Pro wrestling can be a little crazy when it’s being presented as something to be taken seriously. When you turn it into parody? You get Southpaw Regional Wrestling.
Earlier today, WWE premiered four episodes of Southpaw Regional Wrestling, a fictional dying pro wrestling territory from back in 1987. The video is supposed to be a parody of regional wrestling organizations, and also an outlet for the kind of backstage humor that the current roster of wrestlers do to keep themselves entertained.
How can you NOT be entertained by the jacket Chris Jericho is wearing? Also, what is Rusev doing with his hand there?
The first episode introduces the concept and some of the characters from the regional promotion:
Things get zanier with each new episode, like Bulgarian brute Rusev dressed as farmer Big Bartholomew, hoping not to lose his farm to The Banker. Meanwhile, lead commentator Lance Catamaran, played by John Cena, pines for the days where he was an anchor in Utica NY. You know it’s bad when you’re longing for Utica.
It just keeps going.
The Southpaw Regional Wrestling episodes are building to a big show called Lethal Leap Year, scheduled for Feb. 29, 1987… Yeah, that didn’t work out all that well for the failing group…
This was just goofy fun, posted to the WWE’s website to show the personalities of some of their superstars. Unfortunately, some of them – like Tyler Breeze as the Banker or The Ascension as the Surf Dudes With Attitudes or Luke Gallows as Tex Ferguson – show more personality in these short segments than they do on the weekly TV shows they star in.
If you’re a fan of old school wrestling from the 1980s, check these videos out. If you aren’t, well, check it out anyway. Maybe it’ll help Lance Catamaran get back to that anchor desk in Utica, NY.