Happy St. Patrick’s Day! In honor of the day and in tribute to all of those jobbers and Doughboys, past and present, who’ve donned the green tights and unabashedly placed their heritage on proud display in the wrestling arena, we’ve held a pageant here at Project Doughboy and awarded a special championship belt to the all-time greatest model of Irish beef in spandex. There were quite a few fine lads to choose from. So in keeping with the celebratory spirit of the day, we’ve decided to line up a parade of some of the runners-up…
Who can deny a place of honor to Pat Barrett, one of the all-time great Irish grapplers (who really looks sharp in that shamrock-emblazoned singlet)?
Right behind him is the “Belfast Bruiser,” Dave “Fit” Finlay, nothing short of an Irish hero.
Check out this excellent documentary on the guy, some good viewing for St. Paddy’s Day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbVUi0zMhc8
(We actually awarded “Fit” extra points for the shillelagh…)
We can’t have “Fit” without his sidekick, Hogglesworth (and what’s a St. Paddy’s Day parade without a leprechaun?)
We’re a little confused by the two Brians; Brian Costello and Brian Donahue, the “Dublin Destroyer.”
It looks as though they share the same wardrobe, green or white trunks with a shamrock sewn on to the right butt.
These two hunks wrestled together on a tag-team in the early 90’s. So perhaps on their days off they went shopping together for clothes…
Here comes one of the younger contestants, a lad who wrestles for Celtic Pro Wrestling as the Amazing Insano (though his tights aren’t a true Kelly green and there’s not a shamrock in sight on his attire, he did pick up points for his pleasing belly…)
Another of the current crop of grapplers, Irish Red, caught our attention as well (though his tag-team partner and sometime nemesis, Sean Killian, seems only to wear black…and, as a result, didn’t place in the finals.)
Bob Bailey personifies, in a way, the notion of Irish beef…and we liked the way he consoled his young partner at the close of their losing match.
Evan McCloud has, as they say, “the map of Ireland written on his face,” and fills out that Kelly green singlet smartly. He’s a part of a tag-team, Celtic Crusade (more on them later…)
Now, for the first runner-up, Damian O’Connor, a strapping youngster…and what a singlet he’s sporting, with the colors of the Irish flag, a Celtic cross on the front and a map of the auld sod on the back! Is it any wonder that his adoring public seems to want to lap the lad up?
Even in more recent bouts, the bulked-up O’Connor, though less cuddly, still cuts an impressive figure, his chest heaving, his snug green singlet clinging to his sweaty body…
AND NOW FOR THE WINNER of the Irish beef in spandex award…(bodhran roll, please)…Michael McKinger!
Here’s Michael McKinger looking spectacular in his “Irish Leprechaun” body-hugging singlet, his face painted like a four-leaf clover. (The face-painting job alone is enough to garner this guy the grand prize, hands-down!)
But McKinger’s range in pro wrestling involves a great deal more; a career as a singles wrestler, as a member of two tag-teams, Celtic Crusade (pictured four pictures above, to the right of Evan McCloud) and the Shamrockers.
Even when he had to play a fussy jobber and wear black (as the bad guy) in a match against a past-his-prime Hacksaw Jim Duggan, McKinger still held on to the signature shamrock emblem on his singlet and kept his Irish pride and heritage to the fore.
And so, for that—and for added charge of excitement all of these guys have engendered to the very notion of St. Paddy’s Day and the “wearin’ o’ the green,” we say Slainte! (Good health!) to Irish jobbers, one and all!
And in the spirit of the shamrock, rendered so impressively in today’s post by Doughboy Michael McKinger, we send out this toast to Wrestling Arsenal readers everywhere:
“May good luck be with you, Wherever you go
And your blessings outnumber
The shamrocks that grow.”
HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY!