Holiday All-Star Season Two Finale!

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Alright, back from a long hiatus, I don't even know if I know how to do this anymore.

(00:06):
My name is The Taxman, this is the Grappler with Canada podcast and this is our holiday
spectacular if you will.
Tonight's episode is quite a bit different than we normally do, it's not on one specific
subject but on multiple subjects.
And to cover those multiple subjects, I have multiple guests which I'm very happy to have
in the chat right now.

(00:26):
And as per holiday traditions, it's a come and go event so you never know who's going
to be here at the end and you never know who's going to pop in during it.
But right now, I'm very happy to join on the line by, I'll go in order on my screen here,
BC Hunter, good friend of the show from Wrestling But The Truth podcast.
We have Stephen Verrier, vaunted author and multiple time guest on the program.

(00:49):
Jamie Greer who's doing some tremendous work with the Windsor Wrestling History Scene.
Greg Oliver, I could go on and on and on about slam wrestling and his multitude of books
but I'll save you all.
Everybody knows who Greg Oliver is naturally.
And Marty Goldstein joining the program fresh off the Winnipeg campaign trails.

(01:09):
So gentlemen, it's an absolute pleasure to have you all on the program tonight.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks for hosting.
Absolutely so first off, because 2022 has been a pretty eventful year in terms of wrestling
history, there's been some books that have come out this past year, there's some projects

(01:29):
in the works.
So I kind of want to before we get into you know, the real rasslin talk, I want to touch
base with a couple of people and just find out how some of the projects have gone throughout
this year.
So maybe I'll start with yourself, Stephen.
And how was the reception for the George Gordy Enkel book that came out earlier this year?
Well, you know, you always hope for more.

(01:55):
You know, I've certainly gotten good feedback.
And I, you know, regardless of what anybody thinks, I mean, it is one of those projects
and I think I'm at the point where they all turn out this way, I conceptualize and I execute
what I had in mind.
I did that exactly.
I mean, whether that suits everybody's taste, I don't know.

(02:20):
I know there are people who simply want to read about wrestling when they read wrestling
books.
And I like to bring other things into the story.
So those who've taken time to get hold of me certainly have been positive and I do appreciate
that.
Well, I appreciate the work on it because you know, and Marty can attest to this too,
you know, even here in Winnipeg, the Gordy Enkel name is, you know, often, he's not well

(02:46):
known here.
And it's a lot of it has to do with our respect of Winnipeg sports history, Manitoba sports
history and our relationship with professional wrestling.
I'm sure me and Marty could go into a whole diatribe of that in a little bit.
But I personally appreciated the book.
I thought it was tremendous.
And it was my pleasure to have you on for one of the highest rated podcasts that I ever

(03:08):
actually did was that episode.
So you would take some small solace in that at least, I guess, Steve.
Yeah, honestly, I mean, Gordy Enkel is such a person.
I think if I were, you know, even if I had a very small audience in mind, that's a project
I would have undertaken.
I mean, to me, he lived a life of that caliber.

(03:30):
And you know, I think that book will have legs and you know, I'm happy with it.
And I think certainly it was time somebody did a project devoted to the life of George
Gordy Enkel.
I mean, just an amazing story.
Absolutely.
Well, that's the great thing about history when it's told well, and it's done right.

(03:51):
Legs is certainly something that it has.
And we see books that, you know, go in and out of print and come back in style.
You know, they're out of the public view for years and they come back in with a vengeance.
So yeah, I just I was thrilled with the work that you put in on that one.
I appreciate that.
And also, if I may say, I really hope to get good news from you guys in Winnipeg, maybe

(04:14):
next year concerning Gordy Enkel's induction, I hope, to the the Manitoba Sports Hall of
Fame.
I mean, I do know my book played some role in helping Keniski's case.
And you know, I'm hoping, you know, if my work contributes even a tiny bit to getting

(04:35):
that fellow inducted, I mean, he absolutely deserves it.
I will be overjoyed.
Absolutely.
Maybe I don't think he they didn't.
Marty, correct me if I'm wrong, but they haven't released a list of the Manitoba Sports Hall
of Fame inductees this year, have they?
No, not that I'm aware of.
My sense is in the coming year that the new city council is going to become abundantly

(04:58):
familiar with the name Gordy Enkel.
Absolutely.
Because they're all because they're all stuck with me telling them about it.
And they know and a number of them, you know, there are supporters of the professional wrestling
industry on city council and adjacent to city politics, adjacent to City Hall.
And they know that it's coming because there's current such a current situation.

(05:21):
The industry needs help with its city hall at that level.
But beyond that, your book, Stephen, is absolutely going to be the catalyst for to ensure that
the city recognizes a guy who even now I come across in random searches, stuff that I think
I should be sending you, Stephen, actually, of, you know, from like screen captures of

(05:43):
wrestling books or annuals or stuff from like Europe.
And here's pictures of Georgia that I've never seen before.
And here's where I remind where I remind the audience, I guess, that this is important
to me because I'm also from the north end of Winnipeg.
And when we pestered my father into taking us to our first live wrestling event at the
Winnipeg Auditorium, one of the reasons was George Gordienko was married.

(06:05):
I don't know the last time he had been in Winnipeg, but he's making a very rare appearance
back in his hometown.
Booked in the second match against Renee Goulet in a purported battle of baby faces.
And I was eight year old, he was beyond horrified.
I just turned eight and I was horrified.
Gordienko put his feet on the ropes to secure a pinfall pinfall victory.

(06:29):
And so I that was the first impression Gordienko made on me was cheating in front of his hometown
fans.
But he was leaving and Goulet was sticking around, right?
So that's coming.
And I'm sure that there's going to be success and an endorsement from city council to for
that would go a long way.

(06:51):
I'm just talking out loud here.
But it seems to me that would go a long way towards ensuring recognition is achieved at
the with the Provincial Sports Hall of Fame.
Well, I'm looking forward to getting good news whenever it does happen.
So on the topic of good news, someone who's sorry, go ahead, Greg, you have your hand
up.

(07:12):
I wanted to follow up.
Steve said that he had some trouble like people complaining about other parts of the book
where I'm assuming where he tries to give a little bit historical background of what's
going on at the time.
And I think it's a common complaint because wrestling fans tend to exist in a vacuum,
right?
They don't always realize, oh, yeah, there's a bigger world out there.

(07:34):
They can get so fixated on the wrestling that it's like, well, this happened because of
this, this, this and this.
There's 14,000 different things that happened to make that match there.
But to them, it was just that match there at that moment.
Is that sort of the gulf you were getting, Steve?
Yeah, I wouldn't say I was getting any gulf.
I would just say there are some people who think the book might be too big an undertaking

(08:00):
to get through.
I mean, it's not that long.
It's a hundred thousand and a few extra words.
But, you know, why read the context?
Why not get straight to the wrestling, I guess?
Well, this is a generational change, Stephen.

(08:22):
This is why this is occurring, is that it's a generational change in the ability of people
to sit with patience and focus their eyeballs on something where they have to turn pages.
And what's unfortunate is this is a manifestation of short attention span theater that's going
on across society.
You're not going to be, you know, like imagine what would happen nowadays.

(08:47):
If you tried to make your name as a playwright, for instance, Stephen, for yourself, writing
musicals, how many, you know, hour and a half long, how many Oklahoma's, how many productions
like that you think we're going to be seeing from here on out?
Even guys and dolls, which I personally appeared at the Rainbow Stage.
What a big, like I can't imagine how things like that could ever be mounted successfully

(09:09):
moving forward, you know, new productions, because the audience isn't going to sit through
it anymore.
I see it on the wrestling shows that I do around around around Winnipeg and elsewhere
is that to keep these people entertained for two hours now, it's it's a chore.
It's the attention isn't there for the general public, which by no means denigrates the work
that you put in.

(09:30):
I mean, it becomes more of it in their minds.
It's an academic piece of work, even though it's people like us.
It's a historical piece of work with context.
But they look at it like, oh, my God, it's like taking a university course.
I can't do that.
Yeah.
I know what I set out to do.
And, you know, I did that.
So I'm quite satisfied.

(09:51):
But I do know there is a segment of the wrestling fan audience that would rather read something
else.
But that's that's fine.
I see BC nodding his head.
We've had that conversation many, many times about the short attention spans.
You know, that's something obviously we can we can touch on a little bit later.
That kind of ties into one of the one of the topics I wanted to cover.

(10:15):
But you know, something that's been getting a lot of coverage lately has been the Windsor
wrestling scene, specifically the history of it.
And Jamie, I just wanted to bring you in here a little bit and talk about your research
that's been going into your book.
Every time I I think you've covered on some or uncovered something new, then there's you
know, you're following up with something brand new that I've never seen before, never heard

(10:38):
before.
So how's the research for the book coming and how have you found it?
You know, going back in the archives and really digging into the history of the of the Windsor
wrestling scene?
It was that I hadn't expected.
It just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
And I know it all what I expected even a year ago when I was sort of in the the early stages

(11:02):
of even contemplating this.
I mean, I'd known that we had to help WWE Hall of Famers and Kowalski and a dual the
butcher and I knew, you know, but Scott Demorse connection and everything else and does a
few other little things.
But it wasn't until I was writing an article for Last Word of Sports on Sandy Parker a
couple of years ago and then discovering actually one of the articles that was on on Greg site

(11:27):
slam wrestling there about her that I kind of noticed the Windsor connection that she'd
moved here.
And I was like, oh, that's interesting.
I'm curious who else whatever.
And during the pandemic, I got a little bored and I've got ADD and OCD.
So that led to a lot of rabbit holes.
And reading this, the next thing I know, I'm signing up to newspaper sites to go back and

(11:48):
I'm like, let's just see how far back this goes.
And it went all the way back to 1929.
And back then, of course, when they treated wrestling as as legitimate in the sports pages,
they had results the next day articles where it was the full it was like reading like a
recap of last night's Raw or Dynamite or something where it was like, here's what happened.

(12:09):
Here's how they won.
Here's who interfered.
Here's what was said between the matches, blah, blah, blah.
So I read a hundred years worth of history almost of every single show.
And it was like, OK, holy cow, this person started here.
This person started here.
This person's from here.
And it just led more and more and more.

(12:30):
And so, yeah.
And so when I five months in, I finally created the Facebook page and started promoting that
and kind of said, OK, here's what I've got.
And I thought I had a pretty solid roadmap written.
And then all of a sudden I had 80 year old people contacting me saying, oh, my dad was

(12:50):
a wrestler or oh, my uncle was a wrestler or oh, my my aunt was dated this wrestler
from Detroit.
And next thing you know, they're opening up more avenues, more stories.
I had people telling me stories that I couldn't follow up for for months.
I had a friend who kept telling me a story of a guy, an old man who ran this video store

(13:11):
here in Windsor called reruns that apparently had the best wrestling video collection in
southwestern Ontario.
And he'd always told the kids that he was a former wrestler and used to and was best
friends with killer Kowalski.
And he had a photo of them both.
Interesting.
Yeah.
So everyone's been telling me for years, actually.
Do you know this guy?
This guy?

(13:31):
No, no, no.
His name was John Freezinger.
But it wasn't until about three or four, well, probably about a month or so ago, his son
finally got hold of me through the book.
And I was I was like, oh, yeah, you're I.
But by this point, it would be years later.
And I just kind of thought this guy might have been a bit of a bullshit artist with
the kids.
And maybe he was maybe he was obviously friends with Kowalski, but maybe he, you know, was

(13:55):
just telling the kids he was a wrestler.
And he was like, no, no, my dad competed as Johnny Holick.
And suddenly it was like I had Johnny Holick on so many different cards, but I couldn't
find any info.
I knew he was supposed to be part of this the Holick family, Stan Holick, who became
Stan Lizowski and Stan Nielsen later.
He came in to replace his brother.
So I kind of know he was the third brother, but he wasn't the other two were legitimate.

(14:19):
These two.
But he was the non legitimate.
Well, I discovered that this guy who I couldn't place because nobody knew his ring name.
We never told the kids what his ring name was.
So they only knew his real name.
So and it wasn't much documentation for him.
He only lasted about three, four years, but he was doing the whole winter Detroit, Ohio,
Chicago circuit for three years appearing on TV at the Marigold and wasn't until a random

(14:44):
clue that, oh, his ring name was this.
So it's it's been like that for almost a year.
And seeing I mean, one of the biggest things I discovered and what we want to actually
do the book in the first place was that so many books I'd read about Detroit or in a
more national scale, always kind of Windsor was a footnote that it was sort of a very

(15:07):
one of the far satellites of the Tunneys and Toronto.
And I think a lot of it was just lazy research kind of thinking that it was because that
was the closest big Canadian market.
But everything I've discovered and found was that it was so intricately linked with Detroit.
So I mean, from starting out as as working partners with Adam West Mueller and when he
died, they partnered with Harry Light, which of course, once the end of UA took off, Windsor

(15:33):
became Detroit's farm system.
Essentially, Lewis Klein and Bert Ruby were scout with scout and train guys at the church
here.
And they would bring guys, Al Haff would send them prospects and they would train them in
Windsor here.
And then they would kind of run Windsor for a year, year and a half to get their ring

(15:55):
time and everything else before they kindly finally sent them out on the actual NWA circuit.
So it was a pretty crazy thing.
Like that was like when I was on here with the Don Eagle, like Don Eagle was sent up
here to work, you know, and it was a good six, seven months before his debut was documented

(16:16):
and almost anywhere else.
So these kind of things and it's been pretty cool.
And I'm actually learning a lot from from Stevens that talk about his book, because
I'm doing a lot of that what Greg was mentioning, the referencing of what's going on at the
time to influence a lot of the things.
And mine was a was a choice to that I wanted to appeal to local historians as well, not

(16:42):
in Detroit and Windsor that there was something there for them to take that if you weren't
a wrestling fan.
So I mean, wrestling history is a niche unto itself that if I could at least have two niches
there that maybe it might help push a few more sales.
See it's interesting the point you bring up about, you know, you're doing a project and
somebody brings you a piece of information that somebody else brings you a piece of information.

(17:05):
That's probably why Greg Oliver has got about a thousand books that he's written at this
point in time.
I can't even keep track of how many he's got.
Yeah.
But Greg for yourself, obviously you got a few projects on the works right now.
You've had a few come out the past couple of years, maybe talk a little bit about what
you've been up to lately and what's what's coming on the horizon for yourself.

(17:27):
I just want to address a little bit what Jamie was talking about, because he's a little bit
new to this in the sense that, you know, he hasn't been writing about wrestling for 30
years.
I don't need OCD to go down radical.
It just happens.
I have stories that I haven't followed up on that are probably 20 years old.
And there's nothing wrong with that.

(17:48):
I mean, you just got to accept that fact that, you know, you're not going to get to every
story you want.
It's impossible.
That's why it's wonderful that these little niches have come along, because you can't
do it all.
And I certainly at the beginning when we look back to the early days of slam wrestling,
I was the guy in Canadian wrestling.
We had that Canadian wrestling Hall of Fame and people would contact me like that.

(18:11):
And then there's the times you have to tell people, no, your dad never really did wrestle,
or your uncle didn't.
I mean, I did the research.
I can't find anything.
I think he was just BSing you.
So anyways, don't beat yourself up too much.
Thank you.
It's sort of the best way to do it.
But yeah, like stories percolate for years.
And then some days, you know, one morning you wake up and you have a lead in your head

(18:34):
for a story that you haven't worked on and you scribble it down and you work on that.
And then maybe you've got that piece.
There's no rhyme or reason to anything sometimes.
And that goes for what I'm doing next.
I don't know what my next project is.
There's a few different things, including some non disclosure agreements coming my way.
It's been interesting.
I can't talk about some stuff, which is rare.

(18:57):
But I've got a project with John Givens, the manager of the Blue Jays coming out in April.
I'm so excited about that.
And again, there's that overlap that nobody exists in a bubble.
While you talk to John and he grew up in San Antonio and he was a wrestling fan there growing
up so we can talk about, you know, seeing, you know, who was a middle masquerade and
those kinds of guys.
So wrestling is part of a bigger culture and we often forget that.

(19:21):
And so these little projects, whether it's a Gordienko or a Kineski book or the Windsor
stuff or whatever Marty's digging up, like all these little things help build a more
solid foundation for some of this stuff, I guess is a good way to put it.
And for the longest time, I know I never did it alone, but there weren't a lot of other
people that are doing it in Canada.

(19:42):
And of course, the other project is the Medusa Michelli book.
And she's got her Canadian ties to wrestle it up in Winnipeg often with the AWA in those
early days of hers.
And then she toured across the country with WWF.
And so that book's incredible.
It's insane, all she did in her life.

(20:02):
It's going to blow people's minds.
And I'm incredibly proud of it.
Not only trying to capture her voice, which was difficult enough because she's borderline
nuts in some ways.
And that's that's said with real a lot of love because she's just been through so much
and that she can do so much in her life, having gone through what she did is amazing, remarkable.

(20:26):
But it's like standing in the eye of a hurricane when you try to deal with her.
And so that was a whole different experience to Don Gibbons, who lies on the couch and
tells your story.
So every every project's different.
I guess that's the best way to put it.
And I don't know exactly what's next.
We keep running slam wrestling and as long as the bills keep getting paid, I guess we're
not getting rich on it.

(20:48):
I'm sure we're not alone there.
It's a bit frustrating.
I know I've ranted the Marty a little bit occasionally.
And there is that worry that the younger fans don't absorb things the same way.
But does that mean we don't do them?
That's the bigger question.
That's a bigger question for the whole historian group is like, if I know nobody's going to

(21:08):
read this, you know, fifteen hundred word piece, should I not do it?
And worried about just doing the latest A.W. hit.
Who left or who took a dump?
Some of the stuff that's out there.
But that's just the rant.
And I appreciate you asking about my projects.
But yeah, I don't know exactly what's signed at the moment for next.

(21:29):
But I do have a somewhat part time job a little bit here and there where I do get to work
with some incredible archives of sport magazine.
We just did a magazine on the World Series champion Astros that came out like it went
to press like a day and a half after the series ended.
So I was responsible for a lot of the photos, a lot of the editing, all that kind of stuff.

(21:54):
So I'm still involved with other projects besides wrestling, which I think helps you
keep you healthy and sane when you don't just have to deal with pro wrestling.
That was kind of the double edged sword of my little foray into politics that I just
got into, which took me away from the podcast, which allowed me to refocus a little bit and

(22:16):
get a get a better sense of what what I'm doing with it.
To your point about you have an idea about a project, then you you're wondering if anybody's
going to care if you put that episode out or that you and my obviously my discipline,
but for yourself, right?
Is anybody going to read this article?

(22:37):
Is anybody actually going to buy this book?
But it should be out there regardless of it's such a it's a frustrating mindset to be in
and it's such a catch 22 of you don't want to feel like you're wasting your time, but
at the same time you want to make sure that this stuff gets out there for people to hopefully
inspire some conversation.

(22:58):
And sometimes that can take years, right?
Until that finds the right person.
Absolutely.
Well, stories can be out there and if it's a well indexed site and that's the one thing
I will say about slam compared to a lot of these, you know, ricketing sites or even podcasts
and that a lot of that text doesn't get referenced by Google, right?
Whereas ours comes up all the time because it's still almost all text like it's such

(23:23):
a basic concept.
But I think that helps a lot.
And sometimes, yeah, it can be years later where somebody comes along and says, well,
I read the story you did in 2011.
Here's a lead on something else related to it.
And you just, okay, let's work on it.
And off we go.
Absolutely.
Like I said, it was that article on slam wrestling from I think 2016 about Sandy Parker that

(23:45):
kickstarted my project last year.
So yeah, you never know.
See I took it.
I took a dip out of I traded podcasts for politics for a little bit, but there's somebody else
on the call here.
BC who we haven't heard from yet and BC is doing some great work with the wrestling with
the truth podcast.
And although it's not historically minded that show, we've had some great conversations about

(24:08):
the history of the Atlantic wrestling scene.
Could you give her first off, you can introduce yourself naturally.
So I'm sure that you're the new kid on the block here a little bit, although that's kind
of interesting.
I think I'm the youngest one in the room.
But but yeah, so maybe talk a little bit about first off what's happening with the program.

(24:32):
But also what you've been learning as you've been going through kind of the history of
the Atlantic wrestling scene.
And I know you've been going back and watching a lot of mid Atlantic as well, which is kind
of giving you a deeper appreciation for some of those stars that came from here.
Yeah.
Well, first off, thanks for having me.
And I'm trying to figure out how I stumbled into this room because I feel way out of my

(24:54):
league here right now with with the gentleman that I'm in.
But I'm truly enjoying this conversation.
Just going back to what you're saying about the attention span of people that are they're
consuming your product right now.
I'm not I'm not a youngster.
I'm 47.
But I can say keep please keep writing.
Keep writing.

(25:14):
I like these these books, these these biographies, the history on it is just amazing to have
that.
And I love the fact that when somebody puts more context around the story instead of just
giving us the the match stats or something like that.
So that's what that's where you learn about this character and what they came from.
We talk about all the time ourselves on our podcast about what's the point of this happening?

(25:38):
Why did this happen and all those things?
So our podcast herself is it's a mixture of both.
It's the modern product.
But we also have appreciation for the older stuff, probably myself or my co-host readily
admit that he's more he's not going to go back and watch some of that old stuff that
goes on.
I mean, I myself I gobble it up like crazy being in Nova Scotia.

(26:01):
Of course, our our main product that we were seeing when I was younger was Atlantic Grand
Prix or International Wrestling or Eastern Sports, whatever you want to call it.
But we were you know, our hero was Leo Burke back in the day and then the Cormier family
and all that and Big Stephen Petipa and all these different people that some people recognize

(26:22):
the names and some are like, who the hell are you talking about?
But one thing that's been nice about this whole journey is I've been required to go
even deeper.
Like I've always had an appreciation of the history of wrestling.
But this is really you know, you don't want to show up for for an episode unprepared.
And and one of the things I've been doing is a deep dive.
I honestly I thought I thought Andy when when he went into the politics, I thought maybe

(26:46):
you had to cancel the podcast because of my poor contribution to the conversation.
But yeah, even people like that.
I mean, you grow you get an appreciation for some locals and we talked about any in our
episode.
I don't know what it is, but something about being from the merit times.
It's almost like you have this attitude of we're lesser than or whatever, or we don't

(27:11):
think that our stars are as big as some of the other stars from different territories.
And then you find out the contribution that some of these people had, like you say, like
Leo Burke, who had such a contribution on not just on Atlantic, but also on on the the
Calgary scene and with the Hart family and and you know, even did some stuff down with
the NWA as well down south or or Don Jardine, you know, who you don't appreciate until you

(27:35):
actually go into the to the history of somebody like that and realize what a massive star
he was.
And he's here's a guy from St. John, New Brunswick, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
Just in your backyard.
So yeah, for us, it's it's always a learning experience.
I mean, it's the authors like this that are that are, you know, helping that journey for

(27:56):
us, which is amazing because as a kid growing up trying to learn this stuff, it was just
wrestling magazine and it was all kayfabe and things like that.
And you were trying to piece together the history and find out who is doing what.
And now it's like an pardon the pun, but an open book as to here in the history of these
wrestlers. And it's amazing.

(28:17):
It's an amazing journey.
I just love it.
That's you know, that's my favorite part about doing the podcast itself is going back and
back in time, if you will, and learning about these people who some of them I've never heard
of before.
It's absolutely fascinating.
And we've actually had our first run in of the evening.
Have your always welcome to the program tonight.
How are you doing?

(28:37):
Thank you.
Thanks for having me.
I wasn't supposed to jump in before, was I?
No, you're OK.
I'm not sure.
No, it's it's it's just it's a club.
It's a classic.
Yeah, yeah, it's passionately.
Right.
Crash the party.
You somebody shows up, nobody knocks.
They just come in.
Just as long as you brought enough beer for everybody.

(28:57):
That's the most important thing.
It's nerve wracking because you got there's no there's no topic.
You don't give me a heads up on what you're all talking about.
So we're just diving in, I guess.
We absolutely are.
Well, you know, before that, because you had missed a bit of a conversation that we had
about about the need to continuously write articles about people who maybe don't necessarily

(29:21):
have the biggest name in history or maybe their their stories never really been told.
That's something that you've been really good at on pro wrestling stories.
So maybe just before we get into the first topic I want to cover tonight, maybe just
talk a little bit about the importance of shining a spotlight on some of these stories
that you know, even if people may not know the person, how important these stories are
to the greater fabric of pro wrestling history.

(29:44):
Well, first of all, I want to say good evening to everyone here.
I'm familiar pretty much with everyone's work or, you know, Greg is Greg is a newcomer to
all this, right?
He's brand new.
Yeah, Greg is Greg is Greg is still learning the ropes there.

(30:05):
But no, I've had the opportunity to write articles and and, you know, I'm always trying
to read different books out there, different interesting topics that that that maybe need
need a little more investigating something, something to dive deeper into.
And I think it's important because every every single person involved in wrestling at some

(30:28):
point has a has a different story to tell.
And not all the not all the superstars are the best people to interview sometimes.
And sometimes they are some of the guys the best people.
Yeah.
I mean, I mean, you're right.
I mean, but you know, they're all human beings.

(30:49):
And yeah, there's some interviews are rougher than others.
And there's some people are totally open to telling you everything and they're just a
joy to talk about.
But but I just love the fact when when when authors are trying to have people learn about
topics and wrestlers and promotions and territories that maybe maybe are not discussed as as widely

(31:11):
like every day on the every day on social media, you'll have same attitude, area pictures,
you'll have, you know, the same thing, same things every week.
But when you when you find something really special and different, that's that's worth
looking into, you know.
Absolutely.
I mean, I've literally scrolled through Facebook so many times to see those this guy versus
this guy post who wins and oh, no, I can't I can't stand.

(31:38):
I don't even do fantasy football.
So when you say who would win between Piper and you know, what's his name, you know, and
I'm thinking what era in their primes, it's totally different era.
It doesn't work that way.
And plus, it's a work.
So give me a break.
Yeah, I think so.

(31:59):
I think therapy I'm supposed to be in a rumble in two weeks.
You're in trouble then Marty.
If it if it if it changed something, he has to clue me in a Marty might have.
Yeah, Marty's going to be in a 50 man battle royal to earn his shot at the CWA championship
here in Winnipeg.
I am.

(32:20):
Yes, you are.
I'm waiting to see that corkscrew come out and live in living color.
Let me let me back up if I can for just one second on a couple of things that have been
raised by by the other guests.
Windsor wrestling history interests me because when I was a kid, my all my first cousins
pretty much on my mom's side of the family of which there was five in one family and

(32:44):
four in the other, they grew up in Windsor.
And so the first vacation and really the only vacations we took were to visit my my mom's
sisters, you know, my family in Windsor, Ontario.
And I did actually manage to catch the Detroit TV with the I guess that was probably UHF

(33:07):
a trying to tone in on the Channel 26 or something.
So I did see a little bit and I was surprised by how really disinterested my cousins were
in wrestling.
They weren't crazy about the Detroit product and in particular, they didn't care for Athol
Leighton doing play by play, but they had no familiarity with Windsor history outside

(33:27):
of Kowalski.
And I think there was might have been a Jewish guy that had been a wrestler in Windsor also.
I mean, there surely was.
But they were really far less interested in Windsor wrestling history than I was.
I've actually, Jamie, been very happy to see the work that's come out and that kind of
history emerged because, you know, the corollary of being interested in Windsor wrestling was

(33:50):
being interested in Detroit and Michigan and in Michigan wrestling.
When Medusa came up, Greg, I just want to mention that at the earliest days of my DJing
career at the zoo in Winnipeg, there was a guy there became a business mentor to me.
He was a big sports fan.
He tried out for the Bombers, a big wrestling fan.
He was a customs agent.

(34:11):
And when he got to know me, he used to sit just outside the DJ booth and tell me stories
about the different celebrities and athletes that would go through the Winnipeg airport
in his day.
And his favorite by far was Medusa.
Head and shoulders above everybody else he met, everybody else he ever talked with, anyone
else's bag that he went through.

(34:35):
She was by far his favorite.
The other thing I just want to mention was when the name Leo Burke came up, I worked
with Leo actually on my birthday, of all things, in 1984, a fine way to impress your wife when
you're a young man.
It's, oh no, we're not going to go out for my birthday.
I'll go do this wrestling show.
And Leo was in the main event against Johnny Weaver.

(34:57):
This is in Winnipeg.
And there had been a discussion a while ago.
I don't remember where it was about the history of the North American title and that Leo, I
guess the stomper had taken it to the East Coast and something like that.
And it sort of terminated the history with whatever, wherever it was.

(35:19):
It's like, well, no, he defended it in Winnipeg.
And sure enough, this past week, speaking of digging things up, I dug up the press clipping
that I planted in the newspaper in the free press back then of Burke's successful title
defense at Winnipeg against Weaver, thereby extending the history, I have confirmation
of extending the history of the North American title being defended in Burke's lineage.

(35:40):
And it's that goofy little stuff like that where we can't find our car keys after time,
but where we're always thrilled to find obscure minutia of matches.
And like Greg, that football player, who's that football player I found a couple of years
ago that mysteriously had like four matches in Ohio.
Right, right.
Yeah, you're right.
I remember.

(36:01):
Never heard of it.
Marion.
Yeah, Marion.
Yeah, Marion.
Yeah.
There's great fallback.
It's like he wrestled.
How did I not know that?
So we will guys like us will always come across stuff like this.
And one of the reasons we pursue it is because we, we value the contributions that they made

(36:22):
to our communities and to the in our cases, the Canadian fabric.
Because when we talk about wrestling, when you go from coast to coast, whether it's a
guy like Leo Burke or somebody like Mad Dog Vachon or, or, or even Eric Froelich and,
and so many other stars that work coast to coast or, you know, in my case, I was lucky
at a lot of friends that worked the maritime with Leo, with Leo and Steven Petipa.

(36:48):
Right.
That you mentioned earlier.
I know guys were wrestled with Petipa.
They were crazy about it, but they wrestled with them anyways.
And so this history, it's important because they all contributed to a common sort of a
common understanding of what constituted Canadian sports culture.
I think so.

(37:09):
I just want to mention that even of the things that we're touching on, there's still a very
good and deep connection to them, even in my own life and to some of the, some of my
own research.
And that's one of the reasons why I really value this community.
Because we all bring something to the table.
Even we don't know we know something.
Well, it's funny.
You mentioned bringing some of the table because we have our, our other run in of the evening.

(37:31):
Heath McCoy just joined the program.
Although I think he might have a piece of pizza going on.
So but he thought you were then pizza.
I got my pizza and I got my beer.
Well, now you, what are the toppings?
What are my toppings?
Man, it's a Capricosa.
I got, I got the ham.
I got the artichokes.

(37:51):
I got olives.
It's, it's amazing.
Yeah.
100% kosher.
Good to hear.
So now I think, I think, you know what, now that Heath's here, it's probably a good time
to to jump into one of the topics I wanted to cover.
Maybe I'll give him a minute to eat his dinner and he can, he can jump in when he has a second.

(38:12):
But no, no, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna get some sustenance while we're
going.
Absolutely.
So, you know, one of the big topics, obviously why we're all here is because we're all fans
of interested in wrestling history.
You know, we've danced around it a lot, touched on it a lot in the conversation tonight so
far, you know, talking about the territories, what it was happening across Canada and the

(38:35):
territories are, seem to be a topic that is kind of in vogue again nowadays, but maybe
not for the right reasons.
And obviously we've seen what's happened with the dark side of the ring programs.
I'm not going to touch on that, but I do want to touch on this notion that now with this
show, what's the new show about the territories that they have?

(39:00):
Tales from the territories.
And they just did the stampede one, which is why Heath is perfect time that you're on
here.
But with this notion now that it seems to be that the territories are getting focused,
but it almost looks like they're getting focused for the wrong reasons, right?
It's all about the crazy stories or it's all about this.
Yeah.

(39:21):
Or, or are you guys still all there?
Yeah.
I froze up for a minute there, at least for me.
All right.
Well, the wonderful joys of Skype.
So hopefully we keep this thing rolling, but there's going to be no edits tonight, no post
production raw and unedited programs tonight.
But so this notion that these territory programs, you know, we see it with the young rock, we

(39:43):
see it, you know, they did touch on it with the dark side of the ring, but it's this,
this weird retelling of, of what happened in the territories, but it's not really what
happened.
So I have my own opinions.
I'll share them in a minute, but I kind of wanted to go around the table and kind of
hear what everybody thinks about how the territories are being covered nowadays.

(40:04):
You know, whether it's superficially or not, or whether it's on these programs that are
maybe not historically accurate or not.
BC, maybe, maybe I'll have you kick it off.
What's your opinion of, of the first off, the amount of, of coverage that the territories
seem to have been getting almost overnight, it seems over the last year, and maybe speak

(40:25):
to what you think about the depth of how it's being covered.
Well, yeah, it really seems to be a hot issue right now.
I think people are seeing the chance to capitalize on some, some nostalgia at the moment.
And anything the rock is tied to, I know it's going to have a slant to it for sure.
I, I, some of the territories I wasn't too familiar with as far as it's pure history

(40:49):
and some, you know, I'm sitting there watching and going, I don't remember those stories
or those type of things.
And the AWA one was interesting because Ken Petera, I don't know if there's anything that
he was talking about that was true or not.
But it was, it was all pretty interesting.
But yeah, it's, I think people, they're playing, again, we talked about earlier, the, the attention

(41:12):
span of the audience right now is not the greatest.
And I think they're playing into that.
So let's cut to some really juicy stories and some quick snippets of it.
I mean, we know from the dark side of the ring stuff that they focus on the negative
side of it, which is unfortunate.
I was really hoping when we were going into this, that it was going to be a lot more historically

(41:34):
accurate and a lot more of the positive side of it.
But it is what it is, I guess with it.
But yeah, I mean, honestly, I'd much rather jump on YouTube and go, like you say, go down
the rabbit hole and see a bunch of independent people that are doing a lot more legwork on
looking up these, the information on the territories and some of these mainstream shows, if you

(41:55):
ask me.
Now, Greg, for yourself, because of the nature of these programs there, and I'll use the
air quotes here, they're historically based.
When these programs come out, do you see a lot of traffic on your site?
For example, if people are trying to find out if these stories are actually true or
they're trying to research this or maybe learn a little bit more about these territories?

(42:19):
I'll go back further.
There's been a few times over the years where the documentarians get in touch with me, obviously
because I'm easy to find and I know my stuff and they'll start talking about a subject
and I'll say, okay, well, they're going to tell you this, this, this and this and only
this and this are true.
And I'll tell the documentarian that.

(42:40):
But what ends up in the show, the stuff that's more exciting.
Yeah, right.
That's, that's just, we talked about human nature earlier.
Unfortunately, that's a reality.
I don't think it happens as much in print and he can probably talk to that a little
bit more just because he's had so much more time in the daily newspaper life in the past
than I ever did.
But it's, it's just a weird thing.

(43:02):
TV is meant to catch your eyeballs, right?
And entertain you in a way that a written word isn't.
And written word, it's supposed to be informative and legitimate.
And it's supposed to be, of course, you know, in this day and age when anybody can do a
book tomorrow, it doesn't mean anything.
It doesn't mean as much as it used to.

(43:24):
And that's not knocking people who do self publish their books.
It's just the fact is that, you know, there's a different process when you go through an
actual publisher and gets lawyered and all these things and it goes out to the press.
Anyways, that's my immediate thought.
I've been paid a little bit by Darkside for help here and there.
Which again, they should.

(43:44):
I know my stuff.
If they need somebody to help them find things, I do know where a lot of the bodies are buried.
Maybe Marty, just before you lose the train of thought about the AWA episode, I'm not
sure if you were able to watch that or if you're able to corroborate, if you will, any
of the Ken Patera stories.
I haven't seen it, so I can't delve into it.

(44:09):
I had my own dealings briefly with Patera in the 1990 or so or 91 and he was already
a clearly a colorful individual.
I myself broke in in the territorial era and there are some episodes of these programs
that we're discussing and I do have a perspective about this kind of programming.

(44:31):
But there's episodes that have come up lately that I'm not unfamiliar with the subject matter
in particular.
Anytime the name or the face of Lars Andersen comes up, I had my own dealings with Lars
in the early 80s and reaching in Hawaii because he helped afford the opportunity for a couple

(45:00):
of guys that were around when I broke in in New Brand Wrestling to actually work over
like Christmas time or whatever in Hawaii, in the Hawaii territory.
There were three or four guys I think that went from Winnipeg over a period of time and
Lars worked with us and there was a very famous half shoot between him and Chris Pepper that

(45:21):
unfolded in the main event where somebody ended up with a broken finger.
So some of this I'm well familiar with what the behavior and the characteristics of some
of these individuals were contemporaneous to when things are unfolding.
Just to harken back to Heath for instance in his fine book, there are things I would
be reading about in that book and other books about the San P territory that I remember

(45:45):
hearing about in our locker room.
Exactly.
And so some of this I have more personally, not me individually but more personally interested
in, but I'll tell you overall, I think it's terrible.
I know that my old partner, playboy Doug McCall agrees.
The first problem is when their liberty is taken with the telling of a story, you then

(46:09):
have to unwind the urban myths that result.
When people meet you, oh you're a wrestler, oh you this or oh you that, they find out
you have any connection to the business, then they start repeating this stuff and the next
thing you know, like Kevin Lowe had a Gordie Howe hat trick one night or something.
No, that's not what happened.
And so you have to unwind these, what I would refer to like sports myths, last second field

(46:33):
goals or last second field goals and such things.
And it's not healthy for, I don't view it as being healthy for things like that to be
done through a creative lens to that extent.

(46:54):
It's not fair to the people that are still around to live through some of these things.
But then again, having lived in Hollywood, the last thing they care about is anybody
else.
So they're not going to care about what a bunch of little wrestlers think.
I think if this craze continues, then at some point maybe we will see some sort of a revival

(47:15):
of a, you know, some kind of program format of barnstorming Canadians on the prairies
in the early 1980s.
But again, even that would have to be sanitized for family markets because life on the road
was rambunctious to say the least, even in the smallest of outfits, you had the biggest

(47:35):
of characters pass through sometimes.
In our case, like every time I see Ron Pope come up, Magnificent Zulu come up online,
I just bust a good laughing because we dealt with him too.
And that guy's, there's lots of, you know, we know about him in terms of his visit to
Winnipeg, never been written about.
The flip side of the coin is a guy like Dina Gucci or my buddy, Moondog Moretti, who also

(47:58):
came here and imparted so much wisdom and professionalism to the Winnipeg guys.
And there are a lot of Winnipeg guys that learned from them.
The Rick Pattersons, the Brian Jules, the Doug McCalls that were then able to go on to work
in the territories and such things.
So you know, if war stories are told about the positive characters that pass through
our lives and made the territory so special, I'd appreciate it much more than the fictionalized

(48:21):
versions that are trying to spike ratings firstly.
So obviously I just, you can't see it because this is not a video podcast, but I just, I
had my Stampede Wrestling Bible right next to me here, which is, which is interesting
because we just had the Stampede, ah, there we go.
Another one of them, um, your Oasis now displaying the fine piece of literature.

(48:45):
So Heath, did you watch the Stampede Wrestling one?
You know what?
No.
And I'm scared to.
I don't want to watch it because, because, because I know that, uh, I'm so close to the
subject matter and to be honest, I haven't watched that show at all yet.
And I really want to, I want, I'm dying to watch the Andy Kaufman.
I'm dying to watch the AWA.

(49:06):
I want to watch it.
I haven't gotten around to it yet, but the Stampede one, I want to watch the least.
Like I'm so trepidatious about that one because, because I, I'm so close to the subject matter.
I already know the format of the show and I already know kind of know what they covered
and everything.
And I just, I just really am very suspicious that they're not going to do it justice.

(49:30):
Everything I, we're all saying here right now, it tells me that they're probably not
going to do it justice.
And I'm going to watch it eventually.
I think it's great who they brought together for that.
Like Dr. D and Dula and Brett and you know, Bobby Bass.
That was, that was a cool little round table they had going for, for it.
Yeah, I'm just, it was like, it was like Greg was saying, they go for, they go for this

(49:55):
salacious, all the, all the salacious stuff.
There's the word.
Yeah.
They've got the salacious stuff and they're not, yeah, I mean, they're not focused on
the, and you know, it's an hour show.
I think they, they're not focused on the balance to counts and everything.
And they've got, they've got dark side of the ring and the huge ratings that that had

(50:17):
to go with.
And that was focused on all the negative stuff and the dark stuff and the salacious stuff.
So I think they're doing the same thing with, with the tales of the territories.
But yeah, yeah, that's why I've kind of been holding off and watching them stampede one.
You guys tell me how was it?
I don't know.
Yeah.
We as well open this up.
Did anybody in the chat here watch the stampede wrestling one?

(50:40):
And if so, what did you think of it?
I want, I wanted to ask Keith, did they, I guess they didn't contact you at all?
Nope.
Nope.
What really?
Yeah.
I'm, yeah.
I mean, I, I find that ridiculous.
I'm blown away by that.
Yeah.
I was a little, I thought it was at least that, that, yeah.

(51:01):
I kind of thought it was weird too, but that's all right.
I mean, yeah, I don't know.
And to be fair, like, I mean, they're going to take brat over me.
They're going to take Dr. D over me.
But I mean, even as a consultant sort of thing on some stuff or like to, but they've never
reached out actually, the dark side guys, but none of the, there's some, some of the

(51:22):
stuff that they've, they've touched on that I would, you know, I have some knowledge in
and done some research in, but yeah, for some reason I haven't heard from them.
You know, the people who asked, well, why wasn't Ross Hart on there?
Why wasn't Bruce on there?
Oh God.
Yeah.
They can't say anything in 30 minutes.
No, I know.
This is true, man.
This is true.

(51:43):
But, but Ross is the damn Bible for that.
So I mean, he should, Ross is a living Bible on stampede wrestling.
He's the, he's a living encyclopedia of the stuff.
I mean, yeah, but yeah, that just goes back to a debate I had with Ross where we changed
emails.
It was the, somebody died who'd been in stampede.

(52:06):
Who was the, the little guy I'm trying to, the artist.
Just recently just died.
Where's my brain going?
The, but Ross was all of a sudden.
Mike Hammer?
No, no, no.
More recently.
Marty, you and I talked about him.
He died in a car fire with a heart attack.

(52:26):
Oh Jesus.
Jesus.
Oh, oh, oh.
Nice brain.
From Winnipeg.
Yeah.
Anyways, okay, sorry.
But my point was Ross is all upset I didn't include all the titles and all the things
that he did.
And it's like Ross, I did that in the first story I did on in like 2006.
Yeah.
I'm not going to repeat it all in an obituary.

(52:48):
An obituary should be about the person.
Yeah.
It should be about the person.
It should be about their, their, I don't know, they should tell the story of their life a
little bit, right?
The Gil Hayes story is a perfect example.
That's it.
It was the Gil Hayes story.
That's exactly, that was a perfect example.
Yeah.
I'm not going to do it myself, Ross.
And, and, but I mean, that's what he expects out of it and that's fine.

(53:09):
Yeah.
But you can also put it like, I know on your obituary is you always have the links at the
bottom about the related articles that you've done previously.
So I mean, it's there.
You may have not gone word for word for whatever, but like, cause I'm obviously I've been on
slam wrestling.net a few times over the past few years, but that's good.

(53:30):
That Gil Hayes story got the approval of a member of the prime minister's cabinet.
Dan Adell grew up in Winnipeg as a fan of Gil Hayes when he was doing the club shows
around town.
And I sent that story to Dan.
I, I, you know, I had to break the news to him because this was his favorite wrestler
as a kid.
And for a number of years, I, anytime I came, even that obscure little interview with Gil

(53:52):
and that came up on YouTube from Puerto Rico around 79 or 80 or something.
And that's the only time I've seen, I've seen any video of Gil Hayes talking.
And I sent that to Dan Van Dellen.
He very much appreciated it.
And you're right that the story there, not to, not to interrupt you, but the story about
Gil Hayes was the story of his life, not the story of his titles.

(54:13):
A guy like that.
Yeah.
I mean, you touch on the titles, but, but it's, it's more, when I wrote my book and
we're talking, we're talking about the, you know, the salaciousness and everything and
the way they're presenting the territories and everything.
And I can see why they want to do it.
I can see why they want to, you know, touch on that stuff for, you know, for the ratings

(54:34):
and because there's drama, there's drama in all that, in all that wild west crazy stuff
of the territories.
And you can see why people would romanticize that those times, but to just focus on that
stuff.
Like I did that in my book.
I didn't just focus on the human, the human drama and the stories.
I envisioned my book almost like a, you know, almost like I envisioned it like a movie,

(54:58):
how this would unfold as a movie, like the Godfather of wrestling or something, you know?
But at the same time, I didn't just focus.
There's a way to do it, but it's not so salacious and it's not so, you know, you're not just
focusing on the dirt.
You're also trying to, you know, you're, you're getting, you're telling a more balanced account
and you're getting the human side of it as well.

(55:19):
And not just the dirty side of it.
And that's what I see coming across.
That's what I see happening a lot with the, you know, the territory stuff that we're talking
about.
See, I know we're talking a lot about the stampede one because obviously look who's
in the room here, but like Jamie for yourself, when that episode came out was because obviously
Abdul is from Windsor was, was there anything in Windsor about that episode?

(55:42):
Was there any coverage of media about that?
You know, I haven't watched it yet for very similar reasons.
I only watched the first episode, the Memphis one.
And I mean, I enjoyed what I saw, but it very much seemed like it was only going to be touching
on more controversially obscure, not obscure, but subterfuge and that kind of stuff that

(56:12):
I wasn't sure if I was ready to commit to watching it every week.
So I've only seen the first one to be honest.
I think there's a Portland one, Steven.
I'm not sure if that one's come out.
BC is nodding his head.
I'm not sure if it's come out or not.
It does.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Did you catch that one, Steven?
Yeah.

(56:33):
Since I'm living in that region, I took a look at it.
I mean, the first thing that came to mind in advance was, you know, who's going to be
on the panel?
I'm familiar with the format and, you know, I'm not drawn to that salacious stuff unless
the members of the panel are such that they're going to make those stories entertaining.

(56:54):
I mean, I enjoyed the Memphis story with Lawler and Jimmy Hart, Dutch Mantel.
If you get those guys around the table, they will generally entertain you whether you can
bank on what they're saying or not.
The people commenting on the Portland territory, you know, were not quite of that caliber,

(57:20):
shall we say.
So I didn't find it entertaining.
I didn't find it particularly enlightening.
I've sort of, I suppose, been weaned off that show.
I did take a look since it was Portland and I'm living in Washington, but, you know, I

(57:43):
didn't find any of that context I like.
You know, if I've got an hour to devote to the historical side of wrestling, I'd rather
go on YouTube and watch an old Dumont show or, you know, I've been working on a Wilbur
Snyder biography.
I've enjoyed looking at the old LA footage.
You know, I'd rather go straight to the source than listen to a lot of these stories unless

(58:08):
the storytellers are really gifted.
See, it's interesting, you know, you know, salacious is a term that's been brought up
a few times and like Javier for yourself, a lot of the stories covered on pro wrestling
stories are, they are of the salacious manner, but for yourself, what's the balance for,

(58:29):
because you got to talk about what happened, but how do you talk about it in a way that
presents it with the proper context?
And do you think you can actually do that in an hour program?
Well, when you talk about those hour programs, it reminds me when people try to make a book,
like a science fiction book into a movie, into a two hour movie.

(58:53):
These books are about this thick and that several volumes.
Yeah, they're 150 pages or whatever, yeah.
I mean, and I bet you the people with the stampede wrestling episode, maybe they didn't
contact Heath, but I'm sure they have his book right there.
I'm sure they got highlighted parts and circled areas where, look, this is what we wanted
to talk about this.

(59:15):
I find it impossible for them not to have even skim through Heath's book, but for them
not to have contacted him is that's pretty ridiculous.
But when it comes to pro wrestling stories, I write for them and there's different authors
and different stories are green lit.
A lot of my stories do deal with certain things that kind of like, wow, did that really happen?

(59:42):
But when I'm writing them, I don't want to be known as that guy who's writing about the
worst of the worst.
So of course you have to have a hook, you have to have some kind of headline that draws
the reader in and there has to be some kind of balance in the story, in the article.
If not, it would be what, two paragraphs?

(01:00:03):
Maybe the hook can be something a little bit out there, but the meat and the bones and
the body of the story of the article has to be 80% of historical importance, I would say.
Because at the end of the day, my name is on that article.
So I do want balance, I do want quality, but we are entertaining people and there has to

(01:00:30):
be a balance.
But those shows we're talking about, I really think it's kind of like the junk food version
of if you want to know about the territories.
Why?
This stuff is the kind of stuff that it could be entertaining, but you literally have to
kind of leave your brain in a drawer back there somewhere and you just kind of watch

(01:00:52):
it.
If you're nitpicking it, you will tear it apart.
But in my opinion, just like a lot of people on the panel have commented, if you want to
learn about the territories, read the books of a lot of the people on this panel, read
those books or go on YouTube, but from people who really do know their stuff.

(01:01:12):
And it's an interesting topic, but definitely go straight, read a book.
I mean, you're going to get much better information, more complete out of any of these shows, which
again can be entertaining, but they got such a limited time and they have to not lose the

(01:01:36):
attention of the viewer.
That seems like the huge thing.
I understand it totally, but it is what it is.
Let's put it that way.
That's the only way I can explain it.
Well, they are what they are.
That's why I was curious, like Greg, if you saw any different traffic on slam wrestling,
if people were after these episodes air or even when they released the episode listing,

(01:01:59):
if you notice an uptick of people trying to find the actual story or learn what really
happened in these territories rather than the, I know we've said the word salacious
a hundred times by now at this point, but it's an apt word.
So if they're just worried about that.
I'm not sure I've really studied that, but what we have found is things like even like

(01:02:20):
the A&E biographies, like when we do report on those, I think people are reading like
the report that say Dave Hillhouse does on slam and then considering whether to invest
the time to watch it.
Oh, interesting.
That's the difference in our days, right?
You can watch on demand.
So instead of reporting on something in the newspaper the next day, the way we used to

(01:02:44):
do, now what we're doing is we're giving a teaser here.
This is what this episode is about.
If it sounds like it's up for you, go watch it and then you can go stream it.
So it's a different kind of information that you're providing people these days.
I'm not sure.
There's obviously going to be some research and there always is.
And one of the fun things and Marty will attest this because he gets our newsletter occasionally,

(01:03:05):
the internal newsletter is that occasionally a story will spike for no reason.
And you have no idea why did 200 people click on this old story about Luther Lindsay or
something like that.
I don't know.
Somebody shared it somewhere and it got talked about and you can't always find the source.
And that's just be this organic pickup.

(01:03:25):
Yeah, exactly.
And you don't know why.
And that's cool.
It means that people are learning and is not what we were just talking about.
You don't know that about people going into the newspaper archives and saying, well, I'm
reading Heath's piece that he did on Sue Hart back when he died in 2001, wasn't it?
We're not getting that kind of information, but we can get that instant info when we're

(01:03:48):
looking at the numbers on a website.
Yeah, it's interesting.
What you said about people waiting to watch a program to see if it's worth it.
That's something I didn't think about.
Actually, that's an interesting topic you brought up.
And I guess, obviously, everybody by now knows kind of my position on a lot of the history

(01:04:11):
stuff.
I'd rather get the history and have the facts presented.
You can decide the view being the viewer can decide if it's salacious or not, but if it's
presented properly.
I don't know, I have a hard time with with the over dramatization of a lot of the events
that have happened in wrestling history.

(01:04:33):
And oh, yeah, Heath.
Yeah, you're OK, though, right now.
Yeah, yeah.
I saw.
Yeah.
You sometimes you get frozen up and you're like doing your best karate impression.
I freeze up.
Oh, yeah.
I know me.
Sorry.
But I guess that's that's my concern about programs like this is is are we going to dilute
the history of the of wrestling and these moments and these territories so much that

(01:04:58):
people are because they have short attention spans that they're not going to go back and
look at anything.
They're just going to go to their friends and say, oh, yeah.
I know I'm doing the butcher, for example, to use, you know, Jamie's.
Resident there.
Yeah, he just went and carved over to people and never did anything else.
Right.
So that's that's the narrative and it's pervasive and that's the thing that gets carried forward.

(01:05:22):
I guess that's my big my big worry about programs and projects like this.
I'm not sure if anybody else feels the same way.
But I think, you know, that's that's kind of like where it's going, because, for example,
online articles, there's an interesting number out there.
If someone is on your article for six, seven, eight minutes, that's a lot of time for someone

(01:05:46):
to be on one article.
So that's that kind of gives you a little bit of how it sees an indicator of how much
people can actually focus on on one topic.
Seven, six, seven minutes is is good if they're on on your page for that long on your article.
So people are I want to say people like everyone, but but not everyone likes to read.

(01:06:12):
And if they don't get the info they want, when they want it and they're not being entertained,
they will just go elsewhere.
That's what that's how they're formulating these these these shows.
You know, yeah.
Attention spans are lower now.
It's suffered and actually journalism suffers for it, too.
You got that clickbait culture.

(01:06:33):
And so because of clickbait culture, you don't have these, you know, Greg, you're talking
about how prank used to be the place for you a little bit more of an in-depth coverage,
not just doing the sound bite stuff that TV does.
But that's suffered now, too, because so much of the stuff is online.
So much is just clickbait, like just get everybody in and, you know, get them in for that three

(01:06:53):
minutes or whatever, because six minutes is a great read by today's standards.
But you know, you want to be in and out to two, three minutes sort of thing.
And they just read the headline and you look at the content, too.
And it's it's not researched.
It's sort of there's errors in it.
It just I mean, it's a larger story about the state of journalism in general.

(01:07:16):
But if we're talking about wrestling journalism and the way the territories have covered now
are covered now, I think that I think that factors in.
I hope I'm not freezing up.
Am I still freezing up?
It makes for a great visual.
You are.
But the audio is fine.
OK, OK.
Well, maybe I'll just shut off my visual.
Maybe that'll be better.

(01:07:37):
The most missing beer.
Yeah, you didn't bring it up for the rest of my show.
I'm still mad about that one.
That'll be better.
But we used to always joke at slime wrestling again, because we stood out because we were
so different than everybody else, especially when we started that pro wrestling journalism
was an oxymoron.

(01:07:58):
And because it is, it's like and it's even gotten worse.
Like, you know, anybody can write about wrestling now.
They don't have to have any credentials.
They don't have to have a journalism background.
And it's again, it's back to the rant I did a little bit earlier about writing in general.
You know, you could, you know, the dude next door can have a look out tomorrow.
And he's been a gardener his whole life.
And that's fine.

(01:08:21):
Everything's been leveled off to make everything more accessible.
And that doesn't mean it makes them all good.
Just makes them more accessible.
So that's that's certainly the case with wrestling journalism, too.
And I don't know if any of you guys have ever sat in on the let's say like the Tony Khan
media calls that they just had one the other day.
I sent a real girl.
I see BC's already got a sly smile happening.

(01:08:42):
Who's never been to one before.
And he just shook his head afterwards and said, Greg, I can't believe some of the fanboys
on there.
Like, you know, it's just so insulting to somebody like me, who's, you know, did the
proper journalism training and spent, you know, your 10 years working in the trenches
in the newspaper and the burgeoning online newspaper world.

(01:09:04):
And, you know, and then you see, yeah, this kind of stuff happen.
It's it's frustrating, but it's also reality.
I mean, that's why we have kids, don't we?
So we get, you know, shaken awake and said, you know, Dad, get over it and move on.
It gives us all the opportunity to be the old man yelling at clouds, I guess.
Marty's the expert.

(01:09:25):
Yeah, I guess so.
Yeah, BC, you were shaking your story.
Go ahead, Marty.
Sorry about that.
Or I thought Heath, I'm not sure who would have been there.
Yeah, that was me.
The problem with with with what you're saying to Greg is that, yeah, there's this glut of
voices now online and some of them are qualified voices that have really done the research

(01:09:49):
like yourself.
And then there's other people that are just like some some fanboy just spewing, you know,
shit out there.
And it's but the people that are consuming this stuff often don't know the difference.
Like they often don't know that your word is not equal to the guy that, you know, this
fanboy that's that spewing, you know, rumors and then, you know, cockamamie theories and

(01:10:13):
stuff.
And so and again, this is this translates to all of journalism, not just wrestling journalism,
but it really does it kind of just destroys the the way we're consuming it.
It just it degrades the whole thing.
It grades the way people are are taking it in.
It degrades the quality of the journalism and it kind of takes away.

(01:10:36):
And that's why this creates a climate where this, you know, again, that word salacious
where this salacious stuff can thrive because people there people don't want to have the
deeper story as much anymore because they don't even they don't.
You know, this is an old man yelling at the cloud, too, but that's going to be in the
title of your show.

(01:10:58):
I think I think we just found the title of the show.
Yeah.
Holiday special old man yelling at clouds.
But what Heath and Greg are saying, it's happening and it's been happening in mainstream sports
for a while now.
There's a there's there are a lot of people who are doing a really good job in sports

(01:11:21):
journalism.
And then there you can tell there's others who run some kind of page or website.
And and it's just it's not the same.
But the people are consuming everything out there.
And if it's free, that's what they're consuming.
Most of all, you know, they're not going to they don't want to be paying for a dollar

(01:11:41):
a month for access to whatever paper, a dollar a month.
How dare you charge me to to get my information?
You know, 99 cents a month.
No, I'm going for free for on on Facebook and Twitter and all and all that mess, you
know, for free.
You know, that's how that's how a lot of people think.
You know, well, and you get what you pay for, I suppose, on that part of it, too.

(01:12:03):
You know, like I know my my newspapers, I'll come subscription is, you know, that thing's
been a lifesaver for me because it's, you know, even like Jamie was saying, you know,
like earlier conversation, you know, you you can go back and you can actually get the get
the story right.
So I found, you know, there's a tidbit information that comes on maybe one of these programs

(01:12:27):
and that doesn't really sound quite right.
So I'll go back and I'll, you know, pull up the newspapers for the time.
OK, here's what's actually happening.
Yeah, you're right, Javier.
Like if you know, people are so they can't be bothered to pay it all or whatever it is,
I guess, well, that's why my broadcast is free.
Ninety nine.
So I guess there's that.

(01:12:48):
But yeah, it's it's a it's a sad state of affairs.
Sorry, BC, I'll get you on one second.
But you know, it's it's disappointing almost that this is where we've gotten.
I guess maybe I'm just on a soapbox and I guess I'll die on that soapbox.
So I'll be single heads.
We're going to interrupt you.
No, it's just interesting.
But the positive.

(01:13:08):
Go ahead.
No, I was just going to say, it's just interesting that Greg brought up the the the Tony Khan,
whatever you want to call those sessions.
I remember the first time I heard those, I think to myself, how many actual reporters
are there that have a journalism degree, right, that are actually asking these questions?
Because it's pretty pathetic to listen to some of some of the questions are coming,

(01:13:31):
especially when they're announcing before you and that they're nervous to be talking
to the wrestler themselves.
Like that's scary.
But that tells you the quality of persons being handed out a journalism degree.
Exactly.
And this also speaks.
Oh, Greg's already know there's no journalism degrees there.
I think Greg can attest to that one.
This also speaks to the so-called professionalization of the of the of journalism, of the practice

(01:13:55):
of journalism and the capture of it by an academic by an area of academia that's looking
to soak kids for for crecon, tuition and for this for these kinds of things.
And they end up funneling people into these positions, into these seats in these courses

(01:14:15):
that have absolutely no aptitude and no business being into it, because a lot of them are essentially
PR majors.
And and sorry to butt in.
But one of the problems is unlike me, people like me who learned this trade because we
were avid fans of it and interested in it and followed radio news and follow television

(01:14:40):
news from not just, you know, the local market.
But in those days, you're listening to radio from, in my case, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis,
St. Louis.
We were people that went in with and learned from the ground floor up.
And we didn't have to walk in with some certificate handed out by people who'd never broken a
story in their life, proclaiming that somehow we are now trained to go cover a city council

(01:15:01):
meeting.
You know, they this these this idea of a journalism certificate conveying legitimacy, it's it's
part of the problem instead of people being funneled into learning the news business and
learning sports reporting organically.
Yeah, kid, we'll open the door, come in and do Saturdays and Sundays.
Oh, you didn't go and spend 12 grand at, you know, some college somewhere.

(01:15:25):
That's that's it's the keeners that you want in businesses like this, not the people that
are doing it because they're looking for a job and, you know, something where they might
be able to be, you know, be a fanboy.
Well, the fanboy issue, I think that's the biggest problem with like the Tony Khan thing
specifically like they were going to talk about that specifically, I suppose.
And like, Greg, you would know how many people there are actual journalists because you you

(01:15:49):
listen to the and it's so and so from some obscure website or it's so and so from some
podcast or it's somebody's kid.
Right.
And there's no there's no.
Well, there is.
And that was a coordinates great for this because he'll go through the goddamn things
and we don't all the ridiculous things.

(01:16:09):
But anyways, but you know, what a sad state of I don't know how we got caught on this
topic.
But boy, oh, boy, just like, Greg, you would know how many actual journalists are like
how many reporters who are focused on wrestling who have that as their as their main, I guess,

(01:16:31):
subject.
How many are actual journalists and how many are just some fanboy like you would know that?
Well, I you don't always know how many people are on a call.
Number one.
Right.
And then they ask questions and they ask things.
The impact ones are even worse.
If you can believe that I know some of the people that get on those calls.

(01:16:53):
Yeah.
So there are a lot more international and you get these people from France or India
or whatever on these impact calls and they're just it's even worse.
But yeah, I mean, Marty's got an excellent point.
You can be a great writer and a great journalist without some of that degree.

(01:17:14):
But I think some of those lessons that are they're just not getting imparted on people,
right?
Because you can start from the ground level up and do whatever you want.
There's nobody there telling you, well, you know, you really need to have the picture
breathe and you need to have the person's head off to the side, not in the center.
That's better visually.

(01:17:35):
And little things you learn like that from a veteran copy editor, you know, serve you
the rest of your life.
And there's nobody really imparting all that on the on a lot of these guys.
Now, I do that a ton.
And I've had people go on to other things and they look back on their time is slam and
they'd like to think I like to think that I was a good editor for them to help them

(01:17:57):
reach some of those next levels because there's often not those people as Marty was talking
about that know their craft that are taking the time to help these people.
Well, that's what I think missing.
You've sort of struck on something here that instead of having staff newsrooms that would
provide the the guidance, the hands on guidance and and, you know, help cub reporters discern

(01:18:24):
the important lessons through trial and error.
Now they've offloaded that kind of training.
They've offloaded it to these courses that simply don't simulate real life whatsoever
because the focus is on extracting tuition money out of the students and not on on fostering
growth in their skills as a reporter, as a journalist.

(01:18:47):
Who's doing all that noise?
Jamie's.
Jamie's typing.
OK, yeah, he's looking up tuition costs.
Yeah.
So that's exactly, you know, so that copy editors now in in post media's case is based

(01:19:11):
in Hamilton and you could be filing your story from anywhere.
So you're never actually sitting down with somebody to get those little lessons.
Anyways, we need to get back to wrestling here.
Yeah, yeah, we've got quite the tangent.
But you know what, it's interesting because we have so many different people who have
written and do different and like someone like Stephen, who's written up on politics

(01:19:32):
too, right?
Different.
But it's it's it's nice to have this perspective, right?
Because this is not something that I would even have a tough time with, you know, because
I'm not a writer by any stretch of the imagination.
That's not something I've been good at my entire life, like math.
But so it's nice to have this kind of perspective from everybody else in the room who does this.

(01:19:55):
So I'm enjoying the conversation.
But yes, we will.
We'll get back into some some form of wrestling here.
Jamie had to leave.
Jamie will catch you later.
I'm sure he'll listen to the program later and we'll touch base.
But I so if everybody got fired up about that topic, here's another one that maybe equally
BC's already got a smile going.

(01:20:17):
Obviously we've seen discussion of Hall of Fame's be a big topic of conversation, especially
in America.
What happened in New York, then Texas, then back to New York and what's still happening
in Texas.
If anybody is not familiar with that situation, I'm more than happy to fill in.
But I wanted I want to get a sense from everybody in the room.

(01:20:40):
What do people think about and obviously we have some people here not from Canada, but
please chime in anyways, because you both have written about people from Canada.
So you have a unique perspective on this as well.
What does everybody think about a centralized Canadian Wrestling Hall of Fame?
Does anybody or do any of you in the room, I suppose is the proper way to say it, think

(01:21:01):
that that's something that's actually feasible that would actually do something positive
for the state of professional wrestling history here in Canada.
If you got millions to lose, why not?
Like you look at how much trouble we've had even with our Canada Sports Hall of Fame in
Calgary and their financial issues and all the things gone on there.

(01:21:22):
And you know, it's a massive undertaking.
I think the way to go are just little tidbits here and there.
You know, maybe it's, you know, the at the Windsor Library and I know Jamie left, but
you know, the Windsor Library has a little section somewhere where they could put up
a history of the wrestling history in the city.
Like you're just never going to get anything on a national basis.

(01:21:44):
Canada has enough trouble agreeing on anything anyway.
God, is that ever true?
Even the Walk of Fame is a joke.
You know, so let's forget the idea of anything national.
That's my two cents anyway, because you know, in Toronto, I have more, you know, in common
with the people in Buffalo than I do with the guys out east or the guys out west.

(01:22:05):
It's just the natural way of the world here, like Canada.
So I don't know, I'm curious to hear what you guys think.
Well, I'm inclined to agree with you, Greg, that wrestling in Canada is best celebrated
regionally.
I, you know, for ourselves, we've done Hall of Fame ceremonies and although there hasn't

(01:22:31):
been a formal discussion yet, there will be in the new year about reviving it.
This is our own version here in Winnipeg, the Western Canadian Wrestling Hall of Fame,
pro wrestling Hall of Fame.
But that's, that isn't really a big picture.
We're not about to have a ceremony trying to induct the crusher or something.
That's much more focused on the Canadian, you know, the Canadian scene, right?
The Canadian level and Winnipeg is a bit of an exception, I guess, in that, you know,

(01:22:56):
our major league wrestling was entirely AWA with remarkably few homegrown stars by surely
by design of Verne Gagnon and those before him because they learned the lesson, it was,
I guess, Steve Kozak who they crossed him the wrong way and the next thing you know,
the guy's promoting his own shows in the late 40s, I think it was, and upsetting the apple

(01:23:20):
cart.
In any event, it's not something that's feasible to try to celebrate nationally because after
the 1950s outside of the Vancouver All-Star Wrestling tape, there was no national promotion,
no promotion that was seen nationally.
In Winnipeg, we did not see Stampede, for instance, until March, I think of, yeah, March

(01:23:42):
and April of 1986.
So Stampede Wrestling means like, Dave Ruhl means nothing in Winnipeg, like less than
nothing.
Nobody, nobody cares about him here.
Now, I'm just saying that's the reality.
In the meantime, in terms of Vancouver, the Brutes, right, or the Tolis brothers, they

(01:24:03):
have meaning in Winnipeg because we saw them on TV for a year or two or three, John Tolis
in this case, many years, Don Leo Jonathan.
So as a national endeavor doesn't really work and I don't know, I don't know who would win
the fight between Toronto and Montreal, the Maritimes is trying to host it.
You know, I don't know.

(01:24:24):
When I think about it, I mean, there were so many powerful territories and so many colorful
territories, so many great homegrown people that came out of Canada.
I think a Canada, you know, a Canadian Wrestling Hall of Fame would be fantastic and just,
it's a look at Canada as a country and just, you know, each year highlights somebody from

(01:24:48):
a certain promotion or whatever.
But kind of do it the way the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame does it, even though the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame is another whole story about how lame that is.
But I think Canada, the Canadian Wrestling scene does warrant a Hall of Fame that would
encompass all the territories.
But yeah, what would be the audience for it?

(01:25:10):
Who, Greg said, you know, who's got a couple million dollars to lose?
Who's going to do it?
How are they going to govern the thing?
How are they going to put it together in a U-Tour?
Where's the revenue?
In the world?
It would be amazing to have it.
But yeah, how?
How?
I would love to see it though.
I mean, that'd be great if they had a Canadian Wrestling Hall of Fame.

(01:25:32):
And I think that, I think we warrant it.
I think we've got a, we've got a powerful enough, we had a powerful enough scene in
Canada from territory to territory that it would, it would be a cool thing.
I would warrant it.
I'd love to see it.
I just don't know how you, how it would ever be possible.
It's important to note here that the Museum of Civilization is working on a wrestling
exhibit that's supposed to open, I think it's in March.

(01:25:55):
Oh cool.
Something like that.
Pat LaPrade's been working with them a bit.
So it'll probably be a little bit too French, but that's okay too.
For those unfamiliar, it's in Hall, Quebec, right across, I would say that called Gatineau
now, right across the river from Ottawa.
It's a beautiful museum.
I've been there for the hockey exhibits and they gave us a tour of the backstage when

(01:26:17):
I went with my hockey star buddies.
So some of our wrestling history is actually being preserved.
I think that's our biggest hope, right?
Not something public for the, for the public to attend kind of thing.
But more importantly, that if there's places like the Glenboar archives that actually take
the time to archive some of this stuff, so it's there forever.

(01:26:39):
You know, that's more important to me than something that somebody's going to go pay
five bucks to go wander around and leave.
Yeah, exactly.
By the way, the Glenboar does have a little, it's a tiny, it's a little thing.
They've got the Mavericks exhibition that's just a sort of ongoing thing.
And Stu Hart's one of the Calgary Mavericks.
So he's, if you can go up there and see Stu Hart's, you know, I don't know, one of the

(01:27:04):
original North American belts or the Canadian heavyweight belt from, which was before the
North American belt.
And, and you know, there's a picture of Stu and there's a little bit of a story about
him there and stuff.
So yeah, that kind of stuff.
Places like the Glenboar as well do a little bit.
They don't do enough, but they, they're, they're archiving it as well and making it, you know,

(01:27:24):
having it be remembered.
I see BC was getting ready to fire up a fight about having the, the Hall of Fame on the
Maritimes.
So good luck with that.
I like to see people traveling from far and wide to come to come here for it.
But I agree with what everybody's saying.
I mean, it's difficult to have a physical Hall of Fame itself.

(01:27:46):
I mean, there's no, there's no monetary success with that, but there's got to be something.
There's got to be something to keep this, the history of this alive, whether it's online,
whether it's archives, as you say, that kind of stuff.
And my other concern is just not as much interest with people nowadays to look into this.

(01:28:06):
It's either you got somebody who's just so dedicated to looking into this or people just
don't care.
And now you, there's so many wrestling fans that are influenced by the whole WWE history
of it or now the AEW history and they think the WWE Hall of Fame is some legitimate thing
or whatever.
And it's just, it's so watered down.

(01:28:27):
So you really, somebody who's interested in a Hall of Fame for Canada is going to be...
It's so important.
I remember, you know, I mean, I was sort of the Calgary Herald's guy.
I'm not with the Calgary Herald and I haven't been for 10 years now, but I was the Calgary

(01:28:47):
Herald's guy that kept stuff, you know, that when Bad News Allen died, I was like, guys,
this is a big story and here's why.
Here's why we got to do a story about Bad News Allen who a lot of people, you know,
it hadn't forgotten about, but I'm like, this is a significant dude.
Since I've been gone, like when Archie Goldie died, they did nothing.
Wow.
That's ridiculous.

(01:29:07):
Archie Goldie, man, one of the TV, TV actually did something.
Somebody came and talked to me.
I did some, it's such a long time ago now.
I did something online and then, you know, and then somebody from the TV actually came
and talked to me about Archie Goldie, but like the Calgary Herald didn't do anything

(01:29:29):
when Archie Goldie died and I kind of thought I should have been out there pushing for it,
but you know, I just didn't, it's not my job anymore and I just, you know, I didn't have
time, but yeah.
That's a different rant though, Heath, because they had my piece.
I was part of the post media empire.
They could have just taken it.
Yeah.
And then they were doing it too.
Yeah.
Calgary, Calgary didn't take your piece.
Like unreal.

(01:29:50):
They had the rights to do that the whole time.
They never did.
My stuff went up maybe two, three times.
Cause you wrote it for the national post, right?
Well, post media owned it all, right?
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
That's ridiculous.
The Calgary didn't pick it up.
Yeah.
Ridiculous.
Of all places.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(01:30:10):
I had never, I mean, this hadn't occurred to me before, but I mean, the fact is the
international pro wrestling hall of fame in Albany is, I just looked up the distance.
It's 160 miles to the Canadian border.
I mean, I think it is far fetched probably to, you know, consider a physical location

(01:30:30):
for a hall of fame, but if somebody did it, you know, it may be worth looking into doing
something in conjunction with that new hall of fame.
It's, you know,
Don't get me started with the...
Well, the new women's hall of fame that just got announced is already doing something with
them in Albany, but they, so what they have in Albany is a room at the arena, the big

(01:30:57):
arena in Albany.
And of course, Albany is like an AHL level rink.
So it's seats, I don't know, 10,000.
Are they still the River Rats there or they changed the name now?
So yeah, exactly.
So they have a room there.
That's all they have.
And they have no storage.
They have nothing.
They don't have any big plans.
They're waiting for government grants to come through or begging to do it.

(01:31:21):
It's a very, very early process for them.
They got a long way to go before anyone else is going to partner with them.
Yeah, but it's a good point.
I'm glad they're out there and I hope they succeed.
The guys in Iowa are a lot more legitimate.
They have a lot of storage space.
They have a lot of stuff they've been preserving.

(01:31:41):
But again, their interest is more about amateur.
And then the Prowessing Hall of Fame down in Wichita is a whole gong show.
But a lot of the historical papers have made their way to actual historians in Tim Hornbaker
and Steven Johnson.
So there's hope for some of that stuff.
Yeah, I was at the Waterloo induction this year for the first time.

(01:32:03):
I don't know exactly what goes on the rest of the year.
But if Canada could put something together that drew those 500 avid fans across the country
who would put up some money to attend a ceremony, if somebody could pull that off, that would
be great.

(01:32:24):
The rest of the year would probably be nothing but planning for an annual event.
It's hard to think of something that would sustain itself week to week.
You'd have to...
I would attend.
I guess we all would probably attend.
But unfortunately, I don't have the five million to invest in that right now.

(01:32:49):
What?
Didn't your Gordy Ankle book do that?
Well...
Oh yeah, you're waiting for the royalties.
Yeah, the royalties are still rolling in.
But maybe, Greg, I'm sure you got it.

(01:33:09):
Maybe we can pool.
It would be great, but yeah, it's hard to imagine.
I want to know how big that pool is.
That's what I'm curious about.
Javier, obviously you're in El Salvador.
Is there anything that you guys have that's maybe not a physical Hall of Fame, but do
you have any kind of preservation of history there?

(01:33:33):
The preservation of history here in El Salvador of wrestling and wrestlers are the wrestlers
who are still alive and the ones that want to share their stories.
But do you have big collectors out there?
Is anybody collecting this stuff?
Is anybody keeping their eye on it?
What's happening over there?

(01:33:54):
A lot of that stuff...
I actually had one of their championship belts.
I was until they unified it with another one.
Literally I had it back here in bag.
A championship belt who had like 20, 25 some years, a Central American version of a El
Salvador championship, but Central America version.

(01:34:16):
And before the show, unify it with the guy who was going to get it.
Before the show, I was in my backyard scrubbing the red felt, you know, basically the belt
on the side.
So I'm thinking, well, this is kind of interesting if people would even know that this belt,

(01:34:39):
this historic belt from our region is getting scrubbed by me because it had been stored
somewhere and it just was the smell of dust was so impregnated into it.
So I did my part preserving the belt, helping out.
But back to your question, no, there's nothing here of that sort.

(01:35:03):
I mean, it would...
My forte is writing in English.
If my strength was writing in Spanish, I could do something and write about the history of
wrestling in El Salvador here.
But I've done about three articles on that when I've been able to interview a lot of

(01:35:24):
the veteran wrestlers from here.
And so that was fun, but here it's an uphill battle.
Wrestling here has kind of been almost non-existent for the past 20 years.
It hasn't disappeared, but from 2000 onward, it's been kind of a struggle, less fans.

(01:35:46):
And it really attaches itself to WWE success.
If WWE becomes popular, there's an interest in wrestling here.
But most of the style of wrestling here in El Salvador is more of a lucha libre style
like Mexico.
So we, whatever, if Mexico is doing well and United States is doing well with their wrestling,

(01:36:08):
then the interest here picks up.
If not, soccer's the number one spectator sport by far.
I guess there's so much stuff out there still that people are still coming across it and
fighting in attics or in basements or their grandparents have this, newspaper clipping
or whatever.

(01:36:28):
I guess maybe a small part of me just doesn't want to see this stuff disappear forever because
as we all know, once history's gone, it's gone.
I don't know what the answer is.
Obviously, I think we're all in agreement that maybe a national hall of fame doesn't
work, but if something regional would work, I'm not sure.

(01:36:49):
It would be a shame to lose a lot of this what's out there for history.
But I don't know how you preserve it outside of, I guess, private collectors, but that's
not the answer either because then you never really know what's happening with it.
There just needs to be the acknowledgement that pro wrestling is part of our culture

(01:37:12):
and deserves the same respect that other professions have gotten.
And that's not going to happen.
So I mean, you're not going to have the museums opening up their arms to take collections
the way they would if it's a hockey collector who had gathered up stuff for 40 years.
That's just the reality.
Sad but true.

(01:37:33):
You got to go to Herb Simmons' house.
That's a museum right there.
Well, exactly.
And there are lots of people like that.
Yeah, wrestling still regarded in the mainstream.
It's huge.
It's a huge part of the pop culture, but it's still regarded as kind of a joke, something

(01:37:57):
to sweep under the carpet or whatever.
I always think about the calorie stampede.
Calorie stampede here.
Stampede wrestling attached itself to the calorie stampede, but the calorie stampede
benefited from stampede wrestling.
From the 50s to the 80s, it was a...
Stu would bring in the Andre the Giants of the world and everything for the big stampede.

(01:38:20):
That was sort of the WrestleMania of stampede wrestling.
During the calorie stampede, you'd have that huge thing where you'd pull out all the stops
and bring in all the guys and everything.
That was an attraction of the calorie stampede.
And the stampede corral would be sold out for matches, and the stampede wrestling would

(01:38:43):
be a part of the calorie stampede parade, which was broadcast right across Canada and
stuff.
And yet, the calorie stampede sort of doesn't really...
When they get into their history, when they talk about their history and the way they've
archived their history, stampede wrestling is like this tiny little thing they barely

(01:39:04):
acknowledge.
And it's like it was...
And I think it's that whole thing.
It's like, ah, we're kind of embarrassed about this, so we're not really going to give it
its due.
And I think that's what happens with wrestling in the mainstream, even though it's so mainstream.
The WWE couldn't be this, you know, a huger thing.

(01:39:25):
It's still regarded as sort of a joke, you know?
Maybe that's why we have...
Yeah, because...
Sorry, go ahead.
No, just...
I think out of so many years, so many decades and decades since pro wrestling became a thing,
I think people in the mainstream still don't get it.

(01:39:47):
They don't get what it is, and they criticize it for what it isn't.
But they will understand it.
And since wrestling is not mainstream sport, it's not theater, it's not movies, it is an
art form, it is a combination of a whole bunch of things where pro wrestling is its own thing.
So the only people, the only group of people, persons that will be able to give it the respect

(01:40:11):
that it deserves would be wrestling people because wrestling people understand it.
People in mainstream sports, they could enjoy WWE and watch it a little, but they're not
going to have the passion that wrestling fans do.
But the people who... if someone makes this museum, it has to be, yes, someone who's passionate
about it, but someone who has a business sense, someone who has a business plan, people who

(01:40:37):
are investors who buy into the concept.
It can't just be, let's a bunch of fanboys get together and make a Hall of Fame.
That's going to fail on day one.
No, that would just be an AEW professor.
It's very complicated.
What was that Andy?
I was going to say that's why the bunch of fanboys, it sounds like an AEW presser.

(01:41:02):
But I guess maybe an interesting point you brought up about mainstream public not really
recognizing what these men, women have done in professional wrestling, how it translates
to sporting culture and Canadian culture in general.
Maybe that's why, like, how many years did it take for Kieniski to get into the Hall

(01:41:24):
of Fame?
It was just last year he was inducted, for example.
More than a dozen, I think, but a dozen.
Maybe that's a big part of it too, because there's not that respect factor maybe from
the mainstream consciousness of what these men and women actually meant to the fabric

(01:41:44):
of Canada.
I don't know.
It's an odd thing.
The thing is, wrestling doesn't do itself any favors either for all the Gordienkos and
the Kieniskis you have.
You have a bunch of people in wrestling who just brought it down with maybe silly gimmicks
or stupidity or promoters, et cetera, et cetera.

(01:42:07):
When wrestling reaches a certain level of respectability, it's the same wrestling people
that have brought it down at some point.
You know, you got all these writers like Greg and people who have wrestling on this very
high level, their respectable level, historians who do their research, but the people in wrestling

(01:42:31):
itself, they kind of crap on it by themselves.
So how do we expect the mainstream to respect it when sometimes wrestling and wrestlers
don't even respect themselves as, you know, can only defend it so much?
The end, it's like a carnival.
It's like a circus.
That's entertainment, you know?

(01:42:52):
That goes back to when people don't understand it, because I would argue that the gimmicks,
I mean, there's some ridiculous gimmicks too, but gimmicks have been a part of professional
wrestling and before that gimmicks, I guess I can see what you say, that gimmicks diminish
it a little bit before the public, but it's also what's cool about it too.

(01:43:14):
It's also what's cool about it.
It's what makes people, it's what makes it as huge as it is.
But yeah, I guess I'm spinning my tires here, but yeah, I think it, you don't want to take
away, I mean, they-
You don't want to take away the characters.
You don't want to take away the personality of wrestling, because if you do, then it's
more like, it goes back to like an amateur style or like, if you listen to the interviews

(01:43:41):
of mainstream athletes, yeah, we got to do our best and we got to practice hard and we
got to do this and this.
They're like robots talking.
And then the pro wrestlers, when they would interview them before, not now too much, but
before, those promos were so amazing.
I think I enjoy watching promos more now than when I was young, because they're so refreshing.

(01:44:04):
They're so sincere and it's the characters that just flourish.
That's what makes pro wrestling amazing and entertaining to watch.
And that's when the less they try to pigeonhole and script things, I think it's just, just
let them let the personality shine.

(01:44:27):
Let's talk about the death of the promo and the over-scripted nature of today's wrestling
scene.
I mean, that's kind of why I tuned out and why if we talk about modern wrestling, I've
got more limited things to say, because I don't- the organic way that they used to allow

(01:44:48):
a Ric Flair or Roddy Piper or even a Bad News Allen or people like this who gave amazing
promos, the way they allowed those people to develop their personalities and they didn't
go in there with these hard scripts.
Macho Man, Randy Savage, maybe later on they became more scripted for them.
But I don't think the wrestlers today are allowed to develop that, at least certainly

(01:45:09):
not in the WWE, are not allowed to develop their personalities like that, right?
Because they're more like actors with a script and you can tell that they're actors with
a script.
And so they can't develop their characters the way they naturally would, because they
have to follow this rigid script.
There's a fear too, probably, because since the shareholders and it's a big corporation

(01:45:33):
now, they want to have to control, micromanage every little thing.
And I think the product suffers.
There's excellent, excellent athletes on WWE.
The athleticism is off the charts, but the characters and the storylines and all that
is there's, in my opinion, it's missing.

(01:45:55):
I'm going to be 45 in a couple of months.
So I saw the tail end of the territories and it's not.
I love the old school stuff.
I like to go back.
I love nothing more than to go on YouTube and look at whatever you can kind of call
from YouTube and find old territorial stuff that way and read the writings that people

(01:46:17):
have actually researched it and knew about it do.
And that's the kind of thing that I delved into.
Dusty Rhodes could never happen today.
The character that Dusty Rhodes developed just naturally by coming out there and being
Dusty Rhodes and just allowing that to develop.
I don't think a character like that could happen now.

(01:46:39):
Does Cia see a link to the past in MJF and some of his work these days?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, he's probably the only deliverer of promos I actually enjoy watching anymore.
I mean, if I know he's going to do it, I will at least tape the show and try to catch what

(01:47:02):
he does.
I mean, I find him exceptionally entertaining and I'm wondering, you know, if he does eventually
end up in the other, in the larger company.
The evil empire.
I'm going to choke him out.
Yeah.
Well, Marty, so this is a good question for you because you're obviously on, you know,

(01:47:22):
modern wrestling shows.
We all know that you're going to win the 50 Man Battle Royal in a couple of weeks here.
But for yourself...
Everybody but the other 49 guys.
Yeah.
They don't know it yet.
What do you see on the road from the younger, you know, men and women coming up?
Or they do they get them because it really on the road in the small towns where they

(01:47:43):
should be developing a lot of these skills that it doesn't seem to be happening.
And like you've seen me at how many shows, right?
You almost don't you see a willingness for them not to get on the mic and not to present
themselves.
So what's missing?
What's happening there on the local scene?
Okay, if I work with your suggestion that the consensus suggestion seems to be the one

(01:48:11):
thing that is missing from modern product is the personality development, organic personality
development.
Yes.
As opposed to the scripted development.
I think you have probably now around the Winnipeg area seen enough shows that you've seen that
any time that I go up to someone, especially after a match, and that'll happen maybe twice

(01:48:33):
in a show where I will go up to someone after a match and elicit a comment or try to provoke
a comment from them.
You can tell that none of those are in any way scripted, rehearsed, discussed, thought
about whatsoever.
And there's I don't know that there's any time where after the match in Winnipeg, anyone

(01:48:55):
knows whether I will or will not come up to them with the microphone.
And one of the things that's missing is in the way the modern shows are structured.
You don't have a TV show where the guys are pounding up promos, even the way we did when
I broke in and we had TV.
We were pounding up promos with regards to shows in different markets or four different

(01:49:17):
markets of the show.
The TV show itself wasn't in a different market, but you're putting on an interview about the
match in Winnipeg and in this case maybe going to Thompson or Brandon or places like that.
Nothing structured now for the guys to have that regimentation.
The shows themselves, the live events themselves aren't built, they're built for guys to do

(01:49:40):
promos, which is entirely different beast than doing an interview.
And it's in the interview where character is developed in that back and forth with an
announcer with a commentator, that's how that is elucidated from inside the wrestlers themselves.
So the modern day events and CWE, which is who we're talking about in terms of who I

(01:50:01):
work with in the Winnipeg market, those shows aren't designed for those spots.
I may insert those interview spots into the show based on how I read the crowd and how
I read the match and a couple of other factors.
Sometimes I've done it because we need to kill a few minutes of time.
I would much prefer, listen, I would much prefer if it was up to me, and this isn't
a point of contention between me and the promotion or any of the shows I've done locally, but

(01:50:25):
personally, I would always build in interviews with guys like at the beginning of the show,
I'd build in an interview with Greg about his match coming up before intermission or
something.
That's my nature to build the interest in a show, but it also gives the guy exposure
to somebody with a microphone where you can go back and forth.
The expectation of a lot of these guys in the training now and when they're being trained

(01:50:46):
is and you're going to have to develop a character.
And now they leave it up to the guys and maybe they tried to pull a little bit out in the
training matches, but that's just a ridiculous expectation.
In my opinion, the first thing a wrestler has to learn to do is wrestle.
And he's got to learn to get beat.
He's got to learn how to take a beating.
He's got to learn what happens if he gets lost.
And you worry about the character development after those fundamentals are there because

(01:51:10):
all the character in the world goes out the window when a guy gets lost two minutes into
a match, turns around the wrong way and eats one right in the chops.
Yeah, that's for sure.
Right.
And so I think that the way that the modern shows are structured because they don't incorporate
not promos, but rather interviews, that's one of the things where those skills aren't

(01:51:33):
being developed.
I think we're lucky in CWE that the promotion here has, and I'm only going to speak locally
about them, but they've been very diligent in trying to give guys a very good wrestling
grounding and you know what, you see yourself on the events that you've attended.
So you see guys like Cheeks, Josh Holliday.

(01:51:58):
There's a kid who's been trained, started out refereeing Sammy Peppers, trained hard,
trained by refereeing.
We've got another referee who's going to be debuting on the 50 man rumble to remember.
Merv Unger, the guy who's been refereeing is Merv Unger Jr. is going to be donning
the tights for his first formal match.
But these are guys that are not just thrown in the ring.

(01:52:18):
And the worst thing is nowadays you see promotions that throw guys in the ring and they don't
even have them there to get beat on, to be a tomato can.
Right?
They put them in and they think they're going to be competitive.
That's a tremendous turn of phrase.
It's an old time phrase.
Right?
I mean, listen, I was proud to be at the level where I could have been a tomato can on TV.

(01:52:40):
Even that required a little bit of ability, a little bit of exceptional comprehension
of what you're trying to do in the ring.
Instead, what do you get nowadays is these skinny boys, most of them are, listen, there's
a lot of, you talk about fanboys in journalism, how about the fanboys in the locker rooms?
You give vault.

(01:53:00):
It's terrible.
Even in Winnipeg, there's some degree of control on it.
Certainly CW tries to make sure that the guys that are coming in, listen, you want to see
something funny.
I'll send you one of these days, I'll send you the pictures of the boys sitting around
listening to Scott Flash Norton when he did that seminar.
And he had them out of the palm of his hand and he just sat at the table.
We pushed two tables together and he just sat there talking with those boys for two

(01:53:21):
hours and their hair was on end.
They're talking about Korea, talk about Japan, talk about breaking in at the tail end of
the territorial days, being with Ken Fatera.
The mentorship is the thing that's lacking and along with the mentorship is the style
of the programs that are being put on in front of the people.
Everybody's supposed to act like a star instead of learn how to be a star.

(01:53:43):
That's what's missing is those building blocks.
And I know BC agrees.
Well, it's interesting.
You gotta go ahead BC.
No, we just talk about it all the time on our podcast.
What it's missing right now is that mean gene type character, Lance Russell, somebody that's
going to carry somebody through an interview as opposed to just giving somebody a mic to

(01:54:06):
die on the spot.
And then they get judged for the next year or something like that, even though they weren't
given any direction.
But you got to mean gene.
Let me ask our Steve Toast on any of the shows that you've seen that I've been handling the
microphone.
Have you seen anybody die on the mic?
No, you give him something at least right.

(01:54:28):
It's never a you're very good at at not giving them the paint by numbers like how was your
match?
What did you think about this move?
You know, you give them something to feed on, right?
They can get into that which you don't see on like AEW.
They just take the mic out of Tony Schiavone's hand half the time.
He doesn't even get to interview them.

(01:54:49):
Right?
You don't see you don't see a stick man like you see even like an Ed Whalen, right?
When he would engage them in the ring and stampede and I've you know, everybody can say what
they want about about Ed Whalen.
But there's been I've seen so much film of where he can actually pull a great interview
about somebody like a J.R. Foley or you know, Bulldog Bob Brown, although you can say what

(01:55:10):
you will, but his promo skills.
But if you get him going, that's a different story.
But there doesn't seem to there seems to be that disconnect nowadays about there's not
anybody that has the cash as an interviewer to actually bring these personalities out.
And then you run into the problem further on of the promo and the personality and etc.
That's a good point about that, that you need somebody on the other on the other side of

(01:55:34):
the mic as well that that that helps develop that sort of thing.
Right.
And because you got a lot of people on the mic now that are the fanboys, I think, too,
with that sort of thing.
And yeah, I know there's a lot of you know, there's controversy about Ed and he did all
his decisions were not the best and sometimes he was detrimental and certain, you know,
he would choke certain wrestlers off and not give him a chance.

(01:55:55):
But when he if when he had a guy he could vibe with like a J.R. Foley, like a Dr. D,
like you know, like a Bad News Allen.
I mean, it was like I was another one.
It was a comedy.
It was almost a comedy skit going on.
And he developed he had helped develop these characters, at least within the Stampede

(01:56:16):
territory, Archie the Stomper.
And yeah, he it was a big part of the the personalities they developed and the characters
they developed, the bounce back they have with Ed Whelan sort of thing.
I think I think Greg, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think no class Bobby Bass.
I think no class came from Ed Whelan because because he didn't Bobby Bass throw some throw

(01:56:41):
one of the midgets, kick a midget's ass or something like that.
And it's Ed called him no class Bobby Bass.
And then that became his thing.
You know, think of like the weasel, right?
Like, you know, the Bobby Heen.
Like that stuff comes about sometimes by accident.
And that's what makes wrestling special.

(01:57:01):
Right.
And when the stuff that's unplanned happens.
Anyway, so I got a bail.
But yes, it was interesting to hear Marty talk about mentoring and stuff, because he's
been a bit of a mentor for me.
So thank you publicly.
Thank you, Chief.
I just want to mention that Greg Oliver, honestly, in terms of the journalism stuff I've worked
on over the years are two guys that really stand out, really, really stand out.

(01:57:22):
Rick Bavarstok was our program director at Kick FM.
And I was Greg, I was on frequently in my radio days.
But Rick Bavarstok was just unbelievably generous with his knowledge and his time to us.
And Greg is like the best boss ever, because I never get scolded for my spelling mistakes

(01:57:43):
ever.
And he never shoots down my ideas in a blaze of glory.
It's always gently.
I try.
But anyway, this is a great discussion, guys.
We can do it again.
But yeah, it's past my bedtime.
And I've been sick.
So I do need to go to bed.
All right.
Take care, Greg.

(01:58:03):
Have a good one.
All right.
Go Argos.
Hey, wait a second.
Yeah, wait, wait.
No, what a heel.
I didn't see that the whole time.
Oh, we've been hoodwinked.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
That's the best.
We're going to win.
All right.
Thanks, guys.
Yeah, right.
Take care.
What a heel.
All right on.
Now, that's how you make an exit from a show, eh?

(01:58:35):
Just a full, full on heel turn.
Leave him, leave him laying.
Yeah.
Next thing you know, he gives it to him.
Now he can't turn his computer off.
That's even greater.
Yeah.
The red phone.
He just, he just waiting for the heat.
Yeah.
Mic drop.
Yeah.
Oh, God.
Was there another topic you had there by the way?

(01:59:05):
Well, I got a couple.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm not sure how much time everybody else has this evening, but just one other
thing I wanted to bring up about the stick man aspect of it.
And because I'm not as familiar with, with the Pacific Northwest, west as, as I should
be, was there anybody out there that doubt played that, you know, Ed Whalen, that, you

(01:59:26):
know, me Jean O'Croft role, was there anybody out there that, that really brought something
out of the, out of the wrestlers in the ring?
Well, the correct answer is no.
Cause the, the Ron Mori was the, I don't know if I, I have to excuse me cause Steven's the
expert on this site and I should defer to him, but Mori, I don't know when he took over
the play by play of all star wrestling, but he was a very, I mean, this guy was a grandfather

(01:59:50):
had that grandfather vibe from the time he was about 23 years old.
And, and, and he was a very, he was low key.
And when you see the limited examples of Ron on play by play from the tape that's available
in the late seventies, it's, it's not the same product that I remember as I remember
when he was younger, even a few years younger, his play by play became very choppy is I think

(02:00:13):
a good way of putting it.
He, he did sportscaster interviews, but he, he, you know, Moondog Mori used to complain,
has always complained, complained to me that, that Ron was like Ed Whalen, that he didn't
let anybody get too much heat on the stick.
He, he, you know, I use watch out for the television stations interests in that regard,

(02:00:34):
but to do sportscaster interviews, whether it was with Dean of Gucci, Stephen Littlebear,
Kineski himself, he was a fantastic interviewer doing straight interviews.
The number of heated interviews they had in Vancouver.
It was so rare that it was like an, it was like the AWA annual angle, you know, like
it was so rare you'd remember it.

(02:00:55):
I think I've got that correct.
Bernie Pascal would fill in once in a while and Bernie was not a, it was just weird hearing
him a really straight guy.
He was a sportscaster trying to work around the product that he's the sports director,
whatever.
And he's like filling in for two weeks and really he doesn't know a padlock from a hammer
lock.

(02:01:16):
It was kind of funny to watch Bernie have to have to work around that.
But Vancouver had a different, the show had a different style and it just wasn't really
geared to hot TV.
We're out of time, you never saw that on the Vancouver TV ever, not once.
I saw Stephen nodding his head a few times there.
Yeah, you know, sometimes though, you know, if you talk to people who watched all star

(02:01:40):
wrestling during its heyday, I mean, sixties and seventies particularly, Ron Maury is one
of those unforgettable figures.
I mean, he was the right guy for that job.
I know some wrestlers who came along said, you know, he was not devoted to wrestling.
And if you, I mean, there is footage of video on YouTube of Ron Maury, for example, doing

(02:02:04):
an auction show at BC.
Yeah, that's great.
You know, he was kind of a jack of all trades, I think you could say.
Yeah.
And looked much older than he actually was.
But he had great rapport with some of those wrestlers.
I mean, he was, you know, Knyazki loved him.
Savage.

(02:02:25):
Loved him.
Savage.
Tolless.
I mean, yes, Tolless especially.
He, you know, some, right.
And the guys who came up from Portland were surprised at how little actually happened
week to week.
People who watched all star wrestling over the long haul, I think, really remember Ron

(02:02:47):
Maury as a very good match for that rather quiet, slow moving show.
I want to point out that the AWA in the tapes that we saw in Winnipeg, and this for me goes
back to 1968, I think it was.
And Marty O'Neal was doing the play by play.
Marty O'Neal was like Ron Maury.

(02:03:08):
He was a very, he's an old style sportscaster.
He was actually a shortstop in his youth who had played with Casey Stango, which shows
how old Marty O'Neal was.
And he was also a very staid, like very square broadcaster who conducted excellent interviews
with the wrestlers and let them, and I mean, when you watch those old AWA interviews, there's

(02:03:31):
the one tape from Rockford, Illinois for November of probably 1969 or 70.
And there's an interview with the Vashon brothers, an interview with the Pepper Gomez and Red
Bastine and an interview with the Big K.
And you just see how easily Marty, much again, in that Ron Maury mold.
So not every territory, the Gene Okerlund thing, and I suppose it's a good question,

(02:03:54):
who concurrent with Whalen in Whalen's time was sort of a more over the top kind of character.
But the play by play in Vancouver and Minneapolis territory, they were, those were very straight
up and down presentations.
They were not circus shows by any stretch.

(02:04:15):
They were not, he did not get the sense that the play by play was hucksterism.
But I think with the Whalen thing, Heath would know better than I would.
No, I was going to say, in terms of the Ed Whalen aspect of stampede wrestling, he was

(02:04:38):
more concerned about the TV studio, if I'm not mistaken, right Heath?
He was.
Yeah.
He never, like that was where people really like, you know, Ed cut off some, like, you
know, a lot of great matches got cut off right at the great part because he didn't, because,
you know, they got bloody and he was worried about the perception.
I was on TV.

(02:04:59):
He was worried about perception.
He was not, he liked wrestling.
I think it's not fair to say he wasn't a wrestling guy, but he wasn't, it wasn't his primary
focus, right?
He was a wrestling guy.
He liked it.
I think he had a lot of fun with it, but I don't think, yeah, his, his stay, he was,
he was a respected journalist in the city, right?
He wasn't just a wrestling announcer.

(02:05:21):
Like he was, he was the news director and sports director at Global at the time.
Like he, and then later went on to be the flames guy and stuff.
He was a respected dude and he couldn't, you know, he, yeah, he was very worried about
his reputation and also the station's reputation.
So he wouldn't, yeah, there's certain things that he wouldn't, he wouldn't allow, you

(02:05:41):
know, that he wouldn't or that he kind of put the kibosh on that.
But at the same, but at the same time, I mean, I don't want to get, go too hard.
We, you know, you talked about the, an announcer being the right announcer for the right territory
and Whalen was for Calgary.
I mean, he had this, you know, Calgary had that sort of, you know, that Western sort

(02:06:02):
of feel to it and everything.
You had that big personality.
Yeah, that big personality.
You had that sort of hokey sort of charm, like, you know, ring a ding dong, that kind
of stuff.
It wouldn't fly today, but at the time it was great, you know, and that's it.
You know, another edition of Stampede Wrestling and a malfunction of the junction and all
that kind of stuff.
It was perfect for, for what the territory was.

(02:06:22):
And it really, you know, the Calgary fans loved him for it.
Like some people, Ed's an interesting guy.
He's a polarizing figure because a lot of real hardcore wrestling fans are like, well,
he screwed up this and he screwed up that.
And he wasn't, you know, he wouldn't allow this guy to get heat and this sort of thing.

(02:06:43):
But at the same time, other people have said like he was the star of Stampede Wrestling.
And not just that, but something goes sideways and you're not on TV anymore.
Exactly.
Exactly.
You know, you have to balance the criticism of, and it's justifiable in terms of the,
from the product point of view that it wasn't, didn't have the heat or a cut guys off.

(02:07:03):
And I can understand how any, you know, I don't, I wouldn't want to be cut off.
I'm trying to get some heat either.
Right?
No.
But ultimately he's the one that made sure that they stayed on the air because they sure
weren't about the, the last thing Bruce Hart was ever going to do was self-censor.
No, exactly.
No.
And actually there was times when Stu, you know, there was times in, I guess the sixties
when Stu did lose his license and, and Ed's the one that got him back on.

(02:07:29):
You know, I mean, Stu relied on Ed Whalen a lot and yeah, it was, he's a polarizing
figure for a reason.
He did great things for Stampede and then he also, you know, there's some things that
he kind of stifled as well.
I want to mention one other guy briefly and that's in the Montreal and there's the odd

(02:07:49):
tape of TV.
And actually there's one tape in particular that it seems to me bounces on and off of
YouTube.
And Montreal is another example and this is the late seventies, early eighties.
I don't remember the fellow's name offhand, but there's another mid seventies actually.
And there's another example of a guy when you see that when you stumble across, this
would be the Carpanchay era, the joint work between the Grand Prix office and the other

(02:08:16):
office there.
And that's another example of a guy who was a Jack, I can't remember his last name.
His son-in-law became my boss.
When I did talk radio at CFRW Winnipeg in the late nineties and he said, Hey, you talk
about my wrestling background.
He tells me about his father-in-law.
What?
He never really heard of it, had not seen any tapes of, and I was father-in-law, been

(02:08:37):
the wrestling announcer for the TV in Montreal.
And that was worked out good for me because he respected what I did.
But there's another example of a guy who was very, you know, very laid back and, and very,
you know, very much took that sports cast a role as opposed to something that was loud
over the top.
The biggest thing that it was broadcast.

(02:08:59):
Jack, Jack, Ron, sorry.
That's who it was.
Jack.
Yeah.
The biggest thing that that style did is it established the Canadian wrestling fan was
generally a little more intellectual.
You know, they viewed it more as a sport and less as just a, an adjunct of roller derby
compared to American fans.

(02:09:19):
And so in that regard, it, it, it's, uh, and again, like, you know, a guy like, like Lord
Layton, who I, I think, I think of all the characters we've mentioned, I think Layton
was more apt to go over the top than any of the other names.
You know, I don't know if Garry Maxwell ever, ever exceeded a hundred decibels in a broadcast
for, for Emile Dupree.

(02:09:40):
Canna just didn't breed that kind of, of, of, uh, you know, loud character, you know,
the, where the, where the announcer outside of Waylon was the star of the show.
I think, uh, Oakland for Canadian wrestling fans, because he got exposure on TSN in the
early and mid eighties, I think Oakland was the one that sort of broke the mold in this
country of what they thought wrestling play by play was or could be.

(02:10:02):
Yeah, I remember another, uh, announcer, uh, I think based in Montreal, probably, uh, mid
seventies, I think, uh, he worked for a short lived promotion there.
I remember a TV show called celebrity wrestling and an announcer, Dave Singer, who was really

(02:10:24):
playing a character.
I see.
I've never heard of him.
Yeah.
I don't know how long the promotion lasted.
I don't even know.
Well, actually I think Roddy, a young Roddy Piper was, yeah, on his way to and from the
Maritimes around 74, 75, he would have passed through Montreal.
That sounds, that sounds about right.

(02:10:45):
So you saw celebrity wrestling?
I did.
Yeah.
I grew up in Ontario in the London area and, uh, yeah.
One name that we haven't mentioned so far is, is Milton Veruskin.
Yeah, George Cannon's, uh, and George was another example of a guy who was understated
and very erudited and intellectual.

(02:11:07):
And yet when a Veruskin started, got on the stick and Milton started, uh, uh, getting
deeper into the play by play.
There was a guy who, by the time he was done was very comfortable in the role of pitching
things and over the top hyper bowl and such things.
But even when you look at Milton, when he started out, he, he was a little loud and
he'd get excited, but he was much more of the cannon ilk than of the Gene O'Croen ilk.

(02:11:32):
Nothing against O'Croen.
I mean, he did the business a great favor by doing what he did.
Uh, but, uh, but again, uh, you know, just to make the point, that's an American intrusion,
an American stylistic intrusion into what culturally for Canadians was a combat, a combat
sport and not, you know, not showbiz.

(02:11:53):
Uh, yes, not, not, not an exhibition, uh, not an exhibition of skill and science or
whatever they called it in Ontario on the posters.
I thought of another thing about, uh, Whalen actually, well, um, that he makes it another
thing that made him stand out from other announcers, I think, and correct me if there's somebody

(02:12:15):
that I'm missing here, but I don't think I can't think of another announcer as I'm thinking
about it here that was that this, uh, kind of cocky, like, you know, most announcers
sort of like, you know, they, they cower a little bit before the wrestlers and Whalen
would openly mock them.
That's another thing I think that people hold against Whalen too, cause, cause when you're

(02:12:35):
openly mocking a guy, then how's he going to get over certain things, but it worked
often.
Yeah.
But I think Sam Menacher did the same thing and he had Sam, but you know where that comes
from though, like, listen, listen, when I'm, when I've done TV, uh, I'm talking about more
recently, um, uh, but even, even when I did TV in Kansas city and I did the interviews

(02:12:58):
for whatever it was, four or five weeks there, uh, for the TV in the late eighties.
And so I'm dealing with Mike George and Rick McCord, Vince Apollo, Tommy Gilbert, uh,
and a couple of Canadian guys.
Mike Stone was down there and a few, uh, Tommy Sharp and a few other fellows.
Uh, and, um, you know, wrestlers aren't going to go generally go that route in their attitude

(02:13:21):
towards the person holding the microphone.
If, if they are with somebody who like myself or Jay French and by no means were we great,
but we were wrestlers and they, they accepted us as wrestlers.
And so that part of the act comes more so from, you know, sportscasters or broadcasters
or marks that, you know, from what was friends with the promoter and say, hand them a microphone

(02:13:42):
and the guy might've done two weeks of, of college radio, the UW doing a music show once
upon a time and they hand them a microphone and, and the boys didn't used to, and in a
way still don't, don't have the same kind of respect for somebody who hasn't been in
their boots.
But when I'm doing interviews, I've, you know, like I've made it clear that there's, do not

(02:14:06):
grab the mic, do not grab the mic, do not grab the mic.
Cause that's a bad thing.
For one thing, when you grab a mic and I don't know what I'm holding onto it, it'll rebound
and hit me in the face and chip my tooth.
So, so that's one reason why you shouldn't grab a mic.
But with myself, you know, because I still, I can still end up refereeing.
I've ended up in positions of being an arbitrator, you know, uh, uh, uh, special commissioner

(02:14:31):
functions, et cetera.
I can't be put in a position.
I'm not going to let myself, I think it's a better way of putting it, be put in a position
where, where I'm being intimidated by somebody because ultimately I still lace up the boots
and I still have to be able to go.
So I don't get it, but the guys also know that there's, there's a, it's not going to,
it's not going to work the same with me where I've got a reputation of my own that I want

(02:14:54):
to try to maintain and want to want to try to portray, uh, by no means am I a tough guy,
but that's a lot different than again, some skinny kid, skinny kid that's, uh, you know,
it's just imitating Michael Cole, imitating somebody else.
Please, nobody ever imitate Michael Cole.
God damn.
This is what they've learned.
This is the, the, the announcers nowadays for a lot of them, this is what they've learned.

(02:15:20):
And that's what they, what their idea is.
Listen, you grow up in Canada, you want to grow up to do hockey play by play.
Who did you learn from?
If you're in Vancouver, Jim Robson, right?
If you're in Eastern Canada, and again, this goes back perhaps a generation, a little more
than one generation, Danny Gallivan, right?
I mean, that's how you, that's the kind of play by play you emulate it.
Well, nowadays when the kid grows up to the attitude error and this and that, he watches

(02:15:42):
wrestling and I want to be Michael Cole.
Well that's in a way that's okay because I respect the kind of reporting he did overseas
or whatever.
He was a war correspondent.
So I respect that.
But on the other hand, Michael Cole is a product of Vince yelling in his ear for, you know,
two decades.
And, and when kids try to imitate that and they don't have Vince McMahon in their ear,
it ends up looking terrible.

(02:16:03):
And that's the kind of kid that a wrestler is going to, you know, can be in a position
where he's confrontational.
He's not going to get any guff back.
But to go back to what you said outside of weight, you never saw, God, can you imagine
Ron Moria or Marty O'Neil giving guff back to one of the wrestlers?
Of course not.
Like not in a million years, but they never were to give him that kind of guff personally

(02:16:25):
to the guy holding the microphone.
In those days, it made it look that it would make the TV look bad.
Who's the guy in Chicago that did the TV?
Chuck with the glasses?
Oh shoot.
I can't remember what his name is.
Chuck Marlowe?
Yeah.
Chuck Marlowe.
Who the hell is going to come on a chuck?
Let me tell you something, Marlowe.
Who's going to try to intimidate Chuck Marlowe?

(02:16:45):
For one thing, the guy is six foot four.
He's like the news director of one of the biggest, the biggest station in Chicago.
Where's that going to go?
And then on top of that, you go and you screw out your announcer and take the bruiser and
go over Snyder waiting for you in the locker room.
Yeah, that's a good idea.
I think there's some other reasons why these things didn't go on in the old days.

(02:17:07):
You want to screw out the announcer and end up having to deal with, can you imagine with
Ray Gunkel or Vern Conyer, even Bob Geigel?
You really want to mess around with Bob Geigel?
No.
He, he, that's a strong, mean person even in his old age.
It's funny that you mentioned, it's funny you mentioned Danny Galvin, Marty, because

(02:17:28):
that's something I was going to compare Ed Whalen to with some of his sayings that he
came up with that it was almost like that's what was the appeal.
Like, you know, he had a Danny Galvin with his famous sayings on the mic and then you
have Ed Whalen the same way.
Quick side note, Danny Galvin is a distant relative of mine too.
Oh, very cool.
Yeah.
On my mother's side.

(02:17:49):
But yeah.
And then the other thing with Whalen, and I remember as a kid, it's funny you brought
that up Heath about him kind of bowing up to these wrestlers.
And it used to drive me crazy when I was a kid, like, why is this guy not afraid of mucking
sing or something like that?
Right.
But Oakland did the same thing.

(02:18:11):
Oakland didn't take anything off these guys either.
He just, he, you know, he called them down as soon as it happens.
So he got the same thing.
But the one thing that did do a guy like Oakland doing that or Whalen doing that, it felt like
they had some authority or if it was Gordon Soli or if it was Lance Russell, it felt like
there was an authority level.
You don't mess with them because they're not in the ring.

(02:18:32):
Yes, exactly.
It's exactly it.
That's what's missing too.
The respect level on that side of it.
And now we've got all these stupid GMs and these whatever you want, commissioners and
they have no authority.
So, but at least they announced or seemed like he was the guy who was corralling everything
in and just kind of keeping it level.
And sometimes it were for real, like you mentioned with Whalen trying to keep the show on the

(02:18:53):
air.
Playboy Doug McCall had a, it was very, a very smart guy when it came to psychology
and knew the broadcast business, worked with me in radio as well and worked around the
radio market in Winnipeg.
And Playboy Doug McCall believed, always believed, and we, man, we used to talk about this going
back even in the, in the van, like in the Lars Anderson days.

(02:19:15):
And he started out when he replaced me doing play by play with New Brand Wrestling originally
when I stepped away and, and Doug got recruited in short order from the Tech Valk High School
broadcast program.
And Doug believed that a successful, anytime we try to plan out TV tapings or things like
that through the, through the eighties or through the nineties was how do we replace

(02:19:35):
me, meaning me, in the broadcast position?
Where do we, how do we convince Ernie Nairn or one of the other old Winnipeg broadcasters
because Doug was a firm believer that you needed a grandfatherly type announcer for
the audience to really be able to, to identify with the announcer, with the credibility of

(02:19:56):
the announcer selling you the product, telling you what's going on.
And that's what Marty O'Neill had.
Roger Kent was sort of like your, your strange uncle in the, you were very tall, very strange
uncle.
But Ron Moriarty and Ed Whalen certainly, Whalen I guess was also kind of like a funny
uncle.

(02:20:16):
But, but they, they had this older man thing going on.
And I, when I started doing play by play, I was like 20, 20, literally 20 years old.
And I'm interviewing like Chris Pepper and stuff.
And even, you know, the heyday of New Brand, you know, like I'm like, I'm interviewing
like Leo Burke and trying to drag an interview out of Ron Pope.
And I'm like 23 years old.

(02:20:37):
And I'm trying to do this kind of stuff.
And in that regard, Doug, I realized in the moment, I realized, yeah, it would be a lot
better actually, if, you know, somebody, if a grownup, you know, was the face of the,
of the program, not because there's anything wrong with my play by play, but just the ability
of people to, to accept the product as having that sports credibility, they have more invested

(02:21:02):
when they see an old, an old broadcaster, an older broadcaster, somebody who they know
has done news or they've seen do sports, that credibility brings a lot to the product.
And you don't see that really considered very much.
Well, in a way I have to take that back because AEW did, because they have Jim Ross and they
have, and they have Tony Schiavone.

(02:21:22):
So they, there's an outfit that recognized that kind of, the need for people to feel
comfortable with the broadcasters.
Well it's whether or not they use them properly is a different story, I think.
It's that's the big issue with them.
Absolutely, how comfortable are you with a wrestling product with, with, with, you know,
and, and, and it's not like he's not like I haven't, haven't, haven't had favorable
dealings with them, but like Excalibur wears a mask.

(02:21:44):
So no offense BC, obviously.
Right.
So, so to have normal looking human beings engaged in the broadcasts and people that
are older and have, you know, credibility, that kind of credibility, I think that that
enhances a product more so than throwing every kid, every pencil deck kid who's, you know,

(02:22:07):
mother is an investor in the promotion or, you know, so, so, you know, their, their uncle,
they're, they're going to be doing a show on their uncle's car lot in four weeks.
So let's give the kid the microphone, let him introduce the wrestlers.
It's a good way to kill your product.
You start screwing around like that.
Yeah.
It's an interest.
It's a lost art definitely.
And you can see it today, which is why I think we're missing a lot of the other, and you

(02:22:29):
know, it's kind of brings us back to our earlier, you know, I've, I've, we've gone offshoot
of boats every different times here, but you know, talking about what brings us back to
the earlier point.
Yes.
And you know, you start to really notice, and especially, you know, going through the
historical side of things, what's missing today, right?
And it's, it's, you, you, you miss all these little things progressively, right?

(02:22:52):
You're, you're, you miss the stick man and then you're missing the interviews and then
you're missing the personality and then you really, when you start rolling these things
up, you really start to understand what, what we're missing in today's day and age.
And I think that that's why, you know, looking back in history, you know, reading the books
like from Heath and Steve or, or, or reading the articles from Javier or listening to my

(02:23:15):
stupid voice once a month that gives you these, this information of these, uh, of what happened
of why these people meant something, right?
You start to understand the impact that they actually had.
Well, why did they have that impact?
Well, it's because they had, you know, this ability to draw people in, they talked you
into the building, they, they made you connect.

(02:23:35):
They made you feel something.
You know, Steve made the great point, you know, MGF is one of the few today that actually
gets it in terms of the old school way.
And I think, you know, it's, it's something that we're, we're really missing today and
God, wrestling would be so much better if, if we could get some of that feeling back,

(02:23:55):
I think.
Me too.
It's, it's about the wrestler committing himself to wanting to, to be like that, right?
It's, it's, it's, it's almost like MJF is going against the grain.
Yes.
Going, he's fighting up against this huge tide of, but he's like, no, this is the way
I want to be.
I mean, he's very committed to being, being who he is.

(02:24:19):
And he's very entertaining.
He can, he can get people riled up and people who, who are in the audiences or on their
computers seeking that they know everything and they still get generally upset over things
he says.
But I'm like, isn't that his, isn't that his job as a heel?
When did we lose focus here that, that the heel is supposed to upset at you and you're

(02:24:42):
supposed to kind of understand, okay, okay, calm down.
It's wrestling, but I hate that guy, but I'm enjoying this.
Oh, that's why I'm a fan.
To let, let them, and it goes back to let them, let, let them be, let, let the characters,
let the personalities come out and we, we, we can have so much more enjoyment when we
watch a rustling.

(02:25:03):
And but there was a really important point in the Indies.
I think it's the promos, there's a difference between promos and interviews.
And in the Indies, I believe there's a little, maybe a lot more spontaneity in most of the
promotions I've seen in the local promotions, like in the United States, the smaller companies,
I think, I think the promos are just more spontaneous and, and in a way entertaining.

(02:25:28):
I like, I like seeing that WWE is, is very successful.
It's making rolling, rolling in, in, in, in the money.
But I, I, it's, it's, to me, it's unbearable sometimes to watch.
I'm sorry, from the, from the quick shifting camera angles to this, no one sweats, everyone
is so perfect looking there.

(02:25:49):
No one has any body hair.
Like it goes on and on.
It's just, it's not, it's, it's, it's something to me, honestly, it's, it's WWE, AEW is there.
And then pretty much everyone else is, is, is different than, than those two or a couple
of big promotions.
It's just different.

(02:26:10):
Wrestling is considered wrestling or sports entertainment, but WWE is its own, tries to
be its own entertainment entity.
And it's less wrestling now than it has ever been, whatever you want to think what wrestling
is, you know.
One thing you, you, once it's going to become the E, it will not be WWE at some point.

(02:26:31):
They'll just call themselves E. That's all entertainment.
They will take out the, the W's.
They'll, they'll keep the world, you'll beat the world entertainment or whatever.
Yeah.
But the ones that's what they want, you know, that's what they want.
The one point you made about the heels is sorry, Heath is, you just quickly, you mentioned

(02:26:57):
heels and everybody nod their head.
So I just wanted to point that out, but Heath, go ahead.
I just said, I think I got to go put my son to bed here and stuff.
So I meet, meet some people here at everything as well.
It's been a great show too.
So yeah.
Thanks Heath.
Yeah.
Hopefully, hopefully your kid goes to sleep for you.
All right.
Yeah.
Show them one of my matches Heath.

(02:27:18):
Yeah.
Show them a Morty Gold match.
You guys, thanks.
Have a good one.
Thanks Heath.
Have a good one.
Yeah.
I'm, I'm going to have to cut out as well.
I've got a young one who popped in the door here and it's about time to put her to bed.

(02:27:38):
I'll show her one of my matches too then.
Marty's YouTube, Marty's YouTube sounds are going to go through the roof tonight.
I hope not.
Yeah.
Marty, are you going to try the Bobby Heenan approach to that match?
You know, where you kind of disappear.

(02:27:59):
No, I'm back.
No, I know.
Oh, I, I, I, on it.
Actually Steven, I, I get in wherever my number is going to be drawn in the rumble and I'm
going to lace up my boots and I'm going to get in and, and I am going to unload Billy
Robinson upper cuts and the corkscrew will be John Tolos style.

(02:28:21):
There will be mortal agony suffered by anybody that I can get my hands on.
I don't care if it's Davey Boy Smith Jr. outlaw Adam Knight or that, that anti Canadian pro
American hotshot, Danny Duggan, mental low is my friend.
Mental low is the champion mental low.
I know that I can figure out, I can't go an hour with the guy, but if I get a title match

(02:28:43):
and I have, I have the kind of game plan I need, I know that within 10 to 15 minutes
before I run out of gas that I can beat mental and become the CWE champion.
It's because I have that kind of confidence that I'm stupid enough at my age to put my
boots back on and get into the ring on the 27th fans.
I'm looking forward to hearing that.

(02:29:04):
And again, I'm looking forward to getting good news.
One of these days about Gordianco in Manitoba.
Yeah, us as well.
I'm going to be having some conversations and we'll be having some conversations probably
on this program, but the city, the new city council are all going to be getting a, a personal
note from the wrestling community with regards to wanting them to swing behind ensuring that
George is properly recognized, remembered in our city.

(02:29:26):
Fantastic.
Anyway, it's great to meet.
Well, actually great to meet two gentlemen and, and Andy, I appreciate it.
Absolutely.
And Andy listening to your show next year.
And yeah, yeah, you're better off in wrestling, but you're going to get back into a political

(02:29:50):
race in the future though.
For myself.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think I almost have to at this point, I had a decent showing in, in, in my ward here.
So we'll see, you know, four years, a long time, but we'll see what happens.
But I think, I think I'm leaning towards it.
Okay.
We got four straight years of shows to look forward to.

(02:30:11):
Absolutely.
That's what he was really getting into.
Thanks Steve.
Have a great night.
Okay.
Thanks a lot.
Take care.
Thanks Steven.
There now at least everybody knows I'm on the hook for the next four years to do with
this program.
So, oh, thank God.
At least I'll get some publicity.
Yeah.

(02:30:33):
The one thing that you seem to be lacking, Marty is being able to talk your ass off and
get yourself over to the, to the fans.
If only.
Yeah.
I know it's holding me back.
Yeah.
You, you, you really got to work on that, work on that skillset.
I'm telling you.
I'm running out of time.
Taking me this many years.

(02:30:54):
I still haven't figured it out.
That's not so good.
So I guess before we totally wrap up and everybody bounces out tonight, uh, BC before, before
we wrap up and close up shop here tonight, let's hear what's happening with, with wrestling
with the truth.
Cause I know the program's kind of gone through a few, uh, a lot of changes iterations over
the last year.
Uh, what's happening with the program?

(02:31:14):
What do you got on the horizon with that?
Uh, well, as, as we're recording this right now, we're doing our November to remember.
So that's where I participated in it last year, actually where we invite different podcasters
from different genres onto the show and just chat about wrestling and then chat about what
they're doing.
So it's been really fun for us.
This, this time we've had a, a couple of folks from outside of the wrestling bubble who are

(02:31:38):
wrestling fans.
So it's nice to get their, uh, their opinion on things, but for us, it's just steady as
she goes.
There's a new episode every week, wherever you can find your podcasts, audio podcasts.
And plus since, um, over the last few months, we've also added the, uh, YouTube channel
wrestling with the truth.
And so we're trying to build that and just do some different, uh, different styles of

(02:31:59):
videos on there.
Uh, just some fun stuff, uh, some, you know, clips and things like that.
But overall it's, it's just, you know, it's, uh, Jay's got the, uh, the eye for the modern
stuff on the old school guy.
So we try to meet in the middle.
I try to educate him a little bit, try to nudge him to the old school.
He tries to nudge me over to the new stuff and we see who wins every week, but, uh, it's

(02:32:23):
been great.
We've been, you know, we appreciate the support you've given us over that time as well.
It's, it's, it's greatly appreciated.
And we've always enjoyed having you on.
I think, I think, uh, well, it's ironic that I think it was Marty had said that, uh, we'll
be the old guy screaming at the clouds.
I think our episode that we did, we called it grumpy old man.
That's it.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.

(02:32:43):
Yeah.
But yeah, I know.
Thanks a lot for having me on again.
I feel completely out of place in this group.
This is, I'm just some, some, uh, Mark, as you say that, that does a podcast, but, uh,
but yeah, no, I really appreciate you guys.
Let me talk on here.
Well, we appreciate having you, uh, BC for sure.
And then obviously we can't, uh, can't let anybody go before, uh, Javier what's happening

(02:33:06):
with I swear to God every time.
So I did the, I did the, we're going to step out of podcast mode and we're going to real
life mode for a second here.
So I finished up my last episode that I did to the podcast was on the Tolless brothers.
I finished production of that in July and I went radio silence as most listeners would
know until, uh, recently, very recently.

(02:33:31):
And every goddamn time I swear I went on Facebook, I'd see a new article on pro wrestling stories
from Javier.
How many articles you have to now?
Well, those are in rotation.
Um, there are different, there are different writers.
I know, but I see yours specifically because like, I always see,
Marty, are you taking notes about how to get yourself over?

(02:33:58):
I passed, I passed a big bucks to the editor and owner.
I'm like, dude, I just want to see my stuff first, my stuff before everyone else is.
But I mean, between, between the ones that are submitted in draft and published, it's
about 115, 115 articles on there on progressing stories.
So I'm only a hundred and 14 behind you.

(02:34:19):
You look disappointed Andy.
A hundred and 15 isn't, isn't, isn't good enough for you.
I guess.
No, I'm just, I'm just trying, I'm trying to figure out my, my path to, to match you,
but I think it would take me about a year and a half to get there.
You mean one podcast and one, one, one, one article.
Oh, good God.
You're trying to do it.
No, I think I, if I get a one podcast, I'd be okay.

(02:34:42):
Yes.
You have, you wrote, you have one story on there, right?
Yeah, I do.
I have the non-jail saying a story on there.
Yeah.
Yes, you do.
Yes, you do.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I forgot, but I did read it.
That's why, that's why I only got 114 to go to tie your record.
Well it's not, it's, I got nothing else to do.
That's why there, I got so many articles on there.

(02:35:03):
It's not like, it's not really a skill.
It's just, I got, I got time and no, nothing else to, you know, either toys or, or books.
I only see about a hundred books behind you, but I definitely pro wrestling stories.
There's a, there's a bunch of good stuff on there and yeah, my, my articles are there
also and it's mostly old school, old school wrestling.

(02:35:27):
We, we, the, the, we focus on.
So you won't, you won't see any raw or smack down results or anything like that.
We were definitely, the newest thing I've done is, is like in the early 2000s, 2005,
2006 and I might, I might revisit the, the Gale Kim and the, and the awesome Kong rivalry.
I think it's, it's, it's, it's something I always go back to and I'm thinking, you know,

(02:35:51):
maybe I should write something about this.
I just, I just really enjoyed that.
So we're, we're always looking at different topics, you know, to, to, to write about and
that's where we are right now.
ProWrestlingStories.com and, and BC is welcome to check it out.
I already subscribed to his, to the, on the YouTube channel of wrestling with, with wrestling

(02:36:12):
with the truth.
So thank you.
So you got one more subscriber there.
I appreciate that.
And Marty for yourself.
Obviously we know you're about your big Royal rumble or sorry, battle Royal that you'll
be entering, but you are back in the, Winnipeg politic radio scene.

(02:36:33):
Tell us a little bit about the great Canadian talk show podcast.
Yes.
God forbid radio should have anything worth listening to in the Winnipeg.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
The great Canadian talk show podcast was restarted specifically as an election project.
And by the time I was done, it was determined that I couldn't walk away again.

(02:36:54):
And so we're going to continue, Spirit of Kenny and myself are going to continue to
put out a product about once a week.
This week's is going to be at the, is going to be the anniversary show be 16 years ago
this weekend that our run started on kick FM in Winnipeg.
And it's going to be more general interest and not entirely focused on, on civics the

(02:37:19):
way it was through the election campaign.
That was sort of a specific kind of product podcast project, the likes of which Winnipeg
has never seen before.
And surely some politicians are hoping they never see again, especially once you may go
back to Toronto.
So, but that's a whole other story says, he says he ain't moving, but he said things before

(02:37:42):
he could see.
And so I'm continuing with that.
I'm going to continue to work with the CWE out of Winnipeg.
And I'm hoping this year, I'm hoping to figure out how to arrange my schedules so I can do
one of the tours to Alberta and to Saskatchewan.
We'll see if CWE gets back into Ontario and, and BC and Quebec where it's been previously.

(02:38:06):
I continue to function as the editor of the J.CA, Canada's National Online Jewish Newspaper.
And some ring a ding dong dandies.
This story this week got the attention of the office of the commissioner for lobbyists
in Ottawa.
And next week's story is going to get the attention of a few people as well.

(02:38:27):
So that's the steady not paying much gig in terms of media and broadcasting.
So do the podcast, work on the, on the J.CA and continue to try to contribute what I can
through CWE.
And we'll see if there's other wrestling shows that come up locally that I can impart my,

(02:38:49):
my wisdom or my corkscrew on.
Yeah, one of the two.
One of the, one of the two, hopefully.
And that, that pretty much covers it for me at this stage.
So I guess, I guess one of these days I got to go back to the idea of writing a book and
what it's going to be about.
And I, I guess we'll, we'll have to evaluate what kind of prospects that has for me to

(02:39:10):
slowly go more bankrupt like every other author that's participated in this broadcast this
evening.
Well, gentlemen, this has been an absolute blast for myself.
Thanks to the previous guests who had to early depart, but that's the, that's a great thing
about a holiday special.
Everybody comes and goes as they, as they choose, they sample the sample, the fine eats.

(02:39:31):
They have some of the drapes as, as Heath McCoy demonstrated for all of us, but gentlemen,
thank you so much for joining me tonight.
This was, this was an absolute blast.
Cool.
Thanks for being able to meet you guys also as well for the first time.
And, and BC and Javier, I hope that we are paths cross in the, in the near future.

(02:39:51):
I really hope so.
I, I think it's a good idea for guys like us to continue to collaborate and continue
to support each other's work.
And Andy, the tax man, you're doing a great job.
Thank you, sir.
Mori tradition.
I'll be, I'll be coming to ski in my old age and as usual, Andy.
All right.

(02:40:12):
Well, thanks guys.
I appreciate that.
I appreciate the conversation everybody.
That was excellent, man.
Thanks.
Good night for all.

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