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If not Mr. Fuji, then who?


JerryvonKramer

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There has been a lot of talk in the Gorilla Monsoon thread about how while Mr. Fuji wasn't the greatest manager, or even a good one, he was "not even close" to being the worst manager of the year when Meltzer and co gave those awards out at the time? My question, therefore, is: who was?

 

NOTE: This thread isn't all-time, it's specific to late 80s and early 90s, the time Fuji was active as a manager. To be specific Fuji won the award every single year from 1984 until 1995 with the exception of 1986 when it was (correctly) won by Paul Jones.

 

By my reckoning we can automatically "tier" the top managers of the era as follows:

 

Tier 1 - GOAT contenders

 

Jim Cornette

Bobby Heenan

Jimmy Hart

Fred Blassie

Lou Albano

 

Tier 2 - have some sort of rep from various promotions

 

JJ Dillon

Paul E. Dangerously

Gary Hart [NB. I personally do not rate him]

Paul Jones [NB. I personally hate him]

Paul Ellering [NB. as above]

Percy Pringle / Paul Bearer

Slick [margin call]

Teddy Long [as above]

Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie

Johnny V

Skandor Akbar

Col. Robert Parker

 

Tier 3 - "not good"

 

Mr. Fuji

Oliver Humberdink

DDP

Sonny King (not sure exactly when he was done, but I think he sucked)

Hiro Matsuda

 

Tier 4 - "oh yeah, you forget about them"

 

Harvey Whippleman

Ted DiBiase

Harley Race

The Genius

Frenchy Martin

Brother Love

Sir William

 

 

There are lots of names I've not listed who had short runs, such as The Coach (John Tolos) in WWF or The Assassin in WCW, but let's leave it there.

 

I might have a go:

 

1984 - Meltzer's pick: Mr. Fuji; my pick: Arnold Skaaland, who was essentially useless.

 

1985 - Meltzer's pick: Mr. Fuji; my pick: Paul Jones, sorry Johnny, he fucking sucked

 

1986 - Meltzer's pick: Paul Jones; my pick: Paul Jones

 

1987 - Meltzer's pick: Mr. Fuji; my pick: Paul Ellering, I've said it before, he brought nothing to the table, even allowing for his participation in War Games matches. He was good for that one line from Hawk, but a piece of wood could have done the same job.

 

1988 - Meltzer's pick: Mr. Fuji; my pick: Oliver Humperdink, completely worthless, completely.

 

1989 - Meltzer's pick: Mr. Fuji; my pick: Gary Hart - strong competition from Hiro Matsuda here, but I've gone over the whole J-Tex corporation mess before, Hart was a real mess on his promos, and served to complicate the situation rather than clarify it with promos that made it feel like time had passed him by. Basically terrible.

 

1990 - Meltzer's pick: Mr. Fuji; my pick: Oliver Humperdink, he crops up briefly in WCW managing Bam Bam Bigelow, still as a face, still completely and utterly worthless.

 

1991 - Meltzer's pick: Mr. Fuji; my pick: Big Daddy Dink aka Oliver Humperdink, repackaged as a fat biker groupie, and with "god gawd" DDP to cut promos for him, Dink was the 5th wheel in the incredibly uncool Freebirds entourage.

 

1992 - Meltzer's pick: Mr. Fuji; my pick: Paul Ellering ... 1992 was a strange time for Fuji, he was transitioning to the robes and managing Yokozuna but still had hair and remnants of his old identity, such as the cane. He was floating around not really doing much, managing Orient Express at the start of the year, and maybe Berzerker, before kinda disappearing until Yoko's debut. I think he wasn't exactly bringing much to the table in 92. However, nothing can beat Paul Ellering with a puppet. I hate Ellering.

 

1993 - Meltzer's pick: Mr. Fuji; my pick: Sir William ... I can hear the howls and the boos from the Memphis fans, but that accent is fucking ridiculous, worse than Dick Van Dyke. Very difficult for me to get past, even if Regal is a ton of fun in 93.

 

1994 - Meltzer's pick: Mr. Fuji; my pick: Ted DiBiase, so much of the card was built around his awful stable, and so much of the stuff he was involved with stank. At least you can say the stuff Fuji was doing with Yoko was over and / or effective, especially in the early part of the year. Million Dollar Corporation was very poor.

 

1995 - Meltzer's pick: Mr. Fuji; my pick: The Task Master, Kevin Sullivan, don't know if it's a cheat picking Sullivan but honestly I can't remember Fuji much in 95, and seem to recall an awful lot of Dungeon of Doom awfulness, so him.

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For 91 I'd probably go with Adnan. I'm still trying to figure out why the heck he was on the apron when Slaughter had Hogan covered at Wrestlemania 7.

 

Fuji's two worst moments were 1) dumping Demolition while they were still champs instead of waiting to cost them the belts against his new team and 2) challenging Hogan to a match right then and there for the WWF title his guy had just won (and who was exhausted from said match).

 

Other than that he was a cromulent manager.

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For my money Sapphire is a runaway winner for 1990 and Coach equally so for '91. Sapphire is one of my least-favorite characters of all-time, and the heel turn wasn't enough to save that. Coach was a monumentally harebrained idea, and the fact that he was directly replacing the Brain was all the more insulting.

 

I have little love for Paul Jones, but of all these candidates I genuinely think he was the best ringside guy.

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Sapphire was ALWAYS, to my knowledge, referred to as a manager. Just like Elizabeth was, even though both essentially played the role of a valet. The line isn't always clear, but my rule of thumb to tell the difference is:

 

1. What did the promotion refer to them as? (Liz = manager. Sherri = manager, at least for Savage and DiBiase, since she was only Shawn's "girlfriend" Virgil = not a manager). This trumps all other criteria.

 

2. If the ringside second has no official or oft-quoted title, then were they the brains of the operation or not? Did they give orders or take them? This comes up way more in the Monday Night Wars era which was filled with guys who accompanied others to ringside but didn't have a named occupation. Almost the Attitude Era eye candy were valets, with the exception of Trish Stratus (always the boss behind T&A) and possibly Terri Runnels. To me, Trish was a manager--period.

 

Sapphire doesn't fulfill #2, but since the WWF called her a manager, that's what she was. And she was infuriating in either role.

 

Here's who I picked for Worst Manager after viewing each '90s Yearbook, which gave an excellent cross-section of managers all across the business:

 

1990 - Sapphire

1991 - Coach

1992 - Ronnie Lotz

1993 - Paul Bearer

1994 - Jimmy Hart.

 

Lotz was a goof who showed up for a few cups of coffee in Memphis, an area that saw no shortage of shitty and/or useless, small-time two-bit managers. Bearer may not objectively deserve the award, since he was pretty effective, but I like Babyface Bearer and his Lion Sleeps Tonight falsetto only slightly more than I liked Sapphire. Hart as Hulk Hogan's babyface lapdog was intolerable, and gets bonus demerits for falling so far from where he was at his peak.

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Paul Jones has been a great manager as I've watched 1985. He wasn't a top tier guy but he was perfect for his band of misfits. Paul Jones and Superstar Billy Graham are an awesome combo.

 

I never thought Mr. Fuji was particularly bad. Not worst ever. He was never worst in the WWF any year I've watched. Johnny V and Frenchy Martin were far worse on any given night. Coach, Hiro Matsuda and Oscar were also fucking terrible. Fuji had credibility from his wrestling days, I always thought he was good at getting heat for his guys and not himself and he tended to interfere in matches the right way.

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Johnny Valentine

 

Johnny V is Valiant, not Valentine. Valiant was well established as a former WWWF tag team champion. Valentine didn't work the WWF in the '80s to my knowledge and he would have been too physically incapacitated to manage.

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Fuji is one of those who gets labeled at the worst not because he was the worst, but because he was good enough to stick around. Anyone worse than Fuji didn't last and didn't get noticed. There are dozens of goofs floating around worse than Fuji. But they don't keep jobs.

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Johnny Valentine DID work as a manager after his accident. At least for a little while in Joe Blanchard's Southwest. I watched some Southwest a while ago that had Johnny Valentine managing Buddy Roberts who was working as Dale Valentine, Johnny's younger "brother"

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And there's Sonny Ono who was pretty terrible in WCW.

 

Stereotypical character aside, he was actually quite decent as a sidekick. Could deliver some cool looking kick and take bump, had an overall goofyness which made him somewhat entertaining. He didn't exactly fit in the era though, but that was WCW being schizophrenic.

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Strikes me as intellectually dishonest to compare Sapphire to, say, Bobby "The Brain" Heenan or any elite manager. Regardless of what she was called, she did not play the same role - nor was she expected to. For what she was, she did okay.

 

I also didn't mind Harvey Wippleman. All time great? No, not even close, but I think he worked as a manager of lower midcard or comedy acts (Big Bully Busick, Well Dunn, Bertha Faye) but was out of his element when managing main eventers (Sid). The one exception to the latter is Giant Gonzales - maybe because Gonzales looked so god damn goofy. Yet, ironically, Gonzales was credible as a threat (briefly) by laying out The Undertaker the way he did at the '93 Royal Rumble. (Remember, no one had ever been made to look that dominant against The Undertaker up until that point.)

 

Keeping this on-topic, I'll repeat what I said about Fuji in my Gorilla thread: I always thought Fuji was presented very effectively too. Obviously, he had significant drawbacks, but his character was believable and easy to dislike. Worst manager? Not even close.

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I'm just not sure why you would be convinced that Fuji was even "bad" at what he was supposed to be doing. Maybe his promos weren't great shakes or anything but I never remember thinking they were bad either. His sadist character which always demanded more punishment led to a built in narrative reason why his charges would lose in the end as they would push their luck rather than just get wins. I thought he had pretty good chemistry with Demolition, The Orient Express and The Berzerker and I never felt like he overshadowed anyone like say Heenan would for his lesser charges like Haku, Hercules or The Barbarian. I never got the impression that Fuji was the one feuding with guys with the possible exception of Demolition after the turn and that made sense considering where the feud ended up at Wresstlemania whatever it was.

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