DDP
Diamond Dallas Page
BANG!!!!!!!!
Did that get your attention???
In 1996 it caught a lot of WCW fans' attentions. Former manager "Diamond" Dallas Page turned into a bonafide superstar.
Starting his career as a manager, most notably of The
Diamond Studd (Scott Hall) and Vinnie Vegas (Kevin Nash) Page turned to wrestling
in 1994 and by 1995 was slowly working his way through the undercard, feuding
with Jim Duggan and ending The Renegade's terrible TV title run at Fall Brawl
1995. He went on the feud with Johnny B. Badd (Marc Mero)
over that belt and started putting decent matches under his belt. Still nobody
really noticed. An angle ran where he split with "The Diamond Doll"
(Real life wife Kimberly.
Someone explain to me how wrestlers get these hot wives.
Sullivan and Woman, Savage and Liz, etc and feuded over a million dollars she
won or something. He was defeated by The Booty Man (Brutus Beefcake) who replaced
the newly jumped ship Mero at Uncensored 1996 to be retired. Typical of wrestling
retirements, he was back at Slamboree winning "Battlebowl" and
it's ring. That summer he began feuding with a face Eddy Guerrero and started
having really, really good matches. People were starting to take notice as he
had great matches with Eddy at Clash in August and Halloween Havoc. In between
he had a excellent match with Chavo Guerrero at Fall Brawl. He was finally invited
to join the NWO but turned it down, stating he should have been the first invite.
After being cost the vacant US title to Guerrero at Starrcade, DDP, the fan-favorite
was
born.
He revitalized Randy Savage in their spring of 1997 feud. Kimberly posed in playboy and an attack by Savage and Elizabeth on Kimberly prompted what was voted feud of the year in 1997. They tore the house down at house shows. DDP's trademark Diamond hand signal, Nirvanaesque theme music and trademark lines were hot and he was working his ass off. My friends and I would always pop at the differently ways he hit the "Diamond Cutter", a move that truly could come out of nowhere.
He defeated Curt Henning for the US title at Starrcade 1997 and immediately went into an amazing program with Chris Benoit. The two had great matches on Nitro, Thunder and PPV. Throwing Raven into the mix led to a great, violent three way at Uncensored in which Raven was diamond cuttered off the top through a table. At the Spring Stampede Pay-Per-View he lost the US title to Raven thanks to combined interference from the flock. (Raven would lose the belt the next night to Goldberg, who would win the World Title soon after.) That summer he continued to feud with the NWO, trading the vacant US belt with Bret Hart and teaming with Karl Malone to face Hulk Hogan and Dennis Rodman at Bash at the Beach, and teaming with Jay Leno against Hogan and Bischoff at Road Wild. (I know, you've tried to block that out, I apologize for bringing these memories back.)
He would go on to face Goldberg at Halloween Havoc and bring the best match of Goldberg's career out of him. Then finally, in the spring of 1999 Page defeated Sting, Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair in a Four-way to win the WCW championship! One of the hardest and most improved guys in professional wrestling achieved the big one.
So he ended up feuding with David Arquette... blame that on WCW, not him.
WCW slowly disintegrated but Page continued to work hard,
winning the WCW tag team titles as a member of the New Jersey Triad with Kanyon
and Bam Bam Bigelow. He main evented the final WCW PPV, Greed, losing to
Champion Scott Steiner and bleeding like a stuck pig in the process.
Then came the buy out, the end of WCW... and the Stalker. WWF never seemed to have any idea what to do with the former (and aging) world champion. The stalker angle bombed, he and Chris Kanyon feuded with Kane and Undertaker resulting in a steel cage match at Summerslam that was poorly received. He would go on to use a motivational speaker gimmick, win the European title, and be a brief mentor to Christian. They faced off at Wrestlemania, with Page defeating the hometown Christian, and days later DDP lost the belt to William Regal.
Neck problems have plagued the champion of the people, and sadly, the announcement came down recently that DDP was hanging up the boots for good on a stellar career.
No one thought his career would go where it did, and for that, he deserves a SELF HIGH FIVE!!!!!!!!
By Jason Clevett jason.clevett@wrestling-online.com