Red Glove Rage and Spatchcocking

In this toe-curling, borscht-boiling episode of Smack Talk City, we take a deep dive into the tragic, confusing, and rhythmically traumatic life of Ivan Drago — the Soviet cyborg who punched his way into American nightmares… and out of James Brown's disco death trap.

Join us as we unravel the chaos behind the Rocky IV exhibition match, where Apollo Creed danced too close to the sun, James Brown summoned the funk gods, and Drago experienced his first emotional glitch. Featuring Soviet training montages, funk-fuelled hallucinations

It’s the Cold War. and it's a cold ring

🥩 Smack Talk City: Get Amongst the Meat.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Welcome to Smack Talk City. Leo and James,

SPEAKER_02: 0:07

OMG, they're the best.

SPEAKER_01: 0:23

Rocky IV. Brilliant film.

UNKNOWN: 0:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 0:32

You were trying to come up with some smart retort then, weren't you? No, I was just trying to hold it in just for a change, because what always happens is that you say something and I just instantly start giggling. I thought, you know what, I'm not going to. And you failed. It's like that last one, the laugh or whatever it was on Prime recently. Oh, yeah, I watched that. I don't know how they do it. Yeah, that is tough. I think the bits I saw, and I've still got to see some of it, the worst bit was when they were just generally talking and not the stage sort of put on stuff. Yeah, yeah. And it seemed to be more of when they were talking about day-to-day things and then not laughing at that was harder. Yeah, I really like... There's that one with the blonde hair called Lou. Mm-hmm. The girl called Lou. I can't remember what her surname is. I like her. She's funny. Have you seen the David Mitchell's... I think it's called Outsiders? No. I started watching a new one, which was... Hang on, hang on, before you hijack my story. Go on then. David Mitchell's Outsiders is like a comedy where he gets a whole bunch of comedians together and then they have to do stuff, but they're out in the woods and they have to do like camping and survival, but also it's a little bit of sort of taskmaster where they have challenges along the way and stuff. But it's actually... I don't know why... I've not heard anyone else or spoken to anyone else who's actually ever watched it, but it's really good. It's on iPlayer. Go and watch it. All your favourite comedians. But then that's where I saw that one Lou, whatever her name is, for the first time. She was brilliant in that. And then when I saw this new one, the... laugh what is it called laugh laugh out loud or something like that something about laughing yeah but she was on that i thought yes she's good and she was and i thought she was really funny yeah i enjoyed the bits i saw i've still got to see some of it um but i've got so much to watch at the moment oh what you got there this is well firstly blue none that looks like wine that's a screw it's got a screw top Which is sad. It's a bottle of blended Scotch whiskey from the co-op. That looks like cheap stuff, particularly if it's got the co-op badge on it. Well, did you not hear me say it was from the co-op? Yeah. Nothing from the co-op is cheap. Nothing. So why did you get whiskey? or co-op branded whiskey it's still the cheapest in the co-op that is not to say that it's cheap okay especially considered as is a white label co-op own brand whiskey you think well that sounds cheap and yeah to an extent it tastes like it but it wasn't i can see some major um flaws in your acquiring of this thing. Why did you not just order something from Amazon that is probably going to be about the same price or cheaper and probably would have been infinitely better? Because if I'd have done that at the time, I would have had to have gone most of the weekend without any whiskey. Okay. Well, they do next day delivery. Did you not kind of look at your whiskey supply and go? Listen, I was in the shop. It was Friday. This is last weekend. It was like Friday evening. I was getting some dinner. Don't cut me off. Listen, I was there. All right. It was there and it was called to me and I thought, I'm going to have it. Should I have some whiskey or should I get some whiskey at a different time? And I thought, no. I'm just going to get some and go home. Just get it. Just get it. Eat my dinner on my own, drink my whiskey and just be like fat and sad. Well, I got gifted this rather delicious bottle of Buffalo trace. I think it was almost a week ago now. My darling wife came home. She said, you've been working so hard. I've got this for you. So I said, Thanks a lot. And do you think that was because she was bored of listening to you drink cups of tea on Smack Talk City? Not at all. Oh, do that pop again. Put the cork back in. It's better than your screw top, but it's not as powerful as some of the pops we've had from your other bottles.

UNKNOWN: 6:02

LAUGHTER

SPEAKER_01: 6:04

it's pretty down there in terms of decibels yeah that's all right do you know what that sounded like that sounded like the pop of a cork of whiskey that's about to get poured into a glass covered in pictures of men in lycra on it it's almost like you can see me I can, can I please make a request to your darling wife, wonderful wife that she is too. And I know the, I know that I'm saying this cause so you don't have to, I know you love that glass. You love it to bits, not because of what it looks like, but because of where it came from, but where that glass came from. It is possible that another glass. could also come at a different time later on which might replace that one and just be cooler feel free to message me for ideas so let's put it out there and see how many non-responses we get what are you talking about my my message box was literally inundated with a message this week inundated with a message Yeah. Who was this message from? I'll tell you after. Go on. Okay. So if there's any, let's say, mountain biking or someone who's in the world of whiskey that produces manly looking glasses that you would put whiskey in, not like glasses on your face that wants to send us a whiskey glass so I don't have to put up with this ridicule week on week. Drop us an email or send us a message. And then I can get this monkey off my back. We will do an entire episode dedicated to your glass. And we'll give it a review as well. We will literally make your sales blow up. Yeah. And you too could be inundated with an order. For one. If you're selling one whiskey glass, we will increase your sales by 100%. If you've currently got an old whiskey glass on sale on eBay that isn't really getting much attention, just send us the link. We've set the bar quite low here, so we look forward to your responses. I have actually bought, I did buy a mug off eBay. I remember this. Wasn't this like the crazy big metal tankard thing you had? Maybe I did get that off eBay. I don't know. But the one that I was thinking of was a brass tankard, like a solid Like, Oh, real old fashioned, just solid brass tanking. I think I remember that. Yeah. So who was this message from? Ah, so, uh, an old friend of mine who I've known from years and years ago, I saw a post pop up on Facebook. Um, and it's someone who does, uh, voiceover work. And it's like a name I hadn't seen for years. And I saw this post pop up, and it was this person doing voiceover work with loads of clips of her. I don't know if she... She sounds like she smokes. I don't know if she smokes or not. But she's got like this unusually... sort of husky, saucy voice. I don't know how else to describe it. I think she's done some like Marks and Spencer's adverts. Do you know the classic? This isn't chocolate. This is pistachios with Biscoff smashed into a million pieces and then chocolate. added to the mix. Yeah. Like these aren't just normal dumplings. These are dumplings that have been spurted in gravy and that sort of thing. These aren't just regular sausages. This is a full on eight pack of hot wanger. ready for the frying pan hot wanger tell us what you're really thinking about you mean to tell me if you saw a sausage review for an eight pack called hot wanger you wouldn't be going get me some of them from m&s i don't i i do you know what i'm on the fence about that you need to get on off the fence and into the frying pan yeah i honestly don't know if i'd it depends entirely on the marketing i think whether whether what would your ideal sausage market and be ideals well i think we know that don't we are you less should we We should exclude the sausage advert that we, the one advert that we have. The Suffolk Beagle advert that, you know, they still owe us for that. Have they not paid us yet? No. Sent them reminder after reminder about that. Yeah. Maybe we'll have to keep advertising them until they contact us. Yeah. Maybe we should go for dinner there again. No. No. and then do another advert based on whatever we eat. We go in, we ask what they recommend, pray and it's just not the sausage and mash again. I had, oh my God, the other day, it was actually the same day that I bought that. not budget not budget whiskey i bought a pack of um like richmond sausages you know it's like a bag 12 12 sausages in a bag which means about two quid the cheapest sausages you can get and i cooked him i've never cooked sausages in this in this oven that i've got here so i cooked them in the i cooked them in the oven and it's electric so it takes ages to heat up and i was like I could just put them in and then see how it goes. And anyway, they came out after like half an hour. They looked, they were the right color, cooked, but they'd clearly just dried out quite a lot. Like really crispy on the outside, but then like all the meat had disappeared on the inside. And I instantly recognized, like I got those sausages out and I was like, that is the fucking Suffolk Beagle sausage.

UNKNOWN: 13:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 13:39

It's very, it's a very distinctive size and shape and the color of it and the way that it was like cracked and like slightly hot, like half hollow on the inside, everything about it. I was like, shit, I have not seen a sausage like that since I went to the Suffolk Beagle. And then I got upset about it all over again. Cause it was like the Suffolk Beagle gave me Richmond sausages. and charge you a premium for it i'll bet how much did you pay for them well i don't know but you know pub meal especially because suffolk beagle's not cheap either is it it's like it's got it's got to be north of sort of uh 16 quid i reckon at least yeah yeah easily 15 quid minimum and okay you get some get some mashed potato and stuff but yeah you'd expect the sausage i mean sausage is They're not overly expensive, even decent sausages, not crazy expensive for what they are. Yeah, for what they are. What they are is joy. Exactly. Knob-shaped joy. Unless it's Richmond sausages. In which case it's knob-shaped disappointment. It's like corpse knob. Yeah, but sort of desert corpse. Desert corpse, it's warmer. Not like one that's been dumped in a river. No. One that's been in a very dry environment. Because that would almost look like those really white sausages those Germans do if it had been dumped in a river. Yeah, bloated. Yeah, and really pale. Pale, bloated, juicy as well, like really juicy.

UNKNOWN: 15:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 15:28

Mmm, moist. The sands of time. Richmond sausages bite as soon as that desert sausage hits your lips. You just know you're eating Richmond. Dead man sausage. Richmond sausages have been around since 1915 and we are proud of our heritage and every single sausage that from Richmond that you buy in your local co-op was made in that year. We do not reveal our sources, but most of our sausages come from the desert, freshly plucked. Richmond, proudly sponsored by the French Foreign Legion. Richmond, sponsors of camel jockeys. Camel jockeys? Can you say camel jockeys? I don't know. A camel jockey, who are camel jockeys? Aren't they like monkeys? No, camel jockeys were basically like, you know, Dudes in, like, travel around on camel instead of horses. Camel jockeys. Oh. I don't think they're actually... Are they actually jockeys? Aren't they just, like, nomadic northern African tribes? Yeah, could be. Yeah. But... But isn't there... There's an actual sport where people race camels. Is there? And the camel jockeys are monkeys. No, I wasn't suggesting they were monkeys. Oh. But I mean, that sounds like a good sport. I mean, how do you train a monkey to race a camel? I think you just tie it. This is Africa. You don't really worry about training. Just tie it on. I'm trying to picture this in my head. So you've got these African dudes, like they're corralling these camels and monkeys into a pen. And then it's like the gates go down and they race. I think it's more like everyone turns up with their own camel and their own monkey. They tie the monkey on and then just kick it and then go off you go. Do they kick the monkey or the camel? I'm going to guess the camel because the monkey is quite high at this point. The camel is standing up, raring to go. Do you reckon the kick would be more impactful on the monkey though? But you've kicked the monkey and the monkey went bananas and the camels go, fuck this. I'm out of here and started racing. Yeah, I think there's a sort of symbiotic relationship where the monkey makes the camel go faster, but the camel makes the monkey scream louder. And then it's sort of a vicious circle. It's fucking horrific. Actually, I can see a bit of a problem. In that the camel and the monkey don't stop until one of them's had enough and exhausted. I don't really know how they do the stop part of it. Just set them off and then go, oh, shit. I've lost it. Yeah, maybe they've got a ring. They do it around a ring. Maybe, like some kind of arena. Yeah, camel-proof sort of monkey arena. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. It's got to be fairly long, though. It's going to have to be oblong shape because you can't get them to run in a circle, I'll bet. It's got to be like a straight line. So it's got to have a certain length to it to allow lineage of the track. Yeah. Well, there you go. Camel jockeys. Yeah. We're 20 minutes in. I can imagine it. I'm seeing it now. I'm seeing it now. You've got this camel jockey arena and round the whole of the outside, like in the stands, signs everywhere for Richmond Sausage. Yeah. Richmond Sausages, or is it a monkey finger? No one knows. Dillish. Richmond Sausages, are they... That's what I'd write. Are they? Exclamation mark, question mark. Are they? What are they? Who knows? You, Adam. I haven't had them, so, you know. I had eight. Eight? You ate all eight? I bet they were well shriveled. Not all eight. There's 12 in a bag. I thought, no, 12's going crazy. I'm on a diet. I'll stop at eight sausages. I'm on a diet this week. Yeah, but even that, I ate them and I thought, hmm, I could have ate that whole bag. Easy. So have you still got four left to cook or did you cook them all up? No, they're still in the freezer. I'd keep them in there. It's just not even worth cooking for, because I could fit all four in my mouth. They look like sausages, but they're half air when you open them up, because they're just empty and sad. Wow. They don't kind of burst in the air and deflate. They're already shriveled. Yeah. Pre-saddened to save everyone time. Yeah. That doesn't sound like a good sausage at all. I'd stay at the co-op next week. It doesn't sound like a good place. It isn't. Fuck me. That is a shit. It's a shithole. It's an absolute shithole. I fucking hate it. It's so expensive. It pisses me off. So the co-op, And I found out through something completely different. So a mate of mine in a mate with much more money than me was looking to open a gym in Framlingham, which is a town near me. Very like quite a nice sort of quite rich town. And he's he's. like fairly well, his wallet's fairly well lubricated. So he was going to open up this like really nice gym. And we kind of looked into some buildings and there was a, there's a shutdown car dealership. And he's got like quite a lot of property in the area. So he's like, oh yeah, I can, I'll, I'll get onto my, my guy and see, you know, see what the, what the deal is. And, and it turned out that it was, So it's still empty now. It's been empty for over a year. But it's basically the co-op have deals with big sort of all the sort of big landowners and just owners of everything in the region. So they'd basically had a deal where any large buildings like that go straight to the co-op. So no one else gets a look in like it goes straight to the co-op. And the reason they do it is to stop other supermarkets coming into the area. So that could have been a Lidl, for instance, but the co-op basically have deals in place. So wherever there is a co-op, you won't find a competing supermarket. If you're in a co-op area, you will only have co-ops. And that is basically their business plan, is that they stop all competition in the area. And that's what actually, they really market themselves as being like, you know, local shop for local people and all our, you know, all our staff are also like partners in our business and everyone owns shares and we're all about the community and like local bullshit and it's all bollocks because what they're actually doing is like they force out competition so there's zero competition and then they jack their own prices up because the people that live there have no choice but to pay but to go to that shop and to pay those prices, which is fucking really wrong, in my opinion. Well, we've got, I know of two co-ops fairly locally, and both of them have got Tesco's close by. Are they like supermarket size co-ops? No, these are sort of more small townish co-ops, and these are sort of Tesco Express stores, so it's not a full-on... big supermarket um i don't know not off the top my head i don't know of a huge co-op brand here but certainly like yeah but you bought supermarkets have you got uh the closest ones are going to be in uh just up the road in alton which we've got sainsbury's uh is the biggest And then going the other way to Winchester, we've got Tesco's and there's actually in Alton, you've got Lidl and Audi as well. And then in Winchester, we've got Tesco's. Is there a Lidl? Might be. I think there is a Lidl. But yeah, there's no big co-op supermarket. Yeah. So if you were in the areas where there's a big co-op, They're usually in a more isolated place where there's no other options. That's basically their business model for the big co-ops. So they basically just buy land or buildings or whatever it is. Is there some unwritten rule then where they can't have another supermarket within a certain radius? Yeah, well, that's their rule. It's not like a law. No, no, no. Policy is not a law. That's their policy is that they will aggressively force out any other supermarkets from the area. Interesting. Yeah. So we've got like where I'm sat at the moment. So I've got like what there's a co-op in Halesworth. And that is this like quite a big town. And that is the only shop. hailsworth right he's the co-op and that's probably that's like a 15 minute drive north of me and then the next shop the next town is a 20 minute drive south of me which is framlingham which is well 20 actually 20 minutes is you know that's fast it's more like 20 25 30 probably but it's framlingham and that is also a co-op town so there is only a co-op in framlingham and no other co-ops no other shops so that the size of the area that i live in where there is no shops is insane that's mad yeah you you have to wait till amazon start doing the amazon airdrop stuff with their drones that they keep talking about yeah i need that yeah that you'd be ideal client for that yeah because we don't even like we do i do get amazon next day here but if it's like if i get amazon next day stuff it will turn up at like sometimes i'll get deliveries at like 10 o'clock at night from amazon it's pretty they're pretty good to be fair like if you if you order next day it does almost always turn up next day but Sometimes it's so late, you just think, oh, fuck it, you might as well just come in the morning, mate. Fucking hell, just get here tomorrow. It's not worth it now. I'm not going outside to pick that parcel up now, so it's just going to sit there overnight. Yeah, fuck it. Well, so the girls have been watching a fair bit of Drunk History. Brilliant. And we... we have been asked to do drunk history at some point in the future yeah and as as we have discussed that on smack talk city drunk history is what we would just call it history yeah just call it history yeah but tonight i thought we'd do something slightly different so i'm gonna um recant the tale of one of our favorite movies which is rocky four but from Ivan Drago's perspective, because I think he was no one really told his story and he didn't have that many lines in the film. It's probably quite a good gig for Dolph Lundgren from an acting perspective. It's just like show up, look ripped and do some training stuff. And then, yeah, you've got, like, five lines in the whole film. Max, like, brilliant. Because he was basically manipulated. He was being manipulated by the Russians. He weren't bright enough to know what was going on, really, was he? He's just doing what he was made to do. Wasn't he like a captain or certainly an officer in the Russian army? Now, I don't know what the prerequisite is for Russian officers in the army, but it kind of suggests that he had some levels of authority within I reckon that he, that was a sort of, you know, like some people, some people have to earn their ranks and some people don't, I think he was probably just shipped straight in. He was there to do exactly what he done. He was there to, to be that puppet. He was a, you know, cause he was massive and strong and he just got a rank. Because it would have been embarrassing for the Russians to have a private be so good. Because it would have undermined everyone else standing around him. So they'd have to have made him an officer to... just to suit the position that he was in because he was on the world stage so i think they just i don't think he'd done anything to earn that rank i think he just got got it pinned on his chest he probably didn't even know what was going on i i reckon he went to the boxing gym one day and he smashed everyone and they went uh he's a bit good so um we're gonna we're gonna promote you to uh captain he's like fucking hell i'm only my third day here brilliant i'll have that And all we want you to do is box and beat shit out of people. Can you do that? Yeah, no problem. Yeah. They went, do you want to be captain of boxing? And he was like, yeah. That was it. It was just one word answer. He didn't say anything. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. If you've never seen the film, this is probably going to be in some roundabout way some spoilers for you but i highly recommend you go back and watch it it's a terrific yeah but if you've if you haven't seen rocky four what the you're playing that yeah get out you don't belong in this pod you don't belong here go and what just go don't even listen to the rest of the podcast because honestly rocky four is a lot better just go and do that just go and watch it because go and watch it it's good pause the podcast go and watch it come back and you'll go yeah brilliant brilliant okay and welcome back people that have just been and watched rocky was it was it dvd pretending that we're doing some editing vhs oh vhs vhs so i i reckon this is my take right so i reckon um i reckon drago been smashing people up Giving him a rank of captain, like you say. And they've gone, look, can't have you beating up all the troops here and the army and all these other Russian boxers. Hang on a minute. Hang on a minute. What? You're supposed to be doing this from his point of view. Yeah. Yeah. I'm getting there. I'm getting there. Okay. Right? So this is like when he's in Russia. I'm telling his story. Yeah, but you're saying when he's in Russia, but that's not from his point of view because you're talking about it in the third person. I know, but I'm getting there. Just stay with me. All right? Don't ruin it for the listeners. They're like on the edge of their seat. They want to know this stuff. I'm asking the questions the listeners want to know the answers to. Right. Okay. So anyway, it's a television interview. come over to the states as per the film and they're going right we want this exhibition fight you know would love to love to do an exhibition fight show you how good he is yeah he's like an apollo creed he's like swimming around his swim pool he's like what the hell is this he's swimming around his swimming pool he's such a prick showing off yeah he can swim i know he's got his dogs there they're loving it And he's going, Apollo Crews, I'm not having this. I'm not having this. You know, this is like sort of Cold War stuff. You know, so he goes to Rocky. You're just telling the story of Rocky IV. How is this from his perspective? I'm getting there. You keep cutting in. It's going to take us a lot longer. You're almost halfway through the film. I'm not. I'm not. You are. I'm not. Just ride it out. Okay, go on. Right. So I had the press conference and Drago's sitting there. He's going, don't understand. Don't understand what they're saying. It's just American. I don't speak American. Don't speak English. Don't understand what these Westerners are saying. And Apollo Creed, he's just talking too fast. He's talking jive. He's like saying, you know, I'm going to whoop you. Jive. He's saying, I'm going to whoop you, you know, going to take you to school. Joy of Turkey. He's like, you know, one of the lines he uses in the film. Drago don't understand what he's saying. But luckily, the guys who are sitting around Drago, you know, they're bilingual. They can speak English as well. And they're just going, yeah, Drago's going to flatten you, mate. Drago's going to flatten you. Drago's sitting there. He's just sort of nodding, just sort of going, yeah, yeah. Don't know what he's saying, but yeah, I'll go along with it. Right. I'm going to beat this guy up. No problem. Yeah. And then Apollo Creed, he gets a little bit leery. He's like, I'm not going to lose. I'm not going to lose. And he stands up. He shoves Drago, and Drago's like, what the fuck, man? What the hell is this all about? And he shoves Apollo Creed back. Apollo goes flying. He's like, whoa. Whoa, this guy's big, and he's strong. He's like, I'm still going to whoop him. Not a problem. So, but, you know, Drago. Now you're giving it from the perspective of Apollo. Hold on. Right? What for? I thought the whole point of this was that you're going to give the film to do the whole thing from the perspective of Drago. I'm trying to tell you Drago's thoughts. But to do that. You're just giving us Apollo's thoughts. But he shoved Apollo in. And then you gave us Apollo's thoughts. Fine. I'll give you a couple of minutes. I'll give you 30 seconds of Apollo's thoughts. Just bear with it. All right? When are you going to get to Drago? I am, but you keep cutting in, man. You're halfway through the film. I'm not. You keep saying that, and I'm not even 30% through the film yet. Okay. You're 29% of the way through the film. Fine. Just ride it. All right, come on. From Drago's perspective. Drago's stood there. He's going, all right, look, he shoved me. This is boxing, right? It's fine. You know, we'll get to the boxing ring and I'm going to get to fight this former world champion in an exhibition. I'm all right with that. No problem. You know, I appreciate these things get a little bit heated at the press conference, but it's fine. Anyway, Drago gets the fight. He's made to stand like what kind of goes in. He's like, what the fuck am I in this basement? thing for there's no crowd down here and i'm stood in the middle of this ring i just just don't get it just don't what's going on you know is this some kind of wind up and it's like he stood there he's all alone he's all like ready to fight all of a sudden like that the the ceiling opens up above him he's like what what's going on what's going on like the ceiling opens up that the boxing ring starts elevating coming through the floor and he's like this this is This is weird. I've not seen anything like this before. And then he hears it. He's like, hang on. Hang on. Is that James Brown? Is that James Brown I can hear? I fucking hate James Brown. James Brown just like tips Drago over the edge. He's like, I'm not having this. You know, you're making a mockery of me here. You know. I'm supposed to be coming here to fight a former world champion exhibition fight. I was all up for it. And now you're putting on some kind of fucking clown show. Anyway. Just... Drago's getting really angry. And he's like, I'm not having this. And... He's like up. He can see all these like people dancing around in his skin tight suits. He's like, this isn't boxing. What the hell have I, you know, I'm not being treated seriously here. They are flicking piss at me. I'm not having this. All of a sudden, Apollo Creed, he's like coming down. He's riding this big Siberian bull thing and he's punching it. He's like really playing up to the crowd. Crowd are loving it. Drago is fucking fuming at this point, right? He's gone absolutely batshit crazy in his head. He's like, I'm not having this shit. This guy is taking the piss out of me. I came here. I just want to showcase what I could do. You know, I was going to let it lie. You shoved me at the press conference. But now you're just making, you know, a mockery of everything I stand for. And I fucking hate James Brown songs. And he's raging inside. Anyway, gets in the ring. Apollo's like finished playing up to the crowd. And he's like, I'm literally, literally going to smash him. And that was it. You know, he walked. He went through Apollo like a hot knife goes through butter. He absolutely did. decimated him. Absolutely, you know, he killed him. And he was like, shouldn't have played that James Brown stuff. And Rocky goes fucking nuts. And he like challenges Drago to a fight. Drago's just sat there. He's like, well, I don't understand what he's saying. You know, he's talking like just gibberish. You know, he's got a bit of sort of slurred speech. He's like talking that side of his mouth. And Drago's like, I don't know what he's saying. He's just gone mad. And make matters worse. So Drago's like, well, all right, I'll fight Rocky if you really want. You know, it's not a problem. I'll fight him. But I'm going home. I'm going back to Russia. James Brown's not allowed in Russia, so I'm going back to Russia. And if you want to fight me, that's where I'll be. You come to my town. And Rocky's like, yeah, I'll go to Russia. No problem. But I think Rocky must have got, or Drago suspects that Rocky somehow got his address. Because in the build up to the fight. Stalking him on Facebook. No, he's sending him fucking James Brown vinyls through the post. And so he's like, fucking, I know it's Rocky. I know it's Rocky doing this shit, but I can't prove it. You know, it's like, just why have I got James Brown records turning up at my door every 10 minutes? You know, and this was before the days of Amazon. So he must have ordered shit loads of them. But he's like, right, I am going to go and train and I'm going to go to, you know, um we've got uh no wi-fi um i'm just going to this gym and all they make me do is they get me in this skin-tight white suit everything is red and i'm pretty sure there's some wolves in there as well and part of the training involves like wolves and bears but drago has no problems with that so he goes like training with the wolves and the bears and they did some experiments on him in there um and one of these guys he said um you know we're gonna we're gonna inject you with some concrete into your muscles to like really harden you up and he's like yeah fine just just get on with it concrete concrete and and Drago's like yeah no whatever do it how did how did you feel about that just you know it was it was considered like um good medical practice for the elites so um yeah just They said it was scientifically proven, so I just got on with it. And so I had some concrete injected in me and, yeah, felt fine. And then they were, like, measuring my punches and stuff. Yeah, when they measured your punch, you know when they measured your punch and you punched that machine, which is sort of reminiscent of the kind of fairground punch machine? Yeah. the little digital display that goes up and gives you a score. When you'd done that for the first time and you realized you were scoring, I mean, orders of magnitude beyond what was ever known of the hardest human punch, did you begin to suspect that they were doing things, sort of experimenting on you in a way that you didn't know? no i mean i was the only one there so i just kind of went it's it's fine you know i can hit this thing um i couldn't use the whack-a-mole because i broke it so they said this was the next best thing i could do that's is that it was that the moment they knew they had someone special yeah they they said look this is whack-a-mole we'll start you out on this it will not only test your strength but also test your agility as well but i broke it i literally caved this mole's head in and i couldn't whack it anymore because it was just a pulp so um you know they put real moles in it that was the good thing you know so how did they make the moles like pop their head up at the right time were they just sort of in a jar it was a heated plate underneath them they were just jumping up trying to get out but it was like you know the less you know it's out of the frying pan and into the fire so it's like literally if they jumped up i would thump them and i think in that situation if i was playing that game when when it popped up instead of just whacking it down i think i'd have whacked it sideways just to send it flying across the room maybe but um Yeah, I killed too many moles doing that. So they said I couldn't do it anymore. They ran out of moles. Yeah, it was a bloody mess. So that's when they moved me on to the punch machine. But that was all right. I didn't break that. Came close a couple of times, but they tested me against certain animals. know i could hit harder than like an elephant could whip its trunk apparently that's what it told me so you're uh um so you've had these fights you've gone back to russia yeah you're training to fight rocky yeah you've had some questionable injections you've killed some moles and then they put you in this sort of big leotard. Yeah. Did you question at any point whether that was like a bit gay? Well, I mean, I was the only one there apart from the science guys. Yeah. And this is all the guys that would stare at you all day. Yeah. So, was it them, the guys that were staring at you all day, was it their decision to put you in the leotard? It was, but I mean, they said it would... you know, disperse the heat evenly when I was running and it would make me like, you know, less, make me more wind resistant or less wind resistant. That's good. So basically it was going to be sucking a lot of the heat out of your crotch and dispersing it to more easily accessible places. Yeah. The wind to then suck it off. All that. I mean, I'm not, I'm not a scientist. This is just what they told me. But I said, fine, no problem. And it was a good training camp. Went through the training camp and came out the other side. They had a treadmill that was powered by coal, and that was fine. That worked. They said for extreme training days, they'd make me run barefoot with Lego on the treadmill, but that never got shown in the training montage. That was hard. That was hard work. Yeah. But anyway. Was that Russian Lego? Yeah. Or standard? A bit of both. They said, seen as I was fighting an American... They'd try and get Lego from the West. So, yeah, you know, that's what they did. I'd like all sorts in there. So, but yeah, those bricks had sharp edges. Yeah, they do, don't they? Yeah. Okay, so you've got your fight coming up. Obviously, Rocky's over in Russia now. Yeah, I mean, the final test I had that was never shown was that I went out uh into the woods they let me out like sort of in the last week um and i had to punch a tree a wooden well all trees are wooden but i had to punch a tree um until it because unless you go to the petrified forest which i think is in ireland what what are the chairs mate what are the what are the trees made out of there well they're petrified so they're made of stone ah Well, these were definitely wood, and I had to punch one until it became a chair. How much wood do you think? Do you think, Percy, how much wood? Would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? I don't know. But I'd stick that woodchucker in with the moles, I think, and, you know, I'd make him answer his own question. Did they ever ask you if you wanted to chuck wood? No, I had to punch the wood until it became a chair. That was my final. Until it became a chair. Punch that tree into the shape of a chair. Literally, that was my final test. Fuck, that's hardcore. I know, I know. So anyway, it's the day of the fight. and uh in russia so like stadiums packed out there's a couple of um you know there's a lot of soviet generals top level scientists there um and i was told by an outside source that there was three bears dressed in military uniform um just pretended to be spectators but i couldn't pick them out i couldn't pick them out so um uh like i got to go into the ring second Rocky's already there. And, you know, got there. And they bring out all the sort of smoke and stuff. And it's all sort of a bit more serious. I was like, no James Brown here. James Brown's no work. He was banned in Russia. Couldn't have James Brown, which I was happy about. Was he banned because he was brown or because he was American? Yeah, it was American. And his music was shit. According to me.

UNKNOWN: 50:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 50:45

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. According to Russians. Yeah. And so got down to the ring and all of a sudden the crowd is upstand and the national anthem comes on. I was like, this is like serious stuff. I'm representing my country here. The thing that I couldn't understand is this poster came down over part of the crowd. And I was like, first of all, that's blocking the view of the crowd who sat behind the poster. um so sucks to be them maybe that was the american side yeah that was like this small batch of uh the away fans that were americans just like yeah we'll put that there but it looked more like gary barlow from take that than me so i was like why is gary barlow on a poster with um russian um you know hammer and sickle on there and and not me but they told me later it's me it's just the artist wasn't that good it's weird as well that you said that seeing as gary barlow was only about 12 years old at the time i know it's like they're very forward thinking in russia yeah so um you know obviously saw what gary barlow was going to become um yeah but uh but yeah store him online for us a handsome kid exactly i wonder what he'll grow up to look like yeah They just need to refer back to this movie and go, that's what we're looking at. You know. But anyway, met Rocky in the center of the ring. And I was like, look, I haven't got a lot to say. So I'm just going to say, look, I'm going to break you. And I think I got the words out. And I punched his fist and he went down. I was like, this is going to be a walk in the park. Absolute walk in the park. So yeah. I'm like, right, raring to go. Bell goes. I went out. My punch was like a fucking missile. And I was hitting him. And his punch, it was just like an angry toddler. All I can describe it as. It wasn't particularly tough. But it didn't matter what I hit him with. He just kept coming back. It was really weird. It's like, look, I've had concrete injections. I've been running on treadmills. i've got a snazzy leotard exactly i mean i left the leotard out the back for after um because i was going out to dinner and i thought i'll wear it for dinner afterwards um but but yeah he just kept like just enraged like some kind of tasmanian devil or honey badger or something like that i couldn't figure it out it's like you're you're small and you're getting battered but it's like i couldn't put him down it was really odd just like this enraged him down. It was just like, I just wanted to hug him and squeeze him. No, no, just like I kept hitting him, but it's just like he kept coming back and it was getting so annoying. And, you know, it looks like in the film he battered me towards the end, but I was just knackered. I got so knackered trying to fight this angry kid who just like wouldn't leave me alone. And in the end, I just, like, ran out of steam in the 12th round or 15th round. It was the 15th round. I ran out of steam. And I was just like, I've got to sit down. I've got to sit down. And I had to lay down. And I closed my eyes for a sec. And all of a sudden, then, you know, Rocky's won. And the crowd have somehow switched to being fans of Rocky. I couldn't figure it out. I was like, but he's American. And I'm Russian. And he gave some speech at the end. And I'm looking at the guy who's translating it into Russian. And he's looking at me. And the words he said just didn't make sense. So, you know, the crowd started cheering. But then Rocky went home. And then I left the army and that was it. I just took my leotard and went back to my cave. And that was that. stayed there for ages afterwards. That was my story. What's your cave like? It's quite warm. It's got a bear in it. Yeah, I've got a bear who lives in there with me. He's quite good. You know, real bear. Is it like the bear minimum? That's so bad. Have you got a lot of stuff in your cave? Leotards. Bear. Or is it the bare minimum? Fire pit. I'd like a cave with a fire pit in it. That'd be cool, wouldn't it? I'd like this. Yeah, I would like a cave. So I've been perfecting my barbecue, right? So this is, I mean, it's very different to any barbecue that most people would like. If you get invited to a barbecue. Yeah. You know, there's going to be someone who's on the like potato salad duty doing potato salad and like egg mayonnaise and fucking mixed salad in a bowl or whatever. You know, this is like the classic English barbecue that we grew up with. I've thrown all that shit out the window. This is so I'm reinventing the barbecue. And this is kind of a massive change of subject from Drago's cave. Drago could have a barbecue in his cave. He could. If Drago had a barbecue in his cave, this is how I think it would be. Go on. If you come to a barbecue at my house, my barbecue, for a start, my barbecue is fire, not gas from a cylinder. I'm with you on that. This is real fire. Yep. I only cook steak or other whole cuts of meat. I don't do sausage, believe it or not. I don't do sausage, don't do burgers. I do big, fat, fucking massive slices of juicy beef over fire. I do it really simply. There's not a huge amount of sauces. I rub them in oil, salt, pepper, maybe a little bit of herbs, maybe a tiny sprinkling of like garlic powder, maybe, or a rub of a garlic clove. That's quite nice. But basically, it's just massive chunks of cuts of meat cooked on fire, served on wood. Don't even bother with plates. There's no knives or forks. No plates. Get served on wood, sprinkle with pepper, and you get whiskey, and then you eat your massive chunks of meat with your hands. Nice. And that's it. I've done raw. Have you done breakfast on your barbecue yet? I haven't had breakfast on my barbecue, mainly because it takes when you... Like it takes at least an hour, probably more for it, for the coals to die down and for it to get up to temperature. So it's not really a breakfast. I've done steak and eggs on the barbecue before for breakfast. That was good. Nice. What were the, like, what did you put the eggs in? How did you cook the eggs? Oh, it was all done in a saucepan. No, frying pan, sorry. Big frying pan. So came out like this giant omelette thing with steak in it. It was really nice. So cooked the steak off first, had some chuck steak. So it was all diced up and then added the eggs and just came out like this delicious omelette thing with nice steak and eggs in it. It was so basic but so easy to do. and delicious for breakfast. Delicious for breakfast, steak and eggs. Couldn't. Yeah. I love it. I w I, when I used to camp in my old camping set up, I would have, um, I had a single gas burner, um, that I would have a saucepan on and I would do, um, bacon cooked in whiskey. Bacon cooked in whiskey. Yeah, and that is a special kind of treat in the morning. That sounds like some kind of special treat. Oh man, now I'm on bacon. See, I don't think you'd need, even though I wouldn't say no to it, I don't think you'd need the bacon with the steak and eggs. I think you've got a very simple yet fulfilling combination just in that alone. Yeah, it's like one or the other really. Yeah. Unless you're wrapping your steak in. But although you say you're cutting your steak up and like chop it up. Yeah. So bear in mind, this had to serve two of us. And I cut the steak up. It was like all diced up steak. It was nice. Scrambled steak. Yeah. It was good. I'm so hungry now.

UNKNOWN: 1:00:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:57

Have you done a whole chicken yet? What do you mean, have I done? What, on the barbecue? On the barbecue. I don't think I have, actually. So one of the other things I used to do, if we'd been to the Indian, then... And we'd said right over the weekend, on the Sunday, let's say we went to the Indian on Friday night. And I'd say to the guy we'd ordered it from, can I have some extra like masala sauce? And then I'd go to the butcher's. I'd get him to spatchcock the chicken. And then we'd put it on the barbecue. You do half an hour one side, half an hour the other side. But I would baste that in the curry sauce. And that was really good. Spatchcock is actually one of my favorite ways to do a chicken. Yeah. One, because I love the, I like getting a chicken and then it was actually something that I used to do with, um, pigeon Spatchcock pigeon is a really, really easy and nice way to have a pigeon, but I quite like the, it sounds weird, but the like shit is like the pure brutality of getting the carcass and hacking this good, basically spatchcock. If the people that don't know what a spatchcock means it, you basically take the, the entire body of the chicken and you hack the spine out, pull the spine out in a single. like just spine shaped line. And then you get the rest of the body and smash it flat. Yep. You know, who'd read really good at spatchcock and pretty much anything. The predator. Yeah. I feel like he predator invented spatchcock human. Yeah, he did. He's like, I've I've yeah. I reckon that's where it's all came from. Yeah, although he was quite quick at it because he would just pull the spine out suspiciously easily from the top. But I reckon he'd do well in a butchery. You know, if he was to work in an abattoir, he'd be quite happy doing that. So if you can hear that, all of my dogs have just decided they're all going to go and have a massive drink. I'm trying to mute the mic, but they're like, they've all, they're all just taking it in turns. They're all, they're all up. They're obviously getting ready for their pre bedtime. We are in the garden. Do you just like let them out and they all go for a piss? Basically. Yeah. Which is actually handy because Ava used to, be really fussy about going outside for a wee, but now she's one of three and I've got a really good outside light, she's fine. She just goes out and does a wee like a normal fucking dog instead of being scared of the dark and then scared of the grass and all the other dramas that she used to go through. Scared of the grass? Yes, she used to be scared of the grass. She I'd have to like, if the grass wasn't cut really short, she wouldn't stand on it. She'd go to great lengths. She would, she would, we can poo on the deck. She's like, although there was, and then there was like one corner where she'd weed on it so much, the grass didn't grow as much. Brilliant. So then, then that was the only patch that she'd stand on because it was, there was less grass. Yeah. She's been through a lot of funny. I swear, like she's like an autistic dog. She has like, she, she'll go through these phases of having these like really, really strict, weird rules that then she can't do. Like she'll pick a, like the, you know, if the grass is beyond a certain length now, she can't stand on it. And then I have to deal with it. But yeah, it's a bit, yeah. She's like now, like she, she's actually been, she's, matured a lot and she's all right she's doing well she'll stand on long grass she did oh she used to have to have a torch she couldn't wee unless i was shining a torch and it was like it got it got to the point where it was quite handy because it meant if i picked up the torch she knew she wouldn't just go out for a wee, but if I picked up the torch and shined it, she'd know that that means you've got to go for a week because we're going to bed. This is probably all my fault because the way of how I've managed to train her or whatever. But I was like, oh, like that at the time, that was the only way I could get her to wee in the dark because she wouldn't wee in the dark. So Steve, we, we, Steve and I had our last walk around, um, six o'clock tonight and that's him he won't disturb me now until he's till like six six yeah he's fine and he won't disturb me now until seven o'clock at least he's quite happy i will so like i'll take these what's the time now so it's like 20 past 10 now as we're recording i'll let these out again before i go to bed and then i will be getting woken up at probably about half five no he'll he'll be awake and he'll you sometimes hear him wondering um but he knows he's not getting his walk till seven o'clock so he's he's he's asleep but then i suppose you like he's been like you've brought him up with that routine yeah he's always had it whereas he he'll have his final meal around seven o'clock ish and then as soon as he's had that he disappears and he goes to find somewhere to sleep and he just sort of like at the moment he'll wander from he'll sort of have a wander about initially he goes upstairs and he'll go to one of the girls bedrooms or the bathroom because it's dark in there and he just wants peace to be left alone it's like he's he's done for the night um and like now he's he's come in he's next to me because every girls have gone to bed um he's like on the sofa asleep and he doesn't want to go out but if i started taking him out he'd expect it every night yeah yeah it was right anyway like we've since since drago ended in his cave we've digressed considerably to barbecues barbecues that's a good so remember vegans if we just recap this for you guys you know we think about you all the time Spatchcock is where you remove the spine. Yeah. If you need to see how it's done, check out Predator. It's a good, like, sort of some imagery in there that you can probably go, oh, that's how they do it. It's probably a little bit more violent than pulling the stalk off of a carrot or something like that. So, yeah. Do you know what I might do one day? I'll have to put a weekend aside for it. But like I might shoot some, I'll spend a day. I'll get some pigeons from my own garden, spatchcock him and then barbecue him and then eat him. Delicious. Yeah. Get him in the morning, spatchcock the shit out of him. and then barbecue him in the evening. Wood pigeon. Nice. That's a cycle of life right there. Yeah. I saw a magpie. I didn't realize this. Magpies are actually predators. I didn't realize this. I saw a magpie take apart like a blackbird the other day. Oh, yeah. Like, well, all the corvids are quite harsh. Yeah. I didn't realize they were quite so violent. This is like, I was walking... uh it was walking steve and i heard this like commotion of squawking and uh looked across and there was this magpie on top of this blackbird and he was pecking pecking at the bits christ yeah you should have had your camera i know how many times have i said you always say i should take my camera out when i go for a walk yeah so yeah um properly just like Initially, I'd do a double take. I went, that's a magpie. I didn't know magpies did that. They were probably fighting over a nest or something. Well, the magpie definitely won because the bird never got up. It was like properly murdered. Christ, you watched it. Well, it wasn't murdered. If it was murdered, there'd have been more than one. Well, it was. It was a magpie and a blackbird, and the blackbird lost. Yeah, it was a... that was a that was a joke about the collective noun crows i see crows attack red kites sometimes but they never win they just kind of like scare them off trying to get them away from the nests yeah we have a bit of that i've got i don't think it's a kite i've been trying to find out i've got we've got some massive birds of prey here and i've got one that lives in the garden and i've got one of its feathers in my hat Nice. I don't know what kind of bird it is. Buzzard? Might be a buzzard. Sparrowhawk? No, it's bigger than a sparrowhawk. I think, I've got a feeling it might be like a marsh harrier, but I'm not sure. It's a cool hat though. Yeah.

UNKNOWN: 1:11:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:47

But I know magpies in Australia attack people at certain seasons of the year, but we don't really get that here. If you go on YouTube, you can look at magpies attacking people. They go nuts. It might be just like a local learned thing, because there's a place that I like to go. I normally go to Cornwall every year, and there's one particular spot where several years in a row I've noticed that I can actually get starlings to like land on my hand. All right. Okay. Which isn't, it's not a commonly known habit that starlings will do anywhere else, but you can't just go anywhere where there's starlings and they'll land on you. But there's this one, and it's not even like everywhere in the town. It's like literally one small patch of grass that where I can, and it sounds ridiculous, but I've, I've done, I've been, I've done this for several years and it's like, it, you know, it's, it never fails. Is this one place, this one tiny corner of one tiny town where starlings will come and sit if you've got food. I think it was Cornwall. This was years ago. And I think I saw this again on YouTube. Um, was this town that said yeah we've got this problem with this really violent i think it was a buzzard said he attacks everything like cyclists walkers everything anyway got a bit out of his depth one day he attacked a moving poster post van and uh killed himself in the process so his post fans driving along this buzzard goes you post van dive bombs it and dies so Yeah, do you know what? Ava does that, the same thing. She's got, like now, not so much cars, but if I get in the golf cart and drive it around, she loves it. She goes fucking mental, but then she tries to attack the front tires, and she's got absolutely no sense of the fact that it's going to run her over. So she'll like sprint off and then I'll go off and then she'll come back and she's trying to, she will try and bite the front tire as it's spinning at 20, like 20 miles an hour. And it's, it's like actually really hard to try and dodge her because she's, well, it's obvious what's going to happen. She's an idiot. Yeah. I think they said, I think there was something, they said that about the lions at Longleat. They said they've got a, a, For some reason, they like white cars. So there's like these signs as you go through Longleat saying if you get stranded in your vehicle, just beep your horn. Don't get out and go, oh, I've got a flat tire. Or as they did, as they said, we had two people happen once. They like bumped cars and they got out of their cars in the middle of the lion enclosure. And suddenly all like, yeah, the keepers had to like suddenly come in and go, get back in. It was like, oh, yeah, but he didn't. Yeah, but there's loose lions around here, mate. um you know i think your uh your your life is a bit more important than maybe a small scratch on your car that you could sort out as you both go out of the gate because it's a one-way system that'd be bad wouldn't it like you dink cars with someone and you're like i'll get out and swap details and uh then a lion gets you yeah and then go Well, I haven't got to pay that insurance anymore. Yeah. Dodged a bullet there. Yeah. Maybe you should do that. If you think you're liable, make the other person get out of their car. Problem solved. Job done. Yeah. Oh, lion's got you. See you later. Right. Anyway, I've got to go to bed. I'm so tired. Right, folks. We've had all tonight. Drago's backstory, what was going on in his head, despite him not saying an awful lot in Rocky IV. If you've not seen it, watch Rocky IV. It's amazing. Spatchcock, vegans, learn the rules. Until next time, we'll see you soon. See you soon. And next time I'll give you my story I was going to do from the point of view of Lassie, where she couldn't understand why the fuck the humans couldn't understand that she was trying to point out that there's a little boy caught in a well even though she was clearly wagging her tail in that direction.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:44

Love

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:45

you.