Son of transitional WWWF champion Stan the Man Stasiak, Shawn Stasiak had two runs with the WWF (with a WCW program nestled in-between). Stasiak debuted in April 1999 attacking mid-carder Tiger Ali Singh on Sunday Night Heat. His gimmick was Meat and he was aligned with the stable of PMS (Pretty Mean Sisters) Jacqueline, Ryan Shamrock and Terri. The majority of his matches were on the syndicated programs Shotgun Saturday Night and Jakked with the occasional foray onto Sunday Night Heat. As he began losing it was explained that his sexual provocativity with the ladies was tiring him out too much before his matches. Honestly his most remarkable moment during his first run was being fodder for the up-and-comer Kurt Angle on the Survivor Series 1999 PPV. He was fired in 1999 when it was discovered hed been secretly audiotaping backstage conversations. In 2000 he joined WCW and started feuding with Curt Hennig (thus Stasiaks gimmick becoming The Perfect One). Eventually Stasiak found career success in his team with Chuck Palumbo (The Perfect Event) and they won the World Tag Titles several times. Following the collapse of WCW, Stasiaks contract was bought out and he returned to the WWF under his WCW name Shawn Stasiak. However, he was quickly lost in the shuffle among all the other new Alliance/WCW talent. Stasiak was quickly relegated to jobber status by the time he debuted his new Planet Stasiak gimmick in April 2002. That month he quickly lost on Monday Night Raw to The Big Show, William Regal and Brock Lesnar (with each match lasting less than two minutes). His final days involved the hot potato hardcore title and several matches with other Sunday Night Heat midcarders such as D-Lo Brown, Bradshaw, Shelton Benjamin, Tommy Dreamer and Goldust. You can read all about Stasiaks post-wrestling career as chiropractor in Adam Woolhouses WhatCulture piece, 12 Careers You Wont Believe Stars Did After They Quit Wrestling. Have another former WWE star that just hung around for awhile but never seemed to reach their potential? Let us know in the comments!
I'm a professional wrestling analyst, an improviser and an avid NES gamer. I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota and I'm working on my first book (#wrestlenomics). You can contact me at chris.harrington@gmail.com or on twitter (@mookieghana)
