We haven’t visited the Wrestling Salvage Yard in a while! This time we’re going to see where Andrew “Test” Martin could’ve been salvaged or rather if he was even salvageable. Test came in during the Attitude Era of WWE and was presented as a bodyguard for Motley Crue.
Test in WWE
It was 1998 and Motley Crue we’re still around. They definitely weren’t as hot an act as they were during the 80s but Generation Swine had dropped the year prior and would go on to gold status, so they were a solid act for WWE to associate with at this time.
Let’s just say that the company would associate with more relevant to the times acts later on. Anyway, Test came in as the bodyguard for a band that wasn’t going to be around.
This didn’t give him much to work with nor did it give the fans enough of a reason to care about him. Fortunately, that was remedied by putting him in the Corporation. His time there was pretty short and he joined the splinter faction The Union.
In the following years, he would feud with Triple H and DX over Stephanie McMahon, form a decent tag team with Tensai—then known as Albert, and would pick up the Hardcore title.
The 2000s proved to be pretty mixed for Test as early on as he ended up as part of the Alliance but would go on to pick up IC, European, and Tag Team gold early in the decade.
By the second half of the 2000s, he was already out of WWE but returned for the ECW brand in 2006. Obviously, it was a short stay and if you missed it, you missed nothing.
Salvaging Test
I’d say Test’s best period in the company was between 2000 and 2004. Sure, he was in the Alliance but that association kept him in the mix and got him some achievements. He looked impressive and had both a great flying elbow drop and a running big boot that always looked as if it connected each time. The guy typically tried to make whatever was given to him creatively work as well.
Test would become jacked prior to his WWE return but by the time he was on the ECW brand, his time had passed. He was still the same performer but there just wasn’t interest in him, it seemed. The guy couldn’t be moved to the main brands because even in the late 2000s WWE’s roster was on the chunky side.
The best time to salvage this guy was to just keep the ball running in 2001 and 2002. Also, he worked better in some sort of team and was decent as part of a faction. WWE had plenty of superstars like that and Test could’ve made it work with a few such as Hardcore Holly.
In short, the key to salvaging him was making him a tag team specialist and not running him as a singles. His one flaw was that he simply didn’t have the mic skill to go it alone.
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