A common type of pro wrestling match is a normal guy pitted against a savage beast. The hero, not much bigger than you or I, is forced to match strength and cunning with a huge, hairy monster. Much pain ensues for the boy-next-door as the savage animal tears him limb from limb.
The spectacle of a man vs. monster mismatch has always excited the crowd, going back to Gladiator days where they’d entertain the citizens by throwing some Jews or Christians in the arena with a bunch of hungry lions or bears. The blood-thirsty crowd seems to enjoy the primal violence of a man forced to fight a larger, more savage animal to the death.
During the Golden Age of pro wrestling, some brave grapplers would get in the ring — shirtless and vulnerable — and roll around with an actual 500 pound bear. It always seemed humiliating for the wrestler, forced to get up close and personal with a hairy, dirty, possibly dangerous animal. It was undignified — bestiality was implied. The crowd was sure attracted to the potential bloodshed, but you could never count on the bear: it might roll over and take a nap in the middle of the match, or it might decide to maul the annoying hairless nemesis who keeps trying to slap on a headlock. And following a good squash match, bears don’t strike a victory pose or offer a cocky interview to further enrage and entertain the viewers.
Throughout history, people have been fascinated by stories of a man, a civilized dude, forced to get all feral and dirty and beat down some big, savage beast. We expect our hero to slay a dragon before he can qualify as a hero. Even in the oldest story in the English language, Beowulf 
had to fight Grendl (and then wrestle a grudge match against Grendl’s mother). Tarzan has always been forced to get down and dirty with gorillas, lions, and alligators; so has Batman, Superman, and all the Superheroes. Do you recall flipping through those comic books and the raw, arousing thoughts triggered in your impressionable brain by those primal Man vs. Beast throw-downs?
Luke Skywalker had to fight and kill the Rancor in Jabba’s dungeon. The Mario Brothers have to destroy Bowser and numerous other Bosses. Every culture is into this. These stories are appealing because they tap into our more primitive instincts, those brutal urgings and blood-lust that modern, respectable society represses to keep men under wraps and minimize animal cruelty. The ubiquity of this theme — humans taking on wild, raging animals — in comic books, movies and other media shows that you can take the dude out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the dude.
Many bad guys in pro wrestling over the years have adopted the persona of the savage, the caveman, the barbarian, the wild beast. To pull off the Manimal gimmick, the wrestler should be larger than average, and grow long, unruly hair and whiskers. It also helps to have a hairy body/chest, to wear all black gear and a scary, savage demeanor. The most important part of working the savage beast gimmick is to utterly brutalize, destroy, and maim your opponent, savaging him like a wolf tearing mercilessly and hungrily into an injured baby gazelle on Animal Planet.
As mentioned in earlier posts, pro wrestling uses contrasts between the wrestlers to entertain. The Man vs. Beast match highlights the differences between the normal guy — the Everyman — and a monster. Even if he’s muscular, the good guy (who we all identify with) looks small and defenseless compared to the giant. Often in these matches, the hero will wear white or bright red gear to further highlight his weaker position relative to the beast in all black. The good guy’s smooth bare chest also makes him appear weaker — more vulnerable — especially if the monster is hairy. We can’t believe some sadistic promoter scheduled this mis-match: a nice guy getting his head ripped off by a man-eating beast.
Inevitably, the normal wrestler’s situation appears hopeless against the Monster, as if he could never pull off a victory against a ruthless creature twice his size. It is this contrast that makes the hero seem even braver (for agreeing to face off with the giant) and the match more dramatic (due to the potential for injury).
who’s the guy in black trunks in the image with “manly” text? and the guy who wrestled with the bear?
where do you get all these cool images?
You have totally captured my feelings about wrestling. You’re absolutely right about there not being much wrestling in the 70’s and 80’s. We thought we’d scored big time if you happened to come across wrestling on TV and made sure you noted the time and channel for future viewing. I used to love Villain vs. Jobber and one of my favorite things was after the jobber had been totally demolished he would be pinned for a two count only to be dragged up by the hair. Once in a while the jobber would stage a comeback but it would be short lived. The matches that I enjoyed the most was when this would happen several times before the final pin. The only difference I would have with your description is the Arn Anderson type match. I loved it when the Villain would pick a body part usually arm or leg and just continually attack it. I loved it when the jobber would try to crawl to the corner only to have his leg grabbed and dragged back to the middle of the ring to have it attacked some more. This was even better in Mexican tag teams when the jobber would get almost to his partner and have the arm or leg grabbed and then dragged to the Villains corner to be worked over relentlessly. I also think that with identical masked tag team villains it was easy to see them switch places without tagging off when the ref with busy with the jobbers partner. The last thing your dead on with is bodies. In the 60’s -80’s wrestlers had decent builds and when one had a great build it was something special especially if they ended up be the one worked over. At least half of them had hairy chests and arm pits. Nothing was hotter than having the Villain clamping a headlock on the jobber and grind his face into his hairy, sweaty armpit and chest. While the bodies today are much more developed they are almost interchangable. To see one who has actually kept all their body hair and might be a bit thick thru the middle is actually more of a turn on because it’s different than the norm. I think with regard to the “wild wrestlers” part of the turn on was that they were different. I remember a few years back when inked up punk boys started appearing it was a nice change from the smooth chested steroid bodies that seemed to be everywhere. It also seemed in the old days that the stories were not so absolutely outrageous. They would spend a minute or two interviewing either the heel or the good guy depending on who the winner of the match was going to be. Now days WWE has turned it into such a circus. They have though made a multi million dollar enterprise out of something that in the fifties was on every night. Personally I’d settle for back in the 80’s when there was wrestling in Atlanta, Texas, Minn. and New York with some L.A. thrown in. Thanks again for a great blog.