Moppy. Ah, old Moppy. For years, folks have been clamoring for your induction, and for years I’ve avoided writing about you. And why is that? Well, the reason is quite simple:
It’s a guy. And a mop.
What the heck am I supposed to say?
So I put this off for years, simply due to a total lack of an idea of how to go about presenting it to you, my fellow Crappers. But when I promise something, I try to deliver. Don’t always succeed, but try. Especially, you know, when I’ve promised to send out personally autographed mops if I were not to do it. RD ain’t got that kinda cash.
So Moppy, yes…where to begin?
Perry Saturn was, to me, one of the real underutilized guys of the early 2000 period. A legit tough guy who was a pretty damn good worker, and one that had a very unique look to boot. Sure, other guys had the bald head and goatee…but how many looked like a legit serial killer? Austin didn’t – he looked like a redneck. But take a look at this mug:
You piss a guy who looks like Austin off, and you think, “Man, that guy is gonna kick my ass.”
You piss a guy who looks like Saturn off, and you think, Man, that guy is gonna kick my ass. Then he will probably ball-gag me.”
Honestly, when the so-called Radicals of Saturn, Benoit, Eddy, and Dean Malenko made their way to Raw, I thought the real wild card in the equation was Saturn. I really didn’t know if Eddy, Benoit, or Dean would succeed long-term. Benoit, of course, was such an awesome worker that I hoped he would. Eddy was great as well, as was Dean, but I just wasn’t sure that Vince could wrap his head around three smaller workers and get them into the main event mix. Things worked out just fine for Eddy and Benoit, while Dean largely floundered. (But hey, his ladies man gimmick will have to wait for another day)
And Saturn? Well, I guess you’d have to say he floundered too. Which was odd to me, because I thought this would be the oddball tough guy that Vince has found so endearing over the years. I mean, damn, put him in a white suit, give him a few psychotic lines, and we’ve got that Waylon Mercy redux we’ve been wanting for years.
Well, at least the one I have been waiting for years.
Anyway, things just kinda never happened for Saturn. The years passed, and he won the lower level title here and there, but he was basically just stuck in midcard hell. Eventually he wound up doing C-level WWE shows like Heat and Jakked. And yes, there used to be a show called “Jakked”. Hell, there may still be for all I know. I doubt it, though – you’d have to think a show called “Jakked” would be unlikely to survive the Wellness Policy.
But it was on this questionably named show that an event happened that would forever change the life of Perry Saturn, in a match in which he was wrestling a jobber by the name of Mike Bell. In the midst of this squash, Bell completely botched an arm drag and Saturn wound up landing right on his noggin. It appeared at that point that Saturn just went apeshit, and basically shot on Bell and beat the ever lovin’ crap out of the guy. Hey, if I was Bell I’d just be happy he didn’t kidnap me and attempt to make a coat out of my skin or something.
WWE management wasn’t happy with this. Which is weird, in and of itself. Heck, if someone like JBL had done this, he’d probably have been given a main event run or something. But Saturn…he wasn’t part of the in-crowd and was thus punished with a new gimmick, one in which he was insane. As bizarre as it sounds, punishment by gimmick was nothing new; rumor has had it for years that the reason Adrian Adonis wound as an “Adorable” flamer is because Vince was unhappy with his ever-expanding waist.
So Saturn was now a crazy man. Instead of just getting pissed, though, Saturn took the ball and ran with it. He came up with a totally off-kilter persona, complete with a great promo style. Basically, he’d just say something completely out there like “Doggies eat applesauce to save the ozone layer.” Then he hit his catch phrase: “You’re Welcome!” It was bizarre, goofy, and made the people laugh. Amazingly, it started to get over.
At the time, he was hanging out with a she-devil by the name of Terri Runnels. Newer fans may not remember her, which is a shame – she was quite the little looker back in the day, and had a good mind for the business. This, of course, makes sense as she was around the business since her run as Alexandra York in the early 1990’s WCW.
The storyline was simple: Saturn was befriended by a mop, a mop by the name of “Moppy”. The old inimate object as a friend storyline had been done to death in wrestling over the years, but this time, there was a twist: his girlfriend wasn’t down with him basically two-timing on her with a mop. And thus, Terri gave Saturn an ultimatum: either the mop or her.
So Saturn chose between the two sticks with nappy hair: Moppy.
Terri was livid at losing her man to a kitchen cleaning device, and decided to get revenge. She teamed up with Saturn’s rival Raven and the two “Mopnapped” Saturn’s new love interest. Saturn was heartbroken, and did everything he could to find Moppy, going so far as to contact the American Dairy Association and get them to slap her mug on cartons of milk.
Sadly, it was all for naught, as Terri exacted her ultimate revenge on the dirty, cheating, stinking mop by tossing Moppy in a woodchipper. Ironically enough, this was the exact same end a similar inanimate object angle, one with Chavo Guerrero and his stick pony Pepe, suffered in WCW.
Guys guys guys…ripping off UHF is one thing. But ripping off WCW? I thought you had better taste than that.
Anyway, Saturn was devastated. Try as they might, the other WWF superstars just couldn’t cheer their compadre up. Until…until she showed up. You know who. The woman who can make every day a better day:
Oh yes, Trish Stratus. Not only did she give Perry a big hug, but she serenaded him as well, with Perry being so enraptured he joined in.
I wish Trish all the best in her career, but cutting an album probably ain’t in the cards.
Trish, though, saved the best for last:
A brand new Moppy, complete with a Trish head. This filled Saturn’s heart with joy, and we had a happy ending.
Until, of course, he got fired a year or so later. I wonder if Vince (or more likely John Lauraunitis) actually said, “You’re welcome” upon giving him the news he was canned.
I doubt it; neither are, to the best of my knowledge, trapped in a pit somewhere.