By Jeremy Azevedo

As a child growing up I the 1980s, Sgt. Slaughter was always something of an enigma. He was one of the only individuals that I can think of that broke the 4th wall so effectively, existing in animated form as a G.I. Joe and in person as a wrestler for the WWF.

Because these were easily the two coolest professions in the entire universe, it was always difficult to separate fact from fiction when dealing with Sgt. Slaughter.



Eventually, I grew up and the mysterious origins of Sgt. Slaughter were lost in the fuzzy recesses of childhood memory. And then, one day (last week, actually), I met the man in person. After I was done shitting my pants, I was finally able to clear up a few things once and for all. Following are five things I never knew about Sgt. Slaughter but was too lazy to look up on Wikipedia:

Fact #1: People always wondered which came first, Sgt. Slaughter the wrestler, or Sgt. Slaughter the Joe. As it turns out, the wrestler was the first and most successful real-life person to be made into a Joe by Toy manufacturer Hasbro. Sgt. Slaughter’s six-year absence form the WWF had much to do with his success as a G.I. Joe, which led him to be a spokesperson for the toy line. Not only did he do the voice for the cartoon, but he also appeared in live action segments for the show as well as commercials for the toy line. Sadly, an action figure based on William “The Fridge” Perry wasn’t nearly as popular.



Fact #2: When Sgt. Slaughter re-appeared in the WWF as an Iraqi sympathizer, the response from an American public was so severely negative that he was unable to appear in public for nearly two years. Even when flying or leaving a venue, he was routinely escorted from the terminal through a backdoor passageway. This was while the Gulf War was well underway, and was the modern day equivalent of a wrestler claiming to be Al-Queda on national television. During this time, it is theorized that Sgt. Slaughter may have had enough tomatoes and cabbage thrown at him to actually feed an entire nation of starving vegetarians.