Please…Don’t Hate 4.27.08: “Stone Cold” Shark Boy

Posted by Julian Bond on 04.27.2008

In this edition we tackle another very controversial and very touchy topic in the wrestling world today. Hold your gasps as I present *gasp*….”Stone Cold” Shark Boy. We also look at the huge chunk of reader emails from last week’s John Cena column.

Welcome everyone to Please…Don't Hate, the weekly column which takes a look at some of the most hated on and complained about wrestlers, companies, and topics within the wrestling world. Today, we look at the newest "Stone Cold" gimmick of TNA Wrestling's own deep-sea wrestler Shark Boy and discuss why people really think it's the stupidest thing ever, while also arguing that it's quite the opposite. We will also look at the nice load of reader responses from last week's Please…Don't Hate: John Cena.

Regarding the reader emails and postings, I've also been slowly receiving suggestions/ideas for future topics to be covered and I definitely encourage people to send them in. While I have a good number of topics that I had planned, I want to hear any suggestions, and may possibly use some for them in the upcoming weeks. In fact, I plan on using one for next week's topic, so please don't hesitate to suggest them.

Reader Reverb
This is the section where two reader comments, one being for the weekly topic and the other being against, are chosen and I give my two cents on them. Now with this week's Reader Reverb, due to the huge amount of Cena comments posted, I will pick out more than two to cover as much ground as I can and to give both sides a fair say. So here we go. Thanks again to all of you who commented!

Last week's topic: John Cena

Dave (Guest) writes:

You've got a point with Cena being "back to basics" I've seen matches with guys like Harley race and Dusty Rhodes. It was mostly punch kick, lockup, simple suplex, scoop slam. the point was to make it look tough.

Cena does try to improve. I don't hate him I actually consider him one of my favorite wrestlers. I still think he needs to step away from the main event for a while though, he's an over enough star that he can try to bring some prestige back to the IC belt, maybe do some personal-storyline feuds, maybe even find a partner and do some time in the Tag ranks. He's a main event player, but until fresh blood to feud with on the main event is established it would be better for him to step back.

Thanks for the mention of the "back to basics" point. Everyone complains that Cena has the same exact move set in every single match and thus is a horrible wrestler. But they don't realize that it's not the number of moves that you have that defines you as a wrestle, it's how you utilize them. Above Dave mentioned Harley Race and Dusty Rhodes, these two legends didn't have the crazy submission holds and high-risk moves as a majority of wrestlers have nowadays. They told a story by showing their toughness in the ring and their fighting sprit, which is what made them famous in the first place. People may say that he shouldn't even be compared to them, but he's definitely in the veins of the old school style of wrestling and psychology. I also do agree that he does need to take a few steps back from the direct main event scene for a little bit (which I believe he is slowly doing), just for the simple fact of letting someone else step their game up to eventually join him when he makes it back to very top as champ.

rey (Guest) writes:

i think after hulkamania, we fans were spoiled. our main event stars could actually talk and wrestle. we got use to having guys like the rock, angle, austin, HHH, hbk, foley. taker and others. cena is unfairly compared to those performers.

i dont hate cena. i am not a fan but he is entertaining. and in the world of sports ENTERTAINMENT! he is doing a great job.

Perfectly stated points. I also believe that we were ALL spoiled after experiencing the main event runs of Hulk, Stone Cold, the Rock, HBK, Foley, and now to a 180 degree turn of having a new blood like Cena as champion. Like I stated in the column, I wasn't a fan of his first title run because it was a bit premature and didn't really have a build to it. All of the aforementioned champs had some sort of major story behind their initial title runs and Cena was kind of thrown into the fire and unfairly compared. He has come a LONG way from being just a rookie champ to coming into his own. As for your other comment, you stated a great point. You may not like Cena, but you can't deny that he's brining something significant to the table of the overall wrestling world. Now he's definitely far from being the best in the world of just pure wrestling (ie. ROH, etc.), but he's for sure one of the best in the world of SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT. This is the misunderstanding that I think some people may get if they try to compare Cena to other well-celebrated grapplers like Brian Danielson/Samoa Joe; each of them attempts to appeal to a particular group of fans and you simply can't compare the two types because they are trying to accomplish different things.

JJ (Guest) writes:

Oh, and both of his matches with Khali were horrible. The hour long match was overrated. I fell asleep TWICE during that match, and no matter hard I tried to, I couldn't get into it. The LMS match was overrated and I STILL don't understand how 411 named it WOTY.

Cena is basically the Lil' Wayne of wrestling. Journalists and mainstream fans love him, and his skills are in the bad-average range. He's not flat-out terrible and there are people far worse than him. But for him to be in the position that he's in, combined with his fans, make me HATE him.

This is a just a selection of the multiple comments posted by JJ (Guest) on this topic, so these are the two significant ones I've picked out. Not to call JJ out, but it was an interesting situation on the posts with JJ stating multiple comments throughout the thread about his hate for Cena and others either agreeing, disagreeing, or telling him to shut the hell up. Before I give my feedback on his comments, I just want to say that while my motto is to "stop hating so much", on the same end, people shouldn't bash on others for not agreeing with them. A bunch of people went back and forth with JJ on his comments (justified or non-justified) and I definitely encourage conversation, but just remember as silly as this may sound that bashing on a person (name-calling, etc) for hating or not hating on the week's topic doesn't help matters. We should all just talk about it, agree to disagree and move on about our day. Just my opinion. So onto the comments.

So JJ, based on all of your comments, especially these two, it's no secret that you really don't like Cena. You hate his best rated matches, hate his in-ring ability/character, and you believe that he is definitely overrated. Again I don't mind if you or anyone else hates the man because it is of course your rightful opinion. But I just hope that your main reason for not liking him isn't based on the fact that a good amount of people also do, or has the constant hype surrounding him. As a huge hip-hop fan myself I liked your comparison of Cena to rapper Lil' Wayne. I admit that I definitely didn't like Lil' Wayne at first, not really based of his rhyming abilities, but simply because of the fact that everyone and their mama kept saying that he was the best rapper alive. I was horribly angry that people actually thought that he was better than or even close to being like rap legends such as Jay-Z, KRS-One, and Nas. So after taking the time to actually listen to his songs instead of just hating, I had gained a new opinion of him. While I still didn't become a fan of his songs nor agreed that he was as great as everyone claims he is, I respected everyone's opinions and accepted that maybe they're seeing something that I simply don't get nor understand. So please don't hate on Cena just because of the love that he's receiving, because the man has gotten where he is for a reason, and definitely don't hate on others for doing so because you have your opinion and they have theirs.

Kael (Guest) writes:

Ive worked it out Cena is to wrestling what Keanu Reeves is to acting. Its just a case of overexposure and a complete lack of variation. There are no caveats in his character. Even though HHH is the anti-christ in my eyes, he is still intriguing, he could turn at anytime, switchflip and change character

Cena is just so one dimensional. In this day and age thats just un- acceptable. This aint the 70s and 80s no more. Things change as to tastes and predictability is no longer accepted in the wrestling community.

I do have to admit…I did laugh at the comparison of Cena to Keanu Reeves! While I kind of understand how people would see the similarities with both appearing to not change their act, I disagree with your statement of Cena being one-dimensional and your opinion on tastes/predictability in the wrestling community. I believe that the man is not just one-dimensional. I honestly, like others, had thought this myself until I saw all of his great diverse matches from 2006 on (HHH, HBK, Edge, Orton, etc.), which proved that he does switch it up when he can. The "one dimensional-ness" that I believe you are talking about has to do with his average matches on Raw. He (like other main event wrestlers) usually goes out, does their usual routine of moves, and then goes about their day. If he did the big spots/alternative moves he did with his PPV matches on a regular basis then they wouldn't be considered big or alternative. Just like another reader also commented (m8), it seems that this is just the way that the WWE books his matches, good or bad.

As for your comment on predictability/changing tastes in today's wrestling world, I disagree with your association of "the 70s and 80s" being linked to predictability. While I understand that some wrestlers back then were just one trick ponies, the other remaining great ones such as Terry Funk, Dusty Rhodes, and Ric Flair also used simple, but more effective moves. No offense to the newer generation of grapplers (whom I have the greatest respect for), these older men didn't have to use big spots or high-impact moves to get themselves over; they simply worked the crowd over just right and finished off their opponent at the perfect time. Another thing to mention is that almost all of the big wrestlers in the WWE in the last few years have constantly used the same finishing move sets as well: Undertaker (Old School, Chokeslam, Tombstone), HBK (Flying Elbow, Sweet Chin Music), the Rock (the People's Elbow, Rock Bottom), etc. So if you said that "predictability is no longer accepted in the wrestling community", then you have to consider all of the good matches and successes that all of these wrestlers and many others (including Cena) have had, sometimes by using mostly the same simple moves.

Now we present "Sharky 3:16"



Why People Hate On…"Stone Cold" Shark Boy
-Lame copycat gimmick
-Downs the X-Division even more
-Makes TNA look silly for creating it
-Offends the legacy of Stone Cold Steve Austin

My Reasoning for Not Hating On…"Stone Cold" Shark Boy
For those of you who aren't familiar with this week's topic let me give you a quick intro. Shark Boy (I'll call him SB for short) has been in TNA since 2002, doing his main duties of being a heavy jobber and biting people in the butt. While his gimmick was silly and sometimes very entertaining, good ol' Sharky never really got past the lower card level in the last 5 years. So what the creative heads of TNA decided to do was to play up this fact by starting an angle in which Shark Boy would get beat up very brutally every single week until the man couldn't stand any more (which resulted in the hilarious sight of SB coming down in crutches to his matches). The end result of this was a multi-part skit where Shark Boy was in a coma at a hospital with his "shark-family", Eric Young, and announcer JB there for support…I am not making this up! At the end of the horribly comedic skit, SB wakes up from the coma, grabs the doctor, and out of nowhere gives a picture-perfect "Stone Cold Steve Austin" impression. Thus the "Stone Cold" Shark Boy gimmick was born.

So for the next few weeks following this the man came down to the ring with a brand new attitude. Replacing the normal "I'm just a man in a shark mask" look, he has totally adopted the entire "Stone Cold" mentality. From wearing the Stone Cold black vest and quoting "Shark Boy 24:7" to dealing out Stunners and drinking "shark chum juice" after his victories, the man has taken the given gimmick and gave it life by becoming totally committed to it. So there are some who cheer on and love the new look/attitude, others who simply don't like it, and then those who really, really hate and despite it. Here's why they shouldn't.

The first obvious thing people bark at with this gimmick is the fact that it is a parody. And not only a parody, but one of a highly respected wrestler. It's the basic belief that if you're not the man himself, don't try to duplicate him. This is a good point, especially when you look at all of the crappy ones done back in the day (ie. Fake Diesel/Razor Ramon, the funny, but limited Gillberg), but Shark Boy has gone beyond simply putting on the clothes and saying the lines by doing the littlest things to get the character over. He takes all of Austin's ring mannerisms and makes them his own (instead of the middle finger, he does a "shark fin" sign before stunning) and the man luckily does a surprisingly excellent verbal impression of Austin which makes the promos that much more convincing. SB (and also Jay Lethal) sets himself apart from the category of being just a parody to having a whole new direction of his own.

The other complaint that people have is their beef that having characters like Stone Cold Shark Boy and Black Machismo Jay Lethal are reducing the X-Division to a silly former shell of itself. They also of course blame TNA for pushing the division to do so. With this (as I argued in my first column on TNA), I again think that adding more character to X-Division is truly needed to help bring new depth to the division. Instead of having SB be a super jobber, TNA has magically found a way to rebuild him and make him more over with the fans. Not only are the viewers now not seeing him as just a silly wrestler in shark costume, they are slowly seeing him as a person not to be messed with, which was recently shown with his mini-feud with Team 3D. On top of this, even minor things like his crazy interactions acting as interrupter for the Japanese-only speaking Curry Man could have great potential if used right (imagine Stone Cold/Dude Love 2008).

Lastly, those who hate on SB's new character automatically assume that the parody's originator would have a problem with it. But they are wrong. When asked about it in a recent interview, Austin just simply stated that he didn't mind the gimmick and that it actually gave him a laugh. He stated in a Miami Herald article, "I've heard about it. It doesn't anger me. If a guy is able to make a living on a rip-off, a spoof, making fun of me, whatever. I'm still with WWE. More power to him." In another chat, done with The Sun UK, he even shared that the gimmick gave him a good laugh when he saw it done. So from the mouth of the legend himself it was stated that there are no hard feelings with the gimmick. Nuff said.

Good Reasons to Love…"Stone Cold" Shark Boy
Hilarious Gimmick

From the moment Sharky woke up from his coma, it was either a sign of horrible crap to come or the beginning of a crazy hilarious gimmick. Thankfully it was the latter.

(Stone Cold Shark Boy is born!!)


Commitment to Character

What makes this character work so well is the fact that the person behind the shark mask is horribly committed to making the "Stone Cold" persona work, especially when it comes to his promos.

(Shark Boy 24:7 Promo)


Has Good Potential

Another sign of how this gimmick can actually last more than a few months is the potential it has with possible storylines/matches. His backstage talks with the zany non-English speaking Curry Man show the funny possibly of the two forming an unlikely tag team contender.

(Stone Cold SB/Curry Man Interview)


In conclusion, people should neither stress out nor hate on the "Stone Cold" Shark Boy character. While it may be silly to see a grown man in shark outfit in the first place, let alone also acting like Stone Cold Steve Austin in the process, it's again one of the most refreshing characters going on in TNA currently. And unlike other parody-type gimmicks done before, it actually has the potential to last longer than a couple of months. I approve it, Steve Austin approves it, and you should approve it too.

On The Next Episode of…"Please…Don't Hate"
In the first edition of "Readers' Request", I cover a man who probably hasn't been talked about in a good while, but is still hated on heavily…the man formally known as X-Pac (Sean Waltman).