BONUS The Friday Show - Mark James and the Curious Case of Sputnik Monroe
Guest:He would go down to all these bars and he'd just go in handing out tickets and he'd go there every week.
Guest:Hey, guys, hey, you know, give him a beer and he'd be drinking with the black people.
Guest:No big deal.
Guest:Well, the police didn't like that.
Guest:They started arresting him at these bars and charging him with disorderly conduct for drinking at an all black bar.
Guest:I mean, it's crazy today to think about, but he did it anyways.
Marc:Chris, how you doing?
Marc:Vernon Oppenheimer can't swim.
Marc:Wait, what do you mean?
Marc:Killian Murphy admitted to Mark that he lives on a fucking island, right?
Marc:And he can't swim.
Marc:He just threw it out there.
Marc:Yeah, I don't swim.
Marc:How is that possible?
Marc:Well, a lot of people can't swim.
Marc:But you're living in Ireland.
Marc:It's surrounded by the sea, man.
Guest:I guess, but I don't know.
Guest:Have you been to Ireland?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:It's on my list.
Guest:There's not a lot of jumping in the water there.
Guest:No?
Guest:No, the seas, you go out in a fishing vessel or something, but they're like rough seas.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, somebody from Ireland is going to write into us and say, both of you idiots don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
Guest:But I think that it's not crazy.
Guest:You wouldn't learn how to swim in Ireland.
Guest:It's also cold.
Marc:That water is cold.
Marc:But, I mean, I've seen banshees in a sheer end.
Marc:Like, there's a beach there.
Marc:There's a dock.
Marc:Your guy dies in the water.
Marc:Is that what you're talking about?
Guest:no maybe that's why he didn't learn to swim killian he's like i don't know see all these dead people floating in lakes around here oh i couldn't believe that uh yes well that was uh this past week on uh on wtf that was with killian murphy on monday's show in case you're new here uh to the full marin which i know a lot of people are we just recently passed our first year of existence in the
Guest:There were some ACAST promos that went up and we released our first year compilation episode.
Guest:So suddenly we got a new influx of subscribers.
Guest:And so some of you might not know what we're doing here on the Friday show.
Guest:And if I can explain it very briefly,
Guest:This was something born out of necessity because, uh, earlier in this year, in January and February, Mark and I did a series for the full Marin called wrestling with Mark.
Guest:And the idea was just to kind of immerse Mark in some subculture that he wasn't familiar with and, uh, see what it was like.
Guest:And we did that with pro wrestling, took him to wrestling shows.
Guest:He interviewed a bunch of different wrestlers from AEW.
Guest:And, uh, I talked with him about my knowledge of wrestling and, um,
Guest:It's still, even with this new influx of subscribers we've had and the steady growth we've had over a year, there has been no spike in our subscriptions that has been greater than when we did the Wrestling With Mark series.
Guest:So we did that series and we very much wanted to hold on
Guest:to the new audience that decided to shell out their hard-earned money to subscribe to the Full Marin.
Guest:And now, once a week, we bring you this show, The Friday Show, which will have some wrestling talk, but also because we've got plenty of other Full Marin listeners who are not wrestling fans, we do some talk about WTF, we do some talk about movies, just general things that are in pop culture and in our lives.
Guest:This is just a weekly hangout show with me,
Guest:Brendan, the producer of WTF, and I'm looking right now at my Zoom, and I'm seeing Chris Lopresto, who used to work with Mark and I at Air America Radio, and now we come on here every Friday and just screw around, have a hangout, talk about WTF, talk about sports, talk about movies, talk about wrestling.
Guest:That's why you're here.
Guest:So thank you.
Guest:Thank you for being here.
Marc:Would you say that's a decent summary, Chris?
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:Boy, born out of necessity.
Marc:That's definitely something you wouldn't say about me.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:But yeah, and man, thank God the topic of wrestling is what popped your subscribers.
Marc:Imagine if it was like the Marvel movies and you had to like give a shit about secret invasion.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You know, the funny thing is, though, I wonder if that would happen, because I think Marvel fans, like wrestling fans, can smell a fraud, right?
Guest:And, you know, I don't care enough about the Marvel movies to really be into it.
Guest:And I think, you know, what probably happened with that wrestling series is that...
Guest:people who listened to it were like, oh, this is for real.
Guest:Like, this is a thing presenting wrestling in a way that I, as a wrestling fan, appreciated.
Guest:And, I mean, we get plenty of your comments all the time saying that you appreciate the show for that very reason.
Guest:And I thank you for that.
Guest:If you'd like to leave a comment or send in a question or a future show topic idea,
Guest:We have a link in the episode description.
Guest:You can just click on that and do that right there.
Guest:And one of the things that we know that people like to hear about, whether you're a wrestling fan or a non-wrestling fan or just a WTF Marc Maron fan, you like to hear about things on the show.
Guest:And the one thing I wanted to talk about from the show more than anything this week was Marc's story about
Guest:meeting Christopher Nolan on an airplane and not knowing who he was because I cannot think of a greater Mark Maron story.
Guest:Like, you know, there, there are, there are funnier ones.
Guest:There are ones that will like probably tell people, you know, for the rest of my days, Mark Maron stories, but that is kind of the most summative Mark Maron story.
Guest:that there is mark baron on a plane kind of noticing that there's a person from movies killian murphy talking to him he exchanges words with him and in the meantime is thinking who is this other guy who keeps butting in who is this guy complimenting my boots this hanger on to killian murphy
Marc:Just happens to be Christopher Nolan, who has made, I don't know, just blockbuster after blockbuster.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Also, like a guy who loves putting weird actors in movies like that could be that could be your guy, bro.
Guest:Like you, you could have been you could have been Harry Truman in Oppenheimer if you played your cards right, buddy.
Marc:Also, the fact that Chris Nolan was the one who recognized Mark.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And was like, hey, hey, man, Killian, that's Mark Merritt.
Marc:So it's so very Mark.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:I mean, usually that kind of thing happens like with someone you would expect him not to know.
Guest:And I'm like, oh no, that guy, like that guy's a musician or whatever.
Guest:But like Mark Maron hosts a show where he talks to actors.
Guest:He knows about movies.
Guest:This is a cultural show, right?
Guest:It's an arts and culture podcast.
Guest:Like I know we get listed in comedy, but it's even when we have comedians on, it's still like a lifestyle show.
Guest:Arts and culture is what I always say to people.
Guest:chris nolan is i don't know would you i would say he falls in the top 50 names of arts and culture in in the world like if you had to talk about like list 50 of the most prominent people you know like time magazine does that thing right like the time 100 or whatever and if you did that for like all of entertainment and and the arts and popular culture
Guest:Yeah, the guy who made the Batman trilogy with Christian Bale is one of them.
Guest:The guy who made Inception, he qualifies.
Marc:Also, I mean, I'm a visual thinker, and I'm just thinking back.
Marc:I'm visualizing them being on a plane and Mark being sort of starstruck by this Cillian Murphy, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then this other guy just interrupting and just being like, what?
Marc:What?
Guest:what do you want yeah these are the boots i got them here anyway here's what i bet here's the element that was left out of this story and i don't know that this is true but i guarantee it is what's that i bet you that mark said oh you're the guy from that movie to killian murphy or whatever and he probably introduced himself yeah killian hey yeah nice to meet you and then i bet another hand was outstretched that said hi i'm chris
Guest:I guarantee that happened.
Guest:And two and two did not equal four in that moment.
Guest:Also, I want to point out, lest you think that we're sitting here on this thing and making fun of Mark and that we're talking behind his back.
Guest:I want to make sure you're aware.
Guest:I said these exact things to Mark immediately after hearing this story.
Guest:I made so much fun of him right to his face.
Guest:And he loved it.
Guest:He, you know, Mark talks about this all the time that he like grew up doing that to his dad.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, and his dad would get such a kick out of it that like this guy was just, this kid was busting his balls and like, you know, making fun of him to his face.
Guest:And like, you can hear it in those phone calls that we've done with Mark.
Guest:dad like all through back at air america and on the early days of this podcast barry maron loves getting made fun of by mark maron and there is an element of that that that uh your dear friend mark maron also likes when someone he knows and respects makes fun of him he enjoys it it's a there's a there's a like the whole time i was making fun of him for that chris nolan thing and he was just laughing he's like yeah
Guest:I know, I'm so dumb.
Marc:They were going to film Oppenheimer.
Marc:He could have just been an extra in Oppenheimer.
Marc:Yeah, it's his hometown.
Marc:They're filming it in where he's from.
Marc:Just great.
Marc:Holy shit.
Guest:Yeah, really, really fun.
Guest:If you haven't listened to it, go back.
Guest:It's right toward the beginning of the talk, too.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Marc:It's one of the highlights.
Marc:But I will say another highlight for me, and it's honestly, it's what your show, you know, it's the special sauce of your show.
Marc:There comes a point where Mark just breaks through with a guest and
Marc:And it's just two people talking with no one else listening.
Marc:And this week with Murphy and Mark, it was talking about Black Mirror and how they get through the average day.
Marc:And man, that's the juice for me.
Guest:That's what I love about your show.
Guest:Mark has talked about it before that sometimes it's like it can take 45, 50 minutes, but then you just boom, you hit this spot.
Guest:Like it's like it's like you ever be like in like a little bit of like a traffic jam and you're like, oh, there must be an accident up ahead or everything's moving slow.
Guest:And then all of a sudden it just clears and you just drive like that's what it feels like when those things happen.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:And it's it's it's like being in the room.
Marc:It's like it's like eavesdropping on people talking.
Marc:It's it's just so cool.
Marc:And that was just really fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Same.
Guest:I said the same thing to Mark, too.
Guest:I said, well, that was really that was really a fun moment that you guys just all of a sudden are just two dudes talking about their day and what they cook and how they get through life.
Guest:Yeah, that was good.
Guest:And, you know, also then relevant to our show here on Fridays was the episode that went up yesterday with Mike Rowe.
Guest:This is not the Dirty Jobs Mike Rowe.
Guest:This is comedian Mike Rowe who went on to write for Futurama Family Guy, really became a writer.
Guest:And that was the gist of his whole entire interview was, you know, how he kind of left stand up behind and embraced being a writer.
Guest:But I don't know.
Guest:Did you get a chance to listen to that one yet, Chris?
Guest:He has an Andy Kaufman story.
Guest:He was friends with Andy Kaufman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like, he was one of the referees in the intergender matches.
Marc:I guess unbelievable.
Marc:And I mean, one of his few friends, like he confided in him.
Marc:That was an amazing story.
Guest:And I knew exactly that thing he was talking about.
Guest:He said that there used to be a bit where Andy would go on stage and talk about basically, you know, being destitute and, you know, he'd be unshaven and he needed money and the audience would be laughing and he'd be like, I don't know why you're laughing.
Guest:Like, this is serious.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, I really wish you'd take me seriously for just this one moment.
Guest:You know, I remember that.
Guest:And it's often used because he, you know, it was the it's the clip that would often get shown when there'd be like some Andy Kaufman retrospective.
Guest:And it would be like, yeah, this was why it was so hard for him to get convinced people that he was actually dying of cancer because he basically used to do these things.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And and so it was nice to have this story from Mike Rowe.
Guest:Where he basically presents the backstage part of that story of Andy being like, oh, man, they totally bought it.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Well, to be continued on on Andy Kaufman stuff, because it will come up later on in this episode.
Guest:And, you know, usually we talk a little bit about the stuff that's going on on WTF and, you know, in our in the world.
Guest:And then we move on to some wrestling talk.
Guest:And if people are not into the wrestling, I tell me, hey, you can feel free to bail right now.
Guest:But I kind of want to suggest if you even don't care one bit about pro wrestling, you might enjoy this conversation we had with a man named Mark James and.
Guest:And Mark James is a, I guess we could just call him a wrestling historian.
Guest:He has a website called memphiswrestlinghistory.com.
Guest:And he's basically spent his life chronicling wrestling from the Memphis territory, starting back in the 50s, all the way up through the days when that territory finally ended as a promotion, as a place that had its own wrestling ecosystem.
Guest:And why did we talk to Mark James?
Guest:Well, it was from one of your comments.
Guest:I don't have a name on this, but somebody sent this comment in several months ago.
Guest:And I was just kind of waiting for the right time to do it.
Guest:And actually, what wound up being the right time to do it was something that happened on AEW Wrestling a few weeks ago.
Guest:Chris and I talked about it on here.
Guest:It was both of our best things in wrestling that week.
Guest:When a wrestler named Anthony Bowens, who's part of a group called The Aclaimed, he is an openly gay wrestler, but it has never been brought up on the show.
Guest:And on the show, in the middle of a back and forth with one of the heels, he said, I'm gay.
Guest:And the whole crowd cheered and then started chanting, he's gay, he's gay, in a very encouraging way.
Guest:Everyone was enjoying it.
Guest:His partner was jumping up and down.
Guest:His manager was hugging him.
Guest:It was a great moment.
Guest:And Chris and I both thought, man, it's come a long way since the times when they were booing wrestlers for being gay.
Guest:And so that brought my mind back to this comment that got sent in from one of our listeners.
Guest:And it was encouraging us to do a show on Sputnik Monroe.
Guest:And this is what the comment says.
Guest:If you're unfamiliar, Sputnik was a white Memphis territory wrestler in the 50s whose popularity with black wrestling fans, thanks in large part to his frequent nights out drinking on Beale Street, ultimately gave him the kind of pull that enabled him to demand the promoter desegregate events.
Guest:It was among the very first sporting events in the South to do so, but doesn't always get credit since pro wrestling's distinction as a sport is a bit dubious.
Guest:All in all, it's an incredible story and a slice of history in Americana that more people ought to know about in general.
Guest:And I had heard that story of Sputnik Monroe.
Guest:I didn't know it in detail, but it's very interesting to get that email.
Guest:And to think about it in terms of today and the kind of evolution of pro wrestling and progress in pro wrestling.
Guest:But my alarm bells always go off with stuff about wrestling history and lore, because let's face it, it is a an entertainment form that is rooted in deception and.
Guest:and lying, and basically came out of con artistry.
Guest:And a lot of myth-making goes into this, both with the characters you see on screen and the stuff behind the scenes.
Guest:So I wanted to make sure I could really trust this story, and maybe if it's not exactly as the legend has it, we could find out something close to the truth.
Guest:So I reached out to Mark James.
Guest:As I mentioned, he's a historian on Memphis wrestling.
Guest:And he agreed to join us from down there in Memphis.
Guest:We got him on the Zoom here.
Guest:And this is me and Chris talking with Mark James.
Guest:And we learn a lot, a lot about Sputnik Monroe and wrestling in the South.
Guest:Mark James, how are you?
Guest:Doing great.
Guest:Now, wait, where exactly are you located?
Guest:Memphis, Tennessee.
Guest:You're still in Memphis.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Still in Memphis.
Guest:Moved to the outskirts.
Guest:There's not been any Memphis flight for you.
Guest:You're in the heart.
Guest:Yep, yep, yep.
Guest:Have been for decades.
Guest:Well, decades and long enough to write, I guess, in excess of, what, 30 books on Memphis and Territory Wrestling there?
Guest:Am I right about that number?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, actually over 40.
Guest:Over 40, oh my goodness.
Guest:Yeah, I've taken a couple off the shelves, but yeah, there's still over 40 out there.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, so then I guess the biggest question is, what is it about Memphis like as a wrestling territory that it's so rich in history and it always comes up like why Memphis at, you know, in the 20th century?
Guest:You know, 30, 40, 50 years ago and beyond, wrestling was everywhere in the United States.
Guest:A lot of areas had sports teams, baseball, football, basketball, all these things.
Guest:Memphis didn't.
Guest:They didn't have a pro team.
Guest:And so when I started watching, it was, I guess, 1972.
Guest:I was a little kid.
Guest:My grandparents watched, so I watched.
Guest:And it kind of draws you in.
Guest:I've always described wrestling, pro wrestling, whether it's territorial or national, whatever, as a sports, a male sports soap opera.
Guest:It's the stories behind the scenes stuff.
Guest:The payoff is always the matches, but the talking, the angles, the buildup to the match, that's just, that's just a guy's soap opera in basic lowest common denominator terms.
Guest:To me, that's what it always was and is.
Guest:And it, you know, guys, it's the fighting guys, love fighting guys, love guys, making fun of other guys.
Guest:And it's just, it's testosterone.
Guest:And it always, as far as Memphis, Memphis did it really, really, really well.
Guest:They were the last territorial system that lasted by the time in the late 90s when it was all national.
Guest:And all the others had fallen and were gone.
Guest:And the angles were done well.
Guest:Memphis had their, I guess, technique, if you want to call it, was to try to make it more real.
Guest:Real feelings, real anger at people, real, you know, if so-and-so screwed this guy over and this and that, it would be taken out of real life that, you know, if that happened to you, you'd get mad too.
Guest:You'd want to fight the guy.
Yeah.
Guest:And so it wasn't we had St.
Guest:Louis, which was more of a territory that just did.
Guest:They would bring this guy in from this part of the country, this guy in from another part and put it in as a technical wrestling match to see who would win.
Guest:Memphis never really did that.
Guest:It was always there's some reason these two guys are fighting.
Guest:So there's more of a narrative to Memphis.
Guest:Very much so.
Guest:Very much so.
Guest:Well, I would even say I remember when I was a kid and, you know, like you'd see a great example be Macho Man Randy Savage.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he would come like when he would first show up on the national stage at WWF.
Guest:And he was already he seemed like they presented him as a big star.
Guest:But his style was, I would even hear it referred to at the time as a Memphis style.
Guest:Oh, look at all these Memphis heel tactics that Macho Man is using.
Guest:And if you think, well, what differentiates that?
Guest:What was a Memphis heel tactic?
Guest:It's a lot of...
Guest:Going out of the ring, yelling at the crowd before he even does his first lockup.
Guest:It's a lot of, you know, hiding something or a foreign object in the trunks or the phantom foreign object is even feels like an even bigger Memphis creation.
Guest:Like I have something in my hand and I'm punching a guy with it and I'm putting it away and you probably never even had anything.
Guest:But.
Guest:all of these things, like as you're explaining what, what really Memphis means in the context of wrestling, I would also think it is such a, was such a breeding ground for what most modern wrestling fans think of as the wrestling heel.
Guest:The professional wrestling heel almost seems like, I know this is not accurate, but it feels like it's kind of born in Memphis.
Guest:Like obviously there were heels everywhere all around the country, but the, the, the style that people come to have come to love and identify as a heel is,
Guest:It really feels like that's what gets described when I hear Memphis wrestling being described.
Guest:Oh, absolutely.
Guest:You hit the nail on the head with it.
Guest:Memphis would have a heel that wasn't your basic heel, just like, rah, rah, I'm a bad guy.
Guest:They would have a charismatic bad guy.
Guest:Like Jerry Lawler, his first four, five, six, seven years as a wrestler, he was a heel.
Guest:And he was as hated as he was loved when he was a good guy.
Guest:And they had a great example, Randy Savage.
Guest:They had these super villain quality bad guys who just weren't bad guys.
Guest:Oh, that guy's going to get beaten a week.
Guest:No big deal.
Guest:My man, is this guy going to win this week?
Guest:Cause he's really good.
Guest:You know, he's a bad guy.
Guest:They were believable as heels, but their abilities were top notch.
Guest:And that was always the key in Memphis too.
Guest:You had these great, good guys who could just,
Guest:Go at it.
Guest:But then you had equal or maybe a little better bad guy.
Guest:And so the good guy was in a disadvantage.
Guest:And, you know, it really worked.
Guest:And, you know, it gets back to the psychology of it all.
Guest:That's how they and Jerry Jarrett was the booker from the late 60s until they sold it off in the late 90s.
Guest:And the way he always described it to me is psychology.
Guest:It doesn't matter when or where psychology always works.
Guest:And wrestling is nothing but using the Bible, good versus evil.
Guest:Well, and then speaking of that, speaking of the evil and the heel and that, one of the reasons I reached out to you is that we were going to talk about Sputnik Monroe.
Guest:It was a listener request that we get into this.
Guest:His story is pretty fascinating, but I admit to plenty of blind spots about this.
Guest:I wanted to talk to somebody who knows the real details of the story.
Guest:But as far as I know, like he was, you know, his
Guest:he was known as a heel in the territory, you know, before there was involvement of, you know, his, his relationship with black audiences, with his tag team partner, who is African-American.
Guest:It was just, this guy was a charismatic, as you're describing the type of personality that lent itself to Memphis wrestling and in particular being a heel.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:It was the late 1950s when he was here in Memphis, started coming to Memphis and,
Guest:And he, goodness, Sputnik was a natural heel.
Guest:He was always the guy that would smart off.
Guest:You're in a bar with some people.
Guest:He'd be the guy that smarted off the people.
Guest:He just was that way.
Guest:And it got him over with fans, good and bad.
Guest:Just so charismatic that you couldn't help but like the guy.
Guest:And he just exuded charisma.
Guest:And he loved being the bad guy.
Guest:He was very good at it.
Guest:The big baby face good guy in Memphis in the late 50s was a guy named Billy Wicks.
Guest:And they would do polls in the local newspapers back in the 50s.
Guest:And Billy would be right up there with Elvis Presley and favorite Miffians.
Guest:That's how popular.
Guest:He was a blonde haired guy, good looking guy.
Guest:All-American guy.
Guest:And here you got Sputton.
Guest:It's got the white flare through the hair, bleached blonde with the black hair, proverbial mohawk.
Guest:And he would just bad mouth everybody.
Guest:But it started when I guess it was around 59, 1960.
Guest:They were getting good ticket sales at the arena in Memphis was Ellis Auditorium downtown.
Guest:And it holds around 5,000 to 6,000 people.
Guest:And Wicks and Sputnik had a big, giant match, a big feud, biggest feud ever in Memphis.
Guest:And there was a baseball field, and they had 16,000 people bought tickets.
Guest:Well, 13,000 bought tickets.
Guest:They sold out.
Guest:the fans righted toward the fence of the ball field down and came on the field for the match.
Guest:And there was 16 to 17,000 people estimated there.
Guest:And after that feud, it ended.
Guest:Sputnik was still around and the promotion of,
Guest:wanted to be able to sell more tickets.
Guest:That's where all of this started.
Guest:So they talked to Sputnik, who was the bad guy and did frequent all the African-American bars on Beale Street, which is a kind of famous music where the blues started in Memphis in the 1920s.
Guest:He would go down to all these bars.
Guest:There was 20 bars on Beale Street.
Guest:And he'd just go in handing out tickets.
Guest:Whoever wants to take it.
Guest:Hey, come on down.
Guest:Come on down to Ellis.
Guest:Come see me.
Guest:I'd love for you guys to be there.
Guest:And here's a guy giving away free tickets to wrestling.
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:And he'd go there every week.
Guest:Hey, guys.
Guest:Hey, just, you know, give him a beer and he'd be drinking with the black people.
Guest:No big deal.
Guest:Well, the police didn't like that.
Guest:They started arresting him at these bars and charging him with disorderly conduct for drinking at an all black bar.
Guest:Jeez.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's crazy today to think about, but he did it anyways.
Yeah.
Guest:And he kept doing it.
Guest:He would just go, he'd go get out of prison or get out of the lockup because they'd hold him till court.
Guest:The next day he'd go to court, pay the $25 fine, go back and go celebrate in that same bar right out of jail and go buy another or get another beer.
Guest:And it really endeared him to the African-Americans.
Guest:They really, there's a joke in the 1960s, a hundred mile radius of Memphis.
Guest:There's three people's photos on the wall.
Guest:One is Jesus.
Guest:One is Martin Luther King.
Guest:And the other is Sputnam Conroe.
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:That's how much.
Guest:And he endeared himself to him.
Guest:Now, had he already been like that Billy Wicks match that I guess.
Guest:Is that the one the one that you're talking about at the stadium?
Guest:Is that the one that they had said at the time, like broke all attendance records?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's the one.
Guest:And that's it broke those records literally because they sold.
Guest:They had more people there beyond the capacity of the place to hold.
Guest:Would that be what it was?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The biggest they could hold at the auditorium was around 6,000 people, and that's pushing it.
Guest:And so they had 13,000 tickets sold at the ball field.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then on top of that, three, four thousand extra that broke in didn't pay.
Guest:But still, the 13,000 took it over the top.
Guest:And so he was already Sputnik at this time.
Guest:Is that correct?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He was always Sputnik when he came to Memphis.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's interesting.
Guest:And let me know if this is like, you know, a lot of stuff with wrestling is like myth making and folklore.
Guest:But from what I've seen, he was named Sputnik or he took the name Sputnik because some fan called him that like as a pejorative, almost like trying to use it as a synonym for communist or or.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:you know, a pinko.
Guest:And, and I don't know if this is Zachary, maybe you, you can tell me, but that it was because he was hanging around with African Americans.
Guest:Is that true?
Guest:He did hang out with them.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I think it was more, he, he'll look for anything to upset the fans.
Guest:And it was something easy.
Guest:You know, he could get more people to the matches.
Guest:If he was hanging out with blacks, they're buying tickets.
Guest:That means he gets bigger payday.
Guest:The territory, the promoters are happy because there's more people buying tickets.
Guest:That's why they started in Memphis saying, look, we want, there was a derogatory, not a derogatory, but just an unflattering term.
Guest:In the Ellis Auditorium, the very, there was two stories and like the top three set rows of seats was called the crow's nest.
Guest:And that was the only tickets available.
Guest:blacks could buy three rows around the top of it.
Guest:And that's when he started his look, black people are my people.
Guest:They love me.
Guest:I love them.
Guest:I want them to buy tickets.
Guest:I want them to as many as I want sit wherever they want.
Guest:You know, as much as they ask him to do it, he loved doing it because he was upsetting people.
Guest:And every week people would come to the matches by the whites would come buying more tickets to see him get beat up.
Hmm.
Guest:And he was revolutionary because of that.
Guest:Well, and that's the interesting thing is that, you know, I think a lot of people hear this story and, you know, everybody wants their sport to have, you know, signature moments or individuals, especially when it comes to progress.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You know, we had this person and broke this line down and this this person, you know, finally allowed the us to move into, you know, this territory where we never were before.
Guest:And here's the thing where people I think, you know, wrestling has a really.
Guest:sordid history of, you know, using stereotypes and encouraging, you know, people to kind of act on base impulses of anger and that.
Guest:And there's this desire to say, OK, but there were times where good things happened, right?
Guest:Some progress was made.
Guest:And I always kind of in the periphery have heard this story of Sputnik Monroe used as a moment like that.
Guest:Similarly with Bill Watts,
Guest:the promoter who used the Junkyard Dog as a mainstay of his promotion in the Mid-South.
Guest:And it was like, oh, well, this is, people call it colorblind booking.
Guest:He wanted to, you know, he had an African-American who could put at the top of the card.
Guest:But all of these things, and I'm hearing you talk about Sputnik here, it's like, this was business.
Guest:These guys knew where the money could be made.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:White, black, Indian...
Guest:Asian, whatever, they all spend green money and that's all they cared about.
Guest:That was the only color.
Guest:It was green.
Guest:And because of that, they, they weren't biased.
Guest:They just, you know, we want everyone.
Guest:And that was, you know, and in essence, whether motives pure, no, but you know, in a way they were because they wanted everyone there.
Guest:They were not looking to exclude.
Guest:Well, it's interesting, too, because I bet you that that was not the case, say, with like, you know, televised concerts or something.
Guest:They didn't want their audiences to look...
Guest:They didn't you know, they wanted to be showing something with, you know, on the TV with a lot of white people.
Guest:And that was good for, you know, selling across the nation.
Guest:But wrestling, you know, it was it's kind of a sport of the people.
Guest:And it makes sense to say, hey, we're you know, we sell as many tickets as we can.
Guest:We just want the building full.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:And that's it.
Guest:You know, they pay the same price to rent the building.
Guest:If they can find a way to put more butts in the seats, as they say, they were doing it.
Guest:And it worked.
Guest:It helped everybody.
Guest:And it furthered the civil rights cause.
Guest:Well, now, that's interesting.
Guest:What would you say was, like, so Sputnik Monroe seems to have this legacy, especially amongst newer or younger fans.
Guest:They hear this story.
Guest:They go, oh, that's a guy who helped desegregate the Southern arenas.
Guest:And that...
Guest:How do you think that carried, you know, in real time?
Guest:Did people think of him that way in the 60s, 70s?
Guest:Like, did he have that legacy as he moved along in his career and ended his career?
Guest:I don't think whites recognize that.
Guest:I think they look at him as he was the bad guy.
Guest:He all that guy.
Guest:He started this.
Guest:And, you know, I mean, when I was a little kid growing up in the area, you know, I was in one of the first classes with
Guest:white students, black students together in the early seventies.
Guest:And it was, you know, in this area, it was later than most of the other areas in the country.
Guest:And it was normal to less.
Guest:We were used to that.
Guest:Like I said, that's 1972, 73 ish.
Guest:But, you know, Memphis didn't allow in Memphis, a black man could fight another black man.
Guest:He could fight an Indian.
Guest:He could fight Japanese wrestlers.
Guest:he could not fight a white man.
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:Cause they were probably worried about the, the, the reaction I would guess.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now all those guys that the black man could fight were allowed to fight white men.
Guest:So they were, you know, they, Oh, you know, German, that's fine.
Uh,
Guest:A guy from Japan, that's fine.
Guest:Whatever.
Guest:Oh, no, no, we can't have blacks and whites mixing.
Guest:That's wrong.
Guest:Well, I mean, that's more of the promoter, right?
Guest:No, no, that was the city.
Guest:You got to realize back in those days, the territorial systems like Memphis, Memphis had backers, meaning high-sitting people.
Guest:High sitting politicians who helped protect sort of the promotion.
Guest:A great example of this is when Martin Luther King was assassinated in April 68 in Memphis.
Guest:The city shut down for 10 days, two weeks.
Guest:The first live event that happened was Memphis wrestling on a Monday night, two weeks after that.
Guest:And they only decided that because they got all those guys together.
Guest:This was told to me by Jerry Jared, who was the promoter of Memphis and ran Memphis.
Guest:There were several, like half a dozen to a dozen businessmen, and they all got together and said, all right, let's go ahead and have the wrestling matches.
Guest:Let's try to get some semblance of order back.
Guest:So these guys didn't want that.
Guest:And Memphis did not have, I guess it was Sailor Art Thomas was in a tag team match, forget with who, but in 1966, he had the first
Guest:Black on white match in Memphis history.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Who won that?
Guest:I believe him.
Guest:And they put him with, I can't remember who it was, but he had a very popular tag team with him.
Guest:White tag team.
Guest:And they put him with those guys.
Guest:He had like the week before, I believe he had been it.
Guest:He was the special referee in the match between the two tag teams.
Guest:So that kind of got them used to seeing that.
Guest:And the next week they did him in the six man match and they won.
Guest:But that was the beginning of it.
Guest:After that, it was it was all OK.
Guest:Everything, you know, who could whoever won to fight, whoever could happen.
Guest:And how did how did Sputnik's life end up?
Guest:I mean, did he just continue to draw in the territory or did he have to go elsewhere?
Guest:And, you know, ultimately, what was what was his life like?
Guest:Uh, he lived the life of a professional wrestler in the 1960s.
Guest:Uh, he just went from territory to territory.
Guest:He was here for a couple of years and he would come back.
Guest:You mentioned when he tagged him with Norvell Austin and Norvell had the black Afro.
Guest:And what he did was he left it black down the center and did white on the outside.
Guest:So it was like reverse of Sputnik.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they were tagged him in Memphis around 1970, I want to guess.
Guest:And he would always do the same deal, even though it was okay to be together now, you know, in the match.
Guest:As soon as they'd come up to the ring, they'd get in the ring and he'd pull over and he'd kiss them on the cheek and the fans would just lose their mind.
Guest:But wrestling always plays on prejudices.
Guest:You know, we talked about earlier about, you know, after World War II, there was Japanese wrestlers who were bad guys.
Guest:There was German wrestlers who were bad guys.
Guest:Started around 1970, you had like guys from Vietnam in that area coming over as bad guys.
Yeah.
Guest:Whatever world, 1980, that's when all the Iranian wrestlers, you know, Iron Sheik is a great example.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He's the bad guy.
Guest:Who was originally billed from being from Saudi Arabia.
Guest:And then once the hostage crisis happened, he's from Tehran.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:He's the Iron Sheik.
Guest:And that's the deal.
Guest:It's, you know, whatever's going on in the world, wherever the bad guys are, well, we're going to make them wrestlers and they're going to be the bad guys.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's interesting.
Guest:Do you think then because Sputnik, you know, he knew his business, he knew what life was like as a professional wrestler.
Guest:Did he ever like acknowledge some idea around him being a person who, you know, helped usher in progress in terms of civil rights, in terms of, you know, desegregating the arenas?
Guest:Or did he just, you know, what was his take on it?
Guest:There's a really good documentary on Memphis wrestling.
Guest:A guy named Sherman Wilmot put it out about 10 years ago.
Guest:It's called Memphis Heat.
Guest:And they have actually got like the last interview Sputnik did.
Guest:And he does acknowledge it in it.
Guest:And he should.
Guest:I mean, he did help.
Guest:I mean, no one else was doing it.
Guest:And he was.
Guest:So whether he was picked to do it or wanted to do it, I believe both.
Guest:And he welcomed it, I believe.
Guest:To help break that barrier.
Guest:And how did Sputnik get along with the people in the locker room?
Guest:They liked him.
Guest:The people I've talked to about it from the 70s when he was getting near the end of his career.
Guest:And he was brought back in late 70s, early 80s as a little manager for a year or two.
Guest:And they always enjoyed him.
Guest:They always enjoyed being around him.
Guest:He was just one of those old guys with amazing stories because he had seen it all.
Guest:He'd been all over the world.
Guest:He wrestled in Japan.
Guest:He wrestled all throughout the U.S.
Guest:He traveled everywhere.
Guest:And did Sputnik ever turn babyface?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Him and Norvell actually turned babyface for a while after they came in his heels.
Guest:And everybody loved him.
Guest:Yeah, they were over.
Guest:Very over.
Guest:Because Norvell was like a 20-year-old kid.
Guest:He was a young guy.
Guest:And, you know, gets thrown in this role.
Guest:It's like, sure, I'll do it.
Guest:And they did it.
Guest:And they were very popular.
Guest:And, you know, but by then, like I said, he was...
Guest:He'd go somewhere, stay a couple of months and go to the next territory.
Guest:And I know he wrestled with a lot in Texas and, uh, in the South and Alabama and Georgia and those places in Florida.
Guest:So, uh, he, he mostly stuck around the Southern States, but, uh, you know, just territory to territory.
Guest:Did you ever see them in action?
Guest:I saw him as a manager once around 1980 and, uh, he was older and I think he had bad hips by then.
Guest:And you saw those bump and those guys did, uh, tore him up.
Guest:So he was using the cane by then, but, uh,
Guest:No, he was he would still yell at the fans and just give them heck, you know.
Guest:Well, Mark, it's interesting.
Guest:We were talking last week on the show about dirt sheets and where they came from and, you know, kind of how Dave Meltzer and the Wrestling Observer have kind of garnered a preeminent position in the world of wrestling, not just journalism, but history and coverage and history.
Guest:Looking at what you've done, and not what you say, it's 40 books now, and you can see on your website, which is memphiswrestlinghistory.com, all the things you've written about, what strikes me is that you've been doing basically the type of thing that Dave Meltzer has been doing, but very specific for Memphis.
Guest:You've got
Guest:all this like these this record keeping like it's almost a complete database of like the memphis territory and i guess i wonder based on having your head so full of it with that is there a is there a particular time or genre of memphis that stands out to you as your favorite yeah i would say the uh
Guest:I would say the golden age, the golden era would probably be around 1974 through about 85.
Guest:Why is that?
Guest:Uh, that was, uh, Lawler started Jerry Lawler.
Guest:He was the biggest star of Memphis started really getting going into his singles career in 74.
Guest:And he started getting world title shots against Jack Briscoe, Terry Funk, Harley race, Ric Flair, all those guys in Memphis during that era.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:it just was a different time.
Guest:They had a bunch of new wrestlers.
Guest:Memphis was known to bring in young guys, new talent and build them up.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:It worked really well for Jerry Jarrett doing that.
Guest:And Waller was one of those guys originally in 72.
Guest:He brought him in as a tag team and saw he could get over and saw he could talk and he could wrestle.
Guest:And it was just, I mean, the summer of 74, as I said, they had a run to the title, which ended with a title shot with Jack Briscoe for the world title.
Guest:And out of 12 weeks that summer, the Mid-South Coliseum sold out, I want to say 10 times.
Guest:And back then you could get 11,000 people in the Coliseum.
Guest:So that was a huge, huge coup for them to do that.
Guest:And that just started it.
Guest:And it just kept the ball rolling through, like I said, around 85 or so.
Guest:And that's just when the business took a downturn.
Guest:Well, it's just so funny that when you were talking about this at the beginning of our conversation in terms of like what the character of Memphis wrestling was and how it was particularly heel driven and narrative driven.
Guest:And it's like, obviously, like the first thing that comes to mind for me is Andy Kaufman.
Guest:And it's like.
Guest:It's just so perfect how he fit in to the Memphis wrestling style.
Guest:And it's also perfect that the territory knew that.
Guest:And I know you have spoken with Box Brown, who we had on this show as well, who did the book on Andy.
Guest:And it's like...
Guest:I now have a better understanding of why Memphis got Andy as opposed to, I perfectly understand why Andy as a wrestling fan got Memphis, but Memphis got Andy.
Guest:And that makes a lot more sense when you view it in this context.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:I mean, he was so psychologically driven.
Guest:His stuff was done to elicit a response.
Guest:That's the simplest terms on that.
Guest:And if he wanted to go do a show and make you mad,
Guest:He did it to make you mad.
Guest:And if you got mad, he was happy.
Guest:If you wanted to make you laugh, you would laugh.
Guest:Whatever he needed to do, and that's what wrestling was to him, was the same thing, except he's getting to do it in front of 10,000 people.
Guest:And just a couple moves or this or that, he can make them yell or scream or happy or sad, whatever.
Guest:And he loved that.
Guest:It was just like a tidal wave of emotions at him.
Guest:We talked about the psychological and all that.
Guest:He got it to a T.
Guest:If he had had a bigger body, he could have been a professional wrestler because he got... The hardest part is the psychological.
Guest:Nothing against all the kids out wrestling today and doing all their stuff.
Guest:They're tearing their bodies up, and if they use their mind more, they could save their bodies longer.
Guest:Did you ever see Kauffman?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:I actually own a... The referee was a guy named Jerry Calhoun who's still alive, and I actually have the ref shirt he wore in one of the Kauffman-Lawler matches.
Guest:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:That's great.
Marc:Were you booing them the entire time?
Guest:Oh, yeah, you did.
Guest:You hated them.
Guest:That was the deal.
Guest:And that's one thing also.
Guest:I don't know if you've heard about it, but there's good heat and bad heat.
Guest:Bad heat is when you turn the TV off.
Guest:The good heat is when you go and buy a ticket and go to the arena to see the guy get beat.
Guest:And Andy was gold like that.
Marc:That's great.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Well, Mark, this has been a pleasure getting your expertise on this.
Guest:And I encourage anyone who's listening and wants to find out more to go to MemphisWrestlingHistory.com.
Guest:And you have all of your books.
Guest:You have some special sections.
Guest:I particularly like that you have...
Guest:Some of the news articles from the time, they're photographs of pages of the newspapers where Sputnik Monroe was arrested.
Guest:And all this history that you've got there, it's really a great collection.
Guest:And it's really been a pleasure to have your knowledge and expertise on the show.
Guest:It was really great talking to you.
Guest:Thanks, Mark.
Guest:Yeah, I had a great time.
Guest:I appreciate you having me on.
Thank you.
Marc:So that was pretty fascinating, Chris.
Marc:I don't know how you felt.
Marc:Oh, absolutely.
Marc:Also, he is an encyclopedia of wrestling history.
Marc:It's really astonishing.
Marc:Especially Memphis history.
Marc:He just could go.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, well, it's funny.
Guest:His name is James.
Guest:And he reminded me very much of another James, Bill James, who basically had the same kind of background, but for baseball, just kind of compiling as much information as possible and being a real steward of the sport in many ways.
Guest:But I do think it's so interesting that there's still unanswered questions about this story.
Guest:And I kind of feel like I don't want to take it away from...
Guest:you know, the, the actual achievement of desegregating that specific arena.
Guest:But I also think my gut instinct was somewhat correct that like, this isn't, this wasn't like a civil rights moment.
Guest:This wasn't like a guy who wanted to go on a freedom ride.
Guest:It was a money job.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And, and it's just so wild how, when you follow the money in wrestling, you know,
Guest:in history and even today it's all about like the thing what is the thing that's going to get the most reaction and at that time of course those people knew hey look we're going to get a big reaction to a white guy teaming with a black guy and then both acting like bad guys like that doesn't it doesn't speak well about humanity really but it's obviously true like there's no way to to deny it being true
Marc:But it gives you hope because he turned baby face.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You know, like that's the thing.
Marc:He and his partner, he said.
Marc:Yeah, his black partner.
Marc:So, I mean, damn, that's some hope that fills my heart, man.
Guest:Well, it's funny that this came up the same week that Mark and I were talking about Dog Day Afternoon because it's such an important part of that movie is how everything gets wrapped up in the fame bubble or the observer effect, right?
Guest:All of Pacino's actions as Sonny really start to be dictated by how he's being perceived by the crowd.
Guest:When he sees the crowd is cheering for him, he goes outside and starts throwing money around, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When he sees that the crowd starts booing him or catcalling him when he's searching a guy, you know, they're making fun of him essentially because now they know he's married to a man.
Guest:He starts to get resentful and get angry at the crowd.
Guest:And like the fickle nature, the very thermostatic sways of the audience, the audience being this crowd gathered around the outside of the bank, that happens in wrestling.
Guest:It's the same thing.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:I love your conversation about Dog Day Afternoon, especially just New York back in those days.
Marc:It was perfectly said.
Marc:I think Jason Bailey would be proud.
Marc:Also, that movie is one of my favorite.
Marc:It's a member of one of my favorite movie genres, which is Summer in the City.
Marc:I love a Summer in the City movie, be it Die Hard with a Vengeance, Do the Right Thing, Rear Window, The Paper.
Marc:It's a time-honored tradition for me.
Marc:I'm like, oh, it's a Summer in the City movie?
Marc:I'm in.
Guest:And you're implying it, but not saying it.
Guest:The City means New York City.
Guest:Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is different.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:Same thing.
Guest:Hot, city, summer.
Guest:But it does not feel the same.
Guest:First Bueller's Day off.
Marc:It's not the same.
Guest:There's a different vibe.
Guest:It's that thing that Mark said.
Guest:It's what happens to New Yorkers in the summer.
Guest:That sluggishness.
Guest:That feeling of everybody... I remember Mark saying this too.
Guest:He didn't say it on the Dog Day episode, but he said it once before that...
Guest:New York City in the summer makes everyone seem high.
Guest:Like you walk around, everybody just seems like they're in like a drug haze, right?
Guest:Maybe some people are higher than others.
Guest:Some people can handle their high, whatever.
Guest:But everybody looks like they're on drugs just because it's so oppressive.
Guest:That humidity and that funk that settles in.
Guest:Do the right thing is probably the absolute best at depicting it.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:But it also just, it's, everyone's on a short fuse, man.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You know, you're riding the line between, okay, we're just getting through this and I am now going to murder this person for,
Marc:The most like non-descript thing, but I am taking offense to it because it is so hot right now.
Marc:Oh yeah, totally.
Guest:The movies you mentioned specifically, it would be an amazing marathon.
Guest:To just sit and watch those four or five titles that you mentioned, that's great.
Marc:And I want to say Quick Change is also in there.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I wonder if that's actually in the summer.
Guest:I guess it is, right?
Guest:I feel like there's a part where they're sweating and they don't have air conditioning.
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's a great New York City movie, just in general.
Guest:There's a moment in that movie, if you haven't seen Quick Change, this is Bill Murray who directed it.
Guest:But Bill Murray, Geena Davis, and Randy Quaid rob a bank, and then they need to get out of the city and get to their plane.
Guest:And as Jason Robards, the detective who's trying to hunt them, says at some point in the movie, when it looks like they've given them the slip, he says, well...
Guest:We only have the city now.
Guest:And that's exactly right.
Guest:Like the city will try to keep them there and destroy their hopes because that's what 1990s New York City did.
Guest:What a great movie.
Guest:I love that movie with all my heart.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Same.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, speaking about with all our hearts, what was your favorite thing in wrestling this past week?
Marc:My favorite thing.
Marc:And it's been a running bit for three.
Marc:I want to say three weeks, maybe four weeks.
Marc:It's.
Marc:MJF and Adam Cole and their bromance and their tag team.
Marc:And by the way, this is happening on AEW's Dynamite.
Marc:And they are reluctant tag team members who become reluctant best friends.
Marc:And it's just like the best type of like 90s baby face.
Marc:Wait, wait, is that what you would call it?
Marc:Like baby face, like showmanship?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I guess.
Marc:Oh, you mean like how they're playing these matches?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah, total.
Marc:It's like the just total cheap heat.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:All cheap heat.
Marc:And I mean, they are playing to the audience.
Marc:They're calling for a double clothesline.
Marc:They're calling for a body slam.
Marc:And I mean, it's just really fun storytelling.
Marc:It's just a fun game.
Marc:like segment on a wrestling show.
Marc:That is just, it just brings me so much joy.
Marc:So that, that's my favorite.
Marc:Here's the thing though.
Guest:I mean, I don't think it's presumptuous to, to, to, you know, jump to the conclusion that this was supposed to set up an eventual title match between MJF and Adam Cole.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Possibly at their big Wembley Stadium show at the end of August.
Guest:So here's the thing.
Guest:That's now like six weeks away, right?
Guest:This thing is doing great.
Guest:They're popping ratings with this.
Guest:It's enjoyable to you, right?
Guest:Do you change plans?
Guest:Because if not, you're going to have to break these two guys up within the next two weeks or so to build to that match.
Right.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Do you keep it riding?
Marc:I honestly think they crossed the Rubicon.
Guest:It is too over.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I think if that was the plan, they've messed up their own plan by being too good.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:So what was your favorite thing?
Guest:Well, my favorite was the Blood and Guts match, which is surprising for me because I don't like the Blood and Guts match.
Guest:Same.
Guest:They've had it three times, and the other two times I didn't like it.
Guest:I was never a fan of war games when they did it in WCW, and this match worked for me not because of the gruesome stuff.
Guest:They had a bunch of gimmicks in there.
Guest:They had broken glass and a bed of nails, and those are like circus tricks, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Mick Foley in his book talks about how to take the bed and nail spot, right?
Guest:Like you just, you disperse your body as much as you can and surface area, you wind up not getting that hurt.
Guest:So all of that stuff is what it is.
Guest:Those are gimmicks.
Guest:But I loved the story of the match.
Guest:The story was great, right?
Guest:That you've had this thing building up for months and months, these two factions, the BCC and the Elite.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the elite, to fill out their team, went and got one of their best friends from Japan.
Guest:And he comes on and he fills out the rest of their team.
Guest:The BCC got mercenaries, right?
Guest:They went and found another guy who hates the elite.
Guest:Okay, good, bring him in.
Guest:And then this other guy, Takeshita, that we're going to team together to wipe out these guys, right?
Guest:Well, in the end,
Guest:The bad guys fell apart because the mercenaries left.
Guest:And the guys who won were the friends who stuck together and in the end were able to overcome a tremendous beating where these vicious guys were going to kill them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the finish to the match is these baby faces, you know, having a bloodlust and choking this one guy to death, essentially.
Guest:So much so that the baddest of the bad guys in the ring has to relent and surrender the match, knowing that his guy is about to be, you know, have permanent damage done to him.
Guest:And the bad guys lose.
Guest:The good guys win.
Guest:And I'm like, that's wrestling.
Guest:That is how you do wrestling.
Guest:Forget about the bed of nails.
Guest:Forget about the thumbtacks.
Guest:Which, you know, they executed all that stuff.
Guest:It worked.
Guest:It wasn't bad.
Guest:But the story, finally, with these blood and guts matches, I felt finally they told a story that I liked.
Marc:Yeah, that's great.
Marc:My favorite part of that match was that guy Pac just doing, I don't know, he was climbing the top of, in between both rings.
Marc:Like, I've never seen that before.
Marc:And then jump down onto a table.
Guest:It was like when a kid in the park does hand over hand on the jungle gym.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, and so picture a little kid doing that on the monkey bars, but there's a human being underneath him on a table and he just pulls his legs up, like does a crouch in that position, like a pull up and then drops down through the guy through the table.
Guest:That was what happened.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I, I will say this, like it is a great, like end of a story, like this blood and guts match to finally.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I think, I believe I saw online that the BCC and the Golden Elite, they all shook hands at the end to signify, okay, we're done with this beef, which is great.
Marc:Because you could not...
Marc:take it any higher, literally and figuratively.
Marc:Like, this is the most extreme I ever want it to be, by the way.
Marc:It is very bloody.
Guest:Well, I will say, yes, it might not be for everyone, and it's usually not for me, but I did find that the story overrode the gruesome horror show gimmicks that they had
Guest:I will say, though, that this is a thing I tend to do sometimes.
Guest:If I'm sitting somewhere and I'm reacting to something or I'm taking something in and I notice that my face has been frozen in a position and I'm conscious of that, I keep my face frozen in that position and I take my phone out and take a picture of myself to memorialize what was I looking like at the time when that happened.
Guest:And so I did that while I was watching.
Guest:And just sent you.
Guest:Yes, that's what my face was for the majority of the fight.
Guest:I believe that exact moment was when the guy was doing German suplexes or Northern light suplexes on top of the cage.
Guest:And he got over to the edge of it like he was going to throw the guy off.
Guest:I believe that was the exact look on my face that I just sent you right now.
Guest:And, uh, it's just, uh, was my mouth agape and it was a good 30 seconds before I realized, wait, I have not moved my face and my jaw is down.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:By the way, did you notice on Twitter, AEW on TV mentioned, because AEW was in Boston, that they mentioned that, oh, we saw Mark and who else there?
Guest:Lenny Clark at the Chinese restaurant that they went to.
Guest:Is that a thing?
Guest:Whoever's running the AEW Twitter account has got a deep cut there.
Guest:wow uh yeah very fun stuff and uh yeah we'll put links to that stuff in the episode description also in that episode description is uh the comment link if you want to send us a comment or a question we love getting stuff from you guys it will also help us for future topics just like how this one today came from a comment that one of the listeners sent in about sputnik monroe and next week we have another guest interview and uh
Guest:It was somebody I wanted to reach out to also, uh, when this topic of Sputnik Monroe came up and it's because he's a person who not only has written about Sputnik Monroe and about wrestling history in general, but has a very keen sense of the, uh,
Guest:undercurrent of racial identity you can even say racism and uh general retrograde attitudes in wrestling and how they have evolved and sometimes not evolved quickly enough through the history of wrestling that person is david shoemaker from the ringer who does the great masked man podcast and the press box podcast and
Guest:And he's going to come on next week and talk to us about this stuff, kind of continue this conversation about race and wrestling.
Guest:Very happy that we're doing this, even in the dog days of summer, as it were.
Guest:But until then, I'm Brendan and that's Chris.
Guest:Peace.