Rick Rude. Magnum TA. Jake "The Snake" Roberts. Hulk Hogan. Big Bully Busick. What do these men have in common? Hilarious crack pipe anecdotes? Nah, that's just Jake. An innate ability to cause fans to emote, to wrap them up in a given match, and reap the economic rewards? Almost, though Busick didn't draw as well as hoped. No, the common denominator in this list of Legends* is the one, the only---the mustache. But in the mid 90's the mustache had fallen on hard times. Not the Big Bossman kind, the bad kind. Hulk Hogan's wild experimentation with beard paint (what?) and the flickering stardom of the likes of Roberts and Rude left the ol' pushbroom in a state of disrepair. Thankfully, one man had the gumption to win a championship, and most importantly, do it while rockin' the 'stache: Dan "The Beast" Severn.
"Let me tell ya something, brother, my mustache, dude, picked up the 700 pound Andre the Giant, brother, and singlehandedly settled the Iran-Contra scandal, dude, so me and all my Mustachemaniacs*, jack, are gonna be here for a long time!"
-Hulk Hogan, from "Handlebar-stool Blues", off of Hulk Hogan and the Wrestling Boot Traveling Band: The Yellow Album, 1998
By 1995, the NWA was in shambles. After the WCW pullout and Shane Douglas rejecting the championship, the World title looked pretty secondhand. Thirdhand, actually. Anyway, the NWA needed a champion who could rekindle the glory days of the territorial title. Someone who loved competition. Someone willing to travel the world. Someone who could by-God wrestle. With that in mind, at the historic Erlanger, KY community center (or, hell, it could have been some redneck's backyard), the "Beast" wrested the "coveted" title from Chris Candido. Finally the NWA had their champion who loved to compete.
Unfortunately, he loved to compete just about everywhere except NWA territories. Over the next few years, Dan won a triple crown of titles in the early days of the UFC, defeating other Ultimate Fighting pioneers like Billy Blenks, A Gorilla On Steroids, and his future arch-nemesis, Ken Shamrock.
"C'mon, you wanna mess with me? I'm in my zone! Snappage! Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!"
-Ken Shamrock, from his audition for "Daddy Daycare", 2002
Then, just for kicks, Dan Severn became a WWE Superstar*. Unfortunately for him, it was 1998, deep in the middle of the "Attitude" era, and pre-Kurt Angle, so being able to actually wrestle didn't really mean crap. As a result, sales of his "plain grey sweaty*" t-shirts and inflatable mustaches slowed to a crawl. He managed to advance in the King of The Ring tournament by ripping D-Lo Brown's arm off, but met defeat at the hands of The Rock in a match called "great" and "14/10" by impartial observer Stan "The Best" Schmevern. Keep in mind, during this whole period, the NWA title isn't seen or mentioned. Orville Brown rose from the dead, threw up, and did a shooting star press back into his grave.
"What the hell does popcorn have to do with this?"
-Projected fan response, MSCNNCWPNBC.com poll
After entering the 1999 Royal Rumble at an "evenly timed interval", Severn also won an opening round match in the "Brawl for All" tourney. He then pulled out and kept pulling straight outta WWE, allowing fellow Fighting Machine The Godfather to advance. Severn then lost the NWA title to1992 Judo silver metalist Naoya Ogawa (pronounced like a deaf person saying "No, yeah, okay, what?") But Dan had already made his mark. By holding the title for 1479 days, third longest ever, he leapfrogged over posers like Harley Race and Gene Kiniski and became one of the sports living Legends*. And what did he have to thank? Mustache.
Well, until Mike Awesome introduces us to his cousin, "Total" Lee Awesome, I am, in fact, James E. Couture.
Or is it moustache!
(*Legends, Superstars, and Plain Grey Sweaty are registered trademarks of WWE. Mustachemania and Mustachemaniacs are registered trademarks of Marvel Comics. Orville Brown held possibly the earliest version of the NWA title. No more footnotes, I promise)
