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[phaonaut]

Long and from April, but a really interesting read.

Basically a group of Pro Wrestlers + Muhammad Ali go to North Korea and perform for a 350,000 spectators over 2 nights. Wire tapping, fist fights, bad food and Muhammad Ali hanging out with Ric Flair.

Collision in Korea 1995 Promo

Sonny Onoo (WCW consultant): When I told the Japanese embassy I was going there, they said, “...no.” There’s a big issue about Japanese citizens being kidnapped by North Koreans. I guess I’m a little nutty. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. There was no clearance. ‘You understand we cannot guarantee your safety’—that was about the last thing they told us.

Bischoff: I didn’t think too much about it. I didn’t ask permission. I didn’t ask anybody in Turner Broadcasting before I left. I had friends that worked at CNN in the news division. I thought, I’m just gonna pick a couple brains to make sure I won’t end up in jail.

Norton: We went in this airport and they were turning lights on and half the lights didn’t come on. There was dust caked everywhere. Nobody had been through this airport in years. If you were an antique collector, you’d be in heaven, because this place is old. Ain’t nobody been in it.

Onoo: Their television had two channels. One was nothing but Kim Jong-il and the Great Leader, 24/7. And while we were there, there was a pro wrestling channel, just for us. Some of it was black and white. A lot of old stuff. I don’t know where they got their videos.

Flair: Ali and I went to the equivalent of their White House for dinner. Just us two. It was beautiful. There was a very high-ranking official saying the basic thing that they want to tell us, which is that at any point in time if they wanted to destroy us, they could. Suddenly Ali said, ‘No wonder we hate these sons of bitches.’ Just clear as a bell. I said to him, ‘Don’t start talking now, buddy.’

Bischoff: Back in '95, I would get up every morning and run four or five miles before I’d eat breakfast or anything. I just had to run. And it was in the spring, so the weather was pretty nice. Not thinking, I brought my running gear with me and got up at like 5:30 in the morning, got cleaned up and decided to go out for a jog. Evidently, my minder, she probably didn’t anticipate [it] because we didn’t have anything to do until 9 or 10 o’clock in the morning. It was still dark when I left the hotel and I just started running.

I remember it being so eerie. The sun was coming up. There was not a person on the street, not a car on the street. Then all of a sudden, the streets started filling up. It was like it was coming to life. And it was because North Koreans—most of them—walk to work. And almost every one of them wears a suit to work. Now, keep in mind, I was younger then so I was in better shape, so I was like 5’11,” maybe 190, 200 pounds. I had on bright red sweatpants and a black baseball cap that was turned backwards and I think a yellow shirt. And I’m running down the street at the same time all these Koreans are flooding the street. It went from nothing to a mass of humanity in 15 minutes.

Now the sun’s up and they can see me, and they would see me from 20 yards away and they would stop and move to the side, like, Oh my god, what is that coming my way? It’s one of those evil Americans that are gonna rape and murder and pillage and torture. They diverted their eyes and they turned away and moved out of the way. I kind of felt like, wow, this is like what Moses felt. This is parting the Red Sea here.

Onoo: I remember Eric coming back and he says, ‘I just went running.’ I said, ‘how was that?’ He says, ‘Well, I got a lot of looks.’

Bischoff: I got back to my hotel and my handler was there already. I got a big earful about how that would never happen again. She was very firm, very direct, very stern. So from that point on, Ric Flair and I would just run up and down the stairs of the hotel. We didn’t dare go out of the hotel. We were told we couldn’t, that there would be severe consequences.

Bischoff: Let me make this real clear. I really like Vince McMahon—the entire family actually. I respect them and I enjoyed working with them tremendously. It doesn’t mean that I drink the Kool-Aid. And I think the WWE likes to promote the fact directly or indirectly that one of the largest arena shows in the United States was (1987’s Wrestlemania III) at the Silverdome in Detroit with Hulk Hogan in front of 93,000 people. Well, that was half of what we drew. So no matter how you want to spin it or distort it or twist it or shade it, that fact is an inconvenient fact for the branding and the positioning that the WWE is so great at.

Link to SI article