One of the biggest complaints I hear about WWE today is that it’s PG. People don’t like that things are toned down, censored if you will, and long for the ‘good, ol’ days.’
I get it.
I understand it.
It’s because people remember seeing stuff like this:
See, that’s the kinda thing you don’t forget. It’s Sable with hand print pasties.
Before you go any further, dear reader, I want you to stop, and read the last three words in the sentence above outloud.
HAND
PASTIES!
Did you giggle? I did, just from the thought of thousands of people reading that out loud. I guffawed even more because I know a lot of you did it in a high pitched Jerry Lawler voice.
Come on, admit it – you know you did. And you know that I know you did.
So yeah, you see things like that and you remember all the good times you used to have on Monday nights. It makes you have rose colored glasses and think that raunch rules and that everything back then was great.
But for every Sable with hand print pasties you got, you also got a Shaniqua.
Yes, Shaniqua. She was a dominatrix. Because, you know, wrestling needs dominatrixs.
Dominatrixes?
Dominatrixi?
Whatever.
She played the part well, dressing in skin-tight black pleather, and carrying around a riding crop which she later traded in for a cat o’ nine tails. You’d think I wouldn’t notice something like that, but believe me I did, and you will too. Why? Because I’m going to force you to learn what she did with that whip.
Misery loves company you know.
OH! And she wrestled. Or perhaps I should say “wrestled”. She did this in a horrible, horrible manner, I should add, so bad that Jim Cornette nearly wound up in a hospital after trying to tutor her in Ohio Valley Wrestling. Not because she punched him or anything, but rather because just watching her matches caused the man serious, uncontrollable pain and rage.
What may have been even worse, our dominatrix above managed. And she managed men who came to the ring dressed impossibly like this:
Now I’m not 100% sure, but I’m pretty sure that’s you think it is – a guy in an S&M mask.
Actually, I should clarify that: it’s a WWF tag team champion in an S&M mask, complete with handcuffs on the back of their outfits.
Still liking the idea of WWE NOT being PG?
Let’s go back to the beginning, though, and that would be season two of Tough Enough‘s original run.
In a class that included the likes of Matt Morgan, Linda Miles, the woman who would become Shaniqua, was a co-winner along with…oh yes…
Jackie Gayda!
Yes, Jackie Gayda of THAT Jackie Gayda Match fame.
How the hell did this show stay on the air for another season?
Yeah, I don’t know either, dude.
(Yes, fellow Crappers, you saved him.
For now.)
I should note that Linda Miles didn’t show up on WWE TV as a dominatrix, but rather as Linda Miles, former Rutgers basketball star.
Totally normal, right?.
However, less than a year later, the basketball gear was out, and Shaniqua was in. With garters and stilletos, Shaniqua…
Wait a minute, wait a minute, time out.
As most of you know, I’ve lived the last 20+ years of my life in lovely Indianapolis, Indiana. Every town has its local morning radio show that everyone listens to, and Indy is no exception, as we get Bob & Tom. It’s a great show, and I have really enjoyed it over the years. In fact, a lot of the WrestleCrap Radio bits we’ve done over the years have been inspired by things I first heard on Bob & Tom.
A few years before Shaniqua showed up on WWE TV, they had some comediennes on B&T wondering why African American women such as themselves would never be on feminine hygiene commercials.
So literally every single time I ever saw WWE’s Shaniqua, I was thinking about how she needed to “douche her nasty ass.”
I especially thought that when someone sent me the picture to your right for an old mailbag.
A whole flock of seagulls, I say!
And then there were the Basham Brothers.
Sigh…where to even begin here?
Doug Basham and Damaja (read as “Damager” but with an “uh” at the end) had been having a brutal, months long feud that saw them having great matches throughout the territory. As the program was set to reach its zenith, WWE randomly decided one day that it needed a new tag team. So they brought both guys up and paired them as ‘brothers’.
I mean, they are both bald.
And white.
Meanwhile, they were still finishing up OVW dates, so Jim Cornette, who was booking the territory, came up with a bit about how Doug had come up with an evil ploy to make Damaja his brother onSmackdown.
Sounds stupid, right? Amazingly, it was anything but lame on OVW TV, and actually led to a satisfactory conclusion of the angle that the company had spent months building. It also rightly added to the legend of Cornette being able to book his way out of whatever impossible situation WWE would put him in over the years.
So with all that thought and effort, what became of the Bashams on Smackdown?
Well, they became Shaniqua’s sexual playthings.
I don’t say that in jest. I mean they were literally there to gawk and gush over her and stare at her newly surgically enhanced bazooms.
I should note that when I say “gush”, I mean that in a verbal sense.
Although I doubt that a semetic discharge could be a whole heck of a lot worse than this exchange, wherein Shaniqua explained that her breasts were swollen from a Brashaw clothesline from hell.
Only one word for that.
ICK.
And soon enough, we got Doug and Danny wearing black leather masks to the ring, complete with outfits that had handcuffs on the back.
Were the hoods in place for the the age old masked guy switcheroo?
No, because Shaniqua took them off prior to their bouts.
So what where they for?
And yes, she would then take her whip and beat her men right on the ass.
Apparently this was their warm up ritual.
You know, the less said the better.
So what did all these masks and cat o’ nine tails and fart chamber whippings lead to?
A completely forgettable tag team title run.
That and YouTube videos with the Bashams which feature top comments (TOP comments, I say!) from the likes of fratguy76 telling the world, “i had sex with Danny Basham 2 years ago…that man was a BEAST!”
Again, this was from fratGUY76.
So yeah, let’s keep WWE PG, ok?