411’s WWE Greatest Moments Report: Managers

-Written 5.25.26
-Source: A&E
-Run Time: 30 Minutes (w/ Commercials)

-Plugs: Chyna was the focus of our last episode.

-Cool experience today as my I recorded my youngest son doing various wrestling catchphrases and I posted on social media. Matt Hardy was awesome enough to not only like the video but reply with a video of his own telling my son that his deleting was wonderful. He then wished my family all the best. As I noted, his response made my two boys’ day.

-The preview notes this is Top Manager Moments and not a ranking of the managers themselves.

-Michael Cole is our narrator.

10. True Colors
-June 16, 1984

-Cyndi Lauper shows up on Piper’s Pit and Lou Albano heels on her. David Wolfe is here as a talking head which is cool. Cyndi starts beating on Lou and Cyndi says it was awesome and she loved working with Lou. What isn’t Cyndi in the WWE Hall of Fame yet?

9. Pass The Salt
–WrestleMania IX

-This makes sense as Fuji’s salt to Bret’s eyes gave Yokozuna the WWF Title. Bret says it was very fitting from a character standpoint. Heyman notes Fuji won many tag titles doing the same. Not shown here, but Fuji immediately challenging Hogan and putting Yoko’s Title on the line takes away from his genius of cheating to win.

8. Clash of The Clients
–SummerSlam 92

-Sherri is ringside for Shawn vs. Martel and is in love with both men. She doesn’t want either to punch the other. She fakes passing out a few times and ends up getting water dumped on her. Bruce says Sherri had the ability to enhance everything she was asked to do. Sherri is awesome and deserves her flowers. Go watch her performance in the Hogan/Flair cage match at Halloween Havoc. She put in work in that match.

-Commercials

7. Keeping in Classy
-Dec. 26, 1983

-We are at MSG the day after Christmas and Bob Backlund is defending the WWF Title against The Iron Sheik. Arnold throws the towel in and Sheik is the new Champion. Freddie Blassie finally gets to manage a World Champion. Heyman notes Blassie never got to hold the Title himself, so this was a victory for him. Really, you could say the big manager moment here was Arnold throwing in the towel. I hope that reign for Sheik ended well.

6. Horsemen Attack
-Oct. 14, 1986

-We just covered this during the Horsemen A&E Bio. The Horsemen tail Dusty Rhodes to the TV station and then beat the piss out of him with a baseball bat in the parking lot. Heyman says it was JJ Dillon’s idea and strategy. JJ says the police were called and Cornette noted in his podcast they just went out and shot the angle without letting cops know, so people were watching and thinking a crime had been committed.

-Commercials!

5. Turning on Taker
-RAW: June 30, 1997

-Paul Bearer lets us know that Taker has a brother named Kane and blames Taker for killing his family. Taker attacks and Bearer yells that Kane is alive and we get the start of one of the best payoffs to a debut WWE ever ran.

4. A Nasty Hart
–WrestleMania VII

-Jimmy Hart had turned on the Hart Foundation for the Nasty Boys and it leads to this match at Mania. The Nasty Boys were fresh off getting over in WCW and the WWF immediately puts them over The Hart Foundation for the Tag Titles. They cheat to win of course as Jimmy’s megaphone gets used.

3. The Louisville Loudmouth
-RAW: Aug. 2, 1993

-Well, this should end up on Cornette’s Podcast I assume. Of course they use a WWF moment and not something from NWA/WCW. This is Jim’s WWF debut and Bobby Heenan puts him over huge just to make sure the WWF fans knew to boo him. Cornette says this was a new group of fans and they needed to know what he was all about and what he wanted to accomplish. Heenan and Cornette hugging just seems right. Heyman says Jim debuting in WWF and getting endorsed by Heenan added so much to his legacy.

-Commercials

2. Pop Goes The Weasel
-July 15, 1988

-These matches probably took time off Heenan’s life. This was Warrior vs. Heenan in a Weasel Suit Match. Heenan has stated he did similar matches in the AWA with Hogan. Basically, Heenan gets SQUASHED and shoved into a weasel suit. Heenan they goes crazy trying to get out of the suit and as Bruce notes, “has a match with himself.” Funny stuff!

1. A Wise Move
-WrestleMania 41

-This match was awesome! Gargano notes the match was built around Punk and Reigns’ relationship with Heyman. Heyman slides a chair to Punk, but then low blows him. He then low blows Reigns, joins Rollins, and The Vision is born (and man, has it been cursed).

-All nostalgia which is what I want from this series. With that said, Miss Elizabeth needed to be on here somewhere and you can pick either Mania VII when she reunited with Savage or The Main Event II when her getting knocked out led to the Mega Powers finally exploding. It was nice for them to include Cornette and many will tell you the top three moments featured the three greatest managers of all time in Heenan, Heyman, and Cornette. This was a weird one as the premise of the show is Great Moments, but it seemed like they just wanted to do a list of Great Managers and had to find things to make it work. Still, I got my dose of nostalgia from the show.

-Thanks for reading!