John Tenta passes away

[Sharpshooter88]

RIP earthquake, at least he's not in pain anymore, and is finally at reast. his battle has lasted over two years.

[Thunderplex]

Sad loss of a true monster heel, and an incredibly nice, humble guy.

 

Found this pic I have never seen on DVD forums that I've never seen before.

 

[alexander]

One of the precious few wrestlers who no-one has a bad thing to say about. You had a life full of good shit John, and we

[PUNQ]

Here's the rest of that post to follow that picture. RIP Tenta.I wrote this a couple years back about John Anthony Tenta's sumo career if anyone is interested:He was a international amateur wrestling champion in the super-heravyweight weight-class in 1983 and got a scholarship to Louisiana State University. LSU however dropped their wrestling program and John Tenta had to find something else to do and decided to enter the world of Japanese sumo wrestling. He was recruited into the Sadogatake heya (stable) in the fall of 1985. He first used the name Kototenta, but later changed it to Kototenzan at the end of his sumo career.He had his first matches in the November 1985 basho (tournament) as a Maezumo or unranken rikishi (sumo wrestler) and got an easy 3 wins out of 3 fights. At 198cm and 192kg he was much bigger then then his Japanese opponents who also was much younger then him. Tenta was 22 at the time and faced mostly 16 year old rookies who had just finished highschool, so with his international amateur wrestling background he had little problems beating them. He said in a interview that his match rarely lasted more then three seconds.The January 1986 basho was his first as a ranked rikishi placed in the 6th and bottom division called Jonokuchi. Like with his tryout matches he had no problems and won all 7 tournament matches and therefore also won the division. He was promoted to the 5th division, or Jonidan as it's called and won just as easy in this March 1986 basho with a 7-0 record before beating Miwanokuni in the tie-breaker to win the divisional title too. With only 2 tournaments he was already in the 4th division, Sandanme. And wouldn't you know it; He kept his undefeated streak alive during the May 1986 basho with another 7-0 record and division victory. With such an impressive 6 months in sumo he was ranked in the Makushita, or 3rd division, for the July 1986 basho. Sadly just before the tournament Tenta decided to drop out of sumo. There were many factors that played into his decision to leave the Sadogatake heya and sumo. The main one was that he was tired of adjusting to the strict sumo lifestyle. He initially had a problem with the amount of food he was forced to eat at the start with the stable boss and Tenta having different ideas of what his ideel match weight was. Also being a stranger in a foreign country didn't help even if he got along well with his stablemates and was never troublesome. It was a lonely world, but he fell in love with a girl named Mariko Yamada. Many blame her for him leaving since she always kept pressuring him to quit sumo, but Tenta denies that's the reason. He admits she had asked him many times but he had always told her no and she eventually stopped asking. He said it was more about being unhappy in the sumo lifestyle. He felt he didn't have any time to himself because of the long training days rikishi's have. The incident that broke the straw was when he was injured before the July 1986 basho. He cut his foot of some glass when jogging. It wasn't an serious injury, but this got him thinking about what would happen if he did get a serious injury. He was already hurting in his ankles and knees which he thinks came from the way they trained. And he had already learned that there was little help to get from the sumo bosses if he was to have an career ending injury. He would have nothing to fall back on. He was still in the amateur leagues in sumo and wasn't making much money. It was time to leave.The possibility of a pro-wrestling career had always been an option he was considering, even before going into sumo, and now he had a chance at making much more money on a easier lifestyle doing pro-wrestling. In July 1986 he first met with Antonio Inoki and NJPW before contacting Giant Baba and AJPW. He signed with AJPW around the same time former Yokozuna Hiroshi Wajima did, a contract which initially lasted until April 1987 (AJPW always did annual contract negotiations during the month of April). AJPW had a long and successful tradition of recrution former sumo wrestlers including Genichiro Tenryu, King Tonga (Haku/Meng), Great Kojika, Motoshi Okuma, Takeshi Ishikawa, Isao Takagi (Arashi) and later Akira Taue and Takeshi Rikio. I belive Tenta made his debut with AJPW on May 1, 1987 teaming with Giant Baba against Rusher Kimura & Goro Tsurumi where Tenta defeated Kimura via count out. He stayed on another year in AJPW before signing with WWF and became Earthquake.....John Tenta could have been the first white man to make it to the top sumo division, but we'll never find out if he was good enough. While he was undefeated in sumo with an offical record of 21-0 (25-0 total with pre-rank and playoff matches) he had yet to meet any serious opponents. In keiko (training) matches he was struggeling, trading wins and loses with the top rikishi at the Sadogatake heya, so how well he would have done against real competition we'll never know. However the guy he was struggeling with, Kotogaume, did get to the top division and reached the third highest rank in sumo - Sekiwake.--PUNQ--

[Gossy]

From WWE.com

WWE Legend and agent

Edited June 7, 2006 by Gossy

[Richie]

Very sad news, I can't believe he was only 42, which is no age. He had been around for what felt like forever, and was quite young in his major run with the WWF, he achieved so much in such a short time.I'd had the pleasure of briefly chatting to him after an All Star show and he was a very passionate man with lots of time for fans, which he showed when he was a member of this very forum.RIP John Tenta.

[dxpunk]

RIP John TentaVery sad to hear that he finally lost his battle. He was very brave about it all but the odds were always going to be against him.As a big man I was impressed by John. He was never a technical marvel but what he did, he did well. Seemed to be a nice guy too.A real shame.

[RicFlairLegend]

As has been said we've probably all been expecting this for some time, doesn't make it any less sad though.Tenta really did seem to be a great guy, and performed as well as he could, always entertaining the crowd in his own way.RIP

[MattSt]

Anyone who kept up-to-date with his postings over at wrestlecrap.com will be awae of the man's sheer determination and perseverance with his cancer battle. He seemed to never stop fighting and genuinley believed he could defy all the bad news he was receiving from the medics treating him and pull through.Enjoyable to watch and one of those genuine scary heels that the industry lacks do much now, his young age has been highlighted above...it's quite amazing to think when he co-headlined Summerslam 1990, he was a mere 26-years-old.This has made me think of something quite frightening and sad as relates to what would likely be considered the top 3 matches of that PPV 16 years ago...Mr Perfect Vs Texas TornadoEarthquake w/Dino Bravo V Hulk Hogan w/Big Boss ManUltimate Warrior Vs Rick Rudeless than 16 years on and only two of them remain...On another note, John was of course also a living example of the sheer disorganization of WCW - even at its peak...After being told to change his famous tiger tattoo to one of a shark, ahead of his big introduction as 'Shark', Tenta underwent lengthy work to have the change...Months later, the Shark gimmick would be canned...he ended his WCW days wrestling as plain 'John Tenta' and was in line to headline WAR GAMES alongside Roddy Piper and 2 unknowns against the NWO before being replaced by the Horsemen.RIP John and thanks for the wonderful memories.

[Phil Jones]

RIP John The first time I saw WWF on Sky featured the Eathquake press up angle with Dino Bravo and Warrior I hope WWE induct him into the Hall of Fame in 2007.

[bAzTNM#1]

Fucking hell.RIP.

[RoryFice]

Just an hour or so ago i decided i was gonna watch Hogan vs Earthquake from Summerslam 1990, and thinking what a good match it was. John Tenta's death i expected to happen sometime soon, but it's still a shock for me to be reading about it this morning. RIP

[Five Alive]

R.I.P. Quake

[JimmyJacobsFurryBoots]

Oh God, that's so sad Knew he wasn't well, but still a shock...RIP John.

[Spyke]

Let us remember a man that nobody in the wrestling business had a bad word to say about because of his warm and gentle nature that has been expressed via the columns on WWE.com.Let John Tenta also be a inspiration as a man who battled cancer and never gave up even at the very end where the illness was critical but he sure as hell did not go without a fight!Thanks Earthquake - Natural Disaters ruled!