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Not if Hulk Hogan was playing Hamlet. That would be like asking Jim Brown if he kisses on the first date; you may think you know the answer, yet be reluctant to pose the question. You might not even want to have a little show- biz fun with the 6-ft. 8-in., 300-lb. Hulkster. Billy Crystal got away with it on Saturday Night Live, but Richard Belzer, the pencil-armed host of cable TV's Hot Properties, was not so lucky. Four days before WrestleMania, Hogan was demonstrating a front chin-lock on Belzer, who went limp and fell unconscious to the floor. When he rose, a pool of blood had formed under his head; the comic required eight stitches. John Stossel, a reporter for the ABC newsmagazine 20/20, got a rounder basting when he told David ("Dr. D") Schultz, "You know, I think this is fake." His integrity impugned, the humongous Dr. D viciously swatted Stossel twice to the ground. Belzer is considering a lawsuit; Stossel is planning one. Both cases raise the ominous possibility that some wrestlers take the game all too seriously; they have crossed the hairline between vaudeville and violence. Such is the danger of performance art, as dadaist Comic Andy Kaufman used to prove when he would wrestle women on TV. Was that supposed to be funny, or what? Now the W.W.F. is upstaging the show-biz avant-garde with its cable talk show, Tuesday Night Titans, in which the guest wrestlers chat with McMahon, sing a song, belt each other and eat furniture and live chickens. So is wrestling a sport, or what? Mostly, it's what.
And WrestleManiacs, old and new, cry: So what? It's fun! See the Hulkster cream an adversary, whether Rowdy Roddy or little Richard! See Cyndi molest Moolah! See, especially, Andre the Giant, all 7 ft. 4 in. and 474 lbs. of him, defend his honor against Big John Studd! If Andre body slams Studd to the canvas, he wins $15,000. If not, he retires. And justice triumphs! Andre pulverizes Big John, picks up a tote bag carrying the $15,000 and tosses bills out to the adoring throng. Now that's entertainment.