Faces of the Pro Wrestling Heel # 2 - Showing Ass

There are about a million things that can add up to a great pro wrestling villain - being foreign, scaring children, punches to the junk - but there seems to be almost universal agreement that the one thing that makes a great heel is a willingness to "show ass."

"Showing ass." This is one of those expressions you come across somewhat often if you tend to read a bunch of nerds on the internet arguing back and forth about fake fighting, and yet there aren't any sources that I could find that offer a concrete definition of what exactly the concept means. That's probably because - like most of those insidery wrestling terms - the meaning of the phrase was likely only known to wrestlers and those in the business, until the popularity of pro wrestling exploded around thirty years ago, and these terms began being tossed around by fans who want to sound like they know what they're talking about even when they probably don't. 

Granted, I could easily fall into that same category, but my attempts to give the term a concrete definition have more of an academic basis - if we're going to talk about acting like a big enough asshole so that thousands of people will boo you and want to see you get your ass kicked in an academic way, we must define our terms, people. And this is a simple one to define, really - basically "showing ass" means if you're going to be a convincing asshole, you have to be willing to go above and beyond to look like one. 

Take, for example, Ric Flair. Yes, most of the time he acted like the coolest motherfucker on the planet, but even he wasn't above dropping to his knees and begging Sting to stop beating the shit out of him in pretty much every match they ever had (especially if it left a window open for a swift thumb to the eye). 

The reason for this is so that good guy Sting seems way cooler than Flair, even though Flair rocks jewel encrusted bath robes, massive pinky rings, and a beautiful feathered platinum mane. That's the essence of showing ass.

In fact, some of the greatest pro graps villains have at times indulged in a somewhat rare bit of self-aware meta interpretation of this trope, in which the bad guy will literally show his ass during a match. Ric Flair himself loves doing this. What better way to look foolish than to be running around with your bare ass out in front of an arena full of people and millions watching at home?

To better illustrate this phenomenon of literally showing ass, let us study this classic instance from the main event of Wrestlemania XIV, in which Shawn Michaels shows us how it's done.

Faces of the Pro Wrestling Heel # 1 - Screaming Red Velour

The Vault welcomes you to its new series celebrating the pro wrestling heel (the greatest gig in all of entertainment) through the use of hilarious out-of-context pictures. And we're kicking things off with an entry from The Miz and his slick Zap Brannigan style red velour jacket.
 

#1: Be sleazy as fuck, wear a preposterously stylish suit.

#2: Bluster directly into the camera. 

#3: Get laid out by the good guy, making sure the bottoms of your shoes match your ridiculous suit jacket for maximum comedic effect.

This has been Faces of the Pro Wrestling Heel # 1. Shoutout to MGFanJay of the awesomely old school Death Valley Driver Video Review Forums for these fantastic screencaps I stole.

The Top 10 Questions That Need to Be Answered In Season 5 of Breaking Bad

The fifth (and apparently final) season of Breaking Bad - the best show on television, shut up about Big Bang Theory or The Walking Dead or whatever the hell film waste you think is on its level - begins tonight. And if you're a fan of the show, odds are it's all you've been able to think about or talk about for the past two weeks at least.

That's because the story so far of Walter White's transformation into Heisenberg, the ruthless meth kingpin, has left us with a whole mess of unanswered questions. And Breaking Bad is a show that pretty much never introduces a story thread without resolving it. I mean, this is a show that had Walt spend a good portion of Season 2 building a crawl space in the family utility closet pretty much just so we could have this great shot in the third to last episode of Season 4. 

And let's not forget the other slow-burning gems that paid off big in the end, like the pink teddy bear in the pool, Walt's second cell phone, Skyler and "I fucked Ted" Beneke's relationship, and Hector Salamanca the kamikaze wheelchair pilot, among others. 

Because of that tendency to make everything significant, every little detail that has come up over the course of the first four seasons can seem to the obsessed Breaking Bad fan like it will be the key to the eventual downfall of Walt, Jessie, and everyone around them (because you just know they're all gonna go down in the end, and hard). With that in mind, I've compiled the following list of unanswered questions that I believe will factor into the final season in a major way.

Oh, and of course - if you haven't watched the first four seasons of the show, there are massive spoilers ahead, so don't say I didn't warn you.

The Vault Seriously 100% For Real Mourns The Macho Man Randy Savage. Am I Super Sad Right Now? OHHH YEAHHHH! :(

If you were a kid (or even alive) during the 1980s, you lost a hero today. The Macho Man Randy Savage has died. Madness! Randy Savage was one of the greatest pro wrestlers of all time pro wrestling made flesh and the real-life, non-Dos-Equis-commercial version of The Most Interesting Man in the World. He has been a fake fighter, shilled beef jerky, released a rap album, been in the Danger Zone, was Space Ghost's grandfather, got bitten by a snake on national television, and battled Spider-Man in a steel cage, among many other things few mortal men would dare dream about. And yet apparently, despite appearances, he was simply that - a mortal man. There will never be a more bombastically awesome human being on the face of this planet, and he will be truly missed.

Apocalypse predictors: I hope you get your wish in a few months (or tomorrow, whenever the current trendy doomsday prediction happens to be), because frankly a world without The Macho Man Randy Savage is a lot less worth living in. And if the world doesn't end - well we all know who to thank for sacrificing himself to save us.

The Vault Mourns Giant Gonzalez

The colorful world of pro graps lost a legend last week in Jorge "Giant" Gonzalez, a man perhaps best known for being monstrously tall and wearing a furry full-body spandex suit airbrushed with muscles and a butt crack.

Although he left us at the all-too-young age of 44, Gonzalez is not just another tragic early wrestling death, done in as so many others have been by a steroid-enlarged heart tapping out after a (half) lifetime  of coke, booze, and freebasing enough pure dinosaur tranquilizer to kill God. Rather, he seems to have died because he was simply too big for this world. Also, diabetes. 

Countdown: The Top 10 Tunes from Mega Man 2

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The Top Five Best Things About "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"

"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" is one of the best episodes of The Twilight Zone, which is one of the undisputed greatest TV series of all time. If you don't agree with that statement, you don't belong in my readership (but thanks anyway for the hit!). Back when the TV biz was nowhere near as established (or corrupt) as it is now, much of the programming that found its way beamed into living rooms across America was essentially glorified filler made to take up time in between commercials (as opposed to now, when... wait). I sometimes like to tell myself that anyone with a camera, a script, a group of people to fill in as actors, and at least half a clue could have made history in the burgeoning picture business of this era. This is because I equate every writer and director of this era with Ed Wood for some reason.

Enter Rod Serling (shown here as the innovator of the old "arrow through the head" gag), who would have been better than you no matter when he was born no matter what you think. He was one of those ridiculously prolific types who can churn out works of irrefutable depth and profound social resonance at breakneck pace and on no budget (which, other than the "irrefutable depth and profound social resonance" part, actually sounds exactly like Ed Wood).

Don't get me wrong - just like any anthology series, there are more than a few Twilight Zone eps that could be generously described as clunkers (and the Serling-penned Night Gallery segment "The Nature of the Enemy" is actually one of the worst things I've ever seen). But the man wrote 148 of these episodes, among a ton of other things, many of which I love the shit out of, so I'll balk at calling him an overhyped hack and settle for "creative genius." Remember, kids, on the internet you're either one or the other.

But before I really digress and this turns into another Hood of Horror epic, let's just hurry up and get down to ranking the top five best things about "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet."

And by the way - you can fully watch this episode on YouTube.