10 Times Wrestlers Secretly LIED To The Locker Room
6. The Boogeyman
WWE is ageist company. Or, at very least, the market leader in an ageist industry.
Back in the mid-1990s, the root of the jokes at Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage's expense were often to do with their advancing years, but this massively missed the point of how young those characters were on those shows. Hollywood Hulk Hogan was brand spanking news and the Macho Man was working like he was. Nobody was checking the date of birth of the performers before they switched on Nitro, but they were sure switching on in greater numbers than those choosing to watch Monday Night Raw.
And even then, it doesn't have to be anything but a number. Diamond Dallas Page started in his 30s and made it. Sean Waltman was barely in his 20s when he broke big. There are no rules beyond getting over, but and future worm aficionado The Boogeyman knew how to get over.
But we almost didn't see it. Attending a Tough Enough tryout in 2004 despite being five years older than the 35-and-under rule, Wright fibbed his way through multiple stages just to get noticed enough. The strategy at very least worked for the novelty star, though it should have begged a bigger question about why the limitation existed in the first place.