It’s hard to believe it’s been fifteen years since the debut of my all-time favorite wrestler ever – and my idol – the Black Scorpion. Ahhhh, seems like it was only yesterday when we first saw our beloved out-of-focus and hooded menace mumbling on about torturing then-WCW champion Sting.
We all wondered who this new masked evildoer could be. Heck, even the guy booking the angle – Ole Anderson – didn’t have a clue who he was. OK, so that’s not that big of a problem if it takes a day or two to figure out who’s gonna be behind the Scorpion’s mask. It is however, a BIG problem if it takes FOUR months to decide who’s gonna be finally revealed as the “true” Black Scorpion.
Soooooo, for four months between August of 1990, up until the conclusion of Starrcade ’90 on December 16th, we had ourselves one clusterf*ck of a Parts Unknown party. You see, there weren’t just the Black Scorpions we saw Sting wrestle at the Clash Of The Champions and Starrcade running around, oh no. In between those events, the fans viewing on TV, as well as those attending live WCW house shows, were subject to an army of Black Scorpion clones, an army that the “real” Black Scorpion would later label his “messengers.” Messengers that proceeded to get their ass handed to them all across the USA.
It didn’t matter if the messenger of the evening was really a Moondog, a Latin heartthrob, a member of one of ECW’s greatest tag-teams ever, or hell, even if he was a magician who would go on to make a NASA space shuttle disappear. If a Scorpion clone was on the card, odds he was destined for embarrassment. Now while RD has already done his job and inducted the Black Scorpion as a Wrestlecrap gimmick, in honor of Scorpy’s fifteenth birthday, here at the JOTW we’re gonna look back and pay tribute to all the guys who comprised and brought to life the entire “dark entity” that tried to make Sting’s (and arguably 99% of WCW’s viewing audience) life a living hell in the fall of 1990.
With much love I present this week’s Jobbers Of The Week – the Black Scorpion’s Messengers.
It was August 24th, 1990. A WCW Saturday Night like every other. Until the segment that forged part of the foundation that Wrestlecrap is built on. Yes, it was the patented, $4.99 Ole Anderson Voicebox-o-matic promo heard around the world. It was the Black Scorpion, with mysterious a message for Sting. He claimed to be from Sting’s past. To me, he resembled something from booker Anderson’s past, as in a past acid trip which spawned horrifying hooded hallucinations. Whoever he was, fans wouldn’t have to wait long to find out, as Sting was scheduled to face his new/old rival at the Clash Of Champions on September 5th.
The Scorpion looked tough and in shape, but the Stinger made short work of him. After pinning the Scorpion, Sting went for the mask and looked to reveal his true identity, thus sending this angle into an early retirement. But alas, as Sting was unmasking his fallen opponent, who should make his way down the ramp? Why, GASP, it was another Black Scorpion!!!!
Seems Sting had not defeated the real Scorpion, only Messenger #1, veteran Al Perez. Standing on the ramp-way was the true Scorpion, right? Not quite, that masked man was Dave Sheldon, the Angel Of Death. While Sheldon was legitimately from Sting’s past and fit some of the mysterious clues that Scorpy dropped to Sting, ultimately in the grand scheme of things, he was not destined to be the Scorpion, only playing the role of Messenger #2. It was at this precise moment, when the Angel Of Death did not move on to be the true Scorpion, and it was clear there was no way in hell Ole’s original choice for the role – the Ultimate Warrior – was jumping ship to WCW, the bookers fumbled and the angle began it’s rapid decline into nonsense.
The Clash match proved to be the last time we would see the Scorpion wrestle on tv until the Starrcade PPV. However, by no means did that mean the party was over. The Sting-Black Scorpion feud spilled over onto the house show circuit, and boy, was that a sight.
From Atlanta to Canada, Sting would defeat the clones / messengers at every show he encountered them. And get this, it was a different guy almost every night. It didn’t matter if Sting was wrestling Wild Bill Irwin under a mask, a small guy, a fat guy, an albino guy, or a guy who moonlighted at a Charlotte gas-station, the results were the same – a Stinger squash. Fans who were lucky enough to miss all these shenanigans in person, had to settle for more Scorpion promos on the tube. Perhaps hoping to capitalize on the growing home improvement tv series trend of the time, WCW hired celebrity handyman Bob Villa to don the hood and wield a hammer to build a gift for Sting.
OK, so it wasn’t really Bob Villa, just Ole Anderson supposedly making a “present” for Sting by annoyingly beating the shit out of a generic piece of metal with a hammer, all the while mumbling the now-cliched death threats. Back on the house show circuit, the losses to Sting continued to mount, however, WCW spiced things up a bit for Scorpy. They threw him into a short-lived mini-angle with Brian Pillman, where the Scorpion supposedly went after the Flyin’ One for interfering in his affairs with Sting.
Then it happened. A day long remembered for Scorpion fans everywhere. October 14th, 1990. The Omni in Atlanta. The Black Scorpion defeated Brian Pillman!!!! It was perhaps the only victory Scorpy ever claimed in his short existence. Sadly, the good times didn’t last, as he quickly went back to jobbing to Sting, as well as losing a few return matches to Pillman, and even Tom Zenk. He had now become the laughingstock of the wrestling world. Even in the Apter mags, he was despised. In a dream match-up pitting WWF’s Top Ten vs. WCW’s Top Ten, Scorpy was pitted against…uh-oh…our good pal here at the ‘Crap, the Earthquake!!!!
I wonder how a “fantasy” Scorpion Quake-Burger compares in taste to a Damien Quake-Burger? Only Apter truly knows.
After amassing a record of somewhere around 1 – 40, the Scorpion would get a breather, as he was replaced on the house show circuit, as well as the Halloween Havoc PPV main event, by Sid Vicious. But just because he wasn’t wrestling, didn’t mean he disappeared. While Ole kept pounding away on a trash-can lid with his hammer ….oops, excuse me… while Ole kept working on Sting’s “present”, similtaneously jawing away with the Voicebox-o-matic in promos, a new messenger arrived on the scene, one who would change the way we would view Scorpy forever.
His name – Franz Harary. His wrestling claim to fame? He was the man responsible for the Black Scorpion’s “black magic.” The scary magic was first unveiled at Halloween Havoc ’90. Forget about throwing daggers at someone, or sawing some hapless victim in half, the world’s first masked wrestling magician had a new trick up his sleeve. Yes, beware Sting, of the awe-inspiring, pants-wetting vision of…
…the Black Scorpion’s Portable Shower Of Doom!?!?! The first victim to feel the “power of his dark shower,” was some part-time female WCW stagehand who, judging by her ripped, acid-washed jeans, looked like a full-time Poison groupie.
It’s debatable whether he was trying to intimidate Sting, or merely trying to wash Bret Michael’s love-cooties off of the poor girl. In the end, Scorpy just lamely “teleported” out of the shower and onto the other side of the stage with the girl.
Sting, not afraid of the Scorpion or hairband STD’s, courageously saved the day by catching the girl as she lept off the stage, away from the Scorpy and into the Stinger’s arms.
Fans would have to wait until Thanksgiving, more precisely, Clash Of The Champions: Thanksgiving Thunder, for the next round of “black magic.” As seen in RD’s Scorpion induction, the Portable Shower Of Doom was back, along with a geek who got his head spun around and then found himself “magically” transformed into a tiger. Sting had had enough of this, so he quickly made his way after the Scorpion. He was too late however, as our masked evildoer hopped in the shower and vanished into thin air. To this day, I still don’t know how Scorpy pulled off his disappearing tricks, but for the decency of mankind, I pray it didn’t involve any Kevin Spacey in American Beauty-type antics behind the shower-curtain.
For all intensive purposes, the jerkin’ around with his magic shower was Scorpy’s last hurrah. In the next few weeks leading up to Starrcade, the Scorpion would be only be heard over the loudspeaker, as he would use his ….. oh brother…. “mind control” to possess everyone from a referee, some jobbers, even a female fan in the crowd, making them attack Sting. By this point, the angle was a complete wreck. Only one thing on God’s green Earth could save it. No, not the Scorpion’s freakin’ spaceship. The man who would arrive in it – Ric Flair. He donned the mask and became the storyline’s “true” Black Scorpion to face Sting in a mask-vs-title cagematch showdown in a cage at Starrcade.
For old times sake, Flair didn’t come alone. He came to the ring with a HUUUGGE army of Scorpion messengers, including “Wild” Bill Irwin, Moondog Rex, and Public Enemy’s Rocco Rock. Heck, even the Angel Of Death was back to put the hood on one last time.
Once again, the clones failed and didn’t make one bit of difference. Along with the help of guest referee, Dick The Bruiser, Sting pinned Scorpy, unmasked and beat up all the messengers one final time, and then finally got Flair’s mask off, revealing his blond locks for the whole world to see. Flair quickly ran out of the cage and to the back, and that was that … the end of the Black Scorpion. The next week, during the start of his promo, Flair would imitate the Scorpions voice by saying, “STTTIIINNNGGG, so it was me all along….,” and immediately take the promo on another tangent (one which probably revolved around his soon-to-be WCW World title victory, one that was his reward for doing the job as the Scorpion) and the Black Scorpion and his 234 different clones/messengers were never discussed on the air again for a long, long, loooonnnng time.
It’s now 2005 and the Black Scorpion is but a distant memory. But I can’t help but feel really sorry for him…uhhh…them…uhhh…it…uhhh…the entity – I guess that’s what you’d call it – that was known as the Black Scorpion.
You know why I feel sorry for him/them/it/entity? Because, despite the fact that…
…he had one of the most absurd, ludicrous, and to some people, one of the stupidest gimmicks / angles of all time.
…the physical wrestler playing the role of the Black Scorpion or his messenger lost every damn match except for one.
…he was used and abused in all the Apter mags.
…he beat the living f*ck out of a piece of scrap metal with a hammer for three months and was still too incompetent to finish Sting’s “present.”
…he practiced flippin’ MIND-CONTROL.
…his “scariest” black magic trick looked like a dead ringer for J.J. Walker’s ghetto-ass shower in the 70’s tv series, Good Times.
Yes, despite this incredible, Earth-shaking, giant-sized load of Wrestlecrap, his final J-O-B would be the fact that as bad as his resume was, he wasn’t even 1990’s worst gimmick. That belongs to the WWF’s Gobbledly Gooker, who in turn inspired Wrestlecrap’s Annual Gooker Award. All that crap, and he still came up short?!? Man, what in the blue hell else did my favorite wrestler ever – who I’ve lovingly nicknamed “the Man, the Myth, the Magician” – need to do to have the Gooker Awards be named the Scorpy Awards in his honor? Lets see…
…let’s imagine he went on to defeat Sting at Starrcade ’90, but then in a major upset lost to a teenage Stephanie McMahon via the original “Fingerpoke Of Doom.” Stephanie, with the help of the Scorpion by her side protecting her title, went on to break Bruno Sammartino’s record title-reign by holding the belt for a remarkable 14 years, finally dropping the belt by graciously passing the torch and doing the job to Shane McMahon’s infant son, who was promptly booted into the upper deck by Gene Snitsky, thus immediately losing the belt by forfeit in the process. Snitsky would then go on to drop the strap in the second ever “Skins Match” to the Black Scorpion, who would then unmask, revealing himself to be Ole’s original choice – the Warrior. Hellwig went on to declare he also drove the white Hummer, he banged Lita without Matt knowing, and finally, he was vacating the title, stating that he had “lost his smile,” and was t urning his attention to running for President Of The United States in 2008, with Christy Hemme as his running mate.
You know what …. damnit!! That still wouldn’t be enough to top the Gooker.
F*ckin’ turkey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!