02.11.2003, 21:44
The most riveting words in this latest book about the business of wrestling are found in the foreword by former professional wrestler John Tenta.
The 6’6, 400-pound Surrey, B.C., native wrestled for years between the WWF and WCW under several short-lived guises, which included Golga, Avalanche, The Shark, Kototenzan, and of course, Earthquake.
“Underneath the gimmicks, wrestlers are all just men and women trying hard to be successful at our jobs,” he writes.
“We do what is asked of us. Sometimes people ask me why I play the role of a fish man (The Shark). The answer is simple: if I hadn’t there were plenty of other people that would have. I just wanted to be able to provide for my family. I was just a guy trying to make a living. Take away my gimmicks - good and bad – and I’m a regular person just like you.”
And so begins WrestleCrap – The Very Worst of Pro Wrestling, R.D. Reynolds and Randy Baer’s humorous celebration (or damnation) of all the awful gimmicks, characters and storylines that we have ever seen in professional wrestling. The authors – who also produce the popular web site WrestleCrap.com – do a skilful job of not only describing every bad gimmick we've ever endured, but more importantly, how the promoters and writers came up with such cruddy ideas in the first place.
The book – a very easy 255-page read – is a lot like watching a train wreck in the sense that you just can’t look away. Reynolds and Baer take us on a very enjoyable – but disturbing - trip down memory lane that begins with early gimmicks from the 1960’s. Sure, everyone knows who Gorgeous George is, but did you ever know about the sport’s willingness to cash in on the 1960’s British invasion with George Ringo, the wrestling Beatle?
The novel then takes a quick fast forward to the late 1970’s-early 1980’s, when Vince McMahon Jr., steered the ‘wrestling’ out of wrestling and made it into sports entertainment. Call it a circus, if you will! If you turn your attention towards the first ring under the spotlight, you’ll see Vince’s first appeal to a broad audience – stereotypes! We’re talking Hillbilly Jim, Uncle Elmer, Cousin Luke, and Cousin Junior from Kentucky! Let’s also have a big welcome to the rogue’s gallery of Nikolai Volkoff and the Iron Sheik, and let’s not forget McMahon’s tribute to Crocodile Dundee and America’s Australia fetish – Outback Jack!
That is just the tip of the iceberg in WrestleCrap. With simple wit and humour, Reynolds and Baer devote an entire chapter to one of the biggest kings of cheese, Hulk Hogan. Anyone who has ever said that The Hulkster became an ‘A’ list celebrity after Rocky III should think again after reading the third chapter. I’m serious, folks - don’t ever say that The Rock is the second WWE superstar to really make it big in Hollywood, because those who do clearly haven’t seen Hogan in No Holds Barred, Suburban Commando, Mr. Nanny, Santa with Muscles and the short-lived (Thank God!) TV series, Thunder in Paradise. An after you read the synopsises for each of these horrid projects, you will never do so again.
Reynolds and Baer also make a strong case for crappy pushes when it comes to one of the industry’s most celebrated superstars, The Ultimate Warrior. Personally, I thought most of his stuff was pretty solid, but I was a young and impressionable kid who liked good drama in any way, shape and form. The authors saw it in a different sense, pointing out that Warrior’s push after his title win over Hogan at WrestleMania VI went almost nowhere. Ah yes, now I remember. WWE threw everything they could at their new star. Papa Shango (Charles Wright a.k.a. The Godfather) came and went, as did Ravishing Rick Rude and – hold your breath – Nailz!
Even more unbearable was WCW’s effort to bring in Warrior to boost ratings in 1998, spoofing the old Batman series with the Warrior spotlight in the sky and asking you to come back next week at the ‘Same Warrior time, same Warrior channel.’ Yeeesh! His re-match with Hogan at Halloween Havoc 1998 was the icing on what was a very stale piece of cake, throwing out any beliefs I once had about Warrior being a great gimmick.
The rest of the novel describes the gimmicks you loved to hate in explicit and entertaining detail. Some of the more obscure gimmicks in wrestling are brought up, such as the creation of an evil one-eyed midget and an AWA Turkey-on-a-pole match.
The main targets in the novel are what was once the two biggest monsters in the business - WCW and the WWF-WWE. Hogan’s first run in WCW – as bad as it was, just ask Ric Flair - is well-documented, while Reynolds and Baer also do a knockout job breaking down the company’s near creative downfall in 1993 (with Vader as their champion lurking in the White Castle of Fear) the rise and fall of the nWo.
On the WWF-WWE side, the dark days that were the early 1990’s are very well-covered with glimpses at projects like the WBF, the Gobbley Gooker, almost all three hours of WrestleMania IX (ie, The Giant Gonzales, Doink, Togas, stop me anytime here), and The Huckster vs. The Nacho Man.
Reynolds and Baer do not hold back slamming any era in pro wrestling, even if it’s the renewed golden age in the late 1990’s. As ‘Attitude’ began to take over in WWE, so did an abundance of bad and tasteless gimmicks. The antics of Sexual Chocolate Mark Henry certainly ring a bell, as do the in-ring adventures of Val Venis and Beaver Cleavage. The book devotes an entire chapter to what old-school wrestling critics and parental groups have spent years attacking – sex as a weapon in sports entertainment.
And what’s a book about crappy angles without a chapter on Vince Russo and how he almost single-handedly destroyed WCW with gimmicks like the Misfits in Action, Mike Awesome the Fat Chick Thriller and David Arquette?
Finally, proving that no stone is left unturned, the book makes a quick focus on the sports entertainment we see today, such as the WCW-ECW invasion of the WWF, Eric Bischoff’s botched arrival in WWE, Katie Vick, and of course, the XFL.
As fans, we naturally tend to lash out if we dislike or criticize a gimmick we see in wrestling. But as a book, WrestleCrap really isn’t about that. In a quirky way, reading it is kind of like looking back at your own high school yearbook. You’ll flip through it and say things like, “I can’t believe what they were thinking back in the day,” or “how did they get away with that?” This is wrestling, not rocket science. It’s entertainment. For every Empire Strikes Back we enjoy, there’s a Phantom Menace we’ll absolutely hate. For every Stone Cold Steve Austin that’s out there, there will always be a Patriot.
That being said, WrestleCrap is an excellent great read in the sense that it helps us remember - and laugh aloud at - all the creative lows of the wrestling business. Especially when most of us don’t want to.
I’m K-Dogg from the Spanish Announce Table
The 6’6, 400-pound Surrey, B.C., native wrestled for years between the WWF and WCW under several short-lived guises, which included Golga, Avalanche, The Shark, Kototenzan, and of course, Earthquake.
“Underneath the gimmicks, wrestlers are all just men and women trying hard to be successful at our jobs,” he writes.
“We do what is asked of us. Sometimes people ask me why I play the role of a fish man (The Shark). The answer is simple: if I hadn’t there were plenty of other people that would have. I just wanted to be able to provide for my family. I was just a guy trying to make a living. Take away my gimmicks - good and bad – and I’m a regular person just like you.”
And so begins WrestleCrap – The Very Worst of Pro Wrestling, R.D. Reynolds and Randy Baer’s humorous celebration (or damnation) of all the awful gimmicks, characters and storylines that we have ever seen in professional wrestling. The authors – who also produce the popular web site WrestleCrap.com – do a skilful job of not only describing every bad gimmick we've ever endured, but more importantly, how the promoters and writers came up with such cruddy ideas in the first place.
The book – a very easy 255-page read – is a lot like watching a train wreck in the sense that you just can’t look away. Reynolds and Baer take us on a very enjoyable – but disturbing - trip down memory lane that begins with early gimmicks from the 1960’s. Sure, everyone knows who Gorgeous George is, but did you ever know about the sport’s willingness to cash in on the 1960’s British invasion with George Ringo, the wrestling Beatle?
The novel then takes a quick fast forward to the late 1970’s-early 1980’s, when Vince McMahon Jr., steered the ‘wrestling’ out of wrestling and made it into sports entertainment. Call it a circus, if you will! If you turn your attention towards the first ring under the spotlight, you’ll see Vince’s first appeal to a broad audience – stereotypes! We’re talking Hillbilly Jim, Uncle Elmer, Cousin Luke, and Cousin Junior from Kentucky! Let’s also have a big welcome to the rogue’s gallery of Nikolai Volkoff and the Iron Sheik, and let’s not forget McMahon’s tribute to Crocodile Dundee and America’s Australia fetish – Outback Jack!
That is just the tip of the iceberg in WrestleCrap. With simple wit and humour, Reynolds and Baer devote an entire chapter to one of the biggest kings of cheese, Hulk Hogan. Anyone who has ever said that The Hulkster became an ‘A’ list celebrity after Rocky III should think again after reading the third chapter. I’m serious, folks - don’t ever say that The Rock is the second WWE superstar to really make it big in Hollywood, because those who do clearly haven’t seen Hogan in No Holds Barred, Suburban Commando, Mr. Nanny, Santa with Muscles and the short-lived (Thank God!) TV series, Thunder in Paradise. An after you read the synopsises for each of these horrid projects, you will never do so again.
Reynolds and Baer also make a strong case for crappy pushes when it comes to one of the industry’s most celebrated superstars, The Ultimate Warrior. Personally, I thought most of his stuff was pretty solid, but I was a young and impressionable kid who liked good drama in any way, shape and form. The authors saw it in a different sense, pointing out that Warrior’s push after his title win over Hogan at WrestleMania VI went almost nowhere. Ah yes, now I remember. WWE threw everything they could at their new star. Papa Shango (Charles Wright a.k.a. The Godfather) came and went, as did Ravishing Rick Rude and – hold your breath – Nailz!
Even more unbearable was WCW’s effort to bring in Warrior to boost ratings in 1998, spoofing the old Batman series with the Warrior spotlight in the sky and asking you to come back next week at the ‘Same Warrior time, same Warrior channel.’ Yeeesh! His re-match with Hogan at Halloween Havoc 1998 was the icing on what was a very stale piece of cake, throwing out any beliefs I once had about Warrior being a great gimmick.
The rest of the novel describes the gimmicks you loved to hate in explicit and entertaining detail. Some of the more obscure gimmicks in wrestling are brought up, such as the creation of an evil one-eyed midget and an AWA Turkey-on-a-pole match.
The main targets in the novel are what was once the two biggest monsters in the business - WCW and the WWF-WWE. Hogan’s first run in WCW – as bad as it was, just ask Ric Flair - is well-documented, while Reynolds and Baer also do a knockout job breaking down the company’s near creative downfall in 1993 (with Vader as their champion lurking in the White Castle of Fear) the rise and fall of the nWo.
On the WWF-WWE side, the dark days that were the early 1990’s are very well-covered with glimpses at projects like the WBF, the Gobbley Gooker, almost all three hours of WrestleMania IX (ie, The Giant Gonzales, Doink, Togas, stop me anytime here), and The Huckster vs. The Nacho Man.
Reynolds and Baer do not hold back slamming any era in pro wrestling, even if it’s the renewed golden age in the late 1990’s. As ‘Attitude’ began to take over in WWE, so did an abundance of bad and tasteless gimmicks. The antics of Sexual Chocolate Mark Henry certainly ring a bell, as do the in-ring adventures of Val Venis and Beaver Cleavage. The book devotes an entire chapter to what old-school wrestling critics and parental groups have spent years attacking – sex as a weapon in sports entertainment.
And what’s a book about crappy angles without a chapter on Vince Russo and how he almost single-handedly destroyed WCW with gimmicks like the Misfits in Action, Mike Awesome the Fat Chick Thriller and David Arquette?
Finally, proving that no stone is left unturned, the book makes a quick focus on the sports entertainment we see today, such as the WCW-ECW invasion of the WWF, Eric Bischoff’s botched arrival in WWE, Katie Vick, and of course, the XFL.
As fans, we naturally tend to lash out if we dislike or criticize a gimmick we see in wrestling. But as a book, WrestleCrap really isn’t about that. In a quirky way, reading it is kind of like looking back at your own high school yearbook. You’ll flip through it and say things like, “I can’t believe what they were thinking back in the day,” or “how did they get away with that?” This is wrestling, not rocket science. It’s entertainment. For every Empire Strikes Back we enjoy, there’s a Phantom Menace we’ll absolutely hate. For every Stone Cold Steve Austin that’s out there, there will always be a Patriot.
That being said, WrestleCrap is an excellent great read in the sense that it helps us remember - and laugh aloud at - all the creative lows of the wrestling business. Especially when most of us don’t want to.
I’m K-Dogg from the Spanish Announce Table