According to Sky and Telescope Magazine, all eight planets will align about once every 396 billion years, so chances are none of us living today will ever witness such a happening.
But what if I told you something just as monumental as this rare solar event already happened just 32 years ago.
It happened on a football field in Birmingham, Ala., when two people crossed paths to create a moment of comedic gold. As soon as the moment was over, the people virtually never crossed paths again, living their lives separately despite being forever linked through this vital piece of television history.
Those two people are John “Bradshaw” Layfield, WWE Hall of Famer and former WWE champion. The other is Michael Barkann, an accomplished broadcast journalist who has covered multiple Olympiads, US Open tennis tournaments, and has become a fixture on Philadelphia sports television for more than two decades.
The happening in question? Layfield doing his best Hulk Hogan impersonation moments before kickoff of a game he is about to play in while Barkann stands next to him, giving it his all as the football version of “Mean” Gene Okerlund.
“He was the star of the thing,” Barkann said to Wrestling Junkie about Layfield. “I was just trying to help him out.”
This moment of internet gold was not rehearsed. It wasn’t practiced, but you couldn’t tell from watching it. The chemistry between Layfield and Barkann was unmistakable. But yet, they never shared the camera together again, living for the past three decades without basically knowing of each other’s existence — unreal for a comedic duo we likely will not see for another 300 billion years or so.
“I thought that was lost for eternity,” Layfield said during a recent interview.
Thanks to YouTube user Preserving the Game, it is not, and now we can relive it in all of its VHS glory.
Before Barkann covered the Olympics, the US Open, or entertained Philly sports fans, he was a journalist looking for an opportunity.
A graduate of Syracuse’s prestigious Newhouse School of Public Communications, Barkann had already worked in New Jersey and Philadelphia, but was looking to go national in 1991 when signed on to be an announcer for USA Network’s Tuesday Night Fights. That opportunity led to another as a sideline reporter for the network’s World League of American Football broadcasts.
Not to be confused with the World Football League of the 1970s, the WLAF was sponsored by the National Football League with the hopes of it becoming a thriving developmental league for the pro football behemoth. It was also used as an opportunity to make American football a global game by putting teams in Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Although the league faced an uphill battle for attention, USA Network didn’t skimp on expenses when it came to the talent tasked with telecasting the games to the masses. Alongside Barkann was accomplished play-by-play announcer Brad Nessler. Next to Nessler in the booth was former NFL Most Valuable Player Boomer Esiason. With Nessler and Esiason in the booth and Barkann roaming the sidelines, the presentation for the WLAF was top notch.
Behind the scenes, the crew was led by Craig Janoff and Ken Wolfe — the director and producer for Monday Night Football at the time.
“We weren’t under any illusions that we had a huge audience,” Barkann said. “We used to call it the best television nobody saw.”
Barkann’s team covered the league’s Monday night broadcasts. That meant traveling to the city the game is being played in during the weekend so he could attend practice for story gathering.
In week 6 of the WLAF’s inaugural season, that meant Barkann and co. were headed to Birmingham for a North American West Division matchup between the Birmingham Fire and the San Antonio Riders, who featured future Dallas Cowboys quarterback and head coach Jason Garrett.
Leading up to the game, Barkann heard that there was a Riders player that could do an entertaining Hogan impersonation. As silly as that sounded in theory, Barkann knew there was something there.
Having a player do a wrestling impersonation was a low-lift task for Barkann, who once climbed to the roof of a San Antonio resident’s house so he could play the fiddle, or as he called it, “Sports Reporter on the Roof.
“[The players] were great to talk to, they were great to deal with, they were very funny, they were warm, and they were all great athletes,” Barkann recalled.
Watch any of Layfield’s matches from the late 1990s and you’ll hear Jim Ross waxing poetic about the former’s football player’s accolades. Those accolades check out.
Layfield was in fact a two-time All-American at Abilene Christian University as an offensive lineman. Today, that would more than likely land Layfield on an NFL roster and possibly even drafted, but back then, it merely got him a training camp invite and eventually released.
When Layfield played at Abilene Christian, its football program was a member of Division II in the Lone Star Conference, which is technically two levels down from the Football Bowl Subdivision the masses watch on television.
Unfortunately for Layfield, scouting wasn’t quite as sophisticated as it is today, making it more difficult for a scout to know whether a great Division II player could translate to the highest level of football on the planet. On top of that, Layfield suffered multiple leg injuries that took away his speed.
According to Layfield, he ran a 4.83 40-yard dash during his junior year and thought he had gotten even faster before his senior campaign. After the injuries, however, Layfield said he never ran under 5.1 seconds again.
Layfield still signed with the Los Angeles Raiders as an undrafted free agent, but did not make it out of training camp before being released.
“I just wasn’t the same player when I got to the NFL,” Layfield said. “I don’t know if I would have made it anyway.”
Layfield barely made it into the WLAF, where he was among the last players to be selected in the league’s draft. But a team in his native Texas gave him a call, the San Antonio Riders.
“It was all a new experience for me, and I thought there’s no problem here if I fail because no one expects anything from me,” he said. “I’m a kid that came out of Division II … I wasn’t highly drafted in the World League. I was lucky to be on a team.”
The stadiums weren’t packed and the money wasn’t great, but to say Layfield enjoyed his time as a member of the Riders would be an understatement. Even 32 years later, Layfield still raves about the good times he shared with his teammates and coaches, and he is still in a text group with a large number of his former teammates today.
“That was such a fun time for me,” Layfield said. “I loved the World League. I had so much fun playing there.”
“That was just the most wonderful time,” he added. “I got to play with some of the greatest people ever in the World League.”
Amongst the fun and shenanigans was Layfield’s Hogan impersonation. Layfield didn’t think much of it other than a way to keep his teammates in a good mood during a tense and grueling training camp. He had done the impersonation on a San Antonio television station during the season, but it had never seen a national audience.
That was, until April 29, 1991.
Moments after summoning the Hulkster, Layfield and the Riders kicked off their sixth game of the season. It ended in a 16-12 defeat.
The Riders finished the season 4-6 and did not qualify for the WLAF postseason. Layfield started all 10 games for the Riders. However, he never played professional football again. He made his pro wrestling debut in September of 1992 and never looked back.
The WLAF helped Barkann land the role of roving reporter for USA Network’s US Open tennis telecasts. That opened the door to him covering the Winter Olympics. He eventually settled down in Philadelphia in 1997, and the rest is regional sports history.
When the video of their once-in-a-lifetime moment together resurfaced on social media, a slew of memories rushed back into Layfield and Barkann’s minds. One of which was, “Who was that other guy?”
Barkann is not a wrestling fan, so he never knew that No. 61 from the Riders eventually entered WrestleMania in a limo that featured bull horns on the hood.
Layfield, a native of Sweetwater, Texas, was never in Philadelphia long enough to see Barkann become an institution in sports television in the region.
Barkann initially saw the video as an interesting look at how young he used to be. Barkann, now 63, sent it to his family so they could see what he looked like at just 31 years old. He didn’t even interact with the video on social media. It wasn’t until his colleagues at NBC Sports Philadelphia saw it and brought it up to him, because after all, he interviewed a future WWE champion.
“Is this guy, like, famous?” Barkann asked.
Once confirmed, it is now among the highest achievements of his illustrious career.
“Right now, it’s No. 1, but tomorrow if I talk to Bryce Harper after he hit a game-winning home run, that’ll be No. 1,” Barkann said jokingly.
When Layfield saw the video on his social media timeline, he was actually nervous.
I love it! I used to do my Hulk impressions in two a days-just to break up the monotony. I didn’t know this still existed. This was 1991, before I knew I was gonna be a wrestler. https://t.co/MBYxOWV5U3
— John Layfield (@JCLayfield) May 27, 2023
“I was so nervous watching it because I’ve watched some of my old matches that I thought were good and they were absolutely horrible,” Layfield recently said with a chuckle. “I was thinking this was going to be just like my old matches as well. It was actually OK. It was actually pretty good, so I’m happy about that.”
Even though Barkann hasn’t really thought about the moment until very recently, he is glad to hear that Layfield has enjoyed a successful life post football.
“He had a great sense of humor and you can see at the end of the whole thing that we both got a kick out of each other,” Barkann said. “It was a blast.”
Layfield took no offense to the fact that Barkann was never a wrestling fan. In fact, it actually adds to his fondness of the moment.
“When you tell me that he’s not a wrestling fan, I think that makes it more cool because he had to work to get that interview,” Layfield said. “That was really cool for him to do something like that.”
Without this video, there would be very little evidence of Layfield’s antics in the WLAF. Outside of the tales told by Layfield and his teammates, the only known record would be an obscure trading card.
The card is for none other than No. 61 of the San Antonio Riders, John Layfield, who was the one player chosen from his position group to have his likeness adorned on a trading card.
The back of that card runs down Layfield’s accomplishments for the season, but on the last line it says, “Amuses San Antonio teammates with impersonation of wrestler Hulk Hogan.”
Hopefully, we won’t have to wait 396 billion years until we see it again.