Upon request by Jet-Poop.

John Tenta is a professional wrestler. Standing six feet, six inches tall and weighing 400 pounds, he's quite an imposing figure. He was born in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada in 1963.

Tenta attended Louisiana State University, where he was a successful amateur wrestler and football player as well.

In 1986, he traveled to Japan to take up sumo wrestling. He lasted just over a year in that discipline before turning to professional wrestling instead. He trained under Giant Baba while in Japan and Al Tomko back in Vancouver.

Tenta joined the World Wrestling Federation in November of 1989, billed as "Canadian Earthquake." The first word was dropped after several months, partly due to him being pushed as a heel and Wrestlemania VI being in Canada--the WWF didn't want him to start getting a babyface reaction at that event due to his name.

He debuted when Dino Bravo had a push-up contest with the Ultimate Warrior. Dino's manager, Jimmy Hart, searched the audience for someone to sit on Dino's back while he did his push-ups--Tenta was picked. Sure enough, Bravo (legitimately!) did do the push-ups with Tenta on his back. Cue the Warrior, who ran down to the ring and demanded that Tenta sit on his back as well while he did a push-up. As soon as the Warrior got down into push-up position, Tenta sat down on him and brutally squashed him--he had been a plant by Bravo in the audience all along.

His most notable success as Earthquake was a feud with Hulk Hogan in mid-1990 which was kicked off when Tenta sat on Hogan several times, putting him out of action for several weeks and triggering a whole "GET WELL HULK!" letter writing campaign. I think I'd really enjoy it if people sent me letters wishing me well after a fake injury. Anyway, the two met at SummerSlam '90 (the first wrestling Pay-Per-View I ever saw, actually) so that Hogan could get his revenge on Earthquake. He did, not surprisingly.

Earthquake continued to wrestle with Dino Bravo and fellow Hart stablemates until mid-1991, when Tugboat turned heel and joined with Earthquake in a new tag team--The Natural Disasters. Tugboat (Fred Ottman) renamed himself Typhoon... you know, because he's a DISASTER now!

The two were pretty dominant for a while, turning face in 1992 and having a match with Money, Inc. at Wrestlemania VIII. They continued to feud on and off with DiBiase and IRS for the rest of the year.

Tenta left the WWF in early 1993, as Yokozuna had taken his spot as the "grotesquely fat guy with little talent" in the federation.

I think you're only allowed one per company. :)

Anyway, Tenta joined World Championship Wrestling in October 1994. He enjoyed moderate success there (under the name Avalanche, for copyright reasons), most notably wrestling Sting at Starrcade '94 and Randy Savage at Uncensored '95.

After taking a few years off, he returned to the WWF in 1998 under a mask as Golga, a member of The Oddities. This did not last long. He opened a wrestling school in Florida, where he also books his own wrestling promotion (Intense Florida Wrestling).

He was most recently seen on television wrestling for the WWF in the Gimmick Battle Royale as Earthquake at Wrestlemania X-Seven.

Editor's note: Tenta passed away on June 7, 2006 after a battle with bladder cancer.

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