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Vandar posted:Nitro Girl Chae, probably. Her and Kevin were a thing for a while. Is she the one that Nash made the comment on TV about, "Going in the back and eating a little Korean"?
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May 31, 2023 11:38
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Vandar posted:*Was* demonized? She's still being demonized by the WWE fans who are pissed off she's working with AEW to honor Owen's legacy. its not as prevalent as it once was after the dark side of the ring episode about owen aired.
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May 31, 2023 18:26
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THE UNDERTAKER’S NO GOOD, VERY BAD, FIRST CAREER QUARTER Part 2: The Undertaker’s No Good, Very Bad 1992 and 1993  Opponent 1: THE BIG FAT FALSE AFRICAN WHO WASN’T ACTUALLY A WHITE GUY FROM SOUTH CAROLINA I have said it before and will say it again: be careful who you pretend to be, because you are who you pretend to be. Kamala, nee James Arthur Harris (Later Edit: And ain't that just a weird coincidence of real names and stage names?), didn’t start his career as pretending to be an African headhunter. He instead had more generic gimmicks, including wrestling under both the names “Sugar Bear” Harris and “Ugly Bear” Harris (make up your mind!). It would be four years into said career that he, along with Jerrys Lawler and Jarrett, came up with the idea. Originally called “Kimala”, the first concept was that Harris was a former bodyguard of deposed, real life dictator Idi Aman and that he had been ‘discovered’ by JJ Dillon on an expedition to Africa. I suspect that those real life elements were stripped away, as when Kamala debuted in a promo where he stalked out of a ‘jungle’ (really filmed on Jarrett’s farm), he was now the still-unfortunate-implications-filled Ugandan headhunter savage who spoke no English and wrestled like a mad animal. To sell that fact, Harris was told to simplify his style and mainly fight like a brawler with lots of chops and biting. I have no idea if Harris had any real wrestling skill before that, but as Kamala became his lifelong gimmick, I suspect whatever he might have developed atrophied and withered on the vine. There comes to mind another wrestler who, in his first career years after he got some seasoning, was said to actually be pretty darn decent in the ring with the right opponent before he was told to simplify his style; that being Kamala’s oft-had opponent Hulk Hogan. To further demonstrate my point, I tracked down a short match I remember the man having with my favorite, Bret Hart, to see what his moveset was. It consisted of a bunch of chops, a bearhug, a choke drop, standing briefly on Hart’s chest, a sloppy spinning kick, what I THINK was supposed to be another kind of choke but honestly looked like he was trying to give Hart a titty-twister, and finally a big splash, which didn’t actually land on Hart. And as far as I know, that’s basically all the moves Kamala ever really DID do, save for the occasional basic bodyslam. (I will give Harris ONE small bit of credit for that match: he managed to do a leapfrog, ie he jumped over a ducking, running Bret. For his size and weight, and 15 years into his career, that is notable). Kamala wrestled all over the world in the decade after he adapted the gimmick, appearing in the WWE a few times to serve as a generic ‘temporary monster’ for Hogan to slay. He returned in mid 1992, again as a generic ‘big monster’ for the top people to beat, which somehow segued into a feud with the Undertaker. Note that said feud was happening more or less solely on TV, as on house shows, Calloway was instead racking up constant wins over…John Nord, known in the WWE at the time as the Berzerker.  I suspect their matches weren’t exactly hidden gems either. In reality, though, it seemed more like Undertaker’s feud was with Kamala’s manager, Harvey Wippleman. Why? No reason was given. If you want to be me and give it WAY more thought than it deserves, Wippleman had been managing Sid Eudy, nee Sid Justice/Sid Vicious/Sycho Sid going into Wrestlemania 8, in ‘universe’ a main event talent who could go and stay right to the top. In reality, Sid failed a drug test before Wrestlemania 8 and was told that after that show and a European tour, he would be suspended. Sid chose to quit instead. All those European tour matches involved him fighting the Undertaker in matches that all ended in double count outs. In universe, you could structure him quitting as realizing that he was not strong enough to face the TRUE monsters of WWE and fleeing, leaving Wippleman holding the bag and seeking revenge on the man who cost him his meal ticket. Well, if a monster was needed, Wippleman would GET a monster! But he was bad at it, so he got Kamala. But, with these being the days of only four PPVs, Undertaker and Kamala’s feud was apparently so important that even after beating the man by DQ at Summerslam, it seemed that Undertaker had not decisively defeated his opponent enough. Something bigger was needed. The monster needed to be laid to rest. And so, Undertaker and Kamala would compete at Survivor Series once more, in the ‘first ever’ (advertised on TV and happening on TV/A PPV) Casket match. Or Coffin match, as it was sometimes called. I wonder if anyone ever called a Ladder match a ‘climbing match’. In all honesty, the fact that Kamala expressed mortal terror over the casket/coffin gave away who’d be winning that match. As said, that would tend to suddenly crop up when Undertaker feuds led to casket matches; the opponent would oh so conveniently happen to have a deep, notable fear about caskets, moreso than the average human would. With his Ugandan giant buried in more than one way, Wippleman’s thirst for revenge only deepened. Clearly, something even BIGGER would be needed. Something even MORE giant. Something even MORE monstrous. You can apply the adverb “Monstrous” in more than one form, you know.  Opponent #2: THE EXTRA TALL FURRY GUY WHO COULD BARELY MOVE AND IS WIDELY CONSIDERED UNDERTAKER’S WORST OPPONENT EVER. I disagree. Mark Calloway likely would not. In his own words, working with Giant Gonzalez took years off his career from the sheer mental stress of trying to do ANYTHING with the man. He’s probably exaggerating, but that’s one heck of a choice of words. And yet… Oh, don’t get me wrong. Jorge González was a terrible wrestler. But there was a reason for it. Genetics are a funny thing. There’s talk about how things ‘skip a generation’, and then there’s how supposedly certain kinds of people trend towards certain things (Ex: Asian people tend towards being slightly smaller than the overall average size of the human race in general), which just makes the exceptions stand out all the more (an example I think of is retired Chinese professional basketball player Yao Ming, who was a legitimate 7’6 tall, though his parents were also exceptionally tall ‘compared to the average’, so technically it starts with them, or goes back even further, who knows how tall Ming’s grandparents were). There’s debate over parentage (while writing this I spied yet another gossip article about how “Prince Harry” is clearly not the son of Charles and DIana based on how his hair seems to be developing a bald spot in a certain way), talent (heck, I spoke about how the children and grandchildren of wrestlers either had more or less talent than their parents/grandparents earlier), and more “Something-ist” beliefs that often lead to bad poo poo. And then there’s the fact that the human body is so darn complicated that sometimes, things just don’t get put together right. I think of a line from the comic Transmetropolitan, discussing the trials of cloning a human. “Build a sophisticated camera capable of full 3-D input and peripheral pickup, using (what is essentially just) water and jelly. Build an eye.” And the human body does that all by itself, using the programming of biology and evolution. Sometimes things go wrong. And so it was with Jorge González, who legitimately suffered from gigantism. The human body can handle some impressive things if something unusual happens, like young brains that have suffered damage rewriting themselves to work around the damaged parts, or people who have fatally drowned in ice cold water being pulled out half an hour later and being warmed up and revived without brain damage because the water inducted a temporary stasis like effect (or, if you want something more in line with this topic, Paul “The Big Show” Wight is a strong example; with surgery to stop his condition before it hit an inoperable terminal phase like Andre the Giant suffered from, he grew super big and seems to be in decent health in his 50’s, knock on wood), but it has its limits. Yao Wang only managed a ten year professional career before foot and ankle injuries semi-forced his retirement, and he was lucky for it. González was not. In the end, the man was quite literally ‘too big’ for everything in the world, including his own body. It’s not surprising that González also played basketball, but his attempt to get into the pros essentially failed because even just barely out of adulthood he was suffering severe leg injuries. While he was drafted by the Atlanta Hawks, it was quickly established that between those injuries and his condition, he simply wouldn’t be able to handle the hard work needed to be an NBA player. Ted Turner, who owned the Hawks, looked at the truly giant man and then looked at his little wrestling hobby company and went “Why not try and get something out of this man, and for him?” (But probably out of him. Ted’s a billionaire, after all, in the end they’re all heartless exploiters at the core). Unfortunately, even without wrestling being ‘legit’, it still requires a high degree of athleticism. And unfortunately, González’s body just was too large, too warped, to be able to handle it either. He debuted in WCW after training for a year, as “El Gigante”, a face…and due to the fact that he was so drat big, was immediately put in main events. Unfortunately, being so drat big didn’t help overcome all the detriments, and was also not helped by the fact that González barely spoke English and apparently had great trouble learning it, which led to some amusing promos where González, as Gigante, was supposed to be a babyface, and yet he would cut promos where he'd say stuff like “Ric Flair…I KILL YOU!” (Perhaps in another life he played football for a fictional Japanese team called the Devil Bats...) Flair quickly washed his hands of trying to do anything with the man, and González spent the rest of his brief WCW career feuding with other big wrestlers over who the ‘true giant’ was…which meant he was feuding with other big slugs who couldn’t wrestle well, while he was an exceptionally big broken man who had trouble functioning in real life, let alone in a sports show. But, he was just SO drat BIG, so when his WCW contract ended, the WWE grabbed him up, putting him in a furry suit and having the man grow a beard, and debuting him at the 1993 Royal Rumble as “Harvey Wippleman’s revenge” for Undertaker’s defeat of Kamala making him realize that Wippleman was treating him badly and turn on him. González managed to eliminate the Undertaker, and I’ll admit he did look somewhat impressive doing so, but… Well, Cagematch records (Darn these are USEFUL) said it best. Undertaker and González were signed for a match at Wrestlemania IX, which was a little over two months away. In between the Royal Rumble and WM 9, Undertaker had 40 matches (give or take one or two), on house shows and on TV. Strangely, he mostly wrestled the Royal Rumble winner Yokozuna, always defeating him by DQ. He had two matches with González, three or so weeks before WM 9. Gonzalez had 14 matches, including the two he had with Undertaker. The rest of the time he either squashed Virgil, or wrestled Randy Savage to count out or DQ finishers. Did I mention that the first of those matches was a TV match where he was put up against three guys at once that González won by count out because all three men fled into the locker room in terror instead of actually fighting him? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYb6HbbP46w (Okay one got chokeslammed, but a 'fight' implies some sort of EXCHANGE) Then again, I suspect whether he had 14 or 40 matches, it would have changed little. According to Undertaker, he said that his matches with Gonzalez were less matches and more Undertaker finding out just what he could even DO with the incredibly warped man. Two of them were likely nowhere near enough. Hell, I suspect a carefully plotted match like how Hogan and Warrior at Wrestlemania VI wouldn’t have been enough. And yet… If González had been more blessed than cursed with his body, like Andre the Giant, who in his youth could actually WRESTLE very well, while sadly his most famous moments would come at the tail end of his career when his body had begun destroying itself from his uncontrolled and unstoppable growth, there would have been no Streak. Because I suspect the main reason that González did not beat the Undertaker at Wrestlemania 9 was because he was just THAT drat BAD. Even so, they still wanted him to ‘stay strong’, so Undertaker would claim his only non-pinfall and submission win at a Wrestlemania when González tried to knock the zombie man out with an ether soaked rag when Undertaker refused to stay down. And then staggered back into the ring to chase González off. The WWE still saw the writing on the wall. González would only make three TV appearances between Wrestlemania and Summerslam, one on Raw squashing a jobber, and two on Superstars losing to other wrestlers via DQ. Otherwise, it was endless DQ losses on house shows to Undertaker or Randy Savage, so many that I have this funny mental picture of González trying to ether rag Undertaker over and over thinking THIS TIME, IT WILL WORK. Despite this, Undertaker and González would be signed to another match at Summerslam, a “Rest In Peace” match (which I believe was just a general No Count Out No DQ match). It would also prove to be lousy, but this time Undertaker would get a clean pinfall win (using a top rope leaping clothesline, as González was far too large to Tombstone or chokeslam), and González would ‘turn face’ afterwards by beating up Harvey Wippleman. It was ceremonial, much like Andre’s face turn at Wrestlemania 6, as González would have two more WWE matches, one more against Randy Savage and one in a battle royale, and then he would be released from his WWE contract. González would have the rest of his matches in Japan, a dozen or so over 1994 and 1995, and as talked about, while he was originally supposed to be the YET-TAY in the Dungeon of Doom, the idea fell through when Gonzalez had a diabetes attack and instead returned to Argentina, retiring from pro wrestling from numerous health issues due to his gigantic size. The man would pass away in 2010, only 44, and having been in a wheelchair for years and on dialysis due to failing kidneys. What really strikes me are Harvey Wippleman’s stories of the man. Supposedly, all his athletic and language issues aside, no one could really find a bad thing to say about Jorge González the man. Wippleman would recount just how hard it was just to exist as the man he was, how much pain he was in trying to function in normal vehicles, hotels, and a lot of the time, just by existing. Harvey had to tie the man’s boots, as Gonzalez was simply too large. He had to get González his meals, because González, once he settled down, would often find it agonizing to move unless he had to. And apparently, Harvey sent money to the man and his family for years afterwards, as González simply could do nothing to earn a living except to exist, and even that was a trial as his body collapsed on itself, too large to function but not kind enough to kill him quickly. Compared to at least one opponent to come, I’d say that all that disqualifies Jorge González from being Undertaker’s worst opponent ever. Sometimes, you have to look beyond the matches and lack of promoes and see, well, the bigger picture. And the two things to take away from the man are, his lack of talent produced one of the greatest wrestling accomplishments ever, even if it was by accident. And the world did him rotten, and yet he still apparently, outside of the ring, was a good guy. In the carny, filthy world of wrestling, maybe that counts for more than a hundred memorable promos and a thousand five star matches. If there is such a thing as reincarnation, one can only hope that Jorge González would be reborn as a man who could actually be something more than a freak show attraction. Or maybe just what we call normal. Next: HE’S FAT! --- Some video OSW's video that includes Undertaker vs Giant Gonzalez at Wrestlemania 9, if you want to see firsthand all the issues I discussed. If their commentary isn't your cup of tea, you can always mute it. And the Summerslam match, which is better in the sense that getting one leg blown off and one leg shattered to pulp by a land mine is better than having both your legs blown off. Again, OSW, sorry, best I could do if you want to see as much as possible. Cornwind Evil fucked around with this message at 14:40 on Jun 1, 2023 |
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May 31, 2023 22:21
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I never realized Giant Gonzalez was actually that massive, probably because I've only really seen pics of him in his stupid costume without anyone nearby for scale. Towering over Taker is a feat. Shame the human body isn't designed for those heights.
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May 31, 2023 22:31
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Gonzalez was in an episode of Baywatch where he is a circus freak who also carves pelicans
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May 31, 2023 22:55
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Into what?
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May 31, 2023 22:59
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Pelican'ts
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May 31, 2023 23:06
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Cornwind Evil posted:on house shows, Calloway was instead racking up constant wins over…John Nord, known in the WWE at the time as the Berzerker. https://i.imgur.com/wsZOWwN.mp4
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Jun 1, 2023 00:18
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Imagine if he no-sold that instead
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Jun 1, 2023 00:20
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The Berzerker’s gone completely insane you say?
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Jun 1, 2023 00:21
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I know it was all kayfabe and he was always a loving monster, but I do miss Vince McMahon the respectable and professional ringside announcer.
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Jun 1, 2023 00:48
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Baron von Eevl posted:I know it was all kayfabe and he was always a loving monster, but I do miss Vince McMahon the respectable and professional ringside announcer. Watching the old stuff back it's apparent that Vince was absolutely massive in the late 80's, easily more densely muscled than the majority of the roster. Somehow i never noticed that he was huge. My dad said once that he wanted to see Vince wrestle because he was so big and i remember being an extremely scornful 8 year old because obviously Vince is small and a wimp. Did anyone else just never realize that Vince was fully jacked and smuggling so much beef under those baby blue blazers?
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Jun 1, 2023 01:06
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Need something to do? Join us for IZWF on EXP right now! https://twitch.tv/ritoru_demon
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Jun 1, 2023 01:10
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLDd9L36tnM
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Jun 1, 2023 03:01
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This is freaking ART.
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Jun 1, 2023 04:00
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FilthyImp posted:I dont even remember there being Nitro Cheerleaders. You don't hear about them much anymore but they were like, a pretty big part of Nitro. I want to say they were there as a unit up until the very end? 3 A.M. Radio posted:Is she the one that Nash made the comment on TV about, "Going in the back and eating a little Korean"? One and the same.
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Jun 1, 2023 04:21
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I think if you watch earlier nitros you'll see them, also this guy 
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Jun 1, 2023 04:23
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lol willie
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Jun 1, 2023 04:36
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Cornwind Evil posted:James Harris, nee Kamala Well if that isn't a double take.
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Jun 1, 2023 04:45
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kamala slammed andre the giant before hulk hogan
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Jun 1, 2023 04:47
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the wrestler not the VP
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Jun 1, 2023 04:48
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16-bit Butt-Head posted:lol willie this version scares the poo poo out of me 
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Jun 1, 2023 04:52
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AlmightyBob posted:this version scares the poo poo out of me lol randy savage has a fursona
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Jun 1, 2023 04:53
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16-bit Butt-Head posted:lol randy savage has a fursona Likes: Cocaine Dislikes: Dennis Rodman
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Jun 1, 2023 05:15
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16-bit Butt-Head posted:lol randy savage has a fursona And it's apparently the Gobbledok.
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Jun 1, 2023 05:25
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Cornwind Evil posted:THE UNDERTAKER’S NO GOOD, VERY BAD, FIRST CAREER QUARTER You're doing it again. Also, are you telling us that the character's name was Kamala Harris?
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Jun 1, 2023 05:34
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Literally A Person posted:Likes: Cocaine 
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Jun 1, 2023 13:53
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Silly Newbie posted:You're doing it again. -Hits 'Rules of exact proper English' with a chair. Puts 'English is a malleable language and you can really do whatever you want with it' on top of it for the pin'- (The funny thing is, I remembered the advice...and promptly got it reversed, so I did it wrong anyway) And yes, by the weirdness of fate, his name could be said to have been Kamala Harris.
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Jun 1, 2023 14:42
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Silly Newbie posted:You're doing it again. It would actually be that the performer's name used to be James Kamala, but I believe you'll find it's this thing called a "joke."
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Jun 1, 2023 15:37
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THE UNDERTAKER’S NO GOOD, VERY BAD, FIRST CAREER QUARTER Part 3: The Undertaker’s No Good, Very Bad 1994 (Redux) with a touch of the end of 1993  Opponent 3: THE REALLY BIG REALLY FAT SAMOAN WHO WAS PRETENDING TO BE JAPANESE AND CRIPES WAS HE FAT (and it stops being funny) A few musings. It seems more likely than not that truly strong men are much more ‘stout’ and ‘barrel shaped’ than ripped and muscular: if they flex their arm, you’ll see a large bicep, but they don’t have a six pack. If you’ve ever seen the very silly Stallone arm wrestling film Over The Top, you might have briefly spied in the final quarter a very large, very round man amongst all the background contestant participants. That man was Cleve “Armbender” Dean, the legit Arm Wrestling World Champion for several years, and Stallone was originally penciled in to beat him as the final opponent in the film. But, upon realizing just how drat BIG Dean WAS, literally twice Stallone’s size (and Stallone is not a small man)...  (I don't know who Mike is) ...they realized that even with the silly 80’s cheese nonsense of the film, it broke suspension of disbelief for Stallone to beat him. The role of final opponent was instead given to Rick Zumwalt, and Dean only got a small cameo. So yeah, Dean was ‘fat’. His weight did become a big issue for him in the 90’s, and while he slimmed down, he died fairly young at 58 in 2011. But you sure as heck probably wouldn’t describe him as ‘fat’ with all the big muscled arms he slammed down. Perhaps partly based on this, while the stereotype for professional wrestlers is to be a huge hulking chunk of carved meat, it seems like a lot of ‘fat’ men have made their way into the upper echelons. As mentioned, Dusty Rhodes was ‘fat’, and yet he wrestled who knows how many sixty minute draws with Ric Flair. Big Van Vader was ‘fat’, and yet was considered the most fearsome heel on the planet for at least part of his career: the late Antonio Inoki, who basically never lost (in the vein that he had creative control as a ‘legend’ and ‘icon’), decided to let Vader squash him in what was more or less Vader’s first Japanese match, literally causing a riot in the arena they were in because, well, Inoki never lost, and he sure as poo poo didn’t lose like THAT. Speaking of Inoki, the infamous scene with wrestler “The Great Antonio” shows that Antonio had a prominent gut (though in his case he was in his mid 50’s, over the hill, and out of shape. And too drat arrogant, which is why what happened happened.) And then, in British wrestling history, there was a match between mentioned-in-my-Dungeon-of-Doom writeup Giant Haystacks (billed at 685 pounds) and Happy Humphrey (billed at 802(!) pounds, and possibly even weighed more than 900 at one point in his life), not to mention Haystacks’ high drawing feud with former tag partner Big Daddy, who also was noticeably chunky in the middle. And of course, recently, there’s tubby Samoa Joe, nee Nuufolau Joel Seanoa, who has a great mix of strength and agility and first gained prominence keeping up with super agile and high flying wrestlers like AJ Style and Christopher Daniels. Maybe Scott Steiner called him fat, but to Scott Steiner, everyone is fat. And I’d say that Scott’s body and brain are much more deformed than how Joe looks. Finally, I own a book (it was a Christmas present) of the history of the WWE title. It was produced by WWE, so of course it’s done with their viewpoint on history, but one thing I remember from it was what was discussed when Yokozuna, nee Agatupu Rodney Anoaʻi, won the title. The book outright said that Yokozuna concluded that what made him strong was his size, and that he would do his damndest to increase it so he could beat everyone. They outright commented about the man’s weight gain over his career, when such a thing wasn’t needed at all. It was THAT notable, and noticeable. Because like some of those other ‘fat’ wrestlers, when Yokozuna was finding his groove in the late 80’s, wrestling as either “Great Kokina” or “Kokina Maximus” and actually being billed as the Samoan he was (he is, as mentioned before, part of the legendary Samoan wrestling family that includes the Wild Samoans, the Rock, Roman Reigns, and other sadly deceased-now wrestlers like Umaga and Rosey), while he was 400+ pounds even then, he could MOVE for his size. When he was signed by the WWE in 1992 and repackaged as Japanese and a former sumo wrestler (his name, as I’m sure many here already know, is the title of the highest rank achievable in sumo wrestling; while there have been thousands of “sumotori” throughout history, as of 2021 there have only been 73 men who have achieved such a ranking), he was initially billed as being 505 pounds, and even then, he could run with decent speed and get around the ring faster than you’d expect: his set up move for his ‘Banzai Drop’ finisher was to run and butt/back ram himself into his opponent, sometimes even JUMPING before he did it. Perhaps what I remember about these days was that Yokozuna varied up his ring outfits a bit: he’d sometimes have a white belt instead of a black one, and sometimes white tights instead of red. Once he officially entered the world title picture (being the first wrestler to ever get the ‘winner of the Royal Rumble gets a world title match at Wrestlemania’ stipulation) and faced Bret Hart in the main event of Wrestlemania 9, it would always be red tights and black mawashi belt. As if none of his other outfits fit any more. Bret Hart talks about how, in his book, when he first worked with Anoa’i, that Anoa’i was a ‘humble kid’ who actually lowered his head (in that aw shucks sort of way) and shuffled his feet when talking about working with Bret, but getting the world title belt within less than a year (and Vince’s possible promises) make his ego balloon and transformed him into King poo poo. While this never much affected their matches, Bret also recalls Anoa’i sitting in first class eating tons of junk and fast food (and getting really mad if he couldn’t have a Diet Coke to go with it, in that weird justification of ‘dieting’ many overweight people use). When Yokozuna faced Hulk Hogan for his actual world title win in June 1993, the commentators said that as part of his preparations, he had packed on another 50 pounds. Some less kind analysts have said that they were leaving off another 50 pounds (ie he had gained 100 pounds). By the time Yokuzuna was main eventing the 1993 Summerslam against failed Hulk Hogan Lex Luger, any speed and grace had seemingly been lost under more weight. Yokozuna was now slow, ponderous, and sadly, still growing. As spoken of by Gavok, the Undertaker and Yokozuna officially came to blows when, as part of a shakeup in the jingoism main event of Survivor Series 1993, team member Tatanka was taken out, and unexpectedly, the Undertaker chose to take his place and to inexplicably be a patriotic zombie monster. At Survivor Series, Undertaker was presented as a brick wall that stopped Yokuzuna cold, best demonstrated when Yokozuna tried smashing his head into the ring steps, and Undertaker no sold it, prompting a look of sheer startled terror on the Samoan’s face, before Undertaker resumed laying into him and both of them were counted out.  Of course, with Giant Gonzalez gone a few months previous, Undertaker had already had many house show matches with Yokozuna, trading count out and DQ wins, and based on how some results are reported, even giving Yokozuna some clean wins over the Undertaker (that, or people were unable to gloss just how the Undertaker loss occurred in their match collection data). Also appropriate was that Yokozuna would be the one, off screen, alongside the Undertaker to found the unofficial stable/friend group known as the ‘Bone Street Krew’, a group of wrestlers who basically had shared interests, including playing dominos (ie “Bones”), so in reality, the two men were close. In the business, friends will often make their friends look good. I mention this because it really, really drives home how much Anoa’i’s weight affected everything. (Side note: Peering into the future to the 1995 Survivor Series, you may have noticed that there was a traditional elimination match between Undertaker and his then feud, King Mabel, and we’ll get to him. King Mabel’s team consisted of ‘fellow king’ Jerry Lawler, ‘blueblood snob’ Hunter Hearst Helmsley, and odd man out ‘evil dentist’ Isaac Yankem (then again, dentists make a good living, so, maybe there’s a tentative link?) Undertaker’s team consisted of the seemingly random mix of Savio Vega, Henry Godwin, and Fatu of the Headshrinkers, in his failed gimmick of ‘Making A Difference’ ie I am a walking afterschool special, and soon I’ll be a fake masked Arab, and then I’ll be another faux sumo wrestler who will actually get over by dancing with two club kids. The only real connection between the two teams besides Undertaker and Mabel were the then-feuding Godwin and not-yet Triple H. In reality, while called “The Darkside”, the Undertaker’s team was the Bone Street Krew, all of his teammates being members of the group. Not surprising that they clean swept their rival team) With Yokuzuna having been so stymied by Undertaker, a match would be signed at the next PPV, the 1994 Royal Rumble. And at this point, the WWE, or rather, Vince, had a problem. Vince still wanted Luger to be the new Hogan and top guy, but between Lex’s own failings and the WWE’s booking failures, the fans were not biting. As it would be some time before Vince was forced to accept this fact, he didn’t want Yokozuna to lose and therefore also lose the title. But he didn’t want Undertaker to win either. So the Royal Rumble match would be made a Casket match, the second one ever (on TV/PPV, there had been many on house shows, including a large group of them between Undertaker and Yokozuna already), and Undertaker would be shown making a special ‘double wide, double deep’ for the very large Yokozuna. I remember the Paul Bearer promos where he wailed in ecstasy over this fact, and the fact that certain shows aired very close to Christmas and New Years meant that Taker incorporated them into his promoes (“Merry Christmas Yokozuna. Ho. Ho. Ho.”) Ergo, the match was set up so it could have a screwy finish, keep Yokozuna champion so Lex could get his then-roughly-planned moment of crowning at Wrestlemania X, and keep Undertaker strong. And if that had been all that happened, it wouldn’t be much remembered, save as perhaps just more regretful musing on Lex Luger, Failed Hulk Hogan #1 (Not only was Bret Hart more over than him, but the Undertaker was too!) EXCEPT… I don’t know what got into Vince and co’s heads, except maybe a whole bunch of drugs, or maybe it was stress from the then-ongoing steroid trials (which might have meant that Vince was actually hands off because he was focused on that), but they decided it wouldn’t be enough to just do a schmozz finish that protected Undertaker and kept the belt on Yokozuna. Oh no. OH NO. The extra mile would be needed. And then several more. And then more, off a cliff. Gavok spoke of it as well, but after a pseudo-decent match where Undertaker actually managed a (bad, but still) chokeslam on the gigantic Yokozuna, followed by a DDT that Yokozuna sold like an anvil had been dropped on his head (close friends, remember), Undertaker rolled Yokozuna into the casket…only to be kept from closing it by the arrival of Crush. Okay, that makes sense, Crush and Yokozuna were allies, Crush’s current gimmick was ‘evil Japanese symphasizer’, and casket matches were no DQ (and fittingly Brian “Crush” Adams was ALSO a member of the Bone Street Krew). Crush wasn’t enough. So along came Japanese wrestlers The Great Kabuki and Genichiro Tenryu, a legendary Japanese wrestler who had been brought in as a ‘ringer’, alongside Kabuki to ensure that Lex Luger couldn’t win the Royal Rumble (as in storyline, Luger had stupidly signed his Summerslam world title match contract without checking it and it had a clause that Luger could never challenge for the title again if he failed to win it in that first match, unless there was a loophole like ‘winning the Royal Rumble’ whose title match guarantee apparently superceded the crooked contract). Now, if Yokozuna had woken up, joined in the four on one attack, and they had beaten the Undertaker down and screwjobbed him into the casket, that would have been fine. You could have even put in one or two of the elements that came after, maybe it would have worked. Maybe. I pause to reminiscence on a random Monday Night Raw where Dusty Rhodes appeared, and they decided to poke fun at the infamous ‘Shockmaster’ gimmick, which went from just ‘another brief forgotten dumb gimmick’ to wrestling infamy when Fred Ottman, who played the Shockmaster, found that between his practice entrance and his actual one, someone had had a brain fart and put a wooden board across the lower part of the new break through wall he was going to emerge from, which meant that when Ottman rammed through, he tripped, fell on his face, his silly helmet falling off his head, and the man was forced to scramble to grab the helmet, put it on, and get up and act like nothing had happened. On that Raw many years later, they replicated the scene as part of the joke, and when it was over and it was just Dusty on camera, he concluded the bit with a rueful “It SHOULD have worked!” That’s my thought on the concept of a toned down version of what we got. Maybe it wouldn’t have. But it would have just been ‘lost amongst the sea of other minor bits’ bad. INSTEAD… Out came Bam Bam Bigelow to add to the heels. Why did he run out? Maybe he was mad he lost his match to Tatanka in the show’s opener and wanted to take it out on someone. This was around when Yokozuna revived, so now it was five on one. Then Paul Bearer raised the urn and Undertaker was EMPOWERED BY THE GRAVE. Out comes Adam Bomb. Why is HE here? Well he was the other man that Taker usually beat at house shows over the last months, so in an obscure way it could be said to have a grudge. They also introduced Fuji’s salt bucket as a weapon. STILL NOT ENOUGH. So out comes Jeff Jarrett as well. Why is HE here? I dunno, maybe he feels the number 7 is lucky. Considering this was also the Rumble that started the disastrous Kevin Nash top star debacle, as he came out at Number 7 and did his ‘throw out half a dozen guys’ bit, maybe he was on to something. Still not enough! So out come the Headshrinkers to make it freaking 9 ON 1 (as someone commented somewhere else not in this thread, at least in some ways them coming out to help Yokozuna makes sense), and finally, Diesel, warming up his engine for his moment of glory, joined the giant heel group last. So it’s now 10 men against 1. And as Gavok said, none of the faces cared to come out and help Undertaker. Maybe they all had Mr. Satan style stomachaches. AND THEY, 10 MEN, STILL COULDN’T FORCE UNDERTAKER INTO THE drat CASKET. So Yokozuna clocked Bearer, stole the urn, opened it, and dumped the contents out. At which point green smoke started spewing out of the urn as Yokozuna dropped it, and Undertaker finally collapsed like he was now actually dead. But it wasn’t enough, so the heels ganged up on him even more, hitting Undertaker with seven or eight more moves, finishing with a Banzai drop from Yokozuna before Undertaker was finally pushed into the casket for the loss. And you’d think THAT would be enough, and it would be justified that Undertaker would vanish for months, while Mark Calloway took time off to heal injuries and go on vacation with his first wife. BUT NOOOOOOOOOOO. So as the heels triumphantly pushed the casket to the back, smoke began pouring from the inside of it. The nice thing about the double wide double deep casket was that it made it easier to install a hidden door on the side so Undertaker could slip out of it and under the ring, but ‘in universe’, the viewing screens suddenly had what appeared to be a picture of the Undertaker INSIDE the casket, as he ‘woke up’, said a bunch of pseudo-religious silliness about ‘the spirit of the Undertaker lies in the everlasting spirit of mankind’, vowing to ‘not rest in peace’...and then the image of him on the main viewing screen went photo negative and began rising up, like Undertaker was a paid movie channel that had been giving out a free sample that ended in mid action, and as the negative of him rose up and vanished off the top of the screen, ‘The Undertaker’ appeared as if he was somehow teleporting through the TV on top of the screen, in real life (some have said it was Marty Jannetty in a wig, others have said this is incorrect, but whoever it was, it wasn’t Mark Calloway), and then rose into the air on wires and vanished amongst the shadows of the upper arena, while a recovered Paul Bearer exalted around the casket, Vince on commentary tried to sell it as a deep, miraculous experience, and the WWF Magazine, reporting on it months later, said that fans ‘shrieked in wonderment’. I don’t think it was wonderment. As said, MAYBE if you’d SEVERELY toned down the scenario, it would have semi worked. Instead, you got one of the most infamously ridiculous moments in wrestling history, though when compared with some of the other things on that list, it’s positively harmless. Skipping over most of 1994, when Undertaker ‘officially’ returned at Summerslam 1994 (in reality he was back in May appearing on various house and international shows, including winning an unofficial Royal Rumble in Japan on May 9th), circumstances had changed greatly for Yokozuna. Having lost the world title belt to Bret Hart at Wrestlemania X, with Vince having given up on Luger being his next Hulk Hogan, Yokozuna had spent 1994 as part of a brief tag team with Crush, perhaps to cover for his weight issues, but after losing to the Headshrinkers at the 1994 King of the Ring in a failed attempt to claim the tag titles, the team quietly disbanded and never appeared again save for one show taped a month later. Besides that, he’d been on house shows defeating other big fat wrestlers Fred “Typhoon of the Natural Disasters, and before that Tugboat, and also yeah, he was the Shockmaster, funny that” Ottman and Mabel, who was still a Man On A Mission then. I’ll wager the ring builders earned their pay for all those house shows. Once Undertaker returned though, it was clear he wanted revenge, and a second casket match was signed between the two for Survivor Series 1994. And then between September and November they had a crapton of OTHER casket matches on house shows, including one in Montreal I attended that featured Montreal native Jacques Rougeau’s retirement match as the main event (and ohhhhh, was that a special night, in a good way). On TV though, the WWF didn’t want the same nonsense that happened at the Royal Rumble to happen again, so they hired a special guest enforcer/guard from outside wrestling to prevent it. That being Chuck Norris. While the ‘Facts’ that bore his name were years away, his long running show Walker, Texas Ranger had just begun the previous year, and the Survivor Series WAS in San Antonio, Texas, so it wasn’t all THAT strange. So the pair had another match, with Undertaker dominating. Having been a face for a few years now, and having been learning on the job all the more, by now Undertaker had discarded a lot of his slow, plodding ‘in character’ habits and could actually move and leap around more, including a very nice top rope clothesline. It seemed like Undertaker’s arm touching Yokozuna’s neck hit some sort of Fist of the North Star style pressure point, because AGAIN Yokozuna sold the move like death. This was so King Kong Bundy and Bam Bam Bigelow could stomp up the ramp to be stared down by Chuck Norris…who proved to have terrible peripheral vision as Irwin R. Shyster came out of the crowd and attacked the Undertaker, slamming his head repeatedly into the turnbuckles and then knocking him out with a sleeper hold and… Wait. Why the hell was IRS doing this? Well, in universe, based on the middle of the year I cut out, Ted DiBiase had reasons to be rather cross with the Undertaker, and he had begun forming his stable of heels shortly thereafter, which included his former tag team partner IRS and King Kong Bundy. I guess IRS did it on DiBiase’s orders. Also, note how ten men couldn’t get Taker down and into the casket until his urn was damaged, but in this case one man was able to get him down and into the casket. Maybe there was something to the concept that the only two sure things in life were death and taxes. In any case, Chuck Norris, with his terrible spacial awareness not noticing that Undertaker was getting beat up by an interfering wrestler behind him (though to be fair, he was standing with his back to the casket lid and it was up and open, so the ring was somewhat blocked. What I want to know is why Paul Bearer, who was very much conscious and aware for this, said nothing. Maybe he was too busy staring at the size of his new, giant shiny urn), just kept staring down his pair of distractions. For more irony, neither of the big bulky heels deemed to approach Norris, so Jeff Jarrett came out as well and did, only to catch a Norris kick that, as Gavok said, he oversold dramatically. Despite IRS’ aid, Undertaker revived and beat up Yokozuna some more, before tossing him into the casket, and just for some final ‘gently caress the Japanese, they’re trying to buy the whole world with their money and lunatic work ethic!’ jingoism (never mind that Japan’s economic bubble had burst definitively in 1991 and such things, even by vague suggestion, were way out of date, but as has been discussed, Vince tends to be behind the times of real world events of all stripes by a few years), grabbed up Fuji’s Japanese flag, snapped the pole on his knee, and dumped it into the casket before closing it. The tables had fully turned: Yokozuna was thoroughly beaten and squashed. Sadly, it wouldn’t get much better for the gigantic Samoan. He disappeared from TV for a few months then returned at the next Wrestlemania as Owen Hart’s mystery tag team partner, the pair winning the tag belts, but Yokozuna’s weight had just gotten worse. Now billed at 641 pounds, and later at 660 pounds, and possibly even heavier than THAT, the tag team would be Yokozuna’s last moment in the sun. Upon losing the tag titles in late 1995, Yokozuna’s last year in the WWE would mostly serve to put over other wrestlers, such as the newly arrived Vader and the rising Steve Austin, in a match where Yokozuna lost because he was SO FAT that trying to climb the ropes caused him to yank the top turnbuckle off and made him fall, letting Austin grab the pin while he was stunned. Twice, he took time off to lose weight, but he couldn’t lose enough to satisfy WWE officials. After his last official appearance at Survivor Series 1996, Yokozuna would not appear in the WWE again, being released in May 1998 when he was unable to shed the weight needed by the New York State Athletic Commission to pass a physical. It seemed like his decline just made his weight worse, as by the time he made his last major appearance at the infamously bad Heroes of Wrestling show in 1999, neither WWE or WCW wanted him because his mass was wholly out of control. I even found an article that claimed that Anoa’i wanted to gain enough weight to officially become the heaviest wrestler in pro wrestling history, though who knows how true that is. Whatever Anoa’i’s personal desires, and whether he was trying to gain more or lose more, it’s a bit unclear, his weight finally caught up with him in October of 2000, as he would die from a sudden pulmonary edema in his sleep, having only lived to the age of 34. He would be the first member of the Bone Street Krew to die, as later Brian Adams (drug overdose), William Moody (heart attack), and Harry “Mr. Fuji” Fujiwara (natural causes) would also join him in the afterlife to play some more bones. Unlike Jorge González, Rodney Anoa’i’s death is slightly less tragic, in the sense that he had more control over his issues than González, whose body was literally acting to kill him through brain damage, but the fact that he died so young and just how bad his weight got is still tragic. Heck, musing on it made my effortpost so much longer than I expected. So, in ways beyond what happened in the ring, Yokozuna was another one of Undertaker’s ‘bad opponents’, perhaps more for story than in ring work, and the fact that when all was said and done, Taker lost a friend. If that’s not the worst kind of bad, what is? Next: Well, we’ll see what we can find, won’t we? --- Well that was kind of depressing. Here's Crush and later partner in the D.O.A Brian Lee portraying 'The Undertaker' in a Bollywood movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFwqw-hIiU4 Cornwind Evil fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Jun 4, 2023 |
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Jun 4, 2023 02:36
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  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12156613/Former-WWE-star-Stan-Lane-takes-DNA-test-prove-hes-not-Rep-Lauren-Boeberts-father.html I’d be doing the Maury Povich dance in the streets if I got that news.
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Jun 4, 2023 14:23
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pile driver tombstone
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Jun 4, 2023 16:08
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turn buckle??
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Jun 4, 2023 16:09
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Cornwind Evil posted:THE UNDERTAKER’S NO GOOD, VERY BAD, FIRST CAREER QUARTER Thanks for the effort posts these are fascinating.
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Jun 4, 2023 17:43
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im not a taker mark and thinks hes overrated but that match with giant gonzález is something else lol
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Jun 5, 2023 00:19
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giant gonzalez reminds me of the yeti or whatever they called it. they kept hyping up this big dangerous creature and then finally debuted what was essentially a mummy
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Jun 5, 2023 00:34
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AlmightyBob posted:giant gonzalez reminds me of the yeti or whatever they called it. they kept hyping up this big dangerous creature and then finally debuted what was essentially a mummy that was going to be giant gonzales but he couldnt make it to the show and they replaced him with the mummy at the last minute lol
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Jun 5, 2023 00:36
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16-bit Butt-Head posted:that was going to be giant gonzales but he couldnt make it to the show and they replaced him with the mummy at the last minute lol ahahahaha
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Jun 5, 2023 00:41
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AlmightyBob posted:ahahahaha Even better. The idea, as someone told me, was that since Gonzalez didn't show up but was expected to, they wrapped up also gigantic wrestler Ron Reis like a mummy to disguise him. The idea being that when Gonzalez did show up to take the role, they could wrap him up, then unwrap him and act like it had been Gonzalez the whole time, never mind that it meant that the mummy/YET-TAY would now be inexplicably taller and thinner. But Gonzalez retired instead, so the YET-TAY was dropped completely.
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Jun 5, 2023 01:09
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16-bit Butt-Head posted:that was going to be giant gonzales but he couldnt make it to the show and they replaced him with the mummy at the last minute lol Holy poo poo that might actually have been worse...
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Jun 5, 2023 01:10
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