Wrestlers w/ Matt de Rogatis

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and thank you for listening to Men of a Certain Five. We really appreciate you checking out this episode. Little disclaimer for this episode. We did have some technical issues while we were recording this episode. We had a special guest for this episode, Matt Dirigatis, and we were having trouble getting all of our microphones to work. I do apologize. I am an amateur at this, but yeah, we got the job done. Hopefully it's not too jarring or distracting. We appreciate your patience and we will see you next time with a much better technically clean and proficient episode. I hope. Enjoy. [00:00:50] Speaker B: Hello. How the hell are you? Welcome back to another episode of Men of a Certain Five. Are we pumped up here today? We got a special episode for you today. I am Brian Parks and I got my co host, Phil Rizzo with me today. Phil, how the hell are you? [00:01:02] Speaker A: Yo, what's up, Amer? What's going on, my man? This is a special episode. Really special. It's not just our dumbasses on this podcast. Today we got our first guest on Men of A Certain Fire. [00:01:13] Speaker C: Got another dumbass special guest. [00:01:15] Speaker A: Yes, the dumbass. Ladies and gentlemen, we're talking with Matt De Regattis today. He's joining us on the pod. What's going on, Matt? [00:01:23] Speaker C: Hey, what's up, fellas? Good to be here on Men of a Certain Five with Phil and Brian, who I have known since the. The late. The late. Early 2000s, right? 2009. We did insurance together. [00:01:38] Speaker A: Yeah, we might have. Yeah, we recorded. We filmed that in 2009. [00:01:41] Speaker C: That's crazy. That's like 17 years I've known you guys. [00:01:43] Speaker A: It's bonkers. I can't believe it's been that long. [00:01:46] Speaker B: Long time ago. [00:01:47] Speaker C: Five or something. [00:01:48] Speaker A: What's that, Bomber? [00:01:49] Speaker B: True. [00:01:50] Speaker C: No. [00:01:50] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a long time ago, but it does feel like it was five years ago. [00:01:52] Speaker C: You know what? I think that's because there was a kind of a. We always stayed in touch, but we've been way more in touch regularly the last couple of years. And there seemed to be pockets of time, you know, that we didn't chat as much. [00:02:04] Speaker A: For sure. [00:02:05] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:02:06] Speaker A: And Matt, so. So you know, me, Bomber and Luke, we were independent filmmakers back in the day. We had this film we were shooting. We needed a leading man. And our good buddy Matt, we saw a couple plays that he was in and he. We thought he killed it and we. We got him to be in our show, in our. Our film. And I thought he did great. I thought it was great ever since then. Yeah, we kind of Touch. Yeah. So it was a good time. [00:02:30] Speaker B: And now Matt's. Matt's on the bigger and better things here. Root stage. Matt, want to plug it a little bit there? [00:02:36] Speaker C: Yes. Ruth Stage is my nonprofit theater company. We were just named the number one small nonprofit theater company in America by the Wall Street Journal. Oh, okay. Actually, that's not true. Just. [00:02:48] Speaker B: Well, hey, listen. [00:02:49] Speaker A: No, but it is with you the whole way. [00:02:51] Speaker C: I know Phil was, you know. But I was like, Phil's saying, wow, that's impressive. I was like, I can't let him believe that. I think it's true. We are on to bigger and better things. We got a brand new website, Ruth Stage. Ruth like Babe ruth stage? Ruth stage.org. it's got all the relevant and relevant info on our non profit theater company, our past productions, our future productions, our fundraising events, and we even have a little section called the Collective on the company page. And guess what? Phil Rizzo and Brian Parks are members of the Collective. [00:03:31] Speaker A: Hey, what do you say about that? [00:03:34] Speaker C: So you guys are immortalized on the website, but you really should check it out. I mean, we just invested. I mean, it was a pretty penny. It'll be about ten grand to invest in the new website. But I mean, it really is a powerful, powerful website. I mean, it really, I think, showcases, you know, the previous website we had. It wasn't great. And I feel like the caliber of work we do is now represented correctly on the website because it's a great website and there's a good page on there about Bob, my mentor, who was also in inference for sure. [00:04:05] Speaker A: Yeah, Bob. [00:04:06] Speaker C: We call the page the hall of Flame. [00:04:09] Speaker A: Ah, nice. [00:04:09] Speaker C: Yeah, the dark side's light. He's the first inductee in the hall of Flame. Got an induction speech. And maybe one day you guys will be immortalized with a bust. You never know in Asbury. [00:04:21] Speaker A: We love it. No, we love helping out Ruth Stage. It's a great. [00:04:24] Speaker C: Yeah, Phil, you were in last show. [00:04:25] Speaker A: There you go. Yeah, I was in one of your plays. It was. Was fun. Never did that bomber trying to get Brian involved. Yeah, he. [00:04:31] Speaker B: He would have been. [00:04:32] Speaker A: If he wasn't playing the role of a father, he would have been playing the role of a lawyer. [00:04:36] Speaker B: I think that's true. But I did play the role of a juror, so I'll take that. [00:04:41] Speaker C: January 16th is transferring off Broadway to Cedar Row in October. So we'll. I'll have my people get a hold of your people and we'll see if we can get you guys in the production. Even if it's a special one night only event or something like that, you know, that'd be fun. [00:04:58] Speaker A: That would definitely be fun. [00:04:59] Speaker B: Awesome. Yeah. [00:05:00] Speaker A: And hey, but listen, and, but tonight we're not, we're not talking about plays or theater tonight. [00:05:06] Speaker C: Well, let me stop you there. [00:05:07] Speaker A: Yeah, go ahead, go ahead. [00:05:08] Speaker C: We kind of are talking about theater. [00:05:10] Speaker A: Ah, indeed we are. That's so true. [00:05:12] Speaker B: Very good. You're a kidding. [00:05:14] Speaker A: I'll tell you what. So we're, we're keeping the tradition that we have on the other pod, the warp top 10. When someone we know suggests a good topic, we bring them on and they talk about it. So Matt came up with a great topic that we're going to talk about today. Matt hit us with the topic. What do we got? [00:05:30] Speaker C: Well, I mean a lot of people look at Rootstage and our sizzle reels and the vibe of the company and it's funny, I was even chatting with Copilot, the Microsoft chat, the AI bot and they analyze everything about you and they look at your website and they say what kind of vibe you have and stuff. And the Microsoft copilot said your Ruth Stage company and the website and everything I'm reading about seems very WWE Attitude Era, late 1990s. And I was like, well, perfect. That's exactly how I, how I kind of run the company, you know, with it, with that pro wrestling theater mindset. I kind of think of myself as the Vince McMahon of Ruth stage without, you know, shitting on women's heads and all the crazy things. He's gotten himself into all the legal trouble. But the vision is to execute this, this theater company with, you know, a heightened level of theatric, theatrics even. And if you look at our sizzle reel, it is very intense and high, high energy, you know. So the WWE has been a huge influence on me my entire life, the way that I run Ruth Stage. So I said, well, if you guys do a top five, why not? Top five greatest pro wrestlers of all time. Pro wrestling is having a renaissance again. I mean it's, it's getting very pop after maybe a 10 year, 10, 15 year lull, maybe even longer. I mean, it got really popular obviously in the 80s with Hogan. And then in the late 90s it got popular with the Attitude era. Then Cena came in and the product kind of got a little diluted and it was pg. It wasn't as edgy. The WWE went on the market so they had to answer to a lot of corporate sponsorships. So the product got a little diluted. But I'd say since COVID it's kind of picked up again. And wrestling's gotten really hot and really, really popular again in the last five, six years. So it's perfect time, I think, to talk about the greatest of all time, the top five. [00:07:35] Speaker A: So you've been. You've been watching wrestling since. How old were you when you started watching? [00:07:39] Speaker C: I was at WrestleMania 2, really, in 1986. WrestleMania 2 is unique because it was in three different locations. So there was an hour in New York, then they just lower this, like, giant screen. And then you watch the hour in Chicago and then the hour in LA. So all the WrestleMania, that particular one was in the three biggest cities in America. [00:07:59] Speaker A: I remember that. I remember watching it. [00:08:01] Speaker C: I have very faint memories of watching WrestleMania 1, but I would say I've been watching it since the WrestleMania era, since 1985. I did not. I didn't see Hogan beat the sheik in. In 84, but I do remember 85. [00:08:21] Speaker A: Interesting. Bob, how about you now have. [00:08:24] Speaker B: Well, first of all, I was going to ask you that. Has this been continuous or. There was a time you dipped out for a while. [00:08:29] Speaker C: I mean, I've always been in the loop. I've always read the dirt sheets or the rumors. You know, even if I didn't watch it weekly, I always kind of, you know, would go on Google and just type in, like, WWE rumors, see what was happening, see if anyone interesting was coming back into the fold. That would make me want to watch again. But, I mean, I was hardcore WWE from like, 85 to, like, 92. And then I didn't really want. Or 85 to 91. Didn't really watch in 92 and then back from, like, 93 to about 2013. [00:09:07] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:09:08] Speaker C: And then I would say maybe like 14, 15, 16. I'd watch WrestleMania every year, but not really anything else. Yeah, I think I fell off a little bit between maybe 2013 and 2021. And I've just started watching it again a little bit more frequently within the last couple of years since the product has started to, you know, become a lot more mainstream again. [00:09:34] Speaker A: That's a lot of. It's a lot of. [00:09:35] Speaker C: I got a lot of wrestling, man, I can talk about this all day. [00:09:40] Speaker B: You said WWE back in the day. I gotta be honest, you guys are gonna have way more knowledge about this than I did. I mean, I. Me and Phil talked a little bit about this. I grew up in the era of all this, you know, late 80s. There I was. I was into all the wrestling. Me and my brother Were Die hard. But I only remember wwf. I don't remember any of the other leagues. [00:09:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I was out before they changed it. I was out before they changed to wwe. So the only wrestling that I remember being hardcore for was wwf. [00:10:04] Speaker C: Yeah, well, the, the World Wildlife foundation, that was the WWF that put a lawsuit. [00:10:12] Speaker B: Is that right? [00:10:12] Speaker C: Was it a lawsuit on the wwe? So they had to change it to World Wrestling Entertainment. But honestly, that's not the only pro wrestling company. I mean, Ted Turner and the nwa, now there's AEW and TNA and then there's like New Japan and there's all kinds of, of leagues, but the WWE has always been where? WWF? [00:10:34] Speaker A: The Premier League? [00:10:35] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Since Vince McMahon, you know, took it over from his father. I mean, Vince McMahon Sr. Ran the WWW F. Wow. Then Vince McMahon brought it, bought it from his dad and turned it into the WWF and then had this vision for WrestleMania, which I think this is what I hear. His original name for WrestleMania was Colossal Tussle. [00:11:03] Speaker A: Oh, God. [00:11:04] Speaker C: And Howard Fink, the finkel, yeah, sure, the ring announcer talked, talked him out of it and said no. And then they came up with WrestleMania, which is so much better than Colossal Tussle. [00:11:14] Speaker B: Oh yeah. Hell yeah. [00:11:15] Speaker C: Could you imagine? Colossal Tussle? But I guess it would become part of pop culture anyway. You know, we were like, oh yeah, Colossal Tussle is awesome. [00:11:22] Speaker B: But no way, let me tell you, there's no way there would have been a Colossal Tussle too. I'll tell you that right now. [00:11:27] Speaker C: I mean, WrestleMania is the greatest name because it just embodies like what wrestling is. It's just this mania chaos of it. Yeah, exactly. [00:11:36] Speaker A: Totally the fucking bedlam. So Bomber, you said you and your brother watch when you were younger, right? [00:11:41] Speaker B: Well, obviously I was going to get into this conversation because I got to be honest with you, there is, this is, there's nothing more unique in my mind than this whole world that we're talking about here. Because I, I don't know what the reason is. Listen, as Matt knows, and you know, I'm a theater guy as well, but, but you know, the, it's the adult wrestling fan. I, I, I, I, I marvel at it. I, I really do because me and my brother fell out of it and we never went back. I don't know what happened once, especially being die hard sports fans, once we found out this thing wasn't really on the level. It was more of a show than a sport. It was kind of not that these guys aren't athletic and all that. I'm not saying that. But, you know, the outcome is not. You know, basically, I couldn't bet on it. So I was like, what are we doing now? [00:12:26] Speaker C: You can bet on it. [00:12:27] Speaker A: Okay. [00:12:27] Speaker C: Oh, wow. Okay. [00:12:28] Speaker B: That shows you what I know. [00:12:29] Speaker A: Well, there you go. I tell you what. Yeah, I'm the same boat. My brother and I were into it Die hard for years. We got in right before you did. Went till like 90, 91, I think, and then just kind of. Kind of never went back. But once you brought up this topic, dude, I've been very excited to just. There are some names that were popping into my head that I haven't thought about in literally, like 40 years. Oh, wow. [00:12:49] Speaker B: Like, totally. [00:12:50] Speaker C: Well, you know, it's theater. It's theater. You know when people knock wrestling and say, oh, it's fake. It's predetermined. But like, yeah, we know that. And so is the Sopranos. Like, that's a scripted television show and I'm invested in the carry. [00:13:04] Speaker A: Yeah, that's why I think. But I'm a wit. You. I think it's. [00:13:07] Speaker C: It's wrong. It's Broadway. Yeah. Better fucking Broadway, man. [00:13:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:13] Speaker C: Dude, there's nothing like WrestleMania. It's now two nights. It's so big. Two nights now it's set. There's night one and there's night two. It's every. It's Saturday and Sunday, and next year it's Saturday Arabia, which is what? Yeah, because the Saudis threw like 350 million at them, apparently. Again, I'm all up on the rumors. You know, the big dream match that everybody wants to see. I don't even know if you guys know who Roman Reigns is, but Roman Reigns is like the top guy now, okay. And he's actually. He's a Samoan wrestler that's not directly related to the Rock, but for the purposes of storytelling, you know, he's part of the same family. Yeah. And, like, he's the top guy. He calls himself, like, the head of the table. Like, that's his nickname. And, you know, the Rock, being also Samoan, is supposed to come and fight Roman Reigns in the main event of WrestleMania 43 to determine, you know, who the true head of the table is. The greatest Samoan wrestler of all time. And apparently that's why Saudi threw so much money at the wwe. It was like, if you can get the Rock to do this, we will give X amount of dollars. And there's all these rumors that the Rock's gonna receive the biggest payday ever for a pro wrestler. So we'll see. I mean, it's a dream match that I've wanted to see. It was supposed to happen at WrestleMania 40, but then the crowd kind of interjected and they changed plans and everything. Yeah, I mean, it's a long story. You can get into so many things when it comes to pro wrestling. And I don't know how many of your listeners are pro wrestling fans, but I'm going to talk tonight as if everybody knows what I'm talking about. [00:14:47] Speaker A: Sure. [00:14:48] Speaker C: I can't get through it if I'm like, well, Andre the giant was this 7 foot 4 guy and he was 520 pounds. And I'm just going to assume everybody knows. [00:14:56] Speaker A: They don't know who Andre the Giant is. They ain't clicking on this episode. [00:14:59] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:15:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:00] Speaker C: But I'm going to assume everyone has an idea of what I'm talking about. [00:15:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, most people are going to know at least what wrestling is and they're going to hear about some of the big names that we're going to talk about and listen. But before we do that, you can check us out on TikTok, Instagram threads, enofacertain5. That's the number five. And you can shoot us an email. Men of a certain five. And of course that's F I V E to make it complicated. Mail.com. let us know what's going on. Hit us up with your top five wrestlers. We'd love to hear them. Any questions? Questions? Like it's a live fucking show. If you have any comments, anything, Matt, me, Bomber wrestlers, Wrestlemania, Saudi Arabia. Give us a call, let us know what's going on. We'd love to hear it. And if you're into something different, you can check out our other podcasts. That's the Star Trek Warp Top 10 Podcast. Get that wherever you get your podcast, if you're into something different. But right now, let's, let's, let's talk wrestling, kids. So here's where I want to swing this. I want you to go last because I want you to have the final word. I want your number one to be the last one. Matt. [00:15:57] Speaker C: I'm going to give a deep dive on why. I'm not just going to rattle off five names. [00:16:02] Speaker A: No, no, no. [00:16:03] Speaker C: I'm going to educate. [00:16:05] Speaker A: Now, what's funny is I'm going pretty much all off of memory. I don't know about anybody else. I was going to do some research and get back in there. Bomber. But Matt. [00:16:13] Speaker C: But is this your top five favorites or who you think are the top five Greatest ever. [00:16:17] Speaker A: It's my top five favorites. [00:16:19] Speaker C: Oh, so it's okay, but I'm doing the top five greatest? [00:16:21] Speaker A: That's okay. I told you, Bomber, on this pod, on all of our pods, it's loosey goosey, baby. If you want your list to be this, you make it that. If you want it to be that, what's Bomber doing? [00:16:30] Speaker C: The top five greatest or top five favorite? [00:16:32] Speaker A: That's a great question. Bomber, how did you pick your list? [00:16:35] Speaker B: I have to be honest with you now, because I think that, Matt, you're qualified to come up with a list of the top five greatest. [00:16:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm not. [00:16:43] Speaker B: I couldn't get. I could not even weigh in on the conversation. I gotta be honest with you. After WWF, when I got out, I'm gonna say, like, early 90s maybe. I know I've heard of Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Rock, John Cena and Mickey Rourke. I mean, that's really about where I go. My wrestling knowledge after 1990, whatever. [00:17:03] Speaker C: You know, I always say how great of a wrestler is in terms of star power and crossover. Does my grandma know who you are? And I would. I would, you know, hang out with my grandma, rest in peace. She died in 2024. But prior to that, you know, if I was hanging out with her, I would say, do you know who John Cena is? Do you know who Andre the Giant is? [00:17:24] Speaker A: That's the benchmark. [00:17:25] Speaker C: Yeah. And I will get into that a little bit later because there's. There's someone on my list who's a gigantic, gigantic wrestling star. And my grandma did not know who it was, really. And I was shocked, shocked that she didn't know who it was. [00:17:39] Speaker A: Wow. Well, I'll tell you what, when I hear some names, Bomber, like from modern times or like in the era that you're talking about, when you got back into it, like, I was shocked how many names that I did know. I was talking to Jacoby upstairs and he's like, oh, yeah, my five might be this guy. This guy. I heard of that guy. I heard of that guy. So I had heard of more than I realized. [00:17:58] Speaker C: You guys don't know who CM Punk is? [00:18:00] Speaker A: I don't know who that is. Bobber? CM Punk? [00:18:02] Speaker B: I would have guessed the rapper. [00:18:03] Speaker C: But what about Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton? You don't know those guys. [00:18:07] Speaker A: I know the name Orton. Is that Bob Orton's son? [00:18:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:18:09] Speaker A: Okay. [00:18:10] Speaker C: Cody Rhodes? Cowboy Bob, or Cody Rhodes is Dusty Rhodes. [00:18:12] Speaker A: Okay. See, I know their fathers. I'm old school and I'm old as shit. [00:18:17] Speaker B: It's Funny you mentioned the thing about your grandmother, which I like that, but because that's the bar. [00:18:22] Speaker C: Does my grandma know who you are? [00:18:24] Speaker B: We always try to do this. Imagine everything. At least. I always try to bring up this idea that if you went, went into a bar and there was 10 guys sitting at the bar, how many guys would have heard of, you know, if you say John Cena, how many guys, how many guys out of the 10 are going, oh, yeah, sure, but Coco Beware. [00:18:39] Speaker C: I think you got to be a pretty hardcore wrestling fan to know Koko Beware. Right, Right. [00:18:44] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I remember Coco Beware, [00:18:45] Speaker C: but you know, actually, actually I don't know that you need to be a hardcore wrestling fan to know Coco Beware. Because if you stop watching it for 30 years, but you remember it as a kid, you know, like if I said Aleister Black, you'd have to be a hardcore wrestling fan to know who that is. Because he's current. [00:19:01] Speaker B: No idea. [00:19:01] Speaker C: He's a current wrestler. Yeah. [00:19:02] Speaker B: No idea. [00:19:03] Speaker C: So if there's a 45, 1045 year old guys in a bar, random guys, how many would know Alistair Black? That would be based on how many of those 10 guys are still active wrestling fans. [00:19:17] Speaker B: Now, before we get into this, what would you say would be the peak of wrestling? When was wrestling at its height? Was it in the 80s? [00:19:25] Speaker C: No. So I think that the peak of wrestling was the Attitude era, the late 90s, when WWF and WCW were waging war against each other. It was called the Monday Night Wars. It was so interesting because Vince McMahon, and I don't know if you want me to get into this now or later, whatever you feel. Well, Vince McMahon apparently had, you know, made some shady business deals in his rise to prominence. Basically wrestling was a territorial thing. In the Northeast you had the south, you had the Midwest, the Mid Atlantic. And Vince McMahon's idea was to make the WWF, you know, not only a, I don't want to say global because it's not a globe, but [00:20:11] Speaker A: folks, that's [00:20:12] Speaker C: another podcast, a worldwide, you know, phenomenon across America. So what he did is he went into all these territories and started pilfering all the stars, which upset a lot of these promoters because Vince was just paying, you know, Roddy Piper more than, than, you know, other guys could pay him. So apparently there was some animosity with Vince McMahon and Ted Turner. And I don't, I don't even know if it's correlated to Vince going to all the territories, but what had happened was Ted Turner in like the early 90s late 80s, bought his own wrestling company. It used to be called the NWA and. And he then changed it to WCW. And basically he wanted to compete with Vince McMahon and try to put him out of business. And he had way more money to spend than Vince McMahon did. So when contracts were up with the World Wrestling Federation, you know, Ted Turner would call him, be like, I can offer you 10 times the amount. Less dates, you know, better benefits. So all the guys started jumping over to wcw. Hogan went. The Macho man went. And then there were these. There was this huge angle in 1996 at bash at the Beach. It was. I don't know if you guys know who Diesel and Razor Ramon were. [00:21:31] Speaker A: Nope. [00:21:32] Speaker C: Kevin Nash. [00:21:32] Speaker B: I've heard those names. [00:21:34] Speaker C: Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. [00:21:36] Speaker A: Nah. [00:21:37] Speaker C: Okay, so Kevin Nash and Scott hall are Diesel and Razor Ramon. But they were like the two biggest stars or two of the biggest stars in the WWF in like, 1996. And it's like they were on the WWF like, one week, and then, like the next week, like the guy who played Razor Ramon, Scott hall, was on wcw. And so they. They. This was before social. Social media and, you know, the Internet explosion. So a lot of the fans thought that, like, the guys from the WWF were invading wcw. Like, they didn't know that their contracts were up and that Ted Turner offered him all this money. So Scott hall, the guy who played Razor Ramon, was basically there in WCW to badmouth the company and said, you know, kind of saying, I'm gonna be bringing my friends, you know, to. To, you know, to wage war on wcw. So then Kevin Nash showed up. Who's Diesel? So then, you know, it was like Scott hall and Kevin Nash, like, waging war against wcw. And then finally, like, three WCW guys stepped up. The Macho Man, Sting and Lex Luger. And we're like, we challenge you to a match at Bash at the Beach. Find a third man to go against us. So there was all this talk. Who's the mystery third man? [00:22:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:53] Speaker C: And there was all these rumors at the time of who the third man was going to be. So the match happened, and Scott hall and Kevin Ash came out, and there was just two of them. And everyone's like, where's the. Where's your third man? And they're like, don't worry, he's here. So about halfway through the match, WCW Macho Man, Lex Luger and Sting. Well, Lex Luger had been, like, taken out on a stretcher earlier in the match. So Sting and the Macho man were getting beat up by hall and Nash And Hulk Hogan was like, the good guy, Mr. WCW. So he comes down the aisle and everybody thinks he's coming to save wcw. And turns out he's the third man. [00:23:37] Speaker A: Okay? [00:23:38] Speaker C: So he, like, drops the leg on the Macho man and then cuts this promo after the match, just hating on the fans and he. That's. That's how I became Hollywood Hulk Hogan. And they formed the nwo. So the NWO then became like this really edgy storytelling, just groundbreaking for its time. And the WWF at the time was like, cartoonish bad product. And WCW was just killing them in the ratings and money. And again, Ted Turner was buying all the stars. So then Vince McMahon was like, the only way that we can compete with WCW and stop us from going out of business is we've got to push the envelope and make a very edgy product ourselves. And that's when Stone Cold Steve Austin rose to prominence. And the Rock and, you know, the women that they had, Sable and Sonny and, you know, there was just a lot of edginess in the WWF product. And so basically every Monday night, I mean, you would sit around the TV and watch them both because they were going on at the same exact time. And that was another strategy of Ted Turner, because WWF had Monday Night Raw. And so Ted Turner's like, well, we're gonna do Monday Night Nitro and we're gonna put. We're gonna put it on at the exact same time and steal their audience. [00:24:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:49] Speaker C: Yeah. And so it was basically like they were against each other to try to see who could get the most ratings. And it was just such a fun time to be a wrestling fan. So I would say that that period is the. Is the great. The peak of pro wrestling. I'm not sure it'll ever get hotter than that. [00:25:05] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:25:05] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:06] Speaker A: What do you think about that, Bobber? I didn't catch any of the names, but it's interesting. [00:25:13] Speaker B: Yeah, no, like I said, I never would have thought that would have been the case, but I like to hear that. Yeah. But it's funny because when I was. I was probably right around the time I was in college, and it was a buddy of mine that was Die Hard with Stone Cold Steve Austin at the Times. I remember it being very big. But it's funny. I have one friend now, Scott tomjack is my. The only other guy I know that. That's our age or whatever, that still follows the. The game, you know. [00:25:34] Speaker A: Well, now you know, too. And DK is. I think. I think he's still into wrestling, too. Our buddy Doug Yeah, I think he still watches, right? He's the one who had me watch, like, some Nick Foley matches. Like, oh, yeah, Mankind, right? [00:25:46] Speaker C: Throw him off the hell in the cell. Did he show you that, man? [00:25:48] Speaker A: One where he felt like a million feet and his teeth. [00:25:51] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that was the hell in the cell. [00:25:52] Speaker A: That was insane, dude. I remember watching that. That was crazy. [00:25:55] Speaker C: Absolutely. [00:25:56] Speaker B: Wow. [00:25:56] Speaker A: So listen, before. Before we kick in one more time, so real quick, I want to hear Matt's answer more than I want to hear mine and yours, because we always ask this. So, Bomber, given our limited knowledge of wrestling, we were into it back in the 80s, not so much since then. How did you pick your list? Like, what did you use as your criteria for your top five? [00:26:16] Speaker B: Well, I just. I tried to go back and remember a lot of the guys that I remembered seeing, you know, when I was really into it there. And the first two were automatic for me, to be honest with you. And then after that, it was just picking guys that I tried to think, oh, I remember this guy. This guy was a lot of fun. Or, you know, some of the characters and, you know, I mean, every. Everybody knows all the names I'm gonna say, so it's not like I went, honorable mentions will be a little fun. But that's awesome. How about you? [00:26:44] Speaker A: Like I said just by memory, like, you know, we were so die hard. I went. I dug it in my brain. I was like, who did I really freaking love back then? You know? I mean, why did I love them? And, And I, I, I, I. The one thing I did look up, I did because I wanted to remember where they were from. [00:26:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:00] Speaker A: For some reason, that's. That cracks me. The up, like, from the Isle of Tonga. That's exactly right. You know, and the whole. [00:27:06] Speaker C: You. [00:27:06] Speaker A: We were talking about this backstage. Matt from Sarasota, Florida, what he's talking about, like, this matches one fall with a time limit of, like, they would always tell us how many falls it was, but, like, 99 of the time, it was one goddamn fall. [00:27:18] Speaker C: Right. [00:27:18] Speaker A: Every once in a while, they throw three falls in there. Do you remember that? They were talking about falls. Do you remember that? [00:27:24] Speaker B: No. [00:27:24] Speaker A: One fall meant, like, you get one chance to either pin the guy or, yeah, one match, I guess, disqualified. He had one match, that's it. But it was three falls. They would do a two out of three. Do you remember watching any of that, really? [00:27:35] Speaker B: I. I mean, it's just a longer, though, I gotta be honest. [00:27:38] Speaker C: They still do it. I mean, it's called the three stages of Hell. [00:27:41] Speaker A: Now is that right? [00:27:42] Speaker C: So each, each match is different. Like the first one might be like a cage, and then the second one might be like a no holds barred. And then the third one is a street fight, you know. [00:27:50] Speaker A: Do they still, do, they still do Battle Royales? [00:27:53] Speaker C: Yeah, they have the annual. Well, the Royal Rumble is every year. That's, that's the big paper. [00:27:58] Speaker A: I heard that. That's right. [00:27:59] Speaker C: But then they still do the, it's called the Memorial Andre the Giant Battle Royal every year before WrestleMania and the winner gets like a statue and Andre the Nice. [00:28:08] Speaker A: So Matt, so we, we, we just went from memory pretty much. Yeah. [00:28:12] Speaker C: Let's hear it. [00:28:12] Speaker A: So how, so you, what do you think makes a great wrestler and how did they get on your list? [00:28:20] Speaker C: So to me that what makes a great wrestler is actually not wrestling. [00:28:25] Speaker A: Okay? [00:28:25] Speaker C: To me, like, you know, some people will say, oh, you know, when I hear the best wrestler of all time, I, I don't think the greatest in ring performer of all time. I think the great. It's the pageantry of it. You know, it's like, are you, what's your entrance music? You know, your costume, your catchphrase, your character, your build? You know, obviously in ring ability does matter, you know, finishing moves or fun and stuff like that. But it's the whole, it's the whole package. It's not, oh, this guy's a great in ring technician. Those are actually the most boring guys. The guys that are just like larger than life. I just feel like, you know, I think what makes a great pro wrestler is like your real personality turned up to like an 11, you know, so it, to me it's like again, what, what makes, you know, Vince McMahon for a long time got away of the word from the word words, pro wrestling and started to use sports entertainment. And so I feel like that's kind of like what it is. Who's the best? Who are the best entertainers? Not that that are wrestlers. Not necessarily who are the best wrestlers. Like a lot of people will say, oh, you know, Brett the Hitman Hart was a great in ring technician and Eddie Gu was a great in ring technician. But if we're talking about the greatest wrestlers of all time, by my definition of this, the showmanship, the pageantry, you know, this larger than life. Or are you a crossover star? Do you sell tickets? Did you sell merchandise? Did the kids love you? Like, did you make an imprint on the business like that that transcends and you know, we'll still be talking about, you know, 30 years from now. Those guys don't make the list. You know, they're just not on the list of like, iconic, you know. Again, does my grandma know who you are? If my grandma knows who you are, you're worthy of being in the conversation. My grandmother would have no fucking clue who Eddie Guerrero is. Or Brett. Or Brett the Hitman Hart. [00:30:25] Speaker A: I know the Hitman. I never heard of Guerrero. [00:30:27] Speaker C: Yeah, so basically that's kind of like my. My definite definition. Who's these great characters that are. That are created. [00:30:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:35] Speaker C: I don't even care as much about the match. The matches are fun, but I like the build up to it, you know, I like the entrance. You know, I like the anticipation of it all more than I like. [00:30:46] Speaker A: There was a lot less of that when we were. When we first got into it. Like, you know, I mean, there was [00:30:49] Speaker C: a lot less the storylines. [00:30:51] Speaker A: I like entrance and like, you know, I know the new wrestling, you know, they come down this long path and. Oh, and they've got music and girls [00:30:58] Speaker C: and screens with all kinds of. [00:31:00] Speaker A: They didn't really have all that. You know, the guys ran in and jumped into the ring and that's where their pageantry began. [00:31:05] Speaker C: Yeah, right. [00:31:05] Speaker A: Oh, sorry. [00:31:06] Speaker C: But, but a promo is the most effective. Yeah, like who, like, you know, can you cut a good. Are you a good talker? Does the crowd, like just like listening to everything you say? Are you interacting with the crowd? Like, you know, do you have a great catchphrase? You know, I mean, like, if you smell what the Rock is cooking, you know, when the whole crowd is doing it with them, it's like, that's wrestling, you know, putting someone in a bear hug, that to me, that's like, okay, but that's not wrestling for me, you know. [00:31:34] Speaker B: All right, I was gonna say this. Well, this is just probably what it is to me that makes me just hilarious to me is I. I appreciate the answer and I think. I agree that that's probably what it comes down. But to me, it's like watching football and you're looking forward to the press conference more than you look. Then you watch the actual game. I'm like, what are we doing here? You know, like, yeah, you know, this is. But that's the. That's the Looney Tunes world of this whole event, which makes it its own unique thing. [00:31:56] Speaker C: It's like Rocky Horror. You know what I mean? It's like you're playing along. [00:32:00] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, well, listen, let's kick this bad boy off. Like I said, I want Matt to go last, so our picks are somewhat inconsequential. But you wanna. You know, I'll go because last time you went first. So I'll go ahead and go. [00:32:15] Speaker B: Sure. [00:32:16] Speaker A: All right, let's just. Let's just. Let's get into this. So top five wrestlers, Are you going [00:32:20] Speaker C: one to five or five to one? [00:32:21] Speaker A: Five to one. And in between two and one, there's room for honorable mentions if you want to throw some shit in there. [00:32:26] Speaker C: Okay. [00:32:27] Speaker A: All right, so I'm gonna. I'm gonna kick this right off. This is. This was a personal favorite of mine when I was a kid. I don't even know why, but hailing from Charlotte, North Carolina, or Tennessee, because they said both sometimes. Junkyard Dog was my fifth favorite wrestler. Listen, it was. It was partially because, you know, another one bites the dust. It was partially why him coming into that song. I used to love that song when I was a fucking kid. He just kicks it in and he's just thinking. He's growling. And she was just a maniac that [00:32:59] Speaker C: he had a little headbutts. He would do headbutts. [00:33:02] Speaker A: They would unleash the chain. [00:33:04] Speaker B: The chain. Yeah. [00:33:04] Speaker A: I like the fucking. The red pants with, like, the blue stars. He'd have going sometimes. He was my favorite fucking wrestling figure because I was just so into the junkyard dog. I just remember loving him. I remember a lot of people weren't crazy about him, but when I was into wrestling, he was really popular. [00:33:18] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, he was. [00:33:20] Speaker A: So like I said, that's. That's. That's basically it. Like, I just thought he was a badass. I love the song. Boom. Number five, Junkyard Dog. Do you remember him, Bomber? [00:33:29] Speaker B: Of course. I'm glad you brought up the figures. I would say that was another thing that. [00:33:32] Speaker C: They're back. Yeah, they're back. [00:33:36] Speaker A: Those. We bought all of ours for like 600 bucks or something. [00:33:39] Speaker C: Yeah, they. They brought them all back with the new guys now. And the old school ones, those were so fun. Yeah, I used to like. [00:33:44] Speaker A: They would. Oh, yeah. [00:33:47] Speaker C: Beat the skin off. [00:33:49] Speaker B: How about the thumb ones? Used to stick the thumbs. [00:33:52] Speaker A: I don't remember. [00:33:54] Speaker C: Different. Is fun. The thumb ones. [00:33:56] Speaker B: No, no. No way. No, I agree. I agree. Yeah. Well, I'm gonna go with another guy here. I'm throwing. I'm throwing in a rotten. The Piper, man. I gotta go. Roddy Piper. [00:34:04] Speaker A: Rowdy. Roddy Piper. Hell, yeah. [00:34:06] Speaker C: So that's his number, you know, number five. [00:34:07] Speaker A: Rowdy Roddy Piper. [00:34:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:08] Speaker C: Oh, so you do five, he does five, you do five. Oh, I'm. I'm gonna. [00:34:12] Speaker A: We'll keep circling, and then you're gonna have the last word on number one. [00:34:15] Speaker C: Well, I would rather go one through five if I could. [00:34:18] Speaker A: You want to do one through five? You want to do one first? [00:34:21] Speaker C: Yes. [00:34:21] Speaker A: Oh, hey, you know what? Why not? [00:34:23] Speaker C: But you guys can do yours and then just throw it to me. I mean, are you allowed to do that or no? So why don't you guys do, like, your five, five, four, four, three. And then I'll do sort of my Mount Rushmore plus, plus one, you know? [00:34:36] Speaker A: Okay, got it. [00:34:37] Speaker B: Okay, so you want to go full. [00:34:38] Speaker C: I actually might get confused with my five if I go from five to one. [00:34:42] Speaker A: Yeah, okay, I got you. All right, no problem. So go. [00:34:45] Speaker C: Bummer. [00:34:45] Speaker A: So you're five. Listen. [00:34:48] Speaker C: And again, this is favorite, right? Not. [00:34:50] Speaker A: I did my. [00:34:51] Speaker B: Yeah, this is favorite. [00:34:52] Speaker C: Okay. [00:34:54] Speaker A: I get more in depth with my reasons for why I think they're all so great, but really, I just pick personal favorites because, again, I think Bomber said it perfectly. We're not qualified to say who the greatest wrestlers of all time. [00:35:05] Speaker C: You haven't watched enough. [00:35:06] Speaker A: I can tell you who I think the greatest wrestlers of 1983 to 1992 are, right? Yeah, but, you know. No, So I went with favorites. [00:35:12] Speaker B: Okay. [00:35:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:35:14] Speaker B: No, you know. Yeah. I mean, I can't even remember a lot of the matches. It's funny. Obviously, I like the movie. They live a lot, and that. That factors in. And what are we doing here? [00:35:23] Speaker A: And Always Sonny, man. I mean, he's on my list down the line, too. I won't spoil which one, but. So he's. He played a wrestler in Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He played domainiac. Did you. You watch Always Sunny, Matt? [00:35:33] Speaker C: I have. No, I don't. [00:35:34] Speaker A: It's worth. For him. He's. He's in like three episodes. He's fucking great. They. They decide to wrestle for the troops to raise money for the troops, and they hire this guy called Demaniac, and it's Rowdy Roddy Piper. He just gets all in there. He's a total nut job. He's hilarious on there. [00:35:48] Speaker B: And if I remember right, I think we. The Goonies, the song that Cyndi Lauper sings. The music video of that Goonies song that Cyndi Lauper sings has all these wrestlers in it, I think. Rowdy Piper. [00:36:01] Speaker C: Yeah. Cyndi Lauper was in WrestleMania, one crazy [00:36:04] Speaker A: crossover with wrestling and music in the 80s. [00:36:06] Speaker C: MTV. Yeah, sure. [00:36:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:36:08] Speaker A: Because Wendy Richter, the female wrestler, she got all involved with Cindy. She was in the she Bop video. [00:36:14] Speaker C: Yeah, Cyndi Lauper, Captain Lou. They Were like, oh, yeah. [00:36:16] Speaker A: Well, Captain Lou was in the girls Just want to have fun video. She was the father. He was the father. I thought I met him. By the way, did I ever tell [00:36:22] Speaker C: you that you met Captain Lou? [00:36:22] Speaker A: Captain Lou. He came through trial at Ocean Burger King when I was working there. When was this? I was at Ocean burger king in 1997. [00:36:32] Speaker C: Oh, wow. [00:36:33] Speaker A: Yeah, he just came through one day. Hey, how you doing, buddy? How you balance? Holy shit. It's Captain Louis. I got his autograph. [00:36:38] Speaker C: Did he have the fucking rubber bands? [00:36:40] Speaker A: He didn't. I wish he did. [00:36:41] Speaker C: I tell him. [00:36:41] Speaker A: I told people that for a while that he did have the rubber bands. Anyway, dude, I mean, Piper's Pit. Come on, man. [00:36:49] Speaker C: Oh, that's like the original wrestling talk show. [00:36:50] Speaker A: It is. [00:36:51] Speaker B: Yeah, of course. Yes, definitely. This guy was a larger than life guy. What are we doing here? [00:36:56] Speaker A: He was what? [00:36:57] Speaker B: Larger than life. This guy was a maniac. What are we doing, Russ? [00:37:01] Speaker C: Hyper is great. You know, I could actually see that being Brian's number one. I feel like Brian would like a Roddy Piper, so. Okay. [00:37:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I do. Yeah. [00:37:11] Speaker A: Well, I go, well, I got some [00:37:13] Speaker B: other maniacs coming up here, but yes. That was my five, so we're gonna go to Phil. You want to go four now? [00:37:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do it. So my number four is. We'll keep talking Rowdy Roddy Piper. So, hailing from Glasgow, Scotland, by the way, none of these guys were anywhere near where they said they held. [00:37:26] Speaker C: Yeah, right. [00:37:27] Speaker A: None of them were from. He wasn't from Glasgow, Scotland. [00:37:30] Speaker C: Except the guys from parts unknown. They were from parts. [00:37:32] Speaker A: Sure, yeah, of course. Right. I was totally gonna bring up they Live. I love that movie. It's great. But he was just. He was such a fiery freaking presence. Like, before Piper's Pit, I remember he was just this rowdy, you know, wrestler. He, you know, he was a bad guy, quote, unquote, obviously. So we lost a lot of matches. [00:37:51] Speaker B: Right, right. That's right. [00:37:52] Speaker A: Once he got Piper's Pit, he really came out of, like, he really made a name for himself, you know what I mean? He. He took sort of a back seat to the actual wrestling. Was more like a quasi manager, promoter for the. For the bad guys. I remember that. I love the T shirts. Iconic. The hot rod. The hot rod T shirt. Like, that was great. Tons of friends I. I knew had that when they were kids. He. So he was fun. He was tons of fun to watch. I loved Rowdy Roddy Piper. [00:38:19] Speaker B: No doubt. [00:38:23] Speaker A: It's amazing that it's Funny. [00:38:24] Speaker B: Even Matt brings up the showmanship of all this, because these guys were just absolutely insane. I mean, you know, I mean, it's. What the hell are we doing here? [00:38:30] Speaker C: Well, they were working with. [00:38:31] Speaker A: With less. [00:38:32] Speaker C: Right. [00:38:32] Speaker A: Like, I remember when I got out of it, like, that's when they started doing, like, the Street Champion and. [00:38:38] Speaker C: And, like, Hardcore title. [00:38:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I was just like, I. I was kind of. I was kind of tuned out. Like, I could see it being appealing to some people, but, like, it kind of got. It went from, like, being simple and awesome to, like, a little over complicated, I think a little too much. And I just kind of. Yeah, I kind of. Once they started doing that stuff, I kind of tuned out. But, yeah, no, I mean, it was. It was still a blast. [00:39:02] Speaker B: Well, I'm gonna move right on to my number four, which. I got it. We gotta throw Andre the Giant in the mix here, you know, we gotta do this. [00:39:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:07] Speaker B: You know, only because I remember being a kid when you. At least for me, when I was a kid, you saw this. You saw this guy. I was like, holy shit. You know, this guy was just an absolute beast. I mean, you know, and I remember, obviously we're, you know, we can't not mention him and not talk about Princess Bride. My guys will have a movie connection, it seems like. But I. You know, I also remember the cartoon Hogan. What was that? Saturday morning cartoon. [00:39:31] Speaker C: Remember cartoon? Yeah, right, right. [00:39:33] Speaker A: I think I have that. [00:39:34] Speaker B: That was the best. Yeah. You know, but. But anyway, Andre, it was. It was his own unique. I don't think he was as quite as showy as some of these other guys. [00:39:44] Speaker C: No, but his stature was just. [00:39:47] Speaker A: Yeah, the eighth wonder of the world. [00:39:48] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Just being him was. [00:39:51] Speaker A: Dude, I told you before about, like, I was. I was literally 20ft away from him. Like. Like, I thought a guy wrestle at Freehold High School. That's how insanely unpopular it was before, like, the Hogan era, you know what I mean? Like, it was just like, we would just go there and there's all these. All these dudes you just saw at, you know, on a Saturday morning, wrestling in, like, all these arenas. It was pretty wild. And they would do the same. [00:40:16] Speaker C: Like High School east, right, Exactly. [00:40:18] Speaker A: They would do the same. You know, you would read in the paper, oh, look, Iron Sheet beat Bob Backlin last night. But, like, then they would do the same exact match at, like, every venue they toured with. You know what I mean? But it was. It was still thrilling nonetheless. Andre the Giant got it. [00:40:34] Speaker B: I. I gotta. I gotta tell you, too. It's funny I didn't mention this before when Matt had mentioned he went to WrestleMania there. I I as into it as we were as kids. I've never, to this day, I've actually never been to a live wrestling match, you know, any. In any capacity. [00:40:50] Speaker A: You know, it's funny, after I got [00:40:51] Speaker B: out of it, I wish I had. [00:40:52] Speaker A: I got. I got taken to one at the Meadowlands and it wasn't like, you know, wrestling was not popular in the early 90s. Like, it wasn't. [00:40:58] Speaker C: Right. It was a bad period. [00:41:00] Speaker A: Yeah. But this dude, Chris Primont, that. And he was really into it, took us all. And like, I mean, I didn't know any of the wrestlers or anything. There might have been a few holdovers from the 80s, but that's the last wrestling match I saw that was like, you know, 35 years ago was the last time I saw like a wrestling. Probably last one I watched on TV either. [00:41:16] Speaker C: So I was at WrestleMania 40 recently in that's awesome Philly, where the Eagles play. [00:41:21] Speaker A: Nice. [00:41:22] Speaker C: That was two years ago. [00:41:23] Speaker A: Nice. [00:41:24] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:41:25] Speaker B: And is it, Is it, Is there. You know, people always say hockey is the best to see in person. Is there something to seeing in person? Is it amazing things. [00:41:33] Speaker C: I'd rather watch it at home, to tell you the truth. It's just. [00:41:36] Speaker B: Okay. [00:41:36] Speaker C: It's just better football. Yeah. I mean, you could have good. You could have pretty good seats. And it's still kind of hard to see you're watching the screen, you know, because there's. It's small. [00:41:45] Speaker B: Right, Right. [00:41:46] Speaker C: It's a little ring. [00:41:46] Speaker A: And, you know, I'm sure the energy's there, though. [00:41:49] Speaker C: Yeah. But, you know, there's this giant stage in this giant arena. And then in the middle of a sea of 80,000 people, there's this, you know, whatever 16 by 16 ring and two 6 foot 5 guys in it. So it's like kind of hard to see. So unless you're really close up, you're watching the screen and it's like, well, I could be home watching it on my couch. [00:42:08] Speaker A: That's so true. That's so true. [00:42:10] Speaker C: That. [00:42:11] Speaker B: That reminds me of the. I went to see the Devils play the Flyers at Giant Stadium there, and Sam throws my balls off of that, you know, but same thing. It's not the same. You can't really see. It's not like you see an actual hockey game and where it's supposed to be, you know. [00:42:24] Speaker A: All right, baby, I'm moving on. [00:42:26] Speaker B: Yes. Let's do it. [00:42:27] Speaker C: All right. [00:42:27] Speaker A: My number three. I keep doing this Hailing from Parris Island, South Carolina, Sergeant Slaughter. [00:42:35] Speaker C: Wow. Sergeant no. [00:42:37] Speaker B: Awesome. [00:42:37] Speaker A: Well, listen, listen. A couple reasons why, right? For one, like, I, I, for some reason, I always liked him. I liked him more as a bad guy than I did when he became a good guy. But the cobra clutch, man, like, I can't tell you how many kids my age tried to do the cobra clutch on each other in, in the playground. Like, like. And I knew how to do it for a while. Like, it was pretty that in the figure four leg lock, Greg the Hammer Valentine. I knew how to do that too, Rick. Oh, really? Did he do that? [00:43:02] Speaker C: Ric Flair did this. [00:43:03] Speaker A: I used to fucking torture Drew. My brother doing the figure four leg lock on him. He's to hate. Wasn't as painful as the wrestlers made it seem, but it was fucking. [00:43:11] Speaker C: See, when I was growing up, I'm a little bit. Oh, I think Brian and I are the same age, but yeah, you guys are a little bit younger than you, Phil. So, like, we would put the. Brett. The Hitman Hart's finishing move was called the Sharpshooter. So we would, we would put each other in the sharpshooter. [00:43:27] Speaker A: I try to do the coke. That hurt my brother too, but I mean, the camel clutch. [00:43:31] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Where you just sit on the guy's back. [00:43:32] Speaker A: Oh, my God, it was brutal. But no. So also good. I'm sorry. [00:43:37] Speaker B: No. Also, he was, he was phenomenal in G.I. joe the movie. Don't forget that. [00:43:40] Speaker A: I did. You know what? That I did. Didn't know until I did. I did see that online. He was in the G.I. joe the movie. I had no idea. [00:43:46] Speaker B: Oh, me, my book. Me and my brother have watched that movie all the time as kids. That was right now. I read our era, though, you know, Guy. [00:43:53] Speaker C: Oh, I love G.I. [00:43:54] Speaker B: joe, Matt. [00:43:54] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I was a G.I. joe guy. [00:43:56] Speaker B: You remember. Remember Slaughter? Yeah, the eye. We had the Slaughter GI Joe figure. [00:43:59] Speaker C: Yeah, they had that. [00:44:00] Speaker A: So they used to call him. They used to call him Gomer. You remember that? So the Gomer pile. Like, they made fun of him, right? He was supposed to be this drill instructor who served in Nam, you know, but he was just like. So we call him Gomer. So this is why it's personal for me. The only sign I ever brought to any sports event ever, when I saw him at Freehold High School as well, I bought a big Gomer sign and I fucking held it up the whole time. So that had a personal resonance for me. That's why I was. I loved hitting that guy. I thought it Was so cool. [00:44:25] Speaker C: Well, do you remember when he. Like, this was when you probably got out of wrestling, but in 1991, when the United States and Iraq were at war, he turned into, like, an Iraqi supporter, Sergeant Slaughter. [00:44:37] Speaker A: Oh, really? That was his Persona. [00:44:39] Speaker C: Yeah. And so he, like, burned the American flag and everything like that. He was all about Iraq, apparently. Was getting death threats and him and his wife and. And then Hogan, and he was the world champion. [00:44:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:50] Speaker C: So Hogan, you know, came to beat him at WrestleMania, but it was like America versus Iraq, you know, within the world of pro wrestling. [00:44:58] Speaker B: Oh, my God. [00:44:58] Speaker C: But yeah, Slaughter. Slaughter was. Slaughter was like an Iraqi supporter. [00:45:03] Speaker A: That's crazy, because he was a bad guy then a good guy, then he became a bad guy again. Yeah. [00:45:06] Speaker C: And then. Then a good guy again after that. [00:45:08] Speaker A: Oh, is that right? Tis Chris. All right, Bomber, what do you got, man? Number three. [00:45:13] Speaker B: All right, well, let's keep moving here. We're flying here. I know Master to go on here, so we gotta get. Yeah, we're gonna snap into a slim gym with my man Macho Man. We gotta get. We gotta get involved. Absolute. There's no greater to me. Like, when you said the personality. Matt has to go to 11. This guy put it at, like, I don't even know, 100. This guy was absolutely insane. And. And there was nothing better than this guy talking into the mic like, you know, I'm coming, we're coming, we're coming to town, brother. Like, I can't even do an impression. [00:45:43] Speaker C: I mean, I think you can make a case. Like, I'm going to just digress here for a minute. Like, okay, to me, you know, Michael Jordan is number one. Don't. Don't even get me started. He's number one. The convo starts at number two. And I am so offended when people say LeBron is as good as Jordan or. But I. I want to throw fists because he's such a pussy. I fucking hate LeBron James. And he's a ring chaser and a stat compiler and a flopper. And I just. His mentality, he's just like fake gold, this guy. Everything about him is fake. He's curated. His whole career is manufactured. Like, he couldn't sniff Jordan. [00:46:20] Speaker B: But this sounds like you're about to get into the WWF ring with. [00:46:23] Speaker C: Dude, I'll cut a promo. I can't stand him. [00:46:27] Speaker A: I couldn't agree more, by the way. [00:46:29] Speaker C: But if you said Kareem was the greatest of all time, right, I wouldn't have that vitriol and that reaction, because I would say Okay, I can understand that. He's not. In my opinion, Michael Jordan is the greatest. But if you think Kareem or Wilt or, you know, Magic or Bill Russell, like, I'll respect that. But if you say LeBron, it's like, oh, you don't know shit. You never saw Jordan play. You're 25 years old. Like, there's, there's just no way that anybody saw them both play that could put them in the same category. And, and, and now to come back to my original point. If somebody said the Macho man was the greatest wrestler of all time, I'd be like, all right, I could. I respect that opinion. I mean, he's got everything that encompasses what I think a wrestler should be. [00:47:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:16] Speaker C: The manager, Ms. Elizabeth. [00:47:17] Speaker A: Oh, I love Ms. Elizabeth. [00:47:19] Speaker B: Right? That's right. [00:47:20] Speaker A: He's. He was, he was just gonna play him constipated at all times. That. That's how he did the interview. Yeah, he said he had the whole time, man. Like, he's just coked out cocaine fueled interviews. [00:47:33] Speaker C: Like, he must have been the best. [00:47:34] Speaker A: Jacked 24 7. [00:47:35] Speaker C: He had the flying elbow, [00:47:39] Speaker A: the cartoon. He was a riot. And those commercials were great. You're right. Etched in my memory, man. Step into a Slim Jim. You're never gonna forget that 80s macho [00:47:47] Speaker C: man was, is the best iteration of Macho Man. [00:47:50] Speaker A: Like, what happened after the 80s? [00:47:51] Speaker C: Well, Slim Jim is like 90s macho man. [00:47:53] Speaker A: Okay? [00:47:54] Speaker C: And then. Yeah, and then he was in WCW and then he joined the NWO. Okay, but that 86 to like 89 macho man. 85 to 89 macho man. That, like, that's the most iconic version. When he had Miss Elizabeth, it was fun. [00:48:11] Speaker A: It was fun to watch. All right, here we go. Well, this is where, this is where Matt throws a flying elbow at me because my number two hailing from Venice Beach, California is Hulk Hogan, baby. He's not my number one. That's why I'm like, okay, but all [00:48:26] Speaker C: you got to say is Venice Beach. I know. [00:48:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. You know, that's kind of why I'm doing it. He's gonna, he's gonna get him before I fucking do it. I just love that. Like, just like college football, like, football, they tell you where these fucking players went to college. Like, like, we need to know that, you know, from, from Paris Island, South Carolina, you know? Anyway. The Hulkster. Yeah, of course, man. Like, the, the, the word iconic doesn't even, like, do him justice. Like, he took, he took wrestling into the stratosphere. Like, he you know, like every kid my age, our age, every kid wanted to be this guy, you know? Remember how crazy it was seeing him in Rocky 3? And you were like, thunder Lips. Thunder Lips. What the you doing, dude? You're Hulk Hogan, man. But you mentioned Bob. You mentioned the Iron Cheek. That was pretty much my introduction into wrestling was those few months when the belt passed from Backlin to the Iron Sheik, to Hogan, to Hogan, that's when I got on board. I was like, what the fuck is this? I don't know what it is, but I love this guy. Look at this. Look at his hair on always sunny. They say it's silken, like a Chinese man. [00:49:33] Speaker C: Well, do you know the Thunder Lips? Do you know the Thunder Lips story? [00:49:36] Speaker A: No, please. [00:49:37] Speaker C: So Vince McMahon's dad was running. Was Hogan's boss at the time, the wwwf. [00:49:45] Speaker A: Okay. And was the Worldwide Wrestling. [00:49:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:49:48] Speaker A: Okay. [00:49:49] Speaker C: And Hogan got a call from Sylvester Stallone to be in Rocky 3. And Hogan went to Vince McMahon Sr. And said, hey, I've got this. I've got this deal, and I'm gonna take it. And Vince McMahon Sr. Said, no, no, you're not leaving the company to go and shoot a movie. If you. If you do this, you're not gonna work here anymore. And Hogan said, all right, fuck it. I'm going to do the movie. [00:50:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:10] Speaker C: So he went and did the movie. And then, I don't know, maybe a year later, he got a call, and it was after Vince McMahon Jr. You know, the Vince McMahon that we know? [00:50:21] Speaker A: Sure. [00:50:21] Speaker C: Bought the company from his dad. And then he called Hogan, and Hogan's like, I'm not coming back there to work for your dad. And he's like, my dad doesn't own it anymore. I've got it. So Hogan left the WWF because they wouldn't let him do the movie and stay in the Federation. So he left. And then when Vince Jr. Took over, he. He had this idea to, like, find one guy to build this whole show around. And you know who the original guy was that he was gonna do this with? Their original first choice. [00:50:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:54] Speaker C: It's just so interesting to hear all these stories because it's like. It's like with everything, when you hear, like, who was cast first in the movie, who turned the role down, how many times a book got passed over by publishers that's, like, so famous. So I'll give you guys each one guess who was Hulk. Vince McMahon's first choice for the Hulk Hogan guy would have never worked, by the way. I can't see it Working. [00:51:18] Speaker B: You're talking about who was going to be, who was going to be in Rocky 3. [00:51:21] Speaker C: No. So Vince McMahon was like, I'm going to build, I'm going to build my company around this guy. Who, who was it? [00:51:27] Speaker B: Gotcha. [00:51:28] Speaker A: I wouldn't even have a guess, like who, who could match up to Hogan? Andre the Giant, like, no, Brian, you gotta pick. [00:51:36] Speaker B: I would have said Macho man. I have no idea. [00:51:38] Speaker C: Dusty Rhodes. [00:51:39] Speaker A: Oh, okay. All right. I mean, that wouldn't have worked, but [00:51:41] Speaker C: it wouldn't have worked. Like ho. We wouldn't have wanted to have been like Dusty Rhodes. [00:51:45] Speaker A: No, no, no, no, no. Those will be like adorable Adonis while you're at it. [00:51:52] Speaker C: Adorable [00:51:55] Speaker A: Bomber Man. I mean, what else can I say about Hogan? Any, any word on that? [00:52:00] Speaker B: No, I'm just shocked you went there. Number two. It's interesting because I now I feel like the funny thing is I think we have our top two are probably going to be the same guys they just reverse. [00:52:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. My number one is immovable. Go ahead. What's your number two? [00:52:11] Speaker B: My number two. Now this controversy with this guy in real life, if I remember right. Yeah. Phil's already mocking the whole thing. [00:52:16] Speaker A: I'm already on the top rope with the I love yous, baby. [00:52:20] Speaker B: Me and my brother, when we couldn't turn number one, when we could, when we couldn't watch it on tv, we would go to shop. Right. One from that era, wrestling videos, and hopefully find ones that had this guy on there. Because this guy was Jimmy the Snooker, the Super Fly. This guy. First of all, what was more exciting than seeing this dude fly through the air like an absolute maniac? I waited for that time. The guy that was just the most fun thing to watch as a kid. I mean, come on, what are we talking about? [00:52:49] Speaker A: No, I, I, I can't even explain why, but like, what Matt just said like, is like, yeah, it's truly every, every kid my age, that was, that he was, he was just the guy. He was the guy Cage matches with. [00:53:00] Speaker C: I have a friend. Yeah, I have a friend in his 60s and he's always referencing Snuka. [00:53:04] Speaker A: I, I don't know what it was. He was just amazing. [00:53:06] Speaker C: Well, you know about him too, with the murderer and everything. [00:53:08] Speaker A: That's Obama was. [00:53:09] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. There's a little controversy. [00:53:11] Speaker C: Yeah. McMahon apparently covered it up because it was his big star. I mean, there's a great show on Vice TV called Dark side of the Ring and there's so many seasons and episodes of it now. I mean, it really tells the story of all, like, the. The bad that went on behind the ring. [00:53:26] Speaker A: Interesting. That's crazy. So, you know, my number one. I'm just gonna roll and keep talking about Snooka, so go ahead. My number one is snooker, right? So. So it's like, oh, by the way, hailing from the Fiji Islands, of course. Let me give an example of why. Of how everyone my age was more into Snuka than Everybody else. So WrestleMania 1 happens, right? And I don't know if you remember Bomber or not. I'm sure Matt remembers. So it's Hogan, Mr. T versus [00:53:57] Speaker C: Paul Orndorff, Mr. [00:53:58] Speaker A: Wonderful. And who was his partner? [00:54:00] Speaker C: Piper. [00:54:01] Speaker A: Rowdy Roddy Piper. But. [00:54:02] Speaker C: And they had Cowboy Bob. Orton. [00:54:04] Speaker A: That's what I was gonna say. In their corners, they had a third guy just to, like, you know, keep an eye on. So Cowboy Bob, Orton was Piper and Orndorff's dude, and Snuka was Mr. T and Hogan's guy. So, okay, so WrestleMania 1 happens. All kids our age watch it. Cut to, like, elementary school. Like, I want to say it was fourth grade, I guess, fifth grade. And they're showing a tape of it in class, right? We're watching the final battle, and everyone's so into it. But there's a. There's a very small moment where Orton goes to step in at the very end, and Snuka, just, right on the side, jumps in and takes him out with, like, a boom. Like, around the top of the episode. The classroom went nuts. Like, they didn't care about Mr. T and Hulk Hogan. Like, we went berserk when Snuka had that one little fucking moment. You know what I mean? [00:54:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:57] Speaker A: I can't even explain why he was just. He was unquestionably mine. Drew's yours. Everyone's favorite wrestler. It was just. It was just. No question about it had to be my number one. Hogan's way more iconic, way more of, like, you know, what you think of when you think of wrestling. But there's. It's like. It's like 311 and Led Zeppelin, one of our other pods. I can't put anybody besides Led Zeppelin number one. Snuka. Snuka, man. Yeah. [00:55:22] Speaker B: You know, I will say he was definitely the most fun to me. But. But, but. But my number one one, I had to put the whole. I mean, Hulk Hogan to me, like you said, you know, he is the Mickey Mouse. He's the Bugs Bunny. He's the. He's the whole thing. You know? He is. When you Think of wrestling. You think of him. [00:55:38] Speaker C: He. [00:55:38] Speaker B: He is the face of the whole thing. [00:55:39] Speaker A: That's true. If you had one face in every sport, he would definitely be the face of that sport. No question about it. I. [00:55:44] Speaker B: And he was bigger than wrestling, the guy really. I mean, at the end of the day, he was, he, he was just on. And I think I saw polls of like who was the most popular, but I can't. Matt could probably speak to this. I don't know a guy you could, you could talk about the Rock and John Cena or whoever the. You want to talk about. To me, this guy. There's nobody that's has ever been as famous or as popular as this guy is in wrestling, in my opinion. Again, he went to the bar and said, Ask 10 guys, do you know, they probably would know the Rock too, [00:56:11] Speaker C: but they would know the Rock more because of his film career. [00:56:16] Speaker A: I agree. [00:56:17] Speaker C: Like, the Rock. I have the conversation with my friend about this and it's like, you know, the Rock has become this sensational worldwide phenomenon and it's like when he comes back to the wwe, it's like, oh my God, the Rock is back. But like, when you break down the Rock's actual wrestling career, it's not as iconic as like where he fits in society because he's got all these billion dollar movies and stuff. It's like, it's added to his status, you know what I mean? But if you strip away the movies and we haven't seen the Rock wrestle on a full time schedule since 2003 and he went and just had a regular life, he wouldn't be like he is now. [00:57:00] Speaker A: Bomber. By the way, I sent Matt a picture, a screenshot of sort of Rock was in a fucking Voyager episode, Star Trek Voyager. He wrestled Seven of Nine. This futuristic arena. It's pretty badass. So I, I had to send that to Match to give a little podcast crossover there. What do you got? [00:57:16] Speaker B: I like that. By the way, I was going to say mention too. I forgot to mention that for me, there was no more of an iconic moment in wrestling to me than when Hogan body slammed number one. [00:57:25] Speaker C: I always say Hogan's got the two most famous moments in the history of pro wrestling. Number one, body slamming Andre the Giant. Number two. [00:57:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:34] Speaker C: Joining the NWO and turning as turning a bad guy. Like, you never thought Hogan would be a bad guy now. Yeah, that was like, oh my God, he's bad guy now. He just dropped the leg on Macho Man. [00:57:45] Speaker A: Well, I tell you what. And the only time that I ever Was pissed at making someone a badge is when they made Andre the Giant a bad guy. Like, I never understood that. [00:57:52] Speaker C: But they had to to make him Hogan's adversary. [00:57:55] Speaker A: You wouldn't have that moment without it. But like, yeah, for me, like, Andre the Giant was forever a good guy. Like, you know, that's one dude. I don't think you could have. Could have switched over. And that might be one of the. That was that late 80s, right? [00:58:08] Speaker C: 87. [00:58:09] Speaker A: Okay. That's not as lame, but that was [00:58:10] Speaker C: such a brilliant storytelling. And so was the Macho man and Hulk Hogan and mega powers that year long, like, friendship that they had. But, like, you know, Macho man started to become very jealous of Hulk Hogan and accusing him of wanting Elizabeth. It's like you just saw like the, the friendship get fractured, you know? And then they, they met in WrestleMania, by the way. [00:58:34] Speaker A: She was hot and shit, but I don't remember her having an ass. Tits or like, she was just like a skinny girl. [00:58:39] Speaker C: Right, well. Well, when she went to wcw, she was a little more voluptuous. [00:58:44] Speaker A: Yeah, okay. [00:58:45] Speaker C: She was like probably late 30s, early 40s by that point. And she had some work done and, you know, bigger, Bigger tits. [00:58:52] Speaker A: And was George the Animal Steel still trying to get some on the side or what? [00:58:55] Speaker C: I met George the Animal Steel in an elevator. [00:58:58] Speaker A: Did you really? [00:58:58] Speaker C: Yeah. You signed my WrestleMania 10 VHS box. [00:59:01] Speaker A: Oh, shit, that's awesome. [00:59:03] Speaker C: I met the Rock too. [00:59:04] Speaker A: You met the Rock? [00:59:05] Speaker C: I met the Rock. So in the 90s, like, when the guys would code like wrestle at the Meadowlands or whatever, like, we would find out what hotels they were staying at. And this was before the Rock was even the Rock. He was kind of like a jabroni. And like, we were in the bar and the Rock came up and we didn't even want to talk to him. Was just like, oh, there's the Rock, you know, And I did say, hey, man. And he shook our hand and was just like, hey, how you doing? He was nice, but he was not, like, anywhere near the popularity that he was like, up and coming at the time. [00:59:33] Speaker A: Sure, yeah. [00:59:35] Speaker B: Now, now, before we let him. Before we let Matt rip off here, did you want to mention. We didn't do any honorable mentions. There are some guys you wanted to throw out there. [00:59:42] Speaker A: You know what? Later on, Andre the Giant wasn't on my list, so of course he's an honorable mention, you know, But I, you know, I, I did like a lot. I liked a lot of the. The managers. I used to love the. The bad managers. [00:59:53] Speaker C: Oh, really, Bobby? Heenan. [00:59:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:55] Speaker A: Bobby the Brain Heenan. I used to love him. I used to love Jimmy Hart. I used to love Mr. Fuji. Classy. Freddie Blass. [01:00:01] Speaker B: Mr. Fuji. [01:00:02] Speaker A: Right? And tag teams. [01:00:04] Speaker C: So tag teams is good. [01:00:06] Speaker A: I almost put Rocky Johnson and Tony Atlas as one. [01:00:08] Speaker C: You know, Rocky Johnson's the rocks. [01:00:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. As a matter of fact, I just saw a video of. I guess my algorithm heard me talking about wrestling or so I. I saw a shot of the Rock when he was like, probably like 12 at, like, 1 of Rocky Johnson's matches. It was a lot of fun. So I was gonna put the British Bulldogs. I used to love. I used to love the tag team Demolition. [01:00:28] Speaker C: I love Demolition. [01:00:28] Speaker A: Demolition, the Killer Bees. [01:00:30] Speaker C: I used to love Heart Foundation. [01:00:32] Speaker A: Heart Foundation, Right. So, wow. You know, I used to love the tag teams and the managers, so I wanted to make sure we talked about that, and I do want to make sure we talk about Mean Gene Okellin. I used to love. Listen to him do the. Do the wrestling. I used to love Lord Alfred Hayes doing the interviews. [01:00:48] Speaker C: Gorilla Monsoon. [01:00:49] Speaker A: Gorilla Monster. Monsoon. [01:00:50] Speaker C: Jesse the Body. [01:00:51] Speaker A: Jesse the Body. Doing the color was. Was the best. He was. [01:00:54] Speaker B: Jesse the Body. Forgot about him. Homer. [01:00:56] Speaker A: Like, he was such a. Jesse the Body and Gorilla. [01:00:59] Speaker C: Yeah. Jesse the Body and Gorilla are probably my famous. My favorite broadcast. [01:01:04] Speaker A: Get so pissed at him all the time. It was so much fun. [01:01:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:01:08] Speaker A: What about you, Bomber? Honorable mentions before we got Matt. [01:01:10] Speaker B: Matt. I remember Junkyard. I. I threw him down. These guys, the names. Just because some of their characters are hilarious. Hacksaw Jim Dog. And I used to love his. [01:01:19] Speaker C: You know who. I'm surprised neither of you guys mentioned the Ultimate Warrior. [01:01:23] Speaker A: You know what? He was popular, but, like, as I was fading out, I think. Okay, I think. [01:01:29] Speaker B: I think that's what it was for me too. I think by the time I got out, he was becoming the big. I don't know what it looked like. [01:01:34] Speaker A: Remember Jim Duggan getting caught with iron sheets doing blow after they just had [01:01:38] Speaker C: a match for you? [01:01:40] Speaker A: That exposed. [01:01:41] Speaker C: That kind of exposed the business. [01:01:42] Speaker A: It kind of did. It kind of. Kind of took the veil away because [01:01:44] Speaker C: they're like, why are these guys hanging out? And they just had a fight. [01:01:47] Speaker A: They hate each other. [01:01:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:01:49] Speaker A: So naive. [01:01:50] Speaker B: How about. How about Hillbilly Jim? You remember him? [01:01:52] Speaker A: Don't go messing with a country boy. [01:01:55] Speaker B: How about Jake the Snake? [01:01:57] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. I'm surprised you guys didn't mention Jake. [01:01:59] Speaker A: Love Jake the Snake. [01:02:00] Speaker B: The Snake, the ddt. [01:02:02] Speaker A: I remember he ddt. Steamboat. And it looked like he had a. A bump. The Size of a. It's like a cartoon bump on his forehead. [01:02:08] Speaker C: We had the snake too. Daman. Damian. [01:02:10] Speaker B: I used to love Damian Damien. That's right. And what about Big John Stud? [01:02:15] Speaker C: What about from Asbury Park? Bam, Bam. Big. [01:02:17] Speaker A: Oh, Bam, Bam, bam. [01:02:19] Speaker B: Oh, I forgot about him too. [01:02:22] Speaker A: There's way too many even. There's so many great, no doubt fun characters. [01:02:26] Speaker C: And you guys are just talking about the 80s. I mean, there's what I'm saying. [01:02:29] Speaker B: 40 years. [01:02:31] Speaker A: I know, it's crazy. [01:02:33] Speaker B: I also, I got to bring up that. I don't know if you remember the old Nintendo game, pro wrestling. The creatures in the black Lagoon dude that I got. Cuz I would bite people. Yes. I love that dude. [01:02:43] Speaker A: Who the. The. The green. [01:02:45] Speaker C: Oh, the Missing link. [01:02:46] Speaker A: Is that what his name? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I used to love that. [01:02:49] Speaker B: I was always. [01:02:50] Speaker A: I was always the boring, just regular dude. [01:02:52] Speaker C: He was all green face. The missing. [01:02:53] Speaker A: The star, man. Every once in a while he had that upside down kick. [01:02:56] Speaker C: Oh, well, there was a wrestler called the missing link who was all green, but I'm not sure if we're talking [01:03:00] Speaker A: about the Nintendo game. Remember that Nintendo game pro wrestling? [01:03:03] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:03:04] Speaker A: Oh, I still love that. [01:03:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I was just throwing that out there. But yeah. So that's it. You know, listen, I'm ready to get educated here. [01:03:10] Speaker A: So real quick, before we let Matt go, we got to talk about the wrestling album. Who had the rest? [01:03:15] Speaker C: Oh, God, I would play it all the time. [01:03:16] Speaker A: That non stop [01:03:19] Speaker C: everybody. [01:03:26] Speaker A: I mean, that's the first time I heard. [01:03:27] Speaker C: And they had the Hulk Hogan. They. Well, they also had the Hulk Hogan song on there too. Oh, what about eat your heart out, Rick Springfield? You know, by Jimmy the mouse of South Hark. [01:03:37] Speaker A: Yes. The Nikolai Volkov doing the. Yeah. [01:03:43] Speaker C: Oh, I used to love that. [01:03:44] Speaker A: I just listen to it all the time. [01:03:45] Speaker C: I would put that record on in my house all the time when I was a kid. And I'm talking the actual record workout set. Yeah. [01:03:50] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. That was ridiculous. [01:03:52] Speaker C: Those are the days, man. [01:03:53] Speaker A: That's what the Hillbilly Gym, man. You don't remember that? [01:03:56] Speaker C: No, dude, that was crazy. [01:03:58] Speaker A: I love that. All right, Matt, the stage is yours, baby. However you want to do it. [01:04:04] Speaker C: All right, I'm gonna. I'm gonna do, in my opinion, the top five greatest wrestlers of all time. Obviously. I mean, Michael Hulk Hogan, it goes without saying, in my opinion, whenever I see a list that doesn't have Hulk Hogan number one, I'm already. I'm like, this list is disqualified. Doesn't this doesn't count. Same thing with Michael Jordan. You don't have Michael Jordan number one. It's like, no, this isn't a, this isn't a real list. So Hogan, Hogan's number one. I mean, this guy, like, you know, the guy that I'm going to say who's number two, A lot of people put him at number one. So I'm actually going to say my number two right now just so I can make the comparison in the conversation. [01:04:50] Speaker A: Okay. [01:04:50] Speaker C: And then my number two, who I think is the second greatest pro wrestler of all time, my grandma did not know who that was, but I bypassed the fact that she didn't know who because he's so iconic. So number one, Hulk Hogan. Number two, Stone Cold Steve Austin. [01:05:08] Speaker A: Okay. [01:05:09] Speaker B: Wow. [01:05:10] Speaker C: She never heard of Stone Cold. No. Now some people say Stone Cold Steve Austin is the greatest of all time. And I could understand, you know, the logic behind it, but he really was like white hot, like most popular wrestler in the world from like 1997 to probably 2002. And he missed most of the year 2000 with a neck injury. So we're talking about like he's peak was only four or five years and it was an insane peak. I mean, everywhere you looked somebody had an Austin316 shirt. I remember I used to work at the seaside boardwalk and me and my buddy, we would work that, he'd work across from me and we would just count how many Austin316 shirts we would, we would see on a shift. But you know, he's absolutely a mega, mega star in, in the world of, of pro wrestling. His feud with Vince McMahon is probably the greatest feud in the history of pro wrestling. But the thing about Stone Cold is again, he had that peak of like five years, like Hogan's peak. Like it, you could make a case that like it was 20 years. Like he won the title from the Iron Chic in January of 1984 and in August of 2005, 21 years later, he was still main eventing gigantic events. He main evented SummerSlam that year against Shawn Michaels, which is the second biggest event for the WWE. So this is like a 21 year career and there wasn't a lot of interlude there either. Hulk Hogan is the only, and you can fact check me on this, but I'm pretty certain he's still to this day the only wrestler ever who made the COVID of Sports Illustrated. He took, he took like you said, just this like wrestling at high school gyms to 90,000 people at the Pontiac Silver Dome, you know, Body slamming Andre the Giant. And just. He's just had so many iconic moments. It's like Jordan, I mean, to me, you know, Jordan, you just close your eyes and you could just rattle off like 12 iconic Jordan moments. And the same thing like with Hogan. I mean, he's not like this in ring technician. But I would argue that the greatest match in the history of professional wrestling is at WrestleMania 18, when he faced the Rock. And we have to watch that match. I told you about that, Phil. That was the most insane match ever. Just because of the crowd. Like, the crowd participation in that match was just insane. Again, it's like, you're part of this. It's like Rocky Horror. It just goes beyond sport, you know, And Hogan, just from 1984 to probably, like 1992, you know, just ruled wrestling. And then, yeah, his act got a little stale and he went to WCW and Ted Turner brought him in. But then he totally reinvented himself and was Hollywood Hogan and then became the bad guy of the nwo. Like, Stone Cold Steve Austin wouldn't exist if Hulk Hogan didn't form the NWO because Vince McMahon was like, oh, shit. The WCW has just turned wrestling on its head. Like, no longer are we doing, like, these fake, stupid characters like Doink the Clown. Now it's like. It's, like, real and it's, like, edgy. And it's like we're kind of believing that, like, Hulk Hogan and the other guys from the WWF are like, taking over WCW and it's this edgy product. And you can make the case that Hogan's the greatest baby face of all time, which is good guy in the world of professional and the greatest heel of all time, which is. Which is bad guy. It's like him body slamming Andre the Giant. Most iconic moment in the history of wrestling. Him joining the NWO and being a bad guy. Probably the second most iconic moment in the history of wrestling. It's like he's got the top two most iconic moments. The greatest match everybody wanted to be, you know, ripping your shirt off and a Hulkamaniac. I mean, putting your hand to your ear. I mean, you know, unfortunately, some of the stuff with him that came out publicly, you know, his remarks and, you know, questionable behavior as a human being, has kind of, like, put a stain on his legacy. My feeling on that is. And, you know, this is my. This is my controversial hot take that might come back and hurt me years down the road, who knows? But, like, we've all said horrible things about other people. Like when there's Not a camera on us. Every person on Earth has said something racist about some, you know, group of people at one point or another, and they're just not Hulk Hogan. They just didn't have the spotlight on them. To have a tape then, you know, given to TMZ for the entire world to. To see. [01:10:25] Speaker A: And. [01:10:25] Speaker C: Yeah. Did he, you know, have sex with, like, his daughter's friend? I mean, that came out like, okay, but you know what? Like, there's a lot of guys that I know that, you know, have done some questionable things as well, that I've heard them say things to me. And I'm like, oh, man. Really? You did that? And it's like. But nobody gives a shit about that guy. You know, it's just like, you're not Hulk Hogan. So you're. You're this iconic person. And, you know. But unfortunately, you are a human being, and you make a lot of mistakes like all human beings do. It's just that his mistakes got highlighted much more than yours or mine would. Because he's Hulk Hogan. I mean, you can make the case he's one of the most famous people to ever walk the Earth. I mean, if he goes to Australia, they'll know who he is. If he goes into Africa, they'll know who he is. If he goes into Munich, Germany, they would know who he was. [01:11:15] Speaker A: Sure. [01:11:15] Speaker C: I mean, to me, he is like the Babe Ruth of wrestling. The Hulk, the Michael Jordan of wrestling. And the fact that he was able to reinvent himself and become, like, this bad guy. It's like the Attitude era and Stone Cold the Rock and Vince McMahon, the character of Mr. McMahon, this heel, corporate business owner. I don't think that those guys exist without Hulk Hogan becoming a bad guy. So they had to compete with him. It's like, what can we do to now compete with the nwo? And a really interesting story is they pitched this idea to Hulk Hogan. This is what the myth is. Eric Bischoff, who was running WCW at the time, I find this hard to believe, but this is apparently the truth. On the night of Bash at the beach, that night that I told you about, where it was the three on three and they had the mystery man. In the weeks in advance leading up to it, they had pitched the idea to Hulk Hogan to turn bad, to become a bad guy. And Hogan was very hesitant to do it because he's like, I do all the stuff with the kids. And by the way, I know Austin Pendleton, a friend of mine who's a big theater legend in New York City. He did A movie with Hulk Hogan and would tell me, like, what a great guy he was. And then he would film all day, and then he would just, like, they would bring a bus in of, like, kids dying of cancer, and he would just sit, hang, and talk to the kids. And he was like, I couldn't believe that he would film 11 hours and then spend two hours with. With these sick kids. So he had nothing but great things to say about. About Hulk Hogan. And Hogan was, you know, kind of like, well, if I do this and I become a bad guy, then, you know, all of a sudden I'm. I'm not really the guy to be going around and, you know, going. Looking after the sick kids and stuff like that. The legend is that the match started and they did not know if Hulk Hogan was going to agree to come down and become a bad guy. And that there was a certain point in the match that if Hulk Hogan did not come out at that moment, that Sting, who was in the match, was going to be the third man, and he was going to turn on his. His allies and join the nwo. So hall and Nash went out there, not sure if Hogan was going to agree to do this. And apparently he arrived to the arena and just said, derek Bischoff, you know, okay, let's. Let's do it. So, I mean, that's just so interesting that you go out there and you don't even know what's going to happen. [01:13:46] Speaker A: That's crazy. [01:13:47] Speaker C: And apparently that's the story with Andre the Giant, too, that, I mean, if you listen to Hogan tell the story, he was worried that Andre wasn't going to, like, put him over and give him the win. And, you know, Hogan tells this story of, like, you know, before the match, that they were sitting there drinking beers in the locker room, and Hogan's like, so, you know, what are we going to do out there? What's going to happen? Like, is this going to. [01:14:09] Speaker A: It's crazy. [01:14:10] Speaker C: And Andre was like, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. And then Hogan went to Vince, and it's like, what's going to happen out there? And Vince is just. Vince was just like, don't worry. Andre's going to do business. But Hogan went out there not knowing if he was going to win. And he said there was a moment in the match right before. There's this moment where Hogan clotheslines Andre, and Andre falls to the ground. And again, this is according to Hogan, at that moment when Andre fell, he. He yelled to Hogan, slam. [01:14:41] Speaker A: Really? [01:14:42] Speaker C: And that was the cue to go home, and Hogan slammed him and dropped the leg and. And won the match. But apparently he didn't know that Andre was gonna actually put him over. So, I mean, that just such great. You know, there's so much mythology with Hulk Hogan. He's bigger than the sport. You know, like, Stone Cold's a. He's not. He doesn't have the myth. Like, he hasn't achieved that God like stature of Hulk. Like, same with Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth. Like, these people, like, they're bigger than their sport, you know, Rick, wrestling today would not be what it is without Hulk Hogan. Like, you again, I would argue you would not have Stone Cold's Steve Austin without Hulk Hogan becoming a bad guy. Because then there would not have been this need for the WWE to sit down and be like, okay, what can we do to push this product and get more people watching? Okay, Steve, you know, start cursing at me and drinking beer and, you know, being this Hellraiser. And Stone Cold was great. I mean, I love Stone Cold Steve Austin. Like, I think he's great. He's got great music. You know, his entrance music is great. He's got the. Then that's the bottom line. Because Stone Cold said so. He used to do this thing called what? You guys probably aren't familiar with that, but it's one of his catchphrases. Like, they still do it 20 years later. Like. Like this. This thing called what? Like, he'll be cutting a promo and he'd be like, oh. So I went to. I went to Dallas, Texas last night, and I had myself a beer. And then the audience goes, what? [01:16:10] Speaker A: And he said. [01:16:11] Speaker C: I said, I had a beer. And they'd be like, what? [01:16:14] Speaker A: And he's like. [01:16:14] Speaker C: And then I had some Jack Daniels and they're like, what? [01:16:17] Speaker A: He's like, and then I had some. [01:16:18] Speaker C: Some Jameson and they're like, what? He's like, and more Jameson. What? Ordered some fries. What? You know, so it's like this thing that, like, the audience would just get behind this whole what thing? And now in wrestling, like, if they don't like you and you're cutting like a boring promo, like, they just like, what the hell out of you? You know what I mean? It's like, shut up. Get out of here. [01:16:39] Speaker A: That makes sense. [01:16:40] Speaker C: So Hogan's number one. I mean, for all the reasons that I named. I mean, he just transcended. I don't know if you guys have had a chance to watch the Real American documentary on Netflix. [01:16:47] Speaker B: I was about to ask you about that. If you guys saw. I didn't watch it. I do want to watch it. Is it good? [01:16:51] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. I mean, tearjerker. You know what I mean? Like, really, you know, he's like, you're. He's like, you're. When you're 8 years old, he's kind of like a father figure. I mean, it's just weird. I mean, he really was. It's just like, you know, two people in my life that, like, I've. Just. Outside of my own family, of course, you know, that. Like, I just. Like, the only two people that I really like could say that I, like, loved, you know? Like, I don't even like actors, you know? Like, I don't really go to. I don't even like watching theater. I don't watch a ton of movies. Like, I don't really look to actors for inspiration or anything like that. Like, to me, when I was a kid, it was Michael Jordan and Hulk Hogan. Like, those were like the. And they still stick with me, you know, even. Even to this day. And I just think, like, Michael Jordan and Hulk Hogan, like, they make you feel something. You know what I mean? And, like, they. They just had that ability to make you. You feel something that I think a lot of other people, like, they can't. Like, these all. All these other guys are great, but I'm not sure they really made you feel like. I got. I gotta say my prayers and take my vitamins because Hulk Hogan told me to do it, man. You know what I mean? So I just think he's just so iconic and had two gigantic runs where he was the face of the WWF as a good guy. Then he goes to WCW, becomes the face of the WCW as a bad guy, and then returns to the WWF after Vince McMahon bought WCW. And he returns as Hollywood Hulk Hogan as a bad guy. And he fights the Rock in the main event of WrestleMania where he's supposed to be the bad guy and the Rock is supposed to be the good guy. And the audience just hijacked that event. And, like, Hogan's the good guy in that match and the Rock is the bad guy. And that's interesting too, because, like, they had to change the match on the fly, apparently, because Hogan and the Rock were like, okay, the original plan, it's not gonna work because, like, the crowd is, like, voting, they're on my side. [01:18:48] Speaker A: Sure. [01:18:48] Speaker C: So now we gotta go have 80s Hulkamania while I'm dressed in all black. And oh, man, it's just such an epic match. You got to watch it. You got to Watch it. [01:18:56] Speaker A: You showed me a clip, dude. [01:18:58] Speaker C: The whole crowd, I mean 80,000 people or whatever, just going crazy for 20 minutes. I mean, it wasn't even like one moment. It's just like the whole crowd like in a frenzy. It's like because he came back, that was his first match in, you know, 10 years or whatever in a WWF ring. So, so yeah, number two, Hogan, number one. Again, to me it's not a debate. Number two, Stone Cold Steve Austin. Hogan made wrestling, Hogan made the wwe. You could argue that Stone Cold saved the wwe because if it wasn't for the Attitude era and Austin, Vince McMahon's rivalry and Austin and the Rock, WWF would probably have been out of business. WWE would probably have been out of business. I mean, there's rumors that they were like one week away from not being able to pay their bills and because WCW was just like shitting all over them. And then Stone Cold just got so popular. So he saved the wwe, but he didn't make the wwe. And again, his, his peak, probably the same peak as Hulk Hogan, but I don't think that or similar, similar like you know, 1987 Hogan and 1998 Austin. Similar, similar peak, but. [01:20:18] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [01:20:19] Speaker C: But Hogan's career, just much more iconic and much longer. Number three. I would say that the number three greatest wrestler of all time. And I always have a problem with this, but I guess I gotta give him his flowers just because he did it in the inferior organization. I don't know if you know who I'm gonna, who I'm about to say here. [01:20:44] Speaker A: I, I think so. [01:20:45] Speaker C: I think I could guess Ric Flair. [01:20:47] Speaker A: That's what I was gonna say. Okay. [01:20:48] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean he was, you know, the, the, the man in the NWA and the wcw. He had won the most world titles prior to recently John Cena, you know, winning number 17. But he's like a 16 time world champion, you know, but he was iconic. But again, it's like he kind of did it in like the, on like the B, The B wrestling circle. [01:21:10] Speaker A: Yeah, the minor league league. [01:21:12] Speaker C: Yeah. So, but, but he, he is iconic. I mean there's no doubt, there's no doubt about it. I mean with the woo and you know, to be the man, you got [01:21:20] Speaker B: to be all the hockey games, I'll tell you that. [01:21:22] Speaker A: People get fired up. [01:21:23] Speaker C: People know Ric Flair. Sure. So I would put him number three, but I do think there's a pretty big gap between, you know, 1 and 1 and 3 or even, even 2 and 3. [01:21:36] Speaker A: Really, I could see, yeah. [01:21:38] Speaker C: But I would, I would probably have to say that Ric Flair is. Is. You know, number three. [01:21:45] Speaker A: Makes sense. [01:21:45] Speaker C: Okay, now number four. I said this recently to my friend. It's kind of. It might be recency bias, but if we're just talking in the world of professional wrestling, again, like, if you're a crossover star like the Rock, it enhances your legacy within wrestling. And I'm not saying that the Rock wasn't arguably the most popular guy for a period of time during the Attitude era, because he was. Him and Stone cold were like, 1A and 1B. Stone cold was always a little bit more popular. But I think it's the Rock's movie career that has really elevated the Rock. [01:22:23] Speaker A: So [01:22:26] Speaker C: I wanted to say the Rock here, but I actually think that within the world of pro wrestling, Roman Reigns, the current face, I might put him at number four. He's. [01:22:40] Speaker A: Wow. [01:22:41] Speaker C: He. He saved wrestling during COVID with this. This. This storyline called the Bloodline, and it's still going on today. I mean, it's like six years later, and it's all about the Samoans. It's all about our. Our Samoan heritage. And again, he calls himself the tribal chief, the head of the table. Basically, I'm the greatest Samoan wrestler ever, which is why I think we're gonna get that Rock match eventually. [01:23:11] Speaker A: We didn't mention them. Alpha and Sika. [01:23:13] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, right. [01:23:14] Speaker A: The actual Samoan tag team. I didn't mention that. [01:23:16] Speaker C: Yeah, well, that's Roman Reigns, dad. Oh, is that right, Sika? [01:23:18] Speaker A: Oh, shit, I didn't know. [01:23:19] Speaker C: That's cool. So his son is Roman Reigns, but Roman Reigns has actually been in the main event of more WrestleManias than. Than any other wrestler ever. He's been in 11 of the main events. [01:23:30] Speaker A: Wow. [01:23:30] Speaker C: So if there's 42 WrestleManias. He's been in 11. He's been in 25%. More than 25% of the main events at WrestleMania. He looks fantastic. I mean, alpha male, like, chiseled, super handsome, you know, cool gimmick. He played like this very, like, manipulative, like, narcissistic guy that, like, manipulated, like, his. His cousins to, like, do his dirty work for him. His manager was Paul Heyman for a while. I don't know if you know who Paul Heyman is. I mean, he's arguably the greatest manager of all time. I'd say him and Bobby Heenan are probably the two best, but the whole Bloodline saga was awesome. And. Okay, it's fake. All right, I get it. I know. But, like, you know, he held the title for four years without losing. Like he was a champ for four years. [01:24:23] Speaker A: Well, it's a different kind of. You give credit in a different way there. You know what I mean? [01:24:26] Speaker C: Yeah. Like you don't lose the title because you're so popular. [01:24:28] Speaker A: Exactly. Right. Yeah. Because you're maintaining that charisma. [01:24:31] Speaker C: Exactly. [01:24:32] Speaker A: Popularity. That's, that's a separate championship. [01:24:35] Speaker C: Exactly, exactly. And. And it's just again, it's like a season getting renewed. It's like. Well, because we love Tony Soprano so much. We know James Gandolfini is playing him, but we're invested in Tony Soprano and we want to see more of Tony Soprano. [01:24:48] Speaker A: Sure. [01:24:48] Speaker C: And it's the same thing. It's like, yeah, we get it. We know it's scripted, but these guys are still getting hurt. It's still very real. I mean, Hulk Hogan died a premature death because of what he did in the ring and all he sacrificed his body for. You'll see it in the real American Netflix. [01:25:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I gotta check that out. [01:25:03] Speaker C: Yeah, it's great four parter, but yeah, I mean, I know it's a, it's a, it's a little bit of a dark horse pick because I know you guys don't know who Roman Reigns is, but he is Meir. Incredible impact. He's got great entrance music. I mean, he's got it all. He's got the total, total package. [01:25:23] Speaker B: It sounds like he would make your list of top five hottest wrestlers. [01:25:28] Speaker C: You know, he kind of looks a little bit like Jason Momoa. They have a similar, similar, similar vibe to them. But no, he's, he's great. I mean, he's just, just, I mean, google him. Google Roman Reigns right now. He wears like the ula fala. [01:25:42] Speaker A: I noticed. Dude. Yeah, shitty dude. Yeah, I got you. [01:25:47] Speaker C: He wears the ula fala around his neck. [01:25:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm looking it up now. [01:25:50] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and he's gonna headline next year's Wrestlemania too, so he's gonna be like his 12th. So his star is still rising too. I mean, by the time he retires, yeah, he could get. He probably could overtake Rick. Ric Flair. I'm not sure he's gonna get to stone cold level. But, but he could. I mean, he, he could. I mean, he's 41 years old, so I don't know how much time he's got left. But the interesting thing about him is he's. He's got leukemia and it's dormant. And Vince McMahon was like pushing him on the fans from like 2012 to like 2018. Everybody hated him. They booed the shit out of him because it was like he was the prodigy. He was the guy that Vince hand picked to be the new guy. And the fans just rejected him. Yeah. And then Covid came, and he's just like, I'm not cutting it in the wrestling business. Like, it's just not going to work for me. And I can't wrestle because of COVID and everything that was going on with his leukemia. And then he got a call from Paul Heyman, apparently this manager. And Paul Heyman's like, listen, what if we made you a bad guy? What if we did this? And then Roman Reigns was like, yeah, let's. Let's just try it. [01:27:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:27:03] Speaker C: And, like, it's just so crazy because he was so hated and such a flop for, like, almost 10 years. And then it was just that one guy come in and say, let's. Let's change it a little bit. Let's make you a bad guy, which always is the best wrestlers anyway, and let's create this thing called the Bloodline. And he's just got. It just blew him up. I mean, in the last six years, he's just been the most popular guy by by far. But he was going to retire during COVID and wasn't going to come back, and we hated him. I remember I went and lived in Florida during COVID and my friend John at the time was watching wrestling, and I wasn't watching it as much back then. And he. And I remember him saying, like, oh, dude, you got to watch. You got to watch wrestling tonight. Like, Roman Reigns is the champ now. And I'm like, oh, Roman Reigns. I'm like, he sucks. He's like, no, dude, I'm telling you, he's different now. Like, it's different. I'm like, I find it hard to believe. Like, he's. He's so bad. He was so bad on the mic. Like, he sucked. And then I started watching it, and I'm like, oh, wow. This is, like a total reimagination of the. Of the character. So I would put him at number four. [01:28:15] Speaker B: Awesome. [01:28:15] Speaker A: Does that mean the Rock by default falls to number five? [01:28:19] Speaker C: No. [01:28:19] Speaker A: You're gonna zag. [01:28:20] Speaker C: I'm gonna zag. I'm gonna zag. I mean, wow. You know, again, the Rock. So there's three people that can go here, in my opinion. I'm not a huge John Cena guy, and he's not one of the three. So we're going to back him up. [01:28:38] Speaker A: All right. [01:28:40] Speaker B: I hope. I hope you don't get an elevator with John Cena or the Rock? [01:28:43] Speaker C: I mean, don't get me wrong, I really like the Rock as a performer and as a wrestler, but I don't know, it's a long, long story of, like, why I don't like him as much anymore. But you'd have to really know wrestling to like, get into that conversation. [01:28:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:28:59] Speaker C: Cause he's always leaving. He comes in, he starts a storyline and then to like, promote his movie, and then he just like leaves for two years. And it's like he leaves all these open storylines that need to be tied up. And it's just like, he's just very. He just seems like a very selfish guy that comes in, tries to promote his film, starts this awesome angle, and then just fucking leaves. And it's like, well, we wanted that match. Like, where did you go? You know, so he's kind of like a dick tease at this point. Point the Rock. So. And again, if you take out 20 years of being in San Andreas and GI Joe and, you know, Jumanji and all this stuff, like, he's still an iconic wrestler, but his, his, his time in the business being on top is so short because he left to go to Hollywood. So again, we're talking in the world of wrestling. [01:29:50] Speaker A: Sure. [01:29:51] Speaker C: Roman Reigns has done much more than the Rock. Is the Rock as popular or more? Yeah. You ask 10 guys in a bar, who's the Rock? They're all going to say, yeah, you ask, who's Roman Reigns? I don't know. You might get seven, eight. You know, I think he's pretty high. Pretty well known. [01:30:06] Speaker B: That's, that's. [01:30:07] Speaker C: But if it's not going to be like the Rock, Hulk Hogan, stone cold. Like, everybody knows those guys. [01:30:11] Speaker A: True. [01:30:12] Speaker B: No, no. Yeah. [01:30:13] Speaker C: Okay. So it really comes down to me, to two guys for this. And I think you go into a bar and you say, have you heard of this guy? And 10 out of 10. Both. Both guys. Everybody knows these guys. [01:30:32] Speaker B: No kidding. [01:30:33] Speaker A: Wow. [01:30:34] Speaker C: And I struggle with, with this pick. One is more recent. One is an old school guy. And I might as well just tell you the two that I'm struggling with. Yeah, I'm struggling with Andre the Giant. [01:30:48] Speaker A: Sure. [01:30:48] Speaker C: And the Undertaker. [01:30:50] Speaker A: Okay. [01:30:51] Speaker C: Now, the reason that I kind of lean a little bit towards the Undertaker and he would probably be my fifth, is he has the most iconic entrance in the history of pro wrestling. It's like the gong happens, the lights go out, all this fire and smoke comes. I mean, he's just like. It's creepy. It's like this really awesome entrance. He had Paul Bearer as his manager back in the day. [01:31:18] Speaker A: Paul Bearer, Yeah. Yeah, I think I kind of remember that. [01:31:20] Speaker C: And he had this thing at WrestleMania called the Streak. Like, he just won every year at WrestleMania, and WrestleMania is the biggest event. And so, like, it wasn't until he was like, seven and oh. That people started saying, like, oh, wow, the Undertaker is actually undefeated, defeated at WrestleMania. And then it became like 8 and 0, 9 and 0, 10, 0, 11, 0, 12, 13, 14, 15. And then every single year, it was like, oh, wow. The biggest match is actually not the title match. It's like, can somebody beat the Undertaker? Like, can somebody end the streak? So you're talking about, for years, the biggest match at the biggest event featured the Undertaker, and he got to 21 0. [01:31:59] Speaker A: Wow. [01:32:00] Speaker C: And then Brock Lesnar. Brock Lesnar beat him at WrestleMania 30, and like, oh, my God, like, you should see the fans reactions. I mean, to me, that's probably the third most iconic moment in the history of professional wrestling when Brock Lesnar pinned the Undertaker. Because it was like, you never thought the streak would end. [01:32:14] Speaker A: Right. [01:32:15] Speaker C: And then Brock Lesnar pinned the. [01:32:16] Speaker A: He was undefeated. Totally. Or just at WrestleMania. [01:32:19] Speaker C: Just at WrestleMania. [01:32:19] Speaker A: Okay, okay. [01:32:20] Speaker C: So when Brock Lesnar beat the Streak, like, you should just Google it and just watch the fans react. I mean, it was like watching, like, a death or something. Like, yeah, they're all, like, looking at [01:32:29] Speaker A: each other and shit, like they couldn't believe it. [01:32:34] Speaker C: And I think everywhere you go, have you heard of the Undertaker? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. [01:32:38] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, he was closer to my era. [01:32:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:32:41] Speaker B: People. [01:32:41] Speaker C: People know the Undertaker. I mean, he's. He. He's at, like, fucking soccer games and stuff like that. And, like. Like, he's just very, very iconic. So the reason I would give him the slight edge over Andre is because of the whole. And this isn't really Andre's fault because his career started to wind down before WrestleMania became like this gigantic cultural event. Sure. But, like, Andre is part of the most famous match ever. Hogan versus Andre. [01:33:10] Speaker A: Sure. [01:33:12] Speaker C: But I think that the Undertaker really being like, a top superstar from 1990 until he retired in 20. 20, 30 years, he was like, wow. Yeah. He wrestled for 30 in main events. Like, when did he start? 1990. [01:33:31] Speaker A: Okay, that makes sense. [01:33:32] Speaker C: Yeah. So he was like. [01:33:34] Speaker B: And. [01:33:34] Speaker C: And you did get. [01:33:36] Speaker B: I'm sorry, you did say 21 WrestleMania. So that's a lot. [01:33:40] Speaker C: Well, he wrestled even after he lost, so he didn't. He didn't stop wrestling at WrestleMania at that. He ended up being, like, 24, 2 or something like that. Roman Reigns is the only other guy to beat him at WrestleMania. So, yeah, that would be my top five greatest wrestlers of all time, based on the criteria that I mentioned earlier. Number one, the Hulkster. [01:33:59] Speaker A: Hulkster. [01:34:00] Speaker C: Number two, Stone Cold Steve Austin. Number three, the Nature Boy, Ric Flair. Got to give him his flowers, even though he did it in the. In the other league. Number four, Roman Reigns. And number five, the Dead man, the Undertaker. [01:34:15] Speaker A: That's. That's my five good list, man. What do you got, Bobber? [01:34:19] Speaker B: Now, is the. Is the Undertaker's thing like a Joe DiMaggio 56 kid. Like, most wrestling fans, they know the 21. [01:34:26] Speaker C: Every wrestling fan knows that. It's people outside of wrestling that might not know the streak, but if you're a wrestling fan, that was the most important. That was like, again, that was like. It was. It was the streak. Who's gonna beat the Undertaker this year? And, like, he would win at WrestleMania and like, all, like, the Jumbotrons would just light up after the match. 18 0, you know, and then when he lost to BROCK Lesnar, like, 21 and 1, and it was just like. And apparently, like, he got a concussion during the match and had to get taken to the hospital after the match and doesn't remember, like, losing to Brock [01:35:01] Speaker A: Lesnar, like, really, like, legit, like, not. Not part of the story, right? [01:35:04] Speaker C: Like, he knew he was going into the match losing, right, but he got hurt in the match and doesn't remember what happened. So like, apparently, like, Brock Lesnar, like, after the match, like, went to the hospital to see the Undertaker because he got, like, really up during that match and just blacked out. But yeah, I mean, I could go on all day with all these stories and stuff. [01:35:23] Speaker A: That's great, dude. Yeah, no, it's. That's awesome. That's a great list. And like I said, you know, it's pretty much all learning after 1990 for me. You know what I mean? Like I said, when I cut out all this other new shit, it's pretty fascinating. Makes me want to. Makes you want to watch wrestling. [01:35:40] Speaker B: I know, it's funny. Like, to be honest with you, I gotta be. You know, again, I. I don't remember the storylines. Like, I think you said it, Matt, that they. They weren't as. Or maybe you did, Phil. That they weren't as prevalent when we were like, I. I just wanted to see people, you know, I want to see Jimmy jump off the ropes. I wanted to see people get hit. I didn't really know that. I didn't Follow the dialogue of who was against who and all. [01:35:59] Speaker C: I think it developed more into that [01:36:00] Speaker B: because I was, like, I was a kid. [01:36:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it definitely. [01:36:02] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:36:03] Speaker A: Became more of a, like you said, story lines, like, they didn't have storylines. Yeah. Georgie Animal Steel was trying to bang Miss Elizabeth and Macho man was, like, pissed about it, you know, and there were rivalries, of course, but, like, there wasn't, like, you know, like you said, [01:36:19] Speaker C: well, the greatest bloodline thing and all that. Oh, yeah, the bloodline thing is cool. [01:36:22] Speaker A: Crazy. [01:36:23] Speaker C: To me, the coolest storyline ever is. And you guys probably don't know about this because it was past your time, but, like, so the Undertaker had Paul Bearer as his manager. And then in 1997, Paul Bearer turned. 1996, Paul Bearer turned on the Undertaker and, like, started to manage mankind. And then. And then he went on Monday Night Raw one time, all of us was that. [01:36:48] Speaker A: What's that? [01:36:50] Speaker B: I said he managed all of us. [01:36:55] Speaker C: Yes. [01:36:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:36:57] Speaker C: And so then, you know, Paul Bearer, you know, was apparently, like the mortician at the funeral parlor when the Undertaker was a kid. You know, that was. [01:37:06] Speaker A: That's hilarious. [01:37:07] Speaker C: And, like, he came on Monday Night Raw and basically was like, you know, I want everybody to know that when the Undertaker was a kid, he burned the funeral parlor to the ground, like, playing with matches, and he killed everybody. And he's this bad guy that burnt down the funeral parlor and he killed his brother Cain. He's like, but I got news for you, Undertaker. Cain survived the fire and he's coming and he's coming for you. [01:37:40] Speaker A: That's crazy. [01:37:40] Speaker C: So for like a year, every few months, Paul Bearer would show up during an Undertaker match and be like, kane is coming. Undertaker, he's coming for you. And, like, it was just like this riveting thing because you're like, who's this guy Kane? Like that. The Undertaker is fighting, so. Or the Undertaker's brother. He's got a brother that he burned in a fire. And, like, this went on for, like, a year. And then there was a match called Hell in a Cell. It was like this giant steel cage that, like, encompassed even the ring. And when you saw Mankind get thrown off that. That's a Hell in a Cell match. [01:38:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:38:17] Speaker C: So it was at a pay per view called bad blood in 1997, and it was the Undertaker versus Shawn Michaels. And Undertaker, like, was getting ready to pin Shawn Michaels. And then all, like, the lights went off in the place, and then this, like, creepy music started playing. And then all this fucking fire came up. And then Kane walks out and he looks like this. [01:38:40] Speaker A: No one ever seen him before. [01:38:41] Speaker C: No, he's like this monster. He's like Jason Voorhees and he comes with Paul Bearer and he like rips the cage door off the hell in the cell and he gets in the ring and beats the crap out of the Undertaker. I mean, that was just so cinematic and so dramatic storytelling. And as a 17 year old, you're like, oh, my God, this is great. You know, it's like the Undertaker has a brother. [01:39:02] Speaker A: You know, you think they would have [01:39:05] Speaker B: went a different route of having fire come out of the thing. They would have been, maybe we should stay away from that. This guy got fucking burnt. [01:39:11] Speaker A: Sprinklers of water going off to make him feel safe. [01:39:17] Speaker C: So, yeah, if you guys ever want to do another wrestling. [01:39:19] Speaker B: I never knew that. [01:39:20] Speaker A: That's crazy, man. [01:39:21] Speaker B: That is awesome. That did that. Know that. Now what. Let me ask you this. Now what are you. Obviously, this is your wheelhouse here. Is there. Is this, like. This has got to be one of the most things you're probably passionate about. Is it? If we were to do another five. What's another big passion that you have? [01:39:37] Speaker C: You mean if I were to come on and do it, like another topic? Yeah. [01:39:40] Speaker A: You know, what else do you feel as passionate about as you do wrestling? [01:39:44] Speaker C: As pro wrestling? Oh, God, not much. Nothing. I would say nothing. Maybe it'd be fun to do the top five greatest athletes in American sports history, you know, where we can encompass all sports. [01:39:57] Speaker A: Wow. [01:39:58] Speaker C: You know, not just top five basketball or top five baseball, you know, just the top five greatest athletes in. In professional. Professional sports. [01:40:07] Speaker A: That'd be a fun one for sure. [01:40:08] Speaker C: I think another fun one might be the greatest television character. Five greatest television characters. [01:40:12] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, we talked about doing that one for sure. [01:40:15] Speaker B: That's a good one. [01:40:16] Speaker C: Yeah, I have. I have a couple already in my. [01:40:18] Speaker B: Oh, I know. [01:40:19] Speaker A: I know my number, actually. [01:40:20] Speaker C: Do I. I know my number one. [01:40:22] Speaker A: I know my one and two. I just don't know where they sit. [01:40:24] Speaker C: What do you mean? Oh, you just don't know the order. [01:40:26] Speaker A: Bomber and I kind of talked about this a little bit. [01:40:27] Speaker B: I didn't think about it. [01:40:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You know, like. Well, I mean. Yeah, it's. Who knows what we'll do. [01:40:33] Speaker C: So one could be one or two. Or two or one. [01:40:35] Speaker A: Pretty much, yeah. [01:40:37] Speaker C: I'm curious to know if it's the same as I'm thinking. I mean, did the show happen in the late 90s and early 2000s? [01:40:44] Speaker A: It started in, actually, no. [01:40:46] Speaker B: No. [01:40:47] Speaker A: But I Know what you're talking about. He would obviously be in most people's top. [01:40:52] Speaker C: He would be my number. He would be my number one. [01:40:54] Speaker A: Well, I'm also including animated shows. [01:40:57] Speaker C: Okay. So I. I wouldn't include animated. [01:41:00] Speaker A: Okay, well, then, Then. Then your guy would definitely be in my top five. [01:41:04] Speaker C: Yeah. And then I also think there's someone from like, the 1950s that would be in my top five. [01:41:08] Speaker A: Sure, I could see that. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure Bomber would be thinking that too. [01:41:11] Speaker B: Nice. Nice. Nice broad range there. I like that. [01:41:21] Speaker A: Tomorrow, you don't know. [01:41:22] Speaker C: Right? [01:41:22] Speaker B: Oh, we should, though. We should. [01:41:24] Speaker A: Oh, definitely. Yeah. [01:41:25] Speaker C: I mean, should we spoil it and say some things or not? [01:41:27] Speaker A: That's what I'm saying. Like, we, like. We're trying not to do that, but, like, who the cares? [01:41:30] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, Tony Soprano is number one, right. [01:41:33] Speaker A: I'm thinking Homer Simpson, like, you know. Come on. Well, we. [01:41:35] Speaker B: We know. [01:41:35] Speaker C: And. And, you know, Jackie Gleason, Ralph Cram. [01:41:39] Speaker A: Jackie Gleason or Lucy. Lucy, yeah, those are the two. [01:41:42] Speaker B: Lucy. I. I didn't know which one. [01:41:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I think. [01:41:44] Speaker C: I think both of them could be on. [01:41:46] Speaker A: They could be, for sure. [01:41:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:41:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:41:47] Speaker C: And I. And I. I would probably be a little biased myself because I. I haven't watched a lot of TV shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men, you know, so I. Or Dexter or whatever. I haven't seen those. So I'd probably go more on my favorite, you know, But I do think Tony Soprano is number four. [01:42:01] Speaker A: It's funny. We flip and flop. You do your favorites. I think there. I would do, like, who was the actual greatest. Yeah. [01:42:07] Speaker C: But I think Tony Soprano, he has [01:42:09] Speaker A: to be at least top five. At least. I mean, he. He changed what. [01:42:15] Speaker C: Everything we see on television today is again, he's like, Jordan, he was the anti hero. [01:42:20] Speaker A: He was the first real antihero that became. [01:42:22] Speaker C: And that show is what made all these TV shows. [01:42:25] Speaker A: That show ushered in the golden age of television. Yeah, the new golden age. No question about it. [01:42:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:42:30] Speaker A: So there you go. We're gonna come back on. We're gonna do it. We're gonna do top five greatest TV characters. We have to. [01:42:35] Speaker C: That'd be great. [01:42:37] Speaker A: So listen, man, this was. This was tons of fun, Matt. I. I knew. I knew once and good idea letting us do our fives first. That we could just let you just fucking sit there and just. Just cook with your. That was fun to listen to. Yeah, man. Listen, thanks for everybody out there. Thanks for listening. Hopefully you. You enjoyed listening to hear us talk about some old school wrestling and certainly some new wrestling. [01:43:00] Speaker C: Bomber. [01:43:00] Speaker A: Matt, any final thoughts? What do you got? [01:43:02] Speaker C: No, I had a blast. Thanks for having me on. I've been trying to get on this pod for. [01:43:07] Speaker A: I know, I know. We're going to be doing more and more consistently. Have you on for more, man. [01:43:11] Speaker C: I'd love to be a special guest on multiple even ones that I. Only ones that I could weigh in on. Like, I would be like, lost in the Star Trek one. Sure. [01:43:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:43:20] Speaker C: But we could do top five greatest, you know, movie villains. You know what I mean? Like Darth Vader, Hannibal Lecter, you know, you could just. Really. Top five greatest acting performances you've ever seen. You know, it's funny. [01:43:31] Speaker A: We just did. We just did top five best actor performances. [01:43:34] Speaker C: Oh, we talked about that. [01:43:35] Speaker A: But I'll tell you what, the reason we do this is like. But. [01:43:37] Speaker B: But that's. That's a different category. [01:43:40] Speaker A: You can do top five performances. It's different than what we just did. But I was going to say is the reason this part is just the five. It's just an excuse for us to talk. [01:43:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:43:49] Speaker A: And talk about these topics. Have some fun talking about them. You know, Bob and I, we've been doing this for 30 years. You know what I mean? Just talking about this. [01:43:56] Speaker C: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:43:57] Speaker A: So this pod's just a great excuse. It's a framework just to talk about the. Have good conversations. Yeah. Just hanging out, good buddies. Boom. [01:44:05] Speaker C: I had a blast. [01:44:06] Speaker A: Glad, man. Thanks for coming on. [01:44:08] Speaker B: You know. You know, the undertaker was 21 0. Matt, you're 1 0. So we got to get you back on here. [01:44:14] Speaker C: All right. I'm going to start my own little streak here. [01:44:16] Speaker A: That's right. All right, well, listen, thanks for joining us. A lot of fun. We'll be back with a new episode soon. I think we're coming at you with top five directors next, I believe Bomber. Am I correct with that? [01:44:29] Speaker B: I think that's what we decided. [01:44:31] Speaker C: Alfred Hitchcock number one, maybe. Number one. [01:44:34] Speaker A: It's turning out to be a hard one to do. [01:44:36] Speaker C: I would put. Hitchcock is very hard. [01:44:38] Speaker A: Let's come up with a five. Yeah, I will. I don't know what we're gonna do it, but we'll see. We might. Might be squeezing it in. [01:44:43] Speaker B: Well. Well, now, again, it's kind of similar to this. It is. It is a different idea. When you go, who do you think are their five greatest? Or who are your five favorite? Is that. [01:44:54] Speaker A: No, it's the same thing. It's kind of the same with every list. So you could go either way. [01:44:59] Speaker C: Yeah. Like I did. Like the five guys that I named are not necessarily my five favorites. [01:45:03] Speaker A: Exactly. Right. [01:45:04] Speaker C: My five favorites would probably be obviously Hulk Hogan. I would put the Rock on there. I would put Stone Cold on there. [01:45:13] Speaker B: Wow. [01:45:14] Speaker C: I probably would put the Undertaker on there. Roman and Flair wouldn't make it. The Macho man would probably be on that. That would have probably been my top five. [01:45:22] Speaker A: There you go. It's a different five. [01:45:24] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a different five. [01:45:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:45:26] Speaker A: Makes total sense. But like I said, whenever you come [01:45:28] Speaker C: on the pod for the directors, I would. For the directors, I think I would go with greatest, not personal, top five. [01:45:34] Speaker A: I think it'd be a good blend for me. I think it's going to be a mix of both. [01:45:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:45:37] Speaker A: I think you won't be on the list if you're not one of the greatest of all time. But it's also going to be involved preference. I think that's the way I'm going to go for sure. But hey, that's the next pod. We'll get there soon. Thanks everybody for joining us in the squared circle. [01:45:49] Speaker C: Yeah, brother. [01:45:50] Speaker A: Talk about some wrestling. Bomber, any final thoughts, man? Take us out. [01:45:57] Speaker B: No, listen, that's it. You know, All I know is if I tried to body slam Andre the Giant, I would not be here today. So we day. [01:46:07] Speaker A: Take care. [01:46:08] Speaker C: Bye bye.