American Wrestling Association (1988–1991) Wayne Bloom started wrestling with the
American Wrestling Association (AWA) in 1988 after being trained by
Eddie Sharkey. In the AWA, he competed as Wayne "The Train" Bloom. His initial run as a singles wrestler was not very successful, illustrated by the 24 second loss to
Jimmy Valiant at the AWA PPV
SuperClash III. After his unsuccessful singles attempts, Bloom formed a tag team called
The Destruction Crew with fellow rookie (and Eddie Sharkey student)
”Mean” Mike Enos. In the fall of 1989 Wayne Bloom on behalf of the Destruction Crew challenged then
AWA World Tag Team champions Ken Patera and
Brad Rheingans to a “car lifting” contest. During the challenge, the Destruction Crew attacked Patera and Rhenigans and injured them (
kayfabe). This forced them to vacate the tag team titles. A tournament was set up to crown new tag-team champions; in the tournament, the Destruction Crew would defeat the team of
Sgt. Slaughter &
Baron von Raschke in the first round and then beat
Greg Gagne and
Paul Diamond in the finals to win the titles. Bloom also challenged the returning Brad Rheingans to a
Greco-Roman match which Bloom lost. Nevertheless, the Crew's tag team victory combined with their devious tactics earned the duo a joint “
Rookie of the Year” award from the readers of
Pro Wrestling Illustrated, which is the only time a tag team has won this award. On August 11, 1990, the Destruction Crew lost the AWA tag-team titles to longtime rivals
The Trooper and
D.J. Peterson. they were launched into feuds with the
Legion of Doom,
The Bushwhackers (whom they defeated at the
1992 Royal Rumble) and
The Natural Disasters (whom they unsuccessfully challenged for the
WWF World Tag Team Championship at
SummerSlam '92). By the later part of 1992, however, they would be used primarily to put
over other tag teams; they were on the losing end of an eight-man elimination tag team match at
Survivor Series '92 and were defeated by their old rivals The Steiner Brothers at the
1993 Royal Rumble.
Late career (1993–1999) In 1993, Bloom left the WWF and also semi-retired from professional wrestling. Yet within a year, he was making sporadic appearances on the independent scene as a singles wrestler among other places during the last days of
Herb Abrams’
UWF. Bloom and Enos had a brief reunion in
World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 1998. After a while together, the team finally disbanded for good. Bloom retired from professional wrestling in 1999. ==Personal life==