Top 5: Brutus Beefcake Personas

Our last WWE Hall of Fame inductee is a man that had multiple personas during his wrestling career. Wikipedia lists fifteen names, I’ve seen people claim there were as many as eighteen. Mick Foley thinks that Brutus Beefcake had a split personality disorder.

We’re talking about a man that lived most his career in the shadow of Hulk Hogan. Unfortunately for Ed Leslie, unlike his buddy the Hulkster, he didn’t own the rights to his gimmick name. So WCW had to come up with things for him to do, and the results were pretty much what you would expect.

These are the Top 5 Brutus Beefcake Personas.

5. Butcher

On paper, it was a fine idea. Hulk Hogan had plenty of friendships go up in smoke that led to big money drawing programs. Paul Orndorff. Andre the Giant. Randy Savage. Each of these men are fellow WWE Hall of Famers, and each man made a ton of money across the ring from the Hulkster. So why wouldn’t WCW go back to that well and have one of Hulk’s best friends stab him in the back? Or have him butcher the friendship, as Bobby Heenan said on commentary at Halloween Havoc 1994.

The only problem was that Hogan & Beefcake just couldn’t produce the epic matches that Hogan & Savage or Hogan & Orndorff did, and there wasn’t the buzz in the air that there was for Hogan & Andre. Other than that it should have been a big thing for WCW. It wasn’t. On the bright side, I did enjoy the Three Faces of Fear (Butcher, Kevin Sullivan & Avalanche) entrance music, and the brief grouping led to the wonderful faction that gave birth to Bruti’s next awesome gimmick on the list…

4. Zodiac

YES! NO! YES! NO! NO! YES!

I still don’t understand what the heck this was supposed to be. Kevin Sullivan must have dropped some pretty bad acid on the day he thought Zodiac (and the rest of the Dungeon of Doom) up. It didn’t make a lot of sense to 11 year old me, as I had just seen Sullivan & the Butcher have a bitter falling out. Why was Butcher back in cahoots with the Taskmaster?

As it turned out, he wasn’t. He was a mole, brother! I don’t even remember that being revealed, but I’ll definitely take Wikipedia’s word for it.

3. The Booty Man

The above clip pretty much defines the existence of E. Harrison Leslie in WCW. Before his match, we’re treated to a two minute music video about Hulk Hogan. Then once its time for the Booty Man’s match, we’re all completely distracted by the Booty Babe. Dusty Rhodes’ reaction on commentary pretty much said it all. Then after the match, Booty Man cut a promo about Hulk’s new movie.

Why is this ahead of Zodiac & Butcher? Because the Booty Babe, duh.

2. One-half of The Dream Team

I must admit that I bought into the oft-repeated theory that Greg Valentine carried the Dream Team & Brutus Beefcake didn’t bring a lot to the table. Valentine was certainly the better bell-to-bell worker & claims to have taught Beefcake how to work. Looking back, I think it was a lot more even than Brutus was given credit for.

After all, the New Dream Team with Valentine & Dino Bravo was pretty much dead on arrival.

1. The Barber

Late 80s WWF was all about post-match rituals. Jake Roberts draped his fallen opponent with Damien the snake. Ted DiBiase stuffed a hundred-dollar bill in his opponents mouth. You don’t really see things like this now. Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake had his own post-match ritual. He would give his opponent a bit of a haircut.

Brutus started his hairdressing career at WrestleMania III, where he was involved in cutting Adorable Adrian Adonis’s hair after Adonis’s match with “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. You couldn’t ask for a bigger launching point for a gimmick, and the Barber got pretty over as an upper-mid card babyface. He was never the tippy-top guy, as there was always the Hulkster in front of him. But he was a popular fellow.

If you were over in the 1980s, you’re in the WWE Hall of Fame.