John Hugger

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John Hugger
Statistics
Ring name(s)	The Fake Great Muta Johnny the Bull Johnny "The Bull" Stamboli Stamboli REDRUM The Unknown Wrestler Rellik
Billed height	6 ft 0 in (1.83 m)
Billed weight	245 lb (111 kg)
Born	April 20, 1977 (1977-04-20) (age 30) Atlanta, Georgia
Resides	Phoenix, Arizona
Billed from	Little Italy, Manhattan (Johnny "The Bull" Stamboli) The Depths of Hell (Rellik)
Trained by	Paul Orndorff WCW Power Plant
Debut	1999

John Hugger (born April 20, 1977) is an Italian American professional wrestler, best known for his work in World Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment under the ring name Johnny "The Bull" Stamboli. He is currently wrestling for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling under the ring name Rellik (officially written with a backwards "K" due to "Killer" being spelled backwards).

1 Career
2 In wrestling
3 Championships and accomplishments
4 External links

Hugger started his wrestling career as a member of the Mamalukes tag team with Big Vito in WCW, where he was known as Johnny "the Bull".

In August 2000, Johny The Bull and Sean O'Haire helped form the Natural Born Thrillers, a group of cocky newcomers, with Mike Sanders, Shawn Stasiak, Chuck Palumbo, Mark Jindrak and Reno. They were briefly "coached" by Kevin Nash. Stamboli had a successful stint with the Thrillers after winning the WCW World Tag Team Championship twice and the WCW Hardcore Championship once as a co-champion with Big Vito. Hugger claims that he remains close friends with nearly all of the Natural Born Thrillers to this day.

In March 2001, WWF purchased WCW along with many WCW wrestlers. Johnny The Bull was one that was signed and made his debut early into the Invasion as a member of the The Alliance. He made only one appearance early on and was assigned to HWA (Heartland Wrestling Association), an Ohio-based WWF developmental territory.

Johnny "The Bull", re-debuted with the last name Stamboli (WWE’s way of personalizing and trade marking the gimmick). Johnny "The Bull" Stamboli made his WWE televised debut on the June 30, 2002 episode of Sunday Night Heat against Tommy Dreamer and ended up losing by DQ following a low blow. Stamboli got his first win the following week on the July 7th, 2002 edition of Heat defeating Shawn Stasiak. Johnny made his RAW debut on July 15th, pinning Bradshaw for the WWE Hardcore Championship, but it was short-lived as he lost the title back to Bradshaw in the same night. Stamboli went on to mostly compete on Heat and wrestled for the WWE Hardcore Championship a few times on WWE RAW, WWE Heat and at House Shows.

After a beating at the hands of Rikishi on the February 6, 2003 edition of Smackdown, Nunzio threatened to bring in his "family" in order to gain revenge. The next week, Chuck Palumbo and Johnny "The Bull" Stamboli joined with Nunzio to form the Full Blooded Italians (F.B.I., a faction previously seen in the ECW promotion) and attack Rikishi.

This version initially gained little success, but throughout 2003 they would go on to have brief feuds with Rikishi, Los Guerreros, Chris Benoit, Rhyno, Brian Kendrick, Nathan Jones, Funaki, the APA, Rey Mysterio, John Cena, Hardcore Holly, and the Undertaker. In February 2004, the group began to turn face. It grew in popularity and just when the group was starting to get over with the fans it was disbanded, as Chuck was sent to the RAW brand on March 22nd, 2004 during the draft.

Stamboli and Nunzio continued teaming together as mid-carders who would often job to the stars on SmackDown!, but were successful on WWE Velocity. Johnny was released on November 4th, 2004 along with Chuck Palumbo and a few others.

Soon after his WWE release, Johnny then went on to wrestle for All Japan Pro Wrestling as a member of Voodoo Murders AJPW's main heel group in 2004. During his time as a part of the Voodoo Murders, Hugger was reunited with former F.B.I. teammate Chuck Palumbo. In 2005, Hugger and Palumbo joined the Nu-Wrestling Evolution promotion in Italy, reforming the F.B.I. gimmick to make themselves the top babyfaces in the promotion. Hugger also worked a brief tour in Mexico while under the name Stamboli and also teamed with Mark Jindrak, who goes by Marco Corleone (an Italian gimmick) in Mexico's Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre promotion. However, Hugger found perhaps his greatest success on the indy circuit in late 2006 when he began working for Impact Zone Wrestling in Arizona. He created a demonic character named REDRUM ("MURDER" spelled backwards, which is a reference to The Shining), who often (kayfabe) possesses the souls of his opponents after defeating them and sometimes has his body covered in a red liquid which is supposed to depict blood. Hugger added a mask similar in appearance to the Great Muta's, shaved his head and grew a goatee to complete the look. Hugger said he got the idea for the REDRUM gimmick when he impersonated Muta over in Japan. According to Hugger during an interview with the Wrestling Observer, he liked the whole dark, blood spitting personality and decided to reinvent his wrestling career. Although he was somewhat sad to let the Johnny Stamboli days go, he felt it was time to move on. http://www.wrestlingobserver.com/wo/news/headlines/default.asp?aID=21415

Hugger returned to WWE on July 31, 2007 in a dark match on SmackDown!, defeating Chavo Guerrero. Hugger wrestled using his REDRUM gimmick, but he wasn't billed under that name. Instead, he was billed as the Unknown Wrestler. Hugger worked as a babyface in that match and was very impressive. WWE wanted to bring him back for an extended tryout period and came very close to sealing a deal with Hugger, but unfortunately, his name turned up in the 2007 steroid scandal. As a result, WWE decided to stay away from him. He wrestled another tryout match against Val Venis as REDRUM (his gimmick from IZW) on September 22, 2007 at a RAW house show. Ultimately, however, WWE was not willing to risk resigning him, which led to TNA Wrestling's acquisition of Hugger.

At the TNA pay-per-view Genesis 2007 on November 11, Hugger made his debut by aligning himself with Black Reign and Father James Mitchell against Abyss.

During the "Shop of Horrors" match between Reign and Abyss, Hugger stood in a locked box with the words "Crimson Blood" written on it at the top of the entrance ramp, then attacked Abyss after his win over Reign. Hugger appeared dressed in his REDRUM gimmick. He debuted on the following edition of TNA Impact as a heel under the name Rellik ("killer" spelled backwards). Rellik did not win a match in TNA until the December 20 tapings where he won the four-way Slient Night Bloody Night Match against Abyss, Black Reign and Sharkboy.