I’m not going to lie. I went through a pretty vicious wrestling phase when I was younger. Every week, a friend and I would, swear to god, take our shirts off and act out or own pudgy, pre-adolescent morality plays in each other’s basements. I was a character called Devil Dog, the WWF’s Intercontinental Champion. I entered the ring to Bruce Springsteen’s “No Surrender.” My friend was the Heavyweight Champ, known simply as Wild Thing. I’ll give you one guess what his entrance song was. Together, he and I shared the Tag-Team title, holding off, in a series of epic matches, the Twin Towers—Big Boss Man and Akeem the Dream (ne One Man Gang). I don’t think we had a name. We were simply Devil Dog and Wild Thing, and we were badass. Or as badass as two socially awkward and positively shirtless 11-year-olds could be. Back then, it was sort of cool to watch the WWF. (Acting it out, not so much.) Professional wrestling hadn’t yet devolved into the nu-metal spectacle of hate, ignorance and unbridled testosterone it is today. The WWF might have been ridiculous, but it wasn’t entirely without charm. The British Bulldog, Davey Boy Smith, for instance. The good guys, more often than not, emerged victorious, and hubris, embodied most spectacularly in the person of Mr. Perfect, was always punished—usually with an atomic drop. Karma was indeed instant.
All this is a somewhat rambling, semi-coherent explanation of why I’m so excited about hirsute history, branded t-shirts that feature the hair of famous people. Sure, they have writers and modern painters and physicists. But they also have wrestlers from the 1980s. That the t-shirts come in Hulk Hogan’s famous yellow and red color scheme only make the shirts that much more desirable and.... what's the word... awesome. They picked the right wrestlers, too. The aforementioned Hulkster. Andre the Giant. Rowdy Roddy Piper (one of my favorite villains). Hackshaw Jim Duggan. Ravishing Rick Rude. And, perhaps best of all, Mean Gene Okerlund, the WWF’s tuxedoed announcer.
In case you're wondering, I wear a medium. Also, here's a bonus clip of a 1988 Jim Duggan appearance on a regional talk show. The Hacksaw is promoting his upcoming fight against Andre the Giant. The clip is a startling look into the scrambled mind of one of the WWF's most interesting characters. Devil Dog, for all his preternatural talents and youthful charisma, just never measured up.
