While watching Smackdown it occurred to me that Teddy Long is a guy who has not only been around forever, but he's also a guy who has brought very little to the table over they years and has probably been drawing a pretty nice paycheck for doing it.
From a storyline standpoint he was a pretty bad judge of talent as a manager other than his run with Doom, and maybe you can argue Johnny B Badd and Mark Henry. The list of stinkers reads like a Dungeon of Doom like list of failures Craig Pittman, Ice Train, Rodney, old Jim Powers. Being a face manager isn't easy.
As a General Manager of Smackdown, a position he's pretty much held since 2004 with a break in 07 and 08, he's been largely ineffective and under his watch Smackdown has gone from show 1A to a secondary show. He's not Isiah Thomas bad, but you would have to figure that he is friendly with some of the people above him on the corporate level.
So, I guess Teddy Long is one of those guys that brings nothing to the table and takes nothing from it. He's not a great boss, but he's always running something. In a business with so much turnover and change, it's kind of interesting that he is the constant in the 'WWE Universe'.
Originally posted by BigDaddyLocoEdit:He was also one of my favorite referees.
Apparently the reason he was pulled from refereeing was because he started ending matches early for no apparent reason, 3 counting near falls and ringing the bell while the wrestlers stood there in confusion. (From what I've read, this wasn't scripted like his earlier NWA angles of a similar nature.)
I should also add that The Skyscrapers were (inexplicably) one of my favourite tag teams of the '80s. I remember hating Scott Steiner's guts for puncturing Sid Vicious' lung. (But not as much as I hated whoever injured Scott Steiner later on, forcing me to sit through a Bill Kazmaier match at my first (and only) WCW TV taping.
Originally posted by BigDaddyLocoWhile watching Smackdown it occurred to me that Teddy Long is a guy who has not only been around forever, but he's also a guy who has brought very little to the table over they years and has probably been drawing a pretty nice paycheck for doing it.
From a storyline standpoint he was a pretty bad judge of talent as a manager other than his run with Doom, and maybe you can argue Johnny B Badd and Mark Henry. The list of stinkers reads like a Dungeon of Doom like list of failures Craig Pittman, Ice Train, Rodney, old Jim Powers. Being a face manager isn't easy.
As a General Manager of Smackdown, a position he's pretty much held since 2004 with a break in 07 and 08, he's been largely ineffective and under his watch Smackdown has gone from show 1A to a secondary show. He's not Isiah Thomas bad, but you would have to figure that he is friendly with some of the people above him on the corporate level.
So, I guess Teddy Long is one of those guys that brings nothing to the table and takes nothing from it. He's not a great boss, but he's always running something. In a business with so much turnover and change, it's kind of interesting that he is the constant in the 'WWE Universe'.
Edit:He was also one of my favorite referees.
(edited by BigDaddyLoco on 30.4.11 1249)
You do know that Teddy Long's role as Smackdown general manager is strictly a storyline and does not include any actual power over the direction of the show, right?
Long is pretty much the perfect GM: He has credibility because he's been in the position so long, and he's only used (for the most part) when a match needs to be made. He's not overexposed, and entire shows are not built around him, like WWE has done with some GMs.
A few years back, he was a bit overexposed, and as he always sided with the faces I HATED his character. It was the same blatant lopsided decisions that any heel GM made, only now we had to cheer because he did it as a face?
Other than that, I like how he flies under the radar and doesn't steal the spotlight. Come to think of it, other than a few occassions, the Raw GM computer isn't that annoying either. Most decisions are for the best of the show. He seems to switch from heel to face (thus making him sorta unpartial) and...well the only annoying thing is the whole computer thing and it gave us Michael Cole as uberheel.
Originally posted by BigDaddyLocoEdit:He was also one of my favorite referees.
Apparently the reason he was pulled from refereeing was because he started ending matches early for no apparent reason, 3 counting near falls and ringing the bell while the wrestlers stood there in confusion. (From what I've read, this wasn't scripted like his earlier NWA angles of a similar nature.)
(edited by InVerse on 30.4.11 1221)
This is new to me, i never heard this before. If this is true, how is he still in the business at all?
The most notable example I can think of of Teddy Long's referee counting mishaps was on a Velocity match with Lance Storm vs. Funaki, where Funaki got a win he wasn't supposed to get because Teddy screwed up counting Lance down. Lance has complained about it several times in his commentaries, so you can look it up there. Apparently there were similar incidents from house shows as well, but that's the only time I think it happened on television.
Wait, Lance Storm v Funaki would have put it in the timeframe where WWE was holding performers accountable, and asking refs to count if the shoulders were down, doesn't it?
I actually thought Teddy was a HOF candidate this year, given his Atlanta and WCW roots. He'll get in one of these years. I have no problem with how Teddy is used -- between he and the Raw GM's occasional tweets, I like how WWE has shifted from making the general manager a central character of their programming.
"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." --- Bart Giamatti, on baseball
Well...I sure didn't see that heel turn coming. That's really all I have to say about that. The wedding was great stuff. Loved the cameos from Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase Sr. What was Primo going to tell AJ? The world must know!