1: their allusions to themselves, and us as wrestlers, we want
Speaker 1: to keep our allusions to ourselves, and it's it's better
Speaker 1: if it's not completely out in the open. For the
Speaker 1: fact that you will enjoy the show more if you
Speaker 1: allow yourself to kind of just kind of be stupid
Speaker 1: and just enjoy it for what it is. Good versus bad,
Speaker 1: heals versus uh, you know, baby faces, heroes versus villains.
Speaker 1: That's the best thing about wrestling. And if you just
Speaker 1: stupefy yourself and enjoy the show, then you're allowing yourself
Speaker 1: to have a better experience, and that's when the cappe
Speaker 1: is kept in part. All right, So we're gonna pick
Speaker 1: up a little more with cold here in just a second.
Speaker 1: But at this point we want to mention a really
Speaker 1: cool article that we ran across that that really gets
Speaker 1: to the heart of way cafe is so fascinating for
Speaker 1: non wrestling fans and for just people in general. And
Speaker 1: it's a It's an article called Kafade by Eric Weinstein,
Speaker 1: who is a mathematician and economist UM with the Norton Group.
Speaker 1: So you probably want of what is a mathematician and
Speaker 1: an economist care about pro wrestling? What is it about? Uh?
Speaker 1: In Weinstein's world, the altered reality of layered falsehoods uh,
Speaker 1: And that is kade, Like why does that matter to
Speaker 1: the rest of us? Um? And it's interesting because this
Speaker 1: was a question that he was answering from edge dot org.
Speaker 1: Every year they pose an annual question or question to
Speaker 1: various thinkers, and the question he was answering was what
Speaker 1: scientific concept would improve everyone's cognitive toolkit? And so the
Speaker 1: first line of his essay says, the sophisticated scientific concept
Speaker 1: with the greatest potential to enhance human understanding may come
Speaker 1: not from academy, but rather from the unlikely environment of
Speaker 1: professional wrestling. So this is what you were just touched
Speaker 1: on right there, because he's saying that this ca faving
Speaker 1: is existing h at every level of our society, is
Speaker 1: really pervading our cultural fabric Yeah. In his words, K
Speaker 1: fabrication is the process of transition from reality toward K
Speaker 1: fab and it arises out of attempts to deliver at
Speaker 1: appendably engageable product for a mass audience while we're moving
Speaker 1: the unpredictable upheavals then impair all the participants. Um So
Speaker 1: again he's he's going back to what we've been discussing
Speaker 1: how traditional folk wrestling that is quote unquote real transitions
Speaker 1: into pro wrestling, which is quote unquote fake. And again
Speaker 1: not to get into the whole quadmire of fake, we've
Speaker 1: already discussed that, but just in the idea of how
Speaker 1: does reality become fiction and and and that process that
Speaker 1: that K fabrication that exists in between that what he's
Speaker 1: talking about. He's saying that it's a feature of our
Speaker 1: most important systems such as war, finance, love, politics, and science.
Speaker 1: And um I was even thinking about Kfebe economics, Uh,
Speaker 1: in particular the sub prime mortgage crisis, because this was
Speaker 1: basically passing off crap mortgage backed securities as investment grade
Speaker 1: commodities among this group of financial institutions. And it's an
Speaker 1: example of this collective insanity that can be formed around
Speaker 1: incorrect assumptions that gain acceptance because there are sources of status. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, the sub mortgage crisis that occurred was
Speaker 1: all because everybody was sort of playing along with this
Speaker 1: sort of Kfebe ization of of economics. When it came
Speaker 1: to that the housing bubble and to these um really
Speaker 1: crappy mortgage backed securities, they were passing it off as
Speaker 1: the real deal, right, because they wanted this This was
Speaker 1: system that we would only work if we could all
Speaker 1: buy into this illusion. Yeah, like you come down to this, Uh,
Speaker 1: this idea that you know, the pro wrestling is this
Speaker 1: metaphor for that that exists for actual wrestling and for
Speaker 1: actual combat, and so you you can you can apply
Speaker 1: this model to for instance, journalism came up in Weinstein's
Speaker 1: articles an example, and certainly I think too, I think
Speaker 1: to science journalism since that's probably what I see the
Speaker 1: most of with my job, particularly space. Okay, so like
Speaker 1: you can compare space exploration two catch wrestling. Uh. Catch
Speaker 1: wrestling was really long and at times kind of monotonous, uh,
Speaker 1: but but at heart there was something really compelling about it.
Speaker 1: Likewise with space exploration. Space exploration is really important. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's about who we are and where we stand in
Speaker 1: the cosmos. It's about the long term survival of the
Speaker 1: human race and all of these these grand ideas. But
Speaker 1: if you just take a look at a peer viewed
Speaker 1: article or just some like doing the hard scientific data
Speaker 1: about something, it can it can come off a little boring.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not sexy, you know. And then so
Speaker 1: the science journalists swooped in and they take the core
Speaker 1: of it what's important, but then you know, they sex
Speaker 1: it up a little bit. They maybe they add the
Speaker 1: instead of just being a black hole in the headline,
Speaker 1: it's a cannibalistic black hole, or it's a monster black hole.
Speaker 1: You start layering over a little fiction to dress it
Speaker 1: up and make it more presentable as a product. And
Speaker 1: and ideally you have journalistic integrity keeping it from going
Speaker 1: too far. But but but yeah, you see, KFE, we
Speaker 1: want you to know what it is you see it
Speaker 1: everywhere well, and and he talked about it too in science,
Speaker 1: because if you have a certain agenda, then you would
Speaker 1: try to fit you know, certain data or elements to
Speaker 1: create that fiction. Right. And so when I think about it,
Speaker 1: and I think about it in terms of science, I
Speaker 1: think about erroneous studies that still have some sort of
Speaker 1: weight outside of the science world. Really, and in particular,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about Jenny McCarthy autism and um this false
Speaker 1: link between autism and vaccinations. Now, the study that she
Speaker 1: cited and the doctor has been discredited over and over
Speaker 1: and over again, but yet there is this false reality
Speaker 1: that has been formed around this idea and it gained status.
Speaker 1: And this is sort of a perfect example of k
Speaker 1: fabrication in our lives where we don't, as you say,
Speaker 1: you don't really think about it that way. But when
Speaker 1: you look at these instances and economics, or in science,
Speaker 1: or in journalism in the way things that are reported,
Speaker 1: you began to see that it really is a system
Speaker 1: that we are all sort of buying, not all of us,
Speaker 1: but we tend to sort of buy into as a society. Um,
Speaker 1: So you sort of wonder, like where where if you
Speaker 1: strip it all away, what are the truths? Because we're
Speaker 1: talking about is perception versus reality? Um, this idea that
Speaker 1: perception is exalted above actual reality. Back to a quote
Speaker 1: from Weinstein, he said, what makes KFE remarkable is that
Speaker 1: it provides the most complete example of the process by
Speaker 1: which a wide class of important endeavors transition from failed
Speaker 1: reality to successful fakery. So, um, let's go back to
Speaker 1: Colt Cabana, the professional wrestler and professional podcaster. Uh does
Speaker 1: the Art of Wrestling podcast? Go back to him with
Speaker 1: just a few more questions about the nature of cafe.
Speaker 1: So do you see kfebe at work in the world
Speaker 1: around you? Yes? And you know these are my own,
Speaker 1: I guess thoughts. But it's because I've been engulfed in
Speaker 1: the wrestling world and I've seen I guess the art
Speaker 1: of trickery really is. What I've been doing is I
Speaker 1: don't believe anything for anything, and that's why these are
Speaker 1: my own thoughts. Anyone can have, you know, life and subjective,
Speaker 1: but I refuse to vote because I believe everybody is
Speaker 1: just corrupt and everyone's out for themselves and you know
Speaker 1: who who? Every we hear on the news so much
Speaker 1: the just politics in general, everyone's taking money from this person,
Speaker 1: everyone's taking money from that person who's ever in charge
Speaker 1: because of wrestling and k FEB and the idea that
Speaker 1: you know, we're quote unquote working people all the time.
Speaker 1: That's how I kind of unfortunately look at life. But
Speaker 1: I feel that it's real. That's how life is, and
Speaker 1: uh it's I think that's sad and it's unfortunate. But
Speaker 1: I think in every aspect, especially those higher power political aspects,
Speaker 1: that's going on all the time so much to the
Speaker 1: point that it's so disappointing and it's it's taken me
Speaker 1: out of that world. I really want nothing to do
Speaker 1: with it because I believe that they are they're using
Speaker 1: that world of trickery or cafebe or disguising or masking
Speaker 1: and um yeah, uh, boxing, football, even the realist of
Speaker 1: real sports. This is going on because it's almost because
Speaker 1: it's business and wrestling, right. Wrestling was very popular in
Speaker 1: the very early nineteen hundreds of late eighteen hundreds, and
Speaker 1: the matches would go on for so long that some
Speaker 1: of these matches would be three, four or five hour matches,
Speaker 1: and the business people they said, our business is dying.
Speaker 1: We need to change this business aspect, in this business model,
Speaker 1: and it all comes down, I guess that's the American way.
Speaker 1: It all comes down two dollars and cents. And they said,
Speaker 1: here's how we need to fix, you know, we here's
Speaker 1: how we need to fix wrestling. Wrestling as we know
Speaker 1: it catches catch can uh, two guys go in and
Speaker 1: the better man will win. And it got so boring
Speaker 1: or it got so long that they were losing their
Speaker 1: audience that they changed it, and they fixed it so
Speaker 1: they could make more money. And that's the American way.
Speaker 1: And that's every job, and that's every aspect. How can
Speaker 1: we change this or how can we make so how
Speaker 1: so we can make more money? How can we get
Speaker 1: the more most bang for our buck? How can we
Speaker 1: make how can we make money? And that's in politics,
Speaker 1: that's in unions, that's in uh, you know, unfortunately, like
Speaker 1: you know police and fireplighteris and even the nicest of
Speaker 1: the nice I believe it all. It all happens because
Speaker 1: we're all driven by the almighty dollar, and especially I
Speaker 1: mean that's what wrestling is all about. Two is it's
Speaker 1: a business. Is how do you make money in this thing?
Speaker 1: So as a as a fan of pro wrestling, and uh,
Speaker 1: but ultimately as an outsider to pro wrestling, you hear
Speaker 1: stories about guys who buy into their own gimmick who
Speaker 1: over time and ego gets involved, and you know, maybe
Speaker 1: they're portraying a monster in the ring and they start
Speaker 1: feeling like a monster outside the ring. Like I said,
Speaker 1: ego gets involved in things supposedly spin out of control.
Speaker 1: But but does that ever, does that really happen? Does
Speaker 1: the fantasy ever bleed into reality? Yeah? Uh, I would
Speaker 1: definitely say that people start buying their own hype, they
Speaker 1: start believing their own hype, They start believing to the
Speaker 1: character that they are, and that is the idea that
Speaker 1: then they egos collide with egos and sometimes during a
Speaker 1: wrestling match, two people have egos and they don't think
Speaker 1: what should happen should happen, So they're gonna go and
Speaker 1: go into business for themselves and they're gonna change whatever
Speaker 1: was supposed to happen. And that's when that great line
Speaker 1: of professional wrestling becomes Is this a work or is
Speaker 1: this a shoot? You know? Is this real? Is cafe
Speaker 1: ave happening? Am I getting worked? What's going on? And
Speaker 1: that happens all the time. And that's what I think
Speaker 1: is like the new thing that's drawing people to wrestling
Speaker 1: as opposed to the early, you know, nineteen thirties. This
Speaker 1: is the new era of what people seem to really enjoy.
Speaker 1: And not only is it in wrestling, but it's I
Speaker 1: think we've all seen it with reality television. What's real
Speaker 1: in this show? What's not real in this show? And
Speaker 1: now it's such a blurry line that no nobody really knows,
Speaker 1: especially you know, paranormal activity or uh whatever that other
Speaker 1: scary movie was. And people seem to really like, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: that's the new culture that we're in. And it happens
Speaker 1: for sure in the wrestling ring, in the wrestling backgrounds.
Speaker 1: You play this character, and again, once you get off set,
Speaker 1: you know, you're if you're this is a movie, it's
Speaker 1: not like you're ending this character. You have to be
Speaker 1: a part of this character seven because it's your it's
Speaker 1: your it's your living and when you when some people
Speaker 1: do that, they get caught up in it and it's
Speaker 1: very unfortunate, but it can also make for interesting television
Speaker 1: or interesting drama. Thanks for talking to us. Just to
Speaker 1: close out, give us a just a brief feel about
Speaker 1: about your philosophy in the ring. What what does cult
Speaker 1: Cabana bring to the product. A lot of people know
Speaker 1: the world of professional wrestling is two mean men trying
Speaker 1: to beat each other up, and I always trying to
Speaker 1: take that aspect and change people's mind with it, because
Speaker 1: wrestling is an exhibition where two people are going in
Speaker 1: the ring and somebody's trying to win. I don't use
Speaker 1: anger or I don't use a Russian as my way
Speaker 1: to win. I use humor as my way to win,
Speaker 1: and I think that always makes for a real fun
Speaker 1: match and people seem to like it. And because I'm
Speaker 1: a humorist inside the wrestling ring, my humor translates outside
Speaker 1: the wrestling ring, so people really seem to support and
Speaker 1: people really seem to relate and enjoy who I am
Speaker 1: as a wrestling performer and other things that I do
Speaker 1: in terms of the way I tweet or the way
Speaker 1: I podcast, or the way I have different comedic slash
Speaker 1: wrestling ventures that I put out in the world. And
Speaker 1: I think when you put that all together, that you
Speaker 1: know that makes the ultimate showman or the ultimate entertainer
Speaker 1: or what you have it. So I like the idea
Speaker 1: that I've kind of crossed this line of not just
Speaker 1: a wrestler, but uh, you know, an entertainer for everybody.
Speaker 1: So there you go. Thanks to Coult for taking the
Speaker 1: time to chat with us, I think as we're recording
Speaker 1: this season in Japan wrestling some matches, and again, if
Speaker 1: you want to check out his stuff, just go to
Speaker 1: uh we love Colt dot com. And just to close
Speaker 1: this out, I wanted to to bring up this question
Speaker 1: about whether or not this is something we can even
Speaker 1: avoid because we've talked about how storytelling, fictionalizing, creating realities
Speaker 1: for for ourselves is part and parcel of being human.
Speaker 1: And it makes me think about those babies studies that
Speaker 1: we keep coming across in various ways in our research. Um,
Speaker 1: and I'm talking in particular about Karen Wynd, who's a
Speaker 1: Yale psychologist who has looked at babies and morality, and um,
Speaker 1: this is really interesting. Uh. I think we've probably mentioned
Speaker 1: this before, but kids as young as three months old
Speaker 1: can suss out these little puppet characters. Who is the
Speaker 1: good good guide, Who is the bad guy or the
Speaker 1: good gal or the bad bad gal? And uh, not
Speaker 1: only can they suss them out, they they sort of
Speaker 1: have a preference for the one that is the good guy,
Speaker 1: usually the good puppet, but they also will uh try
Speaker 1: to even the playing field when they can. In other words,
Speaker 1: they will punish the bad guy when they can. And
Speaker 1: I won't go into the particulars of how they do this,
Speaker 1: but time and again, like three fourths of the babies
Speaker 1: will be able to pick out the good puppet as
Speaker 1: opposed to bad puppet, and many more will reward um
Speaker 1: a puppet for punishing the other one. So again, here's
Speaker 1: this very deeply ingrained idea that we have in our
Speaker 1: brains about a sense of justice and injustice. In this
Speaker 1: morality and in this sort of patent tray that always
Speaker 1: plays out in front of us, we can't help but
Speaker 1: get our hooks into stories and be intrigued by them.
Speaker 1: So how can we help to uh you know, with
Speaker 1: that is sort of the base of our cognitive systems. Um,
Speaker 1: how can we actually go about peeling back those illusory
Speaker 1: layers to really see what's going on? Yeah? To it?
Speaker 1: To end on a quote from Roland Barts says that
Speaker 1: in the ring, wrestlers remain gods because they are, for
Speaker 1: a few moments, the key which open nature. The pure gesture,
Speaker 1: which separates good from evil and unveils the form of
Speaker 1: a justice which is at last intelligible. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk a little bit more about some related
Speaker 1: issues to this, about um, what happens when, uh, when
Speaker 1: the self is layered in these these various elements of fiction. Uh.
Speaker 1: The episode is going to be called Undercover Actors in
Speaker 1: the Shadow Self. It's gonna be the one that publishes
Speaker 1: right after this one. So you're really into this topic,
Speaker 1: check it out. We promise there's some some excellent content
Speaker 1: in there. So um, let's put it putting wrestling aside. Now,
Speaker 1: let's ask the robot to come over here and bring
Speaker 1: us some listener mail. All right, here's one from Critter
Speaker 1: Jones on Facebook, and I just love the We have
Speaker 1: a listener named Critter Jones. It just it lightens my day, Uh,
Speaker 1: Critter says, you sweet sweet people have the best product
Speaker 1: on the air today. Thanks for pushing boundaries and breaking
Speaker 1: mysterious walls. Uh, as always with your Labyrinth episode. I
Speaker 1: don't know what I do without you guys. Please don't
Speaker 1: make me find out. Love and infinite rockets to both
Speaker 1: of you, sweet cats, please please keep on keeping on.
Speaker 1: Thank you. We also heard from Kristen. Kristen said, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: just listen to the maze episode. Another little quirk of
Speaker 1: the maze in Harry Potter was that the hedges also moved,
Speaker 1: so you couldn't really go back the way you came,
Speaker 1: and you'd also have to hurry and pick a direction
Speaker 1: before the hedges took you out. Great podcast, guys. And finally,
Speaker 1: Paul wrote to us on Facebook as well and said,
Speaker 1: regarding the call for video game mazes, the worlds of
Speaker 1: the Metroid series come immediately to mind. Many times you
Speaker 1: can clearly see the path ahead or shiny upgrade, but
Speaker 1: lack the necessary equipment, which you obtain much later in
Speaker 1: the game, often long after you have forgotten where you
Speaker 1: found the blocks path. So so there you go. Thanks
Speaker 1: guys for writing in. If any of the rest of
Speaker 1: you would like to um chat with us about mazes,
Speaker 1: about labyrinths, about pro wrestling, uh, if you yourself are
Speaker 1: a pro wrestling fan or or a pro wrestler and
Speaker 1: you have thoughts on some of the content that we've
Speaker 1: discussed here right in. Also if you're an outsider, if
Speaker 1: you're your husband or or other significant other is is
Speaker 1: into wrestling and you're kind of like viewing it from
Speaker 1: the outside and you have some thoughts about it, and
Speaker 1: maybe those thoughts have changed a little after listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast. Let us know. You can find us on
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Speaker 1: we have a Twitter feed, uh that is blow the
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