As Lord Tensai, Matt Bloom went from defeating John Cena and CM Punk to jobbing out and dancing in women’s lingerie less than a year later. Where did it all go wrong?
We first saw Matt Bloom in the then-WWF in 1999 as Prince Albert. It wasn’t long until he became known as just Albert, A-Train, and bizarrely, The Hip Hop Hippo.
He was having the finest moments of his career, and when news broke out about him signing a contract to return to the WWE in 2012, fans were excited to see the transformation of an old staple of Attitude Era WWF.
In the weeks leading up to his debut, some vignettes were aired teasing the debut of Lord Tensai in WWE. It was basically close-up shots of tattoos on his body and fake tattoos of Japanese writing on the back of his head, with Japanese-style music in the background.
So then the big day came, March 17th, 2012, we got the debut of Lord Tensai. He came to the ring in what can only be described as stereotypical Japanese clothing, a red robe, a helmet, and a cloth-type mask that covered his face.
As most new characters do, Lord Tensai would win some squash matches against lower to mid-card wrestlers — still with little to no crowd reaction — where he built up a winning streak.
Lord Tensai Winning Streak Turns into a Losing Streak