The Wrestling Thread

[Greggulator]

The Rougeaus rule. Great goofball heels.

Here's a great video of the aforementioned Larry Sweeney in action. This is from Chikara, the lucha-esque league that's pretty terrific and is based in the Lehigh Valley and Philly. He has an arm wrestling match against a kid. Very similar to when Ted Dibiase punted that basketball away.

Chikara Comedy: Larry Sweeney Arm Wrestles A Little Kid!!

[Greggulator]

Sunny is remembered as the "original" WWF/E diva. The WWF made a ton of money by selling her sex appeal. But they totally missed the boat.

Before she was Sunny, she was Tammy Fytch. Her first promotion was in Smokey Mountain Wrestling, an old-school league that was pretty great during the mid-90s and had its base in Kentucky/Tennessee and other redneckish areas. Her gimmick was really brilliant: She was a spoiled, pompous, rich brat who worshiped Hilary Clinton.

However, that's not to say she wasn't generous! She had a bit called "Tammy's Tips" in which she attempted to give poor women makeovers so they could be more like her!

I think a lot of this is legitimately funny -- not just wrestling funny.

Beauty Tips with Tammy Fytch

[wood and iron]

Random wrestling memory bubbling up:

My friend and I plotting out in our sophomore year of high school how we were going to enroll in the Samoan's wrestling school and live in a van with shag carpeting like Mick Foley did.

[ABBAs Helicopter]

Jacques Rougeau was always pretty underrated - not only was he solid in the ring but he had this great mind for working comedy into wrestling while still being effective at getting desired crowd reactions (more often than not, heeling it up). The Rougeau Brothers were great, but I actually thought his run as the Mountie was even better and incredibly hateable while still being hilarious at times.

And then he went totally ridiculous by goofing on his old gimmick:

the quebecers theme

I know he runs a school and a smaller fed in Quebec, but I kinda wish he'd get a managerial role in a comedy group. I'd even suggest Inter Species Wrestling (the group that more or less replaced the comedy side of IWS), but Rougeau has so much of a family friendly rep in Quebec that it wouldn't be great seeing him with Giant Tiger.

(Oh yeah, Giant Tiger needs to be talked about at some point.)

[davidgoeschatting]

Jacques Rougeau was always pretty underrated - not only was he solid in the ring but he had this great mind for working comedy into wrestling while still being effective at getting desired crowd reactions (more often than not, heeling it up). The Rougeau Brothers were great, but I actually thought his run as the Mountie was even better and incredibly hateable while still being hilarious at times.

And then he went totally ridiculous by goofing on his old gimmick:

the quebecers theme

I know he runs a school and a smaller fed in Quebec, but I kinda wish he'd get a managerial role in a comedy group. I'd even suggest Inter Species Wrestling (the group that more or less replaced the comedy side of IWS), but Rougeau has so much of a family friendly rep in Quebec that it wouldn't be great seeing him with Giant Tiger.

(Oh yeah, Giant Tiger needs to be talked about at some point.)

Yeah Jason, Jacques was always great. I remember entering my teenage years as a wrestling fan and finally seeing past the red and yellow, and really finding out what I liked and for what reasons. Jacques Rougeau became a constant pleasure. The Mountie was great, especially when someone like the Bossman turned the tables on him and sent him to prison (Summerslam '91, maybe?). But the Quebecers? Great team! The Rougeaus and the Harts had great matches, but the Quebecers were actual tag team title contenders during an era when WWF had Road Warriors, Steiners, Nasty Boys, etc. Pierre was a great athletic big man, who I remember landed some huge moonsaults. Fun stuff.

[Eric Fishlegs]

Jacques Rougeau was always pretty underrated - not only was he solid in the ring but he had this great mind for working comedy into wrestling while still being effective at getting desired crowd reactions (more often than not, heeling it up). The Rougeau Brothers were great, but I actually thought his run as the Mountie was even better and incredibly hateable while still being hilarious at times.

And then he went totally ridiculous by goofing on his old gimmick:

the quebecers theme

I know he runs a school and a smaller fed in Quebec, but I kinda wish he'd get a managerial role in a comedy group. I'd even suggest Inter Species Wrestling (the group that more or less replaced the comedy side of IWS), but Rougeau has so much of a family friendly rep in Quebec that it wouldn't be great seeing him with Giant Tiger.

(Oh yeah, Giant Tiger needs to be talked about at some point.)

If I remember correctly the "goofing on his old gimmick" thing came about because the real life RCMP took some sort of legal action to put an end to the Mountie gimmick so that song was sort of a "go screw" to the real life Mounties.

[Boogdish]

This thread has got me youtube-ing a lot of wrestling, I haven't watched this stuff since I was a kid.  I now love The Osirian Portal.

Also, who else can envision a match where the wrestlers have bricks strapped to the tops of their heads and the winner is the one who can literally knock the other guy's block off?  Get yourself a guy calling himself "The Zodiac Killer" and Tom Scharpling in a ring together doing that, maybe Tom wins by having Philly Boy Roy distract Zodiac Killer by throwing peanut chews at the back of his head.

[ABBAs Helicopter]

The guys in SomethingAwful's wrestling subforum stumbled upon a goldmine of comedy recently - NWA Mountain State from West Virginia. The most apt description is "Tim and Eric, Awesome Wrestling, Great Job!" The only known talent is The Maestro, Gorgeous George's grandnephew who was in WCW - his biggest claim to fame there was feuding with a guy that danced with James Brown.

Everyone else there registers high on the discomfort level in one or more ways, whether it's incoherent promos, fashionless ring attire, or painful looking ring work. But still there's a charm about the whole thing, as if everybody is in on the joke, but they can't entirely do what they want to exploit that, either because of their sponsorship deals with local businesses or because of their NWA affiliation. They have lots of full episodes on Youtube and on their website.

Not to mention, the best intro (and really, for the best part, you should just skip ahead to 0:47):

NWA Mountain State Wrestling 2009-2010 intro

[Kid Pain]

Is this an appropriate place to voice my displeasure in the downward trend in quality of WWE produced documentaries?

[Kid Pain]

Also:

Ultimate Warrior SYUCCUUUP!

[Eric Fishlegs]

Is this an appropriate place to voice my displeasure in the downward trend in quality of WWE produced documentaries?

As appropriate a place as any. The recent Jericho one was really good, but on the whole I agree with you. The Bobby Hennan one was lacking and even the extras could have been better. But the days when guys like Ric Flair and Bret Hart would get 2 hour documentaries and even guys like RVD, Eddie Guerrero, and Chris Benoit would get docs that clearly had a lot of effort put into them are gone.

Also,Colt Cabana appears this week on Sound of Young America. I haven't listened yet so I can't say whether it's any good, but I'm always happy to see wrestlers appear anywhere they don't normally appear.

[Eric Fishlegs]

The guys in SomethingAwful's wrestling subforum stumbled upon a goldmine of comedy recently - NWA Mountain State from West Virginia. The most apt description is "Tim and Eric, Awesome Wrestling, Great Job!" The only known talent is The Maestro, Gorgeous George's grandnephew who was in WCW - his biggest claim to fame there was feuding with a guy that danced with James Brown.

Everyone else there registers high on the discomfort level in one or more ways, whether it's incoherent promos, fashionless ring attire, or painful looking ring work. But still there's a charm about the whole thing, as if everybody is in on the joke, but they can't entirely do what they want to exploit that, either because of their sponsorship deals with local businesses or because of their NWA affiliation. They have lots of full episodes on Youtube and on their website.

Not to mention, the best intro (and really, for the best part, you should just skip ahead to 0:47):

NWA Mountain State Wrestling 2009-2010 intro

Ha! Their announcer is a Joey Styles knock off. That makes me laugh for some reason.

[ABBAs Helicopter]

Ha! Their announcer is a Joey Styles knock off. That makes me laugh for some reason.

And their other announcer is the Nunchuck Master! Hoo-yah!

NWAMountainState.com - Web Promo Video - April 2011

[Greggulator]

I really want NWA Mountain State Wrestling to be 100% irony free. Whatever the percentages, it's really great. I plan on spending all day at work getting caught up on my MSW history.

EL DIABLO~!

[Greggulator]

If you haven't seen this yet and you haven't watched wrestling in ages, I can't recommend this enough. This began one of the best angles in history.

THE BACKSTORY: The WWE had this really crappy show called NXT where they pulled up a bunch of guys from their developmental leagues and had them compete for a spot on the WWE roster and a guaranteed title shot. The show was an absolute and total fiasco -- there was no rhyme or reason to anything that happened and it was completely ridiculous.

The winner of NXT was Wade Barrett -- this ultra-smug British dude who was mentored by Chris Jericho. During his first appearance on Raw, he struts down to the ring to distract John Cena, in true wrestling fashion. But then, chaos ensues as fellow NXT competitor Michael Tarver shows up at ringside and is then joined by the rest of the NXT crew, who go on a rampage like none other.

The storyline had some really cool Communist subtext. You have a peasant uprising from the NXTers who thought they were being humiliated by the bourgeois WWE roster. They bonded together and revolted and caused total chaos. But then its leader Wade Barrett became obsessed with his growing power -- he ended up enslaving WWE icon John Cena at one point -- and it morphed into an Animal Farm "Some NXTers are more equal than others" vibe with a counterrevolt led by David Otunga (who is Jennifer Hudson's husband).

The angle sorta petered out after a while but it was one of the best narratives the WWE ever told, IMO.

NXT Rookies (Nexus) invades RAW (HQ)