32. Why We Love Pro Wrestling w/ Dave Adams

If you know me at all, you know that I love pro wrestling. I missed the boat during the 90s when it was booming but discovered it when I was 17 or 18 years old and have been a fan ever since. Dave Adams is a Christchurch-based stand-up comedian originally from Wellington and he's also a huge fan. In this podcast we seek to give the casual viewer an insight into the baffling popularity of "fake fighting." Dave got into wrestling during the boom in the 90s so between us we have 2 different reference points to look at and hopefully we will be able to take you from skeptic to curious and maybe you'll check out a show.

One of my best friends is a local wrestler, "Eccentric" Elliot Samuels, check him out on Facebook here to see him sporting some of the merch I designed him while he puts the stretch on the competition. He wrestles for Unified Championship Wrestling here in Christchurch

If you need more Dave Adams in your life, check him out on Facebook, Insta, or check out his business winning.nz.

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Intro Music:
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Transcript

Good morning, Ruddle Maniacs. It is Taylor Ruddle from two weeks ago. Past Taylor talking to you now in the present. Hope you're having a lovely Monday morning wherever you are. I am recording this in the past because I am about to go on tour with David Corrios as of tomorrow at the time of this recording. So this week I'm dipping into a conversation that was recorded many weeks ago. Now I can't exactly remember how many, but it was a delightful conversation. The topic. of today's podcast is professional wrestling. I brought a fellow standup comedian, Dave Adams, and just general all around sweetheart onto the podcast to chat about our eternal love for professional wrestling. As it turns out, Dave has been watching for a lot longer than I have, so it was really cool to listen to him talking about an era of professional wrestling that I was not around for. We also try to present this podcast in the sense of if you're someone who's never watched wrestling before, you have no idea what it's like, but you're interested in getting into it, this will explain to you what we love about professional wrestling and why it is such good entertainment. So with that, we're going to get straight to the interview. Rottelmaniacs, please welcome to the show Dave Adams. Hello Dave, welcome to the podcast. Hey, how's it going? Thanks for having me. No, very, very happy to have you. I feel like we've had a few sort of like in passing chats about pro wrestling, but we've never really gotten into it before. So this seemed like a good way to monetize that conversation by doing a podcast. So to the listeners today, this is going to be a podcast about professional wrestling and maybe why you should give it a chance if you're kind of on the fence about it, or you don't understand it. Um, we'll get into a little bit of maybe our history of how we came to enjoy it. So what was your wrestling origin story? How long have you been, uh, watching for? I've, I have actually been watching since I was about a twin ager, really. So I've been watching for a good, how many years is that? Almost 20 years, essentially. Um, and maybe even 30. It's, uh, I've, I've always loved it. It's been something that I've kind of, I saw my brothers used to watch, um, some like WWE back in the day. And then I kind of came of age and my parents were like, nah, I don't want to watch that. Uh, but I, uh, I just, I discovered that, uh, Sky one had WCW, uh, and on the channel, so, uh, that's where I really first started to get into, uh, to wrestling. I started watching WCW. I remember, I remember there was a bit of a, um, uh, kind of, there was right kind of during what they call the Monday night wars where there was like two big. competitive companies who were kind of vying for everyone's views. And for a while there, WCW actually was the premier company. They were getting more views per week. Uh, and, uh, and I thought it's my little naive brain was like, well, one company's got a title called the WWF title and one's got the world wrestling title. So that must be the company. Uh, and so it was right about the time of Goldberg and, uh, Sting. Uh, all of those guys, I loved it. Yeah. So that I've been watching for a long, long time. Wow. You really have. So like, I only have vague memories of, um, that kind of time period. Cause that was in the nineties, wasn't it? Yeah. Like late, yeah, late nineties, late nineties. My only vague memories of it were, um, when what is now called the WWE, they were called the WWF for a long time. But then even before that they were, they had three W's that were called the worldwide wrestling federation. And I just remember seeing cartoons where it would be like, collect the new world wrestling worldwide wrestling Federation action figures. And it would all have like, all like Stone Cold and the Undertaker and everything like that. And it just seemed, I'd never watched it. It just seemed like intense and like edgy and terrifying. Yeah. Hard out. So then you were a WCW guy at the time. Uh, who were your favorites when you started watching? Oh, I was a big Goldberg fan. I mean, I'm like, um, I am the essence of. Big hop vanilla and so was Goldberg in many ways. He's just your stock standard, uh, beefy, big man, slapping meat. That's what he's, what he is. So the listeners that maybe don't understand or don't know wrestling Goldberg is a massive bodybuilder. Like, yeah, back in the day. Yeah. He's a big, he's a big football player sort of build and he was. his presentation was pretty standard. He just had like black trunks and boots. And did he really have much personality back then? No, no. He had one line he'd say, who's next? And then he'd say, you're next. And then he went on this big old streak. It was like, the coolest thing was his entrance. So he would come out to this kind of like military sounding music flanked by security guards in the back. Like they would like knock on his door and he would like walk out and then there'd be like six security guards walking with him. And then he'd come out to the stage and these kind of like, like large sparkler versions of fireworks would just be like pouring out of the stage and he would just like walk through it and he'd do these like little punches and then he'd like breathe out and then like somehow some of the fireworks got in his mouth and like came out of his mouth. It was like the coolest thing ever. As a kid, you're like, that's who I want to be. It's so funny how those little, it's, it's the weird details. Like I was listening to Kevin Nash, who was another WCW guy at the time. I'm guessing the NWO were around when you were watching. Yeah. I think I was just catching the tail end. Like this is when that's the NWO had split off into different factions. It was like the Wolfpack and then there was like, um, which is the red and black version. And then there was like the original NWO. We could do a whole podcast on that, but for the listener who doesn't know the NWO were a couple of ex WW guys who came to WCW and their storyline was that it was kind of implied that the WWF had sent them to like. So chaos and the WCW and they ended up becoming this massive unit of about 20 guys and they were just kicking everybody's butt. And like Dave said, just before they did end up sort of imploding and they split into two and yeah, like he said, they, the wind down was not as impressive as the, as the initial days. But they really pushed the storyline to make you believe that it was real, you know, they They became this large gang almost within the organization. They would take over the announcers and they would like fire people. They spray painted the belt as well. Didn't know that was their big calling card and they would have like aluminum baseball bats and I remember a big thing of their presentation was they would show like, they would be beating people up in the parking lot. And I think stuff that had never been shown before in wrestling. And this was also like. Sorry, mate. This is also the one time that Hulk Hogan was a bad guy. That's right. Everyone knew Hulk Hogan, but he turned into this guy called Hollywood Hulk Hogan. Hollywood Hulk Hogan. He dyed his beard black and he had these kind of, you know, this whole black and white attire and he was actually a bad guy because this whole time he was like, you know, cherry-o's like good guy. Yeah. Like, what do you say? Train, train, take your vitamins and say your prayers. Yeah, that kind of guy. Yeah. It's silly. This guy was a bad guy. He went bad. Yeah. But anyway, the reason we got onto the NWO was because of Goldberg. And this is one of those things. It's like history. It's like you start tugging on a thread and that leads you to a whole other thing. But Kevin Nash, he was a member of the NWO and he was telling me, this is related to Goldberg. He was, no, he wasn't telling me. Jesus. I was listening to a podcast. Yeah. Yeah, I just, I call him Kev, you know, we're on first name terms. This is incredible. Let's take this story to the next level. Yeah, he was, I should have said that and we'll get it in post. He was telling on a podcast that, you know, he didn't, it didn't matter what moves he did, or like, you know, having the best matches and stuff. He's like, the most of the time people will come up to him and they'll be like... I liked when you had tassels on the side of your pants. I thought it was a good look for you. I thought the long hair was a, yeah, I thought you looked really good with the long hair when I was a kid. I'm like, it's just that same thing. And you can never predict what kids are going to latch onto. And like for you, it was the entrance of Goldberg and this, like, you can still, I can tell you can still see it in your mind's eye when you're describing every second of his entrance. Um, so yeah, you were a Goldberg, a Goldberg fan with any others that you liked from that, from that company. Oh, I, um, yeah, I like probably Sting as well. I really like Sting. Yeah. He was pretty wicked. Um, to the end, he listens out there. Sting is actually still wrestling today well into his sixties, isn't he? Yeah. 56. I think it must be sixties. Yeah. But he looks really good. He, one of the reasons he's been on a stick around is he wears face paint. So you can't tell how many wrinkles are in his. And his gimmick was just a quick one for the listeners. Sting was like a surfer California dude, and he used to paint his face with all these bright colors. And then when the NWO came in... Oh, I'm just going to clear my throat. When the NWO came in and everyone was getting beaten up, Sting went really dark and he was inspired by the crow and he changed his face paint to just basically, he was basically doing the crow's face paint. And he never spoke, right? No, for ages. He kind of went this emo version of himself and then he kind of... transformed into this, yeah, as you say, the crow, this kind of black face paint with these kind of black lines that kind of come out of his eyes and out of his mouth and, yeah, just all around badass with a baseball bat. Yeah, Sting looked great and he was sort of like the main hero of WCW at the time, wasn't he? I can't really, maybe DDP was another one, Oh, DDP is like a guy in his forties who discovered wrestling at a late age and decided, okay, I need to, I need to input some personality in here, but all I've got is diamonds. So I'm going to go with the diamond David. He used to be, he used to wear like fur coats to the ring and he would have like, he'd always be puffing on a cigar and he'd have like a billion rings and some blood. He was, he was cool, I think in a weird sort of eighties way, wasn't he? Yeah. Maybe he's like, he was a working class man's idea of what Rich was. Like, you know what I mean? Like, yeah. So then from you, you started off in WCW. You've, have you always been, like, I think wrestling fans, sometimes we go in and out of watching it, like, have you always been watching or have you had any times when you were in the break? When I could. So, I mean, obviously when I first started watching WCW, I was, um, just also based on the fact that we just happened to have, um, like Saturn back at the time, which is like, the vision of sky. And it was on like one of the channels on one of the nights, but you know, then you move fast forward to the early 2000s and then we didn't have a way to watch it as much. And so I'll watch kind of like highlights on, you know, go into the website and see what happened and, and see little kind of clips here and there. Uh, and then as, as the time's gone on and I've got more of my own money, I've been able to actually make sure I've got ways to watch, uh, watch shows. But there's the promise, uh, you know, um, Taylor is that there's just so much wrestling out there. There's, you know, a lot of people know about WWE, but there are so many production companies out there and each one of them, like, if you take WWE alone, they've got like three shows a week, at least like the main ones, each of those is like two to three hours. So if you had them all together, it's like. seven hours of watching a week you could do with one company alone. This is something I don't think maybe the average person understands out there is like, wrestling is not necessarily mainstream anymore, but like, there's, it's still booming. Like, if we say the attitude era was kind of the golden age of wrestling, I'm assuming just because of the amount of money that was being made by the companies, but like, we're in this like, I don't know, like a platinum age of it right now where there are so many companies that are doing well enough that they're not like going bankrupt and wrestlers can make a living. And it's like you said, you could watch seven hours just watching WWE alone. Yeah. And that's not even including because of the internet now, all the independent companies have their own streaming service or they have sort of piggybacked onto another one, or you can watch it on YouTube and like, it's, it's this weird. Like. People are aware it's out there, but I don't think they quite understand how much of it is happening at the moment. Yeah, yeah. And as you say, it's the platinum age because for quite a while there, WWE kind of swallowed up company after company after company when they became one big monopoly. And then it's only in the recent kind of like five to seven years that things have started to kind of pick back up again and become, you know, actually a bit more of a competitive environment, which is great for the actual product. Yeah, I think this is where maybe we're slightly different fans. Like you are an AEW guy at the moment, right? I am. That's your, you're kind of, it's funny because I feel like- It's all the time I got. I would probably watch them both if I had time. I didn't have time. For sure. I just need to pick one. I think that's the thing with wrestling fans is you have your main, the main one you follow and then you have the ones that you can if you have time or something like that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I was, um, mine is sort of between AEW and New Japan pro wrestling and, um, I was wondering, is that one that you've ever watched yourself? Are you familiar with them at all? I've watched the occasional match and I mainly, when I know that someone from a new Japan is coming to another promotion, I'm like, who is this person? I do a little bit of back backstory searching because often, you know, going between companies, storylines will kind of carry over all the person. Yeah. Or that kind of demeanor. It's kind of good to understand who, what should I be expecting from this new person? The really good thing about New Japan is I would say probably like 90% of their storytelling happens in the ring. You don't necessarily need to follow these ongoing storylines. Quite often the storyline from New Japan is like all of these wrestlers want to win this tournament that's happening at the moment. I guess this is one thing for the casual listener that you might not understand, but story is a huge thing with wrestling and different countries have different ways of telling the stories. kind of summed up the four main styles of wrestling and that he said that the American wrestling was a morality play, which is pretty accurate, I would say. Is it, you reckon you'd agree with that? Yeah, yeah. Cause it's very much good guys versus bad guys. And there are not a lot of shades of gray characters in American wrestling at the moment. I think it's pretty clear cut. There might be a few that are in between, but for the most part, it's like goody versus bady, right? Yeah. Or in wrestling terms, baby face, good guy versus heel, bad guy. That's right. And then the Mexican one, he described as something like a combination of pageantry and acrobatics or something like that. Yeah. I don't really watch any Mexican wrestling, but I have seen these videos by like botchamania where they're all the things that happened at these triple, because the two, what are the two big companies? Triple A. Triple A and then CMLL. Is that the two? Yeah, I think so. I'm more familiar with Triple A. Yeah. And some, I think if you don't understand the company, some of these events just look bizarre. Like they have referees that are just blatantly bad guys and they'll just won't count for the good guys getting pens and they'll give weapons to the heels. And like, it's just, yeah, it's, it's hard to follow. I think if you don't know it. They, yeah, they, they really do produce like these incredible acrobatic, um, wrestlers though, that is like one of the benefits out of it. You might get this kind of. weird pageantry, but then they get exported into the American companies and then, uh, then you get the benefits that way. Absolutely. Yeah. And then the other two would be Japanese wrestling, which, um, I think he described as something like struggle through sport, which is pretty accurate. I would say it's generally the storylines are more like within the end of it, like characters will be feuding with each other, but their storyline will be like, um, you know, these two wrestlers were young boys, which is kind of like the trainee level of wrestling together. And so as a way of humiliating, like, you know, the bad guy will be trying to humiliate the baby face. So he'll be using all of these really basic moves that they drill all the time when they're young boys. Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah, the storytelling is really cool. Like for me, that's like my favorite type of storytelling. And they'll do ones like, you know, one character is supposedly really good on the mat. the other characters are more of an acrobat guy. So the story will be anytime they're grappling, the grappler guy easily gets the better of him and then, you know, the acrobat guy gets one big move off the top rope or something that puts the other guy on his back and he's kind of like, what the hell? And they'll do things like, it's a really weird piece of New Japan lore because New Japan generally is really serious. Like they don't do a lot of comedy stuff. But they have this move called the Paradise Lock, which is like, you know, when you're a little kid and you would sit on your butt with your feet together and you'd kind of hold your feet that kind of, and you could sort of roll around like that, like the Paradise Lock is basically putting them in that position. And for some reason it's, it's hard to get out of it, even though you could just let go of your own feet. Yeah. No, that's right. I think I've seen this. Exactly. Yeah. On Forbidden Door. And so that's a thing that New Japan wrestlers will do to each other as they'll put each other in the Paradise Lock. as like a, you're so bad at grappling, you can't even get out of the most ridiculous hold and that's the sort of, yeah, the kind of thing you see in New Japan. And then the last one is British wrestling, which has had, it's kind of taken a hell of a beating recently. Um, which is more like traditional wrestling, grappling and submissions and stuff like that. But I think, like, no nonsense kind of vibe is what I think. Exactly. Yeah. And, um, not a lot of strikes thrown, it's mostly just twisting each other around and trying to get the other ones back and all that sort of, yeah, it's, I think it's great if you're really into that, but I, it doesn't really appeal to me. I'm more about the punching and kicking side, which is obviously New Japan do that very well. I can't remember why I started talking about it. I guess that's just something for the fans, for the people that are interested to learn about it is it's different depending on which country you watch it in. Totally. And it also helps to kind of understand what you're watching, you know, for, you know, for particularly the Western style of wrestling, which is the one that I probably watched most. Yeah. You know, it's, it's people that don't understand what they're seeing, but it really is, it's like watching a soap opera. That is always like, like tension between people builds up, builds up, builds up, builds up, that it always... ends in the ring, you know, like we've got to finalize this in a fight kind of thing. So this is actually what you're watching. You're watching a soap opera with fighting rather than just, you know, any kind of belief that this is a real thing that's happening to real people, you know. The hurdle people need to get over is, there was that whole thing with like, oh, wrestling's fake, it's not even real. And people, I think what people don't realize is that's not why we watch it. Like I don't watch it because I think that... you know, John Cena is really beating Randy Orton. Um, yeah. And it's not like the bursting out bubble telling us that, you know, Santa doesn't exist is we, we are now watching it. Understanding that this is, this is a news to us. What? Wait, who didn't tell me? What? It's like, there's a great comedian by, uh, his good Ron Funches and he has, have you seen his piece about wrestling? No. I'll paraphrase it, but the bit is he says, people tell you. Oh, you know that thing that you love? It's fake. And he's like, and I'm supposed to be like, Oh no, my universe has been torn asunder. I guess I'll just go watch house then. And he's like, he's like, really the response is like, well, yeah, no shit. It's fake. What kind of psychopath would I have to be if I wanted that to be real? And he's like, pageantry and the golden belts and the man who carries a snake in a bag around. Like, just, yeah. I mean, and that's a good example. Like. I would just guess I'll just go watch house. You know, it's like, is the house is any more real? Yeah, exactly. You know, what I kind of, you know, compare it to when people tell me, because you hear it a lot when you're a wrestling fan. It's like, okay, well, like when you go to the art gallery, do you point up at the art and say, see those fruit over there? They're not real. No, you don't. It's art. It's a, it's an art form. Yeah. It doesn't have to be, it's not like I'm going to the art gallery to eat fruit. It's like I'm here to appreciate art, you know. Yeah. So that's one thing is like, it is storytelling. And like there's an old phrase people use, which is like, you know, William Shakespeare would have been a massive wrestling fan if he was still alive when it was around, because that's like if you watch Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, anything by Shakespeare. I mean, people even use the phrase Shakespearean. describe a sort of dramatic morality play. Yeah. So that's the, it is, it's one of those things that we're like, I think it is a little bit hard to explain why you enjoy it without really just using the phrase like, well, I just enjoy watching the fights. My first experience with wrestling was a little bit, it was a lot later than yours actually. It was, I would have been 17 or 18 and I was at the gym just flicking through channels on the cross trainer and I noticed there was a WWE match about to come on. And that was when during the time that Dave said before, when WW was just this monolith and there was no other, no other real companies that was, and I guess it'd be fair to say that it was a pretty dark time for wrestling. Like it wasn't great. Uh, would you agree with that? Yeah. It kind of got a bit stale. Absolutely. And then the match I saw, uh, was. this team called the Legacy versus D-Generation X and like, to some of those characters, like D-Generation X have been around for a long time, but a lot of probably listeners will recognize the name Triple H, even if they don't know why they know the name. How long has he been around since the 80s, hasn't he? He's been around a long time. The game, Cerebral Assassin Triple H. D-X was like kind of his group and they were a bunch of, they were sort of like the... the other side of the coin to the NWR in a way, weren't they? Yeah. They were kind of the WWE's way of trying to get viewership back. And it kind of all started from another wrestler called Bret Hart, who called the main person in the Generation X a degenerate. And so they kind of embraced it. And they were like, we're Generation X. You know, that was the invoke generation at the time. And so they kind of had this catcher named D-Generation X. Yeah. And a rowdy bunch of people. One of the biggest cash cows. We were even going to do this podcast on talking about some of the merch from DX. That was the initial plan, I think. Can I say, I'm actually really glad we didn't do D-Generation. because at the time I was watching WCW, so I missed a lot of it. And so I was like, oh my gosh, I'm going to be exposed as a fraud. And I was like, back study into D-Generation. How did it get formed? What is it? How do I know? I was like, I don't want to be exposed. So that works out all right then. And then the other team was Legacy. And they were like these, they were the sons of like fame. Like people would probably recognize the name, the Million Dollar Man tier DBRC. He was almost mainstream, I think his son and then Dusty Rhodes, his son, Cody Rhodes, who like to this day is still my favorite wrestler. And I've sort of like weirdly been watching him the entire time I've been watching wrestling because he was in the first match that I like properly sat down and watched. Interesting. And I remember what grabbed me about it was like the night, I still remember this really clearly the night before they'd had a pay-per-view called Breaking Point, which is where every single match had to end in a submission, which I think is really cool because it gives you some cool storytelling. ideas like they were doing things to each other like it was one bit in the match where they put to you know those like steel folding chairs that wrestling's famous for they put two of those down and like one of the wrestlers neck and his legs were sticking through the like you know like the little hole with the part where you're back and the other two were like you know bending his arms and legs back and it was like just creative stuff I guess. Oh my gosh. And apparently DX had tapped out for the first time ever the night before so like Legacy were gloating about that and they were like doing, they did a really mocking, like tapping out sign on the side of the ring post, which is where Sean Mike wizard tapped out. And like something about that just sort of grabbed me as like, oh, right. It's like, it's like stories, you know, like that, because I didn't really understand what it was as a kid. I just thought it was like, you know, people hitting each other with chairs and the rock. And I sort of, yeah, it was all, all just kind of this vague. like manly men, yeah, like rock music and beers and like, yeah, it was all foreign to me. Fighting over belts. What's that? Fighting over belts. Yeah, exactly. On that belt. Yeah. But yes, so that was the first match. And what really I enjoyed is in the middle of the match, it just descended into chaos because I always see these two teams hated each other so much that... I think it was only meant to be like one-on-one. It was meant to be like Shawn Michaels versus Ted DiBiase, I think. But they just started, you know, like the heels always interfere and they'll like push each other off the apron and grab their legs when they're trying to hit the ropes and all that kind of stuff. And me just, I was like, he's cheating. Like, you know, like I still kind of got like sucked in a little bit. And then they, they ended up fighting into the stands and they were hitting each other with popcorn buckets and like. people had to get out of the way and like just that chaos of it. I was like, wow, that's really cool. And then it went to commercial break and I thought it was going to come back and we're going to get to see the end of the fight, but obviously it had been broken up in the commercial break. And so I was just watching every week, like what happened? Like, I didn't see the end of that. Like, yeah, the rest is history, I guess, as they say. It's quite, um, yeah, it's quite interesting. Uh, you know, I've taken this interest to kind of further that kind of also understand how. how they do these moves to each other without injuring each other. I would say that's, you know, one of the big hallmarks of today's wrestling versus the 80s is it looks a lot more real. Like back in the 80s, it was like, okay, I'm going to punch you and then I'm going to put you on your back and then you're kind of down kind of thing. But now like they're doing these really complex moves that look really painful. Yet these people come back week after week after week. And to understand that is really fascinating. I think the other kind of flip side, just when we talk back around, is it real? Is that while the storylines are fake, the outcomes are fake, the injuries are real. Like people do actually get injured, you know, it's not as much as you would think they would get injured, but they do get injured quite a bit. And it can be really devastating on your body. So a lot of wrestlers don't have, you know, 20 years is exceptional for a wrestler, you know, 10 years is like, they did pretty good. I guess what are some of the, like, like you say, some of the moves, they have little tricks to them. Like there's a move that looks really devastating where they pick them up kind of sideways and then drop them down back, like lower back first onto their knee. But the way they kind of like fudge that and make it less impactful is that the other wrist actually lands with their feet first. So they're not coming down with all their body weight onto the knee. I'm sure it still hurts. Yeah. But like, And I've noticed that they put their knees a bit higher up on their shoulder before their land. So you're kind of landing on shins rather than on a point. Have you ever done any wrestling before? Oh, hell yeah. We, um, oh no, sorry, not in real wrestling, but I grew up on a trampoline and I had a bunch of friends. So, I did. Ducks, lambs, all the things, uh, Boston crabs, bulldoze on the trampoline. Do you have a little brother? No, just had neighbors. So you're just doing the people's elbow on it. on the network. I did about two sessions of like, you know, like pro wrestling training. And it's funny little things they teach you like when you go to land on your back, you want to land as flat as possible. And it's a really weird motion to learn because you almost want to like bridge your, you kind of bridge with your like... tips so that you don't come down on your tailbone. I think that's what they're trying to mitigate. And it's like, you want to have your arms spread out as much as possible. As much surface area as possible. Yeah, so that it's just like as much surface area. Because I guess that's where injuries happen is when too much weight comes down on one knee or something, right? And that's like, your knee is not designed to take that much force. The big thing that I think has changed since the 90s to now is with football as well, is like we're way more aware of head trauma. Like you used to see them just hit each other full on in the head with steel chairs back in the nineties. And maybe what within the last five years, they've kind of put a stop to that. You'll always see them put their hand up in front of their face. If they're going to take a chair, I don't even really think they even- Or across the back or something like that. It's always, yeah. They hit them in the gut with the chair. the person bends over like holding their gut and then they just give them like right across like the meat of the back, I guess, right? Yeah, totally. The other thing I think has changed is also internet awareness. You know, people can see these wrestlers when they're not in the ring in their daily lives. They can talk about what's going on behind the scenes through social media, which a lot of the time is quite fascinating for a fan, but it's also quite hard to build surprises or any kind of build disbelief. as you used to have back in the day. You mentioned before the million dollar man Ted DiBiase, there's this thing in recently called K-Fabe, which is like continuing the storyline into like real life to make people believe that it's actually real. And I remember he was this million dollar man and Vince McMahon who owned the company would actually give him actual money to like splurge in daily life. The same with Rick Flair as well. Like they would go to a bar and he would like be allowed to. shout the whole bar a drink kind of thing. So you'd actually see him in real life and go, oh shoot, that guy is actually like legit rich. And we didn't have the internet back then, so there was no way to kind of fact check otherwise. But now it's really hard to build that disbelief beyond the arena. That's true. I remember Chris Jericho in his book said he walked up to Kamala who in storyline in kayfabe didn't speak English. And so Chris mimed him like you please sign that and the Kamala just looked at him and went, fuck off kid. There's one thing that like the undertaker is another name people probably recognize and like the undertaker for, he was about what 30 years I think he wrestled maybe more like 25. He was one of the few that managed to stay, he managed to keep like kind of in character. He never did interviews and- Interviews or anything like that. It was a brief portion of time where he went into like a normal everyday character called um, and he came out to link Lincoln, what's his name? It was uh, Limp Bizkit. Limp Bizkit. He became the American badass, rode motorcycles, and then his brother, now this is the storyline, his brother buried him alive, and then he became dead again alive. So that was a big thing was buried alive matches and da wae da wae wasn't it? And um. Yeah, you're right. He is one of the few who have kept that cave fabe alive. When he was normal, when he was the biker taker, I think they call him, right? Did he do interviews in that time? Yeah, he was like a normal, kind of just an American. He'd like a, you discovered at that point that he'd been coloring his hair black for many years. He was actually a ginger and he'd wear his bandanas and talk, you know, he would be like a normal person. But everyone kind of like, no one liked that version as much. So everyone kind of wanted him to go back. And so it's funny. Yeah. The Undertaker's, this is one thing I really like about gimmicks across companies is like, or just characters is like, so I think we've used the word gimmick a bunch in this episode, probably haven't explained it to her, but gimmick is basically just what the character is. Like, I learned recently that this came from, because like, you know, wrestling was like good old country boys in the beginning, you know, doing, doing wrestling. And they would have characters like, you know, the hero would be like the farmer and then the villain would be the banker and it would be like, you know, he's coming down to four clothes on your farm and all the good old boys are throwing moonshine. It's quite two-dimensional back then. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So that's where the idea of the, I don't know if that's true or not, but that's one that I read and I quite like. Yeah, there's like an IRS guy. I remember him. There's a dentist who came down. Yeah, there's so many different types of like worker. There's like a construction dude. Yeah, some of them for a while, they literally like, there was a clown. Um, I put as bird as the beefcake. He was a barber or something, but he was pretending to be a barber or something. That was like, but then, um, the, the undertaker, what I quite like is you see the kind of like quote unquote final form is kind of like an amalgamation of all the stuff they've done leading up. So like when he started, he was, um, an old Western mortician, he had like a suit and a tie and he wore purple gloves. And then He became a little bit more sporty. Like he had, um, like a long, huh? Yeah. He had like a long duster jacket and he would wear like MMA gloves. And then he went from that to being the bike attacker where he would wear like pants and like bandanas. And I think he still had the MMA gloves then. And then his kind of like second to last form before he sort of retired, he was, um, sort of a combination of all. And like, he kept the MMA gloves. He kept the duster and the long jacket, but like, he would talk a lot more. And I think he would still come to the ring on a motorcycle sometimes. And then I think, I honestly think his retirement match, I think they, they seemed him back to the, um, to being the biker taker because he did that. That's right. Like cinematic match in a graveyard where he was talking and yeah. Um, but I just think that's cool because with wrestling is like, you can tell these stories over like 20, 30 years of these characters. And I think that's one reason it's so fascinating is because. Yeah. What television show apart from like supernatural and NCIS goes for 20 years, right? Yeah. And then has like children of, you know, who then take over the reign. Multi-generational. Yeah. It's crazy. I see we've got two minutes left. So let's, let's wrap that up there, but this has been a riveting discussion. Dave, I appreciate it. Maybe we'll bring it back and we can do, we can do like a dive on something else, but yeah, I appreciate you. Thank you. Don't worry. Thank you. I could talk about this for hours. What's that? I could talk about this for hours. That is a very real fear of mine that we could very easily spend the whole day just talking about wrestling. All right. We'll see you next time Dave. Thanks mate. Do you prefer Dave or David? Dave. Davey Dizzle. I could tell you this actually that has a wrestling story as to how I got to that name. Let's tell me now and I'll chuck it in like after the interview maybe. Oh yeah. Now? So back in the day when I was going to a youth group and we were doing these videos and I was kind of a shy kid. but I needed to kind of not be shy, essentially for these videos. So I created myself an alter ego and I was coming around to like trying to test out different names as to what would work for me. Like, you know, could it be Pugsley, like Pugsley Adams, or could it be something else? And then one day I was watching 80s wrestling and there was this guy and there was this hideous like pinstripe jumpsuit called Davey Diamond. And I was like, oh my gosh, that is like so hideous. It's almost hideous enough to be cool. And so I started going by Davey Diamond, which got shortened to Davey. D for many years, many people call me Davey D. And then one of my friends started calling me Davey Dizzle and just the way I started was the coolest thing. That's great. I love, I love diamond and nicknames like Diamond Dallas Page, Dustin the Diamond Poirier from the UFC. Yeah, that's great. And we are back. That was a delightful little conversation. I had heaps of fun chatting to Dave. One of my favorite people in the comedy scene in Crash Dash. Dave is just a fantastic guy to have around. If you want to check out what Dave's up to in his comedy adventures, you can go onto Facebook where you can find him at facebook.com slash Dave Adams NZ Comedy. I suppose to avoid any Dave Adams related mix ups. Dave and his wife also run a sort of marketing website building company called Winning, which you can check out. I think it's Winning Communications, excuse me. So if you're in need of a website for whatever fantastic product, whatever fantastic projects you may have coming up, definitely check out Winning.nz and maybe Dave and Jenny will be able to help you out. That's basically all from me. I don't have time or the energy to do a big fancy outro this week as I am going away on tour tomorrow. So I have got a billion things to get sorted and covered while I'm away. But what I would like to do is just run through the shows we're gonna be doing in case you are listening and you haven't got tickets yet. So here it goes. Fourth of October, we are in Wanaka. Fifth of October. I really cannot talk today. 5th of October we are in Queenstown. 6th of October we are doing two shows in Dunedin so we are in the 6th and the 7th of October at Inch Bar in Dunedin. Then we have a few days off and then on the 10th of October we are out in Rangiora. 11th of October we are in Kerwi. 12th of October we have a night off from the tour but we are at the Austin Club Friday the 13th of October, we are in the Austin Club, we've got two shows that night, I think they might be sold out at this point but definitely check them out, there might be a couple left. Then we have another few days off and on Wednesday the 18th we are out in Roleston. At the time of this recording we have not sold that many tickets to Roleston so if you're out that way, don't do the typical Cantabrian thing, please buy your tickets and get in as soon as you can. We're not going to cancel the show but it would just be nice to have a few more faces in the crowd. 19th of October we're back in the Austin Club. I think there might be one show with some tickets left So get in quick if you want those 20th of October we are out in Methvin at Crafted Arabica Fantastic little venue if you're visiting Arabica for sorry if you're visiting Methvin for the For the spring definitely come and check us out in Methvin 21st we are in Little Andromeda. That is a fantastic little place little theatre, a proper theatre, which for me is very much a step up, and that is on the terrace in Christchurch. There's still plenty of tickets left for that, so that might be your best option if you've missed out on any in the Christchurch run. Then we have a few days off, I'm hosting a couple of quizzes, and on the 26th we are going back to Spriggan Furn Merrivale. At this point I think we are about 75% sold out, so there might be some tickets left by the time you hear this, but if not, potentially sold out. And then on the final leg of the tour. we are going up to Marlborough. I can never pronounce that Marlborough. As if I wasn't struggling to speak as it is. So on the 27th, we are at the Imaginarium in Motuaka. Heaps of tickets left for that. I have been advised that Motuakans leave at very late to booking. And then on the 28th, we have two shows at Studio One Nelson. It's honestly one of my favorite rooms in the whole of New Zealand. I absolutely cannot wait to get back into Studio One. Got two shows back to back. still about half the amount of tickets left so definitely get in quick if you want to secure a seat in those and that's our tour. I was kind of eating out all the miss uh all the miss speaking stuff but I am tired. I'm looking forward to having a good night's sleep tonight. Appreciate your listening and I think we will have one more podcast that might be from the archives but then after that we'll be back to me doing the podcasts relatively close to when they release. So thanks again Riddler Maniacs, go to www.davidkorios.com to buy your tickets or just check us out, Can Do Comedy on Facebook. I will see you very soon. Hope to see you on the road. If you're a listener of the podcast and you come out to one of these shows, come and say hello to me. I'd love to have a chat with you. All right, Ruddler out.