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Steve Blackman (born September 28, 1963) is an American professional wrestler who is best known for his career in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). Nicknamed 'The Lethal Weapon', Blackman won the Hardcore Championship six times in his tenure with the company.

Professional wrestling career

Early Career and Illness (1986-1989)

Steve Blackman began as a competitive bodybuilder and weightlifter before entering professional wrestling in 1986 in Connecticut, training at Tony Altamore's wrestling school. In Calgary, he worked for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling. He competed briefly as a jobber in 1988 and was being considered for a full-time contract with the WWF when he contracted malaria and dysentery while wrestling in South Africa in 1989 and was essentially bedridden for two years.

After finally beating his two year bout with malaria, during which he lost much of his muscle-mass, Blackman spent another four years in physical therapy to recover his conditioning, and incorporated martial arts training, specifically escrima and tae kwon do, into his physical therapy. Once back in fighting shape Blackman contacted his friends Brian Pillman and Owen Hart for a new WWF try-out.

World Wrestling Federation

Debut (1997)

Blackman made his WWF debut on the November 3, 1997 episode of Raw is War when he jumped the guardrail, to help Vader fend off an attack from the Hart Foundation. Vince McMahon opted for a martial arts gimmick. Blackman was a replacement for the injured Patriot on Team USA (Vader, Goldust, and Marc Mero), at Survivor Series 1997, against Team Canada (British Bulldog, Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, Phillip Lafon, and Doug Furnas). Blackman made his Royal Rumble debut at Royal Rumble 1998 and was eliminated by Dude Love.

Storyline with Ken Shamrock (1998-1999)

Blackman started feuding with the Nation of Domination in early 1998 and achieved great success by defeating the likes of The Rock and Faarooq. In his attempts to combat the Nation of Domination he teamed up with Ken Shamrock. Blackman and Shamrock teamed with former Nation member Faarooq at Unforgiven: In Your House to defeat The Rock, D-Lo Brown and Mark Henry. Eventually, Blackman and Shamrock split to pursue singles success, both men entered the King of the Ring in 1998 but would never get to face each other because Blackman lost to Marc Mero, Shamrock won the tournament. During this time Blackman established his trademark entrance involving swinging glow-in-the-dark eskrima sticks before walking to the ring. Blackman competed in the WWF Brawl for All tournament and once again came up against Marc Mero, this time however Blackman defeated him would have to withdraw due to injury, allowing Mero to advance by default. Blackman came to the aid of Shamrock when he was being beat down by Owen Hart and Dan Severn. For his efforts Shamrock suplexed Blackman and in retaliation Blackman suplexed Shamrock back. This would lead to Blackman and Shamrock facing each other in the first round of the WWF Intercontinental Championship tournament which was won by Shamrock. At WWF Capital Carnage, Blackman took on Shamrock for the WWF Intercontinental Championship and lost. Blackman would eventually turned heel after siding with then-heel Shane McMahon. During his run as a heel, he brought a gym bag full of martial arts weapons with him to the ring, including kendo shinai. Blackman would attempt to use the weapons in the bag during or after the match. After a short hiatus, Blackman returned as the hired hitman of Vince McMahon to take out Ken Shamrock and cost Shamrock the King of the Ring in 1999. This led to an iron circle match at Fully Loaded 1999 and a lion's den match at SummerSlam 1999, both of which Shamrock won.

Various Storylines (1999-2000)

On the Smackdown after SummerSlam, Blackman interfered in Shamrock's match against Val Venis and afterwards Shamrock knocked Blackman out. Once Blackman regained is consciousness he destroyed Venis with his signature Nunchucks. Blackman was set to face Venis and D-Lo Brown with Mark Henry, however, Henry failed to show making it a handicapped match. Annoyed by Henry, he challenged him for the WWF European Championship and during the match Val Venis would attack Blackman with a kendo stick, costing him the match. After Blackman lost a match on SmackDown, Venis came to the ring with Blackman's bag and pulled out a sex toy, embarrassing Blackman. Blackman faced Venis at Unforgiven 1999 where Venis won.

Blackman and Al Snow then formed a tag team that was known unofficially as Head Cheese, as Snow made Blackman wear a cheesehead hat to complement the mannequin head that Snow carried to the ring. Blackman had a reputation for being very serious and not displaying emotion, so the two put on comedy duo skits with Blackman as the straight-faced man. Many of the skits involved Snow's attempts to come up with a gimmick for their team. In one backstage scene, Snow proposed that the duo develop a TV show wherein they travel through time and solve mysteries. Another memorable sketch involved Snow scheduling an unsuspecting Blackman to perform stand-up comedy at a nursing home, with humorously disastrous results. Head Cheese had one opportunity to become the WWF World Tag Team Champions when they took on the New Age Outlaws, however, the match ended in a no contest due to the interference from the debuting Radicalz. Head Cheese also appeared on WrestleMania 2000 losing to T & A (Test and Albert).

Hardcore Division (2000-2002)

After the Head Cheese team went their separate ways, Blackman entered the WWF's Hardcore Division. At the time, the title was defended 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as established by Crash Holly. Because of this, WWF often ran matches wherein the champion was attacked and defeated in locations not typically associated with wrestling matches, such as backstage or in a hotel. With Blackman as champion, however, surprise attacks no longer resulted in title changes: within the matches, Blackman was so dangerous in hand-to-hand combat that surprise attacks were not effective enough to defeat him. During his stint as Hardcore Champion, Blackman's full martial arts talent was utilized. The first time he lost the title for a significant amount of time was against Shane McMahon, largely due to interference from Test, Albert, Edge, and Christian, with Mick Foley suspending the 24/7 rule to make sure McMahon didn't try to get out of facing Blackman in a rematch. At SummerSlam, Blackman fought McMahon for the title. During that match, they both climbed the TitanTron with Blackman able to knock Shane off with a Singapore cane, then performed a diving elbow drop for the pin fall . Blackman would go on to defend the title on several occasions, but he would ultimately lose the title on a more permanent basis to Raven in late 2000.

Early in 2001, Blackman formed another tag team, this time with Grandmaster Sexay. Blackman again played the straight-faced man: a recurring element was that Grandmaster would always try to convince Blackman to dance with him after their matches. In the summer of 2001, Grandmaster was released from his WWF contract. Blackman was then sidelined due to an injury. he made his last TV appearence on June 25th 2001 episode of Raw with APA and other mid-card superstars planning a fight against The WCW Invasion, In October 2002 his contract expired and WWE decided not to renew it.

After WWE

Blackman opened a self-defense school in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania called "BlackmanMMA" in mid-2003. Blackman and MMA fighter (UFC Hall of Famer) and wrestler Ken Shamrock were brought in to help promote a clothing line for professional fighters, called Ground 'n' Pound gear (GnP). As of July 2006, Blackman has re-opened "Steve Blackman's Fighting Systems", which features MMA classes as well as professional wrestling training with Classic Championship Wrestling, a local independent wrestling promotion in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Blackman has hosted 4 MMA events in the Harrisburg,PA starting in 2009 and the most recent being on November 20th 2010, at the Zembo Mosque. The events are part of the Pennsylvania Fighting Championships (PFC).

Blackman resurfaced in July 2007 as a guest on Nancy Grace's show during the media blitz surrounding the Chris Benoit double murder and suicide, where he argued with fellow former wrestler Marc Mero. He also made appearances on Larry King Live and Dan Abrams' MSNBC talk show to discuss the same topic. Blackman made a guest appearance in the WWE later that year during the Raw 15th Anniversary Special, appearing in a 15-man battle royal. He was eliminated by Flash Funk. He has been mentioned on WWE NXT several times by Daniel Bryan. Many people have shown interest of Blackman making a return to the WWE, also on Blackman's 'Where are they now' page on WWE.com he admitted, 'Sometimes I get really tempted' and 'I miss it out there.'

On the March 29th 2013 episode of JBL & Cole Show, Steve Blackman makes a brief cameo appearance at the beginning where he mocks and macks fun of JBL and Teddy Long

Personal life

Blackman is married and the couple have a daughter together.

Championships and accomplishments

• Pro Wrestling Illustrated
  • PWI ranked him #70 of the best 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2001

• Stampede Wrestling
  • Stampede British Commonwealth Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

• World Wrestling Federation
  • WWF Hardcore Championship (6 times)

References

1. ^ "OWOW profile".
2. Cite error: The named reference Encyclopedia was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
3. "The King's Recap: WWF Smackdown 4.13.2000".
4. http://www.cagematch.net/?id=2&nr=537&view=&page=4&gimmick=&year=&promotion=&region=&location=&arena=&showtype=&worker=Al+Snow&text=
5. Power Slam Staff (August 2003). "What's going down... Elsewhere:". Power Slam Magazine. Lancaster, Lancashire, England: SW Publishing LTD. p. 7. 109. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
6. Steve Blackman speaks on his neck, the future, WWE release, more
7. "Catching up with Steve Blackman: Part 2". WWE.com. 2010-09-02. Retrieved 2010-09-02.
8. "Pro Wrestling Illustrated Top 500 2001". Wrestling Information Archive. Retrieved 2009-10-16.

External links

• Where are they now?
• Online World of Wrestling profile
• Steve Blackman on TV.com
• Steve Blackman on IMDb.com

Template:Persondata

• 1963 births
• American martial artists
• American male professional wrestlers
• Jewish American sportspeople
• Living people