WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.040 So I want you to picture a scene with me here. 00:00:02.759 --> 00:00:05.860 It's October. 1995. Right in the thick of it. 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:08.199 Exactly. We are right in the absolute middle 00:00:08.199 --> 00:00:10.419 of the Monday Night Wars. This is the peak of 00:00:10.419 --> 00:00:12.720 professional wrestling's popularity. The crowds 00:00:12.720 --> 00:00:15.240 are huge. And you're watching this broadcast. 00:00:15.660 --> 00:00:17.739 Lasers are cutting through the smoke in the arena. 00:00:17.859 --> 00:00:20.000 The crowd is just going absolutely ballistic. 00:00:20.120 --> 00:00:22.559 And right in the center of the aisle, there is 00:00:22.559 --> 00:00:25.339 a block of ice. And we should clarify, this is 00:00:25.339 --> 00:00:27.620 not a classy ice sculpture. Oh, no, no. It's 00:00:27.620 --> 00:00:30.500 a massive, theatrically fake, styrofoam -looking 00:00:30.500 --> 00:00:33.979 block of ice that is supposedly frozen. solid, 00:00:34.280 --> 00:00:36.039 sitting right there in the aisle in Detroit, 00:00:36.500 --> 00:00:38.399 basically pausing the entire pay -per -view. 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:41.380 It's peak 90s wrestling chaos. It really is. 00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:43.960 And the premise here is that inside this block 00:00:43.960 --> 00:00:47.340 of ice is a man, a very, very large man. The 00:00:47.340 --> 00:00:49.500 storyline is that he's some kind of prehistoric 00:00:49.500 --> 00:00:52.179 monster who has literally been thought out for 00:00:52.179 --> 00:00:54.399 one specific purpose, to destroy Hulk Hogan. 00:00:54.679 --> 00:00:57.039 So naturally ice explodes, he breaks out. But 00:00:57.039 --> 00:00:58.899 here is where my brain just completely stops 00:00:58.899 --> 00:01:01.240 working when I watch the tape back. He isn't 00:01:01.240 --> 00:01:04.209 wearing a fur coat. He isn't wearing like a prehistoric 00:01:04.209 --> 00:01:06.230 loincloth or anything that says Ice Monster. 00:01:06.870 --> 00:01:09.890 He is wrapped from head to toe in dirty white 00:01:09.890 --> 00:01:13.069 bandages. He looks exactly like a mummy. Exactly 00:01:13.069 --> 00:01:15.689 like a mummy. And yet the announcers, without 00:01:15.689 --> 00:01:18.609 even a hint of irony in their voices, are screaming 00:01:18.609 --> 00:01:21.590 at the top of their lungs, it's the Yeti! The 00:01:21.590 --> 00:01:25.390 Yeti. A mummy wrapped in toilet paper gauze named 00:01:25.390 --> 00:01:28.640 the Yeti. It makes absolutely no sense. He lumbers 00:01:28.640 --> 00:01:30.680 down to the ring, stiff as a board, looking like 00:01:30.680 --> 00:01:33.099 he can barely bend his knees, and he proceeds 00:01:33.099 --> 00:01:35.560 to apply what is historically known as the double 00:01:35.560 --> 00:01:38.480 bear hug on Hulk Hogan. It is awkward, it is 00:01:38.480 --> 00:01:40.379 physically uncomfortable to watch, and it is 00:01:40.379 --> 00:01:42.120 honestly one of the most infamous moments in 00:01:42.120 --> 00:01:45.239 television history. And usually, when we see 00:01:45.239 --> 00:01:47.180 a clip like that pop up on social media, we just 00:01:47.180 --> 00:01:49.359 laugh, right? We scroll past it, we think, oh, 00:01:49.379 --> 00:01:51.920 it's just another clumsy, uncoordinated stiff 00:01:51.920 --> 00:01:54.819 in a terrible costume. But that is exactly why 00:01:54.819 --> 00:01:57.700 we are here today, because that default reaction, 00:01:57.959 --> 00:02:00.280 that assumption that this guy was just a carnival 00:02:00.280 --> 00:02:03.219 attraction, it's completely wrong. The man inside 00:02:03.219 --> 00:02:05.519 those bandages wasn't some clumsy guy they just 00:02:05.519 --> 00:02:07.739 found on the street because he was tall. He was 00:02:07.739 --> 00:02:11.620 Ron Race. And Ron Race was a legitimate, highly 00:02:11.620 --> 00:02:15.979 skilled division. basketball standout. Right. 00:02:16.039 --> 00:02:17.860 We're talking about a guy who could run the floor, 00:02:17.919 --> 00:02:20.979 shoot with genuine finesse, and pull down rebounds 00:02:20.979 --> 00:02:23.300 against future NBA players. It's just one of 00:02:23.300 --> 00:02:25.659 the most jarring disconnects you will ever see 00:02:25.659 --> 00:02:27.280 in the history of the entertainment industry. 00:02:27.280 --> 00:02:29.520 Yeah. Because on one hand, you have this world 00:02:29.520 --> 00:02:31.699 -class athlete. And on the other hand, you have 00:02:31.699 --> 00:02:35.800 the mindset of 90s wrestling promoters, this 00:02:35.800 --> 00:02:38.300 monster factory mentality that actively tried 00:02:38.300 --> 00:02:40.580 to strip away every ounce of that athleticism 00:02:40.580 --> 00:02:42.860 just to make him look like a Saturday morning 00:02:42.860 --> 00:02:45.969 cartoon character. So today, we are doing a deep 00:02:45.969 --> 00:02:48.610 dive into the man behind the mummy. We are going 00:02:48.610 --> 00:02:51.629 to completely unpack the career of Ron Race. 00:02:52.069 --> 00:02:54.169 We're tracking his journey from the hardwood 00:02:54.169 --> 00:02:57.590 of Santa Clara University to the absolute insanity 00:02:57.590 --> 00:03:00.349 of the Dungeon of Doom, his transformation into 00:03:00.349 --> 00:03:03.750 a giant ninja, a grunge outcast, and eventually 00:03:03.750 --> 00:03:08.139 a character literally just named Evil. And the 00:03:08.139 --> 00:03:10.520 mission here for this deep dive is really bigger 00:03:10.520 --> 00:03:13.300 than just laughing at bad 90s gimmicks. We want 00:03:13.300 --> 00:03:15.379 to analyze what Ron Race's career trajectory 00:03:15.379 --> 00:03:17.620 tells us about the industry back then. It's a 00:03:17.620 --> 00:03:20.139 fascinating case study on how they utilized or 00:03:20.139 --> 00:03:22.659 really how they misused size. If you were seven 00:03:22.659 --> 00:03:24.500 feet tall, you were treated totally differently. 00:03:24.520 --> 00:03:26.860 You're a commodity. But you're also kind of a 00:03:26.860 --> 00:03:28.860 prisoner to your own genetics. We're going to 00:03:28.860 --> 00:03:30.879 look at how a guy with record -breaking agility 00:03:30.879 --> 00:03:33.599 was literally forced to walk like a zombie, just 00:03:33.599 --> 00:03:35.219 because that's what a promoter thought a giant 00:03:35.219 --> 00:03:37.139 was supposed to do. Let's start right at the 00:03:37.139 --> 00:03:39.319 foundation. Because I think when people hear 00:03:39.319 --> 00:03:41.699 basketball background for a pro wrestler, they 00:03:41.699 --> 00:03:43.879 kind of roll their eyes and assume, you know, 00:03:43.960 --> 00:03:45.860 OK, he played a little bit in high school. Maybe 00:03:45.860 --> 00:03:47.800 he sat on the end of the bench at some community 00:03:47.800 --> 00:03:49.620 college. Yeah, they assume it's padded on his 00:03:49.620 --> 00:03:52.509 resume. Right, exactly. But that is not the story 00:03:52.509 --> 00:03:55.849 here at all. We are talking about elite -level 00:03:55.849 --> 00:03:58.969 pedigree. To really understand Ron Race, you 00:03:58.969 --> 00:04:00.789 have to look at the genetics and the environment 00:04:00.789 --> 00:04:04.430 he was raised in. He was born on April 26, 1970 00:04:04.430 --> 00:04:07.770 in San Jose, California. But the athletic pedigree 00:04:07.770 --> 00:04:10.930 in his family goes back a full generation. His 00:04:10.930 --> 00:04:13.590 father, Ron Race Sr., wasn't just a guy who shot 00:04:13.590 --> 00:04:16.149 hoops in the driveway. He was a serious, top 00:04:16.149 --> 00:04:18.170 -tier player. He played for the University of 00:04:18.170 --> 00:04:20.209 Cincinnati, right? He did. And not just play, 00:04:20.230 --> 00:04:22.509 he was on the Cincinnati teams that won back 00:04:22.509 --> 00:04:26.550 to back NCAA national titles in 1961 and 1962. 00:04:26.930 --> 00:04:29.750 I mean, an NCAA title is the absolute peak of 00:04:29.750 --> 00:04:32.430 the mountain in college sports. That is a massive 00:04:32.430 --> 00:04:35.389 deal. It's huge. And even though that was a different 00:04:35.389 --> 00:04:38.329 era of basketball, this is right around the time 00:04:38.329 --> 00:04:40.470 Oscar Robertson had just moved on to the pros. 00:04:41.189 --> 00:04:43.110 The standard of excellence at Cincinnati was 00:04:43.110 --> 00:04:47.449 incredibly high. So Ron Race, the son, is born 00:04:47.449 --> 00:04:50.250 into a household where elite athletic performance 00:04:50.250 --> 00:04:53.529 isn't just encouraged, it's the baseline standard. 00:04:53.889 --> 00:04:56.509 He grows up with this legacy, hits a massive 00:04:56.509 --> 00:04:59.189 growth spurt, and ends up playing for Montevista 00:04:59.189 --> 00:05:02.139 High School in Tupertino, California. And the 00:05:02.139 --> 00:05:04.740 numbers he put up at Montevista are frankly absurd. 00:05:04.839 --> 00:05:06.699 I have the stat sheet right here in front of 00:05:06.699 --> 00:05:08.360 me and I honestly had to double check it when 00:05:08.360 --> 00:05:10.139 we were pulling the sources for this deep dive. 00:05:10.480 --> 00:05:14.160 He scored 2082 career points in high school. 00:05:14.259 --> 00:05:15.959 Let's really pause on that number for a second 00:05:15.959 --> 00:05:19.339 so you listening can grasp this. 2082 points 00:05:19.339 --> 00:05:22.720 in the mid 80s high school basketball for a seven 00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:25.620 foot kid usually meant exactly one thing. You 00:05:25.620 --> 00:05:27.259 plant yourself right under the rim. You keep 00:05:27.259 --> 00:05:28.879 your hands straight up in the air and you wait 00:05:28.879 --> 00:05:30.759 for a rebound to fall into your lap. You were 00:05:30.759 --> 00:05:32.939 basically just a piece of stationary furniture. 00:05:33.759 --> 00:05:37.300 Exactly. You are an obstacle. To score over 2 00:05:37.300 --> 00:05:40.259 ,000 points, you cannot just be a garbage man 00:05:40.259 --> 00:05:42.279 cleaning up missed shots and getting tip -ins. 00:05:42.639 --> 00:05:45.579 You have to be the absolute focal point of the 00:05:45.579 --> 00:05:47.060 offense. You have to have incredible stamina, 00:05:47.240 --> 00:05:48.899 too. Massive stamina. You have to be able to 00:05:48.899 --> 00:05:51.199 run the floor and transition, beat the defense 00:05:51.199 --> 00:05:53.620 down the court. You have to have the footwork 00:05:53.620 --> 00:05:56.420 to avoid fouling out. which is always an issue 00:05:56.420 --> 00:05:59.660 for big men at that age. And crucially, you have 00:05:59.660 --> 00:06:01.959 to have a soft shooting touch. You just don't 00:06:01.959 --> 00:06:04.720 get to 2000 points strictly on dunks and layups. 00:06:04.959 --> 00:06:06.560 And it's not like he was playing against terrible 00:06:06.560 --> 00:06:09.620 competition either. He competed in the 1987 Central 00:06:09.620 --> 00:06:12.060 Coast Section Championship. So he's a winner. 00:06:12.180 --> 00:06:15.439 He's a high volume scorer and he is huge. That 00:06:15.439 --> 00:06:17.660 naturally earns him a scholarship to Santa Clara 00:06:17.660 --> 00:06:20.620 University, which is a division I program. And 00:06:20.620 --> 00:06:22.399 this is where the story gets really, really interesting 00:06:22.399 --> 00:06:24.160 to me, because he doesn't just go there and wash 00:06:24.160 --> 00:06:27.019 out. He plays four full years. Which is a metric 00:06:27.019 --> 00:06:29.019 that constantly gets overlooked when people talk 00:06:29.019 --> 00:06:32.199 about big men in sports. He played a total of 00:06:32.199 --> 00:06:36.060 116 career games at the Division I level. I want 00:06:36.060 --> 00:06:37.959 you to think about the physics of the human body 00:06:37.959 --> 00:06:41.199 for a second. When you are seven feet tall and 00:06:41.199 --> 00:06:43.100 you're weighing somewhere close to 300 pounds, 00:06:43.560 --> 00:06:46.439 your knees, your ankles, your lower back, they 00:06:46.439 --> 00:06:49.740 are all under immense constant torque. pounding 00:06:49.740 --> 00:06:52.459 on hardwood floors every single day. Right. For 00:06:52.459 --> 00:06:55.560 a player of that sheer size, to survive four 00:06:55.560 --> 00:06:58.259 full years of D1 basketball without suffering 00:06:58.259 --> 00:07:00.360 a massive career -ending structural breakdown, 00:07:00.920 --> 00:07:03.519 a blown ACL, shattered foot bones that tells 00:07:03.519 --> 00:07:05.519 you volumes about his physical conditioning and 00:07:05.519 --> 00:07:07.220 his biomechanics, he was put together right. 00:07:07.259 --> 00:07:09.660 He wasn't fragile at all. He was a tank. A highly 00:07:09.660 --> 00:07:12.560 mobile tank. Over those 116 games, his career 00:07:12.560 --> 00:07:15.699 averages were 10 .7 points and 7 .4 rebounds. 00:07:15.959 --> 00:07:18.060 But if you look at his peak season, the 1990 00:07:18.060 --> 00:07:21.490 to 1990, He was an absolute monster. He led the 00:07:21.490 --> 00:07:23.329 entire West Coast Conference in total rebounds 00:07:23.329 --> 00:07:26.290 with 320. Averaging 11 rebounds a game. 11 boards 00:07:26.290 --> 00:07:28.769 a game. And he was named to the all West Coast 00:07:28.769 --> 00:07:31.810 Conference team twice. Once in that 90 -91 season 00:07:31.810 --> 00:07:34.430 and again in the 91 -92 season. Averaging a double 00:07:34.430 --> 00:07:36.750 -double. double -digit points and rebounds at 00:07:36.750 --> 00:07:39.009 the Division I level is usually the golden ticket. 00:07:39.110 --> 00:07:41.850 That is the giant neon sign pointing to the NBA. 00:07:42.569 --> 00:07:44.829 But there is one specific stat from the sources 00:07:44.829 --> 00:07:47.470 you highlighted in our notes that I think proves 00:07:47.470 --> 00:07:50.670 his raw athletic ability even more than the rebounding 00:07:50.670 --> 00:07:52.290 numbers. Yeah, it's his field goal percentage. 00:07:52.350 --> 00:07:54.269 He actually holds the Santa Clara School record 00:07:54.269 --> 00:07:58.290 for career field goal percentage at .606. So 00:07:58.290 --> 00:08:01.250 he shot over 60 % for his entire college career. 00:08:01.449 --> 00:08:03.529 For the non -basketball nerds listening to us 00:08:03.529 --> 00:08:06.930 right now, can you break down why that specific 00:08:06.930 --> 00:08:09.009 stat is so vital? Why does shooting percentage 00:08:09.009 --> 00:08:11.550 prove he was agile? Because maintaining a high 00:08:11.550 --> 00:08:13.850 field goal percentage for a center implies that 00:08:13.850 --> 00:08:16.750 he had what scouts call soft hands. It means 00:08:16.750 --> 00:08:19.189 that when a point guard threads a fast hard pass 00:08:19.189 --> 00:08:21.910 through a crowded lane, Reece can catch it cleanly 00:08:21.910 --> 00:08:24.410 in traffic without fumbling it. It means he has 00:08:24.410 --> 00:08:27.069 supreme body control in the air. He isn't just 00:08:27.069 --> 00:08:29.050 wildly flinging the ball at the backboard hoping 00:08:29.050 --> 00:08:32.149 for a foul. He has touch. He understands spacing. 00:08:32.370 --> 00:08:34.830 He understands angles off the glass. It requires 00:08:34.830 --> 00:08:36.970 a level of hand -eye coordination that most human 00:08:36.970 --> 00:08:40.649 beings that size simply do not possess. Oh, he's 00:08:40.649 --> 00:08:42.629 also fifth in school history for career rebounds 00:08:42.629 --> 00:08:45.519 with 851. So this brings up the most obvious 00:08:45.519 --> 00:08:47.879 contradiction. We have a legitimate seven -footer. 00:08:48.019 --> 00:08:50.419 He's durable. He has soft hands. He's an elite, 00:08:50.820 --> 00:08:53.059 record -breaking rebounder. And he graduates 00:08:53.059 --> 00:08:55.240 in the early 90s. This is an era where the NBA 00:08:55.240 --> 00:08:58.220 is absolutely obsessed with size. You have Akim 00:08:58.220 --> 00:09:00.740 Olajuwon, Shaquille O 'Neal, Patrick Ewing, David 00:09:00.740 --> 00:09:03.299 Robinson dominating the league. Why isn't Ron 00:09:03.299 --> 00:09:05.360 Reese getting drafted? Why isn't he on an NBA 00:09:05.360 --> 00:09:08.259 roster? It comes down to the tweener curse of 00:09:08.259 --> 00:09:11.039 that very specific era in professional basketball. 00:09:11.440 --> 00:09:14.799 In the early to mid 90s, the center position 00:09:14.799 --> 00:09:18.539 in the NBA was becoming incredibly, punishingly 00:09:18.539 --> 00:09:21.200 physical. It was the era of the banger. You had 00:09:21.200 --> 00:09:23.700 to have the sheer mass to push Shaquille O 'Neal 00:09:23.700 --> 00:09:25.940 off the low block. Which almost nobody could 00:09:25.940 --> 00:09:28.779 do. Right. And Reese, while he was tall, was 00:09:28.779 --> 00:09:30.740 built a bit leaner. He was much more finesse 00:09:30.740 --> 00:09:32.740 oriented. He wasn't a bulldozer in the paint. 00:09:33.320 --> 00:09:35.259 On the flip side, the power forward position 00:09:35.259 --> 00:09:37.899 was getting faster. So Reese was maybe a step 00:09:37.899 --> 00:09:40.879 too slow to guard the quick new breed power forwards 00:09:40.879 --> 00:09:43.500 out on the perimeter, but perhaps not heavy or 00:09:43.500 --> 00:09:46.840 rugged enough to stop the true 350 pound monsters 00:09:46.840 --> 00:09:49.700 down low. So he essentially falls into that tactical 00:09:49.700 --> 00:09:52.200 gap, good enough to absolutely dominate the college 00:09:52.200 --> 00:09:54.200 game, but maybe mechanically a half step out 00:09:54.200 --> 00:09:56.440 of sync for where the pros were heading. Exactly. 00:09:56.539 --> 00:09:58.399 And you have to remember, back then, there was 00:09:58.399 --> 00:10:00.960 no G -League. There wasn't this robust patient 00:10:00.960 --> 00:10:03.600 development system where a team could stash a 00:10:03.600 --> 00:10:06.100 guy for three years to let him bulk up. If you 00:10:06.100 --> 00:10:08.039 didn't stick immediately in training camp, you 00:10:08.039 --> 00:10:09.799 were out. He could have gone to Europe to play, 00:10:09.879 --> 00:10:13.399 sure. But for a seven -footer flying coach on 00:10:13.399 --> 00:10:15.860 regional airlines across the Atlantic, playing 00:10:15.860 --> 00:10:19.480 in freezing gyms with concrete floors, that is 00:10:19.480 --> 00:10:23.240 a recipe for a very short, painful career. So 00:10:23.240 --> 00:10:26.179 the NBA door gently closes on him, but the big 00:10:26.179 --> 00:10:29.039 man paradigm immediately opens another door. 00:10:29.320 --> 00:10:31.580 Because if you are seven feet tall, you're a 00:10:31.580 --> 00:10:33.360 proven athlete, and you can't play in the NBA, 00:10:33.820 --> 00:10:35.740 there is one entertainment industry that will 00:10:35.740 --> 00:10:38.960 always, always take your call. Professional wrestling. 00:10:39.659 --> 00:10:41.919 It is the classic pivot. But the cool thing about 00:10:41.919 --> 00:10:43.860 Reese is that he didn't just walk into a local 00:10:43.860 --> 00:10:45.720 armory gym and started throwing guys around. 00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:49.000 He actually sought out a specific, highly respected 00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:52.929 mentor. By 1994, he is being trained by Big John 00:10:52.929 --> 00:10:55.690 Stud. Which gives him instant undeniable credibility 00:10:55.690 --> 00:10:57.789 in the locker room. Big John Stud was a massive 00:10:57.789 --> 00:11:00.789 legend. He literally main evented the first WrestleMania 00:11:00.789 --> 00:11:03.389 against Andre the Giant. It's a crucial credential. 00:11:04.029 --> 00:11:06.580 Stud knew exactly how to work as a giant. He 00:11:06.580 --> 00:11:08.360 understood the psychology of being the biggest 00:11:08.360 --> 00:11:10.659 man in the room, how you don't need to bump around, 00:11:10.679 --> 00:11:12.980 how every movement needs to mean something. And 00:11:12.980 --> 00:11:14.600 for a while, they actually teamed up together 00:11:14.600 --> 00:11:16.159 on the independent circuit. They were billed 00:11:16.159 --> 00:11:18.659 as the giants of wrestling. I love that. Yeah, 00:11:18.659 --> 00:11:21.240 it was brilliant. This was basically Reese's 00:11:21.240 --> 00:11:23.500 apprenticeship. He made his official debut on 00:11:23.500 --> 00:11:26.539 March 12th, 1994, working for the International 00:11:26.539 --> 00:11:28.799 Wrestling Federation, which was a New England 00:11:28.799 --> 00:11:32.620 based promotion. He was learning how to be a 00:11:32.620 --> 00:11:35.080 worker. I want to clarify that term for our listeners, 00:11:35.259 --> 00:11:37.559 worker. because we are going to use it quite 00:11:37.559 --> 00:11:40.259 a bit in this deep dive. In the context of pro 00:11:40.259 --> 00:11:43.200 wrestling, a worker isn't just an employee on 00:11:43.200 --> 00:11:46.340 the payroll. Right. Being a good worker is high 00:11:46.340 --> 00:11:49.200 praise. It means you are someone who can execute 00:11:49.200 --> 00:11:52.019 matches safely. You can tell a coherent physical 00:11:52.019 --> 00:11:54.480 story in the ring, and you can make the live 00:11:54.480 --> 00:11:56.840 audience believe in the struggle. Reeves wasn't 00:11:56.840 --> 00:11:59.419 just standing there being tall. He was actively 00:11:59.419 --> 00:12:02.019 learning the craft of the business. And he's 00:12:02.019 --> 00:12:04.220 working the indies, figuring out his persona. 00:12:04.639 --> 00:12:06.320 Initially he's just wrestling under his birth 00:12:06.320 --> 00:12:09.580 name. But by 1995, he starts working for the 00:12:09.580 --> 00:12:11.759 National Wrestling Conference out in Las Vegas 00:12:11.759 --> 00:12:15.139 under the ring name SWAT. Which is a great 90s 00:12:15.139 --> 00:12:17.080 indie gimmick. You assume it was based on some 00:12:17.080 --> 00:12:19.600 kind of heavily armored police enforcer. And 00:12:19.600 --> 00:12:21.539 this is where we start to see the distortion 00:12:21.539 --> 00:12:24.720 of his physical reality. During the SWAT era, 00:12:24.940 --> 00:12:29.360 he is officially billed at 7 '2 and 365 pounds. 00:12:29.460 --> 00:12:31.779 That's the classic wrestling tax. Promoters will 00:12:31.779 --> 00:12:35.120 always add 2 or 3 inches and 40 pounds to a big 00:12:35.120 --> 00:12:37.980 guy. But even at his real, legitimate height, 00:12:38.299 --> 00:12:40.679 which was around seven feet, he's an absolute 00:12:40.679 --> 00:12:43.179 spectacle. And that kind of physical spectacle 00:12:43.179 --> 00:12:45.840 eventually catches the eye of world championship 00:12:45.840 --> 00:12:49.690 wrestling. WCW. It's 1995. This is the big leagues. 00:12:49.909 --> 00:12:51.649 This is Ted Turner's checkbook. Monday Nitro 00:12:51.649 --> 00:12:54.370 has just launched and they bring Ron Race in. 00:12:54.649 --> 00:12:56.669 But they don't bring him in as Ron Race, the 00:12:56.669 --> 00:12:58.590 agile basketball player. They don't even bring 00:12:58.590 --> 00:13:01.090 him in his swat. They bring him in for a very 00:13:01.090 --> 00:13:03.669 specific, incredibly bizarre angle involving 00:13:03.669 --> 00:13:06.750 a faction called the Dungeon of Doom. We really 00:13:06.750 --> 00:13:08.769 have to set the stage for the Dungeon of Doom 00:13:08.769 --> 00:13:12.370 because it represents peak mid 90s camp. It's 00:13:12.370 --> 00:13:15.250 almost hard to explain how weird this was. Their 00:13:15.250 --> 00:13:18.350 sole purpose as a group was to eradicate Hulkamania. 00:13:18.769 --> 00:13:21.110 It was a collection of cartoonish villains. You 00:13:21.110 --> 00:13:23.809 had Kamala the Ugandan giant. You had a guy literally 00:13:23.809 --> 00:13:26.269 playing a human shark. You had the zodiac. And 00:13:26.269 --> 00:13:28.350 they were all managed by Kevin Sullivan, who 00:13:28.350 --> 00:13:30.809 was playing this sort of screaming demonic wizard 00:13:30.809 --> 00:13:32.950 hiding out in a cave. It felt very much like 00:13:32.950 --> 00:13:35.710 a comic book or like an episode of Power Rangers. 00:13:35.950 --> 00:13:39.389 It was very Batman 1966 energy. And as they were 00:13:39.389 --> 00:13:41.490 building up to their big October pay -per -view 00:13:41.490 --> 00:13:44.370 Halloween havoc, they had this massive main event 00:13:44.370 --> 00:13:47.289 signed. The giant, who most people now know as 00:13:47.289 --> 00:13:49.730 Paul White, or the big show challenging Hulk 00:13:49.730 --> 00:13:52.169 Hogan for the world title. But the Dungeon of 00:13:52.169 --> 00:13:54.269 Doom wanted an insurance policy. They needed 00:13:54.269 --> 00:13:56.590 a surprise element to guarantee that Hogan would 00:13:56.590 --> 00:13:58.950 be destroyed once and for all. So to build this 00:13:58.950 --> 00:14:01.830 up, on the October 23rd episode of Nitro, they 00:14:01.830 --> 00:14:05.230 unveil this giant block of ice, and out of this 00:14:05.230 --> 00:14:08.159 ice comes the Yeti. Now we touched on the visual 00:14:08.159 --> 00:14:10.419 a bit in the intro of the mummy wraps, but I 00:14:10.419 --> 00:14:13.059 really want to dig into the why. Why on earth 00:14:13.059 --> 00:14:16.419 did WCW creative take an elite Division I athlete 00:14:16.419 --> 00:14:19.000 and wrap him so tightly in bandages that he could 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:21.080 barely even walk? This really gets to the core 00:14:21.080 --> 00:14:24.190 of the insecurity of wrestling promoters. At 00:14:24.190 --> 00:14:26.549 that specific time, the giant Paul White was 00:14:26.549 --> 00:14:29.629 the shiny new toy in WCW. He was being billed 00:14:29.629 --> 00:14:32.309 as the storyline son of Andre the Giant. He was 00:14:32.309 --> 00:14:34.590 billed at seven foot four. But in reality, Paul 00:14:34.590 --> 00:14:37.330 White and Ron Race were very, very close in actual 00:14:37.330 --> 00:14:39.129 height. There was maybe an inch difference between 00:14:39.129 --> 00:14:41.730 them. And in the deeply flawed logic of professional 00:14:41.730 --> 00:14:44.490 wrestling, you absolutely cannot have your new 00:14:44.490 --> 00:14:47.070 surprise monster look even slightly smaller than 00:14:47.070 --> 00:14:49.289 your current monster. It ruins the illusion. 00:14:49.970 --> 00:14:53.049 Precisely. The visual hierarchy has to be maintained. 00:14:53.879 --> 00:14:56.600 So WCW management made a decision that effectively 00:14:56.600 --> 00:14:59.259 neutralized every single athletic advantage Ron 00:14:59.259 --> 00:15:01.799 Rees had. They put massive lifts in his wrestling 00:15:01.799 --> 00:15:04.740 boots. We are talking three or four solid inches 00:15:04.740 --> 00:15:07.200 of platform. And then when they applied the mummy 00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:09.679 bandages, they didn't just wrap his face. They 00:15:09.679 --> 00:15:12.399 kept wrapping upwards high above his skull to 00:15:12.399 --> 00:15:15.080 create this weird, stiff cylindrical turban effect 00:15:15.080 --> 00:15:17.740 on top of his head. So they're artificially engineering 00:15:17.740 --> 00:15:20.860 his body to appear seven foot six. Yes. But think 00:15:20.860 --> 00:15:22.500 about the biomechanics of what they just did 00:15:22.500 --> 00:15:24.960 to this man. You take a guy who is used to planting 00:15:24.960 --> 00:15:27.080 his feet firmly and pivoting quickly on a hardwood 00:15:27.080 --> 00:15:29.379 basketball court, and you put him on platform 00:15:29.379 --> 00:15:32.340 stilts. Then, you wrap his legs in thick gauze 00:15:32.340 --> 00:15:34.980 so tightly that he literally has no knee flexion. 00:15:35.120 --> 00:15:37.100 You have taken a world -class athlete and turned 00:15:37.100 --> 00:15:40.759 him into a terrified statue. Oh man, that completely 00:15:40.759 --> 00:15:42.879 explains the walk. When he breaks out of the 00:15:42.879 --> 00:15:45.299 ice and comes down the aisle, he's doing this 00:15:45.299 --> 00:15:49.220 bizarre, stiff -leg Frankenstein stomp. When 00:15:49.220 --> 00:15:51.220 I watched it, I thought it was just terrible 00:15:51.220 --> 00:15:54.149 character work. But it's not because he's uncoordinated. 00:15:54.330 --> 00:15:56.389 It's because he is terrified of tripping over 00:15:56.389 --> 00:15:59.350 his own platform boots on live television. Exactly. 00:15:59.769 --> 00:16:02.830 He is just trying as hard as not to fall on his 00:16:02.830 --> 00:16:05.700 face in front of millions of people. And that 00:16:05.700 --> 00:16:09.620 mechanical limitation leads directly to the infamous 00:16:09.620 --> 00:16:12.820 double bear hug. So he gets into the ring. The 00:16:12.820 --> 00:16:14.919 giant already has Hulk Hogan trapped in a bear 00:16:14.919 --> 00:16:17.279 hug from behind. Reece playing the Yeti comes 00:16:17.279 --> 00:16:19.340 lumbering in from the front. But because he's 00:16:19.340 --> 00:16:21.539 on those massive lifts, and because he literally 00:16:21.539 --> 00:16:23.940 cannot bend his knees, he can't get low enough 00:16:23.940 --> 00:16:25.899 to apply a standard wrestling hold. So he just 00:16:25.899 --> 00:16:27.960 sort of leans forward. And wraps his arms around 00:16:27.960 --> 00:16:30.500 Hogan's neck. And because he's leaning, he has 00:16:30.500 --> 00:16:33.139 to continually thrust his hips forward just to 00:16:33.139 --> 00:16:34.460 keep his balance. It looked like he was trying 00:16:34.460 --> 00:16:36.720 to dry hump Paul Kogan into submission. It was 00:16:36.720 --> 00:16:39.419 visually disastrous, just completely awkward. 00:16:39.940 --> 00:16:42.200 But if you listen to the commentary during that 00:16:42.200 --> 00:16:44.320 segment, it tells you everything you need to 00:16:44.320 --> 00:16:47.139 know about the promoter's priority. Tony Chiavone 00:16:47.139 --> 00:16:49.659 is screaming into the microphone, the Yeti is 00:16:49.659 --> 00:16:52.860 taller than the giant. That was it. That was 00:16:52.860 --> 00:16:55.379 the only goal of the entire stunt. They sacrificed 00:16:55.379 --> 00:16:57.720 the performer's dignity, his safety, and his 00:16:57.720 --> 00:17:00.299 skill set just to get that one specific sound 00:17:00.299 --> 00:17:02.919 bite on the tape. They absolutely did. And the 00:17:02.919 --> 00:17:05.480 grand irony of all this effort is that the moment 00:17:05.480 --> 00:17:08.059 that segment ended, the gimmick was practically 00:17:08.059 --> 00:17:10.890 dead. The Yeti costume vanishes entirely. It's 00:17:10.890 --> 00:17:13.369 one of the great unexplained disappearing acts 00:17:13.369 --> 00:17:15.849 in wrestling history. He never wears the mummy 00:17:15.849 --> 00:17:18.410 wrappings again. Ever. I want to. So you would 00:17:18.410 --> 00:17:20.309 logically think, OK, the mummy thing clearly 00:17:20.309 --> 00:17:22.789 didn't work. The bear hug was embarrassing. Let's 00:17:22.789 --> 00:17:25.309 strip the bandages off, put him in standard wrestling 00:17:25.309 --> 00:17:27.589 trunks, and let the guy actually wrestle. Show 00:17:27.589 --> 00:17:31.250 off that Santa Clara agility. But no, WCW creative 00:17:31.250 --> 00:17:33.210 goes back into their lab and they come back with 00:17:33.210 --> 00:17:35.769 a ninja. The super giant ninja. I just have to 00:17:35.769 --> 00:17:38.069 say the name out loud again to let it sink in, 00:17:38.109 --> 00:17:42.210 the super giant ninja. It genuinely sounds like 00:17:42.210 --> 00:17:44.970 a character of five -year -old events while smashing 00:17:44.970 --> 00:17:47.390 action figures together in the sandbox. It really 00:17:47.390 --> 00:17:50.150 does. It's completely absurd. And it really speaks 00:17:50.150 --> 00:17:54.029 to the total lack of long -term planning in WCW 00:17:54.029 --> 00:17:56.670 at the time. They had this massive athletic human 00:17:56.670 --> 00:17:59.430 being on the payroll, and they had absolutely 00:17:59.430 --> 00:18:01.940 no clue what to do with him. So they literally 00:18:01.940 --> 00:18:04.259 just threw a black hood over his head. Did Reese 00:18:04.259 --> 00:18:06.420 have any kind of martial arts background? Was 00:18:06.420 --> 00:18:08.380 he a black belt in anything that would justify 00:18:08.380 --> 00:18:11.400 a ninja gimmick? Not that we know of, no. But 00:18:11.400 --> 00:18:13.359 in the wrestling business, especially back then, 00:18:13.720 --> 00:18:16.119 Ninja was basically just shorthand for foreign 00:18:16.119 --> 00:18:18.220 bad guy who throws karate chops. They didn't 00:18:18.220 --> 00:18:20.319 care about his actual background. He made three 00:18:20.319 --> 00:18:22.180 televised appearances under this gimmick. He 00:18:22.180 --> 00:18:24.599 was in the massive 60 -man battle royal at the 00:18:24.599 --> 00:18:26.980 World War III pay -per -view in November 1995. 00:18:27.940 --> 00:18:30.500 He had a singles match on WCW Prime against Barry 00:18:30.500 --> 00:18:33.140 Houston. And he wrestled the one -man gang on 00:18:33.140 --> 00:18:36.579 WCW Saturday night in January 1996. And it was 00:18:36.579 --> 00:18:38.559 during that match with One Man Gang that he was 00:18:38.559 --> 00:18:41.000 officially renamed the Supergiant Ninja, right? 00:18:41.339 --> 00:18:44.019 Right. But again, the costume completely limited 00:18:44.019 --> 00:18:47.099 him. In professional wrestling, conveying emotion 00:18:47.099 --> 00:18:49.759 through facial expressions is 50 % of the job. 00:18:50.180 --> 00:18:52.839 You have to show pain, anger, frustration. You 00:18:52.839 --> 00:18:54.900 cannot do any of that when you are wearing a 00:18:54.900 --> 00:18:57.480 full -face black mask. It completely isolates 00:18:57.480 --> 00:19:00.319 you from the crowd. So the ninja phase inevitably 00:19:00.319 --> 00:19:03.920 fails. Finally, later in 1996, somebody comes 00:19:03.920 --> 00:19:06.400 to their senses. They let him take the mask off 00:19:06.400 --> 00:19:09.160 entirely and he becomes Big Ron Studd. Which 00:19:09.160 --> 00:19:11.259 was by far the most logical step they had taken. 00:19:11.680 --> 00:19:13.740 It pays direct homage to his real -life trainer, 00:19:13.920 --> 00:19:16.660 Big John Studd. It uses his actual size, it drops 00:19:16.660 --> 00:19:19.140 the cartoon nonsense, but unfortunately by this 00:19:19.140 --> 00:19:21.299 point he'd already been defined downward by the 00:19:21.299 --> 00:19:23.339 booking. For the listener who might not know 00:19:23.339 --> 00:19:25.779 the backstage terminology, what exactly do you 00:19:25.779 --> 00:19:29.119 mean by defined downward? In the ecosystem of 00:19:29.119 --> 00:19:31.519 professional wrestling, audience perception is 00:19:31.519 --> 00:19:34.500 everything. Once the fans see you as a joke or 00:19:34.500 --> 00:19:37.200 as a clumsy monster who can't win a match, it 00:19:37.200 --> 00:19:39.740 is incredibly difficult to change that perception. 00:19:40.400 --> 00:19:42.240 The fans had seen him stumble around as a mummy, 00:19:42.680 --> 00:19:45.160 they'd seen him flounder as a ninja, and the 00:19:45.160 --> 00:19:47.920 match -booking as Big Ron Stud didn't help rehabilitate 00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:51.119 him. He transitioned into becoming what we call 00:19:51.119 --> 00:19:54.039 enhancement talent. We often hear the term jobber 00:19:54.039 --> 00:19:56.200 thrown around by fans. Break that down for us 00:19:56.200 --> 00:19:57.940 because it's not just a guy who goes out there 00:19:57.940 --> 00:20:00.680 and loses, is it? There is an art to it. Absolutely. 00:20:00.759 --> 00:20:02.920 It's a vital necessary function in the industry. 00:20:03.480 --> 00:20:06.200 An enhancement talent or a jobber is there to 00:20:06.200 --> 00:20:08.460 make the star look like an absolute million bucks. 00:20:09.140 --> 00:20:11.759 When a guy like Chris Benoit or Lex Luger wrestles 00:20:11.759 --> 00:20:14.480 a seven -footer like Ron Reyes, the story being 00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:16.660 told to the audience is, look how incredibly 00:20:16.660 --> 00:20:20.019 strong Benoit is. He just suplexed a giant. Reece's 00:20:20.019 --> 00:20:22.480 entire job was to be the mountain that the hero 00:20:22.480 --> 00:20:24.900 struggles to climb. So he's actively selling 00:20:24.900 --> 00:20:27.400 the offense. He's making their moves look devastating. 00:20:27.880 --> 00:20:30.299 Exactly. He is giving them the rub, which is 00:20:30.299 --> 00:20:32.099 the industry term for transferring credibility 00:20:32.099 --> 00:20:34.920 to the other guy. And honestly, it takes a genuinely 00:20:34.920 --> 00:20:37.160 good worker to do that safely. You have to know 00:20:37.160 --> 00:20:39.819 exactly how to position your body, how to shift 00:20:39.819 --> 00:20:42.079 your weight to help the smaller guy lift you. 00:20:42.500 --> 00:20:45.680 If Ron Reece goes dead weight out of spite, Crispin 00:20:45.680 --> 00:20:47.900 Hawaii could literally break his own back trying 00:20:47.900 --> 00:20:51.200 to suplex him. The fact that Reece was consistently 00:20:51.200 --> 00:20:53.559 trusted to work with top tier guys like Randy 00:20:53.559 --> 00:20:56.500 Savage, Lex Luger, and Jeff Jarrett proves that 00:20:56.500 --> 00:20:58.460 the boys in the back of the locker room knew 00:20:58.460 --> 00:21:01.099 he was safe, athletic, and professional. But 00:21:01.099 --> 00:21:03.259 the problem is, for the fans watching at home, 00:21:03.359 --> 00:21:05.880 he's just the big guy who always loses. Exactly. 00:21:06.019 --> 00:21:08.740 He had no heat, no emotional connection or momentum 00:21:08.740 --> 00:21:11.119 with the crowd. He was just a very tall obstacle. 00:21:11.289 --> 00:21:13.369 So seeing the writing on the wall, he leaves 00:21:13.369 --> 00:21:16.730 WCW by the end of 1996. He goes back to the independent 00:21:16.730 --> 00:21:18.869 circuit, probably to regroup, but then he returns 00:21:18.869 --> 00:21:22.950 to WCW in early 1998. And this this next era 00:21:22.950 --> 00:21:24.589 is the one I really want to dig into, because 00:21:24.589 --> 00:21:26.710 I feel like this is the first and only time on 00:21:26.710 --> 00:21:28.289 national television we actually saw the human 00:21:28.289 --> 00:21:32.289 being, Ron Reiss. Yes. This is the Reiss era, 00:21:32.670 --> 00:21:35.630 spelled R -E -E -S -E, and he makes his return 00:21:35.630 --> 00:21:38.970 on the March 2, 1998 edition of Monday Nitro. 00:21:39.099 --> 00:21:42.019 He joins a faction known as Raven's Flock. We 00:21:42.019 --> 00:21:44.700 really have to contextualize 1998 for you listening, 00:21:44.819 --> 00:21:46.799 because the mood of wrestling and pop culture 00:21:46.799 --> 00:21:49.259 in general had completely shifted. We aren't 00:21:49.259 --> 00:21:51.960 in the goofy comic book dungeon of doom era anymore. 00:21:52.400 --> 00:21:55.000 We are in the era of Stone Cold Steve Austin, 00:21:55.599 --> 00:21:58.960 extreme wrestling, and grunge music. Edgy, reality 00:21:58.960 --> 00:22:01.460 -based storylines were taking over. Right. Pop 00:22:01.460 --> 00:22:03.740 culture had totally embraced the anti -hero. 00:22:03.950 --> 00:22:06.349 The Outcast. And Raven, the leader of the Flock, 00:22:06.470 --> 00:22:08.769 was the perfect embodiment of that cultural shift. 00:22:09.150 --> 00:22:12.049 He was this grungy, depressed, highly philosophical 00:22:12.049 --> 00:22:13.750 cult leader who would sit in the corner of the 00:22:13.750 --> 00:22:16.329 arena looking miserable. The Flock was his group 00:22:16.329 --> 00:22:18.730 of societal misfits. And Raven brings Reese into 00:22:18.730 --> 00:22:20.549 this group. But crucially, he doesn't dress him 00:22:20.549 --> 00:22:22.509 up as a monster. He doesn't put a mask on him. 00:22:22.890 --> 00:22:24.910 He dresses him like he's a roadie for Pearl Jam. 00:22:25.150 --> 00:22:28.170 Just a flannel shirt, cut off jean shorts and 00:22:28.170 --> 00:22:31.640 heavy combat boots. But the narrative explanation 00:22:31.640 --> 00:22:34.200 that Raven provided for bringing him in was absolutely 00:22:34.200 --> 00:22:37.380 brilliant. Raven claimed in his promos that Reese 00:22:37.380 --> 00:22:40.619 was an outcast from society, specifically because 00:22:40.619 --> 00:22:42.779 of his massive size. Which is, when you think 00:22:42.779 --> 00:22:45.700 about it, profoundly true for a seven -foot human 00:22:45.700 --> 00:22:48.240 being in the real world. It's the most grounded, 00:22:48.559 --> 00:22:51.119 realistic thing any promoter ever did with him. 00:22:51.859 --> 00:22:54.099 Raven essentially said, society looks at you 00:22:54.099 --> 00:22:56.240 like a freak. You don't fit in their doorways. 00:22:56.319 --> 00:22:58.279 You don't fit in their cars. People stare at 00:22:58.279 --> 00:23:00.539 you in restaurants. You are totally isolated. 00:23:01.119 --> 00:23:03.660 But here, with a flock amongst the other rejects, 00:23:03.720 --> 00:23:06.299 you are accepted. That is actual nuanced character 00:23:06.299 --> 00:23:08.619 development. It uses his real physical reality 00:23:08.619 --> 00:23:11.700 to create genuine emotional stakes. It was a 00:23:11.700 --> 00:23:14.319 great angle. And more importantly, it finally 00:23:14.319 --> 00:23:16.259 allowed Reese to work a wrestling style that 00:23:16.259 --> 00:23:18.680 actually suited his athletic background. His 00:23:18.680 --> 00:23:20.839 role was the enforcer for the group, the heavy. 00:23:20.960 --> 00:23:23.180 Yeah. Most of the time, he just stood menacingly 00:23:23.180 --> 00:23:25.769 at ringside. But when he did get into the ring, 00:23:25.910 --> 00:23:27.829 he was finally allowed to move without platform 00:23:27.829 --> 00:23:30.970 boots or mummy bandages. There is a very specific 00:23:30.970 --> 00:23:33.130 match that wrestling critics always point to 00:23:33.130 --> 00:23:35.730 from this era. It's from the Great American Bash 00:23:35.730 --> 00:23:39.430 pay -per -view in 1998. It's Reese going up against 00:23:39.430 --> 00:23:43.420 Juventud Guerrero. Now, to set the scene... Juventude 00:23:43.420 --> 00:23:46.319 is a legendary cruiserweight. He is incredibly 00:23:46.319 --> 00:23:50.519 fast. And he is maybe five foot six and 160 pounds 00:23:50.519 --> 00:23:53.559 soaking wet. This is the ultimate textbook David 00:23:53.559 --> 00:23:56.460 versus Goliath setup. And this specific match 00:23:56.460 --> 00:23:59.759 is the absolute proof of concept for Ron Reyes' 00:24:00.160 --> 00:24:02.799 underlying athleticism. Why that match in particular? 00:24:02.859 --> 00:24:05.059 Because wrestling a guy with that extreme of 00:24:05.059 --> 00:24:07.559 a size and ski difference is inherently dangerous. 00:24:08.200 --> 00:24:10.220 The speed discrepancy alone is a nightmare for 00:24:10.220 --> 00:24:12.500 timing. There are spots in that match where Uvintude 00:24:12.500 --> 00:24:14.539 hits a Hurrican Gerona, which is a move where 00:24:14.539 --> 00:24:16.660 he literally leaps up, wraps his legs around, 00:24:16.900 --> 00:24:18.779 raises his neck, and violently spins around to 00:24:18.779 --> 00:24:21.240 take him down. For Reece to take that bump safely, 00:24:21.279 --> 00:24:23.319 he has to have absolutely perfect timing. He 00:24:23.319 --> 00:24:25.500 has to pivot, feed his body into the momentum 00:24:25.500 --> 00:24:27.880 of the move, and carefully protect Uvintude on 00:24:27.880 --> 00:24:30.099 the way down so neither of them gets carolized. 00:24:30.200 --> 00:24:32.779 And that goes right back to the college basketball 00:24:32.779 --> 00:24:37.119 footwork we talked about. 100%. A genuinely clumsy, 00:24:37.339 --> 00:24:40.359 uncoordinated giant would have broken Juventude's 00:24:40.359 --> 00:24:43.559 neck on live pay -per -view. Reese made Juventude 00:24:43.559 --> 00:24:46.859 look like a spectacular giant killer. Now, Reese 00:24:46.859 --> 00:24:48.460 lost that match, of course, because that was 00:24:48.460 --> 00:24:50.660 the storyline they were telling, but purely from 00:24:50.660 --> 00:24:52.819 a physical performance standpoint, it showed 00:24:52.819 --> 00:24:55.680 everyone exactly what he could have been if they 00:24:55.680 --> 00:24:57.680 hadn't wasted three years treating him like a 00:24:57.680 --> 00:24:59.990 movie prop. The end of his run with the flock 00:24:59.990 --> 00:25:02.589 was pretty brutal visually too. His last appearance 00:25:02.589 --> 00:25:06.170 was on June 29, 1998. He wrestles Perry Saturn 00:25:06.170 --> 00:25:08.250 and the finish of the match is Saturn hitting 00:25:08.250 --> 00:25:10.190 him with a move called the Death Valley Driver. 00:25:10.430 --> 00:25:13.710 Which is just insane to watch. Saturn literally 00:25:13.710 --> 00:25:16.650 lifts a 300 plus pound man up across his shoulders 00:25:16.650 --> 00:25:19.539 and drops him onto his head and neck. It was 00:25:19.539 --> 00:25:21.460 a massive feat of strength for Saturn. But again, 00:25:21.539 --> 00:25:23.799 people don't realize that Reece had to aggressively 00:25:23.799 --> 00:25:26.339 post up and hold his own dead weight steady to 00:25:26.339 --> 00:25:28.779 make that lift even physically possible. He was 00:25:28.779 --> 00:25:31.539 the perfect structurally sound dance partner 00:25:31.539 --> 00:25:35.000 for these smaller dynamic wrestlers. So as happens 00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:37.599 in wrestling, the flock eventually disbands. 00:25:37.980 --> 00:25:41.519 Storylines move on and Reece's WCW run quietly 00:25:41.519 --> 00:25:43.920 fizzles out. But his career doesn't end there. 00:25:44.079 --> 00:25:46.640 He has this really fascinating long tail to his 00:25:46.640 --> 00:25:50.420 journey. In 2002, he travels over to Japan. And 00:25:50.420 --> 00:25:52.539 the wrestling culture in Japan is a completely 00:25:52.539 --> 00:25:55.019 different animal. In Japanese wrestling, which 00:25:55.019 --> 00:25:57.559 is known as puroresu, they have a deep respect 00:25:57.559 --> 00:26:00.619 for the gaijin monster, the massive foreign bad 00:26:00.619 --> 00:26:03.099 guy. Think of legends like Big Van Vader or Stan 00:26:03.099 --> 00:26:05.980 Hansen. They're treated like final bosses. Reese 00:26:05.980 --> 00:26:08.359 goes over there and tours under the ring named 00:26:08.359 --> 00:26:11.240 Big Bomb Jones. Big Bomb Jones, that is incredible. 00:26:11.400 --> 00:26:13.819 It's a very clear, deliberate homage to Big Van 00:26:13.819 --> 00:26:16.160 Vader. He was continuing that proud tradition 00:26:16.160 --> 00:26:19.119 of playing the unstoppable American Kaiju. And 00:26:19.119 --> 00:26:21.559 in Japan, the wrestling style is notoriously 00:26:21.559 --> 00:26:23.519 stiffer, it's harder hitting, very physical. 00:26:23.880 --> 00:26:26.319 Reese could handle it perfectly. He fitted incredibly 00:26:26.319 --> 00:26:28.779 well over there because for the first time, his 00:26:28.779 --> 00:26:31.279 sheer size was respected as a legitimate athletic 00:26:31.279 --> 00:26:33.599 threat rather than just being used as a silly 00:26:33.599 --> 00:26:35.710 carnival attraction. Then he eventually comes 00:26:35.710 --> 00:26:39.109 back to the States. It's 2003, 2004, and he starts 00:26:39.109 --> 00:26:41.650 working for Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling, 00:26:41.930 --> 00:26:44.009 which was a promotion run by the legendary Dusty 00:26:44.009 --> 00:26:46.089 Rhodes down in the Southeast. And he goes back 00:26:46.089 --> 00:26:48.849 to the big Ron Stud name. But the best part, 00:26:49.730 --> 00:26:52.559 he forms a tag team with Glacier. The irony of 00:26:52.559 --> 00:26:55.039 that pairing is just delicious to me. You have 00:26:55.039 --> 00:26:58.220 Ron Race, the man who debuted as the Yeti the 00:26:58.220 --> 00:27:01.099 Monster, literally frozen in a block of ice, 00:27:01.400 --> 00:27:04.299 teaming up with Glacier, a guy whose entire gimmick 00:27:04.299 --> 00:27:06.440 was essentially a rip -off of Sub -Zero from 00:27:06.440 --> 00:27:08.099 Mortal Kombat. What do you even call that team? 00:27:08.339 --> 00:27:11.480 Fire and ice, or I guess ice and ice. Let's go 00:27:11.480 --> 00:27:14.200 with cold front. But the amazing thing is, they 00:27:14.200 --> 00:27:16.650 were successful. They actually won the TCW Tag 00:27:16.650 --> 00:27:19.950 Team Championships on January 3, 2004. It really 00:27:19.950 --> 00:27:21.609 showed that Reece had a good sense of humor about 00:27:21.609 --> 00:27:23.470 his own career. He wasn't sitting at home bitter 00:27:23.470 --> 00:27:25.509 about the mummy suit. He was still out there 00:27:25.509 --> 00:27:27.430 working, enjoying the business, winning belts. 00:27:27.670 --> 00:27:29.750 And then we reach what I can only describe as 00:27:29.750 --> 00:27:32.289 the final boss level of weirdness in his career. 00:27:32.529 --> 00:27:35.430 The year is 2005. He joins a promotion called 00:27:35.430 --> 00:27:38.279 Ring of Glory. Now, this is a deep cut. Ring 00:27:38.279 --> 00:27:40.700 of Glory was a passion project started by Vince 00:27:40.700 --> 00:27:43.740 Russo. Russo was the highly controversial head 00:27:43.740 --> 00:27:46.519 writer for the WWF during the Attitude Era. He 00:27:46.519 --> 00:27:48.640 became a born -again Christian, and he started 00:27:48.640 --> 00:27:51.119 this promotion with the explicit idea of using 00:27:51.119 --> 00:27:53.740 professional wrestling to tell literal biblical 00:27:53.740 --> 00:27:56.039 allegories. And in this faith -based promotion, 00:27:56.319 --> 00:27:58.400 Ron Reese is given a brand new character name. 00:27:58.539 --> 00:28:02.019 His name was simply Evil. Just Evil. No last 00:28:02.019 --> 00:28:05.480 name, no edgy nickname. Just Evil. He was booked 00:28:05.480 --> 00:28:08.420 as the literal physical embodiment of human sin. 00:28:08.619 --> 00:28:11.200 That is incredibly heavy. I mean, from a basketball 00:28:11.200 --> 00:28:14.000 player to a mummy to the concept of sin itself. 00:28:14.119 --> 00:28:17.039 And who exactly did the concept of Evil wrestle? 00:28:17.420 --> 00:28:20.759 On February 26, 2005, Evil had a match against 00:28:20.759 --> 00:28:22.839 a character named Joshua the Carpenter. Joshua 00:28:22.839 --> 00:28:24.339 the Carpenter. I feel like I'm sitting in Sunday 00:28:24.339 --> 00:28:27.180 school right now. I mean, the theological symbolism 00:28:27.180 --> 00:28:29.420 was about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the 00:28:29.420 --> 00:28:32.769 face. Joshua the carpenter, clearly representing 00:28:32.769 --> 00:28:35.650 Jesus, defeats evil in the center of the ring. 00:28:36.750 --> 00:28:39.390 Reese did the absolute ultimate job. He literally 00:28:39.390 --> 00:28:42.089 lay down on his back and let good triumph over 00:28:42.089 --> 00:28:44.490 evil. And we're reporting this impartially, of 00:28:44.490 --> 00:28:45.990 course, just looking at the narrative of the 00:28:45.990 --> 00:28:47.829 promotion, but you have to admit it's a wild 00:28:47.829 --> 00:28:50.319 booking decision. It's actually kind of poetic 00:28:50.319 --> 00:28:52.839 in a deeply bizarre wrestling kind of way. If 00:28:52.839 --> 00:28:55.539 you look at the arc, his career started out frozen 00:28:55.539 --> 00:28:58.079 in a block of ice, went through a masked ninja 00:28:58.079 --> 00:29:00.819 phase, transitioned into a 90s grunge phase, 00:29:01.259 --> 00:29:03.859 and ultimately ended as a walking theological 00:29:03.859 --> 00:29:06.740 metaphor. It really does cover the entire weird 00:29:06.740 --> 00:29:09.460 spectrum of human imagination. There are very 00:29:09.460 --> 00:29:11.339 few resumes in entertainment that look like that. 00:29:11.480 --> 00:29:13.400 We should also briefly mention, just to cap off 00:29:13.400 --> 00:29:15.059 his entertainment footprint, he had a quick cup 00:29:15.059 --> 00:29:17.579 of coffee in Hollywood too. He was cast in a 00:29:17.579 --> 00:29:20.279 movie called Assault on Death Mountain in 1999. 00:29:20.700 --> 00:29:22.880 Which, funny enough, starred Hulk Hogan. It was 00:29:22.880 --> 00:29:25.400 part of the Shadow Warriors series. Reece played 00:29:25.400 --> 00:29:28.599 a character named Lassie. So even in Hollywood, 00:29:28.900 --> 00:29:30.900 he was still orbiting the Hulk Hogan universe. 00:29:31.759 --> 00:29:33.940 It seems like his entire professional life was 00:29:33.940 --> 00:29:36.799 somehow tethered to Hogan in one way or another. 00:29:37.339 --> 00:29:39.799 So let's try to bring this deep dive in for a 00:29:39.799 --> 00:29:41.660 landing. We've looked at the high school scoring 00:29:41.660 --> 00:29:44.579 records, the college rebounding stats, the terrible 00:29:44.579 --> 00:29:47.680 costumes, the booking decisions. When you step 00:29:47.680 --> 00:29:49.920 back and look at the absolute entirety of Ron 00:29:49.920 --> 00:29:52.660 Reese's career, what is the ultimate headline 00:29:52.660 --> 00:29:55.779 for you? For me, the headline is clearly The 00:29:55.779 --> 00:29:58.940 misunderstanding of size. Ron Rees was ultimately 00:29:58.940 --> 00:30:01.920 a victim of bad timing. He arrived in the mainstream 00:30:01.920 --> 00:30:04.500 wrestling industry at the exact moment when the 00:30:04.500 --> 00:30:06.480 business was trying to transition from the cartoon 00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:09.359 era to a more reality -based product. But the 00:30:09.359 --> 00:30:11.380 promoters in charge were still stubbornly stuck 00:30:11.380 --> 00:30:13.500 in that cartoon mindset. They saw the height 00:30:13.500 --> 00:30:15.680 and they completely missed the athlete standing 00:30:15.680 --> 00:30:18.380 right in front of them. Exactly. They saw a seven 00:30:18.380 --> 00:30:21.190 -foot man and thought, mummy. They didn't see 00:30:21.190 --> 00:30:24.529 Agile Big Man. If a guy with Ron Race's exact 00:30:24.529 --> 00:30:26.789 physical profile and basketball background shows 00:30:26.789 --> 00:30:30.670 up in wrestling today, in 2024, think about how 00:30:30.670 --> 00:30:33.279 drastically different his career would be. We 00:30:33.279 --> 00:30:35.660 have guys right now like Lance Archer or Big 00:30:35.660 --> 00:30:38.519 Bill, who used to be W. Morrissey. They are absolute 00:30:38.519 --> 00:30:41.039 giants, but they wrestle like fluid athletes. 00:30:41.119 --> 00:30:43.819 They wear standard gear. They cut their own promos. 00:30:43.880 --> 00:30:46.039 They are respected for their athleticism. But 00:30:46.039 --> 00:30:48.079 Reese was forced to be a special effect. And 00:30:48.079 --> 00:30:50.380 being a special effect inherently has a very 00:30:50.380 --> 00:30:53.289 short shelf life. Once the initial shock of the 00:30:53.289 --> 00:30:55.109 mummy breaking out of the ice wears off, you 00:30:55.109 --> 00:30:57.269 have nothing left to offer the audience. But 00:30:57.269 --> 00:30:59.750 the real tragedy is that Ron Race did have something 00:30:59.750 --> 00:31:01.829 left to offer. He had the physical skills. He 00:31:01.829 --> 00:31:05.009 just rarely, if ever, got the permission to actually 00:31:05.009 --> 00:31:07.049 use them. And yet here's the paradox we have 00:31:07.049 --> 00:31:09.769 to acknowledge. Without that terrible mummy costume, 00:31:09.990 --> 00:31:12.230 are we doing a 60 -minute deep dive on him today? 00:31:12.569 --> 00:31:15.349 That is the ultimate paradox of professional 00:31:15.349 --> 00:31:18.180 wrestling. If he had just been booked properly 00:31:18.180 --> 00:31:21.359 from day one, if he had just been Ron Ray's solid 00:31:21.359 --> 00:31:25.339 mid -card athletic big man, he might be completely 00:31:25.339 --> 00:31:28.400 forgotten by history. But because he was the 00:31:28.400 --> 00:31:30.720 Yeti, because he was forced to break out of that 00:31:30.720 --> 00:31:33.200 Styrofoam ice and deliver that notoriously awkward 00:31:33.200 --> 00:31:36.160 bear hug, he is immortal. He is an internet meme 00:31:36.160 --> 00:31:38.380 that will live forever. It's a very strange kind 00:31:38.380 --> 00:31:40.359 of fame, isn't it? He wanted to be the next Big 00:31:40.359 --> 00:31:43.160 Jesus Ted, a respected giant of the ring, but 00:31:43.160 --> 00:31:45.660 instead he became the one and only Yeti. And 00:31:45.660 --> 00:31:47.279 maybe, at the end of the day, that's enough. 00:31:47.500 --> 00:31:50.079 He provided millions of fans with one of the 00:31:50.079 --> 00:31:52.359 absolute most memorable surreal visuals of the 00:31:52.359 --> 00:31:55.180 1990s It definitely wasn't good wrestling in 00:31:55.180 --> 00:31:57.460 the traditional sense, but it was undeniably 00:31:57.460 --> 00:32:00.279 unforgettable television So here is my final 00:32:00.279 --> 00:32:02.759 challenge to you listening right now when this 00:32:02.759 --> 00:32:05.640 deep dive ends Don't just immediately move on 00:32:05.640 --> 00:32:07.619 to the next thing in your feed. I want you to 00:32:07.619 --> 00:32:10.609 pull up your browser Search for Yeti Bear Hug 00:32:10.609 --> 00:32:13.470 Halloween Havoc. Look at the ridiculous bandages. 00:32:13.549 --> 00:32:16.170 Look closely at the massive lifts hidden in his 00:32:16.170 --> 00:32:19.589 boots. But this time, look past the absurdity 00:32:19.589 --> 00:32:22.369 of it all. Look at the sheer size of the man's 00:32:22.369 --> 00:32:25.029 shoulders. Look at the way he tries to move despite 00:32:25.029 --> 00:32:27.730 being completely restricted. And remember, there 00:32:27.730 --> 00:32:30.130 is a Division I rebounding leader, a man with 00:32:30.130 --> 00:32:32.910 incredible soft hands and a family legacy of 00:32:32.910 --> 00:32:35.809 champions trapped inside that suit. It completely 00:32:35.809 --> 00:32:37.910 changes the viewing experience. Once you know 00:32:37.910 --> 00:32:40.049 the backstory, you stop laughing at him and you 00:32:40.049 --> 00:32:41.529 actually start rooting for him. You realize he's 00:32:41.529 --> 00:32:43.829 just a guy doing the absolute best he can with 00:32:43.829 --> 00:32:46.009 a terrible hand dealt by management. It brings 00:32:46.009 --> 00:32:47.769 up a really provocative thought though, something 00:32:47.769 --> 00:32:50.849 for you to mull over. wrestling industry, by 00:32:50.849 --> 00:32:54.150 its very nature, inevitably pigeonhole anyone 00:32:54.150 --> 00:32:56.809 over seven feet tall into these bizarre novelty 00:32:56.809 --> 00:33:00.509 acts. Or was Ron Race simply an unlucky victim 00:33:00.509 --> 00:33:03.390 of the chaotic, disorganized, creative environment 00:33:03.390 --> 00:33:07.150 of WCW in the 1990s? Could a giant ever just 00:33:07.150 --> 00:33:09.630 be a normal competitor? It's a fascinating question 00:33:09.630 --> 00:33:11.690 about the psychology of combat sports entertainment. 00:33:11.849 --> 00:33:14.410 It really is. Well, that is Ron Race, the man 00:33:14.410 --> 00:33:16.910 behind the mummy, a genuinely fascinating career 00:33:16.910 --> 00:33:19.420 that deserves way, way more respect. than a block 00:33:19.420 --> 00:33:21.779 of Styrofoam ice. Thanks for taking this deep 00:33:21.779 --> 00:33:22.880 dive with us. Take curious.