Who's at Fault? Tyreek Hill or the Cops? | TFATK Ep. 1023

Transcript

The following program is a podcast, one production from Hollywood, California, by way of the Broken Skull Ranch. This is the Steve Austin show. Give me a hell. Yeah, yeah. Now here's Steve Austin. All right, here I am, Steve. Don't go away. We are in South Texas. Finally, get a chance to talk to a longtime friend, Bill Apter from the old pro wrestling illustrated days, which back in the days when we're going to get into this conversation was, you know, the Bible of professional wrestling. A lot of guys would go to the top 10 to find out where they stood in the national rankings. Bill, welcome to the show. How are you doing? Oh, thank you. It is a thrill to be here because still, after Cecil, hey, you know, Bill, we've got our history goes so far back what we can get into the marriage story and all that other stuff. But I know you're on a limited time schedule today. We're going to cover a hard 60 minutes with you. And if we get another chance, come back and we'll continue the conversation because someone has been around the business as long as you have seen as much as you have. There's no way one, two or three conversations can covered, but nonetheless, let's get the ball rolling today. So we will. We're going to be going all the way back to be talking about my days with Abraham Lincoln and all this. What we could. I mean, you know, Abraham Lincoln was highly underrated as a technical wrestler and probably had one of the greatest dropkicks in the history of the business that's been lost and some of the people who didn't or didn't know this. However, he got mad because he never made it to the number two spot in the rankings. You know, people take the spots very serious on a pro wrestling illustrated rank. And so let's let's let's just go ahead and start with that. The PWI 500, when was that started? Oh, I can't give you an exact date on that. I'm not really sure because I've been gone from there for almost 14 years now, but when the editor came up with that, we all looked at him. What? Rank 500, guys, are you kidding me? And we would have like board meetings, we sit in a conference room for days and weeks with people and all the editors just arguing, especially about who would be never want. And we always had complaints from the quote unquote smart fans that the number one guy was never like one of these specialized Japanese guys or guy from Puerto Rico or Lucha Door, et cetera. And yeah, we battled quite a bit to pick that top guy, and I'd say to pick the top 100 was really difficult. And after that, a lot of guys just kind of fell into the same, the same numbers. I mean, because, you know, when you're talking about 500 guys, obviously, that's a vast number. Now, once you get into that 100, you can really get a pretty good gauge on, you know, their activity on the national scale with the different promotions 511 or back in the day was one thing when you had all the promotions, but still just the fact that you're trying to put some validity and real thought behind the ranking of 500 people. So, you know, I always figured that the pro wrestling illustrated top 500 was a shoot when I ended up at number one. That's when I know you got it right. Oh, it was. Absolutely. Absolutely. And not only when you wound up as number one, but when when everybody there wound up as its number one. The most important two spots that we found out when I was back there in that 500 was the number one guy who was missing 500. And there were guys that were saying, Listen, if you're going to put me, you know, two or three hundred do me a favor and make me number 500 because everyone will know who I am. Now that differed, that's 500 differed from the ways that we did the ratings, what I used to do. And this is back in the territorial days. And even when we did pro wrestling illustrated weekly, I was I would call all the offices every week and speak to the promoter or somebody in the office to find out who the local champion is and who the top challenges were. So when you saw rankings for like the NWA, the NWA, the WWF, back then, Florida, Charlotte, all of these places, including Japan, I had a guy in Japan. I used to talk to Koichi, his ally, every week and we would go over this and that's how the top ten rankings were compiled generally. And those guys were probably glad to work with you just to give their promotion. Some some notoriety, some some pub and a well-received magazine. Am I correct? Because, you know, back you are you? Yeah, a lot of people say we were the the internet before the internet, and that's that's really true. I mean, I remember back in the 70s Paul Jones, who was a big star in the in the Carolinas and in Georgia, and a lot of other areas, came to Madison Square Garden for one show. Vince McMahon, senior was booked him for one show. And he came over to me after he had gone into the dressing room area and he says, You know what this is? I never realized that you guys have been doing stories on me for a few years. People here knew who I was because of the magazine coverage, right? I used to always, I mean, when I first broke into business, it was a back in 1989, as you know, I was a 1990 pro wrestling illustrated rookie of the Year, and I have that boy. I'm down here at the ranch bill and I have that plaque hanging right on the other side of the wall here in my office. I was very proud to receive that, that award. But. What are your first, as long as you've been around the business? What what are your first memories of the business like growing up as a kid? What attracted the business? How did you get into it? Oh, growing up as a kid, I mean my my heroes. And it's amazing because I still have a passion for pro wrestling slash sports entertainment from the day I first started watching it. And as we're talking today, once a little kid, my brother used to ask me to come up on the bed with him and he'd go, move a little to the left. No, no. Move a little to the right, you know, track and drop. Kick me off the that's my older brother. I had no idea what he was doing, and one night I passed by the TV and I saw him watching this guy, Anthony Argentina Road, and that I saw that was where the dropkick came from. So I started watching it with him. And then I remember this real cheap production show. I guess everything was cheap. Production back then called bedlam from Boston, and I was living in New York, in Queens, New York, and it was channel turning and I saw this announcer and this wrestling dick, the bruiser talking with each other announcer was doing an interview. And Dick the bruiser was really upset at one of the questions, and he pulled the announcer in the ring, beat the crap out of them, and I find out later that that announcer was Lord a*****e Layton. Very well-spoken British gentleman, and that ticked off that feud. But I just saw something in that one moment, and that thing with Rocker just sparked me. It was just so little by little. I started cowboy Bob Ellis, Jonny Valentine with his atomic skull crusher. And then and then the guy that talk like this pal nature boy Buddy Rogers when he came into the ring, all glistening, greased up and strutting and pointing to his temple and saying, I got it all up here, pal. I was. I was hooked forever. I'm going to tell you a story off of that where where I lived in mastiffs, queens. I was so taken in by Buddy Rogers. There was a store across the street from the building where I live for the hilltop luncheonette, and there was a gang of bullies that hung out called the Hilltop Stompers. They were just the people just beat them up. I would come out of my building every night, around 8:30, the next morning newspaper, and I'd strut like Buddy Rogers, and they all knew I liked this. And they all say, Hey, there's nature boy, let's beat the crap out of them and they beat the crap out of me and I get up strut point to my temple and struck back across to my parents house across the street. And I did that every night. Or they picking on you every single night, every single night. Every single night. Any time I look any toward any any stories of revenge. Were you able to avenge all these beatings one time? Not not from the Hilltop Stompers. However, I think I may have been the first backyard wrestler because Buddy Rogers did the Sega for like lock, right? And I had an open challenge with all the kids my age where I lived. There were food gardens, the master that if anyone could break out of my figure for that, I can still put on people within six seconds. I can still do this. Anybody could break out of my fridge before I give them 25 cents. So we had an area behind the building of grass and they were chain a chain link fence. So the chain link with the ropes and the guys would challenge me every couple of days to see if they could break out of the C4. And only one guy did it because he still cowboy Bob Ellis, turn it over and reverse it. And his foot went into my testicle so hard that I gave up so, so the area. But the area of grass that we wrestled on became a very bad place for my father because we had created some wrestling there. We had created a bald spot of grass in that area. And my father had a $10000 fine for me and my friends doing that to the condo board. However, that bald spot, if everybody knows who I am, that became my signature now cause I still have that bald spot, but it's on top of the head now. And with regards to the figures for other than a testicular pain which happened during the reversal, that was leg placement. The reversal of the Figure four does not automatically transfer the pain from the giver to the give me. No one aborted when I when I saw it, when I saw Cowboy Bob Ellis, turn it over, Buddy Rogers. Oh my God. It seemed, it seemed that Buddy Rogers is in a lot of pain at that point. You seem to speak very highly of Buddy Rogers as the adventuring man and all my talks with him. He just loved the way Buddy Rogers strutted along the ring in the ring. And you know, a lot of people don't know this, but Vince McMahon's walk to the ring was his version of the walk that Buddy Rogers, a strut that Buddy Rogers used. And that was it, because I was told that it was a version of Dr. Jerry Graham originally. Well, I actually thought it was a version of my wall to be a mouthful, but no straight out of his mouth. It was his version of the strut used by Buddy Rogers because he just really looked up to Buddy Rogers. So and speaking about Buddy Rogers now, he was obviously way before my time. But what was it about that guy that made him such a hot draw in that area and worldwide? Well, first of all, I got to meet him for the latter part of his career when he made this. I remember he had retired, and my dad and mom had retired to West Palm Beach in 1979 or so. My dad went to the matches there every Monday night and my dad called. You'll never believe who just wrestle. I said, who said Buddy? Rogers said, Dad, you need glasses to contact lenses. No, his buddy Rogers. And the next Monday, Rogers came back and he gave my dad gave him my phone number. There were no cell phones there, and a day or two later, I guess. Hey, Billy, this is Buddy Rogers. If you think I'm retired, you're crazy. And buddy, the voice was exactly the same. The c**kiness. I think what made him such a big star was number one. He looked incredible. He looked like a real athlete. The presentation he carried himself like a star. Oh yeah, absolutely. And he always he downed all the babyfaces, of course, and sometimes he had a manager do it. But you always believed him and you never thought anyone would be funny. But he is. There are a lot of bad guys around that can do the job in the ring. But if you can't get across, what are you going to do in terms of promoting what you're doing? And you know, there's a big link really missing. He's had it all. He was just I just remembered him on the interviews, and I think I still have some of his audio interviews on the old reel-to-reel tapes here. But there was just he was a charismatic bad guy, and you can count those kind of bad guys on one hand, really, that can do everything. And his work in the ring was really, really good because he was a bad guy and he was champion. He got up and got he got he was usually beaten up a lot, everybody thought, Oh, this next guy is going to win the Championship. He always had a way of pulling it out, making you believe that he's not going to lose ever, even if it's the last five seconds of a 60 minute match. He's not going to lose that match. Hey, when you were talking to all the different promoters and compiling your top 10 list for all sort of pro wrestling illustrated and going back to, you know, as many years as you've watched the business, was there any territory in particular that you really favored their style of work? But because it seemed like each territory is still pro wrestling, but had a different style and you were coming from where you're at, where there was a Pennsylvania New York area, more WWF country, correct? Or WWE? What was your what was your favorite territory that you got a chance to cover and watch the work and the angles? Well, back then, before Pro Wrestling illustrated, we had a wrestler, an inside wrestling magazine. I always had a fondness, a personal fondness for those TV days. Yes. Georgia Georgia Championship Wrestling. And that extended down to Florida and also went back to to Charlotte because, you know, they ran a lot of the same territory. Of course, WWF was my home territory. So to say, you know, we always knew we could get a good cover shot at the garden and stuff like that. And I loved it. And Dan Senor was terrific to me and I was running a shoot and all this kind of stuff. But there was something hypnotic about the way they did the TV in that little studio in TBS, where I never realized that, you know, years later, I would wind up having my own segment on one of the shows there on TBS. So it came it came full circle. There was a charm smell, I feel to those old TBS shows. Freddy Miller with Beaver and Gordon sold. These unmistakable, robust has been broken and we will be right back. You couldn't wait for them to come back from the break. Yeah, you couldn't wait. There was an excitement every time they went to a breakthrough as a cliffhanger, as a lifelong fan bill. And now, you know, obviously we've known it was a work all along. But when I was a kid and I'm a little bit younger than you, but when I first fell into wrestling, you were watching on TV. I was changing channels manually, just like you were at seven or eight. It was from a Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston, and I fell in love with the business. Now I've talked to many people on the show and they always knew that it was fake, and that's not the correct word to use. But they knew they didn't know the term, but they knew it was a work or something was up. Now me, on the other hand, I bought in as a kid and later down the road. I mean, I would slowly go through this process of of coming up with, OK, something's going on here, but it's not really fake, so to speak. So when you were watching, did you buy it as a kid? Did you always believe it was real or did you just know that it was a work and that's just the way it was? Where were you on that spectrum? I never questioned it when I was a kid. It was real to me and my friends were watching baseball and football. I was watching wrestling. Well, did you know wrestling was fixed? I didn't know it was broken. Yes, it's great. It's an absolute great sport. Yeah, it's one on one time, but I look the other way and I defended it. Yeah, from a young age, I defended it. I remember one time I was so mad. My dad wanted to get a new movie camera and I said this Thursday night at eight o'clock. And that's when wrestling was on from the Capital Arena in Washington, D.C. and in New York. And just as the store was closing, they had in the TV section there the Graham brothers against the best brothers, and the four of them were bleeding like there was no tomorrow. And one of the sales guys said, You watch that crap, that's all fake. I said, Yeah, this is what. You don't know what's happening to camera here. I made my father put the video camera down and we ran out of the store. No, I totally. And then I never really question it when I got into the business. They didn't know whether I knew or didn't know, but I never questioned it because we covered pro wrestling when Sports Illustrated would cover any sport, right? You did. That's the way, and I never let on. I never would go over the guy. Hey, how much time even today? And who's going over? Never did that. Right? And I think that's why, you know, 50 years later, I'm still here doing this because I never asked about, you know, if there were times promoters would call me and say it would be a good idea for you to be in Charlotte next Wednesday night, right? And I never say why I go to Stanley Weston, my mentor who ran the company. And he said he understood it. He got it. You know, now when someone would call you up, Bill, and say, Hey, it is be a good idea for you to be in Charlotte, and so, you know, something's going to happen, maybe a big title change. OK, so who's paying for the plane ticket? P.W. Band or the promoter? OK, yeah, we're as a company. No, we never took anything from the promoters at all. The company that owns Pro Wrestling illustrated wrestler Inside Wrestling Sports Review Wrestling Center, the owner of that company's publishing company, London Publishing with Stanley Weston. All expenses were paid by him. I was on a weekly salary. I wasn't a freelancer. I was on a weekly salary. Medical benefits. Everything was a regular job there. But I remember one promoter in Florida who hadn't called me, but one of the wrestlers called me, and one of the the promoter in Florida put his arm around me afterwards, and he said, How did you just have to be here tonight? And I said, didn't you hear my parents moved down here eight years ago? I'm visiting my parents, so how could they not come and shoot the matches here for the magazine? Yeah. Big smile. Give me a big smile. And he hugged. And you said, you got it, don't you? I said, Yeah, got you. Got you. Yeah, exactly. Because that was never said, but they always knew that I knew code of ethics that went along with that business. Nobody had to talk about kayfabe, and I made the the code of Ethics. I'll never forget the first time I was one of the first senators in the dressing room or second the third time in Charlotte and some guy walked in saw me talking to Tommy Young, the referee and some other wrestlers in that case say, Yeah, Hermione looked at him. He says, kayfabe, save yourself is this is the laughter. Oh, sorry. You know, it's like the guy knows it's all right, and I never broke it. So the fans, either because one fans would talk to me about, Hey, this is fake. I said, Listen, if you want to talk about wrestling, you know, I look at his sport, so talk to talking about wrestling all day and night, but I'm not going to defend fake or real and all that. I said, these guys are the best athletes in the world. And this is I don't question with this is this is the sports and this is the Steve Austin show. Guys, Father's Day is just around the corner, and I know the perfect gift he didn't know he needed, but trust me, he needs this and I'm talking about meter meter is a sleek, smart meat thermometer that guarantees the perfect cook every single time. Keeps an eye on the food and lets it know when that juicy chicken, mouthwatering steak or award winning brisket is ready to come off the grill or out of the oven. You'll never under or overcooked your meat again, so go ahead and delete that. Food delivery app meter gives you a countdown for the cook so you can spend time with the family. Kick back and have a beer while meter watches your food. 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Thursday was another town, Friday was another town. Just follow the follow the boys for the week in Atlanta. Atlanta was the busiest weekend ever because Friday nights in the 70s was the City Auditorium on Friday night and Saturday to do three hours of TV, a TBS that drive three hours to where Fred Ward was promoting and Columbus to do one hour of TV. And then you go do a spot show Saturday night somewhere, like in Marietta, and then Sunday there'd be an afternoon show and a night show. So in terms of photography, I'd get 50 60 rolls of film and, you know, 20 30 interviews during a weekend in Atlanta. I loved it, I absolutely love it, I I I was fortunate enough for a guy who was a wrestling fan to get into the business, not be one of the actual workers, even though I did at once, not to be one of the actual workers and yet be sent all over the world. Hosts Japan four or five times England, Italy, Germany. I mean, if it wasn't for this business and I didn't have to pay for plane tickets, but bill, when you mentioned that and in all the territories, what did you think about the Japan style of work versus what was going on in the United States at the time when you were first going over there and I found it the strong style? Well, I found Japan similar to a lot of the lighter weight guys that I've seen in the United States. But I remember now I'd gone on a tour. Baba invited me over along the fence, had kind of brokered that for me to go over there, and I was with bruiser Brody Superfly, Jimmy Stewart, the Mongolian stopper Stan Hansen, said DiBiase. And so the style there was, the guys that I was with were adapting their styles to the styles of the guys in Japan, right? And you know, to see the guys that I saw in America like Superfly, Jimmy Snuka, turn it up a bit and do his best in Japan against the Japanese guys was amazing. Probably one of the scariest things they ever seen in my life. Nobody told me this is going to happen. I was like the when shooting pictures and I turn around and there's all these thousands and thousands of Japanese fans behind me. And all of a sudden I hear the dressing room door opens and they're scattering and running in fear and terror, and they're stomping all over the place trying to get it. I felt like I'd feel I was coming out of the dressing room. Hansen and Brody swinging this huge change, and they didn't give a damn who they were going to hit or whatever, and I got pushed down and stomped on by these fans. Yeah, I'm telling you, it's like a Godzilla movie. Second night, I wised up to that and went under the Ring Road in Paris and got to the ring, but I was absolutely terrified. But then you had, you know, the great scientific wrestlers like Ted DiBiase on the tour, and I used to love the way the ring announcer now, DiBiase. And it just it was so different. And yet it still took place in four corners. And I loved it, man. I used to watch the same things that you were there in person, but I saw some of the things when Brody and Hansen came out swinging the cowbells on the end of that ball rope and is scared s**tless, quite frankly, as some of the people were in the audience. I mean, it was a full blown shoot, and it was almost an honor to get to get like a run in the bowls. It was almost an honor to get lit up by a bell. They probably want to get, yeah, but and they and Brody and Hansen did not give a damn. And I thought, you know, and of course, Brody was a big star wherever he went in the world. Stan, I thought, more specifically in Japan, he was suited for that. And man, when you talk about work and strong style, I mean, those two guys really thrived in that environment. And I also have, as far as your scientific style, who a lot of people you know, Dory funk. When I first started in the business of Pro Russian, I thought his style was a little bit more boring. But when I when I started educating myself and became a hand in the ring and a mechanic, I really appreciated what Dory was doing really in Japan. I loved doing his work over Japan, and it was a guy I really looked up to. But he was a guy that the from a famous family. And of course, Terry was probably the more well-known of the two doors work over there. I knew he would grind. Yeah, he would. I was talking to Ric Flair the other day, he said. He would kind of always lean on the entire you out, but I really loved your style over there. Oh yeah, I did, too. And he and Kerry, of course, their styles are so different. And what's amazing with Dory? He just came back from Japan. He was he was there as an ambassador there, but he still wrestles on his own dang promotion record, really. And he still, you know, he's still doing it. He never stopped and he's still got it. Hey, you mentioned earlier, we're talking about Buddy Rogers. Tell me a little bit about Jack Briscoe because I hear so many people talk about how bad a*s Jack Briscoe was, but I really never got a chance to see him work. But anybody, any of the veterans that I talked to, speak with high regard about Jack Briscoe when he was a world champion or in the ring period. I think Jack was killed the first time Stanley Weston, my mentor, before I even hired full time. He said to me, I got to do this for. She said any grand is bringing this young, handsome kid, Jack Bristow, to the gun. You get an interview with Bristow and you can work for me full time. So yes, chief, I was Jimmy Olsen, you know, he's very white, so I got to the garden and Eddie Graham introduced me to Jack. And of course, Jack did the interview in the audio tape that contributed to this great deep voice. He could have been a radio person out there, but when I saw him in the ring at the garden, they put him against something like Carlos Prado or someone who wouldn't exactly compliment what Jack could do best. When I saw Jack Bristow at his best, I saw four or five times his one hour matches against joy function. And to this day, when people ask me to point to great matches, I photographed and seen throughout the years because to me, they by every different era. Yeah, let's go south. If they match Jack Briscoe was the was just. Fantastic progress, very focused in the rain, he didn't play to the fans. He's a plain guy. He came into the ring to be introducing waves to the fans, of course. But then it was all business in the ring anyway, and it was it. It was highly respected as a shooter as well. So absolutely you could work with him. And if you wanted to get smart with him, well, then he could show you a thing or two in regards to that. Oh, well, he and his brother, Jerry, of course. You know they were both fine amateur wrestler, so you know you wouldn't want to cross course either one of them. So to say and shoot on the Steve Austin show the team lost in June. Steve Austin unleashed unleashed. Bill, what did you think when the territories started drying up because they're putting them all out of business? Yeah. Well, it upset me, of course, because I was one of the things tied into the. Territory is drying up because the U. S. at that point was starting to expand. Was that we were losing material for the magazines? Yes, WWE had their own magazine and they didn't want the other magazines as part of what they were doing. So this this is a situation that became very difficult to us. But to answer your question on a personal level, I hated to cede the territories. And because first of all, a lot of people were put out of work. Yeah, WWF did not take a lot of guys, so to say. But there was that. Feeling about the independent territories that that smaller, home grown feeling at those arenas that even the indies today are still trying to bring back in some way, but it still doesn't feel like the days of those territories, the territories seem to be more official. That's when you know you have a national wrestling alliance and all the territories you had the name, all their little territories and stuff like that and other promotions. So yeah, it was. It hurts to see that go away. It really did. And that's why I remember so many good things in the territories because, you know, I grew up in my career around the territories. You had so many guys, I mean, so many territories, you know, guys would work in a territory for wanting to take macho man for, for instance, when he first started out and then what I guess it was with his father's promotion, ICW and then went to Memphis. And then that's where, you know, he really honed his craft and came up with the Macho Man thing. And of course, by the time he got to WWF, he had been working six eight years and was already a hellacious worker. And then he went up there. But these days, without all the territories there's, there's just not any place for guys to really get on the road and work in front of any crowds and make a little bit of money to be able to stay on the road and keep learning. Well, there are territories. There are groups like Ring of Honor, of course, around that. That's still a really good breeding ground for future stars. Of course, the WWE set that magnificent performance center and next, which I'm hoping because I loved it and promotion to the whole the whole feel of that's got that old school. Feel about it. I'm hoping, yeah, so I'm hoping that's going to become a territorial part of what WWE is. But yeah, the territories, unfortunately, you know, the last gasping breaths of survival, I was there. That's so much of that. And it really hurt and really, really hurt. And you know, you were you were in so many territories, too. I mean, just all these years you spent in world class, which which at one point everyone thought was going to be the next WWF man. Things are going so hot there and things all stunning, you know, just kind of started taking a downturn when a lot of the guys and Devon ers started it off and it just turned into what it turned into. So I was it was a sad time. What were you? What were your thoughts on just the whole Von Erich legacy? And you know, now as as far as the boys go, you have Kevin as the only guy left. He's living in Hawaii. His boys now are getting in the business. I wish him all the luck in the world would be interested to see how their careers play out, but it's a different business now. Oh, it's a different business now. But what were your thoughts when all the tragedy with the Von Erichs happened? Well, I had to been around those guys many times. Oh, they may have made me the fourth son, Eric. That's what they used to call me. Oh, I was very close with Kerry, Kevin and David, and especially with David and his wife, Trish. David and I met the first time in Florida when he was working for Eddy Graham, and we became really good friends and he invited me along with, I believe, is Craig Peters from the publishing illustrated down to his ranch for a day, and we spend quality time with him, his wife, his brothers, his father, his mother, Doris. And I'll never forget you, Slater's middle of the night and one of my photographers she had told her, Jimmy Suzuki called me from Japan. And he said, Eric, you said. What should I do if I never if he's dead? You know, 3:00 in the morning, you can you can barely decipher what someone saying on the phone, but you hear the word dead. And then I called him back after I woke up 20 minutes later and he was shocked because that was the first wrestler I really knew well, who died. And you're talking about Jimmy Shuki, the photographer, this one who gave you that call, right? Yes. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And I was shocked this this the first wrestler I ever knew who died and I went down to the funeral. And it was one of the most devastating, devastating moments, personally and business wise of my life, because here was this young kid who was slated probably to become the world champion. And I just seen him a few weeks before and he said. So, yeah, that and then, of course, became very close with Kerry. And when he died again, it was total shock and dismay. And then when the other kids, I mean, I talked to Kevin a few months ago and I'm so glad that Kevin is here that he's around, that he's content, that he moves out in the jungle. He said in Hawaii 07, there's no 7-Elevens out where he lives. But the legacy of the Von Erichs, it's unfortunate that too many people remember them for what the negatives were, the way that they all tragically died. Then the great athletes and performers that they were in the ring. I'll tell you what, man coming from Texas and you know, world class championship wrestling was a big part of my childhood growing up. I found that after I found Houston wrestling. And then finally, you know, got a football scholarship to North Texas state, which is in Denton, Texas, 30 miles from Dallas, Texas. So I would pay my money on Friday, Friday night or Saturday mornings because I went live on Friday night and then Saturday morning I did a TV taping, which an air that night of KTV to Channel 11. And man that you know, the Von Erichs and the Freebirds and man that place was on fire and I started real. Oh, wait a minute, you just hit another great point this freebirds. Oh my god. Oh man, before you go to Freebirds before you go the free bar. I mean, the Von Erichs were a rock stars and a lot of people. You know, if you if you weren't in Texas, you don't quite understand the grasp of how hot those kids were. Just good looking kids. Everybody loved them guys and gals loved them. And then all of a sudden one would like Jesus tells a story. He gets that call. I think it was from Gary Hart. You guys need to come down here. We can make some money. And they went out to check it out and they were blown away with what Dallas was doing. I thought the Freebirds were phenomenal. They would listen. The combination of the three words being rock stars, that's the USA. Yes, America was absolutely incredible. And you mentioned another name in there who is Saturday, and I'm going to use the word genius in that promotion. And that was old friend Gary Hart. He had such a great creative mind. But how long did you get to know Gary? Because, you know, very well, he gave me another job. I mean, once things in U.S. air dropped, dried up a little bit. So I worked on the side for Gary Hart over at Metroplex Arena, and that's when I was a tag team with the California stud rod price. And so I didn't get a chance to really get inside Gary's mind for the business because I was too green to really understand the level with which he was coming from. But Gary was a very interesting guy, and I just had a great time reading his autobiography, which they were refusing to publish anymore. But what did you find about Gary that was so fascinating or just made him so, you know, such a genius within the business? You know, like they say, Nancy Reagan ran Ronald Reagan. I think in a lot of ways, Gary Hart ran Fritz von Erich. He had a lot of love hate there. What a hell of a relationship those two had because it was great. And I used one of the things I have to back up a little. What Gary was very laid back was very, very rare. He'd get mad and I'd hear guys come on over and saying, Hey, Gary, what do you want me to do in my match tonight? What are we doing tomorrow? And just very casually, and I got to do my Gary Hart. He goes, Oh man, I want you to do is go in the ring? Do you think to 10 or 15 minutes cannot get your money come back tomorrow? That's how laid back he was like that all time. But when it came to business, when it came to business, Gary was an incredible creator. A lot of people like him took the mind of Eddie Graham because he was always coming up with different angles, different storylines, and he was never afraid to give a young guy a break or even one of the older guys who would come up with a scenario that Gary thought would work. And I happened to be toward the time that I used to go down to Texas to cover the matches where I first met you with your glowing blonde hair up there. I used to go out with Gary, and Dick Steinbaum was still around at that point, and we go and sit for hours discussing wrestling strategy. And Gary was just, I don't know if there was just something about him that even though he has family and all that, the only thing on his mind 24-7 was the business he lived. Eight. Frank slept the business and that's what separated. That's what separates these great creators from the rest of us. Were you were you brought another name up and we've talked you said his name twice. Eddie Graham now here was who was also. Known as kind of the genius of finishes. So what was it about it and Graham that was just so special in regards to finishes? That's a great question, and I wish I could give you an answer, but I don't know. I mean, he just seemed to define issues down in that Florida territory. All seem to be. All right. All the time I've heard some of the guys who worked in that territory. I mean, you basically have your match, what you would call calling a ring. But in regards to the finish, I mean, that finish could be five to 10 minutes long and whatever his instructions were. That's that's exactly what he wanted coming out of that match. You can do whatever you wanted, but when the finish came down, it was a well thought that serves to lead to the next step to do business and draw on a next card that we're going to have. And, you know, he imparted a lot of his learning into his protege, Dusty Rhodes. Yes, Cook, who took a lot of that and brought it to Jim Crockett promotions when he worked for Jim Crockett. And he also, you know, he was trained in Florida by Eddie Graham to do that. Hey, Bill, before we. I know that we're on a hard 60 minute countdown because of your schedule the day. But I know when we were talking last night where Senator, if you text messages and you want to talk a little bit about some of the Andy Kaufman stuff down in the U.S., oh hey, I don't want to get to the cat game story because you and me had a long history from when I first mentioned getting in the business. But tell me some of Andy Kaufman stories about, you know, when has he feuded with Lawler in the U.S., NWA and a lot of the younger generation? Well, I don't know. I was found, but this was a hell of a damn feud. Yeah. And I'll tell you and Jerry Lawler will tell you the same thing that if it wasn't for me connecting them, this thing may never have happened. Also, you know, Lawler, you were the competitive guy. Yeah, yeah. Well, here's how it happened. Andy Coulson used to come to Madison Square Garden, and he used to try and get into Vince seniors here a lot and wrestle with the garden. And, you know, Vince Senior wasn't into the whole show biz aspect of this whole thing. So one night Andy came over to me. He knew who I was from the magazine. I knew he was locked up. Yeah, actually. And he actually wanted to talk, and I so I have to go home. So where do you live? I should in queens, he said. How do you get there? Should I take the subway? Can I go with you? I said, sure. So here I am on the train, going from Penn Station to Union Turnpike in Queens with Andy Coulson, the guy that's starring in Taxi, sitting next to me on the subway. And people look all my stuff again. Let me just say hello to people. So you get up to my apartment. And at that point, I was living with an Australian girl wrestler. She was my best friend. Her name was Susan Sexton, and she used to like when we had wrestlers up the apartment there because we talked to business for a little while. But she was the three or four hours she would be sitting there, and all we wanted to do is talk about Buddy Rogers infrared glasses and how he wanted to be Buddy Rogers, and he wanted to be glasses. And I remember one night Suzanne was sitting in the couch and we used the. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's yeah, this is unleashed. So she looked at him and she said, All the f**k you can talk about. She's you know anything about the Ramones or AC DC. And then she just looked at him. The check went into the bedroom, put on her headphones and never saw her again. So I certainly count when I said, you have to understand that this exemption is not going to let you do this, and maybe it's something to do with the commission to Vince Jr. knew that Andy Coulson was alarmed at that point, even had a, I think, broadcasting with him at one point. So I said, Listen, I got a friend in Memphis, Tennessee. His name is Jerry Lawler. And I said that territory has they do shtick. They've got like the Frankenstein monster. Different things like that. Dracula, you know, we go on it, he says, Well, you think you can get me in touch with him? And I thought, Well, let's call him right now. And he looked at his watch. He said, it's one o'clock in the morning. And he said, So we'll wait till the morning and call. I said, Oh, no, is this one of the wrestlers probably just coming in or so we stay up all night. So I called Jerry Lawler and he says, Hey, Bill, how are you doing? I said, fine. I said I told him who I had in my apartment. And he pauses and he says, You got Andy Coulson, the guy from taxing your little roach infested apartment there in Queens. Yeah, he said. Can I talk to him? I said he wants to talk to you. So I put Andy on and they talked for about 20 minutes and Andy got off the phone and he says he wants to meet me. This is the guy that's starring in Taxi, the biggest comedy hit in the world. And Jerry Lawler wants to meet him, and this is the biggest thing in his life now. So from there he went down. A few days later, and Lawler and Jarrett and Jimmy Hart put the key in the ignition. And that got it going. So when the feud started and the Letterman Show happened, I was also one of the people that helped get the Letterman Show to book them as well. And I was at the Letterman Show there, and I didn't know what was going to happen. I had no idea because I at that point if I would have thought to myself that this was a shoot, I would have thought that. Definitely, yeah. And, you know, eventually, years and years later, I never thought Andy Kaufman was a comic genius. I loved him as laughter, right? He invited my wife and I down to catch a rising stars like 10th anniversary in New York. And he had a plant guy in the audience, and I didn't know this. And then he came out after a minute or two of comedy. The plant goes out. Andy, what struck you? And Andy looked good. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. This went on for 20 minutes. But you know, you know, facts and there are people in the audience hysterical laughing. I'm looking at my wife who was sitting at a table next to life in an alley and a whole bunch of other celebrities, and they were all looking like they're all going to walk out. I never thought he was a comic genius and I remember probably five years after he died. He never kept in touch when he was sick, by the way. He just dropped out of contact with with almost everyone. But the five years after he died, I fell to just hurts. The other one of the other stars and taxis appearing in the show in New York called I'm Not Rappaport and I don't know why something compelled me to go and say hello to him. So I went to the theater and he was just coming in and I said, Mr. Hurst and introduce myself, my name is the Lafayette La. And I'm the guy who helped get Andy Kaufman into pro wrestling. And he put his arm around me and he took me over to the side because you didn't want anybody else to hear. And he said, I guess you think I'm going to thank you. But he said that was a miserable time for the whole cast because Andy missed rehearsals. Andy wasn't Andy. Andy was a pro wrestler at that time, and it hurt us all. Should I don't fault you for it? But we never liked any of that stuff that you did. Amazing. That is amazing, but I mean, God, if if any of you people want to go back and watch the most damage on YouTube, just just Google, anything that has to do with Jerry Lawler and Andy Kaufman and just the whole feud, the whole angle. I mean, and these are Bangladeshis. I mean, you know, it was a shoot. Because. Absolutely. Oh, it was a straight up shoot and then following our talks about it and what I can reveal now is something I wouldn't reveal years ago, he said. After the Letterman Show, I went up to Lola's hotel room. Craig Peterson, Lola's wife, was there, and Lola invites me into the room and closes the door. Somebody taps me on the back and it was sandy. They had just worked the entire universe because the next day, the photos that Craig Peterson I shot at the Letterman Show were picked up by The A.P. Wire. We ran over to The Associated Press and gave them the pictures, and it was on every major newspaper the next day. That's great. That's great. Lola, the day that that hit Lola wanted to come out to our editorial offices in Mr. Westin. My mentor was like in senior know showbiz stuff. So I told him what happened the night before, and he wasn't impressed. And I said, Can we send a car to get Jerry Lawler? He said, no, let him take the Long Island railroad like everybody else. So here's the guy now whose face is on the cover of every newspaper, and he's taken the Long Island Long Island railroad back to our office and they have no photos. So it doesn't matter how big a story you are. If somebody doesn't buy you, you know you're on the subway. But yeah, had that moment in my apartment that happened at the timing. Everything that that thing might have happened, maybe. But I don't think it would have had the momentum because everything, just everything, just fired correctly from the moment that Sandy and I met to let's call Jerry Lawler. I could have said, Hey, let's call Eddie Graham. But for some reason that Memphis territory and the way we were covering them in the magazine that it was like it was a brutal but sticks type of territory because they had characters. I knew this would fly there. I know, no doubt. But there are other things that I've done that people don't know. Sylvester Stallone's office called. Called our office one time that they were looking for a certain type to play opposite to their system on Iraqi three. And the girl who called said This is what we're looking for. And I sent this girl pictures of this veteran guy, superstar Billy Graham and this new guy by the name of terrible a Hulk Hogan. So I said there's an incentive for FedEx. So the next day, I get a call from the secretary, could you send us more pictures of this? Terry Bollea? Yup. Which I did. So they wanted to talk to him and we were. The magazines at that point were banned from the WWF. We weren't allowed to shoot. So I called Arnold Schoeman. I called a bunch of people. And then I finally called Coke's mother because I was always since he started. I was always friendly with him, and I knew his mom and dad and I used to. When the ban was on. Anytime I needed to get the ban with the magazines weren't allowed in to the matches. I would always contact him through his mother. So I called his mother and I said, Sylvester Stallone wants to talk to Terry. And that's how that got started. And I thought it was a real to begin with, he kept. Yeah. When you come back. Yeah, yeah. But everybody from Arnold Skogland to everyone in the office all took credit for doing that. I called school and I said, Could you give him the message? So Hogan didn't realize it that five years ago I told him the story of how this happened. I said, What do you think? I got all the pictures for the magazine of you against Stallone in the movie that your mother sent them to me as a thank you gift? He didn't know that. Yeah. Hey, you brought up a real interesting name, a guy that I was a big fan of superstar Billy Graham back in his heyday. And, you know, his DVD that the WWE turned out of him 20 years to Sony. The guy was ahead of his time because when I look at what Billy Graham did, he was talking all that trash. And, you know, he generated a lot of heat initially, and then he became so entertaining that the people started buying into him as a babyface. But then I saw the Warriors. Yeah, but Vince Senior, you know, then he dropped the belt bob Backlund, and he almost dropped off the face of the Earth. He could have been really the first stone cold Steve Austin in regards to what he could have done in the business. But they didn't have the foresight that it seems seemingly to me looking back hindsight being 2020. But he was the original guy that you know, all they had to do was transition his opponents and that guy would have turned into a monster babyface obscure. Absolutely. And yet totally agree. And one of the great things I loved about superstar Billy Graham is he was a great self-promoter. He would he would be in the ring putting a chin lock on Dusty Rhodes, put this on the cover bill and put this on the cover. George Politano. You know, he be evil and he'd call. He'd keep in touch by phone to let me know where he is and when he lived on the island, which was just three miles away from the PWI offices. He was up there all the time whenever he wanted to be. He I always loved people that went out of their way to push themselves because it was great for the magazine's right. But a man, I tell you what he was just magic on a microphone and just watching some of that old footage of him at Madison Square Garden, where there was just a ringside interviewer inside the ring with Vince McMahon and even going back to some of the stuff where what would that have been in NWA when Wally Kargbo was interviewing him? Yes. Yeah, yeah, that was great stuff, but it would. But when he was in the WWF, that was the peak of what he was becoming. But he was in a zone, and I talked to Billy about five years ago. I said, Man, I said, the look in your eyes when you went out there, I mean, you were the superstar. That was no ifs, ands or buts. You weren't trying to be the superstar. And he just had that look in his eyes that he believed a thousand percent and everything that he said talking about, you know, swum across the Atlantic Ocean lifted 8000 pounds. This, I mean, yeah, it was all bulls**t as we know it. No, come on. But but the way he said it, I mean, like, surely you know, it's bulls**t. But it was so entertaining. I've got to love it. You know, hey, listen, before I go because I see the clock down to like three minutes, you know, we got to put some of your stuff. Yeah, one wrestling economist, of course, my home on the internet. And that's the number one. Not not not number one WrestlingInc.com. Number one, like in Chinese food, it's number one. You can tweet me it after one wrestling against the number one, but I want to break something on your podcast here because I haven't a few a handful of people know this, but several years ago, long time ago, I was approached by you. Should you press in Canada? It's not. You should go to the wrestling companies entertainment culture writing to write a book, and I put it off and I put it off and put it off. And finally, in the last year and a half, I put it together and they gave me a deadline, which was this past September. And the book should be out in all the bookstores and Amazon, et cetera, next year, hopefully in October or November. It's not a tell all book, it's not a book where it's about what I did with the guys in the business. It's no, you know, after going to expose their sex, they're going to be stories like, for example, when I wrote an obituary in the early 70s of Bear, can't write in the magazine. And then I got a letter from a fan, You've made a grave error and there was a picture of, I can't write wrestling in Toronto the week before, but the guy wasn't dead. Stuff like that. My the time with you in the MRI where I held your feet. And let me tell that I know to be in a book. But here's a thing I'd got dropped on my head and Meadowlands, New Jersey. I was a. Aged quadriplegic for about a minute. I thought it was going be paralyzed for the rest of my life. I remember that and it was, you know, I called an audible in the match. I told Owen roll up for the win because I had to get out of that match because there was a kiss my a*s stipulation to the loser and I was going to put myself in that position. I was supposed to go over with the stone cold stunner. Anyway, it was a worse roll up in the history of the business. But after that, you know, they drove me to the hospital. Everything turned out negative. I did indeed bruise my spinal cord. I would find that out some months later. But anyway, you were there when I got that MRI, that first one. Yeah, in Philly for doctor talks office, Dr. Dog was kind of the leading specialist at the time for what is called. When you receive a blow to the top of your head, that is an actual load number one cause of quadriplegic is some of the guys from NFL, you know, have gone through that same thing. And anyway, I'm highly claustrophobic and I started sliding in that MRI tube and I'm not the biggest guy in the world, but those tubes are kind of small as well. So it's crunch crunching my shoulders up. Yeah, and they would put me in that tube and I was like, I'm starting to freak out a little bit. I said, Alright, guys back me up and I said, OK, guys, I'm ready. Put me back in and they started, Give me a little bit farther in the tube. Is the right guys back me up? And then finally, you were there because you were taking pictures. I still have some of those pictures that you gave me. I said Bill and I had a pair of short socks on those booty socks, and I was aware I didn't wear long socks because they weighed me down on my drop kick and I said, Bill, would you please hold on to my foot so I know someone's here with me to get my a*s in his tube? Now you talk about the toughest son of a b***h in the history of the WWF, and he doesn't want to go on it too. So I relied on my longtime buddy bill out to hold onto my foot. Because you know what, bill? I come from the business of pro wrestling. When I figure, you know, someone's going to pull a rib on me, someone's going to put a cap on one end of that MRI tube and a cap or other, and I'm f**ked because I can't get out. And I knew that if you had my foot, someone would be there for me. So that's a true story, and I look forward to reading that and everything else in the book. And that is hard to realize. Do you realize that those sharks we could have kept and sold them on eBay and they've had to work a day in our lives? But you know, these are the kind of stories, but you don't need to do a tell all book, a tell all book, as I think just covered, though this is an old book. Yeah, the road that you travel in the business of pro wrestling coming to the fore, the biggest stars from the top to the bottom. But just a lifetime in the business of pro wrestling. One last question Did you ever think when you first started getting into the business and getting paid for your work that it would last this long? No, no. But I you know what? I'm the type of person that when I like a business or a person, I'm totally devoted to that. WWF offered me jobs three times, three times during the years I worked for Stanley Weston, and because of who I am, I didn't want to leave Stanley Weston. So did I realize it would stay this long? Yeah, people ask me, When are you going to stop all this and retire? Like all nice old Jewish guys from Florida? And I said never until I can keep doing this mentally and physically. I still love it. Just like the just like Vince McMahon that glow in the eyes there every morning and I can't wait to get up and do this. And just as a side thing, just to let you know that, you know, a lot of people say they do want to do these calls during the day and all that. For the past seven years, very quietly has been working for a nonprofit in the state of Pennsylvania and Delaware County for a company called Ahead HDD, and they're a non-profit company. And the focus is to help persons with disabilities find real jobs, real competitive jobs. And I last year, I think I placed about 20 people in good quality jobs. And the thing that I'm doing full time with pro wrestling, I'm still there full time, and I do that full time as well. They complement each other because I meet a lot of employers who I know, who know who I am, and I can bring the message of what this company is doing to them as well. And I meet a lot of people, a lot of fans with disabilities out in the field who differently now because even though I always helped persons with disabilities as a volunteer when I was a kid, it's a different focus now because, you know, you can be out there and you can work. You don't have to be a shudder when I say, that's good work, bill. Next time I talk with you, I love to talk to you about some of the, you know, Paul Heyman back in the day when he was snapping pictures. George Napolitano is another name that comes up, but just some of the ringside stuff shenanigans because we got to talk about your ex-wife and you, every one of them. That'd be a that'd be a trilogy. Of six hour show, so very sad. Hey. His name is Bill after a long time friend and when I think pro wrestling, I think bill after. And you could follow him on Twitter at after one wrestling and one wrestling dot com because his website. Hey, Bill, it was good talking to you. I look and I do my part and I do my sign off. Yes, you can. Thank you. Stone Cold Steve Austin ed for Stone Cold, Steve Austin and Bill Arthur here among us and we'll see you at the. This has been a podcast. One Production Download new episodes of the Steve Austin show every Tuesday at PodcastOne dot com. That's podcast on e-com. See what streaming free all month long during Amplify AAPI Voices on Pluto TV watch shows like Kim's Convenience with seemingly new and amazing movies like Meet the Patels and Jason Momoa in Braven. Plus, Pluto TV has hundreds of channels with thousands more movies and TV shows available on live and on demand. Download Pluto TV on all your favorite devices for free. Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay Never. Ladies and gentlemen, we are back. T Pains Nappy Boy Radio Podcast is back for a second season, bigger and better than ever. Seriously, though, this is huge. I'm your host, Keith Payne. Every Tuesday, join me, my guests, my co-host for action packed, hilarious, inspirational conversation. That's right, we're doing T-Pain Tuesdays. We got the biggest gift new drinks, new game and crazy studio vibes. You're to know what it is. And here's nappy boy radio, baby. Listen to subscribe to T-Pain Network Radio podcast. Season two is available now. Everywhere you get your podcasts. You already know what? Yes. Come on through it. Yo, what's good? It's a boy. Big Brother Jake, a.k.a. Jake Warner like everyman name. Check it out. I hosted the show called The Big Brother Jake podcast, and I'm taking my talents to the biggest and badass platform on the planet. That's my baby PodcastOne. My show is unique. It's I talk about everything life, sports, entertainment being a single dad, juggling several jobs. So I'm a hot mess. Well, it's damn energy. Subscribe and review now on Apple Podcasts and listen on PodcastOne or wherever you get your podcasts.