The Heart of the Ox

Ox Baker killed a man in the ring.  Ox Baker killed TWO men in the ring.  Ox Baker had a technique:  The Heart Punch.  The move was known before, but no man had used it so viciously.  No man had had the punching power to not just strike the ivory shield we humans have guarding our chests but to compress and break and dig into the center of our circulatory being and hurt places that aren't meant to be hurt.

This is a professional wrestling blog, so of course, you should take anything and everything with a grain of salt.  There's no denying this fact, though:  Two men died shortly after matches with Baker.  The cause of death, as attributed by carnival-bred promoters and ticket takers everywhere, was the vicious Heart Punch of Ox Baker.  And if you saw him, you'd believe it. 

There may not have been a man who looked more evil than Ox Baker.  He's big, he's ugly, his eyebrows arch like devils horns while his trademark mustache descended to his chest.  He's the perfect bad guy, and before anyone could tell one truth from the other, the public only knew of a man capable of killing someone with his punch; a detestable man was born. 

It may be hard for some people to imagine that a legend could go this far, or that anyone would believe a wrestler would really hurt someone he's in the ring with.  I am here to tell you that people feared Ox Baker, but even more than they feared him, they HATED him.  They hated him because they believed he was a killer.  Whole-heartedly.  With no irony.  They believe he had killed and that it had been licensed because it was 'sport'.  So, what happens when he comes to your town?  And he not only uses the dreaded heart punch, but uses it repeatedly?  The people of Cleveland in 1974 wouldn't stand for it.

When I tell you all of this, I'm telling you about the beauty of Professional Wrestling and why I always write about it with such wonder.  Because all of this betrayed the gentle heart of the real Ox.  The real Ox was a sweet man who took care of dogs.  He was soft spoken, and a game show contestant.  You can easily tell the true intentions of a man by how he interacts with Bob Barker.

He was a character, through and through.  And that he was able to make so many people hate him, and that he would not wither from that attention is amazing to me.  I think if people thought Anthony Hopkins really was Hannibal Lecter and showed up to his theatre performances with switchblades, he probably would take out full paper ads and commercial time to stress the point that he has never eaten anyone's liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti. 

Ox died, ironically, from a heart attack.  As he grew older, he still had the mustache and still had the eyebrows.  And still had the iron-on home-made shirts telling people to hate him.  Because wrestling is the kind of stage play you don't get to step down from easily.  You're only sweet when you're gone.

Believe Whatever You Like

Wrestling is unique.  I guess that might be putting it kind of lightly.  It definitely creates some unique characters.  You could argue that, in recent years, the average wrestler is a lot more civil and lacking the ‘larger than life’ personality of former years.  Daniel Bryan, the champion of current WWE, has based his entire campaign around being just like every person in the audience. 

The 80’s are known for excess, and nothing was more excessive than the WWF of those days.  Enormous men, extravagant celebrity-filled events, and ranting and raving so insane that it could perhaps have doubled around into genius; scholars are still deciphering.  It all seemed so other-worldly that, to a lot of children, it was nearly untouchable.  Which is why everyone wanted to touch it.

Growing up, I was always a Hogan kid.  Hogan was a man on the precipice of sanity.  He would widen his eyes and tell you faerie tales about slamming giants so hard that earthquakes destroy everyone except the Hulkamaniacs.  If Hogan was on that precipice, the Ultimate Warrior was driving a rocket ship right off of it.

The argument could be made that no human being could possibly know what Warrior was talking about except for Warrior.  Certainly, no children were sitting on their living room floor, nodding along to his points.  The mystery and the intensity were the appeal; the man’s clear insanity was amazing and confusing and enticing.  It was cool. 

We are no longer in the 80’s though.  The year 2000 has come and gone, heck even 2010 is gone!  The thing about acting insane now is that people can really tell if you’re insane or not.  Characters cannot strictly be characters, they are extensions of a regular human being.  Hulk Hogan is no longer the immortal Hulk Hogan, riding motorcycles and playing guitar, and headbutting the Russian flag.  He’s Hulk Hogan the dad, the actor, the jerk(?).  These are not my feelings on him, he’s been called many things by many people.  Heck, his whole 'life' was on display in a reality show.  His life, like all of our heroes has been opened up by this new age.  The Ultimate Warrior was also victim to this for many fans.

The fact that WWE put out an entire DVD mocking him should tell you a bit about either A) who he was or B) who he worked for or with.  For me, a lot of his post-wrestling antics were difficult to come to terms with.  There’s his famous ‘queerin’ don’t make the world go ‘round’ quote, for example.  I knew the man’s politics!  It wasn’t even on purpose, it’s just that everything is reported.  He also changed his name TO Warrior.  My prognosis?  The guy was just nuts.

When I heard he was being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, I and many other people thought “Here we go!  Crazy guy with a microphone!”.  I watched his speech and I was saddened a bit, not because he was quite sane and reasonable, which he was.  I was sad because a lot of his speech was arguing “Hey, I wasn’t really a bad guy!”.  And when he was talking, he didn’t seem like a bad guy. 

Do I think it’s a bit weird that his daughter was named Dakota North Warrior?  A bit, yeah.  I realize that, a lot of that crazy isn’t crazy as much as it is a very ADAMANT commitment to self-confidence.  He believed in himself.  A lot.  Some people find that to be egotistical, some people find it inspiring.  It was Warrior, though.  It’s what he is, and nowadays, you can judge a person (and moreso a celebrity) with a level of completeness you never could before.  Maybe this means you’ll hate more people, maybe it means you’ll be more accepting of their faults. 

Regardless of the ‘dirt’, I was happy to see a man who was thankful.  He seemed genuinely hurt by what had been said of him.  It was good to see him talking with the current generation and making amends with those people who tore him down.  He is a lucky man.  Many men like himself have died before their time and without any pomp.  His last minutes were in front of a crowd screaming for him, and he was screaming back.