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A-Train
Bloom portrayed several characters throughout his career since making his debut in 1997. This included a few runs in Power Pro Wrestling in Memphis as Baldo and in the WWF as the bizarre Prince Albert (named after the Prince Albert piercing). The piercing-themed gimmick complemented tag team partner Droz's tattoo-artist gimmick. He made his WWF TV debut on the April 11, 1999 episode of Sunday Night HEAT, saving Droz from a beating from the Big Boss Man. Droz & Albert would team briefly until Droz's unfortunate in-ring accident in a match with D'Lo Brown in late 1999. Following a spell teaming with the Big Boss Man, Bloom was repackaged as "Albert, the wrestler formerly known as Prince." The Albert character joined forces with Test to form a tag team called T & A. The two were "hand-chosen" by the latest WWF diva, the vivacious Trish Stratus. Never engaging in anything high profile, Albert turned on Test in December of 2000, causing (kayfabe) internal injuries which resulted in bleeding from Test's mouth. Before Backlash 2001 in Chicago, Bloom joined forces with X-Pac and Justin Credible, forming the team known as X-Factor. On the June 28, 2001 Albert defeated Kane to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship. With X-Pac holding the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship and Albert holding the WWF Intercontinental Championship, Justin Credible became jealous and bolted to join Paul Heyman's ECW contingent, thus joining The Alliance. Albert lost his Intercontinental title to Lance Storm on the July 23, 2001 edition of RAW, and wasn't much of a factor during the Alliance/WWE battle. Just before the Alliance dissolved in 2001, Albert briefly took on the nickname "The Hip Hop Hippo" and joined forces with Scotty 2 Hotty in a tag team known as the Zoo Crew. After a very brief run together, Albert turned heel once again by betraying and attacking Scotty on the April 4, 2002 edition of SmackDown! after losing a tag team championship match to Billy and Chuck in which Scotty was pinned. From here Albert changed his ring attire and was used mostly on WWE Velocity, during which he had a minor feud with Funaki. The December 5, 2002 edition of SmackDown! began Albert's longest and biggest push in his WWE career. Albert defeated Rey Mysterio and attacked and destroyed Rey's knee after the match. Later that night, as Rey Mysterio's friend Edge was entering the ring, Albert attacked him with a chair from behind, injuring Edge's knee as well. The following week on the December 12, 2002 edition of SmackDown!, Bloom joined forces with Paul Heyman and his client at the time The Big Show. Albert was given a new name: A-Train by Paul Heyman, who described him as "A runaway Train" (A-Train was also the name D-Von Dudley used in his pre-WWE career). That same night A-Train and Big Show defeated Edge and Kurt Angle. Bloom would continue his alliance with the two through the entire administration of Paul Heyman as SmackDown! General Manager and in July 2003, A-Train became one of Vince McMahon's hired henchmen. This was Bloom's highest profile run in the WWE, as he had a number of matches with main-event wrestlers, such as The Undertaker, Edge, Brock Lesnar, and Chris Benoit. A-Train was also picked to join Team Lesnar, along with Brock Lesnar (obviously), Big Show, Matt Morgan and Nathan Jones, to face off against 'Team Angle', which consisted of, Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, John Cena, Bradshaw and Hardcore Holly in a ten person elimination tag team match at Survivor Series 2003. A-Train continued to be a lackey for Paul Heyman and Vince McMahon until March 22, 2004. During the WWE Draft, A-Train was drafted to the RAW roster along with Chuck Palumbo and in exchange for Rico Constantino and Jackie Gayda, who were then drafted to SmackDown!. A-Train's appearances on RAW were very seldom for a 3 month tenure before being sidelined with a torn rotator cuff in June 2004. He did have one match on RAW against Chris Jericho in June 2004, which he lost. This would turn out to be his last WWE match. On November 1, 2004, Bloom was released from the WWE. He was not being used in any meaningful storylines and had been injured for a while. |