10 Times WWE Fans Were Elated At WrestleMania
5. Hulk Hogan Slams The Giant
In many ways, the WWF defined and perfected the concept of professional wrestling, in 1987, when on an overt quest to banish the traditional meaning of the term.
At its old core, professional wrestling pits or pitted a hero against a villain, in a bid to convince the public that their support is vital to restore the moral order, in a performance art the best practitioners of which mitigate its inherent danger.
Hulk Hogan Vs. André The Giant illustrated and magnified this concept with an artful approach to the real, secret core: the absolute bullsh*t of it all. Hogan had slammed André before. André had been defeated before. The general public were largely ignorant of this, or were willing under a tremendous storyline to suspend their disbelief. Hogan needed his Hulkamaniacs to surmount the immovable object, and some 93,000 - the recent, excellent work of David Bixenspan substantiates that which was once thought a myth - turned out in Detroit to fall under his spell.
It was a long-feeling match in which Hogan did little but sell under André's crawling gait, but his ability to project true emotion with corny, exaggerated body language was inimitable. It was a one-move match, but the trance he placed the stadium in informed the ferocious, life-affirming pop - and the most iconic visual in company history.