John "Earthquake" Tenta is my first feature in my look at professional wrestling's all-time greatest Superheavyweights, affectionately termed "SHW's" by yours truly. The fact is, in wrestling history, narry a group of wrestlers have had the "impact" on the business as those men who weighed in at more than 325 lbs. And of those men, few struck fear into the hearts of fans (and opponents) than Earthquake did in the early 1990's.
John attended LSU on a Wrestling Scholarship, but unfortunately, the wrestling program there was dropped due to the puss oozing from an open wound that is Title IX. So, despite not being able to do college wrestling...
...the Quake actually started his career as a sumo wrestler named Kototenzan.
Earthquake's first moment in WWF (aside from a dark match in which he appeared as "Earthquake Evans") was part of the Dino Bravo / Ultimate Warrior feud. When Bravo challenged Warrior to a push-up contest with a random audience member seated on their backs, Quake was pulled from the audience by Jimmy Hart. Bravo finished his set of push-ups, giving the turn to Warrior. However, when Warrior preped, Quake hit his eventual finisher - the seated Senton Splash - crushing Warrior and bringing this beheamoth Canadian into the WWF with Hart as his manager.
After a brief feud with Hercules, Earthquake became mainstream in May of 1990, attacking Hulk Hogan from behind on The Brother Love Show and crushing Hogan's ribs with several Splashes on the floor. Hogan feuded with Quake up through SummerSlam, winning a decent match by Count Out.
Quake later entered a solid feud with Jake Roberts, crushing Jake's pet snake Demian and serving the cooked snake to Alfred Hayes - annointing them "Quakeburgers." Obviously this booking was the precursor to the far less interesting Al Snow / Big Boss Man / Pepper feud.
Aside from the Hogan feud, Quake teamed up with his former enemy "Tugboat" who promptly changed his name to Typhoon to form "The Natural Disasters." Still one of the best tag team gimmicks ever. Quake and Phoon turned face when Jimmy Hart turned on them in favor of Money Inc, and the tag team feud the two teams had was awesome. After the Disasters, Quake had little more than a few minor matches with Adam Bomb and a short lived feud with Yokozuna before hitting the road to WCW, where he would play about 5 different personas.
Despite not being a major championship contender (Quake only held the WWF Tag Titles on one short occassion amidst the Money Inc. feud) he still goes down in history, in my opinion, as one of the greatest SHW's in wrestling history.
Editor's Note - if there is a Superheavyweight you'd like to see featured, please send me a PM. I will get through all I can, and eventually run a top 10 list.
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