If not Mr. Fuji, then who?

[C.S.]

No manager sucked the meat missile with the gusto that Colonel Red did in Abrams UWF. Easily the worst manager I've ever seen, and I saw Teddy Long in 1996 accompanying Jim Powers and looking like Charles S. Dutton.

 

LOL. That was a waste of time for Teddy Long (and the fans), but I wouldn't necessarily say Teddy was a bad manager/personality because of it. He was just cast in a role that was literally a no-win situation.

[ButchReedMark]

Oh, don't get me wrong, Teddy Long of 1988 or so to 1991 or whatever was great. But that man who ate Teddy Long and then stole his identity afterwards in the mid 90s was the drizzling shits.

[Mad Dog]

I kind of liked Teddy Long when he was managing a bunch of JTTS guys in late 90s WCW.

[GSR]

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.

 

I enjoyed Hart with Muta and felt he was strong as the mouthpiece for him. Matsuda did absolutely nothing and would just stand in the background letting Flair and the rest do the talking, whilst he added nothing at ringside to the point you didn't even realise he was there. He was far worse a candidate than Hart for this year.

[ButchReedMark]

Yeah, Matsuda was just pointless. And pointless and giving off the aura of "Why are you even there?" is far greater a crime than being bad in my eyes.

[JerryvonKramer]

See, I think being actively bad is worse than being pointless. The worst you could say of Matsuda was that came off as being irrelevant, the net result is just a blank -- no better for him being there, but also no worse. I think Gary Hart was actively bad in 1989 to the point where he was a real detriment to the product.

[thebrainfollower]

You're saying managers SHOULD be selling for the babyface world champion Parv?

 

Yeah Gary's ego was out of control. His timeline on Texas wrestling is nuts too. The way he tells it he ran the whole state from 1970-1982 and within MONTHS of his departure every territory except WCCW went belly up

[ButchReedMark]

See, I think being actively bad is worse than being pointless. The worst you could say of Matsuda was that came off as being irrelevant, the net result is just a blank -- no better for him being there, but also no worse. I think Gary Hart was actively bad in 1989 to the point where he was a real detriment to the product.

 

See, that's where we differ. I'd rather hate something bad than be apathetic towards an irrelevance. I need to feel some kind of emotion, even if it's a negative one. I liked Gary Hart, but I'm a noisy advocate of his in the face of any and all evidence otherwise as I'm awkward.

[Mad Dog]

I thought Hart was an effective manager for Muta.

[JerryvonKramer]

What did he do well?

[Mad Dog]

I would have to watch the stuff again because I haven't seen it in awhile.

[ButchReedMark]

He talked him up great in the early stages I felt. Put him over as something special and exotic.

[JerryvonKramer]

I felt like there was a real disconnect between Hart and basically everything else going on in the promotion. He seemed like he was going into business for himself and on top of that didn't really know what was going on. Not really surprising that he was fired mid-storyline.

[C.S.]

Oh, don't get me wrong, Teddy Long of 1988 or so to 1991 or whatever was great. But that man who ate Teddy Long and then stole his identity afterwards in the mid 90s was the drizzling shits.

 

True, it wasn't very entertaining, but how much could the man realistically do as a babyface manager for jobbers? Bobby Heenan wouldn't have succeeded in that role either.

[ButchReedMark]

What could he do? More than what he did do, which is waddle down the aisle with Hardwork Bobby Walker or whatever and just stand there without moving a muscle or egging his charge on or anything at all, I don't even think he'd blink, he could have least pounded the apron now and again to start clapping from the crowd, then later waddling back down the aisle with his charge after they lost.

[Blazer]

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.

 

 

 

 

The fact the Meltzer picked Fuji over Johnny V in 1987 almost negates anything else he says. This is an awful choice. Fuji, in '87, was actually very hot in the WWF ranks. They switched Demolition from Johnny V to Fuji. They switched Kamala and Sika over to Fuji and teamed them up after the Wizard didn't want to travel on the road anymore. They brought in Killer Kahn and paired him with Fuji. And, Fuji still managed Orton and Muraco thru September. Meanwhile, Johnny V was so terrible that they didn't give him any of the new guys that came in (One Man Gang went to slick, the Islanders turned heel and went to Heenan, Kahn went to Fuji, Bigelow went face with Humperdink). Johnny V through the entire year only managed one team - Brave and Valentine. That says a lot about his performance and the trust they had in him.

[Bigelow34]

I always felt Fuji was a product of the announcers talking about him more than anything he ever actually did. Gorilla always put over and talked about how devious he was but it never quite seemed to payoff in any way and he never did anything that devious besides toss salt at guys and get knocked over to allow someone to grab his cane.

 

His biggest plan was one of the worst in WWF history when he dumped the tag champs and swerved them in a non title match after they had just wrestled for 45 minutes. That turn made no sense if you assume it was pre-planned at all. Yoko at Wm9 was mentioned too as a really stupid moment.

 

Worst in those years? Probably not thanks to guys like Hump and Frenchy, but I never really thought he was very good.

[El-P]

Mr. Fuji's devious reputation probably came from real-life ribbing. I mean, he was a cruel bastard.

[Bigelow34]

Oh yeah, for sure, he was a nasty prick IRL. But on screen it was all Gorilla or other announcers ...we never really saw any of it.

 

Heenan kidnapped Matilda, turned Andre on Hogan, sold out Patera, sold Hercules into slavery, cut Andre's hair, etc. Fuji stood in the corner and nodded as Gorilla told us he was up to no good.

[JerryvonKramer]

I always felt Fuji was a product of the announcers talking about him more than anything he ever actually did. Gorilla always put over and talked about how devious he was

Yes, Justin, agreed. I said this the Gorilla Monsoon thread when Fuji was first brought up. It always felt like Gorilla put him over huge.

 

Did you ever have the CHV called "Brains Behind the Brawn"? When I was collecting in the early 2000s, this was one of my sacred gems cos it was very hard to find on UK Pal and it's one of the ones I ended up paying over £10 for. This was one of the very few places to see the footage of One Man Gang becoming Akeem.

 

Anyway, THAT put him over pretty big as well. I think there might be an argument to say that Fuji failed in the role he was put in. I mean, he was put over big on commentary, and featured as a big deal, but always came off as being second rate.

 

One of the interesting things about that tape is that -- similar to the older "Amazing Managers" tape -- the featured managers were all seen on a level parity. It's Heenan, Hart, Fuji and Slick and all four are treated on a par and the sort of schtick of the tape was that Miss Elizabeth trumped them all.

[Goodear]

How much of the 'devious' stuff was holdover from his wrestling career? I'm just wondering if it was a case of him just keeping a nickname from back in the day. Granted they weren't still calling Blassie a vampire back then so I may be entirely off base.

[shakla]

Glad this thread is up. A few years ago (2010?) I sent in a question to Observer Radio to the effect of "Why did Mr. Fuji win so many Worst Manager Observer awards?", just curious why Dave and/or the readership thought he was so bad. Dave gave a vague answer like "because he was the worst manager of his era" and that was that. Disappointing, perhaps I should have worded it better.

[BigBadMick]

 

I always felt Fuji was a product of the announcers talking about him more than anything he ever actually did. Gorilla always put over and talked about how devious he was

Yes, Justin, agreed. I said this the Gorilla Monsoon thread when Fuji was first brought up. It always felt like Gorilla put him over huge.

 

Did you ever have the CHV called "Brains Behind the Brawn"? When I was collecting in the early 2000s, this was one of my sacred gems cos it was very hard to find on UK Pal and it's one of the ones I ended up paying over £10 for. This was one of the very few places to see the footage of One Man Gang becoming Akeem.

 

Anyway, THAT put him over pretty big as well. I think there might be an argument to say that Fuji failed in the role he was put in. I mean, he was put over big on commentary, and featured as a big deal, but always came off as being second rate.

 

One of the interesting things about that tape is that -- similar to the older "Amazing Managers" tape -- the featured managers were all seen on a level parity. It's Heenan, Hart, Fuji and Slick and all four are treated on a par and the sort of schtick of the tape was that Miss Elizabeth trumped them all.

 

Wow Parv - over ten whole pounds!

 

Actually, what was the going rate for vhs's in the early 2000s? Andd how many tapes did you collect?

 

Any chance you could put a few photos up? It would be nice to see what memories come flooding back.

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

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 Valentine

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

 

 

You're missing Kim Chee in the GOAT block.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

 

I always felt Fuji was a product of the announcers talking about him more than anything he ever actually did. Gorilla always put over and talked about how devious he was

Yes, Justin, agreed. I said this the Gorilla Monsoon thread when Fuji was first brought up. It always felt like Gorilla put him over huge.

 

Did you ever have the CHV called "Brains Behind the Brawn"? When I was collecting in the early 2000s, this was one of my sacred gems cos it was very hard to find on UK Pal and it's one of the ones I ended up paying over £10 for. This was one of the very few places to see the footage of One Man Gang becoming Akeem.

 

Anyway, THAT put him over pretty big as well. I think there might be an argument to say that Fuji failed in the role he was put in. I mean, he was put over big on commentary, and featured as a big deal, but always came off as being second rate.

 

One of the interesting things about that tape is that -- similar to the older "Amazing Managers" tape -- the featured managers were all seen on a level parity. It's Heenan, Hart, Fuji and Slick and all four are treated on a par and the sort of schtick of the tape was that Miss Elizabeth trumped them all.

 

Wow Parv - over ten whole pounds!

 

Actually, what was the going rate for vhs's in the early 2000s? Andd how many tapes did you collect?

 

Any chance you could put a few photos up? It would be nice to see what memories come flooding back.

 

The standard rate was about £5 + maybe £2 for P&P. I collected *almost* all of them up to about 1995, and then only the main PPVs until about 2001. Mostly everything from the 89-91 period was very easy to find and you could get lots of a few of them from pretty cheap. I already had most of them from my childhood anyway.

 

But certain ones, especially those released before 1989, were incredibly difficult to find in UK Pal. Some were never released at all. Others we had our own special tapes for the UK market which were absolutely bloody everywhere on ebay, especially Hulk Hogan: Real American and the SNME tape which had the Rockers on the front. You could get those ones for like £1.

 

In the end, I had to resort to using niche bootlegs from guys who had converted American SCART VHS to UK PAL for those tapes which were never released here. These were a mark-up on the regular ones because you just couldn't find them. Virtually all of the non-PPV releases prior to Wrestlemania 5 never came out here. These included stuff like "Brains Behind the Brawn", "Macho Madness", and all of the "Best of WWF" series and "History of " series. Got to remember, no Youtube in those days, so I was picking up those tapes to see any and all bits of angles that I'd never seen. But there were some I just couldn't find, even off those bootleggers. "Country Boys" was nowhere, ditto "Explosive TNT show". Basically some of the older stuff.

 

Then I bought a bulk load of the original SNMEs -- every single one. That's a shit load of tapes. I used to get them delivered back to my parents' place in Wales, and I was here in university. But then the SNME bulk came my dad rang me and was like "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!" Was like a massive sack full of tapes. The VQ wasn't that great on them either, but that's how things were. Just think you could probably find and watch every SNME on youtube or the network now.

 

All-in-all, I must have spent over £2k over about 2 years. I guess nobody at that time could have predicted how the internet would go with broadband, streaming, amazing availability of content etc., and I thought I was planning for the future, grabbing this stuff while it was still relatively cheap and available and while people still actually owned VHS tape recorders. Nice one Nostradamus! Those tapes are still in my parents' attic, next time I'm back I might take a few pics, but it's quite a hassle to go and get them out.