Wrestling as a Lifestyle

Old School
Originally uploaded by tikkirulz.

Ah, the WWE...I remember when I was in junior high and wrestling was the shit. Back then, it was the WWF and WrestleMania was still a new thing. Hulk Hogan and Rowdy Roddy Piper, Macho Man and Elizabeth, George "The Animal" Steele and Sgt. Slaughter - all names I remember. I actually went to a few matches with my Dad at Nassau Colisseum - not the most girly thing to do, but back then wrestling was a total phenomenon. It was so big that Cyndi Lauper got in the ring once with Captain Lou and he was in the infamous "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" video.

There was a WWF Magazine back in the day as well, and I remember reading stories that featured Macho Man and Elizabeth, have interviews with other wrestlers and give a recap of what happened in the ring. It was very guy focused, but I'd read my Dad's copies. It was back in the so-called golden era of wrestling - the mid to late 80s. So, when I read about the so-called launch of a brand-new WWE Magazine to be fashioned after Maxim or FHM, I immediately thought "wait, they've done that before and pulled the plug."

You see, in the late 80s, there weren't any magazines that were anything like the current men's magazines that are out now. You had GQ and Esquire with Details just coming out. Plus, people weren't as interested in wrestling as they used to - the fad faded, therefore they scaled the publication back with Raw and Smackdown which was focused on the ring to sell to the diehards. Will wrestling ever be the truly awesome phenomenon that it was in the 80s? I don't know if that's something that can be recreated at this point.