Last week we debuted the first installment of our weekly and possibly infinite series This Week In Horrible-Looking People, dedicated to the best and worst of pro wrestling 8×10 promotional photos. It featured (among other things) Linda McMahon looking like a U.S. President, the happiest photo Kevin Nash has ever taken and a Triple H/Chyna promo shot that is clearly just two cardboard cutouts propped up side by side.

This week is loosely dedicated to remembering the good old days, back when Kurt Angle was a regular looking dude, Mickie James was a psychotic lesbian stalker and Dolph Ziggler entered the ring via trampoline. I think he was the trampoline one. Anyway, I’ve gathered 51 more random, amazing WWE promo photos from the 1990s, 2000s and today, and I hope you enjoy them.

Except the Michael Hayes one. Nobody could enjoy that.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

By way of reddit comes the kind of video only The Internet (capital letters) could produce. Almost four minutes of pro wrestlers from the 1980s and early 90s … well, I’ll let this describe it for me:

[Absolutely no Words] All except for Ric Flair at the end. We heard them yell, shout and scream. But, who ever pays attention when they take that deep breath before they shout it out? Nobody does except for me. Have fun.

Yep, wrestlers breathing. That’s a post. If I had to whip up a quick “Best And Worst”-style column about the video, it’d read something like this.

Best: The occasional use of non-WWF guys. Jimmy “Boogie Woogie Man” Valiant makes his With Leather debut! I met him at a gas station, once! Other bests include Ric Flair at 2:40 (all of it), The Ultimate Warrior sounding like he’s at lamaze class, and the The Artist-style ending.

Worst: How the hell is Rowdy Roddy Piper alive after almost 60 years of breathing like that?

The only thing we love at UPROXX more than mash-ups and Tumblr GIFs with subtitles across them are minimalist posters. We’ll post a gallery of minimalist posters for anything … comic book characters, Best Picture nominees, video games as movies, anything.

Thankfully a gent with an Etsy shop (BAMItsBernie) has made the minimalist poster craze relevant to my interests by putting together a set of World Wrestling Federation legends pieces highlighting some of the most memorable characters from fake fighting lore and their finishing holds. Some of these are just absolutely glorious, like Koko B. Ware with Frankie on his head or “Ravishing” Rick Rude’s minimalist poster requiring an outline of his entire body because he’s Rick Rude. I would’ve already bought the Andre the Giant one if it said “BUG-EYED HEADBUTT TO THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD THAT MISSES BY LIKE A FOOT AND A HALF” instead of “reverse piledriver”.

Anyway, take a look at these and drop 20 bucks on one if the muse moves you. I’m gonna befriend this guy and get him to make me a WEDGIE poster for Phantasio.

Read the rest of this entry »

And now, the weirdest thing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has done since pretending to be a stranger to teach Jesse Katsopolis about basketball — a video advertisement (courtesy of our friends at Buzzfeed) that starts off like a student film about slam dunking fruit and ends up being about the new Smashing Pumpkins album. The people at Buzzfeed agree that the video is WTF and LOL as well as FAIL. I think it’s pretty great, outside of how uncomfortable it is to watch a 64-year old man dunk. Now I know how Celtics fans felt last season.

Of course, Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins is a huge professional wrestling fan, so you’d think if he wanted an irreverent pop culture reference for his upcoming album he’d just throw a voice over on the end of this old Road Warriors scaffold match promo.

Hey, it’s less obscure than the original joke I wrote about how they filmed themselves walking in and out of houses to promote “Adore”.