Wrestling with Kayfabe (with guest Colt Cabana)

Wrestling with Kayfabe: Professional wrestling is somewhat of a cultural oddity, as it blurs the lines between reality, fiction, sport and theater. Join Robert, Julie and "Art of Wrestling" podcaster Colt Cabana as they lock up with wrestling's mind-twisting layers of fiction. Enjoy part II of this podcast, Undercover Actors and the Shadow Self. Image: French pro-wrestler L'Ange Blanc in Paris, 1959. (Lipnitzki/Roger Viollet/Getty )

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and my name is Julie
Rowdy Roddy Douglas. Okay, yeah, that's your that's your gimmick
this week. That's my handle. Yeah, a little homage to

(00:24):
be famous Rowdy Roddy Piper the wrestler. Yeah, yeah, he was,
is was and is great. He was in of course
John Carpenters, they live and Hell comes to Frogtown and
other great Hollywood gyms. But of course, first and foremost
a pro wrestler. And uh and yeah, we're gonna chat
a little bit about pro wrestling in this podcast. But

(00:45):
do not let that scare you away, um, because I
know most of you, probably for most of you, wrestling
is not your thing. And if some of our listeners
are wrestling fans, a couple of our listeners are actually wrestlers,
if I remember correctly. But but but trust me, trust
me on this journey we're about to take you on.
That's right, because by the end of this podcast, you're
going to say it all makes sense. Now. I know

(01:06):
Robert and Julie wanted to talk about wrestling because I
now see how it has everything to do with my
life and my reality. Yeah, I mean, it's a big
ticket item to try to fill, but we're gonna try
to take you through that with wrestling and something called Kabees.
So first of all, I mean, you mentioned Roddy Piper,
so your memory is of pro wrestling. You're not a

(01:28):
pro wrestling fan, but you have you you grew up
in the eighties like me, and you had a brother exactly,
which meant that I've spent a lot of television time
rooting for some of these characters in the eighties, most
notably Hulk Hogan for the Giant I mean soft spot there. Yeah, well,
of course there was the Princess Bride tie and so yeah,

(01:50):
I mean, of course, and that that's where we got
to see his tender heart right there. Wendy Richter, okay,
she she was backed by Cindy Lauper. Lauer was in
in the WWF yes to try the rock and wrestling thing.
Yeah yeah, So, I mean I was drenched in Whole Comania,
which sounds kind of gross that I was. Well, um,

(02:10):
I was a little late for Whole Comania, not because
it wasn't on TV, but because I wasn't really allowed
to watch it like I was. I remember like it
would come wrestling would come on that like at odd times,
like suddenly it would be a Saturday night and they
would just be wrestling on it, and and I'd be like, Oh,
what's this. This looks kind of interesting and uh, and
then my parents would be like, Oh, you don't want

(02:30):
to watch that, don't don't worry about that. They put
pds on for you. Yeah. And of course when we
lived in Canada, we had no access to pro wrestling
that I remember. But but then eventually, like junior high years,
I started, you know, I had a little more time
to an access to a t D on my own,
and then I started really getting into it and exploring
it and uh. And to this day, I still I
don't follow it religiously. I mean I kind of followed religiously,

(02:53):
but I don't watch it religiously. I just I keep
an eye out, keep my ears peeled, and if I
hear about a match it's that's really good, then I'll
go and check it out. And it might be something
from the US, it might be something from Japan or
Mexico or what have you. Um, I'm even tempted. I've
even been out to a couple of wrestling shows here
in Atlanta. I'm really intrigued. There's one, uh that just

(03:14):
started up where their whole gimmick is, um that is,
the wrestlers are all monsters. So it's like Dracula versus
a wolfman. Oh. Nice. Nice. So that's kind of like
the Lucha libre concept just taken to another level. Yeah.
So to just to give anyone who's not really familiar
with with what pro wrestling is on on a large,
larger national and international level, you have varying shades of it.

(03:39):
Like here in the US, you have the whole sort
of whole comania, larger than life characters that are to
the naive you or they're having a big fight, a
big crazy fight in a ring and then at the
end somebody wins and then uh. And then in Japan
they have it there. It's it's pretty big there as well.
It's a little more steeped in honor in tradition, but

(03:59):
and and at times it's just utter wackiness. So it's
very Japanese and that that sense. Uh. And then it's
also huge in Mexico where we have, of course Lucha Libre,
which I think everyone has at least been introduced to
the the the visual flare of lucha libre by this point, um,
you know, crazy costumes, guys flying all over the place.
But then at its at its roots, it all comes

(04:20):
back down to guys grappling with each other. Now, pro wrestling,
here's a big spoiler for everyone. Pro pro wrestling is
quote unquote fake. Now you get into trouble Yeah, I know,
I know, you get into trouble with with the with
the term fake because fake is such a big word
that it's it often takes on this negative connotation of

(04:41):
uh that that implies that what's going on does not
involve talent, does not involve um, you know, skill does
not involve physical wear and tear, uh and and pro
wrestling involves all of those things. It's it requires highly
skilled individuals to do it right. Uh. There's a lot
of thought that goes into it. It's it's ultimately storytelling

(05:01):
in the ring, like a physical storytelling, and it's very
well choreographed and it has to wait you choreographed and
or um improv because there are guys guys that have
worked with it with with each other enough. They go
out there and they don't necessarily know what all the
little moments are going to be, you know, the big
moments that are gonna happen. They know how it's gonna end, maybe,
But but there's a certain feeling each other out and

(05:24):
going with the flow of it that's really kind of
an improv kind of vibe um And I say choreographed
in this sense, because you and I were talking about
this yesterday that you have to have a feeling for
what's going to happen and how to execute certain moves
in order not to actually hurt the opponent or do
in a way that you don't hurt yourself. Yeah, it's
a cooperative battle, a cooperative fight, a cooperative wrestling battle

(05:47):
between two individuals or four individuals or what have you.
A referee thrown in there. It's also part of the act.
And but and then there's but again, it's a lot
of wear and tear involved, and individuals do become injured.
So you can read more about If you want to
know more about pro wrestling, go to how stuff works
dot com. We have an article called how pro Wrestling works.
We have an article called how Lucha Libre works. They're

(06:09):
both find um fine articles that really give you a
little more in depth about what they are and how
they work. But we're not going to spend a lot
more time on that. Instead, let's also go back in time.
Let's go to a time before pro wrestling. Well, before
we go to our time for pro wrestling, can we
talk a little bit about the universality of it, Like
why wrestling, I mean, why did it, um take such

(06:33):
a hold of you as a youngster and as as
a man. Now, yeah, well pro okay, so pro wrestling?
What is it that captivates people? Um? I think, I
mean a lot of it does come down to conflict. Um. Like,
I'm I've never been one for like team sports. I'm
really not into sports. But if I watch a sport,

(06:53):
I'm more inclined to watch something that is more about
one person against another, like say singles, tennis or something.
Um and and so pro wrestling you have you Generally,
it's to varying degrees, it's almost always a good guy
and a bad guy in the ring, locking up, engaging
in this pure physical battle, a test of strength and

(07:14):
a test of wills to see who is going to
be the victor, and uh, and then and then there's
a lot of and they're basically also using an unreal
form of martial arts, like it's the roots as will
discuss their in actual wrestling and actual um, you know,
physical grappling. But they are all these layers of fiction
that have built up over it, and so many of
the moves are are fantastic and just would would never

(07:36):
occur outside of a fictional environment, and that just adds
to the to the flare. That's what I like about
wrestling is because it does have that universality of struggle. Right,
everybody struggles, and it's highly symbolic because you don't actually
want to go mono mono with someone normally right, um,
it's slay him or her, but you may want to

(07:56):
release your aggression, right or your frustration. And that's what
I think is so um basic to wrestling is this,
as you say, this man against man, the struggle. And
I think, and this is kind of a joke, but
it's kind of not. Um. I think this is why
festivals took people's imaginations, at least here in the United States.
I don't know if this is the Sinfeld thing. This

(08:17):
is a Sinfeld episode about wrestling, your father during the
holidays to air the grievances of the past year. And
I won't go into the long history of that, but
you know, once that aired on television, people began to
actually have festivals, celebrations, And I do think that, um,
it's struck a nerve there in and airing grievances and

(08:40):
again this highly symbolic act. Yeah, and it certainly when
you throw in the characters. I mean in pro wrestling,
you especially say in Mexico, where the masks are so rich,
and you'll have like one character and there's an even
bigger divide between good guys and bad guys. There's less
in between, there's less gray area. It's the the rudeo's

(09:00):
and the technicos. So on one hand you have, you know,
guys in like devil maths and skulls and snarley beast faces,
and then the other more you know serene and u
and positive images like guys with crosses on their face.
It's because you know, a heavy uh, you know, a
Catholic element down there. Um, you know, guys with would
say like a cat face, like like blue Panther comes

(09:23):
to mind as a mass that was in a week
like embodying like an animal spirit and something like positive
that you would you would strive for. And so these
these symbolic characters are are locking up in the ring
and it brings to mind um like non wrestling uh
passion plays, you know, where you'll have a certain members
of a village dress up as like an evil outside

(09:45):
force and then others um dress up as the victor
and and reenact myths of that that are vital to
a community or people, so that you have that basic
tripe that's so important to humans because versus evil, and
you have all this pageantry. And we're going to discuss
in a little bit why this pageantry matters, why it
matters to aspects of science or economics, um. But before

(10:08):
we do that, we need to unpack the sport a
little bit more and tell you about some of the
basics behind it. Yeah, because again, you watch pretty much
any pro wrestling product on TV now in any country,
and there's gonna be something that's that's unreal about it.
And ultimately it is uh. It is to some degree

(10:29):
like choreograph or at least cooperative. It is a it
is a performance. So how did we get to the
point where we have this performance of this sport versus
its original roots, because you don't see this in every sport.
I mean, you can make a case for say Harlem Globetrotters,
isn't is an exposition a fake team having a fake
basketball game against another team. But you don't see that

(10:50):
in most sports. So so what is what is unique
about about pro wrestling? Okay, so you go go back
in time to like the earliest aspect of human culture,
and you have people law king up. You have people
wrestle like wrestling is is pretty much as old as
humans because at the very base you have conflict, be
steel conflict between people that involve clawing each other, dragging

(11:14):
each other to the ground, biting, jabbing, butt, punching the
whole nine yards but punching, but punching band in most
most most combat sports. So so so just imagine that
I want to just like cave me in tearing each
other up and rolling around the ground trying to kill
each other and strangle each other. Out of that, out
of the basic skills involved in that, you end up

(11:35):
developing a metaphor for that kind of combat. Because you
live in a society that needs cooperation, right, you can't
go around just brutally beating each other to death. Yeah,
you need to, like you say, are your grievances and
open a way that doesn't end up with somebody dead.
You end up with this this kind of proxy battle
in the same way that sport itself is ultimately kind

(11:55):
of a proxy war. Uh. Wrestling is like a proxy
tooth and nail battle to the death. It's a metaphor
for that. So everywhere around the world you have some
sort of tradition of wrestling. And and if you want
anyone who wants to learn more about the various types
of wrestling out there, I highly recommend you check out
the blog wrestling roots dot org. Uh. They go, they

(12:18):
go into just all these different they travel around, they
their photos, there's video, and they go into the different traditions, like,
for instance, there's traditional Turkish oil wrestling, which a number
of you're probably familiar with, but I was not aware of.
I was it does it sounds like, you know, Turkish delight, um,
But I was not aware of just how much oil
is involved. Like it's not just like a little bit

(12:39):
like greased yourself up for the tanning bat or something,
but lots of olive oil like leaders of olive oil
poured over them and also down their leather shorts, just
you know, because it makes it harder for your opponent
to get a grip on you. I guess adds the
passion of it um. Then likewise, there's also India's uh
Kushti wrestling, which which is it is neat too because

(12:59):
there are no points in this. You can only win
by pinning, and you can also grab onto the shorts,
like some wrestling traditions are like don't grab onto the shorts,
and this tradition it's okay to use the shorts for leverage,
which I guess is like a sumo in that regard,
because I think in sumo wrestling, yeah you had to grab.
You had to explain that to me because I kept
thinking that people were getting pants. Yeah, there's no pantsing

(13:19):
and custi. But Kusti is also interesting because they they
the wrestling takes place on softened earth where they've poured
out this ge mixture to the soil um, which which
is neat. You have this element of ritual to it
a well, and there's just any anywhere on Earth you
can go you can find some sort of culture of
wrestling but as far as the the transition from these

(13:42):
cultural folk wrestling traditions, uh, the transition from that into
professional wrestling, we end up looking at European models. They
are all these different European models of of of wrestling,
of folk wrestling that were popular and continue to be popular.
But but certainly back in the nineteenth century you had
a couple of things of note. You had you had

(14:03):
the the catches catch can style of wrestling, and you
had the Lancashire style, and they're closely related. They're closely related.
There's this guy named J. W. Chambers and he was
kind of a minor celebrity and he editor, he was
the editor of Land and Water, and he started promoting
a new grappling system UM that he called catches catchcan style,

(14:25):
first down to lose and uh. And this was this
was a folk wrestling tradition that also wasn't completely groundbreaking
because it was based on earlier models, but it involved
guys locking up UM and you could pretty much apply
any type of hold above um above the waist and
and first down to lose is a big part of

(14:47):
this too, because this actually changed the sport quite a bit,
because otherwise if you're looking at past traditions. You could
have wrestling matches going on for days, meaning you know,
the person hadn't submitted yet said hey, I give up,
and so they would break for the day and resume
the next day. Well, the Lancashire style, Yeah, I was

(15:08):
was like that. I was reading this book Wrestling by
Walter Arms Armstrong, which is an eight nine book where
he's just so it's this is a pre pro wrestling
book talking about these different folk traditions and he has
some a couple of bits I want to read from
that about the Lancashire style. Um quote. Sometimes a wrestler
will apparently make an unsuccessful attempt to wrench off the

(15:30):
other's head, twist his arms from the sockets, or break
his fingers, finally rolling him bodily over, all of which
are eluded in a simply marvelous manner. Their elasticity of
their movements is at times something remarkable, as they struggle, ride,
and twist four hours together before obtaining a fall. Uh,
it would go on. Not only would have gone for hours,
but here here's another quote from the book. When a

(15:51):
match is not concluded on the day appointed, the referee
orders the competents to meet again and commenced wrestling after
being waited at the same time in place every day
except Sunday until the decision has arrived at So you
would have this this match that would go on for dates.
Uh you know, and they were like, you know, their
their minor breakes as wells't it just constant action? But

(16:13):
still it's just goes on for days and then and
then there's the brutality of weary. I read the part
we're talking about people's heads being twisted. Um, but this
is a quote from a book called Fencing that had
a number of authors, but Walter Armstrong also contributed to this,
and the quote goes with regard to Lancashire wrestling, there
can be no question that it is the most barbarous

(16:35):
of the English systems, and it more nearly approaches the
French dog fighting and tumbling than any other. A fair
stand up fight with the naked fists is the merest
skim milk, in fact, a perfect drawing room entertainment in comparison. So, yeah,
the the rules of it were pretty laxed. Yeah, it's
basically like tried, don't crush your opponent's fingers, right, like

(16:58):
this was sort of it would happen, It would happen.
They would tend to say, please, don't break each other's bones.
And the reason why the especially the fingers that are
the hands that they frowned upon that is because a
lot of the people who were doing this, we're working
class in parts like Shire, England, they're working in coal mines.
So obviously if you crush your opponent's fingers then you're
putting that person out work for a while. So there's

(17:19):
a cultural contract here. It's like this is wrestling is fun,
but we all have other jobs we need to do.
That being said, the Lancashire style involved struggling on the ground,
catching legs, which the catch system that is described in
this book does not, catching legs, twisting limbs, bending fingers, um.

(17:41):
And so it was so you had two things going
on here, three things. Actually. First of all, there's something
about it. It's really entertaining. People really getting into this.
They enjoyed doing it, they enjoyed watching it, but it's
super long. They commitment commitment to to to act in
and commit it to watch. And then it's really violent,

(18:03):
and you would have situations where you know, individuals would
become really badly injured in this sport. So how do
you make money off of something like that? Right? You're
trying to your promoter. You want to carry this around
from town to town and and have these matches and
people pay to watch them and and all of this.
You don't want it to be that long. You want

(18:23):
it to You want of a product that you can
market a little better. Um. You know, it's like how
many people really have it in them to go see
Wagner as the ring cycle where you have to go
like multiple days to see the whole opera. You want
to you know, condense version. You want something smaller most
people do, you know. So so let's find a version
of this that fits into a smaller package. And let's

(18:45):
find a version that doesn't injure the participants as easily,
because these are ultimately the people that you're you're making
your money off off. You know. It's like we were
podcasters and uh and writers and editors here at how
stuff worth and general only the risk of injury on
the job is low. It's more like you know, carpal
tunnel syndrome and strained eyes, paper cuts. Well, there you go.

(19:08):
What if we were using a type of paper that
was like just cutting fingers off left and right. You't
want to eliminate that paper because you need these people
to run the business, to keep the business running. And
likewise with the wrestling, you need to make it a
little less brutal. But you but the thing is when
you take the if you take too much of the
brutality out of it, if you say, all right, well,
don't touch the fingers at all because we don't don't

(19:28):
want to risk that, or alright, no grabbing the legs anymore,
then you end up taking away from what is attracting
people to it. So what do you do? You start
tweaking it a little bit with you start layering just
a little bit of fiction on it. Right, and this
is where you start to see some of the manipulation, uh,
coming into the sport and just sort of mounting and
mounting as it progresses through history. Um yeah, like maybe

(19:51):
it starts with all right, guys, when you go out
there tonight, Um, just go like one hour instead of six,
just one hour and also just kind of work together
a little bit so that you don't, you know, injure
one another in a really horrible way. Right, It becomes
so much more about showmanship. But what I wanted to
point out is that this is something that became very

(20:13):
popular all over the world. Um, as you already noted,
in various forms, but this sort of catches catch can wrestling,
and this Lancashire was actually exported when immigrants went to
different countries like in the United States. Became very popular
and it even hit the big time at the Olympics
at one point in nineteen o eight, it showed up there.

(20:33):
And I wanted to point this out because this is
just seems so fictional, but it's not. Abraham Lincoln actually
was uh one of the stars of catch wrestling in
the United States. Yeah, I mean, he apparently was a
big dog in the sport. In fact, this is from
a Sports Illustrated article The Civil Warrior Lincoln with this

(20:56):
was described as an onlooker as quote the big buck
of the lick, and um, this onlooker saw Lincoln give
the notorious county wrestling champion Jack Armstrong the worst thrashing
of his life one hot September day, more than one
sixty three years ago. The article goes on to say
that that was the future president's most celebrated victory. Frustrated

(21:19):
from the start by Lincoln's tremendous reach a k a
his height, Armstrong began stomping on his opponent's feet. Lincoln
lost his temper and a few tosses later, Armstrong lost consciousness.
So I mean here Lincoln was a brawler, is what
I'm saying, And and had some throws, he had some
like that. Maybe there was a Lincoln suplex in there.
And I wish I could have Linken the pile driver. Yeah,

(21:41):
who knows what he innovated? Yeah, And that the article
that you were looking at there, it also mentioned that
a few other presidents UM were involved with some type
of wrestling at some point, like of course Teddy Roosevelt
was was up to grappling around with the boys of
the dust, UM, I would have been surprised he not.
But but Lincoln was into the rough stuff. He was

(22:02):
into the catch wrestling. Yeah. And I think that that
kind of points to the popularity of the sport and
the fact that again it was exported and it started
to show up at these county fairs. And then this
is where you began to see these various counties loosely
organizing themselves and producing winners from different regions of the country,

(22:24):
and believe it or not, these regions eventually coalesced into
what is now the World Wrestling Federation. Well and well
now it's the World Wrestling Entertainment, World Wrestling as the
big billion dollar industry that it is today. Yeah, you
mentioned the Olympics that, like, the history of wrestling in

(22:44):
the Olympics is pretty interesting. Um. That was the first
modern Olympics and Greco Roman wrestling was there. But the
interesting thing about Greco Roman wrestling, it's basically European wrestling.
It's based in European folk wrestling traditions, particularly some French traditions.
So it's really not all I mean, you can you
call it Greco Roman, but yeah, you know, it's it's

(23:06):
more like the central you know, Western Europe kind of
vibe to it. Um. But it's only been in the
Olympics regularly since nineteen o eight and uh and then
in the nineteen o four Games in St. Louis, Uh.
In that particular year, UH, a limited form of catches
catch can wrestling was there, but Greco Roman was not. UH.

(23:27):
And it was the nineteen o eight London Games where
we saw both Greco Roman and catches Catch can finally
coming back. So um yeah, it is a sort of
casual observer of of wrestling and Olympics. I always kind
of thought, oh, I guess Greco Roman that's the real deal.
That's the old stuff and and that's and it's been
around forever, and that pro wrestling was the new stuff.

(23:48):
Is that were you thinking? Yeah, yeah, just kind of
you throw it into that kind of dichotomy. But but
it's not quite that simple. Um So anyway, but back
to blayering the fiction on. You know, like you said,
you're going around to these differ and counties, You're you're
you're letting the guys know, you know, work together, put
it in a certain time frame that makes sense, and
then all the other changes become naturally, like you can

(24:11):
imagine all the every step of the way on on
the journey from from catch wrestling to pro wrestling, because
you might say, all right, well, you know, um, it
would really make more sense if the hero one tonight
rather than the villain, or rather the villain should really
win tonight, because then it's gonna make it all the
more awesome when the hero wins the next night. So
you start end up you end up throwing in narrative flows. Um,

(24:34):
you know, think of things like everyone loves an underdog story,
so that that you it's if you wait for underdog
stories to emerge organically in a sporting environment, you know,
you gotta sometimes you gotta be pretty patient. But if
you can orchestrate it, if you can spin it, and
if you can you can say, hey, you're the underdog
tonight and it happens, then you're improving the product that

(24:55):
you're selling. So you keep going and then you can
then you get to the point where you're throwing. You're
adding element to the physicality of the match, to the
even the physics of the match that make it more flashy,
that make it more entertaining, and decade upon decade, it
just builds and builds into this into the largely unreal
martial art that that you see in the the fictional

(25:18):
performance sport of pro wrestling today, which he sees a
system in place right that is giving us a measure
of predictability, but also giving the audience what it wants.
And roll Ebarts, you sent me that's great article or
rather essay by the French philosopher Roll Embarts, and he
took on wrestling, and he talked about why it is

(25:38):
um so intoxicating to people, and basically it was saying,
you know, it's an I'm paraphrasing here, but he was
physically saying that it's not a real image of passion
that the audience wants. They just want an image of passion.
It doesn't have to come from a real place. And
that's really the contract that the audience has with the

(25:58):
performers is just give us a show. And um, we'll
talk a little bit more about this in a moment,
about how this show aspect is really reflected in our
daily lives. But before we do that, we should probably
take a break. Yes, let's take a quick break, and
when we come back, we're just gonna talk briefly about
the kind of death of Cafe um And well, I

(26:20):
guess we'll talk about what Cafe is. We really didn't
totally describe it. And then also we will hear from
an actual pro wrestler and podcaster, Colt Cabanner. All right,
we're back, All right, yeah we are. And you know what,
I don't think that people realize, but when you were

(26:41):
talking about stamps dot com, you were actually wearing your
wrestling outfit and your cape was waving in the wind
behind you. That was my my promo I was cutting there.
I felt like he sounded very like w W E
that that that would actually be great. I would. It's
too bad the Macho Man is no longer with us,
because I would love to hear a Stamps dot Com
advertise for much of man of course, because he's he's

(27:02):
got or he had a lot of moxie. Right. And
that's what we're talking about here when we're talking about
how pro wrestling, what we think about it today, that
the sort of fakery, uh, the illusion that's put forth
or not so much the illusion anymore is predicated on
this moxie and this ability to put forward a character
and put forward these tropes and act them out. Um.

(27:23):
And this is related to this term called kape. Yeah,
because like we said, the gradual um addition of fiction
to catch wrestling. Uh, you can't just like the first
night you did it, the first night that that you're
out there and say and you say, hey, you guys
are gonna work together on this and he's gonna win.
You don't amount announced that to the crowd and likewise

(27:46):
that it you just don't market the product like that. Uh.
So you have this thing, this cape this uh this
Carney talk for keeping the secret. You don't let the audience.
You don't let them marks know what's up. You don't
you don't explain to them how the magic trick works.
You don't let them know that there's a magic trick

(28:06):
at all. If if one dude is acting like he's
the you know, the healish villain, and the other guy
is that is the face, the baby face, the good guy,
they have to keep fooling everyone. They have to keep
the act up because it's it's the act is what
they're selling. But yeah, that's this idea of cafebe and uh,
it's spot that the etymology of this has its roots

(28:27):
in a sort of pig Latin, right, So fake kbe,
keep it fake, keep it fake um And that there
apparently are various ways to say this, like kee fib,
like that might have been the way that Carney's would
have said it back in the day. It is. Yeah,
this is some straight up Carney stuff we're talking about
here with this is but this is what has colored

(28:48):
pro wrestling, and this is what is so interesting about
and as you had pointed out, you've got the heel
who is the bad guy, right, um, and you've got
the face who is the good guy. So whole Covin
was your tip goold face right yeah. I mean he
was America, he was you know, and he was he
was our hopes and dreams. He was our vitamins eating, um,

(29:08):
muscle gaining good guy, just out there fighting the good
fight against you villains and of course foreigners. Um. Because
that's that's another thing about restumes. You see it invoking
various cultural fears and worries and topics, um, often in
a cheap or exploitive way to generate heat from the crowd.

(29:31):
That's right. And again though that this provides that catharsis
right to see this pageantry played out before you. Um.
And of course a lot of these characters too, As
you had said, they build up these narratives and these mythologies,
and a lot of them turn right, so that the
good guys, the faces sometimes might get overwhelmed by their

(29:53):
egos and start acting like a heel. Uh. And then
later on maybe they have some sort of redemped and
so you get to watch characters fall from grace and
then to send back to two Hero Doom. I mean,
it's that those are that's the kind of drama people
want to see, and that's so that's the kind of
drama they orchestrated and presented. Now. The thing about KFVE, though,

(30:15):
is that as time rolls on, as the product becomes
further and further removed from actual grappling, and also and
also when you're throw in TV and it just exposure,
it really becomes more and more obvious that what is
happening is something that's orchestrated, and especially to if you're
if you know, you're involving people of different skill levels.

(30:35):
So there maybe two guys who can go out there
and put on a like a totally believable match, and
even the unbelievable things they can make seem real. But
then you get some guys out there who are green
and don't really know what they're doing, and you know,
it's it's like watching a um a, a poor magician
trying to do a trick with coins falling out of
their pockets. Right Anyway, eventually it's not that well kept

(30:56):
a secret. Everyone really knows and you know, it's more
like us Anna Claus level thing. Even among children, you know,
where someone's like, hey, you know that stuffs fake, right,
and they're like, no, man, it's not fake at all.
But but but then it reaches a point though, uh
in nine so the McMahon's have built up um, they've
taken all these like independent territories, and they've really built

(31:18):
up this this World Wrestling Federation. Then they're they're beginning
to roll in the dough again. These are the territories
that were established in the nine hundreds in the United States.
So again loosely organized, but this is what he evolved into.
The McMahon family became sort of head of that. Yeah. Yeah,
And and part of keeping cafeve though was that they
were also there were things like the state athletic commissions

(31:40):
were regulating the business in large ways, Like there was
I remember reading that this guy Milmascaris, who is a luchador.
He would come up and work matches and there was
like some sort of like some sort of law in
New York where no one could wear a mask in
a match, and so he couldn't go there to do
to do his his matches because the Athletic um Commission
was had this rule. So it really reaches the point

(32:02):
that where it comes down to money, and so vincement
man h breaks cafame in a big way. He hated
to pay state athletic commissions to regulate his business. So
he just finally admitted, Hey, it's not a sport, so
back off, and I'm not going to give you all
of this money anymore because it's sports entertainment. It's not sport.
Right into the audience care now because at that point

(32:24):
everyone really knew. It's kind of like it's like Santa Claus.
You know Santa Claus. You reach a point where you know,
Santa Claus isn't isn't real. It is not a physical
reality that there is. It's fiction and myth and uh
and and and you have to suspend disbelief. But it's
still it's still entertaining. It's still something that you can
involve yourself in. And so yeah, people still watch it.

(32:46):
They suspend disbelief when they watch it. Uh. But it
does make for a really weird kind of area because
it's it's not quite like watching a movie where you're like, oh,
you know, there's a there's an actor playing a character.
Like it's more like there's this actor, but he's pretending
to be the character all the time. Um, and it's uh,

(33:08):
it's we'll we'll discuss uh here. It's there's more of
this gray area between truth and fiction. And that's kind
of like that's kind of what the modern cafe is
all about. Well, should we hear from Cult Cabana here? Yes, Yeah,
let's uh, let's hear from Cult. Just a little introduction
to those of you who are not familiar with Cult Cabanah.
He has about fourteen years in the pro wrestling business.

(33:29):
He's wrestled for World Wrestling Entertainment, Ring of Honor, Pro Wrestling. Noah,
that's a Japanese promotion, Uh, Juggalo Championship Wrestling, which is
exactly what it sounds like. The Insane Clown Possible, um Chakara,
which is a really cool, like family kid friendly promotion,
UM up North, uh National Wrestling Alliance, and then countless

(33:50):
other you know, independence because there's still a lot of
independent wrestling out there, uh, but more notably to a
lot of you. He also hosts the Art of Wrestling
podcast where he interviews other wrestlers and they just kind
of talk about wrestling but also about life and all.
And it's a It's it's A it's a It's a
really entertaining podcast. He has also been on Mark Marrin's

(34:11):
WTF podcast, and he's also been featured on the Sound
of the Young America. And if you want to learn
more about him and find out and also check out
some of his episodes see where he's performing, you can
go to we love cult dot com and he has
all that information there. So I recently spoke with with
Colt on the phone, and uh, and we were wondering
to what degree we should keep Kfebe here and and

(34:33):
I could act like I'm actually speaking to him live
when actually I'm rereading my questions that I asked him,
and then we're cutting in his his answers. But but
I guess we should suspend Kfebe a little bit since
that's what we're talking about. Uh So here we go.
I'm gonna ask the first question, and Colt is gonna
can you ask in a wrestler voice? No? I think
that disrespectful. Well, no, I'm just in the spirit of

(34:55):
kfe No. Alright, So, first off, do you have a
specific character in mind when you perform in the ring?
I have a specific persona or character when I go
out in the ring, it's it's a lot like who
I am in real life. But I know that I
have to be on and I'm not going to break

(35:17):
away from this character and I'm going to commit no
matter what because I'm on stage or you know, slash
ring and so so. Yeah, I want to keep to
my character and and what I have going through my
head for what I want to do in a specific
match or instance. So based on your experiences, do acting
and wrestling go hand in hand? I see, uh, I

(35:37):
see a big parallel. I definitely see a big parallel
to acting and wrestling. And I see it now more
than ever that I've kind of dabbled or I'm putting
the two together and correlation. More than ever, I see
that they're the similarities between the both. I guess what
once I started once I was wrestling. As I was wrestling,

(36:00):
I was never like, oh, I'm an actor. I see
the similarities. But then when I started doing a little
bit of acting in comedy, then you realize, holy crap,
I've been acting and doing company for the past ten
years in the wrestling ring. Now imagine a number of
listeners at this point may have kind of Wikipedia and
you look up Cold Cabana and uh and over there
on the right, you'll see a list of aliases that

(36:20):
he's used in the ring. Different because most some guys
in wrestling may go in and they're only ever like
one name, but most end up using various names, various gimmicks,
various personas that they take on in the ring. Uh.
Just looking at the list for Colt, he has wrestled
as Chris Guy, as Colton Nevada, as the Goon, as
Matt Classic, as Masked Flipper Number seven, as Officer Colt Cabana,

(36:42):
as Punchline, as Scott Colton, which uh this is really
as Scotty Goldman, as Twinkie the Kid, and Colt Daddy.
Uh so Colt of all these characters, and granted some
of these are just one offs that you know, maybe
only existed once. Which one is the furthest from the
real you. I do character called Officer Cold Cabana, and
I do that for the Insane clown Poss's Juggalo Championship Wrestling.

(37:07):
And the greatest thing about it, and what's the most
interesting thing is that people have learned to love the
character Cold Cabana, the fun lucky the fun, loving, happy,
gold lucky professional wrestler, the nice guy of professional wrestling,
and then they know it seems like it's almost like
they're in on the joke of when I go and
I become the bad guy at the insane clown Posse shows,

(37:30):
and now I'm the Officer Cold Cabana and I'm swearing,
and I'm vogler and I'm rude and I'm vowing to
take the Juggalos and arrest them one by one. And
it's so completely different not only from who I am
the person, but who Cold Cabana the wrestler is. Is
that this character has taken on like a life of
its own and in each of its own, and people

(37:52):
really seem to love it, I think because they know
that it's so far from who I am and what
I am as a person. Now, do you ever find
yourself carrying Officer Colt Cabana with you outside of the
ring when you go back in the locker room? No, No,
I know I'll never come back after a performances Officer
Cold Cabana and find myself in the same character. I

(38:14):
think because I've been doing it for so long and
I know exactly when I go through that curtain when
the matches ended, to switch it right off. But when
I'm in the middle of the action and the adrenaline
is going and I'm allowed to do whatever I want,
I definitely get carried away. And I definitely, I definitely um.
I love the fact that I can do everything I

(38:36):
want and I and I. What people don't know is
that almost like my real interpersonality will come out because
I can swear and I could be vulgar and it's
accepted and it's fine. So any like real life frustrations
that I really have is allowed to come out in
this character of Officer Cold Cabana, the bad guy. Because
as Cold Cabana, the good guy, the fun, lucky, happy,

(38:57):
go love, you know, loving guy, I could never let
that out or else my character would be ruined. But
when I let it out as Officer a Cult, it's
what it's expected. So when I mean, I'll get carried away,
and for me it's almost therapeutic because I'm allowed to
do it, and and honestly, the more carried away I get,

(39:17):
the better the character is. So can you speak a
little more about the blurred lines between fiction and fantasy
and pro wrestling it's just that's the one big difference
between you know people. It's interesting because I think that's
where the line of quote unquote fake comes from a lot.
Is that your favorite movie that you go and in

(39:39):
the middle of it, If um, you know Brad Pitt
is in Fight Club, no one's going in the middle
of that movie. This is fake. This is that they
get drawn in there, enthralled and they love it and
it's the greatest thing. And then afterwards you take yourself
out of that world. You know that that was Brad Pitt,
not what was his name of the movie I forget,
but Tyler And I think, yeah, right, that was Brad Pitt,

(40:02):
not Tyler Dirten. But for us it's funny because as
it's kind of as a as a businessman myself, and
you know, I have to portray the character Cold Cabana
at all times and that's I'm not I don't My
business card doesn't say Scott Colton. It says Cold Cabanna.
And that's how I make my money. And it's a

(40:23):
twenty four hour business, not only with the wrestling at shows,
but then outside the shows and podcasting, and I have
to keep up this, uh, you know, and the YouTube
and Twitter and everything. It's all done under the guys
of Cold Cabana, unlike where Brad Pitt would you know,
tweet or do his business as Brad Pitt, but then

(40:43):
he goes and has a two hour block of Tyler
Dirton where he's performing is that character or if he's
in seven or another movie. He's going from character to
character to character, whereas I am always going to be
Cold Cabana and that's always going to have to pay
my bills. So I asked, I always have to protect
that character of Cold Cabana, and that's kind of where
Kid comes into into play, is my protection of that character.

(41:07):
So this is more or less the modern Yeah, it's
it's hard because a lot of wrestling obviously has kind
of been exposed. People enjoy it for what it is
now and the right the idea of KFB was to
keep that secret of what's going on in the wrestling industry,
so everyone thinks it's on the up and up and

(41:30):
that it's a it's a full fight, you know, it's
a full exhibition, I guess, or a fight and not
an exhibition. And now there's yeah, there's different I guess
ideas of Kape. Also, I don't want I think it's
so insulting when someone's like, is it fake, just tell
me or whatever. And you know, a magician, no one

(41:53):
ever said David Copperfield was fake. A magician is not
going to go out. We all get the idea of
what magic is and what illusions are, and if you're
a good fan or if you're someone who loves that
idea of magic or illusions, you're not going to be
screaming that this is fake or I don't you know,
obviously this isn't real. And that's the same idea of wrestling.

(42:15):
And the magicians have their world of cape of keeping
their allusions to themselves, and us as wrestlers, we want
to keep our allusions to ourselves, and it's it's better
if it's not completely out in the open. For the
fact that you will enjoy the show more if you
allow yourself to kind of just kind of be stupid
and just enjoy it for what it is. Good versus bad,

(42:36):
heals versus uh, you know, baby faces, heroes versus villains.
That's the best thing about wrestling. And if you just
stupefy yourself and enjoy the show, then you're allowing yourself
to have a better experience, and that's when the cappe
is kept in part. All right, So we're gonna pick
up a little more with cold here in just a second.

(42:57):
But at this point we want to mention a really
cool article that we ran across that that really gets
to the heart of way cafe is so fascinating for
non wrestling fans and for just people in general. And
it's a It's an article called Kafade by Eric Weinstein,
who is a mathematician and economist UM with the Norton Group.

(43:18):
So you probably want of what is a mathematician and
an economist care about pro wrestling? What is it about? Uh?
In Weinstein's world, the altered reality of layered falsehoods uh,
And that is kade, Like why does that matter to
the rest of us? Um? And it's interesting because this
was a question that he was answering from edge dot org.

(43:39):
Every year they pose an annual question or question to
various thinkers, and the question he was answering was what
scientific concept would improve everyone's cognitive toolkit? And so the
first line of his essay says, the sophisticated scientific concept
with the greatest potential to enhance human understanding may come
not from academy, but rather from the unlikely environment of

(44:03):
professional wrestling. So this is what you were just touched
on right there, because he's saying that this ca faving
is existing h at every level of our society, is
really pervading our cultural fabric Yeah. In his words, K
fabrication is the process of transition from reality toward K

(44:24):
fab and it arises out of attempts to deliver at
appendably engageable product for a mass audience while we're moving
the unpredictable upheavals then impair all the participants. Um So
again he's he's going back to what we've been discussing
how traditional folk wrestling that is quote unquote real transitions

(44:44):
into pro wrestling, which is quote unquote fake. And again
not to get into the whole quadmire of fake, we've
already discussed that, but just in the idea of how
does reality become fiction and and and that process that
that K fabrication that exists in between that what he's
talking about. He's saying that it's a feature of our
most important systems such as war, finance, love, politics, and science.

(45:07):
And um I was even thinking about Kfebe economics, Uh,
in particular the sub prime mortgage crisis, because this was
basically passing off crap mortgage backed securities as investment grade
commodities among this group of financial institutions. And it's an

(45:28):
example of this collective insanity that can be formed around
incorrect assumptions that gain acceptance because there are sources of status. So,
in other words, the sub mortgage crisis that occurred was
all because everybody was sort of playing along with this
sort of Kfebe ization of of economics. When it came
to that the housing bubble and to these um really

(45:53):
crappy mortgage backed securities, they were passing it off as
the real deal, right, because they wanted this This was
system that we would only work if we could all
buy into this illusion. Yeah, like you come down to this, Uh,
this idea that you know, the pro wrestling is this
metaphor for that that exists for actual wrestling and for

(46:14):
actual combat, and so you you can you can apply
this model to for instance, journalism came up in Weinstein's
articles an example, and certainly I think too, I think
to science journalism since that's probably what I see the
most of with my job, particularly space. Okay, so like
you can compare space exploration two catch wrestling. Uh. Catch

(46:36):
wrestling was really long and at times kind of monotonous, uh,
but but at heart there was something really compelling about it.
Likewise with space exploration. Space exploration is really important. I mean,
it's about who we are and where we stand in
the cosmos. It's about the long term survival of the
human race and all of these these grand ideas. But
if you just take a look at a peer viewed

(46:59):
article or just some like doing the hard scientific data
about something, it can it can come off a little boring.
It's not it's not sexy, you know. And then so
the science journalists swooped in and they take the core
of it what's important, but then you know, they sex
it up a little bit. They maybe they add the
instead of just being a black hole in the headline,
it's a cannibalistic black hole, or it's a monster black hole.

(47:20):
You start layering over a little fiction to dress it
up and make it more presentable as a product. And
and ideally you have journalistic integrity keeping it from going
too far. But but but yeah, you see, KFE, we
want you to know what it is you see it
everywhere well, and and he talked about it too in science,

(47:41):
because if you have a certain agenda, then you would
try to fit you know, certain data or elements to
create that fiction. Right. And so when I think about it,
and I think about it in terms of science, I
think about erroneous studies that still have some sort of
weight outside of the science world. Really, and in particular,

(48:01):
I'm thinking about Jenny McCarthy autism and um this false
link between autism and vaccinations. Now, the study that she
cited and the doctor has been discredited over and over
and over again, but yet there is this false reality
that has been formed around this idea and it gained status.

(48:22):
And this is sort of a perfect example of k
fabrication in our lives where we don't, as you say,
you don't really think about it that way. But when
you look at these instances and economics, or in science,
or in journalism in the way things that are reported,
you began to see that it really is a system
that we are all sort of buying, not all of us,

(48:43):
but we tend to sort of buy into as a society. Um,
So you sort of wonder, like where where if you
strip it all away, what are the truths? Because we're
talking about is perception versus reality? Um, this idea that
perception is exalted above actual reality. Back to a quote
from Weinstein, he said, what makes KFE remarkable is that
it provides the most complete example of the process by

(49:06):
which a wide class of important endeavors transition from failed
reality to successful fakery. So, um, let's go back to
Colt Cabana, the professional wrestler and professional podcaster. Uh does
the Art of Wrestling podcast? Go back to him with
just a few more questions about the nature of cafe.
So do you see kfebe at work in the world

(49:28):
around you? Yes? And you know these are my own,
I guess thoughts. But it's because I've been engulfed in
the wrestling world and I've seen I guess the art
of trickery really is. What I've been doing is I
don't believe anything for anything, and that's why these are
my own thoughts. Anyone can have, you know, life and subjective,

(49:50):
but I refuse to vote because I believe everybody is
just corrupt and everyone's out for themselves and you know
who who? Every we hear on the news so much
the just politics in general, everyone's taking money from this person,
everyone's taking money from that person who's ever in charge
because of wrestling and k FEB and the idea that

(50:12):
you know, we're quote unquote working people all the time.
That's how I kind of unfortunately look at life. But
I feel that it's real. That's how life is, and
uh it's I think that's sad and it's unfortunate. But
I think in every aspect, especially those higher power political aspects,
that's going on all the time so much to the

(50:32):
point that it's so disappointing and it's it's taken me
out of that world. I really want nothing to do
with it because I believe that they are they're using
that world of trickery or cafebe or disguising or masking
and um yeah, uh, boxing, football, even the realist of
real sports. This is going on because it's almost because

(50:55):
it's business and wrestling, right. Wrestling was very popular in
the very early nineteen hundreds of late eighteen hundreds, and
the matches would go on for so long that some
of these matches would be three, four or five hour matches,
and the business people they said, our business is dying.
We need to change this business aspect, in this business model,

(51:18):
and it all comes down, I guess that's the American way.
It all comes down two dollars and cents. And they said,
here's how we need to fix, you know, we here's
how we need to fix wrestling. Wrestling as we know
it catches catch can uh, two guys go in and
the better man will win. And it got so boring
or it got so long that they were losing their
audience that they changed it, and they fixed it so

(51:40):
they could make more money. And that's the American way.
And that's every job, and that's every aspect. How can
we change this or how can we make so how
so we can make more money? How can we get
the more most bang for our buck? How can we
make how can we make money? And that's in politics,
that's in unions, that's in uh, you know, unfortunately, like
you know police and fireplighteris and even the nicest of

(52:03):
the nice I believe it all. It all happens because
we're all driven by the almighty dollar, and especially I
mean that's what wrestling is all about. Two is it's
a business. Is how do you make money in this thing?
So as a as a fan of pro wrestling, and uh,
but ultimately as an outsider to pro wrestling, you hear
stories about guys who buy into their own gimmick who

(52:24):
over time and ego gets involved, and you know, maybe
they're portraying a monster in the ring and they start
feeling like a monster outside the ring. Like I said,
ego gets involved in things supposedly spin out of control.
But but does that ever, does that really happen? Does
the fantasy ever bleed into reality? Yeah? Uh, I would

(52:44):
definitely say that people start buying their own hype, they
start believing their own hype, They start believing to the
character that they are, and that is the idea that
then they egos collide with egos and sometimes during a
wrestling match, two people have egos and they don't think
what should happen should happen, So they're gonna go and
go into business for themselves and they're gonna change whatever

(53:06):
was supposed to happen. And that's when that great line
of professional wrestling becomes Is this a work or is
this a shoot? You know? Is this real? Is cafe
ave happening? Am I getting worked? What's going on? And
that happens all the time. And that's what I think
is like the new thing that's drawing people to wrestling

(53:27):
as opposed to the early, you know, nineteen thirties. This
is the new era of what people seem to really enjoy.
And not only is it in wrestling, but it's I
think we've all seen it with reality television. What's real
in this show? What's not real in this show? And
now it's such a blurry line that no nobody really knows,
especially you know, paranormal activity or uh whatever that other

(53:51):
scary movie was. And people seem to really like, you know, uh,
that's the new culture that we're in. And it happens
for sure in the wrestling ring, in the wrestling backgrounds.
You play this character, and again, once you get off set,
you know, you're if you're this is a movie, it's
not like you're ending this character. You have to be

(54:12):
a part of this character seven because it's your it's
your it's your living and when you when some people
do that, they get caught up in it and it's
very unfortunate, but it can also make for interesting television
or interesting drama. Thanks for talking to us. Just to
close out, give us a just a brief feel about

(54:34):
about your philosophy in the ring. What what does cult
Cabana bring to the product. A lot of people know
the world of professional wrestling is two mean men trying
to beat each other up, and I always trying to
take that aspect and change people's mind with it, because
wrestling is an exhibition where two people are going in

(54:54):
the ring and somebody's trying to win. I don't use
anger or I don't use a Russian as my way
to win. I use humor as my way to win,
and I think that always makes for a real fun
match and people seem to like it. And because I'm
a humorist inside the wrestling ring, my humor translates outside
the wrestling ring, so people really seem to support and

(55:17):
people really seem to relate and enjoy who I am
as a wrestling performer and other things that I do
in terms of the way I tweet or the way
I podcast, or the way I have different comedic slash
wrestling ventures that I put out in the world. And
I think when you put that all together, that you
know that makes the ultimate showman or the ultimate entertainer

(55:39):
or what you have it. So I like the idea
that I've kind of crossed this line of not just
a wrestler, but uh, you know, an entertainer for everybody.
So there you go. Thanks to Coult for taking the
time to chat with us, I think as we're recording
this season in Japan wrestling some matches, and again, if
you want to check out his stuff, just go to
uh we love Colt dot com. And just to close
this out, I wanted to to bring up this question

(56:01):
about whether or not this is something we can even
avoid because we've talked about how storytelling, fictionalizing, creating realities
for for ourselves is part and parcel of being human.
And it makes me think about those babies studies that
we keep coming across in various ways in our research. Um,
and I'm talking in particular about Karen Wynd, who's a

(56:23):
Yale psychologist who has looked at babies and morality, and um,
this is really interesting. Uh. I think we've probably mentioned
this before, but kids as young as three months old
can suss out these little puppet characters. Who is the
good good guide, Who is the bad guy or the
good gal or the bad bad gal? And uh, not

(56:47):
only can they suss them out, they they sort of
have a preference for the one that is the good guy,
usually the good puppet, but they also will uh try
to even the playing field when they can. In other words,
they will punish the bad guy when they can. And
I won't go into the particulars of how they do this,
but time and again, like three fourths of the babies

(57:10):
will be able to pick out the good puppet as
opposed to bad puppet, and many more will reward um
a puppet for punishing the other one. So again, here's
this very deeply ingrained idea that we have in our
brains about a sense of justice and injustice. In this
morality and in this sort of patent tray that always

(57:32):
plays out in front of us, we can't help but
get our hooks into stories and be intrigued by them.
So how can we help to uh you know, with
that is sort of the base of our cognitive systems. Um,
how can we actually go about peeling back those illusory
layers to really see what's going on? Yeah? To it?

(57:52):
To end on a quote from Roland Barts says that
in the ring, wrestlers remain gods because they are, for
a few moments, the key which open nature. The pure gesture,
which separates good from evil and unveils the form of
a justice which is at last intelligible. So we're gonna
we're gonna talk a little bit more about some related
issues to this, about um, what happens when, uh, when

(58:16):
the self is layered in these these various elements of fiction. Uh.
The episode is going to be called Undercover Actors in
the Shadow Self. It's gonna be the one that publishes
right after this one. So you're really into this topic,
check it out. We promise there's some some excellent content
in there. So um, let's put it putting wrestling aside. Now,

(58:36):
let's ask the robot to come over here and bring
us some listener mail. All right, here's one from Critter
Jones on Facebook, and I just love the We have
a listener named Critter Jones. It just it lightens my day, Uh,
Critter says, you sweet sweet people have the best product
on the air today. Thanks for pushing boundaries and breaking
mysterious walls. Uh, as always with your Labyrinth episode. I

(58:59):
don't know what I do without you guys. Please don't
make me find out. Love and infinite rockets to both
of you, sweet cats, please please keep on keeping on.
Thank you. We also heard from Kristen. Kristen said, hey, guys,
just listen to the maze episode. Another little quirk of
the maze in Harry Potter was that the hedges also moved,
so you couldn't really go back the way you came,

(59:20):
and you'd also have to hurry and pick a direction
before the hedges took you out. Great podcast, guys. And finally,
Paul wrote to us on Facebook as well and said,
regarding the call for video game mazes, the worlds of
the Metroid series come immediately to mind. Many times you
can clearly see the path ahead or shiny upgrade, but
lack the necessary equipment, which you obtain much later in

(59:42):
the game, often long after you have forgotten where you
found the blocks path. So so there you go. Thanks
guys for writing in. If any of the rest of
you would like to um chat with us about mazes,
about labyrinths, about pro wrestling, uh, if you yourself are
a pro wrestling fan or or a pro wrestler and
you have thoughts on some of the content that we've
discussed here right in. Also if you're an outsider, if

(01:00:04):
you're your husband or or other significant other is is
into wrestling and you're kind of like viewing it from
the outside and you have some thoughts about it, and
maybe those thoughts have changed a little after listening to
this podcast. Let us know. You can find us on
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mind one word, and you can always drop us a

(01:00:26):
line at blow the Mind at Discovery dot com for
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