Worst Characters Ever!: Glacier

When it comes to wrestling gimmicks, none leave me colder (geddit?) than Glacier. Glacier’s gimmick was that he was a martial arts guy, not in an MMA shoot style, but it in that really cheese-tastic exhibition style whereby a guy would stand there and do a series of moves for no other reason than to show that he can do a series of moves (I think it might be called Kata, but I might wrong).
From April 1996, promos for Glacier started appearing on Nitro, they were very cryptic at first, but then he was finally revealed after about 4-5 months to be... Glacier – the Sub Zero of WCW.
Glacier’s entrance involved the house lights dimming and blue laser beams being shot across the crowd, the awful, awful music played and it would, erm, start to snow. I’m not kidding, fake snow would fall from the ceiling. At this point Glacier enters looking exactly like Sub-Zero did in Mortal Kombat 2 (when he was given a waistcoat and funny face-paint to differentiate him from the array of generic ninjas of varying colours). According to the ring announcer, his outfit has an evil face on his back because he knows that evil is always behind him, and he wore a helmet which was over 400 years old! No really, even though it looked new, it was actually handed down from his sensei.
After Glacier’s long-drawn-out entrance (it usually took about two or three minutes after he did all his fannying about in the ring, he would bow to his opponent and then bow to the referee. With the house lights still an eerie shade of blue and the snow still falling, the match would begin.
Glacier sucked in the ring. There’s no better way of putting it, the guy sucked. In his matches he utilised his martial arts to do some pretty looking roundhouse kicks and some stupid take-downs.
I can’t emphasise enough just how shit this gimmick was; with all its build-up, high production values (over half a million dollars were pumped into the production of his entrance), and hype, you’d think that he’d at least be half decent... you are wrong, you are so wrong.

Worst Characters Ever!: Loch Ness

As I've mentioned in my last post, I've been watching WCW Nitro, I'm into early-96 and the Cruiserweight division is starting to take shape with the introduction of a dedicated title.

Anyway, the character I want to talk about today is Loch Ness, older fans may recognise him as Giant Haystacks; but this isn't about the man, it is about the gimmick.

As part of the Dungeon of Doom stable (which contained other members such as The Giant, Zodiac, the Yeti, the aforementioned Kamala, and Kevin Sullivan), Loch Ness dominated most of his matches. He stood in the ring, turning slowly and not selling moves until he could either fall on his opponent or drop the elbow. Now I say elbow, it was more like getting a face full of back fat, if you've ever seen a stunt man jump off a building onto one of those massive inflatable pillow things, that's the kind of effect I mean.

So Loch Ness's in-ring skills makes Rob Terroid look like Chris Jericho, his promos were conducted by Mullet of the South Jimmy Hart, when he did speak his accent was clearly English, and his character was English and name after a lake.

I know what you're thinking: what about the Loch Ness Monster? I hate to be pedantic but the lake and the monster are not the same thing. It's like Frankenstein and his monster, they are two different things. This being put aside, even if the name of the monster is Loch Ness, he's certainly not English. For our American readers who aren't the best a geography, Scotland is not part of England - they are separate countries which fall under the rule of the United Kingdom (the clue's in the name).

Logic aside, Loch Ness left WCW quite abruptly due to illness, he then died of fat.

Worst Characters Ever!: Disco Inferno

“He’s so cocky, he’s so cool, he’s just a disco dancing fool”

I’ve not mentioned it until now, but to mark the 15th anniversary of the start of WCW Nitro earlier this month, I decided to watch it from the beginning (I'm up to Januaey 1996). I’ve read a few books on WCW, and some wrestling biographies, so had a sense of all the backstage bullshit, but I realised that I hadn’t watched it until it had gone past saving.

I’ve been watching it with an open mind and, comparing it with Raw in ’95, WCW were actually putting out a half-decent show. The main-events were mostly bullshit, with the belt being passed every other episode between Hogan, Flair, Savage and Luger, but some of the mid-card stuff was genuinely excellent. With stars like Sabu, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Jushin Liger, Dean Malenko, Psychosis, Alex Wright, Konan and (the very underrated) Johnny B. Badd, appearing most weeks and putting on some stellar matches, it is actually worth watching. This is WCW pre-nWo, pre-Outsiders, pre-Bischoff as character; the show had momentum and energy and the formula can still be seen today in the better episodes of Impact. The commentary was pretty dire. Bobby Heenan made for an obvious heel colour commentator, Bischoff was the play-by-play guy and Steve “Mongo” McMichael also as a colour commentator. Steve McMichael is plain awful; during every show he sits with some ugly dog called Pepe and bickers with Bobby the Brain. In a match between Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit, Eddie hits a Tornado DDT, Mongo comes out with the line: “Wow that move has never been done on this planet and if you think you've seen it before you have more rocks in your head than Heenan.” Hmm...

Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked. WCW also had some terrible characters, and the one I want to share with you today is Disco Inferno. Disco Inferno is basically a wrestler based on John Travolta’s character in Saturday Night Fever, well, kind of. Mr Inferno would come to the ring dressed in disco garb, and do a weird wiggly dance whist pointing his hands and the most lacklustre way imaginable. Was he meant to be shit? Was that his gimmick? I would have loved to have been at the meeting when someone came up with this character. “How about a wrestler who’s a disco dancer?”, “I love it, let’s put him on TV”. Take a look at the clips and try and understand how the hell this guy lasted for 6 years in WCW, and won a few titles? The mind boggles, it really does.

Worst Characters Ever: The Shockmaster!

This must get the award for the most retarded character ever conceived in the head of a wrestling booker.

In pre-Nitro WCW, heels Sid Vicious and the tag team Harlem Heat were set to take on Sting, The British Bulldog, and 'a mystery partner'. Just as it seemed that Vicious et al had the upper-hand, Sting introduced their secret weopon... wait for it... the Shockmaster.

Take a fat guy who can't wrestle, put him in some tight jeans, make him wear glittery Storm Trooper helmet and tattered cape and you get... the Shockmaster... grrrrr:



If the Shockmaster wasn't funny enough on his own, his entrance made sure that he would be sucked into void of shite forever.

For many wrestling fans, the Shockmaster is legendary for its absolute rubbishness, and it for that reason I'm sharing it with you today.

Worst wrestlers: Nailz

One of my favourite things about pro wrestling is the capacity of its writers to produce some of the worst characters to appear on screen or in print. In an irregular series, I'm going to explore some of these characters and share their highlights with you.
First, we have Nailz.
In March 1992, Nailz burst onto WWF superstars to continue his feud with the Big Boss Man. Of course, the viewers had not be privy to this feud, for this feud did not occur in the squared-circle, but in the prison where Boss Man was a prison guard. Nailz sought revenge from the Boss Man for his incarceration, for which Nailz protested his innocence. Even as a ten year old, watching this, I knew that something didn't quite make sense. Why was Nailz pissed off at the Boss Man, surely Nailz should have been more pissed off with police who had investigated his alleged crimes, the attornies in the trial who had failed to defend his case, the members of the jury who had reached the wrong verdict and the judge who had laid down his sentence. Damn, even the guy who drove the prison van from the courthouse to the penetentiary was more to blame for Nailz's imprisoned state. Okay, so on reflection, it may be considered an irrational response from Nailz, but one doesn't know how they would react when falsely convicted for a crime. Perhaps Nailz's misdirected rage was symptomatic of this harsh injustice.
It was when Boss Man had just beaten Dave Roulette that Nailz made his disgruntlement known to the Boss Man,



Again, even as a ten year old, something din't rest well with me. The main question being, why was Nailz still in his orange prison overalls? This made no sense to me and makes no sense today. If Nailz had been released from prison, then surely his prison overalls would have remained property of the prison. If Nailz had escaped from prison, then his mere appearence on a live television broadcast would have quickly alerted the authorities to his location. The only other option was that Nailz was on day release, but even then I am not convinced that the prison would have allowed the removal of the orange jumpsuit. But I'm getting bogged down in the logic of it, so its best to move on.
By the end of Nailz's and Boss Man's first encounter, the drama has already been established and the main point of contention has been put into play. The foundations for the feud are firmly laid with Nailz stealing the Boss Man's treasured night stick.
But why Nailz? Why don't you like the Boss Man?



Holy shit, this guy is not to be messed with. He's a psycho! With the theft of Boss Man's night stick, Nailz establishes the existence of a metaphorical prison, in which Boss Man is imprisoned in, but is also free to go about his everyday life and continue gainful employment as a wrestler. On re-watching this promo, I am reminded of the big lovable accountant from the American Office, Kevin; so from now on I will watch the Office and fear the Kevin will lock Jim and Pam in a metaphorical prison and throw away the metaphorical key and allow them to get on with their everyday lives as usual - it's a scary thought.


So, with Boss Man in hospital, he has time to reflect and returns to his job as a wrestler, and is quite annoyed by the actions of Mr Nailz. It seems that night sticks are incredibly sentinmental items, with each prison guard being given one night stick during his career and is encouraged to nurture it as if it were a child or expensive plant. Indeed, so stong is the bond between a prison guard and his night stick that guard and stick are obliged to stay together, even if the guard has a career change. The stick stays with the guard until the stick is due to retire and put out to pasture.
So with Boss Man's attachment to his stick at stake, and the fact that in America it is impossible to get hold of any other night sticks whatsoever, the Boss Man challenged Nailz to a wrestling match to get his treasured night stick back.



With the high stakes of this match, it is difficult not to get emotional. After all, what follows is a match for the Boss Man's most treasured of possessions. With a fifteen foot pole and a psycho between him and his beautiful night stick, you know that Boss Man is in for the match of his career.



Wait, with Nailz's comments at the end of the match, perhaps we were wrong, perhaps it is we who are the monsters...