Fake Japanese Man vs. Real American – King of the Ring 1993

Bradley and Aaron rewind to King of the Ring 1993, the first-ever PPV edition of WWE’s legendary tournament! But first, they break down John Cena’s Raw meltdown, his tense face-off with Cody Rhodes, and Queen of the Ring—the new Mildred Burke biopic featuring Toni Storm, Trinity Fatu, and Jim Cornette. Plus, they question whether its director, Rocky’s nepo baby Ash Avildsen, can be trusted with wrestling history when his record label signed Hollywood Undead.

Then, it’s back to ‘93, where Bret Hart survives brutal battles with Razor Ramon, Mr. Perfect, and Bam Bam Bigelow, while Yokozuna crushes Hulk Hogan in his final WWF match for nearly a decade. Lex Luger’s bionic forearm, Hacksaw Jim Duggan’s sausage-casing tights, and Bobby Heenan’s most ridiculous commentary also get the spotlight.

(626) 657-SLAM

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Music by Bradley Palermo & The Shadow Queens.

Created by Bradley Palermo & Aaron Fink.

Transcript

00:00:04.59
Aaron
Hey, this is Aaron Fink from Grapple City Rewind. If you like what you hear on this episode, please give us a follow, leave us a review, cut a promo on us, anything goes. It'll go a long way in helping us to be discovered by more wrestling fans like you.

00:00:16.70
Aaron
All right, let's cue the music.

00:00:18.71
Bradley Palermo
hello Hello and welcome to Grapple City Rewind, taking you all the way back to the pay-per-views that shaped wrestling history. I'm Bradley Palermo, here as always with my co-host Aaron Fink.

00:00:30.99
Bradley Palermo
But Aaron, before we dust off the old VHS tapes, what's going on in the world of professional wrestling as a current product?

00:00:40.92
Aaron
So I'm looking at the waveform and you are very hot, so maybe we should turn you down just a smidge.

00:00:45.84
Bradley Palermo
Okay.

00:00:47.88
Aaron
That intro you were you were clipping.

00:00:47.91
Bradley Palermo
ah

00:00:51.31
Bradley Palermo
Okay.

00:00:53.13
Aaron
Just a little bit. i'll turn I'll turn it up on this side.

00:00:55.93
Bradley Palermo
Hello, hello, hello, hello. No, I can't even hear myself at all.

00:00:59.16
Aaron
can go a little higher than that, I think. Split the diff.

00:01:01.44
Bradley Palermo
hello It's funny because it's, there isn't a lot of.

00:01:04.48
Aaron
Oh, there... Yeah, there really isn't a diff to split.

00:01:07.29
Bradley Palermo
hello

00:01:10.15
Aaron
That's way too hot. Yeah. Okay. Go down.

00:01:11.67
Bradley Palermo
That is, that's, I mean, on my screen, it's not, it's not a,

00:01:12.87
Aaron
Yeah. For me, for me, your hello is like a big square.

00:01:18.43
Bradley Palermo
Hell, it's not peeking though.

00:01:21.83
Aaron
Is it really not? Okay.

00:01:23.23
Bradley Palermo
No.

00:01:24.11
Aaron
hello that

00:01:25.71
Bradley Palermo
Hell, oh wait.

00:01:34.90
Bradley Palermo
Is that, how's that?

00:01:35.20
Aaron
Yeah. All right. That's good.

00:01:36.45
Bradley Palermo
Is that better?

00:01:36.61
Aaron
That's good. I think so. Yeah.

00:01:38.36
Bradley Palermo
I think it was peeking. It's like, it's going green, not red. Oh wait, there we go. Sorry. Is that,

00:01:44.68
Aaron
Yeah, okay. No, you're fine.

00:01:47.77
Bradley Palermo
Okay, hello and welcome to Grapple City Rewind, taking you all the way back to the pay-per-views that shaped wrestling history. I'm Bradley Palermo, here as always with my co-host Aaron Fink.

00:02:00.11
Bradley Palermo
But Aaron, before we dust off the old VHS tapes, what's going on in the current product world of professional wrestling?

00:02:07.93
Aaron
So much. um I was going to talk about NXT from Tuesday, which is now last week at the theater at Madison Square Garden. Amazing show, top to bottom.

00:02:20.74
Aaron
Standout matches for me were the Hardy Boys versus Fraxium. And Jordan Grace versus Roxanne Perez. But top to bottom, excellent show.

00:02:29.62
Bradley Palermo
Mm-hmm.

00:02:31.61
Aaron
ah Not going to dive into it too much because the thing that I do want to talk about with regards to current product what I saw on Monday Night Raw a few hours before we recording or we started recording this.

00:02:43.28
Aaron
And that is a confrontation between John Cena, your favorite wrestler in the world, and Cody Rhodes. um It was very interesting. i It wasn't what I was expecting.

00:02:55.31
Aaron
Cena came out to his normal music, normal clothing, to a sea of booze.

00:02:59.17
Bradley Palermo
Right. Right.

00:03:01.57
Aaron
They were in Brussels, Belgium, which is why i was able to watch it so early in the day.

00:03:05.83
Bradley Palermo
right

00:03:06.53
Aaron
um But really interesting because they booed him immediately. And then you know the music starts and... Everyone's singing John Cena sucks. John Cena sucks.

00:03:17.46
Aaron
So it's fun. And it's just it was a long like 20, 25 minutes where they were just booing him and, you know yelling profanities at him. And basically his whole ah promo was about how he's in an abusive relationship with the the fans And the fans are the abusers and have been for 25 years.

00:03:40.34
Aaron
And while I wasn't expecting him to go down this road, he did come off like a whiny bitch and I do dislike him.

00:03:40.55
Bradley Palermo
Oh, man. Yeah. Uh-huh.

00:03:47.99
Aaron
So I think it worked.

00:03:49.72
Bradley Palermo
ah

00:03:51.17
Aaron
I was probably more on the side of wanting... little to no talking from John up until maybe right before WrestleMania. um But it was, it worked. Cody came out at the end and they had a little back and forth and Cody put him in his place. And yeah I enjoyed it. It was unexpected, but I'm still intrigued. And even though it wasn't exactly what I wanted, i am totally fine with letting the people in charge of this story, you know,

00:04:22.39
Aaron
have my benefit of the doubt for a while.

00:04:25.82
Bradley Palermo
i think I think I am liking this, even though I haven't seen Raw yet, that everyone else finally he feels like I do about John Cena. you know I can be a part of that Cena thing now that we're all on the same page, that Cena sucks.

00:04:39.70
Aaron
Yeah.

00:04:41.01
Bradley Palermo
Even though I remember even when he came out to NXT, like... probably a year or two ago, everyone was like, you know, let's go Cena.

00:04:52.56
Bradley Palermo
And there was like one guy, and you could hear him in the back. Cena sucks ah all by himself.

00:04:55.70
Aaron
Cena sucks.

00:04:57.71
Bradley Palermo
And then Cena stopped and acknowledged him. I appreciate the honesty. He seems like a cool guy. i just never really liked the the character, right? So so I guess I'm excited about this.

00:05:06.13
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. And, and this is cool. Cause I think, yeah, I think you're going to like it because he, um, A big part of the promo was like, it didn't matter what I did. Like I, I worked so hard and you were on my side for maybe like a year. And then it was just the same again, just treating me like shit. And to the people who are my fans, this is the interesting part. To the people that are always been my fans, you you're the worst because all you do is take and take and take. You don't ever think about me. You just want photos. You want autographs. I was like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:05:41.42
Bradley Palermo
That's pretty funny.

00:05:42.80
Aaron
Yeah. What about you? what ah What current product stuff interested you? Did you see anything fun this week?

00:05:48.85
Bradley Palermo
I stopped in, I saw the film Queen of the Ring.

00:05:52.63
Aaron
Nice. I do want to see that.

00:05:53.99
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:05:54.16
Aaron
How was it?

00:05:55.10
Bradley Palermo
um you said Yeah, no it was good. It was starring Emily Rickards, who I don't know who this person is from any other movies, but she was really awesome in it. um She's doing the, it's a biopic of Mildred Burke, which I was familiar with Mildred Burke as just like, oh yeah, a big women's woman's wrestler from the 30s and 50s.

00:06:10.06
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:06:13.87
Aaron
A little bit.

00:06:18.27
Aaron
Yeah.

00:06:18.38
Bradley Palermo
But I yeah obviously didn't really have a story to go with it so that was cool um she's playing

00:06:26.42
Aaron
Yeah, I also same boat like I know who she is and that she existed and how important she was, but I don't know anything else beyond that. So.

00:06:35.16
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, she's in the movie, you know, it's it's her with this promoter played by Josh Lucas, who's the voice of Home Depot, which I learned today when I was looking up, who's this guy?

00:06:48.38
Aaron
I didn't know that.

00:06:48.39
Bradley Palermo
um

00:06:50.85
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, so previously I had a podcast called All the Heels, which focused on the TV show Heels. um And I was interested in this because in the trailer that I saw, it had a lot of the visual elements that reminiscent of heels. And it even has one of the same actresses in it, Kelly Berglund.

00:07:13.85
Aaron
Mm hmm.

00:07:13.97
Bradley Palermo
Then I saw that Toni Storm and Trinity Fatu and Jim Cornette and all these wrestling personalities were in it. So I had to go check it out.

00:07:25.61
Bradley Palermo
I would say it's kind of a must-see as a wrestling fan, if I'm honest, as far as like

00:07:29.66
Aaron
Nice. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:07:32.36
Bradley Palermo
just in the general sphere of film, I mean, kind of felt like a play. It's it's really heavy on the exposition. um It's, you know, impersonation style, storytelling, almost like so some of this the smaller characters do kind of feel a little bit like reenactment, like not like the most like knock it out of the park piece of film history, but it's a piece of wrestling film history.

00:07:59.10
Bradley Palermo
So I think um you get the story, you get, yeah, you get, I mean, it's two hours long.

00:08:01.90
Aaron
It deserves our support.

00:08:06.05
Bradley Palermo
It's a lot and they're getting through two decades of Mildred Burke's career um so it's fast it's just hitting the points it's getting you the info is a period piece so it's pretty you know it's it's like you know louisville kentucky in the 30s 40s and 50s so that's cool um i gotta say that uh

00:08:15.61
Aaron
Yeah.

00:08:27.34
Bradley Palermo
This a Ash Alvitson guy, who's the director, he was he was there at um Revolution, AEW's pay-per-view that I was at.

00:08:30.84
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:08:36.13
Bradley Palermo
and And I was kind of curious about him, so I looked him up. He's the Nepo baby of the director of Rocky. So that's probably how he got to do this with all these like cool wrestlers and stuff.

00:08:47.04
Aaron
Oh, who was the director of Rocky?

00:08:49.99
Bradley Palermo
Well, the director of Rocky is John G. Alvitson.

00:08:54.06
Aaron
Oh, okay.

00:08:54.12
Bradley Palermo
So...

00:08:54.70
Aaron
That's right. Stallone wrote it. That was the thing that he was.

00:08:57.74
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:08:58.69
Aaron
Yeah, yeah, yeah. John G.

00:08:59.54
Bradley Palermo
So Ash Alvinson, he gets, he's got this movie and, uh,

00:09:00.13
Aaron
Ovidsson.

00:09:05.80
Bradley Palermo
He's got also got this record label, like this really like trash record label with a bunch of early 2000s, like Victory Records style bands. So I was like, before I saw it, I found all this out and I was like, dude, I don't know if I can trust the taste of a guy who's like putting out like, you know, whatever these bands are called.

00:09:25.79
Bradley Palermo
I cry of sirens and scream of, I don't know.

00:09:28.52
Aaron
what What is like victory records for the uninitiated? What does that mean?

00:09:34.36
Bradley Palermo
ah Victory

00:09:34.62
Aaron
Like to be that style or whatever.

00:09:36.97
Bradley Palermo
Oh no, it's like victory Victory Records from like the early I don't

00:09:40.94
Aaron
Yeah, but what like what what are bands from there? I don't know I don't know that record label.

00:09:44.06
Bradley Palermo
know, what is it?

00:09:44.34
Aaron
That's why I'm...

00:09:44.48
Bradley Palermo
Like Black Veil Brides or some shit?

00:09:47.00
Aaron
I don't know.

00:09:47.16
Bradley Palermo
Like, i mean, if you look at it's got the worst, it's like the worst record label,

00:09:47.44
Aaron
You tell me. You're the one with the info.

00:09:52.99
Bradley Palermo
um

00:09:53.18
Aaron
Victory Records. Is that his... That's his company or you're you're saying that's like...

00:09:57.48
Bradley Palermo
Oh, no, that's what this guy. Yeah, this is this fucking guy. This is this is his record company. It's really, really bad.

00:10:05.72
Aaron
Tony Brummel?

00:10:06.02
Bradley Palermo
Samaritan Records, Samarian Records. Samarian Records.

00:10:09.47
Aaron
Oh, okay, I see. So you're you're referencing Sumerian and saying it's like victory.

00:10:16.46
Bradley Palermo
It's like bands that were literally on victory 20 years ago that should have been done by then.

00:10:21.93
Aaron
Oh, Hawthorne Heights? Okay, yeah. Streetlight Manifesto?

00:10:24.63
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, okay, he's got Dillinger Escape Plan.

00:10:25.65
Aaron
Okay, yeah.

00:10:27.37
Bradley Palermo
I mean, that was cool, like 20 years ago. Hawthorne Heights. Kitty?

00:10:31.49
Aaron
I liked Hawthorne Heights when I was a little emo teenager.

00:10:32.24
Bradley Palermo
Come on. Hollywood Undead, possibly one of the worst bands that's ever existed.

00:10:35.43
Aaron
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Silverstein taking back. Okay. But yeah, I, I know all these bands for sure.

00:10:43.05
Aaron
Okay. I understand what we're talking about now.

00:10:43.69
Bradley Palermo
slaughter to prevail sleeping with sirens um I mean he's got the smashing pumpkins but like come on it's been 30 years since they've done anything good anyways this guy's got bad taste in music so how could his you know movie do it but it was alright you know but but the most egregious thing with him but the most egregious thing okay yes the most

00:11:01.30
Aaron
Those things are not mutually exclusive. You don't, you don't have to have good taste in,

00:11:09.67
Aaron
I don't feel like those two things are mutually exclusive. I don't feel like you need to have good taste to music to be a good film director, but go on.

00:11:17.72
Bradley Palermo
Which is why i still want to see the movie.

00:11:20.56
Aaron
Good.

00:11:20.73
Bradley Palermo
But the craziest thing about this this fuck is he doesn't just make the movie. He puts himself in the movie. And he doesn't just put himself in the movie. He puts himself in the movie as Vince fucking McMahon Sr.

00:11:33.91
Bradley Palermo
So that guy's a little bit self-indulgent, you know?

00:11:34.52
Aaron
Amazing.

00:11:39.00
Bradley Palermo
have some things to say about Ashley.

00:11:40.70
Aaron
Name me a few, name me five people in Hollywood who aren't.

00:11:44.84
Bradley Palermo
Right, right. but um But yeah, really long movie. It is cool to see wrestling's transition from the carnivals to television and, you know, or from the carnivals to the ballrooms.

00:11:57.30
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:12:02.70
Bradley Palermo
this This movie does kind of show you that. Yeah. Well, and it's very over explained.

00:12:07.73
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:12:10.60
Bradley Palermo
So if you don't know what a face is, a shoot is, work is, all that stuff, they're going to tell you lot. They're going to kind of hit you over the head with your wrestling vocabulary, much like the show that did I did ah podcast before, Heels.

00:12:25.36
Bradley Palermo
They do that a lot. I think it's because otherwise you're not going to know what the hell they're talking about unless you're like an inside fan.

00:12:30.41
Aaron
Yeah, they want to appeal to people who aren't wrestling fans, and that's good.

00:12:33.39
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, yeah.

00:12:33.73
Aaron
it's It's never a bad idea to, you know... And WWE wwe does this all the time. Like, explain things. It's not the end of the world. Sure, you could potentially run the risk of your fans who are always engaged and know everything getting bored, but it's only for like a minute, right?

00:12:52.87
Aaron
And, you know, so I think that overall...

00:12:53.12
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:12:55.50
Aaron
That's probably a good thing. I'm very excited about the movie. I did not get a chance to see it yet, but I will be seeing it. And I'm glad that you enjoyed it. And I hope that everyone else goes out and watches it as well.

00:13:07.19
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, you know, and then my friend left to go get a refill, who who isn't a wrestling fan, when we were watching the movie and he came back, he missed the explanation about shoot. And there was this whole scene about like, go in there and shoot, you know.

00:13:21.89
Aaron
He's like, watch literally shoot him.

00:13:21.96
Bradley Palermo
And he was like, he looked at me afterwards, like, why don't they explain what shoot is, you know. And he's just because he's ah so confused, like, theyre they're she's going to fuck her up for real, you know. So it is important.

00:13:31.51
Aaron
ah Yeah.

00:13:31.95
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. But, um yeah yeah, I mean, I would say, like, you know, manage your expectations.

00:13:33.12
Aaron
Yeah.

00:13:36.63
Bradley Palermo
But you got to see it. It might not be, you know, the second coming of that movie, The Wrestler, or even The Iron Claw. But, I mean, it's it's good. If you're a wrestling fan, you're going be into it.

00:13:49.09
Aaron
Awesome. Yeah, that's great. Well, I think now we can get into our main topic of the episode, which is King of the Ring 1993. it.

00:13:59.11
Bradley Palermo
just going to drop the plugs real quick.

00:14:01.16
Aaron
do it

00:14:01.96
Bradley Palermo
As always, you can find us on social media at grapple city pod. I almost said it all talking about fucking heels. As always, you can find us as as always. You can find us on social media at grapple city pod across the All or most of the networks, if you want to call, disagree with us, agree with us, cut a promo on us, 626-657-SLAM.

00:14:28.91
Bradley Palermo
That's going to take you to a Google Voice voicemail. No one's going to pick up. So you can go ahead and try all you want. Try to take us down. We'll come back at you.

00:14:37.26
Aaron
Spit that venom.

00:14:39.12
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. All

00:14:42.99
Bradley Palermo
right, now go ahead.

00:14:45.46
Aaron
All right. Well, I guess we should get on to our main topic of the episode, which is King of the Ring 1993. This was a fun one. This was the first official King of the Ring tournament and also, or or so excuse me, the first official King of the Ring tournament to be part of a pay-per-view.

00:15:03.84
Aaron
um And this took place in Fairbourn, Ohio. um had a funny experience watching this. It reminded me of the days when I was 8, 9, 10 years old, and I would shake, you know, my parents say, please, please, can we go to Blockbuster Video or Hollywood Video or whatever the video store was?

00:15:24.99
Aaron
And I would run to the wrestling section and I would see what VHSs they had. And I swear, i remember this poster. Like, I remember this VHS ah sleeve that it went in.

00:15:35.06
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:15:37.25
Aaron
i don't I don't know if I watched it when I was a kid, but certain things felt familiar. and yeah Maybe it was the Hogan and Yokozuna match. Maybe I watched it later on in life, but that felt super familiar to me.

00:15:52.53
Aaron
um

00:15:52.56
Bradley Palermo
right

00:15:54.18
Aaron
But a fun pay-per-view. The first chunk of the pay-per-view was the King of the Ring tournament. We had 15-minute time limit first round matches.

00:16:05.52
Aaron
And the first match of the night, Brad, why don't you tell us about that one?

00:16:12.10
Bradley Palermo
Oh, I forgot my homework at home. I'm just kidding.

00:16:15.62
Aaron
Uh-uh.

00:16:17.27
Bradley Palermo
um Yeah, the first match of the night was Bret Hart versus Razor Ramon, which i was thinking, this is the first time since we started this podcast that we've seen... No, it's not.

00:16:29.88
Bradley Palermo
Not the first time we've seen Scott Hall, but the first time we've seen Razor Ramon, right?

00:16:34.52
Aaron
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:16:35.58
Bradley Palermo
And I was just thinking about his his Scarface references and his razor blades on his shorts were, which are obviously a reference to drugs and, and how that all went right over my head as a kid, of course.

00:16:43.96
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:16:48.29
Aaron
Yep.

00:16:50.32
Bradley Palermo
But was like, Oh, this is a fucking Cuban Coke dealer.

00:16:50.99
Aaron
Yep, me too.

00:16:54.26
Bradley Palermo
This that's what this guy is playing. and But it's so cartoony when he's up there, you know, it just kind of goes right past you.

00:17:00.68
Aaron
Yeah, you know, something I noticed that was fun is Bret Hart did the thing that he always does where he comes to the ring, he takes off his purple glasses and he gives them to a fan, a young kid.

00:17:01.51
Bradley Palermo
Um,

00:17:14.05
Aaron
And I noticed that Razor, ah flung his toothpick at that same kid for like 10 seconds after.

00:17:22.80
Bradley Palermo
he got the same kid

00:17:23.91
Aaron
Yeah. Like, and those are those little details that I absolutely love about people like Bret Hart and Razor Ramon. They're so, i they just have such an eye for attention to detail.

00:17:39.88
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, that's great. I think I was waiting. I think I missed it with the kid, but I was waiting for for Razor Ramon to get Brett with with the two-pick right in the face because that's kind of what used to happen, but I guess it was already gone.

00:17:51.88
Aaron
Yeah, well, he did.

00:17:52.50
Bradley Palermo
He already got the kid.

00:17:54.52
Aaron
And also, I think this was, I mean, actually, I guess I can't remember if the, when this takes place in history, 1993, did Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon have the ladder match yet?

00:18:07.64
Aaron
I think that was WrestleMania 10, right? So that's definitely not

00:18:12.41
Bradley Palermo
I'm not sure, but it made the, for those that can't see, I'm holding most unusual matches ever on VHS right here with Razor Ramon and Shawn Michaels on the front.

00:18:25.73
Bradley Palermo
And this came out in 1994, so it it must have been close.

00:18:26.20
Aaron
Let me look it up.

00:18:31.43
Aaron
WrestleMania 10, 1994. Yeah. Okay. So this was before that. So this Razor Ramon, I think was still really getting going. I don't think he'd even been around for more than a year this point.

00:18:44.79
Bradley Palermo
Oh wow, yeah.

00:18:45.55
Aaron
So yeah, this was a really, really fun one.

00:18:46.99
Bradley Palermo
and of course

00:18:49.82
Bradley Palermo
And of course, Ramon is coming off the heels of getting essentially squashed by the 123Kid, right? like

00:18:57.69
Aaron
Yes, that's right. The crowd was chanting one, two, three. So for people who aren't aware,

00:19:06.24
Aaron
Razor Ramon is a bad guy. He's a heel. um You probably know who he is. And if you don't, you can look him up and you'll understand who he is in a minute. So he had a match with a young, small baby face named the one, two, three kid.

00:19:20.21
Aaron
And 123Kid beat Razor Ramon pretty quickly, I think, right? It was like a huge upset match. Nobody thought he would win. And it made that wrestler who eventually went on to become X-Pac in Degeneration X, 6 in the NWO and WCW, he had a...

00:19:38.08
Bradley Palermo
On raw.

00:19:42.02
Aaron
A very, very long career, but it all started when, yeah, he beat Razor Ramon out of nowhere. And I remember they showed that match back again. It happened when I was like three years old, so I clearly didn't watch it.

00:19:54.84
Bradley Palermo
onra

00:19:55.94
Aaron
Yeah, but they showed it all the time. And was a big moment.

00:19:57.62
Bradley Palermo
All the time, yeah. It's classic. I think it was at the Hammerstein Ballroom.

00:20:01.26
Aaron
Hmm.

00:20:01.96
Bradley Palermo
I can picture everything from it. I could be wrong about that. but And also, 1-2-3 Kid. He'll always be 1-2-3 Kid to me, but he was the only guy that I think was in D-Generation X and the NWO, which were in both of those groups, which I think they were kind of mirrors of each other for for the two major promotions at the time.

00:20:23.77
Aaron
Yeah, the two biggest factions during the Attitude Era, for sure. All right, let's get back to the match because we got a lot of matches to talk about. So this was a short match, but honestly, by all accounts, in my opinion...

00:20:38.94
Aaron
A perfect match. Like, nothing wrong with it. Brett focuses on the arm for a few minutes. He uses his speed to his advantage and tries to keep Razor down with holds. The match psychology, just why the wrestlers are doing the things they're doing and when they're doing them, perfect.

00:20:57.51
Aaron
Brett Hart went for a tackle in the corner, but he missed and hit the post, which then allowed Razor to start controlling the match. And ah Brett wins with a reversal of a backdrop off the middle rope. I mean, just like bing, bang, boom.

00:21:11.63
Aaron
um don't even think it was 10 minutes long. It was like six, seven minutes. Amazing. like Crazy hot opener.

00:21:18.43
Bradley Palermo
I was surprised. and I knew that Brett had a lot of siblings, but he's one of 13. That's crazy. 13 fucking kids.

00:21:25.35
Aaron
I did not know that it was that many.

00:21:27.36
Bradley Palermo
That's what I mentioned.

00:21:27.50
Aaron
That's a lot. of That's a lot of siblings.

00:21:28.55
Bradley Palermo
And yeah, I think the facial expressions too on Scott Hall during this were, i was like, oh yeah, that guy, he plays it just perfectly. You know, the pain, the Yeah.

00:21:41.68
Bradley Palermo
um

00:21:42.06
Aaron
Yeah. Amazing match.

00:21:44.18
Bradley Palermo
And he was stomping Brett's fingers, which kind of plays into sort of Brett's condition for the rest of this thing.

00:21:51.31
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. This is, ah again, this is an exciting pay-per-view because it's not like what we see nowadays. There there is a tournament happening throughout the pay-per-view and Bret Hart is going to have to wrestle multiple times. I won't spoil how many just yet.

00:22:06.20
Bradley Palermo
Hmm. Yeah. um

00:22:07.99
Aaron
So then ah actually, do we wanna talk about the Harvey Wippelman, Mr. Hughes thing?

00:22:16.84
Aaron
I can just say there was a quick little thing and then just get into the next match, I guess.

00:22:17.32
Bradley Palermo
um

00:22:20.79
Bradley Palermo
Do that. Say there's a quick thing and then go into it.

00:22:22.51
Aaron
Yeah, yeah.

00:22:22.68
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, you're cool.

00:22:24.82
Aaron
So after the Bret Hart Razor Ramon match, there was a very quick little recap package about the Undertaker being attacked by and ah contestant in the next match, Mr. Hughes. And so this next match was Mr. Hughes versus Mr. Perfect Kurt Hennig.

00:22:41.37
Aaron
um Had a couple of moments that didn't feel as smooth as they could have been, especially you know in juxtaposition to the Bret Hart razor match where everything felt perfect and snug and seamless.

00:22:54.81
Aaron
um but But overall, I felt like this was pretty entertaining. The crowd was behind Mr. Perfect. Interesting finish. Mr. Hughes had... Undertaker's urn, which he used to attack Mr. Perfect in the match, in the middle of the match, and then got disqualified and lost. And I was like, man, you non-smart fella, are you, Mr. Hughes?

00:23:17.48
Bradley Palermo
You know, I think the most interesting part about this match was that they did like a picture-in-picture interview with Bret Hart in the middle of the match and asked him, well, whoever wins this match is going to, you know, is going to face you, Bret Hart.

00:23:24.21
Aaron
Brett.

00:23:29.18
Bradley Palermo
So which one do you want to see win? And I feel like Bret Hart was kind of shooting a little bit.

00:23:31.12
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:23:33.45
Bradley Palermo
He was like, i want to see Mr. Perfect win because I like him more because he can more or less because he can actually wrestle. And this other big fucking lug is just going to be a brawler's match. And i don't really like to do baller's matches.

00:23:45.27
Bradley Palermo
or brawlers matches. So I don't know.

00:23:47.31
Aaron
Yeah.

00:23:48.38
Bradley Palermo
Did you kind of feel like having seen Bret Hart do so many interviews since, you know, his wrestling careers ended, didn't it seem like he was kind of saying what he really wanted to say in that a little bit?

00:23:59.61
Aaron
Kind of. I mean, i always feel like the best promos or the best ah moments where wrestlers are talking is when they're speaking, you know, 70% truth, 30%, maybe not so true.

00:24:00.93
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:24:10.98
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:24:12.43
Aaron
So yeah, I, it did feel pretty honest. Um, but it made sense, you know, with Brett's character, he's very like tactical and likes to think things through.

00:24:23.38
Bradley Palermo
earnestn

00:24:24.52
Aaron
Yeah. Did you notice ah when Mr. Perfect came in, he flung his towel behind his back and it landed perfectly on Mr. Hughes' shoulder?

00:24:32.07
Bradley Palermo
Wow, yeah.

00:24:32.29
Aaron
That was dope.

00:24:33.26
Bradley Palermo
So i I rewatched it today. you know The second watch through, I don't have to take notes and shit. So he he he flung it behind, did he fling it behind his back, right?

00:24:38.59
Aaron
Yeah.

00:24:41.30
Aaron
Behind his back, yeah, he he he went...

00:24:42.51
Bradley Palermo
Like basketball fancy, like a fucking Harlem Globetrotter.

00:24:44.95
Aaron
Yeah.

00:24:46.50
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:24:46.94
Aaron
Yeah, with ah with a towel, and it landed on his...

00:24:47.37
Bradley Palermo
And I was like, there's no way he knew that towel was going to land perfect on Mr. Hugh's shoulder.

00:24:52.41
Aaron
I don't think he did, but it was awesome.

00:24:55.06
Bradley Palermo
Dude, that was so good. Yeah.

00:24:57.25
Aaron
Yeah.

00:24:58.93
Bradley Palermo
um

00:25:02.11
Bradley Palermo
And then we had a Yokozuna promo with Mr. Fuji. Yokozuna, of course, Rodney and Hawaii, first cousin to Rikishi, part of the bloodline.

00:25:13.23
Bradley Palermo
This is cool to see.

00:25:13.96
Aaron
Yeah, I got some thoughts about that.

00:25:16.07
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:25:17.20
Aaron
We'll talk about it later, though, when he wrestles.

00:25:17.42
Bradley Palermo
He's... Yeah, his ah you know he's not from Japan. He's from Los Angeles. Went to high school in Daly City, San Francisco. And I'll just say really quick, while I'm thinking about it, I just got the new PlayStation game, WWE 2K25, and they have a whole Bloodline series where you but replay the actual matches

00:25:35.00
Aaron
Mm-hmm. Nice.

00:25:40.59
Bradley Palermo
taking the directions of what really happened in history, which you can either choose to follow or not. The second match of the bloodline thing on that game is the one that's from King of the Ring 93 with Yokozuna and Hogan that we'll talk about later.

00:25:56.09
Bradley Palermo
And then we moved on after the promo to Hacksaw Jim Duggan versus Bam Bam Bigelow.

00:25:56.55
Aaron
That's cool.

00:26:02.40
Bradley Palermo
Two motherfuckers just stuffed into their clothes like fucking sausages.

00:26:05.18
Aaron
Two big guys.

00:26:08.52
Aaron
Bam, bam.

00:26:09.18
Bradley Palermo
What?

00:26:09.76
Aaron
I forgot about that. I love Bam Bam. I was scared of Bam Bam as a child. So this was great. I haven't watched something with him in it for many years.

00:26:21.39
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and Hacksaw is just great. he's got that page boy haircut, and he puts his hands on his hips, and hey-oh!

00:26:31.05
Aaron
Yeah, he's pretty funny.

00:26:32.52
Bradley Palermo
and The two of them are are great. but Bam Bam has that heavy New Jersey accent. He sounds like like Nick Gage or something, you know, one of the...

00:26:40.90
Aaron
And he's missing a tooth. And I mean,

00:26:42.84
Bradley Palermo
ah Probably more than one. Yeah. He's like...

00:26:46.47
Aaron
yeah. So for people who don't know, Bam Bigelow is like six, four, six, five, 390 pounds from Elizabeth, New Jersey, I think, or somewhere in New Jersey. And he is bald and has flame tattoos on his head going around his head. So a very intimidating guy.

00:27:10.81
Aaron
um Fun match, though.

00:27:12.97
Bradley Palermo
and and

00:27:14.28
Aaron
I mean, like, there's such polar opposites. Bam Bam is just like, no nonsense. I'm going to kill you. And Jim Duggan's just like, USA with his two by four. Yep.

00:27:27.08
Bradley Palermo
You had two American flags.

00:27:29.51
Aaron
yeah

00:27:30.31
Bradley Palermo
I think Bam Bam, his, I mean, his favorite move is to jump off a shit head first, flying head butts.

00:27:37.92
Aaron
Yeah, that's how he won the match with a flying headbutt.

00:27:37.86
Bradley Palermo
Guys, yeah, ultimately you won that way. Yeah, it's, I don't know. I was, I was like, I was thinking about like that American flag waving thing was just an easy way to be, to get like baby face pops back in the day.

00:27:52.61
Bradley Palermo
And, um,

00:27:52.74
Aaron
I was thinking of the same thing and I, another, i will, I have thoughts. Yeah. like And that we will discuss in later matches. I noticed the same exact thing as you, man.

00:28:00.44
Bradley Palermo
When I...

00:28:03.55
Bradley Palermo
But I've seen it used the opposite way once. When I went to Mexico, Marshall came out waving that fucking thing in Mexico City. And dudes are just throwing full beers and pitchers and candy, like, at his head.

00:28:19.14
Aaron
Amazing.

00:28:19.09
Bradley Palermo
Like, he's getting fucking assaulted. I was like, it's so cool after seeing that my whole life. You know, you're little baby face, USA. And then it gets turned against you. But, um yeah, not much else to say about that match on my end. I think that...

00:28:32.68
Bradley Palermo
you know we got the headbutt for the win and um that moves bam bam bigelow on to the quarter vinyls

00:28:36.16
Aaron
Yeah.

00:28:40.13
Aaron
To the quarterfinals. semifinals i don't know he's on at the next round um yeah a quick match uh shows bam bam's dominance i feel like this was under 10 minutes as well um and then after that we got a quick little backstage with billy and bart gunn and the steiner brothers for their upcoming match um good to see billy gunn as a youngin good to see the steiners as youngins we just saw them in uh in the WCW pay-per-view from last episode, but this is four years later and they're in a new company.

00:29:12.05
Bradley Palermo
yeah

00:29:13.35
Aaron
So after that, we had our next match of the King of the Ring tournament, which was Lex Luger versus Tatanka. This was an interesting one. um And the first point at which I was like, man,

00:29:27.21
Aaron
WWF in the 90s was fucking racist, but it's okay. Tatanka's music, his entrance is someone just going like, hey! Like, are you kidding me?

00:29:37.10
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I mean...

00:29:37.60
Aaron
Wow. But this is an interesting match because both men were undefeated coming into the matchup, and you don't get a lot of that nowadays. um So I was excited about it. I remember liking Tatanka as a child. I remember him visually because how could you not with his like,

00:29:55.05
Aaron
red rectangle in his hair that kind of looked like a mohawk.

00:30:00.15
Bradley Palermo
Yes, and then then a mullet in the back. it was I was going to say we should start doing you know best hair of the pay-per-view segments because... Yeah.

00:30:10.18
Aaron
It might need to be crushed, dude dude. That mullet was out of control.

00:30:13.89
Bradley Palermo
yeah

00:30:14.73
Aaron
Oh my god.

00:30:15.24
Bradley Palermo
But the colors on the Tatanka one, the bright red business in front and the...

00:30:18.28
Aaron
Yeah. There's a blue. Is there light blue in the back or something?

00:30:23.10
Bradley Palermo
I think it was just brown. i They're probably as blue. I don't know. I did look up to make sure that this guy was Native American because I'd be like, that'd be fucked up if it wasn't.

00:30:29.51
Aaron
He is, yeah, yeah, he is.

00:30:32.52
Bradley Palermo
He is. And then I looked up to see what he's up to today. He's very, very active on social media. He has a proclivity for the price of eggs, Marco Rubio, and I think he kind of wants to fuck Donald Trump.

00:30:43.94
Aaron
Oh boy.

00:30:47.71
Aaron
right, well, let's just leave let's leave it at that.

00:30:48.04
Bradley Palermo
But he's still out there.

00:30:49.87
Aaron
Let's not get political. Oh, God. Okay, well, this so there was another interesting thing at the beginning of this match. The ref ah made Lex Luger put an armband on to cover his surgically repaired forearm, which I guess was an unfair advantage because it had a screw in it or something.

00:31:09.40
Aaron
Did you did that make sense to you? That felt like some 90s stuff that just like...

00:31:12.45
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:31:13.87
Aaron
I'm like, yeah, whatever, I don't care. Yeah.

00:31:17.15
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. So Lex Luger was legitimately in a

00:31:25.18
Bradley Palermo
motorcycle accident before between WCW and joining WWF.

00:31:29.84
Aaron
Okay, I did not remember that.

00:31:31.32
Bradley Palermo
And Yeah, he hasn an and he had an interesting transition because he went to Vince while he was still in WCW as like a Vince's bodyguard or bodybuilder.

00:31:42.42
Bradley Palermo
Anyways, then he got into an accident and he did have like some sort of steel putting his elbow and forearm back together.

00:31:47.74
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:31:48.55
Bradley Palermo
And he was as a heel. He's using this, you know, for an unfair advantage to smack people. with it and win matches and at the beginning of this match they announced that uh commissioner jack tunney will not allow him to wrestle unless he covers up that that um reinforced elbow short whatever the fuck it is elbow forearm which of course in wrestling you know that means it's going to be somewhat part of the finish um

00:32:11.52
Aaron
Yeah.

00:32:17.02
Aaron
Yeah. Or something. It's going to make an appearance.

00:32:20.17
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, but we'll hear a lot of probably about Lex Luger in the coming days because he's going to be inducted into ah Hall of Fame this year.

00:32:29.15
Aaron
Yeah. Congrats to him. That was those videos that came out were very, very cool. Very inspiring. Happy that... He's gone through a lot of tough shit in his life and he's he's doing well. And props to Diamond Dallas Page. Diamond Dallas Page man, such a great person. that like To help as many people as he's helped, it's amazing.

00:32:52.43
Bradley Palermo
Seems like it. I ah wonder, I know Lex can like stand up and and maybe like, you know, grab something here and there. He has some mobility like for short bursts, but I've heard people walk.

00:33:02.24
Aaron
Yeah.

00:33:05.52
Aaron
I'm sure he's going to try and stand and walk to that podium. Yeah. I mean, if he can, i think the last video I saw, he felt like he wasn't, or he's on busted open a lot.

00:33:10.01
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:33:14.91
Aaron
I think he called in and said, he doesn't know if he's there yet, but he's certainly going to try. So good luck and rooting for you, Lex.

00:33:20.24
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, that'd be cool.

00:33:23.65
Bradley Palermo
ah Yeah, I

00:33:26.05
Aaron
So let's talk about his match with the Tonka. This,

00:33:29.13
Bradley Palermo
yeah i had a lot i had a lot to say that wasn't about the match, but go ahead.

00:33:29.26
Aaron
this

00:33:32.57
Aaron
Oh, you do? Okay. Well, yeah tell me what what else.

00:33:33.96
Bradley Palermo
No, no, no, I already did. yeah i was saying, yeah, yeah.

00:33:35.83
Aaron
Oh.

00:33:38.39
Aaron
Okay.

00:33:38.49
Bradley Palermo
It starts off with a fucking mirror being used against them.

00:33:38.63
Aaron
All right. So...

00:33:41.11
Bradley Palermo
We can start it there.

00:33:41.70
Aaron
Yes, that was amazing.

00:33:41.85
Bradley Palermo
Okay.

00:33:43.06
Aaron
Yes, Lex Luger is the narcissist in WWF at the time. He's a bad guy, a heel. So there is a very fake mirror in the ring and he just poses in front of it for like 45 seconds to a minute. And then Tatanka's music comes, he runs down the ramp, comes out hot and then yeah throws the fake ass mirror on top of Luger.

00:34:05.34
Aaron
you're like, oh, it's it's a plastic mirror. Cool, cool, cool, cool.

00:34:08.51
Bradley Palermo
yeah I kind of wanted to see Tatanka jump on the mirror once the mirror was already on top of Lex, but this this was not that kind of match.

00:34:14.32
Aaron
Yeah. That's your GCW fandom coming into play.

00:34:18.47
Bradley Palermo
Yes. Yeah. I've seen so so much bloody wrestling and I was like, oh, clearly that's what you do next. But no.

00:34:25.92
Aaron
This was a fun match for sure.

00:34:26.20
Bradley Palermo
This is...

00:34:27.76
Aaron
A lot of back and forths. It ended in a time limit draw, which is something I was not expecting. And even more, I was not expecting what the repercussions of them ending the match in a time limit draw would be.

00:34:39.71
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:34:39.96
Aaron
So because they both... Because nobody won the match, they both got eliminated and Bam Bam received a bye. So he was automatically put into the finals of the tournament, which I was like, huh, I guess that makes sense.

00:34:53.76
Aaron
But never would have thought that that was how it was going to play out, you know?

00:34:57.81
Bradley Palermo
And when you had, when they... when it got to the draw time, first of all, there was no like, there are three minutes left for this match. It was almost like the wrestlers had no way.

00:35:06.49
Aaron
Yeah, it was just the commentators that said something.

00:35:08.69
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. And then Lex grabs the mic, which kind of surprised me. He did the five more minutes thing, which I thought was more modern.

00:35:16.54
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:35:16.69
Bradley Palermo
And then when he did the five more minutes, I've seen it so many times, like on AEW, you almost expect him to be like, and I've got Tony Khan in my ear right now. And he has granted the five minutes, but

00:35:27.51
Aaron
Right.

00:35:27.82
Bradley Palermo
you know, there's no Tony Khan. Tony Khan's four at this time or whatever and has nothing to do with Jack Tony.

00:35:32.49
Aaron
Jack Tunney says, mm-mm, it's over.

00:35:36.30
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, Jack Tony is what Jack Tony says. The rules is the rules. So that's...

00:35:41.16
Aaron
I do not remember him at all, by the way. Like, I i i didn't watch a ton of this because this was, again, i was four years old when this happened.

00:35:49.05
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:35:49.88
Aaron
But I don't remember Jack Tunney being in charge of the WWF. All I ever remember is Vince, because that's the only thing that you do remember if you watched in the Attitude Era.

00:35:56.34
Bradley Palermo
So...

00:35:59.69
Bradley Palermo
Jack Tunney was only the commissioner for two years. And um when we were little kids playing with our action figures, I remember CJ Guilford, the kid down the hill that also like play with the wrestling things. He'd always be like, no, well, commissioner Jack Tunney says this. sort of You know, he would always put that into our our playing.

00:36:16.33
Aaron
Oh my God, that's fantastic.

00:36:17.97
Bradley Palermo
So yeah. So yeah, he was in there for a second. He was just a fucking Canadian promoter friend of Vince. Vince at that time was trying to make people believe he was an announcer and not spill the beans that he was also the owner.

00:36:26.09
Aaron
Be a commentator. Yeah.

00:36:30.93
Bradley Palermo
So it was short-lived, but...

00:36:31.90
Aaron
Speaking of. Did you notice that J.R. was on this pay-per-view and like he's not normally doing pay-per-views in the early ninety s of w wf

00:36:43.92
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and it was...

00:36:44.07
Aaron
that was This was like the only pay-per-view he was on in the early 90s. I read all about it because I was like, oh shit, JR. Because i JR is the voice of my childhood from Raw and from pay-per-views in the late 90s and early 2000s.

00:36:50.86
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:36:58.62
Aaron
But this was 1993. So I read up on it and like he left WCW very, very shortly before this. They had him start working some non-pay-per-view stuff.

00:37:09.55
Aaron
I think this was the first pay-per-view he ever worked for them. And then he might have done one or two more, but then he was off and vint because Vince wanted to start doing commentary more. And then ah jr had his first Bell's palsy attack and they fired him.

00:37:24.82
Bradley Palermo
Oh my god.

00:37:25.08
Aaron
And then he came back like two, three years later. And then that's when we start...

00:37:27.55
Bradley Palermo
and

00:37:29.17
Aaron
you know, that's when JR comes into like the zeitgeist of WWF and we remember him. But yeah, I was like, Oh, JR, that's so fun. And JR not with the King, like JR, Bobby Heenan and Macho Man is a really interesting commentary table.

00:37:43.91
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, i was that we should have prefaced it with the commentary team because it is kind of a classic. ah It's kind of a special combination of legends there between the three of them.

00:37:52.91
Aaron
hmm.

00:37:53.35
Bradley Palermo
I also thought it was funny that wherever the fuck in Ohio this was, I guess somewhere outside of Dayton, they kept calling it It actually had Vince in the intro, but you know nowhere else on the um the commentary.

00:38:05.67
Aaron
the The heartland of America or something.

00:38:06.50
Bradley Palermo
But it was from the heartland of America.

00:38:08.67
Aaron
The heart.

00:38:11.07
Bradley Palermo
And I'm from the American heartland. No one's ever called it the heartland of America. Only like a New Yorker would say that. You either call it the heartland or you call it the American heartland.

00:38:18.01
Aaron
Right.

00:38:21.29
Bradley Palermo
But I was like, and they say it a lot. Like, clearly, clearly it's like eventsism, like it was written in the notes, because JR has to keep calling it the heartland of America. And it's probably said 13 times on this thing. But, but you're like, dude, just say Dayton, Dayton, Ohio. Like, are you?

00:38:36.66
Bradley Palermo
You know, it's not. i mean, i've I've been there. It's, you know, and maybe it's not the most exciting place. But I mean, you don't have to hide the fact that you're in Dayton, right?

00:38:45.08
Aaron
They were excited. They were excited. Can I say, before we move on from the commentary discussion, you texted me as I was watching this and said, there are some pretty funny Bobby Heenan quotes.

00:38:59.36
Aaron
And so I started paying attention and my God, there were some pretty funny Bobby Heenan quotes.

00:39:03.30
Bradley Palermo
There's some good ones. Yeah.

00:39:04.35
Aaron
I think my favorite was Bobby Heenan asks JR, who do you think is going to win the King of the Ring? And JR says, Well, I don't know. And then Bobby says, well, of course you don't. You're from Oklahoma. Like what?

00:39:18.36
Aaron
The other one that I really liked and it was extremely racist was the last time I saw this many Japanese people was at Benihana.

00:39:25.77
Bradley Palermo
Oh my God.

00:39:26.17
Aaron
God, when the when the reporters came out for the Yokozuna Hulk Hogan match.

00:39:26.64
Bradley Palermo
Oh.

00:39:31.71
Bradley Palermo
i I have a list we can get to after we get through the matches, but I do remember one that's not on the list that saw me to the effect of Bobby Heenan talking about the time limits.

00:39:31.89
Aaron
Oh,

00:39:39.56
Bradley Palermo
And he's like, you got to really pay attention to the time limit. You got to know what you're doing. You got to jump on your opportunity at King of the Ring. Otherwise, you're going to be stuck living in Dayton, Ohio.

00:39:49.62
Bradley Palermo
And boy, is that fun. I was like, that's a pretty good one.

00:39:53.21
Aaron
nice amazing

00:39:55.39
Bradley Palermo
So yeah, he's ah he's a great asshole, man. I really appreciate it. I wish you know he was still around and on social media, just making, you know I don't think later in his life, he you know he was up on all that stuff, but I bet he would had some good quips.

00:40:03.69
Aaron
yeah oh man yeah

00:40:11.28
Bradley Palermo
um Well, before we move on to Bret Hart and Mr. Perfect's promo, Luger did ultimately, after the five more minutes that wasn't granted, use the special metal forearm thing and get to Tonka.

00:40:26.09
Aaron
Yeah.

00:40:26.68
Bradley Palermo
If anyone was wondering where that would lead to, it did play out.

00:40:29.63
Aaron
It did play out. It did. Yeah. They, they did pay off their plant.

00:40:34.28
Bradley Palermo
And then we had a short promo with Bret Hart and Mr. Perfect. I think Mr. Perfect was a baby face and so was Bret Hart, right? So in this one instant, they sort of turned Mr. Perfect temporarily.

00:40:48.64
Bradley Palermo
Mm-hmm.

00:40:49.23
Aaron
yeah Yeah, he he was getting cheered and and his first round match, Mr. Perfect was. um And yeah, this promo was interesting because Mr. Perfect basically heard what Brett said when he was wrestling earlier when we had that picture in picture. and he was like, what do you mean?

00:41:05.81
Aaron
I'm this and I'm that, you know, he and so, yeah, it was it was perfect to add a little bit of spin to this upcoming match because. ah For those who aren't aware, babyface versus babyface, good guy versus good guy, it's not there's nothing wrong with it, but sometimes you don't want your crowd to have to make the choice of who they root for, who they root against, um especially if they're both likable people. So they made it real easy for the audience. They made Mr. Perfect you know be the heel for the match, and and this was the first and only semifinal match with a 30-minute time limit.

00:41:41.58
Bradley Palermo
And I would say this is, for me, the match of the show, best match of the show.

00:41:46.00
Aaron
The card, yeah.

00:41:47.64
Bradley Palermo
It was what some would call a real wrestling match.

00:41:48.37
Aaron
Yeah.

00:41:51.15
Bradley Palermo
Headlock takedowns, grappling, chops, suplexes.

00:41:53.54
Aaron
Incredible match.

00:41:56.38
Bradley Palermo
It has a story, has an arc, gets it gets a lot more rough and a lot less technical as it goes on.

00:42:01.73
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:42:01.82
Bradley Palermo
it kind of start off with a little bit of respect for each other and it kind of ends sort of

00:42:02.65
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:42:07.40
Bradley Palermo
with a little bit of more outside of the ring aggressiveness. Yeah.

00:42:14.04
Aaron
Do you see that crazy bump that Brett took into the metal railing?

00:42:13.94
Bradley Palermo
i

00:42:17.72
Aaron
That was the one where I was like, oh dear God, that looked bad. But everything, I mean, Brett is, Brett Hart is and always will be the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be.

00:42:29.67
Aaron
He is a fantastic technical wrestler. He makes everything look real. And yeah, this, I agree. Match of the night, amazing psychology for the match. Mr. Perfect became a heel so easily.

00:42:44.12
Aaron
it speaks to his versatility, you know, like they, they might've not even needed that promo and you could have all like in the first two minutes, you knew, ah he's doing some bullshit.

00:42:50.46
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:42:54.38
Aaron
Like, boo, let's go Brett, you know?

00:42:57.84
Bradley Palermo
i was you know I was thinking about current product and you know and how it relates to matches like this. And I feel like CM Punk...

00:43:11.03
Bradley Palermo
got a lot of his shit from Bret Hart. You know, I feel like a lot of those holds, a lot of those moves, yeah.

00:43:13.72
Aaron
Oh yeah. He loves Bret Hart. He loves Bret. I mean, he talks about it all the time. Yeah.

00:43:20.69
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I think he's probably coming

00:43:20.98
Aaron
yeah And if you're going to pick from somebody, man, what a person to to take from.

00:43:25.58
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and of course. And I guess, you know, I guess I've seen him wear Brett's merch and even his outfit with the stars isn't totally.

00:43:31.53
Aaron
His colors.

00:43:34.17
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, Brett's colors.

00:43:34.66
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:43:35.64
Bradley Palermo
It's not a secret, but, um you know, when CM Punk came out originally, i wasn't currently I wasn't following the product at that time. And so like my CM Punk is kind of like pointing.

00:43:45.95
Aaron
He was doing his own thing.

00:43:49.17
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. So I'm kind of like, oh, wow, I see a lot of this, like, you know, which kind of best in the world, best there is, best there was, you know, it's, there's a lot of the similarities.

00:43:50.62
Aaron
Yeah, he... Mm-hmm. Yeah, he, I mean, I... Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:44:00.38
Bradley Palermo
Also, speaking of CM Punk, Brett knocked over a cooler with a lot of Pepsi. There's a lot of Pepsi all over the ring, all over the side of the ring.

00:44:11.31
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:44:11.27
Bradley Palermo
I don't think today, like, athletes would have buckets of Pepsi, you know, it'd be like crime.

00:44:16.22
Aaron
Nope, just bottles of Prime now. yeah

00:44:17.92
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:44:21.21
Aaron
Yeah, you know, definitely match of the night. um There's a point where... Mr. Perfect just like kicked it into a next gear and just really went to try and win the thing. And, um, he made some small mistake and then Brett just started honing in on the knee, focusing on the knee, trying to, uh, you know, weaken it for his finisher, the sharpshooter.

00:44:46.59
Aaron
He puts him in a figure four, which I don't, I not what I would expect Brett to do. um

00:44:52.77
Bradley Palermo
Not at all.

00:44:53.15
Aaron
but very cool. And, um, And this is the moment where he, you know, the figure four is on for a while. They finally break it up and Brett starts to try and put the sharpshooter on.

00:45:04.30
Aaron
But then Mr. Perfect starts to attack Brett and his hand from the first round against, who was that?

00:45:09.35
Bradley Palermo
Yep, the fingers. Right.

00:45:13.13
Aaron
Razor. Yeah.

00:45:14.30
Bradley Palermo
Razor, yeah.

00:45:16.50
Aaron
Amazing.

00:45:16.53
Bradley Palermo
um

00:45:17.50
Aaron
Oh my God, dude. I totally forgot about my favorite spot of the match, which was something that I didn't even know they did back then, which was the vertical suplex over the top rope where they both stay holding each other and fall to the floor. Holy shit, dude.

00:45:32.96
Bradley Palermo
That was crazy. Yeah, i had that one in my notes too. That was the craziest spot. Yeah.

00:45:39.10
Aaron
For back then, i mean, like 1993, I just don't remember people doing that back then. And that's something that happened even now doesn't happen super often because it's really dangerous.

00:45:46.53
Bradley Palermo
yeah

00:45:51.28
Bradley Palermo
Crazy shit. um Also, Mr. Perfect, he's great, but he kind of has that Shawn Michaels oversell thing. Sometimes you throw him into the turnbuckle and somehow he like flies six feet up in the air and does a cart. what You're like, okay, like you can just fall over.

00:46:11.05
Bradley Palermo
But I mean, I like that the 90s, like cartooniness of it sometimes, but that, you know, it's about as close as you're going to get in this era and WWF, sorry, um to something that looks completely legitimate.

00:46:11.33
Aaron
Yeah.

00:46:26.90
Aaron
Yeah, and this ended with Brett reversing roll-up to get the win, heading on to the finals where he will wrestle Bam Bam Bigelow later in the match.

00:46:38.36
Aaron
And our next match of the card is for the WWF Heavyweight Championship, and it is champion Hulk Hogan at the end of Hulkamania versus Yokozuna.

00:46:51.79
Aaron
Yogozuna is billed as being 550 pounds. My God, that is a big man. And as I said before, Hulkamania has been around for almost 10 years by this point.

00:47:03.51
Aaron
The crowd is still very much behind him though. um And the first thing that I thought of in seeing these entrances and and before the match started was like, man, yeah, this is why you need a good heel just as much as you need a good baby face. Because like,

00:47:17.81
Aaron
To do the same shtick, Hulkamania, for 10 years, that's a long time for the same thing to work. And i would ah I would have to imagine, because I don't remember all of the the heels that he went up against, but I would have to imagine that those people played a really big part in it.

00:47:25.68
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:47:33.10
Aaron
And this is another example of that with Yoko Tsunami. He dominates in the early moments of the match. Like, how how wouldn't he? He's so big. um And, you know, they they play again with the idea of if Hogan can just slam this giant monster, maybe he'll be able to win, you know, hearkening back to WrestleMania 3 with Hogan versus Andre.

00:47:53.81
Bradley Palermo
right

00:47:58.85
Aaron
Um, it was not my favorite match. I don't really like Hogan matches because he wasn't a very good worker. I understand.

00:48:09.03
Aaron
Like, I like Hogan and Andre. I like the matches that have good story, but this to me, I just felt kind of detached from it. And also this, when I started watching it, I was like, I remember how this goes. I remember this match because this is the match folks where Hulkamania dies, or at least we think it does.

00:48:28.08
Aaron
and

00:48:28.13
Bradley Palermo
This is the final Hulk Hogan match of the WWF for the next nine years.

00:48:35.36
Aaron
Yeah, which is insane if you think about it.

00:48:37.88
Bradley Palermo
Mm-hmm.

00:48:38.42
Aaron
like I look at this match and I'm like, okay, yeah, 10 years, it's it's good. It's good they're done. This... this And so, okay, to call back to what we were talking about earlier, Yokozuna is not Japanese.

00:48:56.72
Aaron
He is a Samoan man. And the fact that he's so clearly not Japanese as me being an adult now in 2025, I feel like pretty shitty about that.

00:49:05.45
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:49:08.43
Aaron
um He was a fantastic heel. Don't get me wrong. Like this is not taking anything away from what he did, but you're trying to make a fucking Pacific Islander look like an you're trying to pass off a Pacific Islander as a Japanese person.

00:49:12.46
Bradley Palermo
yeah

00:49:22.06
Aaron
That's not going to work, especially when you have Mr. Fuji, an actual Japanese person as his manager standing right next to him. My God.

00:49:28.79
Bradley Palermo
ah Right next to him. But did you notice that, because I was going to say, are they going to say he's from like Osaka or something, but they said that he's from a place that to my understanding doesn't even exist.

00:49:40.91
Bradley Palermo
The Polynesian Island, it says at the bottom, because there's several Polynesian islands and they're all, all, um,

00:49:45.85
Aaron
There's a million, yeah there's like hundreds of Polynesian islands.

00:49:49.10
Bradley Palermo
thousands of miles apart from one another all the way from ones that are kind of close to the U.S. to ones that are kind of close to Australia but like um yeah I thought they would say he was from Japan but they said he's from the Polynesian island from the Polynesian island so

00:50:06.46
Aaron
That's so weird. Yeah, I wonder what it was like for adults who were fans back then. like yeah They had to know that he was not Japanese, so maybe this was more for the the kids than anyone else. But the thing is, this is going to lead into the second thing that I said I would bring up later.

00:50:24.94
Aaron
When I look at this match and the way that the crowd rallies around Hogan with USA chants... It made me happy that we've gotten away from using the fact that people are foreigners as reasons why they are villains.

00:50:38.03
Aaron
Like, um, it still happens, but for example, like when Gunther comes out and talks a bunch of shit, people don't chant

00:50:38.23
Bradley Palermo
Yes. Chic.

00:50:47.49
Aaron
They boo him or they, or they chant yeet for, for Jey Uso.

00:50:47.97
Bradley Palermo
No. Right. Right.

00:50:51.38
Aaron
And it makes sense to me that it would head this way, given that WWE w is now like a global product.

00:50:58.65
Bradley Palermo
right

00:50:58.80
Aaron
Um, And the wrestlers characters have a lot more realism and personality to them now than just like being a cookie cutter character. But I'm just very happy that we're in a place where like, we don't, he's Japanese boo, you know, like USA, like,

00:51:13.30
Bradley Palermo
Right. And even even as a kid, i was like, you know, later after this pay-per-view, I don't know, but not that long after it was Lex Luger was sort of like the USA tights wearing guy against Yokozuna.

00:51:29.66
Aaron
hu

00:51:29.71
Bradley Palermo
And they had him like a warship slam Yokozuna.

00:51:33.13
Aaron
Yeah.

00:51:34.56
Bradley Palermo
And it was very like boo to Japan. And i and even as a child, I was like, what we're not in war with Japan. Like, what the fuck is this? It's like,

00:51:41.23
Aaron
Yeah, that was like 50 years ago, guys.

00:51:42.10
Bradley Palermo
Vince's childhood like fantasy from when you know World War II but like when I was a kid that was way the fuck after that and I i thought we were allies with Japan i don't know what fuck is happening right now yeah

00:51:54.83
Aaron
Yeah, well, it's like the typical Hollywood thing, right? Where Russians were bad guys throughout the 80s, Vietnamese, and then we got Middle Eastern people.

00:52:00.80
Bradley Palermo
yeah yeah

00:52:03.88
Aaron
You know, it the tropes carry on throughout history. It's silly, right? Like, when we watch it now, we have to suspend our disbelief.

00:52:10.87
Bradley Palermo
you

00:52:13.92
Aaron
This guy, like, I think the biggest thing for me is, like, you just look at his face. Like, you can see he does not have Asian features.

00:52:19.11
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:52:23.06
Aaron
He has... east East Asian Pacific Islander features.

00:52:26.43
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yes, yes.

00:52:30.10
Aaron
But, you know, it is what it is. i I did not like Yokozuna as a child. I was scared of him. So he did his job. That's it.

00:52:36.54
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:52:36.89
Aaron
You know, he was a great heel. But I'm glad we don't typecast people as being other races than what they are anymore.

00:52:38.85
Bradley Palermo
He was.

00:52:43.83
Aaron
Thank God.

00:52:46.25
Bradley Palermo
Yoko slammed Hogan very easily. ah took note of, which I kind of liked that. Um, the match was, was very slow other, other than couple of little spots.

00:52:51.52
Aaron
Mm-mm.

00:52:56.18
Bradley Palermo
Um, there was the classic old school minutes long bear hug that I never liked, even as a kid doesn't look real.

00:53:02.29
Aaron
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:53:04.53
Bradley Palermo
It just looks like two guys like hugging each other and grunting.

00:53:07.34
Aaron
Huggin'.

00:53:08.64
Bradley Palermo
And so there was that, um, Yokozuna ultimately,

00:53:09.10
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:53:14.31
Bradley Palermo
hits Hogan with a leg drop for the win and hits a bonsai drop after the bell to add insult to injury. yeah

00:53:26.01
Aaron
and becoming the WWF champion, sending Hulk Hogan running away to WCW. But one thing you forgot to mention is there was a very, very weird, wonky...

00:53:36.42
Bradley Palermo
of course.

00:53:37.85
Aaron
you know thing that led up to the finish, which is leading up to the match, they were talking about how there were members of the Japanese press here to cover the match. And you had reporters and people with cameras out by the ringside.

00:53:50.53
Aaron
So in towards the end of the match, something happens on the outside with Mr. Fuji that distracts the referee. And then a reporter, a reporter or a journalist comes onto the apron and gets ready to take a picture.

00:54:03.86
Aaron
And Hulk Hogan walks over. And then all of a sudden the camera explodes. and there's a fireball and it goes into Hogan's face and he's blinded temporarily and that is what allows Yokozuna to get the advantage, drop the leg and become the champion.

00:54:08.67
Bradley Palermo
and

00:54:18.60
Aaron
So, uh,

00:54:18.55
Bradley Palermo
God, yeah, that's loaded with the stereotype too. This fucking thing is crazy, man.

00:54:22.60
Aaron
yeah, it, uh, the hits just keep on coming, man. It's just, I, I, You know, say what you want about the characters and the work.

00:54:34.70
Aaron
a Amazing characters, you know, Hulk Hogan, Hulkamania was a very important part of wrestling. But Hulk Hogan kind of sucks now, okay? Newsflash to everybody.

00:54:46.19
Aaron
So, yeah, this s match came and it went, and on we went to the next one.

00:54:46.16
Bradley Palermo
right

00:54:50.97
Aaron
Why don't you why don't you lead us into it?

00:54:54.47
Bradley Palermo
Well, we did have a Shawn Michaels promo with Diesel, which I was kind of excited to see. And Shawn Michaels makes it

00:55:00.56
Aaron
Yeah, that was, they named, I don't think Diesel had been named before this interview, or at least that's what I was kind of led to believe, because Mijin was like, who is this man?

00:55:09.91
Bradley Palermo
Oh, yeah, that's Diesel. And Shawn Michaels made a Jurassic Park joke about Hogan. I do think at this time, by the way, that... even as early as like the 92 rumble, the crowd was starting to turn, some crowds were turning on Hogan. Like people were kind of getting onto him, catching onto his bullshit a little bit here and there.

00:55:32.11
Bradley Palermo
um But yeah, you got fucking Shawn Michaels right after Hogan's last match in the WWF. after The first thing he says is basically like, see you later, Jurassic Park.

00:55:44.06
Bradley Palermo
There was a lot of pop culture references on the show too. You had like, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, you know, Jurassic Park kind of puts you in that, in that time. ah you're like, oh yeah, we are in the early nineties for sure.

00:55:53.33
Aaron
Yeah.

00:55:55.90
Aaron
Yeah.

00:55:55.94
Bradley Palermo
But the match following that, um, and I don't really think it's worth ah talking too much about. It's the eight-man tag match. Not my favorite thing. It's got Ted DiBiase, IRS, the Head Shrinkers, Smoking Guns, Steiner Brothers, you know, the former few were the heels and the latter few were the baby faces. It's about what you expect.

00:56:19.67
Bradley Palermo
um

00:56:20.56
Aaron
It was just lackluster because i think the crowd was still reeling from Hogan losing.

00:56:25.38
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it was quiet.

00:56:25.64
Aaron
You know, i they did try to do the thing. Sorry, just to go back to Hogan for a second. They did try to do the thing where like the crowd is stunned in silence and then we hear boos and then they cut to shots of kids who look upset, you know, but they're not crying like when John Cena kicked Cody Rhodes in the nuts two weeks ago.

00:56:39.19
Bradley Palermo
yeah no yeah

00:56:44.59
Aaron
And, you know, so you can tell that. This was kind of a lackluster thing, and the crowd was quiet. And they were quiet through this tag match.

00:56:52.26
Bradley Palermo
yeah and billy gunn rolled up dbasi while he was showboating um and then we got a promo with uh yokazuna and the infamous jack tunney

00:57:01.38
Aaron
Ah, yes, the celebration that they're going to have.

00:57:04.28
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and why don't you take us to the next one? don't you go ahead take us to the next one? This one was something better.

00:57:10.05
Aaron
Yes. This was a better match. Yeah. The next match was Shawn Michaels with Diesel versus Crush. um Like you said, a better match. I remember Crush as a character. I don't really remember him doing anything of note. And that's because he didn't really do anything of note and like in terms of his individual progress throughout the company. But I think Crush is the front runner for best hair of this pay-per-view because his mullet My God, so much party.

00:57:38.07
Aaron
He had like a foot and a half a party in the back. My Lord, that is just, he took a long time to get, to get that grown out.

00:57:40.32
Bradley Palermo
Mm-hmm, it's long.

00:57:46.17
Aaron
This.

00:57:46.09
Bradley Palermo
Crush would eventually joined Demolition, and that's all I really, I mean, that's, but he was kind of like, you know, an afterthought of Demolition, which was a Timu version of Legion of Doom.

00:57:49.67
Aaron
Oh, right, right. You're right.

00:58:00.15
Bradley Palermo
So it's, I mean, he's cool.

00:58:00.48
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:58:01.96
Bradley Palermo
He's a big guy big-ass white guy.

00:58:04.04
Aaron
He had a lot of charisma, had some bright colors. This was for the Intercontinental Championship. I enjoyed the match. I always loved Shawn Michael. Crush is okay as a in ring.

00:58:13.25
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:58:15.30
Aaron
what What was the highlight of this match, though? And I want you to see if you can find a clip of this. if we If there's a way to get this in our social post, I think we need to.

00:58:26.31
Aaron
the The match ends because Doink the Clown shows up with a copy of himself, two Doinks, walking in tandem, smoking cigars, and they distract Crush, who I guess has been feuding with Doink in recent weeks, and Shawn Michaels gets the win and retains the Interturb Continental Championship.

00:58:36.13
Bradley Palermo
yeah

00:58:42.15
Bradley Palermo
yeah

00:58:47.50
Bradley Palermo
Do you remember Dink and Doink when they had a little person?

00:58:49.61
Aaron
I do remember Dink, yeah.

00:58:50.43
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. when i was um So I'm one of three brothers, but I'm the oldest. I would take my youngest brother and he would be Dink and I'd be Doink. And we beat up the middle brother.

00:59:01.16
Bradley Palermo
so like i pick up Dink. i pick up dink And, you know, their legs start spinning in the air like a fucking... Yeah,

00:59:07.87
Aaron
Yeah. Like a hamster in a wheel.

00:59:11.49
Bradley Palermo
and just drive them right at the other brother's fucking face, whatever. And we'd be singing...

00:59:20.85
Aaron
Yeah, Doink the Clown.

00:59:21.05
Bradley Palermo
um

00:59:22.33
Aaron
That was another one where it's like, okay, yeah, you're you're definitely only for the kids here. and But then when I look back on it now, I just laugh. I'm like, how did how did they get away with like a mean looking guy in ah in clown outfits and makeup smoking cigars?

00:59:36.87
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it was crazy. But I mean, you know, it's kind of fun to watch now that I know more about how things work. Like Crush is just dominating Shawn Michaels the whole time. Michaels is working underneath, so to speak.

00:59:49.57
Bradley Palermo
And then, like you said, all it take all it took was a little bit of distraction and an interference from Diesel.

00:59:57.08
Aaron
Crushes off his game, maybe.

00:59:57.96
Bradley Palermo
And Shawn Michaels um not just wins, but retains right it was an international uh intercontinental championship and then we move on to bret hart versus bam bam bigelow for the final

01:00:04.49
Aaron
Yeah.

01:00:07.73
Aaron
Yep.

01:00:15.02
Aaron
What a match. My God, almost, I, you know, maybe this one and the Mr. Perfect one are tied for me on this pay-per-view because this match was so good too.

01:00:23.73
Bradley Palermo
yeah

01:00:26.24
Aaron
it was very long, very drawn out, but they played up the struggle. I mean, Bam Bam is, is much bigger than Brett. Um, I thought it was a fantastic match.

01:00:36.88
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I think the thing that works against it as much as Bret Hart's like my favorite wrestler and so many other people's favorite wrestler is I've seen Bret Hart twice already at this point. So, you know, I just don't feel that like internal spark as much when he comes out, but it's still a good match.

01:00:56.65
Bradley Palermo
um I had Bret Hart getting thrown really hard into the barricade on this match that looked super stiff.

01:01:04.82
Aaron
Maybe it was twice then, because I feel like feel like it happened in the Mr.

01:01:09.19
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it happened here too.

01:01:09.52
Aaron
Perfect match. But yeah, he he took a lot of bumps, a lot good-looking bumps.

01:01:11.29
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:01:18.18
Aaron
How did this match end? I don't remember. I mean, i know I know Brett won, but how did he beat him?

01:01:20.96
Bradley Palermo
I mean, let's see. Luna Vachon came out at some point, hit Brett with a chair.

01:01:25.26
Aaron
That's right, yeah.

01:01:25.45
Bradley Palermo
Luna is terrifying. um

01:01:28.94
Aaron
Yep, she scared me as a kid.

01:01:28.96
Bradley Palermo
Bam Bam seemingly wins, right? Like, seemingly wins right like but the decision is reversed due to the chair shot that Luna does.

01:01:37.13
Aaron
That's right. That's right.

01:01:39.79
Bradley Palermo
Another referee comes out and is like, no, there was interference and the match continues. um And then Brett wins, but he doesn't put him, I mean, he pins him. He doesn't put him in the sharpshooter. So three Brett Hart matches without Brett's finisher which is interesting um and brett becomes the first king of the ring which is kind of a lie because brett is actually at this point one king of the ring before but king of the ring was ah house show concept so

01:01:53.89
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

01:02:05.90
Aaron
Oh.

01:02:07.30
Bradley Palermo
So it was Bret's second King of the Ring, but but first on time on TV. And as we know, in wrestling, it doesn't really count unless it happens on TV.

01:02:16.79
Aaron
sir

01:02:17.22
Bradley Palermo
So he gets a sparkly purple robe, a throne, a crown, other kingly props.

01:02:22.81
Aaron
This is the thing that kind of launches Bret Hart into the stratosphere, right? I mean, he was popular before, but I think this is the launch pad, isn't it?

01:02:32.09
Bradley Palermo
I think so. And you know, it's it's the end of what we would call the golden era of the WWF and the beginning of the new generation era.

01:02:44.61
Bradley Palermo
I think we should probably watch WrestleMania 9 next because a lot of people claim that was the night when... the golden era ended and it launched this new generation era, which this is only a few months after that.

01:02:57.50
Bradley Palermo
This is the summer of 93 that we're talking about right now. WrestleMania nine, I think would have been in April before that, but,

01:03:02.65
Aaron
Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

01:03:06.39
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

01:03:06.81
Bradley Palermo
But yeah, you're looking at Hulkamania phasing out, Hulk Hogan leaving completely, and Bret Hart sort of was the new Hogan. you know I don't think anyone, especially Vince, understood what he had until about this time. Like, oh, this isn't a huge guy. This isn't you know, this isn't some big, this guy's not even, you know, from the United States, but he is your your next big, big time champion.

01:03:29.26
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

01:03:34.25
Aaron
Yeah, yeah.

01:03:34.15
Bradley Palermo
Of course, Jerry Lawler had to stick his nose in all of it and, you know, right.

01:03:37.43
Aaron
Well, he's the original king, right? So as Bret Hart is being, as his coronation is happening, Jerry Lawler shows up and, so you know, does the normal Jerry Lawler thing, which is, I'm the only king. You should get on your knees and kiss my feet and you'll be my prince.

01:03:53.22
Aaron
And so he attacks Bret when Bret decides that he does not want to do that. And i think we end the pay-per-view with Bret on the ground, you know, her

01:04:03.02
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, which is great because not now you now you really got to turn into Saturday morning or whatever and see what happens.

01:04:04.49
Aaron
Setting up his next feud.

01:04:09.53
Bradley Palermo
But yeah, the crowd's chanting Burger King at Jerry Lawler, which he obviously hates.

01:04:10.75
Aaron
Yeah. He

01:04:13.97
Bradley Palermo
And nobody helps Brett. and And, you know, Randy Savage is on commentary. He's supposed to be the baby face commentary. So I was kind of like, come on, somebody help him out.

01:04:24.94
Bradley Palermo
What the fuck is going on?

01:04:26.94
Aaron
He got up out of his chair to congratulate Brett when he won the tournament, but and didn't want to get up and help him when Jerry attacked him. I see how it is, Macho. I see.

01:04:36.46
Bradley Palermo
um My favorite Bobby Heenan quotes from this this particular pay-per-view. um Let's see.

01:04:46.65
Bradley Palermo
number let's see All right. Mr. Hughes has never lost a match. Well, except for the ones that he actually lost.

01:04:55.03
Bradley Palermo
Stupid, but good. um Hogan's in great shape for someone who's been retired for three years.

01:05:03.29
Aaron
Fantastic.

01:05:03.64
Bradley Palermo
good um you know why brett hart wears dude back then people thought it was hilarious to um you know feminize a guy or say or got men wearing pink was like really funny to people back then uh you know why brett hart wears pink so his mommy can find him in the mall

01:05:13.18
Aaron
Ah.

01:05:20.92
Aaron
Oh, boy.

01:05:22.77
Bradley Palermo
what's next king brett's royal decree everyone must wear pink uh you know what razor is spelled backwards

01:05:29.84
Aaron
These Bobby Heenan...

01:05:32.31
Bradley Palermo
razor Think about that. That's probably the best one.

01:05:37.52
Aaron
that's the You know what? the the All these Bobby Heaton quotes remind me of something that Dave LaGreca would say on Busted Open.

01:05:43.94
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:05:44.41
Aaron
I don't know why. I just feel like Bobby and Dave are kindred spirits.

01:05:48.96
Bradley Palermo
Oh, man. I hope you get more heen in on commentary. I guess I'm sure we will because um i do want to keep track of the ah the little one-liners.

01:05:53.80
Aaron
Yeah.

01:05:57.88
Bradley Palermo
there They're not the kind of things that are like funny enough to like really laugh at, but they're they're so stupid. that i They're dad jokes, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.

01:06:05.81
Aaron
Yeah, yeah, I love dad jokes.

01:06:06.04
Bradley Palermo
Should

01:06:09.53
Aaron
um

01:06:09.52
Bradley Palermo
we? Oh, go ahead. and we ah or go ahead

01:06:13.22
Aaron
Before we end, I did also want to say that I have been watching a show that wwe WWE is putting out on A&E called Legends and Future Greats that I've really been enjoying.

01:06:23.83
Bradley Palermo
Mm-hmm.

01:06:26.50
Aaron
It's, I think, on the fifth episode this week. And basically the premise there are four coaches, Nicky James, Booker T, The Undertaker, and Bubba Ray Dudley. And they have four students on their teams.

01:06:39.84
Aaron
And they're helping them progress to become wrestlers. And whether that's working on in-ring stuff, working on promos, working on psychology, i feel like it's a really cool look um behind the scenes in ways that we don't normally get to see.

01:06:55.15
Aaron
And the episode that happened this past weekend on Sunday was especially good. had CM Punk come in as a guest. They had Eric Bischoff in the week before. So it's been really great. If y'all are interested, if you like nonfiction stuff, I would highly recommend that you check it out.

01:07:13.25
Aaron
It's called LFG Legends and Future Greats on A&E on Sunday nights.

01:07:17.90
Bradley Palermo
All right, and I know we're kind of going over our time a little bit here, but we do have. Let's see, but should we take some voicemails, emails, maybe I'll skip the email right now.

01:07:33.39
Bradley Palermo
Voice message here.

01:07:33.81
Aaron
Yeah, if we got a voicemail and we have voice messages, people actually care.

01:07:37.38
Bradley Palermo
um Let me see, we got one right here from Tim and Chico.

01:07:37.73
Aaron
Let's do it.

01:08:14.64
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I think you'll...

01:08:14.77
Aaron
Ouch.

01:08:20.99
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I mean, I guess you could call that wrestling. It was definitely...

01:08:26.04
Aaron
It was terrible. It was, it was, it was a fucking work is what it was. He's right about that.

01:08:29.71
Bradley Palermo
Some people thought it was a word, is what I was going to say.

01:08:31.25
Aaron
It was a work. Oh man. It was absolutely a work. I, we could talk about that for five minutes.

01:08:34.49
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:08:35.97
Aaron
All I'll say is Mike came out hot. For the first like 30 seconds of that first round, I was like, oh shit, he's going to kill him. And then we missed something. They had a clinch.

01:08:46.35
Aaron
And I'm pretty sure Jake was like, yo, dude, stop fucking trying to kill me. And then then he was just like, all right, I'm just I'm just going to go like this and I'm going to keep biting my gloves so that I don't actually punch you in the face as hard as I can.

01:08:49.66
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:08:58.27
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and the entrances were kind of wrestling-esque.

01:09:00.48
Aaron
Yeah, stupid.

01:09:01.23
Bradley Palermo
They had the Paul Brothers and the fucking, I think they drove drove out in the car. um Well, of course they had the Paul Brothers. One of them was in the fucking thing. But the other Paul Brother from WWE w was in the car with them.

01:09:13.94
Aaron
Newsflash, the entire world steals from professional wrestling. This is not new, but it is happening more and more in every facet of life.

01:09:19.10
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:09:22.74
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. um Let's see. Yeah. If you want to give us a call, like I said before, you want to cut a promo on Aaron, you want to cut a promo on myself. You want to cut a promo on both of us.

01:09:34.30
Bradley Palermo
You want to cut a promo on, and you want to, you want to promote your own podcast. Tell us why it's better than ours. that's 626-657 slam six two six six five seven whatever numbers it takes to make the word slam if you want to email us grapplecitypod at gmail.com give us suggestions what pay-per-view should we watch next what things were we wrong about give us some corrections give us some suggestions

01:10:04.96
Bradley Palermo
On social media, X, IG, even TikTok if we feel like it. We are at GrappleCityPod. I think next next episode, I really think we should do WrestleMania 9 because...

01:10:20.18
Bradley Palermo
I'm really interested right now in this whole transition between the golden era and the new generation era. And if that's supposedly where it all went to hell, you know, and I think it involves Hogan and Yokozuna and Bret Hart, we might as well strike ah strike while the iron's hot and sort of, you know, get more into this part of the story if you're cool with that.

01:10:42.77
Aaron
Yeah, I'm down. Absolutely, yeah. I'm probably never going to say no to any of your suggestions, so let's do it. Let's go a little bit further back in time and see what led up to what we just watched.

01:10:53.67
Bradley Palermo
All right. Well, that's all we got for today. I want to thank everyone for listening, and we will be back as soon as we possibly can.

01:11:01.27
Aaron
Thank you. Bye-bye.