Couture's Championship Profiles: WCW Hardcore Champion(s) Big Vito & Johnny The Bull

Couture's Championship Profiles: WCW Hardcore Champion(s) Big Vito & Johnny The Bull

Folks, it's the only guy stupid enough to drive 50 miles into northern Maine to see the Honky Tonk Man at the Fairfield Community Center, me, James E. Couture. Well, I'm gonna do what I do adequately and MAKE HISTORY yet again this week, as I will profile TWO CONSECUTIVE TITLE REIGNS. Since one and a half of them are the same guy, I figure there's no real reason for me to double back somewhere in the future, except for if I become a no-talent hack (more so). Astute Profile fans (I call them Jim-aphorodites) know I already covered Finlay's WCW Hardcore Champion Trophy, but this will be the first time I tackle the actual, factual, championship belt.

First off, this Profile is talking about Vito the wrestler, not Bam Margera's uncle, Don Vito, although I think I remember him getting a Cruiserweight Title shot.

"Fuggajadawah mel cuh trezbolt. You guys are a bunch of vulcan idiots! Gahbejattaloo! Bam, gimme the thousand, not 18!"
-Don Vito, E! interview about "The Ringer 2: Corky's Back!", 2005

Anyway, the year was 2000. While the WWE had respectable Hardcore Champions like Crash Holly and Godfather's Ho, on June 6, 2000, Eric Bischoff defeated Terry Funk for the WCW Hit-Guys-With-Crap Championship. That's as far as I'll go right now, as that whole fibacle (fiasco + debacle) is a "gimme" I need to save for when I'm all out of love, uh, ideas, and I'm so lost without you, uh, sleep.

Rather than defend the title against Oliver Platt (if you don't know, look it up), Eric decided to do the "hardcore" thing and surrender the title voluntarily, using his indeterminate powers to award the title some lucky individual(s). But who?

If you guessed Big Vito and Johnny "The Bull" Stramboli, congratulations, you're literate! Indeed, in what was undoubtedly the biggest announcement ever concerning the WCW Hardcore Championship, and believe me, there were A LOT of big ones, Easy E named Vito and Stumboli as co-Champions, only the second time more than one person held THAT title THAT year.

"Gluh, yeah, I won da title from doze guys in 3-Count. Y'know, Shannon Sharpe and those other two guys. I think one of them was a boxer or something. Right, Hulkster?"
-Brian Knobbs, Access Hollywood's on-set report of "*SNORT*, Yeah Boss!: The Bebop Biography", 2002

So began the glorious reign of the Marmadukes, uh, Marmalades, dammit, Marmalukes! Like another great champion of history, Ronald "The Pagan" Reagan, Vito and Johnny tore down that (The) Wall in a handicap title defense. Sadly, these fantastic nine star classics would go unnoticed, as by this time WCW had become a company you wouldn't even watch during Raw's commercial breaks.

June 19, 2000, a.d., or CE if you're an anal retentive history teacher, was one of the most monumental days in the history of civilization, and not just because it was the ten-day anniversary of my fourteenth birthday. No, it was also the day there would be...one. After days of endless controversey, Michael Cole's fruit booty drinking buddy defeated FBI Member #162 in a match some remember taking place to this very day. By doing so, he joined Chris Jericho, Lou Thesz, Scott Hall, and Chris Jericho again as one of the great unifiers, and became the UNDISPUTED Hardcore Champion (as recognized by WCW).

"Listen Junior, on December, uh....eleventeenth, I unified the two (major, American) World titles and became Undisputed Champion, so that I could have some real credibility to go on VH1 over, and OVER A-GAIN!!!"
-Chris Jericho, VH1's Inside Look at "Little Debbie Presents: Fozzy, featuring the Mark Jindrak 5", 2006

Vito reigned supreme as Hardcore Champion for 35 days, the fourth longest reign in history. Along the way he felled legendary figures in the world of sports entertainment like David Flair and The Demon, using his fable weapon of choice, the stickball stick (it was a stick). Of course, he would soon run into the Canadian Bandsaw called Lance Storm, and toil in earnest in the wrestling world until finally making it big six years later by wearing a dress, very similar Hall of Famer and fellow definitive Hardcore Champion Pat Patterson.

Well, until Triple H is sidelined with an injury and is "repackaged" as Tom Zenk's brainy long-lost cousin, "Cerebral" Paul Z., I am, in fact, James E. Couture.

Fugjadewagalah, mecohfytill!