More than Hard Core Death Matches: Pro Wrestling and Horror’s Interdependence by Rocky Colavito

Monsters have always been a cultural presence; they make effective enemies to unite populations against; they function as moral didactic to guard against straying by young and old; they embody the horrible legends that sully locations, and they provide a physical definition of the “other” to define normalcy within the cultural framework. We’re well aware of the use of monsters in various horror genres and media, and one medium in which the monster and horror elements has always been a significant component is professional wrestling. Whether it is the actual presences of various types of monsters and monstrous acts in the ring, or in film and literature inspired by the violence and choreography of professional wrestling, the interdependence is one that, which certainly a niche in the genre, is a niche worth exploring.

For purposes of context, I refer you to a video involving wrestlers New Jack and Vic Grimes:

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Pretty scary, right? Well, this is an act of revenge for a serious injury perpetrated on New Jack by Grimes, and, in a subsequent interview, New Jack admits that the intent was to kill Grimes.

This isn’t the first time that New Jack has perpetrated a horribly violent act in the ring (and he’s an extreme wrestler), witness this video termed “The Mass Transit Incident”:

Yet another act of violence that would probably fit right into one of the endless number of serial killer movies. This isn’t to paint New Jack as a monster per se; the videos function as a way to ground the horrors of professional wrestling into more modern forms of horror media. But there have been others throughout the history of pro wrestling.

For example, the use of “foreign monsters”—simply caricatures of the enemy of the era (Nazis, Russians, Middle Easterners, Asians)— unite the fans by their generation of “heat” (audience ire that cements their heel status) by multiple forms of “spitting on the flag” and expounding the power of their respective cultures. They become a focus for the “real American” hero, who endures unspeakable agony (like being knocked out and having the enemy’s flag cover him or her) and setback until the culmination of the feud (aka “The Blowoff”) in which they emerge victorious, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. It’s the standard David and Goliath plot, even when David is often the physical equal of Goliath. The Iron Shiek, an Olympic athlete, became infamous around the United States for his repeated disrespect for Americans and the flag. Ivan Koloff, his nephew Nikita, and Krusher Khruschev (a Canadian and two Americans from Minnesota), ruled the Mid-Atlantic and Georgia Territories, destroying all comers, mostly Americans, of course, and would extoll the virtues of mother Russia and Russian training methods in promos designed to incense crowds. They even induced an American, Don Kernodle, to join them, making him a turncoat and creating the impression that red-blooded Americans could be brainwashed. Baron von Raschke goose stepped in the ring and bloodied opponents with a claw hold. Mr. Fuji, among other Asian wrestlers, threw salt in the eyes of opponents and used holds designed to inflict intense pain. By playing upon the proximity of war and the characteristics of our enemies, wrestling brought the horrors of those situations home by providing caricatures to create support.

But that isn’t the only way that foreign monsters showed up in wrestling rings. Sometimes these foreign horrors are often characterized by mystery and difference rather than being the “other side” in a current or past war. Asian wrestlers wear elaborate face paint, and spit different colors of mist on their opponents, thus compromising their vision or causing pain, Latin American wrestlers wear masks depicting horrifying creatures (e.g. Penta, Mortos, Psycho Clown, La Parka, and many others), and a little face paint can make huge American wrestlers seem all the more monstrous (Google The Road Warriors, Kamala, the Ugandan Giant, and Kevin Sullivan in his Satan worshipping persona for examples). Lucha Underground featured a masked monster named Matanza, a masked powerhouse who looked like a more developed version of Jason Voorhees, who not only destroyed opponents handily in the ring, sometimes injuring them deliberately, but also was presented as killing other wrestlers who got too close to his cell. Pro wrestling has always seen the value of a good monster for the good guys and gals to oppose because the good versus evil dynamic is the foundation of all wrestling storytelling.

When coupled with appearance, actions can also elevate the scary dimensions of wrestling. The Original Sheik [Ed Farhat] terrorized promotions around the world with his propensity for unchecked violence (carving up opponents with pencils, throwing fireballs, continuing to torture and opponent after the bell). His matches in Japan are the stuff of legends, including a match where the ring was engulfed in fire. Abdullah the Butcher, the Madman from the Sudan, blazed a similar trail, attacking opponents with forks and blows to the throat, and seemed impervious to pain. Lucha Underground employed a masked wrestler named Mil Muertes, whose backstory indicated he’d survived being buried alive but came out of the experience closer to death than living. He would symbolically put his opponents in the death position when he pinned them. The Undertaker and his sibling Kane were associated with the dark side for much of their early careers, suggesting supernatural auras that allowed them to absorb tremendous beatings and seemingly arise from the dead to deliver vicious moves to their opponents. Ox Baker, a towering man with a scary countenance and manner, used a move called the heart punch, which was characterized as a death blow because two of his opponents died after receiving it (they were not killed by the blow), just adding to the aura of terror that the Ox curried. Penta, in his Lucha Underground persona, used a sadistic move where he appeared to break the arms of competitors. Wrestlers who use the figure-four-leg-lock [too many to list] are notorious for keeping the hold on longer than necessary and deliberately injuring opponents. Highlighting the danger of the moves is yet another way to elevate horror because the threat of injury (and the very real consequences) become prominent.

But appearance is only one level of horror and monstrosity. Many wrestling storylines (an extended series of matches between two adversaries) rely upon horrific acts to drive the drama. These acts can be as simple as insults against the opponent, his or her family, their values, essentially going “there” with respect to riling. The acts can also escalate, destroying awards or personal property (a public awards ceremony is usually the setting for the act of destroying the award, usually by breaking it over the receiver’s head) or acts of humiliation (tearing off clothes, tar and feathering, spankings). The ante is upped by more edgy acts of violence (slamming a hand in a car door, beating someone with a foreign object, attacking an injured body part), attacking non-wrestling friends or family members, hanging an opponent, throwing fireballs—anything to guide the heel (bad guy) into being seen as monstrous. The monstrousness reaches its culmination with the deliberate injury or the drawing of blood, which in some cases is consumed by the perpetrator for effect. These sorts of elements are, of course, regular elements in wrestling story telling because they are effective in getting the audience interested and coming back.

A last example of the nexus of horror and professional wrestling is the co-opting of variations on classic and contemporary monsters as ring personae. In the annals of professional wrestling’s heels there are examples of werewolves (Farkas the Werewolf, Jacob Fatu, aka “The Samoan Werewolf), Frankenstein (see the contemporary wrestler PCO), vampires (Gangrel, who actually had his teeth redone as fangs), a Yeti and a Mummy (former college basketball player Ron Reis), cult members (Kevin Sullivan’s Army of Darkness, the more contemporary Wyatt Family and Wyatt Sicks), Freddie Krueger, Leatherface, Jason, Lord Humongous, and any number of wrestlers connected to the dark side (again, The Undertaker, Kane, Mil Muertes). A substratum of this group also includes those wrestlers depicted as being crazy and willing to hurt themselves to hurt others more. Wrestlers in this category include Sami Callihan, Mick Foley, Norman the Lunatic, and Killer Kross, among others. One of these others was a huge clown face painted to look like John Wayne Gacy. Appearing briefly in XPW, the clown was shown in the company of children, raising the specter of a Gacy-like predator. The gimmick disappeared, probably with good reason.

Whether it is rebooted versions of various cinematic monsters, or relying on the presence of real mental derangement makes manifest the dangerous outsider as yet another monster to conquer. These examples represent [albeit superficially] the foundation for the successful union of professional wrestling and horror, a well-situated storytelling and character development strategy to better frame the battle between good and evil and the principals in the battle. In the next installment, we’ll examine how the nexus has been translated to cinema.

Ring the damn bell!