What Do You Wanna Talk About? - Jimmy Hart

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Cody, this is awesome, man. Thanks for inviting me here. This is cool. I wish the energy that you have and the passion. You just exude it. You live it. You look it. You believe it. Is your style for how you approach this? How you do interviews? How you've done everything you've done? This is maybe a strange question to jump off with, but is it from Memphis? Is it from the upbringing? Is there someone who you looked at that was maybe Jimmy Hart before Jimmy Hart? Well, you know what? I was raised by a single parent. My mom raised me just us two by ourselves. And so it was kind of crazy back then, but I realized back then, if I'm going to do anything in life, whatever it might be, I'm going to have to do it myself. I didn't have a rich mother, a rich father, anybody else to fall back on. So that's the way it really started back then. We just had to make it ourselves. She worked two jobs. When I got through playing football, I believe it or not, I played ball in high school, a wing back at Treadwell High School, same school Jerry Lawler went to. But when everybody else would go home to a good old hot meal, I went right to pick pack grocery store, 35 cents an hour back then. Can you believe that? But I do my little sack groceries and stuff. And then finally I worked my way up to Stockboy. That was 40 cents an hour. And then finally the bottle boy, 50 cents an hour. So it turned out great. Everything turned out beautiful. Oh my gosh, did it turn out beautiful? You talk about Jerry Lawler. You talk about Memphis, Connenol, and the territory was. I'm curious as far as Florida territory, Verne's territory, Shire, California, Bosch, Texas, up in the Northeast. What, in terms of Memphis and just that in the South, what do you think you guys were the best at? Well, you know what? I had a chance to visit Florida for a while, and which was great. And also go to Verne's territory for a little bit, and a couple of other places. But I don't know, it's just something special happened in Memphis, you know? Before I got into the wrestling business down there, I started watching it, of course, with Jerry the King Lawler and all them. And one of my favorites, I got him Sputnik Monroe. I love Sputnik Monroe. Something about Sputnik was so cool and so great. And when I would go to the Coliseum, well really auditorium back then, I'd go out front and I'd sell programs. I'd be out front of the door and then come out, pick you, you, you, you. And I'd sell programs or popcorn, whatever they wanted me to do. And I'd always hustle as much as I could, because I knew that night, I got to watch the main event because they'd come and check up all the money before that. And that's when I got to see Sputnik Monroe and Billy Wicks in that main event for that Cadillac, week after week after week. And I just loved it. It was just something about it that I love. So finally, when Jerry Lawler gave me a chance to join the company down there, I just said, you know, I'm gonna make this work, whatever, whatever it takes. And it just turned out to be great. But I think a lot of things that we had, we got to do our own interviews. Lawler drove me crazy because when I was there, I'd have three or four matches I'd have to do on each Saturday morning live TV, but he'd wait till the last minute to tell me what he would like to happen, right? And I'd go, King, please, I said, oh, you are, you're dueling around in there, drawing pictures. It's 30 minutes before we start. He goes, Jimmy, get him about 10 minutes till, I want 10 minutes till. But the reason he did that, because he wanted me to really think hard and be my best. If I had a plan too much for it, sometimes you plan too much on anything, it doesn't turn out the way you want it to turn out. So I think that was one of the things that we had, just spontaneous stuff that we were able to do. Sputnik Monroe. Oh yeah. Wow. I think you might be the first person to mention him on the pod. What was it about him? What was it? Well, it was just something about him, his interviews. You know, when he would talk to you, you really believed everything that he said you really believed that's what was gonna happen on that particular Monday night or whoever he was fighting. And I'm gonna tell you something too, what Sputnik was really known for later on, which we found out, back in that day, of course, you know, back in our early area for us too, we didn't have guaranteed contracts. Everything was on a percentage, what you did off the door. And he was one of the ones that we had a great African-American fan base down there, but they only had a small section they could sit in at the old Coliseum back, the auditorium back then for them, Coliseum later. So they only had X amount of seats where they could really go. So Sputnik got with the guys and he was, look, this is crazy. We're half full, you know, downstairs. We've got another five or 600 people, African-Americans standing out front wanting to come in. They've only got X amount of seats for them. We need to make sure that they let everybody in that wants to buy a ticket and come in. He got that changed really quick. He got with all the boys and they got with the promoter down there at the time and just said, look, this is what we want. And they went with it and made a lot of sense. And so he was really responsible for that back in the day. That is absolutely wild. And I know that was the situation, but hey, good on him. He did great. He really did. Good on him. I mentioned it in the introduction and I mean, I could go on and on and on, but something I knew about you very early on because my dad told me when I'd watch. So if I watched you on TV or when I got to see you up close and personal at WCW, he always talked about the Gentries. And I feel like anytime we talk about Jimmy Harden wrestling, I feel like not enough people talk about the Gentries and your musical roots and what you did because it leans into the amount of music you provided for wrestling. I feel like tell me about the Gentries. Well, we're in high school, Treadwell High School, Jerry Lauder was of course one of my roommates or whatever you want to call it back in the day, schoolmates. And so what he did, he went into artwork and the wrestling of course, and we went into music of course, but what happened is our first group of Gentries, what we had, we were in high school, we did a show called Ted Mac's Original Amateur Hour. We won a talent contest in Memphis and we got to go to Miami Beach to do, which is kind of like American Bandstand. Our America's got talent now, our American Idol, but that was back in the day. So we won the talent contest in Memphis and we got to take a train from Jackson, Tennessee all the way to Miami Beach, Florida. And that's where we met Ted Mac. And so they had all different, they had a juggler there, a contest for him. They had all kinds of singers and stuff, but we played a song called Do You Love Me Live? Nobody's seen that on TV before for that type audience. So the votes came in a month later and they go, guess what, you guys won. We go back to Miami again, same train, same way we go down. We won twice. The third time we got disqualified was we'd already signed a record contract with a guy named Chips Momin. Chips Momin was a friend of a guy named George Klein, who was the best friends of Elvis Presley, okay? And so George Klein had a show called Talent Party that was in Memphis at the time, which was like American Bandstand, which was like American Idol. So we got on that show and we cut a song called Sometimes. And the other side was called Keep On Dancing. And all of a sudden back then, when you got a record played, the kids in your school could vote for that. And so every week we had the number one record. So MGM records came in and said, well, look, it might be a freak deal because they have all the votes for here because they're from here. Let's put this record out in Nashville and in Chattanooga, Tennessee of all places, but it did real well there. So that gave us our record deal on the MGM records. And then after that, the rest was history, man. We just took off from there on the weekends. We'd go to school during the weekend. On the weekends, the MGM would spend the money to fly us out to do American Bandstand. We did Clark or Hullabaloo or Shindig or where the action is. And we did a lot of those gigs like with Steppenwolf and Chicago and The Beach Boys. I love playing with The Beach Boys. So the weekends we'd go, then we'd come back on Monday and go back to school. And this was all happening. So a lot of people say if Jimmy Hart slips or moving, he's lying, but I got a lot of posters in my storage to prove it. So, but that's how it really clicked. And it just took off from there. So we had four Gentry albums off one hit single. Now that happened, I really don't know. And then now after that, we jumped to the sun label, which talking about your dad, every time I saw your dad, he'd always go, Jimmy, same keep on dancing for me. And I said, come on, Dusty, don't make, no, I can't start this show. Do you say keep on dancing? I'm like, okay, I'll sing, keep on dancing. So I did a little, you know, little part of that. And I'd always, he'd always called me to go pick him up at the airport sometimes when he was up doing the TNA stuff later on. And I'd go pick him up and he'd go, if this was Hulk Hogan, he said, why wouldn't you come pick me up in a Cadillac? I said, Dusty, I pick you up in my Kia because you're the common man. And if people see me picking you up in a limbo, he goes, Jimmy Hart, you got me again, baby. You got me again. The, just the short snippet of what you told me just now about your musical career. How many years was that? The Gentries and those MGM and those four records. How many years was that? From 1965, all the way, 65, 66 to almost 1979, but we did all those tours. And I had different members, of course, that came and went. And then when we jumped over the sun label, we kind of had a rejuvenation of the Gentries. We had a hit record, top 40 record, called Cinema Girl written by Neil Young. And back with our original Gentries, I'd met Neil Young, when he was in a group called the Buffalo Springfield, when we played the Whiskey of Go-Go for two weeks. And we were out there with the Buffalo Springfield. They were our warmup group. And we thought we were the main event. I guess you could call it back then, but I still have posters of that too. Believe it or not, some of the doors would come to see us each week. The birds would come to see us. On our breaks, I'd go next door to the rainbow room. Little Richard would be playing there. And the turtles would be playing at the rainbow room down the street. So it was just a great era back in the day. I believe it. And the fact that it all happened in such a short span of time, compared to what you're going to then do next in the wrestling space, what a life. What a, and I feel like wrestling fans, I just hope they look at what all you just said, the amount of hustle and go get them and successful four albums, MGM. This is a, I didn't even know. I just, the old man would say the Gentries. He'd talk about, because this is what I'm thinking in terms of you come into wrestling and you are very responsible for some of the best ever wrestling themes. Or as you'll hear a lot of people outside of it say, what's the walkout song, whatever it is? Right. Who was the first person to want to merge those worlds? Your musical talents and your wrestling love. When Jerry Lawler down in Memphis, he said, look, you got carte blanche. Let's do some music videos. So he let me do music videos. And of course back then we didn't have a lot of money in a budget, right? So like, I would take say like Eddie Gilbert when we did his song, Hot Stuff, which was a song already out. But I borrowed my friend that at Treadwell High School, I borrowed his Corvette, put him in that. My friend of mine had a place called Chelsea Limited down there, had all closed from Europe. So we'd go in, we'd put him in an outfit, come out the door, film a little bit, go back in and change, come out the door. We did that over and over. And so we did all that. On the motorcycle, I had another team called the Dirty White Boys. We only had one motorcycle. So I hooked that on the back of a truck with a heartfelt. And we came over one side, we let one guy ride across the bridge with it. Then we'd go back, put the other guy on it right across the bridge. And so we had him, one guy pointing to the right, one guy pointing to the left. So it looked like they were riding together, coming in on that. But that's the way we had to make it back then. No budget. So we just did everything we could, but Jerry let me do a lot of crazy stuff back then. It's songs like We Hate School and Lance Russell's Nose, all the big ones if you're from Memphis. And so we just had fun doing it. So when I got to New York, Vince let me do a lot of the musical stuff up here. And so by the way, Sexy Boy, but Shawn Michaels, which he still uses, thank you, Shawn, has over 24 million hits on Spotify if you check it out. Would that be your favorite one that you did, that you worked on? Well, I love that one because Shawn did it. The songs that, Jimmy Johnson did great songs up here, but I tried to fix mine where some of the guys were able to really participate in them and maybe sing them too, like the Rouge Show Brothers, the big line, we don't like heavy metal, we don't like rock and roll, all we like to listen to is Barry Mantlow. And people would laugh and go, why don't you say Barry Mantlow? And I said, well, if we had said Led Zeppelin, people would have loved him. And so you had to make them kind of quirky too, along with it, but we had so much fun. All the honky tonk man's hits, you know, a honka honka honky love. You ain't nothing but a honky dog, baby. And all the big ones, right? Yeah. I don't know. And so we just, we had so much fun doing them. And then when I first came up to do WrestleMania one, which I was lucky to be on that, but I was so excited, I met Dave Wolf, who was Cindy Lauper's manager. And so he said, we're cutting a wrestling album. He got a song for it. And I said, well, I got one called Eat Your Heart Out, Rick Springfield. He heard it, he goes, I love it. Let's do it. So it just all kind of fell into place. Let's take a moment to talk about power moves. When you bet on yourself, leave the comfort of the status quo and come back to headline WrestleMania. That is a power move. Just like how hiring Morgan and Morgan is a power move. Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury law firm. They have over 100 offices nationwide and more than 1,000 lawyers. With over $30 billion recovered for over 500,000 clients, Morgan and Morgan has a proven track record of fighting to get you full and fair compensation. In Florida, a client recently received $6.1 million after the insurance company's best offer was just $100,000. While in Georgia, another client recently received $29.5 million and in Nashville, another client was awarded $10.6 million. If you're injured by the negligence of another, you deserve to be paid. If you're ever injured, you can check out Morgan and Morgan. Their fee is free unless they win. For more information, go to forthepeople.com slash Cody, our dial pound law. That's pound 529 from your cell phone. That's F-O-R the people.com. This is something I've thought about wrestling music for a long time, but you are by far the expert. So I'm gonna ask your opinion on this, is wrestling songs, the entrance, the music, I think the answer is not always having the best song, but having the most catchy songs. Yes, yes. Okay, that's, and I feel your tunes because they're sexy boy, what else? Give me the catalog of what you did. They're sexy boy. Okay, yes. Road Warriors, we did the Road Warriors up there because they couldn't use the one by the rock group that they had it out in some Metallica or whoever had that. And so then we had Road Warriors, Snookas, Repo Man, of course the Heart Foundation theme. And we had, oh, Ted D.B. Ossie, the Millionaire, Money, Money, Money, Money. And what I did on his, I just took the words that he would use for promo, I chopped them up and I said, look Ted, you just read these words. I'm gonna show you when to come in for him and doing them. So we put the thing together and he did it like in his own voice, so it turned out good for him, you know? So we did that. I'm got a list of, you kind of caught me off guard here, but. Did you do Dusty's? Yeah, we did all your dads. Oh my God, but I gotta tell you, here's a quick story. This is so funny with him. Dusty goes, hey, I just talked to Vince and he said, you can write me a song. I said, okay, what do you want it? And he goes, okay, I had my list. He goes, okay, I want a cowbell. I went, cowbell. He goes, give me some soul sister singing from Memphis. I said, soul sister singing from Memphis. He goes, give me some horns. Those Memphis horns, I said, okay, Memphis horn. I said, damn, Dusty, why don't you just write it yourself? He went, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. So we did it, but we got that cowbell in the front of it. Man, I had those girls in the front going, he's American dream. Boom, boom, boom, he's just the common man. You know, they were rocking out. We had the horns in there, bam, bam, you know? And so I couldn't wait to play it for him because I always loved him, man. And so he listened to it, he goes, and I'm going, oh man, this don't look good. This is not good. I said, this ain't gonna be good. I know it. He came out and he goes, not only did I don't like, I love it. He said, I love it. It made me feel so good because, you know, I always loved him, man. And that was so great when he did that. We did American Made for Huck because when we left New York and went to WCW, we couldn't use real Americans. So we did American Made for him. I got a question about that. Okay. Okay. I have been on record. It's gonna, not everyone loves this, but I have on record said that I have preferred American Made over real American. Oh, don't get, he don't mean please. Right, so I, I don't know. And I remember there's, I was in Japan one time. I sang the whole thing. Y'all did, we got the tape. You and the- It's me and Matt Nick. Everybody was out there working here in Japan at the time. We were all singing it because we were about American Made. There was a whole discussion. Guy named Scorpio Sky. It was a whole discussion on what was better. I remember you got this. You did, you sent it to me. I showed it to Huck. He goes, oh my God, this is great. Yeah, we knew the whole, we were at a train station singing the whole song. Yeah, because Huck loved you. Huck goes, he goes, does she wrote, sent that to you? And I said, does, I went, yes, I got it. I said, I said, you know, I said, Cody sent it to me. And I just said, I was so excited to get that, you know? And matter of fact, we still have that. We sure do. Well, which one is better? Which one's better? Well, here's what it is. For the people like real American, it's better for them. For the people like American Made, it's better for them. Hey, look. That's fair, that's fair. Let me just tell you something. Here's what I've learned. I ain't no Democrat. I ain't no Republican. All I am is just a Gibroni. And that's just the way it is. Oh man. That's all I am. That's all I'll ever be. But same thing on that, you know? Whoever likes what they like, let them like it. Well too, it speaks to your experience when you're watching. So I was so excited when Hulk came to WCW for what it meant for WCW. For what that meant. He was gonna be across from Sting. He was gonna see all these guys I've liked and will have that huge star that was out there in the world is now part of WCW. So his music, all of it, I was into it. I actually into every, I think a pretty good track record for the Hulkster in terms of all the musical choices he made from real American. And then all the way when we did the, you know, Hendrix, which is never on anything you watch anymore. It's, I assume that costs a lot of money. Oh, too much money. But all good choices. In terms of, I'm looking, cause there's multiple megaphones throughout this room and your jackets, which have become signature to you. No one doing it like you. Who did you enjoy most? I feel like I know the answer, but you got to really manage. And you're part of this era of managers that we all wish we could have back. Who did you enjoy most managing? Well, a quick story. The reason I did my jackets like that is because the first time we did American bandstand with Dick Clark and all the tours with Dick Clark, our first tour was with the Beach Boys with Dick Clark. And he said, everybody into a room, Cody. And he said, look, when you're on that stage, you might not feel good sometimes. You might not feel like you want to go out there. He said, but you got to remember one thing, your dress, your dress is so important because if you dress like the audience, one day you're going to wind up sitting in the audience, meaning give the people their money's worth. But they want to see somebody dressed like them. They want to see somebody different. And that's why I kept that up. So in WWE, Vince let me dress the way I wanted to dress. I'd always show my jacket, Jimmy, whatever you want to do, you do it. I went, okay, he's the one that brought me the megaphone. A honky and I were sitting in, in Poughkeepsie, New York, getting ready to go out for a match on live TV. And he said, this is going to be yours. He just got, he came back from Japan with it. And I said, can I paint it? He goes, whatever you want to do with it. Just don't overuse it. Yes, sir, thank you. And so I'm glad he didn't bring me a piano to carry around with me. Thank you, Vince. So I had that. And so that's how I've used it too. But the jackets, I wanted to be different. I wanted to be special, didn't want to be gaudy. But I realized this, when you have so many people, I had 23 different people that I managed up in New York during that whole length of time. 23? Yeah, 23 different ones. But here's why everybody was so important. If I was with earthquake and typhoon, I didn't want to wear a honky-tonk jacket out while they were doing that, right? So, and I realized that, that I've got to make a jacket for everybody that I'm going to manage. I've got to make them feel special, feel important. Because I'd have never got this Hall of Fame ring here if it went for all the guys that I was able to go to the ring with. Let me tell you that. They were the Cadillac. I was the hood on the Cadillac. But they were so important to me, everybody. So that's why I was able to create all the jackets. If it was honky, you know, honky doing the Elvis gimmick and I'd wear the Colonel Parker outfit. I'd wear the Jimmy Hart musical note stuff, you know? And if it was with the Rue shows, I'd have the Florida Leaves and stuff, or Dino Bravo, or earthquake and typhoon, or if I was with Terry and Dory Funk, when I managed them, I'd have the kind of Buckskin stuff. So I just made sure that everybody was special. You're talking about honky-tonk, man. I got honky is so, I have a bunch of honky-tonk stories, but this is something that I was thinking about before you came on. And I was really, I've told you this story before, but it was a really, really important moment for me learning-wise. Was Miami, WrestleMania is there, and they sent, you know how it goes, around Mania Time Town Relations. They got a list of names. Someone on the roster, one of our luminaries, one of our legends, our hall. We need people going. They're going to this TV station. Me and you went, I think, six a.m., first shift. So we were there, and something was bothering me. I was, just because you were talking about how you feel on stage, something was bothering me. Maybe I didn't like what Big Show and I were gonna do at Mania, or maybe I was just struggling in the beginning, it was kind of struggling on how do I continue to climb the ladder, all those questions, right? And you were just quiet and you were sitting next to me, and she opened up the news feed. Again, it was first thing in the morning, and I thought she was gonna go to me, but she swung over to you, and you had the program for WrestleMania, and you had your thumb on my page, and you flipped it open, and you said, I'm here with this young man right here. He's wrestling for the Intercontinental title. This is what we should be talking about. You just went into this whole promo highlighting me, and then you said, and we're opening up seats, and it was just such a wonderful, genuine, authentic sales pitch, and I remember thinking I felt like such a jerk. I felt like such, because that was, again, that Hall of Fame ring. That was the difference, right? Is when it was time, you were the most professional, and it was a great moment. I remember going later, I told Brandy, I told whoever I was talking to that day, I said, I learned something today. I might not be loving this or unhappy with this, but this is what I'm paid to do, and this is a pretty lucky job to have in terms of where I was at. And man, you just, it changed me. I still think about this to this day, in terms of you went there to sell tickets for WrestleMania, and the way you highlighted me, and having the program ready, you never said anything, it was so, so just cool. This is just thank you. It was a special moment. Well, you know, I love you for saying that, but you know what, just in your lifetime, you see certain people that you just know are gonna do great, and I just always felt that about you. You know, it's like when Hulk, when we went to WCW and your dad and everything else, he'd always tell your dad, he's like, you know, Dusty, of course you know what, he said, I stole a little bit from Dusty Rhodes, I stole a little bit from Superstar Graham, you know, Hulk would always admit that, you know? And he just said, he loved watching the way your dad would take care of you. And it's the same thing with you too, you know, the way you are now. You know, when I see all the kids with all the merchandise, you know, when I see all the kids, I don't care what you do in life. I mean, you can do, you can have the best music, you can have the best outfits, you can have everything you want, but if the people wearing that outfit are coming out to that music, doesn't have that special thing inside, you know? Well, your look, you've got such a different look, you know? And it's just something there. And you know, when I'm out all the time, you'll be surprised, well, I know you're not, cause you see them too, but when I go out sometimes and do autographs or do stuff for WWE or whatever, I always like to watch who's wearing the merchandise. You know, I always watch the merchandise, who's got this on, who's got that on? And that way it kind of helps me who I think might be over, you know, certain towns, different people might be over in more than other towns. But at WrestleMania, I watched the merchandise at WrestleMania. And I remember, your stuff is always, and I'm not saying it cause you're here, but your stuff is always, the kids love you, man. And the adults too, but I saw one girl there and she was so excited. And I just said, I know he would come to see cause she had one of your jackets. I guess they sell yours jackets now. Your, your, your, full replicas of jackets. Yeah, yeah. So it was great, but she had that. And she said, that's why I came to see, cause I always ask them, who'd you come to see? Even though they have a shirt on with them, but she, I remember her saying that and everything, but I always watch that. So what makes you over selling merchandise, tickets and the renas, you know what I mean? And so like I said, when they call me to do this, I said, I'm really gonna be with the champ. Are you kidding me? This is great. Oh, this is. I'm excited. No, this is awesome, man. I was so excited for, for, for you to come on here and talking about just the amount you lived with music alone. And also something I feel like this is WWE. It's the home of sports entertainment. Right? This is taking it back, but you're right there right around the time that Andy Kaufman hits the scene. And I'm thinking, is that the first or the most significant moment where, cause now I'm coming off of multiple WrestleMania's where there's been celebrities and outside and we merge the worlds. And then we want to merge the audience, right? But is that the first time sports and pro wrestling was sports entertainment? Is that the first moment or it was such a big thing and so unique? Well, you know what was so cool about it? I think Vince senior was going to use Andy, but didn't do it for whatever reason. Cause he didn't want to die. Cause people talk to me about it, the story I got. And that bill after was telling me this. And so they tried to get him up in New York. And so he didn't want to do it. He said, ah, the entertainment thing, whatever. So man, we jumped on it. He called us, I was at Lawler's kitchen back then. Not a big office, right? We were in the kitchen. Lawler was trying to book and do the program. And I was sitting there trying to help him with it. And so Bill called and he goes, look, got this guy Andy Kaufman comedian. Yeah, from taxi. Yeah, he was still on taxi at the time. He loves wrestling. He's doing this indigender thing with these girls and stuff. Lawler said, man, we'll take him, bring him on down. We don't have the money to fly him in. No, he's going to fly himself in. He said, well, we don't know what we're going to pay him. What he wants, he goes, he'll do it for nothing. And we went, oh, that's right down our alley. Fly himself in doing for nothing. We're in baby. Restless dream right there. Jimmy picked him up at the airport. Okay, baby, I will. So he came down and the rest was history, but he loved the business. He'd step my house some. I got to manage him often on two. Well, after Lawler had the program with him, because what would happen, he, you know how the wrestling business work, you know, if you stay on one thing too long, you know, it ain't good, you know? And so he would be outside doing his comedian thing too much. And people are here on Monday night are going, well, we got to go to work tomorrow morning. So let's get him in the ring. He didn't want that to happen. So I started managing him. So I could say, okay, that's good enough. Let's get in the ring and do what we got to do. But Andy would stay at my house some, you know, when he passed away, he still had all of his checks. He never cashed in if it's Memphis checks. I don't know because they were so bad or he just didn't want to get, no, I'm just kidding, they were good. But he still had them in the store. He sure did. I just donated to a company up here, one of his pair of his sunglasses. I gave it to Ben Brown. One of a pair of his sunglasses that we bought it when he loved Elvis at the time. After we did the matches on Monday night, he'd always go, I'd have to take him by Elvis's house back and they before it really got commercialized. And we'd sit across the street for at least 30 minutes and he goes, you know, Jimmy, I know Elvis is not dead. He's going to come out of that gate tonight. He'll have a disguise on, but I'll know him. And I'm going, Andy, please, it's ain't going to happen brother. No, I'm going to do it. And I say, look, I've got to drive all the way to Louisville, Kentucky tomorrow, almost 400 miles. So I'd stay for 30 minutes and then get him back to a hotel, but he was great. He loved this business, man. I thought a lot about Andy and that connection you had and being there and he loved it. And you fast forward from then to now. I'll give you two examples. I don't know if you've rubbed shoulders with them or chatted them up, but have you spoken with little Yachty or jelly roll at all? You know what? I saw little Yachty and I saw him at WrestleMania after the match with them and I told him, I said, man, I love the gimmick y'all got going on. After people still use gimmick. I don't know if we say that anymore. It might be old school, but I said, y'all work so good together and everything else. He said, well, thanks for saying, I said, great. And then, and jelly roll, I was, I haven't really had a time to say anything to him, you know? He's right up your alley in a sense of the wrestler's dream, loves this, wants to be here. Oh, that's awesome. Wants to advance it to the point where sometimes we're not used to that. And jelly just very much classic you would have seen him go one of the boys, one of the boys. He, if we were a battle royal, he could be in it. You know, he was one of the boys, but that's, I'm glad it was like that with Andy and all the stories you hear about it. That's great. He loved it. When I was coming back to the WWE at WrestleMania 38, of course I had my doubts. I thought, is this really the right decision for me? What if I fail? What if it doesn't go how I planned? Choosing to make that leap of faith was clearly one of the best decisions I have ever made. If you're starting a business, you might feel the same. So much work goes into this thing that you're not entirely sure will work out. That's why it's helpful to have a partner like Shopify by your side. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the US from household names to brands just getting started. Get started with your own design studio with hundreds of ready to use templates. Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand's style. Get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash Cody. You, have you watched the Hogan documentary? No, I haven't seen any. We spent seven months doing it. I know everybody from Netflix did a tremendous job on it. But I know it's getting over because in the airport, when I go through the airport now, I mean, people would recognize you off and on, but now it's more than ever people coming up, Jimmy, I'm so sorry for your loss. And I say, but you know, I tell the same thing. I said, number one, I'm sorry for your loss. I'm sorry for your loss. I'm sorry for your loss. I said, hope's in a better place right now. No more pain, no more suffering. No more having to look at the internet over God, God Goo Goo, you know? And I just said, so he's happy. I like that God, God Goo Goo. Well, everything on it right now. Yeah, I like that. But that's true and they said, man, we loved it. We loved it so much. We learned and I said, well, thank you. I said, the guys did so much. And of course when hope passed away, we had to go ahead and put another ending on it. So it took a little bit longer than what they wanted. but the company just did tremendous on it. So I was so happy, Huck would be happy over that. I'm going to reveal something on this show that is gonna, there's gonna be a lot of interviews that people look back on and go, uh-oh, I have trouble watching anything internal. Oh wow. It's because I grew up in it. Sometimes you can smell the work, sometimes I don't wanna know. I grew up in this. Show me what's on screen. I don't wanna. So there's been a lot of interviews where I've had to navigate, what'd you think of the iron claw? What'd you think of the wrestler? Even with Unreal at first, which Unreal and I have finally come to this really great place together. But even Unreal, I'm always like, it's great. I have some pre-readied answer because I want wrestling to always be seen in the best light, but I really struggle when someone else documents the inside of what we do. Because it's gonna be a little bit their version. With that said, this Hogan doc, anyone who's come on my bus in the last few weeks has been annoyed. It's on repeat. Oh wow. Gosh, he would love that. It's on repeat. And I find something new in it each time. I find something new in it each time that I just, it didn't know or I didn't think of, or my gosh, didn't realize the magnitude of it. But there is a fun question in the Goo Goo Gaga land of online that is circulating. I don't know if you have been asked this question, but one of the revelations of this documentary is you have the nicest house. Let me hold, thank you. I'm so glad you brought that. Anyone, and I came up with theories. I said it's the music money. It's the, I came up with the, I said, yeah, that makes sense. Jimmy Hart, baby, like that house. I hate to bust the bubble. Let me tell you what happened. Here's a real story. I'm so glad you asked me that. I was hoping you would ask me that. I never said it was mine. I didn't say anything. That's what they put in film. Hey, it's yours if you're in it, you know? A multi-millionaire friend of mine, by the name of Ben Mala, has that house. He bought it for some baseball player for $29 million or whatever, played for Philadelphia. I can't even think of his name. Here's what happened. About six years ago, he said, he met with me in Huck and he said, look, I want to have a Hogan's Beach over here. Right on the water over here. He said, I think we can draw three or 4,000 people. We thought, what? Every week, I said, okay. It goes, the only thing about it now. He said, if that's the case, he said, I'd like Jimmy to manage it. I went, oh my gosh, here I go again. This is it. He said, you can still go out and do your wrestling stuff because I was still doing that. Okay, because I love that. So what happened? We went over there. And so my house, because I had a house nice place down in Tampa, you know, because let's say you made a little bit of money. WWE is great. I love WWE. Oh yeah, yeah. You made a little bit of money out of the music too. But my wife has dementia. So finally we had to put her in a home, which she is now, still hanging in, God bless her soul. And so my kids all grew up, you know, and left after my daughter had passed away six months, about six years ago. And so I had my two sons, but they live there. So nobody was in the house but me and I'm going, what am I doing here? I said, look, sell your house. Cause he does all the real estate. He said, we'll help you sell it. Just come over here and live at the hotel. We'll give you a good room over there. But that way you're there 24 seven running the play. So I did that. So it turned out to be great. So I stayed there for the whole two years because what he does, he gets them going, then he wants to sell them. That's what he does with everything he's hooked on. So it turned out to be awesome. So then he sold it. So he said, well, look, Jimmy, now I bought another hotel up in Daytona. I want to put a bar in up there for you. We put all your memory up there. And I thought, well, it's a way to get everything, you know, framed and stuff. So why not? But I was still able to go do my wrestling. So we went dead end. I didn't know how rough Daytona, I had to get a gun permit. The last thing I want to do is shoot anybody, including myself. So I had to get a gun permit. I'm going, oh my gosh, it's like the wild, wild, wild. So finally, finally, finally, he sold it. So then he said, I said, what are you doing? I said, well, I've got to try to find me a place. Now he goes, no, he said, you're living over here. I said, I said, not only living here. He goes, no, Jimmy, I've got this whole side over here. This place is so big. It's got a little miniature golf course there. It's got a bowling alley. It's got a pool that's got a remote to it that goes around there and you're on the beach, right? And I said, well, look, I don't go on the beach. I'm not going to play miniature golf. I sure don't bowl. And I don't want to go swimming with a chlorine because when I dye my hair once a month, I don't want it to fade off, you know, have the chlorine and I do that. So I said, I said, but I'll take you up on it. So that's where I have that whole side. It's got the guard gate, but everybody, the whole video, everybody goes, man, I love your house. And I went, wait a minute, I spend more time going, it's not mine, it's my friend's house, but I do live there, but it's not mine. So I'm glad you brought that out. Thank you so much. But it's wrestling. So we've seen you in it. It's your house. I love you. It's wrestling. We've seen, oh man. Also the fact that you brought up a gun permit for Daytona, you, your clothes, definitely, I feel like, I could see you carrying something under one of those jackets from time to time. You know what I'm saying? Like, you may not. And also yet from the days of your heel work, you were around some very riotous crowds, right? It was a great time. But you know what? It was like a, it was like a badge of acceptance. I loved it. When we had beer thrown on us, I didn't complain or get mad. I loved that. When we had people, you know, I got shot one time in Louisville, everybody has in the, in the rump with a, with a dart gun, a guy made a homemade dart and went, phew, hit me right in the, what bother me the most? I just, Hold on, hold on, just for context. A man in Louisville, Yeah, yeah. Took a dart gun blow, blow style. He got a, he got a cheap little straw from Wendy's or McDonald's or whatever, Bill and the big one, made a, made a homemade little, took a little needle, like threading needle, put it in there, put a little thing on it and went, phew. As I was coming out, cause they had me draped over. And he shot you in the ass. Handsome Jimmy, right. Handsome Jimmy shoulder. It was a six man tag. It was like Jerry Lawlard, Jerry Jarrett and Dylan D against me, the dream machine and Handsome Jimmy Valle. And I'm leaning over the back there, carried me out of course. I got beat, right? So I'm leaning over the back and all of a sudden I'm going, Oh God. And I thought, man, I hope nobody burnt my tights cause we didn't make a lot of money back then. And so I got back and I went, Oh my, I hope my tights aren't burnt. And they go, no, look. They went, whoo. And I went, what is it? And they go, look, it's a dart. And I went, oh my God. And then, and Miss Jarrett ran that she goes, you've got to go get a techno shot. I went, what? You got to go get a techno shot. I went, oh my God. I said, it's going to take my whole payoff to go get a techno shot, you know? But I went and got a techno shot. I didn't have anything thank goodness, but that's what happened. I went, oh my gosh, I couldn't believe. But you know what? I don't really get mad about it because we get the people upset over it. And then we get mad because they get upset with those, it didn't make any sense, right? I don't know if you remember, but my dad had that splotch is what it's often called. He had that mark. Yes. I've just heard fans call it the splotch. I asked what it was. This is a mark on his stomach. And he told me a fan stabbed him. Oh. It's a birthmark. Yeah. That's what he told me. He told me it was a birthmark. I'm going. It's a birthmark. But I remember thinking like, dang, it was when him and Dick were together, I thought you were that. There was that much heat and people would come. That guy came to shoot you in the butt with a bloat. Like that heat came for that. That's how angry you had gotten them. You know, we want them to come in and have a great time. And sometimes they have too great of a time, but that's okay. You know, it is what it is. You said something on the Hogan doc that I really, again, I've been, I've just so, it opened up a whole new world for me. I started watching stuff that I'd put on the back burner and I lied about watching. Just, I got to see how this is, how we're represented, how we're seen. But you said something about the fans because you were talking about WrestleMania 18. And you said something about how the fans can change in for, they can change your trajectory, your fate, that they have that much power that they, and any night they might go a different way or they might accept something and cling to something and love something or they might hate it. I think one of the reasons I was so excited about you being on the pod and maybe it's being from the South, maybe it's just the way you were raised, but you love wrestling fans. And you said something else. I mean, this doc is, you're full of insight, including the put on that seatbelt. I don't know if you recall saying, hey, it's gonna be a bumpy road, put on that seatbelt. I don't remember saying anything. Oh my gosh. No, it's a prime example of the full journey. There's some real highs here. There's some, this is in every wrestling, you know, good wrestling career, you're up, you're down. Oh, great. All the things, have you, is there ever been a time? And I don't know, maybe it's a hard question to answer. Is there ever been a time, Jimmy, where you weren't feeling this, where you weren't at the level of excitement and all joy that you always bring to what you do? Quick story, I'll try to make this short and sweet. The reason I love wrestling so much is my uncle, JB, that lived in Jackson, Mississippi when I was about 10 years old. Every summer, my mother would let me go with my uncle down to Jackson, Mississippi and his family. And that's when I first saw the wrestling in Jackson, Mississippi. And every year I got to spend two weeks down there. And I loved his house and everything. He was great in business and everything. Had a construction service, but on Tuesday or Wednesday night, we got to go watch wrestling. And I fell in love with it. I'd always loved it, just always loved it. And just from that day on, and back even when I was on tour with Dick Clark, with the Beach Boys or Chicago who were with, when I'd go to the major cities, if we were in Atlanta, I'd watch Dusty Rhodes and Rick Flare, Dusty Rhodes and Rick Flare and those guys down there. Then we'd go to Carolinas and I'd turn the TV on Saturday mornings, you know, because on the weekends we'd play and I'd turn the TV on and watch whatever superstars were there. Same thing in Minnesota, same things in Texas, the funk's everywhere, but I was still always loved it, even when I was in music. So when I had the chance for Lawler, when he called me to ask me to help him cut a wrestling album, we got in with that. And then all of a sudden it just fell into place where I started doing the music and doing the wrestling. And then the one day came when he said, look, he said, we love you, man. He said, Jerry, Jerry, it said, why don't you just this music for a while? You can always go back and manage me. I've got an angle for you to do on Monday night. And buddy, he didn't tell me anything. Monday night, to commit South Coliseum. He said, when I raised my hand, I want you to throw me this chain. I went, okay. So I'm sitting there with Lance Russell at ringside. He goes, raise the hand. I said, he didn't tell me to lob it where people can see it. I threw it like a baseball, man. And look, and it went right by him, but this is a rope and it goes, wrapped around the rope. It looked like it was, he just reached back and got it, not done DL. Bam, one, two, three. It was like perfect. He goes, man, that was great. And I went, I don't know what I was even doing. The next week I'm on TV, can't wrestle a lick, but I watched it my whole life. So Lauder goes, we're gonna have a match between you and a guy named Pat Hutchison. So Dundee comes out and goes, Jimmy Hart, you big sissy, you're a music guy, blah, blah, bloom, bloom, bloom. I challenge you to a match with Pat Hutchison on Monday night. And I said, he's been wrestling three years, right? I go there on Monday night. Now Lauder dresses me like a clown. He gives me his robe that's three feet too long. I'm dragging. He said, what size shoes you wear? I said, eight and a half. He gives 10 and a half boot to wear. I mean, his boots, candy stripe boots. His tires, he gets one of those tires and keeps falling down. I can't even move. He keeps falling down. I'm going to pull it back up. I mean, you know, so I get to the ring. We do the match. When the match was over, the little guy, guy, Goo Goo, we get back and Jerry, Jerry wasn't there, but he saw the film and he said, it looks like Jimmy Hart had been wrestling for three years because I loved it so much. And, you know, a quick story. I really never left up here to go to WCW. What happened? We did a thing where they switched me baby face. I guess it's okay to say that, I'm sure it is. I said it already. I don't want to do anything wrong, please. I'm on scholarship up here in WWE. So I love it. So what happened? We do the thing where they got me. I was managing Brutus and Hook at WrestleMania nine against the team I turned on. I got to be the worst manager in the world. Look, I had the Heart Foundation. We had championship titles. What did I do? I leave them to join the nasty boys. So I give a screw job to the Heart Foundation to give the boys the belts to the nasty boys. So, I mean titles, excuse me, can't say bell. You can say it. So I give the title to the nasty boys. And so now that I turn on them to give the titles to Money Incorporated. So I'll be the worst manager. I don't know who I want to be with, man. But I did all this stuff. So I'm managing Hook and Brutus against Money Inc, right? So we do that match. So now we come back. So now we have one more match in Madisonville Garden. Hook's fixed a leave to go do Thunder and Paradise. So he goes, man, I want you to come with me. And I said, well, man, I love that. He goes, if you come with me, if you don't like it, you can go back. So he's go talk to Vince. So I went and talked to Vince up in Madison Square Garden in the room. He met with me and I said, look Vince, I said, I've managed 23 or 24 different people here. And I've loved it. But right now you've got me with Hook in them and they're leaving. So what am I gonna do? He goes, don't worry. He goes, man, I got, but we'll do this. And I said, well, look, what I'd like to do is take a little time off if I can and go do Thunder and Paradise with him. He goes, how many times have you heard that? If you want to come back, you can, right? But he didn't say I could. He said, if you want to come back, Jimmy, you've been great for us. We love you. And so you can do it. So I left to go do that with them. And so with Hook down Thunder and Paradise. So I did it. So really, I never left the territory, you know? But while we were down there, after we were down there for six months, it's when Eric and Rick Flair came through and said, Hook, are you going back up there? I don't know if I am or not. Well, let's go down. I don't want to take Jimmy with me. He goes, yeah, he can do music for us and manage. That's how it all really worked out. So I really never left here. In my mind. You've always been here, right? I've always been. I've always loved it though, you know? There are more than 70,000 events listed on SeatGeek, including concerts, sports, festivals, and more. There are tons of great WWE events coming up. Plus the MLB is in full swing. The NBA and NHL playoffs are here and the NFL schedule just came out. You can also now get World Cup tickets on SeatGeek. I love using SeatGeek because they have your back. Each ticket is rated on a scale of one to 10. So you know you're getting a good deal. Make sure to look for the green dots. Green means good, red means bad. Every ticket is backed by the buyer guarantee. And of course, I have a code for you guys. You can use Kodi10 for 10% off your next set of tickets at SeatGeek. That's 10% off any tickets with promo code Kodi10. Make sure you click the link in the description to download the app and have the code automatically added to your account so you can use it later. Thank you SeatGeek. One thing I think Discovery, having chatted with you and seeing how you are with all your guys and you 20 something, the amount of people you've managed, you weren't just manager on screen. You were manager very much in several real ways and especially with Hulk to a degree and helping run elements of that empire and his endeavors and your endeavors, what do you think? And maybe this is just too broad. What do you think is missing today in terms of when you look at the current product and we don't have as many, we have very few managers. What do you think's missing? Do you think that piece of it, that actual partnership that was there is missing? Well, you know, everything changes though. Like I know I've changed a lot too. I look at things a lot different than maybe some of the people my age and I've been around this long in the wrestling business. They look at things, but they go, I don't like that product, I don't like this. I still love the product. And I still watch your next T on Tuesday. I watched Raw on Monday. I watched Smackdown. I love it all. It's like, people threw some, they said, who you like from the next T? And I said, I loved Ethan Page and I love, if that's his last name, I love him and I love Ricky Saints and I loved Sol Ruka. Sol Ruka reminds me of a shot at flair meets Javon Evans, you know, with her acrobatic ability and his acrobatic ability and everything else. And somebody told me that it said, what would you do with Sami Zayn? Cause I wrote with Sami Zayn in the van at WrestleMania. I can't not imagine that car ride. I know, but listen. I can't imagine. I know, but trust me. And so we were talking everything else and I knew he was going against tricking. You know, that's trick. You know, look, when you got the outfits tricks got and you got the music and you got the manager and you got everything you got. People are gonna love you. You know that. I do too. And I didn't say it to Sami, but I wanted to say, you know, Sami, when you make a change, you got to change that look. I wanted to say dye your hair black. That's a change. Cut your beard different. Black, that's a change. Do a different outfit because sometimes you can't just keep the same look and be the same, you know, people, you know, but I didn't want to say that cause you know, he probably stretched me. So I said, I'm keeping my mouth shut. But sometimes you have to really do that. But the business now, everything changes and it's gonna change and you just kind of got a role with it. But I just think that if I was doing something, I always look, who's doing merchandise? You know, what are the ratings for these segments? I'm sure they do it anyhow. And you look and see what's happening. So sometimes you keep doing something so long like with Hawking the NWO. What happened with us before we changed on it? We look at merchandise because we were talking maybe we could have changed. And I said, well, look at merchandise sales. We looked at that. We saw that was dipping a little bit. Then we looked at certain house shows, how much you were drawing the house shows back then when we were doing them. And that was dropping a little bit when he was on top. And I just said, you know the old saying, if you do what you've always done, you're gonna have what you've always had. So sometimes it might be time to change. And so then, but I said, but here's the thing. And then when they had, and I said, but look, here's what's good about this hook. If we do this, I said, look who's coming over. Two guys red hot, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. So you're gonna have two bookends, and we are that are so good and so bigger than life that you've never really had that before. And so it was just magic. It was just magic that happened on that type thing. And so sometimes thing, and I'm not saying it's gonna work with everybody, but I always look at everything on doing. If I had a wrestling school, which I never will cause I can't wrestle, but if I had one, I'd get somebody that could talk first, had charisma first and had a look, and then I'm gonna train them. I'm not gonna train them and then go, damn, they can't talk. What am I doing out here doing this? Well, what can we do with him? Well, let's put him in a mask and make him a Goo Goo Gaga. So I want to actually take, if with your permission, I think we need to take three things and put them in the, what do you want to talk about vernacular? Cause they've blown me away. Goo Goo Gaga feels very interchangeable and usable in the best wrestling parlance in the way. So we want that word, if we can use that with your permission on this show. I think we also, you're the first person and maybe the last who's still saying the wrestling. And I love that. I love, I'm gonna, we would like that. And then the quote, which was the quote. So this is my favorite thing about, what do you want to talk about is, Craig who produces a show puts this whole sheet together of these questions that I should ask in history and bios that Ben Brown sets this whole warehouse up of the history of the business running through here. Everyone who loves it comes. There's a gallery of people who are sitting here watching us right now, but I'm not a podcaster. My favorite thing is to, is the wrestling, the wrestling is that, that's what I, that's what I want to do. And I often come here and think, oh, right, this would be really fun. These are great guests. But the best thing that can ever happen for me as a wrestler is when I can sit here and learn. And I can only learn when it's, it's someone like you. And to hear that, and the quote is, when you do the same thing, what is the exact quote? If you do what you've always done, you're gonna have what you've always had. I needed that today. Now, now, if it's doing good, but if it's doing good, keep it up. You know what I mean? But if it ain't, you better change that menu real, real quick. But look, don't say something to somebody. Don't say something to Triple H and get me fired now. I'm on scholarship. No, no, no. I think you're on scholarship one of the better, if not the best guy on the scholarship. When I was talking Triple H before, when I went out with Huck for that California deal we did, I had the flag Triple H go, Jimmy, whatever you do, don't let that flag touch the ground. I said, don't worry, baby, I ain't. If I'd have raised it any higher, man, I'd have ripped my arms out of the socket. Man, I had that going up through the roof. Well, I was waving the heck out of that darn thing. Well, speaking of, that's the Netflix premiere. That's, it's a lot happening on that show. I was in the front row. Rock was talking to me. We did just a lot happening. I knew into it, the way that arena set up. There's so much going on. That's the, was your, you're out there. That's Hogan's last moment before the documentary, of course, and the crowd being what they were. Right. And here's what happened though. And I told Huck before we went, and you know, I love you, Huck, I'm gonna tell the truth on this. Here's what happened. He wore a Trump Vance t-shirt when we did some preach, preach, God, God, go, go to do the stuff. I said, you know where we're going? We're going to California. And like I said before, I'm not a Democrat or Republican. I'm a Gibroni, okay? Thank you, Rock. I'm a Gibroni, okay? But here's the deal. I said, I don't like this. Jimmy, don't worry about it. Oh, okay. We get out of the, we get out of the van there, the nice town card, it puts it there. Some fans go, Huck, we loved you, but you love, we don't like you anymore because you're, you know, oh my God. I said, Huck. You knew. I don't feel good about this. Jimmy, don't worry about it. Oh, okay. We go in the back. You know, when I'm worrying about it, because I'm thinking, I'm thinking about it. So we're in the back and, you know, in the Huck and I said, he goes, Jimmy Hart, what do you think? He'd always asked before we do something. And I just said, no, everything's good. You know, everything's okay. He goes, so we went out and did the little thing with, you know, we're going to stand and Huck coming out and do his little deal. And I'm waving the flag. Remember how I said, Triple H, whatever you do, Jimmy, don't let your flag. Don't worry, baby. I won't, I promise you. Boy, I had that thing stretched up there waving. And we go out and we do it. And I'm really worried about it. Okay. So I'll go out and we do the thing. And all of a sudden, boo, I went, oh, now I'm thinking to myself, well, that's okay, Jimmy, because, you know, I'm playing like I managed in the Hart Foundation against the British Bulldogs back in my heyday. So I'm waving the heck out of the flag, buddy. And it gets more and more and more. And I could see Huck, I look over there, I'm going, okay, here we go. So we finish it and we go in the back. And of course then, and Huck calls me the next day and goes, hey, the radius, we're good on that segment. We did. And I said, well, I guess they should be because with all the commotion that happened on it, I guess we should have. And I said, but you kept telling me, don't worry about it. Well, I was worried about it. And he goes, Jimmy, look, sometimes you got to do what you got to do. And he said, I've made my bed and I've got a lie in it. That's who I wanted to vote for. That's what I wanted to do. He said, I knew in my heart going in there might be a catchy thing, but he knew it, you know? But, you know, it wasn't. And then the next day, Pat McAfee and me get on the show and make a big, that was a great skit. They have a guy dressed up like Huck going, I told Jimmy Hart not to wear that silly jacket like that. I told Jimmy Hart not to have that hairstyle still. But it turned out great, you know? I watched it and I mean, I was there and I watched it. And then of course the documentary, you see it again. But one of the things that I saw was funny was the Hulkster, the artists was still in there in terms of, he did what we often have to do where it's safe, get the information out, finish the segment. But you could also see, maybe I'll turn on them now. You could also see it stirring, which is always when you first hear it the moment of, yeah, all right, I could do some heel things here. But a segment like that, you've gotta just land the plane and take it home. But just seeing him, feel it and hear it, you could tell he knew if he needed to play that role, he could. But you're smart too, because when we got in the back, he goes, I knew I should have wore the NWOT shirt. You know, he said, I want to turn the hell on, I'm so bad to do it. And I said, Hulk, look, I said, look, toward the end, you and Nash and Hall people love Joll. You know? That made, they were, you know, anything in life, you know, and everybody hits a situation where, if you stay into one thing too long, you gotta be thinking, what's the next thing I'm gonna do to come out of this? You know? And so it's just the way this business is always gonna be. You know, right as long as it's right, and when it's not, you know, you gotta turn around, if you do what you always done, you're gonna have what you always had, that's when you change and go, plan number two, baby. I, being that that was a moment and you're out there and you're waving the flag, like you said, have you thought at all, does it, would it interest you at all to do one more type moment, one more match, manage somebody, one more night? First of all, Paul Heyman is phenomenal. I tell him every time I see him, I love Paul Heyman. And I'm not just saying it because I love him. And it's just, you know, he's so good on everything he does. And I told him, I said, you know, Paul, I said, people respect what you say, because a lot of times the crowd used to go, if people say something, they'll go, what, what? But when Paul talks, they'll listen to it. You know, I said, I'm like you, I watch all those things too. Listen, right now gas is at what, almost $5 a gallon. I've still got a little bit of that $2 and 95 cents gallon gas left in the old tank, okay? So I could probably still go out and do a few little things. But what I found out this, if the company ever wanted me to do something, but you know, I'd be there, but until they want me to do it, because you can't force yourself on anybody, you know? It's like having a girlfriend going, you can buy them flowers, you can buy them candy, but if they don't love you, listen, you can buy them everything, you know? There's a song out. I don't know if you remember the song by Bonnie Raitt and it goes, you know, I don't think you love me. I can't make you love me if you don't. The old story was these two guys went to write this song. They were trying to go everywhere. They said, we can't think, we gotta write another hit song. We hadn't had any hits. He said, why don't we go to this court today? And they went into a courthouse that day and this guy was in there and he goes, he goes, the guy was up, he goes, well, Mr. So-and-So. He goes, yeah, he goes, guilty or not guilty? He said, we wanna read this show. He goes, yes sir. He said, you're on it, I'm probably guilty of it, but let me hear him. He goes, you had your girlfriend, you gave her a dog and you took it back. Yes sir, I did that. He said, you gave her a car and you put your initials in it. Yes sir, that was me. He said, you came over to a house and you bought her a condo and with a condo and everything else, he said, you vandalized it when she went home. Yes sir, I did it. He said, if you learned anything for a day, he goes, yep, you can't make somebody love you when you don't. And they wrote that hit song, that one line in that song. And so I always thought that, but no, I would love to do something. You know what I'd like to do? Here's what I really wanna do. I'd like to do a kids TV show. I talked to Ben Hauser the other day. I said, here's what- The Ben Hauser, huh? Oh my gosh. I said, here's what I'd love to do. Cause nobody's doing it. I said, y'all are doing so many great things the company isn't so busy. I said, I'd like to do a kids- I said, look, you had Mr. Greenjeans, older guy, Jimmy Hard-Older. You had Happy Hal, who had Howdy Doody, older guy doing it. Said, I'd like to do that. I'd like to take Little Roe, who was part of the Hulk Hogan videos and stuff, let him be my co-host. And I said, let me take Dan House and let me take R-Truth. Let me take anybody you'll give me and have segments on it. And I wanted to call it SMACT. Like, you know, and I said SMACT stands for Saturday Morning Action Club Kids, if you spell it out right, right? Or it could be on Saturday morning or Sunday morning, but y'all aren't doing a kids TV show, you know? And I said, I'd love to do that. Maybe he'll hear this idea and a lot of things will and exist. Well, here's what I did. I gave him, I got all the pictures together. I put all the segments out and I gave it to him. But I said, that's the one thing that nobody should do it. And I said, if you go to Walmart and Target, if you look at everything there, which I look all the time, 70% of that stuff is for kids. When y'all go to the major shows that y'all do it, it's more adults that buy the stuff and kids. So one of the things I was just, I just did an unreal interview right before we sat down. And one of the things I was saying is, there's so many kids in our audience, but their voices are small voices. And what I mean by that is, I can hear the grown men. I can hear them. But sometimes at the expense of the smaller voices that you can't hear, I don't like to dictate entirely what I do based on that older male demographic, because those small voices, they're just a little quieter. That's all. That's good. They're just a little quieter. And I don't wanna do anything. If you find yourself in a situation, John, seen as a greatest example, he turns heel and, well, he's not a heel because they grew up with him. And they grew up with him and they were not those voices during his heyday that were booing them. And no, this is the crew that he was their guy. You're right. It's just something that in terms of the acoustics of the audience, I don't wanna ever discount the, okay, yeah, I can hear you guys. I gotcha, gotcha. But also that the small voices are their voices. So I just on record did I'm interested in, I wanted, I'm glad you said, so you would be interested in doing another match. Oh my gosh, yeah. But I also have to tell you this. Because you said it a bunch and you're again filled with a room. And I think I have the right to tell you this because WWE champion, I think WWE loves you. So if you don't worry about it, you can give them all the, you can do all the things for WWE. They love you. WWE has always loved you. And the whole roster does. I hope you know that. Well, you know what? I've never, but because I watch all the TVs, I feel like I'm not, I'm old school, but not like old school because a lot of the guys, they don't see how wrestling's changed. But I do because it's just, I mean, you gotta change and everything. Look at, look how athletic all the people, I love watching NXT, you know? It's like I said about Soul Rooker. She reminds me of Geron Evans because of his acrobatic stuff, but Charlotte Flair, you know? And- I'm glad you brought up Ethan Page too. Yeah, well Ethan, here's Ethan's the new- He's a friend, he doesn't act like it. Listen, Ethan's the new Meos. Yeah. You know, when Meos is size, he's got a lot of my, I love the Meos. You know, me and the Meos did our first tour together when he came off that TV show. Orlando, Florida. We did the first little autograph thing together to promote the show. I still got that picture by the way, but I love the Meos. Meos can change, he can do any kind of character. Meos is mad at me right now. Why? Because I asked him last week, I said, when's gladiators come out? This is already out. And I had it. Yeah, I wasn't a good friend. So I've been overly promoting it on my social. But he can fit into anything. But he can fit into anything. And that's the one thing about Ethan Page. He can fit into anything. He's got a great, he could talk, great facial expressions. And so, and Ricky Saints, you know, it's hard for me to get used to that name though, you know, after he came over. But I know you gotta do it on that. But he's got some, both those guys seem to have a little bit more experience in everything. I think they've been around a little bit longer. They see the way they get in the ring, the way they work, the way they do the audience, you know, everything. And I've done a couple of things for Ricky at Rastamani the last two years. And I said, I feel like I'm managing you. Cause we do, they have us up doing the autograph. When y'all are wrestling, we're up in the booths with the people that pay the money for the special booths. That's when Jimmy Hart comes, hey, how are you doing? You're Uber drivers here. Hey, you know, so we're all up. We have so much fun doing it though, but they're all great. The on location team. I know, but it's great. They love Jimmy Hart. It takes everybody. We did a pod for on location. Those are the best fans. I love it. It's all great. They tell you, they're just so cool. You know, it's all good. But I've had so much fun doing this my whole life, you know? I feel like, I like, I love music, but still this is always my first love. It was just crazy that I, cause of Dave Wolf, I got to do a lot of the songs, you know? Oh my gosh. So it's fun doing them. I've never seen this demeanor with you before because, you know, when I see your interviews, it's always, they've got you all so tense every time you come to the ring. So even though you go, is there anything you want to talk about then all of a sudden they go, well, you know, which is great the way you do it. But I'm like, I've never seen him so laid back. It's awesome. Got to be. I mean, this is great though. The plight of a baby face though is I just get, I feel like I'm getting beat up every week. And then you get to the big P.L. And then you're talking about beating that guy up. You know, Michael Hayes even brought it up last week. He's like, we leave you laying a lot, don't we? I'm like, yes. Yeah, I wouldn't mind that, you know, like, but hey. You talked about potentially gas in the tank, managing one more time, maybe more than one more time. Who on our roster appeals to you? And who do you think would fit? Woo, you know what? Everybody is so cool and so, I mean, you know, they wouldn't be up there. Number one, if WW went ready for him. And Shawn Michaels has everybody ready before they get there, trust me on that. So it'd really be hard for me to really fit into anything. I'd have to look and see at the agents or the promoters or whoever's behind the scenes to put me with somebody, if it ever happened, that I would really fit in with because they're with the product seven days a week and only watch it three times a week. And I told you, you got a pay-per-view, you know? So I watch it on Mondays and of course Tuesdays and of course the Friday night shows. But like I said before, I just, like I still got a little gas left in the tank. Do you think you'd fit with me? Listen, I think you're doing so good right now. I'd be the one to come in that if you start, if the T-Shorts started not selling, the ratings went down, the scholarship wouldn't be over. Jimmy Hart, you're out of your brotherhood. So please, no, you've always been great. I followed your career with the other company too. I tried to get you to walk me into the ring of honor. I know you did. I was talking about that. But I was in Europe, but that's a little, I told you that though, I said, man, I'd love to do it, but I'm over here. That would have been a big thrill, you know? But you know what, no matter where you've gone, you've always landed on your feet. You've been, I mean, you know it more than anything, but I just, the way you groom yourself, the way you look, the way you talk, the way you speak, and that's why all these kids and everywhere I go, and adults too, you don't want them out doing autographs and doing stuff. I've always watched the merchandise. I watch everything, what they're buying and who they talk about and what the, you know, and that's, I've always done that. Speaking of merch, you'll probably see this as you keep doing the autographs and all the things. You're someone who's very similar energy and is Danhousen. Oh, I love Danhousen. Listen, it's a phenomenon. Listen to this. When I saw him, I saw him about six months ago before I saw him at WrestleMania, and I'd always tell him, I said, Danhousen? Ask him this, he'll know it. Yeah. I said, Danhousen, let me tell you something. With the merchandise you have now, if you can ever get in WWE, I'm telling you, oh my gosh, bring in the armored truck to put that money in. I said, I love this and everything. And so, and I saw him when I saw him at WrestleMania, I told him, I said, remember you telling me? He goes, yeah, you did. And he goes, he goes, well, I'm here. And I said, okay, bring in the armored truck. That SOB is the safe shirt to buy because if you buy a Roman shirt, you're drawing a line in the sand. If you buy a punk shirt, you're drawing a line in the sand. If you buy a Cody shirt, you're picking a side. You buy a Danhousen shirt, you're good. The whole, everyone, you're against and for everyone. It's just a very smart, and what you told them was 100% true because the group outside of WWE, that being One Hour Tees and Ryan, wonderful guys, when they lost Danhousen, that was a sad moment. There was a kind of a retirement of, he really filled that block, and now somebody else will have to take that mantle, and he's here doing it. You weren't wrong. You know what? Years before y'all had sentino morelle doing that. And then our truth. And so Danhousen fits right in. The other class is graduating slowly, but surely. And so you got to a new class coming in. That's Danhousen. Absolutely. So I love him. I love him. When I saw him at WrestleMania, we talked and everything else, and he's a good dude. And he really is a good guy. You think you do well on the podcast? Sorry? You think you do well on the podcast? If you do 30 minutes of it. Yeah. You might be very short. Huh? All right, yeah. As long as you don't put the curse on you. Yeah, no, you can't get cursed. You don't want to get, yeah. I told him, I said, please don't curse my megaphone. Please don't curse my megaphone. I wanted to still work. Oh man. Which, by the way, listen, I've got to tell you this. This is a special megaphone, at least to me it is, because on here it's got almost all the guy, we couldn't get everybody on it, but almost over 20 of something of the people that I got to manage when I had my little run in WWE, you know, and a couple of people that I had in Memphis, Jerry Lawler and Andy Coppin. But I know you've got a great charity. And last year, Jason Aldean called me, country music singer, you know, you're familiar with him. He called me and he said that his wife had a charity for abused women and he wanted to know would I send him something that he could auction off? Well, I sent it to him up in Nashville and Kid Rock of all people bought a Jimmy Hart megaphone that I sent for $10,500. So I guess that's okay for me to say it, Kid Rock. So I'm doing it anyhow. I think that's a great, yeah. So I did that for him. And so what I wanna do is I want to give this to you for your charity when you have your next time that y'all put things up for auction off and everything else. But if you'll accept it, I'd love to do it. Well, I will, it's too much, but thank you. Yes, please. And I'm gonna sign it. You gotta sign it. I hope this doesn't hurt, hope the money deal. No, no. But I'm gonna do that, but I want you to, this is yours, man. And I wanna thank you for putting food on everybody's table for another year. So I love you for that. And it's just been so great doing this, man. When they call me about doing this, I said, are you sure you ain't calling Bret Hart? You know, I said, is that a Jimmy Hart? And so that was the whole deal. So, but I love you, man. Thank you so much. Uh-oh, I hear a phone ringing back in the background. That must be- Who is that? That was the loudest, it was like a fake phone ring. Bent Brown's running. Yeah. There he goes. Oh, thank you so much. Hey, look, this is yours, man. But it's got a little bit of everybody on it. But this is yours. And hope it can make some money for your charity, man. It certainly will. And oh, this means a great deal. And we 100% wanted you, had been trying to find the time to do it. This is wonderful. And I feel like you mentioned a lot of the next, you just said it, the class graduated and another class comes in. I hope they watch this. Cause I got so much out of sitting here with you. Oh, man. If I can't ride in a car with you from Louisville to Cincinnati or whatever it is. And doing these shows, I can sit here right now. And it's just a wealth of knowledge and experience. Well, yeah. I love you for having me here, man. Oh, thank you so much. Glamour girls are on here. Glamour, a lot of people don't realize I managed the glamour girls. And what was so cool about it, we had the jumping bomb angels that came in. And the jump, we had nobody to fight them. So I went to Vince and it's events. I've got an idea. He goes, what? Well, I went to Pat really and Pat gave Vince the idea. Pat Patterson, he goes, Jimmy's got an idea of bleaching their hair blonde. He wants to call them the glamour girls. And he goes, but they're not glamorous. I said, yeah, but that's why I want to do it because they're not glamorous. It makes sense because that's my company. He goes, yeah. So we made them gold capes, gold outfits. And I had a gold jacket. And the reason I did gold, because I had a gold jacket already. So I didn't have to make me one. And so we did save money. You know, they, and so we did that. We had a great run for about seven or eight months. And so it turned out. And the very end I was happy. I got to take a dropkick from the, from the jumping bomb angels at the end of the matches. So it turned out great. You got Bret Hart on here. You've got Greg Valentine, Jerry Lawler, Andy Kaufman, natural disasters, Dory Funk, the Rougeau brothers, Money Inc, Nasty Boys, Adrienne Adonis, you know, Brava Hart Foundation, King Kong Bundy, Terry Funk, obviously the mouth of South Jimmy Hart, Hulkamania here. Think about just thoughts on this megaphone. And you know what? In Memphis, a lot of people don't know it. I managed in Memphis. I had King Kong Bundy and Night Heart down there. I had the Iron Sheik. I managed the Iron Sheik in Memphis before he went to New York and I had Rick Rood. Just so many of the guys that finally went to New York that I had down in Memphis too. So I, I learned so much from everybody really. I mean, but, but I'm gonna tell you something. This company here has the best production of anybody ever in the business. And you know that, you know, we've all been different places and stuff, but you just can't beat the production and the staff and everything. And so I just, I love doing what I'm doing. So whenever they call me, I'm like a fireman, buddy. I was like, feet don't fail me now, baby. I'm on my way. Well, I mean, the production, the production is everything you just said. And hats off to, they are the best. And often in the field, we'll find that some of our partners don't always realize that until they see it and realize, oh, these guys got it. They know what they're doing. That aside though, this has to have heart and soul. And you are just some of the biggest heart and soul that's in the wrestling business. I love you. Well, coming from you, it means so much. Like I said, it really does. And remember one thing before I go, keep on dancing, baby. Keep on dancing, baby. Keep on dancing. Ladies and gentlemen, mouth of the mouth, Jimmy Hart. Thank you. Oh. Oh. The champ, the champ. That was so much fun. No, thank you, man. That was fun. That's great.