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.

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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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After spending the better part of the last 48 hours on my couch playing Final Fantasy III on my iPad and watching college football, I’m ready to get back to my daily grind of slouching in my office desk while watching movies on my iPad. But there is still some couch time left, with the Allstate Sugar Bowl (RIP Nokia) tonight, and those other games on whatever other nights they’re on.

So first up, we’ve got the Florida Gators and… Tennessee?

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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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In theory, WWE has a good thing going with their two top title-holders. Between Sheamus, the affable, larger-than-life brawler who holds the World Heavyweight Championship, and CM Punk, the slick, self-aggrandizing, oppportunistic WWE champion, they should have all their bases covered for any kind of story they want to tell. But there’s a problem.

From a storytelling standpoint, their characters just don’t work. Or at least, they don’t work in the way WWE wants them to.

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Pre-show notes

- Thank you for bearing with the semi-lateness of this week’s reports. I managed to attend SummerSlam live, so the report gets that cool live review feature some of you enjoy. The bad part about that is that SummerSlam is half a country and two time zones away from me, so I spent the entirety of Monday on a variety of airplanes. This report’s pretty long, though, so enjoy that, and I’ll have a thorough Raw report ready for you on Wednesday.

- Your comments, likes, tweets, Touts and whatever are appreciated. This column sorta lives and dies by your participation in it, so anything you can do to pitch in and spread the word is appreciated. Shout out to my Reddit homeboys, who I’d talk to all the time if I wasn’t 200 years old and could figure out Reddit. Somebody Reddit for me.

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

- If you read the report in its infancy earlier today, all the pages have been uploaded and the full thing is a thing. Enjoy!

So at long last, please enjoy The Best And Worst Of WWE SummerSlam 2012, sponsored by THQ. No, seriously.

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