30. SHAWN REFUSES TO PLAY DODGEBALL BECAUSE HE IS SAD

Few wrestlers bring more controversy to the table than Shawn Michaels.  Sure, he’s kind of a good worker sometimes, but mostly he’s just a whiny little bitch.  Back in 1997, Shawn was supposed to lose his WWF World Title to Sid, then go on to put over Bret Hart in the co-main event of Wrestlemania XIII.  He did neither.  Instead, Shawn claimed that his knee had a boo-boo, so he went out on a live “Thursday Raw Thursday” special and gave a tearful speech about how he “lost his smile” (a ripped-off plot point from the movie “City Slickers”).  He punctuated this performance by vacating the World Title and forking over the belt to then-WWF President Gorilla Monsoon.  Weeks later at that year’s Slammy Awards, it was obvious that Shawn’s knee was as good as it ever was, as he hopped around the stage and just generally made an ass of himself.  Shawn’s lost smile was prima-donna-douchebaggery at its worst, and his faithful fans have been trying to forget about it ever since…and hope the rest of us follow suit.  Ain’t gonna happen, kids.

29. SATURN MISALIGNED

Perry Saturn learned his in-ring craft from wrestling legend Killer Kowalski.  Perry learned his anger management skills from…well, nobody.  Perry’s most famous WWF match was a C-show squash that saw him totally flip his lid when Mike Bell (a local jobber) screwed up a move.  Saturn went freakazoid, legit beating the hell out of Mr. Bell.  Since no one pays attention to the C shows, the full match (with the full beating) aired before word of what happened got back to Vince.  For potentially setting up the company for a lawsuit (which never happened, as Bell knew better), Saturn was ripped a new one, and it was the beginning of the end for his WWF career.

28. GOLDBERG PLAYS THE GAME…BADLY

From the “He knows it’s all fake, right?” file: During the height of the Monday Night War in the late 90s, both the WWF and WCW sent representatives to some big media convention.  Respectively, HHH and Bill Goldberg carried the flags for their companies.  A still wet-behind-the-ears Goldberg decided to confront HHH in character and read him the riot act.  Reports state that HHH played it cool, while Goldberg looked like a complete ass, embarrassing both himself and his company (if, in fact, either was ever truly capable of feeling shame).  This also didn’t do Bill any favors when he came to the WWE years later to find that HHH was Raw’s top dog.  The burial of Goldberg ranks high on the list of WWWFE blunders (and that’s a whole separate countdown), but frankly, the creature from Planet Goldberg should have come back down to Earth for that fateful day on the convention floor.

27. CAULIFLOWER FOLLY

If there’s one thing that’s encouraging about today’s WWE, it’s that if one makes a good showing, a “temp job” may be extended into a regular gig.  Such was the case for the legendary Chavo Guerrero Sr.  Chavo Sr. was brought in to side with his son, Chavo Jr., as Junior turned against his uncle, Eddie Guerrero (Chavo Sr.’s little brother).  Chavo Sr. was supposed to come in for a couple weeks of TV, but the guy was so damn entertaining in his role that they kept him around, pushing him as the hilarious windbag, “Chavo Classic.”

And “classic” is a good word to describe his behavior at 2004’s annual Cauliflower Alley convention.  Classic got liquored up and made a spectacle of himself, annoying the hell out of everyone by bragging about his new income.  Note to aspiring wrestlers: Public drunkenness is frowned upon by WWE management.  So after a little good old-fashioned public humiliation (in the form of getting pantsed in the ring by Jacqueline), all was well again.  Classic received a generous renewed push, complete with a Cruiserweight Title reign.  Classic thanked the company by no-showing a weekend’s worth of house shows without bothering to tell his son or his brother where the hell he was.  When he turned up again, they had him drop the strap and sent him packing.  The Chavos were easily Smackdown’s best act in 2004, so the real losers here were the fans of Smackdown…and Classic’s liver, of course.

26. CHECK YOUR MATE: QUEEN TAKES KING

The one freakin’ time Jerry Lawler thinks of someone other than himself, and look what happens.  When Lawler’s wife, Stacy “The Cat” Carter was fired by the WWF in February, 2001, “The King” quit the company in protest.  He probably figured that he could just finagle his way into a juicy WCW deal, and it was a great plan, except WCW went out of business a month later.  Was Lawler a victim of bad judgment or bad timing?  Well, both.  And just because the guy’s life wasn’t already resembling a country music song at this point, the golddiggin’ little skank left him and shacked up with a Dupp brother (in one of Lawler’s condos, no less).  She broke Lawler’s heart and absconded off with half his “Kingdom” in the ensuing divorce.

Lawler further disgraced himself with a series of soliloquies on his website, pining away for his lost ladylove.  The staunchest Lawler fan couldn’t defend his hero after this public whine-a-thon, but Lawler’s long list of enemies were on cloud nine.  Honky Tonk Man, in particular, had a month’s worth of field days.  All that was left was for Lawler to crawl back to Vince and beg for his job back.  Vince agreed, and gave Lawler a new WWF deal that wasn’t nearly as good as his old one.  The night after Survivor Series 2001, “The King” reclaimed his “throne” at the broadcast table, where he remains to this day.  If “schmuck” were an event in the Olympics, Lawler would have won the gold, silver, and bronze medals in the 2001 games.  But at least he missed the Invasion.

25. SYCHO SQUEEGIE

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”  Sid Vicious shoulda listened.  Wrestling’s real-life tough guys aren’t always the giants.  Tom Billington, Ronnie Garvin, and Bad News Allen are just a few of the regular-sized guys who were pretty bad mofos in their day.  Another scrappy little fella was the late Brian Pillman, who played for the Cincinnati Bengals, and had more throat operations than some people have had haircuts.  Tough wrestlers tend to beat up dumb wrestlers (see Rude v. Neu), and such was the case when Pillman handed Sid his dumbass in a bar brawl during the early 90s.  Sid wanted revenge, so he stalked outside to look for a weapon.  The best he could come up with was a squeegie, which he menacingly brought back into the bar with him.  When Sid tells you that he “left Pillman in stitches,” he’s telling the truth.  But that’s only because Pillman (and the rest of the room) laughed Sid right into the history books.

24. THE GREAT FALL OF CHYNA

At her peak in the late 90s, Joanie “Chyna” Laurer was one of the most popular superstars in the WWF locker room, regardless of which restroom she used.  But like most celebrities who were in the right place at the right time, the money ran out, the ego over-inflated, and the drugs took their toll.  Joanie has since been visible by “singing” with her band The Chyna Dolls, co-starring in a porno with her boyfriend/punching bag Sean Waltman, and being ridiculed on a daily basis by Howard Stern.

Speaking of Stern, when Joanie appeared on his show in January, 2005, she took the art of the celebrity meltdown to a new high.  She was disoriented and incoherent, telling Howard, “If you had a line (of cocaine), I’d do it right now.”  She stripped off her dress, then wondered why she was running around topless.  And the fun really started when her ex-fiancee, Sean “X-Pac” Waltman did a phone-in.  Joanie is still regarded by many as “The Ninth Wonder Of The World,” as in,  they wonder what the hell she was on went she had wrestling’s greatest breakdown which aired on Stern’s E! show from January 25 – 26, 2005.

23. THE UGLY AMERICAN

Vince Russo deserves all the credit and blame he gets for his many successes and failures as a writer.  But when Vinny Ru launched into a xenophobic tirade that set up his employer for a colossal racial discrimination lawsuit, all the swerves in the world couldn’t help Russo avoid being slapped with the label of “Wrestling’s Dumbest Loudmouth.”  Russo did an interview that explained his philosophy when it comes to booking foreign talent.  The catastrophe was transcribed in Russo’s unauthorized autobiography, “The Death Of WCW” by R.D. Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez.  Here are the lowlights:

“You will never ever, ever, ever, ever see the Japanese wrestlers or the Mexican wrestlers over in American mainstream wrestling.  I’m an American.  If I’m watching wrestling here in America, I don’t give a shit about a Japanese guy.  I don’t give a shit about a Mexican guy.  I’m from America, and that’s what I want to see.”

Dumb actions speak louder than dumb words, so Russo’s “point” was proven as he booked Mexican wrestlers in a “pinata on a pole” match, and booked Japanese wrestlers to do…well, nothing.  Said discrimination suit saw Time Warner (WCW’s parent company) shell out big bucks, thanks in no small part to Russo’s big mouth.

22. HOSS FUHRER

I never thought I’d be quoting the Washington Post here in the ‘Shmazz, but here it is:

Three weeks after announcing it had hired WWE wrestling bad boy John “Bradshaw" Layfield as a financial analyst for the network, CNBC said yesterday it was shocked to learn that JBL was in fact a WWE bad boy and it sacked him for doing the Nazi goose step and stiff-armed salute during a World Wrestling Entertainment match in Munich.  – “CNBC Wrestles With a Bad-Boy Image” -by Lisa de Moraes, 6/10/04

Need I say more?  Well, I already did in a special column about this incident but the fact that JBL did his damndest to ruin the biggest push of his nine-year WWWFE career speaks for itself.

21. BRET SEES DEAD PEOPLE

How people deal with grief is their own personal business…until they talk to a psychic on network TV in hopes of communicating with their dead relatives.  Bret joined Vanna White and McKenzie Phillips as washed-up celebrities who met with a scrawny weirdo named George Anderson in an attempt to contact their deceased loved ones during an ABC special called “Contact: Talking To The Dead.”  It aired on 4/22/02.  George supposedly made contact with Bret’s mother Helen and his brothers, Owen and Dean.  I’m not calling the guy a quack, but he did tell Bret that he didn’t have a “normal American family.”  So add ghosts to the genies and fat broads we’ll be talking about when Bret goes “Behind The Pyro” later this year, right here in ‘Shmazz Central.  In the words of WrestleCrap guru R.D. Reynolds, I love Bret, but he’s brought this on himself.

20. RECORDING SES-SHAWN

A wrestler with a strange fetish isn’t exactly unheard of.  But when Shawn Stasiak’s proclivity was outed in 2000, the whole industry was aghast in horror.  Apparently, Double-S has an obsession with recording devices.  As a guy who has gone through at least two dozen different VCRs over the last ten years, I can sympathize to an extent, but I never used a tape recorder to secretly log a conversation between myself and two colleagues on a long drive.  That’s what Stasiak did during a road trip with Davey Boy Smith and Steve Blackman.  Out of all the great talkers/storytellers in that locker room at the time, I would question why Stasiak would choose to tape a conversation between THESE TWO.  Would you tape a MATCH between these two?  I think not.  I can only imagine what the “British Bulldog” and the “Lethal Weapon” had to talk about:

Blackman: “So you see, Dave, the principle of the kendo stick is to compliment the swing of the strike while accentuating the force of the blow.”

Smith: "Do what? ‘Ey, Steve, ya think one of these things would fit up me bird’s bunghole?"

Blackman: “Yeah, I guess so.  Why do you ask?”

Smith: “Oh…no reason.”

Naturally, the locker room was furious over Stasiak’s production of “True Rental Car Confessions.”  As you have read by now, wrestlers generally aren’t the best-behaved people in the world, and thus, they tend to get paranoid when they think there’s any evidence out there that incriminates them (ask Maxx Payne’s camcorder).  Vince made an example out of Stasiak by firing him in front of the locker room.  Bad Meat!  Vince later hired Stasiak back in 2001, just so he could fire him again.

19. NATE ME MATE’S AIRPORT WAIT

Ever since 9/11, airports haven’t exactly been the easiest place to kill six or seven hours.  And since the average wrestler’s lifespan (35 years) sees him spend six full weeks of his life in the air, he flies the friendly skies as much as anyone, and more than most.  So you’d think that Nathan Jones would have  better sense than to joke around with an airport security guard in 2003 by claiming to have a bomb in his shoe.  But that’s only because you haven’t read my “Behind The Pyro” detailing this and the many other exploits of the Milkman.   

18. WINDOWS BY GOLDBERG

Many wrestlers never seem to get the credit they deserve for performing on live TV.  With no re-takes or do-overs, guys have one shot to do it and do it right.  More often than not, everything goes off without a hitch.  Other times, quick thinking and improvisational skills are called upon to save the day.  Then there was Bill Goldberg and the damn limo.

During a January 2000 episode of WCW Thunder, the big angle of the night called for Goldberg to bust out the windows of the NEW “new” nWo's limo.  To accomplish this feat, Goldberg was armed with a small black pipe.  Held in Goldberg’s black glove against the backdrop of a night sky, the pipe was virtually invisible, giving the illusion that Goldberg was smashing the glass with nothing but his own superhuman strength.  Only problem was, after breaking the first window, the pipe went flying out of Goldberg’s hand and inside the vehicle.  The angle was being filmed live, so Goldberg couldn’t really open the door and crawl in to begin the chore of trying to find a tiny black pipe inside a limo with a black interior.  Goldberg thought to himself, “No big, I’ll just break the rest of ‘em myself.”  And so he did.  A tedious string of “thump-thump-thump-crash” spots ensued as Goldberg discovered that limo windows were not designed to be broken by man.  Oh yeah, and during one break, the big dummy shredded his ligaments on the broken glass, and had to sit on the shelf for half a year until his wing healed up.

While no one scoffs at the perils of live television, the thought process that encouraged Bill to go mano-y-mano with thick limousine glass in the first place had many thinking that Goldberg was hitting a different kind of “pipe.”

17. KEVIN SMASHED

People who don’t follow wrestling have no idea of the industry-wide hatred for former World champion and all-around worthless piece of crap Kevin Nash.  Religions have been started on less.  But I’m not going to talk about Kevin’s lazy interviews, or his backstage backstabbing, or even the fact that he’s had two good matches in his 13-year career.

No, today, I’m going to talk about Big Kev’s antics at a Brian Pillman Memorial Show.  Kev got loaded and went out on the mic, promising to donate $25,000 (IIRC) to Pillman’s family.  Nash got the big pop he wanted, but the morning after, he told a different story.  The douchebag welshed, putting out a story about how he didn’t trust Les Thatcher (an old Pillman friend who organized the event).  Thatcher, who unlike Nash, is liked and respected throughout the industry, offered that he would take himself out of the picture so Nash could give his contribution unobstructed.  Nash still didn’t do it, and never did make good on his word.

In an industry owned and operated by sleazy con man, Kevin Nash rises above ‘em all as the biggest load of shit to ever stink up pro wrestling.  Period.

16. SPEAK TO ME, C-SPAN

Some wrestlers live their gimmicks.  Some wrestlers live in the past.  Most of ‘em live in Florida.  But The Ultimate Warrior lives on a whole ‘nother plane of reality.  An aging Warrior (who now looks like a cross between a homeless guy, a crackhead, and the Fonz) somehow wound up on C-SPAN in 2003, where he spoke to the youth about the evils of liberalism.  Highlights included Warrior taking a potshot at Hulk Hogan, demanding four times for his music to be cut, ordering the crowd to applaud for themselves, and boasting about how he taught his two-year-old daughter to say “stinky liberal.”  Sound funny?  Well, it was…for about a minute.  Warrior’s hateful tirade went on for OVER AN HOUR.  The whole deal was hypnotically bizarre, and gorilla pressed it into your skull that the Warrior is just completely fucking nuts.

15. AHMED IS WELL-READ

Ahmed Johnson was one of a kind.  Not understanding how to properly market himself to WWF higher-ups, Ahmed went around in the 90s showing WWF officials his rankings in the “Pro Wrestling Illustrated” family of magazines as “proof” that he deserved a bigger push.  It didn’t work.

14. BAD IDEA, U.S.A.

It was the political event of the century when Paul “HHH” Levesque married Stephanie McMahon in 2003, so every bootlicker in the WWE turned out for the ceremony.  It was a very, very full room.  That just meant that there a bunch of eyewitnesses when Michael Hayes got drunk, climbed on stage with the band, and fired off a hyperactive promo in full “Dok Hendrix” character.  By the time Hayes started singing “Jailhouse Rock” (badly), WWE CEO and mother of the bride Linda McMahon had to literally drag Hayes off the stage.  She could have at least let him belt out his smash hit “Badstreet, U.S.A.”

Vince McMahon has spent much of his professional life trying to convince the mainstream world that wrestling wasn’t just a scummy freakshow for hillbillies.  Vince really, truly wanted to give his daughter a classy wedding, if for no other reason than to prove he was capable of such a production.  Hayes literally pissed away Vince’s vision, leaving many with the impression that anything involving wrestling, McMahons, or both is nothing more than a lowbrow joke.

13. JUVI GONE WILD

You know, after 37 of these things, it’s starting to get a little tough to keep coming up with creative ways to say “so-and-so got fucked up on drugs in public.”  It’s just as well, because Juventud Guerrera’s rampage in Australia has ‘em all beat.  The year was 2000 when a buck-naked XTC-fried Juvi was hauled out of a hotel in handcuffs.  (He whaled on the cops when they showed up, too.)  It made all the local news programs Down Under, and when word got back to the states, “The Juice” was promptly fired from WCW.

12. HAMBURGLARS

“Happy” Meals, my ass.  In the mid-80s, Ken Patera and Mr. Saito were displeased to learn that the McDonalds they hoped to patronize was closed for the night.  They dealt with their frustration by hefting a huge rock through their window, then beating the hell out of the police when they showed up on the scene.  Both guys went straight to the hoosegow, and their careers (especially Patera’s) were never the same again.  You don’t fuck with Mayor McCheese.

 11. HINDSIGHT IS “20/20”

Guys like The Rock and Mick Foley spearhead a new generation of articulate, media-savvy wrestlers, but that wasn’t always the case.  When ABC’s news magazine show “20/20” did a piece on wrestling’s growing popularity in the mid-80s, reporter John Stossel made the mistake of telling wrestler and known badass “Dr. D” David Schultz that he “thinks (wrestling) is fake.”  Dr. D’s reply was to legit slap Stossel upside the head, sending him to the floor as a hallway full of wrestlers laughed at the scene.  Stossel foolishly got back up, so Schultz slapped him right back down.  Dr. D barked, “YOU THINK IT’S FAKE??  THE HELL’S THE MATTER WITH YOU?!  THAT’S AN OPEN-HAND SLAP!  IS THAT FAKE??!!”  Stossel finally took the hint and skedaddled.  (I dunno, I think Schultz’s “tough guy” rep is blown out of proportion.  It took him two shots to run off a scrawny little poindexter, while Rick Rude only needed one slap to KO Paul Neu.)

In the WWF world, this would have led to Stossel go into intense training so he could face his bully on the next PPV.  But in the real world, the victim sues the hell out of his attacker.  Stossel claimed to have partial hearing loss following the incident and wound up with a six-figure settlement, IIRC.  Schultz claimed that Vince himself instructed him to “tear (Stossel’s) ass up; Blast him.”  Vince claimed he meant “verbally.”  Schultz wasn’t just fired, but he was blackballed from the industry altogether.  The hard feelings between McMahon and Schultz continue to this day, as Schultz tells anyone who’ll listen that Vince still owes him money, while unfavorably comparing his former employer to “dog mess.”

For those of you keeping score at home, that’s nine counts of a wrestler being wasted in public, three counts of a wrestler exposing himself in public, and fourteen counts of a wrestler doing something so dumb even by industry standards, that it directly led to the end of his income.  Next week, it’s the shocking, scintillating, slap-your-forehead-until-it-looks-like-Dusty’s conclusion, as we unleash the Top 10 dumbest real-life wrestler moments EVER!

-HDS-