An extensive look into the worst wrestling show of all-time
AKA: That one where Jake Roberts gets very drunk
It's been a while since I've had a new video to show all of you, my utterly faithful Retronauts squad, on a Monday. I've been resting, been hanging and banging and all of that...but mostly I've been working on the 2nd episode of The Agony and the Ecstasy -- videos that cover something well and truly disastrous from the world of media and culture in general. You might remember that the 1st was on Duke Nukem Forever...well, for the 2nd I've covered the worst wrestling show of all-time. It's Heroes of Wrestling, and it's available to watch right here.
This is, of course, a very long video - it's nearly an hour and 40 minutes. Heroes of Wrestling is a show from October 1999, right at the heart of the Attitude Era boom, that sought to act like a champions' tour, if you will. A card stacked with legends from the past that people would remember, that would stoke fire to their nostalgia. People love this sort of thing in say, golf or baseball because hey -- they aren't the most intensive of sports, and a good golfer can usually play close to their top level well into their 50's or even 60's. This is usually not the case with wrestling...so what we have are a bunch of well beyond out of shape guys who get winded within the first minute of every match, most of whom are desperate for money, at least four of them who have or had a confirmed serious drug addiction. A 3-hour tape of Bumfights features more dignity on display than the Heroes of Wrestling show.
And that's before you get to the big problems -- a level of production that makes B-movies look good. A team of producers who knew so little about wrestling that they thought the blood in matches was actually fake. Past it primadonnas who still refuse to do the job because they're certain that Vince McMahon's going to call them tomorrow and they don't want to look weak. And of course, the saga of one Jake "The Snake" Roberts -- the man who goes to the arena, shuts himself in his locker room and, for whatever reason, gets quite royally tanked up on hard liquor and lord knows what else. And then he goes out to wrestle in the main event of the evening.
The Agony and the Ecstasy is a series that is usually reserved for something that takes a ridiculously long time -- the production cycle of something like Duke Nukem Forever, or a craze that lasted for years that drove people literally insane...it's rare for something that happened in a single night to be so utterly catastrophic that it would warrant an inclusion in these hallowed halls. But Heroes of Wrestling is assuredly that -- the undisputed worst Pay-Per-View event of them all. It is the Super Monkey Daibouken of supercards...and if such a horror interests you, then feel free to watch this documentary which hopefully tells as full and accurate a story as possible about the events of October 10th, 1999, a day that will forever live in infamy for us wrestling fans. I hope you enjoy it.
