Cook’s Corner 08.11.08: An Ode to a Master of Shock & Awe

As a brother-in-law of the wildly popular Dusty Rhodes, it was only natural that the large, athletically gifted Ottman would make his way towards the upper echelons of the sport. He started out in Memphis in 1984 working under the name of “Bubba the Belt Collector”. Bubba managed to collect a couple of belts during his time there, winning the CWA International & Mid-America Heavyweight Titles along with the AWA Southern Tag Team Titles. You know, that’d have to be a pretty nice gimmick, being a guy that does nothing but win championship gold. I should contact my friend Colt Cabana and tell him to pitch that idea to WWE Creative so he can get out of FCW developmental hell.

Speaking of FCW, there was a promotion called Florida Championship Wrestling that Ottman would call home after a stopover in Texas, as he went down there in order to feud with the Rhodes family under the name “U.S. Steel”. After legal threats from the U.S. Steel Corporation (is anybody else surprised that the U.S. Steel Corporation actually noticed a wrestler working under the name U.S. Steel?), the re-christened “Big Steel Man” struck terror into the hearts of Florida wrestling fans before finally hitting the big time in 1989, when he signed with the World Wrestling Federation.

Upon entering the Federation, Ottman would assume the persona of “Tugboat”, who was pushed as an ally of Hulk Hogan. That’s not a bad way to be brought into a promotion, being set up as a best friend of one of the top babyfaces in the history of pro wrestling. If you can’t get over doing that, you’re just not going to get over…period. After Hogan got injured at the hands of Earthquake, Tugboat led a letter-writing campaign wishing Hogan a speedy recovery. I remember the Penguin telling me about how he actually sent the Hulkster a letter saying something along the lines of “Get well soon, Brother!” Apparently he actually got a form letter back from Hogan thanking him for his support. How sweet. Tugboat was supposed to accompany Hogan to the ring for his big comeback match at SummerSlam 1990 against the Quake, but he was taken out of commission by Earthquake prior to the match and was replaced by Big Bossman. Poor Tuggy…he spent all that time getting people to send Hogan letters and he got tossed aside like yesterday’s garbage. Hogan had a tendency to do that to his friends. If you don’t believe me, ask Paul Orndorff.

After being dumped by Hogan, Tugboat turned heel on the Bushwhackers during a 6-man match and formed a tag team with his former rival. Typhoon, as Ottman would be known afterwards, and Earthquake formed the Natural Disasters, which was the largest tag team to step into a wrestling ring since the days of the McGuire Twins. They were managed by Jimmy Hart at their inception, but soon grew tired of Hart favoring Money Inc., another tag team he managed at the time. They turned against Hart & would eventually wrest the WWF Tag Team Titles from Ted Dibiase & Irwin R. Schyster back when they actually meant something. Unfortunately for the massive twosome, their title reign was brought to a halt by the previously mentioned Money Inc. four months later, and after that they didn’t have much to do before Earthquake left the company in early 1993. Typhoon hung around for a little while, but would soon leave for WCW and his most memorable persona.

I say Ottman’s next persona was memorable, but unfortunately for him it was for all the wrong reasons. War Games were approaching, and the threesome of Sting, Davey Boy Smith & Dustin Rhodes needed a fourth in order to take on Vader, Sid Vicious & Harlem Heat. Faced with such stiff competition, the babyfaces knew that they needed something big in order to take down the despicable heels. In fact, they needed something…

SHOCKING~!

In one of the most hilarious moments in wrestling history, the Shockmaster’s great entrance into WCW was marred when he tripped over a 2X4 (presumably not Jim Duggan’s, though one never knows) and fell through the hole in the wall, temporarily removing his glittery silver Stormtrooper helmet. Almost everybody on stage completely lost it while Shockmaster put his helmet back on and cut a ridiculous promo threatening Sid Vicious in the voice of either the Black Scorpion or Ole Anderson. It is still considered one of wrestling’s greatest bloopers and fondly remembered by all who witnessed it.

To put it into terms that I’m sure most people around here will understand, the Shockmaster was an EPIC FAIL~! long before the term was invented. I promise you that will be the last time I ever use that phrase in anything I write.

Amazingly enough, Shockmaster actually ended up getting the victory in the War Games match, forcing Kole of Harlem Heat to submit to a bearhug. Kole would later go on to fame as a fellow by the name of Booker T…perhaps you’ve heard of him. WCW tried to salvage the fiasco by introducing a new character called “Super Shockmaster”. Super Shockmaster was the nephew of Shockmaster, who was portrayed as a bit of a klutz. Ottman also played the role of Super Shockmaster, which I’m sure made a lot of sense to somebody. In any event, Shockmaster, Super Shockmaster and anything to do with them were gone from WCW soon enough.

Ottman made a brief return to the WWF in 1994, but left the business shortly afterwards. He tried to make an appearance in the short-lived WXO promotion in 2000, but he was unable to get out of his car in order to do so. I kid you not, that was actually a segment they ran. No wonder they didn’t last very long. Ottman did manage to get out of the car in time to make an appearance in WrestleMania X-Seven’s Gimmick Battle Royal as Tugboat, which would be his last appearance in a major wrestling promotion.

These days Ottman works as a safety manager for a industrial service company in Florida. If WWE.com’s article on him from 2007 is any indication, he doesn’t harbor any resentment about how his wrestling career went. Which really has to make you wonder…if the guy who had to play the Shockmaster isn’t bitter, why should anybody be bitter?

Oftentimes the Internet Wrestling Community doesn’t give wrestlers like Fred Ottman the respect they deserve because they don’t like the style that they work. But as the old saying goes…fatties need some love too. Right? Sure, Tugboat wasn’t in any great matches, Typhoon never cracked the top ten of the PWI 500 & Big Steel Man didn’t make any Dusty Rhodes DVD sets. But Ottman gave us so much more than any Internet flavor of the month wrestler that gets all the love from the peeps. He gave us…the SHOCKMASTER~!

Happy Birthday, Fred! Pro wrestling wouldn’t have been as much fun without your presence.

Random Thoughts

I asked Larry Csonka what he was up to Sunday night, and he said he was chilling before the TNA PPV. Keep in mind that I’ve been a pretty big TNA supporter in the past and I got onto this website almost four years ago as a TNA Impact recapper. I had no idea they were having a PPV on Sunday night. That can’t bode well for this month’s buyrate, can it?

Braden Walker is no more. Maybe if we’re lucky he’ll throw up and “Wildcat” Chris Harris will resurface somewhere.

I’m still working my way through the PWG DVD set. It’s a strong set, but it kind of reminds me of the phrase “too much of anything isn’t a good thing”. As many of my friends and colleagues can attest to, I have the attention span of a fruit fly. And since I’m usually watching PWG at night just before I go to bed, I’m usually pretty damn tired and can’t even get through a really good match before falling asleep. Basically, I love PWG but they need to get their business done sooner. It doesn’t help that the last thing I watched before PWG was WSX, which had a tendency to have very short matches. My internal clock’s all thrown off, I suppose.

The Reds are dead, so it’s time for Bengals preseason football! They play the Packers tonight, which is especially awesome because I get to see former U of L QB Brian Brohm in action. Since it’s preseason, I’m ok with Brohm tearing up the Bengal defense and making Aaron Rodgers pull out more of his hair.

Question for the editors of Pro Wrestling Illustrated: What in the world did Ric Flair do to warrant being 19th in the 2008 PWI 500? And I’m not accepting “He’s Ric Flair” as an answer. This may be bordering the thin line of blasphemy in the IWC, but I’d think you’d have to be smoking some pretty serious dope to consider Flair one of the top twenty wrestlers in the world this year.

But I don’t know why I’m making a big deal out of this, because any list that ranks Mike Knox six spots ahead of Mike Quackenbush, B.G. James four spots ahead of El Generico and Black Reign two spots ahead of Kevin Steen is a load of shit. Come on PWI, you’re better than that! At least, I thought you were. Y’all need to give me some of whatever you’re smoking/drinking.

Mike Adamle was General Manager of Raw, and yet the world continues to spin. How about that?

I’m not sure why, but for some reason I’m watching a lot more Olympic coverage this year than I have in a long time. The highlight so far (other than the women’s beach volleyball) has been the appearance of the NBA on NBC music during the men’s basketball coverage. Oh how I missed that music.

Thursday marks the fourth anniversary of my 411wrestling.com debut. Will I do anything to celebrate? It depends on if I get drunk or not. Check the 411blog section then…I may have something up there to mark the occasion. If not, I’ll take this opportunity to thank all of the usual people for making things awesome for me. You know who you are. And if you don’t know, you should know.