"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.

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Update: Part 2 is now up. Check it out!

Back in September, we shared A Golden Treasury Of Cheesy Late-80s/Early-90s WWF Promo Photos, a collection of the best photos from pro wrestler 8x10s. If you missed that … yeah, you should click the link.

Anyway, I was never a WWF kid when I was growing up. I was born in southern Virginia and was raised on the National Wrestling Alliance — if you’re a WWF lifer, that means we had Ric Flair when you had Hulk Hogan — and eventually what the NWA became, World Championship Wrestling. You may remember WCW from its sudden, crazy popularity in the late 1990s when Hulk Hogan became a bad guy, Sting became The Crow and WWF put as many curse words and dick jokes on television as they could to combat it. Spoiler: the dick jokes won.

That said, WCW is still my favorite thing, and if I’m going to share the worst of WWF’s promo photos, I might as well dip into the endless well of embarrassment that is the WCW library. What follows is only part one of a series, because holy shit you will not believe some of these pictures.

Enjoy, and show this to everyone you’ve ever known.

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If you don’t watch professional wrestling, there isn’t a lot wrestling fans can teach you.

It’s a short list — what different styles of crotch-chops mean, the names of wrestlers you don’t recognize (but only the popular ones), whether or not Sin Cara had a comic book based on his life in Mexico (spoiler: he did) — but as a wrestling fan and the editor-in-chief of a popular, mostly-non-wrestling comedy sports blog, I feel it is my duty to say stay the hell away from this Groupon.

$37 for a 60-minute sports massage from NuBodi Massage sounds great until you realize it’s being administered by Chris Benoit. Fans of WWE remember Benoit as the man who won the World Heavyweight Championship from Triple H and Shawn Michaels in a Triple Threat match at WrestleMania XX. Fans of Nancy Grace may remember him as the guy who choked his wife to death, choked his 7-year old son to death, helpfully put his dogs in the pool house and hung himself in his home gym. Okay, WWE fans remember him like that, too.

And sure, this probably isn’t the same Chris Benoit, but if years of watching wrestling (and reading Deadspin) have taught me anything, it’s that everything that happens in WWE should be followed by, “was that a work,” wrestling jargon for “was that real, or part of the show?” Which means ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE, which means that maybe Chris Benoit faked his own death, put on a dreadlocks wig and got a job giving therapeutic massage up in Massachusetts. Do not use the Chris Benoit Groupon.

Just be safe, that’s all I’m asking. Wait for the next Groupon deal to come along. Hey, look! Only $80 for Invader #1 Shower Installation! That sounds like a great idea!

[h/t to @BJHiggins]

When you find out why the banana split is there, you’ll wish it was something else.

Father’s Day is this Sunday, June 17, and to celebrate, I’ve devoted an entire episode of With Spandex to Adventures In Bitchsitting, a nearly-lost pro wrestling fan fiction masterpiece about Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit being single fathers. Trust me, that’s the least bizarre thing that happens. Preserved from an attachment on a post in a long-forgotten Yahoo! fan fic group, the story features a frank discussion of French sexuality, two complete viewings of Lilo & Stitch and Teddy Long as the proprietor of a sex club. It’s amazing, and if I only accomplish one thing in my writing career I want sharing Adventures In Bitchsitting with you to be it.

This week’s special guest (and reader) is Ari from Tumblr’s Feminist Pro Wrestling, the person magnanimous enough to share the story with me in the first place. Also joining With Spandex are Lex Lybrand and Kelli Kelli from Wear The Cheese, because sh*t, somebody had to hear this for the first time.

Happy Father’s Day week, everybody. You can listen to and download the podcast below. Be sure to comment on this one in the comments section below, because … well, you’ll hear. LISTENER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Subscribe to With Spandex on iTunes (finally) here: With Spandex on iTunes

RSS Feed: feed://withleather.uproxx.com/tag/with-spandex/feed

Direct download of the episode here: With Spandex Episode 5 – Father’s Day Fan Fiction Special

Pre-show notes:

- Welcome to my second ever Best And Worst Of WWE [Insert Older Pay-per-view Show Title Here] report. The first effort, in case you missed it, was last month’s Best And Worst Of Royal Rumble 2000. That went over pretty well, even if it burned me out so much I couldn’t do a report for the 2012 edition, and Elimination Chamber is only a few years old so let’s consider “February PPV” time sensitive.

- Comments are appreciated. Clicking “like” is appreciated, tweets and retweets are appreciated, showing and sharing this to and with the people you know are appreciated. Older show reports are sketchy because nobody’s googling for them, so our traffic goes way down and they take like 80 hours to write, so why bother? But I WANT to write them, so if you support them and make them a success, I’ll keep cranking them out. At least make me popular enough to do a Best And Worst of that Glory Days Of Wrestling tin I bought at Half Price Books for like negative 2.99.

- Don’t forget to come back on Sunday and participate in our open discussion thread for Elimination Chamber 2012, happening live. I won’t be around for it, as I’ll be at ACW’s show in San Antonio, but I’ll be back in time to skim through and steal your jokes.

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

- A.J. was only three years old when this pay-per-view happened so she is not featured, but don’t worry, this is when the Divas were nearly naked 24/7, so if you’re That Guy you’ll enjoy it anyway.

But for now, please enjoy the Best And Worst Of WWE No Way Out 2007.

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