Sigh. YES. YES IT IS. FUCK.
Wrestling has a long, inglorious history of co-opting or exploiting current events to make money. One of the WWF's best heels ever, The Iron Sheik, won the World Title from all-American goody-two-shoes Bob Backlund when the Iran hostage crisis was still fresh in America's memory. Decades of "Russian" wrestlers terrorized wrestling rings with their cold war chicanery. So when, in 1990 and 1991, the WWF began to exploit Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent Gulf War, it wasn't particularly shocking, but it was particularly awful.
Not because it's completely crass and tasteless to profit off a war resulting in innocent lives being snuffed out in the collateral damage of SCUD missiles (although i'm sure Vince McMahon would tell us they were telling a morality tale to boost morale back home, like Captain America socking Hitler in the jaw), but because it was just so goddamn lazy. The moment that "Macho King" Randy Savage cracked The Ultimate Warrior over the head with his scepter at the 1991 Royal Rumble, leading directly to Sgt. Slaughter pinning the Warrior for the title seconds later, everyone knew that the WrestleMania VII main event was going to feature Slaughter dropping the title back to a Real American (and Jack Swagger and Cesaro weren't around yet, so guess who?). And frankly, i like to think i wasn't alone in being completely sick of Hulk Effing Hogan.
Well, shit. Let's get on with this then.
