Dan Spivey

Dan Spivey
Spivey as Waylon Mercy in October 1995
Birth nameDaniel Eugene Spivey
Born (1952-10-14) October 14, 1952 (age 71)[1]
Tampa, Florida, U.S.[2][3]
Alma materUniversity of Georgia[4][5]
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)Dan Spivey[1]
Starship Eagle[1]
Waylon Mercy[1]
Mr. America[1]
Billed height6 ft 7 in (201 cm)[6]
Billed weight290 lb (132 kg)[6]
Billed fromGriffin, Georgia[7]
Tampa, Florida[8]
Trained byRick Martel[8]
Dusty Rhodes[8]
Barry Windham[8]
Debut1983[1]
RetiredOctober 1995

Daniel Eugene Spivey (born October 14, 1952) is an American retired professional wrestler best known under the ring names "Dangerous" Dan Spivey, Dangerous Dan, The Left Hand Man, Danny Spivey, Mr. America, and Waylon Mercy, initially working under the name Starship Eagle. Throughout his career, he has worked extensively for World Championship Wrestling, the World Wrestling Federation, and All Japan Pro Wrestling. He retired from wrestling in 1995 due to injuries and now works in alcoholism counselling in his native Florida.

Spivey spent a lot of his career as part of various tag teams and is especially known in the U.S. for teaming with Sid Vicious and then with "Mean" Mark Callous as "The Skyscrapers" in WCW and teaming with Mike Rotunda to form The U.S. Express in the WWF. He started his career teaming with Starship Coyote, collectively known as "American Starship". In Japan he teamed with various wrestlers over the years winning the World Tag Team Championship with Stan Hansen and teaming with Johnny Ace for long periods of time.

His last wrestling persona, Waylon Mercy, was inspired by Robert De Niro's portrayal of Max Cady in the 1991 remake of Cape Fear. While he only worked a few matches under that name, he later inspired the creation of the Bray Wyatt character as Spivey worked with Windham Rotunda to initially develop it.

  1. ^ a b c d e f Cite error: The named reference Lentz was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hogan2002 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Murphy was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference DooleyBarnhart2005 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference FunkWilliams2006 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ a b Shields, Brian; Sullivan, Kevin (2009). WWE Encyclopedia. DK. p. 334. ISBN 978-0-7566-4190-0.
  7. ^ "Dan Spivey « Wrestlers Database « CAGEMATCH - The Internet Wrestling Database". www.cagematch.net. Retrieved September 18, 2019.
  8. ^ a b c d "Dan Spivey - OWW". Retrieved September 18, 2019.