Rest in peace, John Tenta. I remember the first time I saw Tenta as part of the (then) World Wrestling Federation. In the opening series of pre-match interviews during the 1989 Survivor Series, there he was — “The Canadian Earthquake” — taking the place of Barry Windham’s much shittier “Widowmaker” character on Randy Savage’s heel team for a big match. Earthquake made a splash, and in no time at all, he became one of Hulk Hogan’s greatest monster adversaries. Even after the inevitable defeat by Hogan and subsequent shuffling down the card, Tenta remained an impressive force both as a bad guy and, later, a good guy. It’s the bad guy stuff I remember most, because God damn, this is the man who took Jake Roberts’ beloved python and…well, he sat on the fucker, right in the middle of the ring on Saturday afternoon network television. Like, six times in a row. Laughing the whole way through. Thumbs up.
Tenta eventually made his way into World Championship Wrestling, becoming part of the much-maligned “Dungeon of Doom” faction, which was stupid to most but rocked to me. Seriously, that’s what got me watching WCW consistently for the first time. The Dungeon was a group of mostly bad wrestlers in hideously dumb B-movie costumes, and Tenta was charged with playing…”The Shark.” Yes, he portrayed a shark, and came to the ring to a riff on the Jaws theme. And he had to incorporate shark mannerisms into his wrestling matches. He hated it and most others did too, but man, I just had no problems at all watching a 400 pound wrestler/shark.
That’s not my favorite Tenta moment, though. Much later, Tenta was just about gone from WCW. Nobody had seen him in months. “Rowdy” Roddy Piper was fighting the white hot nWo faction at the time (bad guys who were cheered riotously), and decided to battle them with an unusual team composed of “opportunity seekers” who weren’t particularly popular or well-known. Roddy would “test” potential teammates during really goofy interview segments that the fans booed mercilessly, but when John Tenta joined the fray and lobbied to be a part of Piper’s team, the fans ate it up. Well, maybe “ate it up” is an exaggeration — but they were definitely cheering. It wasn’t the typical wrestling cheer, either. It wasn’t a “lost in the moment, I’m really buying this” kind of cheer. It was a respect cheer. It was a “cheer for John Tenta so he GETS TO DO SOMETHING COOL” kind of cheer. The look on Tenta’s face — a mix of shock, relief and euphoria over overcoming the odds and being cheered in this absolutely ridiculous storyline — is my favorite of his moments. (Of course, WCW brass later pulled the plug on the “opportunity seekers” storyline and Tenta didn’t get to wrestle after all, but hey, let’s not be depressing.)
RD from Wrestlecrap is one of the most decent people I’ve “met” in all my years of running this site, and he’s always spoken so highly of John Tenta. Getting to know how nice the guy was, how courageous and family oriented in a not-at-all superficial way he was, even just vicariously through RD, was about a million times more inspiring than I ever thought the former wrestler/shark would be to me. Leaving the world and his family behind much too soon after a long battle with cancer, I encourage everyone who was ever entertained by this unique behemoth to drop a dime in Wrestlecrap’s fundraiser — all donations go directly to John’s family.
Posted by Matt. E-mail me!
Ghosted by 
sorry to hear about this.