The character had similar characteristics to ‘The Ringmaster’.
As episode #367 of Bruce Prichard’s Something to Wrestle with podcast was underway, he mentioned that there was a character named ‘The Sandman’ that WWF/E was thinking of introducing.
The podcast episode was centered around characters and personas that existed in the 1980s and 90s. Prichard stated that both Stone Cold Steve Austin and Dustin Rhodes were considered for ‘The Sandman’ character. Austin would end up becoming ‘The Ringmaster’ and ‘The Sandman’ did not come to fruition as a WWE-created character.
I could go back to Steve Austin and ‘The Ringmaster’ and ‘Sandman’ were two gimmicks that we loved. We loved the name of The Sandman, a really smooth wrestler that could have the sleeper as a finish and different things but he had to be a real smooth worker and we discussed Dustin Rhodes for that, we discussed Steve Austin for that and then The Ringmaster, the master of the ring that could just out wrestle everybody and be this incredible technician which eventually went to Stone Cold Steve Austin. We never did do a Sandman.
The Sandman name in wrestling is associated with five-time ECW World Heavyweight Champion James Fullington. He appeared for WWE from 2005-2007.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit ‘Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard’ with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
