Within ten minutes into episode one of Hulk Hogan’s Micro Championship Wrestling (TruTv), we find out our heroes/Co-Owners Johnny G and Demo, are losing control of their rambunctious stable of wrestlers. This is no ordinary collection of like-minded individuals with a passion for in-ring competition though; they’ve culled together a collection of little people who look like PT Barnum vomited onto the fashion trends of douche-bags in the year 2011.
Johnny G in particular, who looks like a white, melting Mr. T, is the average height half owner of MCW. He serves the show only to make talking head statements about having been in the wrestling business for ages, and to backhandedly insult the midgets.
The show sets a dogged pace, not allowing you, the hapless viewer, to catch your breath. First, they need money since they have been stiffed by a frat guy played by Roderick Strong in a what the fuck cameo. Suddenly Hulk Hogan and Brian Knobbs show up, because when you think of instant credibility in recent years its Hulk Hogan, after all I’ve heard he knows best. Now Hulk Hogan becomes the mysterious benefactor straight out of Dickens’ “Great Expectations” except they desire to go from twenty people at a show, to fifty, “Realistic Expectations” if anything.
Brian Knobbs is known as being the Nasty Boys blonde member, and Hulk’s friend that isn’t Brutus Beefcake. Now he’s hoping to be known as a midget wrestler trainer, and road agent, which I’m OK with. During the early 90’s the Nasties ruled both WWF and WCW tag-team divisions, since then Knobbs has been the perennial sidekick to Hogan, and in this he plays the part of lackey again to midgets, sadly I can’t tell if this is a step down in his career.
So next they seem to be butting fun-size heads with the lipstick loving Blixx, a villain in the mold of…Vampiro’s anorexic toddler with severe mental retardation? Yeah s
ounds about right. This argument only lasts several seconds as MCW becomes a whiplash of preposterous problems and inane solutions, one problem involving go-karts and another with public urination. It quickly becomes 40 minutes of seeing midgets do funny things, and Brian Knobbs being fat and sloppy.
What follows is a show of insanely ridiculous proportions dealing with people of small proportions, and Hulk Hogan who is just interested in what portion he’ll be paid.
Hogan appears in the show only as the Wizard of Oz, working constantly to control the fates of our beleaguered travelers from his Emerald City (or Orlando office), aged and drooping, constantly providing sage advice to the midgets, and appearing ringside in some mock melodramatic fashion.
You walk away from the program having learned not only nothing about the world of independent wrestling promoters but also a sense of loss, for the state of our collective human soul.
There’s a great tradition of midget wrestling in America, it began as a usually humorous distraction from the violence and intensity of Lou Thesz’s hairy chest. Gimmick matches that fit in with the carnival spirit, where the sport came from itself. Sky Low Low, Lord Little Brook, and Little Beaver, became respected wrestlers not midget wrestlers, in the 1950’s. Though after the late 1980’s interest in midget wrestling declined, it continued to be highly respected in Mexico and Japan often in average vs. small statures matches. I thought I’d throw this in to the column if only to add some precedence. Once only a few decades ago midget wrestling was more than just an excuse for bad puns and a paycheck for Hogan.
Although MCW is a surreal over-the-top work, which gives a bad name to Middle America and confirms every stereotype you can think of, after 5 episodes I oddly began to enjoy it. It could have been the liquor or the tiredness, but there is simple no substitution for hardcore midget bar room brawls. It’s unique viewing, and in a world where everything has seemingly been done before, we should latch on to the one in a million. You won’t see anything like MCW anywhere else. Well, dropping hallucinogenic mushrooms and being punched in the crotch repeatedly by a Pegasus is nearly as bizarre, just nearly
This show seems horrible, and I don’t think I’ll ever watch it. The junior division was enough for me.