WTV : The WrestleRock Rumble

After a few MeTV Toons spots, I’m back to wrestling. Who knew?

WTV I guess only 40 somethings like me will get. I have to remember that there’s a generation or two who don’t remember that MTV wasn’t always the Ridiculousness Channel.

So, this is kind of to complete a trifecta of articles from previous weeks. In 1986, the AWA had a supershow at the Minneapolis Metrodome…the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (so the AWA was in a venue named for [a] Triple H). Scott reposted his review, and…it was okay, apparently. Your typical “try and outdo the WWF with a show that had, like, everyone that was non-WWF that they could find” show.

But to be fair, the show itself was not what we all remember about WrestleRock.

You see, to promote it, the AWA made their own music video, and the Super Bowl Shuffle was popular at the time (and holy crap, what I’m about to look at was a TOTAL knockoff!). GLOW also took inspiration from said Shuffle with their introduction and character raps. But from the AWA’s efforts, we got their personalities doing their own rap lyrics, to varying results, and from this we got the infamous WrestleRock Rumble.

It’s probably Star Wars Holiday Special levels of cliche to review it, but what the heck. The WWE Vault just reminded us that the Rumble exists, and they even had some outtakes and more from the making of the video. Miss Peacockery has you covered with the latter.

And here is The Video itself.

My musings as I watch through…

– Oh wow, they DO call it the HHH Metrodome on the title card.

– OOOOAAAAOOOWOWWWWWWAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! Sorry, Our Vantage Point’s Ken Resnick imitation kicks in whenever he shows up. In fact let me try an OVP version of Ken’s part of the rap:

I’m Ken Resnick and I’m not lame,
My favorite bagel flavor is plain,
Vanilla ice cream gives me no trouble,
I’ll shout and whisper about the WrestleRock Rumble!

(yeah I know, this joke is dated since Joe and Mike are in the 1987 canon and have Craig DeGeorge to pick on now…)

– Rhyming “Marty” with “party”, take a drink. It also looks like the Rockers are at a kiddie birthday party during a power outage,instead of something cool. And it looks like kids made those “t-shirts” for them, using undershirts and magic markers.

– Verne Gagne’s version of “hip”: get Playmates and Las Vegas performers. But mostly Playmates. And what’s more Vegas than an Elvis Impersonator?

– Oh, here comes the first awkward performance I was obsessed with : Sheik Adnan al-Kaissie promises we’ll be sorry “he did the Wrestle-a-Rock Rumble” as he’s with a money hungry Bruiser, er, King Kong Brody. Yes, Dick the Bruiser and The Crusher led to some Street Fighter 2 boss-style name swapping confusion. To refresh, Dick the Bruiser is the Bruiser, Crusher is Crusher, so Brody is King Kong, King Kong Bundy is Boom Boom Bundy, and Crusher Blackwell is just Jerry Blackwell. Who we see in the next round of rapping.

– Okay, Marilyn Monroe impersonators may be almost as Vegas as Elvis.

– Oh boy…here it comes…Groovy Greg bellowing out his lyrics. His hat appears to say “SOMETHING Lake Pervert” but no, that would be too interesting to associate with Greg Gagne.

– Hey yo, it’s the NWO Speedopac. Did Hall say they’d “smear those gits” (meaning the Long Riders)? Was Hennig calling them “Dirtball gumbos”? Okay, I guess that would make the Irwins heels cause who’d like to eat a Cajun dish filled with dirt? Or does Curt just really hate Gumby’s father? Speaking of things Curt Hennig hates, insert cliched joke about “thinking he hated rap” here. I’m also shocked that when the girls push them in the pool, Hennig didn’t somersault sell it. And hey, Hennig stands by as Hall meets up with…Shawn Michaels. Something tells me these new friends somehow clicked instantly. In fact, advances in YouTube reveal that Shawn was saying, “Oh, hey Scott. The ceiling fan in my hotel room isn’t working, you wouldn’t have a ladder would you?”

– Oh yeah, Kamala, Rotundo and Windham will be there too. Actually, ESPN reran some early 1986 AWA episodes later in that year or so; having been a fan for just months, I was intrigued as to why they were flashing photos of WWF wrestlers.

– We all love Nick Bockwinkle’s rap, but I have exclusive news about Stan Hansen’s part that was cut for time. Had they kept it, the former AWA and Hollywood Squares champion might have had some competition :

“I’m Stan Hansen, teeny wangers I’ll kick,
But I won’t job to that old man Nick!
I’ll take my pickup truck across rocks and rubble,
Drive it over the belt towards the WrestleRock Rumble!”

– Hey, here’s Larry Zbyszko in his Karate Kid phase when he used nunchakus and hung out with ninjas, one of which was called “Super Ninja”…which made 11 year old me disappointed to see the jobber we got on Saturday Night’s Main Event in 1988, when I expected the AWA one.

– Larry’s opponent, Scott LeDoux, brings this up to Explicit Lyrics Warning levels with an S-bomb. His “Yeah!” and Larry’s “OWWW!” are probably two of my favorite end-of-rap noises of the song. I’ll actually admit that Greg Gagne’s “WOOOO!” is a close third. Hall and Hennig’s grunt and Resnick’s “Get on”? Not as cool.

– So after Verge Gagne’s making it about himself moment, we close with Resnick watching as some random woman wins on the slot machine. What IS with the Vegas imagery when this show’s in Minnesota? And what was with the random woman voice shouting “Wrestlerock Rumble” at the end of the song? Still made no sense with the context of the video, as random stills were being flashed of all the wrestlers and “celebrities” to close things out.

And that’s the WrestleRock Rumble. I promise I’ll find something fresher to talk about next time.