Episode 443: Censorship In Wrestling

Real American Freestyle happened in Moscow, you heard me right, and I know exactly one person who's been to North Korea and now Russia, and you're looking at him.

Of course, I'm talking about Eric Bischoff.

Damn that Dos Equis guy, Eric Bischoff is the real most interesting man in the world.

And I can't lie to you, Eric, when I was a kid, Rocky IV was my favorite movie, and of course, a lot of that movie takes place in Russia.

And it wasn't lost on me that while you're making your maiden voyage to Russia, not one, but two movies were available on streaming over the weekend centered around Russia.

The Ryan Reynolds movie, Mayday, which my wife and I absolutely loved and got a kick out of.

It had a great '80s vibe to it.

And then we saw Brink of War with Jeff Daniels, all about Ronald Reagan sitting with Gorbachev.

It's all about the Cold War, and I'm like, "What is the odds that Real American Freestyle is doing a show in Moscow, and there's not one, but two movies that are debuting on streaming about Russia?" But this is not Hollywood.

This is real life, and you came back armed with a phenomenal series of pictures that I can't wait for us to share here.

Eric, talk us through some of these pics and tell us more about your experience in freaking Russia, dude.

Yeah, I mean, there's, there's so much to this.

You know, I know over the years, you know, people have always really expressed a lot of interest in North Korea, and whenever we talked about, you know, we did an extensive, I think we did one whole show on it or maybe more.

And it often comes up in conversation and, or people wanna hear certain stories about North Korea.

So it's something that's, you know, kind of out, still out there in the, I guess, zeitgeist or universe, whatever you wanna call it.

Uh, it, it's still out there.

You know, people remember it.

It made an impression.

Curiosity.

But th- this trip, that trip was really, um, it was really amazing in a lot of different ways.

It, it was a bleak, dark, you know, an extreme kind of an example of some of the worst, you know, conditions i, in many ways that you were taught as a kid to believe about, uh, the, the former Soviet Union.

And, you know, I grew up in the '60s, I grew up hearing about that.

And, and, and I know this will be controversial 'cause it sounds like I'm, you know, being an advocate here, and that's not the case.

I'm, I'm g- I'm going to contextualize why this trip m- left such an impression upon me.

Um, North Korea lived up to its dismal expectations in, in, in, in, in what I was educated to believe w- that North Korea would be like, so I was not surprised when I got there.