The creation of the Mantaur is one of those breathtakingly incompetent booking decisions that can never fully be understood, unless you too have been in the throes of a near-suicidal meth high. A tubby Mike Hallick debuted in WWF in January 1995 wearing a giant cartoon bulls head as he slowly made his way to the ring, entrance music essentially consisting of a loud mooing sound. No, were not making this up. Someone decided to hire a real, live professional wrestler to play a Minotaur character, and they thought that a moo would help get the character over. He couldnt see out of that headdress, either. According to Jim Cornette, it didnt have any eyeholes. Look at the faces of the people in the crowd. Thats some folks calculating what else they could have spent the ticket price on, right there. Mantaur would last around six months in the organisation, proceeding quickly from destroying jobbers rejoicing in names like Walter Slow and Buck Quartermaine, to being creamed by Razor Ramon and Bam Bam Bigelow. It wasnt long before they decided that it was possible that the giant cartoon bulls head was detracting from Mantaurs credibility, so they solved the problem by removing it and painting horns on the side of his head. Were just going to stop for a moment so you can re-read that sentence again. Go ahead, well wait here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY8Bd9vNVbU In 2015, the gimmick is a long-standing running joke both for the fans, and for WWE itself, with the announce team making occasional snide comments that reference how cringeworthy it was. Its saying something that Mantaur makes Los Matadores comedy midget mascot El Torito look like Paul bloody Orndorff.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
