Lanny Poffo
| Lanny Poffo | |
|---|---|
Poffo in August 2014
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| Birth name | Lanny Mark Poffo |
| Born |
December 28, 1954 Calgary, Alberta, Canada |
| Residence | Largo, Florida |
| Professional wrestling career | |
| Ring name(s) | The Genius Lanny Poffo |
| Billed height | 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) |
| Billed weight | 252 lb (114 kg) |
| Billed from | Downers Grove, Illinois |
| Trained by | Angelo Poffo |
| Debut | 1973 |
Lanny Mark Poffo (born December 28, 1954), better known by his ring names "Leaping" Lanny and The Genius is a Canadian-American professional wrestler, motivational speaker, poet, actor and credit councilor. Poffo was born in Calgary, Canada, to Angelo Poffo, an Italian American Catholic, and Judy, a Jewish American. He is also the younger brother of "Macho Man" Randy Savage. Poffo grew up in Downers Grove, Illinois and currently makes his residence in Largo, Florida, a suburb of Tampa.
He began wrestling in the NWA territories in the 1970s before becoming a star in his father's promotion, International Championship Wrestling, where he held the promotion's title. Over the course of his regional career, Poffo both tag teamed and feuded with older brother Randy. Both brothers, along with their father, Angelo, were extremely popular in the Maritime provinces of Canada in Emile Dupre's "Atlantic Grand Prix Wrestling" which had a weekly television spot on ATV and toured the Maritimes doing shows seven days per week with some days hosting two shows in two different towns. Upon the ICW's folding in 1984, he joined Randy in the CWA before traveling with him again to the World Wrestling Federation in June 1985. The brother angle was never worked in the WWF and the relationship was never mentioned on-air.
While Lanny was not a headlining WWF star like his brother, he built a niche for himself wrestling as a babyface. In his first role as Leaping Lanny Poffo, he would bring frisbees to the ring, read a short poem written on one of them that he himself had penned, and then throw the frisbees into the crowd. Each poem typically ridiculed the heel that he was about to wrestle against, or infuriated the heel by building heat for the face with whom the heel was feuding at the time. During his early career in the WWF, he was not a main-eventer and wrestled primarily as enhancement talent on television shows. However, rather than being squashed like most jobbers at the time, he was typically allowed a greater amount of offense in his matches, and won some matches (usually against other enhancement talent). He found great success on house shows, where he frequently defeated other undercard wrestlers. Poffo performed an agile, high-flying style at a time when big, heavy wrestlers still dominated the promotion. He was one of the first wrestlers in North America to use moves like the Senton Bomb, and particularly the moonsault, though the announcers of the time referred to the latter as a "leaping backflip". He attained some infamy in late 1986 and early 1987 by competing in a series of Bunkhouse Battle Royals in full knight's armor. He also is noted for competing in a Battle Royal on Saturday Night's Main Event at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit in 1987, where he was headbutted and eliminated by André the Giant, causing him to bleed heavily all over the floor and have to be carried out on a stretcher. André, in his first televised match as a heel, had accidentally caught Poffo on the bridge of the nose with his headbutt and stitches were required to close the resulting wound.
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