🎭 "The Genius Lanny Poffo Exposes All: Savage's Career Shoot & Dark WWF Secrets"

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Titlematchnetwork dot Com the R video shoot interview series today
where you're joined by none other than a true genius
of professional wrestling, Landi Pafo. I am the genius full
of glory and right now you can call me Lanny.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
As long as you're not leaping right, I.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Can't leap anymore. I'm going to be fifty years old
December twenty eighth, and right now it's October two, two
thousand and four. So do the math.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
I guess my first question that I want to ask you,
you know, what was the like growing up.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
In a wrestling family. You had a great wrestling father,
Angela Pofo.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Well, I wouldn't know how to grow up either way.
I mean, you know that's that's it was normal to me.
It was definitely it opened doors. I mean, other people
have to give exorbitant amount of amounts of money to
try to get trained by somebody who obviously doesn't know
the business, because else why wouldn't they be wrestling? You know, everybody,
every everybody's opening up wrestling schools and a lot of

(00:53):
sharks in the water and some of these like, for example,
if I had a wrestling school, what can I tell
a young man coming up today, because I only know
about wrestling in the eighties. I've made no evolution. I
haven't changed, I haven't gotten better, I have gotten worse.
And I don't know how to help a person adapt

(01:14):
and adjusting the new environment. So I'd be just taking
their money right, And I'm afraid a lot of money
is being taken up and I'm not sure if they're
getting enough bang for their buck. So thank you my
father for being a wrestler and opening the door for
the much who win and his brother.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
What are your earliest memories of wrestling when you were
a child?

Speaker 3 (01:35):
I mean, what are your earliest memories as far as
you're remembering, you know what wrestling was like.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
I mean, when did you first realize that you're a fan?
How are you exposed to the business? Better, let me
ask you that.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
When was the business exposed to be or how was
I exposed?

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Did your father exposed you to the business or to
try to shield you from it like at an early age.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
I remember that my earliest memory was in in Houston
at the auditorium, that one that Paul Bousch promoted sam
Houston Coliseum. That's right, and I've wrestled there. I shouldn't
know that, but you know, getting a little older, and
that genius thing might have been a little bit of
a work. And as I'll proved later, he did a

(02:21):
deal with the same angle that Pepper Gomez worked many
times over with people like Ray Stevens, where they get
on the top rope and jump on his stomach blah
blah blah, and then then all of a suddenly jump
across the neck all of a sudden ambulance things. And
we shouldn't have been invited to that one because it
caused a riot, and I was. I was involved in

(02:44):
my father's riot. And getting back to the dressing room
in those days was a little harder than it is
now because thankfully this McMahon in his wisdom has a
thing called guard rails and security guards, you know, so
it's like a lot easier. Plus there's so many smart
marks or smarks, so even though they're raised to the
attitude of suspended, this belief, they're less likely to become violent.

(03:08):
I think. Okay, I know when I was working here,
I was never in fear of anything. When I did
it before, with no guardrails, I was always in fear.
So it's much better handled now the heat is controlled.
In those days, well that's not a It was a
horrible situation to have a young boy like me, you know,

(03:28):
watching all that, But I do remember it, so must
have left an etch. So I remember going to the
International Amphitheater and it was the greatest wrestling i'd ever
I mean it was. It was fabulous wrestling, but they
weren't drawing. And there was reason was they had lost

(03:49):
their TV and it was being sold from Fred Kohlder
to Bruiser's letter at Gania and they had a thing
called U HF. You probably don't remember what the not
the but there was a little circle in the back
of the TV sets in Chicago. Yeah, and nobody had
that kind of TV, but his hard. They worked so hard,

(04:09):
and they built it up slowly, and they finally got
it up to another pinnable because this was in the
aftermath of the greatest match of them all, Pat O'Connor
against Buddy Rogers, and I'm sure you've seen that and
comiskey para in front of all those screaming people. What
a phenomenal match that was. And then I saw, oh,

(04:31):
the guy that made the greatest impression on me was
Johnny Valentine, Big John, And while was I, he just
stare at you, and I tried to imitate him, lousiest
imitation of Johnny Valentine he ever seen. You know, I
tried to imitate quite a few people that one I
knew I couldn't do. But if I had a wish,

(04:53):
but I don't have the face for it. You see,
He's see you're not nervous, right, I'm just a friendly guy.
Johnny Valentine. Look at you. He looked like a sniper.
He looked like he shoot at you and then sleep
like a baby because he didn't have that. It's a
portrait and seriousness. And if you ever see me, heal,
there's nothing serious about me. Now.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
As far as like your dad, Kate Faban you in
the business, when did they actually explain to you, you know,
how the business worked when you were a kid.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Well, I was starting to have emotional problems over it,
you know, I was starting to get all worked out
and getting ridiculous, you know, so it's time to set
me down. And I remember I asked him, well, what
about Johnny Valentine? He says, well, him too, is He's
just better than the rest of us.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
Yeah, how close were you and your brother to the
inside of the business as kids.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Not really close at all, except we had a lot
of wrestlers over. We had a swimming pool back in
the day where them there were very few swimming pools,
and we had the first color TV in the neighborhood. Also,
so a lot of people that we didn't like pretended
to be our friends to watch the Super Bowl. We didn't,
you know, the Joe Namath and everything right, and even
before that, the Rose Bowl and things like that. So

(06:06):
people came over because of what we had, and I imagine, hey,
we chlorinate the pool, they pee in it. I got reasonful.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
Now, as a teenager, did you want to be a
wrestler like your father?

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Actually I wanted to be a baseball player, but then
I thought wrestling was something in case I didn't make it. Well,
I certainly didn't make it in baseball, and neither of
them did. My brother, although he was the best of
both of us when he got into base When he
got out of baseball after four years in the minor leaps,
he was skinny as a rail, but it was all muscle,

(06:42):
and you could tell from the first match that he
was going to be great, Like he was all over
the ring and he made everybody else look like they
were on slow mod.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
What point did you say, you know what, I want
to give it a shot, that I want to be
a wrestler.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Well, I knew that in my senior year in high school.
My baseball was I mean, I wasn't doing that well
against West Suburban Conference ballplayers. So I knew I wasn't
going to be drafted or going to baseball my draft,
I mean the baseball draft, not the military. In fact,
I graduated high school in seventy three, and the war

(07:16):
was over in seventy two, Vietnam and everything. You know,
So I was going to be a wrestler, and I
was skinny, and I had acne, and I looked like
a punk. You know. I looked like a boy, even
though in high school I was known as a pretty
muscular guy. And when I got into the wrestling business,
I looked like boy, this guy doesn't belong. So I

(07:39):
had to struggle with that handicap, you know, just looking
too young. And even now I'm going to be fifty,
I look pretty young. Now.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
I did not say that you're gonna be fifty.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, Well, start start, you know what I want to hear, right.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Did you do a lot of traveling, like when you
were young with your father?

Speaker 3 (07:55):
Did you live in one place or did you travel
the territories with your father?

Speaker 1 (07:59):
We lived in any territories. And then in when I
became in second grade and my brother was in fourth grade,
we stayed in Downers Grove, Illinois, thirty nine O nine
Venner Road, and we had a beautiful home. And that's
where I stayed until senior in high school. But even
then we made trips to Saint Louis to see, you know,
wrestling at the Kuila Auditorium and wrestling at the Chase

(08:22):
and I even remember the Chase Park Plaza and all
the great times we had there and the Peace arch
they actually did this and then oops and then went
like that. And then I had to do, you know,
to meet at the middle. And about four years ago,
I went to Saint Louis and spent six dollars and
got to the top. So that's something I can't recommend it.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
It was yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
And I was a little nervous and a little cluster for.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
It's like a little car going to the top. To
feel like, how can you get up.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yeah I was, but I do recommend it. It's the
best six dollars you'll ever spend in a must see
tourist attraction. And as a matter of fact, this will
prove you know. There were so many naysayers, What a
stupid waste of the money, what a ridiculous thing. And
it took years to build and and now it's the
number two attraction attraction and second only to the Statue

(09:10):
of Liberty. And it caused more charisma for that town
and more interest rate, more pride in money. Right now,
people tourists come in and spend money, and not just
the six dollars. There's also a gift shop and then
they get you there and then hotel and the right landing.

(09:34):
It's it's a phenomenal thing. In other words, they they
refused to listen to the naysayers and they went ahead
with their plan. And Saint Louis is the better for it.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
River gambling Now, I think they got the gambling. What
a territory did you like traveling to the most with
your father when you were young, And what wrestlers did
you like the most?

Speaker 1 (09:55):
I say, my favorite time watching my father wrestlers against
the late Wilburt Schneider, the late Pad O'Connor. I mean,
it seems like everybody's gone, but that's not I wouldn't
say that's unusual, considering that my father is going to
be eighty on April the tenth. What is amazing is

(10:19):
all the wrestlers from my generation that are no longer
with us. And that is just plain unnecessarily ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
And said, I'm going to ask you about that later on.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
Well, I'd love to tell you about it later on then,
you know, but it's it's broken my heart and I'm
almost numb to it because everyone on the list, you know.
And people ask me, are you amazed that it's happening?
I said, not really. I'm amazed that they live so
long because I know a little bit about the human body.

(10:48):
It's very frail, and one mistake and it's over. I mean,
jaywalking is a mistake and it's over. And it's something
you can't learn from, you know, check left, right and
left again, because things may have changed when the last
time you look to the rights. Anyway, it's a there's
there's men and I feel that your life is not

(11:10):
judged by the duration it's judged by the donation. In
other words, how may I serve? That's my mantra, not
what's in it for me? Everybody's gonna what's in it
for me? Attitude? It's how may I serve? Because when
you pray to God, it's like looking into a mirror.
If you say to God, what's in it for me?
God's gonna say, what's in it for me? But if

(11:32):
you say, how may I serve, God's gonna answer you back,
how may I serve you? And that's why the people
that give the most get the most. And it never
ends to what goes around comes around. It's true. It
is true.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
You're talking earlier when we were out said spend some
time in Hawaii as a child.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
Right, we got into Brandy and I got into school
early because they figured we were on the road, they
might as well get us into school early because we
might might flunk or something, you know, because of the
disadvantage of traveling from territory to territory. Well, what happened
is we were both honor students, and that wasn't going

(12:15):
to happen. And my dad had a little scheme that
with the war on Vietnam escalating, he thought that he
might be able to better protect us if we wasted
a year in Hawaii while we just played baseball, had
a little vacation, and then, you know that seems despicable.
But now we could run for president. You know, you

(12:39):
know my father served in the Navy and he didn't
want Vietnam in our future. And I love you, thank
you for that. Yes, because the war was over in
seventy two. I'd graduated in seventy three and it worked.
So we went to Hawaii and my father was working
for Eddie Francis. We got exposed to so many of

(13:00):
a different type of wrestler, the great Curtis i Akeya.
They called him King Curtisy aka the greatest interview of
them all, And for those of you that remember him
with Kamala, that wasn't the greatest interview of them all.
By that time. He had to get his point across
in one minute for a man like Curtis, and he
went highs and lows, and he cried and he laughed

(13:23):
right on there, and then after the red light was off,
he was still an interesting man to talk to. You know,
something that was great. I remember those days and Jim
Haiti was there not a good interview. A great worker,
Dutch Schultz, who was Dutch savage, great at everything, and

(13:43):
a lot of the boys knocked him. He was despised
because he was an arrogant person. But don't take away
his work. I mean, the man was great. I saw
him in his prime. And let's see Nick Bockwig who
was there, and I thought he was phenomenal. And this
is before he got his big break with so But
he definitely looked the part of a champion, and not

(14:05):
all the champions looked that part.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
Right, What are the guys? Were you exposed to that?
Like you really were? Like maybe like a big fan
of like Jimmy snuk ohs he oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
When I went to Portland, Oregon in nineteen seventy seven,
seventy eight, Jimmy Snooker took me under his wing, and
I thought, wow, I hang around him, I'll probably looking
like mister Hawaii myself. Not true. He took me, Brenna,
you're gonna come with maybe're gonna play pool, We're gonna
do this with that. I hadn't seen the inside of
a gym in forty eight hours. And we get to

(14:38):
Seattle and I looked like he looked like a milk
fed football player. So I said, something's wrong. I better
not hang around with him anymore. Evidently he's conquered that
he can get away with it. I'm not gonna get
away with standout lane and abusing my body. So I
was very nice to him, and I said, Brenn, I

(14:58):
can't go with you.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
Basically, when you actually told your father that you wanted
to be in the business, did he try to talk
to you out of it at all?

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Well? Yeah, because I was about ten years old and
I thought I could pass as a midget, and he
explained to me that the difference, even though I was
short as a midget, fans would not buy me as
a midget. I was a big boy that just was ten.
And of course I couldn't understand. You know, I always
thought my dad was really stupid for saying that. Actually

(15:30):
turned out he was right about a lot of things,
how about almost everything. I apologize.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
What time did Randy say he wanted to get into
the business. Was it after you or before you?

Speaker 1 (15:40):
Well, he wanted to get into the business after baseball
had treated him cruelly. Now there's a guy that's tenacity
with a capital team in nineteen seventy one, he graduates
high school. He's the best baseball player I've ever seen.
He had a nice short swing, he had big forearms.
He had more power than it. He hit his last

(16:02):
two years in the varsity junior and senior year, he
had like a five hundred and thirty six average for
two years. Now, that's better than a flip of a
coin that he's going to get a hit, hit so
many home runs. He is still a legend because you
see that building. He hit that building, and that he
was a switch hitter. And then when he separated his shoulder,

(16:24):
he even tried to make it as a switch thrower,
an ambi dexterous thrower. I don't think that's ever.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Been something heard of.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
He actually signed with the White Sox as a left
handed first baseman. And the reason I mean I thought
he was going to make it. I mean, they signed
him and everything, but they as great as and he
could he can make the throw for a first baseman,
but he looked a little awkward doing it. You know,

(16:51):
he looked like it didn't look natural. It looked like
you're it looked a little bit like you're a girl.
It's just hard. It's easier to be a switch hitter
than a switch thrower. And then amily But so anyway,
he picked up the pieces that was nineteen seventy five,
ten years later as a medicine square garden. So you've
got to give it to him, definitely.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
So he got into the business before you then obviously.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
Right, No, I got into business in seventy three, okay,
and then he got into seventy five, even though he's
two years my senior, two years and a month.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Let's go into your training.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
When you broke into the business, who's responsible for actually
getting you in the ring? Teaching the psychology and the
bumps and all that.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
Angel little powerful Okay, Yeah, and we would have critique.
And not only that, but he had a friend Paul Christie,
who was also excellent, and I love Paul Christie. He
helped me in many ways. Oh, I was a little
shy with girls. I had Acney. He helped me out
with that boy. This guy was smoother than a toilet

(17:49):
seat with girls. And you know, just hanging around him,
He's helping me out and doing this and that. And
finally I was sixteen years old and he tells this girl,
who I'll not name, he says, not in so many words,
but the equivalent of I give you the boy, bring
me back the man. So thank you, Paul Christy. And

(18:14):
I guess I owe you five million dollars for what
you've done for me, but I'll just say thank you.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
As far as in the ring training, what did you
go through and how rough was it?

Speaker 1 (18:26):
It wasn't rough at all. I'm not one of those
guys that they may do one thousand sumo squats and
then they like in the Florida Territory with Eddie Graham,
like I understand some of the boys the story Haul
Coogan told. The first thing they do is make you
do all the squats so you can't defend yourself, and
then they make you get in the referee's position and
then they drop a knee on your Achilles' heel and

(18:48):
break your ankle, you know. And yeah, everybody did it.
You know. That was like fun and I'm sure they
got off on it. I think it was reprehensible and
it was horrible and stupid, you know, but that's the
way they thought. We're protecting the business. Okay, you know,
all right, whatever.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Your first territory that you actually started working for who
would that have been?

Speaker 1 (19:15):
Well, when I got out of my first match was
in Aurora, Illinois, and it was against my father. I
wore on the mask. I was the mask avenger the
secret side. It was the skinniest guy you ever met,
and that ever just trying to hold my trunks up.
And I thought I was great because my father led
me through everything, and I said, well, this is easy.

(19:37):
I'm going to be a star. Then I wrestled a
guy named Bobby Ben and was like the blind leading
the blind, and I guess I said, maybe I'm not
as great as I thought. And that was kind of
like typlified my entire babyface thing. A great worker could
raise me to his level. When I wrestled Terry Funk,
you'd have thought I was the greatest baby face you

(19:58):
ever met, because that was him taking a five and
raising him to a ten. But when I wrestled a five,
I became a five. And when I wrestled a zero,
I didn't drag him up to five. I went down
to his level. I'm not the kind of a guy
that worked with the broom. I'm not highly a race
that can take George Goulas and go an hour. You

(20:19):
know that was I mean, Harley Race, God's gift to wrestling.
He can take a guy without talent, and as long
as he's willing to listen, you're willing to listen. You know, well,
I'm going to help you out stoopid slam dope move.
And the man was great, right yeah? And he made

(20:39):
me look great? But was I great? No? I was
just a good listener. I was good at Steno.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
Right now.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
After your first match, she said it was your father
and your other match didn't go too well.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
How many times was it before you started getting to
hang in the business.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Well, I wrestled twenty one years, and I never really
felt I did. I never came to that conclusion because
because the opponent, if he was great, he made me great.
If he wasn't, I wasn't. And I don't think you're
truly great until you can take up Broom and bring
him up to your level. You know, I never thought
I was great. I thought I was capable of a

(21:15):
great match, But that doesn't make you great. You're not
great until you can make a Broom look like a king.
I felt that as a babyface, I had a better
than average interview. I felt that I could be a
ring announcer. I also felt that as the genius full

(21:36):
of laury and renown, I was unique in the business
and I could make my gimmick work. Ricky Starr ever
heard of him? The ballet dancer? See, I tried to
copy quite a few people. When I saw a tape
of Ricky Star, I knew that I could do that.
And I said to my dad, I said, did you
see Ricky Starry says, yeah, no, he's great. I said,

(21:59):
I think I can do that. And this is before
I even got in the business. I saw his tape
and I got all excited because I said, I knew
I couldn't imitate Johnny Valentine because my dad pointed out,
I don't have the look Johnny Valentine like that. He
was a totally handsome man, but he was dead pin.
I mean, please get a tape of him. I mean,

(22:20):
and when every time he made a move. And Greg
is great, but Greg will even admit he doesn't come
up to his father's knees. Greg knows that I'm not
saying it. Greg is great, But Johnny Valentine, there was
only one and he was Let's put it this way,

(22:43):
if wrestling is at work, and you know it's at work,
and I sit you down and tell you it's a work.
Go watch Johnny Valentine against Wahoo McDaniel, and you'll come
away thinking I'm wrong. Yeah, But then the rest of
the car will expose the business for you, and then
you'll know that I'm right, all right.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
The first what was the first major territory that actually worked.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
Well? When I was in Paduca, Kentucky. That was that
was like two times a week and i'd my dad
would go with me and Paul Christie and they criticized
me all the way home. I was tought the better
for it because it's better at hearing it from friends.
Because the boys are going to knock you anyway, you
might as well hear the truth. And it took me
quite a long time to rest the business because I

(23:26):
wasn't a natural I'm a natural gymnast, I'm a natural poet,
I'm not a natural wrestler. So it took quite a
bit of discipline in order to get me to whatever
level I attained. And I really think my father and
Paul Christie for having the patience with me, because I'm
sure they wanted to rip their hair out because I'm
the kind of guy you have to tell things twice to.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
Right, then you're a gymnast before getting into the business.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
Right. I was eight years old and I quit when
I was ten, but I continued in the backyard. I
went to Carl Ingstrom's School of the Dance, and I
studied gymnastics in ballet with Louis and Carl Instrom, the
same guy that got my father into the business. And
Carl Instrom was a boxer and a wrestler and an
adage ye old dancer. He was with his wife on
the Ed Sullivan Show. Was a dodgyo dancing. I'm not

(24:11):
sure quite what a dodgio dancing is, but it looks
like the man and the women who are at war.
They dance and they beat each other up, they throw
each other all about. You know. It's an amazing thing.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
Now, did gymnastics help you at all?

Speaker 1 (24:23):
Yes, When I was gonna copy Ricky Starr's gimmick, but
my father warned me about that. He said Ricky Starr
had a lot of trouble with the boys about that
gimmick because it had never been done before. And by
that I mean he acted effeminately because when you take
gymnastics in ballet put them together, people suspicious, suspicious that
you might be homosexual. I'm not a homosexual. I don't

(24:45):
know if Ricky Starr was. But he was an amateur
boxer and an amateur wrestler, and he was able to
handle any trouble he got into, even though he weighed
one hundred and sixty pounds.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Wasn't he the first guy that would do all the
tumbling and the head stands kind of like.

Speaker 1 (24:59):
I don't know if he was the first, but he
was the best. Eduardo Carpontia, I don't know who came first.
It was Argentina Rocca. There were quite a few of.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Them, Like, he had the most unusual style. He would
do like a tumble and then grab the guy like
a leg scissors and flip them over right.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
And when I say I copied him, I didn't copy
every single move, because he was better than me at
most of those moves. But on the other hand, I
took it to another level. I enhanced myself by doing
my strengths. In other words, I was affected by him.
But then I made the gimmick my own. Now, the
greatest moment I had with that gimmick was in nineteen

(25:36):
seventy five. I was in the Emberial Territory, and I
was trying to butcher it up a little because I
really respected Dori Funk Junior and Terry Funk, and I
knew that they were very serious wrestlers and everything. So
I only did it a little bit. I had the
dial on one, and that Terry Funk, he came up

(25:56):
to me and said, oh my god, this is getting
over landing. You be great. He says, what I want
you to do is.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Sorry, but all these questions, all of them.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
So yeah, he wanted me to get He wanted me
to fag it up more. So I got these dance
skins that I was wearing, and Trunk's over those, and
my mother, who was traveling with us, and I was
only twenty or twenty one years old. This is the
greatest time in my life. Terry Funk, the greatest worker

(26:27):
of that I've ever seen in my life, is going
to work in angle with me. And so I get
all these white dan skins and my mother because they
only came in black and white, but my mother bought
this writ dye, and you know, we're on the road
and everything and she made yellow sharp truths this. When

(26:48):
you walk in with yellow dance skins, it's very hard
not to get over, especially the way I walked. So
then Terry Funk got me into the studio and he
started a six week program. He brought in Marie la
Verne and LaVerne's daughter. Are you familiar with her? She's
a girl wrestler and she's an Amarillo. Right, And Terry

(27:11):
and Funk got on the TV and he gave a
great interview and he says he started calling me Lynnette,
having a little fun with my name Lanny, and he says, Whette,
we got a girl for you that you can wrestle.
He says, somebody that's in your league. I introduced you
to Marie la Verne, and there she is, and I'll

(27:33):
be there, Steve, I'm gonna go. She's she's so everybody's
laughing and everything's it was fun time at the wrestling.
A ten year old boy points and laughs and looks
at me. What's he saying? That I'm normal? He's saying
he's normal and that I'm odd, so which is good
for them. They're laughing. It's it's the psychology of ridicule.

(27:55):
You know who hates blacks more than anybody, poor white
trash that are on Jerry Springer, Because the best people
don't hate blacks. It's only the people that say, well,
we may be poor Watt Transberg dame what we now nigger.
So in other words, that's their psychology. We're the lowest
of the low, but there's somebody lower and they rejoice
in this. Were the people that have achieved some affluence

(28:18):
and social class distinction. They're okay. They want to help people,
you see, because they're secure. So Terry Funk got me
in the ring in the studio. We had done several
things at every town, and he takes a blade and
he cuts my in the in the back room. He
cuts my seam just enough so he knows where it is,

(28:39):
and he takes me and strips me naked in the studios. Well,
that was I was so happy. People were laughing, the
boys were laughing. I mean, I was proud to be
in the business. And we had had so many discussions
about it. He says, well, I'm just so glad that
you have the attitude that you can do this, because
he says, we've got to give the people was something

(29:00):
for their money. And he said something that I never
forgot I never will. He says, I'm not against anything
that's going to get over. By God, we got to
pop this territory. And this was right before we got
the belt, and it was good news and bad news.
I was so happy for him. However, it was the
end of our run because now he had to make

(29:21):
the loop. But I loved working at Amarillo, and I
loved both Funks and Herman guests too. He was and
the Lake ken Farber, and it was a very happy
time for me. From there, where did you go? Well,
then we went to the Golf coast. My brother and
I teamed up. We were a babyfaced team. And then

(29:41):
we went back to the Shekh the original chic in
Michigan and Ohio. And then we went to Charlotte, North Carolina.
I was there for a year and a half. My
brother was there for about six months. And I made
the mistake. See, I was a hot heel in Amarillo
because you can image, and that's a very homophobic place.

(30:02):
You know, they're all cowboys or men or men, and
the sheep know it, right. So I went to Charlotte
and my brother was the skinny one, and I weigh
two hundred and thirty pounds. Now you would have thought
that in a shoot I could beat I could beat
Randy because of the he was giving away forty pounds. Well,

(30:24):
we used to shoot all the time, and I guarantee you,
no matter what I weighed, and no matter what he weighed,
half the time he would win and the other half
I would lose. But it's no big whoop because I
saw him in takedowns with Bob rup who came in,
who was in the Olympics in nineteen sixty eight in

(30:44):
Mexico City, is a heavyweight wrestler, and Randy defeated him
in takedowns, So I didn't feel so badly.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
How long did it take Randy to catch up?

Speaker 1 (30:52):
You? Oh, he was better than me the first time
I got in the ring, and he's he He's a
natural athlete and you only have to tell him once
about something. He's got the best kinesthetic sense of everything.
I'm a frustrating guy. I have to work harder to
I'm like a square peg in a round hole in
this wrestling business. And the only way I could make

(31:13):
it was to be a freak. And if I was
born with an eyeball, in the center of my head.
I'd be the cyclops and I'd make a fortune. But
the thing is, I'm a normal looking guy. I'm not
particularly anything. The only thing that I particular is I'm
willing to make an asset of myself in order to
get over. Now, I made the mistake of going to Charlotte,

(31:35):
North Carolina as a heel. But I had all this
history of remembering how well I got over, So I
went in full fledged with my gimmick that got over
so low on Amarillo, and the office did not like it.
I was hated, I was despised, and you know crop. Yeah,
and then they switched to me. They said, would you
stop doing that? I said yes, and I stopped and

(31:58):
that was over. And I stayed there a year and
a half did very well by well, I meaning I
never got to the top, but I did well financial years.
This nineteen seventy six, seventy seven. Yeah, I was right
after the I came in, right after the celebration of
the Bison Tenniel July fourth, you're too young, Yeah, it was.
It was right when Enoki for Ali. Okay, that week

(32:22):
after I started.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
You also mentioned before you worked for Sheikh in Detroit.
What was that arritory like?

Speaker 1 (32:28):
It was freezing your ass off? And the Sheep was
always very nice to us. And I'm very sorry that
he passed, But like I say, he's from the arable.
You expect people to die, right, And Sheep was phenomenal
and he was great and I loved him and I
learned a lot there.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Now after Crockett, where did you go from there?

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Well, it was a year and a half for Crockett.
Then I went to Nick Goolas for about a year
and a half. Now everybody says, well, that's the worst
place in the world. But I did very well there.
And when Harley Race came in with the belt, he
wrestled me because I was I was the man at
the time both I was the big fish in a
little pond. But it sure did make me feel good

(33:10):
to you know, after Charlotte, and I actually did better
for Nick than I did in Charlotte.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
What were you able to learn from Harley Race?

Speaker 1 (33:21):
To listen, I'll tell you Harley Race, if it was
my first match, he could have made look just as good,
because that's the kind of a player he was. And
you can't not success.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Any memories of the territory that stick out or was
it just you know which one glass?

Speaker 1 (33:41):
What with Harley? Oh?

Speaker 2 (33:43):
Was the sun working?

Speaker 1 (33:44):
Then?

Speaker 3 (33:45):
Yes, George Goulis, you know everybody did.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Yeah, you're right. But the thing is he loved working
with me, and that was my pension, so you have money, right.
So actually the thing is I did my very best
with him. But Harley Race worked with him and defended
his belt against him and did even better. He rouse
him up to he would think George Goulis is the

(34:09):
greatest booker he ever saw. Well, I'll tell you what
I was there and it's true. So no matter who
lies about what, please I vote that. Well, what did
he say about it?

Speaker 3 (34:23):
Just basically what you just said right there that you
know he worked with the kid and used the ships
and he made a click a million bucks right out.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
He was even worse than you said, and he and
five million dollars. So let's let's let me exaggerate a
little more for you, and I'll tell you what that
just for all the people that can't do that with
George Goulis. Don't blame George. It's you, right, You're not
Harley Race, I mean, who is wasn't.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
The reason that promotion pretty onuch dogs because they pushed
him so much.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
And it says, wait a minute, every promotion is dead
except one, right, right, So is there a reason that
all promotion Eddie Graham? He had the greatest promotion in
the country. Everything was done strictly by the book, everything
was done with great care. And his promotion died. So

(35:17):
you know, that's one place I never worked. I never
worked for Eddie Graham, and I always wish I had.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Getting back to Gulas? Where'd you go from there?

Speaker 1 (35:25):
After that? That one where I went from? After Gulas,
we went to Halifax, Nova, Scotia Mountain, New Brunswick. The
three of you know, my father, my brother and myself.
We bought into the promotion for the summer. We made
a fortune. Oh and I worked. Randy was the top heel.
I was the top baby face. We went all over

(35:47):
and talk about a guy that could work with the
broom much two men worked with me. He ruined me
a great levels.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
That you guys really worked together in a major program.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
Yes, and he he would criticize me after every match,
but he got he extracted the best out of me.
He made me better than I could have ever been
with anybody else because he and highly Race did it
after not knowing me, and he brought me up to
great heights. Wow. But my brother knew all about me
and what I could do, and he knew when to
fit it in and how, and so.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
There's never an ego thing with you and your brother
where you didn't want to admit that, right he was
better than you.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
You would you would admitted it back then.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
Well, it's obvious that he was better than me. I mean,
he was the first match he ever had when he
was skinny as a rail all over the ring.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
He was.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
He was better than me at baseball. He's better than
me at wrestling. I think got better that gymnastics and poetry.
But I will just leave it at that. Let runner
sees the things that are Caesar's from from there, word
end up. Let's see after After that, I went by
myself to Portland, Oregon, Gon owns and I was there

(36:59):
for a year and a half.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Is that whoni with Jimmy.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
Higher up mine? And then when Rodney Pipper came in
and I said, whoa greatest piece of talent I'd seen
in my life. He gave the people so much. Unfortunately,
he gave so much he would injure himself and then
he'd tape himself up and get back and injure himself again.

(37:24):
And by the time I saw him again in nineteen
eighty five, it was a physical wreck. I mean, he
had all the injuries, but what a fun person. And
in the dressing room, I mean, the dressing room can
be a boring place unless there's some high energy phosphate
bonds in the dressing room. This guy was hilarious. He
was fun. You know, we were talking about Charlotte. You

(37:45):
asked me before about about We were talking about Charlotte Weed.
We had Chinese food together, and Charlotte was a tremendous
experience for me. I'm sorry they didn't go for my
Rickie Star gimmick, but at least I kept it. I
didn't even use it after that until I became the genius.

(38:05):
So my grandfather, No No, Silvio Papo, who came over
on the boat to Ellis Island in nineteen twenty from
his home in Italy Luca, Tuscany, he says, let me
learn a trade, put it aside and someday you may
need it. Well. I learned how to work like Rickey

(38:27):
Starr and I brought it out when I became the
genius and I had a wit a run that was
the greatest moments of my life. Now, in Charlotte, they
ran three towns and three towns a night, okay, And
for Greensboro they'd all come and they have a major
they'd only run Greensboro or something like maybe two towns

(38:50):
that night, the Krome town in Greensboro or something of
the big ones where they bring everybody on. But for usual,
it's three towns a night, and one of the towns
would always sell out, no matter who his opponent was,
and no matter who his tag team partner was, and
no matter what else was on the card, one guy
always sold out. So it couldn't have been an accident.

(39:13):
For a year and a half that I was there,
Maybe you haven't heard of him Rick Flair, Okay, well
then we're getting you know, it doesn't matter who his
opponent was. Now, I'm not saying that Waltham McDaniel didn't
draw his share of the money, but then when they separated,
Rick Flair drew anyway, and also Ricky Steamboat came in

(39:34):
and drew mega money with Rick Flair. But Rick flair
was drawing anyway, in other words, but Ricky Steamo brought
it to New Heights. But the man was over, okay,
and he was over before I got there, and I
was just in awe of him. I just could not
believe that this guy was this great, and he'd flopped

(39:54):
his hair around and this, and that he'd bring these
ten million dollar robes into the dresser room and a
he found them. You know, He's just just a fun person.
His dressing room was always a happy woman there was.
On the other hand, there was the Andersons. They would
come into the dressing room already with the excuses, and

(40:16):
by saying they, when I say they, I mean Olie.
Jean wouldn't say anything. Jane was nondescript. Jane just shook
his head and smoked cigarettes and didn't say much except
thank you very much. You know, you know the Jack
Dona buy. Jack Evans did a imitation of Jane. The
late Jean Anderson got to keep his soul and Geen

(40:38):
Anderson is an opera singer nearly Pachi.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
I was actually gonna answer about Olie later on in
the interview because I had some not so nice things
to say about you and your family.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Isn't that a fact? It's a wonderful man. You would
that he was with the milk of human kindness by
the court in every vein. Well what happened? Let me oi,
Anderson doesn't like me, and for very good reason.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
You can tell a story now since we're.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
On and a man my age, you know, don't stop it.
When he's on a roll, he would always be with
the excuses or we're not going to draw, because and
he would have a new one every time he came in.
And he's very creative. It's not gonna be too good
tonight because and the time that got me is when

(41:26):
Jimmy Carter won the presidential election. Evidently he was a
Tuesday in November and he says, we're not gonna draw
because you know, presidential election. Well that's all well and good.
That sounded like a pretty good excuse. But then I
go to the Charlotte Y m c A and see
some of the other boys that were in the other towns.
How did how did you guys do? Sold out Rick

(41:50):
Flair and I thought so that. So on Wednesday he says, well,
we're not going to do very well because blah blah, blah,
so I said, well, last night you didn't draw because
of the presidential elections. But Rick Flair, they must not
have voted very much in his precess, you know, because
everybody came to the matches. Well the truth was and

(42:11):
plus his dressing room was like a negative powder. Oh
you know. And these guys, may I speak to you
about philosophy of wrestling, because everybody thinks they are reincarnated
luth is everybody, all these old timers, they say, and
even the new timers, some of them, they go, it's

(42:33):
about wrestling. Remember it says wrestling on the Marquis. Remember
wrestling on the Marquis. What does this say? Okay, more
wrestling on the Marquis. How do you guys stay in
business without wrestling on the Marquis. Well, wrestling on the
Marquis doesn't mean anything, man, say that, and let me

(42:56):
prove it. In high school, in college and at the
old Olympic level they have wrestling on the Marquee and
it's real. And guess what else? It is real boring
and real lousy tickets sold and without the what's the
most important? Why is Rick Flair? Ric Flair? Because of
the people. Now you can you can show it on TV.

(43:22):
Does that mean they're going to buy tickets? You know?
Evidently he caused some type of commotion. Now Ollie Anderson
would not Rick Flair and then kisses ass to his face.
He said that all Rick Flair does is try to
entertain the people. And he said, and his proof of
that was when he was introduced that twenty or thirty

(43:43):
percent of the audience was actually applying him and everybody
else was booing. I mean, I'm sorry the opposite. I'm
a little older, and I'm sleep different pride because i
believe in ten hours of sleep at night and fourteen
hours of relaxation. And I'm just not getting it right
now because we're in Boston and I live in Florida.

(44:05):
So it says because he has some of the audience
cheering him, means he's ineffected as a heel. And that's
when he said, how the Andersons when we wrestle, it's
all booze. So I said, well, how do you get
any reaction out of an empty chair anyway? At me?
That didn't get over okay, So, but I couldn't stand

(44:30):
it anymore because I liked wit Flair. I'm sorry you know,
maybe you don't, I do, you know, and there is
some jealousy involved. And please, if I were the jealous type,
I probably would have eaten a hole through my own
liver by now, because the Macho Man is my brother,
and everybody that calls me up is trying to, you know,

(44:52):
butter me up to get to him, you see what
I mean. I mean, I'm okay with it because I've
done very well, you know whatever. You know, I can
handle it. And I mean he's not that way. He
doesn't think about Jay Leno having a better job than him,
you know. In other words, I don't want to be
an ungrateful person with two loaves of bread under each arm,

(45:13):
you know, complaining that I'm starving to death because I
had beautiful memories in the business, and that's a lot
more than people of greater ability, you know, got to have.
But back to Olie, he's very angry with me because
and then we started in on each other. He said,
he gave me the whole lecture. It says wrestling on

(45:33):
the Marquis and Rick Flair is just an entertainer. I said,
I went outside, and it does say wrestling on the Marquis,
but it says, tickets at the tickets t s e
k ets, tickets at the box office, and with the
Anderson's always had his excuses, but we have so many

(45:56):
empty seats. And he said we drew money in this
terror tory. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. He's
talking about something that happened many many years ago, and
he's elevating himself that and this is only because of
this and that and this and that, and then he
bring blame him whoever his opponent was Bravo and Woods. Well,
what happens is Rick Flair worked with Bravo and Woods
sometime and they still do a sellout. And when I

(46:18):
say a sellout, let me go back, there's all kinds
of cellus. There's sro sellouts standing room only means, and
then there's other sellouts where the fireman says no more,
you've got no more tickets. So you see what I
mean this, there's all different when you hear about a sellout,
there's all different types. A full house that means you
can still have a couple hundred more walk in, right,

(46:38):
you know. Anyway, So what happened, and this is why
it really doesn't like me two reasons. Once I once
we started getting on each other, you know, it started
getting a little bit heated, okay, and always a smart guy,
and he's you know, he can present himself very well,

(46:58):
and this is this is however, my validation was where's
the audience? And that's the running gag we had. And
here's what happened. We're in Spartanburg in front of a
record low and we're in a battle royal. My brother's there,

(47:20):
much of men, but he who only wait one ninety
and Robolin Woods and a bunch of guys and the
Anderson's and they've had enough with me. So Jean Anderson,
who wife had never had any trouble with and he
was helping George Scott with the book, only says we're
going to teach you a lesson tonight. So Jeene gets

(47:42):
in the ring with me, and after we get everybody
and everybody's watching it. I don't know what's going on,
a little slow for a genius. He locks up real
stiff with me. He gets behind me, he picks me up,
takes me down, throws me on my belly. And I
knew it was going on then, So I got up

(48:04):
to my hands and knees, and I sat out, switched him,
got him in the had an arm liver in the
deep waste, and pinned them. Now, I like Gene. That's
why I didn't put the sugar on him, which is
a submission hold. I just thought it was good enough
to pin him and to keep him down for a
ridiculous amount of time.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
Okay, So it wasn't the plan finish.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
No, this was a better rule. This is a batter role, no,
I mean it was even a great battle role is
mostly scrambled eggs, especially when there's so many people in
the ring. So now Bravo and Woods are laughing their
butts off and making fun of Jane, who's underneath me.
And you know, I've never had any trouble with Gene,

(48:49):
but if you want to have a shoot with me,
tell me first, you know. And then my brothers loved it,
and and then Randy says, ooh, you got to try
my brother's a rule here, you know, come on, come
on this And I let Gene up and only just
puts his head down. Well, what I found out later
was that Jane was the tougher of the two Anderson's

(49:12):
and what they still don't know was, and I may
as well. Let you know, my brother was the tougher
of the two potos, you know, and how do I
know that? By countless shoots. Now, my only chance to
get even with my brother is I'll wait about thirty
five years forty and stand on his oxygen host maybe
then get my revenge in the meantime. Yes, he's better

(49:34):
than me, you know that type of thing. So so
then our lives became like murder because they were what
i'd call poor sportsmanship. Right, So then he gets on
me about my dubious sexuality, started calling me a fag.
Fact this, fact, that, fact this, and I just took
him like a man, like a man, So I didn't

(49:57):
you know, I'm not a homosexual, but I'm not homophobic either,
and I'm not adverse to using effeminate gimmicks in order
to draw money, because I was in business to make money.
So I was thinking to myself, what would an intelligent
man do, you know, when confronted with this fact that
here's this big bullet that won't wrestle me, acts like

(50:20):
a tough guy, and he's going on and on about
me being in a fact or a politically correct homosexual
or a let's say, a not the most masculine of
his gender, even though he won't wrestle me. Well, I thought,

(50:42):
what would an intelligent man do? And then I did
the opposite. Okay, here's what I did. I noticed that
even though he was married with children type guy, that
he had a girl in every report. Okay, now, in
those days, I was like twenty one, twenty two years old,
I didn't have a girl in every port. I was

(51:03):
going through them like Scott Towells. You see what I mean.
I was interested in meeting new people. And that's the
part of the fun of wrestling is did you know
that there are women of easy virtue and they were
willing to trade favors for getting their picture taken with you?
And I always treated these rupies very well. I mean

(51:25):
I always I try to leave them happier than when
I met them, you know. I mean some of the
guys would put them halsey on or now it would
be ruvies, you know what I'm saying, shave their heads,
shave their eyebrows, to defecate on them, you know. And
I never got the idea of that. I was always

(51:47):
very grateful for whatever attention I could get so in
the towns that Oie wasn't. One by one, I would
accept the favors of his girls, and then it got around. Okay,
So then only confronts me finally, and if he liked

(52:07):
me at all before then he didn't like me. Now.
I mean, it's bad enough that I when being shot
upon the hero were a shoot interview that I mean,
pardon me for defending myself against Geen Anderson. But if
you saw pictures of Geen Anderson, I wasn't surprised when
he died. He was a very unhealthy man. He had

(52:27):
a bloated stomach, it was hard as a rock, but
that's an indication of ill health. He also had puffy
under his eyes and he just didn't look well after
any of his matches, and he smoked. So Oi finally
confronts me and only should have done this alone with
him and I and he says, right, POFU, how do

(52:53):
you like my huge pussy? And I said, well, after
you get past the part that's used, it's not bad. Well,
it turns out Oli has a big mouth and a
small dick, and that's probably why he compensates by being

(53:13):
aggressive and being a boy. But the thing is when
I when I offered him to, you know, after the
defeat of his synthetic brother Jean, I said, let's go.
He wouldn't. He dropped his head. So I mean I'm saying, no,
I'm not a homosexual. I don't always use my noodle,

(53:35):
as as my grandfather used to say. And perhaps my
mouth was a little bit too big. Maybe I should
have respected my elders. But I found being in the
dressing room with Olie Anderson excruciatingly boring. And I also
liked to Rickclair so much, and I was so respectful
of him and so grateful that I still have the

(53:57):
money that he drew, you know, my end of it,
which is my much less. But don't forget in my
bucket there's a bottom. There's no hole in my bucket.
So whatever I make, even with an eye dropper, I
still have today. So in other words, and that's another subject,
you know, because a lot of the boys live like
there's no tomorrow, and for some of them there wasn't

(54:19):
a tomorrow, so maybe their philosophy worked well for them.
But I believe, like Thomas Jefferson said, plan ahead, like
you're going to live one hundred years, but live like
there's no tomorrow. So in other words, either way, you're covered.
But I was young, stupid, you know, as it turned out,

(54:39):
and I'm sure I could have done better to get
along with Oly. But the thing is, I found it
just nauseating in the dressing room with him, right, And
I couldn't believe that he wouldn't actually knock Rick Flair
and then kissing mass right. I mean, that's just intolerable.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
I heard from a couple people that you didn't Eve
want to put the title on Rick Flair at one
point he was booking.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
I didn't know Rick Flair at that time. He didn't
get the title till much later, but what I had
heard was that he didn't think he didn't think he
deserved the title, and he certainly did. He is championship material.
I mean the way he carried himself, the way walked

(55:21):
and talked, and how nice he was to people. He
was a fun person. Have you ever met him? Yeah,
and he's just he's a lot more fun than my
dinner with Odie.

Speaker 3 (55:36):
Now from Charlotte area, you wound up. I guess your
father's started running an allog promotion A little bit after this.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
Yeah, yeah, we'll get back to that in a minute.
I think I missed my point. It says wrestling in
the marquis actually what it is, and Vince McMahon that's
why he's so brilliant entertainment because if it were wrestling,
why don't why don't you know? Why is wrestling what
it is? Because of you? You made it what it
is today and stop complaining, evidently by your attendance. The

(56:06):
buildings are packed, the Nielsen ratings and all that, you know,
like in the Olympics, we just this has been an
Olympic year. How much wrestling did you see? None? Because
the Nielsen ratings are so smart, they're so finicky, they're
so persnicity that they know exactly, they know when you've
been sleeping, they know what they know when you're turning in.

(56:26):
And notice that women's gymnastics, gymnastics gets all the play.
It's because of the These are girls that it's illegal
to go to bed with, and yet they're dressed scantily
and you can see everything, and you know, it's like
they're just dressed for just for modesty and you know,

(56:47):
and support and I guess people like to watch women's
gymnastics with just one hand. I can only assume, you know,
But it got to wrestling. They only glimpse it because
they know that their ratings are dead and the only
wrestling has an officiant audience. I love wrestling, and I
can't even watch it because it's it's a lot of

(57:10):
huff puff, you know, the boys are tired, and I
mean it's great. I met Dan Gable. I flipped. My
ex wife was with me, and who is that. Well,
that was the greatest wrestler that ever lived. She says, well,
you can beat him? And I said, he could snap
both my arms off and give me a procto. And

(57:31):
I thank him, you know, for only doing that, because
when he weighed one forty five in nineteen seventy two,
he could beat his whole team except Chris Taylor. In
other words, he could beat everybody heavier well Chris Taylor.
I mean, yeah, he was a walking water bit. So
that's not fair. That wasn't even wrestling. That was obese.
So anyway, what I was getting at was, if if

(57:57):
I get nothing across in the shoot interview, please hear this.
It may say wrestling on the Marquis, but it says tickets,
and the most important ingredient in wrestling is the fans.
No show, no do. We've got to please them. I
say we, I mean no longer we. They have to
please you, and you will vote by your attendants and

(58:22):
your Nielsen ratings whether or not that person is worth it.
Now here's the thing about Holy that I didn't say.
First of all, I respect him in a several ways.
He knew the value of a dollar. He was a
very hard working man. Him and Jean had an excellent team.
You know, they had a rule in Charlotte that the
heels had to hang around because in case there was

(58:45):
a riot, we had to be there to help. Well,
even though he didn't draw money, and I can validate
that he was very hard working. He worked his ass off.
Him and Gene both they organized the matches very well.
They got a lot out of Woods and Bravo, and
I'd say they were excellent workers. However, when you're not

(59:08):
Rick Flair, you were on dangerously thin ice. And I'm
going to have to say that you know you don't draw,
you're jealous. And Rick Flair understood, and he was legitimate,
and he was a wrestler and he's an athlete, but
everybody was black and white, and he was a living color,

(59:29):
and he'd set fire to the ring. He was more fun.
And Rodnie Piper had that, and my brother had that,
and me I had it sometimes because my gimmick was
so good it made up for my work, in other words,
a great gimmick. Who let's say, I want to make
it in this business. How am I going to do
make more money as a great worker or have an

(59:51):
excellent gimmick. And if my work's good enough to just
get by, it's my gimmick. It's going to make me rich, Okay, now,
But I had some problems when I did the gimmick.
The people loved it, and the boys were and then
finally they and then I'll tell you something too. We
need variety in the business. And I was like a

(01:00:13):
one joke worker. I worked that same joke. Okay, I'm feminist.
I was only manly when your back was turned. I
was cowardly. I didn't like any If I got a hangnail,
I would complain to the referee, you know, and I
imagine I got you know, you get the joke got over.

(01:00:33):
But it got old too, and maybe I didn't have
that staying power then if I had been a great worker.
But anyway, back to Olie, I apologize. I apologize that
you are a miserable old man. Now you gotta get old.
And I'm getting older too, and I hope I get
it even much older. And if you ever see me
drive you you'd be amazed how I live this long,

(01:00:56):
you know, because I'm the person they invented the finger for,
you know. And when I was in New York, I
thought my name was your mother. So you've got to
get old, but you don't have to get oldly. Okay,
we're talking a little bit about Portland. When you were
up there.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Who are some of the guys that were in the territory.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
Well, when I got there at the bottom, it just
dropped because Buddy Rose went to San Francisco, and that
guy was over. I mean, say what you will about him.
Every time he came back for a weekend or a
week he would draw sellouts every time he came. I swear,
I promise you that. I guess o. They wouldn't have
liked him either, right, But he came in and did business.

(01:01:45):
And then Roddy Piper came in with Tim Brooks books
and that gave a shot of adrenaline into the territory
because they had doctor hero Ota, which is like the
one man's Japanese restler they've ever had. You know, they're
all sneak and they all sinister and they throw salt
in your face. And you know, the people had seen that,
and they weren't ready to my ny more tickets for it.

(01:02:07):
The piper came in with those bagpipes, and man, he
was good.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
More initial impressions of him as a person.

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
Oh please, I was so happy. And I just come
from I almost got married to a girl in Nova Scotia. No,
I'm sorry, I'm very sleepy. I had a couple of
hours sleep. She was in Prince Edward Island, Okay, and
she played the piano, she played the guitar, and she

(01:02:37):
played the bagpipes, and she was from the farm. And
I just fell in love with her. And then I
was really homesick and I kind of like fell in
love with her, and I felt like I didn't realize
it until I left how much I missed her. And
then I would never see her again because when I
came back to the Maritimes five years later, I found

(01:02:59):
out she was married with children, you see. So but
I mean she was a breath of fresh air. And
then I was so miserable without her. And then I
saw Riddy Piper. He's playing the bagpipes, and he's Scottish
and this and that. Well she was Scottish too, so
I went bam. So I instantly liked him. Plus he
was such a fun person in the dressing room. And

(01:03:20):
then and then I would wrestle him, and I did
a job for him. You know, there was put him over,
he got his hand raised. And of course I would
mean more because of being with him than it would
if I had just beat somebody, you know, if I
if he'd a doctor hero oda, neither one of us
would get over. He he was so great that anybody

(01:03:45):
in the ring with him, or even the referee got over.
Plus the people in the audience got over. He was
that good. He was so much fun and entertainment. He
gave the people too much for their money, and it
hurt him. I mean, here's a guy with all these injuries,
throwing his body every which way. See, I'm a bit
of a freak in the business because I never did

(01:04:09):
anything I couldn't do. And well, how many people do
you know that put twenty one years into wrestling without
one injury at all? Not an injury I have. And
by that I mean chronic injuries. I mean, I'm not
saying that I didn't get my feelings hurt or get
somebody stepped in my toe, But I'm saying, like, I
can do a move right now that no wrestler can do.

(01:04:31):
I can make this, and I can do that, and
everybody else is going like this. And not that I
mean Ken Petera. He's the second strongest man in the
world in nineteen seventy two. And you know he'll tell
you himself. He's like a Cadillact with's five hundred thousand
miles on it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
It's like, So, I think some of the reason is
that I was a gymnastic and that I lifted weights,
but never heavy I don't lift heavyweights because heavyweights is
the best and the worst thing for you. It's the
best thing for your muscles, it's the worst thing for
your joints. And after you ruin your joints, they don't
give you new joints. That's why all these wrestlers getting

(01:05:08):
artificial hips, artificial knees and all this stuff. You know,
I don't need it because I never lifted heavyweights and
I never did anything in the ring that I couldn't do.
So and plus when I wrestled the whole COVID on NBC,
he body slammed me over the top rope. Well, I
am a gymnast, and for me, that's a dismount off

(01:05:30):
the high bar. In other words, I knew I could
do it unless he would have muscled me, so I
couldn't grab the top rope. Well, if I couldn't have
grabbed the top rope, then I don't know what would
have happened to me. But since I had the top
rope one under and one over, it became a gymnastic trick.
I landed right on my feet and then I collapsed
and everybody said, WHOA, what a bump? Well, no, I'm good.

(01:05:54):
It's all that gymnastic training paid off.

Speaker 3 (01:05:57):
Now from Portland, he went down with your father and
ready and you started up your own company.

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
Yes, which was considered an outlaw promotion down in your Memphis?

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
Was it? See that word outlaw in the Kentucky But
you know it's funny you should say outlaw. Let me
explain the definition of outlaw. That's when you robbed the
train with guns in a mask. Now, when Domino's Pizza
is in town and Chicago Pizza goes right next door,

(01:06:27):
that's not an outlaw promotion. That's the American way. It's competition, competition,
not opposition competition. There you are, And it was a
little bit communist the way the territories were set up
in the past, where we had to obey those strict lines.
Otherwise you wouldn't get the NWA sticker of approval, and

(01:06:48):
a champion wouldn't come to your talent, and you wouldn't
have the credibility that is enjoyed only by the NWA.
You know, and the people will be hypnotized into thinking
that that was the only way to go. Well, THEWA
fell apart because without money, it's like about a cat.
This is a cash flow business. It's not wrestling on
the market, no matter what you call it. It's they

(01:07:09):
have to draw money in order to pay the boys,
and the promoters have to have something called profit. Now,
let me anticipate your next three questions. Having had my
own entrepreneurship in partnership with my family, I have a

(01:07:29):
different vantage point than every other wrestler that's going to
sit in this chair. Okay, you've got wrestlers that say,
look at what you've done to us. Well, if you
took steroids, don't blame Vince McMahan. I mean please, you're
twenty one years old and you take steroids, Well, then
look in the mirror and say self, you're an idiot.

(01:07:51):
Or you traded your whrror, you traded something for something
quid pro quote, you knew the warning label was there.
I mean, are we together on this that you are
responsible for the consequences of whatever actions that you made
in your life. Outlaw promotion that suggests that it was
against the law. Now, this is well within the law

(01:08:13):
to invest your money wisely or stupidly and succeed or
fail in whatever business or endeavor that you choose. In
our case was the wrestling business, the entertainment business, whatever
you call it. It was the ticket business. We were
selling tickets and if our show was good enough, they'd
come back, and if it wasn't, they wouldn't. So it's

(01:08:35):
the same business as the other guys were doing, except
we were known as the outlaws. Now, when these wrestlers
get together and they say we want a union. Well,
let me be the first to say I don't want
to join your union, because like, this is what happened
in America. I mean, we have unions, don't we. And
let's say, let's just take one business, the automobile business.

(01:08:59):
You have General Motors, you have Ford, you have Chrysler.
These are the big three. That's all they have. That
with the NWA, we didn't intrude in Nietzsche. Then we
had a thing called the union. And then we have
a little four letter word called mr More. I want more,
Give me more. I'm a worker, we are together together,
we are powerful. I want more. That's what a union does.

(01:09:22):
Next thing, you know, General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, they said, okay,
you can have more. We'll just add it on to
the cost by the consumer. Let the cost of the
car go up. In other words, they raise ticket prices
in order to Hey, baseball, football, every major sport. You know. Okay,

(01:09:45):
let me get to the point, because I'm sure it
was falling asleep here because I'm almost doing it. Okay, okay.
Next thing, you know, Japan and Germany are building better
cars than the United States because in Japan they got
people that are worked for rice, and they're able to

(01:10:06):
put together a better car because in German people are
more quality oriented in Soulo's Japan. So, in other words,
the rest of the story is the boys say that
promoters are a bunch of thieves. Well, I could name,
I could give you a whole list of wrestlers that
did broke. I mean promoters that that broke too. In

(01:10:27):
other words, wrestlers that broke and promoters that broke. So
they're all dying broke, So how could they be thieves?
You know, you're an independent contractor. I never told you
what I would pay you. I give you whatever I
thought was fair or whatever I thought you would take
without leaving your main And then everybody got mad at
it's McMahon because he rated talent. Well that's not American,

(01:10:50):
actually it is. That's called supply and demand. That's called
what is your own? If you're a wrestler and you're
not happy with what you're making, or let's say you are.
In other words, hey, come to the World Wrestling Federation.
Well I'm loyal to x y z am. I going
to stay here and live and die with this guy.

(01:11:11):
Well i'll pay you more, Okay, I'll go you see
what I mean. In other words, where money lies, honor dies,
or loyalty dies, or anything else. In other words, if
the price is right, I'll be there tonight now absolutely
not nothing doing ill. How about with this much? Okay?

(01:11:32):
In other words, they unlocked the this supply and demand
has to do with how much. And sometimes that's not
an intelligent decision, it's an emotional one, okay. But yeah,
we were go back to your question, we were an
outlaw organization.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
What roadblocks did you guys go through?

Speaker 1 (01:11:53):
Well, the road to success is always under construction, naturally,
we you know, I try to blott it out of
my mind. It was the longest, most miserable seven years
of my life. And it was also at the time
where I met my wife who pretended to be a

(01:12:17):
lift and turned out to be a load. And finally
we had a divorce where she was an unload. And
now I am free and happy and made a vow
to never ever walk down that aisle again, because I've
seen the other side of the mountain and it's paved with.

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
You know what, Now, who were the main guys against you?
Was it Lallery Jarrett? Did you say you were influinging
mainly on them because of the territory you were there
or was that the main were you like, the main
competition for them.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
Well, they were living in Nashville and Memphis and we
were living in Lexington, so we were also going into
southern Illinois. We're going into a virgin land of West
Virginia where some of the children had eyes a little
too close together because the gene pool wasn't say, because
they went to family reunions looking for babes. Okay, And

(01:13:15):
you know, we we traveled a lot. We worked very hard.
I was in charge of the photography, the writing, can
you believe it, the programs and everything. I made sure
the picture business was running efficiently. The gimmick table, yeah,
I got plenty of gimmicks. I'm a gimmick man. Very
little substance. Yeah, go on, I'm sorry. Did you have

(01:13:39):
a question. No, no, I was wanting to get down. No, no, no.

Speaker 2 (01:13:42):
But who was your law or was who was the
main people against you when you were starting up?

Speaker 1 (01:13:46):
Well, Randy, Randy has an opinion on himself that he
can beat up everybody in the world and if not,
he'll die trying. And that's really what he's made of.
You know, he's he's got that in him, you know,
so he would the first thing he would do is
get on their television and threaten their top people.

Speaker 2 (01:14:08):
Did you know that I heard something? I heard there
was something with.

Speaker 1 (01:14:13):
Yeah. He even did that lately to Halkvid, you know,
and he he even went so far as to go
to the Saint Pete Children's Hospital where he's donated lots
of time and money, and he, you know, would make
it to make it ridiculous for Halkovid not to accept
his challenge. But he's done that to everybody, and nobody's
ever accepted his challenge, everybody from you know, the top

(01:14:39):
boys were Luller and Dundee. And didn't Dundee do something?

Speaker 2 (01:14:44):
Was it Dundee who like got in a fight?

Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:14:46):
Yeah, I heard he like did somebody showed up at
one of the shows or I was no.

Speaker 1 (01:14:50):
Actually, the whole story, see what I got out of
it was it was in Nashville at a gym in
the parking lot and Randy said hello Bill and then bam,
Sucker punched him. And then one thing I do another
and police were brought in this and that, and I

(01:15:11):
at the time was with my girlfriend who was to
become my wife. I was at I was in Knoxville
at the World Fair, enjoying my day with a fellow
named Tony Falk and a wrestler named El Brazero, and
my wife friends, my girlfriend and I and we were
not knowing, and that I was very thought. I thought

(01:15:31):
the little world Fare was a little disappointing because it
wasn't as good as Six Flags over Georgia or Cedar
point right, you see what I mean. I'm into the riodes,
all right, you know, and these were they had some rides,
but not great, Okay. So what I didn't know was
that even though I was a little disappointed with the
World Fare, which sounds on paper like it'd be more

(01:15:51):
fun than an amusement park, actually wasn't. I didn't know
at the time that I bet I'd be better off
an affair then, you know, rolling around with Bill Dundee,
Randy broke his sheet bone or something and then they
supposedly made up and became kissed and became friends. But

(01:16:12):
when I was working with Bill Watts, I was in
Bill Watson's territory in nineteen eighty three, right after I
had eighty three and eighty four. That's when my daughter
was born, Megan, and she's now twenty so time flies up.
So then I was with Ernie Ladd as the booker.
They were gonna put me, They're gonna turn me heel

(01:16:34):
because I speak Spanish and I was going to insult
the Mexicans and everything. And they had a big place
for me working angles with the great Magnum Tier and
I felt so terrible the world missed one of the
greatest workers in the you know. And because he drove
a little too fast on a wet road with a porche,
I don't know, that's another heartbreak, you know. And he

(01:16:58):
was great, trust me that one. Anyway, then they changed bookers.
Dundee came in and fired about ten people and I
was one of them.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
And then I already brought in all the Memphis guys.

Speaker 1 (01:17:10):
And you know something, I mean, I say this and
Bill Dundee's see, at the time they had a lot
of three hundred pounds paralyzed heals. Now, I love Nikolai Volkoff,
you know, not the you know, the one with the
iron chic, I mean, very nice person. And I was
in the car with Ridley Smith and George Wygross was
riding with me and he says, do you think we're

(01:17:35):
going to pop the territory? Says, yep, it just depends
when Nikolay is going to get over. Not to myself.
Not to myself, I shouldn't say anything, but that wouldn't
be me with it. I said, well, if we're waiting
for Nikola to get over, I think we're in for
quite a long, miserable time. So okay, Bill, do you know?

(01:18:00):
Fired me? And then what happened was I was gonna
hang around anyway because I didn't want to move my wife,
who was pregnant with my daughter, so we're gonna stay
in town anyway. But then Tom Zinc leaves without his
notice and I got all of his bookings, so that
was excellent. I mean, I got a Let me just

(01:18:21):
tell you this, Bill Dundee took the book, cut me
and brought into the Memphis guys. But that's the only
part of the story. He popped the territory because we
were dying of stagnation, you understand, I mean we the
people didn't want the product, and they had seen it
and seen it to death and it was on the downwards.

(01:18:42):
He brought in Terry Taylor. He got over like twenty
million dollars. That guy got over. People don't like him,
people knock him, people are jealous that guy got over.
He also brought in Bobby Eaton and Dennis Condrey with
Jim Cornett, they got over like fifty million dollars. And
then they worked with Morton and Gibson and they got

(01:19:05):
over like a hundred million dollars. Now, please, I know
I got cut from the team, and I know that
I didn't enjoy some of the big payoffs that were
about to happen. But I refuse to put myself in
the same situation as an Olie Anderson and say oh,
because they're not sticking to wrestling and this and that

(01:19:26):
and making excuses. Bill Dundee is brilliant. He changed Bill
Watson's territory from and another guy does Bill Watts. I
mean I have to say that. And what a man
he is. He goes in the dress room and says,
and if you make a suggestion and this and that,
or you say, hey, I got who's great on a

(01:19:46):
payoff or whatever, you say, well, if you don't get
buy your own territory, I mean, I dare you to
go up to that guy and talk about something because
he's got it here, and he's got it here, and
there's are very few places he doesn't have. And also
his territory was excellent, and it was it was designed

(01:20:07):
for profitability, and Jim Duggan made.

Speaker 2 (01:20:11):
A fortune there.

Speaker 1 (01:20:11):
Junkyard Dog was making one hundred and fifty thousand dollars
when they weren't making it now. As I was leaving
on May twenty eighth, the day before my daughter was
born in nineteen eighty four, they booked me in Dallas
and I worked with Gino Hernand's Are you familiar with him? Yes? Okay,
Now he's one of the list of long names of

(01:20:33):
people that have died early. In his case, it was
some type of heroine. Whatever, what difference does it make?
You know, it's I call it all suicide. Whether you
meant to or didn't mean to. You know, damn will
if you read the label that you're not supposed to
do this with that? Okay, we get in there in
Fort Worth, Texas on TV. I'm told to go thirty

(01:20:56):
minutes with some guy I never heard of. I heard
of him, I never met him, and we're going to
I'm gonna lose two straight falls. Well, I told you
that as a babyface, I could be led if the
heel was wise enough to lead me. Well, this guy,

(01:21:17):
the late, great great Gino Hernandez, he took me and
we pore the house down. Now the house is still
standing unless the records came maybe. I mean, that's part
of this way. We got the fans all worked out.
One guy even got so upset he tore up his
program and the other guy left for popcorn. I mean,

(01:21:39):
I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but may
I say that it was. I was very proud of
the match, and I gave all the credit to Gino Hernandez,
the heel that led this five and made him at
ten for the evening. Well, when I got back to
the dressing room, the boys were thanking me and congratulating me.
What a match. Everybody was giving me positive reinforcement. And

(01:22:03):
Bronco Lubach who was my dad's my father's manager in
the early days, in the days that my father was
to enjoyed the greatest six years of his life, or
was Bronco Lubich was his manager who was then the
elderly referee for World Class reside. Bronco came up to me,
and I love Bronco man because I remember when I

(01:22:25):
had my towns was taken out and then followed by
I had a hernia operation. You know. He he gave
me a good pep talk and he always took the
time with me. And he's such a gentleman, such a
nice man. He says, Lanning, that was fantastic. The van
Eerics love you, they want you, but there's only one problem.

(01:22:45):
We're full. But he introduced me to the booker and
his name was Ken Mantel Canvas Lanni Papoli. He says, Lanny,
you were great. We want you, but we're full. We
don't have a position for You're going to wait for
the right moment to bring you in. We're gonna have
a whole new cruming in in January. And at that time,

(01:23:06):
Dallas was the greatest territory in the world short trips,
most money I'd gotten off of Bill Wats's territory. When
you made three thousand a week, not dollars miles. You know,
you keep driving to those towns like so anyway, and
I never had the advantage of taking uppers and downars,

(01:23:26):
so I did it all on enthusiasm, whichever was starting
to lose. So anyway, oh, let's see where was I
I was, yes, May twenty eighth. Then I go back
to street Port. My daughter's born, and I'm thinking when
I Then I went back to we were still running
towns and we're working for Jarrett. My brother had drawn

(01:23:51):
big money with Jerry Lawler, and you know, everybody was
getting along swimmingly, from outlaws to him. Now, you know,
instead of instead of the outside pissing in, we're now
on the inside pissing out. Okay, we're all getting together.
And then but I knew I was in January first.

(01:24:12):
I was going to call Ken Mantell because he loves me.
He loves me. He knew that I was it the
next guy to make it all happen. So January first,
I call, and he sounds like he's high. And now
let's past twelve o'clock noon. I mean, I'm sorry, but

(01:24:34):
the rest of us are up. I said, this is
Landing Papo. You told me to call January first, and
here it is January first, nineteen eighty five, and he says, huh.
I said, yeah, I wrestled Gino Hernandez in fort Worth.
You liked the match, and you wanted me to join

(01:24:55):
World Class Wrestling, And he says, I don't. I said,
excuse me. I apologize for calling you at your home.
I know it must be frustrating when a mark has
your phone number. I apologize, and I wish you the
best of luck. Wow click, I mean he didn't remember
me from May twenty eighth. You know it is January first. Now,

(01:25:18):
I don't know if he was a on drugs or
b had actually forgotten me. You know, I've got one
of those faces that's easy to forget. Who knows, But
I was very disappointed. But in wrestling, as in life,
you are promised more things than you get. Now a
month later, who comes into the territory of Memphis, but

(01:25:41):
pyt Coco. Beware Norma, I lost him, and Coco beware.
Say what you want about him. He's a talented little guy,
explosively built, tougher than shoe leather, and well you can
tell the way he's built, and he's got a burgerhal leap.
And he's also never lies about anything, even when he's

(01:26:02):
putting himself over what she does a lot of you know,
he's actually very talented is he as good as he
says he is, Well, good for him for thinking so okay.
But I told him what happened. I said, you know,
I'm so excited to go to Dallas. And then I
called Kevin Ntellen doesn't even remember me. Said well, when

(01:26:23):
was this? I said January first. He said, man, he
would have starved to death. I said, Dallas was the
greatest territory in the world. It was the greatest rigs
in the world. Here's what happened. Remember when David bad
Error died in Japan and they covered up the suicide
and said it was it was just pills and her
like everybody else is dying of you know. And he

(01:26:45):
brought a lot of pills, definitely afraid he would run
out because when you're in Japan it's hard to get pills.
But you're in France, it's very easy. By the way,
pharma say, you know, they'll just give you anything you
want if you've got the cash. So what had happened?
And I got this story verified by many people. I mean,
imagine this, they give because David van Eeric died in Japan,

(01:27:12):
the fans and they sold out everywhere. The Vinyks were
the hottest thing in the world. They had the best television.
They give them a horseshoe of yellow roses. The money,
the time, the love that went into that horseshoe, it
was enormous, and they surprised that their surviving brothers with

(01:27:35):
his beautiful horseshoe and his gimmck was yet he wore
a yellow rose, and he threw it to the people.
The people went wild. They presented this horseshoe of roses
to the erics, who were totally inebriated with god knows what,
and they bring this in their Lincoln Continental and they

(01:27:59):
get about a mile out of town, and they threw
it into the sewer, and the fans saw it. Okay,
all the love that had gone into for these ingrates.
So the fans they brought the yellow roses back. They
said they threw it away. They're crying, they're upset, they're hurt,

(01:28:21):
their feelings are hurt. One of the mistakes that wrestlers
make is they think that marks are stupid. Marks are
not stupid. As a matter of fact. You know who's
really stupid the people in the ring. You know, the
people the marks paid to see. They're the dumbest ones.
Of all, because they have this idea that they're above it.
They're not above it. They are right in it. Okay.

(01:28:44):
So I mean when you point a finger, there's three
fingers pointing at yourself. What happened was it made it
United Press International that the Binarics had dumbest word of mouth.
It was a small town in Texas that used to
draw sellouts. Well. Immediately, in one day, the people boycotted

(01:29:05):
all world class wrestling. Don't mess with Texas, see know
what I mean? And the vine Erics they went down
and stayed down, and one by one, all but one
commits suicide. And the only one still existing is Kevin.

(01:29:26):
And from what I hear, he doesn't even know it.
He's walking around completely sedated. Now it's not for me
to judge, but I'm hoping that whoever bought this interview
is a entertained b feels that he doesn't want to refund.
But see, and most importantly, please, for the love of God,

(01:29:50):
don't do what those before you have done. Learned from
that and walk that straight and narrow please. I mean,
if that's that's what I'm dedicating the next thirty years
of my life to, I figure I'm about to hit in,
you know, a couple of months. I'm going to be fifty.
What do I want to do with my life? Well,

(01:30:12):
I want to help the children, start them young and
teach them that a life of debauchery is not for
a human being. And and it's destroyed every life that's
gone before. Let's learned from Janis Joblin. That's not just
following her footsteps as a singer. Yeah, okay, Chris Christofferson, Fine,
you know, I don't you know, I don't know how

(01:30:35):
we're going to do a segue here, but I insist
that eventually, after we're done talking about wrestling, I can
give a little pontification because I'm dedicating my life to it.
My daughter doesn't smoke. That validates me as very good
role model and a very good influence. It's she never
even considered such a thing. And everybody's looking for leadership

(01:30:55):
where it's absent in the home. That's where I'm stepping in.
I'm going to go in there, and I'm landing the
non smoking dad. My daughter knows that if she started smoking,
she'd never get a moment's peace because cigarettes is not
only the leading cause of her preventable death, it's all.
It also leads to other things that's going to make
your life spiral downward until it plops. And if you

(01:31:18):
want to be all you can be, you're going to
have to live by a couple of rules. If it
feels good, it might be bad for you. If you
feel bad in the morning, maybe you shouldn't do it tonight.

Speaker 3 (01:31:31):
I want to I want to backtrack a little bit
before you went to Madison on and you're in your
father's sartory.

Speaker 2 (01:31:37):
What are your memories of Elizabeth?

Speaker 1 (01:31:40):
She was Ano?

Speaker 2 (01:31:41):
Yes, how did she come out?

Speaker 1 (01:31:42):
She come about?

Speaker 2 (01:31:43):
And who founded her?

Speaker 1 (01:31:44):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:31:45):
She was going out with somebody first?

Speaker 1 (01:31:47):
Right? No? No, okay, Well I don't know her past.
I don't want to dig that up out of the trenches.
H you know, but let's see she I met her
as she was in Syenta Sports Center and Lexingic, Entucky
where the boys worked out, and she was behind the
booth and you know, when you checked in, she could
give you the towels. And I thought she was gorgeous,

(01:32:09):
and Randy asked her out, and the schoem got a
lead with Elizabeth, and that's how it started. Now they
were married about I don't know January December thirty first,
nineteen eighty four. And then Randy got a break in
New York in June I don't know, fifteenth, nineteen eighty five,

(01:32:32):
so he's already married about six months and then and
now let down the aisle by his manager e Elizabeth
Bom Bomb Bomb Howard Finkel was phenomenal. Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (01:32:52):
I was going to ask you about her and she
was never really was she a fan of the business
or was something that I don't think song you guys
basically just todd of the busines ready for her.

Speaker 1 (01:33:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:33:03):
Now, also before we talked a little bit about your
brief stint in Memphis, or actually wasn't that brief you
and your brother went in there? Was it hard to
actually go into the locker room for the first time
after all that? You know, the I guess the controversy
with you and your promotion.

Speaker 1 (01:33:17):
Was No, I don't, I'm not that sensitive. It was
it was harder to go into any locker room that
Olie Anderson was in. I didn't find anything else as
negative as that. What are some of your memories of
your matches the Rock and Roll Express, Well, they were
fantastic and particularly Morton, the way he sold and the

(01:33:42):
way he would fight for his comeback and fight for
that tag. That was a lot of times I felt
that I was just holding the rope and watching them go,
because you couldn't have ruined that national matter who was
in the corner. They were excellent and they were phenomenal,
and you know, they're very nice people.

Speaker 3 (01:34:02):
Do you see yourself as an innovator of table breaking
because you guys did the famous pile driver spot, which
is still talked about today.

Speaker 1 (01:34:09):
Okay, in a word, no, okay, I'm not an innovator
of table breaking. I am an innovator of holding the
rope and watching my brother innovate table breaking. I was
safely in my corner and I said, Wow, these guys
are good. I said, if I were a fan, I
bet I spent money on something worthwhile. He took that
at Ricky Martin up and I get they have played

(01:34:31):
this to death. Nobody knew that table was going to
break either, you see, because these things you can't call.
But I give credit to both men for having the
spheres of the temerity or whatever you want to call it,
to take a chance like that. And I guess that
was when hardcore was born.

Speaker 2 (01:34:49):
What are some of your early memories working Lawler?

Speaker 1 (01:34:52):
Lola was fantastic, he was, He's a ring general. He
made me look good, he was. I don't not success.
I also think he is an excellent commentator. Of course,
WWE all their announcers are great. You know, we were
in a thing today. Somebody asked me. You know, we
had a Q and a thing earlier and you were there.
Somebody asked me if I could be an announcer. Probably yes,

(01:35:15):
but I don't think I would add to it because
I think the WWE either has the best announcers or
they'll get them. You know. I remember back when Vince
was just starting out, Vince Junior, he actually made an
offer to Howard co Sell. Yeah, and that's in other words,
nothing's going to stop him from putting the best ingredients

(01:35:35):
on the microphone or in the ring.

Speaker 2 (01:35:37):
What advice did your dad give you before you went
up to New York?

Speaker 1 (01:35:43):
He said, get as much rest as you can because
she knows it's going to be a horrible schedule, you know.
And I tried to get in bed in time to
see David Letterman. What were your.

Speaker 3 (01:35:56):
Initial impressions of Evince when you first met out how
you actually wind up there? Is it true your brother
went in first?

Speaker 1 (01:36:03):
They were there the same day?

Speaker 2 (01:36:04):
I mean, right, But you want to tell the story
of how your brother.

Speaker 1 (01:36:07):
Was a Okay, this is how my brother was spotted, Okay,
I think so, Okay, Well, I'll make it as dull
as I can. Okay, Okay, how was my brother spotted?
Remember doctor D David Schultz. Yes, well he slept John
Stossel in twenty twenty and blah blah blah, got himself

(01:36:30):
in all kinds of trouble, got himself fired, okay from WWF.
And then he goes to Memphis and they team him
up with the number one heel, which is Manchoman Ready Savage,
and they make an interview together and have a match
of making an interview, and in the interview, Doctor D.

(01:36:52):
David Schultz events he does a shoot interview against Coogan.
That's big Man the WWF. He's knocking everybody bam bam, bam,
bam bam. So evidently I wasn't in on it. But
Vince catches wind of it, okay, and he wants to

(01:37:12):
see the tape. So through his connections, he goes to
Channel five in Memphis where he has it, has the
tape boom or maybe Jimmy Hart helped, I think. Anyway,
Vince got the tape and he saw the tag match
that Randy and doctor d David Schultz were in against
two enhancement joppers. But in that match he saw the

(01:37:35):
chu Win take the gun and throw him out of
the ring, you know, the top roop and jump off,
which in those days was quite a feat. Now they're
doing it, you know, every ten seconds, okay, But also
the look of Randy and the interview and his work
and his quickness and his desire and when he did that,
you know, you know, the scariness of him. Vince mcman says,

(01:37:59):
this guy great. So he put his feelers out, Jimmy Hart,
Howard Finkel, Jimmy Hart, and finally to mister Coffee in
the Mid South Colisseum. You know who that is. Yeah,
he says it, Jimmy Hart. Boom boom, boom boom. Next

(01:38:22):
thing you know, he's talking to Howard Finkel on the phone. Now,
I was supposed to go wrestle for berg Gania and
George Scott was the booker of the of New York
at the time, so and he liked Randy and he
liked me. I had worked from a year and a
half and I love George Scott. I mean, what a
phenomenal guy. And he's not feeling too well right now,

(01:38:44):
and I hope he has a speedy recovery. So anyway,
I digress again. The transcripts that this is going to
be murdered. So what happens is okay, several phone calls later,
he's on the phone with George Scott and I'm right

(01:39:06):
next to him because we're right a painful and this
is before they had cellular phones. This is nineteen eighty five.
And okay, he's got a shot at the top as
a heel. Blah blah blah. He says, but you know
what about my brother, because he's going for Vernon. I'll
just eat him alive if I go to New York

(01:39:27):
and they would have too. Plus I'm gonna frozen my
ass again, so he says. George Scott says, we and
I'm standing right next to my brother. He said, well,
we don't have any room on top. Well how about
in the middle. Well, in the middle is fine? Does
he is he a healer or a baby face? And
he goes are you a healer a baby face? All right?

(01:39:47):
I just forgot to do is that? Well, you were
a heeler, baby face? Sorry if you do that too much,
your larynx gift. Sorry. And and I said, eenie mine,
I know, okay, I'm a baby pape because I didn't
want to do my gimmick and have everybody you know,
up in arms again. So I go into so I

(01:40:08):
right there, I became a baby base in the middle.
And then while George Scott was the booker, I was
very well handled. You know. He had me doing really well,
no jobs except for Terry Funk and people like that,
and then, which I loved doing because I love Terry Falker.
And he had me, oh, winning matches and this and that.

(01:40:31):
I was on a roll. Then something happened. George Scott
lost his job after about six months or a step
down or whatever happened. I never got the answer. And
then of course I was the doormat for the ww WEP.
I was getting beaten by everybody, and I stuck it out,
topped it out, and then until I became the genius
so and I kept my eye on the prize. I

(01:40:52):
was there for the money. I concentrated on the money.

Speaker 2 (01:40:56):
Was thence good to you in the beginning or inditial person.

Speaker 1 (01:40:58):
This was good to me in the beginning, of the middle,
and the end and even after the end.

Speaker 2 (01:41:03):
Now, you were one of the first guys ever doing
a moon salt, I believe.

Speaker 1 (01:41:06):
In the US and I have credit for that. I
actually was not the first person. I was the first
guy to steal the moon salt from Tiger Mask. I
saw a match that was done in Medicine Square Garden,
so that eliminates the theory that I was the first
guy to do with the US. I saw a match

(01:41:26):
Tiger Mask against the Dyna my kid, and I must
say that dining my kid, let me just say about
him that Chris Benoih stole a lot of his stuff,
and he said that was his hero, and that was
his God and this and that. Well, by the time
the match that I saw with Tiger Mask, then when

(01:41:48):
I got to New York and eighty five, din In
my kid had already degressed from that point because he
was a physical cripple. Okay. And I might say that
Chris why he may have tried to copy down in
my kid, but I am sure that he has surpassed
him even you know, even in the early days, because

(01:42:11):
I mean, that's quite a physical style he's working. And
I can't prove this because there's two words, objective and subjective. Okay,
Diving is objective, I'm sorry. Diving is subjective. The judge
doesn't like you, you lose, okay, But swimming is objective.
The best man always went on the best woman. Whoever

(01:42:32):
touches the thing first, and they can take it by
a million to the second. So, in other words, wrestling
is all a matter of opinion, and Ole Anderson has his.
I have mine. It is my opinion, and died in
my kid was one of the greatest things I've ever
seen in my life. And it's also my opinion that
Benoir is even better. You know, he's taken his hero

(01:42:54):
and surpassed his hero. Now maybe somebody doesn't agree with that,
that's the way I see it. Anyway. I saw that
tiger mask get out on the top rope, and immediately
I knew I could do it. It's just a matter
of getting on the top rope and trying it and
trying it, and a couple of thousand moon saws later,
I think I had it. Perfected. Now I see that

(01:43:16):
there are fat people doing it better than I ever did,
and I still do it in the same way. Of Course,
I don't wrestle anymore because I am a certify credit
counselor and I no longer need to wrestle.

Speaker 3 (01:43:28):
At any point, were there any suggestions to actually acknowledge
that you and Randy were brothers in New York?

Speaker 1 (01:43:33):
Yeah? No.

Speaker 2 (01:43:34):
Was it something that you guys ever wanted to do
or not?

Speaker 1 (01:43:37):
Well, I didn't think it would help him. It probably
hurt him. It wouldn't help me that much. I didn't
want to take away from his push. I was lucky
to be there. I would have gone to New York
just to take the Jackets back because I could see
that they were the future of wrestling. I could see
that this had the pulse on the people that he
understood that it's not wrestling in the marquis, it's entertainment.

(01:43:57):
He was the first person to say sports in aertainment.
Now he says world wrestling entertainment, and the proof's in
the pudding. He's right. And what was my first impression?
He's a meticulous man. If you go to a WWE event,
there's no lint on the ring, the poles are painted.

(01:44:19):
If you meet Vince McMahon, he doesn't need to floss.
He's flost his shoe shines. He's impeccable. The whole like,
for example, the whole family is unpeccable. Ricky Steamboult had
the greatest arm drag I've ever seen. He said he
got it from Jack Briscoe. I think he took it

(01:44:40):
and improved it. And then I asked, Ricky Steinbault, how
do you do that? I'm having trouble, and he actually
tried to teach me his arm drag. Well, what he
succeeded in doing is bringing me from a four to
a seven in my arm dragon, while he remained at ten.
And then nobody surpassed Ricky Steamboaut until Shane McMahon came along.

(01:45:03):
Now who's got the better armsreg I'd have to see
them both, but I'd have to give Steamboat the edge
because he did it with his shirt off. And I
have to assume that because Shane McMahon wears a shirt,
then he must not be mister Universe. So by the
same token, because Steamboat wears long tights, I imagine his
legs are earned as good as an upper body. In

(01:45:24):
other words, these are smart people and they're going to
accentuate their positives and eliminate the negatives. Mister Wrestling number two,
if he had ever lost his match in the ring,
he would have killed his career because he looked horrible.
I mean, it looked like he was one hundred years old.
And I mean, I don't mean to be mean, but
there was a reason he was wearing that mask. Now,

(01:45:46):
an exception to what I've been saying I just thought
of that made the Genius look like an idiot is
Bill Edie made a fortune with a mask, and then
he took it off and became the Demolition and met
another fortune. And like I said, there's not a homosexual
bone in my body. However, Bill Edie is the handsomest

(01:46:07):
man you've ever seen in your life. And I can't
imagine our guy that looks that good. But try to
make money with a mask, you know, So that negates
what I've just tried to tell you. But Shane McMahon's
arm drag have you ever seen it? You agree with me?
You understand that you arch your back, you do five
things at once. You take a picture of it and
everybody's in the air and there's a whipping thing instead

(01:46:29):
of a dragging thing. It should be an arm whip.
And it's a beautiful thing when it's right and you
know it's right, and you know that, you know that,
you know, and you carry yourself with that camera brabato.
So so, Mike Moon Salt is like second rate compared
to the other people that have improved it. And even
fat people can do it. And then they're doing one

(01:46:50):
and they have twister gainer blah blah boom. You know
it's crazy now. I mean when I when I did it,
everybody said I was crazy, but it was nothing for
me because I knew I could do it. Now.

Speaker 3 (01:47:00):
We talked about Elizabeth and she came in with Randy
into for the time. Was that something that she wanted
to do or is it something that Randy wanted her.

Speaker 2 (01:47:08):
To be with him while he was on the road.

Speaker 1 (01:47:12):
Yes, and yes and yes, she wanted to do it.
Randy wanted her to do it. It was a great
thing and a great time. No.

Speaker 3 (01:47:17):
We've done interviews with so many people in the business,
and I'd say ninety percent have talked about Randy.

Speaker 2 (01:47:24):
Being overprotective towards Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (01:47:25):
I mean we've heard stories about I guess when there
were Bickkeepsie and other places that he would be really
overprotective or and like put her in closets and stuff
like that, and like you know, locked the door and
you know, make sure none of the boys you know,
got near her and stuff like that. I mean, what
are your thoughts on all that?

Speaker 1 (01:47:41):
My thoughts on that? And did you see it overprotective
as opposed to underprotective? I'd say the greater sin is underprotective. Okay, Well,
she locked into a closet, absolutely not. She was in
her own dressing room, right, so she didn't have to
walk around with her broad and panties. I don't see
what's the big deal. See, you know the wrestlers are

(01:48:02):
a bunch of back wounds anyway. I mean, what are
the white scouts that grew up and say we're going
to be wrestlers? No, the okay, Look, she was not
locked in the closet. Randy was very protective of her.
She she might be if she were still with Randy.
She might be alive today because evidently other people were

(01:48:24):
not as protective of her. So when she got her freedom,
which she earned through divorce, she became underprotected and fell
by the waysides. So no, she was not locked in
the closet. She was in her own dressing room. I
was being in your own dressing room, locked in the closet.
You know, all the wrestlers that have testified that, I mean,

(01:48:49):
name names, I bet you. I'll just take a guess
that the sum total of their net worth is negative millions,
and they're looking they're motivated by talking about rand me
as a jealous person. Randy is healthy, wealthy and wise,
and like Dandrew find his shoulders are just flicking off.
It's ridiculous. I mean, you get the point. Okay, Elizabeth

(01:49:17):
was handled very well by Randy. I'm a divorced man.
Divorce is an epidemic because more than fifty percent of
all people that get married wind up in divorce. And
I have a hunch to thinking that the other fifty
percent would like to get divorced. But you know, I'm
because I'm a Catholic, and the three things a Catholic

(01:49:38):
doesn't do is divorce, suicide, and abortion. Well that's why
I haven't been there for twelve years. And thank god
my wife dumped me, you know, because it was like
having a cancer removed. But they walk around, strut around

(01:49:58):
and think that their lifestyle is the new Testament. Are
they going to talk about my brother who's never been
arrested or kept after school? Please? You know they're just jealous. Marshall,
Wan's her going not to be jealous of Fortunately, his brother,
his bird will adjust it.

Speaker 2 (01:50:16):
What are your impressions of Logster.

Speaker 1 (01:50:20):
I think he is God's gift to wrestling, and I
think I will never see I don't bite the hand
that feeds me and I don't bite the hand that
fed me. And in Topeka, Kansas, he got in the
ring with the genius Landi Potfo and he led me,
led me Alah, Terry Funk, all of the late Gino Hernandez.

(01:50:42):
He took the limited ability that the genius had to offer.
He liked my gimmick. He scratched me down the back,
and he says, I'll sell it like Jim Barnett. It was.
It was a fun match. But some of the boys said, well,
it's not wrestling. Well please, it may not be wrestling.

(01:51:03):
That cannot be the only comedian in a very serious business. See,
I believe in variety. I believe when you go to
the circus. You need the fat lady, and you need
the flying trapeedes, and you need the two headed geek.
You know, let's have it all and then hopefully, as
a paying customer you might like one of them, or
both of them, or either of them or something. But

(01:51:24):
if everybo wrestler wore the same colored trunks and did
the same things, it wouldn't be special, would it. If
we all had physiques like Lex Luger, it would no
longer be different. Okay, I'm making an excuse for having
a poor physique, but my point is, how can I
ever say anything bad about Hull Hogan when he actually

(01:51:46):
got in the ring and did a job for somebody
that couldn't even beat him to the bathroom. If it
were we'll fight. You know, there was Hulk Hogan was
the man, and for one brief shining moment, he made
the Genius the man. And God bless bns mc mann
for allowing it to happen and for not listening to
any of the naysayers that thought that I might that

(01:52:09):
helpless loveing by wrestling the Genius. But he proved that.
Even though I went to White Plains in New York
about a year before, and Arnold Scholan came up to
me and says, Landing, can you do me a favor?
This is our hometown. Can you put my son over
in a match? And I did a job for George School,
and I said, sure, I'll do it, and then I
wrestled the match. I went to the venues and three

(01:52:31):
hundred Frisbees were there. When three hundred Frisbees were sold,
and fans came up to me and says, how do
you like? How do you let that fat piece of
crap beat you? I said, oh, I uh, I'm a
thin piece of crap. I guess.

Speaker 3 (01:52:48):
Did you ever see any professional jealousy between your brother
and Hugan?

Speaker 1 (01:52:54):
You know, I'd like to consider that question like a
mud puddle, and I'm on a sidewalk. I like to
walk around that this is an election year and we
and I will reply to your question without answering it.
Let's just say that it is human nature to have
jealousy between great people, Okay, And if there is any

(01:53:14):
jealousy like that, Since since it's not the Mancho man here,
and since evidently it costs more money to have the
Manchu man here, why don't we wait until you can
raise the money to put the mancho man here. Okay.
Rather than lie to you, I'd rather say are not

(01:53:35):
qualified to answer problem?

Speaker 2 (01:53:38):
How hot was the Paul owner Phogane for the company
at the time.

Speaker 1 (01:53:43):
Well, how Cogan was just like Rick Flair. He drew
money no matter who he wrestled, no matter who he wrestled.
In other words, Rick Flair against a player to be
named later in Charlotte would draw capacity houses. Well, that
was the same type of drawing power that Hal Cogan enjoyed.

(01:54:04):
It didn't matter. Oh and by the way, I forgot
to say one more thing about Goalie. Then finally that
was I take you back now, I take you back
now to nineteen seventy seven.

Speaker 3 (01:54:17):
It's safe to say you and Olie won't be going
dinner anytime soon, right, Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:54:21):
We'll be doing dinner. Yeah, we'll shoot for who gets
the bill? Okay. They finally put Rick Flair and Greg
the Hammer Valentine against gina Oa Anderson and they drew
big time. And what do you think happens? Who do

(01:54:42):
you think the fans made the babyface the Andersons. I
didn't give you a chance to answer, Okay, anything other
than the Andersons is not the correct answer. The Andersons
were one hundred percent babyface. And then the Andersons said,
that means that the people believe in us more because
they're well, wait a minut it out. We have you
saying that Rick Flair is not good because he may

(01:55:03):
draw a solid crowd, but because thirty percent of the
crowd is cheering him and he's not a proper heel,
not all of a sudden, he's completely being out heeled.
And not only that, he's claiming the house. Look at
the house I drew that we drew, or that this
is the Anderson's house, and you know he's enjoying. So
in other words, a bad house is an orphan or

(01:55:27):
a good house or a sellout house has many fathers.
Everybody's taking the credit, nobody's taking the blame. And Ole
Anderson there should be a picture of him when it
comes to that syllogism. Okay, So, Orndorff, how did the
feud between Orndorf and Hogan get over? Was your question?
And my answer was Hulk Hogan and anybody got over.

(01:55:51):
And anybody that disagrees is either stupid, lying, or jealous.
And that's just the way it is. And Manchoman had
that same drawing appeal.

Speaker 2 (01:56:01):
Also definitely, what are some of your maverags of Piper.

Speaker 1 (01:56:04):
At this time? Roddy Piper is the greatest, one of
the greatest, unique pieces of high energy that ever walked
into a ring. When he got to New York, he
had stopped doing the pipes, and I thought that was
something missing. I didn't ever ask him why not, because

(01:56:26):
I had too much respect for him, because as a
worker or as a talent in this business, I didn't
feel even though I consider him my friend, I really
like him, I still do. I didn't consider I thought
that would be a disrespectful question to ask such a
great talent who never did anything to me except try

(01:56:47):
to help me, and whenever he wrestled me, he elevated
me up to his level. And if I had what
I really appreciate about him. The reason I loved Roddy
Piper is because he went out of his way, out
of his way to call up the Garibaldi's in Los Angeles.

(01:57:11):
I forgot the promoter's name who ran wrestling in Los Angeles.
Who was the promoter anyway, I can't I can't remember,
but it was maybe Mike LeBell. He said he actually
dialed the number and says, here's Lannie and put me
on the phone with him. And he had told Mike

(01:57:32):
Leabell that I could be their top heel and he
had all straightened out for me to be to go
in there, and they made me an offer, and it
was absolutely nothing that I had done. It was Piper
doing it for me because he could, because he had
broken all the records there. That's where he cut his teeth.
That's where he became known as a box office attraction.

(01:57:54):
That's where he perfected his rotting Piper gimmick before he
went to Portland. And then I had the very sad
news to tell him that I had decided to go
to Kentucky with my parents and with my brother to
start a territory, and I decided to handle it as
a non Richard Nixon person. I just went up to

(01:58:15):
him told him that say thank you, butt, and I said,
please let me and I called Mike LaBelle and I
said thank you for the opportunity. However, I've decided we're
going into business for ourselves and I appreciate and he said,
absolutely no problem, thank you for calling me. That's very
non wrestlerlike of you to address me and tell me

(01:58:37):
you're not coming in. Usually people just don't show up.
You see what I mean? In other words, So I
felt good about that that I handled it like a man.
It's just look a person in the eye, tell them
the truth, I said, look a person in the eye,
tell him the truth.

Speaker 2 (01:59:14):
Did anybody ever try to play you and your brother
against each other at all in a shooter or a
worker in a shooter?

Speaker 1 (01:59:20):
No? No, they couldn't anyway, because I'm like teflon man,
water up a Duckt's back. You can't get to me
in our family. There was nothing Button Ridges. If you
couldn't take a joke, you don't belong in our family.
But I learned to take a joke. I've always been
able to take a joke, even at my expense, and

(01:59:41):
even if you hurt my feelings, I'll never let you
see it. My pillow knows the truth. I'll cry myself
to sleep, but I can take it if nothing bothers me.
I already know my shortcomings. I'm working with what I have.
I believe in, Like Tigger, it's what you do with
what you got, And are you really nice or not?
If you're thoughtful and you're true, no one can compare

(02:00:03):
to you. It's too good for just children. Everybody should
learn that song.

Speaker 2 (02:00:10):
Let's see how crazy was the drug scene next time.

Speaker 1 (02:00:14):
Well, I don't want to be a nark, Okay, but
may I say that I personally don't even take aspirin
and I saw some things, okay, And may I also
say that I don't know. Nineteen ninety two, when it
all came to a head and things were said and

(02:00:37):
federal got involved in all this stuff, I was glad
to see Vinsky hat out of it because he was
one not guilty in my opinion. Okay, you like, for example,
I love superstar Billy Graam. He's always been nice to me. However,
if a man takes steroids, and by the way, he

(02:01:00):
took them before he met ver Gania, and then he
rose to the top in Versee territory, and then he
made money, every worry of it went because he was
ahead of his time. And he's totally authentic in a
world where all that glitters is not gold. Okay, in
his day he was the man. But don't blame Vince

(02:01:23):
McMahon because you take steroids and don't blame Vince McMahon
because you act like Judy Darland when you're on the road,
you know, with the toes and the liquor and the
uppers and the dollars and pull I can't sleep well,
just watch TV and rest. You know, there's a little
bit of conformity that's going on that. Oh I want
to get into wrestling so I can party. Well, can

(02:01:45):
you at least party responsibly? Because you know that if
you drink too much, you're gonna have a little headache
in the morning. So that should be your body telling
you that you've been abusing yourself. Now you can abuse
yourself a little, or you can abuse yourself a lot.
I like to abuse myself, not at all.

Speaker 3 (02:02:02):
As far as the Honky talk Man, we talked about
him a little bit earlier on. As far as him,
what are your memories of some of your matches with him?

Speaker 1 (02:02:11):
Well, let me see, they brought him in as a baby,
they didn't they and he didn't get over, okay, And
then they made him a heel and he got over.
In other words, they were going to make him get
over no matter what. And I thought he was an
average worker with an excellent gimmick and he had. However,

(02:02:32):
he claims he is the greatest inner Continental champion of
all time, and he says that in the dressing room too. Now,
when he says he's the greatest Internet Intercontinental Champion of
all time, may I just say, honky talk man, you
are putting down some excellent talent, okay.

Speaker 2 (02:02:56):
Memories of the bulldogs and maybe some of the rooms
that you waitness the pool.

Speaker 1 (02:03:01):
Well, I love the bulldogs. I mean, who wouldn't. I mean,
you must have no humanity at all. They were fun, loving,
excellent people. However they got carried away. Now let me
give you an example of why I love the bulldogs, okay,
and then I want to tell you about why I
don't love them, because there is good and bad in
the Bulldogs, mostly good. Davy Boyce Smith came up to

(02:03:25):
me and he says, have you seen the new picture
of Brett Heart? He had cut out with the scissors
a hole where Brett Heart's face was, and then he
pressed it against his open to fly and put his genitalia. So,

(02:03:49):
in other words, Brett Heart's face was now yeah, is this? Yeah?
So how could you not like a guy like that? Right? Yeah? Okay?
I was trying to be nice. But Mom, if you're watching,

(02:04:10):
it was this package that came out of it. Whatever,
O go on, No.

Speaker 2 (02:04:13):
We were just talking about them. You also said you
had all the bad stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:04:16):
Yeah, stuff in Toronto. Dyna and my kid came up
to me and says, Lanny, we're going to have a
program with the Rugos. I promise you that we're going
to get those guys. And I thought, whoa, what do
you mean get those guys? Focal, We're gonna get them.

(02:04:40):
You watch and I said, why I like the Rugs
and you know I like them both. They're gonna get
those guys, and I'll tell you something about the Rugs.
They're not easily gotten. I saw an interview that was
so great. It was Bruce Lee. I love Bruce Lee.

(02:05:00):
He had his heyday before you know, I was younger. Fortunately,
through the magic of television, there's such a thing as reruns.
He gave a one hour interview and I thought, this
is the greatest man I've ever met.

Speaker 4 (02:05:11):
There's a sorry, we can head it right, okay, And
Bruce Lee says, the secret to self defense there are
two things.

Speaker 1 (02:05:27):
Number one, respect for everybody. Number two, underestimate nobody so
I must say that the dyne of my kid and
David Boyce Smith were guilty of a not respecting everybody,
the Rugos and be underestimating people because those Rugos are

(02:05:51):
not easy pickens. There. As a matter of fact, it
was Dino Bravo, one of the toughest men in the world,
and Rick Martel, and they're all French Canadians, ones from
Credec City, once from Montreal, but they're all in the
click together. They're in that clique. And they explained to
me that the Rugels were no one to mess with.

(02:06:12):
And their father, Jacques, he was famous for the one
punch knockout. And as you can see that they both
were heavily bone structured people and very coordinated. So that's
what the ability to defend yourself is size, strength, quickness, ability,
guts and kinesthetic sense. In other words, there were athletes.

(02:06:34):
Don't be so sure. So what happened is they were
abusing the Rugels every night, and the Rugels, being gentlemen,
put up with it every night. Finally, as in Popeye,
that's all I can stand. I can't stand no more.
Bomb bump bom boom, boom boom. They make their comeback
in the form of I wasn't there, but Jacques Rougeau

(02:06:56):
socker punched the Dynamite kid, whom I go out teeth
and everything, and boom boom. Well I had heard about it.
But then the very next day we went to France
and Italy together, and then I saw the bulldogs acting
like maniacs at the airport, which they did a little
bit more this time than usual, and Dynamite says, look

(02:07:21):
at my teeth and they were all missing and swollen
and gums bleeding, and it was disgusting. I hope I
didn't discuss you when I showed you anyway, in case
you're out there, okay, anyway, So then we're I heard
their side of the story. Well, I happened to know
that they had foreshadowed this week's before, and I knew

(02:07:45):
that the Rougos were not easy pickings. And then now
then they they got in the habit of defecating in
the suitcases of people they didn't like. Now, I was
so cautious of that that the genius full of glory

(02:08:06):
and renowned would hide his suitcase from those people, because
then they started playing a game of can you top this?
And was mister perfect. And it was this back guy
in Sean Michaels in this and I don't mean to
name names, but it was like they were in competition
to see you could do it more. So I would
hide my suitcase, and about two times the genius hit

(02:08:32):
his suitcase so well that I couldn't find anither. But
I never had the evidence of their disdain in my suitcase,
so you know he was worth it. Members of Jake
the Snake, Jake the Snake was the greatest waste of

(02:08:52):
talent in the history of the business. He had it all.
He had looks, personality, his work was excellent, He had
the greatest gimmick. People loved that snake. I remember when
they were going to work a deal with him in
Hulk Hogan. Hulk negated the deal because the people were
shouting d d T DDT and he Hawk didn't like it,

(02:09:15):
so they cut it. I'm not talking out of school.
This happened, okay, and I'm sure I'm not the first
person to attest to it. He was so over, he
was cool. He was a heel, but he was cool.
They liked him as a baby pease, they liked him
as a heel. I was the baby face that they
chose to work with the heels as they came in

(02:09:36):
to do the job for them. When I was leaving
Lannie and the Greatest, I loved doing it for Terry Funk.
I also loved doing it for the Great Kamala the
Ugandan Warrior, because I loved Kamala and I loved Kim Curtis.
I mean, he's the greatest. I have a story about him. Please, whatever,

(02:09:57):
we're talking about Jake now, but let me tell you
about King Curtis later. Please remind me because it's an
important story. I wasn't there, but I felt like I
was in the room. Okay, anyway, about Jake the Snake.
Did you see the movie Beyond the Mat? Yes, it

(02:10:17):
breaks my heart to think that Jake the Snake, Robert,
who was God's gift to wrestling as much as he was,
sunk so low as an individual. And this is what
happens when your demons catch up with you. And then
and I happened to really love Grizzly Smith, and he
was portrayed in a very bad way, like he was

(02:10:39):
some type of a pedophile doing things to his own children. Whatever.
And I don't know if all that's true. All I
know is when I worked for Bo Watts, Grizzly Smith
was the nicest person, and I did five hundred miles
in one day with him, and then the next day
we did four hundred and the next day we were
together a lot. And I can fool you for about

(02:11:03):
ten miles, and then after a while the real me
is going to come out and you're going to see
that I'm folded, You see what I mean? Right? Eventually,
if you hang around a person long enough, it's a
little like being married, and then you know in marriage
is the definition of marriage for me is the courtship
is what can I do for you, honey? And then

(02:11:25):
it turns into what can I take from you? Stupid? Okay, Well,
when people sometimes you're with people and they get away
with it for a while and the next thing you know,
you're at each other's throats because it's a captive audience.
In real life, if you meet a person you don't
like him, you leave the room. But when you're going
seventy five miles an hour, how can you leave that room?

(02:11:45):
But you can do leap to your death. You know
you have to stay with that person because you have
to make the town. So that's a captive audience, and
some of the wrestlers are not pleasant to be with.
Grizzly Smith was the most fun I've ever had, except
for two things about him. I couldn't stand secondhand smoke,
and he kept his chevalle like capriest below arctic levels.

(02:12:08):
I'm addressing h looking like Kenny on South Park because
I know I was traveling with the Grizzly.

Speaker 3 (02:12:17):
Were ever frustrated that you were doing uh, you know
presms from the Fresh fo or three years there actually
stated before that you didn't really care.

Speaker 2 (02:12:24):
You just happen to be at the show.

Speaker 1 (02:12:26):
Yes, let me go back to Grizzly Smith that I'll
answer that. Okay, when I saw beyond the Map, I
saw the daughter who had the tongue thing, you know.
I mean when I see dad, I just say, oh man,
you know, in the absence of leadership, they'll follow anybody.
Oh I want something that's gonna I mean, that'd be

(02:12:48):
it'd be a good sales minute to because that's the
first person to do that. Right. So anyway, she's complaining
about her father, then Jake is complaining about his father,
and then Grizzly says Will Jake Roberts was born in
love and I still love him. And I thought to myself,
let's say he didn't know anybody. Let's say it was

(02:13:10):
ready to go. Everybody make their own first impression. The winner,
Grizzly Smith. He doesn't hate anybody. I heard bad things
said about him. I don't believe a word of it,
and even if it was a little bit true, that
means it's a little false tool. Okay. So Grizzly Smith
is one of the greatest people I've ever met in

(02:13:31):
the business. Except he gave me secondhand smoke. Man, he
kept the freezing cold. Okay, Okay, what was the next
I'm sorry? What was? Okay? The next one that I interrupted?

Speaker 3 (02:13:40):
Oh, I asked you, if you're frustrated during your first
two or three years working there doing freeloms.

Speaker 1 (02:13:47):
What I actually I was, You're not gonna believe this,
but I'm gonna tell you anyway. I was so happy
to be a part of it that no, I wasn't frustrated.
I was excited to get up in the morning and
be in the World Wrestling Federation, even if it meant
doing jobs on Worldwide TV. Because let's look at all

(02:14:10):
I gained. I'm a very thrifty person. I don't waste
my money flying different places, throwing it around flavorantly. That's
why I'm financially stable today. But Vince McMahon bought my
plane ticket to go to every state in the United States,
all over Canada. I'm a Canadian born American citizen. I

(02:14:32):
love going places. I love looking out the window, I
love learning about places. I love the fact that I
know that there are four commonwealths and all the rest
are called states, and I know which ones they are,
and I know why. I'm not going to bore you
with that, but I love knowing that stuff. And then
I get to go all throughout Europe. I get to
go to Australia, New Zealand. I've been everywhere, and why

(02:14:55):
because of the World Wrestling Federation. And I did my job.
I put people over. I did what people didn't want
to do. I did what people wouldn't have done. And
then when I turned to heel, I made myself an
ass on TV like I'm some effeminate person. But I
sincerely believed that that's.

Speaker 5 (02:15:15):
The only way I could have gotten over to the
best of my ability, and I actually got to work
with the Great Hulk Hogan for four months out of
my life, and I had got to team up with
one of the greatest workers that ever lived, Kurt Henning.

Speaker 3 (02:15:30):
I'm going to ask you about Curtin a little bit.
Were ever disappointed that you weren't on WrestleMania three?

Speaker 1 (02:15:37):
Of course I was about what I got to do
instead was be on NBC and have Andrea the Giant
head about me and throw me over the top rope. Now,
even though I wasn't on WrestleMania three, I felt that
without the Jibbronis you can't have any stars. And what
a great opportunity to be on JIBBRONI for the great

(02:15:57):
Andrea the Giant and to be the first person to
bleed on NBC. I mean, I did the best I could,
and I love Andrea, and I did the best I
could for Andrea. And if that made him mean, maybe
maybe if my parents had never had sex and had me,

(02:16:18):
they would have probably still drawn over ninety three thousand
people that night. But at least I did my part
to make Andrea important, to make him more vicious that
he took a said pathetic Caucasian young man named Leaving Lannie,
bloody him up and throw him over the top rope
so I can feel the thing is, I don't want

(02:16:41):
to be a guy. Let me be the only old
timer that's not angry. Let me be the opposite of
Oli Anderson. Let oly Anderson be on the opposite end
of the continuum, a better old man. Let me be
a cheerful young man for all the days of my life,
because old is a choice. Look at jack O Lan
and he's one of my heroes. He just turned ninety

(02:17:03):
and he's the most optimistic, efforvesent person in the world,
still in shape. Can't I be like him? Can't that
be my role model. I would like to be ninety
years old and look like that. So I didn't get
to be in WrestleMania three, I was in WrestleMania seven.
I was in the Survivor series. I was a part

(02:17:24):
of the World Wrestling Federation. I love those people, even
the people that don't love me back, I love them.
That's the message I'm sending out every wrestler that will
be in this chair. If they were the book or
they put themselves on top. But I got my chance
on top, and may I say that I'm not going

(02:17:47):
to be like the Anderson's claiming the house. But I'm
saying while I was co starring in the main event
with the Great Paul Kogan and the Great Mister Purfect
and two box office records fell the Los Angeles Colosseum
and the Myriad in Oklahoma City, Okay, And I'm not
saying I claim in the house, but I did not

(02:18:09):
repel when I got my chance. It's a team sport,
you know. And besides Hulk Hogan's the man. He was
the nucleus. I was just the electron for four months
and the twenty one years I spent if you want
to call it big fish, little pond, little fish, big pond,
Jibroni's good, whatever you call it. Was it all worth
it to be four months with Hulk Cogan. Yes, talk

(02:18:32):
a little bit about Andre. What was he like to
work with and was he miserable at the end of
his run? Andre was very miserable most of the time
in the eighty since nineteen eighty five when I met him,
he was working for the Chic and then on for Ambillo,
Texas for the funks. Andrea was actually one of the
great workers, so great that he'd have been wrestling on

(02:18:52):
top of it. If he were five foot ten inches tall,
that's how great he was. But in nineteen eighty five,
I was almost taller than him. I mean, he has
a five hundred pound skeleton, but he's a bubblebot. Swayed
back and he was all hunched over like that, and
it was sad to see. So I'm in the dressing

(02:19:15):
room in Buffalo, New York. There's a snowstorm. I hadn't
said hello to Andre because he hadn't sent a load
to me yet. He was so miserable and he was
in horrible pain. And I can imagine that the pain
that a giant has is indescribable. I just think that
they have bigger pain than small people. I don't know.

(02:19:38):
I guess everybody's pain. The difference between a major heart
attack and a minor heart attack is a major heart
attack is if it happens to me. A minor heart
attack is what you get. So, in other words, who's
pain are we measuring? I'm in the dressing room in Buffalo,
New York, and Andre is sadder than usual. There's a
snowstorm outside. We're very early, because if we didn't get

(02:20:00):
in there early, we wouldn't have got in there at all.
And he has no playing cards, and that's all Andre
wanted to do in the dressing room is play cards.
So I decided, like underdog, when Andrea's in trouble, I
am not slow. It's hip, hip, hip, and away I go.

(02:20:21):
I went up the stairs, and I saw approximately ten
female groupies, and I could arrange them in looks from
a couple of ten's jacks are better nine nine eight
eighths by blah blah, blah blah. I took the ugliest
one and I went up to her. Because of supply
and demand, and I don't mean to be cruel, and

(02:20:43):
I said, Hi, I'm landing poffo and I have a problem.
She says, what can I help you with it? What
can I do? Kind of gone to the pretty girl.
She would have told me to go have sex with
myself or something. Because of supply and demand. I just
know human nature. If you're one something done, go to
the road less traveled. Go to the one that least

(02:21:05):
likely to you know, be involved in something like that.
I said, here's ten dollars. I don't know, buffalo. Please.
Andrea is downstairs and he needs a deck of cards
and step lively because time is wasting and he's miserable.
I give her the ten dollars. She comes back about
two minutes before she left. That's what attitude is. And

(02:21:28):
she says, here and she was so happy. And it
wasn't an ordinary deck of playing cards, my friend. It
was Bicycle, the finest brand in the world. Okay, you know,
not some off brand, but Bicycle playing cards, that trademark.
So then we had an argument. I tried to let

(02:21:48):
her keep the change. She tried to give me back
the change. I said, please, you've just gone to the snowstore,
risking your life. The change is yours. As a matter
of fact, I should pay you more money, she says.
I okay, no time to waste. I took I gave
her the money I brought there, and I said, Andrea Willa.

(02:22:12):
He looks at me and he teared up, and he
goes mem sure, and he grabbed me, and when he
put his bananas around my head, he had me. There
was no getting away. This wasn't gen Anderson. This was
Andre who They looked like, wow, that was just one hand.

(02:22:33):
So from then on my name was boss Man to him. Now, yes,
he was in horrible pain. He was brutal to watch him.
But you have to understand about Andre. He loved wrestling,
and you know what else he loved. He always kept
a videotape of The Princess Bride in his bag, and
whenever he'd go to any hotel, he'd insist that there

(02:22:56):
was VCR and he'd always play that. He loved that
movie and he should be proud of it because he
did a fantastic job. And that was that's what made
him happy, the fact that he did the Princess Bride,
and when people came to his room, he played that
for him. Even if you've seen it a hundred times.

Speaker 3 (02:23:14):
Yes, did you see him drink a lot all the time, Yes.

Speaker 1 (02:23:18):
But don't forget the same thing that would give me
a buzz wouldn't give him a buzz. So he had
to drink quickly, has some mounts and mass quantities in
order to get that. In other words, whatever killed Elizabeth
wouldn't give him a buzz. Elizabeth weighed eighty five pounds.

Speaker 2 (02:23:39):
Going back to King Curtis, he had some stories with us, Yes.

Speaker 1 (02:23:41):
I do, but may I say that it was Rick
Martel that told me the story about King Curtis. Okay,
so this is once removed. I've been to New Zealand,
but I wasn't there in the room at this time.
If you're familiar with the career of Ricky's, Martel was
one of the biggest stars that ever hit Hawaii, New Zealand,

(02:24:03):
actually every place has ever been. He's been a great
star and he's a phenomenal person too. And he and
his wife Joanna have recently adopted a beautiful Chinese daughter
from the People's Republic of China. Are you aware of
what happens to an orphan in that country?

Speaker 2 (02:24:22):
If it's a girl, it's a girl. Yeah, I think
they don't want girls basically.

Speaker 1 (02:24:27):
Basically, basically there are slaves for snacks for the rest
of their lives, Okay. And and instead of that, she's
going to have the best that life has to offer
because someone loved her enough to rescue. I mean, you
can't change the whole world, but you can take one
little girl and be that miracle. What did you say,
the slave for not slave for sex, slave for snacks.

(02:24:50):
In other words, it gets you know, well, no, there
is such a thing as slave for As a matter
of fact, the Filipinos were tread. Yeah, I read it too. No,
there is such a that's why you uh, that's why
you're asking and you know that's true. But no, what
they do is they just put into work and they

(02:25:12):
just feed them anything, and it's not they're not really
interested in their fulfillment. Where Rick and Joanna are going
to make sure that she has all the best. And
I think it's a beautiful story. In other words, everybody says, God,
give me a miracle, but that's not it. It's God,
make me the miracle, make me the gift. That's that's

(02:25:37):
the that's the secret to life. I I read Doc Mandino,
I read Doctor Wayne Dyer, I read Deepak Chopra. I'm
trying to become a better person anyway. Okay, let's get
back to King Curtis. Curtis was like a fantastic star
in Hawaii every place here. He had the gift, you
know that, he had the interview, He had to work,

(02:25:57):
he had to look. But he had already burned his
bridge with Steve Rickhard, the promoter from New Zealand. Many
times he had double crossed him with Mark Lewin and
this and that. I mean, I don't want to go
on and on. But you know how it is he
had already. Now he found himself in a situation where
he had burned his bridge in so many places. He

(02:26:20):
needed a job, and Rickard was angry with him, and
even though he knew that Curtis was phenomenal talent and
drew nothing but money wherever he went, because they had
the gift. And of course Ricky Martel was the greatest

(02:26:42):
babyface and beloved, so they put him on some insulting
salary of five hundred dollars a week, which was ridiculous.
Yet sometimes one eye as king in the valley of
the blind and was supplying a man against you. You
take what you can get, so Martel and he, okay,

(02:27:06):
you can imagine how great it was. They tore the
house down there the boom but boom but boom, juice too,
you know, and this and that outside of the ring
chairs and everything. They come back to the dressing room
and Curtis was a little older by then, and Marteau
was in his prime. And Rickard comes into the dressing

(02:27:28):
room and he says, he criticized the match, and there
was no criticizing a match like that. Who's two of
the greatest workers in the country. I mean, and let
me go back when Rick Martel told me the story,
he didn't put himself over. I am putting him over.
I am taking the liberty to embellish. Rick Martel does
not talk like that, like I'm the greatest. I'm telling you.

(02:27:50):
I know Rick Martel, I know what a great heel
and baby BC he is, what a great champion he was,
what a great individual he is. So I didn't want
to make you understand that I'm just because I'm the
story's twice removed. I didn't want you to think that.
Rick says that he's the most He's humble, he's got humility,
and he doesn't talk like that. He's got genuine confidence.

(02:28:14):
He doesn't have to break right. Okay, so they raised
the roof. They get back to the dress room. The
boys say that was great, but Record comes in and
starts criticizing unmercively King Curtis. And Curtis is out of
breath and he's bleeding and he's sweating, and he's listening
to it and he just takes it. And after Ricord

(02:28:37):
leaves the room, he says, in that Curtis voice, what
does he run for five hundred dollars a week harly race,
and of course record could hear him because that's how
loud he But what a great story. Yuh yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:28:53):
Was there any jealousy between a Bee Cake and Huviad's relationship.

Speaker 1 (02:28:57):
With the rest of the boys. Yeah yeah. People thought, well,
Beefcake's only getting his break because of hal Cogan. Well,
when I wrestled hal Cogan myself, several people thought that
that was the same thing. Only because I was the
Mancha Man's brother. Did I get the break? So? May

(02:29:19):
I not say? Who said it? Came up to me
in the in the dressing room, in front of all
the boys, say isn't it true that you're only getting
a break because the Mancha Man's your brother? And I said, yes,
it just takes the bullets right out of their gun,
you see what I mean? Do I have to mention
whose name it was if he's deceased, you don't. I'd

(02:29:41):
rather not, because because it's true I got the break
because I'm the Macho Man's brother. Okay. In other words,
but then again, I did carry the mail for quite
a few years in anonymity, you know, and I did,
I did the black job, so I'm it could get
the main event. So it was my turn. So if

(02:30:03):
you want to say that the mantra okay, guilty is charged,
I mean that takes the bullets out of your gun.
It makes if it makes you feel better, I can
handle it.

Speaker 2 (02:30:13):
How did the whole idea for the genius gimmick come about?

Speaker 3 (02:30:15):
And also what were the long plan What were the
long range plans for the gimmick?

Speaker 1 (02:30:21):
Well, nobody told me any long range plans for the
gimmick but Vince McMahon. It was Vince mcmann's idea, and
I I was excited because it seemed like a big
break and a new thing, and it seemed like something
that I could take my Ricky Star gimmick that nobody

(02:30:42):
liked and use that because there were people that thought
I couldn't get the heat after being so well white
as a baby taste. Well, I knew if I made
a complete metamorphosis, and I knew that Ricky Star gimmick
in the back of my head that I that I
was that I was forced to shut down and shop
it could be utilized many years later in the Big Apple.

(02:31:06):
So I used it, and Hogan loved it. Vince loved
it for a while I imagine it got old for them,
but it sure worked for a while, and I'm sure
I'm glad that I learned it, hit it, and then
exploited it at the right moment, and it was all
worth it. And I have absolutely no bitterness. You know,

(02:31:27):
you change one word and bitter becomes better b I
t t R becomes b e t t e r.

Speaker 2 (02:31:35):
Speaking of gimmicks, we never really talked about it. How
did you come about doing the poetry like before the match?
I know you said you're a fan of it, but
whose idea was to do the man first?

Speaker 1 (02:31:45):
It started with me being proactive because I was on
a TV show called t NT Tuesday Night Titans. Do
you remember it? Okay? I I wasn't. I didn't want
I was a little bit. I knew that as JABBRONI
without a push that I knew that I had six
minutes to get over or don't get over either way,

(02:32:08):
and I felt I had the capabilities to get over
because I've always felt more confident in front of the
microphone than in the ring. Okay, and this is my
chance to show the powers that be that I was capable.
So I didn't want to give the Babyface interview. Well,

(02:32:29):
I'm just glad to be here. I hope burgers are.
I'm doing my best, and that's all I can say. Okay,
So I put on my suit of armor that I
got as a brainchild of some bad dream that I
had that I thought, is there some way I can
get over without any ability whatsoever? Okay, So I got
my suit of armor, a eleven hundred dollars, which is

(02:32:49):
theatrical armor that probably in the Broadway musical Camelot King Arthur,
Sir Lancelot would wear. Okay, that's it was a real armor.
It was theatrical armor. I put it on, and I
walked out there and I gave this poem. Look back
through the annals of history and the wrestling Hall of Fame,

(02:33:12):
men from all nations, with courage to spare, who struggled
to carve out a name. Now, compare these high standards
of valor to those chivalrous knights of your with bravery, staunches,
their armor, their glory, both legend and lore. My medieval
connection with wrestling lives that magnificent past. Although mine the
skeptics may snicker and scoff. The winner is he who

(02:33:34):
laughs last. Alive with the love of wrestling. I appear
on T and T between Vincent Awful Alfred, the Hottest
show on TV. I'm not your average wrestler, but I
wouldn't want to be. I never scream or kiss my arms.
I'm happy just being me. I call myself leaping Lannie.
I validate what I say to every single wrestling fan

(02:33:56):
who's watching USA. Yes, I believe in mirrors, as God
has blessed this great land. I believe the referee will
soon be raising my hand. And what happened was then
Bobby Heenen was with me, and that's perfect because he
could play there. Just throw a little vinegar in the
greens and he and we had some banner back and forth,

(02:34:20):
and then we went to black and the segment changed
and Vince McMahon says, Lenny, that was great. From now on,
when you get in the ring, you do a poem
before every mess and I said, thank you, I'll do
my best. And then but then at the same time,
when I went to bed that night, I said, I

(02:34:42):
didn't say what to bed that I say. It went
most this is a shoot interview. I wear adult divers.
When I went to bed, w E n t see
how one little letter can change the whole message. Okay,
So when I went to bed that night, I realized,

(02:35:05):
what role I have to do a poem for everybody?
Be careful what you wish for, right, So I thought
to myself self, I said, there must be some way
that I can tease the audience into liking me, even
if they don't not booing me. So I decided to

(02:35:28):
throw the scrolls of poetry to the people. But there
was a problem with that. It only went to the
first row and sometimes not even that far. And that's
like a social class distinction that I don't like the
cheap seats. So I thought to myself, this isn't going
to fly. And I thought to myself, Frisbee's will. So
then I invested a little money and I wrote a

(02:35:48):
poem on Frisbees. I had an embossed and you know,
anybody can do it, but do they? But you know,
I'm just thinking, also, how can I get over without
any ability whatsoever? You know? And I said, on the
Frisbee says, if I can remember it, it's been a
long time. The World Wrestling Federation has caused a culture shock,
and every phase of our society from classical to rock

(02:36:11):
in triumphant jubilation. Every social class is one with a
single common interest just to have a little fun. I've
seen the rapture in the eyes of fans from every nation.
You made us what we are today, World Wrestling Federation.
So I would on the other side, I would write
a poem. Now I have a complaint Chief J Strongbole.

(02:36:33):
He was the guy they would tell you who you
were going to go up against, right, and you know what,
he never told me who I was going to do
it until they put it on the chalkboard. He wouldn't
let me know. So I had to write a poem
sometimes with moments to go. Now, what I found out
about myself was fortunately I am a real genius. I

(02:36:53):
can come up with it that quickly. I can come
I didn't realize how good I was until I was
forced into it, you know, with my back to the wall,
with the pressure on that I can actually come up
with that type of thing. And maybe it made up
for whatever I lacked in the ring. For I mean,
it was good enough to keep me having a job

(02:37:14):
percent of years.

Speaker 3 (02:37:16):
You actually answered a lot of the questions, well did
you ever do a palm on some guy like your opponent,
and you ever say something like criticizing or innate and
you got heat from it from them?

Speaker 1 (02:37:25):
Yes, yes, well I love I love this guy like
Hercules Rnandez. I can't remember the poem it ended. The
punchline was his male egos very insecure, and that in

(02:37:47):
itself wouldn't upset anyone. But when I said that line,
which was my punchline, I made the little gesture. And
that is something that no man months to hear.

Speaker 3 (02:38:03):
When Dusty Rhodes came into the company and the Vince
put the polka dots on him kind of as a,
you know, punishment for him being in the competition, did
everyone laugh behind his back?

Speaker 2 (02:38:12):
The boys funny?

Speaker 1 (02:38:14):
You should mention that. Do you remember the warlord and
the Barbarian? Yes, yes, okay, I am on the road
with the barbarian okay. And and he says, I'm not
going to imitate his accent, but he says he hates

(02:38:34):
Dusty Roles. When he sees him, he's going to kill
him with his bare hands. And when this guy says that,
you better believe it. I mean I was a little
bit I thought to myself, Wow, I I love my nose.
I love breathing through it. I think the Barbarian could

(02:38:55):
ruin that for me if he wanted to. Again, he
made look like some type of sharpay dog or something
I don't know, with one punch. And so I followed
him into the dressing room and there was no Dusty Rose,
and I was a little nervous. And then when Dusty
finally showed up, Hey, Barbarians little bo bo boom boo boom,
and you know what happened, I said, Oh, no, Barbarian's

(02:39:16):
gonna hurt him, because he said that he would. In
the car, Barbarian hugged him. Dusty Rose is so charming
and so much fun that he took this angry man
and just loved him up or something like that. I
don't know how he did it, but he does it
very well. And Dusty Rhodes is also in a group

(02:39:38):
of people that were the lip, not the load, of
the business, that understood that it was important to sell
tickets and succeeded. And about the yellow polka dots, I
don't believe that Vincement Man is the type of person
that would do anything to shoot himself in the foot intentionally.
I think that he I mean, if I'm if I'm wrong,

(02:40:01):
I don't believe that he does anything on his own
product that is going to diminish the success of it.
I believe that if he really didn't like Dusty, he
would prove it by never booking him. I think that
he utilized Dusty and Sapphire to entertain the people, and

(02:40:22):
they certainly did entertain the people. What's wrong with the
few polka dots?

Speaker 2 (02:40:27):
How did you wind up with that? Kervenning?

Speaker 1 (02:40:30):
Just a lucky break, luckiest break in my life, and
he's excellent worker, fantastic person, and he broke my heart
he died. I had no idea. I promise you I've
never seen him do any of that stuff. He wasn't
doing it when he was with me. I saw the
toxicology report. I was shocked. It's just that you never know.

(02:40:53):
Maybe maybe because he knew he had to take tests
that he was being clean, or maybe his problem came later.
It was did you know the cause of death? He
was it was an acute cocaine whatever, And I said, well,
you got me. Because he was always a fantastic gentleman.

(02:41:15):
He was a hilarious person to be with. He was
only business in the ring. He had matches with Brett
Hart that were so outstanding that I I was just
proud to be a part of it, even sitting there watching.
You know, these these people deserve a lot of credit.

(02:41:37):
But I just I don't know. I can't talk about
it anymore. I liked him so much, and I'm so
sorry that he's gone.

Speaker 3 (02:41:44):
Were you told that your wrestling role would phase out
when you're quote with Kurt?

Speaker 1 (02:41:48):
No, it just phased out. I mean, but I I
knew that everything in life is temporary, and I knew
that I was going to enjoy it each moment I
had it, And even after my push was done, I
tried everything I could, like for example, Brutus the barber

(02:42:08):
Bee Kip kept cutting my hair, so I knew that
I could get heat if I put on a wig
and then and then something like a wrestling headgear, a
shooter's head ger in order to keep the wig on,
and then lose my hair and be humiliated. And then
when I would get beat by Hal Coogan at the end,
there he would either if he would either have Beefcake

(02:42:32):
cut my hair. And in the times that Beefcake wasn't around,
I said manna. I said yes. He said, why is
a brother, And I said, take me across sheer knee,
pull my trunks down and spank my buck rosy red
and that got over. And then of course me selling
it and keeping my thronts down. Let's put it this way,

(02:42:54):
oleanders and say that's not wrestling. It was fun. They
got a guy playing at a feminine heel. He needs
to get his ass penton.

Speaker 2 (02:43:05):
Ultimate where and your memories on him?

Speaker 1 (02:43:08):
Well, he got over big time. He ran to the
ring and shook the rope, did the thing, and it worked.
He had all the visuals. He was a stunning looking man.
He looked like a comment script character. They say that,
of course he was a great inter condimental champion, but
they say when he got the world belt, he didn't draw.

(02:43:30):
I was there. That's true, he didn't. However, he was
an asset to the World Wrestling Federation and perhaps the
role of world Champion could have been too much for
him at the time, but at least it seemed like
capable shoulders at the time because his character was a

(02:43:51):
little bit one dimensional. And I realized that when I
say that, you're listening to a one dimensional character. So
it's calling the kettle black. I have a below average
physique in wrestling. He had the ultimate physique in wrestling.
But my ability was on the microphone. And you know,
we all play our races. I'd say, the macho man

(02:44:12):
has it all. He has the work, the look, the
ability in the ring, this and that, and the indefinable
jenese Quah. Plus he had another something. He had the
lovely Elizabeth, which gave it the love hate thing. And
then right, Gordon, I'm sorry, I.

Speaker 2 (02:44:29):
Was there any bitterness ever between you and your brother
since that you were now working with Logan again with
Kurt and he was like underworking with Dougan.

Speaker 1 (02:44:36):
Absolutely not. Even as a matter of fact, my brother
had more mentions with the whole Cogan than any other
person in history. And no, there was no bitterness. How
could there be bitterness when what they said, Okay, I'm sorry,
Rick Rud, Okay, what Rick Rude says was true. If

(02:44:57):
it wasn't for the mancho Man and his friendship at
the time with Hulkhovian, I'm sure that I would not
even have been part of the equation. And having said that,
is that so bad? Yes? Friends, there is politics. Sometimes
it works with you, sometimes against you. But during the
lean years I persevered and during the fat years, I

(02:45:19):
also persevered.

Speaker 2 (02:45:21):
Did you see potential on Shawn Michaels and Bretdhart at
the time? Did you think they were going to be
a big part of in the future.

Speaker 1 (02:45:27):
Yeah, they're both excellent workers. Why not? I mean, why
shouldn't they get a break? I mean, I know that
there's been a lot of allegation saying who's the best
this or that, blah blah blah blah blah, like it
matters which octogenarian is a better worker at this stage
of the game, I'm not interested in that they were
all great and each one was an individual. So who's

(02:45:50):
to say what's better an apple or an orange or
a casavo melon. It's all good, you know, So let's
just say that. I mean, why get I'm talking about
the Flair Brett Hart situation or Flair's book They knocked
mc foley or this and that, you know something. Mc

(02:46:12):
foley threw his body off a cage and landed and
knocked himself out and went to the hospital. Wouldn't you
say that the price he paid for wrestling was enormous
And how can you criticize it by saying he's just
a stuntman. No, he'sn't just a stunt man. He's a
lot more than just a stuntman. He had a personality

(02:46:33):
that the fans loved. No matter which gimmick he had,
he got over in a myriad of ways. He was
an asset to the business. If he came back to
the business, he'd be great again. I'm not really interested
in knocking success because that makes me feel like a
failure render under Caesar, you know, give the devil as dues.

Speaker 2 (02:46:56):
I was actually gonna ask you about Flaiir. How did
Flair fit into the picture?

Speaker 1 (02:47:00):
Which picture?

Speaker 4 (02:47:00):
When he came into the company, the Company of the
World r.

Speaker 1 (02:47:06):
To me, it was excellent. Why wouldn't one of the
greatest workers that ever lived arguably Well, that actually one
of takes the argument out of it. The only argument
would be the greatest worker that ever lived. Well. I
don't think there's such a thing as the greatest worker
that ever lived. I think that people bring something to

(02:47:26):
the table, okay, and some people bring more, some people less.
And since it's a matter of opinion, let's go back
to the two words objective and subjective, Like we can
prove who the fastest human in the world is. The
clock will prove it, but we can't prove like, for example,
we both meet a girl. You think she's beautiful. I
think she's a dog. It's the same girl, Okay. So

(02:47:47):
it's like a matter of opinion. Whatever rolls your socks
up may not what to say that what looks funny
to you may not look gorgeous to me. So let's
all get along. I mean, this is and the only thing, Oh,
I read Rick Flaer's book. And by the way, when
I say that, I mean Keith w at Greenberg's book,
because he's the writer. You know. The only guy that

(02:48:11):
wrote his own book is myself and Nick Fuley. But
when I wish that, I love Rick Flair. But I
wish he had never mentioned these two words owen Hart,
because unless he was to do it reverently and with

(02:48:31):
his hat off, instead of using it to talk about
stuff that doesn't matter, because in the final analysis, it's
a horrible situation of what happened to him. He's a
victim of the worst luck a man can have. And
let's not mention his name unless it's to say something nice.

(02:48:55):
I mean, please, I mean, why do you want to
get petty when the stakes are so high and the
family is still bruised, And why bring it up again
unless it's to heal not hurt.

Speaker 3 (02:49:08):
Now, after Kurt got hurt, did you fear your spot?
And also, how were you actually told by Vince that you're.

Speaker 1 (02:49:14):
Going to be let go? Vince came to me in
Los Angeles and said, Lanny, we're making a few changes,
we're letting a few people go, and I'm afraid we're
going to have to let you go. And he did
it like a gentleman. I handled it like a man
I thought I did. And then I wrote him a

(02:49:37):
letter and said, thank you for the run. I appreciate
working for you. However, I did buy several caps and
gowns and several more wits in good faith that I
thought my gimmick was going to continue. I have the
receipts here, and it came to about six hundred and

(02:49:59):
sixty seven dollars and twenty five cents something like that.
I got my caps and gowns legitimately from a captain
gown manufacturer. I didn't get him from mister Wrestling Number
two's wife, the late Olivia. I got him from an
actual I said, who's the best baker of captain gowns?
And that was in Champagne, Illinois. I had the receipts
six sixty six something whatever. And he he didn't call me,

(02:50:22):
he didn't do anything. He just I just got a
letter from him, and in it was a check for
one thousand dollars. And I'll tell you something else about him.
I mean, because people say horrible things, let me say
this about him. He's a hard guy not to be
jealous of. So naturally people want to say horrible things
so they can look in the mirror and justify their

(02:50:42):
own pathetic lives. Let me say this about this McMahon.
That after I was fired or let go or you know,
Donald Trump, you're fired, he did it a little nicer
him that. Then I got a phone call from Pat
Patterson and he says, leaping Lannie, how are you doing?

(02:51:03):
I says, it's Kat Patterson. He says, have you ever
been to New Zealand? I said no. He knew I'd
love to travel. And he says it's not a World
Wrestling Federation sanctioned event. However, Don Morocco has a friend
and the Bulldogs are going because that's their home and

(02:51:24):
we're looking for some talent that would like to go.
And he says, we're offering this much money. May I say, okay,
two thousand dollars for two weeks work. What I didn't
tell him was I had done it for free. I

(02:51:45):
would have Hey, how would you like to get a
plane ticket to New Zealand? And all you have to
do is wrestle a little bit, okay, and you get
to see news you think. I mean, I don't know
how jaded you are, but I think that's a great
place to go in fantastic memories, and it's another country
under my belt, and it looks good at my passport.

(02:52:06):
I love going places. I like the Maori tribe and
looking at them and seeing everything and experiencing life and
the delicacies of distant lands and reading about it and
studying and learning and experiencing. I had done it for free,
but I'm not dumb. Ice took the money, okay, I
said yes. And then we went there and as he said,

(02:52:27):
it's not a World Wrestling Federation sponsored event. So one
of the things they did wrong was they had poor
advertising and they drew a poor crowd, and then the
very next morning we were on the front page, not
the sports page. The front page headlines wrestling and comes
to Auckland. And Vince McMahon would have never allowed that
to happen. He would do the advertising before the event.

(02:52:52):
You see what I mean, After it won't help you. See,
Vince was a promoter. The other guys were impersonating a promoter.
They think it's easy, so they, you know, after the
fact they get the publicity. Well, that's not going to
help you this show, woll it. So we went to Auckland,
we laid an egg I was in. We did we
did about eight towns Road, Aurora, Wellington. I loved every

(02:53:16):
minute of it. Every inch of it was a threat
to my life because it was all through this and that,
and there was nothing stopping you from certain death besides
sticks and string. They didn't have the actual guard rails.
And it was raining and we're driving too fast over
the wrong side of the road because it's New Zealand.
So anyway, but I lived to tell about it. And

(02:53:37):
then I got home and then the phone rings and
it's astment man secretary says, oh, Annie, did.

Speaker 2 (02:53:49):
Your check bounce yet?

Speaker 1 (02:53:52):
And I said, no, it will but Vince says that
even though it's not a World Wrestling Federation sponsor event,
because he is the one that allowed them to book you,
he's going to make the checks good. And I said, really,
I didn't know the check of Bounce, and I didn't
know the checks would be good. Right three days later,

(02:54:13):
two thousand dollars came to the door. I thought to myself, integrity,
there are some people that think this doesn't have any
I'd like for them to hear that story, and you
may say, well, he's rich, he can do it. Business
was lousy than me. I tell you. That was when

(02:54:34):
it all hit the fan about the steroids. That was
when the talent was going down. That was right before
the WCW was chewing yes, robbing the talent from Vince
and everything. So I'm just saying, no business was lousy.
It's just that every time in the time in the
seven years that I knew him, he had a chance
to take the high road or the low road, he

(02:54:56):
always chose the high road.

Speaker 2 (02:54:58):
Switch tips you wind up in the WCW.

Speaker 1 (02:56:17):
I never actually made it to the WCW.

Speaker 3 (02:56:22):
A lot of the guys actually point to your kind
of contracts. What was wrong with WCW, And how do
you respond to that?

Speaker 1 (02:56:28):
There are one hundred percent right. As a matter of fact,
this is probably the only thing that I agree with
Oli Anderson about. See, when he was the booker or
the owner or whatever, he always treated the boss's money
like it was his own. Where the people in the
w CW they abused and irresponsibly handled Ted Turner's money.

(02:56:51):
Now that was before I guess they merged with AOL
or you know, back when they were the remember the
chronological order of everything, but Ted Turner in wrestling, when
it was just Ted Turner, wrestling was just like an
ancillary part of his empire of cable television. Okay, so

(02:57:14):
if he showed a loss, there was no big whoop.
But when he had to be accountable to AOL or whatever,
you know, you know, it doesn't look good on the
balance sheet. Now you had people in the WCW that
were in charge of making decisions that we're letting money
hemorrhage from the company. Now, as an individual, I am

(02:57:36):
a successful man because it's not what you make, it's
what you save. Let me make a little example. If
you have a bucket and there's no hole in the bucket.
It doesn't matter if I have an eye dropper. Slowly
but surely I will win. I will fill my bucket,
and I will live in abundance instead of scarcity. However,

(02:57:58):
and in the case of a multitude of there's a
brick Flair included. And I'm saying it only because I
read his book where he actually was actually rougher on
himself than he was on knocking anybody else. He was
actually degrading himself by telling the truth. He was very,
very honest in the book, and it was very introspective.
But Rick Flair, who has done nothing in this business

(02:58:20):
except succeed has a larger bucket than me and is
filling it up with a garden hose and sometimes a
fire hose, not an eyedrapper.

Speaker 2 (02:58:30):
Like I had.

Speaker 1 (02:58:32):
But because there was a hole in his bucket, it
didn't matter, because it all goes on the sand. Now,
that's only half of the nightmare. Because right now I'm
a certified credit counselor, and my disposable income now is
greater than almost every year I've ever had in the
rest in the twenty one years I've had because they

(02:58:55):
give me a check and I have a w two
and they take out the taxes so I don't have
a surprise at the end of the year in case
I handled it stupidly. Now, in the wrestling business, you're
an independent contractor. And if you live like you're in
Hollywood and say confetti, and if you have your hole
in the bucket, Uncle Sam says now, and we're not
impressed with the fact that you're a big deal wrestling star.

(02:59:18):
Now we want it now. Otherwise they charge you exorbitant interest,
you pay the fine, and you live in read ink
for the rest of your life, and it's like you're
going to be a prisoner of your own debt. So,
I mean, I almost forgot the question. But how do
I feel when wrestlers resent that they're right? It's one

(02:59:41):
hundred percent right. But also let me say that, let
me say something else. The mancho Man did an amazing
thing when he was the representative of Slimen. He never
said no to them, and he always dressed to the nine.
And let me tell you how. My brother gives it

(03:00:03):
an autograph. He says, ohop, what's your name, little Billy Michael? Hey,
you're looking good. How you doing? And he signs his autograph.
He's got a beautiful autograph, and he makes Billy, Mike,
or Johnny or Teresa feel like ten million dollars. Everybody
gets their share. And the reason he does is because

(03:00:24):
he's smart. He was there with me in Hawaii when
I was twelve years old and I went up to
art link clutter. He wasn't there at the time, but
he heard my story that I said, mister Linkletter, and
I was twelve years old. Jude is a bugzier. Mister Linkletter.
I had a panout, I had all the etiquette you
whatever want, may I have your autograph? And he was

(03:00:46):
and he was a wikey key beach in front of
the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and he was reading Variety magazine
and he had a nice chase lounge and he says
buzz off, and he didn't say buzz And I was
twelve and I was devastated, and I got depressed for
about three days. My parents finally asked me what happened
and I told him and they were ready to kill somebody.

(03:01:09):
And then that's when I was twelve. Six years later,
I wrestled and somebody asked me for my autograph, and
it just hit me, I have the power to make
somebody's day or kill it. Because I know what it's
like to be rejected. I know what it's like to
be spurned. I know what it's like for somebody to
take a pin and burst your bubble for no other reason,

(03:01:31):
to accept laziness or deliberate cruelty. So I have never
been too busy to sign an autograph. And in baseball,
when they get paid big money to sign autographs, they
do it like this. Now, how do you feel like
a statistic or an individual? Manchoman says, yeah, you're doing

(03:01:56):
He gives you his attention, he makes it. He's got
beautiful handwriting and he uses it and it makes it fancy.
And he gives your name spelled correct? How do he
spooled it? And he makes it nice? And he doesn't
just do it, but he does it every time, all
the time, always, and he never turns down an autograph.
And myself, I have a sloppy handwriting. However, I type

(03:02:19):
over ninety words a minute. Sorry I had to put
myself over. But that's objective or subjective. You know what
I'm saying. Objective is yes, I type very well, and
I'm very proud of it. Microsoft word got it all maybe,
So what I'm saying is he consistently did that, and

(03:02:41):
he went to He doesn't even he's not even crazy
about NASCAR, but he went there anyway, and he dressed
to the nines, you know how he dresses. And he
suffered in the hot blazing sun watching a sport that
he doesn't understand. Cars are going in a circle. I mean,
if you're into it, fine, if you're not. But the
thing is, he was invited by Slimjim and he always attended.

(03:03:03):
He paid his own way, and he always and he
developed personal relationship with them. So when he left the
WWF and went to the WCW, he had a meeting
in Raleigh, North Carolina, and he convinced them to uninvest
with Convince McMahon and take the big fat money to

(03:03:25):
Ted Turner. And then it was easy for him to
get a contract for me. And I had no intention of.

Speaker 2 (03:03:35):
Not earning my money right interesting to bring in.

Speaker 1 (03:03:37):
I bleached my hair, I bought the gowns. I trained
like crazy, although may I say I never became the
ultimate warrior, as you probably know. As a matter of fact,
I wasn't even built as well as the genius used
to be because this space that I'm getting older is
getting more difficult. I still train, I still work out,

(03:03:58):
but it's to look like Jack Lalaine. It is to
feel good. And you know, I want to be vigorous.
I want to be vital. So anyway, I worked hard
on my gimmick. I worked on the persona. In fact,
I even invested in blue contact lenses. I wrote a
song for myself. Let's see, I can't remember it, Gorgeous George.

(03:04:21):
They called me gorgeous George with my hair blonde and
curly and my eyes of China blue. Because does that
sound like a guy that wants to sit ups about
collecting money. No. I was ready to go out there
and do it, but my phone number rang okay, because
every time I was going to go, they changed bookers.
They changed bookers like they changed their socks. As soon

(03:04:41):
as you didn't draw a house, they change it again.
And then they had a committee. And that's the worst
thing in the world. Especially it needs to be a
totalitarian government. A booker should have at least the power
to not be negated by either a superstar or by
a bunch of committees or pushing it through. I mean

(03:05:03):
if it was a dictatorship, it would be a little easier.
At least give me the ball and let me run
with it for a while. Whatever. But anyway, I never
intended to take more than I gave. But unfortunately, or fortunately,
that's how it ended up. But it was not my intention,
and a lot of the boys were bitter, and I'm
terribly sorry.

Speaker 2 (03:05:25):
What actually led to Randy's even with the money.

Speaker 1 (03:05:30):
No, I think it was because of something else. Boy,
and I really hate to talk about Randy when he's
not here. But me, I'll just say something and I'll
take my chances, okay. But he was relegated to announcer,
and I believe he had an idea to get back
in the ring, and I believe they mentioned the age thing,

(03:05:53):
that they were going for a youth movement, Okay, and
he would have. He loves the World Wrestling Federation because
he credits them for all the good in his life,
all the breaks he's gotten, all the opportunity. They made
him what he is, and he's very humble, and he
sincerely believes that go back. No, I don't think they

(03:06:18):
want him back, and I don't think he has Okay,
let me make my point. And I will say I
think I answered that question. But this is an important
question because I'm taking liberty here, because I'm talking about
someone representing somebody who isn't here and somebody that I

(03:06:39):
love very much, my brother. And let me just say
about that. He had an idea that he still had
something to offer even though he was advancing in years.
They rejected this notion. I say they there's a group.

(03:07:03):
It's not just it's you. See what I mean. The
word old was mentioned, and the word old hurt his feelings.
So it's like if you ask a girl out and
she says, no, I think you're ugly, are you got
to rebuttle that person or are you're going to get
a second opinion? Now, it turned out usually if that's
the only girl in the world, you have to try

(03:07:25):
to change your mind about whether you're ugly or not. However,
in this case, there was another girl and it's called
WCW and they were offering exorbitant amounts of money, not
their money, Ted Turner's money, stockholders' money, whatever, to get
the big name stars of the World Wrestling Federation, And

(03:07:46):
he decided to get a second opinion, and it all
turned out very very well for him and for me.
Now you ask me the other question, do you think
he'll go back? I think he I think it's a
combination of I don't think he feels that he would

(03:08:07):
represent himself as the macho man without hurting the memory
of the greatness that he once had. He's got some
bad knees. He used to bunce off those ropes faster
than you could blink your eyes. He used to have
a flourish and that's when he was young, healthy, and
now he's a little bit beaten up, and he's not

(03:08:29):
what he was. He'll admit that. And I think that
he's happy in a sedentary lifestyle. I think he's got
other goals, other dreams, other ambitions, and I'm sure if
his phone ring rang, he would answer it as what
I now. Like I said, I'm doing very well as
a certified credit counselor. It's a sedentary lifestyle. There's a

(03:08:55):
lot of good things about it. I don't have to
take bumps, not that I ever did compared to me Foley,
but I'm just saying even a little bump hurts, and
I'm happy doing what I'm doing. If my phone rang,
I would answer it and if it was Vince McMahon,
I know that his word was good because I have
seven years of proof.

Speaker 2 (03:09:15):
What are your memories about the fights between Randy and Hawk?
Did Randy ever tell you anything about that?

Speaker 1 (03:09:20):
Okay? What it all boiled down to. And I hate
to speak out of the dead, and I hate to
talk about a person who isn't here, But I really
hate is one of your fans to buy this video
and not get my truth. So let me make a
little disclaimer. I wasn't there, I don't know, and some
of the people are deceased by half of the people

(03:09:41):
in this conversation. So let me just say this. What
Hawk was angry about. He had a mistaken notion that
my brother had made a pass at his wife. Now
I know my brother and I met his wife, and

(03:10:04):
may I say not true? Couldn't possibly because my brother,
for all the good things about him, is like Shallo Holle,
just like me, and beauty is a very high premium,
and this woman goes well below his standards. I don't

(03:10:24):
mean this. I wish we'd cut that out, but it's
the truth. That's one of the reasons I don't believe it.
The other thing is my brother doesn't go making passes
of people's wives, So even if she was beautiful to
die for, he wouldn't do that because he's a gentleman
and he's a man of very high moral fabric. As
a matter of fact, his standards are way too high

(03:10:45):
for the resting business. So he was not even falsely accused.
What happened was he was on his way to the
ring in Japan and they have those shoots come out
of and Hawk was joking with him moments before, and
then he assumed his place and then ambushed him on

(03:11:07):
the way to the ring. Randy, being the professional that
he was, took the punch and kept walking to the
ring because he had a job to do, and he
did his job, and when he came back, he went
there to attack Hawk, where the boys split him apart.
And that's one number two. So you might say Hawk
won the sucker punch won to nothing. Hawk won, Randy
nothing got a little mouse. Then they met again in Tampa.

(03:11:33):
Randy Song attacked attacked Hawk this time one to one, okay,
and then Hawk litigated. And now since the since the
plane offf has deceased, I believe it's out of court

(03:11:54):
costs Randy's a very wealthy man, and he had to
spend money on defending himself against a man that was
trying to use that as a so in other words,
I wish everybody just grow up. And I do not
believe that Randy would ever make a pass in another
man's wife, especially somebody in the wrestling business, because we

(03:12:18):
have a little bit of honor amongst ourselves, and Randy
is a man of great principle. He's a very disciplined individual,
enough to make himself throw with the wrong hand in baseball. Well,
he is a no nonsense type of guy. He has
a lot of fun and he's a very funny person.
But I don't believe it for a minute, Okay, And

(03:12:42):
I think the whole thing was ridiculous and I'm sorry
it ever happened.

Speaker 3 (03:12:48):
What are your thoughts on the death of Elizabeth and
the way it's been handled in the media, And.

Speaker 1 (03:12:54):
Well, give me an example of how do you think
it was handled in the media that I would respond
to it.

Speaker 3 (03:12:58):
Well, do you agree with what bitsould mean I did
with Lex Luger as far as you know, what do
you do?

Speaker 2 (03:13:03):
He did the confidential piece where they actually aired the
phone call that looks meet to know one well, and
what's Randy? And then you know your family? Think about
the entire incident?

Speaker 1 (03:13:16):
Well, okay, that's about four questions and I needed to
know all of them. Now, I'm okay for an answer.
Very delicate subject matter, but I don't think it's wrong
if you have a TV show called Confidential. If people
are going to live so carelessly as they put poisons
into their body, what's wrong with Vins mc mah making

(03:13:38):
his TV show a little bit more interesting and the
fans are interested because they do sell a lot more
at National Inquirers than they do the New York Times.
I'm just saying, why shouldn't if they have access to it,
and it's called freedom of the press, there's nothing wrong
with it. I don't blame vinsmick Man for showing this,

(03:13:59):
and it might do somebody some good. Somebody might just
look at this story and say, perhaps I shouldn't take
so much and drink vodka. I mean, duh, that's what's
happening to almost everybody on the list of dead wrestlers.
They're all taking pills and liquor. They don't mix. First
of all, I don't think you should take pills or liquor.
But you should never take pills and liquor. I mean

(03:14:22):
one's bad, the other's bad, but together it's poison and
it's deadly. Can't somebody get the idea, let's just learn
from that. I mean, they're living. People are living very recklessly,
and sometimes it's pain pills, percoti and all this stuff.
These words. You know, murk head, I know this is

(03:14:42):
not time sensitive. People will be buying or not buying
this interview into the future. But you've always got these
companies like Merk and Pfizers that are withdrawing their drugs
because they have horrible side effects.

Speaker 2 (03:14:57):
Did your family at all talk to Lects, did you?

Speaker 1 (03:15:00):
I haven't. I haven't seen him. Nobody's nobody's seen Lex.
We did send lots of flowers and cars, and we
didn't go to Frankfort, Kentucky, where the funeral was, but
we sent our sympathy to the family. In Randy's website,
he's he expressed his sadness over the shocking. Nobody blames

(03:15:22):
Lex Luger for what happened to Elizabeth. That's where you're going, right,
I've been talking too long. No, no, no, I'm okay,
but that's why I'm having a little trouble. I'm not
crying or getting emotional. I'm just it's been a long day, okay.
But no, nobody blames Lex Luger because we believe that

(03:15:49):
everybody's responsible for what they put into their own bodies,
and whoever self poisoned himself or herself is the person
who is responsible for themselves. I mean, once we reached
the age of eighteen and twenty one, we're responsible for
what we put into our bodies. No nobody thinks that

(03:16:12):
Lex Luger did anything to Elizabeth. It was a tragedy.
Let's leave it that way. I mean, whatever happened is
they gave each other. I hope it was something nice.
It was a horrible ending. Let's learn from it and
let's move on.

Speaker 3 (03:16:30):
Right now, you're talking about your future, and I know
you did an infomercial.

Speaker 2 (03:16:34):
I've seen that on TV, and you also have a
book coming out.

Speaker 1 (03:16:37):
Yes, I was lucky enough to have gotten involved with
Fitness Quest out of Kenton, Ohio, and actually two and
a half years in a row, I've been on worldwide television,
you know, endorsing a product that I do believe in
because the act of there's many exercises that are danger

(03:17:00):
to your joints. This is an exercise that is easy
on the joints, easy on the credit card, and not
available in the stories. Here's how to order. But wait,
there's more. So anyway, it was a lot of fun
to do it. Put my face right back out there.
Maybe you've seen my face. Maybe you think it doesn't
belong out there. Maybe I should hide it, but it's

(03:17:22):
pretty to me, like like I said, But anyway, And
I'm a certified credit counselor. And what I do is
I help people that have unsecured debt, which means basically
credit card debt, also signature loans. Oh let's see, there's
three things that you need to know before we go

(03:17:44):
into this. Number one, this is not a loan, so
we don't do a credit check on you. Number two,
all payments get processed directly through your checking account. That
eliminates late payments and over the limit fees, and it
saves you the hassle of writing out chats. And number
three and most of importantly, everything we can slidate we're
going to close, So keep that in mind. Only give

(03:18:06):
me the cards that you don't mind closing and later
on down the line, you can add cards into the
mix if you feel they're mistreating you. And I'm talking
about people that are paying over twelve percent APR and
some people are paying twenty nine percent, and it's so sad,
it's almost funny. But the people paying twenty nine percent,

(03:18:28):
and I don't think there's it's just it's sad that
those are the people that say, how is this going
to affect my credit? Excuse me? But your credit and
your life are in the toilet now. And if I
hand you a life jacket, are you going to complain
because it's hurting decrease in your pants? Okay? You know

(03:18:51):
what I mean. It's like there's a fire and I've
gotten it and I'm a fireman and I've got an
escape route for you. I mean, it's just it's just
part of what I deal with. And what can I say.
I'm wait at my job so much so that I

(03:19:13):
don't need wrestling anymore. But I and I certainly have
nothing to offer a pain customer except on the microphone,
but nothing in the ring, I'm sure, because I neither
have the ability nor the desire to thrill the audience
with my body. I have enormous respect for the people

(03:19:33):
that are doing it now. I remember CNN. Do you
remember CNN when they had Bruno Sammartino Barrio and this mcman. Yeah,
Bruno was going, I tell you you know, in my bay.
So then this McMahon said something and there was cutaways.

(03:19:56):
I'm rather we'ren't in the studio together, you know, because
it would have been, uh it might be working together
now find out the okay corral. So Bruno says, hey,
don't talk with me by that, and Bruno San Martino,
Bruno San martinovic Man says, so what what's that? A
demi gun? Bruno, please do not give Vince mc man

(03:20:20):
a straight opening because he will feel it, you know,
as like I wouldn't have the guts to who I am.
You know, the thing is, once you're not on TV,
the public has a short memory. If you're not on
TV this week, you are forgotten man, you know. And
I Olie Anderson, Bruno San Martino, even you've heard Ox Bakers.

(03:20:48):
I mean that's like, you know, that was a guy
with a with a money face and a money interview.
But don't even talk about anything between the ropes. Okay,
when the bell rings. I mean, I mean he's great
at like three things in the business, and he's totally
void at the other I'm talking about. He's got the
show bus, he doesn't have the go biz. And if

(03:21:10):
you we're in the room, he knows it too. But
even he was saying, I don't like what's happening today. Okay,
let me tell you something about what's happening today. Whether
you like it or don't like it, it is what's
happening today. Why don't you accept it? All, you old
miserable people who can't stand the fact that you have

(03:21:33):
passed the torch to the new generation. Why don't you
just wish them well and go home? Why do you
have to trash the business every time somebody is stupid
enough to put a camera lens in your face and
roll the tape. Because what you were doing is trying
to do something that can't be done. You're trying to
not sell tickets. You're trying to urinate in the soup

(03:21:54):
that everybody did drink from and now other people would
like that little taste, But you're trying since you can't
rule the business anymore, you're trying to ruin the business.
I am for and I believe that I want to
be happy and successful, but I can also I don't
feel any less worthwhile as an individual if other people

(03:22:17):
are doing well too, why can't Why do I have
to be like a lion that has a full belly
that doesn't want anybody else to eat. That's really what
they're saying. In my day, I got news for you, Bruno.
In your day, I mean, it was all real when
you did it right. Is that why you wore to
pay in the ring? You know when everybody instruction is

(03:22:39):
not the pullet, you know what I mean? Since it
was such a shoot in your day. I mean, I
love Bruno. I mean he was an icon, but I
use that word was with great vociferousness, you know. And
isn't that grady he said, I'm not anymore, You're not
You're just old Bruno. Because unless you're around TV this week,

(03:23:03):
your Q level drops right, you're you know, and there's
only a few people like Babe Ruth. He that broke
greatest star of the first half of the twentieth century.
Was not even well treated by the New York Yankees

(03:23:24):
the at the end there because well, you can't hit
home runs fo Yeah, and he's the guy that saved
baseball after the nineteen nineteen World Service.

Speaker 2 (03:23:35):
He wanted to be the manager and they said no, leave.

Speaker 1 (03:23:37):
Yeah. And I had something to say about baseball too,
since I know something about it. Like one of the
greatest moments of my life was in Joe Robbie Stadium,
which is now Pro Player Park. I got a chance
to introduce Ted Williams. I'm embarrassed to say that I
made a lot of money that night. I would have
done it for free, and like I said, if they
want to pay me, I'll take it. But it was

(03:23:58):
the greatest one of the just to introduce him. And
I said, through all of the magnificence that is Joe
Robbie's Stadium, the Marlins and the Dolphins happy home, it
gives me pride to introduce a man who was to
baseball when Roby listen in a remus were to Rome,
take ninety five until you hit the Massachusetts Turnpike, get

(03:24:19):
off at Fenway Park, and there you are. We're back
in nineteen forty one. This man hit four or six
and even now Ted Williams has no power. America anticipated
every turn at bat to watch him knock the ball
to Smitherings five hundred and twenty one home runs are
even more incredible because he gave five years to the Marines.

(03:24:39):
The boys who wrote the sports page never did him
any favors, but for Cooper's Tom, they had to tell
the truth that feed or Samuel Williams brought a splendor
to the game, reminiscent of the late George Herman Ruth.
And then he gets up. He puts his arms around me.
He's crying and he says, oh, genius, if I'd have

(03:25:00):
had you for a press agent, I wouldn't have had
any trouble. And that was like a moment in my life.
I mean, just reliving it. It's so here we are
in Boston. I did it yesterday on television and the
switchboard let up and it made me feel pretty good.
You know, there's some moments in my life I liked,
I didn't. I just thought of another one. And I

(03:25:23):
need to tell the people this because you've suffered through
all the the other cobwebs that I've had. And I'll
go back to your questions in a minute, but there's
something a little bit. I had a complete metamorphosis at
the low point of my life. Vince mcmah had already
given me his notice, but I was wrestling out my

(03:25:46):
final ten days. I found myself in Monkton, New Brunswick,
and I was very soul sick and depressed, and I thought,
why hast thou forsaken me? Why am I sitting here
in the same town that I was married, with my
marriage falling apart? And why in this business I love,

(03:26:09):
am I being asked to leave? And why, if all
this is happening, why do I have to? I mean,
I've been wrestling since I was eighteen, right out of
high school. I didn't know I could do as well
as I have. I didn't know God would open bigger
doors for me. I didn't know that I was actually blessed.
I thought it was the end of the road, but

(03:26:30):
it's actually the bend in the road. So I'm sitting
there feeling sorry for myself, having my pity party, and
I was saying, woe is me? And then my life changed.
Two young men from high school not punks. You could
tell right away. They said, mister pofo, and I looked

(03:26:53):
up and I said, well, Lannie, but yes, he says,
we're high school students. In Moncton, and Moncton is where
I spent the summer of nineteen seventy eight and nineteen
eighty three, and I was top baby based there. I
was the biggest fish in the smallest pond they've ever had.
You know, I'm not saying I was a big deal,

(03:27:15):
but I wasn't surprised when he says, you're my favorite wrestler,
and we have a friend on the hockey team that's
gidd Head along into the rink and broke C four
cervical vertebrade number four, which is not as bad as
what happened to Christopher Reeve, which is C one, which
should have killed him. But he's about to leave for

(03:27:36):
Toronto because Canada has socialized medicine. He's about to leave
for Toronto while they have the finest rehabilitation program in
the world, well in Canada anyway. It's a matter of
opinion what the world has to offer. But at least
it's free and it's a place he can go to
find out what he's going to be able to use
and whatnot. So he said, he's your euros Fami wrestler.

(03:28:00):
Would you come with us because we're having a party
for him because he's leading soon for Toronto and he's
going to stay there for quite a while. And I said, yes,
let me make one phone call. And I called the
person that I was going to ride with to the arena,
and I said, I only have one condition. It's a

(03:28:20):
seven thirty show. I have to be there by six
thirty otherwise I'm fined. Can you make sure that I
took my wrestling year? Can you make sure you get me?
Because you know they will find you, and I'm not
into that. I think it's okay that they find you
because but I'm saying, let's avoid it at all cost.
So I go into the hospital and in this room,

(03:28:43):
it's as big as this room, but it's full of
about must have been twenty people, boys and girls. His
girlfriend was there. He was wearing a halo. Do you
know what a halo was? Okay, for those of you
that don't know what a halo is, it's a It
looks like a halo, and what it does it immobilizes
your neck. The kid broke his neck playing. And here

(03:29:03):
I was feeling sorry for myself because I'm having a
divorce and I lost my job where I'm about to
lose my job. I have to fulfill the bookings. So
I go into the room and the love and the
energy level that was in that room and said Laddie
who came And the parents came up to me and said, oh,
he loved you. There he is and everything and he

(03:29:29):
we talked, and then I played a little game of care.
I said, give me a topic, I'll give you a poem.
So I'm very good at this. You tell me any topic,
I'll give you a poem about that subject. Boom, boom, boom.
I did fifteen in a row and never failed. And
we were laughing, we were having fun. I was having

(03:29:51):
a Russia and Doorphins and Sarah Torne. I was feeling
happy because of the love I was sharing and bringing
to this young man that had nothing, that everything, his
whole future was ruined and destroyed. And then, oh man,
we were on a roll. It was a happy place.
You wouldn't believe that a hospital could be happy like that.

(03:30:13):
And then he says, Lennie, can you sign the front
of my book? So they got the big book where
everybody had signed it, and on the front was his
picture and a lot of white space, and nobody had
signed the front of his book he had, and he
thought enough of me to sign the front of my book,

(03:30:34):
he said, and when you write a poem for me.
So everybody's looking at me, and I can't write anything
to this boy, because if I were in his shoes,

(03:30:54):
I would beg you to kill me. I couldn't have
the guts to face life like that, you know, and
be invalid and be crippled like that and have to
fight to just and never have bathroom privileges or never
you know, the things that we take for granted, because
we have two loaves of bread under each arm, and
we're not appreciative of every moment that we're alive and

(03:31:15):
have good health. You know, moments ago, I was in
the lobby thinking I was the unhappiest man in the world,
you know, thinking that God didn't love me anymore, thinking
that I was smited or like job or something anyway.
So what happened was everybody's looking at me, and I
can't write a word. And I said, hey, goldfish, don't

(03:31:40):
make love when you're watching everybody speak amongst yourselves. You're
like talk amongst yourself. So I made my prayer and
I said, God, I apologize for not being grateful that
my daughter's normal, that she's not got any handicaps, and

(03:32:00):
that I've been blessed with great abundance instead of been
worried about all these little things like divorce. I'm losing
my job when I know that I've got everything it
takes for the journey I had. If I can let
go of the past and concentrate with your help, and
I said, please, I wouldn't have the guts to face
what this boy's gonna face, I said, is there? So

(03:32:22):
I have no idea what kind of a poem I
can write for him that's gonna help him. Please give
me the words that's gonna help him, because up and
by myself, I can't even draw a deep breath. And
as soon as I ask for help, God gave the
poem to me, and I was only his vessel. Moncton

(03:32:43):
is a Catholic town. I looked on that guardrail and
I saw a big crucifix, that big with Jesus on
the cross. Instantly, the cross is on your right hand rail.
His love will see you through. But even if you

(03:33:03):
lose your faith, he still believes in you. And you
could have cut it with a knife. The love that
was in that room. That was what I call whatever
you want to call it, the joy of the Holy
Spirit is what I choose to call it. I've but
what I learned was I could be the happiest man

(03:33:25):
in the world if I could just be an instrument
of the peace of God. In other words, I've been
gifted with God's love through me that I can forgive anybody.
My ex wife, Holy Anderson, all these people that tried
to hold me down, they couldn't because I'm a sponge.

(03:33:47):
I always rose to the top, and with God's love
through him, I can forgive anybody. And that's the secret
of the fact that why I don't look my age,
because I've been living on serotonin and doorphins, and those
make it impossible for you to get sick. That make
it impossible for you to prematurely age. It's more important

(03:34:11):
than your diet. If you're miserable, you get ugly. If
you're happy and healthy, you become thankful and you walk
in blessedness. I don't want to turn this into a
big thing. I do follow deepot Tropra. I found I
file and as a matter of fact, in three weeks,

(03:34:33):
I'm taking my daughter and her boyfriend to see Ronde LaRue,
who drinks from the same well as doctor Richard Moss.
And please, if you're listening, go on the internet and
look at these people. You've got nothing to lose. They're
talking about love, not hate. Anyway, Sorry to get off
the subject, because okay, ask me a question. I'm a

(03:34:56):
little I was.

Speaker 3 (03:34:56):
Gonna ask you if you have any regrets and if
there's anything you want to say to your fans.

Speaker 1 (03:35:00):
I had a chance to save it for the well.
Thank you for all the fans that have taken the
time to introduce themselves to me. Thank you for the
must have been hundreds of thousands of Frisbees that were bought.
I always wanted to prove the reason what I used

(03:35:22):
to do is wind loser draw. Even when I lost
to George Scoland, you know, I always went to the
venues and if they bought Frisbees or didn't buy Frisbees,
I said, what's your name? I'll sign your autograph, even
if they didn't want to see me. Particularly is that
everybody else? No, I'm sorry, I am it. Okay, well

(03:35:43):
you have to do then, you know, even if they
were not as happy to see me as I was
to see them. Hundreds of thousands of frisbees and three
dollars apiece were bought by the fans. Thank you for
each person that bought a frisbee and kept one, because
I meet people like that all the time wherever I go,
and I'm sorry I was never given a dollar. My
daughter would have loved to play with a figure of mine,

(03:36:06):
But why would I want to look at that. I'm
just saying, I'm just mentioning. These are some of the
albatross that I've had to deal with. What I'm into
now and what I wish the fans would understand is
when I go to schools and I try to influence them,
it's because of my progeny is non smoking and is

(03:36:28):
positively achieving. I only have one daughter and she's chosen
to live the clean life, and may she always be
smoke free for life. Now I'm talking about your sons
and daughters. I'm going to help. That's why I'm writing
my book. I'm not it's not an expose. It's not
who's having sex with whom. It's not noticed the proper grammar. Okay, Anyway,

(03:36:53):
this is my book and it's called Limericks from the
Heart and Lungs, and it's available dot com and you
can type in my name Landy Poppo or limericks from
the Heart and Lungs, or you can if you don't
have an Internet like I think maybe three people don't.
And so let me see if I can remember the
phone number one eight three eight two seven nine two two.

(03:37:19):
Now I'm not going to repeat it. Rewind the tape
or whatever you got, DVD, whatever it is. Now in
the book are two poems that are not limericks. One
of them is very important, and it's what I use
in positive action assemblies. Always strive to be your best

(03:37:40):
in everything you do. Don't worry if there's someone else
who's luckier than you. You don't have to finish first.
Just finish fair and square with a little perseverance. The
tortoise beats the hair. Your only competition is laziness and fear.
Trade them for a double dose of courage, strength and cheer.
And don't you ever feel ashamed. If someone laughs at you,

(03:38:03):
you're in some fancy company they left at Lincoln too.
No smoking, drugs or alcohol. You're worth too much for that.
You're a decent human being, not some laboratory rat. By
thanks to all the boys and girls for making me
your guest. I'm not a real genius, and I strive
to be my best. And then also in the book

(03:38:24):
is when I wrote for Special Olympics. But I also
felt this was a God poem because I thought to myself,
let me do something for these children. Let me do
something for the parents. Because my daughter is normal. That's why.
Because I am thankful that my daughter's normal. So let
me be an instrument of healing and love to help
these children, and help these parents, because theirs is a

(03:38:48):
heavier load than mine. So out of thankfulness and gladness,
I write this. It's called the Special Olympics, and there's
something about that name. It's taking peace people off the
bench and putting them back in the game. No one
should ever be denied the chance to grab the center
stage or share an honest, open smile with other boys

(03:39:10):
and girls of their age for personal satisfaction or just
having a little fun. The spirit of competition is the
birthright of everyone. It's a very special moment when they
passed that torch and run. In the words of Charles Dickens,
God bless us everyone, So limericks from the heart and lums.

(03:39:31):
A limerick is that once was a man from Nantucket.
But mine aren't dirty because I'm trying to get this
into the system right, and mine are nice. I write
nice limericks, nothing sexually overt, no gratuitous violence. Okay. The
only thing is, like Frankenstein would say, smoking bad as

(03:39:52):
my relentless measures in three hundred and thirty five lyrics
and many beautiful illustrations. May okay, three smokers with nothing
to do, we're spending some time at the zooit as
they lit up to smoke. I heard one monkey joke, Hey,
look human, see human do If smoking as cool as
they claim, then why is it always the same? The

(03:40:14):
first time you try, you wish you could die the
last time achieving your aim. I always refuse to comply
with smokers who want me to try my first cigarette,
which I haven't had yet. I just tell them, no,
thank you, goodbye. Let's see a smoker from Lima, Peru
fell in love with a lady named Sue, but when

(03:40:35):
he got close, she thought it was gross. He smelled
just like pepper li pew. Let's see. Oh, you know,
at the beginning of a book it's for can't read
kids and read two men kids, and then it grows
and then to up to college level and finally adulthood.
And in the back is a glossary of two hundred words,

(03:40:56):
so you can build your vocabulary as your reading levels improved.
But another one for the children absorbent and yellow is
he in his pineapple under the sea. The ocean's too
wet for a lit cigarette. That's why SpongeBob is happy
smoke free. I like SpongeBob. Oh why was the dolphins

(03:41:17):
so sad? His life had no porpoise? That's bad, but
my corne is pun is still kind of fun. I'm
landing the non smoking dad, thank you. I'm not gonna
read the whole thing. However, what I'm trying to pull
here is I said before, A life is not judged

(03:41:40):
by duration. In other words, I can live one hundred
years or two hundred years. It's judged by donation. It's
what did I give, Because eventually I'm going to leave
this horn of Plenty for the horn of Gabriel, and
I'm going to have to take a tone for myself.
And I believe that what you have done for the
least of my brethren, you have done for me. So

(03:42:00):
what have I done for the least of my brethren. Well,
I'm going to take the number one cause of preventable death,
and I am going to try to do for the
children what I've done for my own daughter. I'm going
to try to set an example and to apply pure
pressure to help the children choose a smoke free, drug

(03:42:21):
free life. And it's a statistical fact that non smokers
don't do drugs, that only smokers do drugs. Now, you
can't judge the universal by the continue by the particular.
But that's the way to bet Okay. Now, there are exceptions.

(03:42:42):
I'm not here to talk about the exceptions. I'm here
to talk about the rule. I can't solve the world
with one book. But if I can solve your world
with one book, if I can add thirty years to
your life well statistically and save the other for secondhand smoke,
or if at the very least help you at least
avoid a habit that helping you spend one thousand dollars
extra per year, And don't tell me about the economy improving,

(03:43:05):
because that money that you're not spending on cigarettes is
going to go towards other things that are going to
improve the economy. I won't listen to that argument. You know,
it's like you're going to spend it somewhere and then
you're helping the economy by spending it anywhere else. Anyway,
I hate smoking. I don't hate smokers. Let's see if

(03:43:28):
I do not hate smokers per se. I just try
to keep them at bay. I can't remember it, I'm sorry,
but something like that.

Speaker 2 (03:43:42):
You want people to know you're not gay, Okay, I.

Speaker 1 (03:43:46):
Want people to know I'm not gay. Say I'll think
of the rhymes. Don't you.

Speaker 3 (03:43:51):
Put you to a test, and I say, come up
with a rhyme for our video and the shoot interview.

Speaker 1 (03:43:54):
Concept, Okay, I have to nail that one to you.
I'm just thinking about, say, I use select the deafinitness.
If there's a room full of people, I hear what
I want to hear, I hear, you know, poetic topics.
Let's see if I can come up with something that
might appease you. Since I've been put on the spot,
let me think, well, in the concept of shoot interviews,

(03:44:19):
I have a poem which I did not write, but
it has to do with looking the whole world in
the face. For you, Oh, not any man, okay. And
before we were on the air, you were telling me
about all the excellent interviews that had been done before me,
and you were mentioning people like Jacobs, Snake Roberts, you

(03:44:40):
were mentioning people like Raven and what were the road
wars were excellent and all these great people that have
looked in and said what was As George Costanza says
in Seinfeld, remember it's not the truth that yeah, I mean, remember,
it's not a lie if you believe it. In other words,

(03:45:01):
your truth and my truth maybe two different truths. So
it's still what you find in your heart. And it's
like even Ollie Anderson, he tells the truth even when
he lies, because it's like he's been in the water
so long he doesn't even realize he's wet, you know.
So it's to him that is the truth. So let

(03:45:23):
me give you a poem about what it is to
stand and be a man and tell the truth. And
I didn't write this poem because I don't I don't
consider plagiarism a joke. As a matter of fact, I'd
rather get caught shoplifting than signing my name to something
that somebody else has done. Have you ever heard of
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow? Okay, good, He's a big deal, right, okay,

(03:45:47):
in the world of poetry. And here's a poem that
you should already know. And it's about a shoot interview.
It's about saying what's in your heart without fear of contradiction,
without fear of reproach. It's about standing and delivering. And
I would say, if you're going to have a hero,
why not have him. The Village Blacksmith by Henry Wahsworth Longfellow,

(03:46:13):
under a spreading chestnut tree, the village smith. He stands,
the smith. A mighty man is he, with large insinewy hens,
and the muscles on his broady arms are strong as
iron bands. His hair is crisp and black and long.
His face is like the tan. He works each day

(03:46:33):
from morn till night. He earns whate'er he can, and
he looks the whole world in the face, for he
owes not any man, week in week out, from morn
till night. You can hear his bellows blow. You can
hear him swing his heavy sledge with measured beat and slow,
like a sexton, ringing the village bells. When the evening

(03:46:55):
sun is low, and children coming home from school look
in at the open door. They love to see his
flaming forge, and hear his bellows roar and catch the
burning sparks that fly like chat from a threshing floor.
On Sunday, he goes to the church and sits among

(03:47:17):
his boys. He hears the parson pray and preach. He
hears his daughter's voice. She's singing in the village choir,
and it makes his heart rejoice. It sounds to him
like her mother's voice, singing in paradise. His needs must
think of her once more, as in her grave she lies,

(03:47:38):
And with a large rough hand he wipes a teardrop
from his eyes, toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing onward through life. He
goes each morning, sees a task begin, each evening sees
its clothes, something attempted, something done. He's earned his night's
reprob He's earned his knight repose. Thanks thanks to thee,

(03:48:04):
my worthy friend, for the lessons thou hast talked for
at the burning forge of life. Our fortunes must be
wrought and with each sounding anvil shaped, each burning deed
and thought. Titlematchnetwork dot Com

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