Correction: It was Becky Lynch who fought Trish Stratus in a cage match. The Houston Press apologizes for the error.
Original article:
For my money, the best album of 2023 is Everyone is Dead Except Us by Wolfie’s Just Fine. No one mixes pop culture nostalgia and nihilistic pathos like Jon Lajoie, especially on the second single, “Hulk Hogan.” The song and the video (directed by Lajoie and Justin Slade McClain) explore the childhood elation of watching Hulk Hogan slam Andre the Giant at WrestleMania III. In the video’s case, this is done using old WWE (then WWF) action figures and other toys, just as Lajoie and his brother would have done to re-enact the match on their living room floor as children.
Writing about the song and video, Lajoie said, “As an adult, I rarely have access to that kind of emotional exhilaration anymore because, you know, life. However, that pure, blissful, unadulterated, child-like joy is so powerful, that even the memory of it can cause a small portion to travel through time to the present and put a silly smile on my solemn forty-two year-old face.”
I know how he feels. I can’t remember if I actually watched WrestleMania III on March 29, 1987, but I have lived with the image of Hogan slamming Andre my entire life. I was a full-fledged Hulkamaniac well into the 1990s, the kind of kid that whined until their parents took them so see Suburban Commando just to get another shot of the Hulkster in my veins.
As for Andre, I will always remember seeing him live in the Summit at some point in the early ‘90s. By then, the giant couldn’t get around without crutches, his massive body failing him as he reached his mid-40s. Weak and hurt, he was still unlike any other human who has ever lived. Watching him come down the aisle to stand at ringside was like seeing God stroll by.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of WrestleMania III’s main event on the industry. Hogan slamming Andre is the professional wrestling version of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The moment is foundational. There were legendary matches before and there would be better ones after, but what professional wrestling meant as a narrative medium was cemented the second Andre’s feet left the ground in Hogan’s arms.
I tuned into Peacock last week to catch Charlotte Flair Becky Lynch and Trish Stratus’s cage match. As the program started there was Hogan and Andre in the title sequence. WWE leads its streaming library with it, a reminder of glory and the magic of combat storytelling.
It’s also an image built on lies.
I don’t mean that wrestling is scripted. By now, we all know that it is. Hogan didn’t beat Andre in any sort of competitive sense. The Hulkster himself has gone on record multiple times over the years saying that if Andre hadn’t agreed to every part of that match, there would have been nothing Hogan could have done to change it. After all, according to popular legend Andre could flip whole cars on their side when angered.
No, the lie is in the gulf between the story the WWE told in the ring and the dark, dirty reality of 1980s wrestling. What the audience saw was a photo negative of what was actually going on backstage.
Here’s the official storyline canon for WrestleMania III. Hulk Hogan had been heavyweight champion for three years, becoming the biggest star in the business. Both he and Andre were friends and babyfaces, but things changed in 1987 when Hogan was presented with a trophy celebrating his run. Andre came to the ring to congratulate him, but the giant appeared out of sorts and a little jealous.
A week later, Andre got his own trophy, quite a bit smaller than Hogan’s, celebrating a 15-year undefeated streak. Hogan congratulated Andre, who walked out of the segment in disgust. The next week, Andre brought notorious heel manager Bobby “The Brain” Heenan with him to the ring and attacked Hogan. The Hulkster was visibly upset by the betrayal of his longtime friend and pleaded with Andre to make peace.
The stage was set for the clash of the titans at the pay per view. There, Hogan prevailed, proving that he was the better person, a paragon of virtue who righteously beat the unbeatable man.
That was Hogan in a nutshell throughout the 1980s and ‘90s until the rise of the Hollywood persona. His catch phrase was “Train, take your vitamins, and say your prayers.” He was a living cartoon character, the embodiment of Reagan’s America who bled red, white and blue. To millions of kids like me and Lajoie, goodness as a concept had never been more perfectly embodied.
Of course he beat that dastardly Andre, a big jealous bully who let evil corrupt his heart. That’s what heroes do. Andre would only continue to spiral morally following his defeat. A year later, Andre would win the WWE heavyweight championship for the only time, and immediately sell the belt to “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase.
In reality, Hulk Hogan was no paragon. Decades of interviews with former workers, depositions in court cases, and tremendous journalism by people like Josephine Reisman have revealed how corrupt Hogan really was. He might have trained, taken vitamins, and said his prayers, but he was also on steroids so much that he had a golf ball-sized bit of scar tissue from it according to fellow wrestler Billy Graham.
There’s no doubt that Hogan was and is a big strong dude, but those superhuman 24-inch pythons he bragged about were the result of WWE’s obsession with chemically enhanced physiques. That obsession led to dozens of wrestlers dying before they reached the age of 50. It may not be technically accurate to call Hogan a cheater since he was never actually competing, but his ability to handle the steroid use of the day and not die has more to do with Hulkamania than his Christian nationalist persona and morals.
But that’s a sin shared by hundreds of superstars of his era. Hogan’s true villainy involves his crippling of a burgeoning union for his peers. You could argue that the Hulkster singlehandedly destroyed the concept through one act of cowardice and greed.
In 1986, WrestleMania 2 was a make-or-break event for WWE owners Vince and Linda McMahon. The two were on a quest to end the territory system and create a national wrestling company that dwarfed all others. To do this, they needed very big pay per view successes. The first WrestleMania had been one, but very expensive to produce. Its sequel would decide the entire future of wrestling.
One man knew this better than anyone: Jesse “The Body” Ventura. Fresh off joining the Screen Actors Guild for his part in Predator, Ventura saw an opportunity to gain his fellow wrestlers the same benefits actors got. Knowing that the show was the perfect place to bargain from strength against the McMahons, Ventura gave a speech backstage to the wrestlers prior to the event extolling the benefits of organized labor. The plan was to show up to the event and then refuse to go on if their demands weren’t met.
The next night, Ventura got a call from Vince threatening to fire him if he ever brought up unionizing again. Seeing that he had been ratted out and was now alone, Ventura capitulated.
Decades later on “Stone Cold” Steve Austin’s podcast, Ventura revealed that Vince admitted in a legal deposition that the snitch was Hogan.
“Hogan continued to lie and said he didn’t do it,” Ventura told Austin. “Well, in the trial, we got the records of WrestleMania III, the big one. Him and Andre. Well, Hogan made more money than all of us combined, including Andre. So naturally, he didn’t want a union.”
To this day, wrestlers do not have a union. They are hired as independent contractors who are responsible for their own healthcare. This, plus the toll the industry takes on their bodies, has contributed to the deaths of countless superstars, and much of it can all be laid at the boots of Hulk Hogan. It is ironic that Andre would be portrayed as a man who would sell out wrestling’s highest honor, the championship belt, for money, when it was Hogan, the perennial hero, who sold out his colleagues for both the belt and a hefty paycheck.
And what of Andre? The sad truth is that Andre was the hero Hogan could never be. By WrestleMania III, Andre’s physical ailments were devastating. He was no longer the man who could once do a splash off the ropes. His wrestling singlet hid a back brace. When he had to catch Robin Wright in The Princess Bride, she was secured to wires because he couldn’t physically support an actress two feet shorter than him and a quarter of his weight.
But there was nothing Andre loved like he loved the wrestling industry. When WWE told him that they needed him to be a monster for Hogan to vanquish, he did it. He did it even though having fans throwing things at him for being a heel broke his heart. He did it even though the man who was asking for him to become a monster allegedly raped his friend, Rita Chatterton. He did it even as it hurt to move because he knew wrestling stories would be better if Andre the Giant was something other, presumably nobler men could tear down.
There’s no arguing with the results. While Andre has rightfully reclaimed his place as the most universally beloved man in sports entertainment history and Hogan is now a pariah, that image from WrestleMania III endures. The story of good versus evil, of purity of spirit overcoming corruption, has colored the memories of generations of fans. The bodyslam heard round the world is iconic.
But I think about what it could have been if the internet and greater backstage knowledge had existed back then. Would fans still have hurled garbage at a sick man who was just trying to do his best if they knew all Andre had endured for their entertainment? Would they have cheered a plastic hero like Hogan knowing he was an anti-union goon for the McMahons and at least partially a fraud?
Wrestling fans are fickle. There have been great moments in matches where the crowd flipped the script on who was the bad guy. Hell, Hogan was in one of the best ones ever. I like to think that in an alternate universe, Andre is met with wild adulation instead of boos. And then, when Hogan goes for that famous slam, the giant simply doesn’t move. Maybe he holds Hogan down and farts on him until Andre gets the pin no matter what the storyline said was supposed to happen.
It would be unfair to lay all the destruction of the wrestling industry at the feet of a single match. However, WrestleMania III’s main event remains a fixed point in time for the business. The betrayal by Hogan at the union meeting the previous year led directly to his incredible reward at this iconic event. When he slammed Andre, hopes for a kinder, more equitable future for the workers went down with the giant. The success of the event remade the world of professional wrestling, and we all rooted for the wrong man because it was a good story.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
