The No Limit Soldiers

Last updated
The No Limit Soldiers
Stable
Members Master P
BA
Chase Tatum
Konnan
Rey Mysterio, Jr.
Swoll
4x4
DebutJune 1999
DisbandedSeptember 1999

The No Limit Soldiers were a stable in World Championship Wrestling that was formed after rapper Master P signed with the company. The Soldiers notably feuded with The West Texas Rednecks from June to July 1999.

World Championship Wrestling Former American professional wrestling company

World Championship Wrestling Inc. (WCW) is a defunct American professional wrestling promotion. For much of its existence, WCW was one of the top professional wrestling promotions in the United States, and was a significant competitor to the dominant World Wrestling Federation.

Master P American rapper, entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist and record executive from Louisiana

Percy Robert Miller, also known by his stage name Master P, is an American rapper, actor, businessman, record producer, philanthropist, and former basketball player. He is the founder of the record label No Limit Records, which was relaunched as New No Limit Records through Universal Records and Koch Records, then again as Guttar Music Entertainment, and currently, No Limit Forever Records. He is the founder and CEO of P. Miller Enterprises and Better Black Television, which was a short-lived online television network. In 2009, Forbes estimated Miller's net worth at nearly $700 million, which put him as the third-richest figure in hip hop at the time.

Contents

History

The relationship between WCW and Master P was supposed to be a symbiotic one, with WCW gaining exposure with fans of hip hop music, and Master P getting his cousin Randy Thornton (Swoll) a break in the wrestling business in the United States, as his only prior in-ring experience was a brief stint in New Japan back in 1991.

Hip hop music music genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop or rap music, is a genre of popular music developed in the United States by inner-city African Americans and Latino Americans in the Bronx borough of New York City in the 1970s. It consists of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted. It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, break dancing, and graffiti writing. Other elements include sampling beats or bass lines from records, and rhythmic beatboxing. While often used to refer solely to rapping, "hip hop" more properly denotes the practice of the entire subculture. The term hip hop music is sometimes used synonymously with the term rap music, though rapping is not a required component of hip hop music; the genre may also incorporate other elements of hip hop culture, including DJing, turntablism, scratching, beatboxing, and instrumental tracks.

Randall Thornton is an American former football player and professional wrestler. He is also known for his stint in World Championship Wrestling under the ring name Swoll.

Although the No Limit Soldiers, named such after Master P's No Limit Records, were packaged as a face stable, complete with a rallying cry of "Hoody Hoo", [1] they failed to connect with the mostly Southern WCW audience. Master P was first introduced during a press conference on WCW Monday Nitro on June 14, 1999. In his only other televised appearance, on Nitro the following week, he and the Soldiers (including Brad Armstrong, renamed "BA") bullied heel wrestler Curt Hennig by rejecting a present he gave to Master P's brother Silkk The Shocker—a custom-made cowboy hat—with Silkk stomping on it and Master P then assaulting Hennig with a birthday cake. [1] This created confusion among fans as Hennig was a heel who was being bullied by a group of people promoted by WCW as faces. [2] [ citation needed ] He was reportedly paid $200,000 per appearance by Eric Bischoff for his short participation in WCW. [3]

No Limit Records American record label

No Limit Records was an American record label founded by rapper, entrepreneur and CEO Percy "Master P" Miller. The label's albums were distributed by Priority Records, Universal Music Group and Koch Records. The label included artists such as Snoop Dogg, Mercedes, Silkk the Shocker, Mystikal, Mia X, Mac, C-Murder, Magic, Short Circuit, Lil Soldiers, Romeo Miller, Fiend, Kane & Abel, Soulja Slim, among others.

In professional wrestling, a face (babyface) is a heroic or a "good guy" wrestler, booked (scripted) by the promotion with the aim of being cheered by fans. Traditionally, they wrestle within the rules and avoid cheating while behaving positively towards the referee and the audience. Such characters are also referred to as "blue-eyes" in British wrestling and técnicos in lucha libre. The face character is portrayed as a hero relative to the heel wrestlers, who are analogous to villains. Not everything a face wrestler does must be heroic: faces need only to be clapped or cheered by the audience to be effective characters.

Southern United States Cultural region of the United States

The Southern United States, also known as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South, is a region of the United States of America. It is located between the Atlantic Ocean and the Western United States, with the Midwestern United States and Northeastern United States to its north and the Gulf of Mexico and Mexico to its south.

As part of the storyline, Hennig put together his own four-man country-themed stable of The West Texas Rednecks, along with Barry and Kendall Windham, and Bobby Duncum, Jr. However, the Soldiers outnumbered Hennig's group by nearly two to one, and they were put over the Rednecks in a four-man tag match at Bash at the Beach pay-per-view on July 11 when Rey Mysterio, Jr. pinned Hennig. The country-rap angle abruptly ended thereafter as the Rednecks were moved into a new feud with The Revolution, save for a July 22 match on WCW Thunder in which Hennig pinned Soldiers newcomer Chase Tatum.

Barry Windham American professional wrestler

Barry Clinton Windham is an American semi-retired professional wrestler and the son of wrestler Blackjack Mulligan. He is best known for his appearances with the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW).

Kendell Wayne Windham is an American retired professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, Kendall Windham. He is the son of Blackjack Mulligan and the brother of Barry Windham. He is best known for his appearances with World Championship Wrestling.

Bash at the Beach (1999) 1999 World Championship Wrestling pay-per-view event

Bash at the Beach (1999) was the sixth Bash at the Beach professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW). The event took place on July 11, 1999 from the National Car Rental Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Another setback for the Soldiers was that the group consisted of either unestablished rookies such as Tatum and Swoll, who were booked to defeat experienced workers such as Fit Finlay and Lenny Lane; and repackaged veterans like Armstrong who would often take the brunt of opponents' offense in tag team matches before Swoll would enter to score the pin. None truly connected with audiences, despite the group's inclusion of fan favorites Mysterio and Konnan.

Dave Finlay Northern Irish retired professional wrestler and road agent

David Finlay Jr. is a Northern Irish professional wrestling trainer, producer and retired professional wrestler. He is currently signed to WWE as a producer. He is perhaps best known for his work in World Championship Wrestling (WCW). He has held over 20 championships around the world throughout his career, including the WCW World Television Championship and the WWE United States Championship.

Lenny Lane American professional wrestler

Leonard "Lenny" Carlson is an American professional wrestler, better known by the ring name Lenny Lane. He is best known for his time with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) from 1995 to 2000, where he held the Cruiserweight Championship once.

Konnan Cuban professional wrestler and rapper

Charles Ashenoff, better known by his ring name, Konnan, is a Cuban professional wrestling personality, manager and former professional wrestler. He is currently signed to Major League Wrestling (MLW) and Impact Wrestling. In Impact he is the manager of The Latin American Xchange (LAX) and serves as a member of the creative team. During a career spanning almost three decades, he has wrestled for independent and national promotions in the United States and Mexico, and held fifteen title belts in nine promotions. He has also worked as a manager, color commentator, booker, and creative consultant, primarily for Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (AAA). Outside of wrestling, Konnan is also an occasional rapper.

Aftermath

Following the breakup of the Soldiers, Konnan and Mysterio moved on to form The Filthy Animals, while the other members appeared sporadically on WCW Saturday Night . Swoll and 4x4 were one-time (kayfabe) bodyguards for Dennis Rodman in his feud with Randy Savage, and they, along with BA, briefly feuded with Jimmy Hart's First Family [4] before they were both released by WCW in September, while Armstrong returned to working under his regular ring name. [5] 4x4 temporarily returned as part of Harlem Heat 2000 under the name Kash, then was gone from the company for good when the team disbanded in May 2000.

<i>WCW Saturday Night</i> Former professional wrestling television series

WCW Saturday Night is a weekly Saturday night TV show on TBS that was produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW). Launched in 1971 initially by Georgia Championship Wrestling, the program existed through various incarnations under different names before becoming WCW Saturday Night in 1992. Although initially the anchor show of the Ted Turner-backed wrestling company, the September 1995 premiere of WCW Monday Nitro airing on sister station Turner Network Television usurped the show's once preeminent position in the company, as the primary source of storyline development and pay-per-view buildup.

Theodore Reade is an American professional wrestler who is known for his short-lived stint in World Championship Wrestling. As of 2013 Reade was working on the independent circuit.

In professional wrestling, kayfabe is the portrayal of staged events within the industry as "real" or "true", specifically the portrayal of competition, rivalries, and relationships between participants as being genuine and not of a staged or predetermined nature of any kind. The term kayfabe has evolved to also become a code word of sorts for maintaining this "reality" within the direct or indirect presence of the general public.

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 "WCW Monday Nitro - 06/21/99". DDT Digest. June 21, 1999. Retrieved June 30, 2016.
  2. ↑ WCW Nitro Results
  3. ↑ The Death of WCW, p.202
  4. ↑ "WCW Saturday Night - Saturday, September 11, 1999". DDT Digest. September 11, 1999. Retrieved June 30, 2016.
  5. ↑ "WCW Saturday Night - Saturday, September 18, 1999". DDT Digest. September 18, 1999. Retrieved June 30, 2016.
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