Former WWE writer Kevin Eck has published a new blog over at KevinEckWrestling.com, and below are some excerpts on original WWE plans for the Lord Tensai character. For those unaware, Lord Tensai was played by current WWE NXT head trainer Matt Bloom, aka Jason Albert.
“When Bloom returned to WWE a few years ago, the intention was to make him a main-event-level monster heel, and the creative team was assigned to come up with a character for him. Among the pitches for Bloom were for him to be a masked mauler, an ex-prisoner in an orange jumpsuit and an American samurai.
I was of the belief that the best option was to give him a cool-looking mask with black ring attire that showed the tattoos on his upper body but covered his ample midsection. The more we hide his identity, I thought, the less chance the crowd will be chanting ‘Albert’ at him.
I also thought he needed a mouthpiece, and my suggestion was to hire James Mitchell as his manager. The samurai character was my least favorite. Of course, that’s the one we went with. And instead of a manager, he was given a follower who never spoke English named Sakamoto.”
