Brian Damage
In the Summer of 1989, Fred Ottman was a highly sought after free agent on the independent circuit. After wrestling in territories like Florida, Georgia, Texas and Tennessee…the 6 ft 3 in and close to 400 lbs Ottman was being courted by both WCW and the WWF. He was about to sign with WCW, however, a few WCW wrestlers convinced him to sign with the World Wrestling Federation instead. The spotlight was brighter and the money was better….so Ottman joined the WWF.
The original plan was for Ottman to come into the WWF as a monster heel managed by Slick. He had a few dark matches with Slick as his manager, but ultimately that idea was scrapped. Instead, Vince McMahon and Pat Patterson came up with a sailor gimmick. A modern day Popeye character complete with a red striped shirt, white pants and a sailor hat. He would also shout out… “toot, toot” during matches. Ottman was named Tugboat Tyler….then it was changed to Tugboat Thomas…until eventually settling on just plain Tugboat. So as not to be confused with Tugboat Taylor who wrestled on the independents.
Vince McMahon and Pat Patterson were convinced that Tugboat was going to be a huge star for the company. To ensure Tugboat’s success, he was immediately paired with the WWF champion Hulk Hogan. According to the storyline, Hulk discovered Tugboat and personally trained him to become a professional wrestler. Tugboat could be seen in various promos with the Hulkster and even teamed up with him on house shows.
While to many, the Tugboat gimmick was just another silly character in the cartoonish world of WWF….Ottman actually liked the gimmick. Fred Ottman was always a positive individual, who wanted to make the best out of any situation. Ottman was happy he was getting a big push and also loved to make kids happy. He completely embraced the gimmick. Fans, on the other hand, were not so enthralled with Tugboat.
Despite his huge push, fans weren’t taking to Tugboat as had hoped. There were even fans booing the ultimate babyface gimmick. Seeing that Tugboat wasn’t getting over, Vince McMahon decided to do a complete 180 on the character. A high level WWF executive in Bruce Prichard claimed that McMahon wanted Tugboat to turn heel and become a sheik. He would then win the WWF title and face off against Hulk Hogan in front of over 100,000 fans at the Los Angeles Coliseum at Wrestlemania VII. Prichard said the idea was universally rejected by everyone in the creative meeting and the plans for a heel ‘Sheik’ Tugboat were thrown out. So much so, Tugboat wasn’t even booked for the Wrestlemania card. Vince’s idea would eventually get resuscitated and go to Sgt. Slaughter instead. Even though the Tugboat heel turn was initially rejected, everyone was in agreement that the Tugboat gimmick wasn’t working and Ottman needed a change. Seeds began being planted of Tugboat being sick and tired of being in Hulk Hogan’s shadow. Tugboat would attack Hogan in an ‘every man for himself’ battle royal. It was the beginning of Tugboat’s personality change. Behind the scenes, Ottman was not too keen on becoming a villain. He enjoyed his time as a babyface character, but being the professional that he was decided to go along with whatever they had planned for him.
In June of 1991, on an edition of Superstars Wrestling…Tugboat teamed with the Bushwackers to take on the team of Earthquake and the Nasty Boyz. During the match, Tugboat turned on the Bushwackers and embraced Earthquake. At the time, Earthquake was one of Hulk Hogan’s biggest adversaries. The heel turn was complete and Tugboat changed his name to Typhoon. A play on the fact that Tugboat was a man of the sea and this washed it all away. Typhoon would form a team with Earthquake and be known as ‘The Natural Disasters.’
The one on one feud with between Typhoon and Hulk Hogan never really happened…although they did have a couple matches against each other. Instead, Typhoon enjoyed tag team success winning the WWF tag titles with Earthquake on one occasion. The Natural Disaster also won tag team gold in Japan. The gimmick change is exactly what Fred Ottman’s WWF career needed.
