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Post by wildfire2099 on Jan 6, 2022 21:22:21 GMT -5
I'm not sure this REALLY needs its own thread, but quite a few of us here are fans of both, so I wanted to post this... Jade Cargill was rocking the Storm look this week on AEW (I couldn't find a good pic from the show.. this is a promo pic, but you get the idea) I LOVE this.. so fun. Much more interesting than some of the stuff the cross promo stuff they do.  Then, a couple weeks ago, Thunder Rosa was rocking an X-23 outfit (complete with claws)  |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 7, 2022 23:06:23 GMT -5
In 1966, wrestler Tony Marino started appearing in the ring as Battman.....  In Japan, the manga character Tiger Mask has been licensed by several promotions for live wrestler...  The first was Satoru Sayama, in New Japan Pro Wrestling, in 1981...  Then, in 1984, Mitsuharu Misawa, in All Japan Pro Wrestling...  In 1992, it went back to New Japan and was portrayed by Koji Kanemoto....  Kanemoto only portrayed the gimmick for 2 years, before being unmasked by Jushin Liger (whose gimmick was also based on a manga and anime, Beast God Liger) Yoshihiro Yamazaki debuted as Tiger Mask IV, in 1995, in Michinoku Pro Wrestling, before joining New Japan Pro Wrestling, still using the gimmick...  In the manga, Tiger Mask trained with the Tiger Den organization, which trained heel wrestlers and took a percentage of their winnings. After a match in Japan, a young boy comes up to Tiger Mask and says he wants to be a villain, just like him. Tiger Mask is shocked by the reaction. He goes back to visit the orphanage where he spent part of his childhood and finds out the boy is from there and it is now run by old friends. He turns babyface and breaks with the Tiger Den group and gives a large portion of his winnings to the orphanage. The Tiger Den sends assassins to force him to come back, including several other Tigers, including Big Tiger, Black Tiger and King Tiger. New Japan introduced a version of Black Tiger, portrayed by British wrestler Marc "Rollerball" Rocco....  All Japan did not use the gimmick; but, New Japan introduced a new version, to battle against Jushin Liger and Wild Pegasus (Chris Benoit), portrayed by Eddie Guerrero...  Michinoku Pro used an evil twin, Masked Tiger, and then Rocky Romero portrayed him in New Japan. Lucha Libre legend Mil Mascaras debuted as both a wrestler and a comic....   The El Santo comic was one of the most popular ones, in Mexico, along with Kaliman and Fantomas. The publisher started a contest to create a new lucha hero and the name Mil Mascaras was chosen. Aaron Rodriguez Arellano was tapped to portray the character in the ring. He soon moved into films, both on his own and teamed with fellow luchadores Blue Demon and El Santo, plus the lucha supergroup Los Campeones JusticieroS (Champions of Justice). There have been other lucha versions of comic book and comic strip characters, including The Phantom. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 7, 2022 23:38:16 GMT -5
One of the earliest examples? Superman 155, August 1962 |
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Post by jason on Jan 8, 2022 1:19:30 GMT -5
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 8, 2022 19:19:53 GMT -5
One of the earliest examples? Superman 155, August 1962Which kind of demonstrates how New York-centric the comic book publishers were. Rocca was a big draw, across the country; but, he worked primarily in the Northeast, for Vince McMahon Sr and Toots Mondt, while they were still part of the National Wrestling Alliance. At the time, Nature Boy Buddy Rogers was the NWA World champion; though, he too, worked a large percentage of his time for McMahon and Mondt, which led to the NWA board voting to take the title off of him and put it back on Lou Thesz, to ensure Rogers didn't try any shenanigans. Rogers would have been better known, nationally, as he won the title in Chicago and had worked for Fred Kohler, the promoter there, during the heyday of the Dumont Network. Rocca makes for a more flamboyant character for a Superman story. |
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Post by commond on Jan 8, 2022 20:18:51 GMT -5
There have been plenty of comic book gimmicks in Mexico and Europe. While not strictly a comic book character, my favorite would have to be the Mighty Mouse inspired, Super Raton, from Trio Fantasia.  I believe AAA did an official tie-in with the MCU recently. Found it. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 8, 2022 21:50:28 GMT -5
You have a bit of a wrestling connection in Mike Grell's Warlord. It's kind of oblique; but, bear with me. In issue 2, of the series (the third Warlord story, after the First Issue Special debut and Warlord #1), Travis Morgan, after some improbable circumstances, is shanghaied by slavers and is chained alongside a black man, named Machiste (after the Italian hero of legend and multiple sword & sandal films). After a bit of Ben-Hur stuff, where they help fight off pirates, just as they were about to be hung for rebelling against the guards on the slave galley they sailed, they find themselves sold as gladiators, to fight in the arenas of Skataris. Faster than you can say "I am Spartacus!" Morgan and Machiste are picked to fight one another and Machiste tells him to kill him in the fight or he will surely kill Morgan. Morgan gets the upper hand in the fight, and then doesn't kill Machiste and instigates a gladiator rebellion. As I say, the early part is swiped from ben Hur and the second half from Spartacus. The film version of Spartacus has the same situation, between Kirk Douglas and actor Woody Strode....  ...except, Stode's Ethiopian character is the one who doesn't kill Spartacus and instead hurls his trident at the Romans who made them fight, instigating the eventual rebellion. Woody Strode was a star athlete at UCLA and, after WW2, was part of the group that became the first African-American players in the NFL; but, injuries had him out of football, by 1949. After that, he drifted in an out of pro wrestling, while also acting, continuing to wrestle between acting gigs, up to 1962.  So, there is a connection between pro wrestling and Mike Grell's Warlord. Sort of....... after a fashion.......... if you weel.......(have to imagine that said by Dusty Rhodes) |
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 8, 2022 23:28:48 GMT -5
One of the earliest examples? Superman 155, August 1962Which kind of demonstrates how New York-centric the comic book publishers were. Rocca was a big draw, across the country; but, he worked primarily in the Northeast, for Vince McMahon Sr and Toots Mondt, while they were still part of the National Wrestling Alliance. At the time, Nature Boy Buddy Rogers was the NWA World champion; though, he too, worked a large percentage of his time for McMahon and Mondt, which led to the NWA board voting to take the title off of him and put it back on Lou Thesz, to ensure Rogers didn't try any shenanigans. Rogers would have been better known, nationally, as he won the title in Chicago and had worked for Fred Kohler, the promoter there, during the heyday of the Dumont Network. Rocca makes for a more flamboyant character for a Superman story. Would Gorgeous George have been a wrestler they could have/ should have used? He was huge nationwide because of TV. |
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Post by commond on Jan 9, 2022 0:15:48 GMT -5
Cap's not a fan.  Until he puts some thought into it:  |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 9, 2022 0:45:22 GMT -5
Which kind of demonstrates how New York-centric the comic book publishers were. Rocca was a big draw, across the country; but, he worked primarily in the Northeast, for Vince McMahon Sr and Toots Mondt, while they were still part of the National Wrestling Alliance. At the time, Nature Boy Buddy Rogers was the NWA World champion; though, he too, worked a large percentage of his time for McMahon and Mondt, which led to the NWA board voting to take the title off of him and put it back on Lou Thesz, to ensure Rogers didn't try any shenanigans. Rogers would have been better known, nationally, as he won the title in Chicago and had worked for Fred Kohler, the promoter there, during the heyday of the Dumont Network. Rocca makes for a more flamboyant character for a Superman story. Would Gorgeous George have been a wrestler they could have/ should have used? He was huge nationwide because of TV. By 1962? George was on the downward spiral, by that point and he died in 1963. His heyday was in the 40s and 50s, when the Dumont Network was in full force. By the late 50s, he had lost much of his drawing power and alcoholism was taking its toll. His last match was in November of 1962 and he was dead in just over a year. So, had this been about 1954, then George would have been ideal, though he was a heel and Rocca was a babyface. Ironically, Superman did face a wrestler, in the 1952 episode of The Adventures of Superman, "No Holds Barred." Well, sort of, as he deals with a crooked promoter who uses a swami's knowledge to cripple other wrestlers, until Superman frees the swami, who teaches him, who, as Clark, teaches a collegiate shooter, to challenge the promoter's heel, bad Luck Brannigan. There was a legit wrestler, in the episode: Henry Kulky, who played The Crusher (and was CPO Curly Jones, in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea), wrestled in the Northeast and in Argentina, as Bomber Kulkavich. He got into acting via Mike Mazurky, an ex-wrestler who played hoods and strongmen in tv and movies.  That's Kulky getting punched.... This is a better shot of him (2nd from the left)  Mike Mazurky was in everything, from Night and the City, to Some Like it Hot, to Donovan's Reef, to Gilligan's Island....  |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 9, 2022 0:50:09 GMT -5
Cap's not a fan. Until he puts some thought into it: Ironically, the plot was about steroids, which hadn't quite taken over pro wrestling as the would in 3-4 years, once the WWF went national and every wrestler saw who got pushed. then, everyone got on the gas. David Anthony Kraft was ahead of the game. |
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Post by commond on Jan 9, 2022 1:01:33 GMT -5
Iron Mike Sharpe, The Fabulous Moolah, and Adrian Adonis appear in a short story in Love and Rockets #16.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 9, 2022 8:57:39 GMT -5
codystarbuck , yes, I know George was a creature of early TV; that’s why I was thinking of what could have/ might have been had he and Superman teamed up in say, 1948 or’49, when George was making wrestling an early example of “appointment TV.” Nice photo of Mazurki as Split-Face from the Dick Tracy movies. He he was also excellent as Moose Malloy opposite Dick Powell in “Murder, My Sweet” and Bruno the Strongman in “Nightmare Alley” (1947).
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jan 9, 2022 9:24:01 GMT -5
Fin Balor/Prince Devitt as Venom(WWE refers to it as his 'Demon King' look) . He does a bit of a unique thing where the 'mouth' is actually his neck, so when he lifts his head you see the art. (also effective from the angle of being on all fours, when he does in his ring entrance)  He's also done more tradition Carnage paint:  |
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Post by arfetto on Jan 9, 2022 10:11:24 GMT -5
One of my favorite manga series is Kinnikuman, which is about superhuman wrestlers.
Here is my Kinnikuman Nisei (Ultimate Muscle) manga in English collection:
The crossover is that Kotaro Suzuki dressed as a character from Nisei, Kevin Mask (with "father" Robin Mask as his second), during the Halloween with NOAH event in 2002 and did some of his moves. I always thought that was neat.
I made some gifs here:
(Here he is doing the OLAP/Ollap, a reverse PALO/Pallo Special - which is a technique used by a character in the original Kinnikuman series)
I am sure other wrestlers have dressed as Kinnikuman characters over the years since it is a natural fit (there are a lot of NJPW/Kinnikuman artwork crossovers for mobile game stuff). |
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