Beau James

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Episode 7 - Transcript (45:14)
''So, Beau, last week on our program we talked about the audio that you released on your “Do you wanna be a wrestler, kid?” podcast over two episodes – it was really interesting audio from Mario Galento after several incidents had taken place, which led to him exposing professional wrestling on the air on Memphis radio. It lead to one of Bix and my favorite callers of all time, telling the police “stop the murder”. You contacted us after it, ‘cause we tried to give an overview on what had happened, transpired, caused MG to do this. We figured we should get you on the air – an expert in the subject – to tell us a little bit about what happened to MG and parts of the story we left out.''

Beau: “Well, people that listen – I don’t know how many go back in far in history as Jim White – who was jerry lawler’s first partner – Jim was from here in East Tennessee; he lived in East Kentucky until his death  - probably the last 10-15 years of his life, but, I dealt with Jim quite a bit over the last – probably from, say, 94-95 until he passed, and he ran some shows in Kentucky and used us on ‘em and I was around him, but he would always talk about this incident with Mario Galento because he said it was the closest that he’d ever came to killing somebody, and, you know, that’s pretty hardcore (laughs). Talkin’ about that – he told me that was the first time I heard the story about Galento hitting the ring on TV, and they all jumped on him and beat him half to death. Jim always said they knew he was comin’ that day. They’d been told “he’s comin’”

The first time or the second time?

Beau: The first time on Memphis TV. I think, from the way Jim always implied it, that Roy was the one who talked to Galento – Roy Welch – but it actually was a setup and it was a double-crossed where they talked Galento into coming to jump into the ring. That way they could legally get him and beat him up, you know, and try to hurt him. The one thing that makes me believe that that’s true – why would Jim White stand at ring-side with a billyclub? And he threw it in to Lawler, who then whacked Galento in the head with it and then they used it on him.

(I’m guessing he had not been doing a billy club gimmick of any kind.)

Beau: Right…Jim was right behind the curtain; he knew he was comin’. A lot of the Welch family I know and I get along with all of them just great, you know – the Fullers, the Goldens, the Fields; the whole family. But you know, they admit themselves in interviews and everything else – they always were plotting and planning and always had something going on somewhere in the family. Sometimes even against each other. So, what I believe, Galento had ideas of running opposition – trying to open up his own little territory outside of Memphis and he talked about a wrestling school. Why would he have a wrestling school in 1974? There were no wrestling schools in the country. The first wrestling school I remember hearing about was the Monster Factory – when did that come along?

(Very late 70s, early 80s?)

Beau: Before that, you had to be born into the business or recruited into the business, you know, or like me – just been around it all your life and just assumed you’re a part of it and let you in.

(Actually, there were the schools in Ontario, right – but those weren’t regular wrestling schools, though. It was still sort-of – you had to buddy up to someone who would break you in, I guess.)

Beau: You know, here in Kingsport, Ron and Don and Whitey – they got started through the Boys Club, and that was the only gym and only place the rasslers could work out because they had the match and stuff. It wasn’t necessarily a school – it was a place to go work out and stretch somebody and if they kept coming back, they thought they had some heart or something in em or something you could use – you kinda weened them in there slowly. But Galento was running his wrestling school intending on having places for his boys to wrestle, so he must have – I believe that’s true – that he had thoughts of running little outlaw opposition against them. Which I don’t think in any way – how would his little opposition outlaw show without TV, without the coliseum, you know – he would have been wrestling in VFW halls and small schools or whatever else, you know. He was no threat to them. But I believe Roy told him “If you get involved in this then maybe we’ll give you the piece of the action” but when he came – Jim White all the way to his death told me “we knew he was comin’ that day – we knew all about it.” The second time when he came -

''I was gonna say – one of the questions that begs to be asked from that is: as told in the Memphis Heat extra feature on the DVD, before it was Galento, it was Billy Wicks that Roy Welch had approached and tried to get to do this – offered him a great deal of money for the time. So – how does that; if the idea was to double cross Galento: Roy Welch approaches him, tells him to go in there and beat up Jerry Jarrett and he’ll collect this amount of money – but it was really to revenge on him for starting up a school. How did Billy Wicks fit into the whole equation?''

Beau: That was an easy way of blackballin’ him – because if he would have done it, look what he would have done to one of the promoters, one of the bosses – you can’t trust him.

(So what was the heat on Billy Wicks with them at the time?)

Beau: I have no idea – I’d never heard that there was. I know he’s a legit tough guy, I mean, he was the real deal.

(I mean, he still has a catch wrestling school now.)

Beau: He lives not far from me – about an hour and a half from me on the North Carolina side of the mountains. He doesn’t have the school now – his health has really gone downhill the last few years. But when you go into the rec center downtown in Silva, there’s a monument built to him in there from where he trained police officers, he trained local MMA fighters, he had a grappling school, I mean – he’s well respected and well regarded in that community over there.

''You know, Galento was considered a tough guy too – just very very different than Billy Wicks. Billy Wicks was more – I hate to use the word scientific, because that may actually not be fitting – but he was more that kinda tough guy and Galento was more of a brawler – a bar room brawler in this case.''

(I guess it would be like – if you’re gonna make a comparison: Billy Wicks is more Lou Thesz and Galento is more Harley Race.)

Yeah, that’s a good comparison.

Beau: Yeah and Jim White had always said this too about that – when else have you ever heard of Jerry Jarrett and Jerry Lawler beating somebody up? (laughs) – But: the one story you know about, they beat up one of the baddest dudes in the business. So now, you’re gonna double-think about the double-cross or going against them. It could just be that Galento – what are they gonna do to a guy off the streets, or the guy in the opening match?

(It’s so Machiavellian – I love it; so many layers to it.)

Beau: Better that then having – these events that had happened, you know in that time – they didn’t just happen and they didn’t just happen overnight – they were well thought-out and planned on how to take over an area and how to get in there, how to put somebody over. It was truly business, and their livelihoods of feeding their family, paying their rent, paying their bills, relied on this. What good would have came out of Galento hitting the ring and beating up one of the hottest babyfaces you’ve got in the territory – and the hottest heel? Nothing good would have come out of Jerry Jarrett and Jerry Lawler getting beaten up on live TV

Did Jim White let you know who let them in on the fact that this was happening?

Beau: Roy Welch, and if you listen to the audio from Galento, he says “I came down there to accept the thousand dollar challenge.”

Yes, he did say that.

Beau: Roy told him “if you go down there, I’ll give you a thousand dollars.”

(laughing) This is really something.

Beau: They almost killed him and you don’t get a thousand dollars.

(Now, where did the Jackie Fargo/Mario Galento thing – I forget – the one that’s in the SLAM! Wrestling article about Jackie Fargo.)

That came after the second incident after he went after Lawler with the razor.

Beau: And that happened in Mississippi and not Alabama. Galento was not alone -

What do you know about that incident?

Beau: Well, they were wrestling in a spot town. Back then, they only sent 4-6 guys to a spot show. You do 3 singles, comeback, and a tag – that was their formula for years, and then went up to 6 guys, 4 singles and a tag. When Galento came that time, he had two of Elvis’ bodyguards with him that he’d hired (the Memphis mafia) – so they’d seen him coming as they’re leaving the ring so they keep moving – Lawler and Sam Bass keep moving – and he keeps coming. Well when they get to the hallway to turn the corner, Jim White’s waiting there. He stuck the gun right in Galento’s mouth, and staring right behind him is the police officers, now they all get arrested. They take ‘em to jail and I think the town was Batesville, MO, I believe is where it happened. They call Nashville and get a hold of Miss Christine and tell ‘em what happened they’d been arrested, the whole deal. It was the week of the NWA convention – everyone’s in Vegas. She had to call out there and then they had to get a lawyer and a lawyer came and got them out of there and I don’t think anyone went back to court; I think that was just it, you know. And then that’s when all the death threats started…whatever. I think that – I think Galento’s whole thing was: he realized “I can’t get ‘em, I’ll never get to ‘em” you know. He tried it at TV, he tried it at a town, he knew he wasn’t gonna get them – one of the main reasons: he was even told that on the audio that police had orders to shoot him. That was after the razor incident. ‘Cause he makes mention of it in passing but he doesn’t want to tell the whole story because he looks bad.

''Do we exactly know when the audio was recorded? When the audio aired?''

Beau: Mark James would be the person we need to ask about that because it was in 1974 and Lou Thesz was on the card, yeah.

(I could look that up?)

Beau: Yeah, that would narrow it down within a few days of that. So, you know, and the thing about it: he went on the air and exposed the business. There’s two things that I find funny about when he did it. He did it on Saturday morning while everybody’s watching wrestling: they’re not listening to him.

I didn’t know that – that it’s a Saturday morning broadcast.

Beau: They still had an unbelievable 13 year run after that – It did not hurt business, one bit.

Even Mario Galento could not "stop the murder."

Beau: That’s it. (laughs)

(This was one of the hottest periods for that city ever.)

This was the switch from Fargo to Lawler.

Beau: And Lawler’s quest for the world title.

(I’m looking and it looks like Thesz was a regular in 74.)

Beau: It would be during the fall or either be January-Feb-March or towards the end of the year because he was talking about Basketball on there also.

(He’s not there every week but he’s there kinda Jan-June every other week and then comes back in August through October, like, more scattered dates when he came back in the Fall.)

Beau: Who else is on the card, there? He mentioned Thesz…who else did he talk about then?

(On that card?)

Beau: Yeah because he talked about other great wrestlers being there.

(Oh - like legitimately great wrestlers.)

Beau: Right. There was no coincidence that they were booked there during this whole time of what was goin’ on, you know. They were being used as policemen, that’s why they were there.

(I’m not sure – because I’m trying to figure out these names. Who would be…well, Tommy Gilbert was trained by Galento, though, but he’s not loyal to him at this point, and this is when Tommy Gilbert’s working with Lou Thesz, too. I don't know, I don’t see anyone that specifically jumps out at this point as known shooters, at least so far as I’m looking through this. I mean I’m seeing some names in the opener I don’t know like Ali Baba – maybe that’s one of them?)

Beau: He’s been around for years in TN.

(I’m not sure – what was the other thing I wanted to ask..Oh. Do you know if there’s anything more – at least – did you hear anything about the restaurant fight or whatever it was that Galento references getting into during that radio show?)

Beau: No, well, really – a lot of the wrestlers at that time were at fights in restaurants so that really wasn’t anything out of the ordinary unless you saw it, you know. Like, Fargo's in Mobile, they did a fight in the restaurant with Bob Kelly and somebody – that’s how they started the angle. They went down to where Lee (fields) ate breakfast every morning – it made the local papers.

''One of the other things we talked about last week on the program, Beau, was, Bix and I discussed the Dandy Jack Donovan story – we read Dandy Jack Donovan’s interview with Scott Teal as well as Len and Joe Rossi’s reply the issue after to try and clarify exactly what happened and clear the name of Len Rossi. One of the central things that Dandy Jack Donovan alleged was that at that time, there was a move being made to double-cross the Kazana brothers in Knoxville. You being the resident expert of East TN wrestling – what do you know about the Kazana brothers having problems with the Nashville booking office?''

Beau: Well, Roy Kazana and if you wanna go back and listen on (DYWBAWK) when I had Joey on last year, I think I did two programs with him, he talked a lot about being a little boy at his grandad's house and listening to John Kazana cuss Nick Gulas in Greek and Gulas cussing him in Greek, you know (laughs). There was always some kind of tension there. I never really heard anybody ever say a bad word about John or George Kazana or Nicky Barnes who owned the Kingsport territory. The boys seemed to love all them guys. But the thing about – up on this end, people don’t realize TN is a big state. There was four territories in TN until 75. You had the Kingsport, which was the tri-cities: it ran from Greenville, TN to Marion, VG, west to east; East KY to North Carolina line North to south; then the Kazana’s owned Knoxville and 50 miles in every direction; then you had Nick in Nashville – Nick handled Chattanooga, Huntsville, Birmingham, Bowling Green; and you had the Memphis end which was Memphis, Louisville, Evansville, and all the towns around there – Tupelo, MS was a part of that. It’s the TN territory but it also connected every state that touched TN too, they had a piece of other than Georgia. So, if you take TN and you churn it up from, the end of the state – I’m in East TN, I can be to Gettysburg, PA then I am to Memphis; it’s 40 miles closer. I can be in Windsor, Ontario, the same distance I’ll go to Memphis. It’s 500 and something miles across. So, I can go – Charlotte is about – now with interstates being open – it’s roughly a 3 to 3.5 hour trip. To where Nashville is is a 4.5 hour trip. So this end of the state was actually closer to Crockett, and the Kingsport cut off in Marietta, VG, which was exit 44 if you’re going up 81 now. Crockett’s territory took over at Exit 70 which is Woodsville, so that’s how close they were and TV’s overlapped. In the 60’s and early 70’s, you could get Charlotte TV here with the rabbit ears, so that means Bristol and Johnson City TV was getting over there somewhere too, so they exchanged the towns, and I think the whole fear of Nashville was – they were afraid that Nicky Barnes and the Kazana brothers were eventually gonna go with Jim Crockett, which if they would have, Crockett would have supplied the talent and they would have lost all of East Tennesee, East Kentucky, and Southwest Virginia. There’s a lot of towns – Nicky Barnes ran 5 days a week, Kazana ran 2 – that’s 7 towns a week plus two TV’s. Gulas Welch would not have a part of – so there’s many rumors on what happened here in 63 in Kingsport. Which one of ‘em’s true, I don’t know. But – I do know: Nicky Barnes was ousted and Lester Welch took over Kingsport and the Kingsport operation, and he had it for a few years. The reason that that happened was he had started booking talent from Charlotte. And if Nicky would have stayed running with Charlotte talent, the Kazana’s would have been shortly behind doing the same and they would have lost control – so I believe that’s why they wanted Knoxville, and there’s been many rumors – not just the one you read last week – but I’ve heard from Joey Kazana that they’d make attempts to take over; John Kazana. He held on until October of 74 when he finally sold it to Ron Fuller, who was a Welch.

What led it to selling it to Ron Fuller?

Beau: Whitey Caldwell’s death. They ran – they had the weekly towns up here plus the spot towns, plus Kazana’s towns. Whitey was very close to Mickey Barnes. Whitey’s oldest daughter’s name is Mickey – she was named after him. Whitey was very close to John and George Kazana – he made a good living working for them two days a week just on that end. He made more money there than he did working his day job; Ron Wright too, and they worked at a job with benefits for Childrne (sp.). But when Whitey was killed, they never had the opportunity to mourn. He was killed on Saturday – towns had to run Tuesday-through Saturday the next week. They didn’t have that opportunity; they couldn’t take time off – Ron and Don had to keep running. At the time, they had the rights and Whitey owned Kingsport territory. They had to make sure the mail ran, Kazana had to make sure Knoxville ran. It was a big hole left – not just in being the biggest star of the territory – he was a guy that all the boys loved and respected, and now you have to go to buildings to where he used to sit and he’s not there anymore. It was just heartbreaking for him, and Kazana was an older guy – he ran and came to Knoxville in ’33, so he’d already been there 40 years. He was getting older and he just felt it was time to get out.

''The Welchs/Fullers were always ready to buy a territory – they had a piece of Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee – what am I forgetting? They owned that entire region!''

(Like Beau said before we started recording, it was basically everything in the southeast except the Carolina's.)

Beau: Here they had the Goldens in Paduka – their in-laws to the Welches – then Roy and Herb and Lester were involved in Dyersburg and Nashville, then another Golden in Montgomery, then the Fields in Mobile and across the Gulf Coast – all family. They all owned little pieces of Atlanta and Georgia and some of them owned pieces of Florida, so when they came in here and bought Knoxville, they had everything except Mid-Atlantic.

And that’s one of the reasons they’d be so afraid of Crockett – because he was the closer to East TN like you said then they were the Nashville end or the Memphis end.

Beau: And he was an East Tennessee boy born and raised in Bristol, and still has family here. When all the trouble started with the Wrights and Fullers in Southeastern and all that stuff, Crockett came in. They – Southeastern crossed the territory first, they went to Bloomfield and started running Bloomfield West Virginia which is only 140 miles from Kingsport, but it’s 50 miles on the other side of that territorial line. So when they went in there, Jim Jr. shows up in Bristol, Channel 5 – one of the biggest stations in the country, still is to this day. WCYB. Guess who the program director was? Walter Crockett - Jim Sr’s brother.

(laughing)

Beau: So he says “Here, Unc, could you put our show on?” Oh yeah – I won’t put it on once a week, I’ll put it on TWICE a week.

When Jim Crockett Jr. came back to promoting in 1993-94, he ran his first taping in Chattanooga, I believe.

(Yeah - it was Chattanooga, yeah.)

Beau: It was, which was always a hot town for him with the NWA – that was a hot town for Crockett Promotions. But it was also a hot town for Georgia and Gulas.

(Kris Zellner always used to tell me when the Georgia office was running Chattanooga – I think age wise – I don’t think he ever went to these because he’s a year too young but the reputation was that among the Georgia fans, it had the wilder, bloodier shows, so a lot of the fans would drive in from the Atlanta Metro area to go to the Chattanooga shows.)

Beau: Chattanooga was Gulas’ hottest town all the way up until Nick was sent running – it was blood, guts, fire, fighting on the stage, crazy gimmicks – Tennessee finishes; I mean it was something way different than Ole Anderson’s Georgia wrestling where it was holds and legitimate wrestling matches.

And Ole hated Tennessee wrestling.

Beau: Despised it! (laughs) But he worked here.

(When did he work in Tennessee?)

Beau: He was in Knoxville 80-81 and had came through here at different times for Ron Wright when Ron had the Kingsport territory. One of the first places – talking to George Schire – that Gene and Lars Anderson wrestled as the Anderson Brothers was in the Kingsport territory.

(There’s so much we could talk about…)

''And we’re definitely going to have you on again, Beau, not only to talk about Tennessee history, but we’ve expressed interest on previous episodes and what you share a desire to with us, but the search for what exists on video tape still – the search for what wrestling could still possibly be out there. We’re probably going to do an episode pretty soon discussing that but before we wrap up with you and what you need to plug everything you had – you mentioned to Bix and myself a story about Ron Wright fighting with the Klan and we’d love to hear that.''

(That sounds amazing.)

Beau: (laughs) Everybody knows the story – people that know about Ron Wright, which, one of my things is to make sure his legend lives on forever – not just him but guys like Ed Wolfe. Ya’ll ever hear of Ed Wolfe?

(I’ve heard the name but I’m not familiar with him.)

Beau: Ed Wolfe looked like Road Warrior Hawk in 1968. He was a cop, was an unbelievable body – big guy, great athlete, great guy that Ron had trained – Ron and Don had trained him. Ed Wolfe and Frank Worell had started together in the Kingsport territory, and Ed ended up in 75 I believe or 74  - I have to look – him and Ron wrestled The Hells Angels in Johnson City – Chris Colt and Ron Dupree – they threw Ed out of the ring. Somebody had left a wooden folding chair at ringside, when he hit it, it shattered and the leg of the chair went all the way through his eye, and he ended up losing his leg because medicine wasn’t then what it is now; they tried to save it but it got gangrene. Him and Whitey Caldwell were going to be the big team – a smaller fast guy with this big strong man – and it just didn’t work out. Whitey got killed a couple years before that and Ed was still getting a good push as a top babyface here and the injury came. There’s so many guys that worked here like Ron and Don and Whitey and I wanna keep their memory alive – I want people to know about them, because you got little to none magazine covers. Bless Jim Cornette for the stuff he did with Smoky Mountain shining the spotlight on them for the new generations and I got a book coming out all about them. People don’t know the story about Ron Wright about his plane getting set on fire in Harlan, KY. His plane was not set on fire – it had Dynamite thrown underneath it and it blown up. It was on fire when Ron pulled in there with Phil Hickerson and Dennis Condrey and Ron was managing – he wasn’t even wrestling then. They figure out he’d been there so many years – do you guys know who Tony Peters is?

(Not sure.)

Beau: He’s another guy from Kingsport – he worked all over the place. He worked for the Nick Gulas, for the Poffos, there’s some ICW stuff floating around with him and Bob Orton Jr. and Boris Malenko were tag champs for the Poffos. When he got out of the marines from Vietnam, he met Ron wright and Tony grew up a big wrestling fan and he told this story at Ron’s funeral. He said that the first time he’d ever talked to Ron he wanted to get into the wrestling business. Ron said “What are you doing today, boy?” He says “Nothing” and Ron says “You’re gonna drive me to Harlan, KY” which was a two lane road most of it and still is from here. So about 20 miles outside of Harlan, he looks at Tony and says “You know how to fight?” he says “Well I just got home from Vietnam…” and he says “I mean with your fists and with your feet” and he says “Yeah” and Ron says “Well good because we’re gonna have to fight our way in here and out of here”. So they pull up to the armory, they literally he said watch Ron Wright fight his way to the dressing room, then when he went to the ring he had to fight and when the match was over they had to fight to get out of there – that’s how bad Harlan Kentucky was. People think that’s old times- I wrestled in Harlan a few times in the 90's and the 2000’s – I’ve never wrestled in Harlan where a fight has not broke out in the crowd. They call if “Bloody Harlan” for a reason – there’s blood on the streets every Saturday night. So that’s where they blew the plane up. Well, shortly before they blew the plane up, Ron was managing Norvell Austin and Sylvester Ritter – the Junkyard Dogs.

(What? I did not know about that!)

Beau: Yeah. So – at the same time, the Stomper has just came into the territory. He’d been there a little bit longer. Stomper came in 76, they got there 77 or 78; it was the first territory that Sylvester Ritter worked. So when they stopped in Harlan to get out, the clan was waiting on them. How dare that Ron Wright bring two black wrestlers to Harlan with a foreigner – and they’re out in front of the armory waiting for them and they had to fight the KKK to get into the building, then they had to fight them to get into the ring, then they had to fight them when it was over with. The police didn’t help because most of the police were clan members themselves! (laughs) People go “well, those days have passed” – I invite you to take a ride down with me to go through East Kentucky or Southern West Virginia.

I’ve been to Barbourville and that was an experience.

Beau: Barbourville compared to Harlan and Hazard and Pikeville is like, um – let me figure out how to do this – what’s the worst place in Jersey?

''All of it. No, I really don’t know. Maybe Newark?''

Beau: I’ve been to Newark, I agree with that! (Laughs). That would be Harlan and Hazard, and then what’s the Garden’s farthest in the northeast – Connecticut? That’d be Barbourville.

''It’s the Connecticut of Kentucky?! (laughing)''

Beau: Yeah. They’re civilized there – they at least have a radio station, colored TVs, a college.

''Listen Beau, this was great – we definitely want to have you on again. Tell all our listeners how they can get in touch with you and what you’re involved with.''

Beau: You can follow me on Facebook – Facebook.com/prowrestlerbeaujames - B-E-A-U; everyone spells my name wrong - or my website Kingofkingsport.com – I have my books on there, DVDs, some real rare stuff of East Tennessee wrestling you can find on there, and on Twitter also @Kingofkingsport, which one of the greatest things I ever got from Ron Wright was him to tell me to call myself that and go on TV and challenge him to fights – which is what I did when we first got TV, and it was great because I was that cocky young heel, how dare he challenge brother Ron Wright when Ron's sick and can’t even stand? (laughs)

(And YouTube - also KingofKingsport on Youtube.)

Beau: Oh yeah. Yeah - Youtube.com/Kingofkingsport; I’ve been putting a lot of stuff up on my YouTube because my promotion – Southern States Wrestling - is celebrating our 25th anniversary this year and I've been sharing all kinds of stuff of - put up an episode of classic stuff with the Batten Twins the other night. I've got more stuff coming with Tracy Smothers, Ricky Morton, Bobby Fulton, The Mongolian Stomper; all kinds of people that have worked for me over the years and I've been so blessed - started a rasslin' promotion at 16 years old and i'll be 42 in July and it's still runnin'.

(And a really underrated promotion. I mean, you had some - like, you know, I was telling you: I love that match that you and your cousin - Casey Thunder - had with the Battens: that great Loser Leaves Town Cage Match, which part of it is up on one of the things you posted recently. Just a lot of cool stuff.)

Beau: Yeah. I'm working on too some DVDs - one that I've been working on the last few weeks is called Family Feuds - which will include the whole match - but also, that was only the first runaround with the Batten Twins. We were the favorites, they were the heels, and then we switched heel after we ran them out of town - we worked a program with Robert Fuller and Jimmy Golden; the last run that Fuller and Golden had as a team was for me here in East Tennessee. After that, the Batten Twins returned as the fan favorites and we had a whole 'nother run with them then, so, you know, it was - we're a traditional rasslin' promotion, which there's not many of them left, and for many years it was the only reason that I got out of bed in the morning was to, you know, promote rasslin' and do stuff. I got a whole lot of other stuff goin' on now in my life - speaking places, writing books, and I've got the first book on the Kingsport territory will be out in days. I mean, literally days. But - I have 4 more, because this territory ran for decades, and I foolishly thought when I started putting it together I could put it all in one book, and you can't. So, I broke it down - the first one coming out, it's the 60s. That way, people can learn about Ron and Don and Whitey. Ron and Don both helped me so much, Whitey's widow helped me, Cora Combs; all these people that's passed in the last few years - Jim White - helped me with the history and explained the territory and how it was ran. I laid it out for you - you can start with the newspaper clippings and go week by week and read my notes in there on how they booked it, you know - how the legend of Ron and Whitey started, and how it started by accident because Pat O'Connor and somebody else no-showed the town and they had to put Ron and Whitey in the ring and it was their first big match to show off in front of everybody and Ron split Whitey with the hardway and Ron threw Whitey out of the ring so hard, he broke his shoulder and was out of the business for a year, so.

Well, we definitely gotta check out all that - really looking forward to the first of your 4 book set of the history of East Tennessee, and like we said-

(Yeah. I'm gonna get on that as soon as you put it out.)

''Yeah! Me too, me too. Once again, Beau - thanks for doing this.''

Beau: Thank you guys for havin' me. Any time, just give me a yell.