Evolution Schematic 09.22.07: The Godfather (Part 1)
Posted by Mathew Sforcina on 09.22.2007
Like I got time for this, I got Super Paper Mario to play!
Writer's Notes
So, here we are, my second week on Saturdays, and I'm already tired of it. No, not really, but I am still getting used to it. Anyway, as a way to try and increase my options without having to work at them, I've hired an in-house cartoonist. That is to say, I'm gonna be posting a comic each column from David Lovelace from his website. But I have paid him to draw stuff for me before, and since I'm too lazy and paranoid to start posting relevant Youtube videos, I'll go a totally different direction. At least until Larry and Ashish yell at me and I stop. Also, check out Dunn's review of one of my fed's shows, complete with one of my matches. It's tough, but still overall positive, I guess. You'll see some more over the coming weeks (I hope) and if you want some, contact me and I'll set you up. All DVD's work in the US, obviously. As for the comments about me, well, I've been called far worse than looking like Marvel's The Blob. Like a giant chocolate pudding on the run, for instance. Eh, time for the actual ‘meat' of my column, I guess.
Overview
This is a tough one.
I mean, The Godfather as he stands right now, easy to explain. How he got into the business at the start, piece of cake. The Goodfather? I can sort that out in my sleep. Even the whole Papa Shango thing, that's actually quite easy if you use the magic words, ‘mind games'. But stuck in the middle is Kama, The Ultimate Fighting Machine. How the hell do I explain that? What one drive could possibly explain all these various attributes, these different mind sets? Insanity? MPD? Drugs?
Nope. For The Godfather, he did it all for the nookie. Assuming my street lingo is correct, and nookie means "Pleasant times spent with multiple young women whose virtue is negotiable". See, apart from the time he was trying to be moral because Steven Richards had brainwashed him, Godfather, Kama, Papa, Soultaker, whatever he called himself, he was always after some tail. Before he wised up and made a living with them, he acted tough and hard because he thought chicks dig that smooth silent type. He also joined the Nation because he felt he could get lots of booty out of it. And Papa? What better way to meet lots of MILFS than by scaring their kids and thus getting chances to butter them up with booze to ‘apologize' to them?
Oh yeah, and he's won some matches and a couple of belts along the way, but who cares about them?
Origins- A bunch of wrestlers walk into a bar… Seriously.
The man one day known as… a whole bunch of names, grew up, got tattooed, and eventually tended bar in Las Vegas, growing up tough and mean without the need to be called Sue, named instead Charles Wright. Then on one fateful day, some wrestlers came into his bar, and noticed him right away.
Given he was the guy handing out the drinks, you'd kinda hope they would notice him. If they didn't they'd need their vision checked.
Regardless, some of them saw potential in Mr. Wright, he had a unique look and, much more importantly, he seemed a really tough bastard. So they suggested to him he learn to wrestle. Thinking that would be a good way to score, he took them up on that, and joined Larry Sharpe's Monster Factory, one of the more prestigious and successful wrestling training centers in the world. Certainly it's produced enough monsters to justify the name.
After training, he was ready to enter the sport, and quickly found a home, and a name from one of his tattoos.
Debut- Here comes ‘Mother'! I mean, ‘The Soultaker'
Dubbing himself The Soultaker, an emotive, if somewhat bland name, Charles debuted in USWA in late 89. He was green, inexperienced but tough as hell, and thus despite not being fully versed in much actual ‘wrestling', he still had a fairly successful run, even winning the USWA Unified Heavyweight title for all of 2 weeks a mere month after his debut, beating Jerry Lawler to win it then lost it back to him said 2 weeks later.
This quick rise to the upper-lower-middle of the industry quickly brought other shots in other small companies, including some trips to Japan to get some Japanese Ass, I mean, to test his skills against the best Japan had to offer.
His new found popularity and rising starness brought the attention of the WWF, who quickly hired him.
Phase 2- Sir Charles. Not even HE remembers this well.
At first, Mr. Wright was unsure of himself. Compared to some of the other wrestlers in the company, he seemed…uninteresting. Certainly a name and ridiculous concept like The Soultaker wouldn't fly in the big leagues. So, he quickly scrambled and dubbed himself "Sir Charles", steal…referencing…stealing the nickname from Charles Barkley. However, this idea, a black man pretending to be civilized didn't catch on, and was much too forced. So, he quickly pulled himself from the road, and sat down to think. What would work?
Remember, back then, wrestling was a lot more outlandish, everyone was trying to outdo one another to be more over the top and memorable. And then, one fateful night, as he tried to think of a useable persona, he must have seen "Live And Let Die", the James Bond film. And more importantly, the character of Baron Samedi. That, or he was partying in New Orleans and took way too much of something illegal with a girl and met the real one. I prefer that version, since it explains how he got away with it, if the good Baron liked him…
Phase 3- Papa Shango. Hey, laugh it up, Boogeyman owes him big time.
With his face paint, smoke producing staff, skulls, and various other props, Papa Shango was born, and a symbol of early 90's WWF was produced. Almost immediately, he saw results from his transformation. He gained an ally at first in Sid Justice, helping him beat down Hogan only to have The Ultimate Warrior appear from nowhere and help Hogan out.
This led to Papa's first big feud, with the Warrior, a feud where Papa showed off his new found magic powers.
A word or hundred about wrestlers with magic powers.
You can believe in whatever you want. Faith is a powerful, if at times misused force in the universe. If you want to think it won't get better if you pick at it, you can. If you want to think that you can predict the future by working out the location of the stars and planets in relation to your birth date, you can. If you want to think the CIA is secretly writing this column as a means to further their plans to conquer Canada, you can think that.
And, if you want to think certain people, when subjected to intense stress or even more intense focus, can develop supernatural powers, that's up to you. But as far as this column is concerned, it's all smoke and mirrors. And drugs. Regardless, it's still just an opinion piece, so the following sarcasm and heavy-handedness should be taken as such. Thank you.
So, Papa showed off new skills, like being able to make people throw up by pointing his finger (or, alternatively, as a former bartender and perhaps, given the LV background, a dealer in slightly harder chemicals, he knew stuff that would make someone throw up and began adapt at poisoning people during a match), making black stuff ooze from Warrior's head (capsules and powder and time release chemicals. Like Warrior would feel anything trapped in that hair), and making some poor up and comer talk in tongues ($100 and a good actor). For all his tricks, Papa freaked people out. Which was both good, and bad.
Good, in that Papa went on a bit of a run, winning lots of matches, getting a WWF Title shot at a Saturday Night Main Event, generally going well.
Bad, in that his major shots he blew, failing to win said WWF title off Bret Hart, getting tossed in the 93 Rumble by Ric Flair and Bob Backlund very quickly, losing in the opening round of the 93 KOTR tournament to Jim Duggan of all people, and overall being seen by the majority of the fans and the other wrestlers as a joke, as a symbol of all that was wrong with the WWF and the industry as a whole. No-one took Papa Shango seriously.
So, he decided to change all that. Or at least he would have, had he not been sent to USWA again as part of a talent exchange.
Phase 3b- 2 steps forward, 2 steps back…
He may have been a totally different man this time around, but he was still a tough competitor. Papa Shango found greater success in USWA than he did in WWF, once again gaining possession of the USWA Unified belt, beating (who else?) Jerry Lawler to win the title in somewhat déjà vu style. He held the belt for a couple of months this time round, even defending it (pre cameras rolling) at the 93 King Of The Ring against Owen Hart, the man he would eventually lose the belt to a few days later.
Phase 4- A couple years out…
But like many wrestlers, he grew tired of the business, especially as he was pigeonholed with the Papa Shango character. His greatest asset was now a liability, not only to the women, but to the business as well. He needed time away to reinvent himself. It was risky, losing the spotlight, he might not be able to regain it, but he had to try. So he left the industry for a little under two years, returning to his bar until he got a few more tattoos and the business had finished its transformation. The industry had started to become less cartoony when he left, but when he eventually returned it was far less outlandish, enough so that he went the exact opposite way with his persona as he left behind the Papa Shango character, and went from jokey Voodoo God to Shoot fighter.
Phase 5- Kama, The Supreme Fighting Machine. Shame he's also the Supreme Boring Machine.
Wright was lured back to the sport by Ted DiBiase, who needed big, strong bodies to fill out his Million Dollar Corporation. Charles, with Ted's help, became Kama, the Supreme Fighting Machine, a silent bad ass kicking man. The ladies just ate it up. Having money like Ted's in your pocket also helped.
His first target was The Undertaker, which was both an obvious statement to make (going after Taker proved you had big balls) and also a fairly witty person to attack, in that Taker was clearly like he used to be, in Papa and the Soultaker, and thus by attacking him, he was closing the book on his last few personas. Assuming he thought that through that far.
Still, he made his statement, stealing Taker's Urn at Wrestlemania XI mere moments after Taker had got it back from King Kong Bundy, Taker too focused on winning the match at the time to chase after him.
Kama went one step further than his stablemate Bundy, and melted the Urn down, forming it into a big gold chain, and thus looking stylish while rubbing his theft in Taker's face, as well as the faces of Taker's fans, mostly the two young Emo kids who had lots of money to travel all over the place, following the WWF, Taker's main ‘Creatures Of The Night'. (And no, they weren't Steph and Shane. Alas.)
He entered the 95 King Of The Ring tournament, easily getting past the garbage (man) Duke Droese. He then lasted 15 minutes with Shawn Michaels, which is a feat in of itself, but given that it was a 15 minute time limit match in a tournament, drawing with HBK was not a good thing, since both got thrown out. But Kama's night was still good, as he interfered in the following match, blasting Taker in the back of the head with a boot, totally throwing Taker off his game plan and giving Mabel an easy splash victim. Taker's problems with Kama ended at Summerslam 95, when Taker regained his, uh, necklace, and buried Kama in a casket.
Kama became DiBiase's main bodyguard and muscle after this, since losing in such a public and dramatic way hurt his credibility a bit. But then came the 1996 Rumble. Drawing 23, a decent number, Kama did well, lasting to the final 3 before being tossed by Diesel who was then almost immediately eliminated by Shawn Michaels.
However, despite this, Kama again grew dissatisfied with the industry and Ted's leadership, and once again left to head back to the bar. But he would be back, and next time, he was a lot angrier and more in tune with the color of his skin. And ironically, that would lead to the happiest times of his life…
And now, another sliver of a fractured view of life, as from the pen of Dave Lovelace...
