It's about 4 o'clock here on the east coast, which means most of us are relaxing by the TV. We've woken up early, given mom breakfast in bed, maybe gave her a card and present, and are awaiting dinner reservations to come in the next couple of hours. So, I figured while we had some downtime, why not reminisce about some motherly memories!
No, I don't mean memories of my mom! I mean, I could tell you all about her, but since most of you don't actually know my mother, I'm sure the stories would mean little. Just so you know though, she's pretty cool. She was the type of mom that came to all of my concerts, games, ceremonies, etc. She was there, but like any good Jewish mother, she was a yenta and often missed my important moments!
The life of a wrestling mother is even more difficult. While my games were never more than a half an hour from home, wrestlers travel around the globe to perform. For them, it is difficult to have a normal life in terms of family, so watching a son or daughter is very difficult for wrestling moms. I'd imagine it's similar with the mothers of any athletes, the difference being that all sports have an offseason. Yes, it's a difficult profession in terms of family, and although this will never make up for the missed Christmases, Chanukah's, family events, and more, I'd like to commend all the wrestling mothers out there for supporting their children who entertain us all.
We can't fully repay these wonderful women for giving us our favorite performers, but what I figured we could do was talk about the greatest "mom moments" in wrestling history. From time to time, mothers have been featured in storylines, often to personalize feuds. Many times, family storylines border on bad taste (which is why Karen Jarrett does not make this list!), but here are some of the more memorable ones. I'm doing this off the top of my head, so if you remember some better "mom" storylines, please leave some comments or tweet them to me at @FanVsFanMotSS:
5. Shelton Benjamin's Mama - Yes, this was utterly ridiculous. It may have taken an incredible athlete and minimized him to a "mama's boy", but it was a much more successful gimmick than Beaver Cleavage! Now, I'm sorry to break kayfabe, but obviously this was not Shelton's real mother (and spoiler alert: that hot woman playing Beaver's mom wasn't his mom either!). It was an actress who played an over the top character, which is nothing new for sports entertainment. It's usually a piece of eye candy that plays the valet role, but Shelton chose his mama instead for that role. She was hard on him, but helped him win matches including the Intercontinental title when she faked a heart problem. Given her girth, that was probably the most believable part of the story. This was quite over the top, but it was fun for a little while.
4. Edge thanks his mom - Call me what you will, but I'm a sucker for the emotional moments in wrestling. I'm not ashamed to say that I got a bit emotional watching Edge's retirement speeches, especially the one in Albany with his mom in attendance. Having read Edge's book "Adam Copeland on Edge", which I highly recommend, I knew that his mom raised him alone and that she does mean an awful lot to him. Thus, when he mentioned her in his speech, you knew how important that was to him. It was nice to see the bloodthirsty wrestling fans chant "hug your mom!" too, as wrestling fans often get a bad rap, so this was a nice change of pace. What really got me was Edge's response to the chant though. He said "you don't have to tell me twice. That's the first thing I'm going to do when I finish!" Sure enough, he did. It was a touching moment, and I really recommend you do your research to find out exactly what this woman did to support her son. It's truly an inspirational story and will make that moment seem that much greater. Just a feel good moment all around.
3. JBL gives Mrs. Guerrero a heart attack - In 2004, John Bradshaw Layfield was becoming a main eventer. Having been a tag team guy basically his whole career, this was quite a change and was hardly something people were going to believe overnight. He became a J.R. Ewing-esque heel, flaunting his stock market success and patriotism in the faces of WWE fans. However, winning the WWE title became very personal to him and he needed to garner crazy heat. To do so, he supposedly caused champion Eddie Guerrero's mother to have a heart attack at a house show after threatening her. This garnered great heat, but was it in bad taste? Maybe, maybe not, but it certainly made the storyline personal. JBL's character was about pushing buttons and this certainly did so. Plus, Eddie's mom is a very experienced wrestlng mom as the Guerrero family is known as the first family of Mexican wrestling. She knows the business and I'm sure this was no big deal for her. For WWE fans, it was, and it soon led to the end of Eddie's reign at the top.
2. Helen's thrown in the towel! - If Mrs. Guerrero is the first lady of Mexican wrestling, then Long Island's Helen Hart is the first lady of Canadian wrestling. How does that make sense, you ask? Well, Hart was living on Long Island when she met a wrestler named Stu Hart and fell in love. The two moved to Calgary and the rest is history. They had 12 children and started a wrestling dynasty that still lives today. You know their grandchildren as DH Smith, Natalya, and Tyson Kidd (who's basically an adopted Hart child). Before this generation, there was the children, and the most successful wrestlers of that bunch were Bret and Owen. In perhaps my favorite feud of all time, Owen got "jealous little brother syndrome" and started a year long storyline where he turned heel on his brother. Many times throughout this feud, Helen and Stu were shown in the stands as it was made clear that this feud was tearing the family apart. It wasn't until Survivor Series 1994 that she actually got involved though. At that event, Owen was in Bob Backlund's corner while Davey Boy Smith (The British Bulldog) was in Bret's. The idea of the match was that if the wrestler needed to quit, the manager would need to throw in the towel. Well, Davey Boy got knocked out so Owen persuaded his mother to throw in the towel for Bret as she couldn't take seeing her son in so much pain. This didn't turn her heel, but it certainly drew heat on Owen for screwing his brother by using his mother. While she wouldn't get too involved in wrestling matters from her on in, this moment was quite important in the scheme of wrestling. Then again, Helen herself is quite important in the scheme of wrestling, if for nothing else being the standard bearer for wrestling moms!
1. The Slap Heard Around The World - In case you didn't know by now, the McMahons have been portrayed as quite the disfunctional family. Pretty much everyone in the family has feuded with one another, and everyone has been portrayed as evil. Well, almost everyone. For the majority of her on screen appearances, the McMahon matriarch has been portrayed as the level-headed member of a crazy family, though she did once hire Steve Austin to be CEO of her company! She hasn't been featured a lot, as her job in WWE is to run the business end of things (when she isn't running for office). Still, she's had a few memorable moments on screen, from acting comatose to screwing the Corporate Ministry, to helping her son beat her husband at Wrestlemania 17. While that was a nice mother/son moment, perhaps her most famous on screen moment was when she took a slap from her ungrateful daughter. The best part of that moment was that she sold the slap better than Hulk Hogan ever sold any bodyslam! She went down to the mat with it, and that moment continues to live in infamy. I must say, to deal with that family, she has to be some sort of saint, and to go through with humiliation at the hands of her daughter on national television, well she's just a trooper! I have a ton of respect for Linda McMahon, and taking that slap certainly helped solidify it.
While we've had these moments on screen that have been anywhere from fun to distasteful, let's not forget the true meaning of today. It's a day about moms, the first women in our lives. For many wrestlers, their moms were and are their rocks, as mine is for me. We had some fun looking at how ridiculous mom stories can be on WWE TV, and I'm sure we all have our own ridiculous mom stories. Remember though that today is about appreciating mom, so share those stories, smile, and say the two most important words you can ever say to your mother.
Thank you.
Written by:
