This week, With Leather’s search for the most ridiculous, hilarious, and amazing promo photos from the world of professional wrestling ventures into the previously untapped category of “candid 8 x 10s.” These are the publicity photos that didn’t get bordered and stacked in front of wrestlers during autograph signings, but were close enough to end up signed and sold in plastic card sheets at your local hobby store. These are just as good and sometimes even worse, if that is possible.

(On a personal note, I guess we’re calling them ‘glamour shots’ now, because since we started the regular feature, a lot of other sports sites have started posting galleries and calling them that. And, uh, sending them to With Leather as a “tip.” Thanks for the tip, other guys!)

Please click through to enjoy 31 of our favorite WCW, TNA Impact Wrestling and WWE glamour shots. If you need to be coerced, there’s a photo of a guy playing a WWF logo guitar in here somewhere.

Read the rest of this entry »

"ARMPITTTTTSSSS!!"

LOOK AT HIS ARMPITS, HO KOGAN

This week’s installment of This Week In Horrible-Looking People covers a wide range of WWF/WWE eras with a spotlight on ridiculous clothing. You’ll see guys in cow vests, guys in headbands with their names on them, sleeveless business suits, sleeveless fur coats and more. There’s at least once instance of a guy looking like he fell into a flock of geese and murdered them on impact.

So please, click through to enjoy 30 more of the worst, funniest, and most absurd pro wrestler 8×10 glossies ever.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pre-show notes:

- Things you should read from the last week of posts at The Mandible Claw include the thing I wrote about Donald Trump’s “appearance” on the Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling and an hour of me and Danielle talking to ACW and National Pro Wrestling Day star Jojo Bravo. Also, everything else on the site. You should check it out daily.

- Comments, shares, likes, and anything else that gets people to come here are appreciated. There’s some important stuff on the next page, so be sure not to skim it, and to make everyone you know on the Internet and in real life read it. Also, the jokes.

- Follow us on Twitter @withleather, follow me personally @MrBrandonStroud and like us on Facebook.

- GIFS courtesy of Jerusalem at Punchsport Pagoda.

- We’re doing some fun stuff over at The Mandible Claw, so be sure to head over there when you’re done with the report and check some stuff out.

And now, Raw goes REGULAR SCHOOL! The Best and Worst of WWE Raw for March 11, 2013, is after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

WWE Elimination Chamber has come and gone. I rode from Austin, TX, to New Orleans on Sunday for the show, stayed Monday for the epic WrestleMania XXX announcement press conference, got my picture taken with Mark Henry and … well, I’m still here. I don’t get back into Austin until Wednesday night.

That said, I don’t want to leave you without a Best and Worst of Elimination Chamber report, so I’ve organized something special. BEHOLD, for the first time in Best and Worst history, a report comes to you in the form of a podcast!

The lovely folks at Trew To The Game were nice enough to have me on, and if you wanted to know what I thought of the show, holy shit this is everything I thought about the show. We cover the matches, the booking, the botched bucket spots, the crazy people in the audience around us and more. I’m really proud of it, and I hope you’ll take some time to download it, subscribe, listen, whatever.

Please click on this moving image of Mark Henry splitting Randy Orton’s wig to listen.

(Or, I don’t know, click here if you don’t trust a GIFlink)

Pre-show notes:

- Comments, shares, likes, and especially Reddit submissions/up votes are appreciated. The only way this column works is by you helping me out and showing it to people. If you don’t, I go back to writing about soccer. DON’T MAKE ME DO THAT, YOU GUYS.

- Follow us on Twitter @withleather, follow me personally @MrBrandonStroud and like us on Facebook.

- GIFS via Jerusalem at the Punchsport Pagoda.

- Big thank you once again to Chris Trew for filling in on last week’s report. Go read that. I don’t care if you’ve already read it, go read it again!

- If you missed out on National Pro Wrestling Day, don’t worry, we had all the fun in the world without you. If you’d still like to hang out with me at a wrestling show sometime, your next chance is at Elimination Chamber in New Orleans on Sunday. I’ll be there live, somewhere up in the nosebleeds, and would appreciate your hugs when Rock wins and I have to Charlie Brown walk out of the New Orleans Arena.

For now, please click through to enjoy the Best and Worst of WWE Raw for February 11, 2013.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pre-show notes:

- Follow us on Twitter @withleather, follow me personally @MrBrandonStroud and like us on Facebook.

- Comments, shares, likes and Facebook pokes or whatever are appreciated. Sharing the column with new eyes every week to ensure I never go a week without someone reading one line of one column in two years of columns telling me I’m a smark-mark who doesn’t know anything about wrestling is the most important thing in the world to me.

- Re: The Best And Worst Of King Of Trios, it might not be happening. I know, I know. I’ve done this thing since becoming a full-time blogger where I turn everything fun I do into work. I can’t watch wrestling without it being work, I can’t watch TV without it being work, I can’t travel, etc. Every time I sit down to write about Trios I remember how great it was, and how much fun I had, and how little I want someone on a forum somewhere linking it and calling me gay slurs because Mr. Touchdown isn’t 6-foot-5. I may end up keeping that for myself.

- If you’ve only bookmarked the Best And Worst tag, consider looking at the rest of the site from time to time, would you? Sure, the sports are real (why would anybody like REAL sports), but I’m still writing about them, and if you put up with my Kofi Kingston opinions here, maybe you can put up with my thoughts on Rampage Jackson or whoever somewhere else.

Anyway, please enjoy the Best And Worst Of WWE Raw for October 1, 2012.

Read the rest of this entry »