In the very early 00s, my family had an AOL account where all of us had a main account, and then we could have extra accounts which nobody in my family bothered with so I could use them all if I needed them. Pro wrestling was at it's peak and you'd find me in the official AOL WWF chat room. The WWF was pretty damn good at figuring out this internet thing could get them new fans, they actually ran a trivia contest or something and sent me a pair of Rock sunglasses which would sit in my bedroom for 23 years before my mom looked it up and found out they were selling for $200 on ebay. She found a smark on craigslist who paid $150 cash for them, ez money.
Anyway another thing they did was basically an AMA. A wrestler (it was probably an intern now that I think about it) would show up in the chat room and answer questions. But I started to notice a pattern, every single time the wrestler would have a similar username. @WWFDloBrown. @WWFGoldust.
So I printed a list of wrestlers and tried registering every single one. Almost all of them were taken by the WWF, until it clicked and I registered @WWFMarkJindrak.
That's him on the left, the only noteworthy thing he ever did was get replaced by Batista in Evolution before they debuted the stable. We'll get to that later, but in 2001 WWF bought WCW and Mark was a hotshot young prospect. I registered a couple more WCW -> WWF guys but Mark was my biggest get, which should give you some idea of how irrelevant the others were.
So yeah I basically spent a solid year or so cosplaying as Mark Jindrak and nobody suspected a thing because I had an "official" username. I'd just pop in every now and then, say how things were going at OVW (the WWF's development federation at the time before they had NXT) and had a whole story about how I enjoyed the community and don't mind popping in time to time when I'm free. He'd get injured, I'd talk about rehabbing my knee. Eventually I got bored and abandoned the bit without telling anyone.
But then a year or so later, Jindrak gets called up and the Evolution thing happens. According to wikipedia:
Jindrak was soon called up by WWE.
Triple H would reveal on his 2013
Triple H - Thy Kingdom Come DVD that Jindrak was originally planned to be in
Evolution alongside himself,
Ric Flair, and
Randy Orton. This claim was further confirmed by vignettes filmed that feature Jindrak with Evolution. However, for then-undisclosed reasons, his spot as the
Arn Anderson-like enforcer of the group ended up going to
Batista instead.
[5] This would be elaborated on in 2020 in the Evolution episode of the
WWE Network series
Ruthless Aggression, when it was revealed that
Vince McMahon wanted Jindrak in the group to replace Batista due to his triceps injuries in 2003. However, Triple H felt that while Jindrak had the talent, he lacked the maturity for the group and felt that he was dragging
Randy Orton down. Jindrak, who made his first WWE programming appearance in 15 years in the interview, agreed with Triple H's assessment.
[6]
The realist in me thinks I had nothing to do with this. But the naïve "I'm the center of the universe" part of me that made Jenna Ortega really really famous can't help but construct the narrative.
In 2001, Triple H tears his quad during a tag team match against Jericho & Benoit. Spends 8 months on the shelf rehabbing the injury. That 8 months directly correspond to when I was doing the fake Jindrak bit. Was he killing time by lurking in AOL chat rooms? There wasn't social media, there was AOL chat rooms and the comment section of 411mania, and 2001 HHH seemed like the kind of dude to self-obsess over if wrestling fans were still talking about him.
So Vince has no fucking clue about the internet or anything, he just sees a BIG HOSS and makes a little group, HHH goes "shit". I don't want this mopey dork who hangs out in chat rooms looking for validation as part of my stable. Again, I've never met or spoken to Mark Jindrak so "he lacked maturity" could be about him getting fucked up on the road or any of a million things. But for some fucking reason, HHH was really passionate about replacing Jindrak enough to convince VINCE MCMAHON to compromise and go with another wrestler.
Anyway Batista joins the group, becomes a main eventer, leaves for Hollywood, becomes an A-List actor. Jindrak does nothing, gets released and moves to Mexico. It's highly unlikely I know, but there is a greater than 0% chance that Batista's entire career is a direct result of me annoying HHH in an AOL chat room, as Mark Jindrak.
