That Was Then, Is This Too? 02.02.10: The Joy Of Sect

Welcome to yet another installment of That Was Then, Is This Too?, the column that looks for parallel lines in all the right places. Unfortunately we don’t have much in the way of comments this week, so we move straight on to Banner 2.0.

At this Sunday’s Royal Rumble show, we were treated to a sermon from the Straightedge Savior. Between eliminations, CM Punk would constantly berate the audience and his opponents, trying to convert them to his Straightedge Society with his latest convert, Serena, standing at his side. He was mostly unsuccessful, lasting only a few minutes, but he still played an integral part in the rumble match.

Punk’s crusade to save us all from our chemically enhanced lifestyle had started a few weeks prior. He had begun preaching during the summer of 2009, during his spectacular feud with Jeff Hardy. He wouldn’t truly reach cult leader status until he introduced his first saved soul, Luke Gallows. Gallows had previously wrestled as the corn-fed colossus Festus and the impostor Kane.

Festus had been adrift after his former tag team partner Jesse reinvented himself as Slam Master J, but he was saved by CM Punk, who showed that Festus wasn’t nearly as dim-witted as he was portrayed to be, but was kept stupid with prescription medication. Festus would make a great enforcer and tag team partner for Punk, and the pair soon became the number one contenders for the unified tag team championships.

Gallows was only the first convert however. As Punk’s preaching grew more rabid, he began drawing plants out of the crowd. After breaking his newest devotee’s lifestyle down, he would conclude their introduction into the straightedge lifestyle with a ritualistic head shaving. The most shocking of all these shavings was that of Serena, who had previously wrestled on the independent scene as Serena Deeb. Serena played her role to perfection, showing an almost maniacal devotion to Punk, as she was even willing to stand up to DX to protect her messiah.

It seems that CM Punk’s straightedge movement is rapidly gathering steam, as he’s gathering more and more followers at his side. With Gallows as his bodyguard and Serena as the Squeaky to his Manson, it seems that Punk is poised for success, but how does he measure up to the last cult leader to pass through WWE?

That Was Then…

Don Callis, the man who would eventually become the enigmatic Jackyl, started his wrestling career in college, taking up amateur wrestling. He eventually began training in a local promotion, spending most of the early nineties appearing all over the Canedian independent scene, mainly teaming with, and feuding against, Rick Martel. He earned his WWF contract in 1996 following a tryout match.

The Truth Commission meanwhile was originally formed in the USWA. It consisted of Recon, who would later go on to some fame as Bull Buchanan, and Kurrgan, a 7’2″ behemoth in the mold of Giant Gonzalez and the Great Khali. They were originally managed by The Commandant, an actor who was discovered by Bret Hart. When the Truth Commission was signed by the WWF, he was replaced by Don Callis, who had been renamed The Jackyl.

The Jackyl, according to an article in WWF Magazine, was a low-level WWF employee who developed a messianic complex after successfully leading a group of WWF employees out of Kuwait. His character was designed to appear as a cult leader, with long hair, sunglasses and a jewel on his forehead. He also had a flair for the dramatic, as evidenced by the following video clip:

The Truth Commission would eventually expand to include former USWA wrestlers Tank, who is probably more famous for his brief stint as Mantaur, and Sniper, a generic big man. The stable would have only limited success, making a few failed bids for the WWF tag team titles. The stable’s biggest success came at the 1997 Survivor Series, where they beat the biker stable Disciples of Apocalypse. The team would dissolve after Recon and Sniper became fed up with Jackyl’s constant abuse and insults.

Following the disbanding of the Truth Commission, Sniper and Recon would form the short lived Armageddon tag team while Callis moved on to manage the Oddities stable, a short-lived group consisting mostly of Howard Stern regulars, although it also included Kurrgan and the late John Tenta. The stable was a complete flop, and Callis moved on to manage Farooq and Bradshaw, the Acolytes. He only lasted a few weeks as their manager however, as he requested and was granted his release.

He resurfaced in Extreme Championship Wrestling as Cyrus the Virus, the embodiment of everything that was wrong in the relationship between ECW and the television station TNN, on which ECW Hardcore TV was aired. After all, TNN expected ECW to produce production values similar to that of WCW and WWF without actually investing in the company, and spent more time promoting the wrestling shows of other companies that would soon be airing on that network in stead of promoting ECW. Heyman was extremely bitter about this, especially since ECW Hardcore TV was, at the time, the highest rated show on TNN.

He retaliated by introducing Cyrus as a heel commentator and authority figure, speaking for ‘The Network’, constantly complaining about any and all inappropriate content in ECW’s programming, which was pretty much every aspect of the show. Eventually he began managing several wrestlers who agreed with his disapproval of ECW’s hardcore antics, forming the stable known as The Network, which consisted of Steve Corino, Yoshihiro Tajiri and Rhino. Cyrus himself would have a feud with Joel Gertner over his sexually charged commentary, which culminated in a match at the 2000 Anarchy Rulz PPV.

After the closing of ECW, Callis had a very brief stint in TNA as a management consultant. He mainly feuded with Erik Watts, with whom he struggled for control over the company, and Jerry Lynn, who he tried to drive out of the wrestling business with fines and suspensions. Eventually he left the company quietly but on good terms, deciding to pursue a career in business that allowed him to use his degree.

…Is This Too?

It seems that Punk is following a different school of cult leader aesthetics. Where the Jackyl would appear in a black suit, sunglasses and forehead gem, Punk’s transformation mostly consists of not shaving or waxing his chest hair. While Callis certainly looked the part, I have to give the advantage to Punk here.

And then there’s the choice of followers. So far he has only chosen two regular followers in Luke Gallows and Serena. Gallows, while certainly not a spectacular wrestler by any stretch of the imagination, has improved incredibly compared to his days as the impostor Kane, and is competent enough to get the point across in the ring. Serena meanwhile was one of the most talented female workers on the US independent scene, and will fit in well on the blue brand with Mickie James and fellow SHIMMER alumni Natalya and Beth Phoenix. Jackyl’s group meanwhile seemed to consist of any and every big man he could get his hands on, and their in ring performances were abysmal at best.

Where Punk truly shines however, is his message. While Jackyl certainly had the delivery nailed down, he simply didn’t have much to say. Punk meanwhile lives up to the old chestnut about the most successful gimmicks being based on real life. He had already perfected the straightedge heel character on the independent scene, preaching his lifestyle from coast to coast and across the globe, but WWE has allowed him to take it one step further, and certainly a lot further than I expected. All in all, I think that the straightedge messiah character will go a lot further than the Jackyl ever did.