-As reported by Inside Pulse as it happ… well actually it wasn’t until days later… Jim Ross is going to stay with the WWE. You know, Jimbo, Inside Pulse is one of the top 173 wrestling websites on the internet. You should have the courtesy to wait until we’re ready to report the news before you make it.
–Hulk Hogan had back surgery a week ago last Wednesday. The surgery was expected to take place on Monday and set the world on fire, but low interest pushed it back a couple days.
BREAKING NEWS AT INSIDE PULSE: Yokozuna is still dead.
–Sean Waltman tested the positive for Hepatitis C. The sixteen-year-old former WWE star was immediately re-signed to the company and booked to face the Undertaker in a first blood match with Bob Orton as the guest referee.
-Former WCW star participant Vampiro was kidnapped in Mexico sometime Monday night, having apparently been mistaken for someone of value.
The kidnappers didn’t release him for 24 hours. Actually, they would have released him sooner but then they were curious if he would burn in the sunlight or sparkle and had to wait until morning.
Sources tell Inside Pulse he did neither.
BREAKING NEWS AT INSIDE PULSE: Wrestlemania III sets indoor attendance record!
–Chris Jericho will be hosting the next game show to be canceled on ABC. “Downfall” will feature the largest conveyor belt ever seen on television. It was originally built by the WWE to dispose of all unused scripts for Raw and Smackdown that were not as carefully thought out as the ones that make it to air.
Inside Pulse tried to contact Mr. Jericho for a comment, but his agent told us he was busy in Mexico capturing vampires or something.
BREAKING NEWS AT INSIDE PULSE: Shots fired in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, TX. President Kennedy thought to be gravely wounded in attack.
–The Undertaker suffered a broken orbital bone in his eye resulting in the canceling of his match at the Fatal Four-Way pay-per-view against Sean “X-Pac” Waltman. The injury occurred when Mabel dropped his massive leg on… wait, what? Rey Mysterio caused it? When he landed on him? Are you shitting me? The gunk in my eye when I wake up in the morning weighs more then him.
-Steve Austin confirmed in an interview with IGN that he is no longer an active wrestler in the WWE. Who knew?
The interview was to promote his movie “The Stranger.” By popular demand, I will now review the movie.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! OH GOD NO! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! AHAHAHAHA!
Now picture me in the fetal position gently convulsing.
-Fans across the internet lost their collective shit this last Tuesday when the latest batch of names for NXT came out. Panties were especially wettened… yes that’s a word, look it up… when it was discovered that WWE Hall of Famer Curt “Mr. Perfect” Hennig’s son, Joe, would be called “Michael McGillicutty.” Okay, I admit even I cringed and I’m supposed to be the “too hip to be a smark” guy. Still, the internet wrestling community is suffering a form of bitch-tittiness not seen since… well since they changed Bryan Danielson to Daniel Bryan. I’m still not sure why. It’s basically the same name, only it’s shorter and more efficient. And in this economy, who can afford those extra syllables?
Also, the son of Mike “IRS” Rotunda got his name changed Husky Harris. Why is that so bad? Because his birth name is Windham Rotunda. Sacrilege! How dare they deprive him of those two magical names associated with… um… so much… success… and… um… what’s the argument against the name change again?
Anyway, the usual idiots are bitching and moaning that with names like these, the poor kids on the show will never amount to anything now. Ha, as if. Bad names and wrestling go hand-in-hand. If you think about it, Hulk Hogan is a pretty terrible name. If you had a kid and attempted to name him Hulk, social services would come to collect the child. Yet in wrestling, it’s a perfectly fine name for the biggest star the business has ever seen.
It is in that spirit, and also in the spirit of today being my 29th birthday, that I present to you…
THE 29 WORST NAMED WRESTLERS TO EVER HOLD A WWE TITLE
In alphabetical order.
Albert: There’s a name that will strike terror in the hearts of his opponents. The name makes Matt Bloom sound like a 5’5″ Dungeons & Dragons player… and not a very good one either. And yet, even with a name that bad, he got over enough (or sucked enough McMahon cock) to be IC champ for 27 days.
Bepo Mongol: This guy was a co-holder of the WWWF International Tag Team Championship back in the early 70s. Okay, so I had trouble finding 29 shitty names. But my point stands: if a guy named Bepo (it’s cute sounding isn’t it? Like something you would name a fluffy kitten) can hold gold, surely someone named Husky Harris can. Besides, Bepo later turned into Nikolai Volkoff. I’m not sure how someone as white as him was chosen to play a Mongol, but if John Wayne can do it…
Big Show: What the fuck does that mean anyway? He’s big, I’ll grant you that. But he’s not really much a show. Maybe Vince McMahon was an Ed Sullivan fan.
Chainsaw Charlie: Well you can’t really blame the WWE for this one… entirely. Mick Foley had purposed a best-of-seven death match series against Terry Funk that would have taken place between the 1998 Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania 14. The WWE loved the idea so much that they signed Funk to a one-year contact, then promptly threw the death match angle into the trash. Which was okay with Funk, since he was sick of being the middle-aged and crazy guy. Instead, he decided to wear a pantyhose dusted with baby powder on his head and call himself Chainsaw Charlie. Who knew that he was such a fan of W.A.S.P.? Even with this horrible get-up, ridiculous gimmick, and all-around stupidity, he still won the third-highest billed match and a title belt at a Wrestlemania. Yea, I know, the title was held up. Next time YOU try filling up a list with 29 names.
Chief Morley: This was the name Val Venis adapted in 2003, after Eric Bischoff appointed him Chief of Staff of Raw. Oh wait, Chief of STAFF. Ha, I get it. Because his dick is big. Anyway, the word “Chief” should only be used in wrestling if the wrestler is Native American. Or an Italian posing as one. Either way.
Christian: This was the 1998 WWE office party winner for “what’s the least inspiring name for a wrestler anyone can think of?” The winner, Stephanie McMahon, won a spot on the creative team as a prize. I kid. He had actually been using the name Christian Cage in the indies for a while. The WWE apparently thought fans would get confused and think they could expect to see Jesus Christ wrestling Pat Robertson inside a fifteen-foot high steel Christian Cage.
Christopher Nowinski: Not that I have anything against this particular name. It’s just that the spoiled douchebag was arguably the most well known guy on Tough Enough… but he was called “Chris Harvard.” Considering that the WWE focused entirely on his Harvard background towards building his character in the WWE, why mess with something that’s already well known? It would be like if Winona Ryder went even more apeshit then she is now and said “you know what, I’m going to be a WWE Diva.” And then the WWE said “Fine, glad to have. But you’re in the big leagues now, bitch, so you have to use your real name. Welcome to the WWE, Winona Horowitz!” Christ, my brain hurts just thinking about it.
Chyna: Okay, so the name was well known and stuff. What I don’t get is, why Chyna? The chick wasn’t Chinese. If the argument is “well China is big” I still don’t get it. China might be big, but it’s filled with tiny people. According to her, the name was a play on the idea that china (as in plates) is delicate, which she is the opposite of. Huh. Well that’s logical. Makes me wonder why Paul Wight didn’t debut as the Tiny Genius.
Dean Ho: He was a tag team champ back in 1973. I didn’t bother looking up who his tag partner was, but I’m hoping his name was “Richard Whore.”
Diesel: Granted, after being Oz and Vinnie Vegas, this name was a step up for Kevin Nash. Still, naming a wrestler of his skill set after something that is such a heavy pollutant and causes untold long-term negative effects on… you know, come to think of it, the name is actually incredibly fitting.
Edge: I still don’t get this one. What exactly gave him an edge? He wrestled in the indies as Sexton Hardcastle, which sounds like a name the Simpsons would use to parody someone. His vignettes before he debuted showed him walking around city streets and picking fights with hobos, but they couldn’t call him Jack Dempsey now could they? His real name is Adam Copeland, which is a perfectly acceptable name for a professional wrestler, but Edge appeals to the ten year old crowd the WWE was so desperate to cater to in 1998.
General Rection: Okay, so this was a WCW character. BUT, he held the United States Championship, and the WWE considers that belt’s WCW reigns to be canon, so it counts. This is one of Vince Russo’s awesome ideas, because the name is a pun on erection. Oh that Russo. The wit it takes to create a name that every ten year old will talk about in the playgrounds.
Gillberg: So the whole thing was a parody on Goldberg. Still, they could have come up with something slightly more witty. Gillberg sounds like Goldberg’s mermaid sister.
Goldberg: Speaking of which… seriously, Goldberg? Even he made fun of the name, and it’s his fucking name. He originally wanted to be called “The Hybrid” but WCW shot it down, opting instead for a name that sounds more like it belongs to a short, dumpy Jewish personal injuries lawyer. Goldberg was originally supposed to be part of the “Blood Runs Cold” takeoff of Mortal Kombat that WCW was running, with his role being the no-nonsense pit fighter with red hair named Red Bill. He would have been part of a tag team but his partner John was off killing Patrick Jane’s wife and daughter.
Hornswoggle: He was originally called Little Bastard, but then Linda McMahon got the political bug and things had to be toned down for the kiddies and we could go back to the good ole clean fun of the 80s, where Randy Savage beat his girlfriend and attempted to murder other wrestlers by crushing their throats. Anyway, hornswoggle is of course a slang term for being fooled. As in “why is there a leperchan on TV? This is wrestling? You could have fooled me!”
Jazz: You have a big, scary looking, muscular black chick and you call her a name that is one letter off from being “Jizz.”
Joey Abs: So the idea behind the Mean Street Posse is that they’re a bunch of rich, preppy guys who are buddies with Shane McMahon. Thus you get Rodney, Pete Gas, and… Joey Abs, which doesn’t sound like a snotty rich person’s name at all. On top of that, you get a guy who looks about as far removed from Greenwich, Connecticut as Pulse Glazer is from female genitalia. And yes, he was the Hardcore Champion for like five seconds, and that counts enough to make this list. Remember, those five seconds are five seconds more then A.J. Styles will ever have holding WWE gold. Suck on that one for a bit.
K-Kwik: The WWE’s unofficial pastime seems to be coming up with rotten names for Ron Killings. This was their first kick at the can. He wrestled in the indies as K-Krush, but the WWE thought it wasn’t hip enough or something. Besides, he wasn’t expected to Krush anyone. His job was to go out there and lose as Kwikly as possible.
Lieutenant Loco: Chavo Guerrero was in the same boat as Hugh Morrus (there’s another contender right there), getting stuck with a lame millitary themed name because Vince Russo knew what all the 18 to 34 year old males (wink) like their wrestlers to be called. And then Time Warner standards and practices put an end to his plan to call him Lieutenant Burrito, which was somehow more insensitve. Just think, if Russo had taken more then five seconds to come up with something, we could have had Chavo Guerrero as Lieutenant Ano.
Mark Henry: Yea, I know, it’s his real name. The WWE signed him during a bad period for the company, when attendence and ratings were way down, and were hoping some of that 14th-place-in-the-Olympics magic would rub off on them. It didn’t. And I blame the name. It’s like his parents conspired with each-other to marry and breed just so they would have a kid with the most uninspired name in history. Even “Bob Smith” sounds edgier. You have a 400lb scary looking black dude and his name sounds like a real estate agent, and they wonder why despite his technical wizardry he doesn’t draw .
Mideon: Maybe I’m being too hard on this name. I mean, he was like the lowest on the totem pole of the Ministry of Darkness, so something that sounds like “minion” was pretty fitting, but later on he became a streaker and yet they still called him Mideon. Why not “The Streak?” Why not “Naked Hillbilly?” Or why not the name everyone called him when they saw him: “Ewww.”
Razor Ramon: I suspect there are at least a dozen guys reaching for the comments section right now. I actually don’t think Razor Ramon is a bad name. I just don’t think it’s any more silly then the names of most of the NXT guys that has you all lactating so much. The idea was Scott Hall was supposed to be a Cuban druglord, but then he had sissy pink tights with yellow razor blades on them. So maybe Eli Cottonwood is a horrible name for a wrestler, but for all we know he’s going to be a quiet Amish Farmer and part time wrestler, thus making the name approriate. If they had called Hall something else and saved the name Razor Ramon for one of these NXT kids, you all would be screaming bloody murder and you know it.
Ricky Steamboat: I’m using the rule of “his real name was perfectly fine, what the fuck?” Steamboat sounds like a random name that would be handed out to one of the NXT kids. Meanwhile, his real name is Richard Blood. Let me see if I made that clear enough: his name is Richard Blood. The only way that name could be cooler is if his middle name was “Wants”. With a name like Steamboat it sounds like he should be wearing a sailor hat and accompanied to the ring by a cartoon mouse.
Rosey: Once again, the WWE decides to give someone an ironic name. Thus you get a big, scary, 400lb Samoan dude who is the cousin of The Rock, Rikishi, and Yokozuna and you name him after the robotic maid from the Jetsons. Were they high?  Did someone win a bet with this name?  Since Rosey debuted before the Wellness Policy, the answers to those questions are “probably” and “where do you think Layfield made all his money?”
R-Truth: Man, I never get sick of picking on Ron Killings. Like Steamboat, he has a pretty awesome name without having to doll it up. The WWE might have caved in and used it a few years ago, but now it’s TV-PG and you can’t have a guy named Killings on a TV-PG show. Well, at least R-Truth is slightly better then K-Kwik. Of course it’s the same character that he was way back in 2001 and despite lack of talent he’s gotten over pretty well. So if nothing else you can point to Ron Killings and say he’s proof positive the WWE doesn’t have enough patience.
Sheamus: Another name that falls into the “that doesn’t sound threatening at all” catagory. Unless you’re a twelve-year-old alterboy at Sunday school and Father Sheamus wants to have a word with you.
Test: This was just plain lazy. He debuted in the WWE in December of 1998, so perhaps Vince Russo was busy carefully crafting the 1999 Royal Rumble match and didn’t have any spare brain power to devote to naming him. Surely there had to be a better name for him, given the idea that he was supposed to be a former Mötley Crüe bodyguard. I can’t think of one off the top of my head, but that’s what Vince Russo was supposed to be paid the big bucks for. Presumably if Andrew Martin were alive today he would have jumped to TNA early in 2010 and been named “The Exam.”
The Ultimate Warrior: Like Ricky Steamboat, this is a perfectly fine name that people still remember fondly to this day. My beef is his real name was much cooler. He was born Jim Hellwig. Holy shit. Jim… HELLWIG! That’s so manly it grows hair on your knuckles just reading it outloud. Author’s note: don’t let women read that name outloud.
X-Pac: So it’s 1998 and everyone wants to be hip. Sean Waltman had become famous as the 1-2-3 Kid in the WWE, then as Syxx in WCW. There, he was ocassionally called Syxx-Pac because it sounds vaguely, somewhat, kinda at the end like Tupac Shakur and thus the rap crowd would dig him. Then he jumps to the WWE where they call him X-Pac instead of just “The Kid” like everyone in the company called him anyway. Don’t get me wrong, the name was memorable and stuff, but X-Pac had about as much right to leech off of Shakur’s name as Mike Tyson has to claim to be a man of peace.
So there you have it, folks. Before you poo-poo on names like Titus O’Neil or Percy Watson, just remember that people with shitty names go on to become big stars in professional wrestling. Most people expect crappy names. I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing a Wrestlemania main event some day between Lucky Cannon and Alex Riley. Those NXT kids will be just fine.
Well except Joe Hennig. Michael McGillicutty? Wow, he’s fucking dicked.
Charlie Reneke is a junior writer for Inside Pulse. We make him bring us donuts and everything, and he has to drop and give us push-ups whenever we ask. He’s famous for posting his Way Too Long Reviews several months after the DVDs come out. He kinda goes at his own pace, the lazy bitch.
