Goring across the promotions – A Rhyno Story

For those of you who may not be familiar with the man beast, Rhyno has made a career goring his way through the competition and across the countries since his early beginnings in the mid to late 90’s. Even though sometimes his name may be spelt with an “i” instead of a “y”, the man has endured the test of time going from Extreme in the early trappings of his career, all the way to the world stages of WWE and beyond.

Most recently, Rhyno made his debut for All Elite Wrestling, tasked with taking on the young protege and Ring of Honor Television Champion, Nick Wayne as the ghost of Christian’s past. Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful in his challenge, however the crowd in attendance were very excited to see him a part of the show.

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Prior to his AEW debut, Rhyno made his debut for the National Wrestling Alliance at their Hard Times V PPV by confronting Thom Latimer after his match against Carson Bartholomew Drake. NWA would later announce that Rhyno would be challenging for the NWA Worlds Championship at the Crocket Cup which will be taking place on May 17th, 2025, at the 2300 Arena in Philidelphia, Pennsylvania.

This is not Rhyno’s first dance with the opportunity to become a World Champion, he has had the honor to step up to the plate multiple times throughout his career and has even had the prestige of holding the ECW World Heavyweight and NWA World Heavyweight Championships during his long tenured career.

Rhino’s first run as ECW World Champion would come at the hands of Sandman after he would defeat the ECW stalwart right after Sandman had just won the title from Steve Corino at Guilty as Charged in January 2001. He would go on to defend the title at the final two ECW events and would defeat Sandman and Spike Dudley in consecutive nights before the promotion would close its doors, making Rhino officially the last ever ECW Champion before the re-emergence of the company under the WWE banner many years later.

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Rhyno’s story would not just be confined to the stages of ECW though. Once the company closed its doors in April of 2001, Rhyno would sign with the WWE in 2001 and would become an integral part of The Alliance faction which would form when Paul Heyman, Stephanie & Shane McMahon would combine the rosters of ECW and a now newly purchased WCW against the roster of the WWE in attempt to overthrow the company and send them packing. One of the most notable segments of the entire alliance faction was when Rhyno would feud with Chris Jericho and on an episode of Smackdown, would gore him right through the stage.

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In 2005 Rhyno would be released from the WWE due to a public argument he had with his wife at the WrestleMania 21 afterparty. This did not stop the man beast though. He would continue his journey in the wrestling industry by working on the independent scene until he would eventually land himself in TNA where he would gore the then NWA World Heavyweight Champion, Raven upon his debut at No Surrender in July of 2005, aligning himself with Jeff Jarrett and as a member of Planet Jarrett although this alliance wouldn’t last too long as by the time October would come around, Rhino would go on to face Jarrett for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship at the Bound For Glory event.

November of that same year would see Rhino drop the belt back to Jarrett on a special two-hour episode of Impact.

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Rhino would spend the next 5 years with TNA in varying alliances right until his ultimate time of departure in late 2010.

From 2011 through until 2016, Rhino would work the independent scene alongside with some dates for NJPW as a part of their attempt to cross into the American market.

June 2014 would see Rhino return to a TNA ring where he would once again form multiple alliances until his eventual departure from the company once again in February of 2015.

February of 2015 saw Rhyno return to the WWE as a part of the NXT tapings. December of the same year he would make his return to the main roster and would team with The Dudley Boyz and Tommy Dreamer as a part of the revamped ECW Originals.

In 2016, Rhyno would team with Heath Slater which would see the duo win tag team gold.

Rhyno would once again leave WWE in 2019 and make his return to the independent scene as well as continue to work dates with TNA which at that time was known as IMPACT.

While contracted under with TNA, Rhino would appear at the GCW Most Notorious event held in his home of Detroit and would defend the ECW Television Championship against Matt Cardona and would lose the match and the Championship to Cardona.

At the end of 2024, Rhino announced that he was parting ways with TNA.

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Rhyno’s career has been very storied, and he is someone who has worked for all the major companies throughout the world. He would even become the inaugural World Series Wrestling Heavyweight Champion in 2005.