Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
He was a UFC heavyweight champion in Mixed Martial Arts and a world champion in the world of pro wrestling. He was accompanied to the ring by a loud, brash manager. Not only that, had a contract that limited the amount of dates he worked in the WWF. He also had a nickname of ‘The Beast.’ If you guessed we are talking about the Beast incarnate Brock Lesnar….you would be wrong. The man in question, was none other than ‘The Beast’ Dan Severn.
Dan Severn was on top of the MMA world as a UFC champion. He was also dabbling in professional wrestling being a long time admirer of Lou Thesz. Severn was trained as a pro wrestler by Al Snow and wrestled for various independent promotions. His biggest achievement in pro wrestling came when he defeated Chris Candido to become the NWA world champion in 1995. A title he would hold for four long years.
It was Jim Cornette who had the idea to bring Dan Severn into the WWF to possibly feud with another former MMA and then current WWF star Ken Shamrock. Cornette had worked with Severn a few years earlier in Smoky Mountain Wrestling. He knew what Severn could and couldn’t do and wrote up a 10 page scouting report on The Beast in hopes the WWF would sign him.
According to both Cornette and Bruce Prichard, Vince McMahon had never heard of Severn and knew nothing about his prestigious background in MMA or in pro wrestling. Despite that, both WWF and WCW courted Severn to join their promotions. Dan Severn wanted a very unique contract that would limit his time in wrestling, so he could possibly pursue other ventures. WCW had lost interest, because they wanted him exclusively. McMahon and the WWF agreed to his terms simply out of desperation due to their losing battle with WCW.
Dan Severn signed a lucrative deal with the WWF, in which he was only required to work 60 dates. That was half of what other full time WWF stars were expected to work. Severn was brought in as the crown jewel of Jim Cornette’s NWA invasion angle in 1998. Severn came in as the reigning, defending, undisputed National Wrestling Alliance World Heavyweight champion.
In the beginning, Severn was booked as a badass that would absolutely dominate and destroy his opponents. He defeated the likes of Flash Funk and Savio Vega and was a monster heel within the company. According to Bruce Prichard, as time wore on….Vince began noticing that Severn wasn’t exactly the most charismatic wrestler either in the ring or cutting promos. Add to that, Severn was holding the NWA title and did not want that belt to outshine his own.
The limited dates in his contract also helped McMahon begin to sour on ‘The Beast’ as the WWF needed to go over Severn’s scheduled dates with him so as their were no scheduling conflicts with outside projects. Buyer’s remorse was setting in.
WWF creative wanted to do something a bit different with this MMA machine and approached him with a new gimmick. According to Severn, management asked him to join the Undertaker’s faction the Ministry of Darkness and become a disciple of the Dead Man. In doing so, they wanted Severn to write the number “666” on his forehead as the number of the Beast (Get it?)
Severn refused citing that he lived in a very small town and didn’t want that imagery to hurt his reputation within his community. Severn said that management threatened to make him start to look bad by losing to various opponents. Severn laughed and told management that no matter who they put him in the ring against in WWF’s “Fantasy World” there would be nothing or nobody that would stop him from making things more real and make the entire company look bad.
Talent backstage started fearing him and refused to work with him thinking that Severn would simply snap one night and hurt them in the ring. This forced the WWF’s hand and started looking at ways to dump Severn’s contract. In the end, it was left to Jim Ross to meet with Severn and offer him a buy out of his remaining dates on his contract. Severn agreed to the money offered and walked away from the company.