1.
Professional wrestling
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Professional wrestling is a dramatized athletic performance that portrays a combat sport. Various forms of weaponry are sometimes used, the content – including match outcomes – is scripted and choreographed, and the combative actions and reactions are performed to appear violent without injuring the wrestlers. Before the 1980s, these facts were considered trade secrets, in the mid-90s, the presentation of scripted events as legitimate is known as kayfabe. Although the combative content is staged and communicated between the wrestlers, there are physical hazards involved - including permanent injury and death. While it has declined in Europe, in North America it has experienced several different periods of prominent cultural popularity during its century. The advent of television gave professional wrestling a new outlet, unlike in Europe, show wrestling has become especially prominent in Japan and in North America. In Brazil, there was a popular wrestling television program from the 1960s to the early 1980s called Telecatch. High-profile figures in the sport have become celebrities or cultural icons in their native or adopted home countries, although professional wrestling started out as petty acts in sideshows, traveling circuses and carnivals, today it is a billion-dollar industry. Revenue is drawn from live event ticket sales, network television broadcasts, pay-per-view broadcasts, personal appearances by performers, branded merchandise, pro wrestling was also instrumental in making pay-per-view a viable method of content delivery. Annual shows such as WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Royal Rumble, and formerly Bash at the Beach, Halloween Havoc, home video sales dominate the Billboard charts Recreational Sports DVD sales, with wrestling holding anywhere from 3 to 9 of the top 10 spots every week. Due to its persistent cultural presence and to its novelty within the performing arts, there have also been many fictional depictions of wrestling, the 2008 film The Wrestler received several Oscar nominations and began a career revival for star Mickey Rourke. Because actual events are often co-opted by writers for incorporation into storylines for the performers, special care must be taken when talking about people who perform under their own name. The actions of the character should be considered fictional events, wholly separate from the life of the performer and this is similar to other entertainers who perform with a persona that shares their own name. Some wrestlers will incorporate elements of their real-life personalities into their characters, even if they and those who participated felt that it was necessary that spectators should be kept in a constant and complete illusion of a real competition to keep audience interest. For decades, up until the mid-1980s, wrestlers lived their lives as though they were their characters. Wrestlers, bookers and promoters all rigorously enforced the illusion and very few were allowed into the society of professional wrestling to maintain suspension of disbelief. The practice of keeping the illusion, and the methods used to do so, came to be known as kayfabe within wrestling circles. An entire lexicon of slang jargon and euphemism developed to allow performers to communicate without outsiders knowledge of what was being said, occasionally a performer will deviate from the intended sequence of events
2.
Martial arts
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Although the term martial art has become associated with the fighting arts of eastern Asia, it originally referred to the combat systems of Europe as early as the 1550s. The term is derived from Latin, and means arts of Mars, Martial arts may be categorized along a variety of criteria, including, Traditional or historical arts vs. contemporary styles of folk wrestling and modern hybrid martial arts. Such traditions include eskrima, silat, kalaripayat, kobudo, and historical European martial arts, Many Chinese martial arts also feature weapons as part of their curriculum. Similarly, modern Western martial arts and sports include fencing, stick-fighting systems like canne de combat or singlestick. Combat-oriented Health-oriented Many martial arts, especially those from Asia, also teach side disciplines which pertain to medicinal practices and this is particularly prevalent in traditional Asian martial arts which may teach bone-setting, herbalism, and other aspects of traditional medicine. Spirituality-oriented Martial arts can also be linked with religion and spirituality, numerous systems are reputed to have been founded, disseminated, or practiced by monks or nuns. Throughout Asia, meditation may be incorporated as part of training, in those countries influenced by Hindu-Buddhist philosophy, the art itself may be used as an aid to attaining enlightenment. Japanese styles, when concerning non-physical qualities of the combat, are strongly influenced by Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. Concepts like empty mind and beginners mind are recurrent, aikido, for instance, can have a strong philosophical belief of the flow of energy and peace fostering, as idealised by its founder Morihei Ueshiba. Traditional Korean martial arts place emphasis on the development of the spiritual and philosophical development. A common theme in most Korean styles, such as taekkyeon and taekwondo, is the value of peace in a practitioner. The Koreans believe that the use of force is only justified through defense. Many such martial arts incorporate music, especially strong percussive rhythms, the oldest works of art depicting scenes of battle are cave paintings from Spain dated between 10,000 and 6,000 BCE that show organized groups fighting with bows and arrows. Chinese martial arts originated during the Xia Dynasty more than 4000 years ago and it is said the Yellow Emperor Huangdi introduced the earliest fighting systems to China. The Yellow Emperor is described as a general who, before becoming Chinas leader, wrote lengthy treatises on medicine, astrology. One of his opponents was Chi You who was credited as the creator of jiao di. The foundation of modern Asian martial arts is likely a blend of early Chinese, during the Warring States period of Chinese history extensive development in martial philosophy and strategy emerged, as described by Sun Tzu in The Art of War. Legendary accounts link the origin of Shaolinquan to the spread of Buddhism from India during the early 5th century AD, with the figure of Bodhidharma, to China
3.
Boxing
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Boxing is a combat sport in which two people wearing protective gloves throw punches at each other for a predetermined set of time in a boxing ring. Amateur boxing is both an Olympic and Commonwealth Games sport and is a fixture in most international games—it also has its own World Championships. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of one- to three-minute intervals called rounds, in the event that both fighters gain equal scores from the judges, the fight is considered a draw. In Olympic boxing, due to the fact that a winner must be declared, in the case of a draw - the judges use technical criteria to choose the most deserving winner of the bout. While people have fought in combat since before the dawn of history. The earliest evidence for fist fighting with any kind of gloves can be found on Minoan Crete, in Ancient Greece boxing was a well developed sport and enjoyed consistent popularity. In Olympic terms, it was first introduced in the 23rd Olympiad,688 B. C, the boxers would wind leather thongs around their hands in order to protect them. There were no rounds and boxers fought until one of them acknowledged defeat or could not continue, weight categories were not used, which meant heavyweights had a tendency to dominate. It was the head of the opponent which was primarily targeted, Boxing was a popular spectator sport in Ancient Rome. In order for the fighters to protect themselves against their opponents they wrapped leather thongs around their fists, eventually harder leather was used and the thong soon became a weapon. The Romans even introduced metal studs to the thongs to make the cestus which then led to a more sinister weapon called the myrmex, Fighting events were held at Roman Amphitheatres. The Roman form of boxing was often a fight until death to please the spectators who gathered at such events, however, especially in later times, purchased slaves and trained combat performers were valuable commodities, and their lives were not given up without due consideration. Often slaves were used against one another in a circle marked on the floor and this is where the term ring came from. In AD393, during the Roman gladiator period, boxing was abolished due to excessive brutality and it was not until the late 17th century that boxing re-surfaced in London. Records of Classical boxing activity disappeared after the fall of the Western Roman Empire when the wearing of weapons became common once again, however, there are detailed records of various fist-fighting sports that were maintained in different cities and provinces of Italy between the 12th and 17th centuries. There was also a sport in ancient Rus called Kulachniy Boy or Fist Fighting, as the wearing of swords became less common, there was renewed interest in fencing with the fists. The sport would later resurface in England during the early 16th century in the form of bare-knuckle boxing sometimes referred to as prizefighting. The first documented account of a fight in England appeared in 1681 in the London Protestant Mercury
4.
Kayfabe
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Kayfabe has also evolved to become a code word of sorts for maintaining this reality within the direct or indirect presence of the general public. In relative terms, a wrestler breaking kayfabe during a show would be likened to breaking character by an actor on-camera, in 1989, World Wrestling Federation owner Vince McMahon testified before the New Jersey state senate that wrestling was staged. The characters assumed by wrestlers can be distinguished into two alignments, faces and heels, faces usually win their matches on the basis of their technical skills and are sometimes portrayed as underdogs to enhance the story. Heels are villainous or antagonistic characters, whose personalities are crafted to elicit a response from the audience. They often embrace traditionally negative traits such as narcissism, egomania, unprompted rage, sadism, a wrestler may change from face to heel in an event known as a turn, or gradually transition from one to the other over the course of a long storyline. Matches are usually organized between a heel and a face, but the distinction between the two types may be blurred as a characters storyline reaches a peak or becomes more complicated. Indeed, in recent years, several wrestlers became characters that were neither faces nor heels, many storylines make use of kayfabe romantic relationships between two performers. Very often, both participants have other real-life relationships, and the relationship between the two is simply a storyline. However, more than once, kayfabe romantic relationships have resulted either from a real-life relationship, tag teams of wrestlers, who may or may not look alike, are often presented as relatives, though they are not actually related. Examples include The Brothers of Destruction, The Holly Cousins and The Dudley Brothers, brother tag teams were commonly utilized in years past as a means to develop young talent, by pairing them with a veteran wrestler and giving the younger wrestler a rub by virtue of the association. Sometimes wrestlers will sell a kayfabe injury by not appearing at the following show, other times, a real injury is sometimes used later on as a storyline. One way is for the injured to come back and blame someone else for injuring them, even when the feud was not initially planned out at all, to give a sort of closure to the injury time out. These returns are often given a date in order to increase viewership and ticket sales. Occasionally, though, a return will not even be advertised. Through kayfabe, wrestlers often quit, get fired, or lose challenges with their job at stake only to return at a future time. These types of matches are used when a wrestlers contract is up or to give them some time off to recover from a legitimate injury. There have been examples of breaking kayfabe throughout wrestling history. It is rare for kayfabe to be dispensed with totally and the events acknowledged as scripted, often the break may be implied or through an allusion and standards tend to vary as to what is a break
5.
Internet
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The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite to link devices worldwide. The origins of the Internet date back to research commissioned by the United States federal government in the 1960s to build robust, the primary precursor network, the ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1980s. Although the Internet was widely used by academia since the 1980s, Internet use grew rapidly in the West from the mid-1990s and from the late 1990s in the developing world. In the two decades since then, Internet use has grown 100-times, measured for the period of one year, newspaper, book, and other print publishing are adapting to website technology, or are reshaped into blogging, web feeds and online news aggregators. The entertainment industry was initially the fastest growing segment on the Internet, the Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries, the Internet has no centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage, each constituent network sets its own policies. The term Internet, when used to refer to the global system of interconnected Internet Protocol networks, is a proper noun. In common use and the media, it is not capitalized. Some guides specify that the word should be capitalized when used as a noun, the Internet is also often referred to as the Net, as a short form of network. Historically, as early as 1849, the word internetted was used uncapitalized as an adjective, the designers of early computer networks used internet both as a noun and as a verb in shorthand form of internetwork or internetworking, meaning interconnecting computer networks. The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used interchangeably in everyday speech, however, the World Wide Web or the Web is only one of a large number of Internet services. The Web is a collection of interconnected documents and other web resources, linked by hyperlinks, the term Interweb is a portmanteau of Internet and World Wide Web typically used sarcastically to parody a technically unsavvy user. The ARPANET project led to the development of protocols for internetworking, the third site was the Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, followed by the University of Utah Graphics Department. In an early sign of growth, fifteen sites were connected to the young ARPANET by the end of 1971. These early years were documented in the 1972 film Computer Networks, early international collaborations on the ARPANET were rare. European developers were concerned with developing the X.25 networks, in December 1974, RFC675, by Vinton Cerf, Yogen Dalal, and Carl Sunshine, used the term internet as a shorthand for internetworking and later RFCs repeated this use. Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation funded the Computer Science Network, in 1982, the Internet Protocol Suite was standardized, which permitted worldwide proliferation of interconnected networks.5 Mbit/s and 45 Mbit/s. Commercial Internet service providers emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990
6.
Shawn Michaels
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Michael Shawn Hickenbottom, better known by his ring name Shawn Michaels, is an American actor, professional wrestling personality, television presenter and retired professional wrestler. He is currently signed to WWE, as an ambassador and trainer, Michaels wrestled consistently for WWE, formerly the World Wrestling Federation, from 1988 until his first retirement in 1998. He held non-wrestling roles from 1998 to 2000 and resumed wrestling in 2002 until retiring ceremoniously in 2010, in the WWF/E, Michaels headlined major pay-per-view events between 1989 and 2010, closing the companys flagship annual event, WrestleMania, five times. He was the co-founder and original leader of the successful stable and he also wrestled in the American Wrestling Association, where he founded The Midnight Rockers with Marty Jannetty in 1985. After winning the AWA Tag Team Championship twice, the continued to the WWF as The Rockers. Within the year, Michaels would twice challenge for the WWF Championship and win his first WWF Intercontinental Championship, heralding his arrival as one of the industrys premier singles stars. He would go on to be regarded as its finest performer in the 1990s and 2000s. Michaels was voted the greatest professional wrestler of all time in a 2011 poll of the WWE roster, Michaels is a four-time world champion, having held the WWF Championship three times and WWEs World Heavyweight Championship once. He is also a two-time Royal Rumble winner, the first WWF Grand Slam Champion, Hickenbottom was born on July 22,1965, in Chandler, Arizona. As a child, Hickenbottom disliked the name Michael, so his family, ever since, he has been referred to as Shawn. Additionally, Hickenbottom moved around frequently since his father was in the military and he knew he wanted to become a professional wrestler at the age of twelve and said he performed a wrestling routine in his high schools talent show, complete with fake blood. Hickenbottom was already an athlete, his career began at the age of six when he started playing football and he was a stand-out linebacker at Randolph High School on Randolph Air Force Base and eventually became captain of the football team. After graduating, Hickenbottom attended Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas and he then began pursuing a career in professional wrestling. Hickenbottom began to train under Mexican professional wrestler Jose Lothario, during his training, Hickenbottom adopted the ring name, Shawn Michaels. Michaels performance in his debut match impressed many veterans, including Terry Taylor, in January 1985, he debuted for World Class Championship Wrestling, the NWA territory in Dallas, Texas. In April 1985, Michaels went to work for another NWA territory in Kansas City called Central States Wrestling, there, he and tag team partner Marty Jannetty defeated The Batten Twins for the NWA Central States Tag Team Championship, later losing it back to the Battens. After leaving Kansas City, he returned to Texas to wrestle for Texas All-Star Wrestling, during his time with TASW, Michaels replaced Nick Kiniski in the American Breed tag team, teaming with Paul Diamond. Michaels and Diamond were awarded the TASW Tag Team Championship by Chavo Guerrero Sr, the team was later renamed American Force
7.
"Rowdy" Roddy Piper
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Roderick George Toombs, better known by his ring name Rowdy Roddy Piper, was a Canadian professional wrestler and actor. In professional wrestling, Piper was best known to audiences for his work with the World Wrestling Federation. Although he was Canadian, because of his Scottish heritage he was billed as coming from Glasgow and was known for his signature kilt and he earned the nicknames Rowdy and Hot Rod by displaying his trademark Scottish rage, spontaneity, and quick wit. Piper was described by industry veteran Ric Flair as the most gifted entertainer in the history of professional wrestling, One of the most recognizable pro wrestling stars worldwide, Piper headlined numerous pay-per-view cards, including the WWF and WCWs respective premier annual events, WrestleMania and Starrcade. Never a world champion, he nevertheless accumulated 34 championships in various promotions during a 42-year ring career and he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005. Toombs was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on April 17,1954 and his father, Stanley Baird Toombs, was an officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police while they lived in The Pas, Manitoba. After being expelled from junior high for having a switchblade in school and falling out with his father, Piper left home and he picked up odd jobs at local gyms, running errands for several professional wrestlers. As a young man, he became proficient in playing the bagpipes and his childhood best friend was ex-NHL player and Stanley Cup winner Cam Connor. Piper was a boxer and a wrestler before he started to become a professional wrestler. He won the Golden Gloves boxing championship and he was awarded a Black Belt in Judo from Gene LeBell, American Judo champion, instructor, stuntman, and professional wrestler. Roddy started wrestling under the care of promoter Al Tomko in Canada, his first match involving midget wrestlers in front of an audience in Churchill. He soon began earning money wrestling while still going to school and his first match in a pro and famous organization was with the legendary Larry Hennig in the American Wrestling Association. Friends of his played the bag-pipes during his entrance while he was handing out dandelions and then the ring-announcer had to announce something, so, after seeing the pipe band he then announced Here comes Roddy the piper, thus giving birth to Roddy Piper and the name stuck. From 1973 to 1975, Piper was a jobber in the American Wrestling Association, NWA Central States territory surrounding Kansas City and he also worked in Texas for Paul Boeschs NWA Houston Wrestling promotion, and in Dallas for Fritz Von Erichs Big Time Rasslin. By late 1975 and early 1976, Piper was a top villain for Mike, in 1977–78, he also started to work for Roy Shires NWA San Francisco Wrestling in addition to remaining with the Los Angeles office, where Piper developed his Rowdy character. Piper also managed a stable of wrestlers in California, in the Los Angeles area, Piper feuded with Chavo Guerrero Sr. and his father Gory Guerrero. Piper and Chavo Guerrero faced each other in matches for the Jules Strongbow Memorial Scientific Trophy. Piper also defeated Chavo for the Americas Heavyweight Title, during the feud, Piper lost a hair match and had his head shaved
8.
Michael Cole (wrestling)
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Michael Sean Coulthard better known by his stage name Michael Cole, is an American professional wrestling commentator, show host, voice actor and former journalist. He is signed to WWE where he serves as the commentator on Raw and Raw pay-per-view events. Coulthard began his career in the media as a journalist, working for CBS Radio and his first high-profile assignment was to cover the failed 1988 US presidential campaign of Democratic Party nominee Michael Dukakis. In 1992, he reported on the campaign of Bill Clinton. Coulthard covered the 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, the following year, he spent nine months covering the Yugoslavian civil war. In 1995, he was selected to cover the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. He returned to the campaign trail in 1996 to cover the campaigns of Steve Forbes. Coulthard came to the World Wrestling Federation in mid-1997 after being recommended to company officials by Todd Pettengill and he provided voice-overs for promotional videos and later became the host of LiveWire show alongside Jim Cornette. Cole first appeared on screen at the June 30,1997 episode of Raw is War, interviewing the Legion of Doom, in late 1997, Cole became one of the three announcers for the first hour of Monday Night Raw, alongside Jim Ross and Kevin Kelly. Eventually Cole was permanently replaced by Jerry Lawler later in the year, in 1999, Cole became the regular play-by-play announcer for Monday Night Raw, subbing for Jim Ross when Ross was devastated by Bells palsy. Television program debuted later that year, Cole was chosen to be the shows play-by-play announcer, Cole also had a stint doing commentary on SmackDown. s former sister show WWE Velocity. As an announcer, Cole was rarely involved in storylines, however, he has had roles in storylines involving Heidenreich, Stephanie McMahon, Vito. His 2004 angle with Heidenreich became infamous due to a scene where Heidenreich Heidenraped him in the arena restroom. In a 2008 interview, Heidenreich explained that the Cole rape angle was McMahons idea, and he also appeared in the Taxi Driver parody trailer in promotion of WrestleMania 21. On April 26,2006, WWE announced that Cole would become the Managing Editor of WWE. com, shortly after, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon told shareholders in a meeting held on September 14 that he thought that the website sucks. In response, Cole replied on WWE. Cole went on to say, So in summary, the web site does suck, compared to where we are going to take it, wish I could say the same for the boss. On the June 9 episode of SmackDown, Coles broadcast partner Tazz left from SmackDown to ECW on SciFi, leaving Cole at that moment without a broadcast partner. At ECW One Night Stand, John Bradshaw Layfield announced he would replace Tazz as color commentator and this proved true five days later when he appeared on that weeks episode of SmackDown. as Coles new broadcast partner
9.
Dwayne Johnson
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Dwayne Douglas Johnson, also known by his ring name The Rock, is an American actor, producer, singer, and professional wrestler. He holds American and Canadian citizenships and he later played for the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League and was cut two months into the 1995 season. This led him to become a professional wrestler like his grandfather, Peter Maivia and he returned to wrestling part-time for WWE from 2011 to 2013 and continues to make sporadic non-wrestling appearances for the company. Johnson has 17 championship reigns in WWE, including 10 as a champion, winning the WWF/WWE Championship eight times. He won the WWF Intercontinental Championship twice and the WWF Tag Team Championship five times, Johnson is the sixth Triple Crown Champion in WWE history and won the 2000 Royal Rumble. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, co-written with Joe Layden, was published in 2000. It debuted at No.1 on The New York Times Best Seller list, spent 20 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, Johnsons first leading film role was in The Scorpion King in 2002. For this role, he was paid US $5.5 million and he has since appeared in various films, and become known for his ability to reinvigorate film franchises. Perhaps his greatest success in his career can be sourced to his role as Luke Hobbs in The Fast. Forbes listed Johnson No.25 in the Top 100 Most Powerful Celebrities in 2013 and he is the worlds highest-paid actor of 2016. Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2016, in 2015, Muscle & Fitness named Johnson their Man of the Century. Johnson was born in Hayward, California, the son of Ata Johnson and professional wrestler Wayde Douglas Bowles and his maternal grandfather, High Chief Peter Maivia, was also a wrestler. His maternal grandmother, Lia Maivia, was one of few female promoters, taking over Polynesian Pacific Pro Wrestling after her husbands death in 1982. His cousin, Savelina Fanene, is also a wrestler working for WWE. His father is a Black Nova Scotian, and his mother is of Samoan heritage and his father was part of the first black tag team to win the World Tag Team Championship in the World Wrestling Federation. Through his mother, he is considered a relative of the Anoai wrestling family. Johnson briefly lived in the suburb of Grey Lynn in Auckland and he attended Richmond Road Primary School, before returning to the United States with his parents. Johnson spent 10th grade at President William McKinley High School in Honolulu, as he entered 11th grade, his fathers job required his relocation to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
10.
Chris Jericho
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Jericho is known for his over-the-top, rockstar persona. He also found success while performing for international promotions in countries such as Canada, Japan. He is also the ninth Triple Crown Champion, as well as the fourth Grand Slam Champion in WWE history, Jericho is a six-time world champion, having won the WWF Championship once, the WCW/World Championship twice, and WWEs World Heavyweight Championship three times. He is also a record nine-time Intercontinental Champion, beating out four other contenders in a 2013 WWE fan poll to determine the greatest champion in history with a landslide 63% of the vote. Jericho has headlined multiple pay-per-view events during his time with the company, baltimore Sun writer Kevin Eck wrote that Jericho has proved to be one of best all-around performers in the business, particularly regarded as one of the very best talkers. Outside of professional wrestling, Jericho became the lead vocalist of the band Fozzy in 1999, Jericho also competed in the 2011 series of Dancing With the Stars, lasting until the sixth week. Prior to this, he hosted the ABC game show Downfall, Irvine was born in Manhasset, New York. His father, ice hockey player Ted Irvine, had relocated there to play for the New York Rangers, when his father retired, they moved back to Winnipeg, Manitoba. In addition to Hart, Irvine also cited Ricky The Dragon Steamboat and he also took a course in creative communication at Red River Community College in Winnipeg, where he graduated with top honors. At age 19, he entered the Hart Brothers School of Wrestling and he was trained by Ed Langley and local Calgary wrestler Brad Young. The pair then worked as a tag team, initially called Sudden Impact and he took the name Jericho from an album, Walls of Jericho, by German power metal band, Helloween. Jericho and Storm worked for Tony Condello in the tours of Northern Manitoba with Adam Copeland, Jason Reso, the pair also wrestled in Calgarys Canadian National Wrestling Alliance and Canadian Rocky Mountain Wrestling. In 1991, Jericho and Storm started touring in Japan for Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling as Sudden Impact, where he befriended Ricky Fuji, who also trained under Stu Hart. In CMLL, Jericho took on Silver King, Negro Casas, after leaving Mexico, Jericho wrestled in Hamburg, Germany for six weeks as part of a tournament run by Rene Lasartesse. In late 1994, Jericho began competing regularly in Japan for Genichiro Tenryus Wrestling, in November 1994, Último Dragón defeated him for the NWA World Middleweight Championship, which he had won while wrestling in Mexico. In March 1995, Jericho lost to Gedo in the final of a tournament to crown the inaugural WAR International Junior Heavyweight Championship and he defeated Gedo for the championship in June 1995, losing it to Último Dragón the next month. In December 1995, Jericho competed in the second Super J-Cup tournament, in 1996, Jericho joined the villain stable Fuyuki-Gun with Hiromichi Fuyuki, Gedo, and Jado, adopting the name Lion Do. The stable was nicknamed Team No Respect for its members brash mannerisms, in February 1996, Jericho and Gedo won a tournament for the newly created International Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship, defeating Lance Storm and Yuji Yasuraoka in the final
11.
Gimmick (professional wrestling)
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These in-ring personalities often involve costumes, makeup and catchphrases that they shout at their opponents or the fans. Gimmicks can be designed to work as good guys or villains depending on the desire to be popular or hated by the crowd. A tweener gimmick falls between the two extremes, a wrestler may portray more than one gimmick over their career depending on the angle or the wrestling promotion that they are working for at that time. Razor Ramon was portrayed by both Scott Hall and Rick Bognar, occasionally, a wrestler uses a gimmick as tribute to another worker, such is the case of Ric Flairs Nature Boy persona which he took on as an homage to the original Nature Boy, Buddy Rogers. When a wrestler acts outside his or her gimmick this is known as breaking kayfabe, a term showing pro wrestlings linkages to theatre, the two awards are given to the best and worst gimmick of that year. Current winners are The New Day and Stardust respectively, pro wrestlings history has been tied to the use of gimmicks from its infancy. It was not until the First Golden Age of Professional Wrestling in the United States during the 1940s–1950s and his heel character focused on his looks and quickly antagonized the fans with his exaggerated effeminate behaviour. Such showmanship was unheard of for the time, and consequently, Gorgeous Georges impact and legacy on wrestling gimmicks was enormous, demonstrating how fast television changed the product from athletics to performance. Before him, wrestlers imitated ethnic terrors, but his success birthed a more individualistic. He was one of the first pro-wrestlers to use music, Pomp. In Britain, television took British wrestling to the level when in 1964. The style of wrestling at the time was unique with strong emphasis on clean technical wrestling, heels made up a minority of the roster, with most shows containing an abnormally high proportion of clean sportsmanly matches between two blue-eyes. This would remain the case for decades to come. Gimmick matches were a rarity, midget wrestling failed to catch on, during the Second Golden Age of pro wrestling in the 1980s–1990s a rise of cartoonish, outlandish gimmicks became popular with the increase of World Wrestling Federations popularity. Most notable was the muscular Hulk Hogan, who marked the 1980s with his all-American gimmick and his dominant role in the industry at that time led to this era to be also known as Hulkamania. Around this time, wrestling became a form of entertainment rather than an official sport, other wrestlers from this era with similarly outlandish characterisation include Ric Flair, Sting and The Undertaker. In recent years, the emphasis has been on more realistic gimmicks which portray the wrestler as a person, sometimes using their real names. Wrestlers Randy Orton, Batista, and John Cena are prime examples of this, exaggerating the characteristics of a wrestlers origin is one of the most commonly exploited gimmicks, in which overarching characteristics of a character play up to clichés and stereotypes
12.
Dave Bautista
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David Michael Dave Bautista Jr. is an American actor and former professional wrestler, mixed martial artist, and bodybuilder. He holds the record for the longest reign as World Heavyweight Champion at 282 days and he was the winner of the 2005 Royal Rumble match and went on to headline WrestleMania 21, one of the top five highest-grossing pay-per-view events in professional wrestling history. When Bautista returned to WWE in 2014, he won the 2014 Royal Rumble match, in August 2012, Bautista signed a contract with Classic Entertainment & Sports to fight in mixed martial arts. He won his MMA debut on October 6,2012, defeating Vince Lucero via TKO in the first round and he was representing the Philippines during the fight. Bautista first entered the world of acting in 2006, Bautista is set to reprise his role as Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 and Avengers, Infinity War. He has also appeared in several films since 2009. Bautista was born in Washington, D. C and his mother, Donna Raye, has Greek ancestry, and his father, David Michael Bautista, is the son of Filipino immigrants. His parents separated and eventually divorced and his paternal grandfather served in the Philippines military, worked as a taxicab driver, barber, and held other jobs to feed the family. Bautista has said that he is not ashamed to admit he lived in poverty and he has admitted to having a hard life, before he had reached the age of nine, three murders had occurred on his front lawn. As young as age 13, he was stealing automobiles, by age 17, Bautista was considered estranged from his parents and lived on his own. He later admitted, I am proud of my parents and they are good, honest, hard-working folks. They taught me the values of working hard and he became a regular bouncer for clubs until he was arrested after a fight that left two patrons injured, one of whom was rendered unconscious. After a trial, he was sentenced to one year of probation and he also worked as a lifeguard before pursuing a career in bodybuilding. He credits bodybuilding with potentially saving his life, Bautista tried out at the World Championship Wrestling Power Plant, but was told he would never make it in the wrestling business by Sgt. Bautista also trained with Marrese Crump in Muay Thai and Eskrima, most recently, he trained at Cesar Gracie Jiu-Jitsu under Cesar Gracie and has become a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He made his Ohio Valley Wrestling debut in 2000 under the ring name Leviathan, as a member of the Disciples of Synn stable, he went undefeated until being beaten at Christmas Chaos by Kane with help from Stone Cold Steve Austin. He later won the OVW Heavyweight Championship from The Machine Doug Basham before losing the belt to The Prototype, a few months later, Bautista left OVW after he was promoted WWEs main roster. While still in OVW, Bautista began appearing on non-televised WWE events and he began his televised WWE career on May 9,2002 on an episode of SmackDown. as Deacon Batista, a villainous enforcer for Reverend DVon
13.
Ric Flair
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Richard Morgan Fliehr, better known as Ric Flair, is an American professional wrestling manager and retired professional wrestler signed to WWE under its Legends program. Widely regarded as the greatest professional wrestler of all time, Flair has cultivated a legacy over a career that spans 40 years, Flair is noted for his tenures with the National Wrestling Alliance, World Championship Wrestling, the World Wrestling Federation, and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. Since the mid-1970s, he has used the moniker the Nature Boy, PWI awarded Flair their Wrestler of the Year award a record six times, while Wrestling Observer Newsletter named Flair as the Wrestler of the Year on a record of nine occasions. According to Mick Foley, he had two stints as a booker in WCW, from 1989–1990 and again in 1994, Flair was the first titleholder of both the WCW World Heavyweight Championship and the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship. In being the inaugural WCW World Heavyweight Champion, he became the first WCWs Triple Crown Champion, having already held the United States Heavyweight. He then completed WWEs version of the Triple Crown when he won the Intercontinental Championship, after holding the WWF Championship. Richard Fliehr was born on February 25,1949 in Memphis, in the opening chapter of his autobiography To Be the Man, he notes that his birth name is given on different documents as Fred Phillips, son of Olive and Luther Phillips. He was adopted, at the time of his adoption, as reported in the chapter of his autobiography entitled Black Market Baby. Shortly afterward, the family settled in Edina, Minnesota, where the young Fliehr lived throughout his childhood, as a teen, Fliehr took a summer job as a lifeguard at a local pool in Minnesota. He received his first exposure to the business when he met the Vachon brothers. He dropped out of college without receiving his degree and he then worked as a bouncer at a nearby club, where he met Olympic weightlifter Ken Patera, who was preparing for a ring career at Verne Gagnes wrestling school. Patera introduced Flair to Verne Gagne, who agreed to him on as a member of his training class. Under the tutelage of Josh Klemme and Billy Robinson, Flair was friends with Ken Patera before entering wrestling, Patera had an association with Verne Gagne through his weightlifting career and with that relationship an opportunity arose for Flair to train with Verne Gagne as a professional wrestler. Flair attended Gagnes first wrestling camp with Greg Gagne, Jim Brunzell, Iron Sheik, the intensity of Gagnes training camp, which spawned several champions including Flair, caused Flair to nearly quit the camp until Gagne persuaded him to continue. On December 10,1972, He made his debut in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, Flair originally considered Rambling Ricky Rhodes, in tribute to Dusty Rhodes. Weighing nearly 300 pounds with brown hair, Flair scarcely resembled his future Nature Boy image. During his time in the American Wrestling Association, Flair had matches with Dusty Rhodes, André the Giant, Larry Hennig, Flair first competed in Japan in 1973 for International Wrestling Enterprise, due to a working agreement between AWA promoter Verne Gagne and the IWE. After Flair left the AWA for Jim Crockett Jr. s Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling in 1974, on April 27,1978, Flair challenged for the NWA United National Championship in a losing effort
14.
Bill Goldberg
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Regarded as one of the more popular professional wrestlers of the late 1990s, Goldberg was the top star and public face of World Championship Wrestling at the peak of the Monday Night Wars. Goldberg is best known for his time in WCW, where he performed between 1997 and 2001, Goldberg rose to fame in WCW with a lengthy undefeated streak in singles competition from 1997 to 1998, which is considered the longest winning streak in professional wrestling. During this time, he became WCW United States Champion and WCW World Heavyweight Champion and he was also a one-time WCW World Tag Team Champion, making him along with Hart the fifth WCW Triple Crown winner. Following WCWs closure in 2001, Goldberg wrestled for All Japan Pro Wrestling between 2002 and 2003, and for WWE between 2003 and 2004, becoming a one-time World Heavyweight Champion in the latter. Goldberg headlined multiple pay-per-view events for WCW and WWE, including closing WCWs premier annual event, Starrcade, before he was a professional wrestler, Goldberg was a professional football player. After first retiring from wrestling, he began working as a commentator for the mixed martial arts promotion EliteXC until its closure. He hosted 26 episodes of Garage Mahal on the DIY Network from 2009 to 2011, Goldberg was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he had a bar mitzvah at Temple Israel and graduated from Tulsa Edison High School. He acquired a love for early in life and was a bouncer at age 16. Goldbergs mother, Ethel, is a classical violinist, while his father, Jed and they divorced, and Jed died in late 2006. Ethel also breeds flowers and created a hybrid orchid, which she named after Goldberg. His brother, Michael, is the owner of a club in Aspen. Goldberg is proud of his Jewish heritage and refused to hide it in the wrestling world and his Romanian great-grandfather, Marcel, emigrated from Bucharest and came to the U. S. through Ellis Island. His other great-grandfather, Willie, was a Russian immigrant, Goldberg earned a scholarship to play for the University of Georgia Bulldogs football team where he served as a defensive tackle. He was taken by the Los Angeles Rams in the 11th round, with the 302nd overall selection and he played for the Los Angeles Rams in the 1990 NFL season, followed by a stint with the CFL Sacramento Gold Miners and Atlanta Falcons from 1992 to 1994. After being cut from the Falcons, in 1995 he was selected by the new team, the Carolina Panthers, in the 1995 NFL expansion draft. He was the first player to have been cut by the Panthers, Goldbergs NFL career ended when he tore his lower abdomen off his pelvis. He had hopes of returning to the league after rehabilitation but, due to his lack of success, wasnt considered a major asset. Goldberg has described playing in the NFL as an emotional experience because, despite reaching the goal of simply playing in the NFL
15.
Kenny Dykstra
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Kenneth George Doane Jr. is an American professional wrestler. He previously performed for WWE as Kenny Dykstra and Kenny, Doane was trained by former professional wrestler Killer Kowalski, and made his wrestling debut at the age of fifteen in 2001. He began working for Ohio Valley Wrestling, per WWE request, in May 2003, Doane made his WWE television debut as Ken Phoenix. During his time in OVW, he won the Television Championship once, after losing the title, Doane became part of The Spirit Squad faction. The team debuted on Raw in January 2006, and won the World Tag Team Championship three months later, following the split of the Spirit Squad, Doane was the only member to remain on WWE television. He debuted to a new ring name Kenny Dykstra, in June 2007, he was drafted to the SmackDown. Brand, but was released from his WWE contract in November 2008 and he later began working on the independent circuit, wrestling for promotions including Dragon Gate USA and Evolve. Doane made his wrestling debut in 2001 at the age of fifteen. He started his wrestling career in the New England area under the name Broadway Kenn Phoenix. He was later trained by professional wrestler and trainer Killer Kowalski in Malden, after being contacted by World Wrestling Entertainment, he was asked to make appearances for their developmental territory Ohio Valley Wrestling. Doane made his first national appearance in WWE at the age of 17 on the May 12,2003 episode of WWE Raw as Ken Phoenix. Along with his brother, Mike Phoenix, he was a participant in Rodney Macks ongoing 5-Minute White Boy Challenge where Mack defeated Caucasian wrestlers in under five minutes, Mack defeated the pair in 1,31, forcing them both to submit to his new Blackout finishing hold. He made another appearance, losing to Lance Storm on an episode of Sunday Night Heat before being signed to a developmental deal. On June 3,2005, Doane had his first match, at the promotion, against Kenzo Suzuki, three weeks later, on June 25,2005, he won the Television Championship from Deuce Shade. He had successful defenses, but Doane lost the title to CM Punk on November 9,2005. After losing the Television Championship, Doane became a part of the Spirit Squad, on the January 23,2006, episode of Raw, the group helped Jonathan Coachman win a Royal Rumble qualifying match against Jerry The King Lawler by performing cheers for Coachman and distracting Lawler. They later became a part of the scripted feud between WWE chairman Vince McMahon and Shawn Michaels. The villainous McMahon brought in the Squad to attack Michaels on numerous occasions, after winning the championship, all five members of the team were recognized as the champions, allowing any combination of them to defend the championship
16.
Nikki Bella
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Stephanie Nicole Garcia-Colace is an American professional wrestler, actress, and model signed to WWE under the ring name Nikki Bella, performing on the SmackDown brand. She made her debut on SmackDown in November 2008, Bella is a two-time WWE Divas Champion. Her second reign is recognized as the longest in the history at 301 days. Bella ranked No.1 in Pro Wrestling Illustrateds Female 50 in November 2015 and she also won the award for Choice Female Athlete alongside her sister at the Teen Choice Awards in 2016. Born sixteen minutes before her sister, Brianna, to parents Jon Garcia and Kathy Colace, Garcia-Colace was born in San Diego, California and raised on a farm in Scottsdale. She is of Mexican and Italian descent, keen soccer enthusiasts, she along with her twin sister played for the Scottsdale club in elementary school. She graduated from Chaparral High School in 2002 and she then started modeling, acting, and doing promotional work. She made her first national TV appearance on the Fox reality show Meet My Folks, following this appearance, the Garcia twins were hired to be the World Cup Twins for Budweiser and were photographed holding the World Cup trophy. Nikki and her sister Brie were contestants in the 2006 International Body Doubles twins search, Nikki and Brie later participated in the 2006 WWE Diva Search, but they did not make the cut. On September 15,2007, the made their in-ring debut. Dubbed The Bella Twins, they defeated Nattie Neidhart and Krissy Vaine with Victoria Crawford as the special guest referee and she quickly started a scripted rivalry with Neidhart and Crawford, and had a series of matches against them throughout October 2007. As a part of her personas, she and her sister Brie would switch places behind the referees back if one of them was hurt. She also occasionally competed in mixed tag matches, teaming with male wrestlers including Kofi Kingston. She also made some non-wrestling appearances on Heath Millers Happy Hour promo segment, starting in December 2007, she managed Derrick Linkin, but this storyline was cut short when Linkin was released in January 2008. She and Brie then resumed their feud with Neidhart and Crawford, after Neidhart was called up to the WWE roster in April 2008, Milena Roucka took her place in the feud. Nikki also competed in contests, and wrestled against other competitors including Katie Lea Burchill. Nikkis last FCW appearance was on September 2, when she competed in a Divas battle royal won by Miss Angela, on the August 29,2008 episode of SmackDown, Brianna debuted as Brie Bella and defeated Victoria. She quickly began a rivalry with Victoria and Victorias accomplice, Natalya
17.
The Miz
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Michael Gregory Mizanin is an American professional wrestler, reality television star, and actor. He is signed to WWE, where he performs on the SmackDown brand under the ring name The Miz. Mizanin first gained fame as a cast member on MTVs The Real World, Back to New York, which first aired in 2001 and he later entered the fourth season of Tough Enough, a televised competition which awarded the winner a WWE contract, and became the first runner-up. Mizanin trained and wrestled in independent/developmental territories Ultimate Pro Wrestling, Deep South Wrestling, in 2006, Mizanin became host of the annual WWE Diva Search competition and began wrestling on the main roster. He cashed it in to win the WWE Championship in November 2010 and went on to hold for six months and that year, he was ranked number one on Pro Wrestling Illustrateds annual PWI500 list. Michael Mizanin was born and raised in Parma, Ohio, where he attended Normandy High School and was the captain of its basketball and he also participated in swimming, and was a member of the student government and the editor of his high school yearbook. He then attended Miami University, where he was a member of the Theta Chi fraternity, farmer School of Business, before he was cast as a member of The Real World. Mizanin dropped out of college, where he was pursuing a degree in business, except for Battle of the Sexes 2, Mizanin made it to the end of all the Challenges on which he competed and won both Battle of the Seasons and The Inferno 2. It marked the first time The Miz appeared on the series becoming a main event WWE Superstar. It was during an episode of The Real World that Mizanin first displayed an alter ego known as The Miz, in contrast to Mizanins usually placid demeanor, The Miz was angry, combative, and headstrong. Mizanin later realized that The Miz would make an excellent professional wrestling gimmick, in 2004, he appeared on the Bravo reality show Battle of the Network Reality Stars, where his team finished second. Mizanin was also a contestant in the Reality Stars episode of Fear Factor and his partner was his former girlfriend and cast mate, Trishelle Cannatella, and the two won the competition. In 2008, Mizanin appeared on the Sci Fi reality series Ghost Hunters Live as a guest investigator, in 2009, Mizanin appeared on two episodes of Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader. Which were both aired on September 29 and he appeared on an episode of Destroy Build Destroy on March 3,2010. On October 5,2011, Miz starred in an episode of H8R and he also appeared as a guest star in a March 2012 episode of Psych. On March 31, Miz appeared in the first ever Slime Wrestling World Championship at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, in 2012, Miz appeared on the Disney XD show Pair of Kings as a guest star. In 2013, Miz along with Francia Raisa were in a movie together called Christmas Bounty, pursuing the goal of becoming a professional wrestler, Mizanin joined Ultimate Pro Wrestling, where he trained in the Ultimate University. He made his debut in 2003 as The Miz
18.
Nickname
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A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place, or thing, for affection or ridicule. The term hypocoristic is used to refer to a nickname of affection between those in love or with an emotional bond, compared with a term of endearment. The term diminutive name refers to nicknames that convey smallness, hence something regarded with affection or familiarity, the distinction between the two is often blurred. It is a form of endearment and amusement, as a concept, it is distinct from both pseudonym and stage name, and also from a title, although there may be overlap in these concepts. A moniker also means a nickname or personal name, the word often distinguishes personal names from nicknames that became proper names out of former nicknames. English examples are Bob and Rob, nickname variants for Robert, a nickname is often considered desirable, symbolising a form of acceptance, but can sometimes be a form of ridicule. The compound word ekename, literally meaning additional name, was attested as early as 1303 and this word was derived from the Old English phrase eaca an increase, related to eacian to increase. By the fifteenth century, the misdivision of the syllables of the phrase an ekename led to its reanalysis as a nekename, though the spelling has changed, the pronunciation and meaning of the word have remained relatively stable ever since. However, it is common for the nickname to be identified after a comma following the full real name or later in the body of the text. The middle name is generally eliminated, especially in speech, like English, German uses quotation marks between the first and last names. The latter may cause confusion because it resembles an English convention sometimes used for married, in Viking societies, many people had heiti, viðrnefni, or kenningarnöfn which were used in addition to, or instead of the first name. Slaves have often used nicknames, so that the master who heard about someone doing something could not identify the slave, in capoeira, a Brazilian martial art, the slaves had nicknames to protect them from being caught, as practising capoeira was illegal for decades. In Anglo-American culture, a nickname is based on a shortening of a persons proper name. However, in societies, this may not necessarily be the case. For example, my nickname is farmer Phil In Indian society, for example, generally people have at least one nickname, Indian nicknames very often are a trivial word or a diminutive. In Australian society, Australian men will often give ironic nicknames, for example, a man with red hair will be given the nickname Blue or Bluey. A tall man will be called Shorty, an obese person Slim, in England, some nicknames are traditionally associated with a persons surname. A man with the surname Clark will be nicknamed Nobby, the surname Miller will have the nickname Dusty, there are several other nicknames linked traditionally with a persons surname, including Chalky White, Bunny Warren, Tug Wilson, and Spud Baker
19.
Nigel McGuinness
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Steven Haworth, better known by the ring name Nigel McGuinness, is an English professional wrestling commentator and retired professional wrestler, currently signed to WWE, as a commentator on NXT. As McGuinness, Haworth first gained notoriety working for Ring of Honor in the United States, in October 2009, he signed a contract with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, where he worked as Desmond Wolfe until June 2011. The following August, again working as Nigel McGuinness, he returned to ROH to work as a color commentator and he retired from in-ring competition on December 17,2011. After leaving ROH in December 2016, Haworth signed with WWE, Haworth, born in London, grew up in Staplehurst, Kent, where he attended Maidstone Grammar School. He was a fan from the age of 12, particularly enjoying The Hart Foundation and British Bulldogs. After attending Les University, he relocated to the United States in the 1990s in order to attend Kent State University, in September 1998, Haworth began training under Les Thatcher in the Heartland Wrestling Association in Cincinnati, Ohio, incurring large debts in the process. After debuting in September 1999, working under the ring name Nigel McGuinness and defeating GQ Masters III in a match that was featured on ABCs 20/20, McGuinness developed a heel character which he described as a punk rock soccer hooligan. On July 10,2001, McGuinness defeated Dean Jablonski in a match with the HWA Tag Team Championship on the line, claiming the title for himself and his partner. McGuinness and The Bomb held the title until August 7, when the Jablonski brothers regained the title, McGuinness and The Bomb would become champions for a second time on July 23,2002, defeating the Jablonski brothers once more. They lost the title to Southern Breeze later that year, in 2003, McGuinness introduced the HWA European Championship to HWA. He held the title until September 30,2003, when he lost to Hoss and he regained the title on November 4 and promptly retired it. McGuinness won the HWA Heavyweight Championship on September 6,2003 in Batavia, Ohio, defeating Chad Collyer, He held the title until January 3,2004, when he lost the title to Hoss. McGuinness defeated Hoss to begin a second reign with the title on January 6, and held it until March 17,2004, McGuinness debuted in Ring of Honor on August 9,2003, defeating Chet Jablonski. He wrestled for ROH throughout 2004, but had limited success, in March 2005, McGuinness and Colt Cabana teamed together to challenge for the ROH Tag Team Championship, but lost to the incumbents, Dan Maff and B. J. Whitmer. Cabana and McGuinness then began fighting one another, with McGuinness defeating Cabana on May 7,2005 and he challenged the champion, Samoa Joe, on June 12,2005, but was defeated. He faced Joe once more on August 27, and defeated him to win the Pure Championship and this led to a series of matches for the title, with McGuinness using underhanded tactics to avoid losing the championship belt. On March 25,2006, McGuinness defeated Castagnoli in a match billed as the latters last chance to win the championship as long as McGuinness was champion, during his Pure Championship run, McGuinness regularly carried an iron to ringside. When asked, the story given was that a group of men once broke into his home to attack him
20.
Bret Hart
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Bret Sergeant Hart, better known by the ring name Bret The Hitman Hart, is a Canadian-American retired professional wrestler, retired amateur wrestler, writer and actor. A member of the Hart wrestling family and a wrestler, he has an amateur wrestling background, wrestling at Ernest Manning High School. Hart is widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, Sky Sports noted that his legacy is that of one of, if not the greatest, Hart joined his father Stu Harts promotion Stampede Wrestling in 1976, and made his in-ring debut in 1978. He gained championship success throughout the 1980s and 1990s in the World Wrestling Federation and he left for World Championship Wrestling following the controversial Montreal Screwjob in November 1997, where he remained until October 2000. Having been inactive from in-ring competition since January 2000, owing to a December 1999 concussion, he retired in October 2000. He returned to sporadic in-ring competition from 2010–2011 with WWE, where he won his championship, headlined the 2010 SummerSlam event. Throughout his career, Hart headlined WrestleManias IX, X, and XII, Hart has held championships in five decades from the 1970s to the 2010s, with a total of 32 held throughout his career, and 17 held between the WWF/WWE and WCW. He is a world champion, having held the WWF World Heavyweight Championship five times. Hart is also the 1994 Royal Rumble match winner, and the only two-time King of the Ring, winning the 1991 tournament and the first King of the Ring pay-per-view in 1993. Stone Cold Steve Austin, with whom Hart headlined multiple pay-per-view events as part of a rivalry from 1996 to 1997. The eighth child of wrestling patriarch Stu Hart, Bret Hart was born in Calgary and he is of Greek descent through his maternal grandmother and Irish through his maternal grandfather. His father was mainly of Scots-Irish descent but also had Scottish and English ancestry, Hart is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States since his mother Helen was born in New York. Hart has stated that he himself to be North American. Hart spent the vast majority of his childhood in the Hart family mansion which was owned by his father. Hart grew up in a household with eleven siblings and he was close with his older brother Dean who was the nearest to him in age of all his older brothers, being three years his senior. Together they would fight with Brets two older sisters Ellie, who was two years older, and Georgia, who was one year older. His introduction to professional wrestling came at an early age, as a child, he witnessed his father training future wrestlers like Billy Graham in the Dungeon, his household basement which served as a training room. Before school, Harts father, also a promoter, had him hand out fliers to local wrestling shows
21.
The Undertaker
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Mark William Calaway, better known by the ring name The Undertaker, is a retired American professional wrestler, who is signed to WWE. Calaway began his career with World Class Championship Wrestling in 1984. Calaway is widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestler of all time, as The Undertaker, Calaways gimmick was a horror-themed, macabre entity who employed scare tactics and held links to the supernatural. The character was reinvented as a biker during a period in the early 2000s before returning to his previous gimmick in 2004, the Undertaker was the storyline of older half-brother of fellow WWE wrestler Kane, with whom he has alternately feuded and teamed with as The Brothers of Destruction. The Undertaker has been involved in various storylines and matches within WWE history. The Undertaker was known for The Streak, a run of 21 straight victories at WWEs leading pay-per-view, WrestleMania. He also won the 2007 Royal Rumble, Calaway was born in Houston, Texas, the son of Frank Compton Calaway and Betty Catherine Truby. He has four brothers, David, Michael, Paul. Calaway attended Waltrip High School, where he was a member of the football and basketball teams and he graduated in 1983 and began studying at Angelina College in Lufkin, Texas on a basketball scholarship. In 1985, he enrolled in Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1986, Calaway dropped out of university to focus on a career in sports, and he briefly considered playing professional basketball in Europe before deciding to focus on professional wrestling. Calaway made his debut in 1984 for World Class Championship Wrestling under the ring name Texas Red and his first match was a loss against Bruiser Brody. In 1988, after four years in the promotion, he left and joined the Continental Wrestling Association, after his second match the next week, he stayed in the ring by challenging USWA Unified World Heavyweight Champion Jerry Lawler to an impromptu match. The Master of Pain easily dominated Lawler until Mantel entered the ring, Lawler agreed to a title match, and on April 1, The Master of Pain won his first professional wrestling championship. He held it for just over three weeks before Lawler became the first man to pin him, winning it back, while performing as The Punisher, Calaway won the WCWA Texas Heavyweight Championship on October 5,1989, when Eric Embry forfeited the title. In 1989, Calaway joined World Championship Wrestling as a villain and adopted the ring name Mean Mark Callous, a name devised for him by Terry Funk. He was portrayed as a character, he wore predominantly black ring attire and was described by announcer Jim Ross as having a fondness for pet snakes. The new team gained notoriety at Clash of the Champions X when they beat down The Road Warriors after their match. However, Callous partner Dan Spivey left WCW days before their Chicago Street Fight against The Road Warriors at WrestleWar, Callous and a replacement masked Skyscraper were defeated in the street fight, and the team broke up soon afterwards
22.
Curt Hennig
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In the WWF, he found his greatest success as Mr. Perfect, a nickname introduced in his second run with the company which gradually became his official ring name. Hennig used the ring name in his third and final run. However, his name was widely acknowledged. He is the son of wrestler Larry The Axe Hennig, Hennig returned to the WWF for a brief period in 2002, being one of the last three men remaining at the Royal Rumble. He later challenged for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in TNA, both WWF and WCW have recognized Hennig as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, with the former crediting him for raising the accepted standard of technical wrestling. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2007 by former Major League Baseball player and he was the best of the best. Hennig was childhood friends with fellow wrestler Rick Rude, known as Cool Curt Hennig, he began his career on January 30,1980 in the American Wrestling Association, the promotion which had made his father, Larry The Axe Hennig a star. Hennig left AWA in 1982 and joined World Wrestling Federation, Curt Hennig started his WWF career in 1982. He established himself as a young performer against the likes of Playboy Buddy Rose. Eventually, he was paired-up in tag matches with another young upstart, Eddie Gilbert. Hennig returned to AWA in 1984, Hennig, along with his father Larry The Axe, would engage in a long feud with Greg Gagne and his father, Verne Gagne. He began being associated with Madusa Miceli, the AWA World Womens Champion since December 27,1987, Hennig and Madusa joined The Diamond Exchange, a stable led by Diamond Dallas Page that also included Badd Company and Colonel DeBeers. Hennig would hold the AWA World Heavyweight Title for about 53 weeks, like many other AWA stars of the time, Curt left the AWA for the WWF with the promise of more money and broadened exposure. Hennig returned to the WWF in the mid-1988 at WrestleFest, where he pinned Terry Taylor, Hennig made his televised in-ring return on the September 11 episode of All-American Wrestling, defeating enhancement talent Ron Rovishod. Perfect, which would become his ring name in 1989 and the use of his name would be phased out. He presented himself as being superior in athletics or anything else he did, stars of various major league sports, including Wade Boggs, Steve Jordan, and Mike Modano, co-starred with Hennig in these vignettes. Hennig performed for the first time as Mr. Perfect on the October 4 episode of Prime Time Wrestling, Perfect survived the match with Bravo. He went undefeated on television for over a year, beating mid-card wrestlers including Koko B, Ware, The Blue Blazer, The Red Rooster, Jimmy Snuka, Tito Santana and Bret Hart
23.
Kevin Nash
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Kevin Scott Nash is an American professional wrestler, actor, and retired basketball player, currently signed to WWE under their Legends program. Nash has wrestled under several ring names, but is best known for his work under his name in World Championship Wrestling. Nash also found success in the World Wrestling Federation, where he was billed as Diesel. In 1994, Nash won all three titles comprising the WWF Triple Crown, and at that years Slammy Awards won the MVP and Best Tag Team awards. Between WWE, WCW, and TNA, Nash has won a total of 21 championships, including being a world champion. Although he held the WWF World Heavyweight Championship only once, Nashs 358-day reign is the longest of the 1990s, during his time in WCW, Nash became the first wrestler to defeat Goldberg and in the process ended his undefeated streak of 173–0 at Starrcade in 1998. Nash was a member of The Kliq, a backstage group that included Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Scott Hall. He is also one of the three founding members of the New World Order, along with Hulk Hogan and Scott Hall, Nash was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2015. Nash was born on July 9,1959, to a devout Christian family, in southwest Detroit, Nashs father, Robert, died of a heart attack on April 4,1968, aged 36, when Nash was eight years old. On December 27,1994, Nashs mother, Wanda, died after a struggle against breast cancer. He attended Aquinas High School, followed by the University of Tennessee, at the University of Tennessee, Nash was a center for the Tennessee Volunteers basketball team. He remained on the team from 1977 to 1980, during which time the team made it to the NCAA Sweet 16, Nash reconsidered his options and instead moved to Europe, where he played basketball professionally for various teams. His career ended in 1981 in Germany when he tore his cruciate ligament. After working on a line at Ford Motor Company and as the floor manager of a strip club in Atlanta, Georgia. Nash debuted in World Championship Wrestling as the orange-mohawked Steel, one half of the tag team known as the Master Blasters. He was initially partnered Master Blaster Iron, with whom he made his debut at the Clash of the Champions on September 5,1990, defeating Brad Armstrong, at the following Worldwide taping on September 7, the Masters Blasters began a feud with Tim Horner and Mike Rotundo. They would defeat Horner and Rotundo on several house shows, on September 22, Nashs partner Master Blaster Iron was replaced by Blade. The reconstituted Master Blasters continued their streak in October
24.
Trademark
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The trademark owner can be an individual, business organization, or any legal entity. A trademark may be located on a package, a label, for the sake of corporate identity, trademarks are often displayed on company buildings. A trademark identifies the owner of a particular product or service. The unauthorized usage of trademarks by producing and trading counterfeit consumer goods is known as brand piracy, the owner of a trademark may pursue legal action against trademark infringement. Most countries require formal registration of a trademark as a precondition for pursuing this type of action, the United States, Canada and other countries also recognize common law trademark rights, which means action can be taken to protect an unregistered trademark if it is in use. Still, common law trademarks offer the holder in general less legal protection than registered trademarks. A trademark may be designated by the symbols, ™ ℠ ® A trademark is typically a name, word, phrase, logo, symbol, design, image. There is also a range of non-conventional trademarks comprising marks which do not fall into these categories, such as those based on colour, smell. Trademarks which are considered offensive are often rejected according to a nations trademark law, the term trademark is also used informally to refer to any distinguishing attribute by which an individual is readily identified, such as the well-known characteristics of celebrities. When a trademark is used in relation to services rather than products, it may sometimes be called a service mark, in other words, trademarks serve to identify a particular business as the source of goods or services. The use of a trademark in this way is known as trademark use, certain exclusive rights attach to a registered mark. Different goods and services have been classified by the International Classification of Goods, in trademark treatises it is usually reported that blacksmiths who made swords in the Roman Empire are thought of as being the first users of trademarks. Other notable trademarks that have used for a long time include Löwenbräu. The first trademark legislation was passed by the Parliament of England under the reign of King Henry III in 1266, the first modern trademark laws emerged in the late 19th century. In France the first comprehensive system in the world was passed into law in 1857 with the Manufacture. In Britain, the Merchandise Marks Act 1862 made it an offense to imitate anothers trade mark with intent to defraud or to enable another to defraud. In 1875 the Trade Marks Registration Act was passed which allowed formal registration of marks at the UK Patent Office for the first time. Registration was considered to comprise prima facie evidence of ownership of a trade mark, in the United States, Congress first attempted to establish a federal trademark regime in 1870
25.
WWE
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Capitol Wrestling Corporation Ltd. was an American professional wrestling promotion and the sanctioning body for the World Wide Wrestling Federation and later World Wrestling Federation. Founded by Jess McMahon and Toots Mondt in 1953, Capitol Wrestling Corporation is the precursor to todays WWE, run by Jess grandson, Jess McMahon was a successful boxing promoter who began working with Tex Rickard in 1926. With the help of Rickard, he began promoting boxing at the third Madison Square Garden, a few years prior, professional wrestler Toots Mondt had created a new challenge of professional wrestling that he called “Slam Bang Western Style Wrestling”. He convinced wrestler Ed Lewis and his manager Billy Sandow to implement this new solution, after much success, a disagreement over power caused the trio to dissolve and, with it, their promotion. Mondt later formed partnerships with other promoters, including Jack Curley in New York City. Mondt eventually took over the New York wrestling scene, due to the fact Curley was dying, with the aid of several bookers, together, McMahon and Mondt created the Capitol Wrestling Corporation Ltd. which later joined the National Wrestling Alliance in 1953. In November 1954, Jess McMahon died and Ray Fabiani, one of Mondts associates, both men left the company in protest following the incident and formed the WWWF in the process, awarding Rogers the new WWWF World Heavyweight Championship in April of that year. He lost the championship to Bruno Sammartino a month later on May 17,1963, after gaining a television program deal and turning preliminary wrestler Lou Albano as a manager for Sammartinos heel opponents, the WWWF was doing sell out business by 1970. Mondt left the company in the late 1960s and although the WWWF had withdrawn from the NWA, Vince McMahon, at the annual meeting of the NWA in 1983, the McMahons and WWF employee Jim Barnett all withdrew from the organization. By March 1979, for marketing purposes, the World Wide Wrestling Federation was renamed the World Wrestling Federation and that same year, Vincent J. McMahons son, Vincent K. McMahon, founded Titan Sports, Inc. incorporated on February 21,1980, originally in Massachusetts. In 1982, Titan Sports Inc. acquired Capitols operations, effectively relocating its headquarters to Greenwich, in an attempt to make the WWF the premier wrestling promotion in the world, McMahon began an expansion that fundamentally changed the industry. In the end, the elder McMahon would never live to see his company grow from a promotion to what is now a worldwide organization. He died from cancer at 69 years old on May 24,1984. By 1985, Titan moved to Stamford, Connecticut then establishing a new entity in 1987 in Delaware which later merged with the old company in 1988. Titan later changed its name to World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. before finally becoming World Wrestling Entertainment, list of independent wrestling promotions in the United States
26.
Daniel Bryan
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Bryan Lloyd Danielson is an American retired professional wrestler currently signed to WWE under the ring name Daniel Bryan, where he is the on-screen general manager of SmackDown. He was also the 2011 SmackDown Money in the Bank winner and he is the 26th Triple Crown Champion and the 15th Grand Slam Champion in WWE history and headlined several major pay-per-view events, including SummerSlam in 2013 and WrestleMania XXX. Danielson was previously signed to the WWE, then known as the WWF, prior to joining WWE for his second stint in 2009, Danielson wrestled for various companies internationally using both his real name and the ring name American Dragon. He wrestled for Ring of Honor from 2002 to 2009, being recognized as a Founding Father of the promotion and he was the first winner of ROHs annual Survival of the Fittest tournament in 2004. Along with CM Punk, Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens, Danielson is one of four men to have won a championship in both WWE and ROH. Danielson also wrestled extensively in Japan, winning the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship in Pro Wrestling Noah, between WWE, ROH, and Japanese promotions, he held eleven total championships, including five world titles. Danielson also won titles on the independent circuit, including two PWG World Championships, the FIP Heavyweight Championship, and the wXw World Heavyweight Championship. In 2016, at age 34, Danielson retired from wrestling due to medical issues arising from multiple concussions. Later that year in July, he was named the General Manager of SmackDown following the return of the WWE brand extension, Danielson was born and raised in Aberdeen, Washington, the son of a logger father and a therapist mother, who divorced when Danielson was young. Danielson has a sister named Billie Sue. He competed in sports at Aberdeen-Weatherwax High School, including football. After Danielson graduated from school in 1999, he decided to pursue wrestling professionally. When it closed he trained under Shawn Michaels and Rudy Gonzalez at the Texas Wrestling Academy. He debuted in the TWA, and on March 21,2000, won his first title when he teamed with Spanky to win the TWA Tag Team Championship, defeating Jeromy Sage and Ruben Cruz. There, Danielson gained exposure, and was trained by WWF competitor William Regal, during this time Danielson adopted his moniker American Dragon. WWF severed its ties with MCW in 2001, but not before Danielson won the MCW Light Heavyweight Championship, after 18 months with the company, Danielson was released from his WWF contract in July 2001. Danielson revealed in his 2015 autobiography that he was close to being called up to the roster during the 2001 Royal Rumble match. He explained the WWF thought of using him as one of their key figures in the newly created cruiserweight division which was inspired by World Championship Wrestling, in 2002, Danielson wrestled two matches for the renamed World Wrestling Entertainment despite not being a contracted performer for the company
27.
David Otunga
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David Daniel Otunga Sr. is a retired American professional wrestler, lawyer and actor currently signed with WWE as a color commentator on the SmackDown brand. He is a two-time WWE Tag Team Champion, having one each with Michael McGillicutty. He was the runner-up on the first season of NXT, Otunga is also an original member of The Nexus and The New Nexus along with Heath Slater, being the only member to become part of every incarnation. Otunga was born in Elgin, Illinois, to a Kenyan Luo father, Moses, and he is the youngest of three children. Otunga graduated from Larkin High School in 1998, with a perfect 4.0 GPA, Otunga earned a bachelors degree in psychology from the University of Illinois. Following his graduation, he moved to New York City, where he became a manager in Columbia Universitys Cognitive Neuroscience Center. He later graduated from Harvard Law School, passing Illinois bar exam, following his graduation, he joined the Sidley Austin law firm. In 2007, after his niece submitted his audition tape, Otunga was chosen to be a contestant on I Love New York 2 and he became one of the final three contestants in the competition, before being eliminated on the series penultimate episode. Otunga has since starred in the 2013 thriller film The Call, Otunga made a guest appearance as himself in the 13, 110th episode of General Hospital. In November 2008, Otunga signed a contract with World Wrestling Entertainment and was assigned to its development territory. He made his debut on May 29,2009, under the ring name Dawson Alexander, Otunga teamed with Barry Allen and Jon Cutler to defeat Abraham Saddam Washington, Derrick Bateman and Camacho. He made his debut on the episode of NXT on February 23. Young defeated Otunga in a rematch on the following weeks broadcast, thanks to interference from Youngs mentor, after the match, R-Truth tried to offer his support, only to be shoved away by a frustrated Otunga, resulting in Otunga turning heel. R-Truth took exception, confronting and brawling with Otunga backstage, on the March 30 episode of NXT, Otunga won an 8-man over the top rope battle royal against the other NXT Rookies to earn the right to guest host Raw the following week. On the April 5 episode of Raw, Otunga put himself in a tag match with John Cena for the Unified WWE Tag Team Championship against ShoMiz. Later in the match, however, he refused to tag in and walked out, on May 11, in the second Pros Poll, he was moved to second place. During the season finale on June 1, Otunga came in second overall in the competition. On the June 14 episode of Raw, the rookies attacked General Manager Bret Hart, the following week on Raw, Vince McMahon fired Hart and announced the hiring of a new General Manager, who had signed all seven season one NXT rookies to contracts
28.
Jennifer Hudson
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Jennifer Kate Hudson is an American singer, actress and spokesperson. She rose to fame in 2004 as a finalist on the season of American Idol. She has also appeared in films as Sex and the City, The Secret Life of Bees. She has made television appearances, including guest roles on Smash, Empire. In 2015 she made her Broadway debut in the role of Shug Avery in the 2015 revival of The Color Purple, as a singer, Hudson has released three studio albums. Her debut album Jennifer Hudson, released in 2008, debuted at two on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold by the RIAA, with sales exceeding a million copies worldwide. The record was nominated for four Grammy Awards, winning the 2009 Grammy Award for Best R&B Album and her second album I Remember Me, released in 2011, also debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold by the RIAA. Her third and most recent album JHUD peaked in the top ten, in October 2008, after Hudsons mother, brother and nephew were killed in a shooting, Hudson stepped out of the public eye for three months. Hudson resumed her appearances in 2009, with high-profile performances at Super Bowl XLIII, the Grammy Awards, American Idol. Hudson has been described as a friend of former President Barack Obama and she also performed at the White House at the Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement event. In 2013, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in 2016, Hudson was announced as a coach on the 2017 Series of The Voice UK. Hudson was born on September 12,1981, in Chicago and she is the third and youngest child of Darnell Donnerson and Samuel Simpson. She was raised as a Baptist in Englewood and attended Dunbar Vocational High School and she cites Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, and Patti LaBelle as her overall biggest influences and inspiration. At the age of 7, she got her start in performing by singing with the choir and doing community theater with the help of her late maternal grandmother. She enrolled at Langston University but she left after a due to homesickness and unhappiness with the weather. In January 2002, Hudson signed her first recording contract with Righteous Records and she was released from her five-year contract with Righteous Records so that she could appear on American Idol in 2004. The bottom three consisting of three African-American females led to controversy, in May 2009, MTV listed Hudson as the sixth greatest American Idol and noted her exit was the most shocking of all time. In one of her first appearances on a record, Hudson is featured in a duet, The Future Aint What It Used to Be, on Meat Loafs Bat Out of Hell III, The Monster Is Loose
29.
Low Ki
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Brandon Jonathan Silvestry is an American professional wrestler. He is best known under his ring names Low Ki and Senshi in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, Silvestry is of Puerto Rican and Italian descent. Silvestry began wrestling in late 1998 under the ring name Low Ki and he began wrestling for Jersey All Pro Wrestling in 1998, challenging Homicide and Kane D for the JAPW Tag Team Championship. In 2000, he began making appearances in the World Wrestling Federation on their programs Metal and Jakked. The following year he made it through to the finals of All Pro Wrestlings King of the Indies tournament and he lost both titles in a Three Way match the following month to Homicide, with Xavier as the other competitor. Low Ki made his Ring of Honor debut at its first show, The Era of Honor Begins, in the shows main event, he defeated Bryan Danielson and The Fallen Angel Christopher Daniels. On July 27,2002, at Crowning a Champion, he became the first ever ROH Champion by defeating Daniels, Spanky, on August 24, Low Ki successfully defended his title against A. J. On September 21, at Unscripted, he lost the title to Xavier, Low Ki then faced Samoa Joe on October 5 in what was Joes official ROH debut in a Fight Without Honor. In what resembled more of an MMA fight, Low Ki won the match and they shook hands after the match. Low Ki left the promotion in 2004 due to the Feinstein incident, but he returned on July 17,2004, during a match, where Samoa Joe and the Briscoe Brothers fought against The Rottweilers. It looked like Low Ki would save Samoa Joe from a beatdown by The Rottweilers, but instead he spat on the ROH Championship, which was held by Joe. At Weekend of Thunder Night 2 on November 6,2004, he started a feud with Bryan Danielson, Low Ki and Danielson lost the match and Low Ki blamed his partner for that, so The Rottweilers started a beatdown on Danielson. On December 4, at All Star Extravaganza II, Danielson defeated Homicide of The Rottweilers, in that same event, Low Ki wrestled Austin Aries in a number one contenders match to determine who would face ROH Champion Samoa Joe for the title. The match ended in a draw, officials extended the match, but Low Ki refused to wrestle, so Aries was declared the winner. Instead of facing Joe at Final Battle 2004, Low Ki wrestled Danielson and this was enough for ROH officials to suspend him indefinitely as a result. Low Ki returned on May 7,2005 and immediately attacked Jay Lethal and Samoa Joe at Manhattan Mayhem with his fellow Rottweilers, Homicide, Julius Smokes, Monsta Mack, the impromptu tag team match was made, The Rottweilers vs. Samoa Joe and Jay Lethal. Low Ki and Homicide won the match and injured Lethal with a Ghetto Stomp/Cop Killa combination, the feud continued on June 18 at Death Before Dishonor III, where he and Lethal faced each other in a singles match, but it ended in a no contest. They had a rematch on August 12 at Redemption, but the ending was the same, finally, on September 17 at Glory By Honor IV, a Fight Without Honor between the two ended with Low Ki getting a pinfall victory over Lethal
30.
Impact Wrestling
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Impact Wrestling is a privately held American professional wrestling promotion based in Nashville, Tennessee and founded by Jeff and Jerry Jarrett in 2002. The promotion was known as NWA, Total Nonstop Action and was associated with the National Wrestling Alliance. After the agreement ended in 2007, the company created its own TNA World Heavyweight and it is the only major American promotion to predominantly make use of a six-sided wrestling ring. The concept of TNA originated shortly after World Championship Wrestling ended in 2001, bob Ryder, Jeff Jarrett and Jerry Jarrett went on a fishing trip and contemplated their futures in the professional wrestling business. Only one wrestling product remained on United States national television, the World Wrestling Federation, the Jarretts found the financial backing they needed and the company put on its first show on June 19,2002. That night, however, in a match just before they went on the air. The estimated repair time was 30–60 minutes, which they did not have because the schedule called for them to go live in a few minutes, whether the ring was ready or not. Backstage, the producers shuffled the schedule so that some non-wrestling segments went first to give the crew some more time. The ring crew fixed the rope with the help of Ron and Don Harris, initially, TNAs weekly pay-per-view show operated as the companys main source of revenue, in place of monthly pay-per-view events used by other promotions. These shows took place mostly at the Tennessee State Fairground Sports Arena in Nashville, Tennessee, after 27 months and 111 pay-per-view events, TNA began holding a weekly television show and monthly three-hour pay-per-views. The last weekly pay-per-view took place on September 8,2004, Xplosion launched on November 27,2002 as TNAs first regular cable show and featured exclusive matches from the TNA Asylum as well as exclusive interviews with TNA wrestlers. On November 18,2004, the became a recap show of the previous weeks Impact. in light of alterations in the taping schedule. Xplosion resumed airing exclusive matches once more on October 7,2005 in addition to recapping Impact, the Xplosion Xclusives also aired on the now-ceased TNA Global Impact. Airing of Xplosion in the United States ceased at the end of 2006, in May 2004, TNA introduced a television program, Impact. produced at Soundstage 21 at Universal Studios Florida and broadcast on Fox Sports. In November 2004, TNA held the first of these pay-per-views, Victory Road, the television contract with Fox Sports expired in May 2005 and was not renegotiated, leaving TNA without television exposure. This prompted TNA to air Impact, via webcasts – originally made available via BitTorrent and eventually via RealPlayer – and on Urban America Television replacing Xplosion. During this time, TNA continued pursuing a television deal for regular broadcasting, would later secured a deal with Spike TV. In October 2006, TNA began holding select pay-per-views outside of its filming location
31.
The Dudley Boyz
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The Dudley Boyz were a professional wrestling tag team, consisting of kayfabe half-brothers Bubba Ray Dudley and D-Von Dudley. The team would also be joined by various Dudley family members, notably Matthew Hyson and they are best known for their time in the World Wrestling Federation, later renamed World Wrestling Entertainment. The team wrestled as the Dudley Boyz in ECW and WWF/E, Hyson later signed with TNA and again sided with Team 3D as Brother Runt. Later in their TNA career, LoMonaco used the ring name Bully Ray while Hughes wrestled as Devon, after a brief feud with one another, Devon and Bully were reunited as part of the villainous faction Aces & Eights. They are the only tag team to hold the WWE, WWF/World, ECW, WCW, NWA, TNA, during their time as Aces & Eights, LoMonaco was TNA World Heavyweight Champion on two occasions, while Devon was Television Champion. On June 15,2014 at Slammiversary XII, Team 3D were selected as that years induction into the TNA Hall of Fame. WWE recognizes them as the most decorated tag team in history, with 18-time world tag team championship reigns. They are famously known for using tables in their matches, usually to drive their opponent through one with their 3D finishing move. On May 21,2007, Ray and Devon opened the Team 3D Academy of Professional Wrestling and Sports Entertainment at the X-Cel Fitness Gym in Kissimmee, Florida. The teaming of LoMonaco and Hughes was born from ECWs Dudley family, Hughes, as D-Von Dudley, debuted in ECW in 1996. All the members of the Dudley family chased for the ECW Tag Team Championship at that time, little Spike Dudley also debuted in 1996 and teamed with Buh Buh Ray against The Full Blooded Italians. Initially, D-Von was hostile toward his family, saying that true Dudleys were not comedians. Eventually, however, Buh Buh Ray and D-Von united and kicked all of the remaining Dudleys except for Big Dick Dudley and Sign Guy Dudley out of the family and they became the most successful members of the Dudley family as they dominated the tag team division of ECW. They won their first ECW Tag Team Championship from The Eliminators at Hostile City Showdown on March 15,1997 and this win resulted in a rivalry with the Eliminators, who won the title back at ECWs first pay-per-view event Barely Legal. On June 20, the Dudleys won their second ECW Tag Team Championship from Kronus in a match due to Saturn being injured. The Dudley Boyz began their rivalry with The Gangstas, which began after the Dudleys defeated the Gangstas to retain the tag titles at Orgy of Violence on June 28. The Dudleys, however, lost the tag titles to the Gangstas in a steel cage match at Heat Wave on July 19,1997. In less than a month, the Dudleys defeated the Gangstas at Hardcore Heaven to win their third ECW Tag Team Championship
32.
Bubba Ray Dudley
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Mark LoMonaco is an American professional wrestler and radio talk show host on best known for his time in WWE, where he competed under the ring name Bubba Ray Dudley. He is currently signed to Ring of Honor, where he is currently in his first reign as 1/3 of the ROH6 Man Tag Team Champions alongside The Briscoe Brothers. For much of his career, LoMonaco has teamed with Devon Hughes, his kayfabe half-brother, D-Von who is also a minister, as The Dudley Boyz. LoMonaco has also held a number of championships, most notably the TNA World Heavyweight Championship on two occasions and the WWF/E Hardcore Championship on 10 occasions. All totaled, LoMonaco has won 36 championships between, WWE, TNA, ECW, ROH, and New Japan Pro Wrestling, in addition to being a professional wrestler LoMonaco is a radio talk show host. He is currently the host of SiriusXM Rushs Busted Open program, LoMonaco trained under Sonny Blaze and Johnny Rodz. He debuted in 1991 under the ring name Mongo Vyle, the character Mongo Vyle was a biker billed from Hells Kitchen, Manhattan, New York whose gimmick was inspired by The Nasty Boys, The Road Warriors and Maxx Payne. The name Mongo was first used as his Fraternity pledge name at St. Johns University in Jamaica, Queens, LoMonaco received a tryout with Extreme Championship Wrestling in September 1995, appearing as Mongo, the bodyguard of Bill Alfonso. After impressing ECW owner Paul Heyman by taking a chokeslam from wrestler 911 and he was recast as Buh Buh Ray Dudley, the stuttering, dancing, overweight, hillbilly member of the sprawling Dudley family. The unusual spelling of Bubba was a result of his stutter, in saying his name Buh-Buh would stutter causing him to say My name is Buh-buh-buh-buh until Big Dick Dudley struck him in the chest, at which point he would snap out My name is Bubba Ray Dudley. The fans embraced the comical Dudley boys and during Buh Buhs matches would chant Buh Buh Buh Buh. On April 13,1996, D-Von Dudley debuted in ECW and began feuding with the members of the Dudley Family. D-Von eliminated Dances With Dudley, Dudley Dudley, and Chubby Dudley before joining forces with Buh Buh Ray, Big Dick, Sign Guy Dudley, and Joel Gertner. Buh Buh Ray, D-Von, and Gertner all achieved a degree of infamy for their vitriolic interviews, in 1999, Buh Buh Ray and D-Von left ECW and joined the World Wrestling Federation, where the Buh Buh stutter-spelling of Bubba Ray Dudley was rescinded. Throughout 2000 and 2001, the Dudley Boyz engaged in a three way feud for the WWF Tag Team Championship with The Hardy Boyz and Edge and Christian. The feud incorporated two critically acclaimed Tables, Ladders, and Chairs matches, the first at SummerSlam in 2000, the Dudley Boyz were soon cheered by the crowd and were turned face in early 2000. On the December 28,2000 episode of SmackDown, Bubba received a title shot against WWF Champion Kurt Angle, which he lost. In early 2001, The Dudleys were joined in the WWF by Spike Dudley, the ECW-WCW invasion ended at the Survivor Series, when five WWF wrestlers defeated five Alliance wrestlers in a match to determine the ownership of the WWF
33.
D-Von Dudley
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Devon Edger Hughes is an American retired professional wrestler. He is currently signed to WWE, where he works backstage as an agent/producer, Hughes wrestled for Extreme Championship Wrestling from 1995 to 1999 and for the WWF/E from 1999 to 2005 and from 2015 to 2016 as D-Von Dudley and Reverend DVon. He performed with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling from 2005 to 2014 as Brother Devon and Devon, including his two TNA Television Championship reigns, Hughes has held 25 major championships between TNA, WWE, ECW, and New Japan Pro Wrestling. Hughes was trained by Johnny Rodz and began wrestling in 1992 and he engaged in a rivalry with Latin Lover that was continued in many different promotions. On April 13,1996, at Massacre on Queens Blvd and his character was based on Jules Winnfield, the Bible-quoting hitman portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson in the 1994 film Pulp Fiction. Dudley eliminated Dances with Dudley, Dudley Dudley, and Chubby Dudley before joining forces with Buh Buh Ray, Big Dick Dudley, Sign Guy Dudley, and Joel Gertner. D-Von, Buh Buh Ray, and Gertner all achieved a degree of infamy for their vitriolic interviews, in mid-1999, Bubba Ray and D-Von left ECW following a pay dispute and debuted in the World Wrestling Federation in September. Throughout 2000 and 2001, the Dudley Boyz engaged in a three way feud for the World Tag Team Championship with the Hardy Boyz and Edge and Christian, in early 2001, they were joined by Spike Dudley. Following WrestleMania X8 the company divided the roster into two brands, Raw and SmackDown. in May 2002, the Dudley Boyz were separated when Hughes was drafted to SmackDown. and Bubba Ray ended up on Raw. Hughes became a villainous reverend character initially serving as Mr. McMahons spiritual advisor, though the gimmick was a launching platform for Batistas career, it didnt last long and Hughes was betrayed by Batista. He did pick up one of his most memorable victories of his WWE career when he pinned Triple H on May 9,2002 on SmackDown. After Chris Jericho hit Triple H with the briefcase and he eventually was reunited with Bubba Ray and Spike on November 17,2002 at Survivor Series when he helped Bubba, Spike and Jeff Hardy defeat 3-Minute Warning and Rico in a tables match. They held the WWE World Tag Team Championship several more times before being traded to SmackDown, on March 22,2004 in exchange for Triple H. On May 27,2004 the Dudley Boyz kidnapped Paul Bearer, on June 27,2004 at The Great American Bash, The Undertaker defeated the Dudley Boyz in a handicap match. They also won the WWE Tag Team Championships one more time but were upset by the team of Paul London. In July 2004, the Dudley Boyz reunited with Spike, for the remainder of the year, they assisted Spike in his matches for the WWE Cruiserweight Championship. In early 2005, the Dudley Boyz were removed from WWE television, the Dudley Boyz returned to WWE television in June 2005 in order to promote ECW One Night Stand, an ECW reunion show. In the weeks preceding One Night Stand they, along several other ECW alumni, vied with former WCW President Eric Bischoff
34.
Spike Dudley
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Matthew Jonathan Hyson is an American financial planner and former professional wrestler and teacher. In ECW, he was a two-time Tag Team Champion, in WWF/E, he was a one-time Cruiserweight Champion, a one-time Tag Team Champion with Tazz, a one-time European Champion and an eight-time Hardcore Champion. Prior to his career, Hyson received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. During the documentary Beyond the Mat, a heavily bleeding Hyson delivers the line I shall, in May 1993, Hyson entered All Pro Wrestlings Boot Camp in Hayward, California to train as a referee and manager. He quickly began training to be a wrestler as well, Hyson debuted in Extreme Championship Wrestling in August 1996, and gained fame as Little Spike Dudley, as a part of the Dudley family. His in-ring persona was that of the runt of the family and his initials and finishing move were both drug references and, at times, he would stare at his hands waving in front of him as if he were on a trip. He quickly gained the nickname The Giant Killer, a storyline with Bam Bam Bigelow saw him on the end of two pay-per-views defeats, however, at Hardcore Heaven and As Good as it Gets. In one memorable moment in not only Spikes career but in ECW history in general, Bam Bam Bigelow threw Spike from the ring, over the top rope, the fans caught him and proceeded to body surf him around the ECW Arena. This incident was incorporated into the ECW TV introduction for years, after his storyline brothers, D-Von and Bubba Ray turned on him, he was involved in a scripted rivalry with them for several months. He was also in the event on some occasions, such as the 2000 Guilty as Charged pay-per-view. During the match, however, he injured his knee, and after aggravating the injury in subsequent matches with Awesome and he returned in June 2000 as the ECW Commissioner and returned to in-ring action at the November to Remember event of that year, relinquishing his role as commissioner. Hyson stayed with ECW until it folded in 2001, Hyson debuted on the March 19,2001 episode of Raw is War, helping his half-brothers, Bubba Ray and D-Von, defeat Edge and Christian for the WWF Tag Team Championship. He then began accompanying them to ringside for their matches, however, it was during this time that Hyson began an on-screen courtship with Molly Holly, during a feud between the Dudley Boyz and The Holly Cousins, leading to the rivalry being exacerbated. The Dudleys eventually put Molly through a table and turned on Spike, Hyson teamed with Kane to challenge the Dudley Boyz at the King of the Ring for their World Tag Team Championship in a losing effort after receiving a 3D. During The Invasion, Hyson remained loyal to WWF, failing to join The Alliance despite his ECW alumnus status and it was during The Invasion that his relationship with Molly came to an end when she turned on him, aligning herself with The Hurricane. Hyson wrestled mainly as a face during his time in WWE, in that same year, he won the European Championship once and the Hardcore Championship on eight separate occasions. Dudley also mended fences with his brother, Bubba, and the pair teamed up to take on The Un-Americans in late 2002, Dudley was injured after a missed spot during a 10-man tag match on Raw in September 2003. La Résistance threw Dudley to the outside but Dudley missed the table that he was supposed to crash through, after some time away from the ring, Spike returned and defeated René Duprée to get revenge for the injury
35.
Samoa Joe
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Nuufolau Joel Joe Seanoa, better known by his ring name Samoa Joe, is an American professional wrestler currently signed to WWE and performing on the Raw brand. He was previously best known for his time with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling and Ring of Honor, Joe established himself in ROH from the promotions beginning in 2002, holding the ROH World Championship for a record 21 months from May 2003 to December 2004. He left TNA in February 2015, briefly competing again in ROH, Joe officially debuted in WWEs developmental territory NXT in May 2015, and signed a full-time contract with the company in June, he went on to become the first ever two-time NXT Champion. Seanoa was born and raised in Orange County, California and he resided mainly in Huntington Beach and spent time during his childhood in Ewa Beach, Hawaii. Seanoas family founded a Polynesian dance troupe in the United States called Tiare Productions, Seanoa made his stage debut at the 1984 Summer Olympics opening at the age of five. He became a California State Junior Judo Champion and was an all league football player while attending Ocean View High School, before becoming a wrestler, Seanoa worked as a mortgage broker. Joe was the first graduate of the UIWA West Coast Dojo, training under Cincinnati Red, along with Johnny Hemp and, occasionally and he debuted in December 1999 in a match against Uncle Jess Hansen just three months after beginning training. Joe quickly signed with former WWF developmental affiliate Ultimate Pro Wrestling and he tagged with Mike Knox at UPW Proving Ground on December 12,2000 in the Galaxy Theatre of Santa Ana, California and defeated the debuting Al Katrazz with Basil. He eventually captured the UPW Heavyweight Championship and he later became the longest reigning UPW Heavyweight Champion ever. When Joe was in UPW, he met Bruce Pritchard and Jim Ross, Joe continued to work for the promotion throughout 2002, participating in a number of their biggest shows and tournaments. After forming a team with Keiji Sakoda, they became the inaugural NWA Intercontinental Tag Team Champions and he worked as both Samoa Joe and later King Joe, but ultimately chose to leave the promotion when he was asked to take on a more gimmicky character. Back in the United States, Joe joined the ranks of the East Coast-based Ring of Honor promotion in 2002 and he made his debut at Glory by Honor as Christopher Danielss hired assassin, brought in to take out Danielss chief enemy, Low Ki. He held that title for twenty one months before losing it to Austin Aries at Final Battle 2004 on December 26,2004, during this time, he had a trilogy of title defenses against CM Punk. He held the title for three months before losing it to Nigel McGuinness on August 27 at Dragon Gate Invasion. In October 2005, when Japanese heavyweight superstar Kenta Kobashi made a trip to the United States. ROH officials selected Joe to face him in a match on the first night. Joe proved to be an opponent for Kobashi, in a back and forth match. The match went on to win the Wrestling Observer Newsletter award for Match of the Year, in 2006, Joe was one of the principal wrestlers representing Ring of Honor in their war against rival Philadelphia promotion Combat Zone Wrestling
36.
A.J. Styles
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Allen Neal Jones, best known by the ring name A. J. Styles, is an American professional wrestler signed to WWE on the SmackDown brand. Styles, who has long regarded as one of the worlds greatest professional wrestlers, is widely known for his tenure in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling from 2002–2013. While in TNA, Styles held the NWA World Heavyweight Championship three times and the TNA World Heavyweight Championship twice and he was also the first X Division Champion, a title he held six times. Styles is the first professional wrestler ever to complete the TNA Triple Crown, in 2010, Styles became the first ever TNA-contracted wrestler to be ranked number one on the annual Pro Wrestling Illustrated PWI500 list. He simultaneously appeared in Ring of Honor from 2002–2006, winning the ROH World Tag Team Championship, in 2014, he signed with New Japan Pro-Wrestling and won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in his first match with the company, later becoming the leader of the Bullet Club. He has also competed extensively on the independent circuit, winning titles such as the PWG World Championship, Styles first appeared in WWE in 2002, but turned down a developmental deal he was offered with the company. He signed a contract with WWE fourteen years later in January 2016. Also in 2016, both PWI and Wrestling Observer Newsletter voted Styles as the Wrestler of the Year, Jones was born in Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. He grew up in poverty with an abusive, alcoholic father and he attended Johnson High School in Gainesville, Georgia, graduating in the class of 1996. He left college to try wrestling, entering a professional wrestling school because his friends were doing it. To supplement his income, he worked by mowing lawns and driving an ambulance, Jones was trained by Rick Michaels and debuted in 1998. In the Georgia-based National Championship Wrestling promotion he wrestled as Mr. Olympia, by August 1999, he had won the promotions Television Championship. From 1999 to 2001, he competed in less notable independent promotions, in December 1999, NCW merged with NWA Georgia to form NWA Wildside, and Jones was renamed A. J. He appeared sporadically even after signing with NWA-TNA, and is a former NWA Georgia Heavyweight Champion, on October 26,2001, Styles participated in All Pro Wrestlings King of Indies tournament. He defeated Jardi Frantz in his first round match, but was eliminated by Christopher Daniels in the finals the following night. Later that night, Styles defeated Josh Mathews in a match taped for XWF television, the following night, Styles was defeated by Daniels, again in a match taped for the XWF television program. On April 7, Styles teamed with Chuck E. Chaos to face Jerry Lynn, on April 10, Styles faced Lynn and Nova in a three-way-dance, in a losing effort
37.
Shinsuke Nakamura
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Shinsuke Nakamura is a Japanese professional wrestler and former mixed martial artist currently signed to WWE, performing on the SmackDown brand. Nakamura is the youngest IWGP Heavyweight Champion in history, having won the title for the first time at the age of 23 years and 9 months, in 2015, Nakamura was inducted into the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame. Prior to his main roster debut, Nakamura competed in WWEs developmental branch, NXT, Nakamura joined NJPW in March 2002 and quickly began making a name for himself as a bright prospect for the company. Having earned the nickname Super Rookie, Nakamura impressed both NJPW officials and fans with an excellent combination of strength, speed, and technical skill, alongside fellow rookies Hiroshi Tanahashi and Katsuyori Shibata, Nakamura became known as one of the new Three Musketeers. Nakamura began training vale tudo and on December 31,2002, he made his mixed martial arts debut in a fight, Nakamuras second MMA fight took place on May 2,2003, when he defeated Jan Nortje with a guillotine choke. He followed that up on September 13 with another victory over Shane Eitner in his third MMA fight. On December 9,2003, Nakamura defeated Hiroyoshi Tenzan for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, on January 4,2004, at Wrestling World 2004, Nakamura successfully defended the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against the NWF Heavyweight Champion Yoshihiro Takayama in a title unification match. However, just a later, Nakamura was forced to vacate the title due to an injury. Upon his return, Nakamura received a shot at the title, now held by Bob Sapp, later that month, Nakamura competed in his to date last MMA fight, defeating Alexey Ignashov with a forearm choke on May 22. On December 11,2004, Nakamura and his tag team partner Hiroshi Tanahashi defeated Kensuke Sasaki, on January 4,2005, at Toukon Festival, Wrestling World 2005 Nakamura defeated his own tag team partner, Tanahashi, to win the IWGP U-30 Openweight Championship. A few weeks later, on October 30,2005, they lost the titles to Cho-Ten, Nakamura challenged Brock Lesnar for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship on January 4,2006, at Toukon Shidou Chapter 1, but lost. In March 2006, Nakamura announced that he would depart on an excursion in order to further improve his wrestling skills. Among other things, he would travel to Mexico, Brazil, NJPW President Simon Inoki later suggested that as part of his learning excursion, Nakamura would be loaned to World Wrestling Entertainment to gain experience in working large American shows. However, it proved to be mostly speculation and never came to pass, Nakamura had greatly improved his muscular mass during his overseas training and also debuted a new finisher, called the Landslide. Nakamura entered the 2007 G1 Climax tournament, where he reached the semifinals, Hirooki Goto, Giant Bernard, Travis Tomko, and Prince Devitt. Low Ki was later added to the stable after Milano was injured, on December 9 Nakamura defeated Togi Makabe to earn an IWGP Heavyweight Championship match at the following months Tokyo Dome show. On January 4,2008, Nakamura defeated his rival Tanahashi in the event of Wrestle Kingdom II in Tokyo Dome. He followed that up with defeating Kurt Angle on February 17,2008 to win the IGF version of the IWGP Heavyweight Championship and he lost the IWGP Heavyweight Championship to All Japan Pro Wrestling representative Keiji Mutoh in Osaka on April 27,2008
38.
Austin Aries
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Daniel Healy Dan Solwold Jr. Aries is also known for his time in Ring of Honor, where he became the first two-time ROH World Champion and a one-time ROH World Tag Team Champion. Solwold began training under Eddie Sharkey and Terry Fox in 2000 and debuted on November 11,2000, from there, he joined Ring of Honor. Aries made his ROH main show debut at ROH, Reborn Stage 2 in Chicago Ridge, Aries was unsuccessful, however, losing a four corner survival match also involving Jimmy Rave, Rocky Romero, and the winner, Nigel McGuinness. Aries was scheduled to return at the May 22 show, Generation Next, Alex Shelley, however, hand-picked Aries, along with Roderick Strong and Jack Evans, as members of a new stable who, instead of earning their spots, would simply take them. The group took the name Generation Next as their own, Aries captured the ROH World Championship at Final Battle 2004 on December 26,2004, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by defeating the longest reigning ROH World Champion Samoa Joe. After a six-month string of defenses, many of which were international. On December 17 in Edison, New Jersey at Final Battle 2005, Aries teamed with Strong to defeat Sal Rinauro, the two would then disband Generation Next on June 3,2006. In a first time ever match, Aries took on Pro Wrestling Noah star and former GHC Jr. Heavyweight champion KENTA in Chicago on June 24, on September 16, he and his partner Strong lost the ROH World Tag Team Championship to The Kings of Wrestling. Aries and Strong continued to team together for the rest of the year, at Battle of the Icons on January 27,2007, Aries and Strong teamed up with Jack Evans to defeat Davey Richards, Delirious and SHINGO. This apparent Generation Next reunion was short lived when, at the show on February 16, Strong attacked Aries after their tag team title match against Christopher Daniels. Strong then formed the No Remorse Corps with Davey Richards, Jack Evans ran down and pulled Strong off Aries, but refused to side with either of them. The following night, Aries called out Strong twice, but was unable to get his hands on him, when Evans refused to side with him, Aries said he was going to form a new faction with members of the next generation of wrestling. With that, he formed The Resilience with Erick Stevens and Matt Cross, on April 27, Aries unsuccessfully challenged Takeshi Morishima for the ROH World Championship. On May 4,2007, Ring of Honor announced on their website that they had signed a deal with G-Funk Sports. Following the announcement, TNA pulled Aries and Homicide, both under contracts with TNA, from all Ring of Honor shows. In July 2005, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling held an Internet poll to select an opponent for the TNA X Division Champion Christopher Daniels at their August 14 pay-per-view, Sacrifice 2005. Aries won the poll by a landslide, and thus faced Daniels in a match at Sacrifice. On September 22,2005, Aries announced on his website that he had received an offer from TNA
39.
Karl Anderson
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Anderson is known for his work as a tag team specialist, most notably in New Japan Pro-Wrestling, where he is a former four-time IWGP Tag Team Champion. He also holds the record for the longest reign and most defenses with the title, Anderson and Bernard also held Pro Wrestling Noahs GHC Tag Team Championship, and were voted tag team of the year by The Wrestling Observer in 2011. Anderson is a winner of NJPWs top tag team tournament. He also wrestled for Southern California-based independent promotion Pro Wrestling Guerrilla between 2007 and 2009, Anderson spent the majority of his career in Japan, before signing with WWE alongside Gallows, AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura in 2016. Allegra grew up in Asheville, North Carolina with his brother and mother. He received a scholarship to study at Mars Hill College in his home state before dropping out to pursue a wrestling career. Upon moving to Cincinnati, Ohio he began training for a time at Les Thatchers Main Event Pro Wrestling Camp. But then moved on to train for years with Roger Ruffen. Shortly after beginning his training under Les Thatcher in 2000, he received a concussion at the hands of fellow trainee Derek Neikirk, which put Allegra on the shelf for over a year. Allegra trained for months before debuting under his real name in his first professional match on May 10,2002 in a losing encounter with The Zodiac. His second match was against Prince Justice, who is now known as Total Nonstop Action Wrestlings Abyss. He also had matches with The Boogie Woogie Man Jimmy Valiant, Chris Harris, Shark Boy, in the NWF, Allegra started as part of the Young Lions, a four-man group of popular rookies who entered the promotion at about the same time. First to leave the group was Matt Parks, Allegra eventually joined Parks as a heel and began a feud with Ryan Stone and Jay Donaldson. In the summer of 2005, the NWF and the HWA began an interpromotional feud and it culminated in a one on one, title vs. title match between Allegra, the NWF Champion, and Cody Hawk, the HWA champion. In October 2005, Allegra had the opportunity to wrestle at the National Wrestling Alliances annual convention, Allegra was invited to train at the dojo and so after losing the NWF title to Ryan Stone on January 1,2006, Allegra began living and wrestling on the West Coast. Over the years, the association with the Anderson family has quietly been dropped, before long, he won the NWA British Commonwealth Championship before losing it to Alex Koslov. Anderson makes occasional visits in the Midwest, making cameos for Ruffens NWF when he is able and is the current NWA Heartland States Champion for Ed Chumans NWA Midwest promotion, in 2007, he began teaming with Joey Ryan, on NWA cards promoted by David Marquez. He appeared weekly on MavTV, a small broadcast network, carried on limited stations, the teams first title match came against The Young Bucks in a losing attempt for the AWS Tag Team Championship
40.
Bobby Roode
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Robert Bobby Roode Jr. is a Canadian professional wrestler currently signed to WWE performing in its developmental territory, NXT, where he is the current NXT Champion in his first reign. He is best known for his 12-year tenure working for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling from 2004 to 2016, Roode debuted as part of Team Canada in 2004, becoming a NWA World Tag Team Champion with Eric Young. After exploring a run after the teams breakup, he formed a successful pairing with James Storm as Beer Money. Together with Storm, he is a six-time TNA World Tag Team Champion and he subsequently defeated Storm to become TNA World Heavyweight Champion and became the longest reigning champion in the companys history, at 256 days. Roode was trained in his hometown of Peterborough, Ontario by fellow Ontarians Sean Morley and he completed his training after a year and wrestled his debut match in June 1998 as Total Lee Awesome against Pete Rock. He then went on to work for various Canadian independent promotions, as well as making appearances for the Puerto Rican promotion and he also went on to work a series of dark matches for World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment between 1998 and 2004 before he was signed by Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. He later rejoined them as a part of their Wrestling Reality show to be aired on The Fight Network, however, while in TNA, Roode also wrestled for BSE Pro in Ontario, Border City Wrestling in Windsor, Ontario and at NWA Shockwave in New Jersey. He is the former BCW Can-Am Heavyweight Champion, on March 18,2006, he won the NWA Shockwave Internet Championship from Josh Daniels at an NWAS/New York Wrestling Connection cross-promotional event. Eight days later, on March 26, Roode won the vacant NWA Shockwave Heavyweight Championship at Disturbing the Peace 2006 in a four-way match, Roode held both titles until May 21, when he dropped the Internet title and successfully defended the Heavyweight title against Slyck Wagner Brown. Due to the restarting of the company, all of the NWA Cyberspace championships were vacated, Roode performed for the World Wrestling Federation numerous times between 2001 and 2004. On the February 3,2001 episode of Jakked/Metal he competed under the ring name Rudy Rude where he lost to Perry Saturn, on March 18,2002 he teamed with Kingman to face Billy Kidman and Tommy Dreamer in a dark match loss. On the November 3,2002 episode of Sunday Night Heat he teamed with Mark Maraculi to face 3-Minute Warning in another loss and he appeared on the March 2,2003 episode of Heat facing Al Snow in a losing effort. On the July 12,2003 episode of Velocity he faced Sean OHaire in a loss, on the July 13,2003 episode of Heat he teamed with Tyson Dux in a losing effort against La Résistance. On the August 23,2003 episode of Velocity he teamed with Eric Young in a loss against The Full Blooded Italians, on the October 11,2003 episode of Velocity he lost to Billy Kidman. On the October 26,2003 episode of Heat he teamed with Arch Kincaid to face The Hurricane, on November 3,2003, he was in a dark match before Raw, where he lost to Eric Young. In another dark match on November 6 before SmackDown, in May 2004, Roode was brought into Total Nonstop Action Wrestling by Scott DAmore, the owner of Border City Wrestling, a Canadian independent promotion for which Roode had worked on occasion. Roode debuted in TNA as part of the Team Canada stable, and took part in the World X-Cup, Team Canada went on to feud with 3Live Kru and Americas Most Wanted. As the biggest and most powerful member of Team Canada at the time, Roode acted as the enforcer of the group, a role popularised by Arn Anderson
41.
Eric Young (wrestler)
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He is also one of only four men to win TNAs Grand Slam Championship. All together, Young won 11 championships during his career in TNA, after graduating from high school, Young began training with veteran wrestler Waldo Von Erich in Cambridge, Ontario. After training for ten weeks he wrestled his debut match on October 14,1998 in Benton Harbor, Michigan and he later received supplementary training from Scott DAmore and Chris Kanyon. After four months, he had wrestled ten matches and was promoted to head trainer. After his training was complete, Young began working on the independent circuit, when wrestling infrequently, Young subsidised his income with a number of other jobs, including working in a pizza parlour, manufacturing brass horse harnesses and sand casting. During his time in the Ontario independent scene, Young also owned and operated the Wrestleplex training facility out of Cambridge, notable wrestlers to come out of the gym include Jake OReilly, Ontario mainstay Crazzy Steve and World Wrestling Entertainment signee Shawn Spears. On June 30,2007, Eric secured the APWF Light Heavyweight Championship defeating former four-time NWA World Light Heavyweight Champion Luscious Rocky Reynolds in Oil City, Young appeared on WWE television three times. The first was on an WWE Velocity, he teamed with future tag team partner Bobby Roode and were defeated by Chuck Palumbo, the second appearance was also on WWE Velocity in which he was announced as Showtime Eric Young, he lost to Sean OHaire. He appeared the day on WWE Sunday Night Heat, losing a match to Val Venis. In January 2004 Young debuted in TNA as a member of Team Canada and he took part in the World X Cup event, defeating Jerry Lynn, Mr. Águila and Taichi Ishikari in a ladder match. Team Canada were a feature on Impact. Throughout mid-2004, feuding with the 3Live Kru, on the October 15,2004 Impact. Young and Bobby Roode defeated Christopher Daniels and Cowboy James Storm for the NWA World Tag Team Championship and they held the titles until November 7, when they were defeated by the 3Live Kru at Victory Road. They regained the titles a month later at Turning Point on December 5, Young and Roode began feuding with Americas Most Wanted in early 2005, and lost the NWA World Tag Team Championship to Americas Most Wanted on January 16 at Final Resolution. Young began teaming with Team Canada member Petey Williams, and on April 24,2005 they unsuccessfully challenged Americas Most Wanted for the NWA World Tag Team Championship at Lockdown. After defeating Apolo and Sonny Siaki at Hard Justice on May 15, Williams and Young challenged, Team Canada began feuding with The Naturals and Lance Hoyt, with Young, Roode and A-1 defeating Hoyt and The Naturals at No Surrender on July 17. Americas Most Wanted formed an alliance with The Naturals against Team Canada, with Young, Roode, Williams and A-1 defeating The Naturals. After Williams renewed his pursuit of the X Division Championship, Young began teaming with A-1 on a regular basis, at Unbreakable on September 11, Young and A-1 faced Americas Most Wanted, Alex Shelley and Johnny Candido and defending champions The Naturals in a four way tag match
42.
NXT (WWE brand)
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WWE NXT, often referred to simply as NXT, is a professional wrestling promotion and a division of the American professional wrestling company WWE. It is based in Winter Park, Florida, on February 27,2014, NXT held its first live two hour special event called NXT Arrival, which was also the first live in-ring program broadcast on the WWE Network. Eventually, WWE scheduled more live two-hour special events, which have become a regular fixture on WWE Network. In 2015, NXT promoted its first live events outside of Florida, with an event that was held in March in Columbus, by 2016, NXT was running approximately 200 shows per year between the U. S. and overseas. WWE released statements regarding some of the claims came to light in 2013 and 2015 saying that investigations were done. On March 6,2015, DeMott denied the allegations but resigned from WWE to avoid any embarrassment or damage to the company, notes ^ Michael Cole acted as Interim General Manager of NXT while William Regal recovered from neck surgery. Notes ^ Jim Ross largely only called the main event, ^ The pairings of Dawson and Regal and Phillips and Maddox commentated on alternate shows. Riley replaced Maddox in August 2013 after Maddox became General Manager of Raw, ^ Tony Luftman and Tony Dawson were the same commentator. Notes ^ DMarco and Caruso are currently announcing at NXT live events, the WWE Network broadcasts NXTs eponymous television program in the United States. The show features wrestlers from NXT and WWE, from 2010 to 2012, WWE aired previous version of NXT which consisted of pairing Rookies with WWE main-roster members, with the pairs competing in challenges until there one sole winner remained. The winners of the show were Wade Barrett, Kaval, Kaitlyn, after NXT Redemption, the current developmental program replaced the previous show. NXT, in its format, was taped in large venues before the SmackDown tapings from 2010–2012. When WWE revamped the show they moved the tapings to Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida, WWE started taping NXT in Florida on May 17,2012. Tickets are available free for Full Sail students, general admission for non-students costs $10, NXT began airing on the WWE Network on February 27,2014 with a live event called NXT Arrival. Regular episodes are one-hour and are pre-taped, Live two-hour episodes are produced periodically as part of the NXT TakeOver series. WWE Performance Center Official website WWE NXT at the Internet Movie Database WWE NXT at TV. com
43.
Johnny Gargano
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Gargano started his professional wrestling career in 2005, working for the Cleveland All–Pro Wrestling promotion. Over the following years, Gargano worked for some of the top promotions on the American independent circuit, including Chikara, Dragon Gate USA, Evolve, during his independent days, Gargano also made appearances for national promotions Ring of Honor and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. After making sporadic appearances for WWE early in his career, Gargano took part in the tryout camp in June 2015. Afterwards, he began appearing regularly for NXT, eventually signing a contract in April 2016, Gargano was born on August 14,1987, in Cleveland, Ohio. While studying in St. Edward High School, Gargano decided to enter CAPWs professional wrestling school in order to become a professional wrestler, at age 16, Gargano began training at the Cleveland All Pro Training Center under J. T. Gargano cites Shawn Michaels, Chris Jericho and Johnny Saint as his role models, Gargano made his professional wrestling debut for CAPW in 2005. On October 8,2006, Gargano defeated Josh Prohibition, M-Dogg 20, and Zach Gowen in a match to win his first Championship. He would continue to make appearances for the company until August 5,2007, teaming up with Prohibition in his CAPW farewell match, on June 24,2009, Gargano wrestled in a dark match at Total Nonstop Action Wrestlings Impact. television tapings, losing to Jay Lethal. The following day he wrestled in dark match, this time losing to Eric Young. Gargano has also wrestled in a match for Ring of Honor. Gargano, however, returned to the six months later. Gargano made his debut for Cleveland–based Absolute Intense Wrestling on February 26,2006 and he would pick up his first victory in the promotion two months later on April 30, defeating future WWE performer Tyrone Evans. On February 24,2008, Gargano defeated his trainer Josh Prohibition to become the number one contender to the AIW Intense Division Championship, Gargano held the title for 187 days before he was stripped of it due to an injury on November 28,2008. On February 28,2009, Gargano defeated Jimmy DeMarco, who had won the vacant Intense Division Championship in a tournament and he would go on to lose the title to Josh Prohibition on May 15,2009. On April 9,2010, Gargano teamed up with Aeroform to form Team Oreo for the Jack of All Trios tournament, as a result of winning the tournament, Gargano and Aeroform earned the right to represent AIW in Chikaras 2010 King of Trios tournament. On June 27 Gargano defeated Facade, Sterling James Keenan and Tommy Mercer in a match to win AIWs top singles title. Later that same night Gargano retained his new title by wrestling Bryan Danielson to a 30–minute time limit draw. He would go on to lose the title to Shiima Xion on June 26,2011, on March 3,2012, Gargano won a 30-man Gauntlet for the Gold, last eliminating Tim Donst, to earn a shot at Xion and the AIW Absolute Championship
44.
Tommaso Ciampa
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Whitney was trained by WWE Hall of Famer Killer Kowalski, and debuted in January 2005. He predominantly wrestled for independent promotions located in Massachusetts, most notably Chaotic Wrestling, on May 22,2005, he wrestled an IWF Junior Heavyweight Championship match against champion Sean Royal, but was unsuccessful. Later that day he also failed to win a battle royal to earn the number one contendership to the IWF Heavyweight Championship, Whitney debuted in Chaotic Wrestling as Tommy Penmanship in 2005. On April 1, he lost a match for entry in the Chaotic Wrestling Heavyweight Championship Tournament to Fred Sampson. In June, Penmanship teamed with Arch Kincaid to unsuccessfully challenge the Logan Brothers for the Chaotic Wrestling Tag Team Championship, Penmanship won his first championship on August 8, by defeating Chase del Monte for the Chaotic Wrestling New England Championship. He held it for half a year, successfully defending it against former del Monte, Jason Blade, Penmanship then spent a couple of months without winning a singles match losing to Matt Logan and Psycho, but alongside Psycho, he won a Lethal Lottery Tournament first round match. Penmanship and Psycho qualified for a royal to determine the number one contender to the CW Heavyweight Championship. At Breaking Point 2006 Penmanship lost to Psycho once again in a Psycho Rules match with Tommy Dreamer as the special referee, on May 19, Penmanship defeated Handsome Johnny and became Chaotic Wrestling Heavyweight Champion. As the Chaotic Heavyweight champion Penmanship defeated Bryan Logan, del Monte and he held the Championship until February 2007, when he lost it to Brian Milonas in a Loser leaves CW match. He appeared on July 14,2005, episode of SmackDown as Thomas Whitney, ESQ one of Muhammad Hassans lawyers, Tommaso read a statement from Hassan before being attacked by The Undertaker. On the August 25,2006, episode of WWE Heat he and Kofi Kingston had a match against Lance Cade. On February 4,2007, it was announced that Whitney signed a contract with WWE and was sent to Ohio Valley Wrestling. He debuted on February 21 and wrestled as Tommaso, dr Thomas would eventually make his in ring debut during a 6-man tag at Six Flags, tagging with Bolin Services to take on Elijah Burke and Cryme Tyme. On June 27,2007, Whitney debuted a new gimmick when he began wrestling under a mask as Prodigy, on August 9, Whitney was released from his WWE developmental contract. In late 2007, he returned to the independent circuit, on September 29 Tommaso defeated A. J. Styles and Eddie Edwards to become the MWF Television Champion, in September 2008 Ciampa debuted in Harley Races World League Wrestling. In October he took part in Nine Man Battle Royal for the vacant WLW Heavyweight Championship, Ciampa also unsuccessfully challenged WLW Tag Team Championship twice, on November 22,2008 alongside Steve Anthony and on March 21,2009 alongside Marc Godeker. After returning to New England in 2008, Ciampa went on to compete in the ECWA Super 8 Tournament in 2009 and 2010 before finally winning the tournament in 2011 when he defeated Adam Cole
45.
Marvel Comics
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Marvel Comics is the common name and primary imprint of Marvel Worldwide Inc. formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, an American publisher of comic books and related media. In 2009, The Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Worldwides parent company, Marvel started in 1939 as Timely Publications, and by the early 1950s had generally become known as Atlas Comics. Marvels modern incarnation dates from 1961, the year that the company launched The Fantastic Four and other superhero titles created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and many others. Most of Marvels fictional characters operate in a reality known as the Marvel Universe. Martin Goodman founded the later known as Marvel Comics under the name Timely Publications in 1939. Martin Goodman, a magazine publisher who had started with a Western pulp in 1933, was expanding into the emerging—and by then already highly popular—new medium of comic books. The issue was a success, with it and a second printing the following month selling, combined. While its contents came from an outside packager, Funnies, Inc, Timely had its own staff in place by the following year. It, too, proved a hit, with sales of one million. Goodman formed Timely Comics, Inc. beginning with comics cover-dated April 1941 or Spring 1941, Goodman hired his wifes cousin, Stanley Lieber, as a general office assistant in 1939. Lee wrote extensively for Timely, contributing to a number of different titles, Goodmans business strategy involved having his various magazines and comic books published by a number of corporations all operating out of the same office and with the same staff. One of these companies through which Timely Comics was published was named Marvel Comics by at least Marvel Mystery Comics #55. As well, some covers, such as All Surprise Comics #12, were labeled A Marvel Magazine many years before Goodman would formally adopt the name in 1961. The post-war American comic market saw superheroes falling out of fashion and this globe branding united a line put out by the same publisher, staff and freelancers through 59 shell companies, from Animirth Comics to Zenith Publications. Atlas also published a plethora of childrens and teen humor titles, including Dan DeCarlos Homer the Happy Ghost, Atlas unsuccessfully attempted to revive superheroes from late 1953 to mid-1954, with the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, and Captain America. Atlas did not achieve any hits and, according to Stan Lee, Atlas survived chiefly because it produced work quickly, cheaply. During this time, the Comic Code Authority made its debut in September 1954, Wertham published the book Seduction of the Innocent in order to force people to see that comics were impacting American youth. He believed violent comics were causing children to be reckless and were turning them into delinquents, in September 1954, comic book publishers got together to set up their own self-censorship organization—the Comics Magazine Association of America—in order to appease audiences
46.
Hulk Hogan
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Terry Gene Bollea, better known by his ring name Hulk Hogan, is an American semi-retired professional wrestler, actor, television personality, entrepreneur and rock bassist. Hogan is regarded by many as the greatest professional wrestler of all time, according to IGN, he is the most recognized wrestling star worldwide, aside from those promotions, he has notably performed for the American Wrestling Association, New Japan Pro Wrestling and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. Hogan is a world champion, a six-time WWF World Heavyweight Champion/WWF Champion. He was the first wrestler to win consecutive Royal Rumbles, in 1990 and 1991 respectively, Hogan was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005. Hogan was born Terry Eugene Bollea in Augusta, Georgia in 1953, the son of construction foreman Pietro Peter Bollea and he has Italian, French, Scottish, and Panamanian heritage. When he was one and a years old, his family moved to Port Tampa. As a boy, he was a pitcher in Little League Baseball and he attracted scouts from the New York Yankees and the Cincinnati Reds, but an injury ended his baseball career. He began watching wrestling at 16 years old. While in high school, he revered Dusty Rhodes, and he regularly attended cards at the Tampa Sportatorium, Hogan was also a musician, spending ten years playing fretless bass guitar in several Florida-based rock bands. He went on to study at Hillsborough Community College and the University of South Florida, after music gigs began to get in the way of his time in college, Hogan decided to drop out of the University of South Florida before receiving a degree. Eventually, Hogan and two local musicians formed a band called Ruckus in 1976, the band soon became popular in the Tampa Bay region. During his spare time, Hogan worked out at Hectors Gym in the Tampa Bay area, many of the wrestlers who were competing in the Florida region visited the bars where Ruckus was performing. Among those attending his performances were Jack and Gerald Brisco, two brothers who wrestled together as a tag team in the Florida region. Impressed by Hogans physical stature, the Brisco brothers asked Hiro Matsuda – the man who trained wrestlers working for Championship Wrestling from Florida – to make him a potential trainee, in 1976, the two brothers asked Hogan to try wrestling. Having been a fan since childhood, Hogan eventually agreed. At first, however, Mike Graham, the son of CWF promoter Eddie Graham, refused to put Hogan in the ring, according to Hogan, he met Graham while in high school and the two did not get along. However, after Hogan quit Ruckus and started telling people in town that he was going to be a wrestler, in mid-1977, after training for more than a year with Matsuda, the Brisco brothers dropped by Matsudas gym to see Hogan. During this visit, Jack Brisco handed Hogan a pair of wrestling boots, in his professional wrestling debut, Eddie Graham booked him against Brian Blair in Fort Myers, Florida on August 10,1977 in CWF
47.
Comic book
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A comic book or comicbook, also called comic magazine or simply comic, is a publication that consists of comic art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by brief descriptive prose and written narrative, although comics has some origins in 18th century Japan and 1830s Europe, comic books were first popularized in the United States during the 1930s. Comic books are reliant on their organization and appearance, authors largely focus on the frame of the page, size, orientation, and panel positions. These characteristic aspects of books are necessary in conveying the content. The key elements of comic books include panels, balloons, text, balloons are usually convex spatial containers of information that are related to a character using a tail element. The tail has an origin, path, tip, and pointed direction, there are many technological formulas used to create comic books, including directions, axes, data, and metrics. Following these key formatting procedures is the writing, drawing, Comics as a print medium have existed in America since the printing of The Adventures of Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck in 1842 in hardcover, making it the first known American prototype comic book. The introduction of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shusters Superman in 1938 turned comic books into a major industry, the Golden Age originated the archetype of the superhero. Historians generally divide the timeline of the American comic book into eras, the Golden Age of Comic Books began with the introduction of Superman in 1938, spurring a period of high sales. The Silver Age of comic books is considered to date from the first successful revival of the then-dormant superhero form. The demarcation between the Silver Age and the era, the Bronze Age of Comic Books, is less well-defined. The Modern Age of Comic Books runs from the mid-1980s to the present day, in response to attention from the government and from the media, the U. S. comic book industry set up the Comics Magazine Association of America. The CMAA instilled the Comics Code Authority in 1954 and drafted the self-censorship Comics Code that year and it was not until the 1970s that comic books could be published without passing through the inspection of the CMAA. In the early 1970s, a surge of creativity emerged in what known as underground comix. Published and distributed independently of the comics industry, most of such comics reflected the youth counterculture. Underground comics were almost never sold at newsstands, but rather in such youth-oriented outlets as head shops and record stores, frank Stacks The Adventures of Jesus, published under the name Foolbert Sturgeon, has been credited as the first underground comic. The rise of comic book specialty stores in the late 1970s created/paralleled a dedicated market for independent or alternative comics in the U. S, some independent comics continued in the tradition of underground comics. A few represented experimental attempts to bring closer to the status of fine art
