Thrasher (wrestler)

Early career (1990–1996)

Ruth grew up in South Jersey. He trained as a wrestler under Larry Sharpe and debuted in 1990 as The Spider. He later became Sharpe's assistant and trained wrestlers such as the Big Show and others at Sharpe's "Monster Factory". Among the wrestlers trained by Sharpe and Ruth was Chaz Warrington, Ruth's future tag team partner. Ruth made a number of appearances for the World Wrestling Federation in the early 1990s including a losing effort against Marty Jannetty on the second ever episode of Raw, competing under his given name as an enhancement talent.

World Wrestling Federation (1996–2000)

Ruth is best known for his appearances with the WWF in the late 1990s, where he formed a successful tag team with his old training classmate Chaz Warrington. Warrington and Ruth were best known in the WWF as The Headbangers: Ruth wrestled as Thrasher, while Warrington wrestled as Mosh. Both men debuted in the World Wrestling Federation on the November 24, 1996 episode of Superstars as the Headbangers. The Headbangers were a team that portrayed a pair of metal fans and were known for their outrageous costumes, which usually featured nose rings and kilts. They captured the vacant WWF World Tag Team Championships on September 7, 1997 by defeating three other teams in a four team tag match at Ground Zero. They lost the titles to The Godwinns on October 5 of that same year.

The Headbangers split in 1999 when Ruth suffered a knee injury and Warrington began pursuing a singles career, but reformed in late 1999 on the October 10 edition of Sunday Night Heat when Ruth came to Warrington's aid during a domestic violence angle, which saw him vilified by other wrestlers and officials alike for a number of weeks. Ruth had presented video footage of Warrington's (kayfabe) girlfriend Marianna Komlos putting on makeup to make it seem as if Warrington had been abusing her. The police officers arresting Warrington then uncuffed him and arrested Komlos for her lies. Shortly thereafter the two began appearing regularly as a team again, but were now heels and inexplicably came to the ring wearing cone brassieres which they wore while they wrestled.

In 2000, Ruth took part in the match for the Hardcore Championship at WrestleMania 2000. He held the title for 37 seconds, pinning Joey Abs and then being pinned by Pete Gas. After the Headbangers split for the second time and Warrington went on to team with D'Lo Brown, Ruth continued to wrestle in singles competition mainly on WWF Jakked and was released from the WWF later that year.

Independent circuit (2000–2002)

After his release from the WWF, Ruth continued to wrestle until 2002 in independent promotions before retiring from professional wrestling.

Return to the independent circuit (2011–2014)

In 2011, The Headbangers reformed and have been wrestling on the independent circuit once again. In June 2012, Thrasher and Mosh debuted in Ring of Honor as The Guardians of Truth, a masked tag team managed by Truth Martini. As of 2014, Thrasher now wrestles for independent promotion Championship Wrestling Entertainment in Port St. Lucie, FL. On November 14, 2014, Thrasher defeated Chico Adams to become the CWE Heavyweight Champion.

Return to WWE (2016)

On August 26, 2016 it was reported that Mosh and Thrasher would return to WWE, as part of the SmackDown brand. They lost their return match to Heath Slater and Rhyno on the August 30, 2016 edition of SmackDown. They fought The Usos for a spot at Survivor Series, but lost again. They have since teamed with other villainous teams, suggesting Mosh and Thrasher are heels.

Personal life

Ruth is married with four children.

Upon retiring from professional wrestling in 2002, Ruth began working in restaurant management and marketing. Ruth is currently the General Manager of YouFit Health Club in Greenacres, Florida.

In wrestling

Championships and accomplishments