Former WWE creative team member Kevin Eck spoke in his latest blog about the Tensai character played by Matt Bloom and what went wrong.
“When Bloom returned to WWE a few years ago, the intention was to make him a main-event-level monster heel, and the creative team was assigned to come up with a character for him,” Eck wrote. “Among the pitches for Bloom were for him to be a masked mauler, an ex-prisoner in an orange jumpsuit and an American samurai.”
Eck continued, “I was of the belief that the best option was to give him a cool-looking mask with black ring attire that showed the tattoos on his upper body but covered his ample midsection. The more we hide his identity, I thought, the less chance the crowd will be chanting ‘Albert’ at him.
“I also thought he needed a mouthpiece, and my suggestion was to hire James Mitchell as his manager. The samurai character was my least favorite. Of course, that’s the one we went with. And instead of a manager, he was given a follower who never spoke English named Sakamoto.”
Check out the complete blog at KevinEckWrestling.com.