The 25 Baubles of Pop Culture! Advent 2022 Day 17

I will not lie. I have an affinity for the pomp and circumstance of pro wrestling. Yes- I've grown out of my die hard devotion I've had towards those warriors of the squared circle. But, I still have favorites too. So when wrestling showed up as today's subject on that random generator, I wasn't too upset about the selection.

Let's start with my Trinity of all-time favorite wrestlers. First in my heart was the one that every kid who grew up in the 80s was a devotee of. I'm talking about Hulk Hogan. Who doesn't lampoon the Hulkster's famous routine when Rick Derringer's Real American comes on the jukebox or radio? For my Hulk ornament selection is this porcelain bauble bearing a classic photo on Hogan, along with his signature. It's so cheesy, especially because on the back of the ornament, there are a bunch of generic poinsettias. No WWF logo. No proclamation of Hulkamania. Just some red flowers that look more like what you'd see hanging from your grandma's tree. 

#2 on my list of favorite wrestlers of all-time is the 8th Wonder of the World. Yes- I am talking about Andre the Giant. Interestingly enough, there does not appear to have ever been an officially licensed ornament of Andre by the WWF or as it is now referred to, the WWE. (Vince McMahon- you need to fix this oversight!)  I found it odd but I couldn't find anything officially licensed bearing his likeness. I then turned to the Etsy route. Even doing that I could only find 1 ornament and that one doesn't even have his face on it!

Instead, this ornament from a website called Pixel has Andre's hand literally encapsulating a can of beer. The image is taken from a 1981 article about the wrestler that appeared in the pages of Sports Illustrated to show just how freakin' massive Andre was!  FYI- he stood 7'4", weighed 540 pounds with a size 56 shoe and 16 inch long hands!

#3 on my list of all-time favs is the Macho Man, Randy Savage. I really used to hate him. But during Wrestlemania IV, he turned from heel to face and won the WWF Championship. Again, I went the Esty route. However, I didn't do it because I couldn't find anything officially licensed. It's because the craft made ornaments looked better. 

The Macho Man was known for his signature phrase 'Oooh, Yeah!' Only, I wasn't a fan of how Savage looked on the ornament. Thinking the one I selected looked like a better image, I also like this bauble because orange is my favorite color. 

Now we look at an officially licensed ornament that I am a fan of. It's this pair of rubber gingerbread decorations that at one time could be found on the WWE web store. There's literally dozens of gingerbread versions of everyones favorite wrestlers. Out of the bunch, I went with a pair devoted to the tag team known as the New Age Outlaws. Aren't Bad Ass Billy Gunn and the Road Dog so adorable that you could just bite their heads off?

I want to share this set of 6 ornaments. It's not that anything about them are screaming to become a part of my tree. I share them because the set was available on a store that really caught my eye. These sparkly globes are available for sale from Hogan's Beach Shop. Yes! Hulk Hogan owns a souvenir shop down in Clearwater Fl, along with another store in Orlando. 

Finally, I can't look at wrestling ornaments without devoting as least 1 look at the world of Mexican acrobatics known as Lucha Libre. I selected this set of 4 hand-blown glass tree hangers. I've always loved the costumes and the masks look like Sugar Skulls. Sure, two of these ornaments are exact replicas of each other. But they all have different colored outfits and so fun looking!

Andre the Giant: Life and Legend by Box Brown

  I just love to be the first person to check out a book from the library. It’s like you’re starting a legacy or something. I’d read some reviews of this book a while back and put this on my ‘to read’ list. Then, just a couple of days ago, I saw this on the processing desk so I decided to hang around a little bit to see if it would go out. My snooping paid off as 30 minutes later; I snatched this book off the rack from shelving before it even hit the floor!

  As a kid I would say I had two favorite wrestlers- Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant. As a kid, I was taller than the rest of my classmates and a heck of a lot heftier. So, I really could relate with Andre’s humongous size. Years later, I would stop watching wrestling but I still held a fondness for Andre- so much that when my cat Sarakit had kittens a few years back, we named the biggest of the litter Andre.



Had to include a pic of Andre- my little shadow cat. He's so big.

This book is an interesting read into the life of a man that was bigger than life and lived every day that way too. He had acromegaly and it caused him to never really stop growing. That also was a death sentence for him as the excess stresses took a toll on his joints, heart, and ability to age. One thing I didn’t know was that he had a ranch in nearby Ellerbe, NC. That’s about a 2 hour drive and is now on my list of places to road trip too.

There’s some R-rated language and some very bawdy anecdotes about Andre. The man loved to drink, mingle, and play cards and fight. But above all else, he loved to put on a show. The story has some great moments and some very sad ones. But, I wouldn’t trade my experience seeing him on TV as a kid and I wouldn’t forgo the opportunity I got reading his biography first.

Not for all ages, but definitely a fun read for fans of wrestling in the 70s and 80s.

Worth Consuming

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.