QOTD #17: Favorite Santino Moments

We had a hell of a lot of feedback yesterday, so strap yourselves in, this is going to be a long one. But first...

Today’s Question: Santino reportedly retired on Sunday at a house show. What is your all time favorite Santino moment?

I can’t wait to read your responses on this one as Santino is my favorite wrestler on the active roster, so I should be in for a treat reliving some of his best work.

I’m going to dive into yesterday’s responses, but as always if you want to skip to the end of this piece or start talking right away about the Italian Stallion, then please scroll to the end or hit the comments button.

I had asked you what the most intelligence insulting, or embarrassing thing you ever saw on a wrestling show. Over 400 answers came out, with very little threadjacking. Even the Power Ranger only showed up once every 3 posts as opposed to 2, a 50% improvement!

Nick Piers: The Katie Vick angle, specifically the funeral parlour bit. We've had our fair share of stupid things in wrestling. You need to take the bad - or the ridiculously stupid - with the bad in order to remain a fan. At its core, the inherent nature of pro-wrestling is ridiculous. It's built on many ridiculous concepts that you just accept. Me, I love a good silly gimmick sometimes. I liked the Funkasurus, for example. Nothing - NOTHING - though made me feel so completely ashamed to be a wrestling fan and made me seriously consider not watching it (or at least WWE) anymore than the Katie Vick stuff. That was during a period where WWE - or specifically Vince - was getting more and more desperate for widespread media attention. So he was trying to push the envelope as much as humanly possible. Katie Vick was by far the epitome of that desperate envelope pushing.

Nick, you said it first, and you probably said it best. One poster told the story of trying to get a friend to check out the WWE, and THAT was the angle on the TV that he got stuck with. This was 100% a ratings ploy, as things had plummeted fast in 2002 from drawing as high as a 5.4 in mid-March, to hovering around 3.7 from the introduction of the Big Gold Belt in September; which for the first time had put them on par with Smackdown. I hate to even defend the guy, but even VINCE RUSSO never had necrophilia green-lit, that man had no filter!

Petrock: That time R-Truth died from being exploded. He got better, unfortunately.

Had he not been seen running off stage, AND had WWE promptly released him, I’d be tempted to call this the greatest angle in wrestling history. The fact this was never mentioned again when he somehow went from a smoldering pile of ash back to rappin’ with Little Jimmy was the insulting part.

MichaelXavier: D-Lo Brown causing Terri Runnels to "lose" her baby. It was a disgusting angle and never went anywhere. The fact that WWE repeated it a few years later with Snitsky and Lita was also disgusting.

I’m going to take issue with your hate-on of my main man Snitsky. For starters, it wasn’t his fault. Secondly, the promotion handled it with class, such as punting babies into the audience, and holding up no babies signs. In fact, I ran this past my wife, who glared at me and told me that I’m not funny. So ... maybe you win on this one. In all honestly Michael, I thought the angle was hilarious when I was 22, but now that I’m older and we’ve since had some trouble with conception, suddenly it’s not as much fun. But Snitsky and I are still cool.

THE YETAAAAY: Mae Young giving birth to a hand is the only thing that can rival Katie Vick.

I know several people who still talk to this day about that being the angle that turned them off professional wrestling. I recently showed the Mae Young with her son, The Hand from RAW 1000 to a co-worker who was grumbling to me about it. He was speechless.

Dirty_Dave_Delaney: Vince McMahon supposedly getting killed off in a limo explosion. In fact the only good thing about the Benoit murders was that it resulted in the angle being stopped!

Let’s not ever suggest there was any good thing about the Benoit murders, shall we? Apparently we didn’t see the worst of the McMahon angle either; reportedly they were planning a serious funeral for him on RAW. Classy, as always.

WCW1987: Big Show having to do Steph's dirty work because he "needed to the money" same goes to HBK/JBL managerial duties thing.

Not following you here. It’s outside the realm of possibility that these guys mismanage their finances? Professional athletes? Not possible!

Witlon: Unforgiven 2002. We're seriously supposed to rather see Bischoff get a man's ass shoved in his face than Steph make out with lesbians? Come on, WWE.

Let’s be clear; she was supposed to make out with Lesbian Rikishi.

White Thunder: The WWE's awful attempts at humor are the most insulting to my intelligence. I like the Bill Watts philosophy of not having anything be funny on purpose, but if it is go with it. Snitsky is a great example of something that was really funny that wasn't meant to be. Cole and JBL laughing makes me gag. I get stupider as a human being every time WWE attempts comedy.

The constant laugh-track by the announce crew makes me want to watch RAW on mute most nights. I can’t decide if I’d prefer they bury the segment, or yuk it up every time Adam Rose tells his opponent not to be a lemon. Actually, scratch that – I’d prefer they just not book bad comedy.

dwaters: Mankind vs. Rock. Halftime Heat. Point of view shot of Rock under the forklift. This wins simply because of the huge audience it reached.

I love this pick, because I’d long forgotten about it. Yes, as part of the Superbowl, the WWE had a chance to put on a legitimately hot wrestling match featuring The Rock and Mick Foley in a hardcore war. Instead, they ventured into a campy territory, playing it safe in front of a national audience.

NoCash: A bit of an obscure one but, Vince McMahon leading U.P.Y.O.U.R.S. Vince McMahon. Union Leader. I WONDER IF HE'S GOING TO TURN ON THEM.

My office got unionized a few months ago, where I’m a manager. With unions comes union stewards, and elections were forthcoming. One of the employees told me “Chris, I think you should run, you’re pretty fair.” I looked at him in disbelief and told him “I don’t think you understand how unions work”. I’m willing to believe Ken Shamrock and Test might have been on this train of thought, but I can’t suspend my disbelief that Mick Foley is that naive.

Jobber123: For me the most intelligence insulting stuff the wwe does are most of the wwe "did you know" graphics. The wwe is more popular than every other sport combined, has 15 million female fans, and rules all social media. We all know those are lies but they do it after every commercial break and it adds a stench of complete desperation for main stream acceptance to every show they air.

The #1 trend on Twitter right now is #ChristianReturns. The world is talking about it! Please don’t independently check this!

LeeleePhoenix: Most of it was only Internet, the Tim White suicide 'comedy' bits they had for a few months in 2006. Haha, playing Pop Goes The Weasel while someone keeps trying to kill themselves. Pointless, insulting, stupid... like most WWE intentional comedy.

Josh Matthews tried. Man did he try. But there is no way to make a suicidal man funny. Even after 20 failed suicide attempts.

ABeyAnce1: That whole DX Little Peoples court. Come on, we're suppose to suspect a whole other building is under the ring?

Midgets aren’t people like you and I. Think Fraggle Rock, just with more devious plotting.

PeteF3: Catherine White, Mick Foley, and "Lost in Cleveland" has to be up there.

I’m just going to assume most of the BoD audience has heard about this, but has never seen it. Thankfully, YouTube exists. Basically, Vader beat Cactus Jack into a pulp and had him stretchered out after one of their many wars. Somehow, this led to Mick losing his memory and moving to Cleveland to lead a group of hobos while (WCW?) reporter Catherine White tries to get the full story and help him regain his memory. The angle ends when Foley reveals it was all a ruse to get a rematch, and loses the blowoff. Here’s just one of the awful memories:

Hoss_of_BoD: I don't think this has ever been brought up, but during Jake Roberts' brief stint in WCW, he had the glove on a pole match with Sting. Plenty about this was really insulting, including Jake holding a snake to his face pretending that it was biting him. But, the part that always annoyed me was that Jake had really started to put on weight, and there was NO FUCKING WAY he was going to be able to climb that pole. Fucking dumb. Bear in mind I'm a Roberts mark.

You reference men with too much weight to climb a pole, and somehow avoid bringing up the Carson City Silver Dollar match between John Tenta and Big Bubba? They had to get Jimmy Hart to shinny up the 10 foot pole, because the other two lugs spent the whole match trying to figure out how to remove the pole from the straps to get the sock down.

James: I've said this a lot on here, but the segment where Undertaker "kills" Paul Bearer and buries him in cement was so intelligence-insulting that it made me stop denying wrestling was fake at 12 years old.

Yeah, I’m really not sure what the point of that one was. Or any of the times they killed Paul Bearer, to be honest. Maybe it was their version of Kenny.

Stelio Kontos: McMahon being the higher power, completely going against the previous few months worth of storylines. I mean, Vince really went through several Ministry shit-kickings and god knows what else, to what, get one over on Austin again? No amount of retroactive continuity could make that shit make sense.

The Immortal Hoke Ogan: Michael fucking Cole spouting off an exact weight for a guy they are selling as a legit "ohmygod surprise" return

This is something I’ve never thought of, but it’s an excellent point. We’re honestly in one of the worst eras of announcing ever, and lord knows I sat through an era that saw Stevie Ray, Mark Madden, and Tony Schiavone.

BeardMoney: Would be remiss if I didn't mention Randy Orton trying to blow up John Cena using the pyrotechnics board in their Iron Man match. There are so many things about that match that cause pure hatred to ooze out of my pores. And I'm typically a pretty level guy.

I’m always reminded of Tony Schiavone getting absolutely owned by Jesse Ventura in the late 80’s, when Tony tried justifying outside behavior as ok because it wasn’t in the ring. Jesse suggested someone bring a gun next time and just shoot their opponents since everything was legal outside the ring. Tony tried backtracking, but Jesse wouldn’t give an inch.

Extant1979: I asked my girlfriend what she thought the most insulting I've ever made her watch was. She made it pretty clear that every Diva's segment ever has been insulting to her as a woman. She's only been watching with me for 3-4 years. She doesn't even know about Trish on her hands and knees, barking like a dog; or the Lita miscarriage stuff with Kane; Piggy James with LayCool. Bra and panties matches. "The way the WWE treats women is really why I don't like it." Preach on, sweetheart! You don't even know the half of it.

This pretty much applies to any minority on the show. If you aren’t a white male, then you’re going to be typecast. A woman’s role is to be a filthy slut, who panders to men, and can’t think for herself. Which is probably exactly how Vince likes it in real life.

joedust: Has anyone talked about Hogan/Warrior from WCW in '98? The smoke, Warrior disappearing and reappearing, Warrior in the mirror that only Hogan could see... I literally can't think of anything worse.

This was another case of WCW having absolutely no idea how to book a former WWF star. Warrior had been built on a certain mystique, which WCW mistook as MAGIC. It didn’t help that this was a Bischoff/Hogan vision of how they saw the feud playing out, rather than sticking to what had worked his whole career. An absolute embarrassment.

catfishhedberg: I remember Samoa Joe running around TNA with a machete trying to take out the Main Event Mafia. He even disfigured Scott Steiner so bad that Steiner had to wear a mask for 1 whole week before ditching it with no scarring. If I'm not mistaken, all of this led to a swerve with Joe joining the Main Event Mafia.

meka3000: In late 2011, The WWE Roster voting no confidence in HHH being charge and fearing for their safety after all these years, because FUCKING MIZ & R-TRUTH reeked havoc ONCE!

I guess the WCW roster was far too intimidated by Sid’s non-stop powerbombs to do the same in the summer of 1999.

Ryan Norcross: The Nitro segments where JJ Dillion kept offering Sting contracts to fight everybody but Hogan. Making him the only person on Earth to not know Sting wants Hogan.

That was infuriating. WCW is desperately seeking a hero to capitulate Hogan’s army, and have a former World Champion who has made mince meat of the nWo everytime he’s struck basically willing to get it done, but the idiot savant JJ Dillon decides what Sting REALLY wants is a match with Curt Hennig. Which would only send Sting back to cry in the rafters for a few more months.

BooBoo1782: Kane promising to kill himself if he can't beat Austin at KOTR '98, coupled with the gas cans at ringside that night. Anytime you present DEATH as the stakes of a pro wrestling match, you've left the bounds of suspending disbelief.

I’m guessing you’re not a fan of the Texas Death Match.

Porn Peddlin’ Jef Vinson: Anytime a wrestler is "fired" but keeps showing up to the arena anyway.

I’d argue that most wrestlers know their limitations, and are essentially screwed for money without the job, but you’re right. Someone saying “fair enough, I guess that’s it. It’s a good thing I’ve been taking those online insurance courses, I’m going to give that contract at MetLife a go”, might be a nice twist.

Adam Moore: I'm sure this has already been said, but everyone in WCW supposedly hating everyone in NWO so much, yet they never simply refused to not let them in the building. Then, at Fall Brawl 96, they announced that the NWO refused to wrestle at that show, since they weren't under WCW contract, unless they got what they wanted.

I think because Hogan was holding their World Title hostage by that point, they didn’t want to risk having him take it back to New York. I don’t want to make excuses, but that angle didn’t really bother me.

WiffleBat: Any time anyone suffers a 'mild heart attack' as a result of a heel's shenanigans. Andre, Eddie Guerrero's mother, Flair (TWICE), and I'm sure there are a few others I'm forgetting.

I must be the biggest sucker on the planet, because I 100% bought Flair’s first heart attack, hook, line, and sinker. I didn’t think any promotion would be insensitive enough to fake something like that. Little did I know. Nicely done, Uncle Eric.

Jared Bellow: Triple H appearing on Raw a mere 8 days after being dropped 40 feet by forklift trapped in a car. It was the beginning of making stunts look really meaningless and it was the beginning of protrcting Triple H to where his character was no longer believable. They should have shelved him until February and made No Way Out a blood feud between two vicious tweeners who will stop at no costs with the violence. Instead they built it via endless run ins. It was the prototype for people getting murdered in these B PPV gimmick matches and returning on Raw unscathed.

I think by this point we’ve established that death is probably not the wisest course of action to take. I remember that PPV, and thinking for sure Triple H was dead. If nothing else, he was headed to intensive care and we wouldn’t be seeing him for a long time. The following night? Barely a scratch.

The Cooler: When Seargant Slaughter, the most patriotic wrestler in history, up and becomes an Iraqi sympathizer on a whim...and the Iron Sheik is brought in as his buddy, only under a different name. You know, the Iron Sheik...from IRAN. Congrats WWF, you lost me until I accidentally caught Hart/Austin @ WM13 at a buddy's house due to this blatant xenophobic, retarded farce.

Of course this was such a blazing success that they felt the need to repeat this again 13 years later with Muhammed Hassan, played by an Italian, playing the role of an Al Qaeda agent. Because he was Islamic.

CDN: The formation of NWO 2000......Bret Hart has Goldberg in a figure-four with the referee down. Hall and Nash show up with baseball bats and start bashing Goldberg. Next, Piper runs down to save Goldberg and lays on top of Goldberg to absorb the punishment. The referee wakes up, and counts the 1-2-3 with Piper laying on top of Goldberg. Your new champion....Bret Hart. Jarrett hits the ring and all four celebrate with all the gold. Why would the ref make the count, at all, especially with Piper on top, then award the belt to Hart???? So fucking funny. Because WCW.

So let’s go through that WHOLE night. Bret beats Goldberg at Starrcade via Montreal Screwjob at the hands of Earl Hebner Roddy Piper. Kevin Nash is so torn up about this he cuts a Real Shoot Promo about never taking advantage of The Boys in the locker room. Bret Hart swears he knew nothing about it, and doesn’t even want the belt, unless he can wrestle Goldberg again. Roddy Piper for some reason here is a face, who tearfully apologizes for his role and uses his son as a human shield. He quits, but returns by the main event when Nash and Hall are running in. He throws himself on Goldberg to save him from the carnage, the referee counts with Bret standing off to the side, and YOUR winner and new WCW Champion is also the CURRENT WCW Champion Bret Hart. What ... the ... bloody ... hell? The band is back together, it’s ok.

SodiePop: I still remember the Bugs Bunny backstage skit they shot with Hornswoggle and Carlito where HW spray-painted a hole in the wall to escape from Carlito. HW ran through it, and when Carlito tried it he ran into the wall. I stopped watching for months after that.

This segment is EXACTLY what I had in mind when I created this thread, and I was happy to see it referenced several times. I thought this was a long-forgotten turd floating in the septic tank of WWE headquarters, but it had enough of an impact to linger for years.

This was the dumbest thing I ever saw. The Bugs Bunny cartoons are cute, because they are cartoons. We all recognize there is no way the Road Runner can sprint through a spray painted tunnel, which is why it’s funny. It is not funny when it features real humans who are supposed to hate each other for real. In fact, it’s insulting to everyone watching at home.

Yes, we suspend our disbelief when we watch wrestling.  However, the entire sport was built upon the notion that promoters had the ability to control match outcomes to suit what they felt would get the best audience reactions. While evolution is a part all aspects of life, the one thing all of us want from wrestling is to believe what we’re watching is possible. As soon as you negate that, you’ve lost us all together.

Share in my rage with the video below.

And before I go, I’m going to share one more, because one bad segment wasn’t enough. Hulk Hogan enters the DUNGEON OF DOOM! I’ll see you tomorrow.