In other words, going and creating that civil society, which really seems to threaten the authoritarians.

I think that actually hits the nail on the head on a parallel research agenda.

Anita Goeds at the Hertie School of Government in Berlin does a lot of work on internet repression, internet suppression, and really builds from in the Arab Spring.

Lots of people got excited that a lot of countries are kind of creating that civil space.

There's now all this online communication.

We can coordinate easier.

We can do these things.

How do you know this? What's the data you're looking at that gives you the ability to draw these conclusions?

But I guess the assumption is right that it was related to this to this promotional war that was going on.

Well, so there's two things.

And so you could easily take I mean, it's a great whodunit.

And the crazy thing about the whodunit is we have the names of the people that were convicted for it.

So it's what we don't have is who who was the ringleader? Right.

And the name they that they give at trial is Tony from Houston.

That sounds a little on the nose.

But in Texas, the television was actually red hot even pretty early on in the game in the early 50s, right?

... what, what, what's, what are people going to find when they buy this book about the Texas wrestling wars of the 1950s?

Well, you know, Tony, one of the things that I found, that I discovered when I was researching it, was the parallel between this and the TV changes wrestling things that we know from growing up, you know? The territory wars and the Monday Night wars.

There, you know, this is a TV-influenced, TV-caused issue that happens in the 1950s, right as television becomes popular, you know, post-World War II.

Right as television becomes ubiquitous in American homes, you know, one of the first, uh, as you've documented on many of your shows, one of the first popular shows is wrestling.

In every single market, there's a story of, you know, TV debuted on this station in, whatever it is, '48, '49, '50, maybe even '51, depending, and, and then the popular shows were X, Y, Z, and pro wrestling.

And, uh, so that happens in Texas.

And, you know, everybody knows the DuMont Network.

[laughs]

Uh, but why did you write a book on this particular time in Texas wrestling?

So I grew up in the Washington DC area, but my dad lived in Houston.

And so I discovered wrestling in the fall of '82.

Like, the first thing I saw was Jimmy Snuka get pile driven on the concrete.

And whatever it says about me, I, I was hooked.

I came back the next week, right? But then the next spring we got Southwest Championship Wrestling on, like, a UHF station, and it was just no comparison to the WWF, which was very formatted and had, like, five squash matches and a main event with SD Jones.

So I always say that Southwest was my first love.

Gets the cold shoulder

How do we kick off the year in '76?

Well, Tony, as you know, Houston always shuts down...

Most of the, the territory actually shut down for the Christmas to New Year's week.

And so what they would do is they would build up a big first-of-the-year show.

And in Houston, they did it with the big Battle Royal.

In the mid-'70s, I think they add the two-ring Battle Royal to everything.

And then here's the other thing about Houston.

It actually made him stronger, and he then went on this huge 10-year babyface run that we're talking about now.

Mm

... just listening to, to your previous, uh, interview, that retailers are under a bit of pressure.

And we're seeing that, that actual spend, um, you know, is, uh, is, is lower than what we, what, what was anticipated.

So coming off a little bit of a softer December, um, and what we're seeing is that, you know, from a, a manufacturing and wholesale position, inventory isn't moving as fast.

So we're seeing that-

Mm

... um, certainly has slowed.

And so in order to be ready to service, uh, sup-- uh, service customers, um, you know, the, the, the levels of, uh, of stock that are being, are being called upon, um, you know, certainly they're, they're just, just not moving.