I have fascinating ideas about storm trooper helmets.

There are so many wonderful things about the Shockmaster -- the epicenter of the greatest moment in the history of the human game of chess that is professional wrestling -- that he had to be the subject of a new semi-recurring feature here at IHFIAPC: Low Culture Monday.

The Shockmaster, of course, was a new identity created for wrestler Fred Ottman when he moved to WCW from the WWF (where he had been known as Typhoon, one half of the tag team The Natural Disasters along with John "Earthquake" Tenta). He unveiling was meant to be the stuff of legend: live, on the talkshow-within-a-show "Flair for the Gold," as a long-hyped mystery partner for an 8-Man Tag match featuring a who's-who of early-1990's WCW talent. At the climactic moment, he would be introduced by WCW Superstar Sting... and in an infernal explosion of heat and glory Shockmaster would break through the wall of the set and into our hearts.

It didn't work out that way.


(Awesomeness begins at about 3:25 and goes to the end)

The following four things are widely-regarded as the best aspects of the Shockmaster incident:

1. The glittery storm trooper helmet and the long black vest.
   
2. The fact that he falls on his ass and his helmet comes off.
3. The fact that he picks himself up, shakes himself off, and delivers his speech.
   
4. The prerecorded "scary" speech by Ole Anderson

The great unknowable component of the Shockmaster episode is how it would be remembered today if Ottman hadn't fallen on his ass. Because remember: outside of falling off, the glittery storm trooper helmet was not something that went wrong. It was supposed to look like that. Someone somewhere thought this was intimidating -- even shocking.

The Shockmaster is inherently fascinating -- a koan of low culture stupidity, put together with love. Yet there is more Star Wars to the Shockmaster than meets the eye. Yes, there is the storm trooper helmet dipped in glitter. But the oversize vest...where have I seen that before?

There is more than a little Original Jabba in the Shockmaster, I think. We know that Fred Ottman and Ole Anderson were more than a little into Star Wars. I imagine them sitting around, looking at old Starlogs from 1978 showing the deleted scenes, and regretting that George Lucas had moved away from the guy in the long black vest and instead used a giant Muppet slug. This is before the GLIOAI era, so it wasn't unreasonable to look to him for inspiration.

OTTMAN: "Man, this original Jabba actually looked pretty cool."

ANDERSON: "Heck yeah! And you know what would makes it even cooler? Imagine him with a glittery storm trooper head!"

And you know what? They were RIGHT.