Black History Month: Wrestling Edition Part 2 and No Way Out Thoughts

by Couch Pirate Scott

Feb-29-08

Black History Month: Wrestling Edition Part 2

This week I will continue to celebrate Black History month by looking at some of my favorite African-American wrestlers, so without wasting your time and mine let’s get started.

When I left you last I mentioned the wrestlers known as Kane & Kole. You might know these guys better as Stevie Ray & Booker T, also known as Harlem Heat. These guys are simply the best African-American Tag Team ever. It could be argued that Harlem Heat is the best tag team of all time. They held the GWF (Global Wrestling Federation) tag team titles 3 times and went on to hold the WCW tag team titles 10 different times. For most of their career they were managed by Sister Sherri (Sherri Martel). Booker T and Stevie Ray were also real life brothers. Over time the brothers split up and went their separate ways. Stevie Ray enjoyed a nice singles career that led to him joining the infamous n.W.o., while Booker T became a huge singles star capturing lots of gold.

Booker T went on to win the WCW Television Title six times, and then eventually got his shot at the WCW World Title. Booker T went on to beat Jeff Jarrett for the WCW World Title and over the course of the couple of years won that title 4 more times. In between he also won the United States Championship from Rick Steiner.

After WCW was bought by WWE Stevie Ray retried and Booker T continued on. Booker T won many Tag Team Titles, a couple more U.S. Titles and the WCW World Title one more time when he beat Kurt Angle. Eventually Booker T won the King of the Ring Tournament and became known as King Booker. King Booker went on to form a stable of Royal Servants (Fit Finlay and William Regal). King Booker went on to beat Rey Mysterio for the World Championship and establish himself as a top heel for the Smackdown brand. Today Booker T finds himself in TNA Wrestling where he is a top babyface. I see plently of gold waiting for Booker in due time. Booker T in my opinion is one of the all time best African American superstars wrestling has ever seen.

The 1990’s were chock full of wrestlers with crazy gimmicks many where used by black wrestlers. Nelson Frazier Jr. used the gimmick Mabel, and Viscera over the years he is now going by the name Big Baddy V.

Mabel his first gimmick in the WWE found him to be a fan favorite tag team wrestler, he was partnered with Mo (Robert L. Home) and together they were called “Men on a Mission”. They had another sidekick named Oscar that would rapped there theme song as they came to the ring. They eventually won the WWE Tag Team Titles from The Quebecers. They held the titles for only days, when the Quebecers beat them in a rematch. Soon the tag team became heels and turned their back on everyone including Oscar. Mabel entered into and won the 1995 King of the Ring Tournament. He quickly renamed himself, King Mabel and went on to face Big Daddy Cool Diesel at Summer Slam. King Mabel was very quick and possessed good mic skills for someone as big as he was. By 1996 Mabel and Mo were released from the WWE.

In 1999 Mabel returned to the WWE and was quickly turned into the character Viscera, which was nothing more than a lackey in the Undertaker’s Ministry stable. Viscera stayed there until he was released again in mid 2000. Lucky for me in 2004 Viscera returned to the WWE, again he was nothing more than a glorified jobber but soon his gimmick changed. Viscera was repackaged as a big man with a hunger for love. Viscera become the lady’s man in the WWE and sought out a love affair with Lillian Garcia. As time went on Viscera was moved to the ECW show and was repackaged once again as Big Daddy V. Why the WWE doesn’t let this guy speak on the mic and give him an ECW Title run I will never know, but regardless he remains one of my favorites.

The 1990’s give us another great gimmick wrestler in the form of Charles Wright. Wright’s first WWE character was that of Papa Shango. Shango debut in 1992 and feuded with many of the mid-card superstars. Over time Papa Shango was repackage as Kama the Supreme Fighting Machine for Ted Dibiase’s Million Dollar Corporation his stay in that stable was very short loved. Kama soon adopted the name Kama Mustafa and joined forces with Farooq and the Nation of Domination. It wasn’t until 1998 that Charles Wright became a big fan favorite in the wrestling world.

In October 1998 Charles Wright became a pimp character called “The Godfather”. As the Godfather he was involved with many mid-card feuds and won the Intercontinental Title by beating Goldust. The Godfather is probably best known for coming to the ring with a bunch of hot women, which he called the “Ho’ Train”. I remember every night he was on TV me and the other Couch Pirates at the time would each pick a girl out of “Ho Train” then debate why or why not our choice was better than everyone else’s, that was good times.

Norman Smiley is not a very popular African-American wrestler but is one of my favorites. Norman Smiley is from England (so I guess his is more of an African-English wrestler) and for most of his American career was nothing but a nameless jobber. Somewhere along the way Norman Smiley started to do this butt slapping and ass grinding move behind his opponents and the fans loved it. This move dubbed the “Big Wiggle” came out of now where and would often throw wrestlers off their game, allowing Smiley to get the win. After some time in minor feuds, Norman was put in the WCW Hardcore Division, his gimmick was simple he hated pain and screamed like a little girl the whole match thus “Screamin” Norman Smiley was born. He reluctantly went on to win the WCW Hardcore Title and remained in the Hardcore Division while WCW was still in business. After the WWE bought WCW, Norman was let go. He has continued to wrestle independently and had spent some time in TNA wrestling. 

Dwayne Johnson, The Rock is the biggest African-American in the history of sports entertainment bar none. The Rock burst on the scene as Rocky Mavia son of Rocky Johnson and grandson to “High Chief” Peter Mavia. He had very quick success and won the Intercontinental Title just months after debuting for the WWE. The Rock went on to win the WWE Championship 6 times, the Tag Team Titles 5 times, Intercontinental Title 3 times, and was the Royal Rumble winner in 2000.

The Rock has headlined Wrestlemania’s and was one of the biggest WWE Superstars during the Attitude Era and beyond. Eventually Hollywood came calling for Dwayne Johnson and The Rock left the ring behind to conquer movies as an action hero. The Rock is the single most popular African-American Wrestler ever. He had the look, the wrestling skills, and could talk on the mic like no other. In my opinion no one (not Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin or Ric Flair) could get a crowd to react to his words like The Rock. Dwayne Johnson would have gone down in history as the greatest wrestlers ever if he wasn’t called away to Hollywood. He would’ve been better than Triple H, Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold or even Ric Flair over time. Like NFL greats Jim Brown and Barry Sanders, The Rock left his mark on the sport and left before his time.  

No Way Out

I want to briefly talk about the No Way Out PPV. This pay per view featured two Elimination Chamber matches one for each brand, with the winners going on to face the Champions at Wrestlemania. Both matches were pretty good events, but I think the PPV suffered by having two of these matches on one PPV.

Why? Because in each Elimination Chamber match there was clearly only two possibly people in each match that would go on to main event at Wrestlemania. In the Smackdown Chamber match it was clear than either Undertaker or Batista would win, while on the Raw Chamber match only Triple H or HBK would go on. They teased us with Jeff Hardy winning but unfortunately it didn’t happen. I think if we would have seen only the big names in one chamber match then the unpredictability of the match would not have been present. The other matches on the card were so-so, you can tell the WWE is building up for Wrestlemania, and No Way Out was a stepping stone in the direction. I’d give this PPV a 7 out of 10 overall.

I hope you have enjoyed this month’s Ring Rust articles as much as I have. It has been nice to look back and see how many of my favorite wrestlers in my youth and adult life have been African Americans. I thought this would be the best way I could contribute to Black History Month, by talking about this great sport I love called Pro-Wrestling.  I’ll see you in a couple of weeks Rust-Heads.

-Scott