Botchamania

"If you think for one second, McMahon, that I was just the right gay--guy, at the right place, at the wro--at the right time..."
—Hulk Hogan
"The jabroni-eating, pie-beating--eating..."
—The Rock, describing himself

Even though pro wrestling might be "fake", it still requires a lot of athleticism and discipline on the part of all the performers involved. And granted, it's hard to watch what would look like a really cool move fail and fall apart--which usually amounts to things from selling a kick that doesn't really hit to high-risk-high-reward routines that crash and burn horribly-- but if a performer does it repeatedly, and develops a reputation for screwing up frequently, well then...it becomes entertaining (especially in regions like the Northeast US, where "You fucked up!" chants can spring up the very second someone botches).

Youtube user Maffew compiles botches sent in from many of its viewers, usually set to video game music and/or remixes of video game music (with actual rock music thrown in every now and again). The WWE, WCW, TNA, and a cavalcade of obscure indie and foreign promotions are all represented in Botchamania. Notably absent is Ring Of Honor, who sent cease-and-desist notifications to Maffew - and, really, anyone who uses ROH material without their consent - which forced him to take down several of his videos, which he re-released with the ROH footage excised as "non-ROH versions". The number of subscribers to his videos grows with each new video, and he regularly comments on them in the movie description.

Maffew had a website dedicated solely to Botchamania - botchamania.net - but towards the end of March 2010, there was a sudden surge in the cost of hosting, and Maffew needed $500 to cover the traffic the site was getting. Donations poured in, covering the cost in roughly two days, but other technical difficulties caused the site to basically stall out; Maffew eventually started up botchamania.com, and fans are hoping the site will actually stick around this time. And now that it's sponsored by CHIKARA, that's looking more likely. Maffew's first YouTube account has long been suspended, and while Maffew promised not to "Billy Gunn" his second account (get it deleted by posting non-Botchamania videos), the copyright overlords at YouTube eventually suspended it anyway. He is currently on his ninth YouTube account for uploading new Botchamanias. He is now also featured on Reviewtopia.

Tropes used in Botchamania include:
  • Accentuate the Negative: Some viewers and smarks get the impression that the individuals on Botchamania only ever botch, particularly Sabu, who following his recurring appearances in the videos causes some to assume that all of Sabu's matches contain botches even though they don't. Maffew seems to struggle with this regarding announcers as well, particularly Michael Cole. Usually when Cole says something "wrong" it's intentional.
    • This is lampshaded in #150, which states "Why Botchamania Sucks: It can make great wrestlers look like terrible wrestlers." He then shows several clips of the usually very competent BxB Hulk of Dragon Gate making a mess of his matches.
  • And I Must Scream: The Cornette Face video linked above states that this is the fate that Cornette is doomed to whenever the Face is invoked.
  • Ascended Meme: Victory Road 2011 was so awful, even Jim Cornette himself was looking forward to the upcoming Botchamania for it. Maffew was happy to oblige.
    • Recent Botchamanias have been graced by wrestlers of varying fame with introductions and submitted botches from them, from a number of independent wrestlers to one Mick Foley.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Maffew inserts foreign words or full sentences in some episodes.
  • Big Yes: Botchamanias 152-167 and 172 open with Bobby Heenan's reaction to Ric Flair winning Royal Rumble '92.
  • Broke the Rating Scale: Particularly bad matches are highlighted with "MINUS! FIVE! STARS!", a declaration by wrestling radio host Bryan Alvarez regarding an infamous match in the TNA pay-per-view Victory Road '09.
  • Camera Abuse: Some videos feature cameramen and or their cameras themselves taking some sort of unintentional abuse.
  • Did Not Do the Research: Rarely inverted after Maffew questioned Michael Cole referring to Yokozuna (who wrestled as a Japanese Sumo Wrestler) as a Polynesian. However, he was in fact of Polynesian descent and Michael Cole was oddly spot on.
  • Don't Explain the Joke: Inverted, if you can believe it. Once in a while there will be a match in which the victory stipulations will be one thing and the finish will be Something Completely Different. For example: a stretcher match (you have to wheel your unresponsive opponent out of the arena on a stretcher) ends with a clean 1-2-3 finish; or a new, young wrestler is set to beat an older, somewhat established star, and the older, somewhat established star cooperates by no-selling and sandbagging his opponent. These are just a few such moments.
    • Rarely ever, some moments are not clearly explained via captions in the video; they are rather more likely to get the detailed description on the wiki. One example would be an infamous match on Victory Road '10 between Jeff Hardy and Sting, with the first being drugged so much he couldn't even wrestle.
  • Early Installment Weirdness: A couple of the earliest episodes featured occasional bits of ridiculous Backyard Wrestling, something noticeably lacking in pretty much every other epsiode due to the non-professional nature of it.
  • Freudian Slip: Could practically have its own page.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: Unintentional when Fighting Spirit Magazine published an article about Botchamania. It included some screenshots of the video playing on Youtube with clearly in sight Maffew's username: Maffewfucksmen.
    • Botchamania has also demonstrated examples of this pulled off during the wrestling shows. Nudity? Cue to Stevie Richards holding the Censored sign. Swearing in a non-G show? Cue to special emphasis subtitles. Corpsing? Send for the... Er, no, that's the other thing.
  • Halloween Special: 105 which featured different matches/events from WCW's Halloween Havoc.
  • Ironic Echo: Botchamania 184 shows an incident where Kurt Angle throws Sting into the railing, knocking over a black audience member. This is repeated with a clip from a WWE promo years earlier in which Kurt ironically makes outrageous statements as a face, one of which was "Truth be told, I'm not a big fan of 'the black people'."
  • Lampshade Hanging: Happens frequently either in the descriptions or the videos.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: When Maffew's second account on Youtube got suspended some users like FantomaMark1 & TableOfJapan kept the bulk of the videos circulating on Youtube. His response to cries for a DVD release essentially amount to "HAHAHAHA no."
    • Zig Zagged: It's not always hard to find the episodes that are missing on YouTube, especially with Dailymotion.
  • Madness Mantra: In the Hulk Hogan / Roddy Piper cage match in WCW, which was dreadful, Maffew apparently loses his mind over the inanity of what's going on (the object of a cage match is to escape the cage and win). When Hogan and Piper take the brawl to the outside of the cage, the phrase "THEY BRAWL OUTSIDE IN A CAGE MATCH" is scrawled repeatedly over the action.
  • Money, Dear Boy: Botchamania 174 opens with a 20-second Chikara advert, immediately followed with the message "I need the money; don't judge me."
    • This is further lampshaded as each of the adverts has a song about money or selling out playing over it.
      • It would be ultimately subverted, when #184 displays the message, "CHIKARA pays for advertising on my site; I do this as a courtesy to them."
  • Mood Whiplash: Setting a botch montage to "The Impossible Dream" has a rather... different effect than Maffew probably intended.
  • Multiple Endings: There may either be a no-brainer ending or a whole bunch of them, with the most notable example being #166.
  • Narm: One of the major staples of the series. From Botchamania 104:

Shelton Benjamin: You wanna try to fight me? You better BRING A LUNCH!

  • Old Shame: Maffew has been banned on YouTube multiple times. However, for some reason, the account he's least proud of, Maffewfucksmen, is still up.
  • One of Us: Maffew is noted to be an avid video gamer and fan of Metallica which occasionally will pop up in the videos in someway usually the music. He also appears to enjoy professional wrestling somewhat, though that's pure conjecture.
    • He also reads this site on occasion.
  • One-Scene Wonder: Raja Lion, an amazingly unskilled puro wrestler who fought in only two matches, both of which can be seen in Botchamania 119. He is honored with a brief appearance in the series intro.
  • Promotional Consideration: CHIKARA clips are sometimes introduced this way.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Botchamania 92 entirely features the TNA pay-per-view Victory Road 2009. A reviewer of the events (Bryan Alvarez) expresses disbelief that EARL! FUCKING! HEBNER! outran James Storm to the ring, and awards the pay-per-view MINUS! FIVE! STARS!
  • Recurring Extra: "Airhorn Guy"
  • Running Gag:
  • Screwed By Youtube: Maffew's original account got shutdown for multiple copyright infractions as a result Maffew frequently creates new accounts for new Botchamanias.
  • Shout-Out: Botchamania 145: WARNING: An awful wrestler Lacey Von Erich is approaching fast.
    • Botchamania 194 uses Animaniacs' "Good Idea, Bad Idea" format to prove a point about a certain match ending at TNA's Turning Point 2011.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: Happens frequently given the nature of video game music.
  • Special Effects Failure: Another series staple, incidents include pyros not shooting off on cue (if at all), "electric cages" selectively electrocuting wrestlers, the infamous Shockmaster incident, etc.
  • Spiritual Successor / Start My Own: According to Maffew, Botchamania in its current form was created in response to three poor-quality compilations of wrestling bloopers called "Botchamania" created by two different people. He reasoned that he could do better in his sleep and so came up with Botchamania 4 the next day, then 5, then 6, etc. Eventually, he compiled the best-quality clips he could find from the original videos into a new entry called "Botchamania 1, 2, & 3 Maffew Edition".
  • The Stinger: All the time, considerably in the latter releases which take the pure text taglines out from the endings and replace those with video. Now, uMo or Iron Sheik are the most frequent guests here.
  • Take That: Botchamania 165 was prefaced with a note saying that "We’ve had three TNA World Champions since the last one", the last one being the one dedicated to Victory Road 2011.
    • Some of the endings and descriptions take pot shots at WWE Raw.
    • After #173 was removed by CZW, it was resubmitted without the offending footage. It opened with a special message from Bobby Heenan:

(showing CHIKARA logo) "You listen to me--you go to the top! You don't listen to me...(switches to CZW logo) you're never heard from again!"

Thanks For Watching

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