Wrestling feel too kid friendly for your nowadays?
"You can't see me", but I can hear you. It's enough to make you
play "what if" and wonder what would happen if some of the barbarians from yesteryear were to integrate into today's kinder and gentler "Be A Star" WWE. Enough with smiles and salutes. These are the men that would cause Scooby Doo to wet the carpet. Man up, kids. It's Ten Old School Wrestlers Who Would Terrorize Today's PG WWE…
Killer Tim Brooks
I love that I had the opportunity to write for Pro Wrestling Illustrated. After all, it was PWI that introduced so many wrestlers I otherwise would have never seen before. Case in point - Killer Tim Brooks. Just like many stars from territories far away, my first exposure to the Killer was through the magazine. But Tim was different than the rest.
What set Brooks apart was that his name wasn't dropped in a Superstar profile or interview. Nope. It was an offhand comment along the lines of "Does a bear crap in the woods?" After making a statement that involved an obvious "yes", the writer, rather than using woodland creature potty habits, went another route.
"Does Killer Tim Brooks scare young children?"
I never forgot that because, as a fairly young child, my first thought was, "I have got to see this f**king guy!"
Weird, I know, but I was a wrestling fan and it comes with the territory.
When I finally had a chance to see Killer Tim Brooks in action, I wasn't let down. Dude was creepy. I'm sure people will say that Bruiser Brody, who wasn't included on this list, wrestled a more hardcore style than Brooks. That's true. But Brody had a look that could be managed. He was frightening but they could clean him up and have him tone it down in WWE, if need be. Not Tim. This dude looked like Bam Margera's dad.
His furry, greasy, bell-shaped physique wouldn't win any endorsement deals or trend too highly on Twitter. A complete throwback to a vanishing era, the days of bodies by Brooks are over. The mere thought of Killer Tim in today's WWE is enough to cause anyone to wince.
I mean, would you drink a Slurpee out of a 7-11 cup with that guy's picture on it?
Abdullah The Butcher
Sure, he's a WWE Hall of Famer despite not being a WWE star. Sure, he's once again the obvious name on a list so I'm getting him out of the way early. Sure, he's accused of giving hepatitis to other wrestlers. Sure…
What? Oh. Yeah. That's not the point though. Just Google it. It's too much to get into here.
Abby was sick. Pure and simple. The first time you see him, you never forget him. Even if you don't actually see him wrestle, all you need to see is his mudflap man boobs folded over his pants pockets to know he's something unique. His chest alone gives kids nightmares. What more do you need? How can you not include a man who has kids screaming in their sleep, "Mommy! Mommy! Abdullah's boobies are trying to kill me!"
As for his wrestling style, well, wrestling is a loose term. When I interviewed Balls Mahoney on ClubWWI, he summed up The Butcher's repertoire with a phrase I'll always remember - "Stabby Stabby Forky Forky".
It works because, well, that's what he did. He stabbed people with a fork. Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to imply that he didn't do anything else besides that. No. Not at all. Sometimes it was a pencil.
To envision Abdullah The Butcher in today's WWE is like picturing Freddy Krueger guest starring on an episode of The Fresh Beat Band. No matter how scripted things may be, you know someone's getting their ass carved up. Let's see what movie roles The Rock is able to pick up after his program with Abby runs its course. #Forks2Faces
The Sheik
His real name was Ed Farhat. They call him The Original Sheik. Therefore anyone else who uses that name is The Unoriginal Sheik. At least that's how I took it.
The Original One had a thing for fire, but not like Kane does. Today's Big Red Machine uses fire as background music and a ringpost entrance trick. The Sheik? Well, he burned people with it. A lot.
Here watch the end of this match that saw Original Sheiky Baby team with our old friend Stabby Abby.
…And they were partners! Nuts. The legend of The Sheik is enormous. Meeting him in 1991 was one of my highlights as a fan. The guy was an icon and epitomized the dangerous era of wrestling that's becoming more and more of a memory. We were always told not to play with fire, but he did. He played with it. He threw it. Hell, I once saw him eat it.
Seriously.
The Sheik in WWE today would be the greatest thing ever. He'd start by scorching Heath Slater and wouldn't stop until the whole damn place burned down. Now I'd watch three hours of that.
The Gangstas
You know you're badass when you're the violent ones of ECW.
That's what Mustafa Saed and New Jack were to Extreme Championship Wrestling. During the tail end of WWF's last PG era, the Gangbangers of Philly debuted with a gimmick grittier than anything we'd seen in a while.Wrestling gangs had always been more like the bad guys on 21 Jump Street while Mustafa and Jack were more like The Wire. Actually, I take that back. They're more like the guys who mug the actors on The Wire when they film in a rough area.
They weren't shooting hoops to show their streetwise side. They weren't' wearing sunglasses and staring at foes to intimidate. They didn't rap and make witty banter about their opponents.
No. They straight cut bitches up.
The most famous case, of course, is The Mass Transit incident. During a particularly hardcore match, New Jack was asked for help "blading" by his young opponent. He helped him. He helped him big time. As I mentioned, straight cutting is their specialty, bitch.
The shocking moment shook many specatators and caused a ton of controversey, but stepping away from the incident itself, it was exactly what fans of wrestling expected from the Gangstas. They didn't play and didn't apologize for it. People who tuned in to watch them knew what they were getting. In a company and era known for being anything but family friendly, these two were one of the most family unfriendly teams around and that's why they had the cult following they did. You bought your ticket knowing what was coming and the Gangstas never disappointed.
Mustafa Saed and New Jack on Raw now would be strange. I couldn't imagine Michael Cole calling the action without sobbing the whole time. The real question though is that, given the negative reaction he got the last time he helped a young star bleed, what would New Jack do when faced with the temptation of taking a cheesegrater to Little Jimmy?
For those who don't, the Colonel is racist. He's not racist in a ha-ha cartoon way. He's racist in a "Holy crap that dude's really racist" sort of way. Whether he was threatening to paint Derrick Dukes white or chasing non-white referees away from his matches, DeBeers wasn't known for finding cutesy ways to express his displeasure with race. There were no veiled allusions to racism. It was out there.
Now if you clicked on the link above, you know all that. You might also realize that I could have listed almost all the wrestlers on that list here. I only included three. The Sheik and Abdullah were two because I knew there would be a torrential downpour of emails to me if I didn't choose them. And the Colonel…because he's not on this list for the same reason. Sure the racism helps his cause (JG Note: How many times do you see someone write that sentence?) But the evil military leader's obsession with pigment isn't the only thing that would make the WWE Universe implode upon itself. No. That's just the tip on the non-PG iceberg. Here. Watch this. Seems like Col. DeBeers was able to spot (and call out) Scott Hall's demons decades before ESPN fondled your heartstrings with it…
Yes. You heard that. He just accused a wrestler of doing "anabolic steroids" in a wrestling promo and demanded that he take a pee test before they wrestle.
That's something right out of a WWE show in 2012, right? Sure. Accusations of steroids. I could see that storyline playing out well on Raw. Just as DeBeers is saying, "You're on steroids", a voiceover would replace the word "steroids" with "Tout". Then they'd go to commercial, pack up the building, and skip town before they return from break.
One promo. That's it. He'd destroy the company with one promo. Beat that, N.W.O.
Val Venis
I know you don't need a refresher course in who Val Venis is.
But, you know, I have to do it anyway.
Val Venis was one of the WWF Attitude era's top attractions and the embodiment of how the business was changing. Debuting to a host of vignettes featuring drills and hotdogs, the porn star turned wrestler/part-time porn star left nothing to the imagination.
Now I know you're probably thinking that it hasn't been that long since Venis was in a WWE ring. That might be true to an extent, but the way that ring has changed since he competed in it is huge.
What truly makes the Big Valbowski so non-PG is that he's an offensive triple threat. First, you have the prematch promos which usually include a thinly disguised booty call to his "ladies". One I recall fondly was about how he's not a big drinker but "down with a little Anheuser Busch ". Yep. Bottoms up, rats.
Secondly, he's a horny porn star. That's right. Make no mistake, he doesn't just do it for the money. Val loves to bang everyone. He loves it so much that he got it on with the wife of Kaientai's manager within weeks of debuting. Kaientai responded by chopping his penis off.
What?
WHAT?!
Yeah. Chopped it off…I think. It was an early moment of the Attitude era and a huge sign of things to come.
And the final thing that tips him over the edge - his finishing move is called "The Money Shot". As far as I know, it was the first of only two finishing moves to ever be named after ejaculation. (Five Knuckle Shuffle being the other)
So where would Val fit in with a 2012 PG company? Well, ask yourself this. How long before WWE's apologizing to TMZ because a five year old boy in a towel told his mom that he just gave his sister a "money shot"?
Right. The 1990s were a long time ago. Speaking of which...
Mr. Pogo
In the 1990s, FYE sold VHS tapes of wrestling from Japan.
Oh, wait. Sorry. In the 1990s, we had stores called "FYE". A few are still around. They sold music and VHS tapes. Anyway, they had…
What? Oh. VHS tapes are these rectangle things with black film in them. You put them in video cassette reorders and watched recorded shows back on your television. Yeah. Anyway, they had these VHS tapes of wrestling from…
What? Oh. Wrestling is what they used to call Sports Entertainment before Vince McMahon went completely bonkers. Yeah.
OK. So short story long, FYE was loaded with VHS tapes featuring "The King of the Deathmatch" in Japan. The King was a man named Mr. Pogo. He mauled them all from 1990 to 1997 in hardcore action. What made Pogo exciting was that he was well schooled in the Grecco-Roman technique that amateur wrestlers call "blowing people the f**k up."
This is a guy that has hit more bodyslams on barbed wire electrical boards than on a ring mat. Of course, I picked up a ton of these VHS tapes because I am a poor judge of fading technology but also because I was familiar with Pogo. You see, a few years earlier, I purchased an underground video from Japan that showed him doing this:
You don't soon part with that memory. It's burned into my mind (pun intended). We've all seen fireballs. It's not too often that we see someone turn someone's head into one.
So…Mr. PoGo? It would be a fun trip. I can't help but picture him blowing Hornswoggle out of a cannon. Then he could slice him up with barbed wire and blow the pieces up. Bits of leprechaun flesh falling from the arena ceiling onto crying babies. John Cena shirts stained with the bloody remains of the former Anonymous General Manager. It would be epic. I'm sure a video like that would do wonders for Linda's senate campaign.
Doug Gilbert
Some people are on this list because they're violent. Doug Gilbert is violent. But that's not why he's on this list.
Some people are on this list because they're considered politically incorrect in today's society. Doug Gilbert is considered politically incorrect in today's society, but that's not why he's on this list either.
No. Doug Gilbert is on the list because of this:
Yeah. You see that? If you stopped it early, then you need to watch it again. He said all that. Live on TV. Every bit of it.
Now, am I the only one wondering why the production truck didn't cut to commercial as soon as he accuses the producer of smoking crack? Maybe they thought he was going somewhere with it.
Then again, maybe they missed it because they were smoking crack.
Either way, if you think Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar had "realism" to it. Then you would not be ready for the epic war of words between Stephanie's husband and Eddie's brother. No one would really care about the match, but Gilbert's prematch promo alone would be something I'd probably end up converting to my ringtone. If CM Punk has pipebombs, this guy has nuclear ones.
Stan Hansen
Stan Hansen is such a beast that when the WWF made the film "No Holds Barred", they gave him the part of the scary bar brawler despite the fact that he didn't work for them. Rumor has it he got the role because, instead of reading the script for his audition, he simply kicked the crap out of everyone in the room.
That not enough for you? Fine. Forget that he can get a bigger pop for raising his clothesline arm than some guys get for jumping off buildings. Forget that he broke Bruno Sammartino's neck during The Living Legend's heyday. Forget that the Japanese people worship him on a Chuck Norris level. Forget all that.
The following segment is enough to convince you alone. If he did nothing else in his career but the following segment from 1990, he'd be on the list. First, the guy chewed chaw in the shower. Yeah. The only person I've ever seen come out of a shower dirty. Not only that, but he got to do this to Missy Hyatt:
Now imagine him doing that to AJ Lee today. Go on. Do it. Can't stop imagining it now, can you? Seeing as how she throws herself at Vegan do-gooders, maybe a a Texas spanking from The Lariat is just what Skippy McCrazygirl needs to get her act together. Even if it isn't, he'd just hogtie her to the roof of his car anyway. So, either way, daggum problem solved.
Joel Gertner
What do you get when you cross John Valby, Bobby Heenan, and WWF's A-Train circa 2004? You get Joel Gertner.
The first time you laid eyes on ECW's purveyor of perversion, you couldn't figure his deal out. Then, ten seconds later, you got it. Joel Gertner - simply put - was awesome. Why? Because he opened his mouth and said things like…
Yes. What made Gertner's rhymes so shocking was that he'd find the line and then cross it. Then he'd go back to the line, take his pants off, and hump it.
Perhaps his most shocking moment was ECW's handling of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s death. In one of wrestling's most mindblowing segments, Joel went off on a double entendre filled five minute monologue about JFK Jr's plane "going down". People stared in horror.
Of course, today's WWE isn't so uptight that Joel would run into any problems for saying things like that.
