Scott D’Amore Recalls Pretending To Be Rhino For TNA Slammiversary 2019 Gore Spot

Scott D’Amore has acknowledged that he portrayed Rhino to deliver a Gore at TNA Slammiversary 2019. “Rhino” appeared in the TNA World Championship match between Michael Elgin and champion Brian Cage at the July 2019 show, delivering a Gore to Elgin. The catch was that Rhino was still awaiting the end of his contract with WWE.

D’Amore brought up the moment in his latest D’Amore Drop for Yahoo! Uncrowned. He mentioned it in context of the end of Survivor Series: WarGames. The men’s WarGames match ended with a mystery masked man superkicking and Stomping CM Punk. The identity of that person is reportedly Austin Theory, though he of course used Seth Rollins’ signature move.

D’Amore wrote about how, with Rhino the man unavailable, Don Callis suggested that D’Amore himself portray Rhino in a mask. You can see the highlights from D’Amore’s recollection below:

On How the Plan Came Into Place:

“I have never talked about this publicly, but when we were booking Slammiversary XVII in Dallas in 2019, Don Callis, my co-EVP with TNA at the time, looked at me and said: ‘We need Rhino to do a run-in. We need to set up what we’ll be doing for the rest of the summer.’

“Now, Rhino was under contract with WWE. He was waiting out his contract. There was no non-compete period, and it was our intention to bring him in as soon as we were legally able. We already had big plans for Rhino, but those plans could not start at Slammiversary. So I said, ‘Don, you know Terry cannot do the show.’

“And Don looked at me with that Callis smirk and said, ‘Yeah, but Rhino can. We just need someone who looks like him, moves like him, and can hit a Gore like him. Someone under a hoodie who can fool the fans for 20 seconds.’

“‘That is crazy,’ I told him. ‘There is nobody who resembles Terry. The size of his legs alone — nobody else has legs like that.’ And Don said, ‘Scott … you have legs like that. And you trained Terry,” he added. “So if anyone can do the Gore and walk like him, it is you.’

“The entire booking team loved it. And now they are all looking at me. Eventually I said, ‘All right, let me at least get in the ring and try it.'”

On Prepping For the Spot:

“So I watched Rhino’s matches on my phone, how he moves, how he gets in and out of the ring — and most importantly, how he hits the Gore. Now, if you are imagining me hitting Gore after Gore for days, getting closer and closer to the real thing, the truth is I spent most of the time stretching. It had been a long time since my last match.

“Eventually I thought, ‘OK, I’m doing a half-decent impression,’ and against my better judgment, I told Don and the guys I would do it.”

On the Actual Spot:

“So at Slammiversary I shaved and oiled my legs like Terry does, wore black basketball shorts, a black hoodie, short boots, and a wig with a ponytail under a black wrestling hood. We also got Terry to tweet an image of Southfork Ranch, the famous house from the show ‘Dallas.’ That got fans freaking out that Rhino was going to be at Slam.

“Still not sure anyone would buy it, I hit the ring. I crouched in the corner like Rhino does. I hit the Gore on Michael Elgin after the world title match and then did the taunt. Then I escaped through the crowd and went to the back. When I took the mask off, even some talent — who would deny it if I named them — were shocked it was me and not Terry. Online it was reported like Rhino had been there and people started speculating he had breached his WWE deal.”

On the Reaction To the Spot:

“I even heard WWE had internal discussions about it. ‘How could Terry be so unprofessional? Did he really think we would not know it was him? It was clearly him. Nobody else has legs like that.’ And then Shawn Daivari pipes up and says, ‘Hey, I think that was Scott D’Amore pretending to be Rhino.’

”And Sonjay Dutt goes, ‘No way. I have known Scott for years and he is too crippled to move like that. That was Rhino.’ There was even talk about whether they should consider legal action against Terry.

“Can you imagine me testifying under oath that I shaved and oiled my legs and hit a Gore? And I had proof — my leg hair hasn’t grown back to this day!

“Eventually Daivari convinced enough people it was not Terry. But if you look online, you will still see reports that Rhino, still under contract to WWE, hit the ring at Slammiversary XVII. (It’s even on Rhino’s Wikipedia!)”