The Complete Hulk Hogan | An Interview with Brian Solomon on VKM buying out his dad in 1982

0:11 It's the lapsed fan wrestling podcast special report.

0:14 The lapsed fan presents the complete Hulk Hogan, a real American story brought to you by garage beer.

0:24 Boss.

0:24 We've come to a point on the complete Hulk Hogan, where something that will have tremendous implications for Hulk being able to become who he became is happening behind the scenes in the offices of Capitol wrestling up in New York. Even after he's migrated away and working for Vern Kanya, uh, And on the big screen on Rocky III, back in New York, Washington, 1982, Vince Jr. is making his move.

0:48 And we have to stop. We have to pause on this.

0:50 We have to. Of course. It's like, I mean, it's the game changer. It's the game changer. There's a before and after. It's B-C-A-D or whatever they call it nowadays. That's where we're at with this. That's how important it is.

1:06 And it was time, we thought, here on The Complete to bring in a tremendous scribe on these times who's done recent, fresh, and really interesting work on how Vince bought out Vince Sr. and his partners in 1982, putting him in position to select Hulk Hogan, of course, a couple of years later for the national run. He is Brian Solomon, author most recently of Irresistible Force, The Life and Times of Gorilla Monsoon, a highly recommended here at TLF biography of Gorilla, who of course was one of the partners that Vince Jr. bought out in 1982. He also hosts the Shut Up and Wrestle podcast, which we urge you to check out He's got a Patreon for that podcast as well, which we urge you to support.

1:42 He also authored a tremendous book on the life and times of the sheik at Farhat. So really excited to dig in here. Brian, welcome to The Lapsed Fan.

1:52 Thanks for having me.

1:52 I'm a big fan of what you guys do, so I'm happy to– I've been watching it from afar, so I'm happy to be asked to be a part of it.

1:59 Oh, he's in the orbit now, boss.

2:00 He's never getting out.

2:01 Oh, boy. You're in trouble now, man.

2:03 I should have also mentioned Brian was at WWF Magazine from 2000 to 2007, including many years as managing editor, essentially running that publication. So definitely a close to the sun perspective on the empire that Vince Jr.

2:18 Ended up building.

2:20 Because you have so much expertise in Geno, Gorilla Monsoon, Brian, I thought we would start back around like 1980, because when we were going through Hulk's career chronologically, He comes to New York in November 79, and by February or so of 80, Gorilla Monsoon is putting Hulk Hogan over all over the place. And was that kind of Geno's role at the time was like, if we've got a big heel coming in to push or a big anybody, he goes through Geno first?

2:45 It had been for a while by that point. I mean, really through most of the 70s. By that point, he was really slowing down so that Hulk Hogan– was one of the last people that.

2:57 He did that for.

2:58 It was basically Hulk Hogan and Ken Patera, who he really put over strong. Ken Patera retired him in the Philadelphia Spectrum. But Hulk Hogan kind of went around the horn with Gorilla in early 1980 because they were building up Hogan for, of course, the first big Andre the Giant match at Shea Stadium in that summer. And so there was a little bit of that. And then even later, actually, one of the last matches was that Gorilla Monsoon ever had in the WWF was Springfield Civic Center, September 1980.

3:30 He lost to Hulk Hogan. In fact, that was his final match before his official retirement. He had announced the retirement a little bit earlier, and he still had a few dates to fulfill. And the Hogan match in Springfield was his last match. You know, he came back once or twice, you know, when they needed him at the Garden and things like that. But his official career in the WWF in the ring ended against Hulk Hogan.

3:59 Of course, he was the soundtrack to Hulk's like glory year run in so many ways as the lead announcer. And we'll get to how he went from wrestler and shareholder to announcer for Vince Jr.

4:08 Here as we talk.

4:09 But generally speaking, what was your impression of how Gorilla viewed Hulk? I mean, I'm sure he appreciated his box office appeal, but Gorilla was very old school and what he thought a great wrestler was. What do you think overall Gorilla's outlook was on what Hogan was all about?

4:24 I think he very much understood what Hulk Hogan brought to the table in terms of how he was the launching pad for the expansion of the company. And he was very happy about that because Gorilla had had his doubts that that expansion was even going to work, which you see in the book. And he was very skeptical.

4:44 And he realized that Hulk Hogan was really the deciding factor. So I think he appreciated that. And as far as being a so-called good wrestler and all that, it all depends on your definition. Like, look, Gorilla Monsoon, yes, he was old school, but he had an old school mentality of what a great worker was. And he understood that there's a difference. You know, you don't want to If you go in there like Billy Robinson or Carl Gotch or somebody– or Dean Malenko in later years, that is not going to be what sets the business on fire and what draws the house, all due respect to Dean, who's a great guy.

5:20 But even he would tell you that.

5:21 And so Gorilla Monsoon knew that– I think he considered Hulk Hogan to be a very effective candidate. I mean, because he'd worked with Bruno for years who had some similarities to Hulk in some ways, and he had great respect for Bruno. And I'll tell you that Gorilla didn't say that about anybody. Like, for example, I mean, about everybody.

5:39 He was not the biggest fan of Randy Savage. He was not the biggest fan of the Ultimate Warrior.

5:45 I know that.

5:46 But of Hulk Hogan, he was as a worker. I know because of the old school thing, I think there were certain things about Hulk Hogan.

5:54 The person that maybe Gorilla... was.

5:57 Not the biggest fan of at the time. You know, Gorilla was very old school. He was squeaky clean. He barely would drink a beer. You know, he smoked cigarettes, but I mean, like he wouldn't touch any kind of, you know, pod or anything and never took steroids. So a lot of those guys in the 80s that were doing things like that, Gorilla really looked sideways.

6:18 At some of that. But that was just, you know, the way wrestling in the 80s was.

6:23 Well, it's thanks to Brian JP that we know Gino for, you know, the vices he didn't partake in. He wasn't afraid to slap together a mortadel in the car.

6:31 I was going to say that was his vice. His vice was putting together Italian meats between bread.

6:40 Yes.

6:40 So the man's vices literally, and his daughter told me this when I started the process, she said, look, you're not going to find any skeletons in the closet.

6:48 She goes, this is the deal. I'll tell you right now. He smoked. He gambled.

6:54 He definitely ate way too much. And, you know, he had a previous marriage before, you know, when he was in college. And she was like, that's it. That's all you're going to find. And she was 100% right. But, you know, yes, he was a big– I mean, you don't need me to tell you that. He was a big eater, probably more than he should have been, being a diabetic and everything.

7:14 But we all have to have our vices. Well, yeah.

7:16 And we love it because we have like a sound bite we play all the time where he says, make that gobblegull sandwich.

7:21 And it's like– Wait a minute, you do?

7:23 I would love to hear that.

7:25 Yeah, I don't know if you have it. I'm going to get it. I'm going to get it right now. I'm going to find it. JPL, cue that one up.

7:28 He must have said it during primetime wrestling with Bobby at one point.

7:32 I'll tell you what, because I'm excited. Can I just pause on that for a second?

7:35 Of course you can.

7:36 I don't want to sound like I'm obsessing because one thing that happened when I was writing the book is I was trying to really accentuate his Italian heritage because I don't think that gets done a lot. And the thing was, I absolutely remembered a wrestling challenge where Gorilla and Bobby were together at the table and Gorilla was having some kind of a lunch. It was like an Italian sandwich. And he was telling Bobby what was in the sandwich.

8:05 And it was all this Italian cheeses and meats and things.

8:08 And I remember going, wow, I think Gorilla Monsoon is Italian as a kid. And I could never find where the hell, what episode that was. So if it's the same thing, I'm going to love you guys.

8:18 You found me. It could be. I don't know.

8:21 I'm sure JP's digging in the crate.

8:24 Here we go here. Make that cup of golf sandwich. That's all we got.

8:28 You know what's great about that? He's really almost pronouncing it the right way, God bless him.

8:36 That's so true.

8:38 Because it's capicola. That's how you really say it. Amazing. Yeah.

8:43 And again, I like that insight too. Like he might be Italian as a kid. Like what a monsoon isn't exactly a Sicilian name or something, you know?

8:50 Well, especially wasn't he, wasn't he supposed to be from Hungary too?

8:53 Well, yeah.

8:54 He always was. You go back far enough.

8:57 His gimmick was he was from Manchuria.

8:58 That's right. That's right.

9:00 The Manchurian monster.

9:01 The Manchurian giant.

9:02 I love it.

9:03 So, you know, we're setting up Gino for a couple of reasons here, not just because Brian has expertise, but because as mentioned, Vince acquiring, um, capital wrestling from his father and his partners, the real holdout was Gino. And Gino was the guy that really had to be convinced or kind of cajoled.

9:19 It depends.

9:19 I mean, you detail it well and we'll get to that. But before we jump to the actual sale, there's another leg of the stool here in terms of what we've been looking at and studying that you brought some light to. And that is the possibility that Gorilla... not Hulk, may have been cast for the wrestler role in Rocky III.

9:37 We touched on this quite a bit and you had some nice detail. Tell us about exploring that part of the story and how Gorilla, you know, at some point was under consideration for the role that would become Thunderlips.

9:49 Yeah, so that was something that almost didn't make it in the book because I didn't, I wasn't aware of it until the manuscript was finished. And I was having a conversation with Gorilla daughter Valerie and it somehow came up and I was like wait a minute why didn't you tell me that before and because there's so many great stories and I just thought it was so great that I called up my editor and said look we have to we have to pause okay I have to squeeze this story in it's too good and and I revised the manuscript. And now that I, when I look back on it, I do remember hearing at some point, maybe in The Observer, that he was in consideration along with people like superstar Billy Graham and.

10:29 Things, but I didn't know any detail.

10:31 And she basically gave me the details, which was, so, you know, Gorilla and his family were from the Philadelphia area. They lived across the the river in, in Southwestern Jersey. And so they were, I'm trying to think of how, how it worked. I think they were on a flight from, they were on a flight from Philadelphia out to California.

10:53 I think they were going to Disneyland or it might've been in reverse.

10:57 I think the book says they were in LA and going to the East coast.

11:01 Right.

11:01 So they were going home from a Disneyland vacation. That's what it was.

11:05 And they ran into Stallone at the airport. And Stallone came over because he was such a big wrestling fan and he was marking out for Gorilla. And I even in the audio book, I even did a little Stallone. I just said Gorilla Monsoon.

11:22 That's as excited as he gets. I love it.

11:25 Right. But his daughter, Valerie, was a huge fan.

11:28 And so she was flipping out and and they wound up talking in first class all the way back to Philly. And basically, you know, it was pre-production for Rocky III and Stallone was going to Philly at the time because he was negotiating with the city of Philadelphia with regards to the Rocky statue that was going to be in the movie because I guess the city wanted to have it.

11:55 And he was going there for that purpose. And he mentioned to Gorilla that he had this scene with a pro wrestler and all this stuff. And Gorilla was not going to do it. He was sort of thinking, well, I'm retired. I just retired from the ring.

12:11 I'm not your guy.

12:13 And basically, he had this conversation with Valerie where he said, you know, Valerie, I'm not an actor. And Valerie goes, what the hell do you think you've been doing the last 20 years?

12:25 And so he did. He went out for it. He did not get it, though.

12:29 And I think in the end, you know, it was the having somebody like Hogan. who looked like a superhero, was what they went with. With Gorilla, you know, as you can imagine, he still was going to be huge and tower over Stallone and everything, because Gorilla and Hogan were about the same height. But the difference was, if it was Gorilla, then it would have had a real sort of like old school, it would have almost felt like that Bugs Bunny cartoon where he wrestles.

12:55 The crusher, you know.

12:57 Whereas what they wound up doing was more like a superhero or like a supervillain thing. So you can kind of, and Hogan was a lot younger and in his prime and everything, but, but it almost was gorilla.

13:07 That's, that's fascinating. That is wild.

13:09 Well, you probably heard it, Brian, where I first heard that was in Terry Funk's book, Terry Funk's book.

13:13 He says that, right.

13:15 That's right. Right.

13:16 Because he had the relationship with Sly already from Paradise Alley. Terry said in his book that he gave Sly a few names and it came down to Sly choosing between Hogan and Gorilla Monsoon and Terry goes as far as to say that Vince senior had suggested a monsoon to sly, which is fascinating because you know, the whole apocryphal tale about how Hulk basically had to walk out on Vince senior to take the role, which I know people look at sort of askance, but this idea that like Vince senior had a huge problem with a wrestler doing a movie yet. He's actively suggesting gorilla for the role, not to say he relied on gorilla, you know, in terms of a spot on the card at that particular point in time. But, um, that's the first time I heard

13:54 about it.

13:54 And, uh, well, yeah, the, The difference was, right, like you said, because Gorilla was done in the ring and he wasn't working as an announcer yet. So he had this little window of a couple of years where he wasn't doing much of anything other than working backstage. And so it would have been a perfect opportunity. Maybe that's why Vince Sr. was suggesting him.

14:14 I don't know.

14:14 But there's a lot of mystery around all that. Like what you said, Hogan always used to say, and Hogan told me directly that That Vince Sr. fired him for going to do the Rocky thing. Whether that really happened or not, I don't know. I mean, there's stories about Bill Apter being involved.

14:32 Yeah, we conveyed Bill's story too in his book. He basically says that the casting folks for Sly reached out to him looking for pictures of a wrestler that was blonde and muscled up. And that Bill says that he sent them pictures of both superstar Billy Graham as well as Hulk Hogan. And that, you know, that was the last he heard about it until Hulk got the role. Also, we talked to Peter Young, who was Hulk's agent for years, and whose sister was Sly's casting director in Rocky III.

14:59 And Peter Young was a wrestling fan growing up in Boston and heard from his sister that Sly was looking for a character like this and thought of Hogan right away, having seen him do stuff, you know, in 1980 in New York, including facing off with Andre and being a big super muscle man. So it's weird because it's like, it's like, not chicken or the egg, but what came first? Like, All these stories could be true if they happen in a certain sequence where like these people came into the process after Sly had said, I don't want gorilla, you know, as opposed to it needs to be one or the other.

15:28 He moved away and then suddenly, you know, superstar.

15:32 And even Valerie's story about meeting him at the airport and all that, which I don't doubt happened.

15:37 You also have to fit in with what Terry.

15:39 Funk says about how he had been suggested or Vince Sr. was suggesting him. So there's something in the timeline there that I think might be getting mixed up in kind of a game of telephone that gets played. The superstar Billy Graham thing, I had heard that, unfortunately, by that point, he was not the same superstar Billy Graham.

16:01 That's true, too.

16:02 Great point.

16:03 Yeah. Right.

16:04 He'd let himself go and he didn't look the same and he was extremely depressed and on drugs. And I think it was almost like, in a way, I really think almost like what Vince Jr. himself did, using Hulk Hogan was like getting a younger, healthier version of superstar Billy Graham because you couldn't get superstar Billy Graham.

16:24 Well, I mean, that's a good point that we, of course, touched on at length when Hulk first starts talking into microphones on wrestling television shows in Memphis and And as well, across the circuits he worked, the promos he did for his brief time in Georgia, the early promos in New York, he's basically mimicking the entire cadence of Superstar. And he would be the first to admit that, having grown up studying him when he was down in Florida, when Superstar was down in Florida. But do you sort of agree with the thought that as Graham became, A, persona non grata, and B, a shell of his former self physically, that they just saw Hogan as a way.

17:00 To just, I.

17:04 Do think that because I'm not the first person to say this, but I think that if Vincent had his way and if he had been in charge in the late 70s, he would have tried to do with Graham what he wound up doing with Hogan. I think he would have turned him face and he would have really tried to push that. But I think and I think it could have worked because even in the late 70s, I think you could have put together the infrastructure that was needed to go national. Like cable was already a thing.

17:34 Syndication was in place. I think it could have worked even that early. But by the time it came time. I think that Vince was still sort of interested in Superstar, but he knew at that point that it was just too late. And so, yeah, in a way, Hogan was a way to recapture that. It was the same idea that Vince had in his head because Vince had other options too, as I'm sure you guys know, for who he was going to go with. And in the end, he went with the guy who was most like Superstar, Billy Graham.

18:04 Yeah.

18:05 And you've got Vince Jr. sitting there, you know, not only as a confidant to his dad to some degree, but as the ringside announcer. observing Billy Graham basically become a baby face in the garden, despite being the champion as a heel and probably getting a spark like, oh, wow, if my dad had just allowed him to run that way as a baby face, instead of insisting on the backland transition in 78, what could have been. I definitely think Hogan benefited from resembling Graham, not just sounding like him, but like physically looking like him in that way. So that's interesting to think about. So another important thing about 1980 is, is not just what Gorilla was up to, but that is the year in February that Vince and

18:41 Linda incorporate Titan Sports out of Massachusetts. They create their own company. And can you set the scene for our listeners in terms of like what Vince was doing promotionally and sort of from an executive capacity in the business in 1980, while it was still very clear, you know, that his dad and the confidants were running the Capitals?

19:02 Yeah.

19:02 So by 1980, Vince had been involved with wrestling for about 10 or 11 years. He started in 69, I believe it was, doing some ring announcing. And by 71, he was doing television commentary. And he'd been doing what he could behind the scenes. But the thing is, what people need to realize is this was not the Vince McMahon that we would know later. He He he did not have this great reputation for being some kind of a businessman or a success. In fact, if you think about it in wrestling history, anytime you're dealing with a promoter's son.

19:39 Right. There's always they never have a good reputation. It's always like some kind of.

19:45 Yeah, it's like some screw-up, some kid who's only there because his dad runs the company, blah, blah, blah.

19:51 Sometimes that's true. And Vince was looked at that way.

19:55 And to be honest with you, in the early years, it really seemed that way because– You know, he was not a success. He was he tried he worked in a rock quarry. He tried to do door to door sales and other kinds of things, paper cups and and all, you know, you name it.

20:11 And he failed every time and never made money.

20:14 He got into promotions and he did the, you know, the Evel Knievel thing, which was a disaster. And he spearheaded the Muhammad Ali Antonio Inoki thing. and got his dad on board for that. But the thing is, we look back on that now, I think, differently from how it was perceived at the time. At the time, it was a total embarrassment, and everybody involved with it considered it to have been a failure. So that actually didn't do him any favors either. By the time you get to 1980, he's trying to strike out on his own, because he had really depended on his dad a lot, ever since he first got to know him and grew up and you know he came up north to live near him and he was getting a lot of support from his dad and he wanted to kind of strike

21:01 out and do his own thing but I think when Titan Sports was founded in 1980 you know at first he wasn't doing anything wrestling related at first he was doing rock concerts and and there was a hockey league right that was running out of the Cape Cod Coliseum which is where his office was but I think you know i can't prove it but i have to imagine that even as early as that because it's two years away that he had to be thinking in terms of like the long game being that i eventually want to see if i could get some capital together and buy out my dad and take the company over uh because and in fact i would venture to make an educated guess that that was the entire reason really for the founding of Titan Sports.

21:45 That was, it was eventually going to lead to that. And, and two years later it did.

21:48 Yeah. It's quite a, it's like a grandiose name if you just had regional ambitions, you know? So that, that's a good point. So you, you've talked to Vince over the years when you worked there. And I know you've kind of had conversations with him relative to kind of his background, his whole story. Would he own up to those early failures? Would he pretend they didn't happen? What was your impression of his interest in Kind of talking about where he was at before he bought out his dad.

22:15 Well, I didn't talk specifically about that stuff with him. But from what I know from talking to him, he generally wasn't somebody who... who ignored his failures, to be honest with you, especially if there were things he had moved past. You know, I don't think that he would have any issue with that. I mean, and he did talk a little bit about, you know, getting to know his dad and how in the beginning he didn't really have anything. I mean, they were broke. When Shane was born, they were really in trouble about 1970 or so. Vince and Linda, they needed help desperately. They moved close by to be near Vince's dad and stepmother and everything. they were really getting a lot of help or they would

22:56 have been, they would have been destitute. I mean, it was that bad.

23:00 So, you know, and I don't think he's ashamed of any of that because if anything, it.

23:03 Just further accentuated how far he succeeded because how far he distanced himself from that.

23:09 Yeah.

23:09 And Linda played it up big too in her Senate campaign in Connecticut. You know, that was a big part of her rags to riches story too. And the, the elusive bankruptcy filings and all of that. But, but yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know, Vince's narrative of like, my dad always wanted to keep me at arm's length from the business and kind of didn't, But, but at the same time, like you move there because you guys were, you know, you moved closer to him because you were in straights and knew that he was at least close enough to be, you know, interested in supporting you.

23:33 Yeah. The thing is Vince senior did want to keep his son away from the business. That's true. I mean, you know, he wanted to try to help him, but he didn't want it. He wanted him to do something else. You know what I mean? And it, he was very reluctant. Um, there were reasons, um.

23:51 Because if I had to say, I think part of it is I think that Vince Senior kind of saw the business as a necessary evil.

24:01 I think he held his nose at it, to be honest with you.

24:04 I think he realized how much money it made and he was one of the most successful people to do it. But he also realized that it was a dirty, awful business. And it was like, you know, one step away from the sewer. And I mean, for a lot of people, what's that?

24:19 I said, that's awesome that you, yeah.

24:21 Because I can see that.

24:21 A lot of people looked at it like that back then, even the people that were in it. And so I think he sort of felt like, I don't want you to get mixed up in this. It was almost like the godfathers.

24:35 And what was Brian Vince's sort of reputation among the wrestlers in terms of, did they see him as a successor? Did they see him as part of the wrestling community or just the son of the boss?

25:00 Well, I think in the beginning when he first took over, a lot of it was not really even widely known. So I've talked to some wrestlers from that time period who said that there never really even was a discussion or a meeting that any kind of changeover was happening. It was just one of those things that You just noticed happening in real time that Vince Jr.

25:21 Was in charge.

25:23 And no, he had to kind of win everybody's respect because he wasn't really seen in a very positive light back in the 70s or really before he took over. He was just kind of seen as the promoter's son. And he had never really been successful at anything outside of working for his dad. So there were a lot of questions for sure.

25:45 Yeah, for sure.

25:46 And where did he get all the money from? Because one thing that's clear from your commentary and what we know, he had struggles in business early on. And I do wonder where he got the money together to even make the deal in 1982.

25:58 Yeah, he had a lot of money struggles. I mean, at certain points he was either close to or had declared bankruptcy. He was raising kids at a time when he and Linda weren't doing that great, especially back when Shane was born in 1970, when he had just barely started working for his father. And I think that was actually one of the reasons that he did start working for him because they were really in a tough spot. So, I mean, to get the money together, I mean, there were so many different Part of it was that he had taken out loans from banks and he had tried to accumulate as much capital as he could. And also he was even using company money, which even Linda confirmed in the interview she gave for the Vince McMahon Netflix documentary.

26:45 Yeah.

26:46 That they were partially using company funds to pay for the company, which is kind of strange.

26:53 And for sure, no.

26:57 Other potential buyer that was not a member of the family would have been allowed or even able or have access to do that. So, you know, there is some truth to when they say that Vince really, that he kind of had a lot of extra advantages that helped him to really get going.

27:14 Yeah, that is, um, Absolutely, you put it well.

27:17 Even if there's nothing technically improper about that, it just puts him at such a great advantage to other potential bidders. But I don't know, Brian, was there any indication that a gorilla or anybody else really wanted to come after those shares? Or that Vince Sr. was even open to selling it to anybody but Vince Jr.? I've never really heard that there was sort of a competition for Vince in that regard.

27:41 Yeah, there were different options. So Vince Sr.

27:44 Was looking to get out in the early 80s. And this might have been somewhat related to his health issues that may not have been that widely known yet at the time that he had pancreatic cancer.

27:56 And I think he was just.

27:57 Kind of sick of it and tired of the business in general. And he was initially looking to sell his own shares, which were 50%. And he put that out there even before Vince had expressed an interest. And at one point, he was considering selling his shares to his three partners, Gorilla Monsoon, Phil Zacco, and Arnold Skolin. And he was basically going to hand the company over to them.

28:22 And that's when Vince Jr. stepped in and said, don't do that. I would like to buy those shares of yours. And not only do I want your shares, but I want all the shares. So I don't want to have any partners. And so that's where it became a little contentious.

28:35 I don't know, JP, you sound like the Vince Jr.

28:37 We know, I want it all. Yeah, it does sound like the Vince we know, that we know and love. Definitely.

28:44 Confirming of thesis there. So when it comes to, you know, you documented so well in the book, Brian, and, you know, props to like a Tim Hornbaker who wrote Death of the Territories, the National Wrestling Alliance book. He did the Capital Wrestling book, kind of looking back at the formation, what Vince Sr. had and what he built and passed on to Vince Jr. So a lot of work had been done beforehand, but I've always wondered sort of like where the level of detail comes from that we're able to discover. I feel like it's just been in the past 10 years that we really know that level of specifics around exactly when Vince first cut the deal, June of 82, how it was structured in terms of the payment terms. Can you get us up to speed on

29:26 how that all came to the light and how you leveraged other work to reach the conclusions you did in the Guerrilla Book?

29:33 Yeah, there's been a lot of great research done.

29:35 Tim Hornbaker, as you said, is probably the best researcher in wrestling history that there is. And I know he has had a lot of access to primary documents.

29:44 And I know that's where a lot of.

29:45 It has come from. I think, I don't know about this specifically, but for a lot of things, it's been a lot of research done. He has had access to the Jack Pfeffer archives at Notre Dame.

29:55 Yes.

29:55 But even through various other sources, he's shared primary documents with me that I've used in research for my books. And I know, for example, when he did Capital Revolution, which really covers that– WWF kind of, you know, succession. He did include a lot of that specific information. Another great book was Brad Beluchian's the six pack. And the way Brad uncovered a lot of things was by tracking down people who were close to it at the time. He, He interviewed Ed Helinski, who was an early editor of WWF magazine. He interviewed Jim Troy, who was Vince's right hand man and who was in the Warwick Hotel when they made the deal in 1982. And he interviewed, I think, the original treasurer of Titan Sports or people like that.

30:42 And he was able to get info from them. And I just kind of distilled a lot of things and added to that stuff that.

30:50 I was finding out myself from some of the interviews I was doing.

30:53 Yeah.

30:54 Yeah, the Pfeffer archives is a good idea. I've always wondered, like the degree to which we have like the full text of the agreement, I wouldn't, I wouldn't know like why that would come up in any of the cases that Hornbaker has, you know, referenced and studied so closely, like the, the consent decree on the monopoly charges against the National Wrestling Alliance made so many brilliant letters and things and pieces of correspondence and records, public record as part of the FBI investigation into whether the NWA was an illegal monopoly. But I don't know, a document in 1982 spelling out all of these details. I mean, it's incredible to have it. But I did wonder, was it in a lawsuit, how it surfaced? I'm not sure if

31:34 you know the providence of that.

31:37 Well, I'm pretty sure that WWE themselves still have all those documents.

31:43 Good point. That wouldn't mean, though, that everybody has access to them.

31:47 I know I've been told on good authority that they definitely have the paperwork from when Capital Wrestling Corporation was incorporated with Tutsmont and Vince McMahon Sr. I do believe they have that. And I have seen the primary documents of the sale of the different shares to Gorilla Monsoon and Philzacco from when Tutsmont retired in 1969. And that's where I was able to get the exact figures for that because I've seen the documents myself.

32:19 As for the Vince Jr.

32:21 Sale in 82, now that's not going to be in the Pfeffer archives because Pfeffer died in 69. But I know that– actually, no, I'm sorry. He died in the 70s, but 69 is as far as his archive goes. But I think a lot of the other information comes from Brad's direct interview with Jim Troy because Jim Troy, I think, still has some of the receipts literally because he was able to quote– to Brad specific numbers of what the shares were worth and what each person was paid and what the down payment was.

32:54 And so that's where some of that comes from too. Phenomenal. Phenomenal.

32:57 Now, do the boys know in 82 that Vince Jr has done this or were they blind to it until 84? Like, what can you tell us about when the locker room realized that the control had changed?

33:10 Well, like I was saying, there was no they were not informed or given any kind of heads up. There was no talent meeting to, you know, get everybody up to speed. It was just, you know, they figured it out over time. It was in fact, in the beginning, it really seemed like to a lot of people, Vince Senior was still in charge and a lot of things didn't immediately change. Especially like, for example, backstage at the Garden, it still very much felt like he was in charge.

33:40 So it was not just this overnight thing. It was a gradual process. And so from mid-82 through 83, it was kind of this gradual process.

33:54 And indeed, Vince doesn't get it all in 82. There's a lot of things that could have happened, Brian, between that first payment he made and the last payment to get control of the whole company, these installment payments.

34:07 Actually, I had a question about the money too, because I was curious. You mentioned loans and stuff. Did he pay those back, or did he just kind of not do that?

34:21 No, as far as I know, he did pay them back.

34:22 But I mean, like in any kind of business venture, when you do that, you really are going out on a limb. I mean, he was taking out those loans, With the understanding that he had better succeed at doing this so that he could pay back the loans, and my understanding is that he did, but it was really a dicey proposition stepping out on a tightrope, basically.

34:47 And if he couldn't make one of the payments, what would have happened?

34:54 Well, the deal was with the partners when they made the deal in 82 was there was going to be the down payment, and then there was going to be 12 monthly installments. I think it was 12. And basically, at that point, he would take control. If he missed any of the payments or he couldn't finish it, then the shares would all revert back to the original partners, and Vince would not be able to get his money back either, whatever he'd put into it.

35:22 So it was very– tense.

35:26 And so the story goes that when they got to the last month of the payments, which I think was July of 83, that they couldn't come up with it and they were running late. And I guess there was a clause in the contract that if the payment was late, that the partners could exercise a 15-day grace period. And they didn't have to, it was optional.

35:51 And they did.

35:52 They did invoke it. And that was something that Vince and Linda were always grateful to them for. And so basically, they were able to scrape together the last payment with literally just a couple of days to go before the grace period was over. And that is why really and truly. August of 83 is really when Vince Jr. fully and truly and completely takes control of of capital wrestling, which came under the umbrella of Titan Sports and brought the WWF brand with it.

36:26 Indeed.

36:26 And I know that you were able to get your eyes on something when you worked at the company that said, yeah, this is almost absolute confirmation that it all started being Vince Jr. 's entire career. Kitten Caboodle in August of 83. It has to do with the photo archives, right? And the launching of their own magazine.

36:44 Yeah, that was a very telling detail that I discovered because at that time too, when I was working in the magazine, they had the photo files, the slides, and they were still physical. Nothing had been digitized yet. And so I would go through these folders, through all the contact sheets, and they would have the dates stamped on them.

37:04 And the earliest date, and I went through these things very thoroughly for years, and the earliest set of arena shots I could find were from August of 1983. which was very telling because that was the point where he really, Vince had the ability to start making these moves on his own without checking with anybody and like kicking all the photographers out and hiring, you know, photographers like Steve Taylor, who would work for the company and take photos that the company would own, which was something that had never been done before. And so he wouldn't have been able to do that until he took full control. And that's also why You don't really start to see the expansion start to happen until that point either. It starts before

37:50 Hogan even comes in. In that second half of 1983, there's already moves that are being made. And, you know, all American wrestling kicks off. And he's going into places like St. Louis and Los Angeles and Detroit and places that didn't really have any thriving wrestling anymore by that point. So they were open, open territories.

38:10 So is he kind of like making a– Not just, you know, signing papers to get the first payment across the table toward owning 100% shares, but it's making all of these incremental pieces of progression through 82, through 83. And then all of a sudden they're owning the photos and trying to own everything else. And that first episode of All-American Wrestling is something we've looked at in the past.

38:31 And it's fascinating, boss, right? Because he's talking up Bob Backlund, you know?

38:35 I know. I was curious, though, too. It seems like based on what you're saying, especially with these photographs, that like he's basically recreating the beginning of history and like having it start right there instead of really the, you know, the previous decades of his dad's company.

38:53 Yeah, well, that was always something that that was an attitude that Vince had. And it wasn't that he, you know, didn't care about what his dad did or wanted to distance himself. It was more like it was the pride of what he had created. And so he was interested in creating his own legacy, creating his own stars. And that's why, you know, when especially in the early years of the Vince WWF, They really never acknowledged any kind of history prior to Hulk Hogan. I mean, it was almost unheard of. Bruno Sammartino, obviously, was a part of the company for a while, and they acknowledged what his role had been. But it was very much a pride of ownership that Vince had that- He really thought of it as kind of a dividing line from.

39:43 What he had done and what his father had done.

39:46 The other thing you have to remember, too, is that technically speaking, if you're looking at it from a corporate point of view, you know, Titan Sports and the Capital Wrestling Corporation are two different companies. So Capital Wrestling Corporation was his dad's company. Titan sports was his company and Titan sports predates the purchase of the WWF. So, you know, in a way it was accurate, you know, he was just thinking of Titan sports more than he was thinking of the WWF brand per se, because the WWF, you know, the world wrestling Federation per se does not exist. It is just a brand name like Coca-Cola. And it was, it was owned by the capital wrestling corporation and, And so when Vince's Titan Sports bought the Capital Wrestling Corporation,

40:32 they got the rights to use that name, World Wrestling Federation. And so Vince's focus was really on Titan Sports. In fact, when I first was working there and they would write, there would be a lot of company histories and things that were being written for magazines or business, you know, like when they went public and all that kind of stuff.

40:55 The company would always at that time refer to itself as being founded in 1980 because they were not thinking of the World Wrestling Federation because the World Wrestling Federation is a fictional entity.

41:09 They were thinking of Titan Sports Incorporated, which was Vince McMahon's company.

41:15 That's why you would very often hear back in the day they would say how Howard Finkel was the first WWF employee. And obviously that's not literally true, but what they meant was that by that was he was the first employee of Titan sports.

41:31 So it's important to remember that that is the way.

41:33 That Vince viewed things that he was, he was thinking of the corporate entity of Titan sports, which had taken over the WWF intellectual property.

41:43 If that makes sense.

41:45 Yeah, it certainly does.

41:46 Yeah. The apples to apples is capital wrestling and Titan sports. It's not, you know, world wrestling Federation and Titan sports. Um, That makes a lot of sense too because February 1980 is when he incorporated Titan Sports. And to him, like everything that's happened under the auspices of that company is his history.

42:04 Correct.

42:04 So it's not like just papers were signed on that fateful day in June 1982. Money changed hands eventually. We know thanks to your book that Gino ended up getting $ 328, 000 in 1982 money for his shares of the company.

42:19 That would get him one hell of a cup of cold sandwich.

42:22 Yeah.

42:23 That's a full spread. Arnold Scullin, another partner. Phil Zacco, you've mentioned those. Brian Vincigno, you're owning 50%. So obviously, Vince Jr. was able to get his dad on board first, which is why he had any leverage to force discussions with the other partners. So that's half the shares. That puts a lot of pressure on the other guys. We'll get to that dynamic. But first, could you just paint for our listeners, and you did such a good job of this in the book. I wanted to share this here in the interview of what that day was like on June 5th, 1982, where it happened, what kind of color you were able to get around beginning of this process of Vince Jr.

42:53 Taking over?

42:55 Sure.

42:55 Well, it happened, that meeting that they had was on the day of a Madison Square Garden card. So that's what they were all doing in the city. June of 1982 was, I believe, the night that- Snooker Backland?

43:12 That's right. Yes, that's the one.

43:13 So It was one of the big matches between Jimmy Snuka and Bob Backlund.

43:20 And it was the match that led to their cage match.

43:23 It wasn't a cage match because Snuka won the match by count out.

43:26 And then, you know, it built towards a cage match.

43:29 But what's very telling is that day, June 5th of 1982, there was no, I may be wrong about this. I'm going to, I remember from what I remember, what I wrote in the book, there was no MSG broadcast.

43:44 That show was not recorded.

43:46 And my belief is this is just my gut that that was largely because there was so much going on behind the scenes that they did not want to have to worry about also producing a TV broadcast and having bits on commentary and all that stuff. They just wanted to focus on business. So I don't think that episode was even recorded that that show. And so earlier that day, they had met at the Warwick Hotel. And by the time that happened, really by the time they got into that room, it was a foregone conclusion. I mean, just the fact that they got them all in that room meant that things had been ironed out.

44:24 What I'm not aware of, and I don't know how you.

44:27 Would determine this, I didn't put it in the book because I didn't know, is exactly how long those talks have.

44:33 Been going on for.

44:34 Because now we think about June 5th, 1982 as the date that Vince started the process of buying the company.

44:41 But how long were they talking about it? Was it six months?

44:44 Was it a year? Was it more than a year? How far back did these negotiations go? That we don't know. I mean, he founded Titan Sports in 1980. with i think the goal of eventually using it to take over his father's uh business so i mean it may have been starting even as early as then in terms of discussions we don't.

45:05 Know yeah does he even incorporate titan sports if there isn't a signal or a whiff of a scent that he actually could do this in the first place you know was there even a a wink and a nod before that that you might want to set up your own enterprise because someday we might want to pass it on so so this this hotel this warwick hotel this was um if I'm not mistaken, this was kind of like their headquarters, right? In New York city at the time.

45:26 I don't know if it still stands or.

45:30 It does.

45:30 It's a beautiful hotel. They had their office headquarters was in the Holland hotel.

45:35 That's at Holland.

45:36 Right.

45:37 Which is in, was in hell's kitchen. I don't think it still exists anymore, which is probably for the best. It was a kind of just a seedy flop house.

45:46 Yeah.

45:46 You're not checking out.

45:48 No.

45:48 And a lot of the wrestlers would stay there when they were in town. You know, it was kind of a, Not a very reputable establishment. I wrote about in the book how there was a woman who was shot to death in the parking lot one night and some of the wrestlers witnessed it. I mean, it was a crazy place. But the office, the suite, let's just say the nice, cushy, luxury suite. that the inner circle of the company got to enjoy was in the Warwick hotel. And I got some descriptions of it because I talked to Holly Gilzenberg, who was Willie Gilzenberg's daughter.

46:22 And she, she remembered being there.

46:24 And she said, it was like, it, it, it seemed to almost be almost like the entire floor of the hotel or like a huge, a huge open space. And that was, that had been, part of the company, I believe, for decades because Tutsmont had a suite in the Warwick Hotel that dated back to the 30s.

46:48 Wow.

46:49 Yeah.

46:50 It was used back then in all of the wrestling wars that were going on. There was a group called the Wrestling Trust back then, which predated the NWA. And they did business out of that suite. And my belief is, as far as I could tell, that it was the same suite, which is incredible to imagine. that so much wrestling history had taken place in that one hotel suite.

47:12 But I think that Toots Mott, when he retired, he basically handed over that suite that he had been renting for decades to Vince McMahon Sr.

47:39 It's the Rapsed Fan Wrestling Podcast.

47:42 And we mentioned it, you know, it's not all roses and rainbows in terms of getting Gorilla to agree to do this. He was sort of put in a position where he was really up against an Arnold Scullin and a Phil Zacco, who I think were more than happy to just go along with whatever Vince Sr.

47:58 Wanted to do.

47:59 But you chronicle so well in your book, Brian, how gradual a process it was to get Geno to agree to do this and sell his shares to Junior, as he was called at the time. So what can you tell us about the process Gino went through in terms of relinquishing stakes in the company?

48:17 Well, he was the holdout because, you know, Zacco was old and looking to retire. He was in his 70s and he– was kind of looking for the payday and Arnie Skoland was going to just go along with whatever, you know, his share was only 10%.

48:33 And he did, you know, as long as he was going to be paid, he'd be happy.

48:37 Gino was the most ambitious. He was the one who had the most to lose. He was the youngest. I mean, he and Vince, I mean, people don't realize this. They're only eight years apart in age. You know, they're not like, you know, gorilla isn't like this. He wasn't really like a peer of Vince's dad. There's a big age difference there.

48:57 Gorilla Monsoon was young enough to be Vince Sr.

49:00 's son.

49:01 So he was positioned to take over. That was the original plan. And before Vince Jr. stepped into the picture, especially if Vince Sr. was going to sell his shares to the original partners. So that was a tough pill for Gorilla to swallow, And seeing that happen, no matter how much money he was getting in a buyout, it wasn't going to add up to what he'd get you know, if let's say the plan succeeded that Vince had, if he was able to hold on to that 20%, he would have made way more.

49:35 Money than he made.

49:36 I mean, the company was just sold for $ 9 billion. So think about 20% of that. So instead, he had to settle with this buyout deal. And the ironic thing is, in the end, he wound up making more money through that deal than he ever made back in the 70s and early 80s when he owned his 20% in those days. Now, he got himself this perfect deal where in order to make him happy, they had to give him a lot.

50:04 And he used to brag about that, supposedly, how much he got out of them because he wanted to make sure he was always on television, that he wasn't going to fade away. And they gave him that TV announcing spot. And he got a payoff deal, which was very unique to him, which was He was to get one and a half times opening match money on every single card the WWF put on, whether he was there or not.

50:30 Wow.

50:32 This was at a time when they were doing easily 30 or more events per month. I would say more. There were some days where they were doing two on day. It wasn't unheard of to have a day with three different shows happening at once. He was making, I estimated in the book, somewhere in the low to mid six figures every year from this. That was pretty damn good, especially for the time, but It wasn't the kind.

51:00 Of money he'd be making if he was able to hold on to his 20%. And he knew that. Yeah.

51:06 And this really is why he became the voice of the Hulkamania era was because he had a deal that guaranteed he would be on television. And so Vince Jr. makes him an announcer eventually, right?

51:17 Yeah.

51:17 And it worked out for Vince too, because Vince had really been the one voice of the WWF before he bought the company. You know, he used to do all the Madison Square Garden shows by himself, not even with a color guy.

51:33 He did all the weekly TV.

51:34 You know, he had different partners, Pat Patterson, Bruno Sammartino, Antonino Rocca. But he was the guy. And so now that he was taking over, he still wanted to be an announcer. I think he just enjoyed too much having himself out there on TV. But he definitely welcomed having a little bit of help. So this was really the first time in a long time. There had been people earlier in Vince Jr. 's tenure like Bill Cardill and Ray Morgan, but this was the first time in years where you really had two different voices of the WWF because you had Gorilla taking over the house shows first from Vince, and then eventually... he started doing one of the two weekly TV shows, which was at first All-Star Wrestling,

52:23 which is what turned into Wrestling Challenge. And Vince kept Championship Wrestling, which is what turned into Superstars. And then, of course, Primetime Wrestling, which was, you know, these were all, it was too much for Vince to ever do just by himself. So in a way, it worked out for Vince as well to have somebody like that that he could trust. you know, I think there was a, it's very telling that Vince back in those days, never ever called the pay-per-views. If you notice, he was never on pay-per-view play by play until on a regular basis until maybe what, like 92, 93. And that was great for him because he got to be backstage running the whole thing and having somebody that he could trust, um, you know,

53:09 on the microphone.

53:10 And that was gorilla.

53:11 Yeah, it sure was. And, uh, They warmed up to each other, right? I mean, Gorilla went from very, very bitter, as I understand it from your book, about what happened, losing his shares, or at least being put in a position to sell his shares, to the point where Vince and Gorilla kind of had a respect for each other.

53:28 But Vince definitely acknowledged that Gorilla was a rival, right, at the end.

53:31 Of the day. Yes, they were rivals.

53:34 I mean, they came to respect each other, I think. and they came to be, I guess, the closest thing you'd call to being friends with Vince. I think that Vince was probably closer to people like Freddie Blassie and Arnie Skolin, especially Blassie, I think, who was his absolute favorite among his dad's cronies. But it was a business rivalry, especially at first. When Gorilla kind of had this understanding that he was taking over, Back in the 70s, when Vince Jr. is now running around as the boss's son, there definitely was some concern. I talked to Gary Michael Capetta, for example, and he told me how there was kind of like what they referred to as.

54:18 Team Gino and Team Vinny. Wow.

54:22 In those days, yeah. And unfortunately, Gary was on Team Gino.

54:26 Team Gino, for sure, yeah.

54:28 And Howard Finkel was on Team Vinny. And that's the reason why once you get to like 1984, 85, there's no more Gary Capetta and Howard Finkel is doing everything. Because as I said in the book, Gary was one of the first heads on the chopping block when Vince was trying to assert his authority at that point. So, yeah, I mean, there was some contention there. When I talked to Gorilla's family, you definitely got the sense from the things they said and from the things they didn't say that.

54:56 you know, behind the scenes, there was, let's just put it this way. I think, you know, when, when Gorilla was home at night with his family, there probably was a lot of eye rolling going on about things that were happening in the company. I don't think it was as collegial as, as Vince might lead us to believe.

55:14 Yeah.

55:15 Yeah, definitely.

55:16 Gorilla would harbor some degree of dissatisfaction with the direction Vince took the business in a lot of ways, very antithetical to, the things Gorilla loved about the business and tried to protect. But, you know, he was a loyal soldier and he found a slot there as, you know, not only comic relief, but kind of like this MC, this presenting voice. And it's perhaps some of the most legendary stuff he did was the commentary under a regime that he didn't really want to see happen. But once it did, he found a place that we all still remember him for to this day. So I guess we'll close with this, Brian. I mean, This is about Hulk Hogan, after all. And Gorilla's story, as we touched on already, is very much intertwined with Hulk's in New York. But

55:58 what do you think about Vince in terms of looking out on a Hulk Hogan that first came to the WWF in November 79 and worked there through 80 and 81 and goes to Vern? And shortly after he goes to Vern, Vince Jr. actually moves in and becomes on the track to owning the company. Do you imagine that Vince Jr. is sitting there at ringside when Hulk is wrestling in 79, 80, and 81, and seeing a guy that he could run with all the way to his national expansion ambitions? Or do you think he really only came to see Hogan in that light after he had seen him as a heel in New York, and he hit it big in Rocky and AWA and all of that?

56:39 Any sense of that?

56:41 I think he certainly had his eye on them even back when Hogan was wrestling as a heel there in 80, 81. I think that was the type he was looking for. In a perfect world, I think Vince had wanted superstar Billy Graham and would have. If he had taken over five, six, seven years earlier, that would have been his move. But instead, he got a superstar Billy Graham type. He got a younger, healthier version, more kind of cooperative version of superstar Billy Graham.

57:16 But that was the template in his mind. And there were other people that Vince had in mind and that were on the table and in discussion. But in the end, it feels kind of like it was always going to be Hogan because Hogan most aligned with the vision that Vince had of the type of star that he wanted to carry his company. So, you know, he was aware of Hogan for sure. Like people need to understand that Hogan was already a big wrestling star before he came to the WWF.

57:49 I mean, the second time.

57:51 And not only that, but he had a little bit of pop culture cachet people.

57:55 He was recognizable.

57:56 Rocky three was 1982, which is two years before the, And it, you know, it got him on The Tonight Show. It made him into, I don't want to say he was, you know, a massive star, but it made him into a figure of pop culture that people knew about.

58:14 Oh, that wrestler from Rocky III. Yeah, that guy, you know.

58:17 People knew. And if you're around back then, you know, like he was he was already kind of known. So it wasn't like they were building somebody from the ground up. It was the excitement. I mean, there's look, it's not a coincidence that Hulk Hogan's original entrance music was Eye of the Tiger.

58:32 Right, right.

58:33 They were going for that Rocky connection. That was a huge part of how they built him up. This is the guy from Rocky. Like that was, that was a part of the presentation.

58:43 That's why Mr. T was, you know, brought in.

58:46 I mean, that's sort of like a forgotten piece of the puzzle, but I think that that was really in Hogan's favor as well, that he already had been gaining momentum even for the past two or three years before that.

59:01 No question.

59:02 And, With Superstar, I always think that Vince Jr. sitting there as an announcer, while Vince Sr. takes the belt off Graham, despite the fact that the crowd is basically turning and cheering him, they're deciding that we love the charisma this guy brings to the table, this over-the-top, heavily muscled, super flashy presentation. And of course, Vince Sr. being the adherent to a strict philosophy as he was, still puts Backlund over in 78, despite there being ample evidence that maybe changing your idea of who a top guy looks like in New York might actually be in order. I can't help but think, Brian, of Vince Jr. seeing that and saying, you know, I'm just going to do what my dad should have done with Superstar Graham, with a

59:44 guy that we brought in after Graham left the company, and who sounded like Graham and patterned himself after Graham in his earliest days. It starts to click in, in a lot of ways, that Graham piece you talked about.

59:56 Yes, because it really shows the clash of generations and the changing of the guard, because I think there was definitely some frustration there. Like if Vince had been in charge, things would have been very different. You never would have seen a Bob Backlund kind of in that spot, I don't think.

1:00:14 And, you know, Vince Sr. had his reasons.

1:00:16 He had been going with ethnic champions for, you know, Bruno mainly, but also Pedro Morales for a bit.

1:00:25 And he wanted to go in a different direction.

1:00:27 He wanted somebody who was more like the classic NWA world champs like Jack Briscoe and Dory Funk Jr. And those kind of guys, Pat O'Connor. So he got to talking with Eddie Graham in Florida, who had groomed Jack Briscoe. And Eddie Graham said, I have this guy, Bob Backlund, who's perfect because Backlund was already doing stuff in Florida.

1:00:50 Yeah.

1:00:51 And Vince Senior very famously made Backlund this promise that I'm going to put the belt on you. I'm going to, you know, we're not going to have you beat Bruno because that's not how they did it back then. We're going to do this transition to Superstar Billy Graham, and then you're.

1:01:06 Going to get it.

1:01:07 And the thing was, as you guys may know, when Graham got the belt, they laid it out to him to the day.

1:01:13 They sure did.

1:01:14 Which was rare for back then. They said, look, you are going to, Cause he would, he wound up being transitional, but not transitional in the way that Ivan Koloff or Stan Stasiak were, where it's just a handful of days. They said to him, okay, April, what was it? April 30th, 1977. You're going to win the belt.

1:01:33 February in 78.

1:01:34 You're going to do it. Right.

1:01:35 And then February 20th, 1978, you're going to lose it.

1:01:39 No matter how much you get over, no matter how much you still sell out the house as much as Bruno ever did.

1:01:43 Right. which I often wonder, and I don't have the answer for of if Vince senior always knew he was going to take it off of Graham that way, why keep it on him for that long? The only, the only answer I could come up with, especially if you're not going to have confidence in him as a long-term draw, the only answer I can come up with is that he wanted the time to build up Backlund because Backlund came in, um, The last Madison Square Garden card that had Bruno defending the title on it, which was– because he lost the title in Baltimore to Graham.

1:02:22 Yes.

1:02:22 And earlier that month or a few weeks before, he defended it at the Garden against Baron von Raschke. And that was his last title match at the Garden. And on that card, Bob Backlund made his Madison Square Garden debut. So they literally had all the pieces coming into place. So I think that basically Vince Sr. wanted like, OK, give me nine months, 10 months to get this kid over.

1:02:47 And so people know who he is before we put the belt on him. But like you said, Graham always had this hope in the back of his head. that if I just do a great job, I can prove them wrong. If we make a lot of money, they'll keep the belt on me. And there was nothing he could have done that was going to change that. And I think Vince Jr. saw that, and he probably shared the frustration of thinking, why are we messing with this?

1:03:11 Why are we changing this? And I think he would have gone a very different way if he was in charge. And honestly, I think it could have worked. If Vince had taken over, let's say, in 77– which was conceivable. I mean, he was like 32 at that point. If he had taken over with Graham as the champion, I really think cable TV was already a thing. A lot of the infrastructure was in place. I think he probably could have made a move to go national even at that point. I'm not saying it would have worked in the same way, but I think he probably would have tried it at that point with Graham.

1:03:49 And something else that that extended run of Graham before going to Backlund allowed was for Dusty to get his MSG moment, you know, because that's right. Dusty comes into the baby face challenger to Graham. And that's where all those promos of Dusty talking to Vince Jr. Come from, you know, whatever he says, how many pounds of blue eyed soul captivated a nation like I have and all the things he said. And in closing, Brian, I know that, you know, we've talked about Dusty a lot because of course he was the made man in Tampa when Hulk first started training down at the Sportatorium down there in 75 and 76. And Dusty was kind of, I don't know, kind of chilly towards Hulk. He kind of just calls him the yellow finger in his book. He talks about

1:04:29 how Hulk never headlined the Ford Hester Lee. And obviously they were at loggerheads in the 80s NWA versus WWF wrestling war. But Vince Jr., I think, you know, you have this hypothesis and I'm not saying it's just yours. I mean, it's based on things people have said. Everyone thinks of Hogan or would it have been Kerry Von Erich or would it have been Jimmy Snuka? That's always the sort of short list of people that people think Vince Jr. could have picked for the national expansion. But there was also a time where it seemed like maybe even Dusty was under consideration, right?

1:04:59 Yes, yes.

1:04:59 In fact, it has been told to me that it came down to those two, Dusty and Hogan.

1:05:06 I wonder if he hated Hogan.

1:05:08 Jesus.

1:05:08 Yeah, well, here's the thing, though.

1:05:10 Vince loved Dusty Rhodes, and you could tell in those days when they're doing those interviews, you could just.

1:05:15 Tell that Vince is in awe of him.

1:05:18 You could tell how much he admires him, and easily he could have been the choice as well because of the charisma that he had and the command. I mean, I really think that fans thought that he was going to beat Graham for that belt, and they were.

1:05:32 Expecting it, and they were hoping for it.

1:05:35 And you get that sense when you watch the matches that they had at the garden, um, especially the one that Cody Rhodes always talks about, which is September 77, where Dusty wins on a count out and they take the belt out of his hands. But, uh, I sometimes wonder why they didn't do that, to be honest with you.

1:05:54 I don't think maybe Dusty wanted to stay in the Northeast, but I think he would have been an incredible choice to take it from there. But Vince had him, Vince Jr. still had him in the back of his mind. But the reason I say, I have no doubt that Dusty had little love for Hulk Hogan. However, it needs to be pointed out that Dusty himself did not seem to be interested in that spot. I mean- I think that was part of it because Dusty came in briefly to the WWF in mid 1983.

1:06:24 Wow.

1:06:25 It's, it's kind of a forgotten moment. He worked a couple of garden shows. He was back very briefly. And this was at the point where he was getting ready to leave Florida and he was kind of being courted. It was, he was figuring out where he was going to go next. He wound up going to Crockett by the end of that year and becoming their Booker and their top star. But I do believe that he was offered that spot by Vince, and I don't think he wanted it. Or I don't think– I'm trying to think of– I think even Cody may have said this because I asked him about it, that I don't think his dad really understood what this was all about.

1:07:07 Or believed it could work, right?

1:07:09 Yeah, there was skepticism. There was– it seemed like a very fly by night idea at the time. You know, we have the 2020 hindsight, but at the time it was sort of like, this could easily be a lot of bullshit and I'll be left with nothing.

1:07:22 Right. And I'll look like a fool.

1:07:25 So he, and also I still think that I don't think that Dusty was Vince's number one choice. And I think that the difference maker between him and Hogan was the physique.

1:07:39 That's all.

1:07:39 That's what it came down to was that he had the look. He could talk really well, not as well as Dusty, but nobody can. He had charisma, incredible amounts of it. And he also had this incredible superhero body. So there was there was no downside to him. So I think in the end, I think Vince wound up going with the guy that was his number one pick anyway.

1:08:03 There was no compromise.

1:08:04 There was no consolation prize. Hogan was his top choice, and he got him.

1:08:12 Well, as far as American wrestling goes, it's been Vince Sr. 's world that we've been living in here on the Complete Hulk Hogan series, but not anymore. It is now Vince Jr. 's world, and increasingly so, and that obviously sets in motion a series of tectonic plate shifts in the, in the wrestling business for Hulk, for Vince and for everybody.

1:08:29 So Brian Solomon, uh, highly encourage you to check out, um, his podcast, shut up and wrestle as well as a Patreon connected to that podcast is tremendous books on the chic at far hat and gorilla monsoon available for purchase and highly recommended by the TLF universe. We really want to thank you so much, Brian, for taking the time and getting us oriented on what was just a massive shift in the wrestling business.

1:08:53 Well, thank you. My pleasure. My pleasure to help.

1:08:55 This is a production of the Labs Entertainment Group.