I’ve been watching this GIF all day. It’s the closest that most of us will ever come to having the “Macho Man” Randy Savage drop an elbow on us. That is, until I prove my theory that he’s living in a cottage in Jamaica with Tupac and Jonathan Brandis. The Illuminati can try and hide them all they want, but I know how it really works. They did the same thing with Eddie Wilson, but he came back and led the Cruisers to glory once more.

Meanwhile, in pop culture references that more than 3 people will understand…

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On Monday, we shared with you the best (Cactus Jack) and very, very worst (Hail) of World Championship Wrestling’s 8×10 promo photos from the 1990s. If you thought Dave Sullivan petting a rabbit was as deep as the well ran, you’re in for a treat.

Behold, part two of our epic WCW promo photos quest, once again visiting the pro wrestling company that threatened to put WWE out of business before collapsing in on itself and folding in the shadow of stars like Kwee Wee and Disqo. The next 50 WCW photos tell the story of the company … full of amazing pro wrestling talent, but also (unfortunately) full of everything else. Take a long, hard look at that picture of Ric Flair. If you can’t see the terror in his eyes, you’ll start to pick it up around slide 30.

If you showed part one to everybody you know, follow-up with this one.

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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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WWE’s Royal Rumble 2013 goes down on January 27, and I think I speak for everyone when I say the best part of a Royal Rumble match is when they herd a wrestler in front of a green screen and tell him to explain off the top of his head why he’s gonna win. Very few things make a wrestling fan feel like a kid again like Hulk Hogan pointing with an open palm and yelling about vitamins in front of a horrible yellow background reading HULK HOGAN.

To prepare for the Rumble, I’ll be putting up a retro Best And Worst report (or two), but step one is the celebration of these promo montages. When the mid-90s hit they went the way of the dodo, but I’ve put together a gallery of some of the best from 89-96. If you only watch one thing, watch the video where swank 1995 Pamela Anderson gets weird voicemail messages from Doink the Clown about how he’s gonna nail her when he wins the Royal Rumble. Hell, even if you don’t like wrestling, watch that one.

Enjoy. If I missed one of your favorites, be sure to post it in our comments section below.

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WWE’s YouTube page provides a lot of fresh videos for the Best And Worst Of Raw column — mostly of the “here’s the last 20 seconds of a match, and the five minutes of wacky shouting that came after it” persuasion — but occasionally they dip into the archives and share something truly magical.

That’s the case with this video of pretty much everyone who competed at Survivor Series ’89 celebrating Thanksgiving by saying what they’re thankful for. It’s one of the most 1980s pro wrestling things I’ve ever seen, and so heartwarming that I decided to put together a quick list of my ten favorite things that happen in it. I’m thankful for goofy nostalgia, the fact that pro wrestling coverage has septupled our traffic and that the Ultimate Warrior exists, and was once asked to talk about Thanksgiving.

So, in no particular order …

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We cover pro wrestling a little more than we should these days, because it turns out a lot of people want to read about fake fighting on legitimate comedy sports blogs and because more of us watched it when we were kids than we’d like to admit. Some of us still do, and have blogging jobs instead of working in an office somewhere and having the respect of anyone.

I’ve been looking for a way to follow-up on the WWF Legends Minimalist Poster Gallery from earlier this month, and pro wrestling personality/friend of the site Kyle Durden gave me a great idea … what’s more WWF and minimalist than actual pro wrestling promo 8x10s? Nothing, it turns out, especially if you find the ones from the late 1980s/early 1990s, after wrestling had been popular but before it got popular again. That’s a gold mine.

So here’s a look into the WWF promo photos gold mine. A preview of what you’ll find inside: Dusty Rhodes as a laughing garbage man, Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake going from normal human being to crazy-eyed monster in four years and the Bushwhackers playing in somebody’s raked leaves. By the end of the gallery you may no longer be able to stand. That’s normal.

Let me know which ones are your favorites in the comments section below.

[all photos via ImageEvent]

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