It seems like based on what you're saying, especially with these photographs, that like he's basically recreating the beginning of history and like having it start right there instead of really the, you know, the previous decades of his dad's company.

Yeah, well, that was always something that that was an attitude that Vince had.

And it wasn't that he, you know, didn't care about what his dad did or wanted to distance himself.

It was more like it was the pride of what he had created.

And so he was interested in creating his own legacy, creating his own stars.

And that's why, you know, when especially in the early years of the Vince WWF, they really never acknowledged any kind of history prior to Hulk Hogan.

I mean, it was almost unheard of, you know, Bruno Sammartino obviously was a part of the company for a while and they acknowledged what his role had been, but it was very much a pride of ownership that Vince had that, that, Um, he really thought of it as kind of a dividing line, uh, from what he had done and what his father had done.

So what can you tell us about the process Gino went through in terms of relinquishing in the company?

What are your thoughts about Bill Dundee and the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame?

Well, he's a great example of what I talk about a lot, which is, and you guys, maybe you mentioned this kind of thing before I got on here, but there's this question and even Dave has weighed in on it over the years of, you know, do you need to have been a very important star everywhere to be, you know, a serious hall of famer or could your, your domain or your reach be, be more regional or more confined to a territory or two.

And I definitely am on the former side.

I do think that if somebody is important enough in an important place, I think that that should be worthy.

So for example, I usually vote for Bob Armstrong for the same reason.

And I know he's probably hurt for the same reason, which is that outside of that particular area, and also because a lot of what he did wasn't being heavily covered, say, in wrestling magazines and stuff, that sometimes he might be discounted.

So I feel the same about Bill Dundee.

mentioned we mentioned earlier, that's a very crowded field.

Any insight on how Stan Hansen ends up in this thing?

Yeah, well, Stan Hansen, obviously, he had launched his career in the 70s with the Worldwide Wrestling Federation.

But after that, in the 80s, he'd really become a phenomenon in Japan.

And that's really one of the main reasons he never came back.

I have a suspicion that Vince would have loved to use him because, I mean, he was always a great worker and a great draw, and he would have been a great opponent for Hogan.

But he was making way too much money in Japan to ever want to come back.

Now, at that time, you know, I don't think, you know, the Japanese companies were not really have been considered competition for the WWF.

What do we know about this guy?

So I love Eddie Creechman.

I really do.

I consider him the most underrated wrestling manager maybe ever.

And I know there's other ones like Dr. Ken Ramey is a good example of that.

But I think Creechman even more.

I mean, you never hear anything about him.

And I think he was one of the most effective managers I've ever seen.

Do you think that under that particular regime, which was the Vince McMahon regime, where they pulled back from the UK and all right? it was during that time it was that now they have a completely different management company that is global uh that does think a little bit different or whatever does that have an effect on what they might do strategy-wise you think

I just know that this is the next right step." And that's where I am, and I want you to know.

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Now, back to the fun.

But I wanted to get back to the litigious thing, though, with Toho, if that's okay.

Because there have been times where people kind of assumed that Godzilla was just somehow in the public domain or in the air and you could do things with it.

And they've come after people.

Like when Tim Burton had just that throwaway appearance in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure of... of Godzilla.

They're shooting a Godzilla movie, and Pee-wee kind of, like, drives through the set, and then Godzilla is riding on the bike with him.

He got sued for that.

Deer Hunter.

And how much was it inspired by the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms?

Well, we do know you mentioned Tanaka, Tomoyuki Tanaka.

He was one of the producers at Toho.

And he was kind of following the trend of American monster movies like Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and all the stuff that was happening in the 50s and early 50s.

And he kind of wanted to bring that to Japan, but they didn't quite know how to do it.

Also, they couldn't make a movie like that up till then, because the funny thing I learned with the book was while the American occupation was going on in Japan, which was up till like 52, you couldn't make any kind of movie that was even in the slightest bit critical of the United States.

And so the whole idea of having a monster that was created by nuclear weapons.

Was the success of Kong also an inspiration?

... by saying, "He liked that son of a bitch." No, Dennis was just the nicest guy in the world.

Right, and G- and God rest his soul, he liked everybody, and he got along with everyone.

But so this was a story that he told us that was told to him supposedly directly from Russo himself, that what had happened was they basically, Vince was all about it, all on board, Vince McMahon.

He brought, uh, Russo to the tower.

You know, they had a big meeting one-on-one in the conference room.

They were just, they were best pals again, talking about this and that.

And then, and then he g- he said something [laughs] to the effect of, like, "Well, uh, I'm just gonna, now I'm gonna bring in, uh, Hunter and Stephanie so we could all, the four of us kind of hash this out and talk some ideas and, 'cause, you know, Stephanie's in charge of creative now, and you might be working with her," blah, blah, blah.

Ugh

But what was his mindset when he knew that that wasn't gonna be his?

It was not pretty at first, and that's something else I wanted to make clear in the book.

Because I think a lotta people have this idea now, you know, it's like the WWE version of history, which is fine.

They tell, where everything seems like it was this rosy, happy transition of power.

You know, you had the old guard kind of handing it off.

It was not.

It was ugly at first.

His son was important in his career, and him losing his son, who was, you know, I mean, that had to probably be a, a big part of the decline that we saw later in life to Gorilla Monsoon, correct?