Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: DA Welcome back.
Speaker 3: To the show. My name is Matt, Goodness, my name's
Speaker 3: not And in this quarter weighing in, it's six hundred
Speaker 3: and sixty nine shadows.
Speaker 4: She call him Ben.
Speaker 5: How We're joined as always with our super producer Dylan
Speaker 5: the Tennessee Hal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you, You
Speaker 5: are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want
Speaker 5: you to know. Let's get already to run gidding, gidding.
Speaker 5: We actually can't say it. We can not say that
Speaker 5: phrase on air.
Speaker 3: I don't want to. I don't want to hold you
Speaker 3: up too much. Ben here, but how much duff a shadow?
Speaker 4: Way right?
Speaker 3: Well, tune in for our later pens the content of
Speaker 3: the character of the shadow.
Speaker 4: Yes, there it is.
Speaker 5: We Actually the reason I was doing that joke at
Speaker 5: the top is we actually cannot say or do not
Speaker 5: want to say that entire catch phrase, which should be
Speaker 5: familiar to all wrestling fans on the air, because the
Speaker 5: owners of that trademark phrase, the Buffer family, is known
Speaker 5: for suing the heck out of people if they use it.
Speaker 5: They even took on the Mouse for having a iteration
Speaker 5: of We can say the phrase let's get ready to rumble,
Speaker 5: but we can't say it in that intonation.
Speaker 4: And with that context, you.
Speaker 3: Take aim at the mouse, you best not miss, and
Speaker 3: you best have an air tight case. So it sounds
Speaker 3: like they know what they're doing.
Speaker 2: Now, now hold on, we're talking about Michael Buffer, who
Speaker 2: I remember from boxing, and then Bruce Buffer, that is
Speaker 2: we know from UFCLE.
Speaker 3: A couple of buff Buffers if you ask me.
Speaker 5: And now TKO Holdings, which we'll get to. It's a
Speaker 5: true story. The Buffer dynasty has made an estimated four
Speaker 5: hundred million plus US dollars off trademarking and licensing the
Speaker 5: phrase let's get ready to rumble, and of course off
Speaker 5: of their notorious litigation cases. But if you're a fan
Speaker 5: of wrestling, even if we didn't say the phrase fully
Speaker 5: in that intonation, you know what that signals. What it
Speaker 5: leads to, it's one of the most fascinating, strangest performance
Speaker 5: sports in all of modern history. That's right, Fellow conspiracy
Speaker 5: realist Tonight sort of live and kind of direct to you.
Speaker 5: We are doing an episode all about professional wrestling and
Speaker 5: the conspiracies of play inside and outside of the ring.
Speaker 5: Quick note, quick disclaimer there will be discussions of some
Speaker 5: pretty dark, dark, violent things here, so this episode may
Speaker 5: not be appropriate for old listeners.
Speaker 3: Lots of punches and kicks, potentially some slams.
Speaker 4: Getting ropes.
Speaker 3: Oh god, don't even get me started on folding chairs, cages, yeah, pages,
Speaker 3: cage matches. Do they still use spiked bats from time
Speaker 3: to time? Or barbed wire? They have to know where
Speaker 3: they slice themselves. That's we'll get into it.
Speaker 5: Well, you got to check out the amateur wrestling now.
Speaker 5: Our own metropolis of Atlanta and a lot of surrounding
Speaker 5: counties in Georgia actually have a thriving scene that's a
Speaker 5: little bit looser with the rules than WWF and WWE,
Speaker 5: a little.
Speaker 3: Bit looser with the problematic behavior as well, because I
Speaker 3: went to one at like a VFW a handful of
Speaker 3: years ago, and the heel wrestlers were all like Mexicans
Speaker 3: or you know, Middle Eastern codd it was. It was
Speaker 3: not good. And I just remember there's this one kid
Speaker 3: who clearly had a glandular disorder who was just going
Speaker 3: kill them kill.
Speaker 4: It was a lot.
Speaker 2: If we're talking problematic behavior, we're gonna get and plenty
Speaker 2: of that, with some McMahon things and some other things.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so let's dive in.
Speaker 5: We'll have a word from our sponsors, and then we'll
Speaker 5: meet you in the ring.
Speaker 4: Here are the facts.
Speaker 5: We've got to separate two related concepts that are quite distinct. Okay, folks,
Speaker 5: that's a little stage magic trick for that one. There
Speaker 5: are two loose categories broad categories, so what we call
Speaker 5: wrestling today. The first one, the actual Olympic level wrestling
Speaker 5: is one of the oldest combat sports in all of
Speaker 5: human civilization. It predates the written word. It's been independently
Speaker 5: invented time and time again across cultures, primarily because you
Speaker 5: don't need special equipment to do it, and also because
Speaker 5: even as recreation, this type of wrestling can train people
Speaker 5: for actual combat in the future. There are depictions of
Speaker 5: it in cave paintings from France that date back fifteen
Speaker 5: to seventeen thousand years. It's in the Iliad, It's in
Speaker 5: the Old Testament. Remember how Jacob wrestles with either an
Speaker 5: angel or God. It's in the Vedas, It's in like
Speaker 5: ancient Babylon in Egypt, it's it's everywhere.
Speaker 2: I do wonder about the techniques that were available to
Speaker 2: Jacob as he wrestled with an angel or you know,
Speaker 2: being of other origin like that.
Speaker 3: Can't really do any below the belt hits with an
Speaker 3: angel because they've got nothing down there. They're like kendles.
Speaker 5: If it's a biblically accurate angel as well, then where
Speaker 5: do you which wing do you grab onto, how do.
Speaker 2: Youw do you grapple? Where were you talking about under
Speaker 2: hook's where? And it's a very interesting thing. Maybe we
Speaker 2: should point out here when we're talking about wrestling as
Speaker 2: a sport versus a fighting technique, ben as we're talking
Speaker 2: about in the sport, you're not hitting anybody. In wrestling,
Speaker 2: it's not about attacking. It's about kind of imposing your
Speaker 2: body's will on the other body by moving them outside
Speaker 2: of some ring, by pinning them to the ground. You
Speaker 2: it's not you're not hitting anybody or purposely hurting somebody.
Speaker 2: It's a competition in the sporting.
Speaker 5: World exactly, and it's huge still. Modern modern versions of
Speaker 5: this ancient wrestling are incredibly popular all around the world today.
Speaker 5: In fact, a fun little random piece of info here.
Speaker 5: I believe the literal national sport of Turkey is still
Speaker 5: oil wrestling. Yeah, it's exactly what it sounds like. These
Speaker 5: guys are essentially in uh. I don't want to call
Speaker 5: them diapers, but they're in their tidies and that's it.
Speaker 5: And they get looped up and then they grapple with
Speaker 5: each other.
Speaker 3: Nothing. I'mrotic about that.
Speaker 2: Not.
Speaker 4: But we are.
Speaker 5: We are talking though, We're talking, not just about that.
Speaker 5: Maybe we'll do a ridiculous history episode about that in
Speaker 5: the future. Fellow conspiracy realists and wrestling fans, we are
Speaker 5: talking about your favorite form of wrestling. It is inspired
Speaker 5: by the original, but over time it went to a
Speaker 5: wildly different and I think we would all argue wildly
Speaker 5: entertaining directions.
Speaker 2: That's the key word, isn't it, Ben, Yeah.
Speaker 5: It's technically okay, so we call it just wrestling, but
Speaker 5: you might call it pro wrestling or professional wrestling. And
Speaker 5: if you look at the technical definition, it is described
Speaker 5: as athletic theater yep, sort of like craft singles or
Speaker 5: a cheese product cheese food product.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, that's why there's that entertainment word. At the
Speaker 2: end of the world wrestling right.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, exactly, it's still pro wrestling. First off, we're
Speaker 5: coming from a place of great affection and respect here, folks.
Speaker 5: We're not haters on this. It's still ruffle around that
Speaker 5: idea of mock combat, which the sport of wrestling originally
Speaker 5: has always been. But historians make a really interesting point.
Speaker 5: Wrestling in its original form was considered too slow paced
Speaker 5: to really pull crowds in the United States. Keep in mind,
Speaker 5: this is also the country that would later go on
Speaker 5: to invent crack cocaine and supersized French fries, so naturally
Speaker 5: audiences in the eighteen hundred seventeen hundreds they looked at
Speaker 5: this kind of stuff, even when Abe Lincoln was wrestling,
Speaker 5: and they were like, we want more. And that's why
Speaker 5: the wrestlers, in a bid to get their industry more
Speaker 5: well known and more popular, they privately agreed to start
Speaker 5: fixing their matches. And they did this not purely for
Speaker 5: a financial basis, to be honest, these are artisans studying
Speaker 5: a craft, and they realized that, hey, if we have
Speaker 5: a kind of narrative through line, if we can agree
Speaker 5: on some kind of outline or course of events, then
Speaker 5: we can pull off super spectacular, entertaining moves in choreography,
Speaker 5: the kind of stuff you would never see in a
Speaker 5: non fixed regular matter.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not for nothing that so many of
Speaker 3: these folks have gone on to have very successful film careers, right.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's acting of the highest order, and
Speaker 3: it is a drama writ large, you know. I mean
Speaker 3: it is essentially kind of a machismo enriched version of say,
Speaker 3: daytime soaps.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: I like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, but also think about action movies and the
Speaker 2: things that are required of an actor in a big
Speaker 2: budget action film. It's just being able to use your
Speaker 2: body to do cool stuff and look good while you're
Speaker 2: doing it.
Speaker 4: That's me thing.
Speaker 5: And the promoters are a huge aspect of this early
Speaker 5: development of professional wrestling. They're the ones who really start
Speaker 5: becoming the brain trust, and they script these matches which
Speaker 5: allow for a kind of a bit of improvisation, but
Speaker 5: they always have an end goal in their narrative. The
Speaker 5: victor is decided it's going to be the most charismatic wrestler,
Speaker 5: usually the people's hero noel. You earlier used the term heel.
Speaker 5: That's wrestling lingo for the bad guy, the opposite of
Speaker 5: that is the face which is the hero, the one
Speaker 5: you're supposed to cheer for. They found that American audiences
Speaker 5: really love this charismatic stuff. They loved this binary good
Speaker 5: guy bad guy mentality. If your charisma was enough. In
Speaker 5: the early nascent mergent days of professional wrestling, you didn't
Speaker 5: actually have to be that skilled technically. You would get
Speaker 5: more attention, more money, more popularity by adopting a stage persona.
Speaker 5: You'd have various gimmicks like the legendary Undertaker, You'd have
Speaker 5: weird lord, strange backstories, and then you'd also start getting
Speaker 5: these other pretend characters that didn't actually wrestle, but they
Speaker 5: were like your fake manager. Remember those guys like the
Speaker 5: Grand Wizard and Sergeant Slaughter and so on. Grand Wizard
Speaker 5: actually Jewish.
Speaker 3: Guy whoa Okay, and I was gonna say, but I
Speaker 3: mentioned the thing about the local VFW Wrestling League and
Speaker 3: some of the problematic heel characters that were, you know,
Speaker 3: designed to be other other ring and to be like,
Speaker 3: this is an enemy that you can kind of focus
Speaker 3: your disdain on. And that absolutely was the case in
Speaker 3: professional wrestling as well. I mean they were just taking
Speaker 3: a cue from that. There was like wasn't there something
Speaker 3: chic Iron the Iron Chic.
Speaker 4: Who later went on to open restaurants.
Speaker 3: So he was a bad guy, wasn't He wasn't the
Speaker 3: Iron Chic baddie.
Speaker 4: I would say he's kind of an anti hero definitely.
Speaker 4: Definitely to your.
Speaker 5: Point about playing into racist or xenophobic attitudes in his heyday, yeah,
Speaker 5: Iron Sheep was often kind of a heel.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys remember a wrestler named Sting, Yes, way
Speaker 2: back in the day, like childhoods and face Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 2: He He lived next door to one of my best buddies,
Speaker 2: and we used to go over to his property. I
Speaker 2: guess it's he was a huge property and he had
Speaker 2: a little pond there and we would hang out by
Speaker 2: his pond and like wait and try and spot to
Speaker 2: Sting when he would come in or out of his property.
Speaker 2: But he was never there. I guess he was always working.
Speaker 3: Guys. I'm sorry to take a tiny little derail moment,
Speaker 3: but I just looked up a list of racially insensitive
Speaker 3: professional wrestling heels, and there are so many. There was Kamala,
Speaker 3: the Ugandan giant, a quote savage jungle stereotype, wearing face paint,
Speaker 3: achem the African Dream. It was a white wrestler that
Speaker 3: was repackaged with like kind of these urban quote unquote mannerisms.
Speaker 3: Saba simba, a tribal African gimmick, wearing a headdress and
Speaker 3: holding a spear. Of course, you'll probably remember Yokozuna. It
Speaker 3: was a samoeen wrestler who is actually I believe came
Speaker 3: from Japanese sumo tradition, but was very much packaged as.
Speaker 4: This exotic other.
Speaker 3: And my personal favorite guys, The Mexicools, a Mexican trio
Speaker 3: debuting on riding lawnmowers, essentially mocking the idea of day laborers.
Speaker 5: And in this for a pop culture reference, folks, in
Speaker 5: this we see an industry at play. One of the
Speaker 5: best fictional examples of that in recent discourse is going
Speaker 5: to be the way Vaught International handles and packages the
Speaker 5: soups in the adaptation of.
Speaker 4: The Graphic novel A really.
Speaker 3: Good point be a lot of wrestling analogs there for sure.
Speaker 4: Sure.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like if you read the graphic novels, I don't
Speaker 5: know how often this happens in the adaptation, but if
Speaker 5: you if you read the comics, there's this entire consistent
Speaker 5: through line of Vaught departments, counting and marketing and pr
Speaker 5: and so on, going to this person and saying, okay, so.
Speaker 4: Here's your background.
Speaker 5: All right, you're in Atlantean Prince and the person with
Speaker 5: the superpowers is going yeah, but also Atlantis isn't real,
Speaker 5: and they're like, we'll get to that. We're going to
Speaker 5: figure that one out in Q three. That's what happens
Speaker 5: a lot with real life pro wrestling. It is a
Speaker 5: massive success. It turns out that audiences don't really care
Speaker 5: about anything past being entertained, right, and you can propagandis
Speaker 5: like you're saying Noel with these heels that sort of
Speaker 5: echo the concerns of the American zeitgeist over time, and
Speaker 5: then later the Mexican Canadians, ZI guys, so on and
Speaker 5: so forth. They make so much money, huge professional empires, WWE, WWF.
Speaker 5: They are fundamental parts of American culture very soon after
Speaker 5: their creation. Right now, these are the best stats we
Speaker 5: have right now, folks, as of last year. As of
Speaker 5: twenty twenty five, we're recorded on Friday July tenth, twenty
Speaker 5: twenty six, the market size of the pro wrestling industry
Speaker 5: overall is five point three three billion, dollars. That's not
Speaker 5: the number that should amaze us. The number that should
Speaker 5: amaze us is the forecasted growth an industry that will
Speaker 5: be twelve point nine six billion dollars by twenty thirty three.
Speaker 2: Now, hold on too much money, Ben, Is that including
Speaker 2: all of TKO's stuff or is that is just so
Speaker 2: that's all these various wrestling organizations across the planet.
Speaker 5: Not including UFC okay, which is actual cost which is
Speaker 5: a sport for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and a sport and not choreograph. I think it's.
Speaker 3: Also worth mentioning. I'm sorry, just that you can't get
Speaker 3: numbers like that if you're only appealing to like fifty
Speaker 3: percent of the population. Like there's this perception I think
Speaker 3: they're wrestling fandom is exclusively or in large part like
Speaker 3: folks that maybe live in the southern parts of the
Speaker 3: country or resigning politically on the right. That is just
Speaker 3: so not true. Is so universally beloved. I have some
Speaker 3: incredibly smart friends, you know, who have known for a
Speaker 3: very very long time, who are obsessed with professional wrestling unironically,
Speaker 3: and I just wanted to point that out. Maybe that's obvious,
Speaker 3: but it's something that didn't occur to me, and I
Speaker 3: was maybe a little bit bubbled in my view of it,
Speaker 3: but I had my perspective change just by knowing people
Speaker 3: who are like really into this stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Jabelle run.
Speaker 5: Also, while we're giving shout outs here, i'd love to
Speaker 5: shout out our longtime friend erstwhile guest on the show,
Speaker 5: Robert Lamb, a great, awesome author and very much on
Speaker 5: ironically adores wrestling. Check out his awesome show that he
Speaker 5: does with another friend of our show, Joe McCormick. It's
Speaker 5: called Stuff to Blow Your Mind. It's available right now
Speaker 5: on Netflix. It is the best scientific exploration show on
Speaker 5: the planet.
Speaker 3: Smart boys and very nerdy in the best way I
Speaker 3: mean that weirdly funny.
Speaker 5: Also, also, I'll say it, Rob, don't get mad, but
Speaker 5: as a great compliment, you do kind of remind me
Speaker 5: of David Bowie and the seventh good looking man.
Speaker 4: Good looking guy.
Speaker 2: Uh, it's the cyburns. It's always been the cyburns for
Speaker 2: me in the like slightly longer hair. Yeah, dude, I
Speaker 2: just want to make one last point here when we
Speaker 2: think about the universal appeal of this type of wrestling
Speaker 2: that we're describing and the amount of money that it
Speaker 2: can generate worldwide. Think about people like The Rock and
Speaker 2: John Cena, and think about how many human beings on
Speaker 2: the planet would recognize those two faces no matter where
Speaker 2: you are on the planet, and how excited people get
Speaker 2: when those folks show up anywhere, or when they show
Speaker 2: up in a movie, and it's the universal appeal just
Speaker 2: cannot be downplayed.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, And that's a great point, Matt. We know there's
Speaker 5: so much money on the line. We also know that
Speaker 5: in most cases, the individual wrestlers that you would recognize,
Speaker 5: unless they're breakout superstars, they're not making as much money
Speaker 5: as you think. Their jobs are really really tough, and
Speaker 5: with so much financial heft this multi billion dollar industry,
Speaker 5: it should not surprise you when we tell you that
Speaker 5: this industry is the subject of numerous conspiracy theories, some
Speaker 5: of which are wholesome, we would argue, and some of
Speaker 5: which are much darker than others. How about we take
Speaker 5: a break for a word from our sponsors, and then
Speaker 5: you know, hop in the.
Speaker 4: Ring, ding ding ding. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 5: We have a word of the day for you folks, Dylan,
Speaker 5: I don't know if we have a sound cue for this.
Speaker 4: Let's get it out of the way.
Speaker 5: First, we explained the origins of quote unquote actual wrestling,
Speaker 5: and then pro wrestling. We talked about how their match
Speaker 5: fixes and scripted bouts larger than life personas, the stuff
Speaker 5: organized crime loves, the stuff that a gambling public doesn't like.
Speaker 5: The thing is, this doesn't stop when they're out of
Speaker 5: the ring. The wrestlers were and are, or superstars as
Speaker 5: they're called by Vince McMahan. They're required to remain in
Speaker 5: character even when they are in public, no matter what
Speaker 5: it is of no consequence if they're actually fighting, if
Speaker 5: they're in public, if there are cameras or civilians around,
Speaker 5: they are in character. Mankind is always mankind. The Undertaker
Speaker 5: is always the Undertaker. This stone cold Steve Austin is
Speaker 5: always stone cold. It is due to about Goldberg, though,
Speaker 5: is always Berg in the goings. This is the practice
Speaker 5: known as kyfabe Word of the Evening k fabe.
Speaker 4: Kay fabe. Oh.
Speaker 5: Also another huge fan of wrestling, our own Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 5: aka the quistor That's.
Speaker 3: Right, that clocks yeah, k fabe. It's almost like it's
Speaker 3: almost a form of method acting, right, like saying the
Speaker 3: character you know.
Speaker 5: I like that, yeah, yeah, Daniel d Lewis style. It's
Speaker 5: the etymology is so murky. You'll find people claiming it's
Speaker 5: mangled pig Latin for b fake. You'll hear people say
Speaker 5: it's named after a specific person K Fabian or k
Speaker 5: space Fabe, or that it's a Latin alteration of the
Speaker 5: word for beware, which is cave, just meaning keep cavy.
Speaker 5: None of that has really been proven, but this is
Speaker 5: so important to wrestling as a culture. It's kind of
Speaker 5: like how carnies have their own insider language. It's kind
Speaker 5: of like how magicians have the Code of Magic, which
Speaker 5: says you cannot reveal your tricks to outsiders. Wrestlers have
Speaker 5: to do whatever is necessary to keep the illusion all live.
Speaker 5: If there is one mortal suit in all of this
Speaker 5: honestly problematic sport, it's not steroids.
Speaker 4: It's not accidentally hurting people. It is breaking k fabe.
Speaker 2: Right right, Yeah, those steroids are pretty important.
Speaker 3: They are important. You gotta get you, you gotta beave up.
Speaker 3: There's so many analogs with like hardcore theatrical pursuits and
Speaker 3: this kfabe and all of this stuff stage combat. Think
Speaker 3: about that, like, I mean, there's so many aspects of
Speaker 3: similarities between you know, folks that might do fighting in
Speaker 3: film or on stage and the kinds of moves that
Speaker 3: these wrestlers have to perfect, you know, stomping on the ground,
Speaker 3: you do a punch and things like that.
Speaker 5: I love that point. Yeah, because two quick things about
Speaker 5: k Fabe. Yes, this is the biggest conspiracy technically of
Speaker 5: pro wrestling because it's central to the entire operation, the
Speaker 5: entire initiative.
Speaker 4: But it's also harmless fun.
Speaker 5: It's kind of wholesome when you think about it, like
Speaker 5: the Santa Claus conspiracy.
Speaker 4: Look that one up.
Speaker 5: We're not going to ruin it for you if you're
Speaker 5: listening in here for some reason under seven years old.
Speaker 5: But this is like if your kid, you're watching your
Speaker 5: favorite action figures come to life. They're clear good guys
Speaker 5: and bad guys. There's a moral prerogative baked in you
Speaker 5: know who to cheer for. And second, this I think
Speaker 5: a point that we all really want to emphasize.
Speaker 4: Folks, Just because k.
Speaker 5: Fabe is in play, just because there's loose scripting, this
Speaker 5: doesn't make the wrestlers themselves any less athletic at all.
Speaker 5: These are professionals. They train at their craft constantly, sometimes
Speaker 5: beyond the strictures of athletes in other disciplines.
Speaker 4: I mean, sure that, let's make one up.
Speaker 5: That backflip, choked slam, double whammy, smell the rock, hallelujah,
Speaker 5: hear me twice. Whatever that move is, it's probably planned
Speaker 5: in advance, they probably practice it a lot. But we
Speaker 5: cannot make the mistake. These folks really can fight, and
Speaker 5: at times, real fights do occur in the ring because
Speaker 5: there are egos involved.
Speaker 2: It's kind of complex in a way because you can
Speaker 2: look at somebody like brock Lesner, who was a huge
Speaker 2: wrestling star and then made his way into the UFC
Speaker 2: world and then you know, was pretty successful. The dude
Speaker 2: is six three, two hundred and sixty five pounds, so
Speaker 2: he's a giant guy, right. He's also extremely athletic for
Speaker 2: that size, and he's he had been training to do
Speaker 2: those kinds of moves. Man, you're talking about like the
Speaker 2: incredibly athletic moves with a huge body, which is crazy impressive.
Speaker 2: And the number of times you have to rehearse a
Speaker 2: move like that when you are so big just to
Speaker 2: get it right, that's that's crazy.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: But then you put him in a ring where you
Speaker 2: just have to fight somebody and it's all very real
Speaker 2: and you you are hurting somebody and someone is hurting you,
Speaker 2: and you can see. I mean, he has a pretty
Speaker 2: good record I'm looking at I think it's five and four,
Speaker 2: maybe five and three that he ended up going. But
Speaker 2: when he did face off, like early on against somebody
Speaker 2: like Frank Mihir, that was a a professional fighter who,
Speaker 2: instead of training moves like that, had been training, you know,
Speaker 2: actual combat moves his entire career. It was a different thing.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying. I'm not saying they're not fighters. I'm
Speaker 2: saying they're not the same thing as someone who's been
Speaker 2: training in UFC their whole career, rather than this really
Speaker 2: cool athletic performance.
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely right, And this this can change. You can
Speaker 5: see this, by the way, in the fact that a
Speaker 5: lot of pro wrestlers will have a longer career with
Speaker 5: more with more bouts than UFC.
Speaker 4: Right. Oh, that's that's that. I think that's one of.
Speaker 5: The easiest demarcations to me. We also know that, Yeah,
Speaker 5: KFA number one conspiracy of wrestling. Everybody knows it. It
Speaker 5: may change the way so people look at wrestling, but
Speaker 5: history is proven the vast majority of audiences across demographics
Speaker 5: to your point earlier le they don't.
Speaker 4: Mind at all.
Speaker 5: They want to be entertained, they want to cheer for
Speaker 5: their favorite wrestlers, rab some merch, get some memories. That's
Speaker 5: pretty awesome to be nerdy about it. From a folklore perspective,
Speaker 5: this is one of the very few things of its
Speaker 5: sort in all of the United States. It is a
Speaker 5: distinct cultural artifact.
Speaker 4: Hinn percent.
Speaker 3: I remember being younger and like learning that pro wrestling
Speaker 3: was fake and thinking that I was sort of in
Speaker 3: on some grand conspiracy, sort of secret, you know. But
Speaker 3: the older you get, the more you realize, like everybody knows,
Speaker 3: of course, And it's almost a feature, not a bug,
Speaker 3: like because it is entertainment. It's like no one believes
Speaker 3: when they're watching their favorite sitcom or you know, a
Speaker 3: TV series, that they're watching something real and the outcome,
Speaker 3: the stakes are in some way real. That doesn't diminish
Speaker 3: the enjoyment of it and the following of the lore
Speaker 3: and the characters. That's a big part of it too, guys,
Speaker 3: is the lore and keeping track of the relationships between
Speaker 3: the good is the goodies and the bad ease and
Speaker 3: all of the different evolutions. Sometimes you'll have a good
Speaker 3: guy that turns heel and stuff like that. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's all about the long the long game of the drama.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the storytelling. Joseph Cavell would love it. And also,
Speaker 5: let's let's exercise empathy. You know, k fabe is happening,
Speaker 5: You're having a great time at a show. Are you
Speaker 5: going to be that absolute piece of trash who leans
Speaker 5: over to a kid and says, hey, the Undertaker doesn't
Speaker 5: actually have superpowers? Like why would you be such a negative?
Speaker 5: Like why would you be such a wet rag about that?
Speaker 5: Let people have fun?
Speaker 3: I would hope that none of us would. But it
Speaker 3: also reminds me of the conversation we recently had on
Speaker 3: listener mail around our conversation.
Speaker 4: Of worship versus belief.
Speaker 3: And you know how sports in the US, much like money,
Speaker 3: sort of takes on qualities of worship and religion. And
Speaker 3: to the point of the listener that wrote in, I
Speaker 3: think there's a lot of truth to the fact that
Speaker 3: you can kind of take on that same reverence even
Speaker 3: though if you know the thing that you're sort of
Speaker 3: revering isn't quote unquote real.
Speaker 4: And you know, so I think we've got k Fabe
Speaker 4: down issues. As we tease, there are a lot.
Speaker 5: There are many more conspiracies in the world of wrestling,
Speaker 5: and they get much darker very quickly. We mentioned we
Speaker 5: tease steroids a little bit. That is one of the
Speaker 5: darker wrestling conspiracies. We have to talk about it. It
Speaker 5: is one of the longest running disturbing shadows haunting the
Speaker 5: industry performance enhancing drugs, particularly anabolic steroids. Get this, folks,
Speaker 5: if you're not familiar with wrestling and you're wondering why
Speaker 5: these folks were so big. Up until up until just
Speaker 5: a few decades ago, steroid use was pretty much in practice,
Speaker 5: perfectly legal in wrestling all the way up to nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety one. That's what it was outlawed nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 5: It was because of the Controlled the Substances Act. And
Speaker 5: they're specifically you know, we're talking about anabolic steroids.
Speaker 4: Don't use them.
Speaker 5: They've got a high, they've got proven medical efficacy for
Speaker 5: some conditions, but they are used by people who seek
Speaker 5: to increase the muscle size of their body, their strength,
Speaker 5: and aspects of physical performance. They've got a lot of
Speaker 5: severely gnarly side effects.
Speaker 4: Check your balls. Those side effects can also include death.
Speaker 2: They didn't seem to Harmhole Cogan's junk too badly, at
Speaker 2: least according to that tape that came out. Oh you
Speaker 2: saw the tape back in the day. Oh no, I don't.
Speaker 3: Know it, but I did hear tell as they didn't
Speaker 3: hear tell.
Speaker 2: I didn't hear anyone going oh wow, that was underwhelming.
Speaker 4: More wow, your balls are strange, shrinking guy. Two. Are
Speaker 4: the two really close? Is that one? Okay?
Speaker 2: Pointing out that he was one of the people that
Speaker 2: early on was saying, yeah, I've been doing anabolic steroids
Speaker 2: in the eighties with Vince McMahon.
Speaker 4: Well, that's the thing too.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was good friends with a pretty a
Speaker 3: relatively elite athlete too many years ago. And the way
Speaker 3: he put it was, it's just if you're not doing steroids,
Speaker 3: you're not in the game. You know, It's like you can't.
Speaker 3: It's not an equal playing field, per se. But it
Speaker 3: certainly is an equal playing field that some people are
Speaker 3: doing them and you're the only one that's not, because
Speaker 3: you just can't compete in the same way. And I
Speaker 3: think that's definitely true in terms of because so much
Speaker 3: of the wrestling stuff is all about how buff do
Speaker 3: you look and like containing that larger than life character.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's the stone chair meets keeping up with
Speaker 5: the Joneses, Right, it's a prisoner's the lemon in some ways.
Speaker 5: Vince McMahon, who was chairman of the then World Wrestling Federal,
Speaker 5: in response to the Controlled Substances Act and the outcry
Speaker 5: about the rampant abuse of steroids and wrestling, he went
Speaker 5: forward and he made this strident public commitment to a
Speaker 5: drug free environment and pro wrestling. He said, we're introducing
Speaker 5: a rigorous, voluntary, independent drug testing policy. And the company says,
Speaker 5: this is going to tackle the steroid abuse. We know
Speaker 5: it's gone too far. We want all of our superstars
Speaker 5: safe face and heel alike. We want our audience to
Speaker 5: know that they're not watching people die up there. This
Speaker 5: seemed appropriate, This seemed ethical, at least until two years
Speaker 5: later in nineteen ninety three, when Vince McMahon himself and
Speaker 5: a bunch of other people, including Hulk Colgan, are indicted
Speaker 5: on federal charges related not just to steroid use, but
Speaker 5: to steroid distribute.
Speaker 4: You should so pretty much.
Speaker 5: From the moment of that nineteen ninety one backlash and
Speaker 5: that makeman's statement from that moment, during the whole thing,
Speaker 5: they were internally pressuring people to use steroids and helping
Speaker 5: them acquire those steroids.
Speaker 2: There was one wrestler who alleged Vince McMahon told him
Speaker 2: backstage after the show, hey man, you need to hit
Speaker 2: the gas because he just wasn't big enough, you know, like,
Speaker 2: he didn't he didn't look like those the other bodies
Speaker 2: that are on the stage.
Speaker 3: Right, the Universe action figure, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the crazy ones with all the veins and all
Speaker 2: that crap. He just didn't look like that. And again
Speaker 2: that's testimony that he alleged, right, But there's so much
Speaker 2: weirdness in that because you're trying to get people to
Speaker 2: speak against the organization or testify against the organization that
Speaker 2: has enriched you and your family, which is kind of
Speaker 2: weird because they changed a rule about this drug or
Speaker 2: about this substance.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And we do have to mention in the interest
Speaker 5: of objectivity and fairness, folks, that McMahon was ultimately acquitted
Speaker 5: on all charges, as we'll see this happens to him
Speaker 5: pretty often. But the trial did reveal a ton of
Speaker 5: wrestlers for taking these drug tests. We're failing these drug
Speaker 5: tests because they were definitely on steroids. They were getting
Speaker 5: put back in the rings. So the industry won the
Speaker 5: court case, but they lost the case of public opinion.
Speaker 5: They lost a lot of trust that would be incredibly
Speaker 5: difficult to regain, and so from like ninety two to
Speaker 5: nineteen ninety six there were increasing arrest and controversies. At
Speaker 5: the end of the steroid era or whatever we want
Speaker 5: to call it, WWF started putting in publicly stricter policies.
Speaker 5: They did more drug testing. They wanted to regain the
Speaker 5: public's trust and you know, the public's money. They also
Speaker 5: had they had a reckoning, They had a crossroads moment
Speaker 5: where they said, Wow, steroid use is super deep in
Speaker 5: our culture. It is riddled with it, like you were saying,
Speaker 5: keeping up with the Joneses. So many people had heard
Speaker 5: issues liver damage or modal imbalances, not to mention the
Speaker 5: mood swings, surges of premature death.
Speaker 3: Probably worth mentioning too, that anabolic steroids weren't scheduled as
Speaker 3: a controlled substance until the Steroid Control Act of nineteen ninety,
Speaker 3: which scheduled them under Schedule three of the Controlled Substances Act,
Speaker 3: and that went to effect in February of nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 3: and then it's since been expanded because of like you know,
Speaker 3: designer versions and stuff they are. They did remain legal
Speaker 3: under prescription for what we were describing ben as valid
Speaker 3: medical uses. However, non medical quote unquote use in possession
Speaker 3: and distribution remains illegal. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Again, like we're saying, the Controlled Substances Act of nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety one changed the game and it definitely saved some wrestlers' lives.
Speaker 5: We tease something else too that we have to get to.
Speaker 5: This is why we add a disclaimer at the top. Folks,
Speaker 5: We're going to get into some very disturbing allegations of
Speaker 5: something not related to steroids. It is related to trafficking
Speaker 5: and sexual abuse. So we're going to pause from our
Speaker 5: sponsors and then we'll dive in.
Speaker 4: We have returned, folks.
Speaker 5: Sadly, allegations of sexual harassment, toxic work culture, misconduct, and
Speaker 5: even assault are not new to pro wrestling. In January
Speaker 5: of twenty twenty four, we're going to jump around in
Speaker 5: time a little bit a scandal rock to the industry.
Speaker 5: A former WWE employee named Janelle Grant alleged that none
Speaker 5: other the Big Dog himself Vince McMahon had sexually trafficked her,
Speaker 5: had sexually assaulted her himself at the company's headquarters in Connecticut,
Speaker 5: and this was far from the first accusation of this
Speaker 5: sort we know the two years prior to twenty twenty four,
Speaker 5: WWE's board of directors launched an internal investigation in which
Speaker 5: we believe they discovered that Vince McMahon had used company
Speaker 5: money to make twelve million dollars worth of hush payments
Speaker 5: to no less than four women, two of whom accused
Speaker 5: him of sexual misconduct or assault. We don't know the
Speaker 5: full results of their investigation because the board of directors
Speaker 5: announced that they had concluded what they were looking into
Speaker 5: and never disclosed the full results.
Speaker 3: Sounds early familiar with some behaviors linked to our current
Speaker 3: sitting president, and we of course know that he and
Speaker 3: Vince McMahon were buddies and they're currently Vince McMahon's wife
Speaker 3: is the head of the department in education.
Speaker 2: Are you talking about the guy that once purchased the
Speaker 2: WWE and a giant event stunt thing from like two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine, That guy that came out and said,
Speaker 2: oh no, I'm buying the WWE, and then it turned
Speaker 2: out he didn't correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the guy Donald Trump with WWE.
Speaker 5: Okay, okay, we're also talking about McMahon's case, a guy
Speaker 5: who was accused by an employee at a tanning salon
Speaker 5: in Boca Ratat in Florida of a harassing and groping her.
Speaker 4: That's two thousand and six.
Speaker 5: They came forward, and that's not the only tanning slum
Speaker 5: person who came forward.
Speaker 2: That's very interesting one. You can find on newspapers dot Com,
Speaker 2: a resource we highly recommend you use. You will have
Speaker 2: to pay for it pretty quickly in your journey with
Speaker 2: the site, but you can find actual images of a
Speaker 2: newspaper clips and there is one you can find here
Speaker 2: from Boca Raton in this place Tanzabar, where I guess
Speaker 2: Vince McMahon used to frequent and a description of what
Speaker 2: allegedly happened, and also a statement by his daughter, who
Speaker 2: was the co CEO of WWE for a while now.
Speaker 2: I'm not exactly sure where she stands in the company
Speaker 2: at this moment, but just statements by the family going eh,
Speaker 2: there's nothing to see here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that is I've linked to hear in our notes.
Speaker 5: That is from the Palm Beach Post Wednesday, February first,
Speaker 5: two thousand and six. And it's exactly as you're describing there, Matt.
Speaker 5: We know it gets worse. You go back to nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety two. You see a former WWF referee named Rita
Speaker 5: Chatterton who said that McMahon assaulted her all the way
Speaker 5: back in nineteen eighty six. It led to an out
Speaker 5: of court settlement. We don't know the terms of that settlement.
Speaker 5: We do know that Chatterton originally saw it something like
Speaker 5: eleven point seventy five million dollars in damages in her lawsuit.
Speaker 5: Not just restricted to female identifying employees of the wrestling organizations,
Speaker 5: a wrestler named Kevin Patrick Washles excuse my pronunciation Waccholz,
Speaker 5: better known by his stage name Nails. He filed a
Speaker 5: lawsuit similar to what you were talking about, Matt, wherein
Speaker 5: he said McMahon didn't just tell him to take steroids,
Speaker 5: but he also sexually assaulted him.
Speaker 2: He's the guy who said he was compelled to give
Speaker 2: testimony and made that statement about being told he needs
Speaker 2: to get on the gas It's a weird tale where
Speaker 2: I'm trying to imagine being his position, where you've got
Speaker 2: federal people coming to you and saying, no, you have
Speaker 2: to testify. He doesn't want to testify, but he also
Speaker 2: doesn't like his former employer that much. He seems to
Speaker 2: have a problem with McMahon because McMahon fired him little
Speaker 2: while after that alleged conversation, and that calls into question
Speaker 2: his testimony, Right, does he have bad blood with the
Speaker 2: person that he's now talking crap about? Who knows? It
Speaker 2: all becomes very murky at least the stuff I'm talking
Speaker 2: about is in what was It? In wrestlingink dot com.
Speaker 2: They have a very interesting article titled the nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: three steroid Scandal that rattled WWE that was written back
Speaker 2: in January of twenty four. That's where I'm getting my info.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's fully correct.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I mean it is definitely. We use Wrestling
Speaker 5: Ink for a source for a lot of our research here.
Speaker 5: We also know that you can go to the New
Speaker 5: York Times and see their July twelfth, nineteen ninety four
Speaker 5: article about Nails the wrestler so and testifying he was
Speaker 5: told to use steroids, as you said, Matt, due to
Speaker 5: pressure from the court. And then there's a separate tanning
Speaker 5: business in California. A spallworker there files a lawsuit alleging
Speaker 5: McMahon sexually assaulted her in twenty eleven. These are not
Speaker 5: even all of the allegations on the record, but they
Speaker 5: are damning litany, even if only some of those are true.
Speaker 5: And it seems like wrestling officials agree that some of
Speaker 5: them are what we're seeing as a pattern of behavior
Speaker 5: over time, over decades, not a one off incident. So
Speaker 5: it's best for us to understand the Janelle Grant case
Speaker 5: as almost like a proverbial straw that broke the monstrous
Speaker 5: camels back. This is what leads Vince McMahon to resign,
Speaker 5: sort of caveat asterisk fine print. He does, okay, he
Speaker 5: does resign from WWE, but he's still the largest single shareholder.
Speaker 5: Like you said, it's a family business, so his daughter
Speaker 5: is attaining increasing importance in the c suite. January wherey
Speaker 5: of twenty twenty three, I think it is he returns
Speaker 5: from retirement as the executive chairman of WWE, right before
Speaker 5: it merges with UFC to create the group TKO Group Holdings,
Speaker 5: and then once that merger is complete, once everybody's made
Speaker 5: their vigoroush makeman resides from TKO the next year in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty four. I don't know, guys, the room where
Speaker 5: it happens.
Speaker 2: Their stock price was crazy, like everything was going gangbusters
Speaker 2: there to make that sale.
Speaker 4: It was. It was a huge deal.
Speaker 2: It's all out the money, make the place to get
Speaker 2: the excitement, to get investors excited, and then kick it
Speaker 2: off and bring the guy back.
Speaker 3: Wait, I said, pumping dump. I mean, I mean it's
Speaker 3: it's his manipulation. It's all you know, smoking mirrors, it's.
Speaker 4: All busy dust.
Speaker 5: I feel like the stock market, we should admit that
Speaker 5: the stock market in general is just manipulation at this
Speaker 5: point to a degree.
Speaker 3: That's very true actually, when we consider things like corrections
Speaker 3: that occur when basically things are overvalued for way too
Speaker 3: long and the people that are in the know are
Speaker 3: the ones that are always set up to benefit from
Speaker 3: those things and everybody else.
Speaker 4: What's been a.
Speaker 2: It's been a weird journey to be a UFC fan
Speaker 2: from a while back, and just to see how that
Speaker 2: organization has changed and how Dana White has always kind
Speaker 2: of been there at the center. But there's always there's
Speaker 2: a group of people that own the organizations, right, There's ZUFA,
Speaker 2: and there's all these other organizations that kind of factor
Speaker 2: into what the UFC has become. And then seeing those
Speaker 2: folks kind of come together with the WWE folks and
Speaker 2: form this new TKO thing and then for them to
Speaker 2: go merge into boxing. They have ZUFA Boxing now and
Speaker 2: they have guys they have Remember there was that slap
Speaker 2: slap championship thing that we talked about. Another thing they
Speaker 2: have is called PBR, which we all know is a
Speaker 2: can and a delicious light beer.
Speaker 3: Tell me wear this blue ribbon award took place, don't
Speaker 3: whatever I still enjoy is this? Is this a competition
Speaker 3: where you smash cans into your face?
Speaker 4: Is? No?
Speaker 2: No, no, It's a bull riding kind of championship organization.
Speaker 2: But it's a huge deal in that world. And this
Speaker 2: is this is the same company that owns it. It's
Speaker 2: just fascinating to see how much reach one company, one
Speaker 2: giant conglomerate, what everything they can gobble up and then
Speaker 2: end up having this global reach of a thing that
Speaker 2: we already knew had global.
Speaker 5: Reach and if the financial conspiracies are shenanigans, and the
Speaker 5: sexual assault shenanigans, and oh, the steroid shenanigans weren't weren't
Speaker 5: enough to persuade you that wrestling is riddled with conspiracy
Speaker 5: and corruption, we have to take a yet another dark
Speaker 5: and let you know that. It turns out a significant
Speaker 5: amount of individual wrestlers have at one point or another
Speaker 5: been charged with murder.
Speaker 3: Well, Ben, I think it's not for nothing that there's
Speaker 3: the roid rage of it all. You know, we mentioned
Speaker 3: earlier this idea of behavioral issues associated with long term
Speaker 3: use of anabolic steroids. These are the kinds of things
Speaker 3: that I could imagine could drive people to a level
Speaker 3: of unchecked aggression that might cause a domestic situation that
Speaker 3: ends horrifically.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I used to hear it being called getting testy,
Speaker 5: like testosterone getting testy when you're two. Write it up
Speaker 5: in earlier evenings. But you're absolutely right, Nol. We know
Speaker 5: there are cases like just three quick ones. Honestly, Billy
Speaker 5: Jack Haynes was seventy years old when he was arrested
Speaker 5: in February twenty twenty four, two years ago, at the
Speaker 5: end of an unrelated hospital stay. And he was accused
Speaker 5: of in connection of his wife's murder. Real name William
Speaker 5: Albert Haynes, Junior. He had been taken to the hospital
Speaker 5: after he had a two hours standoff with authorities in Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 5: The entire neighborhood he was in was told to shelter
Speaker 5: in place. When police finally got to his home, they
Speaker 5: found his eighty five year old wife was dead in
Speaker 5: an apparent shooting. He was charged Haynes with second degree
Speaker 5: murder when he was as soon as he was released
Speaker 5: from the hospital. Interestingly enough, he's also one of the
Speaker 5: guys who spearheaded that massive class action lawsuit against WWE
Speaker 5: for traumatic brain injury. That case was also dismissed later.
Speaker 5: A lot of these things are dismissed, like Vince McMahon
Speaker 5: has never been convicted, which is darkly fascinating.
Speaker 2: There's a string of early death so like health related
Speaker 2: issues with a lot of former wrestlers. There was a
Speaker 2: list on the Bleacher Report that they put out with
Speaker 2: folks like Kerry Van Eric, Brian Pillman, Lance Cade. A
Speaker 2: bunch of these folks. Some of them took their own lives,
Speaker 2: but a lot of them, like Eddie Guerrero, passed. They
Speaker 2: pass away because their heart gives out on them. And
Speaker 2: you imagine, like, is that directly related to steroid use?
Speaker 2: Is that directly related to strain that you get in
Speaker 2: training for the ring and in the ring. Is it
Speaker 2: completely unrelated? Is it even a scandal at all? Or
Speaker 2: is it just part of the game. I mean, the
Speaker 2: taking your own life is a different thing, obviously, but
Speaker 2: the heart failure, I do wonder how much that actually
Speaker 2: could be factored into that steroid use.
Speaker 4: Agreed.
Speaker 5: I mean, we know that there are so many, so
Speaker 5: many cases of people dying that that simply cannot be
Speaker 5: attributed to some other factors.
Speaker 4: There is a pattern of play, we go to it.
Speaker 5: I appreciate that point about suicide as well, which should
Speaker 5: be bracketed and going back to the pattern of homicide
Speaker 5: to your point no roid rage, as we were saying,
Speaker 5: behavioral issues, which is a damning understatement.
Speaker 4: We know.
Speaker 5: One of the most famous cases of alleged murder occurred
Speaker 5: when Jimmy Snooka was charged in the nineteen eighty three
Speaker 5: death of his girlfriend, sent to county jail, posted bail
Speaker 5: to the tune of one hundred grand. The case of
Speaker 5: his girlfriend Argentino her case had previously been declared of
Speaker 5: Cold's case. It was reopened after an investigation in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 5: which led to Snooka being arrested in twenty fifteen charged
Speaker 5: with third degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. He was declared
Speaker 5: get this guy's unfit to stand trial. The charges against
Speaker 5: him were ultimately dismissed, and the prosecutors felt like they
Speaker 5: had him. Those are two examples. Jose Gonzalez d T Porter.
Speaker 5: Those are other examples. There's one that's a bit of
Speaker 5: a plot twist and it's in on a technicality if
Speaker 5: we're okay with it. Wana Barraza Sempario was a best
Speaker 5: described as a would be wrestler or self professed wrestler,
Speaker 5: who was sentenced to seven hundred and fifty nine years
Speaker 5: in prison after being convicted of murdering sixteen elderly women
Speaker 5: in Mexico City. This makes her commonly acknowledged as Mexico's
Speaker 5: first serial killer. There's a lot more darkness to the
Speaker 5: wrestling industry than people might realize from the jump.
Speaker 2: Did we talk about Crispin Waugh. Do you guys remember
Speaker 2: that guy?
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Crispin Waugh incidant. Yeah, yeah, I don't think
Speaker 4: we did.
Speaker 3: But I don't know the name either of this episode
Speaker 3: largely under my radar. Frankly, I only know like the
Speaker 3: the big big names, but surprised that I haven't heard
Speaker 3: about these these folks. What happened with Chris bin Long.
Speaker 2: I think there's a documentary about that one that you
Speaker 2: can watch. Chrispin Waugh. I think it was one of
Speaker 2: those like family, your family, kill your family and if
Speaker 2: things and then yourself.
Speaker 4: Two thousand and seven. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It was really bad. It was really really bad.
Speaker 5: He asphyxiated his spouse and then also asphyxiated his son
Speaker 5: and then took his own life. Jesus, and it goes
Speaker 5: darker and darker. Folks, the further you get, there may
Speaker 5: be a second episode in this topic and the future
Speaker 5: for us. Please write to us, let us know what
Speaker 5: we should cover. This is just a brief overview of
Speaker 5: some of wrestling's greatest conspiracies and scandals, and again, we
Speaker 5: cannot emphasize this enough. The vast majority of wrestling, from
Speaker 5: the champions to the staff on the ground, to the
Speaker 5: crew and the fans, it's just awesome. These are people
Speaker 5: trying to have fun, but we can never forget. In
Speaker 5: the same vein, we can never forget. A culture built
Speaker 5: on kfabe is inherently chock full of, for better or worse,
Speaker 5: the stuff they don't want you to know. Thank you
Speaker 5: so much for tuning in. Please join us for some
Speaker 5: upcoming episodes in the future. In the meantime, why not
Speaker 5: join us on the air. You can find us on
Speaker 5: the line, so you can call us on a phone.
Speaker 5: You can always send us an email.
Speaker 3: You sure can find us online by reaching out of
Speaker 3: the Hand The Conspiracy Stuff or Conspiracy Stuff Show, depending
Speaker 3: on which social media platform you prefer.
Speaker 2: Quick Plug. The documentary I was thinking about is called
Speaker 2: The Dark Side of the Ring. It's produced by Vice Canada.
Speaker 2: There are seven seasons, and in one of those, I
Speaker 2: think it's season two, you can learn all about Chris
Speaker 2: Blin ben Wab. But there's a whole bunch, like full
Speaker 2: episodes on some of the things we talked about today,
Speaker 2: So definitely check that out if you have time. If
Speaker 2: you want to give us a call, our number is
Speaker 2: one eight three three std WYTK. When you call in,
Speaker 2: give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
Speaker 2: we can use your name and message on one of
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Speaker 2: If you've got stuff you want to write to us,
Speaker 2: send us an email. We are the.
Speaker 5: Entities that read each piece of correspondence we receive. Be
Speaker 5: well aware, I'm afraid sometimes the void writes back. You
Speaker 5: can ask us for a random fact. We'll give you what.
Speaker 5: You can give us a random fact of your own choosing,
Speaker 5: will send one in return. You can always write to
Speaker 5: us for specific sources on an episode that we covered
Speaker 5: in the past, and we would love to hear from you,
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