Remembering the Master and Ruler of the World
- Sakura Hirota and Jun Kasai commit to “No Death” - November 18, 2024
- A Perfect Time and Place: Strong vs. Tanahashi - October 15, 2024
- Remembering the Master and Ruler of the World - August 28, 2024
Suddenly I’m disgruntled.
By what you may ask, well that’s pretty simple. One of the best big men in pro-wrestling history; Sid Eudy, better known as Sid Vicious or Sycho Sid, passed away following his battle with Chondrosarcoma, a type of bone cancer. Whilst ordinarily this wouldn’t be met with disgruntlement, rather a mourning sadness, there is a narrative that was parroted throughout Sid’s wrestling career that has reared its ugly head as people look back on his work, even in the reverence that people are trying to apply to it.
That narrative being that Sid is a “bad” wrestler.
Of course, as tends to happen as people look back on a wrestler’s body of work in the wake of their passing or retirement, this is now being flipped to being “the best bad wrestler”. But that doesn’t make it any better. In fact, I actually think that it makes it worse. The praise doesn’t need to, and shouldn’t, come with the qualifier of “oh well he wasn’t a ‘workrate’ guy, but…”. Not only is it condescending in its tone, but it is a complete backhanded compliment of a statement to make, no matter whether a person is alive or deceased. It reads like an attempt to save face for mocking someone throughout their career, just because they didn’t fit your narrow view on what a wrestler should be, no matter how lovingly you may look back on them now.
Fuck that, just give the guy his flowers if you’re going to. Which is what I’m going to do here.
To put it simply, Sid was someone who understood himself and his place within the wrestling business perfectly. He carried a menace that few will ever hope to replicate. A lightning in the bottle combination of size, charisma and presence that is designed specifically to make a whole shedload of money within the wrestling business. And make a shedload of money he did; as one of only 5 people to have main evented Wrestlemania and Starrcade, and one of only 10 to have held the World Heavyweight Championship in both WWF and WCW – wrestling across both of those 2 promotions for most of his physical prime.
Many people with similar size and bodybuilder physiques to the Master and Ruler of the World very quickly peter out within the wrestling business, they’re chewed up and spat out as soon as they’re done being that promotion’s monster of the week. It’s a trend that was present when Sid debuted as Lord Humongous in Jerry Lawler’s CWA in the 80s, and it’s a trend that’s still prevalent within the wrestling business today. You have your big guy that comes in for your smaller hero to fell and then that’s it, they’re done. They may linger for a little while but they rarely do much of anything memorable aside from that.
One of the most impressive things about Sid’s career to me is how he capitalised on that pattern; sometimes by choice, sometimes by circumstance, sometimes by a respectable love of softball. He never found himself overstaying his welcome in any company that he was in. And he was consistently over no matter where he went, in part due to the fact that he kept himself as a fresh face. This isn’t just within the employ of Titan Sports, the land of the giants, either. Even in front of the famed toughest of crowds in ECW, they loved him and reacted to him all the same. One may reasonably ponder how. It’s simple, sometimes you just wanna see a big motherfucker go in there and mollywhop a few unsuspecting souls. It’s cathartic, especially if it’s a group of heels due their comeuppance.
But if being a big guy who stands there, chokeslams some dudes and looks menacing was all that Sid brought to the table, then I probably wouldn’t be eulogising in this sort of way. One aspect of Sid’s game that is vastly underrated – mostly thanks to meme culture, horrible writing, and a couple of flubbed lines – is his promo ability. I’m not saying that he was going on 20 minute eloquent diatribes that captivated your attention every night, but the dude could cut a hell of a promo in his day. Sometimes he’d do it during his entrance to an audience of just the camera guy that was shooting the tracking shot as he walked down the ramp. When he was on, he had a fantastic menacing cadence that was spoken just soft enough to suck you in and scare the crap out of you when he ramped it up.
The best part about it all, it felt believable. You felt like he meant every word he said and those words had purpose behind them and weren’t just empty promises with pauses and tired cadence for crowd reaction. That is something that is sorely missing in a good majority of promos these days, and something that people tend to overlook, you can sell a lot of bullshit dialogue just by believing in it. Don’t believe me, transcribe a Rock promo and then compare it to a standard WWE babyface promo since. Rock made those out there bullshit lines and analogies work because you could feel through his delivery that his character meant every word he said. Likewise, when Sid told you he was a Super Predator with the ground shaking beneath his feet with every step, you damn well believed it because he did.
As someone who grew up following the vast majority of Sid’s career, my first exposure to him was the Shawn Michaels Boyhood Dream DVD re-release that came packaged in with my copy of WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2009. The most I knew of Sid prior to this was a brief entry within the WWE Encyclopaedia and passing by his name a few times reading up various wrestling related Wikipedia pages. For those who haven’t seen the DVD, Sid has 2 matches on it; the Survivor Series 1996 WWF title win, and the subsequent returning of the title to Shawn at Royal Rumble 1997 in the Alamodome.
WWE
To say the former is a perfect introduction to Sid is an understatement. By now pretty much everyone has seen his entrance; the cage lowering music in the backstage shot acting as a perfect prelude to Sid’s ominous theme music as he walks out of the tunnel of Madison Square Garden’s truncated entryway to a sea of humanity reaching out to him, wanting to fist-bump the supposed heel and declare him The Man before the match had even begun. In truth, I don’t remember much of an impression that either match left on me. But that feeling of “this dude is so cool” is something that resonates with every watch of that aisle walk. Some people are just effortlessly cool, and Sid was definitely one of them.
Certain corners of the community may try and laude aspects of Sid’s career over his legacy but when I say that he was the whole package for what he was, I honestly mean it with my entire chest. He knew his assignment, and he absolutely nailed it. Fuck what anyone says about him not being a good wrestler. In my eyes, he was a great wrestler.
Who’s The Man? You absolutely were The Man Sid, rest in power.
