Nik Nik's Number Thirteen Pick: Booker T I don't know who the hell the Genius is, unless he's that guy from the Gazelle. I picked Booker T for my number 13 pick, because he's a much better choice. You already know why.

Hooker Hooker's Number Thirteen Pick: Stevie Ray Okay. I didn't actually know who Lanny Poffo was, either. All I know is that The Next Mideon voted for him, which subsequently got him onto the WV-15, and that he's on the Gazelle infomertial. But we'll get to that in a second. Being the investigative jounalist that I am, I have once again done research into The Genius. The first thing I found was that his real name is Lanny Poffo, and that immediately clued me into the fact that he's Randy Savage's brother. If he's older or younger is still in question, but he is Randy's brother nevertheless. In fact, you can see a picture of the two here. Believe it or not, Mr. Genius is the one that opted to wear horizontal striped panties that come up to his pectorials. If that doesn't shout exceptional intelligence, I don't know what does. Back to the Gazelle thing. The gazelle is a retarded exercise bike hybrid that Tony Little "invented." Basically, it's a machine that enables you to speed walk without ever actually going anywhere. And if that's not a genius way to spend "$399.8" plus shipping, I don't know what is. But to reinforce that, they bring out The Genius, Lanny Poffo, to tell us how great the no-movement walker is. Before he comes on, though, the shallow girl that Tony hired to shill his piece of crap says something like "But don't take our word for it! Here's the bigtime WWF star The Genius! You remember The Genius, right?" Then Tony starts building him out like he was bigger than Hogan or something. Then Lanny comes on and he says his back hurts a lot ever since he retired and the Gazelle is a stand-up variation on the exercise bike formula. It's all retarded. Speaking of retarded, I'm pretty sure Stevie Ray suffers from mental retardation, and that's why I picked him. There's a lot I can say about Stevie Ray, but perhaps the most important piece of information is that he's Booker T's idiotic brother. He used to carry around a club or something and hit people over the head with it, and that was about the most impressive thing he ever did. Then, during Vince Russo's WCW, he was made a colour commentator, where he proceeded to say one insane thing after another until the day he was fired or WCW went under, whichever came first. And I tell you this because SUCKA'S GOTTA KNOW, TONY!

Sofa Sofa's Number Thirteen Pick: Ernest "The Cat" Miller THE GENIUS WWF Math: Mortarboard + Robe + Poetry = Genius If all it takes to be a genius is terrible poetry about how you are about to beat the shit out of VIRGIL, then holy shit, I am fearing for the future of human civilization. Thankfully, those are not the requirements for genius-hood in the Real World. In the real world, all you need to do to be a genius is to piss away massive ratings and millions of dollars by buying out your only competition. VINCE IS A GENIUS indeed. In the end, The Genius was The Macho Man's brother, and was pretty much nothing to note. And, unlike every other bad gimmick the WWF had at the time, where the wrestler usually had a much better career otherwise, such was not the case with Sir Genius, as being The Genius was the best he ever did with his life. I really feel sorry for the poor dope. THE CAT: SOMEBODY CALL MY MAMA! I'm probably the only person in the world who finds The Cat absolutely hilarious. Unbeknownst to most, The Cat is actually employed by the WWE as we speak! I doubt even Mean Gene knows that shit, and he runs the freaking WCW HOTLINE! GET YOUR PARENTS' PERMISSION BEFORE YOU CALL! As much as I mark for the guy, The Cat never really did a lot in WCW. He cut these backstage segments where he held press conferences and called female reporters "fat," then started dancing with them at the end of the segment. I think he was WCW commisioner for a while, when that title was as easily transferable as a championship belt. And he tag teamed with James Brown once, in an angle I never saw. I think The Cat's entire career can be highligted in one quote, from Cat's current announcing gig on Velocity: "CAT: Did you know Nat King Cole has a daughter? Do you know what her name is? WHAT'S HIS FACE FROM TOUGH ENOUGH: Michael Cole" REMEMBER, THAT'S "1-900-RUN-4-ECW"!

Waspie Waspie's Number Thirteen Pick: Steven Regal Lanny Poffo stands out in my mind for one reason, and one reason alone. Lanny Poffo is "Macho Man" Randy Savage's brother. Nothing earth-shattering, until you remember the concept of "last names." Randy's not so Savage after all! In fact, fake last names are the glue that holds wrestling together. Would you want to drool over Michael Hickenbottom's mirror-encrusted chaps? Of course not. Would you want to imagine running your tongue through his chest chair as he lounges on a turnbuckle? Heavens no! Here, use this handy chart. Bryan Adams - Brian Adams. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin - Lee Majors. Hey, Arn Anderson's real name is Martin Lunde. If only I'd known that before I wrote my Arn Anderson write-up. All my Martin Lunde/Martin Landau jokes would've KILLED. Steven Regal was my choice for number thirteen, primarily because I actually know things about him. In fact, Regal beats Martin Lunde out in the coveted "magnificent torso" category. Also: Regal grew up wrestling people for quarters, which is probably some insane British form of prostitution.

Jon Hunt Jon Hunt's Number Thirteen Pick: Super Crazy The Genius - Do people even remember the Genius? I barely do. I should have voted for the Quebecers.

The Next Mideon The Next Mideon's Number Thirteen Pick: Tugboat / Shockmaster I had Tugboat at #13, but we just talked about him, so you'll not get so much as an extra syllable out of my stingy ass. Actually, I guess you just got 35 extra syllables. Shut up. As an addendum to my Tugboat entry, I'll tell you a ssssssecret. Remember those Hulk Hogan friendship bracelets I said he used to pass out? I once owned a Bret Hart friendship bracelet from the same era. I was a troubled youth. Moving on. I SINGLE-HANDEDLY got The Genius added to this list. Choke on it. I envision The Genius as being a sort of precursor to Jeff Hardy, in that they each write poetry and are vaguely gay. In fact, both gentlemen suffer from the same crippling disease. I like to call it "Shitty Brother Syndrome" (SBS). For those of you who are stupid, this means that they ARE the shitty brother, not that they HAVE the shitty brother. Despite such a debilitating illness and an obvious case of mental retardation, The Genius heroically managed to graduate from good ol' MSU, Mortarboard State University. During his tenure there, he dabbled in all the major fields of study. Mathematics, Mattematics, arithMattic... You name it, he's heard of it. Also, The Genius once defeated Hulk Hogan, which must have been the fucking funniest thing ever. This bright young mind deserved my vote for many more reasons, however. First, he probably only had a job because of his brother. +1 for nepotism. Next, he always officiated Mr. Perfect's croquet matches and Go Fish tournaments. +2 for keeping awesome company. But above all, Lanny Poffo can currently be seen shilling for Tony Little's newest exercise piece of crap. OUTSTANDING. +A MILLION for being an idiot. The Genius may be a cripply old retired wrestler, but he's got A GAZELLE!!!! LOOK OUT, WORLD!

ChainClaw ChainClaw's Number Thirteen Pick: Johnny B. Badd The Genius Lanny Poffo. Ya know, I have four main memories of him. 1. The guy who dressed like he got lost on the way to graduation. 2. Crappy poetry. 3. He was related to Randy Savage. 4. He used to be LEAPIN LANNY POFFO. These were my childhood memories, until one of my smark friends destroyed a rather harmless memory of a crappy gimmick wrestler by informing me Lanny was queerer than a three dollar bill. I myself have nothing against homosexuals, but cap and gown wearing, poetry quoting frisbee tossing, ex leaping lanny's, related to Macho Man Savage gay people are where I draw the line. Actually not really, I just had to fill up about two paragraphs about a wrestler I wasn't very fond of. My 13th wrestler though, was Johnny B. Badd. See the dichotomy? B. Badd himself was a wrestler who WASN'T gay but played it to get over with the crowd. Personally I only even picked him because I feel sorry for Marc Mero and the truth is, no matter what, he did an eeriely spot-on impression of Little RIchard.

EIW EandC EIW EandC's Number Thirteen Pick: Nailz The Genius. To understand the Genius, you must understand Lanny Poffo. To understand Lanny Poffo, you must understand Lance Poffo. To understand Lance Poffo is to understand the hearts of men everywhere. For real. Anyway, Genius was this really skinny effeminate guy who combined wrestling fandom’s hate of smart people with their hate of the da gays to teach us the importance of hate. One time, I rented some old WWF Supertape because it said it featured Genius wearing a suit of armor and wrestling in a Bunkhouse Battle Royal. It amounted to brief clips where you could barely see Genius, whose scrawny (but, I will admit, armored) ass got tossed. That Super Tape also featured some woman powerbombing another woman as both announcers lost it and speculated that the powerbombee might be dead. “Lord” Alfred Hayes claimed the Powerbomb is known as “The Drip Dry” in England, which sounds real dumb. Yeah. Oh, wait, the Genius! Genius also acted as a mouthpiece for Mr. Perfect, who didn’t need a mouthpiece at all, but it did allow Genius to run interference and get a cheap win over Hogan once. Hogan probably beat Genius and Perfect in a handicapped match the next week. That’s how it worked back then, and…that’s pretty much how it works now. Later, Genius would hang out with the immensely creepy Beverly Brothers. He used to read poems before matches, to piss fans off. He may have done that before. I don’t know. I don’t know Genius’ career as well as I know those of Fred Ottoman and Mike Shaw. But he was cool. His femmy skipping around the ring infuriated fans, who then ignored that fact that he was a better worker than most of the musclehead good guys. He was kind of a Rico before there was Rico. I guess he paved the way. Think of him as the John the Baptist to Rico’s Jesus. Jesus. Nailz I do know, since I voted for him and all. Nailz’z gimmick was that he was an ex-con who wanted revenge against Big Bossman for brutalizing him in prison. His ring attire was a blaze-orange prison uniform, a big step towards realism from a company you’d expect to go with a Hurrica…excuse me, Hamburglar getup. He cut a promo, from prison, saying he was gonna kill Bossman when he got out. That’s pretty stupid right there. The promo was perfectly acceptably done by WWF standards. Actually, he cut a lot of “I’m a crazy, crazy man” promos and they were at least as compelling as Nathan Jones’ recent efforts. He spit too much, but they were still ok. The thing is, nothing could overcome the goofiness of a running theme with my pics: dumb voice-amplifying microphones. I think he had a special mic. Maybe he just talked really weird. He shook his head around a lot when he talked, so…I dunno. Nailz’z voice was supposed to sound weird because Bossman had jammed a nightstick in his throat, but it just sounded like he had a weird voice and shook his head around a lot. Nailz’z WWF career consisted of attacking Bossman, whooping up on Bossman’s spontaneous best friend Virgil, jobbing to Bossman, and having a stare down with the Undertaker to set Taker up with someone to squash between Kamala and Kama. Nailz disappeared before the epic Nailz/Undertaker battle could occur. Apparently he tried to strangle Vince McMahon backstage so Vince would talk goofy too, and was thus fired. Nailz showed up for one match in WCW as a last-second replacement, and then he did some stuff in AWF that I and maybe two other people (one of them being Nailz) remember. AWF has “Cowboy” Bob Orton Jr! But anyway…so…why did I pick Nailz? Because the TV my brother and I used to play Street Fighter 2 on sucked, and M. Bison always looked like he was wearing blaze-orange, so we always made Bison talk like Nailz. That’s pretty much it. Saying dumb shit in the Nailz voice was a great way to make those repeated losses to Bison as Dhalseim or Zangiev just fly by. Sorry. Unnecessary verbage is all I have left.

Josh Josh's Number Thirteen Pick: Toshiaki Kawada The Genius: According to the woman on the Tony Little thing, Lanny Poffo wrote a poem about the Gazelle. I've been known to watch infomercials all day, and I can tell you for certain that nobody ever actually reads said poem. For the sake of the fans, I'm going to channel the soul of probably-dead Lanny Poffo and recite the poem for you. "My Gazelle", EE Cummings. .. gazelle is to ride pai n no more # flesh so r e l a x e d. -------- I fucking hate poetry. Fucking faggots. Toshiaki Kawada: Here's a slant-eye who wears big loose socks over his boots and is missing his front 8 teeth. He kicks people a lot, and then brainbusters them. Rumor has it he wrestled a match with 3 broken arms, a broken rib, no knees, and someone cut the tail of his hair off, but he still finished and it was at least *****. That's why he's my #13 pick.

Shane Spear Shane Spear's Number Thirteen Pick: Mick Foley I negelected to submit a write-up! O_o