We begin with my Mt. Rushmore of sports-entertainment wrestling. Keep in mind, this is mine and I claim no more than that. I entered the world of wrestling in the vicinity of 1984 with all of the passion of a pudgy, awkward ten-year old after I moved to Connecticut, and I exited that world, and Connecticut, in 1989 with equal abruptness and all the passion of a skinny, still awkward, and now pubescent fourteen-year-old who just had his mind cracked open by GnR’s, “Appetite for Destruction” and a VHS porn I found in the recesses of some forbidden drawer.

(Yeah, I know.  It’s a lot to process.  Just let it go and move on.  I did.)

So…here goes.

1. Hulk Hogan (…because…Hulk Hogan.)
2. Dwayne Johnson (…because…he’s like Hulk Hogan times Hollywood minus all of the Hogan BS.)
3. Rocky Johnson (…that’s the Rock’s dad.  He was a straight up, no gimmick bad ass…as was his tag team partner Tony Atlas.  Actually, his only gimmick involved his pecs, several tattoes on said pecs, and the movement of said tattos on said pecs.  Check out this video of the Soul Patrol.)
4. Bob Backlund (…the first match I ever watched, on a console television, involved Bob Backlund.  Backlund ushered in the Hogan era via the Iron Sheik. Also, I just love a crazy ginger.)

Mark then goes WWE/F “inside baseball” and leans quite Lampley as he describes his Mt. Rushmore of wrestling music and gimmickry. His decision, without much thought and yet with five cocktails coursing through his blood:

1. Hulk Hogan, “Real American.” (But seriously, this is a horrible song.  Lyically, musically, vocally…it’s a triple-decker heaping pile of poo on a platter.  And the video.  It highlights all that was actually wrong with the 80’s.  This is my opinion only.  Not Mark’s. Not yours.  But hey, it’s my blog.)
2. Dwayne Johnson, “If you smell what the Rock is cookin‘.”
3. Randy Savage, “Pomp and Circumstance.”
4. C.M. Punk, “Cult of Personality.”

(Later, Mark would mention the Undertaker’s gimmick, and how it should likely be on this list.  So, there it is parenthetically. And here it is on Fallon.)

Things kind of spiral from here, but the ride was fun…and as the cars return to the point from which they began, we close out this quintet of quirk and anti-quotidian chaos with one of the hardest, most-head-bangingest songs of the late 80’s, “Cult of Personality,” by Living Color.

Oh, and I should mention, we begin this final leg of our marktastic journey with one of the chillest, funkiest, hippy-dippiest tunes from the same year (1988), “What I Am,” by Edie Brickell & New Bohemians.

We present to you, “No, That’s Not Jim Lampley.  (Mark, pt 5).”

 

    THAT…is Jim Lampley.