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Book Pro Wrestlers, Los Angeles, CA (2026)

09/01/2026

On Monday, June 13, 1994, “Macho Madness” came to Sir Goony’s Family Fun Center on Kingston Pike in the Knoxville area—and in the final photograph, Jim Cornette is right there with Randy Savage.

This wasn’t a wrestling show or a convention appearance. Sir Goony’s was celebrating the grand opening of its 1994 summer season with miniature golf, go-kart racing and an opportunity to meet one of the most recognizable men in professional wrestling.

The green flyer preserved the entire schedule.

Registration began at 5 p.m. At 6, fans could meet Randy “Macho Man” Savage during an autograph session. Then, at 7, Sir Goony’s held a miniature-golf tournament open to everyone, with trophies promised to the winner and the person recording the most holes-in-one.

At the same time, the facility’s “Slic Trac” would host two 75-lap feature races—one division for teenagers between 13 and 18 and another for adults.

A family could come to Sir Goony’s that Monday evening, meet the Macho Man, play a round of miniature golf and then enter or watch a 75-lap go-kart race.

The photographs capture every bit of the personality of that night.

In one, Savage is dressed casually in a pastel-colored shirt and a 1994 Daytona Speedweeks cap, smiling and posing with members of the Sir Goony’s staff. In others, he has transformed completely into the Macho Man, wearing black, hot pink and neon-green gear, complete with fringed sleeves and white wrist tape.

Savage wasn’t isolated behind an elaborate convention table. He was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the people who worked there, shaking hands, wrapping his arm around employees and giving them the expressions and poses they had seen on television.

One Sir Goony’s employee is caught in a wonderful moment of complete surprise and delight as Savage stands beside her. These aren’t carefully controlled publicity pictures. They are the kind of honest reactions that only a personal camera could preserve.

The photograph of the red No. 44 Slim Jim go-kart makes the album an even greater piece of 1994 history.

That same year, David Green was driving the No. 44 Slim Jim Chevrolet in what was then NASCAR’s Busch Series. Green would finish the season as the series champion. Savage, meanwhile, had already become synonymous with Slim Jim through one of the most memorable advertising campaigns of the decade.

Here was Savage wearing a Daytona Speedweeks cap, standing at a go-kart track where a miniature No. 44 carried Slim Jim’s familiar red-and-yellow racing colors. Professional wrestling, NASCAR and one of the most recognizable sponsorships of the 1990s all came together at a family fun center in East Tennessee.

These pictures also capture Randy Savage during a particularly interesting turning point in his career.

Less than three months earlier, he had defeated Crush in a Falls Count Anywhere Match at WrestleMania X. By the summer of 1994, however, the WWF was increasingly using Savage as a television commentator, even though he remained enormously popular and still looked every bit like one of its greatest headliners.

East Tennessee fans had also seen him return to the ring only a few weeks before this appearance.

On May 20, Savage wrestled Bruiser Bedlam at Smoky Mountain Wrestling’s Volunteer Slam III inside the Knoxville Civic Coliseum. Bob Armstrong was in Savage’s corner, while Bedlam was accompanied by Jim Cornette.

Bedlam pinned Savage after Dory Funk Jr. interfered and brass knuckles entered the finish. Cornette’s famous tennis racket became involved after the match as the fight continued.

The following night in Morristown, Savage joined Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson of the Rock ’n’ Roll Express against Bedlam, Brian Lee and Chris Candido.

That history gives the final Sir Goony’s photograph an entirely different significance.

There is Jim Cornette in his unmistakable pink shirt and green trousers, leaning toward a young fan while Savage stands nearby. Only weeks earlier, Cornette had been Savage’s enemy on Smoky Mountain Wrestling television, managing the man who defeated him.

Cornette wasn’t simply another wrestling personality who happened to visit the same attraction. He was running Smoky Mountain Wrestling in East Tennessee while simultaneously appearing nationally in the WWF.

Six days after this Sir Goony’s appearance, Savage and Cornette would both be part of the WWF’s King of the Ring pay-per-view in Baltimore. Savage joined Gorilla Monsoon and former NFL star Art Donovan at the commentary table, while Cornette accompanied Yokozuna and Crush into their WWF Tag Team Championship match against The Headshrinkers.

On June 13, however, the national stars of the WWF and the local world of Smoky Mountain Wrestling were all occupying the same miniature-golf and go-kart center on Kingston Pike.

Before 1994 ended, Savage would leave the WWF and begin the next major chapter of his career in WCW. These photographs therefore preserve him during a very narrow window—after his final WrestleMania match, during his appearances for Cornette’s Smoky Mountain Wrestling, but before the wrestling world knew he would soon be gone from the WWF.

The arena matches have been preserved in wrestling’s video archives. Nights like this survive because somebody carried a camera, took the pictures, developed the film and kept the photographs safe for more than three decades.

These remarkable images come to us courtesy of Danny Brower, who generously allowed Book Pro Wrestlers to share them.

Danny, thank you for preserving a small but fascinating chapter in the story of the Macho Man.

If anyone remembers this night—or summer evenings at Sir Goony’s during this era—we would be glad to add those memories to the story.

— Steve Stasiak, Book Pro Wrestlers

09/01/2026

In January 1993, somebody at Nintendo made one of the strangest — and in hindsight, greatest — casting decisions imaginable: hire Terry Funk and Paul E. Dangerously to host a Nintendo video game competition.

The two wrestling personalities appeared at Nintendo’s Battle of Champions II during the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, standing inside a small wrestling ring surrounded by televisions, cameras, kids and Nintendo equipment.

And the surviving footage is a wonderful little time capsule.

This wasn’t the polished Paul Heyman presentation we’ve become accustomed to seeing decades later. This was Paul E. Dangerously, fresh off his run in WCW, microphone in hand and sounding unmistakably like a fast-talking New Yorker who had somehow been dropped into the middle of a Nintendo convention.

At one point, Heyman has the responsibility of explaining F-Zero to the crowd. Then “Super Mare-ee-eoh.”

Hearing Paul E. describe a futuristic Super Nintendo racing game — in that unmistakable accent and cadence — while Terry Funk stands nearby is one of those combinations of wrestling and pop culture that sounds made up until you actually see it.

And Funk wasn’t exactly toned down for the occasion, either.

When it came time to introduce the competitors, Terry treated a Nintendo contest with the kind of enthusiasm you’d expect from someone introducing a wrestling main event. Contemporary accounts of the rediscovered footage even noted Funk slipping into his own version of a Howard Finkel-style introduction.

Look at where these two men were in 1993.

Heyman was between major chapters of his career. His WCW run was over, and the transformation of Eastern Championship Wrestling into the ECW that would change professional wrestling was still ahead of him.

Terry Funk, meanwhile, had already been wrestling for nearly three decades — a former NWA World Heavyweight Champion who had worked everywhere from Texas to Japan and was about to become an enormously important figure in that same ECW revolution.

Before long, Paul Heyman and Terry Funk would be remembered as two of the central figures in one of wrestling’s most influential promotions.

But for this particular afternoon in Las Vegas?

Paul E. was explaining F-Zero.

Terry Funk was introducing kids playing Nintendo.

And somewhere, someone apparently decided these were exactly the two men for the job.

Wrestling history has plenty of famous moments we’ve watched a thousand times.
Sometimes the most enjoyable pieces are the ones almost nobody remembers.

Terry Funk and Paul Heyman hosting a Nintendo competition in Las Vegas in 1993 certainly qualifies.

— Steve Stasiak
Book Pro Wrestlers

09/01/2026

She arrived at the Humane Society of Tampa Bay with a metal chain embedded in her neck.

Just over a week later, she left with Dave Bautista in his Rolls-Royce.

On September 16, 2021, a woman driving home spotted a three-month-old puppy eating garbage at the Home Cemetery in Tampa. When she stopped her car, the puppy immediately ran to her.

The woman picked her up and rushed her to the Humane Society of Tampa Bay.

The shelter named her Sage. A metal chain was hanging from her neck and had become so deeply embedded that veterinarians had to surgically remove it. She was also suffering from a skin infection, neglect and badly overgrown nails.

Yet even while she was in immense pain, shelter workers said Sage continued wagging her tail as the veterinary team examined her.

Dave Bautista saw the Humane Society’s original post and was deeply affected by what had been done to her. He offered $5,000 of his own money for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible.

But Bautista ultimately did something even more personal.

He gave her a home.

After she recovered from surgery, Bautista returned to the shelter, signed the adoption papers and gave Sage a new name: Penny Bautista.

“She is now a Bautista, and she will never be abused another day,” he promised.

Penny went home to join Maggie and Ollie, two other rescued pit bulls already living with Bautista. Shelter workers watched as the puppy who had been found eating trash in a cemetery climbed into his Rolls-Royce and began an entirely different life.

Someone had treated her as though she were disposable. A stranger stopped her car. A veterinary team repaired the damage. And a former WWE Champion made certain that she would never be abandoned again.

She entered the shelter as Sage, with a chain hanging from her neck.

She left as Penny Bautista, beside the man who promised that nobody would ever hurt her again.

— Steve Stasiak, Book Pro Wrestlers

09/01/2026

For nearly forty years, Hulk Hogan followed his fans through almost every stage of their lives.

He was on their lunchboxes and thermoses when they were children. He later appeared on a pasta restaurant, a battery-powered mixer, a countertop grill, an energy drink, frozen microwavable cheeseburgers and chicken sandwiches, a cooler—and eventually the beer inside their refrigerators.

That commercial trail offers a revealing look at just how far Hulkamania traveled beyond professional wrestling.

There is an important distinction between the products pictured here. Some were WWF or WWE-licensed merchandise. Others were products Hogan endorsed or licensed his name to. PastaMania and Real American Beer were actual business ventures connected directly to Hogan.

To the public, however, they all accomplished the same thing: they moved Hulk Hogan out of the wrestling ring and into everyday American life.

During the original Hulkamania boom, Hogan’s image appeared on practically anything a young fan could carry, wear or place in a bedroom. The action figures and T-shirts are remembered most often, but the lunchboxes and matching thermoses may demonstrate his reach even better.

A child could watch Hogan wrestle on television Saturday morning and then carry him to school Monday morning. Thermos-brand WWF sets featuring Hogan appeared during the mid-1980s, followed by additional Hogan and WWF designs as the decade continued.

By the beginning of the 1990s, one of Hogan’s most repeated messages had even become a literal product.

Hulk Hogan Complete Multivitamins were marketed as children’s chewables, turning “take your vitamins” from part of his television message into something families could purchase. Around the same period, Hogan also appeared in national advertising for Right Guard Sport Stick deodorant.

Then came PastaMania.

Hulk Hogan’s pasta restaurant opened inside Minnesota’s Mall of America over Labor Day weekend in 1995. The timing was no coincidence: WCW presented the first episode of Monday Nitro from the same building, and Hogan used the broadcast to promote the restaurant.

PastaMania offered build-your-own pasta dishes, selections such as Hulk-U’s and Hulk-A-Roos, and even pasta formed into different likenesses of Hogan. It was one of the first serious attempts to build an entire consumer business around his identity rather than simply placing his picture on licensed merchandise.

The restaurant lasted less than a year, but it remains one of wrestling’s most remembered celebrity restaurant experiments.

The Hulk Hogan Thunder Mixer arrived during the same general period. Manufactured by Salton, it was a battery-powered 16-ounce mixer marketed for health drinks, diet shakes, cappuccino, scrambled eggs, salad dressing and several other mixtures.

The packaging advertised “cyclone action” reaching 12,000 revolutions per minute. It was not a traditional blender—it was a compact mixing cup powered by two AA batteries—but it placed Hogan’s fitness image directly onto the kitchen counter.

In 2006, Hogan entered the growing energy-drink market with Hogan Energy Powered by Socko. The development of the drink became part of Hogan Knows Best, and the product made an early television appearance when Hogan brought it onto The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Then came two of the most unusual items ever to carry his name: the Hulkster Cheeseburger and the Hulkster Chicken Sandwich.

Sold through Walmart, these were complete frozen sandwiches intended for the microwave. The Hulkster Cheeseburger was advertised as a flame-broiled cheeseburger on a bun, while the chicken version contained a breaded chicken patty on a bun. Each brightly colored red-and-yellow box contained four fully cooked sandwiches with Hogan’s photograph and signature displayed prominently above the product.

These were not hamburger patties intended for Hogan’s grill. They were already assembled sandwiches designed to go directly from the freezer into the microwave.

In 2007, Hulk Hogan’s Ultimate Grill debuted through QVC and direct-response television. The countertop appliance included interchangeable grilling, griddle and waffle plates and sold for approximately $100.

The following year, about 13,500 grills became part of a voluntary safety recall after cooking oil or spray could ignite or flare up during preheating. Five incidents were reported, including two minor burns, and owners were issued revised operating instructions.

Hogan returned to the nutrition business in 2011 with Hogan Nutrition, an online store carrying thousands of vitamins, supplements, sports-nutrition products and fitness accessories.

He also returned to restaurants. Hogan’s Beach opened in Tampa on New Year’s Eve 2012, although his involvement was described locally as a licensing arrangement rather than outright ownership. Hogan’s Hangout later opened on Clearwater Beach in December 2020.

In 2022, the familiar lunchbox idea came full circle when Igloo released a seven-quart Hulk Hogan Little Playmate cooler as part of its WWE Legends collection. It held nine cans and carried the red-and-yellow colors, shirt-ripping pose and “Whatcha Gonna Do?!” branding associated with his most famous years.

Unlike PastaMania or the Ultimate Grill, the Igloo cooler belonged to the WWE licensing side of Hogan’s commercial history—the modern version of the lunchboxes and thermoses children carried decades earlier.

Real American Beer represented something different again.

Launched in June 2024, it was not simply another company paying Hogan to appear in an advertisement. Hogan was a co-founder and personally traveled to stores, bars and public events promoting the brand. By January 2025, it was available in 20 states and had entered a partnership with WWE, which became a minority owner in the company.

It became one of the final major business ventures of his life.

Not every Hulk Hogan product became a lasting success. Some disappeared quickly, some were recalled, and others survive primarily as collectibles.

Their importance is found in the complete picture.

Hulk Hogan was not merely wrestling’s biggest attraction during the 1980s. He became one of the first wrestlers whose identity could be sold independently across food, drinks, restaurants, household appliances, health products and everyday merchandise.

For the generation that grew up watching him, these products almost form a timeline of their own lives: Hogan on a lunchbox when they were children, Hogan on a kitchen appliance when they had homes of their own, and Hogan on a beer can decades later.

Which of these do you remember actually seeing—or owning?

— Steve Stasiak
Book Pro Wrestlers

09/01/2026

Arn Anderson accompanies his son Brock Anderson to the ring in West Virginia for ASW Wrestling, where Brock would face Kerry Morton — with Kerry’s legendary father, Ricky Morton, in his corner.

Two sons. Two fathers. Two wrestling families whose names carry generations of history.

Brock Anderson vs. Kerry Morton — with Arn Anderson and Ricky Morton watching from ringside.

Moments like this are why we love professional wrestling.

— Steve Stasiak
Book Pro Wrestlers

09/01/2026

Watching “The Road to Wrestlemania 8” this morning makes me realize how much I miss 1992 wrestling.

09/01/2026

“Beautiful” Bobby Eaton and Tojo Yamamoto—the young Alabama prodigy and the old-school master who taught him how to make professional wrestling mean something.

Before the Midnight Express, before the championships and before Bobby Eaton was considered one of the greatest tag-team wrestlers who ever lived, he was a 13-year-old wrestling fan helping put up the ring whenever Nick Gulas brought NWA Mid-America into Huntsville, Alabama.

Once the ring was assembled, Bobby and a friend would climb inside and attempt the holds and moves they had watched the wrestlers perform.

Then, in May 1976, Bearcat Wright’s scheduled opponent failed to appear. Someone looked at 17-yea old Bobby and asked if he wanted to wrestle.

Bobby’s answer was immediate: “Hell, yeah!”

He lost that first match and later admitted he could barely remember it. What Bobby did remember was that he had not received any formal training before being thrown into the ring.

That is where the story of Bobby Eaton and Tojo Yamamoto becomes more interesting than the simple line found in most wrestling biographies.

Tojo didn’t merely teach Bobby how to perform holds. Bobby credited him with teaching the psychology of professional wrestling—how to sell, when to react, how to communicate emotion and how to make an audience believe in what it was watching. Bobby also said the two became very good friends.

Born Harold Watanabe in Hawaii, Tojo had served in the United States Marine Corps and worked as a judo instructor. Inside Southern wrestling arenas, however, he became one of the most despised villains of his generation. Tojo could infuriate an audience with a look, a gesture or one perfectly timed expression.

Behind the curtain, he was a deeply serious student and teacher of the business.

Tojo believed that wrestling was about much more than performing moves. He emphasized selling, facial expressions, timing and conveying emotion. He also impressed upon Bobby how fiercely the wrestlers of that generation protected their business.

When you watch Bobby Eaton work, it isn’t difficult to recognize those lessons.

Bobby possessed remarkable athletic ability, but it was his timing that made him special. He knew when to move, when to wait, when to sell and how to make everything his opponent did appear more effective. He could construct a tag-team match, build anticipation for a comeback and make everyone sharing the ring with him look better.

Those were Bobby’s gifts—but Tojo helped teach him how to use them.

Their relationship eventually became part of the action, too. Bobby teamed with his mentor during his early battles against the Hollywood Blonds, Jerry Brown and future Fabulous Freebird Buddy Roberts.

Then, late in 1979, the popular young Bobby shocked the territory by turning against the fans and joining Tojo’s hated group. Bobby, Tojo and the masked Secret Weapon would even hold six-man tag-team gold together.

Teacher and student had become partners.

Bobby’s career would carry him far beyond the Tennessee and Alabama territory. He became a champion with Sweet Brown Sugar, joined Dennis Condrey and Jim Cornette in the Midnight Express, later partnered with Stan Lane and ultimately earned recognition as one of the finest professional wrestlers of his era.

But the lessons Tojo gave him never disappeared.

They were there whenever Bobby sold an opponent’s offense perfectly. Whenever he waited that extra moment before making a tag. Whenever he made something difficult look effortless—and whenever another wrestler finished a match looking better because Bobby Eaton had been standing across from him.

Tojo Yamamoto passed away in 1992. Bobby Eaton left us in 2021.

Yet the knowledge passed from teacher to student remains alive every time someone watches Bobby Eaton perform.

These pictures are more than photographs of two wrestlers from a vanished territory. They capture how professional wrestling was once handed down—from one generation to the next, one lesson at a time.

Before “Beautiful” Bobby Eaton belonged to wrestling history, he was a teenage boy who listened when Tojo Yamamoto spoke.

Professional wrestling was better because he did.

— Steve Stasiak
Book Pro Wrestlers

09/01/2026

John Morrison dropped his opponent in every round, ended his boxing debut with a crushing right hand—and then used his post-fight interview to call out KSI.

This happened on April 15, 2023, at Creator Clash 2 inside Tampa’s Amalie Arena. Competing under his real name, John Hennigan, the former WWE star stepped into a boxing ring against Harley Morenstein—the towering personality known to millions through Epic Meal Time.

Morrison dropped Morenstein in the opening round. He put him down again in the second. Then, just 22 seconds into round three, another hard right hand brought the fight to an end and gave Morrison a TKO victory in his boxing debut.

Even his entrance carried plenty of professional wrestling with it. “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan introduced him, Josh Barnett worked his corner, and Taya Valkyrie, LA Knight, Karrion Kross, Scarlett and other familiar faces were there supporting him.

Then came the challenge.
Morrison passed over both Jake and Logan Paul and aimed directly at KSI:

“Jake got beat. Logan got beat by KSI, which is why I’m going to put KSI on blast right now.”

The fight with KSI never materialized, but Morrison had made his point. On a night built around online personalities, one of professional wrestling’s most naturally gifted athletes entered their world, delivered a decisive performance—and knew exactly what to do when someone placed a microphone in his hand.

— Steve Stasiak, Book Pro Wrestlers

08/31/2026

What was the best thing you seen on wrestling this weekend?

I gotta go with the Andrade match at All In.

08/31/2026

Roddy Piper with Special Olympics athletes in 1995—and it’s hard to tell who’s enjoying this moment more.

Hot Rod has his arms around the people beside him, everyone gathered close, wearing a shirt supporting that year’s Special Olympics World Games in Connecticut. There’s no mistaking that expression or that personality.

For a man remembered for getting people worked up, these are some wonderful smiles to leave behind.

We remember the sharp tongue. The unpredictability. The man who could pick a fight with practically anybody and make the whole world want to watch.

But this belongs in our memory of Roddy Piper, too.

Special Olympics gives athletes the opportunity to compete, demonstrate their abilities and receive recognition for the work they’ve put in. Here was one of wrestling’s most recognizable personalities standing alongside them, helping draw attention to their world.

What I love about this picture is that you don’t lose Hot Rod when you see this side of him. That larger-than-life energy is still right there. It’s simply being shared in a different way.

And when you look at everyone gathered around him, you can appreciate how much a moment like this can matter. A familiar face. An arm around a shoulder. A photograph that still makes people smile more than 30 years later.

To me, this offers a glimpse of the warmth beneath the rowdy reputation—and that deserves to be remembered alongside everything he accomplished in the ring.

His matches and interviews will always be part of wrestling history. I’m glad moments like this survived, too.

— Steve Stasiak, Book Pro Wrestlers

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