One of the many reasons I enjoy Dark Side of the Ring is that I was not born for many of the topics they cover, so it is a way for me to learn about the wrestling business that took place two decades before I was alive. Now that I made you feel really old, the first episode of season five teaches us about the many gimmicks of Earthquake and the highs and lows of his career. So, how did the episode do? Let’s review!
The episode begins by highlighting John Tenta’s debut in WWE where he alongside Dino Bravo and Jimmy Hart beat up the Ultimate Warrior. From there we learned about the early stages of Tenta’s life, including that his grandparents were huge wrestling fans and that is why he wanted to get into the business. He wrestled for LSU until they got rid of their wrestling program and from there he moved to Japan and started his Sumo Wrestling career. Still, after a year he was unable to keep up with the lifestyle so he debuted for All Japan Wrestling shortly after. He then got signed to WWE and entered his most famous feud with Hulk Hogan which put him on the map. When he wrestled Koji Kitao in Japan, Kitao a few seconds into the match shouted that wrestling was fake and left the ring. Tenta maintained his professionalism throughout this incident which made people like him even more.
From there, they detailed Tenta’s feud with Jake Roberts, including when he crushed Damian the snake and killed him. They even showed the Prime Time Wrestling segment where Tenta feeds Vince McMahon and Bobby Heenan burgers that were “cooked” with Damian. Since storylines were running thin Tenta pitched a tag team with Fred Ottman, who would be known as Typhoon and they would create the Natural Disasters. Once they won the tag titles, Tenta’s schedule became more demanding as he was gone for a month at a time. He struggled with being away from his wife and young children at this point especially since his wife had just moved from the Philippines to British Columbia and she had to navigate living in a new country practically alone.
After their tag team title reign ended Tenta went back to Japan because he felt as if there was nothing left for him to do in WWE. Ottman stayed in WWE until tragically his brother-in-law got shot and he had to take care of his family business. With Tenta back in Japan the drift within his family was getting worse as he was having more fights with his wife about him being away for too long. Ottman then debuted for WCW, with the most embarrassing but famous debut in the Shockmaster. If you have not seen Haku’s reaction to this please watch this video. It is wholesome.
Following his mini stretch in Japan he finally took a stance and decided to do what was best for his family. He called WCW who offered him a contract and they moved to Florida where Tenta was able to do everything with his family including showing up for all their sports games, going to Disney World, and karaoke which he was very good at. While in WCW he was responsible for portraying multiple different characters. Since WWE owned the name of Earthquake, WCW came up with Avalanche which then turned into Shark and then he went by John Tenta for a while before going back to WWE. He was in a faction called the Oddities and went by the name Golga, and he as well as many wrestlers at the time were not happy that they put him under a mask. After not finding much success he started a wrestling school, but since he did not have the money at the time to pay for it it closed in under a year. Trying to provide for his family he then went into retail and truck driving before experiencing an unexpected diagnosis. He noticed that he was having blood clots in his urine but kept it a secret because he did not think it was a big deal before the pain started getting worse. Finally going to a doctor it is revealed that he had a tumor the size of a baseball on his bladder and there was nothing he could do. It was already too late.
Tenta said that if he was still wrestling WWE may have been able to catch it earlier, maybe he would have been able to live a little longer. By the summer of 2005, he was hoping to beat it as things were looking positive. A couple of weeks before his oldest son’s wedding the doctors told him the cancer had spread around his body and it was only a matter of time before Tenta was going to pass away. At the wedding, his wife sang one of their favorite songs until they broke down knowing that time was running out and there was nothing they could do about it.
The episode ends with all of the kids and his wife sharing their final messages with Tenta before he passed away. He passed a couple of weeks before his birthday as well as a couple of months before his first grandchild was born as well. At Tenta’s funeral, no wrestlers showed up and WWE did not send flowers and the family was hurt that the respect was not shown for someone who gave 20 years of his life to the wrestling business. The wrestlers on the episode talked about how John Tenta was a nice person behind the scenes and how he is a wrestling legend today. The final moments of the episode show his wife and kids looking at old photos and wrestling memorabilia celebrating the life of John Tenta aka Earthquake.
Overall:
Compared to other Dark Side of the Ring Episodes, this one was more informative about the career of Tenta than talking about the dark side of the wrestling business. Like I said in the beginning I was not alive for any part of Tenta’s career so getting to learn about it in this form was cool, but I do not believe this should have been a Dark Side of the Ring episode.
Dark Side of The Ring, The Ballad of “Earthquake” John Tenta is now available on demand
