Paid Members air_raid Posted April 24 Author Paid Members Share Posted April 24 14 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said: Hade Vansen ending the Undertaker's Wrestlemania Streak. Around 2003/4. I think they aired one video promo and he never wrestled on TV. You're hovering around the truth of the matter, and it's not bullshit that there were Taker vs Vansen plans. They aired the vignette late 2008 with a view to Hade being a potential Taker opponent for Mania 25. However, a lot of the office had been told good things about Hade without realizing he wasn't that big of a bloke. Freddie Prinze Jr tells the story that Triple H saw Hade, said "He looks like the guy that mows my lawn" - lots of people laughed, Vince heard it, and that was that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 32 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said: Hade Vansen ending the Undertaker's Wrestlemania Streak. Around 2003/4. I think they aired one video promo and he never wrestled on TV. There must also be more to his story. Built up and then released like that, something must have happened for them to drop him like a hot brick and never touch him again surely? You're right though, the Streak rumour has to be bullshit. I do believe the one that Nathan Jones was going to end the streak but then Taker got cold feet after having wrestled the guy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted April 24 Author Paid Members Share Posted April 24 (edited) 14 minutes ago, Loki said: There must also be more to his story. Built up and then released like that, something must have happened for them to drop him like a hot brick and never touch him again surely? 14 minutes ago, Loki said: I do believe the one that Nathan Jones was going to end the streak but then Taker got cold feet after having wrestled the guy. They had him on the road for the first quarter of 2003 beating low level heels like Matt Hardy, then him and Taker doing dry runs of the tag vs Show and A-Train. Which was so bad they decided they couldn't do it on Mania. I'd not heard that he was pencilled in to fight Taker, but it wouldn't have surprised me either. Edited April 24 by air_raid You'll follow me until the end Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Houchen Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 2 minutes ago, air_raid said: They had him on the road for the first quarter of 2003 beating low level heels like Matt Hardy, then him and Taker doing dry runs of the tag vs Show and A-Train. Which was so bad they decided they couldn't do it on Mania Did they have extra training / rehearsal at Takers ranch as well but he still couldn’t get it? Or have I misremembered that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merzbow Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 Didn't Nathan Jones also just walk out on the company in the middle of a tour, Road Warrior Hawk style? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d-d-d-dAz Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 14 minutes ago, Loki said: There must also be more to his story. Built up and then released like that, something must have happened for them to drop him like a hot brick and never touch him again surely? You're right though, the Streak rumour has to be bullshit. I do believe the one that Nathan Jones was going to end the streak but then Taker got cold feet after having wrestled the guy. It was Freddie Prinze Jr's big idea, during his brief stint as a writer, and if I remember rightly at the same time they put Hade on ice they took Freddie out back and shot him. Seems like FPJ came in, they were starstruck so gave him everything he wanted... then realised that actually he wasn't what they wanted so threw the baby out with the bathwater. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Houchen Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 1 minute ago, Merzbow said: Didn't Nathan Jones also just walk out on the company in the middle of a tour, Road Warrior Hawk style? I think it was an Australian tour as well, so he could get a free flight home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merzbow Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 (edited) 5 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said: I think it was an Australian tour as well, so he could get a free flight home. A truly great worker! A shame it didn't work out as he seemed like the second coming of Sid and in a weird way he was.. Edited April 24 by Merzbow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted April 24 Author Paid Members Share Posted April 24 4 minutes ago, Merzbow said: Didn't Nathan Jones also just walk out on the company in the middle of a tour, Road Warrior Hawk style? 2 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said: I think it was an Australian tour as well, so he could get a free flight home. Aye. On 3/30/2023 at 6:52 AM, air_raid said: DECEMBER 2003 Finally, Nathan Jones. Timing is everything and WWE just happens to be in Australia around the time the Queensland native realizes he absolutely can’t hack the travel schedule and downs tools and goes home. One of the most stop-start careers you can imagine, he does the odd gig all over, wrestles his last match in 2006, manages to sign with TNA in 2008 but typically, due to injury sustained disconnected to sport, never actually wrestles for them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Houchen Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 Ha, never knew that about TNA, as Merz said. 8 minutes ago, Merzbow said: A truly great worker! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 1 hour ago, air_raid said: and that was that. It certainly was - in that he literally never wrestled again. His last ever match according to Cagematch was on FCW TV Dec 18 2008, which was around the time the vignettes aired. I know HHH and his shovel were powerful but to end a guy's career? I reckon there must have been something else, unless Vansen literally thought "fuck this" and retired on the spot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted April 24 Author Paid Members Share Posted April 24 9 minutes ago, Loki said: It certainly was - in that he literally never wrestled again. His last ever match according to Cagematch was on FCW TV Dec 18 2008, which was around the time the vignettes aired. I know HHH and his shovel were powerful but to end a guy's career? I reckon there must have been something else, unless Vansen literally thought "fuck this" and retired on the spot. Shamelessly C&P, "Holy Grail: The True Story of British Wrestling's Revival" Then in 2008, Hollywood movie star turned WWE scriptwriter Freddie Prinze Jr. sat the former FWA and All-England Champion down at a SmackDown TV taping, and gave him some life-changing news. "They were going to put me in a big storyline with The Undertaker. I was going to lead a gang of X-Men style mutants. Every week, I would send one of these guys after The Undertaker. After he had beaten them all, he would eventually face me at WrestleMania 25. It was f****** incredible. Freddie was really excited about the idea, he'd cleared it with Stephanie McMahon and she loved it." On December 13th 2008, Hade made his debut on SmackDown, cutting a shadowy, sinister and cerebral speech. It was supposedly the first of many to set up his mega-money feud with the legendary Dead Man, one of the biggest superstars in American Wrestling of the past 20 years. As far as I [writer Greg Lambert] was concerned, my old buddy performed extremely well for a debutant, showing all the verbal confidence and charisma I'd always known he possessed in abundance. But then? "Then they told me they were putting the storyline on hold. I went home for Christmas, and within a week I had been let go. They fired me." Hade's is the most frustrating story, and a perfect example of the fickle and unforgiving nature of the wrestling business and especially its market leader, the global beast that is World Wrestling Entertainment. He left British Wrestling and seemed to have it made in American Wrestling. But in the end, American Wrestling chewed him up and spat him out. Vansen was always a survivor though, with a "que sera sera" attitude to life which served him well after this heartbreaking rejection. "Nobody ever gave me a reason why I'd been released, but there is one story that keeps doing the rounds, and I don't know if this is true or not, and that is Vince McMahon saw me backstage and thought I was way too small to be hanging with The Undertaker. But I wasn't devastated. When Freddie first told me about The Undertaker feud, although half of me had fireworks going off inside, the other half thought: 'Hang on a minute, this is too good to be true, you're not at WrestleMania yet, boy!' So when they said they had nothing for me, I decided to shrug my shoulders, have a cup of tea, and move on." Shawn Michaels ended up taking Hade's spot as Taker's Mania opponent, not a bad substitute at all. Meanwhile the South City Thriller quit wrestling altogether and went to seek his fortune in sunny Los Angeles, the ideal home for his Hollywood looks. The real-life Hadrian Howard still lives in LA and has no intention of coming home, or returning to the squared circle, any time soon. "I'd been wrestling for ten years and kind of gone as far as I wanted to go. I didn't want to work on the American independent circuit and wait for WWE to come along, pat me on the head and give me another go. So I thought I would be my own boss. I've done some acting in commercials, small film roles and appeared on Days of Our Lives, and I run a head-shot photography business as a sideline. I have my own flat in LA, I'm 20 minutes from the beach, the sun is always shining and you can't beat the women in California. I'm living the American Dream!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vamp Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 Nathan Jones was great. Awful, obviously, but great. Had the look and had a weird sort of charisma to him. I'm not convinced that they couldn't have worked around his shortcomings and still had something if he'd have stuck around. Although he probably wasn't worth the bother. There's a (better) universe out there where he's a special appearance megastar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Chris B Posted April 25 Paid Members Share Posted April 25 16 hours ago, air_raid said: "I'd been wrestling for ten years and kind of gone as far as I wanted to go. I didn't want to work on the American independent circuit and wait for WWE to come along, pat me on the head and give me another go. So I thought I would be my own boss. I've done some acting in commercials, small film roles and appeared on Days of Our Lives, and I run a head-shot photography business as a sideline. I have my own flat in LA, I'm 20 minutes from the beach, the sun is always shining and you can't beat the women in California. I'm living the American Dream!" Fair play to him - he's had credited roles in Mission Impossible, Sons of Anarchy and Zack Snyder's Justice League. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Statto Posted April 25 Paid Members Share Posted April 25 Not that I've just stalked him on LinkedIn, but looks like he's been back in London for a few years now, teaching functional breathing techniques. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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