TALK ‘N’ SHOP #66
HOSTS: ROCKY ROMERO, KARL ANDERSON, DOC GALLOWS
DIRECT LINK TO DOWNLOAD OR STREAM EPISODE
Report by Dan Tomlinson, PWPodcasts.com Reporter
TOPICS COVERED (w/TIME STAMPS)
00:00 – Introduction by Rocky Romero; introductory plugs by Karl Anderson.
02:32 – Memories of Yokozuna; Rocky Romero met Yokozuna as a rookie; the Anoi’a Family
05:09 – Memories of Hacksaw Jim Duggan on Talk’n Shop
06:43 – Banter from Toyama, Japan; who sat on Karl’s Coke Zero?
08:05 – Gallows’ laptop woes; previous podcasts; Producer Romero is a censor?
10:16 – Doc Gallows’ WrestleMerica plans; how he deals with local indy stars
12:35 – Gallows tells a story from his ‘Dorian Deville’ days; WrestleMerica budgeting
15:08 – Promoting in wrestling; money in wrestling; booking Roppongi Vice
17:11 – Rocky Romero tells a story of his first trip to Mexico
23:52 – Gallows tells a story of riding with a huge cheapskate; fun on the road; Bullet Club in Europe
27:21 – More Europe talk; Gallows and working papers in Japan; thoughts on the TNA/Destination America situation
29:10 – Wrapping up; thoughts on TNA; the state of the industry; closing plugs.
SUMMARY OF CONVERSATION
– 00:00 – Rocky Romero introduces the podcast with a newly recorded intro, thanking all listeners and plugging the Talk’n Shop’s Twitter account. This is followed by the usual introductions, including a plug for the Hoots 2, available on Vimeo On-Demand.
– 02:32 – The podcast begins with Karl denying burying Doc. Cue the humming voice of Doc Gallows, and the two welcome us to a new episode of the Talk’n Shop. Immediately, Gallows begins his Howard Finkel impression…for Yokozuna? Karl says he wishes Yokozuna was here, then saying he was thinking about the great heavyweights of the sport earlier and how Yoko is one of the ones that come to mind. Karl mentions that his son is a big fan of Yokozuna despite being way too young to know who he even was. Rocky Romero is here, too, and he mentions that Yoko was the first famous wrestler he ever met. Rocky tells the story of working an independent show when he was 16 in a high school in Arizona – and as Rocky was walking into the locker room he hears this big, husky Samoan voice yelling: “If he ain’t got my god damn motherf—ing money I’m gonna throw his god damn motherf—ing ass!” Romero walked in and was confused, genuinely thinking Yokozuna was Japanese up until this point. Doc brings up the wrestling family tree of the Anoi’as, which he calls “the Samoan Dynasty.” Doc believes that they come out of the womb being able to work. Doc runs through the names and explains why they must all be able to bump like a man, run ropes like a man, and have sex like a dog – slipping into Sex Furgusen mode.
– 05:09 – Karl thought when Doc Gallows was humming in the introduction that he was singing the Atlanta Braves theme song, which causes the two to begin singing it out loud. Gallows says that Yokozuna main evented the first WWF house show he ever saw back in June 1993, when he took on Hacksaw Jim Duggan – a former guest on the Talk’n Shop. “Our first podcast Hall of Famer!” exclaimed Doc. Karl added “our first good podcast,” taking a trip down memory to when he was on several months ago. Apparently Jim expressed genuine interest in being on, to the amazement of the slightly nervous Bullet Club members. They even recorded the podcast in the back of a really tiny car, the two of them whilst being driven by a referee between shows for GFW. Naturally, they allowed ol’ Hacksaw to ride shotgun.
– 06:43 – Karl asks Doc to talk about his business attributes, recalling how Doc said he’d been working all day on his wrestling market stuff. Rocky chimes in mentioning that they are in Toyama, Japan – a long way away from Tokyo. “Home of the Toyota!” jokes Doc. They are recording on their day off from touring with New Japan, and Rocky hasn’t done anything with it prior to this. Doc tells a story from getting on the bus with his computer and his laptop bag, it was raining and the guy went through his bag, taking out the laptop and now his new computer screen is all messed up on its’ third use. Banter about Karl’s Coke Zero, which he found underneath Gallows. “I s–t in your Coke Zero, mang,” he responded. Back to the laptop screen, Rocky told Gallows to try hair-drying the computer screen to make it hot. Doc said he missed the things he liked to look at on the Internet.
– 08:05 – “Let’s talk about your broken laptop!” mentioned Karl, to which Doc responded “Nah, that’s retired now.” Doc mentions his old laptop was all beaten down. Karl said how much better their solo podcasts were because Gallows wasn’t isn’t drunk after six or so beers. On that note, Doc admits they are two days alcohol-free due to the touring. Karl meanwhile doubts they will get through tonight without it, but they’re doing good. Karl notes going through podcasts that he can give to Rocky so he can produce them and post them, and there’s one with Matt Taven that is “borderline embarrassing” because everybody’s so drunk. Apparently they talk about their penises a lot (but what else is new?) Gallows complains that Rocky puts a censor on them, joking that he doesn’t give them their creative freedom. He says they like to say a lot of swears, which is why people like listening to the podcast. Karl asks the audience to crack a beer for them, because they are bored. Meanwhile Doc plugs WrestleMerica one more time.
– 10:16 – Karl asks about WrestleMerica, which Doc responds that they are planning a tour right now. He says that he’s got two stations, but then says he doesn’t want to talk about it in case the deals fall through between recording and the airing of this podcast (usually a month’s difference). Gallows promotes WrestleMerica, hence the plugs and whatnot. Gallows discusses the downsides of promoting, mentioning how he tries not to run somebody else’s town. “What’s the first one? Getting emailed by everybody?” asks Karl. Doc agrees, how his email is often flooded with requests to get booked. He mentions how a lot of them are local, independent talent – but that they should have something to offer, rather than just asking for a booking. “You can’t just Facebook me and go ‘sup, brah?’ and you look like a bag of mashed up assholes.” They exchange jokes about the requests.
– 12:35 – Doc begins telling a story about when he first started: he drove five hours to a military base show, so he figured it would be a good payday – enough to gas him up there and back and eat a decent meal. He also used to work under the name “Dorian Deville”. The promoter was from a military background, but the house was so bad that he wasn’t able to pay young Dorian – so he offered to let him eat as many hotdogs as he wanted! Instead of getting angry about it, he decided to just take a grocery bag and stack eight hotdogs in there, steal a bottle of mustard and leave. Doc clarifies that he won’t not pay anybody in WrestleMerica, but when asked about the lowest he’d pay a guy he admits he pays a few referees $10. Doc then mentions there wouldn’t even be a WrestleMerica if Karl didn’t have a car! Karl said if he had it his way as booker, he’d allocate one big booking for a WrestleMerica show.
– 15:08 – Karl admits that being a promoter sounds cool, and that if he’d be able to make good money doing other stuff, he’d get out of wrestling in a heartbeat. Doc mentions that it’s fun when you’re making money but it sucks when people no-show. Meanwhile, in another continent like Japan making a few grand, he feels great! After a few friendly barbs thrown by Anderson about him making a few grand, Doc jokes out loud “I don’t know why I even come on this podcast anymore!” Karl remembers Doc on the indies telling him that he just around “broke-even.” Anderson asks more about WrestleMerica, about some sort of big show in December. Doc says he has a lot of stuff planned – but he doesn’t want to talk about it. Gallows is asked why he doesn’t book Romero, to which he explains is due to his scheduling. They talk about early next year bringing Rocky and Trent Barreta in for a really weird price. “That was Trent that wanted the really weird price” chimes in Rocky.
– 17:11 – On the topic of what Trent is doing tonight, Rocky invited him over but he’s got other things on. Doc mentions it being half an hour before they have to make an important business call, but as it turns out the other person was off by an hour in the time difference – so they have an hour and a half to wait. They discuss lunch, how hungry they are. Rocky says that he has a good little story – the first time he got booked in Mexico was in a town called “Mexicali,” he had just turned 18. He, his partner (first name wasn’t caught) Ione and a referee all drove down, they were in the back waiting for their match, and the booker told them they were in the main event, and there was a big program lined out for them – with midgets. He explained the building was horrible: four walls, no roof, and the backstage area consisted of 50 or so luchadores in a bathroom covered in fecal matter. The four went out there – and the minis kicked their asses! No offense, just two minis kicking two rookies asses! After the match, Rocky was to make a challenge, and he was working as a heel, so they had fans throwing full-on beers and rocks at the ring. After the show, they collected their $50, got back in their car (“You drove in and out of Mexico in your OWN car?”) and went on to no show the show next week. To top it off, nobody gave Rocky gas money!
– 23:52 – Doc Gallows transitions to a story of his own. He was in the back of another wrestler’s SUV, and a veteran that has done jobs for the WWE was in the front. The car pulled up at a gas station and asked everybody to chip in gas money rudely. The centre console was full of change, so the veteran opened it and took out all of the change. “Don’t say a word”, he said. The veteran placed it in his crotch and waited for the driver to get back in. The veteran asked him if change was cool – so then he opened the centre console back in and dumped all of the change back inside! Karl goes back to the topic of Hacksaw Jim Duggan, how they drank beers all the way home after the GFW show. Doc mentioned they drank all of the beer and had to get out at a gas station and urinate like a race horse. Karl goes back to Rocky driving into Mexico with an American license plate, and Rocky mentioned he always parked at the border after that one time. Karl brought up him and Gallows travelling to Germany and England soon (in October) and how nervous he was about that. Doc said he was happy about that, saying it’ll be fun. They talked about working papers, and Doc mentioned the first time he came over was for IGF and he was without work papers. He was wise and mentioned he had just gotten fired by the WWE and was looking for somewhere to work – a perfect way to get out of that debacle. He went on to say that this was a week or so after he got laid off by the WWE. Karl noted in England they can be stiff about that, if you are caught lying but, in Japan not so much.
– 27:21 – Gallows says that this tour of Europe will be his first for the indies: he always used to go over for the WWE and TNA but hasn’t since then. He then talks about reading that TNA wasn’t going to have television as of January, putting a timestamp on this podcast as being recorded in August or September. So that will be a big gamechanger, he spoke. Karl asked Doc what he’d think if WrestleMerica got a shot on Destination America, and Doc enthused “I would be on there, pal! Standing in the middle of this ring!” Karl said the budget for WrestleMerica would surely change, and Doc said it would, and that he could book Karl and Rocky then. Karl pondered what TNA was going to do now, and Gallows mentioned they have four obligations as far as TV contracts go, but the question was if that was going to be enough to keep the promotion afloat, or if it’s essentially wrestling for a glorified independent. They touched on everybody having left TNA, and Doc asked where the lower-carders go, because they’ll have to leave. Rocky shines on how many channels TNA has been on including Fox Sports and Spike TV. Karl throws back to A.J. Styles’s first Talk’n Shop appearance, and how happy he was he joined New Japan, and how he left TNA because he heard they were losing Spike – and now that same thing is happening with Destination America.
– 29:10 – Gallows found TNA losing Destination America interesting because Forbes.com reported it. The article was apparently a pity piece for the wrestling industry. Gallows put out the positives of the business, and how the industry is stronger than the article put out. Talking up the indies, the money wrestlers are making, and the pros of online media. They expressed hope that TNA get their act together, and Karl mentioned how he hoped GFW would sign a monster deal too. “I hope WrestleMerica gets on TNT with Ted Turner”, joked 90s Gallows. He says he’ll Facebook message Ted Turner to get WrestleMerica on the Superstation from Barnsville, Georgia. From here he puts on a funny voice, and is untranslatable. Karl calls this “the Marvel Man” – the man nobody can understand. Karl says the time is up, and Doc explains how this podcast went so much smoother when they weren’t messing around. Cue Doc’s Michael Gary Cappetta/David Penzer impression for the plugs. They talk the third Hoots movie being filmed – but this tour they’re on has been so busy they haven’t had enough time. They hype the second Hoots film on Vimeo On-Demand again, and then they talk about “Milky” – a man usually present during these recordings that barely ever speaks. They bury him jokingly, then reveal him to be somebody that works for GFW. They wrap up this week’s episode.
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