With the recent death of Gary Hart and Wrestlemania right around the corner,
I’ve been wondering. What happened to managers in pro wrestling? It’s just
as if they disappeared. Not that long ago, they served as mouth pieces to
get over Wrestlers that weren’t good talkers. Nearly every great “heel” had
a great manager who did many things for their character. A heel manager was
one of the most common reasons a “good guy” went bad. Two that really come
to mind were when Bobby “The Brain” Heenan got Andre the Giant to turn on
Hulk Hogan and when Gary Hart did the same with Chris Adams against the Von Erich
family. These are two classic examples of how a great manager helped draw huge
crowds to wrestling events.
Speaking from experience, a wrestlers ability to get the fans to either love
him or absolutely hate him is just as important as their ability to work a good
match. As a “bad guy” or “heel” in particularly it’s important to make the
crowd hate you so that they will buy tickets to see someone beat you. If
you’re not a good talker, this is very hard to accomplish. Thus no one is
paying to see you get beat. If you’re not helping the promotion generate revenue,
you’re not an asset no matter your in ring ability.
In my short run in the world of professional wrestling I quickly rose to the
top of the promotion for one reason only. My ability to talk and make the fans
hate me. Compared to the twenty or so other performers that worked for the company,
I was an average wrestler at best. My matches weren’t the most exciting, but people would pay
to see me get my a** kicked by anyone. It was a very small oganization without a TV show
that would draw 100 or so people to see us wrestle at a local Y.M.C.A. type gymnasium on
friday evenings.
This was the late 1990’s when wrestling was really hot. There were three major
organizations (WWF, WCW, ECW) with a total of five prime time TV shows and more
viewers than anything else on cable television. People just couldn’t get enough
wrestling.
Much has changed since then. WWF bought out WCW and became WWE. ECW folded and
all rights were sold to WWE as well as many other smaller regional and defunct
companies. Somewhere in the mix the great managers were lost. With the upstart TNA
they have whom many consider the only great manager working for a national company
today. This being “The Sinister Minister” James Mitchell. WWE has had a few in recent
memory with Armando Estrada managing “The Samoan Bulldozer” Umaga and Paul Heyman
managing Brock Lesnar just a few years ago. Both of these managers were very
entertaining, but Heyman has since left the wrestling business and Estrada only
occasionaly appears on television.
This could easily change, WWE has many great talkers currently working for them
in non character roles. They are also a few great in ring performers lacking the
gift of gab. Matt & Jeff Hardy, The Big Show and Batista all come to mind as people
that could benefit from a great mouth piece. One of the all time great talkers is
right under their noses in Micheal P.S. Hayes. Why Hayes isn’t on the air is baffling
to me, as well as Estrada. I would pay just to here these guys talk because they
are both that good (or bad in a good way).
That’s what I think anyway…….
Arnie