Was Marc Mero Going To Be Vince’s Top Guy?

Whether you knew him as the flamboyant Johnny B. Badd – a precursor to the Velveteen Dream – or as the ‘Wildman’ Marc Mero, the former Intercontinental Champion was a part of all of our childhoods in some shape or form.

Your writer first saw him in World Championship Wrestling in 1991 exploding colorful firecrackers and losing to Sid Vicious on the company’s Worldwide program. From there, he would have notable outings and feuds against the like of ‘Stunning’ Steve Austin (Great American Bash Tour 1991), Sting (Clash of Champions XVI: Fall Brawl), an oddly entertaining enmity with Maxx Pain (various, 1992), and capture the WCW Television Championship from Steven Regal at WCW Fall Brawl 1994.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW7bTc7PbaI

Then, shockingly for a wrestling fan at the time – especially a 9 year old one – he appeared out of nowhere at WrestleMania XII, rescuing real-life spouse Sable from Hunter Hearst Helmsley. He’d left WCW after disagreeing with a storyline involving the then Kimberley Page and was now competing under his own name. Though a feud with the blue-blood ended his WWF Intercontinental Championship reign, it’s fair to say that his time in the company wasn’t a success.

It didn’t stop him from competing, however, as Mero returned to the ring in the early noughties for TNA Wrestling under his Johnny B. Badd moniker.

• 'Stunning' Steve Austin
• Maxx Payne
• Johnny B. Badd
• Steven Regal
• WCW Fall Brawl 1994
• WCW Clash of the Champions XVI
• WCW Television Championship
• WCW Great American Bash 1991
• WrestleMania 12
• Kimberley Page
• sable
• marc mero
• RAW
• WCW
• TNA
• The Velveteen Dream
• WWF
• Hunter Hearst Helmsley
• Brock Lesnar
• wwe intercontinental championship
• Sting
• wwe championship
• wwe

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