On Monday, we shared with you the best (Cactus Jack) and very, very worst (Hail) of World Championship Wrestling’s 8×10 promo photos from the 1990s. If you thought Dave Sullivan petting a rabbit was as deep as the well ran, you’re in for a treat.
Behold, part two of our epic WCW promo photos quest, once again visiting the pro wrestling company that threatened to put WWE out of business before collapsing in on itself and folding in the shadow of stars like Kwee Wee and Disqo. The next 50 WCW photos tell the story of the company … full of amazing pro wrestling talent, but also (unfortunately) full of everything else. Take a long, hard look at that picture of Ric Flair. If you can’t see the terror in his eyes, you’ll start to pick it up around slide 30.
If you showed part one to everybody you know, follow-up with this one.
I am like 60% sure this isn’t the real Jesse “The Body” Ventura. I am 100% sure that this is the cover photo for the Jesse “The Body” Ventura Halloween costume. “Just stand really far back, nobody’ll be able to tell.”
These guys are impossible to Google. All their team name brings up is a bunch of juggling Montréalais.
HE’S SINGLE, LADIES
Seriously, Dave Penzer, the Stevie Janowski of professional wrestling, had an 8×10. Who wanted Dave Penzer’s autograph?
It never stops being hilarious and inspiring that a guy this shoot gross looking could have it together more than anybody else in this gallery and be a yoga instructor in 2013.
In case you didn’t know, WCW tried to be Mortal Kombat for like eight months. Watch this clip quickly, before Rita Repulsa attacks it with Putties:
This was Glacier’s arch-nemesis, Scorpion Shao Khan? Mortis. Looking back, his costume really could’ve used a few more skulls.
This is how sad the wrestling world can be: you give a guy the gimmick of LAUGHING A LOT, call him “Hugh Morrus” because it sounds like “humorous,” and this is the best thing he does in his entire career. Don’t believe me? Refer to the next photo, wherein Hugh Morrus becomes an army-themed dick joke.
General Hugh G. Rection. Yes, somebody at WCW saw Bart Simpson place a prank call to Moe’s Tavern and thought I SHOULD CALL SOMEBODY THIS IN REAL LIFE AND MAKE IT THEIR JOB TO SOUND LIKE DICKS.
I can’t figure out what’s off about this Konnan photo. Wh- why is he looking at me like that? Why does he remind me so much of Peter Falk as Columbo? Or like, Colombo in a gangster disguise? Maybe he bought it at the same Halloween Express that sells those Jesse Ventura costumes.
This is awesome as f**k. That is all.
Fun fact: Jim Powers is still alive. I know, I’m as shocked as you.
Step back from what you know about wrestling for a second. How amazing is it that there is a tag team called NASTY BOYS? How did we allow this to exist?
Also, Chikara photographer Zia Hiltey drew a picture of the Nasty Boys for me on a New Year’s card, and it’s one of the best gifts I’ve ever received:
“Let’s see how this glittery jacket matches my man-diaper … ah, yes, perfect.”
Okay, you know how you’re watching wrestling with your friends and you see a guy named Prince Iaukea, so you turn to them and say “hey, they should give him a Prince gimmick and call him The Artist Formerly Known As Prince Iaukea,” and everybody laughs because it’s funny, but not because anyone would ever do that for real? WCW did that for real. They are not currently in business. YOU DID NOT HAVE TO DO EVERY STUPID THING, GUYS.
Yo! Bum Rush the Homemade T-Shirt Store
I love this picture. Piper’s all, “heh, yeah, this is pretty shitty, huh guys?”
Important reminder: this guy became Raven.
QUICK, PUT HIS NAME ON EVERYTHING
There’s an entire collection of 8x10s of Nitro Girls I don’t remember. I like this one. I think her name was Arrmpit.
The unstoppable tag team of The Patriot and Cory Matthews’ brother Eric.
Remember American Males? Yeah, that was a highlight of Buff Bagwell’s pre-Buff career.
When I was 11, two guys from Michigan (including one with a mullet) who wore floral onesies and always got together in a doggystyle pose were the coolest people I’d ever seen. And you know what? They still are.
The man who would become Stone Cold, saying it all with a facial expression.
Who farted?
(this is the best 8×10 ever)
Get ready to face your deadliest foe ever, Hulk Hogan … the JOB CREATOR. He has a series of tasks, and quickly organizes them! HULKAMANIA IS DEAD
“So how many people should be on each team?”
This is supposed to be The Assassin 1, but I keep reading it as “The Assassin I.” I am also writing a stage production called The Assassin, I.
If you don’t remember, KISS once sponsored a pro wrestler. They wanted him to be the champion, but hew as just a terrible wrestler in KISS make-up. Here he is rising from a tomb on Nitro, maybe decade or two too late.
Yo, a team with Jerry Flynn on it is not the “first” anything.
If you only know The Big Show from WWE, you may be surprised to learn that he was once a younger, thinner, more muscular man who once posed for a photo with somebody’s finger up his butt.
I would’ve called them “The Guys Who Tried To Kill The Goonies, Big Vito and Johnny The Bull.”
Look at the adjective. “Outsiders.”
Ann Veal was a wrestler?
The Wall eventually joined up with Hugh G. Rection’s gaggle of fake army dick guys and became “AWOL,” because WCW pretty much just ran with whatever popped into their heads.
If you’ve ever wondered why so many guys are weirdly in love with Molly Holly, this is where it started. Holy shit was Mona the hottest.
The greatest 8×10 in the history of our sport.
WCW went through a phrase where they wouldn’t stop naming guys after Vince McMahon to try to “get to him,” or whatever. Mike “IRS” Rotunda became V.K. WALLSTREET, a man who is accompanied in my mind by a blinking LED sign reading NOT THE MILLION DOLLAR MAN.
Wrestling Superstar Virgil also got the “lol, Vince” treatment, but to his credit, he was only named Virgil because that was Dusty Rhodes’ name. Virgil had a real Kunte Kinte thing going on, didn’t he?
NOPE.
get it
(note: this is the one who married Shawn Michaels. You may remember her from that time Chris Jericho punched her in the face.)
The dream of the e-fed is alive in WCW.
WCW once had a boy band. I considered not including this photo, because I didn’t want it to trigger any porn filters.
Craig Pittman
“Not The Guy Who Played Roc”
Every time I look at this I think she signed it, “All my butt!”
The way he’s standing makes it look like the guitar has legs. Can’t unsee.
The Macho Man Randy Savage, during that sad time in his life when he spray-painted his beard, got his stripper girlfriends jobs as wrestling valets and thought recording a rap album was a great idea.
“I look like this on purpose!”
I put this picture immediately after Madusa so you could flip back and forth between them.
Norman Smiley is a fun character to try to explain to non-wrestling fans. “He was basically the butler from ‘The Fresh Prince,’ and he wrestled in this tiny-ass yellow speedos, and he was popular because of a taunt where he pretended to buttf**k people.”
“Sorry Shawn, we can’t move the camera back. Just lean down a little. There you go, perfect.”
MENG IN A GI.
YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID.
