Opinion by S_D

It must really suck to be Bob Holly.

Let's take a look back at Robert Howard's illustrious career, shall we? He debuts in the 1994 Royal Rumble. But wait, only as an alternate for The 1-2-3 Kid who was injured a week before the Rumble. An alternate for the 1-2-3 Kid. Not a good foot to start off on, Bob. His debut name was Thurmann "Sparky" Plugg, which I always found funny because when Bob debuted I was in 4th grade and our class pet was a guinea pig named "Sparky." Ouch.

Sparky floundered around doing jack squat until late-1994. You see, Diesel and Shawn Michaels had one of their little lover's quarrels. The WWE Tag Team Title was a casualty of their spat, and the title was put up for grabs in a tournament. The tournament was set to conclude at the 1995 Royal Rumble. The final two teams were Bam Bam Bigelow & Tatanka, representing Ted Dibiase's Million Dollar Corporation, and the cinderella team of Sparky, who's name had been thankfully changed to "Bob 'Spark Plugg' Holly", and the 1-2-3 Kid. Ok, Bob "Spark Plugg" Holly isn't a great improvement, but it's better than freakin' Thurmann Plugg.
And why are they regarded as a cinderella team? Because they wore dresses and told they'd never be Tag Team Champions by their evil stepmother, Vince McMahon? Well, No. See, Bob and The Kid weren't actually in the tournament to begin with. They were replacements for the Smoking Gunns, because Billy had suffered a minor neck injury and needed a couple weeks off. Anyways, the unthinkable occurs and Bob and the Kid win the belts and everyone goes nuts. Bam Bam went so crazy, he went out an attacked retired NFL star Lawrence Taylor, setting up the worst main event in WrestleMania history. This moment of elation wouldn't last long, as the very next night on Monday Night Raw, the Gunns absolutely wiped the floor with Holly and the Kid to win the belts from them. Poor Bob.

Things started to drop deader than Al Wilson for Bob until about 3 months later. On an edition of The Action Zone (WWE's former Sunday 12:00pm show on USA Network) Bob Holly wrestled Jeff Jarrett in an Intercontinental Title match. While everyone thought Jarrett would just go on and squash Holly, our favorite disgruntled race car driver had other plans. Bob hit some sort of impact move and got a 3 count, seemingly won the Intercontinental Title, and probably made Dave Meltzer rip out all of his hair from his geeky perm mullet in the process. However, just to stick it to Holly again and because Lord knows all WWE matches must be completely fair, another referee came out and noted that Jarrett had his foot on the bottom rope when the count was made. Holly had committed a cardinal sin that must be righted and a rematch was signed for the next week's show. Jarrett unceremoniously destroyed Holly easily and became the I-C Champ again without dispute. Now there is some contention whether or not Bob should be regarded as a former Intercontinental Champ. His WWE.Com bio doesn't list it, but sometimes when he came out to the ring pre-brand extension, J.R. would call him a former I-C Champ. This is a hard one to dispute since both Jim Ross and WWE.Com's staff are complete idiots, but since it'll piss off Bob, I'm going to say he never held the belt. Another knife cut in the career back of Bob.

This is where it gets fun for Bob and all of us who hate him. Bob did absolutely nothing of note from the 1995-1998 time period. There are only two distinct memories I have of Sparky (GOD he must hate that tagged name) from this time period. 1) Being Triple H's first PPV defeat at SummerSlam 1995 and 2) pinning Intercontinental Champion Owen Hart clean in a non-title match in Holly's hometown in June 1997. Holly talked about this during the RAW is OWEN show on May 24th, 1999. He said that Owen volunteered to put him over since they were in his hometown (and because Owen knew a loss to Holly wouldn't dent his heat any, since he was in the awesome Hart Foundation angle at the time). Holly was rewarded with a rematch against Owen the next week with the title on the line, but read above in his second match with Jarrett to see the results of this match. Sparky's heart must have been breaking.

Holly pretty much dropped off the face of the earth until mid-1998. At this time period, to combat the unbelievable popularity of the nWo invasion of WCW, WWE tried their own invasion. They had Jim Cornette head up the invasion of the NWA. Just one letter off. Cornette had his NWA Champion in Jeff Jarrett in, so he needed some NWA Tag Team Champions as well. And guess who Cornette introduced? The New Midnight Express, made up of "Bombastic" Bart Gunn and "Bodacious" Bob Holly. Gone was the race car driver gimmick and in was bleached blonde hair for Bob, complete with shining bald spot. Well, this new Midnight Express (along with the NWA invasion angle as a whole) turned out to be an abysmal failure, even though they won the NWA Tag Titles. The NWA angle was shortly abandoned. The team was widely regarded as a slap in the face to the original Midnight Express. But it didn't really matter, because at this point in 1998, everyone was masturbating over Austin vs. McMahon. Another kick in the pants for Thurmann and WWE went on to botch another certain invasion 3 years later. But there was no Austin\McMahon phenomenon to save them then.

Holly resurfaced again with a shaved head in late 1998 as a member of Al Snow's Job Squad, a group that was consisted of those who felt as if they had been abused by management with stupid gimmicks earlier in their career. The group consisted of Bob, Snow, 2 Cold Scorpio, Duane "Gillberg" Gill, and The Blue Meanie. The group quickly fell apart though as Scorpio was fired for his drug problems and Meanie was shortly fired (although an amazing internet petition got him his job back later). Sucks for Plugg.

This is where Holly's career hits his peak, and it was quite a peak. Seriously, Bob did good for himself in early to mid-1999. At WWE's February 1999 "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" pay-per-view, Road Dogg was scheduled to defend the Hardcore Title against Al Snow. Well, Road Dogg's a crackhead and he had to go into sudden rehab so the title was held up. Snow didn't have an opponent until Bob Holly showed up, basically said he was sick of the Job Squad crap, and wanted to beat Al. In the match that J.R. immortalizes as the "Mississippi River Match," Holly actually got the pinfall over Snow in the Mississippi River and won the title. This is where "Hardcore Holly" was born, and it really did pick up some steam after a while. Bob lost the Hardcore title 2 weeks before Wrestlemania 15 to "Bad Ass" Billy Gunn, but quickly regained it in a 3 Way Dance at WM15 against Gunn and Al. Yes, Holly won a title on a Wrestlemania. I told you he was picking up some steam. Bob lost the title 2 PPVs later to Al Snow, but this was just a way to elevate Holly. Hardcore Holly was seriously beginning to get big heat from the crowd everytime he came out, especially when he started billing himself as the superheavyweight "Big Shot". He even became briefly affiliated with The Big Show & The Undertaker while their tag team was running. Hardcore Holly found a niche with the fans and it looked like his career was heading for huge things.

But it all came down in a...Crash.

In mid-99, Vince Russo (WWE's head writer at the time) decided to change directions completely with Holly. He killed off Holly's interraction with Big Show & Undertaker and introduced Hardcore Holly's cousin "Crash Holly". He was independent worker Erin O'Grady and when Crash came along, the heat died. No one dug Crash at all, and all the heat Bob got for himself completely died. Even though they pulled the upset of upsets one night on RAW in September 1999 when they defeated The Rock & Mankind to win the WWE Tag Team Titles, the fans just wouldn't accept Crash, and Holly was guilty by association.

From the time Crash was introduced until now, save for a very brief mid-2000 4 way Intercontinental title feud involving himself, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, and Val Venis, Holly has done nothing but flounder around in the lower-card and has done absolutely nothing of note.

Wait, I take that back.

He's gotten a myriad of injuries. Kurt Angle shattered his arm while performing an errant moonsault in June 2000. Holly was on the shelf for 5 months. Holly had to leave again and get all of the hardware taken out of his arm which put him out for another 6 months. During this 6 month downtime, Holly was the token harsh trainer on the 2nd season of Tough Enough. When Holly got done healing, he came back and got hurt again. You see, Holly tried to be a jerk and was stiffing Brock Lesnar during a Smackdown match in October 2002. This is where Holly's intelligence, or lack thereof, shows. Brock Lesnar is not someone anyone should be stiffing unless they have a death wish. Holly learned this lesson the hard way. Lesnar went for a powerbomb on Holly, and Holly basically gave him nothing to help him along. Lesnar just basically said, "Fine, screw you then," and dropped Holly right on his neck. Holly had to have neck fusion surgery (the same surgery Austin, Benoit, Rhyno, Lita, and Scotty 2 Hotty had to have) and is projected to be out for at least one year, or October 2003 if you're counting.

Of course, the main reason Bob Holly's name has been buzzing around lately is because of his actions on the 1\9\03 episode of Tough Enough 3. Basically, what happened was Bob came in as a special guest. The 5 remaining contestants were working a match against the 3 trainers and Holly. Keep in mind this episode was taped a couple weeks before Holly had his surgery and right after the injury happened, so he's obviously got some agression to take out. Holly gets tagged in while Matt (the kid with shoulder-length, curly, blonde hair) is in. Holly basically destroys this kid in the ring. All of his punches are legitimately landing, his kicks are hitting square on. Very shortly, it becomes apparent that this is no accident, and Bob is seriously going nuts on this poor kid, who has blood pooring out of his face by the end of it all.

Now, I have gone through actual wrestling training and the number one thing they pound in your head is the message that says "protect your opponent at all costs". It's been said to me by trainers that, "If you have to break your back to protect your opponent, your back had better be broken or else you're in some deep s**t." Bob basically went against everything wrestling stands for and beat the crap out of this kid. If Matt doesn't win one of the two slots, I'd say he's got a pretty good base for a lawsuit on his hands. I mean, these kids were told what all wrestling trainees are told. "Protect your opponent." And then this bitter lunatic Bob Holly comes in and does the exact opposite of what the kids had learned, and assaults one of them. That's basically what he did, folks.

Assault.

It's a joke. Bob Holly is a joke and quite frankly, he should be fired. He's nothing but dead weight anyways and contributes nothing to Smackdown or WWE as a whole. Nobody cares about him, he's getting up there in age, he's nothing but an injury magnet now, and he proved that he was willing to break the #1 law of wrestling just to make himself feel better. Also, no wrestler who has respect for this industry should agree to work with this maniac. I know I sure wouldn't entrust my health in the hands of a nutcase like this.

Fire him.

But if WWE insists on keeping him around, put him in the ring with D'Lo Brown and tell Brown to practice his Running Lyger Bombs. Maybe then Holly would respect the virtue of protecting your opponent.

Would Bob be so tough in a wheelchair? It would be nice to find out.

S_D

©2003, WrestlingDB.

Last Edited: Thursday, January 16th, 2003 - 11:19 am EST