Wrestling is a strange beast. I completely thought wrestling as a kid was the end all and that the cast of over-the-top characters were my friends. I would catch the shows every week, the cartoon every weekend and had the oversized Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage dolls. I would use them to rain fire on my sister’s Barbie crew and it was sweet. Looking back, how awesome was it to be a happy kid and have these bad-asses as your idols. Many days were spent picking fights and wrestling till someone cried “uncle” or just started crying. Maybe that isn’t PC now but back before the interweb it was just part of being a boy.
Then you grow up and the world isn’t so black and white. You find out wrestling is mostly fake theatrics and that your heroes are paper-thin scripted actors. Talk bout jading you a bit and making a teenager cynical.
I just found out that the Macho Man has passed due to a car wreck. Admittedly, I harbored some love for the guy and genuinely hate that he passed. My cynicism has small cracks. I still kept up with his career, not in a big way but I would still pull for him. Even listened to the album, which was horribly funny but not on purpose.
Wrestling is a strange beast. I completely thought wrestling as a kid was the end all and that the cast of over-the-top characters were my friends. I would catch the shows every week, the cartoon every weekend and had the oversized Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage dolls. I would use them to rain fire on my sister’s Barbie crew and it was sweet. Looking back, how awesome was it to be a happy kid and have these bad-asses as your idols. Many days were spent picking fights and wrestling till someone cried “uncle” or just started crying. Maybe that isn’t PC now but back before the interweb it was just part of being a boy.
Then you grow up and the world isn’t so black and white. You find out wrestling is mostly fake theatrics and that your heroes are paper-thin scripted actors. Talk bout jading you a bit and making a teenager cynical.
I just found out that the Macho Man has passed due to a car wreck. Admittedly, I harbored some love for the guy and genuinely hate that he passed. My cynicism has small cracks. I still kept up with his career, not in a big way but I would still pull for him. Even listened to the album, which was horribly funny but not on purpose.
I am guessing for many in our readership this probably doesn’t matter much. That’s cool. But to the people that grew up watching Macho Man and felt his impact on popular culture, give a minute to watch these videos and laugh again with the craziest muthafucker to ever be on TV. The guy had issues and you never knew how anything was going to play out when he was around. DYNAMITE T-N-T !! Randy Savage and Mean Gene were a comedic version of Howard Cosell and Muhammad Ali.
Anyway, RIP Macho Man, you lived up to the name and there will never be another like you.
I don’t know who did the main illustration but I love it.
