It is, almost without question, the most infamous "entrance" in wrestling history. When The Shockmaster debuted for WCW as Sting and Davey Boy Smith's mystery tag partner in 1993, it was supposed to be a star-making moment. The man who had wrestled as Tugboat and Typhoon for the WWF was now going to be a full-fledged main event player in WCW. At 6'3" tall and nearly 400 pounds, he was a menacing figure, even with the gimmicks that were cartoonish in the WWF. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7Q4EVpIFIk Then, he tripped and fell on live television, making WCW's first image of him a man tumbling to the ground and scrambling to pick his glittery Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet up and put it back on so that he could act tough again. At that point, he could have pulled a laser-guided missile out, and it wouldn't have mattered. Nothing he could have said or done would have taken away from the stink of him falling through that wall. He was finished before he even got started. Not even a year after he arrived in WCW, he was gone, and he was back to being Typhoon in the WWF. When you think of Tugboat, Typhoon, The Shockmaster, or Fred Ottman (the man behind the gimmicks), all you can and ever will think of is a man fumbling and bumbling his big debut, never to be the same again.
Columnist/Podcaster/Director at LordsOfPain.net for nearly seven years, with nearly 2000 total columns written. Interviewed and/or involved in interviewing the likes of Tyler Black/Seth Rollins (twice), Diamond Dallas Page, Jimmy Jacobs, Christopher Daniels, Uhaa Nation and more.
