Early life

Steve Debbes was a former amateur wrestler and Judoka, starting his athletic career at the age of 5. He was a member at the Reitz klub in Gezina, Pretoria. He was trained by Don Charles and Wild Bill Murphy and at the age of 18 he turned professional, debuting under his real name in 1985.^[4]

All Stars Wrestling (1990–1999)

In the early 1990s, wrestling for All Stars Wrestling, he donned the Tornado II gimmick after Danie Brits, the original Tornado, passed it onto him. In his early career he traveled extensively overseas in order to gain experience. Some of the countries he toured included United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, the United States, Japan and Russia. In 1994, he unmasked for the first time during a match against Steve Austin that took place at the Sun City Superbowl.^[5] In 1998, he took part in South Africa's first-ever barbed-wire match against Jacques Roque.

International Wrestling Federation (1999–2004)

In 1999, shortly after the death of close friend Paul Lloyd, Sr., who was the promoter of All Stars Wrestling, Tornado unmasked himself permanently in honour of his passing and took over the operations of the promotion.^[6] At the time International Wrestling Federation: South Africa served as a feeder system to All Stars Wrestling, producing young talent such as Paul Lloyd Sr.'s son and former WWE wrestler Justin Gabriel. Tornado decided to combine All Stars Wrestling with IWF:SA under the IWF banner.

He became the IWF Heavyweight Champion in 2000 and went on to win the IWF-sanctioned All Africa Championship five times.

World Wrestling Professionals (2004–Present)

In 2004, IWF closed down due to a new Port Elizabeth-based promotion, World Wrestling Professionals, securing a major national television deal with SABC2 and hiring wrestlers from all over the country, including Tornado who had close ties to the promoter of WWP, Mark Beale. Around this period Tornado was still operating the IWF training camp and he tutored many of this generation's top professional wrestlers in South Africa. Tornado captured the WWP World Heavyweight Title in 2005 on the first episode of WWP Thunderstrike. He defeated the Van Der Westhuizen brothers in a handicap match a few weeks later to win the WWP World Tag Team Titles before losing it again to the same tag team.

In 2008, he headlined WWP's Carnival City show in a Steel Cage match against Vincent Skull, a show that drew a record paid crowd for a South African wrestling show. He lost the WWP World Heavyweight Championship after a multi-year reign to newcomer Dameon Duke, who is now signed to WWE. He won the WWP World Tag Team Championship for the second time in February 2009, subsequently losing it to The French Connection in September of that same year. On July 11, 2009, in front of another record crowd of 20,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tornado defeated Dameon Duke to win the vacant WWP World Heavyweight Title, becoming a 2-time champion. Tornado had a dominant run on 100% De Dana Dan, a television show airing nationally in India on Colours TV.