March 15, 2022 • 24 mins
Anonymous phone calls from Wrestling Fans all over the world.
Curated by AEW Wrestler, Colt Cabana.
Be a part of the show by calling:
87-CABANA-34 (872-222-6234)
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www.ColtCabana.com
Music by:
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Podcast Art by:
instagram.com/Donna619
Curated by AEW Wrestler, Colt Cabana.
Be a part of the show by calling:
87-CABANA-34 (872-222-6234)
or sending a voice memo to:
87CABANA34@gmail.com
Two Bonus Shows A Month:
www.Patreon.com/ColtCabana
www.ColtMerch.com
www.ColtCabana.com
Music by:
twitter.com/MattKoonMusic
Podcast Art by:
instagram.com/Donna619
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Wrestling Anonymous. Please hold Welcome toWrestling Anonymous, the pro wrestling Hotline show
where the caller calls in a storyof wrestling past, funny, serious,
frustrating or wonderful, and I yourhost and curator, pro wrestler Colt Cabana,
edit, direct, organize, andproduce them into a fun little podcast
(00:24):
that's easy on the ears. Lastweek I did take a week off because
there weren't enough calls. So ifthat happens, just know we're short on
calls, and once they come in, I'll make sure there's an episode to
listen to. Numbers wise on thepodcast, we're doing okay, but I
do realize that more calls come inas the show grows, gets bigger,
(00:47):
gets new audience members, new experiencesfrom the listeners. So please rate reviews,
subscribe on Apple and Spotify, spreadthe word via social media. Patreon
is such a great way to suppor. There is enough calls to put
out two bonus shows a month onthe first and the fifteenth. It's only
five dollars. You can also listento the show add free over on Patreon.
(01:10):
Tell a friend to call in theirstory, or a friend's friend or
a relative or an enemy, orwhat about you? Maybe something fun happened
at the AW FanFest last week orover at Maxcaster's concert. Did you see
anyone fun at Universal? Why theAW crew was in Florida? What about
at a Batman Midnight premiere? Areyou stuck in the middle of one of
(01:32):
Ethan Page's toy vlogs? Well,if you were, there's two very easy
ways to share that story with theworld. Email a voice memo to eighty
seven Cabana thirty four at gmail dotcom. Or pick up the phone dial
eighty seven Cabana thirty four. That'seight seven two two two two sixty two
thirty four. Eighty seven Cabana thirtyfour is the number. Give it a
(01:55):
call, leave a message after they'dbe wrestling anonymous, please hold. In
(02:16):
the summer of the late nineties inSux City, Iowa. It was before
the Rock was really big. Itwas kind of at that point where nobody
really liked him, and I droveabout three hours up to see just a
general half show, and I alwaysgot there early and tried to get autographs.
So I was in the back gettingautographs. I got a couple and
(02:38):
a Rock kicked out and he comesdown the line and he starts autographing for
everybody, and I said something thatis so incredibly rude, total cringe.
I was young, don't judge me. But he grabs my paper and I
say, hey, I don't wantthat, and he cocks his head,
looks up at me, does theeyebrow thing, and says you will one
(02:59):
day and down the line seven bucksin his pocket. Oh my god.
Well, at least you can callup an anonymous podcast years years, years
later and admit to your defeat,admit your fault, admit when you were
wrong. That's like the one guy, the one guy that I think you
(03:20):
would want right now at this moment. I mean season two of The Young
Rock. He's going to be president, a friendship with Kevin Hart that can't
be denied, and a WrestleMania versusJohn Cena that will forever go down in
history. I'll tell you what,caller, I'll let you in on a
little bit of a secret. Alot of people know that I was at
WrestleMania thirteen where I was involved inthe Chicago street fight between the Legion of
(03:44):
Doom and I'm at Johnson versus theNation of Domination, and I took part
of the Domination's team, as Igave Road Warrior Hawk a couple of my
best work punches for being a sixteenyear old kid. But on that show
was probably the same era Rocky thatyou're talking about wrestling the Sultan. And
although smart little wrestling fan colts atthe time knew that Rocky my Via had
(04:06):
a lot of potential, he didnot like Rocky my Avia and he might
have been a little loud about itas a wrestling fan at WrestleMania thirteen when
he was sixteen years old. Idon't think I would have denied an autograph
at the time. You took itone step further, but you stuck to
your guns. You were gonna hateRocky and the Rocky character and you didn't
(04:27):
even want that autograph. I havea feeling he was right and you were
wrong, and I'm glad you couldadmit it. It's late March nineteen ninety
nine and my dad picked me upfrom school and surprises me with tickets to
Monday Night rock The seats were onthe aisle like the rampway aisle. Thought
a few rows back. I'm elevenyears old and this was kind of my
(04:49):
third or fourth show. My dadjust came back to the seats with my
brand new Degeneration X Suck a shirt, which I immediately put on. The
boss his son and if People's champcame out. Just then, a fucking
beer truck comes pulling into the arena. And who was driving that truck none
other than Stone Cold Steve Austin.And I'm wondering, what the hell is
(05:13):
he going to do? Now.I'm on the driver's side of this truck
about a few rows back. Sohe grabs a hose and starts spraying.
I get a big wave of justbeard dumping over me just before he starts
aiming it at the rent. Igot soaked. Side note, my parents
were recently divorced, so after theshow, my dad had to bring me
(05:34):
home and he really wasn't on goodterms with my mom at the time,
so when I showed up with myDegeneration Next Sucker shirt and my shirt breaking
of alcohol, my mom gave hima verbal beating I have never heard in
my entire life to this day.Ah the attitude era, classic classic attitude
(05:56):
era. I was gonna say Ididn't know or say think that that chuck
was full of beer. I wouldhave only assumed it was water being sold
as beer or colored water or whatever. But based off of this call alone,
we now know that it was beer. Didn't do we not think about
children being in the crowd beer beingtossed at them by the gallon? I
(06:23):
guess it was just a crazy timein wrestling. The attitudes were so sharp.
It was the attitude era. Theydidn't care one bit. I mean,
this story could be about one kidat a show getting bathed in stone
cold Steve Austin's beer. Or itcould also be about one father divorcing a
(06:44):
woman and how they spend their timewith their children together. Is it appropriate
or is it inappropriate? Who amI to judge? I know the mother
did and maybe she was in theright, But us wrestling fans, we're
gonna say not at all. Letwatch wrestling. Let him buy a sucket
shirt. In two thousand and one, Glacier a ka. Ray Lloyd was
(07:10):
doing as signing at my local mallfor Basking Robins and the Children's Miracle Network.
He had a table set up.I go and I say, hey,
Ray, Hey doing blah blah blah. I start trading stories. Before
he had his abcw run. Hewould do Georgia independent stuff. So I
was familiar with him and we wereevent buddies, if you will. So
(07:32):
I asked him for a eight byten. He signed it. He writes
my name on the autograph about metelling him, and I'm like, oh,
wow, you remember my name,and he gives me this odd look.
That's when I realized, now Iwas still wearing my cracker barrel work
(07:53):
uniform with my apron that had myname on it. Now, if that
was me, honestly, I wouldhave ever told you that I looked at
your apron and saw your name.I would just be like, of course,
you think I wouldn't have remembered you. I know you see me as
a man who was supposed to bethe next WCW legend and might have fizzled
out before he should have. ButI'm also a person with a heart,
(08:16):
and everybody is somebody, and wedid those events together, and I remember
you. You are special and hopethat either A you would go back and
have that memory for the rest ofyour life, or B get to the
car, look at your apron,see your name tag and be like fucking
cult always the jokester, but Glaciernot necessarily played it down the middle Glacier
(08:41):
who I have seen it at acouple of aws. He's always backstage,
hanging out. Always good to havea friend, good guy remembers me and
knows my name. I feel alittle good about that. As a kid
who was watching WCW when that washappening, I feel good about that.
And you know what, you feltgood about him knowing your name, even
if it was for a second wrestlingAnonymous, please hold for sponsors. When
(09:07):
I was in high school, Iwas dating a girl and I've been a
lifelong wrestling fan for a real longtime. Obviously she knew that, and
she would always tell me, ohmy cousin married or a wrestler. We've
got to his show, so youknow, I'm thinking independence obviously, and
then come to find out he getssigned to NXT. So what I'm talking
about is galis though. And thecoolest thing about it is her cousin looked
(09:31):
close to us, and they wouldalways do family parties and he would always
be there unmasked obviously and just hangingout with the kids, or he would
show up sometimes it was like Christmaswith Thanksgiving in full out gear and just
take pictures of everybody in sign autographs. So I was in Dollar Tree,
just standing in line, and somebodytapped me on the shoulder and it was
(09:52):
him and his wife her cousin andjust said hi to me. And it
was just the coolest experience. Andeventually me and the girl broke up,
and that was this, like notthe coolest thing because not knowing the ARRESTA
up, being in close contact withArresta was so cool. A heartbreaking experience
because it wasn't a breakup, butI cared about it was being close to
(10:13):
Arresta. That was pretty awesome.I like that one. I like that
you broke up with Kalisto. Iknow it was hard. Kalisto was part
of your family and now nothing.You and Kalisto had to go your separate
ways. Sure that girl also wasn'ta part of your life anymore. I
(10:33):
guess we could chalk that up toyoung high school love, but not you
and Kalisto. That was meant tobe your heart breaks. I hope you
can get over this. I knowit's a lot of trauma. I know
I'm being therapeutic by allowing you tocall up this show and speak about it,
speak about the hurt of that brutal, brutal breakup. I hope you
(10:56):
get over it, and hey,maybe one day you'll a girl whose cousins
friend's daughter is Lindsay Doorado. Orn'tme police it was from Chicago. Maybe
I'll be part of your family.That'd be fun. But I ain't shopping
at the dollar Tree. Let's behonest. I'm shopping at the dollar Tree.
(11:18):
The school year was nineteen ninety fournineteen ninety five. I was a
senior in high school. Me andmy friends in Memphis, Tennessee were huge
wrestling fans. We were at theMid South Coliseum in the very end days
of Memphis wrestling when they would goto the Mid South Coliseum on Monday nights.
(11:41):
We were there almost every week.We went to a very small high
school in Memphis, Tennessee, wheremost of my friends and I played football,
baseball, or soccer. But inthe winter months we would participate in
the schools musical theater production. Oursenior year. The production was going to
(12:03):
be a little Shop of horrors.The only caveat was if we wanted to
get to plant costume, which ifyou've ever seen the play, it's a
huge costume we would have to paya certain amount of money to a local
theater company to buy it. Ouridea to raise money was to put on
(12:24):
a wrestling show for our entire highschool. So myself and five friends practiced
four months and got a ring fromlocal legend Phil Hickerson. He rented it
to us and we finally put onthis production in front of our entire high
(12:45):
school. We had managers, areferee, ring announcer. We had a
run in by bad who was aphotographer who ended up helping the heel team
to steal the victory from the babyFaces. So we raised enough money putting
on this wrestling production for us tobuy the plant costume, and I put
(13:09):
on the production of Little Shop ofHorse. This was Derek King, local
Memphis wrestler for twenty five years.It was Derek King's first ever wrestling match
in front of a crowd there withus putting on this show for our school.
Okay, I do have a lotof questions, but right off the
(13:31):
top, it makes so much senseto me that you are part of the
theater team and you understood to putlittle storylines together and how to make these
little scenes within a wrestling show interms of the heel manager and the coach
and the assistant to the principle andall of this stuff. I love that
that's where your head was, andyou made essentially a play with wrestling as
(13:56):
the acting or the heart of it. And you made the play in order
for you to be able to puton the play, which is great.
The questions come in when you sayyou were practicing, and I assumed it
was just all your high school friends, but then local legend Derek King,
one of Jerry Lawler's favorite wrestler ever, he all of a sudden, is
(14:18):
part of this show. I thoughtit was all your high school friends.
Or did he go to that highschool and then eventually go on to train
to wrestle, because it seems likeyou weren't necessarily really training to be wrestlers.
You're just wrestling fans and you figuredthat the basic idea out of it,
although you know, don't try thisat home, blah blah blah.
So I'm so confused if it wasjust like kids at the high school and
(14:39):
then sprinkled in with local wrestlers,although you would look so bad at that
point, but maybe that's the point. I don't know. Either way,
I love that you were part ofthat era. You would go to those
shows. It's a very historic timeand professional wrestling. They were selling out
the Memphis Coliseum and also in Memphislike doing small tiny house show and willing
(15:01):
to rent a ring to kids ata high school. They didn't care as
long as money came in. That'slike Memphis's catchphrase, as long as the
money is coming in. You didthat for others, and then others did
that for you as you raised enoughand Seymour was able to be fed.
Is that the right reference? Feedme Seymour? Oh, Seymour did the
feeding. Beautiful got there wrestling anonymous? Please hold for sponsors. So the
(15:28):
year was nineteen ninety six and mybrother and I were huge wrestling fans.
I would have been about seven yearsold at the time and he would have
been around twelve. The WWF wasscheduled to run a house show where we
lived, which was an extremely bigdeal for us, considering live wrestling shows
were not a common occurrence here inNorthern British Columbia. To promote the show,
Shawn Michaels was doing an autograph signingat our local Zellers, which doesn't
even exist anymore, but was essentiallythe Canadian version of Target. Somewhere along
(15:52):
the line, we heard that SavioVega would be doing a signing at Burger
King the same day. Now,being huge wrestling fans, we were beyond
pumped just to have the chance tomeet anyone in the WF and we agreed
that there would likely be a muchbigger crowd to go CEHBK, so we
opted for Savio Vega at Burger Kinginstead. That way, we figured we'd
get more FaceTime and interaction. Sothat day came and our mom drove us
(16:12):
to Burger King after school, butto our surprise and confusion, there was
no signage, no crowd, andno real indication that Savio Vega was even
supposed to be there. We waitedaround for a bit and resorted to even
going back out to the parking lotto look around, where we saw a
car with a budget rental car stickeron the bumper and thought, that's a
rental car. It's gotta be Saviovegas car. So we went back inside,
(16:33):
but still nothing. The more wethought about it, the more we
realized that it may have just beensome kid at school who told us this
signing was occurring, and we didn'tbother to fact check it. It was
at that point that we just gaveup and decided to leave. The Next
day at school, we were veryjealous hearing about all the kids who got
to meet Shawn Michaels at Zeller's tosnap a picture or get an autograph.
Apparently Earl Hebner was even there too, letting kids hold the w F Championship.
(16:56):
We were too embarrassed to say thatwe were at an empty Burger King
instead, so we just enviously listened. So fast forward to today, and
I'm still a huge dressing fan.I have a collection of autographed eight by
tens, and if there's one positivethat the pandemic has brought, it's the
concept of virtual signings. These havemade getting signed eight by tens much easier
for a fan like me who livestoo far away to go to conventions.
(17:17):
Salvio Vagos announced for an upcoming virtualsigning, and I knew I had to
get one from him to pop essentiallyjust myself. In my order, I
requested that he write Burger King nineteenninety six on the eight by ten to
commemorate that fateful day. I wasn'table to watch the signing live. But
when I caught up on the streamand it came to my turn, I
saw that he addressed the photo tome, just like I asked. Then
(17:37):
an era appropriate blue sharpie wrote BurgerKing nineteen ninety six in big, beautiful
writing, just as I had asked. I don't know whether it was the
result of the unusual inscription request orwhat, but he forgot to actually sign
his autograph. Unfortunately, the vendordidn't notice, and since I wasn't watching
the stream live, I couldn't evencomment in the feed for it to be
corrected. So for the second timein my life, twenty five years later,
(17:59):
all I got was Burger King,but still no Savio Vega. This
is a two for two great stories, one great call having to do with
the exact same thing great call.I remember doing the same thing with Owen
Hart and Davey boy Smith at Toysr US and Psycho Sid over at the
(18:19):
Sam Goody. We decided to gosee Owen and Davy first, we waited
online for about an hour and ahalf, went over to sid. Nobody
was over there except one of thehappeners. Just like in your situation,
so I got both, you gotnone. I really love you wanted that
inscription, Burger King. I'm sureyou would have shown your friend or a
couple of friends or whatever, ortold that story. This is a great
(18:42):
This is a great thing about thosekind of autographs and those signatures is you
can make up for lost time,and that's what you were doing. I'm
sorry you missed out on your secondSavio Vega autograph, but as someone who
has done an art of wrestling withSavio Vega and has seen him around and
even wrestled for him back in twothousand and five, and perto Rico,
he's a great dude, I'm sureeventually you will get your Savio Vega autograph.
(19:06):
That's a lot to you. WhenI think of a villain, I
think of Dutch Savage. He didn'tspeak to him unless he spoke to you.
He loved to watch other matches,and he didn't like to be disturbed.
This one situation I can recall washe was standing there in the hall
looking through watching intensely at one ofthe matches, and this lady was coming
(19:30):
down the whole dragging his kid,and he was screaming and yelling and give
us a mother a hard time.He's just disturbing everybody. Dutch kind of
looked over him, went back tothe match and looked over and as he
got closer, the mother was justbegging the kid, and Dutch turned and
the kid looked at him, andDutch just blew up and yelled at him.
(19:51):
You listen to your mother. Shebrought you here. You don't listen
to her, You're going to haveto deal with me. That kid froze
Big Guys, jumped into his mother'sarms, screaming, yes, mummy,
mummy. She dragged him off tothe seat, nodded to dude and said,
(20:11):
thank you. You know that youcan see the wink of his eye,
and then he went back to thematch. You could picture it like
in a movie, the mouthing ofthe lips, thank you, thank you
for telling my little shitty kid toshut the fuck up. And then just
like at nod and a captain's salutefrom Dutch Savage to the woman. You
know, this was the wrestling grandpatelling a story about basically the babysitter Dutch
(20:36):
Savage, Portland wrestling legend, bythe way, and we love wrestling Grandpa's
stories, and this was just aclassic story of a heel playing the job
of a heel outside of the ringfor something very important, and that's a
life lesson to that kid. Hewasn't healing the mom, he was saving
the mom. So essentially he wasa baby face in all true forms.
(21:00):
But he had the power of beinga mean, mean man and he used
it to his advantage for the good. And that says something about heels wrestlers,
and most importantly, Dutch Savage oneof the good guys while being one
of the bad guys. Wrestling Anonymous. Please hold for the credits. Hey,
(21:22):
thanks for listening to this week's episodeof Wrestling Anonymous. Today's show was
edited and produced by myself in mystudio apartment in Chicago, Illinois. Music
is by Matt Coon. Music onTwitter, podcast cover art by Donna six
one nine on Instagram. Voiceover workby at Sarah Joy Shockey. I'm also
on social media Twitter, Instagram,Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. Everything
(21:47):
is at Cold Cabana. A brandnew art of wrestling came out last week
with Luther, and there's two othernew ones, one with Alex Reynolds and
one live from Sydney, Australia.In April seventeenth, were doing a live
one from Chicago with the throw ofTalking Shop. Also make sure to binge
Pro Wrestling Fringe, the podcast shortstories about the weird fringe things and wrestling.
(22:07):
Listen to all the past Art ofWrestling archives. They are available on
the Art of Wrestling podcast feed,where you can download them all with ads
for free, or grab them adfree over on my Patreon, Patreon dot
com. Slash Cold Cabana sign upnow at the ten dollar tier and you'll
get a vinyl sticker sent to yourhouse. I'll also personally write your address
and give you a fun nickname.Or sign up at the twenty dollars tier
(22:27):
where I'll send you an autographs swearword each month too. Colect them all
plus the first and the fifteenth ofthe month, new different bonus calls hit
the Patreon and I do those bonuscalls live to subscribers of my twitch.
Twitch is free, but the subscribersget so many more bonuses. Twitch dot
Tv. Slash Cool Cabana join thefun community of video games and other silliness.
(22:48):
All of my shirts and custom videomessages are available at pro wrestling tis
dot com. Slash Coldcabana and coltmergdot com is where you can buy all
of my other Cold Cabana merch includingsigned upper dot combanda cards from my personal
collection some other goodies over there.I print out the labels myself. I
ship it out myself. It's alwaysdy information and updates on live independent shows,
(23:11):
like my appearance this Sunday at GloryPro Wrestling in Saint Louis. That's
March twentieth. Glory Pro Wrestling dotcom. Go to Koltcabata dot com for
all of those details. Up Soon, we'll be information of a live Chicago
podcast at the North Bar. It'sgonna be a double feature art of wrestling
first, Talking Shop second. Keepup to date on mine and the Talking
(23:34):
Shop boys social media. That's Gallows, Rocky and Carl the Machine Gun Anderson
aw is gonna be touring Texas,South Carolina and more. Take an information
and information on. You can watchAll Elite every Wednesday and Friday night on
TNT and TBS, Monday and Tuesdayon YouTube. Head on over to All
Elite Wrestling dot com. Eighty sevencombanda thirty four is the number. That's
(23:56):
eight seven two two two two sixtytwo thirty four or email a voice memo
to eighty seven Cabana thirty four atgmail dot com. The show It only
works if you give it a call, So give it a call please and
thanks, Thank you for calling.Goodbye,
Wrestling Anonymous. Please hold Welcome toWrestling Anonymous, the pro wrestling Hotline show
where the caller calls in a storyof wrestling past, funny, serious,
frustrating or wonderful, and I yourhost and curator, pro wrestler Colt Cabana,
edit, direct, organize, andproduce them into a fun little podcast
(00:24):
that's easy on the ears. Lastweek I did take a week off because
there weren't enough calls. So ifthat happens, just know we're short on
calls, and once they come in, I'll make sure there's an episode to
listen to. Numbers wise on thepodcast, we're doing okay, but I
do realize that more calls come inas the show grows, gets bigger,
(00:47):
gets new audience members, new experiencesfrom the listeners. So please rate reviews,
subscribe on Apple and Spotify, spreadthe word via social media. Patreon
is such a great way to suppor. There is enough calls to put
out two bonus shows a month onthe first and the fifteenth. It's only
five dollars. You can also listento the show add free over on Patreon.
(01:10):
Tell a friend to call in theirstory, or a friend's friend or
a relative or an enemy, orwhat about you? Maybe something fun happened
at the AW FanFest last week orover at Maxcaster's concert. Did you see
anyone fun at Universal? Why theAW crew was in Florida? What about
at a Batman Midnight premiere? Areyou stuck in the middle of one of
(01:32):
Ethan Page's toy vlogs? Well,if you were, there's two very easy
ways to share that story with theworld. Email a voice memo to eighty
seven Cabana thirty four at gmail dotcom. Or pick up the phone dial
eighty seven Cabana thirty four. That'seight seven two two two two sixty two
thirty four. Eighty seven Cabana thirtyfour is the number. Give it a
(01:55):
call, leave a message after they'dbe wrestling anonymous, please hold. In
(02:16):
the summer of the late nineties inSux City, Iowa. It was before
the Rock was really big. Itwas kind of at that point where nobody
really liked him, and I droveabout three hours up to see just a
general half show, and I alwaysgot there early and tried to get autographs.
So I was in the back gettingautographs. I got a couple and
(02:38):
a Rock kicked out and he comesdown the line and he starts autographing for
everybody, and I said something thatis so incredibly rude, total cringe.
I was young, don't judge me. But he grabs my paper and I
say, hey, I don't wantthat, and he cocks his head,
looks up at me, does theeyebrow thing, and says you will one
(02:59):
day and down the line seven bucksin his pocket. Oh my god.
Well, at least you can callup an anonymous podcast years years, years
later and admit to your defeat,admit your fault, admit when you were
wrong. That's like the one guy, the one guy that I think you
(03:20):
would want right now at this moment. I mean season two of The Young
Rock. He's going to be president, a friendship with Kevin Hart that can't
be denied, and a WrestleMania versusJohn Cena that will forever go down in
history. I'll tell you what,caller, I'll let you in on a
little bit of a secret. Alot of people know that I was at
WrestleMania thirteen where I was involved inthe Chicago street fight between the Legion of
(03:44):
Doom and I'm at Johnson versus theNation of Domination, and I took part
of the Domination's team, as Igave Road Warrior Hawk a couple of my
best work punches for being a sixteenyear old kid. But on that show
was probably the same era Rocky thatyou're talking about wrestling the Sultan. And
although smart little wrestling fan colts atthe time knew that Rocky my Via had
(04:06):
a lot of potential, he didnot like Rocky my Avia and he might
have been a little loud about itas a wrestling fan at WrestleMania thirteen when
he was sixteen years old. Idon't think I would have denied an autograph
at the time. You took itone step further, but you stuck to
your guns. You were gonna hateRocky and the Rocky character and you didn't
(04:27):
even want that autograph. I havea feeling he was right and you were
wrong, and I'm glad you couldadmit it. It's late March nineteen ninety
nine and my dad picked me upfrom school and surprises me with tickets to
Monday Night rock The seats were onthe aisle like the rampway aisle. Thought
a few rows back. I'm elevenyears old and this was kind of my
(04:49):
third or fourth show. My dadjust came back to the seats with my
brand new Degeneration X Suck a shirt, which I immediately put on. The
boss his son and if People's champcame out. Just then, a fucking
beer truck comes pulling into the arena. And who was driving that truck none
other than Stone Cold Steve Austin.And I'm wondering, what the hell is
(05:13):
he going to do? Now.I'm on the driver's side of this truck
about a few rows back. Sohe grabs a hose and starts spraying.
I get a big wave of justbeard dumping over me just before he starts
aiming it at the rent. Igot soaked. Side note, my parents
were recently divorced, so after theshow, my dad had to bring me
(05:34):
home and he really wasn't on goodterms with my mom at the time,
so when I showed up with myDegeneration Next Sucker shirt and my shirt breaking
of alcohol, my mom gave hima verbal beating I have never heard in
my entire life to this day.Ah the attitude era, classic classic attitude
(05:56):
era. I was gonna say Ididn't know or say think that that chuck
was full of beer. I wouldhave only assumed it was water being sold
as beer or colored water or whatever. But based off of this call alone,
we now know that it was beer. Didn't do we not think about
children being in the crowd beer beingtossed at them by the gallon? I
(06:23):
guess it was just a crazy timein wrestling. The attitudes were so sharp.
It was the attitude era. Theydidn't care one bit. I mean,
this story could be about one kidat a show getting bathed in stone
cold Steve Austin's beer. Or itcould also be about one father divorcing a
(06:44):
woman and how they spend their timewith their children together. Is it appropriate
or is it inappropriate? Who amI to judge? I know the mother
did and maybe she was in theright, But us wrestling fans, we're
gonna say not at all. Letwatch wrestling. Let him buy a sucket
shirt. In two thousand and one, Glacier a ka. Ray Lloyd was
(07:10):
doing as signing at my local mallfor Basking Robins and the Children's Miracle Network.
He had a table set up.I go and I say, hey,
Ray, Hey doing blah blah blah. I start trading stories. Before
he had his abcw run. Hewould do Georgia independent stuff. So I
was familiar with him and we wereevent buddies, if you will. So
(07:32):
I asked him for a eight byten. He signed it. He writes
my name on the autograph about metelling him, and I'm like, oh,
wow, you remember my name,and he gives me this odd look.
That's when I realized, now Iwas still wearing my cracker barrel work
(07:53):
uniform with my apron that had myname on it. Now, if that
was me, honestly, I wouldhave ever told you that I looked at
your apron and saw your name.I would just be like, of course,
you think I wouldn't have remembered you. I know you see me as
a man who was supposed to bethe next WCW legend and might have fizzled
out before he should have. ButI'm also a person with a heart,
(08:16):
and everybody is somebody, and wedid those events together, and I remember
you. You are special and hopethat either A you would go back and
have that memory for the rest ofyour life, or B get to the
car, look at your apron,see your name tag and be like fucking
cult always the jokester, but Glaciernot necessarily played it down the middle Glacier
(08:41):
who I have seen it at acouple of aws. He's always backstage,
hanging out. Always good to havea friend, good guy remembers me and
knows my name. I feel alittle good about that. As a kid
who was watching WCW when that washappening, I feel good about that.
And you know what, you feltgood about him knowing your name, even
if it was for a second wrestlingAnonymous, please hold for sponsors. When
(09:07):
I was in high school, Iwas dating a girl and I've been a
lifelong wrestling fan for a real longtime. Obviously she knew that, and
she would always tell me, ohmy cousin married or a wrestler. We've
got to his show, so youknow, I'm thinking independence obviously, and
then come to find out he getssigned to NXT. So what I'm talking
about is galis though. And thecoolest thing about it is her cousin looked
(09:31):
close to us, and they wouldalways do family parties and he would always
be there unmasked obviously and just hangingout with the kids, or he would
show up sometimes it was like Christmaswith Thanksgiving in full out gear and just
take pictures of everybody in sign autographs. So I was in Dollar Tree,
just standing in line, and somebodytapped me on the shoulder and it was
(09:52):
him and his wife her cousin andjust said hi to me. And it
was just the coolest experience. Andeventually me and the girl broke up,
and that was this, like notthe coolest thing because not knowing the ARRESTA
up, being in close contact withArresta was so cool. A heartbreaking experience
because it wasn't a breakup, butI cared about it was being close to
(10:13):
Arresta. That was pretty awesome.I like that one. I like that
you broke up with Kalisto. Iknow it was hard. Kalisto was part
of your family and now nothing.You and Kalisto had to go your separate
ways. Sure that girl also wasn'ta part of your life anymore. I
(10:33):
guess we could chalk that up toyoung high school love, but not you
and Kalisto. That was meant tobe your heart breaks. I hope you
can get over this. I knowit's a lot of trauma. I know
I'm being therapeutic by allowing you tocall up this show and speak about it,
speak about the hurt of that brutal, brutal breakup. I hope you
(10:56):
get over it, and hey,maybe one day you'll a girl whose cousins
friend's daughter is Lindsay Doorado. Orn'tme police it was from Chicago. Maybe
I'll be part of your family.That'd be fun. But I ain't shopping
at the dollar Tree. Let's behonest. I'm shopping at the dollar Tree.
(11:18):
The school year was nineteen ninety fournineteen ninety five. I was a
senior in high school. Me andmy friends in Memphis, Tennessee were huge
wrestling fans. We were at theMid South Coliseum in the very end days
of Memphis wrestling when they would goto the Mid South Coliseum on Monday nights.
(11:41):
We were there almost every week.We went to a very small high
school in Memphis, Tennessee, wheremost of my friends and I played football,
baseball, or soccer. But inthe winter months we would participate in
the schools musical theater production. Oursenior year. The production was going to
(12:03):
be a little Shop of horrors.The only caveat was if we wanted to
get to plant costume, which ifyou've ever seen the play, it's a
huge costume we would have to paya certain amount of money to a local
theater company to buy it. Ouridea to raise money was to put on
(12:24):
a wrestling show for our entire highschool. So myself and five friends practiced
four months and got a ring fromlocal legend Phil Hickerson. He rented it
to us and we finally put onthis production in front of our entire high
(12:45):
school. We had managers, areferee, ring announcer. We had a
run in by bad who was aphotographer who ended up helping the heel team
to steal the victory from the babyFaces. So we raised enough money putting
on this wrestling production for us tobuy the plant costume, and I put
(13:09):
on the production of Little Shop ofHorse. This was Derek King, local
Memphis wrestler for twenty five years.It was Derek King's first ever wrestling match
in front of a crowd there withus putting on this show for our school.
Okay, I do have a lotof questions, but right off the
(13:31):
top, it makes so much senseto me that you are part of the
theater team and you understood to putlittle storylines together and how to make these
little scenes within a wrestling show interms of the heel manager and the coach
and the assistant to the principle andall of this stuff. I love that
that's where your head was, andyou made essentially a play with wrestling as
(13:56):
the acting or the heart of it. And you made the play in order
for you to be able to puton the play, which is great.
The questions come in when you sayyou were practicing, and I assumed it
was just all your high school friends, but then local legend Derek King,
one of Jerry Lawler's favorite wrestler ever, he all of a sudden, is
(14:18):
part of this show. I thoughtit was all your high school friends.
Or did he go to that highschool and then eventually go on to train
to wrestle, because it seems likeyou weren't necessarily really training to be wrestlers.
You're just wrestling fans and you figuredthat the basic idea out of it,
although you know, don't try thisat home, blah blah blah.
So I'm so confused if it wasjust like kids at the high school and
(14:39):
then sprinkled in with local wrestlers,although you would look so bad at that
point, but maybe that's the point. I don't know. Either way,
I love that you were part ofthat era. You would go to those
shows. It's a very historic timeand professional wrestling. They were selling out
the Memphis Coliseum and also in Memphislike doing small tiny house show and willing
(15:01):
to rent a ring to kids ata high school. They didn't care as
long as money came in. That'slike Memphis's catchphrase, as long as the
money is coming in. You didthat for others, and then others did
that for you as you raised enoughand Seymour was able to be fed.
Is that the right reference? Feedme Seymour? Oh, Seymour did the
feeding. Beautiful got there wrestling anonymous? Please hold for sponsors. So the
(15:28):
year was nineteen ninety six and mybrother and I were huge wrestling fans.
I would have been about seven yearsold at the time and he would have
been around twelve. The WWF wasscheduled to run a house show where we
lived, which was an extremely bigdeal for us, considering live wrestling shows
were not a common occurrence here inNorthern British Columbia. To promote the show,
Shawn Michaels was doing an autograph signingat our local Zellers, which doesn't
even exist anymore, but was essentiallythe Canadian version of Target. Somewhere along
(15:52):
the line, we heard that SavioVega would be doing a signing at Burger
King the same day. Now,being huge wrestling fans, we were beyond
pumped just to have the chance tomeet anyone in the WF and we agreed
that there would likely be a muchbigger crowd to go CEHBK, so we
opted for Savio Vega at Burger Kinginstead. That way, we figured we'd
get more FaceTime and interaction. Sothat day came and our mom drove us
(16:12):
to Burger King after school, butto our surprise and confusion, there was
no signage, no crowd, andno real indication that Savio Vega was even
supposed to be there. We waitedaround for a bit and resorted to even
going back out to the parking lotto look around, where we saw a
car with a budget rental car stickeron the bumper and thought, that's a
rental car. It's gotta be Saviovegas car. So we went back inside,
(16:33):
but still nothing. The more wethought about it, the more we
realized that it may have just beensome kid at school who told us this
signing was occurring, and we didn'tbother to fact check it. It was
at that point that we just gaveup and decided to leave. The Next
day at school, we were veryjealous hearing about all the kids who got
to meet Shawn Michaels at Zeller's tosnap a picture or get an autograph.
Apparently Earl Hebner was even there too, letting kids hold the w F Championship.
(16:56):
We were too embarrassed to say thatwe were at an empty Burger King
instead, so we just enviously listened. So fast forward to today, and
I'm still a huge dressing fan.I have a collection of autographed eight by
tens, and if there's one positivethat the pandemic has brought, it's the
concept of virtual signings. These havemade getting signed eight by tens much easier
for a fan like me who livestoo far away to go to conventions.
(17:17):
Salvio Vagos announced for an upcoming virtualsigning, and I knew I had to
get one from him to pop essentiallyjust myself. In my order, I
requested that he write Burger King nineteenninety six on the eight by ten to
commemorate that fateful day. I wasn'table to watch the signing live. But
when I caught up on the streamand it came to my turn, I
saw that he addressed the photo tome, just like I asked. Then
(17:37):
an era appropriate blue sharpie wrote BurgerKing nineteen ninety six in big, beautiful
writing, just as I had asked. I don't know whether it was the
result of the unusual inscription request orwhat, but he forgot to actually sign
his autograph. Unfortunately, the vendordidn't notice, and since I wasn't watching
the stream live, I couldn't evencomment in the feed for it to be
corrected. So for the second timein my life, twenty five years later,
(17:59):
all I got was Burger King,but still no Savio Vega. This
is a two for two great stories, one great call having to do with
the exact same thing great call.I remember doing the same thing with Owen
Hart and Davey boy Smith at Toysr US and Psycho Sid over at the
(18:19):
Sam Goody. We decided to gosee Owen and Davy first, we waited
online for about an hour and ahalf, went over to sid. Nobody
was over there except one of thehappeners. Just like in your situation,
so I got both, you gotnone. I really love you wanted that
inscription, Burger King. I'm sureyou would have shown your friend or a
couple of friends or whatever, ortold that story. This is a great
(18:42):
This is a great thing about thosekind of autographs and those signatures is you
can make up for lost time,and that's what you were doing. I'm
sorry you missed out on your secondSavio Vega autograph, but as someone who
has done an art of wrestling withSavio Vega and has seen him around and
even wrestled for him back in twothousand and five, and perto Rico,
he's a great dude, I'm sureeventually you will get your Savio Vega autograph.
(19:06):
That's a lot to you. WhenI think of a villain, I
think of Dutch Savage. He didn'tspeak to him unless he spoke to you.
He loved to watch other matches,and he didn't like to be disturbed.
This one situation I can recall washe was standing there in the hall
looking through watching intensely at one ofthe matches, and this lady was coming
(19:30):
down the whole dragging his kid,and he was screaming and yelling and give
us a mother a hard time.He's just disturbing everybody. Dutch kind of
looked over him, went back tothe match and looked over and as he
got closer, the mother was justbegging the kid, and Dutch turned and
the kid looked at him, andDutch just blew up and yelled at him.
(19:51):
You listen to your mother. Shebrought you here. You don't listen
to her, You're going to haveto deal with me. That kid froze
Big Guys, jumped into his mother'sarms, screaming, yes, mummy,
mummy. She dragged him off tothe seat, nodded to dude and said,
(20:11):
thank you. You know that youcan see the wink of his eye,
and then he went back to thematch. You could picture it like
in a movie, the mouthing ofthe lips, thank you, thank you
for telling my little shitty kid toshut the fuck up. And then just
like at nod and a captain's salutefrom Dutch Savage to the woman. You
know, this was the wrestling grandpatelling a story about basically the babysitter Dutch
(20:36):
Savage, Portland wrestling legend, bythe way, and we love wrestling Grandpa's
stories, and this was just aclassic story of a heel playing the job
of a heel outside of the ringfor something very important, and that's a
life lesson to that kid. Hewasn't healing the mom, he was saving
the mom. So essentially he wasa baby face in all true forms.
(21:00):
But he had the power of beinga mean, mean man and he used
it to his advantage for the good. And that says something about heels wrestlers,
and most importantly, Dutch Savage oneof the good guys while being one
of the bad guys. Wrestling Anonymous. Please hold for the credits. Hey,
(21:22):
thanks for listening to this week's episodeof Wrestling Anonymous. Today's show was
edited and produced by myself in mystudio apartment in Chicago, Illinois. Music
is by Matt Coon. Music onTwitter, podcast cover art by Donna six
one nine on Instagram. Voiceover workby at Sarah Joy Shockey. I'm also
on social media Twitter, Instagram,Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. Everything
(21:47):
is at Cold Cabana. A brandnew art of wrestling came out last week
with Luther, and there's two othernew ones, one with Alex Reynolds and
one live from Sydney, Australia.In April seventeenth, were doing a live
one from Chicago with the throw ofTalking Shop. Also make sure to binge
Pro Wrestling Fringe, the podcast shortstories about the weird fringe things and wrestling.
(22:07):
Listen to all the past Art ofWrestling archives. They are available on
the Art of Wrestling podcast feed,where you can download them all with ads
for free, or grab them adfree over on my Patreon, Patreon dot
com. Slash Cold Cabana sign upnow at the ten dollar tier and you'll
get a vinyl sticker sent to yourhouse. I'll also personally write your address
and give you a fun nickname.Or sign up at the twenty dollars tier
(22:27):
where I'll send you an autographs swearword each month too. Colect them all
plus the first and the fifteenth ofthe month, new different bonus calls hit
the Patreon and I do those bonuscalls live to subscribers of my twitch.
Twitch is free, but the subscribersget so many more bonuses. Twitch dot
Tv. Slash Cool Cabana join thefun community of video games and other silliness.
(22:48):
All of my shirts and custom videomessages are available at pro wrestling tis
dot com. Slash Coldcabana and coltmergdot com is where you can buy all
of my other Cold Cabana merch includingsigned upper dot combanda cards from my personal
collection some other goodies over there.I print out the labels myself. I
ship it out myself. It's alwaysdy information and updates on live independent shows,
(23:11):
like my appearance this Sunday at GloryPro Wrestling in Saint Louis. That's
March twentieth. Glory Pro Wrestling dotcom. Go to Koltcabata dot com for
all of those details. Up Soon, we'll be information of a live Chicago
podcast at the North Bar. It'sgonna be a double feature art of wrestling
first, Talking Shop second. Keepup to date on mine and the Talking
(23:34):
Shop boys social media. That's Gallows, Rocky and Carl the Machine Gun Anderson
aw is gonna be touring Texas,South Carolina and more. Take an information
and information on. You can watchAll Elite every Wednesday and Friday night on
TNT and TBS, Monday and Tuesdayon YouTube. Head on over to All
Elite Wrestling dot com. Eighty sevencombanda thirty four is the number. That's
(23:56):
eight seven two two two two sixtytwo thirty four or email a voice memo
to eighty seven Cabana thirty four atgmail dot com. The show It only
works if you give it a call, So give it a call please and
thanks, Thank you for calling.Goodbye,
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