Hulkamania at 40; A Tribute to a Moment, and Movement, that Changed Wrestling Forever
Prologue; One Night in January
On January 23, 1984, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York, an event took place that would change not only professional wrestling forever, but also its relationship to the mainstream pop culture of the entire world.
At the start of the night a much-hated villain of the World Wrestling Federation, Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri, better know as The Iron Sheik, was the current WWF World Heavyweight Champion. He was originally due to defend his title at MSG against former champion Bob Backlund, for whom he had defeated for the belt a month prior, thus setting up a big rematch. However, Backlund had still not recovered from his injuries from said match, thus WWF owner Vince McMahon Jr. decided to give the title shot to a rising star by the name of Hulk Hogan.
Hogan was a much larger man than The Iron Shiek, but Sheik was a much more experienced wrestler. In his home county of Iran Hossein Vaziri was an amateur wrestler, and had competed not only in the Olympics, but countless competitions all over the world. He was a man who could legitimately turn men twice his size into pretzels. He parlayed his real skills on the wrestling mat to the WWF, establishing himself as a gifted submission expert, and invented the dreaded “camel clutch”, his finishing move. It’s difficult to describe, but you can see it here.
The story going into that night was that no man could break out of the camel clutch. It was the move that ended the six-year title reign of the all-American wrestler Bob Backlund and earned Sheik multiple victories against many worthy opponents. What hope could a up and coming wrestler like Hogan have against this experienced villain from Iran?
Well, chances are you can guess what happened that night. After a good back and forth The Sheik locked Hogan in his dreaded camel clutch. After only a moment or two Hogan signaled to the crowd that he was ready for this. Using his 6 foot 8, 300-pound muscle frame, Hogan rallied and broke out of the move by lifting Shiek up and slamming him into the turnbuckle. One patented leg drop later (Hogan’s finishing move) he pinned the Sheik 1, 2 ,3 and became the new WWF World Heavyweight Champion. It was the beginning of not only a title reign that would last 4 years, but the start of “Hulkamania”.
The 1980’s; All the Awesomeness You Can Stand
Looking back on the 1980’s there are certainly a lot of arguments to be made about how poorly things like the global economy, geopolitical politics, worldwide epidemics (*ahem* AIDS *ahem*), taxes, and so on, and so on, were handled. However, the one good thing we really had going for us in during that crazy decade was this: the entertainment was awesome.
When it came to high quality, genuinely fun, entertainment in the 80’s we had it all, great movies, and new and exciting genres of music. We had TV sitcoms, dramas, and miniseries that were watched by tens of millions of people, action packed cartoons, more comics than ever, video games you could play at home, and to top it all off, toys for almost all the above. The 80’s were the decade of Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Springsteen, Jackson, Madonna, Cheers, Different Strokes, Knight Rider, Miami Vice, Thundercats, He-Man, Atari, Nintendo, I could go on forever.
Here is what you really need to know about all entertainment during the 1980’s, everything was bigger, faster paced, and filled with color. Hell, some of the most popular fiction authors of the decade were Stephen King, Tom Wolfe and Tom Clancy, whose novels were massive tombs compared to the bestsellers of prior decades.
Even on Broadway composer and producer Andrew Lloyd Weber had become the unofficial king of the “Great White Way”, bringing the world musicals such as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Cats, and Phantom of the Opera, and many more. They were huge spectacles filled with songs that became classics and ran on Broadway for decades.
On top of all this, as if this all you can eat buffet of fun art wasn’t enough, we had professional wrestling, more specifically the World Wrestling Federation, and its biggest star was Terry Bollea, better known to the world as Hulk Hogan.
Superheroes in Real Life
As a kid growing up in the 80’s (I was born in 1980) I was no different than most boys my age when it came to my entertainment of choice. I loved the Superman movies starring Chrsitopher Reeve, Batman cartoons, He-Man and GI Joe. I also loved the action movies starring Schwarzenegger and Stallone, even though I was probably way too young to watch them at the time.
There was just one problem, none of it was real, none it even felt real. Cartoons obviously weren’t real, I think most kids figure that out quick, but even movies, I understood, were not real life. I was taught young that they were just stories, and the people on the TV were just pretending. Plus, all those movies and TV shows were contained within the borders of a television set or a movie screen. There was a distance between them and the audience.
The WWF though, as far as I and many of my fellow classmates were concerned, was as real as it could get. Unlike cartoons and movies, the heroes and villains of the WWF fought on TV in front of a live audience. Better yet, if you were lucky, the WWF may even come to your town so you can see these battles of good vs. evil for yourself! Heck you might even meet the wrestlers! You could shake their hands, get autographs, take pictures. Was Batman ever going to give you a high five? What were the odds of you watching Rocky fight for real? How often does He-Man give autographs?
What separates wrestling from all the rest, then as it does now, it is a very tangible and real form of entertainment. Yes, many things about it are choreographed and planned, and the wrestlers are not really fighting for their lives out there, what you can’t fake are the feats of strength and athletic ability of the performers. There are no stunt men or women, there is no “take 2”, there is no CGI, there are no cords or pulley systems helping them jump around. Growing up as a kid in the 80’s watching professional wrestling was a far more exciting experience because there was no denying these guys were far and away much more real than any hero I saw in a movie or TV.
Larger Than Life
The WWF embraced the colorful, over the top vibe of pop culture going on during the 80’s. Even before Hogan’s fateful victory WWF owner Vince McMahon Jr. was already pushing his promotion into the modern era. In the 70’s he successfully turned Andre the Giant into wrestling’s first mainstream celebrity; but Andre was from France, he had a thick accent, limited range as a performer, and standing at over 7 feet tall and roughly 500 pounds, he was not exactly an everyman type of guy people could relate to.
Meanwhile Hulk Hogan had already been laying the groundwork for his career, he wanted to be not just a wrestling headliner, he wanted to be THE BIGGEST star wrestling had ever seen. He had a stroke of good luck before his fateful night in 1984. For many years prior Hogan had wrestled all over America and Japan, and he caught the eye of Slyvester Stallone. Long story short Stallone asked Hogan to appear in 1982’ Rocky III, and Hogan accepted.
I won’t recap the whole film here, what is important to know is that Rocky III was a huge hit movie, and no professional wrestler had ever had such a high-profile role in a major motion picture before. Hogan earned great reviews for his portrayal of Thunderlips, an overly cocky wrestler who throws Rocky Balboa around during a charity fight but turns out to be a big teddy bear of a man once the match is over.
Riding that wave of popularity, it made perfect sense to make Hogan the champion that night in January. Hulk Hogan was the right man, at the right place, at the right time.
The Stars Aligned Perfectly
There were certainly plenty of great wrestling champions long before Hulk Hogan broke out of the came clutch, but what was so different about him? How did Hulk Hogan become the guy every third boy in elementary school had on their lunch box? Well part of the reason was just the WWF having better mainstream exposure.
Professional wrestling had always been more a niche market right up until the late 70’s, but with cable TV growing and more channels becoming available programming was needed to fill the time and McMahon jumped at the chance to get the WWF in as many living rooms as possible. To make sure they capitalized on this golden opportunity McMahon understood WWF’s TV shows really had to catch the audience’s attention. This was one of the reasons why the WWF’s style of wrestling, and in turn even its wrestlers, became more colorful and over the top.
MTV was a big ingredient of the WWF’s success as well. You could say MTV did for music what the WWF did for wrestling. MTV brough music videos into the mainstream, thus forcing musicians to come up with more visual personas in order to compete for airtime. MTV and the WWF were a match made in heaven back in 1984. In the early 80’s MTV and the WWF did many TV shows together, helped in part by Cyndi Lauper’s real-life friendship with WWF wrestling manager Lou Albano. Albano played Lauper’s dad in her iconic music video “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”.
At the head of all this though was WWF’s biggest star, Hulk Hogan.
Hulk Hogan, the Star of WWF
Okay, so why did Hogan become so popular? Why did Hulk Hogan become the guy who did for professional wrestling what Elvis Presley did for Rock n’ Roll back in the 50’s?
The appearance in Rocky III (1982) was followed by Hogan going all over the country wrestling for the then growing WWF, often tag teaming with Andre the Giant. Basically, McMahon was increasing Hogan’s profile by pairing him with the WWF’s biggest box office draw. Many of these events did find their way on TV in some form, either by local public access or in syndication.
That pocket of time from 82’ to 84’ gave Hogan the opportunity to craft his in-ring persona. For starters when he made his entrance he didn’t simply mosey down to the ring, trying to look tough, indifferent to his surroundings like every other wrestler. Hogan would powerwalk down to the ring, stopping multiple times to look at the fans, smile, point at them, clap his hands, give high fives, pump them up, all while “Eye of the Tiger” was blasted through the speakers (Rocky III’s theme song. Hogan wouldn’t use Rick Derringer’s “Real American” until December of 1985.)
Once he made it to the ring Hogan would take a walk around it first before entering. High fiving fans, smiling at kids, pumping his arms as if to tell all of us, “be louder, make some noise”. Then he entered the ring bobbing his head, shouting to the crowd on all sides. What was he saying? Don’t know, it was too loud, but it didn’t matter, he was talking to us! Getting us all amped up for the battle ahead. Hogan was, as WWF TV commentor Gorilla Monsson put it, “the irresistible force”.
Then the bell would ring. Hogan was definitely not the most technically sound professional wrestler ever, but man was he strong back in the 80’s! Hogan’s wrestling style, at least when performing for American audiences and TV during his WWF days, was more like a bar room brawler who mixed in some amazing wrestling power moves like the suplex, backdrop, body slam, hip toss, etc. Hogan was especially good at wrestling guys bigger than him, men like King Kong Bundy, who was about Hogans height but weighed 400 pounds and was built like a wrecking ball, or Big John Stud, a man who stood at 6 feet, 10 inches tall, had no neck, and looked like he could break a tree trunk over his knee. Hogan handled them with ease, watching him body slam these guys was like watching Superman move mountains.
Hogan would engage with the audience during the match as well. Granted he wasn’t the first to do this, he just did it better than anyone else before him. If he pulled off a great feat of strength, he would celebrate a little by pumping his arms and smiling to the audience. If he got stuck on the receiving end of a submission maneuver, he would break out of it by waving to the crowd to cheer and give him the strength to break free. When he finally won the match, his music would hit and he would celebrate as if it was the best thing that ever happened. He didn’t win the match, WE won the match, all of us, his Hulkamaniacs.
Hogan’s WWF promos are very much the stuff of legend as well, and as 80’s as you could get. Hogan was pumped, filled with determination as he talked about he was going to beat his next opponent. Giving over the top, impassioned speeches about training hard, saying your prayers, and taking your vitamins. Then he would end with his trademark, “Watcha gonna do, WHEN HULKAMANIA RUNS WILD ON YOU?!”
The whole package, the whole persona, was electric, and it especially spoke to us kids. Why? Hulk Hogan was having fun out there. Hulk Hogan loved being the ring, he loved our applause, he loved defeating the bad guys who came out and called us all fat and ugly and stupid. Hulk Hogan was like Superman, chuckling at the villains’ feeble attempts to hurt him and cheat to win. He was bigger and stronger and better than them because we, the audience, believed in him and he believed in us. Hulkamania was not about Hulk Hogan, it was about the fans who cheered for him.
Hulk Hogan, the Mainstream Celebrity
Whenever Hogan was not on WWF programming, he was making the rounds on mainstream, network television, and this is where he was able to bring Hulkamania to the masses.
Hogan, often decked out in very 80’s red and yellow attire, went on Saturday Night Live, and many talk shows after becoming champion, and he broke the stereotype of wrestlers being presented as just jacked up meatheads. Hogan was articulate, funny, charming, somewhat laid back, self-depurating, and all around gave off this great vibe that he was just happy to be there. Most importantly he was sincere, and open about his past struggles. He admitted to being a fat kid when he was growing up. Hogan talked about how he got bullied a lot at school, and his home life wasn’t great either. He didn’t start working out until high school, which is where he developed his mantra “Train, say your prayers, take your vitamins”. In a few years he went from being a fat kid to being a body builder.
Hulk Hogan’s message was very clear, “I am one of you. I know what it’s like to be put down. I know what it’s like to be unhappy. I hate bullies because I was bullied. So, I worked out, worked hard, became strong and now I beat up bullies for a living.” The fact that Hogan even looked more like a blue-collar construction worker than say, a Hollywood leading man, certainly helped his image as a relatable guy we could look up to.
The whole publicity blitz worked beautifully. WWF’s TV viewership went up, their live events broke attendance records all over the world, and they had a merchandising machine that rivaled Disney and Star Wars (Before they were the same company). Professional wrestling finally had a mainstream, pop culture icon. I can’t remember who, but as one wrestler put it, “Hulk Hogan was on more toys and T-shirts than Mickey Mouse.”
Hulkamania’s Legacy
The party didn’t last forever. Times changed, fans grew up, the colorful 80’s gave way to the darker 90’s. We traded hair metal for grunge and gangster rap, optimism for cynicism, and professional wrestling, in order to survive, had to move along with the times as well. In 1993 Hulk Hogan left the WWF to try his hand at acting, and eventually went to rival company WCW.
Yet no matter what you say, or no matter how you feel about Hulk Hogan, or the quality of wrestling during the 80’s, there is no denying that Hulk Hogan laid the groundwork for many wrestlers to become big stars in their own right. Much like how The Beatles broke down the door for countless bands in the 60’s, aka “The British Invasion”, Hogan paved the way for guys like Roddy Piper, Randy Savage, Steve Austin, Dwayne Johnson, Mike Mizanin (The Miz), John Cena, and Dave Batista. All of those professional wrestlers (and more) became hugely popular beyond the niche of professional wrestling and had/have been embraced by Hollywood.
Hulk Hogan showed the world that a professional wrestler has more to offer than just what they can do in the ring. He did it by building a fan base and a movement that wasn’t just about him, but all of us.
