I’ve been a pro wrestling fan since I first watched Shawn Michaels throw Marty Jannetty headfirst through a barbershop window one Saturday morning. When I turned 17, I saved up enough money to pay my way through pro wrestling school, and I was actually pretty good. Three dozen shoulder dislocations and one surgery later, I realized it wasn’t in the cards for me. Some dreams just aren’t meant to be.
During that time, I inhaled every stitch of wrestling I could get my hands on, and if you were a student or fan of wrestling, you’d eventually come across Barry Horowitz. He was known as a jobber, or these days, “enhancement talent.” Basically, he got paid to get his ass kicked, and as far as jobbers go, he was the best. His sequined ring jacket had a hand imprint on the back where he would routinely pat himself as part of his persona. But, when you saw him enter the ring, you knew it was already a foregone conclusion that he’d be staring up at the lights by the end of the contest.
Action Bronson — the talented New York rapper and chef who sounds like the second coming of Ghostface — is obviously a wrestling fan. If you’ve YouTubed any of his concert footage, you’d see him play out childhood fantasies by performing pro wrestling moves on fans as well as security guards. Here he is performing a version of a “STO.”
Here’s a melody of moves including a clothesline and a “torture rack.”
It comes as no surprise that some of Bronson’s tracks and albums are named after pro wrestlers, as in “The Rockers”, Mr. Wonderful, and “Barry Horowitz.” The latter track is the cause for this discussion, because Horowitz recently spoke to Rolling Stone about his disdain for the rapper’s ode to him. Here’s a passage from that interview:
HE’S ANGERED by Action Bronson’s hip-hop paean to him (“No respect,” Horowitz spits) and wishes the rapper would have asked for permission to use his name and likeness. Horowitz says he subsequently turned down a request to appear alongside Bronson at a Florida club for free. “If anything, when I came out there, they would know who I am and not him,” he says.
You’d think a guy who hasn’t performed regularly on TV for over a decade would be happy about any shine he could get, and the fact that he believes he would outclass Bronson in an appearance seems like deluded thinking (although Barry comes from the “old school” mindset, so who’s to say he wasn’t doing this interview in character). The celebrity versus wrestler match certainly has precedent, with stars like Lawrence Taylor, Dennis Rodman, Jay Leno, Floyd Mayweather, and even Mickey Rourke all taking part in a wrestling program in some fashion.
Bronson vs. Horowitz wouldn’t get the kind of main event placement that Bam Bam Bigelow vs “L.T.” did, but both gentlemen have built-in fantasies and could definitely generate some much needed buzz for the WWE’s stale product. As much as I like Bronson’s music, though, he doesn’t seem in the best shape to have a match that lasts more than seven minutes (that’s being generous), and even then, they’d have to build it around several gimmicks.
This whole thing seems like wishful thinking though, because it’s a long shot that WWE would even put Horowitz back on TV to generate enough heat with Bronson for a Wrestlemania match. But, if they did decide to do it, the seeds of the program have already been planted.
