So for this week's podcast, we're looking to talk about guilty pleasures in wrestling, and are looking for your contributions on wrestlers, matches, angles, feuds, shows, whatever it may be, that for you is a guilty pleasure - someone or something that typically gets plenty of derision and scorn, but deep down you enjoy, perhaps against your better judgement.

And of course, please explain why you enjoy this particular person or thing, and your perspective as one of the few who takes enjoyment in it.

As always, the best contributions will be read on the show and you'll be credited accordingly. So what's your guilty pleasure in wrestling and why?

 

EDIT - Our show on Wrestling's Guilty Pleasures, featuring many of your contributions is now online and available to listen to at the following link: http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/web/yqebpp/SCG_Radio_81_-_Wrestlings_Guilty_Pleasures.mp3

Reviewing shit promotions like WCW past 99 and TNA.

I didn't even know it was a guilty pleasure until I started going online, but Tom Zenk. As someone who got into wrestling through watching WCW Worldwide on ITV in the early 90's, Tom Zenk pretty quickly became my favourite wrestler. He was the quintessential babyface wrestler, adorned in bright colours, high-flying, virtuous and always trying his best, often in vain as the Z-Man would eat a lot of 3-counts. Zenk is the face of my childhood Saturday afternoon, and here's the thing: I still think he's great. Watching back old WCW, he's still loads of fun to watch in the ring. He's that perfect size where he can be the power worker of the Lightheavyweight division or the undersized underdog against Dangerous Alliance members in the midcard. If I wasn't online, I'd be shocked to learn how derided he is, and I maintain that he's a terrific wrestler.

I like throwing on a few IRS matches every now and then for silly reasons. I laugh every time he puts his opponent in a completely motionless two minute headlock to kill commercial time. I love Vince mentioning a new tax book, article, magazine or newspaper at the start of every match, the idea of a former tax collector turned wrestler is pretty funny. Always get a kick out of the crowd chanting ''Irwin'' at him. His matches are generally no better or worse than decent, but his opponent usually comes out looking good enough. People often use his tie to instigate offense against him, why in god's name would he continue to wear it during matches? I suppose that might qualify as a wrestling guilty pleasure.

Halloween Havoc 2000. It's such a lame show filled with pointless bad booking and intelligence-insulting moments, but I really enjoy Vampiro/Awesome and the MULTIPLE STINGS~ part of Jarrett/Sting.

 

XPW. I bring it up all the time, but it was practically the Asylum films of wrestling. It was terrible and lousy and a sign of everything wrong about that era, but it has its charm in the view of bad taste.

 

What do they have in common? VAMPIRO. He may be my ultimate guilty pleasure.

Mark Henry. Boss Man. Goldberg squashing jobbers. Natural Disasters doing the same.

Reviewing shit promotions like WCW past 99 and TNA.

This one goes for me as well. I draw almost perverse enjoyment out of watching that episode of Thunder with Nash on commentary just before he gets replaced as the booker. You can really pinpoint the moment where Mike Tenay dies a little inside when Nash starts talking about booking himself into angles.

 

Also the entire Hogan/Bischoff period in TNA is hilarious culminating in the Immortal fiasco, which is a candidate for worst NWO ripoff ever. And then Steiner returns and for the following six months everything that comes out of his mouth is absolute comedy gold.

 

Reviewing shit promotions like WCW past 99 and TNA.

This one goes for me as well. I draw almost perverse enjoyment out of watching that episode of Thunder with Nash on commentary just before he gets replaced as the booker. You can really pinpoint the moment where Mike Tenay dies a little inside when Nash starts talking about booking himself into angles.

 

Also the entire Hogan/Bischoff period in TNA is hilarious culminating in the Immortal fiasco, which is a candidate for worst NWO ripoff ever. And then Steiner returns and for the following six months everything that comes out of his mouth is absolute comedy gold.

 

 

Sounds like the TNA Hogan era is something...

 

As far as WCW goes, since you weren't around the board it seems : http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/19237-wcws-highway-to-hell/

The Boogeyman. I love everything about him. The stuff with him and Lil Boogey vs. Finlay & Hornswoggle is some of my favorite wrestling BS of all time.

 

 

Reviewing shit promotions like WCW past 99 and TNA.

 

This one goes for me as well. I draw almost perverse enjoyment out of watching that episode of Thunder with Nash on commentary just before he gets replaced as the booker. You can really pinpoint the moment where Mike Tenay dies a little inside when Nash starts talking about booking himself into angles.

Also the entire Hogan/Bischoff period in TNA is hilarious culminating in the Immortal fiasco, which is a candidate for worst NWO ripoff ever. And then Steiner returns and for the following six months everything that comes out of his mouth is absolute comedy gold.

Sounds like the TNA Hogan era is something...

 

As far as WCW goes, since you weren't around the board it seems : http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/19237-wcws-highway-to-hell/

If you have never seen it and you really want to torture yourself I recommend you give TNA 2010/2011 the same treatment you gave to WCW (awesome thread working my way through it) and currently early TNA. I would argue that it is actully worse than either.

 

 

 

Reviewing shit promotions like WCW past 99 and TNA.

This one goes for me as well. I draw almost perverse enjoyment out of watching that episode of Thunder with Nash on commentary just before he gets replaced as the booker. You can really pinpoint the moment where Mike Tenay dies a little inside when Nash starts talking about booking himself into angles.

Also the entire Hogan/Bischoff period in TNA is hilarious culminating in the Immortal fiasco, which is a candidate for worst NWO ripoff ever. And then Steiner returns and for the following six months everything that comes out of his mouth is absolute comedy gold.

Sounds like the TNA Hogan era is something...

 

As far as WCW goes, since you weren't around the board it seems : http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/19237-wcws-highway-to-hell/

If you have never seen it and you really want to torture yourself I recommend you give TNA 2010/2011 the same treatment you gave to WCW (awesome thread working my way through it) and currently early TNA. I would argue that it is actully worse than either.

 

 

I have never seen it, but since I diving into early TNA… never know where I'm going to end up… I don't think you could anyone worse than the end of WCW, as TNA has always been irrelevant while WCW was the legit N°1 at one point, so the fall was a lot more painfull. But yeah, sounds like something I might wanna watch...

Does Wrestling Society X count? What a fantastic promotion. If they had a money mark behind them they would have become the #2 promotion in the US. At a time when TNA was trying hard to be WWE-lite, you have this promotion with a unique look, feel, fantastic atmosphere, good matches and most of all memorable characters and workers. The roster was pretty much perfect for what they were trying to achieve.

 

All ten episodes are really fun.

Guilty to some of the fandom narrative but definitely not in my eyes is Sid. Hes one of my 10 favorite wrestlers ever and I will go on jaunts watching him squash guys and cut his insane promos fairly regularly. I guess ECW Triple Threat with Candido and Bigelow Shane Douglas is another maligned figure that I love.

Come on, The Triple Threat was great.

Come on, The Triple Threat was great.

People loved Bam Bam and Candido from what I recall, but always heard lots of talk about Douglas sucking. I was referring to my love for Douglas although of course I loved the group.

Douglas is ridiculously underrated at this point. Made my top 100.

I LOVE the obvious face in mask gimmick like Charlie Brown from Outta Town, Stagger Lee, Mr. America, Midnight Rider, etc....so obsurd but they crack me up every time.

 

"The Big Wiggle" from Norman Smiley

 

"Screaming" Norman Smiley as hardcore champ

 

Norman the Lunatic and him being controlled by a key.

 

Teddy Long as a manager. CRIMINALLY underrated!

Teddy Long as a manager. CRIMINALLY underrated!

Heel Teddy Long is a good manager, but fat babyface manager for jobbers Teddy Long was completely pointless.

I LOVE the obvious face in mask gimmick like Charlie Brown from Outta Town, Stagger Lee, Mr. America, Midnight Rider, etc....so obsurd but they crack me up every time.

 

 

Definitely one of my favorite things in wrestling.

Heroes of Wrestling,Al Greene as the Dog in WCW, "Mr. Electricity" Herb Abrams & his UWF, & Curly Moe.

Big John Studd. I may have been the only kid who loved that he won the Royal Rumble & was hoping that would be the start of a long run. I also dug him in the middle part of the decade & always thought it should have been him instead of Bundy @ WM2. He was also my favourite Andre opponent.

I might think of more later, but off the top of my head...

 

Scotty Riggs/Anton

 

I was the only one who liked him in ECW and cheered his heel turn against RVD. I also thought he was much better than Bagwell.

 

I remember him showing up in the WWF as Scott Studd before his WCW run and working a pretty decent long match with someone - I wish I could remember who it was, but I do know it aired on Prime Time Wrestling.

 

Repo Man

 

Yes, Barry Darsow is a favorite (at least on this board), but I'm talking specifically about the silly-ass Repo Man character, which always made me smile. Great laugh, great catchphrase, great costume. Darsow had a "main event" run with Smash (as far as tag teams go in the WWF anyway), but he still went all-in and embraced this goofy shit, even though he had to know he wouldn't be headlining anything with it.

 

Curt Hennig/West Texas Rednecks/Rap is Crap

 

This was pure and utter WrestleCrap, but Hennig embraced it and turned himself and his cohorts babyface in the process (Dubya C Dubya never acknowledged that, but the fans sure did).

I might think of more later, but off the top of my head...

 

Scotty Riggs/Anton

 

I was the only one who liked him in ECW and cheered his heel turn against RVD. I also thought he was much better than Bagwell.

 

I remember him showing up in the WWF as Scott Studd before his WCW run and working a pretty decent long match with someone - I wish I could remember who it was, but I do know it aired on Prime Time Wrestling.

 

Pretty sure it was Luger, think he's talked positively about the experience on Twitter.

 

I also liked Riggs, seem to remember he had a really good match with Kanyon on Thunder shortly after the Flock broke up, while he was still wearing an eyepatch. Also though he was quite good with his "I get better looking every single day" gimmick. Definitely better than Bagwell

God help me, but I've grown to become fond of Zandig. His wrestling and his matches are horrible and negative twenty stars but beginning with that "Danzig as Zandig" video on youtube and going through stuff... I just get a bad/funny enjoyment out of that man's work so much. Poor Josh, Eeegah, has to put up with me making a joke every week telling him a RAW "spoiler" and it being some fantasy booking of Zandig putting people through tables on fire. But what can I say? He's the most ultra violent force in professional wrestling who can stop a car with his hands!

God help me, but I've grown to become fond of Zandig. His wrestling and his matches are horrible and negative twenty stars but beginning with that "Danzig as Zandig" video on youtube and going through stuff... I just get a bad/funny enjoyment out of that man's work so much. Poor Josh, Eeegah, has to put up with me making a joke every week telling him a RAW "spoiler" and it being some fantasy booking of Zandig putting people through tables on fire. But what can I say? He's the most ultra violent force in professional wrestling who can stop a car with his hands!

Love the Zandig, appreciate and nurture the love of Zandig. It will keep you in your perfect wrestling chakra.