Kayfabe! – YouShoot with Manny Fernandez

Kayfabe!
YouShoot with Manny Fernandez

This winds up being on par with the 1980 WWE Timeline with Larry Zybyzsko and most of the KC shows with Kevin Nash, in that it’s definitely entertaining, but, take most of what you hear with a few grains of salt. To paraphrase Jim Cornette: Manny Fernandez is the sort of person who can tell an interesting story.

I don’t know if it’s the beer, or if he was just thrilled to be in New Jersey, but, Manny truly seems to be in all his glory. He’s not lobbying for a job with WWE, and doesn’t seem to care what anyone thinks of what he says. One of KC’s promotions for this show was a photo of him with the caption “You think this face gives a shit?” and no he doesn’t! During ‘What A Dick’ his answers aren’t just “He’s a dick.” No, Manny adds further adjectives and descriptions. “Brown Nosing Dick” “Cock sucking dick” “Such a big dick, that he could be a dildo!” He also makes the comment that karma caught up with Magnum TA, which results in Sean making the most shocked/appalled facial expression you’ve ever seen.

To his credit, Manny seemed to be a bit prepared for people to call some of his better known bullshit stories. A longtime story was that he claims to be the same Manny Fernandez who played for the Miami Dolphins, but, Manny gets there first and clears up how they couldn’t be the same person. Of course, the infamous Puerto Rico match gets brought up, and Manny maintains that it was totally legit. He contends that only people who know him and have worked with him know the way he normally does the knee drop, so it wasn’t obvious to the fans that it was a shoot. He calls bullshit on the story of Invader drinking pig’s blood and vodka, and says that he’d love to see anyone actually do that. Manny’s claim of being in Vietnam is called into question, by someone Manny knows, and Manny cuts a hell of a promo on him. KC adds a caption explaining that the timeline of events does support Manny having been there. Whether or not he was there is a different story, but the timeline of events doesn’t disprove it.

But, Manny makes a few claims that are pretty easily dismissed. When he’s asked about the best legit fights between wrestlers, he brings up himself and Tully Blanchard at the 1987 Crockett Cup. It’s already been told, many times, that he and Tully were constantly cutting promos on each other, and after so long, the boys got sick of it and weren’t going to stop them from fighting, and when they both realized it, the heat just dissipated. Someone asks about the WCW 1990’s jobber Manny Fernandez, and Manny says that it was Dusty’s way of getting back at him for walking out. He says that he was in Japan with Doctor Death, when Tiger Hatori said that he wasn’t going to be booked again because he was jobber in WCW. Tiger Hatori was a New Japan ref, and Doc was wrestling for All Japan. He didn’t care much for the Crocketts , especially David, but, he said Ted Turner loved him, because when he met Turner after WCW bought JCP (the year after he left) he told Turner that he hated his wife, and Turner got a huge kick out of it.

But, again, if you’re willing to put up with the exaggerations, Manny is entertaining as hell. He’s very opinionated about how the business has changed from the territory days, and how the boys have changed, with him mentioning that the guys he had a hand in training, like JBL and Booker T, were brought up the right way. He makes no bones about saying who he doesn’t like, and goes the extra mile when praising those he does respect like Cornette, Wahoo McDaniel, and Rick Rude.

7.5

The final score: review Good

The 411

For factual accuracy and informativeness, this doesn't rate very high. But, Manny and his attitude about not mincing words, makes for an incredibly entertaining two hours.