7 Ups And 10 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (June 29th)
3. 30 Years Of Hulkamania
For anyone over the age of 35, the iconic 1985 Sports Illustrated cover with Hulk Hogan is a big deal. It was the first time a professional wrestler graced the cover of the magazine, and it signaled that wrestling was becoming a major industry in the United States. That cover also meant more mainstream exposure for the then-WWF and the profession itself. So seeing the cover and Hogan re-enacting the famous pose as part of Sports Illustrateds Where are they now? segment had to give older fans goosebumps. Has it really been 30 years since we first saw Hulkamania run wild across mainstream America? While the business has seen its ups and downs since then, its impossible to deny the impact that the exposure in those early days of the Rock & Wrestling era had on the industry. This magazine cover was an important piece of that puzzle.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
