Lucky Thirteen #1
Faces and the Men Who Paint Them
Written by Mark Adam Haggerty
When other sites are counting down from ten, we take it a step further and present you with the Lucky Thirteen. Ladies and Gentlemen my name is Mark Haggerty and I have earned sort of a reputation for thinking like a JACK GONE OFF HIS SPRING—that means OUTSIDE THE BOX, PEOPLE! I figured with the recent debut of "The Vigilante" Sting, we had better start the series off with a subject that is near and dear to my heart and that is FACE PAINT! Decorating yourself for battle is a tribal practice which dates back thousands of years and is still used today in the wide world of professional wrestling. The art of painting one’s face appears to be a trend falling farther by the wayside as we dig deeper into the 21st Century. But not all wrestlers still sporting a veil of liquid secrecy are relics of the 1980’s or 90’s, as you will soon find out. Let’s talk about faces, and the men who paint them.
13. Doink
I had to start my countdown somewhere and when taking into consideration the overall criteria, it seemed fitting to lead off with Doink the Clown. Doink is last because he wears clown makeup—hardly a cutting edge concept by any means, especially when he was first introduced to a national audience in the 1990s. But when all the WWF needed was a clown, it would have been very easy to phone it in and underperform on the delivery. From the white face to the green hair to the red nose and colorful wardrobe, Doink may not have been anywhere near ahead of his time, but he was an clever concept that we still talk about over twenty years later.
12. Papa Shango
Charles Wright was one of the WWE's longest tenured employees, having held a job for the better part of the 1990's and clear through the turn of the century. While Attitude Era junkies might only recall Wright's role as the conductor of the "Ho Train"—The Godfather, it's always fun to think back on the Voodoo Demon that started it all. Charles began his career with the WWF by filling various roles on TV and finally found his footing as the evil sorcerer known as Papa Shango. Shango went on to have historic encounters with The Ultimate Warrior among others, but perhaps most memorable was the ghostly white skeleton make up that turned an everyday Kama Mustafa into the spell-casting, skull-shaking Papa Shango.
11. Umaga
This list is comprised mainly of full-face make up that in some cases takes hours to apply, but I wanted to take a moment to dedicate at least one entry to the more traditional tribal patterns that prompted man to paint his face for war in the first place. It's sad to think that Umaga is no longer with us, especially when you consider he only made his WWE main roster debut in 2006. Umaga's face was made up with black ink made to resemble permanent tattoos similar to the ancestral warriors of his family. The markings were carefully documented and applied show, week by week in the same sort of style. As time went on, the evolution of the pattern was altered if ever so slightly, but for the most part, the paint that Umaga wore proudly to the ring each night was expertly redrawn each and every time.
10. The Stalker
In 1996 the WWF signed free agent and former NWA mainstay Barry Windham and rather than billing the former Horseman by name and capitalizing on any notoriety earned thereafter, WWF Creative opted to deck the decorated athlete in camo and designate him, "The Stalker." What a weird turn of events, especially when you consider the experience Barry had to share with younger talent at that point in his career during an era dubbed by Vince McMahon, "The New Generation." The Stalker wasn't as creepy as his name would let on, but he still set up shop in the woods and gave promos that began with his eyes fading ever so slowly into view. It was horrendous, but the face paint was rather nifty in that it covered Barry's entire face and made a very well-known wrestler virtually unrecognizable. There have been a lot of military themed paint jobs done in the world of wrestling, but I think the best would have to be "The Stalker" Barry Windham.
9. Abe “Knuckleball” Schwartz
If we're going to talk about impressive face paint then we can't leave "The Brooklyn Brawler" Steve Lombardi out of the conversation. Though his potential was admittedly limited, and he never had any sort of memorable moments on TV, Abe "Knuckleball" Schwartz had one of the most detailed face paint jobs in the history of the business. His entire head was done up to look like—you guessed it, a baseball! Schwartz was coated in all white complete with stitches wrapping along the edges of his face. And even though most fans can't put their finger on ever seeing old "Knuckleball" wrestle, he will forever be remembered for having one of the Greatest Painted Faces in History.
8. The Great Muta
The Great Muta is one of the most legendary characters in the sport of professional wrestling, both on the shores of Japan and here in the United States of America. His tenure with the NWA and time spent wrestling WCW stars into the 2000's helped introduce Keiji Mutoh to, and kept him associated with a wider audience than would have been privy to him had he stayed in Japan. Muta was always known for alternating between colors and décor on his face. From time to time he would spell out sayings in Japanese lettering, while other times he would maintain solid colors from the top of his forehead to under his chin. Perhaps the most recognizable style of Great Muta Facepaint was his all red with black markings on the chin and cheek. Muta took paint and the use of color one step further in his arsenal, employing what is referred to as "Asian Mist"—a controversial signature maneuver that saw Muta spray a colorful haze into the eyes of his opponents.
7. Jeff Hardy/Willow
Jeff Hardy has always been a very artistic guy no matter how you feel about his particular brand of what he may refer to as art. I always really liked the way he used black light paint during his darkened entrances and then wrestled the entire match covered in this almost otherworldly florescence. In recent years however Jeff introduced a wider audience to a character he had been concocting inside his head for some time—Willow. An utterly insane entity out of some Tim Burton stop motion fantasy, Willow is equipped with a hypnotically-simple Umbrella ala the Penguin in Batman, along with a tall narrow mask and a trench coat. Because everybody needs either a vest or a trench coat. In addition to the numerous costume pieces, Willow serves to take face painting to the next level, incorporating minor details such as eyelid decoration and contact colors into an overall stunning display that isn't easily removed, even during the most death-defying moments of Full Metal Mayhem. The colors on his face blend together but barely touch as narrow lines and sharp corners are used to evoke intense emotions in a masterfully well designed bit of subconscious trickery that seems way far too complex for Jeff Hardy to have don't on purpose. But maybe I'm wrong and if that's the case, then Bravo Jeff Hardy.
6. Vampiro
Nowadays you might only know Vampiro as the white guy from Canada who talks like a Mexican guy from Mexico who sits alongside Matt Striker in the Lucha Temple each and every Wednesday night on the El Rey Network. But back in the 1990's and 2000's, Vampiro was a formidable force up and down the landscape of professional wrestling. Known primarily for his ongoing battles with fellow face painters such as Sting and The Great Muta, Vampiro sported one of the earliest precursors to what are now common three dimensional paint jobs. The colors in his pale skull makeup were shaded so that Vampiro's face truly looked like a skeleton whose head was caving in. Unlike a lot of the higher ranked wrestlers on the countdown, Vampiro never really did much to alter his look, which in the end turned out to be a positive thing for his career as well as his longevity as an athlete and entertainer.
5. The Boogeyman
He's the Boogeyman and he's coming to get you! Yes, his time in the WWE was incredibly short lived and without but a few high profile encounters with the likes of Fit Finlay and King Booker. But The Boogeyman had one of the most interesting looks in all of WWE; he resembled some of the more horrific characters we see today in Mexico and Japan, as his makeup seemed to go beyond the front of his face, wrapping around his head and entering his mouth. His tongue was painted, to add to the grotesque nature of the complete package, and to top it off—he ate worms! The visual presentation of the Boogeyman including the complex design combined with missing teeth made for one of the most fascinating face paint jobs in the history of the business.
4. Ultimate Warrior
The Ultimate Warrior will forever be remembered for the memories he helped create during his time in the WWE and within the wrestling industry as a whole. He entered the business with Steve Borden and began painting his face in order to get noticed faster. The Ultimate Warrior's paint is perhaps the most recognizable in the history of the WWF, as contrary to other talents of the time, Warrior attempted to alter his appearance between each and every show. The Warrior took time in painting the perfect designs with an enormity of different colors, which helped him stand out even more as his imposing nature inside the ring was already doing most of the work. The Ultimate Warrior will surely be missed as he was taken from his friends, family, and fans far sooner than we would have ever thought. But his iconic logo and the numerous color combinations it comes in will always help to remind us of the man known only by one name—Warrior.
3. Sting
The man who inspired this countdown started painting his face alongside The Ultimate Warrior when the two teamed during their more formative years as professional wrestlers. Sting's facepaint is perhaps some of the most iconic across the world of sports and entertainment as unlike the rock band KISS, Steve Borden has never performed without his trademark make up. Sting was billed from Venice Beach, so for the first part of his career he maintained a blonde crew cut and modeled himself after the classic California Surfer, uh—just with neon paint slathered across the upper portion of his face. By 1996, pop culture was developing an edge and Borden's character was in need of immediate updating. Luckily, Sting was able to change with the times thanks to input from a variety of creative sources within WCW including Scott Hall. Sting began dressing like Brandon Lee's character in "The Crow," wearing a long black trench coat with a black and white paint combination. Over time, Sting began to incorporate other colors into the same basic base, most notably red. When Sting became a fixture in TNA he was given more room to express his own creativity and began working with different designs, most notably one that resembled Heath Ledger's joker in the Batman film franchise. It appears Sting will keep the classic black and white during his time in the WWE, but as I'm writing this it's been nearly two months since Survivor Series and still no sign of Sting on Raw or Smackdown. Well, obviously not Smackdown.
2. Goldust
Like most sons growing up in the shadow of their famous fathers, Dustin always had trouble finding his own voice in an industry that was deaf to anyone named Rhodes other than his old man. He had a string of moderately successful midcard appearances including that of "The Natural" in the early 1990's and even appeared on WWF television alongside his father and "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase. In 1995 after signing with Vince McMahon, Dustin introduced the world to a new character shrouded in gold who prayed on his victims physically as well as emotionally and psychologically. The maniacal Goldust was the brainchild of Vince McMahon but it was young Virgil Runnels III who brought the character to life. His eyes and lips were wrapped in deep shades of black while the rest of his face was coated with a thick layer of gold paint resembling the lethal dose delivered in the 1960's classic "Goldfinger." To top it off, literally and figuratively, Dustin donned a blonde wig to finalize the transformation from the son of a son of a plumber to the Hollywood Hill dweller whose bizarre antics were more than most men were willing to address. Over the course of two decades Goldust's face paint and costumery have evolved and sometimes changed drastically, like during the wildly-conceived "Artist Formerly Known as Goldust" days. When counting down the greatest paint of all time, and considering detail above all else, you'd be hard pressed to find few athletes more dedicated than Dustin Rhodes AKA Goldust.
1. Prince Devitt
If you're among the millions of viewers who've been able to catch NXT REvolution by now, you've probably been wondering if Finn Balor was going to pop up on the Countdown of Greatest Face Paint of All Time. Perhaps you figured he's too new to mainstream America to have a chance, or maybe I disqualified anyone sporting "body paint?" Rest assured my independent brothers and sisters, I didn't forget about the man who had what is now being considered the most elaborate entrance in the WWE outside of Wrestlemania—EVER! The truth is, while everyone else on our list has committed a great deal of time and effort to their own work of art upon their face and in some cases elsewhere, there are very few professional wrestlers who would undergo the intensive Hollywood-style make-up sessions required to create some of Devitt's most memorable looks. In the past Devitt has displayed as many comic book super villains as Rey Mysterio has opted to play heroes. It's truly amazing how much Fergal Devitt is willing to commit to each character for whom he pays homage, and that is why the moments he appears in paint are always special occasions. When he debuted on NXT, fans of the former Bullet Club leader were curious as to whether the WWE would allow the newly christened Finn Balor to employ a similar look, or was that a thing of the past? I ventured a guess that maybe the WWE would want to protect against lawsuits from Stan Lee or god forbid Disney! But that's when I remembered the aforementioned Mysterio who gets the go-ahead to do what he wants as long as he does his potbelly flippy moves every time he goes out. I was very happy when REvolution arrived and saw that not only would the WWE allow Balor to paint his face, but they seem genuinely supportive of him in however far he wants to take his creativity.
This list wasn't based on whose face paint is most memorable but by the intricacies therein and overall originality, which is why I feel safe to say Prince Devitt AKA Finn Balor is the best when we choose to break down Faces and the Men Who Paint Them. Thank you for joining me on this debut edition of what I'm sure is going to be a very fun series that I look forward to researching each week. If you have any suggestions on countdown topics or anything you'd like me to address elsewhere, feel free to reach out through email: markadamhaggerty@outlook.com. Remember to bookmark Cheap-Heat on your computer and in your mobile device so you don’t miss any of our countdowns, columns or coverage. Until next time, my name is Mark Haggerty and this has been Lucky Thirteen: Faces and the Men Who Paint Them.
