One of the best part of our popular The Best And Worst Of WWE Raw column is the amazing collection of animated GIFs from Casey at Hammerlock Dialectic. They're so good, in fact, that I'm sad when people who don't read the column (or like pro wrestling) miss out on them. Trust me, there is some colossally ridiculous looking stuff happening in the world of pro wrestling and you don't need the ability to pretend it's real to appreciate it.
Combine that truth with what Jon Bois is doing to improve GIF art awareness at SB Nation and a "best wrestling gifs of the month" feature sounded like a no-brainer. So here are my 21 favorite animated GIFs from the world of pro wrestling for June, keeping in mind that:
1. The July 4 weekend messed up everybody's schedule, so go along with me and pretend June just ended.
2. So far we only do a WWE column on the site, so June's GIFs will be WWE heavy. With GIFs Of The Month becoming a regular feature, we'll move forward with more of an emphasis on giffing everything that happens in the world of wrestling, and oh my god you are not ready for Japan.
3. A lot of GIFs appeared in the Raw column, but a lot of them are being seen for the first time.
4. We'll try to get a more uniform GIF size in the future.
Anyway, enough qualifiers. Check out the 20 best pro wrestling GIFs for June, with little-to-no context provided.
Like Father, Like Daughter
FCW's Raquel Diaz has the greatest wrestling pedigree of all time: she's the daughter of WWE 'Queen Diva' Vickie Guerrero and the late, great Eddie Guerrero. Here she is emulating one of the best cheating cons in wrestling history and making my heart swell three sizes in the process. For comparison, here's her dad:
Bray Wyatt Is Taking His Sweet Time With This Finisher
If you watch WWE TV, you may remember FCW's Bray Wyatt as Nexus member Husky Harris. He's currently doing a Cape Fear gimmick, which partly involves him taking upwards of 90 minutes to set up his finish. Add a classical music track and that move looks like a class they offer at my gym.
AJ As Kane (As Harley Quinn)
One of the most promising developments in June was WWE Diva AJ evolving from "wrestler's girlfriend" to full-on psychopath, pulling the strings on the main event scene and, at least once, dressing up as Kane to skip around the ring and distract him. As she skips, a lot of wrestling fans get hit over the head with Rule 63.
He Hates These Flowers
Out of context, a guy in a pink shirt receives a vase of roses from a guy in a tuxedo and a nearly naked guy in a scarf and throws them at a poster of a totally nude, orange man. This takes place in a room with curtains for walls.
In context, it is exactly as funny. Wrestling isn't the most hetero thing in the world, and it is great.
The Best Missed Brogue Kick Of The Month
Daniel Bryan's first WrestleMania match (as World Champion!) ended in 18 seconds when he kissed his girlfriend, turned around and got kicked in the face by Sheamus. At WWE No Way Out, Dolph Ziggler almost ate it the exact same way. Watch with glee as he rolls away in fast motion like Babe Ruth rounding the bases.
The Second Best Missed Brogue Kick Of The Month
You'd think Hispanic ring announcer Ricardo Rodriguez putting on white tights to be Sheamus would be racist, but nope, he is actually that goddamn white. I could've done a whole list with nothing but Ricardo Rodriguez As Sheamus GIFs.
John Laurinaitis Is All Out Of F**ks To Give
#teamjohnnyforever
Death Of A Scooter
Here is Vince McMahon literally destroying my favorite part of Raw. He would destroy it figuratively, then literally again at No Way Out and on the following Raw. Regardless, that's a pretty well put-together scooter.
Layla Will Develop Her Own Character, Thank You Very Much
WWE Divas Champion (and former Miami Heat dancer) Layla decided to liven up her match with Beth Phoenix by elaborately dancing her way through it. Watch this gif six or seven times in a row and you've seen everything you need from that match.
Mixed Martial Archie's Top Rope Ground-And-Pound
Archibald Peck is a marching band leader who joined Chikara pro wrestling to become a star. When his love interest stopped taking him seriously, he evolved into the SUPER SERIOUS Mixed Martial Archie. Here he is grounding and pounding a guy from the top rope, because "Chikara".
An Ant Learns To Fly
I should stop trying to put Chikara GIFs into context. In this one, a guy dressed as an ant jumps off the balcony of The Trocadero Theatre in Philadelphia and basically kills everyone he lands on. The Chikara GIFs in this month's post are all from their Internet pay-per-view "Chikarasaurus Rex", so if you haven't seen that yet, go find it and buy the DVD.
Sara Del Rey Is Extremely Excited About Having Murdered A Bunch Of Dudes With Her Ass
The only downside of the Troc as a wrestling venue is that the outside area was pitch black. Regardless, here's the latest WWE signee (and one of the best wrestlers in the world) Sara Del Rey flipping off the ring apron ass-first to do at least as much damage as the ant jumping off the balcony. YEAH~
Seriously, Sometimes Wrestling Moves Just End With A Bunch Of Dudes Falling Down
They are.
Ryback Sends A Kid Into Orbit
After the normal list and the Sorta Racist Ricardo Rodriguez list, I could make a GIF countdown of nothing but The Ryback annihilating people in handicap matches. Here, "Rosenberg" tries to run at The Ryback and ends up not running again ever.
My Reaction To Watching Raw
My Reaction To Watching Impact
Whoops! Surprise Knockout!
Another great development from the spring and early summer is 7-foot 500-pound The Big Show becoming a MAGIC NINJA and learning how to sneak up on people and knock them out without them seeing it coming. Seriously, he is bigger than all of you standing together, you must have the peripheral vision of a f**king molerat.
Grossest Entrance Taunt Ever
Bully Ray (formerly known as "Brother Ray", formerly actually known as Buh Buh Ray Dudley) is the best part of TNA Impact Wrestling. People will tell you the X-Division is great, but don't listen to them. The best guy going is the one with monster calves who swallows his own tossed loogie before matches. Bully Ray is gross.
You Are Afraid Of A Snake Hand-Puppet
When Ricardo isn't dressing up as guys to be humiliated (or being stripped to his underwear by guys to be humiliated), he's busy running in terror from sock puppets that look like snakes and bashing his head into the ring post. I want to show this to someone who has never watched wrestling and see how long it takes them to figure out Santino's random snake arm.
Yes, yes, yes
And finally, here's AJ in her underwear, jumping around and doing Daniel Bryan's "YES" chant. It was an AJ kind of month. Oh, and before we go:
AAAAHHHHH
AAAH AAAAHHHH
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I’ve been loving the “pretend the opponent hit you with the chair” gag since the Florida Brothers were pulling that back in the day.
Eve Torres completed 3 Moonsaults in the time it took Bray Wyatt to set up his finisher.
To be fair to Bray Wyatt (who responded to me on Twitter!!!!!) he had already knocked out the guy and was mostly just dancing with his unconscious body.
The best Florida Brothers gag will always be the invisible doorway.
I love Wyatt, but that move just makes me miss Mike Knox.
I was wondering if I’d lead a happier life if I just read these gif posts in lieu of actually watching WWE every week.
But then I got to that gif of Johnny on his People Power mobility scooter not having any fucks to give and I’m glad I saw everything else he did. #teamjohnnyforever
I miss him so much already. Figures the first time they fire a guy and keep him off TV for a month, it’d be the one I want to see.
That was Eddie Guerrero’s last match right?
Unfortunately, yes.
That dude getting Rybacked into orbit in #15 still didn’t get tossed as high into the air as Christian used to get Back Body Dropped by Bully/Brother/Bubba Ray back in the day. I saw a TNA house show about 4 or 5 years ago where I seriously thought Christian was going to hit the lighting above the ring, granted the lighting above the ring was really low. On a side note, TNA house shows are super fun (or at least were back then) and about 1000% better than the product that’s on TV.
No arguments there. House shows in general are almost always better since they’re not in a hurry and can spend time interacting with the crowd more. ROH puts on amazing house shows that are unfortunately only attended by about 300ish people.
why you no like TNA??? Stone Cold Austin Aries is better than CM Punk and Daniel Bryan combined you ROH snob etc etc etc
joking?
Yes.
I would argue that TNA has 3 of the best 5 in-ring performers currently on national TV:
AJ Styles
Austin Aries
CM Punk
Daniel Bryan
Kurt Angle
(listed alphabetically, not in order of who I think is best)
The problem is that their writing is so terrible and inconsistent that it makes the stuff on Raw seem brilliant and incoherent. For the record Impact is the only wrestling show I have watched every single week for the last few years, despite how bad it can get. The reason being because TNA is what brought me back to wrestling. I stopped watching around 2001 or 2002 and was pretty much done with wrestling until I caught TNA around 2005. The production values were terrible but the matches were awesome. This eventually brought me back to watching WWE too. Now TNA is like a bad marriage. It’s painful most of the time but I stick with it because I remember how great it was once upon a time and because once every 2 or 3 months they put on a show that’s really really good and fool me into thinking that things will get better.
Also, on a side note I actually really like the Joseph Park gimmick. Am I sick in the head? Don’t answer that, I know I’m sick in the head.
I really like TNA. I think that while half of their show is awful (Hogan, RVD, Hardy, Anderson, etc) that they can still manage to do some cool things with the other half.
I think Aries has done fine, I think Roode and Storm can end up telling a really good story, I’m still an 8 year old kid with a rat tail and ear ring when it comes to Sting, and I legitimately like all of the Knockouts. Plus Bully Ray is just the best.
I’m just giving Brandon a hard time because we didn’t come up with many TNA gifs. I like TNA a lot, but it’s not as gif’able as WWE or Chikara since competent wrestling moves aren’t really all that exciting in gif.
The females are better looking in TNA. I’ll give them that
I meant to write “The problem is that their writing is so terrible and inconsistent that it makes the stuff on Raw seem brilliant and coherent.” in my last post. Also, Bully Ray is indeed awesome and the knockout are actually allowed to wrestle actual matches… that last several minutes, not 35 seconds… with actual wrestling moves. I just miss Roxxi aka Nikki Roxx, she was my favorite knockout. I’ll have to check her out in the upcoming SHINE iPPV.
Bully Ray is a better in-ring performer than Kurt Angle right now and I will not speak peaceably with anyone who disagrees.
Kurt Angle 1999-2004, yes. Kurt Angle after that, Jesus.
also, are Abyss and Kane long lost cousins or something?
@Brandon – I would say Bully Ray is definitely more consistent right now, but Kurt Angle’s best possible performance, even just going by his performances after 2004, is still better than Bully Ray’s. Kurt’s 2008 match at Lockdown with Samoa Joe, where Joe won the title, is my favorite match of the last 5 years, granted I’m biased since I was live at that show in the 4th row. Kurt’s series against AJ Styles a year or two ago was phenomenal (pun intended). His match at Lockdown 2 years ago against Ken Anderson of all people, where he tried to kill himself by Moonsaulting off the top of the cage, was amazing. Kurt can still deliver the goods… when he doesn’t fall into the habit of just German Suplexing his opponent a bunch of times then going for the Ankle Lock again and again and again.
@Captain: Abyss was knockoff Mankind when they first started out.
awesome creepy Mankind? or shitty Mick-Kind?
It seems like the best angles lately have been where a break-out star tries to hold up the company on their way out. Steen on ROH, Punk in WWE (even though it was a re-has of his ROH days) and Aries on TNA. Aries wasn’t on his way out, but it’s still refreshing to see him killing it in the ring and getting rewarded for it.
@Captain: Awesome, creepy Mankind, with less talking and more growling.
Didn’t know Sara Del Ray was signed–that’s fantastic
I didn’t either! Yay news and gifs!
That Dolph Ziggler smashing flowers will be played at all of my huge life events from here on out.
I want my child to see Dolph fucking flowers up as he comes from my future-wives ruined vagina
Baby Ellie approves of all the Ziggler. He’s her favorite wrestler. (Yes, my 2 week, 2 days old daughter has a favorite wrestler.) And mommy loved all the Chikara. Nicely done. :-D
+1
i fucking loved everything about this post.
1) I laughed for a legit minute at Mixed Martial Archie. Jesus, he’s amazing.
2) Sara Del Rey in WWE? This better mean women wrestling for longer than 30 seconds, because we need to see extended matches with her and AJ, Beth, Natalya and Layla.
3) Again, the best part of that Show/Funkasaurus gif is the ginger-haired “security” guard’s “are you even serious?” expression as Show hits the Dancing Dinosaur.
Other than Matt Classic, which is quite possibly the most brilliant gimmick I’ve ever seen, Mixed Martial Archie is maybe my next favorite gimmick going right now.
It’s about damn time Sara Del Rey gets on TV. I proudly wear my Death Rey T-shirt regularly (amazingly it still looks almost brand new some 3 years later now).
+1 for Mixed Martial Archie as well.
Hey Casey, check out wrestling with text. A littl HYERR DE DURRR, but I did some pretty neet gifs over there. Just thought you’d dig it.
edit: I have too many Subway crumbs in my keyboard. I didn’t do any of the gifs, I know how to spell, and fuck my wireless router.
Will do, Joel!
Is anyone good at photoshopping GIF’s? Actually, a more important question, is it possible to photoshop GIF’s? Because Big Show’s Ninja punch I want to see everywhere. Like, Titanic sinking and shit.
ok, I’ve never seen a Sara Del Ray match… but is this really something we should be excited about? Its the WWE.
I actually enjoy the Diva’s match… when they are good (AKA Beth is in it) For the most part… when the Divas have a good match at a PPV, you know you’re in for a good night.
Sara Del Rey has been in my honest opinion the best female wrestler in North America for the last half decade +.
So WWE will have her lose to KK for 6 months?
I have to believe that everyone who is super-excited about Del Rey getting signed is setting themselves up for incredible disappointment. WWE doesn’t care about women’s wrestling.
They’ve currently got Beth, Nattie, Layla, and AJ (oh, and Kharma, who I honestly forgot about for a second), who are all varying degrees of legitimately talented; and Creative does nothing with them in terms of in-ring action.
Sara Del Rey is trending worldwide on Twitter.
Vince: “SOCIALMEDIAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Do we still have a women’s title? We do? Give it to her!”
Though it should be obvious, I’m less excited for “what they’ll do with her” and more excited that somebody who has worked hard and been so good for so long finally gets a big paycheck.
I’m excited for Sara Del Rey in FCW and NXT. Both of those have some really solid matches.
Brandon: I guess. But while I’m happy Dean Ambrose is getting a decent paycheck (I assume), it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be much happier if he was actually doing something.
You aren’t actually watching FCW, are you? “Not being on Raw” doesn’t equate to “doing nothing”.
These are fantastic.
The dancing Layla gif wins, end of discussion.
I want the backstory of those two old guys at the gaurdrail cosplaying as John Cena in the Show/Clay gif.
Raquel Diaz has her father’s smirk. That GIF made my day.
Um, is that Greg Grunberg behind Joseph Park? Right side of the frame?
*Casually clicks through gifs, reaches the final gif*
NOT AGAIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The AJ skipping in a Kane mask makes me kinda sad, because I think they could’ve made a great tag team, with the best theme ever. “Let’s light it up! *fire explosion*.”
These are all wonderful… even Culkin there at the end.
Why there isn’t a clip of Big Show punching people in the face in time with Punch In The Face Before Eating music may be the greatest mystery of all.
That Chris Jericho gif is 3000% Monty Python.
Layla dancing. Jesus…
Thank you.