With TNA becoming more non-sensical by the week, I’ve often wondered when they might be able to win the coveted Gooker Award we present each year to the absolute worst in wrestling. As they have so many less people watching their shows than WWE, youd’ think it’s going to take a pretty monumental effort for them to grab that brass – or perhaps dirty brown – ring.
Not that they haven’t come close. In fact, while they lost in 2007 to the angle where Vince’s son was revealed as Hornswoggle, they took home both the first and second runner up positions. Pac-Man Jones has already found his way here to the Crap (although not before taking a pit stop in the big house), and now it’s time for the biggest TNA Gooker vote getter ever to receive its overdue treatment. Ladies and germs, may we present to you the angle wherein Robert Roode wanted to hire Eric Young.
You wouldn’t think, reading “Robert Roode wanted to hire Eric Young”…that sure doesn’t sound like Gooker material. In fact, if you never saw the angle unfold, you’d probably have zero clue as to why people were so annoyed with it. But trust me, it was a horrifically bad angle, one that had so many plot holes and nonsensical twists and took up so much time on television…man was it horrible. Just thinking about it now makes me want to slam my head against the screen until all that’s left on my shoulders is a bloody stump.
And I’m not a violent girl.
If you’re expecting this induction to chronicle every single event that happened in that storyline, sorry. I’m just going to hit the angle’s “highlight” (and I use that term in the very loosest sense it has been and will ever be used). Besides, I’d wear out six keyboards just getting through the first three weeks of it. Here’s the basics, as best I can attempt to explain it:
1) Robert Roode hated Eric Young because he was popular with the fans.
2) Robert Roode was jealous, and wanted to be loved by the fans.
3) Robert Roode decided that he should therefore hire Eric Young for his “company”, Robert Roode Enterprises Incorporated LLC or whatever.
4) Roode’s assistant, Traci Brooks, had the power to fire Eric at will.
5) Despite having said power, she never once said, “Either you join Robert Roode Inc. or you are fired.”
That’s the basics. Now take those five items, put them in a blender, and hit purree. Then let the blender run for nine months until anything that remotely made a lick of sense has evaporated from the concoction.
Oh, and then have a bikini contest between Traci and Eric.
WHAT?!
Look, I’m not real big on Bikini Contests in wrestling but nowadays it’s something that simply cannot be avoided. There was the Madusa Miceli Vs. Missy Hyatt Bikini Contest during Beach Blast ’92 (that’s for another day) and various bikini contests in the WWE that were used to get over their “Divas” that couldn’t do much else but stand in the ring, maybe shimmy around like they’re at the strip club and hopefully not open their mouths to attempt to speak.
All those events had something in common: they involved only women. Because, you know, 90% of the audience is males. Makes sense, right? Well leave it to TNA to deviate from that pattern and feature a bikini contest featuring one woman and one man. Oh, and broadcast it, not on free tv where you can watch and it will fade from memory, but on Pay-Per-View where it will be documented and recorded in the an(n)als of history.
Ok, ok…I do have to mention one thing before I get to the bikini contest. Roode and Young had about a thousand matches prior to it, one of which featured Eric in a turkey suit.
Yes, a turkey suit.
You want to know why Terry Taylor never got over as the Red Rooster? He didn’t have a giant feathered tail coming out his anus as he mounted guys as he pinned them (as Young does to Roode here).
This overwhelming display of love from the fans for Eric makes Robert Roode SO jealous and flustered that he verbally berates his valet, Ms. Traci Brooks and says that Eric Young is so beloved by all, he could even beat Ms. Brooks in Bikini Contest.
I want you to stop and read that sentence. Does that make any sense at all to you?
No?
Good.
WELCOME TO THIS ANGLE.
Now, Roode just threw that notion out there as a joke but Ms. Brooks decides to prove a point to her abusive brute of a boss
Sure enough, TNA interviewer Leticia bounces down the hallway, JUST in time to catch Ms. Brooks challenging Eric to a contest at Turning Point on PPV that he MUST accept or he’s….FIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRRED. Hey, get outta here, Vince, you’re not allowed on Spike TV anymore.
Now I’d think that Ms. Brooks would challenge him to a Texas chili cook-off or quilting competition. Maybe a foot race with the eggs on spoons but no, she challenges Eric to the aforementioned BIKINI contest.
This is the start of the RUSSO regime at TNA so strap in kids, cause we’re about to get some high brow comedy here.
Backstage, Jeremy “Eraserhead” Borash is with Eric in his manly pink terry cloth robe. Or maybe he threw a red shirt in with all the whites. Either way, Jeremy says that Ms. Brooks is willing to do ANYTHING to win this competition, even if it means reading Twilight all the way through and then burning the pages to send this piece of awful literature back to Hell.
Ok, so he didn’t really say that and it has NOTHING to do with the issue at hand but it couldn’t hurt at all and I HIGHLY recommend the second part.
Jeremy gives Eric a pep talk by saying the audience is behind him all the way and to MAN UP so he can win this bikini contest!
Oh the disparity in this situation is giving me a case of the giggles. Cause ya see, he’s a GUY and he’s in a BIKINI contest, which is traditionally partaken in by WOMEN and…
and…
eh, Russo, you SUCK.
More hilarity as Eric flashes Jeremy.
Show me the bug eyes, Jeremy! I heard you learned that from Don Knotts on Three’s Company!
What Jeremy doesn’t tell you is that Eric is showing him the souls of his former bikini contest opponents ala Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors. Yes, a tough competition is certainly ahead.
You know what can convince a crowd that this is a 100% legit bikini contest?
INFLATABLE PALM TREES.
Already nervous, Eric comes out to the ring and is startled by his own pyro.
I’d like to think when I’m afraid, I don’t look like a blow up doll.
If there’s one thing you can count on with TNA fans, it’s thought provoking signs. For instance, this one.
Maybe the guy will get lucky and she’ll do Sam Kinison’s Gay Necrophilia routine.
That’s offensive.
With the pre-game out of the way, we get down to bidness, as Traci does her striptease dance and reveals…well…something that is decidely NOT a bikini.
Slutty mobster skank underwear, maybe, but not a bikini.
Isn’t a bikini something you wear under water, and not what your husband with connections catches you in when you’re porking one of the Corleone brothers?
Alright, maybe I’m just picking nits here but Eric is up next and boy does he look uncomfy. Join the crowd, kid. It’s like watching your friend’s mentally handicapped little brother being forced to strip in front of everyone.
We’ve all been there, I’m sure.
Thankfully (I guess), Eric warms up with crowd encouragement and does a little shake shake to the stripping music then THROWS off his robe to reveal a slumber party-size t-shirt with a bikini drawn on it.
Where’s Krankor when you need him?
Or Al?
(Note from RD: Sorry, best I can do is these guys.)
Robert Roode IMMEDIATELY cries foul, proclaiming that that is not a real bikini.
Now let me get this straight. He wants to see his hated foe wearing LESS?
What kind of bad guy is he?
Regardless, Eric takes off the shirt and reveals Spongebob boxer-briefs, which makes the audience laugh themselves silly like it is the funniest thing they have EVER seen.
I love Spongebob and his undersea pals as much as the next person but I think these people need to get out more.
The ref says those aren’t considered a bikini either, so he’s just about to award the contest to Ms. Brooks when Eric begs for another chance.
And, of course, he it because God forbid this segment should, you know, END.
Eric puts himself in deep concentration like he’s about to break a board with his junk…
…then strips off to reveal Spongebob briefs.
Maybe it’s just me, but I thought the theme song went “Who lives in a pineapple under the sea”, not “Who lives in a pineapple up Eric Young’s ass.”
But hey, it’s not just Eric’s backside we’re “treated” to, but a buffalo shot as well.
A word of friendly advice, gang: the next time you try to prove to your family that wrestling ISN’T gay, please do not show them this footage.
Ms. Brooks is in shock as Eric Young dazzles the crowd with his area. I’m not kidding, they’re cheering and applauding like the home team just won their first World Series in 100 years…and Eric Young used his weiner to hit the series-winning home run out of the park.
I better stop. Might give Russo ideas.
The audience now must choose the winner by their applause. Well this contest shouldn’t be hard to judge. “We love Spongebob!! We love Eric!! We love male bulge!!”, shouts the crowd.
Eric and his lower half is indeed declared the winner but not before Robert Roode takes out his frustrations on poor little Eric.
I hope he doesn’t hit him with that blow up palm tree!
But Eric escapes and mocks Roode on his way back to the dressing rooms while trying to leave with his dignity.
Dude, it’s TNA.
Check your dignity at the door.