Acrylic and paint marker on 24″ x 24″ wood
Few professional wrestlers have embodied brutal intensity better than Sid. Born in 1960 Arkansas, Sid Eudy debuted as a professional wrestler in 1987 after being discovered by Randy Savage and trained by Tojo Yamamoto. After competing around the United States for various regional promotions under the masked persona of Lord Humongous and in New Japan Pro Wrestling where he challenged champion Tatsumi Funinami as the Vicious Warrior, he debuted the name Sid Vicious in World Class Championship Wrestling. The name was taken from the bassist for the Sex Pistols who worked under the same name.
In 1989 he debuted with World Championship Wrestling as Sid Vicious, first in the tag division but by 1990 as part of Ric Flair’s Four Horsemen. He was brought in at first as muscle to counteract the power of, I $#!+ you not, RoboCop. After the dissolution of the Horsemen, Sid left WCW for the World Wrestling Federation. He debuted there as the fan favorite Sid Justice, entering into a feud with Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts and later The Undertaker.At the beginning of the next year he entered the Royal Rumble where he eliminated Hulk Hogan in controversial fashion, leading the two to face each other in the main event at WrestleMania VIII.
In 1993 he returned to WCW as Sid Vicious, teaming with Vader to take on Sting. At that year’s Fall Brawl his team famously faced off against Sting’s team, which included The Shockmaster, who had maybe the most memorable debut of any wrestler ever. Look up Shockmaster’s debut if you’re unfamiliar. Sid would later lose to Sting in a singles match ending their feud. The next year he debuted with the United States Wrestling Association, where he defeated Jerry Lawler to win his first World Heavyweight Championship. By the beginning of the next year Lawler finally overcame the monster-sized man.
In 1995 he returned to the WWF as Sycho Sid, entering into a feud with Shawn Michaels, and later with Kevin Nash. After returning from an injury, Sycho Sid went on to defeat Shawn Michaels for the WWF Championship, and later successfully defended it against Bret Hart and Michaels before losing it to The Undertaker at WrestleMania 13. After a feud with Owen Hart he would again leave the company in 1997.
Sid had a brief run in Extreme Championship Wrestling before returning to WCW as Sid Vicious, joining Randy Savage’s Team Madness. He had a rather brutal series of matches against Goldberg, before going on to win the vacant WCW World Heavyweight Title and feuded with Kevin Nash and later Jeff Jarrett. The title was stripped from him and all other champions as part of WCW’s storyline reboot debacle. In 2001 his active in-ring career was ended after breaking his leg in half in one of the most gory on-screen injuries in the ring. Since then Sid has made sporadic appearances largely for regional promotions, and also for WWE in 2012 defeating Heath Slater.
About the piece: I wanted to capture both Sid’s intensity and the ‘madness’ circling around his character. I largely only used a palette knife with the acrylic paint, first putting the cool colors in the background, followed by some swirls with paint markers. I then brought in the body, again mostly with cool colors and then the face with warm colors. I brought some of those colors into the torso, then added some angry swirls with paint markers.