When the Iron Sheik died last year at age 81, the professional wrestling villain left behind his finishing move, the Camel Clutch, dozens of hilarious but polarizing tweets and a clipped POV to life: You were either the real one (a legal person) or a jabroni (a hack) — there was none between.
But the Middle Eastern heel also gave us one of the best taunts in WWE history, a moniker that, thanks to the heavy accent of a charismatic girl from Tennessee and a viral video, has since taken on an entirely different meaning: The Iron Sheik was the 'Hawk Tuah' OG
Back in the eighties, after the sheikh's feud with the “real American” Hulk Hogan, the Iranian thug teamed up with the Russian caricature Nikolai Volkov to form a bogeyman team that never missed an opportunity to strike at American supremacy. “Russia, number one! Iran, Number One! USA; Hawk tuah!” the Iron Sheik yelled into the ring mic before spitting emphatically on the mat. It sent crowds from Madison Square Garden to high school gymnasiums into a grand dudgeon.
But when Haley Welch called out that over-the-top gutter sound last month in a street interview in Nashville, it made her as beloved as the Sheikh was hated. “You must give them that 'hawk' and spit that stalk!” Welch responded when asked on camera to describe a sex act that makes a man lose his mind. In that moment, an inescapable pop culture moment was born that continues to reverberate like a body slam in the ring.
Nearly three weeks after the interview was published, Welch began selling merchandise with a clothing company in Tennessee (worth at least $65,000 so far, they claim), performed on stage at Zach Bryan Stadium in Nashville that garnered more headlines than a appearance by real-life singer Kacey Musgraves, and has been offered hundreds of dollars to spit in a jar. “I was like, 'Should I?' And I was like, 'Nah, don't do that,'” Welch told Brianna LaPaglia in one episode Bri design podcast, the first “real” interview he did.
So far, Welch — who was born long after the Iron Sheik's prime — hasn't said whether the wrestler's own use of the phrase may have somehow found its way into her brain. But whoever continues to run the Sheikh's Twitter account has not remained silent. On June 22, the account posted a video of Iron Sheik dropping his signature phlegm bomb with the caption, “The Original Hawk Tuah.” Only a jabroni would disagree.
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