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00:02In 1995, a group of professional wrestlers were deployed to communists-ruled North Korea
00:08to partake in one of the most bizarre diplomatic missions ever conceived.
00:15What can be more international than having two big shows in Pyongyang, North Korea?
00:20Vince can't do that.
00:23I run out and I look up and I actually see the stadium and the crowd and the people and
00:28I just stop.
00:30Over 300,000 locals gathered to witness collision in Korea.
00:35It was unbelievable.
00:36A wrestling extravaganza orchestrated in the name of world peace,
00:41which in reality casts wrestlers as unwitting players in a high-risk act of political theater.
00:48You realize you're surrounded by a bunch of people that think you're the devil.
00:52I mean, we're totally under their control.
00:54You walk out your room, bam, they're there. You go in the lobby, bam, those guys was there.
00:58Under the strict surveillance of North Korean authorities.
01:02We're living the wrestling life.
01:04You hit North Korean, man, that shit stops right. Boom!
01:07Wrestlers found themselves trapped in a surreal nightmare.
01:10It was like beating the Twilight Zone.
01:13And helplessly in over their heads, leaving some fighting for their lives.
01:17Next thing we know, somebody's punching somebody.
01:19I'm gonna run, jump off these stairs, and I'm just gonna curb stomp him to death.
01:25I mean, it's just like thumbs down, kill him.
01:43My name is Eric Bischoff, coming to you from Cody, Wyoming.
01:47Spent a couple minutes in the professional wrestling business,
01:51and now spend all my time looking back upon it.
01:56By the mid-90s, how would you describe what your role was at WCW?
02:01Well, as I said, when I first got to WCW as an announcer, I was like a fly on the
02:06wall.
02:06You know, I got to see things happening from a perspective that sometimes the current management didn't see.
02:14There was a lot of financial abuse and some fraud and theft that I saw a lot of in WCW
02:19as that fly on the wall.
02:21So when I finally got the opportunity to run WCW and was made vice president, I instituted a lot of
02:28changes.
02:29By 1994, WCW was still seen as a regional promotion.
02:35And if it had any chance of competing against the powerhouse brand of WWF, Eric Bischoff had to reach a
02:42wider, global wrestling audience.
02:45Make no mistake about it, WCW is set to dominate the globe when it comes to professional wrestling.
02:52One of the first things I did was reestablish a failed relationship with New Japan Pro Wrestling.
02:58You know, WCW had engaged in some shaky tactics and left the Japanese with a very bitter taste in their
03:07mouth in terms of doing business with Americans.
03:09From the land of the rising sun, the Great Muka!
03:17So I wanted to reengage New Japan Pro Wrestling and just to see if I could possibly resurrect that relationship.
03:23And it went really well, and we did, and I started bringing a lot of the top Japanese stars over
03:29to the United States on a real consistent basis.
03:35But also to do the same thing with our WCW talent over in Japan.
03:42Because that way, our talent was getting more exposure in that market, their talent was getting great exposure in our
03:48market, and everybody's happy.
03:51With increased international exposure, WCW was gaining traction, but still lagged behind WWF when it came to drawing power and
04:00staging mammoth events.
04:01Over 80,000 fans!
04:05All that was about to change when Eric Bischoff was offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
04:11Antonio Inoki, who was the chairman of New Japan Pro Wrestling founder, reached out to me asking me if I
04:18would be willing and interested in bringing all of our WCW roster over to North Korea to compete in a
04:25peace festival.
04:27For a non-wrestling fan, how would you describe who Antonio Inoki is?
04:31Antonio Inoki, wow, he's really kind of an enigma.
04:35He was the Vince McMahon of Japan, is probably the best way to say it.
04:39He was one of the most well-known wrestling personalities in Japan, and a great athlete.
04:46He was just the most popular professional wrestler I've ever seen in my life, and I've been around almost all
04:53of them.
04:54I'm professional wrestler Scott Norton.
04:59I was touring in Japan, doing my arm wrestling stuff. I was a world champion, and that's what led me
05:05to be a professional wrestler.
05:07And so that's when I started learning about Inoki.
05:10One of his favorite movies in wrestling, he would slap the taste buds out of your mouth.
05:15And when he slapped you, it was in there.
05:20What's up? How y'all doing? This is Too Cold Scorpio, one of the most famous high flyers in the
05:26world.
05:26What's up?
05:28Scorpio's going to the top.
05:34After me being trained in Japan and been there for years, I would have to let people know Inoki is
05:41somebody like Hulk Hogan, but two times above that level in Japan.
05:48While Inoki was operating his wrestling company, he was also a fairly high-profile politician.
05:53And became really one of the most famous people in Japan.
05:58Inoki constantly defied the limits of professional wrestling by staging events that made international headlines for their shocking audacity.
06:06In 1976, Inoki boldly combined wrestling and boxing for a match against the legendary Muhammad Ali.
06:14He also used the sport to successfully negotiate the release of Japanese hostages held in Iraq.
06:21But bringing wrestlers into the heart of North Korea was designed to eclipse them all.
06:43Among Inoki's more unpopular moves were frequent trips to North Korea and meeting with officials from the reclusive regime.
06:51I am a half the other hand that I have to wait to see the release of professionals before considering
07:01the future of the projets.
07:04I watched the release of Japanese people on the same project.
07:10Well, I was able to attend all the events, but when it did not work, the place was a companion.
07:10Right now, I'd like to see the event that was formed by the stage.
07:15The event after it was about the end of the year's anniversary that came to the event.
07:19I was about to say the event before the funeral comes out.
07:20So I have a speech as a big name if you had the celebs.
07:21Well, there were many names that I called Michael Jackson.
07:28Antonio Inoki asked me if I could help him get a meeting with Muhammad Ali.
07:32You know, I called Muhammad Ali and he got excited about it immediately
07:35because he lived most of his life trying to be an ambassador to world peace
07:40and he really believed in breaking down barriers of cultures and religion and race
07:46and he didn't hesitate at all.
07:50So I thought, man, if I could put that piece of the puzzle together,
07:53I got the rest of my team together.
07:54Sure, I've never been to Pyongyang, North Korea.
07:58Let's do that.
08:00Was it difficult to get the talent on board?
08:04That was a comedy.
08:06Inoki wanted Hogan.
08:08Hulk was the biggest name in wrestling at that point in time.
08:10To make a lot of news, it would be good for Inoki and his political career.
08:14I did ask, but it was a short answer.
08:18Hmm.
08:19Can't make that one, brother.
08:21How was that, man?
08:22It was a five-minute conversation.
08:35When Hogan turns you down, what's the plan B?
08:37He's Ric Flair.
08:42While he may not have been quite as popular as Hulk Hogan nationwide, he has such a fantastic
08:47reputation of being able to put out a great match with just about anybody.
08:52To my face, he was all for it.
08:55He was excited about it.
08:56I think subsequently I learned that his feelings were hurt just a little bit knowing he was
09:00the second choice.
09:01Who first pitched you the idea of North Korea?
09:05All right.
09:06We're sitting in the locker room.
09:08Just got done working out before a show.
09:11Hattori and Masa come in the locker room.
09:14They go, Scott, son.
09:15I says, yes.
09:16He says, we have big match North Korea next month.
09:19You want it?
09:20Then I look around the locker room and the Japanese boys are just going nuts.
09:24And they're squabbling back and forth.
09:26They're talking.
09:27I'm going, what the hell is going on?
09:29So I went over to Chono.
09:30I says, Chono.
09:30I says, what's going on?
09:31And he says, we going North Korea.
09:33And I says, that's what Masa just told him.
09:35We're going North Korea.
09:36He says, they want us dead.
09:38They don't like us very much.
09:40And I go, okay.
09:42It was a little bit controversial, which is one of the reasons that Anoki was trying to
09:45establish this rapport with the North Koreans.
09:48Because the Japanese and the North Koreans have been killing each other for thousands of years.
09:52There's no love lost between North Koreans and Japanese.
09:56And tonight, after just returning from a tour of Japan.
10:00For me, I was very excited to go to another place in the world.
10:05Every place I've ever been, South Africa, India, everything I've ever been is because of wrestling.
10:11So for me to be able to have a chance to go over to North Korea was like, man, I've
10:16never been to a communist country.
10:18I had no idea what it was going to be like.
10:20I didn't know the difference on being in America, in a communist country.
10:25I had no clue none whatsoever.
10:29It's definitely a different experience for me.
10:32When it came to traveling to North Korea, the United States government even then viewed North Korea as a much
10:38more hostile potential enemy.
10:41So Americans were not supposed to be in North Korea.
10:44And even going to the federal government to get permission to do something, it could take six months to get
10:49a yes or a no.
10:50So I just said, yeah, I'm just going to go.
10:52My boss didn't even know I was doing it.
10:55Joining Ric Flair, Scott Norton, and Too Cold Scorpio on the trip would be Road Warrior Hawk, the Steiner Brothers,
11:02Chris Benoit, and some of New Japan Pro Wrestling's top performers.
11:06But no one could match the star power of one of the world's most recognizable celebrities.
11:11We found out that Muhammad Ali was going to be on the tour.
11:15Biggest boxing hero of all time, you know, and I'm just going, holy smokes.
11:19So when we got to the airport in Japan, it's me, Flair, Steiner, Hawk, Benoit.
11:24We're all standing there, and the airport's just packed.
11:27There's reporters everywhere.
11:29Then all of a sudden, this commotion comes rolling in, and it's Muhammad Ali with his entourage.
11:37And all the reporters that were on us just went.
11:42And all of a sudden, he comes right to me, and he started doing magic tricks for everybody.
11:52And we all, oh, and he'd have the biggest smile on his face.
11:57It just made him happy.
11:59Then a lot of people were a lot more comfortable because you got Inoki and Muhammad Ali.
12:05They're huge, huge names.
12:08The North Korean military sent over a plane to Tokyo.
12:13You know, you couldn't, you know, call up Delta and get a flight to Pyongyang.
12:16That was the moment when we all got on that plane and realized it was a military transport.
12:22It wasn't the safest-looking plane.
12:25Certainly not comfortable, you know, not what the guys were used to.
12:29This plane was, like, made in the 40s.
12:33And I'm telling you, it was a piece of garbage.
12:36Flair was the funniest.
12:37We can't fly in this thing.
12:38We can't.
12:39He's just losing it.
12:40I mean...
12:41And it just kind of set the tone before we even got on Japan.
12:44You knew you were about to do something quite different.
12:47I think that's when I started sensing people getting a little nervous.
12:52So we're flying over, and man, that was quite scary to me.
12:57I had the window seat.
12:58So for me, I seen the south side of South Korea.
13:02And then all of a sudden, as you get closer to the border, you see all these cannons, you know,
13:08set up and army stuff set up aiming toward the north.
13:11We kept flying over, and we seen all the north tanks and shit pointing toward the south.
13:16You know, on this ridge, it's like, man, this is like wartime.
13:19I was like, okay, what am I really getting myself into?
13:23And when the plane landed, they finally brought the stairs out, and we got off the plane.
13:28We were all standing around and looking around, and there's nobody.
13:32And we're getting our bags, and we're walking to the airport.
13:36Once we got inside, it was cake with dust this high.
13:40It was unbelievable.
13:41Nobody's been in this room forever.
13:43And all of a sudden, these military people start coming up to us.
13:46Where's your passport?
13:47I had it in an inside pocket, and I went in, and I grabbed my passport like this,
13:51and I'm kind of looking back at my bag, and he just snatched it.
13:55I said, what the are you doing?
13:57You don't lose your passport when you're doing what we do.
14:00They took my Walkman.
14:01They took the tapes.
14:02Anything to do with America, they didn't want it in their country.
14:05And Flair went nuts.
14:07He goes, Scott, they got our passports.
14:09Why would they take everything?
14:11They hated us.
14:12I mean, you got that right away.
14:15I'm in a communist country.
14:16You took my passport.
14:18Now what's going to happen to us?
14:30Going to North Korea is a really strange experience,
14:33and it's like going through the looking glass.
14:36It's an utterly different society for somebody like myself who'd grown up in the States.
14:40We are accompanied by guides, and we do have some limits on where else we can go in the country.
14:46I'm Mike Chenoy.
14:47I was a foreign correspondent for CNN, and one of the assignments that I had was to cover this big
14:54wrestling event in North Korea.
14:57The wrestling event in 1995 has to rank as one of the weirdest, most bizarre experiences that I witnessed as
15:08a journalist because you had this combination of North Korea, which is remote, isolated, highly regimented, largely cut off from
15:20the rest of the world and certainly cut off from North America.
15:23And then suddenly in the middle of this, you had this collection of eccentric characters from the world of wrestling
15:31and Muhammad Ali showing up in the capital of North Korea and being part of one of these mass events,
15:39which the North Koreans are masters of staging.
15:42So it was this absolutely bizarre collision of what almost you could call alien civilizations.
15:49Upon their arrival, the wrestlers are greeted with unsettling hostility, but unbeknownst to them, this is only the beginning of
15:57what's to come.
15:58We were paired off into twos, and we were escorted to our cars, then assigned an attache, who was going
16:05to be with us 24-7, and driven into Pyongyang.
16:09My attache, she told me that I was only the seventh American to step foot in North Korea that hadn't
16:18been either shot down or captured.
16:22Right there, that moment, that puts everything into perspective.
16:28And this is the pass that they gave us when we got there.
16:32I'm Korean, my nationality.
16:34They wanted to keep track of us.
16:36You know, that was a big main thing.
16:38My name is Sonny Ono.
16:40I was the evil Japanese manager for World Championship Wrestling.
16:45My job started out with being a liaison officer between WCW and New Japan Pro Wrestling.
16:52So what did you know about North Korea at this point?
16:56I was told by my government, hey, we can't guarantee your safety.
16:59You shouldn't go.
17:00We were evil, including the Japanese.
17:03That's what their propaganda is.
17:06And so the first thing we were told is, you can't do this, you can't do that.
17:10And, you know, by the way, don't rape our women.
17:13Japan colonized North Korea at the beginning of the 20th century.
17:17And the Japanese ruled North Korea until the end of World War II.
17:21It was a brutal colonial rule.
17:23And there's tremendous bad feeling towards the Japanese that persists until this day.
17:31The first stop on the way to the hotel was to pay homage to the dear leader, Kim Il-sung,
17:38who had died a year before.
17:40North Korean government would hand us bouquets of flowers.
17:42And we all were forced to walk up the steps and lay our flowers at the foot of the statue
17:48of the dear leader.
17:48And then the North Korean news media would film us.
17:52They wanted it to look like we were so excited to be in North Korea.
17:56We flew all the way there so we could pay homage to the dear leader.
18:01We are all very touched and honored to be here today.
18:05The North Koreans are always trying to leverage these visits for propaganda purposes.
18:13And subtlety is not a North Korean strong point.
18:17When we got to the hotel, we had to carry our luggage up seven floors.
18:21We're big guys, man. We don't do stairs very well.
18:25The military guys, they would follow you around.
18:30When I got to my room, he stopped about ten feet from the hall.
18:35I opened my door and I stepped inside my room.
18:37I'd take my bags and I looked around the room.
18:40The guys following us, they're just hanging outside your room.
18:43We had like four guys spying on us, watching us at all times.
18:47It's like, man, we can't do nothing.
18:48So as far as really trying to pass the time, sit in your room, trying to watch TV,
18:53and all you get is three government channels, all political.
18:58So it was like, why even bother?
18:59So it was really kind of driving you kind of nuts.
19:04Hawk was right in the room next to me, right?
19:06So I step out the door.
19:08So as soon as I start walking, that little dude started following me.
19:11Then I realized that the other guy's about ten feet down here.
19:16That's at Hawk's room.
19:19I'm talking to Hawk.
19:20I'm going, you know, one of these little bastards is going to f*** with me, Mike,
19:23and I'm going to take him out.
19:25I mean, there was no reason to stay in this hotel room.
19:29Me, Benoit, Hawk, and a couple guys go down to the lobby, and they had a pool table.
19:34And I was just surprised as hell they had a pool table.
19:37I said, well, let's play some pool.
19:38Anyways, I mean, do something.
19:40It took me two hours for that gal at the desk to give me the balls.
19:44They had to clear it through the military, guys.
19:47It was crazy.
19:49So one time I shot, and the ball jumped, and it went off the table.
19:59That ball went bing, bing, bing, nine hard marble floors.
20:06It pissed them off so damn bad.
20:09The pool game was over, and for that ball leaving the table,
20:13they looked at you like, how dare you?
20:16How dare you to do something like that?
20:19They took the balls away from us.
20:21You know, he started smashing them, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
20:24So we're just standing there like, what the?
20:27We were getting pissed off the way we were being treated.
20:30Hawk didn't like it.
20:31Scotty Steiner didn't like it.
20:33I was pissed.
20:34To a point where I grabbed one of these little bastards,
20:37you know, give it to them.
20:39Moss had just got me off the side and said,
20:41Scott, you've got to settle down.
20:44Just promise me you can get through these next four days.
20:46And I said, all right, man, I mean, in my mind I'm going,
20:49what the F are we doing in this country?
20:53Nobody wants us here.
20:55As the harsh reality of their situation comes crashing down,
20:59the wrestlers find themselves strangers in a strange land.
21:02With tensions on the rise and tempers flaring,
21:06they must adapt to their surroundings
21:08or face the dire consequences that await.
21:19Struggling to adjust to the surreal circumstances in North Korea,
21:23the wrestling outsiders search for ways to cope.
21:26So by the time I got to North Korea,
21:28I was kind of craving a run.
21:31So I went to bed one night and planned on getting up early and running.
21:35He didn't even think that I should probably let my attache know.
21:41I thought, well, I'm just going to get up and go for a run.
21:43I'll be back before I'm supposed to be anywhere else.
21:45And boom, it'll be fine.
21:47I took off by myself.
21:50It's dark out.
21:51The streets were completely deserted.
21:54I'm running, I'm running, I'm running, the sun's coming up.
21:57Now all of a sudden, I see people starting to come out into the street.
22:01And as I'm running through the streets of Pyongyang, they're parting.
22:04They were looking at me like something out of a monster movie.
22:09Now the school kids are coming out.
22:11The look of terror.
22:14They weren't afraid of me.
22:15They were terrorized by my presence.
22:18And I don't want to see terror in anybody's eyes, especially kids.
22:22You got this American that's supposed to be idea of evil.
22:27That they have never...
22:27Imagine, most of these people have never seen an American.
22:29So, you know, this guy's coming running at them.
22:31Can you imagine what these people thought?
22:33When I saw the look of terror in people's eyes as I was running down the street,
22:38it really made a big impression on me.
22:40It made me realize just how easy it is to foment hate and fear and how dangerous that is.
22:47I got back to the hotel and my attache was there.
22:52She was livid.
22:53And I thought, God, if I don't see her tomorrow, it's because they're gonna shoot her for letting me go
22:58out and run through the streets of downtown Pyongyang.
23:01I was literally concerned for her.
23:06Was there some story with Hawk getting into it with Scorpio or something?
23:11Yeah.
23:13Do you know about what happened between Scorpio and Hawk on the bus?
23:18No.
23:19So you weren't aware that maybe Scorpio was plotting the murder of Hawk in North Korea?
23:23No.
23:25Not until this moment.
23:28What took place on this bus?
23:32Well, it all started out with, prior to even going to North Korea, I had heat with Flair because an
23:40incident happened overseas on one of Ric Flair's trips that he had booked.
23:45I got into some trouble.
23:47I felt like Ric Flair was messing with me.
23:50I had got fired from WCW.
23:53And still to this day, I don't give a damn what he said.
23:55I still would feel that, truly, that it was because of him.
23:58I let it build up seven, eight years, and I'm still holding a grudge against somebody who I think was
24:05the cause of me getting fired.
24:07And so now, we're all in North Korea, going to all these sites and everywhere we went.
24:14Hawk was riding with Flair.
24:16Well, Hawk decided this day he wants to ride the bus this day.
24:20So he comes out on the bus, so Ric Flair comes out of the hotel, we're all on the bus.
24:24So Ric Flair's kind of looking around like this, and Hawk goes, man, he looks like he's looking for somebody.
24:31Maybe he's looking for me, maybe he wants me to ride with him again.
24:34that pussy, let him ride by himself.
24:38Hawk said, what did you say?
24:40I says, you didn't hear me?
24:42I says, that pussy, let him ride by himself.
24:45I said, what part of it you didn't hear?
24:47Was it the him, let him ride by himself, or was it the pussy part?
24:51And he got mad about it, and he came back there, and he called me the inward.
24:54He said, you swung, he missed, I hit that about five, six times, and I was wearing his ass out.
25:01Scorp said something to Hawk, and Mike responded back in his typical way.
25:06And I guess Scorp hit him and dazed him a couple times.
25:11Now he's bleeding from his face, bleeding from his mouth and all this.
25:15Japanese boys grabbed me, I fall down in the seat.
25:18You know, they're holding me down, he comes over, gets on me, he's trying to punch me.
25:22I'm ducking and dodging, he can't hit me.
25:25I jumped on him, stuck my finger in his eye, and I was on my way out with his eye.
25:30I had his eye halfway out of the socket and stuff.
25:33And Japanese boys jumped on me, oh, Scorp shot, and I stopped.
25:36And then we kind of got up.
25:38I ripped over my shirt, and I just gave him, wow, a straight kick right in the face.
25:44Backed him up, you know, and that's when it slowed him down,
25:47and the boys had enough distance to get between us and calm us down.
25:52And gave me his best shot.
25:54And tell you, if that's his best shot, bro, you were in trouble.
25:59This one, Mike was battling his hepatitis C, and he was on interferon.
26:04When you take that interferon, it makes you very sick.
26:07Very flu-like symptoms and just very ill.
26:12And, you know, Scorp could think what he wants.
26:16But the regular Mike would have killed his ass.
26:26When we got back to the hotel, I wanted to call home and call my wife.
26:30I've been trying to contact her for three days.
26:33I get through to my wife.
26:35I says, hey, babe.
26:36She goes, where the hell you been?
26:38I said, Tammy, you don't understand what kind of, what we're going through here.
26:42And I'm trying to explain to her the situation.
26:45She ain't gonna have nothing to do with it.
26:47She thinks that I'm out partying with the guys.
26:49And I says, Tammy, you don't understand what kind of shithole I'm in here.
26:54And all of a sudden the phone went click.
26:56I thought she hung up on me.
26:59I took the phone, I thrown it down.
27:01I'm just going, what the F?
27:08Then all of a sudden somebody pounds on my door.
27:14And here's some guy.
27:16This guy could speak perfect English.
27:19And he's telling me, you're coming with us.
27:22With a dangerous new line crossed, their fate now hangs in the balance between life and death.
27:37After wrestler Scott Norton's phone call with his wife is intercepted,
27:42North Korean officials materialize and he is forcibly taken from his hotel room.
27:47And I'm looking at these guys, man, and I mean, they soon shoot me right there and then.
27:52I'm just going, what the hell is going on here?
27:57Now, nobody knows where I'm at.
27:58I'm in this room.
28:02I mean, it just felt like at any point in time, I was just going to be dealt with.
28:07It was like a movie.
28:10I swear to God.
28:11And I'm just sitting there, I'm going, oh my Lord, they could care less if I lived or died.
28:19Then this guy comes in.
28:21You could just tell the way he came in the room that he was the top dude.
28:24And then he spoke English to me.
28:26And he told me, he says, you can't say nothing wrong about North Korea.
28:30And I says, I mean, you know what I said to my wife?
28:34I says, we're just back and forth.
28:36I've been trying to call home.
28:38He says, no more phone calls.
28:39You don't talk to nobody.
28:41We hear you say something bad in North Korea.
28:43That's it.
28:44I mean, he's pointing his finger at me.
28:47He's saying, you can't say anything bad about North Korea.
28:50This is a superior country.
28:51He's telling me all this bullshit.
28:53And I'm getting it now.
28:55I mean, I'm just like, I ain't going to say a word about North Korea.
28:59And I was just soaked.
29:02Freaking.
29:02I'll do anything to get out of this room.
29:05I apologize.
29:06I mean, this is serious.
29:08And the looks on these people's face, there's no doubt in my mind they just put a ball in my
29:12head.
29:14And after he'd been interrogated, then I think Mr. Inoki's people, or New Japan people, got him out of there.
29:20And I'm sure they were told to make sure to tell him to watch what he says.
29:26Finally, you go now.
29:30I got to my room and I'm just going, oh my God, what just happened here?
29:36Can't mess with these people, Scott.
29:39But you think they might have had a little talk with us and give us a little heads up on
29:43this stuff?
29:44They just told you as you went, you know what I mean?
29:47Before the grand event is to finally kick off, the wrestlers are ushered to one last propaganda opportunity.
29:55A visit to a sacred tomb honoring the founder of Korea's first kingdom.
30:01We finally get to this five-year-old hunting temple site that we got to go look at.
30:06I ain't got no damn clue who it is.
30:08So anyways, we're walking and we're walking.
30:11And the next thing you know, we notice Muhammad Ali is taking his jacket off.
30:15And he rolled his sleeves up and he started jogging up the stairs.
30:20And you know, we're following Ali and all of a sudden Ali got to the top.
30:25And he's shadow boxing.
30:27It was unbelievable.
30:28And here's Muhammad Ali just snapping him out.
30:31Boom, boom, bang.
30:32And he's dancing around and he's doing like the Ali shuffle a little bit.
30:37And he was moving like it was the old times, man.
30:41He's just having the time of his life.
30:43I mean, we're the only people in the world who saw this.
30:45And we're just like, blown away.
30:49You know, that's Ali, brother.
30:50I mean, it was unbelievable.
30:53That way in itself made my whole trip.
30:57So as we make our way out of the temple and we're making our way down the stairs,
31:02I finally go up the hall.
31:04I says, look, bro.
31:05I said, we're supposed to be over here on a peace treaty.
31:08And I says, we over here acting like mother fools.
31:11We fighting amongst each other, Americans.
31:13He walks three steps in front of me, turns and swings as hard as he can.
31:19Hits me.
31:21I don't go down.
31:22I look at him like he's crazy.
31:25See, I jump after him.
31:26I go after him.
31:27The Japanese boys grab me, snatch me out of the air.
31:30And I started going off cameras around us, cameras just filling.
31:34I'm saying, you pussy.
31:35I said, that's all you got?
31:36That's all you got?
31:37I said, you hit me with your best shot?
31:39That's all you got?
31:39I said, I'm going to kill you.
31:41And so now I'm thinking street smarts.
31:45I'm going to get them.
31:46I'm going to hurt them.
31:50So we had to go to that special stay dinner.
31:52That's where they had the stainless steel chopsticks.
31:55So I would take one pair of stainless steel chopsticks, eat with it,
31:58drop one, pick it up, slid it into my pocket, grab another one,
32:03did the same thing, dropped it, slid it into my pocket.
32:09Me and Chris had to share a room, Chris Benoit.
32:11And we're back in the room and Chris is sitting there looking at me
32:13and he's watching me.
32:14And all of a sudden, I open up the windowsill.
32:17And I pull out the chopsticks and the windowsill is all rough concrete.
32:21And I'm sharpening the stainless steel chopsticks on the window,
32:25bringing them to more of a point.
32:28Chris is like, what are you doing?
32:30I said, man, I'm making a shift.
32:31He goes, what?
32:32He's like, yeah, I'm going to stab that .
32:33Let's tape the ends together.
32:35He's like, I know how to make a shift, you know?
32:36I said, my dad ain't been to prison
32:38and don't know how to do this shit for no reason.
32:40I know how to do this shit.
32:41I'm like, okay, I'm going to get him.
32:42I'm going to take him out.
32:43Chris, he said, man, don't do it, man.
32:45I said, man, you don't want to do that, man.
32:47If you kill Hulk over here,
32:49you will just be here for the rest of your life.
32:53What am I going to do?
32:54I can't let him punk me and get away with it.
32:56You know, we're going to have to settle this.
33:05After surviving days of grueling conditions
33:08and life-threatening situations,
33:10the wrestlers head to the massive May Day Stadium
33:14where festivities are about to commence.
33:17And I'm riding with Rick, and we're driving down the road
33:20and two lanes where nothing but people walk into the show.
33:25And I says, Rick, man, we're really drawing a crowd here.
33:28I mean, these people really want to see this.
33:30And all of a sudden, the driver goes, no.
33:32He says, they don't want to come.
33:33He says, if they don't show up, they get a bullet in the head.
33:37Forced attendance.
33:38And I'm just going, you've got to be kidding me.
33:41We got there our first night, 170,000 people there.
33:45And I thought, oh, my God.
33:48Antonio Inoki is a genius.
33:51This is amazing.
33:53We're leaving WrestleMania in the dirt.
34:15The way that you had over a hundred and some thousand people working and moving together
34:21and flashing all at the same time, it was mind-blowing.
34:24You didn't even have to be high to trip off that.
34:26I mean, it was straight up mind-blowing.
34:29Their show made the halftime of the Super Bowl look like a high school gig.
34:34I'm not kidding you.
34:35It was just unbelievable.
34:37Before the matches started, we were all jacked.
34:40And we thought, this is going to be awesome.
34:42And then the matches start.
34:43And I realized that none of these people have a clue.
34:48What they're watching.
34:50Why they're watching it.
34:52It makes no sense to them.
34:56First match went out there.
34:58It was quieter than it is in this room right now doing this interview.
35:02That's hard to do.
35:03Anything to do.
35:04It's hard to do.
35:06Huck, during his match, stood on the second rope and yelled and he says,
35:11What in the eff are you even doing here, you rotten?
35:15And he cussed the crowd out.
35:19this is a society where this kind of extravagant display of people throwing themselves around
35:27especially for example the female wrestlers must have been utterly alien to the north koreans
35:34i wrestled hashimola the first night in a main event the north koreans just stood there and
35:39watched us we never got a reaction to anything just this stuff doesn't happen in this business
35:46and you're just busting your tail trying to get these people to respond to you and nothing
35:50absolutely nothing the challenge to engage the crowd would now fall on the shoulders of promoter
35:57antonio enoki whose connection to the people of north korea was even deeper than it seemed
36:02for enoki this event would also pay tribute to his fallen mentor ricky dozan a wrestling icon in japan
36:10who struggled to keep his north korean nationality a secret until it was too late
36:15so
36:34wellあの手を取って教えられたということはほとんどないんです要はとにかく強くなれということで今で言えば木刀ですね木の刀みたいなまあそういうんで頭を叩きそして頭が割れたこともありましたが
36:45As the story goes, he was murdered by Japanese gangsters in a bar.
37:05The Japanese Yakuza, which is their version of the Mafia, killed him because he was North Korean.
37:15And he wasn't Japanese, and he was becoming very, very popular.
37:19In the North Korean mythology, his death becomes this glorious, tragic thing where in his final breaths, he expresses his
37:26loyalty to North Korea.
37:30And the fact that Inoki had this association with him gave Inoki credibility in North Korean eyes.
37:37The North Koreans understood the connection between Inoki and Ricky Dozong.
37:41He got kind of the hometown treatment.
37:44Ric Flair, they didn't know what to make of Ric Flair.
37:47Bleached blonde hair, sequenced robe.
37:50They didn't understand it.
37:52Again, this match starts, and it's quiet.
37:55And I'm going, God, man.
37:56Amazing to me that this is the first ever matchup between these two wrestling legends.
38:02They went to a different place.
38:04They kind of went old school.
38:05One to the chest, one to the forehead.
38:07And they kept working.
38:08All of a sudden, you could hear the people start coming with Inoki.
38:12We hear the crowd from one of the few times that collision in Korea really responding to Inoki.
38:18And about halfway through that match, that place is going absolutely crazy.
38:23Now, coming off the rope, sets up.
38:25Burnley plants his feet and takes an ancient boy Ric Flair off his feet.
38:28This is a testament to Ric.
38:30Because Ric's job was to get Inoki over.
38:33Ric's job was to showcase Inoki.
38:35There's nobody better at that.
38:37Flair in a lot of trouble.
38:38Inoki tosses Flair.
38:40And I remember the finish of the match.
38:44Josh Brown kicked.
38:45And Inoki went over.
38:47And the place just came undue.
38:54These people were entertained for probably the first time in their lives.
38:58I mean, because there was no happiness in this place, man.
39:01This was like going to hell and living.
39:04They had a little fun that night, you know.
39:06And I guess if that forced attendance, they're glad they're forced there, you know, for that
39:11one anyways.
39:12That was the greatest match that's ever happened in this business.
39:17Ever.
39:18With the largest wrestling event in history coming to a close and freedom within reach,
39:24the Americans must stay in line for just a few more hours, or else this bizarre trip will
39:30become a permanent stay.
39:40As the epic event draws to a close, and with just hours remaining before the group departs,
39:46a final ceremonial dinner is Scorpio's last chance to settle the score with Hawk.
39:52I hear doors closing, everybody's going down to dinner.
39:56I open up my door, I go out, I walk around the corner, it's me and Hawk.
40:03We're face to face now.
40:06We're looking at each other, I'm looking at him, I'm like, what do you want to do?
40:08You want to finish this right now?
40:10He pushes the button for the elevator.
40:12So I turn and I back into the elevator, keeping my eye on him at all times.
40:16I got machines with me.
40:19He gets into the elevator.
40:20He's not saying nothing, we're just looking at each other.
40:23I'm like, what do you want to do?
40:24You want to finish this right now?
40:27And all of a sudden, he said, I ran out of pills, I ain't got no steroids, got no smoke,
40:32I got no nothing.
40:35My nerves got to me, I was upset.
40:39I said, I accept your apology.
40:40I said, well, I'll tell you what, we get back to Tokyo, if you still want to finish this, we're
40:45going to finish this.
40:46He's like, all right, man, whatever you want to do.
40:48We ended up squashing it in North Korea, got to Japan, I was ready.
40:52That never happened, man.
40:54But he got an ass whooping and learned that Scorpio ain't the one that missed, but I'll tell you that
40:58shit.
40:59We were in North Korea for four days.
41:02It was a relatively short period of time that felt like a lifetime.
41:06So by the time it was the day to leave, everybody was on edge.
41:10We were physically tired, we were mentally tired, and there was a little bit of a tension in the air
41:15because we still didn't have our passports yet.
41:17But once when we physically had our passports in our hand, and we were on the plane, and we were
41:23headed back to Japan, everything changed.
41:26It wasn't until the plane landed.
41:29Ric Flair literally walked down the stairs of the plane, walked down to the tarmac, got down on the ground,
41:34and kissed the pavement.
41:36That's how excited Ric Flair was.
41:58The event failed to energize Enoki's political ambitions as he lost his re-election bid and left politics behind for
42:07almost two decades.
42:09While this fusion of staged combat and international politics seems like an unlikely pairing, it revealed a fascinating parallel between
42:18wrestling and North Korea, as they are both masters of blurring the lines between fantasy and reality.
42:25The show itself was super cool.
42:29Meet Muhammad Ali on top of it, wrestling in front of that dude.
42:32I mean, I remember after my first match, he told me, he says,
42:37Oh, you're really good, you're very good.
42:39I just think, I mean, this is Muhammad Ali, brother.
42:42So being a part of that was absolutely awesome.
42:48And it's two Colts, Coppio up and over.
42:51Two nights in a row, 189,000 people.
42:58I've never seen that many people together, ever.
43:02That's the only thing that I could ever brag about to Hogan that I've done something that he has not
43:06done.
43:07Because I rushed for 199,000 people.
43:09Two nights in a row, not one.
43:11And that's all I got on him.
43:14I've been a part of WrestleMania, and I've been to Super Bowls.
43:18I've been to a lot of different big events.
43:22They pale in comparison to what I saw in Pyongyang.
43:28I knew that Vince McMahon was probably livid.
43:35That there was a wrestling event that drew a bigger house than WrestleMania.
43:42But my joy is mitigated by the fact that none of them were paying customers.
43:47And they were kind of forced to be there.
43:49Technically, if you go to Wikipedia, folks, largest wrestling event in the world.
43:55Yep, I did that.
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