post-apocalyptic gladiator

That's pro-wrestler Ox Baker from his scene in Escape from New York where he beats the holy hell out of Snake Plissken.  You can't tell due to the chainlink fence in the background, but that club has a bunch of nails sticking out of it.

I've only seen a couple of matches of Baker's, but one of them really impressed me, a tag team outing where he and his partner was up against Andre the Giant and Dick the Bruiser.  Ox was well past his prime at this point (Not as much as Dick, though.  Owning the promotion means you get to main event no matter how old you are.)  I was impressed by Ox's ability to look like a real threat to the Giant while also convincingly selling Dick's offense, who looked like a midget standing next to the other three guys in the ring.  Being a decent badguy in wrestling is always a needle-threading act, since your job is to make the other fellow look good while retaining the ability to credibly threaten the next good guy to come along.  There might be a lesson about DMing in that.

slamtastic Shatnerday

"Lawler, you may have put Andy Kaufman in the hospital, but I'm William frickin' Shatner!"

(Or at least that's what he's saying in my head.)

the original rock 'n' wrestling connection

I want to tell you a story
about a place you don't wanna be.
This ain't no home sweet home,
it's a home sweet misery.
We knew when we got here
they'd try to put us away.
But when they seen us walk down
the street they ran the other way.

Badstreet, Atlanta, GA
Baddest street in the whole USA
Badstreet nasty and hot
The further down the block you went, the badder it got.

Street is a jumping,
tonight there'll be a brawl.
Old Lady McDuffie she done
give the cops a call.
She might as well call the Army or
the United States Marines,
'cause can't nobody handle this
Badstreet scene.

Badstreet, Atlanta, GA
Baddest street in the whole USA
Badstreet nasty and hot
The further down the block you went the badder it got.

17 punks came calling and
they thought that they were hot.
They thought that they were nasty
and could make it down on our block.
But I'll never forget hearing that
ambulance driver say,
"Someone should have told those
boys 'bout Badstreet USA."

So don't you come looking.
on this side of town.
'Cause this is where the Freebirds
live and everything's going down.
If you don't know by now,
we always get our way.
That's the way it is down
here on Badstreet USA.

Badstreet, Atlanta, GA
Baddest street in the whole USA
Badstreet nasty and hot
The further down the block you went the badder it got.

Badstreet, Atlanta, GA
Baddest street in the whole USA
Badstreet nasty and hot
The further down the block you went the badder it got.

We live in the last house on the right. Badstreet baby, anytime!

five links - all rasslin'

Kayfabe Memories - great stuff on the pre-WWF days

Sam Muchnick on wikipedia - possibly the greatest promoter of all time

The Illustrated History of the Four Horsemen

Chikara - I wish these guys put on shows in this part of the country

Front Row, Section D - reminisces from a super-fan

Waitaminute...I'm watching CMT?

So yesterday I finally got a chance to see an episode of Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Wrestling, the new show on CMT that combines the wrestling school competition angle of WWE's Tough Enough with the celebrities-behaving-badly frisson of shows like The Surreal Life. Since my wife enjoys trashy reality shows and I dig bad wrestling, we can watch this one together. And man, the wrestling is pretty bad. Though the episode I watched is only the second in the series and I've certainly seen worse from supposed pros at indy shows.

One thing that bugs me about the show is that one of the contestants is Dennis Rodman. As far as I can tell everyone else competing is a complete newbie to the world of sports entertainment. Meanwhile I remember Rodman's main event tag team match with Hulk Hogan at the WCW pay-per-view Bash At The Beach back in '97 or so. I felt bad for the announce team working that night because they were trying to sell the simplest of offensive moves as proof that Rodman knew what he was doing in the ring. The way he lumbered about led some of the folks I was watching with to speculate that Rodman might be under the influence of some sort of recreational substance.

Which is a damn shame, really. This exceptional athlete with a talent for public theatre of the absurd should have been a lock as a great wrestler. His three main event performances represent a level of success that most professional wrestlers will never achieve. And he pretty much sucked donkey balls in all of them. I have his last big match on DVD, a main event singles competition against Curt "Mr. Perfect" Hennig. To his credit I thought Hennig busted his ass trying to save that match from being a complete load of crap. The fact that the undercard was atrocious actually may have helped in that regard.

So what went wrong with Rodman's wrestling career? Two simple things, I think. First, he was pushed to the top too fast. I can't blame Rodman for grabbing the brass ring when it was within reach, but promotions should know better than to put neophytes at the top of the card. Wrestling has long had a problem with promoters fast-tracking their sons or other favorites. Usually it's a formula for disaster. WCW attaching bad boy Rodman to the nWo was not a bad idea, but that doesn't mean they had to give him a main event!

Second and more importantly, I also always got the impression that pro wrestling was just a lark for Rodman. Failing to take the show seriously is much harder to forgive. Yes, wrestling is stupid and violent but it's also serious business. So while completely unfair to the contestants, putting Rodman in Celebrity Championship Wrestling is intriguing. Will he take the competition seriously enough to leverage his wrestling experience and fantastic athleticism into a win? Or will he phone it in and let Danny Bonnaduce whip his ass?

RIP: Killer Kowalski

I just found out from Chris Sims that Killer Kowalski has passed away. He was a legendary heel in his prime and later trained many famous wrestlers. Perhaps most notably Triple H apprenticed under the Killer. I have one match of Kowalski's on tape, an old black & white TV broadcast. You know how heels like to get on the mike and say something to rile up the audience? All he had to do was howl at them and the crowd erupted in boos and jeers. It was beautiful.

I remember the first time Kowlaski came to the ring when I was playing Legends of Wrestling on the X-box. I thought to myself "Well, I'm fucked now." That's how much ring charisma the guy had. This old man could intimidate me through a video game.

Gary Gygax, Rasslin' Fan

With inspiration from so many written works, radio dramas and motion pictures too, it was no wonder that I found little on the new television set to interest me...aside from Victory at Sea and wrestling. Don't laugh, I was just a boy and prized my autographs from Verne Gagne, Wladek Kawalski, Leon Hart and others gained from the locker room at Marigold gardens in Chicago.

-EGG, from "How It All Happened: Variety is the Spice...", appearing the latest issue of The Crusader.

Verne Gagne is a legendary wrestler and promoter. He founded the American Wrestling Association, a very influential promotion in the years prior to the rise of Vince McMahon, Jr. Mr. Gagne was the top star and champ of the fed for many years. Wladek Kowalski is better known as Killer Kowalski, one of the all-time great heels of wrestling. He actually became a heel by accident, starting his career as a fan favorite goodguy. But he accidentally ripped an ear off an opponent and the crowd turned on him. According to the legend it was the fans that gave him the 'Killer' moniker. Mr. Kowalski went on to found an influential wrestling school that he runs to this day. His most famous graduate would probably be WWE superstar Triple H. I don't know who Leon Hart is. Maybe Uncle Gary is misremembering the name of Stu Hart, father of Bret 'the Hitman' Hart, trainer of many wrestling stars, and a legend in his own right.

Good times

The wife of my gaming buddy Doug has some way of occassionally scoring comp tickets to the local arena and she managed to snag a pair of sweet seats for the WWE Raw house show this last Saturday. Doug is one of those weirdoes who prefers 'real' sports, so he passed the tickies along to me and I took my pal Pat. This was the fifth wrestling card I've ever seen live and it ranked right up there with the WCW show I took in at Springfield with Paul Pomykala and Don McKinney's son Michael.

The opening match was a fifteen man over-the-top battle royal, with the winner get a title shot against the champ in that night's main event. Pat and I were shocked when "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan came out to participate in the bout. That guy is awesome. He's big, loud, and stupid. I pretty sure I saw Curt, one of the many cops in my lodge, working security near the wrestler's entrance. Dude stopped Hacksaw and shook his hand as he exited the room. Curt's quite a character in his own right. I'm told he has the Punisher skull emblazoned on his kevlar vest. The battle royal went to Jeff Hardy, who I had seen wrestle a couple of matches in TNA. He was new to Pat, who dubbed him 'Hot Topic Lad' based upon his ring attire. Most of the gusy who wrestled in the opening match later performed again in singles competition. We were thrilled to get a double dose of Duggan when he went mano-a-mano with a fellow named Daivari, who plays the role of Evil Arab. I'm not a big fan of the Heel Foreigner gimmick. It often smacks of racism and blind nationalism and this particular version came with a heaping side order of religious intolerance. But this Daivari fellow did a helluva good job with the limited character palette available.

I was shocked that the most technically sound match of the night was the Women's Championship bout. Candice Michelle managed to defend her title against Beth 'the Glamazon' Phoenix. Both ladies did a great job wrestling, but I was extremely impressed by the Glamazon. She had Haughty Heel charisma on the mike and in the ring she pulled off a very credible array of powerhouse moves. Women's pro wrestling has a long history of hair-pulling, catfighting, and screaming but all that nonsense was very subdued and instead we saw a lot of power moves, high flying stunts, and legitimate grappling. Great stuff.

The match before the main event was Carlito versus Triple H. Both of these guys have an amazing amount of charisma. They wrestled a sound if relatively unspectacular program. The match was really built around the lavish Triple H entrance sequence and pushing the cage match between the two of them on tonight's episode of Raw. Look for Carlito to wear the big belt some day. I've only seen him a couple of times while flipping through channels but he clearly has that special something. One segment I've watched he didn't have a single line but still owned the scene. His performance Saturday night only cemented my impression that this young man will one day be at the top. Question for people more familiar with WWE: Does Lemmy sing Triple H's entrance music? It sounded a lot like Lemmy to me.

The main event was a bit of a bait and switch. The Jeff Hardy/John Cena title match ended early when battle royal sore losers Cade and Murdoch (I think that's their names) stormed the ring and beat on Hardy. Quick DQ win to Hardy, no title change. So Cena talks some trash at these two dorks and proposes a tag team competition. What followed was a mostly by-the-numbers tag team match, but the crowd was really into the two babyfaces and ate it up. I had never seen John Cena wrestle before. On the internet he's often said to be the kind of champ who is long on looks and short on wrestling. I thought he acquited himself quite well. He wasn't up to Jeff Hardy's level in terms of high flying spectacular moves, but he was more than sufficient to wrestle the two dweezels on the other team.

All in all, a heckuva a good show. Thanks again to Doug and his wife. It's annoying the crap out of me that I can't remember her name. I'm sure Doug has mentioned it more than once, but I've never met her myself. I feel really stupid thanking her as 'Doug's wife'.

new (old) videogames

There's a place on Neil Street in Champaign called Game Crazy that sells used video games. I got the following Xbox games for less than 5 buck apiece there. But man, it took for frickin' ever to check out. I don't think I'll be going back any time soon. Normally I don't mind a wait to get a bargain, but my wife and daughter were with me. There's no good reason why they should have to hang around for 20 minutes just so I can buy this crap:

I'm not a big fan of backyard wrestling or the extreme style it poorly apes. Too much blood, too many props, and not enough proper grappling for my tastes. And many of the wrestlers have no sense of ring psychology or match storytelling. But five bucks for a new wrestling game was too cheap to pass up. The make-a-wrestler section delivers pretty good results. The wrestling engine is a bit over the top (no surprise there) but does allow for some technical holds and reversals. And much of the terrain in the various fighting venues can be destroyed. You can Irish whip a mofo into a plywood shed, shatter the shed, then pick up the plywood and beat the dude with it. I hate that kind of wrestling in real life, but as a video game where no one really gets hurt? Good times.

I knew Celebrity Deathmatch was going to be awful when I bought it. The real questions were how awful and in what ways. Answers: unbelievably awful and like the show but even worse. Still, any game where I can play Mr. T and beat the hell out of Marilyn Manson can't be all bad. Not that I loathe Marilyn Manson or anything, but Mr. T dropping the A Team van on him as a finishing move just seemed so right.

I've been meaning to get this game for years, ever since Old Man Murray did those two awesome interviews with the head of the all-Croatian design team. It's the only first person shooter I've really wanted since that time I nearly wrecked my academic career playing Doom when I should've been studying for finals. So far Serious Sam is fun and stupid in all the right ways. I swear to Grodd, it's like the Rifts of first person shooters.

Hey, local wrestling!

For a few months I've been aware of a new local independent wrestling outfit. New Breed Wrestling Alliance is based out of nearby Danville, IL. I have yet to get to one of their shows but I'm finally in the loop for a couple of upcoming dates. Next Sunday (the 25th) they've got an event at 3pm in their home venue in Danville. The show is 5 bucks at the door. And in April (on the 21st) they'll be crosspromoting a show with two other feds, Great American Wrestling and Supreme League of Wrestling. I have no idea who those guys are, but they'll all be slugging it out in just-down-the-road Rantoul. Admission is only 3 dollars.

Any of my local peeps want to take in one of these shows?

Wrestling Society X sneak preview review

Okay, so this show is a little unpolished and a little trashy, but it had some good wrestling. And they squeezed two long (for TV) matches into a 30 minutes show. I gotta respect the high wrestling to talking ratio. The main event was a battle royal that was screwed up with a lot of hardcore props, including stupid Japanese gimmicks like "live electrical wires" and cheesy explosions.

But the first match, Jack Evans vs. Matt Sydal (two unknowns to me), was a respectable match that would not be out of place in TNA's X-Division. The finish was weak, as it featured flagrant outside interference that the ref clearly acknowledged. Yet there was no DQ called. If the ref is not going to keep up the pretense of officiating, then make it a no DQ match and get the dude out of the scene.

I really liked the way the main event was designed to set of Wrestling Society X's first championship bout. The battle royal was designed to have two winners, with the goal of the match to reach one of the two championship match contracts suspended above the ring. The winners of the match, who next episode will fight for the chance to be the first WSX champ, are these two guys:

Sean Waltman,
a.k.a. Six-Pac, a.k.a. X-Pac, a.k.a. Syxx, a.k.a. the 1-2-3 Kid,
former member of both D-X and the nWo.

-versus-

Vampiro,
"scary" goth guy

I loathe Sean Waltman with such a passion that I'm going to be rooting for the Vampire LARPer. Seriously, this Waltman guy sucks. It's not that he's a badguy I love to hate. It's not that I want to see Vampiro beat the crap out of him. I just don't want Sean Waltman on my TV at all. And I'm not the only fan like that. The term "X-Pac Heat" was coined for him. It means heat (wrestling slang for 'crowd reaction') against the wrestler and not his badguy character. Lots of people find this guy annoying as hell and I'm one of them.

Which, in the crazy world of wrestling, means he'll probably win the championship and have a long and glorious reign.

Behold, Wrestling Society X!

I got this item from Pro Wrestling Blog, but the original report comes from PW Insider. Wrestling fans can see the premiere of Wrestling Society X this Friday at 11pm Eastern on MtV. After the Friday night 'sneek preview' the show is scheduled to be on Tuesdays.

Wrestling Society X is a new wrestling federation that looks to take the Attitude Era and put it through the MtV media blender. I expect it to be awful, but I plan to find out myself. Vampiro is on the roster, so that's cool. Then there's the brother who calls himself the Human Tornado. I'm always a sucker for a Dolemite reference. And then there's this dillweed:

How can you not want to see this guy get a beatdown?

I R the Champion

Last week I finally won the world title in Legends of Wrestling II for the Xbox. I've been playing this game off and on since September of last year. A few weeks back I hit a bad spot where Kid Skull found himself unable to advance in 'career mode' because I couldn't win this one battle royal in St. Louis. I played that same battle royal a few dozens times. Eventually I edited Kid Skull to be bandaged up and wearing a leg brace and such. The poor guy took multiple beatings at the hands of Harley Race, Bob Orton, Bob Backlund, and the One Man Gang.

So I switched wrestlers and played my heel, Jeff "The Flatulent Beast" Hogan. He's your basic Mary Sue vehicle. He has a goatee and everything. "The Flatulent Beast" is one of the pre-loaded wrestler nicknames the announcer knows, so how could I resist calling my guy that? Jeff "No relation to that other guy named" Hogan ended up defeating the Iron Sheik for the big belt, just like the Hulkster did back in 1984. How cool is that? And I successfully defended the championship against the eighth wonder of the world, Andre the Giant. Awesome.

And the 'coins' I earned for my world title victory allowed me to finally buy access to this guy:

I originally bought Legends II because Andy Kaufman was available as a playable character. And it only took me 15 months to finally unlock the dude. Man, do I hate unlockables.

I think for my next trick I'll set up a tournament where Andy wrestles a bunch of women. Only one female character comes with the game, a fictional Southern promoter named Belle Jackson (of course). But you can build women wrestlers with the character creator/editor. I've got a couple, my favorite is Alice 'the Anvil' Anderson.

Enter the Crippler

Scuttlebut in the wrestling blogoverse is that Total Nonstop Action may see an influx of WWE/ECW talent soon. Of the list of possible emigres from McMahonLand one name stands out among the rest as an old favorite of mine from the heady days of the Monday Night Wars. And that name is Chris Benoit:


Chris Benoit (pronounce ben-WAH) has been called "the Crippler" and "the Rabid Wolverine". Most wrestling fans think of Bret "The Hitman" Hart as the best wrestler to ever come out of Canada. Benoit has always been my pick. His no-nonsense badass persona combined with an incredible high-impact style made for a lot of awesome no-frills wrestling. In an era where 'hardcore' meant you whacked your opponent with a bamboo pole, the Crippler achieved hardcore-itude by leaping off the top turnbuckle and headbutting people laying in the middle of the ring. That's crazy badass.

The 90's could have been Chris Benoit's decade to shine, but backstage politics held him back from true superstar status in World Championship Wrestling. I haven't seen Benoit's work since WCW was bought out by Vince McMahon, but the possibility of seeing him in action is the primary reason I even flip over to a WWE program. The prospect of the chance that maybe Benoit will appear in TNA is totally rocking my world right now.