Sex, Lies, and Headlocks by Shaun Assael Read Free Book Online Page B

dominating. All he wanted was a good five-minute match with just one twist at the end.
    It began with Vasiri rolling himself along the ropes to avoid Hogan’s lunge and Hogan falling woozily to the mat, as if blinded by cartoon stars. Next, Vasiri rolled him on his stomach and bent him into a Boston crab. Then, as he sat on Hogan’s back, Vasiri slipped into a gimmick he’d performed for the better part of two decades, the camel clutch . Threading his hands under Hogan’s armpits, he locked them around his chin, and, with his knee buried in Hogan’s back, yanked up hard. Hogan strained, his face contorting as the Sheik sold a broad dinner-theater snarl. Then Hogan stirred … slowly … lifting himself to one knee … until he finally lurched up, sending Vasiri staggering back. Now for the big finish. Hogan flung himself off the ropes, catching Vasiri’s neck with the point of his elbow. When Vasiri crumpled, Hogan fell on top of him, dropping his right leg over Vasiri’s midsection. All that remained was for the referee to count to three as Vasiri lay pinned and declare Hogan the new heavyweight champion of the World Wrestling Federation.
    Vasiri went to his Ramada hotel room on Forty-eighth Street and Ninth Avenue after the match, ate a quiet meal, and watched television alone. It was just another night for him.
    But not for Hogan, or for thirty-eight-year-old Vinnie McMahon. This was their night, the night they moved the center of the wrestling world to Seventh Avenue in Manhattan.

THREE
    IN 1984, THE YEAR in which Ronald Reagan was elected to his second term as president and Apple introduced its first Macintosh personal computer, 41 percent of America was wired for cable television—a huge jump from just a few years earlier. For the price of a basic subscription, a family could get ESPN, Lifetime, CNN, the Family Channel, and A&E. If they wanted to pay more, there was HBO. Still, most of what aired was bottom-rung network repeats or fringe sports. TV Guide didn’t carry cable listings, and Nielsen was only starting to monitor the phenomenon.
    One of the few cable stations with enough of an audience to command a Nielsen rating was the USA Network, a joint venture between Paramount, Universal, and Time-Life. USA was originally designed as a sports network and collected rights to major tennis tournaments, the NBA, the NHL, and the Masters. But when ESPN became a major player in televised sports, USA’s penny-pinching backers changed gears and turned it into a dumping ground for cheap programming like Robert Klein Time , a game show with Don Adams, and Southwest Championship Wrestling from San Antonio, Texas.
    The president of USA was Kay Koplovitz, a smart and savvy businesswoman whose tastes were grounded in her Kansas upbringing. Koplovitz understood wrestling had a niche; still, the only female studio head in either New York or Hollywood preferred to keep a discreet distance from it. But when two Southwest wrestlers hurled pig shit at each other on an episode that aired in October 1983, distance became a luxury she could no longer afford.
    It was a public relations disaster and McMahon turned it to his immediate advantage. While USA’s switchboard was still lighting up, he instructed his aide, Jim Troy, to call USA and offer an alternative. By the end of that week, a deal was struck in which the WWF became USA’s new supplier.
    In 1984, the opportunity to reach 24 million homes with a single broadcast every week was extraordinary. (At the time, USA was available in 29 percent of the 83.8 million homes that were wired for cable.) The McMahons were powers on the East Coast, but there were NWA wrestling czars just as powerful operating in cities like Memphis, San Francisco, Tulsa, St. Louis, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Houston, and Dallas. And the men who ran them were just as creative and strong-willed. Vincent James McMahon had warm relations with most of the NWA’s members because they respected his gentility and