Steve Blackman
Steve Blackman is a former American professional wrestler who is best known for his career in WWE. Nicknamed 'The Lethal Weapon', Blackman won the Hardcore Championship six times in his tenure with the company. After the Head Cheese team went their separate ways, Blackman entered WWE's Hardcore Division. At the time, the title was defended 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as established by Crash Holly. Because of this, WWE often ran matches wherein the champion was attacked and defeated in locations not typically associated with wrestling matches, such as backstage or in a hotel. With Blackman as champion, however, surprise attacks no longer resulted in title changes: within the matches, Blackman was so dangerous in hand-to-hand combat that surprise attacks were not effective enough to defeat him. During his stint as Hardcore Champion, Blackman's full martial arts talent was utilized. The first time he lost the title for a significant amount of time was against Shane McMahon, largely due to interference from Test, Albert, Edge, and Christian, with Mick Foley suspending the 24/7 rule to make sure McMahon didn't try to get out of facing Blackman in a rematch. At SummerSlam, Blackman fought McMahon for the title. During that match, they both climbed the TitanTron with Blackman able to knock Shane off with a Singapore cane, then performed a diving elbow drop for the pin fall . Blackman would go on to defend the title on several occasions, but he would ultimately lose the title on a more permanent basis to Raven in late 2000. At Unforgiven, he retained the WWE Hardcore Championship against Test, Funaki, Al Snow, Crash Holly, and Perry Saturn. Later, he was ordered by Shane McMahon to come out and speak after he accused Blackman of running over Stone Cold Steve Austin at Survivor Series the previous year. Before he could speak, Austin came down to the ring and stunned both Blackman and McMahon. Early in 2001, Blackman formed another tag team, this time with Grandmaster Sexay. Blackman again played the straight-faced man: a recurring element was that Grandmaster would always try to convince Blackman to dance with him after their matches. In the summer of 2001, Grandmaster was released from his WWE contract. Blackman was then sidelined due to an injury. He made his last TV appearance on June 25, 2001 episode of Raw with APA and other mid-card superstars planning a fight against The WCW Invasion. Blackman left WWE in October 2002. Sporadic appearances Blackman opened a self-defense school in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania called "BlackmanMMA" in mid-2003, teaching jujitsu and wrestling. Blackman and MMA fighter (UFC Hall of Famer) and wrestler Ken Shamrock were brought in to help promote a clothing line for professional fighters, called Ground 'n' Pound gear (GnP). As of July 2006, Blackman has re-opened "Steve Blackman's Fighting Systems", which features MMA classes. Blackman has hosted four MMA events in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania starting in 2009 and the most recent being on November 20, 2010, at the Zembo Mosque. The events are part of the Pennsylvania Fighting Championships (PFC).
