Wrestling promo botches

January 29, 2012 8:33 AM

Any shortlist of the top wrestling promo botches in history would include Lex Luger's t-shirt and the debut of the Shockmaster. But it is unlikely that anything will ever surpass Hulk Hogan setting up his Wrestlemania XIX feud with Vince McMahon.
posted by Trurl (20 comments total)

Heh - - I wouldn't call that Luger clip a botch - - I enjoyed his blundering charm.
posted by fairmettle at 8:39 AM on January 29

OMG the Shockmaster. Obviously, the falling over was a mistake, but the silver Stormtrooper helmet? That was planned. They thought that a glitterbombed Halloween mask would get the menace and mystery of the Shockmaster over just so. That's the amazing part.

(Also, I have no idea who Ashley Think is, but Hulk Hogan really doesn't seem to like her. He keeps saying "F you, Ashley Think"...)
posted by running order squabble fest at 8:41 AM on January 29 [5 favorites]

Of course, that was not Hogan's first trip to Botchville.
posted by Trurl at 8:51 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]

Personally, I think the debut of the Shockmaster is way worse than Hulk Hogan accidentally calling himself gay. Although, he flubbed more lines than that, from the sound of it -- "I had a match with a rock!"

But, like running order squabble fest says, Shockmaster's costume is just awful. The falling can be overlooked, the helmet cannot.
posted by asnider at 8:51 AM on January 29

I am so. Upset.
posted by Venadium at 9:26 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]

Gene Okerlund swears on camera

Owen Hart promo
posted by maurice at 9:29 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]

That having been said, there's something very nostalgic in that glitterbombed Stormtrooper helmet - it really speaks to an age when the audience of a wrestling match were asked to do a lot of the conceptual work, to make up for what they were actually seeing.

It reminds me a lot, in fact, of "tendon strength". When you had a wrestler who looked like the archetypal "brawler" at the point where the bodybuilder physique was starting to become the norm rather than the exception - the commentators would speaking in awestruck tones of their "tendon strength" - to explain why, despite having very little muscle tone, they were able to match heavily-muscled types blow for blow. This seemed to happen in particular with second-generation wrestlers on the southern circuit - Erik Watts, Barry Windham, Dustin Rhodes - perhaps because they moved into the main events before their physiques had caught up, or because the South was the last flower of the Brooklyn Brawler/Arn Anderson line of wrestling manhood.
posted by running order squabble fest at 9:38 AM on January 29 [5 favorites]

@maurice - Thank you for the Gene Okerlund clip. I just laughed for about 5 minutes over a 29-second clip.
posted by kuanes at 9:41 AM on January 29

I'm sure you guys know about Botchamania, but if you don't ... there goes the rest of your day.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:46 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]

It's too bad pro wrestling isn't still around. Those were some entertaining days.
posted by cjorgensen at 9:52 AM on January 29 [2 favorites]

Personally, I think the debut of the Shockmaster is way worse than Hulk Hogan accidentally calling himself gay.

You have to distinguish between the lameness of the gimmick and the lameness of the execution. Other than tripping over a 2x4 that hadn't been there during rehearsal, the Shockmaster correctly did what was asked him - as admittedly little as that was.

Hogan, on the other hand, was a heavily seasoned veteran trying to set up a match for the promotion's most important annual event. And not only did he botch "right man at the right time", he clumsily set it up for a second try and then botched that. "Gay" for "guy" coming after that was just the cherry on the sundae.
posted by Trurl at 10:02 AM on January 29

way worse than Hulk Hogan accidentally calling himself gay.

I don't get it. Yeah, I get that he botched his line. Hogan was supposed to say "some guy" and he said "some gay". Must be some pun. I never get puns. Oh, now I get it, Hogan's supposed to a straight character and he says he's gay by accident. How embarrassing for him. I can see how that shall never be surpassed.
posted by three blind mice at 10:48 AM on January 29

Don't forget Booker T.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 11:43 AM on January 29

Hulk's new idea falls short.
posted by Splunge at 12:48 PM on January 29

Hey does anyone have a working link for this awesome video posted last February ("That's the most illegal thing in the history of Wrestling!!")?
posted by mannequito at 3:37 PM on January 29

Try this?

That little head-in-hands, turning away from the camera (presumably because corpsing) moment from Booker T after he N-bombs Hulk Hogan is kind of adorkable.
posted by running order squabble fest at 3:41 PM on January 29

Sure, it's right here.
posted by churl at 3:43 PM on January 29

This doesn't seem like that much of a blooper. Just seems like a bit of a tied tongue.

Now, the time Vince ran up to the ring, jumped in and tore his ass muscles? That was priceless.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 5:31 PM on January 29

The Shockmaster Returns.
posted by milquetoast at 7:06 PM on January 29

It's not so much a botch as a terrible promo, but our man Johnny Ace has some instructions for us with regard to getting it.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:05 AM on January 30