Dean Roll

Dean Matthew Roll (born January 28, 1975) is an American professional wrestler, best known for his appearances in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) under the ring name Shark Boy.

Prior to his appearances in TNA, Roll competed on the independent scene from the mid-1990s onwards before being signed by World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 1999.

Roll began training under Les Thatcher in October 1995 at the age of twenty.

Later that year, Roll debuted in the Independent Wrestling Association, where he developed the cartoonish character Shark Boy, partly inspired by the 1995 song "I Come From the Water" by the Toadies.

He debuted on May 3, 1997, in Thatcher's Heartland Wrestling Association, wrestling as the masked El Piranha.

An HWA mainstay, Roll also occasionally portrayed the character of Dean Baldwin, the purported fifth, lesser known Baldwin brother.

In 1998 and 1999, Shark Boy received a flurry of media attention.

He was featured on ABC in an episode of 20/20 featuring professional wrestling, on the Discovery Channel as part of the annual Shark Week and on a documentary produced by MTV entitled True Life: I'm a Professional Wrestler.

Shark Boy also wrestled at the 1998, 2000 and 2001 Brian Pillman Memorial Shows.

In 1999, Roll trademarked the name "Shark Boy".

On May 19, 1999, Shark Boy wrestled at the second annual Brian Pillman Memorial Show, defeating Matt Stryker, Tarek the Great and Chip Fairway in a tournament and receiving a trophy.

Following the match, numerous World Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Federation wrestlers, including Al Snow, Mankind and D'Lo Brown, entered the ring and lifted Shark Boy onto their shoulders.

As a result of the exposure gained by his appearances on television and at the Brian Pillman Memorial Shows, coupled with his "cult" following, Shark Boy was signed to a contract by World Championship Wrestling in 1999.

Following his release from WCW six months later in 2000, Roll returned to the independent scenes, mainly competing for the World Wrestling All-Stars (WWA) promotion.

He made several appearances on WCW Saturday Night and WCW Thunder on TBS before being released six months later in early 2000.

He would leave WWA in 2002 to join TNA, where he became a member of the TNA X Division.

In February 2002 Shark Boy competed for the WWA at their Revolution PPV in Las Vegas.

He fought in the opening contest, a 6-Man Cruiserweight survival match.

Also in the match were A.J. Styles, Christopher Daniels, Low Ki, Tony Mamaluke, and Nova.

He was eliminated first in the match, which was won by Nova.

In November 2002, Shark Boy toured Europe with the World Wrestling All-Stars promotion.

At the Retribution pay-per-view on December 6, 2002, Shark Boy defeated Frankie Kazarian.

During this same time from 2002 till its closing, Shark Boy joined and toured with XPW where he had memorable bouts with Kaos, Tracy Smothers, Juventud Guerrera, and Jerry Lynn.

On July 31, 2002, Shark Boy made his Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) debut in a dark match losing to Jimmy Rave.

On the August 14, 2002 weekly TNA pay-per-view, Shark Boy showed up on Disco Inferno's talk segment Jive Talkin' without his mask playing the character Dean Baldwin, a fictional brother of the famous Baldwin actors.

On March 11, 2003, Shark Boy wrestled a dark match for the World Wrestling Entertainment where he lost to Chris Kanyon.

In 2003, he had a team with New Jack that involved getting New Jack to play board games such as Chutes and Ladders with Shark Boy.

When New Jack left, Mad Mikey started teaming with Shark Boy before his untimely death in November 2003 and in 2004, he teamed with D-Ray 3000 which was his most successful tag team run.

On March 7, 2004, Shark Boy opened a professional wrestling school named The Shark Tank in Ohio.

His most notable trainees are Dustin Thomas, Tom Bellman, Darrell Hazel, Jerrod West, Todd Mullins, Ed Gonzales, Donny Redd, Chris Ledbetter, Jake Omen, Tony X and Cannonball Sami (Sami Callihan)

In 2008, he returned to TNA after a brief hiatus from a kayfabe coma suffered from multiple ambushes, and tweaked his Shark Boy gimmick into that of a Stone Cold Steve Austin tribute, even going as far as to drink "Clam Juice" (a reference to Austin's infamous beer drinking) in the ring after his matches.

Upon his gimmick change, he would occasionally team up with Curry Man to form a comedic tag team that was a moderate success.

After this gimmick change he started to talk, something he had not been heard to do before.

Shark Boy took part in TNA's TerrorDome match on May 10, but it was won by Kaz.

Because of that TerrorDome match, Shark Boy was injured; he returned backstage on the July 17 episode of Impact! with Curry Man and Super Eric as part of a Justice League knock off, called The Prince Justice Brotherhood (a reference to Abyss' former name Prince Justice), where he got whipped by Beer Money, Inc. during a backstage segment.

He appeared again with the Brotherhood on the July 24 episode of Impact!.

Roll returned on the February 5 edition of Impact!, only to lose to the debuting Brutus Magnus in a squash match.

He returned at the August 18 tapings of Impact!, only to lose against Sheik Abdul Bashir in a match broadcast on the TNA website.

He was again featured on a web match after the August 31 tapings of Impact!, in another losing effort to Consequences Creed.

He would make sporadic appearances in TNA from 2009 onwards.