FanNation - The Republic of Sport

Well, once again I have a guilty confession to make.  Though I no longer follow the "sport," I was once a die-hard wrestling fan.  In addition to that, I am still a walking dictionary of wrestling knowledge and history.  Anyone who wishes to throwdown on this, I welcome the challenge. 

Even though I no longer watch wrestling, I keep myself abreast of what's going on in the world of the WWE (which, because I am not bound by law, I will call the WWF from now on.)  However, when I was really into wrestling, I was a WCW man.

I know!  WCW was for rednecks; it was rasslin', not wrestling.  I hated myself for it.  I wanted to like the WWF more.  For starters, the WWF had a much better name than WCW.  World Wrestling Federation just sounds more professional than World Championship Wrestling.  And in mid-1998, when WCW really lost it, the WWF hit a stride, and I switched sides.  I sold out; or, to put it in wrestling terms, I pulled a heel turn (in wrestling, a heel is a bad guy and a face is a good guy.)  On that line, wouldn't it be cool if there were heel turns in other sports?  Like in football?  Can you imagine it, with Al Michaels and Jim Ross calling the action?

Al Michaels:  The Chiefs line up in a bunch formation, one tight end.  Damon Huard gets under center.

Jim Ross:  King, make sure to watch Tony Gonzalez, he's been on fire this game!

Al Michaels:  Why do you keep calling me 'King'? 

Jim Ross:  Huard back to pass!  He pulls a triple reverse scan of the field-

Al:  Uh, JR, we don't have names for all those moves in football like we do in wrest-

JR:  King, I don't want to hear your trash-talk right now!   Huard is in trouble!  He fires right and it's PICKED OFF BY CHAMP BAILEY!  PICKED OFF BY CHAMP BAILEY!  HE'S GOT NOTHING BUT OPEN FIELD IN FRONT OF HIM-

Al:  We actually call it 'space' now,

JR:  HE'S AT THE FORTY!  THE THIRTY!  THE TWENTY!  NO ONE CAN STOP BAI- OH MY GOD!  WHAT THE HELL IS MIKE BELL DOING?

Al:  What the hell is Mike Bell doing?  Why is he holding that steel chair?  OH NO!

JR:  OH MY GOD!  MIKE BELL JUST HIT CHAMP BAILEY WITH A STEEL CHAIR!  BAILEY IS OUT COLD!  NO!  NO!  NO!  THE BRONCOS HAD THIS THING WON!  NO! NO!  NO!  WHAT IS BELL DOING NOW?  HE'S JUST RIPPED OF HIS BRONCOS JERSEY, AND UNDERNEATH IT IS A CHIEFS JERSEY!  NO!  THIS ISN'T HAPPENING!  MIKE BELL, YOU ARE A LOW HUMAN BEING!  AND NOW, BELL AND THE CHIEFS ARE SPRAY PAINTING BAILEY'S BODY!  HE'S UNCONSCIOUS, THE REFEREE WAS KNOCKED OUT EARLIER WHEN KENDRELL BELL ACCIDENTALLY TACKELD HIM WHEN GOING FOR JAVON WALKER; THIS IS TERRIBLE!  HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS KING?

Al:  For the last time, I'm not Jerry "The King" Lawler.  And no, I've never seen anything like this in football.

That would be awesome.  But alas, it is not to be (although I think that Jim Ross is just about the best announcer in any sport, and he should do football).

The WWF than proceeded to crush WCW out of existence.  This was due in large part to WCW pushing wrestlers who sucked, while not pushing (sometimes neglecting to push) guys who were popular with the fans.  Chris Jericho was a great example of this.  In WCW, he languished as a mid-carder while being immensely popular with the fans.  He jumps to the WWF, and becomes world champion.  So, in honor of the WCW and the WWF, here is my list of the ten most over and under hyped wrestlers ever.

I will begin by saying that over-hyped in wrestling is the same as over-rated in football.  In wrestling, your in-ring skills aren't as important as your acting skills.  The bottom line is do you put fans in the stands or not.  An over-hyped wrestler is a wrestler who gets a huge push and cannot deliver any excitement or fan interest.  Lack of actual wrestling skill doesn't factor in, although some wrestlers who are on my list of under-hyped performers became popular simply because of their talent.  I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm not basing this list on the relative talent of the performers as much as their ability to entice crowds.  Onto the list.  I'm going to cover the five most overy-hyped today, and do the under-hyped ones tomorrow.

The 5 Most Over-hyped Wrestlers of All-Time

1.  GLACIER

For anyone who remembers WCW, they don't remember this as$clown fondly.  The infamous ring name of Ray Lloyd, he arrived in WCW in 1996 as Glacier on September 11th, 1996 against The Gambler on WCW.  Glacier, then, went on to annoy wrestling fans for three years, before mercifully ending the gimmick.  Why is he the number one most over-hyped wrestler?

The Glacier character was based on Sub-Zero, of Mortal Kombat fame. He was introduced to fans via a series of taped videos with the words "Blood Runs Cold" beginning in February, but his actual in-ring debut did not occur until September against the afore-mentioned Gambler. Glacier had a cool and memorable ring entrance, which included blue laser lights shooting across the arena, snow falling from the ceiling and dramatic theme music; by memorable, I mean insanely expensive.   According to Lloyd in a July 2000 interview, production costs for his entrance amounted to half a million dollars, while his costume cost $35,000. At first, Glacier wore an outfit very similar to Sub-Zero's look in Mortal Kombat 3, complete with a painted-on blue scar, body armor, and a f@ggy-looking helmet. His entrance music sounded like the Mortal Kombat theme song, and the dark blue lighting for his entrance would also be the lighting for his matches. After a few matches, this was dropped, possibly due to threats from Midway Games, the company that published Mortal Kombat.

In March 1997, he began feuding with Mortis (who was awesome, and played by the great Chris Kanyon), whose gimmick was also inspired from a popular Mortal Kombat character (Scorpion).  The next month, Mortis joined forced with another comic-book character of a wrestler, Wrath, and started double-teaming Glacier. WCW management ultimately buried Glacier after teaming him with Ernest "The Cat" Miller, and then having Glacier turn on him.  This was due to the fact that despite all the hype given before his much heralded debut, the Glacier character never got over with the fans.  In fact, people either didn't care about Glacier, or hated him.  His move, the Cryonic Kick, was just a super-kick, and not a good looking one, either. 

Glacier wasn't killed off until 1999, mainly because he was Eric Bischoff's pet project.  I love the Bisch, but he spent way too much time and money promoting this goofball (who later became Coach Buzz Stern).

Because it cost more to just have Glacier walk to the ring than it would to bring electricity to Ethiopia, because he stunk even by WCW standards, and because he was jobbed out to everyone and their mother by the time he vanished, Glacier is my number one most over hyped wrestler.

2.  THE RENEGADE

Does anyone remember the Renegade?  The man who was going to "bring Hulkamania into the 21st century?"  No?  Didn't think so.  I almost feel bad writing this, because the man who played the Renegade, Rick Williams, took his own life in 1999 due to depression he suffered from because of his lack of success in wrestling.

To his credit, the Renegade was wildly successful at first.  During early 1995, Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage were involved in a feud with the heel stable the Dungeon of Doom, which was made up of various wrestlers, including the Giant, Meng (aka Haku, who I can tell you now is probably going to be on my 5 most under-hyped), Warlord and the Barbarian, and team leader Kevin Sullivan. For an upcoming trag (triple tag) team match, Hogan and Savage said that their mystery partner would be "the Ultimate Surprise" and showed a silhouette of a man with long hair and tassels tied to his arms, basically implying that the Ultimate Warrior was the mystery-man. When the day arrived, out came a very familiar-looking man to very familiar-sounding theme music. He was called The Renegade, proclaimed by Hogan as "the man that's gonna bring Hulkamania into the 21st Century", and wrestled in the exact same style as the Ultimate Warrior.  Namely, sh*tty.

With "The Mouth of the South" Jimmy Hart as his manager, Renegade destroyed many heels and soon became the WCW Television Champion by defeating Arn Anderson.  Now, Jimmy Hart can make me like almost anybody he manages, but this guy was the exception to the rule.  I hated the Renegade.  I hated the Ultimate Warrior as a kid, and the Renegade was worse.  He couldn't do anything.  He ran around the ring and people cheered for him because they thought he was the Warrior (I understand why people marked out for the Warrior.  Watch one of his interviews; they're freakin' hilarious.)

The Renegade had the second or third best record his rookie year in WCW, behind only Hogan and Ric Flair, I think.  But then the other shoe dropped: the real Ultimate Warrior had appeared in several wrestling magazines, effectively disillusioning some fans that Williams was the Ultimate Warrior, forced to wrestle under a new name due to the name being owned by the WWF.  In fact, a court had ruled in favor of Warrior in his trademark battle against WWF (he even changed his name to Warrior, but that's a different matter for a different post.)  Anyways, WCW made short work of the so-called Renegade, as his fan base quickly vanished, and he subsequently dropped the Television Championship to Diamond Dallas Page. During the November 6, 1995 edition of Nitro, Renegade was buried on TV by a heel Jimmy Hart when Hart "re-possessed" the gimmick saying, "You're not a Renegade! You're just plain Rick!" He then faded out of the spotlight.  Unfortunately, as much as I thought he stunk, the story took a tragic turn after one of the most spectacular falls from grace in all of wrestling: for two years after Hart "turned" on him, Williams was steadily de-pushed, eventually languishing as a jobber (perennial loser) on the WCW "b-shows" WCW Thunder and WCW Saturday Night, and put in a feud with former tag team partner and jobber Joe Gomez that amounted to nothing. He was used as a stunt double for the Ultimate Warrior when Warrior joined WCW for a short period in 1998. WCW opted not to renew Williams' contract in late 1998.  Williams, severely depressed, would eventually end his life in February 1999.  That is not what I wished for when I'd watch Renegade in 1995, when he was unbeatable, and think to myself, "God I wish this guy would just disappear forever."  He still stunk, though.

3.  GANGREL

The Vampire Warrior was the real-life David Heath, is married to fellow wrestler/freak Luna Vachon (remember the chick with Bam Bam Bigelow?  The ugly one with the tattoos on her head?  Yeah, her.)  Gangrel was named after a vampire clan in the uber-g@y pen and paper role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade.  Gangrel's gimmick was that of a guy in the Seinfeld "puffy shirt," open to expose the chest, black leather pants, and sunglasses.  Oh, and fangs.  Gangrel is actually an exception on this list, as despite his stupid name and attire, he was actually pretty f*cking cool as a wrestler.  First off, his theme music was awesome, as was his entrance, which saw him rising from a ring of fire on the elevated stage, followed by a slow walk to the ring set to said theme music, a sinister heavy-metal instrumental song. He also carried a goblet of "blood" with him and, during his entrance, would stop on the ring steps, take a drink, and spray it into the air. He was billed as hailing "from the other side of darkness."  He would form two different groups in the WWF: the Brood, with Edge and Christian, which was cool, mainly because Christian was awesome, and the New Brood, with the Hardy Boyz, which sucked because the Hardy Boyz, well, suck.  Gangrel also had a badas$ finisher, the "Impaler," which was a spike DDT that really looked like it killed his opponents.  Still, for all the fanfare and hype surrounding him, he never caught on, and nobody really was into him besides a few smarks who knew him from his ECW days.  Too bad, but he makes the list as the no. 3 most over-hyped wrestler.

4.  THE GIANT GONZALEZ/EL GIGANTE

Jorge Gonzalez was a large man.  How large was he, you ask?  Well, settle down, and Johnny put that away, and I'll tell you!  He was 7 ft. 6 in. tall, and weighed about 415 pounds.  Gonzalez was originally a basketball player from Argentina. His size and presence attracted interest from Hollywood in the mid 80s with various bit parts in TV and movies, including Baywatch. He successfully played in Argentina's first division league for Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata, and also for the Argentina National Basketball Team. However, he did not play in the 1988 Summer Olympics as some sources claim. He was drafted by the Atlanta Hawks, but apparently he couldn't handle the pace of the American game, and had trouble maintaining a proper playing weight.

Then came wrestling.  In 1989, Hawks owner Ted Turner offered Gonzalez a job as a professional wrestler in WCW, which he also owned. After training for a year, Gonzalez made his pro debut as El Gigante on May 19, 1990 at the Pay-per-View Capital Combat event. Wearing shorts, he competed as a face, and was billed as being close to eight feet tall (he was actually 7 ft 6 in, according to the Guinness Book of Records in 2000).

Over the next two years, he feuded with Ric Flair over the WCW Title, took part in the infamous 'Chamber Of Horrors' match in 1991, substituting for the injured Barry Windham, and even had a "date" on TBS with Missy Hyatt.  Despite that, his general lack of wrestling skills and his inability to speak the English language clearly caused most fans to reject him. Later, he gained some popularity and credibility after a brief tenure in New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), at that time in business with WCW, and then jumped to the WWF in late 1992. 

In the WWF, he competed as the Giant Gonzalez, a heel who was managed by Harvey Wippleman.  Gonzalez sported a beard and a distinct full body suit that had airbrushed muscles on it and thick hair attached as well.  He debuted on WWF TV at the 1993 Royal Rumble, where he quickly overpowered and eliminated Wippleman's nemesis The Undertaker (who had been a face for some time now) from the match despite not actually being in the Royal Rumble match.  Their feud ended at the 1993 Summerslam, when the Undertaker scored a clean win over Gonzalez.  After the win, Wippleman yelled at Gonzalez and was choke-slammed for doing so, causing Gonzalez to go face.

Unfortunately, health issues were rampant with the performer, and there was a general disappointment over how he had matured as a wrestler from both WWF management and from the fans, who never really took to him after his face turn.  He quit the company near the end of 1993, and then, at the age of 27, had to retire due to the health issues his size placed on him.  He is now confined to a wheelchair, and has given interviews to Argentinean newspapers that he does what he can to survive, and is hoping for some aid from the government (Gonzalez is considered somewhat of a hero in his native land.)  Once again, this is somewhat of an unhappy ending to a rather lame story; on the good side, Gonzalez apparently has been losing weight since his retirement (over 14 years ago) and is in better health, weight wise, than he has been in years.  He is unmarried and has no children, sadly.

Gonzalez' situation is pitiable, no doubt.  And he was a pretty good player on the basketball court, apparently.  But his health issues were too much to handle, and as a wrestler, he was terrible, and beyond that, uninteresting.  He came out at a time when those who ran wrestling prescribed to the axiom "Bigger is better."  Jorge Gonzalez effectively killed that way of thinking for good.

5.  YOKOZUNA

I know that he was WWF world heavyweight champion.  Twice.  He also won the 1993 Royal Rumble.  And he was world tag-team champion in the WWF twice with Owen Hart (my favorite wrestler).  But the truth is, for the hype, this guy was terrible.  There's one thing to be a bad guy, and have fans love to hate you.  We all loved to hate the Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase.  We just plain hated Yokozuna.  First off, he wasn't even Japanese.  He was Samoan, and he came from San Francisco.  He was fatter than a house, which would eventually lead to his ignominious departure from the squared circle, and ultimately, his tragic death. 

Yokozuna was the alias of Rodney Anoa'i, an American of Samoan descent.  He was a terrific athlete, especially considering his size.  He had wrestling in his blood, as his uncles were the popular tag team, the Wild Samoans Afa and Sika, who trained him at an early age in the ins and outs of rasslin'.    He was further trained in Japan and Mexico, where he honed his craft.  When he began wrestling, in the AWA (American Wrestling Association), in 1984, up until he left for the WWF in 1992, he weighed less than 400 pounds, and those who saw him in action have often said that Yokozuna back then (he was known as the Great Kokina) was a superb ring general with almost unmatched skills, who moved very gracefully for a bigger man.  Sadly, this would end with his induction into the WWF and the gimmick they gave him.

Yokozuna is the highest rank in sumo wrestling.  Though Anoa'i never participated in sumo, the promise of a main event push was too much to resist.  He wore padding in his suit until he bulked up to the necessary 500 POUNDS that was required of him to play the character.  At first, though his career took off, it became clear that he could not compete in the ring like any of the other wrestlers.  While he was big in the beginning, by the time he was a main even heel, he was so fat he could barely run across the ring.  Some people who followed his career couldn't believe that the obese and sluggish Yokozuna had once been the skilled and exciting Great Kokina. 

Yokozuna had one thing going for him: Mr. Fuji.  Fuji remains one of the great heel wrestlers and then, later on, managers of all time, and Yokozuna clearly benefited from his association with him.  We as wrestling fans had no reason to hate Japanese patriots; Fuji gave us our reason.  Though they badmouthed the USA, nobody really cared.  We loved to hate Mr. Fuji.  He was someone we wanted to watch, and we wanted to show our appreciation of his brilliance by giving his evil characters the boos he worked so hard to elicit from us.  Fuji was a seasoned pro who knew how to work a crowd.  We loved him for it.  We didn't love Yokozuna.  We just hated him.

Yoko faded from view after losing his last championship to Bret Hart, and then his tag titles with Bret's younger brother Owen.  He became a face, but nobody cared.  He went to mid-card status, then jobber status, but his weight was so out of control the WWF was forced to make him take a leave of absence to get his health under control.  By the accounts of all who knew him, he was a great guy who simply loved to eat.  In fact, though he never was on TV, he was still a part of the WWF until 2000, as he would hold parties and cook for the superstars, and they all loved him.  Sadly, Anoa'i died of a heart attack while on a wrestling tour in Liverpool, England.

I didn't mean for the bulk of the people on this list to be either dead or dying.  They just weren't any good, and they all got huge pushes.  Tune in tomorrow for the other half of this list, the most under-hyped wrestlers, as well as my review of Madden and its comparison to All-Pro Football 2k8.