Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan are widely credited for mainstreaming professional wrestling by taking the "sport" national and away from regional promotions generally associated with the National Wrestling Alliance.
A major factor in bringing the form of entertainment to the masses was by associating its promotions and events with popular celebrities of the era. This was never as evident as the early-80's WWF "Rock N' Wrestling" connection that was prompted by the appearance of manager (and Mario Mario portray-er) Captain Lou Albano in the iconic rocker Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Wanna Have Fun video.
Lauper went on to feud with her cynematic step-father by partnering up in the Fed as Wendi Richter's manager (with Albano siding up with octogenarian heel extroidinaire the Fabulous Moolah). Promotional wiz McMahon ran with it, and soon he was rolling out 80's-era celebs at the first Wrestlmania in 1985, featuring WWF personalities in 3 other Lauper videos and animating his already cartoonish athletes into "Hulk Hogan's Rock N' Wrestling" series.
Truth be told, the WWF was as un-Rock N' Roll as it was the antithesis of professional wrestling itself.
Legendary grapplers, many of whom VKM would later scoop up into his own promotion, were getting into blood fests and fist fights that would make any self-respecting real rocker blush, all the while taking their cues from not only 70's super groups, but also Southern rock legends and hair metal glam rockers.
It's easy to point to this influence with the obvious types, including the Midnight Rockers and the Rock N' Roll Express.
Another obvious influence was due to the fact that unlike the WWF, they were smaller, regional promotions and not widely televised. Wrestlers in the NWA and other territories were able to use well-known licensed songs as their entrance themes. Most remember the intimidating Road Warriors coming to the ring with Black Sabbath's Iron Man blaring.
A more recent example is the now-WWF owned, once Philly-based Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) whose superstars throughout the mid-to-late 90's came out to just about every well-known metal song ever written. Eventually, ECW signed a national deal and had to opt for original tunes. (A great list of ECW themes can be found here.)
While Vince and Hulk and the WWF take credit for the Rock-N-Wrestling connection, there were a great number of non-WWF wrestlers who took their images, names and gimmicks directly from real rock and roll royalty - and did it much more convincingly.
Below are our favorites.
Bad Company, I can't deny. Bad, Bad company, Till the day I die
Tag Team: Bad Company (AWA): Pat Tanaka & Paul Diamond (Manager Diamond Dallas Page) Inspiration: Bad Company
Are you worried what your friends see? Will it ruin your reputation lovin me 'cause Im a dirty white boy?
Wrestler: Dirty White Boy (USWA, Smokey Mountain) Inspiration: Dirty White Boy (Foreigner)
Are you tough enough to still remember me?
Tag Team: The Fabulous Freebirds: Michael PS Hayes, Terry Bam Bam Gordy, Buddy Roberts, Jimmy Garvin (AWA, NWA, UWF, WCCW) Inspiration: Freebird (Lynyrd Skynyrd); The Fabulous Thunderbirds
Wrestler: Midnight Rider (NWA): After Dusty Rhodes was suspended by the NWA, the masked Midnight Rider burst on the scene to feud with Ric Flair, fooling no one. Inspiration: Midnight Rider (Allman Brothers Band)
Boogie Woogie Man from Tennessee, yeah baby.
Wrestler: Jimmy "Boogie Woogie Man" Valiant (NWA) Inspiration: The Boogie Woogie Man (Albert Ammons); Boogie Woogie Country Man (Jerry Lee Lewis)
Finally, we'd not be doing our readers any justice if we didn't mention some of these later-year non-WWF Rock N' Rock ripoffs.
The Boy Band Legacy
Tag Team: 3 Count (WCW) Inpiration: NKOTB, 'N Sync, Backstreet Boys
He'd be no worse a lead singer for the band than Gary Cherone
Wrestler: "Heavy Metal" Van Hammer (WCW) Inspiration: Van Halen
Race & Culture Wars
Stables: No Limit Soldiers: Master P, BA, Chase Tatum, Konnan, Rey Mysterio, Jr., Swoll, 4x4; The West Texas Rednecks: Curt Henning, Bobby Duncum, Jr., Barry Windham, Kendall Windham, Curly Bill (WCW) Inspiration: Master P
With the 25th Anniversary of WrestleMania taking place this Sunday, HHR looks back at the greatest moments from the first 24 shows.
WrestleMania
The star-studded spectacular at MSG that started it all, WrestleMania ushered in the 80's era industry standard of "rock 'n wrestling." It also made Special Delivery Jones a household name when King Kong Bundy squashed his ass in a record 23 seconds.
WrestleMania 2
Coming off the initial success of Wrestlemania, the WWF upped the ante by hosting the follow-up at 3 separate venues, the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, the Rosemont Horizon in Rosemont, Illinois, and the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California.
Channeling their inner Wahoo McDaniel, NFL players Jimbo Covert (Chicago Bears), Harvey Martin (Dallas Cowboys), Ernie Holmes (Pittsburgh Steelers), Bill Fralic (Atlanta Falcons) and William "Refrigerator" Perry (NFL player - Chicago Bears), paved the way for the legendary feud between Mongo McMichael (Chicago Bears) and Kevin Greene (Carolina Panthers).
WrestleMania III
Billed as the he largest recorded attendance for a live indoor sporting event in North America, Wrestlemania 3 is best remembered for the "Full Nelson Challenge" between Billy Jack Haynes and Hercules Hernandez.
WrestleMania IV
Taking place at Trump Plaza in beautiful Atlantic City, NJ, the show featured a 14-man tournament for the vacated WWF Championship and a 20-man battle royal. If you laid money on Bad News Brown winning said battle royal, you have a gambling problem.
WrestleMania V
People around the world shelled out hard-earned cash for an event that pitted a man dressed like a rooster against a 55 year old man in a singlet.
WrestleMania VI
The Hart Foundation defeat The Bolsheviks. The Canadian government then takes credit for doing its part in helping end the Cold War, and celebrated it as the country's first ever military victory.
WrestleMania VII
After witnessing the Nasty Boys defeat the Hart Foundation, Hulk Hogan became so infatuated with Brian Knobbs that he made him his personal man-slave.
WrestleMania VIII
Racial stereotypes aplenty, we saw Australian Bushwakers, a Mexican Matador, a Native American Tatanka, a black slave, a Canadian Mountie and a backwoods Skinner. If any of those people could afford pay-per-view, I am sure they would have been offended.
WrestleMania IX
Held in Caesar's Palace, the WWF promoted the event as the "World's Largest Toga Party."
WrestleMania X
The main event featured a match between Yokozuna and Bret Hart, with guest referee Roddy Piper, guest ring announcer Burt Reynolds and guest timekeeper Jennie Garth. When asked about the experience, Reynolds told reporters, "Ha. Jap sumo wrestler. That's funny. Like a big hat. Funny."
WrestleMania XI
Lawrence Taylor defeated Bam Bam Bigelow in the main event and then proceeded to do 10 lines of blow off of guest valet (from earlier in the night) Pam Anderson's ass.
WrestleMania XII
Held at at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim, California, production featured stock footage of the LAPD freeway chase involving O.J. Simpson for the backyard brawl segment. Double murder = funny.
Post-event, Iron Mike Tyson dubs the new WWF champion "Cold Stone" Steve Austin.
WrestleMania XV
In a pre-show battle royal for the rights to compete for Tag Tiles later in the night, D'Lo Brown defeated a bevy of wrestlers you barely remember including Brian Christopher, 8-Ball, Skull, Droz, Gillberg, The Godfather, Mideon, Rocco Rock, Johnny Grunge, Tiger Ali Singh, Scott Taylor and Viscera.
WrestleMania XVI
T & A (Test and Albert) defeated Head Cheese (Al Snow and Steve Blackman with Chester McCheeserton). Marketing icon Chester Cheetah was found dead later in the night of apparent auto-erotic asphyxiation gone awry.
WrestleMania XVII
Shane McMahon defeats Vince McMahon. Vince McMahon defeats the hearts and souls of wrestling purists everywhere.
WrestleMania XVIII
Rikishi breaks Yokazuna's WrestleMania record for fattest ass ever aired on pay-per-view. Wrestling historians note that this is akin to Cal Ripken breaking Lou Gehrig's iron man record.
WrestleMania XIX
Former NCAA Champ Brock Lesnar defeats former Olympic Gold Medalist Kurt Angle. And no one cared.
WrestleMania XX
Chris Benoit defeated Triple H and Shawn Michaels, but the WWE has since erased every record of this ever happening.
WrestleMania XXI
Billed as Wrestlemania goes Hollywood, the WWE promoted it with a series of parody movie trailers, including Pulp Fiction featuring Eddie Guerrero and Booker T playing the roles of John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson.
WrestleMania XXII
5'6" 175 lb Rey Mysterio defeated Angle and Randy Orton to win the World HEAVYWEIGHT Title. When asked how it felt Mysterio screamed "I'm going to Disney World, but I'm too small to ride any of the grown-up rides so I'll just settle for Dumbo!"
WrestleMania XXIII
23 took place on April 1, 2007 at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan, setting off Ford Motor Company and Detroit's plummet into corporate irrelevance. Fans started chanting "We Want Repo...We Want Repo!"
WrestleMania XIV
5' 8" in Floyd Mayweather, Jr. defeated the 7' 441 lb Big Show and Paso Dobled his way into hearts of gays and housewives everywhere.
Compared to their cartoonish forefathers, today's wrestling superstar characters are lacking. Back in the day, you not only had a gimmick, but also a back story. Today you just have face/heel 'tweeners dressed up like Jersey shore d-bags.
Accompanying the old school gimmicks were suitable "hometowns," usually bullshit.
Here are the top ten wrestling hometowns and as an added bonus, today's athletes most likely to hail from them for those of you who need some sort of modern, more mainstream perspective.
10. [Insert Venue City Here]
ECW's Chilly Willy was billed as "Everybody's Favorite Homeboy" when he came to the ring in the mid-nineties. Reason being, he was introduced as hailing from whatever town ECW happened to be wrestling in that evening. Never failed to get a huge "pop" each and every time, even when fans were onto the running gag.
Athlete hailing from [Insert Venue City Here]: Larry Brown. You know he's not of your town, you know he'll claim somewhere else home soon, you really don't seem to care.
9. Bombay, Michigan
Staying with those clever minds over at ECW, Sabu lives in hardcore heaven as one of the most popular wrestlers during the Fed's too-short existence for his kamikaze approach in the ring. It is well known that his uncle was the (Original) Sheik. As such, he was originally billed from his uncle's motherland, Saudi Arabia. Later, he was said to have hailed from Bombay, India. When he teamed with Rob Van Damn, he adopted "Bombay, Michigan" (Van Damn was from Battle Creek, MI). Coincidentally, Sabu and The Sheik were both from Lansing.
Athlete hailing from Bombay, MI: T. J. Houshmandzadeh. You want to think he's Persian - "This rugs from Persia! Persia!"- but he wants to say he's from California. Or Oregon State. No one's buying either.
8. Dudleyville
While people remember the Dudley Boyz (Buh Buh Ray and D-Von), the family actually included Dudley Dudley, Big Dick Dudley, Little Snot Dudley, Dances With Dudley, Chubby Dudley, Sign Guy Dudley, Studley Dudley and Little Spike Dudley. As the story goes, Big Daddy Dudley was a traveling salesman and fornicated all across the country, spreading his DNA like Johnny Appleseed. Hence, the family full of all races and denominations.
Athletes hailing from Dudleyville: Travis Henry, Shawn Kemp, Calvin Murphy
7. Badstreet USA
"Frontman" Michael "Purely Sexy (P.S.)" Hayes billed the Fabulous Freebirds as the "Greatest Rockin' Wrestling Band of All Time." Truth is, compared to many of today's athletes who want to dabble in the music industry, they weren't half bad. Still, they were much better wrestlers than musicians.
Athlete hailing from Badstreet, USA: Ron "Tru Warrior (T.W.)" Artest
6. Part Unknown
Best represented by two equally insane grapplers, The Missing Link and The Ultimate Warrior, both of who's gimmick was your run-of-the-mill madman.
Athlete hailing from Parts Unknown: Starbury. So insane, no hometown would want to call them their own.
5. Truth or Consequences, New Mexico
Take a socially awkward Long Island kid who likes to jump off his roof and pretend his fingers are guns, and you have another madman, Cactus Jack.
Athlete hailing from Truth or Consequences, NM: See entry below. 4. The Boiler Room
That madman from Long Island, Mick Foley, had a little split personality problem. When he came to the WWF, he personified Mankind and "spoke to a rat, enjoyed pain, physically abused himself (such as by pulling out his hair), wore a Hannibal Lecter-inspired mask, and lived in boiler rooms; hence, his specialty match, the Boiler Room brawl." During his WWF tenure he alternated between Foley, Cactus, Mankind and Dude Love. But it was as Mankind that he truly shined and it was under that alias that he brought us Socko, his now famous sock puppet and assistor with his finisher, the mandible claw.
Athlete hailing from Truth or Consequences, NM and the Boiler Room: Clinton Portis 3. Death Valley
If there was one wrestler that could scare the piss out of a kid in the early 90's it was NWA/WCW castoff "Mean" Mark Callous, better known as the Undertaker. He could have been one half of WCW and wrestling's greatest tag teams - the Skyscrapers - with "Dangerous" Dan Spivey. But Vince McMahon got his hands on him killed him. Or something like that. Regardless, after being billed as "the Dead Man" and paired with World Class (WCCW) manager extraordinaire Percy "Paul Bearer" Pringle, the Houston-native got himself a new hometown and went on to bury opponents in caskets. Was he dead? Was he undead? Wouldn't "undead" mean "alive?" Is Death Valley a lively town?
Athlete hailing from Death Valley: Brett Favre's throwing arm.
2. The Dungeon
"The Dungeon of Doom was a stable of wrestlers born from Kevin Sullivan's hatred of Hulk Hogan and was dedicated to ridding WCW of Hulkamania."
If only.
If you are going to rid the world of Hulkamania, you need a better group than one consisting of, among others, Zodiac, Shark, Loch Ness, Yeti, Maxx Muscle and One Man Gang.
Yeah. He kept them in a Dungeon. Or they were from the Dungeon. Or both. Who knows? Who cares?
(Yeah that's the Taskmaster above with the ex-Mrs. Sullivan who would become Mrs. Benoit, rest her soul).
Athlete hailing from The Dungeon:Pacman Jones and Tank Williams. Taskmaster Jerry Jones. 1. Deepest Darkest Africa
Speaking of the One Man Gang. Before heading to the Dungeon, he was a badass bad guy from Halsted Street, Chicago. Then in '88 manager "The Doctor of Style" Slick informed us that the big, fat, white guy was not of the land of Bill Brasky, but rather from "Deepest Darkest Africa" where he would return to "rediscover his roots." OMG became Akeem the African Dream.
Athlete hailing from Deepest Darkest Africa: Jason "White Chocolate" Williams.
I know we might be a little late to this party but it is worth mentioning that Cincinatti Bengals wideout Chad Johnson has legally changed his name to Chad Ocho Cinco. For those who missed Spanish numbers day in grammar school it stands for 85, his jersey number. It has been a tumultous off-season for Chad before this as he was having conflicts with team brass over his contract and also postponed a much needed ankle surgery. Personally I don't understand the name change. Unless you were given an awful name as a child, why not just keep it as it is. Two men who are of course absolved in my eyes are Terry Bollea aka Hulk Hogan who eventually went to Terry Hogan, and the Ultimate Warrior aka Jim Hellwig who went to Jim Warrior. For reasons God only knows - his amazing clip from youtube where Jim Warrior addresses a crowd on c-span is no longer available. In honor of bringing up these two legends can we get a little flash back to 1990, Toronto Skydome. You know where this is going... Wrestlemania Six. Enjoy.
My final thoughts on this is it would be so interesting to see Chad Johnson traded to a place where the number 85 is retired, such as the Detroit Lions - props to Chuck Hughes, or the St. Louis Rams - hello Jack Youngblood.
A more recent example is the now-WWF owned, once Philly-based Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) whose superstars throughout the mid-to-late 90's came out to just about every well-known metal song ever written. Eventually, ECW signed a national deal and had to opt for original tunes. (A great list of ECW themes can be found here.)
Tag Team: Bad Company (AWA): Pat Tanaka & Paul Diamond (Manager Diamond Dallas Page)
Wrestler: Sting (UWF, NWA, WCW)
Tag Team: 3 Count (WCW)
Staying with those clever minds over at ECW, Sabu lives in hardcore heaven as one of the most popular wrestlers during the Fed's too-short existence for his kamikaze approach in the ring. It is well known that his uncle was the (Original) Sheik. As such, he was originally billed from his uncle's motherland, Saudi Arabia. Later, he was said to have hailed from Bombay, India. When he teamed with Rob Van Damn, he adopted "Bombay, Michigan" (Van Damn was from Battle Creek, MI). Coincidentally, Sabu and The Sheik were both from Lansing.
Best represented by two equally insane grapplers, The Missing Link and The Ultimate Warrior, both of who's gimmick was your run-of-the-mill madman.
Speaking of the One Man Gang. Before heading to the Dungeon, he was a badass bad guy from Halsted Street, Chicago. Then in '88 manager "The Doctor of Style" Slick informed us that the big, fat, white guy was not of the land of Bill Brasky, but rather from "Deepest Darkest Africa" where he would return to "rediscover his roots." OMG became Akeem the African Dream.
