In the early 1990s, when Seattle rock bands broke into the mainstream, one question was on everyone’s mind: What was Vince McMahon’s take on grunge music? And in 1995, we got our answer.
Three years earlier, the New York Times had been tricked into publishing a list of phony slang terms from the grunge world.
Now it was the WWF’s turn to completely mangle the grunge subculture on a national stage. Enter the self-professed originator of grunge from Seattle, Washington.
Now, unlike other genres like punk or rap, there weren’t really any stereotypical names for grunge musicians, so McMahon could have called his new wrestler pretty much anything.
He called him Rad Radford.
Radford arrived on the WWF’s B and C shows to little fanfare; all Vince McMahon knew was that he was a “grungy-looking individual”. In other words, he had a better grasp of the Rad Radford character than most of the company.
See, the man in the flannel was Louie Spicolli, so named for his resemblance to legendary stoner Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
It seems that some wires got crossed, and Louie thought Rad Radford was Jeff Spicoli. How else do you explain the grunge rocker yelling out “It’s party time!” throughout his early matches?
Adding to the misplaced surfer vibe, Dok Hendrix once told his commentary partner to “catch the wave” while Rad danced “The Swim”.
If Radford had been a surfer dude like his former namesake, “Rad” would have been a fitting (if still completely stupid) name. But no one in the grunge scene would ever say, “rad”, any more than they’d call torn-up jeans, “wack slacks”.
At least Todd Pettengill didn’t conflate Rad and Jeff Spicoli. Instead, the lamestain wouldn’t shut up about Rad Radford’s love for the Grateful Dead, assuming that anyone with long hair was a hippie. How did a New York radio DJ know so little about modern music and pop culture?
Jim Ross, it turned out, was the unlikely grunge expert of the entire WWF organization, even trying to sell Gorilla Monsoon on the merits of Hole…
…a topic that came up whenever Radford declared his love for lead singer Courtney Love. (It seems Spicoli had moved on from Madonna)
As for Rad Radford’s grunge bona fides, he once declared Stone Temple Pilots, “the epitome of grunge music” and his “favorite musical groups” [sic]. (The Hitman said Pearl Jam)
And as for other grunge bands like Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Green Day, they had all stolen his style.
But the dumbest thing about Rad Radford was that, in the ring, he kind of kicked ass…
…flattening each of the Hardy Boys with suicide dives …
…and finishing off everyone from Jerry Lynn to Jerry Flynn with a beautiful Northern Lights Suplex.
Yet none of that mattered, because he was saddled with the WWF’s dumbest name of 1995.
He may have been so rad, they named him Rad twice, but his win-loss record was anything but. I’m not saying he was a cob nobbler, but his biggest victory came against perennial job guy Barry Horowitz.
Yet this most basic of feats ingratiated himself to the Body Donnas, who took him on as a Body Donna in training.
So on the plus side, Radford got his first storyline. On the minus side, all it did was make him look fat.
While Rad Radford was indeed a husky gentleman, his skits with the fitness freaks painted him as an out-of-shape slob who couldn’t do three crunches without an M&M break.
Radford gave new meaning the term, “big bag of bloatation”!
Inevitably, the partnership didn’t last. Instead, Skip vanquished Rad with the help of his brother Flip (renamed Zip in post).
Harsh realm!