The Ongoing List of my Favorite Painted Face Wrestlers:

The Ongoing List of my Favorite Painted Face Wrestlers:

Ax of Demolition:

Some time back I got an invite to do a list of favorite wrestlers for a project. The project ended up not happening which was good because I hemmed and hawed about my list. First of all the irony and silliness in rating wrestlers, hell even writing about wrestling in lofty Da Da stream of consciousness is not lost on me. I realize how many others my age are finishing their masters or out right now having sophisticated wine to cap off their organic dinners and I sit here debating the ranking of big sweaty cartoons come to life. So with the list project I was not sure whether to be totally honest, somewhat honest or take the smark route. I have never had main stream tastes for anything even as a kid and personally I enjoy Dennis Condrey more than Ric Flair and still to this day Justice Pain is one of my favorite guys to watch.

So I kind of met in the middle and started thinking about how much I dig a good face painted wrestler, especially face paint that stays on and does not clump. I am pretty sure this will not be a ranking system but just every once in awhile (maybe weekly) I will do a write up on a face painter. And don’t be surprised if Nate Hatred gets more love than Sting it doesn’t mean anyone is wrong or right, it just means I may be a tad touched.

Demolition Ax: I think part of my love for Bill Eadie is there is some resemblance to my Grandpa John. When I was younger I remember a rare occurrence of watching wrestling with my Dad and when Ax took his S&M mask off my Dard said “Holy Shit it is your Grandpa… Kathy come and look at this!!!” I think what helps further drive home the Grandpa vibe is the clip I watched on Youtube of their Kayfabe Commentaries video and he is wearing a nice golf shirt just like good ole’ Grandpa John.

Ax is another one of those team members where I love him and could really not care much about the other. I mean Smash and Crush were OK but I always kind of new under their paint they were younger mullet head gym rats. I have to say the matching of silver and gold with the slicked back hair is a bad ass look for him. Demolition looked a bit scarier with their pain then the Road Warriors. I think part of that was I never cared much for the Road Warriors mo hawks, you know the perfect square patched that look like porno star pubic grooming circa 1997. Eadie worked pretty snug too and a lot of his forearms to the back must have felt like a four by four on your back.

While looking up some pictures of Ax I was amazed at what a diverse and long career Bill Eadie had/has. He was a Mongol, a Masked Superstar and a uhhh S&M guy??? There was a Blog reviewing Demolition matches but I think it is shut down. However, there are some clips and discussion here: http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/index.php?showtopic=51663&hl=demolition

I am planning on spending some of this Labor Day weekend watching stuff randomly and may do some research to watch some of the older WWF stuff. There is a definitive set made about Demolition that has a ton of discs but honestly I cannot see myself watching all the wrestling I have now, so I cannot see watching every disc of that set. I am hoping I can get the guy to sell me just the Japan disc as it has peaked my curiosity. There are some interesting looking matches and I would like to see more of Eadie in the Ax garb in singles competition.

I have not seen any of the recent Chikara stuff Demolition did and I have heard beyond the novelty it is not bad. I always say even at an old age if you can walk and throw a good worked punch and bleed you can have a pretty good match. I hope that Eadie is doing shows because he misses it and not because he needs money. He was a teacher at one time and his web site said he helps at risk kids. In a perfect world his help would consist of putting a bunch of bad kids who can’t be reached in a room and he comes in dressed in full leather man gear and paint and proceeds to whomp the shit out of kids.