BONUS The Friday Show - The Sea of Humanity, Part 1
Marc:You keep saying that it's like 90,000 or so, or I'm sorry, 80,000.
Marc:Yeah, about 78,000.
Marc:Why do you keep saying that?
Marc:Because they make a real big to-do that it's 93,100 and something.
Marc:Oh, they sure do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It says it on the broadcast at one point.
Marc:Why did you say a different number?
Guest:Because they were liars.
Guest:What?
What?
Marc:Chris, what's happening?
Marc:Brendan, the Jessica Chastain episode has dropped.
Marc:Yes, a long time coming.
Guest:We talked about it months ago.
Guest:My god, and it was well worth the wait, I must say.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:I'm glad you enjoyed.
Guest:She is charming.
Guest:She's great, and I saw it already got turned into clickbait, but not for anything anyone would expect.
Guest:The big headline to come out of that episode was that she ate banana peels as a kid on purpose.
Marc:I thought it was the sneezing that she sneezed or something.
Guest:The sneeze definitely.
Guest:I got a lot of response about the sneeze from from a lot of people.
Guest:They wrote in saying that they or I saw them on Twitter or whatever saying, oh, my God, her sneeze is so great.
Guest:And I will say just to give myself a little credit for that.
Guest:Like it was 100% a deliberate choice to leave it in because I just knew that that sneeze, that it's going to go over very well.
Guest:And it did.
Guest:And it just does like producer intuition.
Guest:That's all I could say.
Marc:When you first, I think you sent me someone tweet about it, and my first response was, what am I missing?
Marc:Is this like a sex thing that people are... Oh, like feet?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Show feet and sneeze on them.
Marc:So I'm so happy.
Marc:It's just because she was just, you know, showing, being herself.
Marc:It's an unrehearsed moment.
Marc:So I was very happy and relieved that it wasn't a sex thing.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, it's like, it's one of those things where I think it's in an instant, it lets people know something about a person that they could never know otherwise, like not in a movie, not in a print piece, but you hear her sneeze and...
Guest:And she tries to stifle it.
Guest:She does it off mic.
Guest:It's very pinched.
Guest:And, you know, it's a kind of pleasing sound as opposed to, like, a horrible, like, guttural sneeze.
Guest:Like mine.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you're like, oh...
Guest:Like I just got a brief like nanosecond of sound and it translated into this wealth of information about this person.
Guest:And I do think that that's what a lot of people like.
Guest:And so, yes, I kept it in.
Guest:In fact, there was a comment sent to us in our comment page.
Guest:He said, am I crazy or have I heard part of the Jessica Chastain interview before, specifically the bit about being vegan at the beginning?
Guest:And yes, you may have heard the sneeze because that was the part that I had included.
Guest:I knew that I was going to cut out a chunk of her talking at the beginning there with Mark about their cholesterol and stuff like that.
Guest:I need to get to the point a little more quickly.
Guest:But there was some good vegan stuff in there and it led up to the sneeze, which I didn't want to lose.
Guest:So yes, some of the stuff that I had put in producer cuts, which was a chunk that I knew generally I'm going to cut this down.
Guest:I did say at the time, I think I will save some of this and I did wind up saving it.
Marc:And we got the Sir Ben Kingsley story, which is amazing.
Marc:Very fun to hear her tell it and then know what was coming the very next day.
Marc:And I'm glad that the coda to the episode was Mark pointing out that she emailed with that, with the proof, with the receipt.
Marc:We have seen it with our own eyes.
Marc:I really want to know what Jessica smelled when she went into Mark's house.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:She was very, very noticeable that she was pointing out how sensitive she is to smells.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He's got a lot of them.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I can't even imagine what's cooking up in that house.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's food.
Guest:There's cats.
Guest:He wears patchouli.
Guest:So you smell all these things.
Guest:Now the cats, I will say, in his current home, you smell them less than you did when he lived in the old house.
Guest:In the old house, you used to have to walk through his house to get to the garage.
Guest:Sometimes he still does that with guests.
Guest:Like if he brings them in and makes some coffee first or whatever.
Guest:But if there's a time crunch or whatever, they could just go right from the driveway into the garage.
Guest:That's no problem.
Guest:At the old house,
Guest:He had to unlock a gate to be able to do that, and I think it was two gates, actually, to get from the driveway to the garage.
Guest:So he would just always have them walk right through his house and go out the back door.
Guest:Well, in the back door, like, vestibule...
Guest:was where he kept his, that had a cat door and the kitty litter.
Guest:And you'd just walk right past a steaming hunk of shit to get out to the garage.
Guest:Like the cat would like just have gone.
Guest:And then, you know, like here comes Jane Fonda or whoever, and they got to walk past this steaming mound of cat shit.
Guest:I always was amused by that.
Marc:I wish Ice Cube was on your show when that would happen.
Marc:We might not have had the actual interview.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:I also love that you kept in them just going around the garage and talking about all the stuff that we were seeing or they were seeing.
Marc:It was so descriptive and so it was just so colorful.
Marc:I loved it.
Guest:Yeah, I love leaving that stuff in.
Guest:Whenever it happens, I feel like that's the goods.
Guest:You can interview somebody about their life and career and whatever, but it's like when they start getting into that stuff, you know, it was like when Cillian Murphy and Mark started talking about their day and how they plan their day and what they do day to day, like that kind of stuff.
Guest:Like, that's the great stuff.
Guest:And I learned very early doing this show, like,
Guest:The more that you leave in like that, the better the experience is for the listener.
Guest:So unless things go completely wrong and there's just a, you know, a dead end conversation, it's like I'll always give a lot of good leeway to the parts where they're just kind of talking about random things.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic.
Marc:And it's almost, it's kind of akin to what Namesh Patel, when he was saying that Chris Rock told him about comedy.
Marc:If you can just distill that down to, you know, whatever your experience was, to just a very, very specific thing that, you know, you'll be the funniest comedian that you've ever seen.
Guest:yeah i mean it's ultimately it's a it's a take on people magazine figuring out that if you did a whole section that was like stars they're just like us it would fly off the shelves right and right and that's what i think you know we're trying to do in in in a less tabloid way uh but actually present somebody with their full life so that you can like kind of demystify them like oh
Guest:That person goes through that same thing.
Guest:I go through that.
Guest:And yeah, that was what Nimesh was saying about comedy, that if you can invest in your personal narrative, your personal story, make it funny, there's people out there, they don't have to live the same life you've lived, but a challenge that they have that would be similar to yours now feels that it's relatable and they can...
Guest:hold a mirror up to your performance and themselves.
Guest:And I thought that was great insight.
Guest:It was a great conversation.
Guest:I really liked that episode with him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was really great.
Marc:I recommend everyone to check it out.
Marc:I also recommend the, the problematics episode that you and Mark did.
Marc:That was a, Oh, thank you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, that was I was glad we were able to do that.
Guest:And I mentioned it several weeks ago on this Friday show that we would do an episode like that, you know, prompted by a listener writing in about the Nick Kroll El Chupacabra bits.
Guest:And yeah, I wanted to make sure that we didn't let that go too long, wanted us to do something like that.
Guest:And the day that Mark was in town and I saw him at his hotel felt like the right time to do it.
Guest:That was this past week.
Guest:If you didn't get a chance to listen to the bonus content yet, it's the Archive Deep Dive, the Problematics.
Guest:We kind of highlighted some episodes that Mark and I still stand by as episodes.
Guest:We think they're very good.
Guest:They're very important to the history of the show.
Guest:But they kind of have stuff that needs to be explained and put into context.
Guest:So, yeah, I hope you check that out.
Guest:We were glad to do that piece.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, you know, one thing you didn't mention was, I mean, you mentioned it, but you didn't refer to it, and you might not know this offhand, but Marin responding to the Louis C.K.
Marc:stuff.
Marc:Like, what episode was that?
Guest:Oh, I know which episode that is.
Guest:Yeah, it was with Kim Deal from the Breeders and the Pixies.
Guest:So whatever the number is on that, I don't have the actual number at my fingertips yet.
Guest:Yeah, it's episode 863.
Guest:863, yeah, Kim Deal.
Guest:And we were in Seattle when that happened, when that story broke.
Guest:Mark and I were together.
Guest:We were on our book tour.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And so we just kind of sat down and read that New York Times piece, and we're like, oh, shit.
Guest:Like...
Marc:we better have something to say about this on the show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I think Mark said it really perfectly.
Marc:Like it's a portrait of a time, you know, you see portraits at, you know, in museums and you're like, all right, this guy's wearing a fuzzy hat or like a weird neckerchief.
Marc:That's what was happening at the time.
Marc:You know, like there's no, there's no changing it.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Unless you George Lucas and you want to put Jabba the Hutt in there.
Marc:What the fuck was that?
Marc:Can we, yeah, we don't have to get into that now, but Jesus Christ, man.
Guest:Speaking of movies, I finally got a chance to see Oppenheimer.
Guest:I saw it on the very biggest screen available, which was fantastic.
Guest:I saw all of the hat.
Guest:The whole hat was there.
Guest:And so I liked it very much.
Guest:But then I'm interested in what you thought about Mark's take on, you know, Cillian Murphy, a non-Jew playing Oppenheimer and Mark being like, what's the problem with this?
Marc:There's no problem.
Marc:I was fascinated because I guess I'm a cis white male.
Marc:I'm an Italian guy.
Marc:It's very hard to like, you know, what's the word?
Guest:To offend you personally with...
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:Yeah, unfortunately, or fortunately, or probably unfortunately, there's very little that can really offend me.
Marc:I'm so very generic, honestly.
Marc:But I enjoyed Mark's monologue about Afi being Jewish,
Marc:And how he wasn't bothered by a non-Jewish person playing a Jewish person.
Marc:And how he doesn't mind Bradley Cooper portraying a Jewish man in Leonard Bernstein's or Bernstein's movie, The Maestro.
Marc:And apparently Cooper has like a prosthetic nose to make him look more Jewish.
Marc:I also like that Mark was looking at pictures of Oppenheimer and thinking, the real guy doesn't look like a Jewish guy.
Marc:But it made me think, what if Chris Nolan put Bradley Cooper's Bernstein nose on Killian Murphy for Oppenheimer?
Marc:That would be really bad because he doesn't have that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it's just like you're like, it's like he might as well put a yarmulke on him.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's funny because like the maestro thing, I don't know, man, I think it's really just that it's August and people are bored.
Guest:And so they're looking for something to talk about.
Guest:But look.
Guest:You can whatever you want to say, the guy's family is like, we're totally fine with it.
Guest:And our dad would have been fine with it.
Guest:So I don't think anybody has like it's like, OK, end of thing.
Guest:No, nobody should care.
Guest:The Bernsteins are like, yeah, that's guy.
Guest:He did great.
Guest:He looked just like our dad.
Guest:We like that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:End of story.
Guest:And I mean, here's the thing.
Guest:It was probably an absolute no win situation because if he plays the part and doesn't change a thing to his appearance, everyone's going to go, you're erasing his Jewishness.
Guest:You're trying to make him look like a generic white person.
Guest:He wasn't.
Guest:He was Ashkenazi Jew.
Guest:Right.
Guest:What do you want?
Guest:What's the what do you do?
Guest:It's one or the other.
Guest:And I think you just go with the one that you've talked with the family about and you, you know, stand by it and say this is our depiction of Leonard Bernstein and it's done with a lot of care.
Guest:And that's that people don't like and don't want to see it.
Marc:And for that reason, I guess that's your prerogative.
Marc:Well, I mean, as an Irish person, would you be offended?
Marc:Were you offended when Robert De Niro played the Irishman?
Marc:I was not.
Marc:No.
Guest:I was not.
Guest:And I don't think there's any possible way for me to ever be offended by that.
Guest:There's no way for me to be offended by anyone playing any other thing.
Guest:Like, just me, personally, I can't.
Guest:It's the same thing that you said.
Guest:I am a cis white male with tons of privilege.
Guest:Like, it's not going to knock me down.
Guest:Like, you knock me down personally.
Guest:You'd be like, hey, look, we're doing the Brendan McDonald movie.
Guest:We cast this guy who looks like a real asshole.
Right.
Guest:Okay, that would suck, but there's no other way to do it.
Guest:Oh, man, Barkwood cast me as... Just a giant hunk of shit.
Guest:Like, literally, like it's a poop emoji playing you.
Marc:Just Pizza the Hut, but it was shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like Bill Paxton in Weird Science, that thing.
Guest:Hey, look, it's Chris Lopresto.
Yeah.
Marc:But what did you think of Oppenheimer?
Marc:How was the Full Hat edition?
Guest:Full Hat was great.
Guest:It was an amazing movie.
Guest:I would have turned right around and walked back in if every screening wasn't sold out.
Guest:It could have been four hours for me, five hours.
Guest:I don't care.
Guest:It was completely immersive.
Guest:And I just thought...
Guest:It hit every note that it needed to hit.
Guest:I mean, sure, are there things that are very Chris Nolan-y and, like, you know... I think it's very fair to call him a chilly filmmaker.
Guest:He's not the king of warmth, like Spielberg or somebody.
Guest:And so, like...
Guest:there's just some times where general emotions are left pretty broad, right?
Guest:But like the movie is so propulsive and so wrapped up in the details of this guy's life and the life of the world at large at the time and telling the world's stories through these brief moments where people converse about what's going on, what's happened in Germany, what's happening now.
Guest:I love that element of it, that it was like moving through time in a way that normal people move through time.
Guest:Like...
Guest:You didn't have flashbacks to all of a sudden, oh, what's going on on the front lines?
Guest:Like, no, no, no.
Guest:You're living the way these people are living and they hear about it and they talk about it and they know there was a genocide going on in Eastern Europe, but they don't live in it.
Guest:That's the difference.
Guest:Like, we're all the same way all the time.
Guest:I love that.
Guest:I love that the score was just blaring through the whole movie.
Guest:It was so great.
Guest:I bet the movie is much worse if it doesn't have that.
Guest:Like, I bet it's a harder lift.
Marc:Yeah, I listen to the score when I'm working.
Marc:It's a great soundtrack to put on.
Marc:Yeah, that's like what it was.
Marc:It was like, we're going to play this while these people are working.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:What a fantastic film.
Marc:It's just really, really great.
Marc:I'm seeing it again as well.
Marc:And you're going to the full hat, right?
Marc:Full hat edition, for sure.
Guest:Nice.
Guest:Well, I also just loved every time an actor showed up, I'm like, oh, I'm so glad to see that person.
Guest:Like, it does a great job with it.
Guest:It's like a lot of those historical epics, like Reds or JFK.
Guest:It's just like, hey, get everybody.
Guest:Get all the people.
Guest:Well, there's a big part.
Guest:That's okay.
Guest:Put an Oscar winner in it.
Guest:It's fine.
Guest:You know, like...
Guest:It just, it delivers.
Guest:It definitely delivers.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm so glad you love it because I love it.
Marc:And yeah, it's great.
Marc:And we're also going to be seeing a movie that we both love this week.
Marc:We're going to see Boogie Nights in the theater as well.
Guest:We are going to see a 70 millimeter roadshow presentation of Boogie Nights at Lincoln Center.
Guest:And I'm very excited for that.
Guest:Probably seen the movie, I don't know, 20 times, 25 times.
Guest:And I did see it in the theater when it came out.
Guest:But I am very excited to see it in this massive scope.
Guest:And just with a room full of New Yorkers, seeing it in the location where it premiered at the New York Film Festival.
Guest:In fact, I should tell everyone about my exchange with Ricky Jay.
Guest:So there was a period where I was emailing back and forth with the late Ricky Jay, who is in Boogie Nights.
Guest:And if you don't know him, he was a magician.
Guest:He's a guy from a lot of the David Mamet works.
Guest:And he had a special coming out.
Guest:We're trying to get him on.
Guest:We just couldn't get the scheduling to line up.
Guest:But we were going back and forth about something.
Guest:And the Paul Thomas Anderson WTF episode had just come out.
Guest:And I made mention to him.
Guest:I think we were at a point where we knew that the booking wasn't going to happen.
Guest:I said, but I'll tell you what, you know, we'll promote your show on this episode because he was doing like a PBS American Masters or something.
Guest:Awesome.
Guest:And I should say, I said on the email to him, I should mention that you've already been immortalized on our program this week, thanks to Paul Thomas Anderson, who told an amazing story about you.
Guest:Nevertheless.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Which, if you heard that episode, Paul Thomas Anderson tells this great story about that Ricky Jay, the word nevertheless was so triggering to him because of an incident that he went through at a football game that Bert was saying nevertheless in the scene where he fights Dirk Diggler.
Guest:And...
Guest:Paul could see in, in the monitor that Ricky's face was just like, he was breaking every time Bert would say it.
Guest:And so it was because of this nevertheless joke, which I'm not going to spoil.
Guest:Just go back and listen to the Paul Thomas Anderson episode.
Guest:But so, uh, he wrote back to me.
Guest:He said, uh, uh, uh, ah, yes.
Guest:Nevertheless, many people must've heard that story as I keep getting notes about it.
Guest:And then he just like, almost like it's unrelated.
Guest:He goes, uh,
Guest:So as Bert and I were walking down the stairs to the stage of Lincoln Center for our Q&A after the rousing reception at the premiere of Boogie Nights, he turned to me and said, I still have no idea what this film is about.
Guest:No!
Guest:That's incredible.
Guest:Beautiful.
Guest:A beautiful email.
Guest:Rest in peace, Ricky J. Thank you for giving me that great, great little nugget as I head into my own Lincoln Center screening of Boogie Nights.
Guest:Awesome.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, if you got anything else to talk to us about with movies or stuff from WTF, there's a link in the comment section.
Guest:Just scroll down to that in your podcast app.
Guest:And you can let us know what you're thinking.
Guest:We will move on right now to the wrestling portion of the show, which will go over two parts.
Guest:Because I'm not around next week.
Guest:I'm not able to record this with Chris.
Guest:So we're going to record something now that is going to go over the next two weeks.
Guest:I'm going to tell you that in a second.
Guest:But first...
Guest:I wanted to get to some comments that came in from listeners.
Guest:This came in from Andy, who said, I'm a huge fan of shoot interviews, but I have yet to find a good one with Macho Man Randy Savage.
Guest:Even in his most honest interviews, he seems to be somewhat kayfabe.
Guest:Do you know of any honest-to-goodness shoots that he's done?
Guest:And you're totally right.
Guest:There is, in particular, a Randy Savage shoot interview.
Guest:It's presented like this is a shoot.
Guest:And no, he's...
Guest:in character, essentially.
Guest:What I would suggest what you watch, it's not so much to get a shoot, meaning an interview that he's done where he's basically out of character and telling backstage stories and that, but go watch early videos of him from when he first started wrestling.
Guest:And he was in the Memphis area, a young guy in his 20s.
Guest:And the interesting thing is the voice isn't
Guest:fully there yet now i'm sure he's still like in character as a wrestler but it's the first time you can hear like oh that's what he sounds like when he's not doing the macho man voice which was which was something he adopted later on uh but yes i as far as i could tell and i did some research on this a lot of people say he's the one guy who never broke character uh that there's really no instance of
Guest:Randy Poffo recorded on tape.
Guest:I do know that on the dark side of the ring about Macho Man and Elizabeth, there was a news report where they caught up with him and asked him about Elizabeth, who had been his wife.
Guest:They were divorced.
Guest:And he does sound somewhat different.
Guest:Now that could just be age.
Guest:That could be grief.
Guest:Like he might not have been in exactly the position to be in full wrestling character, but he sounds somewhat different in that brief soundbite that they have of him talking about Elizabeth after she died.
Guest:Those are the only times I can come up with Andy.
Guest:So, you know, I'm in the same boat as you have not found a time where Randy Savage is fully out of character.
Marc:You know, he lived in Staten Island for a time.
Marc:Oh, did he?
Marc:Yeah, there was always rumors over near the mall is where he lived.
Marc:And people would see him and Miss Elizabeth.
Marc:But I never saw him, sadly.
Guest:he moved down to southern florida which i think he was from sarasota to begin with but uh in his later life he lived like in the the palm beach area and there were shots of him at a mets pre-season game in port st lucy like in the crowd he looks like you know big santa claus because he got a big gray beard gray head of hair and uh yeah it's like look there's macho man randy savage he's i think i just have one saved on my phone it's like ike davis is up at bat and there's randy savage in the background
Marc:That's awesome.
Guest:Yeah, but a total dereliction of duty that the SMY crew didn't send, like, Kevin Burkhardt or whoever over to interview him.
Guest:Like, what?
Guest:What are you thinking?
Guest:Seriously.
Guest:Like, come on.
Guest:They probably didn't know.
Guest:They probably had no idea that that was Macho Man Savage.
Guest:Ah, missed opportunity.
Guest:I also wanted to highlight this comment that we got from Brian.
Guest:Brian in this, he describes himself as a queer dough.
Guest:So I will read what he writes here.
Guest:And that's his words, not mine.
Guest:He says, I've recently gotten back into wrestling and it's mostly because of this show.
Guest:That's very cool.
Guest:As a gay man, I thought there wasn't a place for me as a viewer.
Guest:For example, in the Montreal Screwjob, there were several homophobic signs in the crowd, and you list a few.
Guest:I don't want to have to repeat them here.
Guest:That fucking sucked, by the way.
Guest:I felt that uncomfortable, unwelcome feeling us queers are used to.
Guest:So when the AEW had a wrestler come out, not as a joke or a gimmick, I knew that the AEW was a place for a queer-do like me.
Guest:And that, again, was from Brian.
Guest:Hey...
Guest:we're super happy that you're into it.
Guest:And also that, um, you know, it wasn't just us.
Guest:I'm glad to know that, uh, you know, our feeling about that segment with Anthony Bowens, uh, it was not just coming from some kind of a white cis male, uh, perspective.
Guest:Uh, glad to know that you felt that way about that, Brian.
Guest:And, uh, that brings us to AEW and that, uh, you know, next week while, uh, I am on vacation, uh,
Guest:It will be on August 27th.
Guest:AEW is having an event that will be on pay-per-view called All In, and it is taking place at Wembley Stadium in London, England, where right now, as of the time we're recording this, they will have more than 80,000 fans in the building online.
Guest:Unclear right now exactly what the number of paid fans are, but it's clearly somewhere above 70,000.
Guest:And so where it's going to end, we are not sure.
Guest:It could be up to a capacity of almost 90,000 in there.
Guest:And paid fans, not sure, could go over 80,000.
Guest:And so Chris and I were going to talk about something.
Guest:And we knew this was going to be like a two-parter.
Guest:Let's stretch it across two parts.
Guest:And the idea that I had was like, well, what are the biggest wrestling shows in history?
Guest:Maybe we can kind of compare them in doing this.
Guest:And then after AEW All-In happens at Wembley Stadium, we'll revisit it.
Guest:Here's the problem.
Guest:The biggest wrestling shows in history have two things going against them.
Guest:One, either they're things you cannot see, or two, they're things you don't want to see.
Guest:And here's what I mean.
Guest:If you look at the list of the biggest shows ever, so the number one biggest attendance for a wrestling show was a two-night event in Pyongyang, North Korea, called Collision in Korea.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:which no one knows the exact number of people that were there because it's North Korea.
Guest:It was somewhat, they assume over 150,000, but it was forced attendance, right?
Guest:Like it's a dictatorship.
Guest:They were told you have to be there or you could get arrested or killed.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:It was like a Liz Lemon party.
Marc:Yes, exactly.
Guest:wow and so uh you know this was to see a main event of rick flair versus antonio noki and uh and yeah i mean i don't think uh there's a dark side of the ring episode about this too it's very fascinating but i don't think you can count going to a wrestling show at gunpoint
Guest:as the most viewed wrestling show in live attendance of all time.
Guest:So if you want to go eliminate that from the list, okay, what's next?
Guest:Well, WrestleMania 32 in Dallas at AT&T Stadium where the Cowboys play, that had an attendance of 80,709 people.
Guest:Might be passed by AW All-In.
Guest:We won't know until after it happens.
Guest:But I watched that when it happened.
Guest:I will never watch it again.
Guest:It is a terrible,
Guest:terrible show is that the one with steve austin fights kevin owens that's no i wish it was i would watch that i would have watched that again if that was a record holder uh episode uh record holder the card here uh it was one in the very long line of them trying to get roman reigns over as a baby face i believe in this one he fought triple h in the main event it's
Guest:Very boring.
Guest:Austin, who is in his hometown of Dallas, Texas, they only used him for an unannounced bit where he came out and gave a Stone Cold stunner to The New Day.
Guest:A total waste of him and Mick Foley and Shawn Michaels in this one segment.
Guest:It had a Shane McMahon versus Undertaker, Steel Cage, or Hell in the Cell, one of those matches.
Guest:Listen, don't take my word for it.
Guest:If you really want to watch this and want to see the big crowd, go for it.
Guest:But I'm not going to make any promises.
Guest:It is a boring, bad event.
Guest:So then next on the list is this match in Greece from 1933.
Guest:A guy named Jim Lundas versus Kola Quariani.
Guest:And it's assumed that there were more than 80,000 people there.
Guest:But nobody knows how many people actually walked in.
Guest:That's just an estimate.
Guest:So then we're kind of left with, okay, you got SummerSlam 1992, which is also at Wembley Stadium.
Guest:And that is 78,927 people.
Guest:AEW has probably surpassed that already by all counts of tickets.
Guest:And we'll also probably pass it in actual sold tickets, right?
Guest:Not just people who are allowed in with comps included.
Guest:So then you got to go one back on the list.
Guest:And here we go.
Guest:Now we were getting somewhere.
Guest:An event with about 78,000 people, they don't know the exact number, but this is going to be on par with what's at All In, is WrestleMania III, March 28th, 1987, at the Pontiac Silverdome.
Guest:And this had the main event of Hulk Hogan versus Andre the Giant, and is, by most accounts...
Guest:The peak of North American wrestling, or at least the peak of interest of North American wrestling in the 80s, in the Hulkamania era.
Guest:I mean, I don't think it's crazy to say more people were made fans because of this show.
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:Than any one given show that ever existed because like this was in the cultural zeitgeist.
Guest:I think most people who even if you're listening to this still and you're not a wrestling fan, you know that there was a big WrestleMania with Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant.
Guest:It's just it's a it's a it's a cultural thing.
Guest:And so I thought, what better thing for Chris and I, who were kind of born and reared on that era of wrestling, to take a look back at WrestleMania III, at that massive crowd in Pontiac, Michigan, and see, A, how it holds up, and then, B, when this AEW All-In happens at the end of this month, how it is going to compare to WrestleMania III, a truly spectacular event with...
Guest:Almost 80,000 people in the building.
Guest:And so Chris and I watched this.
Guest:Well, we watched something else first.
Guest:We watched something else first.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I asked you, Chris, to watch Saturday night's main event from March 1987.
Guest:It was taped February 21st.
Guest:And did you happen to clock when you were watching it where it was taped?
Guest:Was it MSG?
Guest:What was it?
Guest:No.
Guest:It was in Detroit, Michigan, at the Joe Louis Arena, mere minutes away from where WrestleMania was going to take place like five weeks later.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Did you also clock something else?
Guest:Did you happen to notice how many times they said WrestleMania on this broadcast?
Guest:No.
Guest:Oh, the number is zero.
Guest:Oh, because why?
Guest:It wasn't a thing?
Guest:They were not allowed to promote WrestleMania on NBC because pay-per-view was so new that NBC was afraid of it.
Guest:They thought, we're not going to allow this.
Guest:We're not getting a cut of that thing.
Guest:And so you're not allowed to promote it on there and then take viewers away from NBC on a Sunday night in the middle of March.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So if you go back and watch it with that in mind, you will hear every time they talk about Hogan and Andre, they say an upcoming confrontation.
Guest:Oh, weird.
Guest:They can't even say, we have a match booked.
Guest:Please go find out where that is.
Guest:They just talk about, they allude to, like when they're saying, Hogan, you're in this battle royal.
Guest:Why won't you just wait for an upcoming confrontation with Andre the Giant?
Marc:That's right, yeah.
Guest:Holy cow.
Guest:So they essentially had to promote WrestleMania in silence, but just with the iconography of Hulk Hogan and Andre and hope that anyone watching it picked up on the fact that, hey, this is that thing that we're selling on pay-per-view.
Marc:I'm shocked that they didn't have like a plant in the stands with like a WrestleMania sign and you would just point to it just like all they fucking do at the end of Royal Rumble.
Marc:Yes, although it's a taped show, they would have made them cut it out.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:That's fascinating.
Marc:That pay-per-view was seen as such a threat to NBC.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:I did not know.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:But even, I mean, now it makes also more sense that they hold this thing in Detroit, right?
Guest:Because you can fill about 20,000 people in the Detroit Joe Louis arena, and they're thinking, this is our advertising.
Guest:Right.
Guest:For Michigan, right?
Guest:Let's get all these people to tell everybody else that this Andre Hogan match is going to be great.
Guest:All they knew was that they needed to fill this building up.
Guest:And I remember reading stuff from at the time.
Guest:They knew they had this building that could get about 80,000 people.
Guest:They thought and wrestling thought the industry thought you're maybe going to get forty five thousand.
Guest:But Vince had this faith in the market that they were in there because you could get people from, you know, nearby Ohio cities.
Guest:You had Detroit.
Guest:You had Chicago.
Guest:People could come in from.
Guest:But most importantly, Canada, and it's always important, Canada.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They had just done an event there previously, maybe less than a year before, and they just called it the big event.
Guest:And they got about 60,000 people to some fairgrounds in Canada for Hulk Hogan versus Paul Orndorff.
Guest:And so they were like, we're good.
Guest:And it's kind of the same thing with All In.
Guest:They go over to London.
Guest:They say, we're going to have our first London show.
Guest:Everyone assumes they're going to do it at one of the big sports arenas there that could fill like 20,000 people or whatever.
Guest:Nobody expected them to do Wembley.
Guest:And when they announced Wembley Stadium, everybody thought, OK, they're going to be very lucky if they fill 40,000, 50,000 people in here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And immediately it blew past that number, just like WrestleMania 3 did.
Guest:And then with the slow drip of ticket sales, they're getting it cranked to over 80,000.
Guest:And it's the same thing.
Guest:It's because it's a different world out there.
Guest:Like here in America, we've talked about this on this show over and over again.
Guest:Wrestling is a very niche product.
Guest:Like even the most watched wrestling stuff is still watched proportionally
Guest:by a very small amount of people.
Guest:Not so in Canada, not so in the UK.
Guest:And so they were able to, you know, largely by the strength of their Canadian audience, which we saw in the WrestleMania six, Hulk Hogan versus Ultimate Warrior, the Sky Dome filled with Canadians, right?
Yeah.
Guest:And so that is one of the big things that they were doing with this Saturday Night's Main event in Detroit, where the big match, marquee match on the show was a 20 man battle royal with Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant as the featured participants.
Guest:Did you remember watching this, Chris?
Guest:I do remember watching it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:It's like burned into my retinas.
Marc:Yeah, it is a core memory for me, for sure.
Marc:And when Andre the Giant eliminates Hogan, I forgot that Vince says, like, look at the expression on Andre's face as if he's saying, you are just so much garbage.
Marc:You're so much garbage.
Marc:What a fucking line.
Ha!
Guest:All right.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Wait, we have to go back then before that happens.
Guest:Back to the beginning of this match.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Vince McMahon does this soliloquy as Andre the Giant is coming out to sell the match.
Guest:It is one of the great salesman jobs in the history of time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He delivers this thing about how Andre was Hogan's brother.
Guest:And he looked up to him and Hogan saw what a person Andre was, not just a competitor, but how he was around children, how he had this sense of fair play.
Guest:And he's just going on and on.
Guest:And then he's like...
Guest:And then he threw that all away in one moment.
Guest:And he's like, and don't just blame Bobby Heenan.
Guest:Don't just say it's because Bobby Heenan seduced Andre the Giant because Andre had to make that choice himself.
Guest:I'm like, this is great.
Guest:This is theater.
Guest:This story is fantastic, and I'm getting 30 seconds of it from this jacked guy screaming at me.
Guest:This carnal barker, yeah.
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:And then yes, so they have Hulk Hogan and Andre in this match with 18 other guys.
Guest:And did you notice something about the first half of this match?
Guest:Did you notice anything interesting about the eliminations?
Guest:Because I sure did.
Guest:But no one else besides Hogan and Andre defeated anyone?
Marc:That is correct.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:They would not let anyone else throw a person out other than Hulk and Andre.
Guest:Hulk and Andre throw half the ring out of this match, including Andre throwing out Leap and Lanny Poffo.
Guest:He headbutts and throws out, and Lanny Poffo is bleeding like Jon Moxley.
Guest:He's just bleeding all over the place.
Guest:And I rewound it three times to try to figure out where he bladed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you can't.
Guest:I can't.
Guest:It must be an edit.
Marc:Did he come in?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I'm wondering how did he possibly do it?
Guest:And then I thought, is it a blood capsule or something?
Guest:But no.
Guest:Then when they're taking Lanny Poffo out on a stretcher, he's curled up tight, squeezing his face.
Guest:fists which is a blood thing like that's a cue from wrestlers that they're like he's trying to make the blood flow faster out of his face like if you ever see a wrestler like puff his cheeks out or or or clench fists or or or crouch down they're trying to get the blood coming out more and uh and yeah it's just it's a it's a magic trick this guy cutting himself and then going out of the ring bloody i never saw it happen
Marc:Yeah, yeah, same.
Marc:That was great.
Marc:Also, when Hogan got to the ring, he's holding or he's like biting the ripped shirt in his mouth that Andre tore off of him.
Marc:Like, so stupid.
Marc:God, I hate this man.
Guest:yes but like he is so stupid for the greatest reasons watching this thing like just from the very beginning like his he's he's cutting these promos with uh with an exercise bar like one of those things where you bend and he's just screaming names of people in the fight oh orndorff andre hercules andre and then it's just andre andre andre
Guest:Crazy person on your TV.
Guest:But yes, Andre gets him and throws him out and Vince makes a big deal.
Guest:I always watching these old things, watch people in the crowd because I want to see how they reacted.
Guest:And sure enough, people are shocked.
Guest:Like you see, like, you know, like when Undertaker lost to Brock Lesnar, it's like people just mouths open and looking at each other.
Guest:They can't believe Andre threw Hulk Hogan out.
Guest:And you're like, he probably sold 10,000 tickets right there.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:In that thing, in that build.
Guest:And so, yes, the rest of the match, I don't know.
Guest:Did you have any opinions on it?
Guest:It was just a regular battle royal.
Marc:I mean, I like that everyone ganged up and threw Andre out.
Marc:That was really great.
Guest:That's very cool.
Guest:And also, yes, kind of protects Andre from going into this main event.
Marc:And Andre is a statue at this point in his career, by the way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It is the final like years of Andre.
Marc:And I feel bad because it's just he's just lumbering around.
Guest:And it's very clear.
Guest:But it's also very clear that all they have to do is just kind of bounce off of him.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Like that's how you take a bump.
Guest:It's like you just run into Andre and fall down.
Marc:Literally taking a bump off of Andre.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And well, ultimately, the pairs off with some of the people who are going to have matches at WrestleMania three, which is good booking and winds up being Hercules, who wins by eliminating Billy Jack Haynes.
Guest:Billy Jerk Haynes.
Guest:Billy Jerk Haynes.
Guest:Sorry, I get that.
Guest:I get that confused.
Guest:Uh, uh, and yeah, was there anything else you want to talk about on that show?
Guest:I just wanted to make sure we watched that to set up the, uh, the big WrestleMania three.
Marc:No, I just enjoyed, uh, cry baby Hogan going back to the locker room.
Marc:It just really, uh, filled my heart with, uh, with happiness.
Guest:Always pops you.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Uh, all right.
Guest:Well now we get to the big event itself, WrestleMania three from March 29th, 1987.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:the crowd is as advertised massive.
Guest:And one of the things I love about it is it started out in the daytime, which is exactly what's going to happen at this all in, in Wembley stadium.
Guest:We're going to get about maybe three hours of daylight.
Guest:And that is fantastic because it looks so great on camera.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, and I mean, I think Wembley Stadium is going to be even better looking because there's going to be an actual sky to look at and not just like a white balloon.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:You know, like I'm just so excited about that.
Marc:Also, like it's really important to note that the hard camera shot, it is just a sea of people.
Marc:There's no aisle breaking it up and it looks awesome.
Marc:amazing i i yeah it's one of the it's like a wider and farther shot than you're used to as a hard camera so you see so many more people in the shot and it's broad daylight so you can make out every single one of them yeah i just loved that i i wonder if it's like a new stadium thing where just there are aisles everywhere and you can't you know you know contain it probably for safety yeah i
Guest:Right.
Marc:I mean, yeah, like that Lincoln Center IMAX is like 50 rows, a 50 seat row with no aisle in the middle.
Marc:I'm guessing it's the same thing.
Marc:But yeah, it just looks great.
Marc:You keep saying that it's like 90,000 or so, or I'm sorry, 80,000.
Marc:Yeah, about 78,000.
Marc:Why do you keep saying that?
Marc:Because they make a real big to-do that it's 93,100 and something.
Marc:Oh, they sure do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It says it on the broadcast at one point.
Marc:Why did you say a different number?
Guest:Because they were liars.
Guest:What?
Guest:You can just lie about fucking... Yeah, they just made up... They have been doing this from time immemorial...
Guest:They always lie and make up the number of people there for that one at Dallas Stadium, which is like the legit record holder.
Guest:80,709 for like that people going to see a show not held at gunpoint.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Nothing to be ashamed of.
Guest:And that we know 80,709 are the number of people who went through the turnstiles.
Guest:At AT&T Stadium.
Guest:The police have verified that, right?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:They say that the number of people there was 101,763.
Guest:What?
Guest:And they are a publicly traded company.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So on their investor call, they were called out for this.
Guest:Why do you keep saying 101,763 when the police have verified the number of people went through the turnstile is 80,709?
Guest:Vince McMahon said, oh, well, that's part of the entertainment portion of the program.
Guest:What?
What?
Guest:Reality?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:He's saying that when they announce on the show, here's how many people are here.
Guest:That's just part of entertainment.
Guest:That's no different than saying Andre the Giant is seven foot four when he's not.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:yes it is what the fuck is wrong with them well but i mean like this who was going to call them out oh yeah it looks like there's 93 000 people there sure it did yeah i i believed it until this very moment i can't believe that they lied like it just seems so silly why do they lie it seems so crazy that these that this business built on lying about everything lied about a measly number all right fair enough
Marc:Fair enough.
Marc:But, I mean, it's still an impressive number.
Marc:The real number is super impressive.
Marc:Why bother?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It just seems like, ugh, I don't know.
Marc:That feels icky.
Marc:I can't believe they lied about that number.
Guest:Yeah, you and tons of WWF fans to this day who still hang to that 93,000.
Guest:Dave Meltzer calls them 93,000 truthers.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That's amazing.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Well, Aretha Franklin comes out and does America the Beautiful.
Marc:But before she gets there, I just want to point out that Vince is in the ring and he announces, welcomes everyone to WrestleMania 3.
Marc:And this is like one of the few times that we've seen him.
Marc:We've seen him one hour at a time interviewing Hulk Hogan.
Marc:But he introduces Aretha Franklin and he...
Marc:He is like the like the so angry that he's introducing Aretha Franklin.
Marc:Have you seen his face?
Marc:It's just like he has this sour like look on his face like Aretha Franklin.
Marc:It is disturbing.
Guest:I think that's.
Guest:just like this is like vince in full adrenaline testosterone mode i mean like he taught he has talked about in the few interviews that he ever gives about things he has talked about how like he in that moment standing in the ring before he like tossed to aretha franklin was like one of the most emotional moments of his life like he he it was the moment where he stood there and thought like i did it i did it and my dad should be proud like
Guest:this was what we always promised, like wrestling would get to this point.
Guest:And he had all this stuff going through his head.
Guest:And that's why he's out there introducing it because his role on the show at that point was an announcer.
Guest:And if you weren't hip to the backstage stuff in wrestling, which most people weren't, you didn't know he was the guy in charge.
Guest:And so it is a little weird that he's out there introducing it, but he kind of had to introduce it for himself.
Guest:Like he was like, I'm going to welcome everyone to WrestleMania three.
Guest:This is my baby.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And what was he doing during?
Marc:Like, was he in gorilla position?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He's right back there.
Guest:And there's many stories throughout the show of him, you know, needing to interact with the guys while he's back there.
Guest:Oh, OK.
Marc:Well, I love Aretha Franklin's, you know, rendition of America the Beautiful.
Marc:I love that they couldn't possibly put the piano in the ring, so they put it next to it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But during the performance, some of these America shots that they show...
Marc:I mean, it starts off great with, like, the Jefferson Monument, Washington Monument, a little kid with an American flag.
Marc:And then, like, we get, like, there's just, like, shots of traffic and, like, a generic city and then a crossing guard and then, like, a cement mixer and then, like, telephone operators and then, like, mailroom clerks.
Marc:I'm just like, what the fuck is America?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's everything.
Guest:They were like, oh, by the way, it's a three-hour show.
Guest:We're going to show all of America.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Apparently, America needs ditch diggers, too, son.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Like, just bizarre.
Marc:But, yeah, love Aretha Franklin.
Marc:Loved seeing her there.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, then the show itself kicks off proper.
Guest:And I mean, we can we can go through some of these earlier matches.
Guest:Did you have anything that stood out to you in any of these?
Guest:You had the Can-Am connection.
Guest:They're so forgettable is what I like.
Guest:Well, the interesting thing about that is they were going to be the next big thing.
Guest:Vince wanted them to beat the hearts.
Guest:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:why and then what wound up happening was like one guy tom zenk he left and uh he was replaced with tito santana and that team goes on to beat the hearts rick martell and tito santana but uh yeah vince was very high on the can-ams just as like a generic pretty boy team gotcha and that's why they get the win here they beat uh don morocco and uh cowboy bob orton
Marc:Yeah, that was fine.
Marc:Mr. Fuji, a lot of managers in this era of WWF.
Marc:It was actually kind of fun to see all these managers.
Marc:Also, it made me realize, I mean, these two guys, or four guys...
Marc:they don't have good like costumes they don't have anything they're just like like they're just there in like different colors tights it really it i kind of felt bad for them i just like they felt like an afterthought is what i well but you're still on the very early stages of guys getting those two kind of things i mean it was only three years before this where basically everyone wrestled in generic trunks and you know you did no entrance music about or anything like that but randy savage is there the you
Guest:Yeah, like he's one of the guys who kind of changes things, right?
Guest:And pushes them in the direction.
Guest:And Hogan, obviously, same thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Next one was Billy Jack Haynes versus, I'm sorry, Billy Jerk Haynes.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:Get it right.
Guest:Versus Hercules in the Battle of the Full Nelsons.
Marc:Yes, I loved this.
Marc:Was a Full Nelson your move growing up or was it just mine?
Marc:Like that was my go-to move.
Marc:I don't think it was my go-to.
Guest:I think it was the one I was put in the most.
Guest:Like anytime I was like wrestling with my brother or my dad, go, come over here.
Guest:I'll give you a hold.
Guest:I would go right in a full Nelson.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That's what I, I would do that to my brother.
Marc:Uh, I do that to my nephews all the time, full Nelson or the sharpshooter, whichever one I can get on, on them.
Marc:I'm a big submission hold, uh, wrestling, um, performer apparently.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or as I call those, rest holds.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Just take some bread.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Get some water.
Marc:Get whatever you need.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But this was fun.
Marc:I liked Hercules' promo where he says that thousands of years ago, I took these very chains and I beat up whoever.
Marc:I was just like, wow.
Marc:He's really leaning into this mythical creature, this Hercules, which was fun.
Guest:Yeah, I also love that a year before, at the previous WrestleMania, he was still going by his full name, Hercules Hernandez.
Guest:No.
Guest:Yes, at some point he went from Hispanic origins to Greek.
Guest:Now he's just Hercules, and literally his promo is about how he is Hercules.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He's a demigod, and yes, he's out there to...
Guest:Win on behalf of Mount Olympus.
Marc:So this is also the first fight that has these, the trolley cars or what would you call them?
Marc:These like carts.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Ring carts.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like bullpen cars except for wrestling.
Marc:And they do this because, I mean, the stadium is ginormous.
Marc:And luckily Ultimate Warrior isn't there because he would have been dead.
Marc:Totally blown up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it's like, I'd almost say like a quarter mile or I guess like, you know, 100 yards to the dressing room.
Marc:At least.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I guess just to make time so people aren't just bored and like people's music isn't really a thing.
Marc:Like, I don't even remember if Billy Jerk Haynes had a theme song.
Guest:He did not.
Guest:He did.
Guest:Neither of those guys did.
Guest:Actually, we've talked about two matches.
Marc:There's not a single theme song yet.
Marc:Yeah, crazy to me.
Marc:But yeah, these guys just kind of come out here in these carts and these ladies in purple.
Marc:What are they called?
Marc:The Federettes.
Marc:The Federettes.
Marc:Never to be seen again.
Marc:The Federettes.
Marc:But yeah, they're unbuckling the ropes on these carts.
Marc:Really, really fascinating choice, honestly.
Marc:But yeah, I really enjoyed that.
Marc:And, you know, Billy Jerk Haynes has a nice outfit.
Marc:He has a nice jacket that he takes off.
Marc:He's got the Undertaker's hat.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There are a lot of allusions to upcoming gimmicks in this card, for sure.
Marc:Oh, I'm intrigued.
Marc:You'll have to flag these for sure.
Marc:Well, I'm sorry.
Marc:There's a moment towards the end when they're both getting counted out, which is when the match ends.
Marc:But it's about at the 26-minute mark.
Marc:And Hercules has the jerk haze in the full Nelson.
Marc:And I'm pretty sure Hercules throws up on him because it's the darndest thing.
Marc:Hercules turns to the crowd and then turns back to the camera and just spit or something comes flying out of his mouth.
Marc:And then the match ends shortly thereafter.
Marc:It was wild.
Marc:Did you clock that or no?
Marc:I did not.
Marc:And I'm wondering if it's true.
Marc:You got to try to check it out.
Marc:26 minutes on the dot on Peacock.
Marc:It is bizarre.
Guest:Wait, you're saying you think it's Hercules who threw up?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I believe it was Hercules that threw up.
Guest:Because this guy says, I'm looking at this thing on a message page, and it says, did Billy Jack Haynes vomit on Hercules at WrestleMania 3?
Marc:Maybe I got him mixed up.
Marc:That's crazy.
Guest:It says...
Guest:Billy Jack Haynes has Hercules Hernandez in the full Nelson outside the ring.
Guest:He's shaking his head up and down as wrestlers do when they're trying to sell that they're wrenching a move.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:His head turns toward the audience for a few seconds and then he turns his head back facing the camera and spews over Herc's shoulder.
Yes.
Guest:really happens man is this a well-known piece of wrestling lore i've never heard about somebody else says i wonder about this as well couldn't tell if it was actual puke or just innocent wrestlemania frothing god that innocent wrestlemania frothing
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people here are in agreement with you.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Saying that he puked.
Marc:Yeah, he throws up on him, man.
Marc:And they end the match, like, very shortly after.
Marc:Well, I do think that that was the planned finish.
Guest:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:Oh, I'm sorry.
Marc:I got Hercules into a case.
Guest:He puked and then he had to gig because he gets back in the ring and gets hit with the chain.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Gives himself a blade job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he's, he's puking and bleeding.
Guest:I wonder if he shit himself.
Marc:Fantastic.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But yeah, I clocked that and I couldn't believe it.
Marc:I can't believe you didn't catch that.
Marc:Never.
Marc:I've watched WrestleMania 3 a thousand times.
Marc:Never saw him throw up.
Marc:26 minutes on the dot.
Marc:It happened.
Marc:It's crazy.
Guest:There might never be anything at all in that's as good as that.
Guest:Now somebody at all in is going to have to throw up just to match WrestleMania 3.
Marc:And shit himself, apparently.
Yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Can we talk about this third match?
Guest:Do we have to, though?
Guest:Oh, we absolutely have to.
Guest:Describe it.
Guest:So this match is King Kong Bundy, who main evented the last WrestleMania.
Guest:So this is pretty far down the card for him versus Hillbilly Jim.
Guest:And both guys have two partners.
Guest:So it's a six person tag team match.
Guest:The partners are little people.
Guest:I will not I'm not saying this as Brendan.
Guest:I am saying this is what WWF calls this match and the participants in it.
Guest:The midget match.
Guest:And they call these men midgets over and over and over again.
Guest:I do think it was like just the accepted thing at that time that that was the terminology.
Guest:I really feel like it wasn't until we got into the 90s that people stopped saying midget.
Marc:Fair.
Marc:Sure.
Yeah.
Guest:It's real carny shit in full.
Guest:That being said, yes, exactly.
Guest:This is like the most carny match you'll ever see.
Guest:But one of the reasons why we also have to talk about it is who was on commentary for this match?
No.
Guest:Because the commentary for the whole show has been Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura.
Guest:And they are, it's a great job by the both of them.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Gorilla keeps talking about the sea of humanity, which it totally is.
Guest:It's a perfect descriptor of what the crowd looks like.
Guest:Jesse is doing his heel shtick.
Guest:He's way into all the heels who are showing up.
Guest:But who shows up for this third match on the card?
Guest:Bob.
Guest:But Mr. Baseball himself.
Guest:Bob Euchre.
Guest:Oh, yay, yay.
Guest:Do you remember what Bob Euchre says in this match as they talk about one of the competitors, Little Beaver?
Guest:No.
Guest:What does he say?
Guest:Gorilla Monsoon asks him, what do you think of this guy, Little Beaver?
Guest:And Bob Euchre says, I think there's a lot of beaver all over this place.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Guest:And then there's dead silence for about five seconds.
Guest:And then Euchre goes, I mean, look at this guy.
Guest:He's over there.
Guest:He's over here.
Guest:Like trying to cover for the job.
Guest:I would pay extra money right now to know what face he got from Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura in that booth when he said that line.
Marc:I mean, they probably just were busting up.
Guest:That's what I would think, yeah.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Maybe he got a little headset action from Vince, too.
Guest:For sure.
Guest:But, yeah, so this match is basically like you went right to a very low-rent carnival on the boardwalk and saw...
Guest:All the typical things from a circus show.
Guest:But it does end in King Kong Bundy finally getting a hold of Little Beaver and essentially squashing him.
Guest:I mean, there's no other way to say it.
Guest:He squashes this poor man many times.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And and and that's the match.
Guest:They are disqualified.
Guest:All the other men turn on King Kong Bundy.
Guest:I guess they felt like what he did was a slight on all of them.
Guest:So he leaves by himself.
Guest:And and that's the end of this one.
Guest:Notable to me only because of how.
Marc:absolutely wrong it is well i mean you didn't even mention like how some of these people were dressed there was um a little person in a indian headdress that's little beaver yes and then there was a a black gentleman in like a tuxedo uh that basically like virgil kind of picks up the mantle for that it's basically virgil's outfit but but just a black t-shirt um
Guest:Yes, it's a shirt tuxedo.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah, that was the Haiti kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:He left out the other team, which is a Japanese gentleman named Little Tokyo.
Guest:And then his partner from England is Lord Littlebrook.
Oh.
Marc:We were really, really highbrow on this one.
Marc:And can I just say, I mean, and we say it all the time about like AEW, like, oh, their pay-per-views are amazing.
Marc:They're barely any bad, you know, matches or like just, you know.
Marc:Yeah, they're going to deliver the goods.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:This is great.
Marc:And it's the biggest wrestling event of the year, of the decade.
Marc:Why are you putting garbage out?
Marc:I don't understand it.
Guest:Well, also, like, it's not just, like, so this one is like a crazy circus match, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:has two veteran wrestlers in it, Harley Race and the Junkyard Dog.
Guest:And that match is terrible.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:First of all, it's like four minutes long, and they do generally nothing.
Guest:JYD is very over with the crowd, but also a guy you could beat and he could still be over.
Guest:He's kind of like Hacksaw Duggan in that way, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And and then you have Harley Race, who was being set up to be Hulk Hogan's challenger on the road after WrestleMania.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Like he was going to be.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The guy you'd go to house shows to see Hulk Hogan fight.
Guest:And so he wins and it's just nothing.
Guest:It's nothing going on, but I guess it's all leading up to this stipulation where, because he's the king, the loser is going to have to bow at his feet.
Guest:And they do that, and the dog is just a sore loser and doesn't do it.
Marc:Well, I mean, you know, Harley wins by, you know, by, you know, cheating.
Marc:So, junkyard dog.
Guest:I guess kind of cheating.
Guest:It's just that, like, Bobby Heenan was, like, running around and the dog was stupid and, like, was paying attention to Bobby Heenan and then turned around and got suplexed by Harley Race, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So...
Guest:Like, I guess that's cheating, but it's also, hey, dummy, pay attention to the match.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then he doesn't pay attention to the match.
Guest:And the stipulation was you have to bow and kiss the feet of the winner.
Guest:And he gives a little curtsy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then when Harley Race turns his back on him, Junker Dog hits him with a chair.
Guest:Like, this is like the Hulk Hogan school of being a baby face.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Like, it's justified if you do it, but not if it happens to you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the crowd loves it, by the way.
Marc:Crowd is eating it up.
Marc:This is why they did that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, the crowd is hot.
Guest:It's a good crowd, you know.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:It's like you couldn't ask for a better group of 78,000 people or whatever.
Guest:They're so happy to be there.
Guest:The next match is another kind of nothing happening match with the Rougeos and Brutus Beefcake and Greg the Hammer Valentine.
Guest:But this is notable because it's the first time you get an angle in the show.
Guest:At the end of the match, they cheat to win.
Guest:Brutus doesn't like that.
Guest:So his partner and the guy outside the ring with him, Dino Bravo, they abandon Brutus.
Guest:And that's going to become important in the very next match.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And so at this point, I'm guessing that Brutus Beefcake is not Brutus the barber Beefcake, right?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:The barber thing happened because on an angle on TV, Adrian Adonis was trying to cut the hair of an opponent and he slipped and cut Beefcake's hair.
Guest:So Beefcake was very pissed off that he got his hair cut.
Guest:So that was like the start of his baby face turn, right?
Marc:Oh, no kidding.
Marc:I thought it was the next movie.
Marc:match was the start of his baby face turn.
Guest:Well, that was setting the seeds for him.
Guest:Planting the seeds for him.
Guest:Gotcha.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So because Roddy Piper and Adrian Adonis are going to have this haircut match,
Guest:they did this angle where Adrian Adonis was trying to cut people's hair and he accidentally cut Brutus's hair, like as Brutus was holding on to a guy, right?
Guest:Then the guy pulls and Brutus gets his hair snipped.
Guest:So now he's pissed off, right?
Guest:But leading up to this match,
Guest:which is billed as a haircut match, but also win, lose, or draw, Roddy Piper is going to retire.
Marc:Why is that?
Marc:Because, I mean, spoiler alert, he doesn't retire.
Marc:He's in wrestling for, like, until the 90s or even the aughts.
Guest:Yes, well, this was when he left to go make They Live, and he believed that this was going to be the start of his movie career.
Guest:Unfortunately, it was not, and yes, he was back two years later.
Guest:Wow, okay.
Guest:OK, so that's why I was wondering that doesn't diminish the drama of the match, which is amazing.
Guest:This was the feud that turned Roddy Piper into a baby face.
Guest:Initially, he he's fighting Adrian Adonis.
Guest:He is the most over guy on the show so far by a lot.
Guest:The crowd is just freaking out over this guy and he comes walking out to the ring.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Why did he come walking out?
Guest:So the story about that is, and he's, you know, Roddy Piper was a crazy guy, probably volatile dude, but he said he's, he's sitting backstage there and the little cart is not working and they're like ready to go and it's not moving.
Guest:And some guy is doing something to it.
Guest:And, uh, he starts unbuckling those ring things, those rope things that are keeping you in the cart.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Roddy Piper starts taking the ropes down so that he can just leave.
Guest:And Vince, sitting there at Gorilla, starts yelling at him like, no, take the cart.
Guest:Just stay there.
Guest:Let him finish.
Guest:He'll fix it.
Guest:And Roddy Piper goes, well, fire me because this is the last match.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:And leaves the cart and decides he's just going to walk out to the ring.
Guest:And it's the right move because it's so much cooler to have him walking out to the crowd.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it played great.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:And by the way, I never liked Piper.
Marc:He had a promo, I think it was for WrestleMania I, with Mr. T, and he was feeding a banana to a picture of Mr. T. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Real bad.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I could never get... I honestly, even as a kid, just never got over that.
Marc:I was just like, nah, that guy's not for me.
Marc:That guy would never be my guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Just couldn't get over it.
Marc:But he wins.
Marc:And how does Brutus Beefcake come back into the ring so fast?
Marc:Was he like...
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:Yeah, he must have been because there's no way he ran down to the ring.
Guest:Like he must have like stuck around or he was like in like the second row of the crowd.
Guest:I don't know because he is there so fast.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He helps Roddy Piper win.
Guest:And this is his revenge on Adonis for cutting his hair.
Guest:And then Piper lets Beefcake cut Adonis's hair.
Guest:And this thus is the start of Brutus the Barber Beefcake.
Marc:And there you go.
Marc:That's the other origin story for this WrestleMania is Brutus the Barber Beefcake is born here.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He does not do a good job cutting this guy's hair.
Guest:Like, I would have made that guy bald as a cue ball.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, he was using, what's it called?
Marc:The buzzer.
Guest:The clippers.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:the buzzer just not good at all so then he jammed it jammed up yeah and it was just you got it was an amateur move yes because he tried to this guy has longish hair it's like a mane of hair right cut it first gotta cut it first especially it's like dyed with bleach and so there's like there's the black roots are in there like you gotta just grab a grab a hunk snip
Guest:And then you turn those buzzers on.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:But in any event, it sends the crowd into a frenzy right at the intermission of the show.
Guest:You know, the version that you're watching there, did they show a guy jump in the ring?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Was that a fan?
Guest:What was that?
Guest:Yeah, just some dude just got in the ring.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they had to tackle him.
Guest:It was like a it's like a guy running onto the outfield.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like Hank Aaron.
Marc:Like Hank Aaron hit the home run.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Hank Aaron is like, I think these people are coming to try to kill me because I just broke Babe Ruth's record.
Guest:And they're like trying to hug him.
Guest:It was the same thing with this.
Guest:This guy like jumps on Roddy Piper's back.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I was like, does he know him?
Marc:If not, that guy might get decapitated.
Marc:oh well the reason i asked you if you saw it was because the version that i've had since childhood was a vhs tape and it's cut out like they do not yeah they do not include that guy jumping on me i know it's on the peacock version that i watched oh how interesting so even because mlb does that right guy a streaker comes on and they they never show him so that's interesting that i i saw the actual guy that to interrupt it crazy yes
Guest:Well, and this does take us to intermission.
Guest:And I think what that means is this will take us to next week's show where we will cover the second half of WrestleMania three.
Guest:We also will do something that I teased out a little while ago, which was that Chris very prominently said he had one good story that he wanted to share on a show like the moth or this American life and
Guest:And I said, no, you're going to share it on this show.
Guest:And this is the perfect time because now we're going to tape something.
Guest:We're going to put something on tape that's not going to air for another week.
Guest:And we don't have current stuff to put in there.
Guest:So instead of having current material or answering your questions, we will have Chris reveal his big story.
Guest:It's your big moment, buddy.
Guest:I hope you're ready for the blinding lights of the stage.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Awesome.
Guest:Did you have anything that was the best thing you saw in wrestling this week before we go?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:It was honestly a 20-minute chunk of AEW Dynamite where they did a whole bunch of all-in work.
Marc:There was, and you know what?
Marc:I'm going to narrow it down.
Marc:It was Eddie Kingston coming back.
Marc:And and just demolishing Claudio.
Marc:That was my favorite thing that I saw this.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And then it sets up a stadium stampede match.
Marc:OK, I've never seen a stadium stampede match.
Marc:I don't know what because it happened during the pandemic.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:So I think they're going to basically just do the anarchy in the arena, but in a stadium.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because they're not going to do it without the fans.
Guest:The stadium stampede was like horses.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Empty stadium.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And yes, there are horses and they they used everything in the football stadium.
Guest:And it's it's amazing.
Guest:But it was a it was a pre-taped thing.
Guest:Like they did it over the course of several hours so that they could get it right and whatnot.
Guest:And and yeah, it was like a pre-produced thing.
Guest:Gotcha.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So I think this is just going to be during the live show with six guys running around the entire stadium with everybody in it, just like they do with that anarchy in the arena.
Guest:It's going to be great.
Guest:Can't wait.
Guest:It is.
Guest:By the way, Eddie is fantastic.
Guest:I'm loving him.
Marc:Loving him.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:The man who thinks wrestling is real.
Marc:That's his gimmick.
Yes.
Guest:My best thing in wrestling, which was appropriate for this week, was the final build.
Guest:Well, I wouldn't say final because there is a show next week.
Guest:But the main build for MJF and Adam Cole, which included them doing, you know, the comedy skits they've been doing.
Guest:And then, you know, some in-ring stuff where they talk about the double clotheslines and now adding a kangaroo kick into that.
Guest:But...
Guest:Then they also both cut serious promos on why they each have to win this match.
Guest:And it was as good as Vince doing the story of Andre the Giant.
Guest:And I thought, man, it is so appropriate that we are talking about both of these things at the same time because this is how you have to build a main event in front of 80,000 people.
Guest:You have to sell it like it's the most important possible thing.
Guest:And I will say, Adam Cole used the same line that Stone Cold Steve Austin used when they built to another stadium match against The Rock at WrestleMania 17.
Guest:And he said, I need to win this more than you'll ever know.
Guest:which is what Steve Austin said to The Rock and then wound up turning heel on The Rock in that match.
Guest:So I don't think that was accidental.
Guest:I think all of this is done to drop little hints.
Guest:I do not think he's going to turn in the match, but that's just my belief right now.
Marc:We'll see.
Marc:They're doing a great job.
Marc:A great job.
Marc:The pre-produced videos are fantastic every time.
Marc:But just these guys being able to do these monologues just in front of a live crowd is fucking awesome.
Marc:I honestly don't think people give wrestlers credit.
Marc:They are athletes and they are fucking reciting monologues every week.
Marc:It's unbelievable.
Marc:Un-fucking-believable.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and it's not like a script you had to memorize.
Marc:These are improvs, essentially.
Marc:Yeah, just fucking love it.
Guest:All right, well, that'll do it for this week.
Guest:If you have anything you want to add, send us something in the comments there.
Guest:Just scroll to the episode description and click the link.
Guest:You can send us anything about WrestleMania, about All In, about anything we talked about on today's show, and we will bring you the second half of WrestleMania next week, which includes Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan and...
Guest:Ricky the Dragon Steamboat versus Macho Man Randy Savage in One for the Ages.
Guest:Until then, I'm Brendan, and that's Chris.
Guest:Peace!