A Sensational Upset!

This old WWF match caught me completely by surprise. Rockin' Robin vs Sensational Sherry Martel, the reigning WWF champion in a non-title match. I wasn't expecting very much. Sure, I liked Robin & Sherry, but neither of them fit the prototype, to coin a phrase I use over and over again on this blog.
I am happy to say that I was most pleasantly surprised by the way the action played out.
Sherry wound up on the mat and while she was taking a moment to recover, Robin climbed up to the third rope and waited. Sherry got to her feet on unsteady legs and began looking for her opponent. From this point on, the collage above tells the story. Robin leaps off of the top rope, grabs Sherry's head as she's coming down and rams it into the mat in a modified bulldog move.
BAM! Sherry is face down on the mat completely stunned. Robin rolls her over and covers her for the pin! 1,2,3! A sensational upset, just the way I like it.
Kudos and eternal appreciation to whoever put this match together. These final 20 or so seconds have been seared into my brain and remain a source of inspiration to this very day.

Does anyone out there have stories of their favorite upsets? As a fan, I would love to hear about them.

Ultra Girl

sooperhero.com is another one of the early pioneers and trailblazer who had the courage and vision to take this genre to an entirely new level.

Several years ago, I had the pleasure of sharing some thoughts with Brian, the owner, and the result was a character named Ultra Girl who was somewhat different than the regular characters at sooperhero.com.

Here's a little background:
By definition, the superheroine-in-distress genre is about superheoines getting their butts kicked in one manner or another. I am, obviously, all for that, but there was a certain element that was missing for me. It was the build up. The showing of the superheroine as an all-powerful & formidable character. Sure, it was implied in every story, but we wouldn't SEE it. This, of course, does not only apply to sooperhero.com but to practically every producer of this genre. Furthermore, it also makes perfect sense. After all, people like me tune in to see the heroine get destroyed. That's what the market demands, so all too often, the heroine is already in trouble several frames into the story.
I wanted to see a long running storyline where the heroine is built up to epic proportions; where she is made to appear so powerful that she the thought of her losing was inconceivable.
This is one of the things I liked about the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman tv show. Actually, let me correct that. This is one of the things I HATED about the tv show, but also liked. I know, I am confusing you, but bear with me.
Sure, I wanted to see Wonder Woman get taken down all the time, but the fact that it didn't always happen is what kept me on the edge of my seat. The fact that it didn't always happen made it all the more exciting when it actually DID happen.

With this in mind, Brian & I came up with a concept for a long running storyline that would be an addition to the normal weekly fare. It would feature a heroine so powerful that she would even win every week on a site dedicated to heroines being destroyed. Her name was Ultra Girl and she was played by mega superheroine superstar Wren Andrews.

The logic behind this was to let her prevail against all odds over and over again. She was to be built up to be this incredibly powerful heroine that could not be defeated no matter what. And so, week after week she would kick ass, in some cases taking out mega evildoers (like the legendary "bones"), who had a proven track record of taking out powerful heroines.
I wanted this to run for a really long time, but Brian began coming under pressure from subscribers to have Ultra Girl taken out. Still, Brian ran this for nearly 3 months if I recall, before finally taking her out.

As far as I was concerned, this storyline was a MASSIVE success and when Ultra Girl was finally defeated, I found it more exciting than anything else I had seen previously.

Not everyone seemed to share my opinion, however, at least not the ones who would write in. As mentioned, Brian would receive emails complaining about the fact that she would never lose.

The concept of a long running character that never loses until the very end can also be applied in the women's wrestling world. If I had the chance to do this, I would have a wrestler win over and over again. At first, it would be an upset when she defeats a seemingly more powerful and better qualified opponent. As time goes on and she racks up win after impressive win, the tension would build. I would then put her up against another seemingly invincible woman and have her totally squash her. Eventually, she would get finally lose in an astonishing fashion.

This is similar to things I have written about in this blog in the past, specifically regarding Magnificent Mimi and Misty Blue Simmes, and you can check the archives of this blog and read up on it as well.

If you REALLY like the concept, check out the story links to your right. There are 3 pro wrestling fiction stories written more than 11 years ago that totally follow this pattern.

Ultra Girl remains one of my favorite storylines of all time, and I thank Brian for following through with it despite the many complaints ("when is she going to lose?") he had to endure.

For more on Ultra Girl and an immense archive of superheroines in distress stories, check out Superheroine's demise over at sooperhero.com

An ode to the formative years & "is it art?"

As with the Wonder Woman comic cover previously discussed on this blog, this picture is among my earliest inspirations. It came as part of a photoset I ordered from Triumph studios back in 1983 or 1984. Many of you may recognize her as being the great Pamela Ward from Triumph Studios & Golden Girls fame. She may have even been a performer at the Hollywood Tropicana back in the good old wrestling days, but I am not certain about that.

Having never seen a women's wrestling video or movie up until that point (except "All The Marbles") pictures like this would serve as inspiration for many of the fantasies I developed in my head at the time. In this picture, Pamela is a 100% example of what turns me on in some of these fantasies. Everything works. The way her hands rest on her waist. The look on her face. The pose. The suit is a perfect cut. Everything just works making this a wonderful springboard for a very active imagination. The same is true for the picture below. It's nearly perfect.

As fate would have it, these, along with another 2-3 pictures worked so well that when I finally had a chance to see an actual video of her wrestling, it was almost a letdown. This isn't aimed at her specifically. This has happened with some other wrestling performers as well. I like Pamela and have enjoyed watching several videos with her. It's a real shame that she didn't get involved with DT wrestling. I'm sure she would have been a serious star with them.

Speaking of an active imagination, the collage above is something I made while fooling around with photoshop. I like the cut of the suit in this picture and wanted to see what it would like in a variety of combinations that I find exciting. I like how this turned out. I do these kinds of things quite often and I suppose I can call it "my art."
I started doing photomanipulations back in 1996. Over the years, or more accurately, between 1996 and 1999, I did over 400 of them. At first, they were posted on the old supergirl.net site. now they are on the dianathevalkyrie.com

Coming soon....The rise and fall of one of
sooperhero.com's mightiest heroines.