It’s always good when wrestling gives you the opportunity (as a wrestler) to take a little bit of yourself to the ring. Unfortunately, wrestling also likes to get in its own way. Specifically in the WWE. Which is why Farooq Asad was a near miss in pro-wrestling in the 90’s.
Watching Ron Simmons wrestle has always assured me that I made the right decision in not pursuing a career in wrestling any further than my Mid-South Wrestling tryout. First of all, I couldn’t afford the training, and more importantly I can’t imagine what it’s like to take bumps from someone like Ron Simmons without being in pain for the rest of my life.
After Ron Simmons time in the WCW came to an end he made his WWE debut. Simmons was packaged as Farooq Asad, who kind of looked like a black, 8-bit Mega Man.
It obviously wasn’t enough for Vince McMahon that Ron Simmons was a former WCW World Champion. McMahon had to add his own unique spin to Ron Simmons and make him look ridiculous. Granted, later on in Simmons career the WWE fit him perfectly into gimmicks like the NOD and the Acolytes.
Simmons was given the always scantily clad (and current train-wreck) Sunny as his manager, which was a bizarre pairing at best. Simmons and Sunny went together like cotton candy and filet mignon, but sadly could still not take the emphasis off Simmons ridiculous ring attire.
Originality and creativity are two words that can never (and probably were never) used in designing Simmons ring attire. It’s almost as if the WWE’s creative department were all watching an episode of American Gladiators and one of them suddenly popped up and said “I know what we can do with Ron Simmons!” I’m really convinced that’s the way it went down.
Simmons began a nice feud with Ahmed Johnson over the fact that he wasn’t from the streets like Simmons was and his assault on the English language, as Road Dogg Jesse James said in an episode of Are You Serious.
Most fans liked Simmons as a wrestler, but couldn’t get with his American Gladiator meets ancient Egyptian gimmick. Simmons only wrestled for six months under the Farooq Asad moniker before it was dropped for simply Farooq.
As we all know Farooq went on to have a very successful career in the WWE and was even inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2012.
Luckily, the WWE recognized their early mistake with Simmons and corrected it otherwise Farooq would have been a huge miss for the WWE.
Follow Matt on Twitter: @SprayBall
matthewsprayberry
I am a huge fan of my wife, my wonderful daughter, baseball, old school wrasslin', movies, and friends. Dislikes? The killing off of Quicksilver (Oops…too soon?), People who don't tip, Reality TV, and Daredevils new costume (I'm sorry it just looks stupid).
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