Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are opening
up a file on a man who was, well, quite literally
larger than life. Yeah, larger than life is,
it's usually just a cliche, right? Yeah. But
here it fits perfectly. It really does. I mean,
from the moment he took his first breath until
the moment he left us, he was this... physical
anomaly. He defied almost every medical and athletic
standard we have. Right. And anomaly is the perfect
word for him. Because usually when we talk about
elite athletes, we focus on their training, their
diet. Discipline. Exactly. And we'll get to all
of that. But with this particular subject, you
really have to start with biology. Yeah. This
is a story about a man who's just built differently
at a genetic level. And it's about how he tried
to fit that massive frame. into a world that
honestly just wasn't designed for him. And we
are, of course, talking about John Tenta, who
most of you probably know better as Earthquake.
The guy who absolutely terrorized the WWF in
the early 90s. Right. But looking through the
stack of research we have today, the wrestling
character is, I mean, it's actually the least
interesting part of his story. It really is just
the team of the iceberg. I mean, did you see
the birth records in that first folder? Oh, it's
the very first thing that jumps out at you. June
22nd, 1963. Surrey, British Columbia. Yep. John
Tenta is born weighing 11 pounds, 3 ounces. 11
pounds. I mean, that is effectively a toddler.
That's massive. Most parents panic when they
hear their baby is going to be 8 or 9 pounds.
Tenta arrived. basically ready to play linebacker.
And that really set the trajectory for his entire
life. Yeah. You know, he was never going to be
normal. He was always going to be the biggest
person in any room he walked into. Yeah. But
the fascinating thing about Tenta and really
what our mission is for this deep dive today
is that he wasn't just big. Far from it. He was
elite. We are talking about a man who holds a
record in professional sumo that is statistically
almost impossible, especially for a Westerner.
A record that actually still stands today. Undefeated.
24 and 0. Right, but we're getting a bit ahead
of ourselves. The reason we are pulling this
specific file right now is that it's finally
happening. John Tenta is posthumously being inducted
into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2025. Which
is just so long overdue. Oh, absolutely. He's
going in alongside his partner Fred Ottman, who
wrestled his typhoon in the natural disasters.
Right. But we really want to look past the gimmick
today. We want to understand the man who allowed
a spider to be shaved into his head. Who turned
a tiger tattoo into a shark. Yes. And who arguably
had the most legitimate, terrifying, athletic
back. ground of anyone in that entire cartoon
era of wrestling. So let's back up to British
Columbia, because usually when you hear about
a kid who is that big, 11 pounds at birth, huge
throughout elementary school. You assume they're
clumsy. Exactly. You assume they're just the
fat kid who gets pushed around or trips over
his own feet. But that is the very first misconception
we need to shatter about Tenta. He wasn't clumsy
at all. He was a genuine prodigy. He started
amateur wrestling, and we mean freestyle, actual
collegiate style wrestling, at age six. Just
a massive six -year -old on the mats. Right.
He was inspired by local Canadian legends like
Gene Koniski and Don Leo Jonathan. And by the
time he hit high school at North Surrey Secondary,
he was an absolute force of nature. Yeah, looking
at his stats from 1981, he wins the Canadian
Junior Championship. Which is impressive enough
on its own. But the real jaw -dropper is what
happened shortly after he turned 18. He travels
to the World Junior Wrestling Championships.
Now keep in mind, this is a global stage. These
are the best young wrestlers on planet Earth.
The elite of the elite. And Tenta, at just 18
years old, finishes sixth in the super heavyweight
category. Which is just absurd. It completely
defies conventional sports science. Heavyweights
usually peak much later in life because that
raw man strength takes years to fully develop.
Right. You usually see heavyweights peaking in
their late 20s or early 30s. Exactly. So for
an 18 -year -old kid to hold his own against
the strongest, most developed juniors in the
world, it proves he wasn't just winning because
he was heavy. He was winning because he had the
leverage, the technique, and the agility to match
the size. And that unique agility got him a ticket
to the American South. He gets a full athletic
scholarship to Louisiana State University. Good
old LSU. Which, by the way, is a massive cultural
leap. Oh, entirely. You're this giant kid from
British Columbia, and suddenly you are down in
Baton Rouge. They nicknamed him Big John Tenta
down there, and he makes the varsity wrestling
team immediately. He's right on the path to becoming
an NCAA heavyweight champion. But then, um, politics
intervenes. Or rather... A policy shift. Title
IX. Right. And to be totally clear for you listening,
Title IX is a very crucial piece of legislation
for gender equality in sports. It did a lot of
necessary good. But the on -the -ground implementation
often meant that universities had to abruptly
cut men's programs just to balance their scholarship
numbers. And unfortunately for Tenta, in 1985,
LSU dropped varsity wrestling entirely. Just
imagine that moment for him. You are down there
on a scholarship. It's your ticket. It's your
entire identity at that school. And suddenly
the program just dissolves. Poof. Gone. Most
athletes in that position would immediately transfer
to another school or maybe just drop out. But
Tanta, he literally walked across the street
to the football stadium. This is the part that
just blows my mind. He just wanders on to an
SEC football team. He walked on as a defensive
tackle. And he didn't just stand on the sidelines
holding a clipboard. He actually played in junior
varsity contests for LSU. SEC football is no
joke, even at the JV level. Not at all. But if
you really want to understand John Tenta's freakish
athleticism, look at the other sport he picked
up while he was at LSU. Rugby. Rugby Union. Now,
I want you to picture a man who is roughly 6
'6 and pushing 400 pounds running around a rugby
pitch. It's terrifying. Rugby is 80 minutes of
continuous motion. It is sprinting, tackling,
rucking. You cannot hide out there. No. If you
are just dead weight, you are an immediate liability
to your team. The fact that he played rugby at
a collegiate level tells you everything you need
to know about his cardio and his footwork. It
reminds me of those nature documentaries where
you see a hippopotamus running underwater. Yes.
It completely defies physics. You look at the
frame of the animal and your brain says slow,
but the muscle twitch just says fast. Exactly.
He had the low center of gravity of a defensive
tackle, but the feet of a dancer. And while he
was doing all of this, the football, the rugby,
he was also working as a bouncer at a local college
bar called the Bengal. The Silent Giant. That
was his nickname there, the Silent Giant. And
that really speaks to his personality, which
we will see becomes a recurring theme throughout
his life. Right. He didn't need to shout at people.
He didn't need to be aggressive or puff out his
chest. He just stood by the door, 400 pounds
of silent capability, and the trouble just magically
stopped. Because who? is gonna argue with that
nobody so he's at lsu football is a secondary
pursuit his wrestling program is gone he's looking
for a future and in october 1985 his future arrives
in the form of a former yokozuna this is where
his story takes a very sharp left turn into the
surreal a former grand champion of suno happens
to spot tenta while he's back visiting vancouver
and this guy takes one look at him he sees the
build the massive tree trunk legs, the incredibly
low center of gravity. And he sees a future sumo
champion. So he recruits Tenta to move across
the world and join the Zadogatek stable in Japan.
I think we really need to pause here and contextualize
what a move like that meant back in 1985. It
was a different universe. Today we have the internet.
global connectivity translation apps moving to
a traditional sumo stable in japan in 1985 was
basically like moving to mars it truly was tenta
was only the third westerner ever to enter the
sport of sumo professionally the third in history
and he was starting at age 22. which in the sumo
world is practically geriatric. Because most
recruits start when they're teenagers, right?
Right, usually 15 or 16. They essentially grow
up inside the stable. Their bodies mold to it.
Tenta was a fully grown man, an elite Western
athlete, being thrown into a foreign culture
built on a rigid, almost feudal hierarchy. Let's
delve into that lifestyle for a minute, because
the research notes describe it as brutal, but
I want to know what that actually looks like
on a daily basis for a guy like Tenta. Well,
it's total servitude. It does not matter that
you played SEC football at LSU. It doesn't matter
that you were a world -class junior wrestler
in Canada. You're still at the absolute bottom
of the ladder. Exactly. In the stable, you are
a novice. You wake up at 4 or 5 in the morning.
You are tasked with cooking the chanko nabi,
those massive calorie -dense stews that wrestlers
eat. And you're doing chores for the higher -ranking
guys. You're literally scrubbing the backs of
the senior wrestlers in the bath. You're cleaning
the toilets. You are effectively a servant until
you earn your rank in the ring. And physically,
what is the toll on a 400 -pound body? Physically,
it's an absolute meat grinder. Yeah. The ring
itself, the dohyo, isn't like a wrestling canvas.
It's clay. Oh, wow. Hard -packed clay with a
very thin layer of sand spread on top. Tente
himself later described it as being just like
concrete. So every single time you go down...
Every time you are thrown, every time you do
those traditional Chico leg stomps to warm up,
you are slamming your joints directly against
the earth. That's brutal. Tenta later said, and
this is a direct quote, Nothing I have ever done,
not football, not college wrestling, compares
with the kind of physical abuse you inflict on
your body in sumo. But despite that incredible
abuse, and despite starting so late in life,
he was good at it. Actually, good is a massive
understatement. He was perfect. He was a phenomenon
from day one. He took the fighting name Kodotenta,
which translates to Tenda the Harp, and later
they changed it to Kodotenzan, meaning Heavenly
Mountain Harp. Heavenly Mountain Harp, what a
name. And he lived up to every syllable of it.
He fought 24 professional bouts, and he won all
24 of them. 24 and 0. He won 21 consecutive matches
just to clear the lower divisions. This is completely
unheard of. Because usually rookies stumble.
Right. Especially a foreigner still adjusting
to the culture. Usually they'll get tripped up
by a crafty veteran who just has slightly better
technique or knows a trick. But Tenta just bulldozed
them. He was simply too big, too strong. And
thanks to his amateur wrestling background, he
understood leverage much better than the young
kids he was fighting against. The Japanese press
started calling him the Canadian Comet. He was
all over the news over there. He was on the absolute
fast track to the top division. And then less
than a year into his professional career. He
quit. He just walks away. And this is really
the great tragedy and somewhat the mystery of
his athletic career. Why leave when you are literally
perfect at the sport? Well, diving into the research,
it points to two main things. One is obviously
the lifestyle we just talked about. He was deeply
miserable being a 23 -year -old giant treated
like a servant. But the other wildly. enough,
is a tattoo. The tiger tattoo. Oh, yeah. So on
his left biceps, Tenta had a large, prominent
tattoo of a tiger. Most likely it was an homage
to his time as an LSU Tiger. Which is totally
normal here. Right. In North America, that's
just school spirit. That's harmless. But in Japan,
in the mid -80s, large tattoos meant one thing
and one thing only. The Yakuza. Organized crime.
Exactly. So it wasn't just that they didn't like
the aesthetic of the ink. It was deep. cultural
taboo. It was a massive stigma. Now, while he
was down in the lower divisions, he could sort
of get away with covering it up. He'd put tape
or thick bandages over his biceps. But you can't
do that forever. No. Because as you climb the
ranks in sumo, the rituals become far more sacred.
The public scrutiny becomes intense. Right. The
Japan Sumo Association basically pulled him aside
and said, look, if you want to be a secretary
salaried upper division wrestler, the tattoo
absolutely has to go. And we are talking about
1986 here. We aren't talking about a quick laser
removal session. Not at all. The technology for
that just wasn't there yet. We're talking about
literal skin grafts. Ouch. Essentially, a surgeon.
slicing the textured skin completely off his
arm and patching it with skin from somewhere
else on his body. Yeah, Tenta apparently looked
at the prospect of undergoing major painful surgery,
looked at the brutal lifestyle of waking up at
dawn to scrub backs, and just decided it wasn't
worth the trade -off. And the fallout from that
decision must have been incredibly intense. You
don't just walk away from a sumo stable without
burning some major bridges. Oh, it was scorched
earth. His stablemaster was completely furious.
The head of the Japan Sumo Association, a legendary
figure named Kasugano, publicly called Tenta
arrogant. Wow. Yeah, he went to the press and
said Tenta couldn't hack it mentally. Which is
pretty rich. Right. When you look at his 24 -0
record, that statement just feels like pure face
-saving propaganda. The association lost their
great white hope, so they felt they had to discredit
him to save the honor of the sport. So there
he is. He's in Japan. He's somewhat famous. He's
officially unemployed. But he's also 6 '6 and
400 pounds of solid athlete. I have to assume
the pro wrestling promoters were basically waiting
outside the stable door with open contracts.
Essentially, yes. Yes. He didn't even have to
book a flight back to Canada. He signed almost
immediately with All Japan Pro Wrestling. Nice.
And this is a really crucial developmental period
for him because he signed directly with Giant
Baba. Giant Baba was the owner. and the top star
of all Japan. And as the name implies, he was
also a massive giant. So Tenta basically enrolls
in the giant baba finishing school for wrestling
monsters. Correct. He spends about 18 months
over there learning Puro Resu. Which is very
different from what we see in the States, right?
It's a completely different style than American
sports entertainment. It is significantly stiffer,
much more physical. The Japanese audience treats
it much more like a legitimate combat sport.
Under Baba, Tenta learned how to properly use
his immense size to tell a story in the ring.
He learned how to register pain so the audience
would actually believe he was in trouble, which
is surprisingly hard to pull off convincingly
when you are that much bigger than everyone else.
But inevitably, if you are a massive, terrifying
monster who happens to speak perfect English,
Vince McMahon is going to find you. It was destiny.
By 1989, the WWF came calling. And this brings
us to what I think is one of the most brilliant,
perfectly executed debuts in wrestling history.
It's iconic. Usually when a company brings in
a new monster heel, they run weeks of these scary,
shadowy vignettes. Right. Lots of thunder and
lightning, ominous music playing. The beast is
arriving next week, that kind of thing. Exactly.
But with Tenta, they did the exact opposite.
They hit him in plain sight. Ah. Let's break
down the Dino Bravo push -up contest. I love
this segment so much. Set the scene for us. Okay,
so it's late 1989. Dino Bravo is doing a gimmick
where he's the world's strongest man, and he's
managed by the legendary Jimmy Hart. The mouthpiece.
Right. So Bravo is in the ring, and he's challenging
the ultimate warrior to a fetus strength contest.
He gets on the mic and says he's going to do
push -ups with a fan sitting on his back. So
he needs a volunteer. But not just any volunteer.
Jimmy Hart says he needs the biggest, heaviest
fan in the entire building. And Jimmy Hart leaves
the ring and goes scouting through the crowd.
And amazingly, he finds this absolute unit of
a man sitting in the front rows. But, and this
is the genius part of the setup. Tenta is dressed
exactly like a lumberjack. He's in a plaid flannel
shirt, blue jeans, super casual. He looks like
a completely regular, albeit massive, guy who
just happens to enjoy an unlimited buffet on
the weekends. And he introduces himself as John
from West Virginia. John from West Virginia.
He plays the part perfectly. He's acting shy.
He climbs into the ring looking a bit clumsy,
waves awkwardly to the crowd like he's just happy
to be on TV. It's Oscar -worthy stuff. He carefully
sits on Dino Bravo's back. And Bravo does the
push -ups. Very impressive. Then it's the ultimate
warrior's turn. The warrior gets down on the
mat to do his set, and John gingerly sits on
the warrior's back. And then the greatest heel
turn of 1989. Out of nowhere, he hits the seated
sentence. He says, bam. He bounces his 400 -plus
pounds directly onto the ultimate warrior's spine.
And then he gets up and does it again. And the
crowd reaction is incredible. They went dead
silent because they truly thought it was a shoot.
They legitimately thought an oversized fan had
just gone rogue and snapped their heroes back
on live television. That is the absolute magic
of it. It felt so real. And in that split second,
John from West Virginia is gone forever and the
Canadian earthquake is born. Now, notice the
biomechanics of that specific finishing move.
The earthquake splash. Yeah, let's get into that.
It looks absolutely devastating. He runs the
ropes to build momentum, jumps high into the
air, and lands in a seated position directly
on his opponent's chest. It looks like he's caving
their ribs in. But if you watch the tape closely
in Sloan Ocean, he actually lands on his own
thighs and his glutes. Yeah. He bridges his massive
weight so he doesn't actually crush the guy underneath
him. It's an illusion. It's a complete magic
trick. But it requires an incredible amount of
hip flexibility and bodily control to pull off.
Yeah. If he messes up the spacing by even two
inches, he literally breaks the guy's sternum.
Wow. But he never messed up. Not once. Well,
I mean, he did crush Hulk Hogan's ribs, but that
was just a very lucrative story. That was his
peak as a villain. Mid -1990. They were doing
a segment on the Brother Love Show. Earthquake
sneak attacks Hogan. And they sell it brilliantly.
They pitch it as a potential career -ending injury.
Tugboat goes on television looking super distraught,
begging all the little kids watching at home
to write get -well letters to the Hulkster. And
it worked. Thousands and thousands of letters
poured into WWF headquarters. It instantly made
Earthquake the single most hated man in the world.
He was the absolute perfect foil for Hogan because...
For once, the villain was physically much bigger
than Hogan. Right, Hogan couldn't just easily
scoop him up and body slam him. No, Hogan had
to actually survive him. It built massive tension
for SummerSlam 1990 and eventually the 1991 Royal
Rumble, where they were the final two guys in
the ring. But while we're on the topic of his
incredible control in the ring, we absolutely
have to discuss the incident where things went
completely off the rails. The SWS show in Kobe,
Japan. Oh, man. This is such a fascinating piece
of wrestling history. This is one of those rare
moments where the curtain gets completely pulled
back for the audience. So SWS was a Japanese
wrestling promotion that had a working partnership
with the WWF at the time. Earthquake goes over
to Japan to wrestle Koji Kitau. Now, Kitau was
also a former sumo wrestler, right? Yes, but
with a very different reputation. Kitau was a
disgraced sumo. Okay. He had actually reached
the rank of Yokozuna, which is the very highest
rank in the sport. But he was permanently kicked
out for physically striking a member of the support
staff. So he's got a temper. A massive temper
and an even bigger ego. So going into this match,
you have Tenta, the guy with the perfect undefeated
sumo record, going up against Kitau, the disgraced
former grand champion. The tension must have
been thick. It was. The bell rings, the match
starts, and almost immediately, Kitau decides
he just isn't going to play along with the script.
He stops selling. Completely. And in pro wrestling,
selling is the entire art form. It's the act
of reacting to a move so it looks real. If I
punch you, you have to snap your head back. Otherwise,
I look incredibly weak. Right. But Kitao just
stood there, completely no -selling Tenta's offense,
and then he started shooting. Meaning he started
actually fighting for real. Throwing legitimate
stiff kicks, literally gouging at Tenta's eyes.
He was clearly trying to embarrass Tenta in front
of the Japanese crowd, or maybe goad him into
a real unscripted street fight. Now you really
have to put yourself in John Tenta's boots in
that exact moment. It's terrifying. You are a
legit shooter yourself. You went 24 -0 in sumo.
You outweigh this guy by 100 pounds. The pure
human instinct to just drop the act and absolutely
destroy him must have been overwhelming. It had
to be. Tanta could have severely hurt him. He
could have easily taken Kitau to the ground,
used his amateur wrestling leverage, and broken
his arm before anyone could intervene. But he
didn't. He didn't. He kept trying to work the
match as planned. He kept looking over at the
referee with this expression like, are you seeing
this? Do your job. And finally, what happens?
Finally, Kitau deliberately kicks the referee
and gets himself disqualified. And then Kitau
grabs the live microphone. And he just starts
screaming to the arena, Wrestling is fake! This
guy can't really beat me! It was the ultimate
betrayal of the business. He tried to ruin the
illusion for everyone. But looking back at that
footage now, it just perfectly proves Tenta's
character. Absolutely. He was a consummate professional.
He completely refused to let his own ego turn
a wrestling match into a public bloodbath, even
though he had every physical right and ability
to do so. He protected the wrestling business,
even in a moment where the business was completely
failing to protect him. And honestly, that rock
solid professionalism is probably exactly why
Vince McMahon trusted him with some of the wild.
oldest, most out there storylines of that entire
era. Oh, without a doubt. I mean, we can't talk
about Earthquake without talking about the snake.
The Quakeburgers. It is arguably the most infamous,
memorable moment of his entire career. He's in
this heated feud with Jake the Snake Roberts.
He beats Jake down, ties him up in the ring rope
so he can't move. And he goes for the bag. He
grabs the canvas bag that contains Damien, Jake's
massive pet python. He drops the bag in the middle
of the ring, and he performs the earthquake splash,
his 400 -pound finisher directly onto the bag.
And the sound effect the production truck played
over the speakers, that wet, crunching squish
sound. It legitimately traumatized an entire
generation of children watching at home. It was
horrifying, but they didn't even stop there.
They did a follow -up segment the next week on
primetime wrestling. This is where it goes from
violent to just bizarrely comedic. Tenta is standing
behind a grill dressed as a chef. He's happily
grilling up these thick burger patties, and he
serves them on a silver platter to Vince McMahon,
Bobby Heenan, and Lord Alfred Hayes. And Bobby
Heenan being the... absolute comedic genius he
always was, is just chowing down on this burger.
Just loving it. It's going, these are great earthquake.
What's the secret spice? And then Tenta leans
in and drops the line. The meat comes from an
animal that rhymes with quake. And you just watch
the slow, horrifying realization dawn on Lord
Alfred Hayes' face. He stammers out, snake! You
served us snake burgers. And Hayes starts violently
gagging into his napkin. Vince gets disgusted
and knocks the entire tray over. It is absolute
peak camp. It is totally ridiculous. But Tenta
played it with this huge, sadistic grin that
made the whole thing work perfectly. He wasn't
winking at the camera to let you know it was
a joke. In the context of the show, he was a
genuine monster who literally murdered and ate
your beloved pets. It completely solidified him
as the top heel in the company. But you know
the old wrestling rule. You can't be a terrifying
monster forever. Right. Eventually, the sheer
size and spectacle of a guy like that makes the
fans actually want to cheer for him. And that
ushered in the natural disasters phase. Management
pairs him up with Fred Ottman, who had dropped
the tugboat gimmick and rebranded as Typhoon.
Just two incredibly massive human beings forming
a tag team. Combined weight pushing right up
against 850 pounds. And originally they were
bad guys managed by Jimmy Hart. But then Jimmy
turns on them and joins up with Money, Inc.,
Ted Tobias and IRS. And that betrayal turns the
natural disasters into baby faces. Good guys.
Which Tenta just absolutely relished. At least
a completely different side of him on camera.
He got to be super high energy. He'd stomp his
massive feet around the ring and get the entire
crowd clapping in unison. They ended up winning
the tag team titles together. It was a highly
successful run. But by late 1992 and into 1993,
the writing was clearly on the wall for guys
of his size. Because the entire industry was
shifting rapidly. Drastically. The federal steroid
trials were heating up. The government was aggressively
investigating the WWF. So Vince McMahon had to
pivot the company's image. Right. He had to quickly
move away from the massive steroid era monsters
and pivot towards smaller, more athletic technical
wrestlers. Guys like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels
became the face of the company. So the giant
dinosaurs literally and metaphorically were quickly
being phased out of the main event picture. Exactly.
Tenta left the company in January 1993. He came
back briefly in 1994 for a sumo match against
Yokozuna, but he just never regained that top
main event spot. And this inevitably leads us
to the WCW years. And frankly, going through
the sources, this is the part of the story that
breaks my heart a little bit. It's tough. This
is really where we see the overarching theme
of dignity versus the business. He jumped ship
to WCW in 1994, largely because his old friend
Hulk Hogan brings him in. He's having some financial
difficulties, so he needs the work. But when
he gets there, he enters what you could only
call the gimmick treadmill. First, they dub him
Avalanche. Which was incredibly lazy. It's just
a blatant knockoff of the Earthquake character.
He wore similar gear, did similar moves. And
the WWF immediately threatened to sue them over
the copyright. Naturally. So WCW had to abruptly
drop the Avalanche name. And then they stick
him in a villainous faction called the Dungeon
of Doom. Oh boy. And they rename him, wait for
it, The Shark. The Shark. His promo literally
included the line, I am not a man. I am a fish.
Yeah. That was the creative vibe we were dealing
with here. But this is where we find a story
that truly shows you exactly who John Tento was
as a professional. He is handed this completely
terrible cartoonish gimmick that everyone knew
was dead on arrival. Most veteran wrestlers in
his position would completely phone it in, just
collect the paycheck and do the bare minimum.
But what does Tento do? He goes to a local tattoo
parlor. We are back to the tattoos. Remember
that beloved LSU tiger tattoo on his arm? The
exact same one that literally cost him his undefeated
sumo career in Japan? Right. He decides that
in order to truly make the shark character work
on TV, he needs to permanently change that tiger
into a shark. He alters his own body for a WCW
gimmick. Yes. He sat in that tattoo chair for
24 straight hours. 24 hours of agonizing needlework
to cover up a tiger and turn it into a great
white shark. That is just... He told people later
he did it because he desperately wanted to show
the office he was fully committed. He thought,
if I go to these extreme lengths, maybe they'll
actually push me to the top again. That is tragic
dedication to your craft. He's permanently altering
his skin for a character that ended up lasting,
what, maybe six or eight months. Barely a year.
And when he finally convinced them to let him
drop the shark gimmick, he went out on live TV
and cut a promo that felt very real, very unscripted.
What did he say? He looked right at the camera
and said, I'm not a fish. I'm not an avalanche.
I'm a man. I'm John Tenta. You can feel the frustration
bleeding through. But unfortunately, the indignities
in WCW weren't quite over for him. Shortly after
that, he gets into a mid -card feud with Big
Bubba Rogers. And the ultimate payoff for this
feud is a haircut match. And of course, Tentus
is booked to lose. And the specific stipulation
wasn't just getting your head shaved bald. The
stipulation was that only half of his head gets
shaved. Right down the middle. One side long
hair, one side completely bald to the scalp.
Which looks insane. And again, a normal, rational
person would just take a razor and shave the
rest off the second they got to their hotel room,
just so they didn't look completely unhinged
waiting in line at the grocery store. But Tenta
didn't do that. He kept it. He kept the half
-shave for months. He said in interviews that
when he woke up, looked in the bathroom mirror,
and felt that deep flush of embarrassment, it
actually helped him stay in character for the
feud. That is wild. He openly talked about walking
down the driveway to get his mail and having
his own neighbors point and laugh at him. And
he just took it. He absorbed all of that personal
humiliation purely because he thought it was,
quote, good for business. That is a level of
personal sacrifice that goes way beyond taking
physical bumps in a wrestling ring. That is sacrificing
your actual dignity as a human being just for
the sake of the show. And that theme perfectly
transitions us to the final major chapter of
his national TV career. In 1998, he makes his
return to the WWF. But he is an earthquake. No,
he debuts as a character named Golga. Part of
the faction known as the Oddities. Which was
basically framed as a group of circus freaks.
Tenta comes out to the ring wearing this bizarre,
dirty leather mask that covers his entire head
and face. And he's carrying a plush doll of Eric
Cartman from the cartoon South Park. It was incredibly
strange. But why put a mask on him? Everyone
in the arena knew it was John Tenta. You can't
successfully hide a man of his unique proportions.
Well... Actually, you could at that point. And
that's the genuinely sad reality behind the mask.
Yeah. Tenta had lost a very significant amount
of weight by 1998. Oh, really? Yeah. He wasn't
the hulking 460 -pound monster anymore. He had
slimmed down considerably. So he didn't look
like Earthquake anymore. Exactly. WWF management
felt that if he walked out through the curtain
looking like a much smaller version of Earthquake,
the fans would be disappointed. They would say,
oh, he looks deflated. They couldn't market him
as a terrifying force of nature anymore. So instead
of letting him just be a veteran wrestler, they
covered his face, stuck him in an oversized shirt,
and made him a lower -card comedy act. It's weirdly
poetic in a very depressing way. He started his
athletic career walking away from sumo because
he completely refused to change his skin for
the sport. And he ended his mainstream career
actively covering his face in a leather mask
because his body no longer fit their monster
mold. It really is a full circle tragedy. But,
you know, despite all the weird masks, the awful
shark tattoos and the half shaved heads, the
one single thing that remained completely constant
was his reputation backstage among his peers.
This brings us to segment seven in our research
stack, and it is absolutely my favorite part
of his story. the man behind the mountain. In
the wrestling business, you can usually judge
the true measure of a performer or what their
opponents say about them when the cameras are
off. And nobody, literally nobody we could find
has a bad word to say about John Tenta. Bret
Hart, who we all know is notoriously critical
of other wrestlers, wrote about Tenta in his
book. He called him a quiet, demure, gentle giant.
Bright even mentioned that Tenta called everyone
in the locker room sir and ma 'am. Even the local
enhancement guys, the jobbers he was paid to
completely squash in two minutes. He treated
them with absolute respect. And the detail that
really got me is how much he genuinely loved
children. He was a devoted father himself, so
he had a huge soft spot for kids. But for almost
the entirety of his career, his job was to be
this terrifying pet -eating monster. Right. And
he hated that aspect of it. He would walk through
airports trying to get to his next town and little
coddlers would see him and instantly start screaming.
They would cry and physically run away from him
in terror. That must have just eaten him up inside.
Bret Hart said it deeply bothered him. Tenta
just wanted to say hello and be friendly. And
that's exactly why, when the natural disasters
finally turned face in 1992, when he finally
got to walk down the aisle and high -five the
kids in the front row, his smile in those matches
was so incredibly genuine. It wasn't him acting
like a good guy. He was finally allowed to just
be the nice, warm guy he actually was in real
life. Which really makes the end of his personal
story so difficult to talk about. He quietly
retired from the ring in 2004. He was still so
young. Barely 40 years old. But he revealed publicly
that he was battling bladder cancer. And true
to form, he was incredibly brave and transparent
about his fight. He actually went on to wrestling
internet forums, specifically a site called WrestleCrap,
which usually made fun of bad gimmicks like the
shark. And he started giving medical updates
to the fans directly. He didn't sugarcoat anything
for them either. No. From the start, the doctors
had given him only a 20 % chance to live. I remember
reading those specific forum updates at the time.
There was one he posted in late November 2005
that just crushed the entire wrestling community.
He logged on and wrote that the heavy radiation
treatments had failed. The tumors had aggressively
spread from his bladder into his lungs. He knew
at that point he wasn't going to make it. He
did. And yet he spent his remaining energy on
that forum thanking the fans, thanking them for
cheering him, for booing him, for just remembering
him. He passed away on June 7, 2006. He was only
42 years old. 42. That is no age at all to leave
this world. It's an absolute tragedy. He left
behind a loving wife and three kids who absolutely
adored him. But his legacy didn't fade away.
It didn't end in 2006. And that brings us right
back to where we started this whole conversation,
the 2025 WWE Hall of Fame. It is the ultimate
validation of his life's work. His daughter Joanna
and his son John Jr. are stepping up to accept
the award on his behalf. It's the industry finally
officially saying thank you. Thank you for sitting
through the 24 hour shark tattoo. Thank you for
walking down your driveway with a half shaved
head. Thank you for being the incredibly safe,
reliable foundation that we built the booming
90s wrestling era on top of. And honestly, he
lives on digitally for entirely new generations,
too. Oh, absolutely. He's been featured heavily
in the modern WWE 2K video game series. And I
personally still fire up the old WrestleFest
arcade machine sometimes just to play as Earthquake.
He's immortalized in those pixels. He really
is. And, you know, as we wrap up this file today,
I want to leave you, the listeners, with a final
thought experiment, a bit of a historical what
if. I love these. Let's hear it. Think back to
the very beginning of his athletic journey. We
talked at length about his unbelievable professional
sumo record. 24 wins. Zero losses. Right. And
he walked away because the rigid Japanese culture
of 1986 just couldn't accept a Westerner with
a tiger tattoo. They demanded he surgically alter
his body, and he said no. But just imagine, for
a second, if the Japan Sumo Association had been
even 10 % more flexible back then. Okay. Imagine
if Kasugano had stepped in and said, you know
what, just wear a heavy compression sleeve, cover
the tattoo up during the bouts, and we'll look
the other way. Just stay in the stable. So he
stays in Japan. He never meets Giant Baba. He
never goes to the WWF. Exactly. If he stays with
that size, that leverage, and that undefeated
momentum, he very likely becomes the first ever
foreign -born Yokozuna. Years before Akebono
actually broke that barrier in the 90s. Precisely.
If that one cultural roadblock hadn't been there...
We might be sitting here today talking about
John Tenta, not as a legendary pro wrestling
villain, but as arguably the greatest, most dominant
sumo wrestler of the modern era. It's such a
fascinating what if, because he absolutely had
the raw talent for it. He had the body, the speed,
the wrestling pedigree, just didn't have the
timing. It's the story of a man caught entirely
between cultures, between completely different
sports, and between being a terrifying monster
on television and a true gentleman in real life.
John Tenta. The earthquake. An absolute legend
of the squared circle. An anomaly in the best
possible way. Thank you all so much for listening
to this deep dive. We will catch you on the next
one.