“The King of Old School” Steve Corino is someone who rose in Extreme Championship Wrestling in a short time and at the right time. He worked well as a manager for Rhino and Tajiri as well as tagging with C.W Anderson. However, once he was a singles threat, he really popped.
Before The King of Old School
Corino is a student of the game and loves old school wrestling. To me, that makes him right for his current position backstage. Before that, he was this small guy who looked like he was somewhere in the family tree of Devon Storm—pre-Crowbar.
At first glance, there was really nothing special about him. He didn’t stand out from other indy juniors of the 90s. Then you saw him wrestle and he stood out a little more. He was a member of the Hardy Boyz’s OMEGA promotion and he fit in. It was like “Ehh, this guy has some steak but the Hardys had steak and sizzle.”
Once Corino arrived in ECW, it was easy to not notice him with all the chaos in-ring and around it. He came in as a manager, became the “King of Old School” and was basically a manager to two rising popular wrestlers.
Steve Corino: The Original Legend Killer
What about Steve Corino? It was 1999 when things started to snowball for him and by 2000, he was a hot main event heel for ECW.
Hell, Tajiri and Rhino even rose up around that time. Rhino was a big deal more because of the devastation he caused, Tajiri was putting on exciting matches with other flyers in the company, and Corino had feuds. Bloody feuds and some good matches.
If anything, ECW should’ve built around Corino as its top heel going forward. Someone who could wrestle, talk on the mic, and keep a match together? That’s a top guy. He gave ECW an actual reason to bring legends in and not on some “the fans are expecting a surprise” nonsense. They showed up and win or lose, Corino busted them open and left them worse for wear.
He was so old school in his ring style at this time that it would be easy to forget that he was part of that wave of indy wrestlers before Styles, Joe, Red, Bryan, and Low Ki. One of my favorite ECW showdowns was between Corino and Dusty.
Corino impressed Dusty so much that when he left ECW because no one was minding the pay window, Big Dust got him WCW contract. Of course, WCW closed before January 2001 was out. “The King of Old School” would take his talents back to the indies and was actually one of the best, defined heels on the indies as well as in 2000s NWA and ROH.
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