BONUS The Friday Show - When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong
Marc:They are just stalking around the ring and they are really going to hurt each other if they actually connect with something.
Guest:Well, the guy is swinging kicks at John Tendo who is dodging them.
Guest:And again, your brain starts to put things together like, oh, when it's real, you don't want to take the kicks.
Guest:Exactly.
Yeah.
Guest:chris how are you brendan brendan brendan i am sick and tired of being sick and tired my dude uh i can hear it in your voice i feel for you man no i i it's like i've been in the same boat i'm i'm a month out of when i first got sick and i i would not say i'm 100 yet i feel okay but i would not say i'm 100 and uh yeah man these uh these fall colds they're no fun
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I just have this lingering cough that I can shake.
Marc:And I mean, what's the worst part of it is I cough.
Marc:And if I really let myself cough, you know what I do when I cough?
Marc:Every time you heave, I fart.
Guest:So I'm just, I wasn't expecting that.
Marc:So I'm just like coughing, farting.
Marc:Fuck that.
Guest:I just want to punch in the nose.
Guest:So you bleed as well.
Guest:It's not all to happen at once.
Yeah.
Guest:Oh, man.
Marc:I had to go to Mississippi and teach folks.
Guest:Yeah, what the heck?
Guest:Why down in Mississippi?
Guest:Is it just a client of yours?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:There's a homeless management institution that needs some training.
Marc:So I had to do that.
Marc:So I'm masked up on the plane and coughing, trying not to fart the entire plane.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That recirculated airplane fart smell.
Guest:The worst.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Well, I don't know also like about you, but with this cold, like, you know, everybody just assumes you have COVID.
Guest:So it's like you are a leper immediately.
Guest:Now, granted, like I'm wearing a mask when I'm out and I don't want people.
Guest:I'm wearing a mask because I don't want to.
Guest:Cough on people.
Guest:I don't care what I have.
Guest:I don't want anything like that to happen.
Guest:But yet, there's no way anybody thinks it's anything other than that.
Guest:And I can't show them the eight tests I've taken that are negative.
Guest:It's like, no, no, this is just a cold.
Guest:But also, at this point, just a cold is worse than COVID.
Guest:This cold has been a month for me.
Guest:It's probably going to be a month for you.
Guest:And when I had COVID, that was two weeks.
Guest:This is worse.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it's rough.
Marc:And yeah, so I was coughing on the plane.
Marc:And I don't know if you've flown recently, but there's a new trend in airplane travel.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:What's that?
Marc:That is once the seatbelt light goes off, everyone just rushes the door to get to be the first one off of the plane.
Guest:What the hell is that?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It is the most bizarre thing in the world because several things.
Guest:One, the major one, where the fuck are you going?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Doors are not open.
Guest:So where are you going?
Guest:You are in a seat.
Guest:Enjoy that.
Guest:Enjoy the seat for your fat ass.
Guest:Second of all, most people getting on a plane these days, most, still check luggage.
Guest:That's just a fact.
Right.
Guest:You got to wait your ass for a while at the baggage claim.
Guest:Right.
Guest:What are you doing?
Guest:Sit down.
Guest:Wait till the plane is empty.
Guest:Enjoy your nice little walk to the past the Cinnabon and everything else.
Guest:And, you know, don't rush off the plane.
Guest:I don't get it.
Guest:It makes no sense.
Marc:Maybe it's they have to connect, you know, get to a connecting flight, which I understand.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But how many people is that?
Marc:The whole fucking plane?
Marc:Right, exactly.
Marc:It's not the whole fucking plane.
Marc:But time and time again, I had to go to Mississippi.
Marc:There's no direct flight.
Marc:So I had to take like two flights.
Marc:Each flight had people rushing the door to get out.
Marc:And it really breaks my brain because it's just like, what happened to us?
Marc:We used to be a society.
Guest:I think it's the reverse.
Guest:I think their brains are broken, right?
Guest:Like I think someone doing that is literally like, that's a like fight or flight response.
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:Like they're, they've been sitting there the whole time and their brains are like cooped up just like a person is in a seat.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's like, as soon as the, the, the stimulus occurs, which in this case, it's a seatbelt light going off.
Guest:It's like being run, run, run.
Guest:It is an animalistic impulse that just happens to be in like a modern human context with technology.
Guest:It's like gazelles on a plane when they hear like a lion roar.
Guest:They all just run.
Guest:It's the same thing, but just with a bunch of morons and an airplane.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, so it's fascinating.
Marc:I do not like it.
Marc:However, I did experience at the airport in Charlotte a positive.
Marc:I was waiting for my flight to board, and I was sitting down watching Dynamite on my phone, and I sat down at a gate that has already boarded.
Marc:It was, you know, like, no one's there.
Marc:So I'm like, great, this is perfect.
Marc:And...
Marc:And some lady, some blonde lady just is like crying because she just missed her flight.
Marc:I'm just like, oh, man, that sucks.
Marc:And then like two minutes later, it's like a big bang on the door from the inside.
Marc:And the flight attendant and a pilot walks out.
Marc:And actually, the flight attendant is like, no, no, you have to walk out so the cameras see you.
Marc:I'm like, what the fuck is this about?
Marc:But apparently he understood that there are people that may have missed the flight and he wanted to make sure people got on this flight.
Marc:The pilot did?
Marc:Yes, the pilot did.
Marc:And this blonde lady, she like kind of walked away.
Marc:And at this point...
Marc:me and some other guy see what was happening.
Marc:And we're like, well, yo, wait, you got to find this lady, this blonde lady.
Marc:She's like over there.
Marc:She was crying.
Marc:And in the meantime, four other people came on to this fight.
Marc:And finally, they found this blonde lady.
Marc:And it was awesome.
Marc:And I thank the pilot.
Marc:And he was like, yeah, man.
Marc:And like, that was awesome.
Guest:Like, when does that ever happen?
Guest:Although I feel bad if that lady had just gone to like the sky bar and, you know, plop down for like a double scotch on the rocks.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:I think she just missed, you know, it was, she was on a flight that got delayed and probably on my flight.
Marc:God bless then because that's what I would have done.
Guest:Oh, I missed my flight.
Guest:See you later.
Guest:I'll be at the bar.
Marc:Yeah, especially in Charlotte.
Marc:God, that airport stinks.
Marc:We just described virtually every airport.
Marc:No, this one is the worst.
Marc:Like I get on a flight and I get off the flight.
Marc:It's at Terminal A. Great.
Marc:My connecting flight is on Terminal E, which is like 30 minutes away.
Marc:So great.
Marc:I'm going to walk for a whole 30 minutes just to make my flight.
Marc:And yeah.
Marc:That's my life.
Guest:Well, I'm glad you're back.
Guest:I hope you convalesce and recover.
Guest:And but I don't know, with all this travel time, did you have time to listen to some podcasts?
Marc:I did.
Marc:I actually I actually listened to because like when I first got on the plane, I was like, I can't do Mark.
Marc:you know, talking to a Chevy, um, just yet the battle.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, and, uh, and I'll, I'll get to that, but I actually started with a Jeff Tweedy has an audio book or like this, like audible thing.
Marc:So I listened to him and he plays some music.
Marc:Um,
Marc:on the thing and it got me thinking and it was pretty great.
Marc:You know, he talks about his parents and he grew closer to his dad, thanks in part to his dad, unexpectedly voting for Obama twice and hating Trump, which really made me think about my parents and how, as he was telling the story,
Marc:I really wanted him to do the reverse and talk about how his dad, who is like had this racist ideology when he was younger.
Marc:I wanted him to sort of be a Trump person because I wanted to know how this person handled that, you know?
Guest:He had the happy ending.
Marc:Yeah, he had the happy ending.
Marc:So, so yeah, it was, it was kind of a bummer, but it was great.
Marc:And it got me listening.
Marc:I went in the archives and listened to Mark and Jeff talking.
Marc:And so Mark mentions in his opening of that episode, he's like, oh, you know, this is, this is an episode that a lot of people were, are really excited about.
Marc:So Mark,
Marc:And I can tell that, like, Mark isn't the biggest, like, Jeff Tweedy fan.
Marc:He's more of, like, Jay from Uncle Tupelo fan.
Marc:So does that – when you were researching this or when you were talking to Mark about doing this episode, was there any reservation to this episode?
Marc:Like, and has that ever happened before where you're like, okay –
Marc:A lot of people want this episode.
Marc:We don't, you know, Mark doesn't really care about it.
Marc:Or, you know, not to say he doesn't care about Jeff Tweedy, but has that ever happened before?
Marc:And what's that process like?
Guest:It's basically that it doesn't happen then, right?
Guest:It doesn't matter if people are asking for it.
Guest:It's happened with Trey Anastasio for, you know, a decade.
Guest:And people want him on and Mark is just, he won't do it.
Guest:Not because he has any distaste for Trey Anastasio personally.
Guest:Mark will be honest about this, and I think he wouldn't have a problem with me characterizing it this way.
Guest:It's an insecurity over the fact that these are people with enormous fan bases that are super devoted to the output of these artists.
Guest:And Mark is a person who has never taken any of it in.
Guest:He has no familiarity with Phish.
Guest:So he is afraid he's going to come off as a poser.
Guest:Even if he tries to relate to the guy.
Guest:It's like he's not going to be... And he gets worried about, well, then what am I delivering for the fans?
Guest:Now, what I try to point out to him is that this has happened many, many times with guests.
Guest:And it's gone over great.
Guest:Like Maynard from Tool.
Guest:That's a great...
Guest:interview and mark didn't know anything about tool and he wasn't really a tool fan but he still gets insecure about that stuff and like it's funny it's like i know that the interviews will be good i he could interview trey anastasio and be fine right i would love to hear it but i'm not like why would i pressure him into doing it when he's going to be you know that that's the worst scenario to have that like
Guest:Here's the thing.
Guest:There have been guests that I'm like, no, no, you have to do this one.
Guest:This one would be great.
Guest:The reason I'm able to do that with certain guests is because I know that I can get him there, right?
Guest:I'm like a fan of that person.
Guest:I'm someone who can, you know, prep him in the way where I know he's going to be interested on this level.
Guest:And he's not going to feel like, you know, I have to listen to their entire catalog or whatever.
Guest:I generally have a sense of like what he'll need to know to get to a good place.
Guest:But then I also know, Hey, this is on me.
Guest:Like,
Guest:I need to be able, like, if it goes bad, I have to eat that.
Guest:And, uh, you know, so with like Trey from fish, like I'm there too with Mark.
Guest:Like, I'm like not a fish fan.
Guest:I'm not a non fan.
Guest:I just don't have any real background of them.
Guest:And so I can't get on there with Mark and be like, no, no, this is the thing about this guy.
Guest:You're going to love it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And with Jeff Tweedy, he was like that, you know, for years, uh,
Guest:Oh, and I don't know.
Guest:The Wilco catalog is big and their fans are obsessive and they go to the live shows a lot.
Guest:I don't know, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:And then we were at a party that Jeff Tweedy was like the host of the party, a guy named Jeff Ulrich, who founded Earwolf.
Guest:And so podcast people might know him.
Guest:He won a charity auction that...
Guest:where the prize was Jeff Tweedy comes to your house and plays music.
Guest:And so he won this auction and he invited, you know, 20 people over.
Guest:And we sat around in his living room while Jeff Tweedy did a private concert and then, you know, hung out afterwards.
Guest:And Mark talked to him there.
Guest:And that's what got him to the spot, right?
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:I can talk to this guy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He's just normal guy.
Guest:The pressure of who he is or what Wilco is that dissipated.
Guest:And it's like, it's always that it's always for Mark.
Guest:Like what's the entry point?
Guest:Where can, how can I get in?
Guest:Because chances are 99% of the time that's going to happen in an interview, whether he knows it or not ahead of time.
Guest:But yeah,
Guest:There's always that 1% chance that it won't.
Guest:And he just doesn't want to sit through the dread of that.
Guest:Like, oh, man, this I'm sitting here with this thing and I'm going it's going nowhere.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So he avoids it when he can.
Guest:And, you know, does that close us off to some guests that might be good?
Guest:Yeah, it probably does.
Guest:But it's all part of the, you know, weird alchemy of making it work and having the right guests for the right time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I really enjoyed Jeff's rendition that he did of the song.
Marc:And that got me listening again to your producer cuts where you put like Amy Mann and all these musicians on.
Marc:I got to say, that stuff was really good and powerful, man.
Marc:Like I was sitting in my car.
Marc:I got to rent an electric car while I was in Mississippi, by the way.
Guest:Oh.
Marc:Oh, very nice.
Marc:Yeah, which was cool.
Marc:And yeah, I'm just like listening in the car and I was kind of like a tear crossed my eye because it just, it's really intimate and it's really good.
Marc:And goddamn, like you guys put on such good shit.
Marc:And that, yeah, I really enjoy all the songs that you all have.
Guest:Well, I'll tell you this, that Jeff Tweedy one, he asked if we could send it to him and he remastered it for us.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:So that one, of all the musicians in the garage, that one probably sounds the best.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Especially if you're like an audio head.
Guest:That one has a professional music producer going over it and making sure it sounds as good as it can sound.
Marc:Because you left in like, oh, you know, like we're going to use two mics and Jeff's like, oh, you know what?
Marc:I think it's just going to sound better with just one.
Marc:So he remastered that.
Marc:That's fascinating.
Guest:Yeah, he made sure the whole song, you know, was up to snuff the way he wanted it to sound.
Guest:Which it's like, if you see that Wilco documentary that I'm trying to break your heart, it's like, yep, that's that guy.
Guest:Like he is meticulous.
Yeah.
Guest:both of those guys him and jay bennett which is i guess why they they didn't last together as a as a group you know like they were both the exact type of guys who like had their own language of these things and an inability to express it to another person they just knew what they wanted right it's like i'll just do it myself for both of them and yeah though you can have two of those guys in in a band apparently
Marc:That's right.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:But I did manage to listen to Chevy Chase.
Marc:And I got to be honest with you, I wanted to hate it.
Marc:Like, I don't know why I have this thing about Chevy, but it was fine.
Marc:It's just, to be blunt, it's an old guy reminiscing and kind of, you know, just having a fun little time talking about his past.
Marc:And that's all it was.
Guest:I think that to me, I think it's a more interesting episode to talk about and think about than to listen to.
Guest:I think what you get out of it after hearing it and after, you know, consideration of Chevy's whole life and how he's presenting himself now is interesting.
Guest:I also do think like, hey, look, I don't, you know, I said last week that Mark and I, you know, were under the impression that Chevy's wife was there to kind of protect him.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that,
Guest:The reason she said is that he, you know, gets forgetful sometimes and she wants to keep him on track mentally.
Guest:But then also clearly she was trying to make sure he didn't say anything that was going to get him in trouble.
Guest:But like, look, I don't want that to come off as uncharitable.
Guest:It's like maybe the dude is having, he's older, he's almost 80.
Guest:Maybe he's having memory issues.
Guest:Like that happens at that age.
Guest:So, you know, there's that aspect of it.
Guest:But there's also like...
Guest:When you hear him talk about things, and in particular, this idea that he should still be hosting SNL or that that hasn't happened and it could happen, and knowing how he feels about it, it's like, I know this.
Guest:I know what happens here.
Guest:I remember it happening with Mark.
Guest:prior to doing wtf why i got you know mark one of the things that fueled wtf in the early years was mark's attitude of like how come i got passed by for all these things how come this guy got this how come that guy got that and then having people on and you know telling him he was jealous of them or whatever like that's
Guest:one of the things that made the show popular and the reason mark was like that was because he did not have a proper sense probably because it was too painful for him of understanding his place in the world of entertainment at that time i remember this time when i was out in la doing the radio show with him after we left uh air america new york and air america wanted to
Guest:keep him around and put him on in LA.
Guest:And, you know, I went out there to produce his show.
Guest:We were watching like real time with Bill Maher on like a Friday night after the show or something.
Guest:And Seth Green was the guest.
Guest:I think, you know, they, you know, they do panel where it's like a politician and like a news person and then like a funny person or someone in entertainment.
Guest:And I remember it was like, yeah, Seth Green, who I think had like a new season of Robot Chicken or something.
Guest:And he was the guest.
Guest:and mark was fucking sitting there with me watching this on tv so fucking furious like these fuckers they fuck i know scott carter they fucking know i'm funny like what why would how why would i never get a call to do this they never would never call me and like
Guest:I was just like 25, 26 year old kid.
Guest:And I'm sitting there and I'm like, that's fucking Seth Green and he's got robot chicken on the air.
Guest:What are you crazy?
Guest:Like Mark couldn't see in himself that if it came to like, you know, the point in the show where they introduced the panel.
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:And like what they just did with Seth Green, where they were like, and he's back here with the fourth season of Robot Chicken.
Guest:Please welcome Seth Green.
Guest:What are they going to fucking say about Mark?
Guest:Here's the guy who's going to be at the Chuckle Hut in, you know, Sacramento this weekend.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:Like what?
Guest:Where do you think you fall in show business that you should be getting the phone call to be on real time right now?
Guest:It's like, no, no, buddy.
Guest:We're doing shit radio in the middle of the night.
Guest:And you just better suck that up and fucking do it.
Guest:And the inability to see that is the same thing at 79 years old for Chevy Chase.
Guest:It's like, Chevy, how are they going to put that on NBC where they promote it all week long and you're a dude everyone hates.
Marc:Right.
Guest:People don't want to see you, let alone, can you still do the job?
Guest:It doesn't sound like he can, by the way, you know, his health and everything.
Guest:Like, maybe you walk to the car while you can take a breath first before you think of hosting a show that starts at 11.30 p.m.
Guest:And in the meantime, it's like, how do you think they're going to promote that?
Guest:What rating do you think you can pull?
Guest:Like...
Guest:Right.
Guest:But then at the same time, you're like, well, that's a fucking hard pill to swallow.
Guest:You're done.
Guest:It's like, you know, DiCaprio in the Musso and Frank's parking lot in the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Guest:Like, you have to be faced with the end of your career.
Guest:Like, it's over.
Guest:Has been time, right?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And that's a rough one.
Guest:That's a rough one, especially if you've got an ego like that guy.
Guest:So I get it all.
Guest:And again, like I said, why I think it's so fascinating to just, you know, kind of listen to and reflect on that episode as opposed to thinking that you're going to get some revelation or whatever.
Guest:I do think it's funny that he...
Guest:you know, his wife was there to make sure he didn't like throw anybody under the bus.
Guest:And he largely didn't, you know, was kind of diplomatic talking about Lauren says they're still good friends.
Guest:And a lot of people he brought, Oh yeah, he's great.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:Martin shorts.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Not a bad thing to say.
Marc:Even then he's like, but I don't watch their show, but, but they're great.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But then the one thing that I see the clickbait get turned into Dan Harmon,
Guest:But it wasn't, it was not, who cared about Dan Harmon?
Guest:Right.
Guest:They cared about, they could change the phrasing, slyly change the phrasing so that it sounded like he was doing a you people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It said something like, cause he said in the, in the interview, I didn't find the show very funny.
Guest:I just kind of want to be off doing my own thing.
Guest:I didn't want to go sit around that table, you know, with all those people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:When he said that, I thought he meant the writer's room, right?
Guest:Like they're doing a table read and that's where the fights happened, right?
Guest:If you go back and read the stories about where shit went down on community, it was that he would be at the table reads and be like, this is shit.
Guest:I don't like this.
Guest:And they'd start arguing.
Guest:So that's what he's talking about very clearly.
Guest:I didn't want to be sitting around the table with all those people, Dan Harmon, the writers and whatever.
Guest:And these fucking headlines in Variety and Deadline, it's like Chevy Chase says, show was not funny enough with those people.
Guest:Like...
Guest:Come on.
Marc:Like he's Robert Downey Jr.
Marc:in Tropic Thunder.
Guest:Yes, right.
Guest:Also that he's looking right at Donald Glover when he's saying that, right?
Guest:Look, it takes a lot
Guest:to make me feel sympathy for chevy chase like one of the like world-renowned dickheads and a guy who's clearly had it coming right like he had bought himself no capital like that thing i told on the bonus content about what he said to the gay cast member terry sweeney at snl that is
Guest:documented a million times over many people have told that story and other stories like it like this guy has burned the benefit of the doubt many times over so for for me to get the look at a headline like that and be like what a scummy thing to do to chevy chase like
Marc:Just wild.
Marc:I love that he met Lauren in queue at Monty Python in the Holy Grail, by the way.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That's a thing that I don't think kids today will understand.
Marc:Waiting in line.
Guest:Waiting in line.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I mean, Annie Hall did it to its zenith.
Guest:Oh, yeah, McLuhan.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But I mean, that's a thing that we used to do.
Marc:We had to wait.
Guest:Oh, yeah, and everybody had to do it.
Guest:There are no assigned seats at the movie theater.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Chevy Chase, you're going to go wait on the line.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I remember being at the IFC Center, and I was waiting to see that shining documentary, like Room 237 or something.
Marc:And you know who was in line next to me?
Marc:Fucking Barry Lenk.
Guest:Oh, Barry Lang from Air America.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's so funny, though.
Guest:I had the same waiting on line with a person at the IFC Center.
Guest:It was Louis C.K.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:Yeah, I was on the line at the IFC Center.
Guest:I'm just standing there.
Guest:I turned around.
Guest:The guy behind me, I'm like, I know that guy.
Guest:Oh, it's Louis.
Marc:Like, that's a fun thing that I forgot about.
Marc:Like, yeah, I forgot.
Marc:We had to wait in line to go into the movies to run to find the best seat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a talent.
Guest:You didn't have to get good at that.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You were very good at it.
Marc:I remember you were always like, all right, you go up to the balcony.
Marc:I'll go over here.
Marc:If you can't get the front row, you know, we come down here.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I'll be here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:It was a whole strategy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Also, Liquid Death making a lot of appearances.
Marc:Made an appearance on Chevy's episode, your bonus episode.
Marc:They knew what they were doing when they sent Mark a thousand cases of it.
Marc:Are they really not paying for any of these episodes?
Guest:No, I mean, we had them as a sponsor years ago, and they were sending him the stuff for free.
Guest:It was funny.
Guest:It was like, they sent him a case of it or whatever.
Guest:He used it, and then he said, hey, can you ask them to send some more of that?
Guest:Because I ran through it really quickly, and it was good.
Guest:And...
Guest:So I told them, yeah, hey, can you send him another case?
Guest:And then they did.
Guest:And then they just kept coming.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They didn't turn off the spigot.
Guest:So now he he sends me pictures every so often of like this bunker of liquid death.
Guest:Like he could he could survive not just like because he needs water.
Guest:He could survive like a blast by hiding behind the wall of liquid death.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah, it's a lot.
Marc:I saw someone in Mississippi buying Liquid Death.
Marc:I was like, look at that.
Marc:People are doing it.
Guest:I try to not give them too much free advertising, but sometimes it's funny.
Guest:So I leave it in.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I feel like it's always funny.
Marc:Even with Sir Ben Kingsley.
Marc:It's hilarious to see him.
Guest:Really hilarious with that one because I think it's what sent the thing off tilt.
Guest:I think it's like sent him in a spiral because this guy handed him a thing with a skull on it.
Marc:I love it.
Marc:I don't know what it is, but I chuckle every time liquid death is referenced because it could be anything.
Marc:It could go anywhere from there.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, we also had another episode this week, and you probably haven't had the chance to listen to it.
Guest:You've just got home and you've been ill, but I will tell you.
Guest:it was very deliberate to put LeVar Burton on the same week as Chevy Chase because he is like the opposite guy.
Guest:He's the most genuinely sweet, nice guy you could ever think of.
Guest:And I can't always do that because we have, you know, sometimes airdate commitments to people.
Guest:But when I can kind of like thematically...
Guest:link things i will right like sometimes i'll put people on who like i think one time i put john cleese and eric idol on the same week right like when i can do that i will and with this i was just like i want a nice counterpoint to grumpy chevy and it was lavar burton who's the nicest dude in the world and has a license plate that says that they talk about this on the episode his license plate says og kunta
Guest:Like, I can't believe he got that approved.
Guest:That's amazing.
Guest:How did that happen?
Guest:He said that initially it just said Kunta and then that car got totaled or something and he would have had to pay like way more to have the license transferred to a new car.
Guest:I forget exactly how he was explaining it.
Guest:He basically just was cheaper for him to get a new license plate and he got one that said OG Kunta.
Guest:And I was like,
Guest:I used to follow this thing on Twitter.
Guest:Since Twitter is terrible now, they got rid of the account.
Guest:But it was an automated bot account that would post rejected things from the California DMV, rejected vanity license plates.
Guest:And it was so fun seeing what people were trying to pass through.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:i like kunta would be number one on the list and i'd be like oh they're not gonna prove that no chance but maybe because he's like no no i am kunta maybe like he was able to appeal i mean do you appeal are you sitting in front of a judge being like your honor i am the original like like oh gee there's no there's no arguing the only
Guest:argument you could be is like no there was a real Kunta in the past so you're not OG you're OG TV Kunta right but that's it but no you can't appeal that was the other thing I remember about that that Twitter bot was that oh yeah it would just reject you and that was that like there were people who were like responding to it being like yeah that was an actual like cat name they wouldn't let me have the cat and nope you can't whatever it was and
Guest:Little Hitler.
Marc:Whoa, Pat.
Marc:That's the guy's name.
Guest:Well, that's the thing.
Guest:They have to be on guard for that shit because you have actual Nazis and white supremacists always trying to sneak shit like that in.
Guest:So these California DMV people, and maybe every DMV, but it clearly was the case in California.
Guest:They were like on guard for like assholes trying to use secret code, like the dumb numbers that those Nazis use and shit like that.
Marc:You gotta have your head on a swivel with these fucking things.
Guest:Again, it's crazy that Kunta got through.
Guest:Like that's like of all of LeVar Burton's tremendous accomplishments.
Guest:Reading Rainbow is like a cherished thing that has taught people to read every day of his life since then.
Guest:And, you know, he's a trekker and, you know, he's just a beloved character.
Guest:The fact that he got Kunta and OG Kunta on his license plate to me, I'm like, put that right up there with your Peabody Award.
Marc:Yes, for sure.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:Hang that in a museum.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I love that that's your reasoning for putting these two episodes back to back.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:I'm always curious about that.
Marc:You need a palate cleanser.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, sometimes you do it and it's like Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:There's a reason to pair them or whatever.
Guest:It's a themed week.
Marc:Yeah, I really love that.
Marc:So it's nice to know that this is the reason you want to just kind of flush the system with some niceness.
Guest:I mean, it's like I also will go the other way.
Guest:There would just be times where I'm like, I can't put these two episodes on the same week.
Guest:They're both too similar or something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Too similar or like maybe like they're not similar, but they both deal with like a lot of trauma and I don't want to do that.
Guest:Like I remember, I don't remember who it was.
Guest:I wouldn't be able to remember unless I really dug through my notes.
Guest:But like when I did Brendan Fraser's episode, I remember moving someone else away from him because I was like, that was a heavy episode, man.
Guest:And I can't do that like twice in one week.
Guest:Um, so, you know, I, I definitely take it into consideration.
Marc:So now guests have to think like comedians have to come on and be like, well, who's, who's my Thursday episode?
Guest:Like, you know, who's, who's the Monday I was like, Oh no, we always reveal these little things.
Guest:And then the, there are people who listen closely who like wonder about this, like Nathan Lane, how he was like,
Guest:Hey, I noticed on Twitter, you say, he said this to Mark, he was like, you will promote an episode and you'll usually say great talk, but some people only get good talk.
Guest:And he's like, I know what you're doing.
Guest:He's like, so this is going to be a great talk.
Guest:I'm going for great.
Marc:They're picking up on the clues.
Marc:They're 14 years worth of clues.
Marc:Just these subtle hints that if you've got the right set of eyes, you can fucking figure it out.
Marc:That's amazing.
Guest:There are times, too, where I say to Mark, like, don't write good talk because that person's going to know.
Yeah.
Guest:I'd say write something else.
Guest:Write like nice guy or fun talk or something.
Guest:But Nathan Lane kind of screwed up your good talk thing there.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:He got your tell.
Marc:He outed your tell.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You can't play that hand anymore.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You can't take away your Oreos and play.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:By the way, Chevy got a good talk.
Marc:So I just wanted to say that.
Marc:Sure did.
Guest:uh well if anybody else uh has any uh remembrances of good talks versus great talks or anything else send that in to us there is a link in the episode description for you to communicate to us someone sent in this to you chris it says totally agree with chris on the american side of niagara falls that park is great the canadian side is filled with tourist trap garbage yep sure as hell is
Guest:That's so funny because all the reputation of it is reversed, right?
Guest:Everyone always talks about how the Toronto side is so beautiful and it's the best and blah, blah, blah.
Guest:And that the US side has seen better days and it's run down and whatnot.
Guest:But I bet it's exactly that.
Guest:It's like people who are looking for like, you know, Branson, Missouri.
Guest:They're like, ah, I love this Canadian side.
Guest:It's so great.
Guest:It's like, you know.
Marc:It's Times Square.
Marc:It's Times Square on the border.
Marc:And to be fair,
Marc:Canada has the view of the actual falls.
Marc:You can see the bottom, the top, the bottom.
Marc:You can see all of it.
Marc:And the New York side, you're basically like looking out at the top and you can't see the bottom from like most vantage points or some vantage points.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So that's why I think Canada gets like the better rep.
Marc:But yeah, no, the US side, so much class, very classy.
Marc:Maybe I'm a parks and rec nerd, but I just love a good park.
Marc:And yeah, the New York side, 100%.
Guest:Look at that.
Guest:And this guy travels everybody.
Guest:So he knows what he's talking about.
Guest:He was just in Jackson.
Yeah.
Guest:All right, we got some stuff sent in here about wrestling.
Guest:So if you are here for the wrestling portion of the show, we got some stuff for you.
Guest:This came from a listener unnamed, but said, speaking of unique locations in wrestling, and this was in relation to the episode we did last week about crazy spots where we've seen wrestling matches.
Guest:He says, here are two matches from Japan, one in a bathhouse and the other in a househouse.
Guest:And now I had never seen these clips that he sent.
Guest:I will put them in the episode description, but I have seen plenty from this crazy promotion called IWA in Japan.
Guest:They were the death match promotion.
Guest:And they are the ones who the insane clown posse in like around 1995 released a VHS video that I bought immediately of,
Guest:of them doing the commentary over these IWA death matches, and it is hilarious.
Guest:I still quote it to this day, because they'll show a guy trying to blade on camera, and it's like, what's he doing down there?
Guest:Hey, don't worry about that!
Guest:I say that every time I see a guy going to blade.
Guest:Hey, hey, don't worry about that.
Guest:Get the camera off him.
Guest:So, yes, thank you for sending those.
Guest:I will put those links of the bathhouse brawl, which was one of them.
Guest:And this fight in the house was crazy.
Guest:One of these guys was from that Stranglemania video, Nakamaki.
Guest:I remember this guy immediately.
Guest:And, yeah, they are throwing each other through the drywall.
Guest:And it's a crazy time.
Guest:So I will put those in the episode description if anyone wants to see the link.
Guest:Another question was somebody said, which wrestler do you feel is the most realistic in their presentation?
Guest:That's an interesting question because you really have to take what do you mean by realistic?
Guest:And like, I guess to me, like in today, present day, the first thing that pops into my head is Eddie Kingston.
Marc:Bingo.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's like that.
Guest:It's not like a realistic, like, could, is this guy gonna, you know, could he win an MMA or something like, no, no, no.
Guest:But I believe every second that that guy is in the ring that he believes what he's doing is real.
Guest:If he doesn't, he's a wonderful performer, which is actually what I think it is.
Guest:I think he's just so good at what he does in presenting himself as this guy who believes wholeheartedly he's a wrestler and he's there to wrestle and that's how he makes his money.
Guest:That's a guy I think is real.
Guest:But I guess there's other ways to look at it.
Guest:And one of the things I started thinking about was...
Guest:Who is more real than Andre the Giant?
Guest:And it goes to beyond Andre.
Guest:When it's a big guy, like Yokozuna was another one where I'm like, well, this seems pretty fucking real.
Guest:There's no way to fake a 500-pound guy sitting on you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There's ways to make it hurt less, but like, he's going to jump on you or sit on you.
Guest:You're going to feel that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Andre the giant was like the same thing, like back going all the way back to the, one of the first things Chris and I watched on this Friday show is Andre the giant versus Hulk Hogan.
Guest:And like,
Guest:He's hitting Hulk Hogan, who's the biggest star in wrestling, just with these big, clubbering forearms to the back.
Guest:And these guys are trained.
Guest:Make no mistake, they know how to do this.
Guest:They have punches that are worked punches.
Guest:They look real, but they're not going to hurt.
Guest:But there is no...
Guest:way that an arm the size of Andre the Giants being brought down on your back like a baseball bat does not hurt like it hurts and so you're watching and you're like well this is pretty real and as we I'm thinking about this and I get this question from the listener and
Guest:I noticed on Twitter this week, somebody had posted a video of a 1986 match with Andre the Giant versus Akira Mehta in Japan.
Guest:And this was, you know, in the New Japan promotion, Antonio Noki had promoted it.
Guest:They brought Andre the Giant over all the time.
Guest:And...
Guest:The lore about this is that Maeda was a guy who the veterans, maybe Inoki himself, wanted someone to make an example of.
Guest:They felt he was, you know...
Guest:Either too arrogant or too stiff or something.
Guest:And so who better to make an example of him but Andre the Giant?
Guest:And they kind of, you know, told Andre, I don't know, rough him up a little bit.
Guest:That's the alleged backstage lore of this.
Guest:Well, Andre got out there and he was drunk off his ass.
Guest:Like drunk, drunk?
Guest:Drunk, drunk.
Guest:Andre drunk, which means he had to drink a lot, right?
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Which he often did when he was traveling because he was in such pain, sitting on a plane going over to Japan for 12 hours.
Marc:So for him to get drunk, like how much beer or alcohol are we talking about?
Guest:Oh, I think he famously like, you know, would drink like 36 cans of beer or something like that.
Guest:And I think like the lore, again, of Andre was that he'd need to like drink like two bottles of vodka to get drunk.
Guest:Ooh.
Guest:boy but so he's sweaty and drunk out there and if you watch this match it's really quite boring actually yes but like it's it's happening like you're you're like oh yeah this these these guys are not cooperating andre's drunk this guy uh mayda is kicking him hard because he is trying to defend himself basically and
Guest:And, you know, this is what it looks like when it's not a staged fight.
Guest:It looks, frankly, quite sloppy.
Guest:It's sad to watch Andre being so drunk and falling down.
Guest:And it got me wondering, like, was there anything that is similar to this?
Guest:Again, going back to that idea of realist, what happens when it looks real?
Guest:And yes, there are dozens of examples of...
Guest:Fake wrestling, worked wrestling, turning real.
Guest:But what does that normally mean?
Guest:It's usually like a couple of guys, they're in the middle of a match, one guy hits another guy too hard, then the other guy like pops him in the face for real, right?
Marc:And that's a receipt, right?
Guest:A receipt, exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And sometimes it goes, like, bad where they start jawing at each other, arguing.
Guest:There's a famous Shawn Michaels-Vader match from 1996 where Shawn was angry that Vader, he felt, wasn't listening to him or wasn't, you know, he was making too many mistakes.
Guest:And in particular, at one point, he can see Sean visibly getting frustrated in the match, like kind of throwing temper tantrums when he's outside of the ring because Vader's not in the position he needed him to be in for certain moves to work or whatever.
Guest:And then this all boils up to this point where he comes off the top rope with Vader lying on the ground and he...
Guest:is probably supposed to come down on his feet and Vader moves out of the way thinking he avoided whatever move Sean was going to do to him.
Guest:And then Sean would kick him or something, you know, super kick.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But instead he jumps down, lands on his feet and Vader hasn't moved.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's still just laying there on the ground.
Guest:So here's Sean coming off the ropes, lands next to this guy and is doing nothing because nothing was the plan, right?
Guest:He was supposed to be out of the way.
Guest:So Sean looks down at him and he screams, move!
Guest:And then stomps Vader on the head, like with all his might.
Guest:And Vader's a huge guy, but like, I'm sorry, you get stomped on the head.
Guest:That's not fun.
Marc:Oh, you think so, Doctor?
Mm-hmm.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Vader thought he was going to be fired right after that match because Sean was the champion.
Guest:He thought he had screwed up.
Guest:So that's another hilarious thing.
Guest:It's like he got kicked in the head really hard in the match and was like, oh, no, I'm getting fired for that.
Guest:Not like I'm going to go beat this guy to death afterwards.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There's been plenty of situations like that.
Guest:I remember Brock Lesnar just totally rocking that guy Braun Strowman once because Strowman was like going too fast and he was, you know, laying into blows too hard.
Guest:He kicked balls.
Guest:uh, Brock Lesnar in the head and Brock Lesnar just turns around and like full on legit, like MMA right cross to this guy's head.
Guest:And you see him go to, go to the guy, right?
Guest:The guy is just, Braun Strowman is just totally jarred by that.
Guest:And he leans down at him and he goes, slow the fuck down.
Guest:And it's like, you know, in those moments you're, you're, you know, in a way you could watch that and be like, what the fuck is this Brock Lesnar's problem?
Guest:Like he's,
Guest:you know, punching this guy for real.
Guest:But in Brock Lesnar's defense there, it's like this other guy who's also a monster, giant guy, right?
Guest:Going out there unsafely, right?
Guest:Working too fast and it gets dangerous.
Guest:It's like, hey, we're all in danger.
Guest:There was, I think, a three-way match when that was happening.
Guest:And it becomes like, hey, we're all in danger here if you're not working safe.
Guest:Like, you got to slow this down.
Guest:And like, in the heat of battle, a punch upside the head to slow you down is going to work.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:And I mean, like all wrestling matches are basically tag team matches.
Marc:You're dancing with someone.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:You rely on the cooperation.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Which, to be honest with you, which always when CM Punk came back to AEW was always my thing where like, I don't know if these guys can do business together because I don't know if I can trust these guys or CM Punk to...
Marc:hit the opponent and not do it for real in the match.
Guest:Well, I mean, that's why they never put those guys who had issue with him in the ring with him, right?
Guest:Like he was only out there with dudes he was friends with, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there is a long history of guys who have legit issues then getting in the ring and doing business fine.
Guest:I think the most famous one was Matt Hardy and Edge,
Guest:Where Edge legitimately stole Matt Hardy's real life girlfriend and they were having an affair and Matt Hardy found out about it and then, you know, got in a fight with Edge or whatever for in real life and they turned it into a storyline.
Guest:And there's this kind of apocryphal story of Vince McMahon sitting Edge and Matt Hardy down right before their big program was set to happen.
Guest:And essentially telling them like, hey, you're going to go out there.
Guest:You're going to have a great match tonight or tomorrow night, whenever it was going to be.
Guest:But if you do one thing to each other that's, you know, not according to plan, you'll never work in the business again.
Guest:Like I will blackball you forever.
Guest:from all of wrestling.
Guest:I think the way the story is told was that he told them, would you come to my house?
Guest:And if I invited you to my house, would you come to my house and disrespect me?
Guest:Would you do something in my house that was inappropriate?
Guest:And they were like, no, of course not.
Guest:And he's like, well, I'm renting this building.
Guest:This arena for tonight is my house.
Guest:So you're in my house and you're going to do as I ask.
Guest:And I'm asking you guys to go out there and have this match.
Guest:And you will not take issues with each other.
Guest:You will not take liberties.
Guest:And everything's going to go fine.
Guest:And you know what?
Guest:They worked not only that match.
Guest:They worked a whole series of matches together and it was fine.
Guest:And there's plenty of instances of this happening.
Guest:I mean, Sean and Brett hated each other when they had the Montreal Screwjob match.
Guest:I mean, Brett didn't know what was going to happen at the end.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But he still went into it knowing, I don't like this guy, he doesn't like me, but we can do the business, right?
Guest:And so, like, wrestling has tons of stuff like this.
Guest:It's nothing new.
Guest:But...
Guest:There was one time, and I'm sure there's more than one time of something like this happening.
Guest:Maybe we haven't seen it on video.
Guest:This one, for all I'm about to say about it, it's still on a Japanese broadcast.
Guest:There's no English commentary on it.
Guest:It's only in Japanese.
Guest:However, it does feature an American wrestler, and that wrestler was John Tenta, better known as Earthquake.
Guest:And in 1991, WWF was in partnership with this Japanese federation called SWS.
Guest:And they had a series of matches in the spring of 1991 across Japan.
Guest:And on March 30th, 1991, at an event called WrestleFest, John Tenta and a guy named Koji Katao, who was, like John Tenta, a former sumo wrestler,
Guest:They were both sumos.
Guest:Earthquake was?
Guest:Yeah, famous American sumo.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Who did very well in Japan before he became a wrestler.
Guest:So that was the kind of selling point to having these two guys fight each other.
Guest:If you're a Japanese audience member, it was these two former sumos, even though this one guy was known as an American wrestler now.
Guest:In fact, if you listen, even on the Japanese commentary, they're not calling him Earthquake.
Guest:They're calling him John Tenta.
Guest:Like, you can...
Guest:Here, the Japanese announcers keep saying Tenta.
Guest:So that's how this was sold.
Guest:These two sumos were going to fight each other, and they do fight each other at this WrestleFest.
Guest:And I watched this match again recently, and it's a match with two big guys.
Guest:If you watched it in a vacuum, you wouldn't notice anything weird about it.
Guest:If you're a very astute wrestling watcher, I think you would notice that it is, the word would be snug.
Guest:they're fighting each other snugly, right?
Guest:And by that I mean the blows are laid in a little heavier than they normally are.
Guest:I wouldn't say it looks necessarily stiff, but it looks impactful, right?
Guest:Like everything they're doing, the one part that really stands out to me, it's like toward the end of the match, and this guy, Katow, is throwing these kicks at John Tenta.
Guest:And he looks like he's really laying them in.
Guest:Like John Tenta is taking these kicks the way you take them, right?
Guest:Like you kind of hold your arms to your side and kind of absorb the blow with your chest.
Guest:And at one point, you know, it's clearly part of the sequence.
Guest:He's supposed to grab the leg and then herk the guy up and do a body slam with him.
Guest:Well, when he stops this leg, he looks pissed because he looks like he's been getting kicked a few times too hard.
Guest:And he hurts this guy up and then drops him down with a body slam.
Guest:And he goes full weight on the guy, right?
Guest:Like you can see there's nothing light about this.
Guest:These are two heavyweights doing impactful things to each other.
Guest:And that led to the finish of the match and the earthquake does his big butt splash to the guy and it's over.
Guest:Match ends.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:End of story.
Guest:Well, they have another match two days later, April 1st, 1991.
Guest:And the name of this event, coincidentally enough, was WrestleDream.
Guest:Which is going to be the AEW pay-per-view this weekend.
Guest:Amazing.
Guest:But this, at the first WrestleDream, is one of the only instances in my lifetime where two wrestlers went out there in the ring to have a wrestling match, and it turned into a shoot fight.
Guest:These two guys were in danger of killing one another in a match that was allowed to just play out like a wrestling match.
Guest:And I don't know, Chris, did you watch this when I sent you the link to it?
Marc:Yeah, I sure did.
Marc:How did it come across to you?
Marc:It was...
Marc:At first blush, it's a little tame or a little slow.
Marc:But then at one point, Katao leaves the ring and he just takes the announcer's table and just throws it against Katao.
Marc:That's the cue.
Marc:And, you know, my ears perk up, not because I'm excited, but because I'm like, ooh, something's wrong here.
Marc:Something's amiss.
Marc:And these two obviously fucking hate each other.
Marc:And I don't – so it's dangerous.
Marc:It's a danger that I haven't felt when watching wrestling.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:It is.
Marc:It's kind of scary because you don't know what's going to happen next.
Marc:At one point, Katow looks like he's going to break Earthquake's arm.
Guest:That's the moment that fucking Earthquake is like, enough of this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You can watch it.
Guest:Basically what you're saying, the slowness of it, it's like the match is being built more or less like the first one.
Guest:But I'll tell you what got my attention was right before that moment when the guy rolls out of the ring and throws the table.
Guest:It's that earthquake has him in a clinch from behind, like a waist lock, almost like a bear hug.
Guest:And...
Guest:he's not letting go easily right and then he does like a a judo throw essentially or maybe it's a sumo move maybe you can do that in sumo i don't fully know the rules of sumo but a takedown from behind and it's a really hard takedown it's like what you would need to do to take an uncooperative person over and he is it's he's still got it clinched on when they're on the ground and this guy's trying to pull himself out and when he gets out of the ring he is so pissed on his face and
Guest:And my reading of all of that, what came before, is that in that first match that they had two days prior to this, that this dude, Katow, was too stiff, right?
Guest:He was hitting too hard.
Guest:And so Tenta, at the beginning of this match, is trying to set the tone.
Guest:Like...
Guest:brother, I will take you down if you're going to be laying those kicks into me like this again, right?
Guest:And these are two sumos who know each other, know what they're capable of, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So this dude's out of the ring.
Guest:He grabs a table, like Chris said.
Guest:He throws it.
Guest:They get back in the ring.
Guest:The match looks like it's going to start happening again.
Guest:He puts him in an arm bar, and Tenta...
Guest:it looks like he put a swarm of bees in john tenta's outfit because he like freaks out like he flails his arms out of the way and backs off like it just goes to show you like that we've talked about this before that like we don't really watch mma and we generally don't like real violence and it's like yeah because also real violence has minimal drama because it just
Guest:happens you're standing there and a dude could break your arm right away yep like that's the thing like hilarious thing in wrestling of like a guy is in a is in a lock like like brian danielson puts a dude in a lock and it you know they spend five minutes is he gonna give up or not and it's like that dude would be dead
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like if that was real, if he was really having his arm stretched like that, he would never use that arm again in his life would be totally gone.
Guest:So like part of the great illusion of wrestling is this perception of violence that's done in a totally nonviolent way.
Guest:An arm bar is literally just a guy holding onto your arm.
Guest:You might as well be like, you know, like lovers in a clinch.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like there's this it's a gentle thing.
Guest:I'm going to hold your arm and caress it and the world will think I'm trying to break it.
Guest:But here's what it looks like when a guy is actually trying to break your arm.
Guest:Like he tries and the other dude freaks out like, yes, get off of my arm.
Guest:And this dude, Katow, when he does that, he has such a smug look on his face.
Guest:Like, yeah, you know, buddy, I could have broken your arm right then and there.
Guest:And so now this shit is on.
Guest:These guys are like staring each other down.
Guest:And I don't know why they didn't send somebody out from the back.
Guest:and be like you know run interference have somebody run out there and because there's no way you're watching this as a person who does this for a living and thinking like i wonder what's going on out there no you you would have known immediately this shit got real these guys might kill each other like somebody should have gone down there well the referee had it in hand no the referee is this tiny like ways less than me
Guest:He's the tiniest guy in the world in there.
Guest:It's like Gulliver's Travels.
Guest:This little Pusheen trying to stop these two giants from killing each other is one of the more comical parts of this terrifying event.
Marc:And that's the thing.
Marc:After the arm bar, these two are stalking each other and swatting at each other.
Marc:Silverback gorillas.
Marc:Yes, silverback gorillas.
Marc:Like, they are just stalking around the ring and they...
Marc:are really going to hurt each other if they actually connect with something.
Guest:Well, the guy is swinging kicks at John Tendo, who is dodging them.
Guest:And again, your brain starts to put things together like, oh, when it's real, you don't want to take the kicks.
Marc:Exactly.
Exactly.
Guest:it's like normally like okay yeah like lay it in right in my chest buddy like but no this guy's like swinging a kick john tenta who weighs you know 300 plus pounds maybe 400 he now looks like a ballerina like he's jumping out of the plie out of the way to not get kicked in the shin by this guy who will destroy his shin if he kicks him there right or his kneecap
Guest:and at one point john tenta you see him from behind he's like pointing at his head like like use your head buddy like we there's no way out of this and and kenta at some point he's trying to gouge i i feel like he's trying to that's the scariest part yeah he he takes his fingers well first before the fingers and
Guest:And when he's throwing these kicks, they finally get in like a little clinch again and go in the corner.
Guest:And you can see Katao is literally at his throat, at Tenta's throat.
Guest:Like he's got his hand on the throat.
Guest:And Tenta is like, this is one of the moments where the ref jumps in the middle and it's like, buddy, you're going to die if you try to get in the way of these two guys.
Guest:And then like you're saying...
Guest:This guy, Katow, raises two fingers in the air like a Kill Bill style.
Marc:I thought he was going to take his fucking eye out.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's what he's trying to do.
Guest:Jesus.
Guest:And John Tenta is, I want like a John Boy lip reading thing here.
Guest:And I feel, I feel like I was like pretty close to it myself.
Guest:I played it over a few times and John tend to scream at him.
Guest:You want to fucking play dirty?
Guest:And he raises his two fingers.
Guest:So now you have these two enormous individuals, both doing like a two finger point at the other one where it's like at any minute, a guy is going to strike and pull out an eyeball.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That part is the most terrifying of the match when you see like a guy is literally looking to tear out another man's eye on television.
Marc:Also, I've seen Earthquake wrestle.
Marc:This is the scariest I've ever seen him because he means it, man.
Marc:He he means to tear out this guy's eyeball just not because he wants to.
Marc:No, it's all self-defense.
Marc:It's all self-defense.
Marc:And I don't know how they got to this point, how they didn't communicate to each other beforehand.
Marc:But it is terrifying.
Marc:And I could not keep my eyes off of this tiny referee the entire time.
Marc:Who's at one point just begging them like on his knees to like, please move away from each other.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, you know, the other thing you're talking about, like, why can they communicate?
Guest:I'm not going to rule out that there was a massive communication barrier here, just like a language barrier, because at one point, again, trying to lip read John Tenta, he's staring at standing there, staring at him and he's going.
Guest:Who do you think you are?
Guest:This is pro wrestling.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:That's exactly what he says.
Marc:I was watching it as that exact moment as you were saying it.
Marc:That's exactly what he's saying.
Guest:And also, I think this is right around the part where Katow actually lands a kick on John Tenta.
Guest:And oh, you can see how much it hurts.
Guest:Like he gets this one kick.
Guest:on John Tente's knee, and John Tente is immediately, like, skipping, right?
Guest:Like, he does that thing you've seen, like, yourself or your parent do it a million times when you, like, nick your leg or you stub your toe, that, like, singe of pain that happens through your nerves, and you're like, ah, like a zap, and he, like, skips, but then he rubs the leg like you're rubbing dirt off your shoulder, and the crowd goes, ooh,
Guest:Like, noticing this.
Marc:Honestly, when Earthquake says that, like, you know, what are you doing?
Marc:This is pro wrestling.
Marc:That actually, I think, snaps the guy out of it.
Marc:Well, yes, because then what does he do right after that?
Marc:kicks the referee this poor referee he kicks them just as hard as he was kicking earthquake yeah man he goes flying like that's a shoot kick on the ref to do a worked spot which is call for the disqualification yes
Guest:Now, also, there's no way that this match was supposed to be a DQ.
Guest:In fact, I would not be surprised if Katow was supposed to win the match because Earthquake won the day before, right?
Guest:That would make sense.
Guest:This guy screwed up a win for himself because he couldn't contain his temper.
Guest:uh but yes they call for the bell tenter raises his hands immediately so that the crowd knows this thing's over yeah and this guy katow walks away the camera then cuts from this on the broadcast but apparently in the building the guy went and grabbed the microphone and said wrestling is fake i quit and he left wrestling for like five years no way yes
Guest:amazing uh yes but the coda on that is that he goes he goes away I think does some judo and uh some other type of martial arts fighting then comes back to wrestling and it's 1996 has a match with John Tenta and
Guest:They reconcile and they realize, like, this is money.
Guest:Like, whatever happened then was a misunderstanding, whatever.
Guest:This is money.
Guest:They're both older and a little, you know, they've eaten a few more calories since the last time.
Guest:It's a little bigger.
Guest:But they have a match.
Guest:It goes fine.
Guest:Clearly, they made money on it because everybody thought, oh, these are the guys who tried to legit kill each other.
Guest:And Earthquake does the job.
Guest:He lets Katow get a win over him.
Guest:And everything was fine.
Guest:They did not have issue backstage.
Guest:They did business together, as we said.
Guest:But five years earlier, they most certainly were not doing business together.
Guest:In fact, it was almost a homicide, double homicide.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:in the wrestling ring in Japan.
Guest:And I will put both links in the episode description if you're interested in seeing them because they are wild.
Guest:And I don't know that I've ever seen anything like it before or since.
Guest:So definitely a unique thing.
Guest:absolutely i've i've i don't think i ever want to see like a real like you know receipt or you know a real fight like this because it is scary oh i mean if i was if i knew about this fight you know and went and sought it out and watched it you know many years ago it was not one of those things that i was watching live if i was watching something like this live and this started happening i'd pass out i'd be so nervous i'd be oh my god these guys are gonna kill each other
Marc:Totally.
Marc:I watched, there's like a list, and I watched Goldberg versus Steven Regal.
Marc:Oh yeah, that got Regal fired from WCW.
Marc:Well, did it get him fired or was he already about to leave for WWF?
Guest:I mean, look, I don't think he was leaving for WWF.
Guest:I think that got him fired, or maybe he was already on the chopping block just for cost-cutting purposes, and that did him no favors.
Guest:But absolutely, he was disciplined for what they deemed at the time was exposing Goldberg.
Guest:And it was really just that they wanted Goldberg to be doing squash matches, and Regal kind of...
Guest:Roughed him up a bit.
Guest:You know, he wanted him to to go at him a little harder.
Guest:And but I don't know.
Guest:You watch the match.
Marc:I watched the match.
Marc:And I actually I think I remember this match because at the time I remember thinking, well, this is different.
Marc:You know, this isn't.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:But it looks different in a way where like that's a different style, but it doesn't look dangerous.
Guest:Like that's my memory of the match was like, there's nothing about it where I'm like, oh man, these guys are going to hurt each other.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It just looked like, oh, this is a different style match for Goldberg, which I think was what Regal wanted it to be.
Guest:He wanted this thing to stand out from all these other Goldberg squashes.
Marc:Right, and I think in interviews, William Regal's like, oh yeah, that's what I was told to do.
Marc:I was told- That's right.
Marc:We wanna do something different with him, so go out there, put him in all these locks, and let him have a five-minute match instead of a two-minute match.
Marc:And so that's what it was.
Marc:But apparently for Goldberg, his side of the story is, no, that was cheap shots, and he was trying to make
Guest:make me look bad so i tend to believe goldberg on that not even necessarily that they were cheap shots but just like regal who comes from like the old carny tradition like this dude was literally wrestling in carnivals when he was a teenager and i i i bet you he just thought like hey no he's in there with a veteran i'm gonna show him the ropes the hard it's like you know a school of hard knocks lesson and i have a little coda for this i didn't even know you're gonna bring this up
Guest:But I was at the, do you remember when WWF had a restaurant in Times Square?
Guest:Oh, I sure do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I went there one night and William Regal was there signing autographs.
Guest:Yeah, so I went up to him and got his autograph, and I said, is it true you stretched Goldberg?
Guest:Like, that was my question to him.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:And he looked at me, and he smiled, and he goes, just some love taps.
Guest:Ha ha ha!
Guest:amazing so yeah i tend to believe that uh yes this guy knew what he was doing and wow yeah amazing oh me i can't believe you have that story just like on like i didn't even remember it until you brought up this match yeah it's wild like that's you know how mark tells that story about when he met lou reed and he said like uh hey lou what gauge pick do you use and so lou was like medium you always got to use a medium and
Guest:I have that for every wrestler.
Guest:If I ever met a wrestler, I'd be like, oh, I have a thing I could ask this guy.
Marc:Well, maybe, have you ever met Taz or Sabu?
Marc:Because they had a match.
Marc:No, okay.
Marc:Because they had a match on ECW's first pay-per-view.
Marc:And I'm guessing you watched this pay-per-view when it was.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that was a stiff match as well.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I question, I've seen this called a shoot and I question that.
Guest:I don't think it was.
Guest:And yeah, I think this was just two guys who normally were stiff with each other on purpose.
Guest:They apparently, you know, did not get along great, but they knew they did good business together all the time.
Guest:And so, you know, they would fight and they would lay it in heavy.
Guest:They would piss each other off.
Guest:But I don't believe it ever got to a dangerous point with that.
Guest:either of them, just any more dangerous than those ECW matches were in general.
Guest:They were dangerous matches in kind of unsafe conditions.
Marc:Gotcha.
Marc:I was wondering, has this type of thing ever happened in comedy?
Marc:Like, like has a, has a, has a work become a shoot on like a, like a, like a comedy special or a, like a standup set?
Guest:I mean, I think there's plenty of cases of like a panel discussion type thing going wrong.
Guest:The famous one that jumps to mind for me is Artie Lang on the Joe Buck show that essentially got the show canceled right off the first episode.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
Guest:That's as close as I can think of a guy just not playing along and causing chaos.
Guest:And it was not what the people who were making the show wanted to happen.
Guest:And he's making all these inappropriate jokes and basically belittling Joe Buck to a point where Buck looks like he disappears on his own television show.
Guest:That's a good one I can think of.
Guest:But I mean, largely, I think the equivalent here, the reason why it's not the same is
Guest:is you don't necessarily have like in comedy two people trying to cooperate, right?
Guest:Which is what you have in a wrestling match, right?
Guest:In comedy, it's really like the comedian is doing their thing and the audience is doing their thing.
Guest:And so the closest analogy in comedy would be hecklers, right?
Guest:Or somebody rushing the stage.
Guest:Like that's the equivalent of like a shoot wrestling match, right?
Marc:Right, like Will Smith and-
Marc:And Chris Rock, right?
Guest:A hundred percent.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that kind of thing happens all the time.
Guest:And in fact, was Mark's statement when the Chris Rock thing happened was like, hey, that whole thing was on the security at the Academy Awards because us comedians, we're always prepared for this.
Guest:We know it can happen at any time.
Guest:So we go to a club.
Guest:You're like, hey, do you have a bouncer here?
Guest:Do you have somebody who can handle a rowdy
Guest:audience member.
Guest:Like we need to know that stuff.
Guest:Mark has been rushed on stage for sure.
Guest:And Oh yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He told, he's told the story on the show before it was something, it was quite sad actually when you hear the story.
Guest:And I think it ended in kind of classic Mark fashion where like the guy who jumped him on stage, like they met up after the show and the guy was crying and he kind of like put his arm around him.
Guest:And it was something about some joke Mark did that
Guest:uh triggered the guy about like a a death in the family i think i think it had something to do with air an airplane crashing something like that and the guy was like you can't joke about that and mark was like sit the fuck down this isn't your show or whatever and so the guy like charged mark on stage he didn't know real like actual injury or violence happened but it's still scary you don't get charged on stage you don't know what the hell's gonna happen yeah anything gonna happen yeah
Guest:By the way, a funny thing about that is Mark then did a bit on Conan based on that.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, it was weird.
Guest:It was like back in the day when Mark got to do panel stuff with Conan all the time on the late night years.
Guest:and I guess he just kind of came up with this and the Conan producers were like, yeah, let's do that.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:So he, the bit was like playing off of this incident that happened to him.
Guest:He said like, Hey, I've been trying this stuff out on the road and it's really edgy and controversial.
Guest:And, uh, you want to see what happened when I did this?
Guest:And he shows a clip of like him at Caroline's or somebody somewhere.
Guest:And, uh, he's doing this stuff and it's not getting a reaction.
Guest:And he's turns on the crowd.
Guest:He's like, you people don't,
Guest:get it.
Guest:You don't get these jokes or whatever.
Guest:And this dude gets up in the crowd and he's like, Hey, why don't you take it down, buddy?
Guest:And he starts yelling at this guy.
Guest:And then the guy goes and charges the stage and attacks Mark.
Guest:And, uh, the, the thing you would know if you're watching this today is that guy is instantly recognizable as Patrice O'Neill.
Guest:No, it was, it was not known at the time, but, uh, back then it was, uh, you know, a comedy buddy of Mark's.
Guest:Gigantic.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Patrice O'Neill.
Guest:So then it looks even more intimidating that this guy charges the stage.
Guest:So they go back and Conan's like, wow, that was, that was crazy.
Guest:Well, would you like to, would you like to do it here?
Guest:Would you like to finish the bit that you weren't able to finish?
Guest:And Mark's like, I would love that.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:So he gets up, goes to center stage and starts doing the material and the crowd's not reacting.
Guest:And so he's like,
Guest:Oh, you people suck.
Guest:You don't get me.
Guest:You don't know me.
Guest:This stuff is good.
Guest:You just don't get it.
Guest:You don't know.
Guest:And Patrice stands up in the audience and runs out and attacks him.
Marc:That's amazing.
Guest:He's wearing the same exact clothes and everything.
Marc:Mark did a fucking shoot.
Marc:He did it.
Marc:He did a fucking wrestling angle.
Marc:That's like a worked shoot.
Guest:It's like redoing the Montreal screw job.
Marc:That's awesome.
Marc:I have to check that out.
Guest:I will put that link in the episode description.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:We have it up on our website, and I'll go dig it up and put it on there.
Guest:If there's anything else that you want to send in to us, send it in at the episode description comment link, and we will get to it along with a lot of other stuff I'm building up here.
Guest:I've got mailbag stuff coming in.
Guest:One thing that came in this past week, which leads right into my best thing in wrestling...
Guest:Which was the question, what are your predictions for Christian Cage's new title run?
Guest:His Master Blaster relationship with Luchasaurus is undeniable genius.
Guest:And that came from Alec in North Carolina.
Guest:Well, Alec, the best thing I saw in wrestling this past week involved Christian Cage and Luchasaurus on AEW's Collision.
Guest:And the storyline here is so great because I've been watching wrestling for a long time.
Guest:And this is the first time I've ever seen this particular story in wrestling.
Guest:While at the same time, what's going on in this story is something I've seen a million times.
Guest:And what do I mean by that?
Guest:Well, the way this thing has been structured, Christian Cage is like a despicable heel.
Guest:And one of the things he said was that...
Guest:By any means necessary, he was going to hold a title in AEW this year.
Guest:Well, I guess it was like sometime over the summer, June or whatever.
Guest:He helps his big monster wrestler, Luchasaurus, win the TNT title.
Guest:But Christian takes the title for himself.
Guest:They still announce Luchasaurus as the champion.
Guest:He's the one who defends it.
Guest:But the only one who holds the title and walks around calling himself the champion is Christian Cage, who has Luchasaurus parade him around on his shoulders and whatnot.
Guest:And so they finally have this match on Collision this past weekend where Christian and Luchasaurus are going to fight Darby Allin.
Guest:The idea being that although no one would sign a match where it was two on one, if you signed a match where it was all three against each other...
Guest:then you'd be able to team up against Darby, beat him like it's a handicap match.
Guest:Well, the problem here is for Luchasaurus, he still now has to defend his title in this match against two people, one of them being Christian Cage.
Guest:And in the match, Luchasaurus sees the belt laying there on the mat,
Guest:And he stops and he looks at it for the first time.
Guest:He's seeing this thing that he is the champion.
Guest:He holds this title.
Guest:But for the entire time, he's been the champion.
Guest:He has not possessed it.
Guest:It's been held by his manager, by his second champion.
Guest:So he picks the thing up, and then Christian Cage comes over to take it back, and Luchasaurus turns away, turns his back on him.
Guest:Now Christian Cage is belittling him.
Guest:He's saying, batsman, you give that to me.
Guest:Give the hand that over.
Guest:And the crowd picks up on this immediately.
Guest:And the crowd, God bless them, in unison, start chanting to this guy Luchasaurus.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:It's your belt.
Guest:It's your belt.
Guest:It's your belt.
Guest:One of the greatest spontaneous chants ever.
Guest:They're playing right along with the story.
Guest:But eventually, this big luchasaurus, he hands the belt over to Christian.
Guest:And then what happens?
Guest:Darby comes in.
Guest:He starts fighting these guys off.
Guest:He knocks down luchasaurus.
Guest:He lands his move, the coffin flop.
Guest:But Christian throws him out of the ring.
Guest:And Christian gets the pin.
Guest:And he officially wins the belt.
Guest:This belt he's pretended to have for all these months.
Guest:He now officially has won it.
Guest:But Luchasaurus is still his flunky.
Guest:And do you remember, Chris, what he makes him do at the end of this match?
Marc:He makes him put him on his shoulders.
Guest:Correct.
Guest:Where do you think this is going?
Guest:when luchasaurus is going to body slam him or uh you know do straight down yeah eventually yeah there will be one too many times where this guy gets put on the shoulders and this dinosaur this giant man dinosaur who doesn't really think for himself he's like you know modern george the animal steel he will become self-aware
Guest:As he was when he saw this title and he will think enough and he will plunge this guy to the depths of hell and it will be glorious.
Guest:And I have seen that a million times, but I have never seen the situation where a guy just pretended he was the champion until he actually won the belt.
Guest:It is quite a genius stroke of storytelling for them, even though it's going to go in the exact place these things always go, which is why it's great.
Guest:So yes, that was the best thing I saw in wrestling this week.
Marc:And can I just add that it is so delicious, so perfect that you watch a wrestling match and it goes the way it should go.
Marc:And it's the perfect ending.
Marc:The ending was spot on.
Marc:But even before that...
Marc:Kudos again to the crowd who just made that match and they elevated it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They got the story and they got the role that they could play in the story.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:They were there and I loved it.
Marc:That was beautiful.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Telling the guy that's your belt was like whoever, like the one or two people who started that chant, like somebody go find them and give them free tickets to the next event.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:How about you?
Marc:What was the best thing you saw?
Marc:My best thing that I saw this week was also from Collision.
Marc:It was Bryan Danielson and Ricky Starks.
Marc:They had a Texas death match.
Marc:Now, I'll be honest, folks, I do not like Texas death matches all that much.
Marc:It's too gory for me normally.
Marc:Like, there's just too much blood.
Marc:There's too much, like, stuff going on.
Marc:There's tables.
Marc:There's thumbtacks.
Marc:That's a little too much.
Marc:I'm not an ECW type of, you know, wrestling fan.
Marc:But this match worked for me.
Marc:This was the baby face, which was Bryan Danielson, against the heel, Ricky Starks.
Marc:And the baby face was out for blood.
Marc:He was vengeful.
Marc:He was taking it to Ricky this entire time.
Marc:And I found Bryan Danielson's performance to be much more, like,
Marc:than laying down some thumbtacks and body slamming someone.
Marc:It felt heavy.
Marc:It was so good.
Marc:I really enjoyed this match.
Marc:You should all seek it out.
Marc:Watch it.
Marc:It is a different type of Texas Deathmatch, and I loved it.
Guest:Well, Bryan Danielson, you could go all the way back to the question we had from a listener earlier in the show saying who has the best, most realistic presentation.
Guest:And Bryan Danielson, I wouldn't say there's anything about him that confuses you that he's not a pro wrestler.
Guest:He definitely comes off as a pro wrestler.
Guest:But his mentality...
Guest:of what pro wrestling is and how to perform it in a way where it comes off as both competition and drama with like, like you're saying, he evoked this hatred in this match that he, he wanted to end this guy once and for all.
Guest:And he's so good at coming across like a killer, like a, like a, just a, a meticulous assassin.
Guest:He's going to take this guy apart piece by piece and,
Marc:Eye of the Tiger, the entire match.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And it also, it's so crazy that he spent his entire run in WWE when he was a baby face as like the plucky underdog, which is really like, that's like the mentality Vince goes with.
Guest:Oh, you're a tiny guy?
Guest:Well, you're a plucky underdog.
Guest:You're like the one, two, three kid, right?
Guest:Oh, gosh.
Guest:He can do it, right?
Guest:He's good, and he can pull that off.
Guest:He did.
Guest:We saw that one where he won the WrestleMania 30, I think, where he won the title.
Guest:He's great at that, but he is way better at this as the guy who is just... He's like the final boss in a kickboxer or something, right?
Guest:Bloodsport, something like that.
Guest:It's like, oh, you don't want to face that guy.
Guest:He'll kill you.
Guest:Take you apart limb from limb.
Guest:Yeah, I agree.
Guest:Hey, you're never going to have a bad time when that guy's involved.
Guest:So you're saying it's like the best thing in wrestling this week?
Guest:Hey, that could be every week with him.
Guest:Like, you could literally, like, watch that guy in any match, and you're like, oh, that was the best thing I saw this week.
Guest:So, yes, kudos to you, Bryan Danielson, and Ricky Starks for hanging with him.
Guest:Jesus.
Guest:That guy, take a break after those matches.
Guest:He had two matches in two weeks against Bryan Danielson, and it's like...
Guest:Get a vacation, pal.
Marc:Heal up.
Marc:Well, this week, he has an eight-man tag.
Marc:It's going to be Ozzy Open, Ricky Starks, Big Bill versus, and I can't believe this is the tag team, but it's Bryan Danielson, Wheeler Yuda, and FTR are together.
Marc:Like, holy shit.
Guest:There are going to be some bruises at the end of that one.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Thank God it's a four on four match because I don't want to see these guys go 20 minutes before the night before they have to another pay-per-view.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So like, great.
Marc:But man, that's going to be a fun time on free TV.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, hey, enjoy that.
Guest:And then if you want to pay for further wrestling matches, there is WrestleDream this weekend, although it will not be like the 1991 WrestleDream.
Guest:I hope.
Guest:I hope no one tries to take someone else's eyes out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All bets are off, though.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Kudos.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, keep your eyes where they are.
Guest:Don't shoot on anybody at work this week.
Guest:And until next time, I'm Brendan and that's Chris.
Guest:Peace.