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<mask> (; born June 7, 1955) is an American writer and illustrator of books and comics. His most widely recognized work is his self-created and owned comic book series, Xenozoic Tales, about a post-apocalyptic world where dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures coexist with humans. He is also the current writer of the Prince Valiant comic strip. Early life
<mask> was born  just outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but was raised near Pittsburgh. At the age of six he discovered both comics and classic adventure films, his early favorites including Tarzan and King Kong. As a teenager he was further inspired by such fantasy authors as Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard and the artists who had illustrated their work, including Frank Frazetta, Roy Krenkel, and Al Williamson, Wally Wood, Howard Pyle and Joseph Clement Coll. <mask> enrolled in Kutztown University of Pennsylvania in 1973 and graduated in 1977 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting.From there, he embarked upon a career in advertising illustration, bolstered by such odd jobs as working as a security guard, but he found this work unsatisfying. Career

First comics work
In the early 1980s, <mask> became interested in the burgeoning underground comics scene, which allowed independent artists to publish stories outside the traditional assembly-line approach of the mainstream comics industry. He also became attracted to the art of the classic stories published by EC Comics in the 1950s. At one point, he took the few boxes of 1960s and early 1970s Marvel and DC comic books he owned to a local comic book store and traded them for a large collection of EC Comics. From then on, he began to hone his illustration style to emulate that of classic EC artists. <mask>'s first published comics work was on a story called "The Sea King", featuring Robert E. Howard's character King Kull, which appeared in Savage Sword of Conan #132, published by Marvel Comics. <mask> inked over pencils by Val Semeiks.<mask> did not actively pursue further work from Marvel, however, as he was more interested in developing and publishing comics based on his own concepts. Xenozoic Tales
Throughout the early 1980s, <mask> would germinate the ideas which would eventually bear fruit as Xenozoic Tales. The characters and stories he created were set in a future time period he dubbed the "Xenozoic Age", in which an unspecified cataclysm had all but wiped out modern human society. The survivors emerged from their underground bunkers to find a world transformed, where prehistoric creatures had once again become the dominant life forms on Earth. The first story set in the Xenozoic Age that <mask> completed was "Mammoth Pitfall", but it would not see publication until Xenozoic Tales #2. The first to be published was "Xenozoic! ", which ran in the anthology title Death Rattle #8, published in December 1986 by Kitchen Sink Press.Later work
Since Xenozoic Tales, <mask> has written comics series for a number of publishers, including Dark Horse and DC. Typically these are stories based on company-owned or licensed characters, rather than his own original work. <mask> created the underwater adventure comics series SubHuman, published by Dark Horse comics. In 2002, <mask> contributed a number of illustrations to Conan the Cimmerian: Volume 1, a new reprinting of the Conan stories of Robert E. Howard, published by Wandering Star Books. The book has since been reprinted in paperback by Del Rey as The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian. He was also interviewed by Durwin Talon for Panel Discussions, a nonfiction book about the developing movement in sequential art and narrative literature, along with, Will Eisner, Walter Simonson and Mike Mignola. Since November 1, 2004, he has been the writer for the long-running comic strip, Prince Valiant originally created by Hal Foster.He also wrote the two-issue intercompany crossover Superman & Batman vs. Aliens & Predator. From 2005 to 2013, <mask> released a series of sketchbooks of his studies and finished works through Flesk Publications, starting with <mask>: Various Drawings in 5 volumes released from 2005 to 2011, followed by <mask>: Carbon in 2013. Also with the publisher, he contributed with other artists to the graphic novel Flesk Prime in 2011, and in 2015 <mask> released an illustrated pulp noir/science fantasy adventure novella Storms At Sea. In 2010, he wrote three issues of the series The Spirit, spinning-off of the First Wave limited series, intended to create a new universe of non-superpowered characters like Doc Savage, Batman, Black Canary, the Blackhawks, Wildcat, The Avenger, Rima the Jungle Girl and others. In 2015, <mask> contributed, among other artists, to bring inner illustrations to the tabletop role-playing game Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of, first published in 2016 by British company Modiphius Entertainment. Awards
<mask> has been awarded five Harvey Awards, two Eisners, an Inkpot, a Spectrum, and three Haxturs (from the Salon Del Internacional Comic del Principado de Austurias). Bibliography

Kitchen Sink Press
Xenozoic Tales (w/a, some stories drawn by Steve Stiles):
After the End (tpb, 160 pages, Dark Horse, 2003, ) collects:
 "Xenozoic!"Predator Annual: "Chained to Life and Death" (w, with Tom Biondolillo, co-feature, 1999) collected in Omnibus Volume 2 (tpb, 464 pages, 2007, )
Aliens vs. Predator vs. The Terminator #1-4 (w, with Mel Rubi, 2000) collected as Aliens vs. Predator vs. The Terminator (tpb, 96 pages, 2007, )
Al Williamson: Hidden Lands: "Chapter 1 – Up from South America" (w, with Al Williamson, anthology graphic novel, sc, 224 pages, 2004, )

DC Comics
Superman (w):
DC One Million Omnibus (hc, 1080 pages, 2013, ) includes:
 Action Comics #1000000: "Brave New Hero" (with Ron Lim, 1998)
 The Man of Tomorrow #1000000: "Future Story" (with Georges Jeanty, 1998)
 The 80-Page Giant: "In the Age of Solaris' Heroic Rebirth!" (with Georges Jeanty, 1999)
The Man of Steel:
 "King of the World: Parts 12, 17 and 21" (with Doug Mahnke, in #87-89, 1999)
 "A Girl and Her Robot" (with Mike Collins, in #90, 1999)
 "Nemesis" (framing sequence only, with Doug Mahnke, in #91, 1999)
 "The Sea Beast of Metropolis!" (with Doug Mahnke, in #93, 1999)
 No Limits!(with Dave Gibbons, co-feature, 2002)
Superman vs. Darkseid: Apokolips Now!

masks:
Mark Schultz
Mark Schultz
Mark Schultz
Schultz
Schultz
Schultz
Schultz
Schultz
Schultz
Schultz
Schultz
Schultz
Schultz
Mark Schultz
Mark Schultz
Schultz
Schultz
Schultz


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<mask> Wykeham (; 1320 or 1324 – 27 September 1404) was Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor of England. He founded New College, Oxford, and New College School in 1379, and founded Winchester College in 1382. He was also the clerk of works when much of Windsor Castle was built. Early life
<mask> of Wykeham (born <mask>) was the son of John Longe, a freeman from Wickham in Hampshire. He was educated at a school in Winchester, and probably enjoyed early patronage from two local men, Sir Ralph Sutton, constable of Winchester Castle, and Sir John Scures, lord of the manor of Wickham, and then from Thomas Foxley, Constable of Windsor Castle. In 1349, <mask> was described as a chaplain when he was appointed rector of Irstead in Norfolk, a position which was in the gift of the Crown. Builder

<mask> became secretary to the constable of Winchester Castle and in that capacity learned about building.This led to architectural work for King Edward III, for whom he reconstructed Windsor Castle whilst residing at Bear's Rails in Old Windsor. <mask> developed a reputation for the administration and supervision of royal building works during the reign of Edward III. By May 1356, he was clerk of the works for houses being built for the Crown at Henley on the Heath in Surrey and Easthampstead in Berkshire, and he was appointed surveyor of the long-running works to develop Windsor Castle in October 1356. He rapidly rose in royal service, and in July 1359 he was appointed chief keeper and surveyor of Windsor Castle, Leeds Castle, Dover Castle, and Hadleigh Castle, and many royal manors, including Sheen, Eltham and Langley, effectively in the office later called clerk of the king's works. He also took charge of the building works at Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. State administrator under Edward III
<mask>'s career took a turn by 1361, when he became a royal secretary, part of the administration of the royal finances, and by 1363 he was a royal councillor. He was present when the Treaty of Brétigny was agreed in Calais in 1360.In January 1361, Edward III and John II of France jointly to petitioned Pope Innocent VI, to make <mask> a canon at Lincoln Cathedral. He was appointed Justice in Eyre south of the Trent along with Peter Atte Wode in 1361, a position he held until about 1367. <mask> was ordained in 1362 and paid for his services by being given the incomes of various churches. For instance, in April 1363, Edward III presented him to the archdeaconry of Lincoln, a move that was approved by Pope Urban V in November 1363 only after representations from Sir Nicholas de Loveyne, the king's ambassador to the papal court. By 1366, <mask> held two benefices and eleven prebends, with an annual income exceeding £800. <mask> had shown considerable talent as an administrator and in June 1363 was appointed Lord Privy Seal and then in October 1366 he was elected Bishop of Winchester, Pope Urban V approved his appointment in July 1367, and he was consecrated at St Paul's Cathedral in London on 10 October 1367 and enthroned at Winchester Cathedral in July 1368. In 1367 he was appointed Chancellor of England.He struggled to find the funds necessary to pay the army fighting against France after conflict resumed in 1369. He lost the favour of the king, who turned to <mask>, 4th Baron Latimer, and he resigned as Chancellor in 1371. As Edward III aged and weakened, <mask> maintained good relationships with Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March, John of Gaunt and Edward, the Black Prince. He remained politically important, and was one of four bishops appointed to the new royal council in May 1376 after Latimer was impeached during the Good Parliament. His friendship with the Earl of March led to a long conflict with John of Gaunt, who supported Latimer. Latimer was pardoned by king in October 1376, and <mask> found himself charged with financial irregularities and mismanagement towards the end of the year. He was banished from court and the income from his church properties was seized in late 1376, but he was pardoned by the new king Richard II in July 1377, weeks after Edward III died.(Richard was the son of Edward, the Black Prince, who had died in June 1376, a year before his father.) Richard II
Under Richard II, <mask> resumed his position as a royal councillor. Although he took the side of the Lords Appellant in their disputes with the king in 1388, he also managed to maintain good relations with the king, and served as Chancellor again from May 1389 to September 1391. After years of supporting poor scholars at Oxford University, he founded New College, which was granted a royal charter in 1379. He also founded a grammar school, Winchester College, in Winchester, obtaining a papal bull in 1378 and a royal licence in 1382. Construction work began in Oxford in 1380, and in Winchester in 1387, under the architect <mask>. At both colleges, <mask> stipulated daily prayers for Richard II and his queen, <mask> and his parents, and his former patrons, Sir Ralph Sutton, Sir John Scures, and Thomas Foxley.The funds to endow the colleges, and pay for the building works, came from <mask>'s lucrative church positions, discounting of exchequer tallies (that is, speculation on tax revenues due to the king), exporting wool, and using his influence to obtain papal approval for the acquisition of the income of the "alien priories" that belonged to monasteries in France, which were confiscated by the crown during the Hundred Years' War. He also started the rebuilding of the nave of Winchester Cathedral in 1394. <mask> was concentrating on his foundation by the time Henry IV deposed Richard II in 1399, but he welcomed the new king in Winchester in 1400. Death and legacy
<mask> died at Bishop's Waltham in Hampshire on 27 September 1404 and was buried in his chantry chapel on the south side of the nave in Winchester Cathedral. At the time of his death, he was one of the richest men in England. Much of his wealth went into the schools he patronised, but he also contrived to leave a fortune to a nephew, whose descendants include the Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes family and the Longe family. <mask>'s motto was 'Manners makyth man'.This, along with a coat of arms, were assumed by him and not acquired by descent. His biography was written by Bishop Lowth. He was also written about by Lord Brougham in his 'Old England's Worthies' (1857) and by Froissart. 'Manners Makyth Man' is also the motto of the establishments Wykeham founded, Winchester College and New College, Oxford. Citations

References
 Partner, Peter, 'Wykeham, <mask> (c. 1324–1404)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2009 accessed 28 July 2013

 Lowth, Robert Life of <mask> of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester. London, 1759
 Moberly, G. H. Life of <mask>ykeham. Wells, 1887; 2nd edition, London, 1893
 Walcott, Mackenzie Edward <mask> of Wykeham and his Colleges.London, 1897

Further reading
 John, Lord Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England. London, 1848; I, xv, xvii
 Augusta Theodosia Drane, The Three Chancellors, or Sketches of the Lives of <mask> of Wykeham, <mask> of Waynflete and Sir Thomas More. London, 1882; pp. 1–112
 Thomas Kitchin, Winchester. London, 1890. Virginia Davis, <mask>: a life. London; New York: Hambledon Continuum, 2007

1320 births
1404 deaths
14th-century English Roman Catholic bishops
15th-century English Roman Catholic bishops
Bishops of Winchester
<mask> of Wykeham
Founders of English schools and colleges
Lord Chancellors of England
Lords Privy Seal
People associated with New College, Oxford
Architects from Hampshire
Windsor Castle
Burials at Winchester Cathedral

masks:
William of
William
William Longe
Wykeham
William
William
William
William
William
William
William
William Latimer
William
William
William
William Wynford
William
William
William
William
William
William
William
William
William W
Charles William
William
William
William Wham
William


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<mask> (,  – ), born in Santa Barbara, California, was the first known American-born Chinese female physician. After graduating from the University of Southern California Medical School in 1916 and completing her internship and residency in Illinois, she established one of the first Western medical clinics in San Francisco's Chinatown in the early 1920s. Early life
<mask> was born in Santa Barbara, the eldest of eleven children. Her father was the foreman of the Rancho Guadalasca in Ventura County, but the family moved to Los Angeles by 1902. <mask>'s parents became sick, and she supported the family and helped to raise her younger siblings from when she was ten. In 1905, <mask> was noted in the Los Angeles Herald as a promising student and for her planned future career as a newspaper reporter. She was noted in the Herald again in 1906 for her poem "Missionary Giving," delivered at the eighteenth anniversary of the Los Angeles Congregational Chinese mission.<mask> would write and deliver a paper entitled "Comparisons of Chinese and American Costumes" at the first anniversary of the Pasadena Congregational mission in 1907. By that fall, <mask> had graduated from the eighth grade at the Seventh Street School and enrolled in the preparatory school at USC, being hailed as a "bright particular star" of the women's gymnasium class. In 1910, <mask> won second place in a speech contest. <mask> won a Los Angeles Times scholarship to study at USC by selling newspaper subscriptions and worked her way through college as a waitress, a seller of surgical instruments, and by winning cash prizes in several speech contests. In 1909, <mask> graduated from USC. <mask> enrolled in the medical school in 1911, according to a 1914 profile that noted her belief that she was "the first Chinese girl to enter a medical school in this state." Professional career

After graduating with a medical degree in 1916, she was initially denied positions as either a medical missionary to China or an internship and settled for work as a surgical nurse in Los Angeles, at the Santa Fe Railroad Hospital.After several months, she left for Chicago, interning at the Mary Thompson Women's and Children's Hospital before serving her residency at the nearby Kankakee State Hospital. <mask> would serve as the resident assistant in psychiatry for the first Juvenile Psychopathic Institute of the State of Illinois at the Cook County Hospital in 1917; she was later appointed state criminologist for Illinois. After two years in Illinois, <mask> resigned from her position with Cook County in November 1918 and returned to Los Angeles following her father's death, accepting a position as a surgeon at Santa Fe Railroad Hospital, where she would go on to treat celebrities, including removing Mary Pickford's tonsils. <mask> moved to San Francisco's Chinatown in 1922, where she treated the local Chinese American population as well as celebrities such as Sophie Tucker, Helen Hayes, and Tallulah Bankhead. She also treated seven Navy reserve pilots during this time; part of her care was making them meals, and they reportedly soon began calling themselves "<mask>'s Fair-Haired Bastard Sons" as a tribute to her. An alternative origin story for the "<mask>" nickname is that after eight pilots came to her in 1932, volunteering their services for China against Japan, she turned them down and fed them instead because "they looked starved". The pilots "ate everything she gave them, except eggs" because when they were destitute, the only vendor who would lend the pilots food on credit was an egg farmer.Prior to the United States entry into World War II, <mask> would give her "adopted son" pilots a jade Buddha to wear around their necks, which would become a token by which the pilots would recognize each other throughout the world. Non-aviation naval officers "adopted" by <mask> were called "Golden Dolphins." When Japan invaded China in 1937, <mask> volunteered as a front-line surgeon, but she was secretly assigned instead to recruit pilots for the 1st American Volunteer Group, better known as the "Flying Tigers." During the war, <mask> would serve up to 175 people at Thanksgiving at her house and wrapped and addressed 4,000 gifts at Christmas. Her houseguests included high ranking officers and US senators and congressmen; leaning on these connections, she helped establish the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service although she was not permitted to join them, as the government suspected that she was gay. <mask> adopted the entire VF-2 squadron, nicknamed "The Rippers" for their logo, which showed a Chinese dragon ripping a flag. VF-2 was assigned to  and would set an American record by shooting down 67 Japanese planes in a single day during the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot in June 1944.In 1947, 90% of <mask>'s medical patients were white. She retired from medical practice within ten years after the end of World War II, and her "adopted sons" purchased a house for her in Marin County. ==Underworld activities==
By the early 1950s, <mask> was involved with Virginia Hill, girlfriend of Bugsy Siegel, in the  opium traffic in San Francisco. Death

<mask> died of cancer in January 1959 at Franklin Hospital in San Francisco. Among her pallbearers was Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, one of her "Golden Dolphins." Personal relationships
A pioneer in both professional and political realms, <mask> led an unconventional personal life. As the only woman in her class, she adopted masculine dress and called herself "Mike," but after having established a professional practice she reverted to conventional dress and her female name.Based on personal correspondence, she had close and apparently intense relationships with at least two other women, the writer Elsa Gidlow and entertainer Sophie Tucker, that some writers have speculated were romantic. Although she was briefly engaged, she never did marry. An advocate of strong Sino-American relations, <mask> was a neighbor, friend and confidante of travel writer Richard Halliburton (1900–1939), who died in an attempt to sail the junk Sea Dragon, as a symbol of the bond of East and West, from Hong Kong to the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco. Military "sons"
Some of the notable "sons" of "Mom" <mask> included:

 Albert B. Chandler, Sr. (no. 98), Governor and U.S. Senator from Kentucky
 William F. "Bull" Halsey (no. 600), Fleet Admiral of the United States Navy
 Andre Kostelanetz (no.434), conductor
 Melvin Maas (no. 447), Major General of the United States Marine Corps and U.S. Representative from Minnesota
 Chester W. Nimitz (no. 100), Fleet Admiral of the United States Navy
 William Sterling Parsons, Rear Admiral and bomb commander of Enola Gay
 Russell Randall, Brigadier General of the United States Army Air Forces
 Ronald Reagan (no. 131), actor and President
 Walter F. Schlech Jr. (no. 108), Rear Admiral and Chief of Military Sealift Command, United States Navy
 Raymond E. Willis (no. 124), U.S. Senator from Indiana

Commemorations
<mask> reportedly served as inspiration for the character of Dr. Mary Ling in the 1939 film King of Chinatown, portrayed by Anna May Wong.At least three Flying Fortresses were named "<mask>" in her honor by her "adopted" sons during World War II. <mask> was commemorated with a plaque in the Legacy Walk project on October 11, 2012, an outdoor public display which celebrates LGBT history and people. A tunnel boring machine for the San Francisco Municipal Railway's Central Subway was named "<mask>" on March 7, 2013. References

Bibliography

External links

1889 births
1959 deaths
Physicians from California
LGBT physicians
<mask>, <mask>m
American people of Chinese descent
LGBT people from California
People from Santa Barbara, California
Keck School of Medicine of USC alumni
American surgeons
Women surgeons
LGBT American people of Asian descent
WAVES (Navy)

masks:
Margaret Jessie Chung
Chung
Chung
Chung
Chung
Chung
Chung
Chung
Chung
Chung
Chung
Chung
Chung
Mom Chung
Mom Chung
Chung
Chung
Chung
Chung
Mom Chung
Chung
Chung
Chung
Chung
Chung
Chung
Chung
Mama Chung
Chung
Mom Chung
Chung
Margaret Jessie


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<mask> (–1622) was a Scottish Presbyterian leader. He was born in Dumfriesshire and attended the University of Edinburgh to obtain his MA in 1588. He became a minister in Selkirk and married Elizabeth Knox, a daughter of <mask> and Margaret Knox, before leaving Selkirk. Welsh later ministered at Kirkcudbright and Ayr, the latter of which was where he spent five years. His preaching resulted in his imprisonment by the order of King James VI of Scotland. The lawyer Thomas Hamilton wrote to James VI about Welsh, <mask>, and others; the case was important because many Scottish subjects of James were devoted to the ministers. In 1606 Welsh was exiled to France, where he continued to preach.<mask> of Ayr was the father of Josias <mask> and the grandfather of <mask> of Irongray. Life

<mask> was the son of the laird of Collieston (or Colliston), and was born in the parish of Dunscore, Dumfriesshire around 1570. When he was young he ran away from home and joined a band of border reivers. After he learned being a reiver was less glamorous than expected, he sought reconciliation with his father, and was sent to the University of Edinburgh, where he obtained an MA in 1588. On 6 March 1589 he was nominated by the Privy Council as one of three people for maintaining the true religion in the Forest and Tweeddale, and was settled at Selkirk. In 1594 he was transferred to Kirkcudbright, and on 29 March 1596 he was appointed one of the visitors for Nithsdale, Annandale, Lauderdale, Eskdale, and Ewesdale. On 18 December, while occupying the pulpit of St Giles' Cathedral, Welsh preached against King James VI of Scotland's conduct shortly after the Presbyterians revolted against the king.He "[alleged] that his majesty was possessed of a devil, and after the outputting of that devil there joined to his highness seven devils, quhilk was his majesty's council"; and that as it was lawful for a son to bind a lunatic father, it was equally lawful "to his highness's subjects to bind his majesty, being in the like case". After failing to answer the charge of having justified the tumult, Welsh was denounced as a rebel on 17 January (ib.). On the petition of the assembly in the following March he was, mainly through the intervention of Lord Ochiltree (Moysie, Memoirs, p. 133), allowed to return to his charge. <mask> was re-appointed as one of the visitors for Nithsdale at the assembly held at Montrose in March 1599 (Calderwood, vi. 23), and in August of the same year, he was transferred to the parish of Ayr as an assistant to <mask>. When he arrived he succeeded in quelling feuds and riots, and effected the reformation in public manners. His preaching attracted crowds such that the town council resolved to build a new church on 26 May 1603.He succeeded Porterfield after the latter died in 1604. Although Welsh did not arrive in Aberdeen until two days after the July 1605 General Assembly had been held, he was ordered to become a ward or prisoner in Blackness Castle. As they had put in a declinature of the jurisdiction of the council in the matter the king decided to put them on trial for high treason, which was done at an assize held at Linlithgow, the majority was declared guilty. The punishment for high treason was normally death, but by the king's direction the sentence was commuted on 23 October 1606 to perpetual banishment from the king's dominion, and they were commanded to board a ship on 1 November that sailed from Leith to Bordeaux. When Welsh arrived in France he immediately began to learn the French language, and within fourteen weeks he was able to preach in French. Shortly afterwards he became the pastors of the Protestant churches of Nerac, Jonsac, and eventually Saint-Jean-d'Angély in Saintonge, where he remained for sixteen years. The town council of Ayr continued to regularly remit his stipend as minister of the parish to him for several years after his banishment.When Saint-Jean-d'Angély, a strongly fortified town, was besieged by King Louis XIII during the war against the Protestants in 1620, Welsh encouraged the citizens to form a resistance and helped operate the guns on the walls. After the town surrendered, he continued to preach as usual until he was summoned before the king, who reprimanded him for violating the law forbidding anyone from providing religious services other than the standard. Welsh replied that if the king knew what he preached he would himself both come to hear him and make all his subjects do the same, for what he preached was that there was none on earth above the king, which none who had adhered to the pope would say. His answer impressed the king, who answered, "Very well, father, you shall be my minister", and promised him his protection. When the town was captured again in the following year, the king ordered guards to be placed around the house of Welch and provided horses and wagons to convey him, his family, and his household goods to Rochelle in safety. Welsh never returned to his charge and went to Zealand. He sent a petition to King James asking for permission to return to his native country, and obtained the freedom to go to London.Through <mask>, Dean of Winchester, an attempt was unsuccessfully made to obtain a general approval of episcopacy from Welsh. When Welsh's wife went to King James to ask his remission, the king answered that he would pardon him if she would induce him to submit to the bishops. She replied that she would rather receive his decapitated head in her lap. On hearing that Welsh would die soon, the king granted his request for permission to preach in London. He died on 2 April 1622, two hours after concluding the services. He was survived by his wife Elizabeth, youngest daughter of <mask> the reformer, and four sons and two daughters, of whom Josias became minister of Temple Bar, or Temple Patrick, Ireland. <mask>, the wife of Thomas Carlyle, claimed descent from Welsh.Works
"Reply against Mr. Gilbert Browne, priest" (Edinburgh, 1602; another edition, Glasgow, 1672)
"L'Armageddon de la Babylon Apocalyptique," Jonsac, 1612
"Forty-eight Select Sermons … to which is prefixed the History of His Life and Sufferings," Glasgow, 1771, 8vo
"Letters to Mr. Robert Boyd of Tochrig," in the Wodrow Society. Reply against Mr Gilbert Brown, priest (Edinburgh, 1602) [reprinted as Popery Anatomized by Matthew Crawford, minister of Eastwood (Glasgow, 1672)]
Thirty-Five Sermons (Edinburgh, 1744)
Discourses (1752)
"Letters to Mr Robert Boyd of Trochrig" (Woodrow Miscell.) A Cry to the Whole Earth (Glasgow, 1785)
Forty-eight Select Sermons (Glasgow, 1811)

Bibliography
Select Biographies in the Wodrow Society
Hew Scott's Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ, ii. 85–6
The History of Mr. <mask>, Minister at Aire, Glasgow, 1703
McCrie's Life of <mask>
Chambers's Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen
Reg. Assig. Life (Sermons)
Livingston's Charac. Select Biog., L, 1-61
Edinburgh Christian Instructor, xxii.Glasgow Testates. Edin. Reg. (Bapt.) Young's Life of Welsh
Calderwood's History, v., 420, 621, 685, et passim
National Records of Scotland Register of Deeds, cccclxiii., 282
Dictionary of National Biography
Notes and Queries, 9th ser., iv., 433
Craig-Brown's Selkirkshire, ii., 220
M'Crie s Knox, App., p. 417. See also

 Rev <mask> of Tain

References
Citations

Sources

External links

  Biographical sketch
 The Original Secession Magazine, J. Maclaren 1866, page 562. 16th-century Ministers of the Church of Scotland
Scottish Calvinist and Reformed theologians
Scottish evangelicals
1568 births
1622 deaths
Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
16th-century Calvinist and Reformed theologians
17th-century Calvinist and Reformed theologians
16th-century Scottish writers
16th-century male writers
17th-century male writers

masks:
John Welsh
John
John Forbes
John Welsh
Welsh
John Welsh
John Welsh
Welsh
John Porterfield
John Young
John Knox
Jane Welsh
John Welsh
John Knox
John Munro


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<mask> (5 April 1878 – 26 October 1927) was a French track bicycle racer and later an industrialist who won the 1899 Paris–Roubaix. In 1905 he incorporated the Albert Champion Company in Boston to make porcelain spark plugs with his name on them. Three years later founded the Champion Ignition Company in Flint, Michigan. In 1922 he changed the name to AC Spark Plug Company, after his initials, to settle out of court with his original partners in the Albert Champion Company. The company is now known as ACDelco and is owned by General Motors. Cycling
Champion was a racing cyclist at the end of the 19th century. His win in Paris–Roubaix came as a surprise because he had been known as a velodrome rider.After <mask> won Paris-Roubaix he received a contract from a bicycle manufacturer in Boston to race in America for the 1900 season. The offer coincided with <mask>'s receiving orders to report for compulsory conscription, which could have meant up to seven years in the army. <mask> raced behind motor-powered tandems during the 1900 season on outdoor board velodromes in cities from Boston to New York and down the east coast to Atlanta. He competed against riders such as Jimmy Michael and Bobby Walthour Sr. Three years later, he had won 100 races in America and imported a four-cylinder motorcycle from Paris. On July 12, 1903, <mask> piloted his 350-pound French motorcycle around an outdoor board track in Cambridge Massachusetts, on what is now the MIT Campus. He drove a mile in 58.8 seconds, a world record on a motorcycle around an elliptical track. He crashed driving a Packard Grey Wolf in a car race in October 1903 and snapped his femur in a compound fracture.He spent months in a New York hospital, finally leaving with one leg two inches shorter than the other. He hobbled out of the hospital on crutches and during his recovery made up his mind to enter the new auto industry. By June 1904, he returned to his native Paris to raise money and found a company in Boston importing French electrical parts. Coping with his shortened leg by using cranks of different lengths, he won the Grand Prix of Paris 50 km motorpace race on the Buffalo Velodrome and then the 100-kilometer motorpace championship on the Parc des Princes track by beating specialists such as defending national champion Henri Contenet and the "blond Adonis", Émile Bouhours. The race reopened the injury to his leg. He was taken to the  where he was operated on to remove several bone chips. Paris–Roubaix
The 1899 Paris–Roubaix was paced by automobiles and motor-tricycles.That was to attract velodrome riders, who were accustomed to motorpacing (see The Fast Times of Albert Champion). The race took place on a still day, 2 April, with 32 riders. They included the prominent road riders who had won earlier editions, Maurice Garin and Josef Fischer and track specialists such as <mask>, Émile Bohours and Paul Bor. What the track riders had gained through experience in paced riding, they lost in inexperience of the cobbles and other bad road surfaces that constituted Paris–Roubaix. <mask>, still age 20 (he turned 21 on April 5), was an outsider, but the others chased when he broke away alone soon after the start. Only Bouhours could come close to catching him, getting to within a minute at Amiens, at half distance. But Bouhours' hope of catching him ended when his pacer hit a spectator crossing the road.After <mask>  reached Arras, he was slowed to a walking pace riding the worst of the cobbles. Nye documents that <mask> fell seven times but quickly got back up and remounted his bike. At the velodrome in Roubaix he still had 23 minutes on Bor and Ambroise Garin, brother of Maurice. <mask> finished in 8h 22m 53s, slow by comparison to Maurice Garin, who won the 1898 race in 10 minutes less despite bad weather. Motor products
<mask> became interested in gas-combustion engines and car racing while he was in the USA. In the summer of 1904 he moved back to France and won the national 100-kilometer motor-pace race on the Parc des Princes outdoor cement track. He retired from cycling at the end of the summer.He remained in Paris to work in car factories, including one founded by his friend Edouard Nieuport, who manufactured Nieuport  spark plugs and magnetos, credited with helping drivers win the biggest road races. <mask> returned to America and incorporated the Albert Champion Company in June 1905 in Boston's South End, in the landmark Cyclorama Building, to import French electrical parts, including Nieuport components. <mask> presided as president of the Albert Champion Company with partners Frank D. Stranahan as treasurer and younger brother Spencer Stranahan as clerk. By 1907 The Albert Champion Company was manufacturing porcelain spark plugs with the name <mask> stamped on the side, Robert Stranahan, the youngest of the Stranahan brothers, finished his classes at Harvard, ahead of his class of 1908, and went to work in the stockroom. Late in the summer of 1908, <mask> met William Durant at Durant's Boston Buick dealership. Durant, impressed with the spark plugs, persuaded <mask> to move to Flint and supply his spark plugs to Flint. A week after <mask> arrived in Flint—accompanied by his wife, youngest brother Prosper <mask>, and a dozen French compatriots—Durant incorporated General Motors and quickly purchased Cadillac and Oldsmobile motor companies.<mask>  incorporated the Champion Ignition Company, in Lansing, Michigan in October 1908. His first office was on the top floor of Buick factory 1. <mask>'s earlier partners, the Stranahan brothers, moved to Toledo, Ohio, and in 1910 incorporated the Champion Spark Plug Company in Wilmington, Delaware, as Nye documents. The Stranahans sued <mask> and his Champion Ignition Company over his name and the suit dragged on in federal district court. <mask> finally settled out of court in 1922 and changed the name of his company to AC Spark Plug Company, after his initials, To this day, both names survive as ACDelco (GM products) and Champion spark plugs sold by Federal-Mogul. Personal life and death
<mask> married his Paris childhood sweetheart in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after he had been in America for a few years. <mask> had numerous affairs over his marriage of almost 20 years until his wife sued him for "extreme cruelty".In 1922 he married a younger woman from Kansas City. In May 1927 Charles Lindbergh flew solo in the Spirit of St. Louis across the Atlantic powered by spark plugs made by Champion's AC Spark Plug Company in Flint. Five months later, on October 27, 1927, <mask> collapsed and died suddenly at age 49 in his suite in the Hotel Meurice after being punched by his wife's married lover in the Hôtel de Crillon. <mask> left his widow $15 million. General Motors bought Champion's AC Spark Plug Company by acquiring shares held by his estate. Alfred P. Sloan, president of General Motors, said: "The keynote of <mask>'s success was, that he was never satisfied [...] his mind was open to the necessity for constant improvement". <mask> is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris alongside his mother.In August 2015, <mask> was enshrined as a life-size bronze statue in downtown Flint, part of the city's Back to the Bricks Automotive Pioneers Statute Project. He was inducted into the Waltham (Massachusetts) Hall of Fame and the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1977. Palmarès

1899
 1st, Paris–Roubaix
 1904
 1st, French National Stayers Championships

References

External links

1878 births
1927 deaths
Automotive businesspeople
Cyclists from Paris
French automotive pioneers
French emigrants to the United States
French industrialists
French male cyclists

masks:
Albert Champion
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Albert Champion
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<mask> "Sasha<mask> (; born in Jūrmala, Latvia on 13 May 1956) is a Russian cosmonaut and veteran of extended stays on the Mir Space Station and the International Space Station (ISS). Kaleri has most recently been in space aboard the ISS serving as a flight engineer for the long duration Expedition 25/26 missions. He has spent the fourth-longest time in space of any person, the longest time in space of any currently active cosmonaut, and the longest time in space of any person not born in what is now Russia. Personal
Kaleri is married to the Svetlana L. Nosova. They have a son, <mask>, born in 1996. Kaleri's mother, <mask>, resides in Sevastopol, Crimea, and his father, <mask>, is deceased. Kaleri enjoys running, reading and gardening.Education
In 1979, Kaleri graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Dolgoprudny, Moscow region, as a specialist in Aircraft Flight Dynamics and Control. In 1983, he completed post-graduate studies at the same institute as a specialist in the field of Mechanics of Fluids and Plasma. Experience
In 1979, he was hired by the Energia Corporation and worked on the Mir space station. He participated in development of design and engineering documentation, full-scale tests of the Mir. Kaleri is a skilled programmer. Cosmonaut career

<mask> was selected as the Energia RSC cosmonaut candidate in April 1984. Between 1985 and 1986, he completed basic training and evaluation at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.In 1987 he was qualified for flight assignment as a test cosmonaut. Kaleri took a training course for a spaceflight aboard the Mir orbital station as a backup crew flight engineer of the Mir-3 mission from 1 April to 9 December 1987. He took a training course for a spaceflight aboard the Mir as a backup crew flight engineer of the Mir-9 mission from January to April 1991. From 8 October 1991 to 25 February 1992, Kaleri was training as a primary crew flight engineer for the Mir-11 mission. Kaleri has participated in three extended missions aboard the Mir Space Station. In 1992, he participated in a 145-day flight aboard the Soyuz-TM-14 spacecraft and the Mir. Between 17 August 1996 to 2 March 1997, Kaleri spent 197-days in space aboard the Soyuz-TM-24 spacecraft and the Mir as the Mir-22 mission flight engineer.In 2000, Kaleri performed his third spaceflight aboard the Soyuz-TM-30 spacecraft and the Mir as the Mir-28 mission flight engineer. Expedition 8
In 2003, he first flew to the International Space Station (ISS) with NASA astronaut Michael Foale on his fourth spaceflight. Kaleri served as a Flight Engineer on Expedition 8 and spent 194 days in space from 18 October 2003 to 30 April 2004. The Soyuz TMA-3 spacecraft carrying <mask>, Foale and ESA astronaut André Kuipers successfully landed in Kazakhstan at 00:11 GMT on 30 April 2004. The landing site was located some 60 kilometers northeast of the town of Arkalyk. Expedition 25/26
Kaleri was a member (Flight Engineer) of the ISS Expedition 25/26, that was launched on 7 October 2010 from Baikonur Cosmodrome, aboard Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft, together with cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka and NASA astronaut Scott Kelly. He served as the Soyuz commander.The mission marked <mask>'s fifth flight into space. He arrived at the ISS after the Soyuz spacecraft linked up with the space station at 00:01 UTC on 10 October 2010. He remained in the ISS till March 2011. During their mission, <mask> and the rest of the Expedition 25/26 crew participated in a wide array of research, including fundamental physics, biometric experiments and investigations of crystal growth in space, as well as education outreach. Spacewalks

<mask> has participated in five spacewalks and has accumulated 23 EVA hours. On 8 July 1992, at 12:38 UTC <mask> started his first career spacewalk. During the spacewalk, he and cosmonaut <mask> inspected some of Mir's gyrodynes.The spacewalk lasted 2 hours and 3 minutes. On 2 December 1996, Kaleri and fellow cosmonaut Valery Korzun completed a 5 hours 57 minutes long spacewalk. The main purpose was to complete connections of the cooperative solar array to provide more electrical power to the Mir station. The spacewalk was <mask>'s second career spacewalk. On 9 December 1996, Kaleri and fellow cosmonaut Valery Korzun completed a 6 hours 36 minutes long spacewalk. The spacewalk began at 13:50 UTC and ended at 20:28 UTC. During the spacewalk, the two cosmonauts completed connecting the solar array and attached a new Kurs docking antenna subsequently used to guide Progress vehicles docking with Mir.They also repaired the transceiver system that the Mir crew used to talk to amateur operators all around the world. On 12 May 2000, Kaleri and fellow cosmonaut Sergei Zalyotin completed a five-hour spacewalk to inspect the exterior of Mir. The two spacewalkers also tested a glue which would have been useful to seal tiny cracks, and applied the new airtight sealant to a special panel imitating a damaged section in Mir's skin. The two cosmonauts also examined the exterior of the Progress M1-2 cargo spacecraft. On 26 February 2004, Kaleri and NASA astronaut Michael Foale floated outside the ISS from the Pirs Docking Compartment airlock. The spacewalk began at 4:17 EST, and Foale and Kaleri were able to complete all but two of their planned tasks, swapping out experiment packages and mounting an instrumented dummy torso on the station's hull to measure the radiation environment faced by spacewalking astronauts. Although the spacewalk was originally planned for 5 hours and 30 minutes, it was cut short due to a cooling system malfunction in Kaleri's spacesuit.Kaleri reported seeing drops of water on the inside of his spacesuit's visor. The spacewalk lasted 3 hours and 55 minutes. The excursion was the fifth career spacewalk for <mask>.

masks:
Aleksandr
" Yuriyevich Kaleri
Oleg Aleksandrovich Kaleri
Antonina Petrovna Kaleri
Yuri Borisovich Kaleri
Kaleri
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Kaleri
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Aleksandr Viktorenko
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Kaleri


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<mask> (died 1920), born Rakhturam, was a direct monastic disciple of Ramakrishna, a mystic of nineteenth century Bengal. He is familiarly known as Latu Maharaj among the followers of Ramakrishna. <mask> was the first monastic disciple to come to Ramakrishna. While most of Ramakrishna's direct disciples came from the Bengali intelligentsia,  <mask>'s lack of formal education made him unique amongst them. He was a servant boy of a devotee of Ramakrishna, and he later became his monastic disciple. Though unlettered, <mask> was considered as a monk with great spiritual insight by Ramakrishna's followers, and Vivekananda regarded him as "the greatest miracle of Ramakrishna". Biography

Early life
<mask> was born in North-Eastern India in the Chhapra district of Bihar, around the middle of the nineteenth century.He was given the name Rakhturam, meaning "child who is protected by Lord Rama". His parents were poor, humble villagers. Both his father and mother died before Rakhturam was five years old and he was left in the care of an uncle who was affectionate towards him. Growing up in the village, Rakhturam led a carefree life, tending cows and sheep in the fields. In later years, he said, "I used to wander freely with the cowherd boys. How simple and guileless they were! You can't have real joy unless you are like that."Poverty forced Rakhturam and his uncle to travel to Calcutta in search of a livelihood. Rakhturam came in contact with Ramachandra Datta, a householder devotee of Ramakrishna, and he joined as his servant. As a servant, Rakhturam was considered energetic and faithful. Rakhturam became known as "Latu" in his new Calcutta surroundings, and he was called by that name thereafter. Meetings with Ramakrishna
Ramakrishna lived at the Dakshineswar Kāli Temple, a few miles north of Calcutta, on the eastern bank of the Ganges. Ram Chandra Datta, Latu's employer, was one of the first householder disciples to visit Ramakrishna. Datta loved to speak about Ramakrishna and his sayings and Latu heard about Ramakrishna from him and was attracted by Ramakrishna's teachings, It is reported that inspired by the teachings of Ramakrishna, he was often found lying covered with his blanket, quietly wiping tears from his eyes thinking of God.Latu waited eagerly for an opportunity to meet Ramakrishna, and he met Ramakrishna on a Sunday in 1879 or 1880. When Ramakrishna saw Latu, he reportedly said to Ramchandra that Latu had "holy signs in him." and it is reported that when Ramakrishna touched him, Latu entered an ecstatic state, "tears trickled from his eyes and his lips began to quiver with emotion" and he gradually returned to normal state of consciousness. Latu began to visit Ramakrishna regularly, and he lost the enthusiasm with which he worked before at Datta's house. In June 1881, he joined Ramakrishna at Dakshineswar as his personal attendant and helper. He also used to help Sarada Devi in her chores. With Ramakrishna in Dakshineswar
At Dakshineswar Latu began a life of rigorous spiritual discipline under Ramakrishna's guidance, and also continued his service as his servant to him.His day began, first seeing Ramakrishna and saluting him. As Latu had received no formal schooling, Ramakrishna hoped that he might acquire at least a rudimentary education, so he tried to teach him the Bengali alphabets himself. However, Latu's Bihari accent was different from that of a Bengali, and he could not read even the first vowel correctly. Ramakrishna corrected him repeatedly with much amusement, and the experiment was later discontinued. According to Saradananda, Ramakrishna's monastic disciple Latu was seen "praying and meditating the whole night and sleeping during the day. His life was a literal example of the teaching of the Gita:'In that which is night to all beings, the man of self-control is awake; and where all beings are awake, there is night for the sage who sees (2.69)." At Shyampukur and Cossipore
In the middle of 1885 Ramakrishna's throat became sore, which later developed into throat cancer.To conveniently treat him, the devotees moved Ramakrishna from Dakshineswar to Shyampukur, in North Calcutta. Latu, being his personal attendant went with him. He later moved on with Ramakrishna to Cossipore on 11 December 1885. He took care of nursing Ramakrishna during his final days, reminiscing about which Latu said, "Serving the Master was our worship. We didn't need any other spiritual disciplines." Latu received an ochre cloth and rosary from Ramakrishna. After Ramakrishna's death on 16 August 1886, Latu went on a pilgrimage visiting Vrindaban, Varanasi, Ayodhya with Sarada Devi, and other lay and monastic disciples of Ramakrishna.At Calcutta

After Ramakrishna's passing away, Narendra (Vivekananda) and some of the other disciples established the first Ramakrishna monastery at Baranagore in an old, dilapidated house. Here some of the disciples including Naren took their monastic vows and were engaged in the study of the scriptures, practicing meditation and austerity. Latu joined them later in 1887 and accepted the monastic vows. Vivekananda gave him the monastic name Adbhutananda, meaning, "He who finds bliss in the wonderful nature of the Atman." According to his brother monks, Adbhutananda lead a very austere life at the monastery practicing meditation and japa. He led the life of a wandering monk around Calcutta area, unattached to people and places. Sometimes he stayed at the home of other householder devotees, but most often was found living simply on the bank of the Ganges.Sometimes he stayed at Alambazar Math and Belur Math. He also went on several pilgrimages to North India with his brother disciples including Vivekananda. In 1903 he moved to the house of Balaram Bose, a householder devotee of Ramakrishna and stayed there till 1912. Here he was visited by people from different walks of life—judges, doctors, teachers, learned monks, and householders for spiritual instructions. At Varanasi
In October 1912 <mask> left Balaram's hose for Varnasi, never to return again. Here he first stayed at Ramakrishna Advaita Ashrama and later at different locations. As was characteristic of him, he was so often absorbed in meditation that he rarely had fixed time for meals.In Varanasi, he continued to teach and people visited him for spiritual instructions. Last days
During his last days, according to his devotees, Adbhutananda seemed to be gradually withdrawing from the world. He spoke occasionally with people, and when he spoke it was generally of spiritual matters. As reported by this disciples, his body, which had once been remarkably strong, had been gradually weakened by age and years of intense spiritual disciplines and his indifference towards the physical world. During the last few years he suffered from diabetes and minor physical ailments. During the last year of his life he developed a blister on this leg, which developed into gangrene. He was visited by his brother disciples—Turiyananda and Saradananda.Eventually the gangrene worsened and the doctors operated several times on successive days, but were unsuccessful. <mask> died in the holy city of Varanasi at 12:10 p.m on Saturday, 24 April 1920. Regarding his death, Turiyananda wrote in a letter to Josephine MacLeod, an American devotee of Vivekananda, "He showed no signs of pain during his illness. But the wonder of all wonders was that after this death when his body was placed in a sitting position to conform with some of the funeral rites, we found him looking so beautiful, so serene, so full of peace and bliss. His face beamed with light and an intelligence unspeakable, as if he were taking leave from his friends for the last time with an exhortation of affectionate benediction." Teachings and sayings
<mask>, being illiterate, did not write any books; his teachings and sayings have been recorded by these disciples and devotees. <mask> taught that "the true being in man is ever free, ever pure, and remains ever untouched by good or evil.Good and evil have no absolute reality. They exist only so long as man identifies himself with the ego, the false self. When the ego is completely annihilated, man is freed from the false knowledge of duality or relativity--of good and evil." His other teachings were,
 What is the use of prayer and meditation if there is no dependence on Him? Everything else is useless if this is lacking. It is a great sin to find fault with others. Those who do never do a good act themselves, who easily see defects in others and energetically spread rumors.It is better to continue calling on the Lord devotedly than to know, speak, and preach thousand and one religious cants and shibboleths. Notes

Further reading

External links

 Spiritual Talks of Swami Adbhutananda
 Swami Adbhutananda Biography
 Articles by Adbhutananda

1920 deaths
19th-century Hindu religious leaders
20th-century Hindu religious leaders
Advaitin philosophers
20th-century Hindu philosophers and theologians
Hindu reformers
Indian Hindu monks
Indian memoirists
Indian Hindu missionaries
Monks of the Ramakrishna Mission
Year of birth missing

masks: Adbhutananda Adbhutananda Adbhutananda Adbhutananda Adbhutananda Adbhutananda Adbhutananda Adbhutananda Adbhutananda


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Troy Allan Martin (born November 21, 1964) is an American professional wrestler and promoter, better known by his ring name <mask>. He is best known for his tenures in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), World Championship Wrestling (WCW), World Wrestling Federation (WWF) as <mask>, and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), where he worked as a wrestler and manager. Martin held a dozen championships between ECW, WCW, and the WWF and is a five-time world champion: a four-time ECW World Heavyweight Champion and a one-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion. As ECW Champion, he holds the records for most combined days as champion (874) and the longest single reign (406 days). Martin is also a two-time ECW World Television Champion, a one-time WWF Intercontinental Champion, a one-time WCW United States Heavyweight Champion and a two-time WCW World Tag Team Champion. Martin was also the first of eleven men (the others being Mick Foley, Terry Funk, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Perry Saturn, Chris Candido, Dean Malenko, Raven, and Lance Storm) to win a championship in all three major U.S. promotions in the 1990s, after he won the WWE Intercontinental Championship in 1995. Martin achieved the greatest success of his career in ECW, where he debuted in 1993 and captured the ECW Heavyweight Championship twice in his first year with the company.He gained attention when he won a tournament for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, where he publicly rejected the NWA title belt and helped ECW in evolving from an NWA territory to a national promotion. Within ECW, he was dubbed "The Franchise" in reference to his status as the franchise player of the promotion. WWE, who purchased that organization, asserted: "Without <mask>, there would have been no ECW." He headlined many events for ECW including three editions of the company's premier pay-per-view event November to Remember in 1996, 1997 and 1998. Early life
Martin was born in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, one of six children of a veteran of World War II, who died in 1991. He graduated cum laude from Bethany College in 1986 with a bachelor's degree in history and political science. He is an alumnus of the Psi chapter of Beta Theta Pi.After earning his degrees, he was offered to join the Saba University School of Medicine but declined in order to continue wrestling. Professional wrestling career

Early years (1980–1989)
Martin was trained by Dominic DeNucci in the Pittsburgh suburb of Freedom, Pennsylvania, alongside Mick Foley in the mid-1980s. He had been wrestling professionally to earn money since 1982. When he started, he used the character of Troy Orndorff, the fictional nephew of Paul Orndorff. In 1986, he wrestled Randy Savage at a WWF Superstars of Wrestling taping using his real name. He also wrestled "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff in the debut episode of WWF Wrestling Challenge, once again using his real name.Later that year, he began wrestling as a fan favorite for the Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF) using the name <mask>, which was given to him by "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert and Missy Hyatt (the "<mask>" last name was inspired by Black Rain and The Jewel of the Nile film star <mask>, who at the time had just appeared in the 1987 film Wall Street). <mask> defeated Gilbert for the UWF Television Championship on August 3, 1987, but did not rise above mid-card status. <mask> lost the title on September 2 to Terry Taylor. World Championship Wrestling (1989–1990)
In 1989, <mask> signed with the promotion World Championship Wrestling (WCW), then a member of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). He retained his <mask> ring name and was put into a tag team of skateboarders known as The Dynamic Dudes with Johnny Ace (John Laurinaitis, the younger brother of Road Warrior Animal). Mick Foley has opined that since neither Ace nor <mask> knew how to skateboard, the fans saw through the character and refused to buy into it. Jim Cornette, who was managing The Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton and Stan Lane) at the time, decided to manage the duo to help them get over.When Eaton and Lane in storyline did not approve, they forced a match between the two teams with Cornette remaining neutral at ringside. He ended up turning on <mask> and Ace and the teams feuded for a couple of months. Cornette's turn was to have established The Dynamic Dudes as a top fan favorite tag team, but the turn backfired and made The Midnight Express more popular than they already were. The Dynamic Dudes broke up in 1990 after Ace began competing progressively more for All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), which was breaking its ties to the NWA. Jim Cornette also states that the end of the Dynamic Dudes came when <mask> went over his head to Jim Herd about having a finish changed to make him look stronger. Cornette, who was part of the booking committee, washed his hands of working with them afterwards. <mask> argued that they had been repeatedly promised a big push and were instead being booked to lose all of their big matches, then getting criticized for not getting over as a top team.The Dudes would last wrestle together in March 1990, and <mask> soon left WCW and wrestled on the American independent circuit. World Wrestling Federation (1990–1991)
In 1990, <mask> signed a deal with the World Wrestling Federation and made his debut on the June 18 episode of Prime Time Wrestling, defeating Bob Bradley, in a match taped in Toronto, Ontario on May 27. <mask> remained undefeated in his first month, defeating Bob Bradley, Paul Diamond, and Steve Lombardi in a series of matches. He then moved up to begin a house show series in late June against Haku and suffered his first loss on June 28 in Denver, Colorado. He remained without a win in subsequent rematches. He made his syndicated television debut on the August 26 episode of WWF Wrestling Challenge, teaming with jobber Mark Thomas in a loss to The Orient Express. In August 1990, he received his first break when he was tapped as the temporary replacement to an injured Shawn Michaels in The Rockers tag-team.<mask> teamed with Jannetty six times in matches against The Orient Express. On August 27, he defeated Buddy Rose in a dark match at the SummerSlam '90 PPV. On the September 17 episode of Prime Time Wrestling, <mask> wrestled Haku to a draw, and he was largely undefeated against low level competition throughout the fall. At the Survivor Series '90 PPV <mask> defeated Buddy Rose in another dark match, and on January 3, 1991, at a house show in Scranton, Pennsylvania, he scored the biggest victory of his nascent WWF career when he upset Dino Bravo. Four days later on the January 7, 1991, episode of Prime Time Wrestling he would pin Haku, and was strongly positioned as a rising young star. His most memorable WWF performance took place at the 1991 Royal Rumble, where he entered as the seventeenth entrant and lasted for 26 minutes and 23 seconds before being eliminated by Brian Knobbs. Shortly after, he left the company to take care of his ailing father.<mask> would make intermittent appearances in 1991, subbing for various wrestlers on house shows. He returned on May 8 in Youngstown, Ohio, and lost to Ricky Steamboat. In June he returned for a pair of house shows and was defeated by Colonel Mustafa. He made his final televised appearance on the June 15th episode of Prime Time Wrestling, losing to Dino Bravo in a match taped at Madison Square Garden. <mask> closed out his first WWF run with two victories - a win on July 29 in a dark match at a WWF Superstars taping against Bob Bradley, and a victory over The Orient Express on August 2 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when he teamed with Marty Jannetty. Return to WCW (1992–1993)
<mask> returned to WCW on the September 12, 1992 episode of Saturday Night as a fan favorite, where he defeated Super Invader in his return match by using Magnum T.A. 's finishing move, belly to belly suplex, which was noted by Magnum, the following week on Saturday Night.On the October 17 episode of Saturday Night, <mask> had a match with Brian Pillman, which began a rivalry between the duo. He made his pay-per-view return at Halloween Havoc, where he teamed with Tom Zenk and Johnny Gunn to compete against Arn Anderson, Bobby Eaton and Michael Hayes in a winning effort. While feuding with Pillman, <mask> formed a tag team with Ricky Steamboat to take on Pillman and Steve Austin in a tag team match on the October 24 episode of Worldwide. The following month, Steamboat and <mask> were booked to win the NWA and WCW World Tag Team Championships from Dustin Rhodes and Barry Windham on the November 18 Clash of the Champions XXI. Steamboat and <mask> made a successful title defense against Windham and Pillman at Starrcade. Steamboat and <mask> began a lengthy rivalry with Pillman and his new tag team partner Steve Austin. Steamboat and <mask> successfully defended the tag titles against Austin and Pillman on the January 13, 1993 Clash of the Champions XXII, before dropping the titles to Austin and Pillman on the March 27, 1993 episode of Worldwide.Soon after losing the tag titles, <mask> began a rivalry with the World Television Champion Paul Orndorff, where he came up short against Orndorff in two respective matches in the Computer Contenders Challenge on the May 1 episode of Worldwide and the May 8 episode of Power Hour, before departing the company for Eastern Championship Wrestling (ECW). <mask> had been scheduled to team with Steamboat in a steel cage match for a title shot at the NWA and WCW World Tag Team Championship at Slamboree, but was replaced by Tom Zenk in a mask. NWA Eastern / Extreme Championship Wrestling

The Franchise and Birth of Extreme (1993–1994)

Martin debuted in the upstart ECW during its formative years on the August 24, 1993 episode of Eastern Championship Wrestling and solidified his status as a villain by joining Hotstuff International. In his first match, <mask> defeated Don E. Allen and Herve Renesto in a handicap match. <mask> quickly rose to the top of the roster, winning the promotion's Heavyweight Championship on the September 14 episode of Eastern Championship Wrestling, after champion Tito Santana forfeited the title. <mask> successfully defended the title against The Sandman at the UltraClash event. At NWA Bloodfest, <mask> retained the title against J.T.Smith before dropping the title to Sabu later that night. On the December 14 episode of NWA Eastern Championship Wrestling, <mask> substituted for an injured Johnny Gunn to defend the Tag Team Championship alongside Gunn's partner Tommy Dreamer against Kevin Sullivan and The Tazmaniac, during which <mask> turned on Dreamer by attacking him with a steel chain. The following week, <mask> defeated Dreamer via disqualification by hitting Dreamer with a steel chain and handing over the chain to Dreamer, which fooled the referee to believe that Dreamer had hit him with the chain. This strategy would be adopted by Eddie Guerrero a decade later. <mask> defeated Dreamer at Holiday Hell to end the feud. <mask> developed a gimmick of a foul-mouthed, incredibly arrogant villain (an attitude that would define him permanently and give him success), and gave himself the nickname "The Franchise". His best friend Sherri Martel became his valet.<mask> gained notoriety when he wrestled Terry Funk and Sabu to a one-hour draw in the company's first-ever three-way dance for the ECW Heavyweight Championship at The Night the Line Was Crossed. <mask> dethroned Funk in an Ultimate Jeopardy steel cage match to win his second Heavyweight Championship at Ultimate Jeopardy. Since its founding, ECW had been a member of the NWA. <mask> was instrumental in the development of "extreme wrestling" when he defeated The Tazmaniac, Dean Malenko and 2 Cold Scorpio to win a tournament to become the NWA World Heavyweight Champion on August 27. In an angle which only he, Tod Gordon, and Paul Heyman knew about, <mask> threw down the NWA title belt and stated that he did not want to be champion of a "dead promotion". <mask> raised the ECW Heavyweight Championship belt and declared it to be a world championship belt, renaming it the ECW World Heavyweight Championship. WWE recognizes this moment as the beginning of ECW Championship and <mask> as the first ECW Champion.According to the Forever Hardcore DVD, <mask> only decided to throw down the NWA belt after NWA president Dennis Coralluzzo buried <mask> on Mike Tenay's radio show. On the August 30 edition of NWA Eastern Championship Wrestling, Gordon announced he was folding Eastern Championship Wrestling, and in its place forming Extreme Championship Wrestling, a new promotion independent of the NWA. Capitalizing on the controversy that surrounded his literally "throwing down" the NWA belt and the promo following it, <mask> was encouraged to express his true feelings in interviews by the ECW bookers. This helped raise ECW's prominence in the eyes of wrestling fans and journalists and allowed it to become an alternative to WCW and the WWF and <mask> cemented a legacy in the history of ECW. <mask> closed 1994 with successful title defenses of the ECW

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 World Heavyweight Championship against Ron Simmons. Triple Threat (1995)

In early 1995, <mask> formed the Triple Threat faction, aligning himself with Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko. He started the year with successful title defenses of the World Heavyweight Championship against Tully Blanchard and Marty Jannetty.He then entered a feud with The Sandman during a match at Three Way Dance, where Sandman's valet, Woman, seemed to have aligned herself with <mask> by helping him in retaining the title against Sandman by handing him Sandman's Singapore cane to attack him and get the win. However, it turned out to be a ruse when she aided Sandman in defeating <mask> for the title at Hostile City Showdown. <mask>' lengthy reign ended at 385 days, which is the second longest reign in the title history. After failing to regain the title, <mask> began a rivalry with Cactus Jack, as each man wanted to capture the title from Sandman and saw the other as competition. During this time, <mask> went on a tirade about the lawlessness of ECW and brought in Bill Alfonso as a troubleshooting referee to restore order. After teasing a departure for the WWF, <mask> finally left ECW for WWF in July 1995, making his last appearance during a world title match between Sandman and Cactus Jack at Heat Wave, during which he attacked both men and left. Return to WWF (1995-1996)

In 1995, <mask> returned to the WWF with a college dean character under the ring name <mask>, making his first appearance on the July 29 episode of Superstars.To establish himself, he filmed several vignettes with a chalkboard, lecturing wrestlers and fans. He would also be shown taking notes of his opponents at ringside during some matches, and frequently carried a paddle (dubbed the "Board of Education") with him to the ring. He would usually present a "Report Card" in which he would degrade the performances of heroic wrestlers after their matches. <mask> began a rivalry with Razor Ramon after grading him "MF" for miserable failure after Razor's loss to Shawn Michaels at SummerSlam. <mask> made his in-ring return to WWF on the September 9 episode of Superstars, where he defeated 1-2-3 Kid by disqualification after Razor attacked <mask>. This resulted in a match between <mask> and Razor at In Your House 3, which <mask> won after interference by the Kid. He was set to wrestle Shawn Michaels for the Intercontinental Championship at In Your House 4, but Michaels forfeited the title due to injuries incurred after being attacked and beaten by a Marine in Syracuse, New York.<mask>, however, immediately had to defend the title against rival Razor Ramon. Ramon would go on to defeat <mask>, ending his reign at only twenty minutes. <mask> was randomly paired with Razor, Owen Hart and Yokozuna against Shawn Michaels, Ahmed Johnson, British Bulldog and Sycho Sid in a Wildcard Survivor Series match at Survivor Series. <mask> was eliminated by Michaels after Razor attacked him. His team went on to lose the match. <mask> failed to recapture the Intercontinental Championship from Razor Ramon on the December 4 episode of Monday Night Raw. His last televised match was on the December 9 episode of Superstars, where he defeated enhancement talent Tony Williams.His last appearance on WWF television was at In Your House 5, when he was booked to wrestle Ahmed Johnson. According to the storyline, his back was not in wrestling condition, so he introduced Buddy Landel as his substitute, who was subsequently defeated by Johnson in just forty-two seconds. His very last day working in WWF was at Madison Square Garden where he was diagnosed with a severe muscle spasm in his back that if agitated could have paralyzed him. Despite doctors telling Vince McMahon it was a legitimate injury, Vince became angry at the news and tried to intimidate <mask> into denying it, and was explicitly told by Vince McMahon to leave the company on January 1, 1996. However, Vince made him go out that evening and deliver a promo, in which he announced his injury. Troy has been very outspoken about how Vince paid him much less than what was agreed upon, and because of his treatment before he refuses to ever work for Vince again. Return to ECW

World Television Champion (1996)

After quitting from WWF, <mask> made his surprise return to ECW at the House Party event on January 5, 1996, where he briefly reprised his <mask> character, correcting Buh Buh Ray Dudley's grammar after a match, thus becoming a fan favorite.His televised return aired on the January 9 episode of Hardcore TV, where he confronted Stevie Richards and Blue Meanie, denounced his Dean gimmick and declared "the Franchise is back!". During this time, he had a memorable feud with Cactus Jack as Cactus was getting ready to leave for WWF and cutting promos encouraging Tommy Dreamer to side with him, deriding ECW's hardcore style and promoting clean wrestling. <mask> eventually pinned Jack in a match at CyberSlam after performing a drop toe-hold onto an opened steel chair after Jack's partner Mikey Whipwreck betrayed Jack. Upon his return, <mask> also targeted the World Heavyweight Champion Raven and received several title shots but came up short due to heavy interference by members of Raven's Flock. After failing in his attempts to regain the World Heavyweight Championship, <mask> won the World Television Championship from 2 Cold Scorpio at A Matter of Respect and eventually turned into a villain by showing disrespect to the title. After the match, 2 Cold Scorpio attacked him. A month later, <mask> was scheduled to defend the title against Scorpio at Fight The Power, but Scorpio was injured, which resulted in <mask> retaining the title against El Puerto Ricano, Don E. Allen, Devon Storm and Mikey Whipwreck in quick succession before losing it to Pitbull #2 after <mask> insulted The Pitbulls' manager, Francine and gave her a belly to belly suplex.At Heat Wave, <mask> won his second World Television Championship by defeating champion Chris Jericho, 2 Cold Scorpio and Pitbull #2 in a four corners match, after Francine turned on them and aided <mask> in winning the match. With Francine by his side, <mask> continued to feud with Pitbull #2 and retained his title against the latter in subsequent rematches for the remainder of the year. Triple Threat reformation and final storylines (1996–1999)

In the fall of 1996, <mask> reformed the Triple Threat with new members Chris Candido and Brian Lee. <mask> and Francine entered a feud with Tommy Dreamer and Beulah McGillicutty, which culminated in a series of matches between the two pairs throughout late 1996 and early 1997. Triple Threat feuded with <mask>' enemies Tommy Dreamer and The Pitbulls throughout the first half of 1997, while <mask> continued his successful title defenses of the World Television Championship against Pitbull #2. <mask> retained his title against Pitbull #1, as well, in an "I Quit" match at Hostile City Showdown. During this time, a mysterious man began stalking Francine and displayed mannerisms of Rick Rude.After <mask> retained his title against Pitbull #2 at ECW's first pay-per-view Barely Legal, Brian Lee revealed himself to be the mysterious stalker and delivered a Chokeslam to <mask>. As a result, Lee was removed from Triple Threat due to his betrayal and left ECW. Triple Threat gained Bam Bam Bigelow in Lee's place, who joined the group as <mask>' partner in a tag team match against The Pitbulls at Chapter 2. At Wrestlepalooza, <mask> retained his title against Chris Chetti. Later that night, <mask> interrupted Taz's promo after a match between Taz and Sabu. <mask> defended his title against Taz, with the stipulation that Taz would not be able to compete in ECW for sixty days. <mask> lost the title in under three minutes after Taz made him submit to the Tazmission.<mask>' reign ended at 329 days. He then turned his attention on capturing the World Heavyweight Championship from Terry Funk and challenged him for the title at Heat Wave but lost by disqualification. <mask> received another shot on the August 14 episode of Hardcore TV, but lost. Shortly after, Sabu won the title but <mask> remained in the title picture. At Hardcore Heaven, <mask> defeated Sabu and Funk in a three-way dance to win the title for the third time. In September 1997, <mask> retained the title against Tommy Dreamer at Terry Funk's WrestleFest and against Phil Lafon in a no disqualification match at As Good as It Gets. <mask> lost his title to Bam Bam Bigelow on the October 24 episode of Hardcore TV after Rick Rude chose Bigelow as <mask>' challenger.As a result, Bigelow was kicked out of Triple Threat and replaced by Lance Storm. After failing in a rematch at Ultimate Jeopardy, <mask> regained the title by defeating Bigelow at the November to Remember pay-per-view, beginning his fourth reign as champion. <mask> was injured in the match and was sidelined for nearly two months, making his return to action on January 30, 1998. At Hostile City Showdown, Bigelow rejoined Triple Threat by turning on his partner Taz during a match against Triple Threat. Bigelow's return lead to Lance Storm being kicked out of the group, which began a feud between Storm and the Triple Threat. At Living Dangerously, <mask> and Chris Candido faced Storm and his mystery partner, who was revealed to be Al Snow. Snow pinned <mask> following a Snow Plow.This earned Snow, a title shot against <mask> for the world title at Wrestlepalooza, where <mask> retained the title. <mask> suffered an injury which prevented him from competing for a couple of months but he continued to appear on television, during which Triple Threat began feuding with Taz, Rob Van Dam and Sabu. The two teams squared off in a match at November to Remember, where Triple Threat lost. After the match, Bigelow left ECW and Chris Candido abandoned <mask>, resulting in Triple Threat being disbanded. <mask> continued his feud with Taz, which culminated in a match between the two at Guilty as Charged in 1999, where <mask> lost the ECW World Heavyweight Championship to Taz after <mask> was attacked by former teammate Chris Candido, allowing Taz to win with a Tazmission. <mask>' fourth ECW World Heavyweight Championship reign was the longest reign in the title's history, lasting 406 days. <mask> faced Taz in a rematch for the World Heavyweight Championship at House Party, where he lost.On February 12 at Crossing the Line '99, <mask> allied with his long-time nemesis Tommy Dreamer to feud with Impact Players after both men claimed to be the "New Franchise" but <mask> elected Dreamer as his successor, turning <mask> face for the first time since he disrespect to ECW fans in nearly 3 years. At Living Dangerously, Dreamer and <mask> defeated Impact Players. <mask> continued to feud with the Impact Players until he left the company due to a disagreement with Paul Heyman. <mask> wrestled his last match in ECW on April 15, where he defeated Justin Credible after a Pittsburgh Plunge. Second return to WCW

The Revolution and The New Blood (1999–2000)

After quitting ECW, <mask> made a surprise return to WCW on the July 19, 1999, episode of Nitro, where he joined with former Triple Threat members Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko and fellow ECW alumnus Perry Saturn to form The Revolution and pledged to cut the "cancer" out of WCW. This was a reference to Ric Flair, with whom <mask> had an off-screen grudge. Asya was later added to the group in place of Benoit, who left the team.The group wrestled other groups including West Texas Rednecks, First Family, Filthy Animals, and Varsity Club during its run. The group was rarely featured prominently and never really challenged the dominant wrestlers of WCW. This led to them never really getting popular as an idea, though both Benoit and Malenko were successful individually. The lack of success would eventually lead to the demise of the group after Malenko and Saturn left WCW. Following the disbanding of the Revolution, <mask> managed The Wall at the Souled Out pay-per-view in 2000, before taking a hiatus from television as the company did not have any plans for him at the time. <mask> returned to WCW television on the April 10 episode of Nitro, where he aligned himself with Vince Russo and joined The New Blood group run by Russo and Eric Bischoff, which feuded with the older established The Millionaire's Club, which included his on-screen and real life off-camera nemesis Ric Flair. <mask> faced Flair for the first time on that same night in a match, which <mask> lost by disqualification.At Spring Stampede, <mask> was paired with Buff Bagwell in a four-team tournament for the vacated World Tag Team Championship, where they defeated Harlem Heat 2000 in the semi-finals and the makeshift team of Ric Flair and Lex Luger in the finals, after Brian Adams and Bryan Clark delivered a High Times. <mask> resumed his feud with Flair, which culminated in a match between the two at Slamboree, which <mask> won, with the help of Flair's son David Flair in disguise of a masked man. On the May 15 episode of Nitro, <mask> defended the tag title alongside The Wall, who

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 substituted for Buff Bagwell in a match against KroniK, which KroniK won. <mask> received an opportunity for the World Heavyweight Championship against Jeff Jarrett on the May 31 episode of Thunder, where he failed to win the title after the WCW Commissioner Ernest Miller delivered a Feliner to <mask>. <mask> competed against The Wall in a Best of Five Tables match at The Great American Bash, which <mask> won by driving Wall through three tables. The Return of The Franchise and United States Champion (2000–2001)
At Bash at the Beach, <mask> defeated his former tag team partner Buff Bagwell, by debuting his new finishing move called Franchiser and with assistance by Torrie Wilson, who turned on Bagwell. With Wilson as his manager, <mask> began using his ECW nickname "The Franchise" and began using "Cut the damn music!"catchphrase during his entrance to the ring and then delivered a promo on the microphone. <mask> participated in a tournament for the vacated United States Heavyweight Championship on the July 18 episode of Monday Nitro, where he defeated Billy Kidman in the quarter-finals but lost to eventual winner Lance Storm in the semi-finals. <mask> would begin a rivalry with Kidman, which resulted in a loss for <mask> in a Strap match at the New Blood Rising pay-per-view. However, <mask> and Torrie Wilson defeated Kidman and Madusa in a scaffold match at Fall Brawl. In the fall of 2000, <mask> became allied with the Natural Born Thrillers, during which he helped their leader Mike Sanders win a kickboxing match against Ernest Miller at Halloween Havoc, which lead to <mask> facing Miller in a match at Mayhem, which Miller won. <mask> would then enter a rivalry with Misfits in Action leader General Rection over Rection's United States Heavyweight Championship. He faced Rection for the title at Starrcade, but lost by disqualification after Chavo Guerrero, Jr. informed the referee that <mask> was trying to use a chain to hit Rection.In 2001, <mask> defeated Rection in a first blood chain match to capture the title at the Sin pay-per-view. <mask> dropped the belt to Rick Steiner on the February 5 episode of Nitro. This was <mask>' last WCW match in the company and he sat out the rest of his WCW contract until it was purchased by the WWF on March 23, 2001. After WCW closed down, <mask> refused to return to the WWF because of paternity leave due to his wife's pregnancy. Xtreme Pro Wrestling (2002–2003)
After the WWF purchased both WCW and ECW in 2001, <mask> Went to Xtreme Pro Wrestling in July 2002, where he won its World Heavyweight Championship after defeating Johnny Webb at the Night of Champions event. <mask> later helped expand the promotion from its base in Los Angeles to Philadelphia, and XPW held its first show in Philadelphia on August 31. <mask> would later become the final World Heavyweight Champion in XPW history, as the promotion held its final event on March 8, 2003, in his hometown of Pittsburgh.Total Nonstop Action Wrestling

The New Church, The New Franchise and color commentator (2003–2005)

Following the closures of both XPW and WWA, Martin signed with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling in June 2003. Under his <mask> ring name, he debuted in TNA on the company's weekly pay-per-view on June 11, where he immediately reignited his feud with Raven by costing him an opportunity for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. The two ended up joining separate factions as <mask> became a member of The New Church and Raven formed The Gathering. <mask> made his TNA in-ring debut on July 2, where he defeated CM Punk in a Clockwork Orange House of Fun match. <mask> and Raven clashed throughout the summer of 2003, with both men trading wins in a couple of matches. When this feud ran down, <mask> broke away from The New Church on October 1 and began a quest to find "The New Franchise". He was joined by Tracy as his new valet after his match against Sandman on November 5 and <mask> was introduced as <mask>' protege and the trio formed their new group called "The New Franchise" on November 26.<mask> took him under his wing throughout the end of 2003 and beginning of 2004, as the two joined the company's tag team division. The duo were entered into a tournament for the vacated NWA World Tag Team Championship, where they lost to Christopher Daniels and Low Ki on March 24. The following week, <mask> and <mask> participated in a four-way tag team match to receive a shot at the tag team titles, but came up short. On May 5, <mask> turned on <mask> and the two squared off in a match, which <mask> won. After the match, Traci joined <mask> to abandon <mask>. When the grouping of <mask> and <mask> broke up, <mask> went into a semi-in-ring retirement. He became an onscreen commentator and interviewer for TNA's new weekly television show, Impact!, and their monthly pay-per-views.In addition to this on-screen role, he worked backstage as a road agent and took a few independent bookings. Managing The Naturals (2006–2007)
<mask> returned to television on the May 18, 2006 episode of Impact!, appearing on the entrance ramp as <mask> (no relation) made the save for his tag team partner Chase Stevens after a brutal squash match against Samoa Joe. He would scout The Naturals again on the May 25 episode of Impact!, when <mask> lost his match. A few weeks later, on June 15, <mask> confronted them on their recent losing streak and their squandered talent, referring to their former manager and <mask>'s ex-Triple Threat teammate Chris Candido in the process. He offered to become their manager, which they accepted. During the promo when he offered his services, he spoke his true feelings on World Wrestling Entertainment's revival of Extreme Championship Wrestling, admonishing Vince McMahon for "exploiting the memory" of the company he helped build nearly 15 years earlier. After becoming their mentor, pre-recorded videos showed <mask> training The Naturals have been shown on TNA programming, though he doesn't stand at ringside during their matches like most other managers.Once they were deemed ready for competition, <mask> billed them as "The Newly Franchised Naturals". On the December 21 episode of Impact! after The Naturals lost to Team 3D in a tables match, a fed up <mask> turned his back on them, claiming that his experiment was over. Despite the failed "experiment", prior to the departure of The Naturals from TNA, Chase Stevens was featured in a match on the pre-show of the Final Resolution pay-per-view in 2007. During the match, Stevens wore the gold-and-black "Franchised" Naturals attire. <mask> came out after his match to heatedly confront Stevens about wearing his colors, leading to an in-ring confrontation between the two. After the angle was dropped, <mask> remained completely unseen on TNA programming.On October 10, 2007, TNA announced that <mask> was released from his TNA contract. Feud with Christopher Daniels (2009)

On the May 28, 2009 episode of Impact!, <mask> returned to TNA and attacked Christopher Daniels after his match with A.J. Styles. The following week on Impact!, <mask> again attacked Daniels during his match before subsequently stating that he wanted a second chance in TNA like Daniels received, after the latter was, in storyline, fired from TNA. He was granted a second chance on the June 11 episode of Impact!, where he was given a match with A.J. Styles which he lost, only to attack Styles after the match. Daniels would come out to help Styles, only to have <mask> hit him with a towel containing a pair of handcuffs.At the Slammiversary pay-per-view, <mask> lost to Daniels in a second chance match, resulting in Daniels retaining his spot on the TNA roster. Following the match, <mask> left TNA once again, although asked by TNA to participate in their ECW reunion show Hardcore Justice, he refused the invitation. Return to the independent circuit (2009–present)
On March 13, 2009, <mask> returned to the National Wrestling Alliance for the first time since he dropped the NWA World Heavyweight Champioionship in 15 years, wrestling for the On Fire territory in a singles match, and defeating ECW alumnus Little Guido. In 2012, <mask> announced that he would take part in Extreme Reunion, an event consisting of former ECW Originals. It was the first in a series of three events. The event was held on April 28 in the National Guard Armory of Philadelphia. The second event, Extreme Rising, was held on June 29 in New York and on June 30 in Philadelphia.There was a third show promoted by the same group, held on November 17 in Pittsburgh called "Extreme Rising Remember November". In the main event <mask> wrestled Matt Hardy to a no-contest. On March 24, 2017, at a Pro Wrestling All-Stars of Detroit event, <mask> defeated The Great Akuma in Melvindale, Michigan, to become the Pro Wrestling All-Stars Heavyweight Champion. On April 21, <mask> defeated Paul Bowser by countout in an "Extreme Rules" match to successfully defend the title. He lost the title on May 12, 2017, when Breyer Wellington beat <mask>, Paul Bowser, and Atlas Hytower in a Fatal Four-Way match. On May 13, 2017, at XICW "Best In Detroit 20" in Clinton Township, Michigan, <mask> beat Joe Coleman to become the XICW Xtreme Intense Champion. On March 3, 2018, at World BigTime Wrestlings' "Extreme Warfare" in Lucas County, Ohio, <mask> defeated Shawn Blaze for the WBW Heavyweight Championship.He lost the belt back to Blaze on May 5, 2018, after the WBW commissioner interfered with the match. <mask> also feuded with Bobby Fulton, squaring off against the former Fantastic in a series of hardcore matches. On March 11, 2018, at XICW "March Madness & Mayhem" in Fraser, Michigan, <mask> lost the XICW Xtreme Intense Title to Kongo Kong. Promoting
<mask> was a promoter for the Xtreme Pro Wrestling promotion. Under his promotion, XPW moved from California to Philadelphia and featured many former ECW stars. In mid-2005, <mask> conceived and, alongside Jeremy Borash, promoted and booked Hardcore Homecoming, a series of Extreme Championship Wrestling reunion events. The first event occurred on June 10, two days before World Wrestling Entertainment's own ECW reunion show, ECW One Night Stand.The final show occurred on November 5. On April 9, 2009, it was announced that Martin and Nite Owl Production were to promote a follow up to Hardcore Homecoming called November to Remember: The Final Chair Shot. Originally, the event was to occur in 2008 on the anniversary of the original Hardcore Homecoming event, but the date was rescheduled to coincide with an American Cancer Society charity event hosted by <mask>' former valet Francine. <mask> was scheduled to headline the Extreme Reunion event scheduled for April 28, 2012. Unbeknownst to WWE, <mask> appeared in the audience on the March 19, 2012 episode of Raw to promote the event, but was escorted out of the arena by security after causing a disturbance. Personal life
In 1993 during his first stint with World Championship Wrestling, he began teaching emotional support classes, economics, and the history of the United States at a high school. While not wrestling, Martin works as a motivational speaker.Martin married Michelle Burke on August 17, 1987. They divorced on November 24, 1994. Five years later, Martin married Carla Marie Reeves on August 13, 1999. Their first son, Connor, was born in April 2001, and their second son, Caden Andrew, was born on December 6, 2005. Soon after his second son was born, Martin checked himself into a drug rehabilitation program due to a painkiller addiction. Since 2006, Martin has remained drug-free. He discussed this on Steve Austin's podcast during a two-part episode in April 2015.Martin and his wife divorced in 2017. Martin produced, choreographed and played himself in the 2013 film Pro Wrestlers vs Zombies. In July 2016, Martin was named part of a class action lawsuit filed against WWE which alleged that wrestlers incurred traumatic brain injuries during their tenure and that the company concealed the risks of injury. The suit was litigated by attorney Konstantine Kyros, who has been involved in a number of other lawsuits against WWE. The lawsuit was dismissed by US District Judge Vanessa Lynne Bryant in September 2018. During his second reign, the promotion was renamed Extreme Championship Wrestling. <mask> held the title an additional two times after these events.Luchas de Apuestas record

Notes

See also
 Extreme Rising
 NWA World Title Tournament
 The Revolution
 The Triple Threat

References

<mask> F.A.Q. Solie's title histories
Interview
Interview

External links

1964 births
American color commentators
American male professional wrestlers
Bethany College (West Virginia) alumni
ECW Heavyweight Champions/ECW World Heavyweight Champions
ECW World Television Champions
Living people
NWA/WCW/WWE United States Heavyweight Champions
NWA World Heavyweight Champions
People from New Brighton, Pennsylvania
Professional wrestlers from Pennsylvania
Professional wrestling announcers
Professional wrestling promoters
Sportspeople from Pittsburgh
The Dangerous Alliance members
WWF/WWE Intercontinental

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