Il Divo

Scrappy vs Drew Harper, Captain USA Meets The Ripper (Hard Heroes)

The other night I watched Leontyne Price in her 1985 farewell performance of Verdi's Aida. I'm not an opera queen, but on occasion I do enjoy the passion of Italian opera.  In Act Three, after Price sings "O patria mia," she falls in slow motion to her knees as the crowd screams its love for her. Right then, a little absurdly, I wondered who in underground wrestling could carry off such a majestic gesture.

The answer, of course, is Scrappy. The guy is campy as Pee-wee's Playhouse and gorgeous. Compared to most wrestlers - especially compared to Drew Harper, his opponent here and in other matches - he is small. But he is so expressive and passionate that he seems bigger than life.

He's the only wrestler who does the outrageous things he does without breaking character. The premise of Captain USA Meets The Ripper is a superhero strip match, just about as schlocky as wrestling videos can get, but Scrappy plays it like Hamlet. (I give credit to Drew, too, for committing to the role.)

From his double biceps pose in the first GIF to his symbolic emasculation of Captain USA in the last, Scrappy upstages even the post-apocalyptic scenery. He's the wildest and most irresistible force in underground wrestling - though his wrestling skills, though ample, fall short of those of the highest tier of underground wrestlers. Yet more than anyone else, he's constantly improving. And I've never seen him phone in a match.

Like any cartoon character, Scrappy cannot be criticized for lack of authenticity. He is so preposterous as to constitute a different sphere of genuineness - one he defines for himself and, as far as I'm concerned, occupies sui generis. There are all  types of larger-than-life superstar - Guido Genatto, Jobe Zander, Eli Black, and so on - but nobody in the world is like Scrappy.


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