<\/p>\n
I remember the confusion and excitement I felt seeing \u201cCaptain\u201d Lou Albano of the WWE (formerly called the WWF) appear in Cyndi Lauper\u2019s \u201cGirls Just Want to Have Fun\u201d music video when it premiered in December 1983.<\/p>\n
Why was a wrestling star in a Cyndi Lauper video on MTV?<\/p>\n
More from Spin:<\/p>\n
It turns out that Albano and Lauper were friends, having previously met on a flight from Puerto Rico to New York when she was with her band, Blue Angel.<\/p>\n
When Lauper\u2019s label, Portrait Records, released \u201cGirls Just Want to Have Fun,\u201d her first single from her solo debut album She\u2019s So Unusual, it wasn\u2019t getting a lot of traction due to its limited radio play, because, as she told Howard Stern in 2012<\/a>, her voice was considered too high.<\/p>\n Dave Wolff, Lauper\u2019s manager, loved wrestling and came up with a cross-promotion scheme that was so crazy it might just work.<\/p>\n Wolff invited Albano to appear on \u201cGirls Just Want to Have Fun\u201d in an effort to widen Lauper\u2019s audience.<\/p>\n Thanks to the success of this video and Lauper\u2019s second single, \u201cTime After Time,\u201d on MTV, her career skyrocketed.<\/p>\n Then, on June 16, 1984, Lauper was a guest on the WWE\u2019s Championship Wrestling segment, \u201cPiper\u2019s Pit.\u201d<\/p>\n After host \u201cRowdy\u201d Roddy Piper accused her of calling retired-wrestler-turned-manager Albano a liar about his claim that he was her manager (which he was not), Albano appeared behind her, taking credit for writing \u201cTime After Time\u201d and launching her career (also, he did not).<\/p>\n As Lauper defended herself, Piper and Albano continued to berate her. Then, out of nowhere, Lauper flipped the table in front of her, grabbed Albano by his vest, whacked him over the head with her \u201cLoaded Purse of Doom,\u201d and went after Piper. Lauper\u2019s manager, Dave Wolf, ran out on stage to restrain her, pulling her off Piper and escorting her offstage.<\/p>\n This, of course, was all staged. Ah, those crazy pro wrestling storylines.<\/p>\n Thus, an unconventional partnership between MTV and WWE was born. Dubbed the \u201cRock \u2018n\u2019 Wrestling Connection,\u201d this crossover blending wrestling and music helped propel the WWE into the mainstream, with storylines involving Lauper and Wolff in the WWE and Albano and other wrestling superstars guest-starring in other Lauper music videos, like \u201cThe Goonies \u2018R\u2019 Good Enough<\/a>\u201d in 1985.<\/p>\n Lauper became a regular, managing Wendi Richter in the WWE\u2019s women\u2019s division, a rival of the Fabulous Moolah, managed by Albano.<\/p>\n The two headlined \u201cThe Brawl to End It All,\u201d which aired live from Madison Square Garden on MTV on July 23, 1984, with Richter defeating Moolah, becoming the WWE Women\u2019s Champion. The event was the highest-rated MTV broadcast at the time.<\/p>\n Lauper again appeared at Madison Square Garden to accept a gold record from Dick Clark for her work as a women\u2019s rights activist, and present Albano\u2014with whom she had since become friends in real life and in their ongoing WWE storyline\u2014with one for his charity work.<\/p>\n As it goes in the WWE, however, as new alliances are formed, old foes reemerge to cause chaos, which is exactly what happened when Piper entered the ring and smashed Lauper\u2019s gold record over Albano\u2019s head. Amid the chaos, Lauper clung to Piper\u2019s legs in an effort to trip him. He kicked her away and picked up Wolff, who had accompanied Lauper to the ceremony, bodyslamming him to the canvas mat. Hogan\u2014who died July 24, 2025\u2014came to Lauper\u2019s rescue.<\/p>\n This, of course, set up a new storyline at a second event, a sequel of sorts called \u201cThe War to Settle the Score,\u201d which aired on MTV on February 18, 1985, and saw Hulk Hogan defend his WWE World Heavyweight Championship title against Piper. Lauper, of course, was there, as were other celebrities, including Danny DeVito, Mr. T, and yes, if you can believe it, Andy Warhol. Piper was disqualified after fellow bad-guy wrestlers Paul Orndorff and Bob Orton ambushed (wink, wink) Hogan, with Mr. T coming out of the audience to defend the Hulkster.<\/p>\n The groundwork for the WWE\u2019s first and now most popular event, WrestleMania, had been laid.<\/p>\n On March 31, 1985, Hogan, this time with Mr. T as his partner, squared off with Piper and Orndorff in a tag team bout. Lauper was there managing Richter, who had just beaten Leilani Kai to regain her WWE Women\u2019s Championship title, and to show support for her new friend, Hogan. Not only was the match a victory for Hogan and Mr. T., but it helped launch the WWE as a global megabrand with an at-home audience of more than four million spectators via pay-per-view.<\/p>\n For the next few years, Lauper\u2019s connection with the WWE continued. She promoted Hogan\u2019s Saturday morning cartoon show, Hulk Hogan\u2019s Rock \u2018n\u2019 Wrestling, and guest starred on the unbelievably terrible The Wrestling Album. Hogan even showed up at the 1985 Grammy Awards as Lauper\u2019s (cough, cough) bodyguard, where she won Best New Artist.<\/p>\n In the same Howard Stern interview, Lauper said she enjoyed her time in the WWE because she felt it was the only place where she and Wolff worked as equals, and not as manager and artist.<\/p>\n Lauper continued making sporadic appearances in the WWE over the decades, most notably in a 2012 WWE Raw episode, where she memorialized Albano after his death in 2009. During the episode, Piper approached Lauper and gave her a gold record to replace the one he had smashed over Albano\u2019s head almost 30 years earlier.<\/p>\n