The Iron Sheik Humbles The Howard Stern Show

Over the past few years, the most bizarre story around the world of wrestling has involved the Iron Sheik. Since an unusual interview was posted on Youtube, the Iron Sheik has developed a cult following on the net. Every few months, new videos have been posted detailing his bizarre behavior and finally a mainstream outlet has taken notice. The Howard Stern Show has been playing and messing around with these interviews for the past few weeks and have finally been able to get him in the studio.

As far as the videos go, due to their graphic and vulgar nature, I am not able to post links to them. They all feature an angry Iron Sheik cursing and threatening to humble the people he doesn't like by putting them in the camel clutch, breaking their back, and then, ahem, violating them in a manly way.

The Howard Stern appearance was a perfect confluence of two bizarre worlds. Howard and Robin were treating him like royalty but were getting him agitated about the other wrestlers he doesn't like. He spent the first few minutes ranting about his hatred of Hulk Hogan. Once he was riled up, Howard played a few good tricks on him.

Artie called up, doing a spot on Iron Sheik impersonation, and claimed that he was a new wrestler called The Iron Sheik Jr. and that Vince McMahon just signed him to a multi-million dollar deal. The two had a wild argument that is must-see TV when this show goes on Howard TV. After that argument ended, other Stern employees called as the Ultimate Warrior, Randy Savage, and the Killer Bees (the original wrestlers that the Iron Sheik intended to humble). All I can say about these verbal battles is that if Howard would have still been on terrestrial radio he would have been fired after this show.

When he finally got the Sheik calmed down, he got the Iron Sheik to participate in an adult version of ring toss with Artie and Bubba the Love Sponge. Bubba and Sheik immediately hated each other because Hulk Hogan was the best man at Bubba's wedding. As only the Howard Stern show can end, the Iron Sheik finally got in a good mood when he won the ring toss and then watched the naked female involved in the game use an adult machine.

While the recent behavior of the Iron Sheik has made for some comedic moments that are rarely seen in today's politically correct society, upon deeper examination the story of the Iron Sheik is pretty tragic. The man has reached the heights of the wrestling business and is a former WWE Champion and a member of the WWE Hall of Fame. However, he is now in his '60s, in financial trouble, and has a long history of drug issues. To make matters worse, his daughter was murdered a few years ago. As I wrote a few months ago about Chyna, I really hope he has someone in his life that can help him off the path he is on. Today, most people are either laughing with or at him. I'm just afraid that very soon we will all be mourning him.

_{Photo of my escape from the Camel Clutch before "the humbling" begins: © 2007 Eric Cohen}