Episode Transcript
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I met him hills and I invented the soup Lakes,
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but I never took credit for it. And
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for Sport strangest crimes from Bbc Radio
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Five live. This
1:26
is the ballot of Bruiser Brody. Episode
1:30
Six: Invader. When.
1:38
We left off. Last episode Jose Gonzalez
1:40
was about the face off with bruiser
1:42
Brody. In. The locker room before a big
1:44
fight in Nineteen Ninety Eight. He
1:47
was armed. And. Bruiser was blissfully
1:49
unaware that he was in mortal danger.
1:52
But while I told you all about what had brought
1:54
Bruiser to that fight for moment. There. Is
1:56
a whole other side to this story? And.
1:58
to understand what happened next next. You
2:01
have to hear that first. He
2:04
is wrestling podcaster Luis Cuevas. Jose
2:07
Gonzalez was a wrestler from Puerto
2:10
Rico. He started wrestling in Chicago
2:13
in the 1960s under
2:15
a different name during that time.
2:18
He got to the World Wide Wrestling
2:20
Federation and he started working
2:23
in what they call Midcard or Middle
2:25
of the Cards and
2:27
the World Wide Wrestling Federation. That's where
2:29
he first met Bruce Brody. During
2:33
that time they had a
2:35
match and that match the legend
2:37
says that Bruce Brody took some
2:39
liberties and actually hurt
2:42
Jose Gonzalez. His
2:48
wrestling expert, Daniel Rendon. Brody beat
2:51
him up so bad that crushed
2:53
his ambition of being a household
2:56
name in WWF
2:58
like Pedro Morales did at the time
3:00
in the 70s that became world
3:02
champion and was a star. Maybe
3:05
he was looking forward to become
3:07
the next Pedro Morales and didn't
3:09
happen because Brody basically crushed him.
3:12
That resentment carried over
3:15
to their relationship in
3:18
the WWE in the 80s. So
3:20
that's where supposedly or allegedly the
3:24
rivalry between them started.
3:28
In this episode we'll try to follow
3:31
Jose Gonzalez's story. His life
3:33
leading up to that fateful incident in the summer
3:35
of 1988 and the
3:37
origins of his feud with Bruce Brody. We
3:40
tried to contact him but it seems he doesn't want
3:42
to talk about what happened back then and he
3:45
rarely ever has talked about it in the
3:47
past. So we contacted people who knew him,
3:49
his wrestling character and the
3:51
story surrounding him. One
3:54
of those people is Luis Cuevas. He
3:57
has a podcast called Del Terre
3:59
Torrios. from the territories, which
4:01
covers the history of the so-called territories that
4:03
originally made up the world of wrestling in
4:06
the 60s, 70s and 80s. He
4:08
says that while Jose started his career
4:10
as a mid-card guy in the US
4:12
in the 70s fighting on tag teams
4:14
in the nascent WWF, he
4:16
came back to Puerto Rico, now
4:19
with a mask and a new name. Apparently
4:22
he'd been given this name by the
4:24
same guy who renamed Frank Goodish, Bruiser
4:26
Brody, Vince McMahon Sr.
4:29
Jose Gonzalez became... Invader
4:31
One. He started as
4:33
a bad guy wrestling in Puerto Rico
4:37
with his partner Invader Two. But
4:39
then in the mid-80s, late
4:42
79, early 80s, he turned
4:44
a good guy, a baby face. And
4:46
he started representing himself
4:48
as this wrestler who was
4:50
from the countryside. His nickname
4:52
was El Hiberito de San
4:55
Lorenzo. Hiberos
5:00
are the countryside people of
5:03
Puerto Rico in the 19th
5:05
century that are mainly
5:08
venerated and revered in
5:11
our local literature as living
5:13
off the land, being self-sufficient, being
5:16
capable of overcoming everything that
5:19
is thrown at him, working in
5:21
the coffee industry, being
5:23
poor but proud. That's the
5:25
kind of character he sold himself
5:27
as. El Hiberito de
5:30
San Lorenzo. I was brought
5:32
up in a very poor town called
5:34
San Lorenzo. My parents didn't
5:37
have money and I had to leave
5:39
off goat's milk and boy tubers. And
5:42
I had to go to the States to prove myself as
5:44
a wrestler. And that struck a
5:46
chord on the lower classes in Puerto Rico,
5:48
you know, because he was
5:50
El Hiberito, the hillbilly from San Lorenzo who
5:52
made it great, who made
5:55
big time in local wrestling. He
6:00
became like really, really popular. He became like
6:02
the number two guy in
6:04
the promotion behind Carlos Colon.
6:07
During the 80s, where he was this incredible
6:10
baby face, where his main
6:12
ability was his promo
6:14
or his ability to talk and
6:17
bring people and people
6:19
for some reason connected to him the way
6:21
he talked and the way he expressed what
6:24
he was saying and his
6:26
fire and everything. So he became really, really
6:28
popular. He later definitely
6:30
was perceived at the time as
6:32
a local folk hero, el
6:35
hiva, or the guy who
6:37
despite adverse circumstances made a great
6:39
deal of wrestling. His
6:43
uniquely Puerto Rican character worked perfectly
6:45
in the context of storylines of
6:47
locals pushing back against racist gringos.
6:51
This discourse was, I
6:53
will do everything that is possible and
6:55
I will spill my
6:57
last drop of blood to get
7:00
this no good bastard out of
7:02
Puerto Rico. I will let this
7:04
guy disrespect Puerto Ricans because I'm
7:06
Tej Doritos de San
7:09
Lorenzo and he would break his
7:11
shirt off, throw it to the
7:14
camera, take a piece of barbed wire
7:16
and cut himself and not scared of
7:18
barbed wire and he would scrape himself
7:20
with barbed wire and you would see
7:22
him bleeding. So he
7:25
took his character seriously
7:27
and that's all he did. The
7:31
invader as a character
7:33
proved what a civilized
7:36
man could do if he could
7:38
be pushed beyond his limits. That
7:40
was the character who said it. In
7:44
Puerto Rico he fell in with capital
7:46
sports promotion. It was really
7:48
the only game in town and it
7:51
was mainly run by wrestlers and co-owners
7:53
Carlos Colon, Victor Jovica and Victor Quinones,
7:56
the kingpins of Puerto Rican wrestling. Jose
8:00
took a big career step to start not
8:02
only starring in the ring but calling more
8:04
and more shots of his own behind the
8:06
scenes. He became both a
8:09
shareholder in capital sports and the booker
8:11
of the promotion, the matchmaker. He
8:14
was writing the stories, he was the leader
8:17
in the dressing room telling this is your
8:19
time to go out, this is your time
8:21
to go in, he called the
8:23
shots and the moves for every match so
8:25
he had plenty of
8:28
power within the promotion. He
8:30
is former wrestling promoter Herb Simmons. Booker
8:33
is a person who works underneath
8:35
the promoter. He puts the matches
8:37
together and will tell the promoter
8:40
what type of talent that we need to
8:43
get us to the next storyline. So
8:46
those are your two main people in a
8:48
promotion as a promoter of course and that's
8:50
usually the owner and then your booker is
8:53
the person who controls your locker room, makes
8:55
sure that people show up when they're supposed
8:57
to and the matches go on and the
8:59
booker is really important in that, the
9:02
creative writing and so booker is a
9:04
very important position in a promotion. And
9:07
that's where the story with Bruce Abrotti started
9:10
interwinding again. Jose
9:13
was one of capital sports key players.
9:16
One of its most prized mainland
9:18
imports was Bruce Abrotti. However,
9:21
rumours had long swirled that there was bad
9:23
blood between the two, stretching back to that
9:26
infamous fight in 1976 which
9:28
had left Jose, reportedly, badly injured.
9:32
But the world of wrestling is rarely that simple.
9:34
There's also lots of evidence that the two
9:36
had a long history of working together professionally,
9:39
including in the ring itself. It
9:41
was hard to tell where the kayfabe ended. And
9:44
regardless of any personal ill feeling,
9:47
capital sports domination of Puerto Rican
9:49
wrestling and Bruce and Jose's respective
9:51
roles within that scene meant
9:53
that they were inevitably thrown together. Luis
9:56
Cueva says there are a lot of little things
9:59
that during this scene, period prior to 1988
10:02
could have soured Jose Gonzalez's opinion
10:04
of bruiser and there are
10:06
specific incidents which showed that the relationship
10:08
between Brody and the capital sports promotion
10:11
wasn't as good as it used to be. One
10:13
of those was a match in late 1987. There
10:16
was a tag team here in
10:18
Puerto Rico called the Ninja Express
10:20
which is stereotypical Japan tag team.
10:23
It was Ken Lo Naiya Saki and Mr. Pogo.
10:26
The promotion had spent a lot of time building
10:28
them up as this great tag
10:30
team trying to make money out of them
10:33
and there was a match in the
10:35
three Kings Day card in January of
10:37
1988 where
10:39
it was them two against Rocky Johnson
10:41
who's the rocks father
10:43
and bruiser Brody and
10:46
in that match the plan was for the Ninja Express
10:48
to look good because you know they were detecting that
10:50
they were But with a
10:52
Japanese tag team there are also
10:55
Japanese reporters alongside the ring and
10:57
Brody didn't want them to get any pictures of
10:59
him looking bad. So just
11:02
like he had in a 1976 fight
11:04
against Gonzalez Brody went
11:06
off script. The
11:23
owners of the promotion weren't going to
11:25
let this one slide. There
11:27
are even accounts that Carlos Colon completely lost
11:29
it at Brody and yelled at him after
11:31
the match. He
11:51
asked for forgiveness and you know
11:53
he I'm sorry I will never
11:55
do it again and he even
11:57
accepted to lose a match. February
12:00
of radiates something that into that
12:02
time had never happened In per
12:05
week or so in February eight.
12:08
Trying to make peace he he
12:10
came back and last two Dory
12:12
Funk Junior in a tournament but.
12:15
You could tell that the relationship wasn't
12:17
the same. And the following
12:20
months, the promotion, including part owner and
12:22
book a Jose Gonzalez, wanted Brody to
12:24
lose a few more matches, but Bruises
12:26
still wanted to get back on track
12:28
in Japan. They. Want to him
12:30
to. To be
12:32
more a company guys and he
12:34
understanding what was happening in Japan
12:36
that time when he was trying
12:38
to get back to see why
12:40
it looks strong. There was also
12:42
rumors that he might try to
12:44
go to the doctor told us
12:47
to have that rematch against Hogan
12:49
so he wasn't really copper ratings
12:51
and specially been though Booker the
12:53
matchmaker of say One solace he
12:55
had to deal with our he
12:57
will go to Brody and say
12:59
hey are. You
13:01
know we need you to make this guy look
13:03
good and Brody will be like know that you
13:05
know that really the some work for me I
13:07
can now make him look good So sorry. So
13:09
there was that. Thing going on
13:11
Between them were one one on one
13:14
thing, the other, one one and another
13:16
one and Das Wird things start turning
13:18
to the worse. They.
13:23
Work together several times since Nineteen Seventy
13:25
Six. Am cyber
13:27
attack same? So what do you think? this
13:29
happened exactly at this point in time? I.
13:31
Don't know the answer that question and I
13:34
really think the only person that noses and
13:36
greater one and he still lives so. I
13:40
don't know if you just reached
13:42
a breaking point with Brody and
13:44
you know it's just all of
13:46
these things that I had mentioned
13:48
before. We're sort of this checklist
13:50
of for murder or something. I
13:52
mean I. It's hard to know
13:54
it. It's really, it's impossible to
13:56
know unless we we talked to
13:58
him. an invader one. My.
14:02
Understanding was. He.
14:04
Loved to Carlos cologne. He absolutely
14:07
loved him. He loved being the
14:09
number two guy undergoes cologne. He
14:11
looked up the Carlos cologne he
14:13
bled blood and guts for Carless
14:16
cologne every week. He loved that
14:18
company and that man. And he
14:20
was. He. Was now
14:23
leader. He was a follower and colors
14:25
cologne rewarded him by giving him the
14:27
book has a Gonzales would. Come.
14:30
Up with the story lines and
14:32
you know the outcomes of the
14:34
match. So.
14:37
I. I
14:39
just don't know. I don't know. Wrestling
14:44
and Porto Rico with grappling with
14:46
the same problem that had complicated
14:48
Bruises own Us Korean, the rise
14:50
of the W W F, Vince
14:52
Mcmahon, increasingly global and dominant outfit
14:54
was hoovering up a lot of
14:56
talent from the territories restless that
14:58
would usually have done runs in
15:00
Porto Rico. For
15:04
a lot of the time there
15:06
was still free. agents are available.
15:08
were a little bit past their
15:10
prime. Oh we're not as good
15:12
as.the quality of time there was
15:14
coming down here wasn't as good
15:16
as before and also some of
15:18
the feud. Some matches were turning
15:20
a little bit. Repetitive.
15:23
You know you start seeing the same
15:25
matches over and over again amongst boozer
15:27
Brody versus of July was a gray
15:30
mash, but. After the twenty five
15:32
time, you know it's like okay and
15:34
we seem this already. It was
15:36
also when some young wrestlers in Porto Rico
15:38
started becoming more popular. On. The
15:40
other hand invite a one belong to the
15:42
old guard who tried to protect their spot
15:44
in the business. It was a
15:47
bad time to big names like Bruce and not to
15:49
fall in line. Has I
15:51
was almost certainly feeling the pressure of
15:53
the moment with the difficulty of getting
15:55
interesting talent and increasingly low attendance. And.
15:58
Then. Tragic. struck. During
16:03
that time also Jose Gonzalez had a
16:05
family tragedy. He had
16:08
lost his daughter. She
16:10
drowned in a swimming pool
16:12
in his house. So
16:14
he was in a bad state mentally
16:17
too. So it
16:19
just added up to what was
16:21
happening backstage politically with Brody and
16:24
everything that was going on during that
16:26
time. So there was a lot
16:29
of crazy things going on in capital sports
16:31
promotions during that year. After
16:33
the death of his daughter who was said to have been
16:35
around two years old at the time, Jose
16:37
took a little time away from the wrestling business. But
16:40
according to Luis Cuevas it was
16:42
only about a month. Then of course
16:44
he came back right away and
16:48
tried but it
16:51
wasn't you know I can imagine it wasn't
16:53
easy for him to be dealing with that
16:55
and dealing also with a
16:58
promotion that was
17:00
successful but were having a couple
17:02
of lean months attendance wise.
17:04
It wasn't as popular. They were kind of
17:07
staking him for a little bit. A
17:09
lot of Brody's friends and family say he never talked
17:11
about Jose. To him it
17:14
seems there was no conflict. At
17:16
least not more than with a lot
17:18
of other bookers and promoters. I think
17:20
it was more one-sided because Bruce's Brody
17:22
history has always been kind of hard
17:24
on promoters and bookers and matchmakers. That
17:26
was his style. It was
17:28
more about business for him. It wasn't personal.
17:31
He was more about what makes
17:33
sense, what makes more money and
17:36
how can I make more money out of this. So
17:40
I think for Bruce or Brody seeing
17:42
his history I don't think it was ever
17:44
personal. It was just business for
17:46
him. According to Luis Cuevas it
17:48
was a weird time for Brody and Puerto Rico.
17:51
The promotion had long relied on him but
17:53
suddenly it didn't seem to have
17:55
any new big plans or vision for his character.
18:00
lost in the shuffle during that time.
18:02
He was a big guy they would bring
18:04
to try to get the houses up, but
18:06
he really was in a big huge field
18:08
during that time. One experiment
18:11
came from actually pairing him with
18:13
a public rival, Jose Gonzalez, and
18:15
they fought together a few times as a tag team.
18:18
There's a famous promo between
18:20
them, and Bruce or Brody and Jose Gonzalez together,
18:23
you know, looking back
18:25
at it, it's kind of surreal. The
18:31
interesting thing is you could see
18:33
the tension between them. It
18:35
was palpable, right? You see the face of
18:37
Invader Juan Jose Gonzalez looking at him like,
18:39
man, this guy is completely
18:42
nuts. You could see Invader
18:44
doing his promo as usual and
18:46
Brody doing his show. Huh,
18:49
huh, screaming. And he deliberately took
18:51
a camera shot to block invaders
18:53
from the camera shot. It
19:02
was deliberate, like teasing him, you
19:05
know? And when
19:07
Brody's turn to speak
19:09
came in the promo, you could
19:11
see Invader's face.
19:14
He was not happy. You
19:16
could tell in his face he was not
19:19
in happy place. I
19:21
don't know what word to use to
19:23
describe the video of Gonzalez and Brody.
19:27
I think bonkers is the only word I can
19:29
possibly use to describe it. And
19:31
look, fair play to Brody
19:34
because he's totally in character. He's
19:36
got all his hair scrunched
19:38
up in his hand pointing out the front of
19:41
his head like a weird top
19:43
knot. His eyes are mad
19:46
and he's screaming at Abdullah the Butcher over
19:49
and over again. He's like he's totally in
19:51
character. But the problem with a
19:54
character that is completely wild and
19:56
out of control is how
19:58
do you pair that with another character? Listen,
20:01
this is coming from a stand-up comedian who has totally
20:03
gone off script to
20:06
the detriment of other people around me. So
20:09
I get it. But I
20:11
find it fascinating watching that video because there's
20:14
the clash of the character and the real person.
20:17
And the character is doing exactly the right
20:19
thing, hogging the camera. Like he keeps going
20:21
huss, huss the whole
20:23
way while Gonzalez is trying to
20:25
speak. He's talking over the top of him,
20:27
he's putting his head in front of him. There's
20:31
an argument to say Brody could have
20:33
stayed in character and also let Gonzalez
20:36
shine. But he doesn't. And
20:38
that must have been really annoying. It's
20:41
an image which more than most makes you
20:43
want to look past the mask, behind the
20:46
kayfabe, and see what's really
20:48
going through their heads. But
20:50
of course, we can't. These
20:52
are professionals. The mystery is
20:55
the point. On
20:59
the 16th of July 1988, Jose
21:02
Gonzalez had booked Bruce of Brody
21:04
to fight Dan Spivey, a
21:06
so-called journeyman, someone who
21:08
is an experienced and reliable wrestler who
21:11
can deliver a decent performance in the
21:13
ring, but who has nowhere near
21:15
the stardom and draw of the likes of Brody.
21:18
Dan Spivey was never like a big
21:20
star, like say, you
21:22
know, carrier promotion, like a Ric
21:24
Flair or Hulk Hogan or Savage
21:26
or if you want to go into
21:28
the territory, Jerry Lawler. He
21:31
wasn't a proven guy
21:33
who could make money. And
21:35
even in Puerto Rico when he came, he
21:38
wasn't really as successful. He
21:40
had a few with Carlos Colon that
21:42
really wasn't attendance-wise, wasn't
21:45
that great In short,
21:48
Dan Spivey was a solid wrestler, but
21:50
not a charismatic celebrity like Brody. But
21:54
according to the experts in Puerto Rican wrestling we spoke
21:56
to, Jose wanted Brody to
21:58
lose to him. So here
22:01
you have Bruiser Brody who's a
22:03
major star who draws a
22:05
lot of money everywhere he goes where attendance
22:07
goes up and you're asking him to lose
22:09
to a journeyman. Money
22:12
wise it just didn't really make sense.
22:15
It was just mostly because oh we want to use
22:17
Danny Spivey as the main event when
22:20
you have a proven major star
22:23
Brody there that you could do many things with
22:25
him. So if I was Bruiser
22:27
Brody I would be like wait a minute
22:29
this doesn't really make any business. You're
22:32
just doing it just because you want to do it. And
22:36
if I was him and they asked me to
22:38
lose to Danny Spivey I probably
22:40
would be like Bruiser Brody. That really
22:42
doesn't make sense. And
22:46
that really is what we
22:48
know about Jose Gonzalez in
22:50
VEDA 1 and what he
22:52
was thinking and feeling on the 16th
22:54
of July 1988 when he asked Bruiser
22:57
Brody to chat in the locker
22:59
room shower. In
23:07
the baby face locker room Bruiser is
23:09
relaxed. When
23:11
Jose asks him for a word he's
23:13
about to hand a photo of his son to Tony
23:15
Atlas who has promised to
23:17
sketch him a hand drawn picture. Tony
23:19
Atlas would do art and Bruiser Brody
23:21
supposedly said hey maybe you can do
23:23
a sketch of my son. I'll
23:26
get you a photograph of my son. Outside
23:29
the crowd has been filing in and
23:31
the hum of the arena can be heard in the locker
23:33
rooms building anticipation. And
23:37
Invader 1 came in with a towel over
23:39
his hand for some strange reason and
23:41
said hey Brody can I talk to you.
23:43
According to several witnesses Jose
23:46
Gonzalez is holding a towel unnaturally
23:48
seeming to cover his hand. So
23:51
the two of them went into the shower
23:53
which I guess to
23:55
the outside sounds kind of strange but
23:57
that was sort of where they went
23:59
generally. have a little privacy if you
24:01
needed one-on-one talk with somebody.
24:03
Bruiser follows Jose into the shower
24:05
area. According
24:08
to later interviews with Tony Atlas, the
24:10
photo of his son is still in his
24:12
hand. They're in there talking, pretty
24:14
soon they're yelling. After a short discussion, a
24:17
fight of some kind breaks out. The
24:19
next thing you know, Bruiser Brody
24:21
is yelling out, you know,
24:24
just sort of making sounds, screaming. The noises
24:26
alert the rest of the locker room that
24:28
something is wrong. The exact
24:30
sequence of events is concealed by
24:32
a frosted glass door. The
24:35
mystery is the point. By
24:38
the time anyone comes in, it's
24:40
too late. And
24:46
during that discussion, Jose
24:48
Gonzalez stabbed Bruiser Brody
24:50
in his stomach. He
24:52
stabbed Brody, I
24:54
don't know how many times, but
24:56
he come out and then Brody
24:59
come out and was all bloody. You
25:01
know what I mean, like from where he had been stabbed. And
25:04
then Tony Atlas was there. The
25:06
commotion came, everybody went to the
25:09
dressing room to see what was going on. Brody
25:12
was bleeding, bending over,
25:14
he fell
25:17
down. I
25:19
can't speak for Tony, but he tells the story
25:21
that he being in
25:23
that locker room, that he saw that
25:25
Brody had been stabbed and he was like
25:28
holding Brody as he was bleeding out.
25:32
Dutch Mantel is sitting in the hideout of
25:34
the baseball stadium. After
25:37
he had arrived with Brody and Tony Atlas, he
25:40
didn't feel comfortable in the locker room. He
25:42
decided that he needed to get out for a bit. But
25:46
now it's time to get back. As
25:49
he makes his way back, he hears the
25:51
commotion. He
25:54
walks through the door and the first
25:56
thing he sees is Bruiser Brody, Frank
25:58
Goodish. the locker room floor.
26:02
The man his friends describe as
26:04
a gentle giant is bleeding from
26:06
two stab wounds. One
26:09
is in his chest and one
26:11
is in his abdomen. According
26:13
to several accounts, it
26:15
sounds like Frank knows it's serious. He
26:17
talked to Carlos Colon and told him, you
26:19
know, please tell
26:22
my wife and my kid that I love him. At
26:24
this point, Jose is probably already gone.
26:27
Shortly after the incident, he left the stadium
26:30
and witnesses from the night say he left
26:32
with the knife used to stab Frank. Jose
26:35
Gonzalez picked up the
26:38
knife, put it in a
26:41
t-shirt or something like that and
26:43
walked off the stadium.
26:47
Where the knife went, what
26:49
happened to that, to this day is
26:52
one of those big mysteries. According
26:58
to some reports, there is a local doctor
27:00
present, but he's probably the
27:02
one who usually patches up some of
27:04
the razor blade cuts wrestlers give themselves
27:06
to bleed during matches. So
27:09
it's possible he didn't have much more to work with
27:11
than band-aids. Also, there
27:14
are reports about some police officers being there
27:16
because they were usually around during wrestling matches.
27:19
But according to some US wrestlers, they didn't
27:22
have any medical training. And more importantly,
27:24
they didn't really take the situation seriously.
27:28
At first police thought he was an angle
27:30
or storyline, you know, they
27:32
thought he was fake. So imagine
27:35
that commotion the wrestlers trying to get him
27:37
to the ambulance, trying to
27:39
save him. Policemen
27:42
start there not really
27:44
believing what's happening. Brody's
27:46
colleagues try to stop the bleeding. Time
27:50
ticks away and the wait for
27:52
the ambulance drags on. They had trouble getting
27:54
an ambulance to the stadium because there was
27:56
a concert on the other side. Menuro
28:00
The boy band had a show right
28:03
across the street. So it
28:05
was hell in San Juan that night.
28:08
So it was impossible
28:10
to get there. In fact,
28:12
the narrative of Sonny Atlas
28:15
and Toshmentel says that
28:18
one of the reasons Brody didn't have
28:20
a prompt medical attention was because
28:23
of the traffic jam. The
28:25
ambulance couldn't make a quick arrival to
28:27
the stadium because, imagine
28:30
wrestling at Maduro same night in
28:33
very nearby venues. So it
28:35
was the perfect storm at the time. Upon
28:38
the arrival of the ambulance, the
28:40
medics are confronted with another challenge. Puscher
28:42
Brody was about six, six, six,
28:45
eight, 300 pounds. So
28:48
he was kind of hard to carry. Frank
28:50
is too big. The medics
28:53
have trouble lifting him. According to
28:55
Tony Atlas, in the end, he
28:57
helps them get Brody's wounded body into
28:59
the ambulance. Finally, they take
29:01
Puscher Brody to the hospital and they
29:03
try to do everything they could. Here's
29:06
Emerson again. So Tony
29:08
Atlas rode in the ambulance with Puscher
29:10
Brody to the hospital in Puerto Rico.
29:13
And while he
29:15
was in the ambulance, he knew that Puscher
29:17
Brody was a fan of country and Western
29:19
music. And he was singing
29:21
a song by
29:23
Hank Williams called If Heaven Ain't A Lot Like
29:25
Dixie. And so he was singing that to Puscher
29:28
Brody and holding his
29:30
hand as the ambulance went
29:32
to the hospital. And
29:35
by the time that he got in there, he
29:37
was already, everything was starting to shut down because
29:39
he had just lost so much.
29:44
Back at the Juan Ramón Lubriel Stadium,
29:46
for thousands of fans, the
29:48
show goes on. But
29:50
Puscher Brody never shows up. Sometime
29:53
during that night, Jose Gonzalez came back
29:57
and wrestled his match like nothing
29:59
happened. And the
30:02
car was not canceled. They proceeded
30:04
to have the wrestling card that night,
30:07
while Bruce's buddy was in the
30:09
hospital fighting for his life. In
30:14
the end, Frank Goodish dies at
30:16
4am on the operating table at
30:18
Centro Medico in San Juan. It's
30:22
not a storyline. There is
30:24
no twist. No resurrection.
30:28
No surprise return at the next big match. The
30:31
world of fantasy that made Frank Goodish
30:33
into Bruce Abrodi has collided
30:36
with reality. And
30:38
he's paid the price. But
30:42
that doesn't mean the ballot of Bruce Abrodi is done.
30:46
Because as the night ends and
30:48
the sun rises over San Juan, one
30:50
question starts to press. What
30:53
becomes of the man who killed him? The
31:04
ballot of Bruce Abrodi is presented by
31:06
me, Adam Hills, and the producer is
31:08
Ilona Tola. The assistant
31:10
producer is John Rogers, and the
31:12
executive producer is Robert Nicholson. Emerson
31:15
Murray was our consultant. And
31:18
special thanks to Ezekiel Rodriguez-Andino for
31:20
reporting assistance in Puerto Rico. Also
31:24
huge thanks to Marcela Pizzaro
31:26
Coloma. This is
31:28
a Whistle Down production for BBC Radio 5 Live.
31:57
We got through with it, huh? A trillion dollar
31:59
thing. Which never took off.
32:02
Broadsters of this level, they
32:04
will never stop. And an ill-advised
32:06
errand, changing F1 forever. It will
32:08
haunt the people involved for as
32:10
long as they live. For strangest
32:13
crimes, listen on BBC Sounds. Tired
32:22
of ads interrupting your gripping investigations?
32:24
Good news! Ads
32:33
shouldn't be the scariest thing about
32:35
true crime. Start listening by downloading
32:37
the Amazon Music app for free
32:40
or go to amazon.com/true crime ad
32:42
free. That's amazon.com/true crime ad free
32:44
to catch up on the latest
32:46
episodes without the ads. How
32:48
do you solve a crime in reverse? When
32:51
you believe that someone was murdered but
32:53
have no clue who the victim was. We
32:57
have to do our job. And we
32:59
have to find out who
33:02
did they kill? If it's possible.
33:05
How are we going to do that? I'm
33:07
Jake Halpern. And this is
33:10
Deep Cover, The Nameless Man. Listen
33:13
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
33:16
or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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