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[1991-02-24-WWF-Wrestling Challenge] Interview: Sgt. Slaughter & Gen. Adnan


Loss

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  • 5 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

No way could the WWF burn an American flag without pissing off sponors and drawing an even bigger media backlash than the one they got. Nonetheless, Sarge and Okerlund absolutely pound us over the head that this Hogan poster is EXACTLY THE SAME as the flag. Slaughter's assertion that Hogan is a foreign invader who doesn't know what combat is like is a rather neat thing to point out. Big heat for this.

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  • 3 weeks later...
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  • 1 month later...

IF Slaughter burns the flag here, instead of teh shirt...do you think the death threats he was getting become actual attempts to hurt him or his family?

 

Also, inside the WWF storyline, burning the shirt was way more effective...basically burning Hulkamania to the ground!!! ATTENTION!!!

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  • 1 year later...

Whatever work they did in distancing this feud from the Persian Gulf war just went up in flames, literally. Not only that, the stupid stuff they're asking us to believe should boggle the mind of anyone with over an IQ of ten. A stupid Hulk Hogan poster the equivalent of an American flag? Hogan a foreign invader? This isn't effective hype for a wrestling match; this is an exhibition of the delusions of a piddly-ass two-bit carny (Vince) who thought he and his so-called business was bigger than an actual American shooting war. I still can't believe that Sarge didn't have an attack of common sense and bolt on the first thing moving for Atlanta, Memphis, or even another profession. He needed to stop this shit a long, long time ago, personal financial security be damned. He never drew a dime as an attraction once this angle was over, and he and Vince both deserved it. So did any fan who laughed it off with "it's pro wrestling".

 

Let's get something straight, people: Ric Flair bragging about his big house on the big side of town is pro wrestling. Jerry Lawler wearing a crown is pro wrestling. Even the Ultimate Warrior rambling like a maniac about "normals" is pro wrestling. This is exploitation of the actual death and destruction of American soldiers for a few lousy bucks, a lot fewer than they would have had if they would have just brought Sarge back as a GI Joe-shilling midcard babyface and run Hogan/Warrior II at the LA Coliseum like they were (or at least should have been) planning all along.

 

That's the worst part of all this: They looked to cash in on an actual war and whip up a hundred thousand people into a frenzy at one of the largest and most prestigious stadiums in the country, and they couldn't even sell out the rinky-dink arena next door. How pathetic is that? All the time, all the backlash, all the stuff Sarge in particular went through to make this angle work, and they drew 15,500, which was 84,500 less than they planned on. When they talk about the most boneheaded decisions this business has ever seen, how this angle and everything connected with it isn't on the list is beyond me.

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Sometimes I wonder if it was actual greed on Vince's part and sometimes I wonder if he and everyone else involved were so in their bubbles that they really didn't see what they were doing as exploitative. Many of them probably couldn't tell the difference between this and the evil Germans and sneaky Japs that populated wrestling in the 1950's. (Of course you didn't see any Vietnamese heels in the '60s and '70s...)

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They should have seen it, Pete. If they watched the news for more than five minutes a day, they should have seen it.

 

Vince probably thought that he could get away with this because he got away with Sheik as one of his top heels in the early days of expansion. He did, but we weren't actually shooting at Iranians then, and they weren't shooting at us. This angle would have worked fine with far fewer complaints if Saddam had withdrawn from Kuwait back in August of '90, which would have avoided an actual shooting war even if we still had peacekeeping troops over there. It might have even worked to some extent if Sheik himself had been brought back and put on top (though not as Mustafa). A reference or two by Hogan to vanquishing Sheik like the American troops vanquished Saddam prior to a Hogan/Sheik Mania VII main event wouldn't have led to many protests, if any at all. Of course, as out of shape as Sheik was, that main event probably wouldn't have sold out the LA Coliseum either.

 

I'm not even sure anymore if the evil drill sergeant part of the gimmick would have worked, considering that the gist of it was how soft America had gotten while Sarge was away. They really needed him to be the "YO, JOE!" babyface that he was during his latter AWA days. I don't know how far that would have taken him, given that Duggan and Hogan had the patriotic market cornered and Sheik would have been the only foreign menace heel who actually wrestled. Maybe he simply should have retired when the AWA went under; he would have become a road agent somewhere, since he was such a talented worker in his day and obviously knew the business.

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  • GSR changed the title to [1991-02-24-WWF-Wrestling Challenge] Interview: Sgt. Slaughter & Gen. Adnan

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