10 Best Rookie Years In WWE History
8. Tatanka
His WWE run seems like a distant memory at this point, but Tatanka was an underrated performer who had an incredibly strong first year with the company. A solid power-based wrestler known for his hard-hitting knife-edge chops and bold Native American persona, Tatanka was easy to root for, and amassed a healthy following while working as babyface early in his WWE career.
Tatanka failed to capture gold throughout his tenure, but he hit the WWE roster like a bolt of lightning upon debuting in 1992. Cutting through the likes of Rick Martel and The Mountie with ruthless effectiveness, Tatanka went undefeated in his first year of competition, and his first televised loss didn’t come until October 1993, when Ludvig Borga used a steel chair to overcome him.
His first-year escapades earned Tatanka high profile matches with wrestlers like Lex Luger and Shawn Michaels, and by the time those 12 months were up, Tatanka had amassed an impressive 166 WWE wins. Usually reserved for billboard-topping megastars like John Cena, this figure is a clear illustration of Tatanka’s early dominance through his first WWE run.
Even though he’d never win the big one, Tatanka was a force of nature in his first year.