Georgia Football: Armarlo Herrera future WWE Champion

Tag Team Specialist Dan Spivey

Dan Spivey or Waylon Mercy. If you’re a wrestling fan, you probably know both names. As a Georgia football fan, you know Spivey as a Bulldog defensive end from 1972-to-1973. In 1972, Spivey was an All-American but his football career was ruined with a knee injury in his junior season.

After his time in Athens ended, Spivey returned home to Florida where he was just a common man. That is until he met WWE Hall of Famer and multi-time World Champion Dusty Rhodes in the early 1980’s. At 6’8 and being an All-American defensive end, Rhodes invited Spivey to train towards becoming a pro-wrestler.

Spivey’s career was a lot more positive than Wilson’s and lasted 12 years before injuries forced him into retirement in 1995.

His first gimmick when he debuted in CWF in 1983 was the Eagle in a tag team called American Starship with Scott Hall (named Wolf). Hall of course went on to have a great career as Razor Ramon in the WWF (now-WWE) and as himself as a member of the Outsiders and nWo in WCW.

A year later he joined Jim Crockett Promotions but left after two mediocre years. His career really picked up after that when he began wrestling for the WWF. Around the same time, Barry Windham left the WWF leaving Mike Rotunda without a tag team partner in the U.S. Express. Spivey immediately took the role.

Although this U.S. Express lineup was not as successful as the previous, Spivey had become a mild success in wrestling on a big stage. But his career did not peak there.

He rejoined JCP in 1988 and once again filled the void left in a tag team when he joined Rotunda, Rick Steiner, and “Dr. Death” Steve Williams in the Varsity Club stable. As half of that team, his playing time at Georgia was referenced since it fit the gimmick.

After the Varsity Club broke up, Spivey continued to be paired with future legends when him and Sid Vicious formed the Skyscrapers with manager Teddy Long. In this group, Spivey had his first major victory in the two-ring King of the Hill Match as him and Vicious each won in their respective ring.

When Vicious got injured, Spivey was joined by the biggest future legend of his career; “Mean” Mark Callous, better known today as the Undertaker.

Spivey finally became a champion in late-1989, but not as a tag team wrestler despite being in tag teams for most of his career at this point. Instead, Spivey won the Florida Heavyweight Championship. He held that belt until mid-1992 making him one of the longest reigning Florida Heavyweight Champions.

Spivey returned to the WWF in 1995. A year that is known for outrageous and ridiculous gimmicks in the company. However, Spivey was lucky enough to get a good gimmick, one that fans liked at the time and remember fondly.

It did come with a name change. He was now wrestling as Waylon Mercy and wore hawaian shirts and pants during matches. The character was known for being very calm, nice to fans and humble outside the ring, but became vicious when the match began.

The gimmick is very similar to that of current WWE star Bray Wyatt. Former partner Rotunda, who is Wyatt’s uncle, revealed that Spivey taught Wyatt the gimmick while at the WWE Performance Center.

Unfortunately the gimmick was short lived as injuries forced him into retirement just a few months later after being built as a big, future star.

Spivey is able to look back on his wrestling career a lot better than Wilson did.

“Wrestling was my passion,” Spivey said. “After 14 years, I still miss it.”