They didnt fool me...sort of

We all saw my homage to hood wearers worldwide and can surmise by said blog that i'm a mask mark to the enth degree...MOST OF THE TIME....

Some guys who wore masks were just wearing said hoods as part of an angle like loser leaves town but snuck back in under a hood....OR when creative had absolutely nothing for them to do so they hooded them up to give them something to do...and here are a few of my favourites

STAGGER LEE

Geez Bill Watts could come up with some stuff couldnt he...I think it was him, might of been Bill Dundee, JYD and Mr Olympia  had lost a Loser leave town match to Ted Dibiase and Matt Bourne after a run in by Hacksaw Duggan...a weekm or two later Stagger Lee, a friend of the Dog, made his Mid South debut...the Rat Pack got thoroughly annoyed with this ....one tv moment springs to mind, Tony Atlas was benching a few hundred pounds on Mid South tv

and both JYD and Stagger were there on screen with perplexed ted dibiase something chronic...

eventually after a good run, Stagger won the strap of DiBiase and a few weeks later JYD was re-instated

BOB & BRAD ARMSTRONG 

On of my absolute favoirite workers...who shoulda made it much bigger than he did...anyway, on occasion when they had nothing for Brad to do...WCW creative stuck him under a gimmick or two...first one, and one of my personal faves was the Freebirds hooded ally  Badstreet ..who went on to win the 6 man tags with P.S and Jimmy Jam...and then there was Arachnaman which almost got WCW sued stupid due to his visual similarity to Marvel comics Spiderman....

Funnily enough, dressing up in a mask ran in the Armstrong family..whenever Bob Armstrong lost a loser leave town match his best friend "The Bullet" would show up to defend Bobs honor....mind you the Bullet persona sort of didnt hide Bobs appearance much...which is par for the course.

DUSTY RHODES & THE MIDNITE RIDER

Quite possibly the most famous friend of a super over  face EVER
Dusty Rhodes had lost a loser leave town to The Horseman....then suddenly The Midnite Rider appeared, now to be fair..it didnt hide the Dusty persona much...unlike Brad Armstrongs which did......

BUT he gave Flair and his cronies a deadset gut ache..even winning the nwa belt BUT he got stripped of it cause he wouldnt reveal his identity to Bob Geigel.....and on occasion The Rider has hung out with our next candidate..The Yellow Dog.

THE YELLOW DOG (s) 

The first and most famous Yellow Dog was actually Barry Windham during an angle with Ron Bass....The match between Windham and Bass saw Windham wager his Florida Heavyweight Title against a treasured horse saddle given to Bass by Rhodes' mother. Although Windham won the match, Bass and the enormous One Man Gang attacked him. They put the saddle on his back and "rode" him around the ring. Windham was utterly devastated. Dealing with this shame might have been too much for him, but a masked wrestler called The Dirty Yellow Dog soon arrived in Florida and brutalized Bass in a series of chain matches. No one ever saw the Yellow Dog without the mask, but he was a slender young man, about six-foot-six, and had long blond hair. Hmmmmmm....

The other Yellow Dog was Flyin Brian Pillman...He held the NWA United States Tag Team Championship with "The Z-Man" Tom Zenk between February 1990 and May 1990. Pillman later feuded with Barry Windham, who he harassed while dressed as the masked Yellow Dog after losing a Loser of the fall-leaves-WCW match ....In 1991 Brian Pillman troubled with health problems and with his career in limbo courtesy of Dusty Rhodes, was booked to a "loser leaves WCW" match with Barry Wyndham at Clash of Champions XV.

Pillman disappeared but his match schedule was resumed by 'The Yellow Dog', a masked wrestler with a  ring style similar to the popular high-flyer.  The Dog also entered the ring to Pillman's ring music.....Pillman denied any association, while WCW Magazine warned - "If it is conclusively proved that Dog and Pillman are one and the same, Pillman will be banned from WCW for life!"....Sometimes, The Yellow Dog risked identification by pulling up his mask but "never in front of an official". On occasions, Tom Zenk teamed with the Dog.  And a number of times a masked wrestler, uncannily like Tom Zenk, took to the ring as The Yellow Dog, while Pillman stood by at ringside.....Finally, The Yellow Dog put his mask on the line, in a series of bounty matches. But a write-in campaign by fans resulted in Pillman's official "re-instatement" to WCW as an active wrestler, and the sudden demise of the still umasked Yellow Dog. 

AND one of my personal favourites ...RED RIVER JACK

yep Bruiser Brody did the masked buddy angle as well...unusual for a guy who didnt like "gimmicks" so much...Fritz musta chucked a bag mof money at him....still and all, he pulled the gig off with ease and didnt lose a step as his original persona....Returning to WCCW from All Japan, to take over booking duties from George Scott in 1986, Brody continued his long-running feud with Abdullah the Butcher after attacking Abby's manager Gary Hart. The two madmen shed blood all across Texas during the summer and fall of 1986, culminating with a steel cage at the Cotton Bowl extravaganza in October, with Fritz Von Erich as the special referee. In December of 1986, World Class put together a "loser-leaves-town" match between the two, which was won by Abby with help from Hart.  But like many heroes before him who lost this type of match, Brody would return under a mask, as Red River Jack, before getting the suspension overturned in 1987.

WWF 

hooded hijinks

THE BLUE BLAZER 

The late great Owen Hart wasnt doing the Blazer during a loser angle, he was doing it cause Vince wanted a little kid friendly superstar ...the first time anyway, the second time and the fatal one was a angle involving the intercontinental belt and the Blazer wanting to win it for his friend Owen..and we all know what happened then...RIP fella

MR AMERICA

Hulk Hogan got banned during the angle with Vince and WM 19...suddenly out of nowhere, saying his prayers and eating his vitamins came the Hulksters close personal friend Mr America...this gimmick hid his Hulk persona even worse than Dustys Midnite Rider...Hulk didnt change one goddamn thing ..same promo, same moveset..didnt even hide his moustache with the mask...BUT...it was fun none the less.

THE MACHINES

Originally part of an angle during the Andre v Heenan Family fued, Andre lost a Loser leave town match and a couple of weeks later Capt Lou announced he was brining in a japanese team to go for the WWF tag belts..The Machines, Super and Giant....trouble is one machine sounded like he was from Florida and the other "japanese" machine had a french accent...they brought in a third machine, Big Machine, who was actually Blackjack Mulligan.

The angle got a bit crazy with extra machines added ad infinitum..Hulk Machine, Piper Machine, Animal Machine and on a house show in Minneapolis they stuck Reggie "Crusher" Liskowski under a spare hood....the angle dried up and a few weeks later Heenan and Andre worked the famous Andre heel turn....while Super Machine became Demolition Axe.

THE CONQUSITADORS

Originally a tag team that consisted of Jose Estrada and Jose Rivera...the team was re-invented for the attitude era by Edge & Christian and The Hardy Boys during their fued for the WWF tag belts...both teams dressed as The Conquistadors it was fairly obvious who was who due to either a dodgy walk to the ring or some seriously awful spanish promos...STILL... a great angle none the less

SO...there you...a few guys who didnt have us fooled in the slightest but did a damn fine job trying to...seeya next time