Welcome to another wonderful edition of the Phat Daily Column. Today, we'll hop into the Time Machine and look at famous Father-Son connections. Many wrestlers first got their job because their father was somehow connected to a certain federation. Had it not been for their father, maybe they'd have a tougher time in wrestling. So let's hop into the Time Machine, and look back at certain wrestler's entrances, thanks to their fathers.

Daddy, Please Get Me a Push

The Rock

Yes, the Rock had some wonderful connections within the WWF, once he decided that he wanted to wrestle. Rocky Johnson, the Rock's father, had wrestled for the WWF and was very close to many of the backstage agents or wrestlers. Once Rock started making progress in his training, Pat Patterson arranged for the Rock to have a tryout with the WWF. Rocky Johnson came with him to the trials, and the Rock was awarded a developmental contract with the WWF.

After a few months, the Rock was called up to the WWF, from his developing site of Memphis, to wrestle for the WWF on a regular basis. They gave Duane Johnson the name of Rocky Miavia, and shoved him down our throats as a babyface! They pushed him to the Intercontinental title, and there were no signs of having him lose. His knee injury actually caused the Rock to lose that title, to Owen Hart, thus ending the Rocky Miavia's unearned push. Rocky Miavia was a horrible babyface at the time, but yet the WWF kept pushing him. Why? Rocky Johnson is a past WWF wrestler, and the WWF pushed him as a favor.

Erik Watts

Bill Watts was the current President of WCW at the time, and he obviously wanted success for his own son, instead of pushing others. Erik Watts was still developing at the time Bill called him up to wrestle for WCW. If you remember him in 1992, you should know that he was horrible in the ring. He was a very green wrestler, and he didn't quite have the look of a wrestler in need of a push. However, since Bill ran WCW, he pushed Erik Watts as far as he could.

Bill Watts was eventually fired for bad decisions, like this one, at the end of 1992. Erik Watts would surf around in WCW for a while, mainly as a higher profile jobber. He got in trouble, one time, for using the Flatliner as a regular move. Kanyon was using that as his trademark finisher, and got furious instantly! Watts wasn't really seen much on WCW since then, and was eventually released. He's wrestling in the independents somewhere. Had Bill Watts not shoved his son on television early, maybe Erik Watts could have been something. He certainly had the potential back then, but he was never able to grow and get better in the developmental stages of wrestling.

Greg Gagne

If you remember the classic AWA, then you'll remember this unfortunate wrestler. Greg Gagne was the son of the AWA owner, Verne Gagne. He was shoved down our throats as the top babyface of the AWA, which wasn't effective. He was worse than Rocky Miavia in that he was pushed like this for 10 whole years! Legend has it that AWA bookers would threaten Verne Gagne about quitting if Greg would happen to win the World Title.

AWA had an awesome heel champion at the time in Curt Hennig, and the plan was for Greg Gagne and Hennig to have a major feud. Luckily, the WWF talent raids picked up Hennig, made him Mr. Perfect, and saving him from any embarrassment from carrying this slug of a wrestler. Greg's wrestling career didn't amount to much after Curt left, and he eventually wound up in WCW to be a backstage agent.

Curt Hennig

Speaking of the AWA and Curt Hennig.... Curt mainly received his spot in the AWA, thanks in part to his father, Larry "the Axe" Hennig, who was fairly connected to the AWA at the time. The AWA was based in Minnesota too, which was the Hennig home state too. But don't think that Hennig got his pushes as World Champ cause of Larry. Oh no! Hennig was THAT DAMN GOOD. Why do you think the WWF quickly picked him up when they had the chance?

Hennig would go on to decent success in the WWF, while having embarrassing failure in WCW. He should sue WCW, if you ask me, because he was promised a World Title reign for coming to WCW by Eric Bischoff. Hennig was last seen beating up Dennis Rodman in the I-Generation tour.

The Hart Family

Stu Hart had strong influence within the wrestling industry, but don't get me wrong. Both Owen Hart and Bret Hart were great wrestlers, as Stu trained them to be. Their success came from how good they truly were, and not on who their father was.

David Flair

It's true. If Ric Flair was not the wrestling legend he is, then David Flair wouldn't have a job. Period! If you think that's wrong, then you're stupid. David Flair has NO potential as a wrestler, and he doesn't have the build of a wrestler either. He was just a regular guy who decided to ditch his State Patrol training to follow his father's footsteps.

David Flair hasn't really improved on his wrestling ability since being signed with WCW, although he can take some mean bumps. Ric Flair even put his own son over in a retirement match, showing everyone how bad he wants his son to succeed. David wasn't able to ride off that so-called HUGE victory, and now he's chasing Ms. Hancock for carrying someone else's child. What a waste.

Dustin Rhodes

Son of the legendary Dusty Rhodes, who was a booker at the time Dustin became big. Well, big as in being shoved down our throats. He was handed the US title a few times, even though he bored everyone to tears. He was just a plain wrestler at the time, who obviously got the push cause Daddy was helping out.

Dustin would continue to bore us, until the Hogan administration fired him for blading in the "King of the Road" match, when he wasn't supposed to. He would later become big by turning into Goldust in the WWF, and then screwing his career again in WCW. He did do a good "shoot" interview after not wanting to be 7even, which was a Russo gimmick. Dustin is currently under WCW contract, waiting for a phonecall to come back.

-Now I'm sure I'm forgetting some here or there, but oh well. These are the most famous cases. With some, it didn't matter about their fathers being connected to the business. However, in most cases, those wrestlers would have taken a much longer time in the business, had their fathers not offered the helping hand.

More Mr. Tito History Columns

Mr. Tito's Phat Documentary Review

I keep missing this one when it's on, so when I stumbled upon that it was on TLC last night, I jumped all over it!!

-TLC's The Secret World of Professional Wrestling-

This documentary came around about at the end of 1998, I believe. Why? Because they somewhat say that WCW is more successful than the WWF here, and their showing Steve Austin wrestling, as well as Goldberg's climb to the top. Whatever it was, the WWF hasn't convincingly defeated WCW yet when this thing was created! More proof of that was when Dave Meltzer gave us a lovely bar graph of Pay Per View revenues, like we were in high school or something?

Anyway, this was a well put together documentary, showing inside aspects of the wrestling business. It reveals the wrestler's injuries, training, backstage, and so forth. They talked about the importance of gimmicks. It pissed me off when they said that Sting had many flopped looks until he found the "Crow Sting", which works. Please! He was the most over WCW wrestler, no matter who(Hogan) tried to come in.

I won't go into much further detail since it's sort of old. If you see it on The Learning Channel, then check it out. I'll give it a strong A- for this documentary. Also on TLC, check out the Bruce Lee documentary too! Damn good one there as well!

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Tomorrow: Tito Year End Awards for the BEST in wrestling and Bad Tito Awards for the WORST in wrestling.

@That's all for today. I'll be back, tomorrow for the Tito Awards. Oh yeah, the Bad Tito Awards too. Oh, it shall be such wonderful fun.