BRANdonBLOG 02: Spoopy Season

I will preface this month’s entry by saying that I will do all I can to prevent this from turning into a listicle.

Oh hey dere! 👋🏻 Thanks for coming by this part of the interwebs to read all about the BRANdonBLOG © as I churn out Issue #02 ©! Friendly reminder that copyright infringement is a civil crime! 😉

Bah, I’m kidding with all the threats. I don’t mean to exploit any situations for financial gain, as I am but a humble blogger (and a couple other things that don’t need me playing with litigation). ANYHOO, hey! It’s nearly Halloween, guys and ghouls! The kiddos are putting on the costumes in hopes of getting bags full o’ candy, the girlies are putting on the costumes in hopes of getting….uh….whatever it is they want, and the fellas are all being manchildren getting fvcked up dressed as Deadpool or Mario or Rey Mysterio or whoever it is these days. Buncha degenerates. How anyone can engage in such heathenous debauchery is beyond my ability to comprehend.

I will say, I do not have the numbers in front of me; however, I have to imagine that one of the most lucrative times in Q4 for pro wrestling companies in terms of merch sales has got to be Halloween. One of my favorite features of many a wrestler from my childhood til now has been one seminal piece of a broader ensemble that really pulls the room, er, wrestler together, as well as coin into the coffers of many a promoter: the mask.

All pro wrestlers look to have one thing that makes them readily identifiable to just about anyone you ask anywhere in the world. Some wrestlers have logos that you can slap on a shirt like the Brahma Bull or a couple letters or words in some clean font like nWo and Perros del Mal. Some wrestlers got a bit of emotive action like DX with the crotch-choppin’ or Bullet Club doing a little bang-bang. In the case of the mask, it can range in importance from a gimmicky moneygrab to a horcrux - a vessel containing the heart, soul, and identity of the wrestler who dons it. Think El Santo. Jushin “Thunder” Liger. Kane, if you have a chip on your shoulder about that one!

Dammitall, I said I wouldn’t do it to ya, but as ⅓ of the Ope-Eh 3-Way and a sipper of the suds, I’m gonna throw down a SIXER!!

(Everyone’s doing Top 5, 10, 100, whatever. I’m doing six, so there 🍻)

In no particular order, here are six of my favorite masks in ALL of pro wrestling! Let’s roll…

Drago (AAA/Lucha Underground)

Truly one of the most unique masks I’ve seen in pro wrestling, and one that has few equals in detail and overall cool factor to this day. Drago’s entire look was derivative of the intricacies of his mask, and every presentation Drago had was grandiose and evocative as the legendary beast to whom it was attributed.

Ultimo Dragon (WCW/CMLL/Japan)

Sensing a pattern? Follow me here.

Never mind a Rey Mysterio; Ultimo Dragon was MY first masked hero. Before I delved too much into watching wrestling on the ol’ boob tube (not much to watch without cable in the ‘90s), I cracked open an issue of Nintendo Power in February 1998 and out springs Ultimo Dragon from a feature of WCW/nWo: World Tour for the Nintendo 64 🥲. I later learned that the man under this shroud was the innovator of the Asai moonsault, a holder of enough gold to make a San Francisco prospector shit a brick, and today I learned….he’s STILL wrestling??

Big Van Vader (WCW/Japan/WWF)

Less can be more. In some cases: much, much more. Seems an ironic statement, considering the size of the man that made this mask famous. Vader, rest his soul, was one of the first big men I had ever seen to wear a mask. The folks at New Japan had the right idea, because it wasn’t enough for him to be 450 lbs doing friggin’ flips; they had to slap a mask on him that granted him an otherworldly visage, and I didn’t even factor in his damn mastodon helmet!

The Fiend (WWE)

This one blew my friggin’ hair back when I first saw it. Bray Wyatt had been taking WWE fans down a rabbit hole situated in the Firefly Fun House and one wrong turn led to the introduction of a presence hinted at well before its formal and freaky introduction (see on YouTube: “Bray Wyatt and the man in the woods”). So much has been said about how the character was handled once it made the airwaves, and the shame of it all is how much room it and the mask still had to literally and metaphorically evolve - as the 2K crowd can attest.

Alas, Bray had left us far, far too soon for he or any of us to see fruition - and that is the biggest shame of them all.

Hayabusa (FMW/CMLL)

On the note of influential wrestlers whose time came far before anybody was ready, Hayabusa has to top many a list. In addition to his revolutionary moveset, his mask was as striking as his vocal prowess (watch him sing “Stand by Me”, if you don’t believe me). The ace of one of the most infamous pro wrestling companies of the 20th century in FMW, Hayabusa and his falcon-faced fury made his way to American shores in the late ‘90s and briefly stinted in ECW alongside hardcore trendsetters like Rob Van Dam and Sabu, taking some of their essence with him back to Japan.

Metalik (Independent)

This was TOUGH, as there are so many dang good masks to go through yet. La Sombra. Samuray del Sol. Mistico. Hell, even that gimpy shit that Shun Skywalker’s got on pops me a bit (pause). Something about (Gran) Metalik/Mascara Dorada’s mask has always drawn my eye. Sharp shapework, versatile palettes, what’s not to like? It also rests atop one of the more underrated luchadores who is only recently getting fanfare that is befitting his enormous talent.

Okay, you got through this spoopy sixer with me, aaaayyy congrats! You think you got better than me? Prove it! Leave me a comment in da blog, and I will argue with you so fast! Other than that, I just wanna say thank ya for getting this far with me, and THANK YOU MILWAUKEE BREWERS for doing Ueck proud in the big celestial broadcast booth and taking the first World Series for our fair city since the days of Hank Aaron!

Roll out the barrel, and we’ll keep on rollin’ into the holiday season! Welp, see ya in November! 🍻