Read Monsters of Wrestling and Monsters of Wrestling III!
The Boogeyman
Words fail me with this guy. Boogeyman is one of the worst wrestlers around today and I really have no idea why he still has a job. He truly would be the perfect Dungeon of Doom member. He definitely fits the “monster” theme, the gimmick is insane. He bashes clocks over his head, his top two front teeth are missing and he spits worms from his mouth into his opponents’ mouths.
Early vignettes promoting his arrival gave the impression he was going to be some freak heel, but that never happened and he’s essentially been used as a freak face comedy character instead.
Goldust/Seven/Black Reign
They all are/were played by Dustin Rhodes, let’s lump’em together. Goldust was a pretty good character, though I despised him upon his debut as he made unwanted advances towards Razor Ramon. Yes, Goldust was a kinda sorta gay character (who had a love for the movies), it was implied but never said out right. But the “is he gay?” aspect of the character didn’t last too long as it was eventually revealed that Goldust was merely playing minds games and preying on everyone’s homophobia and prejudices and turned face. Eventually, we got a freakier version of Goldust, referred to as The Artist Formerly Known As Goldust, forsaking the gold face paint and outfit and going for a mish mash of who knows what. Just whatever he could do in the Attitude era to stand out.
Well, in my opinion, straying from the character’s original look and motion picture theme was a mistake and the guy lost all heat and pretty much became a jobber. A move to WCW brought about vignettes for the Seven character, which never wrestled once and was like a combination of the Undertaker and Goldust, and featured Dustin wearing all white face paint and looking like the kid from Powder. It was quickly shelved as the powers that be in the Turner corporation thought the vignettes made him out to be a child abductor.
Eventually, after a few more turns as Goldust in WWE (this time playing a fun-loving comedic version of the character… my favorite run for the character), Dustin was off to TNA where it was revealed he had a split personality and his other half was a darker version of Dustin called Black Reign. Think Goldust all in black and that’s pretty much the look. He walked around with a cane and kept a rat in a box and pretty much did nothing but jobs alongside his equally dark ally Rellik (we’ll get to him).
From Goldust… to Black Reign. Get it? That’s Vince Russo… always ripping himself off. What can Dustin be next? Red Herring? Blueball? Silver Bullet? White Knight?
The Brood
I’m talking about the original version, not the lame Gangrel/Hardy Boyz version. Gangrel was better known as the Vampire Warrior on the indie scene, fangs and all. David Heath signed on with the WWF, he was called Gangrel and pretty much did the same gimmick but with a modern goth twist, wear frilly shirts, pirate boots and drinking “red liquid” from a chalice as he walked to the ring.
His main rival was another newcomer, Edge, who also had a gothic/raver look going, but not in a vampire style. The story was that there was some “past” between the two, but I don’t think it was ever mentioned exactly why they hated each other. I love “Choose Your Own Backstory” feuds! During the feud, Gangrel brought in Edge’s “brother” Christian to help him against Edge and eventually, just for the swerve of it, Edge joined Gangrel & Christian and they became known as the Brood, rising from a circle of fire on the stage for their entrance. E&C weren’t ever “converted” to vampirism (I don’t even think Gangrel was officially referred to as a vampire, gotta keep things vague so you don’t tick off parents & advertisers too much), but it was said they all lived the gothic “lifestyle”.
The Brood eventually went on to join the Undertaker’s Ministry of Darkness (we’ll get to them too), before Gangrel faded away and we ended up with the classic Edge & Christian comedic heel team and then later, two world champions (in WWE & TNA, respectively).
Gangrel popped up in WWE briefly a few years ago, doing jobs, but was quickly let go again.
Rellik
Billed from the “Depths of Hell”, Rellik (that’s ‘killer’ spelled backwards) is played by John Hugger. Who is that you ask? Well, maybe you’re more familiar with John Hugger as Johnny ‘The Bull’ Stamboli from WCW’s dying days and as a member of the WWE version of the Full Blooded Italians.
Rellik is a takeoff of John’s indie REDRUM (THAT’S ‘muder’ spelled backwards) gimmick, but TNA changed the name so could own the rights. Stamboli (he’ll always be Stamboli to me) which actually a pretty gifted athlete, if not a gifted wrestler, if that makes sense. I always thought he had a good look as ‘The Bull’ and even Rellik looked pretty cool with a pretty sick mask.
Rellik had a loose alliance with James Mitchell and Judas Mesias in TNA, and a close partnership with Black Reign. I thought they were going the way of a new “dark” stable with all four, but they all were made out to be jobbers.
For whatever reason, TNA didn’t take the character seriously and had him lose in his FIRST match. He continued to lose (when he actually was used, that is) until they dropped him back in the Spring of 2008 and that summer, John announced his retirement from wrestling.
Judas Mesias
Ah, the third member of TNA’s “evil” wrestlers they had running around at once. As mentioned above, Mesias had a loose affiliation with Rellik & Black Reign and was managed by his “father” James Mitchell and spents most of his short TNA run feuding with his supposed half-brother, Abyss.
Judas Mesias is actually better known as Ricky Banderas, who has made a name for himself in Puerto Rico, in Mexico’s AAA promotion, and was also a part of MTV’s horrible Wrestling Society X wrestling show.
Mesias debuted in September of ’07 and was immediately out until December of that same year thanks to an injury he sustained during a AAA PPV. Eventually, his feud with Abyss came to a head at TNA’s Against All Odds PPV, with him coming out on the losing end in a “Barb Wire Massacre” match. He was released by TNA the next month.
For the all hype Mesias came in with, again, TNA didn’t capitalize on it (granted, the injury set things back) relegating Mesias to joke within a short amount of time.
Kane
Alright! Now we’ve finally gotten to someone who’s had some longevity and a fairly respectable run. Well… “respectable” if you don’t count electrocuting someone’s nads, forcing Lita to have sex with him (then the two actually fall in love!), the Katie Vick angle, etc…
Anyway, Kane is the Undertaker’s “brother” (half-brother, by way of Paul Bearer), and was really booked as a monster upon his arrival in the WWF (after toiling away in Memphis for years and having failed gimmicks like the “new” Diesel and Isaac Yankem, DDS). He debuted as the “evil” one of the family, who ‘taker originally thought to have died in the same fire that killed their paretns. Turns out, Paul Bearer had secretly raised Kane and was waiting for the day to unleash him on the Undertaker. Oh boy. Lots of twists and turns have happened since then, but right now, everything is cool between the “Brothers of Destruction”. Burned parents and all.
And just like ‘taker has the power of electricity and smoke, Kane got a power of his own– fire. Isn’t that ironic? Seriously, isn’t it? I’m always so confused over how to properly used the word “irony”…
Out of all the “monster”-type characters throughout wrestling’s history, Kane is second only to the Undertaker in terms of staying power and popularity. Originally, Paul Bearer was Kane’s mouthpiece (Kane’s vocal cords had been damaged in the fire) and he also wore a mask and a body suit. But since then, Kane’s appearance has changed drastically, and he can now talk just like you and me. Kane still can command fire when need to be though (mostly after he enters the ring for dramatic effect).
Black Scorpion
The Black Scorpion is Ric Flair! Oops. **SPOILER WARNING**
To be truthful, the Black Scorpion was also a bunch of other guys at various points, but intended to originally be the returning Ole Anderson. The Scorpion haunted and taunted Sting in a distorted voice and black robe dropping hints that he was someone from Sting’s past all while using some cheap magic tricks. Pretty intense stuff to me, since I was a little kid at the time, though seeing it on YouTube these days, it’s ridiculous.
Anyway, the story goes that Ole got injured while training for his big (in his own mind) comeback and so he was out before he was in. So… Did they drop the angle? No. Hold off on it until Ole got better? No. They kept going forward even though they had no idea who was going to end up being the “real” Scorpion (some false reveals had taken place featuring nobodies the real Scorpion was using to play mind games with Sting).
Ultimately, the big showdown was set for Starrcade 1990: Sting vs. the Black Scorpion. And WCW (Ole specifically) had painted themselves into a corner with no one to actually be the Black Scorpion. Enter Ric Flair, who ended up saving the day by agreeing to be unmasked as the true Scorpion.
It all kinda fell flat, because no one wanted to see Flair (who had absolutely nothing to do with Sting as the Scorpion stuff was going on) resorting to cheap magic tricks and weird voices to try to beat Sting. They wanted a stylin’ and profilin’ Ric Flair cutting crazed promos about women, money and being the best wrestler alive, not a Ric Flair that hid behind a black mask and robe. As if the Black Scorpion wasn’t a big enough flop being revealed as Flair, an Ole reveal probably would’ve done worse. Who cares about Ole? But he was booking at the time, so what could you do?
Prince Kharis
Just another wrestler who read Wrestling For Mummies, this one was used in Jim Cornette’s Smoky Mountain Wrestling and supposedly he was 4,000 years old!
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