Brian Mailhot (born August
12, 1975) is an American
professional wrestler and mixed martial arts fighter, better known
for his short stint in World Wrestling
Entertainment's SmackDown! brand under the
ring name of Palmer
Canon.
Early career
Mailhot debuted in 1999 for the
Eastern Wrestling Alliance,
losing to Larry Huntley in a match in Portland, Maine. After his
first match Mailhot elected to take more time to focus on his in
ring training and worked for the Eastern Wrestling Alliance in a
character role as their commissioner. As commissioner he feuded
with Alexander Worthington III, often countering Worthington's
devious exploits with his power as commissioner although he didn't
wrestle a match again until early 2002 when his dealings with
Worthington finally escalated to an in ring encounter.
Chaotic Wrestling
In 2002 he
began working for Chaotic
Wrestling in Massachusetts
as Brian Black. He formed a
tag team with The Mighty Mini, and the partners won
the CW Tag Team Championships on two occasions, in 2003 defeating
Atrition and 2004, defeating Peter Mulloy and Brian Buffet. Mailhot
won his first singles championship, the vacant
New England
Championship, on April 30, 2004, in a twenty-eight man
royal rumble. He won
the
Heavyweight
Championship on March 18, 2005, defeating Maverick Wild, but
vacated the title on April 1 after signing a contract with
World Wrestling Entertainment
in March 2005.
All-Star Wrestling Association
During this time Mailhot was also wrestling for the now sold and
renamed
All-Star
Wrestling Association based in Nashua, New Hampshire. He first
debuted as Brian Black on February 21, 2004 in a loss to
Adam Booker, which led to a short feud between
the two. Following that he captured the AWA Tag Team Championship
on May 15, 2004 in Claremont, New Hampshire with The Mighty Mini,
his tag partner from
Chaotic
Wrestling. This turned in to a phantom switch though when
Mailhot changed to a new persona the next show. Since the switch
took place outside of their typical venue in Nashua it was simply
ignored and the titles were returned to
The
Swerve. On May 22, 2004 he debuted a German character of his
own creation,
Otto Von Schwartz.
Taking full advantage of his German heritage and ability to speak
German himself he worked as a heel feuding primarily with
Greg "The Hammer" Valentine. He captured the
AWA Heavyweight Championship from
Greg
"The Hammer" Valentine on September 25, 2004, but dropped it on
April 9, 2005 He then departed to the WWE developmental
Deep South Wrestling.
World Wrestling Entertainment
Mailhot began training in WWE's auxiliary developmental territory,
Deep South Wrestling. On May 2,
2005 he had a dark match against Todd Hansen, with Hansen gaining
the victory. He made his televised debut with WWE on the August 25,
2005 episode of
SmackDown! as an
authority figure
called Palmer Canon. His character was ostensibly a representative
of the oppressive "
Network". This
gimmick
reflected what WWE perceived as increasing interference by
UPN regarding the content of
SmackDown!, most
notably UPN's demand that WWE remove Mark Copani's controversial
Muhammad Hassan character from
television. His character and booking of matches that the fans
disliked led to mainly
heel reactions, though he
played
face at times
such as during
Survivor
Series, where he helped
SmackDown! general manager
Theodore Long defeat
Raw general manager
Eric Bischoff. The gimmick was reminiscent of
both
Right to Censor, a
stable created to
parody the
Parents Television
Council, and
The Network, an
ECW stable led by
Cyrus which claimed to represent
TNN. The name Palmer Canon might have been a play
with the initials
"P.C.". This connection between
his name and political correctness was made more evident when
commentator
Tazz called him P.C. when Canon
came to do ringside commentary. His character also consisted of
booking matches behind the back of Theodore Long (e.g. he made
Eddie Guerrero the number one
contender, despite Long's wishes to have that right go to Rey
Mysterio). He also introduced
Marty
Wright as "The Boogeyman" as a decision by the network for
ratings, added "The Juniors", a midget wrestling division and the
tag team "The Dicks" (
John
Toland and
Chad Wicks), though all
were later released. Wright's release only lasted 2 weeks,
however.
On the February 3, 2006 edition of
SmackDown!,
William Regal and
Paul Burchill told Palmer Canon that they no
longer wanted to be a tag team so they could go their separate
ways. During this discussion Burchill informed Canon that his
family heritage traces back to pirates, and that he wanted to do a
pirate gimmick on
Friday Night SmackDown! Later, on the
April 21, 2006 edition of
SmackDown!, Canon remarked that
the
The Miz was acting inappropriately,
and had him escorted from the arena by security.
On April
20, 2006, Mailhot abruptly flew himself home from a WWE tour in
Italy
and gave his notice to WWE officials, citing
harassment from Chris Benoit, John "Bradshaw" Layfield and his "Wrestler's Court" as
the reason for his resignation. He was granted his release
on April 27, 2006. This forced the postponement of the Miz's
planned wrestling debut, as the Palmer Canon/Miz
feud had to be canceled.
During his run on
SmackDown!, Mailhot never wrestled a
match there despite being a trained wrestler.
Post–WWE
Mailhot has now returned to Portland, Maine, where he works in
fundraising for the Maine Muscular Dystrophy Society.
Brian made his amateur MMA debut on August 23, 2008 at Untamed 22
as Brian "Hacksaw" Mailhot. It was promoted by Full Force Fighting
Championships, at the Plymouth Memorial Hall. He defeated Tony Rea
via KO by slam in 1:01 of the second round.
Championships and accomplishments
- All-Star Wrestling Association
- AWA Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
- AWA Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with The Mighty Mini
Notes
- http://www.geocities.com/awaaction/February21.html
- http://www.geocities.com/awaaction/May1505.html
- http://www.geocities.com/awaaction/May2204.html
- http://www.geocities.com/awaaction/Sept2504.html
- http://www.geocities.com/awaaction/April0905.html
- http://www.geocities.com/awaaction/NEWS.html
References
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search