Episode 8 - Hang In There

### Episode Etymology

The catchphrase of the always venerable - and future topic of the show - The Hangman (Bruce Pobanz)

## Timestamps

**0:09:22 - Fakes in Wrestling (involving The Hangman (Bruce Pobanz) and Fake Stan Lane)**

***Bix***:
I learned this boy was dying and that doctors didn’t expect him to make it
through the night. For at least the next hour, I sat on the hospital bed with
that boy. We talked, laughed, hugged, and *shared*
a most intimate moment together*…”*

***TGBL***: (laughing) I just, I picture some kid dying in his bed and his parents
come to the room, they’re like, you know, “Bobby? Guess who’s here?” – “Who?” –
“You know how you like wrestling?” – “HULK HOGAN! HULK HOGAN!” – “No, it’s not
Hulk Hogan…” – “STING! STING!” – “No,…” and all of a sudden the door opens and there’s
a guy in a mask with the noose, like “IT’S ME! THE HANGMAN!” (laughing)

*- A discussion during the reading of excerpts from The Hangman (Bruce Pobanz)'s testimonial.*

**0:36:04 - Bix's Japanese Wrestling Magazine Haul**

***TGBL***:
I used to have a really big Japanese magazine collection – I got rid of over
the years – but I got it because one day I was at home and Georgiann
Makropoulos called me up and said “Brian, I have a friend of mine who has to
move and he has to get rid of all his Japanese magazines – would you be
interested in buying them?” and I said “Well, it depends on the price” and
“Well, you know, it’ll be like $3 a magazine or something” and I said “How many
magazines are there?” and there was like 80 magazines, and I was like “Alright,
I’m interested – have him call me” and the next day the guy called me – it was
Mick Foley, who was moving with his family and he had to get rid of all these
magazines and he was still on Long Island.

***Bix***:
Now one of my favorite things about the Japanese magazines though are the
weird cartoons…I got a few at the Jersey All Pro show in November because
George Mayfield was there, and there’s this one I decided to buy it because –
we were just talking about Super Strong Machine. Remember how him, Hiro Saito
and I guess Shunji Takano were the Calgary Hurricanes because they were all in
Calgary together? So there’s this cartoon – I guess it’s when they first went
to Calgary – of Inoki with a giant chin gleefully throwing them off a plane
into Calgary.

**0:53:41 - Dennis Of The Week**

***TGBL***: Dennis
was going to do something where after a match, Gino Caruso – the Great Caruso –
kept beating down his opponent, and they’re ringing the bell and the referee’s
can’t pull him off, and he would get on the mic and he would yell “It’s not
over until the fat lady sings!” and he’d go back and keep beating the person
and he’d go back and yell “It’s not over until the fat lady sings!” and he’d do
this like several shows in a row, and finally there’d be a show where he would
go “It’s not over until the fat lady sings!” and Dennis was gonna get a fat
woman to come out with a viking helmet on and just get on the microphone and
she was just gonna go “IT’SSSSS OVERR!!” and he would stop and leave with her
(laughing). The biggest regret I have in wrestling, is I never got to see that;
that it never happened – of Gino Caruso’s post-match beating of his opponent
ending when the fat lady came out and declared it “over.” (laughing)

- *recounting Dennis' attempts to get The Great Caruso over by literally having a fat lady come and sing after a post-match beat down.*

**0:57:02 - Wrestling Schools and the absurd prices and courses of Wrestle-Tech (as of 1997)**

***TGBL***: Tryouts: 100 dollars, 25 dollars refundable if you decide not to do it or don’t
qualify.
$3225 to learn to be a wrestler, $1225 to learn to be a manager or valet, $825
to learn to be a referee, $525 to learn to be a ring announcer, and then there
are separate courses. $325 to develop interview and mic skills and another $325
for character development…$10 for ring time per session or you could buy
ring-time per month for $40.

***Bix***: That’s on top of the dues?! Wow…even by the standards of a wrestling school,
that’s kind of a racket.

***TGBL***: I remember when this came out, we would sit at Dennis’ shows and laugh our
asses off about this kinda thing.

*- On the infamous Wrestle-Tech training school in Delaware and their interesting tiered approach to wrestling training as of August 1997.*

**1:04:38 - The tale of Bryan Carrera, the giant bodyguard for Cocaine Cowboys' infamous drug-runner Jon Roberts**

**1:23:39 - A discussion on Marc Gullen (of the House of Gullen)**

***TGBL***: He looks like a mix between 1984 Mark Anthony from Van Halen and 1994 Dan
Scherer from Philadelphia. He’s just the funny looking guy and he’s got this
jacket – he’s got this suit on and he’s got a jacket draped over his shoulders
and at one point during the interview it falls off and he just no-sells it;
it’s beautiful (laughs). He does these two interviews about Teijo Khan coming –
and again – the setting makes it a little funnier to me. He’s standing in front
of a lake (laughing) it’s just peaceful, tranquil setting, and then there’s
this man talking about how he’s bringing how he’s bringing (in Marc Gullen
voice) “The great Teijo Khan!” in to destroy everyone. The first video he just
talks about it – and the second video on here, Teijo Khan emerges from the
water and I cannot in anyway do this justice...Teijo
Khan runs out of the water in a manner that’s almost like a fish – if you take
a fish out of water and it flops around – he’s rampaging as Bix said out of the
water – his knees are up, his arms are up; I’ve never seen anyone – and I lived
on the beach my entire life – I’ve never seen anyone exit the water in this
way.

- *Brian's dissection of* *the cult promo of Marc Gullen when he was managing in Memphis.*

**1:39:21 - Listener Requests**

***TGBL***: In the late 90’s, I made a failed effort to put together a Terry Funk Record
Book and I wanted it to be a record of every match he ever had, because I
thought it would be interesting because he bounced around to so many places as
well as all the old newspaper clippings and pictures and stories. Terry Funk
was cooperative; I’d call Terry Funk and talk to him for hours on the phone and get
interviews with him and stuff, and then there were numerous people that would
help me: Pete Lederberg, Howard Baum sent me pictures and were incredibly
helpful; David Williamson sent me clippings and were incredibly helpful, and
Mike Lano got in touch with me – Dr. Mike Lano – and he says “I have some
stuff; I’ll send it to you.” Knowing what we know now, I question how many of
the pictures he sent me were his – but he sent me this giant envelope and the
stamps had been ripped off another envelope. He didn’t buy new stamps and put
them on there, he took stamps from another envelope that had already been used
and taped them to this- these were used, though! They had the postmark stamp! I
don’t know how he got away with it. He’d send them to me and there’d be writing
all over the envelope, and I remember one package he sent me it was really
bad photocopies of Terry Funk in magazines, and then it was a photocopy of Farah
Fawcett in the National Inquirer, and he wrote on it “Man Brian, Farrah’s
really gone downhill."

- *TGBL's hilarious recounting of the science behind Dr. Mike Lano sending letters - and tapes - via mail during a listener request question on Tape Trading.*