Heel Hillbilly
By Scott Keith on 20 April 2025
Greetings and condolences sir,
I'm binge-watching Championship Wrestling '85 and it crosses over a bit with your Wrestling's Country Boys review and it got me thinking. Was there any money to Jim immediately clotheslining and wailing on Hulk after he raised both their arms after the debut win against Terry Gibbs? He could have easily used the excuse of Hulk riding his ass through the last few weeks of workout vignettes only to realize halfway through his first match that all he ever needed was his raw, hillbilly power! He had already mentioned that he used his bear hug to squeeze an actual bear to submission in one of the vignettes if I'm not mistaken, so it certainly wouldn't be the worst finisher of the era. What do you think? Been reading over 20 years and have a beat-to-hell copy of The Buzz…to prove it. Thanks for all you do.
M. Wright
I don't know about heel Hillbilly, but it makes me wish they had done some wrestling bear exhibitions on TV where the bear runs through a series of jobbers like Goldberg, and then HILLBILLY JIM faces him as the big Open Bear Challenge payoff and literally bearhugs the bear into submission before turning it into his manager/valet. And then a couple of years later the bear turns on him and mauls him in the middle of the ring and everyone is like “Well, it was a goddamn bear, what was everyone expecting?” and we get a Saw-style montage of the bear actually being the mastermind of the plot all along and carefully plotting all these moves behind the scenes to outsmart Hillbilly Jim, and then a park ranger just comes in and shoots the bear and they never mention it again.
Sorry, what was the question again?