I really, really wanted this to be just a four word, one mathematical symbol induction:
“The Johnsons = wrestling penises.”
I almost did it, too. It took me days, nay, weeks of soul searching to decide that perhaps I should include just a bit more information. I didn’t really want to – after all, what more could I possibly add that could add to that equation? Seriously – a wrestling promotion came to the conclusion that guys dressed up as WRESTLING PENISES was a good idea.
Do I really need to elaborate?
For you, fellow Crappers, I will.
Back in the weeks before NWA-TNA had their first show, there was a lot of controversy swirling about the Internet. Was it debate over whether or not the promotion could exist without national television? Or if the idea of a weekly pay-per-view schedule was viable? Or if Jeff Jarrett could actually hyponotize people with one of his old flashing “JJ” outfits and thus trick them into buying such shows?
No, silly – the furore was over the fact that the brain trust running the organisation had created a tag team of Richard and Rod Johnson who would wrestle in flesh-colored bodysuits.
The mere idea was met with such disdain that several legitimate wrestling news sites, like the Torch, actually theorised that TNA was trying to appeal specifically to readers of this very site. Booking to the Internet is a dumb enough idea; booking for the sole purpose of getting digital ink on this site is so far beyond moronic that it’s almost incomprehensible.
So the big day finally arrived, and boy were the fans in for a treat.
The Johnsons were led to the ring by the doofus to my left, Mortimer Plumbtree. Now before you write him off as a lame indy manager, let it be known that the guy was actually pretty good on the mic. He also had a pretty amusing gimmick. In fact, he only had one downfall:
He was managing two men named RICHARD AND ROD JOHNSON.
Ah yes, there they are, in all their flesh-colored glory.
Now I know what you’re thinking – were it not for their names, these guys would just be completely generic masked jobbers.
Sadly, that’s pretty much how they were portrayed. See, I was all happy because I thought for sure I was going to have lots of wacky soundbites of Ed Ferrara making all kinds of dick jokes.
But he never did. In fact, the TNA announce crew just referred to them as if they were any other ol’ tag team.
I mean seriously, if you’re going to have a tag team known as “The Johnsons”, then do it right. Not that I long to see grown men in spandex designed to look like genitalia or anything, but if you’re going to do this kind of thing, then go all the way and mine the bottom of the barrel.
Make them wear purple helmets to the ring!
Call their finisher “The Big Spurt!”
Have them taunt their opponents by doing the pee-pee dance!
Give them little holes on the top of their heads!
You know the saddest part of all this? I came up with those ideas, and then I have the audacity to say Vince Russo is an idiot.
For shame!
So anyhoo, the dicks were successful in their debut. It looked as though the Johnsons were on their way to the top.
And then three weeks later, they jobbed to the new tandem of Chris Harris and James Storm.
Amazingly, even the guys in TNA knew talent when they saw it, and made Storm and Harris a permanent team. For the past two years, they’ve been tearing up TNA as America’s Most Wanted, while the Johnsons basically fell off the earth.
Maybe Russo isn’t such an idiot after all.
(RD glances at Death of WCW manuscript.)
No, sorry, he is.