Clearly, there’s only one Dwayne Johnson.
The wrestling world will likely never see someone who so completely eclipses a famous relative in every way like the Rock quickly did early in his career. To put things in perspective, Dwayne’s dad Rocky Johnson was a pro for close for 20 years before he won his first major title: The WWF tag team titles with Tony Atlas.
Meanwhile, after debuting in 1996, the Rock was WWF World champion only two years later, and arguably the biggest star in the sport three years after his debut. Within a decade of his debut, he had become perhaps the most famous wrestler in history, and then by the time he was at the same 20 year point in his career as his father, he had two of the biggest buyrates in history under his belt, several more World titles, plus he was also the highest grossing actor in Hollywood.
Obviously, he’s far outside of the norm.
SCOTT'S LIST OF DOOM: Four 'new' tag teams who were significantly worse than the originals
You could even limit comparisons to guys who managed to be slightly more successful than their fathers, like Bray Wyatt (son of Mike “IRS” Rotundo). Or much more successful and famous, like Randy Orton.
And then there’s the other guys.
Not everyone is born insanely talented and charismatic like the Rock. Some people have the drive, but not the talent. Some people are naturally talented but just don’t have the desire to pursue their gifts. And then, unfortunately, sometimes a famous wrestler will have a child who has neither attribute and he will just push them into our so-called sport anyway.
That’s kind of the sweet spot where we’re looking today. So that doesn’t include someone like Greg Gagne, who was a perfectly fine wrestler with a good mind for the business who just ended up having to be a top guy in the AWA by default and kind of got a bad rep as a result. It also doesn’t include Ted DiBiase Jr., who was a solid and talented wrestler in his own right but just didn’t have any passion for the business.
No, we’ve got our sights set much lower, to the guys with limited skillsets and a low ceiling who nonetheless got shoved down our throats whether we liked it or not.
5. Tiger Ali Singh
Fans who have been watching WWE since the Attitude Era probably had a case of déjà vu when the main event run of Jinder Mahal began in 2017, because the character was eerily similar to another one from 1997, which was somehow an even bigger failure.
Tiger Ali Singh debuted for WWE in January 1997, introduced as the son of legendary hardcore wrestler Tiger Jeet Singh after a few years of working with his famous father in Japan. The character, as originally introduced, was supposed to be a Canadian hero that appealed to those of East Indian heritage. So yeah, that didn’t work. Clearly Vince McMahon was trying to recreate the success (relatively so) of Rocky Maivia as a second-generation sensation.
However, Rocky Maivia was already a failed character at the point when Singh debuted, and Tiger was no Rocky in the ring, working a slow and boring style that was like something out of the '70s. Fans didn’t even turn on him, they just never bothered to react in the first place.
McMahon had a lot invested in him for whatever reason, and so later in the year Tiger was repackaged into a clone of the Million Dollar Man, suddenly re-debuting as a heel one week and playing up his East Indian heritage but in an EVIL way. See, he was now a rich monarch or something, and even recycled DiBiase’s skits where he paid audience members to humiliate themselves for money. If he was paying Canadian money, I can see why it failed.
This character went nowhere and died off even faster than the original version. Behind the scenes, things were even worse, as he later claimed that he was discriminated against and mocked as “taxi driver” by other wrestlers, before suffering an injury in 1999 and getting fired. Thankfully, that was the last we saw of him, as he retired due to those injuries and only works sporadically on the independent scene in recent years.
4. Mike Von Erich
Life in the Von Erich family was admittedly a lot of pressure. Now, in the case of failed Von Erichs, the low-hanging fruit is probably Chris Von Erich, the asthmatic youngest son of Fritz. However, I think Chris is disqualified from this list because regardless of how terrible he was in the ring, he at least had a desperate need to be a wrestler and almost literally died as a result of trying to make that dream happen.
However, someone with no such drive was his older brother Mike, the replacement for David Von Erich.
David died in Japan in 1984 under circumstances that were highly questionable. The story had actually changed several times during the PR spin of his death, ranging from heart attack to food poisoning to intestinal disease to some combination of all of them. Eventually it came out that he had just overdosed, but when he died, he was still the biggest star for Fritz’s World Class Championship Wrestling in Dallas, and possibly in line for a run with the NWA World title eventually. So although there’s a time to be a grieving father, there’s still money to be made, and Fritz still had another son ready in the wings to work those six-man matches against the Freebirds.
Mike Von Erich debuted later in 1984 and was immediately hyped up as a star athlete in high school, even better than David or Kerry or Kevin or even Fritz himself. This was complete bull-honky on the part of Fritz, the consummate bull-honker. Whereas Kerry, Kevin and David all had spent years training with a variety of teachers before they ever got near a ring, Mike was rushed nearly right out of his first training sessions. The results were not pretty, especially for someone like Mike who had no natural athletic ability out of school, and furthermore had been training for an office job up until the point when his father decided he’d be a famous wrestler instead.
Mike was put in ridiculous positions for someone at his level, like working main event matches with World champion Ric Flair years before he was ready. The results were far more tragic than the others on this list, as Mike suffered injury after injury due to his lack of training, and then nearly died on the operating table during shoulder surgery. When he survived, Fritz rushed him back into the ring in record time as “Miracle Mike," somehow even worse than when he started. The pressure was too much for Mike to handle, and he committed suicide soon after. Just another day in the business for Fritz.
3. Lance Von Erich
Don’t even start with me. It’s my list.
So continuing on with the Von Erich story, once Mike suffered his original injury and just before Kerry suffered a career-ending motorcycle injury (or so we thought), Fritz needed another son to prevent the gates from falling in Dallas. Sadly, he was out of offspring, aside from youngest son Chris, who sadly was busy wasting his time in high school. Can you even imagine? Some people are so selfish.
So in order to solve this problem, he invented a new Von Erich — an even better Von Erich. It turns out that Fritz’s old partner and “brother” Waldo Von Erich had a son we just hadn’t heard about it before, and what a cool name he had; Lance Von Erich, who had the rock star looks of Kerry and a good, manly Texas name to go with them. In reality, of course, Waldo Von Erich was no relation to Fritz, and William “Lance Von Erich” Vaughan wasn’t related to either of them. But Fritz was never one to let the truth get in the way of a good main-event angle, and soon the six-man team of Kerry, Kevin and Lance were back on top.
Although the world was moving forward, Fritz was not. Things like newsletters and hotlines and tape trading were becoming a thing by 1986, and the fiercely loyal Von Erich fans soon figured out that “Lance” was not who he was advertised to be. This might have been such a huge issue if Lance was any good in the ring, but he sure wasn’t. He was a generic muscle-bound pretty boy wrestler who was barely above “competent” and seemed to be more interested in using his Texas wrestling fame to become an actor. Even more disastrous for Fritz, Lance wasn’t a real member of the family and had no blind loyalty to the business or the Von Erich name.
Once Lance gained enough of a level of fame where he could make demands, he got an agent and started holding Fritz up for more money. Can you imagine the nerve of that guy? There’s only one person who was going to be screwing people out of their money in Texas, and it was Fritz.
Lance jumped to a rival Texas wrestling promotion in 1987, at which point Fritz went on TV and completely exposed the ruse, burying Lance as a “fake” Von Erich, but by then people had long figured out the deal anyway.
Lance Von Erich left the business completely and went to pursue an acting career instead, which was about as successful as his wrestling career. But at least he could use his real name.
2. Shawn Stasiak
Granted, Shawn didn’t have that high of a bar to clear, but he somehow managed to fail at the low level he was shooting for.
Shawn’s father was semi-famous Stan “The Man” Stasiak, who will forever be known as the guy who beat Pedro Morales for the WWE title in 1973 and then dropped it to Bruno Sammartino nine days later. Still, world champion, not too shabby.
Shawn debuted in 1999, known simply as “Meat." So … you know … not a great start. The idea is that he was a male slave for Terri Runnels and Jacqueline, and it was all pretty stupid. Stasiak rarely got a chance to do much in the ring, mostly working pre-show matches and acting as comedy sidekick for his female “masters."
Then, in 1999, he managed to top that by becoming a human punchline in real life, getting the pink slip for recording conversations of other wrestlers backstage without their knowledge. Stasiak landed on his feet, mostly, heading to WCW along with Vince Russo in 2000. Russo knew him from WWE and decided to repackage him in a gimmick that was somehow even sadder: a “reboot” of Mr. Perfect. This was bizarre on several levels, not the least of which is that Stasiak already had a famous father in the business, and Hennig himself had a son who would later become semi-famous in the form of Curtis Axel. To be fair, the storyline was that Stasiak was doing the Perfect One character without Hennig’s permission, but still…why? Who thought this was a good idea?
He actually managed to win the WCW tag titles a couple of times in that role before getting replaced by rookie Sean O’Haire.
Regardless, Stasiak survived the death of WCW in 2001 and made his way back to WWE, this time as a member of the invading Alliance. This time his character was that of a clumsy oaf who would literally trip and fall through walls. Amazingly, this character reinvention didn’t work any better for him, and he left the business in 2002 to become a chiropractor and motivational speaker.
I actually follow him on Twitter and he’s a really cool guy, check him out sometime!
1. Erik Watts
O course, the very embodiment of a promoter blindly pushing their offspring, Erik Watts.
“Cowboy” Bill Watts was a very successful wrestler and promoter, and something of a booking genius, but by 1992 he was losing touch with the wrestling world. This was something of a large issue because he was running WCW as executive vice president and was the person charged with bringing the company back from the dead by the TBS front office. Thankfully he had an ace in the hole: His star quarterback son Erik, who was naturally a shoo-in to be a top wrestling star. I mean, look at how well it worked with Dusty’s son Dustin!
So it shouldn’t have been a huge surprise when gangly teenager Erik debuted for WCW in 1992, advertised as the son of the company’s top executive and, let’s just say it here, a future World champion — and then promptly crashed and burned. He was immediately put into a program with Arn Anderson where the “tough guy” loving southern fans completely turned on the skinny kid and cheered for the grizzled veteran, and it was immediately obvious that this experiment was not going to have a happy ending. Bill kept trying anyway, keeping his boy in the mix all the way through Starrcade ’92, where he worked with guys like “Dr. Death” Steve Williams in an effort to give him more experience and seasoning.
It didn’t work, as Erik had no natural charisma, none of the ability or intangible “it” factor that top stars have. This would have been fine if his role was supposed to be “plucky underneath guy," or if his name wasn’t Watts, or if he hadn’t tried to throw a dropkick on live PPV and flopped to the mat like a dying gazelle. By 1993 Bill was out of power and Erik was dead in the water, clearly not getting any better in the ring past a certain point, and his contract was terminated to save money.
Oh yeah, Bill had signed him to a lucrative deal in order to justify that push, you see. Ever see that episode of "The Simpsons" where Homer coaches the football team and makes Bart into the quarterback despite all evidence to the contrary? This was kind of like that, except with a national wrestling company spending a corporation’s real money with the same level of success.
Erik bounced around wrestling for a bit after that, most notably turning up in WWE in 1996 as a part of a jobber tag team called “Tekno Team 2000” before disappearing again for nearly a decade. Although he eventually did get better, the stink of failure was too heavily on him, and even entertaining runs like his underrated time working for TNA couldn’t erase the punchline that was his career. But hey, he’ll always be remembered for that dropkick, if nothing else.
