In part one, we went into the signing of Mark Henry and his background before entering the business. What made him so alluring to Vince McMahon? He was big man—monster-sized—and he had legit credentials as an Olympian and world champion powerlifter.
WWE signed him to a 10-year contract after the 1996 Olympic Games and it was time to invest in him. A 10-year contract signifies that either WWE saw him as a big star in the future or they didn’t want WCW scooping him up.
Personally, I believe WWE saw him as a big star down the road because WCW couldn’t do anything when they had a 3-time World’s Strongest Man champion in Bill Kazmaier during the early 90s. The only thing that would’ve been in danger in this instance is Mark Henry’s career.
Mark Henry Slams the 90s
If WWE wasn’t able to sign Mark Henry, it wouldn’t have been the biggest loss since his run in the company was pretty uneventful until the second half of his career. Fans tend to forget his first year and half because of how uneventful it was. You saw him on TV, he was promoted by WWE, he obviously had wins to his name but the New Generation took WWE in a direction towards smaller and athletic wrestlers.
Mark had athleticism via his immense strength but if he was going to make a splash, he was either going to have to be better in-ring than he was or dazzled people on the mic.
I’d say memory of the World’s Strongest Man starts with his time as a member of the Nation of Domination, he was the muscle and one of three young talents in the group along with the ridiculously charismatic Rocky “The Rock” Maivia and the charismatic and talented D’Lo Brown.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti4By1GrB7k
Kama Mustafa the Godfather was there after two failed gimmicks and it was headed up by former WCW World Champion, Faarooq Asaad. After the faction imploded, the dwindled in numbers as the charismatic members were moved into singles careers. Mark Henry and D’Lo made N.O.D into a tandem.
It was here that his career started to slow down as far as his potential was concerned. By 1999, WWE was moving D’Lo towards a singles run and Mark Henry into odd waters with the “Sexual Chocolate” gimmick. During this year, D’Lo and Mark showed they had comedic chops but some of the angles they were involved in were…bad.
A lot of the angles from the Attitude Era just didn’t age well at all and a lot of the “Sexual Chocolate” stuff was worthy of a hard “Oof.”
A New Millennium and WWE Continues to Fumble
In an example of WWE working in reverse, Mark Henry was sent down to developmental to improve in the 2000s. He’d ventured outside of WWE a few times in 1999 with their developmental partners but with WWE having nothing for him, he was sent down to shape up.
Now, had WWE done this from the beginning or as early as 1998, his development could’ve been very different. He was always basic in the ring but he slowly learned to turn that basic approach into something amazing. Instead, he spent most of the 2000s moving through OVW, HWA, and IWA Puerto Rico while popping up in WWE from time to time.
Each promotion had their own thing going on and talents they were cultivating. Sending Mark Henry down was WWE’s best move with him so far but they were late on doing so. Luckily, he was still young and had the desire to improve.
No one expected him to come out as a technical wizard, a work horse, a daredevil, or even an iron horse. While the potential was there for the company to get a massive monster heel, he had a physical ceiling. What WWE needed to do was figure out how best to utilize him for big matches and how to booking him into those positions.
In the third and final part of this series, we look at his final ten years in-ring when everything seemed to come together for the World’s Strongest Man.
SUBSCRIBE NOW: Get The Overtimer’s Hottest Stories, Breaking News and Special Features in your email, CLICK HERE!
