Jab and Grapple - Boxing and Wrestling News and Analysis

The WWF is Coming to Town (Part One)

by Michael Sedor on May 8th, 2008

This month the B5 Sports Channel is compiling a set of sports memories. Here’s my take.

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The WWF was coming to my hometown. For the first time ever. September 28, 1984. Hershey, Pa. I was ten. My dad had two tickets. We were going! The very idea of seeing my newly realized heroes was too much to handle. The same heroes I watched with baited breath on every Saturday morning on local channels. The same heroes that would come together in mega events in gigantic arenas in huge cities every blue moon that were showcased on bigger cable stations like the PRISM network. Events that would seem so elaborate and so wonderful and so overwhelming to a wide-eyed ten year old.

What I knew was that many of these stars were coming to my small town. To perform in a drafty airplane hangar-like place known as Hersheypark Arena. A place built in 1936 and untouched since, a place where I had seen already dozens of ice hockey games, a place that I couldn’t imagine being transformed from a cold, glimmering palace of ice to a rugged grappling arena for my heroes.

My dad told me he knew a local person involved in the WWF. He had done some work from him and he had said that Hershey was scheduled to be a B-level spot on the wrestling circuit. A place just below the Madison Square Garden and Philadelphia Spectrum events where belt holders appeared and (gasp) might even fight someone good!

What this meant to a ten-year-old was that the best wrestler of them all, the high-flying death defying Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka was going to be at that September 24 show in all his leopard-print wrestling trunk-wearing glory. The same Jimmy Snuka who could fly from the top of a 15-foot steel cage and not only survive but land on his hated rival Don Muraco. The same Jimmy Snuka who should have been Intercontinental Champion. This boy was overjoyed.

We entered the arena on the mezzanine level. The ice was gone and where center ice had been now stood a ring and above it hung a large unfurled WWF banner. Hundreds of chairs surrounded the ring forming strict parallel rows. We were in Row 10. I was mesmerized. I rushed down to the seating area and made a bee-line to the ring itself. I pounded my fist on the canvas hoping to hear the reverb from the microphones surely poised underneath. Sadly there was no echo yet.

We took our seats while a steady if not unspectacular crowd moved into their seats. Pro wrestling’s popularity was muted. There was no merchandising, no cardboard signs, no intro songs, no video monitors, no commerce, and no national television show. Heck, there hadn’t even been a Wrestlemania yet. The atmosphere was very gritty and still very much underground. Wrestling was for us. We understood how much fun it was; the mainstream public didn’t. We loved it that way.

When the bouts started the arena was still only about half full, about 4,000 strong. Unfortunately the tallest two members of the 4,000 were in front of us…and they liked to stand. Since we were on the floor level the seats had no tiering. We were situated diagonal to the ring so it was a little hard to see. This ten-year-old was disappointed but determined to peer through any obstructions.

Click to continue reading. In Part Two it gets much, much, better.

Photo of Hersheypark Arena Interior Source: Wendy Frey via Wikipedia

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