Fair to Flair: Media Attention, from The Iron Sheik to Chris Benoit
1 Until he went somewhat insane in the '90s while inexplicably running for president.
2 he was an amateur wrestling champion.
3 the product was strategically geared toward them
4 I understand that it might be a stretch to assume that one single match made Hogan's entire career. General wisdom shows that the first WrestleMania match, where Hogan teamed up against Mr T, was the real tipping point. But it's easy to forget that Hulkamania existed before WrestleMania, and it existed even before Hogan beating Sheik. Arguably, the Iron Sheik's short title reign summoned Hulkamania into WWE in order to bring peace, and we've had to deal with the Orange Bastard ever since.
5 In fact, he's still the Iron Sheik, even though he's really old and doesn't wrestle anymore.
6 and people like him.
7 let alone his inability to keep intercontinental belts out of large rivers
8 I personally attribute all of this to Goldust and Roddy Piper. While everyone else was still wrestling nice PG matches with nice, cartoon characters, Piper and Goldust were fighting in hardcore matches in drag while referencing OJ Simpson. Have I mentioned that the 90s were kind of weird sometimes?
9 Ironically, this was around the time WWE did a story about a group of black militants whose mandate was to put an end to the racist favoritism in the wrestling world.
10 Can't wait for that 3-disc best-of Val Venis collection.
11 like drugs and mp3s.
12 Seven words: Senior Citizen gives birth to prosthetic hand.
13 Seven words: World champion rapes fake corpse in coffin.
Don't get me wrong, I think I wrote a pretty good article. But what I'm really proud of is the footnote punchlines.
