Wrestling: it’s weird! If Hell In a Cell and its fallout (I wasn’t watching live but I hear some stockholders are upset that the spooky clown didn’t win a championship) wasn’t proof enough, think about how the frontman of the Smashing Pumpkins owns the National Wrestling Alliance, a name with a history that stretches back to the early 1900s. Oh, that’s not weird enough? Well how about Master P casually announcing that he’s the new owner of House of Glory wrestling?
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In an interview with TMZ, Master P stepped all over the announcement of a reality show about love (the greatest treasure of all) to say that he’s getting into professional wrestling through the acquisition of House of Glory. The promotion and wrestling school, founded by indie wrestling legends Amazing Red and Brian XL, has played host to names like the Young Bucks, Santana and Ortiz, the Lucha Brothers, Matt and Jeff Hardy, and Ricochet in the past. Now Master P promises to bring hip hop to professional wrestling through HOG, perhaps the greatest wrestling wedding possible.
This won’t be the first time Master P has tried his hand at the squared circle. In 1999, World Championship Wrestling tried to cash in on the rising mainstream popularity of rap music by creating a wrestling stable around Master P’s name and image. The No Limit Soldiers (whose most prominent members were Rey Mysterio, Konnan, and Brad Armstrong) had a brief run from June to September. The most polite way of remembering that time is to say that it wasn’t good, even if Silkk the Shocker stomped on Curt Hennig’s cowboy hat before Master P assaulted him with a birthday cake. That said, the feud between the No Limit Soldiers and the West Texas Rednecks did produce the song “Rap Is Crap (I Hate Rap),” which was the last great entry in the world of wrestlers making music until “Macho Man” Randy Savage dropped his legendary rap album Be A Man in 2003.
As for 2019, it’ll be interesting to see how a small wrestling promotion does or doesn’t benefit from a celebrity owner. Adopting No Limit’s aesthetic would bring a much needed breath of fresh air to indie wrestling’s stale routine of naming shows after cult movies. Maybe the second part of Malcom Bivens’ prophecy that Master P would return to wrestling this year will come true and O-Town will be brought in to pop the New York territory. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised.
