You had to be there. The 80s were…a special time. The innocence of the 50s were long gone. The civil unrest of the 60s had just reached a boiling point. The less said about the 70s, the better. For so many people, the 1980s were a decade that defined a generation. The music, the movies, the…erm…fashion – it was a decade of taking chances, of making art, of creating memories.
And for musician-cum-actor-cum-comedian Jon Lajoie, one of his most important memories happened in the World Wrestling Federation.
The date was March 29, 1987. The location was Pontiac, Michigan, at the Pontiac Silverdome. The event was WrestleMania III and in the world of professional wrestling, this was the event that defined the WWF.
Depending on to whom you speak, WrestleMania III took place in front of 85,000 or 93,0000, or maybe even 100,000 fans – it doesn’t really matter to wrestling fans who, for the most part, came for one reason and one reason only.
They wanted to see Hulk Hogan slam Andre the Giant.
Hulk Hogan was the star of the 1980’s. Andre the Giant, for all intents and purposes, was the star of the 1970’s. They were the two biggest attractions in the WWF, so it only seemed natural that the two would meet in a matchup at the biggest wrestling event of the year. Story-wise, Andre was jealous that Hulk Hogan was more popular than him, and he was mad that Hogan never gave him a championship title match. So instead of asking for a match, Andre demanded one – ripping off Hogan’s iconic t-shirt and his cross necklace (Hulk Hogan – big Jesus fan, don’t ya know).
The table was set for the “The Irresistible Force vs The Immovable Object.” The matchup itself was nothing special, in terms of athleticism. Hulk and Andre had to follow “Macho Man” Randy Savage vs. Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat, which is still talked about as one of the greatest WrestleMania matches of all time. But Hulk vs Andre was never about athleticism. It was about spectacle. And oh, what a spectacle it was. The majority of the match was plodding, albeit entertaining. The 150,000 people in attendance cheered every punch, every clothesline, every headbutt. But everybody knew what was coming. They waited, with bated breath. There was the shoulder block. There was the Hulking Up. And then. Finally.
Hulk Hogan slammed Andre the Giant.
For hundreds of thousands of professional wrestling fans, this was the moment. It was the moment that really, truly made Hulk Hogan a megastar. It was the moment that launched professional wrestling into the pop culture pantheon. And, for many fans, it was the first moment in pro wrestling that actually made them feel.
Jon Lajoie was one of those fans.
Lajoie, known for his role as “Nacho” in the FX television series The League, is also an incredible musician. At first, he performed various comedic rap and hip hop songs, several of which went viral before “going viral” was even a thing; but eventually, he ventured into more “serious” music under the moniker of Wolfie’s Just Fine (a reference to T2: Judgment Day). Wolfie’s Just Fine has released three albums, all of which feature songs that refer to and revel in various pop culture figures and moments. There’s A New Beginning, which details Lajoie’s first time watching Friday the 13th Part 5: A New Beginning. There’s Pigeon Lady which, as the title suggests, refers to the Pigeon Lady in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
And then, there’s his most recent wrestling-related song: Hulk Hogan Slammed Andre the Giant. It’s a song that, like A New Beginning, encapsulates a time for Lajoie and people his age when they were children, just on the verge of adolescence. While A New Beginning is about growing up – it’s about death and sex and fear (of death and sex), Hulk Hogan Slammed Andre the Giant is about holding onto childhood as long as we can and, as adults, remembering those moments and remembering how we felt when those moments happened. Both songs are nostalgic and bittersweet, and they cause the listener to feel something, deep in their hearts. And isn’t that what great art is supposed to do?
“You’ve said it better than I’ve said it,” Lajoie said in an hour-and-a-half long interview with Bodyslam. “It’s something of a companion piece. I’ve only, in hindsight, after I wrote Hulk Hogan and we were recording it, did I go ‘Oh, this is like the lighter sibling to the darker A New Beginning. Because to me, A New Beginning is like, about the loss of innocence. And the Hulk Hogan one is celebrating that innocence and that little moment where the world is just still kind of simple.”
The song itself, and the music video that accompanies it, retells the story of the match between Hogan and Andre, from the perspective of a child. In the music video, LJN action figures are used to recreate the match, which is extremely poetic in and of itself because how many children of the ‘80s recreated that very match with their action figures? How many still do?
“The superhero defeated the villain,” Lajoie said. “It’s this perfect moment of, like, ‘Yes, everything that was supposed to happen, happened.’”
For one night, for one match, for one moment, everything was perfect. Good triumphed over evil. Batman beat The Joker. Superman defeated Lex Luthor. Hulk Hogan slammed Andre the Giant.
Things wouldn’t stay perfect, however. Kids grew up. They got bigger. They fell in love and got their hearts broken. Mistakes were made; lessons were learned. Hulk Hogan would go on to have an incredible career; one matched only by one or two other people throughout the history of professional wrestling. But people also found out that Hulk Hogan wasn’t, exactly, the vitamin-taking, shirt-ripping, prayer-saying superhero that he claimed to be. Hulk Hogan was eventually humanized and, in that humanization, people realized that maybe, just maybe, Hulk Hogan wasn’t that great of a human being.
But that part would come later. On March 29, 1987, Hogan was still the guy.
He was certainly still Lajoie’s guy. Jon Lajoie, in 1987, was like many kids of his generation. He had the Ninja Turtle bedsheets, the Batman pajamas, the Transformers pillow cases. And he had the WWF LJN Action Figures.
“Because I was so young, I remember not knowing what wrestling was,” he said. “And then I remember, at some point, it immediately became the most important thing in the world. I’m old, so we had like three channels on tv. And I’m Canadian, so it’s CBC, CFDF 12, and the French Language Channel. I don’t know how we discovered it, but at noon on Saturdays, WWF Maple Leaf Wrestling would come on. And we were right in front of the television, every single week.”
Lajoie said that WWF Maple Leaf Wrestling was a show specifically catered to Canadian WWF viewers.
“They were kind of the shittier matches,” he laughed. “But Saturday at noon was the most important time of our lives. It was always an hour. And right before, there was a lottery thing. So it just became ingrained in us, just sitting there during their stupid lottery numbers and people would call in the lottery numbers and we were just like, ‘Get over it already and let’s get to the fuckin’ wrestling!’”
Eventually, the lottery numbers would end and WWF Maple Leaf Wrestling would begin. For Lajoie, those Saturday afternoons were just as important as Saturday morning cartoons. They defined his generation and they made him fall in love with what would eventually be called Sports Entertainment. But for a while, it was just pro wrestling. It was WWF Maple Leaf Wrestling and it was the most important thing in the world to Jon Lajoie.
Like most fans at that time, and still like many fans, now, it wasn’t enough to just watch the wrestling. Lajoie and his brother wanted to live it. They wanted to re-create it. And that’s exactly what they did with the WWF LJN Action Figures, which were so real, it felt like being in the ring.
“We immediately got the LJN toys and immediately, of course, they became our favorite toys in the world,” he shared. “And the other thing that LJN provided us was, because we only had three channels, we didn’t have cable tv, so you couldn’t actually see the matches you wanted to see. Like, King Kong Bundy never wrestled Hulk Hogan on our tv. You never had the British Bulldogs vs the Killer Bees. Junkyard Dog doesn’t fight Jake the Snake. So we were actually allowed to create those matches with our figures.”
For kids, being able to create, or re-create matches with their action figures was the height of pro wrestling fandom. It’s the exact same thing as playing with your Ninja Turtles as they squared off against The Shredder (and maybe some GI Joes if you didn’t have any of the Foot Clan). It was a chance to use your imagination and it was the best of times.
“It was a special time, man,” Lajoie said. “And then they started doing Saturday Night Main Event on NBC, and we begged our parents to let us watch it. Our grandparents had cable tv, so we’d go have a sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. We called them Nanny and Granddad. And we’d stay there and they would get us snacks that we couldn’t afford at home, like name-brand Doritos. It was a very special occasion, and then you’re seeing these matches that you’ve fantasized about.”
It was during those special nights at Granddad and Nanny’s house that Lajoie first fell in love with Hulk Hogan. He was a superhero on par with Superman himself, for millions of kids.
“Nobody can be Hulk Hogan,” he said. “But also, no one can be Andre the Giant. So when WrestleMania III came along, we had no idea what was going to happen. I remember at the beginning of the match going like, ‘Oh, yeah. We’re just going to sit here and watch Hulk Hogan get the shit kicked out of him, because it’s Andre the Giant.’ I don’t know that there’s been a wrestler since that has such a mythology about him, that is so undefeated or undefeatable as Andre the Giant. He was our favorite wrestler until our hearts were broken on the Piper’s Pit.”
It was during that infamous Piper’s Pit segment that Andre fully “turned heel” on Hogan, ripping his shirt and cross necklace off and ending years of friendship. That’s when both of their fates were sealed. And millions of fans tuned in to see if Hulk Hogan could actually defeat the man, the myth, the legend that was Andre the Giant.
“I feel like the only thing that’s true about it is the emotion of it,” Lajoie said. “I don’t remember exactly how the match unfolded, but I do remember him trying to slam Andre and, of course, not being able to. But then he knocks Andre down and Hulks Up. And even that, we were like, ‘Oh my God, we don’t understand what we’re watching because Andre the Giant just fell down.’”
It’s hard to describe that match to people that didn’t watch it live. No, it was nothing special in terms of athleticism. Better matches from better wrestlers would happen in abundance at future WrestleMania’s. But it was that moment, that match, that slam that changed the wrestling business forever. So much so, that WWE is honoring the match at the 2026 Hall of Fame Ceremony on Friday, April 17.
“I don’t know that there’s been more awe, excitement, joy, exhilaration in my life condensed into one moment more so than that moment,” LaJoie said. “It’s just such a unique combination of factors, including my age and including the storyline between Hogan and Andre, including it being the last match, the lead up, and it just being a moment of history. The reason I wrote about it was, I joked all the time that, as an adult, in order to feel the kind of joy I felt watching Hulk Hogan slam Andre the Giant, I’d probably have to do truckloads of drugs, drink countless amounts of alcohol, swallow an insane amount of magic mushrooms and run through the forest naked. And even then, it wouldn’t be close.”
Lajoie is not alone. Millions of kids across the world would agree with him, whether they were kids cheering on Hulk Hogan in the 1980s or they’re kids now, cheering on Roman Reigns or John Cena or CM Punk or Cody Rhodes. Granted, none of those legends will ever be on the same level as Hulk Hogan, but they’re still superheroes in the eyes of an entire generation.
That’s what Hulk Hogan was to Jon Lajoie and his brother. A superhero. Later, time would reveal Hogan to be a fallible man; one who made mistakes, one who hurt people. But on March 29, 1987 he was Luke Skywalker or Indiana Jones or The Terminator but specifically The Terminator from T2: Judgment Day. He was a walking, talking, real-life superhero and when he told you to train, say your prayers, and take your vitamins, you listened to him on the off-chance that you might one day become a hero like Hulk Hogan, yourself (albeit one with far fewer racist tendencies).
“It’s that feeling of safety,” Lajoie said. “It’s like being cradled by the universe, who is holding you and for just a minute, you’re okay. And not only are you okay, but we’re gonna have fun tonight and we’re gonna watch this thing that we love. And specifically, that thing is professional wrestling. And it’s snacks. And my grandparents, which was so special for me to be there to begin with. They both have since passed. And so, in hindsight, those are the memories that we hold onto. It’s the simplicity of the world in that moment. It’s really a simple view of the world. Hulk Hogan wins. Everything’s gonna be okay, forever and ever.”
