Just stumbled across this while looking for stuff to listen while doing cardio, some interesting stuff about how Verne ran the place.

Only really started watching and attending live cards in the early to mid 80's when I was in grade school and Jr. High, but brought back some good memories of some of the old school characters, still use some of Heenan's old interview stuff which completely baffles most younger people, but get a kick out of their reactions.

Sounds awesome. I just added it to my apple podcast library...going to give it a listen later today.

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I lived too far away from the live cards, or else I would have gone to some of them in the early 80s. My tiny little grandmother got me hooked on wrestling when I was a little kid in the early 1970s before she passed away. She was a dignified and well read woman who just enjoyed the absurdity of a Bobby Heenan once a week.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

The best things were the commercials. Ben's Auto Sales and One Stop Foods! Killer. Not to mention the (Collins) hubcap place on 64th and King Dr.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

Sent a FB message to the one of the pod and one of the dudes got back to me right away and said they will likely answer them in one of the upcoming pods, seemed like a good dude.

Did not know it when I was a hapless junior high aged lad, but my single parent household couldn't afford to send me to the opera, theatre, or to pro sports events which made scraping together five to ten bucks for a ticket to the AWA card at Boylan Catholic High School in Rockford the only real "cultural event" that was available to me. One of my buddies dads was a big fan and he would take us to the shows, he seemed to get a kick out of us popping when Heenan got his ass kicked or when Andre the Giant came in for the yearly Battle Royale.

Thanks for posting about this. I love this kind of stuff. Will be listening to some of these.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Just caught some of the Bruiser Brody pod, would never have guess that the insane dude you saw on TV running around yelling, "hus", was actually a savvy businessman that was investing his money in real estate and businesses.

Yeah Brody was actually a really smart dude. Nothing at all like his wrestling character.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Love to know about new podcasts to listen to whenever I feel bored. This post is quite relevant to what I was searching for.

Interesting stuff on the last one about a dude that was an "enhancement talent" on AWA TV back in the day.

Verne paid them $120 to get their asses kicked on TV by guys like Mr. Saito and Brody. The dude said they were just happy to be booked and he apparently turned it into a fairly lucrative career.

He also said a lot of former wrestlers live in trailer parks in Florida, which is what you would expect, not much of a 401K or pension plan in that industry.

I haven't started listening yet, but one of these days I'm going to binge through it. My peak watching period was 1970-1982, once I went off to school I didn't keep up as much when I was home, and I had no interest in Hogan afterward and slicker TV production.

I'm especially interested in the jobbers - the Nacho Berrera interview, plus anything with Kenny Jay.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

I agree, the jobbers were often as interesting as the established guys they tried to push. We used to get to the Rockford shows early and watch George "Scrap Iron" Gadaski set up the ring and then work in the opening match. He even came over and shook our hands once, which was cool for me and my Jr. High buddies. They do have a pod or two in the can featuring jobber guys, have not been able to get to all the episodes yet, but a few interesting ones I will give a spin when time allows.

They also have an AEW Unleashed FB page, so if you want to grab about old school wrasslin' you can give it a spin.