E-mail any comments, questions, or random thoughts about this column to Trophar@Lycos.com and I will post some of your letters in the mailbag section of the next column. Don’t be shy. I appreciate any and all intelligent critiques whether positive or negative. Thanks go out to all who write. Also, your best best for appearing in the mailbag section is to use punctuation.
Read the archives of Beauty in Wrestling from 2003 - 2005 at LeonThomas.Net The website will be updated in full soon with the last few columns.
Random Question: Where's my pyro at?
--ACCOMPANIED TO THE RING--
The crowd thundered a disapproving sound. The villain had appeared through the curtain. A brutish, sneering juggernaut. He seemingly had little in the way of brains, but in terms of muscle and sheer magnitute, he was incredible. He did not function through intellect. That facet was handled by another. The other man now appearing through the curtain. The man accompanying him to the ring: the manager.
The manager stroked his chin. Perhaps a devilish goatee or clean shaven church boy in style. He ringed his hands trying to formulate a plan. That is, if his hands were holding a pad of paper to take important notes or a laptop to calculate odds...or perhaps another foreign object. The goliath walked through the ropes as the brains looked on. The match began, but the giant was in trouble right from the start. The hero of the match had taken him apart somehow. Maybe the fan favorite had more speed or maybe he had more heart. The manager furrowed his brow. His client was losing! Quickly, as if by instinct, the manager tripped the hero as he collided into the ropes. The hero turned and the manager feigned innocence....and just like that, it was over. While distracted, the beast of a man grabbed the hero by the tights and rolled him up for the quick pinfall. The bell sounded. The music played. The crowd booed. Somebody sure did earn their paycheck that night.
That's the way it was but not anymore. Not in WWE anyway. Where are the managers? Where are those characters whose diabolical brilliance and natural cowardice made them the perfect heels? Sure, there were babyface managers too, but let's face facts. The best ones were the bad guys and understandably so. The role of the heel manager is to look out for the heel wrestler. Babyfaces must do what is right, be tough and stand alone. That is why most stables are heel factions as well but I digress. So, where are they? Where are the managers? Where are the Bobby Heenans? The Jim Cornettes? The J.J. Dillons? The Jimmy Harts? Well, for the most part, I know where they are, and more importantly for this article, I know where they are not. They are not on WWE television and neither are reasonable facsimlies.
At a glance, one might assert that I am wrong. That there are managers in WWE right now. Technically, that may be true, but when I think of managers, I do not think of what WWE is currently offerring. Let me tell what I mean...
First things first. The difference between a valet and a manager. Seems relatively similar at a glance, right? Both accompany the wrestler to the ring and help the wrestler get over in one way or another. That is more or less where it ends, though. A valet is generally a good-looking woman who accompanies the wrestler to the ring with her sole purpose that of being attractive. For the heel wrestler, having a beautiful woman at his side makes him the envy of the crowd. After all, how does this jackass get a woman like that? For the babyface, it is supposed to make him look human and sympathetic. It does not always work that way, but by and large, those are the rules of the valet. In general, she does not do much. Occassionally, she will beat on the mat from the outside to rally the crowd. That is the extent of it.
A manager, however, serves many purposes. For one, the manager is a character. A real character. Someone with more depth than the valet. For another, the manager appears to be the brains in this outfit. A calculating genius with oodles of wrestling knowledge and experience. Perhaps he was a former wrestler. Maybe he's just brilliant. The point is that he is smart enough that his clients do the dirty work while he writes checks and gives helpful tips on the outside. What's more, the manager is more often than not the mouthpiece of the wrestler. Managers are usually good talkers (Cornette, Heenan, etc.) and that helps a lot. Particularly if the wrestler he manages is not so hot on the microphone. Pairing a manager with a "promo challenged" wrestler is standard operating procedure. At least, it was.
The final difference is that the manager is far more likely to get involved in the match. Especially if the manager is a heel. Tripping, throwing in a foreign object, distracting the referee, distracting the opposite wrestler, throwing a temper tantrum on the outside and so forth. Those are the main differences, and as you can see, beneath the surface, a valet and a manager are quite distinct from one another. I should note very briefly that the difference between valet and manager may appear sexist, but the difference between a valet and manager is not something as trivial as "a valet is a woman and a manager is a man." Also, if you look closer, you will find that a woman can be both a manager or a valet while a man can only be one.
WWE has a valet. In fact, it has a valet who very closely defines what a valet should be. I refer to Stacy Keibler. She does exactly what a valet is defined to do: look attractive and bring attention to the wrestler(s) she accompanies. In this case, the World Tag Team Champions in Rosey and the Hurricane. That's it. Stacy Keibler is a valet. The perfect valet. Sharmell could have been considered a valet when she was around, but I think it would be more accurate to say she was more of a temporary plot point.
So....where are WWE's managers?
Put one way, they are on Smackdown. Put another way, they don't exist. Confused? I'll explain. First up is Daivari. Probably the closest WWE has to a pure manager. Shawn/Khosoro Daivari is the sometimes manager and sometimes tag partner of Muhammad Hassan. Daivari dresses in a nice suit, cheats, throws fits and shouts commands to Hassan at ringside. He's like a Middle Eastern Jimmy Hart. Sounds like a flawless heel manager, eh? Well, not exactly. As previously mentioned, he's a wrestler too. Good for the cruiserweight division. Bad for being a manager. Managers should not be seen as tough or athletic. They are supposed to be solely the brains. Moreover, Daivari, as of late, is seen to be more Hassan's lackey than his manager. Hassan is calling the shots. Not Daivari. Hassan is making the plans. Not Daivari. Doesn't sound like Daivari is a manager to me. He's just....there.
Then there's Melina. Ah, Melina. For some reason that escapes me, some men actually think she is attractive. Yeah. She is. If you have a penchant for trash. Anyway, she is clearly the mouthpiece for Joey Mercury and Johnny Nitro. So, does that mean she's a manager? Well, no. Not entirely. Not in the classical sense. Her actions (especially during MNM's entrance) scream valet. I do not mean because she's a woman. I mean because she acts like a whore. Also, her character is clearly not meant to be all that smart. So, that's out too. Also, much like Daivari, she has wrestled recently.
Are there any real, classic managers in WWE right now? Not Daivari. Not Melina. Not Flair even though he part-time manages Triple H. I guess there aren't any. Not any real ones, that is. One would have to look elsewhere to find them. Ring of Honor has the quintessential heel manager in Prince Nana. He manages Jimmy Rave and the rest of The Embassy. TNA has Coach Scott D'Amore and Father Jim Mitchell. They manage Team Canada and Abyss respectively. How has WWE missed the boat on managers lately?
There are three ways of thinking about that answer.
1) It has simply slipped their minds. WWE likes the role of a manager, but it just so happens that there aren't any real ones at present. Maybe soon.
2) It has become a lost art. It did not carry over to the modern 21st century era of WWE's product for whatever reason. Not everything old school stays around to the new school and sometimes that is with good reason. WWE might think managers are superfluous right now. Especially considering hiring talent just to be managers might not be cost-effective in these wallet-tightening times.
3) Perhaps (and this one is a little out there) there's no need. Maybe Jim Cornette, a fantastic manager and now former head of WWE's developmental territory OVW, trained the latest crop too well. Shelton Benjamin and Chris Masters, as examples, aren't great promos but they are both decent and aren't in dire need of some mouthpiece. Cornette almost certainly had a hand in training them in the art of the promo. Rememer the SOP for pairing a wrestler with a manager? Maybe Cornette trained WWE talents so well that managers aren't as necessary anymore. Maybe this manager made it so wrestlers could stand in their own feet without managers. I wonder how OVW will do if Paul Heyman keeps the job as head of the territory. I wonder how his promo abilities would help those currently working there and waiting for their shot at the big leagues.
I don't know. I don't claim to have all the answers here. I'm just a little disappointed, and I wanted to share. That's all. One of the things I love about professional wrestling is that there are a myriad of possibilities in each match. Managers used to play into that, and since they don't anymore, those possibilities, if ever so slightly, have been cut out.
--------------------------------------
MAILBAG -- THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
You know what is funny? I said to my friend not even two weeks ago that admitting I was a wrestling fan was similar coming out of the closet for a gay man. It was kind of an extreme comparison, because it seemed to fit. Even in the late 90s, when wrestling was HUGE, l never admitted to being a fan. Now, most of my friends know about it. l even took one of my friends who HATES (or should l say hated) wrestling to a Smackdown show last summer. The show wasn"t even that great, but she had a BLAST. She doesn't watch wrestling now or anything, but she enjoyed the show. She said Eddie Guerrero was hilarious (it was when Kurt Angle got all that powder shot at him from Eddie's car). And another thing, no one ever makes fun of me for being a wrestling fan (at least to my face).
- Mike
I really enjoyed your article about closet fans! It is so true. I am a 33 yr old woman who has followed it since I was a kid. I go to all the live events and autograph signings that I can make it to. I am "out of the closet" but deal with alot of those comments you mentioned. I take my nephew(19) alot because it takes the pressure off me when someone who doesn't care about it, comments negatively. Thats called hiding in the closet momentarily. However, I do make that statement, " I enjoy watching grown men jump around in their underwear", and that usually changes the tone of the topic. There are times when I talk about it to people who aren't into it, but yet they seem entertained that I am into it. They laugh, ask why, but then move on. I am proud to be a huge fan of wrestling and fit in with all the others who attend events. I just haven't shared the fact that I have a wrestling related forum to people who aren't in the circle of fans.
- Pam
