10 Uncredited Architects Behind WWE’s Gigantic Success

10. Mr. T

Mr. T is known to the wrestling fandom as the Z-list celebrity who repulsed Oedipus by droning on about his mother for two hours during his 2014 Hall Of Fame speech.

It's a shame that relentless display of tedium and unease is going to define him for a newer generation of fans. It's not hyperbole to hypothesise that they might not be there, had it nor been for his contribution to the WWF's national expansion in the mid 1980s.

The WWF wouldn't have collapsed, had the first WrestleMania not been a success. They would, however, have faced financial difficulties sufficient enough to enforce a scaling back of operations - possibly allowing Jim Crockett Promotions an opening into areas into which Vince McMahon had marauded. Mr. T was at the peak of his popularity, bang in the middle of his run in the popular action-adventure series the A-Team when he first appeared at the first WrestleMania. He drew eyes to wrestling that previously considered it a bloody, fringe concern.

Of course, the WWF wasn't; McMahon's vision of it was a zeitgeist-grabbing reflection of Ronald Reagan's patriotic 1980s. Mr T's presence provided a crucial inroad to it.