Former WWE creative team member Kevin Eck has a new blog entry available at this link discussing the original plans for the Tensai character on WWE television.

“When Bloom returned to WWE a few years ago, the intention was to make him a main-event level monster heel and the creative team was assigned to come up with a character for him. Among the pitches for Bloom were for him to be a masked mauler, an ex-prisoner in an orange jumpsuit and an American Samurai. I was of the belief that the best option was to give him a cool looking mask with black ring attire that showed the tattoos on his upper body, but covered his ample midsection. The more we hide his identity, I thought, the less chance the crowd will be chanting ‘Albert’ at him. I also thought he needed a mouthpiece and my suggestion was to hire James Mitchell as his manager. The samurai character was my least favorite, of course, that’s the one we went with and instead of a manager, he was given a follower who never spoke English named Sakamoto.”

The blog is available in full at this link.