Million Dollar Nightmare

By Scott Keith on 20 May 2018

Scott,

Should Ted DiBiase be considered a bigger flop as a manager than Paul Jones and Mr. Fuji due to actually having wrestlers who were supposed to be at the top of the card and his bringing in anti-heat? At least Paul Jones vs. Jimmy Valiant would get a crowd reaction.

Separately, was there a point in '85-'87 where Hogan could have demanded a portion of the WWF from Vince?

I wouldn't call Paul Jones a flop. If anything, he overachieved with the Rude/Fernandez team and then the Powers of Pain. Other than that he was mostly fine as a midcard goof manager. It's not like anyone ever thought his guys would be challenging Flair or anything.

Now Fuji was a flop, especially given the amount of heat he would draw as a wrestler. Dibiase certainly never lived up to the promise of a guy buying out the babyfaces, and that act was possibly a victim of the business changing anyway. Plus I think it was hard for him to get heat because deep down everyone knew that he was an awesome wrestler who was better than the guys he was managing. It's a tough line to straddle and Ted never really figured it out.