Ping von Erich

We've seen glimmers of hope over the last decade in guys like James Mitchell in ECW and TNA and more recently Larry Sweeney in Ring Of Honor. Good male managers.. heck even good female managers that can really talk, like Sunny back in the early 90's as a good example.. where has this tradition gone? With WWE's usual love and awe for big muscle bound seven foot monsters you think the tradition of a good entertaining mouthpiece would be aline and well, but no.

TNA showed how well a mouthpiece can work in the James Mitchell, Abyss combo when Abyss first debuted, Sweeney shows how well a mouth piece can work even for guys that CAN talk like Chris Hero. WWE employs a few guys, I know, that are great talkers but range anywhere from good to yawn in the wrestling department. Matt Striker has found his place as a color commentator, but he made a fantastic manager.. when WWE let him actually speak.

What do you think is the reason managers have been slowly going extinct over the last like.. ten years? It's something I'd love to see change.

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Tommy Platinum

I would love to see more male managers. The only recent example I can think of from WWE was Armando Elejandro Estrada for Umaga, and that worked extremely well in my opinion and just served as a reminder of how great managers can be and how much they are lacking in wrestling today.

James Mitchell was awesome with Abyss. He has never been the same since splitting from him.

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horrorfan_1986

The manager is another thing lost by the Attitude Era. For whatever reason, Vince and company decided to put a larger emphasis on the individual wrestler instead of on the manager. While there were some successes (Austin, Rock and Foley) a good portion of the wrestlers suddenly found themselves in a difficult position. No matter how talented you were, if you were poor on the mic, you would have a difficult time getting pushed. Since the WWE were so insistent on the wrestlers talking, the poor mic workers couldn't even rely on a manger.

I'll also say it has to do with so many great managers leaving the WWE around the same time. Bobby Heenan, Jimmy Hart and Sherri Martel all springs to mind. With the exception of Jim Cornette, Paul Bearer and Paul Ellering, I can't think of a single talented male manger the WWE employed during the Attitude Era.

The Attitude Era also brought a different general purpose to wrestling. Violence and sexuality were pushed ahead of wrestling skill and family friendly television. Most of the managers pushed during the Attitude Era all had the sex appeal. There was the talented valets (Marlena), the talented yet spotlight stealing valets (Sunny) and the terrible valets (Sable).

Even though the days of great talkers (Austin, Foley, Taker, Rock, McMahon) entertaining fans every Monday is long gone, the WWE still refuses to bring back the male manager to help out it's wrestlers. Sure, there's been an above average manager here and there (Armando Estrada and Davari), but for the most part, the WWE doesn't even seem to want it back.

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Broken Star

The male manager got lost when people decided that eye candy would be a better option, despite the fact that a male manager was much more useful. People like Layla don't have the mic skill to mask the lack of mic skills of someone they would manage. owever, they are looked upon as a more favourable option to someone like Larry Sweeney for the fact that with WWE scripting promos, they don't believe they need a male manager.

There are the rare occasions where mic skills don't affect a wrestlers push, and they somehow get past that obastacle. Batista immediately springs to mind. But that isn't going to happen a lot of the time, as not everyone can be involved in a well thought out storyline to get to the top.

I think someone like Lashley would have done a lot better as a heel with a manager masking his obvious flaw of having a very feminine voice. He certainly would have gotten a lot more respect, because as far as I'm concerned, his wrestling skills were at the very least good. WWE don't seem to use that thought pattern though.

So to put it simply, eye candy replaced the male manager.

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horrorfan_1986

Batista had the benefit of his look. All he needs to do is take the Bret Hart/Chris Benoit approach of talking by giving a short direct promo and it's good enough.

Now, wrestlers like Charlie Haas, Shelton Benjamin and Dean Malenko weren't given much of a chance to succeed. They were still forced to go out and speak even when they weren't great mic workers. Either giving them managers or tweaking their gimmicks would of helped their WWE careers out so much.

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Tommy Platinum

Which wrestlers do you believe could do with a manager in WWE today?

I agree that Benjamin would be a lot better with a manager.

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horrorfan_1986

Just about everyone.
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Shelton Benjamin
Mike Knox
Hawkins/Ryder
Snitsky
Umaga
Paul Burchill
Kenny Dykstra
Ryan Braddock

Are some of the more obvious choices. Pretty much, if you're a heel and you're not a great talker, you need a manager (A few exceptions exist).

Interestingly enough, I can kinda see who I'd place with whom if these guys wrestled at a time when managers meant something.

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