The Original Babyface Successor To Hulk Hogan In WWE
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After the monumental success that Hulk Hogan proved to be for WWE, the company has tried to replicate it numerous times, searching for the Hulkster's replacements.
They have had some success, with the likes of John Cena and The Rock proving to be perfect choices to fly the company flag, but there have also been several major misses. Lex Luger, we're looking at you.
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It was not until the late 1990s that WWE truly found a worthy replacement for Hogan, when Stone Cold Steve Austin became the face of the company, but they had actually first begun searching for his successor way back in 1986 when they hired a young wrestler named Tom Magee.
Despite a bright start to his wrestling career, Magee never quite reached superstardom, and it wasn't long before he left the business, and WWE quickly moved on in their search for the next Hulk Hogan.
He Was A Bodybuilder... Obviously
Anyone who is a WWE fan knows just how enamored Vince McMahon is with bodybuilders and the concept of bodybuilding in general. He always favored muscular athletes over others when it came to who he wanted at the forefront of WWE, and Magee was no different.
Before he entered the wrestling business, the Canadian was a powerlifting champion in his native country, winning the Canadian National Powerlifting Championship in 1981 and 1982.
He also finished second in the World's Strongest Man competition in 1982, becoming the first-ever Canadian to achieve the feat. With McMahon's track record over the years of heavily pushing muscular bodybuilders, and focusing more on a worker's physique than their actual in-ring capabilities, the experiment to replace Hogan with Magee should come as a surprise to no one considering his background in powerlifting.
He Actually Impressed Critics With His In-Ring Work Early In His Career
While the majority of the muscular, big men that McMahon was so dead set on pushing seemed to hold almost no wrestling ability whatsoever, Magee was actually surprisingly good inside the squared circle.
Before he joined WWE, the Canadian spent time wrestling in Japan for the All Japan Pro Wrestling promotion and earned major acclaim from critics for one of his very first matches. In a match against Riki Choshu, Magee impressed so much that Dave Meltzer went on record to say that he was 'the greatest combination of strength and agility that he had ever seen'.
Over the years, Meltzer has become one of the most respected journalists in the wrestling business, and his match ratings mean a lot to many, so to have someone like him heaping such high praise on Magee, it was clear to see that there should have been a very bright future on the cards for him.
He even went on to finish third in the Pro Wrestling Illustrated 'Rookie of the Year' award in 1986. The sky seemed to be the limit for Magee, but unfortunately, things just did not quite go to plan for him.
He Defeated Bret Hart In One Of His First WWE Matches
Bret Hart is one of the greatest WWE Superstars of all time, and his resume in the business is legendary, so the fact Magee beat him early in his WWE career was a testament to how highly McMahon rated him at the time.
The match apparently really impressed the WWE chairman as well, with both Hart and Magee doing enough to satisfy the boss. The match was taped for television, but the taping was lost for over three decades before it was unearthed.
WWE even produced a documentary about the match, the story behind its disappearance and subsequent resurface, called 'Holy Grail: The Search For WWE's Most Infamous Lost Match'.
His Wrestling Career Only Lasted Five Years Before He Left To Pursuit Acting
While WWE initially had high hopes for Magee and intended for him to replace Hogan down the line, they quickly cooled off on him. He was never really featured as a prominent figure in the company and decided to leave the wrestling business in 1990, just five years after he got into it.
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Magee left WWE quietly in 1990 and would move on to a brief career in acting. He appeared in several different movies in 1990 and 1991, but that didn't quite lead to anything substantial, and he would wind up working as a personal trainer.
