The Godwinns

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The Godwinns
Tag team
Members	Henry O. Godwin Phineas I. Godwin
Name(s)	The Godwinns Southern Justice Tex Slazinger & Shanghai Pierce Tex Sallinger & Master Blaster
Heights	6 ft 4 in (193 cm) - Mark Canterbury 6 ft 3 in (191 cm) - Dennis Knight
Combined weight	585 lb (267 kg)
Debuted	1991
Disbanded	1998
Promotions	USWA WCW WWF

The Godwinns was the most well known gimmick of the professional wrestling tag team comprised of Dennis Knight (called Phineas I. Godwin) & Mark Canterbury (called Henry O. Godwin) that they used in the WWF. The team has use other gimmicks before they joined the WWF and had a gimmick change in the WWF shortly before disbanding. Their gimmick was that they were two cousins who were hog farmers from Arkansas. Their names were a rather unsubtle joke as a reference to this; Phineas' initials spelled PIG, and Henry's spelled HOG.

1 History
2 In Wrestling
- 2.1 Managers
3 Championships and accomplishments
4 External Links

[edit] History

The two men who would later be known as the Godwins first started teaming in the United States Wrestling Association under the names Tex Sallinger (Phineas) and Master Blaster (Henry) in 1991. Master Blaster was masked while Sallinger was not. Due to their stature and ring outfits some mistakenly believed that Sallinger and Blaster were a well travelled team known as The Texas Hangmen under a different gimmick due to the fact that the Hangmen had recently left the USWA. The team feuded mainly with Jeff Jarrett and Robert Fuller as a part of the “Texas/Tennessee” storyline. After achieving little notoriety in the USWA the two men were signed by World Championship Wrestling in 1992 or 93

[edit] Tex and Shanghai

The duo was renamed Tex Slazinger and Shanghai Pierce who remained masked. Their debut was without much fanfare as they were at best perceived as a mid-card team used to help establish higher level teams. They did have a “mini-feud” of sorts with Kent & Keith Cole, the Cole Twins who’s biggest claim to fame was that they were identical twins. Tex and Slazenger would mainly appear on the WCW “B” shows such as World Wide and WCW Saturday Night. Tex Slazinger somehow actually got a cult following among the fans of the “Saturday Night” tapings who’d chant for him when he was in the ring. During one Saturday Night show color commentator Jesse Ventura nicknamed them the Texicans although the name never became official.

Tex and Shanghai appeared at very few WCW PPVs losing every time they were in the spotlight except for one occasion: Battlebowl in 1993 Tex and Shanghai found themselves on opposite sides in a “Lethal Lottery” tag-team match, which meant that one of them would actually get a PPV victory. Rick Rude & Shanghai Pierce won the match but Shanghai was quickly eliminated in the ensuing Battle Royal.

In their time in WCW they help put over future tag-team champions such as 2 Cold Scorpio and Marcus Alexander Bagwell and Cactus Jack and Maxx Payne. In 1994 Shanghai Pierce was unmasked during a bout with Johnny B. Badd and from that day forward appeared unmasked. Sometime after the summer of 1994 Tex and Shanghai left WCW with Shanghai being signed by the WWF and Tex working the independent circuit including a return to his old stomping grounds of the USWA.

[edit] The Godwinns

Mark Canterbury had joined the WWF in late 1994 and been repackaged with a “Hog Farmer” gimmick and renamed “Henry O. Godwin” and worked both first as a heel with the Million Dollar Corporation under Ted Dibiase’s management and then later as a face after being kicked out of the Corporation.

In the early parts of 1996 Dennis Knight was signed with the WWF and given the same hog farmer gimmick and the name “Phieas I. Godwin”, Henry’s cousin. The team was managed by Hillbilly Jim and actually made their debut in the tournament to crown new tag-team champions after Billy Gunn suffered a neck injury. The Godwinns make it all the way to the finals at WrestleMania XII where they lose to the Bodydonnas. The Godwinns feuded with the Bodydonnas for the next couple of months, not just over the tag-team titles but because Phineas had become infatuated with the Bodydonna’s manager Sunny, something which initially worked against the Godwinns.

The Godwinns finally got their revenge on the Bodydonnas by winning the tag-team titles from them in May of 1996, a change that also saw Sunny join with them or more specifically join with Phineas Godwinn whom the manager used to remain near the tag-team gold. At In Your House 8 the Godwinns would lose to the Smoking Gunns, a loss that also meant that Sunny moved on as she paired up with Billy Gunn as she kept close to the tag-team titles. The Godwinns would feud with the Smoking Gunns over the summer but not regain the titles. For the rest of 1996 the Godwinns would remain a solid mid-card team but nothing more than that.

The team would turn heel in 1997, ditching their fun loving pig farmer gimmick for something more dark and sinister. They took on Uncle Cletus Godwinn as their manager and began attacking their opponents with their slop buckets. The turn and subsequent feud with the Headbangers would pay off as the Godwinns won tag gold once more on October 5, 1997 at Badd Blood. Unfortunately their joy was shortlived as they would lose the titles to the Legion of Doom only 2 days later. What was even worse was that Henry Godwin suffered a cracked C7 vertebra when the Legion of Doom botched a Doomsday Device.

[edit] Southern Justice

The doctors adviced Henry to take at least 15 weeks to rest and heal up after the injury, but Henry pushed on and returned after less than 8 weeks. At first the Godwins feuded with the Legion of Doom but then began to flounder again with no real direction.

Direction came during the summer of 1998, direction and a gimmick change for the two supposed Hog farmers from Arkansas. The two teamed up with Jeff Jarrett and adopted a “Southern Hired Gun” type of gimmick that saw them use their real names of Mark Canterbury and Dennis Knight for the first time. The team was named “Southern Justice” and they backed up Jeff Jarrett in a feud with Degeneration X. They even clashed with D-X at the Breakdown PPV where they lost to Billy Gunn, Road Dogg, and X-Pac.

Shortly after the PPV Canterbury herniated his C7 vertebrae and pinched a spinal nerve, necessitating spinal fusion surgery, a result of Canterbury returning to the ring before he should have. After the neck injury and spinal fusion Canterbury left the WWF and retired from pro-wrestling. Dennis Knight remained with the company for a couple of years repackaged as ”Mideon” and later on as ”Naked Mideon”

[edit] Deep South Wrestling

In September 2006, Canterbury wrestled several tryout matches with World Wrestling Entertainment. On September 15, 2006, WWE announced that he had been signed to a contract. He debuted in Deep South Wrestling, LLC on 11/30 as a tag partner for Ray Gordy. Gordy is now known as Cousin Ray.