Shane Laota, an aloof, soft-spoken Arctic Hare from a small, northern fishing town, would explode onto the wrestling scene with his legendary run in the NWF, shattering what was expected portrayal of a performer of his species and paving the way for other, traditionally smaller species to find a place in the main event of mainstream, western wrestling. becoming an internationally recognized star and champion along the way. And all the while, he barely cracked a smile.

What's one word you think of when you think of Shane Laota?

"Just...[chuckles]...intensity."
-Adrian King, former NWF World Champion

Shane made himself known to the wrestling world as a no-nonsense, no-frills world-beater with a cold, hard stare and an even harder pair fists.

"This is a business that, despite how it looks, only has a few, legit badasses. And I'd like to think myself as one of them, but let me tell you this, if you were working a match with Shane, you knew you were gonna have to take a hot soak after."
-Rig "Hardway" Hardwick, retired professional wrestler

Working since he was a kid on his father's fishing boat, Shane grew up in a town called Naskanchwa, part of a remote region dubbed by locals as "The Nail."

"If you grew up in the Nail, chances are you'd been in a few fights. There wasn't really a lot of entertainment venues up there, there wasn't a lot of activities outside of work or school, so it's just a bunch of bored tough guys, and tough girls I might add, pissed off and picking fights with strangers or even their friends, just to have something to do. You know, you might even have like...scheduled fights, essentially, outside the old tire shop, or behind the middle school, out under the docks, and that's what you had for entertainment, mostly."
-"Sassy" Mitch Massie, wrestling promoter, historian, and manager

With a young life consisting almost entirely of either school or hard work, Shane found escape in one thing: wrestling.

"Oh, he watched...every chance he'd get, every Saturday, he, you know...he worked out a deal with dad that he'd get that hour or so on Saturday to watching the wrestling matches, I mean, he just loved it.
-Naomi Laota, sister

Following his passion, Shane joined his school's wrestling team when he was thirteen years old, quickly establishing himself as one of the team's star players with his explosiveness and conditioning. Laota knew the entire time, however, that this was just a pit stop on the way of achieving his true dream of wrestling professionally, in front of a crowd of thousands, a career path that wasn't warmly received at home.

NAOMI: Well Mom was more, you know...concerned, 'oh, you know, are you sure this is right for you?' but dad was the one who really...really came down on Shane, thought he was throwing his life away on this wrestling stuff, you know, saying 'we never should have let him watch that trash' that kind of thing."

Despite the objections of his father, upon graduating school, Shane would travel south, seeking out one of the toughest wrestling coaches in the world for training, "The Doctor" Arn Karloff.

MASSIE: Shane was basically living out of his car, rolling up mats, cleaning up, working the school for free in exchange for training. And even that was considered charitable for Arn so he must've seen something in that tall, lanky long-ear. And the Doctor kicked that poor kid's ass, you know, I think he was trying to get him to quit at first but Shane just kept coming back, and Arn started to see, hey, maybe this kid's serious.

It was during his time training under the Doctor that Shane developed his infamous affinity for hard-hitting offense.

MASSIE: Arn tells the poor kid, you know, give me a few corner punches, show me what you got, and Shane you know, he kind of mimes the punch, does the stomp, he figures, I know how this business works, bushes his forearms up against the Doc's head, until Arn comes out of the corner, throws Shane in there, and just starts waylaying the kid, lighting him up with punches and chops to the chest, over and over and over again, until Shane just collapses to the mat, struggling to breathe. "THAT'S how you throw a punch," Doc tells him. And let me tell you something. Shane never forgot that.

With the toughness and discipline imparted by one of the wrestling world's most ruthless trainers, Shane had all the tools he needed to make it in this business, putting him on a path to the biggest, most prestigious promotion of them all. The question was: were they ready for him?


-A HARD-HITTING FIRST IMPRESSION-


When Shane Laota first arrived in the NWF, he immediately caught the attention of fans with a fierce look and a physique to match.

ZANE: Most of the other smaller species there, the rabbits, the squirrels you know they had that slimmer, more agile build, and then Shane comes in looking like this...lean, tall...god, basically, heh. And he had that look, that stare, like...well, I can't do it, my eyes always look like I just opened my favorite birthday present but...yeah, you know the one."

HARDWICK: He didn't dance around and pose too much up on the ramp, he just marched down to the ring with that look in his eye, and that walk, and you knew immediately, this guy's business.

ZANE: A lot of those other, smaller guys, they were just...dancing around, high energy, happy-to-be-there types for the kids. Shane was the first one to be presented as just this...badass.

But those those standing across the ring from Shane, hoping the newcomer merely looked the part, those hopes were quickly dashed as soon as they experienced Shane's explosive offense.

"I just remember that he had like...the hardest knife-edge chops, and the stiffest like...European uppercuts."

"Yeah. Just came in, ate somebody alive, then left."
-Jodie and Leigh, tag team "Superbad"

JODIE: I mean when you're a kid you're always hearing from your friends like, wrestling's fake, wrestling's fake, and you start to stop believing, but with Shane, even your non-wrestling fan friends are like...oh yeah, that's gotta be real.

In addition to his bone-cracking strikes, Shane Laota introduced audiences to the signature and finishing maneuvers which would earn him the distinction of one of NWF's premiere pain-makers.

KING: He had that spear, and you know a few guys did that move here and there but nobody did it like Shane because nobody else had, you know...had that hare's leg and foot strength, to LAUNCH off of the mat just before impact, and absolutely drill a guy straight in half.

ZANE: Oh my gosh, that spear just...it made you go [winces] every time you saw it, But that's what made it so...awesome.

MASSIE: I mean it got to where we had to pull him aside backstage and tell him hey kid, your spear looks great, but you're killing guys out there, we need to do dial that back, and I mean...he did, sorta. But it got to the point where the boys were giving each other advice on how to take that move without getting your [bleep]ing ribs broke. That's why if you go back and look, most guys taking the move would already throw their feet up underneath 'em before he even touched them, just to absorb some of that impact.

And of course, Shane's finishing move, a dreaded hold called the Excruciator, was submitting opponents night after night.

MASSIE: The Excruciator came from Arn, he was finally setting up for a match where Shane was gonna be put over and Arn asks him, hey kid, what's your finish? Now by this point, Shane's only ever been jobbing to the other guys, he'd never been booked to win one so he never bothered to come up with a finish. So Arn's like, come over here a second, and he puts Shane in a crossface, showing him how to do it, and you know Arn, he damn near rip's the kid's shoulder out of his socket and he goes, that's your finish. The name was simple, Shane said it was the most painful, excruciating thing he'd ever felt in his life, and the rest is history.

ZANE: Well the Excruciator was the inspiration for my hold, the Celestial Rings. When Shane put that hold on somebody, and wrenched his neck and shoulder back like that, it was just the most...agonizing thing I'd ever seen, and I thought, I wanna tap guys out like that, I wanna have guys yelling and squirming around.

Aside from his special moves, Shane developed a reputation for his impeccable execution in the ring, His maneuvers were crisp, and his movements, deliberate. Despite his limited experience, Shane was proven to be wise beyond his years, a true natural at the craft he loved.

ZANE: Shane was, you know...that was the wrestler I wanted to be. And it wasn't just because, you know, he looked like me, or at least not just because of that, but I loved the wrestlers who WRESTLED. The big guys with their...posing and their...roaring, you know, that didn't impress me the same way as the guys who just did their thing, and did it so well in the ring. Guys like Shane are what made you appreciate the art of what we do.

KING: Oh yeah, he was one of the most reliable guys to work with I mean, he'd beat your ass, but he'd keep you alive in there.

JODIE: And he had like...the most beautiful dropkick.

LEIGH: Yeah. Sublime.

MASSIE: The conventional wisdom of our business is that Shane Laota...probably had the most beautiful dropkick there ever was.


-SHANE [REDACTED] LAOTA-


After making a strong first impression upon debuting with the NWF, it wouldn't take long for Shane Laota to acquaint himself to fans and fellow wrestlers alike as one of the business's most legitimate tough guys. And in a business known for its larger than life personalities, Shane stood out specifically as a result of his stoic, straight-laced presentation, a quality he retained even off-camera.

KING: Between matches, the guys would be back there you know, ribbing each other, some of them even sneaking a drink or two, and Shane's over in the corner doing squat thrusts and sit-ups, or...you know, he was reading a lot.

MASSIE: Shane always stressed the importance of being well-read you know, and in his bag with him he always had two, three books or he'd be reading the paper, there was nothing he feared more than coming off as ignorant or uninformed. He didn't want to be that big, dumb wrestler cliché. You've got the boys back here, filling each other's bags with baby oil or sometimes much worse than that, screwing around, talking about females, and Shane's over here reading up about the [bleep] damn rebel forces down in some bum[bleep] country!

HARDWICK: He just wasn't that kind of guy you know, he didn't really play around much. Wasn't a bad guy, he wasn't, like...the friendliest guy you ever met, he could be stand-offish, kind of a loner, but he was a nice enough dude if he trusted you, but he just didn't get involved in any of those stupid games, he kept to himself, did his job, went back to the hotel.

MASSIE: Well it's not quite accurate to say that Shane NEVER partook in...a rib or two on one of the boys. [Laughs] The thing is, if the other boys could get Shane in on one, he was kind of their secret weapon because nobody ever suspected Shane! He just didn't do those things, or so you thought!

Even with the increasingly wild and at times controversial personalities around him, Shane remained committed to his all-business persona, largely disinterested in adding any bells or whistles to his character, a trait both praised and occasionally ridiculed by fans and peers alike.

KING: Shane wasn't the most...charismatic guy, you could say. He was content to let his work in the ring do his talking. He wasn't boring, I mean he was destroying guys in the right left and right, that certainly wasn't boring, but you know, he wasn't much of a talker, wasn't a real...personality guy.

ZANE: Whenever Shane had a feud with somebody who was...more extroverted, had more personality, it was a common dig that they'd talk about how he was dull or how deadpan he seemed.

MASSIE: Well Shane was a...legit guy, he was imposing and everything but you know, he was from way up North, all the way up in Naskanchwa, and he had the accent to go with it which...maybe wasn't the most intimidating voice you could end up with, and Shane himself was, you know, he was kind of a shy guy, he wasn't much of a talker, even with the boys in the locker room. I think it was decided early on they'd focus on his strengths, which was his in-ring work, and hide his weaknesses, which, some would say, was his mic work, and that's just wrestling 101. And I think that did wonders for his overall mystique I mean, when he did get on the mic, he didn't [bleep] around, he got right to the point, he'd tell you, this is where you're gonna go, which is down, here's when you gonna get there, which is now, and this is how you're gonna get there, which is me.

KING: When he did talk, [chuckles] his one kind of go-to phrase was 'you scrawny bastard.'

ZANE: [imitating Shane's accent] You scrawny bastard!

HARDWICK: [imitating accent] Scrawny little bastard!

One particular attempt to spice up Laota's on-screen presence was met with impatience by the dismissive star, which, through a series of peculiar circumstances, would ironically lead to a breakthrough moment in Shane's connection with the fans, as well as leading to one of NWF's most popular pieces of merchandise.

MASSIE: Well the story goes, Shane's in the locker room, lacing up or whatever, can't remember if it's a house show or if this was TV, and they go in there, couple of the suits or whoever and they're telling him you know, we need to get you a proper nickname, you know, we need something to put on the merch, on the shirts, because he'd only ever gone by his birth name, Shane Laota. And they're pitching him stuff like the...Frozen Warrior or the Cold Cutter, just stupid [bleep] like that, and finally Shane gets sick of it and goes "How about Shane [bleep]ing Laota?" And he stomps out of the room, you know, to do his match or whatever. And I dunno if it was a rib on him, or if they just didn't get that he was pissed at them, but sure enough, few weeks later they got this shirt, black, big, block letters, all scratched up, and just says Shane. [Bleep]ing. Laota. They put a, you know, a little star over the U. [Laughs]

JODIE: Oh yeah, everyone had that shirt, it was kind of this...epidemic, kids wearing it to school, getting sent home to change, you'd have to like...hide it under a button-up or something.

LEIGH: Yeah.

ZANE: I DID have the shirt, but...I didn't have the guts to wear it to school, I mostly hung it up in my room. And I didn't think my dad would buy it for me, so I had my sister do it secretly for me from a concession stand at a house show we went to.

MASSIE: And that thing was a HIT. You had kids all over the playgrounds seeing their friends with this shirt, for however long they could before they got sent to the principles office to take it off, and even if you never watched wrestling in your life your friends would come up to you and say "Hey, who's this Shane Laota guy?" and they'd be like, well I'm gonna tell you all about this [bleep]ing guy.

KING: [Chuckles] It was so simple, but it did wonders for his persona. I mean, it just worked. He wasn't just Shane Laota. He was Shane...F-ing Laota. And if you didn't know him, and were wondering where the 'F-ing' came from well, just sit down and watch, you'll see real soon.

The new shirt and moniker fit NWF's rising star like a glove. To the relief of parents and educators alike, Shane would soon after be given a secondary nickname: The Real Deal. Both were aided by an in-ring presence which continued to present Laota as an athlete who commanded respect - or just plain took it.

MASSIE: Shane had this reputation of...not tolerating what he deemed to be weak or pulled punches on him, and I GUARANTEE you that comes from Arn Karloff. If you went in that ring and hit Shane with a little...pissant chop, he'd just look at you like...are you out of your [bleep]ing mind? And then [laughs] he'd chop your [bleep] damn head off!

HARDWICK: We actually set a kid up once, you know there was this kid, Matt Flash, and he had a lotta heat with the boys, you know, young punk, thought he knew everything, didn't wanna pay his dues...so he's supposed to go out there and work a match with Shane and we pull him to the side and go, oh, when you get out there, hit him with just a soft little chop, you know, just a little thing on the chest, it's a sign of respect, tells him he can trust you in the ring. So he goes out there, hits Shane with this limp-fish chop, poses a little, Shane just give him that, 'what the [bleep] are you doing' look, 'cause you know he doesn't like this kid either, and then the kid hits him with it again! And Shane just grabs him by the neck, throws his ass into the corner and...laughs]...just lights this [bleeping] kid up! I mean he's chopping him, open hand palms, uppercuts, just caving this kid's chest in, and we're just...we're laughing our asses off watching this in the back and...[laughs]...that...wasn't very nice, was it?


-HISTORY IN THE MAKING-


Laota was rapidly establishing himself as NWF's next big star, and more importantly, pulling in a lucrative audience in long sought after demographics. With fans of smaller species finally seeing a main event star they could relate to, it was only a matter of time before Shane's coronation as the company's top talent. And the start of this journey would begin at the Grand Royale, where in order to punch his ticket to the biggest match of his entire career, all Shane would have to do was outlast twenty-four other competitors, all vying to toss each other over the top rope and claim that Championship dream bout.

MASSIE: Shane was becoming a big, big star but I still think there was a lot of cynicism by some fans about what the ceiling was. Going into the Grand Royale, I don't think a lot of them actually expected Shane to win it, and the company was leaning into that. Obviously, you know, the winner goes on to face the world champ, and leading up to the event, they'd been kind of putting a red herring out there with a little mini-feud going on between Adrian King and Braun Brody. So everybody kinda assumed that Brody was gonna win the whole thing.

ZANE: I mean, my heart said Shane...but my brain said...[shakes head] probably not. Probably Brody or somebody like that.

Going into wrestling's most famous battle royal, none of the fans could anticipate that they would bear witness to one of the most unforgettable events in NWF history.

MASSIE: So Shane enters at number 2, and you know, the number 1 spot is usually the that gets all the hoopla so people forget that it's just as impressive to start from 2...

JODIE: And he was in there for like...an hour.

LEIGH: Yeah.

JODIE: I mean he was there the whole time.

ZANE: ...Until finally it comes down to Shane and Brody.

KING: Brody's like 400-some pounds at that point.

MASSIE: Adrian King, our world champ, we're talking a three-hundred pound, jacked mother-[bleep]ing lion in his prime, and I don't care how much of a badass he looked before, if we were gonna present this quiet, shy jackrabbit from out in the middle of bum[bleep] nowhere as somebody who can hang with King, then we've gotta do something big.

In the closing moments of the match, the colossal grizzly Braun Brody seems to have the match won, lifting the much smaller Shane with ease and dropping him over the top rope, where Shane was barely able to cling to the ring apron. What happens next would kick off one of the most exciting finishes to a Grand Royale match fans would ever see.

HARDWICK: So Brody's got Shane on the apron there, and Shane's kinda you know, kinda down and out.

MASSIE: And Brody rears back to charge at him, and knock him off the apron onto the floor, and eliminate him, and just as he's charging in, Shane cuts him off with a huge European uppercut, knocks him loopy, grabs him by the head...

HARDWICK: [Slapping bicep] And boom, boom, boom, boom.

MASSIE: It's a shot you've seen in every [bleep] damn video package ever since, this beautiful shot with Shane's back to the hard cam, just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, with uppercut after uppercut, over and over and over again, the crowd's going crazy....

JODIE: He had to have hit him like twenty frickin' times.

KING: And he hits him with like ten or twelve of these European uppercuts.

ZANE: He hit him sixteen times in nine seconds. I've watched that clip like...a bajillion times over. Sixteen times in nine seconds.

MASSIE: Brody's on dream street now, and stumbles back, and Shane vaults back over the top rope, hits Brody with one of those dropkicks of his.

ZANE: And Brody like...bounces off the ropes, stumbles back, Shane hits another dropkick, Brody comes off the ropes again...

MASSIE: And finally Shane just says [bleep] it, and just picks the big [bleep]er up!

JODIE: And it was like...

LEIGH: Holy crap.

"You've gotta be kidding me!! Are you kidding me!?

"Im-freakin-possible!!"
-commentary excerpt from Grand Royale match

ZANE: I'll never forget it, my sister and I were watching and we just lost our...lost our minds when Shane Laota picked up Braun Brody, I mean, we were yelling, we were...jumping off the couch, I think dad thought one of us died or something.

KING: And finally Shane dumps him with a body slam over the top rope, and the roof just about blew off of that place.

MASSIE: Everyone's thinking, you know, if Shane's gonna win there's gotta be some...gimmick, some kind of trickery on how he's gonna get Brody over the rope, nobody was expecting he was just gonna pick the [bleep]ing guy up and just throw him over!

JODIE: Probably the...greatest Grand Royale ending ever?

LEIGH: Yeah.

Shane's dramatic victory in the Grand Royale match earns him the match of his career against the reigning world champion, Adrian King, a match with not only historic implications, but also cultural ones.

ZANE: The talk around school was basically, oh, Shane can't actually beat Adrian King, you know, they're just doing this to throw a bone to the Leps and the Rodents, at least for the ones who knew it was scripted. For the ones who thought it was real they were just like, Adrian's gonna kill him.

MASSIE: The build for this match kind of leaned into that idea, you know, presenting King as this kind of...elitist ass[bleep] who had taken it upon himself to prop up the status quo.

"You might not realize this but we have a whole system in place to prevent people like...you...from ever becoming champion. And that system...is me."
-Excerpt from Adrian King's promo to Shane Laota

HARDWICK: [chuckles] Few people in this business are as good at just being an...absolute prick than Adrian.

MASSIE: There was talk backstage about if Shane winning the title would alienate our established fanbase, but after we had Adrian out there running his mouth like we was I mean...we were pretty much at the point of no return here.

ZANE: The build for that match was just so, so good, so much heat on that. I just remember like...Shane pulling Adrian out of his limo and beating the crap out of him, and then on the go-home show, Adrian absolutely decimating Shane.

MASSIE: The week before the Pay-Per-View, Adrian and his stooges jump Shane in the ring, and I mean you know what they say, white fur tells no lies, and they bust him open, just beat the [bleep] out of him, leave him for dead.

ZANE: And you expect that to be the last image you see, Adrian and his cronies marching back up the ramp, roll credits.

MASSIE: Instead, you start to hear this heavy breathing over the loud speaker, cut back to the ring, Shane's got a mic in his hands, blood just pouring down his face, in his eyes, and funny accent and all, he proceeds to cut the best god [bleep] promo of his career.

"...What's gonna happen is that you're gonna kick my ass, you're gonna tear into my flesh, you're gonna take my blood, you're gonna try and break me. And then you're gonna step back. And then you're gonna cower behind your futile, little hands, because I'm gonna bring the same right back to you, King. I'm gonna uppercut your head off. I'm gonna spear you in half. And I'm gonna lock in the Excruciator and put you in the kind of pain you've only read about in religious texts. And you know it, King. Because when you look me in the eye, you and everybody else knows who the hell I am. I am Shane...[bleep]ing...Laota. And Sunday, I'm gonna march right through the Knights, cross right over the moat, smash right through the gates, march right into the King's Palace, and BURN THAT MOTHER [BLEEP] TO THE GROUND, YOU SCRAWNY BASTARD!!"
-Shane's promo to Adrian King

MASSIE: And it was King's face that sold it, like...what in the hell did I just awaken, here?

ZANE: I just remember thinking...Shane's gonna win. I mean, he has to win. I won't know what to believe in anymore if he doesn't.

MASSIE: Shane was adamant that the match not just be a...little guy vs. big guy match, he wanted to show that he could hang with Adrian King, move for move, slam for slam, and that defied all conventional wisdom of this kind of match.

With all the hype, talk, and buildup behind them, Shane Laota and Adrian King were ready to put on what is perhaps the NWF's biggest bout to date. The opening moments of the championship clash show fans around the world that this would not be the giant-slayer type of match they might have been expecting.

MASSIE: Opening moments of the match, Adrian locks up with Shane, and just pushes him all the way back into the corner, then just backs up a bit, has that smirk on his face, pats Shane's head right between the ears. Just to send him a message.

ZANE: I remember him just...so condescendingly patting Shane on the head, and then out of nowhere Shane just decks him with this straight right.

JODIE: Just freakin' drops him like it's nothing.

MASSIE: And with that one punch, Shane communicates to all the fans, I'm not afraid of this guy. He [bleep]s with me, I'll just punch him in the [bleep] damn mouth.

As the match proceeds, Laota and King put on a war in front of a hot, capacity crowd hanging on their every move. Just as Shane had insisted, he's responding to King's powerful offense in kind, giving the champion all he can handle, and proving why he is the rightful top contender for the richest prize in the business.

ZANE: It's getting down to the wire, you can tell both guys are tired, Adrian hits him with the King's Crown, goes to pin him and you're like, agghhhh, oh no...

MASSIE: And you've gotta understand, that move's been protected like crazy for the past couple of years now, he hit you with that, you were DONE.

JODIE: Shane kicks out of the King's Crown and it was just...

LEIGH: Effin' awesome.

"Look at the face of Adrian King! King just hit Shane with his best shot!"

"...But he didn't win!"
-Commentary excerpt from King vs. Laota

ZANE: After Shane kicked out of the Crown I was like, that's it, Shane's winning this thing, you can't have somebody kick out of King's Crown and then lose.

To the shock of fans in attendance and all over the world, the match continues, a battle of attrition leading all the way up to the final sequence of the match.

HARDWICK: One of Shane's signatures was that he'd hit the triple-Germans, the three suplexes in a row.

ZANE: Oh my gosh, he gets his arms around King and hits the first one, and then the second one...

MASSIE: And he hits number three...and then he hits number four...!

"And there's number three...and number four...!"

"No Adrian, it's not over yet, you're still on the ride...!"
-Commentary from King vs. Laota

ZANE: And finally he hits him with the fifth and...final one, and I just remember I'm like...hopping around the living room, off the furniture, dad's telling me to settle down, the crowd on TV were going bonkers...

HARDWICK: And you know Shane, doesn't give him even a second's breather, goes right in with the Excruciator.

MASSIE: Shane's got the Excruciator locked in, that hold Arn Karloff taught him back before he ever even caught a whiff of TV, on the heavyweight champion of the world.

ZANE: King's just...growling and thrashing, and he's...desperate, and me and my sister, we're just shouting at the screen, TAP! TAP! TAP!

HARDWICK: Credit where it's due, Adrian was in that hold for...felt like forever, and Shane don't cinch that thing in lightly.

MASSIE: Finally Adrian manages to actually get up to his feet, while Shane's still got the hold applied and hits him with this kind of...cradled slam to the mat, and you think that finally breaks the hold, and then Shane just flips him back over and locks it in again!

ZANE: I swear that submission hold was like...the longest four hours of my life. I mean I think it was probably just...two minutes or something like that but like everything just stopped, nothing else in life was important, if a fire started in our house during that hold, I would've been in trouble, I wouldn't have even noticed.

MASSIE: Adrian's in this hold so long, he's gone from growling to just plain screaming, until finally, it happens.

"...Oh my god!"

"He tapped! Adrian tapped! The champ tapped out!"
-Commentary from King vs. Laota

ZANE: ...Dad didn't even try to get me and my sister to bed that night.

JODIE: It was just very...surreal to see somebody like Shane in that spot, holding up that belt.

MASSIE: This shy, quiet, plain-white jackrabbit from up in the Nail marches in and taps out the 300-pound lion world champ in front of the whole world. I mean that's as storybook as it gets.

HARDWICK: Oh we were all happy for him. And it wasn't because of his species, it was because he deserved it. Nobody worked harder, nobody was better. Shane was the right guy, at the right time, and he earned very bit of it.

With his win over Adrian King for the world title, Shane Laota takes his place among NWF's vaunted history of champions, and kicked open the door for more wrestlers like him to find their place on the top of the mountain. All in all, it was a pretty good night for the shy son of a fisher.


-LIFE AFTER HISTORY-


MASSIE: Shane had always been pretty open that, as much as he loved wrestling, he didn't want it to take over his life.

KING: When the first of his daughters were born, that's when he started missing birthdays, missing holidays because he was on the road. It's a story as old as the business itself, and I think that really ate at him, you know, he's a guy who took a lot of pride in fatherhood and wanted to be there for everything. I think that was the beginning of the...countdown on the rest of his career.

NAOMI: Shane loved being a daddy, and I think it just tore him up not to be able to do it more often. It broke his heart to have to call home when it was Tess's brithday, rather than being there with a present and a cake for her. I think that's all he wanted ultimately, was to be able to have that typical, husband, father, family-oriented life.

Having given years of his life to the sport that he loved, the emotional toll of life on the road, away from his family, began to mount. And, of course, so did the physical toll.

HARDWICK: Shane's out here delivering these spears every night, going 120%, it was only a matter of time before he neck was gonna start acting up.

MASSIE: It finally got to where he was gonna have to get surgery, and that was gonna put him on the shelf for months, maybe a year. So he goes to get patched up and...well, he never comes back.

ZANE: There wasn't really like this formal send-off for him when he left, he was just there and then he...wasn't.

MASSIE: Shane's contract was up while he was out recuperating and meanwhile his wife's in his ear telling him you know, you gotta be here for these little girls, and if your neck got screwed up once, it's gonna happen again if you go back in there banging it around. And I think that got to him, and he just...never re-signed.

NAOMI: I think once he got a chance to be home for a good long time he realized, that's where he wanted to stay. He'd lived his dream, he became a wrestler, he became famous, he became champion...you know, my brother's a very goal-oriented guy, and I think he just realized, he'd done what he wanted to do, and his next goal was to be the father and husband that he always wanted to be.

MASSIE: In a lot of ways, Shane worked the perfect career. He came in, rose like a shooting star, became champ...and then he left the business before it killed him. I mean, you can't ask for much more than that, can you?

Although Shane opted to leave wrestling perhaps before his most ardent fans were ready, leaving them to wonder how far he could have gone, the legacy of his no-nonsense, no-frills, take-no-guff attitude would be passed down to the next generation.

"Ridgeway keeping that hold on past the 5-count...and look at this, referee Tess Laota digging her claws into the face and eyes of Ridgeway, pulling him off of Hall!"

"Hey don't complain Ridge, she could've disqualified you!"
-Commentery excerpt on referee Tess Laota

MASSIE: Now you've got his daughter Tess in there, and she's got her daddy's pissed-off eyes, grabbing guys by their ears, slapping 'em across the face if they get in hers, this little 5' 6" doe in there yelling at these 250, 300 pounders, and you better believe they listen to her!

TESS: I think they're all good boys deep down, they just a little...extra guidance from time to time.

ZANE: I mean how cool is that? Normally referees are presented as these kinda...silly, super-fragile...occasionally kinda...dumb guys, and then you've got Tess in there who's just a total badass, just like her dad.

KING: [Chuckles] Probably the first ref I ever seen that had their own catchphrase.

TESS: Don't mess with Tess. [Winks]

With the family legacy in good, if at times unorthodox hands, the Laota name is in no danger of being forgotten to the wrestling world anytime soon. But for the wrestlers who found themselves on the receiving end of those flesh-splitting chops, freight train-like spears and the torturous grip of the Excruciator, there's simply no forgetting Shane Laota.

KING: Just one of the toughest, hardest-hitting, hardest-working guys it's ever been my honor to share the ring with.

HARDWICK: When you get hit my Shane, you remember it. Nothing hurts quite like Shane.

And for some of those watching from home, the rise of Shane Laota would prove to be a pivotal and influential time in their young lives.

JODIE: Shane made you think, hey, I can do this.

LEIGH: We don't must have to be midcarders. We can be the big stars.

ZANE: I don't think I have overstate how important Shane's run in NWF was for me, and for my sister, also a wrestler. And I think that was true for a lot of kids out there, rabbit kids, squirrel kids, rat kids. Shane broke that wall down just in time for the rest of us to come...pouring through, looking for our spot.

MASSIE: But what's important to remember that it's gonna take more than just being another jackrabbit, another rat, another squirrel, mouse, vole, whatever the hell else...because Shane wasn't just good for his species. Shane was one of the greatest of all time. Period.

Reposting this with what I hope is improved anatomical proportioning and also to hopefully be inflicted with fewer comments from the weirdos that make up 100% of the furry wrestling crowd. Big V's right, I should probably stop tagging these with 'wrestling' since I apparently want to hear from exactly nobody from that particular guild but damn it I keep holding out hope that I'm gonna find the one other person (and really will just be one, if they exist at all) capable of enjoying wrestling for non-fetish reasons, after which we'll cuddle in the meadow like Thumper and that girl bunny who was twiddling his ears.

Copy-pasted the original bio which I put way, way, way too much work into given the internet's moral objection to literacy.

I didn't specify this last time but you've caught me in a pointless mood so:

King is inspired by Triple H, and the name's a little on the nose for anyone in the know.

You all know Zane by now. He's a bit less animated here, in what was my attempt to portray him as more shy and reserved when he isn't 'on.'

"Sassy" Mitch Massie is hugely inspired by Jim Cornette and his dialogue was literally just me picturing what Cornette would say, in his voice and everything. Also, Cornette is an asshole but, astonishingly, is not Republican.

Jodie and Leigh are a tag team pair I've yet to introduce and likely won't now because it's just not important anymore but they would have been inspired by the likes of the Hardy Boyz or the Young Bucks.

Hardwick is another one I never introduced but was inspired by guys like Tazz.

Shane himself is an amalgamation of a number of technically impeccable 'legit' wrestlers over the years, particularly the ones produced by Canada and that includes the heavy accent.

The promos you see here are inspired in part by real life ones.