Spending an evening at The Iron Sheik's 'Roasted Rumble'

The Iron Sheik is 74 years old, an age that makes perfect sense when you remember that The Sheik has always seemed old, even when he was young. He was 43 when he captured the WWF Championship and subsequently lost it to Hulk Hogan (which, as he would tell you, created Hulkamania.) He was in his 50s when he managed Rocky Maivia's first major nemesis The Sultan, and spent his 60s limping through the independent circuit. Now, as a YouTube star, a Howard Stern mainstay, and a meme unto himself, he sports the same black mustache, has the same timeless, weathered face, but is five years older than Jim Leyland. Feel free to think about that for a minute.

Last Thursday night, the WWE Hall of Famer hosted his second "Roasted Rumble" at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles. It was a mash-up of wrestling and comedy centered around the Sheik's legacy both as a wrestling legend and an Internet personality notable for screaming curses and epithets at the drop of a hat. The conceit of the "Roasted Rumble" is that it would ape the WWE's Royal Rumble gimmick: a new comedian or wrestler would take the stage to give Sheiky the business and every two minutes a new participant would enter, running the previous participant off the stage.

Before the show, in a back room redolent with weed and vape smoke, VIP guests and premium ticket holders got to rub elbows with the man of the hour and his guests, who all posed for numerous photos while a video crew swarmed about in the cramped quarters, grabbing footage for the Sheik's next reality or documentary endeavor. There's already a fantastic documentary about the Sheik, which doesn't shy away from any aspect of his astounding life, but the man of the hour may have designs on a television show.

On this night, the famously raucous Sheik was sedate, cordial, shaking hands with anyone who wanted to, posing for a photo with whoever asked and signing anything that was put in front of him with a nod of his head. Fans and friends alike treated him with reverence ... until they all took the stage.

The evening kicked off with a comedian doing a "Ravishing" Rick Rude impression in a fake mustache and Zubaz, before stripping down to his underwear and French-kissing a lady planted in the audience. This same comic would return later as a bikini-briefs-clad, bulge-stuffed, cocaine-fueled Ultimate Warrior parody. That's just the sort of night this was.

The roast began with wrestlers, both past and present, some of whom were better equipped to the medium of standup comedy than others. Tommy "Tiny" Lister Jr., indispensable character actor and onetime foe of Hulk Hogan under the ring name of "Zeus," kept taking to the stage, insisting the crowd chant "Deebo" for him (after his character in Friday), choking host "Hollywood" Stu Stone, demanding the crowd cheer for the current WWE product despite no one in attendance being currently affiliated with the company, then disappearing again. Buff Bagwell seemed to think the best course of action was to tell a story about when he pulled an unsuspecting woman's pants down in front of a stadium full of people, explaining that was the best way to start a party. (That's actually assault, Buff.) When the wrestlers got into murky, train-wreck-infested waters, the hosts of the event would loudly start a crowd countdown to bring up the next guest. They never did get those entrance-music kinks ironed out.

As the roast transitioned from wrestlers to comedians, the stopgap was Dennis Haskins, best-known as Mr. Belding from Saved By the Bell and a huge wrestling fan. He opted to read some actual Iron Sheik tweets, with some crowd interaction, and the bit actually killed. The actual stand-up comedians fared best of all, being given much longer leashes. As a bonus, all of the comedians appeared to have at least some knowledge of wrestling, with many of them seeming to be big fans.

No punches were pulled (except in the professional wrestling sense), although there was only one Chris Benoit joke. A man's underpants were pulled all the way down. Everyone pointed out how much the Iron Sheik loved drugs. Brody Stevens told hyper-specific Los Angeles-based geography insults before getting up in the Sheik's grill, getting hit in the face by Sheik's walking stick (which was either a complete surprise to everyone or the best pro wrestling performance of all time) and placed in the camel clutch by wrestler Shad Gaspard.

After each wrestler or comedian, the Sheik would be asked how they did. Invariably, they were no-good, piece-of-shit jabronis. This is what the crowd expected and hoped for, of course, because wrestling fans want the Sheik to be doing the insulting. On this night, however, the Sheik seemed perfectly content to let others do the heavy lifting and soak up the adulation. As the lengthy standing ovation at the end of the night proved, he's earned it. When the lights came on at the end of the night, as bussers cleared tables and chairs, people were still waiting in line to plunk down money to get their picture taken with the Iron Sheik, the one man in the building who was clearly not a jabroni.