Yep. It's been a year since I first launched coolSWAG. 4 seasons. 12 months. 52 weeks. 365 days. 8,760 hours. 525,600 minutes. 31,536,000 seconds. Actually, a few of those numbers are a smidge off but since I don't have my atomic clock handy, I'm guesstimating a little bit. Whatever way you want to cut it (and please don't use the dull scissors when you do), if you've been here since the beginning, you've endured a lot of mindless rambling. For you, the loyal, the bored, the proud SWAGgers who keep coming back for more - I want to share a boldfaced, super-large, blue font THANKS. For the life of me, I don't know why you keep coming back. I've let the blog go for weeks without a single word of explanation. I've made fun of your favorite radio station. I've tortured you with write-ups on fast food, Rocky, and holiday-themed beverages. I've even thrown large chunks of dinner ham at you, but here you are. Actually, that last one I've never done.
Yet.
Anyway, I suppose I should have a point to this article. After all, its been a while since I gave you something with actual content. This time around, I'm going to try to shock you with something so random you might actually question my mental stability. That said, I present:
The Seven Weirdest Wrestlers Ever!
Random enough for you? I was hoping. First off, I should probably set the record straight. I'm not a fan of professional wrestling. The whole thing just seems kinda goofy to me. A bunch of half-naked grown men wearing colorful spandex underwear, shouting laughable insults at the top of their lungs, and touching each other isn't my idea of a swell evening of good television. Wrestling takes itself way too seriously for my taste. When I was little though, and wrestling was at its peek in the pop culture world, I was a fan. I wasn't a die-hard or anything. I rarely watched the fights. I didn't know all of their names. I do distinctively remember having those large, rubbery, non-action action figures though. Those things were great. Back then, articulation wasn't a big deal and all you needed was a hefty, brick-like rubber thing that only partially resembled a real-life fake-athlete to make a kid happy. The more I talk about these, I'm not sure how the LJN Toy Company managed to label these crappy things as "action figures." They have no action. You can't even move their arms. They should have been sold as "crappy miniature rubber statuettes," but I suppose I can see why they opted to forgo that title.
Basically, these things were just plain awful, but back then, kids didn't have any better made toys to compare them to, and they weren't all that bad. You know what? I'm veering off subject again. I can't remember the last time I did that (<---sarcasm). Anyway, 1985 was probably the biggest year in wrestling history. It was then that professional wrestling became a mainstream "sport." You see, this was the first year of Wrestlemania (a name that, had it been presented in modern times, wouldn't have lived longer than a second or two), which has since become an annual pay-per-view event - the Super Bowl of professional wrestling (without the funny commercials of the real Super Bowl). It was here that the biggest names duked it out for all to see. The event catapulted professional wrestling into the limelight, and it quickly took its spot in the shallow end of 80s pop culture. Wrestlers could no longer rely on being tough in the ring. They had to become theatrical to captivate an audience. A pro wrestler had to come up with some kind of wacky gimmick that would set him apart from all the other wrestlers. It was here (through most of the 80s and the early part of the 90s) that legends and losers alike were born into a world, that ready or not, accepted them into its collective living room TV. Today, I'll be highlighting the losers because, quite frankly, I don't care about wrestling all that much. I'm in this for some cheap laughs at some ridiculous-looking individuals.
Honky Tonk Man
First on our list is Honky Tonk Man. Basically, he was an Elvis impersonator who decided it would be more fun to make a fool of himself on national TV than in front of a small pack of drunks somewhere in Las Vegas. He pretty much dressed up like Elvis for all of his fights and danced around in front of the cameras. He wasn't very good at wrestling, so he always brought along his guitar so that he could wack his opponent with it as soon as the ring referee wasn't watching (as is gracefully demonstrated in the video below).
He must have done that a whole lot because he managed to hold the Intercontinental Title for seven years of his wild career. He was about as lame as could be back in his prime, but he did have one thing going for him - a great theme song. I don't really know what he's doing nowadays, but it probably involves battering defenseless people with his guitar somewhere in Minnesota.
Max Moon
Next we have Max Moon. Basically, Max claimed to be a visitor from our moon, who came to this planet to take on the professional wrestlers of Earth. Aside from merely saying he was from the moon, good old Max wore a stupid-looking tube-covered costume to all of his matches. I'm sorry, but I'm just not buying that a man from the moon would come to Earth on Saturday mornings for the sole purpose of doing battle with some obscure nobodies in fake combat for television audiences. Maybe I've just become a cynic, I dunno.
Xanta Claus
The "X" in his name is by no means a typographical error on my part. This is Xanta Claus - Santa Claus' evil twin brother. Some of these guys were really scraping the bottom of the barrel when coming up with their gimmick. It was clear that this guy was Santa's opposite right off the bat, when he was introduced as a present-stealing grinch, hailing from the South Pole. Even his costume was backwards. Unfortunately, to the disgust of bloggers everywhere who spend their days off from work doing write-ups on cheesy wrestlers, Xanta was given the old heave-ho-ho-ho (yes, that's a Santa joke) and thrown out with the dried up Christmas trees and re-gifted fruitcake only a month after his debut.
Dean Douglass
This guy pushed all boundaries and traveled into the scariest, most unfathomable depths of lameness. His gimmick, to the shame of anyone who worked or currently works in the public education system, involved everything school-related. Dean Douglass was basically a slightly more homosexual version of the gayest High School Principal you can think of. He would sit in a classroom backstage at wrestling events and grade his fellow wrestlers on their performances. The catch to all this was that he always gave everybody an "F." Everything about this guy had something to do with school, and he was very elemental like others within the "sport," but he was none the better for it. He would climb into the ring wearing an extremely flamboyant graduation robe, then defeat his opponents with his signature move: the final exam. I don't really want to get into the details. Let's just say there were moments when he would literally spank his fellow "athletes" with a wooden paddle nicknamed "the board of education." There were a lot of people who already though wrestling was on the gay side. I don't think Hulk Hogan appreciated this guy driving the point home in a blatant display of homosexual pride. And you don't want to make Hulk Hogan mad at you. He's been known to peel bodies inside out and chew up vital organs for less.
Jean-Pierre Lafitte
Strangely enough, Jean-Pierre Lafitte probably would have made my list even if he hadn't portrayed a modern day pirate from New Orleans, simply because he had a prissy-sounding French name. Then again, if he hadn't portrayed a modern day pirate from New Orleans, he wouldn't have had a prissy-sounding French name in the first place. I guess this one's a catch 22. The weird part about all of this is the story behind this guy. He was originally called the Mountie (based on the Canadian cops who ride around on horseback), but was forced to change his name and look when Canadians made a big deal about how his influence on children may make them distrust the police. How they got that brilliant idea is beyond me. Anyway, Jean-Pierre ran around the ring wearing a patch over his eye (which I would assume would make it harder to win - but seeing as how the "sport" is fixed anyway, I guess the patch doesn't hurt his chances any), and had a terrible knack for stealing things (he was a pirate after all). In fact, one of his biggest feuds came about when he stole fellow Canadian wrestler Bret Hart's pink and black jacket.
Doink
Yeah, Doink was a clown. Really. His gimmick of choice was that he was a clown who wrestled. How is it possible to take your opponent seriously when he's a clown? The only person I know that can do that is Batman - and he's had like 66 years to master it in the comic books (plus his parents were murdered before his very eyes at the tender age of eight and he's a morbidly serious vigilante crime-fighter). Anyway, Doink would appear in the ring with the trumpeting sound of ambient circus music. Let's face it - nobody likes clowns. I have a feeling he may be the single most hated professional wrestler of all time for the sheer fact that he was an absolute retard. He even had a Mini-Me version of himself named Dink who would accompany him to the ring now and then (mostly then).
Mantaur
Say what you will about the other wrestlers on this list, but there's no denying the absolute absurdity of our last entry. Mantaur literally thought he was a bull. I am 100% convinced that the guy under that cheap-looking costume was insane. Not pretend insane as an act for the audience - I'm talking authentically insane, as in "this guy probably drinks his own urine every morning and accuses ants of being Communists." This guy thought he was the animal moniker he dawned every match through and through. He would gallop around the ring mooing and grunting, while wearing a ridiculous looking mask that only vaguely resembled a bull. I think Mantaur is the reason nobody takes wrestling seriously - the reason why ratings are getting lower and lower as the years pass by. Nobody has forgotten the foul stench he littered the ring with all those fights ago. Nobody has forgiven him for being so awful. Except me, of course. Without him, this post would have concluded with Doink, and that just isn't right.
