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.
“Can’t be still indeed when Man Mountain Rock is cutting a rug,” Vince McMahon exclaimed as a dreadlocked fatso draped from head to toe in tie-dye strummed an electric guitar in the middle of a wrestling ring. Shawn Michaels chimed in, “My man can definitely wail on the gee-tar!” And such was the career of Man Mountain Rock. For the most part, the oversized ax-wielder served to entertain audiences during commercial breaks, coming to the ring and “rocking the house” for them with his groovy tunes. Man Mountain Rock was the World Wrestling Federation’s failed attempt to create…well, I’m not really sure. Was he a hippie? A grunge icon? A metal head? For being a musician, the character’s musical tastes were ambiguous to a fault. One thing was for sure, though…”If it’s too loud, you’re too old!” That was the catchphrase often spouted by MMR, and it almost landed him on the wrong side of a Crossface Chickenwing from Mr. Bob Backlund. But it didn’t. Because they’re feud never went anywhere. Man Mountain Rock had but one feud, it was with Bob Backlund, and it never went anywhere. After leaving professional wrestling, Man Mountain Rock went on to appear in minor roles on two episodes of Touched by an Angel. In a just world, kids, this is the kind of thing that happens to criminally bad gimmicks. They feud with Bob Backlund, they do a guest spot on a primetime melodrama, and they ride off into the sunset, never to be heard from again.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwMdJ4p464s]