Latest / My Third Place Pod / Episode 219 - The Legend of Meng: Wrestling's Toughest Man or Urban Myth?

Transcript

Episode 219 - The Legend of Meng: Wrestling's Toughest Man or Urban Myth? · My Third Place Pod

• 0:01
  Taking a quick moment from just beating people up on Marvel
• 0:05
  rivals season 2 to bring you something new for this week.
• 0:12
  So I kind of messed up guys. I posted the predictions episode
• 0:18
  way too early on a Monday. Like it's still there if you
• 0:22
  guys want to listen to it up until this weekend when backlash
• 0:29
  shows up on our screens on Peacock, don't forget to check
• 0:32
  that out. Go listen to the predictions
• 0:34
  episode with myself, Menace, and our friend Greg.
• 0:39
  You'll love it. Other than that, with all this
• 0:44
  discourse discussing about Meng Haku lately, I don't know.
• 0:51
  I've seen it all over the Internet, people.
• 0:56
  Somebody responded saying that it's all this is lies, it's not
• 1:00
  true and all this stuff. There was Jimmy.
• 1:03
  Hart talking about it as well. Miles to South, Jimmy Hart.
• 1:08
  And then like me bringing it up, I was like, I saw him, I saw
• 1:14
  Mang. I was freaking at WrestleMania
• 1:16
  41. Like jump the barricade and
• 1:19
  congratulate Jacob Paul too, for winning the the the title from
• 1:25
  LA Knight. And I'm like, who's going to
• 1:29
  stop him? Nobody shit.
• 1:31
  The the bodyguard ain't going to stop the bodyguard.
• 1:35
  No, not the bodyguard. The security guard, like, knew
• 1:39
  who it was. Like, yeah, I'm not stopping
• 1:41
  that, man. Like who's going to stop?
• 1:43
  Mang from jumping and I'm just like he went over check.
• 1:47
  Hell yeah, that's awesome. Like literally who would stop
• 1:52
  him? And just because of that, I said
• 1:55
  that I was like, you know what? It's true.
• 1:57
  Who would stop that man? Nobody.
• 2:00
  So because of all this discourse surrounding him and everything,
• 2:04
  I went back to old episodes of mine.
• 2:09
  Yes, I did. Very old episode is actually
• 2:13
  from May of 2022 when I first started the podcast under from
• 2:20
  under the apron, the banner the from under the apron banner and
• 2:26
  I decided you know what I'm gonna repost this episode.
• 2:29
  Even though the Co host at the time is no longer around Kishina
• 2:36
  Booker, I'm still gonna repost it.
• 2:38
  It was an awesome episode. Y'all need to hear it it like
• 2:41
  there were more to it at the time and since it was in May I
• 2:46
  will be reposting that second-half of the show in
• 2:50
  around when it actually happens because of something that
• 2:55
  happened that that exact same month is what, 20-30 years ago?
• 3:02
  Yeah, but this one was posted May 27th, 2022.
• 3:11
  It is an old episode. So please check it out.
• 3:16
  Let me know what you guys think It's about Mang or Haku as you
• 3:22
  all like to just call him like I know him.
• 3:25
  I was like, yeah, he his name was Haku and WF long that's time
• 3:28
  ago. But I know him as the phase of
• 3:31
  fear with the barbarian and you know Mang cousins.
• 3:35
  He was in WW, the dungeon of Doom.
• 3:39
  Is that what it was called? It was.
• 3:42
  I'm telling you. At the time, this dude was
• 3:45
  ruthless. This dude was amazing.
• 3:48
  And I will forever know him as Meg.
• 3:51
  And This is why I'm like, if I hear stories of Meg, it's like I
• 3:55
  believed them. I believed them.
• 3:59
  Here's one like, let me pull up the one that I heard about Jimmy
• 4:03
  Hart say. I believe it was from this past
• 4:10
  week. Jimmy Hart shares a Haku story
• 4:16
  here. He said how about the time I was
• 4:18
  his manager on Nitro when Goldberg pick me up and drop me
• 4:21
  in the ring after match backstage.
• 4:24
  Haku wasn't too happy with the drop and let's just say he
• 4:27
  didn't just mention it to Goldberg.
• 4:29
  I was Mr. Hart from there on. This was on Instagram I think,
• 4:36
  and somebody answered him with the the Machoverse answer him
• 4:41
  with wow, that's awesome. Haku broke the streak after all.
• 4:45
  Thanks for sharing that, Jimmy. And he did he like don't don't
• 4:49
  mess with Haku, don't mess with Ming period.
• 4:52
  Point blank, don't ever. Our friend Kishina Baker.
• 5:00
  She was a columnist at the time at Sports Kita and then Body
• 5:06
  slam.net. It was freaking.
• 5:10
  It's an awesome sight. You also check it out.
• 5:11
  It's a great wrestling website for all that and it was her
• 5:16
  birthday at a time and happy birthday.
• 5:22
  If she's still around, if she's still listening, happy birthday.
• 5:26
  Hope it was hope you're having an amazing time.
• 5:29
  Hope everything is going great for you because you know we miss
• 5:32
  you around here. Be safe, OK?
• 5:36
  And here's the episode. Hope you all enjoy it and let me
• 5:39
  know what you guys think. It was me at the time.
• 5:42
  It was like, I tell you, it was one of those times where I was
• 5:47
  just, I don't know, like it was 20/22.
• 5:52
  It was one of those times. What episode was it?
• 5:55
  It was F 3435. It was episode 36.
• 6:02
  It was called the Chronicles of Keeping K5 alive with one king
• 6:04
  of Tonga Meng. At the time I was like looking
• 6:08
  at SEO stuff and what I should be doing and this is the title
• 6:14
  that came up and I posted it and it.
• 6:16
  Got a lot of. Downloads and play the streaming
• 6:19
  downloads hundred 35135 downloads and like at with the
• 6:26
  entire episode. It was an hour and 32 minutes.
• 6:30
  Now it's probably around an hour without me here under an hour
• 6:37
  without me without the the new me stuff going on.
• 6:41
  So yeah, I hope you all enjoy it.
• 6:42
  Let me know what you call sync and I shall see you after the I
• 6:46
  should you should hear from me after the episode.
• 6:48
  Go go check that out. Just would like to start off by
• 6:56
  saying that this episode does in no way point light at this
• 6:59
  person in a negative way. I understand that Dark Side of
• 7:03
  the Ring does this to some of his wrestlers like Tommy Dreamer
• 7:06
  and RVD when they were in the Plane Ride from Hell episode.
• 7:09
  Oh yeah, that one. Yeah, and it painted them in a
• 7:14
  negative way. We would like to celebrate this
• 7:16
  person's career and even the thought of mentioning this
• 7:19
  person already scares us half to death.
• 7:24
  Well, scares me half to the After the stories that we may
• 7:27
  have read or heard, we will be telling you a Side Story.
• 7:32
  If you wish to continue on and do your own rabbit chasing and
• 7:35
  go down that hole a lot deeper, by all means.
• 7:38
  We will have links to where you can find more stories in the
• 7:41
  description bio on Spotify. Now, if you're still here,
• 7:46
  Sheena, are you still around? Yep, still here.
• 7:51
  Yeah, OK. See, she wasn't scared off.
• 7:52
  That's cool. Meng King Tanga King Haku Badass
• 8:01
  mother, otherwise known by his real name Tanga Uli Uli Fifita,
• 8:08
  has wrestled for WC, www.e and New Japan Pro Wrestling.
• 8:14
  His name is so recognizable that is also the place of the island
• 8:18
  he grew up in from the. Island.
• 8:22
  An honor for both parts. An alien.
• 8:26
  The Island. From the island Kingdom of Tonga
• 8:30
  went to Tonga College where he played rugby and at the age of
• 8:33
  16 he was part of a group of six teenagers sent by King of Tonga
• 8:38
  to Japan to study sumo. His legacy and reputation
• 8:42
  precede him. You all heard of Chuck Norris
• 8:44
  stories? Well, there are Meng Haku
• 8:48
  stories that would make Chuck Norris seem like fake stories.
• 8:53
  And from what I gathered on the social media site, even YouTube
• 8:58
  and Reddit, all those Chuck Norris stories are really about
• 9:04
  Meng and Haku. Fair assumption there.
• 9:08
  Yeah, I'm going to sign off on that one.
• 9:12
  All right. So let's start off.
• 9:15
  Many former wrestlers have shared counts of stories
• 9:18
  throughout the years, since the 80s to even today.
• 9:22
  Just a few weeks ago on Young Rock, we saw him take a bite out
• 9:24
  of a guy's nose because he got it in his face and called
• 9:27
  wrestling fake. Yeah, you don't ever do that.
• 9:32
  If you ever come across a wrestler that you saw was badass
• 9:35
  and you asked him who would win the fight, him or mang, chances
• 9:40
  are he will look over his shoulder 1st to see if he's even
• 9:43
  there. And if that's not enough, you
• 9:46
  already brought out the evil spirits by just saying his name
• 9:48
  alone, so he will no doubt say that man is more badass than
• 9:52
  him. Guaranteed.
• 9:55
  So let's take a deep dive into the stories.
• 9:59
  The urban legend that is of Ming.
• 10:03
  I'm going to throw this out there like Full disclosure, I
• 10:08
  went into this assignment, this story.
• 10:12
  My King Haku was not what it is now.
• 10:17
  Certainly my first exposure to him was when he appeared in AW
• 10:21
  alongside his son Hikuleo. Do you remember that around last
• 10:26
  year? Yes, yes I do.
• 10:28
  Yeah, yeah. And that was around the same
• 10:31
  time that Broken Skull sessions and told a story about Tonga
• 10:39
  Haku Ming that we're probably going to get to in this
• 10:42
  broadcast. And I was like, oh, OK, you
• 10:45
  know, I gathered that he was like a an old head, a mentor
• 10:49
  figure. But oh, that only scratched the
• 10:51
  surface. Yeah, yeah.
• 10:58
  It's like, are you guys still listening out there 'cause like
• 11:01
  just listening If you, if you think just listening, it's gonna
• 11:05
  like affect you for some reason. Yeah, it's not.
• 11:09
  You're safe with us. Believe us.
• 11:11
  We're not painting him into negative light.
• 11:12
  No, he's awesome. No, this is definitely a
• 11:15
  celebration. And finding all these stories
• 11:18
  was a joy because they are definitely.
• 11:22
  They're like tall tales almost. It's like hearing about like a a
• 11:26
  folkloric figure and painted a much broader picture than, oh,
• 11:31
  those guys from the Bullet Club, their dad, who's a cute old man.
• 11:35
  It's like he has a past. Wow, yes he does.
• 11:45
  You want to start. Us off, Sure.
• 11:48
  Yeah. I will start with a really great
• 11:55
  quote from Jake the Snake. If I could find it, I would read
• 12:01
  it in a Jake The It's impression that I think that'd make my
• 12:05
  throat hurt. Oh my.
• 12:08
  OK, let's see. OK, if I had a gun, said Jake
• 12:15
  the sink Roberts and was sitting inside a tank with one shell
• 12:19
  left and Ming is 300 yards away. He's mine, right?
• 12:24
  Well, the first thing I'm going to do is jump out of the tank
• 12:27
  and shoot myself because I don't want to wound that son of a
• 12:30
  bitch and have him pissed off at me.
• 12:34
  Wow. Oh my.
• 12:39
  Yeah, Yeah. Make sure if you're going to,
• 12:42
  yeah, if you're going to do the job, make sure the job is done.
• 12:46
  Because then the words of scream shoot them in the head.
• 12:50
  So that is how Jake the Snake Roberts regards Ming Haku Tonga
• 12:59
  and yeah, go into exactly. He is regarded as so formidable.
• 13:08
  What did you come across in your research?
• 13:13
  On March 3rd, 1989, Haku got into an altercation with some
• 13:18
  men at the a Baltimore or airport bar who called wrestling
• 13:22
  fake. And so like so basically all the
• 13:25
  guys that are called wrestling fake and he just freaking bashes
• 13:30
  him like this is a fake. And during the fight Haku bit
• 13:36
  off the nose of one of the men. So this happened in 1989.
• 13:40
  The one that is in Young Rock is from 1996.
• 13:43
  So like it could have happened like several other times also to
• 13:46
  several other different people. His go to move is to bite the
• 13:50
  nose. Now I know where Mike Tyson got
• 13:52
  it from. Right.
• 13:55
  Yeah, this might be a It may be a series of noses.
• 13:59
  Haku stated. Yeah, it was in Baltimore
• 14:01
  Airport, me and Siba AFI, who used to be in WWF from 1986
• 14:07
  through 1988 and was billed as Superfly AFI, the cousin of
• 14:11
  Jimmy Snuka. They went over and there were
• 14:15
  lots of baby faces there at the bar so we went and sat in the
• 14:20
  order corner away from them because.
• 14:23
  You but background on that in the old days, the baby faces and
• 14:27
  the heels did not mix. They had their own locker rooms.
• 14:30
  The the baby faces hung out with each other each other.
• 14:35
  They tried to maintain that kayfabe tension in real life
• 14:38
  where possible. Yeah, he's pretty much it.
• 14:44
  When they were ready to close, we had a few drinks and on our
• 14:47
  way out there were five guys just sitting there.
• 14:49
  Of course, the same thing comes out, the fake stuff.
• 14:52
  Hey, are you guys with those guys wrestlers, The fake
• 14:54
  wrestlers on TV? You know, I said yeah, I'll show
• 14:57
  you, and I reached over without thinking.
• 15:00
  There are four other guys there. He laughed, grabbed his face,
• 15:04
  and bit his nose off. Then the fight started.
• 15:07
  Me and Sima kind of cleaned the house there and left.
• 15:09
  I'll never forget it. 01 of his favorite stories, I guess.
• 15:14
  And yeah, to expand on that, here is what Ming had to say
• 15:20
  about his feelings at that time about when people would say
• 15:26
  wrestling is fake. Whether I take your teeth out or
• 15:30
  take your eyeballs off or whatever it was.
• 15:32
  And the maybe they're going to kick my butt around, but watch
• 15:36
  it. I'm coming back and finding you.
• 15:38
  Those were the days. I'm glad nobody picked up a gun
• 15:41
  and shot my ass. But in those days, that's how it
• 15:43
  was. It's my love for the business.
• 15:48
  There you go. All the noses, what have you.
• 15:50
  He did it all for love. Love of wrestling?
• 15:53
  I love this sport. I will kill you.
• 16:02
  Hasn't seen action. Like what animates these stories
• 16:07
  is if you've ever seen him in the ring, it's like he's so
• 16:10
  energetic. He has these poses and like you
• 16:15
  can easily imagine, like that energy powering a real fight.
• 16:22
  There's a GIF where Hacksaw Jim Duggan head butts him and the
• 16:30
  headbutt sends Hacksaw jumping in the air and onto the mat.
• 16:34
  Like what? What?
• 16:36
  But he just said. But here it was like manga just
• 16:38
  standing there. Like you don't ever hit a
• 16:41
  headbutt, A Samoan or Tonga. And that is like a big part of
• 16:46
  his like in ring presence. A lot of the footage that I
• 16:53
  reviewed for this episode, especially like going into his
• 16:57
  WCW run, is about how like he just absorbs the blows.
• 17:02
  He does react. You really have to throw a lot
• 17:06
  at him to make him react. Yeah, he's to quote in my nerdy
• 17:14
  X-Men mythology. Here, he's the Bishop of X-Men
• 17:20
  of the wrestling world. He absorbs and hit back.
• 17:25
  It's always more of ADC comics fan but I I I I can pick up and.
• 17:30
  Take care, I can pick it up. See.
• 17:34
  Let me see any nerds out there would like to tell me the nerds.
• 17:41
  Nerds. Send in the nerds.
• 17:46
  Any of my geek friends want to tell me the the the similarities
• 17:49
  of Bishop and anybody on DC Let me know right now.
• 17:53
  At what? No, not at Yeah, Twitter.
• 17:57
  Also. I forgot my
• 18:00
  twitterjustemailmefromundertheapron@gmail.com Yeah, that'll work.
• 18:07
  Or or Twitter at apron. Under score stories so as.
• 18:13
  Mentioned Ming. That is how he was known in WCW,
• 18:19
  but in WWF he was Haku and he was in A tag team called the
• 18:27
  Islanders. Yes.
• 18:30
  And they had some notable feud the some other tag teams that
• 18:36
  were contemporary at the time, British Bulldogs Rujos.
• 18:41
  But he was also at one point in A tag team with Andre the Giant
• 18:46
  called Colossal Connection. They held the Tag Team
• 18:49
  Championships for a bit, but they lost them at WrestleMania 6
• 18:53
  to Demolition. Yeah, they did.
• 18:59
  Yeah, Yeah. That was, yeah.
• 19:04
  What? That was wild for me because,
• 19:08
  you know, I was born in 1990 in May, of course, today's my
• 19:12
  birthday as we already, but that was in January 1990.
• 19:17
  So I was like, I was in the precarious state of personhood
• 19:24
  when that match happened. I was like I was fetal.
• 19:30
  Oh my. Yeah, I'm sure we all have been
• 19:39
  that way. Yeah, like if anyone asks me,
• 19:42
  like, you know, oh, where were you?
• 19:44
  What was your reaction when Colossal Connection lost the Tag
• 19:47
  Team Championship to Demolition? I can honestly say I was in the
• 19:51
  fetal position. Oh boy.
• 19:55
  I was, I was feeling for, I was just feeling for Andre the Giant
• 19:59
  that hard. Yeah, we covered WrestleMania 6
• 20:04
  here while back WrestleMania season and we were like upset
• 20:12
  that they gave the belts to Demolition.
• 20:16
  Obviously I'm not a Demolition fan, but I was a big fan of
• 20:20
  Andre the Giant. And of course, who can never
• 20:22
  love Haku? But it was part of the Hayden
• 20:26
  family, so you know, you have to boot a guy.
• 20:29
  Right. So.
• 20:32
  After that loss, 1990 Haku was mostly on the House show circuit
• 20:39
  and booked in a lot of losses, but 1991 he forms A tag team
• 20:45
  with the Barbarian who was a childhood friend.
• 20:48
  They had actually both been sent to Japan to train as sumo
• 20:53
  wrestlers at the same time in their teens.
• 21:00
  Yes, they were. Who was it?
• 21:02
  Sione. Yeah, Sione is freaking awesome
• 21:04
  too. Like he was one of the other
• 21:09
  Tonga guys not to mess around with Meg and then Fione.
• 21:13
  But Sione was. For those that don't know, Sione
• 21:16
  was the guy that's replaced Samu and the Hedgehrinkers back in
• 21:19
  the 90s. And yeah, he was known as Sione
• 21:25
  and then he was also known as the Barbarian, but like he was
• 21:29
  one of the headstringers as well.
• 21:31
  And then he got he went to WCW and former tag team with Meng as
• 21:37
  one of the faces of Fear, Mang and Bulgarian.
• 21:43
  Faces gear now I did not see WCW.
• 21:47
  You did so expound a little on Faces of Fear what their modus
• 21:53
  operandi and their image was. Their image was being badass,
• 21:59
  like just the same image as always.
• 22:02
  It's just them being them, their motive, where they were from,
• 22:10
  the Dungeon of Doom, basically a whole group of people set on
• 22:15
  destroying Hulkamania and everything it represents.
• 22:19
  Unfortunately, they couldn't get it done, but in the first half,
• 22:26
  of course, they always were able to get it done.
• 22:28
  And then like all right, Faces of Fear or Dungeon of Doom and
• 22:32
  the Dungeon of Doom is Kevin Sullivan's voice, the mang and
• 22:36
  barbarian. So they try to get Hogan to the
• 22:41
  dark side. He did he he he dabbled on the
• 22:46
  dark side. He even wore black.
• 22:47
  And this is pre NWO, like way before NWO.
• 22:52
  So that happened a couple months after that.
• 22:58
  Well, a few weeks after that, Hogan destroyed them.
• 23:01
  He did everything, you know, he did the whole comeback from the
• 23:05
  dead and everything. And he wore the red and yellow
• 23:08
  for a few months. And then July happened and we
• 23:12
  all know where that went. Oh no, do you know NWO?
• 23:18
  OK. But that didn't stop Mang and
• 23:22
  Barbarian from still being the roughest, toughest tag teams in
• 23:27
  WTW like that. Even Kevin Nash and Scott Hall
• 23:31
  were like, Nah, we're good, we're good, Nah, we good, man,
• 23:35
  we good, we're good. Yeah, Speaking of Kevin Nash and
• 23:41
  Scott Hall, I was reviewing footage for preparing for this
• 23:47
  episode and I came across Ming's 1990 mat 1999 match against Bret
• 23:54
  Hart was interrupted by Kevin Nash and Scott Hall.
• 24:01
  And I it, it was a bit of a honest.
• 24:06
  Do you remember that one? No, I don't.
• 24:08
  Think I do. Yeah, it was actually a WCW
• 24:13
  World match Bret Hart, who was the current champion at that
• 24:17
  time, against Ming. And what was so great about the
• 24:23
  Bret and Ming portion of that segment is I love how Bret Hart
• 24:28
  was selling for him. It's really eating these moves
• 24:33
  and you know, this idea that Ming is a really tough guy and
• 24:40
  that Ming himself, it takes a lot to overcome him and make him
• 24:45
  feel pain. And the chemistry was great.
• 24:50
  Between the two of them comes Kevin Nash and Scott Hall.
• 24:55
  They do their NWO interrupting thing and another about that
• 25:06
  match is it was November 1999, just a few weeks before Bret
• 25:12
  Hart went on to Goldberg at Starcade.
• 25:16
  And you know, the rest is history, of course.
• 25:20
  Concussion. Yes.
• 25:22
  So for the interplay between the two competitors, I found it very
• 25:30
  well done. There's the NWO interruption,
• 25:35
  you know, and just the the place and time, you know, having it be
• 25:43
  right before that infamous Starrcade incident that wasn't,
• 25:47
  that was interesting too. Huh.
• 25:54
  Here's a Kevin Sullivan story. On one occasion when I was a
• 26:00
  Booker in WWI, asked Meng to do something that wasn't major, but
• 26:04
  it wasn't completely the right thing to do.
• 26:07
  Meng got a little upset and it was the most scared I've ever
• 26:10
  been in my entire life. Despite Meng not being that
• 26:13
  angry, I've also used Meng to my advantage when I had to inform a
• 26:17
  few guys that they would be losing an upcoming match.
• 26:21
  When the wrestlers became upset and told me they refused to do
• 26:23
  the job, I told him that instead of arguing, I would just go get
• 26:26
  Meng and have him take care of the situation.
• 26:29
  The guys immediately agreed to lose their matches.
• 26:31
  If I promise not take it, go get Meng.
• 26:36
  Kevin Sullivan was the wrestler Booker in WCW and so they
• 26:39
  traveled together quite often when they were on the road.
• 26:43
  He told the story to WWE Classic when the duo went to a Tavern to
• 26:47
  grab a few beers before heading to their hotel.
• 26:50
  According to Sullivan, it was obvious that they weren't
• 26:52
  locals, so when they walked into the bar, guy playing pool called
• 26:56
  Mang a horrible derogatory word. Oh boy.
• 27:00
  The next thing I know is that Mangoozle's a guy like Mr.
• 27:03
  Spock. Sullivan said it was fast and
• 27:08
  furious. He then grabbed another guy who
• 27:09
  tried to get involved and knocked him unconscious.
• 27:12
  After that, things got even crazier.
• 27:17
  Like young, Yeah, I'm like not messing with him.
• 27:22
  How do you, how do you, how do you tell new people Like, yeah,
• 27:25
  don't mess with that guy. I came across that one that
• 27:29
  basically Ming his fail safe to get people in the building when
• 27:36
  they be fired. I love it.
• 27:38
  It's not we're gonna get security.
• 27:40
  It's. Yeah.
• 27:41
  Well, you know, you don't make me go.
• 27:45
  That is. Yeah, that's something.
• 27:49
  There's another story that stands out now, this one, it's
• 27:54
  it's under some debate. The Jessie Barr story.
• 27:58
  The Puerto Rico story. Yeah, go ahead.
• 28:01
  OK, so another they were working Puerto Rico.
• 28:06
  In 1987, another wrestler by the name of Jessie Barr allegedly
• 28:11
  kicked dirt onto a ditch. Digger Ming witnessed this and
• 28:18
  told him off about it, and according to some reports, he
• 28:23
  grabbed him and popped his eyeball out of the socket, and
• 28:29
  some other wrestlers who were there and witnessed it claimed
• 28:32
  that he tore the eyeball. Ming says he did not tear the
• 28:37
  eyeball out, so that one's up for some debate.
• 28:42
  Wow, wow. Yeah, yeah.
• 28:49
  Now the nose incident. Yeah, he he's, he definitely
• 28:53
  confirms that one. But the eyeball, he does not.
• 28:56
  So, you know, I'll go with his version of the story.
• 29:03
  Oh my goodness, Eric Bischoff tells a lovely story.
• 29:09
  Like made him respect him some more.
• 29:13
  MANG was never fired from The CW because no one was brave enough
• 29:16
  to do it. On one particular day, Greg Agna
• 29:21
  and I walked in the locker room and interrupts the conversation
• 29:23
  between MANG and Chris Candido and Chris Jericho and Tammy
• 29:26
  Sich. MANG immediately looked at the
• 29:29
  pair of us and said hey, I apologize to my friends, I'm
• 29:32
  talking to them. The entire room went silent and
• 29:36
  everyone just froze. It was then that I realized the
• 29:40
  stories about MANG weren't just legends.
• 29:42
  Kanye and I apologize to them and waited for the conversation
• 29:45
  to finish before speaking with Meg.
• 29:47
  It's like wait your turn buddy. Yeah, I, I read this one out to
• 29:51
  my brother and I, he loved it because just imagine telling the
• 29:56
  president of your company I'm talking over here.
• 30:01
  Talking here, yeah. It's the layman's dream.
• 30:06
  Excuse me, Sir. Wait.
• 30:09
  I paid you. Exactly, and you can only and
• 30:14
  the thunderous look that must have been on his face, which is
• 30:17
  wild because I mean, you see him now and like he looks like he
• 30:21
  keeps lemon drops in his pocket and hands them out to grandkids
• 30:25
  or something. You know, he just looks like the
• 30:29
  cutest little old man who is loosely with the the Bullet
• 30:35
  Club. But yeah, still a cute little
• 30:36
  old man. Yeah, the Bullet Club and.
• 30:41
  I know they're not what they used to be.
• 30:43
  I know, yeah. Yeah, it's supposed to be mine.
• 30:46
  But they're still supposed to be dangerous and bad, you know,
• 30:52
  Wasn't it the. Samoan dynasty that they were
• 30:54
  trying to do also? Or is that just for Kishi?
• 31:02
  Where are we? Are we talking MWe?
• 31:05
  New Japan. New Japan.
• 31:07
  Like when rikishi went over there also and he was talking to
• 31:12
  he had taba Tonga tanga Lao Loa mang was there also and then
• 31:19
  rikishi kiss came. I was like this this right here.
• 31:23
  This is the dynasty and they were trying to do, they were
• 31:27
  trying to do what the bloodline was trying to do was doing right
• 31:30
  now. No, OK, no, no.
• 31:32
  Yeah, yeah. So it was like a a couple years
• 31:37
  ago maybe, yeah, around before the pandemic, probably around
• 31:41
  there. Yeah.
• 31:46
  Any other stories? Yeah, OK.
• 31:50
  So apparently Ming this is when he was working under the name
• 31:55
  Haku and Brutus the Barber. Beefcake.
• 31:58
  We're not big fans of each other in WWS.
• 32:02
  Nobody's a big fan of Buddha's beefcake, so it's not good.
• 32:05
  It's fine. Nobody's a fan of his.
• 32:13
  It's all right. No.
• 32:15
  OK All right here's the story. Brutus Beefcake went to
• 32:20
  management and complained and Haku slapped him too hard during
• 32:23
  a match. When Haku found out he walked to
• 32:26
  Beefcakes locker room and grabbed him out of the shower.
• 32:29
  He started choking him and lifted him 2 feet in the air
• 32:32
  while everyone the one because they were too scared to step in
• 32:35
  and break it up. Eventually Hulk Hogan came in
• 32:39
  and calmed Haku down. Well, he would be the one, but.
• 32:48
  Yeah, that that happened. And what's funny is this is ages
• 32:54
  before he, you know, implements the tongue and death grip.
• 32:59
  But this is kind of it in real life.
• 33:02
  The tongue and death grip is real.
• 33:05
  Apparently one of the red warriors, I don't I can't
• 33:09
  remember if it was hawk or animal, but yeah they told a
• 33:12
  rather long winded story that the gist of which was basically
• 33:15
  they saw him do the Tong and death grip in real life.
• 33:19
  Wow. Yeah, that's funny.
• 33:23
  Going back to what Barbara Breeder said, Yeah, snitches get
• 33:30
  stitches, buddy. No, that's right.
• 33:32
  Now. Oh my gosh, I mean, that's such
• 33:38
  an arbitrary complaint for a wrestler to make, right?
• 33:41
  Like. He hit you hard.
• 33:43
  Really. You're in wrestling.
• 33:44
  Dude stopped. Me Like no kidding buddy.
• 33:49
  His only friend came to help him.
• 33:53
  That's I told you know, we like some no.
• 33:55
  No, I mean like that's, that's verbatim, yeah.
• 34:00
  It's all like he followed Hogan's career, all since they
• 34:06
  were born, I guess. But like, the icing on the cake
• 34:12
  is him trying to bring Hogan back.
• 34:13
  And instead of getting the tag belts, Hogan gets the
• 34:17
  championship belt at WrestleMania 9.
• 34:21
  Like, see, I told you, we told you don't like you.
• 34:27
  Oh well, apparently Haku didn't like him either.
• 34:30
  So here's a quote for Bobby Heenan, who was, of course, you
• 34:34
  know, the the faction leader for Ming and Andre the Giant when
• 34:40
  they were colossal. Colossal connection.
• 34:43
  Yeah. Here's what he has to say.
• 34:45
  Ming is the toughest man, not just wrestler, I've ever met in
• 34:49
  my life. A fight once broke out in a bar,
• 34:52
  and Ming took his two fingers on his right hand, his index finger
• 34:56
  and trigger finger, and he reached into the guy's mouth and
• 35:00
  he broke off the guy's bottom teeth.
• 35:02
  If I hadn't been there and I wouldn't believe it.
• 35:07
  Wow. Yeah.
• 35:11
  The guy is ruthless. And Bob, the brain heeded as an
• 35:15
  eyewitness to this, so maybe that what you.
• 35:23
  Know. Wow yeah alright the next one's
• 35:27
  from Reddit, a few stories here. 1 is well the the other one's
• 35:34
  right after the other one. Terry Glenn from Reddit said who
• 35:40
  wasn't Who said that Vince McMahon told DX to retreat if
• 35:43
  they sent out Meng during the WCW invasion skit.
• 35:48
  I feel like it was either Bradshaw or Holly but I can't
• 35:50
  remember. Regardless, that speaks volumes
• 35:52
  about his reputation. There were a comment after right
• 35:56
  after. This was from Kill 297.
• 36:00
  Oh God, now that is something I would have loved to see on
• 36:04
  television. The X invades WCW walking
• 36:07
  through the hallways and then they stop frozen the cameras.
• 36:10
  The camera zooms in and man is standing at the end of the hall.
• 36:13
  You hear a shit bail from Triple H and they all start scrambling
• 36:18
  back to the tank while man gives chase.
• 36:20
  That would be such a smart moment right there.
• 36:23
  Like for the audience to get that, they would have to know
• 36:27
  all this stuff going in. That's on RAW on Nitro.
• 36:32
  Bischoff hears the DXR invading and changes the plan to get a
• 36:35
  camera backstage. Commentary are going wild
• 36:38
  wondering what's going on. Camera backstage shows Meng
• 36:40
  being ordered out there. He opened the door and the dub
• 36:43
  silly camera zoomed in on Triple H dumps drug face before he
• 36:46
  shouts shit bail and they scramble away while Meng gives
• 36:50
  chase. Invasion angle.
• 36:52
  Why you no do this? Honestly that that would have
• 36:57
  been really awesome, but I I believe Maine kind of recused
• 37:02
  himself from the WCW invasion, kind of gone to working the
• 37:09
  Indies towards the end of WCWI believe.
• 37:12
  Oh yeah? Well, he they were talking about
• 37:14
  the when DX invaded WCW in 97. OK, right after this, the entire
• 37:21
  DX army, the whole hey, did you know knock, knock who anybody
• 37:27
  there like when they were trying to get into the garage, but they
• 37:31
  closed the garage on them and they're like, Nope.
• 37:35
  Like that would have been that would have been lovely to find
• 37:37
  out. And the man, just the fact that
• 37:39
  McMahon is like, if you see freaking mang, retreat, don't do
• 37:44
  anything else, just leave. That is a great that, that's a
• 37:48
  great line. That's a great.
• 37:49
  Line McMahon tell me I was like, yeah, go and invade him.
• 37:52
  Yeah. And then but just, you know,
• 37:56
  don't hurt yourself. Don't get hurt.
• 38:00
  Make yourself come back. What's funny is here's Ming's
• 38:04
  idea of his reputation. He's quite Wrestlers just want
• 38:09
  to throw my name out for the heck of it.
• 38:11
  I think we were all tough. You had to make leave that in
• 38:14
  wrestling for us to make money for us to have all those angles
• 38:18
  on TV and to bring them back for all this good stuff.
• 38:20
  Everybody was tough those days to make money at the business.
• 38:26
  So he's that's a really interesting perspective.
• 38:30
  Like, not only is it modest, you know, even though he has this
• 38:34
  reputation that precedes him, but it definitely paints a
• 38:39
  picture of that time period. Yeah, it is.
• 38:46
  I love that guy. He's like, he can never say
• 38:50
  anything wrong about him because everything that I've seen him is
• 38:53
  like, yeah, like he's one of the guys I'd rather have in my
• 38:56
  freaking stable if I ever have one.
• 38:59
  Like we didn't want him in the stable.
• 39:00
  End of the all messed up. Literally reading all these
• 39:04
  stories, it's like I just found myself wishing was Haku I'd I'd
• 39:08
  love to walk into a room and people know I can do that stuff.
• 39:12
  It's like maybe like pulling out the chair for you.
• 39:15
  It's like instant respect. Oh wow.
• 39:23
  On him being regarded as the toughest pro wrestler, he says.
• 39:27
  My thing is that I am not the toughest.
• 39:28
  I was just trying to make a name for myself in the business.
• 39:31
  Coming in from a third world country, the family is waiting,
• 39:35
  the island is waiting because we were sent to Japan to represent
• 39:38
  the country. So the spirit is still there.
• 39:41
  So when you represent the country, with the way we live in
• 39:43
  the sumo world, you are a samurai and we came to United
• 39:46
  States. My goodness, the language.
• 39:48
  You are trying to run and think about your family and your
• 39:51
  country and you try to represent them well and you try to send
• 39:54
  the money to the family. Those were the biggest things
• 39:57
  for me. It's not that I am the toughest,
• 39:59
  but because I am a protector. A protector of my family, of my
• 40:02
  country. I had a samurai mentality, a
• 40:05
  third world mentality who always looked back and never forgot
• 40:08
  where he came from. It wasn't because I wanted to be
• 40:11
  the toughest, but things happened and I'm sorry that they
• 40:13
  happened. So.
• 40:16
  See guys, He apologizes. Yeah.
• 40:19
  What's interesting about that is that many sumo wrestlers that it
• 40:24
  calls to mind for me that many sumo wrestlers actually do not
• 40:28
  come from Japan. Like a lot of them come from
• 40:31
  other countries and go into this profession which is so revealed
• 40:37
  in Japan is one of their like most traditional arts.
• 40:43
  So there's that, but also I, I can relate to it personally
• 40:49
  because I, I grew up in a really rural community where there
• 40:54
  weren't a lot of jobs. So everyone there basically has
• 40:59
  to commute for work. And when I was 18, I started
• 41:05
  helping to support my family town that was a ways a ways out
• 41:11
  from where we lived. And it was an army town on one
• 41:15
  side and then the other. It was kind of the hood.
• 41:19
  So like you do develop this mentality.
• 41:24
  I'm not taking any crap because I'm here for my family.
• 41:28
  And anything that happens, it's all in the pursuit of me
• 41:31
  providing for them and looking out for them.
• 41:34
  So yeah, that that mentality really does tough.
• 41:39
  It does. Any more stories?
• 41:47
  Oh yeah. OK, let's see.
• 41:51
  How many more you have I got? One from Tibiasi here.
• 41:55
  All right, so this is from the $1,000,000 man.
• 41:58
  You know Cameron Grimes, his mentor, but not really.
• 42:02
  He betrayed him. One time.
• 42:05
  We were in a rough part of Saint Louis.
• 42:08
  Everyone had been drinking and a large fight broke out, which
• 42:11
  results in the police showing up.
• 42:13
  Ming had had a few drinks but saw the fight break out, so he
• 42:16
  started trying to break it up. In the process, police thought
• 42:19
  he was part of the fight and maced him and then handcuffed
• 42:21
  him. Ming was on his back, looked at
• 42:25
  the police and snapped the handcuff.
• 42:31
  Wow, so that's. That's right cinematic right
• 42:35
  there. That's a great moment.
• 42:37
  It's like a mood moment. Yes, it is.
• 42:41
  Look what I can do. Like, are you guys done?
• 42:44
  Did you guys find yourself your guy?
• 42:46
  Yeah, All right. Yeah, Your game comes back.
• 42:48
  Like sorry I broke them. Hey, he's, as you said, he's,
• 42:51
  he's doing it for the family. So just think Fast and the
• 42:55
  Furious, OK? It's all about family.
• 42:59
  Oh my. Oh no.
• 43:01
  And here's one from Rick Steiner, which again involves
• 43:05
  Ming and the police. Ming police officers, they shot
• 43:10
  him with Mace and he closed his eyes and sucked it in.
• 43:13
  He just opened his mouth and took a deep breath.
• 43:18
  Oh wow, like remembering that one time that Miss Elizabeth
• 43:24
  maced him and he's just standing there.
• 43:26
  Like that's not even doing anything to him.
• 43:29
  Yes, you know, I saw that footage and I'm like, OK, this
• 43:36
  shows where WW, they had a different tactic than WWE.
• 43:42
  They kind of liked to blur the line between the real and the
• 43:48
  like, the backstage and the on stage.
• 43:53
  Everyone within that world, they would have known about Ming and
• 43:59
  the Mace story, and they worked it in.
• 44:03
  Yeah, they did. Hilarious.
• 44:06
  Like having the wrestlers, you know, go by their government
• 44:12
  names. You know in WCW it's not Diesel
• 44:16
  and Razor remote anymore. It's Scott Hall and Kevin Nash.
• 44:21
  You know, they blurred those lines.
• 44:23
  Kind of a kind of cheek at times, you know, but also
• 44:28
  subversive at times. Kind of trying to destroy that
• 44:31
  4th wall. Perry Saturn was asked who would
• 44:38
  win in the fight between the Barbarian, Mang, Scott Norton,
• 44:42
  Jim Duggan, Fit Finley, Scott Steiner, Rick Steiner and
• 44:45
  himself without hesitation, Mang.
• 44:52
  Nobody else would stand a chance, not even a question.
• 44:54
  He could kill everyone without blinking and there's nothing
• 44:57
  anyone could ever do about it. Nothing anyone could do about
• 45:02
  it. I love that.
• 45:04
  I love that. And finally, right and finally,
• 45:11
  Arne Anderson has said if he chose to be, this man would be a
• 45:15
  world champion by now and would have no contenders.
• 45:20
  Yeah, I can't remember was, but some speculated, a few wrestlers
• 45:25
  have speculated, yeah, that Ming probably could have done great
• 45:28
  in MMA if he had decided to go that route.
• 45:33
  Like, he's one, yeah. He's one of those people that if
• 45:37
  booked right, he would have been a world champion.
• 45:40
  He would have been a world champion in WWEWCWECW if you.
• 45:44
  Oh my gosh, if he had gone any easy that would he would have
• 45:47
  just destroyed everybody there. Oh wow, some people don't need
• 45:51
  carte blanche. Wow, yeah.
• 45:57
  Like, but here is where I came into awareness of Ming, or Haku
• 46:06
  if you will, Marco's Broken Skull Sessions story.
• 46:12
  So let's see, this is from a period when Chris Yarico and
• 46:18
  Haku were pretty tight. They travel together often and
• 46:23
  to Steve Austin, he related. Chris Yarico did, and he and
• 46:27
  Haku were on their way to a show in Acapulco.
• 46:31
  The security guards at the area, Mexico City, we're giving Chris
• 46:36
  Tierra Co a hard time. They restrained him.
• 46:38
  He was trying to wriggle free. He elbowed the security guard
• 46:42
  who fell. So they drew their guns.
• 46:45
  And here comes Taku, barreling through and fighting off these
• 46:51
  armed security guards. Yeah.
• 46:55
  So they are then a jail cell that is actually in the airport
• 47:01
  and a mysterious figure comes to their aid, instructs them to
• 47:09
  basically give him all the money they have and he can help them
• 47:13
  out of jail. So you know better that than the
• 47:17
  kick in the seat of the pants, they figure and give him the
• 47:20
  money. They make it to the show where
• 47:24
  they're supposed to wrestle in Acapulco but the promoter does
• 47:29
  not pay them. So Haku, who's on a roll on this
• 47:32
  day off the door and begins like verbally castigated voter who
• 47:39
  then pays them. Wow.
• 47:45
  Yeah, this. Is all one day.
• 47:48
  Wow. This was one day in the life.
• 47:51
  One day in the life of a badass. Right.
• 47:55
  Like, forget the Dos Equis man. We are dealing with the most
• 47:59
  interesting man in the world. But like, what I find
• 48:10
  interesting is that he doesn't consider his reputation all that
• 48:15
  incredible. It's just like, Oh yeah, we were
• 48:17
  all tough. You know, we're all tough back
• 48:19
  then. Yeah, They're they.
• 48:27
  Yeah. They're all tough back then.
• 48:28
  Now it's just like it's a urban legend.
• 48:32
  That was all. No, that never happened.
• 48:35
  Come on. Really.
• 48:36
  Yeah. So I mean, like the environment
• 48:41
  has definitely really changed for like, you know, wrestlers
• 48:45
  backstage. You know, the Undertaker, I
• 48:49
  think he had some words about that a few years back that drew
• 48:53
  some controversy. There was a bit of heat there
• 48:56
  when he said that, you know, like gaming in the locker room
• 49:01
  where is they used to carry knives and guns.
• 49:04
  And like, I can see where it would seem, you know, like an
• 49:09
  insult, like he was calling the monitors.
• 49:14
  Oh, they, they carried scissors or made use of them where they
• 49:22
  found them to be. So, yeah, there was that
• 49:26
  comparison drawn. But yeah, yeah, there's some
• 49:31
  validity to that. There's a far cry between, you
• 49:34
  know, then and now. I found it interesting that, you
• 49:41
  know, to some extent you can definitely still see his impact
• 49:47
  on wrestling today. I mean of course his nephew, I
• 49:51
  believe nephew and adopted son Thomas, who was one of the yeah,
• 49:59
  as one of the original members of Bullet Club and Valerie's to
• 50:03
  write about on his shoulders. Yes, yeah, and Tangaloa also.
• 50:11
  His brother and Hikuleo, their youngest brother, so love them,
• 50:18
  hate them, think they're past their prime, think that they're
• 50:21
  having an upswing moment with the addition of Juice Robinson.
• 50:25
  Whatever. The Bullet Club is not going
• 50:28
  anywhere, and that T-shirt alone is one of New Japan Pro
• 50:33
  Wrestling's biggest property, so wow.
• 50:37
  Yeah, man. Freaking awesome, that T-shirt.
• 50:43
  Yeah, they do. Of course, of course.
• 50:46
  So through like helping to train his sons, you know, cultivating
• 50:51
  that next generation of pro wrestling, Haku is still having
• 50:56
  an impact and as we mentioned earlier, he makes appearances
• 51:00
  with them sometimes and New Japan Pro Wrestling and also in
• 51:03
  all Elite wrestling. And I don't know if he's shown
• 51:07
  up in impact. I know that they have, but you
• 51:09
  know, with them in spirit, I'm. I can't really tell if they did.
• 51:17
  No, they haven't. I know I believe Hikawayo has
• 51:23
  been on impact. As he.
• 51:25
  I, I'm, I believe so. I'm about 89% sure about that
• 51:33
  one. 89%. Yeah.
• 51:35
  OK, thank you to everyone who listened to that very special
• 51:40
  episode of From Under the Apron, my third place podcast wrestling
• 51:45
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• 51:49
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• 51:53
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• 51:56
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• 52:00
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• 52:09
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• 52:12
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• 52:16
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• 52:21
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• 52:23
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• 53:18
  podcast, where community, creativity, and a whole lot of
• 53:22
  chaos always collide.