Recommendations for cartoon wrestling promotions

[The Nicks]

Over the past few days, I've been thinking about exploring the subgenre of 'cartoon wrestling' to expand my palette a bit. I was interested in recommendations for promotions that, like Chikara, DDT, or 80s WWF, used this type of presentation. Another point that interests me a lot is whether there were any territories that adopted this style. Thank you very much in advance.

[G. Badger]

9 hours ago, The Nicks said:

Over the past few days, I've been thinking about exploring the subgenre of 'cartoon wrestling' to expand my palette a bit. I was interested in recommendations for promotions that, like Chikara, DDT, or 80s WWF, used this type of presentation. Another point that interests me a lot is whether there were any territories that adopted this style. Thank you very much in advance.

I'd recommend the defunct Hustle promotion in Japan. That definitely should be what you are looking for. And perhaps Osaka Pro as well. What's some of your criteria for cartoon wrestling?

[strobogo]

Hustle rules for its weirdness and randomness, but I don't know I'd say it was more cartoonish than Hulkamania era WWF. Chikara was extremely comic booky horseshit, but also not as cartoony as late 80s WWF. I'm not sure any genre or promotion is as cartoony than WWF from about 1987 to 1990 in terms of pure cartoon characters and storylines. Damn near everything in that period is about as close to live action cartoon as you could possibly get. Maybe even a bit before and after the dates.

[ohtani's jacket]

Not a lot of footage exists, but Pavillón Azteca had a lot of cartoon gimmicks. 

[The Nicks]

Thank you very much, everyone, for the responses. I'm taking note of the recommendations! Regarding my own understanding of the term, I still don’t have a clear idea of when it applies (the three examples I mentioned in the OP were the ones that came to mind because I’ve seen the term applied to them in some forum posts).

One question that comes to mind is whether ECW or FMW could fall into this category. Isn’t there something about the comics Rob Liefeld used to draw or the excess of Image Comics in ECW’s presentation? Lucha Underground is another example that occurs to me of using a caricatured serial format as the driving force of the presentation.

To wrap up and return to the territories: Memphis and Puerto Rico are sometimes cited as the main influences on ECW or, according to some, WWF under Vince. Could those promotions count?

[G. Badger]

3 hours ago, The Nicks said:

Thank you very much, everyone, for the responses. I'm taking note of the recommendations! Regarding my own understanding of the term, I still don’t have a clear idea of when it applies (the three examples I mentioned in the OP were the ones that came to mind because I’ve seen the term applied to them in some forum posts).

One question that comes to mind is whether ECW or FMW could fall into this category. Isn’t there something about the comics Rob Liefeld used to draw or the excess of Image Comics in ECW’s presentation? Lucha Underground is another example that occurs to me of using a caricatured serial format as the driving force of the presentation.

To wrap up and return to the territories: Memphis and Puerto Rico are sometimes cited as the main influences on ECW or, according to some, WWF under Vince. Could those promotions count?

Victor Quinones is probably the common thread that runs thru Puerto Rico, Japan, ECW and WWF. So you might also be interested in the 1996 Funk Masters of Wrestling era in FMW with Quinones managing a North American stable with Terry Funk, Mike Awesome, the Headhunters (I think), Horace Boulder/Hogan. And if you want to go deeper, W*ING & IWA Japan (as well as early FMW &BJW) had the horror movie gimmick characters like Leather Face, Jason the Terrible and pretty outlandish gimmick death matches. But those might be steering away from the cartoonish aspects...

But back to Quinones - he had a hand in many of the early 90's Japanese sleazies being a broker for talent..this later would apply for ECW, WWF and Puerto Rico (and Mexico to a smaller extent) later in the 90's. He's probably the most cartoonish manager in the era of Japanese wrestling with big sunglasses and smoking a big cigar. His promos are legendary nonsense and very funny (unintentionally). He too is central to W*ING & IWA Japan.

When I think of cartoon wrestling, I think it's somewhat geared towards kids with bigger than life characters along with sorta fantastical storytelling elements...Undertaker right up til American Badass era is a great example.  In Japan, there's less importance on marketing directly to kids so it doesn't have to be as "safe" while still have outlandish characters and stories so Hustle is like that...which is kinda an extension of the WWF Attitude era's crazier/sleazier moments/characters etc. and go over the top. Late FMW under Fuyuki would predate Hustle trying to implement Entertainment Wrestling but not to the same level as Hustle. Here's a quote from the Wikipedia page on Hustle:

"In July 2009, the leader of the Monster Army, Generalissimo Takada was "killed" when a new enemy by the name of "King RIKI" (played by actor/singer Riki Takeuchi) showed up at the "HUSTLE AID 2009" event and repelled one of Takada's lasers, sending it back towards him and wounding him. The following show the Monster Army was disbanded, as the direction of the company started to change."

Really anything with a supernatural or sci-fi character would qualify as cartoon wrestling. Or anytime there's a wrestling clown...

So I don't think ECW would fit especially as it tried to portray it self as a more real (hard-core) version of pro wrestling compared to WCW and especially WWF. Even when WWF went to the Attitude era, it was hesitant to add the realism to its more sensational stories.

I think Lucha Underground is a great example of cartoon wrestling. 

 

[JRH]

12 hours ago, strobogo said:

Hustle rules for its weirdness and randomness, but I don't know I'd say it was more cartoonish than Hulkamania era WWF. Chikara was extremely comic booky horseshit, but also not as cartoony as late 80s WWF. I'm not sure any genre or promotion is as cartoony than WWF from about 1987 to 1990 in terms of pure cartoon characters and storylines. Damn near everything in that period is about as close to live action cartoon as you could possibly get. Maybe even a bit before and after the dates.

If we're going to go there, I'd also put in 1990-91 WCW. Though you still had some straight wrestling matches/angles, that era was also the height of Jim Herd's ultra cartoony stuff like the Black Scorpion, Trucker Norm, PN News, Big Josh, Van Hammer, The York Foundation, Oz, and such.

[NintendoLogic]

22 hours ago, The Nicks said:

Another point that interests me a lot is whether there were any territories that adopted this style.

Memphis whenever Jerry Lawler had the book.

I take it from your avatar that you're familiar with Titanes en el Ring. If you haven't already, you should check out AAA because Antonio Pena was heavily influenced by that promotion.

[The Nicks]

39 minutes ago, G. Badger said:

Victor Quinones is probably the common thread that runs thru Puerto Rico, Japan, ECW and WWF. So you might also be interested in the 1996 Funk Masters of Wrestling era in FMW with Quinones managing a North American stable with Terry Funk, Mike Awesome, the Headhunters (I think), Horace Boulder/Hogan. And if you want to go deeper, W*ING & IWA Japan (as well as early FMW &BJW) had the horror movie gimmick characters like Leather Face, Jason the Terrible and pretty outlandish gimmick death matches. But those might be steering away from the cartoonish aspects...

 

 

Quiñones seems like a good anchor then. I do think that The Monday Night Wars big three have a certain exageration of all the dark & gritty asthetics of the 90s which results in a somewhat "adult" cartoon from that era. Oh, and that Hustle bit seems awesome will definitely check out.

 

15 minutes ago, NintendoLogic said:

Memphis whenever Jerry Lawler had the book.

I take it from your avatar that you're familiar with Titanes en el Ring. If you haven't already, you should check out AAA because Antonio Pena was heavily influenced by that promotion.

Yes, here in Argentina all wrestling post Titanes has had that flavour. I should have named them in my original post. Thank you for bringing it up. In the subject of avatars: yourse is from Immortal or i am mistaken from another band?

[TheDuke]

Heroes of Lucha Libre was very cartoony. It wasn't very good, but it was set in a kind of fantasy lucha universe. I believe Cubsfan said that the matches were taped first and the storyline was added later as only the announcers seem to reference it and there are no skits or anything.

[El-P]

On 12/8/2024 at 8:30 PM, G. Badger said:

He's probably the most cartoonish manager in the era of Japanese wrestling with big sunglasses and smoking a big cigar. His promos are legendary nonsense and very funny (unintentionally). He too is central to W*ING & IWA Japan.

"The monstaaaa wooooooorld !!!!"

On 12/8/2024 at 8:30 PM, G. Badger said:

Late FMW under Fuyuki would predate Hustle trying to implement Entertainment Wrestling but not to the same level as Hustle.

Fuyuki's FMW was less cartoon than sleazy Z-movies. That's including the use of porn-stars (not doing anything even closely approaching the sleaze level of publicly traded WWE from 1999 to the mid 00's though) and gimmicks like "anus exploding deathmatch". Fuyuki's very short lived WEW, one of the sad offshoot of then dead FMW was cartoony as hell too. And yeah, it included more porn stars, because of course it did.

[El-P]

On 12/8/2024 at 8:42 PM, JRH said:

If we're going to go there, I'd also put in 1990-91 WCW. Though you still had some straight wrestling matches/angles, that era was also the height of Jim Herd's ultra cartoony stuff like the Black Scorpion, Trucker Norm, PN News, Big Josh, Van Hammer, The York Foundation, Oz, and such.

This era of WCW is definitely the "cursed cartoon" era.

Honestly, at this point, I wouldn't mind some promotion actually totally leaning into this, with a post-ironic approach to it. Like, in an ironic way but also very much loving the absolute cheese and shittiness of this era. Pro-wrestling is just way too conservative and its idea of peak storytelling is crappy heavy handed blockbusters movie (yes WWE, I'm looking at you). I would probably love a "Shitty early 90's gimmicks" version of Lucha Underground, with actual fun matches.