Staying with Texan veterans, it is fair to say that the career of the World's Strongest Man is also winding down. Mark Henry has been an active member of the roster since 1996, and 2016 will mark 20 years in the WWE for the man from Silsbie. After flirting with retirement in 2013, Mark Henry is another with nothing left to prove in the company. His career was fairly mundane until his Hall of Pain run in 2011, where he completely reinvented himself as the bullying trash talker that he always should have been. His 20 years have seen him take on a variety of roles, and in recent times he has merely been a big name big man putting over heels and babyfaces who are passing him on the way up the card. I suspect that 2016 will be his final year. I doubt whether we'll get another beautiful in-ring retirement speech, but the one he gave two years ago will more than suffice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxm5c2XBcXo
Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.