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May 24, 2022 - Lionel Nation
23:09
60s NWA Wrestling: The Greatest Lessons Learned

No greater lesson was ever learned than through my assiduous study of NWA wrestling in the 60s and 70s. Glory, plain and simple.

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Simply put, the greatest lesson I ever learned in life came from professional wrestling.
Representing wrestlers and the business and being involved in it and also seeing it as a fan, as a kid and recognizing how professional wrestling really of the 60s and 70s, not this stuff now, but the way it worked, the way it reached into the soul, the way it was a This was in the South, N.W.A., for the most part, if you must know.
But it went into the soul, and it connected with every visceral, rudimentary, primordial vestige of behavior in our bodies, in our soul.
The most savage, the most competitive, the ultimate Greek tragedy, good versus evil, Manichaean, it was wonderful.
It was exaggerated.
It had nothing to do with history.
And that represents most of what we see on TV, especially now.
It's social media.
This one thrashes, this one shreds, so-and-so destroys, even their language.
The baby face and the heel.
Good versus evil.
Black and white.
Apodictic.
Left-right.
Manichaean.
That's exactly what we're seeing right now.
And what politicians don't understand is putting your opponent, well, actually bringing heat, but putting your cause over.
These are carnival tactics.
This is vaudeville.
This is entertainment.
And it may seem like a bunch of overweight People who look like your dad, at least then, you know, cutting each other and bleeding, and that was part of it.
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Picture this.
1960s Florida NWA wrestling.
The Mecca.
Wrestling then was in territories.
It's not like the Vince McMahon world today.
It was something that was just absolutely gorgeous.
There was New York, of course.
There was Minnesota, Vern Gagne.
The New York area was WWWF, Vince Sr.
Texas.
Jack Atkinson, or actually Fritz von Erich.
Oklahoma was Bill Watts.
Carolina is Crockett.
Florida was Eddie Graham before that Cowboy Luttrell.
Just go down the list.
Alabama, the Mid-South.
And it was territories.
And it was people who had their own talent and their own...
Folks, and sometimes they would intermix.
It's almost like states, almost like an election.
Vince McMahon kind of federalized everything, which was, in some respects, the ruination of the sport, because it just changed everything.
But, but, but.
But as a kid, going to this event, we went to a place called the Sportatorium or the Armory.
Tuesday night.
People from all over the city.
And by the way, the South in Florida was a Mecca.
Terry Bollea, who was Hulk Hogan from Tampa.
I'm trying to think of the other.
You might not know them.
Barry Windham and others were there.
And the great Gordon Soley, my dear friend, and seeing that.
But I would go.
I'm a kid.
And everybody's hanging out.
As we say, blacks, whites, it didn't matter where you were.
Really no such thing as a bad seed.
It was hot.
They had these big fans.
They would sell boiled peanuts.
And these big barrels, these 50-gallon barrels, you know, of boiling.
It was wonderful.
It's just wonderful.
And everybody was there.
Women in moo-moos and smoking.
Then there was the first match.
The first one, just to get things going.
And they had this wonderful, wonderful announcer, Chet Darp.
Dear, dear man.
And he would announce, he says, Thank you, wrestling fans.
And as you would go there, people were starting to pick up stuff off the ground.
What is this?
People were grabbing their drinks and their...
Taking the last sip and they're crumbling him up and saying, are we cleaning up here?
What's going on?
And he would say all the time, thank you wrestling fans.
Please, we ask you not to throw anything ringside because it won't be the wrestlers who are hurt, but some innocent bystander ringside.
At that moment, when he said, do not throw anything at the ring, It was a salvo.
It was a deluge.
It was World War III of everything you can imagine just pelting this man.
So we're getting it.
It was wonderful.
Nobody got thrown out.
It was part of this controlled chaos.
And then the heel.
And what's funny was they both went into the same dressing room, which is The weirdest thing.
They both come out at the same different time, but the same place.
I thought that was odd.
Because in the days of rustling, in the days of 60s and before that, 70s, then rustling, kayfabe, the maintenance of the illusion was paramount.
Nobody broke kayfabe.
Nobody.
Kayfabe, by the way.
K-A-Y-F-A-B-E.
Supposedly, or supposedly, as people would say, was a trick that some of the wrestlers would use when they were traveling.
And we had long distance and person to person, they would call their homes to let their wives know that they were safely there.
And they would say, person to person call to kayfabe.
Well, nobody's here by that name.
Okay, thank you.
That was a way of telling your loved one that you're there, supposedly.
Cheating the phone company, because wrestling is all about cheating, and the rib, and the angle, and the work, and putting people over, and confusion, and lies.
It was wonderful.
And that was it.
But you had to perform in the ring.
And there was blood.
Let there be blood.
There was blood.
Real blood.
I don't know where this chicken blood came from.
I don't know where the blood capsules.
People would come up with blood capsules.
Chicken blood?
Salmonella?
Are you kidding me?
Chicken blood?
No.
They had razor blades.
And they had ways of gaffing themselves.
They spoke kiazarni.
They spoke their own language.
It was wonderful.
And you saw it.
You saw blood pouring.
I saw Johnny Valentine.
He was just sitting there.
Crumpled as we walked past him.
There he was, just sitting in the corner with this thing just pouring.
It was the most incredible thing.
Imagine going to Broadway and you see the people on the stage sitting there bleeding.
They're beating each other up and you see the sweat and you hear the noise.
It was wonderful.
Greatest thing I've ever seen in my life.
And I mentioned history.
History made no difference to anyone.
History didn't.
It was a group called, it was a tag team, the von Brauners.
And they were Nazis, and everybody knew that Nazis, any kind of German team, were always bald-headed, they wore the tights, and they would do the claw.
Their whole Baron von Raschke and others would just grab you by the head and squeeze your head.
That's what they did.
They were Nazis.
Nazis, Germans, but they were Nazis.
Their manager was Gentleman Saul Weingroff, a Jew wearing a German helmet with a swastika.
It made no sense.
It didn't matter.
History didn't make any sense.
What do you care about history?
We'll tell you what the history is.
It was the most incredible thing.
It was the most wonderful stuff that they did.
I saw something one time, one of the greatest matches ever.
I've got to tell you this.
A guy named Steve Kern.
Steve Kern was, I think he was like Gator Kern or something, but his father, I think his father, the story was his father, Colonel Kern, was in two, he was a POW in two different wars, either World War II and Vietnam, or probably World War II and Vietnam.
Well, he came back.
He was released, and he's seeing his son.
And it was the most incredible thing ever to see him, you know, wrestle for his son.
This guy's a hero!
So lo and behold, I think it was Bob Rube at the time.
Mr. Tree-rific.
Bob Rube.
Great wrestler.
He was a heel.
Bad guy.
And he came up and said something to the effect of, Well, let me tell you something.
I was in the Air Force or whatever.
I was in the service.
And anybody who lets themselves be captured is a coward.
Something like that.
And I'm thinking to myself, I can't believe what I'm seeing.
I can't believe this.
This is the most incredible thing I've ever seen.
I can't believe what I'm seeing.
So, Steve Curran came out after After this, Steve Kerr, of course, is rustling and he's saying these things.
I don't know if he hit us.
I don't know what he did, but there's some kind of confrontation with this Colonel Kerr, a bona fide hero.
And Steve Kerr says, let me tell you something.
Tuesday night, I want a lights-out match with you.
Now, I had to go see this.
Lights-out.
Meaning, they're going to turn the lights off and then on again to symbolize the end.
Of NWA sanctioned matches.
What you're about to see after this is not sanctioned.
So we are in no way responsible.
It's going to be just this blood fest.
Okay.
I gotta go.
I gotta go.
I was there kind of ringside.
You don't want to get too ringside with blood and sweat.
But I was close enough.
The match basically was Steve Kern running down to meet Bob Rupp.
He had a university, he had one of those, you know, the wrestling tights.
He grabbed the strap, wrapped it around his neck, and proceeded to choke him for whatever period of time.
And I'm seeing this man's eyes roll back.
I mean, it was the most...
It was...
The paroxysm, the...
The orgasm.
The emotional release of everybody.
Again, black, white, poor, Latino.
It doesn't matter.
We're seeing the justification.
This man, this is everything.
Good versus evil.
Hero versus coward.
America versus whatever.
A son vindicating his father.
Couldn't sleep for days.
The sheer adrenaline.
Don't tell me about whether it was fake or not.
It doesn't matter.
It was wonderful.
There was nothing like it.
I can go on.
I don't want to give you a lot of examples.
I'll do this some other time.
But the point is, what did it teach me?
What?
You have to get into the soul.
And you've got to get it.
And there are shows on TV.
You can say what you want about The View.
You can say what you want about Fox or CNN or whatever it is.
But when they go in and somebody says something that just drives people crazy and they keep talking about it and talk about it, that's wrestling.
That's kayfabe.
Good versus evil.
Good versus evil.
The good guy, the bad guy.
What do you think the debates are?
The debates are pure, pure wrestling match.
And some people have it.
Some people don't.
Bringing the heat.
The passion.
The worst thing you want at a wrestling match, which you'll never see is this.
There's never been anybody who's ever clapped.
You don't clap at a wrestling match.
You scream.
You pound your face.
There's no clapping.
Yay!
No, no, no, no, no.
Good versus evil.
Manichaean.
I can't say enough about.
I can't.
I can't put it into context.
This is a war.
There's no nuance here.
There's no shades.
There's no, like, well, he's got a point.
Well, no.
I want this one destroyed.
This is the bad guy.
This is the heel.
And then there's versions of it.
There's the flip, the baby face, the good guy, heel goes bad, taking off the mask.
Some treachery.
Double cross.
The poor guy in the tag team is left out there and nobody's helping him and they're killing him and you're wondering, what's going on here?
This is life!
It's the greatest theater ever.
I've seen more Broadway and plays than you can imagine.
I've never felt like this.
I've never been able to say, I can't go to sleep.
Because I'm going crazy.
Because I've never felt this.
And when you have people like that, it's like the center, the room, the arena, is breathing in one in concert.
You know, there are moments in political theater when Obama won his nomination, or when he won the election.
Oh my God!
There's just no...
Trump rallies?
Did you ever hear about a rally that people waited for overnight?
No.
Reagan?
Bill Clinton to an extent.
But Reagan was bringing it.
Reagan did the famous Lenny Skutnik speech.
State of the Union, I forget what it was.
Lenny Skutnik was the postal employee who...
Remember when Air...
Florida, Flight 90, I don't know what it was.
Or Flight, who knows.
It flew into the Potomac.
It was freezing.
There was this woman, this nurse, Toronto or something.
She was dying.
She was going to drown.
She was frozen.
She's in shock.
And people are just looking.
So this guy rips his jacket off, dives in, helps secure the lifeline.
Lenny Skutnik, he's a hero.
Reagan brings him to the State of the Union.
It's brilliant!
Well, and he was supposed to address something like that, and he was the first one ever to have him sit next to Nancy.
And before we begin, well, here's a real hero, Lenny Skutnik.
I think he ended her, thank you, good night!
And he said, wasn't he supposed to say something?
Ah, what the hell.
Wrestling.
Theater.
Not just a concert.
Not Springsteen.
Very good.
Not whatever.
No, no, no.
Something that was over and above.
Pure wrestling.
There are campaigners who are absolute.
They're incredible.
Tell you what right now.
Trump, say what you want.
Nobody did what he did.
AOC?
Box office.
Marjorie Taylor Greene?
Box office.
Forget the politics.
I'm talking pure performance.
You want to see them.
It's going to be good.
AOC has just...
She's in.
She's a superstar.
I don't know what she's saying.
It doesn't matter.
Marjorie Taylor Greene?
Baby formula?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's not it.
They know what to say.
They know how to say something just to grab you.
Jen Psaki, box office.
Box office.
She could just...
Those fights with Ducey, it was wrestling.
Heel babyface.
It was the greatest.
Greatest team ever.
It was a work.
It was a concentrated effort.
It was beautiful.
That's what it is.
Never forget this.
Never.
Whoever's going to run, whoever's going to...
We live in a world today where you better understand stagecraft and bringing the heat using the analog of professional wrestling.
I'm telling you.
I'm telling you.
Your comments below.
If you know what I'm talking about.
Pro-wrestling, when it was...
Did you have a grandmother, a grandfather who used to sit and watch late at night, maybe with the sound turned off?
Do you remember the days of the...
We had some of the greatest heels ever.
The heels were the ones who just...
Dusty Rhodes, the greatest wrestling performer, bar none, of all time.
Nobody.
Nobody.
Nobody better.
Nobody.
To this day, nobody.
There were other wrestlers.
He was fad.
He had scars.
He had...
He was a monster.
A monster.
And everything about it...
Oh, one more thing.
You can't fool the people who are sitting there in the front row.
You've got to be able to really...
I mean, you can't hit somebody in the face as hard as you can, but the bumps, the potatoes, the blood, the sweat, and all of that, it's got to be convincing.
Which translates into people really getting hurt.
I'm going to return to this theory and to this presentation one day.
But I'm telling you right now, wrestling, I learned from the best.
It changed my life.
What do you think?
Tell me your moments, your history, your favorite heels, your favorite good guys, bad guys, baby faces, moments.
Where was your arena?
What was it?
Was it the Boutwell in Alabama?
Was it the Keele Auditorium in St. Louis?
Was it the Garden?
Where was it?
Where did you go when it was great and it was the biggest thing ever?
Ever.
Okay?
Think about that.
Thank you for allowing me into your mind.
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