Dale Torborg
| Dale Torborg | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Birth name | Dale Christian Torborg |
| Born |
October 24, 1971 Mountainside, New Jersey |
| Professional wrestling career | |
| Ring name(s) | The MVP The Demon Dale Torborg |
| Billed height | 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m) |
| Billed weight | 275 lb (125 kg) |
| Trained by |
DeWayne Bruce WCW Power Plant The Warlord Jim Neidhart |
| Debut | 1995 |
| Retired | 2007 |
Dale Christian Torborg (born October 24, 1971) is an American baseball trainer and former professional wrestler. He is the son of former Major League Baseball manager Jeff Torborg. He is currently the conditioning coordinator for the Chicago White Sox.
Torborg attended Northwestern University, and played college baseball for the Northwestern Wildcats. He played professional baseball after graduating from college. A fastball to the face while in the minor leagues ended his baseball career.
In 1995 on the way to LA, Torborg met Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage. The two of them spoke with Torborg about going into the wrestling business. Torborg was trained by The Warlord and Jim Neidhart and debuted in 1998. He debuted in WCW and was said to have been a member of the WCW Pit Crew and was training in the WCW Power Plant.
In 1995, he then worked for the American Wrestling Federation as The MVP, a baseball player character. After the AWF closed he was employed by World Championship Wrestling and was sent to the Power Plant to train. Some of the wrestlers in the Power Plant at that time were Bill Goldberg, Lodi, Chuck Palumbo, Mark Jindrak, Jimmy Yang, Evan Karagias, Shane Helms, Allan Funk, Christie Wolf, Ron Reis and many more future superstars. In 1998, he started to get a push as the MVP but after two matches as the MVP, he was asked to portray a character named The Demon. WCW head Eric Bischoff struck a deal with the rock band Kiss to create a Kiss-themed wrestler, "The Demon", a gimmick modeled on the stage persona of Gene Simmons. Torborg originally was told he was the Demon and was abruptly taken out due to Brian Adams having much more experience in the ring. Adams admitted to never feeling comfortable as the character. The gimmick was played twice by Brian Adams, rejected by him without wrestling a single match, and given to Torborg. He was managed by Asya (Christi Wolf), whom he later married. The "Demon" character was originally supposed to be the beginning of a stable called The Warriors of KISS, in which the other original members of the band would have a wrestler representing their look and gimmick. KISS was guaranteed their "Demon" themed wrestler would wrestle a Main Event match with the contract they made with WCW. This was supposed to happen at a special 1999 New Year's Eve PPV against Vampiro. The PPV and the match were taken off the table, however, after Eric Bischoff lost his position in September 1999. In order to fulfill the contractual obligation, he was booked in a "Special Main Event" match at Superbrawl in early 2000. Uncharacteristic to "Main Event" matches, it was the fourth match on the card and saw Torborg face The Wall which saw The Wall win with a chokeslam. Because Bischoff lost his position before the character's wrestling debut, The Demon character got off to a rocky start, losing to Terry Funk in its debut. Bookers at the time wanted to make Eric Bischoff look bad. Torborg contends that the character was hurt because the KISS concert to debut The Demon was one of the lowest rated segments in the history of WCW Nitro up to that point and even though Bischoff believed in the character, others believed it was dead on arrival.
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