Webcomic / Botched Spot

Botched Spot is a Professional Wrestling Webcomic created by James Hornsby in 2008 and updated three times a week. At first, it followed the exploits of two small-time professional wrestlers: a young up-and-comer by the name of Rad Bad DeBone and a cynical old-school wrestler called Olav Orlav. The comic has since moved away from the two stars and their supporting cast in favor of parodying real life wrestling news and television angles seen in WWE and TNA. However, a spin-off comic titled "Over Like Olav" featuring the original characters has been given its own section of the site, with longer strips but more time between updates too.

A lot of the comic's humor comes from affectionately parodying the wrestling business, the types of people who work in it and the people who watch it (or the stereotypical versions, at least). It's likely that there are some in-jokes only wrestling fans will get but Botched Spot is reasonably accessable for everyone, particularly the Olav/Rad Bad plotlines.

The comic came to an official end in December 2019.

---

Botched Spot provides examples of:

• Acceptable Breaks from Reality: The Scale of Believability goes through some of the more ridiculous things that have been accepted like Braun Strowman lifting ambulances, Bray Wyatt teleporting into the ring or The Undertaker being a zombie who can control lightning. The line gets drawn at The Shield somehow able to get a judge to see them an hour after being arrested, at night, on Labor Day!
• Adaptational Wimp: "Attitude Era Stone Cold Steve Austin with 2019 Booking!" shows how one of the biggest badasses of the Attitude Era would be toned down for the family friendly era of wrestling by cowering in front of Kane and threatening to sue Vince McMahon instead of going for a Stone Cold Stunner.
• Affectionate Parody

• Animate Body Parts: "Neck to Neck" has Jason Jordan ask his dad Kurt Angle to take the night off cause his neck's bothering him and Kurt agrees he should get checked out by the medical staff. Soon as he turns around, Kurt's neck starts shouting at Jason that he's a wimp for complaining about a sore neck considering the kind of abuse Kurt's neck has been through over the years.
• Ascended Fanboy: Rad Bad. Jerry too, whose mom bought an indy wrestling promotion just so he could live out his fantasies.
• Ass Pull: Invoked and exploited in "Botched Spot Presents Great Moments for a Heel Turn," which examines what happens in wrestling heel turns were applied to real life.
• Captain Ersatz: Olav is most likely based on Nikolai Volkoff, who also had a gimmick as a Soviet character, but his physical appearance is based almost entirely off of Ivan Koloff, another famous Soviet gimmick wrestler.
• Cheap Heat: Olav makes a habit of insulting local sports teams to get a reaction.
• Deadpan Snarker: Usually Olav.
• Ear Ache: No matter what else happened at WWE Hell In A Cell 2018, all James can think of even as he goes to sleep is Randy Orton twisting a screwdriver through Jeff Hardy's earhole.
• Eyes Always Shut: Olav. It was eventually lampshaded by The Great Droopi in "Olav's Title History".
  Droopi: So do you have eyeballs or just little 'L's or what?
  Olav: THAT'S IT!
• Face–Heel Turn: The "Great Moments For A Heel Turn" segments.
  • "What Will Make Sasha or Bayley Finally Turn Heel?" has different questions about the long teased turn between the two rivals exaggerated to the point that even in the retirement home, fans are still waiting on the heel turn.
• Filler Strips: "Li'l Botched", featuring child versions of Olav and Rad Bad and a pun in each one.
• Flanderization: Strips involving Randy Orton have him taking any excuse to put people into an RKO.
• Foreign Wrestling Heel: Olav has been playing a Soviet Union character for a long time. He's not the only one: his former tag-team partner, Adala Von Wyn, had a Nazi Gimmick.
• Frivolous Lawsuit: The Anthem Owl trying to give anyone who chanted DELETE at Wrestlemania 33 and Raw cease and desist orders.
• Girls with Moustaches: Along with Paper-Thin Disguise, "Nick" Bella has the inside scoop for Wrestlemania 33.
• History Repeats: "Holding Out for What's NXT" has James upset about Raw being bad and hoping that when the latest crop of NXT stars like Aleister Black and Tommaso Ciampa come around, things will get better. Then he remembers the last time that happened with Finn Balor, Bayley and Tyler Breeze and is upset.
• It Must Be Mine!: "Triple H’s ROH Kids?!" has Triple H spotting the ROH Kids playing in Madison Square Garden park and having this reaction to wanting the children. Said children include Cody, Marty Scurll, The Young Bucks, Dalton Castle and the Boys, and Colt Cabana for example.
• Karma Houdini: This strip has it played for laughs with Kalisto, after seeing people like Baron Corbin, AJ Styles and Randy Orton getting matches despite doing some criminal acts, gets himself into the Universal Championship match after murdering the champion.
• Lost in Translation: "Google Translate "Top Babyface" shows the cultural difference in how the top babyfaces of countries address the crowd with Kazuchika Okada and Roman Reigns as examples.
• Magnificent Bastard: The True Nature of Dixie Carter has this as an idea about how she's managed to survive being ousted from TNA.
• Misblamed: In-Universe, Bellalution has the fans upset about the Bella Twins coming back. As the fans and Bellas argue about what caused the Women's Evolution, Vince and Stephanie are in the office with him glad that the fans are blaming the Bellas for the "three minute match" era and not him.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: In-Universe, WWE2K20 has 2K Games getting heat from how bad WWE2K20 is, though Vince McMahon sees it as a good thing and sends Seth Rollins over to help them sell it.
• Ratings Stunt: This strip has the Miz upset about John Cena and Nikki Bella's then-recent breakup because they gave them a chance to get engaged at Wrestlemania 33, and now they're doing this as a publicity stunt to get ratings up for Total Bellas, saying he and his wife Maryse will never sink that low. Cut to one year earlier where it turns out that the last year has all been planned out in advance by Maryse's agent.
• Series Hiatus: From January 2 to July 13, 2011. James Hornsby got back into the thrice-weekly schedule amazingly quickly.
• Smart Mark: Russell.
• Sword of Damocles: In this strip, Vince threatens the new Cruiserweight division to get more ratings or he sends out Braun Strowman to squash them all and end the division.
• The Rival: The Great Droopi in "Olav's Title History".
  Olav: Yes, The Great Droopi! The Shawn Michaels to my Bret Hart! The Andy Kaufman to my women of Tennessee!
• Tempting Fate: "Gobbeldy Gooker Return Tour" has the Anthem Owl let the Gooker know that owls kill and eat turkey. The next panel shows him coming out with a full belly and "Happy Thanksgiving."
• Villain with Good Publicity: Double Turn has Triple H, in the middle of his match against the Undertaker, go from corporate shark to philanthropist along with a Transformation Sequence.