December 27, 2025 • 48 mins
Fire up the podcast machine for another Prime Time Vault episode!
Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Sean Mooney look back at one of the greatest broadcast duos in wrestling history — Bobby “The Brain” Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon. They break down why their chemistry was unmatched, how humor and credibility blended perfectly on WWF television, and share behind-the-scenes stories from the golden era that fans rarely hear. A must-listen for anyone who loves classic WWF, legendary commentary, and untold locker room tales.
Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Sean Mooney look back at one of the greatest broadcast duos in wrestling history — Bobby “The Brain” Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon. They break down why their chemistry was unmatched, how humor and credibility blended perfectly on WWF television, and share behind-the-scenes stories from the golden era that fans rarely hear. A must-listen for anyone who loves classic WWF, legendary commentary, and untold locker room tales.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is a prime time with Sean Mooney production.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I want to talk about, you know, not just announcers.
I mean people have specific announcers and you know, as
when I was with the WWF, you heard all the
time like who was the best announcer? But you know,
I want to talk about it was who was? But
I believe was one of the best announced teams ever.
And it took two to make this happen, and that
was Bobby the Brain Heenan and Guerrilla Monsoon. And I
(00:29):
think that I said this in our what we put
out talking about the show is the most entertaining I
think announced duo ever and people may you know, everybody
has their different opinions, but I was very close to
both of them and what they had was it was
incredible magic. And a little background on both, you know,
(00:49):
Bobby Heenan was born Raymond Lewis Heenan in Chicago in
nineteen forty four, and he started in the business wanted
to just you know, that's it was never a question
for him for a lot of these people. And then
you have a Gorilla Monsoon and was born you know,
(01:10):
Robert James Gorilla, who a lot of people don't realize Jim.
He was a fantastic amateur wrestler, and I think one
of the reasons we got along so well when he
found out I was also born in Rochester, New York,
so he that was kind of our first connection. But
he went to Ethic and in nineteen fifty nine he
was He got second in the NCAA tournament, so he
(01:34):
was quite an accomplished athlete as well.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
It was a big man. Gorilla was a gorilla yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Immortalized forever at WW with the gorilla position. I mean,
right before you go through the curtain to go out
in front of the audience, you go through the gorilla position,
because that's where he would always sit. It's been named
after him, and that's quite an honor. I mean, everybody
knows the gorilla position.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, and he was there for for many many years
and I always remember ding ding ding, That's what he
went to started.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Past started to manage to get the bill going and.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Give him the pencil, and he was incredibly respected. But
right now I want to focus on how he became
teamed up with Bobby Heenan, and you know, he had
a great career. He started as a geno Marilla, which
I wanted to mention that because a lot of people
I knew him as Gino.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
I'm sure, I'm sure backstage you knew him as Gino.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
That stuck with him, although the gimmick that he had,
Gino Marilla didn't last very long as the Proud Italian
and then he became Guerrilla monsoon, this wild man from Manchuria.
And he had a great career pretty much a lifer
with the you know, w w w F and then
w w F and for you know, twenty years, and
(02:54):
he was very loyal to Vince Senior and for you know,
and before that loyal he when Vince took over, you
know in the early eighties, he basically rewarded him by
giving him a lifetime contract, so you know, uh, and
he had shares in the company and he Thence Junior
bought those out and then with the stipulation that he
(03:15):
was going to have a lifetime contract with the the
ww F at the time, and then he uh, you know,
transitioned out of the ring and became an announcer. I'm
sure a lot of people remember that. You know, Gorilla
was team with Jesse Ventura and for the first five
WrestleManias except for that WrestleMania too. Tim, you remember that
WrestleMania too. They had people all over the place. They
(03:36):
had NASA.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah, I was still down the mid South back then, so.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, well they had they had announced teams or they
had venues in three different places in Chicago at the
Rosemont Horizon and Nasau Coliseum in New York, and then
in Los Angeles at the Sports Arena. Crazy event that
was but that was really it was amazing. But anyway,
that year he didn't team with with with Jesse.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
And then after that Bobby, who you know had done
you know, great performances as a manager. They made that transition.
So they that's when they really started to team up.
You saw some of the the uh do these announced
teams and in your mind like from listening and what
did you think at that time, like what did what
(04:25):
was the best of how do you put wrestlers over
in the ring that you considered like announced teams had
to put together?
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Well, those two guys they had a plus because they
were both friends too, you know, that's always I.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Don't think they really knew each other that when they
first started working together that well though, I think.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
But I think that friendship grew as as as they
were together. Yeah, and posts they were both good. It
was like Abbott and Costello singles. They were they were good,
but together they were magic. But yeah, Bob, Bobby Uh.
To this day, I think it is one of the
all time. You know, there is being objective who's the
(05:05):
best ever? I mean it's not like a shot put
record or a mild time, so you can say this
guy ran the best ever. You know, everybody's got an opinion,
and there's a lot of very very good ones out there.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Man. And you know what I thought that you're I.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Think you're right. That was a great team. But I
think you knew more. You had more interaction. I knew
I didn't know Gorilla as Gino. I knew it was Gorilla.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
I think you had much more interaction with those guys
that I did.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, well, and especially with with Gino because you know,
Bobby was on the road with the boys for I
don't you know, I look back, I don't know how
he did it. I mean that schedule that he had
was just unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
But you know, it was a lifestyle. It really wasn't
a job.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
I mean it really was a lifestyle, not just for Bobby,
but for all the boys. I mean, your your life
revolved around it, and you know, so I enjoyed it.
I thought it was you know, it was a fun
way to live. And of course it was hard work
and a lot of travel. But you know, I tell folks,
is not like working on an assault mine.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
No.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I mean you were making good money. I mean that,
and that's the way you had.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
To do it.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
But yeah, it's not you know, baseball football player money.
But it's definitely as Bobby ea Din say, would more
than pushing a refrigerator around sears years exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
But I I really the schedule he must have kept,
and I would love to see like his his his
travel schedule, because not only would you do all these shots
on the road.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
He would you know, be managing three different teams or whatever.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
But then he would come to Stanford because we shot
uh you know, wrestling challenge and.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Excuse me, yeah, sorry. There was another guy that's successful.
You know, he's been with his wife forever, saved his money,
you know, you know, party, but never got caught up
in a lifestyle where he had to go to rehab
for anything. I mean he uh, you know another success story.
You know, God busted the cancer deal. But you know
I'm a cancer survivor too. Doctor death had cancer. A
(07:05):
lot of us had the big C.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, and it's a it's a tough you know, a business,
and you know they can break down. Why many don't
live to be you know, past sixty much unless they
really took care of themselves along the way. But a
lot of people who said about Bobby it was always
business first and then if you, if he knew you
could do business, then a friendship could come out of that.
(07:28):
It didn't work the other way around. And that told
told you what a true professional.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
From that that was back from you know, even WWF
was still pretty closed. I mean, like we talked to
you on the other shows. The Internet opened up so
much and pulled the curtain back on wrestling totally.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Yeah. You know, now every state has you.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Know, half a dozen wrestling organizations.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
You know that they're smart to the business.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
And you know somebody I do though, I've done a
couple of gatherings with the insane clown Boss. Gosh, it
was like being at a butcher shop back stage. I mean,
but he's getting juice on the head on the arms.
I mean it's a yeah. I think the Internet helped
a lot of business but kind of hurt ours.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah, but I remember those days when they would come
in and you know, Gorilla would drive up. You know,
he lived just outside of Philadelphia, even though he was
technically New Jersey, but he was, you know, in Philadelphia,
and he used to drive this big giant Cadillac. He
always had these big giant Cadillacs and it.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Was like a ship.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Yeah yeah, well it fit him, yeah, they fit him well.
But he would drive up and this this car hit.
He was always like a big black, dark, you know,
blue giant Cadillac, and he had this mast head he
had the hood ornament was the you know, the the
silver Lady that he had on the state with it
looked like a ship, it really was. And he would
(08:54):
drive up Philadelphia and besides going on at all the TVs,
but they would come up, you know, do Wrestling Channel.
I don't think a lot of people realize too when
they used to shoot those stand ups for Wrestling Challenge,
because they would do the matches, of course, but they
would do the stand ups before you know, the the
opening of the shows and the closing of the shows
on the green screen in the studio in Stamford, and
(09:15):
what would they do.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
They would shoot the big, giant wide crowd.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Scene, you know from this when they were at the
TV tapings, and then they would use that and that
was all a background tape of those guys doing it,
and they'd be looking around, you know, and you couldn't
tell the difference. It looked like they were right there.
But they would come up and do you know the
wrestling Challenge and then also Primetime and first of all,
(09:41):
they their their they're play by play. Was really incredible
to me, and for the reason that they fit together
as a team so well. And I don't think, you know,
if you break it down as a science that would
probably be pretty difficult. They just worked for whatever reason
it was. But Bobby talked about it in his book
about why he thought that works so well and and
the fact that here he is.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
You know, Bobby was all blustered.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
You know, he would talk and say things that you know,
you wouldn't you'd get punched in the nose most of
the time. But if he was paired with another announcer
who wasn't more intimidating, you know, and being able to
it probably wouldn't have worked worked as well. But he
would say this outrageous stuff and and you know, Gorilla
would say you stop, and you knew that if it
came down to it.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
He could squash them in a second.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
And many times he pushed, you know, Bobby would push
it to the limit and he'd be like, all right,
that's enough, and you know, and then and then Bobby
would do his you know completely, you know, turn into
a weasel and back down.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
But you know, it wasn't so much the match. The
whole match was a show with them two, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
There was this entertainment angle to it, not even just
because of the match, because of the way they work together.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Yeah, I agree, you could you could watch him and
just forget the match, you know, and like Bobby's light.
The guy's a ham and Egger. I mean they you
know guy Ham and Egger who says that stuff well.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
And also you know a lot of those teams Jim
too were it was always you know, a credible play
by play guy. And he didn't necessarily have to be
a former announcer, but he was kind of the you know,
the play by play guy and there was always a babyface,
and the babyface would you know, put the guy over
and then talk bad about the whoever the heel was,
and in effect that they put both the heels and
(11:25):
the and the faces over.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Vince gets credited with this.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I don't know if you know, if there were many
teams like that before, but he gets credit for, you know,
really being one of the first you know, television announced
teams to put a heel with a play by play
announcer and it just worked in reverse, you know what
I mean, where you know, Bobby would sit there and
trash the baby faces and then he would talk about
(11:50):
how great the heel was, but in the fact, what
he was doing is putting.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Both over, and it worked to perfection.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Because he would, you know, say something outrageous and people
would like the guy even more and then you'd have
gorilla control them at the same time. And you saw
that too with Vince and Jesse, which we'll talk about
after this, But you know, you didn't really see that
very often, you know what I'm talking about with where
they had heels before that and other territories. I don't know,
(12:21):
you know, if Mid South ever had really had something
like that, as a team.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
But no, I think that was the unique.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
That's just one of the great inventions or evolutions or
whatever you want. I call it a Vince I mean
love hate the guy. You got to respect him for
what he's taking the business and then done with it.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
And the other where I think they really shine though,
was with primetime wrestling, And I know you made a
number of appearances on prime Time when we were had
people come up. I think you came up a few times,
remember when we had the the audience, the live audience.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Stanford when they had Frime time.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Of course, I think it a chance to watch many
of the shows. And because you're on the road all
the time, back then, you hardly ever get You wouldn't
even see the TV show. You get done with your match,
you get in the car and you head out, try
to get some sleep or get down the road a
little bit. So you really wouldn't get very seldom get
a chance to see the finished product, where now I
think the guys sit and they have to all stay
(13:22):
at the end of the show and even watch every
house show, every every match.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Well, and also now I mean you can you can
watch you could watch the show on your phone and
it's sitting in an airport, you know, lotly waiting for
a plane.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Back then, I think I think that back then the
guys wouldn't. It was just a different group of guys,
you know, and it was a different It.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Was a lifestyle everybody.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
You go to the airport, you go to the hotel,
you go to the gym, you'd go to the show,
you go to the bar, you go to the airport,
you go to the hotel, you go to the gym.
You know, it was this night and it just was
a blur. Yeah, we're now, you know. You know, the
kids have more time off or more professional, and there
seems to be a lot more competition for their jobs
(14:07):
because they have the guys down there at the Performance
Center in Orlando and NXD, which a lot of people
love that product even more than the raw or smack Down.
I hear and you know through the crowds. But those
guys are hungry to get the job. So I think
the kids are much more aware of stuff and so
they are more professional, and they are, like in other
(14:28):
pro sports, watching tapes on their off time. That can
argue you wouldn't watch no tape of the show.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
No are you relating with that, chets Like you said,
probably you know, Saturday mornings you were trying to get
home or or you had another show to do or
to that day.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
It wasn't.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Personally, I can't stand to watch myself because you know,
a big part of our persona a ring presences in
ring confidence. And then I watch myself on TV, I oh,
it looks horrible. That looks bad, that looks worse. Oh
my gosh, how do I know? I'm too critical myself,
So I don't personally, like some guys really like to
(15:04):
watch them critique their performance.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Me, on the other hand, you know, just hadn't done that.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Probably well, you know, and with Primetime and this is
what I thought. I was really impressed with how hard
this team worked. I mean, especially for you know, when
Bobby would come in from the road whatever. But you know,
Primetime Wrestling was one of the most popular shows on
the USA network at the time, and they would do
(15:31):
the two hours and Gorilla insisted on them rolling the
matches completely three like most shows they do. You know,
they'll do a throw to it and then two minutes
later they coming out. They would watch every single match,
and because Gorilla insisted that, you know, if there was
something in there that he wanted to comment on or
(15:52):
something he might miss, and they gave them more material
and and that just showed, you know that the commitment
to that and one of the things.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Big yeah, Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a joke
at caps and sleeves at this level, I mean, you know,
it's it's the pros and it's the best of the
best up there. So not just in management, not just talent,
not just and ring support, but the announcers, i mean
production now, even just the cameramen are such an intrigued
(16:24):
integral part of the show. They want the cameramen at
the right place at the right time. I mean, it's
a ballet what they do now. Yeah, And that's why
it's cool to go back. I mean, I don't know
when the last time you've been back around to Shahn,
but to go back and look around and go, holy smokes,
look at the size of this production as monsters deal
with you know, twenty five eighteen wheelers, you know, twenty
(16:47):
buses and levels. I mean it's it's a show of shows,
and it's it's cool to be brought back every once
in a while and see it. How is it evolved
from National Guard gyms and the sport of tour Dallas.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Well, and you see that, you know, some of these
guys have their own buses out there on the parking
lot and.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
That how do guys have their own buses?
Speaker 4 (17:08):
And now, I mean, you know, back in the day,
you want your own dress room. Now they want their
own bus.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Can I have my own room? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Yeah, you which I always thought having your own dressing
room though, that was kind of a penalty. You know,
you're sitting in your dressing room. I'm a big shot.
I got my jelly beans where everybody else is in
the other dressing room playing cards, laughing, having fun.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
You know, you're like going out there, Hey, guys, I
want to come to my dressing room. No, Jim, We're good.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Yeah yeah, Genie reflect when you come in here. Some
of the guys believe their own press, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Well, And also I don't know the last time you
and the last time you were in Stanford, but that
the facility there is just incredible as well.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
And now you've got to buy Downlando.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
That's an amazing facility, is you know, But that's a
long way, that's for sure.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
That Orlando facility. That's an NFL Major League Baseball type facility,
Granite Town or tops what. I think, it's like eight
rings in one big room. Everything is wired and you
videoed training room, massage room, weight room.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
State of the art.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Of course, when you go up by Stanford, Connecticut, you
go by the Evil Empire with that big, huge black
flag flowing, you know, there's there's a little chill in
the air.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
There's no birds around, you know, barely a breeze. Right yeah,
cloud always over there.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
And you know these guys they really were trail ladies.
There's you know that they kind of set the stage
for this literally for what it's really become. And I remember,
you know that they added one of the seconds I
did live event centers on set because I did it
one time. I can't remember, because we didn't I had
(18:59):
to do it.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
So living then, Sean, where were you living?
Speaker 1 (19:04):
I lived in Stanford.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, I lived in Norwalk, which is just outside of Stanford.
It was about ten minutes from the from the studio,
and I worked so many hours in that studio.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
There's nowhere else in the world I could have lived.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
I always loved the fact that, you know, like other
people could live in other parts of the country, but
you know I did.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
I don't know, just slept with your own bed most nights.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah, absolutely, And and and when we did go to events,
we were really fortunate that we flew on one of
the jets and you'd, you know, get.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
On, brother, I'm just trying to give you some.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Well, you know, that's that's one of the positive things
about working for w w F back in the day.
You know, you could live anywhere you want, you know,
I mean, you just gotta have here on those jets.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
You know, sometimes the shrimp wasn't that big, so we
did stuff.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
Leve Sean Michael's alone, you mean, the food. I'm sorry
I misunderstood. No, But you know, that's one of the deals.
You can live anywhere you want, you know. And that's
when we lived in the Louisiana. We moved to Florida
and we moved to a little town called Titusville, Florida,
you know, which is right there by the Space Center.
(20:15):
My wife found the town and it's where a lot
of the astronauts people live. A lot of folks work
at the Space Center. So my wife brings in to
look at the house.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
We pull up.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
I got a big caddy with dark windows on it.
I jump out, I got the music blasted, I.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Got a bandana, tank top.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
My pants stuck in my boots. I'm about three hundred
and ten pounds on the gas. My wife, she jumps out.
She's a tall blonde with short shorts and high heels.
We're like, ah, right, we are.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Your neighbors did like all the shutters close.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
At once, you know, and I'll get the kids out
of the house, get the kids in the house.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
We're walking around the house looking at it. People were
peeking through their windows looking at us. You know, we
kind of panic that little name road when we moved in.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah, I'm sure you did. But then they grew to
love you, right.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
We actually almost ran for mayor of that time. Speaking
of which, just a little quick, little sege because I
had a gym. You know, I had my golf tournament
down there. I remember of the Children's Home Society I had.
We raised money for the Children's Home Society for about
four years. In my golf tournament, I wrote, I had
to quit riding with the cops because you know, my
dad was a PD so I used to ride with
(21:27):
the cops but they'd be like we all meet in
the parking lot somewhere and they're like, let's go get one,
you know, and like, you don't not on my account, Fellows,
It's okay, you know. Of course they took somebody up
and they throw them in the back seat. He'd be
back in Son.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Of a Gun, Heckshaw, Doug. I'm a big fan, Hacksaw.
Get me into this. I said, hey, don't work for me, kid,
it ain't gonna work for you.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
So you didn't give up the handcuff key?
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Right? Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Oh, that's where I was going when we I kind
of got off track there, but running for mayor. Caine
is running for mayor of Knoxville, and it looks like
he's got a really good shot of winning it up there.
We're up there at that con this weekend and everybody there.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Was three guys running. The third guy just dropped out.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
So it's Kane and another guy and he's way ahead
in the poles.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
So how did that guy drop out?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Jim, I'm.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Mysterious circumstance. Suddenly he didn't want to run anymore.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Oh, boys, that was where we lived in Florida.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Imagine that you'd have your friends stop by, you know,
four or five three hundred pound guys, a couple of
hot blondes and a few midgets, you.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Know, the neighbor like, what the world's going on over there?
Speaker 2 (22:50):
I tell you, If Kine wins, that's awesome. I'd love
to you know, just for the town hall meetings. Would
be pretty cool. So we're gonna keep an eye on
that race.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
Yeah, sharp, I don't know the guy because you know,
I was around a little bit with him overlapping with
w W E. But uh, you know, he's an impressive man.
I could see him running from ay and doing a
good job. Because so many people are the stereotype of
a dumb wrestler, you know, you know, Carney type guy.
(23:19):
But there's guys out there, the light kinge that make
us look good. You know, we're not all Mickey. We're
all not Mickey working that horrible movie The Wrestler.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah, well, you know, I mean, you're right. And people
like Jesse Ventura. You know, he's been a very controversial
figure out there and there in the news.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
But look at that guy. Accomplished, you know he.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Was, but he was he was joking. Well, how many
other mayors.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Can you name? Everybody knows who the mayor of Minnesota was.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Yeah, absolutely he was.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
He used to bust shop so my my three sisters
hated him. He says the worst things about you, about
your poor eye and everything. Jimmy, I get the Jimmy
when it's my sisters. You know, I hes doing a
good job, but no, he's doing it for by heart.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
He's so Jesse, watch out for my sisters.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Well, and you know, I want to talk about Jesse
and his pairing with Vince, but uh, you know, I
wanted to talk a little bit more about uh, you know,
Primetime and like how uh you know, what a phenomenal
program that was. And and that's where I really got
to to get to know Geno. He was you know,
he took me under his wing and and really gave
me a lot of great advice and always, I mean,
(24:33):
the greatest thing he did he was always put me over,
you know. And and then of course you had Bobby
who did the same thing in his way, and uh.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
I was talking, dude, was a whole different conversation, Sean.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
I know you read it a book.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Yeah, go ahead, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I want to I'll talk about that, but whatever. But
but really during that time, they were really they were
great to me and and but we had so much
fun doing that program. I remember we did the when
it was a live show and we used to bring
the guys in and uh, you know, Uh Bobby was
great because I co hosted the show with him for
a while, and uh really learned a lot about, you know,
(25:13):
doing a lot of ad libs stuff, being able to
think on your feet and uh, you know, and just
go and rolling with things, which I think is just.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Yea knowledge a mistake, just keep going, just keep rolling.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, although one of the one of the bits I
wasn't really pleased about that h No, I was though,
because it actually was pretty funny, but I was I
was engaged at the time, and Bobby used to make
all these comments about you know, what a beast that
your wife is and and so anyway, we ended up
doing this this uh faux honeymoon's uh night and they
and he and Bobby crashes it by putting a hidden
(25:51):
camera in the honeymoon suite. And I'm wearing you know,
the big stupid over, you know, a flannel night night shirt,
and I come out of the bathroom and all you
see the angle of the cameras.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
You just see we had one of the camera guys
who was this huge guy.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Get under the covers and he's got this big hairy
leg with these big.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Foot and you could see that that is me coming
on high honey. He's like giggling, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
And then I discovered, yeah, that was there. But from
that then he also that's where you know he came
up with Betty. He always just said I had a
sister Betty. And to this day people think that I
had have a sister Betty. That was I guess a character.
But I guess we can set the record straight now
that there really was no Betty.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
They it was just Heenan saying.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Your wife, you know, no shaved.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
But really that would would a classic time and and.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
Uh in time with Bobby and I mean you'd be
on a long trip and didn't make it fun.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
I mean he was in an entertaining guy.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
And I can imagine, you know, being with you and
bringing guys in because he could rib whoever if he
brought in the British Bulldogs and he brought in brad Hart,
you know, he brought in Hercules or Nandez he'd always.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Have a couple of zingers for him.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
I mean yeah, and that made time life. And of
course some guys were like a, uh was that a shot?
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Uh? And then then it'd be doubled down on it.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
All the things you wanted that you hoped that they
ribbed you, you know, because they were putting you over
and and uh, you know that.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Was if you were being well to some extent out
back Jack, they ribbed him. You much ran him out
of the territory. That's different. I mean the harmless verbal ribs,
but some of the mean, vindictive ribs are bad.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah, And that was one of the things you know also,
uh that you know I've gotten. People have sent me
questions about, you know, what was the relationship between you know,
like announcers, you and and the and the boys. And
that was one of the first lessons that Gorilla ever
gave me, is he said, you're not You're not one
of them. Never forget an Alfred to Lord Alfred Hayes.
So I never forget You're you're not one of them,
(28:09):
and you never will be. You can be friends with them,
uh to an extent, but you know, don't make the
mistake of thinking you're in and I don't.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Wealth all my time.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
Yeah, it's a closed to sidey, especially back then. Even
more so it's of course it's being back in the WWFS,
like I mean, bad comparison, but say it so like
being in combat together or maybe like that's horrible even
to say, but maybe being in like a super Bowl
football game together.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
You guys are down.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
There and they're pit together, you're fighting together, you're working together.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
It's obviously nothing like a soldier would face. But I
mean you're.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
Traveling together, You're doing all these these hardships on the
road together. It's a closed group, but not as much
as it was back in the day. But still even
now it's a you know, old timer walk in the
dress room. Everybody is extremely respectful and everything. Yeah, but
it's still different. I'm not one of the current boys.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah, you know, and we've talked about that before, about
how when those two worlds really collided that Yeah, I
mean it was. It took me probably a good year
before you know, and I will just say I would
just call it accept it. I wasn't to the point where,
you know, I was one of the boys or guys.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Like hey, but it was to the point where Okay,
he's cool. You know that was that was tough. That
was really tough.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Where you get you walk into a locker room guys
just speaking speaking Carnie, and you know it's like total
k fab you know, like they're not.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Yeah, it's not something you were just automatically accepted neither.
That was a respect that you earned over a period
of time with the guys.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yeah, and you had to endure a lot of different
things that would happen. I mean I remember one show
I went TV one of my shoes disappeared that I
had to wear with my tuxedo and never did find
that shoe.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
But I never said it worked.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Ribs. That's kind of a harmless type.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
Ribs, your shoe, you know, somebody cut your pants leg off.
When I first came I think I just said the
story when I first came into the w W E
or F back in the day, I walked in and
Gorilla's kid, Joey Morelli has a doc taped to the floor.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
In the A building. He's like, hey, help me up, Well,
you help me up and get me out of here.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
I'm looking at him, like where am I coming into?
What the trouble because I didn't help him up. No,
I was new to the territory. I didn't know who
he was or why he was taped to the floor.
But doctor Rocco and a couple of guys they duct
taped him, laid him down and taped him to the floor.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Yeah, and they were merciless a lot of times.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
So long, man, I don't know how much you got
to work with Joy, But I mean, I think a
lot of people know, or maybe you didn't know that
Joey Marilla was Gorilla's adopted son who lost his life
in a car accident. And you know, uh, Jim, that
that wasn't the first time I remember that.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Not too long before that, he had been in another
accident where he'd fallen asleep at the wheel and ended
up with the drop foot. You know, it had hurt
his leg, injured his leg, and then and then uh
he was you know in that other end in the
accident that that uh.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
A lot of guys, yeah, a lot of a lot
of Well, you spent a lot of time in the road,
you know, mid South. We were driving three thousand miles a week,
and it's throw the dice that off and sooner or later,
somebody's gonna pull out in front of me, A tire
is going to blow, a deer's gonna run in front
of you.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
You know, something's gonna happen.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
And uh, you know a lot of guys been in
some horrific accidents, including me. But it's uh, it's a
that's you know, dangerous that people you know a lot
of folks are. That's the old adage. People say, well,
you know, I'm afraid of flying, much more dangerous on
the road.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
No kidding.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
And they'll schedule use schedules you guys used to keep
I mean, I think that's why you probably want to
travel with guys, just to keep you awake.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Uh, that situation is what happened.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
And you know, Uh, the reason I brought that up
is that you know, after that, Gorilla was never the same,
never the same.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
You can understand that.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
Yeah, I think that would knock the devil out of anybody.
To bury a child, I think would be the hardest
thing there is.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
I would I would imagine and and.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
And it's it's tough.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
You know, we mentioned that, you know that the situation
with Bobby and and and Gorilla, but man, uh, the
two of them together. Uh, you know, you can talk
about great announcements of course, you know, with the Jim
Ross and even I thought, you know, Tony Shavanni and
his prime with you know I he was with the
w w F briefly yeah, gean, yeah, of course, and
(32:46):
then uh but that show, yes, yeah exactly. But that
team together really just I think just for pure entertainment value.
You know, you look at it and and you know, uh,
Gorilla was voted like six times for the the one
of the Dirt Sheets as you know, the worst announcer
or something, and I would never could and I'd like,
(33:07):
you idiots, I mean, don't you understand that this is.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
That's entertained Red the Dirt Sheets like Meltzer. I mean,
he guy made a lifetime living out of being critical
of the business.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Well, but I always thought to me that was like, really,
are you kidding me? Because to me, it was about
entertaining people, and that's what those two guys did.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
And uh that that's why I think.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
I think that's a lot of folks enjoy watching him
on the network. And that's so cool that the WWE
has that network. It opens up all the libraries of
you know, Gorilla and Bobby Jesse, I mean the Mint
South and George Championship Texas All Star. I mean he
gave all this old timers new life, that's for sure.
(33:59):
I am he.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Yeah, watch it there, mister, but yeah, you know, and
the thing is that now you can go and look
back and like they keep finding and putting up all
these gifts of stuff that we did. But you know, uh,
some of those Primetime they used to go on location
all the time. If they were at a if we
had an event going on, they would shoot a prime
time And I remember one year they shot one out
(34:24):
in Los Angeles, I think, and.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
They went out on a yacht. People probably remember this one, but.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
There was all this the water got a little bit rough,
and remember there was the chairs. They were sliding all
over the deck and Gorilla was laughing his ass off
and Bobby too, falling over. You know how Bobby could
take bumps, you know, and he was just uh going
with it to the max. And they just they were
really like you said, they were like Abbatt and Costello.
(34:51):
It was just an incredible pairing and when they and
Bobby talks about it in his book about when that
last night when they decided how he was going to leave,
and you know, Bobby said, well you have to have
Gorilla throw me out, and he throws them out of
the arena. And he talks about in his book how
they went back after the event was over, they went
back to the hotel, and they went up in the
(35:14):
hotel together and they kind of went to their separate rooms,
and Bobby says he went in his room and there
was a basket full of bananas, and he calls Gorilla
and he said, you never guess what I got. I
got a basket of bananas.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
You want them?
Speaker 2 (35:29):
And I guess it was their excuse. But they went
back on the hallway and he said they they cried
for an hour. And you mentioned that special friendship, Well
that that kind of explains it right there. You know
that you do have these incredible relationships.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Spent a lot of time together. I mean sometimes more
than you do with your spouse. Be back in the day.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
You're together all the time, and in.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
A pressure situation, it's it's television, Yeah, sometimes it's live TV.
It's uh yeah, it's you the bond when you work
with somebody.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Yeah, you know in Jim that that that TV Family
We really were a family back then. I mean Kevin
Dunn was just a producer when I was there. He
was a great producer and he knew that this guy
was not going to be doing that job for long.
But we had Edit one. I know you had visited there.
We had really it was Edit one. That was the
one place they edited all the shows. And if you
(36:22):
remember with the event center, we had the background behind
me that was Edit one, and uh Gino was you know,
he was part of that family, you know, and I
know he's he's really missed now. But I want to
tell you the one story that's his kind of wrap
it up with with Gorilla is that after I left
the WWF, I really didn't know what I was going
(36:42):
to do. I had some things, you know, that were
in the works. But in the meantime, you remember, did
you ever meet Nelson Swegler. Nelson was the production guy.
Remember Nelson, Well, he had he had left the company
and he had started this this idea. He was way
ahead of his time to do like these bingo numbers,
(37:03):
you know that he would do on a TV show
and then people could claim prizes at a grocery store
and it was just and he did it in Baltimore.
I get this call one day and he says, you
want you know, I don't know if you're doing anything,
but I need somebody who can kind of be a,
you know, a sidekick for this show. And I'll fly
you down there and I'll take care of everything. And
I'm like, I don't know, you know, like this, I
(37:24):
was gonna pull the ping pong balls with the numbers out,
and he goes, well, Gorilla's gonna do it, and I'm
like what.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
He goes yeah, I'm like, I'm in I'm sure I'll
do it. I mean, what the heck?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
So so I would fly down there and Gorilla would
pick me up in his Cadillac.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
He would drop down there to Baltimore for this thing.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah, in the boat and we did this crazy It
was kind of like the premise of it. They made
it like a talk show, kind of being like a
regius and he had They had a woman that was
one of the co hosts. Anyway, I would do pull
the ping pong balls.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
And then I would they would have a guess.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
So I remember they had this karate guy come on
and it was supposed to be this work. I mean,
we're Gonna, I mean, you know, and the guy was
going to do like a little karate demonstration on me. Well,
he threw this kick, it didn't land where it was
supposed to and got me right in the wedding tackle
and I went down like.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
You wouldn't believe.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
And I just remember that Gorilla walks over to him
and he says, I never thought it'd have to I'd
be saying this to you. But stick a fork in
him and he's done. And that was kind of like
I just explained at all. But a lot of people
probably didn't know that that story, but it was I
only did because I just love to be around Gino
and I knew I wasn't going to get too many
(38:42):
other opportunities.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
And it didn't last very long.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
But that's how I remember Gorilla, And he really was
one amazing individual, and I know he helped a lot
of other young wrestlers along the way and just really
respected in the in the business. And as you talk
about the great people you've met along the way, well
he was he was definitely one of them.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Yeah, like I said, the immortalized forever with the Gorilla position.
I think given the impact wrestling, a lot of the
small indies, they call it the gorilla position too, right
before you go.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Through the cur You're right and that that that really
is one of the greatest honors.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
And I don't think anybody ever thought of it.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Any differently, you know, Yeah, fitting tribute.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
Yeah, that's because who would have you know, especially if
you're not in the business. You walk into building, Yeah,
some security guy or somebody, Uh, how do you get
to the gorilla position? They're like, what the grower here?
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Exactly? You can't can't do anything? Ding ding ding, you know.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Anyway, before we wrap up here, Jim, I told you.
I mean, we've been getting a lot of response from people,
and uh, I guess we'll just call this the email bag.
We heard from Dean Cole's in Bristol, England, and and
he wants to know what your memories are of the
Hecksa Yoka Zuna feud in ninety three. Do you remember that?
Speaker 4 (40:10):
Oh yeah, sure do of course. And you know, I
tell you in the UK, I love going over there.
I was over there last year at the London Comic
Con that had had a great time. Was up in
Scotland at the Fringe Festival, which was a stand up shop.
But anyway, Yokazuna, you know, Yoka was a monster of
(40:34):
a guy. He was a big big man. In size
is all relative in our business. You know, I'm sixty
three and now i'm probably sixty and people say, oh,
you're a big guy. No, in my business, I'm a
medium sized guy.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (40:48):
Yokazuna was a legitimate, very big big man. And we
had of course, mister Fuji was his manager, and I
had known Fui for years. But anyway, we had the
big challenge where who could ever knock Yoku's zoom off
his feet? And I think that's my big music video,
is me hitting the ropes and hitting Yoka zoon and
(41:08):
I hit him like three or four five times. Finally
he's like a big if we used to call the
spot we wobble but don't fall down. He's wobble one way,
in wabble, the other wobble the other wobble, And.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
Finally he went down.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
He took a big bump, and of course that just
elevated my characters hacks ill being able to knock him down.
But then later on he ends up beating me up,
laying me right there in the turn buckle on the
mat on the turnbuckle, Fuji puts the jab No, I
think he put the American flag over me. Yoko, who
(41:43):
does the big bonds eye drump off to the second rope,
doesn't see where I am boom ended up cracking two
of my ribs.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Bit my tongue had blood going everywhere, you know.
Speaker 4 (41:55):
So yeah, I remember Yoko very well. But you know,
as a babyfit, it's always better. At least I always
enjoyed working with a bigger heel.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
You know.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
It's if you're trying to get sympathy as a babyface
when the heels beating you up, it's hard to get
sympathy when a smaller heel is working over you got
Yoka Zuhner, one man gang up. It's believable. They're like,
you know, fight back.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Some of the smaller you know, they're like, well, punch
of back hacks. I'll come on, you know. But Yoka
was was a great hand. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Now, but when you're working with somebody you know that large,
and I know there were you know, you worked with
Andre a lot. But taking a bump like that, though,
I mean, how do you really I don't care how
you work this, but how do you take that guy was,
you know, in his prime way four hundred plus.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Yeah, yeah, just.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
How do you take that? I mean, and you saw
him come down on people?
Speaker 4 (42:52):
Wow, Well it's it's really a learned scientific trait to Sean,
I'll tell you exactly the best way to do it is.
You know, once you get down on our spot on
the mat, the best thing to.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Do is just close your eyes and hope for the best. Brother.
Speaker 4 (43:10):
There's nothing you can do, man, You're along for the
ride and just hope he hits it right. But you
know that's the old joke people say, hack, So, I
saw you throw a punch.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
You missed a guy by two inches.
Speaker 4 (43:20):
I said, yeah, but you see this time when I
hit him by two inches, that goes both ways, brother.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
And whenever Yokazulo decided he wanted to get up, he
could get up. It was totally yeah.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
Yeah, Well you know what, he felt bad, because you
know he felt bad about it. I got I had
a good rapport with the Yoku, and also we realized
that we had a good angle going with the US
Japanese thing, Fuji waving his flag, me waving the American flag.
So if if he hurt me, the angle would be over,
so he was concerned that he didn't want to hurt
me neither.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Well, you talk about that all the time too, is
you know you want uh, that's why you know working stiff.
Speaker 4 (43:56):
Was he's not your opponent. Yeah, he's not not your
Oh he's your partner.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Right, and you need you need to take care of
each other so you can keep working, because that's it.
Speaker 4 (44:06):
That's so you get paid right exactctly. Okay, and then
one of the its pro wrestlers. It's not mm a,
you know. Yeah, And that's the old joke. You're you're
always Sean. I'll tell you you're always a phony wrestler until
you go to court.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
When you go to court, you're a trade killer.
Speaker 4 (44:25):
Brother, I'll tell you. It goes like this, ten twenty
thirty thousand. Every time you whack them, the lawsuit goes
up there like I've got to Syria. I'm getting my
money's worth. We're not done.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
That that used to get me too.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
When you talk to people and they give you that,
and you'd say, if you ever jumped off, I mean,
what do you think there's it's magic cement down there
that these guys can.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
They jump. It's a.
Speaker 4 (44:52):
It's a physical business. That's uh, you know. I live
on a kind of a hobby farm. I got dogs
and cats, de ducts and chickens, pot belly pig, and
it looks like we might get some alpaca.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Next Hacksaw does his podcast appearance from the barn.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
So we're gonna.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
And of course with two daughters, everything's got a name.
All the ducks have names, all the chickens have names.
And one of something that will happen to one of
the chickens, it'll be oh no, area, Oh no. Is
that we're having the kernel for dinner? What's the difference?
Speaker 1 (45:29):
It sounds like it's feeding time there better.
Speaker 4 (45:32):
Yeah, it's getting getting.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Yeah, But Hecksaw Dean had one more question and we
could both answer quickly and then we'll wrap it up,
but he won't. He asked about the TV TV things.
What did we do on that day? So from your perspective,
you guys are just rolling in from another.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
Town, right right. But it was a long day. I
mean even now, TV is a long day. You have
to be there when at noon or one o'clock or whatever,
and the show doesn't start until uh, you know, much
much later. So you see a lot of downtime. What
we used to do is play a lot of cards.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
Man.
Speaker 4 (46:08):
Yeah, you know, but it got to the point where
the w w F they said, you know, no more
card playing.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Because then you're like, now, what are we going to do?
Speaker 4 (46:18):
You'd be back there playing cards and you'd be like,
that is that my music?
Speaker 3 (46:24):
There's my music?
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Where's my board? The case? Is that the case?
Speaker 4 (46:32):
And then one time shot I tell you, because you
know you have no pockets in your trunks obviously, right,
So I put my cards in my knee pad and
I forgot all about it. I went out there during
the match and the guy dropped the big knee out
of it.
Speaker 3 (46:47):
It was like a magic trick, cards with flying everywhere. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
I bet probably was more than one wrestler who pawned
an ace in there one time or another.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Right, the old knee pad trick.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
About talking about guerrilla, those guys played some heavy card games.
Arnold Schulen, Arnie Sculling. They that was out of my league.
I wouldn't pay for that kind of bread.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Oh no, And that was way by Alfred's uh you know,
that was way beneath it.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
He played cribbage.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Yeah, we're going to be doing you worked a lot
with Lord Alfred Hayes, and we're going to be doing
a show a podcast about his lordship because I'm I
have launched my own personal campaign, Jim, to get that
man into the WWE Hall of Fame.
Speaker 4 (47:34):
I tell you there's a lot of guys that should
be in there that aren't in there.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
Ye sure, I agree with you.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Uh you know, as far as for me, folks, with
the the day of taping, we would, uh it would
it wasn't a long day, and we would if we
were shooting uh you know, Saturday night made event or
one of those, you would just wait around. Basically, I'm
sure it's the same thing today until they decided that
they were going to tape this and you had to
be ready to go.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
But god, some of those those days would just be brutal.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
I mean remember Jim that you were ship stuff for
every show or you know, and you would have these
crowds come in, these kids, like on a school night,
and they wouldn't have the main event till you know,
they want everybody to stick around. You kids would be like,
you know, laying across three seats, just passed out.
Speaker 4 (48:12):
Wait, well, Hey, I was with w CW back in
the day when we first went down there to took over,
and uh and had the boys go.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
Sit in the in the in the audience and make
more people look like they were there.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
It looks like guy with Tyson, I think he was
in the third match.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
You know, you got any friends with you, you haven't
go sit in the audience. Man.
Speaker 4 (48:34):
They put the black covers over the chairs so you
couldn't tell them that, you know. But they turned that
company around and then flushed it down a toilet.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
That's right, well and
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Uh yeah, and it went to a big f
This is a prime time with Sean Mooney production.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I want to talk about, you know, not just announcers.
I mean people have specific announcers and you know, as
when I was with the WWF, you heard all the
time like who was the best announcer? But you know,
I want to talk about it was who was? But
I believe was one of the best announced teams ever.
And it took two to make this happen, and that
was Bobby the Brain Heenan and Guerrilla Monsoon. And I
(00:29):
think that I said this in our what we put
out talking about the show is the most entertaining I
think announced duo ever and people may you know, everybody
has their different opinions, but I was very close to
both of them and what they had was it was
incredible magic. And a little background on both, you know,
(00:49):
Bobby Heenan was born Raymond Lewis Heenan in Chicago in
nineteen forty four, and he started in the business wanted
to just you know, that's it was never a question
for him for a lot of these people. And then
you have a Gorilla Monsoon and was born you know,
(01:10):
Robert James Gorilla, who a lot of people don't realize Jim.
He was a fantastic amateur wrestler, and I think one
of the reasons we got along so well when he
found out I was also born in Rochester, New York,
so he that was kind of our first connection. But
he went to Ethic and in nineteen fifty nine he
was He got second in the NCAA tournament, so he
(01:34):
was quite an accomplished athlete as well.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
It was a big man. Gorilla was a gorilla yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Immortalized forever at WW with the gorilla position. I mean,
right before you go through the curtain to go out
in front of the audience, you go through the gorilla position,
because that's where he would always sit. It's been named
after him, and that's quite an honor. I mean, everybody
knows the gorilla position.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, and he was there for for many many years
and I always remember ding ding ding, That's what he
went to started.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Past started to manage to get the bill going and.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Give him the pencil, and he was incredibly respected. But
right now I want to focus on how he became
teamed up with Bobby Heenan, and you know, he had
a great career. He started as a geno Marilla, which
I wanted to mention that because a lot of people
I knew him as Gino.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
I'm sure, I'm sure backstage you knew him as Gino.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
That stuck with him, although the gimmick that he had,
Gino Marilla didn't last very long as the Proud Italian
and then he became Guerrilla monsoon, this wild man from Manchuria.
And he had a great career pretty much a lifer
with the you know, w w w F and then
w w F and for you know, twenty years, and
(02:54):
he was very loyal to Vince Senior and for you know,
and before that loyal he when Vince took over, you
know in the early eighties, he basically rewarded him by
giving him a lifetime contract, so you know, uh, and
he had shares in the company and he Thence Junior
bought those out and then with the stipulation that he
(03:15):
was going to have a lifetime contract with the the
ww F at the time, and then he uh, you know,
transitioned out of the ring and became an announcer. I'm
sure a lot of people remember that. You know, Gorilla
was team with Jesse Ventura and for the first five
WrestleManias except for that WrestleMania too. Tim, you remember that
WrestleMania too. They had people all over the place. They
(03:36):
had NASA.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah, I was still down the mid South back then, so.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, well they had they had announced teams or they
had venues in three different places in Chicago at the
Rosemont Horizon and Nasau Coliseum in New York, and then
in Los Angeles at the Sports Arena. Crazy event that
was but that was really it was amazing. But anyway,
that year he didn't team with with with Jesse.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
And then after that Bobby, who you know had done
you know, great performances as a manager. They made that transition.
So they that's when they really started to team up.
You saw some of the the uh do these announced
teams and in your mind like from listening and what
did you think at that time, like what did what
(04:25):
was the best of how do you put wrestlers over
in the ring that you considered like announced teams had
to put together?
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Well, those two guys they had a plus because they
were both friends too, you know, that's always I.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Don't think they really knew each other that when they
first started working together that well though, I think.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
But I think that friendship grew as as as they
were together. Yeah, and posts they were both good. It
was like Abbott and Costello singles. They were they were good,
but together they were magic. But yeah, Bob, Bobby Uh.
To this day, I think it is one of the
all time. You know, there is being objective who's the
(05:05):
best ever? I mean it's not like a shot put
record or a mild time, so you can say this
guy ran the best ever. You know, everybody's got an opinion,
and there's a lot of very very good ones out there.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Man. And you know what I thought that you're I.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Think you're right. That was a great team. But I
think you knew more. You had more interaction. I knew
I didn't know Gorilla as Gino. I knew it was Gorilla.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
I think you had much more interaction with those guys
that I did.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, well, and especially with with Gino because you know,
Bobby was on the road with the boys for I
don't you know, I look back, I don't know how
he did it. I mean that schedule that he had
was just unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
But you know, it was a lifestyle. It really wasn't
a job.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
I mean it really was a lifestyle, not just for Bobby,
but for all the boys. I mean, your your life
revolved around it, and you know, so I enjoyed it.
I thought it was you know, it was a fun
way to live. And of course it was hard work
and a lot of travel. But you know, I tell folks,
is not like working on an assault mine.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
No.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I mean you were making good money. I mean that,
and that's the way you had.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
To do it.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
But yeah, it's not you know, baseball football player money.
But it's definitely as Bobby ea Din say, would more
than pushing a refrigerator around sears years exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
But I I really the schedule he must have kept,
and I would love to see like his his his
travel schedule, because not only would you do all these shots
on the road.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
He would you know, be managing three different teams or whatever.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
But then he would come to Stanford because we shot
uh you know, wrestling challenge and.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Excuse me, yeah, sorry. There was another guy that's successful.
You know, he's been with his wife forever, saved his money,
you know, you know, party, but never got caught up
in a lifestyle where he had to go to rehab
for anything. I mean he uh, you know another success story.
You know, God busted the cancer deal. But you know
I'm a cancer survivor too. Doctor death had cancer. A
(07:05):
lot of us had the big C.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, and it's a it's a tough you know, a business,
and you know they can break down. Why many don't
live to be you know, past sixty much unless they
really took care of themselves along the way. But a
lot of people who said about Bobby it was always
business first and then if you, if he knew you
could do business, then a friendship could come out of that.
(07:28):
It didn't work the other way around. And that told
told you what a true professional.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
From that that was back from you know, even WWF
was still pretty closed. I mean, like we talked to
you on the other shows. The Internet opened up so
much and pulled the curtain back on wrestling totally.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Yeah. You know, now every state has you.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Know, half a dozen wrestling organizations.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
You know that they're smart to the business.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
And you know somebody I do though, I've done a
couple of gatherings with the insane clown Boss. Gosh, it
was like being at a butcher shop back stage. I mean,
but he's getting juice on the head on the arms.
I mean it's a yeah. I think the Internet helped
a lot of business but kind of hurt ours.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah, but I remember those days when they would come
in and you know, Gorilla would drive up. You know,
he lived just outside of Philadelphia, even though he was
technically New Jersey, but he was, you know, in Philadelphia,
and he used to drive this big giant Cadillac. He
always had these big giant Cadillacs and it.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Was like a ship.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Yeah yeah, well it fit him, yeah, they fit him well.
But he would drive up and this this car hit.
He was always like a big black, dark, you know,
blue giant Cadillac, and he had this mast head he
had the hood ornament was the you know, the the
silver Lady that he had on the state with it
looked like a ship, it really was. And he would
(08:54):
drive up Philadelphia and besides going on at all the TVs,
but they would come up, you know, do Wrestling Channel.
I don't think a lot of people realize too when
they used to shoot those stand ups for Wrestling Challenge,
because they would do the matches, of course, but they
would do the stand ups before you know, the the
opening of the shows and the closing of the shows
on the green screen in the studio in Stamford, and
(09:15):
what would they do.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
They would shoot the big, giant wide crowd.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Scene, you know from this when they were at the
TV tapings, and then they would use that and that
was all a background tape of those guys doing it,
and they'd be looking around, you know, and you couldn't
tell the difference. It looked like they were right there.
But they would come up and do you know the
wrestling Challenge and then also Primetime and first of all,
(09:41):
they their their they're play by play. Was really incredible
to me, and for the reason that they fit together
as a team so well. And I don't think, you know,
if you break it down as a science that would
probably be pretty difficult. They just worked for whatever reason
it was. But Bobby talked about it in his book
about why he thought that works so well and and
the fact that here he is.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
You know, Bobby was all blustered.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
You know, he would talk and say things that you know,
you wouldn't you'd get punched in the nose most of
the time. But if he was paired with another announcer
who wasn't more intimidating, you know, and being able to
it probably wouldn't have worked worked as well. But he
would say this outrageous stuff and and you know, Gorilla
would say you stop, and you knew that if it
came down to it.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
He could squash them in a second.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
And many times he pushed, you know, Bobby would push
it to the limit and he'd be like, all right,
that's enough, and you know, and then and then Bobby
would do his you know completely, you know, turn into
a weasel and back down.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
But you know, it wasn't so much the match. The
whole match was a show with them two, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
There was this entertainment angle to it, not even just
because of the match, because of the way they work together.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Yeah, I agree, you could you could watch him and
just forget the match, you know, and like Bobby's light.
The guy's a ham and Egger. I mean they you
know guy Ham and Egger who says that stuff well.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
And also you know a lot of those teams Jim
too were it was always you know, a credible play
by play guy. And he didn't necessarily have to be
a former announcer, but he was kind of the you know,
the play by play guy and there was always a babyface,
and the babyface would you know, put the guy over
and then talk bad about the whoever the heel was,
and in effect that they put both the heels and
(11:25):
the and the faces over.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Vince gets credited with this.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I don't know if you know, if there were many
teams like that before, but he gets credit for, you know,
really being one of the first you know, television announced
teams to put a heel with a play by play
announcer and it just worked in reverse, you know what
I mean, where you know, Bobby would sit there and
trash the baby faces and then he would talk about
(11:50):
how great the heel was, but in the fact, what
he was doing is putting.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Both over, and it worked to perfection.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Because he would, you know, say something outrageous and people
would like the guy even more and then you'd have
gorilla control them at the same time. And you saw
that too with Vince and Jesse, which we'll talk about
after this, But you know, you didn't really see that
very often, you know what I'm talking about with where
they had heels before that and other territories. I don't know,
(12:21):
you know, if Mid South ever had really had something
like that, as a team.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
But no, I think that was the unique.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
That's just one of the great inventions or evolutions or
whatever you want. I call it a Vince I mean
love hate the guy. You got to respect him for
what he's taking the business and then done with it.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
And the other where I think they really shine though,
was with primetime wrestling, And I know you made a
number of appearances on prime Time when we were had
people come up. I think you came up a few times,
remember when we had the the audience, the live audience.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Stanford when they had Frime time.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Of course, I think it a chance to watch many
of the shows. And because you're on the road all
the time, back then, you hardly ever get You wouldn't
even see the TV show. You get done with your match,
you get in the car and you head out, try
to get some sleep or get down the road a
little bit. So you really wouldn't get very seldom get
a chance to see the finished product, where now I
think the guys sit and they have to all stay
(13:22):
at the end of the show and even watch every
house show, every every match.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Well, and also now I mean you can you can
watch you could watch the show on your phone and
it's sitting in an airport, you know, lotly waiting for
a plane.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Back then, I think I think that back then the
guys wouldn't. It was just a different group of guys,
you know, and it was a different It.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Was a lifestyle everybody.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
You go to the airport, you go to the hotel,
you go to the gym, you'd go to the show,
you go to the bar, you go to the airport,
you go to the hotel, you go to the gym.
You know, it was this night and it just was
a blur. Yeah, we're now, you know. You know, the
kids have more time off or more professional, and there
seems to be a lot more competition for their jobs
(14:07):
because they have the guys down there at the Performance
Center in Orlando and NXD, which a lot of people
love that product even more than the raw or smack Down.
I hear and you know through the crowds. But those
guys are hungry to get the job. So I think
the kids are much more aware of stuff and so
they are more professional, and they are, like in other
(14:28):
pro sports, watching tapes on their off time. That can
argue you wouldn't watch no tape of the show.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
No are you relating with that, chets Like you said,
probably you know, Saturday mornings you were trying to get
home or or you had another show to do or
to that day.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
It wasn't.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Personally, I can't stand to watch myself because you know,
a big part of our persona a ring presences in
ring confidence. And then I watch myself on TV, I oh,
it looks horrible. That looks bad, that looks worse. Oh
my gosh, how do I know? I'm too critical myself,
So I don't personally, like some guys really like to
(15:04):
watch them critique their performance.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Me, on the other hand, you know, just hadn't done that.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Probably well, you know, and with Primetime and this is
what I thought. I was really impressed with how hard
this team worked. I mean, especially for you know, when
Bobby would come in from the road whatever. But you know,
Primetime Wrestling was one of the most popular shows on
the USA network at the time, and they would do
(15:31):
the two hours and Gorilla insisted on them rolling the
matches completely three like most shows they do. You know,
they'll do a throw to it and then two minutes
later they coming out. They would watch every single match,
and because Gorilla insisted that, you know, if there was
something in there that he wanted to comment on or
(15:52):
something he might miss, and they gave them more material
and and that just showed, you know that the commitment
to that and one of the things.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Big yeah, Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a joke
at caps and sleeves at this level, I mean, you know,
it's it's the pros and it's the best of the
best up there. So not just in management, not just talent,
not just and ring support, but the announcers, i mean
production now, even just the cameramen are such an intrigued
(16:24):
integral part of the show. They want the cameramen at
the right place at the right time. I mean, it's
a ballet what they do now. Yeah, And that's why
it's cool to go back. I mean, I don't know
when the last time you've been back around to Shahn,
but to go back and look around and go, holy smokes,
look at the size of this production as monsters deal
with you know, twenty five eighteen wheelers, you know, twenty
(16:47):
buses and levels. I mean it's it's a show of shows,
and it's it's cool to be brought back every once
in a while and see it. How is it evolved
from National Guard gyms and the sport of tour Dallas.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Well, and you see that, you know, some of these
guys have their own buses out there on the parking
lot and.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
That how do guys have their own buses?
Speaker 4 (17:08):
And now, I mean, you know, back in the day,
you want your own dress room. Now they want their
own bus.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Can I have my own room? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Yeah, you which I always thought having your own dressing
room though, that was kind of a penalty. You know,
you're sitting in your dressing room. I'm a big shot.
I got my jelly beans where everybody else is in
the other dressing room playing cards, laughing, having fun.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
You know, you're like going out there, Hey, guys, I
want to come to my dressing room. No, Jim, We're good.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Yeah yeah, Genie reflect when you come in here. Some
of the guys believe their own press, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Well, And also I don't know the last time you
and the last time you were in Stanford, but that
the facility there is just incredible as well.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
And now you've got to buy Downlando.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
That's an amazing facility, is you know, But that's a
long way, that's for sure.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
That Orlando facility. That's an NFL Major League Baseball type facility,
Granite Town or tops what. I think, it's like eight
rings in one big room. Everything is wired and you
videoed training room, massage room, weight room.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
State of the art.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Of course, when you go up by Stanford, Connecticut, you
go by the Evil Empire with that big, huge black
flag flowing, you know, there's there's a little chill in
the air.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
There's no birds around, you know, barely a breeze. Right yeah,
cloud always over there.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
And you know these guys they really were trail ladies.
There's you know that they kind of set the stage
for this literally for what it's really become. And I remember,
you know that they added one of the seconds I
did live event centers on set because I did it
one time. I can't remember, because we didn't I had
(18:59):
to do it.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
So living then, Sean, where were you living?
Speaker 1 (19:04):
I lived in Stanford.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, I lived in Norwalk, which is just outside of Stanford.
It was about ten minutes from the from the studio,
and I worked so many hours in that studio.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
There's nowhere else in the world I could have lived.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
I always loved the fact that, you know, like other
people could live in other parts of the country, but
you know I did.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
I don't know, just slept with your own bed most nights.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah, absolutely, And and and when we did go to events,
we were really fortunate that we flew on one of
the jets and you'd, you know, get.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
On, brother, I'm just trying to give you some.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Well, you know, that's that's one of the positive things
about working for w w F back in the day.
You know, you could live anywhere you want, you know,
I mean, you just gotta have here on those jets.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
You know, sometimes the shrimp wasn't that big, so we
did stuff.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
Leve Sean Michael's alone, you mean, the food. I'm sorry
I misunderstood. No, But you know, that's one of the deals.
You can live anywhere you want, you know. And that's
when we lived in the Louisiana. We moved to Florida
and we moved to a little town called Titusville, Florida,
you know, which is right there by the Space Center.
(20:15):
My wife found the town and it's where a lot
of the astronauts people live. A lot of folks work
at the Space Center. So my wife brings in to
look at the house.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
We pull up.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
I got a big caddy with dark windows on it.
I jump out, I got the music blasted, I.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Got a bandana, tank top.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
My pants stuck in my boots. I'm about three hundred
and ten pounds on the gas. My wife, she jumps out.
She's a tall blonde with short shorts and high heels.
We're like, ah, right, we are.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Your neighbors did like all the shutters close.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
At once, you know, and I'll get the kids out
of the house, get the kids in the house.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
We're walking around the house looking at it. People were
peeking through their windows looking at us. You know, we
kind of panic that little name road when we moved in.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah, I'm sure you did. But then they grew to
love you, right.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
We actually almost ran for mayor of that time. Speaking
of which, just a little quick, little sege because I
had a gym. You know, I had my golf tournament
down there. I remember of the Children's Home Society I had.
We raised money for the Children's Home Society for about
four years. In my golf tournament, I wrote, I had
to quit riding with the cops because you know, my
dad was a PD so I used to ride with
(21:27):
the cops but they'd be like we all meet in
the parking lot somewhere and they're like, let's go get one,
you know, and like, you don't not on my account, Fellows,
It's okay, you know. Of course they took somebody up
and they throw them in the back seat. He'd be
back in Son.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Of a Gun, Heckshaw, Doug. I'm a big fan, Hacksaw.
Get me into this. I said, hey, don't work for me, kid,
it ain't gonna work for you.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
So you didn't give up the handcuff key?
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Right? Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Oh, that's where I was going when we I kind
of got off track there, but running for mayor. Caine
is running for mayor of Knoxville, and it looks like
he's got a really good shot of winning it up there.
We're up there at that con this weekend and everybody there.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Was three guys running. The third guy just dropped out.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
So it's Kane and another guy and he's way ahead
in the poles.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
So how did that guy drop out?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Jim, I'm.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Mysterious circumstance. Suddenly he didn't want to run anymore.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Oh, boys, that was where we lived in Florida.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Imagine that you'd have your friends stop by, you know,
four or five three hundred pound guys, a couple of
hot blondes and a few midgets, you.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Know, the neighbor like, what the world's going on over there?
Speaker 2 (22:50):
I tell you, If Kine wins, that's awesome. I'd love
to you know, just for the town hall meetings. Would
be pretty cool. So we're gonna keep an eye on
that race.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
Yeah, sharp, I don't know the guy because you know,
I was around a little bit with him overlapping with
w W E. But uh, you know, he's an impressive man.
I could see him running from ay and doing a
good job. Because so many people are the stereotype of
a dumb wrestler, you know, you know, Carney type guy.
(23:19):
But there's guys out there, the light kinge that make
us look good. You know, we're not all Mickey. We're
all not Mickey working that horrible movie The Wrestler.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah, well, you know, I mean, you're right. And people
like Jesse Ventura. You know, he's been a very controversial
figure out there and there in the news.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
But look at that guy. Accomplished, you know he.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Was, but he was he was joking. Well, how many
other mayors.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Can you name? Everybody knows who the mayor of Minnesota was.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Yeah, absolutely he was.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
He used to bust shop so my my three sisters
hated him. He says the worst things about you, about
your poor eye and everything. Jimmy, I get the Jimmy
when it's my sisters. You know, I hes doing a
good job, but no, he's doing it for by heart.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
He's so Jesse, watch out for my sisters.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Well, and you know, I want to talk about Jesse
and his pairing with Vince, but uh, you know, I
wanted to talk a little bit more about uh, you know,
Primetime and like how uh you know, what a phenomenal
program that was. And and that's where I really got
to to get to know Geno. He was you know,
he took me under his wing and and really gave
me a lot of great advice and always, I mean,
(24:33):
the greatest thing he did he was always put me over,
you know. And and then of course you had Bobby
who did the same thing in his way, and uh.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
I was talking, dude, was a whole different conversation, Sean.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
I know you read it a book.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Yeah, go ahead, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I want to I'll talk about that, but whatever. But
but really during that time, they were really they were
great to me and and but we had so much
fun doing that program. I remember we did the when
it was a live show and we used to bring
the guys in and uh, you know, Uh Bobby was
great because I co hosted the show with him for
a while, and uh really learned a lot about, you know,
(25:13):
doing a lot of ad libs stuff, being able to
think on your feet and uh, you know, and just
go and rolling with things, which I think is just.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Yea knowledge a mistake, just keep going, just keep rolling.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, although one of the one of the bits I
wasn't really pleased about that h No, I was though,
because it actually was pretty funny, but I was I
was engaged at the time, and Bobby used to make
all these comments about you know, what a beast that
your wife is and and so anyway, we ended up
doing this this uh faux honeymoon's uh night and they
and he and Bobby crashes it by putting a hidden
(25:51):
camera in the honeymoon suite. And I'm wearing you know,
the big stupid over, you know, a flannel night night shirt,
and I come out of the bathroom and all you
see the angle of the cameras.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
You just see we had one of the camera guys
who was this huge guy.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Get under the covers and he's got this big hairy
leg with these big.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Foot and you could see that that is me coming
on high honey. He's like giggling, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
And then I discovered, yeah, that was there. But from
that then he also that's where you know he came
up with Betty. He always just said I had a
sister Betty. And to this day people think that I
had have a sister Betty. That was I guess a character.
But I guess we can set the record straight now
that there really was no Betty.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
They it was just Heenan saying.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Your wife, you know, no shaved.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
But really that would would a classic time and and.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
Uh in time with Bobby and I mean you'd be
on a long trip and didn't make it fun.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
I mean he was in an entertaining guy.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
And I can imagine, you know, being with you and
bringing guys in because he could rib whoever if he
brought in the British Bulldogs and he brought in brad Hart,
you know, he brought in Hercules or Nandez he'd always.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Have a couple of zingers for him.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
I mean yeah, and that made time life. And of
course some guys were like a, uh was that a shot?
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Uh? And then then it'd be doubled down on it.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
All the things you wanted that you hoped that they
ribbed you, you know, because they were putting you over
and and uh, you know that.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Was if you were being well to some extent out
back Jack, they ribbed him. You much ran him out
of the territory. That's different. I mean the harmless verbal ribs,
but some of the mean, vindictive ribs are bad.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah, And that was one of the things you know also,
uh that you know I've gotten. People have sent me
questions about, you know, what was the relationship between you know,
like announcers, you and and the and the boys. And
that was one of the first lessons that Gorilla ever
gave me, is he said, you're not You're not one
of them. Never forget an Alfred to Lord Alfred Hayes.
So I never forget You're you're not one of them,
(28:09):
and you never will be. You can be friends with them,
uh to an extent, but you know, don't make the
mistake of thinking you're in and I don't.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Wealth all my time.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
Yeah, it's a closed to sidey, especially back then. Even
more so it's of course it's being back in the WWFS,
like I mean, bad comparison, but say it so like
being in combat together or maybe like that's horrible even
to say, but maybe being in like a super Bowl
football game together.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
You guys are down.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
There and they're pit together, you're fighting together, you're working together.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
It's obviously nothing like a soldier would face. But I
mean you're.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
Traveling together, You're doing all these these hardships on the
road together. It's a closed group, but not as much
as it was back in the day. But still even
now it's a you know, old timer walk in the
dress room. Everybody is extremely respectful and everything. Yeah, but
it's still different. I'm not one of the current boys.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah, you know, and we've talked about that before, about
how when those two worlds really collided that Yeah, I
mean it was. It took me probably a good year
before you know, and I will just say I would
just call it accept it. I wasn't to the point where,
you know, I was one of the boys or guys.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Like hey, but it was to the point where Okay,
he's cool. You know that was that was tough. That
was really tough.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Where you get you walk into a locker room guys
just speaking speaking Carnie, and you know it's like total
k fab you know, like they're not.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Yeah, it's not something you were just automatically accepted neither.
That was a respect that you earned over a period
of time with the guys.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yeah, and you had to endure a lot of different
things that would happen. I mean I remember one show
I went TV one of my shoes disappeared that I
had to wear with my tuxedo and never did find
that shoe.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
But I never said it worked.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Ribs. That's kind of a harmless type.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
Ribs, your shoe, you know, somebody cut your pants leg off.
When I first came I think I just said the
story when I first came into the w W E
or F back in the day, I walked in and
Gorilla's kid, Joey Morelli has a doc taped to the floor.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
In the A building. He's like, hey, help me up, Well,
you help me up and get me out of here.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
I'm looking at him, like where am I coming into?
What the trouble because I didn't help him up. No,
I was new to the territory. I didn't know who
he was or why he was taped to the floor.
But doctor Rocco and a couple of guys they duct
taped him, laid him down and taped him to the floor.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Yeah, and they were merciless a lot of times.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
So long, man, I don't know how much you got
to work with Joy, But I mean, I think a
lot of people know, or maybe you didn't know that
Joey Marilla was Gorilla's adopted son who lost his life
in a car accident. And you know, uh, Jim, that
that wasn't the first time I remember that.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Not too long before that, he had been in another
accident where he'd fallen asleep at the wheel and ended
up with the drop foot. You know, it had hurt
his leg, injured his leg, and then and then uh
he was you know in that other end in the
accident that that uh.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
A lot of guys, yeah, a lot of a lot
of Well, you spent a lot of time in the road,
you know, mid South. We were driving three thousand miles a week,
and it's throw the dice that off and sooner or later,
somebody's gonna pull out in front of me, A tire
is going to blow, a deer's gonna run in front
of you.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
You know, something's gonna happen.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
And uh, you know a lot of guys been in
some horrific accidents, including me. But it's uh, it's a
that's you know, dangerous that people you know a lot
of folks are. That's the old adage. People say, well,
you know, I'm afraid of flying, much more dangerous on
the road.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
No kidding.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
And they'll schedule use schedules you guys used to keep
I mean, I think that's why you probably want to
travel with guys, just to keep you awake.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Uh, that situation is what happened.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
And you know, Uh, the reason I brought that up
is that you know, after that, Gorilla was never the same,
never the same.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
You can understand that.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
Yeah, I think that would knock the devil out of anybody.
To bury a child, I think would be the hardest
thing there is.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
I would I would imagine and and.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
And it's it's tough.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
You know, we mentioned that, you know that the situation
with Bobby and and and Gorilla, but man, uh, the
two of them together. Uh, you know, you can talk
about great announcements of course, you know, with the Jim
Ross and even I thought, you know, Tony Shavanni and
his prime with you know I he was with the
w w F briefly yeah, gean, yeah, of course, and
(32:46):
then uh but that show, yes, yeah exactly. But that
team together really just I think just for pure entertainment value.
You know, you look at it and and you know, uh,
Gorilla was voted like six times for the the one
of the Dirt Sheets as you know, the worst announcer
or something, and I would never could and I'd like,
(33:07):
you idiots, I mean, don't you understand that this is.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
That's entertained Red the Dirt Sheets like Meltzer. I mean,
he guy made a lifetime living out of being critical
of the business.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Well, but I always thought to me that was like, really,
are you kidding me? Because to me, it was about
entertaining people, and that's what those two guys did.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
And uh that that's why I think.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
I think that's a lot of folks enjoy watching him
on the network. And that's so cool that the WWE
has that network. It opens up all the libraries of
you know, Gorilla and Bobby Jesse, I mean the Mint
South and George Championship Texas All Star. I mean he
gave all this old timers new life, that's for sure.
(33:59):
I am he.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Yeah, watch it there, mister, but yeah, you know, and
the thing is that now you can go and look
back and like they keep finding and putting up all
these gifts of stuff that we did. But you know, uh,
some of those Primetime they used to go on location
all the time. If they were at a if we
had an event going on, they would shoot a prime
time And I remember one year they shot one out
(34:24):
in Los Angeles, I think, and.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
They went out on a yacht. People probably remember this one, but.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
There was all this the water got a little bit rough,
and remember there was the chairs. They were sliding all
over the deck and Gorilla was laughing his ass off
and Bobby too, falling over. You know how Bobby could
take bumps, you know, and he was just uh going
with it to the max. And they just they were
really like you said, they were like Abbatt and Costello.
(34:51):
It was just an incredible pairing and when they and
Bobby talks about it in his book about when that
last night when they decided how he was going to leave,
and you know, Bobby said, well you have to have
Gorilla throw me out, and he throws them out of
the arena. And he talks about in his book how
they went back after the event was over, they went
back to the hotel, and they went up in the
(35:14):
hotel together and they kind of went to their separate rooms,
and Bobby says he went in his room and there
was a basket full of bananas, and he calls Gorilla
and he said, you never guess what I got. I
got a basket of bananas.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
You want them?
Speaker 2 (35:29):
And I guess it was their excuse. But they went
back on the hallway and he said they they cried
for an hour. And you mentioned that special friendship, Well
that that kind of explains it right there. You know
that you do have these incredible relationships.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Spent a lot of time together. I mean sometimes more
than you do with your spouse. Be back in the day.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
You're together all the time, and in.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
A pressure situation, it's it's television, Yeah, sometimes it's live TV.
It's uh yeah, it's you the bond when you work
with somebody.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Yeah, you know in Jim that that that TV Family
We really were a family back then. I mean Kevin
Dunn was just a producer when I was there. He
was a great producer and he knew that this guy
was not going to be doing that job for long.
But we had Edit one. I know you had visited there.
We had really it was Edit one. That was the
one place they edited all the shows. And if you
(36:22):
remember with the event center, we had the background behind
me that was Edit one, and uh Gino was you know,
he was part of that family, you know, and I
know he's he's really missed now. But I want to
tell you the one story that's his kind of wrap
it up with with Gorilla is that after I left
the WWF, I really didn't know what I was going
(36:42):
to do. I had some things, you know, that were
in the works. But in the meantime, you remember, did
you ever meet Nelson Swegler. Nelson was the production guy.
Remember Nelson, Well, he had he had left the company
and he had started this this idea. He was way
ahead of his time to do like these bingo numbers,
(37:03):
you know that he would do on a TV show
and then people could claim prizes at a grocery store
and it was just and he did it in Baltimore.
I get this call one day and he says, you
want you know, I don't know if you're doing anything,
but I need somebody who can kind of be a,
you know, a sidekick for this show. And I'll fly
you down there and I'll take care of everything. And
I'm like, I don't know, you know, like this, I
(37:24):
was gonna pull the ping pong balls with the numbers out,
and he goes, well, Gorilla's gonna do it, and I'm
like what.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
He goes yeah, I'm like, I'm in I'm sure I'll
do it. I mean, what the heck?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
So so I would fly down there and Gorilla would
pick me up in his Cadillac.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
He would drop down there to Baltimore for this thing.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah, in the boat and we did this crazy It
was kind of like the premise of it. They made
it like a talk show, kind of being like a
regius and he had They had a woman that was
one of the co hosts. Anyway, I would do pull
the ping pong balls.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
And then I would they would have a guess.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
So I remember they had this karate guy come on
and it was supposed to be this work. I mean,
we're Gonna, I mean, you know, and the guy was
going to do like a little karate demonstration on me. Well,
he threw this kick, it didn't land where it was
supposed to and got me right in the wedding tackle
and I went down like.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
You wouldn't believe.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
And I just remember that Gorilla walks over to him
and he says, I never thought it'd have to I'd
be saying this to you. But stick a fork in
him and he's done. And that was kind of like
I just explained at all. But a lot of people
probably didn't know that that story, but it was I
only did because I just love to be around Gino
and I knew I wasn't going to get too many
(38:42):
other opportunities.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
And it didn't last very long.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
But that's how I remember Gorilla, And he really was
one amazing individual, and I know he helped a lot
of other young wrestlers along the way and just really
respected in the in the business. And as you talk
about the great people you've met along the way, well
he was he was definitely one of them.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Yeah, like I said, the immortalized forever with the Gorilla position.
I think given the impact wrestling, a lot of the
small indies, they call it the gorilla position too, right
before you go.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Through the cur You're right and that that that really
is one of the greatest honors.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
And I don't think anybody ever thought of it.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Any differently, you know, Yeah, fitting tribute.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
Yeah, that's because who would have you know, especially if
you're not in the business. You walk into building, Yeah,
some security guy or somebody, Uh, how do you get
to the gorilla position? They're like, what the grower here?
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Exactly? You can't can't do anything? Ding ding ding, you know.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Anyway, before we wrap up here, Jim, I told you.
I mean, we've been getting a lot of response from people,
and uh, I guess we'll just call this the email bag.
We heard from Dean Cole's in Bristol, England, and and
he wants to know what your memories are of the
Hecksa Yoka Zuna feud in ninety three. Do you remember that?
Speaker 4 (40:10):
Oh yeah, sure do of course. And you know, I
tell you in the UK, I love going over there.
I was over there last year at the London Comic
Con that had had a great time. Was up in
Scotland at the Fringe Festival, which was a stand up shop.
But anyway, Yokazuna, you know, Yoka was a monster of
(40:34):
a guy. He was a big big man. In size
is all relative in our business. You know, I'm sixty
three and now i'm probably sixty and people say, oh,
you're a big guy. No, in my business, I'm a
medium sized guy.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (40:48):
Yokazuna was a legitimate, very big big man. And we
had of course, mister Fuji was his manager, and I
had known Fui for years. But anyway, we had the
big challenge where who could ever knock Yoku's zoom off
his feet? And I think that's my big music video,
is me hitting the ropes and hitting Yoka zoon and
(41:08):
I hit him like three or four five times. Finally
he's like a big if we used to call the
spot we wobble but don't fall down. He's wobble one way,
in wabble, the other wobble the other wobble, And.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
Finally he went down.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
He took a big bump, and of course that just
elevated my characters hacks ill being able to knock him down.
But then later on he ends up beating me up,
laying me right there in the turn buckle on the
mat on the turnbuckle, Fuji puts the jab No, I
think he put the American flag over me. Yoko, who
(41:43):
does the big bonds eye drump off to the second rope,
doesn't see where I am boom ended up cracking two
of my ribs.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Bit my tongue had blood going everywhere, you know.
Speaker 4 (41:55):
So yeah, I remember Yoko very well. But you know,
as a babyfit, it's always better. At least I always
enjoyed working with a bigger heel.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
You know.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
It's if you're trying to get sympathy as a babyface
when the heels beating you up, it's hard to get
sympathy when a smaller heel is working over you got
Yoka Zuhner, one man gang up. It's believable. They're like,
you know, fight back.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Some of the smaller you know, they're like, well, punch
of back hacks. I'll come on, you know. But Yoka
was was a great hand. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Now, but when you're working with somebody you know that large,
and I know there were you know, you worked with
Andre a lot. But taking a bump like that, though,
I mean, how do you really I don't care how
you work this, but how do you take that guy was,
you know, in his prime way four hundred plus.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Yeah, yeah, just.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
How do you take that? I mean, and you saw
him come down on people?
Speaker 4 (42:52):
Wow, Well it's it's really a learned scientific trait to Sean,
I'll tell you exactly the best way to do it is.
You know, once you get down on our spot on
the mat, the best thing to.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Do is just close your eyes and hope for the best. Brother.
Speaker 4 (43:10):
There's nothing you can do, man, You're along for the
ride and just hope he hits it right. But you
know that's the old joke people say, hack, So, I
saw you throw a punch.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
You missed a guy by two inches.
Speaker 4 (43:20):
I said, yeah, but you see this time when I
hit him by two inches, that goes both ways, brother.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
And whenever Yokazulo decided he wanted to get up, he
could get up. It was totally yeah.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
Yeah, Well you know what, he felt bad, because you
know he felt bad about it. I got I had
a good rapport with the Yoku, and also we realized
that we had a good angle going with the US
Japanese thing, Fuji waving his flag, me waving the American flag.
So if if he hurt me, the angle would be over,
so he was concerned that he didn't want to hurt
me neither.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Well, you talk about that all the time too, is
you know you want uh, that's why you know working stiff.
Speaker 4 (43:56):
Was he's not your opponent. Yeah, he's not not your
Oh he's your partner.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Right, and you need you need to take care of
each other so you can keep working, because that's it.
Speaker 4 (44:06):
That's so you get paid right exactctly. Okay, and then
one of the its pro wrestlers. It's not mm a,
you know. Yeah, And that's the old joke. You're you're
always Sean. I'll tell you you're always a phony wrestler until
you go to court.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
When you go to court, you're a trade killer.
Speaker 4 (44:25):
Brother, I'll tell you. It goes like this, ten twenty
thirty thousand. Every time you whack them, the lawsuit goes
up there like I've got to Syria. I'm getting my
money's worth. We're not done.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
That that used to get me too.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
When you talk to people and they give you that,
and you'd say, if you ever jumped off, I mean,
what do you think there's it's magic cement down there
that these guys can.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
They jump. It's a.
Speaker 4 (44:52):
It's a physical business. That's uh, you know. I live
on a kind of a hobby farm. I got dogs
and cats, de ducts and chickens, pot belly pig, and
it looks like we might get some alpaca.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Next Hacksaw does his podcast appearance from the barn.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
So we're gonna.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
And of course with two daughters, everything's got a name.
All the ducks have names, all the chickens have names.
And one of something that will happen to one of
the chickens, it'll be oh no, area, Oh no. Is
that we're having the kernel for dinner? What's the difference?
Speaker 1 (45:29):
It sounds like it's feeding time there better.
Speaker 4 (45:32):
Yeah, it's getting getting.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Yeah, But Hecksaw Dean had one more question and we
could both answer quickly and then we'll wrap it up,
but he won't. He asked about the TV TV things.
What did we do on that day? So from your perspective,
you guys are just rolling in from another.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
Town, right right. But it was a long day. I
mean even now, TV is a long day. You have
to be there when at noon or one o'clock or whatever,
and the show doesn't start until uh, you know, much
much later. So you see a lot of downtime. What
we used to do is play a lot of cards.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
Man.
Speaker 4 (46:08):
Yeah, you know, but it got to the point where
the w w F they said, you know, no more
card playing.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Because then you're like, now, what are we going to do?
Speaker 4 (46:18):
You'd be back there playing cards and you'd be like,
that is that my music?
Speaker 3 (46:24):
There's my music?
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Where's my board? The case? Is that the case?
Speaker 4 (46:32):
And then one time shot I tell you, because you
know you have no pockets in your trunks obviously, right,
So I put my cards in my knee pad and
I forgot all about it. I went out there during
the match and the guy dropped the big knee out
of it.
Speaker 3 (46:47):
It was like a magic trick, cards with flying everywhere. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
I bet probably was more than one wrestler who pawned
an ace in there one time or another.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Right, the old knee pad trick.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
About talking about guerrilla, those guys played some heavy card games.
Arnold Schulen, Arnie Sculling. They that was out of my league.
I wouldn't pay for that kind of bread.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Oh no, And that was way by Alfred's uh you know,
that was way beneath it.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
He played cribbage.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Yeah, we're going to be doing you worked a lot
with Lord Alfred Hayes, and we're going to be doing
a show a podcast about his lordship because I'm I
have launched my own personal campaign, Jim, to get that
man into the WWE Hall of Fame.
Speaker 4 (47:34):
I tell you there's a lot of guys that should
be in there that aren't in there.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
Ye sure, I agree with you.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Uh you know, as far as for me, folks, with
the the day of taping, we would, uh it would
it wasn't a long day, and we would if we
were shooting uh you know, Saturday night made event or
one of those, you would just wait around. Basically, I'm
sure it's the same thing today until they decided that
they were going to tape this and you had to
be ready to go.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
But god, some of those those days would just be brutal.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
I mean remember Jim that you were ship stuff for
every show or you know, and you would have these
crowds come in, these kids, like on a school night,
and they wouldn't have the main event till you know,
they want everybody to stick around. You kids would be like,
you know, laying across three seats, just passed out.
Speaker 4 (48:12):
Wait, well, Hey, I was with w CW back in
the day when we first went down there to took over,
and uh and had the boys go.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
Sit in the in the in the audience and make
more people look like they were there.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
It looks like guy with Tyson, I think he was
in the third match.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
You know, you got any friends with you, you haven't
go sit in the audience. Man.
Speaker 4 (48:34):
They put the black covers over the chairs so you
couldn't tell them that, you know. But they turned that
company around and then flushed it down a toilet.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
That's right, well and
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Uh yeah, and it went to a big f
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