He’s a man, not a fish!
Great-ing Gimmicks of the Past: Tenta vs. Bubba
History
John Tenta had quickly risen to stardom in the WWF as the Earthquake. He had decimated the Ultimate Warrior in his debut, and then gone on to feud with no less than Hulk Hogan. One of Earthquake’s most infamous moments was when he crushed Jake Roberts’s pet snake Damien, and then served him up to Vince McMahon, Lord Alfred Hayes, and Bobby Heenan as “Quakeburgers.”
Earthquake joined forces with Tugboat, renamed him Typhoon, and the two began wreaking havoc on the WWF tag division as the Natural Disasters. The Disasters eventually turned face, and had a feud with the team of Ted DiBiase and Irwin R. Schyster (Mike Rotunda) – Money Inc.
In 1994, Earthquake jumped ship to WCW and became known as Avalanche. It didn’t take long, however, for Avalanche to be repackaged – this time as Dungeon of Doom member the Shark.
On the May 28, 1996 Nitro, the Shark was challenging the Giant for the WCW World title. Thanks to Jimmy Hart’s interference, Giant retained. Afterward, Big Bubba (aka the Big Bossman) hit the ring with clippers in hand. He shaved half of Tenta’s head and left.
The Shark was furious. The next week’s Nitro opened with him claiming that he was a man, not a fish, and his name was John Tenta. He hit the ring and decimated Bubba, then chased him away with the scissors.
The following week we got a quick recap of the saga as Bubba stood there spinning the scissors around on his finger.
At the Great American Bash, it didn’t take long for Tenta to put Big Bubba away and the same held true the next night on Nitro.
Things were quiet the next week. The following episode saw Tenta getting another title shot against the Giant. A chokeslam ended it, and then Bubba hit the ring again and shaved off half of Tenta’s beard.
Tenta was furious, so we had a Carson City Silver Dollar match scheduled for the Bash at the Beach. Basically, it was a perennial Vince Russo favorite – a pole match. This time, there was a sock full of silver dollars on top of said pole, and, of course, whoever got it first got to use it.
Analyze the problem. John Tenta and Big Bubba had to climb a pole.
It didn’t take long for WCW to figure a way around that. Bubba was also part of the Dungeon of Doom, which meant that he had Jimmy Hart as his manager. Needless to say, Jimmy was the one who went up the pole. Unfortunately, when he got back down, Tenta was waiting. Tenta pitched Jimmy and clocked Bubba with the weapon, then got the easy pin.
And that was about all for that. It wasn’t just the end of the feud, but with the furor growing over the New World Order, Tenta didn’t stay in WCW much longer.
Analysis
With all the goofy angles flying around WCW before the New World Order formed, this was pretty much par for the course. If I remember correctly, Tenta wasn’t even under contract at this time and was just working on a nightly basis.
Having someone on a night-by-night deal appears to be surprising for WCW. In 1994, they had tried the same thing with the Honky Tonk Man, who was scheduled to take on WCW Television champion Johnny B. Badd in a rematch at the 1994 Starrcade. According to the Honky Tonk Man himself, he had been trying to get a written deal out of Eric Bischoff for some time. At Starrcade Bischoff again refused to give him the contract, so Honky Tonk packed his things and left the building as his theme song started playing for the match. WCW rushed Arn Anderson out to take his place instead.
Of course, in 2001 Meng was not under contract when he won the WCW Hardcore title on January 14th. Meng went on to immediately jump to the WWF at that year’s Royal Rumble.
Overall, the angle was surprising. Tenta had risen to be one of the top guys in the WWF for a while, although he had joined the tag division a couple of years prior to this. It’s not surprising that this was shuffled out with the nWo coming in to the picture. As I’ve said before, WCW was often hit and miss. This angle didn’t even come close to the target.
Where are they now?
John Tenta returned to the WWF in 1998 as the masked Golga, one of the Jackyl’s Parade of Human Oddities. That lasted until 1999. Tenta returned as Earthquake for the Gimmick Battle Royal at Wrestlemania XVII. Following that, he spent time in Florida, where he and Prince Iaukea ran ICW – Independent Championship Wrestling.
In 2004, Tenta discovered that he had bladder cancer which quickly spread to his lungs. Sadly, Tenta passed away on June 7, 2006 due to the cancer.
Shortly after the feud ended, Big Bubba left the Dungeon of Doom and joined the New World Order for a short time. After being kicked out of the nWo, Bubba began feuding with the group under his given name of Ray Traylor.
Traylor returned to the WWF as the Big Bossman in 1998 as part of Vince McMahon’s Corporation (later the Corporate Ministry). Later in 1999, Bossman entered the hardcore division before feuding with Big Show over Show’s dying father.
Bossman suffered a knee injury that put him on the sidelines for an extended period of time. In 2001, he returned as Booker T’s bodyguard, then joined Mr. Perfect as a tag team in 2002. Neither approach worked, so Bossman was removed from television and reassigned to Ohio Valley Wrestling to help with the developmental program. In 2003, Traylor was released from the WWE.
On September 22, 2004, Ray Traylor passed away at his home from a massive heart attack.
Next week
NWO? No problem! Vince McMahon’s got a foolproof plan to nip this one in the bud!
