Edge & Christian’s Pod of Awesomeness Recap
Episode 9 with Tommy Dreamer’s Tales from the Indies & Talking Bad Gimmicks
Recap by: Jeff Indelicato
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“For The Benefit of Those with No Time” (Top Stories)
- Shawn Michaels & Mick Foley will be on next week to discuss their In Your House: Mind Games match from 1996.
- The official name of the E & C fanbase is now “The 5 Second Hosers.” The fan that chose that name will be a guest next week.
- Back in 2003, there was a suggestion to turn Christian into The Lock, who would impersonate The Rock.
“5 Second Pose of Timestamps”
0:00: Show Introduction & NHL Playoffs
19:35: Sponsored Ad
20:50: Fan Base Name Announcement
26:00: Tommy Dreamer’s Tales from the Indies
41:30: E & C Talk Wrestling’s Bad Gimmicks
1:33:00: Bad Gimmicks on Paper, But Successful
2:06:00: Show Close
“You Think You Know Them” (Recap)
Opening Intros and NHL Playoff Chat with Jeremy Roenick 0:00-19:35
The boys are ready to jump into the show and are excited to announce their first guests for the Anatomy of a Match segment. Next week, Shawn Michaels and Mick Foley will be on the show to discuss their WWE Championship match from In Your House: Mind Games in 1996. As noted previously, this new segment will feature participants of a famous match going over all their thoughts leading to, during, and after the contest. I absolutely cannot wait for this segment, as it provides something fresh that is not found on other shows, and gives the wrestlers something new to chat about. For those of you who haven’t watched it, make sure you get on the Network, and give it a whirl before this Friday.
We then lead into a phone call with Jeremy Roenick from NBC Sports, discussing the NHL Playoffs. Christian makes note that he had Ottawa & Nashville as two of his favorites going into the finals. Jeremy feels that if those two teams make it, then NBC’s ratings are going to plummet. Edge adds that they are the teams that everyone basically slept on, and were not early favorites going into the championship.
Ad for Zip Recruiter 19:35-20:50
Winner of the Fan Base Name Contest 20:50 – 26:00
E & C play up the anticipation and discuss some of the previous suggestions that they liked. Christian really liked the Podcastronauts; however, it was not meant to be. After weeks of suggestions, the fan base of Edge & Christian officially have a title. We are…..The 5 Second Hosers. They like that name because obviously it is a play on the 5-second pose, and, it plays into their Canadian Heritage. Since some people may not know the Canadian definition of a hoser, Christian explains that they are basically a Canadian Redneck. Edge feels that it is too strong of a word, and may take on a negative vibe. For him, a hoser is just like The Dude from The Big Lebowski. I immediately think of the Rick Moranis classic, Strange Brew, every time I hear hoser. Feel free to check it out if you haven’t seen it. Back to the winner, he has the Twitter handle of DJ Know Skillz. Christian feels that with this win, he should rename himself to be DJ Some Skillz.
Tommy Dreamer’s Tales from the Indies 26:00 – 41:30
Tommy, Tommy, Tommy is on to discuss his latest independent adventure. The day started last weekend, on a 6:00 am flight to New Mexico. He was in the Main Event to face the Champion of Destiny Wrestling, Hobo Hank. Having never wrestled Mr. Hank before, Tommy was a little concerned after seeing the Champ’s promo calling out Dreamer for the match. He even sent the video to E & C for their viewing pleasure. Before continuing, I did a little research for the readers and was able to dig up this classic promo. Enjoy: https://vimeo.com/216452093?ref=em-share-v.
Back to the discussion, Edge was disappointed that Hank is clean shaven. Tommy agreed and even asked Hank why he is a hobo if he’s now the Champion. The hobo replied that he chooses to live that lifestyle. Good enough. It turns out that Hank is very popular in New Mexico, and so this ended up being Face vs. Face. The match began, and Dreamer’s worries were lifted, as the contest was a lot of fun, which concluded with Hank going over and winning with his Spinning DDT finisher. Since he’s only been to NM twice, Tommy was surprised that it actually gets cold in the area. Christian has only one question. Is Hobo Hank House of Hardcore worthy? Never say never. They then chat about their younger days, and Christian brings up a story about almost getting suspended because he had a four-fingered ring that he wore, which his teacher believed were brass knuckles. Tommy wishes they could have known each other back then, and went to the same school. That wraps up the segment for this week.
E & C discuss Bad Gimmicks 41:30 – 2:06:00
For those that weren’t aware, when Christian was first starting out, he worked for an organization called the IWA. ER was a big hit on NBC at the time, so the promoters wanted to have a medical related tag team, and call them ER. One was a big dude who was an orderly. The other was Christian, who was a male nurse and wore a floral mask. Even though it was silly, he embraced it and had fun. Edge remembers at the developmental stage of his WWE career, there was a push to debut him & Sean Morley (Val Venis) as the New Midnight Express. Edge reiterates his belief that anything with “New” in the title is usually a bad thing, so he was glad that Bob Holly and Bart Gunn were eventually chosen for the team.
Christian tells a story that the fans may not know. For those that were watching in mid-2003, The Rock was in his “Hollywood Heel” phase and had taken Christian under his wing. Since Dwayne was on his way out, someone made a suggestion to Vince that they repackage Christian as “The Lock.” His gimmick would be to cut his hair really short, wear white (since Rock usually wore black), and use all of the same catchphrases and moves. Why The Lock? Because anytime he went to the ring, it was a lock that he was going to win. Obviously, Jay stressed over this decision and did not want to do it. Thankfully, Vince realized a few weeks later that it was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard, and the gimmick was dropped.
Edge moves on and says one his favorite bad gimmicks was the 1990 disaster that was The Gobbledy Gooker. Christian remembers the company building the reveal up so much, and the fans were getting excited in anticipation, only to see a giant egg hatch a dancing turkey. Edge’s favorite part of the segment was Rowdy Roddy Piper’s reaction on commentary and trying to salvage what he could, while the fans remained silent.
Staying in the early ’90s timeframe, there were many bad gimmicks, but the company really focused on occupational bad gimmicks. There was such a wide range from T.L. Hopper to a Garbage man, to even a Repo Man. Edge felt Repo Man was the best, and loved how he was always acting sneaky. The boys gave props to Barry Darsow, who had just had a successful run with Demolition as Smash, as he still tried to make something out of it. (While it is a silly gimmick, I also find myself smiling at some of those Repo Man promos. If you get a chance, pull up his Royal Rumble 1992 interview, as well as how he enters the match. It’s pretty humorous.) Edge wonders how Barry handled that first meeting when he was told about his new gimmick. He was the cornerstone of the tag division, and now he’s a repo man.
The boys then start rattling off other bad gimmicks, including The Goon, Sparky Plugg, and Bastion Booger/Friar Ferguson. Christian makes sure to name drop Isaac Yankem and the New Diesel, who we all now know as Kane. Edge feels that Glenn is so special that he did the best with what he had, and looked so unique, that it was only a matter of time that he would become successful somehow. That leads to the question, Can you make any gimmick work? They use The New Day as an example of one that didn’t work originally until they took the reins, and made it their own. To further the point, if you don’t believe in it, how do the fans?
More rattling off begins as we mention Mantaur with his giant buffalo head, and The Shockmaster, who was an awesome guy that was talented, but it just didn’t work, from the disaster that was his debut, to his costume. Edge’s favorite part was the reactions of Ric Flair and Sid. Since The Shockmaster was played by someone who was famous for another gimmick (Tugboat/Typhoon in the WWE), the boys think about the times that someone would be gone and then come back with a weird character. Examples include Saba Simba, who was Tony Atlas, Barry Windham returning in 1996 as The Stalker, and the Real Man’s Man, Steven Regal. Obviously, the best thing going about that gimmick was Regal’s theme song, so Christian starts belting it out.
Edge has always warned others to be careful showing what your real personality is like backstage because it can be quickly turned into your next gimmick. One such example would be Kurrgan, who when he first debuted was a monster that towered over everyone and beat them up. In real life he was a sweet guy, and friendly. The tables soon turned for him when he was caught dancing at the WrestleMania after-party. Sure enough, The Oddities were born shortly after. Funny enough, that same group included John Tenta, famously known as Earthquake, being repackaged under a mask as Golga. This leads into Christian singing The Oddities theme. Edge is blown away at Jay’s knowledge of theme songs. Christian can do him one better and starts serenading him with the Double J (Jeff Jarrett or Jesse James) classic, “With My Baby Tonight.”
What about gimmicks that would appear to be poor on paper, but became successful? Look at The Bushwhackers. They were brawlers as the Sheepherders, but then found a way to make Luke & Butch successful. In E & C’s mind, they were the George the Animal Steele of Tag Teams, meaning that they were originally scary, but became lovable. In Christian’s mind, if you have something that the crowd can get into, like the team moving their arms up and down, it can lead to success. How about The Undertaker? In the boy’s minds, if it was anybody but Mark, it wouldn’t have worked. The question is asked if they think he changed the gimmick in 2000 to the biker character because he thought he was getting stale. Edge feels that it is a possibility, and references all the different phases that The Undertaker went through. In his belief, Mark wanted to wrestle more and was sort of handcuffed in how much he could really wrestle, due to the gimmick. By moving to the biker character, he was able to use a more technical style. From there, when he returned to the original gimmick, it was easier for people to accept how he wrestled.
Other successful wrestlers who emerged from bad gimmicks included “The Ringmaster” Steve Austin and Rocky Maivia. The team gave props to both of those men for having the guts to change their characters, and fuel it into something different. What about The Honky Tonk Man? He was another one that probably shouldn’t have worked. In fact, in the beginning, he was supposed to be Hogan’s buddy but ended up originally receiving the Rocky Maivia reaction. So, he took something that wasn’t working and made it successful. Another successful wrestler was Charles Wright, who fans may remember as Papa Shango, Kama, The Godfather, and The Goodfather. Edge’s favorite was Shango. He was scary. (As someone who was a kid at that time, I agree, and dreaded his matches.)
The boys think about gimmicks that probably wouldn’t work in today’s world like Akeem, Kamala, and Adrian Adonis. Edge always got a kick out of Akeem’s dance, and thought his manager, Slick was awesome. Since we’ve heard the vocal styling’s of Jay Bird, Edge feels it’s time to step up, and starts singing Akeem’s theme. E &C remember another one that was initially successful, and that was Doink, which worked when he was an evil clown. They remember Matt Borne who took that character, did the best that he could with it. Then he left, someone else took it over, and the decision was made to make Doink more family friendly. Christian reminds us that back then especially, a lot of these poor gimmicks were during the era of Saturday Morning Wrestling. When the focus moved to Primetime, they realized that you have to change with your audience.
Close 2:06:00-2:10:00
Edge & Christian close the show by talking about the recent passing of Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell. For Edge, Chris’ music and lyrics really resonated with him growing up. In his opinion, Chris was one of the voices of their generation. Christian agrees and remembers how he listened to the Temple of the Dog CD all summer when it came out. This reminds me of one time that Chris Jericho was a guest on Jimmy Fallon and sang Temple of the Dog’s hit “Hunger Strike” replacing the lyrics with Jean Claude Van Damme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-dou2OFiUw
They wrap up the show by encouraging everyone to follow the show on Twitter @EandCPod, E-Mail them at ecpodofawesomeness@gmail.com, and to call their Voicemail at 929-367-8204.
Jeff’s Take: 7 Kazoos out of 10
Good episode this week. Nothing major as it relates to top stories, but it was fun to just listen to the team chat, and hear their thoughts on some bad gimmicks. I’m really looking forward to next week with HBK & Foley on. Should be a real treat. Feel free to follow me on Twitter @the_Indel or send me an email at indelpw@gmail.com. See you next week!
About the Author
Jeff has been a fan of professional wrestling since he was knee high to a grasshopper (little kid), after coming across the Wrestling Challenge episode after WrestleMania 7, and has not looked back. His passion has led him to winning wrestling trivia contests in his city, and even won him his Senior Talent Show by dancing to Shawn Michaels theme song. When not annoying others with wrestling talk, he loves spending time with his family and friends, and focuses on his other passion: movies.
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