The first wrestling tape I’d ever seen was Hulkamania – it was the second tape made by the World Wrestling Federation’s Coliseum Video team, and the first featuring a single wrestler.
This tape was all over. If you were a suburban kid, city kid, rural kid, kid on Mars – this tape somehow found its way into your home. I once went to a friend’s house. They were extremely religious, non-violent, went to a private religious school and wouldn’t wear shorts and didn’t have cable – but somehow this tape was sitting propped next to the VHS player on top of their TV.
Hogan was one of the biggest stars in the country at the time. In the Ben Affleck and Matt Damon movie Air, there’s a cascading montage of 80s memories flowing through the opening credits, and right there is Hulk Hogan with his big leg drop. Along with Reagan, Michael Jackson, Van Halen, MTV, the Cold War – you name it.
The tape featured early Hogan WWF title defenses, including the big ones from his feud with Big John Studd, a match with Dr. Death David Schultz, another with Greg Valentine and his world title win against the Iron Sheik. But what got me and my friend’s attention was this milk shake, python power drink mix he’s trying to shell with Lord Alfred Hayes in a comedy promo.
Yes, we tried making our own Python Powder. We dropped in some raw egg like Rocky Balboa, went into the cabinet for anything like powder (thank God my friends mom and dad weren’t that 80s, that could have been interesting. I’m not going mentioning my neighbor two doors down who was busted for selling that white powder). And figured out the blender without losing any digits. This also occurred with my cousin, but that’s a different story.
Half of it was on the kitchen tile, half was chugged and then brutally hurled into a toilet. The dog growled at us when we tried feeding her some of it.
I had seen a couple matches, but the Hulkamania tape and my near-death experience with this home made concoction was the most wrestling I had experienced at this very, very, very early date in my life.
My best friend went the ultimate route – he bought the Starrcade 85 DVD, which was advertised heavily on Crockett programming. By the time he got it, it was months after the PPV. Half the matches were cut short, but it was still a hell of a card.
We piled on his floor for about three and a half hours of wrestling. Flair vs. Dusty was the main event, but the real show was Magnum TA vs. Tully Blanchard in the famous I Quit cage match. WWE blu-rays featured this match on its cover decades later, maybe the only non-WWE match to get that kind of billing.
If there was a match that made you question the kayfabe accusations, this was it. I never believed wrestling was a legit sport, and that’s one reason why I was able to take it for what it was. Magnum and Blanchard made me think they hated each other – which they did. We nearly burned through that tape looking for clues, to Baby Doll throwing that wooden chair into the ring to Magnum putting wooden spike from the splinters into Blanchard’s forehead.
It’s still the best cage match I’ve ever seen. I don’t know if a major promotion has ever done another. Mid-South and some other promotions did a few barb-wire cage matches, (Hello, Sheepherders). But the judge is always Magnum vs. Tully.
My fandom ebbed and flowed through the years -usually ebbing. But for some reason, a few times a year, we would grab every UFC or WWF/WWE tape or DVD we could find at the rental store. That made for a binge weekend and some of the best times we had in the house.
Maybe we were slowed in, or the Ohio heat had slowed down summer to a long burn, we started plowing through tapes and DVDs at a record pace, especially on weekends. There was non better than the Royal Rumbles.
The Royal Rumble is the best time capsule of WWF you can find. if you want the state of the company, go through the rumbles year to year and you’ll see it.
The event peaked in 1992, early on, when the winner won the WWF title. Flair started second or third (I can’t remember which), and the heels got the crap beat out of them. Flair took bumps for the entire match from every top babyface, and some in the middle. This was every WWF match at the big shows, where the bad guys only got control through some kind of illegal activity.
We knew Flair would come out early – he was the master of long match. Minutes to him were like seconds. And he could make everyone look amazing. This match was the accomplishment of his WWF career, and he left no doubt who the best wrestler around was by the end.
Toward the mid 90s the rumbles had an every thinning roster. By the Attitude Era, that continued. A lot of former wrestlers and surprises would come in. Booking around Steve Austin and The Rock was always a feature, but it was easy to see the WWF had a lot on top during this period and was thin in the middle and at the bottom.
The first Coliseum Video was the first WrestleMania. Tons of matches, tons of stars, the show had a lot of splash. It was fun, but next to Starrcade 85 it might as well been on a different planet.
There were so many gems on these tapes and DVDs. The Orient Express (Pat Tanaka and Paul Diamond) vs. the Rockers (Marty Jannetty and Shawn Michaels), resuming their feuds from their AWA days.
The biggest was Bret Hart and Curt Hennig. Mr. Perfect was a long-reigning WWF Intercontinental champ. Hart was the babyface of the moment, the up-and-comer. The excitement around him from the crowd was amazing. The match they put on at Summer Slam 91 was the best WWF match I’d ever seen. WWF would go to is New Generation youth movement officially within a couple years, but this was the beginning.
Keep the physical stuff
The debate about physical media isn’t a debate at all.
I went to a GameStop recently. Staff implored customers to buy consoles that used actual DVD games. Don’t rely on digital. Playstation’s network recently dumped 1,500 games, someone said. He had lost a few dozen and was out several hundred bucks.
Why? Because those online purchases are licenses for a limited time, for as long as Playstation can use those games. Meaning once they’re up on the network, they’re also up on your device. No in-store credit – nothing.
Similar concerns have been stated by Christopher Nolan and Guillermo del Toro. Two major directors, Nolan’s Oppenheimer opus was a major draw for film at the theater – it couldn’t be experienced the same way.
Nolan believes physical media guarantees fans can keep hold of their purchases. Giving that up means giving up everything in the longterm.
I’m not surprised WWE is gutting its physical media. TKO wants that stock price over $100 and they’ll do everything they can to get it there. Most get the WWE network through Peacock, but people still buy DVDs – I do. Sure, it’s easier to bring up the iTunes or Google store, but the act of downloading is a cheap imitation of contraction. It’s an ugly practice that does worse than commodifying art, it renders it non-existent, except a cloud – which the gatekeepers always control.
The movie studios, sports, TV, media, news – it’s a race to split themselves from the physical sale of products (which is where money is made) to the sale of nothing – air – which has had major declining returns or everyone who has taken the dive.
Music and words were turned into nothing first for the reason it was easier to download over a phone or broadband line. Then came photos, TV and film, which is confusing since the open waters that led to music and words being unprotected have been all but sewn up by modern corporate America. They’re in a race to see who can go out of business first.
Wrestling is among that art. If you want a real representation of wrestling in the territories, or the WWF at different eras, it can’t be had on the streaming servi
ce. A big chunk is there, but a lot of what made the product what it was – some good, some bad, and a lot of it terrible – is gone or censored.
We don’t know what the future holds, but I know when the power goes out, I can grab a book. If the wifi goes out, I can grab a DVD or an album. If the internet goes out for good, we’ll be without our most valuable possession – our culture.