Marilyn Manson may be best known as a propriety-fucking shock rocker, but he can also claim to be a champion celebrity-stomping fighter, thanks to MTV's 1998-2002 claymation show Celebrity Deathmatch, which is about to make a long-overdue return. During his reign of terror, Manson faced a slew of stop-motion opponents including Ricky Martin, Garth Brooks, Dennis Rodman and even his own namesake, cult leader Charles Manson. Martin (see above) took on the Antichrist Superstar following a lively "performance" of actual Manson song "Astonishing Panorama of the End Times," which was written for the series. The so-called King of Latin Pop may have taken a serious bite out of the action, but, alas, he couldn't prevail against Deathmatch titan Manson.
A clay Brooks also took a turn trying to brutally murder MM's likeness to no avail, even when the country icon tried to entrance the vampiric singer with his hypnotic line-dancing skills. A guitar mishap ends up being the crooner's downfall when a tug-of-war ensues and takes off Brooks' signature cowboy hat, skull top included.
The show's pilot episode features Charles Manson and Marilyn Manson squaring off in a quick match, with the latter dominating the convicted mass murderer in a game-ending skeleton-removing power move. The pint-sized psychopathic cult leader never stood a chance against the towering goth-metal musician.
Not surprisingly, considering his multiple appearances on the show, Marilyn Manson was also a favorite character on the spin-off video game, which allowed fans to enact their own gory matches. The clip below features an extra-bloody computer animation fight in with Manson summons a demon from hell via a pentagram drawn on the ring floor to drag Dennis Rodman to Hell.
Even when he wasn't appearing to fight his own battles, Manson could sometimes drop in to remind everyone exactly why he ruled Celebrity Deathmatch, as seen in the below power move where he kills the entire lineups of both Hanson and the Spice Girls. His reasoning resonated with his reputation at the time, the character claiming, "Why'd I do it? Because I'm Marilyn Manson, the most evil man in America."
