1987 the WWF champion Hulk Hogan was allowed to beat Andre the Gi-
ant in front of a record 93,000 fans in Detroit. This enormous financial suc-
cess piqued the interest of Atlanta businessman Ted Turner, who in 1988 de-
cided to start his own wrestling show. To start his business he bought Jim
Crockett Promotions, which had been the mainstay of now much-shrunken
NWA. Next he named his new wrestling promotion World Championship
Wrestling (WCW). Finally he began raiding the WWF for talent.
Structurally, WCW attempted to portray an image similar to that of
the wrestling seen during the Golden Age of Television. Thus many of the
group’s performers wrestled in Spartan attire of boots and trunks, and
feuds and angles were reminiscent of the 1950s, where the wrestlers lost
due to concern about their sick relatives. The WWF, however, lived on gim-
micks. Here anything went—wrestlers were reported involved with other
wrestlers’ wives; The Undertaker rose from the dead; women stripped al-
most naked in the ring; and one wrestler came within seconds of having his
penis chopped off by an angry manager. (In a guest appearance, John
Wayne Bobbitt, notorious for having his own penis severed during an ar-
gument with his wife, came to the wrestler’s rescue.)
Although both WCW and WWF featured a handful of highly paid su-
perstars, they had no farm system. Toward correcting this shortfall, schools
taught by former wrestlers such as Karl Gotch and Killer Kowalski
emerged. Local independent promotions also developed. Known as “in-
dies,” they made little money for anyone but still provided wrestlers with
crowd interaction and dreams of stardom.
Meanwhile, public perception of wrestlers underwent a metamorphosis.
For example, in 1956, Rod Serling’s Requiem for a Heavyweightshowed a
punch-drunk, over-the-hill boxer suffering the worst fate imaginable for a
once-proud athlete: He became a professional wrestler. As the character
played by Jack Palance in the television production and Anthony Quinn in the
movie begged his manager: “Maish, Maish don’t make me... Maish, Maish
I’ll do anything for you but don’t ask me to play a clown!” By the 2000s,
however, successful performers in football, basketball, and boxing gleefully
took the money offered by the cable companies. For example, during the late
1990s and early 2000s, there were several ex-NFL players in the WWF and
WCW, and boxer Mike Tyson and basketball stars Dennis Rodman and Karl
Malone participated in professional wrestling angles and events.
Likewise, during the 1950s many an amateur wrestler would have
chosen dismemberment over participation in professional wrestling. But
that also changed. For example, Bob Backlund, a former NCAA wrestling
champ, began a long-term relationship with the WWF in 1974, and Kurt
Angle, a WWF champ of the early 2000s, had been an Olympic gold
medalist in 1996.742 Wrestling, Professional