10 Times Wrestlers Got Over With ONE Match
5. Rocky Maivia
Who knows why the discerning, barbaric adult males of Madison Square Garden took to Rocky Maivia, when they had Shawn Michaels' life on the same show of Survivor Series 1996.
Perhaps it was unfolding history and a performative desire to help make it. Perhaps they politely recognised his potential star power. Or perhaps the later DIE ROCKY DIE furore has been overstated in historical revisions to get his heel turn over as something even more than a masterstroke.
But whatever the case, they did take a liking to Maivia, happy guy trunks and piss-poor hairdo and all. He performed damn well for such a greenhorn, too, which is also lost. He transitioned into a brawler, as he came of age in an Attitude Era that favoured the style, but in the Garden he looked incredibly athletic, seeming to kip up after a thudding Jerry Lawler knockdown before he'd even hit the mat.
The debut itself has undergone some revisionism - the reaction is polite, not some booming ovation from the taste-makers - but he was immediately something else, even if nobody, 'Maivia' included, knew what that something was.