| Shark Boy | |
|---|---|
| Ring name(s) | El Piranha[1] Dean Baldwin[1] Dean Roll[1] Shark Boy[1] |
| Billed height | 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)[2][3] |
| Billed weight | 205 lb (93 kg)[2][3] |
| Born | January 28, 1975 [1] Dayton, Ohio |
| Billed from | "The Deep Blue Sea"[2] "The Deep Sea"[4] "Deep Under the Sea" "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea"[5] |
| Trained by | Les Thatcher[1] |
| Debut | May 3, 1997[1] |
Dean Mathew Roll[1] (born January 28, 1975)[1] is an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name Shark Boy and his experience in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA).
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Roll began training under Les Thatcher in October 1995 at the age of twenty.[5] He debuted on May 3, 1997 in Thatcher's Heartland Wrestling Association, wrestling as the masked El Piranha. An HWA mainstay, Roll also occasionally portrayed the character of Dean Baldwin, the purported fifth, lesser known Baldwin brother.[6][7]
Later that year, debuted in the Independent Wrestling Association, where he developed the cartoonish character Shark Boy, partly inspired by the 1995 song "I Come From the Water" by the Toadies.[5][7] In 1999, Roll trademarked the name "Shark Boy".[3][8] In 1998, Shark Boy received a flurry of media attention. He was featured on ABC in an episode of 20/20 featuring professional wrestling, on the Discovery Channel as part of the annual Shark Week and on a documentary produced by MTV entitled True Life: I'm a Professional Wrestler.[5]
On May 19, 1999, Shark Boy wrestled at the second annual Brian Pillman Memorial Show, defeating Matt Stryker, Tarek the Great and Chip Fairway in a tournament and receiving a trophy. Following the match, numerous World Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Federation wrestlers, including Al Snow, Mankind and D'Lo Brown, entered the ring and lifted Shark Boy onto their shoulders.[9] Shark Boy also wrestled at the 1998, 2000 and 2001 Brian Pillman Memorial Shows. As a result of the exposure gained by his appearances on television and at the Brian Pillman Memorial Shows, coupled with his "cult" following.
Shark Boy was signed to a contract by World Championship Wrestling in 1999.[7][8] He made several appearances on WCW Saturday Night and WCW Thunder on WTBS before being released six months later in early 2000.[6][9][10]
In February 2002 Shark Boy competed for the WWA at their Revolution PPV in Las Vegas. He fought in the opening contest, a 6-Man Cruiserweight survival match. Also in the match were A.J. Styles, Christopher Daniels, Low Ki, Tony Maramaluke, and Nova. He was eliminated first in the match, which was won by Nova.
In November 2002, Shark Boy toured Europe with the World Wrestling All-Stars promotion. At the Retribution pay-per-view on December 6, 2002, Shark Boy defeated Frankie Kazarian.[6] During this same time from 2002 till its closing, Shark Boy joined and toured with XPW where he had memorable bouts with Kaos, Tracy Smothers, Juventud Guerrera, and Jerry Lynn.
On March 7, 2004, Shark Boy opened a professional wrestling school named The Shark Tank in Ohio. His most notable trainees are Dustin Thomas, Tom Bellman, Darrell Hazel, Jerrod West, Todd Mullins, Ed Gonzales, Donny Redd, Scary Garry, Jake Omen and Tony X.[6][10]
Shark Boy debuted in 2002, wrestling for the company but was used mostly as a jobber in the X Division. On the August 14, 2002 weekly TNA pay-per-view, Shark Boy showed up on Disco Inferno's talk segment Jive Talkin' without his mask playing the character Dean Baldwin, a fictional brother of the infamous Baldwin actors.[11]
In 2003, he had a team with New Jack that involved getting New Jack to play board games such as Chutes & Ladders with Shark Boy. When New Jack left, Mad Mikey started teaming with Shark Boy before his untimely death in November 2003. In 2008 he returned to TNA after a brief hiatus from a kayfabe coma suffered from multiple ambushes, and tweaked his Shark Boy gimmick into that of a Stone Cold Steve Austin tribute, even going as far as to drink "Clam Juice" (a reference to Austin's infamous beer drinking) in the ring after his matches. Upon his gimmick change, he would occasionally team up with Curry Man to form a comedic tag team that was a moderate success. After this gimmick change he started to talk, something he had not been heard to do before.
Shark Boy took part in TNA's TerrorDome match on May 10, but it was won by Kaz. Because of that TerrorDome match, Shark Boy was injured; he returned backstage on the July 17 episode of Impact! with Curry Man and Super Eric as part of a Justice League knock off, called The Prince Justice Brotherhood, where he got whipped by Beer Money, Inc. during a backstage segment. He appeared again with the Brotherhood on the July 24 episode of Impact!. Roll returned on the February 5 edition of Impact!, only to lose to the debuting Brutus Magnus in a squash match.
Shark Boy has since been inactive due to showing flu-like symptoms at a recent television taping, causing fears of swine flu. He returned at the August 18 tapings of Impact!, only to lose against Sheik Abdul Bashir in a match broadcast on the TNA website. He was again featured on a webmatch after the August 31 tapings of Impact!, in another losing effort to Consequences Creed. This was his last match with the company for some time, and on October 13, 2010, Shark Boy's profile was removed from TNA's website while he spent some time working as a referee and road agent for the company.[12]
Shark Boy regularly appeared on the TNA web cast show Spin Cycle in the "Dirty Laundry" segment, but no longer does the role.
On December 5, 2010, Shark Boy made his return at Final Resolution, forcing Cookie into a shark cage during Robbie E's and Jay Lethal's match for the TNA X Division Championship. After the match he gave Cookie a Chummer. He changed his theme back to the theme he used before the Austin gimmick began.[13] He made his return to the ring on the December 24 edition of Xplosion, in a losing effort against Robbie E.
On March 3, 2011, Shark Boy announced on his website that he had requested and was granted his release from TNA.[14]
On July 10, 2011 Shark Boy made an appearance at Destination X teaming with Eric Young defeating Generation Me.[15]
On June 8, 2005, Roll filed a lawsuit against Miramax Films, claiming that the Miramax release "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D" infringed upon his trademark and demanding any "money, profits and advantages wrongfully gained". In November 2005, it emerged that Miramax had attempted to have the case dismissed, in addition to requesting that the court nullify Roll's trademark on the basis that "Plaintiff is a male whose services are rendered only when he is wearing a costume depicting 'shark-like' attributes."[3][8][16] In April 2007, the suit was settled for an undisclosed amount.[17]
Roll is divorced and has one son named Dylan.[18]
On Friday, February 22, 2008- He was inducted into the XWF Hall of Fame by Jack Blaze who also inducted both New Jack & Demolition in the same night. Later that year, XWF became LPW (Legends Pro Wrestling) where Shark Boy is still honored as an LPW Hall of Fame Inductee- Class 2008.
Roll lost most of his possessions in a house fire in February 2009.[19]
Roll attended the 2009 WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Houston, Texas the night before WrestleMania XXV to see his all time favorite wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin be inducted. He was seen in the second balcony at Reliant Stadium while Stone Cold made his entrance. He is also close friends with fellow TNA wrestler Frankie Kazarian and WWE's Santino Marella. He was featured in MTV's "True Life: I am a Pro Wrestler", talking about his experiences on the independent circuit. Fox News Personality Bill O'Reilly featured him in his segment "Fin-heads and Patriots".