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Profile: Rhino
After wrestling in Canada as Rhino Richards, where he comprised the stable THUG Life with Sexton Hardcastle (Edge) and Christian Cage among others, Rhino began making his name in Extreme Championship Wrestling between 1999 and the promotion's closure in January 2001. As an aggressive heel and ECW World Television Champion, he added the company's World Heavyweight Title to his waist by squashing The Sandman immediately after the babyface won the title at ECW's final pay-per-view.
Three days later the promotion folded, and Rhino (renamed Rhyno) resurfaced in the World Wrestling Federation in March, realigning himself with Edge and Christian and helping them win their TLC match at WrestleMania X-Seven. Between April and June, he won the WWF Hardcore Title three times, and in July, he joined other former ECW stars to participate in the WCW/ECW Invasion, during which he briefly held the WCW United States Title.
Later in the year, he would be taken off television with a suspension angle to have neck surgery, keeping him out of action until February 2003. Upon his return as a babyface, Rhyno served as a perennial contender to midcard titles on both the SmackDown and RAW brands, before a public dispute with his wife in a hotel lobby on WrestleMania 21 weekend led to his release from World Wrestling Entertainment. He made one final appearance for the company at the first One Night Stand pay-per-view in June, an ECW-themed show where he lost to Sabu.
Resuming the "Rhino" spelling of his name, he debuted for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling the following month as a heel, aligned with Jeff Jarrett in a feud against NWA World Heavyweight Champion Raven, receiving his first (unsuccessful) title shot at Unbreakable. However, turning face over the course of an evening, at Bound For Glory he earned a shot at Jarrett for the gold and went on to become champion the same night. He would lose the title back to the former champion in a two-hour primetime edition of Impact the following month.
In June 2006, after defeating Jarrett in Philadelphia's former ECW Arena, Rhino publicly acknowledged that he'd turned down a WWE contract inviting him to work on the new ECW brand, and went on to express his distaste for the new product in July by burning a replica of his own original ECW World Heavyweight Title belt on television.
When Christian Cage turned heel on Sting, Rhino confronted his former ally and they began a bitter feud, which Rhino would more or less replicate later in the year with AJ Styles, culminating in a victory over Styles in TNA's first Elevation X match at Destination X 2007.
Since his TNA debut, Rhino has remained at or near main event level, competing against or alongside the top stars in the company while receiving strong support from the fans. While his NWA World Title reign may have been shortlived, his decision to remain in TNA seems likely to continue producing greater results for the "The War Machine" than a return to WWE's vision of ECW could have.
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