Most unjustified examples of WrestleCrap type of stuff

[SteveJRogers]

This is stuff that seems to get loathed for reasons that far exceed the intention of the gimmick, segment or whatever.

 

In other words, as lame as it may have been, it probably doesn't deserve to get ranked among the very worst instances of horrific bad gimmicks, segments, angles, things that ruined companies, and whatnot.

 

-ECW Zombie.

This kind of got me thinking about it, since the PTBN podcast is at the start of the WWECW brand.

 

I don't know, as lame as it was, it doesn't deserve a lot of the hate I've seen online for it. For one, it was meant as a one-off rib of being on the SciFy Network, and was it much different than Boogeyman running around Smackdown at the same time?

 

Second, it got squashed by The Sandman, so it wasn't something anyone was expected to take seriously, so it is a bit pretentious and hipster doofus for smarks to cry "OOOOH that's what they think ECW was! Silly cartoon sci-fi monsters! FUCK THIS!"

 

Third, HELLO! The Undertaker started off as literally a zombified wrestler, and to this day still has a couple of that "un-dead" element to his gimmick (quick sit up). If you are going to shit all over the WWE for bringing out a Zombie on the first episode of ECW on SciFy, then you got to shit on the WWF for bringing out a Zombie character that made legit wrestlers like Bret Hart look silly back at Survivor Series 1990!

 

And yet, I've seen places used that as an example of how badly ECW got the shaft in the new branding era.

 

-Who

Another one-off. This time just to waste some Saturday morning TV time doing a lame imitation of the Who's on First routine. But the hate the gimmick gets, you'd think Anvil was projected to be in the gimmick for a long mid-card run. It was just lame bad comedy for a one-time bit.

[PeteF3]

Along with Who you could probably include all of the other JTTS gimmicks of that time: TL Hopper, Freddy Joe Floyd, Sal Sincere, the Goon, and Alex Porteau. Yes, those gimmicks were dumb and yes, they were a waste of two great talents in Smothers and Anthony, but people act like they were more examples of massive failures of WWF creative when all they really were for was to have squashes on TV but disguise them as non-squashes. None of them were really designed to "get over" so it's hard to objectively say that they failed.

[Mad Dog]

The ECW Zombie was pretty shitty. My friends and I used to sit in an AIM chatroom during ECW and we made fun of the Zombie for months. I even did a fantasy booking around the Zombie going around the WWE biting other wrestlers and making more zombies just because it was funny. Where I think the Zombie was a bad was that was the first thing you saw on ECW and that was a bad first impression for people. I don't think it's an example of the first year of ECW being bad but I do think it was dumb and it's fun to mock. The Zombie is kind of like Sharknado.

[Scarlet-Left]

I, personally, thought the Zombie was a little disrespectful to the channel and its audience. Like what would regular viewers of the channel's content think if they decided to stick around to catch this new show?

 

ECW: "This network sucks, and science-fiction is dumb! Please, watch our show!"

 

I've heard that Sci-Fi actually were attracted to the idea of characters like Undertaker and Kane, so what was the point of making fun of them when they're admitting that two of your biggest stars (certainly in terms of mainstream notability) fit their idea of good television? Peculiar.

[DMJ]

Akeem - Stupid gimmick? Yeah...but time has actually been pretty kind to it. Amazing theme song, more entertaining than most things we get today or in the past decade, I'm not going to defend the arguably racist elements, but again, if you call this the WWE's most shameful character ever, you simply haven't been watching.

 

The Model - Smart wrestling fans know the greatness of Rick Martel...but when I was 8 years old in 1992, I wasn't a "smart wrestling fan." Martel, to me, was The Model and he was so easy to hate. I didn't know about Strike Force. I didn't know about AWA. I knew that the Model was an asshole who blinded Jake Roberts, fought with another jerk named Shawn Michaels over Sherri, and had a knack for doing pretty well in Royal Rumbles. A very solid midcard heel run, even if it might pale in comparison to career peaks that happened elsewhere and earlier.

 

Johnny B. Badd - How else are you going to get Marc Mero over in the early 90s (without the aid of parading his bombshell wife around)? I'm not going to argue that Badd was a "good" gimmick, but if it was so horrendous, it would've been DOA. Instead, it supported a multi-year run as a constant babyface in the TV Title picture and actually produced some good-to-great matches against Regal and DDP. In a recent interview, Mero stated that it was his most well-known role - which tells you something when you consider that Mero was an inescapable TV personality during Sable's rise to stardom. I'd put the Badd gimmick just a few small notches below Doink as Mero took a one-note gimmick and managed to stretch it well beyond its expiration date.

[Laz]

Re: Zombie

It wasn't even the schtick, it was that it went on and on and on...and on...and you get the point. People who watched the original ECW found it dumb, people who were tasting ECW for the first time found it dumb, and anybody watching who wasn't either probably found it dumb. It was cut from the same cloth as typical WWE joke gimmicks of the day so it was an instant middle finger to anybody hoping that WWECW was going to be different.

 

My entry proper to the discussion would be. Jim Duggan going Team Canada. It was a built-in deal: Duggan, a cancer survivor, supporting Canada after his own country's healthcare system fucked him on the bills. He even changed his look to fit it. It's an angle that I wouldn't call great, or even particularly good, but it doesn't deserve the hate it gets.

[JRH]

The Dungeon of Doom. While the 1995 incarnation was atrocious, by mid-1996 they had pretty much abandoned all the b-grade horror stuff, the master, the dungeon vignettes, and all of the other stuff, and became a perfectly credible group of wrestlers (looking back, they really should have given meng and barbarian a run with the tag titles). However, people still only remember "SULLIVAN MY SON!" and "Where am i? There's no Hulkamaniacs here!"

[shakla]

Beaver Cleavage. Think he was on Raw once (not counting vignettes) before being degimmicked. And the way that gimmick gets talked about, you'd think it was behind all the sleazy of the Attitude Era.

[PeteF3]

I think Beaver Cleavage is pretty justifiably shat-upon. Whether it lasted long or not, it seemed emblematic of the change in WWF writing philosophy from 1998 to '99.

[shakla]

Not saying it was good, but like what the OP said about Who, Beaver Cleavage was not designed to be a long-term deal. It was on Raw once.

[PeteF3]

I don't think that was the case. It was Ed Ferrara's baby and he was supposedly livid when the character was killed.

[El-P]

Beaver Cleavage > that guy Chaz from New-Jersey > girlfirend beater was precisely everything wrong about WWF's undercard philosophy in 98/99 during its Russoification. That it didn't work doesn't matter. It was there because that's typically the thing Russo & Ferrara wanted to do with the product, as showed later in WCW/early TNA. Stuff like these on WWF TV effectively drove my interest thousands of miles away toward Japan wrestling/

[NintendoLogic]

"International object" in WCW. The word "foreign" was never legitimately banned on WCW programming. The term was an inside joke about an overly broad memo from Turner higher-ups. Braves broadcaster Skip Caray was also in on the joke; he once explained that a batter had to step out of the batter's box because he had an international object in his eye.

[funkdoc]

i've long felt that goofy gimmicks for jobbers & undercarders were kinda reaching for "wrestlecrap". i care a lot more if it's someone we're supposed to take seriously.

 

i unironically love mr. hole-in-one, for instance. beaver cleavage, on the other hand, i'm more on board with because it wasn't just the one match. there were weeks of promo vids for the guy, so i say it counts.

[NotJayTabb]

I always thought Repo Man was unfairly lumped in with a load of Wrestlecrap. Barry Darsow didn't have a great physique and was a ratty looking man who was already under contract, so I think this was the perfect role for him. Darsow played the role to the hilt as well, so this minor lower-card character became wholly entertaining and memorable. That has to be considered a success.

[Jingus]

Anything which is a one-and-done occurrence on free TV, taking place entirely in one segment, which doesn't go past a single commercial break, always feels like people are trying too hard when they immortalize it in Wrestlecrap legend. My favorite example being the infamous Trish Stratus/Jackie Gayda match; way too many people remember that as being one of the worst minus-five-stars matches in wrestling history, when in reality it's less than three minutes long and everyone is just remembering two particularly horrible botches. Heck, most people never even remember it was actually a mixed tag with JBL and Chris Nowinski.

 

Regarding gimmicks: I tend to think they do indeed qualify for Crapitude when they were those stupid "part-time wrestler" characters. "He's a plumber/repo man/hockey player/male model/race car driver/garbageman who moonlights as a professional grappler!" is just fucking dumb. It's counterintuitive, the focus of the persona is based on things which can never really be explored and expressed inside of a wrestling ring. And it sends the subconscious message that any ordinary slob can get in the ring and be competitive with the real athletes. And if you've already got a lucrative career which is such a primary focus of your life that you would constantly reference it in your wrestling side-job, then why the hell are you even a wrestler to begin with? It's like those guys who have a coward gimmick or a narcissist gimmick where they spend the whole match desperately trying not to get hit even once, there's no logical reason why such a person would deliberately choose to participate in an activity where they're inevitably gonna get smacked around.

[Loss]

The angle where Papa Shango made ooze come out of Ultimate Warrior's head was awesome, dark shit.

 

NWO Souled Out was not a great PPV, but was ballsy and daring in a way wrestling rarely is that I respected.

[JRH]

Actually, those part-time worker gimmicks do have some justification if the wrestler in question is a heel, since you could then use the kayfabe explanation that he either wants more money or he wants to use the wrestling to feed his ego. However, thats rarely ever been explored in these characters (aside from the musician gimmicks).

[Loss]

Anything which is a one-and-done occurrence on free TV, taking place entirely in one segment, which doesn't go past a single commercial break, always feels like people are trying too hard when they immortalize it in Wrestlecrap legend. My favorite example being the infamous Trish Stratus/Jackie Gayda match; way too many people remember that as being one of the worst minus-five-stars matches in wrestling history, when in reality it's less than three minutes long and everyone is just remembering two particularly horrible botches. Heck, most people never even remember it was actually a mixed tag with JBL and Chris Nowinski.

 

Regarding gimmicks: I tend to think they do indeed qualify for Crapitude when they were those stupid "part-time wrestler" characters. "He's a plumber/repo man/hockey player/male model/race car driver/garbageman who moonlights as a professional grappler!" is just fucking dumb. It's counterintuitive, the focus of the persona is based on things which can never really be explored and expressed inside of a wrestling ring. And it sends the subconscious message that any ordinary slob can get in the ring and be competitive with the real athletes. And if you've already got a lucrative career which is such a primary focus of your life that you would constantly reference it in your wrestling side-job, then why the hell are you even a wrestler to begin with? It's like those guys who have a coward gimmick or a narcissist gimmick where they spend the whole match desperately trying not to get hit even once, there's no logical reason why such a person would deliberately choose to participate in an activity where they're inevitably gonna get smacked around.

 

There's also the issue that if someone has this other supposed occupation, especially if it's one that occurs in a public setting, why do we never see them doing their other job? Even when MNM was supposedly famous, it was never established exactly why paparazzi followed them around when they weren't famous. The answer is because wrestling.

[Rock_Of_Jericho]

The angle where Papa Shango made ooze come out of Ultimate Warrior's head was awesome, dark shit.

 

That was the first one that came to mind for me, too. In fact, I prefer Papa Shango over The Godfather.

 

On another note, I feel like Doink the Clown often gets painted in a negative light. I loved the heel version when Matt Bourne was Doink, but he's often discarded as typical Wrestlecrap. I loved that guy.

[Mad Dog]

I always feel that the Wrestlecrap is directed at face Doink after Borne left. Even the original entry on Doink way back on the original Wrestlecrap said that heel Doink was good.

[SteveJRogers]

 

 

Anything which is a one-and-done occurrence on free TV, taking place entirely in one segment, which doesn't go past a single commercial break, always feels like people are trying too hard when they immortalize it in Wrestlecrap legend. My favorite example being the infamous Trish Stratus/Jackie Gayda match; way too many people remember that as being one of the worst minus-five-stars matches in wrestling history, when in reality it's less than three minutes long and everyone is just remembering two particularly horrible botches. Heck, most people never even remember it was actually a mixed tag with JBL and Chris Nowinski.

 

Regarding gimmicks: I tend to think they do indeed qualify for Crapitude when they were those stupid "part-time wrestler" characters. "He's a plumber/repo man/hockey player/male model/race car driver/garbageman who moonlights as a professional grappler!" is just fucking dumb. It's counterintuitive, the focus of the persona is based on things which can never really be explored and expressed inside of a wrestling ring. And it sends the subconscious message that any ordinary slob can get in the ring and be competitive with the real athletes. And if you've already got a lucrative career which is such a primary focus of your life that you would constantly reference it in your wrestling side-job, then why the hell are you even a wrestler to begin with? It's like those guys who have a coward gimmick or a narcissist gimmick where they spend the whole match desperately trying not to get hit even once, there's no logical reason why such a person would deliberately choose to participate in an activity where they're inevitably gonna get smacked around.

There's also the issue that if someone has this other supposed occupation, especially if it's one that occurs in a public setting, why do we never see them doing their other job? Even when MNM was supposedly famous, it was never established exactly why paparazzi followed them around when they weren't famous. The answer is because wrestling.

To be fair to MNM, its pretty much The Miz's current character twist. I'm so good and talented, that the paparazzi follow me despite no apparent reason to do so. Though at least Miz has actual "acting" credits, IRL it'd be laughable to justify his behavior (not that there aren't those out there with far less of a resume than Miz' who act like Miz' character) but still.

[Laz]

I always feel that the Wrestlecrap is directed at face Doink after Borne left. Even the original entry on Doink way back on the original Wrestlecrap said that heel Doink was good.

Yeah. RD usually makes mention of this when Doink comes up. He thought heel Doink was brilliant but face Doink was the definition of WrestleCrap.

[C.S.]

Face Doink was never going to be as good, but I think it could've still been decent if Matt Bourne had continued playing the role. It was so fucking obvious to me, even as a kid, that someone else had taken over.

[Mad Dog]

He was probably what the third or fourth best worker in the WWF in 1993?