Episode 24 - House of Gullen

Timestamps
 0:01:57 - Superuniverse Top 10 
 * 10. El Pibe 10 '83


 * 9. Hobo Brazil


 * 8. The Slip House Boys


 * 7. Akeem Bixenspan


 * 6. The Hangman (Bruce Pobanz)


 * 5. Sue the Shooter


 * 4. Black Scorpion


 * 3. Orgasmic Larry Nelson


 * 2. Denim Fritz


 * 1. Yomamba the Jungle Savage


 * NEW CHAMPION - Marc Gullen (def. Santo Gold)

 0:22:44 - Follow Ups (The Great Antonio, Michael Hayes 1988 Audio) 

 0:39:51 - Dr. Mike Lano (The Aborted CAC Seminar, Shooting Louie Spicolli in his casket at his funeral, & A Plaque for Dory Funk Jr.) 

TGBL: One of our listeners, Mike Bentley, sent me this – I wanna read this real quick:

“I attended the recent 51st annual Cauliflower Alley Club event. One of the events was a last minute seminar thrown together by Dr. Mike Lano himself. It was titled “The Mt. Rushmore of Wrestling Announcers.” I claimed a seat in the front row, and Mike put his notes on the table in front of me. I snapped some pictures to reference the pure chaos later-“ and I may ask him to post these pictures, because they’re nuts. “Mike had this great “idea” that he would pass around a sheet of “Hello, my name is” tags, where he’d written down random names of announcers in sharpie, and then in pen, he wrote the organization they’d worked for as an announcer. He wanted everyone in the room to wear one, but never gave a clear explanation as to the reasoning. There were several scheduled guests who did not show up, including Terry Funk and Bobby Heenan. He DID manage to have: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Lance Russell, Gene Okerlund, and Pepper Martin on the panel. At one point, he had Greg Gagne on the panel. Much like the rest of us, Greg couldn’t figure out the relevance of him being there, so he left. Even with the star studded panel and the promise of a Q & A type format, Mike dominated the session. He threw to Okerlund who said “I don’t need to say anything, Mike – you just read all of my copy!” Gene kept looking at his watch and told Pepper Martin “I’m outta here!” Moments later, Gene was asked a question. Gene said “I’m going to the Men’s Room,” and never came back – a very bizarre event to say the least.”



Photos courtesy of Mike Bentley.

TGBL: ...So all this happens, and then he’s gonna give this award at the Eddie Gilbert Banquet, and Dennis goes “Mike Lano wants to give an award and he’s not here – I don’t know where he is. Could someone find him?” because that was the moment where he decided to get up and leave, and then of course Dennis couldn’t help himself and crack some jokes. He goes “I know he’s not out there buying people drinks,” and then all of a sudden, Lano runs into the room – and it’s one of the funniest videos, ‘cause Dennis, you know. Dennis is letting him do this, but he had no idea Lano was going to do this, so Mike says something like “I was out there-“ and Dennis goes “Yeah, yeah, yeah; whatever.” The room is cracking up at Dennis and Lano gets up there and he does one of his classic moves, which is to get himself over. He says “I want everyone to please – let’s all, I don’t know if she’s been acknowledged yet, but we should all stand up or raise a glass to Diamond Lil – Katie Glass, who’s meant a lot to me, and Jim Cornette, and Don Liable, and all these people.” So for no reason at all, he’s just honoring someone else who’s not even on the Dais – they’re  just in the crowd sitting down with Moolah. So everyone claps and says “ok,” and then he says – ‘cause again, he’s all about complimenting and getting himself over this way; it’s hysterical. He goes “I think we should also acknowledge Dennis Coralluzzo for what he did with the Tom Robinson Benefit – he brought us all together and he deserves to be acknowledged for that,” and Dennis gets a round of applause. The Tom Robinson Benefit was in 1990 – this was 1998. It – I mean, it just made no sense. So then Lano starts rambling, and he says that he’s gonna play this story, he’s gonna honor Dory Funk Jr. as a surprise to Dory, and he’s gonna play this story from Dick Steinborn, and he has a tape recorder in his hand. If you watch the video  - and I was in the front, at the first table in front of the Dais – and what an All-Star table this was, Bix. It was me, Marc Coralluzzo, Scott Cornish, Franz Shuman, Kevin Lawler, Tiger Khan, and Fred the Elephant Boy. He’s pretending to press the button on the recorder to press play – he’s not pressing play and it won’t play, he’s PRETENDING to press play. After a second of trying, he goes “Oh well, I guess I’ll just tell the story anyway,” and everyone starts laughing. As John Arezzi pointed out last week, he has a reputation for making up stories that other people didn’t say. So right away, Cornette yells “We need some documentation that this actually took place!” and all of a sudden, Lano goes “Oh no no no, it’s not like shooting flowers outside of a funeral,” which was like the first time I’d heard that defense. No-one had brought it up – other than Dennis introducing him as the “Funeral Photographer,” I should say that (laughing). He does this story, and it kinda goes no-where and ends, and then Dennis gets back on stage and he says “And next year, if you wanna get yourself over, just bring a plaque like Mike Lano did.” (laughing)

 0:50:51 - Brian's memories of Harry White 

 0:59:05 - Marc Gullen 

Marc: Well, I – when we started with the USWA, we went to Memphis to do our first television show, and the heel dressing room was the cafeteria at the television station. I was sitting at one of those little round cafeteria-style tables, and I was pulling my shorts up – my shorts were about around my knees – so I’m basically naked. In the dressing room comes Sid Vicious, who’s purple with rage and looking around the room, and I’m thinking “this is certainly not good.” He looks around the room and sees me sitting there, one of the new guys – never seen me before – and I thought “this is not good!” Sid comes over and he leans down and puts both hands on the table and flexes all of his upper body and his face is absolutely purple with rage, and he looks at me and he goes "I think I’ll just kick your ass!” By the time he got to the word ‘kick’, my brain had gone into overdrive, and I’m into fight-or-flight, and flight – since my trunks are around my knees – was quite out of the question. There was no place to run – what could I do? Have him chase me out of the locker room? I’d never get back in. My brain – I’m thinking “what could I do?” and my hand-eye coordination was extraordinary. I was a Fencer – enjoyed it very much – but as a result, I’m thinking I could take out one of his eye balls that he was close enough to me and couldn’t stop me. I thought about yanking one of his eyeballs out, then I thought “He’s a big man with the promotion – he’s one of their stars here. That wouldn’t bode well for my future if I came in and mortally injured one of their wrestlers!” Other than that, it’s just going to be a death match. So, I’m thinking, and as he gets to the end of the word ‘ass’ – and spit is flying all over me – I look up at him, roll my eyes, and go “Ooooh!” (laughing) I swear to god, it was like watching Robocop where in his Visor it blinks “This is not your person – you must go after someone else” because he looked at me with a really confused look in his eye, and I could tell that he didn’t want to beat someone up who might have an orgasm while he was doing it! Fortunately for me, if that’d had been his thing, I’d have been in real trouble then!

- Marc Gullen on getting out of a potential dust-up with Sid Vicious in the USWA Heel locker room.

 2:12:09 - Dennis of the Week 

This week's Dennis of the Week is an audio clip of Dennis sending in a promo to USWA in 1992 to disparage Jerry Lawler and Koko Ware, while promoting his client Kamala, the Ugandan Giant.

 2:25:20 - Book of the Week 

 2:39:37 - Bobby Simmons (Part 4) 

Bobby: The only thing – the only reason it was done was to establish Tommy as a legitimate contender, because Barnett had Tommy on a guarantee, and he was going to book him out some for some dates around the country. But, to legitimize him being a top contender, Tommy didn’t have the best body in the wrestling business, but Tommy – the little girls melted when he’d come on TV. Let me back up and tell you how Tommy got this position in Atlanta: he was sent here from the Nashville booking office to be fresh meat for Abdullah the Butcher on Atlanta TV. They were gonna kill him on TV, pay him, and send him back to Tennessee. Barnett happened to come to the TV station that morning and saw him, and he told Renesto, he said “Put him on TV, sit him next to Gordon. Don’t let him open his mouth – don’t let him say a word. Just let people see him, but do NOT put him in the ring.” He went back home, called Nick Gulas, cut a deal to get Tommy down here. Tommy Rich was born, and of course, he got the big push because he became a big Babyface; people loved him. But, Barnett went to the Board of Directors, got the approval to do it. The only people that knew it was going to happen was Jim Barnett, Buck Robley, and myself. The only reason I knew about it – if you’ve ever seen a program from anywhere in the country, when you have a new World Champion, they always have a copy of a Western Union Telegram in their program. I’m sure you’ve probably seen one.

TGBL: Yeah.

Bobby: “Title Changed Hands” – those were a shoot. I would send out a telegram to every wrestling office in the NWA roster as soon as the title changed hands to let them know what happened, so they could legitimately tell their people, put it in their program – however they wanted to handle it – that the title had changed. That’s the reason I knew about it. I sat at home that night until Charlie Harbin called me – he called Jim from Augusta. Jim called me at home and I sat there and sent Telegrams to every office. So, we were the 3 that knew about it; nobody else knew. Tommy did not know about it until he got to the building that night.

- Bobby on debunking the long-standing myths surrounding the circumstances of Tommy Rich's short stint as NWA World Heavyweight Champion in 1981.