10 Scrappiest WWE Underdogs

3. The 1-2-3 Kid

By the time Sean Waltman signed a contract with the WWF in 1993, he€™d already been wrestling for four years, had had career-making matches with and against Jerry Lynn in the US and Japan, and suffered a near career-ending injury when an opponent landed on his head after a botched suicide dive. That didn€™t make a lick of difference, of course - the WWF didn€™t acknowledge the previous careers of their new recruits, and back in the 1990s, WWE was still very much the land of the giants. Waltman wasn€™t short, but neither was he stacked. Initially losing to Doink the Clown, Waltman would cycle through various permutations of €˜Kid€™ - Kamikaze, Cannonball, and finally simply €˜the Kid€™ - until his game-changing match on Monday Night RAW on 17th May 1993, when he upset Razor Ramon to win his first match on national television. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obwnbKlbysM The crowd went bananas. To those of us watching that night, it was one of those moments you just wished you could rewind. Back in 1993, RAW was mostly squash matches and middling midcard bouts: on Tuesday May 18th, the only thing my mates wanted to talk about was the 1-2-3 Kid. For a while, the urban myth that it was a referee snafu - the perils of live TV! - was leaping from person to person faster than syphilis on speed, and I know people that believe it to this day. The 1-2-3 Kid didn€™t stop there, of course. The WWF milked that underdog dollar for all it was worth. Razor challenged him to another match and put up ten grand of his own money if he won. The Kid was supposed to win again but botched the finish (a somersault plancha from the top rope to the outside), landing on his head and concussing himself. Somehow, he still found the wherewithal to just plain steal the money and run from the building, saving the match, the angle and his fledgeling career. The angle was over like clover. The Kid wouldn€™t lose another match on television until SummerSlam.