Professional wrestling always comes with a healthy dose of the ridiculous, and this award honours the most ridiculous gimmick or persona that a wrestler was unfortunate enough to be saddled with. Named after Fred Ottman, whose ill-fated debut as the strange glitttering space-creature 'The Shockmaster' is one of the most legendary blunders in wrestling history, apart from being a terrible gimmick.
Last Year's Awards:
Winner - Robbie E and Snooki (Jersey Shore Parody)
1st Runner Up - Abyss (Insecure Neurotic)
2nd Runner Up - Hornswoggle (Mischievous Leprechaun)
WINNER - DAVID OTUNGA (LEGAL EXPERT)
They just had to do it, didn't they. If you thought that WWE would be content to let 'Harvard Law Graduate' be just an interesting footnote to David Otunga's career, this is either the first time you are hearing about WWE or you are now safely locked away in Arkham Asylum after being apprehended by the Batman. Of course, we've heard Michael Cole telling us approximately 342 times that David Otunga was a Harvard graduate and actually worked at a legal firm before deciding to "pursue sports entertainment". But WWE took the horrifying decision of actually making this Otunga's central gimmick in 2011. So we had Otunga counselling Superstars to walk out on COO Triple H in protest of an 'unsafe working environment' and threatening lawsuits against everyone from John Cena to the cameraman. Mysteriously, for an international corporation that was listed on the Fortune 500 list of Small Companies and whose revenues amounted to $109 million in the last quarter, not a single other soul in WWE appeared to have the slightest semblance of legal knowledge, say for example what might constitute an unsafe working environment in a company whose latest public event was poignantly titled 'Hell in a Cell'. As a result, simple sentences from Otunga such as "I've been consulting state laws" were met with WIDE EYES, GREAT FEAR and DEEP SHOCK from authority figures such as Theodore Long. Of course,it's possible it might have all seemed less silly had he not the whole time been sipping coffee from a ridiculous thermos and wearing the most preposterous bow tie in the history of the clothing industry.
1st RUNNER UP - HEATH SLATER (ONE MAN ROCK BAND)
I suppose by itself, the phrase "One Man Rock Band" is not too bad. It might even have been a catchy and cool nickname for someone with phenomenal musical talent and an electric presence. Like Jimi Hendrix, for example. Unfortunately, I am quite confident that Heath Slater would be incapable of becoming a one-man rock band even if he were the last man on earth, had eight arms and was magically gifted with the sum total of musical knowledge accumulated throughout the history of mankind. For I have seen things that look less like a rock band than Heath Slater, but not since I got glasses. The man (and I use the term loosely, for his resemblance to the girl in the Wendy's logo is uncanny) can work in the ring, but he will have to ditch this atrocious gimmick and his current hairstyle if he's ever going to be taken seriously.(Note: The image on the left is obviously photoshopped, but it was too hilarious not to include here)
2nd RUNNER UP - STING (THE JOKER)
Sting has been known as 'The Icon' for quite some time, and it is the rare wrestling nickname that is not an exaggeration. The man is one of the last remaining legends in the industry, a veteran with 26 years in the business, a no-nonsense professional who is hugely respected among his peers. You'd think that a newborn baby would be able to see that this is a performer who can be left to himself. But TNA Wrestling is no newborn baby. The company has a fascinating talent for trying to fix what isn't broken and then ruining it beyond all recognition, and they somehow managed to do this with Sting in 2011. After he lost the TNA World Heavyweight Championship to Mr. Anderson at Slammiversary, he was bizzarely repackaged as 'The Insane Icon', completely ripping off Heath Ledger's Joker from 'The Dark Knight'. Imagine if WWE had recast The Undertaker as the 'Pirate Phenom' with Jack Sparrow's character. I prayed desperately that someone - DC Comics, Warner Bros - anyone, would file an injunction for copyright infringement, but they were either too busy laughing hysterically or continuing to be unaware of TNA's existence. We were forced to watch in horror as this legend donned white facepaint, red lipstick, garish suits and laughed hysterically for no apparent reason whatsoever - approximately every 15 minutes during Impact. TNA, you wanna know how you got these scars?
No comments:
Post a Comment