I pained myself into a corner with my threequel macro-blog post. Now I have to macro-blog about wrestling! To be honest, I haven't been keeping up as much as I used to. I still listen to We Watching Wrestling. And I just discovered Ben Kissel's wrestling podcast. But I haven't had the WWE Network or NJPWWorld since law school started.
Does anyone else get sad when you can't keep up with an old passion? Starting graduate school had a way of weeding out a few of mine. These included watching wrestling, reading for pleasure and listening to music with lyrics. I often spend my breaks bingeing on these to make up.
Here's an example. So far this winter break I've read four (!) books: Black Swans, two Lew Archer mysteries and LaBrava. I'm in the middle of Nick Tosches' Dean Martin biography, but I won't finish before the semester. I've done the same before with comics, catching up on Marvel's Star Wars series and X-Men relaunch.
But this break I haven't watched any wrestling matches. The last PPV I watched was AEW Full Gear in November. And this time a year ago I was watching Wrestle Kingdom 13! Once I get WiFi again this weekend I'll peruse my YouTube playlist of unseen matches.
Through that playlist, I discovered my favorite Hulk Hogan match. That match is Hulk Hogan vs. Great Muta at New Japan Wrestling Dontaku from 1993. (Here's a really bad YouTube copy of match). I love this match because it is an outlier in Hulk's career. Here, Hulk isn't wrestling like Hulk.
For context, Great Muta is an absolute maniac. Like a real (i.e. shoot) fight, Hulk adjusted his style to match his competitor. That's not to say I don't like Hulk's WWF style. Hulk knew that originality lies at the intersection of pastiche and replicability. Hulk stole from the right people then produced a body of work anyone else could steal from. The same can be said of Clint Eastwood or Dean Martin.
Wrestling style (i.e. gimmick) is unique because it's not only on-screen presence or voice. It is everything. Move-set, catchphrases, costuming, entrance music, etc. Try this at home: ask a friend to do a Hulk impression. If your test subject even has a passing knowledge of Hulkster they could do one.
Hulk's speaking style, for example, is so pure it even extends to his writing style. Can you imagine anyone else writing a tweet like that (pictured above)? The carny lingo, the catchphrase, the time he tweeted it at. *chef's kiss* Despite the Gawker case, I can't help but slip in a "brother" into conversation every so often. Language is a virus!
A similar, infectious wrestling voice is Jim Cornette's. Until his recent controversy, I loved to pantomime his falsetto frustration. Is Jim Cornette the Tiny Tim of wrestling personalities? Judge him by my favorite clip, about his hatred of Water Valley, Mississippi. For further research, here's the infamous Dairy Queen incident, featuring Chris Jericho.
I would love to write a Tosches-esque biography of the Hulkster. I can picture the cover now. HULKSTER: NOT DOING THE JOB IN THE DIRTY SHOWBIZ OF JABRONIE DREAM MATCHES by Dalton Owen Huerkamp, Esq. As required by law, I'd start at the match with the Rock before going back to his childhood. Tosches does it, too, in Dino! With all this Tosches talk, maybe I'll macro-blog about Dino next post . . .