Athletes - Daniel Puder

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	Athletes - Daniel Puder

Daniel Puder is an American professional wrestler, known for his short stint in World Wrestling Entertainment and its developmental territory Ohio Valley Wrestling.

Career

Puder is a former mixed martial arts fighter who participated in MMA shows before trying to become a professional wrestler. Daniel grew up in Cupertino, California where he started his own companies including: painting, silk screening, and Puder Strength Training. PST is a non-profit strength-training program for high school athletes. Daniel wrestled for Monta Vista High School, where he took first place in his weight division in the Central Coast Section (the governing body for high school sports in the area) with a broken hand. After high school, Daniel attended Menlo Business College where he achieved high marks. He started training with Frank Shamrock and Crazy Bob at a local fighting club during his junior year of high school. After mastering submission fighting he learned other types of fighting such as kickboxing during college.

Puder entered the fourth Tough Enough competition that was conducted as part of WWE's SmackDown! show between October and December 2004. The prize was announced as a $1,000,000 professional wrestling contract, however, it was in reality a four-year contract at $250,000 a year, with the option to terminate the contract after the first year. Puder was announced as the winner on December 14, 2004 (televised on December 16, 2004). As a result, Puder competed in his first WWE pay-per-view event, being entered in the 2005 Royal Rumble Match. During his brief time in the WWE he quickly established himself as a heel when he was acting all cocky towards Hardcore Holly and the babyface divas.

During the $1,000,000 Tough Enough competition on SmackDown!, Puder placed Kurt Angle in a real submission hold, a Kimura. Angle eventually "pinned" Puder, although some have suggested Puder's shoulders were not on the mat. Some have also suggested that if Puder had the Kimura any longer or in a MMA competition, Angle would have tapped out. A video clip of the incident as well as an inside story by Dave Meltzer and Dave Scherer of can be found

After the 2005 Royal Rumble, Daniel Puder was sent to WWE's development territory OVW. He was sent there for further training and development with the intent of preparing him to return full time to WWE.

In September 2005, Puder was released by WWE as a cost-cutting move. Puder was given the option of signing a development contract with WWE and transfering to its Deep South Wrestling development camp with less pay ($750 a week), but has so far declined.

As of March 2006, Daniel Puder is actively training in preparation for a return to mixed martial arts. He has also been in contact with TNA Wrestling about returning to professional wrestling.

The Angle / Puder Incident

The following is from Dave Meltzer:

The Kurt Angle-Daniel Puder deal from last night's Smackdown is really interesting. On MMA message boards, this has turned into the biggest story in a long time, and the funny part is, many MMA board people don't get the big picture at all and hate pro wrestling. I've seen some talk on pro wrestling boards, but while I've gotten tons of phone calls about it, I've gotten almost no e-mails about it, so I don't think many fans watching saw what really happened. Just to answer a few questions on it. It was real. If you don't follow fighting, Puder had Angle locked in the Kimura, or keylock as Tazz called it, although Tazz didn't let on the move was fully executed. Not only was Angle not getting out of the move, but most MMA fighters would have tapped already. Angle couldn't tap for obvious reasons. The ref counted a three even though Puder's shoulders weren't fully down, trying to end the thing, because the reality was Angle would have been in surgery had it gone a few seconds longer or had Puder not given up the hold. My impression is, since this was a taped show, that nobody in enough power in the company actually understood what happened and let it air, and figured most would see it as a pinfall in 40 seconds. And they were 98% correct, between the commentary and the pinfall, that is how most saw it. It was only when it was all over MMA boards last night that "unknown shootfighter really beats Kurt Angle" and was the hottest topic all night, that they took the footage of it off their web site, and replaced it with copy that said, "Angle mauled Nawrocki, before taking volunteers, next pinning Daniel Puder in a slightly tougher, but still relatively easy match." This is when you know a company is doomed. When God hands them an angle that would get people talking like nothing they've been able to create on their own, given them the potential for legit water cooler talk had they played it right, and they are so blind they go in the opposite direction. Tazz called it like, "well, so much for the UFC." Yeah, and so much for The Invasion angle as well.

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