ShareThisWhat may be Hulk Hogan's final match is cause for reflection about pro wrestling from earlier eras. The same taste of nostalgia can be found in a stunning new 320-page photography collection that features Hogan on its cover.
"Hot Shots and High Spots" ($22.95; ECW Press) showcases hundreds of shots taken by George Napolitano, a longtime grappling journalist who began covering matches in 1970. The photos feature not only every major star from the past four decades but behind-the-scenes images such as the late Andre the Giant hoisting four female wrestlers in the air like a human cape and a bleached-blond Paul Levesque long before he became a WWE headliner as Triple H.
"Honestly, what's in that book is a fraction of the stuff that I could have used," Napolitano said in a recent telephone interview. "If I actually had to look at everything I've shot, I'd still be looking and we wouldn't have a book."
Using multiple cameras, Napolitano would take 200 to 250 photos for a regular event and 350-plus for a mega-card. Napolitano would then personally develop those photos and choose which to use for the slew of wrestling publications he was editing and writing. The photography process is a far cry from today when Napolitano uses a digital camera for the events that he shoots and is no longer stationed at ringside.
"I couldn't just fire away at will," Napolitano said. "I would have to wait for the flash to recycle and be selective. Now for the most part, you're seated next to a TV camera. You press the button and can shoot as many as 1,500 images during a pay-per-view show. It's all repetitive, but that's the way it is. It's so much easier."
An aspiring rock 'n' roll musician in his hometown of Brooklyn, N.Y., Napolitano lucked into the job that would become a lifelong profession. On a lark, Napolitano and his future wife, Jackie, attended a New York City-area show presented by the World Wide Wrestling Federation (the WWE's former name before Vincent K. McMahon took the ownership reins from his father). By constantly darting down the aisle to take photos of performers, Napolitano caught the eye of a Ring Magazine employee who asked for samples of his work.
Napolitano was hired and began a journey that took him around the world shooting every major pro-wrestling superstar. Napolitano said his favorite performer to shoot was the masked Mexican legend Mil Mascaras, who is the uncle of current WWE star Alberto Del Rio. "I liked to photograph him because of his flying," Napolitano said of Mascaras. "When he was shot off the ropes, you knew he was going to throw a dropkick or do something colorful. He was different than everyone else.
"The same goes for 'Superstar' Billy Graham. He was Hulk Hogan before his day. You didn't really know what he was going to do and where he was going to do it. But I did know he was going to look for me and make sure I got a great picture. Later on, I loved The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) and Steve Austin for the same reason. You just had to be ready."
At a time when pro wrestling was a closed shop to outsiders, Napolitano earned the trust and friendship of many performers he photographed. Among them was Hogan, who he first met in the late 1970s upon his WWWF debut. Ten pages of "Hot Shots and High Spots" are dedicated solely to the 58-year-old Hogan, who is facing Steve "Sting" Borden on Impact Wrestling's "Bound for Glory" pay-per-view show Sunday in Philadelphia.
Because of multiple back surgeries that have greatly reduced his mobility and ability to take falls, the bout with Sting could very well be Hogan's last. Napolitano, though, remembers the days when a strapping 6-foot-6, 320-pound Hogan was still trying to forge his grappling identity long before the dawn of Hulkamania.
"When he first came to the WWF, he was as green as green could be, but he was really nice to me," Napolitano said. "We became friendly. He would then ask me different things like what I thought about his matches. I wasn't one to critique by telling him they were five-star or three-star (bouts), but I did try to offer different things and pointers that might help him."
Napolitano remembers having a post-match dinner with The Hulkster on the eve of Hogan's screen test for the 1982 hit movie "Rocky III." Hogan's role as "Thunderlips" would help propel him to mainstream stardom. But Hogan (real name Terry Bollea) thought his chances of landing the gig were damaged when Andre the Giant intentionally busted his nose in one of their matches.
According to Napolitano, Andre did that to remind Hogan that he was "a wrestler, not an actor." Ironically, Andre would later stake his own claim to Hollywood fame with a well-received turn in the 1987 children's classic "The Princess Bride."
"At that point, wrestlers were not actors," Napolitano said. "They were also very protective about something that could be said that would unveil how the business worked to someone from the outside. They treated wrestling like it was a dark, hidden secret. But the thing about Hogan is he bridged the old with the new in the entertainment world."
With the industry having declined from its 1990s zenith, the 62-year-old Napolitano is now shooting more concerts and red-carpet events than wrestling. Napolitano doesn't bemoan WWE's virtual monopolization of the grappling game or the technological advances that have made photography so much easier. Instead, Napolitano reflects fondly upon the days when he would watch matches at ringside "through a little (viewing) hole" waiting for the perfect shot.
"Once, I tried to think about just how many photos I had taken, and it's an amazing, massive number," Napolitano said. "There were times I was shooting three or four shows a week. Sometimes, I would be selling programs with my pictures in them. There was never an offseason, so if you figure I was shooting 200 shows a year for 20 years, it just piles up.
"I will say I am taking less pictures now than I did then. You just hold onto the button now. That's the way it is."
For more information on "Hot Shots and High Spots" visit www.ecwpress.com. For more information on "Bound for Glory," which also features Kurt Angle vs. Bobby Roode and Rob Van Dam vs. Jerry Lynn, visit www.impactwrestling.com.
(Alex Marvez writes a syndicated pro-wrestling column for Scripps Howard News Service. Contact him at alex1marv(at)aol.com or follow him via Twitter at http://twitter.com/alexmarvez.)
