There was only one problem—there was already another Chris N. on the show.

Nowinski, then, needed a new name, and he didn’t have a choice in its selection.

Chris Harvard.

“I was tagged with the moniker that followed me for years,” Nowinski says. “It was an interesting gimmick, which of course cemented my future as a bad guy.... There’s not a lot of sympathy for Harvard grads in the real world.”

After participating in the show for nine weeks—which required nine-to-five days of physical activity—Nowinski won runner-up.

“He really wanted to play in the NFL and didn’t get a shot, and I think he still wanted to be in that arena,” Kacyvenski says. “I remember him undertaking it and I was like, ‘yeah okay.’ I wasn’t sure if he would be tough enough ... but he made it work.”

‘CLEAR THE COBWEBS’

Nowinski continued to train and improve after the show and was eventually offered a contract with the WWE. On June 10, 2002, the wrestler made his professional debut on “Monday Night Raw.” Over the next year, his character would deprecate the other “less intelligent” wrestlers, drawing the vitriol of the WWE fanbase.

Of course, in professional wrestling, Chris Harvard was merely putting on an act.

“The gravity is the most real part,” Nowinski laughs. “And a few moves. Everything else is staged.”

Much of the character that Nowinski created came from his experiences at Harvard, and the wrestler often wrote much of his own material. His favorite move was “The Harvard Buster,” which was topped with an “honor role,” in which Nowinski would flip his opponents on their backs and pin them by their shoulders.

“His ability to speak to people came across wonderfully well when he was doing his vignettes,” Kacyvenski says. “The creative freedom was perfect for him. And it’s similar to football in that it’s a very macho culture.”

Chris Harvard is recognized as the youngest Hardcore Champion in WWE history, which he won with a 2002 defeat of a wrestler named Crash Holly.

But the character would also often lose, and the threat of injury was real.

In June 2003, Nowinski was wrestling 300-pound Bubba Ray Dudley in Hartford, Conn., when—after taking a hit to his chin from Bubba’s boot—Nowinski quickly began to lose his vision. Bubba made his move and went for the pin, but Nowinski couldn’t remember what he was supposed to do next. He realized that something was terribly wrong.