The Complete Hulk Hogan | Brian Blair Interview on Terry's First Matches

Episode Transcript

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Speaker 3 (04:45):
About hello, well, it's the last fame name one the
ring to get a bassislada, who the real king swing
with the bell goes name a kick like May phoning
in the corner, Rick thrash like Stave, even Jerry King
say go off.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
The crowd nodded.

Speaker 5 (05:01):
In his head like Slee low Brown, would you get
low down?

Speaker 1 (05:04):
But we go even high up for you on your head?

Speaker 3 (05:07):
But you know who driver he speaking more now and
Dragons bit Fio give you more shocked than in edge reads,
higher from drop a, more truth than the con of
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It's the last podcast far Scart the close flop if
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Speaker 1 (05:28):
Polls well as the complete Hulk Hogan continues to unfold.
Here at the Lapsed Fan, we've reached the point Terry
Boleya has finally stepped into the ring at Florida Championship Wrestling,
despite the false starts and the controversies with Matsuda and
everything else that's become the subject of legend for wrestling
fans that know the Hulk Hogan story. But as you
know by now, we're trying to reach out beyond just

(05:50):
our podcast studios, get a finer idea and some more
color as to what it was like to witness the
rise of Hulk Hogan before he was Hulk Hogan. And
we can't do much better when it comes to his
first match. Then, speaking to a gentleman who was in
the ring with him in those absolutely early formative days,
he is Brian Blair, formerly of the Killer Bees and
a legend in the business. Brian, it's so great to

(06:12):
have you on the show. Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
Thank you, Jack. It's great to be here. Yeah, I
had you know, I'm still hurting over Terry, or a
lot of us are. But fortunately we all have great
memories and we hold on to those tight and just
pray that Terry's in a better place.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
Before getting into those recollections of those early days. That's
probably not a bad place to start, Brian. I mean,
we're a couple of months out now from losing Hulkogan
and you were as close to him as there are
a few that were as close to him as you were,
living so close to him and being with him from
the beginning of his career. Do you still find yourself
thinking about him, like in a quiet moment, do you

(06:53):
have to sort of be reminded that he's no longer here?
What's that like?

Speaker 4 (06:57):
No, I'm reminded every day. I have a one of
those little risk bands. It says Hulco Mania forever.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Oh yeah, that'll do it.

Speaker 4 (07:07):
Yeah, seven twenty five, of course, that's the day Terry
went to heaven. And you know, I just, yeah, absolutely,
I think about him. You know, I read my Bible
every day and his memorial card is right there, and
I stare at his face and think about him every

(07:30):
single day.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Oh wow. So yeah, the wristband, that constant reminder. Well great,
So I want to talk about the first match because
you know, people that really get, like to a geek
level about Hulk's life will always look up his record
of matches. That's it's not a thing on the internet,
you know. And over the years, I think it became
known that, in fact, his match with you in Chieflin, Florida,
which you've talked a lot about in prior interviews and

(07:51):
in great detail in your book with Ian Douglas, was
thought to be his first. He talks about it as
his first match. Terry does, I think in his second book.
But there are records of him wrestling Don Serrano on
August ninth before your Chieflin match with him on August
eleventh of that year. Now, of course, it's asking a
lot of you to remember specific details from that far back.

(08:11):
We're talking August ninth, nineteen seventy seven, of course, but
I did want to start by asking because it did
say you were on that first card Fort Pierce, Florida,
August ninth, seventy seven, John Carroll High School, when Don
Serrano defeated Super Destroyer, which of course was Terry under
the hood. Apparently Don Serano was supposed to wrestle Wolfman
Smith on the show. There's like a newspaper clip about
that that says Wolfman was a no show, so Super

(08:33):
Destroyer gets plugged in there. Do you remember that at all?
You were wrestling Tony Rocco, I believe on the card.

Speaker 4 (08:40):
No, I do not recall that. I absolutely recall our
match and what we had several matches, not just in
Chiefland and Fort Myers, oh, several places. But I don't
recall him. I know that he wrestled Don after a
couple of weeks after he is match in Chiefland.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Yes, yeah, I'm showing him August twenty fifth in Jacksonville,
and you wrestled in August tenth and eleventh, so yeah.

Speaker 4 (09:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, that was a while. That
was a great We had worked a lot of course
we broke in together. I was in the dungeon with
Matt Suda for three and a half summers, which is
a long time with ero Matt Sudo. You know, one
one hour is a long one one minute is a
long time with just here. But I have no idea

(09:35):
how how I made it through that, but I guess
it was just a lot of passion drive termination. And
I just remembered Terry long before wrestling. And anyway, if
you wanted to talk about that first match, I rode
up to Chiefland with the Brisco Brothers, and I believe

(09:57):
Don Morocco was with us, and and Terry rode with
I've been called off. I believe Pat Patterson. I know
there was several other heels, but you know, k Fabe
was very strict back then. Yeah, of course, you know,
we the heels would never ride with the maybe faces

(10:19):
or advice of me. So they told us a few
days ahead of time that we were going to you know,
Terry's finally going to work maybe, but oh, I don't
know a week ahead of time, and they really I
had been working for a few months, but they kind
of wait till the last minute to smarten you up.

(10:40):
But Terry was such a fan and such a student
of the game. I mean, he never missed at the Armory.
But we were excited because they said we were going
to have a fifteen minute Broadway or draw fifteen minute draw,
we call it a Broadway. And in wrestling speaking, so

(11:03):
Terry and I are in the ring and go over
a bunch of spots, you know, for a few days,
we're really excited about it. And oh gosh, the Briscos
are pumping me up on the way there. And I'm
sure I'm sure Terry was getting pumped up by Pat
Patterson and Ivan call Off and the rest of the guys.
But we get we get in the ring, introduces, we

(11:30):
get in the ring. It's a good little crowd in
chief when it's at the high school and and anyway,
we start out and we're just going back and forth,
back and forth. You know, five minutes gone, everything's going great.
I mean, we're having a nice little you know, we're
doing chain wrestling, you know, reverses and switches and and

(11:52):
go behind and you know, things that Terry really wasn't
designed to do, and he would quickly throw out of
his repertoire. But we were doing that kind of stuff
at the beginning, because I said, wrestling on the marquee,
so we were wrestling. Eddie Raham liked wrestling, you know.
The exception was, you know, Dusty. That's why Dusty got

(12:13):
over so big, because Florida was built as a wrestling territory.
But anyway, five minutes gone in the match, a lot
of chain wrestling and little strong man stuff with Terry,
a few of those kind of spots, and finally he

(12:33):
starts getting the heat on me, you know, boom boom bone.
Ten minutes gone, and I know it's a fifteen minute
Broadway and Terry's got me. Or actually I had him
right before that down and I snapped married him and

(12:54):
had him in a reverse chin lock. And I looked
and all the talent is out on both sides, all
the baby faces are out on the one side, and
all the heels are out on the other side. I
whispered it there. I said, damn, we must be having
a heck of a match, whether everybody's watching, and he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
let's keep it. And so anyway, we don't hear the timekeeper.

(13:18):
You know, he announced at the beginning, one fall, fifteen
minute match, he did ten minutes gone, and you know,
normally the timekeeper go when you get fifteen minutes, they'll
give you like at least the last three minutes, you know,
seventeen or thirteen minutes gone, fourteen minutes.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
Gone, and.

Speaker 4 (13:37):
You know, so there's something that won't. So I'm just
still a green too, and I'm working my way through it. Well,
I know that at least three minutes gone, I have
gone by and I don't hear anything he tarried in
it or anything. So I said, hey, bro, we need
to kick it in. So we start kicking in and
do it all our spots to come back. You know,

(13:57):
he got really good heat on me, don't finally turned
heel no more wrestling, you know, gouged my eyes, you know,
threw me into the bashing my head into the turnbuckle,
choking me with the rope, all that kind of stuff,
dropping elbows on me and barely kicking out two and
a half and finally he misses something. You start to

(14:19):
come back being bang boom, and I know, now fifteen
minutes is gone, being bang booming up. All of a
sudden we hear fifteen minutes gone, fifteen to go. So
fifteen minutes to go, fifteen minutes gone, fifteen minutes to go,
and so the Brisco was changed it to a thirty

(14:40):
minute match. And we had given everything we had. We
had nothing left in the tank. Terry had nothing, I
had nothing. I mean, we were just totally gassed. We
got fifteen minutes to go. That's probably the worst fifteen
minutes of wrestling in my life. Oh gosh, you know,
talked about that many many at times, just you know,

(15:04):
the business is full of jokes and there's always practical jokes,
and that Terry was never a practical joker, really, but
he was at the blunt of a few viscal brother
practical jokes and that was one that God is really good.
I mean it was. They were laughing so hard over there.

(15:27):
I mean, they don't want to expose the business, but
you can see him putting their arms over their mouths
and slapping each other, and slowly they're disappearing and peeping
out that went peeping out the door, watching to see
what kind of match we had. The crowd completely died.
It was. It was rough.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
Wow. You mentioned Brian going over spots in the weeks
leading up to the match. What does that look like?
Do you get together in the sportatorium and say we're
going to do this or are you just verbally talking
it out in the car? How does that go?

Speaker 4 (15:56):
No, we were actually in the sportatorium and went over
stuff and walked through him pretty much. Uh, actually took
you know, bumps on some of them, you know, going
through some of the spots. I mean, uh, we did
some arm drags and you know, you know how many
people how many times have you seen Hulk Hogan arm drag?

(16:18):
But he could do that. I mean Terry was very, very,
very versatile, and he was a good athlete. I mean
vern Gania got mad at one time in the a
w A and I went to leg gut him, and
vern Gania, who owned a w A territory, is his son.

(16:41):
He went to leg dive him. I got so mad
at him, was going to stretch Terry, and Terry front
face locked him and vern started tapping right. Just you know,
a lot of people learned the hard way that not
a lot, but a few people learned the hard way that.
You know, Tory was a pretty tough guy if you

(17:01):
had to be.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
When you went into the ring for that match, Brian,
what was the understanding as to what you guys would
have been doing when the fifteen minutes elapsed. Was it
a double down? Was it Terry hits you with a
big move and he's about to pin you and then
the time expires vice versa.

Speaker 4 (17:15):
No, we were doing false finishes. We were trying to
end it, like you know, a Sunset flipped him. He
shot me, he reversed it. I went to shoot him
and he reversed it. I hit the ropes, came off
with this. You know, he bends over for a backdrop
like and I jump over him. Sunset flip him ron too.
He kicks out, jumps up small package on two two

(17:35):
and a half. You know, he kicks out, and we
were just doing false finishes. It was it was That's
why it was so difficult, you know, because here you're
doing all these false finishes. If it was just a
double down, a double knockout, we used to call it.
A double down is the modern term. But dang, it
would have been a hacking a lot easier.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
But d have been laying there collecting your your breath
there for the next Now, did you have a finish
and did he have a finish.

Speaker 4 (18:04):
At the time At the time neither one of us
had an actual finish, you know. I mean it's Terry's
first match or so, so he can't really establish a finish.
And I was still feeling my oats.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
So what what do you remember doing in that extra time? Brian?
Was it just that unexpected fifteen extra minute?

Speaker 4 (18:26):
Did you just redo the as you know wind? I
wound up with the sleeper on the sleeper. Then Steve
Kerran got on me about that, Steve Risco's old Steve Kurrn,
that I did his finishing. That he pretended like he
was mad at me. Oh gosh, it's like a constant
rib They never stopped. You never stopped ribbing.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
Let me let me get that straight, Brian. Sorry, go ahead, Jim, No, no,
go ahead. If you get something on the sleeper, you're
saying you grabbed the sleeper because you're trying to figure
out what to do presumably for that fifteen more minutes,
and the sleeper at the time was Steve's finish. That's
what you're saying, Brian.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
Yes, that's exactly, Jacob what I'm saying. Exactly. I even
went into the figure four and I actually screwed it up,
so he kicked me off the figure four and of
course I was Jack Briscoe's finished right there.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
So you gave you gave a little bit back to
about that is that you gave it back to them too,
a little bit if you're gonna put me out here.

Speaker 4 (19:30):
For that was Actually, you know, I'm not that smart
to think that I'm giving it back. I'm just trying
to think of things I think I can do. But
I think I can do that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
I just had a question. So so I know I've
heard this.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
This is you know, not the first time I've we've
heard this before, but this idea that that you don't
find out that it's that it's work until you're on
your way out to the ring during your first match. Now,
I I've listen, I've been in the ring two times
with very very limited training, just more for for fun
to kind of learn and and just kind of and

(20:05):
and to to to see how it felt. And I
can't imagine even and now in today's world learning like saying, hey,
you know, you know learning as you're going out to
the ring that it's that it's a work.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
I mean, how how did how do you do that?

Speaker 2 (20:23):
How do also do you train for so long and
not you know, like I just I want to know
what it's like, what it was like for you to
to to finally understand that it was a work, and
how you didn't really know it was a work before
you went out to the ring that first time.

Speaker 4 (20:41):
Well, out of over one hundred people that started in
the business and the Lancers in the three summers that
I was there three and a half summers, the only
three people that made it were Paul or and Orf,
mister Wonderful Cogan Poachster, and myself. And at one time

(21:01):
I said to Orndorf, I said, look, Hero smartened me
up because we knew. I mean, you just had to
know that it was you know, that they were working.
But there was a little doubt there. I mean, you
didn't know if some of it was real, if you
know it was when you're around the boys enough and
then you see him talking and eventually you kind of

(21:22):
figure it out. But the Hero was so strict, you know,
and Eddie Graham and the people there that were training us,
they just believed in, you know, not smartening us up
until you know, they thought that we needed to because
they just as soon see you go out there on
amateur wrestle, which we did all the time constantly. So

(21:49):
I said, I said, Paul hero smartened me up yesterday.
He said, what, No, he didn't. He didn't believe it.
So yeah, give me a slam. So you know, I'm
actually lying to Paul. I want to see if because Paul,
Paul's already had a couple of matches, because I'm just
you know, I want to doubly, doubly checked at the work.

(22:10):
So the takes me up and he slavs. I mean
I could barely walk for two weeks. I mean, my
hip went out so bad, my psiatic hurts so so
bad for two weeks. Oh gosh, I'll never forget that
paint and that that was a brutal, brutal lesson. But
I don't know there's psychology for waiting so long. But

(22:34):
it was usually like away from a week to a
month before you would go out there and they'd smarten
you up. So and you don't have a whole lot
of time to practice, you know, sunset flips and different
things like that inside cradles or small packages what they
call you know, those are things that you kind of

(22:54):
know from amateur wrestling. They're things that are used as
a war, but they can also be used as a shoot. Yeah,
so much of that, so much of the.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
Business is like I think one of the reason fans
might get confused, Brian is because years later, when the
famous wrestlers tell their stories about getting started, they lie
about going to the ring thinking it's a work. Terry
in his second book said, in that match with your
chieflin quote, we're fighting. I mean, we're really beating the
shit out of each other. I thought I was supposed
to win this thing, and he was just following his
orders to not get beat. So that's sort of like

(23:26):
a middle ground there. What do you think of him
characterizing it that way?

Speaker 4 (23:31):
You know, he's protecting the business. Yeah. Yeah, we did
potato each other a lot. There's a lot of a
lot of potatoes thrown in that match. The last thing
that they that the ownership wanted to see in Flora
was somebody miss a punch by a couple of inches
or whatever. They wanted you to lay them in, and

(23:55):
so we were, we were laying them in and ah,
that's just the way that we were taught then and
after a while, you know, later on in life, Terry
would he wouldn't work with anybody that was stiff.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, that's that. That's definitely something we heard about. So
all right, that's great. So when he's saying, because if
you say you're working out the spots, you know, a
few weeks ahead of time, clearly Terry's not going into
the ring thinking that he's just willy nilly trying to
use real techniques to pin you, and your your mission
is to just not let him pin you. I mean,
he says, you know essentially that he was supposed to
win it. But you say you go to the ring

(24:31):
expecting a draw.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
Oh yeah, I was absolutely told to us that it
would be a draw.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
Okay, all right, so I'll go with it, right, I'll
go I'll go with your memory on that one.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
Also, that's one thing too, like, I mean, that just
seems like a crazy thing to be I mean, i mean,
fifteen minutes, it seems like it's it's certainly that that's
an incredible amount of time to do the uh, the
kind of athleticism and and and to do any kind
of of a pro wrestling and men to just kind
of have that that kind of just did you say, no,

(25:04):
we're gonna ad fifteen minutes and you don't even know
about it and it's completely all you know, done behind
your back. It's really again, I'm I'm to me, that
seems risky. It seems like a risky thing to do
with two guys who are going out for there for
the first time. I don't know, maybe I'm crazy, but
I mean I commend you guys for able for being
able to pull it off as best as you can.
But that seems like a hell of a risky prank

(25:26):
to me. Give given the nature of the pro wrestling business.

Speaker 4 (25:31):
You're right, JIPI, it is a hundred percent is But
they the way We're in a small town that gets
run about, you know, twice a year, and in a
high school with you know, five hundred people or whatever,
and you got the Brisco brothers who don't care so

(25:54):
that you know they did. They march to their own
drama and they actually own part of the office like
five percent or something like that.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
So, Bron, when we look at the record, there's that
Don Serrano match, and it always says that your match
with Terry and Chiefland is the second match you had,
not your first, that the first was in fact the
day before in Fort Myers at the National Guard Armory
August tenth, with the Chieflin match being August eleventh. Do
you think there's a chance that you remember the Chiefland
match as actually the Fort Myers match and that you

(26:24):
had been in the ring with Terry before this.

Speaker 4 (26:29):
No, I know for a fact that his first match
was in Chiefland, and I know that he worked with
Don Serrano because we were working out in the ring,
and I just remember the first, first, first, first. It
was always the first, first, first. Yeah, and he would

(26:52):
have told me or you're saying I was on that card,
that's right. I don't recall that at all.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
That's fine. I mean it could happen. And you know,
I guess there's a distant chance that who the newspaper
refers to as super Destroyer wrestling Don Serrano is not Terry.
But I'd be shocked by that because he's Terry. He's
super Destroyer against you right under the hood.

Speaker 4 (27:16):
Yes, yes he is, he is, and there was no
other super Destroyer in the in the territory.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
Okay. So knowing that then that that kind of answers
the question. Another thing I always wonder is the results
that survive say that Terry went to the ring that
night against you in Chiefland and Fort Myers. Is Terry Boleya?
Maybe they just put that in there, but he was
super destroyer, right, he never wrestled you in that first run?
Is just Terry Boleya?

Speaker 4 (27:43):
No, we have pictures from there?

Speaker 1 (27:44):
Oh yeah, one into your book.

Speaker 4 (27:46):
It's my book actually Truth be Told. But yeah, that's
from Chiefland. So he was with a mask. Why would
they call him Terry? Belay with him? Right?

Speaker 1 (28:00):
If the whole idea, as Brisco has said, was to
put him under the hood to sort of protect him
so that if you did use him later, people don't
remember him as that clumsy loser, you know what I mean? Understood?

Speaker 4 (28:10):
Yeah, exactly exactly?

Speaker 1 (28:12):
Did you can you can you sort of confirm that
for us? Like what was the psychology of putting someone
like him that's so big, you know, under a hood
so early?

Speaker 4 (28:23):
Well, you know, Terry had that look, that special look.
It's like what I used to sneak into the bars
and watch him play bass guitar and you know, standing
the platforms and he was like stood out like a freak.
I mean, he had a tremendous body, a tremendous tand
he had his mama's jewelry on and was about seven
foot tall with those platform six inch platform shoes, and

(28:48):
it was just amazing to watch him. So he had
that charisma from being in a band. He had so much,
So it makes sense to put him in a mass
so later on when he comes back as whomever he's
coming back as. Uh. Even if he was coming back
as you know, he would obviously have some kind of
a tide terrific terrry or whatever. You know, you wouldn't

(29:14):
want to remember him when he was clumsy and green.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
That's right. So, so the photos in your book are
so great because I don't think we've seen those before
until your book published them. Maybe they were out there.
Where did the photos come from? Of you wrestling him?
And are there others from those early days and no
one's ever seen?

Speaker 4 (29:33):
Oh yeah, a couple of the people that took photographs here. Golly,
I can't think of their names right now.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
That's okay, But you ended up in possession of them.

Speaker 4 (29:47):
Steve Kernos actually Ian.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
Has them or had them, Okay, So the author I.

Speaker 4 (29:55):
Ian Ian Douglas, who wrote co wrote the book, my
yep offer kind of.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
Well, that's great Okay, cool, that's good to know. I
thought maybe it was something that you had over the years,
just hung on the photos that were taken, or if
they were bill after photos or or whatever. I mean,
those are so kind of historic now because there's no
video at all of Terry wrestling in that first run.
It's just still images, and even those are very sparse.

Speaker 4 (30:21):
Yes, yes, yes, I've got a lot of you know,
fun photos, but hundreds. Oh sure, having a good time,
but nothing in the ring. Other than those. There's some more.
I've seen a bunch of them, but they're all stills.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
How would that work back then, Bran and c w F.
Would they only tape the Armory shows in the Sportatorium
or would they not even tape all the Hester early shows.

Speaker 4 (30:45):
Yeah, they would tape in that the Sportatorium, and they
didn't tape all the time at the Armory. They would Actually,
the reason you don't see a lot of footage from
back then is because they would take the master tape
and just tape over it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
Tragic, tragic, absolutely trasic.

Speaker 4 (31:05):
Save money. Yeah, they didn't have the foresight of realizing
how much money that stuff would be worth.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
Yeah, yeah, I'm actually grateful. We have as much sort
of film footage from the hesterly that we do. WW
bought a lot that I think you know from the
grams that we didn't even know existed until they re
released it. But the only thing we have in video
form from then, and you've probably seen it by now,
Brian is is Terry in the Sportatorium. He's working with
I think Willem Ruska, he's working with Eddie, he's working
with Pat Patterson and they're just doing just doing drills

(31:35):
and he looks so lean. Terry does so young and
so like, you know, impressionable and kind of clumsy. But
he's doing some you know, he's doing O'Connor rolls, he's
doing some fairly complicated stuff. Well, what do you think
if you know what I'm talking about that? What what
are we seeing there? Is that just like sort of
the run of the mill training at the Sportatorium?

Speaker 4 (31:52):
What what is that? I actually I haven't seen that.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
I'd love to get it to you.

Speaker 4 (31:57):
Yeah, yeah, I'd love to see that. Because Eddie or
CWF they used to film in different places like if
there is an angle, I say, we were going to
do an angle in Jacksonville. Or something. You know, there'd
be a camera there filming. You may have heard the

(32:18):
story about Ernie Ladd and the Tire Irons with the
original brothers. Well that's because they were filming in Jacksonville
and Ernie was doing a job on his way out,
and he in the office promised him that, you know,
he wouldn't be filmed doing a job, and there the
camera was. You know, they would just have one hard

(32:38):
shot up higher up and maybe you know, like in
the cheaper seats somewhere in there, and you know, just film,
like I said, from one angle. But Ernie saw that
red light and that's what caused that incident.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
So they would deploy video camera to spot show so
to speak, if they knew they were going to shoot
an angle, but not every time. So that was kind
of like they tell exactly.

Speaker 4 (33:07):
So you know, unfortunately, gat there were so many great
matches that were never filmed. Oh yeah, oh gosh, just
tremendous matches that were just were never filmed. I mean
you can go back and look at some stuff with
like Dori Fonk Junior and Jack Brisco in the Bayfront
Center and some good things like god, I don't know

(33:28):
why they preserve. Probably those are preserved because they were
filmed separately from the standard studio wrestling shows.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
Yeah, that's an NWA world title match, so there's interest
across the country and having video of those probably, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:46):
And championship wrestling from Florida also went into New York, Yes,
which was big, and it allowed Eddie and Vince Senior
to work together a lot.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
Yeah, that's very evident, especially in the seventies when you
see Dusty going back and forth to the Garden and
then a lot of guys from down there and eventually Terry.
So when you guys came back to the locker room
in Chieflin after that rib was played on you, what
happened when you went to the curtain. Were you guys
hollering at people? Were they, you know, cracking beers and
saying congratulations, you just got initiated. How did that go?

Speaker 4 (34:21):
I remember there was a tounnel laughter. Everybody was belly laughing,
And I was really mad at the Briscos because I
knew they did it. I mean, they just they couldn't
pass up any kind of a rib and they didn't
want to fess up to it, of course, but that

(34:43):
was that's all I really remember is they were just
laughing at me and I couldn't hardly walk. I was
so tired and just drug out and beat up. It
was worse than a street fight, and it was it was.
It was really funny for the boys. So I'm glad they.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Got But did you get in anybody's face? Did you
scream at anybody even in the days following?

Speaker 4 (35:09):
No way, no way. One too hard to get to
that spot. So this is gonna take any kind of
crap they gave me, understood.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
One thing Terry says in his book, his second book,
about this whole episode is You mentioned he was writing
with Pat beforehand, and he got acquainted with Pat at
this point in time. He tells a whole story about
how Pat also ribbed him saying, you know, you got
to blow me to get into the business. And then
but I'm just kidding, and then we get to the
building and if I'm so, if you don't do that,
then after the match, all the boys are going to

(35:39):
grab you in the shower as part of that's what happened.
That's the initiation in a wrestling and Terry talks about
that being very much on his mind when he went
back to the curtain after wrestling you fantasy reality? What
do you say?

Speaker 4 (35:51):
That sounds like that exactly like that? He was terrible.
He was terrible the last time I saw how Heroes?
Why do you keep playing so hard to get? That?
Turns me on?

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Do you remember Terry ever being kind of shook up
mentally because of that? Because he talks about it in
his book like it really freaked him out, but he
talks about a lot of things like that really freaking
him out.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
Yeah, he didn't like it at all. I mean he could,
I could deal with it, but he didn't like He
really didn't like it. He didn't like to be ribbed.
He didn't like anything about that part of the business.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
Was he like me?

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Was he afraid that maybe, oh go ahead please, I
was probably gonna go down the same thing. I mean,
it sounds like he it seems like, I don't know,
he didn't like things kind of being like just kind
of jumped up on him, like you know, almost like
something coming from behind and and and like surprising him.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
Is that is that true?

Speaker 2 (36:47):
I mean, it's based on what you're saying and what
we've read that he just didn't like those kinds of
surprises kind of made a little paranoid almost.

Speaker 4 (36:54):
Yeah, it did, and that's very true. He was he
just wanted everything above board. You wanted to know what's
going on. He didn't want no surprises.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
You know, I want to know who's talking to who
I got you?

Speaker 4 (37:08):
Yeah? Yeah, so oh god, that brings so many memories.
You guys are awesome. He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast
with Jack and m JP Sorrow. He's a lapsed fan

(37:32):
wrestling podcast.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
Well, I mean, I hate to go here, Brian, but
I mean a lot of people have said this about
Pat and I always wondered if if he just says
it's a rib when the guy says no, and he
actually if the guy said yes, uh, it would become
much more real very quickly. I mean, I don't want
to be impolitic about it, but I always wonder a
lot of guys have this story about him. And of
course Terry Garvin like, do you think Pat, like if

(37:54):
if Hulk wasn't terrified by the suggestion, or wasn't wasn't
saying absolutely not the suggestion, that he still would have
called it a rib. I'm just messing with you.

Speaker 4 (38:06):
Yeah, you mean Pat saying I was just ribbing with you.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
Yeah, he says, I'm just ribbing when someone says no.
But if someone says yes, does he still say I
was just ribbing you. If you get my point.

Speaker 4 (38:14):
No, no, no, no, I've seen him in bed with
I'm not going to name the guy him. His boyfriend
was Louis don Darrah.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (38:23):
Yeah, My wife and I used to go over to
their house on occasions, and Louis was a great cook.
And I always liked Pat. I mean, Pat was a
great friend of mine. And you know, he hit on
me several times when he realized, you know, that he
was barking up the wrong tree, but he was still
cool with me. I mean he always and he was

(38:43):
a wealth of knowledge. So I love to just pick
his brain. And you know, I saw some matches with
him and Ray Stevens were a tremendous tag team. Yeah,
and they were over a big time in California and
other places. But Pat was a wealth of knowledge obviously.
You know, he's been the booker all over. He was
actually the booker in Florida for a while.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
Yeah, So he was helping Johnny Valentine when Terry Brooke.

Speaker 4 (39:07):
Right right, he was assistant booker. So anyway, Yeah, No,
he he was serious every time he propositioned somebody, and
he Pat was so smooth that he always had a
way to make if he feel felt like he made
somebody uncomfortable that he liked, he would go out of

(39:28):
his way to or say the right things to. I'm
just riven, you know the kind of things.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Do you remember, because I wasn't clear when you were
talking about it, did Terry come to you in particular
about Pat? Do you remember him saying anything new about that?

Speaker 4 (39:45):
Oh? A couple of times.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
He wasn't just a call it for us, because I
always wondered if that was something he kept to himself
or not.

Speaker 4 (39:51):
Well, he told me just about it. Anything he could
do to hear. I mean, I have some of the
deepest secrets in my heart. Terry and I were so closely.
I was in the hospital for three weeks. He called
me every day. Wow, every day. I mean I have
messages on my phone right now with his voice, and
I listened to him often. He was just golly. I

(40:17):
was with him the first when he met his wife, Linda.
You know, we were we got a went to a
hotel in La and uh, checked in. We were right
down the hall from each other, and Terry asked me
if I wanted to go to this bar called the
Red Onion, and I said, I'm gonna hang out tonight
and he said okay, took off and that's where he

(40:41):
met his wife Linda. He never showed up door and
oh Terry, no Terry, So I didn't know what when
did we have cell phones in?

Speaker 1 (40:50):
When did you very first meet Terry? Do you remember
the first day you? I mean, well, besides seeing him
in Ruckus, when did you first meet him and have
a conversation with him? I should say, I guess, well,
he talked to me.

Speaker 4 (41:01):
When I went up and talked to him, I was
you know, I had been a bartender at a hooker
bar called I swear the mons Venus world famous strip
club was back then, it was called the Huddle Lounge,
and a guy named Steele Steve Bennett and Rick Casarras,
a Chicago bear guy owned the lounge. And it was

(41:22):
an actual hooker bar, a gentleman's bar.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
They wow and.

Speaker 4 (41:27):
Like I said, it's called the Hoble Lounge. And anyway,
I was, I was pretty wise beyond my years, and
I grew up fast. I lived on my own since
I was thirteen. I'm sorry. I had a job since
I was thirteen. I lived on my own since I
was fifteen. Right before my sixteenth birthday, I moved out.

(41:48):
And I haven't been anywhere. I haven't had to rely
on anybody, but thank got it. But you know, Terry
would tell me so so many things that you know,
I mean, you've got my book. You could just read
what he wrote.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Yeah, that's true. So when you were bartending there, he
would come by. I had asked you when you have
very first talked to him.

Speaker 4 (42:16):
I don't remember the first time we had the very
first time. I know that I had seen him in
the armory, but I didn't talk to him there until later.
And then then the first time I went into the
other place when they went on break, I went up

(42:37):
to him. He was really nice. I just told him, hey, man,
you got a great look, and I loved the band
whatever something like that, and he started talking to me,
and that was the very first time we had exchanged words.
And then at the armory after that, later on we
would speak and it was like it became a friendship,

(43:00):
you know. I mean, he was older than me, a
few years older than me. Terry would be seventy two
right now.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
But so you're talking to him at the armory. So
it wasn't a total shock when suddenly he shows up
to train at the Sportatorium. It wasn't like, hey, I
remember you from Ruckus. Where have you been? You were
in touch with him and conversant with him all up
until that point.

Speaker 4 (43:25):
Yeah, and you know, the Briscoe has helped him out.
He always he wanted to be a wrestler. I mean
that was his and he told me that he wanted
to be a wrestler, and so did I. I mean
it was something that we both had in common. We
both wanted to be throw wrestlers. And so that's what
really sparked our friendship.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
Absolutely. So why is some because we're thinking of these
early days and we've been laughing as we've gone through
all the things Terry said and wrote about this time period.
He always brings up Mike Graham. He always brings up
Mike Graham didn't like me. Mike Graham was out to
get me, or Mike Graham was a jock and I wasn't.
And that accounts for why Matt Suda did what he
did to me. Can you can you help us understand
why Terry was so preoccupied with Mike Graham, because it

(44:08):
seems like Mike Graham, he was much older than Terry.
I don't think he were knew Terry in high school,
or if he did, it was in passing. Can you
talk about that dynamic with Mike.

Speaker 4 (44:19):
You know, I really don't know why him and Mike
had a lot of friction. He would say some negative
things to me once in a while about Mike, but
they were kind of shared feelings, you know, like he
would call it a midget. He had a midget, you know,

(44:40):
main event midget. He should be the midget. Mike was
kind of you know, he was a promoter's son, so
the owner of the owner's son, Eddie Graham, obviously his son.
He got the big pushes and all that. So and
Mike could be he didn't sugarcoat a lot of things.

(45:01):
I mean, I liked Mike and I was actually a
business partner. Is I don't have anything personally bad to
say about Mike, but I'm seeing be a dickhead to
a lot of people.

Speaker 1 (45:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (45:14):
Sure, and he didn't there's something about Terry. I mean,
he would never put him over. You know when I
say put him over, you know, say good things about.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
Her, say good things, not not in the ring, right
because I don't think they ever worked a program.

Speaker 4 (45:29):
Right, No, no, no, no, no no no, no no no,
I mean outside the ring. Do you think that that
was talking good? Yes?

Speaker 1 (45:35):
Do you think that talking bad about Terry went back
to even high school? Or did that only start when
Terry tried to break into the business.

Speaker 4 (45:43):
That I don't recall. I think it was more of
the business. You know, Terry in high school played baseball.
He was a good bowler. I just saw a guy,
Vic Pettitt.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
Oh yeah, we know Vick yep.

Speaker 4 (45:57):
Ye, who grew up with Terry in the early early days,
so you know, and Vic was a pro bowler. He
was on the Pro Bowling Tour. So Terry was into
bowling and so for sure just always going to be
a wrestler.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
Did do you think Terry had a harder time than
most coming through the met Pseuda system because of that
that lack that that friction with Mike Graham. Do you
think that's a fair thing to cite as to why
Terry went through what he went through or was that
just the way it broke out for him.

Speaker 4 (46:26):
No, he because it was it would believe me, guys,
it was hard on everybody. Yes, it was brutal. I
mean brutal. I can't even we have to get up
to doing five hundred push ups, five hundred Hindu squads,
one hundred at a time, wrestling for you know, ten twelve.
However much gas you had in your tank, he wouldn't say,

(46:48):
go till your tongue was hanging out. I'm stopping soil,
your tongue was hanging out. And there was absolute till
you were a defenseless and then he would go wrestle hook.
Yet after that, oh gosh. It was a brutal system.
And then you know, I didn't like to hurt people,
but you know, then I became when Bob Roup left,

(47:10):
I had to become the enforcer there, and they wanted
you to get blood or break something on everybody, and
I didn't like to do that. You know. It just
it was easier for me to just make him bleed
than hardwise than to break something, because they didn't want
the what they call the marks, the fans to go

(47:31):
and say, oh I went into it was easy, you know,
I went in too be a pro wrestler and tell
their friends it was easy. That was Eddie Graham's philosophy.
You know. He would always say, you know, if you
ever get your ass kicked by Mark, you're fire, and
if you get your ass kicked by one of the
other boys, it's okay.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
Well, when Terry broke in these early days, we have
that footage I mentioned showing how kind of lean he
was and how he just didn't have the build that
he would get later. But you know, Terry's been very
but about it as the years have turned. About Diana
Ball and how prominent that was. He was already a
gym rat when he was in Ruckus, even before he
became a wrestler. But it seems like when we read
between the lines Brian, as far as him going to

(48:10):
Coco Beach for a year, taking it off, looking up
with ed Leslie, and then coming back through Memphis and stuff,
that's when he really got massive. Do you remember Terry
using a lot of danaball in that early time when
you would have wrestled him or was he a lot
less defined? Because he looks big in the pictures in
your book, and then other pictures he doesn't look so big.
I'm just trying to figure out when he really jacked
that up and became this monstrous presence.

Speaker 4 (48:33):
I really don't know. I mean, we never we never
talked about steroids much. Oh yeah, very very seldom. It
was you know, that was his kind of like own
personal yeah deal. I mean I can honestly say, you know,
we you know, steroids were never the topic of conversation.
But back then you got to remember, you know, we're

(48:53):
in this sportatorium which is already over one hundred degrees,
well over one hundred degrees, and there with the big spotlight,
no air conditioning whatsoever, and they wouldn't turn the fan
on unless Hero couldn't take it anymore. It didn't matter
about anybody else. Or of course when they had the
exportatorium notches, they would turn the fans, but it was

(49:16):
already so how you did just stand there and get tired,
And now you got to remember all the things we're doing.
So he didn't have a chance to gain weight. He
lost a lot of weight from the first day he
was I mean I watched him in a couple months,
he must have lost twenty twenty five pounds.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
Was fascinating. Wow, he came in bigger than we see
him yet, because he does look like someone that's kind
of dehydrated as opposed to someone who hadn't put the
muscle on yet. And then you see the match, the
picture of the match against you, and I mean you
remember being in there with a guy with a lot
of definition, right, not a guy that was kind of skinny.

Speaker 4 (49:48):
No, no, no, a lot of definition. He was cut
up absolutely okay, that he was a right shape. Ryan.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
Do you have some more time or we run up
against your hard stuff. I want to be respectful of
your time. No, I'm good, okay, just let let us know.
Please don't hesitate. Thank you for that, because I do
want to get more into the Matt' suitas stuff. Because
this is another one. When you go through while Cogan's story,
there's fifteen different stories, it seems like, and I know
you have you been in situations with Jerry where you
guys have traded contradictory stories and maybe you were left

(50:17):
to think that maybe Hogan had more than one run
in with Matt Suda because the version he told you
doesn't match the version Jerry said. Just to recap you know, basically,
there's like three places I guess it could have been
the Sportatorium, which is where Jerry said that the leg
break happened. Matt Suit is Jim, which I believe is
where you say you heard it happened, and then Edie, right,

(50:38):
and I'm going to get to that, and I just
want to be clear on this. Ed Leslie talks in
this book about Matt Suda meeting him meeting Hogan at
a tailor shop down the street from the Brisco's body
shop that had some mats. Is that tailor shop with
the mats the same thing as what you're talking about
when you say Matt suit is Jim. Yeah, exactly, all right,
so it's only two places then, got it? The tailor
shop in the gym are the same place, now that
we have that clear. Yeah, So Jerry swears he was

(51:02):
there in the Sportatorium, Charlie Leigh, and of course everyone
else that was there is dead, so we can't really
ask them. And we heard which is part of probably
by design, and they roll near the ropes. You know, Jerry,
here's the snap and he was there and you weren't there,
blah blah blah, tell us about what you heard.

Speaker 4 (51:19):
I wasn't there, of course. Yeah, Yeah, no, Terry, I'm
just going by what Terry told me.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
And can you just recap for our listeners what Terry
has told you.

Speaker 4 (51:28):
He just suddenly Matt Sooner turned into a dick. That
was what they called him, a dick. He turned into
a dick and uh broke my ankle. You know, I
don't want to embellish that, but basically turned into a

(51:50):
real dick and broke my ankle.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
And then later you would say he didn't understand.

Speaker 4 (51:56):
He didn't under he didn't he thought it was a
real cheap thing, a.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
Real cheap thing. Yeah, because he describes it's described at
times as Terry is like wrestling around with Matt Suit.
And Terry was big, and Terry has stories back in
high school of him like taking down the high school
wrestling coach because he was so big even though he
didn't know how to wrestle. And here he is stuffing.
Perhaps Matt Suit is taked down and Matt Suit gets
a little pissed off and that's what led to the injury.
Is that how you understand it? Yes, yes, that's clear then.

(52:24):
So so that said, just to just to rewind, so
this happens in Matt Suit is Jim, and I know that.
You know, it's been said that you've confirmed that it
wasn't a break. Jerry swears it wasn't a break of
a bone or an ankle or anything like that, that
it was just a sprain. Did you remember anything more
specific as far as what actually happened to Terry's.

Speaker 4 (52:41):
Like he just said he broke my ankle.

Speaker 1 (52:45):
Hmm, that's what he said. Did you do you think
it was less severe than that?

Speaker 4 (52:54):
I can't say because I wasn't there. I don't want to,
you know, ambolish. Sure, Oh that's fair, spread anything that's false. Yeah,
so that's all I can really say.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
That's fair. Yeah, Jerry would come around and say it.
You know, it wasn't a break. It was just a
really bad, you know, spraining and they looked at X
Ray's or whatever and things like that.

Speaker 4 (53:12):
But that could have been you know, and I'm sure
you know, even Terry talking to me telling me the story,
he could say, a break sounds better than a really
bad strain, you know what I mean. It's banger. It's
still he's still telling the truth basically because he can't
walk on it, so it's broken.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
Yeah, Yeah, he doesn't have to be a doctor, you
know what I mean? Absolutely? Yeah, did you talk to
him about this years after it happened or do you
remember hearing about it when it happened?

Speaker 4 (53:44):
No, it was probably gosh, oh, I don't know, maybe
a year afterwards. Sure, it wasn't right afterwards.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
Did do you hold open the possibility that there were
two separate things that Jerry's talk about one ankle injury
and you're talking about another. That sounds very unlikely to me.
But I don't know, No, I don't.

Speaker 4 (54:07):
I don't think so. I think I don't know why
Terry would tell me well, beefcake or that it was
there and it wasn't. But I'm not going to call
it Gerald a liar. But although I've caught him and
had to give him proof on a couple of things.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
Obviously, Well it's wrestling, like you said, whereas and you
can imagine you guys are in the business, you guys
know each other and can't figure out half the time,
we as fans have no clue. We just know that
these two things can't be true at the same time,
or very unlikely to be true. Yeah, it'd be one
thing if it was just some guy, but we're talking
about whul Hogan story here, So like the biggest star ever,

(54:43):
these little details, people don't stop talking about them as
you can appreciate. So I wanted to ask you, I
have a theory here, tell me if I'm if you
think I'm off here, I kind of think looking at
all this, that Jerry and Jack to some degree were
part of the whole Mike Graham mentality of like, this
guy's kind of a goofball. He's clumsy, he's big and everything,

(55:04):
and while he does stand out, we kind of wouldn't
mind if he kind of quit. At the same time,
they didn't see much in him, and years later Jerry
would change the story around to make it seem like,
you know, they were just trying to test Terry but
saw big money in him, and that Terry bolted because
he wasn't getting bookings. And then Jerry has a story
about how I was given you bookings, Terry, but I

(55:25):
was given them to your mother and she wasn't passing.
That sounds like the kind of story you make up,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (55:32):
Ruth was a wonderful woman, Terry's mom. Both Pete and
his dad and his mom Ruth were tremendous people. I
They're at the top of my list for parents, great parents.
And Ruth would never ever not tell Terry something. I mean,
she couldn't wait to tell him anything. She was more

(55:53):
excited about his career than he was, So I can't
see her not giving him bookings.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
Got it. Yeah, that rhymes to me. It sounds like,
you know, Hulk Hogan became Hulk Hogan, and anybody who
didn't see that in him early kind of has egg
on their face, including potentially the Briscoes. So you have
to make up these little stories along the way to
counteract Terry's story that he didn't get bookings, when in reality,
when you look at the match listings, he didn't. He
never worked the Hesterly Armory and he was really kind
of spread out a lot. I'd imagine when Terry talks

(56:20):
about being frustrated by how much road work he had
to put in, how many miles he had to put
in without getting a lot of money, that that's probably true.

Speaker 4 (56:28):
Yes, yeah, well we did. I mean we would go
do three TV tapings and I think we got twenty
five bucks twenty five or thirty five dollars for that.
We worked a lot of shows for fifty bucks barely
cover your gas, it was. And then they'd always tell

(56:50):
you it's not how much how much you make, it's
how much you save. Kid, Right, well, Kerry.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
Can't save much when you're when you're spending it all
on gas going to and from the That's hilarious.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
Exactly exactly how much how much would Terry get taken
advantage of by the other boys? Taking advantage of is
probably the wrong way to put it, but you know
what I mean, jumping in his car and making him
pay for the ride, Harley Harley Ray, smashing beer cans
on his head, And was he kind of the butt
of jokes when he's driving these guys around the territory
in that first year?

Speaker 4 (57:21):
You know, I was it actually with Terry then? And
nobody's going to say these guys just rebeated that, well
would they? You know, they'll say they ribbed him.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
But I.

Speaker 4 (57:33):
There's a lot of guys that tried to borrow money
from him and things like that, if that's what you mean,
and didn't didn't pay him back. Yeah, it's uh, there's
a lot of people that took took advantage of him
like that.

Speaker 1 (57:50):
Yes, wow, Yeah, just on the road, Terry front me
some money and then you'd never heard from him again. Yep. Well,
he talked about that with his in a second book.
He talked about that even with his estranged brother Kenny,
who's actually from a prior for Yeah, I was.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
Gonna I was gonna ask about if you actually but
you go finish up. I was going to ask if
you knew if you ever spent much time with either
of of of Terry's brothers.

Speaker 4 (58:15):
I was with Terry when Alan, Well, I met Alan
first in l A.

Speaker 1 (58:23):
Then you're already at w w F. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (58:26):
Yeah, when we were in w w F is when
I met Alan. And I actually went with Terry when
Allan died, and he was torn up about that. Sure,
I never met Kenny.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
Never met Kenny, No, I don't. I don't think Terry
has met him very very often. But he does tell
a story this book about how one time, when Terry
hit it big, he blent Kenny some money and didn't
pay him back. So Terry h correct me if I'm wrong.
Brian kept very close notes about who stiffed him on
on owed money. For sure.

Speaker 4 (58:55):
Oh, he had a memory like an elephant. Terry had
the greatest memory I've ever seen is that movable memory? Oh, yes,
tremendous memory.

Speaker 1 (59:06):
Do you think some memory accounts for why he's so
you know what I mean, so cognizant of like being
taken advantage of and so afraid of it, or so
cautious I should say afraid might be too strong a word,
but so cautious about being taken advantage of, because he
remembers every little thing where anyone ever like crossed him,
anyone ever screwed him.

Speaker 4 (59:24):
Yeah, I think he totally remembers that. It's one thing
I feel good about. I've never asked him for a nickel.
And even though I don't get me wrong, he's bought
in a lot of dinners and stuff. Sure, my wife
and I and my family, he's he's been. He won't
let you pay. I mean in the later years, of course,
in the earlier years it was was different. But even

(59:46):
when he first went to ww F, my wife and
I went to their home him Linda, when they first
got Mary bought at condom in Connecticut, and it wasn't
it wasn't a condo. It was an actual house, but
it looks like it looked like a condo type area.

(01:00:06):
It's It was separate and detached and it was a
nice place. But him and Linda were going to fly somewhere,
so he and I had to go somewhere else. We
had been there for like four or five days, and
he gave me his car. He let us use his car.

(01:00:26):
I guess we had to go to New York or
something and he was going across to La or something,
a long way, so he had he just had a
car take him to the airport and men Linda and
left his car for me. I mean he was always
talking to look out, not just for me. I mean

(01:00:47):
he looked out for a lot of people. And he
was very generous. Uh when he when Terry started making money,
he was really generous with the people that he liked.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:01:01):
You can't say enough nice things about that. I was
ever like a cheap son of Evan, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
No, no, no, not cheap, but just very He kept
score as far as.

Speaker 4 (01:01:12):
Absolutely absolutely if somebody him he didn't, you know, he'd
still talk to him, but you weren't going to get anything.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
I think he takes the shots at everything. But over
across his two books, I think everyone who's ever screwed him,
he calls him out somewhere in very in very subtle ways,
like you said, but he gets he gets those receipts
in for sure. You agree. Okay, let me just ask
you a couple more, Brian Dusty. Okay, Dusty was the

(01:01:38):
king in Florida when Hogan came up. Hogan's always talked
about how much Dusty influenced him. We know, Dusty's all
over Florida TV as well as New York TV at
that time, cutting these amazing promos against Superstar and Graham's
coming back with promos. If you put the two together,
You've got Hogan's promo styles, so you can see how
influential they were on him as a as a younger
wrestling fan. But you know, I'm going through Dusty's book

(01:01:59):
and everything Dusty's ever said about Hogan at that time,
and it's there's almost nothing. He called him the yellow
foam finger guy or something he kind of uses like
a term that's dismissive of him, and he seems to
celebrate in his book. Dusty does that that Hogan never
wrestled at the hesterly that that's kind of something Dusty
holds up over Hogan did, did Dusty really was he
dismissive of Terry in those early days? Was he one

(01:02:20):
of those guys that didn't see it and then maybe
later changed his story about how he felt about Terry.

Speaker 4 (01:02:26):
Yes, yes, And I liked Virgil. He was Dusty's I
enjoyed Dusty. He was always fun to be around, always entertaining.
I really really liked him. And for some reason, he
was very jealousy Terry.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
Yeah, and it's just the way it was. Did that
jealousy come out when Terry hit a big in New York?
Are you saying even in the very beginning, because Terry
was so big.

Speaker 4 (01:02:57):
Well, Dusty extremely intelligent, he knew the business so so well.
I mean, too many people knew the business as well
as Dusty start to end, and we're as creative and innovative.
I can't say enough good things. As far as Dusty's talent,

(01:03:19):
it was amazing. But he protected his kingdom. But Terry
did the same, you know. I mean, when you get
up on top, I'll give you an example. And I
will never say anything bad about Terry because this is

(01:03:39):
but this is not bad. It may be controversial. Jesse
Ventura wanted to start a union and he got my
partner convinced my partner at that time, jumping Jim Burunzone.
I mean, he still do a lot of stuff, do
the wrong another six seven times this year. But you

(01:04:00):
take out that people still like this. Old guys said
Dusty would well that does see. I'm let me go
back to Jesse. I think about Jesse. I mean Dusty
when I'm talking about Jesse Jesse Ventura. You guys probably
heard this story. But he wanted to start the union.

(01:04:25):
Talk Brunziella into it, a few other people, and I said,
I said, Jimmy's harper, I'm calling we got to start
a union. We got nothing. We got nothing. I mean,
this is one of the reasons I run the charity
for progress. But they call it from rally come. But
I said that there is no way you can start

(01:04:45):
a union unless you get home and Manchel, you need
to get from the middle of the card up. Otherwise
it's just not gonna work. Oh yeah, welcome on. And
I said, no, Well, anyway, Terry wound up tell events.

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
Yes, And.

Speaker 4 (01:05:06):
You know that's a prime example of protecting. He wanted
to protect his spot, yes, right, which I'm glad he
did because he made us a ton of money. He
made us all a ton of money.

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):
And I mean I made.

Speaker 4 (01:05:26):
I made over two fifty just in my two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars I was making right at, right
at and over two hundred fifty thousand dollars plus my
my merchandise money in you know, the eighties.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
I mean that's a lot of money now, let alone
then yeah, yeah, So that's a great example. So you
have Hogan there, like, you know, even if he was
against the union, but to your point, like, you know,
if all the boys unionized, then everybody's pay would be
the subject of collective bargaining. In Hogan's pay probably would
have a scene on it compared to what he could
make if there wasn't such a thing. So that's you know,
fair play to him as far as what worked for

(01:06:05):
him in that position at that moment, you know, pushing
against unionization. And you know, maybe that's one of many
things he learned from Dusty right that if you're going
to be the top guy, you also have to make
little strategic moves along the way to make sure no
one else knocks you off your perch.

Speaker 4 (01:06:20):
Absolutely, I couldn't have said that matter. That's exactly right.

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
So do you think Dusty had an opinion about Terry
even back when he first broke in was wrestling you
in Chiefland? Or do you think Dusty barely cared about
Terry until he became a big star.

Speaker 4 (01:06:34):
I don't know that, because you know, Dusty was never
vocal about that, and I never saw him say anything derogatory.
But you know, what goes on in the office, nobody
really knows. So I know that he was, you know,
derogatory towards him later on when Terry really hit it big,
But in the beginning, I'm not sure. Yeah, there was
somebody in the office. Somebody didn't Mike had to be Mike.

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
There's probably Mike, let's be honest. Yeah, I mean, I
mean the reason I know, the reason I would say
that is because that's or Terry would point too. I
would think if you if you cornered him, I mean,
he brings it up often. But I was curious about
that because you know, I think a big part, an
undertold part of Terry's story, Brian is who actually saw him?
Did anyone really see star in him? Or did everyone

(01:07:19):
make up that they saw star in him after he
became one?

Speaker 4 (01:07:25):
I think it was more after he became one and
then yeah, once he you know, the Thunderlips deal, you know,
really put him on the map, you know, the move
doing that movie really really really bolstered his career. It

(01:07:47):
was a very wise thing to do, very wise, no question,
you know. But I I knew, I knew Terry was
going to be a star very early because he just
had it all. You know, he could hearing him imitate
Dusty and the things that I saw him do and

(01:08:11):
could do in the ring. He was just charismatic. He
he was like a step ahead. You know, he grew
up street smart. You can get all the college education
you want, but there's nothing like street smart. When you're
street smart, it just helps in everything. And you just
got to survive the street. But you know, he was

(01:08:32):
in and bars every night, dives in different places, and
he saw a lot of things young and that helped him,
you know, be the person that he is. Was. Uh,
he just you know, took all that stuff and became

(01:08:53):
hul Kog. And what he learned from Dusty and Superstar
Billy Graham. He loves Superstar Billie Graham was Yeah, he
loved watching that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
Yeah, we're going to get to the point where it
seems like after Hogan goes to Coco Beach with ed
Leslie and gives up the business for a year and
then comes back that his first phone call wasn't Jerry
and Jack, it wasn't Eddie Graham. It was one thing though,
did you hear any any stories about the Cocoa Beach period?
Have you ever heard any stories about that?

Speaker 4 (01:09:24):
I don't recall at the second.

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
This just seems just from what we've kind of uncovered,
it seems like they're like a lot of stuff. Yeah,
he had a colorful run out there with Eddie Leslie.
So and he really he really cut ties with Tampa
like he was and doesn't sound like to people that
don't know Florida, like it's that far away. But but
that's like a real, like I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
Leaving this business behind potentially kind of move.

Speaker 4 (01:09:48):
Yeah. Yeah, he was fed up. I know, That's what
he told me. He was just fed up and tired
of the backstabbing. It was just, you know, wanted to
do his own thing for a while. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
Yeah, that definitely becomes clear in what I was saying,
was that when he decides to dip his toe back
into wrestling the way he tells the stories, he called
Superstar and then he gets hooked up with Louis Tulay
in Gulf Coast. He doesn't go back to the circuit.
He ends up back in Florida and circulation eventually, but
his first phone call a Superstar. Then we know where
that goes. We'll see, we'll see how that all factors

(01:10:25):
in when we get there. But I want to leave you, Brian,
with that question about you know what frustrated Terry. You
kind of got there already to to leave. I mean,
if you were to be as specific as you can
be with us about why Terry ultimately decided to not
only quit Championship Wrestling from Florida that first time, but
quit wrestling altogether, what would you tell us? What do
you really think bothered him the most about his first

(01:10:47):
experience in the business, That.

Speaker 4 (01:10:50):
They were just keeping him down and not using and
not trying to be creative with him, not trying to
do anything with him, just keeping him down, putting him,
you know, keeping him out the opening match, second match,
you know, just not giving him a break and not
showing him a future.

Speaker 1 (01:11:11):
And and why do you think they weren't doing that
probably jealousy, jealousy about what I mean, he hadn't done
anything in the business yet.

Speaker 4 (01:11:21):
Yeah, but he had all the tools. I mean he
looks what they did with me. I mean, became two
times Florida heavyweight champion. I was hvery champion, Southern eavyweight champion,
two time tag team champion, and you know, worked with

(01:11:42):
Flair and Funk and uh so, you know, and I
couldn't hold Terry's jockstrap as far as putting people in seats,
and that's what it's all about. He had that flare,
that charisma that just was so you nique, you could
just a blind man could see it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):
He just.

Speaker 4 (01:12:07):
Granted he wasn't Hulk Hogan then, and he wasn't uh
nearly as polished, and he, you know, Hulk Hogan became.
He kind of turned hop Hogan a piece by piece
into what he was, you know, from saying the prayers
the right promo was saying the prayers, taking the vinumin.

(01:12:29):
I mean, he could do a promo on the drop
of a dime, that was and he had that look
that you know, look at Hogan. He I mean there's
a guy six six h son tan built unbelievable, handsome,
He's got everything, I mean all the tools, he's athletic,

(01:12:51):
h and he just he was so unique and so
entertaining that people flocked to see him. And it's very
you know, nowadays they can you can take half the card.

(01:13:12):
I would say half of the card you could take
right now in WWE and make them the top draw
because of all the props and gimmicks and storylines they
have in all the different ways. Back then, you couldn't
do that. They didn't have all the all the lights,
the pazazz and all that stuff.

Speaker 6 (01:13:32):
Now granted, you know, he go look at the A
w A where he got over like huge, huge, I
mean that caused vern Gania's whole territory, so you know,
and that was a great, great territory, one of the
best territories in America during the Territories DA Territory days,
and Hogan was it was he was the draw.

Speaker 4 (01:13:56):
But and you know, he didn't have the the luxury
of all the production value that WWE has now. Can
you imagine if he had that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:09):
Then, oh god, I think what I'm coming around to
finally here, Brian in trying to understand this whole thing,
and hearing you tell it, I think you really clicked
it in. For me is that the reason so many
people who are around when Terry first broke into the
business could lay claim later to saying they always saw
a superstar in him is because of those attributes that

(01:14:30):
you're speaking of, the height, the promos, the charisma, the
look which was evident on stage with Ruckus, let alone
in the wrestling business. But I guess the second part
of that is, yeah, you can say you saw star
in him from the beginning and tell the truth. But
the second part of that is what did you do
in response to that? Did you consider him too much
of a threat and try to drum him out and
come up with excuses around initiations to do that, or

(01:14:53):
did you lean in? And I think it's very clear
that the decision makers at Champs, depressing from Florida at
the time Terry broke in, did not lean in, did
not try to do anything substantial with him and shows,
and chose to see him as more of a threat
than a potential cash cow. Agreed, all right, we've jp.
I think we actually achieved a thesis here. I think

(01:15:16):
so too. I think so too. That was amazing all right, Well, Brian,
appreciate you. I'm so glad you took the time for us.
And as you mentioned, and I failed to mention at
the beginning, Brian is also president of the Cauliflower Alley Club,
which longtime fans will know is such an important organization
for retired wrestlers, for wrestlers in their sunset years, and
that the convention that you guys do always seems to

(01:15:38):
be such a nice occasion and it's really a feel
good part of a business that can be very unkind
to these wrestlers when they retire. So I want to
thank you for that service as well. Maybe one day
we'll see you at one of those things, and I
want to thank you so much for taking the time
here on the LABS.

Speaker 4 (01:15:51):
Fan absolutely got a great program. Keep it up, guys.
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