Pro Wrestling can be strange. Here is your weekly look at the strangest.
Mantaur
Picture a lumbering half bull half man creature emerging from the fog, lumbering toward battle with a muscle bound hero. Sounds like a good start to a fantasy movie right? Well it isn’t, it’s pro wrestling. On January 7th, 1995, the World Wrestling Federation introduced the world to Mantaur, who no joke was a Minotaur character. Weighing in at 400 pounds and standing 6’2″ he was a pretty big dude. Mantaur wore a giant bull head to the ring that made him look even more imposing. He later switched from wearing the head to having black painted horns on the side his head. He was billed from “The Island of Crete”, of course because thats where Minotaurs are from. He would charge and make vague mooing sounds in the ring, of course because thats what minotaurs do. His ring entrance music even consisted of various mooing and snorting sounds, of course because those are the sounds that minotaurs make. A 400 pound half bull half man seem pretty unbeatable right? Surely he was destined to be champion…
Unfortunately for Mantaur his WWF career was short lived. Despite a pretty solid win/loss record and being managed by Jim Cornette he couldn’t not get it done when matched up with higher level competition. He had less than twenty televised matches and only one Pay Per View match, the 1995 Royal Rumble. Losing to the likes of Bam Bam Bigelow, Razor Ramon, and Bret Hart put him in the danger zone. His last real shot at making something of himself was in a qualifying match for the 1995 King of the Ring tournament. A loss in that match to Bob Holly sent Mantaur back to The Island of Crete. We can only hope he is in Greece raising a little Boytaur to help boost the family name in the pro wrestling industry.
[youtube id=”SY8Bd9vNVbU” width=”620″ height=”360″]
Check out other Strange Wrestlers of the Week here.
