Mark Young was born April 23, 1967 and began is wrestling career in 1986 training with the legendary Stu Hart in his infamous dungeon. He debuted for Stampede Wrestling in late 1986 as Mark Scarpa.
Over the next couple years he would tour the territories with stops in the WWF, Continental Wrestling, AWA, Portland Wrestling, and WCW. In the Summer of 1989 he began a near year long run with the WWE competing as enhancement talent on TV shows and trading wins on house shows with other enhancement talents.
The biggest win of his WWE tenure came on September 30, 1989 in his Madison Square Garden debut in a televised win over Barry Horowitz.
From May to June 1990 he embarked on a three week tour of All Japan Pro Wrestling competing in the Super Power Series as Mark Scarpa. He wrestled in singles and tag team matches teaming with Dustin Rhodes, Johnny Smith, Terry Gordy, & Abdullah the Butcher.
This is where the information gets a bit sketchy. Online world of wrestling reports that Mark Young contacted them directly and stated that he broke his neck on the All Japan tour continued to wrestle for a month after the incident. He then returned home to the US, got surgery, and retired.
However other information on the internet states that when he returned from Japan he competed in the Global Wrestling Federation under the name Todd Overbow out of Dallas, Texas.
His matches lessened in 1991 - 1993 where he had sporadic matches for WWE, WCW, GWF, & Mid-South Wrestling. His last match was on May 8, 1993 in Highlandstown, Maryland for Mid-Eastern Wrestling Federation teaming with Trent Young as Vince Young in a losing effort to Joe Thunder & Johnny Blaze.
Sadly Mark passed away on February 25, 2016 at only 48 years old.
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Later Readers!
Hi Michael, this is Vinnie Valention Bilotto, you may not know me but I just happen to see your article on Mark and I am sorry to hear that he had died. We were very good friends at one time working in a few territories together. His Dad also had me booked in WWF on two seperate occasions but I messed up by not taking the opportunities. Enjoyed reading some of your other articles too. vinnie@asprop.com
ReplyDeleteVinnie, thank you for your comment, I'm glad you found the article and someone remembers Mark's time in wrestling.
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