The subject of this special Patreon-exclusive re-induction might very well have never seen the light of day had Vince McMahon’s original plans for Mike Shaw not fallen through.
See, Vince McMahon relied heavily in the early-to-mid nineties on gimmicky, cartoon wrestlers such as Mantaur, Sparky Plugg, Mantaur, TL Hopper, and well, basically all of the WWF wrestlers inducted on to this site in its first few months.
In the spring 1993, Vince McMahon debuted his newest creation, Friar Ferguson…
…but, drawing the ire of the Catholic Church for the portrayal of a monk who buried his opponents’ faces under his robe, the WWF axed the character after a single taping.
Vince still had the hefty Mike Shaw under contract, so that summer he re-debuted the big man with a totally different gimmick and a name that blew its nose on the very notion of “good taste”: Bastion Booger.
The name alone was embarrassing enough to keep a person from ever watching the WWF in front of other people, but presumably, it tested better Jerry Dingleberry and Fart Farley.
The Booger name lent itself to jokes by the likes of Jerry Lawler or Bobby Heenan, who, when it came time to vote for Superstar of the Year, picked Booger.
Vince McMahon was appalled. “Bobby, please, this is a family show!”
(In Sweden, where his name of course didn’t translate, he was known as Bastion “Blöjan” Booger, “blöjan” being Swedish for “diaper”).
The Booger character wasn’t evil, but the idea was that he was so gross that fans would boo him on sight.
Thus, the gargantuan Bastion Booger wore, and spilled out of, some of the most unflattering ring gear ever, complete with straps that isolated his flabby breasts…
…and pushed the fat behind his neck into a hump. Jim Herd wanted to make an un-pinnable hunchback tag team in WCW, but Vince McMahon actually accomplished it with Booger…
…minus the un-pinnable part. In fact, in a rare booking move, Bastion lost his debut match to Virgil. Yikes! With that low resolution, Booger looks naked.
Better.
Booger’s theme music was surprisingly dark, not that most people could hear it over the sound effects. After an intro featuring what might have been Jimmy Hart’s altered voice saying, “I’m the Booger Man”, fans were serenaded with snoring.
If his gear, music, and name weren’t revolting enough, Booger’s finisher was called the Trip to the Batcave, bringing to mind the visual of Bastion sliding down a greasy pole to an underground cavern to squeeze himself into spandex.
Even worse was the move itself, where Booger dropped taint-first onto his opponent, sitting on his face for the three-count.
To really drive home the fact that he was fat, the WWF often filmed Bastion pigging out on junk food. Once, before a match on Raw, Booger chowed down on uncooked (get it!) meat and eggs, wearing his meal like a long, old-timey beard.
Vince McMahon would often warn that Booger was headed for a “Maalox moment”, which would indeed come to pass at the Royal Rumble when Bastion had to sit out the big battle royal. In an embarrassing plot twist, the missing #25 entrant, presumed to be the injured Bret Hart, turned out to be Bastion Booger, who could not compete due to indigestion.
Not only was Booger fat and disgusting, he was also stupid, once losing a match to Doink when the clown tapped him on the leg, which Bastion thought was the referee telling him he had won. He had not, as traditionally, pro wrestling matches end after the count of three, not one.
After Doink won the match via roll-up (and, sadly for Booger, not the Fruit variety)…
…he doused Booger’s pizza (which he had brought to the ring with him) in Tabasco sauce…
…giving the big man a big surprise.
It wasn’t just pizza that Bastion brought to the ring; at Survivor Series, he brought leftover turkey, along with a t-shirt reading, “I may be fat, but you’re ugly and I can diet”.
Booger’s lack of intelligence, and abundance of dumbness, reared their ugly heads again at the Series, where he abandoned a sure-fire pinfall to grab a banana, then tried to hit his finisher again, not realizing his opponent was now about five feet away from him.
I’m not sure if I mentioned this already, but the guy smelled bad, too. Or, as Vince McMahon would put it, he would suggest that there was a stench emanating from one Bastion Booger. They should have counted themselves lucky; imagine the stench that might emanate from two Bastion Boogers.
Once, Booger defeated Rick Martel in a heel vs. heel match by disqualification when The Model sprayed him with Arrogance. He didn’t spray it into his eyes or anything; Bastion’s smell was such an essential part of his body that the cologne nearly incapacitated him.
Bastion was about as one-dimensional a character as wrestlers get, but this didn’t stop Vince McMahon from featuring Booger as a guest commentator for an entire episode of Monday Night Raw in early 1994.
Between fart jokes, veiled references to masturbating to Roseanne Barr photos, and more fart jokes, Booger complained about the lack of contractually-stipulated free food at the announcers’ table. Perhaps worried that Booger might make good on his threats to barbecue Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog, Vince ordered some pizzas, which showed up in short order. Hopefully there was no tabasco sauce on these ones.
Booger even pondered using The Undertaker’s casket as a hiding place for snacks. Now there’s a great feud that never materialized! Think of all the stupid things Taker feuded over in the mid-90s – IRS taxing the dead, King Kong Bundy stealing his urn, Kama melting the urn down into gold chains – and try to tell me it would have been a stretch to have Taker find baby-back ribs and half-eaten bags of potato chips in his coffin and raise hell over it!
By the end of the night, Booger was eating dog biscuits.
And I take back what I said about Booger being a one-dimensional character; Johnny Polo provided some backstory for Bastion to give the 401-pounder some depth, so to speak. It turned out, not only was Booger married, but his marriage was partly responsible for his massive girth.
“And then his wife said she’s be angry if he lost wait,” noted Polo. “Plus, if he exercised, he might not have enough energy left over for sex.”
“What!?” interjected McMahon. “For sex!?”
Speaking of which, Booger’s only storyline kicked off when he misinterpreted Luna Vachon’s rubbing of his hump – done purely in a managerial capacity – and proceeded to force himself upon her repeatedly.
If that weren’t bad enough, we had just learned he was married!
Naturally, Bam Bam Bigelow came to Luna’s aid and punched it out with the horny Booger, leading to a babyface turn… for Bastion.
Todd Pettengill was so captivated by what he saw, that he told a worldwide television audience his New Year’s Resolution: “I wanna hump!”
Viewers at home hoped to God he was talking about that thing on Bastion’s back.
The next week, Bam Bam squashed Booger in short order.
There was room for only one foul-smelling grappler in the WWF in 1994, however, meaning that when Duke “The Dumpster” Droese arrived in the spring of that year, Booger put him over every night before disappearing from the company.
Not even Bastion’s alleged family ties to Randy Savage could save him.
Bastion made one more appearance with the company for the Raw 15th anniversary show, looking relatively svelte.
Apparently, he could diet after all.
Mike Shaw passed away in 2010, but Bastion Booger since been immortalized in action figure form for a new generation of fans.