Popping For Sid

With the one thousandth episode of WWE Monday Night Raw in a few weeks, the company has been bringing back stars from the past to take part in an angle or a match with Heath Slater.

The jobber to the former stars had already wrestled Vader and had a gold record display smashed over his head by Cyndi Lauper (who had WWE hall of famers Roddy Piper and Wendi Richter alongside her).

I had a feeling that one of the stars coming back in one of these weekly segments would be Sid Vicious.

Or Sid Justice.

Or Psycho Sid.

Or, as he was most known during his final run in the WWF, Sycho Sid.

Let's be honest here. Sid was always a bad wrestler. However, he had an awesome presence and people always popped for him whether he was a heel or babyface.

He was the first heel that I had ever cheered for. And this was at a time when I was a major Hulkamaniac.

I will always remember seeing him live during WCW's UK tour in the autumn of 1993. He was in a tag team match with Rick Rude as they squared off against Dustin Rhodes and Sting. My friend and I were shouting as loud as we could for him.

As we chanted 'Sid, Sid, Sid' it seemed the rest of the audience were trying to smother us with their chorus of 'Sting, Sting, Sting'. A female fan - sitting in the row in front of us - did not like us at all. Still, we continued.

We won.

You know how I could tell? Sid looked over to us and nodded.

Later that very same night, Sid and Arn Anderson ended up stabbing each other in a Blackburn hotel. Both missed the remainder of the tour. Sid was ultimately let go by WCW. He returned to the World Wrestling Federation a little less than two years later.

Along the way to last night were two WWF title runs, a stint in ECW, a return to WCW and the nastiest looking leg break I have ever seen (YouTube it if you have the stomach).

When his music started playing on Monday's episode of Raw, a huge smile broke out. For one night only - Sid was back.

He had aged. Was slower than ever. But it was Sid.

And for those few minutes, it was all good.

Wrestling nostalgia at its finest.