#the shockmaster

Oh gosh, that is an incredibly difficult question to answer. Wrestling and weirdness have ALWAYS gone hand-in-hand. I mean, it says something that wrestling started out as a circus sideshow attraction, and then had to become even more out-there to succeed. There’s a laundry list of things I could say here, scaling from incredibly funny to incredibly unsettling or dark. I’ll go with ‘incredibly funny’ for now haha. I don’t want to get too serious right out of the gate here.

Probably two of the most infamous funny-weird happenings in wrestling history are the Gobbledy Gooker (where my icon comes from) and the Shockmaster, so let’s go into those.

There are many, many strange ‘gimmicks’ in wrestling. Your in-ring talent and your mic skills aren’t always enough to push you to the top; you often need to adopt a memorable persona/character to help you get there. These can be incredibly simple, such as John Cena, who is just a good all-American boy who also raps sometimes. They can also be incredibly complex and in-depth, such as “Hangman” Adam Page, who is currently going through an incredible story of addiction, loss, and finding his place in the world - one of the most interesting characters in wrestling history, bar none.

And then there are the silly ones. Undertaker is a famous example. He’s one of the most well-known wrestlers of all time, and he’s an undead zombie man who can control lightning. Although the silliness obviously succeeded for Taker, there were a lot of weird gimmicks in the 90s that failed miserably. Probably the most infamous ones The Gobbledy Gooker and Shockmaster.

The Gobbledy Gooker

in 1990, WWF (currently known as WWE - the biggest wrestling company in North America) began promoting a new character in a very strange fashion; a large egg was displayed at many events. There were a lot of theories amongst fans about what this could mean, but the truth proved to be wilder than anything anyone could’ve possibly imagined.

At WWF’s next big pay-per-view, Survivor Series, the egg hatched to reveal.... a giant turkey. Yeah. Just a giant turkey. Obviously, fans were not pleased, and wrestling fans are not ones to be afraid to voice their opinion. The segment did not go over well with the live audience, or anyone else. The character disappeared a month later, and has only been used sporadically for one-off gags since then.

Here’s a video of his debut. It’s very awkward. Even poor Mean Gene, rest his soul, couldn’t salvage it.

The Shockmaster

Fred Ottman was a wrestler who found mild success in WWF in the early 90s. He then departed from the company in ‘93, and Fred was set to debut for WCW (WWF’s largest rival at the time.) His first match there would be an eight-man tag team that had a really, really solid lineup apart from him.

During an interview segment hyping up the match, there was a confrontation between some members of the opposing teams. That’s when... well, this happened. There is no way to describe the level of hilarity that happened here without it being witnessed firsthand.

So, typical incoherent wrestling back-and-forth. Fire. He breaks through a wall and promptly trips over a piece of lumber, knocking off his helmet.... which is literally a stormtrooper helmet spray-painted to be glittery. He grabs it and puts it back on. He stands up, while half of the other wrestlers in the segment are losing their minds (”Who’s this motherfucker?” lmao.) Then, the guy who’s providing his voiceover (another, completely separate wrestler named Ole Anderson) begins Shockmaster’s monologue by audibly laughing. 

Well, props to Sid Vicious (the blonde lad) for remaining in-character and trying to keep the ball rolling, LOL.

They repackaged Shockmaster’s character as being a klutz after that, and he stuck around until the end of the year. If you feel bad for Fred, don’t bother, it’s not worth it. I’ve heard he’s a huge asshole.

The Shockmaster Makes His Debut

During “A Flair for the Gold,” Ric Flair’s talk show segment, at Clash of the Champions XXIV, Harlem Heat and Sid Vicious confronted Sting and Davey Boy Smith, demanding to know who their mystery partner would be in their upcoming eight-man War Games match, which also featured Dusty Rhodes on Sting and Smith’s team and Big Van Vader on Sid and Harlem Heat’s team. Sting would soon introduce their partner, The Shockmaster.

Suddenly, a rotund wrestler wearing a long, puffy vest and a purple glittery Stormtrooper helmet burst through the wall, falling right on his face. The impact was so great that the helmet in question fell off, with The Shockmaster scrambling to put it back on. What followed was a promo by The Shockmaster, which was actually a voiceover by Ole Anderson. Viewers could wear wrestlers mumble to one another during this segment, Smith famously uttering, “he fell flat on his fucking arse!”

The man behind The Shockmaster character was Fred Ottman, who saw fame in the World Wrestling Federation as Tugboat and Typhoon. When he left in 1993, he arrived in WCW under The Shockmaster gimmick. Despite WCW’s attempts to make the most of the character, even reinventing it as more of a klutzy, comedic persona, it was soon abandoned. The Shockmaster’s debut is now regarded as arguably the most well-known botch in professional wrestling.

Botchamania 366