Vince McMahon

You might think that as Vince McMahon, veteran boss of World Wrestling Entertainment, returned to public life after a brief period in exile following allegations of sexual misconduct and hush-money agreements, he would want to present a sober and serious image. Not a bit of it. The seventy-seven-year-old emerged to announce the sale of WWE to Endeavor Group Holdings with blackened hair and a pencil mustache — resembling Dick Dastardly on a shit ton of steroids. McMahon is a showman. I’m sure there is some extent to which he wanted his mustache to become the story. Get ‘em talking about the image and they might not focus on those dark mutterings about sexual harassment and assault.

Having been fired from World Championship Wrestling, Steve Austin entered the World Wrestling Federation with the godawful gimmick of 'the Ringmaster’. He looked no more memorable than a Big Mac. Austin knew that something had to change. He wanted to adopt an edgier, more cold-blooded character. The WWF’s creative team, displaying the genius that had inspired 'Mantaur’, a wrestler who dressed up as a Minotaur, and 'the Gobbledy Gooker’, proposed such names as 'Otto Von Ruthless’ and 'Chilly McFreeze’. According to wrestling legend, Austin was at home when his wife told him to drink his tea before it turned 'stone cold’. Stone Cold Steve Austin was born. He quickly flourished.

The Von Erichs were, at one time, the toast of Texas: a family of chiseled, clean-cut American lads who took on bullies, thugs and liars in the wrestling ring. Girls wanted them. Boys wanted to be them. Advertisers wanted to throw money at them. Under the watchful eye of the family patriarch, Fritz, young David, Kevin and Kerry Von Erich seemed destined for greatness. Then David died, on a tour of Japan. There were rumors of a drug overdose but the autopsy ruled that he had had a heart attack after suffering from enteritis.