The death on Thursday, July 24, of Terry Gene Bollea, best known by his ring name Hulk Hogan or The Hulkster, brought back memories of the World Wrestling Television [WWF] matches that my brothers and I so eagerly watched on Nigeria Television Authority [NTA] stations in the late 1970s to early 1980s.
WWF opened its programs by parading its biggest stars. There was the masked and highly athletic champion Mil Mascaras, from Mexico, famous for his flying tackles. There was The Mighty Igor, from Poland, who used raw power to crush his opponents with a bear hug. He was always accompanied by his manager, “General” George Cannon, who spoke in rapid-fire because Igor himself did not speak English. There was the Russian Bear Ivan Koloff, most famous for the “Atomic Drop,” in which, after subduing his opponent, he climbed on the rope and dropped on the opponent’s abdomen with his knee.
There was the Canadian “Dick The Bulldog Brower,” of doubtful sanity with his unstable head and saliva dripping from his mouth as he spoke. There was the flashy tag team Gino Brito and Dino Bravo, “The Italian Connection.” There was “The Love Brothers” Reginald and Hartford, whose specialty was “the elbow smash.” They were from Boston, Massachusetts; when my brother Ibrahim saw an ad to study in Boston, he said, “Who will go to Boston, only for the Love Brothers to give him an elbow smash?”
There was the red-haired Danish wrestler Eric the Red, who always came to the mic clutching a bone. His manager was also George Cannon. There was Big John Stud, The Macho Man Randy Savage, Thunderbolt Patterson and The Big Cat Ernie Ladd. WWF touted Hulk Hogan, with his dreadful “slipper hold” on opponents, as its all-time greatest wrestler, until he made a racist remark that led to his temporary ejection from the WWF Hall of Fame. He later apologized, but it was a very costly mistake of a lifetime, plus his right-wing politics, including active support for Donald Trump’s election bid in 2024.
My own favourites, which my brothers and friends did not share, were the 7-foot Frenchman André René Roussimoff, known as “Andre The Giant”, and the tag team champions Gito and Bolo, “The Mongols,” who were from Croatia in the former Yugoslavia. They were great athletes, but we later learnt that they were acting out scripts.
