>>12832581>>12832523I was thinking about something tangentially related to this just yesterday--the later 80s and 90s kids had our own culture. There were things in the media that spoke directly to us, and those things seemed themselves interrelated: wrestlers DID seem like giant figures that went right along with GI Joe and TMNT--in fact, you could even argue that watching wrestling showed you how to play with your toys 'correctly'. And then you'd play a wrestling videogame right after, watch some cartoons, and then watch wrestling with your family in the evening.
The 80s and 90s get a lot of crap for how hard they pushed toys, but as a kid it ruled. Toy commercials on TV were standard. I didn't want every toy, far from it, but it was very nice to see other kids on TV playing and know that I was being spoken to.
And the toys themselves were great. If everyone is making toys, then everyone is making toys well--there's not a lot of time for slouching because your spot will get taken by someone else or something else. Transformers toys were great quality if you could find diecast metal variants, and the turtle toys could survive bathtub battles, dry off, and function just fine.
I miss that interconnectedness between levels of entertainment. Companies seemed like they were really trying to help kids enjoy themselves instead of whatever bullshitt we've got these days.
Anyway, Warrior deserves all the praise he gets. Up to a certain level, wrestling is all fashion, attitude, and perceived threat level, and Warrior maxes out all of those. He fits the American tribal archetype of the craized shaman spoken to through dream, lead by the winds of the plains, and guided by the spirits of the ancestors. It's a particular archetype seen in Wolf from Virtua Fighter, or Warchild from Point Break, and the top wrestlers carried similar strains of authentic machismo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0Y-Busxnog&ab_channel=JoeTilley%27sGreatCanadianSportsShow 
