Nigel McGinnis on wrestling, magic, and horror films

Well, here we are again, coming at you live from parts unknown, or as they know it is, Skid Row Studios. This is Wrestling with the Pop Culture-ians. We've got my friend... Joey Gaynor, once again. Dan Madigan. And I'm Paul McGee. Yeah. And our special guest today... Nigel McGinnis, ladies and gentlemen. In the house. One E only. How are we, fellas? Good to have you here. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back again. Nice to be here. First time in Skid Row Studios. Not first time in Skid Row, though. No. Passing through. Probably not the last. We saw you laying out there on the street. We thought we'd have you in here. You know, this looks like the TNA roster. Topical. I like it. So what have you been up to last? Last time we saw you, we were at the other studio. Yeah. At the Rick D studio. Over in Burbank. Burbank. And we didn't get a chance because of the situation. You had some stuff to play. We apologize for not getting you to play that. But you've been busy in and out of the ring. And since you've been out of the ring, you've been doing a lot of different stuff. So you just want to give us a quick little rundown. Yeah. Well, the long and the short of it, there was a TV project called LA Fights. And Ricky Gervais, one of my biggest idols, I remember watching a video of him and he was talking about... Now, write about what you know. And here I am. I've been in professional wrestling for 12 years. And, you know, that's what I know. So I could write a screenplay or try and do something else. But I thought I'd try and take what I've learned in the 12 years and try to evolve it. So I wrote a six-episode TV series titled LA Fights, put it up on Kickstarter, and, you know, tried to raise the money for it. We got $76,000. Wow. That's amazing. Donated towards it. Wasn't enough to make the actual thing, but it showed there was an interest in it. And it certainly has inspired... Inspired me to pursue it through more traditional means. And so I've been doing a lot of that. I've been, you know, taking meetings with producers, trying to get bigger names attached, you know. And everybody I talk to about it and explain, they love it. They love the concept. They love the idea. They see that there is a place in the marketplace for it. So I've been busy with that. I've also been doing some assistant editing stuff on the Carbonaro Effect, which is on TruTV. That's a great show. It's a lovely show. It's a fun show. Yeah, it's really great. And it's nice for me because you see so many horror stories within professional wrestling. Yeah. Professional wrestling about guys that put all their life into it and then at the end of it don't have a whole lot to show for it and don't have a lot of skill sets within normal life to make a living. So it was nice to me, and, you know, part of making my documentary was learning those editing skills to now I can sort of use them in a more arguably financially rewarding way, you know. So that starts again May 4th. We're going to be starting doing the edit work on the second season of that. Very exciting. I'm a big Magic fan as well, so... You're a magician. Yeah, amateur magician. Yeah, somewhat. You're a magician, yeah. Yeah, somewhat. What gets you... I mean, I'm a fan of that. I've always been. What sparked the interest in that in you? In magic? Yeah. At a young age, it gets us all hooked. Yeah, I remember when I was at high school when there was a guy who did a couple of card tricks and the girls loved it. Like everything in life, everything comes back to girls, you know. I've always thought that was a great way to pick up on girls. It's like that episode. Have you ever seen the last episode of The Wonder? Yes. Oh, yeah. I never saw it. The closing monologue. And he says, you know, in some way, everything I did in my life somehow went back to Winnie Cooper. You know? And I think, you know, to a lot of guys, that's kind of the way. So I remember trying... I gave him five pounds to teach me how to do these tricks and they were real basic tricks, you know. But I did that then. And then really the biggest thing was when I was going to Japan and I was wrestling over there and they have sponsors that will take you out after shows. And we'd be out there for like four or five hours and you're sitting there. I don't speak the language, you know. And I tried to learn a little bit, but not enough. And every now and again, they'd pass this food towards you. It was moving and you're like... Didn't really fancy eating it, you know. So then I came up with the ingenious idea, pack of cards. And then when the squeaky food comes along, oh, please, you know, here we go. Do a little bit of a magic trick. And then the bad food goes by. And they love it as well. I felt like it was nice to show my appreciation rather than just sort of like sitting there. And you love it. You don't have to eat that food. Exactly. A little sleight of hand. Well, have you ever considered going to like the Magic Castle to audition for that? No. You see, here's the thing. I'm the assistant editor on the Carbonara Effect, which means I work the night from 6 p.m. until whenever I get done. And so it's just not conducive to that, you know. I'm on the weekends and stuff like that. But I've got a lot of friends. Crow Garrett is a member there. We go and hang out quite a lot. Max Maven as well. Yeah, Max Maven. The Maven. The Maven. The Maven. The Maven. The Maven. The Maven. The Maven. The Maven. The Maven. The Maven. The Maven. The Maven. The Maven. The Maven. The Maven. The Maven. The Maven. The Maven. I know Max. Yeah. He's a very talented guy. Very much so, you know. It's funny because wrestling, in a lot of ways, is such a secretive world that was at one point like magic where it's all about misdirection. Yeah. It really is. You can see the correlation between pro wrestling and magic and then just storytelling in general. Hollywood is one big illusion. It's also the storytelling business. But, you know, I was a kid growing up. We had, I don't know if you remember, we had Doug Henning. And I'm sure you remember. And Doug Henning was the magician at the time when I saw him as a kid. And then my stepbrother worked for Harry Blackstone. So he was a... Blackstone was a guy that I first saw take shirts off people without them taking their jacket off. I mean, it was just crazy. The amazing stuff. And it really... And there's always been a very close... It's like a word of mouth, very close circuit world like wrestling. It had been like pickpockets. It had been... These are things that get handed down. And I know that there used to be a magazine called The Black Cat. Yeah. And I used to collect issues of The Black. That was like within this circle. I mean, when Penn and Teller broke, I used to see them in Boston before they even became known. Oh, yeah? And I said, these guys are just so... Magic lends itself to comedy. You could be very serious with magic. You could be dead on serious. You could be very funny with it. And, you know, it's a great venue, much like wrestling or anything else. You know, the personality takes... It's over sometimes. A strong personality will dictate where you're going to go. Yeah, I mean, that's the beauty. Having been there and talked to a lot of very professional magicians who've done it all over the world, you get... And it's not different to stand-up comedy in the same sense of like... If you have five people tell the same joke, you're going to find people do the same effect and get completely different reactions on it, you know? It's your timing. It's your pacing. It's, you know, it truly is an amazing art form. And to a certain extent, it's the same with pro wrestling. I just think there's a lot of bad pro wrestling. There's not so much. There's not so much bad magic. You're not going to go to the Magic Castle and see someone mess something up. No, they tend not, unless it's on purpose. Right, right, exactly. But there's almost too... We've said this before. There's almost too much wrestling sometimes on television. And the problem with that is there's just so much that, you know, the good stuff gets by the wayside. Well, you've also got to think as well, in terms of scripted fight entertainment, the world has changed so categorically because of UFC and the influence of now people know what a real professional fight looks like. Sure. Whereas with magic, we don't have that same sort of exposure. We don't know how any of this stuff works. And we could suspend our disbelief. We could have done that with pro wrestling maybe 10, 15 years ago. And now it's very difficult for us to do that because we know the difference. We know that, you know, when you get, you know, slapped once or punched once, you don't go like this and then just carry on. Or you fall and take a face bump and lie there for like five seconds while someone climbs to the top rope and jumps on top of you. It's, you know, it needs to evolve. And I think, you know, certainly Ring of Honor has tried to evolve within Ringstar in that sort of direction. But it's, you know, wrestling always has been something that has to evolve. And a lot of times it's gone almost hand in hand with pop culture. If you look at WWF in the 80s, you know, would that have been a success without Cyndi Lauper? Without the American hostages being taken by Iranians in the late 70s, literally we had a national crisis, an international crisis. And wrestling has always been a platform to look at society and pull it into the world. And so we have, we're at this, at a crossroads with this country, Iran. And so what do you do? You create the guy in chic, you know, who is already Iranian. But it's just a great, so now he exemplifies everything that, you know, that supposedly this great nation is against. The same thing post-World War II. But a lot in the Southern Circle, a lot of the guys played Nazis. Oh, yeah. You know, a lot of the guys out here played Japanese, you know, the Tojo character. So if it's in the American psyche and it's very easy, you know, P.T. Barnum said it, that you can really manipulate the people, whether it's magic, showmanship, wrestling. It's very easy to plant emotions. And you play it on a bigger level. In the 80s, during apartheid, the... De Beers. Colonel De Beers. De Beers. And he would, whenever they bring a black wrestler into the ring, he would say, I told you in my contract, I will not wrestle a man of color. And then he would demean the guy. Really? Oh, yeah. That hasn't changed much today, has it, really? No, with Bill Tabb, he actually had, standing there, and he goes, as you know, in my contract, I will not wrestle a man of color. Now, I know this man needs the money. He probably has a large garish wardrobe, a huge gas-guzzling car, a horrible gambling habit, four children at home, and then he goes, and two elsewhere, and the place goes nuts. So he shakes hands with him, and then, of course, as the guy turns his back, he kicks him in the back and beats him and says, and you see, they want something for the... And he did this whole race. If they did that today, they'd burn the building down. Yeah, they did. A lot like Baltimore. Oh, man. We'll get to that in a minute. Well, it's funny. You know, when I'm mentioning names, someone close to me when I was in the WWE, a black guy, a friend of mine, let's say, you know, a really great guy, he worked the circuits. He worked WCW. He worked all the territories. And he told me, when I'm mentioning names, he says, Dan, the people that said the N-word to my face, my mouth dropped. And he's a big... I was like... But he says, down south, he says, it's different down there, Dan. It's a whole different ballgame down there. And then we started talking, and he just said, things were established. It was so long ago. And a lot of times, these things haven't broken. And there is... And, you know, and we said wrestling is a microcosm sometimes. And you get the territorial, you know, the territories, those smallest promotions, they reflect what's going on. You know, and so wrestling, he said, wrestling's always been a great jumping-off point, I think, to reflect the society. And a lot of times, too, I look at magic. That should have changed, too. Guys, these street magicians, these David Blaines, these guys, they've really... David Angel? The Chris Angel's one guy and David Blaine. Chris Angel, yeah. These guys really... Really have now taken magic to the streets. I mean, I'm blown away by that stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I talked to a few people at the Magic Castle about that. And really, it was the technology, it was how it was presented within that TV medium that was the big change. Because a lot of those effects, people have been doing for many, many years. And when you read them, I mean, they're... It's amazing. Have you been to Magic Castle? Yeah. Oh, yeah, not for long. It's amazing. Downstairs, there's a library there. And, like, they have books that are, like, 150 years old. It's great. You've got to be a member, right? Yeah, you've got to be a member. I've never been in there, right? Really, really. But, I mean, describing these effects, but by hand, by just words, you know. And now, if it's not on YouTube, we don't understand it. Oh, yeah, you can't. You can't actually see it. You actually read and do it. Yeah. There's a lot of non-disclosure. I mean, I know through my brother, stepbrother worked at Harry Blackstone, a lot of the big... There's only a handful of people, like Penn and Teller said it, when they do this stuff, four people in the world know what they're doing, tour engineers, and they sign non-disclosures. I mean, that's it. No one knows outside. I mean, that's the ultimate kayfabe. They actually keep it. Well, it... Go ahead. I had a thought. It'll come back. It'll come back. I don't know, but it went balling. Yeah, the Magic Castle's great, though. If you're in Los Angeles, you should totally try to come and check it out, get to know a member, go have a dinner. It's really a great experience, and make sure you get Irene to play your favorite song on the piano. Magic Irene. So, even more of like... It's... What was it? Basic magic you're into. It was just like basic... It's just mostly cards. I mean, that's what you see. You know, it's kind of the easiest way of sort of learning it. There's an old school magician called Mark Wilson. Oh, yeah. When I was a kid, Mark Wilson. And his son, Magic Marky. When I was a kid, they had a TV show on. That's right. Yeah. So, he has the sort of like the seminal basic work. And so, I bought that probably 10 years ago, something like that, to learn the actual magic. The actual basic moves and stuff like that. And it's just gone on from there. I mean, Derren Brown, if you're familiar with from England, is an amazing mentalist. Does amazing things. And it's just... I think it's a great skill to have. I think if I ever have kids as well... I've worked with quite a few magicians when I was on the road doing comedy. Oh, yeah. And the only thing that would drive me nuts was if we were sharing the condos, the doves in the box, being an all-night long... Oh! Oh! Oh! Coming up through the vents. You know, get them outside! But, you know, magic in wrestling is still being used, when you think about it. When the lights go out and they come back up and suddenly there's Bray Wyatt. You know, he appears from nowhere. Or a coffin, yeah. Yeah, or the coffin pops up. They're still using that illusion. I was about to say, the books you were talking about makes me think of the movies, The Prestige. Yeah. And what was the other one? There were two films that came out about magicians. The Illusionist. The Illusionist. And you realize that they were building these illusions by hand with no electric equipment or modern equipment back in the 1850s. So these guys would cart their stuff from town to town and reset it up. And imagine how delicate that stuff must have been. Right. And how packing it and taking it in a cart with horses in the rain. It's like the old Spooktacular shows, the old spook shows. Oh, yeah. They used to, when they were doing the B-horror films in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, they would show a lot of these midnight, these spook shows. And what they would do, and they would go around the town earlier that day with that ambulance or a hearse with the sign saying, I'm not responsible for a heart attack during this movie. So of course, you're getting negative, you're purposely building negative things. But they would have these spooktacular shows and before the movie, a lot of times they'd have the stage out there and they would have a magician come out. They'd have a host like a Spoon Galley or like a Goularty type of cat come out. And they would do a whole magic act with the horror movie showing afterwards. I went to one of those when I was a kid in Newark. I was on a Friday night and they had Frankenstein come down the aisle. And unfortunately for the poor fellow in the Frankenstein outfit, he got hit with bottles and people just throwing things out of the balcony. It's Newark, New Jersey for crying out loud. And this guy, suddenly I never saw Frankenstein who normally walks like this just bolt, you know, like take off up the aisle, you know. So way to represent New Jersey. Stay classy. Stay classy. And they ran a couple of great films that night. One was, one of them, a guy was making cat people on an island. Oh, I think, hold on, was that? The guy turns into a cat. He's in white gauze but his face and hands I'm trying to think there was one, Martin Klaus. Well, there was a bunch of these Filipino films came out. Eddie Romero was the director of all these. They did like Doctor of Blood, Island. They did a series of these films. That might have been the one. I think John Ashley was in some of these films. Yeah, he did a lot of them. He went down there to work and a lot of times their careers dried up down here. They went to the Philippines and worked. One of the best movies ever was The Blood Drinkers. Oh, that's a great one. That's a great Filipino horror film. That's a really... It borderlines so many things because not only is it a horror film, there's a love story involved and the whole thing with what if we weren't vampires? What if we could walk in the light? I mean, way before... And this is... The problem with these films is they were shot, if I'm not mistaken, in the old Kodak film. And so when you see these films 20, 30 years after the fact, 50 years now after the fact, the Kodak films, they have all seemed to bleed out. It's all watching in magenta. It's all in magenta. I'm really lucky on the copy I have that I was able to get of The Blood Drinkers is all... The color is there. There are parts of that film where it goes to magenta. On purpose, though. On purpose, yeah. It was very graphic. There was a couple of issues of photos in Famous Monster Magazine put out. And there's a scene where the vampire is literally chowing to the woman's neck. I mean, you could really see... It's not like the Christopher Lee comes and he's very, you know, suave and she falls in his arms. He's really gouging into her neck. You can see the flesh coming out. It was... And this was coming from the Philippines with such a different look at the time. 66 or whatever. Yeah, there's a series of those films. Dr. Marco the Vampire. Yeah, they're really worth checking out. I mean, it's funny because we go back and forth in the show and there's so many different horror films from other countries that are worth checking out. I mean, not just... We talk about wrestling from different territories, wrestling from around the world, but some of these horror films, I mean, there's stuff from the Philippines, there's stuff from Brazil. Yugoslavia, there's stuff from Brazil. The Coffin Joe, there's a character Coffin Joe, Jose Manicas, Marin Maricas, and he's this character who plays Coffin Joe. He wears the big black hat. And he started making films in Brazil. In Brazil, in the late 50s, early 60s, Tonight I'll Possess Your Soul, and all these... This Coffin Joe, he's a really dark, dark character to the point where just a couple of years ago they had another Coffin Joe movie come out where this character was in jail for 50 years. He comes out and... I mean, really, I mean, the gore level was up, was out of control, but really a unique... But he... This Coffin Joe character was the ultimate anti-hero of all anti-heroes. And he just got into the public psyche of Brazil, became like an iconoclastic character, and he became international. For years. Oh, yeah, yeah. This is a great Coffin Joe. Look up the Coffin Joe film. Nobody gave him a hose? Yeah, yeah. Well, these films were unknown until we had Video Store. And you'd go in the Video Store. The one I took you to. Eddie Brands. Eddie Brands is the greatest. The greatest video store. Way back like in 79, 80, 81, you'd go in the Video Store and you'd look around and they'd have some of the newer films or stuff that was out. And then you'd go in the back, and there's, whoa, what's this? From Mario Bava. How did this show up? Yeah, you didn't. How did this come out? And this one, and this one. And you'd wind up finding these movies that otherwise we'd never see. Well, the problem, a lot of these films, like Bava, for example, a lot of times, he was an Italian director. His father was in the business. He was in the business. They would show him on television and they would dub him. They'd cut him and stuff. That was a problem. And like we said, Eddie Brands Video Store in North Hollywood plugged these in our front. There's a lot of friends out there. And if you're into film, like film. On Vineland. On Vineland. This is the place to go. What's the name of the place? Eddie Brands, Sadie McNamee. Quentin Tarantino is always there. He thanks them and killed Billy. He's been there for like 30 years for these guys. But it really. Eddie Brands, just so people know, was in Spike Jones Band. He was, yeah. He played the original Spike Jones when he played in the White House. He worked in animation. In fact, Eddie Brands was my friend Donovan. You met Tony. Donovan, yeah. I know Donovan. Donovan and Tony totally worked there. His partner was Paul Freese was a famous character, voice actor, and probably the most famous voice guy. The very big voice of Paul Freese. Paul Freese was a famous voice actor. I mean, if you watch any film from the 40s, 50s, and 60s up in, I mean, Disney used him all the time. Did he do the NFL films also? That was John Facenda. That's John Facenda. Okay, but they had that same. The same type of timbre to that voice. In a world. It was a cold day in Wisconsin when the Green Bay Packers took the field. The Packers took, yeah. I love that stuff. But if you know, but the Bava stuff, if you, a lot of these movies came and they were re-edited. Well, it's a perfect example of the Santo films. Going back to wrestling, you know, the Santo was the Mexican god over there. And he made tons of these movies in Mexico. Blue Demon made movies. But in America, they changed it from Santo. They said, well, they're not going to say what Santo, we'll change it to Samson. So K. Gordon Murray, a name we all know, he bought a lot of these films in Mexico. He bought packages of these films and he was out of Florida and he was like, he played them on local TV stations. They changed Santo to Samson because, well, Americans don't understand that, I guess. And that was, that was like the birth of this stuff. Well, it made people, Americans think that Santo meant Samson, but it was the Saint. Why didn't they just call him the Saint? Well, no, that'll interfere with the Saint. Simon Templer, exactly. No, just. Hey, Americans aren't well thought out in a lot of things, apparently. You know, well, they, that's why the country's dumbed down. They don't give people a chance to be intelligent. Well, you just mentioned Mario Bava. I took my son to the L.A. Opera this past Sunday and the L.A. Opera, they just did a, I call it a mashup. They took Mario Bava's film, Hercules in a Haunted World. Oh, I love that movie. With Reg Park, the famous bodybuilder, and Christopher Lee, and they put it to opera. They put it to music. They had a complete opera, you know, orchestra out front. They had nine great singers sitting out front and all the dialogue was sung in operatic terms. So they truncated the movie a little, but it was great to seeing a Mario Bava film, you know, great looking film, which is very operatic. There's his movie, his look on the screen with the opera singer singing. It was fantastic. I love that movie because when he goes, Hercules goes into hell or Hades, as he's walking through there, there's this giant blue guy like strangling people and throwing them around. He just walks right by him. Now, I remember seeing this in the, it was the second movie playing from Russia with Love in the drive-in. Oh, that's a great film. Yeah. And I'm sitting there and I say to my aunt and uncle, what, that big guy, my uncle goes, no, no, the big guy's job is just to like, throw people around so that Hercules can walk by. Yeah. The original jobber. He's the original jobber. That's a great one. It's a union job down there, by the way. And of course, when the movie opened up, they're like, well, let's pull out of here because this is dubbed. And I'm like, no, it's Hercules. Yeah. Those second features are always the fun features. I saw, you know, the funny thing was I kept telling friends of mine that there's this movie where Hercules goes into hell and it took, about 30 years later, I find it on the, on the, on tape. Now I have a DVD. There's another one out there. It's in, I don't know if it's in color, black and white, but there's one where he's either Hercules or Mochiste. He's one of those guys. Ursus, Ursa Major, I don't know. But he's, he confronts this Cyclops and he throws a sword in his eye. And there's like 50 films like that. But this is the only one where he actually throws a sword in his eye. Not a spear, doesn't trip him. I thought maybe you'd remember. I'm trying to think. Actually, these films are called peplums. In Italian, they're called peplums. So we call them sword and sandal films. They're about 68 minutes long. Yeah, it's just the fillers. But some are really good. It started with Steve Reeves during Hercules and Steve Reeves Unchained. Those are the first two and they blew up from then. And then Reg Park came along and a lot of Alan Steele. I think, are you thinking of the Kirk Douglas film, Ulysses? No. He does the spear. He blinds him. He would have, he's based on the wood and he blinds him, which is from there. That's the Ulysses. This is another film that's prior to that where the guy, or maybe came out a little after, where the guy has a sword and he does, he throws it. I've seen so many. I mean, the problem is that, you know, Joe Dante, the director. Where did we go with this one? Okay. It's funny. But these are great. Once again, these Hercules characters are perfect wrestling characters. And every guy played, there was so many different guys. Dan Vadis was one who played. Dan Vadis? He was great. He passed away. Yeah, he was a good Hercules. He was a big Clint Eastwood character actor. You had Reg Park was the other one. Reg Park was a wrestler. Very successful wrestler. Ed Fury. Ed Fury. Ed Fury's another one. All these guys, Alan Steele. I mean, all these, Mark Forrest. Mark Forrest? Mark Forrest is now, teaches opera. So, I mean, Hercules, it was a really, at one point, a very prestigious role to play. Much like the Tarzan roles. These films, I mean, if these films weren't successful, you're not going to be making 30, 40, 50 of them. I mean, how many guys had played Tarzan? Oh, yeah. You find a niche, you go with it. Right. Exactly. Well, speaking of 30, 40, 50, this is the first 30-minute segment of our show. We're going to take a quick break. We'll come on back. In the meantime, make sure to jump on Twitter. Check us out at www.popculturians. Check out our guest, Nigel McGinnis. Absolutely. Also, make sure that you get that phone ready. Give us a call here at 800-893-9562. And Joey, tell them what not to do. Don't click around. Stick around. The best wrestling show in the world. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. night after night. I'm writing lyrics. Nigel, I want to ask you a question. Sure. Being a transplant, like all of a sudden, do you ever miss England? No, no. Not really. I miss some friends. I miss being able to see my family as much as I'd like to. The good thing about living in Los Angeles is that everybody wants to visit you anyway. Exactly. I lived in Louisville, not so much. I love Louisville. It's a beautiful city. But yeah, it's more so the people. And I guess somewhat of the sense of humor and going out and having a few pints and being able to talk about politics and religion and not get that wall. I think that's really the biggest difference I see in America than England is that sort of, ironically, obviously America is all about freedom of speech, yet a lot of things, I think sometimes in America, because you're encouraged, everybody is entitled to their viewpoint. People think if you express your viewpoint, somehow that's impinging on theirs. Their viewpoint. Right. And so I don't talk about politics. I mean, I'm a bit of an anarchist. I'm with Russell Brand in that regard, you know. But that's to me the biggest difference. But it's made up for. And then some with the weather and just the opportunities. And I still do believe in the American dream, you know. I mean, it's not the way they make it out in the movie. It's not what you see in TV. But I was saying to someone the other day, when you grow up overseas and you see the A-team and you see Hollywood and all this sort of stuff, you have a vision of what America is. And obviously it's not exactly that way. But there's still that tinge of hope and ambition here that you really don't get in a lot of other places. And it's magical. And that's why everybody really comes here and still feels that. And I think L.A. attracts most of those people as well. Oh, it really does. It's like moths to the flame out here. Right. And it's... It's like moths to the flame out here. It's a beautiful thing. It's a wonderful thing. You know, one of the freedoms that we have in the Western world and other places as well is that ability to pursue your dreams. You know what I mean? What was it? You know, really... When was slavery? That was 18... Oh, no. That was 1620 till 1865. And then you still have residual slavery. So, yeah. Well, other parts of the... I mean, it's still going on in parts of the world. It's still going on in parts of the country, for crying out loud. There's people fighting the Civil War in their head. You know, it's crazy. Do you miss the food in England? Some of it, but, you know, they kind of have the same thing over here, you know? Well, it's a little different with, like, pizza and things. Don't they put different toppings over there? Not really. There's vindaloo over there, right? I don't know. My friend was over there... They have Indian here as well. They have Turkish here. Well, my friend was over there, and he said when you get a slice of pizza, they actually ask, like, would you not pepperoni or sausage? Like, would you like some corn or tuna on it? Yeah. A little different. Have you been to Pizza Rev? No. Oh, yeah. Pizza Rev. What's that? It's like the Subway of pizza. Go and make your own pizza? It's sort of... Yeah, I mean... Really? For about nine bucks, and you can choose what type of dough, every different, like, topping. They grill it, and they cook it right in front of you. How come I don't live there? It's a smart... It all over the place. A really smart business idea. I mean, really, I should put some money in it if I had it, you know, because I think they're going to do really well. They're kind of like, you know, Chipotle. Yeah. You know, Chipotle five or ten years ago, they were like, this is a great idea. It's going to go get bigger. I kind of feel that's where pizza rolls now. You raised 76 grand for the wrestling thing. Why don't you just go and kick some out of Pizza Rev? I mean, that's something we all need. Yeah. I mean, that's... Yeah. Well, big shout out to Pizza Rev. If you want to be our sponsor, give us a call at 800-893-9562. Pizza Rev is amazing, and now they want to be part of us. But speaking of sponsors, Joey, I heard a little bird telling us about a sponsor we may have coming up on. Yes, we do. I believe it is called Bourbon Street. It's in Fullerton. It's an awesome, awesome, awesome place to see a show or have a meal or have some drinks. You know why I'm whispering? I'm not allowed in Fullerton. Anyway... I knew they had good taste for horn racing. No, it's going to be our new sponsor. There's some shows coming up. Super Naked is going to be there, I believe. No, it's not Super Naked. I don't know what it is. Okay, it's not them. Never mind. I'm interested. No, no, that's a whole different thing. Joey's not in Fullerton. No, that's okay. What's that? October 21st. That's what our engineer's telling us. There you go. October 21st. The autism event. So you got to... See, yes, you got to be ahead of things. You got to plan. Because you don't know from day to day. He's playing for autism later on. I'm not playing for autism. God forbid. I wouldn't make fun of that. But you know what? It is an awesome thing. It is an awesome thing. So we're looking forward to Bourbon Street jumping on board. It'd be really cool. And all our gratitude over there. And all our gratitude over there to all the fine folks over there who are really cool. So listen up, Pizza Rev. If you want to get on board with this kind of sponsorship from Joey Gaynor, boy, you're missing out. Missing out. Hey. Do you go back home a lot? Not as much as I'd like to. And that was one of the good things about being a wrestler is I'd usually get a tour over there once or twice a year. I'd say. An extra couple of weeks and, you know, visit friends and family I hadn't seen in a while. But since I retired, I've been back once. And that was to do a documentary tour. That was May of 2000. And I want to say 12. Might have been 13. But at least a couple of years ago. You know, it's just, you know, to find the money and the time to go over there. I really should. I really should. Because I think I'm going to have a baby. I think that's the plan. I should try and. Do you have a partner in having this baby plan? Well, I'm working on that part of it. Okay. That's just the cart before the horse, literally. Always wanted to be a parent. Never wanted to be a husband so much. I've always wondered. Well, you can do that, too. Perfect city to be that in. I've always wondered if I am a parent. I don't know. I don't know. No, no. You never know. If some guy shows up at my door who's like 30 years old and, you know, my characteristics. Hey, do you remember so-and-so from Texas? She was your friend. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Happens. Yeah. I mean, what would I do? You know, take him out to play catch? You know, what do you do? I mean, yeah. So, I wish I was. You're a lucky guy. You're a parent. Oh, yeah. I actually. You're a wonderful son. Thank you. He, you know, he's a handful. But that. That's the age, though. But the thing is, I remember one time at the park, he fell down. I said, okay, buddy, shake it off. And he literally shook it off and he went in his merry way. And when the woman looked at me, she goes, hmm, that was kind of rough. I go, first, excuse me. This is my son. And I'm raising him the way I want. I'm raising a son. I'm not a flower. You know, he's not, you know, he's going to realize life is hard sometimes. He's going to fall. He's going to shake it off. But this is it. If I don't see a bone sticking out or an arterial spray of blood, he's fine. Even a cut, he's fine. Yeah. I mean, when we were kids, we didn't have play dates. We used to, we didn't wear. You put kids out today to go on a bicycle, they got a helmet, knee pads. Oh, like they're going to combat. It's like putting a knight together. I mean, kids fall off bicycles. Kids get hurt. Scrape knees and black eyes. That's part of growing up. That's it. And this is, this is, it's an evolution. It's an evolution into adolescence, into teenage years, and it brings you into adulthood. Sometimes your parents aren't always going to be there to pick you up physically, emotionally, or monetarily. And you're going to realize sometimes, hey, this is how it is sometimes. You know, and there are too many kids I see who are just so codependent on their parents that, you know, they've never cut the cord. You know, so, I mean, so, I mean, my son, Kane, raising Kane is, that's, that's quite the term. But I mean, I'd rather have him the way he is now than any other way. The problem has been in the last few generations. The sense of entitlement. Oh, absolutely. Like, look, when I was in Vegas, I tipped the, the sky cap at the, at the airport. I am a $5 bill and the guy looked at me and he went, wow, that's old school. I said, what do you mean? He goes, these younger people come in and they, they feel entitled. I'm supposed to carry their bags and I'm, they're going to yell at me and they're going to tell me things. He says, and I just leave their bags there, man, because you know, we're not, I don't have to take that. No. And it is, it's a sad thing. You know? Yeah. And I mean, did you notice, I mean, going back to Harper, did you notice that before he came out in England? Did you see that? Because I noticed that more here in Southern California and Los Angeles. I do see that in this, this, this climate. I came to America, what was that? 98 originally, you know, so I haven't really been back to England and England's changed considerably since then as well, you know, with the different governments that we've had and there's been a real influx of money as well in the country and a lot of other political changes as well. So I'm not really sure how things are in England. You know, a lot of times I'll meet people who've been or lived in England maybe five years ago and they start telling me all these pop culture references. I have no idea, you know, who these people are. It's like you stepped out of a time machine sometimes. Yeah. I have no clue about current pop culture. I don't know these, someone from American Al could walk in and sit down, I wouldn't know who they are. I'm like, cool. That's why I'm not sure. That's why you, exactly. That's why we have Paul here too. And Nigel, when you, when you came over and you said 98, right? Yeah. Originally. What inspired you to make such a big move? Professional wrestling. It was my childhood dream ever since I was 14 years old. And you know, I think everybody has those sort of dreams when they're that age. They want to be a baseball player, an astronaut or professional wrestler, but most people grow up out of it. And I never did, you know, I went traveling around the world and I got a degree in chemistry, but just couldn't, couldn't kick it. You know, I just, and I genuinely believed I was going to make it. This was, this was my re the reason I was on earth was to come over here and, and to prove that if you have a dream and you never give up. That you can make it. Um, and. Well, you did. I mean, you. Well, that's part of a lot of my documentary. You really did. You really did make it. Is coming to terms with whether I did make it and if I didn't, how you deal with that, you know, because we all hear stories about everybody that makes it. But I don't know how applicable that is to most people out there because most people don't, you know, most people have to deal with failure or they can see the failure in their life a lot. So I think, you know, that's arguably more, more valuable lesson, you know, because my dream was obviously to be a WWE champion was to make millions of dollars so that I could retire and have a kid, you know, get married, you know, live the American dream. And it obviously didn't work out the way I expected. And I had a very short run on TV, a couple of very unfortunate twists of fate, um, to where someone, you know, like, uh, Brian Danielson, who was on the exact same trajectory as me, uh, for, for what really was, was one, one question. It was one question. I said someone yesterday, like you'd really, sometimes you don't think that. I think that there's any one thing you can do that can have such a profound effect on the rest of your life, other than getting someone pregnant or something like that. But anyway, uh, we both went to the, um, to the medical at the same time. Um, and the doctor checked me out just to make sure I was okay to wrestle. Everything was perfectly fine. And he said to me, yeah, have I ever had any injuries before? And the answer to that question cost me a million dollars. I could have said, no, I'm perfectly fine. I've never had any injuries. No, I could have said, which I did say, I tore my bicep about two years ago, but it scarred in place. I've seen an orthopedic surgeon said it's perfectly fine. And you know, I've been wrestling for like another year since then. So there's no issues. And I told him that, you know, because he sort of said to me, be honest, because if you do have an issue, don't worry about it. They like you, we're going to fix it and you'll be okay. So I told him the truth, you know, um, again, thinking there's nothing wrong with it. And he had a feel of it and it was perfectly fine. He said, that's fine. But she sends us the, uh, NMI, uh, the, uh, NMI. So I sent him the MRIs and just for whatever reason, he said, nope, you should have had surgery. So I had to get new ones done. He looked at those, he said, nope, you need surgery. And unfortunately at the time, you know, they weren't interested in paying for it themselves. They wanted me to pay for it and then be off, off the, on the shelf for like six months, not making any money, not having any other way of making any money on the home. There's still no guarantee, right? There's still no guarantee and no contract in place. Just hope that at that point then they'd hire me. And then TNA was sitting there with a contract on the table saying, yeah, we'll use you right away and put you in a program with Kurt Angle. Easy, easy choice you think, but again, you know, that, that me, again, if I just said, no, I'm perfectly fine, he'd have ticked the box and I'd have gone straight up to TV, you know, and you know, American. I probably would have worked with you then. I probably would have worked with you at the time. Yeah. And Bryan Danielson, you know, um, he passed the physical, went straight up there and has gone to such, you know, amazing success. As he readily accepted. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's something that he readily deserves, but it's, um, that was- Bad luck for that guy though, right? It's taking him, but it's taking a toll on him, I doubt it. It has! It has, but you know, I mean, if you take a look at Mick Foley as well, I mean, he has, you know, to some extent, some physical issues from these years in the ring, but no one gets out of life alive, you know? You have people who work in the Shell Gas Station that mess their back up, bending over to pick up, you know, a bottle of water or something, so there's no guarantees and at the end of the day, he's had an amazing life. You're very flew to work at the Shell Gas Station, I doubt that you're very flew to work at the life he's made a lot of money he'll never have to work again if he wants to have kids he can do so in complete you know financial independence you know well that's why that's why a lot of people look at punk cm punk and they go you know and and i like the fact he said it the way it is listen i mean i've given body and soul at this point uh what more do i have to give i'm i'm hitting these brick walls creatively we know what was in the way of those and and people i see people are mad did this a lot of fans are upset i go but he's got every right to i mean this is you know i mean at the end of the day are you going to pay for me are the fans going to pay for my my upkeep my insurance when i get bumped from here so you know people forget what we like wrestling we're wrestling fans wrestling's a business yeah you know and the bottom line is you know you have to take care of yourself in that business because when they start clearing house and they just cleared house some nxt guys last week i mean they come with their broom every so often they sweep guys away heard or not you're going to be gone you know and it's all business i heard a great quote from kane this week that says if you want friends get a dog yeah who got swept on nxt it was about five uh guys in development from nxt i read that they were i mean the names that had jumped out of me i saw that headline and once again it's a sad thing especially when i knew guys um when i left the business friends i know getting cut and it's always you know it's like oh geez you see these names and like oh he get cut and what you know you're asking what's he gonna do what's you know is he gonna play the smaller promotions what what can he fall back on because you become friends with some of these people and you realize early in life sometimes their their life skills or the set their their work applicable skills to work on conducive to finding work out there when you stay in this business that wrestling business is all you know and there's nothing else you know i mean how are you going to matriculate back into society and nigel in in that regard do you ever uh does tna ever reach out to you to come back and do some stuff no no i think we we certainly didn't have an acrimonious split you know i think when i left there i i was i still you know i tested positive i was a little bit more aggressive than positive hepatitis b when i was working there um we'll never know how i got it but um you know they did the right thing and took me off of actually wrestling on shows but didn't use me so i didn't make any money i was on a paper show basis and after about six months where i still hadn't cleared the virus you know i think they kind of looked at it and said look you know we need to let you go so you can try and get your life back together and if you are going to do something else then do that i mean you know you can look at it both ways you know you can say okay i'm not going to do this but you never did with me you know what i mean so again the trouble with tna i think is that there were so many chiefs there oh boy they just got a new one this week and billy corgan joining the creative team and you mentioned that prior to the going on the air i find that interesting i find that you know we we've always said before that wrestling is still in a funk in a way it's the same thing over and over again there's certain big promotions we watch and you could not watch for three or four weeks and you come back on monday night hey it's the same thing going on same thing going on and i think it's a good thing to do and i think it's a good thing to do and tna i like the fact that they're bringing billy corgan because a he's a creative guy you know his bona fides in music a parent the guy's a great you know um musician he's playing with some great groups so he's bringing it he's bringing a creative talent he has and i'd say give the guy a chance let's see what he can do in the wrestling circle well it's not his first time in the wrestling circle ecw he was involved he was involved a lot with ecw billy corgan yeah billy corgan would show up did a couple of guitar uh smashes uh on some of the shows and he was a great musician and he was a great musician and he was a great musician yeah billy corgan showed up on ecw a lot uh i'd say for there was about a three four month span where he was showing up um a fellow that when i lived in lake balboa um a fellow that was uh in the garage next door that was building sets and everything for plays he was working at billy corgan's house building stuff for billy at the house and uh i said to him where's is he in town and what's he doing and he said no he's in philadelphia well he was at ecw he was doing stuff with that right yeah he's a big wrestling well he's had a promotion as well in chicago he did that's the thing he's what was his promotion i believe that they called it a resistance pro yeah those last couple years kind of fairly recent yeah but so he's so he's been a he's been more than if he's been an active man and now he's you know and he's going back there and create and hopefully they'll let him be create well that's the thing that's the issue and i think if you look in the history of pro wrestling anytime there was a successful promotion whether you're territory or wwf back in the day there was one person who was a pro wrestler and he was a pro wrestler and he was a person one person that was ultimately in tv i guess you'd call them an executive producer or a showrunner well the booker yeah right well vince mcmahon senior was the one guy no there was nobody else but then you had sam much nick you know yeah as well they did some great yes i mean the guys were in the territories and speaking i'm glad you brought that because a guy that ran his own territory for a long time which just passed away was uh who we you can say was a wrestling legend was veron gagne he was he created the awa yeah i mean that was he came out of many annapolis he was a collegiate wrestler um football player and he really and to the point where olympics he wrestled in an olympic team and he was a you know a great amateur wrestler and like like lou thesp and all these guys and kininski they became the pro wrestling and um i don't know to the problem the problem with whatever and gagne was that sometimes when you're the star of your promotion you need to step away from being the star of promotion stay in the head office sometimes full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full AWA, quite a few guys. There was a time when it was a big promotion. That was a major promotion. You had guys at one point, AWA was the promotion, NWA, and you had guys going back and forth. You had Dick DeBruza, and you had The Crusher, and Bam Varosky, and those guys would play most NWA, but they'd go to AWA. Rick Flair came out of the AWA. Yeah. The AWA used to work with the WWWF because every once in a while, twice a year or so, Gagne would come to Madison Square Garden and wrestle. And he never wrestled Bruno. They never wrestled each other. Champion to champion. Champion to champion. He never did that. But they did, I think they might have tag teamed once or twice, and there was this mutual thing because out of the AWA, we got Crybaby Cannon, and we got all of these guys that we would never see, and then guys from WWWF would go to... But the only way you could follow that really was in the magazines. Yeah, you had to really... That was a big... I mean, I remember it was in the 70s when Superstar Billy Graham had a match with Harley Race and was the WWF champion at the time, Superstar Billy Graham, and the NWA champion was Harley Race, and they did it in Florida down in a stadium down there. It was an hour match, became a draw because, you know, you can't have your champion lose a win. He has to be right down the middle. But it was a great cross-motion, but at the time... Speaking of championships, Saturday night, Pacquiao, Mayweather, the money, versus the funny, whatever you want to call it. It's going to be real interesting, my friend. It's going to be. This is, I mean, this is, I think, the biggest fight in the century, but in the business, I mean, it's because of all the outside fan base, because in 71, it was Ali Frazier, it was Hag LaHearns, and even those with the fans outside of boxing became excited about this, but now this fight has just become everyone who don't even fight fans are watching it. Because Mayweather, for the last six years or so, kept going around the fight and then said, I'll fight Pacquiao, I'll fight you, but you have to take a blood test one hour before the fight. Now, who's going to drain half a pint of blood and then go fight? So, they're both older. My prediction is Pacquiao. I really am predicting that. That's interesting. And a lot of people are predicting Mayweather's going to be too fast. Mayweather's never been hit. Well, here's the thing. Mayweather is a fantastic defensive fighter. He's the best counterpuncher I've ever seen. So, how do you stop a counterpuncher? You don't let him counterpunch. The idea is, I mean, and you know Freddie Roach has faced Mayweather before with other fighters. And the way I I'm not the boxing expert, but I'm a fan. If he's such a great counterpuncher, stay on him for the first three, four, five rounds, and then build. And then once you're done, step three steps back. Because now, if he has to come towards you now, he's no longer a defensive fighter. You're talking about Mayweather. He's on the offense now. So, if he has to come forward, he's out of the defensive mode already. So, take him out of this comfort zone. I mean, the whole ring's his comfort zone, if you think about it. But let him come towards you and step back. Now he's no longer defensive. Pacquiao has a shot at this. He's got to do it early. He's got to build. The longer it goes, the more Mayweather's favored. Mayweather just came out and said some stuff. He goes, I'm greater than Ali. I'm greater than Sugar A. Robinson. But here's the thing. He has to believe that. And I'm all for believing that. Because he's going to a ring. He's going to a situation that no one will ever, ever go under that pressure. And he hasn't lost. He has not lost. So, he's 27-0. What's he going to say? It's like, you know, I'm almost as good as... He's better. I mean, the guy has not lost. And I've seen guys come forward and do this, this, and this. And it's not his fault that the talent is not the same level as he is. I mean, he's just that good of a fighter. Was he better than Ray Robinson? Ray Robinson, close to 200 fights, maybe. And speaking, another person just passed away. Gene Fulmer. Yeah. Former middleweight champion who fought Ray. In fact, he fought Ray Robinson four times and he beat him twice. He just passed away the same day Fern Gagne did. You know, by the way, the lead singer of the Kinks. Joe Eli. No, the Kingsman. The Kingsman. Joe Eli. Not Joe Eli. Sean Eli. No, Joe Eli. See, with the pop culturians, the song probably the same as rock songs, Louie Louie, and that's the Kingsman's version. And Joe Eli was the singer for the Kingsman. And it's funny because that song was originally by Richard Berry. Richard Berry sang for the Pharaohs. He sang for the, yeah. Look up, it's Joe Eli. Joe Eli's still around. He's another singer. No, Joe Eli. You think of the young kid from Texas. 50 Cent. Yeah, 50 Cent. Joe Eli, Joe E-L-Y, the lead singer for the Kingsman, just passed away. And their version of Louie Louie, it's the second version. The first one is by Richard Berry. Well, that's a, yeah. It's Joe Eli. Joe Eli. It's not the same guy. Joe Eli is the lead singer for the Kingsman, Joey, who just passed away. Look up the Kingsman. Look up the Kingsman. Look up Louie Louie. Yeah, there's Joe Eli with Linda Ronstadt. That's a different guy. Joey, look up, look up, look up the Kingsman. Okay, we're gonna look up the Kingsman to settle this debate, but while we're doing this debate, I wanna hear what Nigel's prediction is on this fight. You know, I don't think I can make an educated opinion to be perfectly honest with you because I don't know that much about boxing. I'll certainly try and find somewhere to watch the fight. You know, I love that feel for a big fight. And I know a lot of people say that's kind of lacking in pro wrestling anymore because when you think about it, those big matches that they had back in the 60s and the 70s with the champion, nowadays, no one would think he's gonna lose so you wouldn't draw any money with it. But it seemed to work time and time again because every single champion versus champion match for 30 years ended in a time limit draw. Exactly. But then why would people show up every time and buy tickets? And then you can watch it again. It's how appropriate the time limit for everything, isn't there? Oh, hold on. It's like, we gotta get, let's go. You know, but that's the way it is. But that's, but people looked wrestling back then as more than entertainment. They saw it as the athletic endeavor that it was. Speaking of time limits, you know, it's funny. We're almost out of time here. But one thing that I saw a time limit on in a wrestling match is this new Japan pro wrestling that you can now watch on AXS TV. I didn't even have any clue. And you can actually watch the Bullet Club running amok over there. It's great watching AJ Styles. It feels like years since I've seen him. So, if you're out there and you love that kind of stuff, check out AXS TV. AXS TV, if you have DirecTV. These people should give us money. All the plugs. I know, we plug everything. We're plugging the Kingsman. I want to plug my buddy over here. They're gonna be running out to buy Kingsman records now. The guy's dead. Must be worth something. The car with the success is because my buddy here. Well, speaking of the Kingsman, it was Jack Eli. D-L-Y. Joe. I got the Wikipedia to fix the difference. It was Ron Eli. He sang that song and then he played Tarzan. He also played Doc Savage. Yes. Yeah, man of bronze. Paul, man of bronze. Exactly. We're down there and we're in another... That's another, you know, if you like, Doc Savage is a great wrestling character. I mean, he really was. He would have been the perfect wrestling hero. What a name, Doc Savage. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's just the great... We had Dutch Savage. Dutch Mandel. Randy Savage. Dutch Mandel. There was a guy named Duke Savage. There was a guy... Duke Mitchell. Duke Mitchell and Sammy Patrillo. Kevin Savage. Exactly. I'll tell you, we got a lot of savages going around, but we also got Nigel McGuinness in studio, so check him out on his Twitter. It's at McGuinnessNigel. Correct. Yeah, at McGuinnessNigel. More Instagram as well. And, yeah, same thing, at McGuinnessNigel. A little bit on the inside. Do check us out. www.popcoldtourism.com Give us a call next week at 800-893-9562 because this is about all the time we got for this week. Our show May 14th is going to be an hour later. On May 14th, we'll be on at 6. I just want to put a shout out to Toya Graham in Baltimore who pulled her kid out of the riots. You did a great thing, honey. And all the right-wing radio guys who said if she gave her kid a better life... You know what? You guys didn't grow up in the ghetto. You're a bunch of... We'll leave it at that. And on that note, thanks again for Nigel being in studio. Thanks for tuning in to the PopCultourians coming at you live from Parts Unknown aka Skid Row Studios. This is Paul McGee signing out. Joey Gaynor signing out. Dan Madigan signing in with my buddy Nigel McGuinness. Nigel McGuinness, our good friend. Come back and see us again and we're on iTunes too! We'll see you next time.