So a Canadian comes out to bash the good ol’ USA and in the process garners some cheap heat. Was the first person to do this:
A) Bret Hart
B) Lance Storm
C) Frenchy Martin
D) None of the Above
The answer is probably D, but since I don’t know who came before Frenchy Martin, we’ll focus on him for today.
Frenchy Martin was a character that was paradoxically ahead of his time while at the same time being behind it. A stereotypical manager in the late 80’s, Martin led his charge Dino Bravo into battle wearing a powder blue suit, beanie, and a monocle, carrying about signs that read “USA Is Not OK!”
Consider this – Bret Hart did the exact same gimmick in the late 90’s, igniting a feud with Steve Austin that garnered huge ratings. Using the Capt. Morgan law of relativity (which states that anything can be correlated to anything else after a few Rum & Cokes, and after trying to decipher the sound bite below, I had more than a few), one might even be lead to believe that Frenchy Martin – FRENCHY FREAKIN’ MARTIN! – was a gimmick way ahead of its time.
In fact, I dare venture to say that Bret could have even been more over had he copied the idea all the way down to the beanie and monocle.
Because let’s face it, folks – MONOCLES = RATINGS.
Ol’ Frenchy was ahead of the times in other ways as well, as sometimes Frenchy would speak French. Sometimes, not always. You’d think that someone named “Frenchy” would always speak French, but you’d be wrong. You see, other times, he’d speak some gibberish that vaguely resembled English, and thus pioneered the way for fellow marble mouths like Steve McMichael.
Sadly, Frenchy’s tenure in the WWF was short . He did little to infuriate fans (maybe they just couldn’t understand him!), and was eliminated prior to Bravo’s big run with Earthquake against the Ultimate Warrior.
And before you ask how a no talent like Frenchy got a gig in the WWF, well…he was Rick Martel’s brother.
Sometimes it’s better to be related than good.
Frenchy speaks either French or English or some weird combination of the two. Maybe it was pig latin. All I know is that after 15 consecutives play throughs, I still couldn’t figure it out.