Line #58 Wrestling/BobHolly


1	[[quoteright:284:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/BobHolly_2803.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:284:How do you like him now?]]
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4	->''"If [Wrestling/CrashHolly defended the Hardcore Championship] 24/7, I'm gonna do it 48/14, and how I about I start with you? How about, I could start with you, right here, right now? It doesn't matter to me, Wrestling/MichaelCole, 'cause I will '''break your ass in half''', you little shithead!"''
5	-->-- ''Wrestling/WrestleMania 2000'' post-match interview
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7	Bob "Hardcore" Holly (born Robert William Howard on January 29, 1963) is an American {{professional wrestl\|ing}}er, whose tenure with WWE lasted from 1991 to 2008. Initially, Holly portrayed happy-go-lucky UsefulNotes/{{NASCAR}} racer turned wrestler Thurman "Sparky" Plugg, which failed to garner much success. During the second half of the decade, Holly became a member of the tongue-in-cheek Wrestling/TheJOBSquad; the stable disbanded after Holly's win over Wrestling/AlSnow in one of the inaugural matches of the newly-created WWF Hardcore Championship, setting the tone for the [[GarbageWrestler hardcore wrestling]] division of WWF's Wrestling/AttitudeEra.
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9	Having thus earned his moniker of "Hardcore", Holly would capture the Hardcore Championship five more times, becoming one of the relatively few holders of that to boast respectable, lengthy title reigns. Holly would later form a minor stable together with ({{kayfabe}}) cousins Crash and Wrestling/MollyHolly. After the stable's dissolution, Holly would spend the remainder of his WWE career in and out of action with various injuries; notably, he was in a main event feud with then-WWE Champion Wrestling/BrockLesnar, had a well-remembered Extreme Rules Match with Wrestling/RobVanDam in WWE's revived ECW, and won the WWE World Tag Team Championship with Wrestling/CodyRhodes on the 15th anniversary episode of ''Wrestling/WWERaw''.
10	----
11	!! "How do you like my tropes now?":
12	* EightiesHair: As Thurman "Sparky" Plugg, mullet and all, though his hair line was starting to recede.
13	* AerithAndBob: The Holly Cousins were Molly, Bob... and Crash.
14	* AnythingYouCanDoICanDoBetter
15	** This was Bob's relationship with his cousin, Crash. It lead to them fighting and working together as a tag team in an effort to prove who the superior Holly was.
16	** While [[Wrestling/LondonAndKendrick Spanky]] had mostly positive things to say about Bob Holly, he did not think he and Paul London were working out enough. But Spanky found out, while trying placate him, that any action regarding the gym that could be perceived as competitive brought a problem all its own, so he always made sure that his workout was less than Bob's.
17	* ArchEnemy: In kayfabe, Lesnar is the closest thing to be found. Before Lesnar, Holly also had a long-running rivalry with Steve Blackman over which of them ruled the hardcore division. In real life, he has threatened Mr. Kennedy on his life.
18	* AtrociousAlias: Would ''you'' take a guy named Thurman "Sparky" Plugg seriously? Hell, even Holly himself hated it.
19	* BashBrothers: In some alternate universe, where this trope is named "Combat Cousins", the Holly Cousins would be the page picture.
20	* BewareTheSillyOnes: The basis of the Hardcore Holly character was that he had a chip on his shoulder a mile wide from what he considered his ButtMonkey treatment with bad gimmicks, weak partners, and being part of the [[{{Jobber}} J.O.B. Squad]]. Determined to show how tough he really was, he changed his nickname to "Hardcore" and entered the division of the same name.
21	* {{Biography}}: Has written a 2013 biography, ''The Hardcore Truth'', together with Ross Williams.
22	* BloodKnight: Above all, Holly loves to '''fight'''. He can dish it out, and he can take it. By all accounts, this also applies to his real life self.
23	* TheBully: Apparently, he has a reputation for being this backstage. But many wrestlers, like Maven, Spike Dudley, Al Snow, Wrestling/BillyGunn, Jackie Gayda and Charlie Haas all speak highly of him.
24	** Bob was like this in {{Kayfabe}} too. Aside from his threatening Michael Cole in the page quote above, he also threatened to beat up Kevin Kelly when Bob invited himself to do ringside commentary during a hardcore match between Al Snow and Billy Gunn.
25	* BullyingADragon: Holly liked to make matches Hell for rookie wrestlers. This bit him in the ass when he tried his bullying routine on a young Wrestling/BrockLesnar. Lesnar, who note was a then in his prime 300 pound ex-college wrestling champion, not only just shook off Holly's numerous stiff strikes, he proved just how strong he was when Holly tried sandbagging him on a powerbomb. Lesnar easily picked him up anyway, and the resulting injury put Holly out for a year.
26	* CatchPhrase: "I'm the Big Shot," though it didn't really catch on... alternatively, "nut up or shut up" was also bandied about at the time. He also asked "how do you like me now?" to people who mocked him for his Sparky Plugg gimmick, often as he was beating the hell out of them.
27	* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: To some degree. After being turned face due to favorable crowd reactions after the aforementioned table match, he turned on RVD from out of nowhere in a tag match, with absolutely no buildup.
28	* CombatPragmatist: Besides simply bashing his opponents with weapons during his hardcore matches, Bob could also find creative ways to use them. He won the Hardcore title from Al Snow at ''St. Valentine's Day Massacre 1999'' by pinning Al under a roll of snow fence to keep Al from kicking out.
29	* TheComicallySerious: He played the role of StraightMan to Crash and Molly's more silly antics when the trio teamed up. Perhaps best exemplified on an episode of ''Heat'', where he grudgingly wore a Santa hat and wished the crowd a merry Christmas after Kaientai interrupted the Hollies while debuting the former's [[HongKongDub Evil Indeed]] gimmick.
30	* ContinuityNod: Before his now infamous match with Matt Cappotelli in OVW, Jim Cornette made sure to note his cousin was also going to be on the show, Wrestling/MollyHolly was taking on Wrestling/JillianHall.
31	** During his feud with Al Snow in 1999, Bob took Al's mannequin Head "hostage" to force Al to give him a Hardcore title shot. Al retaliated by coming out for their match in a pedal race car to taunt Bob about his Sparky Plugg persona. [[BerserkButton Needless to say, Bob didn't appreciate it.]]
32	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Hardcore Holly and Crash were convinced they were super heavyweights who came in and well over 400 pounds each on the scales. Now Bob was not exactly a small man but in reality, their combined weight didn't top 400 until Molly joined them.
33	* CoolCar: His NASCAR racing car from the Sparky Plugg days.
34	* ADayInTheLimelight: His 2003/2004 main event feud with Brock Lesnar was his biggest ever push.
35	* {{Determinator}}:
36	** Sustained severe injuries in several matches, and ''finished them''. Possibly the most notable such occurrence would be his table match against Wrestling/RobVanDam in WWE's revived version of Wrestling/{{ECW}} in 2006, in which he sustained a ''huge'' gash on his back after a botched table landing. This is often described as one of the few moments of the "new" ECW that lived up to that promotion's legacy.
37	** Broke his arm during a match with Wrestling/KurtAngle and finished the match, because as he said "The pain can't get much worse so I might as well finish".
38	** On another level, thought the veracity of said claim is easily disputed since it was WWE.com that reported it, at various points during injury recovery, Holly is said to have refused taking painkillers.
39	** A notable in-character, non-injury-related moment would be his resisting CM Punk's (formerly) insta-kill Anaconda Vice and handing Punk his first ever WWE loss.
40	* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Even though Holly was mostly known for being a lower/mid-card guy his whole career, he has gotten a few notable victories against top guys who were main eventers at some point and either former world champions or future world champions, most notably Psycho Sid, Kane, Big Show, Rob Van Dam, and CM Punk.
41	* DrillSergeantNasty: His role in the second season of ''Wrestling/WWEToughEnough''.
42	* DroppedABridgeOnHim: His and Cody Rhodes's "feud" with Wrestling/TedDibiaseJr ended very anticlimactically, even more so that his title shot against Lesnar. And even then, Holly at least got to come back for another go, Rhodes betrayed him by somehow getting booked as his own opponent in a glorified handicap match to win the TagTeam title from himself and got off without any attempted retaliation from Holly in what would be his final WWE appearance.
43	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Holly was initially a fairly slim wrestler with a much more agility reliant style before he bulked up in the WWF. Even then, there are few to no common characteristics shared between Plugg and Hardcore.
44	* EveryoneHasStandards: Despite his reputation for being rough on rookies, even Holly found Wrestling/BillDemott's methods to be excessive and unnecessary
45	* {{Expy}}: In Wrestling/{{SMW}} he was made into [[Wrestling/TheMidnightExpress Bobby Eaton]] with an additional celebrity hanger on gimmick.
46	* FinishingMove:
47	** As Hardcore, he used the Alabama Slam (double leg slam), and for a time, the Hollycaust/Falcon Arrow (sitout suplex slam). Of course, in his heyday, the finishing move would more likely be [[GarbageWrestler innovative usage]] of [[ImprobableWeaponUser foreign objects]].
48	** "Sparky" Plugg had the Pitstop Plunge, a diving knee drop from the top rope.
49	* GameBreakingInjury: Defied with a vengeance! Aside from the aforementioned {{Determinator}} moment, he has survived at least one illness (a staph infection) that could have killed him.
50	* GaveUpTooSoon: He tapped out to Kurt Angle's anklelock on ''Velocity'' even though a little more effort to stretch his arm would have put it under the bottom rope and forced a break or DQ. It was as jarring as it sounds for this to happen to ''Hardcore'' Holly.
51	* GetAHoldOfYourselfMan: Delivered a slap to Cody Rhodes during their feud, to "bring out the fire" in the rookie.
52	* HeelFaceTurn: Notably, he had one of his few periods of clear-cut character alignment after the aforementioned ECW injury due to having earned fans' adoration and respect... this instantly killed his push.
53	* HesBack: His 2003 return from a neck injury, during which he ran roughshod over several superstars, [[Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin Stone Cold]]-style, notably choking out Wrestling/TheBigShow with a chair.
54	* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Billy Gunn, at various points. Hilarious, considering Gunn's one-time gimmick.
55	* IntergenerationalFriendship: On the independent circuit he found a soft spot for the up and comer Nicole Savoy.
56	* InvincibleHero: His feud with Wrestling/BrockLesnar, what with running roughshod over a sizable portion of the ''[=SmackDown!=]'' roster, choking out Wrestling/TheBigShow with a chair, and putting fear into Lesnar himself.
57	* {{Jobber}}: Worked as an "underneath guy" for a majority of his career, but [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The J.O.B. Squad]] was the most obvious case.
58	* KangarooCourt: Was part of the infamous "Wrestlers' Court" described on the page.
59	* GarbageWrestler: They don't call him "Hardcore" for nothin'.
60	* GroinAttack: The move, whose name varies intensely, wherein he hangs an opponent on the ropes and delivers a kick to their "groin" (really their midsection, but in theory his thigh also hits the crotch).
61	* KnightTemplar: His dedication to the business and old school values can be likened to this for the outsider.
62	* IconicItem: The huge weight/scale, shared between the Holly Cousins.
63	* ImprobableWeaponUser: ''Oh boy''. He won his Wrestling/WrestleMania 2000 match by busting open Crash's [[InsistentTerminology skull]] with a cookie jar (though this is reputed to be a botched ending to the match), and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
64	* ItsPersonal: His 2003/2004 feud with Lesnar over the latter having broken his neck. Fans for years claimed that this was because Holly "sandbagged" the move, and Holly finally set the record straight in a 2013 interview with the ''Wrestling Inc.'' website.
65	-->''It was supposed to be a deal where he looks like he's going to powerbomb me but I land on my feet, he charges me, I duck underneath his clothesline, he comes back, I give him a dropkick. That was the move. Like I tell, because everybody asks me that same question, it's like okay. People have got to use their head here. If you really stop and think, which these people, they get on the Internet and type all the bullshit and everything else, they don't think past the end of their nose. If you take a guy like Brock Lesnar, and you take a guy like me, if Brock Lesnar can take Big Show and belly to belly him halfway across the ring, you've got to ask yourself, could I stop Brock Lesnar from giving me a powerbomb? Can I really sandbag that move to where he couldn't do it? When people stop and think about it, it's like well, yeah. That does make sense. If he can pick a 500 pound guy up and throw him over his head, here I'm 228 pounds, you really think I could stop Brock from doing anything to me? I'm serious. laughs''
66	* MadeOfIron: The {{Determinator}} entry on this page gives several specific examples, but a more general example of Bob's toughness is the punishment he took in his hardcore matches.
67	* [[MySisterIsOffLimits My Cousin Is Off Limits]]: Bob did ''not'' take kindly to Wrestling/MollyHolly dating Spike Dudley, outright telling her she didn't know what she wanted when she protested that she liked Spike. Spike's brothers didn't appreciate his dating Molly either, leading to an AffectionateParody of ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'' and a nasty case of FeudingFamilies between the Dudleys and Hollys.
68	* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: To Wrestling/DanielPuder in OVW. To say nothing of what he did to Puder during the 2005 ''Wrestling/RoyalRumble'', alongside Wrestling/EddieGuerrero and Wrestling/ChrisBenoit.
69	* OddCouple: Grizzled veteran Holly and young, idealistic rookie Cody Rhodes. Referred to as such by commentary more than once.
70	* PowerStable:
71	** Wrestling/JimCornette's Wrestling/{{N\|ationalWrestlingAlliance}}WA group.
72	** [[Wrestling/AlSnow The J.O.B. Squad]]
73	* RealMenWearPink: His wrestling attire, as "Sparky" Plugg and Hardcore alike, often bore... unlikely color combinations.
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75	* RealLifeWritesThePlot:
76	** Back in 2000, he was in an off-screen relationship with the EMT Diva B.B. (real name Cathy Dingman) while he was in the process of divorcing his wife at the time. WWE canned Dingman for this, with Wrestling/TheDudleyBoys putting her through a table to send her out of WWE.[[note]]This obviously applies only to minor midcard characters, as opposed to the Wrestling/MattHardy-Wrestling/{{Lita}}[=-=]Wrestling/{{Edge\|Wrestler}} mess in 2005.[[/note]]
77	** His feud with Lesnar. After all, he legitimately broke his neck.
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79	* RedBaron: "Hardcore". Also, "Hollywood" in Memphis and "The Big Shot". "Superstar" during his days in Alabama. "Bombastic" as part of the New Midnight Express. And, most infamously, "Sparky Plugg".
80	* {{Revenge}}: The motivation for his feud with Brock Lesnar.
81	* TheRival: With Steve Blackman over which of them was the tougher Hardcore Champion.
82	* TheRunnerUpTakesItAll: In 1994, ''Pro Wrestling Illustrated'' named [[Wrestling/AlPoling ECW's 911]] "Rookie of the Year," with Holly coming in second, ahead of [[Wrestling/BallsMahoney Abbudah Singh (Balls Mahoney)]] and Wrestling/MikeyWhipwreck. While Mikey is the only one of those four to ever be a World Heavyweight Champion, Holly is easily the most famous out of all of them.
83	* SignatureMove: The Pitstop plunge knee drop. He made use of an unorthodox flying body attack before switching it out for a diving clothesline on Velocity. He is also known for having one of the best dropkicks in the business.
84	* SmallNameBigEgo: "The Big Shot".
85	* SweetHomeAlabama: He's from Mobile.
86	* TagTeam: Part of four title-winning teams with 1-2-3 Kid, Bart Gunn (as The New Midnight Express), Crash Holly (as The Holly Cousins), and Cody Rhodes.
87	* UnrelatedBrothers: Unrelated cousin of the late Crash Holly (and later, Molly Holly), with whom he even held the Tag Team Championship. Humorously, at one point the team's gimmick was to introduce themselves as "super-heavyweights" despite obviously not being so.
88	* VisualPun: His hardcore match with {{Wrestling/Raven}} on the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HghkIOORJXc November 30, 2000 episode of Smackdown]] spilled into the Minneapolis streets. Holly "stopped" the match by knocking Raven senseless with a Stop sign before pinning him.
89	* WhoWouldBeStupidEnough: To try and sandbag Wrestling/BrockLesnar, as Holly himself cites above in ItsPersonal as a reason he supposedly didn't do it.
90	* WildCard: One of WWE's definitive examples of a tweener in recent history, who retained this characterization long after the Attitude Era, the heyday of tweener alignments, ended.

Context Wrestling / BobHolly