Before he was Macho Mandow or even the Mizs stunt double/personal assistant, Damien Sandow was the Intellectual Savior of the Masses and one-half of the Rhodes Scholars, a tag team with Cody Rhodes. The duo competed in the World Heavyweight Championship MITB match, with Sandow upending Rhodes as he neared the briefcase and claiming it for himself. Sandow spent much of the next three months feuding with Rhodes over the briefcase (which Rhodes at one point threw into the Gulf of Mexico) before cashing in on a vulnerable John Cena. And in spectacular fashion, Sandow became the first man to lose his cash-in match, as Super Cena overcame the odds and defeated Damien. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuOEVbV70DU That loss led to a downward spiral for Sandow, as he went on a massive losing streak and began impersonating historical and pop culture figures and other wrestlers. This ultimately led to the Damien Mizdow gimmick, but back in 2013, it looked like Sandow was poised to step into a more prominent role via the MITB briefcase.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.