Heavily rumored to be inducted last year in Atlanta, Ron Simmons will get his due and join the 2012 WWE Hall of Fame class at this years Wrestlemania. Simmons began wrestling for WCW, after a successful college career at Florida State, in 1989 initially as a tag team wrestler. Forming the team Doom with Butch Reed, Simmons was able to obtain minor success with the tag team titles before splitting off as a solo wrestler in 1991. It wasn’t until 1992 that Simmons stepped into the spotlight defeating Big Van Vader for the WCW Heavyweight Title in August of that year, making him the first recognized black heavyweight champion int wrestling and holding the title for five months. After dropping the title back to Vader, Simmons was consistently used as a mid-carder before parting with WCW in 1994.
With a brief stay in ECW following his WCW departure it wasn’t long till Simmons joined the WWE in 1996 debuting as the gladiator Farooq Asaad. This gimmick didn’t last long as he soon dropped Asaad from his name and formed the Nation of Domination stable with other wrestlers such as The Godfather, D-Lo Brown, The Rock, Mark Henry and others where his group feuded with the likes of Degeneration-X, Los Boricuas, and DOA for the next two years before disbanding in 1998.
Once the Nation broke up I believe Simmons became most well know teaming with JBL to form The Acolytes. Grouped with The Undertakers Ministry, The Acolytes went on to hold the WWE Tag Team championships until 1999 when The Ministry was disbanded as well.
This lead to Simmons and JBL becoming the Acolyte Protection Agency where they would assist any wrestler with problems if the price was right (usually beer and money). The A.P.A were quite over with the crowd delivering their beatings to anyone in their way and held the tag team title multiple times as well feuding with the likes of The Dudley Boys, The Hardy Boyz, Edge & Christian, The Hollys and The Mean Street Posse up until 2002.
In 2002 the A.P.A was split up during the WWE draft and JBL went on to a successful solo career as Ron Simmons briefly continued to wrestle until finally retiring in 2002, briefly reuniting the A.P.A for a short reunion in 2004. Simmons stayed with the WWE after retiring as an in-ring competitor, mainly in backstage segment cameos where he would come in and spout his new catchphrase DAMN!, until 2009 before leaving the company.
As of now there is no word on who will be inducting Ron Simmons into the Hall of Fame but if I had to guess I’d go with JBL, but we will find out when the Hall of Fame ceremony takes place on March 31st during Wrestlemania weekend
February 21, 2012
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