home * wwtmm * banners * told you so * theatre * links * ftn OK, we all know who this is, but bear with me here- the story is pretty compelling. Before kayfabe was so readily and frequently broken by professional wrestlers and promotors, business-protecting wrestling mags like Pro Wrestling Illustrated and its' cousins often helped federations and wrestlers further storylines. Case in point: In the early 90's, one such mag published an article on a longtime indy worker named Al Snow who was, in their words "The Greatest Wrestler You've Never Heard Of". The story sold Al as a great technical and aerial wrestler who spent most of his career as an underappreciated babyface. "Coincidentally", around this time Snow had entered Jim Cornette's Smoky Mountain Wrestling as a great worker and underappreciated babyface. Playing off of the article's premise, Snow turned heel and joined forces with the Unabomber (Glen Jacobs, later known as Isaac Yankem, Fake Diesl, and Kane) to win the Smoky Mountain tag belts. Unfortunately, Smoky Mountain was quickly going out of business, but Cornette used his ties with the WWF to get many of his workers positions there after SMW folded. One of those workers was Snow, who was repackaged on three separate occassions. First, he was Shinobi, a Japanese assassin. Later, he became a Hayabusa clone known as Avatar. Avatar would walk to the ring unmasked, then inexplicably mask himself before the match began. Oddly enough, this gimmick didn't get over either, and Snow was repackagad again, this time as Leif Cassidy, a hilarious parody of 70's hipsters and half of the newly-heel New Rockers with Marty Jannetty. Unfortunately, the Rockers couldn't get over wither, and after a brief attempt to get Cassidy over as a singles wrestler with mental problems, Vince McMahon "loaned" Snow to ECW to see if Paul Heyman could do anything with him. The result? Snow took a shot at the WWF's backstage antics by inventing "Head" (the WWF is long-rumoured to have a sexually harassing backstage environment that includes a policy by gay worker Pat Patterson known by some WWF athletes as "the Head for a Push program". According to the storyline, being forced into ridiculous gimmicks like Avatar and Shinobi sent Snow's mental health in a downward spiral, and he soon began talking to a mannequin head for career advice and inspiration. McMahon soon brought the hugely over Snow back to the WWF, with mixed results. Since then, Snow has made several derogatory references to his past as Avatar. Site Design ©2000 Floor Tile Graphics. All materials are property of W. Josh Bentley and Floor Tile Graphics or are believed to be public domain. This site is best viewed with Internet Explorer at 800x600 resolution.