The Many Faces Of Mark Henry - Ranked From Worst To Best
3. ECW Champion
Say what you will about WWE’s ill-fated ECW revival, but the brand gave a platform to a number of wrestlers who’d been denied one for years. Mark Henry was among those to benefit the most, and after joining ECW as part of the 2008 Supplemental Draft, Henry had gold on his mind.
Henry initially aligned himself with two horrendous wrestlers in Big Daddy V and The Great Khali, but he soon cast them aside. He became ECW Champion by defeating Kane and Big Show in his very first match as an official ECW wrestler, with the victory coming almost a full decade after his last championship win back in 1999.
WWE Hall Of Famer Tony Atlas came in as Henry’s manager, and one month after his big title win, General Manager Theodore Long awarded Mark with a brand new platinum title belt. He lost the title during a Championship Scramble at Unforgiven ‘08, but stayed in the spotlight afterwards. Still focused on the ECW Title, Henry challenged Matt Hardy for the belt, then competed in the Money in the Bank Ladder Match at WrestleMania XXV, though he couldn’t grab the case.
Henry’s ECW run took place two full years before his peak, but it gave him his first taste of life as a world champion. Here, Henry took the blueprint he’d established during the past couple of years and started building towards something entirely more compelling, though he was still putting the pieces together.