It’s very easy to look at a personality like the Iron Sheik and make some flash judgments about him. Like many wrestlers from the seventies and eighties,  he wasn’t just a character to the audience. The Iron Sheik was everything he claimed to be. Going head to head with Hulk Hogan, the Iron Sheik helped usher in the era of Hulkamania. He would turn one of America’s heroes against it when he took the real life G.I. Joe, Sergeant Slaughter and made him an Iraqi sympathizer. But by being so hated, he lead a generation of wrestling fans through an emotional journey. But that is only half of his story.

The Sheik is a documentary that debuted last month at the Hot Docs International Film Festival in Toronto that helps fill in all the blanks and brings to light many things that most people who are even fans of the Sheik may not even be aware of. The one that stands out the most that you’ll see in the trailer below is that while he was America’s biggest foe in the ring, he was in fact living the American dream that he escaped Iran to fulfill. Created by Iranian-Canadian twins Page and Jian Magen and joined by commentary from the likes of the Rock, Jim Ross, Jake Roberts, Mick Foley and over 25 celebrities, the Sheik’s story unfolds for audiences as they see there is more to this man than four letter word filled Twitter rants and spitting on the USA.

While you might be able to figure out a logical connection between former WWE stars John Morrison and Chavo Guerrero aligning with Rampage Jackson, things get a little more interesting when you consider the other half of this muscled menagerie is Richard Hatch of Battlestar Galactica and the Winner Twins. But it actually makes sense. One thing people don’t realize is that while the brutish brawlers, the prince of parkour and the youngest of the Guerrero are all former world champions, they all also have a weakness for sci-fi.

It only makes sense that they’d make their announcement at WonderCon, the sister con to the epic Comic Con International, later today. While we do know that it will go down in Anaheim, CA at 7:30 in Room 300DE, that’s where our information runs out. So far, Morrison, Rampage, Chavo and Hatch have all kept tight lipped about any further details.

As mentioned before, the geek lifestyle isn’t a cheap one. Even when we find things we like that aren’t individually expensive, we end up buying enough of them at once so it ends up costing us more than we would have wanted in the first place on one single larger purchase. That’s the danger of the impulse buy.

It is easier to mentally justify to ourselves a spend if we get more items out of it, even if it costs more than what we wanted to spend because we as geeks value both quality AND quantity. As long as something isn’t terrible or poorly made, it is good enough for us. And if we can get a bunch of them on the cheap, we want them all.

This week on Whiskey & Waffles, WallE and I address our recent disaster of impulse buying with Mash’Ems. After WallE had already begun purchasing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, I got pulled into the mix too which resulted in the blind box purchase of some TMNT, Power Rangers Samurai, WWE and Marvel Mash’Ems.

If you aren’t familiar with Mash’Ems, they are little oversized heads and shrunken bodies (except in the Marvel series which is just heads). They are soft and squishy and perfect to have on your desk as a miniature stress ball just in case.

Journeyman. Ham-n-egger. Enhancement talent. Call them what you will but a jobber is an essential part of the world of professional wrestling. Though not the most glamorous role, the jobber is required for growth in the industry. Especially during the debut or rebuilding stage in a wrestler’s career, they need to be placed in matches against someone who can make them look good. Many times, these enhancement talent are actually more talented individuals than the person they are making look better in the match. It’s one thing to throw someone around but it is a whole different level of talent to make that person throwing you around look like a more impressive specimen than they really are. For a time, there would be a number of matches on each televised wrestling program that involved jobbers

The Headlocked comic once quoted me, “An intriguing take on an industry that is just as drama filled behind the scenes as it is on television.” Years later and seeing all the work that has gone behind Headlocked, I still hold that to be true. Michael Kingston has created the quintessential wrestling story ithough never being a wrestler himself. Though there are some parts nitpickers may try to poke and prod at, it has come a hell of a lot closer to the wrestling world than any WWE or WCW comic ever did.

With two months time, Kingston has given himself the Kickstarter goal of $16,000 with over $2,000 coming in during the first 24 hours to help fund the second story arc of the comic entitled Headlocked: The Last Territory. Meant to be enjoyed as a continuation of the story or read on its own, Kingston describes Headlocked: The Last Territory:

If you were looking for someone to fitting take on the role of a character whose last name is “The Destroyer”, it isn’t a shock to see that former WWE Champion Batista will be filling the boots of Drax in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Late yesterday, the Hollywood Reporter leaked the announcement that Dave Bautista would be taking on this role in Marvel’s 2014 Summer Blockbuster.

Alongside Chris Pratt who will be playing the part of Star Lord, Dave Bautista will be filling the shoes of a team of cosmic heroes fairly unknown to the audience outside of the comic book world. Though having success in the better half of the last decade, the Guardians of the Galaxy are only known to the mainstream audience because of Marvel’s announcements tying them in to the greater Avengers Marvel Studios film universe.

The idea for this editorial came shortly after catching up on Raw on my DVR. Despite being in the era where Raw has turned from a two-hour, weekly Lifetime movie for men into a three-hour Greek epic with Tout™ ads I’ve come to a realization: It’s cool to watch pro wrestling again.

No matter what “era” of wrestling you’re a fan of, there are a few recognizable details that pro wrestling needs to push it from relative obscurity to pop culture significance: fresh faces, exciting action, old favorites, and a household name to tie it all together. And only recently have the stars aligned to provide all four to the WWE Universe.

Those of us old enough to remember the Hulkamania era sometimes talk about the intervening years as if it were the Great War. And in some respects, it was. Once Vince McMahon’s Hulkamania bubble burst, it was on to the lean years of the New Generation. Stricter federal regulations and drug testing meant that lean was taken in the literal sense. The biggest stars of that era were either smaller, more technical workers (Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels) or naturally big stars (The Undertaker, Diesel).

I was never blessed with the gift of artistic ability. The extent of my ability was doodling in the margins of my notebooks during classes, or adding a mustache and glasses (and perhaps some devil horns) to a photograph in a magazine. Whether it was a poster, a comic book, or a tattoo I’ve always been fascinated with art and those that can make a living through it.

Around the time of WrestleMania 27, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin appeared on television with a brand new t-shirt designed by artist Joe Romero. I quickly found his online presence, Average Joe Art, and began following him on Twitter. Ever since then Joe has been pumping out great, pop culture-inspired illustrations. From Breaking Bad, to Walking Dead, to The Avengers Joe has added to his catalogue of comic-style homages to geeky T.V & film favorites.

We’ve all seen it. We have all even been fooled into getting excited for it. We see the name of something we love being tied to a new game. Whether it is a game from the past being brought back or some franchise outside of gaming being given its first digital life, we are pumped to see what this game has to offer. And then it comes out… and it sucks.

Most recently, I went through this with Fire Pro Wrestling coming to XBLA. Being a longtime fan of pro wrestling and having two of my favorite games ever being wrestling games (WCW Revenge and WrestleMania 2000, both from THQ and the AKI engine) I try to keep up with wrestling games whenever I get the chance.

Right now, options are pretty limited with WWE being the only game in town after Midway’s TNA game was a flop. But there was a bright shimmer of hope when I logged onto XBox Live the other day and saw that Fire Pro Wrestling was up for download on XBLA. I didn’t even read the description. I just clicked right on “Download Trial” without taking a breath.

As you may have noticed over the past few days we have posted some wrestling interviews from San Diego Comic-Con. This is our final “lost interview” from SDCC. Hope you enjoy!

Most people would know Shad best from his time at WWE as one half of the tag team Cryme Tyme. But this year, Shad wasn’t at Comic Con to promote wrestling. He was there to promote a graphic novel he has been working on called Assassin and Son. He also talks about how it has been a challenge for him breaking into the world of comics coming from a wrestling background. More can be found about Shad’s work on Assassin and Son at his website.

Check out the full interview with Shad from SDCC after the jump.

As you may have noticed over the past few days we have posted up some interviews from San Diego Comic-Con. We apologize for the delay but we had some video and editing issues that we had to work through and now they’re ready. Hope you enjoy!

Originally starting out in the WWE Diva Search, Layla worked her way through a stint as a member of Extreme Expose on ECW all the way to the Diva Championship. In the process, she became a part of one of the strongest pairings of WWE Divas in recent memory as one half of LayCool with Michelle McCool. This year, Layla made her Comic-Con debut at the Mattel booth. In our interview, Layla speaks to us about her progress with WWE in her six-year run with the company as well as her thoughts on Comic-Con being the pop culture event of the year. And even though we said we won’t hold her to it, we asked her who she cosplay as next year if she comes back to Comic Con next year.

Check out the full interview with Layla from SDCC after the break.

As you noticed yesterday, we will have some interviews with various WWE superstars coming out over the next few weeks from the last San Diego Comic-Con. Hope you enjoy them.

In our interview with Daniel Bryan, he talks about his first Comic-Con experience, shows how busy life on the road can be when he discusses finding out about his own action figures from the fans at the show and the excitement of the WWE being his first action figure being made. Daniel even gives us some insight in to just how popular his simple “Yes, Yes, Yes” catchphrase has gotten.

Check out the full interview with Daniel Bryan from SDCC below and stay tuned for more from The Flickcast.