BONUS The Friday Show - The Ultimate Challenge
Guest:I'm looking at my screen and there is a familiar face.
Guest:It is Chris Lopresto, who was not here last week.
Guest:Hello, Chris.
Guest:Hello, Brendan.
Guest:Did you miss me?
Guest:You missed me.
Guest:I did.
Guest:I missed you so much that I saw you just yesterday.
Guest:Yes, that's right.
Guest:Well, I also wanted to point out that this is the eighth week we are doing this, the Friday show.
Guest:Eight weeks we've been in.
Guest:And what did I tell you on the very first show?
Marc:That you would kill us or you would cancel this if at least one third of folks don't continue to listen.
Marc:Is that right?
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Kill would be fine.
Guest:I wouldn't mind either of those things.
Guest:But yes, you know, the whole idea, if you're new to this, the whole idea was that we were doing a series with Mark that involved professional wrestling, the Wrestling with Mark series.
Guest:And we got a bunch of new subscribers to WTF Plus, the full Marin, who came for the wrestling.
Guest:We know this because they happened the day we posted that and the numbers shot up.
Guest:So, you know, we wanted to bring those new listeners some content that was specific to them.
Guest:Why else would they be here if it wasn't for the fact that they got some wrestling stuff?
Guest:So on Fridays, we decided to add to our bonus schedule.
Guest:We had not been doing this.
Guest:We added an additional show.
Guest:on Fridays that I thought, well, this will be for those new listeners who came in to WTF and now they can hear some wrestling content and maybe they'll check out our other stuff as well and they will stick around as subscribers.
Guest:Well...
Guest:Looks like they've done that.
Guest:But then something else also happened.
Guest:So, right, you mentioned that number, Chris.
Guest:You said one third, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A third seems manageable.
Guest:Like, you know, existing people will listen, but this new audience, they'll listen as well.
Guest:So if it dropped below that, I'd go, okay, we got...
Guest:you know, we're doing this for nobody now.
Guest:Like we've lost those wrestling people.
Guest:The regular folks don't listen to it.
Guest:Let's end it.
Marc:Vernon, if this is all preamble to tell folks that this is our last episode, I am going to be so disappointed.
Guest:Oh, you know what the greatest thing is?
Guest:That's exactly what I would do if it was the last episode.
Guest:I would not tell you.
Guest:I would bring you out in your life.
Guest:It was a total Vince McMahon thing.
Guest:Like, you'd be in my office.
Guest:I'd be like, how's it going, pal?
Guest:And then just, boom, lay the hammer down.
Guest:No, you know, I'm very analytically minded.
Guest:I think a lot of things through.
Guest:Maybe overthink them sometimes.
Guest:I would say maybe to a fault.
Guest:But one thing I did want to do, we were eight weeks into doing this, was check the numbers, see...
Guest:Who's listening?
Guest:What's the audience like?
Guest:I mean, I could see just from at a glance that it looked good, but let me get into it.
Guest:Let's see what it looks like.
Guest:And well, all right, here's the deal.
Guest:I'm going to go back through the entirety of what we've been doing for the last seven weeks.
Guest:And this is the percentage listening to the Friday show of all people signed up for the full Marin.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So week one,
Guest:We had 84.6%.
Guest:Nice.
Guest:So, okay, that's a first week, right?
Guest:So you can't really base anything on that, right?
Guest:People are sampling.
Guest:Week two, 85.7%.
Guest:It went up.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:All right?
Guest:Now it starts to go down, okay?
Guest:Okay, this is what I expected.
Guest:Week three, 80.2%.
Guest:Week four, 73.4%.
Guest:Now we're on the trajectory that I figured, and we'll get down to that maybe two-thirds, maybe lower, maybe 50%.
Guest:Week 4, 73.4%.
Guest:Week 5, 74.5%.
Guest:Week 6, 75%.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:So now we're in a very steady rate.
Guest:Cruising altitude.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:A nice little plateau.
Guest:You can see the same patterns in the regular bonus content, the stuff we put up every Tuesday.
Guest:So I just went back to the last seven weeks of those and compared.
Guest:So seven weeks ago, it was an Ask Mark Anything episode.
Guest:Those episodes do good numbers.
Guest:91.4% of the total full Marin, okay?
Guest:The next week, 83.8%.
Guest:The next week, 86.9%.
Guest:The next week, 78.5%.
Guest:The next week, 70.4%.
Guest:There's less people listening to that than they're listening to the Friday.
Guest:Same with the following week, 71.7%.
Guest:We got a good sample here to show that basically, if you subscribe to this stuff to listen to bonus content, you're listening to all of it.
Guest:That's my takeaway from this.
Guest:We're around the same percentages every week.
Guest:So, okay, you should think, oh, that's great, fantastic.
Guest:Well, here's my problem with that as a producer.
Guest:What's that?
Guest:Well, like, I guarantee that these numbers where I'm seeing 75, 74, 80% listening to these Friday shows, they're not wrestling fans.
Guest:They're not into this because of the wrestling.
Guest:They're not going to be wrestling fans.
Guest:They just want stuff, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:They're paying for it.
Guest:They're going to listen to it.
Guest:They might not like it.
Guest:They might not care about it.
Guest:But I do know the wrestling fans are there because our numbers went up and they didn't go down.
Guest:Those people didn't go away.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Okay, so now we're in a little bit of a conundrum here.
Guest:What are we gonna do?
Guest:Well, I think today is a good solution because here's what I'm gonna do.
Guest:If you are here for wrestling content from me and Chris and anyone else we have on our guests or anything like that, hang around.
Guest:And in fact, if you don't wanna hear this next part, skip ahead about 20 minutes.
Guest:I'll put the time in the episode description.
Guest:And that will be where we talk about wrestling stuff, specifically going to have Chris talk about WrestleMania.
Guest:OK, so if WrestleMania is your thing, that's going to happen.
Guest:But if it's not, here's the other thing.
Guest:We'll deliver for you.
Guest:OK, you're hanging out.
Guest:You just want to listen to the bonus content you're paying for.
Guest:Well, you know what does really good numbers for us?
Guest:These Ask Mark Anything episodes.
Guest:OK, well, you know what you could do?
Guest:You can ask us things.
Guest:All right.
Guest:So I put a link in the episode description there.
Guest:You can go click on that at any time and just send us a question.
Guest:And then today I went on social media and I asked people, send us questions.
Guest:And we will at the beginning of this show today, which is right now, we will answer them.
Guest:And really, I will answer them because, Chris, you know, I don't think you know the details of the behind the scenes issues of what we do here.
Guest:Sure as hell don't.
Guest:But you may have some good follow-up questions or insight otherwise as a listener, as someone who knows Mark and myself.
Guest:And so that is what we'll do.
Guest:If you're here because you don't care about wrestling and you just like WTF content, well, I will supply some of that for you right now.
Guest:Chris has a list of questions that came from you, listeners.
Guest:Maybe your subscribers, maybe some of you who are listening to this right now sent in a question and I will do my...
Guest:honest best to answer whatever you sent in.
Guest:So Chris, take it away whenever you want.
Guest:What were the questions sent in by our listeners?
Guest:All right.
Marc:In no particular order.
Marc:And there's a lot of them.
Marc:I'm sifting through them.
Marc:And all right, let's see.
Marc:There are some really, really interesting questions.
Marc:Let's go with this.
Marc:Apart from President Obama, who
Marc:Who was the most work-intensive and or frustrating guest from a production standpoint, whether it be due to logistics or their personality?
Marc:Follow-up question.
Marc:Did anyone have a particularly interesting request on their writer?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, OK, so there's no writers.
Guest:There are guests who request, you know, us to not bring up something sensitive.
Guest:And if that's if it's OK, you know, it's not going to ruin the interview to not bring it up, then we won't.
Guest:And none of that is particularly interesting.
Guest:And I wouldn't bring it up because we've said that we wouldn't.
Guest:In terms of a difficult or frustrating or hard to produce situation that was similar to Obama, anytime we're doing something like on a location, it's hard.
Guest:Particularly when Mark did Brad Pitt and Leo DiCaprio, he had microphone issues.
Guest:So I had to, in terms of editing that, I really had to like granularly go through basically each second of that episode and make sure it was cleaned up because he had a fuzzy mic cord that caused a lot of problem and feedback and distortion.
Guest:So we didn't want that on a very major episode, one that, you know, still to this day, one of the ones most people have listened to.
Marc:Did Mark know that it was fuzzy?
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:He's freaks out in the middle of the interview, you know, and Brad Pitt loved it.
Guest:And so like, that was the other thing.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:Like we could keep it in, we have this situation, but yeah, that was, that was challenging and it did require a lot of work after the fact.
Guest:There was similarly, there was an interview with Catherine O'Hara and
Guest:in the garage that screwed up uh with the software mark was recording it on and we thought we lost the whole interview and we had to basically farm it out to several different uh audio editors who could try to clean it up and and it got very clean comparatively to what it was so i mean if you that that episode is in our archives you go listen to it it is uh it is there as as close to being you know normally listenable as any other episode
Marc:And also that Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, episode 1086.
Marc:Oh, thank you, buddy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Thanks for following up with the number there.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Let's see.
Marc:Who was at the top of your wish list?
Guest:You know, I mean, Wishlist for me is probably much different than it is for Mark because he's got like personal requests and like he's, you know, always, you know, has people in his heart that he's won.
Guest:I think he's got most of them.
Guest:I know that like he would love to talk to Tom Waits, you know.
Guest:I know he would love to talk to Dylan, even though that would be challenging.
Guest:You know, I think he would accept the challenge.
Guest:For me, I just, before we wrap this thing up,
Guest:I want us to be able to have, like, as close to a complete compendium of the history of comedy as possible.
Guest:And so there are some missing people in there, and not from lack of trying on our part.
Guest:Like, Steve Martin doesn't seem to want to do the show.
Guest:Albert Brooks plays very coy about doing the show.
Guest:I do think he'll do it someday, particularly if we, like, issue an ultimatum, like...
Guest:We're going to shut the show down, Albert, unless you do it.
Guest:Like that might work.
Guest:Carol Burnett, that's another one.
Guest:Like they're just these people who are, you know, if you look at the catalog of episodes we have, I think the thing we've done most consistently is have comedians basically chart the history of comedy.
Guest:And that's going back to like, you know, the history of 20th century and 21st century comedy, you know,
Guest:Having people like Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Bob Newhart, like Shelley Berman, telling it from as close to the beginning as you could get of like modern standup and modern stage comedy, vaudeville, all that.
Guest:And then we've got every gap in between covered in some way, but there are blind spots.
Guest:And so, yeah, I'd like those people to be on before we stop.
Marc:A guest like that would, like Steve Martin, like would you ever want to do it over Zoom or do you feel like you want to do like an in-person interview?
Guest:I think Zoom interviews on this show are done unless there's another health catastrophe.
Guest:Gotcha.
Guest:Right?
Guest:If we have another surge of COVID that can't be, you know, that's more virulent or a different infectious disease and people can't be in the same place anymore, we'll go right back to Zoom the way we did during the pandemic in 2020.
Guest:But it's not the ideal way to do the show.
Guest:And there's no reason to make exceptions.
Guest:If people don't want to do the show, then they don't want to do the show.
Guest:It's an in-person interview with Mark.
Marc:Gotcha.
Marc:All right, next question.
Marc:Genuinely curious about your workflow in producing the episodes.
Marc:How much cutting and rearranging, if any, do you do?
Marc:And your role in shaping the interview questions.
Guest:Well, second part first, there is no role in shaping interview questions because like Mark doesn't have any.
Guest:He does not come to the table with questions like and he that's a lesson learned.
Guest:Like the times when he has tried to do that has not been successful.
Guest:He doesn't like doing questions off of a page or something.
Marc:Wait, so he just thinks all of them up?
Guest:you just like he's got if you there's photos of him he's taken photos put him on his instagram of like what a page of notes will look like and it looks like a serial killer right like it's just like the zodiac notes right yeah you need a cipher to figure them out but he is the cipher right like he knows what he wrote and it's just usually something like a scribble a word here a word there and he figures like that will lead his brain to this or this or that now that being said
Guest:There are plenty of guests, and I would even say more these days than there used to be in the past, where I provide him with a kind of thorough list of things he should be thinking about with that person.
Guest:That's not questions, but basically, as we get further along into doing the show, we're going to bring more and more people on the show that he has no familiarity with.
Guest:Whereas it used to be the kind of rule of like, oh, if he knows the guest, that's how we have him on.
Guest:Now it might be like, he's like, I kind of know that name.
Guest:And I have a general sense that they've been in a thing or they made this album or whatever.
Guest:But he doesn't have a total familiarity with them.
Guest:And so I will do...
Guest:a lot of research to kind of nail down maybe a page worth of bullet points that I could send him and say, these are the kind of interesting things that you want to maybe think about when you're putting together your list, right?
Guest:That's the easy answer for that.
Guest:In terms of workflow and producing the episodes and cutting and rearranging,
Guest:I used to have to rearrange them a lot, frankly.
Guest:Like I used to have to take stuff from an earlier part of the interview and put it toward the end.
Guest:And that was just more because of Mark's style.
Guest:Like he would kind of go all over the place to just try to find the most that he could.
Guest:And then it would be up to me to put it together.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So do you have an example of like, does something stick out in your head?
Guest:Yeah, perfect example was a great interview with John Oliver.
Guest:He told this story like fairly early on in the episode that had something to do with a childhood sports situation.
Guest:And then later in the episode, Mark went back to it, but almost tangentially.
Guest:And then they wound up having this whole conversation about being kids and dealing with the pressures of wanting to play sports.
Guest:John wanted to be an athlete.
Guest:Mark had no interest in being an athlete.
Guest:And that thing from earlier was totally out of place in the spot that it was, but it would have fit perfectly as a way to kind of end the show.
Guest:And so I just moved it out of there as gracefully as I could and got that part to work.
Guest:And that was the kind of thing that I would do fairly regularly.
Guest:I don't have to do that now, really, because Mark has become a much better editor of himself as an interviewer.
Guest:what i tend to be looking for which you hear when i do these producer cut episodes is figuring out uh how things fit in the pacing of an episode or the tone of an episode there might be things that are good and i just got to take them out because the thing's running too long or it's just not the right moment for them to be talking about something like this it's like a downer in a moment that shouldn't have a downer you know
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's editing.
Guest:It's what it is.
Marc:The Brooke Shields episode, you cutting like four minutes of a dead animal or putting down animals.
Marc:Really great choice, man.
Marc:When you listen to that isolated, you're like, man, they are going on and on about their dead animals.
Guest:And that would have been the first thing people heard, right?
Right, right.
Guest:Yeah, so I mean, to me, these days, my workflow is mainly, you know, second nature in terms of editing, because I hear this stuff.
Guest:And I, you know, after having done it for so many years, I know, in general, what works and what doesn't, and I can pop stuff out and pop stuff in along that process.
Guest:But the entirety of the workflow is, it smooths out, but it never really changes.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Also, that John Oliver episode, episode 298, if you want to see, or I guess hear, John Oliver talk about sports and how Brendan edited all that together.
Marc:That's a great episode.
Marc:That's an early favorite of mine.
Marc:Yeah, same here.
Marc:All right, another one for you, Brendan.
Marc:Now that we know how much of a wrestling friend Brendan is, how big of a role did he play in Mark getting slash taking the part of GLOW?
Guest:Oh, 0%.
Guest:No, I had nothing to do with it.
Guest:I don't think I had any influence on it, even in the sense of like the subject matter of the show did not matter.
Guest:It was the person who should get full credit.
Guest:I don't even know the person's name.
Guest:I know it was a junior associate at Mark's management company who was charged with reading scripts.
Guest:You know, that's a job that people have.
Guest:You know, a lot of times it's kind of an entry level job.
Guest:You're a script reader and your job is to kind of like read the scripts and bring them to the boss's attention.
Guest:Say, I think you should read this one and, you know, attach a client to it or whatever.
Guest:And someone in Mark's management office read the pilot of Glow and thought this is for Mark.
Guest:And so they got Mark in front of whoever it was supposed to be.
Guest:I think the casting director of GLOW was a fan of Mark's from back in the day.
Guest:She knew him very well.
Guest:And then Jenji Kohen, who produced GLOW, saw Mark's tape and was like, that's the guy.
Guest:Like, what?
Guest:Boom, just from the audition tape.
Guest:So I had zero to do with it.
Guest:Wrestling had zero to do with it.
Guest:It's just that Mark kind of perfectly lined up with the part.
Guest:And it was a very astute junior person at Mark's management company, Avalon, who figured that out and got the script to the right people.
Marc:Very nice.
Marc:So when a famous actor is in like a real clunker of a movie, I should not blame that actor.
Marc:I should be blaming that script reader who's like, hey, you know, Chris Brett should be in this space movie with.
Guest:Well, blame their manager and agent.
Guest:Because the script reader is not the last line of defense, right?
Guest:The management and an agency should look after the client first and foremost.
Guest:So if they're saying, no, no, you should do this, that's a problem.
Guest:Also, there are some times where a talent will attach themselves to something and then...
Guest:you might try to talk them out of it, but maybe you have little say.
Guest:So blame can go around.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Next question.
Marc:Does it annoy you when fans suggest possible guests for future episodes?
Guest:Annoy?
Guest:No, it's not annoying.
Guest:It doesn't, I think, doesn't necessarily pan out.
Guest:There's very few times we'll get a suggestion from, you know,
Guest:fan resource, whether it's social media or through the email, and it either makes sense for us in the moment to do it, or it's something we haven't thought about or tried and just haven't done for whatever reason, I just, I wouldn't discourage it because who the hell knows?
Guest:Like, I don't have a problem with sifting through, you know, 99% of bad things to get that 1% of good things.
Guest:That's the job of a producer, supposed to be okay with that.
Guest:So it's not annoying.
Guest:It's not, the success rate isn't high, but it's fine.
Guest:Go ahead, pitch your guests.
Marc:On that note, have you ever turned down a request to be on WTF?
Marc:And is there anyone that you would be unwilling to interview for any reason?
Guest:Well, I mean, turn down a guest to appear on WTF, it's like it happens with most pitches.
Guest:Like, we get, you know, hundreds of pitches a week.
Guest:And I'm not joking about that.
Guest:It's hundreds.
Guest:And, yeah, we just can't have most of them.
Guest:Most of them are right.
Guest:You know, I would say that for every hundred pitches we get, we send back maybe...
Guest:10%, it's like 10%.
Guest:It sounds, seems about right from my just kind of estimate, a rough estimate of how many guests we wind up taking.
Guest:And, um, and then of those 10%, they don't always pan out either because sometimes scheduling doesn't line up or the person, you know, uh, winds up doing something else and it conflicts with us.
Guest:And it just, it's, it's a, it
Guest:Booking is a multifaceted kind of interconnected series of coincidences and events that allow the things to happen.
Guest:And we never bank on anything, even if we get a pitch, even if it seems like somebody is enthusiastic to do the show.
Guest:It doesn't always happen.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I did want to address, though, there was that other question.
Guest:What was the second part of that question that you asked?
Marc:Is there anyone that you would be unwilling to interview for any reason?
Guest:Oh, yeah, sure.
Guest:I mean, like, we're not going to platform a fucking idiot.
Guest:Like, we're not going to interview Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Guest:Like, that's a perfect example.
Guest:Like, 60 Minutes just did that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that's stupid.
Guest:Like, don't do that, people.
Guest:Don't do that 60 Minutes.
Guest:That's stupid.
Guest:There's no reason to do that.
Guest:And, yeah, we there's plenty of people that you can have on who you disagree with.
Guest:But if someone is a hate monger or a person acting in bad faith and looking to disseminate shitty ideas, which they in bad faith know are shitty, but pretend that they're an honest ideology.
Guest:Fuck that person.
Guest:No, we're not going to have them on.
Marc:Good.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:Here's a question.
Marc:I don't know the reference, but why are you afraid to release the episode with Gavin McInnes?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:That's a perfect example.
Guest:So first of all, I guarantee that person is not listening to this right now because anyone who would phrase it in that way is a Gavin McInnes fan and not a subscriber to WTF+.
Guest:So I'm answering a question for some shithead who's clearly not listening to this.
Guest:And if you are listening to this...
Guest:You maybe you aren't a shithead, but it's a it's a shitty way to phrase the question because we're not scared of that guy.
Guest:In fact, it was a fuck you to that guy to not air his episode.
Guest:And I will gladly tell you what happened.
Guest:So Gavin McInnes, if you know him only as the guy who invented the Proud Boys and you interviewed that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Mark interviewed him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the reason why was because he's like all of these hucksters, all of these right wing grifters is a failed comedian.
Guest:He is a he was he tried his hand at stand up.
Guest:He sucked at it and he failed, but he kind of floated around in stand up circles.
Guest:So you know who was a friend of his?
Guest:This should tell you everything about how that guy, what a charlatan the guy is.
Guest:He was in the circle of friends of like David Cross and people in that like New York comedy scene, right?
Guest:And so Cross was like, yeah, that guy's fine.
Guest:Go, you could talk to him.
Guest:you know, kind of recommended him to Mark.
Guest:And it was when Gavin McInnes had made this movie about basically being a failed comedian.
Guest:It was a fiction film.
Guest:It wasn't a documentary.
Guest:He was playing a guy who was like a hard on his luck guy who failed at being a comic.
Guest:Not a great movie.
Guest:Mark watched it.
Guest:He was like, whatever.
Guest:But, you know, people have told me this guy's fine.
Guest:He's kind of fun.
Guest:He had just come off doing, you know, being one of the main guys behind Vice.
Guest:So they have this talk.
Guest:McInnis shows up to it with a six-pack of beer and proceeds to drink them all during the interview.
Guest:So the interview was not great because the guy was intentionally getting sloshed while he was doing it, like as an edgelord posture thing, right?
Guest:And, you know...
Guest:They kind of like slightly disagreed about things, but not in any like not in a combative way.
Guest:And it's just like the kind of way we'd have people on that were like that.
Guest:And Mark, you know, was fine with them.
Guest:Brett Easton Ellis is like one that comes to mind or, you know, Alice Cooper is a guy who like politically is different than Mark.
Guest:But they're not going to sit there and like.
Guest:Like, things might come up where they're like, oh, yeah, no, I don't know about that.
Guest:Like, really?
Guest:You think, like, the teachers' unions are evil or something like that?
Guest:You know, that, I think, was what came up with Gavin McInnes, right?
Guest:Like, there was something about teachers, right?
Guest:So it happened.
Guest:Mark was like, eh, guy was kind of, he was posturing a lot.
Guest:He got drunk while he was there.
Guest:It's not great, but whatever.
Guest:So a couple days later, might have been, like, the next day, we get this email.
Guest:I got it right here.
Guest:From Gavin McInnes.
Guest:And he says, so I thought that went great.
Guest:It made for interesting radio to disagree on some things.
Guest:The one part that's making me cringe, however, is the last question.
Guest:Mark asked me what I fear most for my kids.
Guest:I'm way too emotional about my offspring and lost my funny bone.
Guest:I should have said, I want them to be able to ride their machines without being hassled by the man.
Guest:But I went off, by the way, not funny.
Guest:So if you didn't find your funny bone, you still didn't find it.
Guest:Keep searching.
Guest:All right.
Guest:So we got that.
Guest:I talked to Mark and I was like, what is he even talking about?
Guest:And we listened to the thing and it's like, dude, if you don't think this was your, like if you have, like if what you're telling me is you're not portraying yourself in an honest way or after the fact you're thinking you need to,
Guest:have certain answers taken out because you were doing some type of act and some type of kind of character that you wish you didn't do.
Guest:And it all to me rang false.
Guest:That's the bottom line.
Guest:I'm like, this is just a, this was a guy who was false.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He's playing a character.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which history has proven out, by the way.
Guest:So we didn't do anything with it other than what we do with normally is we just kind of sat on it.
Guest:We thought, you know what we'll do?
Guest:We'll air this at some point when we're like out of interviews.
Guest:We need one to go up or whatever.
Guest:We've got it in the chamber.
Guest:Well, in sitting on that interview, which was, you know, to be fair, like four or five months, like we did not hold it just for a couple of weeks.
Guest:We held it for like four or five months and we're just sitting on it and we actually had an air date for it.
Guest:Like, you know, some date we told his people.
Guest:January 6th.
Guest:It's us.
Guest:We're the reason we started it.
Guest:We told them when it was going to air.
Guest:And then in the meantime, he started going on like he became a Fox News personality and he was doing the Fox thing.
Guest:He was on Fox all the time and he's starting to really turn into this character or whatever.
Guest:And then he goes on some rant about some transphobic rant about how trans people are mentally ill or whatever.
Guest:Fuck that guy.
Guest:Literally my words with that.
Guest:I sent an email to Mark and I said, fuck this guy.
Guest:And we're not airing this thing.
Guest:Especially because he even told us that he didn't believe the shit he was saying.
Guest:And so it was like, you know what?
Guest:No way.
Guest:And we told his people it will not be airing.
Guest:You can tell him.
Guest:And he went on a little Twitter tirade and then I think went on Rogan.
Guest:And that's where that posture comes from, from that listener, from that question that you got, because his whole thing was they're afraid to air my interview.
Guest:They don't like people disagreeing with Mark.
Guest:Man is like someone disagreeing with him.
Guest:And there's no disagreement.
Guest:in it or whatever but i'm also not going to take that fucking bait right like i'm not going to be like oh well i'll prove that there's no disagreement in it by airing it no fuck you i don't care right and and you're you're nobody and you now you're potentially a criminal because you lead a white supremacist gang and i have no regrets and no fear about fucking gavin mcginnis
Guest:So you will never hear that episode.
Guest:You'll never hear part of that episode.
Guest:Fuck him sideways.
Guest:Yeah, I concur.
Marc:All right, next.
Marc:There's a question here.
Marc:Brendan, I think this is directed literally to you.
Marc:Have you ever fucked a guest from the show?
Marc:Oh, good lord.
Marc:No, I'm pretty sure that's for Mark.
Guest:Well, whoever it's for, that's still, what?
Guest:Whoever they're intending, that's not, I, listen, there's a lot of things you could ask on these questions, but I mean, come on now.
Guest:And I will say this, like if you did it, if you were intending to send that to Mark, I mean, it's a little weird considering that most people know he became romantically involved with at least two people that they know of on the show, right?
Guest:Like he started dating Lynn Shelton and he started dating Moon Zappa after they were guests on the show.
Guest:So like, you know, I think the answer is self-evident if it's about Mark.
Guest:If it's about me, I mean, look...
Guest:Until we have my wife or Ben Affleck on the show, it's not true.
Marc:Next question.
Marc:Next question appropriately, why is the pod named WTF?
Marc:Oh, the why of that is just it was what Mark wanted to name the show, like right from the get-go.
Marc:He just said- Were there any alternates for the, you know-
Guest:No, no, there wasn't.
Guest:It was Mark's first thing.
Guest:Like he said, you know, we do a pod.
Guest:Can we do a podcast?
Guest:When I said yes, he then said, I'm thinking to call it WTF.
Guest:And we were just it wasn't like we didn't have the sense of like WTF with Mark Maron.
Guest:And in fact, one of the early mockups of the logo just says the WTF show.
Yeah.
Guest:And I don't think we were seriously considering calling it the WTF show.
Guest:It's just the way the logo was designed by Nathan, who designed the logo.
Guest:The WTF thing was like Mark's whole big concept.
Guest:Like he had this concept around, you know, WTF.
Guest:It's like the great question of our time.
Guest:Like, you know, like.
Guest:you know, it's, it's, it's internet lingo, but it's also philosophical.
Guest:And it's like what young people are asking each other.
Guest:And it's what an old person asks every day.
Guest:Like he had this whole idea that we would, and that each set that would have segments where you're asking what the fuck and you're, we're trying to figure it out.
Guest:And we, we did some like early on, we did some like very like Andy Kaufman is sketches that were like, we didn't know you, we weren't letting you in on whether they were real or not.
Guest:And,
Guest:That was the whole idea.
Guest:We wanted people to be questioning it.
Guest:And all that kind of went by the wayside once we realized, like, no, this is a good interview show, right?
Guest:Which was very quick.
Guest:Like, it didn't take a long time.
Guest:But that's where the WTF comes from.
Guest:And, yeah, it was always the point.
Marc:Hey, how much interaction do you and Mark have?
Marc:Like, is there a weekly call?
Marc:I mean, daily.
Marc:Daily.
Guest:Daily.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, no, I talk to Mark and I'm in touch with Mark more than anyone in my life other than my wife and son.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:One million percent.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, we talk every day, multiple times a day, text it.
Guest:Like, I mean, we're just in constant contact.
Guest:And, you know, in a sense that it only probably works because we're 3,000 miles apart, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If we were right on top of each other, it would be too much contact.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:I didn't know that.
Marc:So every day you guys are communicating somehow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, if we're not communicating on a day, it's rare.
Guest:And it usually results in the next day, Mark's like, what's happening?
Guest:Are you okay?
Guest:Is everything all right?
Guest:It's like, yeah, dude, it's okay.
Guest:Things are fine.
Guest:But yeah, it's a very, very close working relationship.
Guest:Great.
Guest:That's it.
Marc:Those are all the questions I got.
Guest:Well, thank you for reading them, Chris.
Guest:And thank you to all the listeners.
Guest:If you're a full Marin subscriber and you sent one of those in, thank you very much.
Guest:And in this beginning part of the Friday show, I'm always open to doing things for the listeners who might not be into wrestling specifically or me and Chris in particular.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Maybe you're interested in Mark stuff.
Guest:Great.
Guest:Like I don't have 100% access to Mark all the time.
Guest:So I will do what I can when I can to give you good Mark content, even if Mark's not here.
Guest:So, you know, there's that little link in the episode description.
Guest:Go click on it.
Guest:Send us a question or comment or suggestion of what you want us to do.
Guest:And we'll try to deliver.
Guest:We'll do what we can.
Marc:We're here to please.
Marc:Says the man who literally talks to Mark every single day in multiple occurrences.
Guest:Yeah, but dude, like that guy, I get one thing about that is he will call me anytime he's in a car, right?
Guest:Like he just like, he can't drive and be bored.
Guest:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:So it's like, right.
Guest:So he's like, does he not know about podcasts?
Guest:Does not listen to podcasts.
Marc:Come on.
Guest:Never.
Guest:No, in fact, when when we had Karina Longworth on like so Karina, that's a great example of like a guest who he never would have had on.
Guest:And I had to be like, you would like to talk to her.
Guest:And he did.
Guest:He loved talking to her.
Guest:But he would have never listened to that podcast.
Guest:And he wouldn't have listened to it if she wasn't booked as a guest.
Guest:If I had just said to him, like, maybe check this out and then tell me if you want to book her, he wouldn't have listened to it.
Guest:I had to book her and say, we've booked Karina Longworth.
Guest:You now must listen to You Must Remember This.
Guest:And he did.
Guest:But I got to pull this up.
Guest:This is more good detail for our listeners here.
Guest:So this is Mark, while he was in the middle of listening to, you must remember this, he texts me.
Guest:And this is like, he's enjoying the show.
Guest:Like he talked to Karina about it.
Guest:He remembered it.
Guest:He specifically listened to one about Sammy Davis Jr.
Guest:and Dean Martin because it was in like an area of interest for him.
Guest:And in the middle of listening to it, he texts me, it's odd.
Guest:I never listened to podcasts.
Guest:Well, that's not odd.
Guest:I know that for sure.
Guest:He says-
Guest:takes a lot of attention, reveals how much I'm in my head, feels like I'm betraying myself.
Guest:I guess I could see doing it in the car.
Marc:Podcast pioneer finds podcasts.
Guest:One of these things, you listen to them.
Guest:So wait, wait, they have new ones every week.
Marc:Like and subscribe, Mark.
Marc:Like and subscribe.
Guest:We should have him rate and review this show.
Guest:Yeah, no, this is like the same thing the other day.
Guest:He does an intro.
Guest:You even commented on it to me that he does this intro where he identifies how many days he's been alive, which you related to because how many days was it you marked for yourself?
Guest:10,000.
Guest:10,000.
Guest:10,000.
Marc:I was working at Air America and I booked a trip to Italy for it.
Guest:For your 10,000th day alive.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Very cool.
Guest:And Mark figured out he was alive for 27,000 or something.
Guest:21,000.
Guest:Let's not get it.
Guest:21,000.
Guest:Okay, right.
Guest:And in the midst of all that, he's talking about like, what have I accomplished?
Guest:What have I accomplished?
Guest:What have I done?
Guest:I see all these people that I know and they've done these great things.
Guest:And I don't know if I've done anything.
Guest:As he says this on the podcast, that is one of the 10 most famous podcasts ever made.
Guest:It was mind blowing to me.
Guest:And I was like, I could like get on the phone with him right now and be like, dude, you might want to rethink how you said that.
Guest:And I was like, no, no, no.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because like, I want someone else.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I want someone else to have the same reaction that I had listening to that.
Yes.
Guest:Well, yes, we will do this again.
Guest:I think the best way to conceive of this first part of the show here going forward is we can do like what they do on the Howard Stern channel.
Guest:Like on the Howard Stern channel, they have a whole separate show for the producers, right?
Guest:And the producers then after the show talk about the Howard show, right?
Guest:They talk about the show that was just done.
Guest:So obviously we don't do that for every day or every WTF episode, but you could conceive of that that
Guest:In that way for, you know, thinking of doing stuff in the future and, you know, what you might want to suggest to us, what you might want to hear us talk about.
Guest:But right now we will transition into the other part of the show for our new fans who came by just under eight weeks ago.
Guest:to find out what is this show talking about wrestling.
Guest:They had all these wrestlers on, and now they're saying they're going to give me wrestling content.
Guest:And we've tried to do that for eight weeks because Chris and I are fans of wrestling.
Guest:And this past weekend was WrestleMania, Saturday and Sunday, right?
Guest:It was the two-night WrestleMania.
Guest:So April 1st and 2nd, Saturday and Sunday.
Guest:And Chris and I, you know, basically...
Guest:our past WrestleMania points, right?
Guest:Would you say, like, it's not really in our worldview anymore?
Guest:Yeah, it's in the rear view, for sure.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Like, not what we're still following, but... It brings up good memories.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:It's the memories, right?
Guest:And specifically, when it comes to wrestling...
Guest:I think that a lot of people are in it for the memories, right?
Guest:They got into it when they were kids.
Guest:It's just like comic books or something.
Guest:My dad, to this day, will go see every single Marvel movie as soon as it comes out because he grew up reading Marvel comics.
Guest:He just loves it, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:uncritically goes to see them too he doesn't think they're bad like I say oh how was that Doctor Strange oh it was great and then I watch and I'm like oh boy that was a piece of shit that's me with every Superman movie and television show ever oh you mean it's how you feel uncritically about it oh yes like any Superman thing like everything like what was it Superman Returns oh yeah you still pay a penance at that with me for telling me to go see that
Marc:Stand by it.
Guest:Great movie.
Guest:Oh, boy.
Guest:I believe Chris's review of that to me was, it's like a poem.
Guest:I can think of a few limericks that I wouldn't compare it to, but that's about it.
Guest:Anyway, Chris, when WrestleMania was happening, I realized, you know, there's not a lot we could talk about with current WrestleMania and that.
Guest:But I did think...
Guest:It has to be tied into all of our childhoods, especially if you're a wrestling fan.
Guest:And so I asked you to prepare for us today.
Guest:I want you to take the lead on this with what your favorite WrestleMania memory is.
Guest:And basically, I wanted you to kind of revisit it to see if it's still like lit that spark.
Guest:And I guess I did it.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:As soon as you sent me that text and you were like, oh, are there any WrestleMania memories?
Marc:And I was like, oh, yeah, WrestleMania VI.
Marc:Main event, WrestleMania VI.
Marc:Number one with a bullet.
Marc:It made me like just burned wrestling into my soul.
Marc:It is the quintessential WrestleMania for me.
Guest:So walk us through like where you were at that point.
Guest:WrestleMania VI is 1990.
Guest:So you're how old?
Guest:I'm 11.
Guest:I'm 11 years old.
Marc:And that is prime age.
Guest:Yeah, but you'd been into some wrestling.
Guest:So this is like the climax of it as a kid.
Guest:Yes, yeah.
Marc:This is... Ultimate Warrior is my guy.
Marc:When he beats Honky Tonk Man in like three seconds, that is... I popped.
Marc:And that was just my guy.
Marc:And he was going up against Hulk Hogan.
Marc:Like Hulk Hogan, who...
Marc:Everyone loved all these fucking kids that I hung out with just loved this asshole Hulk Hogan.
Guest:Sorry.
Guest:Oh, that's interesting.
Guest:It was a, it was a, you were like diametrically opposed to these other kids.
Guest:I mean, that's great.
Marc:They happen to be like Yankee fans.
Marc:I'm a Met fan.
Guest:Oh, this is all coming into focus.
Marc:And it's just like, you know what?
Marc:This guy isn't for me.
Marc:And you know what?
Marc:I was right.
Marc:Maybe the Ultimate Warrior wasn't the best person in the world, but you know what?
Marc:Hulk Hogan is kind of the worst.
Marc:Anyway, so WrestleMania 6, the main event is my show.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:All right.
Guest:And so then did you just go back and watch it now?
Marc:Oh, hell yes, I did.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And it is amazing.
Marc:First of all, you couldn't start a WrestleMania and fast forward past the intro.
Marc:I don't know if you remember the intro to WrestleMania 6, but it's so fucking good.
Marc:We open on the night sky and there's constellations.
Marc:And then Vince McMahon, upon examination, the galaxies of space.
Marc:Images begin to appear, images of strange and powerful forces.
Marc:But of all the forces in the universe, the two most powerful, champion to champion, title for title.
Guest:If I remember, too, it's like he's literally like the animation they're showing as he's talking is like creating Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior out of the constellations in the sky, right?
Marc:Yes, which I was not dumb enough to think, is that a real constellation?
Marc:Is there a Hulk?
Marc:so yeah so that's where we start and it's gorilla monsoon and uh jesse the body ventura and i gotta say they are just all-time greats i mean i know oh peanut butter and chocolate yeah they they went great together
Marc:Jesse, he starts by saying, I'll tell you, Gorilla, I've been to the Super Bowl.
Marc:I've been to the World Series.
Marc:I've even been to the Rolling Stones.
Marc:But there is one event that surpasses, and that's WrestleMania.
Marc:I mean, I love that the Rolling Stones gets thrown in there.
Guest:Now, but this was a situation where they were, much like when we talked about the main event with Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant and all this hype that went into it, and yet it was paid off with the hype because it was the most watched wrestling show in history at that time.
Guest:This thing, as they're talking about this, that, oh, this is, you know, bigger than the Rolling Stones or bigger than the Super Bowl or whatever, and you're seeing this, they are in the Sky Dome in Toronto.
Guest:There's over 60,000 people there.
Guest:It does look the way he's selling it.
Guest:It does not look like a rinky-dink arena that these guys are exaggerating, right?
Marc:So the main event is finally about to happen.
Marc:By the way, they're showing, like, Royal Rumble highlights.
Marc:And I just loved that.
Marc:Like, I loved all the video packaging.
Guest:Well, and the Royal Rumble highlight was the first time that Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior ever, like, went head-to-head.
Guest:And that crowd, like, they barely do anything.
Guest:Yeah, they just cross.
Guest:Crisscross and then clothesline each other and they're both out and that's it, right?
Guest:That crowd lost its mind.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Like they were out of control over the idea that these, like Vince McMahon must have been watching that and go like, holy crap, I'm about to make so much money.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Because three months from now, these guys are going to fill up the Sky Dome in Toronto, Canada, and I am going to make a mint.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, Warrior's music hits and he's just booking it to the ring.
Marc:And it is a far walkway.
Marc:Like, it is.
Marc:It feels like a half a mile.
Guest:Can you describe how he, when you say he's booking it, what is he doing?
Marc:He is running full speed down the hallway.
Like...
Guest:Like the length of like a stadium.
Guest:This is a stadium.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So the ring is in the middle of the stadium.
Marc:I mean, I'm guessing like the 50 yard line.
Guest:So picture he's running out from where the end zone is of a football field to the 50 yard line.
Guest:Full sprint.
Guest:Full sprint.
Guest:how much does he weigh around 275 280 right it's all muscle steroid muscle right yeah how did he look when he got in the ring gassed like he is done he is toast he is cooked and they have to have a 20 minute most important match of his life yeah right after this milk was a bad choice
Marc:So Jesse, though, he actually says, like, oh, it's a mistake for him to be running to the ring.
Marc:He should be conserving his energy.
Marc:Oh, you think so, Doctor?
Marc:Not wrong!
Marc:So after Warrior runs a quarter mile, he's posing on the top rope.
Marc:And man, this is the most iconic moments for me.
Marc:As he's reaching for the far turnbuckle...
Marc:and goes to raise his hands, and someone in the crowd has this long Hulk Hogan poster that's just a close-up of his face and his eyes that they look like they're staring right at Warrior, and then Warrior points up to it, and it's the best fucking image.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:This match has so many iconic images, that being the first one for me.
Guest:They used that a million times afterwards in video packages and stuff around this match.
Guest:I remember that exactly what you're talking about, but I didn't realize until I was watching it again, all the camera work in this match was perfect.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:They got all these low angle shots for these two.
Guest:I imagine that that was the directive, right?
Guest:We need these two to look like...
Guest:colossuses yeah like they need to look so much larger than life and there's all these low angle shots of them head to head and you know shooting from the ring apron up and i like it i was very conscious of it watching at this time like wow the camera work in this is outstanding it really is i like we should give the direct who's the director of wrestlemania six because yeah i don't know that person just nailed it honestly
Marc:So Hogan's music hits and everyone just loses it because they're dumb.
Marc:And this crowd is going nuts.
Marc:Hogan is taking his time because he realizes warrior over there.
Marc:He needs a blow.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So he's strolling to the ring.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He's like, I got to give this guy some time so I'm not fighting a corpse.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So finally he gets to the ring and the two of them are sharing the ring with their belts on.
Marc:This is the dream match.
Marc:And like, oh my God, I can't, like as a kid, I couldn't believe this was happening.
Guest:That's something important that you just said that they had their, both of them had their belts.
Guest:I think this was the first time ever, ever, ever, ever that it was like champion versus champion belt for belt.
Guest:Like I don't ever remember that.
Marc:Yeah, me either.
Marc:I don't know if they ever do.
Marc:I mean, I'm sure they've done that.
Guest:Yeah, like there had to be a time where like, you know, Macho Man, when he was a heel, he was the Intercontinental title holder.
Guest:And Hogan, like they probably had a house show match, a Madison Square Garden match, but it was never belt for belt.
Guest:That was the unique thing about this was whoever's going to win was going to walk out with both.
Guest:Gotcha.
Marc:Gotcha.
Marc:So, by the way, Warrior has this insane hair coif.
Marc:Like, it's like the most 80s hair.
Marc:Yeah, 10 cans of hairspray to keep that in place.
Marc:As a child of Staten Island, I knew that hairstyle.
Marc:I'm like, I know you.
Marc:And by the way, Jesse the Body Ventura, while Hogan was taking his time to get to the ring, he's pointing out that Hogan, you know, took his time.
Marc:He's smarter than the warrior.
Marc:And by the way, already I hate Hulk Hogan.
Marc:All right.
Marc:If Jesse the Body Ventura is carrying your bag, then you're the bad guy.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:And I'm not wrong about that.
Marc:And then after this, there's a shot of the two of them eye to eye, both with their belts on, the ref, Earl Hebner, in between them and the WWF logo in the background.
Marc:And it might be my favorite shot in all of wrestling history.
Marc:That shot is so good that Earl Hebner actually is showing the belts to the crowd to show them that, oh, look, both of these belts are on the line.
Marc:We don't leave that shot.
Marc:We stay on that shot until the bell rings.
Marc:The announcing is just great.
Marc:Like, feel the electricity.
Marc:You can cut it with a knife.
Marc:Man, that gave me chills when I was a kid.
Marc:And you really could cut it with a knife, man.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:So they start grappling.
Marc:And Warrior throws Hogan to the turnbuckle.
Marc:And the crowd erupts.
Marc:And Hogan, being a shitty person, is shocked that people are cheering that.
Marc:Hogan then returns serve and strikes his stupid poses.
Marc:I loved that as a kid and as an adult.
Marc:I...
Marc:Like his poses are like, I'm sure he didn't create them, but man, those are the most overused poses in all of like history.
Guest:Well, what he was able to do is he was able to find like some very easy bodybuilder style poses, right?
Guest:You know, like that thing that he does with the one arm up and the one arm straight out, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's a classic, like if you go to like a Mr. Olympia or something, they do those poses.
Guest:But he hit on like three of them and they just did them forever.
Guest:And so they became his.
Marc:Also, they're glistening.
Marc:Like they are.
Guest:So much baby oil.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:But what's great about it is that they start real slow with this like game of uncle.
Marc:What is this?
Marc:What is the grappling?
Marc:What is it?
Marc:Where they're... Oh, the test of strength.
Marc:The test of strength.
Guest:That's what they do.
Guest:Each one grabs a hand, right?
Guest:You get both hands and each person grabs on and then you're supposed to... The kayfabe idea...
Guest:is that what you're trying to do is like get the higher ground, right?
Guest:Like whoever's stronger is going to bend the other guy's hands down and that guy's going to have to like go into submission, right?
Guest:Which happens here for both of them.
Guest:Like one guy goes down and then he's like, fights back up and then puts the other guy down.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Which is, I think, I don't know if you timed it out, but it's like the first, I would guess, like five to seven minutes of the match is all one guy does one thing and the other guy returns the exact same thing.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Just to prove how equal they are and also just pad this sucker, you know?
Marc:That's right, that's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And by the way, it starts real slow.
Marc:And just like you were saying about Andy Kaufman's set, they started real slow.
Marc:But unlike Andy's set, the crowd is hot from the jump.
Marc:They could not get enough of this.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:And then Hogan body slams Warrior, just like Hogan's iconic moment at WrestleMania versus Andre.
Marc:But Warrior gets up immediately.
Marc:To me, signifying that this is going to be harder than that match.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's exactly what it was.
Guest:It's like the Hulk Hogan body slam is not enough.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Nowhere, nowhere close to being enough.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:This guy's out of his mind because you just body slammed him.
Guest:He's ready to kill you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So Hogan gets to the, gets to the floor somehow and he injures his knee, you know, and you know, he comes, I think that happens after like a sloppy clothesline to the floor.
Marc:And, and,
Marc:And Jesse is like, it can't end this way, Monsoon.
Marc:Like, I mean, it could, but yeah, sure, Jesse.
Marc:And then to which Gorilla says, ah, the knee's gone.
Marc:And then Hulk Hogan hulks up and his knee is fine.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's my favorite.
Guest:Like, do you know, you and I have talked about, you know, we're getting older in our advanced age here.
Guest:We talk about injuries all the time.
Guest:Oh, my this hurts, my that hurts.
Guest:Can you imagine blowing out your knee?
Guest:Like, to me, it's like one of the greatest fears of my life.
Guest:Like, oh, my God, my knee blows out.
Guest:So this guy goes outside onto the concrete or whatever, and his knee is out.
Guest:And he says to the ref, my knee is gone.
Guest:Like, you hear him on camera.
Guest:My knee is gone.
Guest:The referee out there is checking on him.
Guest:And somehow his knee was only gone enough that if he got slammed on it again, it would go back into place and he would be fine.
Marc:By the way, he says that his knee is gone, but later on he's fine, just proving that he's a liar and a cheat.
Yeah.
Guest:he's just definitely in character with Hulk Hogan for real how we know him he just lies a lot I also love that Gorilla goes on to say he must have dislocated the patella and slipped it back in I guess that's that was what it made me think when I'm talking to you about like the idea that it was fine like his the patella is the kneecap so you're saying his kneecap came off like a coke bottle right and he he somehow put it back on yeah
Marc:So Hogan gets Warrior in a face headlock or a front face lock.
Marc:Gorilla says, well, what a punishing hole this is.
Marc:To which Ventura responds, absolutely.
Marc:Ask Richard Belzer.
Marc:Oh!
Yes!
Marc:Richard Belzer, of course.
Marc:Well, George referring to that time Hogan and Mr. T went on Belzer's talk show and Hogan put him to sleep in this hole.
Guest:For real.
Marc:And made the man bleed from his head.
Guest:A shoot sleeper hold he put on him.
Guest:And Richard Belzer, you know, who just passed away and there's been a lot of obituaries that pointed out this moment.
Guest:Maybe you've seen the video of it.
Guest:But yeah, Hulk Hogan being a total dick.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Because Richard Belzer was saying, oh, this stuff you do is fake or whatever.
Guest:He chinlocks Richard Belzer.
Guest:This is on the show called Hot Properties, a talk show that Belzer was hosting, and knocks him out cold.
Guest:You watch the guy go limp in Hulk Hogan's arms, and then he falls down and cracks his skull open, and blood is pouring everywhere.
Guest:So scary.
Guest:You can watch this.
Guest:This is on YouTube.
Marc:Just insane.
Marc:Also, I think Belzer sued WWF, right?
Guest:Oh, no, he sued Hulk Hogan directly.
Guest:And they reached a settlement and Belzer had a house in France, a medieval castle that he bought in France, and he called it Shea Hogan.
Guest:Oh, that's great.
Marc:Good for him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So back to the match.
Marc:They go to a wide shot during the match and it's just cavernous.
Marc:I don't know how WWF does this, but their WrestleManias look like all of humanity is there for this event.
Guest:It's wild.
Guest:They definitely do an amazing job of taking a very large crowd and making it look even bigger.
Marc:Yeah, and just the camera work is just really impressive.
Marc:And so Hogan, again, a prick to Earl Hebner.
Marc:He's questioning a slow count like a jerk.
Marc:So after that, Warrior has Hogan in reverse chin lock.
Marc:There's a perfect shot of Hogan...
Marc:On top of Warrior with Hebner across from them with the WrestleMania 6 logo far off in the distance, man.
Marc:I can't get enough of all these shots.
Marc:It is seriously cinematic.
Marc:It is purely cinematic.
Marc:Warrior starts to Hulk up.
Marc:Is that the term for it?
Marc:For when Warrior does it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Does he Hulk up?
Marc:Yeah, that's interesting.
Guest:He didn't warrior up.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:I think he just hulks up.
Marc:Yeah, everybody hulks up.
Marc:No, just these two guys.
Marc:I don't know if he ever hulked up.
Marc:I mean, I guess The Rock would hulk up, right?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:Not the same way, though.
Guest:It's a very, like, 80s cartoonish way of selling, right?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:That you're going to be, like, you're...
Guest:We talked about this once we were watching something, and you were asking me about the arm dropping three times, right?
Guest:Which I said, you know what has kind of killed that as a trope is UFC.
Guest:Because now people know that if you're in a chokehold, you're done.
Guest:You don't get unconscious and then conscious again.
Guest:And be able to fight the rest of a match.
Guest:Like you got to tap out if someone's going to choke you to death.
Guest:So this thing of these two guys who are like, ah, is being choked out and he's on death's door.
Guest:And then all of a sudden he's like suddenly miraculously alive.
Marc:Like also like Popeye after eating spinach.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It only works with these guys.
Marc:Yes, it's true.
Marc:So then the double clothesline happens.
Marc:And honestly, I thought that this is how it might end with a double 10 count out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:By the way, the crowd work is just awesome.
Marc:There's like classic 80s looks in the crowd.
Marc:Like there's a guy in the second row and he motions for them to get up at the count of two.
Marc:I mean, you can see him if you watch it again.
Marc:I just love that guy.
Marc:He's just like,
Marc:get up, please do something.
Marc:It's just great.
Marc:And then Warrior starts shaking the ropes in a way that only he can do.
Marc:Hogan starts wailing on him and there's no effect.
Marc:Warrior finally catches both of Hogan's arms and totally whiffs on the headbutt.
Marc:Like he totally botches a headbutt.
Marc:And he actually continues to make mistakes at this point as he does some clotheslines.
Marc:And they just, he just botches them sadly.
Guest:Well, the thing about The Ultimate Warrior, which anyone who is like a wrestling aficionado would watch and think, oh, God, this guy stinks.
Guest:He's like, what a mess.
Guest:You know, he misses moves.
Guest:He screws up.
Guest:But for regular people watching, particularly if you're 11, all it looks like is this out of control maniac.
Guest:Like the fact that he's missing these things is irrelevant.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He is a whirling dervish of muscle, and he will kill you if you get in his way.
Guest:And that was all that mattered, and that's why you liked him.
Guest:Right, like Tasmanian devil as a wrestler.
Guest:Yes, 270 pounds of solid muscle and bone.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So, by the way, Warrior gets Hogan in a bear hug, which is, like, the least painful move I've ever seen.
Marc:Like, it's just a big hug.
Marc:I don't get it.
Guest:Well, I guess, like, the kayfabe of it is that you're, you know, cutting off the air, right?
Guest:Like, the arms of the Ultimate Warrior are so thick, right, that if you're going to wrap them around your rib cage, it will crush you, right?
Guest:Like, that's how you have to envision.
Guest:But when you're watching it, he's just resting.
Guest:He's like, all right, I catch my breath here.
Guest:Let's hug.
Guest:Let's hug for a little while.
Marc:Hebner gets knocked out and Ventura, by the way, now we have a major problem, which the announcing is just so good.
Marc:It's just really great.
Marc:Warrior runs and honestly, almost steps on Hebner's fingers.
Marc:If you look at it, it's a scary angle.
Guest:I'm sure he did not give a shit.
Marc:He comes so close to stepping on this man's hands.
Marc:I was really, really concerned.
Marc:He would have stepped on his head if he had to.
Marc:He did not care.
Marc:So Hebner slow counts Hogan and Hogan lifts his shoulder.
Marc:The crowd loses it.
Marc:And I'll be honest with you, I paused this at this moment because I was like, I'm into it.
Marc:I got to get some water.
Marc:And I got to say, I sent you
Marc:I sent you a picture right now, and I know it's a podcast, but this picture, I paused it right here at this moment, and I got to say, this picture to me, it's like a painting, man.
Marc:You know how they say, I don't like art, but I know what I like?
Marc:No, this is art.
Marc:Hang this in the Louvre.
Marc:So the crowd is just all over the place.
Marc:There's a guy holding up two fingers in the top left corner.
Marc:Below him is another guy that looks like my 80s dude who is looking concerned.
Marc:Below him is a little kid with his mouth agape.
Marc:To his right is my 80s friend loving it.
Marc:Above him is a Ricky Bobby lookalike with his fist raised to the sky.
Marc:To the right of him is a woman in red who is just pumping her fist.
Marc:To the right of her is a Hogan fan with a Hogan rules shirt, breathing a sigh of relief with both hands up.
Marc:Below him are a bunch of kids in total shock.
Marc:I mean, the crowd, they have them in the palm of their hands, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It is the best.
Guest:These people got their money's worth.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:So Hogan wraps Warrior up in a small package, and Hebner is way out of position, as Guerrilla correctly states.
Marc:He slow counts Warrior, and he kicks out at two.
Marc:And this is actually the one time Hogan should complain that a slow count happened, but he doesn't.
Marc:It's the one time he should...
Marc:He would be correct in saying, hey, you're slow counted there.
Marc:But anyway, he doesn't say anything.
Marc:Warrior gets Hogan up for the Gorilla Press, his finisher.
Marc:This is like his Hogan body slamming Andre moment.
Marc:Hogan's up there for a bit, by the way, like seven seconds.
Guest:And I was nervous because Warrior looks gassed.
Marc:Yeah, he had him there for seven whole seconds above Warrior's shoulders.
Marc:Warrior sort of gets Hogan up and Hogan crashes to the floor.
Marc:Warrior goes for a splash, but Hogan...
Marc:isn't in position, and he has to turn Hogan over.
Marc:That gives Hogan enough time to hulk up.
Marc:He does his finger pointing thing, which I'll admit is pretty great.
Marc:He hits him with the big boot, but he misses the leg drop.
Marc:Warrior then big splashes Hogan and pins him, and I gotta say, that was a close three.
Marc:As close as it gets.
Marc:I mean, Hogan is just
Marc:like, milliseconds away from kicking out of this three count.
Guest:That's an old carny move.
Guest:Is it?
Guest:You kick out right at three.
Guest:Oh, it's so good.
Guest:The psychology of it, though, was that, like, well, you almost didn't beat me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's that it's so that it's not so much that like, oh, he just beat him.
Guest:It's the opposite.
Guest:It's so that the guy who loses gets to save a little face.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I was just about to kick out.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Gotcha.
Marc:But so the place erupts.
Marc:Hogan is just crestfallen.
Marc:Good.
Marc:I made me so happy as a kid.
Marc:It makes me so happy now.
Marc:Ventura.
Marc:Look at the tears in their eyes and Hogan holding his belt.
Marc:It's just it's just.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:I just electric.
Marc:I love it.
Marc:uh hogan passes the belt it's a warrior and it's a passing the torch and hogan goes away in his little sad wrestlemania car what i love those wrestlemania cards man he goes away and i gotta say is his car moving it looks like he's just stationary in this little wrestlemania car
Guest:Yeah, they were little go-karts that looked like wrestling rings.
Guest:They had ropes around them, and you stood up in them, and it was to get you through this stadium so that it didn't take everybody 20 minutes to walk down.
Guest:And yeah, Hulk rides his little cart out of the arena, and he is defeated.
Guest:However...
Guest:In Bret Hart's book, Bret alleges that Hulk Hogan told him, you watch, Warrior is going to fail, and Vince is going to come back to me and put the title back on me.
Guest:And that's exactly what happened.
Marc:No kidding.
Guest:Now, plenty of people will argue, probably accurately, that Hogan made that happen.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Self-fulfilling prophecy.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Like, what would make this work, right?
Guest:You're saying it's a passing of the torch, right?
Guest:Well, to pass the torch, the one who just passed it, he has to go away.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Hulk Hogan went away for a couple of months.
Guest:He filmed a movie.
Guest:I think it was Suburban Commando or whatever.
Guest:Then he comes back and has a program with the Earthquake, the biggest heel in the company at the time.
Guest:Who does Warrior have a program with?
Guest:Rick Rude, not the biggest heel in the program, and a guy who Warrior already beat once before.
Guest:So he has a heatless program, and Hogan has the most heated program against his giant monster, Hogan.
Guest:Well, of course he was still going to be above Warrior on the card and in the fans' minds.
Guest:They never gave the fans a chance to accept Warrior as Hogan's replacement because he didn't replace him.
Guest:Hulk stuck around.
Marc:Like an asshole.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, he
Guest:He is like the most amazing thing of if you're a wrestling fan and even if you're just a casual fan, you probably remember that Hulk Hogan then went to WCW and he became a bad guy, right?
Guest:He became a bad guy and joined the NWO and then he was Hollywood Hogan.
Guest:He had a big heel run for a while.
Guest:Well, when he turned heel, Bobby Heenan, who was like one of the guys on commentary, his whole posture was, I always told you this guy sucked.
Guest:oh no kidding like he's like everything i always told you was true like he was always an asshole just like you're pointing out during this match he's like lying and he's arguing and he's like but he's the hero but no everything he did was shitty yep bobby heeded was right
Marc:So, yeah, that was my number one with a bullet, WrestleMania memory.
Guest:Well, I'm glad you enjoyed watching it again.
Guest:Is there anything else that you would suggest to people if they're looking this up?
Guest:It's on Peacock, by the way, as all these old WWE shows are.
Guest:There's the WWE Network on Peacock, and you can watch WrestleMania VI whenever you want.
Guest:Anything else people should know when they're watching it?
Marc:Just know that that little Crystal Presto was just rubbing it in his classmates' faces that Hulk Hogan lost.
Marc:And all of them were all red-eyed and sad that Monday morning.
Marc:And I was like, cock on the walk, baby.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:There will come someday when the Mets have a parade down the Canyon of Heroes and that little kid will emerge once again.
Marc:I hope so.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, everybody, thank you for listening.
Guest:I hope you've enjoyed this.
Guest:If you're a wrestling fan, I hope you have something else to take away from this.
Guest:If you're not, and if you've listened all the way to the end, wow, you made it far with listening to all that with us.
Guest:God bless.
Guest:God bless.
Guest:Thank you very much.
Guest:We will be back with future episodes of The Friday Show as long as you're listening.
Guest:And so I'm Brendan.
Guest:That's Chris.
Guest:Peace.
Guest:Adios.