10 Embarrassing Times Wrestlers Tried To Look Cool

3. 123 Kid > X-Pac

Stephanie McMahon
WWE.com

Your periodic reminder that the 123 Kid was amazing, and it's a shame that the performer is more synonymous with the X-Pac gimmick because 'X-Pac' is synonymous with a once-great worker feeling two years out of date.

Two years!

Virtually every WWE star has - sigh - "X-Pac heat" in 2021. "X-Pac heat" is the norm. Think of X-Pac still working as X-Pac in 2006, and you are close to the heavy malaise that saturates WWE programming.

As X-Pac, Sean Waltman was still a dynamo between the ropes, and his brand of edgy humour was a perfect fit for the day, but that day has aged horrendously. To wit: X-Pac, playing the hard man trash-talker in 1998, wasn't particularly convincing in the role, but it was cool that he smoked such copious amounts of weed. That was the standard back then. There was a tag team called Kronik, for f*ck's sake.

Armed with this knowledge, X-Pac was fond of saying "Your ass is grass and I'm gonna smoke it," like a dorm room poster transmogrified into a professional wrestler. X-Pac was essentially dril.

"Ass" and "grass" rhymed, you see, which was sufficiently cool enough to forget about the suboptimal mental image.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!