Chapter 1: The Sign-Language Sampson Who Fell into a Wrestling Ring
Before Matt Bloom was making Japanese crowds gasp in awe or American crowds chant “Shave your back!”, he was a high school teacher. Yes, a real teacher—one who taught math and English to deaf students and kids with behavioral issues. It’s the kind of backstory that makes your average grunting heel seem downright literary. Somewhere between diagramming sentences and signing algebra equations, Bloom took three students to a wrestling show and said, “Hey, I could do that.” Not just be a wrestler—he left teaching to become a walking wall of pierced flesh and aggression.
He trained under Killer Kowalski (because of course he did) and debuted as “Baldo,” a name that sounds like either a depression-era hobo or a rejected Disney villain. With a rug of fur draped over his shoulders and a face like a war crime, Baldo stomped through the independents until the WWF inevitably noticed his charming combination of size, rage, and the general aura of a man who bench-presses refrigerators for fun.
Chapter 2: Prince Albert—Body Piercing and Public Beatings
When Bloom debuted in the WWF in 1999 as “Prince Albert,” he was supposed to be Droz’s personal body piercer. Because nothing says Attitude Era quite like nipple clamps and implied urethral mutilation. He wasn’t just pierced—he was a piercing, a six-foot-seven walking Hot Topic with sideburns.
Teaming with Droz (until a tragic injury), then Big Boss Man, and eventually forming the highly suggestive “T&A” tag team with Test (with Trish Stratus managing, proving God both giveth and taketh away), Albert was that rare sort of talent: perpetually one big moment away from mattering. He was agile for a big man, intense, and deeply committed to kicking the heads off his opponents. Yet for all his hustle, he was often booked like a man who showed up to a blackjack table and kept being dealt Uno cards.
Chapter 3: The Hip Hop Hippo and Other Signs of Creative Bankruptcy
After T&A imploded, the creative geniuses at WWE repackaged Bloom into the lighthearted, fun-loving “Hip Hop Hippo,” a role that reeked of “we have no idea what to do with this guy, but dammit, he’s still under contract.” Paired with Scotty 2 Hotty, Bloom danced, he wiggled, he high-fived. It was the wrestling equivalent of watching a grizzly bear forced to perform jazz hands.
His matches weren’t bad, but the gimmick had the shelf life of a gas station egg salad sandwich. Despite his sheer mass and surprising agility, Bloom was rarely taken seriously on WWE’s main roster. Even his 2001 Intercontinental Championship reign was over faster than you could say “push-that-ends-in-obscurity.”
Chapter 4: The Shogun Cometh—Giant Bernard Takes Japan
Then, the plot twist: Bloom got fired and turned into a god.
In 2005, Matt Bloom reinvented himself as “Giant Bernard” in Japan—a name that sounded like a kaiju who wore a three-piece suit and sued other monsters for emotional damage. But unlike his earlier gimmicks, Giant Bernard worked. Gone were the comedic dancing and piercings—here was a massive, bald-headed juggernaut tearing through All Japan and New Japan Pro Wrestling like a tattooed tank with knees.
In NJPW, he tagged with Travis Tomko (yes, really), then Karl Anderson (yes, even better), and together they formed “Bad Intentions,” one of the most dominant tag teams in Japanese history. They held the IWGP Tag Team Titles for a record-setting 564 days and unified them with Pro Wrestling NOAH’s GHC Tag Titles. That’s like winning the Stanley Cup and then also taking the Lombardi Trophy out of sheer boredom.
In Japan, Bloom was no longer the butt of jokes or the Hip Hop Hippo—he was the final boss. He was Vader with a better gas tank and less screaming. In the land of strong style, Giant Bernard was a respected heavyweight threat, proving that all it took to become credible was to leave the company that made you dance in lingerie.
Chapter 5: Return of the Mistake—Lord Tensai and Cultural Appropriation in Cargo Armor
Like a sitcom star returning for a dramatic HBO reboot, Matt Bloom came back to WWE in 2012 as “Lord Tensai,” a gimmick equal parts homage and awkward cultural cosplay. Accompanied by a silent Japanese lackey named Sakamoto (who was really just there to be slapped), Tensai was covered in kanji, wore samurai-themed ring gear, and moved like a man trying to recreate his Japanese glory while dragging the ghost of Prince Albert behind him.
He squashed Alex Riley, John Cena, and CM Punk, and WWE tried to push him like a new monster heel—but fans just saw a sweaty American guy covered in Japanese tattoos with the lingering memory of him as the Hip Hop Hippo. “Albert” chants broke his mystique like glass under a bowling ball. Within weeks, the gimmick flopped so hard it needed its own life alert. Soon he dropped the “Lord” part of his name—then lost his wins, his mystique, his valet, and eventually his will to wear pants without stretch waistbands.
Chapter 6: The Retirement of Sweet T
After his monster run fizzled, WWE gave up and leaned into the absurd. Tensai was rechristened “Sweet T,” paired with Brodus Clay in a tag team called “Tons of Funk.” They danced with The Funkadactyls, lost matches, and played like someone dared WWE to write the worst children’s programming in history. By 2014, Bloom was quietly moved off TV and into the backstage area—where he finally found his true calling.
Chapter 7: The Teacher Returns (Now With Less Lycra)
In a full-circle moment of poetic absurdity, Matt Bloom—once a schoolteacher who left education to fight men in spandex—became the head trainer of WWE’s Performance Center. There, he molded young wrestlers, taught psychology, drilled basics, and showed wide-eyed rookies footage of himself hitting Baldo Bombs and being eliminated from 47 different Royal Rumbles.
In the Performance Center, Bloom achieved what evaded him for decades: respect. No more glitter pants, no more piercings. Just a clipboard, a whistle, and the quiet dignity of being the man who helps future champions avoid becoming dancing hippos with chest hair you could knit sweaters from.
Final Chapter: The Evolution of a Meme
Matt Bloom is not a legend in the sense of titles or main events, but rather in the way that wrestlers speak about him with reverence. He is the living embodiment of wrestling’s eternal cycle: underappreciated bruiser, ridiculous gimmick, foreign god, creative casualty, redemption. He didn’t just survive pro wrestling—he outlasted it, molted through gimmicks like a wrestling cicada, and came out on the other side bald, wise, and holding a clipboard.
If there’s any justice in the world, one day someone will induct Matt Bloom into the WWE Hall of Fame—not for being a champion, but for being wrestling’s most versatile chameleon. And if they don’t, then may someone sneak a “SHAVE YOUR BACK” chant into the ceremony anyway.
Because no matter the name—Prince Albert, A-Train, Lord Tensai, or Giant Bernard—Matt Bloom has truly seen it all… and probably has a kanji tattoo to prove it.
