The Katz Files – Arnie Katz
An Ode to the Foreign Object
The Kingfish Arnie Katz rhapsodizes about a sure-fire gimmicks. (Don’t worry; despite the title, there’s absolutely no poetry.)
Of all of pro wrestling’s fabled gimmicks, my favorite is the Foreign Object. They are technically illegal, except in hardcore and “no DQ” matches, but they often are crucial to the booking of even main event matches.
Foreign Objects Mean “excitement” – and every wrestling fan knows it. Whether you’re at the arena or watching on television, you’ve seen it a thousand times…
A match is going along, settled in a semi-interesting rut, when the heel brandishes an illegal weapon! The crowd goes crazy, shouting warnings to the babyface as the rulebreaker tries to bring it into play!
What happens next? The possibilities are nearly limitless. One thing’s for sure, though; there won’t be any rest holds until something exciting happens. The fans know it and they seldom fail to respond.
Foreign Objects are popular with books, too. Not only do they introduce an unexpected factor into a match, but they offer the babyface an excellent excuse for losing to the heel. That sets up the real match at the pay per view in which the fan favorite may well get some revenge for the dastardly use of the foreign object.
The type of foreign objects has changed over the years. They come and go like women’s fashions. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, brass knuckles were the ultimate illegal weapon. So many wrestlers used them that quite a few promotions established Brass Knuckles Champions to give workers even more leeway to employ them.
WWWF switched to really bad-looking brass knuckles in the 1970’s, which eventually killed the popularity of that form of the Foreign Object gimmick.
There was a vogue for mysterious powders. Powders often justified the presence of a cute female manager. Who would dispense the noxious substance from her compact?
In the 1990’s, the chairshot reached the peak of its popularity. Chair-swinging brawls did a lot for ECW. WCW and WWD used them a little more sparingly, but fans saw chairshots on almost every card.
Now, thanks to the trailblazing works of Mick Foley and Terry Funk, wrestling has thumbtacks, barbed wire and glass shards. TNA’s Abyss has fought a series of brutal matches, highlighted by free use of all those things, generally in the same contest.
Sometimes, wrestling puts a little more imagination into Foreign Objects and comes up with some fairly unusual ones.
I well remember when Killer Kowalski when he wore his Foreign Object, a “special glove” to amplify the power of his dreaded Claw, in plain sight and dared officials to take it away from him. “It’s not a glove, it’s a hold,” he would shout at the announcer.
Animals, such as the rat Black Reign currently uses, have been employed as foreign objects. Jake Roberts terrified opponents with his snake and Ricky Steamboat made some of them at least moderately uncomfortable with that huge monitor lizard he lugged to WWE rings.
The Sheik had the greatest foreign object of all: he threw fire balls! I don’t know how wrestling has resisted running this gimmick into the ground, but I am very glad they have. Throwing fire is very impressive when one man does it, but it would be ludicrous if six guys on each card did.
The Great Muta’s cloud of green gas is a less flashy alternative to the fireball. Fans waited with baited breath to see whether Muta could bring it into play effectively or if it might miss or even backfire on the perpetrator.
Many managers have carried props that doubled as Foreign Objects. Jim Cornette toted a tennis racket, while Jimmy Hart favored a megaphone
While many Foreign Objects are premeditated, carried to the ring by a wrestler or a manager, some are more randomly acquired. Championship belts and the timekeeper’s bell have long been staples among this type of Foreign Object and the increasing importance of TV has added cameras, monitors and coaxial cable to the inventory of illegal items.
ECW led the way in bizarre weapons. I’ll never forget the first time Raven hit someone with what looked like a typical fan sign but turned out to be a metal stop sign cloaked in paper. Stunts like that led to matches in which fans openly handed wrestlers lethal-looking foreign objects. New Jack got into trouble using them on an overzealous fan.
Hail to the Foreign Object. It may not be within the rules, but it sure keeps things lively!
That’s it for today. I’ll be back tomorrow with another installment of the Internet’s fastest-rising daily wrestling column.
– Arnie Katz
Crossfire4@cox.net
(2/24/08)
This is column number 39 in a row in the current daily series.
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