Teddy Long Says Vince McMahon Was Impressed With His First WWE Promo
With Teddy Long set to join the WWE Hall of Fame during WrestleMania 33 weekend, it makes sense that he'd hit the podcast circuit. One dope interview that happened earlier this month was his appearance on Jim Ross's Ross Report on Podcast One.
Long mentioned that he knows who will be inducting him ("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."), that he taught himself how to referee after there was no referee to work that night, and that—shocker—the WCW kept their talent in the dark, he tells a dope story about how Vince McMahon reacted to Long's first promo as a heel manager.
At the time, Long left WCW and came to the WWE as a referee ("I made more money there refereeing than I did in WCW managing"); many might remember him being the ref during the match that paralyzed Droz. He was later used as a manager for a number of black wrestlers, including D'Lo Brown. Somehow, with all of his work in the NWA/WCW on the mic, McMahon hadn't seen Long cut a promo before, and was astonished.
"When I walked out the first night and I walked out with D'Lo Brown," Long says, "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."
You know, they say McMahon doesn't keep up with much but his own world, and this is just another example of that. Let's look back at some of Teddy Long's fire on the mic.
Here's a look at the vignette that helped build the Four Horsemen versus Doom feud.
Here are some of his previous work.
And for all of you who thought Teddy just made tag team matches on Smackdown...
Dude's a legend, and deserves the honor.
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