At Refreshment Masonic Video Podcast

Ep.95: Wrestl-Marty-Mania

• At Refreshment Masonic Video Podcast • Season 2026 • Episode 95

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 Ep. 95: Wrestl-Marty-Mania
https://youtu.be/tA-RrackuJs

See the Wrestling Special only available on YouTube

ARW & NAPW Pro Wrestling
https://youtu.be/69Zd8d_tj1Y

Welcome back to At Refreshment
In this episode: Marty and Wes are on a car ride to a Pro Wrestling Event for NAPW and ARW Pro Wrestling Federations. Come listen to the stories Marty has to tell of his days of being the ring announcer for wrestling events over the years. Marty has a unique view of wrestling and freemasonry and how some of it may or may not tie into each other?? This is a very special episode for our Party Marty and we want you to join in on this wild experience!!!

intro music: Hurts, Wonderful Life
https://youtu.be/WiIF_2sAQXY?si=ioAHsVtofGly4Su7


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The  At Refreshment Masonic Video Podcast is a lighthearted and educational series focused on
the world of Freemasonry. The hosts, who are Masons themselves aim to dispel myths about the fraternity while offering a glimpse into their rituals and traditions. They create a casual, fun atmosphere by sharing drinks and humorous discussions about Masonic life, often recorded in laid-back settings like after lodge meetings.
 The podcast blends comedy with education, making it accessible to both Masons and those curious about the fraternity. Episodes feature special guests from Masonic circles often diving into personal experiences and community contributions of members. The podcast highlights that Freemasons are regular people working to improve themselves and their communities.
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 They are known for a relaxed "at refreshment" style, emphasizing that this is not a formal lodge.
Watch us on YouTube @AtRefreshmentMVP https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb8IaNvD2Xmc_XJq6OdGt9A

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SPEAKER_03

Air Freshman Astonic Family. We got another road story for you today. I'm out here with uh one of my hetero life mates, Wes Rooter. Uh, have the time of our lives with the Aero Freshman crew. You might see some of the rest of us later. I don't know. So this video today is chronicling something that means a lot to you.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Or it did at one point.

SPEAKER_03

Still does, but it you know, at least does. So outside of masonry, I would say probably my big, my biggest thing that I'm nerdy about. It's weird to say you're nerdy about masonry, but I am nerdy about masonry, is professional wrestling. Dude, professional wrestling's always in my thing. I had a Hulk Hogan lunchbox in high school. I wore a John Cena hoodie to community college. I uh I actually write down to me on my wife's calendar when wrestling shows I want to watch or attend are gonna be. Dude, it's huge for me. Um and years 10, 12 years ago, it's funny how time's flying past me right now. I had the opportunity to become the voice of North American Professional Wrestling, uh, which is a really great independent federation that was running in northern Illinois, a little bit of Wisconsin too, I believe. So tonight we are having our reunion show, our curtain call, however you want to say it. Uh basically, all things must come to an end. And for a while, NAPW did. Uh the pandemic had a little bit to do with that, but all things must come to an end. A lot of us are older, wiser, have a ton of kids now, whatever it might be. But tonight we're getting back together with the uh old gang. And uh it's gonna be big, so I get to ring announce one more time. Uh being around the thing I honestly love the most.

SPEAKER_02

How many uh excuse me, how many matches are on the card tonight?

SPEAKER_03

I lose a six-match card. NAPW always ran a shorter card, and I don't think that's bad because there's some independent shows you go to that had like 14 matches. And my whole point is if by the 14th match I don't remember the dude who fell on his head in the first match, why do we do this? Uh with pro wrestling, less is always more. Uh Joey uh Rose, who's the it actually did get his enterprise degree, but then became an active just because of life. Um, maybe we can convince him to come back tonight. He uh he always believed in a really more old school card, and and I believe in that too. A good two, two and a half hour show is perfect. More uh family entertainment. So that's what we're kind of looking at. I do have a copy of what the show is gonna be, but in true pro wrestling fashion, I'm assuming I'm gonna get there, and everything I plan for is gonna be different. Yeah, right. You're like, okay, this tag team couldn't make it tonight. We sub this out, now the main event's this. But it's really gonna be it should be something. So we're doing it at a place called the Flight Deck, which interestingly enough is in uh Rochelle, Illinois, which is in the Rockford area. Mark Victoria had a job in it from this podcast, had a job interview there years ago to become their photographer because they also do skydive Chicago on there because it's like an airport.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, that's pretty neat.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so it's for the small world when it comes to regional airports in Rochelle. Um, so yeah, we're coming back tonight. So you know this ended. Joey was the main force behind it. I was so blessed to get involved. I had gone to one of their shows, which I don't know where it was, but it was like in a field. It was like at like a farm. And I I enjoyed it, I had a blast. North uh no south, south on off 85. So I enjoyed it, I had a blast, and uh I had a whole different wife at the time. Glad I traded up on that situation. But she had a friend who was like a super fan for the wrestling company, and they were moving into our new territory, which was Rochelle, all very new, and they needed a new ring announcer. And you know, she kind of looked out for me, my ex-wife's friend Michelle, and told Joey, and I don't know, man, it was on and popping. And for like three years, this was pretty much as big in my life as Mace. Now, at that time, I was just I'd entered my first chair in the lodge being a steward, so I wasn't uh the full-time self-proclaimed, you know, king of the weekends on this stuff, or however you want to look at it, or I'm like in a bunch of different bodies and whole different leadership roles. I was just a very small cognitive machine at Villa Park Masonic Lodge, and then I do this week wrestling stuff on weekends, and it was awesome. And I made a lot of friends. Uh uh, Daryl, Dave Rydell. I mean, they're all coming back tonight. Now we did a bunch of shows. Sometimes we do like bought shows or like a high school booster club, but like pay for a show and then sell their own tickets to make money. Uh Los Quintus Orreyas in downtown. Aurora would hire us to do shows in their beer garden. A lot of wild times there. Great times, uh, bringing Lucha the brand stuff. But we're my duration with the company, we were at in Rochelle, Illinois, and this place called the Hickory Grove Banquets. And it was I don't know, it's just it was just like a whole time, a whole vibe. So they had this awesome banquet room, and we'd set up the ring in there, and we'd have these shows, and they had this barring grill upstairs, it was attached to like a hotel and the banquet and all everything. It was kind of like you could tell it was kind of aging out of its relevance, but in its day it was truly something. It's unfortunately been torn down since. But when did they first start? I have no idea. I know I can tell you I started in 2012, but I think probably around 2009, okay, you would uh been able to really see what was going on with them. And they had a bunch of they're running uh the roundhouse and Aurora in a bunch of kind of wild places.

SPEAKER_02

Now, going back to the old days before Vince McNan controlled everything, and there was federations and the uh the territories, yeah, stuff like that. Being in the independent system, is it kind of like that still?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I would say from now here's a weird thing, you're asking me, and I don't want Well, because you were part of it, so I you were probably the best person to ask because you were doing the announcing for it. Yeah, so I can tell you so I can tell you what I I see, but I want to always preface this with the wrestling industry to me is the most sacred form of thing. It's Shakespeare, it's everything good. Too many people have done a lot of stuff. I at heart I am a mark, which uh which just means wrestling fan because back in the day, wrestling had carny stuff, they'd mark your hand to get into the tent to see the wrestling, and then we go, how many marks tonight? And we go 100, whatever it was, that that term. I'm I am just a lucky fan that due to the kindness of some people in my life has been able to live a dream. So I don't want to say that I'm speaking from like wrestling. I'm just great person within this industry, I'm just a fan. But what I see, yeah, there's a lot of great stuff on the independence right now. Um, WWE has turned into like a four-tier system, it's bizarre. So you have uh like you have like WWE, then you have NXT, then you have WWE ID, what is Impact or some stuff. Well, Impact's its own company that was TNA, impact, all that stuff. Then there's AEW, there's a lot of stuff out there, but there's a lot of killer, uh, there's a lot of killer independent feds. And just like AEW owns Ring of Honor now and everything down that line. WWE's got WWE NXT, then WWE ID. Oh, and then WWE Evolve 2, which is on Tubi, which is my favorite streaming thing in the world because it's all the good horror movies. Hey guys, stop paying for streaming. We have to stop this. Just go get Tubi. This isn't sponsored by them. I've done paying for coffee, done paying for delivery services, I've done paying for streaming. I this is my old man rant of the day.

SPEAKER_02

I haven't used Tubi since they couldn't find my account. Oh, they had everything saved. I I was watching them for documentaries because they had some of the strangest documentaries. Oh no. And I loved it. And I loved it. I would watch it all the time, and then I'm like, oh, forget it. I started paying for YouTube after I couldn't they couldn't find my account. And you know, I'm a YouTube junkie and a YouTuber.

SPEAKER_03

So I know uh wrestling changes state to state too, because in some states wrestling, pro wrestling, is still completely held under the State Athletic Commission. Yeah, North. Now in Illinois, that has changed. But I remember once upon a time the biggest deal was Chicago, only had so many promoters' licenses. And that was when uh the LWF, which I was a huge fan of. That's where CM Punk started. It was it was much bigger than just CM Punk, but he's the most relevant from it now, looking 20, 30 years later. Um, then they kind of got one and things changed. I mean, there's all Indiana was always more the wild, wild west, but then you also had a lot of crazy Carney promoters. Uh you know, Ian Rodden was on there, ran some of the best wrestling I ever saw, but had one of the wildest uh reputations as a professional. So, I mean, the NWA itself, which is the territory system, was held under the NWA. And they had champion, they had local champions, and you had your touring champion, which was like Harley Race, Ric Flair, things like that. But they're actually back and they're owned by uh kind of a friend of the Masonic fraternity in the fact that he's aware of us and he represents a lot of our stuff, but he hasn't joined yet, Billy Corgan. Looking at you, Billy Corgan. Looking at you, square a compass on your jacket, Billy Corgan. Come hang out. I know where your tea shop is. We're gonna bring by a petition one day. Don't doubt me.

SPEAKER_02

I thought you were gonna say you're gonna bring by some coffee at the tea shop.

SPEAKER_03

So he actually uh which is funny because he made all that Smash and Pumpkins money and which and what he did. He made Smash and Pumpkins money and then he bought involved in wrestling. Because originally he was somehow involved with uh Paul Heyman's UCW. Then he tried to buy Impact TNA or he did, but it got screwed around, and now he owns the NWA outright. They have a show on the CW app, I believe, and YouTube. I catch it when I can. And actually a bunch of uh the guys from a Diet of Shrine go to the NWA Chicago TV tapings in Highland Park. So I do every weekend, just like it's kind of funny. You know, we joke that we're oversaturated with dependent bodies and nights out of the house. If you want to be a wrestling nerd, every town's got something going on.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. There's gotta be a wrestling event going around somewhere. Or the internet, it's easy to find now. Before what? I I mean I didn't hear of a lot of independent wrestling when I was a kid. Where'd you grow up at? Um, in between Cicero and Oaklawn.

SPEAKER_03

That's kind of where like Windy City wrestling was running once about a time.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so I mean, that would be the only one. I mean, I did hear of them. I went to their facility.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, did you?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty neat. Checked it out. Uh, me and another guy were like, well, you know, obviously you're young and dumb, and you're like, oh yeah, let's see if we can be wrestlers. Yeah, okay. But I'm like, you know, I'm like, I'm not jumping into anything. I wanted to go see it first and everything. And it was pretty neat. You kind of got uh behind the scenes look, how everything runs and and this and that.

SPEAKER_03

So Well, you should have had like an idea of like what behind the scenes is kind of like with you coming up in baseball.

SPEAKER_02

Well, you know, I didn't know anything about like I really didn't know anything about the Matt, how everything's done. You know, obviously I know it's you know, there's acting and you are getting hit, but you're not trying to hurt each other, you know, make it look good, I guess is the the saying. But you know, I just you know, I was interested. Like, hey, let's check it out. No, I didn't think it was for me. I mean, obviously, I don't think I could take all the get beat up all the time seven days a week. I just it's rough. It is rough.

SPEAKER_03

It is rough. That uh that mat isn't soft thing.

SPEAKER_02

No, it's not. It's not. And uh everybody says the WWE's mat is the hardest. Yeah. And when I there was like this much padding on that Windy City uh day uh uh on the floor, there was not much padding when we went to Windy City.

SPEAKER_03

I'm like, oh wow. No, man, it's tough, man.

SPEAKER_02

But you can see the springs and everything because there were guys in there, they were going over their um uh I guess their next show. I don't I don't really know. This is like coming 20 something years ago, I'm talking about. And they had they didn't have the skirts there, and you can see all the springs and everything. It was more like this cross thing where you get a little bit of bounce to it. And I mean there's different styles to it. I mean, I remember well, it's not like you know, a bunch of bed springs. I mean, there was like a I I seen a couple springs and they were big. It's not like you know, they're cheap springs, you're gonna hold hundreds, thousands of pounds on it.

SPEAKER_03

So, you know, yeah, but so I don't know, dude. Wrestling has always just been super cool. I got I got a chance to work with this company, and even when I was working with this company and I had opportunities to like it make sometimes we bring in a guy and he's like, hey, we're running this thing over here. I think we might need a ring once. I never took the opportunity. I I I don't know, like part of me's always been so I I don't know if I want to like like I got this little lane where I get to do this, but I don't know, man. I'm still like a wrestling uh fan. I'm like a mark. I don't know. Like even in between the matches, I'm generally sitting there by the you know, by the timekeeper and everything, and I'm just I'm psyched because everybody else just to watch the show. I just get to announce who's coming out and who won. So I've always I don't know, it's I I I'm here, but I feel like a visitor. And I and I should feel like a visitor, because I mean, like to think I I could do anything where Flair did sin say, I mean, John Cena did. I was talking to our Andre uh brother who's a friend of the show this morning. He's like, hey, because he knew because he's I think he's coming out to see it tonight. He's like, hey, how are you doing about that? I was like, I'm nervous. He's like, Why are you nervous? You public speak all the time. And I'm like, I public speak at places that I've earned it. I uh wrestling is just so interesting and so cool, and I don't know. There there's not much in this world that impresses or intimidates me, but wrestling.

SPEAKER_02

So, all right, let's go off on that a little bit. Public speaking, being nervous. Now, I'm not really nervous in public speaking. I, you know, I guess if it's something I really like and I'm passionate about, I'm like, oh, am I gonna say the right thing or am I gonna say the wrong thing? Do you find that coming up?

SPEAKER_03

Um, yeah, yeah, I yeah, 88. So one of the things that I because you want to make sure like if a guy's like, hey, I'm from Yonkers, New York, I weigh 280. I don't know why, I just gave you time and dreamer stats, but that's a whole other story. But we did a show about 10 months, it's amazing. Um you're gonna be make a left when you got a bird. But you know, you want to make sure if they're like, hey, make sure to sell me as this or put in that I'm a Taekwondo champion because it ties into their gimmick or whatever it might be. You know, it's important, it's kind of that, and I kind of like to let a little bit of my personality through, like, oh, you should kind of see what I'm about from this podcast. But you know, it's a dance. And speaking of Tommy Dreamer, the one time he came in, former ECW champion, WF hardcore champion, he was talking to me a little about things I could do this or different with the way I was announcing. And he's like, You have the most important, unimportant job there. And I was like, Oh, wow, it's kind of heavy to think about it.

SPEAKER_02

No, that is a good way to put it because nobody really cares about you, but they have to hear you and they don't want to hear shit.

SPEAKER_03

No, you they I need to be clear, I need to say what this wrestler is, if there's some, if there's a if there's like this is a Chicago street fight with a time limit, basic stuff like that. I have to really narrate the show that's just scheduled for one ball. Yeah. No, I have to narrate the whole show. Like, because if two guys just walk out, it makes no sense. Right. So actually, what's what's funny with uh wrestling and uh no, I don't do color commentary, I just do ring announcing. But when Jesse Ventura was suing WWE about royalties, about those old Coliseum tapes, he actually uh I the way he won in court was they played the matches with no commentary, then they played them with commentary, and the jury said, Well, yeah, they make more sense with commentary or they're better. That's how Joey won the court case because royalties Oh Justin Ventura, what a wild guy. Yeah. I'm I'm glad he kind of came back to WWE this past year. He's uh I mean has? Yeah, yeah, they brought him back for Saturday Night's Bay event. Uh what a wild dude now. I mean, that guy's been like everything. He's been in movies, he's been a wrestler, he's been a governor, uh, he had that conspiracy theory show.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that was some wild stuff. Seriously, he had a woman on there that pretty much predicting COVID. A hundred times. Do you remember that episode? Yeah, she flew in from Cuba. She's like, I'm getting out of here right now. I'm not even staying for a cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, then he was uh he actually wasn't even living in the States for a while. He was down in the Baja, Mexico, California area. Uh-huh. And I don't know kind of how the Baja works, but like I heard it's kind of America, kind of Mexico, but there's a whole little uh you know area there.

SPEAKER_02

I because I think Calexico, are they considered U.S. territory? I have no idea. I have no idea. Yeah, I don't I don't know. I'm not good on my geographical stuff. I'm just I know where the Gulf of America is about. I had to really think about that to say it. Yeah, I guess it's not it just doesn't roll off the tongue as well as golfers.

SPEAKER_03

There was that uh there was that gimmick WWE was doing recently where they had the uh because they just fought uh Triple A, which is one of their uh Mexico equivalents. You know, you could say because they had Triple A and CMLL down there. So they bought that. So they actually uh had one of the American wrestlers doing a luchador gimmick. I want to say it was El Americano, and he was claiming himself in the Gulf of America. It was hilarious. Uh you know, wrestling, dude, wrestling is just a way to tell stories, and a lot of what's going on in society could be told through wrestling. I mean, realistically, you remember when they turned Sergeant Slaughter evil for the whole Desert Storm War with Hogan? Oh yeah. But then there's you know, times that goes bad when uh they had Mohammed Hassan do that terrorist gimmick, then a real terrorist attack happened like a day after SmackDown. Oh yeah. So I don't know, dude. Wrestling is just such I think I think wrestling was actually one of the first sports ever television.

SPEAKER_02

Wasn't it the Olympics?

SPEAKER_03

You know, it could but when the once upon a time the TV was black and white, the screen was as big, and only a couple of things were happening, so one.

SPEAKER_02

The Olympics back in the 30s, it was like the first broadcast or something like that. Could be, I don't know. And I I my one buddy who was a World War II fanatic, uh, he said something like, Oh, if aliens ever caught our signal, the first signal they would catch is the Olympics with Hitler on. Like, what?

SPEAKER_03

Well, yeah, because technically those don't stop, they just keep going.

SPEAKER_02

Well, they just keep going. But I didn't know that was the first broadcast. But Hitler was that? That's what he says. I I don't know. I I really don't know. But I mean, obviously, if the Olympics were broadcast and he was there.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Oh, I can't wait till the aliens get Vince McMahon.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah, right. Oh, uh, I don't know. Can they catch up to him doing 100 miles an hour?

SPEAKER_03

Oh, that video of him recently.

SPEAKER_02

Good thing he wasn't drunk, right?

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

He almost kind of sounds like it now. He's got that voice. Honestly, Vince is an inspiration, man. Because I've always been a big proponent. And maybe this is just me trying to convince myself as my youth slips away from me that I never have to stop being me. But I was thinking about like pro wrestling, how wrestlers age. You know, Ric Flair aging, get half his best matches in his 40s and 50s.

SPEAKER_02

I think Ric Flair aged well because, well, he doesn't feel pain with all that alcohol in his system. Probably not. And he mentioned, and I don't know, I'm just guessing. He mentioned that, oh, he's never been that athletic or and that kind of uh athletic body, like most of the other wrestlers do. So maybe he was not doing uh steroids and stuff, not ruining his joints, and maybe why he's able to do it. I don't know. I I really have no idea.

SPEAKER_03

When when he first started, this is before he was really in Ric Flair, he was rambling Rick's roads. I believe he was going by, he was like three tet. He really didn't lose all that weight until he was in that plane crash, and then he dropped a bunch of weight after that. Then I think he was in the low twos always. Well now Rick Flair is the best, man.

SPEAKER_02

I know he's a controversial figure now, but in it, you know, he was never uh he was never really super cut now or or real big. So to me, I in my uh you know, I've never used them, I have no idea, but just looking at the other wrestlers, he doesn't look like he uses them, or if he is, or if he was, man, dude, you're using them wrong. It was one of the two.

SPEAKER_03

So okay, this is kind of going back to your baseball thing. Who did that quote in baseball that said steroids won't help you win a game, but once you play 80 games in a season, that's where they come in?

SPEAKER_02

Well, no, no, no. Okay. If you're talking about the Belco thing with uh Barry Bonds, the guy that created the cream in the clear, he was asked that by somebody on ESPN. He flat out told them before they even finished, you have no idea what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_03

In what way?

SPEAKER_02

Well, steroids okay. His wasn't just a steroid, his was this special like compound. He went back. Uh, the the guy who created it went back and looked at testosterone compounds or steroid compounds, whatever it was, and he found something pretty interesting that we were no longer using and no longer testing for. So that's how they were able to get him. The the cream, I it wasn't about the color, it was a cream that you rub on you, and the clear was it wasn't like another clear rub or anything. It meant you're all clear, you're gonna pass. And I read all this in the um that book uh Game of Shadows that was written about um uh who was the runner that got caught up in that? I have no idea. Jackie Joyner Kurs. I don't know if that was her. Robinson, I had no idea. I have no idea, but I can't remember. I mean, it was so long ago. But because I was in baseball, you're not gonna forget Barry Mox. Oh no, of course I have. I mean, look at him. He just, you know, he was a skinny guy. Uh definitely first ballot Hall of Famer without all the roids. Oh, he started using them for whatever reason.

SPEAKER_03

And did they ever let Pete Rhodes out?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think he's in now. Or he's gonna be in now.

SPEAKER_03

Dude, they should have never done anything bad to Charlie.

SPEAKER_02

You know, I knew they were gonna do that to him because they did it to Ron Santos. You know, Ron Santos, I guess he was a prick to the media, and that's why he didn't get in when he was alive.

SPEAKER_03

What I don't get is you create these situations. I'm talking about professional wrestling, I'm talking about baseball, football, mixed martial arts, whatever. You build this certain type of guy who can participate in that realm that he has to be a little bit crazy, he has to be a little bit over the top, he has to uh kind of you know gamble with his own health because you're you're basing all your honey on uh something if it goes wrong, you're over it. They don't retiring, right? And then when they act like the person you built for this thing, they're like, Oh, oh no. Look, I don't mind Tyson was a wild dude, but it's like people are like they built Tyson into this thing, and then they're like, Why is he acting like the thing we built? Like, what are you talking about? Like, people are like, Well, why is Ric Flair divorced seven times? I'm like, What you made? Like, you get like you you participated in this too. Like, I'll never get that. And shout out Pete Roy, he passed away, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, so I know uh Tom is Brotherden from uh High 12 or National Sacred, he met him at some hotel settings cooler than could be.

SPEAKER_02

I hated Pete Rose.

SPEAKER_01

Your mom hated Pete Rose.

unknown

Why?

SPEAKER_02

My dad was such a fan of Pete Rose, right? Uh and my dad will still talk about Pete Rose to this day. They went out to Cincinnati to go see a ball, a ball game, and they got a baseball signed by everyone in the dog out except Pete Rose.

SPEAKER_04

Really?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, he said he wasn't signing or something like that. And my mom hated him since that is nuts. So I don't know. I I believe my brother still has that baseball.

SPEAKER_03

So yeah, I'll never be the baseball fan. I mean, I love the sport, I love going to games, or maybe I just like drinking during the day, I'm not sure. Uh but I when I went to uh when I was at the Grotto Zero National Convention in Louisville, we went to the Slugger Museum.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

And they had a bunch of game plate bats that you could hold for a photo up there. Uh they probably should everyone famous you could think of that used the Louisville slugger. What do you think? Spat I health.

SPEAKER_02

Babe Ruth. He was there, but no fuck babe Ruth. Why? Why wouldn't you hold that bad? You old Wade Boggs, huh? Yeah, yeah. Wade Boggs, my guy. Yeah, I Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Joe Jackson, uh Stan the Man, Ushill. I love the whole space. The heaviest would be Babe Ruth's, the lightest would be um Ted Williams.

SPEAKER_03

Could Babe if Babe Ruth showed up now, could he done play?

SPEAKER_02

Probably not.

SPEAKER_03

It's a different game.

SPEAKER_02

It's a completely different game. Which is a shame. I like the older game better. I mean, I I always enjoyed you know, you used to have to even with a glove in Babe Ruth's day, you ever see them play catch? They play catch with two hands, even though they use a glove. Because they had to. Because at that time, there was no rules specified, but it was always felt that the glove should reflect your hand. And it wasn't until um 60s, I think it was, that somebody, I I think it was at Rollins, decided, well, there's no rules. You gotta make this better.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, but it came out with the whipping. So I don't think there's really no sport where it progresses and it gets better. Uh, NFL had the first decencies that I thought they've had in a while. I think collegiate football's better last few years. They should bring back the clothesline. They should. They should bring back a lot of stuff, and they should start trying to ban the push-tush and do all the things. I mean, come on, guys. Let's have some fun with this. But I don't know. I guess like my ideal version of football was Vincent Mann's XFL in the early 2000s, which that should have worked, but it uh I still have that football. Oh, I went into football. Yeah, yeah. It was a pretty cool football. You should know it was bringing out the sound, throw it around at the beach or something. Yeah, I uh yeah, I think I know where it's at. But yeah, but you know, the one weird thing that always struck me about wrestling, because you hear the like the the secrets have kind of uh it's just a weird concept. If you think about the secrets in masonry and the secrets in wrestling, both are kind of open source now. I mean, the Google machine, everything to that, Vince McMahon changed the industry when it wanted to be taxed different and said, hey, it's a show. But it's it's kind of weird, man. The curtain to get backstage at a wrestling show is it's just as equally as tiled as a lodge thing. And this really goes into my whole thing, you know, like Robert Putnam's book, Bowling Alone, and how you really gotta get your people and go do something. That could be masonry, that could be travel softball, that could be a gardening club, that could be a church, that could be the moose, that could be the elk, it could be the OTO. Hell's Angels, I really don't care. Grouping together in society is a big thing, man. And just like how you know I've noticed like we have our ways in lodge, our little nuances and everything. It's in wrestling too. There's this weird wrestling hand, like secret grip handshake. I hate it. I don't want to do it. Oh, I thought you were telling me I'm like, all right, here it's gonna put there is one, but I don't I don't care if I never because it's like it's soft and it's weird, but it's like this is a work.

SPEAKER_02

Wait, wait, wait. Did you say the grip was soft and weird for the wrestling one? Yeah, really?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, the secret one. I never do it, and uh, but but that's the same time. Like, I hate when Masons come into me and do some like weird, like extra, like, oh, let me do all the grips, you're like, stop it, please shake my hand like a man.

SPEAKER_02

So, yeah, I think of that. I was at church one day. Um Jesus thanks you. He's uh somebody told him that I was a Freemason, so he just comes up to me, he says, Hey brother, and he grabs me in the uh in the lion's paw right away. It took me a second, I'm like, wait, what? Oh, oh, I'm like, holy I'm no one, I've never had anyone do that to me ever, and never since.

SPEAKER_03

That's creepy, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I'm like especially the lion's paw, which is like the most I didn't give it back to him, but you know, he grabbed me, and I'm just like, well, because at first I'm like, but what is he doing?

SPEAKER_03

Oh, uh, oh but uh you know what's uh interesting though? If uh if you're new in a wrestling locker room or you're new in a lodge, you should do the same exact thing. This probably is like even if you're at a company or anywhere, go up, introduce yourself, shake everyone's hand like a goddamn man. You know, introduce yourself, you be nice, you you know, pull your weight. I don't know. I love I don't know. I I just love society, I just love being part of things that have some form of you know initiatory rights, and I think we crave that as people. I really do. And wrestling is very interesting and cool behind the curtain. But the reason that I just kind of do this as a weird living the dream moment is because I find on the fan side of the curtain I have a lot more, and and that's you'll probably Well, of course, you're not gonna deal with all the stress and the in and out of you know performing and then going back into business mode.

SPEAKER_02

You know, you gotta you gotta turn that on and off all the time, right? A fan comes up to you, wants to say something, you're in business mode, you gotta you know, yeah, just like I said, when the guy gave me the lion's paw grip, well, took me off guard because we don't ever do that outside of lodge. I mean when you kind of just say off guard, you're not in that mode, you're not in that mode of thinking. Yeah, so I mean, you are not you are doing a performance, you are acting, you do have to put on that wrestling persona to uh announce the matches. And if anybody comes up and talks to you, do you think they want to talk to the real Marty or the ring announcer Marty that they just got done seeing?

SPEAKER_03

You know what? I don't think there's that much of a difference in those ones. That's kind of like saying do you want to Marty or Aunt Refresher? Marty, it's one guy. Uh, you know, because thing I'm not playing a gimmick, I'm just announced at the match. No, no, no. But okay, okay, all right. So that one's a little bit different. Actually, funny story. Uh my whole family has had this weird habit of wrestlers falling on the and I wish I might be able to find a video of this actually explain something, but maybe not. So my aunt used to go with my dad years ago to the match of the Chicago amphitheater. That's when Bob Luce was promoting and like the frozen to crusher. We're like on the top of the card, man, pure ethics, right? And uh yeah, it's first King Kong Bundy or something huge fell over and hit my like fell on top of my aunt. And then one night, we know this is with the rest of the company on APW. We were having a very big show, it's called WrestleTron. That was our answer to WrestleMania.

unknown

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I told my family, like, hey, you guys should come out and join it. My whole family came, God bless them. So just kind of give you guys a heads up. You'll see some footage of the show splaced in here. We're not going to a WrestleMania show. We are going to four rows of chairs on each side of the ring, maybe 200 people packed in a venue, you know, indie rock and roll, not arena rock pipes. And my mom, I don't they were like, my family was in the third row. And like, my mom's like, I want to buy something from the concession stand. Like, somewhere in her head, she was like, Do I go be besides like that?

SPEAKER_02

I want to buy something from the concession stand.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, my mom's got a very robotic brain voice. She was like, bye, nachos, no, but not. So my mom in her infinite wisdom. Instead of being like, should I go behind the back row where there's nothing happening, or should I make a mad dash in front of the front row where there's no guardrail? And just as that habit, some big dude, I forgot who it was, uh, just fell out of the ring and just on top of her rushed her. And out of nowhere, I'm like backstage, and I'm hearing some like some some like other people I know screaming by the curtain, and they're like, Marty, your mom, Marty, your mom! I was like, What does she need? And then I've they're like, someone fell on across like, yeah, what? Yeah, man. It was weird. But uh my mom survived, and uh, we'd love to fight another day. So actually, tonight's gonna be cool too because my daughter's gonna be at the show. She probably won't remember it because she's like one right now, or almost one, but my nephew is gonna be there who's uh six, and I really I really hope he doesn't hate it or like he's into it because this is something I really love to share with him. Like, I'm super strange for my father these days. I think he'll like it.

SPEAKER_02

He showed me some strange horror animation that looked like it was out of the game Nightmare Creatures. Oh, yeah. He walked you know what I'm talking about?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah. Fight with his mom a lot because I don't know how he gets his crap on his phone, and then you don't actually well, some of the scary stuff he showed me. He had a kid's Kindle, somehow broke it. His mom just gave him like an old cell phone that connected to Wi-Fi. They were showing me crazy stuff. I was like, Yeah, I'm taking that away and I'm ordering another kid's Kindle right now. Um, so yeah, but no, so I'm hoping he really likes. I really want to share this with him, even though the other week uh my wife made him do this because he said something to her, and it would crush me. He because I guess my uh nephew super loves the rock now. And who does love the rock? But uh mankind was better, but yeah, he was, but either way, he loves the rock, and I'm like, Oh, you love the rock? That's awesome. Then my wife's like, Gavin, tell Marty what the rock does, and Gavin goes, he's a YouTuber.

SPEAKER_02

And I was like, Oh I I think all the guys that like to do to drink and party and stuff are the ones that like mankind better.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, Nick Fullen, man. I hope he's out there doing well. I did some of the craziest matches ever. But yeah, so they're gonna be there night, so it's definitely gonna be like a family thing. And again, super strange to my dad these days, but wrestling is something that we did share together once amount of time. And probably gilling memories I really over have him either talking wrestling, some weird esoteric stuff we talk about, or possibly going to uh World of Wheels with his uh cars when I was a kid. He used to be in a very cool car club called the Queen City Alley Cats. Those are my memories.

SPEAKER_02

But besides that, wait, you guys tied in esoterics to wrestling, or uh it was just talk about it.

SPEAKER_03

Well, no, no, it's everything.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, my dad did does within the like same car writer. No, no, he owned in a cult bookstore.

unknown

Yeah, yeah. No, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02

Obviously, I'm paying attention to the road. I listen to you know, I'm like, wait a minute, you you guys linked esoterics? I would probably probably could.

SPEAKER_03

Like Yeah, probably could I dunno, man. I don't know. I just I'm nervous, I'm up here, I can't wait for you to see this. And I'm kind of like the the one thing that's unfortunate about life is if someone if there's not a reason for someone to be in your life, it's hard to keep up with people. Because we've all had like someone we thought was like our best friend at a company, and then we switch companies, and like maybe you'll like shoot them a happy birthday, Merry Chris, you'll never see that person again.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, because it's kind of it's just kind of hard. I mean, unless you're hanging out all the time after work, you know, but you know, it yeah, I think about people I work with, I miss them, and I, you know, I don't I don't think they're there anymore, you know.

SPEAKER_03

But it might not be. But like it's hard to take that with you, and there's a lot of people that I'm gonna see tonight that when I was doing this, we were tight as hell. And this is I mean, and I actually I might make this joke in the ring tonight on the mic, but you know, this is the only reunion I'm probably gonna have because educationally they don't really do reunions for GEDs, and even if oh yeah, let's do a GED. And I'm like, and I was thinking about that, and I was and I was like, man, those people I did that test with, I never want to see them again. Uh I don't know. Do they do a I didn't get my two-year degree? I got my associates too. Do they do associates for unions? I get I get community college alumni emails all the time. I don't know what they're really about.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I don't get any.

SPEAKER_03

I don't know. But then again, like, you know, it's funny because I think a lot of people know this, but I I work in logistics. Uh in Chicago, I have half I have some common sense. I didn't pick a field, so I work in logistics. That's kind of how our city goes. But uh, I I remember I was joking, uh my regional manager, I asked her when I'm like, hey, what's your degree? And she's like, chemistry. And I'm like, mine's a criminal justice. I notice you're not a scientist. I also notice I'm not bat. What are we doing? So I don't know. So it's exciting. So I'm gonna see some people I felt like they haven't seen years, man. And years ago, too. This was uh we actually did a pro wrestling show at our lodge at the lodge hall. It was wild. We got like a tiny ring, and we did the show, invited all the kids from the Mason Children's Hole in the Grange before it closed. We had Michael Anthony's pizza sponsor it, and uh, it was a cool memory. I'm glad we somehow no one got hurt, we didn't destroy the ceiling because we have to heck close a few times, and like I'm like I'm watching people like lift people for suplexes, barely scrape it, and I was like, Oh, that's asbestos. But I don't know, man. And then my lodge actually used to uh sponsor uh which sponsored the pro wrestling show that we would donate to the uh local summer fest in town, which is cool. People like wrestling. Wrestling's a universal language, it's bad, it's pageantry, it's athletics, it's everything.

SPEAKER_02

Well, when me and the the other guys were recording, we started talking about wrestling. I'm like, oh, WWE isn't real wrestling. They're like, whoa! I'm like, well, no, no, no, no, no, wait. That's entertainment. When I was growing up, WCW NWA, that's where the like real wrestling, the hard-hitting wrestling was. The storylines were with the WWF, WWE.

unknown

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03

WCW NWA had some just trying.

SPEAKER_02

No, they they stepped, but when I was growing up in the 80s, that's what it was. I mean, they had their you know, their fights and they were talking crap before the the matches, yeah. But there wasn't all that in-between behind the scenes getting hit with chairs and stuff that was or or you know, the clowns coming out of cars and like down the WWE, you know. Yeah, it's not that you know they weren't really wrestling, but the the storylines didn't revolve around it was a more realness of reality.

SPEAKER_03

They didn't have Doing the Clown in WCW then. Shout out Matt Born. But uh Doing the Clown, I love Batman Bigelow. Do you remember the uh WWF? I think it was a Royal Rumble arcane game, and it operated almost the same at Sportal Compact, Midway made it. I Yoko Zuno was in it, Bam Bam Bigelow.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, there's one that I played, it was like real easy. I think it was SmackDown, like one one button, one direction, and one button. There was you talking about when they used to look like uh the little uh muscle wrestler guys.

SPEAKER_03

No, there was that. There's Fire Pro, but there's a lot of good wrestling games of the year. I mean, WCW versus NWO on N64. I mean, that was right there with GoldenEyes. Yeah, that was pretty good. Those are a lot of good stuff, man. I don't know. I am just jazzed up on wrestling. I'm very nervous to even just show up and see people. I hope I don't stumble on the mic tonight. I hope I have a good time. I hope I hope my nephew likes it. I hope my daughter doesn't freak out because it's loud. I hope I have a lot of fun. I hope I take a lot of pictures, and I hope I really I make a lot of memories tonight.

SPEAKER_02

Sure, it's gonna be a good time.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, that's 70? I thought it was 60. You can do it like out this part of Western Law, you can do whatever you want. Cop should have probably pulled me over for going slow. About 45 is the minimum. How do you have a$35 mile an hour variance? It's weird. But either way, we're gonna have a bunch of footage spliced in from the show itself. Wes, hopefully you get a lot of footage. I hope that you get a lot of interviews. Guys, do what you love. Uh like Nat Garoffalo, doing community theater, all letting some voted on sports teams, party doing some ring announcing for wrestling. Find out what you like, do it, and then share it with your Masonic brothers because we want to find out about it too, and we want to support you. God bless you guys. We'll see you at the matches.

SPEAKER_02

Like, comment, and subscribe. We need you guys. Thank you for watching, and we will be back with more.

SPEAKER_01

I can't even tell you the lightning that is flowing through every bit of my veins. God bless Pearl Wrestling, God bless Masonry, and God bless everyone that watches this podcast. You have my heart forever.

SPEAKER_04

Every freaking joy. Stay right here.