The Masked Man

U.S. Champion (Currently)

Former IC Champion

Former Tag Team Champion (w/ Ace)

M-Double-A (Formally)

ASA (Manager)

### Finisher

- Lawn Dart (Brainbuster/Suplex Piledriver)- Diving Leg Drop/Middle Rope Leg Drop

### Overall Rating

93

**Zach** "**The Masked Man**" **Steel** is a custom wrestler created by RZ2321. He is best known by his initial ring name "The Masked Man", but later added "Zach Steel" to his name in order to eliminate confusion with other wrestlers of the past. The character made his debut in the game WWE '13 during the summer of 2013. Steel was RZ2321's first ever created wrestler, and is remade each year as the new WWE games release.

## Wrestling Career

### First Championship

The Masked Man has been a dominant force in the locker room since his debut in 2013. His first championship came later that same year, where he defeated Kofi Kingston for the United States Championship at the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view. Steel would hold that title for seven months before Kingston finally reclaimed it.

### Forming The Brotherhood

Before the end of 2013, Steel created a faction known as The Brotherhood alongside his younger brother Ace. Together they would dominate the tag team division, winning the WWE Tag Team Titles on an episode of Raw from the Shield by early 2014. As the first iteration of the team became more and more successful, they began welcoming new wrestlers to the faction including the Hawaiian Assassin and Maverick.

### Rivalry with Ace

By mid 2014, The Brotherhood seemed unstoppable until it began to crumble from within. A rivalry brew between The Masked Man and Ace after Steel inadvertently cost his brother their tag team title match.

    By the time of the Survivor Series pay-per-view, Ace held the Intercontinental Championship, and The Masked Man had reclaimed the United States Championship. This resulted in a champion vs. champion match heated enough to put an end to the Brotherhood faction after Steel defeated his brother in an extreme rules match.

### Reviving a Lost Title

After losing the United States title to John Cena in early 2015, The Masked Man was sent over to Smackdown where he won the Intercontinental Championship from Bad News Barret. Steel held the title for over half a year before his former partner Ace was able to reclaim the title he had lost to Barret a year prior. After his tough loss and inability to win the championship back, The Masked Man seemed to have no direction for a short while before taking some time off.

In late 2015, a unique opportunity presented itself; The Masked Man was selected to join a tournament for the World Heavyweight Championship, a title which was supposed to be retired. Steel and 15 other wrestlers (including several wrestlers outside of the WWE) were given a chance to reinstate the title, and would be allowed to defend it in organizations outside of the WWE. Capitalizing on this opportunity, Steel won the title, pinning Shinsuke Nakamura in the final match of the tournament. After his big win, The Masked Man became one of the hottest names in Pro Wrestling, traveling the world with the title and defended it both in and outside of the WWE. Around this time, he built his own gym in his hometown just north of Detroit, Michigan, and began defending his title there on a weekly basis.

### The Doom

By the end of 2016, The Masked Man had formed an alliance with Randy Orton and Rob Van Dam. The trio eventually became known as The Doom. They made quite an impact on Smackdown together, defeating several notable teams, including The Shield. The Doom pushed for 3-man tag team titles to be created for the WWE, but the idea was declined. The group never officially broke up, but eventually fizzled out entirely.

### The Iron Man

Sometime during his world title reign, Steel found himself in the middle of a feud between Papa Lemons and The Entity (a.k.a Harry Choppenz). Both Lemons and Choppenz were fighting for the #1 contender spot, and neither superstars were able to beat the other clean. As a result, the three had several matches for the World Heavyweight Championship, most notably a Triple Threat Iron Man Match, where Steel was able to defeat both Lemons and Choppenz. After successfully overcoming these challengers, it became known that Steel had never been defeated in an Iron Man match, an accomplishment he still holds to this day.

### The Return of the Brotherhood

After Ace's return in early 2018, The Masked Man rejoined his brother to bring back The Brotherhood faction. The Brotherhood also recruited a new member by the name of Colt Freeman. Unlike their previous run, the members of the Brotherhood became ringside managers for each other with the goal to win singles titles rather than the tag team titles. This resulted in Ace winning the WWE Universal Championship and Steel retrieving his World Heavyweight Championship from Kenny Omega.

### Dropping the World Championship

After reinstating the world championship, The Masked Man defended his title for years on end both in and outside of the WWE. He managed to secure it in matches of all kinds, including Elimination Chamber matches and inside the Hell in a Cell structure. Steel dropped the title to several notable wrestlers including Kenny Omega, Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns, but always managed to win it back eventually. It wasn't until his feud with Daniel Bryan that Steel lost his title for good.

### Mr. Money in the Bank

Near the end of 2018, Steel was chosen to be a part of a very unique elimination chamber match for the Money in the Bank briefcase. He entered the match at number 3, managing to outlast the others and win the match. For the first time in his career, The Masked Man held the briefcase and had a guaranteed shot at the WWE Championship.

### Becoming WWE Champion

Not long after winning the briefcase, The Masked Man cashed in his opportunity at the title. Wanting it to be a fair match, he announced he would cash in his briefcase ahead of time, giving the current champion time to prepare. The match, which would take place at WWE Super Show-Down, saw Steel defeating A.J. Styles for the WWE Championship in a normal 1-on-1 match. Steel had held titles in the WWE before, but winning the WWE Championship and knowing its history made it one of, if not the biggest win of his career. After defeating Styles in a rematch, the champion vowed to defend the title often and give as many challengers the opportunities they deserved to become the champion.

### Forming M-Double-A

Although he had already spent many years in the WWE, becoming the WWE Champion made Steel a bigger target than ever before. The Masked Man earned the title at a time when the WWE was more competitive than it had been in a long time. Legends were coming out of retirement for matches, and some of the best indy wrestlers in the world had climbed their way to the top of the WWE ladder. Steel knew that if he was going to keep the title he was going to need some help outside of The Brotherhood, and he found that help in Alexa Bliss and AJ Lee.

The two women began accompanying the champion to the ring on a regular basis to help deal with superstars, managers, and their teammates who attempt to cheat their way to championship gold. The group became known as M-Double-A, with the "M" to represent the "Masked Man", and "Double-A" for "Alexa" and "AJ". The trio worked together not only to defend the WWE Championship, but to help elevate one another on each of their respective paths. At the height of Steel's championship run, the two women managed to thwart Paul Heyman's attempts to give Brock Lesnar the upper hand in their title match. The champ did his best to return the favor, supporting both Bliss and Lee during most of their matches, including their Women's Tag Team Championship win over Bayley and Sasha Banks.

The group remained strong throughout most of Steel's championship run. However, after he failed to reclaim the WWE championship from Roman Reigns, Lee made her second departure from the WWE, splitting up the trio for good. Even so, Bliss and Steel continued supporting one another both before and after The Masked Man took a break from wrestling in 2020.

### Joining Thursday Night Cash

In early 2019, although Steel was at the very top of the wrestling ladder, he still wanted more, and his opportunity came when Papa Lemons debuted his new show Thursday Night Cash in February. Lemons had asked Steel to defend his WWE Championship on the show as its world champion, to which Steel agreed. The Masked Man began using Thursday Nights to gain even more in-ring time and experience, and competed against many legends and icons that joined the show as it got progressively more popular. Steel defended his title on the show many times until late 2019, where he was dropped the title to Roman Reigns.

### Hiatus & AEW Run

Heading into 2020, The Masked Man decided to step away from the ring to focus on his personal life. He had planned to return until the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and felt it was best to hold off on his wrestling career until the live events continued. When the crowds finally began to return, Steel followed, but not in the WWE.

In mid 2021, The Masked Man shocked the world by appearing on AEW television. His appearance led to an intense feud with Aiden Ventura, and had a brief series of showdowns against wrestlers like CM Punk and Kenny Omega. Despite having some great matches in AEW, his short contract was not renewed.

### Return to WWE

As of 2022, The Masked Man is back in the WWE alongside The Brotherhood, which currently includes Ace and Maverick. In their return as a trio for the first time in nearly 3 years, they managed to pick up a huge win against the seemingly unstoppable faction know as The Bloodline.

With The Brotherhood at his side, Steel managed to defeat Finn Bálor for the United States Championship in early 2022. Regaining the U.S title after so long was a big deal to him, as it was the title that he felt molded him into the star that he is today.

### ASA & Serena

Upon his return, Steel was also reunited with former M-Double-A teammate Alexa Bliss. Bliss was now part of a new faction known as ASA, which also included his trainee Ashley Reid and a rookie known as Serena. The Masked Man was so impressed by the trio that he would eventually become a part time manager the group while he continued to make his way back up the WWE ladder. It was also during this time that he entered a relationship with Serena.

Bliss would eventually turn on her partners during the Elimination Chamber Match, causing a massive rift in the group. Steel tried to keep Serena and Reid together after a misunderstanding during the match turned them against each other, but was unsuccessful. The group temporarily split leading up to a triple threat match at WrestleMania 38. During the match, Serena and Reid realized that Bliss truly was the problem and that ASA could live on without her. After teaming up to remove Bliss from the action, Serena picked up the win over Reid. The two embraced after the bell and reunited with Steel on the stage, leaving the "goddess" behind.

## Biggest Rivals

The Masked Man has been part of many big rivalries over the years. His longest running feud is with Kevin Nash, who screwed him out of a chance to be #1 contender for the WWE Championship back in 2014. Since then, Nash and Steel have continued to interfere with each other's matches, and those interferences have lead to a feud that will seemingly never end.

Although they are once again teammates, The Masked Man's battle with his brother Ace became one of the most intense rivalries of his career. Their rivalry began after Steel accidentally cost him and his brother a tag team title match, and it was settled in an Extreme Rules match where The Masked Man was victorious. Their rivalry continued for the Intercontinental Championship a year later, which saw Ace come out on top.

Brock Lesnar was another one of his bigger rivals, which included several hardcore matches starting all the way back at the WWE Payback pay-per-view in 2014.

Another long term rival of The Masked Man is Roman Reigns. The two have had several feuds over the years, both in singles matches as well as tag team matches.

## List of Title Reigns

 WWE United States Championship (Currently)
 WWE Intercontinental Championship | 1
 World Heavyweight Championship | 4
 WWE Championship | 2

## Allies & Relationships

The Masked Man has quite a large group of allies. As a founding member of The Brotherhood alongside Ace, he recruited many superstars to the team including Maverick, Hawaiian Assassin, Colt Freeman, and more. Even after the faction was temporarily disbanded, Steel was still finding ways to make allies, whether that was with Randy Orton and Rob Van Dam as The Doom, or with Alexa Bliss and AJ Lee as M-Double-A. Each and every one of these superstars has shown support for Steel over the years just as he has for them.

Steel has also been in several relationships during his time as a wrestler, and has dated many of his tag team partners. In early 2014, it was revealed that he was in a relationship with the diva known as Sunshine. They were together for quite awhile until sometime after her release in late 2014. By 2018, Steel was confirmed to be in a relationship with mixed tag team partner Phantom. It is unknown exactly when they split, but it was likely before they both left the WWE in early 2020. As of 2022, The Masked Man is in a relationship with ASA member Serena. The two have officially become a mixed tag team and are set to partake in the 2022 Mixed Match Challenge.

## Personality

Aside from his brief run as a heel in late 2017, the Masked Man has always been a respectful and loyal superstar. He treats his friends and foes with respect, and constantly pushes those around him to improve. However, if he is pushed over the edge by a fellow superstar, Steel becomes fixated on not only defeating them, but exacting his revenge on them for what they may have done to him or his friends. The Masked Man can also be rather stubborn, especially when it comes to regaining a championship. Often times, his failure to accept that he has lost a rivalry has gotten the better of him. Nevertheless, Steel has never turned on his teammates, and has only feuded with them over mistakes made during their alliance.

## Behind the Scenes

Since the Masked Man was created in 2013 his appearance has changed drastically, and was inspired by many different wrestlers and personalities. Steel's very first attire actually featured him in a suit with a custom yellow variation of Rey Mysterio's mask. After just a few matches, RZ2321 switched his suit for a open jacket with a hood.

The use of the custom yellow Rey Mysterio mask (or ones that closely resemble it) stuck with the character over the years. In 2016, he began wearing a custom version of Kane's wrestling bottoms, as well as hand tape marked with an X on each. The addition of the hand tape closely resembles CM Punk and his attire. RZ2321 decided to add the tape from the straight edge superstar to his character because like CM Punk, he doesn't drink or smoke.

The Masked Man's original move-set largely consisted high flying moves. His original finishers were Kofi Kingston's Trouble in Paradise and Jeff Hardy's Whisper in the Wind. Over time, RZ2321 felt flashy moves didn't fit very well with the character, and changed them to be heavy lifting moves.