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Former sumo wrestler John Tenta enjoyed a short
but memorable career in professional wrestling as a monster
heel. He has appeared around the world and recently
gained new fame as the patron saint of "Wrestlecrap"
Earthquake
debuted in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) during a
push-up challenge between Dino Bravo and the Ultimate
Warrior. Bravo asked a mammoth sized man from the
audience to sit on his back while he did push-ups to
increase the challenge. The man then sat onthe Warrior's
back while he attempted to do push-ups. When the Warrior
went to do a push-up, the mammoth man jumped and sat on
him, crushing him into the mat apron. The monster known
as Earthquake had made his WWF
debut!
Earthquake then teamed
with Dino Bravo and battled Hulk
Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior. The Earthquake then
earned notoriety when he ambushed Hulk Hogan during an
interview and performed several of his Earthquake Squashes on
Hogan, sidelining the Hulkster for several months.
Earthquake teamed up with Dino Bravo at SummerSlam to battle
the returning Hulkster and his partner Tugboat.
Earthquake's appetite for destruction never
remained sated for long. He next turned his attention to
Jake "The Snake" Roberts pet snake
Damien. After years of bringing Damien to the ring, Jake
was devastated when Earthquake delivered his Earthquake Squash
to Damien, killing the snake.
Earthquake went
on to form a tag team with Typhoon known as "The Natural
Disasters". This huge tag team tore through the tag team
ranks of the WWF and went on to win the WWF Tag Team
Championship from Money Inc.
In 1994, John
Tenta moved to World Championship Wrestling (WCW) where he
wrestled as "Avalanche". Avalanche joined forces with
Kevin Sullivan and battled WCW's top babyfaces including
Sting, Hulk Hogan, and Randy "Macho Man"
Savage. In 1995, "Avalanche" became "The Shark" and
joined the Dungeon of Doom. He began feuding with Big
Bubba Rogers after Rogers shaved off half his beard and
hair. Tenta then dumped "The Shark" gimmick and began
wrestling under the name John Tenta.
After leaving WCW,
Tenta wrestled under a mask in the WWF and was known as
"Golga" a member of the Oddities.
Later on, Tenta opened a
wrestling school in Florida. He recently wrote the
forward to the book "Wrestlecrap" and appeared
infrequently on the Wrestlecrap web site. In
2006, passed away after waging a courageous battle against
cancer. |