OK, so here's a topic that i've been thinking a lot about and i promise, once i get this out of my system, i will never write about it again:

professional wrestling in the 1980's

i recently got my paws of some wrestling videos from the mid 80s and i was 10 years old all over again. the passage of time makes it easy to forget how these guys were the golden gods of the 80s. hulkamania had reached its peak, and it would never be that good again, but we didn't know that then. of course, wrestling looked as fake then as it does now, but as a kid, you totally believed it. I remember going to the CYC to see Andre the Giant, and it was magikal. even at that age, i knew the drill- good guy starts out doing well, bad guy briefly gets the upper hand, good guy comes back in a big way and triumphs. if the ref was crooked, he would call in favor of the bad guy, and we'd all boo and yell and throw our tiny orange drink cartons. at the end of the match, i tried to get near the ring, holding out my mothers red gingham address book for an autograph. of course, i was too little and missed my mean joe green jersey moment. i didn't care, i had seen andre up close (along with a handful of other wrestlers whose names have been lost in the cobwebs of my noodle), and that was enough for me.

anyway, back to the tapes. watching these videos, seeing these guys i hadn't seen or thought about for 20 years, i was surprised. the devotion to them was insane. a mid-80s audience consisted of kids screaming their heads off, holding up signs and figures of their favorite characters, basically going completely fruit loops for them. and the characters-my god! randy 'macho man' savage and elizabeth, hulk hogan, king kong bundy, junkyard dog, george 'the animal' steele, the iron sheik, and my personal favorite- rowdy roddy piper. i know everyone loved hogan, but when that bagpipe music would come on and piper would emerge in his 'hot rod' t-shirt and kilt, it was my turn to go batshit. i know he retired from wrestling to do movies, and no one can argue the basic genius of 'they live', but i wonder what roddy piper is up to these days. i would love to see a documentary about where all those guys ended up

one really great shining moment stood out in these tapes for me. randy savage was getting pummelled by the honky tonk man (a poor hillbilly elvis wrestler) and the hart foundation. his manager, the lovely elizabeth, ran out of the stadium and came back, pulling hulk hogan with her. now, hogan and savage had been sworn enemies prior to this, but the hulkster stepped in and beat the crap out of everyone but savage. afterward, in the ring, they just looked at each other for what seemed like forever. then it happened- they shook hands, and every flashbulb in the place went off. everyone went crazy and a new alliance of power was born. i wonder if any of those kids still have those pictures.

after that, randy savage seemed to go completely bonkers, talking about the "danger zone". This, in his world, was roughly, "east of the pacific, west of england, south of mars, and north of hell." i have no idea what he was talking about. all i know is that i'd like to thank these guys for providing me with such pure joy and happiness at a young age.