WEBVTT - Part Six: Vince McMahon, History's Greatest Monster 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:04.680 Robert Evans here and we'll get to the Vince McMahon 0:00:04.720 --> 0:00:06.760 episodes in a second. I wanted to let you all 0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:08.960 know that for the fourth year in a row, we 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:13.000 are doing our fundraiser for the Portland Diaper Bank. Behind 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:15.400 the Bastards supporters have been helping to fund the Portland 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.520 Diaper Bank since twenty twenty and bought millions of diapers 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:20.720 for people who really need them. So if you go 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:23.880 to go fundme and type in bTB fundraiser for PDX 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:27.240 Diaper Bank, or just type in bTB fundraiser Diaper Bank, 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:30.440 go fund me into Google anything like that, you will 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.519 find it. So please go fund Me bTB Fundraiser for 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:36.760 Portland Diaper Bank. Help us raise the money that these 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:39.479 people need to get diapers to folks who need them desperately. 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:45.160 Hey everyone, this is Behind the Bastards and I am 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:49.080 Robert Evans. We have some unfortunate news for everybody today. 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:52.920 Sean Baby and Tom Ryman's plane was shot down over 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:56.480 the Sea of Japan earlier today. It's fun and there 0:00:56.480 --> 0:01:00.160 were no survivors. On the upside, all Behind the Bastards 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:04.040 guests sign a contract agreeing to be re animated in 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:07.360 AI form in order to finish episodes. 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:09.440 Yes, yes we have. 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:14.399 We have imprisoned their souls in chat GPT and we're 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:15.920 we're bringing them back on to finish. 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:20.520 Talking about Vince McMahon, I know what I am, and 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:22.360 I will get out of here human. 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:26.679 Yeah, this is the robocops to me, I'm picturing I'm 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:28.160 inside the RoboCop to robot. 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:29.400 Yeah we are. 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:32.800 I heard all those those those complaints from those AI 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:35.240 grifters that AI is going to conquer the world and 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:37.760 decided to make it so by by making you both 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:39.919 ghosts and the machine. 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:44.720 That's a really great police album. Yeah, yeah, that also 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:47.720 I was. I'm glad that I this has allowed me 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:50.920 the unique opportunity to listen to my own eulogy, which 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:53.240 I appreciate because I always hoped I would be mashed, 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:55.040 and I was mashed. 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:58.920 I do wonder what percentage of our audience is going 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:00.560 to get that that was a math reference. 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:04.680 What percentage of the audience it's the question is what 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:06.720 percentage will get that it's a mash reference and what 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:08.880 percentage will get that it's a family guy reference. 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:11.880 Yeah. Yeah, the majority I think are going to like. 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:16.600 It was a monster mash reference because it was a 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:18.919 graveyard smash the whole time. 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:21.000 Yeah, it caught on in a flash too. 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:26.639 In a way, a plane crash is like a graveyard smash. 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.880 The monster mash guy smash of This guy. 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:34.240 Kept making monster mash songs for like decades afterwards. He 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:38.600 has a climate change what that is both prescient? He's 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:42.600 like living at the Bush Administration. And I don't know 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:45.520 what to do with that information, but you can find 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:46.799 it on the internet if you want. 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:50.400 Yeah, your dear friend runs a site called one Hot 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:52.720 Dog Word Like. That's kind of the only thing we cover. 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:53.200 Is ship like that. 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:57.720 I probably learned it from a Cracked article, but I 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:02.079 honestly can't remember. My Halloween tradition is to get all 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:04.480 of the devices in my house, which is usually like 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:07.360 thirty to fifty screens, and have them all playing the 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:10.960 monster Mash in an endless loop for like, on slightly 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:13.799 different timestamps, so that none of them sink up properly. 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:17.279 It's a real sia. I like that you're waging psychological 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:18.600 warfare on trigger treaters. 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.680 Yeah, it's horrible for everyone. So how are you guys 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:24.600 doing today? How's everybody feeling? As we? 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:26.440 As we roll in. I feel like. 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:27.960 We don't have time for this. 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:28.360 Robert. 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:31.000 You just set me the script and it's like fifty 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:32.480 four fucking pages. 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:35.680 No, no, no, that's the whole script that includes the 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:38.680 stuff we've already done. So let's get back into it. 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:42.080 I suppose when we left off, Saddam Hussein had just 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:46.600 nearly murdered Andre the Giant with a golden hand gun. Well, now, 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:48.560 actually that we were just telling that story that happened 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:52.600 in nineteen sixty nine. But Saddam comes back into wrestling history. Sure, 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:58.080 my genetic memory recalls this conversation. Okay, yeah, it's epigenetics, 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:05.280 like surviving an act of aside. So let's all fast 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:09.760 forward to August second, nineteen ninety, when Saddam Hussein's career 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.680 intersects with the WWF the second and final time as 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:18.440 far as I'm aware. And this happened because Saddam invaded 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:21.279 a little country called Kuwait, and George W. Bush, you know, 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:25.160 says we're all gonna we're all gonna get get ourselves 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:27.480 over there, and you get your Operation Desert Storm. 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:28.680 Yeah, yeah, everybody knows this. 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:34.159 Righthw HW yes HW. The fact that the Iraq War 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:38.440 was such like a bad idea and so controversial. A 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:41.240 lot of folks, I think, especially like younger folks millennials 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.320 and zoomers, don't remember how much fucking war fever there 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:47.479 was in the US over Desert Storm. I was not 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:49.400 old enough to remember that time, but I have an 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:53.479 extensive collection of bootleg Bart Simpson Desert Storm t shirts 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:56.920 that provide that kind of race memory for me. I 0:04:57.200 --> 0:04:58.920 grew up right in the thick of it. And I'm 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:01.080 sure Sean, because he's You're a few years older than me, 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:02.800 so I'm sure you remember it even better. But yeah, 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:06.440 it was, man, we were really hyped about this storm 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:07.640 slash Desert Shield. 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:10.680 He called one thing Operation Shock and Awe, and it 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:12.560 was just a fireworks show. They just the news was 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:16.920 just watching shit. We got so rad like no bullshit. 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:19.039 It was just like here's a punker buster and they 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:21.880 tell you the status this thing cost fourteen million dollars 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:24.560 and watch it goo And that was. 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:26.159 TV every night. Yeah. 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:29.200 Yeah, And in addition to providing the basis for some 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:32.920 of the better Bill Hicks routines, it also was an 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:36.800 inspiration for Vince McMahon and the WWF. Now, the fact 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:40.240 that this all happens is very convenient for Vince because 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:43.080 he has some real bad press at the start of 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:45.479 the nineteen nineties, and a lot of it had to 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:48.800 do with his doctor, George Zahorian, who had spent the 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:53.360 nineteen eighties selling just fistfuls of steroids, Danny Rustler, who 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:55.120 was he was less of a doctor and more of 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:59.240 a vending machine. Yeah, and it's it is very funny, 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:01.680 like not only is he selling like usually when you 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:04.320 say someone sold a lot of drugs for like hard stuff, 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:08.040 that can literally mean like somebody sold like an amount 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:09.800 you could fit in your palm, and that could be 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.599 thousands and thousands of dollars worth. George Sohorian was selling 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:18.799 drugs like weight right, like actual like a significant physical 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:24.440 weight in steroids and painkillers. He particularly moved Perkadan by 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:27.880 fucking gross And this was great in the nineteen eighties, 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:30.760 but by early nineteen ninety the FEDS were onto him, 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:34.080 and they succeeded in finding a guy to go undercover 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:37.119 for them to bust Sohorian. The guy who they found 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:40.680 to do this was named William us hack Saw Jim Duggan. 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:44.440 God would have been a funner story. No, this is 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:46.880 kind of a bummer of a tail. So William Dunn 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:49.840 was the strength and conditioning coach at the University of Virginia, 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:54.440 and as a coach who worked throughout the nineteen eighties, 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:57.839 he was on gear just the entirety of that decade. 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:00.880 Like all of the Reagan administration, this guy is shooting 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:03.400 everything up his ass he can find. By the end 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:06.160 of the Reagan years, though, his body is falling apart 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:09.720 older steroids and older steroid regimens in addition to being 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.679 bad for your heart, like really fucked up your joints. 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:14.880 And also it's really easy to fuck up your joints 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:17.760 on steroids because you get like too strong, too fast, 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.000 and your body's not meant to increase the weight that 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:23.760 you lift that rapidly. It's not great for you. He 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.800 has ruined his body by the early or the end 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.360 of the nineteen eighties, and in order to deal with 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:32.000 all of the pain that this causes, he becomes heavily 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:35.000 addicted to both valium and opiates. He gets caught and 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:38.440 terested trying to buy valium and opiates in large quantities, 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:41.480 and the Feds are like, hey, we'll let you off. Basically, 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.360 they flip him right, and they flip him to use 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:48.120 him as bait for doctor Zahorian. The book Sex Lies 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:50.720 in Headlocks alleges that a source close to the McMahon's 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:52.720 hit them off that this has happened. 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:53.280 Robert. 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:55.920 When you said they used him as to bait Zahorian, 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:59.040 I pictured him standing in the middle of an intersection 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:03.480 with a big heat and bow tie and oversized lollipop. Oh, 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:08.000 I wonder where wherever could I get some steroids? 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.680 He's just Zaorian's just lifted. 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:16.480 Like like a cartoon cat that smells a pie, drifting 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:17.520 over to him. 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:20.480 The boy. 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:28.160 So someone essentially tips the mcmhon's off that the FBI 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:31.360 is going after their doctor, and the McMahon's warn Zahori 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:33.360 and they're like, hey man, you need to lay low 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:35.160 for a while. The FEDS are on to you, and 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:37.360 there's someone who's going to buy from you in the 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:39.760 near future, is going to be an undercover. So like, 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:43.920 don't sell any illegal drugs for a minute, right, which is, 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:47.040 you know, the smart thing to do advice seems it 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:51.559 seems like one of the easier things to do. Vince 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:53.680 has asked people to do a lot of hard things. 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:55.920 They're just saying hey, man, maybe don't sell any gear 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:56.520 for a second. 0:08:56.920 --> 0:08:59.400 Try not to break the law for the next four 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:01.200 to five Yeah. 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:05.240 Journalist Sean Assail claims quote the McMahons had told one 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:07.360 of their top aids to call him from a payphone 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:09.360 so they wouldn't be recorded, and tell him to move 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:11.320 all the records he kept on wrestlers out of his 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.640 office fast. Now, a smart man would have gone the 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:17.760 fuck to ground and taken their advice, but Zahoorian, despite 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:21.560 being a doctor, was not an intelligent man. Instead, he 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:24.760 took another meeting with William Dunn and was like, Hey, 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:26.920 I don't do this anymore. You know, the Feds are 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.520 onto me. I can't really sell you any drugs. But 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:31.840 then when they're in the room together, he like does 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:34.160 a wink and like leans in close, like they're gonna 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:36.880 shake hands or hug, and he hands him here's what 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:40.480 he tries to pass off and like a wink, wink, nudge, nudge, 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:44.559 like hidden little like handshake thing. Sixty vikd in one, 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:48.240 one hundred and twenty eight halcions, nine hundred and twenty 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:53.000 five Xanax, forty eight LIMB patrols, four files of testosterone 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:54.520 and eighty five darmossets. 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:59.240 Who I thought this was really man, I went on 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:01.360 a journey because the way you described it, I thought 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:03.400 he was literally palming the guy. 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:05.160 But that's how it's described. 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:08.280 I think he is palming him just a sack of pills, 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:15.360 like garbage pills. It's only about it's only about twenty 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:20.720 five hundred pills top. It's not that many pills, so 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:24.319 sounded like a lot. This is twenty five thousand dollars 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:27.560 worth of drugs in nineteen ninety dollars, fair to say, 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:30.680 more than a personal use amount, which makes the FBI's 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:33.720 casey are quite easy. They've got a lot of hard 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:36.360 work going on in these unibomber days. This is not 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:39.640 one of the tough cases for them. You didn't have 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:44.520 to do any investigating, no no. So like Doune pulls 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.040 his shoulders getting out of the room because how many 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:51.000 bills you gave him, FBI had to have an ambulance 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:55.640 on staff to deal with his dislocated arm. So Vince 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:59.439 instantly let Zahorian go like fires him as soon as 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:01.120 the fat come in and arrest him. 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:02.959 And his hope is that, like you know, he. 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:05.400 Can kind of end any suspicion on behalf of the 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.079 Feds that the WWF is encouraging steroid use as a 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:11.319 result of this. But the FED subpoenas a Horian's FedEx 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:13.640 account and they find that he has been shipping his 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:17.760 drugs to Hull Cogan and Vince McMahon every single week, right, 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:20.880 large amounts of drugs to Hull Cogan, n McMahon and 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:23.679 Rowdy Roddy Piper, and it issued to a couple of 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.679 other guys. But like packages are going straight to WWF headquarters. 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:30.160 So again you would think not a hard case to 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:34.880 make that maybe there's some distribution going on here as 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:38.000 I read, as I recall, there's a lot of overreach, 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:40.679 which which is what ends up sinking the Feds' case. 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:43.720 But I'll close my mouth and listen. Yeah, yeah, we'll 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:45.840 talk about that. So this gets a bunch of wrestlers 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:49.040 subpoena before a federal ground Jerry all Is John does, 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:51.880 and they get Zahoorian indicted. But at this point the 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:55.360 WWF is not implicated in anything criminally as far as 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:57.600 the law is concerned. Right, the fact that even the 0:11:57.600 --> 0:11:59.880 fact that McMahon himself might have been buying steroids a 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:03.199 legally doesn't mean there's a conspiracy that the WWF is 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:05.760 involved in, right like at the moment, they can't prove 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:08.680 that it's not just that everyone there's doing roids, which 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:13.920 does not implicate the company necessarily, so you know that's 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:17.560 where this starts. But Zahoorian's attorney immediately tells reporters that 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.480 Hogan and Piper are two of the John does and 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:22.720 it starts to become very clear to people outside of 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:28.600 the WWF, what's strategy down? Yeah, Yeah, districted by blaming 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:35.160 rowdy Roddy Piper. Now, the case itself is a pr disaster. 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.080 Several massive stars have to like testify bashfully to their 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:42.560 steroid use in court. It goes very badly and Zahorian 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:46.040 is convicted on June twenty fifth, nineteen ninety. Every major 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:48.760 newspaper in the US covers the blowing scandal, and Vince 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:50.840 knew that he needed a way to distract the public, 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:53.640 so the Gulf War seemed like a really convenient thing. 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:57.880 So he reaches out to sergeants Slaughter, a former WWF wrestler, 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:00.760 and to our friend Adnon who nearly got Andre killed 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:03.480 in Iraq, and told them that he'd had an idea 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:06.120 they were going to fight together as a team of heels. 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.680 Ad Noon would be General ad Noon and Iraqi soldier 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:13.160 and Sergeant Slaughter was basically depicted as going trader against 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:17.240 the United States and for the Iraqi Army, here's Adnon's 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:21.400 introduction and for context, Slaughter here is dressed as a 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:25.000 small child's idea of a drill sergeant. He's being interviewed 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:27.240 by Brother Love, who was in costume as a TV 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:30.280 or who is a TV Mega preacher essentially, and the 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:33.040 guy doing the commentating is Rowdy Roddy piper at the 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:35.520 star of the John Carpenter film They Live. 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:36.679 Man, what a. 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:39.360 Paragraph recomminate, real perfect storm happened here. 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:43.440 It's quite a moment in pop culture history. 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:54.000 There's always a jay of commut time. I would like 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:59.480 you too, Oh man, that harm respect. 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:14.200 Water or bron what I want to talk about that 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:21.880 forever just enthes here. 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:39.520 But if he betrayal ulous, oh yeah, that's perfect is 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.120 He is dressed in like a blue army uniform. 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:46.080 With a head uh, like a head scarf type deal. 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:49.520 He's got a Saddam Hussein looking mustach. 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:55.680 Film Rowdy Roddy Pipers lip it up the app. 0:14:55.880 --> 0:15:15.640 You can't believe it. Yeah, ridiculous. He's gobsmacked. My god. Okay, 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:22.200 I think we're I think we're good. I think it's 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:26.720 so funny. I can't believe Brother Love was on TV. 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:30.840 It's amazing. His face is so red in that. 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:36.200 I never knew you could make an offensive racial stereotype 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.120 of like white Southerners, but they did it like that. 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:40.920 I am legitimately offended. 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:46.440 I mean it's it's I think it's the least offensive 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:47.680 stereotype on screen. 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:50.760 Absolutely, you know as much. For sure. 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:54.240 It's at least I will say the top general Adon 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:57.000 counts as pretty woke for the w w F because 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:00.520 he is an Iraqi, right, like, he actually is from Iraq. 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:03.720 That's not that's a lot better than they usually do, right, Yeah, 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:06.360 normally it's an Italian guy. I didn't get. 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:15.000 I didn't pick some dude, so at least there's that. 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:20.120 The thing I find most interesting here are odd Non's eyes. Again, 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:22.520 he is dressed as a crude imitation of Saddam Hussein, 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:26.240 but he just looks dead inside. And he said different 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.160 things in interviews after the fact. During some of them 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:31.080 he's been like, look, I was old and tired. It 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:33.160 was hard to get jobs as an Iraqi guy during 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:36.080 desert storms, so like, what was I supposed to do? 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:40.280 In more recent years, he's been like, actually, I supported 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:44.000 Saddam and the invasion of Kuwait uh, so fuck America. 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.960 He's kind of either that or I don't know, Like 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:52.840 I don't know what's going on with this fella. 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:56.040 He said the number he could save Andre the Giant. 0:16:56.760 --> 0:16:58.160 He did save Andre's life. 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:01.400 So I think one of the things that I this 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.119 brings up to me just kind of the the general 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:06.199 hard to tell what actually was going on with that 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.680 non you know, generally the response to this has been good. 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:12.080 There have been some people who have like pointed out, well, 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:14.320 there's another story about this event that went this way, 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:15.879 and there's another story that went this way, or this 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:17.560 isn't quite what right, And it's one of those things 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.080 where at several points I've kind of had to pick 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:22.120 which version of the truth I want to go with 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:24.000 for this, because there's no way to know on a 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:27.000 lot of this stuff, like was Andre the Giant ever 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:30.840 threatened with murder by Saddam Hussein? We're entirely taking ad 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:33.359 Non al Kaisi's word for that I don't know. 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:36.960 Yeah, and again, as I've mentioned many times in this series, 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:38.520 wrestlers are notorious liars. 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:39.640 Yeah, that's the job. 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:42.360 It's like the job does seem like a stand up guy. 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:43.760 I don't think he'd do something bad. 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:46.480 Yeah, yeah, I mean he didn't kill him, so that 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:52.560 that scans with the Saddam I know, yeah, yeah, friend 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:57.919 of the pod. Anyway, I've mentioned that the I've mentioned 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:01.359 that the racial stereotype character were kind of a long 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:04.639 standing tradition. We've talked about that quite a lot. But 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:08.200 Vince does take a thing's a step beyond that with 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:11.760 with how he scripts Adn. This guy general aDNA is 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.320 not just a heel. He would go on before matches 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:16.800 and rant and Arabic about a law. He would like 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:19.879 pray and stuff, but the prayer was kind of the 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:22.880 prayer was framed as him doing a bad thing, right, 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:26.520 Like it was not great, right. I'm not gonna obviously, 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:29.760 when we talk about America's problems with Islamophobia that really 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:32.320 ignited after nine to eleven, it would be very silly 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:35.840 to blame them on on the WWF, I will say 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:40.240 that this isn't helpful in making that situation better. 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:43.520 I mean, and they do the same thing after nine eleven, 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:48.080 and I mentioned they just more so Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:50.800 yeah they have. I mentioned Italian guys. They have I 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:52.160 forget his name, but it was one of the members 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.440 of the Full Blooded Italians that they just made him 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:59.239 a terrorist character after nine to eleven. Yeah, I mean 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:01.560 they it's just I don't know, it's it's this. 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:04.480 They always do this. Yeah, they always do this. It's 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:08.760 cheap heat. Yeah, there's one particularly we may have talked 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:12.400 about this, but there's one particularly absurd moment where they 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:14.920 bring back in addition to the Sheik, they bring back 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:19.440 the Iron Shake, who is an Iranian man, and they 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:22.239 have him play of like fighting alongside General Adnon as 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:25.960 another Iraqi general. And there is just something particularly awful 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:28.600 about bringing an Iranian guy in to be an Iraqi 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:33.199 like it is. But yeah, but again, I bet his 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:35.720 family wasn't happy about that. I bet his family wasn't. 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:38.439 But like Vince didn't read those news stories, you know, 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:44.600 like he didn't know there'd been a war, right, Yeah, yeah, 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:47.680 those are right next to each other. Having a guy 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:53.000 from Oklahoma pretend to be Texan. It's fine, So audiences 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:56.399 are not really in love with this storyline. In nineteen 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:58.720 ninety one, WrestleMania was expected to bring in one hundred 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:02.600 thousand attendees, spurred by this war focused storyline, but Desert 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:06.720 Storm tragically ended like too early. No one had really 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:10.320 expected it to go down so quickly. It was like 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:13.959 sixteen months. Yeah, I mean the and the actual fighting 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:16.480 like once the troops are like on the ground is 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:19.399 much much shorter than that. Like it is so fast. 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.359 Vince downsizes his plans for the event. He moves it 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:26.159 to a smaller stadium. This was a flop, and the 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:30.080 fearer over steroids refuse to end. Vince goes into panic mode. 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:33.120 The day of Zahoorian's verdict, he'd told his wrestlers again, 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:36.600 you all have to get off gear immediately. We're going 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:39.840 clean here. We're doing like a sudden sobriety thing for 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:42.199 the entire WWF because the Feds are about to be 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:45.520 breathing down our necks. He institutes new pissed tests for 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:49.440 the entire organization, and they're they're not They're different from 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:51.960 the old pissed tests because someone will be watching the 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:55.400 wrestler pee at all times, which is supposed to stop 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:58.280 them from cheating with fake urine. Vince also goes on 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:01.720 the warpath against news coverage of his steroid soaked locker rooms. 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:03.800 He writes an op ed in The New York Times 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:07.520 in which he claims to resent the unsubstantiated charges, which 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:09.600 he says, we're purely a result of the absence of 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:13.240 objective reporting. I don't know why, as the Times, you 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:17.720 let Vince McMahon write a column about this, but probably. 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:19.520 I mean, that's yeah, we hope we don't need to 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:22.399 get into The New York Times. Is this the public interest? 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:22.800 Guys? 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:26.320 Is this the public Is Vince McMahon's defense of this 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:27.520 in the public interest? 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:28.280 I don't think so. 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:30.639 It feels like, I mean in general, not just The 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:32.919 New York Times, because other places have done this, but 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:35.080 it really does feel like you can just buy yourself 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:36.879 an op ed pretty much taking place. 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:40.320 I mean, it's it's even I think now dumber than that. 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:43.640 Like it's less buying it and more if you're famous enough, 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:45.840 it doesn't matter how awful you are, if you're just 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:48.960 defending yourself from doing terrible things. If you're like a 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:51.520 big name, people will click on it and they'll get money. 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:53.919 Like so they'll they'll have anyone on. 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:56.160 Yeah, I think you can sell your newspaper to everyone 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:57.960 if you let a sociopath write a column just. 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:00.720 Every a couple of weeks. And yeah, exactly both sides 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:01.679 of the political issues. 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:05.720 Yeah, this is like again, I don't see. I feel 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:08.760 like we should have given you know, Saddam a column, 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:10.840 and that might have saved a lot of lives. You know, 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:13.040 you know, if he and Bush had fought this all 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:16.040 out in the op ed pages, Yeah, hundreds of thousands 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:19.920 would still be breathing the times tried. Or if they'd 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:22.720 had them wrestle at WrestleMania or now, that would have 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:26.520 been the ideal, especially if I'm gonna say Bush, we 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:29.320 we we have him tag teaming with rowdy Roddy Piper 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:33.160 and then obviously Sergeant Slaughter and uh and Saddam back 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:36.480 to back. Really really could have been quite the quite 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:40.560 the show, bringing Andre at the half point for some vengeance. 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:48.600 So this is kind of an awkward This is kind 0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:51.399 of an awkward interstittle period for the w w F. 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:54.000 At about the same time, Hulk Hogan takes a sabbatical 0:22:54.040 --> 0:22:57.280 from wrestling, right as sort of the steroid stuff is 0:22:57.280 --> 0:23:00.560 blowing up. I think part because Hulk was like maybe 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:02.959 I want to clear out for a second here, in 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:05.639 part because like, you know, I want to be in 0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:08.760 the movie Suburban Commando. Vince attempts to replace Hulk with 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:12.880 the Ultimate Warrior, who is terrible, as I think everyone 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:13.560 can agree. 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:15.440 Yeah. 0:23:15.760 --> 0:23:18.200 So, by the time nineteen ninety one comes to an end, 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:20.920 the WWF is in like the worst position it's been 0:23:20.960 --> 0:23:23.440 in years. You know, Vince is less than a decade 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:25.560 into running the whole thing, and it kind of looks 0:23:25.560 --> 0:23:27.199 like he may be in the process of running it 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:30.399 into the ground. And so that December, right before the 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:33.359 new drug testing protocol is put into effect, Vince and 0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:35.840 a bunch of his wrestlers decide to blow off some 0:23:36.240 --> 0:23:39.400 steam by having one last epic drug fueled party. Right, 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:42.200 the business is kind of fucked up. They're all under 0:23:42.240 --> 0:23:44.199 the gun. There's a lot of like public you know, 0:23:44.280 --> 0:23:46.119 attention to them. And we did it cracked. 0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:47.840 Yeah, Yeah, that's what we did. It cracked, right. 0:23:47.920 --> 0:23:50.879 Yeah, we shot steroids into each other's asses and we 0:23:51.480 --> 0:23:56.040 partied about the end of days. Might as well record rumors, yeah, exactly, 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:00.080 you know you say. 0:23:59.880 --> 0:24:00.400 That, Tom. 0:24:00.480 --> 0:24:02.960 Most of our listeners have not heard the version of 0:24:03.000 --> 0:24:05.359 the chain that we recorded on the last day we 0:24:05.400 --> 0:24:08.160 all worked at Cracked Powerful Power. 0:24:09.560 --> 0:24:12.119 Yeah, yeah, we'll end, We'll end with it. It sounds 0:24:12.359 --> 0:24:14.600 it sounds a lot like me being confused. For you, 0:24:14.680 --> 0:24:19.440 in a case of criminal vandalism. 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:21.520 That did happen. 0:24:25.600 --> 0:24:29.800 I was doing a fake lass until you remember, well, 0:24:29.840 --> 0:24:32.120 I was really drunk when that went down top. 0:24:35.200 --> 0:24:38.520 Anyway. Yeah, fine. 0:24:38.800 --> 0:24:42.000 So the center of festivities for this this big drug 0:24:42.040 --> 0:24:44.879 fueled party the w w F is having are Brett 0:24:44.880 --> 0:24:47.639 and Owen Hart. Brett is one of the w w 0:24:47.800 --> 0:24:52.359 f's most promising stars after the Ultimate Warrior kind of collapses. 0:24:52.400 --> 0:24:54.640 He's going to be the w w f's like Big 0:24:54.680 --> 0:24:58.119 Man for a while. He's an excellent technical wrestler, one 0:24:58.160 --> 0:25:01.439 of the best. Well, he was such I was watching 0:25:01.440 --> 0:25:03.919 it pretty hardcore during this time. Yeah, and then and 0:25:03.920 --> 0:25:06.320 then I fell off again for several years until Attitude Era. 0:25:06.400 --> 0:25:07.879 But during the time that was really one of the 0:25:07.880 --> 0:25:10.600 coolest things about Brett Hart for me was that he 0:25:10.760 --> 0:25:11.960 wasn't Hulk. 0:25:11.720 --> 0:25:15.160 Or Ultimate Warrior. He was a totally different kind of wrestler. Yeah. Yeah, 0:25:15.200 --> 0:25:18.920 he's a really interesting guy and he's kind of smaller too. 0:25:18.920 --> 0:25:19.720 He's not a young guy. 0:25:20.200 --> 0:25:24.280 Yeah, neither Brett or Owen looked like they're eating their 0:25:24.320 --> 0:25:27.600 body weight and steroids every day. I mean yeah, So 0:25:27.760 --> 0:25:30.680 it's an interesting it's a change for the organization. Owen's 0:25:30.720 --> 0:25:33.560 his younger brother. They're both from this kind of famous 0:25:33.560 --> 0:25:38.880 wrestling dynasty. Owen had wrestled for the WWF like earlier 0:25:39.040 --> 0:25:41.440 in the eighties two as kind of a lame superhero 0:25:41.560 --> 0:25:44.160 character called the Blue Blazer. He didn't like that very much. 0:25:44.400 --> 0:25:47.239 He'd like spent some time wrestling in foreign countries, and 0:25:47.280 --> 0:25:50.000 now he was sort of getting back into the WWF. 0:25:50.440 --> 0:25:52.600 So the Hart brothers meet with a couple of other 0:25:52.640 --> 0:25:55.560 pro wrestlers at a strip club near the San Antonio 0:25:55.640 --> 0:25:58.320 Airport after a match with a huge bag of weed. 0:25:59.600 --> 0:26:02.320 The the new steroid testing rules are about to come 0:26:02.359 --> 0:26:04.240 into effect, and Brett recalls that a lot of the 0:26:04.280 --> 0:26:06.840 wrestlers there that night had a panicked look in their 0:26:06.920 --> 0:26:09.399 eyes over the possibility that they might not be able 0:26:09.400 --> 0:26:12.240 to use steroids anymore. So, right as they're all starting 0:26:12.280 --> 0:26:16.200 to get hammered, Vince McMahon shows up. This is unusual, 0:26:16.320 --> 0:26:18.840 and to make things more unusual, because everyone would normally 0:26:18.840 --> 0:26:21.239 be kind of unsettled event showed up for a night 0:26:21.240 --> 0:26:25.199 where all everybody's partying, but Vince is completely housed. He 0:26:25.320 --> 0:26:27.560 is just as drunk as it is possible for a 0:26:27.600 --> 0:26:29.879 man to be drunk enough that folks are like, he 0:26:29.960 --> 0:26:32.879 might not remember anything that happens tonight, so maybe we 0:26:32.960 --> 0:26:36.800 can actually party with them. So everyone decides that this 0:26:36.880 --> 0:26:38.800 means they're free to get even more fucked up than 0:26:38.800 --> 0:26:42.200 they were already getting, and so they do. Being wrestlers. 0:26:42.240 --> 0:26:45.560 Evins quickly lead to Vince demanding wrestlers put him in 0:26:45.640 --> 0:26:49.360 various like wrestling locks, like the doomsday device, a two 0:26:49.400 --> 0:26:50.720 man finisher. 0:26:50.440 --> 0:26:51.440 That should not be. 0:26:52.880 --> 0:26:55.360 It is a two man finisher that should not be 0:26:55.400 --> 0:26:57.240 performed on a strip club floor. 0:26:57.720 --> 0:26:59.679 You gotta think this is the best case scenario for 0:26:59.720 --> 0:27:02.840 everyone on that strip club. All the dancers are like, yes, please, 0:27:03.240 --> 0:27:06.200 men do the wrestling most from the cartoon show. 0:27:07.920 --> 0:27:11.639 So Vince survives and again is apparently drunk enough that 0:27:11.760 --> 0:27:14.560 everyone's like, he probably won't remember that we just nearly 0:27:14.680 --> 0:27:15.160 killed him. 0:27:15.800 --> 0:27:17.840 Did honk an animal do the dude? 0:27:17.920 --> 0:27:18.040 Was it? 0:27:18.280 --> 0:27:19.239 I think it might have been. 0:27:19.480 --> 0:27:23.399 Yeah, I think it might have been, so yeah, Vince. 0:27:23.600 --> 0:27:27.320 Vince lives through this and Eventually the club closes and 0:27:27.400 --> 0:27:30.840 someone suggests that like, Rick Flair has is the guy 0:27:30.880 --> 0:27:33.000 in town who has the nicest hotel room, so like, 0:27:33.040 --> 0:27:36.560 why don't we go party at Flare's hotel room. So 0:27:36.600 --> 0:27:38.720 they are all there's like thirty of them at this point, 0:27:38.760 --> 0:27:40.960 and they are all as drunk as anyone has ever been. 0:27:41.080 --> 0:27:44.399 They're stoned as shit. They're presumably on pain killers as well, 0:27:45.320 --> 0:27:48.399 and so they need an escort to the Marriott Marquee 0:27:48.640 --> 0:27:51.080 and Vince gets the cops, like calls the police and 0:27:51.119 --> 0:27:54.360 are like, we have to drive to the to the Marriott, 0:27:54.560 --> 0:27:56.879 but we're all hammered. Will you escort us? So no 0:27:56.920 --> 0:28:04.000 one dies? And the cops are like sure, that's very cool. 0:28:04.400 --> 0:28:06.680 So when they get there, Rick is not in his room, 0:28:06.800 --> 0:28:09.800 and Vince is basically like, I run the w WF, 0:28:09.840 --> 0:28:13.240 give me a fucking key. And he's just drunken, huge 0:28:13.320 --> 0:28:15.720 enough that the people at the hotel front desk are like, 0:28:16.440 --> 0:28:18.840 I am I am the overnight worker at a hotel 0:28:18.960 --> 0:28:20.560 in fucking San Antonio. 0:28:20.960 --> 0:28:23.040 I don't know, I'm not starting with ship. 0:28:23.480 --> 0:28:25.959 No, I wouldn't withhold a room key from a raging 0:28:26.080 --> 0:28:26.879 Vince McMahon. 0:28:27.200 --> 0:28:31.000 Yeah, backed up by a crowd of the drunkest muscleman 0:28:31.080 --> 0:28:37.639 you've ever seen in your life. So so a that 0:28:37.800 --> 0:28:41.200 is gonna kind of where this ends. So an awkward 0:28:41.320 --> 0:28:46.200 sat party. They go up to Rick's room and an 0:28:46.240 --> 0:28:50.200 awkward sad party ensues until someone has the brilliant idea 0:28:50.280 --> 0:28:52.960 to drop their pants and take a piss on Rick's bed, 0:28:53.640 --> 0:28:56.800 and this becomes everyone's like, well now we all have 0:28:56.920 --> 0:29:02.440 to do it, so god, I are thirty something person party, 0:29:02.480 --> 0:29:04.920 including Vince, one by one. 0:29:05.480 --> 0:29:14.040 Business requires just every single coming. They're like, you. 0:29:14.040 --> 0:29:18.600 Know, we're not going back with these men. So after 0:29:19.280 --> 0:29:22.320 what must have been just a torrent of the most 0:29:22.480 --> 0:29:28.560 steroid positive urine there has ever been, right that radioactive. 0:29:27.920 --> 0:29:31.560 By the end of it, that mattress guy fucking muscles 0:29:31.960 --> 0:29:33.120 Rick is not there. 0:29:33.240 --> 0:29:36.360 He comes back the next day to find this, which 0:29:36.480 --> 0:29:40.440 is very funny. So they're all having a good time 0:29:40.640 --> 0:29:44.360 until Vince starts to demand more wrestling. Brett and Owen 0:29:44.440 --> 0:29:47.680 are like, hey, buddy, we're all pretty hammered. This is 0:29:47.760 --> 0:29:50.640 like pretty tough stuff to do when you're sober. It 0:29:50.720 --> 0:29:52.520 might be a bad idea to do this in like 0:29:52.560 --> 0:29:55.960 a hotel room when everybody's this wasted, but There's a 0:29:55.960 --> 0:30:00.160 wrestler named Hercules Hernandez who's like not the brightest guy, 0:30:00.320 --> 0:30:03.040 and he agrees to give Vince a suplex, and he 0:30:03.120 --> 0:30:06.880 fucks it up and like hurts Vince pretty badly, and 0:30:06.920 --> 0:30:10.520 at this point everything stops. Brett later claimed, I remember 0:30:10.640 --> 0:30:13.080 Vince looking at herk and thinking he just locked that 0:30:13.120 --> 0:30:16.040 thought into his head. Brett says that the only thing 0:30:16.080 --> 0:30:18.080 he'll remember of this whole night is to fire that 0:30:18.120 --> 0:30:19.520 guy tomorrow, and. 0:30:19.480 --> 0:30:20.920 That's exactly what happened. But he does. 0:30:21.080 --> 0:30:25.760 Yeah, he shared ues, he shared us fires him for 0:30:25.800 --> 0:30:29.600 giving him the suplex. He asked, he demanded, he really ed. 0:30:30.280 --> 0:30:34.239 It is amazing how he does a Richard Belzer like 0:30:34.400 --> 0:30:37.080 this is the same thing that happened to the Bells, 0:30:38.120 --> 0:30:39.000 just demanding. 0:30:39.440 --> 0:30:42.680 Yeah, I think Hulk did that on purpose. Yeah, sure, 0:30:42.880 --> 0:30:45.800 but I'm I'm sure Hercules Hernandez did not mean to 0:30:45.920 --> 0:30:46.880 hurt Vince McMahon. 0:30:46.960 --> 0:30:50.200 No, no, he was. They were just a super wasted 0:30:50.600 --> 0:30:53.000 of like drug people like doing wrestling moves on each other. 0:30:53.040 --> 0:30:55.000 And that does not end like that, No, of course, 0:30:55.120 --> 0:30:57.920 not never. No, you shouldn't. 0:30:58.000 --> 0:31:04.080 You should not engage in and wrestling like high intensity wrestling. 0:31:04.240 --> 0:31:07.000 You shouldn't suplex people or anything like that when you're 0:31:07.040 --> 0:31:09.920 drunk enough that you are urinating with your friends on 0:31:10.040 --> 0:31:10.880 a man's bed. 0:31:12.200 --> 0:31:14.640 Here's the thing that we maybe haven't driven home over 0:31:14.640 --> 0:31:19.520 the course of this series. Wrestling's hard. Yeah, it's really difficult. 0:31:19.720 --> 0:31:23.360 It's really hard, Like anyway the people who are doing 0:31:23.480 --> 0:31:27.840 especially like these complicated multi person like flip blocks where 0:31:27.840 --> 0:31:29.960 you're like spinning a person's body you've got him by 0:31:30.000 --> 0:31:34.040 the neck. Sometimes like that's like an olympic grade like 0:31:34.280 --> 0:31:37.800 athletic move that you shouldn't do while drunk in a 0:31:37.880 --> 0:31:43.360 hotel room that's drenched in your friend's biss so funny. 0:31:43.520 --> 0:31:45.600 You shouldn't do it while wearing a cape, but these 0:31:45.600 --> 0:31:46.080 thys do that. 0:31:46.400 --> 0:31:49.680 Yeah, there are bad ideas if things are going the 0:31:49.680 --> 0:31:52.960 way it's But yeah, it says a lot that Vince 0:31:53.000 --> 0:31:55.480 would demand somebody put him in a suplex and then 0:31:55.520 --> 0:31:57.200 fire that man at the drop of a hat for 0:31:57.240 --> 0:32:01.240 embarrassing him. But while Vince had no who absolutely know, 0:32:01.400 --> 0:32:04.800 sympathy for a guy like herk, he was extremely forgiving 0:32:04.840 --> 0:32:09.360 when it came to another trespass child molestation. And this 0:32:09.440 --> 0:32:13.520 brings us to the story of Pat Patterson. So you 0:32:13.840 --> 0:32:15.360 guys know about the ring boy scandal. 0:32:16.920 --> 0:32:20.560 No, I know? Oh god, okay. 0:32:20.680 --> 0:32:24.280 So pat Patterson was a Canadian American wrestler born in 0:32:24.360 --> 0:32:27.680 nineteen forty one. He started wrestling as a fourteen year old, 0:32:27.720 --> 0:32:31.000 in between stints as an altar boy. For a time, 0:32:31.040 --> 0:32:33.080 he wanted to be a Catholic priest, which will be 0:32:33.120 --> 0:32:36.040 relevant shortly, but he wound up going with wrestling as 0:32:36.080 --> 0:32:39.280 a career. He immigrated to the US, he became a citizen, 0:32:40.000 --> 0:32:43.320 and he wrestled in Boston and then the Pacific Northwest 0:32:43.360 --> 0:32:46.440 and San Francisco throughout the nineteen sixties. That's a really 0:32:46.480 --> 0:32:49.400 common path, by the way, a lot of Canadians will 0:32:49.400 --> 0:32:53.840 go Boston or somewhere in New England, then Portland, Oregon, 0:32:53.960 --> 0:32:57.720 and then San Francisco kind of before becoming like national 0:32:58.040 --> 0:33:00.800 stars and stuff. This is a really and like path 0:33:00.840 --> 0:33:01.680 for people to take in. 0:33:01.600 --> 0:33:03.440 The most Canadian of American cities. 0:33:03.520 --> 0:33:07.720 Yeah yeah, yeah, So he's one to right the way 0:33:07.760 --> 0:33:08.600 that you're teasing. 0:33:08.680 --> 0:33:11.360 This story is a worse syh op than the Monster Mash. 0:33:11.760 --> 0:33:14.520 I don't know what else to do here. 0:33:15.480 --> 0:33:19.360 It is you should feel menaced. You should feel menaced. 0:33:19.360 --> 0:33:23.040 This is real bad. So Patterson becomes one of a 0:33:23.120 --> 0:33:26.080 small elite number of wrestlers who earned McMahon's trust and 0:33:26.080 --> 0:33:28.240 are able to stay in the business as executives for 0:33:28.280 --> 0:33:32.000 the company after their time as ringstars had largely passed. 0:33:32.240 --> 0:33:35.000 By early nineteen ninety two, Patterson is head of wrestling 0:33:35.040 --> 0:33:38.680 Operations for the WWF. He works closely with a man 0:33:38.760 --> 0:33:41.800 named Terry Garvin and a ring announcer slash crew chief 0:33:42.000 --> 0:33:45.080 named mel Phillips. All three are close friends, and all 0:33:45.240 --> 0:33:48.080 three also have a deep and abiding love from molesting 0:33:48.120 --> 0:33:52.840 young boys. Unfortunately for a lot of everyone, wrestling has 0:33:52.880 --> 0:33:55.600 a long and proud tradition of what are called ring boys. 0:33:56.000 --> 0:33:59.440 When a show would come into town, it would hire 0:33:59.480 --> 0:34:02.400 local teams to help set up and break down the set. Right, 0:34:02.680 --> 0:34:05.880 and you can see, obviously, like what teenage boy isn't 0:34:05.880 --> 0:34:09.600 going to want to help build WWF sets for it? 0:34:09.719 --> 0:34:12.480 Like no money but a chance to meet hulk Ogan, Right, 0:34:12.480 --> 0:34:14.719 of course you're going to do it. 0:34:14.719 --> 0:34:15.480 It is a job. 0:34:15.520 --> 0:34:18.479 It's not a safe job, obviously, like it's contracting work 0:34:18.520 --> 0:34:21.600 that thirteen year olds are often doing, so like it's dangerous, 0:34:21.600 --> 0:34:23.680 but again, you might meet hulk Ogan, so it's worth it. 0:34:24.160 --> 0:34:26.600 In the nineteen eighties, a thirteen year old boy named 0:34:26.640 --> 0:34:28.960 Tom Cole was hired to work as a ring boy 0:34:29.040 --> 0:34:31.640 for eighty dollars plus again the chance at getting a 0:34:31.719 --> 0:34:34.359 selfie with a wrestler. He had just run away from 0:34:34.400 --> 0:34:37.080 home and so he's basically a homeless youth who needs 0:34:37.120 --> 0:34:40.640 the money. This created a perfect situation for Mel Phillips, 0:34:40.800 --> 0:34:43.319 who always had an eye out for vulnerable young boys 0:34:43.360 --> 0:34:45.560 to groom, and of this kind of trio of guys 0:34:45.600 --> 0:34:49.360 who are working the WWF and managing the side op stuff, 0:34:50.200 --> 0:34:53.080 Phillips is kind of the groomer of them, right. So 0:34:53.640 --> 0:34:57.320 Tom traveled from Westchester County to Manhattan and eventually across 0:34:57.360 --> 0:34:59.960 the Eastern Seaboard, working as a ring boy and eventually 0:35:00.080 --> 0:35:02.600 becoming one of Mel's chief ring boys. He met a 0:35:02.640 --> 0:35:04.959 lot of other kids in the same situation and later 0:35:05.000 --> 0:35:07.879 recalled quote, mostly it was kids with a broken home 0:35:07.960 --> 0:35:11.520 with no father, just a drunk mother, alcoholic drug addict, whatever. 0:35:11.760 --> 0:35:13.560 That's pretty much the type of kid that Mel was 0:35:13.560 --> 0:35:16.759 geared towards. Mel told Tom that he should invite his 0:35:16.800 --> 0:35:18.839 friends when they were back in the areas where he'd 0:35:18.920 --> 0:35:22.160 grown up and have them come hang out backstage. So 0:35:23.040 --> 0:35:25.120 when the show gets back into his hometown, he like 0:35:25.239 --> 0:35:27.080 finds some of his buddies and he tells them to 0:35:27.080 --> 0:35:29.080 come like help set up and stuff and meet all 0:35:29.080 --> 0:35:32.600 these wrestlers. His friends are a little more cautious than him, 0:35:32.760 --> 0:35:35.120 like they immediately get the vibe. They get there, like 0:35:35.160 --> 0:35:37.600 all excited to meet Hulk, and then they meet Mel, 0:35:37.680 --> 0:35:41.200 who's like really weird and creepy, and they're like, hey, man, 0:35:41.440 --> 0:35:43.040 I don't know if you should be doing this, Like 0:35:43.080 --> 0:35:46.000 this seems like it's gonna go really really badly. But 0:35:46.160 --> 0:35:49.080 Tom keeps working. He stays, you know, keeps doing the 0:35:49.120 --> 0:35:51.120 ring boy stuff. And a few of his friends still 0:35:51.239 --> 0:35:54.879 hung around, and gradually Mel starts inviting them, like one 0:35:54.920 --> 0:35:57.480 after the other to come hang with him privately and 0:35:57.600 --> 0:36:00.320 like a back room. And whenever a kid would agree 0:36:00.440 --> 0:36:02.480 and like go back into a room with Mel, he 0:36:02.520 --> 0:36:05.120 would follow the same script, playing with their feet and 0:36:05.120 --> 0:36:09.640 then using their feet to masturbate himself. Yeah, this is 0:36:09.719 --> 0:36:13.040 this is rough, folks. It's it's it doesn't get easier here. 0:36:14.600 --> 0:36:16.879 I gotta tell you, Robert, when I was like. 0:36:18.400 --> 0:36:21.080 Really excited to be on the Vince McMahon episode, didn't 0:36:21.080 --> 0:36:22.600 expect we'd get into a story like this. 0:36:23.080 --> 0:36:28.239 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a trap. One 0:36:28.239 --> 0:36:32.120 of the best days, guys. Well, Vince comes back into 0:36:32.160 --> 0:36:36.080 this story. He's actually very very intricately involved in this. 0:36:36.320 --> 0:36:39.360 I have no doubt that he does, because I was 0:36:39.480 --> 0:36:42.960 very familiar with Pat Patterson as a figure on ww 0:36:43.200 --> 0:36:46.560 television for ten years following his retirement, and. 0:36:47.480 --> 0:36:49.960 Nary a mention of any of this on his Wikipedia. 0:36:50.360 --> 0:36:53.239 When I watched that Andre the Giant documentary that we 0:36:53.360 --> 0:36:55.839 like played a clip from, He's on it repeatedly. He's 0:36:55.840 --> 0:36:58.640 on it, like talking about Andrea's sex appeal, like it 0:36:58.760 --> 0:37:01.760 is so fucked up, it is so bad. 0:37:02.640 --> 0:37:06.279 He had enormous feet, yeah to him, like having sex 0:37:06.320 --> 0:37:07.480 with a thirty four foot woman. 0:37:11.280 --> 0:37:13.319 You know what, you know, what is a good thing 0:37:13.400 --> 0:37:15.480 to do right now is pull the ads. 0:37:17.000 --> 0:37:20.320 Perfect time, perfect time. They'll be delighted. They'll be delighted. 0:37:20.360 --> 0:37:30.120 Yeah yeah, ah, we're back and we're ready to make 0:37:30.160 --> 0:37:32.480 everybody real, real unhappy. 0:37:33.040 --> 0:37:35.960 You guys ready to be a lot less happy than 0:37:35.960 --> 0:37:37.200 you were this morning. 0:37:36.960 --> 0:37:41.120 Than than the child predator fucking feet. Yeah. 0:37:41.160 --> 0:37:43.600 I'm generally always prepared to be less happy at a 0:37:43.640 --> 0:37:44.360 moment's notice. 0:37:44.600 --> 0:37:47.840 Excellent, Yes, you have, You've been trained well by our country. 0:37:48.480 --> 0:37:53.279 So mel Phillips gets kind of more and more comfortable 0:37:53.800 --> 0:37:56.960 abusing some of these friends of Tom's and abusing Tom, 0:37:57.800 --> 0:37:59.719 and kind of as he starts to feel like these 0:37:59.800 --> 0:38:03.000 kids are ready, he starts bringing Garvin and pat Patterson 0:38:03.200 --> 0:38:05.520 in and like they start coming by to hang out 0:38:05.520 --> 0:38:09.399 with the boys. Tom later said of Patterson quote, he'd 0:38:09.400 --> 0:38:11.120 look at you when he was talking to you. He'd 0:38:11.120 --> 0:38:13.440 look right at your crotch, and he'd like lick his 0:38:13.520 --> 0:38:17.000 lips and shit, he'd make sexual gestures by looking at 0:38:17.000 --> 0:38:19.040 you like that. He'd put his hand on your ass 0:38:19.040 --> 0:38:21.160 and squeeze your ass and stuff like that. Again, Tom 0:38:21.200 --> 0:38:25.239 is a thirteen year old boy. Garvin would offer the 0:38:25.280 --> 0:38:28.560 boys drugs and booze, of which there were both plenty, 0:38:29.280 --> 0:38:31.760 and eventually, you know, this goes on for some period 0:38:31.840 --> 0:38:36.000 of time. Tom has abused for a while and eventually 0:38:36.040 --> 0:38:39.080 he starts saying no, he refuses, he stops, you know, 0:38:39.480 --> 0:38:42.279 going by to this. He kind of like pulls out 0:38:42.800 --> 0:38:45.040 and at this point he stops getting work as a 0:38:45.120 --> 0:38:47.279 ring boy. Basically, you know, he is a homeless youth, 0:38:47.360 --> 0:38:49.480 so this is something that he relied on for money, 0:38:49.520 --> 0:38:51.960 and they, you know, can him because he's not willing 0:38:52.000 --> 0:38:53.240 to be molested. 0:38:52.840 --> 0:38:55.880 Anymore, so that's bad. 0:38:56.680 --> 0:38:59.960 Time goes by a few years pass and then it's 0:39:00.040 --> 0:39:02.799 nineteen ninety and Tom, who is nineteen I think now, 0:39:03.080 --> 0:39:05.600 gets a call from Garvin again and Garvin's like, Hey, 0:39:06.080 --> 0:39:09.080 do you want to work for the WWF again? You know, 0:39:09.120 --> 0:39:12.080 we have a job in a warehouse. You know, we've 0:39:12.120 --> 0:39:14.120 got We've got some like work that you could do. 0:39:14.760 --> 0:39:17.480 Tom tells Garvin, like, I'll come back to the WWF, 0:39:17.560 --> 0:39:19.839 but you know I want to be an announcer someday, right, 0:39:19.920 --> 0:39:21.879 Like that's that's what I want to do. I'm only 0:39:21.920 --> 0:39:23.440 going to take this job if it's like can be 0:39:23.480 --> 0:39:26.520 a springboard to something bigger. And Garvin's like, oh yeah, 0:39:26.560 --> 0:39:29.080 sure that's possible, Like you could be an announcer. Why 0:39:29.080 --> 0:39:31.200 don't you come by my house and we'll talk about it. 0:39:31.400 --> 0:39:33.359 Oh my god, so don't do it. 0:39:33.600 --> 0:39:37.120 Tom, you know, goes there. He is immediately pressured for 0:39:37.239 --> 0:39:40.520 sex and he says no. And when this happens, Garvin 0:39:40.560 --> 0:39:43.040 refuses to drive him home. So Tom has to sleep 0:39:43.080 --> 0:39:47.399 in this guy's garage, like probably keeping one eye open 0:39:47.440 --> 0:39:50.040 the entire night, and then gets driven to work the 0:39:50.080 --> 0:39:53.640 next day, where Melvin tells him, actually, you're fired. You 0:39:53.680 --> 0:39:58.320 don't have a job after all, great great company, the WWF. 0:39:58.920 --> 0:40:02.720 So in the years between his first molestation in nineteen 0:40:02.760 --> 0:40:05.760 ninety one, Tom didn't talk to anyone about what had happened. 0:40:05.760 --> 0:40:07.640 He just kind of struggled alone with what had been 0:40:07.640 --> 0:40:10.239 done to him. But then in July of nineteen ninety one, 0:40:10.320 --> 0:40:13.839 Phil Mushnik, a journalist, published a story in The New 0:40:13.920 --> 0:40:16.960 York Post about the steroid abuse scandal in the WWF. 0:40:17.440 --> 0:40:19.960 Tom Cole read it while staying with his brother Lee, 0:40:20.360 --> 0:40:22.719 and reading about that scandal kind of helped him break 0:40:22.760 --> 0:40:24.640 through the wall that he'd put up between his loved 0:40:24.680 --> 0:40:26.800 ones and what had been done to him. He suddenly 0:40:26.840 --> 0:40:29.480 just kind of like tells his brother everything that had happened. 0:40:30.719 --> 0:40:34.040 So Lee is like, we've got to do something about this. 0:40:34.080 --> 0:40:36.239 We should sue them, we should talk to some journalists 0:40:36.320 --> 0:40:40.359 like this, the story needs to get out. So in October, 0:40:41.000 --> 0:40:44.080 with Lee's help, Tom reaches out to some journalists, one 0:40:44.080 --> 0:40:46.799 of whom is irv Muchnik, and one of whom is 0:40:47.000 --> 0:40:51.000 Phil Mushnick, who'd written that Post story. This is I'm 0:40:51.040 --> 0:40:54.239 sorry about this. They're very similar names, but they are 0:40:54.320 --> 0:40:58.680 different guys who are not relate. They related irv Muchnik, 0:40:58.719 --> 0:41:01.919 who is like the few of the guy who had 0:41:02.000 --> 0:41:06.840 helped start the NWA, and then Phil Mushnik mush in Ick. 0:41:07.680 --> 0:41:10.760 It's very frustrating. Somebody should have stopped this and changed 0:41:10.800 --> 0:41:15.799 one of their last names. I'm livid. But yeah, they 0:41:15.800 --> 0:41:18.520 are not related as far as I can tell. So 0:41:19.360 --> 0:41:22.720 Mushnik is like, hey, kid, you should like get a lawyer, 0:41:22.800 --> 0:41:24.759 en sue. You shouldn't just be talking to a journalist, 0:41:24.880 --> 0:41:27.640 Like what's happened to you is very much legally actionable 0:41:27.760 --> 0:41:31.600 and you are owed money, you know. And so Tom does, 0:41:31.840 --> 0:41:34.879 He finds a lawyer, and in February nineteen ninety two, 0:41:34.960 --> 0:41:38.279 Mushnick blows the story open publishes an article about it. 0:41:39.000 --> 0:41:41.320 And obviously this is in the middle of the steroid 0:41:41.360 --> 0:41:45.000 w scandal. This is an immediate, obvious, serious problem for 0:41:45.040 --> 0:41:48.880 the WWF plot, possibly like a life threatening problem for 0:41:48.960 --> 0:41:52.680 the organization. So of course Vince and Linda McMahon leap 0:41:52.760 --> 0:41:57.680 into action to protect the company good. So the first 0:41:57.680 --> 0:41:59.400 thing they do, so that's what really needs to be 0:41:59.440 --> 0:42:01.960 defended is not the thirteen year old boy that was molested, 0:42:02.000 --> 0:42:05.640 but this billion dollar corporation yeah, and the I will like, 0:42:05.719 --> 0:42:08.000 the first thing they do is the right thing. They 0:42:08.040 --> 0:42:11.360 fire all of the three perpetrators, right, So that's fine. 0:42:11.440 --> 0:42:13.440 You know, that would be the number one step that 0:42:13.480 --> 0:42:15.600 you would take if the Compson is in the WW 0:42:15.800 --> 0:42:16.440 Hall of Fame. 0:42:17.000 --> 0:42:18.200 Oh oh yeah, Tom. 0:42:19.200 --> 0:42:23.280 They don't all stay fired, but they start by firing 0:42:23.320 --> 0:42:26.120 all three guys, and then Vince starts going around to 0:42:26.120 --> 0:42:29.040 the press doing damage control, you know, and he's he's 0:42:29.080 --> 0:42:33.600 not great at this. He calls Mushnik, and Mushnik describes 0:42:33.600 --> 0:42:35.319 this as Vince like calls him and gives him like 0:42:35.680 --> 0:42:37.840 a pouring his heart out phone call. I'm going to 0:42:37.960 --> 0:42:40.959 quote from Josie Riseman here about like how this goes down. 0:42:41.520 --> 0:42:43.840 Apparently fearing that mel Phillips would soon become part of 0:42:43.880 --> 0:42:45.839 the public scandal, Vince told him that he had let 0:42:45.840 --> 0:42:49.319 Phillips go four years ago because Phillips's relationship with kids 0:42:49.320 --> 0:42:53.759 seemed peculiar and unnatural. Mushnik recalled McMahon said that he 0:42:54.080 --> 0:42:57.240 hired Phillips with the caveat that Phillips steer clear from kids. 0:42:57.520 --> 0:42:59.720 McMahon told me that it was his great regard for children, 0:42:59.760 --> 0:43:02.000 his own personal regard for children, and made him get 0:43:02.080 --> 0:43:04.719 rid of rid of Mel Phillips. Mushnick would later say 0:43:04.719 --> 0:43:07.360 in a deposition, Vince and Linda returned Phillips to the 0:43:07.440 --> 0:43:10.400 organization with the caveat that Mel still steer clear of 0:43:10.520 --> 0:43:14.760 underaged boys, stop hanging around kids, and stop chasing after kids. 0:43:15.239 --> 0:43:17.919 Vince allegedly said he'd brought Phillips back because the man 0:43:18.160 --> 0:43:21.680 really missed wrestling and really missed the scene, but that 0:43:21.760 --> 0:43:24.800 he was gone for good this time, so Vince's damage 0:43:24.800 --> 0:43:27.000 controls to be like, yeah, we knew this guy was 0:43:27.000 --> 0:43:30.120 a pedophile, so we fired him, but he really liked wrestling, 0:43:30.160 --> 0:43:31.120 so we brought him back. 0:43:31.120 --> 0:43:34.520 But now he's gone forever. Like how can you be? Like, sir, 0:43:34.640 --> 0:43:37.200 he bothered me with how he would look at kids, 0:43:37.200 --> 0:43:38.200 so I told him to stay. 0:43:38.080 --> 0:43:39.600 Away from kids. But you can have a job. 0:43:40.120 --> 0:43:42.719 Yeah, you could have your job back because you love 0:43:42.800 --> 0:43:43.960 wrestling so much. 0:43:45.200 --> 0:43:48.560 Like that's bad. That's pretty bad. 0:43:49.719 --> 0:43:54.880 It's pretty bad. Yeah, that's pretty bad stuff. So Vince 0:43:54.960 --> 0:43:59.040 later sues Mushnik for defamation because of these articles, but 0:43:59.160 --> 0:44:02.359 Riiseman says he know disputed Mushnik's story about the call. 0:44:02.480 --> 0:44:04.239 It's like, I don't know. Again, a lot of this 0:44:04.280 --> 0:44:08.799 is in dispute. Mushnik is broadly, like, definitely right about 0:44:08.800 --> 0:44:10.960 the story. He is a New York Post journalist, so 0:44:11.400 --> 0:44:14.680 he's not beyond above like fabulizing some of the details 0:44:14.680 --> 0:44:17.600 about Vince's response to him. Potentially, I will say that, 0:44:19.200 --> 0:44:22.120 but the fact that like Vince fires this guy and 0:44:22.160 --> 0:44:25.920 then brings him back seems pretty undisputed and real fucked up. 0:44:26.280 --> 0:44:29.799 So McMahon makes other calls too. Mostly his strategy is 0:44:29.840 --> 0:44:32.560 to throw Garvin and Phillips under the bus, but weirdly 0:44:32.640 --> 0:44:35.480 he tries to protect pat Patterson. He calls him an 0:44:35.560 --> 0:44:39.120 innocent man. I think just because there, as you stated earlier, Sean, 0:44:39.360 --> 0:44:41.680 they're the kind of friends who like jokingly try to 0:44:41.719 --> 0:44:42.840 show each other their poops. 0:44:42.920 --> 0:44:44.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:44:45.120 --> 0:44:47.319 That's that guy's got a foot thing, that guy's got 0:44:47.360 --> 0:44:49.680 a pedophile. Think, there's no reason to think that guy's 0:44:50.080 --> 0:44:52.080 a normal dude outside of the poop hiding. 0:44:52.840 --> 0:44:58.920 Yeah, exactly, as tends to happen in these kind of situations. 0:44:59.000 --> 0:45:02.200 Once the story breaks, more victims start to come forward 0:45:02.239 --> 0:45:05.600 and there are more news stories. Some fellow wrestlers take 0:45:05.640 --> 0:45:08.560 to the talk show circuit to Savage Vince, including his 0:45:08.680 --> 0:45:13.080 dad's old champion Bruno Sammartino. Bruno and another wrestler named 0:45:13.200 --> 0:45:16.280 Orton wind up on Larry King, with Vince talking about 0:45:16.320 --> 0:45:21.760 like the whole fucking mess. Sam, Yeah, yeah, Bob Orton, Bobon, 0:45:21.760 --> 0:45:24.560 all right, yeah. Sam Martino says there have been people 0:45:24.560 --> 0:45:26.400 who have come forward who caught him with an eleven 0:45:26.480 --> 0:45:29.880 year old boy having sex in a car, and Vince responds, 0:45:30.040 --> 0:45:32.000 did you actually see this incident in some sort of 0:45:32.040 --> 0:45:32.640 parking lot? 0:45:32.719 --> 0:45:33.840 Did you see that? Bruno? 0:45:34.280 --> 0:45:36.560 Sam Martino admitted he'd just been told about it, and 0:45:36.640 --> 0:45:40.240 Larry King then called the claim hearsay. Much of Vince's 0:45:40.440 --> 0:45:43.160 defense here focused around making the case that Sam Martino 0:45:43.239 --> 0:45:47.400 was unreliable or incompetent. Here's sex lies in headlocks quote. 0:45:48.000 --> 0:45:50.040 King switched to a guest on the phone, a former 0:45:50.160 --> 0:45:53.799 WWSF wrestler named Barry Orton Sorry, who also claimed that 0:45:53.840 --> 0:45:56.680 Garvin had accosted him in Texas in nineteen seventy eight 0:45:56.800 --> 0:45:59.520 when he was just nineteen. Barry King asked, why didn't 0:45:59.520 --> 0:46:01.600 we know about that sooner fourteen years ago when you 0:46:01.600 --> 0:46:04.360 were accosted? Why didn't you come forward? Just then, a 0:46:04.400 --> 0:46:08.279 third guest, Bruno Sammartino, interrupted King and orton, Larry, tell 0:46:08.320 --> 0:46:10.759 him who the man was, he said, then, realizing he'd 0:46:10.800 --> 0:46:13.880 addressed the wrong man, hastily added, I mean not Larry. 0:46:13.920 --> 0:46:17.000 I beg your pardon, Barry. You're a little confused, aren't you. 0:46:17.040 --> 0:46:19.479 Bruno McMahon jumped in, a trace of a smile playing 0:46:19.480 --> 0:46:21.120 around the edge of his lips. It was the kind 0:46:21.120 --> 0:46:23.480 of deflection that he did masterfully, and as the night 0:46:23.520 --> 0:46:25.839 war on, he kept doing it, making his accusers look 0:46:25.880 --> 0:46:29.520 bumbling and unsure. Right, So that's kind of Vince's strategy 0:46:29.680 --> 0:46:32.880 is like, this is complicated. People's memories are a little faded, 0:46:33.239 --> 0:46:37.120 you know. Bruno slips up and calls Barry Larry, and 0:46:37.200 --> 0:46:39.040 every time there's like a little fuck up like that, 0:46:39.160 --> 0:46:42.200 Vince kind of jumps in with the goal of attacking 0:46:42.239 --> 0:46:45.319 Sam Martino, right, because that's sort of the big the 0:46:45.400 --> 0:46:48.160 guy who that's to Sam Martino's credit, he kind of 0:46:48.200 --> 0:46:51.360 takes the cause of defending these ring boys on personally, 0:46:51.400 --> 0:46:53.239 and so that's who McMahon has to go after. 0:46:54.080 --> 0:46:56.560 Voice he's a very famous Yeah. 0:46:56.520 --> 0:46:59.040 Right, if a longtime wrestler gets a name wrong, that 0:46:59.080 --> 0:47:01.640 means there's no such thing as child predators. 0:47:01.760 --> 0:47:04.600 Yes, exactly, exactly there's no other reason a wrestler would 0:47:04.640 --> 0:47:07.560 get minor details of a story wrong. 0:47:08.680 --> 0:47:10.520 It's not like Bruno San Martino got hit in the 0:47:10.520 --> 0:47:12.120 head a lot or anything like that. Yeah. 0:47:12.200 --> 0:47:15.319 Yeah, So Vince's response to the media coverage of his 0:47:15.440 --> 0:47:18.880 organization's scandal was thoroughly modern. He distracted from the numerous 0:47:18.920 --> 0:47:24.719 allegations against the WF WF by attacking journalists, potentially particularly Mushnik, 0:47:24.960 --> 0:47:28.240 who he called quote something less than legitimate. The media 0:47:28.280 --> 0:47:30.600 has kept all of these accusers away from us, he said. 0:47:30.640 --> 0:47:32.160 They don't want us to talk to them. They don't 0:47:32.200 --> 0:47:34.000 want us to get to the bottom of the story. 0:47:34.920 --> 0:47:38.480 So Vince eventually agreed to negotiate with Tom, whose lawyer 0:47:38.520 --> 0:47:41.120 had advised him to demand seven hundred and fifty thousand 0:47:41.120 --> 0:47:44.320 dollars and not a cent less. Vince ensured that Tom 0:47:44.400 --> 0:47:47.239 was alone with his lawyer and without his brother Lee, 0:47:47.280 --> 0:47:50.920 who'd been helping him handle the situation. But Vince was 0:47:50.920 --> 0:47:53.719 not alone. Vince had both his wife, Linda McMahon and 0:47:53.800 --> 0:47:56.279 his legal representation in the room when they're talking to 0:47:56.280 --> 0:48:01.879 Tom without his lawyer present. In defensive statements by WWF representatives, 0:48:01.880 --> 0:48:04.440 what happened next is framed is the McMahon's shocked and 0:48:04.520 --> 0:48:07.759 horrified on Tom's behalf, leaping into action to meet the 0:48:07.800 --> 0:48:09.719 boy at once to try to help him. And I'm 0:48:09.719 --> 0:48:12.520 going to quote from Politico here. This was hardly a 0:48:12.560 --> 0:48:15.160 standard corporate move. The accuser had lawyered up, and most 0:48:15.239 --> 0:48:17.600 executives would have been hard at work putting distance between 0:48:17.600 --> 0:48:20.360 themselves and Coal, but the McMahon saw an opportunity to 0:48:20.520 --> 0:48:23.400 end the story, and, confident in their very different skills 0:48:23.600 --> 0:48:27.560 Vince's hard negotiating style Lenda's equally fearless charm, they sat 0:48:27.600 --> 0:48:31.560 down with Coal in his lawyer's office, and defenders of 0:48:31.560 --> 0:48:33.480 the McMahon's will kind of use the fact that they 0:48:33.600 --> 0:48:35.480 very quickly get into a room with the boy as 0:48:35.480 --> 0:48:39.120 evidence that they are their decent and caring and responsible right. Like, 0:48:39.160 --> 0:48:41.080 the way it's kind of framed is what other CEO 0:48:41.200 --> 0:48:43.680 of a company with a scandal like this would immediately 0:48:43.960 --> 0:48:46.160 sit down with the victim to ask how they could help. 0:48:46.680 --> 0:48:49.360 And that is technically what they do, but that's not 0:48:49.480 --> 0:48:53.360 the whole story. Here's Politico. Vince McMahon scoffed at the 0:48:53.400 --> 0:48:56.120 lawyer's demands for big money. Cole recalled, but he promised 0:48:56.120 --> 0:48:58.840 immediate action and offered Cole his job back, along with 0:48:58.960 --> 0:49:03.440 back wages alculated at fifty five thousand dollars. Cole signed 0:49:03.440 --> 0:49:05.439 the agreement on April eight and went to work next 0:49:05.440 --> 0:49:08.359 Monday to a charm offensive from Lenamic. Man, We're gonna 0:49:08.400 --> 0:49:10.120 send a car for you so you could go shopping. 0:49:10.160 --> 0:49:12.239 I'm sending five thousand dollars over so you can go 0:49:12.239 --> 0:49:15.880 get closed or whatever you need, he recalled her, telling him, 0:49:16.200 --> 0:49:20.080 So basically what they do is like, yeah. 0:49:19.520 --> 0:49:23.000 They're buying him off. Like that's that's like as of 0:49:23.040 --> 0:49:27.359 what he ought to get. Yeah, exactly, Like it's like 0:49:27.400 --> 0:49:28.280 it's they're taking. 0:49:28.080 --> 0:49:30.200 Advantage of the fact that he loves wrestling, right, these 0:49:30.200 --> 0:49:33.279 people are like he is young as a man, and 0:49:33.320 --> 0:49:35.160 he would much rather He's like, well, I would rather 0:49:35.239 --> 0:49:37.680 have a career in the WWF as an announcer than 0:49:37.760 --> 0:49:39.520 just get a pile of money. So you know, this 0:49:39.560 --> 0:49:41.400 seems like a really good deal. Maybe you know, they 0:49:41.440 --> 0:49:43.719 are horrified on my behalf and like they're going to 0:49:43.800 --> 0:49:46.319 basically adopt me, and like this is this is a 0:49:46.360 --> 0:49:49.399 troubled kid with a difficult family life, you know, and 0:49:50.080 --> 0:49:53.359 they know what his vulnerability is, right, Like they're they're 0:49:53.800 --> 0:49:54.560 very aware of that. 0:49:55.200 --> 0:49:57.719 Uh, it's such a bankrupt argument to says like, well, 0:49:57.760 --> 0:49:59.960 if why would they try to get him alone and 0:50:00.080 --> 0:50:03.080 room as quickly as possible after the accusations came out. 0:50:03.120 --> 0:50:05.920 It's like, really, yeah, are you are we are we 0:50:06.000 --> 0:50:07.319 really entertaining this, Like. 0:50:07.360 --> 0:50:10.680 It's yeah, it's and it's like. 0:50:11.000 --> 0:50:13.799 Or like or when they say they won't even they won't, 0:50:14.480 --> 0:50:16.520 it's it's like, I think Trump has done it too, 0:50:16.600 --> 0:50:23.000 But like when they keep the identities of the accusers 0:50:23.040 --> 0:50:26.279 secret for obvious reasons, but they're like, well they won't 0:50:26.280 --> 0:50:27.560 even let us know who they are so that we 0:50:27.600 --> 0:50:29.799 can face those our accusers. And it's like, well they 0:50:29.800 --> 0:50:32.480 don't let you do it so you can't like intimidate them, 0:50:32.560 --> 0:50:36.439 or yeah, you know you have a tremendous amount of power. Yes, 0:50:36.640 --> 0:50:40.960 you're a very powerful man. Like it's it's it's all 0:50:41.080 --> 0:50:44.440 really gross. And like that version of events that Politico 0:50:44.560 --> 0:50:47.520 gives again, like every story involving events, there's a couple 0:50:47.520 --> 0:50:49.600 of versions of this, but that version leaves out some 0:50:49.760 --> 0:50:53.600 key details. One is that the offer that the McMahons 0:50:53.640 --> 0:50:56.240 make for back pay, they kind of their their people 0:50:56.239 --> 0:50:58.560 frame it is like we immediately offered him all of 0:50:58.600 --> 0:51:01.120 this back pay right to like how him out. That 0:51:01.200 --> 0:51:04.759 offer only came after Vince rejected Tom's lawyer's demand for 0:51:04.800 --> 0:51:07.480 seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The two get into 0:51:07.520 --> 0:51:10.719 this really nasty argument and like Vince and Linda get 0:51:10.800 --> 0:51:13.920 up to leave the room and basically in negotiations, and 0:51:13.960 --> 0:51:16.640 that's when Tom cries out, no, don't go, I just 0:51:16.719 --> 0:51:20.959 want my job back. And at this point, like they're like, hey, 0:51:21.120 --> 0:51:22.520 you know, get your lawyer out of the room and 0:51:22.520 --> 0:51:26.919 we'll talk, and that's when the deal goes down. Right, Yeah, 0:51:27.000 --> 0:51:29.239 it's it's very gross. What's the source of the story? 0:51:29.280 --> 0:51:30.440 This sounds kind of made up? 0:51:30.840 --> 0:51:35.440 Yeah, it's like, so I'll quote from Riiseman again here, 0:51:35.480 --> 0:51:38.160 because this is this is according most of this is 0:51:38.200 --> 0:51:41.640 according to Lee, who is Tom's brother, who is told 0:51:41.640 --> 0:51:45.360 about what happens by Tom. Right, Tom is not around anymore, 0:51:45.400 --> 0:51:47.239 as we'll talk about, so, like Lee is kind of 0:51:47.239 --> 0:51:49.880 a major source for a lot of this stuff. And 0:51:49.960 --> 0:51:51.759 Lee is not in the room at the time, right, 0:51:51.880 --> 0:51:54.080 Like he's not allowed in. He's really angry about the 0:51:54.120 --> 0:51:55.040 fact that he's not there. 0:51:55.360 --> 0:51:57.319 Once we're not in, Robert, the way that you keep 0:51:57.400 --> 0:52:00.960 teasing this story, kind of telling us Tom not around anymore. 0:52:01.000 --> 0:52:03.239 We'll get to that. Yeah, I mean, I. 0:52:03.640 --> 0:52:06.360 Don't know how else to tell it. 0:52:06.360 --> 0:52:07.880 It is. It's messy. 0:52:07.960 --> 0:52:10.480 So I'm going to quote from Riiseman again describing what 0:52:10.560 --> 0:52:13.960 happens here. What did Vince tell Tom and that moment 0:52:13.960 --> 0:52:15.959 of intimacy, like when they're all alone in the room, 0:52:16.280 --> 0:52:18.760 mister McMahon explained to Tom that he had a difficult 0:52:18.840 --> 0:52:22.120 childhood himself. Is how Fuchsburg, which is the lawyer, would 0:52:22.120 --> 0:52:25.520 describe it to a reporter shortly afterwards, Hey, everyone just 0:52:25.560 --> 0:52:28.440 wanted to clarify again, I kind of summarized this wrong 0:52:28.480 --> 0:52:31.640 in my notes and so read it out something that 0:52:31.760 --> 0:52:37.400 wasn't entirely correct. The source here is not Lee, Tom's brother. 0:52:37.480 --> 0:52:41.680 This is all stuff that Lee said directly. Again, David Bixon, 0:52:41.760 --> 0:52:44.959 span great wrestling journalists, brought this up to me. Tom 0:52:45.000 --> 0:52:48.200 gave those details specifically in a nineteen ninety nine Wrestling 0:52:48.239 --> 0:52:52.000 Perspective interview that's been cited by basically anyone who's done 0:52:52.080 --> 0:52:54.840 good reporting on the Ring Boy scandal. Apologies for getting 0:52:54.840 --> 0:52:57.840 that wrong. Lee put it more bluntly. Vince McMahon started 0:52:57.840 --> 0:53:00.200 telling him Tom, I was molested also when I was 0:53:00.200 --> 0:53:02.080 a kid. I want to start on a clean slate 0:53:02.120 --> 0:53:04.280 with you, Vince said, I want to take care of everything. 0:53:04.520 --> 0:53:06.879 How would you feel about that? Tom got a good 0:53:06.960 --> 0:53:09.839 feeling that mister McMahon really cared. He shook hands with 0:53:09.880 --> 0:53:14.520 Tom and offered him his job back. So that's the 0:53:14.560 --> 0:53:17.320 claim that like Lee makes, and I think that Tom's 0:53:17.360 --> 0:53:20.560 lawyer makes, is that McMahon tried to like connect with 0:53:21.080 --> 0:53:25.879 Tom over their shared experience of suffering being abused as children. Yes, 0:53:26.640 --> 0:53:29.560 in order to gain his trust, Vince would do Yep, 0:53:30.160 --> 0:53:33.920 seems vincey. So some of the promises that McMahon's maid 0:53:34.000 --> 0:53:36.600 did come true. Tom got new clothes, he did get 0:53:36.600 --> 0:53:39.240 his job back, He got some money. It is unclear 0:53:39.320 --> 0:53:41.759 how much, certainly less than he would have gotten an 0:53:41.760 --> 0:53:45.320 illegal settlement. In a nineteen ninety nine interview, he explained 0:53:45.400 --> 0:53:48.160 this as saying basically that he hadn't wanted a lawsuit. 0:53:48.200 --> 0:53:49.960 He just one of the bad guys fired and a 0:53:50.040 --> 0:53:52.719 chance at a career in wrestling. I loved working for 0:53:52.760 --> 0:53:55.280 the business. It's what I wanted to do my whole life. 0:53:56.480 --> 0:53:59.000 As part of this agreement, the WWF sent Tom Cole 0:53:59.040 --> 0:54:02.319 to community college but they also set an expectation for 0:54:02.360 --> 0:54:05.120 his grades that all of the money would stop if 0:54:05.120 --> 0:54:08.640 he couldn't meet a certain grade point average. Tom is 0:54:08.640 --> 0:54:11.680 again a troubled kid who has a difficult history with education. 0:54:12.440 --> 0:54:14.720 He does not do well in school, so they stopped 0:54:14.760 --> 0:54:17.320 paying for it and eventually fire him from his job. 0:54:18.080 --> 0:54:21.160 In a nineteen ninety nine interview, he described Vince's manipulated 0:54:21.239 --> 0:54:24.040 and ruthless and said this of Linda, I wish I 0:54:24.040 --> 0:54:26.680 could say she was a nice person. Sometimes she gave 0:54:26.680 --> 0:54:29.160 me that feeling, and sometimes she didn't. I don't know 0:54:29.200 --> 0:54:32.600 what I feel about Linda McMahon. Disappointed, disappointed in everything 0:54:32.640 --> 0:54:36.320 that she had promised that they would do. Tom struggled 0:54:36.320 --> 0:54:37.640 with what had been done with him the rest of 0:54:37.680 --> 0:54:40.040 his life, the way that he'd been taken advantage of 0:54:40.080 --> 0:54:43.480 by the McMahons. He committed suicide in twenty twenty one. 0:54:43.800 --> 0:54:50.600 This all happened quite recently, unfortunately, So yeah, it's a bummer. 0:54:51.280 --> 0:54:55.240 It's a real bleak story. Sorry, man, that's bullshit. Yeah 0:54:55.800 --> 0:54:57.520 that happened. That is bullshit. 0:54:57.640 --> 0:55:00.279 Vince spent like two hundred and fifty thousand dollars hiring 0:55:00.280 --> 0:55:02.000 people to distract him from his studies. 0:55:02.480 --> 0:55:07.520 Yeah, having people steal his school books. Yeah, make sure 0:55:07.560 --> 0:55:10.240 he gets a D or do come back to my office? 0:55:11.320 --> 0:55:16.839 Yeah, I mean I'm sure he probably did have this 0:55:16.880 --> 0:55:19.040 guy like followed probably right. 0:55:18.920 --> 0:55:22.880 Yeah, I mean, not an unreasonable thing to expect. You 0:55:22.960 --> 0:55:25.719 know what he Elsie does. Now this does happen like 0:55:25.960 --> 0:55:29.320 more than a decade later, but he rehires Pat Patterson. 0:55:33.520 --> 0:55:33.719 Yep. 0:55:33.840 --> 0:55:39.000 Pat Patterson's a major TV figure during the Attitude era. Yeah, 0:55:39.320 --> 0:55:40.680 so Pat gets brought back. 0:55:41.160 --> 0:55:41.359 Yeah. 0:55:41.360 --> 0:55:42.840 I think it's like a decade later or something like that. 0:55:42.840 --> 0:55:46.400 He's out for a while, but he comes back. Uh, 0:55:46.440 --> 0:55:50.000 And yeah, that's that's how Vince McMahon handles a child 0:55:50.040 --> 0:55:56.319 sex abuse scandal in his organization. Good guy, I had. 0:55:56.480 --> 0:56:01.160 I had never even heard a rumor like this about 0:56:01.200 --> 0:56:03.560 Pat Patterson. And I'm a person who's been watching wrestling 0:56:03.640 --> 0:56:09.879 his entire life, so like, yeah, it's wild, pretty man. Yeah, 0:56:10.080 --> 0:56:14.759 he buried that this story so thoroughly. And it's like 0:56:16.080 --> 0:56:19.640 he's every time there's a documentary about this era, like 0:56:19.680 --> 0:56:23.480 Patterson will fucking show up. It's so insane to me 0:56:24.040 --> 0:56:31.160 that like he just he's always around still, like seeing 0:56:31.239 --> 0:56:35.920 him in fucking in documentaries talking about Andre the Giant 0:56:35.960 --> 0:56:39.360 and like a documentary produced by Bill Simmons. It's like, 0:56:40.080 --> 0:56:42.880 how is he allowed to be on it on screen? 0:56:42.960 --> 0:56:43.439 Right now? 0:56:43.680 --> 0:56:47.680 Yeah? Did nobody look into this? Like yeah, jesus. 0:56:48.400 --> 0:56:49.040 Yeah. 0:56:49.080 --> 0:56:51.160 And when he came on to The Ultimate Warrior documentary 0:56:51.160 --> 0:56:54.799 and like rated all the Tag Team's feet by fuckibility, 0:56:54.840 --> 0:56:56.799 I was like, this a little seems weird. 0:56:56.840 --> 0:56:59.359 It seems weird. Yeah, it seems peculiar, seems like an 0:56:59.360 --> 0:57:01.320 odd special feature for the Warrior DVD. 0:57:02.080 --> 0:57:05.239 Yeah, and there's like, you can find defenses of this guy. 0:57:05.280 --> 0:57:10.200 I'm looking at Jesus Christ. An article on last Word 0:57:10.239 --> 0:57:14.440 on sports dot Com by Jared Sullivan called the persecution 0:57:14.719 --> 0:57:16.160 of pat Patterson. 0:57:17.240 --> 0:57:21.200 The poor persecution of the child predator, and. 0:57:21.480 --> 0:57:24.680 It is okay, yeah he is pretty yet yeah, because 0:57:24.720 --> 0:57:26.760 Patterson is openly homosexual. 0:57:26.800 --> 0:57:28.280 So okay, that's what this is about. 0:57:28.960 --> 0:57:30.880 He's one of the first, I believe, one of the 0:57:30.880 --> 0:57:32.800 first pro wrestlers to be openly gay. 0:57:32.840 --> 0:57:35.960 I think, yeah, he is the first. 0:57:36.200 --> 0:57:36.920 Yeah wow. 0:57:37.240 --> 0:57:39.960 So this is a whole article about, legitimately the persecution 0:57:40.040 --> 0:57:42.320 he faces as a gay man in wrestling that does 0:57:42.360 --> 0:57:44.680 not at all mention the fact that he also had 0:57:44.800 --> 0:57:48.800 like got fired for credible claims of child man. This 0:57:48.880 --> 0:57:51.880 is also problematic. Let's let's move on to steroids. That's 0:57:51.920 --> 0:57:59.200 a lot more fun. The sexual humiliation of the Attitude era. Please, 0:58:00.000 --> 0:58:02.360 that's my ass club. Can we just talk about that? 0:58:02.720 --> 0:58:09.600 Yeah? Yeah, let's get I want to turn too, Yeah right, 0:58:09.640 --> 0:58:11.800 all right? An pennies match? Can we talk about a 0:58:11.800 --> 0:58:12.680 bron pennies match? 0:58:12.800 --> 0:58:16.040 We talked about Jerry the King Waller screaming puppies over 0:58:16.080 --> 0:58:18.400 and over again, just for ten straight years. 0:58:18.680 --> 0:58:23.320 Yeah, wrestling So uh yeah. That article that had qued 0:58:23.320 --> 0:58:25.960 Tom In on the WWF steroid scandal and kind of 0:58:26.000 --> 0:58:28.640 started all of this was one of the many pieces 0:58:28.680 --> 0:58:31.520 published after the nineteen ninety one conviction of George so Horian, 0:58:31.920 --> 0:58:33.960 the US attorney who had prosecuted it. 0:58:34.360 --> 0:58:34.600 Ted. 0:58:34.680 --> 0:58:37.200 Smith wasn't initially sure if he wanted to go after 0:58:37.280 --> 0:58:39.720 Vince McMahon or not and like actually make a broader 0:58:39.760 --> 0:58:42.600 case against the WWF and against Vince as the ring 0:58:42.680 --> 0:58:45.960 leader of any of this. He'd seen circumstantial evidence and 0:58:46.040 --> 0:58:48.320 allegations saying that Vince had been kind of the head 0:58:48.400 --> 0:58:51.240 of the WWF steroid ring, but he didn't have horrid 0:58:51.280 --> 0:58:54.040 objective proof of it. You know, this was all made 0:58:54.040 --> 0:58:56.120 His job was made more difficult by the fact that 0:58:56.160 --> 0:58:59.960 superstar Billy Graham told press uh or told the media 0:59:00.320 --> 0:59:04.120 that Smith, this US attorney, had asked him to wear 0:59:04.160 --> 0:59:07.360 a wire for an FBI probe of moblinks to McMahon. 0:59:07.840 --> 0:59:08.920 This was not true. 0:59:09.000 --> 0:59:11.920 Nobody asked superstar Billy Graham to wear a wire to 0:59:11.960 --> 0:59:14.400 like prove that McMahon was in bed with the mob, 0:59:15.400 --> 0:59:18.000 and it created an embarrassing circus around the story. And 0:59:18.040 --> 0:59:21.400 so Smith like sees this mess around Billy Graham just 0:59:21.440 --> 0:59:23.720 like saying shit for some reason. It is like, I 0:59:23.720 --> 0:59:25.800 don't know if I want to like get involved in 0:59:25.880 --> 0:59:28.960 a big case with the WWF. Maybe it's like too 0:59:29.000 --> 0:59:31.480 much of a distraction, too bad for my career whatever. 0:59:31.720 --> 0:59:35.120 You know, these are political positions US attorneys. So he's 0:59:35.160 --> 0:59:38.840 thinking about his political few. Is Carney as shit? It 0:59:38.920 --> 0:59:40.640 is Carney as shit. Maybe he's like, I don't know, 0:59:40.720 --> 0:59:45.000 too messy. So one of his colleagues, though Brian O'Shea 0:59:45.400 --> 0:59:48.800 or Sean o'she sorry, who works for the US Attorney's 0:59:48.800 --> 0:59:51.880 office in Brooklyn and is like a securities fraud guy, 0:59:52.360 --> 0:59:55.160 thinks that there might be provable wrongdoing by Vince. 0:59:55.280 --> 0:59:55.960 That's kind of in. 0:59:55.920 --> 0:59:59.080 His purview, and so he had been like interviewing wrestlers 0:59:59.080 --> 1:00:02.080 for a while in a grand jury scenario to try 1:00:02.120 --> 1:00:06.480 and like get an indictment against Evince. So nineteen ninety 1:00:06.480 --> 1:00:08.280 two dawns, and this is going to be like the 1:00:08.320 --> 1:00:11.480 worst year of Vince's life. In addition to the ring 1:00:11.560 --> 1:00:15.000 boy scandal kind of blowing up and wrestlers and employees 1:00:15.040 --> 1:00:17.280 coming forward to say that they've been harassed or assaulted 1:00:17.280 --> 1:00:22.240 by Patterson, you know, you get just this increasing sort 1:00:22.280 --> 1:00:24.600 of flood of rumors that he's also the guy behind 1:00:24.720 --> 1:00:27.800 the steroid abuse ring in the WWF. 1:00:28.080 --> 1:00:30.680 Comparatively, nineteen ninety two was a really good year for me. 1:00:30.800 --> 1:00:32.920 Like my Little League team made it to the playoffs. 1:00:32.960 --> 1:00:34.880 Batman Returns came out that summer. 1:00:35.200 --> 1:00:39.120 Yeah wow, it's almost like you never cover it up 1:00:39.480 --> 1:00:42.919 a child abuse scandal or a steroid abuse ring. 1:00:43.480 --> 1:00:46.000 Tom, I was only wearing a little League Okay, that 1:00:46.040 --> 1:00:49.520 makes sense, snity. Yeah. I learned how to reverse dunk 1:00:49.600 --> 1:00:52.040 in nineteen ninety two. Very proud of that. Yeah, that's chill, 1:00:52.160 --> 1:00:52.800 that's awesome. 1:00:53.240 --> 1:00:56.280 Yeah, I did run an illegal steroid ring in nineteen 1:00:56.360 --> 1:01:00.200 ninety two, but because I was like four years old. 1:01:00.280 --> 1:01:03.160 The steroids, it was like they were like mud steroids, 1:01:03.160 --> 1:01:05.959 you know, and and and you know, you know kids 1:01:05.960 --> 1:01:10.880 make like mud pies steroids. Yeah, yeah, exactly, Yeah to 1:01:10.960 --> 1:01:12.919 a syringe mud shoot mud in deer. 1:01:12.960 --> 1:01:14.320 But yeah you could. 1:01:14.440 --> 1:01:17.160 You could have headed fucking hulkster a syringe full of mud. 1:01:17.360 --> 1:01:25.480 He would have taken it. So April of nineteen kie 1:01:27.400 --> 1:01:32.320 just boopie. 1:01:33.160 --> 1:01:35.320 So in April of ninety two, while all this is 1:01:35.360 --> 1:01:38.480 going on, Rita Chatterton comes forward and she, for the 1:01:38.480 --> 1:01:41.560 first time makes her public allegations public that Vince has 1:01:41.560 --> 1:01:44.440 has sexually assaulted her. Right, So all of this is 1:01:44.480 --> 1:01:47.400 happening in the same year. And to make matters worse 1:01:47.400 --> 1:01:50.720 for Evins, his expensive bodybuilding league had just brought on 1:01:50.840 --> 1:01:54.560 Lufarigo right at the same time that the government cracks 1:01:54.600 --> 1:01:57.280 down on steroids, and so he has to stop everyone 1:01:57.320 --> 1:01:59.880 from using steroids. And if you know anything about loufar 1:02:00.200 --> 1:02:02.480 No in nineteen ninety two, he is not going to 1:02:02.520 --> 1:02:05.440 be happy when you tell him to stop using steroids. 1:02:06.120 --> 1:02:07.479 He was like, you go to hell. 1:02:07.760 --> 1:02:13.200 Yeah, he hoped out on him. So he Vince brings 1:02:13.240 --> 1:02:16.000 in a specialist to help wean his bodybuilders off of 1:02:16.040 --> 1:02:19.720 gear and onto human growth hormoid hormone, which is untraceable, 1:02:19.760 --> 1:02:22.640 at least at the time. That's the allegation made in 1:02:22.640 --> 1:02:26.080 the book Sex Lies and Headlocks. One of Vince's bodybuilders 1:02:26.120 --> 1:02:28.720 later claimed, we all had our connections on the streets. 1:02:28.880 --> 1:02:30.680 If you were smart, you could get around the test. 1:02:30.880 --> 1:02:32.840 The ones who could afford it just moved onto human 1:02:32.880 --> 1:02:36.160 growth hormones taken from human cadavers, which was the latest thing. 1:02:36.440 --> 1:02:39.440 I wasn't worried. It was my knowledge against Vinces. Some 1:02:39.480 --> 1:02:42.680 of the guys just fell apart. It gives me the 1:02:42.760 --> 1:02:47.560 power of the un shitn't corps juice into so they 1:02:47.600 --> 1:02:54.600 can necromancing each other. Yes, that's how Vince's gonna cracking 1:02:54.680 --> 1:02:55.440 up bodybuilding. 1:02:55.600 --> 1:02:58.280 Oh feels the moonlight on my internal flesh. 1:02:58.320 --> 1:03:03.520 Brother Undertaker literally was the dead man, I guess just yeah, 1:03:03.640 --> 1:03:09.720 it's it's pretty cool. Jesus Christ, the fucking DNA of 1:03:09.760 --> 1:03:13.560 a thousand dead men swirling in the warriors veins suddenly 1:03:13.600 --> 1:03:14.520 makes a lot of sense. 1:03:15.320 --> 1:03:17.960 So we've just given everyone a couple more days off 1:03:17.960 --> 1:03:20.320 a week, and they wouldn't have to inject themselves with 1:03:20.800 --> 1:03:22.120 the flesh of man, right. 1:03:22.680 --> 1:03:26.480 Maybe just reduce your touring schedule by I don't know 1:03:26.720 --> 1:03:29.960 seventy dates. No, no, no, Tom. I think cannibalism is 1:03:30.000 --> 1:03:33.440 the right answer here. That's the that's the responsible corporate 1:03:33.520 --> 1:03:37.439 move is to engage in muscle cannibalism. I man, I'm 1:03:37.480 --> 1:03:40.760 waiting for the expos of Hulk Hogan fucking eating a dude, 1:03:41.360 --> 1:03:47.080 just eating a dead man eating a dude. Oh man, 1:03:47.360 --> 1:03:51.000 So those photos get leaked on a TMZ or some Yeah, 1:03:51.280 --> 1:03:52.360 find it, folks, you can. 1:03:52.400 --> 1:03:55.360 You can avenge gawker. This is the only way. 1:03:55.480 --> 1:03:57.960 Four times while he's eating that dude, he can't help it. 1:03:57.960 --> 1:03:59.440 It's unrelated to anything. 1:03:59.480 --> 1:03:59.919 He's just. 1:04:02.520 --> 1:04:05.680 Vince also uses this opportunity. This is an opportunity to 1:04:05.760 --> 1:04:09.720 shield to his bodybuilders a supplement that he'd started selling. 1:04:10.160 --> 1:04:10.240 Uh. 1:04:10.320 --> 1:04:12.600 And the supplement is made by a nutritionist that he 1:04:12.640 --> 1:04:15.240 hires as a contractor called doctor Squat. 1:04:16.160 --> 1:04:16.880 So that sounds. 1:04:17.000 --> 1:04:22.640 That sounds so they are taking We've already talked about 1:04:22.680 --> 1:04:27.080 the corpse human growth hormones. This pill doctor Squat made 1:04:27.360 --> 1:04:30.280 is made from the ground up antlers of lactating deer. 1:04:33.720 --> 1:04:35.920 Give me it's a positive. Its so funny. 1:04:36.520 --> 1:04:40.520 Unfortunately, this doesn't work, and his bodybuilders started to deflate 1:04:41.240 --> 1:04:43.320 and as a big June evench at the Long Beach 1:04:43.400 --> 1:04:46.840 Convention Center nears, there's just like he's got a bunch 1:04:46.880 --> 1:04:50.160 of bodybuilders whose muscles are melting off of them. 1:04:50.560 --> 1:04:53.280 The event becomes it's so great. Uh, this is a 1:04:53.320 --> 1:04:55.160 massive failure. I'm sure you're about to stay here, yea. 1:04:55.440 --> 1:04:59.320 The announcers looking at these like puffy, like tired men. 1:05:00.040 --> 1:05:01.720 They keep trying to cover it like, oh, he's been 1:05:01.760 --> 1:05:04.680 pretty sick lately, Like they can't say, oh, yeah, we 1:05:04.680 --> 1:05:07.240 can't do steroids anymore. That's why these guys look so terrible. 1:05:07.280 --> 1:05:10.040 It's like they just keep finding excuses during the show. 1:05:10.040 --> 1:05:14.280 It's fantastic, it's so funny. It is such a disaster 1:05:14.440 --> 1:05:18.160 financially that one of Vince's underlings calculates that if Vince 1:05:18.200 --> 1:05:21.640 had instead of starting the WBF, if he had paid 1:05:21.960 --> 1:05:24.800 each of the thirteen thousand guests at that event ten 1:05:24.880 --> 1:05:28.280 thousand dollars, they would have walked out ahead financially. 1:05:28.400 --> 1:05:31.160 Oh my god, it goes so badly. 1:05:31.680 --> 1:05:34.120 The best way to frame that, that's an incredible way 1:05:34.160 --> 1:05:37.640 to frame that failure, like what. 1:05:40.560 --> 1:05:41.920 So what a wet fart? 1:05:42.120 --> 1:05:45.360 Like anything else, nothing else in history has landed with 1:05:45.400 --> 1:05:46.760 such a thunderous thud. 1:05:47.480 --> 1:05:50.479 We could have established basic income for most of Long 1:05:50.520 --> 1:05:53.040 Beach and made this. 1:05:53.480 --> 1:05:57.040 Yeah, it's a weird bodybuilding league. 1:05:59.280 --> 1:05:59.640 I don't know. 1:05:59.680 --> 1:06:03.120 Maybe he's made some money with the reindeer pills or 1:06:03.120 --> 1:06:04.320 the deer pills. 1:06:04.320 --> 1:06:04.800 Who knows. 1:06:05.400 --> 1:06:09.200 So the Eastern District Court of New York eventually brings 1:06:09.280 --> 1:06:13.880 charges against Vince for distributing steroids and conspiracy to distribute steroids. 1:06:14.200 --> 1:06:16.440 The case goes to court in nineteen ninety four and 1:06:16.520 --> 1:06:20.600 Hulkgan testifies in exchange for immunity from prosecution. He'd started 1:06:20.600 --> 1:06:24.720 working for Ted Turner's outfit, the WCW during this period, 1:06:24.760 --> 1:06:28.120 so like he's not professionally tied to Vince anymore, although 1:06:28.240 --> 1:06:31.200 he'll come back. A lot of guys have left for 1:06:31.240 --> 1:06:34.960 the WCW at this point. Ten wrestlers other wrestlers, so 1:06:34.960 --> 1:06:38.600 eleven wrestlers in total, testify for the government, but none 1:06:38.600 --> 1:06:41.560 of them claim that Vince gave them steroids, just that 1:06:41.600 --> 1:06:44.400 they felt pressured by him to take steroids right to 1:06:44.400 --> 1:06:46.960 get bigger. So they don't actually have the claim that 1:06:47.080 --> 1:06:49.680 Vince was ordering anyone to do anything, or that he 1:06:49.800 --> 1:06:52.760 was handing out the steroids right, just that I felt 1:06:52.840 --> 1:06:54.560 like we weren't going to get the job if we 1:06:54.560 --> 1:06:55.800 weren't big enough, right. 1:06:56.240 --> 1:06:59.480 I believe that that's true. Well, yeah, Vince is not 1:06:59.560 --> 1:07:02.120 that dump right right. I feel like Vince is, like 1:07:02.200 --> 1:07:04.959 he's an awful, terrible man. He's a demon, but he's 1:07:05.040 --> 1:07:08.280 kind of shrewd, and it seems like he would keep 1:07:08.360 --> 1:07:10.360 himself out, he would be smart enough to keep himself 1:07:10.400 --> 1:07:11.959 out of all of those conversations. 1:07:12.960 --> 1:07:15.000 And it's it's one of those things there are when 1:07:15.120 --> 1:07:17.640 you hear fans talk about this, to talk about like, well, 1:07:17.640 --> 1:07:20.880 Hogan definitely light under oath, and that's possible. I'm not 1:07:20.920 --> 1:07:24.080 gonna make those claims or get into that among other things. 1:07:24.560 --> 1:07:27.680 The jury deliberates and renders a verdict of not guilty. Right, 1:07:27.760 --> 1:07:29.680 So it is it would be defamation to be like 1:07:29.760 --> 1:07:33.840 Hogan definitely light under oath and Vince McMahon definitely, you know, 1:07:34.000 --> 1:07:37.720 was guilty because I simply can't say that, right, I don't. 1:07:37.760 --> 1:07:40.040 I don't mind saying it. Hulk Cogan definitely lie. 1:07:41.120 --> 1:07:45.280 There we go shot babies, right, What did he say? 1:07:45.280 --> 1:07:47.640 He said like he only used steroids like twice or 1:07:47.640 --> 1:07:50.480 some shit after he like got hurt or something like 1:07:50.520 --> 1:07:53.240 his his testimony was really weak. But he doesn't he 1:07:53.320 --> 1:07:54.480 doesn't implicate Vince. 1:07:55.000 --> 1:07:58.400 He doesn't implicate Vince, and it is possible Vince didn't 1:07:58.400 --> 1:08:01.160 cross a line that would have gotten him convicted. It's 1:08:01.200 --> 1:08:05.040 also possible that, like it was arranged, that people would 1:08:05.080 --> 1:08:07.680 tell just enough of the truth to not get in 1:08:07.720 --> 1:08:10.720 trouble themselves while still not talking about the things that Vince. 1:08:10.520 --> 1:08:11.360 Did that were illegal. 1:08:11.680 --> 1:08:15.360 All of this is possibly true, whether or not Vince actually, 1:08:15.560 --> 1:08:17.879 you know, broke the law. He has declared non guilty. 1:08:17.880 --> 1:08:21.160 And also I think he's morally responsible for what happens 1:08:21.200 --> 1:08:23.719 with steroids in the WWF to a significant extent. 1:08:23.920 --> 1:08:26.799 And of course he created that culture. He designed that culture. 1:08:26.880 --> 1:08:30.880 He definitely found ways. Look, I have no doubt that 1:08:30.920 --> 1:08:35.920 he when all the wrestlers testified, well we felt pressured. Yeah, sure, 1:08:36.000 --> 1:08:38.120 of course he was the architect of all of that, 1:08:38.320 --> 1:08:38.760 no doubt. 1:08:38.840 --> 1:08:38.920 Ye. 1:08:39.000 --> 1:08:42.200 But I also I don't have any trouble believing that 1:08:42.320 --> 1:08:45.160 Vince kept himself out of the conversation so that there 1:08:45.200 --> 1:08:49.040 was nothing to substantially link him to any of that. 1:08:49.800 --> 1:08:52.880 No, and you know what, there's nothing to substantially link 1:08:52.960 --> 1:08:58.240 me to these products and services. Oh, I was going 1:08:58.280 --> 1:09:01.040 to say, the Japanese Red Army. But yes, these products 1:09:01.040 --> 1:09:05.840 and services also no direct connection that anyone can prove, so, 1:09:06.800 --> 1:09:07.080 you know. 1:09:08.040 --> 1:09:10.679 Except the fact that they paid shoot in never mind. 1:09:11.040 --> 1:09:25.200 Yeah, no, here's some ads. Oh boy, what is up everybody? 1:09:26.000 --> 1:09:29.240 We are back from advertisements. And we are talking about 1:09:29.520 --> 1:09:34.760 nineteen ninety six, So that is two years after Vince 1:09:34.800 --> 1:09:38.200 has declared not guilty in this big steroid case. It 1:09:38.280 --> 1:09:42.480 is I think about five years after he institutes mandatory 1:09:42.560 --> 1:09:47.240 random steroid tests. You know, after Zahorian gets convicted in 1:09:47.320 --> 1:09:50.760 nineteen ninety six, he suspends mandatory random steroid test for 1:09:50.800 --> 1:09:54.599 the WWF. His justification later when he's talked to question 1:09:54.680 --> 1:09:57.360 by the Waxman Committee, which is like a congressional subcommittee, 1:09:57.680 --> 1:10:00.559 is that, you know, Ted Turner was eating our lunch. 1:10:00.600 --> 1:10:02.640 You know, we were we were really struggling against the 1:10:02.720 --> 1:10:05.160 w c W, so we couldn't afford to do random 1:10:05.160 --> 1:10:06.160 steroid tests. 1:10:08.120 --> 1:10:10.800 He did the man, that's why I did the warl 1:10:10.840 --> 1:10:13.600 act It caused me money. 1:10:14.000 --> 1:10:16.920 Too bad things if you get money for it, that's 1:10:17.000 --> 1:10:18.000 it's true. 1:10:18.439 --> 1:10:19.240 That it is true. 1:10:19.400 --> 1:10:21.679 That is true law. That's the highest law of the land. 1:10:21.760 --> 1:10:24.840 Protecting profits is the highest law of the Land, so 1:10:24.920 --> 1:10:25.439 that is. 1:10:25.320 --> 1:10:28.559 That is actually true, that is legally binding and how 1:10:28.600 --> 1:10:31.040 we treat things here at at cool Zone Media, which 1:10:31.080 --> 1:10:34.960 is why we have reanimated both of you in AI 1:10:35.160 --> 1:10:38.599 form to Uh, well, we're gonna We've got a Pepsi 1:10:38.600 --> 1:10:43.519 commercial coming up after I missed my fingers? Can you 1:10:43.800 --> 1:10:46.599 AI is fucking up on your fingershot? Can you make 1:10:46.680 --> 1:10:51.960 us glass android bodies? Like the film Virtuosity? Absolutely, although 1:10:52.000 --> 1:10:54.160 I was actually going to go with, uh, what's that? 1:10:54.479 --> 1:10:56.679 What's that other movie where the guy creates the AI 1:10:56.960 --> 1:10:59.000 and then he and he and another weird dude hang 1:10:59.040 --> 1:11:01.879 out in a basement with it and that isolated compound 1:11:01.880 --> 1:11:05.680 and it it murders them X macin Yeah, I'm doing 1:11:05.760 --> 1:11:08.320 I'm doing X and ex Machina. Yeah, that's the plan. 1:11:09.120 --> 1:11:11.080 I think Tom's right. I want to be Russell Crowe 1:11:11.120 --> 1:11:14.360 all the way. Yeah, Glass Russell Crowe. We'll try a 1:11:14.400 --> 1:11:18.600 few different AI movies, including the movie AI where where 1:11:18.760 --> 1:11:24.040 both of you could be Jude Law's robot pimp Joe's and. 1:11:24.160 --> 1:11:26.840 Change his hair color with that snaff of a finger 1:11:29.200 --> 1:11:34.240 Johnny Cab from Total Recall A lot of a lot 1:11:34.240 --> 1:11:35.640 of great robot. 1:11:35.439 --> 1:11:39.559 Uh uh role models there I just learned recently that 1:11:39.680 --> 1:11:43.719 Johnny cab is portrayed by Robert Paccardo from Star Trek Voyager. 1:11:43.800 --> 1:11:48.000 I didn't really yep, well we all learned something today. Okay, 1:11:48.520 --> 1:11:49.040 that's nice. 1:11:49.160 --> 1:11:52.519 I wish some podcast was about that, and yeah, not 1:11:53.880 --> 1:11:55.840 child suicide. 1:11:56.160 --> 1:11:57.840 Yeah, yeah, all that other stuff that. 1:11:57.760 --> 1:12:01.599 Would be better. So nineteen ninety they suspend their random 1:12:01.680 --> 1:12:04.240 drug tests. And it's funny because when he's talking for 1:12:04.280 --> 1:12:07.479 the Waxman community in two thousand and six, like McMahon 1:12:07.479 --> 1:12:11.040 can't even answer like whether or not wrestlers werever penalized 1:12:11.040 --> 1:12:15.120 for positive tests, like because the congressmen are like, so 1:12:15.240 --> 1:12:17.479 was there a penalty if you tested positive? And they 1:12:17.520 --> 1:12:18.880 kind of like waffle around it. 1:12:19.600 --> 1:12:22.080 He Also, I'm trying to imagine where all the air 1:12:22.160 --> 1:12:25.280 quotes are when Vince says, yes, we do mandatory random. 1:12:25.120 --> 1:12:26.479 Yes, steroid testing. Huh? 1:12:26.920 --> 1:12:28.960 Are there quotes around every single one of those words, Vince? 1:12:29.439 --> 1:12:32.080 Just just a lot of quotation marks. They actually ran 1:12:32.160 --> 1:12:40.679 out mandatory random drug No, you don't have to put 1:12:40.720 --> 1:12:43.479 the drug in quotes. There were definitely drugs. So we're 1:12:43.520 --> 1:12:47.439 fine on that one. So yeah, we tested for him 1:12:47.439 --> 1:12:51.599 and we found them. Yeah, we didn't find drugs. When 1:12:51.600 --> 1:12:56.240 I say drug, I mean Pat Patterson's poop. That's Vince's 1:12:56.280 --> 1:13:00.680 anti drug. So they he rags in front of this 1:13:00.720 --> 1:13:03.120 community committee that like, not only do we have like 1:13:03.240 --> 1:13:06.439 the best you know, safety programs to make sure people 1:13:06.479 --> 1:13:09.480 aren't hurting themselves on drugs and anywhere in the industry, 1:13:09.960 --> 1:13:12.920 but we have We've just added cardiological testing that's now 1:13:12.960 --> 1:13:15.400 a part of our enhanced safety procedures to make sure 1:13:15.200 --> 1:13:19.559 our people are really safe. Now we're going to talk 1:13:19.600 --> 1:13:22.000 about how well that all works are or worked. I 1:13:22.000 --> 1:13:25.679 should say that should be a test they do right anyway, Yeah, 1:13:25.680 --> 1:13:27.559 that should be. It should be, Tom, it should be. 1:13:28.120 --> 1:13:31.160 In twenty fourteen, the Ultimate Warrior, James Helwig, died of 1:13:31.200 --> 1:13:33.880 a heart attack at age fifty four, three days after 1:13:33.920 --> 1:13:37.799 being brought into the WWE Hall of Fame. Kurt Hinnig 1:13:38.400 --> 1:13:41.240 or Hinnig, Yeah, Kurt Hinnig, Mister Perfect, was found dead 1:13:41.280 --> 1:13:44.280 in a Tampa hotel room on February tenth, two thousand 1:13:44.280 --> 1:13:47.920 and three, thanks to a cocktail of steroids, cocaine, and painkillers. 1:13:48.360 --> 1:13:51.360 Ray Traylor, Junior Big boss Man, dropped dead from a 1:13:51.360 --> 1:13:54.000 heart attack in two thousand and four. He was forty 1:13:54.040 --> 1:13:58.240 one years old. Randy Savage lasted until twenty eleven, where 1:13:58.240 --> 1:13:59.920 he died of a heart attack while driving at a 1:14:00.200 --> 1:14:03.040 fifty eight. Davy Boys Smith was thirty nine when a 1:14:03.080 --> 1:14:05.360 heart attack took him in two thousand and two. An 1:14:05.360 --> 1:14:08.679 autopsy suggested that his past use of anabolic steroids likely 1:14:08.680 --> 1:14:15.559 contributed Ravishing thirty fucking nine Jesus, yeah, yeah, extremely young, Ravishing. 1:14:15.680 --> 1:14:18.400 Rick Rude died in nineteen ninety nine of heart failure 1:14:18.400 --> 1:14:22.200 at age forty. Michael Hegstrand Road Warrior Hawk made it 1:14:22.200 --> 1:14:24.160 to fifty six and died of a heart attack in 1:14:24.200 --> 1:14:26.599 two thousand and three. All of these men are either 1:14:26.640 --> 1:14:29.520 confirmed or heavily suspected to have been users of anabolic 1:14:29.560 --> 1:14:32.920 steroids during their wrestling careers. In November of two thousand 1:14:32.960 --> 1:14:36.240 and five, Eddie Guerrero died of heart failure at thirty eight. 1:14:36.640 --> 1:14:39.759 The scandal around his passing helped inspire the Waxman Committee, 1:14:39.760 --> 1:14:42.559 this congressional hearing we've been talking about, and it forced 1:14:42.560 --> 1:14:44.960 the WWE, which is what they were called now, to 1:14:45.000 --> 1:14:48.479 reintroduce independent testing for their wrestlers along with a three 1:14:48.520 --> 1:14:54.040 strikes policy. 1:14:54.320 --> 1:14:57.120 There's two things I wanted to say. Yeah. One is 1:14:57.160 --> 1:14:57.880 the Ultimate Worry. 1:14:58.000 --> 1:15:00.840 You mentioned that he died three days after he was 1:15:00.840 --> 1:15:03.000 inducted to the wd WW Hall of. 1:15:02.920 --> 1:15:05.280 Fame, and he he died. 1:15:06.360 --> 1:15:09.000 He was also on Monday Night Raw, and he died 1:15:09.080 --> 1:15:11.160 like six hours after he was on the show or 1:15:11.200 --> 1:15:13.280 some shit like that, Like you died the following morning, 1:15:13.280 --> 1:15:16.880 so it was hours after he was on TV. And 1:15:16.880 --> 1:15:18.760 if you watch it, it's in the Dark Side of 1:15:18.760 --> 1:15:21.240 the Ring episode. But if you watch the little appearance 1:15:21.240 --> 1:15:23.240 he made on Raw that Monday, like he looks like 1:15:23.280 --> 1:15:25.559 he's about to drop dead in about eight hours. 1:15:25.960 --> 1:15:33.000 Yeah, oh, I lost the other thing. 1:15:33.040 --> 1:15:35.000 I wanted to say so, but yeah, I just wanted 1:15:35.000 --> 1:15:39.559 to underline that. I guess it's just man, there's oh 1:15:39.680 --> 1:15:42.679 I remember the other thing now there. When you watch 1:15:42.760 --> 1:15:45.719 the Dark Side of the Ring episode on Ultimate Warrior, 1:15:45.720 --> 1:15:49.519 they're talking to his ex wife and she's telling a 1:15:49.520 --> 1:15:51.799 story about how she found out that Warrior was cheating 1:15:51.840 --> 1:15:54.280 on her. But it starts in a very different place 1:15:54.320 --> 1:15:56.479 because she's like, I was trying to get a hold 1:15:56.520 --> 1:15:58.519 of him at his hotel and I couldn't And she 1:15:58.640 --> 1:16:01.320 says something that's like really telling and really chilling and 1:16:01.360 --> 1:16:04.519 really sad. She's like, if you're a wrestling wife, you 1:16:04.640 --> 1:16:06.920 know that if you try to call your husband and 1:16:07.000 --> 1:16:08.720 at his hotel room and you can't reach him on 1:16:08.760 --> 1:16:11.920 the road, there is a very good chance he is dead. 1:16:12.520 --> 1:16:17.719 Yeah. And a lot of these guys, you know, they're 1:16:17.760 --> 1:16:20.240 on the road when it happens, they're in a hotel 1:16:20.320 --> 1:16:21.320 room or something like. 1:16:21.240 --> 1:16:25.519 That, almost exclusively. Actually, Andre dies in a hotel room too, 1:16:25.600 --> 1:16:27.519 you know, I think all of the guys you mentioned 1:16:27.560 --> 1:16:28.559 died in a hotel room. 1:16:29.240 --> 1:16:32.599 Yeah, yep. It's pretty bleak. 1:16:33.320 --> 1:16:37.320 And also, as we said, Chris or Eddie Guerrero dies 1:16:37.439 --> 1:16:39.880 in a two thousand and five. There's this committee in 1:16:39.920 --> 1:16:42.320 two thousand and six, and it forces the WWE to 1:16:42.360 --> 1:16:45.799 reintroduce independent testing for the wrestlers and a three strikes policy. 1:16:46.520 --> 1:16:49.840 But this doesn't actually stop the problematic behavior. And kind 1:16:49.840 --> 1:16:52.120 of the evidence of this is in two thousand and eight, 1:16:52.479 --> 1:16:56.320 WWE wrestler Crispin Waugh hanged himself in his home after 1:16:56.439 --> 1:16:58.160 murdering his wife and child. 1:16:59.240 --> 1:16:59.679 Cool. 1:17:00.360 --> 1:17:03.120 Yeah, there's a lot. I mean, everybody in wrestling knows 1:17:03.160 --> 1:17:04.640 this story, right, at least the bones of it. 1:17:04.760 --> 1:17:06.960 I think everybody. I think most. 1:17:06.840 --> 1:17:09.600 People outside of wrestler like it's a really it's and 1:17:09.640 --> 1:17:12.720 it's a nightmare. Benoit was a dude number one who 1:17:12.800 --> 1:17:15.640 had problems before he was a wrestler, right, there were 1:17:15.680 --> 1:17:17.920 there were issues with this guy outside of what wrestling 1:17:18.000 --> 1:17:21.240 did to him. The head injuries that he suffer were 1:17:21.240 --> 1:17:25.920 a significant part of this. He's like like googling after 1:17:25.960 --> 1:17:28.479 he kills his son, like how to resuscitate a dead 1:17:28.560 --> 1:17:32.519 child something stuff like that, like there's it's it's it's 1:17:32.680 --> 1:17:35.880 fucked up. But one thing that is not debatable is 1:17:35.920 --> 1:17:38.200 that at the time of his death, Benoit had ten 1:17:38.240 --> 1:17:43.040 times the normal level of testosterone in his blood. Testosterone, obviously, 1:17:43.120 --> 1:17:47.479 it's a hormone that naturally occurs. It's a hormone that 1:17:47.640 --> 1:17:49.920 people take who want to increase the rate at which 1:17:49.960 --> 1:17:52.400 they grow their muscles. It is also a hormone that 1:17:52.439 --> 1:17:55.960 can cause aggressive behavior, particularly in high doses. And he 1:17:56.040 --> 1:17:58.799 has again, ten times as much as he is supposed 1:17:58.840 --> 1:17:59.120 to have. 1:18:00.040 --> 1:18:04.559 There is a lot of brain degeneration and qulification from 1:18:04.680 --> 1:18:09.920 multiple head injuries. And also Eddie Guerrero was his best friend. Yeah, 1:18:10.040 --> 1:18:15.360 and when Eddie Guerrero died, Crispin Waugh really spiraled badly 1:18:15.400 --> 1:18:18.040 into grief and never recovered from it. So it's there's 1:18:18.160 --> 1:18:22.040 a lot of things going on in this guy's head 1:18:22.479 --> 1:18:23.599 at the time he. 1:18:23.680 --> 1:18:26.800 Is It is like the perfect storm of like shit 1:18:27.000 --> 1:18:31.160 that can go wrong in the brain and body of 1:18:31.920 --> 1:18:35.840 a giant muscleman, and it ends in the murder of 1:18:35.880 --> 1:18:40.880 his family and his own suicide while had prescription steroids 1:18:40.920 --> 1:18:45.080 in his home. This leads investigators, you know, after the deaths, 1:18:45.600 --> 1:18:48.960 to a doctor named phil Aston. There's a lot of 1:18:48.960 --> 1:18:51.719 outrage over what's happened. There's a lot of like pr 1:18:51.840 --> 1:18:55.280 around it. So the state goes after Aston, and it 1:18:55.320 --> 1:18:57.080 does seem like they had a cost to do so, 1:18:57.240 --> 1:19:00.960 among other things, they find that Aston had prescribed Chris. 1:19:02.080 --> 1:19:05.520 He had prescribed him ten month supplies of anabolic steroids 1:19:05.760 --> 1:19:07.920 every three to four weeks for a full year. 1:19:08.320 --> 1:19:10.160 That's too many steroids. 1:19:10.200 --> 1:19:13.720 It is an objectively insane amount of steroids. 1:19:13.160 --> 1:19:14.360 Way too many steroids. 1:19:14.960 --> 1:19:18.320 Federal prosecutors eventually alleged that the level of testosterone and 1:19:18.360 --> 1:19:21.759 his blood contributed to the murder of his family. Aston 1:19:21.880 --> 1:19:24.000 was sentenced to ten years in prison as a result 1:19:24.120 --> 1:19:28.559 of all of this. Reading through everything here, it is 1:19:28.600 --> 1:19:31.680 frustrating the degree to which, by default Vince is automatically 1:19:31.680 --> 1:19:35.000 exonerated from legal culpability of any kind in his case. 1:19:35.479 --> 1:19:38.720 In this case, his wrestlers are independent contractors, so he 1:19:38.720 --> 1:19:40.680 doesn't have to pay for their health care. And even 1:19:40.720 --> 1:19:42.920 though the FEDS were able to prove that Zoctor Zohore 1:19:43.040 --> 1:19:46.120 and male packages of steroids two Vince, that's not enough 1:19:46.160 --> 1:19:48.160 to prove that he caused anyone else to take him 1:19:48.520 --> 1:19:51.639 take them. Ben Waugh took three years of steroor multiple 1:19:51.720 --> 1:19:54.280 years worth of steroids in a single year, because he 1:19:54.320 --> 1:19:56.080 felt that that's what he had to do in order 1:19:56.120 --> 1:19:58.920 to stay competitive and keep getting booked. But there's nothing 1:19:59.040 --> 1:20:02.680 legally actionable against Vince in that the Waxman Committee, which 1:20:02.680 --> 1:20:06.559 convened after Guerrero's death, even asked Vince about this about 1:20:06.640 --> 1:20:09.240 like whether or not he had pushed people to get bigger. 1:20:09.560 --> 1:20:12.559 He slipped out of that question quite easily. His answer 1:20:12.600 --> 1:20:15.800 is no. They question they ask him, then, have you 1:20:15.840 --> 1:20:18.439 ever told a WWE talent or perspective talent that he 1:20:18.520 --> 1:20:20.720 or she needed to be bigger in order to be successful? 1:20:21.080 --> 1:20:21.200 No? 1:20:21.880 --> 1:20:24.120 Back to the weight, I have suggested that they lose weight. 1:20:24.479 --> 1:20:29.040 Question you suggested losing it but not gaining it? Answer right. Question, 1:20:29.160 --> 1:20:31.880 have you ever told a WWE talent or perspective talent 1:20:31.920 --> 1:20:33.800 that he or she needed to be more muscular, or 1:20:33.800 --> 1:20:37.759 words to that effect. Answer no question, are you aware 1:20:37.800 --> 1:20:40.920 of whether anyone representing WWE has ever told a talent 1:20:41.000 --> 1:20:43.280 or perspective talent that he or she needed to be bigger? 1:20:45.640 --> 1:20:48.439 And it's like, you know, that's kind of how it 1:20:48.520 --> 1:20:50.799 goes on and on and on. But like he's got 1:20:51.320 --> 1:20:55.160 you know, a pretty perfect out for this, right because 1:20:55.160 --> 1:20:57.280 he's not saying you need to get bigger. It just 1:20:57.360 --> 1:20:59.920 kind of is known to everyone around him that like 1:21:00.080 --> 1:21:02.880 that's what exactly, And. 1:21:02.840 --> 1:21:07.680 If you're any any sort of fan of wrestling or 1:21:07.720 --> 1:21:10.240 have any sort of knowledge of the wrestling industry, it's 1:21:10.280 --> 1:21:12.439 like super well known that Vince and we talked about 1:21:12.479 --> 1:21:13.840 earlier in the series, Vince. 1:21:13.640 --> 1:21:16.400 Loves big guys. He loves the big body dudes. Yeah, 1:21:16.439 --> 1:21:19.280 that's his thing, that's his thing. Yeah. Yeah. 1:21:19.320 --> 1:21:21.559 From this there is this kind of that this line 1:21:21.600 --> 1:21:23.599 of questions where they bring up that like Vince has 1:21:23.920 --> 1:21:27.000 canceled the WWF random drug testing program in ninety six 1:21:27.120 --> 1:21:30.240 and they ask him why and he answers straight up like, yeah, 1:21:30.240 --> 1:21:32.920 we were competing with Ted Turner and the w CW 1:21:33.160 --> 1:21:35.720 and testing was expensive. He actually at the same time, 1:21:35.760 --> 1:21:37.800 as he says, they dropped the testing for expenses, like 1:21:37.840 --> 1:21:41.040 we eliminated water coolers because of the expense. That really 1:21:41.080 --> 1:21:47.400 pissed people off. It is it is a few distracted. Yeah, 1:21:47.520 --> 1:21:51.360 it's frustrating how consistently this all works for him. 1:21:51.680 --> 1:21:53.880 But it's got to hand to him. It's plausible. 1:21:54.200 --> 1:21:59.600 It's plausible, and you know, this is all very frustrating. 1:21:59.640 --> 1:22:04.320 There's a lot that's frustrating, but kind of the apex 1:22:04.560 --> 1:22:08.120 of Vince's awfulness and sort of where we're going to 1:22:08.240 --> 1:22:12.000 end with our story today is the tale of Owen Hart. 1:22:12.920 --> 1:22:15.800 Just because I don't know it, it makes sense to me. 1:22:16.160 --> 1:22:18.320 It's the kind of the final thing you need to 1:22:18.360 --> 1:22:20.920 know about Vince to know the kind of man that 1:22:21.000 --> 1:22:24.920 he is. So we have introduced Owen before in that 1:22:25.000 --> 1:22:27.320 great story about them all pissing on Ric Flair's bed. 1:22:28.160 --> 1:22:31.360 His brother Brett, great technical wrestler, and he's Vince's big 1:22:31.400 --> 1:22:35.599 star in like the late nineteen nineties. Right, But as 1:22:35.600 --> 1:22:39.000 we've talked about a few times around like nineteen ninety six, 1:22:39.120 --> 1:22:42.880 nineteen ninety seven, Ted Turner's WCW suddenly blew up. It 1:22:43.000 --> 1:22:47.680 is briefly the biggest wrestling organization in the country. And 1:22:47.880 --> 1:22:49.960 the way Turner is able to do this is he 1:22:50.040 --> 1:22:52.639 buys up all of Vince's big names, right, like guys 1:22:52.640 --> 1:22:55.960 like Hogan start working for WCW for a while. It 1:22:56.000 --> 1:22:58.920 doesn't last long. This isn't like a good long term strategy, 1:22:58.960 --> 1:23:01.439 but it causes Vince a lot of short term trouble. 1:23:02.120 --> 1:23:02.880 Five yours. 1:23:03.240 --> 1:23:05.040 Yeah, yeah, there's a there's a few years that like 1:23:05.080 --> 1:23:07.960 they're really fighting there and one of the people who 1:23:07.960 --> 1:23:12.160 decides to go over to WCW is Brett Hart. So 1:23:12.400 --> 1:23:16.240 Brett won the WWF Championship in August of nineteen ninety seven, 1:23:16.560 --> 1:23:20.080 but he agreed to join WCW starting in December. McMahon 1:23:20.120 --> 1:23:23.680 didn't want him to leave the WWF as like, you know, 1:23:23.840 --> 1:23:27.479 the belt hoolder. But Brett wouldn't lose to Sean Michaels, right, 1:23:27.520 --> 1:23:30.040 He like refused because he and Shawn Michaels, who is 1:23:30.320 --> 1:23:32.640 a great wrestler but a coked out maniac, like they 1:23:32.680 --> 1:23:35.519 hate each other for personal reasons. So Brett's like, I'm 1:23:35.520 --> 1:23:38.080 not going to go out losing my belt to him there. 1:23:38.439 --> 1:23:39.240 And there's a. 1:23:39.280 --> 1:23:43.720 Lot like they there's a lot like Sean like casually 1:23:43.760 --> 1:23:46.720 accused Brett of cheating on his wife with Sonny on 1:23:46.800 --> 1:23:50.560 live television. Yeah, it's like there's like a lot of 1:23:50.600 --> 1:23:53.679 bad love between these dudes. But like from the version 1:23:53.720 --> 1:23:56.000 of I've heard, is that Brett and this is still 1:23:56.080 --> 1:23:58.600 kind of like, dude, you're being a little being a 1:23:58.640 --> 1:24:01.400 little bit of a of a d But like Brett 1:24:01.439 --> 1:24:05.000 didn't want to lose to Sean in Calgary specifically because 1:24:05.040 --> 1:24:06.439 Kyari was like his hometown. 1:24:06.800 --> 1:24:09.400 Yeah, because he's a he's a he's a Canadian wrestler. 1:24:09.439 --> 1:24:12.120 He doesn't want to like lose too Sean in his hometown. 1:24:12.640 --> 1:24:15.280 And it's one of those things there's still enough kind 1:24:15.320 --> 1:24:18.080 of k fame kept that like Vince cam'p force this 1:24:18.439 --> 1:24:21.479 right because like you need you, I mean especially like 1:24:21.600 --> 1:24:24.040 you need the wrestler who's going to lose the belt, 1:24:24.080 --> 1:24:26.360 which is, as we said earlier, this was the standard 1:24:26.400 --> 1:24:30.040 thing if you're aging out or quitting or joining somewhere else, 1:24:30.360 --> 1:24:32.599 like you lose your your championship belt. 1:24:32.680 --> 1:24:35.599 Yeah, I'll argue that it's well, there's there's more room 1:24:35.680 --> 1:24:38.000 to do it here. He certainly he certainly could have 1:24:38.120 --> 1:24:42.560 just done like a special episode where they drop the 1:24:42.600 --> 1:24:44.760 pretense and they just get Brett out there like hey, Brett, 1:24:44.800 --> 1:24:46.719 you've had a great run here, you were a great champion, 1:24:46.760 --> 1:24:48.559 and then Brett leaves the belt and then they're like 1:24:49.040 --> 1:24:53.040 good luck. But like also it's it's less about like 1:24:54.600 --> 1:24:57.160 it's just like the k favor of regular television. Right 1:24:57.200 --> 1:25:01.040 like when like an actor leaves it TV series for 1:25:01.040 --> 1:25:04.080 whatever reason, like they're moving on to movies, they got 1:25:04.120 --> 1:25:06.720 fired or they took a different part or something, they 1:25:06.800 --> 1:25:09.760 write them out, yeah, because they can't just stop and 1:25:09.760 --> 1:25:12.559 say like, well, George Clooney's leaving er. So it's like 1:25:12.560 --> 1:25:15.200 they won't do that on an episode of R. So 1:25:15.320 --> 1:25:18.320 like that's kind of like the level of k fab 1:25:18.400 --> 1:25:20.080 that they're working with here. So yeah, you have to 1:25:20.520 --> 1:25:23.960 write a reason that makes sense within the context of 1:25:24.000 --> 1:25:26.200 the show. It's more just like the general k fabe 1:25:26.240 --> 1:25:30.000 of television. Yeah yeah, yeah, but again, like I said 1:25:30.200 --> 1:25:32.040 it is, there is enough of a blurred line where 1:25:32.040 --> 1:25:33.479 they could have just done a specially because they do 1:25:33.520 --> 1:25:35.479 it sometimes like they do it well Ellen dies, they 1:25:35.520 --> 1:25:37.840 do a special episode, so it's like, yeah, you've just 1:25:37.840 --> 1:25:42.360 done an episode where like well Brett, here's you know anyway. 1:25:41.640 --> 1:25:45.200 But that's not what they do in this situation. McMahon 1:25:45.280 --> 1:25:47.720 instead pitches him an alternative, which is that during a 1:25:47.760 --> 1:25:51.360 match in Calgary, he'll wrestle Michaels and it'll end in 1:25:51.400 --> 1:25:54.800 a disqualification, right, so he won't lose the belt like 1:25:54.880 --> 1:25:57.040 nobody will win. It'll be kind of a match called 1:25:57.080 --> 1:26:01.719 on a technical fuck up, and he'll have another match later, 1:26:01.840 --> 1:26:04.000 not in Calgary, and he'll lose the belt in that, right. 1:26:05.000 --> 1:26:08.120 That's the thing they work out. Pretty normal so far, 1:26:08.520 --> 1:26:12.160 not a weird thing for wrestling. What follows, though, is 1:26:12.280 --> 1:26:14.400 kind of a weird thing. It's coming to be known 1:26:14.439 --> 1:26:17.639 as the Montreal screw Job, and it gets a lot 1:26:17.640 --> 1:26:20.519 of focus from wrestling fans because it is pretty shitty 1:26:20.520 --> 1:26:21.920 behavior on Vince's part. 1:26:22.600 --> 1:26:26.280 But we've also singularly weird too. It's weird. It's a 1:26:26.280 --> 1:26:27.000 weird thing to do. 1:26:27.479 --> 1:26:30.280 I will say it doesn't hit as hard after talking 1:26:30.280 --> 1:26:34.080 about like the child molestation ring and all the deaths 1:26:34.200 --> 1:26:37.320 part right, because this is yeah, the next part of 1:26:37.360 --> 1:26:39.599 this story hits pretty hard. This part of the story 1:26:39.720 --> 1:26:46.040 is unethical, but not like evil, right, Nobody gets murdered 1:26:46.160 --> 1:26:48.960 or molested here, so it may not hit as hard 1:26:49.000 --> 1:26:51.400 as it does to a lot of Is it did 1:26:51.439 --> 1:26:52.280 to people at the time? 1:26:52.439 --> 1:26:55.679 Yeah, real quick, I want to I want to redeem myself. 1:26:55.720 --> 1:26:58.080 I misspoke earlier. It's when I said Brett did want 1:26:58.080 --> 1:27:01.559 to lose in Calgary. Brett did want to lose in Canada. Yeah, yeah, Canada. 1:27:01.600 --> 1:27:03.880 Obviously this happened in Montreal because it's famously called the 1:27:03.880 --> 1:27:05.320 Montreal All Right, sorry. 1:27:05.160 --> 1:27:08.439 About Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll we'll fix it in that 1:27:08.479 --> 1:27:11.839 Today fix It post. So the gist of what happens 1:27:11.840 --> 1:27:14.479 here is that McMahon like they've got this set up 1:27:14.560 --> 1:27:16.479 to where it's going to end in a DQ. Heart's 1:27:16.520 --> 1:27:19.120 not going to lose, but man tells the referee that 1:27:19.200 --> 1:27:23.679 while it's going on, at one point, Heart's gonna get 1:27:23.720 --> 1:27:27.400 like caught in what's called the sharpshooter, which is like 1:27:27.560 --> 1:27:33.760 his trademark submission hold his finisher. Yeah, and he was 1:27:33.800 --> 1:27:35.960 supposed to, as they'd agreed upon before. He was going 1:27:36.000 --> 1:27:38.320 to get out and then the match would continue. But 1:27:38.640 --> 1:27:42.200 McMahon has a ref call the match against him while 1:27:42.240 --> 1:27:44.479 he's in this submission hold and basically calls it that 1:27:44.520 --> 1:27:47.880 he had submitted, right, So Brett has not submitted. But 1:27:48.000 --> 1:27:51.160 like again, as we talked, about the Both the ref 1:27:51.240 --> 1:27:53.479 and the the announcer have a lot of power to 1:27:53.600 --> 1:27:56.280 kind of like set reality for the people in the room, 1:27:56.640 --> 1:27:59.080 so they call the match against him, and it is 1:27:59.720 --> 1:28:03.280 kind of obvious that like something fucked up has gone down. 1:28:03.320 --> 1:28:05.760 It's it doesn't look like an actual submission. 1:28:06.080 --> 1:28:08.800 It looks like a mistake because what happens is is 1:28:09.120 --> 1:28:11.559 Sean puts Brett in the sharpshooter, and what they had 1:28:11.600 --> 1:28:14.400 talked about was Brett was going to reverse it and 1:28:14.479 --> 1:28:17.479 beat Sean that way, or or sorry, they were gonna 1:28:17.479 --> 1:28:19.760 get out of it, or Hunterhurst the Triple H is 1:28:19.760 --> 1:28:21.240 gonna come out and hit him, because Triple H is 1:28:21.240 --> 1:28:24.640 at ringside at that point. But what happens is the 1:28:24.760 --> 1:28:27.640 ref calls it. They ring the bell, and the announcers 1:28:27.640 --> 1:28:30.720 start talking as if Sean just submitted Brett, but in 1:28:30.800 --> 1:28:34.360 the ring, like Brett is confused, like he's in the 1:28:34.400 --> 1:28:37.120 process of reversing the move, and like everyone in the 1:28:37.160 --> 1:28:39.759 crowd is confused. So there's like kind of scattered applause, 1:28:39.760 --> 1:28:42.760 but there's like this really strange response to it. It 1:28:42.840 --> 1:28:45.479 looks like somebody fucked up. Like it's very clear this 1:28:45.640 --> 1:28:47.559 was not supposed to happen when you watch it. 1:28:48.200 --> 1:28:50.720 Yeah, and you know, a lot of people get very 1:28:50.760 --> 1:28:53.120 angry as a result of this. Brett most of all, 1:28:53.160 --> 1:28:55.960 he very famously cold cocks Vince in the locker room, 1:28:56.960 --> 1:28:59.160 like hits him, and Vince will claim. 1:28:59.080 --> 1:29:00.679 Spits on him in the show. Show you can see 1:29:00.680 --> 1:29:01.040 it happen. 1:29:01.479 --> 1:29:08.160 Yeah, it's pretty He's a lot of people want to Yeah, 1:29:08.240 --> 1:29:11.600 I mean, at least that happened Vince. One of the 1:29:11.600 --> 1:29:14.479 funny things about Vince's a guy is that, like, you know, 1:29:14.520 --> 1:29:17.320 it's very famous that Brett comes in and like punches 1:29:17.360 --> 1:29:19.439 him right in the face in the locker room. After this, 1:29:19.880 --> 1:29:22.160 Vince later claims that, like, well, I made him an 1:29:22.240 --> 1:29:24.559 offer to let him punch me as recompense, Like he 1:29:24.640 --> 1:29:26.639 has to try to take power back, Like he can't 1:29:26.640 --> 1:29:28.920 have just been hit in the face, Like no, no, 1:29:28.960 --> 1:29:30.120 I told him to do it. I told him to 1:29:30.160 --> 1:29:32.040 hit me in the face. We were totally cool about it. 1:29:33.160 --> 1:29:36.920 He just he just punched Vince because he was angry 1:29:37.040 --> 1:29:39.240 and Vince had it coming. 1:29:39.360 --> 1:29:41.519 There's a really well, there's a really good documentary everybody 1:29:41.560 --> 1:29:44.200 should watch called Hitman Heart Wrestling with Shadows that's about 1:29:44.200 --> 1:29:48.200 this specifically. Yeah, there's it's it's it's slanted, obviously, it's 1:29:48.240 --> 1:29:51.040 it's very favorable to Brett, so you you have to 1:29:51.040 --> 1:29:52.280 take some of it with a grain of salt. But 1:29:52.320 --> 1:29:55.200 there's a lot of footage that they pull from the 1:29:55.280 --> 1:29:58.120 night of the show and also from backstage of this 1:29:58.200 --> 1:30:00.599 event happening, where you get to see all this sh happening. 1:30:00.680 --> 1:30:04.719 So yeah, definitely worth checking out. And it's like, yeah, 1:30:04.760 --> 1:30:07.479 so this is very a very famous moment in wrestling history. 1:30:08.040 --> 1:30:10.320 It does say a lot about Vince, although honestly, the 1:30:10.360 --> 1:30:12.200 thing that I think says the most about him is 1:30:12.200 --> 1:30:15.320 his need to pretend that he made Brett punch him. 1:30:17.840 --> 1:30:21.400 The hitman heart could knock out a fifty eight year 1:30:21.439 --> 1:30:22.040 old man. 1:30:22.439 --> 1:30:31.520 Yeah yeah, without being offered it. Yeah right, it's like, broh. 1:30:28.640 --> 1:30:29.519 It's so funny. 1:30:30.200 --> 1:30:33.519 So yeah, this is fucked up, But it has obviously 1:30:33.560 --> 1:30:35.719 nothing compared to the story we're going to tell next, 1:30:35.720 --> 1:30:38.439 which is about what happens as a result of some 1:30:38.479 --> 1:30:42.920 of Vince's actions and the result of some accident of 1:30:42.960 --> 1:30:47.160 a terrible accident to Brett's brother, Owen. So we have 1:30:47.280 --> 1:30:49.240 talked about how Vince and Linda went to war with 1:30:49.320 --> 1:30:52.080 regulators across the country to ensure that wrestling would not 1:30:52.120 --> 1:30:54.360 be held to the higher health and safety standards of 1:30:54.360 --> 1:30:58.360 traditional athletic exhibitions. This effort, which occurred throughout the early 1:30:58.400 --> 1:31:01.840 to mid nineteen nineties, was largely successful, and by the 1:31:01.960 --> 1:31:04.920 end of the nineties, the WOWE was beholden to far 1:31:05.040 --> 1:31:08.160 fewer safety restrictions and much less oversight than they had 1:31:08.200 --> 1:31:11.760 been in the nineteen eighties. The Montreal Screw Screw Job 1:31:11.840 --> 1:31:15.280 is generally seen as like the start to the Attitude era, right, 1:31:16.080 --> 1:31:19.080 but it also marked the beginning of Vince's physical involvement 1:31:19.120 --> 1:31:22.080 in wrestling to an never before seen level. He'd often 1:31:22.120 --> 1:31:24.600 done commentating and been a presence, but from now on 1:31:24.760 --> 1:31:27.280 he's not just like there, he's not just like talking. 1:31:27.360 --> 1:31:31.040 He's not just you know, giving you know, commentary on matches. 1:31:31.160 --> 1:31:33.760 He's an in ring presence. He's like wrestling a lot 1:31:33.760 --> 1:31:36.200 of the time, and he's he's usually he's not like 1:31:36.640 --> 1:31:39.200 he's not able to like put it like putting people 1:31:39.240 --> 1:31:42.160 in holds or fighting people technically, but he's actually pretty 1:31:42.200 --> 1:31:44.000 good at getting the shit beat out of him, which 1:31:44.040 --> 1:31:44.519 is a skill. 1:31:45.920 --> 1:31:46.120 Yeah. 1:31:46.320 --> 1:31:49.240 He understands what his role is out there is yeah, Yeah, 1:31:49.560 --> 1:31:52.240 which is kind of funny because as jacked as Vince 1:31:52.280 --> 1:31:55.080 made himself and as much as like behind the scenes, 1:31:55.080 --> 1:31:57.519 he tries to insist that he's the toughest dude ever, 1:31:58.920 --> 1:32:01.120 like we've talked about in throughout the series. 1:32:01.640 --> 1:32:01.760 Uh. 1:32:03.280 --> 1:32:06.519 He basically he gets beat up in the ring the 1:32:06.560 --> 1:32:10.519 same way like Bobby the Brain Heenan or Jimmy Hart 1:32:10.600 --> 1:32:14.320 or any of the other like really annoying guys who 1:32:14.840 --> 1:32:19.320 keep getting one over on the faces and you're so 1:32:19.439 --> 1:32:20.800 mad at them and you just want them to get 1:32:20.840 --> 1:32:23.040 body slammed, and then they finally do it. Like he 1:32:23.200 --> 1:32:25.000 plays in the ring like you know, a guy that's 1:32:25.000 --> 1:32:27.800 gonna get his ass kicked. So he does just take 1:32:27.920 --> 1:32:30.120 bumps in the ring. Really, he never is like a 1:32:30.200 --> 1:32:31.879 dominant presence as a wrestler. 1:32:31.880 --> 1:32:34.840 He just gets beat up and it's very fun with 1:32:34.880 --> 1:32:37.160 the real humility for a terrible yeah. 1:32:37.439 --> 1:32:39.640 Right, it's a rising level of human Like he's like 1:32:39.800 --> 1:32:42.880 he's such a carneye and he's so married to the 1:32:42.920 --> 1:32:46.439 business that he understands the value of being this villainous 1:32:46.520 --> 1:32:50.640 character Vince McMahon the Boss and like denying people the 1:32:50.680 --> 1:32:52.920 satisfaction of seeing him in the ring, and then when 1:32:52.920 --> 1:32:54.559 he finally gets in the ring, he gets his ass 1:32:54.600 --> 1:32:55.439 beat and that's that. 1:32:55.520 --> 1:32:56.280 You know, that's. 1:32:56.120 --> 1:33:00.920 It's super old story in wrestling. 1:33:01.000 --> 1:33:01.880 They do it all the time. 1:33:02.160 --> 1:33:05.479 Yeah, and he's he has he has no problem doing that, 1:33:05.520 --> 1:33:06.720 which is fascinating to me. 1:33:07.360 --> 1:33:10.280 It's really interesting because like a big when he first 1:33:10.320 --> 1:33:12.840 starts doing this, like the guy who's like wailing on 1:33:12.920 --> 1:33:15.320 him the most is stone cold Steve Austin, who is 1:33:15.360 --> 1:33:18.559 like his persona is like I'm the rebel, I'm the 1:33:18.600 --> 1:33:20.800 bad boy. You know, I'm able to do the things 1:33:20.840 --> 1:33:22.960 that you could like other people like I'm I'm I'm 1:33:22.960 --> 1:33:25.640 also I'm a common man, right, like I'm sticking it 1:33:25.720 --> 1:33:28.200 up for like the regular Joe's out there, and it's 1:33:28.280 --> 1:33:30.920 very much framed his him beating on Vince is like 1:33:31.120 --> 1:33:34.200 everyone wants to beat up their boss, right, So Vince 1:33:34.320 --> 1:33:36.840 knows what he's doing by like I'm going to be 1:33:36.960 --> 1:33:40.439 this kind of personification of like corporate America, so that 1:33:40.760 --> 1:33:44.000 you know, this regular guy hero can like wail on me. 1:33:44.360 --> 1:33:46.559 But when he's interviewed about it, because like he gets 1:33:46.560 --> 1:33:49.400 interviewed a lot about you know, him showing up and 1:33:49.439 --> 1:33:51.679 being a presence in ring because it's like big news 1:33:51.960 --> 1:33:53.960 and he'll always be like, well, you know, I get 1:33:53.960 --> 1:33:55.599 that this is what people want to see, but like 1:33:55.640 --> 1:33:58.400 I'm really stone cold, right, like I'm the guy in 1:33:58.479 --> 1:34:01.360 real life, I'm stone cold because fighting against authority all 1:34:01.400 --> 1:34:08.479 the time. No, no, no, billionaire you sure you surely 1:34:08.520 --> 1:34:12.439 are not Vince. It's it's interesting. 1:34:12.760 --> 1:34:14.040 I don't know, this. 1:34:14.000 --> 1:34:17.400 Is also interesting to launch, like the biggest storyline of 1:34:17.439 --> 1:34:25.040 your promotion is a feud between your top wrestler and 1:34:26.479 --> 1:34:31.160 the CEO, like management and labor literally fighting. I don't 1:34:31.160 --> 1:34:32.400 think that ever happened before. 1:34:33.000 --> 1:34:35.600 No, And it's we're going to talk a little bit 1:34:35.640 --> 1:34:38.280 about like the kind of this kind of concept of 1:34:38.280 --> 1:34:42.439 of what people call neo k fabe. It's it's really 1:34:42.439 --> 1:34:45.880 interesting kind of like what is going on between all 1:34:45.920 --> 1:34:48.599 these the characters and the real people as this sort 1:34:48.600 --> 1:34:52.639 of like the attitude Eric kicks off. And I think 1:34:52.680 --> 1:34:56.439 probably the story that best embodies that is maybe one 1:34:56.439 --> 1:34:58.920 of the most in maybe the most uncomfortable thing that 1:34:59.000 --> 1:35:01.640 ever happened in a Double EF storyline, although that's a 1:35:01.680 --> 1:35:04.640 long list of things. Are you guys aware of the 1:35:04.680 --> 1:35:07.600 story with like the Undertaker and his daughter Stephanie and 1:35:07.640 --> 1:35:10.080 his son Shane, where she. 1:35:10.120 --> 1:35:13.400 Gets kidnapped uh huh. Yeah. 1:35:13.439 --> 1:35:16.839 So by this point, Shane is part of the family business, 1:35:16.840 --> 1:35:20.000 and so is Stephanie. Obviously, Linda's helping to run things 1:35:21.400 --> 1:35:24.840 and Shane is. You know, you can see why, like 1:35:24.880 --> 1:35:27.040 doing this all would be really important for Vince because 1:35:27.040 --> 1:35:30.400 he had always craved his biological father's respect and wanted 1:35:30.400 --> 1:35:32.800 to work with him, and Vince Senior had given him 1:35:32.840 --> 1:35:36.360 a job, but they hadn't like worked together really Like 1:35:36.520 --> 1:35:38.800 Vince had his jobs that he was given by his dad, 1:35:38.800 --> 1:35:40.599 but his dad did not treat him as an equal 1:35:40.600 --> 1:35:42.920 in the business, you know, like he sold it to 1:35:43.000 --> 1:35:45.960 him eventionally, but they weren't like collaborators in the way 1:35:46.000 --> 1:35:48.720 that he kind of is with his kids, which you 1:35:48.760 --> 1:35:51.880 could see is like maybe a positive Vince, you know, 1:35:54.120 --> 1:35:56.559 doing for his kids what he always wished his dad 1:35:56.960 --> 1:35:59.040 would have done for him. But it takes us in 1:35:59.160 --> 1:36:03.840 some uncomfortable the thematic directions. So you know, as we said, 1:36:03.880 --> 1:36:06.280 stone Cold is like the hot shit right now, and 1:36:06.320 --> 1:36:10.000 he invents have an on stage rivalry and in mid 1:36:10.080 --> 1:36:13.520 nineteen ninety nine, he cooks up this like very insane 1:36:13.720 --> 1:36:16.719 wrestling storyline to take advantage of the fact that he's 1:36:16.760 --> 1:36:19.120 a stage presence now and that his kids are like 1:36:19.200 --> 1:36:23.080 increasingly showing up in the ring more often. So the 1:36:23.240 --> 1:36:27.960 Undertaker kidnaps his daughter, and through a winding storyline, he 1:36:28.040 --> 1:36:31.120 winds up like he's going to marry her. He's like 1:36:31.240 --> 1:36:34.800 forcibly marrying her against her will, and it's kind of 1:36:34.800 --> 1:36:37.320 all culminates in her tied to an eight foot tall 1:36:37.360 --> 1:36:41.479 crucifix in a Satanic sacrifice slash wedding ceremony with the 1:36:41.600 --> 1:36:44.599 Undertaker and the Ministry of Darkness. Who are We'll say, 1:36:44.600 --> 1:36:48.320 basically his gang. Paul BarreR winds up reading out a 1:36:48.320 --> 1:36:51.840 wedding ceremony script for the Undertaker while Stephanie begs for 1:36:51.960 --> 1:36:55.440 rescue and various low level faces try to stop the Undertaker. 1:36:57.000 --> 1:37:02.599 And I watched this live. It is insane. So Bearer 1:37:02.720 --> 1:37:04.040 turns to the under team. 1:37:03.840 --> 1:37:06.280 Would have completed the rituals, she would have actually become 1:37:06.439 --> 1:37:07.720 a zombie, Like that's the. 1:37:07.680 --> 1:37:11.320 Steaks, Yeah, that is that is he's going to zombiefy 1:37:11.560 --> 1:37:16.519 and marry her against her will. And yeah, it's like 1:37:16.680 --> 1:37:20.080 the Paul Bear asks the Undertaker, would you accept Stephanie 1:37:20.120 --> 1:37:22.559 Mary McMahon, her body, her mind, her soul, and even 1:37:22.560 --> 1:37:25.520 her breath unto yourself and allow her to bear your offspring, 1:37:25.840 --> 1:37:29.640 and the Undertaker says, I do, and then Bearer did 1:37:31.320 --> 1:37:36.840 not have to say that, didn't have to include that line. Weird, Yeah, 1:37:36.920 --> 1:37:39.160 Bear says, by the power invested in me by the 1:37:39.200 --> 1:37:41.679 Lord of Darkness, I know, pronounce you was the unholy 1:37:41.840 --> 1:37:45.760 union of Darkness. You may now kiss your bride. And 1:37:45.800 --> 1:37:48.639 that's when Stone Cold, Steve Austin comes in and like beats, 1:37:48.720 --> 1:37:52.200 you know, he wails on everybody, and he saves Stephanie 1:37:52.280 --> 1:37:56.320 before she can you know, be presumably sexually assaulted, because 1:37:56.320 --> 1:37:58.120 that's the stakes that Vince is set up here in 1:37:58.200 --> 1:38:04.519 the storyline. Now, that's unsettling, right. The next night, she 1:38:04.680 --> 1:38:07.360 and Vincent stone Cold hold a little ceremony on the 1:38:07.400 --> 1:38:10.400 stage for a pilot for SmackDown, which was about to 1:38:10.439 --> 1:38:14.480 air on the UPN network. Stephanie thanked Austin and expressed 1:38:14.520 --> 1:38:17.400 I have never felt so powerless and violated in all 1:38:17.439 --> 1:38:20.439 my life. The Undertaker he kept touching me and whispering 1:38:20.439 --> 1:38:22.080 in my ears that I was his and there was 1:38:22.120 --> 1:38:24.559 nothing that I could do about it. She is standing 1:38:24.600 --> 1:38:27.880 next to her dad saying this, like, tell it weird, 1:38:29.000 --> 1:38:33.280 such a it's such a weird again, everyone's a consenting 1:38:33.720 --> 1:38:36.320 adult here, so we're not saying, like what he's doing 1:38:36.400 --> 1:38:40.080 here is evil. It's just deeply bizarre, weird. It's so 1:38:40.160 --> 1:38:43.800 weird TV show. Yeah, there were so many ways. There 1:38:43.800 --> 1:38:46.599 are so many ways to have your daughter, like, you know, 1:38:46.680 --> 1:38:49.040 the the white girl who's being threatened by a bad 1:38:49.080 --> 1:38:50.760 guy without it being this. 1:38:53.479 --> 1:38:58.200 You did well out there tonight, honey, beautiful daughter. You 1:38:58.360 --> 1:39:03.960 made daddy so much money. So rock hard, rock hard, Sweetheart, 1:39:04.240 --> 1:39:05.000 It's dark. 1:39:05.880 --> 1:39:08.960 A lot of people are uncomfortable with this storyline, and 1:39:09.000 --> 1:39:12.840 one person who is uncomfortable with this storyline is Owen Heart. Now, 1:39:12.840 --> 1:39:15.960 his brother's with the WCW right now, but Owen has 1:39:16.000 --> 1:39:18.720 been wrestling with the WWF still and he's kind of 1:39:19.040 --> 1:39:22.280 been in the process of considering moving away from wrestling. 1:39:22.360 --> 1:39:24.920 You know, he's, for one thing, he just doesn't fit 1:39:25.000 --> 1:39:27.639 in in the attitude era. You know, he's a wrestler 1:39:27.680 --> 1:39:31.440 from an older era. He feels uncomfortable with the storylines. 1:39:31.479 --> 1:39:34.599 He thinks it's kind of trashy. He has a wife 1:39:34.600 --> 1:39:38.200 and two kids, and he's also like he's watching what's 1:39:38.240 --> 1:39:40.600 starting to happen to the guys who had been the 1:39:40.600 --> 1:39:43.080 first generation of steroids wrestlers. He's seeing how many of 1:39:43.120 --> 1:39:46.120 them are dropping early, and he's like, maybe I should 1:39:46.200 --> 1:39:49.360 just like hang out with my family, you know, that 1:39:49.439 --> 1:39:52.240 might be the responsible thing to do. So while he's 1:39:52.240 --> 1:39:55.400 sort of working through his feelings on this, Vince decides 1:39:55.439 --> 1:39:57.600 to bring back a side character Owen had played in 1:39:57.600 --> 1:40:01.080 the late eighties, the Blue Blazer. This was an example 1:40:01.120 --> 1:40:04.799 of what Josie Riiseman calls neokfabe, a term that describes 1:40:04.800 --> 1:40:08.160 the nebulous relationship with the truth in modern wrestling, now 1:40:08.200 --> 1:40:11.080 that it's admitted, at least on some level, that it's 1:40:11.120 --> 1:40:14.280 not a real competition. Kfabe is a lie meant to 1:40:14.320 --> 1:40:16.439 sort of hide the fact that wrestling was not a 1:40:16.479 --> 1:40:20.559 real sports competition, right. Neokfabe is what grows up in 1:40:20.560 --> 1:40:23.360 its place, And neokfabe is when the fakery is in 1:40:23.400 --> 1:40:27.719 the open and admitted, but it exists to reveal deeper truths. 1:40:27.760 --> 1:40:29.800 And like a big part of the engagement for the 1:40:29.880 --> 1:40:33.400 audience is sort of working out what's being said behind 1:40:33.439 --> 1:40:36.559 the scenes with what's happening on screen, right, And in 1:40:36.600 --> 1:40:39.400 this case, you can see what's like, what's happening for 1:40:39.479 --> 1:40:42.719 real is that McMahon knows that Owen Hart isn't happy 1:40:42.760 --> 1:40:45.000 with the direction the WWF is going on, and he's 1:40:45.040 --> 1:40:49.840 considering making a change in his life. McMahon sets up 1:40:49.840 --> 1:40:52.880 the Blue Blazer as a morally upright superhero who's like 1:40:53.000 --> 1:40:57.080 launching a moral crusade against degeneracy within the WWF. So, 1:40:57.240 --> 1:41:01.320 in other words, Owen's character on screen displaying a heightened 1:41:01.360 --> 1:41:04.400 and satiric version of the real discuss that Owen felt 1:41:04.439 --> 1:41:07.600 for Vince's storylines, which is, like, that's kind of a 1:41:07.640 --> 1:41:08.439 lot going on. 1:41:08.520 --> 1:41:10.120 Actually it is. 1:41:10.320 --> 1:41:13.160 Yeah, Yeah, they're also hiding him and like Owen at 1:41:13.160 --> 1:41:16.160 this time is one of the best technical wrestlers that 1:41:16.240 --> 1:41:19.600 he's ever been in the business, and he's one of 1:41:19.640 --> 1:41:23.280 those dudes, like he's incredibly talented, he's very physical, he's 1:41:23.360 --> 1:41:30.360 very athletic, he's very charismatic. But they just never gave 1:41:30.439 --> 1:41:34.080 him anything to do. Yeah, they couldn't figure They had 1:41:34.080 --> 1:41:36.439 an interesting storyline at one point. Owen was a bad 1:41:36.439 --> 1:41:39.160 guy for a long time because they created a younger 1:41:39.200 --> 1:41:41.400 brother storyline for him, for him to feud with Brett. 1:41:41.720 --> 1:41:44.680 But now that Brett's gone, they don't have that and 1:41:44.680 --> 1:41:46.000 they're sort of about this, Well, we don't know what 1:41:46.040 --> 1:41:48.200 to do with you, which is so criminal for an 1:41:48.200 --> 1:41:50.599 industry like this, where it's like, yeah, have this person 1:41:50.640 --> 1:41:54.679 who is fantastically talented in every aspect of the business, 1:41:54.680 --> 1:41:55.920 and like, well, we don't know what to do with 1:41:55.960 --> 1:41:57.200 you because you're not a big guy. 1:41:58.240 --> 1:42:02.439 Yeah, it's really sad where it goes, and like it's 1:42:02.479 --> 1:42:06.240 interesting the way in which sort of yeah, there's a 1:42:06.240 --> 1:42:07.680 lot that's kind of fascinating here. 1:42:07.920 --> 1:42:10.160 Bob never said, hey, you have to be bigger and 1:42:10.160 --> 1:42:13.360 have giant muscles. But also there's Owen Hart, the best 1:42:13.360 --> 1:42:15.120 guy we have, and I will not put him on 1:42:15.160 --> 1:42:17.559 TV for un said reasons. 1:42:17.960 --> 1:42:23.000 Yeah, so Owen is you know, a lot kind of 1:42:23.040 --> 1:42:25.799 gets put on Owen being unsettled with this weirdly sexual 1:42:25.840 --> 1:42:29.639 storyline involving Stephanie. But that's not the only reason why 1:42:29.680 --> 1:42:32.639 he's disgusted with Vince in the WWF in this period, 1:42:33.320 --> 1:42:36.639 one of the guys who repeatedly failed Vince's nonsense drug 1:42:36.680 --> 1:42:40.320 tests without getting fired again. He's questioned by Congress as 1:42:40.400 --> 1:42:42.800 to like whether or not there were consequences for failing 1:42:42.840 --> 1:42:45.400 a drug test, while a dude who repeatedly failed his 1:42:45.520 --> 1:42:48.840 drug test was a guy named Brian Pillman. Brian was 1:42:48.880 --> 1:42:53.600 addicted to cocaine. He was also constantly injecting steroids. He 1:42:53.680 --> 1:42:56.479 took painkillers, you know, to deal with that. He's on 1:42:56.680 --> 1:43:00.000 everything a wrestler is normally on. Right on October fifth, nine, 1:43:00.000 --> 1:43:02.679 eighteen ninety seven, he missed work because he had died 1:43:02.720 --> 1:43:05.400 of heart failure in a Minnesota hotel room the night before. 1:43:06.000 --> 1:43:09.240 Everyone found out right before the show was set to start. 1:43:09.320 --> 1:43:11.760 But Vince plowed forward anyway, even though, like a lot 1:43:11.760 --> 1:43:13.599 of people are like, well, we just found out our 1:43:13.640 --> 1:43:16.519 friend and colleague is dead. I don't know, maybe this 1:43:16.560 --> 1:43:19.040 isn't the right thing to do, but obviously, like it 1:43:19.120 --> 1:43:21.360 is a business, you know, Vince decides to go ahead 1:43:21.360 --> 1:43:27.320 with things. He announces Brian's death on air, which you know, 1:43:27.520 --> 1:43:30.479 you can could potentially be a responsible thing to do, 1:43:30.840 --> 1:43:33.120 but he does it, and like he references it almost 1:43:33.160 --> 1:43:36.120 as like a TV teaser ad while trying to softly 1:43:36.200 --> 1:43:37.200 exonerate himself. 1:43:37.280 --> 1:43:37.679 Quote. 1:43:37.880 --> 1:43:40.720 Authorities expect no foul play was involved in terms of 1:43:40.760 --> 1:43:44.760 the initial inspection. Nonetheless, apparently they're concerned about the possibility 1:43:44.800 --> 1:43:48.160 of a drug overdose, be it prescription or recreational. Of course, 1:43:48.280 --> 1:43:50.760 this is a problem in all sport and forms. Of Entertainment. 1:43:52.560 --> 1:43:55.800 Yeah, that's not great. Well I didn't do it. 1:43:56.160 --> 1:43:59.280 Yeah, well the next thing he does, yeah, oh he 1:43:59.439 --> 1:44:03.880 both Pilman's widow on television and shit does point blame 1:44:04.040 --> 1:44:05.040 if Brian had. 1:44:04.880 --> 1:44:06.439 A drug addiction? Yeah? 1:44:07.640 --> 1:44:10.920 Yeah, yeah. That happens the next night on Friday Night Raw, 1:44:11.040 --> 1:44:15.000 there is a tribute to Pilman convinced a yeah from 1:44:15.040 --> 1:44:17.000 Monday Night Raw. Sorry I wrote Friday. 1:44:17.120 --> 1:44:17.479 Thank you. 1:44:17.560 --> 1:44:19.439 This is this is why we have the experts in here. 1:44:20.920 --> 1:44:23.120 So he has he has her on Raw, and he like, 1:44:23.520 --> 1:44:26.719 he advertises that she's going to be on Raw. 1:44:26.600 --> 1:44:29.120 Right, He like they have told her that they wouldn't 1:44:29.160 --> 1:44:30.519 ask her any questions like that. 1:44:31.120 --> 1:44:31.479 Yeah. 1:44:31.520 --> 1:44:33.800 So when you watch the footage of the interview and 1:44:33.840 --> 1:44:36.240 he asked her that question, you see her react like 1:44:36.360 --> 1:44:38.719 she has a physical reaction in her face to the question. 1:44:38.800 --> 1:44:39.160 Yeah. 1:44:39.760 --> 1:44:43.040 Yeah, it's like she's been punched. And we're not going 1:44:43.120 --> 1:44:45.040 to play that because I don't want to do that. 1:44:45.120 --> 1:44:48.000 But I am going to read a depiction of what 1:44:48.160 --> 1:44:51.240 happens by from sex, Livees and Headlocks so that people 1:44:51.280 --> 1:44:55.240 can kind of hear how these questions go. To make 1:44:55.240 --> 1:44:57.439 sure no one missed the exclusive. He hyped it up 1:44:57.439 --> 1:45:00.000 before every commercial break, sending his viewers to the pillman's 1:45:00.040 --> 1:45:02.799 empty family room, where it was announced Melanie would soon appear. 1:45:03.160 --> 1:45:05.280 He opened the interview in a stilted tone that chafed 1:45:05.280 --> 1:45:08.280 against the confessional nature of the moment. Melanie, I'm sure 1:45:08.280 --> 1:45:10.720 you distraught, shocked, dismayed over this, and we thank you 1:45:10.800 --> 1:45:13.200 very much for joining us tonight. There's always a great 1:45:13.240 --> 1:45:15.360 deal of speculation when a thirty five year old man 1:45:15.360 --> 1:45:18.200 who's in a competitive condition passes away. Can you please 1:45:18.240 --> 1:45:20.880 tell us what you've been told about Brian's death? And 1:45:20.960 --> 1:45:23.360 she answers. Apparently there was a problem with his heart. 1:45:23.680 --> 1:45:25.839 Apparently his heart had been under a lot of stress. 1:45:26.200 --> 1:45:28.920 There's some speculation last night that Brian, because of his injuries, 1:45:28.920 --> 1:45:31.200 had to take a great deal of medicine, Vince continued, 1:45:31.560 --> 1:45:33.519 But there was some speculation that he may have taken 1:45:33.560 --> 1:45:37.040 too much. Melanie expected this question, but the speed at 1:45:37.040 --> 1:45:39.400 which Vince leapt to it surprised her. Her face curled 1:45:39.439 --> 1:45:41.320 up in a look that was more disgusted than despair, 1:45:41.840 --> 1:45:44.120 seeing that he backed off. Is there anything you want 1:45:44.120 --> 1:45:46.360 to say to aspiring athletes who get hurt and may 1:45:46.360 --> 1:45:49.800 have to resort to prescribed medication, pain pills. I can't 1:45:49.800 --> 1:45:52.720 really comment, she replied. My husband not only was he 1:45:52.760 --> 1:45:54.719 an athlete, but he was involved in a car accident 1:45:54.760 --> 1:45:56.880 and had extensive injuries from that, and it was hard 1:45:56.920 --> 1:45:59.559 on him. Then looking at the camera, or perhaps past it, 1:45:59.600 --> 1:46:01.639 she added, I just want everyone to know that it's 1:46:01.680 --> 1:46:03.200 a wake up call for some of you. It could 1:46:03.200 --> 1:46:04.880 be your husband, or it could be you, and you 1:46:04.880 --> 1:46:06.880 don't want to believe behind a bunch of orphans like 1:46:06.920 --> 1:46:09.719 my husband did. How are the children taking the news, 1:46:09.800 --> 1:46:13.280 Vince Pride a bit too eagerly decidestep the Tuesday Morning critics, 1:46:13.400 --> 1:46:17.160 who'd call the whole Phara exploitative. Little Brian doesn't understand 1:46:17.160 --> 1:46:20.000 why Daddy's not coming home, she said, But Brittany, she 1:46:20.080 --> 1:46:23.640 screamed for fifteen minutes. Melanie looks suddenly exhausted, as if 1:46:23.680 --> 1:46:26.400 whatever energy she'd had three questions ago is completely gone. 1:46:26.479 --> 1:46:28.280 But the impulse to go for one last piece of 1:46:28.280 --> 1:46:32.320 emotional punctuation proved too great for Vince to resist. Have 1:46:32.400 --> 1:46:33.880 you had a chance to think about what you, as 1:46:33.880 --> 1:46:36.000 a single parent, will do to support five children? 1:46:36.080 --> 1:46:41.360 He asked? Oh my god, yeah, uh you like older 1:46:41.600 --> 1:46:43.360 now they're single, you like older fellas. 1:46:43.880 --> 1:46:49.519 Yeah, they want a job, Vince McMahon, everybody. 1:46:49.760 --> 1:46:53.920 So it's I mean, that's that she mentioned a car 1:46:53.960 --> 1:46:56.080 accident that needs to I figure, I feel like that 1:46:56.120 --> 1:46:58.920 needs to be like addressed. Brent Tullen was a hideous 1:46:58.920 --> 1:47:03.720 car accident where his entire face needed to be reconstructed Jesus, 1:47:04.240 --> 1:47:07.160 and he damn near lost his foot. Yeah, so, like 1:47:07.600 --> 1:47:11.320 he was not in any and he had this accident 1:47:11.400 --> 1:47:14.599 right after he signed with WWE, so he felt personal 1:47:14.640 --> 1:47:19.000 pressure to continue to try and perform at the level 1:47:19.040 --> 1:47:21.759 that he had before this car accident, which is not possible. 1:47:22.680 --> 1:47:26.640 So he was pumping all sorts of painkillers, steroids, et 1:47:26.680 --> 1:47:28.960 cetera into himself. He would like literally get up from 1:47:29.000 --> 1:47:31.439 a wheelchair to go out and perform and then get 1:47:31.439 --> 1:47:33.840 off stage and go back into his wheelchair like he 1:47:33.960 --> 1:47:40.759 was fucked uh at this point. Yeah, it's it's pretty hideous. 1:47:40.920 --> 1:47:44.920 And like so we talked about, you know, a couple 1:47:44.960 --> 1:47:48.240 episodes ago Andre and how like when he ends his 1:47:48.280 --> 1:47:50.519 career kind of there's this thing Vince makes him into 1:47:50.520 --> 1:47:53.400 a heel. There's some people who will say that like 1:47:53.439 --> 1:47:56.200 that really hurt him. It's one of those things where 1:47:56.240 --> 1:47:59.639 like that's the I took that from that documentary on 1:47:59.640 --> 1:48:01.559 on Andre and from some stuff that some of his 1:48:01.600 --> 1:48:02.000 friends said. 1:48:02.040 --> 1:48:05.320 But it's also like what Vince says, like Vince's attitude 1:48:05.360 --> 1:48:07.600 is that Andre hated him at the end because of 1:48:07.640 --> 1:48:11.160 what Vince had done to him. Why I brought that 1:48:11.280 --> 1:48:13.479 up right before telling the story of Rita Chatterton is 1:48:13.479 --> 1:48:17.439 that there's another story as to why Andre didn't like 1:48:17.560 --> 1:48:20.280 Vince anymore, and it's that his friend confided in him 1:48:20.320 --> 1:48:23.040 that that Vince raped her. Right, And it's the same 1:48:23.160 --> 1:48:25.639 thing with Owen, where like people will be like Owen 1:48:25.840 --> 1:48:28.400 was really kind of put off and disgusted by this 1:48:28.520 --> 1:48:31.639 gross storyline that Vince has announced, and maybe that had 1:48:31.680 --> 1:48:35.000 a role, but like Owen also sees all this happen 1:48:35.320 --> 1:48:39.840 with Melanie and with his with with Pillman's family and 1:48:40.160 --> 1:48:43.400 is disgusted by that because of he's a human being. 1:48:43.800 --> 1:48:47.080 You no, like it's not by all accounts, he was 1:48:47.080 --> 1:48:49.439 a really good dude. Yeah, he was a really good dude. 1:48:49.479 --> 1:48:52.680 And he's horrified by this. Both Heart boys are horrified 1:48:52.680 --> 1:48:55.240 by this. I mean, Brett's already out, but they are 1:48:55.280 --> 1:48:57.360 disgusted by this. And this has a lot of an 1:48:57.360 --> 1:48:59.800 impact on, like why he's so unhappy at the time. 1:49:00.400 --> 1:49:02.719 So when he donned his costume as the Blue Blazer 1:49:02.760 --> 1:49:05.160 and would declare in his like little speeches and stuff 1:49:05.160 --> 1:49:09.800 that the WWF was hopelessly sick and cruel, it didn't 1:49:09.800 --> 1:49:12.679 take a lot of acting, right, And when he gave 1:49:12.760 --> 1:49:16.720 stage speeches about cleaning up the WWF, it was like, 1:49:16.840 --> 1:49:20.000 you know it, There's there's kind of more going on there, 1:49:20.320 --> 1:49:22.879 like than just you know, someone being handed as script. 1:49:24.080 --> 1:49:27.960 So the storyline with Vince's kids goes on, Shane is 1:49:28.000 --> 1:49:32.000 revealed to have secretly manipulated the Undertaker into kidnapping and 1:49:32.040 --> 1:49:36.599 trying to rape his sister. So that's like the evolution 1:49:36.760 --> 1:49:38.880 is that, like Shane comes on and like, haha, it 1:49:38.920 --> 1:49:41.400 was him that was behind it the whole time. In 1:49:41.439 --> 1:49:44.840 One Memorable Night, Linda McMahon shows up on stage where 1:49:44.880 --> 1:49:47.960 Shane gleefully admits to picking out the dress his sister 1:49:48.040 --> 1:49:52.000 had been tied up in on stage. Now, throughout this 1:49:52.200 --> 1:49:55.360 plot line, Vince had scattered in references to a higher 1:49:55.400 --> 1:49:59.000 power who the Undertaker and Shane were both taking orders from, 1:49:59.400 --> 1:50:03.160 but like in a very lost like situation, they didn't 1:50:03.240 --> 1:50:05.519 know who that was, right that wasn't planned out ahead 1:50:05.560 --> 1:50:08.040 of time. You know, they were doing a mystery box 1:50:08.200 --> 1:50:08.680 kind of thing. 1:50:08.760 --> 1:50:12.880 Oh god if the case. 1:50:14.880 --> 1:50:17.920 No. As the storyline plotted on, they eventually decided that 1:50:17.960 --> 1:50:21.080 the higher power had to be Vince, who had manipulated 1:50:21.080 --> 1:50:23.800 his son into having a maniac kidnap his daughter to 1:50:23.920 --> 1:50:28.000 marry and force himself on her. And again, this is 1:50:28.000 --> 1:50:31.240 both insane, but it's also perfect like Neo KFE because 1:50:31.320 --> 1:50:35.000 Vince is actually the one in charge directing his son 1:50:35.160 --> 1:50:39.800 to pretend to orchestrate the kidnapping and sexual like that 1:50:39.960 --> 1:50:42.799 is what was happening. He is in fact the higher 1:50:42.840 --> 1:50:49.640 power behind all this. It's so wild. So this culminates 1:50:49.640 --> 1:50:52.599 in a big drama where Shane, who pretend owned half 1:50:52.640 --> 1:50:55.519 the WWF, forced his father to fight one of the 1:50:55.520 --> 1:50:57.560 wrestlers on his team, which they're like, oh, it's a 1:50:57.600 --> 1:51:01.120 death sentence for a man his age. Vince gets fake 1:51:01.200 --> 1:51:03.280 beaten with an inch within an inch of his life, 1:51:03.320 --> 1:51:05.479 and to sell it, he hires an ambulance and e 1:51:05.640 --> 1:51:08.720 mts to pretend to take him to the hospital right like, 1:51:08.760 --> 1:51:11.200 they take him out on a stretcher. They like cut 1:51:11.240 --> 1:51:13.840 to canned footage of him in the ambulance but they're 1:51:13.880 --> 1:51:16.479 real e mts and a real ambulance, which is interesting 1:51:16.520 --> 1:51:18.759 to me. Maybe that's just the cheapest way to actually 1:51:18.760 --> 1:51:18.920 do it. 1:51:18.920 --> 1:51:24.680 I don't know, yeah yet attack and got the guys there. 1:51:25.000 --> 1:51:26.679 There are ambulance services for hire. 1:51:27.120 --> 1:51:29.840 Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not surprising that that might be 1:51:30.000 --> 1:51:33.360 just like the most efficient way to do it. Later 1:51:33.479 --> 1:51:36.200 that night, there's a pay per view match, which is 1:51:36.240 --> 1:51:40.160 a separate endeavor, but it led it's led into by 1:51:40.200 --> 1:51:42.599 the show where Vince gets beat up on Shane's orders 1:51:42.640 --> 1:51:44.800 and taken away in the ambulance, and then you have 1:51:44.920 --> 1:51:48.160 like the match that comes on afterwards. And the opening 1:51:48.240 --> 1:51:50.040 of this pay per view match was supposed to be 1:51:50.120 --> 1:51:53.240 owen Hart as the Blue Blazer flying down from the 1:51:53.360 --> 1:51:55.880 rafters in a harness and landing in the ring where 1:51:55.880 --> 1:51:58.880 he would then do battle with another wrestler. Now there 1:51:58.920 --> 1:52:01.160 had been opening like a wrestler like fly on to 1:52:01.200 --> 1:52:03.519 stage is a thing that had happened before. It was 1:52:03.640 --> 1:52:06.720 more common earlier in the WWF history when there were 1:52:06.720 --> 1:52:10.559 more safety standards. It's obviously it's kind of a dangerous stunt. 1:52:10.560 --> 1:52:12.120 You know, you've got a guy flying through the air. 1:52:12.200 --> 1:52:16.639 That's an extra risk in ring master Riisman writes, quote, 1:52:16.960 --> 1:52:19.800 Vince had hired a new desceinder technician who hadn't worked 1:52:19.800 --> 1:52:23.160 with the WWF before and who had significantly less experience 1:52:23.240 --> 1:52:26.120 with the stunt than the technician who'd overseen similar interests 1:52:26.120 --> 1:52:30.280 in interests in the past. Now, I'm not going to 1:52:30.280 --> 1:52:33.479 be labor as this. The stunt goes badly. A cable 1:52:33.520 --> 1:52:36.719 detaches from the harness. Owen fell more than seventy feet, 1:52:36.840 --> 1:52:39.759 hitting the top rope with his chest and he receives 1:52:39.800 --> 1:52:42.640 immediately a fatal injury. Right, like, this is not survivable 1:52:42.680 --> 1:52:43.360 at any point. 1:52:43.400 --> 1:52:43.679 Really. 1:52:44.840 --> 1:52:49.040 He loses constant consciousness pretty much instantly, and he's not 1:52:49.160 --> 1:52:52.519 declared dead on the scene, but he basically dies in 1:52:52.560 --> 1:52:54.920 front of a stadium of fans who are all cheering 1:52:55.000 --> 1:52:56.960 because they don't know that this isn't part of the 1:52:57.000 --> 1:53:01.479 show immediately, especially the people who are further away. I 1:53:01.520 --> 1:53:03.800 think there's some folks who are closer who like realize 1:53:04.160 --> 1:53:07.200 he came in way too hot. But you know these 1:53:07.200 --> 1:53:11.480 are big stadiums, right, Yeah. They cut the feed almost immediately. 1:53:11.800 --> 1:53:16.080 I was also watching this live. Yeah, oh god, did 1:53:16.120 --> 1:53:17.200 you know what had happened? 1:53:17.560 --> 1:53:23.000 Yep, because they came on Yeah, okay, after they faded out. 1:53:23.080 --> 1:53:25.240 They there's some crowdshots and they come on after a 1:53:25.240 --> 1:53:28.519 bit and it's Jr. And Lawler and they tell us, look, 1:53:28.560 --> 1:53:32.240 go and fell and they look shricken. They're both pale. Yeah, 1:53:32.400 --> 1:53:34.360 look they look like they just watched a man die. 1:53:34.680 --> 1:53:37.439 Because they did. Yeah, because they did. Yeah. 1:53:37.520 --> 1:53:40.840 It's a pretty bleak. So everyone scrambles. They can't have 1:53:40.960 --> 1:53:43.680 dead air, right, Like, that's the first rule of television. 1:53:44.000 --> 1:53:46.600 And I think it's also just like, if you're a 1:53:46.640 --> 1:53:49.519 professional like that in this situation that you have no 1:53:49.640 --> 1:53:52.160 idea how to handle happens, you just kind of naturally 1:53:52.240 --> 1:53:53.559 gonna like fill the air. 1:53:53.720 --> 1:53:54.559 So they do. 1:53:55.640 --> 1:53:58.200 They spend a lot of time assuring the audience and 1:53:58.320 --> 1:54:01.719 viewers that this is a real situation. The e mts 1:54:01.760 --> 1:54:03.640 and the ambulance that Vince had brought on as a 1:54:03.680 --> 1:54:06.320 set piece for like the previous program, are brought in 1:54:06.400 --> 1:54:09.920 to remove Owen, who is again beyond the saving. At 1:54:09.920 --> 1:54:13.160 this point, Vince has a choice either in the show 1:54:13.760 --> 1:54:16.640 or go on. You know, I think there's a good 1:54:16.720 --> 1:54:18.360 argument to me mad that, like, if a guy dies 1:54:18.400 --> 1:54:21.080 before a show, you've got everyone there, you know, you 1:54:21.160 --> 1:54:23.880 have a business relying on those people's jobs relying on this. 1:54:24.320 --> 1:54:26.400 Maybe do bad things for money. 1:54:26.800 --> 1:54:32.120 Yeah, it's told us that, Yeah, yeah, you can do it. 1:54:32.160 --> 1:54:32.520 I don't know. 1:54:32.760 --> 1:54:35.600 It seems it seems even worse to like keep the 1:54:35.640 --> 1:54:39.800 show going at this point, but they do. Vince tells 1:54:39.840 --> 1:54:43.320 everyone that the show that Owen's status is undetermined, which 1:54:43.360 --> 1:54:47.240 is technically true but not really true. And to make 1:54:47.320 --> 1:54:50.240 matters even worse, the guy who is going to call 1:54:50.280 --> 1:54:54.240 Owen's widow about what's happened is Vince McMahon, Like, while 1:54:54.280 --> 1:54:57.840 the show is going on, he calls her. Martha Hart 1:54:57.880 --> 1:55:00.440 later says, quote, they scooped him out like a piece 1:55:00.480 --> 1:55:02.760 of garbage, and they paraded wrestlers out to wrestle in 1:55:02.800 --> 1:55:04.840 a ring that had Owen's blood, where the boards were 1:55:04.840 --> 1:55:07.040 broken from Owen's fall and where guys could feel the 1:55:07.080 --> 1:55:08.680 dip in the ring from where he fell. 1:55:08.960 --> 1:55:11.200 His blood is literally in the ring for the entire 1:55:11.200 --> 1:55:11.680 pay per view. 1:55:12.240 --> 1:55:17.520 Yeah, which I mean, Yeah, it's fucked up. It's sucked, 1:55:17.600 --> 1:55:23.320 it's beyond fucked Yeah, it's insane. It's like, uh yeah, 1:55:23.440 --> 1:55:27.040 it's it's pretty bad. At eight forty PMCST, Events told 1:55:27.080 --> 1:55:29.680 the audience, many of whom still thought this was a 1:55:29.680 --> 1:55:33.120 bit that Owen had because again, while they're saying this 1:55:33.240 --> 1:55:36.200 is really serious, that doesn't necessarily mean it is. And 1:55:36.240 --> 1:55:39.720 also most of the audience has been drinking, so their 1:55:39.760 --> 1:55:42.360 ability to know like what's real and not maybe is 1:55:43.280 --> 1:55:47.560 slightly declined. But at eight forty PMCST, Events tells the 1:55:47.600 --> 1:55:50.760 audience that Owen Hart has perished from his injuries. This 1:55:50.920 --> 1:55:54.320 is followed by an in character scene like and this 1:55:54.360 --> 1:55:56.400 is the part that's weirdest to me, is like after 1:55:56.440 --> 1:56:00.760 he says that, like Owen's dead, they continue like playing 1:56:00.760 --> 1:56:03.920 a clip from that storyline scene where Vince returns from 1:56:03.960 --> 1:56:06.160 the hospital that he was supposed to have been at, 1:56:07.480 --> 1:56:10.160 like that's how shit ends that night, with like a 1:56:10.200 --> 1:56:13.120 clip of him getting Vince who has fake gone to 1:56:13.160 --> 1:56:15.400 the hospital, returning from the hospital with like I think 1:56:15.400 --> 1:56:19.520 a busted ankle or something. It's a weird choice. And 1:56:19.680 --> 1:56:22.600 after this bit of k fabe, Vince has to go 1:56:22.640 --> 1:56:25.480 speak at a very real news conference where a reporter 1:56:25.600 --> 1:56:30.080 repeatedly asks him like very important question is wrong with 1:56:30.400 --> 1:56:32.720 what the fuck is wrong with you? And like stuff 1:56:32.760 --> 1:56:35.520 about safety precautions that had been missing. Why wasn't there 1:56:35.520 --> 1:56:39.160 a backup line protecting Owen and Vince replies, I'm not 1:56:39.200 --> 1:56:40.160 an expert in rigging. 1:56:40.280 --> 1:56:45.120 I guess you are. Oh, don't be antagonist. 1:56:45.280 --> 1:56:47.880 Don't be antagonistic at the press conference of arrestler that 1:56:48.000 --> 1:56:50.480 just died in the ring because of your negligence, Vince. 1:56:50.920 --> 1:56:53.480 I'm not an expert in rigging either, but like, I know, 1:56:53.560 --> 1:56:56.400 you need a backup line when a man is sailing 1:56:56.440 --> 1:56:57.440 down from the roof. 1:56:58.280 --> 1:57:00.640 Yeah, somebody died. Something went wrong with the rigging. 1:57:01.000 --> 1:57:03.760 Yeah, yeah, it's like yeah, it's like if someone had 1:57:03.800 --> 1:57:07.440 like gone up when when fucking that shooting happened on 1:57:07.480 --> 1:57:09.920 the set of Dust and been like, why was a 1:57:09.960 --> 1:57:11.720 real gun in the bullet and someone had been like, oh, 1:57:11.720 --> 1:57:13.840 I guess you're a gun expert. Well no, but I 1:57:13.880 --> 1:57:16.120 know that you're not supposed to have loaded guns in 1:57:16.200 --> 1:57:17.960 this on set. 1:57:18.080 --> 1:57:20.840 It really demonstrates the in curiosity of McMahon too, that 1:57:20.880 --> 1:57:22.720 he didn't go straight up to the guy in charge 1:57:22.720 --> 1:57:24.440 of making sure he didn't die and say, what the 1:57:24.440 --> 1:57:25.080 fuck happened? 1:57:25.120 --> 1:57:28.920 Tell me exactly, Vince had Vince had hours to figure 1:57:28.920 --> 1:57:29.760 out what went wrong. 1:57:29.920 --> 1:57:33.120 Yeah, and the focus is on keeping the show going, 1:57:33.160 --> 1:57:36.120 as opposed to like, I'm I'm you want to be 1:57:36.160 --> 1:57:38.440 sitting down in front of that guy. The moment you 1:57:38.520 --> 1:57:40.200 can be like, what the fuck happened? 1:57:40.520 --> 1:57:40.680 Right? 1:57:41.080 --> 1:57:43.640 Interestingly, like what happened? As I remember, it's very similar 1:57:43.640 --> 1:57:45.520 to what happened with Brandon Lee on the Crow, which 1:57:45.560 --> 1:57:48.080 is they hired local, non union guys to do the 1:57:48.120 --> 1:57:51.400 work for a lot less money, and they used a 1:57:51.560 --> 1:57:56.360 vastly inferior single clip that's meant to hold like a 1:57:56.520 --> 1:57:58.440 sale I think it's not meant to hold the weight 1:57:58.480 --> 1:58:01.200 of a man. And that's the clip that they put 1:58:01.240 --> 1:58:03.440 on because they wanted Owen to be able to quickly 1:58:03.480 --> 1:58:07.840 release beacause at a previous performance where he decided from 1:58:07.840 --> 1:58:10.160 the ceiling, he was kind of stuck in his harness 1:58:10.240 --> 1:58:11.760 for a little bit trying to get it off, and 1:58:12.000 --> 1:58:14.680 it looked silly on television, So like, well, we need 1:58:14.720 --> 1:58:16.200 to be able to have him quickly drop out of it, 1:58:16.640 --> 1:58:19.040 but we're sacrificing a great deal of his safety in 1:58:19.120 --> 1:58:21.440 order to get that. Yeah, that's what we're wrong. Like, 1:58:21.880 --> 1:58:24.080 you can watch the Dark Side of the Ring episode 1:58:24.240 --> 1:58:28.240 about Owen's accident, and when they show you the clip, 1:58:28.440 --> 1:58:31.680 like you literally gasp, Yeah, Like it looks like it 1:58:31.680 --> 1:58:32.760 looks like a keychain. 1:58:33.480 --> 1:58:36.880 Yeah, it's it's not like it's it's like something you 1:58:36.920 --> 1:58:39.160 would put your keys on, not something you would trust 1:58:39.160 --> 1:58:44.520 a man's life to. So the reporter continues to press Vince, 1:58:44.600 --> 1:58:46.680 saying like it doesn't look like there were any safety 1:58:46.680 --> 1:58:49.480 precautions at all, and Vince lashes out at her. I 1:58:49.920 --> 1:58:52.879 resent your tone, lady. Okay, this is a tragic accident. 1:58:53.000 --> 1:58:55.320 Don't try and put yourself on the spotlight here, Okay, 1:58:57.440 --> 1:59:03.840 just personally, piece of shit. So for a few days, 1:59:03.960 --> 1:59:07.040 Vince keeps his head down. He cancels several consecutive events 1:59:07.040 --> 1:59:11.440 in Canada. He tries to work quietly. In Connecticut, they 1:59:11.440 --> 1:59:14.840 hold an event like a memorial kind of service for 1:59:14.840 --> 1:59:18.160 for Owen, like in sort of character, I guess you'd say, 1:59:18.200 --> 1:59:21.400 like on on, you know, the WWF. And then on 1:59:21.440 --> 1:59:24.480 May thirty first, he returns to Canada for Owen's funeral. 1:59:25.680 --> 1:59:28.040 Because he's a piece of shit, he brings cameras with him, 1:59:28.080 --> 1:59:31.520 who film inside the Heart Family compound without Martha's permission 1:59:31.600 --> 1:59:32.960 and air the footage on raw. 1:59:34.600 --> 1:59:35.040 Yeah. 1:59:35.200 --> 1:59:38.800 Martha does sue and settles with Vince and the WWF 1:59:38.840 --> 1:59:43.760 for eighteen million. Oh. He goes, yeah, yeah, that's at 1:59:43.840 --> 1:59:44.720 least something. 1:59:45.600 --> 1:59:49.160 I mean they start a charity, yeah, in his name, 1:59:49.240 --> 1:59:52.360 and also like there's a there's like a weird this 1:59:52.400 --> 1:59:54.280 is the whole thing. There's like a weird division between 1:59:54.400 --> 1:59:57.680 Owen's immediate family like his wife and children, and then 1:59:57.680 --> 1:59:59.480 like the greater Heart family who don't want to piss 1:59:59.480 --> 2:00:02.280 off Vince. Yeah, so like they didn't really support her 2:00:02.360 --> 2:00:06.240 during this time. And then yeah and like afterwards she 2:00:06.400 --> 2:00:10.720 like she she and her children refuse to allow Vince 2:00:10.760 --> 2:00:12.880 to induct Owen into the WWE Hall of Fame. 2:00:13.240 --> 2:00:17.520 Yeah, it's really fucked up and ugly, Like Brett winds 2:00:17.600 --> 2:00:20.720 up wrestling again for Vince later, and like, yeah, there's 2:00:20.760 --> 2:00:24.000 a lot of like family conflict here caused by this. 2:00:24.800 --> 2:00:28.920 But obviously it makes sense to me why Martha does 2:00:28.960 --> 2:00:33.520 everything that she does. Like, uh, this is like the 2:00:33.680 --> 2:00:35.960 the amount of rage that you must have in this 2:00:36.000 --> 2:00:38.560 situation is like beyond measure. 2:00:40.320 --> 2:00:40.680 Yeah. 2:00:41.480 --> 2:00:45.480 Uh so, yep, there's a lot more to be said 2:00:45.640 --> 2:00:49.640 about Vince McMahon. But and you know, we've spent so 2:00:49.760 --> 2:00:53.880 much time, we have said so much about him. This 2:00:53.960 --> 2:00:55.640 is kind of this is where we're like, this is 2:00:55.680 --> 2:01:02.560 not the day was gonna be the Yeah, but yeah, 2:01:02.680 --> 2:01:05.880 this is just kind of where where we are. There's 2:01:05.920 --> 2:01:08.160 more that happens in the twenty first century. But like 2:01:08.840 --> 2:01:10.920 you know enough now to know why people say Vince 2:01:11.000 --> 2:01:12.320 McMahon is a bad person. 2:01:13.240 --> 2:01:15.040 I can't believe we did thirty two hours in Vince 2:01:15.080 --> 2:01:16.960 McMahon and never got to the Kiss My Ass Club. 2:01:17.320 --> 2:01:19.560 No, I'm saying we didn't get to him blowing out 2:01:19.560 --> 2:01:23.200 his quads just as a brief one feel like blows 2:01:23.280 --> 2:01:25.720 both of his quads out walking on stage in two 2:01:25.760 --> 2:01:28.240 thousand and five, and it's it's very much if I'm 2:01:28.280 --> 2:01:32.120 not mistaken, it's it's Batista, and I forget who the 2:01:32.120 --> 2:01:34.800 other guy is. But like they fuck up a move 2:01:34.920 --> 2:01:36.840 and they both fall out of the ring at the 2:01:36.880 --> 2:01:40.120 same time, which like is a DQ. So like it's 2:01:40.120 --> 2:01:42.200 not supposed to end in a DQ, but it does 2:01:42.240 --> 2:01:44.320 because like they just kind of botch a move. It happens, 2:01:44.760 --> 2:01:47.800 and Vince like gets angry and comes out on stage 2:01:47.880 --> 2:01:51.160 and like is doing his baby Hue walk just kind 2:01:51.160 --> 2:01:54.400 of blows his squads. Well part it's part of the show. Like, 2:01:54.880 --> 2:01:55.960 it's not that he's angry. 2:01:56.040 --> 2:01:59.440 They decide to send Vince out to play angry to 2:01:59.760 --> 2:02:03.480 yeah the match continue, Yeah, but he tries to slide 2:02:03.520 --> 2:02:06.040 into the into the ring and both of his quads explode. 2:02:06.080 --> 2:02:09.600 I also saw this slide. Both of his quawds explode. 2:02:10.160 --> 2:02:13.600 But they don't stop the scene, Robert. They continue to 2:02:13.680 --> 2:02:17.600 do the scene. Vince can't stand, so they continue to 2:02:17.600 --> 2:02:18.880 do the scene with Vince. 2:02:18.720 --> 2:02:20.040 Just sitting down in the ring. 2:02:20.800 --> 2:02:28.000 That's so funny, everybody else the funniest looking history repeated 2:02:28.040 --> 2:02:30.640 itself recently as I Understanding a pay per view earlier 2:02:30.640 --> 2:02:32.200 this year, Shane McMahon did. 2:02:32.040 --> 2:02:39.360 The exact bad quads that family quad genetic quads out. 2:02:40.600 --> 2:02:43.160 It's it's so funny. So I don't know. 2:02:43.280 --> 2:02:46.960 That's the the Vince McMahon story. He's still running the WWF. 2:02:47.040 --> 2:02:48.680 He was out for a little while, but now he's 2:02:48.720 --> 2:02:53.760 back in. Baby, he's back in with like a real 2:02:54.040 --> 2:03:00.520 thin mustache. Yeah, he's kind of m to grow after 2:03:00.600 --> 2:03:00.960 all of this. 2:03:01.160 --> 2:03:05.200 Yeah, it's a really really, really really horrifying mustache. 2:03:05.320 --> 2:03:08.480 It really is. It tells the story that we took 2:03:08.960 --> 2:03:10.120 so many hours to tell. 2:03:10.320 --> 2:03:12.680 It looks like he knew these episodes were going to 2:03:12.720 --> 2:03:14.240 come out and he was like, well, I might as 2:03:14.240 --> 2:03:15.360 well grow this mustache. 2:03:15.440 --> 2:03:21.680 Yes, it feels like like a court mandated mustache. Like, 2:03:21.760 --> 2:03:23.880 all right, well, let's your stay out of jail, Vince, 2:03:23.920 --> 2:03:25.680 but you have to wear this mustache. 2:03:25.920 --> 2:03:28.440 The conditions of his parole. Part of it was wearing 2:03:28.440 --> 2:03:31.080 this pencil thin predator's mustache. 2:03:31.480 --> 2:03:34.520 It's his way of going do to door and killing everyone. 2:03:36.000 --> 2:03:39.000 Looking like Clark Gable. Spending too long at a high school, 2:03:40.160 --> 2:03:42.560 he does look like a version of Clark Gable. 2:03:42.760 --> 2:03:42.840 That. 2:03:43.520 --> 2:03:47.000 Yeah, instead of going to World War Two, went to 2:03:47.800 --> 2:03:48.960 I don't know whatever. 2:03:49.920 --> 2:03:55.040 Yeah, I went to a high school to trowl Roberts. 2:03:56.680 --> 2:04:01.600 Well, we got a good wrestling stories that I messed here, gang. 2:04:02.960 --> 2:04:04.920 No, I think we got them all. God, I mean 2:04:04.960 --> 2:04:07.000 you covered a lot of them. I mean there's I mean, 2:04:07.040 --> 2:04:07.400 I don't know. 2:04:10.760 --> 2:04:13.360 Well, I guess what I'd like to leave you all 2:04:13.400 --> 2:04:18.000 with is the image of Vince McMahon sitting on the 2:04:18.040 --> 2:04:20.400 floor because he's blown both of his squads up. 2:04:22.160 --> 2:04:25.160 You know that that still trying to arouchy and authoritative. 2:04:25.360 --> 2:04:27.560 Yep, they do the whole scene. They do the whole 2:04:27.600 --> 2:04:29.920 bit with him just sitting down in the ring. It's 2:04:29.920 --> 2:04:35.120 the funniest thing I've ever seen on the wrestling ah man, 2:04:35.200 --> 2:04:36.920 and I felt bad for him at the time. But 2:04:37.040 --> 2:04:40.320 now after you know, enduring all these episodes, I understand 2:04:40.360 --> 2:04:42.560 that I shouldn't have and now I feel better about it. 2:04:43.080 --> 2:04:44.560 So just look the clip up and laugh at him 2:04:44.560 --> 2:04:45.360 because he deserves it. 2:04:45.720 --> 2:04:51.640 Yeah, well, got anything to plug? Oh Tom, please go first? 2:04:52.080 --> 2:04:56.080 Meet to go first? Oh, I would love it if 2:04:56.120 --> 2:04:56.360 you did. 2:04:56.720 --> 2:04:59.520 Oh man, Well, I have a podcast in Streaming Network 2:04:59.560 --> 2:05:02.200 with our our mutual friend David Bell, also from Cracked. 2:05:02.440 --> 2:05:05.400 Game for the Unemployed. Head over to our patreon patreon 2:05:05.440 --> 2:05:07.480 dot com slash Game for Unemployed. We have all sorts 2:05:07.480 --> 2:05:10.080 of different tiers you can join at just to get 2:05:10.120 --> 2:05:12.800 exclusive podcasts. You can commission your own podcasts. We do 2:05:12.920 --> 2:05:15.720 movie nights every week with our patrons, and you can 2:05:15.760 --> 2:05:17.920 also listen to we have Most of our shows are 2:05:17.920 --> 2:05:19.560 totally free to listen to. You can find them on 2:05:19.600 --> 2:05:22.480 any place you listen to podcasts. So do that thing, 2:05:23.680 --> 2:05:28.240 and that's all I've got. Yeah, great plug. 2:05:29.000 --> 2:05:31.360 Three years ago I started one nine hundred hot Dog 2:05:31.440 --> 2:05:34.600 with the great Robert Brockway and we are going strong. 2:05:35.720 --> 2:05:37.640 Call one nine hundred hot Dog for fun. 2:05:38.360 --> 2:05:41.760 Yeah, check out one nine hundred hot Dog, check out 2:05:41.800 --> 2:05:47.440 Gamefully Unemployed. Both of them are the antidote for the 2:05:47.520 --> 2:05:51.760 sadness that I have inflicted on you with my cruel, 2:05:51.920 --> 2:05:53.080 cruel cruel. 2:05:52.840 --> 2:05:56.960 Show speak anyway, speaking, I was gonna say, Robert, speaking 2:05:57.000 --> 2:05:58.840 of things that are cool, do you know what's cool 2:05:58.880 --> 2:05:59.960 but also cooler? 2:06:01.120 --> 2:06:04.680 Oh? Yeah, you can get ad free stuff cooler. 2:06:04.440 --> 2:06:09.480 Zune Apple podcasts. That's the plug. Nobody plugs like you too. 2:06:09.560 --> 2:06:14.160 You're gonna You're gonna have to tattoo this on his hand, Sophie. 2:06:15.000 --> 2:06:19.040 I mean that would be really funny. I would enjoy 2:06:19.120 --> 2:06:24.320 that activity. My handwriting is horrendous. 2:06:28.160 --> 2:06:28.360 Yeah. 2:06:28.440 --> 2:06:30.360 Well, I was just gonna say, I love your show, Robert, 2:06:30.360 --> 2:06:32.440 but it does make me sad every time I listen 2:06:32.480 --> 2:06:32.680 to it. 2:06:33.040 --> 2:06:39.160 Yeah, what we go for it is sorrow, all right, 2:06:39.200 --> 2:06:39.680 everybody