LAND OF THE GIANTS : PLAYING TO MILLIONS OF FANS, PRO WRESTLERS PIN HOPES, AND LITTLE ELSE, ON DUBIOUS STORY LINES, HEAVYWEIGHT PRIZE MONEY.

Byline: Jenifer Hanrahan Daily News Staff Writer

Commentators provided the stirring play-by-play: a mammoth man in gold tights ticked off a feisty Scot on the back lot of a Hollywood studio.

A brawl and car chase ensued. Cameras caught the action as the two men headed for the Anaheim Arena Sunday, where nearly 19,000 professional wrestling fans paid as much as $300 each to watch Rowdy Roddy Piper take Goldust down.

``Tempers are flaring!'' commentators screamed as the audience watched the drama on giant overhead screens. Minutes later, heavy-metal music thundered as the wrestlers burst into the ring.

Goldust grabbed Rowdy Roddy by the hair for a head-butt.

``Boo!'' the audience chorused.

Rowdy Roddy grabbed Goldust in the groin and flipped him on his back, then finished him off by ripping off Goldust's body suit to reveal the unthinkable: a racy garter belt and pantyhose.

``Ha! Ha! Ha!'' fans roared as Goldust fled, leaving the triumphant Rowdy Roddy to parade around the ring with a young boy from the audience perched on his shoulders.

Professional wrestling has all the suspense of this year's presidential nominations, but that doesn't stop the millions of devotees who follow the dubious sport on cable and syndicated television shows that air in 170 U.S markets and 80 countries. World Wrestling Federation programs appear locally on KTTV (Channel 11) at noon Saturdays and 11 a.m. Sundays.

The melodrama culminates in the annual Wrestlemania, a veritable Superbowl of spandex that has filled stadiums nationwide since the first event was held 12 years ago.

Fanatical fans wielding cameras, posters and clothing emulating their favorite wrestler descended on Anaheim to enjoy three hours of matches between a dozen fearsome-looking giants who make up professional wrestling's top talents. Last year, 460,000 households paid $29.95 each to watch the event on pay-per-view. This year's figures are not yet counted, but Wrestlemania organizers expect about the same.

The wrestlers who make it to Wrestlemania are not necessarily those with the winningest records, but are the most popular - or most hated - by the fans.

``We admit that it's sports entertainment,'' said Jay Andronaco, media relations manager for TitanSports, the Stamford, Conn.-based owner of the World Wrestling Federation. ``Our fans can decide if it's real or not.''

In the bizarre subculture of professional wrestling, fans follow story lines that unfold during the weekly television shows. Contract wrestlers earn from $75,000 to $1 million a year, and remain in good standing by performing about 250 nights a year, Andronaco said. They are on the road about 300 nights a year.

As a general rule, wrestlers are categorized as either symbols of good or evil, and grudge bouts are arranged between these opposites who taunt and sucker-punch each other whenever they can.

Whatever the weekly beef, fans eat it up. Traci Facchini of North Brunswick, N.J., shelled out $900 for three ringside seats she shared with her two teen-age daughters. Her husband and their three younger children were relegated to the $100 spots.

``We know it's pretend, but we have one hell of a good time,'' Facchini said.

So dedicated are they to professional wrestling, the Facchinis bought a package deal that included a four-night stay in the hotel where the wrestlers were holed up, too. Traci Facchini was thrilled to discover that wrestlers take off their makeup and slip into regular clothes when they leave the ring.

``You see them in their tank tops at the pool,'' she gushed. ``You see them as husbands and as fathers.''

In case you haven't tuned into any professional wrestling shows lately, here's background on some of the bouts at Sunday's Wrestlemania:

Rowdy Roddy falls into the ``good'' category. A wise-guy, kilt-wearing Scotsman whose theme music is played on bagpipes, he is the actor in the professional wrestling world. Rowdy Roddy starred in the 1988 sci-fi film ``They Live.''

Goldust falls into the ``bad'' category. He wears shimmering gold and flirts with androgyny, using his ill-defined sexuality to tease his opponents by patting their behinds. To top it off, he went around making claims that he was a better actor that Rowdy Roddy.

The bronzed and muscular Kevin Nash, known as Diesel in the ring, wanted revenge against the Undertaker, who looked deathly in white-and-black face paint and long black hair. You see, the Undertaker's taunting cost Diesel a chance to compete for the WWF Championship by turning off the lights during a match last month.

``(The Undertaker) was playing mind games with him from the Dark Side,'' explained one fan.

Despite his devilish pranks, Undertaker generates admiration from the fans. That's because Diesel was a good guy gone bad when he turned on pretty boy and crowd favorite Shawn Michaels during a tag-team match, whacking him with a chair.

Plus, Diesel's contract is up in June, and he has decided to defect to arch-rival World Championship Wrestling, the other major professional wrestling group, launched in 1988 by an Atlanta-based division of Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting Systems Inc. (Hulk Hogan, the World Wrestling Federation's most famous wrestler in the late '80s, joined Turner's group in 1994.)

World Championship Wrestling competes with WWF with its own weekly cable shows on TNT and TBS and syndicated shows in 190 markets, a spokesman said. Diesel will have to come up with a new character, since Diesel is a trademark of the WWF.

In contrast to past years, when the fight for the championship belt came down to a vicious rivalry between good vs. evil, this year's Wrestlemania saw a face-off between two handsome, brawny, crowd-favorites - Bret ``Hit Man'' Hart, 36, and the 31-year-old Michaels, otherwise known as the ``Heartbreak Kid.''

Before the match, fans accurately predicted that Hart would surrender his WWF title to Michaels, a long-haired, hulking figure in white spandex and studded vest. Michaels made his entrance - amid flashing lights, smoke and fireworks - from a platform above the arena seats, gliding down on a wire.

Hart's entrance was not so grand. He just walked to the ring.

In their hourlong ``Iron Man Match,'' the tanned and muscular wrestlers executed maneuvers such as the ``sling shot'' - which involves running back and forth across the ring and bouncing off the ropes before slamming into the opponent - and the ``splash'' - usually attempted when one wrestler is writhing in purported agony on the ground.

But at the end of an hour, neither had managed to pin the other down. The match went into sudden-death overtime, until Michaels triumphed by hitting Hart with a kick to the face.

The WWF had its new champion.

``Shawn deserves it,'' Cleyella Whitney, 32, of Norwalk solemnly observed, while proudly displaying a faux tattoo on her left arm that resembled Michaels' real one, a heart with a sword through it. ``It's his time now.''

CAPTION(S):

11 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) Ahmed Johnson roars to the cro wd as he stands over the British Bulldog 

(2--4--Color) During a tag-team match, Yokozuna, center, prepares to head-butt the British Bulldog, left, and Owen Hart. Surprise, surprise: Note how Hart's arm conveniently flies up to cushion the impact.

(5--Color) Fans clamor for a member of the God Winns tag team.

(6--Color) Fans rush to ringside to show support for their favorite wrestlers.

(7--Color) A member of the Body Donnas tag team is hoisted by God Winns team member Hog.

(8--9--Color) Above, manager Paul Bearer, left, yells encouragement to the Undertaker, who, for the moment at least, has been laid out. Left, a member of the Body Donnas clutches the tag-team victor's belt.

(10) A capacity audience fills the Anaheim Arena for Wrestlemania.

(11) The British Bulldog, left, and Vader stand victorious.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News