So far, we’ve shared with you a golden treasury of cheesy late-80s/early-90s WWF promo photos and a two-part retrospective of WCW’s worst possible 8x10s.

No look at pro graps in the 1990s would be complete without Extreme Championship Wrestling, the hyper-violent, cursing-on-VHS, #3 promotion in wrestling’s last boom period. ECW had a lot that positives that still hold up — under-the-radar international stars given a chance to shine, a constantly-replenishing roster that gave WWE and WCW most of its top young stars, Beulah McGillicutty’s trashy glory — but some of it, mostly Blue Meanie’s jean shorts, deserves to be lost in time.

Please enjoy these EXTREME GLAMOURSHOTS~. They’re even better if you realize that almost everyone in the gallery is somewhere on a show 15 years later, milking whatever they had going for them here.

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OH MY GOD WHAT IS GOING ON WITH YOUR ARM, REF

Hola, lovelies! I am riding high on a Christmas full of Jack Swagger action figures, talking Chewbaccas, and a shockingly great (mostly) episode of Impact. I hope you’re all ready for a heck of a lot of bests, because I am full of leftover festive cheer and also coffee and I am ready to get to it! But first things first:

• Before you do anything, you should go out and send a Christmas card to Dalton Dingle. Go on. I’ll wait.

• We don’t have fancy video packages, but you can find out what got Bested and Worsted last week here. If you aren’t caught up, but already guessed that Taz made horribly offensive gay jokes about Santa Claus, you’re right, and I am so so sorry.

• You don’t have to kiss to be clever, but we’d always appreciate it if you’d Tumbl for us. You can also like us on Facebook, use the twitters to tell all of your friends about the cool stuff you read on the internet (and also this article), and follow myself and With Leather while you’re there. UPROXX lives in the twitters as well, should you feel the need to tell them how much you enjoy these reports, or send selfies of you clutching your pearls (or personal equivalent) at the idea of a non-Brandon Best & Worst.

This week on Impact, gratuitous heel on heel action, Bully Ray proves that even he doesn’t watch this show, and Mr. Anderson takes them both because he is…whatever the Mr. Anderson equivalent is of hardcore.

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Well hello again, precious internet darlings! Just a few words before we dive into the column this week.

• I’m going to warn everyone here and now that there is a tl;dr soapbox diatribe buried in the report. I don’t plan on doing something this lengthy on the subject again, but I feel that With Leather has a wonderful community of intelligent readers, and if anyone can have an open and honest dialogue about things we should and should not accept when it comes to professional wrestling, it’s you.

• Last week’s column got an overwhelmingly positive response, and I can’t thank you guys enough for the comments and support. It means more than I can say, and I hope we can keep this going. I’m having a heck of a lot of fun writing about the most un-fun wrestling show on television, and you guys are a big part of that.

• Be sure to like us on Facebook, comment at will, share with all of your friends, and send all of your appreciative telegraphs to UPROXX so we can continue in the new year. You can follow me on the twitters here, and follow With Leather for all of your comedy sports and mascot-related needs here.

This week on Impact, Kazarian and Christopher Daniels give us the best Christmas present we could ask for, Jeff Hardy makes some memories, and I give Taz the worst I promised myself I would never take the time to write. Round 2, FIGHT! Doodoo doodoo doodoo doodoo doo doo doo!

For some reason along the lines of “F*ck it, I was bored”, I was checking out celebrity birthdays yesterday and I noticed a strange coincidence about celebrity birthdays for today, December 18. Celebrating birthdays today are “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Rob Van Dam and Trish Stratus. They, of course, all share one main thing in common – those aren’t their real names. Oh, and I’ve also been told that they’re each professional wrestlers who had notable stints in the WWE. I’m still waiting on our fact-checking team to get back to me on that one.

Austin (Steven Anderson) turns 48 today and has since gone on to make forgettable films that I otherwise love, like the hilariously watchable The Condemned, and Knockout, in which Austin plays a janitor who – and I cannot make this up – mentors a bullied teen to fight back against the school’s boxing champion. Rob Van Dam (Robert Szatkowski) turns 42 today, and he also tried his hand at awful action films like Wrong Side of Town and Black Mask 2, but wisely returned to TNA, where he is currently the X Division champion.

As much as I have appreciated the wrasslin’ efforts of those gentlemen over the years, they’re just not as inspiring as Stratus (Patricia Stratigias) when it comes to putting together a little tribute like this one. I can’t really put my finger on it, but Stratus just has that certain something that makes it easier to concentrate. She was really good at what she did in the WWE, I think is the point that I’m trying to make, and some people have told me that she’s also attractive.

Again, the fact-checkers are hard at work on that one for me, too. In the meantime, please enjoy our tribute to the First Lady of Stratusfaction on her 37th birthday.

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"Who outbid me? THIS IS IMPORTANT."

Ed. note - Welcome to the test-run, or “pilot episode” of the much requested Best And Worst Of TNA Impact Wrestling, a subsidiary of The Best And Worst Of WWE Raw LLC. Handling the writing duties is writer/comedian/Canadian Danielle Matheson, who could not come with a higher recommendation from me. I know part of the reason people wanted a Best And Worst Of Impact was to get my take on it, but … no, you’re better off with Danielle. My Best And Worst Of Impact would a complimentary sentence about Taryn Terrell’s diet and 75 paragraphs of complaining. You’re better off with Danielle. As an added bonus, I’m leaving in all the Canadian spellings. Your feedback here is very important, so make sure to click like, share it on Twitter, and drop a comment about the report or the show if you want us to keep doing it. Enjoy!

Well hello! I’m Danielle. I like Brian Wood comics, Tom Waits, and I’m super into TNA. No, I’m not joking.

I suppose I should preface this article with a few things, just to get it out of the way:

• While it’s hard not to take a completely sardonic approach to reviewing TNA, this will not be multiple pages of worsts.
• That said, TNA has been really, really bad lately. I am a consummate TNA apologist, but even I have to admit that the show is hitting lows I didn’t think possible. And I am saying this as someone who owns Victory Road ’09.
• Know that everything I say is because I want IMPACT to be the best it can be, and not … that it usually chooses to be.
• My current biggest non-WrestleMania fantasy booking is Kenny King vs. ACH, half out of curiosity to see how their styles would match up, and half because ACH should be a thing you all love. If you’re really into making stuff happen for Canadian girls you only know from the internet and it is within your power to do so, that would be fantastic. Just throwing that out there while I have the chance.
• As always, comment, share, like us on Facebook, or send UPROXX carrier pigeons telling them that you like IMPACT too and want this to happen more often. You can also follow me on Twitter here.

This week on IMPACT: Kurt Angle has a secret pastime you won’t believe, Brooke Hogan is allowed back on television, and Hulk Hogan tries to use a smart phone. Hold onto your butts, coconuts. This is a thing that is happening!

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Funny Or Die has done a lot of things to warm my heart — pissing off Tom Brady, making Kris Humphries call himself a douchebag and threatening to kill Blake Griffin with a miniature puppet version of himself — but none have made me quite as happy as watching 1996 Olympic gold medalist and pro wrestler Kurt Angle trying to get back into the 2012 games.

The best part is that it’s based on real events … the 43-year old Angle tried his best to make the 2012 team, but came up short due to hamstring and knee injuries. Actually, I take that back. The BEST part is watching him Angle Slam a badminton player through a totally unexplained freestanding table and/or bashing a fencer in the face with a steel chair. God knows I would’ve been one of those random wrestling fans who showed up with signs to watch Kurt Angle play table tennis if I could’ve been.

Video is below. It’s more Funny than Die, but there’s a lot of dying going on anyway.

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