![Mark "The Knife" Faje](http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/1d/5e/1357227004_2211_Faje%2C%20Mark.JPG?itok=gZAFa_Iv "Mark "The Knife" Faje")
Mark "The Knife" Faje is a classic example of a contestant providing more hype for his act than he is capable of living up to, even if such was not his actual intent.
Faje billed himself on America's Got Talent as "the world's most dangerous comic." As one might expect from someone with such a title, his act predominantly consisted of him cracking jokes as he set up an incredibly dangerous stunt.
His first stunt involved tossing a bowling ball, on fire and with knives sticking out of it, with his foot and catching it gently on the side of his face, all with a live black emperor scorpion hidden somewhere in his pants.
For the experimental first season of a show that many were doubting the chances of even making it to the airwaves at all, this was a pretty gutsy first act.
If that were not enough, Faje hyped things up for himself even further when, asked where he had performed, Faje responded "Seventeen countries, and I've been banned in three."
He then promised that he would do the stunt for which he had been banned if they agreed to have him back, an offer the judges could not possibly have turned down.
When it was finally time for Faje to perform in the semifinals, he stretched things out even further by opening with a trick involving a baby doll that was not dangerous at all.
Finally, at the end of his act, Faje revealed that the trick for which he had been banned was to balance a running lawnmower on his chin while his assistants threw heads of lettuce into it.
It wasn't necessarily a bad trick, but it didn't hold up compared to what Faje had done when he was first introduced, much less deliver on all the hype Faje had built up for it.
Maybe Faje had felt the need to hype up his act after seeing some of the other acts that advanced during the same audition stop: Lilia Stepanova, David & Dania and The Millers, just to name a few.
Maybe if Faje had seen Dave the Horn Guy, Kenny Shelton or Bernie Barker advancing ahead of him, he might not have promised an act bigger than it actually was.
Whatever the case, be it out of arrogance or desperation, Mark Faje became the first example in AGT's history of what can go wrong when bigger things are promised than can be delivered.
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