Showing posts with label Disco Inferno. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Disco Inferno. Show all posts

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Alex Wright - The German Hulk Hogan

Alex Wright is not a name that sticks with the casual wrestling fan. He is most known as being a dancing, German jobber and didn't make a huge impact on the sport. But he was a dancing, German jobber, so I obviously loved him. I mean, just look at this guy:
And that was in preparation to take on Triple H. He straight up punked The Game. What's not to love? Alex Wright could have been so much more in different circumstances. Just with his dancing, he's one of the most charismatic Euorpean pro wrestlers in history; I mean, he's basically the Hulk Hogan of Germany.

But he wasn't just a master on the dance floor; he was also a master on the microphone, with many claiming he was the most influential German orator since a certain unnamed 1940s dictator.

I'm always a big fan of when foreigners make fun of Ameicans for only being able to speak one language, as it is a COMPLETELY legitimate claim, because Americans are so xenophobic that ehy only learn to speak Murrican. Also, I am 100% guilty of this, as I did not care to learn Spanish when I had the chance.  He then calls out DDP, which is probably a good call, because DDP's Vegas White Trash look really was the epitome of stupid Americans, but without looking it up, I'm going to go out on a limb and say Alex Wright did not beat DDP and go on to challenge for the World Heavyweight Title at Halloween Havoc. Must have been some interference.

But why pick on DDP when you can pick on Tony Schiavone?

He calls Schiavone a "Pig of a man. An overweight, out of shape, LOSER." This man was basically German Donald Trump. Das Wunderkind for next German Fuhrer. He does get a little lost when he calls out Americans for being losers, but then individually calls out every European wrestler, who are also losers. He was mostly right, but dead wrong when he included Norman Smiley in that group.

Obviously, he was great cutting promos on cable television, so the only question left was whether he could take it to the most important medium of them all. Could Alex Wright, Das Wunderkind, convince you to select him in a video game? I think this video gives a definitive answer.

Oh, hell yeah. I want high-flying acrobatics and total wrestling action, so I am definitely going to find out what Alex Wright is all about.

So what did the dancing and the mic skills lead to? Probably three of the most unforgettable title runs in WCW history. He won the Cruiserweight Title and feuded with Jericho for about a month before losing the belt. Then, less than a week later, he won the TV Title from Ultimo Dragon before losing the title to Disco Inferno who would later become his tag partner as they formed the Dancing Fools, which, shockingly, did not lead to a run with the titles.

Then Alex Wright dyed his hair, got a mohawk, and became Berlyn. It did not work out well, as you can see here.

Luckily, Alex Wright reformed his tag team with Disqo Inferno (who changed his name to be more like Sisqo) and they became Boogie Knights. They had a feud with the Natural Born Thrillers, but Disqo got hurt. It didn't matter thought, as General Rection subbed in for him and he and Alex Wright won the Tag Titles together. Since this was late era WCW, Wright defended the titles with Elix Skipper as his partner a few days later and lost it to different members of the Natural Born Thrillers. He remained on the WCW roster until the bitter end but never transitioned to the WWE.

He was known as Das Wunderkind, Berlyn, and The German Hulk Hogan. In the end, he was just Alex Wright, and although it was a goofy career, maybe it was just Wright.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

The Five Biggest Jobbers of Goldberg's Undefeated Streak

When working with Lukewarm Jonah on our instant classic piece of writing on Glacier, Jonah mentioned that Glacier lost to Goldberg. I looked into it and found out that Glacier didn't lose once to Goldberg. He lost three times to Goldberg. The streak was simply too high for him to go through 173 different opponents. So I decided to go through the list and break down the five biggest jobbers involved in Goldberg's streak. Instead of subjectively finding out whether Wayne Bloom is a bigger jobber than Chase Tatum (those names may be made up, but they made the list).

5. Brad Armstrong - 6
This is the type of jobber I would expect to see on this list. He's good enough to be in the ring with Goldberg on television, but he's bad enough where you don't really need the match going longer than three minutes. Four of his losses were at random house shows, but he did manage to get one loss on Nitro and even a match on SuperBrawl VIII. They both went something like this...

The only reason he gets in any offense is to anger Goldberg so he has a reason to finish him off. This makes a lot of sense. Also, if you have an Armstrong Curse sweatshirt, you are either the world's greatest wrestling fan or Brad Armstrong.

4. Curt Hennig - 7
It is ironic that the former Mr. Perfect was the victim of someone else's perfection seven times during this streak. Also, Curt Hennig is way too good to be jobbing out to Goldberg that many times. There was a loss on Nitro and at Bash at the Beach, but, by far, the most important loss that Hennig had was at the Goodwill Games. I'm just going to assume that in 1998, the Goodwill Games recognized pro wrestling as a legitimate sport and Goldberg won it all. Either that, or as an honor to Goldberg, they replaced the traditional first prize medals with Goldberg Medals, which had Bill's face on the gold medal so the athletes could aspire to something greater.

3. Jerry Flynn - 8
Jerry Flynn may be the most perfect jobber for a guy like Goldberg. I mean, the guy posed zero threat, but he was large enough to make all (two) of Goldberg's moves look impressive. This is probably my favorite Bill Goldberg match of all time.

The beginning of the match involves one of my favorite things, and that is pro wrestling not understanding how MMA submissions work. They trade submissions, and I think two out of seven were actually applied correctly. But it's nonstop, and then Goldberg slams him, hits his two moves and calls it a day. These two were pure magic together. It's kind of amazing that Jerry Flynn only lost eight times to Goldberg.

2. Saturn - 11
Most of Saturn's losses came on house shows, which makes sense. But still, he managed to get two PPV matches against Goldberg in Spring Stampede and Slamboree. Two weeks before his match against Goldberg, Saturn lost to Hammer and was kicked out of the flock. But after that, Saturn was able to beat Jerry Flynn in the week leading up to his US Title shot. Somehow, none of these epic matches are on YouTube. Honestly, that's probably for the best.

1. The Giant - 18
Yep, the biggest jobber is also the world's biggest athlete. When I saw that The Giant was number one, I was surprised, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. He is bigger than everyone, so he should be this dominant force that can only lose by fluke, but instead his entire career has him going on massive losing streaks where he is asked to look like shit in order to build up other guys. He is the shit guy far more than the dominant force guy, so it doesn't even build up his opponent. The Giant should lose maybe three times in a year, but instead he managed to lose three matches to Goldberg on Nitros, all within a month. He just kept going out there and losing. It was near the end of The Giant's contract with WCW, so his most notable win in those last few months was either Disco Inferno or Raven in a no disqualification match. He also had a three week string of getting dominated by Goldberg at house shows, and those losses added up fast. In fact, they made him Goldberg's biggest jobber, both figuratively and literally.