Ok, I'll admit it. There was a time in my life when I said my prayers and took my vitamins...I was a Hulkamaniac. (I still take my vitamins and say my prayers)
I was crazy for wrestling, loved it, believed it.
It probably started with my grandma Caddell, she was always watching wrestling so when I was there I watched it too. One of the most exciting times was when they would have a Saturday Night Main Event. Every few months the WWF (now WWE, I guess) would have a special show on Saturday nights at 10:30. This really was an event. I remember going being at the pool and concerned I wouldn't make it home in time to see it. The evening swim was from 6:30-8:30, I had a 2 hour cushion, but to my young mind any second away from the t.v. was risking missing a moment of action. Of course, there wasn't much action. Usually the main guys would talk, maybe stare each other down in the ring and shove each other. Someone would wrestle the Brooklyn Brawler. I always felt bad for the Brooklyn Brawler, nobody cheered for him, he never was involved in a major match or story line, he was just there to be beat on. A match like Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant was for Wrestlemania. A match like Hogan vs. Brooklyn Brawler was for every Saturday. Poor guy, I remember he had black vest with a hand print on the back so he could pat himself on the back....wonder what happened to him.
Things didn't really get bad for me until 5th grade. My friends were into wrestling, I was into it...way into it.
First of all, they came out with toys, cool figures that moved and had special features. I remember earlier toys that were just solid rubber, they were lame I didn't have those. By some miracle I had 5 dollars and a day off from school. I went to G&L (local general store) and bought Brutus the Barber Beefcake. It was AWESOME!!!!!!!! Now I had a problem, I had 1 wrestle, with no one to fight. I begged my mom for money, she said no. I tried to hustle and cut a deal.....no. Finally she said if I raked the back yard, she'd buy another figure. I'm sure I did a terrible job, but Macho Man Randy Savage was soon in my possession. Now, I had a new problem...Jake The Snake Roberts was still at the store. What to do, I had already played the mom card.....GRANDMA! OK,I didn't just go in and asked for the money (I learned from my previous experience) I asked if she or grandpa had any jobs they needed done. Again it was raking and again it was probably a terrible job but through hard work (I was 11 it was hard work) Jake the Snake joined the crew. My crew needed a ring, they didn't have those for sale (more on that later) so I went to my personal and favorite toy maker, Grandpa Caddell. To this day I believe he could build or make anything.On this occasion he came through with a wooden wrestling ring complete with turn buckles and ropes that would stretch...it was perfect and awesome. My friends and I would use this ring for many months and had epic wrestling matches. We even created a true death match.....wrestling until someone would DIE.
2 other major wrestling events happened that year. WWF was coming to Omaha! and my mom got tickets! I was so pumped! Super Fly Jimmy Snuka, Ultimate Warrior, and Demolition were going to be there. All my favorites. It was all set for a Friday night, I couldn't wait, it was set to be the one of the greatest night's of my life. The day finally arrived and it was.....cancelled. To quote Ralphie from A Christmas Story over his disappointment of the Orphan Annie decoder ring..Son of a Bitch. Not totally canceled but moved to a different date. I ended up going to a birthday party boy girl dance instead. Rumors quickly spread that the reason for the cancellation was that the Ultimate Warrior had died. My memory gets a little foggy here, I know he didn't die,but I'm pretty sure there were a few episodes of WWF shows were there was a different guy as Warrior. Of course this only added to the rumors. I heard he died of a steroid over dose and I also heard he died from tying his arm bands too tight. (in real life the guy who played Ultimate Warrior changed his legal name to Warrior and is some type of conservative/ republican speaker....I'm dead serious)
Needless to say, the event was rescheduled and the Warrior present that night was the original Warrior. I made a sign for Jimmy Snuka. It was on yellow paper with black dots (he had a leopard print theme) and I wrote "Super Fly" on it....he didn't show up. It was still and awesome time.
The other event was Wrestling buddies. It was a basically a pillow that looked like a Hulk Hogan or Ultimate Warrior that you could wrestle. I had to have one, but they were 25 bucks! to me at age 11, 25 bucks was like a million dollars. It was already past Christmas and well before my birthday so I was screwed. Again, foggy memory but I do remember it was a day my mom had off from work and when I came home from school, there on the couch was a Hulk Hogan wrestling Buddy! I freaked out! My mom had to make me stop playing with it to eat dinner. We had scalloped potatoes and ham, I remember that because I threw up late that night (from sickness or wrestling too much, not the food).
In April that year, my friends and I came to a cross roads of life. Hulk Hogan the current WWF heavy weight champion and Ultimate Warrior the current InterContinental Champion were going to wrestle each other at Wrestlemania 6. There was no middle ground, forget team Jacob and team Edward....you were either a Hulkamaniac or you weren't. All my friends were for Hogan, I secretly wanted the Warrior to win...and he did! HAHAHAH. After this summer set in and wrestling went away for awhile.
Now, jump to 6th grade. It was the fall and the beginning of basketball season. If you were cool this is what you did: You had to carry your basketball shoes to practice and sit in a circle and put them on and then after practice (which was always Saturday morning) and then you went home and watch NBA Inside Stuff and WWF. As Christmas approached me and all my friends wanted the new official WWF Ring playset with Championship belt. All my friends had it on their lists, I asked my dad for it. We would sit at practice and tie our shoes and discuss how finally all of our championship bouts would now be legit because we would have belts, and since all of us would have the ring, we could play at each others houses. Clearly an age of enlightenment was about to begin. Some of friends went so far as to peek at their presents to make sure they were getting the ring.
December 24 arrived, I was with my dad, he handed me a box. Quickly fear set it...it wasn't the right size...ok,ok,ok maybe it was the ring, but in a different box. I unwrapped the box......Wrestling All-Stars Ring!? What the hell is this? No WWF markings, no belt. I never let it show, but my heart sank. I understand now that it's just a toy, but to the 12 year old me, my life was over. When my friends and I got together at practice and compared notes.....saying "no" when asked if I got it...still stings a little. The itself didn't work very well, the mat didn't stay flat, all the post for the turn buckles broke and my mom and grandpa had to wire them down. I kept on using the wooden ring my grandpa made, it was better and stronger then any store bought one. A few months later I got a Sting wrestling figure and he came with a belt, plus I was the only kid with a Sting figure so I was cool again. I should mention my mom gave me the Ultimate Warrior wrestling buddy for Christmas that year, so I wasn't just the kid without the official WWF ring, I was also the kid with 2 wrestling buddies, my street cred didn't really take a hit so I don't have anything to complain about.
This post is getting long, so I'll break it up and continue later with part 2: True Devastation!
