The observation that we used to have a unified culture is somewhat overstated but true. The sheer amount of cultural choices before us astounds me. I’m almost 70 and try my best to keep up. The fact that I’m writing this is evidence I’m trying to get other stories and perspectives than the legacy press. My husband, an ultra-progressive Liberal wouldn’t sully his mind reading anything other than the legacy press. He refuses to consider he is becoming fossilised in his cultural choices - from his books to his music to his movie choices. For example he hated “Oppenheimer”. He felt Cillian Murphy was unable to portray Oppenheimer to the depth that Sam Waterstones did in a 1983 PBS series. For him there never will be a “unified culture”. He is not alone. And he is proud of his “ignorance”.
Ok. You’ve exposed me as the boomer dinosaur I am. The difference between 1987 - the year I got married - and 1973 - the year I moved to LA and was first able to gorge on TV sports - was cable. I’m one of those old farts that used to watch Monday Night Football for the halftime highlights of Sunday games, since there was no other way to see them. But another factor was regional. Wrestling on the Southern California airwaves was, for a long time, Mexican ‘Lucha Libre.’ Boxing was much bigger, with a regular prime time broadcast - “Boxing From The Olympic!” I landed in Lo Cali at 13, and was thrilled about all the local sports on the tube. I had come from rural Nebraska. Wrestling was huge there, but it was the real deal, and the kabuki theatrics of the pro version didn’t have a place among the limited offerings available in a tiny market that had 2.5 VHF channels (2 clear stations and 1 mostly snowy).
I miss the the 80's and 90's. Everyone watched the same shows, listened to the same music, had the same references. When I see today's most authoritarian groups, I automatically decide they are the unpopular kids with power and they want payback, which is why they try to tear down their old competition (stereotypical replacements). No one wants to marry me? I hate the nuclear family.
I remember all of those, and I cried all the way home after Lane Frost got killed in the movie. There were some alternative spaces, but black and white people kinda introduced each other to new music and stuff. Or, where I lived, anyway. We didn't party together often or anything, though. But, do we now? Maybe? I haven't been in the fun times scene in a while. I guess it just seemed more cohesive. My memory could be failing me, as it did the 2nd time I decided to go through labor. 😂
Having grown up in the 1980s, I agree the culture was different as you describe. There were a minority of good looking and popular people, almost always white. And if you weren't one of them, too bad, you would have to settle for being ordinary or maybe a dork. There was not an escape hatch to invent your own gender identity or quirky subculture; that option did not exist. Complaining about it only highlighted that you were unpopular, so everyone had to just accept it. In my own case, the pressure to conform helped me get into fitness and forced me to maximize my social skills - which improved my life.
It’s a major stretch to squeeze a tablespoon of cultural significance into the awkward spectacle of pro wrestling, at least in terms of it representing a popular manifestation of a bygone era’s taste for stimulating hero narratives. Dude, whatever that monoculture you’re on about might’ve had in it that inspires your mystical sentimentality now, you of all people ought to be able to try to contextualize a bit more persuasively. Pro wrestling’s well-deserved rep as a total BS sideshow with a mostly dumb audience kept it well out of the mainstream. The mention of ESPN actually refers to an entity that was low-profile and struggling to fill airtime, not the ubiquitous dominator of sports bars from coast to coast. That much being said, the curse thing is sad, and some of your overall critique is apt. And the bro culture of the time could be a major drag. But if you want to explore funnier and more period-certain entertainment options, check out The Stanley Siegel Show, or maybe a Red Foxx or Richard Pryor monologue. That sh*t was seriously funny.
Wrestlemania III drew 78,000 people in 1987, which was the largest attendance at an indoor live event ever in North America. The first few Wrestlemanias had Muhammad Ali, Mr T, Donald Trump, Aretha Franklin, Ozzy Osbourne, Cyndi Lauper, and countless other celebrities. Since then, the Rock and John Cena have become A-list movie stars.
If wrestling wasn't "mainstream" in the 1980s and 1990s, then nothing was.
“If you are tall, blond, and beautiful, just being yourself is enough. In the 1980s, young people who couldn’t meet such standards were willing to live vicariously through those who could.”
I am skeptical about how true this was. I imagine that like the Von Erich family, behind the scenes, those who were lower on this largely genetics-based status hierarchy were horribly dissatisfied and resentful, and that this would have played out in each of their lives in predictably bad ways.
I find very little to be nostalgic about from reading this article. While I am no fan of the politics of resentment, a society that offers multiple competing status hierarchies that excludes less people based on their genes seems like a huge good.
As long as you've got a graph of longevity by sport, and you're talking about how the present differs from the 80s, it would be worth having a graph of suicide rates over that timespan.
I'm glad you wrote about this, Rich. Pro-wrestling is America's greatest and most depraved contribution to human culture. There have always been fixed fights. I swear, I once read an excrept from a Church Father who complained about the swindlery of fake wrestling matches. But where it used to just be a carnival scam, America turned it into a performance art every bit as beautiful as ballet, compelling as competitive sports, and violent as warfare.
Fake and gay though it is, it deserves respect. There's a reason so many men and women have given their lives for its sake. I hope we never see such tragedy as the Von Erichs again. Although given the life trajectories of Kota Ibushi, Kenny Omega, Jon Moxley, CM Punk, and to a lesser extent Bryan Danielson, I can safely say that we have yet to see the end to the great human tragedies of sports entertainment.
I was under the impression that things have gotten much better. But I haven’t really paid much attention to wrestling in over 20 years, so I’m not familiar with those stories.
They have. Don't get me wrong. Especially post-Eddie and Benoit. Not to mention Vince immediately gave more give to the rings when he started his feud with Austin on account of taking bumps regularly in '98, which made things easier on the talent. But just have a look at some of the top guys today -- AJ Styles, Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes, Rhea Ripley -- and it's obvious they're on PEDs.
However, things honestly seem to be even worse in WWE's rival promotion AEW. They have just as many obvious roiders: Brian Cage, Powerhouse Hobbs, MJF, Kenny Omega. They wrestle significantly crazier matches, especially when said matches involve Darby Allin or Bryan Danielson, who left WWE for AEW specifically so he could wrestle crazier matches. And there's highly credible rumors that owner and promoter Tony Khan is a massive cokehead, and they're noticeably friendlier about partying than WWE. Not to the extent of how things were in the 20th Century, but it's obvious all the same, especially with the likes of Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley, the latter of whom made a big show of going to rehab so he could quit drinking, but whom very obviously from his pallor and bloat did not stay on the wagon for more than a few months.
Kota Ibushi is a separate matter, as he mostly wrestles in Japan. But he's a crazy person who apparently doesn't believe in medicine, and was for a brief period before the Vince scandal had the most shameful downfall of any figure in wrestling this year at NOAH's January 2nd show, where he showed up in no condition to perform, and proceeded to wrestle an excruciating thirty-minute main event anyway. This is a man who once had everything: wealth, fame, good looks, supernatural athletic ability, and neither sense of fear nor self preservation, and it's now highly likely he'll be either dead or in a wheelchair before he's fifty.
I assume they all still do steroids, but it seems to me the most dangerous parts of the previous era were painkillers and shots to the head, as can be seen in what happened to Benoit. People blamed Benoit on roids but then it turned out that his brain had been made completely mush by shots to the head. I think fixing those problems takes care of much of the danger.
For the record, the above five is an incomplete list. There are many, many more concerning, and even downright horrifying human stories in the business today. The improvements of sports medicine and increased safety and health consciousness have made a noticeable positive difference, but the wrestlers of today are crazier in the ring than ever, and it's obvious drug abuse is still a part of the lifestyle.
Not to mention the butchers bills that are increasingly coming due for decades of bad behavior, as has been seen most vividly with the Vince McMahon scandal, which very likely will just end in a bunch of money being paid out to keep everyone quiet, but which could very well lead to the dissolution and rebranding of the WWE if things spiral out enough. I heard many crazy rumors about Vince McMahon's sex life over the years, including from Vince himself, but what came out in those Janele Grant texts was worse than even the craziest stories I'd heard prior. Decades of coke, roids, and brain damage do a lot to rot the soul, and this was a man who already had a grizzly reputation back in the '80s.
I believe the reference to Terry Gordon should be Terry "Bam Bam" Gordy. He dropped out of high school at age 14 and started working as a professional wrester (freakishly young for the profession) . He died at age 40 due to his addictions. He most successful wrestling in Japan (solo and tag team with Steve "Dr. Death " Williams) and as a member of the Freebirds trio in the US.
Richard, A heart wrenching story from beginning to end. And in this time of skimming, I read every word.
Thank you for writing and posting it.
The observation that we used to have a unified culture is somewhat overstated but true. The sheer amount of cultural choices before us astounds me. I’m almost 70 and try my best to keep up. The fact that I’m writing this is evidence I’m trying to get other stories and perspectives than the legacy press. My husband, an ultra-progressive Liberal wouldn’t sully his mind reading anything other than the legacy press. He refuses to consider he is becoming fossilised in his cultural choices - from his books to his music to his movie choices. For example he hated “Oppenheimer”. He felt Cillian Murphy was unable to portray Oppenheimer to the depth that Sam Waterstones did in a 1983 PBS series. For him there never will be a “unified culture”. He is not alone. And he is proud of his “ignorance”.
Unless you believe in the Whig version of history, there are going to be periods of cultural and artistic degradation. We are clearly in one now.
And they do not! Lots of good books, the Elena Ferrante novels are from this century, as is the Dark Forest series, and many more.
Ok. You’ve exposed me as the boomer dinosaur I am. The difference between 1987 - the year I got married - and 1973 - the year I moved to LA and was first able to gorge on TV sports - was cable. I’m one of those old farts that used to watch Monday Night Football for the halftime highlights of Sunday games, since there was no other way to see them. But another factor was regional. Wrestling on the Southern California airwaves was, for a long time, Mexican ‘Lucha Libre.’ Boxing was much bigger, with a regular prime time broadcast - “Boxing From The Olympic!” I landed in Lo Cali at 13, and was thrilled about all the local sports on the tube. I had come from rural Nebraska. Wrestling was huge there, but it was the real deal, and the kabuki theatrics of the pro version didn’t have a place among the limited offerings available in a tiny market that had 2.5 VHF channels (2 clear stations and 1 mostly snowy).
This article carries the same sense of self-parody that pro wrestling does.
I miss the the 80's and 90's. Everyone watched the same shows, listened to the same music, had the same references. When I see today's most authoritarian groups, I automatically decide they are the unpopular kids with power and they want payback, which is why they try to tear down their old competition (stereotypical replacements). No one wants to marry me? I hate the nuclear family.
I remember all of those, and I cried all the way home after Lane Frost got killed in the movie. There were some alternative spaces, but black and white people kinda introduced each other to new music and stuff. Or, where I lived, anyway. We didn't party together often or anything, though. But, do we now? Maybe? I haven't been in the fun times scene in a while. I guess it just seemed more cohesive. My memory could be failing me, as it did the 2nd time I decided to go through labor. 😂
Having grown up in the 1980s, I agree the culture was different as you describe. There were a minority of good looking and popular people, almost always white. And if you weren't one of them, too bad, you would have to settle for being ordinary or maybe a dork. There was not an escape hatch to invent your own gender identity or quirky subculture; that option did not exist. Complaining about it only highlighted that you were unpopular, so everyone had to just accept it. In my own case, the pressure to conform helped me get into fitness and forced me to maximize my social skills - which improved my life.
It’s a major stretch to squeeze a tablespoon of cultural significance into the awkward spectacle of pro wrestling, at least in terms of it representing a popular manifestation of a bygone era’s taste for stimulating hero narratives. Dude, whatever that monoculture you’re on about might’ve had in it that inspires your mystical sentimentality now, you of all people ought to be able to try to contextualize a bit more persuasively. Pro wrestling’s well-deserved rep as a total BS sideshow with a mostly dumb audience kept it well out of the mainstream. The mention of ESPN actually refers to an entity that was low-profile and struggling to fill airtime, not the ubiquitous dominator of sports bars from coast to coast. That much being said, the curse thing is sad, and some of your overall critique is apt. And the bro culture of the time could be a major drag. But if you want to explore funnier and more period-certain entertainment options, check out The Stanley Siegel Show, or maybe a Red Foxx or Richard Pryor monologue. That sh*t was seriously funny.
Wrestlemania III drew 78,000 people in 1987, which was the largest attendance at an indoor live event ever in North America. The first few Wrestlemanias had Muhammad Ali, Mr T, Donald Trump, Aretha Franklin, Ozzy Osbourne, Cyndi Lauper, and countless other celebrities. Since then, the Rock and John Cena have become A-list movie stars.
If wrestling wasn't "mainstream" in the 1980s and 1990s, then nothing was.
“If you are tall, blond, and beautiful, just being yourself is enough. In the 1980s, young people who couldn’t meet such standards were willing to live vicariously through those who could.”
I am skeptical about how true this was. I imagine that like the Von Erich family, behind the scenes, those who were lower on this largely genetics-based status hierarchy were horribly dissatisfied and resentful, and that this would have played out in each of their lives in predictably bad ways.
I find very little to be nostalgic about from reading this article. While I am no fan of the politics of resentment, a society that offers multiple competing status hierarchies that excludes less people based on their genes seems like a huge good.
As long as you've got a graph of longevity by sport, and you're talking about how the present differs from the 80s, it would be worth having a graph of suicide rates over that timespan.
I'm glad you wrote about this, Rich. Pro-wrestling is America's greatest and most depraved contribution to human culture. There have always been fixed fights. I swear, I once read an excrept from a Church Father who complained about the swindlery of fake wrestling matches. But where it used to just be a carnival scam, America turned it into a performance art every bit as beautiful as ballet, compelling as competitive sports, and violent as warfare.
Fake and gay though it is, it deserves respect. There's a reason so many men and women have given their lives for its sake. I hope we never see such tragedy as the Von Erichs again. Although given the life trajectories of Kota Ibushi, Kenny Omega, Jon Moxley, CM Punk, and to a lesser extent Bryan Danielson, I can safely say that we have yet to see the end to the great human tragedies of sports entertainment.
I was under the impression that things have gotten much better. But I haven’t really paid much attention to wrestling in over 20 years, so I’m not familiar with those stories.
They have. Don't get me wrong. Especially post-Eddie and Benoit. Not to mention Vince immediately gave more give to the rings when he started his feud with Austin on account of taking bumps regularly in '98, which made things easier on the talent. But just have a look at some of the top guys today -- AJ Styles, Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes, Rhea Ripley -- and it's obvious they're on PEDs.
However, things honestly seem to be even worse in WWE's rival promotion AEW. They have just as many obvious roiders: Brian Cage, Powerhouse Hobbs, MJF, Kenny Omega. They wrestle significantly crazier matches, especially when said matches involve Darby Allin or Bryan Danielson, who left WWE for AEW specifically so he could wrestle crazier matches. And there's highly credible rumors that owner and promoter Tony Khan is a massive cokehead, and they're noticeably friendlier about partying than WWE. Not to the extent of how things were in the 20th Century, but it's obvious all the same, especially with the likes of Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley, the latter of whom made a big show of going to rehab so he could quit drinking, but whom very obviously from his pallor and bloat did not stay on the wagon for more than a few months.
Kota Ibushi is a separate matter, as he mostly wrestles in Japan. But he's a crazy person who apparently doesn't believe in medicine, and was for a brief period before the Vince scandal had the most shameful downfall of any figure in wrestling this year at NOAH's January 2nd show, where he showed up in no condition to perform, and proceeded to wrestle an excruciating thirty-minute main event anyway. This is a man who once had everything: wealth, fame, good looks, supernatural athletic ability, and neither sense of fear nor self preservation, and it's now highly likely he'll be either dead or in a wheelchair before he's fifty.
Pro-wrestling is a cruel mistress.
I assume they all still do steroids, but it seems to me the most dangerous parts of the previous era were painkillers and shots to the head, as can be seen in what happened to Benoit. People blamed Benoit on roids but then it turned out that his brain had been made completely mush by shots to the head. I think fixing those problems takes care of much of the danger.
For the record, the above five is an incomplete list. There are many, many more concerning, and even downright horrifying human stories in the business today. The improvements of sports medicine and increased safety and health consciousness have made a noticeable positive difference, but the wrestlers of today are crazier in the ring than ever, and it's obvious drug abuse is still a part of the lifestyle.
Not to mention the butchers bills that are increasingly coming due for decades of bad behavior, as has been seen most vividly with the Vince McMahon scandal, which very likely will just end in a bunch of money being paid out to keep everyone quiet, but which could very well lead to the dissolution and rebranding of the WWE if things spiral out enough. I heard many crazy rumors about Vince McMahon's sex life over the years, including from Vince himself, but what came out in those Janele Grant texts was worse than even the craziest stories I'd heard prior. Decades of coke, roids, and brain damage do a lot to rot the soul, and this was a man who already had a grizzly reputation back in the '80s.
I believe the reference to Terry Gordon should be Terry "Bam Bam" Gordy. He dropped out of high school at age 14 and started working as a professional wrester (freakishly young for the profession) . He died at age 40 due to his addictions. He most successful wrestling in Japan (solo and tag team with Steve "Dr. Death " Williams) and as a member of the Freebirds trio in the US.
No one hooked on to the curse stuff, so I feel invited. Still, I have nothing to say about it except TINACBNEIAC. And I probably misspelled it.