Peter Conrad wrote about the new megastars of the World Wrestling Federation for the Observer Magazine of 29 March 1992 (‘Back with a bang’), one of those curious inversions where the ‘professionals’ are amateurs and the amateurs are professionals.
Conrad argued these tournaments were best understood not as sport but as a species of pop art. ‘The characters are caricatures, and have stepped out of comic strips. The WWF’s most celebrated performer, Hulk Hogan, is trademarked as the property of Marvel Comics Inc.’ Hard to imagine Giant Haystacks getting the same treatment.
Among the crop of names were Animal and Hawk (‘thugs with faces scarified by red paint and collars of spikes, who team up as the Legion of Doom’); Hacksaw Jim Duggan (‘a bulging-bellied oaf’); and Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts, who wore a python as neckwear.
Then there was Sergeant Slaughter, who had in recent years ‘trounced the Iron Sheik from Iran and an Iraqi schoolfriend of Saddam Hussein who wrestled as Colonel Mustafa’.
For such obvious camp, the homophobia was bizarre. ‘The Model minces out, clad in pink briefs accessorised by a bow tie and a tuxedo jacket from inside which his pecs play peekaboo. He preens, prances, squirts the air with a spray can of cologne, and is ritually humbled by the Texas Tornado, a cross-eyed simpleton who personifies virility and has a map of the Lone Star State embroidered on his buttocks.’
At Madison Square Garden, Conrad was mesmerised by a girl dressed in wrestling regalia – ‘All night, her young lungs kept up a barrage of invective.’ When Texas got the dandy’s arm in a lock, ‘she yelped like an infantile psychopath: “Break it. Just break it. Jeez, Tex. I think he wet his pants.” Her father added, “Kick him in the balls,” and the girl roared in triumph, “He don’t have any!’”
