In this episode, we travel down villainy lane via a MAD MAN parody, for a brief nostalgic visit with the MAGNIFICENT DON MURACO.
A dreamy, nostalgic ad man goes off the “deep end” about a favorite bad guy wrestler during an advertising pitch to a high-powered client.
Below is the script from the episode, if you prefer to read along.
AD EXECUTIVE: And now everyone, it’s my pleasure to introduce to you, Mr. Don Caper.
Don's Pitch
DON CAPER: Gentlemen, if I asked anyone walking up and down Madison Avenue right now what this is a picture of, they would all say the same thing: a MEATBALL SUB. And, of course, they would all be correct. If I asked them what the meatballs are made of, they would say ground beef. Who could blame them? How would they know any better? There’s nothing on this presentation board to tell them these meatballs are more than just ground beef.
But YOU—you know. You know the truth, and you’ve been sitting on it this whole time. They’re made of ground beef, ground pork and ground veal. Not one single type of meat, but a triumvirate of meat!
SANDWICH EXECUTIVE: Well, Don, you know a lot of people have issues with veal and pork.
DON CAPER: Then they have issues with taste. An issue with taste is an issue with subtlety and complexity; your meatball sandwich is not for them. Let them eat… I don’t know—Sloppy Joes.
Gentlemen, it’s time to let your customers in on your TRUTH. There’s more to your sandwich than meets the eye. Now while you ponder this, I’ll let you in on a little truth of my own.
Monologue Starts
My father worked for a Brooklyn factory that made chemical products for the screen-printing industry. He worked every Saturday morning so we never had a chance to sit together and watch pro wrestling. When I was lucky enough, and he wasn’t too tired from the overnight shift he’d just worked, he’d let me stay up past midnight to watch championship wrestling with him. His favorite wrestler was Pedro Morales—the then-reigning Intercontinental Champion from Culebra, Puerto Rico.
Because Pedro was a source of Puerto Rican pride to my father, he never failed to remind me to always root for Pedro, win, lose or draw. If he lost or drew, it was probably because the bad guy cheated, or so said my father. Well, on June 20, 1981, Pedro dropped the belt to a man named…
SANDWICH EXECUTIVE: Uh, Don, where exactly are you going with all this?
DON CAPER: DON. The Magnificent Don Muraco was the man who stripped Pedro of the belt. My father hated Muraco with a passion. He called him a cheater, a liar, and a racist. I tried to hate him also, but as much as I tried, I couldn’t. Muraco was just too damn entertaining to me. I never missed his promos and even learned how to mimic his voice:
Muraco Impression
DON MURACO (IMPRESSION): Sometimes I believe that Pedro Morales never went to school at all. When I sit and listen to the guttural tones that he tries to imitate the English language with, I wonder is there something I can do for the man. Maybe…maybe by taking the thumb…maybe by taking the spike…the Asiatic spike and driving it down, deep, deep, deep into his throat.
You think his vocabulary may improve at that point? You think he might feel the need to scream. He might feel the need to tell somebody “It’s Over, Baby! No More, Amigo, Baby! Say Adios, Baby!”
DON CAPER: That summer—the summer of ’81—I kept all the kids on my block laughing with that very same routine, almost word for word. To end it with a bang I would usually add a cheap shot from Muraco’s manager The Grand Wizard:
GRAND WIZARD IMPRESSION
“Did you hear that Morales? No PEPPER BELLY is worthy of wearing that belt!”
Monologue Continues
DON CAPER: There was really nothing like a Muraco promo—completely unpredictable: poetic, philosophical, confusing and funny, and always intense. I think the modern day equivalent would be AL PACINO’s 90’s acting style—a lot of yelling sandwiched between softness and a lot more yelling.
SANDWICH EXECUTIVE: Eh, speaking of sandwiches, Don…
DON CAPER: Don Muraco could talk the talk and walk the walk. He was 6 foot 3 and 265 pounds and he feuded with the best of them. They were all great fights. He feuded with Morales, Bob Backlund and Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, title fights, death matches, and cages. They were all thrilling, dramatic white-knucklers.
Muraco's Meatball Sub
The bottom line is this man had layers to him the wrestling fans couldn’t fathom. They taunted him about his Hawaiian-ness and his surfer’s tan, yelling BEACH BUM, BEACH BUM any time they could. It really pissed him off and he let the fans know it, usually by taking it out on the ragdoll in the ring with him.
But then there were some other times when he didn’t give a crap what the audience called him, times when he would treat them and his opponent with utter contempt. Like the time he ate a meatball sub in the ring…
SANDWICH EXECUTIVE: Oh, thank God.
DON CAPER:…while he knocked the stuffing out of some ham-and-egger named Victor Mercado. Muraco was hilarious, grinning at the fans every time he ripped into his meatball sub, sipped from his cola, and rubbed his stomach to glorify his gluttony. I swear if you didn’t know it was a wrestling match, you’d call it performance art.
The fans got the last laugh though when Muraco’s manager—a fat slob named Captain Lou Albano—slipped and fell on a slab of leftover sub by the ring steps.
Don Gets Heavy
When my father came home that afternoon after working his overnight at the Brooklyn chemical factory he took me to a local diner. I think he just wanted some company while he ate. He told me I could order anything I wanted. So I ordered a meatball sub. Chalk that up to the power of television and advertising, folks.
While I chewed mouthfuls of saucy meatballs with relish, my father stared at me with disapproval. I thought it was the sauce on my chin, so I wiped at it a lot, until it actually started to burn. “What’s a PEPPER BELLY?” he asked me. Taken aback by his question, I thought I might choke on my mouthful of sandwich.
“I hear you say that to the kids to make them laugh. What does it mean? Because you say it like you know what you are saying? What is it?”
Knowing deep down he already knew the answer, I put down my sandwich and cleared my throat. Stammering, I said: “I think it’s a bad word for a Puerto Rican.” He chewed his breakfast deliberately, never taking his disapproving eyes off mine and said:
“Is that what you are: a pepper belly?” I shook my head no. “Then don’t let me hear you say those words again. You hear me?” I nodded.
What I really wanted to tell him was lighten up, pops. It was said in jest. I was entertaining my friends. Somebody else said it about Pedro Morales. That’s not how I feel about myself or any other Latino.
I really wanted to tell him Don Muraco—a native Hawaiian for crying out loud—was more like the Puerto Ricans I knew than Pedro Morales was. Hell, I had cousins and uncles in prestigious Perth Amboy motorcycle clubs that looked more like Don Muraco than Pedro Morales.
They wore the same round dark sunglasses Muraco did, had the same swarthiness, the same swagger, and the same contempt for anyone who couldn’t see beyond their denim biker vests and loud bikes. Maybe more like a sleek surfboard for Muraco than a bike, but you get the idea.
Summing It Up
It hurt my father to hear me make fun of Morales, even if it through the Muraco impression, to put down his hometown boy, to trounce on our Puerto Rican pride.
I don’t think subtlety and complexity were things he looked for in his heroes. And what does a ten year old know about those things either? It’s only in retrospect that I can see those layers as clearly as I can see them today.
So I can’t blame him anymore than I can blame those people walking up and down Madison Avenue right now. They don’t know any better. Sometimes we have to take them by the hand, so we can show them the difference between that which is plain and pedestrian and that, which is multifaceted and MAGNIFICENT.
SANDWICH EXECUTIVE: Is that a new billboard?
DON CAPER: A split screen billboard high above the Brooklyn/Queens Expressway. On one side: a soggy unappetizing meatball sub. SUB-STANDARD. On the other, YOUR sandwich bathed in bright rays of light. GOLD STANDARD.
SANDWICH EXEC: “New York, you’re deeper than plain ground beef.” I like it, Don. But I must admit: I half-expected The Magnificent Don Muraco would be holding up our sandwich. That wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
DON CAPER: Well, The Magnificent One is 72 years old now, retired from pro wrestling and running his own podcast show. He might not mind the publicity, but I don’t think anybody other than you would make the connection. I told you my truth. Now go spread yours.
SANDWICH EXEC: We will certainly consider this, Don. Honestly, you could’ve just shown us the billboard and spared us the wrestling history. But now that you sparked the nostalgia bug in me, I vaguely remember the WWE doing a sendup of MIAMI VICE with Don Muraco playing Don Johnson and Mr. Fuji as his partner?
DON CAPER: Your memory serves you correct. It was called “FUJI VICE” and it was as cheesy as any TV show parody you’ll ever see or hear. His acting may have been a little stilted but that same Don Muraco charisma was still there. At least for me it was.
SANDWICH EXEC: Guess it takes one Don to know another. But, uh, Don, just on a side note. You do know you’re wearing a pair of stiletto heels…
DON CAPER: I know that, but I’m taking them off right now.
Hi everyone. My name is Ariel Gonzalez, originally from Brooklyn, now living in the Garden State and I have a new podcast called “Wrestling With Heels On.”
On the podcast, I get to reminisce about my favorite wrestling bad guys from yesteryear. Light on stats and heavy on nostalgia, this little trip down villainy lane gives me a chance to visit the dark corridors of my wrestling soul, and it’s also fun to have a podcast.
Please Note – As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases
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The only time I ever followed professional wrestling, thus was real passionate about it, was from the summer of ’83 to about the fall of ’85 (middle school just into the beginning of of my freshman year in high school). And WWF was all I followed therefore never familiarizing myself with the likes of Ric Flair and other Legends from elsewhere. My fandom of that very Vince McMahon enterprise, pretty much, spanned from right before, until a bit after, the product went big-time…underground to a household name!
My only time ever attending an actual event was that very summer of ’83 with a friend who was already a fan among other friends and peers of mine. SD Jones…Rocky Johnson…Big John Stud…George “the Animal” Steele…the Masked Superstar…the Samoans…Lou Albano…Mr. Fuji…ANDRE…and, among many others, Sgt Slaughter (who outside, during intermission, pulled a kid by the hair yelling at him in front of us startled kids for bending the antennae on his limo; went back inside, rejoining Superstar Billy Graham in the backseat, limo speeds away)!
Later on back inside, while I was briefly separated from my friend and some others who were tagging along with us, a father and son approached me. The father asked, “Do you have ringside tickets?” No, I answered. “Well, now you do”, he said then handed two to me. And off they were but not before me thanking him! To the dismay of the others, my friend and I got to sit upfront! But no worries for them, nor guilt-trips from us. They all got to fill in some empty seats behind us later on just in-time for…the MAIN EVENT…
JImmy “Superfly” Snuka – VS – Intercontinental Champion, Don Moraco!
The place went ballistic! Complete and total pandemonium! An utter one-sided affair! From opening bell, “Superfly” charged out at the Champ and very soon enough recorded the fall! Everyone totally NUTS! I was now HOOKED! Instantly became a fan of WWF along with being a “Superfly” fan! A fan of Rocky and SD as well! As FOR that one with the bullet-hole in his back, it always annoyed me how he always was winning, kicking the crap out of his opponent most of the match – and vs the likes of Orndorff, Dr D, Roddy Piper mind you – only to then somehow get ‘pinned’ in the end! But back to that heart-pumping Main Event…it was a NON-TITLE match! That was ALWAYS the case whenever Snuka would beat Moraco! But for the Title…always, always a different story! Why EVER have a non-title match at all? Wrestling, boxing, any combat sport? Made no sense!
As much as I liked Tito Santana (who also was at that event I attended), I clearly wished that it was JImmy who would have won that IC belt from Don instead! And it seemed that right after this change of belt that “Superfly”, and Moraco, AND Rocky, AND Special Delivery left the scene – or left the WWF, at least. Enter, HULK HOGAN, still fresh enough off Rocky III/’Thunderlips’ notoriety! It was late-’83, that flamboyant, colorful “electric” decade well under way by then, and with all-due-respect to a Legend, a clean cut Heavyweight Champ wearing a crew cut and regular a Greco-Roman wrestling uniform just wasn’t going to cut it. Iron Sheik showing him the door by way of Camel Clutch so that ‘Hulkamania’ can then properly usher-in the ’80s! And then it became BIG, REAL Big (enter Cindy Lauper, etc)! And I liked it at that immediate time as well despite the now-obvious commercialism. Hulk now became my favorite! And also Sgt Slaughter, once becoming a face.
I remember being real excited about the upcoming first WrestleMania despite further commercialism with MR T now added on. I guess you can say that my ‘last breath’ of being a WWF fan was that short-lived late Saturday night show called ‘The Main Event’ that aired in the fall of ’85. After that, very much in-time for WM2, my fandom suddenly hit a permanent wall. Was it the ‘Wrestling Album’ that did it? Great question, and I’d answer yes just to generate a laugh. And some truth to it, a little. But I think it mostly was me being so much a fan in that 2+year period that it just finally, inevitably wore itself out. I still much respect the sport. But simply lost interest.
But what a RUN it was! And at an interesting/transformative time (’70s leftoverture giving full-way to the ’80s)! And it started with that very Main Event (at Don Moraco’s expense – but not really, he still left town with the Belt)!