Wrestlecrap
From Freepedia
Wrestlecrap is a well-known professional wrestling website created by RD Reynolds and the late Merle Vincent. Both men used to work in wrestling's independent circuit before RD came up with the idea of a pro wrestling "hall of shame" website. The concept was that each week, the website would feature two or three bad gimmicks or storylines that had been seen in pro wrestling, along with pictures of them and humorous commentary by RD. The site began in April 2000. It was originally started to give his friends a laugh, but eventually expanded with new articles and pages.
Along with the weekly Wrestlecrap inductees, the more recent additions were Jobber of the Week, where Wrestlecrap fan Blade Braxton would induct one jobber every week; Weird World of Wrestling, which used to be a separate website by Madison Carter, that was inspired by Wrestlecrap.com but focused on the independent scene; and Someone Bought This, a look at some of the more ridiculous wrestling merchandise on sale. RD also has a section called RD's Ramblings, in which he offered his comments on current events in pro wrestling and replied to the emails he received.
From its debut in 2000, Wrestlecrap grew steadily in popularity, but due to the high costs of running the site, Reynolds was forced to end Wrestlecrap in the summer of 2001. It returned the following year, in slightly smaller form (the large backlog of past inductions was no longer available to readers). For a brief time, there was some resentment for this act, as he requested that the full contents of his site be deleted from internet archiver archive.org. This coincided with RD's sale of CD-R copies of his site on eBay for large sums of money, and there were accusations that Reynolds was trying to stamp out access to what was previously free content. He later denied this and claimed that because some sound clips and images were not archived fully, he wanted to prevent access to content that could be seen as poor in quality.
But, despite a large amount of negative sentiment during this period, the site proved to remain very popular in its comeback. After a few years of continuous updating, in June 2005, the site switched over to a once-a-month update schedule, due to RD's impending fatherhood. He also felt that the frequent updates were detracting from the quality of his writing, and felt that updating less often would give him more time to focus on his work, and would allow him to put out better content.
There is also a book written by the creators of Wrestlecrap, with the same name (ISBN 1-55022-584-7). Reynolds also co-authored The Death of WCW, with wrestling journalist Bryan Alvarez.
Though Wrestlecrap.com has had many inductees, some of the more infamous ones were:
- The 2004 RAW Diva Search, a T&A contest that would sometimes take up entire quarters of the two-hour show with non-wrestling segments that involved things like a pie-eating contest, seducing Kamala and using ice cream in sexual manners.
- The Shockmaster. A wrestler who killed his gimmick by tripping and losing his glitter-covered Stormtrooper Mask while making his first appearance on WCW TV.
- Arachniman, a WCW star who had a gimmick very similar to Spider-Man.
- Beach Blast 93. A mini-movie that preceded a WCW pay-per-view.
- Beaver Cleavage, a parody of Leave It to Beaver filled with numerous sexual innuendos.
- Actor David Arquette was given the WCW World Heavyweight Title despite not being a trained wrestler. This was actually a publicity stunt to promote Arquette's WCW-related movie Ready to Rumble.
- Giant Gonzales, an "eight-foot" tall wrestler (not actually eight feet tall, but legitimately well over seven feet) who wore a bodysuit with airbrushed muscles from the neck down.
- The Berserker, a medieval Norse warrior who dressed like one and somehow became a pro wrestler.
- The Katie Vick storyline, which involved Triple H accusing Kane of killing his girlfriend, and later showed a taped segment of Triple H, dressed as Kane, simulating an act of necrophilia.
- Bastion Booger, a WWF wrestler who farted, belched and ate any food he could get his hands on.
- The Gobbledygooker. A giant egg had been on display at WWF events. It hatched during a pay-per-view, revealing a man (in actuality, wrestler Hector Guerrero) dressed as a turkey.
- The Johnsons, a tag team dressed in flesh suits.
- The Al Wilson storyline. Dawn Marie marries Torrie Wilson's father, who dies from a heart attack after having sex on their honeymoon.
- Santa with Muscles, a nonsensical Christmas movie starring Hulk Hogan. The induction of the movie led directly to its becoming #1 on the IMDb bottom 100 for a short time.
- The 1991 edition of The Great American Bash, which saw the Baltimore crowd chant "WE WANT FLAIR!" for the entire show, to protest Ric Flair's firing from WCW days before the show.
Wrestlecrap has had a small number of non-wrestling inductions, such as The Star Wars Holiday Special.
Contents |
The Gooker Award
Here are the recipients of Wrestlecrap's annual Gooker Award, which is given for the worst gimmick, storyline, or event for that year. This award is named after the Gobbledygooker.
- 2000: David Arquette as the WCW Champion
- 2001: The WCW/ECW Invasion
- 2002: Katie Vick
- 2003: Al Wilson
- 2004: The 2004 RAW Diva Search
The 2001 award was not revealed until 2004 due to Wrestlecrap's closing in 2001. Because of this, it is known as the "Lost" Gooker Award.
Get in the Ring
In August 2005, the ECW Press, owners of Get in the Ring, made RD Reynolds and Blade Braxton the new hosts of GITR. On the debut show on September 2, Reynolds and Braxton interviewed former hosts Sir Adam and The Phantom to hostile remarks.
