Earthquake

[The Brain]

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.

[YOUTUBE]Siaw-vpQ4Ck[/YOUTUBE]

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?

 

[Adam X]

As far as the big guys go. well the -fat- who couldn't move like Bigelow or weren't Vader level awesome I always liked him and Typhoon.

Quake was a great heel for the time period but like most once the Hogan feud was over there wasn't much for them. He didn't have the IC title or skills of say Rude/Hennig to fall back on and he already had his go at the main event so to speak.

All in all one of my late 80's/early 90's faves and even a bit during the MNW even if they made him a Shark.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

Never saw the debut segment before so a good spot Brain...

I always looked at Earthquake as someone who didn't live up to what was intended for him, but is one of those guys who many would be quite happy to see go into the Hall of Fame.

His earliest run as "The Canadian Earthquake" was built well enough, with several guys having to take him out of the 90 Royal Rumble but he always felt like someone who was there purely to service Hogan once Warrior had the title rather than ever be a true main eventer himself. Summerslam at that time had a familiar booking pattern of Tag Matches and Hogan vs a Monster and Quake fit that bill to move it to singles for 1990.

By then it was pretty clear Warrior was bombing as champion, I actually think Quake vs Warrior would have been a better Summerslam feud and actually helped Warrior get over more. Of course Hogan refusing to work with Rude was the other money in the wrench there. Genuinely, if they'd gone that way then I can see Slaughter never coming back and Quake being what Yoko became for a while, the monster champ. Sure Hogan would have beaten him at WM7 but Warrior a good shot at regaining from him too and coming out looking stronger.

Its hard to say why John Tenta didn't really live up to the potential... his booking left something to be desired at times but he still had, as Brain mentioned a year and a half of "memorable moments", more than many heels got at that time, perhaps they were pinning their hopes on Andre being able to "go" again and thus they didn't want to invest too much in Quake without that payoff. Also at the time Big Bossman was their preferred "big man" so it may be that Quake was considered not as marketable as Bossman was.

The Tugboat turn/team was one of the last proper "turns" that worked other than Shawn and Marty... You didn't see it coming but that it was against the Bushwhackers kind of made it limp... had they booked SS90 differently you could have had that turn prior to Mania 7, with Hogan being the one turned on by his friend Tugboat...

The Disasters were an ok team, never special and never great faces, although they were forced to be at the time. Likewise, Quake's return at WMX didn't work... no one wanted to see him as a good guy...he needed to be the bad ass and once they took that from him the "big baby" analogy came into play.

Sure his WCW gimmicks suffered but he was clearly there for the money by that stage and again, other big men were ahead in the queue... in all he got a pretty good career out of it. Golga wasn't as bad as people remember, the Oddities as a group wasn't brilliant but it was fun and Golga's Cartman fixation was one of the better parts of the group.

If it'd have been me he goes into SS 90 with the injury angle against Warrior instead of Hogan... uses the cage to his advantage and takes the title. If you must have Slaughter and Hogan, the turn happens there in some kind of tag match involving Sheik... then Earthquake becomes a very different proposition for those early 1990s.

 

[closet_fan]

As far as the big guys go. well the -fat- who couldn't move like Bigelow or weren't Vader level awesome I always liked him and Typhoon.

While he wasn't in that type of class for big guys, he was still pretty fast for a guy his size. Carrying most of his weight in his gut, he was still able to move around pretty quick. I remember he was able to do a standing drop kick like it was nothing.

I liked Earthquake in the WWF, but his shark gimmick in WCW was terrible.

 

[Slash-LN]

I'm not going to come here and lie and say I liked him or anything of the matter. I never cared for him. During my youth he was always just a fat guy who teamed with another fat guy and eventually went to WCW.

However what I do want to mention is that at one point on another wrestling forum he would participate in the forum and also got to the point where he would email and call the guy who operated that site at the time.

I sadly registered to that forum after he died but from what I understand he was an incredibly nice guy and even when he got sick he tried to keep up with people.

As far as I know he was a class act and that means more than any of his wrestling persona's.

 

[Christian Faith]

Hard to believe that 3/5 of the men in that ring are no longer with us....



Earthquake could have been a monster heel champion ok. But he debuted in the era of Hogan where monster heel champions simply didn't exist.

The natural disasters were ok I guess but nothing special.

 

[Wrestlingaholic]

I always remember Earthquake as one of the better big men in wrestling history. His logical and potent finisher helped this - the strolling Powerslam to get the opponent prone, the momentum-building bounce of both ropes and the seated centon, certainly a believable finishing sequence (more so than the Warrior splash or the Legdrop of Doom, let's be honest) and I do feel that logical finishers are beneficial.

The first match I saw 'Quake in was at Summerslam 1990, and the image of the night were the welts on his back after Boss Man hit him with a stepladder. This - to a six year old boy - looked awesome, a lesser man would surely be crippled over in pain???

I also recall his brief appearance in the 1990 Royal Rumble - in hindsight it showed they planned big things for him. Despite the commentators always mentioning how it took '8 or 9 men to eliminate Andre the Giant', this never happened (in fact the most was 2, Ax and Smash in RR90); however, the first man that it took multiple men to eliminate was Earthquake in 1990, when all 6 other competitors in the ring took part, Smash at one point even calling over Jimmy Snuka (again, looking as a 6yr old who didn't realise it was all scripted, this was awesome) - and this after eliminating a couple of others in quick succession.

Sadly his singles push faded after Summerslam, though he was in a high profile Survivor Series match and was runner up to Hogan to end their feud at Royal Rumble 1991. But I will always have find memories of Earthquake's initial run in WWE

 

[Pedigree1]

First of and foremost RIP Quake this fan still misses you.. Great find Brain,i remember this like it was yesterday.. I enjoyed earthquake,he was a pretty serviceable guy and a terrific heel for how long it lasted. He was someone though,who would never really get that push cause he was stuck in the Hogan Zone.. But they did have a pretty okay match at Summerslam where I like to quote Jesse Ventura on this one,"That Chump Hogan will stoop to any level to win a match some role model he is"..

His tag team run with Typhoon as the Natural Diseasters i enjoyed it.. He was pretty good on the mic could cut a great promo! TY Brain

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

Earthquake was a solid worker who could move around that ring pretty quickly: a byproduct of his athleticism as a sumo. The Hogan feud in 1990 was excellent. It really showed the simplicity of just having a logical feud stemming from an age old angle. Big guy puts the hero out of action for a short period of time, hero comes back and wins a first match by DQ, and then over the next couple of PPVs, has a blow off match to complete his comeback. Now the blow-off happened over the course of Survivor Series and Royal Rumble, and with the inclusion of Tugboat and Big Boss Man, you had a couple of backers for Hogan who could keep Earthquake looking strong without having to beat Hogan.

Feeding Valentine to him at Wrestlemania 7 was okay; obviously Valentine wasn't going to win, and it gave Earthquake a squash match. From there, The Natural Disasters were a good transition, though I think any impact of having Tugboat turn heel was mostly gone because the Hogan feud was over by that point. Still, Natural Disasters Vs. The Legion of Doom could've been a solid feud for the Tag Titles, but the LODs departure derailed that. The road pretty much ended when they tried to make the Disasters faces versus Money Inc, though I'm not sure the WWF had much choice given the LOD leaving. Things were in such flux around that time that Earthquake was doomed to fall down the card by the point.

In the end, all I can really say is that for a good two years in the WWF, Earthquake was THE monster big man of the promotion, had a memorable feud with Hogan, was in the main event of Summerslam, and that's nothing to sneeze at.

 

[enviousdominous]

Question: Have you ever seen Abdullah the Butcher with a look of "Holy Shit!"?

Hop on YouTube (the vid can't be embedded) and look up "John Tenta and Yashiski Yatsu vs Abdullah the Butcher and Tiger Jeet Singh. Skip to 4:48

I did see someone mention how they wished they could have seen the Natural Disasters feud with LOD.

Here's the closest thing. John Tenta and Jumbo Tsuruta vs The Road Warriors.

[YOUTUBE]V3-6ycBlclI[/YOUTUBE]

John Tenta was more than just a big guy. He was a damn hard worker and had the respect of the biggest names in professional wrestling. He had energy, intensity and unparalleled athleticism for a man of his size. He was the most charming and sociable person you could ever have met as well.

Thanks for the shout out Brain.

 

[Slash-LN]

[Youtube]BIA-GxoDUP0[/Youtube]

[Youtube]iGl52liVggw[/Youtube]

I don't really know what was going on here. If WWE was doing a tour of Japan or what but this is when Legion of Doom were the tag champions and they put the titles on the line against the Natural Disasters.

This could be the only match they had against each other and the production quality isn't what we're used to but it's better than nothing.

It's also kind of interesting that when they announce Earthquake they actually call him Earthquake John Tenta. Probably because of whatever ties he had in Japan.

Anyway enjoy the match.

 

[The Brain]

Still, Natural Disasters Vs. The Legion of Doom could've been a solid feud for the Tag Titles, but the LODs departure derailed that. The road pretty much ended when they tried to make the Disasters faces versus Money Inc, though I'm not sure the WWF had much choice given the LOD leaving.

I believe Hawk was suspended for violating the drug policy so the titles were switched to Money Inc. in a spontaneous decision. It wasn't ideal but the WWF made the best out of the situation creating a story where Money Inc. paid off Jimmy Hart to get the Natural Disasters title shot. Of course this pissed of Quake and Typhoon so they dumped Hart and turned face to challenge Money Inc. at Mania.

I did see someone mention how they wished they could have seen the Natural Disasters feud with LOD.

Here's the closest thing. John Tenta and Jumbo Tsuruta vs The Road Warriors.

[YOUTUBE]V3-6ycBlclI[/YOUTUBE]

[Youtube]BIA-GxoDUP0[/Youtube]

[Youtube]iGl52liVggw[/Youtube]

I don't really know what was going on here. If WWE was doing a tour of Japan or what but this is when Legion of Doom were the tag champions and they put the titles on the line against the Natural Disasters.

This could be the only match they had against each other and the production quality isn't what we're used to but it's better than nothing.

Actually The Disasters did challenge LOD for the tag titles at the 1992 Royal Rumble. They won the match but by count out so they did not win the belts. I don't remember the match being anything special but you can check it out for yourself for only $9.99.