As one of the Long Riders in the AWA, Wild Bill Irwin was a motorcycle-loving bad ass. Nearly a decade later, Bill Irwin was a wrestling hockey player "kicked out of every league he had ever competed in," as The Goon. Why should anyone care about a bad hockey player making his career as a wrestler. After all, it's not as if we had any official NHL footage of his cheating and illicit ways, so it was all ostensibly based in fantasy. Characters that are based in fantasy that work kind of begin and end with The Undertaker and Kane, so, given that The Goon is neither The Undertaker or Kane, he falls short. Furthermore was the matter of his finisher, the Cross Check. He'd dump his opponent to the outside, then body check them into the ringpost, the side of the ring, or the guardrail, then win a match by countout. While yes, that's a way to win, if anyone stops for a second and considers the regulations of a traditional pro wrestling match, The Goon could never actually become a champion. Why should a fan care about a wrestler who just wrestles in order to win matches in a manner that won't even allow him to become a champion of any sort. A great character that engenders fan derision (and support, too) should never be perceived or created as intrinsically mediocre.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
