Van Hammer

Mark Ty Hildreth (born November 11, 1959) is an American retired professional wrestler.

He is best known for his tenures in World Championship Wrestling under the ring name Van Hammer or simply Hammer.

He is currently signed to WWE in a Legends deal.

Before becoming a wrestler, Hildreth joined the United States Navy after graduating from high school and traveled around the world while on tour.

After being trained by Boris Malenko and Dan Spivey, Hildreth made his debut on July 19, 1991, as "The Hammer", teaming with "Iceman" King Parsons to defeat Billy Travis and Khris Germany in a tag team match for the North Georgia Wrestling Alliance.

The referee for this match was Hildreth's brother, Dwayne Hildreth.

Hildreth had expected to wrestle on the independent circuit for at least a few years.

However the promotion was being booked by Dusty Rhodes, who also served as the booker for World Championship Wrestling.

Despite having wrestled just one match, Hildreth was invited to be the opponent for fellow Malenko trainee Marc Mero for the latter's tryout match for WCW.

Marc Mero was brought in to WCW for a tryout match in 1991, and Hildreth was his opponent.

Then booker Dusty Rhodes liked both and signed each of them to contracts, with Hammer inked to a $156,000 deal.

In September 1991, Hildreth joined World Championship Wrestling as "Heavy Metal" Van Hammer, a rock star gimmick.

He made his debut for the promotion at Clash of the Champions XVI, where he squashed Terrance Taylor in 39 seconds.

He immediately was thrust unto the house show circuit, defeating Taylor in multiple rematches as well as defeating Oz and Cactus Jack.

He made his WCW television debut on the October 15 episode of Saturday Night, defeating Paul Lee.

Twelve days later, he made his pay-per-view debut at Halloween Havoc, defeating Doug Somers.

On November 3, he gained a non-title victory over WCW TV Champion Steve Austin at a house show in Charleston, West Virginia.

Hammer would go on to amass a 42–0 record competing on both house shows and television before finally having his streak ended when he lost a match to Cactus Jack at Clash of the Champions XVII.

At Starrcade, Hammer teamed with Big Josh in a losing effort to Steve Austin and Rick Rude.

After briefly continuing his tag team with Big Josh, Hammer returned to singles competition and faced Steve Austin for the WCW World Television Championship on the January 12 episode of Main Event, but was unable to win the title.

After the loss, Hammer competed sporadically throughout the rest of the spring (including a brief feud with J. T. Southern) before returning full-time in August 1992.

Hammer would fall to Greg Valentine and Nikita Koloff before his push began to accelerate.

In September he went on a ten match winning streak, defeating Dallas Page, Vinnie Vegas (Kevin Nash), and Super Invader (Hercules Hernandez).

He received a US title shot against Rick Rude on the September 12 episode of WCW Worldwide , he was slated to win the title, however the match was changed midway when Hammer sustained a knee injury.

Upon Hammers return he teamed with Erik Watts at Halloween Havoc and was victorious against The Vegas Connection.

For the remainder of October and November he was strongly pushed, going 19–2 in a streak that included victories over Tony Atlas, The Barbarian, and Mustafa Saed.

He would also team with Brad Armstrong in a brief feud with Page and Vegas.

On the November 21 episode of WCW Worldwide, Hammer was entered into the Jesse "The Body" Ventura Strongest Arm Tournament and defeated Vinnie Vegas.

On the December 12 episode, Hammer upset Big Van Vader to advance to the finals against WCW World Heavyweight Champion Ron Simmons.

The following week Hammer defeated Simmons to win the arm wrestling challenge.

Hammer teamed with Sting and was victorious in a tag-team match on the November 21 episode of WCW Saturday Night, defeating Rick Rude & Cactus Jack via disqualification.

On a November 26 house show at the Omni in Atlanta, Georgia, Hammer was given a broken nose by Rick Rude during an eight-man tag-team main event match held in a thunderdome cage match.

Rather than take time off he instead took a Sharpie, inserted it into his nose, and straightened it out.

Despite the injury he missed no dates and continued to be victorious on the house show circuit.

Hammer made his second Starrcade appearance, where he and his trainer Dan Spivey defeated Cactus Jack and Johnny B. Badd to qualify for the Battlebowl.

In the main event, The Great Muta defeated both Hammer, Spivey and five other wrestlers to win the Battlebowl.

On January 2, 1993, Van Hammer lost to Tony Atlas in the quarterfinals of a tournament for the vacant WCW United States Heavyweight Championship on Saturday Night.

A day later he lost to World Heavyweight Champion Big Van Vader on a house show in Bristol, TN, after which he took time off to have surgery to repair the broken nose that he had been wrestling with, causing him to miss the Thunderdome match at the Clash of the Champions XXII on January 13.

He would be out for a month before returning on the February 9 taping of WCW Power Hour.

Hammer continued to be a mainstay on Saturday Night, winning the majority of his matches.