The artist formerly known as Vicious/Justice/Sycho, Sid Eudy had the look, the charisma, the size, the intensity, the it factor everything you needed to be a main event player. He was even half decent on the mic. There was only one thing missing, really some quality ring skills. Sid wasnt the greatest wrestler of all time. In fact, even working a traditional big man style, he was pretty bad. Most of the problem is timing and perception. In the late eighties and early nineties, in a business filled with big men doing big moves and little else, Sid stood out as one of the biggest and baddest. He left WCW in mid-1991 despite the promise of a run with the world title to work in the WWF, and had he succeeded at that point, that could have been it for him. Sadly, shortly before Wrestlemania VIII Sid would fail a drug test: in those days, with the spectre of Dr. George Zahorians steroid conviction looming, Vince McMahon couldnt afford to take any chances, and Eudy left rather than serve the mandatory suspension, still having not had his shot at the big time. In his second chance at WCW a year later, the infamous fight with Arn Anderson in a Blackpool hotel on a UK tour (both men would stab each other with scissors) caused his expulsion from WCW before he even got a chance to shake off the ring rust. It was upon his return to WWF in February 1995 that Sid Eudy finally got his chance to shine but the era of the charismatic but technically limited big man was over for the moment. Sid was competing with WWFs New Generation, comprised of (amongst others) Bret The Hitman Hart and Shawn Michaels, two extraordinarily gifted smaller men, and the phenomenon of Stone Cold Steve Austin was waiting in the wings. While Sid would finally achieve a measure of the success he deserved during this second run with the WWF, he was competing against wrestlers with genuine skill: quality workers who exposed his shortcomings in the ring simply through being better. The run he was most famous for (during which he had the most television exposure and two short runs as WWF champion) would see his significant limitations in the ring revealed over and over again. Returning to WCW in 1999, Sid was lost in the shuffle with the ridiculous antics going on, and would finally suffer the horrendous injury that would end his career as a potential headlining act when attempting to perform an aerial move that he knew he couldnt pull off properly. The office was trying to beef up his moveset with some of the stuff that the kids were doing these days, and poor old Sid just wasnt up to it.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
