[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back everyone to the gentlemen's wrestling podcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am your host as always, Jesse Collins.

[SPEAKER_00]: In joining me, he's a first time guest.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is author and historian Ian Douglas, listeners may be familiar with Ian's work.

[SPEAKER_00]: As a photographer, he's having written many books, such as the Real Estate and the Room, the Life and Times of Dance, Severine.

[SPEAKER_00]: or truth be told the autobiography of B.

Brian Blair among various other works.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has a new book, a decided novelty, the essential guide to Black Pro Wrestling History 1880 to 1950, which, as the title would suggest, is a book chronicling the early history of Black Pro Wrestling.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's a regular voter for the Wrestling Observer newsletter Hall of Fame, which is our topic of discussion for today.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to welcome Ian Douglas the show.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ian, thanks so much for joining us today.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesse, thank you so much for having me.

[SPEAKER_01]: If this is a gentleman's recipe podcast, I have no idea what I'm doing here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the first time anyone has ever made that joke.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll cut your kidding, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: No, yeah, I'm joking.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how it looks like.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, people always ask me about the name and they're like, I put, I don't know, like maybe like five seconds of thought into the name, but it's at least catching enough for people to remember it, which I think is.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just kind of stumbled onto something good.

[SPEAKER_01]: But pro wrestling and gentlemen, they're often in Congress ideas.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's kind of one of the reasons I want to start this show, which is the show was kind of [SPEAKER_00]: What I wanted to have out of a podcast was I like reading the New Yorker and I like [SPEAKER_00]: the idea of having these kind of long form really in-depth articles on stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I wanted to have a more intellectual conversation about big topics and wrestling.

[SPEAKER_00]: I definitely never wanted to have a show.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, we're gonna recap last night's episode of television or we're going to preview a paper view that's coming up, just because there's so much of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: to be kind of like, this is a high brow intellectual conversation about progress, so in which as you alluded to might be lacking in terms of the space.

[SPEAKER_01]: But once you get all of your statement on here, you're going to be stunned by exactly how high brow it can get.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, don't don't give any spoilers away, but yes, so this is part of the series of podcast I'm doing talking about the wrestling.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm several newsletters.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hall of Fame.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know most you probably listened to our last episode where I had Adam Bergron And we kind of went over the ballot and kind of who we might be voting for this year, but he and kind of has a unique perspective and kind of what I would say is primer for [SPEAKER_00]: What we're talking about today is that in Ron Article last year, kind of talking about.

[SPEAKER_00]: the history of black progresslers in wrestling hall of fames and with kind of a deep dive looking at the wrestling observer and newsletter Hall of Fame and the comparative lack of black wrestlers that are represented in that hall of fame compared to other pro wrestling hall of fames and it's a really good piece people should definitely go out and read it [SPEAKER_00]: but it's a really interesting article and it also touches on a topic that we've talked about a few times on this show talking about different levels of representation and progressing and this is in particular looking at the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame and looking at it as a in some ways like a historical monument to the history of progressing and [SPEAKER_00]: Your piece kind of looks at, well, are we really celebrating the history of progressaling if we are not taking into account not only the contributions of black wrestlers at the same rate as other institutions, but also kind of acknowledging the different barriers that have been put in place for those black wrestlers and how that is reflected in the way the general voting bodies [SPEAKER_01]: uh...

yes one hundred percent correct i think when it comes to black pro wrestling history uh...

uh...

let's let's take this back up just for a second because when you look at the uh...

when you look at the observer hall of fame and you look at the criteria for induction [SPEAKER_01]: The factors that contribute to induction nowadays, and it has a lot to do with the specific observer audience, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: They tend to be heavily into work rate as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, [SPEAKER_01]: Primarily is defined by Meltzer, but also the consensus surrounding work rate, like activity, move set, realism, selling, bumping, all of those sorts of things.

[SPEAKER_01]: You also have the popularity of the individual, you also have the number of championships they won and the type of championships they won.

[SPEAKER_01]: and and all of those things, all of those things are factors.

[SPEAKER_01]: So when you get into the discussions of does this person belong in as opposed to this other person, then you get into debates about who was the best worker, who was the best seller, you get into who moved the most merchandise, who sold the most tickets, who had the highest buy rates, who won the most championships of [SPEAKER_01]: And nowadays, that especially tends to get distilled down to who held the most world championships and usually world heavyweight championships individually.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when you use that, when you take those metrics, [SPEAKER_01]: and you then apply them retroactively to wrestlers of the past.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not even thinking about black wrestlers in particular.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I'm just speaking about wrestlers of the past in general.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, then you have to look at the entire era from like 1900 to about 1950, where the majority of the regional promotions [SPEAKER_01]: The primary championship was a junior heavyweight championship and not a heavyweight championship.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like Hawaii, for instance, the four, I think the first 15 to 20 years of the Hawaii promotion, the championship belt or the championship, which has one of the most iconic belt designs of the mall because they actually had a sanctioned ring magazine [SPEAKER_01]: championship belt.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was the Hawaii Junior Heavyweight Championship.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was the top belt in the territory.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's the only single title in the territory.

[SPEAKER_01]: and eventually it got renamed.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, if you see somebody's name on the ballot nowadays, and you say, oh, I've never heard of this person before, they wrestled back in the 1940s.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let me tell, their heyday was in 1930s and 40s.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let me take a look at some of their accomplishments, and you see they held a handful of belts and a handful of championships, and you see the Hawaii Junior Heavyweight Championship.

[SPEAKER_01]: You might be inclined to dismiss it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, they didn't hold a world championship.

[SPEAKER_01]: They held this regional title and it's a junior heavyweight championship.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, unless you know the history of the territory, you may not realize that was the only belt there for winning and they wanted and they held it for that maybe for a year or more.

[SPEAKER_01]: So when you remove that context, it becomes hard to evaluate that person.

[SPEAKER_01]: You look at somebody like Ted your main.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm pulling names out of thin air, but you look at somebody like Ted Germain in Boston who wrestled for Charlie Gordon.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that Ted Germain's name has ever popped up on under the observer ballot or if it ever will, but the top title promoted by Charlie Gordon in Boston for a long, long time was the world middleweight championship and Ted Germain held it [SPEAKER_01]: Well, if you were to look up Ted Germain and weigh his credentials for wrestling, for wrestling observant newsletter Hall of Fame induction, you're going to see, he was the, he was a world middleweight champion.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's not even, that's not even light heavyweight.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's not even cruiserweight.

[SPEAKER_01]: It certainly isn't heavyweight.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're just going to dismiss this.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was the [SPEAKER_01]: That was the championship belt in Charlie Gordon's territory until Seely Samara came in in late 1937 and he was given the World Heavyweight Championship belt and due to consolidation of the territories that title reign was quickly dismissed and forgotten.

[SPEAKER_01]: But somebody with modern eyes would look at Ted Germaine's resume and say, [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, he was just a world middleweight championship.

[SPEAKER_01]: That means even less than a cruiserweight championship and then for Ted Germaine's career was meaningless.

[SPEAKER_01]: When he was a massive draw in the New England area for a long, long time.

[SPEAKER_01]: So just taking factors like that into consideration, it becomes very difficult when we're evaluating the careers of wrestlers who peaked prior to [SPEAKER_01]: The mid, I mean, really peaked prior to the 1960s who we have no footage of, we can't evaluate them on the basis of work rate, we can't evaluate them on the basis of style unless you do a deep dive, you know, very little about.

[SPEAKER_01]: their box office appeal unless you do a really thorough deep dive you don't understand the influence that they might have had over the style of wrestling in general or over other performers and their regional or non-world heavyweight championships are meaningless and so there's a tendency to just disregard categories of wrestlers as [SPEAKER_01]: insignificant for purposes of something like a wrestling observant newsletter hall of fame.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that becomes even more grotesquely unfair when we're evaluating black pro wrestlers of the era who were influential in a way that we just can't conceptualize nowadays because for someone like [SPEAKER_01]: The original Rufus Jones, who is also the original Tiger Flowers, Joseph Alvin, Godfrey, he's the guy who created the stereotype really of the Black Pro wrestler being the thick, the thick, headed, aggressive.

[SPEAKER_01]: headbutter that playing into the stereotype of the era and he really starts the style in like 1938, the 37th, 38 and by the mid-1950s it almost every main event black pro wrestler or even undercard black pro wrestler except for maybe [SPEAKER_01]: Luther Lindsey is a head-butting machine.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like that that begins with one guy and it's it's a name that most people have never even heard of.

[SPEAKER_01]: On influence alone, that guy should be in most pro wrestling halls of fame.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's not just that.

[SPEAKER_01]: He alongside Bull Curry, he's [SPEAKER_01]: arguably the top heel period in the Midwest and the Northeast for 12-13 years running.

[SPEAKER_01]: 12-13 years until his life was tragically cut short by a car accident.

[SPEAKER_01]: most people don't know this would never know it and if you just looked up the snapshot of his resume, you would never know it.

[SPEAKER_01]: You'd get no sense of just how important this guy was to pro wrestling.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I know I just said a lot.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll leave it there and let you comment or ask further questions.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well there's a few things that I wanted to touch on that you referenced.

[SPEAKER_00]: The first is a [SPEAKER_00]: using what I would say like contemporary standards to evaluate wrestlers from the past.

[SPEAKER_00]: That isn't always fair.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like you said, if we're gonna go back and then go and do some research on a wrestler, especially wrestler that's like pre-1960 whether it's really not gonna be a lot of video evidence of him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not only is there not gonna be a lot of video evidence, but there's gonna be a lot more, much more limited, easy to access documentation.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're really like going through like the newspapers.com archives and hoping that stuff gets triggered.

[SPEAKER_00]: define that kind of stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you're losing basically the entire context of their careers.

[SPEAKER_00]: You might be able to find cards, any like you said, you might see, oh, they held a junior heavyweight championship.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you don't really understand.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, well, that was the main title.

[SPEAKER_00]: That means they remain eventing, most shows.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even card layouts in like you can see like, oh, if someone went on the last, that means that the main event, which historically in many markets is not the case, especially, I think a perfect example is like, mass and square guarded.

[SPEAKER_00]: Bruno, a San Martino did not actually [SPEAKER_00]: A bunch of shows in S and Square Garden, he worked the show right before the match right before the intermission because of the way that those shows were structured and that's probably true across a lot of different territories.

[SPEAKER_00]: So even just looking at the cards, you don't even totally understand it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's very hard, I think, for anyone to kind of do research without going super far into the weeds and understand the full context of these careers, especially as we talk about [SPEAKER_00]: territories that largely predates a lot of what you can take the modern wrestling industry or the way at least we understand it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then the other part of that would be the Observer Hall of Fame in general has a very difficult time inducting anyone from.

[SPEAKER_00]: let's say the pre-TV era, like pre-19, late 1960s, there are the obvious people that get in, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Luth has Bruno Samartino, you know, buddy Rogers, whoever name your super famous wrestler from pre- for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the [SPEAKER_00]: Realm has had a very difficult path to get into Lafay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Probably the person on the biggest advocate on the ballet right now is more single, and that's largely because more single is career as a booker ends in the 1960s, largely, and nobody is going back and doing that research.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's very difficult to get those people into the Hall of Fame if you look at the voting results, especially the historical category.

[SPEAKER_00]: I said this on my last part, but it's worth including if you look at who is eligible right now in the historical wrestling category, which is where all of these people would be located that we might be talking about if they were to ever appear on the balance.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if you look at the kind of that currents [SPEAKER_00]: um, ballot, it's mostly split into two categories.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's split into people who were, um, wrestlers before, um, the kind of TV error that we don't have a lot of video tape of.

[SPEAKER_00]: So someone like a cowboy [SPEAKER_00]: or it's really famous names that people remember that either didn't have a lot of longevity or only had brief moments where they were a really big star, but people remember them like the iron chic or the Von Ericks or something like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's really difficult, I think, for some of these older wrestlers that have good cases to get in because of all the things you just touched on, which we don't have video tape, we don't really know how to evaluate them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And especially if they're outside of the general purview of the Hall of Fame, it becomes a little bit more difficult.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, it took a long time for a Johnny Rejo to get in who got it in last year, and I always said, like, the reasons for that are, we don't have a lot of video tape of Johnny Rejo.

[SPEAKER_00]: He wrestled for a non-English speaking promotion for the most part in Montreal.

[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of people just don't know about that territory and haven't consumed that level of history to really understand why, in my opinion, he was deserving of all of Famer because he was a big star and drew for all these years.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's outside of, he didn't wrestle in Memphis in the 80s.

[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't wrestle for, you know, Mid-Atlantic.

[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't wrestle in Georgia.

[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't wrestle for the WWF.

[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't wrestle for the AWA.

[SPEAKER_00]: So these territories that I think a lot of people know about and that becomes very difficult for these people to gain them lots of attention to catch a ball of fame.

[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely true.

[SPEAKER_01]: absolutely true.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when you, and again, when we're applying the same sort of, so you take all of those, you take all of those complications and challenges in getting inducted.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you apply that to some of the black pro wrestling pioneers of the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and they're working that backwards.

[SPEAKER_01]: You have gentlemen Jack Clayborn who in one of his [SPEAKER_01]: latest and most thorough interviews in the mid-ish 1950s.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was complaining that television had ruined wrestling in particular for wrestlers like him because he would go on a card in Los Angeles or he would go on he would be on a card in the Northeast.

[SPEAKER_01]: And because they were cobbling together footage for national broadcasts of wrestling, he said that he would go on, he would be on in one of the first matches, and they wouldn't record it because they were cobbling together footage for a national broadcast that needed to air in the southern states.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the southern stations, the advertisers, they were not comfortable with [SPEAKER_01]: Black wrestlers being on national television, let alone winning matches.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so categorically, Black pro wrestlers who were competent were not allowed on national broadcast at that time.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that really hurt Clayborn's career.

[SPEAKER_01]: Probably hurt Steely Samara's career as well in Jim Mitchell's career.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then when you take it, when you take it even further back, you almost have to look at some of these guys and say, given what they achieved is it more likely than not that they would have achieved much more if their skin color had been of a different you or if their ancestry had been different and if you if you actually evaluate career trajectories, you can you can actually [SPEAKER_01]: project that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when you take Jack Clayborn, for example, who from pretty much 1934 onward, main-of-vented in every wrestling territory he was in for the most part was [SPEAKER_01]: If you were 6-1 in that, if you were 6-1 then you were probably 95th percentile in terms of heights and wrestlers.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was also a very chiseled wrestler in the early going.

[SPEAKER_01]: So one of the strongest wrestlers, high flyer, one of the best bodies, he finally goes over to Hawaii in 1948 after he's been doing this for 16-17 years.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Al-Karassic finally gives him [SPEAKER_01]: a title reign for almost an entire year as the top guy in Hawaii.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's huge.

[SPEAKER_01]: He comes back to California and the California promoters are doing everything they can to bury and hide the fact that he held the top title in Hawaii.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're showing the photos of him with the ring championship belt and saying, no, no, that's the Negro Heavyweight Championship belt that has nothing to do with Hawaii.

[SPEAKER_01]: given his style, he's, he's like the black Antonino Roca, even though he debuted something like 10 years before Roca was using the same, was using the same style except he was a pioneer of that style, especially as a heavyweight.

[SPEAKER_01]: And fortunately, some of the California writers called that out and said, well, wait a second.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was doing this a decade before Roko was doing it.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's not the black Antonina Roka, Antonina Roka is the white Jack Clayborn.

[SPEAKER_01]: And something like that alone, speaking to his influence and his significance, in most cases that people had that understanding would be enough to, should be enough to get him past that threshold and get him into most halls of fame.

[SPEAKER_01]: The people understood that coupled with the fact that when it comes to championship opportunities [SPEAKER_01]: That's why your championship reign that he had, if we take titles off of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: But let's say Karasik decided to call his championship the World Championship, because he could have.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is pre-NWA.

[SPEAKER_01]: If we make that a World Championship, then [SPEAKER_01]: Clayborn, let's say we make all singles titles, world titles just for the sake of the argument.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then Clayborn's title reign in Hawaii is almost as long as all title reigns by recognized Black Pro wrestlers up until that period of time combined.

[SPEAKER_01]: That should get him in my opinion.

[SPEAKER_01]: But again, people don't have that context to make that judgment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think in general, the Observer Hall of Fame struggles to put accomplishments within the context of their time, kind of across the board, and I think like if you want to compare this to the baseball Hall of Fame and the Observer Hall of Fame was intentionally set up in a process to mimic the baseball Hall of Fame.

[SPEAKER_00]: After the first year or so when Melts are just inducted who he wanted and said here the no-brainers Yes, um, well, he also David also had to do that because there we'd still be debating some of these people to get in Yeah, Paul Bowzer's probably not making the ballot If he uh, not not finishing high on the ballot if he we had a vote of him today, which if that was the case I'd be going crazy because I'm a Boston guy [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, we're looking at, but to put the context, to put it into context, like, for baseball, right, we understand that throughout the history of baseball, there have been different eras where statistics, what would be considered an impressive statistic has changed, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: If someone ball eras, they're right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: If someone, so, so, so if we went back and we looked at, let's say famous Niagara Falls victim, Ed Delehanty and be like, well Ed Delehanty, he only hit like 110 home runs.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's like not that impressive of a total.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we also understand in the context like that was actually a lot of home runs.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was actually one of the best power hitters up until [SPEAKER_00]: Um, his career ended.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like we understand from a history perspective that was impressive.

[SPEAKER_00]: We also, baseball also has the Negro League, so which also have, uh, there's been a lot of incredible work in terms of, uh, updating statistics and chronicling those over the last few years.

[SPEAKER_00]: A lot dedicated people have done a lot of great work with that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we can understand, [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe, you know, if a player never even played in the major leagues, we have statistics to show.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, this was actually a phenomenal player, and we can understand the limitations of their time prevented them from ever playing in the major leagues, or at least they're recognized to major leagues.

[SPEAKER_00]: at the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do we do that with the wrestling holiday?

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think so.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think we'd look back at different wrestlers and say, okay, maybe this person didn't, like he said, when a bunch of what we would consider world titles, maybe they didn't headline a bunch of 10,000 plus a tend to chose.

[SPEAKER_00]: All of these things we kind of look at within the context of their time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, it's kind of dismissed.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think you could say a similar case is true for like women's wrestlers throughout history.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's, uh, I believe only one woman's wrestler outside of Japan.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's in the wrestling of several Hall of Fame right now, which is Mildrick Burke.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do we in June buyers is close to getting in?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do we look at that the same way where it's like, well, [SPEAKER_00]: They were dealing in a space where women's wrestling was not earnestly promoted in most places.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there was obviously a ceiling put on many women's wrestling performers, so did we look at that and appreciate the accomplishments of some of the women leading up to that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you could see the exact same thing about black pro wrestlers.

[SPEAKER_00]: in an image.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there are over 280, I think the official total right now as of this moment is 284, I want to say, inductees into the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of these [SPEAKER_00]: There are only seven black professors out of that whole group, so, and if he was the earliest, who's the earliest in terms of their career?

[SPEAKER_00]: My guess would be, it's got to be Bobo Brazil, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So, just to recap who these people are, and it's very, and especially when we're talking about this in America, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So, let's let, I'm going to go through them really quick.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, Abdullah Butcher, does Abdullah Butcher get into the Wrestling Observer Hall fame if he does not have his career in Japan?

[SPEAKER_00]: I would say probably not.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would say maybe, he was a draw right, you're right.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'd say it's, but he is a legend in Japan.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to point you as the highest paid wrestler in the world and they're early 80s when he jumped from all Japan to New Japan, like he is, so, so he is someone that greatly benefited from wrestling outside of America, Bobo Brassord or Rico too, yeah, and that's [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, sometimes, some things are tough to isolate because it's for some of these guys, it's difficult.

[SPEAKER_01]: If they're not big in Japan, they may not also have gotten the opportunities they've received in Puerto Rico because Colone did care about those things.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you love you love to bring in Hanson and Brody and those guys as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, Bobo Brazil, he's in without his career in Japan, although he was a big star in Japan at times, but I think it's safe to say that he was a big enough star in the United States where I think he would check the boxes enough.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ernie Ladd, I think a similar scenario is mostly in the first American career, same with Bearcars.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Bearcars?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and Ernie for his connection to football.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And be helps.

[SPEAKER_00]: Bearcat right, I think, would be in [SPEAKER_00]: Carlos Colone, of course, I definitely think would not be in the rest like I was ever all of a family, if it wasn't for his career in Puerto Rico.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's a safe attitude to assume that the rock obviously is in based on his career in the United States.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then the last is Ajacán who obviously would not be, it's obviously because of her career in Japan.

[SPEAKER_00]: So even within the context of the limited black races we do have in the Hall of Fame, [SPEAKER_00]: Several of them would also struggle to get in if they were not working outside of the United States, largely because of the limiting career factors that Black wrestlers have historically had kind of across the history of the United States.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I mentioned, I'd be remiss if I didn't bring this up at this point as well or later, but I'll throw it on the table now.

[SPEAKER_01]: You also have the differing opinions on who gets to be black, to some extent, like Dwayne, obviously, is his half-black half-some-moin.

[SPEAKER_01]: The rock is half-black half-some-oin.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you have a lot of people who, when they say he's the first black WWE champion, you have plenty of people who jumped and said, no, because he's half-some-oin, he doesn't count.

[SPEAKER_01]: uh...

that i mean that's that's a discussion that gets had uh...

i will be staying out of that discussion well yeah i'll be staying out of that discussion too i have to wait me nobody wants to hear me way in on this uh...

as you call who is who's half black half japanese [SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, when I did my initial calculation, I missed her because I was just, okay, all the Japanese names.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a real nerd thing to say.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, actually, I was a con, yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was a real nerd who I respect to brought that up to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, and then Carlos Colone, you look at, [SPEAKER_01]: misogynation in Caribbean countries, how black is he versus how whatever house within the milieu of Puerto Rican heritage, et cetera, but but he looks dark enough so like he he gets the he gets the check mark, but in terms of un [SPEAKER_01]: unqualified and by unqualified I mean we don't doubt their we don't doubt their blackness we don't have to debate it in any way um you're really talking about four out of seven in the in the wrestling observer newsletter hall of fame okay please please continue so and and that's it's it's interesting it's also and that's why I say it's important to [SPEAKER_00]: interpret wrestling history, we need to be able to, as people who are voting on this and trying to support this kind of monument to wrestling history.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's I think our responsibility to understand the context of these individual accomplishments beyond the kind of who worked main events, [SPEAKER_00]: You know, big shows and big territories and really do our due diligence in terms of voting body and I think that is in particular the case when we're talking about black wrestlers and I think it's limiting and one of the reasons we have so many few inductees is because we're not taking everything into consideration.

[SPEAKER_00]: this year, there are a number of black wrestlers on the ballot, which would still in a lot of ways be underrepresented, but at least for the sake of this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, by my account, we have Mercedes Monet.

[SPEAKER_00]: first time candidate on the ballot, we'll see how she does.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would be very surprised if she got in, but at least is the first time candidate.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have junkyard dog who I think stands a good chance to get in since he came very close to getting in last year and seems to be getting momentum.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sweet Daddy, Seaky.

[SPEAKER_00]: uh...

first time uh...

candidate on the ballot uh...

after his death earlier this year uh...

and then dorsal dixon who is in the mexico section who uh...

has actually a decent chance of getting in as well he was the leading folk at her in mexico last year and that did not get in so uh...

a chance for him to get in so we could actually could be uh...

increasing the ranks significantly relatively if if jyd and dorsal dixon get in this [SPEAKER_00]: But I think are we putting their careers in the proper context to give those people a fair shake?

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not even talking about people that have never been on the ballot before.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just talking about the people that are in the ballot right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do we...

[SPEAKER_00]: I think out of those names, I think JYD is the only one that I think gets any form of I think consistent acknowledgments that his accomplishments as a black man are understood in terms of being a major drawing, black baby face in the deep south.

[SPEAKER_00]: during the time period where there really wasn't a lot of people that could say that had that kind of other black wrestlers that could be in that position, I guess.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's the only one that I think really gets that kind of credit from the voting body.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just based on what I've heard.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I agree.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you mentioned Sweet Daddy Seaky.

[SPEAKER_01]: See, I actually approach, that's one I actually [SPEAKER_01]: And for some people, if they read a decided novelty, or they read gentlemen Jack and Rough Rufus, the two most recent books I've written, that might hurt Sweet Daddy Seek he's Hall of Fame candidacy and credentials in their eyes because I am...

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm on the record where I say, okay, he took the name Reginald Seaky from Reginald Seaky Barry, who was the black pro wrestling prodigy.

[SPEAKER_01]: who, the, the Biscos really gave him his start after he was wrestling as Leonard the snake rabbit in Kansas City.

[SPEAKER_01]: They take him on tour, they make him a, they make him an attraction even though he's losing the overwhelming majority of his matches.

[SPEAKER_01]: Early 1930s, he, [SPEAKER_01]: More or less bills on the U.S.

[SPEAKER_01]: scene and goes off to Europe where he is also a big star.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's living in Nazi occupied Europe and ends up in a Nazi prison, not a Nazi concentration camp, but in a Nazi prison for over a year.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when he finally makes it out of that prison during a prisoner exchange, he's not the same guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's 50 years old and now he's attempting to navigate a US territorial system that is very different from the one he left behind when he was part of the [SPEAKER_01]: and they sort of, and so he's, when people are mentioning the name Reginald Seeky and Sweet Daddy Seeky started his career wrestling as Reginald Seeky, that I don't know that it's right to say that it rubs me the wrong way, but the fact that he's sort of, [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't really an homage to the original Reginald Seaky, he's kind of leaching off of whatever lingering [SPEAKER_01]: acknowledgment recognition there was to that name to use it to benefit his own career and then combining that if if it wasn't obvious I'm I'm a huge jet clayborn fan retroactively Come on, not not not it's time a certain certainly not if you look at the only footage we have a jet clayborn who's who was throwing [SPEAKER_01]: a dozen drop kicks a night in what was a glorified boxing ring and taking those bumps on that stiff mat and enduring the the harsh travel conditions of the era and you see him in Australia in 1951 I think so you've got like one minute of match footage and [SPEAKER_01]: He's broken down, he's overweight compared to his peak form, and yet he's standing flat-footed throwing drop kicks, conducting with the chin of a 6-3 opponent, and he's doing the monkey flip, pop to his feet, toe touch, that you would see Carlos Colone doing it every match he ever did in Puerto Rico in the 1980s, except.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know, based on the clippings and match reports.

[SPEAKER_01]: These are things that that Clayborne was doing in the 1930s.

[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, and by that time, he's mixing in with the drop kicks and the high flying stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's also doing the jumping headbutts.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you look at a sweet daddy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Seaky match from 1960 and it's the exact same act except that Seaky is.

[SPEAKER_01]: far younger and far shorter than Jack Clayborn was.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, someone like me looks at sweet daddy Seeky's origin and his repertoire and says, the entire thing was borrowed, at least in the early stages of his career, from the pioneers that preceded him who never got any credit.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's tough for me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will tell you I did not vote for Sweet Daddy Seeky on my ballot because it's tough for me to look at him knowing what I know about the wrestlers that preceded him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And [SPEAKER_01]: Seeing the credit that they did not receive, it's tough for me to want to give him credit when my perception now is that he borrowed way too much from guys who still have not received any recognition.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, if they were to receive recognition, maybe my opinion would change.

[SPEAKER_01]: But as for now, I did not vote for Sweet Daddy Seeking.

[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't have the counterpoint to what you just said be that if Sweet Daddy Seeky got in and was recognized as a wrestling observer newsletter Hall of Famer that would enhance the legacy of these guys like Jack Clayborn in the sense of Seeky's own by enhancing Seeky's legacy as a or the the second Seeky legacy as a wrestling observer newsletter Hall of Famer.

[SPEAKER_00]: it would enhance the case of like, well, if that guy's a Hall of Famer, then he was clearly inspired by to use a generous term, these other wrestlers who came before him.

[SPEAKER_01]: My rejoinder to that is that only makes logical sense if people know who Jack Clayborne in the original Reginald Seeky are to begin with.

[SPEAKER_01]: My presumption is that most people will say, oh, sweet daddy Seeky died recently.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hear that he was this pioneering figure, I'm going to vote for him, and they're [SPEAKER_01]: And the information, I'm going to sound like I'm plugging my book, I'm not.

[SPEAKER_01]: Unless you're not really.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, but you, no, I want to recognize this is important that you have done enormous amount of work to document this stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not a plug as much as this is the necessary work that we meet.

[SPEAKER_00]: That people should consume if they're interested and want to learn more.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Unless you read a decided novelty, unless you read gentleman Jack and Rough Rufus, you're not going to have the familiarity with Clayborn or Clayborn Rufus, the original [SPEAKER_01]: Make that connection between what those guys did in the 1930s and what Ciki was doing in the late 50s and early 60s and it's Bearcat right I believe was born in 32 and sweet daddy Ciki was born in 33 so just for the sake of Putting this in the proper frame of reference [SPEAKER_01]: Bearcat right was born the year that Jack Clayborn debuted the year after I think Jim Mitchell debuted and sweet daddy Seaky Sweet daddy Seaky born the year after all of those guys were already active tiger Nelson gorilla Parker [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I mentioned Jim Mitchell, uh, Seely Samara was a couple years away from making his debut.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, the original Rufus Jones aka the original Tiger Flowers had already made his debut in the Boston area.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, and these guys, those with longevity from that era were, [SPEAKER_01]: 20 years into their career, give or take before bare cat right, even day viewed.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and it was even, and it was even longer before, uh, sweet Daddy Seeky made his debut.

[SPEAKER_01]: And unless you read, unless you read a decided novel to your gentleman Jack and a rough roof is or do a lot a lot of independent research on your own, you, you're not going to be able to make that connection.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not that I'm calling [SPEAKER_01]: it's not that I'm calling observer voters lazy because there are only so many hours in the day and there's only so much time you can devote to doing a pro wrestling research that someone hasn't already taken an interest in and neatly laid out for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I [SPEAKER_01]: I just don't trust that most people would be able to make those connections and I don't blame them for not being able to do it because wrestling history is not very tidy and it takes an awful lot of work to aggregate all the information together and present it in a need and tidy format.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, especially for going the further you go back in history, like a few [SPEAKER_00]: You're not going to get 10,000 hits with a bunch of easy to digest information.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a lot of like newspaper archival research.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're doing that, how reliable is that information?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is that just fluff coming from promoter that they're running in the back of a sports page in 1936?

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a, it's a lot of, of individual work.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, with, with three to any Seeky, what do you think about, because some of it's kind of interests intrigued me if I'm as a candidate, you mentioned.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you have like this kind of, what I feel like is like an archetype for black wrestlers of the, the 50s and 60s, which I'll just say is like the Bobo Brazil archetype, which is like, [SPEAKER_00]: You know, big, strong, black, baby face kind of character.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sweet.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of head butts.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there was a lot of head butts, but I'm the thing, you know, like Bob O'Bresil, like your sailor, art Thomas, or these kind of characters kind of like basically JYG would be a, oh, like a next generation kind of version of that kind of wrestler.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then sweet.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what do you think, sweet daddy, Siki, though, is not really that kind of wrestler, especially once he goes to Canada.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he kind of does this basically this black buddy Rogers gimmick, where he's a heel, which I don't know at the time seems pretty novel for a major black star to be a heel wrestler in that kind of role.

[SPEAKER_00]: What do you feel do you feel like that's that's overblown?

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, because that's what's intrigued me about him, because when we look at who is in the Hall of Fame, right, for black wrestlers, we do, I feel like a lot of black wrestlers are pigeonholed into a certain character that they had to be.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when Sikki was in the United States, he was, he was, say there are Thomas's tag team partner.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when he goes to Canada, and especially when he's in Calgary, it does feel like he is, I was an innovative innovating, but he is playing a really different role in a lot of his black contemporaries were out to be.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, again, when you look at who was allowed, and this is not me wanting to take credit away from him, because yes, he was innovative in that role, the black pro wrestling heel in.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Black Pro Wrestling Heal in Canada, like the original Rufus Jones, Joe Alvin Godfrey had that completely locked down, had that gimmick completely locked down, and he could be he could be somewhat flamboyant in his lifestyle, in terms of what he did outside of the ring and during his interviews, [SPEAKER_01]: But then he would also get in the ring and be the most dastardly of dastardly heels and he did not that I recall.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe he did.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was huge as Rufus Jones.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was huge in the Pacific Northwest and down into Utah, which is where he unfortunately died in the car accident in 1951 in [SPEAKER_01]: But again, that sort of the thing, and again, it isn't that sweet daddy.

[SPEAKER_01]: See, he didn't make some tweaks and innovations, but the fact that a black heel wrestler, who was kind of, I don't want to say he was undersized.

[SPEAKER_01]: Rufus Jones was only five seven and a half.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, about the same size as we Daddy Seaky was, but he proved the case decades earlier that a black heel in Canada could be a major box office attraction for a long, long time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, give everything in.

[SPEAKER_00]: kind of going back to our previous conversation and tying it into Sweet Daddy Seeking, and to the lesser extent Dory Dickson, because Dory Dickson's background, I think, is different from Jamaica, and he kind of broke into wrestling in Mexico.

[SPEAKER_00]: But with these guys, we're also seeing them, if you listen to Sweet Daddy Seeking, Greg Oliver is not a ton of interviews and [SPEAKER_00]: His career is definitely limited working in the United States during the time period.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you mentioned, put Jack Clayborn said, which is really fascinating in the sense of like, once wrestling became on TV, they became this real concern about how black wrestlers are going to be pushed.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's when you see a lot more [SPEAKER_00]: of like I guess like segregation in wrestling cards and if you're going to have black wrestlers there's going to be you know it's going to be one black wrestler wrestling another black wrestler and that's kind of like the token match that you might see on some cards if you see them at all [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, you know, sweet daddy, Seeky moves to Canada in large part because, uh, for he was easier for him to get booked.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know he married a white woman and he always stated that that hurt his, his bookings.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, he was a pretty big star in Texas when he was in the early parts of his career just going through, um, looking at the cards and things like that, seeing him [SPEAKER_00]: You know, wrestling it and made it that programs and doing a lot of like kind of Plotted brawl kind of stuff that was those big in Texas at the time period, but he becomes this Canadian wrestler in Toronto and later stampede.

[SPEAKER_00]: And while he's successful there, it's hard to imagine that he would have been as limited if he was white.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's really important context for both him and Dory Dixon, Dory Dixon's is great wrestler who is obviously could have been a big star in the United States.

[SPEAKER_00]: Potentially he worked mass and square card and he did some stuff for, you know, Vitt Seenier and Russell, I think you were like bunny Rogers and stuff right when that promotion was for a star in the early 60s.

[SPEAKER_00]: But his career is also definitely limited in the United States, and so how do we take that into consideration when we're looking at their overall health and candidacy?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the kind of missing thing that I think a lot of the reporting body is failing to consider.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's gonna, again, I'm gonna take this back to Clayborne and I'm only going to do it because I've just, the bulk of my research is on Clayborne and Jones.

[SPEAKER_01]: But in Texas, the Boxing Commission oversaw wrestling and they passed the law that there could be no matches between, [SPEAKER_01]: Black and white boxes and they could also not have matches between black and white wrestlers.

[SPEAKER_01]: So when clayborn comes down from Oregon to wrestle in Texas, it was like 1934 or 35 he's brought in and they attempt to bring him in as a Cuban [SPEAKER_01]: as if nobody would notice, and this happens frequently, and he's permitted to wrestle in [SPEAKER_01]: He's permitted to wrestle across the border in Mexico where he's presented as an Ethiopian, which the Italian did evaded Ethiopian at the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he's wrestling against his Italian opponent, who wasn't actually Italian.

[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, he wins his match and the Mexican storm, the Mexican fans stormed the ring and they placed him up on there.

[SPEAKER_01]: shoulders and they carry him around the rings, screaming Viva, eat the opia, and then across the border in El Paso.

[SPEAKER_01]: The promoter tries to get him on the card and no, sorry, he's banned because he's black and we don't care how Cuban you say he is this applies to skin color not nationality so he's done and later in the decade you end up with some some black only wrestling cards and the biggest star from that era to come off of the to come out of those promotions with cyclone johnny cab who later winds up wrestling.

[SPEAKER_01]: in the Midwest primarily in Wisconsin, and there's actually an article written during World War II where he'd been drafted and he's the cook in a kitchen, but he's talking about how he got his start as a pro wrestler down in Texas.

[SPEAKER_01]: But yes, regionally, [SPEAKER_01]: these guys were very limited in terms of where they can go.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't until the late 1940s where Don Blackman and Don Kendrid were permitted to cross into Virginia from [SPEAKER_01]: uh, as teammates on some cards, they were permitted to cross into Virginia and that was like the test case to see if a, if two competent black wrestlers in the South could draw and they opened up the balconies and even though it wasn't the main event of the show, it really was the main event of the show and it was a huge hit with black per wrestling fans and so [SPEAKER_01]: uh...

the original jim crocket comes back a few years later and he books don black men and buddy jackson on shows in not only virginia but also north carolina south carolina and that became the model for a decade for booking black wrestlers in [SPEAKER_01]: in the southern states is you'd just you'd pair them up and just bring them in to wrestle each other in the Negro match.

[SPEAKER_01]: They also did that with Willie Love and Bud Richardson later on into the 60s.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don Blackman doesn't get nearly enough credit for being a guy who really launched [SPEAKER_01]: all Negro tour of the south where he really brought the first all black wrestling shows into the deep south where uh he he went down there with buddy Jackson he went down there with Alex Kaffner he went down there with Frank James who later ends up on the tag team in the northwest with Don Kindred called the brown bombers [SPEAKER_01]: and they're the first black tag team to win the major, to win a major race neutral tag team championship really anywhere in North America.

[SPEAKER_01]: And taking it back to what you were saying about Canada, Toronto especially became one of the regions that was especially friendly to black wrestlers early on.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jack Clayborn when he was already on the town side of his career and getting banned from different and WA friendly territories because he ran a foul of Alcarasic.

[SPEAKER_01]: He ends up in Toronto teaming with young Luther Lindsey and they become the Canadian tag team champions.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the first black baby face tag team to win a race neutral championship in North America.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then Clayborn, who I'm sure didn't take too kindly to this.

[SPEAKER_01]: He quickly gets swapped out of that tag team combination for a young bear cat right.

[SPEAKER_01]: when the promoters likely realized that he couldn't go like he used to.

[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I would say that Sweet Daddy Seaky made a wise career move heading to Canada because Canada was a place that in comparison to some of the other territories was more black-friendly at the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: At least that was its reputation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think it's worth like reviewing up like a punch and understanding up on the institutional limitations that we have that are impacting these guys careers.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's limited territories that they can work in.

[SPEAKER_00]: And even fewer limited territories that are gonna give them anything, that would be considered like a push or a start of you.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there's that.

[SPEAKER_00]: You also bring up a good point about how like you would have [SPEAKER_00]: The designated Negro match, you have one wrestler and they would wrestle another Negro wrestler, which is extremely limiting from like a talent progress development perspective.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're just wrestling the same person or the same handful of wrestlers every single night, it's very difficult to become a good pro wrestler with that limited amount of opponents.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's something that if you talk to any wrestling trainer, [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, today we'll say I think it's come up a lot with women's wrestling over the last several years.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, where it's like if you're only gonna let [SPEAKER_00]: Like if women's wrestling, like if you're not going to do intergender wrestling, it's very difficult for women's wrestling on the independent scene to get any better because there's only so many women's wrestlers, they're only the best way for them to get better is for them to wrestle the male wrestlers.

[SPEAKER_00]: a handful of other black wrestlers, they have an uphill battle in progressing as an overall wrestler if they are not getting as diverse of an experience as their contemporaries.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's interesting to note.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then especially as we move further in time as the territory system changes and gets consolidated in a lot of ways, we then move into this era where [SPEAKER_00]: a very, very small number of people are end up basically controlling the wrestling industry and deciding who gets to be a star and who is going to get pushed.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that more than anything, [SPEAKER_00]: is responsible for the limited number of black wrestlers we see in the Observer Hall of Fame because there are decades and decades really go by where the amount of true main event push black wrestlers in the United States can be counted on one hand.

[SPEAKER_00]: So when you look at who are the strongest candidates, there's a reason I think that we're going back to the pre-tallivision era in that is this huge, issue, we can't correct it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can't go back in time and make it so it's different.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the best we can do is kind of evaluate and understand the institutional limitations to a lot of talent.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, when you, if you read my, if you read my essay, if you, if you count the number of black pro wrestling title reigns during the 80s and what we would consider to be a major territory in that era, uh, go ahead and name them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, right on the in the US in the US.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, name.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I did read this yesterday.

[SPEAKER_00]: So now I want to be [SPEAKER_00]: none.

[SPEAKER_01]: The answer would be it hasn't sound what you consider either.

[SPEAKER_00]: So like J.

Y.

D.

was champion, but was that be considered with his title be considered a major championship?

[SPEAKER_01]: See, I would I would say no.

[SPEAKER_01]: When you look at let's let's take let's take Jim Crocket promotions and let's take the world wrestling Federation.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: So those two titles basically the NWA World Championship and [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I think I'm even saying tag team change.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yes, okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, now I remember The answer is one.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's Tony Atlas and Rocky Johnson correct.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's them From the times that it from the time that they went truly national it's them and it [SPEAKER_01]: It flies in the face of logic when you compare that to something like the boxing title picture in just about every weight division during the same era, you have black fighters up and down those cards and in a lot of weight divisions, the title picture is dominated [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I mentioned in the essay, like there's a reason that a lot of black wrestling fans fondly remember when Virgil won the million dollar championship from Ted D.

B.

Aussie, even though it's this non-sanction championship, and that's because from the time the WWF became a truly national promotion, if you [SPEAKER_01]: If you discard the Rocky Johnson Tony Atlas title reign as being like that was right at the jumping off point and by the time most people nationally were tuning in that wasn't even being mentioned anymore.

[SPEAKER_01]: black pro wrestling champions in the WWF of any kind when it's truly a national and international promotion.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's meant on a mission winning the tag game championships and I don't even think that even I don't even think they appeared on television with the titles because that was a how show victory.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that image of black wrestler as champion in [SPEAKER_01]: the WWF is something that I think eluded fans until I'm a Johnson when the intercontinental championship.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and so it's one of those things that I think.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, the conversation takes me back to, do you remember the Oscars controversy of, I must say it was 2013 or 2014, um, regarding the Oscar nominees was Oshashdad Oscars so white talking about the complete lack of representation on, in the Oscar nominations.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you remember what I'm talking about.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, I remember the conversation at the time, being I was in college at the time, which would [SPEAKER_00]: Well, what movies would be nominated?

[SPEAKER_00]: Name an actor, name a movie that should be nominated, that came out this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not really the conversation that we're having.

[SPEAKER_00]: The conversation should be why does this institution refuse to [SPEAKER_00]: In the case of movies like financially support black led movies or movies that have black leading roles or directed by a black director or any director of color, and I feel like conversation is so much especially when we talk about modern wrestling.

[SPEAKER_00]: like the answer is not well like if who should be on this Hall of Fame ballot like name a black world champion you can't so therefore that that this is fine but the real question is there are many what has happened in this institution has prevented black wrestlers from being able to succeed to the degree where they would be considered obvious observer Hall of Fame candidates based on the criteria that has been set up [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's an important discussion in relevant when we're having this conversation.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think last year I was talking to Lyric Swinton about this and she mentioned a really good point where she mentioned shell and Benjamin, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's look at shell and Benjamin's career.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sean Benjamin came into WWE, he had a lot of things going from incredible athlete, good worker, had a ton of potential, got a, a, a, a midcard push, one the inner kind of championship, but he reached a very critical point of his career where the company said, okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: This guy is going to take the net, we need to figure out if this guy is going to take the next step in order for him to become a true main event star where we can maybe headline WrestleMania within one day.

[SPEAKER_00]: What did the company do?

[SPEAKER_00]: at that time.

[SPEAKER_00]: What did they give Shelton Benjamin to help him maybe come out, you know, maybe he wasn't a great promo, maybe he needed a little help with this character.

[SPEAKER_00]: What did the company give him?

[SPEAKER_00]: They gave him a Mami character that was super embarrassing and his career never recovered from that.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's probably doing his best work now that he since the Mami characters introduced, [SPEAKER_00]: And you compare that to say how the company do for Brock Lesnar, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Brock Lesnar, University Minnesota product, obvious guy they wanted to push as a big start, what did they do for him to help him overcome maybe his promo or character weaknesses?

[SPEAKER_00]: They give him Paul Hayman.

[SPEAKER_00]: Dave Batista, another contemporary, what did they do to help them?

[SPEAKER_00]: They put them in this storyline with evolution and tribulation, wreck flare, and they made it.

[SPEAKER_00]: They gave them this huge, huge angle to eventually get them over because the company was really committed to getting those guys over as stars.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then you have Sean Benjamin, who maybe had the same potential as those guys, or even greater potential than those guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what was he given?

[SPEAKER_00]: He was given a really stereotypical insulting character that submarine his entire career.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't think Sean Benjamin's ever going to appear on this ballot because of what happened to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think it had anything to do with.

[SPEAKER_00]: uh, his talent or his work ethic or anything that he could really control, it was almost entirely because of the way, uh, a very small number of people, or in this case, perhaps only one person and even the man viewed him in what his career could be.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's something that is context, that's really important to understand when we talk about these wrestlers.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so when we think of somebody like Mercedes Monet as a candidate and people can weigh in on whether they feel like she is deserving candidate on this ballot or not, [SPEAKER_00]: But you think of the environment that she stepped into as a young black woman in WWE in the mid 2010s and what she has been able to accomplish and put that into the context of where the things that have institutionally been working against people that look like her.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for her it's almost a double whammy of being a woman and being black.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so do we properly appreciate that?

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's something that's worth evaluating if you're looking at the ballot this year.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I agree.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you made an excellent point about writing for one person who, in this case, being Vince McMahon.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that may have to do with some, [SPEAKER_01]: a knackeringistic, prejudicial thinking, conceptualizing a talent on the part of somebody who inherited or bought the company from his father, who'd been wrestling for an attorney, who'd been promoting for an attorney, but in the from the time period that [SPEAKER_01]: Vince, we're from the time period that Vince began observing what was going on in wrestling.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure the structure was something like, okay, we have the guy on top who can appeal to the majority of paying fans in our area.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we also need to make sure we have a black guy on the [SPEAKER_01]: in in some respects Vince probably thought okay what what is his understanding of blackness his understanding according to Carlito Vince's understanding of a Puerto Rican was was a pimp at at one point that is a very dated 1970s conceptualization of what a Puerto Rican of a Puerto Rican stereotype into York City at the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: uh...

but that was vince's go to and carlito said he didn't like that and he didn't want to do it uh...

when you look at sheldon Benjamin yet he gets he gets settled with a mami character uh...

off the top of my head i don't recall what what was done with book or tea during the time that they started pushing him as a baby's face aside from the fact that [SPEAKER_01]: Triple H cuts the obvious racist illusions of like your type of wrestler you know what your job is to do entertain me dance for me booker and then beats him anyway.

[SPEAKER_01]: At WrestleMania and apparently.

[SPEAKER_01]: nobody realized that there would be some some hurt some lingering hurt feelings with black fans over that or thought that they wouldn't care or that it didn't matter anyway.

[SPEAKER_01]: But yes, there are certain obstacles that have historically been [SPEAKER_01]: put in the paths of black wrestlers who were ascending the latter, even in relatively recent history.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's very unfortunate and it does affect the way we contextualize and evaluate their candidacy for the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame nowadays.

[SPEAKER_01]: And unfortunately [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how you correct for that unless, unless they have some, unless David signed some sort of super committee that can evaluate, especially the pre-TV era stuff and says, okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: who are the guys that absolutely need to be in here that are just simply never going to get in, otherwise.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he has, he will induct people.

[SPEAKER_00]: that aren't.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't ever appear on the ballot because he feels that the historic police significant they would never get the votes to put it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Who did he do that for?

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he's honestly don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has done it several times.

[SPEAKER_00]: He did the last person I can remember off the map.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he did it for Lou Darrow who is a promoter in the L.A.

[SPEAKER_00]: area during the first half of the 20th century.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is because back to my more sequel as she were, I think you should do it with more sequel.

[SPEAKER_00]: But [SPEAKER_00]: He said because more Seagulls are already on the ballot, he just has to get the votes which is going to be like super super difficult because more Seagull was a promoter that started promoting in 1911, he's done that with a few international like a non like I was like rest of the world candidates he I know he did it with like George Colonel George with the offland who you might actually be familiar with.

[SPEAKER_01]: but was like yes I am most people are but I know what I'm researching right now on the Goplin was big in the Detroit area and he wrestled Duncan Ross this is right after Duncan Ross is sort of taken over Cleveland through Buffalo as like the kingpin leveraging the fact that he was one of the best all around athletes in the [SPEAKER_01]: and booking himself as the mixed wrestling champion of the world and so he had Ross was kind of ahead of his time.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's actually, he books himself to beat McLaughlin in Cleveland, which is [SPEAKER_01]: Ross is based of operations.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, you see the first booker to ever book himself as champion?

[SPEAKER_00]: What a what a historic that's a story.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's very historically relevant.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he he books him he books himself as champion in Cleveland [SPEAKER_01]: uh...

he beats he brings it on forgetting the guy's name he's one of the first japanese stars to uh...

make entry into the u.s.

[SPEAKER_01]: he beats the japanese wrestler who he's also training but people don't know that um...

he beats him but he books it so that that guy breaks his ribs and then he goes up to Detroit and loses to beglufflin who targets rosses of rips [SPEAKER_01]: and then Ross claims, well, it was an unfair targeting of my ribs.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm still the mixed world wrestling champion back in Cleveland, while McLaughlin gets to say he's the world champion and the Detroit region.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you're like, in the 1870s, basically.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is in 1884.

[SPEAKER_00]: OK, yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he's done that with those kind of wrestlers, but it's kind of to your point where it's like these are guys that should be in.

[SPEAKER_00]: he just decides these guys are never gonna get the votes from the voting body for reasons that we've discussed previously, so he puts them in.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think he did that with on-right Ducline.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know he did that with Paul Ponds.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's done it with, I think he did, I don't know, I can't remember if Gus Saneberg got voted or not.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm pretty sure he probably, I pretty sure Gus Saneberg probably wasn't voted, I'm pretty sure he put him in.

[SPEAKER_00]: So basically, [SPEAKER_01]: when Canada, when the cloud, the Scotsman goes in, I'm clueing people in under one of my next book is about.

[SPEAKER_01]: The cloud goes in and describes, it wrestles under the name George Little and Pods doesn't know who he is.

[SPEAKER_01]: And says that he can throw him a bet the bet is he can throw him a cloud three to sorry, he can throw George little three times in an hour and he fails to do it once and I think the cloud even beats him and puns leaves in disgrace.

[SPEAKER_01]: and then the cloud ends up getting arrested and sued for for wrestling under a suit in him, but it ends up getting dropped.

[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Dave has historically done this for people that he feel like they should be in, but they are never going to get the votes.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I mean, I think it would be [SPEAKER_00]: If we're talking about like someone like Jack Layborn, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: I almost think it would be great if you just got on an inductive in the Hall of Fame, we can all scatter ourselves in the back.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think it would almost be better for him to appear on the ballot and then for there, because that would an ultimately encourage more people, I think, to research this guy's background.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you run into the game, but a lot of people are just not going to do the research and they're going to be like, this guy, I'm never even heard of him, I'm going to vote for the Iron Cheek instead, which happens a lot.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think would probably if the goal is overall to let more people know about this guy's career, then that's something that I think is worth probably doing, but it's all up to whoever Dave decides to put on the ballot.

[SPEAKER_01]: See, and I don't know that this would really be an in-service, I almost, [SPEAKER_01]: Almost conceiving of it as if it were the Negro leagues as if it was a separate thing where you almost have a separate category.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you put the original Rufus Jones, Buddy Jackson, Don Kindred, Don Blackman, Jack Clayborn, Jim Mitchell, you put them all in their own category, and the people who are familiar with it can pick three.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if we do it based on the percentage of the ballots that way, it provides an opportunity for them to get inducted.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and people are going to say this is DEI and that's fine.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't care.

[SPEAKER_01]: It at least encourages people to look up their these guys careers and try to put it in the proper context.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, which is hopefully like the whole point of the observa Hall of Fame is to be.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a physical building.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can't go and visit it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a tourist attraction.

[SPEAKER_00]: The entire [SPEAKER_00]: celebrate in service like a monument to the individuals that have made the progress, like industry, what it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in a lot of cases, it doesn't really good job at that, but that doesn't mean that it can't be improved.

[SPEAKER_01]: Speaking of that, speaking of the physical halls of fame, and this is [SPEAKER_01]: This is a minor plug for the most recent book, but it also speaks to the importance of doing this research.

[SPEAKER_01]: Clarence Bolden, who I researched, who was half black and nobody knew about that background when he wrestled in Buffalo.

[SPEAKER_01]: He won two world championships in the lower weight divisions during that era and Frank gotcha's referring to him as the best pound for pound pro wrestler in the world at the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he got his opportunities in all likelihood because nobody realized that he was half black.

[SPEAKER_01]: They build him as the Cuban wonder.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he divorced his black wife.

[SPEAKER_01]: He married a white woman and lived the remainder of his life into the 1960s as a white man.

[SPEAKER_01]: And [SPEAKER_01]: When I did the research for this book and was able to confirm using census records and marriage records and everything else, yes, undeniably he was half black, I, the ringer, the ringer published that article, and a extended version of that is in a decided novelty the book.

[SPEAKER_01]: Once the book was published, members of the bold and family came out of the woodwork messaging me and thanking me for the fact that I shed this light on their grandfather and great grandfather, and I presented this information to Seth Turner at the International Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame.

[SPEAKER_01]: and said, like, look, and I also sent it to Gerald Briscoe, who oversees things for the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, and I said to Brian Blair, who has a lot of influence over the CAC's Hall of Fame, and a lot of times, they like to see that, in the case of a deceased individual, they like to see that there is a family member that they can bring forward to accept the recognition on their behalf.

[SPEAKER_01]: Seth Turner at the International Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame got back to us almost immediately and said your timing was perfect.

[SPEAKER_01]: Clarence Bolden's getting inducted.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's receiving the Trailblazer Award.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to bring his family up to New York for the induction.

[SPEAKER_01]: The plaques going up in the Hall of Fame and they're getting the Hall of Famering.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was awesome.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is I mean, things like that are way more important to me that these guys are finally starting to get some acknowledgment and I immediately follow that up by saying, Hey, we could do this every year here are 12 guys who I think are deserving of some sort of recognition.

[SPEAKER_01]: here's a mini bio on each and why I think they deserve it and here you go you can do what you want with it but hopefully we see some of these names in the Hall of Fame eventually.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame can do something to get recognition for these Black Pro Wrestling pioneers.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, well thanks a lot again for joining the show.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have anything else you want to plug?

[SPEAKER_00]: I know we've talked about some of your recent work so far, but if there's anything Formally you want to give a shout out towards [SPEAKER_01]: Ah, well, you can find all of my books on Amazon.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's E and Douglas, I-A-N-D-O-U-G-L-A-S-S.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you type in E and Douglas with just one else, you're going to get a prominent science fiction writer.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to follow me on Instagram, even though I post next to nothing on there, it's E and Mac Douglas, I-A-N-M-A-C-D-O-U-G-L-A-S-S.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you want to follow me on Twitter, I am at Stream, STRE AM Glass, G-O-A-S-S.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, thanks a lot again.

[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate being able to show.

[SPEAKER_00]: And thanks for all my listeners, and we'll talk to you again after a while.