He played professionally for the NFL's Cleveland Browns, the CFL's Ottawa Rough Riders and the USFL's Tampa Bay Bandits.

[23][25] Simmons joined Jim Crockett Promotions in 1986, appearing on the first show of the Great American Bash tour when he defeated The Tahitian Prince in Lakeland, Florida on July 1.

[26] Simmons wrestled only preliminary level competition that summer, but on August 7 he scored the biggest victory of his career when he defeated Ivan Koloff in St Louis.

On the October 24 episode of Power Pro Wrestling, he became involved in his first televised angle when he was attacked by Tiger Conway Jr. and Shaska Whatley in an interview.

He remained undefeated in singles actions until finally losing to Ivan Koloff on a house show at the Omni in Atlanta on February 14, 1988.

Simmons teamed with Steve Williams at the 3rd Annual Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup in Greenville, South Carolina on April 22, 1988.

Then on February 6, 1990, at Clash of the Champions X, Doom hit rock bottom when they were defeated by Rick and Scott Steiner and as a result of the stipulation were forced to unmask.

[30] With new manager Long, they rebounded and defeated The Steiner Brothers for the NWA World Tag Team Championship at Capital Combat in 1990.

Doom were recognized as the first holders of the WCW World Tag Team Championship in January 1991, finally losing the titles to The Freebirds at WrestleWar in February 1991.

Subsequently, Doom broke up, with Simmons turning face and feuding with Reed, defeating him in a cage match at the very first SuperBrawl.

Simmons defeated midcarders including Oz and The Diamond Studd, then unsuccessfully challenged Lex Luger for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at Halloween Havoc, losing the best-of-three-falls match one fall to two.

Simmons and Matt Borne won the WCW United States tag team championship in January 1992 from the Young Pistols before losing them the following month to Greg Valentine and Terry Taylor.

He was due to face fellow babyface Dustin Rhodes for the United States Heavyweight Championship at Superbrawl III but was injured and replaced with Maxx Payne.

In late 1993 he turned on protege Ice Train, becoming a bitter heel who felt like the fans abandoned him after he lost the championship.

Simmons made a second tour with NJPW in May and June 1995, again teaming with American wrestlers such as Arn Anderson, Mike Enos, and Steve Austin.

His first gimmick was that of "Faarooq Asad", a gladiator/street thug who wore a black and blue gladiator outfit with a misshaped helmet and was managed by Sunny.

In November 1996, Faarooq dropped his gladiator gimmick, parted ways with Sunny and formed the Nation of Domination (NOD), a stable loosely based on the Nation of Islam[citation needed] and the Black Panther Party[citation needed], although the members of the stable were not exclusively African American.

After losing to WWF Champion The Undertaker, at the 1997 King of the Ring, Faarooq blamed Crush and Savio Vega for his loss and threw them out of the NOD.

Both formed their rival factions, known respectively as the Disciples of Apocalypse and Los Boricuas, and Faarooq recruited more African American members for the NOD, including half-Samoan Rocky Maivia.

In the summer of 1997, Faarooq again lost a tournament final for the WWF Intercontinental Championship, this time to Owen Hart after Stone Cold Steve Austin interfered.

In early 1998, Faarooq's leadership of the NOD was increasingly challenged by Maivia, who had shortened his name to The Rock and felt he should be the leader as he was now Intercontinental Champion.

When Shamrock put The Rock in an ankle lock, Faarooq ran down to the ring but decided against helping him and walked off, with the crowd cheering his decision, thus turning him face.

Faarooq and Bradshaw continued to team with one another, and eventually adopted the gimmick of two brawlers who enjoyed drinking beer and smoking cigars.

Around this time, Ron Simmons began wrestling under his real name, as the terrorist group Al-Qaeda had a training camp called Al-Faarooq.

[1] Simmons had a brief heel run when he teamed with Reverend D-Von until he left television in December 2002, but in June 2003 he returned to WWE with Bradshaw and the APA reunited.

General Manager Paul Heyman after the APA lost a match WWE Tag Team Champions Rikishi and Scotty 2 Hotty.

In 2006, during a rebroadcast of the 1981 Orange Bowl on Sun Sports, Simmons stated that since his retirement from professional wrestling, he would like to continue or even improve his role within WWE.

Starting on October 23, 2006, he began making short cameos on Raw to say his catchphrase "Damn", often in awe of or shock at odd occurrences.

On the November 20, 2006 edition of Raw, Simmons was chosen by Ric Flair to replace the injured Roddy Piper at the Survivor Series to take on the Spirit Squad.

On the December 3, 2007 episode of Raw, Simmons and Bradshaw were hired by Hornswoggle to help him in a no disqualification handicap match against Jonathan Coachman and Carlito.