Your Wrestling Guilty Pleasure

[C.S.]

Pretty sure it was Luger, think he's talked positively about the experience on Twitter.

 

I also liked Riggs, seem to remember he had a really good match with Kanyon on Thunder shortly after the Flock broke up, while he was still wearing an eyepatch. Also though he was quite good with his "I get better looking every single day" gimmick. Definitely better than Bagwell

Now I'm wondering if I was actually thinking about this match, from WCW:

 

 

He's still Studd there, and I had Austin in the back of my mind as his opponent, but I discarded that because I thought it was a WWF match.

[grapplin' apple]

I love Sid. Unabashedly. Whenever he used to show up in a promotion, I would be excited.

 

All of the '80s "monsters" I love: One Man Gang, Kamala, LeDuc, Big John Studd, Big Bubba Rodgers, Bundy, etc. I always loved it when guys were portrayed as unstoppable.

[Matt D]

It's funny because I've come to really appreciate the talent in most of my guilty pleasures over the years so I don't consider them that anymore.

 

But one thing that does come to mind is the Parejas Increibles tournament. The matches are five minutes and goofy, disposable, but the idea of, I don't know, Panther and Casas teaming, or Kraneo and Porky. it's just so much fun.

[Coffey]

So for this week's podcast, we're looking to talk about guilty pleasures in wrestling, and are looking for your contributions on wrestlers, matches, angles, feuds, shows, whatever it may be, that for you is a guilty pleasure - someone or something that typically gets plenty of derision and scorn, but deep down you enjoy, perhaps against your better judgement.

 

Squash matches. Especially from hosses like Sid, Norton or Vader. It's fun to watch them slather some defenseless jobber... and you actually get to see finishers finish people in squash matches instead of everyone kicking out of everything. Goldberg is in this category too. That dude never failed to entertain me when he was just running through people. It wasn't until they tried to put him in 15 minute matches that I lost interest.

 

I also love the "fat guy is teetering" spot where they gotta keep hitting him to knock him off his feet.

[soup23]

Death matches for me.

[ChuckScumm]

Add Zandig to my list as well. Also add in the old XPW TV show, which I found to be hilarious.

[JRGoldman]

I unabashedly love the Dynamic Dudes. There is something so charming about watching them go out there, knowing full well they are going to die a thousand deaths, and still try their best to act like people love it. There is one PPV where they come out and Johnny pulls a kid out of the crowd to play frisbee with him, and the kid is fucking pissed that he has to interact with this doofus. It's amazing. Do you know how shitty you have to be to someone make a kid getting picked out of the crowd to interact with wrestlers unfun? It's glorious. But the best part is, they just keep going and keep trying. It's truly inspiring and admirable in a way.

 

I don't want to turn this in to a "back in the day" type discussion, but I think the Dudes show a clear difference between then and now with wrestling. Ace and Douglas knew they were given garbage, and hated every second of it, but still went out and did their job. Now, any wrestler with a gimmick they don't like has to constantly let the audience know they are in on the joke. I guess in a way, the Dynamic Dudes represent a simpler time for me.

[ElHijodeGorgeousGeorge]

Death matches for me.

There is just something so oddly comforting seeing fat rednecks go through panes of glass. I especially loved the "glory days" of IWA-MS when you'd see cards with Punk and Hero going like 2 hours while the rest of the card is just complete murder.

[WingedEagle]

Stiff chair shots to the head -- when not overdone. My god, they are so brutal & intense and almost always kick things up another gear when used sparingly.

 

But not cool! And really, shouldn't be done. Will not complain if I never see another. But watching old footage? POW!

[grapplin' apple]

 

I LOVE the obvious face in mask gimmick like Charlie Brown from Outta Town, Stagger Lee, Mr. America, Midnight Rider, etc....so obsurd but they crack me up every time.

 

Definitely one of my favorite things in wrestling.

 

 

Oh, Absolutely this for me as well. I remember when Dusty did the Midnight Rider gimmick in Crockett. Right after he premiered, you had a series of hilarious promos where all the heels cry out "It's Dusty Rhodes!" and all of the faces are like "Well, we don't know for sure...."

[Al]

Trainwrecks. Example: the glorious meeting between Antonio Inoki and the Great Antonio. My favorite Inoki match by far.

 

https://youtu.be/9lXAGZtMxU8

[raul]

i love watching wrestlemania 2000, especially the hardcore battle royal

 

Stiff chair shots to the head -- when not overdone. My god, they are so brutal & intense and almost always kick things up another gear when used sparingly.

 

But not cool! And really, shouldn't be done. Will not complain if I never see another. But watching old footage? POW!

watching taker kill mr. kennedy with a chair is so good, but it's fucking awful

[Blehschmidt]

Add me on the Shane Douglas list. I am a huge Franchise mark, and would likely rank him as one of my personal Top 5 Favorites ever. Not to mention that I've worked a ton of shows with him, and he is the nicest fucking guy in the world.

 

I will 2nd Big John Studd's Royal Rumble win as well. I was super happy to see him get it, and really hoped it meant a big push for him.

 

 

As for my guilty pleasure... Battle Royals. I know most people find them repetitive or boring, but there is something about them that I can't get enough of. I don't give a damn who is in them either. Men, women, midgets. Give me a ring full of people trying to chuck each other over the top rope, and I'm a happy boy!

[Flyin' Brian]

Good wrestlers in bad/weird gimmicks. Brad Armstrong as Arachnaman, Art Barr as the Juicer, Hector Guerrero as Laser Tron. World Wrestling All Stars. Weekly PPV era TNA. Hogan/Bischoff TNA (Jeff Jarrett cleaning a bathroom, Sean Morley comes in after him and you hear Jarrett go 'oh God' cracks me up) NWO celebrity stuff (Jay Leno, Rodman and Malone)

[Johnny Sorrow]

I grew up watching only WWF until 1985, so when I was introduced to the "good guy under a mask" gimmick I fell in love with it. The first thing I ever saw from NWA was Valiant returning from a 90 day loser leaves town stip, and then paying off two jobbers so he and Buzz Tyler could get their hands on Paul Jones' men. This kinda thing didn't happen on WWF Saturday morning TV, and I was hooked. Also, the sound the ropes made in Crockett sounded like dried beans in a tin can. I have a Pavlovian response of joy when I hear that to this day.

[Cap]

Guilty to some of the fandom narrative but definitely not in my eyes is Sid. Hes one of my 10 favorite wrestlers ever and I will go on jaunts watching him squash guys and cut his insane promos fairly regularly.

This!

 

I love me some Sid Vicious (my personal favorite of his names) and usually enjoy watching him. I am not going to say he is great or even good really, but I do think he is better than the general narrative frames him. He worked pretty hard and was very limited, but when someone really worked with him and played to his strengths he wasn't bad. I honestly think he was asked to do far too much and the people in charge were far too often not conscious of his limitations. He has absolutely elite presence and brings a lot to my general enjoyment of wrestling by being fucking giant crazy person.

[Lust Hogan]

Mr. America's debut:

 

 

My favorite part is when he tells the crowd of about 10,000 "SSHHH", like he's saying, "Don't tell anybody it's me!".

 

LOL!

 

 

To piggy back on this I love Hulk Hogan's interactions with the crowd. "The Orange Goblin" has GREAT timing whenever he's in the ring.

[Lust Hogan]

Oh yeah, I almost forgot......ERNIE LADD!!

 

 

 

 

WAY ahead of his time! Heels getting shown up by the babyface is something I miss....also heel rationale on why they did certain things.

[Judy Bagwell]

Don Muraco in 87-88 roided up to the gills YES!!

WCW 95 to early 96 the worse it gets the more I dig it

[Lee Casebolt]

I resist the term "guilty pleasure" because I don't feel bad about any of it, but the top of my Unpopular Opinions list is probably the Lance Storm/Justin Credible Impact Players. I will go to my grave insisting that Credible was the best heel of 1999. (Granted, I will also go to my grave insisting '99 was the worst year in wrestling history, but still.) Everyone in the country was trying to be a Cool Heel. Credible got genuine hate. Love that team.

[Eegah]

I resist the term "guilty pleasure" because I don't feel bad about any of it, but the top of my Unpopular Opinions list is probably the Lance Storm/Justin Credible Impact Players. I will go to my grave insisting that Credible was the best heel of 1999. (Granted, I will also go to my grave insisting '99 was the worst year in wrestling history, but still.) Everyone in the country was trying to be a Cool Heel. Credible got genuine hate. Love that team.

I enjoyed the hell out of that run as well, the crowd definitely loathed Credible. He got legit heel heat at the only ECW show I ever got to attend.

[Jingus]

Exploding barbed-wire deathmatches. I don't have much justification for them besides "it's cool when shit blows up", but by GOD I absolutely LOVE me some exploding barbed-wire deathmatches. Even though the match is stupidly dangerous to the performers, even though they often turn out to be terrible matches, even though FMW was seemingly the only company in the world that knew how to produce them properly.

[Zenjo]

I love wrestlers with monster gimmicks. Prince Kharis bleeding sand. Ta-Gar Lord of the Volcano, intergalactic warlord. Do the Freddy. Mantaur had a criminally short run, I'd have made him Intercontinental champion. Gangrel's mobile shower solutions. The whole Dungeon of Doom was awesome, apart from Beefcake obviously. SULLIVAN!!! MY SON!!! The Ye-Tay humping. 'I'm not a Shark, I'm a man'. The Espectro family (see avatar). The Lucha gimmicks that made copyright tap out. Eskeletor, Los Thundercats, all the Ninja Turtles factions. Great stuff.

[goc]

I love wrestlers with monster gimmicks. Prince Kharis bleeding sand. Ta-Gar Lord of the Volcano, intergalactic warlord. Do the Freddy. Mantaur had a criminally short run, I'd have made him Intercontinental champion. Gangrel's mobile shower solutions. The whole Dungeon of Doom was awesome, apart from Beefcake obviously. SULLIVAN!!! MY SON!!! The Ye-Tay humping. 'I'm not a Shark, I'm a man'. The Espectro family (see avatar). The Lucha gimmicks that made copyright tap out. Eskeletor, Los Thundercats, all the Ninja Turtles factions. Great stuff.

Do the Freddy is the best wrestling music video ever. Anyone that would dispute it is a liar and a charlatan.

[Tim Evans]

My biggest wrestling guilty pleasure is Konan Big. He's this 50 year old jacked up part time wrestler and also guest host of a tv show in Monterey Mexico. He's a big draw there and wrestles all kinds of people, men, women, 90 year old baseball writers, clowns, etc. His matches are usually him and a partner vs 5-10 guys and he almost always wins. Most people probably would think he's god awful but man I find him entertaining as hell.

 

Another guilty pleasure is Santino Marella. For a long time, he was my favorite guy on the main roster. I find him hiarious and he's had to work with some god awful material. Glamaerlla and Santina Forever.