Earthquake

I feel like I've been ignoring my beloved Old School section lately so here's another thread about a random old school wrestler. This time we'll be talking about Earthquake. I think most people remember Earthquake pretty well. He was a pretty big heel in the WWF in the early 90s. I don't think anyone denies that but I think he was even a bigger heel than people give him credit for. Everyone remembers that he took Hulk Hogan out for a while and that was a huge deal but that wasn't Quake's only dastardly act in the WWF. He was only a singles heel for about a year and a half but he packed some pretty dirty deeds into that time frame.



Earthquake established himself as an instant threat with his very first appearance on WWF television in the fall of 1989 just a few weeks after a 6.9 earthquake devastated the San Francisco area. It was one of my favorite debuts of that era. No vignette. No typical squash match of a jobber. No introduction on some interview show. The first time we ever saw Earthquake he laid out the immensely popular Ultimate Warrior. This seems to be kind of a forgotten moment.







That's an immediate impact and we knew right away this guy was going to be a force in the WWF. Less than six months later came Earthquake's most famous moment when he attacked Hulk Hogan on The Brother Love Show. The attack put Hogan out of action for months and at the time people wondered if Hulk would ever return. Of course Hogan did return for a big match against Quake at SummerSlam and the two feuded throughout the rest of 1990.



Once the feud with Hogan was over Earthquake moved on to Jake The Snake Roberts. Jake had been popular with the fans for years but not as much as Warrior and Hogan so Quake was going to have to do something extreme to maintain that nasty reputation he had built. In April of 1991 Earthquake did the unthinkable when he tied Jake in the ring ropes and forced him to watch as he used his Earthquake splash finisher to squash Damien. The fans loved Damien and it was horrifying to think of that snake being crushed to death in the ring. This was a new low even for Earthquake.



After attacks on the two most popular stars in the WWF and the heinous act with Damien who was next for Earthquake? That would be Andre The Giant. Some of you may not remember this one but in the spring of 1991 Andre was teasing a comeback to the WWF. All the heel managers were trying to sign Andre and Jimmy Hart said actually did sign the Giant and was going to team him with Earthquake. Andre publicly rejected Hart which led to an attack from behind from Earthquake. It was obvious that Andre was having a hard time getting around and a comeback was going to be difficult but the attack on Andre's knees by Earthquake officially put an end to Andre's in ring career in the WWF. One year after almost taking Hogan out Earthquake did take Andre out for good. To add insult to injury after Andre's rejection Jimmy Hart and Earthquake were able to convince Tugboat to turn heel and become Quake's tag team partner in the Natural Disasters.



That would be the end of Earthquake's run as a heel singles star in the WWF. Now don't get me wrong, I think a lot of people remember Earthquake as a good heel but I think most remember the feud with Hogan and kind of forget the rest. It doesn't help that Quake had two kind of lackluster WrestleMania matches during that time. With the legacy WrestleMania now has a lot of younger fans may look back on those events to educate themselves on the past and filler matches against Hercules and Greg Valentine (there was a little story to the Valentine match) don't really do Earthquake justice for who he was during that era.



The Natural Disasters ended up turning face in early 1992 and winning a couple tag titles before leaving the WWF in early 1993. Quake would come back to the WWF in early 1994 as a babyface singles wrestler but the comeback was short lived as he ended up leaving shortly after starting a feud with Yokozuna. Quake then spent about three years in WCW under various gimmicks before coming back to the WWF in 1998 with the Oddities as Golga.



You can feel free to discuss the career of John Tenta in anyway you like. I chose to talk about his time as a singles heel because that's how I best remember him. Go ahead and talk about the Natural Disasters, Avalanche, Shark, Golga, or anything else you want. What are your thoughts and memories on the man best known as Earthquake?