“Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.” – Machiavelli
The Opening Chapter
Pro wrestling thrives on creating new stars. Every few months or weeks promoters will trot out a new star, touting them the next big thing. Some of them catch fire, some of them don’t. Even others may look to fizzle immediately, but may grow into something later on. In WCW’s dying couple of years they were desperate to bring any new faces and push them as stars. Thankfully due to their Power Plant training facility they had a multitude of new wrestlers they could put out on television, whether they were ready or not.
The Power Plant helped produce and hone the talents of many of WCW’s biggest stars, including Goldberg, Paul and Diamond Dallas Page, but in late 1999 the Plant pumped out ten new, young, athletic and well-built athletes that were all looking to make the big time. Thanks to the booking of Jimmy Hart, the once “mothership†program of WCW, Saturday Night had now become a development program for these new stars.
So thanks to the career resurgence of Chuck Palumbo on SmackDown!, the rebirth of Elix Skipper and XXX and Mark’s Jindrak’s name being floated around in relations to the now-famed Dr. Astin, I think now would be a good time to look back at the careers of those ten men who started out as near-rookies at Universal Studios soundstages in 1999 and where they are now.
Chuck Palumbo
Palumbo, the biker-loving tough guy now found on Friday nights started out on Saturday Nightwith a jungle boy gimmick, even christening his superkick the Jungle Kick. He was one of the first of his cohorts to really make the big time in WCW as he debuted as “The Main Event†Chuck Palumbo early in May 2000. He was the New Blood faction’s answer to “Total Package†Lex Luger. His tag team run with “The Perfect One†Shawn Stasiak (the New Blood’s doppelganger for “Mr. Perfect†Curt Hennig) eventually led to the The Natural Born Thrillers stable with fellow Power Plant grads Mike Sanders, Sean O’Haire, Johnny the Bull, Reno and Mark Jindrak. His pairing with O’Haire carried them into the WWF during the Invasion as WCW Tag Champions.
Palumbo soon found success in the WWF, forming the successful and controversial “Chuck & Billy†pairing with Billy Gunn and a quiet run with Johnny the Bull in a reformed Full Blooded Italians group. He was released in the fall of 2004 with others like Johnny and Billy and soon found success in Japan. He was rehired by the WWE in 2006 when it was revealed that his brother Chris Palumbo was an Iraqi war hero.
Mark Jindrak
Mark Jindrak’s humble television start saw him playing a basketball player. Why a basketball player was also wrestling, I’ll never know. Soon he found himself on the main stage of WCW Nitro, paired with fellow Plant alum Sean O’Haire as a large, impressive-looking, but altogether vanilla team. He and O’Haire soon won the WCW Tag belts twice, and like the rest of his Natural Born Thriller teammates, ended up the WWF during the Invasion.
While not making any impact at all during the initial Invasion, he soon went on to decent success in the WWE with “Garrison†Cade as a plucky babyface duo in 2003 and 2004 and then as the Narcissist-like “The Reflection of Perfection†as a singles guy. (What is with all these Lex Luger rip offs?) He then got his biggest push as he became a henchman for Kurt Angle in late 2004 and early 2005. But by the spring of 2005 he had pretty much become a non-descript jobber and was released with a multitude of others in the July 2005 bloodletting. After his release he did the obligatory of Japan and had a partnership with Matt Morgan. He is currently finding success in Mexico as Marco Corleone.
Elix Skipper
Elix Skipper debuted with the awesomely bad “Skip Over†as his gimmick name. His big break didn’t come until August of 2000 when he joined Lance Storm’s Team Canada stable and was handed the WCW Cruiserweight Championship. He then feuded with fellow alum Mike Sanders and in the dying days of WCW won the Cruiserweight Tag Championship with Kid Romeo. He was also picked up by the WWF in the WCW buyout, but never made it to TV. He was released by 2002.
It was in TNA where Skipper has really made his name. He was paired with Low Ki and Christopher Daniels as XXX, an off-shoot of the Vince Russo led Sports Entertainment eXtreme stable. Because we can’t have SEX without XXX, right? The trio won a few NWA Tag Titles using the old Freebird three man rule. But Skipper really got his fame in 2004 during his and Daniels’ second feud against America’s Most Wanted, when he did an insane huracanrana dive off of the top of the Six Sides of Steel cage. He and Daniels lost the match and were forced to split up. Skipper floundered through 2005 and 2006 in the Diamonds in the Rough stable and was ultimately released. It was only earlier in the summer of 2007 that he was rehired so as the reunite the old XXX stable and wreck new havoc on TNA.
Sonny Siaki
Sonny Siaki, despite having good size and a good look, never really made it in WCW. He was used on the Saturday Night show his fellow graduates but never really got to the big time and was released before WCW folded. He was not picked up the WWF during the buy out.
He, like Skipper, really found his niche in TNA. He was also a part of the SEX faction and even won the X-Championship after originally starting out as a Flying Elvis. Once TNA hit cable Siaki was lost in the shuffle. He spent his time in meaningless tag teams with Simon Diamond and Apollo fighting on the bottom of the card. He and Apollo faced Lance Hoyt and Chris Candido in the cage match in April 2005 that caused Candido’s broken leg and ultimately his death. Siaki soon left TNA and was signed by WWE. He spent 2006 in the Deep South territory and has now been moved to the new Florida Championship Territory in anticipation of his call-up to the main roster.
Sean O’Haire
Sean O’Haire was always the guy I felt had the best look and the most potential out of this whole group. He never did the Saturday Night rounds and was instantly put under the bright lights as tag partner to Mark Jindrak. As mentioned earlier, his career followed much of his co-horts: Tag Title runs, Natural Born Thrillers stable, WWE pick-up and then WWE burial during the Invasion. He was looked to be pushed heavily in the last days of WCW, but that didn’t translate over to his WWE run.
After being pulled from TV during the Invasion he didn’t resurface again until the summer of 2003, playing a very cool-looking Devil’s Advocate character. Despite the mileage the character could have gotten he was paired with Roddy Piper as his protégé. Once Piper was released, O’Haire became the scapegoat. He became a low-level guy working Velocity and was eventually released in April 2004, without ever really have gotten a chance.
He has now become more famous for his MMA and out-of-ring exploits. He is currently 1-2 in MMA fights, including a loss to Butterbean. He has also found himself in some legal trouble at his home in Hilton Head, South Carolina thanks to some bar brawls.
Johnny the Bull
Johnny the Bull, born John Hugger, beat his colleagues to WCW’s main shows by months as he was inserted into The Mamalukes tag team with veteran Big Vito in the fall of 1999. The pair had decent success through the rest of 1999 and into 2000, even winning the WCW Tag Titles twice. During the summer of 2000 he split with Vito and joined the rest of his classmates in the Natural Born Thrillers once it was made public that the group all trained together. He got picked up the WWE during WCW’s closure but didn’t really see the light of day in WWE until the summer of 2002. He was brought in as a low-card hardcore wrestler and eventually drifted over to the FBI stable with Palumbo and Nunzio. Like Palumbo, Johnny was released in November 2004 and made his mark in Japan. As I write this, rumors say that Johnny wrestled as The Unkown Wrestler at the July 31, 2007 SmackDown! taping against Chavo Guerrero as a tryout for perhaps an eventual return.
Allan Funk
“Angry†Allan Funk probably had the most success and was the most pushed of his classmates on Saturday Night. I remember distinctively him having a feud with Barry Horowitz of all people. His whole schtick was that he would get angry very easily. He and “Above Average†Mike Sanders also formed the short-lived “Re-Enforcers†team on the C and D-level shows as an homage to their “Double A†names. He showed up in the summer of 2000 as Nitro’s make-up artist Kwee-Wee, planting the seeds for the gay gimmick he sometimes still plays today on the independents. As Kwee-Wee he was managed by Paisley (Sharmell) and formed an unlikely partnership with Meng. Despite getting picked up the WWF he was never to be seen on TV. He had short-lived run in the fledgling NWA-TNA as he, now known as “Bruce†formed The Rainbow Express with Lenny and won the Miss TNA crown.
He suffered a severe facial injury at spot show in Finland in a tag match with him and Sanders against Siaki and Skipper. He hasn’t really had much of an impact in wrestling since then.
Mike Sanders
My second favorite of all the Power Plant “elite,†Mike Sanders lacked the genetic body and height of most of his crew, but was blessed with the ability to talk. As mentioned earlier, he made his early debut playing a sort of surfer gimmick in a team with Allan Funk. It was July 2000 before he made his debut on Thunder and within the month had been the mouth behind the formation of the Natural Born Thrillers. He earned himself a spot as WCW Commissioner for awhile when that was getting passed around like well insert your own joke there, and also got a brief run as Cruiserweight Champion. Once picked up the WWF he never made it onto television, instead floundering in HWA until his release in July 2002. He toiled in the indys for a couple of years but now appears to be mostly out of the business and doing stand-up work down in Florida. Well he was always better on the mic than he was in the ring.
Kid Romeo
Kid Romeo was probably the least used of this class of ’99. He made a couple brief appearances as a jobber on Nitro and Thunder, but never really made his mark until early 2001, just months before WCW’s demise. He paired with Skipper and won the newly created Cruiserweight Tag Titles. Unfortunately when the WCW sale came up, Romeo didn’t come with. He spent some time in the indys and had a couple brief stops in TNA but nothing of note. He will go down in record books, however, as the one of the first men to hold those inaugural Cruiserweight Tag belts.
Rick “Reno†Cornell
Rick Cornell followed much of the same path as Palumbo and Jindrak, a start on the Saturday Night show and an eventual call-up to WCW’s big leagues in the early summer of 2000. He was given the ring name Reno to go with his shaved head and pony tail look and played a sort of silent assassin gimmick. He was the first to use that rolling neckbreaker/cutter move that has now become so popular with every mid-card act. He ended with a run as WCW Hardcore Champion and a feud with Big Vito. He was also picked up by the WWF and like some of his peers, never saw the light of day and was released shortly thereafter. His whereabouts right now are hard to find.
The Perspective
You have got to give WCW credit for trying. In their twilight months they introduced many new talents as the fans had requested. Unfortunately for many of them they were pushed too hard too fast for their skill level and then paid for it once they made the transition to the WWF. Of those ten only two are still working regularly on a national spotlight and both of them (Palumbo and Skipper) were just recent returns. It’s unfortunate how so many promising talents could wind up with so little national success. Whether its McMahon’s spite for anything not created by him or by a lack of solid training from the Power Plant, or a combination of many factors, this group of promising upstarts may just end up wrestling footnotes. And frankly that’s just a little unfortunate.
For this week the vault is closed
Linked to the Pulse
The Top Wrestlers feature is still rolling on and #77 is the latest highlighted.
Big Andy Mac makes a call for a Race to the Top to happen yearly, and frankly I don’t disagree with him.
David B. talks about The Dudleyz last stand in ECW.
This Day in History
I figured if we are talking history around here we should pay homage to what has happened on this very day in the years gone by. It will either make you long for the old days or be happy for what we have now.
1980 The Superdome Spectacular was held in the Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, LA
1985 – Harley Race defeated Crusher Blackwell for the Missouri State Heavyweight title
1992 – Ron Simmons defeated Big Van Vader for the WCW Heavyweight title
1992 – Brian Christopher defeated Tom Prichard for the USWA Southern Heavyweight title
1993 – The Moondogs defeated C.W. Bergstrom & Melvin Penrod, Jr. for the USWA Tag Team title
1998 – ECW Heatwave was held in the Hara Arena, Dayton, OH
2000 – WWF Heavyweight Champion, The Rock, opened a session of the Republican National Convention
2003 – Al Snow defeated Mafia for the Jersey All Pro Heavyweight Title
2003 – Azrieal defeated Monsta Mack & Nick Berk for the vacant Jersey All Pro Light-Heavyweight Title
2003 – Skinhead Ivan defeated Jay Lethal for the Jersey All Pro Television Title
1966 – Takayuki Iizuka was born
1984 – Argentina Apollo died of a heart attack at 46
The Assignment
It’s important to know your history to know where you have come from and where you are going. Nova implemented history assignments for the students of the developmental territories months ago so they would know pro wrestling’s history and they would learn just how many moves Nova did create. I feel this is a smashing idea and every week I will assign a book or DVD for you to check out and learn from. They are not only educational but very entertaining.
I’ve run out of new material to review for the time being, but for a little bit of entertainment I encourage to go out and pick up and watch The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior DVD. It is the most biased, self-serving, one sided DVD that WWE has ever put out, but is it damn entertaining. It is seriously funnier than some movies I have watched in theatres. The interviews section is absolutely priceless, especially the one about him being run over by lawn mowers. Gene Okerlund and Bobby Heenan provide entertaining insight about the guy, and Christian and Chris Jericho, who grew up as fan of the Warrior as I did, recall their fondness of him while still poking a little fun. Christian’s impersonation of Warrior’s WrestleMania VI promo is worth the price of the disc alone. Seriously, last year in grad school my buddies and I would come home from the bars and put in this DVD to just laugh and laugh. Don’t take much of it seriously content wise, but for entertainment value it’s definitely a keeper.
Everyone Likes To See Their Name in Print
I’ve got to give a shout out to Fixxer315 for his feedback on my Wrestling Heels column. We had a nice little discussion about it and even offered up the concept of another category: Sadistic Bastards. This would encapsulate the guys who just like to hurt people without regards to wins or losses, citing guys like Vader, Sid, Brock Lesnar, Demolition and Cactus Jack as examples of this category.
