rap is like wrestling.
in lots of ways really. just a few include the feuds & the crews (ha). and the trophy girls, the over-the-top displays of masculinity, the sidekicks (uh oh), the rumors, & the displays of violence. i could go on for days. but i won't.
instead... wex wednesday's is going to tackle the favorite wrestlers of yours truly:
1. The Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase. no question, the GOAT. the diamond belt ya'll. he's now a Christian minister. hmmm.
2. Jake "The Snake" Roberts. a close runner up to GOAT status. the everyday man. if the everyday man had a mullet and a boa constrictor.
3. Randy "Macho Man" Savage. anybody have a mp3 of his rap song? miss elizabeth was the shit.
4. "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka. the top rope GOD.
5. "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan. hoooooooooooo!
6. Hulk Hogan. i just saw on VH1 that he had no idea what "kosher" meant. who knew?
7. The Ultimate Warrior. fun fact: these days, he's a right-wing raging maniac on the college lecture circuit. check youtube for some of that madness.
8. Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake. was he related to the Hulkster? did BDK have aids? gotta love the rumors.
9. Bret "The Hitman" Hart. if you get a chance, check out the documentary about him.
10. Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat.
11. George "The Animal" Steele. he had a masters degree.
12. The Junkyard Dog.
- wex "the microwave" ford.
posted by Hip Hop Karaoke :: NYC at 10:52 AM
40 Comments:
Sure it's the obvious choice.. It's like saying "My favorite basketball player is Michael Jordan"... But Hogan will always be my favorite.. I used to sit in front of the TV watching UHF channel 68 waiting for "I Am A Real American" to come on... When King Kong bundy and Bobby Heenan attacked him on Saturday Night Main Event, and he had to have his ribs taped up, I put masking tape on my Hogan action figure as a show of solidarity.. I always felt bad for Leaping Lanny Poffo.. He just wanted to spread his poetry.. And got his ass kicked for the privilege...
Poffo's brother Randy Savage is my absolute favourite. I think that a wrestler's finishing move should be a key determinant in their ranking. Macho Man's flying elbow drop was dope. Whoever had the figure-four leglock (Greg The Hammer Valentine) too.
Hogan's lame leg across the neck off the ropes was... lame. And I hated that "real American" shit -- that was back when the USA was bombing Nicaragua and building Star Wars and all that wack shit. (Good thing the days of imperialism are over.) My favourite era was when those two feuded. Ooooo yeah!
Yes Ricky Steamboat. My favourite match of all time was an NWA bout between him and Ric Flair. Amazing.
And don't forget tag teams like The Legion Of Doom and Demolition.
One of my co-workers and I just week before last were all over Wikipedia reading these entries. Leave it to Wex's Wednesdays to have the timely topics!
I like your assessment there about the signature moves there, RDJ, and in that regard I'm gonna have to agree with Wex on giving Jake the Snake his props. Is there a move more devastating in wrestling history than the DDT? It's so badass, it has its own wiki entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT_%28professional_wrestling%29
i could do a whole 'nother one about tag teams. my fav was the bushwackers.
yo digs, you just took me back with the taped ribs shit... man. i used to put my dad's old gold watch on my wwf action figures for the championship belt.
and i agree with you downey, the finishing move is key. one of the best parts about watching a match with one of your fav's is sitting there thinking "man, if he could just slap that cobra clutch on him, it'd be over!" hulks move was more of an afterthought. that's why jake the snake was the shit to me. he'd put those fools out with the DDT AND drop a live snake on their ass! the best is when they'd wake up and see the boa crawling on them.
also, speaking of politics, another dope thing was when they played up the whole cold war thing. iron sheik, nicoli volkoff, etc. gotta love the stereotypes!
Bret "The Hitman" Hart's Sharpshooter will always be my fav... I think I actually won a fight with my cousin by putting him into it. Good thing no one got hurt, you know people go to jail for things like that now a days.
Wex, good shit on today's blog entry. Is Vince McMahon hittin' u off w/ a little dough on the side to get people amped for Wrestlemania this weekend? Nice.
By the way (for fans and non-fans of the wrestler), I HIGHLY reccommend that everyone PURCHASE The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior DVD. To this day, this man is my favorite wrestler of all-time. And even though the DVD basically shits on him for the entire duration, it's STILL a great DVD.
You didn't realize how crappy a wrestler he was back in the day when you were young. All you saw was the face paint, the streamers, the full tilt sprint to the ring and the shaking of the ropes. No one has EVER been able to duplicate that energy to this day.
RDJ, I'm surprised you're not getting more Canadian in this entry. Canada has bred some of the best wrestlers ever.
Anyone remember ECW in the early 90's? Back when they used to hold matches in high school gyms in phili and jersey. Before it got bought out by WWE, that shit was WILD! Honestly i dont even know if it was on tv in NYC, in Jers it was on the local cable channel at like 3am.
Sabu and Taz took the top rope game to another level with the Moonsault, the Arabian Facebuster, and Sabu's obsession with breaking tables (at least one in EVERY match). Then there's The Extreme Icon, Sandman. Dude would just come up in the ring, cruch a beer can on his head and proceed to beat people with a stick, no joke. I'm not even sure if that's a wrestling move, but thats why ECW was the shit. it was like the K-os of pro wretling, it was meta-wrestling.
If yall dont know about this shit, youtube it.
as far as mainstream cats, my favorites were Yokozuna and Zeuuuuuuuuuuuus. I guess i never really caught the Hulkamania bug, so i ended up cheering for his rivals.
????
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9clRpVbYZw8
Bret Hart, Owen Hart (Blue Blazer r.i.p.)... the Mounties.... definitely repping Canada to the fullest in the squared circle.
Oh, and I loved Mr. Perfect, Curt Hennig. Remember those promo videos with him doing the blind backwards hoop shots and swishing every one? And what was his move -- the PerfectPlex? Hahaha.
Me, I always rooted for the bad guys.
D
wooooord - i used to love pro wrestling intensely until the 7th grade or so, then i just suddenly lost all interest - can't recall why.
russ - i remember vividly (there were 2 prominent ones if i recall correctly) the smaller leagues trying to compete with the wwf - one was on wpix 11 i think, and wwf was on fox 5 (i think i've got those channels right, but maybe not) - back in the day weekly wrestling used to be shown mid-day on the weekend, and the main event wwf used to take place late night. by the way, didn't curt henning and rick flair come out of the ecw originally?
wex - you took the words right out of my mouth - i couldn't get enough of the bushwackers. i loved their shit.
no one mentioned the iron shiek and his camel clutch - that shit was vicious. and no one seems to have shouted out andre the giant.
and macho man gets most props for being the first wrestler to have a hot bittie (elizabeth) in permanent tow.
anyone remember that wwf cartoon that ran for a few seasons on saturday morning? it was aight.
for some reason, i just knew rdj was going to be a mr. perfect fan.
i'm not sure why, but i just KNEW it. and that's not a diss, i was a mr. perfect fan too... dude was hilarious. he was canadian too, right?
pretty sure he was canuck. i think that he was one of the first wrestlers to successfully pull off a complete character make over. one day he's curt henning, and the all of a sudden he's the mr. perfect guy. i can't recall the specific color, but didn't he have some pastel singlet or something? what i do remember is that when my buddies and i used to watch him wrestle we'd make fun of how his flourescent singlet accentuated his package.
A few phun phacts about Mr. Perfect:
a) He is not Canadian. He was born in Robingsdale, Minnesota.
b) His name is not "Henning", it's "Hennig".
c) He is not alive. He died of a cocaine/painkiller overdose in 2003.
But damn that Perfect-Plex was a fantastic move. A suplex and a pin all in one. He was an amazing technician. And I loved his arrogance. Maybe that's why Wex intuited that I'd be on his jock.
Speaking of jock, one similarity between rap and rassling that you didn't mention is the latent and barely-concealed twin attack of homoeroticism & homophobia.
Also, if anyone wants to watch a WWE-produced but entertaining retrospective on the Ultimate Warrior's career, you can find it in 10 10-minute segments on YouTube. It's called the The Self-Destruction Of The Ultimate Warrior. Lots of very frank interviews with McMahon, Mean Gene, Hogan, Dibiase, and Bobby Heenan (who's looking awful!)
"I look above to the Gods, and when you fall below the skeletons of the Warriors past , the power of the Warriors will become the eighth wonder of the World!!!"
The dude was insane. InSANE. In more than just the membrane.
"You are nothing but a normal, you don't deserve to breathe the same air that I and Hulk Hogan do. Hulk Hogan, I must ask you now as you asked me, do you Hulk Hogan want your ideas, your beliefs to live forever? For Hulk Hogan in this normal world, physically none of us can live forever. But the places you have taken the Hulkamaniacs, the ideas and beliefs that you have given them can live through me Hulk Hogan. That is why I breathe, that is why the Warriors have come. Hulk Hogan there are ones that question where you are taking them. Do you no longer want to walk or step into that darkness? Hulk Hogan that darkness I speak of is nothing of fear. It is about the beliefs...of accepting any and all challenges at the cost of losing everything Hulk Hogan. You have lived Hulk Hogan for the last five Wrestlemanias for this one belief. Now Hulk Hogan, I come to take what you believe in, further then you ever could. I come Hulk Hogan, not to destroy the Hulkamaniacs and Hulkamania. I come Hulk Hogan to bring the Warriors and Hulkamaniacs together as one as we Hulk Hogan except all the challenges with all the strength of the Warriors and Hulkamaniacs together. Hulk Hogan the colors of the Hulkamaniacs are coming through the pores of my skin...and Hulk Hogan when we meet Hulk Hogan, I will look at you and you will realize then that I have come to do no one no harm, but only Hulk Hogan to take what we both believe in to places it shall never have been."
-The Ultimate Warrior
Also, did you know that The Ultimate Warrior, a.k.a. Jim Hellwig (these guys always have the most pussy names), legally changed his name to "Warrior" in 1993? Not "Jim Warrior" or "Warrior Hellwig" -- just "Warrior". Legally.
"Speaking of jock, one similarity between rap and rassling that you didn't mention is the latent and barely-concealed twin attack of homoeroticism & homophobia."
yes, definitely thought of that. on-point.
and jesus, speaking of...
ravishing rick rude!
also dead, also legally changed his name, also had a quasi-mullet.
what what.
Man, this is bringing back so many memories. Remember the Hart Foundation? Jim "the Anvil" Neidhart and Bret Hart -- they were fucking great.
Hey, just so y'all don't think we were sleepin' on regional wrestling back in the day down South. Y'all have to peep this, at least for the commentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqcUVRTjrVM
Big John Stud
Just watched the first installment of The Self-Destruction Of The Ultimate Warrior... The music is crazy. I don't know how many more segments I can watch... but it's definitely like watching a train wreck.
Oh yeah, has anyone mentioned the British Bulldog, Davey Boy Smith?
So taking it back to the similarities of hip hop and wrestling, Suge Knight or Vince MacMahon? I go with Vince cause he just did want the hell he wanted without having to hang anyone over the edge of a building.
For most lovable wrestler, I'd go with Koko B. Ware and his frigging parrot.
Speaking of wrestlers, who could ever forget the match when Andre the Giant got his hair cut off? His partner that fateful night? None other than S.D. "Special Delivery" Jones, the fan favorite you knew was gonna lose no matter what....
Also, when you speak of classic wrestling moments, who could forget when Rowdy Roddy Piper smashed Superfly Snuka in the face with a coconut on Piper's Pit, then thoroughly thrashed him acriss the arena? Great entertainment indeed....
speaking of hair getting chopped, isn't that supposed to happen to donald trump if his wrestler loses in the upcoming wrestlemania? i keep seeing this in ads running during the law & order repeats on USA.
Suit- earlier you were thinking of AWA, and the ironically titled NWA. ECW didn't come around till the early 90s and definitely was never on network tv and definitely not durring the day. it was extreeeeeme. with 7 e's.
Springboard Tornado DDT.
They showed The Donald bitch slapping Vince this morning on Sportscenter. I havent considered wathcing a Wrestlemania in at least 12 years, but i'm getting close now.
OH and i can't believe we forgot Duke the Dumpster Droese. "It's time to take out the trash!"
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9w1vRROAjM&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Emyspace%2Ecom%2Fairsabu
Sabu from ECW. Dude is No Joke. My hands down vote for GOAT. yes, that is barbed wire at the 1:40 mark and check out the top rope back flips at 1:00 - :50.
what, no shout for koko b. ware? the only brown dude AND he danced with a freaking parrot on his shoulder.
yo p... rdj shouted out koko above... but it's all good... as koko deserves at LEAST two shoutouts.
ever wonder what that parrot was thinking when koko was doing the bird dance?? "damn, he's gonna do me like THAT?!"
sadness. watching maury delivering paternity test results can cause major loss in vision.
and am i crazy, or did miss elizabeth die a couple of years ago? i was asking someone that this weekend and she looked at me funny. probably because she had no clue who i was talking about.
Yeah, she OD'd. She was living with Lex Luger at the time.
Downey- this warrior documentary is amazing. Dude just said "you'd think he just had 10 cups of coffee before entering the ring."
uh, yeah, coffee.
Here's a question I always ask myself. With the exception of The Rock (who's half Black, half Samoan), why did they make all the Samoan wrestlers crazy as all hell? Like...is Samoa known for some wild ass muhfuckas?
ha... good stuff
i don't know about all of that, but i do know that i love the scene from no holds barred when hogan holds the dude up in the air and dude wets his pants, and hogan goes "dooookieeee."
wait, does dookie have an i in it?
Wex- ubiquitous drug use is parellel between rap and wrestling.
Speaking of crazy, what about the wrestler formerly known as the Missing Link?
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