Kim Possible

“Pain King vs. Cleopatra”
Season 1, Episode 12
9/6/2002

At the beginning of February, the Disney Channel announced that they were going to do a live-action movie based on the Kim Possible cartoon. In a tweet prompting their fans to drop suggestions as to who should play the titular character, WWE’s Becky Lynch decided to nominate herself. After seeing this episode, it’s obvious the live-action Kim would definitely need to know her way around the ring. And have orange hair.

So Kim Possible is a teenager, who has to deal with being a teenager, and fight crime on the side. She’s got a crew to help her out, including Ron Stoppable, her best friend/goofy sidekick. Ron’s also voiced by Will Friedle, who adds another wrestling episode to his list of credits, after being manhandled by Vader as Eric Matthews in the Boy Meets World wrestling episodes. Rounding out the rest of the characters is a pet mole/rat thing named Rufus, and Wade, the prepubescent “Q” character who uses technology to help Kim out. They have a main villain they do battle with, but there’s no sense in getting into that, since he’s not even a part of this episode.

After a mission, Ron convinces Kim to tag along with him to the mall to be one of the first 100 fans so he can get a Global Wrestling Association t-shirt. Kim is like, what the hell is that, and Ron, like most wrestling nerds presented with the opportunity to explain anything wrestling-related, goes on about the GWA being the greatest thing. He goes into detail about the two top wrestlers: Steel Toe (who’s toe might actually be more titanium than steel), and Pain King and his bionic eye.

Just then, GWA founder Jackie Oakes takes to the podium. He’s basically the animated version of Vince McMahon if WWE had done a Kim Possible crossover movie. Only shorter. Jackie hypes up the crowd and introduces the two combatants. Ron tries to sell Kim on the art of the wrestling promo, but all we get is Pain King and Steel Toe going back and forth over who’s going down. Probably not their best work. Kim’s not impressed, and instead heads over to nearby store, Club Banana, that’s having a tie-in clothing special in conjunction with the local museum’s Cleopatra’s closet exhibit. Yes, it is a bit of reach for a set up, even for a kid’s cartoon.

Back at the GWA exhibit, Pain King and Steel Toe keep talking trash. Jackie tries to intervene, urging them to save it for their big event, Mayhem in Middleton. I guess it’s not Wrestling Wriot, like it says on the banner. Maybe that’s just the name of their flagship show. For whatever reason, the shoving match between the two wrestlers, sets off a chain reaction and the fans in attendance start fighting one another. Like, in that X-Files wrestling episode.

Meanwhile, Kim is striking up a friendship with Monique, the cashier at Club Banana, but notices the mall brawl going on and Ron hanging on for dear life. She jumps into action, and after some flippy shit, impresses Jackie so much that he gives her two backstage passes to the wrestling show so he can try and sell her on becoming a pro wrestler. Ron marks out, naturally. Kim couldn’t care less and hands the tickets to Ron. Ron tries to persuade her by suggesting they watch some wrestling in preparation for the event, but Kim decides to check out the Cleopatra’s closet exhibit at the museum instead.

Kim runs into Monique at the museum. Before they can begin their tour, the tour guide and the group find one of the guards tied up. Kim being Kim chases after the thief, who looks like a glowing gremlin from the back. It gets away before Kim can catch up to it.

Kim shows up at Ron’s place, who’s busy watching old tapes of Wrestling Wriot with Rufus, because it’s only 2002 and the GWA Network isn’t a thing yet. Kim tries to explain what happened, but gets a call from Wade, who she had phoned about the museum robbery before showing up to Ron’s, I guess. He tells her that the only thing that was stolen was a small talisman, a gift to Cleopatra, from the high priest of Anubis, and something about a mummified jackal, or something. I didn’t quite make it out that last part. But Wade did add that the talisman was “enchanted” with super human strength. Kim finally lets Ron know what’s going on, but he’s hung up on the fact that Kim hung out with Monique, instead of him.

The next day at school, Ron tries to hide his jealousy while hanging around Kim and Monique, but has a fit when Kim tells him she’s blowing off the wrestling show to hang out with Monique. You know, the show she never agreed to go to in the first place. Ron tries to give back the tickets, but ultimately decides to hang on to one of them. Smart move. They are backstage passes, after all.

At the Middleton Arena, Pain King and Steel Toe are hanging out in the locker room, completely out of character and shooting the shit. This seems as good a time as any to mention that Pain King is voiced by Bill Goldberg, and Steel Toe is voiced by Test (RIP). It’s kind of hard to tell since they’re not using their loud wrestler voices. At least, in Goldberg’s case. I don’t remember Test cutting promos. Also, maybe it was during this recording that Test finally convinced Goldberg to sign with the WWE.

Jackie comes in and asks for the guys’ opinion on him getting into the ring, Mr. McMahon style. Because he’s a diminutive authority figure, Toe and King find selling for Jackie Oakes to be too ridiculous to take seriously. They suggest he stick to promoting. Once outside the locker room, Jackie pulls out the missing talisman and menacingly foreshadows that that’s all going to change tonight.

Ron enters the arena and makes his way backstage. He notices Pain King and Steel Toe walking by and asks for their autographs. They look around for Jackie to provide them with a pen, but can’t find him. Steel Toe complains about how he doesn’t have his sunglasses, so I guess Jackie also serves as their bag boy? Ron volunteers to go grab Toe’s sunglasses that he forgot in his dressing room, and they’re totally cool with having an overzealous fan come in contact with their personal belongings.

Meanwhile, Jackie is in Egyptian garb performing some ritual in his dressing room. As he reads some ancient poem, Ron walks in to see him transform into this jacked-up, huge jackal, or The Jackal. No, not that Jackyl. The Jackal tosses him around and then hurls him from the backstage area all the way to the ring, where Pain King and Steel Toe are already going at it. I guess sending Ron for Toe’s sunglasses was just a ruse to get away from him. Jerks.

Ron slams into Steel Toe and takes him down. Pain King picks him up and is understandably pissed off and wants to know what Ron’s doing in the ring. Ron casually points towards the looming 12-foot tall Jackal that’s making his way towards them as the reason why he’s there.

During Kim’s hang session with Monique, Kim discovers that Monique is as big a wrestling fan as Ron. She also finds out from Wade that the person holding the talisman can become possessed with the spirit of Anubis, then Kim quickly puts together that the GWA was in town during the night of the robbery, and that the thief was small, like Jackie Oakes small. Kim ditches Monique and takes off to the matches.

Back at the arena, Pain King and Steel Toe are trying to figure out who The Jackal is, instead of running away from this altered beast, like any sane person would. Ron tells them that it’s actually Jackie Oakes. The Jackal/Jackie talks smack to them for calling him too small and grabs both grapplers and holds them up threateningly. Ron tries to step in, but Jackal shoots golden lasers at him, sending Ron into the turnbuckles. The crowd hasn’t even batted an eye at the 12-foot monster. Instead, they cheer even louder after seeing him shoot lasers. Because deep down we wrestling fans are a bloodthirsty bunch.

Ron doesn’t sell for that long though, as he’s more preoccupied with lamenting the terrible day he’s been having. As this goes on, Kim makes her way to ringside and reassures Ron that they’re still best friends. She tries to pump up Ron about saving… “Would you call it a sport?” she asks. Ron dutifully replies, “the most excellent one ever.” Yes it is, Ron. Yes, it is.

The Jackal irish whips both grapplers to opposite ends of the ring causing them to bounce back and crash in the middle. The Jackal then challenges anyone to a no holds barred, grudge match. The crowd turns on him all of a sudden and starts booing. Like true wrestling fans, flip-flopping on a moment’s notice. The Jackal responds by zapping audience members’ signs, and other hanging banners, but never actually hurting anyone in the process. He’s just not that kind of monster.

Kim calls out Jackal, but Ron jumps in front of her to show Kim how “it’s done.” Of course, he fails. Jackal shakes him off his leg and sends him flying into the ropes. Years of pro wrestling has conditioned us to expect Ron to bounce off those ropes, but instead he collapses onto them. Kim calls Jackal’s hubris into question, telling him to try that stuff without the talisman, but Jackal isn’t trying to hear that and envelopes Kim in this gold force field thing that lifts her up off the ground, then lets her drop.

Ron helps her up and Kim tells him to distract Jackal, while she goes for the talisman. Like any good-natured, wrestling heckler, Ron tries to get under the Jackal’s skin by proclaiming that Steel Toe is number one, and “Jackal who?” So I guess we have this episode to thank for that New Day “who” bit.

Kim jumps up on the Jackal’s back and tries reaching for the talisman, but he quickly throws her off of him, and right into Ron. Kim quickly recovers and suggests that Ron get Steel Toe and Pain King, who have been selling their beating likes pros this whole time, to help distract Jackal, so she can make another go for the talisman. At first the wrestlers decline, but then Ron appeals to their ego by selling them on how they’re not only entertainers, or gifted athletes, but heroes. Cut to: two impressionable children sitting ringside looking on in wonderment. Props to the writers for throwing this in there.

Steel Toe and Pain King jump into action and start double teaming Jackal. Or rather, triple teaming, if you can count Ron’s help as help. With the aid of a grappling hook (Which Braun Strowman has recently proven on Raw how useful it can be in backstage situations), Kim bungees down from the rafters, but her line is immediately snapped by Jackal’s eye lasers. But it’s Kim Possible, so she just uses the momentum to somersault onto the top rope and then lung herself so high into the air, she basically goes coast to coast from one side of the ring to the other. As she rebounds back towards Jackal, Ron grabs Rufus, who I guess was chilling in his pocket this whole time, and hurls him towards the talisman. Rufus bites the chain holding the talisman in place just as Kim connects with them, scooping up Rufus and the talisman on her way down.

The Jackal immediately shrinks back down to his diminutive Jackie Oakes self. Steel Toe and Pain King go after him for scooping their heat. Jackie tries to beg off the oncoming beatdown, but it’s no use. Pain King picks him up, and gives him a cartoon version of an airplane spin, because you just have to work in that move somehow into a wrestling episode. After a few spins, King just tosses Jackie into the crowd without any regard for the fans’ well-being, like he’s Bam Bam Bigelow.

We then see two wrestling fans in the audience, going at it like two typical smarks, arguing over whether the show was good or not. With one guy saying the “whole Jackal thing was totally fake.” Which goes to show that wrestling has done such a great job blurring the lines of reality, that older jaded fans will still call bullshit on a 12-foot tall ancient Egyptian monster that can shoot laser beams.