| Theodore Long | |
|---|---|
| Ring name(s) | Teddy Long Theodore Long T-Lo |
| Billed height | 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)[1] |
| Billed weight | 173 lb (78 kg) |
| Born | September 15, 1947 Birmingham, Alabama |
| Resides | Miami, Florida |
| Billed from | Atlanta, Georgia |
| Debut | 1985 |
Theodore R. "Teddy" Long (born September 15, 1947)[2] is an American professional wrestling manager and former referee who currently works for WWE on its SmackDown brand as its General Manager.
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Long started out as an errand boy for wrestlers Tommy Rich and Abdullah the Butcher. He eventually became a member of the ringcrew and was promoted to referee in the NWA's Jim Crockett Promotions in 1985 as Teddy Long.[3] In 1989, at the Chi-Town Rumble event, Long ran in and counted three, making Ricky Steamboat the NWA World Champion. Shortly thereafter, Long began to turn into a villainous character when he started to bend the rules for the villains. On April 2, 1989 at the Clash of Champions in New Orleans, Long blatantly made a fast count allowing Mike Rotunda and "Dr. Death" Steve Williams to defeat the Road Warriors for the NWA World Tag Team Championship. After this match, the National Wrestling Alliance relieved Long of his refereeing duties. This was actually a story lifted from Championship Wrestling from Florida, where Long had been a referee and did several heel-decisions in the ring, including one for Ron Simmons over Skip Young. While riding with Kevin Sullivan and Eddie Gilbert, Long would DJ for them. After hearing Long talk, the two convinced Jim Ross to give Long a managerial role, managing "Norman The Lunatic".[3] Long became the manager of Doom (Ron Simmons and Butch Reed) and led them to the World Tag Team Titles. He also managed Johnny B. Badd, One Man Gang, Norman the Lunatic, The Skyscrapers (Sid Vicious, Dan Spivey and Mark Calaway), Marcus Bagwell, 2 Cold Scorpio, Joey Maggs, Craig Pittman, Jim Powers, Bobby Walker, Ice Train and Bobby Eaton while in Jim Crockett Promotions and WCW.
Long debuted in the WWF as a referee in 1999 at the Royal Rumble and stayed with that role until September 2002, when he was taken off the road. Like his previous referee stints, Long went by the shortened Teddy Long name during this period. He was a referee at the Over The Edge 1999 PPV, during the match after Owen Hart's tragic death: a mixed tag match between Jeff Jarrett/Debra and Val Venis/Nicole Bass. Long was the referee when Darren Drozdov ended up paralyzed and can be seen in WWE's Don't Try This At Home warning looking at the paramedics lift Droz up on a stretcher.
He was re-packaged as a villainous manager once again under his full name, and perhaps his most notable managing stint in this period came when managing D'Lo Brown, Rodney Mack, Christopher Nowinski, Rosey, Mark Henry and Jazz at different times, telling fans to "get Down wit' da Brown" and to "Back da Mack." When he was drafted to SmackDown!, he managed Mark Jindrak.
After Kurt Angle was fired from the General Manager position in July 2004, Long became the new and first African-American General Manager of SmackDown!. Long immediately turned face on his first night as GM when he fined Angle $5,000 for not having his wrestling gear with him. Because of his face turn, his new position saw him giving the fans what they wanted and making matches that put villains at disadvantages, notably JBL, a stark contrast to other WWE managers, such as Eric Bischoff and Mr. McMahon, who would blatantly favor heels. At first, he continued use of his "Hate-orade" talk, but less aggressively, and with humor. One example was when he stripped Booker T of the US Championship for "drinkin' Hate-orade." Long would also introduce the New Talent Initiative during this time, which saw the likes of Bobby Lashley and Mr. Kennedy debut in 2005 and MVP in 2006, among others. The New Talent Initiative would continue when Long moved to ECW in 2008 and would see the debuts of Kofi Kingston, Evan Bourne, Braden Walker, Ricky Ortiz, Gavin Spears, and Jack Swagger.
As part of the Raw vs. SmackDown! feud, Long defeated then Raw GM Eric Bischoff at Survivor Series 2005 with the help of The Boogeyman.[4]
Theodore Long still had problems with Booker T and his defense of the United States title, however, as Booker T attempted to get out of title defenses on a number of occasions by pretending to be injured, and having other wrestlers fight on his behalf. Eventually, Long got tired of these shenanigans, and at No Way Out 2006, Booker was told to face Chris Benoit or be stripped of the US title. Benoit won the match and was congratulated by Theodore Long.
After Randy Orton had cheated to obtain Rey Mysterio's title shot at WrestleMania 22, Long placed Mysterio back in the match and made it a Triple Threat match, at the same time warning Orton that he could still remove Orton from the match if he disobeyed Long.
At Judgment Day 2006 Long fired Melina and Johnny Nitro from SmackDown!. On the following SmackDown!, JBL suffered the same fate after losing the United States Championship to Bobby Lashley, and then losing a World Heavyweight Championship match to Rey Mysterio in his Judgment Day rematch.[5]
On the September 4, 2006 episode of Raw, Long appeared to a tremendous ovation in his hometown. During a six-person, intergender tag match between Randy Orton, Edge, and Lita against Trish Stratus, Carlito, and John Cena, some fans chanted Theodore's name.[6]
In April 2007, Long became the on-screen boyfriend of Kristal Marshall, after weeks flirting with each other backstage. Long then began to look for an assistant so he could spend more time with Kristal, eventually revealing Vickie Guerrero as his new assistant on May 25, 2007, an appointment made partly at Kristal's request.[7] On the June 22, 2007 episode of SmackDown!, Long asked Kristal to marry him. Kristal ran out of the ring, crying, but later agreed to marry him. On the July 27, 2007 edition of SmackDown!, Ron Simmons was named the best man for "Theodore Rufus Long" and Kristal's wedding on the September 21, 2007 edition of SmackDown! emanating from Long's hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. The wedding was not completed, however, due to constant disruptions and Long having a heart attack just as he started to say "I do". He then fell in to a coma.[8] The storyline never finished out as planned as Marshall left the WWE shortly afterwards due to creative differences. Long returned on the November 30, 2007 edition of SmackDown! as the Assistant General Manager and made a match at Armageddon for the World Heavyweight Championship.[9] He started to feud with Guerrero over her position as the General manager as she continued to favour Edge. On May 16, 2008, Long quit his role of Assistant General Manager.[10]
On the June 3, 2008 edition of ECW, it was announced that Long had become the new General Manager of the ECW brand by order of the WWE Board of Directors.[11]
On the April 7, 2009 edition of ECW, Long announced he was returning to SmackDown! as General Manager, with Tiffany replacing him on ECW. By doing this, he became the first person in the history of the company to have a second term as General Manager. He made his official TV return to SmackDown! on April 10, when he announced that the Hardys Matt and Jeff would face each other in the first ever stretcher match in SmackDown history.
At Breaking Point, Long turned on The Undertaker and helped CM Punk with his match, stating that The Undertaker's move Hell's Gate was banned a long time ago, turning Long heel again for the first time in years, but this time with a different gimmick, his gimmick was that of a cocky arrogant man that is a coward, which gained him more heat than his old heel run. On the September 18, 2009 edition of Friday Night Smackdown, WWE Chairman Mr. McMahon instructed Long to go down to the ring and explain his actions regarding the conclusion of the World Heavyweight Championship Submission match between champion CM Punk and The Undertaker in which he (Long), as well as referee Scott Armstrong and CM Punk played key roles in recreating the infamous Montreal Screwjob at the WWE Breaking Point Pay-per-view event (held at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada), site of the 1997 fiasco. This time, with The Undertaker being the target of a planned conspiracy. As he returned from the ring to the back stage area, he entered his waiting limousine only to have The Undertaker in the drivers seat. Undertaker locked the doors and told Long "Buckle up, Teddy" (this itself is reference to an event which took place at the 1999 WWE Backlash event where The Undertaker had, after waiting for her to enter a limousine, abducted Stephanie McMahon. On that night he said to her "Where to, Stephanie?"). The limousine drove off with clouds of smoke blowing from the rear windows. The following week on SmackDown Long was brought into the arena inside a coffin by Undertaker's druids where he again legalized Undertaker's Hell's Gate submission hold. Long's heel turn was short because he later congratulated The Undertaker after defeating CM Punk at Hell in a Cell, thus turning Face again. Teddy Long made a guest appearance on RAW and then later got superkicked by Shawn Michaels after Long refused to draft him to SmackDown. He then began a feud with Drew McIntyre, the first part of which revolved around McIntyre qualifying for the Money in the Bank ladder match at WrestleMania XXVI, which was instead won by Jack Swagger. On the 7th May episode of Smackdown, after McIntyre brutally assaulted Matt Hardy, Long stripped McIntyre of his Intercontinental Championship and fired him. As a result, the Intercontinental Championship was vacant. Thus, Long issued the Intercontinental Championship tournament involving Christian, Kofi Kingston, Cody Rhodes and Dolph Ziggler. However, after Kingston emerged victorious against Christian, Long was issued a letter from Vince McMahon reinstating McIntyre and forcing Kingston to give his title back to McIntyre. He then made a match for McIntyre's Intercontinental Championship at Over the Limit against Kofi Kingston.
On the May 28th edition of SmackDown, Long read the letter from Mr. McMahon's office given to him by Drew McIntyre and stated that Matt Hardy was going to be suspended until further notice after Matt attacked McIntyre at Over the Limit, and told Matt not to go near McIntyre and if he did so, Long would be fired as the General Manager of SmackDown.
On the June 11th edition of SmackDown!, a frustrated Drew McIntyre announced a match between Long and McIntyre would take place the following week on Smackdown per orders of Mr. McMahon. Drew said if Long didn't compete, he would be fired. McIntyre then went on to win the match the following week, after it was ordered that Long had get down on his knees, proclaim Drew as "The Chosen One" and then lay on his back and let McIntyre pin him without a fight. The next episode of SmackDown!, Long reinstated Matt Hardy into the SmackDown! brand and made Drew McIntyre compete against the returning Matt Hardy. Hardy would win the match, but after the match, Long came out and told McIntyre that his visa had expired, and made security carry him out of the arena. On the July 9 tapings of SmackDown, McIntyre was reinstated and pleaded forgiveness from Long, even going so far as to nominate Long as a member of the WWE Hall of Fame as well as get on his knees and proclaim Long "the best boss he ever had." Long, however, did not believe him and announced a Money in the Bank qualifying match (for the upcoming Money in the Bank pay-per-view) against Kofi Kingston. McIntyre won the match, earning a place in the match, but McIntyre lost the SmackDown Money in the Bank Ladder Match with Kane winning it.
On January 21 edition of Smackdown, Long was found (kayfabe) unconscious in his office, suffering a head injury. He returned on the February 18 episode of Smackdown, where he revealed Vickie Guerrero and Dolph Ziggler to have attacked him. He then scheduled a match between the newly-coronated World Heavyweight Champion Ziggler and Edge. Edge would win the match, becoming a eleven-time world champion. After the match, Long would then fire Ziggler. The following week, he fired Vickie Guerrero after she lost a mixed tag team match.
On the May 6 edition, Long scheduled a World Heavyweight Championship match between Randy Orton and Christian who had just won it for the first time five nights previous at Extreme Rules. Christian would once again lose to Orton at Over the Limit. On the June 3 edition, Christian was chosen by Long as the special guest referee for a World Heavyweight Championship match between Orton and Sheamus who beat Christian and Mark Henry in a triple threat number one contender's match for the title the week before. Christian would turn heel by hitting Orton with the title he had retained and lost to Orton again for the title at Capitol Punishment despite his foot being under the bottom rope. Long would turn face when Christian would blame Long for his "incompetence against the company" and scheduled Orton to defend his title against Christian at Money in the Bank. Christian would manage to find a way to include a clause that if Orton were to get disqualified, the title would switch hands and so it did. Orton would reclaim his title in a No Holds Barred match at Summerslam as well as on the August 30 Super Smackdown edition inside a steel cage.
On July 25 edition of SmackDown. The new COO Triple H made Zack Ryder Theodore Long's new Assistant, and another one, on the August 2, 2011 tapings of the August 5, 2011 edition of SmackDown, in the form of Aksana.
On the November 25 2011 edition of SmackDown!, after Daniel Bryan seemingly successfully cashed in the Money In The Bank briefcase on Mark Henry to win his first World Heavyweight Championship, Long rushed down to the ring and declared the title change void, as Mark Henry had not yet been medically cleared to compete in an official match. He would schedule Bryan in a fatal 4-way match against Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes and Wade Barrett to determine the number one contender for Henry's world title which would be defended on the November 30 edition inside a steel cage. Bryan eventually won the fatal 4-way match but failed to win inside the steel cage. Had Bryan won, he would have become the first Money in the Bank holder to hold a world title and a Money in the Bank briefcase at the same time.
When Long became SmackDown General Manager, he revived old and made new match types: