I admit it. I can’t think of any more jokes to make about the drugs that the Memphis bookers had to have been smoking when they came up with gimmicks. I’ve discussed everyone from the Dragonmaster to TA-GAR, Lord of the Volcano, and it’s just gotten to the point I thought I’d seen everything Jerry Lawler, Jerry Jarrett and the gang could throw at me.
Then, almost a full decade after his tenure there, I have finally seen footage of “Macho Warrior” Ric Hogan. Words cannot describe what I saw.
Okay, actually they could. Here’s a few, in fact:
Rip-off.
Creative void.
Dumbass.
Stupid.
Imitation.
We’ve seen wrestlers rip off the gimmicks of Hogan (Funkster, Showster), Ric Flair (Jeff Jarrett), Ultimate Warrior (Luminous) and Savage, but one guy imitating all four? At the same time?
Shoot me.
Anyway, during the dying days of USWA (gee, I wonder WHY), someone there actually saw fit to hand their Heavyweight belt over to this lardass no-talent. Managed by Randy Hales (imagine Vince McMahon and Jameson having a love-child), Hogan arrived on the scene and took the title and the dignity of the promotion. Here you had a very large guy walking out in the colors of Hogan, and in his promos, managed to go through all four of the men’s promo routines in less than a minute. Remember that one promo that The Rock did when he kept “forgetting” his catch phrase and was using all of the old WCW guys’ phrases? Imagine your cousin Jerry dressed up like Evad Sullivan and doing it on EVERY SINGLE SHOW.
Sigh.
Lawler, if you’re reading this, PLEASE for the luvagod, send me some of whatever you guys smoke. Please.
Anyway, Hogan here was actually a putz named Michael Imburgia, who also wrestled in Japan and other places as Tower Of Doom.
Now, normally, I try to bring a bit of respect to the gimmicks I display here. I realize that behind the goofy masks and idiotic costumes, there’s a guy just doing his best to make a living. However, I can’t do that with this piece of trash. See, about two years ago, this goon got busted for having a very large amount of child porn pics on his home computer.
Way to go, USWA. You sure you guys didn’t have Rob Feinstein doing camerawork, too?
Big props to our old friend Wild B Brown for supplying us with the footage for this entry. As always, you can find his website at http://www.bbrownvideo.com and he’s got an awesome-as-ever supply of hard to find matches.