I'm not a racist, I promise. Magazine Ads from back in the day!

[Johnnyreggae]

Spoiler

 

Been digging through some old PWI, Inside Wrestling and The Wrestler Magazines from the late 80s and forgot how crazy some of the old Ad pages in them were

After looking at a load of them, they were basically videos, albums and a selection of other weird and strange Wrestling memorabilia.

A few that caught my eye were, 

For just $9.99 (plus shipping and handling), you could totally rock out to the song stylings of Michael Hayes through his "Off The Streets" record.

The album includes 10 tracks, while the audio cassette had 11 songs.

Both versions include the hit song "Badstreet", although the record includes a poster of Hayes posing in the buff beside a Confederate flag.

 

PRO WRESTLING ILLUSTRATED MERCH.

Pro Wrestling Illustrated was an institution to us wrestling fans back in the day;

But.. who would pay out actual money to wear a PWI baseball cap, own a frisbee or a sticker?

I feel like The only people buying this would be the immediate family of PWI employees.

 

* Sketchy Wrestling Merch *

There was an ad for a fake looking "World HeavyWeight Wrestling Championship Belt" for $12.50.

**A bootleg Hulk Hogan and Andre The Giant sketch

**A Gordan Solie Trivia game.

**An ad that gives you the chance to learn how to throw and handle BIG LARGE MEN around your home with ease....

**Gain an Atlas body in 7 days....

And because Inside Wrestling couldn't sell WWF videos, they had to look elsewhere, and Japanese womens wrestling was quite popular, So we had 

"Slant Eyed Slaughter"

With the slogan, you've heard about them, you've read about them and now you can see them.

If you can get past the title of the video, the tape doesn't look to bad, featuring talent such as, The Jumping Bomb Angles, The Crush girls, Dump Matsumoto and Wendi Ricter.

Does anyone else have any memories of these?

Did anyone ever but anything from the ads?

Are you currently reading this while wearing a PWI cap?

Or did you even buy vol 1. 2 and 3 of gorgeous girls in Savage combat? 

(If so, can I borrow it?)

 

 

[Johnnyreggae]

I did try and add photos but had a nightmare trying to work out the url and uploading 😂 

[simonworden]

I can almost forgive Hayes and his flag-based shenanigans for the time period, but that Joshi tape's name must have been questionable way back and shocking this was what they landed on. 

[BomberPat]

I've seen that Joshi video show up on eBay, was absolutely staggered by the name. Shows how commonplace anti-Asian racism was in America in the '80s that at no point between pitching, producing, distributing, and advertising that video did anyone seemingly step up and suggest the name might be a bit off - and that's on something they expected people to actually buy!

I think I've mentioned it before, but I own the Gordon Solie Trivia Game. I've never played it, but have gone through some of the question cards. A mate of mine had a copy before I did and brought some of them to a show, and the questions were  mostly pretty good, but the first one he asked us, the answer on the card was completely wrong.

[The Reverend]

On 5/17/2026 at 1:42 PM, Johnnyreggae said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Been digging through some old PWI, Inside Wrestling and The Wrestler Magazines from the late 80s and forgot how crazy some of the old Ad pages in them were

After looking at a load of them, they were basically videos, albums and a selection of other weird and strange Wrestling memorabilia.

A few that caught my eye were, 

For just $9.99 (plus shipping and handling), you could totally rock out to the song stylings of Michael Hayes through his "Off The Streets" record.

The album includes 10 tracks, while the audio cassette had 11 songs.

Both versions include the hit song "Badstreet", although the record includes a poster of Hayes posing in the buff beside a Confederate flag.

 

PRO WRESTLING ILLUSTRATED MERCH.

Pro Wrestling Illustrated was an institution to us wrestling fans back in the day;

But.. who would pay out actual money to wear a PWI baseball cap, own a frisbee or a sticker?

I feel like The only people buying this would be the immediate family of PWI employees.

 

* Sketchy Wrestling Merch *

There was an ad for a fake looking "World HeavyWeight Wrestling Championship Belt" for $12.50.

**A bootleg Hulk Hogan and Andre The Giant sketch

**A Gordan Solie Trivia game.

**An ad that gives you the chance to learn how to throw and handle BIG LARGE MEN around your home with ease....

**Gain an Atlas body in 7 days....

And because Inside Wrestling couldn't sell WWF videos, they had to look elsewhere, and Japanese womens wrestling was quite popular, So we had 

"Slant Eyed Slaughter"

With the slogan, you've heard about them, you've read about them and now you can see them.

If you can get past the title of the video, the tape doesn't look to bad, featuring talent such as, The Jumping Bomb Angles, The Crush girls, Dump Matsumoto and Wendi Ricter.

Does anyone else have any memories of these?

Did anyone ever but anything from the ads?

Are you currently reading this while wearing a PWI cap?

Or did you even buy vol 1. 2 and 3 of gorgeous girls in Savage combat? 

(If so, can I borrow it?)

 

 

I'm not really sure why this is strange - magazines, sports teams, radio stations etc. etc. all produced bumper stickers - something that was very big in the 80's, and even more so in particular parts of the USA - even today they are. The T-Shirt and cap are exactly the same, simple marketing. Again in the 70's and 80's marketing was a different thing. If you look at the audience for old territories in the 80's you'll no doubt spot someone wearing a PWI t-shirt or cap (wasn't there an NWA event where the ref was?). Great advertising for your product and basic marketing really.  Some of this has to be viewed through the culture it was aimed at, which were the regional USA wrestling fans. The frisbee - yep, perhaps a bit strange, but then I remember having badges and keyrings from building societies in the 1980's. 

Edited May 18 by The Reverend

[The Reverend]

30 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

I've seen that Joshi video show up on eBay, was absolutely staggered by the name. Shows how commonplace anti-Asian racism was in America in the '80s that at no point between pitching, producing, distributing, and advertising that video did anyone seemingly step up and suggest the name might be a bit off - and that's on something they expected people to actually buy!

I think I've mentioned it before, but I own the Gordon Solie Trivia Game. I've never played it, but have gone through some of the question cards. A mate of mine had a copy before I did and brought some of them to a show, and the questions were  mostly pretty good, but the first one he asked us, the answer on the card was completely wrong.

It is a shocking name but then it's viewing it through  the time and the culture it was aimed at. The 1980s were still a time when the world wasn't quite so PC. look at TV and films from the time. Even some of it was aimed at children. I remember reading war comics in the 1980s and there would be the mention of 'nips' and 'krauts' as well as front covers featuring swastikas (imagine that coming through your letter box in 2026!!). 

And then it's looking at the culture it was aimed at - the Apter mags were sold across the country, but they were certainly aimed more at the audiences of the territories where the term PC was definitely not one that was known.