Teddy Long Reveals Who Called Him to Let Him Know About His Hall of Fame Induction

As previously reported, Teddy Long recently appeared as a guest on Jim Ross’ The Ross Report podcast. Below are some more highlights from the show (transcript via WrestlingInc.com)

Long on how it feels good to get a Hall of Fame induction and who called him: “It feels real good. It’s something that I never expected. It really was a big shock to me and a big surprise. I’m really honored and I certainly thank the WWE and Vince McMahon for everything that they’ve done for me. Well, Mark Carrano was the one that made the call. He called me and he kind of joked around a little bit about some other stuff. And then, he finally told me that I was going into the Hall Of Fame. And he congratulated me and he thanked me and he told me that he was one of the guys that went and took my name into Vince and got things kind of rolling. That went over really well. I was really excited.”

Long on who will induct him: “Well, I do [know who is inducting him], but I don’t know if they want me to say it or not, so I guess I’d better leave that alone. I don’t know if they want it out there or not.”

Long on the differences between WWE and WCW: “When I came there [to WWE], I found out this is a business and it’s not a joke because I didn’t understand that coming from WCW because nobody was really sitting me down and explaining that my role was to draw money or my role was to put people in the seats.” Long elaborated, “[WCW] were never honest with you. Do you know what I mean? And that’s kind of bad because sometimes when you did a bad job, some guys would say, ‘hey man, that was great. That was great. Good stuff.’ And that’s really not good. If somebody [does] bad, tell them they [had] done bad. If they don’t accept the criticism, that’s really too bad. So I think the problem there was a lot of people weren’t honest.”

Long on teaching himself to be a referee: “I taught myself. I went into the ring, my first referee match, I had at the Cobb County Civic Center in Marietta, Georgia. About 30 minutes before showtime, there was no referee. Louise Manning came to me, she was the promoter at that time, she came to me, she had sent to the varsity and got me a referee shirt and she told me, she says, ‘we don’t have a referee tonight. You’re going to have to referee.’ I had never refereed in my life!”

Long on how he became a heel manager in WWE: “When I walked out the first night and I walked out with D’Lo Brown, and I cut this promo on Tommy Dreamer and then when I [came] back and I walked in Gorilla, and Vince looked at me and he said, ‘I can’t believe I’ve had you here right under my nose all this time.’ And I remembered that and that made me feel like, ‘hey, I’ve got this. I’m going to take care of this.’ So that was a big moment for me then.”