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fromtheringapron · 5 years

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Scary Wrestling Stuff from My Childhood

Every Halloween season, it’s not uncommon for wrestling fans to reminisce about the moments in our great sport that genuinely scared them, and I’m certainly no exception. At the end of the day, wrestling is still a fantasy world that’s seen plenty of dark, suspenseful, and even at times supernatural bullshit. In fact, one of its biggest stars is The Undertaker, who has been in turns a mortician, a zombie, a Satanic cult leader, a desert biker, and some strange hybrid of all those characters at once.

Truthfully, nothing in wrestling scares me anymore. Well, at least not in kayfabe. Real life still provides a lot of fright in and out of the ring. When I see a wrestler get legitimately injured in the ring, you bet I’m concerned. The depressingly common trend of premature wrestling deaths is a terrifying subject on its own. But when you’re a kid, where even the most ridiculous thing in wrestling can seem real, there’s a lot in kayfabe to be scared about, and you don’t even known what the hell the term “kayfabe” even means.

So, to get in the spirit of the spooky season, I’ll give you a quick rundown of some things that personally scared me shitless watching wrestling as a youngster:

Evil Doink the Clown: Doink is usually associated with everything wrong in WWF’s New Generation era⏤one-dimensional gimmickry, cheesy beyond belief, and worst of all, out of touch. But it’s a reputation that isn’t quite deserved. The original Doink character was that of an evil clown, brilliantly brought to life by Matt Borne. As someone who churned out many rewatches of WrestleMania IX as a child, which features the character at its peak, you better believe I was terrified of this wrestling clown with lime green hair. If evil Doink’s sudden mood swings and aggression weren’t unsettling enough, the entrance music is fucking horrifying to this day. Far scarier than Pennywise and the Joker could ever wish, complete with maniacal clown cackles. Yikes, yikes, yikes. It sounds like the soundtrack to a haunted carnival episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? on Nickelodeon. Given the rise of creepy clowns in recent pop culture, evil Doink would still get over now, and scare a whole new generation of kids to boot.

Kane, Circa ’97/‘98: Hear me out: the video package to Kane and The Undertaker’s clash at WrestleMania XIV is one of the best ever. The music, the footage, and even the random Michael Cole narration all flow together perfectly to create something goosebumpingly epic. But, damn, as kid? This was some terrifying shit. Considering I was too young to stay up and watch every episode of Raw in full, that package was like a highlight reel of pure horror. Kane has become known for taking part in some of the most infamous and illogical storylines in WWE history, but it’s often forgotten how effective a job was done to build him up as a monster upon his debut. Remember when he lit that random dude on fire on Raw? Holy fuck. Not even the Wicked Witch of the West setting fire to The Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz shook me up quite like that. The eyes peeping out of his mask was, to me, the most frightening part of his appearance. Total nightmare fuel. Generations more familiar with bald, mask-less Kane could never quite know the trauma.

Papa Shango’s Sega Genesis Theme Music: Okay, this a fairly obscure one, but my brother and I would play WWF Royal Rumble on Sega Genesis back in the day. The game was complete with cute little 8-bit versions of each wrestler’s entrance themes. The Crush theme, in particular, is a minor masterpiece. The other piece of music that made an impact on me is the version of Papa Shango’s theme. I didn’t have too much footage of Papa Shango in my childhood wrestling VHS collection so he held some mythical status to me. The original theme is creepy enough, but the Genesis version really takes you to an dark, murky swamp where Shango is hexing his latest victim. It scared me so much that I’d speed ahead the character selection screen in the game so I wouldn’t have to hear it. You can scoff at me now all you want, but I must speak my truth.

Zeus and Randy Savage Attack Hulk Hogan and Brutus Beefcake: If you’ve watched Survivor Series 1989, you may remember a segment where Mean Gene interviews Hulk Hogan and Brutus Beefcake about their upcoming match at No Holds Barred. That’s not scary at all, but it’s what happens as the interview unfolds that, for whatever reason, really tore me up when I’d put my copy of this show in the VHS. Sensational Sherri crashes the interview, with the most wild-eyed glared you could imagine, shouting at Hogan and Beefcake in her dark, garish makeup. She then throws handfuls of powder in their eyes, allowing Zeus and Randy Savage to attack them. It’s so hard to describe what’s so scary about this. No Holds Barred, both the movie and the pay-per-view, were pretty notorious failures so it’s not even like it’s remembered as a major angle or anything. If anything, I gotta think it has something to do with the sudden tonal shift from a goofy babyface interview to an all-out assault, which can be pretty striking for any young viewer.

Mick Foley, Hell in the Cell: I don’t really need to say any more, do I? The Hell in the Cell match at King of The Ring 1998 is something that warrants a post of its own, as its undoubtedly one of my favorite matches of all time. But I cannot stress this enough: watching a human being do what Mick Foley does in this match, no matter how pre-planned, is some seriously distressing shit. As an adult, you realize you’re watching this man single-handedly take years off his career. But even in kayfabe, there’s true terror in watching the full extent of Mankind’s threshold reveal itself. The dude literally fucking smiles to the camera as he’s concussed and his mouth bloodied into steak tartar. If that image alone doesn’t stay with you, I don’t know what will. Mick Foley turns this match into a mini horror movie. Years before people tuned in droves to watch Saw and Hostel, they watched Mick Foley torture himself. In the match’s most chilling moments, he turns Mankind into a character like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees⏤just when you think he’s been completely broken in half, he’s up and ready for more.

Early Undertaker: I can’t possibly go on without mentioning The Undertaker. When you really think about it, some of things I’ve mentioned already wouldn’t have been possible without him. It seems a little cliche to even bring him up for a topic like this, but he’s the OG of cheesy wrestling horror. Plus, it needs to be said: The Undertaker, in first couple years of his WWF career, could easily scare kids. It definitely scared the kids who grew up watching that version of the character, at least. I watched Survivor Series 1990 countless times growing up so, as you could imagine, I was one of the fortunate/unfortunate children. One of the more brilliant touches of The Undertaker’s early character, outside of the creepy glare and slow approach, was the various shots of mortified children in the crowd. It seems like a minor detail, but it went a long way in establishing him as a genuine monster. Not to mention, there were things the Undertaker did during that era that, even by the family-friendly standards of early ‘90s WWF, were pretty messed-up. How about that time he locked The Ultimate Warrior in a coffin? Or when he worked with Jake Roberts to terrorize Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth? Make no mistake, those first few years were critical in letting us know for whom the bell tolls.

And that about does it for my own personal horrors. Maybe you think mine are silly, but what about wrestling scared you growing up? Does it still scare you? Does it still give you nightmares? As you ponder, I’ll be looking over my shoulder, hoping I’m not attacked by Zeus.

#wwe #the undertaker #mick foley #sega #halloween #scary

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