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Welcome creatives! These are discussions, thoughts, case studies, interviews, and lessons about how our creativity relates to life. The host, Mr Benja, is a former video game programmer / designer for Rockstar Games, Sony Santa Monica, The 3DO Company, and others, as well as a fine artist. -- Be sure to check out the website for more.
Pro wrestling is real.
Do not argue with me.
Do not adjust your set.
Do not try to change the channel.
Do not deny it.
Do not lie to yourself.
Pro wrestling is one of the
realest things out there, and
we're gonna talk about it today.
And before you get all up in a
tizzy, and before you get all silly
on me, listen, I don't know who you
think I am, but I am a creative.
And I'm talking about pro wrestling
today and how real it is just because
of some information that came by and
this crazy landscape that we're in
that is bringing this to the forefront.
Now, you can jump in the comments
all you'd like and speak about
the scripted nature of it, the
predetermined outcomes, etc, etc.
And, you know, if you're, if you're doing
that, then you really don't know who I am
and you need to listen to this further.
If you already know who I am and you're
listening, You know, you're about to
be in for some goodness, but either
way, welcome to creativity threads.
Life.
My name is Mr.
Benja.
I am your host for this
podcast, this streaming.
I don't even want to call it a new show
because we don't do news like that.
I don't want to call it a
variety show because, well,
we don't do variety like that.
I'm not even sure I want to call
it a show, but I appear here.
Most nights of the week to talk to you
about how creativity makes its way through
the different forms of life and how I
think about it and how you think about
it because I've been getting down on
threads, talking some information here
and they're talking to the people online.
And it's been an interesting
discussion about what creativity
is and how it affects us.
So, as you know.
If you've been listening, I think
creativity is one of the fundamental
aspects of human life or life
in general, and in some regards,
creativity is equivalent to creation
your and that's equivalent to life.
We're out here trying to create
things and the better we can create.
The better we can extend our lives.
Um, we express ourselves through
our creativity and with the things
that we bring into the world.
So that's the basic
synopsis behind the show.
Appreciate all of you joining me.
Um, really quick, be sure to
subscribe on Apple and all that jazz.
And we'll get to that kind of stuff later
on, but for right now, let's just jump
into it because I don't like waiting
around too long with these things.
Shout out to all the people in
the chat who've come through.
Whether tonight or some other
night, but check this out.
There's this news report that just
came by from the New York times.
And I'll just read it.
It's, um, you probably heard about
this or maybe not, but Netflix to
stream WWE is raw in 5 billion deal.
The weekly program will move to
Netflix in 2025 as part of a 10
year agreement, a big leap into live
events for the streaming platform.
Now for those of you who don't know, WWE
Raw is one of the, if not the biggest
wrestling show that comes on television.
It started way back in God knows
when, uh, started kicking ass.
And the cable TV ratings has been
consistently a top, top view, a top
draw for the, for any entertainment.
I was about to say sports
entertainment, but sports,
entertainment, drama, whatever.
It's just a huge draw for
cable and media in general.
So moving to netflix is a big deal
for its own reason And we're going
to get into and talk about the money
behind it and all that on show versus
business That's another podcast.
I run i'm not here to talk too much
about The business money behind
it and what's going on with that.
I just want to give you a little
background for this podcast, because here,
we're going to talk about the creativity
that sparks from something like this
and, and why it's worth respecting maybe
over a lot of things that you currently
respect, why it deserves respect.
So first off.
Wrestling is a weird type of
fantasy show that's put on.
Now, long ago, people
used to argue, Is it real?
Is it fake?
And this was almost a way of, This was
almost a way of having this Santa Claus
story out there for kids who were really
into it, who could find a way to get
into some type of competitive drama.
They didn't, maybe they didn't watch
football, or didn't understand all
the rules of basketball, or maybe
they thought baseball was boring.
Or you could get your kids
into watching pro wrestling.
That was kind of the story
that was always going around.
And a lot of times they never
really called it a sport.
They usually called it
sports entertainment or
something along that line.
Not the point, but I just
have to set this stage.
So gosh, I don't even know how I want to,
how I want to begin this because there's
so much that that goes on in wrestling.
There's so much that's, if you're just.
Looking from the sideline and you
see two, you know, possibly steroided
out individuals, athletically built,
who worked very hard to make whatever
look they're doing do what it does.
If you're just watching randomly and you
see these two people fighting on stage,
you're like, it looks fake, it's stupid,
the storylines are dumb, whatever, I'm not
about this life, and you turn the channel.
Let me put this to you then.
Let me just drop some things on you.
First of all.
These people, these athletes,
and yes, I do call them athletes.
They're very physically fit and
they do a lot of physical work.
They operate pretty much all year round.
WWE at least runs 320 events per year.
That's almost, that's, that's
getting close to every night
of the week...running an event.
They do house shows, uh, dark shows, and
they do your obviously televised shows.
And a lot of these presentations are,
are big events, and they travel around
the year, they go overseas, and these
athletes are doing this all the time.
They're on on their stage.
I was about to say on stage.
They're in the ring, under the
lights, performing all the time.
So first of all, if you just want
to look at it at a physical level,
yes, it's a very physical sport.
It's a very active kind of thing.
Um, but that's not what's terribly,
terribly exciting about it.
I got into it when I was little
and was watching, you know, the
big stars, the Hulk Hogan's, the
Coco bewares the Andre, the giants.
The Hillbilly Jim, Hacksaw Jim
Duggan, Superfly Jimmy Snooka,
Ricky the Steamboat Dragon.
I don't know why he was called Ricky.
I mean the steamboat.
I don't know how many, what
was the steamboat and a dragon?
Anyway, all these characters connected
to me in a very cartoonish kind of way.
And I think this is what started
setting the seeds in my mind for how
to be creative and how to come up with
these, a lot of ideas and these fanciful
stories, a lot of competition going on.
They had, they had toys, they had
cartoons, they had merchandise
with , The shirts and the lunch boxes,
shoes, underwear, it was big business.
And even as a kid, I kind of saw this.
And then at some point, I got to an
age where it was like, Hey, wait a
minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Is this, is this real?
Is this real?
And I started to step
back from it a little bit.
And I was like, okay, this, I don't know.
I don't know if I should be watching this.
This seems silly, nonsensical, whatever.
And to be fair, you know,
there's, it, it is like that.
But then I saw my nephews and nieces
and younger cousins get into it.
And I saw them getting enthralled
by the same entertainment.
I was like, huh, interesting.
The storylines were, some were the same,
some were different, some evolved, but
it kind of amazed me how they could
keep this, this drama going on for so
long with basically just a square ring,
a square ring, and usually
two people in a referee.
And you'd have your management going on.
You'd have your stories.
And then I started realizing
something that, Hey, wait a minute.
Some of these stories are talking
about or referencing popular culture.
Whereas like Hulk Hogan versus
Nikolai Volkov, you know, where you
had America versus the Russians.
And it was this big whole drama.
And I was like, Oh man, this is crazy.
And then Iran got into
the mix and all that.
And all of a sudden you had the iron sheet
come out and I was like, Oh crap, the iron
sheet, and it was a whole thing there.
And then, you know, people got a little
more street, a little more grunge.
And you had characters, you know,
you had characters like a junkyard
dog come out and was like, okay, this
guy represents the black community,
I guess, comes from a dang junkyard.
All right, but it was cool.
We liked him, you know, everybody liked
the junkyard dog and all these characters
I started realizing were crafted, not
just, they didn't just come about.
They were crafted into
different aspects of society.
And it was kind of a way of watching
things play out in the real world.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was kind of this way of
just fantasizing elements of.
Of life.
You could make political commentary,
social commentary, financial
commentary, shout out to Ted
DiBiase, the million dollar man.
It was a whole production and
a whole thing and watching my
nieces and nephews get into it.
I was like, huh, this is very interesting.
And then I started to hit like this.
The stage where I realized, okay, they're
doing something very creative here.
Let me, let me just say that first of
all, the athletics of it are one thing
where you've got these people doing
this all the time, that's, that's pretty
obvious, illicit substances, helping
that out or not, that's up to you.
But scripted entertainment, once
you got into understanding how
they, how they script these things
and they continue these storylines
and they're trying to get.
Engagement from the audience
and the people and the crowd,
it becomes an art form.
And it really got me interested.
I was like, holy crap,
this thing is genius.
What's going to happen here.
And like any good story, it was
always about, okay, what's going to
happen next or who's this character.
What are they about?
What's their background?
Why would they do that?
And you started asking
all these questions.
You start asking why things are happening,
who's doing what to who, and it becomes
this whole soap opera kind of fantasy.
Right.
But I was kind of amazed at
how well it was constructed.
Just in terms of an entertainment aspect
and a machine as I said I see this stuff
on TV Then I'd go to the mall and see
all the the shirts and the toys etc The
cartoons and you see these characters
show up in quote unquote real life
like you'd have Hulk Hogan or Randy
Macho Man Savage show up on a talk show
and Start yelling at one of the talk
show host and it was it was brilliant.
So forget whether I You know, you
still got grown, grown men sitting
around talking about, it's not real.
Why would you even watch that?
To me, that is the
bonehead statement to make.
It's not real.
Why would you watch it?
Because if you're watching it because
you're wondering if it's real or not,
you're not even part of the conversation.
Oh no, it's hella real, Paul W Jr.
It's real, baby.
Let me tell you, when I was, um,
As I said, I was in college, right?
And I started looking at
the deeper, deeper levels of
this whole wrestling thing.
I started figuring out how they
were, how they were planning things.
I was like, wait a minute.
Well, you've got these people
coming out every night.
What happens if somebody gets hurt?
And then they would change the
story, sometimes on the fly,
as the match was going on.
Sometimes they would change
the story between matches.
And I'm thinking, this is
live and they're doing this.
This is kind of awesome.
This is brilliant.
And I started seeing a little
more behind the scenes.
Like, well, wait a minute.
This character is
supposed to be in a movie.
How is he?
Oh, okay.
I understand he got suspended,
but during his suspension, all of
a sudden a movie comes out, and
he's out there doing the movie.
And I started connecting
this whole machine, right?
I mean from, yeah, and I already
talked about the athleticism
before, but just the whole machine.
So I started looking at this, the machine
aspect of it just behind the whole
production and me and my old roommate,
Theo, we were, we were sitting around
watching wrestling because school was
stressful and we were college roommates
and wrestling was the fun thing that we
would come home and watch and just be able
to separate from the rest of the nonsense.
And.
Wrestling was great for that.
We would just get around the
TV and like, all right, what
are they going to do tonight?
What are they going to do tonight?
Who's coming out?
Who's Oh, NWO.
Oh, baby, here it is.
It was just crazy.
So we would be sitting
around and watching this.
And one night we were both
sitting down and watching.
And after the show went to commercial,
it said, ladies and gentlemen, Thursday
night, thunders coming to Tallahassee,
Florida, Leon County civic center.
Get your tickets now.
And they did the whole thing where
they get you hyped up and like.
Wait a minute.
Wow.
Tallahassee.
That's the city we're in.
Leon County.
That's the county we're in.
The Civic Center.
That's down Monroe Street.
And, you know, we kind
of like laughed at it.
What if we went and we laughed?
Ha ha ha.
Whatever, man.
We're college students.
We're serious.
We got things to study.
He's in engineering.
I'm in computer information systems.
We're like, all right, man.
We got stuff to do.
We can't go, go to some wrestling match.
And then, you know, the guy kept talking.
He's like, tickets on sale ... Tomorrow!
And I started thinking tomorrow, huh?
So it's like, whatever, you know,
you just kind of think of whatever.
I go in the kitchen, wash some dishes.
Theo goes and does whatever he's doing.
And it's kind of like, Hey, you know what?
We should go out there and see if
anybody's lining up at the civic center.
And he's like, yeah, yeah.
And I'm hungry too.
So we might as well get
something to eat while we're out.
Yeah, yeah.
Let's.
Let's go get something to eat and we'll
see who's over at the Civic Center, right?
So I'm like, all right, let's go do this.
Let's, let's go see who's going to be
out there watching, you know, who's
going to be out there if anybody.
So we went, grabbed some Subway, right?
I got my, uh, six foot chicken breast
sub with, uh, with mayonnaise, extra,
extra pickles, black olives, oil and
vinegar, salt and pepper, oregano.
Pretty nice.
I was, I was going to have
a good little meal, go home.
So when we drove by the
Civic Center though, We saw
people starting to camp out.
In fact, I saw a pickup truck back
up to the loading area or the big
veranda where they have out in front
where the ticket ticket office pickup
truck like backs in onto the curve.
And this dude starts pulling
out some lawn chairs.
A cooler and some blankets and him
and his friends are all just unloading
the back of this pickup truck And
they start setting up camp at the
ticket office and i'm thinking, huh?
They're about to get hype and
watch thursday night thunder or get
tickets for thursday night thunder
I was this got me even more hype.
So so we drove home, but we're still
not taking it too seriously And
then on the way Leaving the Civic
Center, I got my subway in hand,
you know, we're all ready to go home
and just eat and chill and whatever
and get ready for school tomorrow.
I said, hey, listen, um, you know, I could
drop you off and you could get a place
in line and I could go get whatever we
need from home and we could camp out too.
And it was kind of like,
yes, let's do this.
So I forgot who was driving
and who dropped off who,
but one of us stayed there.
One of us went home and we ended up,
yep, it was Thursday night Thunder peak.
Yeah.
Me and Theo ended up camping
out basically to watch, uh, to
watch Thursday night Thunder.
Cause, cause you know, you see
wrestling on TV, you're like, okay.
And then you see all the people up front
just having the best time of their life.
Just going nuts, just going bonkers.
And the wrestlers are
right there with you.
So we were like, we got to do this.
We've got to do this.
So, so we camp out overnight.
I don't, I don't, I don't care what
was happening at school the next day.
I totally forgot.
I don't care.
It wasn't that memorable.
This is one of those moments in
life where they say, hey, you
don't want to have any regrets.
I didn't want to regret
missing thursday night thunder.
So I went So man, I'm
at a, we're camping out.
We're doing our thing.
People are there.
They brought an extension cord
and a TV and some dude had a VCR.
They were watching old
tapes of old events.
And we were just talking about wrestling
and I'm like, yo, this stuff goes deep.
This is deep.
And the guy was saying, yeah, he appeared
at a dark, he appeared at a house show
at such and such and blah, blah, blah.
And actually his cousin got involved
and he's now a manager working for.
And I'm like, wait, this is wild.
How do you, how do you guys know all this?
So I'm talking to these people,
we're camped out looking around.
Um, we definitely weren't properly camp.
I had like my backpack and a couple of
magazines and a heavy jacket and all
these people had like blankets and the cot
rolled out and lawn chairs and you know,
it's like the men were camping out in the
concrete and they're sleeping bags and
the wives would bring them, you know, hot
cocoa and thermoses and, you know, yelling
at him to like, Hey, make sure that you
get enough tickets to do this and that
and make sure that you're seated behind.
And they were like planned out.
I'm like, wow.
Okay.
So anyway, fast forward.
Fast forward, we get our tickets,
everything's good and gold.
We're, we're three rows back because we
didn't get there right at the beginning,
but three rows back, you know, we
get our tickets, we're hyped as hell.
And, you know, these were like back in
the day when they only gave out paper
tickets, you lost your paper ticket out.
God forbid, I don't know
what would happen to you.
But we locked these things up, man.
We were good to go.
Waited a while.
Thursday Night Thunder came around.
I had never seen the parking lot so full
of energy at the Leon County Civic Center.
They hold graduations there.
They hold, you know, uh,
escapades, ice escapades on there.
They hold everything there.
And I had never seen the
parking lot this full of energy.
I mean, I'd seen people there, but
energy, people were getting out there,
high fiving, you know, you hear, heard
people, you know, yelling stuff out.
This one dude was talking
like, you know, he was Mr.
Wonderful.
Other dude had like a headband of, you
know, Hulkamania and was just looking
crazy and was playing out his Hulk role.
I had never seen this type of
energy before, and it was all good.
You know, it didn't matter who you liked.
There was respect there.
If you respected wrestling.
We get in, we start walking up and
I start noticing all the trucks.
I start noticing like, you know,
once in a while, you'd see a car
roll up and a wrestler would jump
out and people would just go nuts.
It's like just an
explosion, start yelling.
And like, what's going on over there?
Oh, somebody just got out of a truck and
you know, they went to the backstage.
I'm like, Oh crap.
Is that the wrestlers?
Yeah.
Yeah.
They came from such and such hotel.
Once again, I didn't know.
I didn't know, you know, so there's
this whole pregame I didn't know about.
And me and Theo were just unprepared.
We're like, what the hell, man, how
are we so unprepared for all of this?
People know where their hotels are at.
They're hanging out at restaurants there.
It was big.
So there was this one part
of the civic center, right?
Where you walk up and as you're going into
the civic center, they have a loading dock
and a, I don't want to call it a backstage
area, but there's this, This area
that's kind of closed and concreted off.
But if you walked up the side of
the ramp, um, by the parking area,
you could look, you know, you could
look down and see people hanging
out before they go backstage or into
the dressing rooms and all that.
Um, and there weren't too
many people over there.
So I was like, hey, listen, I
know we can go stand over there.
I mean, they were like, alright,
so we go stand over there.
You know, look over the ledge and you
know, there wasn't really too much
activity over there once in a while.
You catch some crew members coming in
and out, but Paul Orndorff came out
with like a lawn chair and lawn chair
and some snacks and just sat down
and everybody started yelling at him.
Like, what are you doing?
He's like, I'm getting a tan.
You're in the shade fool.
He's like, shut up.
And it was this weird interaction
of just this guy in the lawn chair
laid down yelling at the audience.
And I'm like, what is he doing?
This is crazy.
This is nuts.
Shouldn't he be back?
Shouldn't he be preparing his,
his lines or his act or whatever?
This was his act.
This was beautiful.
So he's just hanging out in the
lawn chair, talking noise to people.
And then it's like, at some point
we're like, all right, whatever.
He was messing with some other wrestlers
and some other management people.
I didn't know walking in and out.
But he was the only star out
there, which was interesting.
So he was getting his a little shine.
This is once again, part of the machine.
I'm starting to, the levers are
starting to flick in my head.
I'm starting to understand the machine.
Like, okay, he's a personality.
He's out there talking to us.
He's building up his persona.
Okay.
That's interesting.
Okay.
I get it.
Kind of, maybe.
So we go in and get our seats
and everything night goes off.
It's great.
Raven's out there.
Um, in fact, I don't know if you
guys remember, when Raven got yanked,
one time that Raven got yanked out
of his little corner perch, when
he would sit in the corner, and
just flop down by the turnbuckle,
and start his little monologue.
One time, he got yanked out by his hair.
It may have happened more than once,
but we were there when that happened.
And we, we lost it.
We were just like, oh
my god, what is this?
But, you know, the show really
kind of kept going on, and
nobody, it, it didn't break.
We're watching this thing.
Things are going nuts.
It's going crazy.
During commercial, Scott Steiner,
like, went off on the crowd.
Just started cursing at people,
calling people bad names.
And I was like, whoa, whoa,
whoa, what's going on?
This is during commercial and
he's getting everybody riled up.
Everybody who's going out of control.
He's cursing at him.
He's standing on the top rope.
I'm like, Hey, you can't
curse at kids like this.
You can't have that kind of language.
What's wrong with you, man?
And I started to get mad at him.
I started to get like a
little, you know, fired up.
And then the camera switches, right?
The camera switches.
And without breaking a beat, he
starts throwing up the bird, you know,
throwing the middle finger at people
making obscene gestures and Right
when the camera goes back, he switches
back into, you know, regular mode.
And I'm like, wait a minute.
He switched back into regular mode.
Like the exact second the cameras
went back on and commercial ended.
I was like, this is.
What cue was he getting?
Where did he get the cue from?
Was he looking at the
lights on the camera?
Did he catch something from the referee?
Or one of the announcers
on the side of the stage?
What the hell was that?
And I'm looking around, and
everybody's just losing their minds.
So you gotta remember, he
just riled the crowd up.
He just riled the crowd up, and
now the camera is on him, and
everybody's yelling at Scott Steiner.
I'm thinking, Oh my God, he just
hyped them up for the camera.
And now that the camera's on them,
everything is hyped around him.
I was like, that was a masterful
act of just riling people up, huh?
Okay.
And as I said, the night kept going on
and I kept seeing bits of the machine
happened the way they were happening.
I saw.
You know, Lex Luger ran by,
gave everybody a high five.
And what was funny is that dude
was, he must have hurt his knee or
something because he was limping.
But nevertheless, when he was on
camera and doing his thing, he
was running out there full speed.
Smelled like Bengay and
medicine and sweat, but he
was out there doing his thing.
And I was like, okay, hold on.
There's a lot going on here
that I really don't understand.
Like, a lot.
One of the best nights of my life,
um, crazy, crazy experience, went
home, was so pumped up and excited.
And the next time I turned on
the TV to watch wrestling, I was
like, okay, I need to figure out
what this whole thing is about.
And that's when I started looking into
the behind the scenes, really starting to
find out that these people were actors.
Finding out that these people were, I
shouldn't say actors, finding out that
these people were, they were jockeying
for position at any given moment.
Like you want to make a good
match and get the people hyped up
because that increases your stock.
That increases your value within
the wrestling organization.
And within the wrestling
world, you can get more deals.
You can get more play, you can
get more excitement or whatever.
If the crowd is behind you and speaking
of Paul Orndorff, like, um, you know, Mr.
Wonderful, was that named Paul Orndorff?
Would I mess that up?
Um, you know, speaking of him, Mr.
Perfect.
When he did the whole thing where he
would spit his gum in the air and smack
it into the crowd, nobody ever shows
you what happens to the crowd when
that piece of gum is flying at them.
It's like, it's like
partying the Red Sea, man.
It was, it was hilarious.
Right?
They're like, oh god, that's
a, that's a health hazard.
You could pass on, you could, you
could pass on a, a, a disease.
Spitting gum like that,
what's wrong with you, man?
It was comedy.
Alright, yeah, it wasn't
Orndorff, alright.
Orndorff.
Orndorff, right.
Thank you for that.
But yeah, um.
Yeah, the whole thing was
just a, a production on the
level I hadn't seen before.
And the idea that they do this
320 times a night, maybe not every
wrestler, but the show goes on.
And it's this, it's this traveling,
moving, big, creative spectacle.
It's, it's humorous, it's exciting,
it's enthralling, it's, it's consistent.
It's always pushing the edge.
It tries things out.
And I realized this is what creatives do.
They try to build on all this stuff.
And as a creative, you know,
I'm usually around sitting down,
thinking about what is it called?
Um, I'm usually sitting around thinking
about the product development itself.
Like, if I was a wrestler, I'd, I'd
be totally thinking about how I do my
flips, how I get fit, how I, you know,
um, you know, take a, take a lump, how
I land hard, how I jump out of the ring.
I'd be thinking about
all that kind of stuff.
That was me before this.
Then when I saw the machine in action,
that's what sparked my mind to start
thinking about all these other aspects.
Like how you speak, can
you control a crowd?
Um, you know, we talk
about the dark arts, right?
In creativity, marketing, branding, sales.
They're doing all of this
at a masterful level.
And you know, it's, these are
things that I had to stop and study.
It's like, how did.
The marketing of this whole thing.
Let me start with the branding.
Cause that's closest to creatives.
How does the branding of this thing work?
Boom.
You've got the WWE logo.
You've got Thursday night thunder.
It's, you know, alliteration in the title.
It's just branded into you.
Thunder and lightning is a big
whole theme and the whole wrestling
excitement kind of thing, energizing
the audience it's set up with.
All these characters, it's set up with all
these logos, colors, identifying music.
And I started really thinking
about the branding of it.
And this is, this is me in
college, not doing my homework.
Don't worry.
I got good grades, but this is
me and not doing my homework and.
Taking a deep dive into the
whole world of wrestling and how
they put these things together.
How every, every wrestler has to
go out there and put up a persona.
They have to develop their
brand, their idea, their, uh,
slogans, their catch phrases.
They have to talk in a certain way.
They have to be good in front of the
camera, not just physically, but they
have to make it a show, show of things.
I started understanding why Hulk Hogan
got over the way he did because even if
the volumes off, if you watch Hulk Hogan
wrestle, you can just kind of see him,
you can see what's happening when he takes
a hit and swings his head a certain way.
His hair flies like, oh, he got smacked
or when he starts to get hype and balls up
his fist and, you know, bends his knees a
little bit and starts to shake his head.
You're like, okay, he's getting hype.
This is the hype phase of Hulk Hogan.
You could do this without
the, without the audio.
And it's just, it just works.
So that's the branding part of it.
You know, where this brand, this idea,
this perception is seared into your head.
When you see red and yellow and see
muscles, you kind of always think
about Hulk Hogan or at least anybody
who was watching around that time
did, you couldn't get away from it.
They had the rock, you know, Randy
Macho Man Savage had his glasses, once
again, with the lightning on them.
And it was always this whole crazy
outfit that he had with this crazy hats.
If you had a crazy head on, you'd have
like a macho man head on, you know,
atomic dog, you know, George Clinton.
Every time that played, I would
think about the junkyard dog.
It got me hyped and it was
kind of an interesting play.
Now that I think about it later
on in life, you know, there were
definitely aspects of a person.
And being chained up and breaking loose
and getting wild on people that the
junkyard dog brought to it So there
was that and as I said all kinds of
commentary going on and all these
characters But in a light fun way
the branding side of it blew my mind.
Yeah, like pacing Pete says You know
the Rocky Maivia bit wasn't getting
over so your brands not working out You
got to adjust it and change it and keep
being creative and do something new
And exactly.
It's not just an individual brand.
It's your personal brand.
It's your brand as a type of wrestler.
You know, are you a lucha libre?
Are you one of the big guys?
You know, a brawler?
Are you, are you more of
the slapstick kind of guy?
Are you, uh, you know,
the muscle bound guy?
Are you trying to be the star?
You can only have a few stars.
I mean, really super mega stars in there.
So do you want to try to play that role?
Cause you might just get
smacked down Pun intended.
You know, everybody talks about Steve
Austin, what he used to play, the uh, he
used to play the Iceman, and that's how
he transitioned into Stone Cold Steve
Austin, he was, what was he called?
The Iceman?
Or something like that?
Before he was a, well no, he had
the other one, that was a, oh god,
now I can't remember his name.
Steve Austin had another persona,
that was more light hearted
when he had the longer hair.
Somebody tell me what that was.
Anyway, but yes, aside from characters,
you also had your feuds and fashions.
That Paul mentions.
You had your feuds and factions, right?
So you had your who's fighting against
who, who backstabs who, who's a friend
of who's, who's in a group together.
You always had weird groups like, it was
really funny way back in the day when you
had the, it's like the Anybody who's not
American got kind of lumped into a group.
There was the Russians, the Iranians,
you know They even have like
the uh, the militant black crew.
I mean, you can't help but laugh
and be entertained by this.
It's, it's comedy.
And this continues to this day.
I loved it.
Yeah.
Um, so you had all these feuds
and factions and brands going on.
That was the branding side of it.
And I was so impressed
by how well it worked.
Like I could, if you, if you walk in
a room and you've got a snake in a
bag and you hold it up and everybody's
like, yeah, Jake, the snake, ah,
you know, ravishing Rick rude.
And it's just these characters.
We're great.
Even going on into the, you know, future.
Um, Generation X, you know, CM Punk.
All these characters.
It just kept going on.
Kane and the Undertaker.
Fast forward.
What's the dude's name?
Uh, Oh gosh.
Is it the orange guy who
puts his hands in his pocket?
I mean, even that.
That's a great little gimmick.
Don't forget.
I didn't forget about the Iron Sheik.
I mentioned him way earlier.
But yeah, it got me thinking.
So then you get over to marketing, right?
They're marketing this thing like, like
crazy people who don't like wrestling
didn't hear much about wrestling,
but people who liked wrestling,
their target market, they heard
about it, they knew how to get the
word around and they had this crazy.
It was just a crazy process of getting
information out to the right people.
The more you dug, the
more information you got.
And when you got information, you
were able to tell it to your friends.
Like I'd go to the, I'd be, you
know, in college and everything.
I'm like, Hey, listen.
I heard, uh, you're
not gonna believe this.
Like, what is it?
What is it?
I heard, um, I heard they're
gonna jump sting nwo.
Really?
Yeah, they're gonna try.
They're gonna jump sting
tonight during this match.
That's what I heard.
That's what they're saying.
I don't know if it's true or not.
You're like, wait, what, what?
No, I don't think I do a sting
and nothing new with him.
Next thing, you know,
spray paint on the back.
He's jumped.
I mean, it's just like, Hey, and you,
you, if you were back in that era, you
remember the rumors that were going
around, who's going to switch to the
NWO, how it was going to happen, you
know, who was going to get beat up.
Was that person going to accept or not?
It was a whole drama that kept you going.
And we ended up being marketers
for this whole soap opera.
It was wild.
And I respected it on that level.
I'm like, they're writing this thing
and setting it up in such a way
that I can't help it be entertained.
It was great.
The Monday night wars.
Yeah.
It wasn't just, um, it
wasn't just one, one group.
It wasn't just the WWF, which it was
back then before it turned to WWE,
it was WWF and the NWO pretty much.
And there was also, you know,
the guys from, um, Oh God,
why can't I think of the name?
Uh, you know, the, the crazy.
Act where everybody was getting
hurt with barbed wire and a ECW.
I don't know why I couldn't
remember the name ECW.
Yeah.
So that was another thing.
Like a dude brought over a tape of, you
know, ECW and I was like, what is this?
It's like, yeah, I got it.
It's like that guy, Raven,
that you were talking about.
Yeah.
He comes from ECW.
It's like, Hey, I heard
something about that.
You got something on it.
He brought a videotape over.
It was like.
There's this person, Justine,
and, , there's this crazy guy
who jumps off the rafters.
What was his name?
Jack?
Uh, yeah.
It was, uh, Tommy Dreamer
and all those characters.
It was a whole thing, but yeah, the
marketing, the whole business behind it.
And this is honestly what kind of led me
to a lot of how I think about creativity.
Now it's like, you know what?
You can talk to your market.
You can talk to your people.
You can talk to your fans.
You can build something that
actually works for the people.
And it's weird how it had its own
little gateway of keeping people out.
Sandman.
Yes.
New Jack.
I was just sitting here calling him Jack.
New Jack, as opposed to the old Jack.
Crazy individuals, crazy stories.
Uh, it was a whole thing.
But ...This is what you have to, this
is what you have to do when you're
looking into something and finding
out how is it connecting to people
and how it's being so real, right?
And when I say real, it's just connecting
to people in Real visceral ways.
Like I am, I'm legitimately
excited talking about it here.
I'm kind of getting hyped up
remembering all this stuff.
And I'm having a ball just like
looking at some of these comments
on this Netflix, WWE announcement.
I don't know if you all have heard
and read all the news, but once again.
Netflix is getting WWE's Raw for 10 years
and it's going to be licensed to them.
They've been trying to
get into live events.
They've been trying to get into sports.
So, sports entertainment
seems like it's a good fit.
Cable TV is dying anyway.
Netflix is becoming the new cable TV.
They're making loads of money.
This should be awesome.
And, quite frankly, a lot of
people from the whole Netflix crowd
Seem like they would be into WWE.
Maybe that's just me, but yeah.
Uh, let's see.
Oh, you didn't know that Pete.
Yeah.
That just, that just came out that
news, the whole TKO holdings ended up
making that deal with, um, TKO holdings.
They own a bunch of companies,
uh, but they're into the sports
entertainment thing, and they made
this deal happen with Netflix.
So we're making sure that we get raw.
And wrestling to the new generation.
So yeah, everybody's
going nuts over this news.
Right.
And of course, I, I, I've gotten to
the point where I love the haters.
Now you should always love your
haters because they represent
what you're doing, right?
So I just went to the New York
times and found some comments.
Here's this dude from Oregon.
The entertainment on Netflix is
mostly fiction or fantasy, so
this deal is a perfect match.
Oh my gosh.
The so called matches with
the predetermined outcomes.
Anyone interested in these farcicals has
the intelligence level of houseplants.
My apologies to houseplants everywhere.
That made me laugh.
I was laughing at this.
It's like, come on!
This is funny.
This is good stuff.
If you can't, if you can't enjoy
wrestling, I don't know what to say, man.
I used to be, let me tell you,
my mother was an opera singer.
So I had to, I had to start learning
like Italian in bits and pieces.
So I could understand kind of what
was going on in some of these operas.
And it was enjoyable and it was fun.
And I'm kind of thinking to myself,
Hey, you know, it'd be awesome.
You just, they kick that dude off stage.
And you're thinking, you know, the
actors in the opera, they never go
off the stage and into the audience.
And I'm like, yeah, in wrestling,
they go into the audience.
Sometimes if that guy went into
the audience, this, this opera
would be hella, hella nice.
I mean, that would be intense if
the guy just went into the audience.
Oh man, what would that have?
Or maybe you could have him fall
into the, maybe you could have
him fall into the orchestra pit.
Oh man, that'd be crazy.
You know, the tuba guy gets
knocked over and this is what
I'm thinking as a kid, right?
I mean, wow, that'd be exciting.
But, you know, opera guys are all
uptight and everything, so no fun there.
I mean, I, I was surprised when I'd
go to an opera and they'd have, you
know, they'd, they'd sell Snickers
once in a while, you know, it's
like, okay, well we'll sell candy.
Okay.
Anyway, here, here's just another comment.
$5 billion for something that
I have absolutely no interest
in, and we'll never ever watch.
Yet, I get to pay for it as
Netflix and the rest keep
bumping up subscription prices.
Blah, blah, blah.
This guy goes on
complaining for paragraphs.
And I'm like, yo, why is this ha Why is
this getting such a visceral response
from people who don't care about it?
If somebody told me that You know, real
housewives of whatever was playing.
I'm like, okay, sure.
You know, you guys who
watch that go do your thing.
I'm okay.
Whatever.
That's fine.
I don't get upset at this kind of stuff.
If someone's into it, at least
take, you know what, if anything
is causing this kind of reaction.
Good and bad.
It's worth looking into creatively
if you're trying to create something
and there's something you don't like
You should actually look into it
to see what people who do like it
like about it and what it is exactly
That's causing you to dislike it.
But yeah You know as I said, yeah,
thanks Pete Pete says people are dumb.
These are the least fun people
ever Yeah, they just I learned
this from my uncle man.
He was a very intelligent guy.
He came over one day And he needed
a break from all the intense
stuff that he was working on.
Um, he, he was dealing in,
in shipping and orders and
organization for these factories.
And he came home one night and started
watching Tom and Jerry and was just
laughing and I was like, you know what?
That guy's having fun.
You know what?
I could, I could not be
serious all the time.
I should have fun too.
He watches Tom and
Jerry as an old ass man.
I'm going to be fine watching wrestling.
We're good.
But yeah.
Um, I don't know what people.
Get out of being so angry and spending
so much energy on uh, knocking some of
this stuff But yeah, these comments just
go on and on Uh, I hate that some of
my subscription money is going to pay
support for this inner quote unquote
entertainment blah blah blah Uh, oh,
here's another guy with a great quote
steve schaefer from oakland california
says Wrestling I watched wrestling when it
was in black and white For five minutes.
And what's funny is this, uh, that comment
has recommendations on it in the New York
times, whenever something gets enough
recommendations, it like highlights
it a little bit like, Hey, people
recommend this post it's it's comedy.
Anyway, I could go on and
on with those comments, but.
Um, but yes, this, I, I think this was
one of the, if not the most important
realization that I needed to start
understanding marketing, sales, branding,
the whole presentation part of things
being a little bit more theatrical,
maybe, um, making sure that my voice
was heard getting out there doing things
that are a little wild, a little crazy,
a little fun, a little interesting,
hit them in the marketing, hit them in
the branding, hit them in the sales.
I don't know.
Hey, um, shout out to the comments also.
If you got any questions,
throw them in there.
But yes, that's how things went down.
And that, to me, is what
makes wrestling real.
This whole machine is operating
on a creative level that most
people will never understand.
And, I don't know.
I don't have any deep lessons in this
podcast like I do in a lot of others.
Except that it's just hella entertaining.
And it's hella fun.
Actually, you know what?
We actually saw, we actually went to see
um The live events twice, me and Theo,
we actually drove one time to Biloxi,
Alabama to see another live event.
It was, we, we called it age in
the cage because it was macho
man versus Hulk Hogan in a cage.
And they were, they were almost at
the end of their wrestling years.
And it was like, Oh man, age in the cage.
We got to see this.
And it was crazy.
We got to see what went on after
the, you know, I don't know
if you remember, but whenever.
They used to run over time.
So at the very end,
everything's going crazy.
Everything's going nuts.
And they're like, I'm
sorry, we're out of time.
We got to cut.
We got to go.
This is, this is blah, blah,
blah for, you know, wrestling,
World Wrestling Federation.
This is great.
Sorry.
See you next week.
Bye.
And then it would fade out in the
middle of this craziness going on.
During the whole age of age in the cage
era, which I called it, everybody was
fighting, going nuts and it was starting
to shut down and you could tell because
the referees and everything were jumping
up and down, the announcers were standing
up, they were all yelling, everybody was
getting hype for this crazy outro on TV.
People started throwing stuff
and it just became this big.
I don't know what to call it.
Everybody was just waving their arms,
throwing stuff, jumping up and down.
That motherfucking crazy, you know,
running up and down in the aisles.
Everybody was losing it.
And the only thing I could think of was.
Man,
this is a phenomenon, call
it lowbrow if you want.
I call it a well crafted
creative experience.
And listen, if I can come up with
anything as electrifying as that whole
phenomenon, I will be happy with my life.
If I can get that many people
together, I will be happy.
If I can get that many minds into
what I'm doing, I'll be happy.
In fact, um You know what, as I
said, with the podcast, I'm trying
to build it into something new, build
it into a, something I do repeatedly.
I still don't have a set time for it.
I show up here every weeknight.
Um, I want to come on here and, you know,
just talk to people about what's going on.
Not so much be a news show.
I still want to do my creative
analysis and breakdowns that
you'll get nowhere else.
I want to get my thoughtful input.
Um, I'm learning about stuff
as you're learning about it.
So we'll talk about it together
and we'll make it a thing.
So the next phase of this I'm
going to do is I'm going to
actually build a community.
So all the stuff will be archived.
All the stuff will be, you know, laid
out nicely in a community I'm building.
You can check the links to
the Creative Study Lounge.
Those are going to be emails
and information about that
will get sent out soon.
But that's what I'm building in
2024, the Creative Study Lounge.
And getting people together,
getting them hyped behind a purpose
is what I'm fascinated with.
So That's how I'm personally relating
to wrestling and hope to take some of
those lessons into what I'm building.
If you don't like wrestling and you're
concerned that I'm going to bring
some wrestling nonsense into the
creative study lounge, too bad, uh,
we're going to be dropping elbows.
We're going to be doing, um, you
know, flying roundhouse kicks.
We're going to be doing
three quarter presses.
We're going to be doing full Nelsons,
half Nelsons, shooting star splashes.
We're going to be doing,
uh, what else is there?
We're going to be doing arm bars.
We're going to be doing DDTs,
reverse DDTs, hurricanranas.
Yeah, we're going to bring it
all to the Creative Study Lounge.
That's awesome.
And yes, and yes, I'm taking guests Pete.
I haven't started scheduling guests,
but I'm going to be taking guests.
So that's going to be it.
As I said, I'm going to try to stick
to about an hour for every 1 of these.
Let's see.
I haven't checked over on YouTube.
What's going on over there?
Nothing much.
Usually it only gives me comments
after I shut down the live.
I don't know what that's about.
All right.
But shout out to everybody who came
through Paul pacing, Pete, somebody
passed through and didn't say anything.
Got to see who that is.
Ricky, always good having you.
And that's gonna do it for this one.
This is Mr.
Benja with Creativity Threads Live.
Find it on all your podcast platforms.
Apple, Spotify, Google Podcast.
You can't find it on Stitcher anymore
because Stitcher got shut down.
They may sell the podcast app up, but
I'd probably switch to something else
before it gets shut down completely.
Pod bean, overcast
cast, castbox, whatever.
I'm actually curious if you're not
using Spotify or um, apple Podcasts,
what are you using right now?
Anyway?
Yeah, I'd like to know
your podcast platform.
Each of them has their
own weird idiosyncrasies.
Somebody actually told me they listen
to podcasts through audible, which is
usually for audio books, but they've
added podcasts now, so I need to go make
sure I'm indexed properly on Amazon.
Anyway, as I said, that's going to do it.
Be it for this one.
Appreciate it.
Hope you enjoyed it.
Have a good one people.