Midcarders of Yesteryear: Albert

[spinningtorturerack]

Hello and welcome once again my midcardigans!

Todays' subject is going to be one hairy grizzly bear who goes by names such as, The hip hop hippo, A-train, Giant Bernard, but I will refer to him as:

(Prince) Albert

This one-time intercontinental champion was an absolute behemoth in the ring and has had a varied midcarder career. Gaining the name Prince Albert from his amount of piercings (its a type of very painful piercing, look it up with caution!), with his tag team with Droz (anyone remember the leather onesie with big hat?).

Before long he had a monster team with test (T&A), a stable based on X-pac's arrogance (X-factor) and even lightened up by becoming the "hip hop hippo" in a tag with scotty 2 hotty.

However I always thought (well at least before the horrible A-train gimmick) that this brute in the ring was a decent monster who deserved his title run and seems to be underrated. He had this great presence, but was not pushed like he indestructible (like Khali).

His finisher, the baldo bomb, always looked painful, especially with his size and strength.

So what are your opinions on him? Did you think he did himself justice as a monster heel? Did he deserve his huge A-train push? Or was he someone you always skipped in the player select menu on the smackdown games?

 

[INDYjon22]

I was just thinking about Albert the other day, not in a sexy way, but in a way that wondered what could have been with this guy. He sure as hell was a big man and we all know Vince loves him some big man. I hated him when I first started watching wrestling but then again he was a heel and I was brain washed into hating the heels at that time. I look back on him now and the dude had some serious skills. Seriously, he was good in the ring. Needed work on the mic but then again the WWE did not really give him any mic time. He just had the look of a badass and in retrospect I believe the WWE missed the boat in a good midcard heel. He could have run through the IC or US title division when he was around or even the tag division if they would have pushed Test & Albert better. Oh well, last I heard he was a big star over in Japan so good for him. I hope that he makes a US return someday but if not I hope his career the best overseas.

 

[spinningtorturerack]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KXa9JyRGoU

This is a great singles match I found of Albert winning the Intercontinental title off of Kane in 2001 in a No DQ match on Smackdown.

I completely missed how great his bicycle kicks were, they were really something special.

P.S. This match shows you how great Kane was aswell, extremely athletic, just look for the hurricanrana he does!

 

[morrisonc66]

They should have given Albert a really big push before they released him. He started out good as a singles wrestler and even held the intercontinental title.

I thought that the "X-Factor" group kind of ruined his major push after T&A. Also, the whole "A-Train" mess was the worst ideas WWE creative has ever created. I would have liked to see Albert in some type of a biker gimmick, much like to Undetaker's "American Bad Ass" and Chuck Palumbo during his last WWE run.

 

[Toroc102]

Y'know looking back on Albert I think I vastly underrated him throughout his WWE career. He was a pretty good big guy in the ring but he was saddled with a few mind scratching gimmicks and he'd jobbed so much by the time he became A-Train I didn't buy him being a monster anymore, same thing that happened with JBL, and I'll never forgive WWE for giving him the monster push he got. Back to Albert though, if he had just come in as a monster in the first place he was probably good enough to be a Champion, and upper-midcard lifer in the WWE. I think the WWE and the IWC(myself included) kind've did a double screw job on Albert.