Michael Haynes III

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (April 2007)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Michael Haynes III
Statistics
Ring name(s)	Prince Iaukea The Artist (Formerly Known as Prince Iaukea) The Tongan Prince
Billed height	6 foot (180 cm)
Billed weight	220 lb (100 kg)
Born	Kona, Hawaii
Resides	Maui, Hawaii
Billed from	Kona, Hawaii
Trained by	Larry Simon Dean Malenko Rico Federico
Debut	1996

Michael Haynes (sometimes known as Michael Haines, Mike Haynes, or Mike Hayner) is a professional wrestler best known as Prince Iaukea in World Championship Wrestling. He was a member of the US Navy UDT and SEAL Team 2 where he taught hand-to-hand combat for 11 years and served in Grenada, Panama, Somalia, and Colombia. He has also made a career performing and coordinating stunts for major motion pictures and is married to well known Spanish bikini model, Lorena Cardoso. After the demise of WCW, he rarely performed in the wrestling business, and in May 2003 returned back to the US Navy and served 3 tours in Afghanistan. After leaving the Navy in 2006, he went to work for private military contractor Blackwater USA and is currently on a tour of duty in Iraq.

1 Career
2 In wrestling
3 Championships and accomplishments
4 External links

[edit] Career

[edit] World Championship Wrestling

After being trained by the Malenko's and Rico Federico, Haynes debuted on WCW PPV Fall Brawl 1995 as a cadet delivering papers to Cobra for Craig Pittman, then later on as Prince Iaukea debuted on WCW TV in 1996 and quickly made a name for himself with his unique Samoan persona and real submission wrestling skills along with solid pro wrestling ability. In February 1997, Iaukea captured the WCW World Television Championship by defeating Lord Steven Regal and would hold it for three months before losing it to Ultimate Dragon. Iaukea then went off to tour New Japan working with established greats such as Shinjiro Ohtani and Koji Kanemoto. Iaukea would then float around the WCW midcard for several years, until he was repackaged in 2000 as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince Iaukea, a humorous gimmick based on singer Prince. As The Artist, Haynes first won the WCW World Cruiserweight Championship from Lash LeRoux in February 2000. The Artist would lose the title to Billy Kidman and later reclaim it before being stripped of the title by Vince Russo in April 2000 when Russo and Eric Bischoff "re-launched" WCW.

[edit] Independent circuit

After WCW was purchased by the World Wrestling Federation in March 2001, his contract wasn't picked as part of the purchase. Haynes would then briefly wrestle for the XWF as The Tongan Prince before it went out of business in early 2002. He also wrestled in Japan and Canada.

[edit] Stunt work

In addition to his professional wrestling career, Haynes also has considerable experience as a martial artist, stunt performer and coordinator in motion pictures. His resume includes such movies as Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Scream 2, and 3 Ninjas Knuckle Up, as well as Warner Bros. film "Ready To Rumble".