Although Johnson didn’t have the longest or most successful career in the WWF, he did achieve something that most wrestlers would give an eye (or at least several teeth) for: a clean pin on The Rock. It’s mind-boggling to watch this match from Monday Night Raw in September of 1997 and hear the way Vince McMahon gushes over the intensity and abilities of Ahmed while saying almost nothing to put over The Rock.
Unfortunately, while this match shows how high up on the wrestling totem pole Ahmed Johnson got, it also puts the brightest spotlight right on his faults. He throws barrages of fake-looking punches, slices open his hand taking the steps (a bump in almost every single one of his matches), and looks generally ready to burst out of his skin throughout. Everything on Ahmed’s side of the match looks awkwardly timed, peppered throughout with him checking over his shoulder to find the ropes every single time before culminating in the ugliest Magistral Cradle to ever make WWF TV. At one point, heel truth-teller Jerry Lawler states matter-of-factly, “He’s injury-prone — face it!” Ahmed got pretty high on the card, but this match tells you all you need to know about why he never rose to the top position that Vince McMahon had envisioned for him (which, eventually wound up going to his opponent, The Rock).
Ahmed Johnson embodies many of the most frequently made mistakes of the WWE during his era. Presented as a top star when he was way too green to hold up his end of the bargain, propped up at the expense of more talented, deserving stars who was pushed and promoted because he “looked the part” before anybody decided how he was actually going to deliver. A Greek god look with cold, steely intensity comparable, he could have been something really big if he received proper training and creative planning. Superstars like Goldberg and Batista — whose super slow burn push seemed to have been a response to lessons the WWE learned promoting Johnson — made it to the very top of the business with essentially the same skillset. From an objective standpoint, his career was a failure: he never improved at his craft and he never reached the heights he was supposed to.
But there is a sincerity of effort and an earnest terribleness that makes Ahmed Johnson one of the most intriguing fallen stars of the Attitude Era and, surely, Essential Viewing.
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