Ridiculous Pro Wrestling Characters Part 1: "The Lethal Weapon" Steve Blackman

Growing up in the 90's, the World Wrestling Federation provided me with many years of entertainment. Many insane years of absolutely ludicrous entertainment. The fact that I ended up going to a film school where we dissect and discus the aesthetic integrity of a text totally amazes even me after spending years of my life thinking cutting-egde television was watching Macho Man Randy Savage desperately trying to make just one coherent sentence in a ten minute promo.

Here at Emerson, I take a lot of classes in television writing and development. While its art and you can't really teach it, there are still quite a number of rules and guidelines you have to follow. Well I'm proud to say that the WWF completely shattered and broke every single one of these rules with each and every storyline and feud they ever scripted.

Yes, I know wrestling is fake. Did you really think after watching the Undertaker steal somebody’s soul I'm going to be wondering about that? No. No shit its fake. So is everything else we see on TV. All the terrible acting and nonsensical storylines are predetermined and scripted by the WWF creative team writers. And you could only be a WWF writer unless you were absolutely insane.

Some of the stuff they would write was so illogical, that it became an entirely new way of thinking. The people who came up with the storylines defied common sense so often and so hard that I became convinced that I was crazy for even questioning what was going on my TV screen.

This is going to be the first of many articles I’ll eventually post that deals with the most ridiculous wrestling characters of all time. Each one will have a character bio and my favorite moment. Enjoy the insanity!

"The Lethal Weapon" Steve Blackman

Steve Blackman combined the nunchuck twirling skills of a karate master with the personality of a struggling car salesman. After he got done twirling whatever martial arts weapon the WWF writers remembered from their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics, it was obvious that Steve Blackman had no idea why he was in a wrestling ring, or why there was someone across from him who wanted to attack him.

Whenever he had the opportunity to not just twirl his weapons and actually use them in a fight, it became clear that Steve Blackman's knowledge of martial arts weapons was limited to twirling and only that. He would literally just spin his weapons for about five minutes while the guy he was fighting would stagger around before he realized that actually hitting his opponents might be a more effective way of hurting them.

Favorite moment: Steve Blackman runs over Ken Shamrock with a car



Steve Blackman lacked so much charisma, he couldn't even make attempted vehicular homicide look interesting. If you're trying to kill a guy with a car, WHY WOULD YOU GO IN REVERSE? Seriously any one who has ever seen Chris Tucker, Will Smith or any crazy black guy action movie knows what kind of SERIOUS shit you can fuck up with your ride. And Steve Blackman chose probably the least efficient way humanly possible. My grandmother drives faster than that when she's NOT trying to kill somebody.

Also why did he get out of the car? If you had just attempted to kill someone, isn't a getaway part of the process? And wouldn't the car you WERE JUST IN be an ideal mode of getaway transportation? And why the fuck is he wearing a track uniform???? Seriously, I looked up the results of this particular show and not once could I find something that explained why a Samurai who’s supposed to have extensive knowledge of lethal weapons was not only trying to kill somebody with a Saturn, but doing it right before he ran a marathon.