By The Masked Embroiderer
Five pieces of wrestling art chosen by a member of our Scottish Wrestling community.
This time with… Retro Randy Valentine
A very interesting approach to choose ‘Artists’ and their work for his Top 5. Excellent stuff. I think we’ll have to have a follow up article and get Randy to elaborate on his own hobbies also. Thank you for taking part Retro Man!
First artist I’m going to highlight has to be Aspen Faith’s Bearhug Designs. For those that don’t know, on top of being a solid all round wrestler, Aspen also designs and creates graphics, show posters, merch and any other mad nonsense that comes into his head. He’s got a very unique style in so much as he has no immediately identifiable style.
The range of styles he has used when creating graphics, posters and merch has been eclectic to say the least. His most recent “you done goofed” design pays homage to the recent member of the public domain, Steampunk Willie, and is well worth checking out. There’s a good chance if you’ve seen a really cool wrestling poster in Scotland, it’s one of Aspen’s.
Second artist would be Golden Era of Wrestling over on Instagram. They’re currently going through a run of early 90’s WCW wrestler “figures” in a style that is reminiscent of the old Hasbro WWF figures (who doesn’t love them) but with the artist’s own unique take on the characters.
Every one of them is instantly recognisable, despite being heavily stylised. Loved by one of the biggest wrestling toy geeks out there, Matt Cardona. You know if he likes it, it must be good.
Next up is a group of “artists”. If wrestling matches are an art form then these guys created a Picasso. The Foundation FROM the Future, Zach Dynamite, Ryan Riley and Brad Evans along with Johnny Lions, Caleb Valhalla and Aspen Faith. These six guys did “comedy” in a way that has to be seen to be believed. With the highlight being all six men crashing to the mat in slow motion.
The ability to entertain and the subtle athleticism moved this from being a simple “comedy match” to a physical expressionist performance. Something extremely unique that I doubt anyone other than the six guys involved could have pulled off.
Sticking with a similar theme my next piece of art is quite possibly my favourite wrestling video on YouTube. Do yourself a favour, stop reading this and go type in “The Fabulous Bakewell Boys Life on Mars”.
Go do it now then come back.
You’re welcome.
Words can’t express how warm and fuzzy that video makes me feel inside. Rob Cage was a British wrestling treasure and is sorely missed (he’s not dead, just moved to Canada).
I’m going to stick on the same road and talk about former Rob Cage tag partner and Buffet Club member, Gene Munny.
If you’re not familiar with that damn dirty dog, go check out his stuff. His promos are unique, his matches feature some truly inventive stuff and his commitment to the persona (whichever one that may be) is outstanding. Another very rare talent that has taken wrestling and molded it into something completely different, while still instantly recognisable as wrestling. America may have Danhausen, but the UK scene has a damn dirty Doghausen.
How many is that? Five? Do I get five or six? Because like any shameless shill I’m gonna throw myself out there too (even though I’m rarely happy with my result) Over the years I’ve produced limited runs of figures for Discovery Wrestling in Scotland and Dansk Pro Wrestling over in Denmark.
Dabbled in t-shirt design, cartoons, merch… aside from wrestling I love sculpting things out of junk, painting, sketching, clay, etc etc etc. Basically if it’s arty leaning towards crafty, I’ll have a bit of it.
Currently make my own entrance robe/cape inspired by the “Macho Man” Randy Savage. Go trawling through my socials, you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Like my socials. Follow me for stuff. I kinda want to do some crafting videos this year so if you have any interest in that stuff, like my insta.
You can go and check out Randy’s socials below.
SCOTTISH WRESTLING NETWORK | SWN 