10 Things You Didn’t Know About TJ Perkins
5. Wrestled As Multiple Masked Wrestlers
Perkins has often spoken of how he used to wear a mask to prevent audiences from knowing how young he was, which is kind of ironic given how old-timers used to use that technique to prevent people from knowing how old they were.
Anyway, it’s an approach that clearly stuck with Perkins beyond his early days in the business. Over the years, he’s actually competed under three different masked guises, for both NJPW and TNA.
His first veiled gimmick was that of PUMA, which was rather similar to the Tiger Mask character, with the idea being that PUMA would be the American version of Tiger Mask.
Then in TNA, Perkins would once again don a mask, briefly portraying the Suicide gimmick in May of 2013, before altering that attire and creating the character Manik; the persona he’d compete under his until departure from the company in January of this year.
Don’t expect a mask to be coming back anytime soon though, given the impact he’s already made in WWE as straight-up TJ Perkins.