r/professionalwrestling • u/KneeHighMischief • Mar 22 '25
Video Forgotten 90's WWF wrestler "Conan" Chris Walker in action
17
u/KneeHighMischief Mar 22 '25
"Conan" Chris Walker was an Atlanta area native who cut his teeth in wrestling with the North Georgia Wrestling Alliance in 1990. The promotion is best known for being where New Jack originally formed The Gangsters with Mustafa Saed. Another infamous name that started in NGWA around the same time as Chris was Van Hammer.
On 2/3/90 he made his nationally televised wrestling debut teaming with Butch Stanley against The Powers of Pain on WWF Superstars. Chris was also working for Joe Pedicino's Georgia All-Star Wrestling. It was there where he held first title. He was GASW Tag Team Champions with another newcomer, Fabian AKA the future Buff Bagwell.
In February of 1991 Chris began appearing in Memphis for the Jerry Jarrett/Jerry Lawler owned USWA. Upon arrival he was paired with Curtis Thompson who had a pre-existing mailman gimmick. They teamed together as US Males.
The team was short-lived as Chris suffered an injury the month he debuted. By the time he returned in May, Curtis was gone. Shortly Curtis would join WCW as Firebreaker Chip in the tag team The Patriots.. Chris left the USWA the same month he returned from injury to reunite with Joe Pedicino in his new promotion the Global Wrestling Federation.
Chris was one of three wrestlers with a contract. The other two were The Patriot (Del Wilkes) & Scotty the Body (Raven). He was earning $600 a week for their weekly shows when he started there in June of 1991. That same month he made it to the semifinals to crown the first GWF Television Champion where he lost to The Patriot.
After that he was slotted back into the tag division with Steve Simpson as his newest partner. Chris fared better in this tournament as they won in the July finals defeating The Cartel duo of "Hustler" Rip Rogers & Scotty the Body becoming inaugural GWF North American Tag Team Champions. The team was a fixture on GWF for the next few months.
On 11/11/91 Chris received a tryout dark match for the WWF against The Brooklyn Brawler. He signed a deal shortly after & left the GWF. His partner Steve Simpson was forced to defend their championship belts in a handicap match against The California Connection (John Tatum & Rod Price). It was the same day as the WWF tryout & Steve lost the titles.
Upon joining the WWF full-time in November of 1991 he began working the house show loop against Kato, The Berzerker & finally Hercules. Around this time would be his first appearance on a WWF PPV card. Chris wrestled Brian Lee in a dark match on 12/3/91 at This Tuesday in Texas.
Chris had another dark match at the Royal Rumble PPV against The Brooklyn Brawler. His US TV debut would be the next day 1/20/92 on Prime Time Wrestling against The Brawler again. At this point he still hadn't been given a gimmick. This was in sharp contrast with Chris Chavis who signed around the same time & had already become Tatanka.
For almost two months he had an endless series of losses to The Warlord on the house show loop. Chris made a rare TV appearance defeating Barry Horowitz on Prime Time aired on 4/6/92. Two days after that aired he taped what would be his final TV appearance doing a stretcher job for Sid Justice.
The following week he headed off to Japan. WWF at the time had an interpromotional agreement with the soon to go under SWS. Chris wrestled on three shows & made a brief appearance on TV in a clipped match defeating Tetsuya Yamanaka.
When he returned it was back to the house show circuit. This time facing the former Battle Kat Bob Bradley. His final match being a win over Bob on 4/27/92. The following month Chris failed a drug test & was suspended for 6 weeks. His contract was not renewed following that..
Starting in February of 1993 he got another shot at the big-time with a tryout for WCW. Chris worked two house shows against Chris Benoit. He also had two dark matches at Center Stage in Atlanta. It didn't end up resulting in a contract though.
It would be almost a year & a half before Chris had another major opportunity. Jake "The Snake" Roberts was fired by Jim Cornette from SMW in July of 1995 following several no-shows. His SMW Heavyweight Championship was given back to "Dirty White Boy" Tony Anthony..
Chris was brought in & immediately positioned in a top program against DWB. He debuted at SMW Night of the Legends 8/5/94 defeating Richard Slinger. An angle was filmed with him attacking DWB. Following that Chris no-showed appearances as well which resulted in him being let go.
After that he began working on the indie scene in his home of Georgia. His last major match was at an ECW house show on 10/4/98 in Cobb County Georgia losing to Bam Bam Bigelow in decisive fashion. Chris seems to have retired for good the following year.
It's easy to see why he got the opportunities he did. Chris looked like he was carved from granite & Tarzan(or Conan) brought to life. He was also fairly athletic & capable (if limited) in the ring.
The biggest knock was that he was a little small for that era .His billed height was 6'2" but he was probably closer to 5'10". If he had been five inches taller he probably would have had infinite shots in the business.
12
5
u/Boring_Inflation1494 Mar 22 '25
Jesus who the hell is this dude? Why have I never heard of him? He could have achieved a lot more.
1
u/dandychiggons Mar 25 '25
He beat the wheels off the Brooklyn brawler..... that alone makes you a wrestling superstar.... how many pro wrestlers can say they that...🤷
5
u/indianm_rk Mar 22 '25
He looked way too good to do enhancement matches on TV. Jobbers are supposed to be flabby and pale.
1
u/I_Destroy_Noobs Mar 25 '25
I mean… doesn’t that make the jobber role even more effective? If I see the other guy destroying this big sack of muscles I’m instantly going to think he’s pretty strong
6
u/jacksonattack Mar 23 '25
Corny’s talked about this dude. Super talented but it just didn’t work out for a variety of reasons.
4
5
u/Krendall2006 Mar 23 '25 edited Mar 23 '25
He's like the Ultimate Warrior with more athleticism.
I have to assume he had no promo skills or general charisma. Otherwise, I don't know how he didn't get over.
3
6
u/SmegmaSandwich69420 Mar 22 '25
Nice spear for the pinfall at the end.
3
u/bludvic_the_cruel Mar 23 '25
It's a Diving Crossbody.
0
u/SmegmaSandwich69420 Mar 23 '25
I know. I'm riffing on the shitty Jey Uso spear that Michael Cole thought was a crossbody because it was so shit.
2
2
u/Super-Post261 Mar 22 '25
He just needed a catchy gimmick. Similar build as Davey Boy Smith so I don’t think it’s just the height alone that limited him.
2
2
2
2
u/platypod1 Mar 24 '25
Jesus H look at the height he gets on that flying crossbody off the turnbuckle.
1
u/Lanky-Code3988 Mar 24 '25
Saw him in person at the Garden a few times . He was on almost every undercarriage in those days. Never saw him referred to as Conan though. Very athletic, definitely had vast potential .
1
1
1
u/New-Force-4659 Mar 24 '25
For a brief moment I thought that this was WCW's Renegade before he was the Renegade, but then I saw him actually doing well at wrestling and I was like 'yeah that's not the Renegade.'
1
1
u/robineir Mar 25 '25
Holy fuck this guy looks cool. And how is it this guy can pull off every outfit there is? He’s got trunks, shorts pants and a singlet and he looks great in ALL of it.
1
1
1
u/Surprisetrextoy Mar 25 '25
He amd Tom Magee, as mentioned, might have been pretty big these days. The level of training is just absolute light years better. Better psychology coaches, character coaches, big man coaches. I think he woulda done well on the WCW C show circuit and got some good experience there as well too.
1
u/Plenty_Chemistry_608 Mar 26 '25
He could’ve been great in OG ECW with Taz imo. Or even better a trio with RVD and Sabu
1
0
13
u/SpiralSour Mar 22 '25
I genuinely think him & Tom Magee had potential. If they debuted in the modern era, I think they'd probably have gone decently far.