A staple of heel wrestlers is playing up the fact that they're "better" than the members of the audience - in terms of achievement, lifestyle, or simply physique. It's usually a pretty boring, hackneyed argument. In the case of Rick Rude, though, it was so undeniably true that it's impossible to even begrudge the man - he was that good and that cool. Rude had a body worthy of the Mr. Olympia crown and a mustache that would make Tom Selleck weep into his Hawaiian shirt collection. With his non-ironic anchor tattoo and his airbrushed tights completing the package, Rude's style became one-of-a-kind. His tights were a form of expression, too - and never moreso than when he had the face of Cheryl Roberts, wife of rival Jake the Snake, painted on his crotch. Rude topped it all off with a ridiculous hip swivel that demands less than five percent body fat to execute properly. He was great at his job - having excellent matches and selling for babyface opponents like a true master - but that almost seems secondary to the overall character of Rude. His taunts, his insults, his appearance - those were what made Rick Rude cool. The man may be gone, but no one who saw him will ever forget him.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
