If you remember Ahmed Johnson, you aren’t the only one. One person who remembers Johnson is Jim Cornette and he doesn’t have very fond memories.
Johnson had the world in the palm of his hands but he seemed to let it slip away. Ahmed Johnson picked up the Interconentail Championship and carried it for a short time before feuding with the Nation Of Domination.
It didn’t take long until Ahmed and WWE went their separate ways when he was wished the best in his future endeavors in 1998. Johnson picked up quite a bit of weight and signed with WCW where he spent a short time there going as “Big T.” That didn’t last long either.
Jim Cornette remembered his experiences with Ahmed Johnson on a recent episode of Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru.
“He was from Texas and burst on the scene somehow somewhere because Vince saw that body and he had been trained — I didn’t know what he background was I didn’t make my point to investigate Ahmed’s background. But he had been in the business a very short time, he looked like that.”
“You know he could have been Junkyard Dog times ten with the push they gave him. But he was A) injury prone, B) prone to injure other people, C) not as physically equipped, he was for the wrestling business, but mentally unequipped for the wrestling business, D) began believing he was over to the extent of even greater than his push rather than his actual performance — all of the above.”
“It was one of those, he was a ship that passed in the WWF night. And whatever he had been doing to look like that by the time he showed up in WCW he had quit doing it.”
Corney went on to tell an amazing story illustrating just how bad it got with Ahmed in the prime of his career. This kind of story could be looked at as a cautionary tale but let’s just chalk it up as a wasted chance of someone achieving what they really could with their potential.
“My favorite Ahmed story was what he did to Dennis Coralluzzo when finally his brief career — I mean he went from main eventing WWF pay-per-views and two years later he’s working for Dennis Coralluzzo in Rahway, New Jersey or whereever, that’s about how it happened.”
“But in that instance, Dennis had booked him and he was in his hotel — Ahmed was in his room and Dennis sent a guy to pick him up to take him to the show and Ahmed didn’t want to ride in the guy’s car and said ‘I need a limousine’ and refused to leave the hotel — after flying to New Jersey from apparently from Texas he refused to leave the hotel in wherever the f-ck D-ck Lick, New Jersey it was to go five minutes to the f-cking high school unless he had a limousine.”
“So Dennis announced at the show on the PA system in front of a sold-out crowd that Ahmed had refused to come to the show from the hotel to wrestle for those fine folks because we didn’t send a limousine for him so if you’d like to call him and express your displeasure his number is boom-boom-boom and gave the number and the room number and people called him all f-cking night.”
“So he flew to New Jersey, didn’t work, didn’t get paid cause he didn’t get a limo, didn’t didn’t get any sleep, and went back f-cking home — that’s the last I’ve heard of Ahmed Johnson. He was the sh-ts.”
Jim Cornette concluded his statements about Ahmed Johnson by talking about how big Ahmed Johnson could have been if he would have capitalized on his opportunities. Vince McMahon and Company apparently had big plans for Johnson.
At the time Bill Watts was in WWE and Cornette said he was sure Watts had the same vision for Ahmed Johnson.
“[Bill] Watts I’m sure obviously thought and same as Vince [McMahon] I mean Vince wasn’t thinking Junkyard Dog, he was thinking Earnie Ladd or Bobo Brazil or whatever. But they were gonna make a huge black superhero. And he could have been rolling in money if he would have just been able to get his sh-t together. And then the bell rang.”
“You know, he looked great and even his promos even though you couldn’t understand a word he said he sounded like he meant something. So if he would have got his sh-t together on that side of it and not got hurt, not hurt other people, and become a raging egomaniac about his push chances are he would’ve been rolling in money.”
If you use the quotes in this article please credit Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru with a H/T to Still Real To Us for the transcription.
