Project Doughboy: Sticks & Stones

We’re taught from an early age not to heed the barbs of insults and mockery.  We’re assured by our elders that “names will never hurt us.” Yet anyone who’s been on the receiving end of schoolyard bullying can attest to the demoralizing sting that a sharply-aimed barrage of verbal abuse can inflict.

Bullying has long been a dynamic of the wrestling arena, but rarely has such a cynical, collective effort been waged to mock and further bring down the already much-maligned “enhancement talent” of the day than in a string of matches aired on WCW Saturday Night in the fall of 1996.  (Here’s a link to the bout featured in this entry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RNAqE8pgxc).

To begin with, the featured jobbers of the upcoming match are heralded with onscreen placards celebrating their career stats (this, in an era when the Doughboys of the ring often went unidentified).

Though the placards appear onscreen only briefly, a quick scan and we can see at once that the ridicule has begun; Costello mocked as a “fashion plate” and a “guzzling champ” and Shane maligned as “green.”

Next, the pair of competitors is afforded a grand entrance, complete with dry ice and a laser light show.  For those of us who tune in specifically to root for the jobbers, we regard this proper entrance into the arena as long overdue.  Why shouldn’t this pair of Doughboys be celebrated?

Brian Costello has always been a particular favorite of mine, ever since those early matches in which his rugged good looks gave him the aura of a hero in a Greek sword-and-sandal epic.  I’m not familiar with Jack Shane, with his husky, boyish good looks.  But he’s just the type of wrestler that catches my eye, especially when clad in a shiny black singlet, as he is here.

There’s something, too, about seeing these two side by side—they appear to be a perfect match and complement to one another.  I picture the pair as an experienced wrestling master sharing tips with his rookie apprentice.  Or as Batman with the Boy Wonder attentively looking on.  Or as a Muscle Bear alongside his sexy young Cub.

As Costello and Shane enter the empty arena, their opponents, Hall and Nash, along with members of New World Order, flank the entryway and greet the pair with cat-calls and insults.  The scene is reminiscent of a couple of high school band nerds having to pass by the jocks in an alley on the way to class. To make matters worse, the jobbers’ trek down to the ring is accompanied by the roar of a piped-in track of audience boos of disapproval.

The featured heels, Hall and Nash, follow after and, with mikes in hand, begin their running commentary of insults which continues throughout the bout.  The Giant, equipped with a camcorder, records the proceedings with an unsteady hand, in a grainy, jittery black and white.

(A QUICK NOTE:  All of the quips in the word balloons in these accompanying images are directly from the actual  match commentary.)

Also on hand to participate in the ribbing is Vincent, Mike Jones.  Though there’s no mike within earshot to pick up Vincent’s comments, his body language, leaning ringside with an expression of disdain, speaks volumes.  We can only imagine the insults that he hurls at the passing Doughboys (in other words, the two thought balloons attributed to Vincent…well, they’re made up!)

For decades, the enhancement talent of pro wrestling has played a crucial role in the weekly bouts, affording the heroes and heels of the day the chance to shine imposingly under the glare of the arena lights.

But by the mid-90’s, amid changing tastes and harder-edged, grittier scenarios, all that seemed to be left for the jobbers of the business (at least as represented by this series of bouts) was disdain and ridicule.

Suddenly, our guys are a laughing-stock: the very things that Doughboy watchers find most attractive about pro wrestling and the jobbers we admire have become fodder for mockery and derision:

Tights: There are few sights more irresistible to Doughboy watchers than heavy-set jobbers in shiny spandex. By the mid-90’s, such gear had gone the way of the mullet. So Costello, in his out-of-fashion green and yellow tights, becomes an object of derision.

During the intro to the match, the voice-over narrator, in anticipation of the ridicule to follow, invites the viewer to “Look out for his famous, flashy tights!” When Hall comments on Costello’s “outfit” during the bout, the camera zooms in for an ass-hugging close-up of Costello’s beefy rump.

• Speaking of the Mullet:  Another affectionate sight from the heyday of ham’n egger bouts is the beautifully coiffed hair-do’s that Costello and other Doughboys sported.  While Costello, stunned and in pain, crawls across the mat on all fours, his old-school bleached mane comes in for some ribbing in the running commentary of Hall and Nash.

• The spare tire:  Nash calls to Costello, “Here, chubby!” as he lifts the big man and plants him on top of the corner turn-buckle.

The camera affords an extreme close-up of (what Doughboy admirers regard as) Costello’s sensuous “love-handles.”

• Another downright appealing aspect of big boys in the ring; the hairy chest—Costello is hurled from the top rope and lands flat on his back in the center of the ring.  The camera follows with this extremely sexy close-up of Costello.  The shot is accompanied by the comment: “Costello has enough hair on his chest to knit a sweater.”

• Pale skin: Both Costello and Shane are put down for their pasty complexions (“It looks as though they don’t have enough money for a tanning bed”), but Shane (who with his fair skin is referred to as “the Irishman”) receives a number of remarks, in particular, when Hall tortures the lad with a vicious slap that leaves a mark on the Doughboy’s tender white chest.

As the brutal action of this squash match shows, there are plenty of “sticks and stones” to “break bones” in evidence throughout this bout on the part of Hall and Nash, as they pound and pummel the defenseless Doughboys. As for the second line of that old adage, “But names will never hurt me:” that’s proven here to be just as much of a crock in the pro wrestling ring as it is in the schoolyard.

So what is it, then, about this added humiliation and ridicule heaped upon the jobbers by this team of heels that intensifies the appeal of this match for Doughboy watchers?

If this were a conventional bout, with a pair of jobbers going up against a team of Alpha-Male heels, it would still have great appeal to Doughboy watchers (as noted earlier, Costello and Shane make for an ideal tag-team.) What gives this particular match an added charge of arousal for those of us attracted to these heavy-set designated losers is the extra dose of empathy that comes with this collective piling-on against our boys by everyone involved:

• the barrage of trash talk by the Outsiders,

• the seemingly mocking camera angles of the Giant,

• the ringside sneers of Mike Jones,

• the fake piped-in crowd noise with boo’s to greet the jobbers,

• the powers-that-be at the WCW in deciding to produce a segment designed specifically to ridicule Doughboys and, finally,

• the majority of the viewing audience, who, most likely, admire Hall and Nash and their bad-ass attitude and join in the laughter and ribbing of these Doughboys, much in the same way that bystanders in the schoolyard applaud the antics of the class bully.