Show Business: Hype! Hell Raising! Hulk Hogan!

Upscale or down-home, wrestling is a national mania

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It is 1 p.m. on April Fool's eve, and 2,000 of the faithful have filed into < the sold-out Tupperware Convention Center in Kissimmee, Fla. On the lawn outside stands a light infantry of pickup trucks; one bumper sign reads GOD GUNS AND GUTS MADE AMERICA--LET'S KEEP ALL THREE. Inside, an army of tattoos comes to attention as the houselights fall, the speakers blare That's Entertainment, and the giant screen flashes the words LIVE FROM MADISON SQUARE GARDEN: WRESTLEMANIA. The magic moment has arrived. And so, for the moment, has the bastard sport of pro wrestling. From glittery Manhattan (where some aficionados were offering $200 for a good seat) to good-ole-boy Kissimmee, in closed-circuit auditoriums in the U.S. and 26 foreign countries, wrestling fans of all collars are savoring the triumph of hype, hell raising and Hulk Hogan. They made America; let's buy all three.

Only pro wrestling, as perpetrated by Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation, could provide such a uniquely 1980s fusion of chic and sleaze. WrestleMania's guest referee is Muhammad Ali; the guest ring announcer is Battlin' Billy Martin; the guest timekeeper, manipulating a tiny silver bell that might have come from King Farouk's dinner table, is Liberace. Pop Thrush Cyndi Lauper is "managing" Wendi Richter ("150 pounds of twisted steel and sex appeal") as she attempts to regain her W.W.F. championship belt from zaftig Leilani Kai, managed by former longtime (28 years) women's champ, the Fabulous Moolah. And in the main event, teaming with Hulk Hogan against the preening Paul ("Mr. Wonderful") Orndorff and the kilted, malefic Rowdy Roddy Piper, is the Hulk's Rocky III co-star, Mr. T.

WrestleMania? The term is an understatement for an attraction now enjoying its biggest boom ever. Four wrestling shows, all produced by the W.W.F., are among the top ten programs on cable TV. NBC will present Saturday Night's Main Event, the pilot for a possible monthly series, in its Saturday Night Live slot May 11. Three videocassettes, including one on the Hulkster, are scheduled to hit the stores next month. There are Hulk Hogan action dolls, T shirts and sweatbands. Propelled by Hogan and Lauper, who last year brought her rock-'em sock-'em glamour to the "sport," wrestling has moved from the regional sideshows of trash sports to the national big top.

For any connoisseur of the deadpan schlock of pop culture, pro wrestling in its latest guise is like a trip to hog heaven. And the crowd is a big part of the show: part upscale, part down-home. Tuxedoed yuppies mix gingerly with the + rip-his-eyes-out! regulars. Andy Warhol shows up to pronounce, "It's hip. It's exciting. It's America." Gloria Steinem stops by to snort, of woman- mauling Roddy Piper, "He certainly is unfit to wear a skirt." Geraldine Ferraro apostrophizes, "Roddy Piper, why don't you come out and fight like a man?" Meanwhile, each month at the Garden, 20,000 souls who wouldn't be caught dead at a Jane Fonda Workout congregate to scream obscenities and pelt the wrestlers with hot dogs and ice cubes. For the few hours they spend together in a wrestling arena, the Perrier Set and the Boilermaker Brigade have something in common: synthetic blood lust.

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