Brutus 'The Barber' Beefcake on the shock success of WWE WrestleMania
Thursday 7 November 2019 14:35, UK
Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake was there for the birth of WrestleMania in 1985, and as the event prepares for its 35th version, he can't resist a look back in awe at how it revolutionised the wrestling business.
The show was to be an evening-long extravaganza combining the rapidly snowballing popularity of the then-WWF with the appeal of celebrity rock stars, a combination which glowed red hot from the twin furnaces of MTV and American network television.
Screening live from New York's iconic Madison Square Garden venue, the show would be available on a pay-per-view basis on closed-circuit television to family homes throughout the United States.
A week on Sunday, the company will present the 2018 edition of the famous show, to around 75,000 people in New Orleans and to a global audience of millions.
It has become a juggernaut, but back in 1985 the ambitions - while wild for the time - were still modest compared to the glitz and glamour of what the event was to become, as Beefcake, who wrestled David Sammartino on the card 34 years ago, would compete in the next five.
When asked on the Sky Sports Lock Up podcast about whether he believed WrestleMania would evolve from its ambitious beginnings to become the global extravaganza it is today, Beefcake - who will enter the WWE Hall of Fame as part of this year's celebrations - said: "Nobody did.
"Everybody was very excited and it was a tremendous time for our business. Everything changed in the 1980s, you had celebrities and pro footballers getting involved.
"That first WrestleMania was a springboard that shot us, not into the pool, it shot us into space."
The entire event was a gamble on the part of owner Vince McMahon. It has been reported that McMahon risked his entire personal fortune on the success of the first WrestleMania, a gamble which ultimately paid off.
But if there were concerns in the McMahon camp they were never made public; not to Beefcake or any of his fellow wrestlers. The boss held his nerve and - with impeccable timing - recorded a huge (and financially enormous) success.
"Vince ebbs confidence at all times. I actually worked for his father in the 1970s in New York and he was the same - extremely confident," he said.
"If he was scared, he wasn't showing it. He kept all of that on the inside. He stretched himself financially to make that all happen but he did it with the right talent.
"He had so many guys and so many super-talented wrestlers and characters. It's all about timing. The gold medallists in the Olympics, it's all about timing. And that's what happened in the wrestling business and happened with Vince.
"He had the right people in the right place at the right time and wrestling just exploded."
