Normally, I leave the WCW and WWF/E stuff to R.D., but with the movie theme this week, I couldn’t help but make mention of this little gimmick that may not exactly merit mention in the regular Wrestlecrap section.
Ok, pretend you’re WCW. You’ve cross-promoted with the movie ROBOCOP. You’ve cross-promoted with the movie BRIDE OF CHUCKY. Both failed miserably. Now, because you’re part of Time-Warner’s media conglomerate, you’ve been asked to promote their newest theatrical cartoon THE QUEST FOR CAMELOT. What do you do?
Well, the answer is an easy one. You have a character from the movie invade your federation. Luckily, you decide not to do as in the past and have this character interact with your wrestlers (I’m assuming none of the bookers actually showed up for this episode of Thunder, which is the only explanation I can think of for that). The bad side is, this may have been one of the times it might have been kinda cool. The guy in the suit was…well, I can’t remember his name now, though someone told me it just recently on a message board (see, folks, this is why even short-term narcotics use half a decade ago can come back and haunt you).
Anyway, unlike the talking puppet that tore Rick Steiner a new hole (making the list of people who’ve shown Steiner up to be an ass in public quite eclectic, putting Chucky right next to Norman Smiley) or Sting’s new buddy Roboflop, when Baron Ruber walked out, people actually took a bit of notice. The guy was VERY big and VERY unique looking. And then…he started handing out QUEST FOR CAMELOT t-shirts to the crowd as WCW THUNDER went to commercial. We never saw him again. That’s a damned shame, really. At LEAST he could have been the newest version of WCW’s old Oz gimmick, or a variation on it. Sad.
So, was this gimmick thankfully kept away from the ring and any angles, or was it something that might actually have gotten over in WCW during it’s floundering 1998 shows? Who knows…
For those who require more information about the character’s origins, Ruber was the villain of the Disney-ish CAMELOT film, where he fought the voice of Steve Perry and Celine Dion. Now that I think about it, maybe it wasn’t a good idea to bring him in after all. Steve Perry whupped him? C’mon, that’s like saying Urkel kicked your ass and made out with your girlfriend in front of you.