This month I said I would talk about birth of Hulkamania.  But looking back on it today, it seems more like talking about the death of professional wrestling than the birth of anything.  Let me start by saying that I was only ten years old when Hulk Hogan won his first World Heavyweight Title in the World Wrestling Federation.  I had only been watching wrestling for about a year or two when the event happened.  However, even at that early age when I witnessed the huge expansion and WrestleManias that followed, I knew something in this sport was dying.  No longer did the TV shows have that smoke-filled atmosphere provided by that small arena in Allentown, PA.  The live events, even at the small spot shows like the ones I attended in Erie, PA, began undergoing changes too.  The product was suddenly filled with all the glitz and glamour of a Hollywood major production.  It just didn’t seem like the kind of place a man would go to see two people battle it out for a victory and be able to cheer his heroes and yell at the grapplers he hated.  Even today, I continue to watch just waiting for those few moments when some glimmer of the past wrestling style will seep through, and it happens less and less with every episode of Raw.  That’s why I prefer to call January 23, 1984, the day the music died in professional wrestling, instead of the birth of Hulkamania. 

I guess that’s enough with the sappy monologue, let’s get down to what really happened when Hogan took the title.  The story really starts over in the AWA where Hogan, after receiving national recognition in the movie Rocky III, was refused the AWA World Heavyweight Title.  To say Verne Gagne dropped the ball with this one would be the biggest understatement since Custer said, “Are those Indians over there?”  So I’m watching All Star Wrestling one Saturday afternoon on WICU TV 12 in Erie in mid December 1983, and the Iron Sheik was scheduled.  To open the program, they said nothing of the title switch to my recollection, but the Sheik comes out for the opening match and he’s wearing Bob Backlund’s World Heavyweight Title!  I was astounded.  Don’t get me wrong, the Sheik was a great wrestler, but even then I could have named about a half dozen wresters who could beat him for the belt.