On March 31st 1985 the first Wrestlemania took place, built on a pretty standard card, and an eclectic choice of celebrities. There are a few individuals without whom the course of wrestling history might not have been the same, and weirdly, one of them is Cyndi Lauper. At the time of me making this video, Cyndi is on her farewell tour, and we are just passed forty years since Wrestlemania one, so I thought now might be a good time to look at Cyndi’s contribution to wrestling, and see if she belongs among all the other names that made Wrestlemania what it is.
Before starting to make this video, I’d assumed that Cyndi appeared at Wrestlemania, and maybe one or twice more and that’s it. It turns out that I was wrong, as Cyndi had far more involvement though as we’ll get to, and it was all thanks to one unusual friendship.
In this video, we’ll look at how Cyndi Lauper came to be involved in Wrestling, and her feud with Captain Lou that ran through 1984. We’ll then look at the build to Wrestlemania, and the case for her being inducted in the Hall of Fame.
First getting involved
In 1994, while promoting her greatest hits album 12 Deadly Cyns, Cyndi explained that she had watched wrestling growing up, but it was her manager David Wolf who introduced her to a new opportunity for some crossover appeal. “I remember watching Bruno and my Ma loved wrestling. Dave just thought we could reach out to a bigger and different audience by getting involved with the wrestling. He did everything, and set it all up.” She goes on to call it a positive time for her, and says that she learned a lot about hype and production from working with WWE.
While she had an affinity for it, Cyndi’s time in wrestling might not have happened if not for a chance meeting with an ex-wrestler turned manager, on a plane flying from Puerto Rico in 1983. This is when she would meet Captain Lou Albano, and the two would become friends. In Lou’s obituary in the Wrestling Observer following his passing in 2009, Dave Meltzer would write that “Lauper was a wrestling fan and Albano lived his gimmick.” He also noted that the two had a mutual friend in Danny Devito, who took inspiration in part from Albano when playing Louis De Palma in Taxi. The two would also appear in the 1986 film Wise Guys together. Lou also had a bit of experience in the music industry, working with the band NRBQ as their manager briefly. They would record a song about Lou in ‘81, which is an absolute ear worm. *clip*
In October ‘83, one of Cyndi’s biggest singles, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” was first released, and the video for the song would premiere in December, featuring Lou Albano playing her Dad.
On Lou being in the video, Dave says “Albano was one of the masters at getting attention, from his facials, to the way he walked and dressed, even if not allowed to talk, like in this video. His facials and the way he walked stole the video.” He also notes that Lou appeared in three more of her music videos, including her next big hit, “Time After Time”.
On February 8th 1984, Cyndi would appear on Late Night with David Letterman, and would talk about meeting Lou. God bless Dave for trying to keep her on track, but this interview was a slog to get through. She spends a large portion of the interview putting Captain Lou over in her own way. *clip of Cyndi going off topic*
Some time after this in early ‘84 Cyndi would appear as a guest VJ on MTV, where she would show up between music videos and talk about what was coming next. Cyndi starts the broadcast by referring to herself as MTV’s first female VJ. Albano would appear in a segment with Cyndi, explaining the PEG principle. That's Politeness, Etiquette and Grooming, the latter of which being ironic I assume. *clip*
Cyndi’s friendship with Captain Lou is commonly credited as starting what became known as the Rock and Wrestling connection. Vince might have had Hulk Hogan who was in the early months of his four year long first reign, but this was the perfect time to look for outside stars to draw in new, younger eyes to his product. “It was McMahon and David Wolff, Lauper’s manager, who put together a marketing plan dubbed “The Rock and Wrestling Connection.” But it was Albano who brokered the deal, since he knew both sides, and without him, the connection, something important at a key point in wrestling history, never would have happened.” Interestingly, Dave notes that other wrestlers were supposed to be part of it and treated like rock stars. He specifically names the Fabulous Freebirds, but this didn’t pan out because “Wolff wasn’t impressed with their musical tastes, their act didn’t play as well in the Northeast as it had in Texas, and the Freebirds were gone from the WWF very quickly.” The Freebirds would last about two months in Summer 1984, only appearing on television a handful of times. Lauper and Wolff would even be seen with the Freebirds, such as here from the September 22nd ‘84 edition of Championship Wrestling, where Wolff accompanied them ot the ring, and Cyndi celebrated with them after their victory. Regardless, WWE massively benefitted from the mainstream appeal that it gained though it’s cross over with Lauper and Wolff.
Rowdy Roddy Piper, who would become part of the storyline later would be quoted for Lou’s obituary. “He paved the way for them to come in, and they had so much respect for him that they were happy to do everything that was asked. She was a tremendous star that year, whenever I was in a car I’d hear from the other cars, `Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.’ If it wasn’t for the Captain, I’m not sure they’d have been there.” He later adds that when Lou died Cyndi called him, “That really shows what she thought of him when she would call me about him all these years later.”
You might be wondering as I was, did wrestling help Cyndi’s career any in return? In September 2012 Cyndi would be interviewed by Howard Stern, and she would explain that “Girls just wanna have fun” hadn’t been getting a lot of radio play, but her link with WWE allowed it to be played multiple times a weekend on their programming, which increased sales. “Friday night, Saturday morning and Saturday night, you get three hits in a weekend”. As Stern notes “You found an alternative way to distribute your music not using the radio, and it paid off.” Cyndi adds that the crossover got her attention from Entertainment Tonight, saying “what we were doing was bleeding over into all these different mediums, and we were having a riot.” It’s the 80’s version of viral marketing, kind of.
The Brawl to End it All
On Screen the story would begin on April 28th 1984, when Captain Lou would be a guest on Piper’s Pit. This segment is a love in between Roddy and Lou, as the Captain is given free reign to claim that he was responsible for all of Cyndi Lauper’s success, starting with the music video. After weeks of Lou taking credit for Cyndi’s success, her real manager David Wolff came on Piper’s Pit to discredit him. Getting into a heated argument with Piper, David would promise to deliver Cyndi on a future episode, something Lou had been unable to do.
On June 16th 1984, Cyndi Lauper would make her first in person appearance on WWF television, on an edition of Piper’s Pit from Madison Square Garden. Roddy would at first play nice, until Cyndi would take exception to him calling Lou her manager, and saying he was responsible for making her who she is. This causes Lou to walk in, and insist that he discovered Cyndi, and even make the claim that he wrote all of her hit songs. Lou eventually goes overboard, going as far as to say that he found Cyndi outside Madison Square Garden begging. He then goes on a misogynistic rant that offends Cyndi even more, and Lauper has enough, having to be pulled away by Wolff before anything else can happen.
One week later, Roddy Piper would travel to Cyndi’s world, the music studio, and attempt to get an apology for him and Lou. What he got instead was one of the better promo’s of the era, certainly anything on Wrestlemania one. Lauper says that Lou’s words made her family cry, and she wasn’t going to take it. An unusually speechless Piper holds the mic as Cyndi lays down a challenge to Lou, she will pick a wrestler and Lou can pick quote, “whoever he wants”, and they will meet in the ring.
Over the next few weeks, both cut promos that ran on WWF programs and MTV.” The feud eventually broke out of both though, as on July 12th, Captain Lou would be a guest on Late Night with David Letterman, where he would be booed upon his arrival. He would reiterate his claims that he made Cyndi what she was, taking his chance to say these things to a new, wider audience.
Cyndi Lauper’s feud with Captain Lou would lead to a first for WWF, a live special on MTV that aired on July 23rd 1984 from Madison Square Garden, the Brawl to End it All. Inside the Garden, the main attraction was Hulk Hogan defending the WWF title against Greg Valentine, but on MTV, Cyndi Lauper and Lou ALbano were the main event. Since Lou and Cyndi obviously couldn’t have a match, Cyndi would choose Wendi Richter as her representative, and Captain Lou would choose the Women’s champion, the Fabulous Moolah, and the two sides would clash on MTV. On that night, Wendy Richter accompanied by Lauper and David Wolff would defeat Albano’s client the championship. The event would be a huge success not just for WWF, who drew over twenty three thousand to the Garden, but also MTV, who got a 9.0 rating from the match, the highest in their history to that point. Clearly there was something to this Rock and Wrestling connection, so it wouldn’t end yet. The Richter vs Moolah match would occur at MSG on a Monday, and later that week, Vince McMahon would provide an update on Championship Wrestling, letting us know that the Brawl to end it All, didn’t end all that much. *clip*
For the next few months storylines would go on without Cyndi, though Wendi Richter would continue to use Girls just Wanna have Fun as her entrance music. Thanks to the Brawl to End it All, Cyndi was by now an established part of WWE, and it wouldn’t be too long before she was back, but a new hero and villain would be added into the mix. On December 28th in Madison Square Garden, Cyndi would be invited back into a WWE ring, to be presented with an award for her contributions to Women’s wrestling. Roddy Piper would introduce this to the audience on the December 8th edition of the Pit with guest Captain Lou. It seemed though, that while Lou started all of this off by taking credit for Lauper’s success, Piper was now starting to talk about being responsible for everything in general, overshadowing Lou even. As Piper rants, Lou sits shaking his head. Hot Rod repeatedly said things like “I should be getting- I mean we should be getting an award”, and the segment ends without Lou ever getting a word in.
The following week, Vince McMahon would interview Roddy Piper and Captain Lou about the award ceremony. They would show footage of Cyndi on stage, telling a massive crowd about her becoming a wrestling manager. She gets the crowd to cheer for Wendi Richter, and Vince refers to her as a “Good ambassador” for the WWE. They then show a feature on Cyndi accompanying Wendi to the ring for a match against Moolah in California, which as best I can tell will have happened in September. What's interesting about this is that they show a short clip of Wendi and Cyndi interacting backstage with another celebrity who would be pivotal in Wrestlemania, Mr. T. Piper, as you might guess, is not so amused, and launched into another tirade about how he deserves the award, while Lou Albano shakes his head, more obviously showing his disagreement than before.
The War to Settle the Score
On December 28th 1984, the story would take an interesting turn. Cyndi would return to accept her award, in the form of a trophy that looked comically big in her arms. She would in return present the WWE with a gold and platinum record in return to as she puts it, share her success. Cyndi would take the opportunity to call out Captain Lou, and would bury the hatchet with him in the ring. Cyndi’s reason for doing this was actually based on Lou’s real life charity work. “During the same time period, he also spent significant time working on fund raisers to combat Multiple Sclerosis, doing Ugly Bartender contests, after his sister-in-law’s brother was diagnosed with the disease. He and Lauper raised more than $4 million during the mid-80s and were both named honorary lifetime chairpersons in the fight against the disease.”
Lou comes out and graciously accepts the award, but one person who wasn’t too pleased about Rock and Wrestling was Rowdy Roddy Piper, who would crash the party by taking the record and smashing it over Lou’s head. He would then slam David Wolff, and kick Cyndi away when she covered Lou to protect him. Hulk Hogan would chase Piper away after he attacks Cyndi, setting the stage for the next MTV special, the War to Settle the Score.
The MTV sequel, which was main evented by Hulk Hogan defending the WWE title against Piper would sell out the Garden, but also the adjacent Felt Forum, where the show would be aired on closed circuit. It would also do an impressive 9.1 rating, topping the previous special. In the main event, Hogan vs Piper would get thrown out due to all manner of chaos that we’ll get to in a minute, continuing Piper’s goal to not have to lose to the champion. In Piper’s obituary written in August 2015, Dave Meltzer wrote “Piper said what everyone else knew but wouldn’t say, which was the WWF track record was that heels would get hot, have a big money drawing run, lose to the champion, and then mostly work midcards. He felt that as long as he never lost to the champion, he would have enough steam to continue to be a main eventer.” he added that by the time Piper announced his retirement from the ring in 1987, his first one at least, he had only lost cleanly once to Jimmy Snuka in St. Louis, and that was in their third match in that city.
At the end of the match, Cyndi Lauper would jump on the apron to shout at Piper and Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff for attacking Hogan with the ref down. When the turn their attention to her, Mr. T would run in to protect her. Here stood in the ring, was your main event for the first Wrestlemania. The War to settle the score ended up doing even better than the Brawl to end it All, selling out MSG and Felt Forum again, and doing a 9.1 rating, higher than the first. The only question was would Wrestlemania continue the success of the previous two?
The Grammy’s
A week after the War to Settle the Score, on February 26th 1985, Cyndi Lauper would win Best New Artist at the Grammy’s, and would be accompanied by Hulk Hogan on stage to accept her award. Cyndi would scramble through a list of names to thank, but made sure to mention Captain Lou. It seems though, that Hulk made quite an impression standing behind the much smaller Lauper, especially in this fashion statement.
According to comments I found by Lauper in 2008 in the Sydney Morning Herald, part of the inspiration came from a story involving Prince. "When he played the American Music Awards his bodyguard, who kinda looked like a smaller version of Hulk, (he) was telling everyone they gotta turn around because Prince's girlfriend was walking by. And it was my friend Sheila E, and nobody was supposed to look at her.” The bodyguard she is talking about is Charles Hunsberry, also known as Big Chick. She adds “that's what made me go and bring Hulk Hogan to the Grammys, because I thought it was really funny.” In the Wrestling Observer, Dave Meltzer said of the Grammy’s appearance, “Hogan got more mainstream exposure on news and entertainment shows over the next few days than he did for doing the Rocky movie, which all led to the initial WrestleMania five weeks later.”
Wrestlemania
In the semi-main event at Wrestlemania, Cyndi would accompany Wendi Richter, who had lost her championship at the War to Settle the Score to her opponent on this night, Leilani Kai who had Moolah in her corner. During the match, Moolah would attack Cyndi Lauper by choking her, and would get a cheap shot on Wendi, allowing Kai to win the match. Up to this point, the nineteen thousand packed into Madison Square Garden had seen King Kong Bundy, only a month into his first major run with the company, squash Special Delivery Jones in the longest nine seconds in history. Announced as that by Howard Finkel but more like twenty five when adjusted for inflation. They'd also seen a heel keep the IC title by countout, heels win the tag team titles, and Andre the Giant defend his career in the fifteen thousand dollars versus career bodyslam challenge. This crowd was going to need some cheering up, or at the very least hyping up before the main event, and that responsibility lied with Wendi Richter and Cyndi Lauper. Mid-match they would cut to Cyndi and Moolah at ringside, a very uncommon thing to do, but it showed the importance of having Cyndi there. Moolah would again try to interfere, but Cyndi would stop her, and Wendi would get the surprise pin fall to regain her championship. Post match Cyndi got another shot in at Moolah, then she and the new champion danced to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun in the ring.
Speaking in 2021 to Bill Prichard of Wrestlezone, Wendi Richter said nothing but good things about Lauper. She said she only really realised how big she and wrestling were becoming when Cyndi contacted her about the collaboration. Richter said “She’s such a good person, too. I can’t say enough of her. She’s so kind. When I would meet with her in New York, she would give money to the homeless, and quite a bit of money, too. What a kind person. I think the world of her. She helped wrestling in general, not just me. She helped all of wrestling.”
In 2012, when accepting an award at the Cauliflower Alley Club’s 47th annual banquet, Wendi made sure to thank Cyndi Lauper, along with Roddy Piper and Lou Albano for her big break. She had a lot less positive to say about Moolah, crediting Judy Martin for training her, and helping her unlearn what Moolah had taught her. Not at all relevant really, but it shows who Wendi credited her success to, that being Cyndi Lauper rather than Moolah, who was still respected for her accomplishments at the time Richter said this.
Raw Return
On June 18th 2012, in the build up to Raw’s 1000th episode, Cyndi Lauper would make her first appearance in a WWE ring since 1985, paying tribute to her earlier appearances, as well as the memory of Captain Lou Albano. Cyndi and Wendi Richter would be introduced by then Divas Champion Layla, but the segment would go off the rails fairly quickly when Heath Slater would interfere. Heath had been interacting with quite a few legends en route to Raw’s 1000th episode, including having the final WWE match of Sid a week later.
Much like in December ‘84, Cyndi was there to be presented with an award, although this time, a gold record would be given to her by of all people Rowdy Roddy Piper. As I mentioned earlier in the video, Piper and Lauper had become friendly over the years since Wrestlemania, with Lauper even calling him after Captain Lou’s passing. Speaking to WWE.com after his appearance, Roddy Piper said “we weren’t always on the same side, but to be honest with you it was a true pleasure.” In October 1987, Cyndi and Roddy were pictured together at the premiere of Hail! Hail! Rock N Roll, and Cyndi had this to tweet upon Roddy’s passing in 2015. In his review of the show in the Observer, Dave Meltzer wrote that “The segment had its moments in the sense Lauper clearly wasn’t faking her emotion with the Albano references and her own reference to Wolff, and it was something to see Lauper and Piper together for historical purposes.” He added though, that the segment lost 12,000 viewers, and opined that Cyndi had not been around for a long time, and so this may have been why it wasn’t a well received segment. It was, however, having watched through all of Cyndi’s time in WWE for this video, really cool to see her and Piper all those years later, even if that shirt is bloody awful.
At this point you might be wondering as I am, why Cyndi isn’t in the WWE Hall of Fame. At present, everyone involved with the main event including Mr. T and Muhammad Ali, as well as Wendi Richter and Moolah are in there, but why not Cyndi? This is purely speculation, but perhaps some comments Cyndi made years ago could have something to do with it.
In 2012, Cyndi’s autobiography was released. In it she made no effort to hide away from wrestling, even talking fondly about the Fabulous Moolah, and wishing she had gotten to know her more. Given some of the things we have learned about Moolah in recent years, bit of an escape there. “During an autograph signing this week in New York, Lauper brought up pro wrestling at one point without any prompting. She said it was a male dominated business, and said that’s why Moolah was Fabulous, apparently respecting her for her ability to survive so long in the business”.
Also around this time, Cyndi was critical of Linda McMahon in her Senate race, “saying how could you put her in a position as a lawmaker where you need to care about people, when her own wrestlers had no health insurance and all the stars she was around are hobbling around today because of it.” Interestingly, Roddy Piper seemed to take a similar view, tweeting a month later “Can spend $90 million on a losing election but won’t give the people that earned that money for them medical or retirement help of any kind.” Cyndi hasn’t been in WWE since, but Piper was called to appear on a WWE project that same week.
In April 2011, WWE released a documentary called “The True Story of Wrestlemania”. The narrative the film follows, as they have in many other places, is that if Wrestlemania hadn't been successful the company as a whole might not be here today, but whether or not this is true is debatable. “There were important entertainment figures who were already talking to McMahon. Saturday Night’s Main Event on NBC, a gigantic breakthrough for his company, started shortly after Mania and probably would have happened either way.” What is maybe less debatable, is the impact that the Rock and Wrestling connection had, which might not have ever happened if not for a plane ride in 1983. “Wrestling was doing strong business in most places in 1983. Celebrities went to Madison Square Garden to see Bruno Sammartino and Superstar Graham.” Cyndi Lauper’s presence wasn’t ground breaking in itself, but when you think about what made Wrestemania, and WWE so big in the 80’s you cannot leave her out of the conversation.
I hope one day Cyndi will get her call to join the WWE Hall of Fame, because when you look at it’s Celebrity wing, you can make the argument that Cyndi has made a bigger contribution to wrestling than most of the current celebrity wing. Naming no-one in particular, nope, not you Kid Rock.
Sources:
Wrestling Observer November 2nd 2009, Captain Lou Albano obituary https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/nov-2-2009-observer-newsletter-hogan-tna-potential-giant-names-huge/
NRBQ, Captain Lou https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNa3nW1w7vw
1994 interview: https://www.australiansportsentertainment.com/lauper.html
Howard Stern September 24th 2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP3GaQV0-Tc
Ringside: A History of Professional Wrestling in America, Scott Beekman, 2006, p.125
WTST Score hype: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=569675382485894
Lauper 2008 Sydney Morning Herald comments on 1985 Grammy’s: https://web.archive.org/web/20080420085851/http://www.smh.com.au/news/aaa/her-true-colours/2008/02/11/1202578672589.html
Wrestlezone 2021 interview with Wendi Richter: https://www.wrestlezone.com/news/1225688-wendi-richter-never-looked-back-wrestling-interview
Wrestling Observer April 30th 2012, Cauliflower Alley award: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/april-30-2012-wrestling-observer-newsletter-extreme-rules-line-and/
Ring the Belle 2025 interview with Wendi Richter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu1SfwVsUmQ
Wrestling Observer August 10th 2015 Roddy Piper Obituary https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/august-10-2015-wrestling-observer-newsletter-roddy-piper-passes-away/
Wrestling Observer January 13th 2010, Apprentice note: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/jan-13-2010-observer-newsletter-more-raw-vs-impact-ratings-breakdown/
Wrestling Observer April 26th 2010, Celebrity Apprentice: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/april-26-2010-observer-newsletter-strikeforce-fallout-wec-ppv-notes/
Wrestling Observer June 25th 2012, Raw appearance: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/june-25-2012-observer-newsletter-no-way-out-and-supposed-end-john/
Wrestling Observer October 2nd 2012, on Lauper’s autobiography: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/oct-2-2012-wrestling-observer-newsletter-tna-policy-makes-it-harder/
Wrestling Observer November 19th 2012, Piper on health care: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/nov-19-2012-wrestling-observer-newsletter-lawler-angle-raw/
Piper wwe,com interview 2012: https://www.wwe.com/videos/rowdy-roddy-piper-talks-about-his-rock-n-wrestling-reunion-with-cyndi-lauper-wwe-com-exclusive
Wrestling Observer April 6th 2011, True story of Wrestlemania review: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/april-6-2011-observer-newsletter-dave-looks-back-past-manias-next/