Episode 129 - I Am A Rock

Young Tony Schiavone interviews Ole Anderson on WTBS in 1985. RIP Ole Anderson.

We welcome back Beau James (@kingofkingsport) to the show for some wrestling history chat, including looking back at the lives of Ole Anderson and Mike Jones aka Virgil.

We discuss Ole’s long career, as wrestling and booker in both Georgia and Charlotte. We talk about his tag teams with Gene Anderson, Stan Hansen, Ivan Koloff and Arn as a member of the Four Horsemen. We talk about his famous feud with Dusty Rhodes, the ups and downs of Georiga Championship Wrestling and more. Beau also tells us some stories about running into Ole at the Gulf Coast Wrestler Reunions.

We chat briefly about the passing of Mike Jones, his longevity in the business in both WWF and WCW, his internet notoriety and meeting him on indy shows.

From there, we talk about the Iron Claw movie, even though Beau hasn’t watched it yet. There’s chat about dramatic licenses vs historical inaccuracies, Easter Eggs, when can a sad movie have a positive ending and more.

That segues into a long discussion about being a wrestling historian and the problems that can entail, when you research something built on a lie, including primary sources and their trustworthiness, faulty memories and newspaper reporters keeping kayfabe.

We end the show with a talk about Beau’s Southern States Wrestling promotion, their recent Hall of Fame inductions and upcoming shows this spring and summer.

Episode 127 - Yellow Rose of Texas

Von Erichs vs Freebirds six-man match from 1984 David Von Erich Memorial Parade of Champions.

It’s a same day turnaround for this holiday treat, as Justin Jones (@xPrimusPilusx) returns to the podcast to discuss The Iron Claw, the new movie about the Von Erich family, which we saw earlier today.

There are plenty of spoilers (for a docudrama), so if you haven’t seen it yet, save it for after you watch it. Short answer: it’s a good movie, in and of itself, but not great, and pretty good for a wrestling movie. We discuss the whole film, which actors we thought did the best jobs in the main cast, as well as looking at all the actual wrestlers in the movie. (The one everyone is making fun of on social media isn’t that bad.)

There’s also a lot of general wrestling chat: territorial history, foreign menaces as world champion, attendances now and then and how to judge them, the careers of Ross and Marshall Von Erich and more. We also tease which new biopic will probably be the subject of an upcoming pod and will be praised nearly as much as this picture.

Note: we recorded this in the movie theater parking lot, while sitting in the car, and so the quality is not as good as usual. We apologize for the inconvenience.