Today we’re going for a bit of a niche topic, but a niche topic with passionate fans. Some of you are wrestling fans and will know whereof I speak. Myself, I got way into wrestling in 7th or 8th grade. Not the real wrestling mind you; that would have involved athletic ability and an insane amount of self-discipline, and like Katy Kat wearing clothes, that’s just not
Nope, I’m talking about fake wrestling, or better yet, rigged wrestling. Yes, the matches are pre-determined, yes no one’s actually trying to hurt the other guy, (most of the time), but it still hurts being on the receiving end of a dropkick, suplex, or body slam. Or so I would imagine. I’m far too fragile to find out myself.
When I came in the Valentine Brothers were tag team champions, and they cheated. Bad guys, they were or, in wrestling parlance, “heels.” Since I was in Catholic school at the time I rooted for the good guys, they guys who played by the rules, no matter how many times those rules cost them. Finally, the tag team of Ivan Putski and Tito Santana, (both good and ethnic!), caught up with the Valentines and took the tag team titles. I was ecstatic, as dumb 12-year-olds tend to get about these things. No doubt my father sighed and put all his hopes for living out his athletic dreams on my sister.
Since then I’ve fallen away from wrestling. I find the real-life stories about what goes on behind the scene fascinating, but the in-ring action doesn’t do much for me anymore. In a nod to my youth, however, this week I thought we’d go draft our favorite tag te…No, Balls, tag team wrestling. WRESTLING!! Goddammit I should have seen that one co…you know what, not even going to finish that.
You’re drafting wrestling tag teams. Current, past, living, dead. Only restriction is that it has to be a team. And it can be a team with more than two members, because as Balls will tell you, the best things come in threes. Although simultaneously gets kinda tricky in those circumstances.
Our commissioner is the late Bobby Heenan
who managed, (i.e. cheated) many a tag team to success, and who I just learned died of complication related to throat cancer, which sucks. The Brain was an all-timer.
With the first pick I am taking The Road Warriors
a/k/a The Legion of Doom, individually known as Animal and Hawk. These guys were the absolute shit back in what I’d consider the heyday, (i.e., the time when I was really into it), of wrestling, and legitimately terrifying guys. Hawk eventually succumbed to a heart attack at 46. Animal eventually succumbed to a heart attack, but at 60 and on a hotel bed during or after celebrating his anniversary with his wife. Wrestling is not good for a lengthy life-span, but at their peak The Road Warriors were, in my opinion, the absolute best when it came to tag team wrestling. What a rush!
On that cheerful note
Doom, with Ron Simmons and Butch Reynolds.
Ron Simmons was a bad man.
Gumby’s pick is the Dream Team
The Bushwackers!
.
They licked each other’s heads for luck before matches!
New Zealand should have sued the WWE for defamation for those two.
They were actually from New Zealand. I looked it up, because I am a weirdo! Sorry, Kiwi’s, you own those head lickers!
Great pick!!
The Godwinns…their story was that they were Arkansas pig farmers. OG MAGA.
Seems kind of redundant; is there any other occupation in Arkansas?
Prison guards?
Meth manufacturers
Federal cash aid recipient?
The Midnight Express – OG version.
The Twin Towers! Pete Carroll even believes in these Twin Towers!
I assume their finishing move was some kind of dual clothesline called the “Steel Beam”?
3rd round old school All Star Wrestling MLK 1973 or so… The Baron and the Mad Dog!
Wait…the guy on the right isn’t Mike Ditka, is it?
I’m pretty sure they wrestled in hot oil….
I’ll allow it.
Why didn’t I watch this wrestling growing up in the early 90’s?
they can put me in a spinning toe hold anytime…
The Camel Toe?
This may be the save that sends Wrexham up.
https://twitter.com/MrMatthewCFB/status/1645457160292163584
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgwEikQa4ZY&ab_channel=LMM
nWo. No further questions.
RIP Scott Hall. That man had some demons.
Hearing that news was Layne Staley Pt. 2.
“That’s shitty, but not a surprise.”
The Wild Samoans, managed by Cape. Lou Albano.
My brother and I had a Little League coach who looked a lot like Lou Albano. Later on his wife left him. I’m not sure where I’m going with that story.
grumble grumble me neither but let’s see where this takes us grumble grumble
The only thing of value I can imagine a bank in Kentucky having inside that is worth mowing down a bunch of people is…more guns.
My cousin is a middle school teacher in Louisville, who is thankfully in Florida on vacation this week.
Look Blax, if we start banning guns then only bad guys will have guns. Just like if we start banning heroin, domestic violence, murder, rape, and things like that, then only bad guys will deal heroin or otherwise rape and pillage and…hold on, I’m being told to shut the fuck up in my earpiece.
I assume it’s full of oxycodone pills, that’s the in-state currency, is it not?
If ‘Justified’ taught me anything it’s that you are correct in this assumption.
But Raylan didn’t care about “shitkicker on shitkicker crime.”
I’m not sure Raylan is really the ideal lawman. Coolest lawman, certainly, but not the ideal lawman.
I don’t think that his handling of Dewey Crowe was by the book.
Wrexham look like they are bottling the title race. Pity, that.
Is the game on anywhere?
As for Wrexham, it’s easy to root for Rob, Ryan, and that whole underdog town story, until you take a step back and realize that you’re essentially rooting for the Yankees to win the Double A title. I still hope they go up to League One, but am not going to mind if they have to earn the second spot through the play-offs.
They won!
Got a text from my father. 3-2 with a save against a PK in the 97 minute? That’s insane.
That game was such a huge win. I can’t believe we might make a promotion finally. Last season was disappointing, and even more disappointing after watch the show to relive it all again. I have suffered with this team for 2 whole years. This must be what Rams fans felt like before The Greatest Show on Turf.
And right after Matt Vinterari murdered it.
Hey! Now that we’re having mass shootings in banks, I actually believe we’re one step closer to routine gun violence happening to bank executives and, thus, meaningful action on gun reform.
Though, once it gets to that point, I’m think i may be more inclined to offer gun subsidies than legal restrictions on the average bank executive shooting American.
Kids are one thing, but rich old white men is quite another! We’re banning everything down to slingshots!
-The GOP
Steve Scalise getting shot and then hopping right back onto the gun-humping bandwagon (using a wheelchair assist, of course) killed any fantasies I had about the GOP’s views on gun violence changing once it hit close enough to home.
Look, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
Steve, this is gonna hurt.
In the second round, those Divas of Doom… Beth and Natalya
I will manage them both in the ring and out.
Leave it to me to go GLOW early… c’mon… catch up guys…
Thanks for the featured image, whoever did it. Completely spaced on that.
It was me. I know, I know, you don’t use the word “hero” very often…
[makes “Yoink” gesture] Roddy Piper and Ricky Steamboat! So friggin’ entertaining.
I never knew they teamed up. Piper would be high on my list for individual wrestlers.
So would Steamboat for that matter. One of the best in-ring guys ever, but he could not match Piper for unmitigated shit-talking. But then few could.
In my opinion Piper was *the* greatest entertainer that wrestling ever produced.
Ric Flair for me, but Piper is right there.
One million percent agree!
Just glad I didn’t have to give up more than a 2nd here.
Rock n Sock Connection
The guys that got it started for me, Ivan Putski and Tito Santana
One of your buddies skipped leg day on the regular.
Lo Shirai and Mio Shirai
/turning Japanese – I really think so
// may not win much – but will have lots of fun losin…
Next pick and personal favorites:
The Hart Foundation!
These guys should have gone in the first round.
Early 1st round.
Brett and Jim Neidhart, I assume, not the later one with Jim and Owen Hart?
Correct.
The only reason I wouldn’t take them first is that Brett Hart was such a great singles wrestler that I often forget he was in a great tag team as well.
“Hitman” is not a nickname I could see flying today, even to describe a Sean Peyton linebacker.
Christian and Edge. They were absolutely hilarious and could perform. When they broke up, tag team wrestling just didn’t mean as much to me anymore.
1. Gonna steal this one right out from under Horatio’s nose (or from straight out of his sex dungeon, as the case may be):
King Kong Bundy, Little Tokyo, and Lord Littlebrook
I mean come on.
https://youtu.be/8yKP8K66aPU
I almost put in a rule banning midget wrestlers, (Hey, it was the term used back then!), so as not to hurt Mxylyplx’s feelings, but then decided I didn’t care.
British Bulldogs!
What’s a Katy Kat?
Letterkenny. Wayne’s sister. Her forte isn’t putting some clothes on.
And that’s what I appreciates about her.
Though she’s no Bonnie McMurray…
Ah I haven’t gotten around to Letterkenny yet. Appreciate it.
You NEED to watch it!
Pitter patter, let’s get at ‘er.
and once started it, you ALSO need to watch Shoresy.
I would dare say Shoresy is better than Letterkenny.
You’re not wrong. They need to step it up and get to Season 2 with a quickness.
Two-Man Power Trip, Triple H and Stone Cold Steve Austin. They may not have been as long as most other tag teams, but they were one of the most dominant.
Great Legion of Doom pick. Got a few but my draft consultant, Steve Keim, suggests I pick my choices in a specific order to maximize potential…..for an 0-17 season.
Hulk and Macho Man were my early tag team cheering interest.
Nikolai Volkoff and The Iron Sheik!!
The WCW’s Four Horsemen! There will be no encore!
Rock ‘n’ Roll Express!