WWE: Sleazy, But Not The Sleaziest

10-30-02

Chris Garcia once wrestled under the name "Count Cuddly."

Yes, the WWE can claim that they were the first to break the necrophilia barrier, but still, this is hardly the first time that wrestling has been on the wrong side of appropriate programming, not even the first time for Vince and his crew.

First, in the early days, there were Nazis. Long before Hogan's Heroes, wrestling paraded Nazis around the ring both during and after the War. Baron Von Raschke, Karl Von Hess and Fritz Von Erich were all goose-stepping villains in the late 40s and 50s, with Von Raschke keeping it up into the 70s, when such a thing began to be frowned upon.

These wrong-doers were joined in the 1980s by Col. DeBeers, a South African all over apartheid. He feuded with Jimmy Snuka, frequently referring to him as inferior and a monkey. All of this was happening in the late 1980s, but since it was in the AWA, nobody noticed.

Early (W)WW(F)E wrongness seems pretty tame by today's standards. They received lots of flack for an angle in 1981 with Eddie Gilbert. Eddie had been legit injured in a car wreck, and on his (premature) return, they had Masked Superstar give him a series of swinging neckbreakers, and took him out on a stretcher.

They got more heat when they turned Sgt. Slaughter to join Sheik Adnan El-Kasey as a traitor to the US, just as the US was defending Kuwait. The angle brought good money when Hogan took on Slaughter in defense of the US.

In the 1990s, they added a lot of little things: chicks in thongs, Pimps and Porn Stars, and for the first time ever, Brian Pillman pulled a gun on Steve Austin.

When Eddie Gilbert ran the Alabama territory, he ran an angle that was quite famous at the time, and one that got the promotion tossed from some stations. Dirty White Boy, aka Tony Anthony, was deeply embroiled in a feud with Dr. Tom Pritchard. After several weeks, DWB's manager and the finest woman to ever grace Alabama, Dirty White Girl, came to a Pritchard interview segment with a black eye, claiming that White Boy beat her after his loss. Pritchard comforted her and then DWB came out and destroyed Pritchard, as DWG wiped off the brilliantly done make-up job. This angle did great business, won rave reviews, and got the territory in hot water after losing some stations.

ECW had plenty of angles that crossed lines. Paul Heyman wrote some famous moments, such as the first piledriver on a woman, the first instance of Hot Lesbian Action, and the Sandman being crucified. Many reporters were up in arms over many of these angles, and they frequently led to problems with the affiliates they ran on.

Simply part of a proud tradition...

WWF took many of the same concepts that Heyman had used in ECW and incorporated them into the product, helping the WWF get a slight edge back into WCW. The ECW legacy lives in today's product, particularly RAW, due to its content, and SmackDown!, since Paul E. is the booker.

The worst thing any promotion has ever done is from the late-80s in World Class Championship Wrestling. WCCW was run by Fritz Von Erich (Jack Adkisson), a former in-ring Nazi, turned into a superhero by fans of Dallas wrestling. His sons were the big stars, though they had a tendency to overdose in the middle of big programs.

The territory was in trouble by the 1987, so Fritz came up with a great idea. He would get attacked by the Iceman Parsons, Terry Gordy and the Angel of Death, then act as if he had a heart attack. The Dallas newscasts started to talk about another Von Erich tragedy, even though the whole thing was a work.

It's been done since, but the capper to the whole tasteless bit is what happened over the next few weeks. Every week they would give an update on Fritz's condition: if the house they pulled the week before was good, he would be getting better, if it had been bad, they would say Fritz had had a relapse and ask the fans to come to the shows to show their support for old Fritzy. This may be the lowest point in the history of wrestling promotion.

So, the next time you are about to complain about the level to which wrestling has sunk, remember that today's bookers are just building on the good work of times gone by.

Chris Garcia