Every Tuesday, we take a look at an outlandish character from wrestling’s days gone by. Sometimes laughable, sometimes revolting, but always preposterous, they’re part of what makes pro rasslin’ so great. Ranging from slightly peculiar to downright ludicrous, these are the wrestlers that time has rightly forgotten.
I think we can all agree that WCW pumped out some of the worst gimmicks in wrestling history during their plummet at the turn of the millennium. Floundering at the bottom of that awfully booked barrel was The Maestro. Robert Kellum, the man who portrayed the character, was the real life nephew of the original Gorgeous George. As such, he was slated to debut as Gorgeous George III. Unfortunately for Mr. Kellum, Randy Savage’s girlfriend began using the name Gorgeous George just before he debuted, resulting in the creation of the Maestro gimmick. The Maestro was a classical music aficionado who played his own entrance theme before approaching the ring. Managed by Symphony, otherwise known as the smoking hot Ryan Shamrock, The Maestro put opponents away with such cheesy-sounding finishers as the Bad Note and the Encore. His time in WCW was marked by feuds with a variety of legendary stars such as Evan Karagias, David Flair, Norman Smiley, and Ernest Miller. As you can probably deduce by his list of rivals, it wasn’t often that The Maestro escaped from the under-card filler matches of the show. Actually, he never did. Check out this opening match of a December 2000 edition of Monday Nitro pitting The Maestro against The Artist Formerly Known as Prince Iaukea, and it suddenly becomes crystal clear why the company was mere months away from damnation.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSczk4lLVEU]
