Athletes - Maxx Payne

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	Athletes - Maxx Payne

Darryl Peterson (born October 3, 1961 in Salt Lake City, Utah) is an American musician and former professional wrestler, better known by his stage name, Maxx Payne.

Career

Daryl Peterson became involved in wrestling in grade school when he transferred from football to amateur wrestling as result of a personality clash with the football coach. His amateur career was halted by a motorcyle accident in his junior year of high school, and Peterson eventually dropped out of school at the age of seventeen. After playing a high school wrestler in the 1979 Disney movie Take Down with Lorenzo Lamas (Disney's first PG film), Peterson married and had a child. He began working in the construction industry, but decided after two years to return to amateur wrestling.

Peterson earned wrestling scholarships to junior college and then to Iowa State University, competing in the NCAA. In 1985 he was an All American and placed 5th in NCAA competition. After graduating, he relocated to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. While working as a security guard, Peterson was introduced to professional wrestler Red Bastien by his wrestling fan boss, and decided to train with him.

Early career

Peterson worked for the World Wrestling Federation in March 1986, and put together the steel cage used in the main event of WrestleMania 2. With his training complete, Peterson debuted in June 1987 and soon after travelled to Japan to work for New Japan Pro Wrestling, where he trained in the New Japan Dojo alongside fellow gaijin Chris Benoit for five months.

In 1988 Peterson developed the character Max Pain (short for Maximum Pain), a sinister, grungy, Jimi Hendrix-loving heavy metal guitarist. His original idea was Lucifer Payne, but he felt that this was too foreboding. Peterson used the name Max Payne, hailing from Hell's Kitchen, New York nationally in the USA as well as in Europe and Japan. The character had a neo-noir look and feel, as far the live theater of professional wrestling would allow. The name Max came from the 1980s Coca-Cola spokesman Max Headroom, and Peterson later added an extra "X" at the suggestion of a friend. As of 2006, the darker Rock and Roll theme Peterson used is now quite popular compared to the flamboyant colorful styles used by other wrestlers earlier in Peterson's career.

Following a short stint with the Universal Wrestling Federation, Peterson debuted in the Tennessee-based Continental Wrestling Association. He quickly began pursuing the CWA Heavyweight Championship, and on February 8, 1988 in Memphis he defeated Jerry Lawler to take the title. Peterson then went after Lawler's AWA Southern Heavyweight Championship, but was unable to take the more prestigious title from Lawler. He forfeited the title to Brickhouse Brown on May 23, but won the title once more on June 27. His second reign ended on July 10 when he was defeated by Phil Hickerson.

Peterson left the CWA after a year before returning to Utah, where he opened his own promotion, featuring wrestlers such as Louie Spicolli. After his employees began to leave the territory, Peterson applied for a job with the WordPerfect division of Microsoft. Soon after, he received a phone call from Benoit, who invited him to join an upcoming tour of Germany. Peterson received his plane ticket to Germany half an hour before he received a job offer from Microsoft, so decided to join the tour. He spent six months in the German Catch Wrestling Association as Buffalo Patterson, and won the vacant CWA Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship on December 19, 1992, defeating The Warlord in Bremen. He vacated the title the following year when he returned to America.

World Championship Wrestling

WCW booker Bill Watts was impressed by Peterson's amateur credentials, and hired him in 1993, with Peterson relocating to Marietta, Georgia (WCW was based in Atlanta). Peterson's first pay-per-view match was the February 21 SuperBrawl, where (as Maxx Payne) he played the National Anthem on his guitar before challenging Dustin Rhodes for the WCW United States Championship, substituting for the injured Ron Simmons. After Rhodes locked him in an abdominal stretch from which he was unable to escape, Peterson pushed the referee over rather than submit and was subsequently disqualified.

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