Making An Entrance!

Making an Entrance: The theatrical term entrance, is the appearance of a character on screen or stage.

Dude, imagine being able to bring an epic level of fanfare every time you turn up anywhere. It would be so much fun to add production values to real life like that. Heavy metal theme song, fireworks, flames, lighting effects and signature taunting would be epic. Surrounded by heavily muscled roman guards. I want that every time I enter a room. Forever.

No holds barred, motherfucker. Just such a spot-on way to indtimidate 50,000 people at once. Maybe on my 60th birthday my family can buy me this as a grand entrance. Or maybe they can set it up for the day I enter prison.

Or this:

Total Badasses: CM Punk

So, a new king of modern sports entertainment has been crowned, or so it seems. I've mentioned WWE and wrestling in general (neither of the 'W's in WWE stand for wrestling anymore) - and all of my previous posts have been about the past glories of a few breakthrough WWE stars. Over the last fortnight I've been lucky enough to witness the dawn of what could be an entirely new era. The man at the helm is CM Punk. Here's him "speaking his mind" before his final PPV appearance on Sunday.



So he's just strutted out there onto the set of a live television show, and gone on a 10 minute verbatim rant about how much his boss, his colleagues and the industry are just... well, fucked. He (almost) breaks character and kayfabe about 200 times and doesn't get cut off 'til the last second. Hmmmm. Anyways, regardless of whether this was real or 'worked', it was an incredible piece of promo work. Big time. A really big deal.

So here I am, a long standing fan of Punk's - waiting to see if the WWE has pulled off an incredible on-screen acknowledgement of their mistreatment of their talent and their fans, or just let a very serious embarrasment happen at the hands of their most well-rounded performer. I'd love to let it rip on my boss like that.

For more total badasses, click here.

The 450 Splash

Yeah yeah, so I enjoy the current WWE product. So what? Go fuck yourselves.

Nah just kidding. But seriously, I haven't gotten over the loss of classic dudes like "Macho Man Randy Savage", "Brutus Beefcake" and "Typhoon" either... But none of the aforementioned could pull off anything like this.



Boom. The 450 splash. 450, because it adds another 90 degrees to what otherwise would just be a front-flip. Splash, because you let your chest smash down on the other guy as hard as possible. Then you pin him. Then you win.



Or, you can springboard it to the outside of the ring, like my boy here John Morrison. Boom. Somebody give this guy the strap already!

Anyways - yeah, wrestling is gay and whatever, but none of you "beat poetry" fans can do a fucking springboard 450. So yeah... Gladiatorial Athleticism, or something.

The Irresistible Force vs. The Immovable Object

No, not the Omnipotence Paradox.... This was dubbed the "Biggest Mainevent in Sports Entertainment". Hulk Hogan versus Andre the Giant, WrestleMania III.

It was Wrestling's peak, a peak the WWE have only just barely managed to reach a couple of times since. This was Hulkamania, the entire country (America) got behind this balding, over-the-top, spirit-of-the-80s muscleman.

The most popular and charismatic wrestler of all time, deserved the most fearsome and credible of opponents. Andre The Giant, a 7-foot, awkwardly-clumsy ogre of a man, was widely believed to be undefeatable, due to his sheer size. The marketing and build up to the event was second to none, and for the event, I think the WWF broke every attendance and pay-per-view record (at the time) by a country mile.

The match, however - hasn't quite stood the test of time as well as the "mythology" of the event. Luckily, for the most part- the quality and athleticism of wrestling matches since has evolved well past the "acting" and "storyline" elements. But, I digress.

Here's a dramatized run through of the match - pretty impressive... Especially the ending - watch the crowd lose their shit. :)

Pow! - Scorpion Kick!

Check that shit out, bro! Fucken nice save!

Also:



"SCORPION KICK!!"

The first guy is Rene Higuita. He's some sort of Colombian soccer psychopath... Invented that amazing move, but then also made a catastrophic blunder in one game, which was probably due to him doing something as silly as the Scorpion Kick in a match. Still - its pretty fucking cool, so I can't blame him.

That second guy is John Morrison - marking out hardcore for this guy over the last couple of years, the guy puts on such great matches. If the WWE knows what they're doing, they'll get a major title on him sooner rather than later - the guy's got the moveset of Mutant Jesus.

Fuck, Scorpion Kicks are amazing. I want to go and "Kick one of my enemies asses" with one.

Shawn Michaels

The Heartbreak Kid. The Showstopper. Mr Wrestlemania. Shawn Michaels.

In a 20+ year career, this guy did it all. This guy performed at like 16 Wrestlemanias, and ripped the lid off of most of them, won the championship 4 times - won 2 Royal Rumbles... and none of this "oh man, look at the size of this monster who can't wrestle at all!" bullshit - the guy's probably not even 6 feet tall, and went for an hour with Bret Hart, and brought the house down in the most pure display of wrestling the WWE had ever seen. Then he did it again, and again... His matches with Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle are some of the best shit I've ever seen.

Anyways - so then WrestleMania 25 (2009) rolls around, and he decides he wants to take on the most indestructibly-booked wrestler in the history of the universe, The Undertaker. The match was a classic, incredible emotion and great work - but Shawn loses... plus, the pair make a few mistakes in the match. The crowd go ballistic anyway. One more year rolls around, and we're at WrestleMania 26... like a week ago. Shawn decides he can beat Undertaker, and tries again. They bring the house down once more, but Shawn loses. Shit.

So his match last week was his last, and I personally don't think we'll see anything like the Heartbreak Kid again. Youtube some of his shit... its phenomenal. Such a badass rockstar - like a member of Van Halen was up there kicking everyone in the face. The glam-heavy-rock movement ended in like 1996 and Shawn just kept going, winning more people over and continuing to kick total ass, without adjusting his look... like, at all. What a champion.

Would've loved to have seen more matches from Shawn Michaels - at 44 years of age, he was still outperforming 90 percent of the performers in the entire business. Salut, HBK.

Wild Pegasus

WILD motherfucking PEGASUS. Take that!

Just two badass words, next to each other, being totally badass, and sounding cool. Man, I want to ride one of these. Hurry up, genetic engineering!

The Pegasus has to be pretty much the greatest mythological creature ever devised, but one being free, untamed in the wild just makes this whole thing great.

But there's one part of this whole thing that isn't great. Here it is:


Meet "Wild Pegasus" - aka Chris Benoit. I'll let you guys use Wikipedia for most of this - but long story short: Benoit used to wrestle (in the '90s) under the name "Wild Pegasus" on his way to the top of the WWE.

He was a total badass the whole time, and had some of the most incredible wrestling skills the business had ever seen. However, at one point in 2007 - he snapped and murdered his family, before killing himself.

Anyways, this is old news, and I hope - no longer a place to stir further debate on wrestling issues. Regardless, the concept of a Wild Pegasus would be much cooler without this tarnishing it. Watch some of Chris' early work, or even his WM20 match with Shawn Michaels and Triple H. He was really, really good before he went crazy.

Ok, so back to it then. Here we go with something really awesome and mindblowing to leave you with a less sour taste in your mouth. Wild. Pegasus.

Ladder Matches

Ladder matches own. They're the ultimate "test of determination" for a pro wrestler. Ladder matches generally take place between two dudes, at the end of a long series of storied bouts. The winner must retrieve the "title belt" from high above the ring, by climbing a ladder in the middle of the ring. His opponent has to try and stop him. Generally you get "really hurt" in this type of match.

Here's something historic from the more recent yesteryears of Pro Wrestling (from a TLC match, a more 'extreme' version of the Ladder match), that genuinely took my breath away.



Ouch.

Kurt Angle is cool

I figured we should get through the obligatory wrestling post sooner rather than later. Kurt Angle is incredible. Not only is he legit as fuck, since he won a Gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympic Games...



He left shoot wrestling to go on to be one of the most successful WWE and TNA champions of all time.



Some of the stuff this guy did for the Pro Wrestling business is incredible. Sadly his amazing series of matches with (MMA Champion... also legit as fuck) Brock Lesnar will be forever remembered for the most Earth-Shattering botch ever.



Ouch.