Tom E. Zenk was born on Nov. 30, 1958 and grew up in a suburb of Minneapolis. He graduated from high school in 1976 and graduated from college with a degree in communications around 1980. During his college years Tom started working out seriously as a bodybuilder. In 1981 he looked so good that he managed to win the Mr. Twin Cities and the Mr. Minnesota bodybuilding contests. His body was beautifully proportioned over his 6 ft. 2 inch frame. He was listed as having a 51" chest and a 34" waistline. He had a lean waistline which he managed to maintain throughout most of his pro wrestling career. In fact, I think Tom's ability to maintain that lean waistline was one of the elements which distinguished him from all of his peers in the pro wrestling business.
Via gym contacts Zenk decided to try out for a pro wrestling career. He trained at Ed Sharkey's school in 1983 and then worked for a small independent pro wrestling promotion called USA Pro Wrestling from January 1984 through June 1984 when it folded. 25-year-old Zenk then joined Verne Gagne's AWA after going through Gagne's tough wrestling school. He worked for the AWA from July 22, 1984 through October 1985 with some work in Canada (Montreal) mixed in, including a three month stint in Canada during the summer of 1985. This period of time from January 1984 through October 1985 was of most interest to me because it was the period when the handsome rookie was taking a lot of punishment in the ring and losing most of his matches.
Gagne only gave Zenk about two shows per month of work. So, Zenk had to supplement his income by working as a bouncer. Also, Gagne did not put Zenk over often because Gagne did not want Zenk to outshine Verne's son Greg as the top babyface. So, Zenk did not consider this a high point of his career, but those of us who enjoy seeing a handsome rookie getting jobbed view this period with great fondness. Zenk was dominated wonderfully by Butch Reed during this period, and he lost matches to Jimmy Garvin, Steve Regal and Nick Bochwinkle, among others. Highlights from some of these matches can be seen on Index Pages 7, 6, 5 and 2 of this site.
You might think that there would be many good tapes available of the handsome hunk getting jobbed during this period. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The AWA matches were not carried by many cable systems at that time. So, only a few people saved tapes of those matches, and generally those tapes were recorded in the EP mode on low quality blanks. When copied, the technical quality of those tapes is generally poor. So, while the subject matter is quite good (not sensational, but good) the technical quality of these tapes is bad. I was unable to tape any of these matches since my cable system did not carry the AWA at that time. I did trade with other collectors for a few tapes, but they are technically weak tapes even though the subject matter is quite good. Some images from these technically weak tapes are shown in the first Zenk section on Index Page 2. I was fortunate that an anonymous contributor has provided me with pretty good tapes (not great technically) of Zenk during this period which allowed me to provide the Zenk images on Index Pages 5, 6, and 7. Some of these matches were filmed by a fan with permission to film, but they were not TV taped matches. So I think we were very fortunate to find someone with the contacts to provide these contributions.
Zenk worked in the PNW (Pacific Northwest) for Don Owens from October 1985 through April 1986. Zenk was treated well by Owens and enjoyed his time in that area. From my point of view it was not such a great time because Owens put Zenk over big time by allowing him to win every match. However, Tom did take significant punishment during some of these victories. I personally have been disappointed in the technical quality of the matches I have seen from this area.
Zenk worked in Canada with his friend Rick Martel in 1986 and then worked in the WWF with Martel as the Can-Am connection in 1987. Tom was younger and better looking than Martel at that time, and Tom took most of the punishment during their matches. Martel was put over as the tougher guy who often rescued his cute but less experienced partner. In reality, it was Zenk's good looks that were selling the tickets, and Zenk spent most of the time in the ring and took most of the punishment. This pleased some of us who enjoyed these matches. You can see images from two of these matches on Index Page 2. Zenk was wearing his hair longer than I like, and he was not quite as cute as in 1984, but he looked very good. Zenk eventually began to realize that Martel was exploiting him in this relationship. This led to a breakup that had a bad effect on Tom's career. In effect, Tom picked a bad time to assert himself.
Tom trusted his friend Martel a bit too much, allowing Martel to negotiate their contract with McMahon of Titan Sports (WWF). Unknown to Tom, Martel negotiated a deal in which Titan paid Martel about twice as much money as they paid Zenk ($6,000 per week for Martel; $2,500 per week for Zenk). Tom did not discover this until some time after Wrestlemania 3, their biggest payday of the year, when Zenk somehow found out that Martel made about $22,000 from Wrestlemania 3 while Zenk made about $12,000. Tom was furious. He felt betrayed. Tom already had feelings that Martel was exploiting him in order to extend Martel's own fading career, but he had never realized that Martel was taking the larger share of their team's earnings. This explained an earlier mystery about why Martel did not want to stay in Japan to earn some extra money. The Japanese offered Tom more than he was getting from the WWF, but Martel wanted to go back to the USA. Now it became clear to Tom that Martel was earning more from the WWF than he was offered by the Japanese. Tom wanted their contract with Titan renegotiated, but Martel would not agree. Tom realized that his friendship with Martel was really a one-sided betrayal. Martel was exploiting Tom, and Tom was not going to put up with it anymore. Finally, unable to renegotiate his contract, Tom simply walked out on Martel and Titan on July 10, 1987.
This move may have satisfied Tom emotionally, but it was a bad business move. He should have taken responsibility for his own contract negotiations earlier or waited until his contract was due to expire before insisting on better treatment. Perhaps he should have hired Johnny Cochran. When Tom left Titan Sports, McMahon had no alternative than to sue Tom for breach of contract. If McMahon did not come down hard on Tom, other disgruntled wrestlers would have been tempted to walk out on their contracts. McMahon reportedly sued for $70,000. The suit was eventually settled out of court with undisclosed terms, but it is generally believed that McMahon essentially won because Zenk had no legal grounds for walking out on his contract. We do know that Zenk did not work in the USA for the remaining term of his contract with Titan. So, that must have been a stipulation of the settlement. It was rumored that Tom had difficulty finding work in Japan because of Titan's close relationship with the Japanese promotions, but this may not be true because Tom did work in Japan during the last few months of 1987 and in subsequent years. In future years Tom felt that he would never get another chance to work for the WWF. I do not think he ever tried. In essence, Zenk burned his bridges behind him, limiting his future employment options by taking his strong stand. Frankly, he made a mistake in my opinion.
Tom worked for WCW in 1990 and 1991 and became very popular. I did not follow his career at that time, but a contributor told me that Tom wore about 20 different colored trunks during his time at WCW, including colors such as pink and beige which other wrestlers would not wear. He also described these trunks as short, skin-tight, very skimpy and overstuffed. I liked Zenk better in the mid-1980s as a young rookie losing matches. Since Tom did not have the option of joining the WWF, his bargaining position was relatively weak, and he had nowhere to go (except Japan) when his WCW days ended in the early 1990s. As I wrote above, burning your bridges behind you can be costly.
Tom was very popular in Japan. He took part in 9 wrestling tours of Japan. In his Japanese matches I am told that he was more aggressive, but everyone is expected to wrestle a more aggressive style in Japan. Tom's moves were aggressive enough that one of his most ardent fans felt that Tom was working heel. That is interesting since Tom felt that he naturally had a heel's personality, but his good looks forced him to work babyface.
The highly publicized breakup between Martel and Zenk was responsible for a scandalous rumor about their relationship. A lot of people were hoping that they had a lover's quarrel. It would have made for great gossip. However, the breakup was over money, exacerbated by Zenk's feeling that he had been betrayed by his former friend. I have not heard any credible rumor about Zenk's sexual orientation. I do think that his "Stay Single" philosophy is a bit suspicious. Why would a good looking straight man not want to ever get married? However, that alone does not prove anything about his sex life. I think he is straight, but I am not certain. For more information on Tom and some excellent pictures, check out website www.tomzenk.com.