Take a look at this man below.
Was there ever a greater “small man” than the Haiti Kid? Whether he was standing his ground against a bullying Roddy Piper, in the ring against King Kong Bundy in front of 93,000 people at Wrestlemania 3, or getting the crap knocked out of him by Terry Funk’s branding iron on a wild Saturday Night’s Main Event in 1986, inch for inch, no one showed more heart than the Kid. While the Kid virtually disappeared from the wrestling world from the late 80’s up until his death in 2001, his little man fighting spirit lived on in WCW – in the form of this week’s Jobber Of The Week, Adrian Byrd.
Now, while it’s true that Adrian Byrd was no midget, it is safe to say that he was definitely vertically challenged. Take a look at him facing off against Bobby Eaton here. In the ring against Byrd here, “Beautiful” Bobby almost looks like a giant.
Heck, get him a pasty white naked suit like Giant Gonzales had and call him El Eaton-ae. Uh, after quickly getting nauseated at the mere thought of seeing a painting of Eaton’s ass on a costume, let’s quickly change the topic, shall we?
Sure there have been shorter wrestlers enter the ring – Rey Mysterio for example – but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man so short pack on so much muscle mass. The end result makes Byrd look like a jakked-up hobbit from Lord Of The Rings, or something. While he may have been low to the ground, the Power Plant graduate wasn’t low on skills. The standing dropkick the pint-sized grappler could pull off put Jumpin’ Jim Brunzell or Greg Gagnes’s aerial moves to shame.
Despite the ups he had for his dropkick, that alone wasn’t enough to get him to Dusty Rhodes’ famous “pay winda” very often. From late 1997 – 2000 Byrd was on the losing end of practically every WCW Worldwide and Saturday Night match he ever had. The only real moment of note for the sawed-off enhancement talent would be when he became part of Sid Vicious’ incredibly ridiculous and bogus “winning streak” of 1999. His fate – much like last week’s JOTW Disorderly Conduct – would be sealed with the cancellation of WCW Saturday Night, when he and the rest of the jobbers on that show appeared to fall off the face of the Earth.
Who knows what Adrian Byrd is up to these days. We here at Wrestlecrap can only hope and predict one thing for our short friend ….. and that is that the future for him is looking up.