Are You A Brain? Which Legendary Wrestling Manager Would You Be?

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Despite the fact that professional wrestling is a highly athletic medium, simply being in good shape and knowing how to apply a headlock won’t necessarily make a given sports entertainer a success. Because the industry is scripted, the wins and losses and how they happen aren’t the most important piece of a wrestlers career. Instead, how they react to these moments in their heated interviews will forever define how fans remember them.

Unfortunately, some great wrestlers haven’t been all that strong on the microphone, leaving their legacies a little flat in comparison to more well-rounded individuals. Lucky for them, the wrestling industry long ago created something to deal with the disconnect of a great wrestler who didn’t have all that much charisma: managers. Someone to stand behind the wrestler during a match and more importantly speak for them during interviews, delivering a wide range of emotions the wrestler him or herself may not be able to convincingly exhibit.

Nowadays, WWE has largely done away with the manager system for reasons few fans can explain (with one notable exception), but back in the day, it could be argued the executive consultants were basically running the show. Whether you’re a fan of old school wrestling or a modern day members of the WWE Universe, take our quiz and find out which legendary manager you would be.

Question 1

How many clients would you have?

Aside from the fact they need at least one, there are no clear rules about how many clients a manager can or should have. Some luminaries in the field have become massively successful with only one client, while others are constantly diversifying their prospects by adding more and more talent to his or her roster. Do you find strength in numbers, or put all your eggs in one basket?

Question 2

What word would your rivals use to describe you?

Let’s face it—when a hated wrestling manager’s enemies are asked to describe him or her, the results aren’t going to be pretty. Of course, one doesn’t need to make people like them to be a success in the pro wrestling industry, they just need to get results. Managers are generally the type of people who will do anything for a dollar and never once consider the feelings of others in achieving their goals, but specifically, what kind of villainy would you resort to?

Question 3

Are you a heel or a babyface?

By and large, the greatest wrestling managers in history have all been bad guys. This isn’t to say a few kindly babyface managers haven’t cropped or here or there, and a few of them have even managed to achieve some decent success. There have also been plenty of cases when villainous bad guys were just so darn funny the fans started cheering them, anyway. Does that sound like something that could happen to you?

Question 4

Have you ever gotten into the ring yourself?

In order to be a wrestling manager, you need to know a whole lot about what goes on inside the ring, which is why a good number of them were performer grapplers themselves. Of course, the whole reason they became managers usually relates to a general lack of success as an athlete, so maybe this experience isn’t all that important. After all, a few managers never once stepped into the ring. Would you?

Question 5

What type of wrestlers do you prefer?

Because managers generally don’t get inside the ring themselves, the type of wrestlers they employ generally dictates the union’s style on their behalf. Some managers are all over the place with their clients, hiring just about anybody, but the best of the best usually have a particular type. This makes sense, as different wrestlers require different management styles, and those who express themselves the same in the ring probably have some similarities in business, as well.

Question 6

Who wore the WWE Championship best?

Ultimately, the main goal of every manager in wrestling is to one day represent the WWE Championship (or whatever equivalent exists in their given brand or company). As of this writing, 50 men have been lucky enough to wear the honor, and a number of them have been backed up by some extremely proud managers. Whether or not you would actually manage any of these superstars yourself, who do you think was the best World Champion?

Question 7

Which decade of WWE was your favorite?

Vince McMahon’s WWE Universe has been the be all end all for sports entertainment pretty much since he took control of the company from his father in 1982. Despite the fact Vince, Jr. has managed a near complete monopoly since then, the industry has nonetheless changed in many, many ways since he took over, and most wrestling fans have a preference about which era of WWE was the best. What’s your favorite?

Question 8

Who is your favorite current WWE superstar?

For whatever reason, Vince McMahon has largely done away with the manager system in modern WWE. The one notable exception is Brock Lesnar’s longstanding association with Paul Heyman, which has lead the Beast Incarnate to multiple WWE Championships and international acclaim as a top athlete. Heyman has been in a similar position for decades now, having survived the golden age of managers to the modern day. Which of these modern superstars do you think a classic manager could get behind?

Question 9

How do you feel about the McMahon family?

Any sports entertainer worth their weight in money has at one point or another worked for the McMahon family. This is true whether they happen to be a wrestler or a manager, and comes with only an extremely small number of exceptions. For this reason, everyone in the wrestling industry has an opinion on Vince McMahon and his family, as do most fans of the sport. What’s yours?

Question 10

Are you a brave and/or courageous person?

For the most part, when things start getting dangerous for managers, they know exactly what to do—run away and hide behind their biggest and baddest wrestler. Well, usually that’s what they do, anyway. A select few managers have at times seemed more courageous than any of their clients, getting into the faces of rivals and demanding fights their charges would rather evade.

Question 11

What would you do if a client got injured?

While all athletics are dangerous in one way or another, pro wrestling really takes the cake for bringing peril to the performers who choose to attempt it. Injuries are incredibly commonplace in the WWE Universe, and they can forever change a wrestler’s life and career at the drop of a hat. When a manager’s client gets injured, he or she will also be effected by the results, albeit not necessarily in as severe a manner. How would you react in the scenario?

Question 12

What sort of clothes would you wear when supporting your client at ringside?

They say the clothes make the man, and that’s definitely true in the WWE Universe, where image is literally everything. This is even more true for the managers than the wrestlers, as they need to get the most information across in the least amount of time so things can get back to the ring as quickly as possible. With that in mind, what clothing would you wear when supporting your top superstar?

Question 13

In which major city would you prefer to live and work?

These days, professional wrestling has largely become a global medium, and aside from the few seconds when Michael Cole points it out, fans rarely notice where a given Raw or SmackDown is being taped. Back in the day, however, territories around the wrestling world were immensely different from another, and managers and wrestlers alike often had strong preferences between them. Where would you want to work?

Question 14

How much control would you take over your wrestlers?

In the end, managers are pretty lucky in that they basically get to choose how much work it is they do. Some take a very hands on approach, living with their wrestlers from day to day and doing absolutely everything with one another, while others barely even talk outside of wrestling arenas. They also vary their duties, from simply controlling the booking to deciding each and every aspect of their client’s life. How far would you go when telling your wrestler what to do?

Question 15

Aside from the WWE Championship, which belts would your clients challenge for?

Obviously, every manager in the wrestling world inevitably wants their best client to win the WWE Championship or equivalent, but that’s hardly the only prize in the wrestling world. Even within WWE, there are a half dozen championships that wrestlers can challenge for, and a manager with enough clients may well want to go after them all. Whether you achieve that Big Gold Belt or not, what else would you go for?

Question 16

Which of the following managers do you find the most underrated?

There’s only so much room for us on a quiz like this one, so there are bound to be countless legendary managers who unfortunately aren’t going to show up in anyone’s results. This is mostly just a matter of space, but there’s also the issue that dozens of managers have basically been lost to time due to the nature of the industry when they were around. Only those in the WWE Hall of Fame are truly remembered as legends, and even some of them are kinda underrated. Are any of these four?

Question 17

Do you need a bodyguard?

In many respects, a manager’s clients can double as his or her bodyguards, yet this isn’t always the case in sports entertainment. In fact, some wrestlers themselves hire bodyguards, because they have so many enemies they can’t keep track of them all. That being the logic, managers obviously could use a little extra help protecting themselves, as well. Would you need a bodyguard, or do you have defense covered?

Question 18

What kind of music would your clients enter the ring to?

A wrestler’s first impression on any given night is typically the music that plays as the enter the ring, so the type of tunes they use to represent themselves is a highly important factor in their success. Most of the time, wrestlers and managers choose their music entirely independently of one another, and in fact, few managers are even lucky enough to get their own theme song. That said, there’s usually some minor correlation between the music they like and their personalities, so what kind of soundtrack would you want for your clientele?

Question 19

Do people think you’re funny?

Beyond their considerable skills at literal talent management, one quality most managers have come to be known for is their incredible senses of humor. Throughout all wrestling history, one thing managers could be relied on is providing a big laugh when the situation calls for it, either through their comically villainous antics or bitingly quick wit. Are you the same way, or would your management style keep you quiet and professional?

Question 20

What would you be like on commentary?

It isn’t always the case, but most managers have used their gift of gab to find roles behind the commentary desk at one point in their career or another. Some have even earned acclaim as some of the best announcers in history, like Bobby Heenan or Paul Heyman. This doesn’t necessarily mean every single manager is good at calling the action, as others have struggled a bit in the role. Would you be able to pull it off?

Question 21

Who is your all time favorite WWE commentator?

Forget about whether or not you could handle the job yourself, every manager is going to need to deal with the WWE commentary team at one point or another throughout their career. After all, these are the people who handle the biggest WWE interviews in addition to calling the action, so managers are constantly interacting with announcers and telling them exactly how they and their clients feel about current events. Who would you run to with the hottest scoop on what you were up to?

Question 22

How do you congratulate your clients on a job well done?

In an ideal world, a manager’s hard work pays off when their client pulls off whatever outrageous stunt the mouthpiece has been claiming they could do with ease. When this moment finally happens, it’s up to the manager to reward their wrestler for putting his or her money where their own mouth was. Alternatively, a manager could simply choose not to reward their wrestlers at all, considering it simply part of their jobs. What would you do in this case?

Question 23

How do you punish your wrestlers when they fail you?

The other side to a manager proudly rewarding his or her wrestlers is punishing them after a particularly horrible failure. For as great as it is to manage the WWE Champion, if a given client should go on to lose that title, both the manager and the wrestler’s careers could suffer greatly. If a wrestler messed everything up for you, how would you chastise them?

Question 24

Is there anything you wouldn’t do for a client?

The best managers in history would do virtually whatever it took to make their client the top superstar in the wrestling world. Or, you know, come as close to fulfilling that sort of promise as possible without ever putting themselves in danger. Hey, not everyone can fully commit to a wrestler, knowing how fickle and unpredictable the industry and those in it can often be. Would you really give your clients your all, or would you make sure to protect yourself, as well?

Question 25

Which of these managers is your favorite?

Once again, we have to bring up the fact that not every legendary manager is an available result for this quiz, because there just isn’t enough room for us to list them all. The more we add, the more questions there are, and no one has the time to answer a million questions in the first place. Thus, with apologizes to these all-time legends, none of them could appear on our quiz, and we’ll simply ask who was your favorite between them.

Question 26

What’s your favorite wrestling company?

Throughout most of our quiz, we’ve been treated WWE like the be all end all of sports entertainment, and this is largely because that’s exactly what it is. Vince McMahon has managed to create a monopoly, and anyone working in America today is going to need to work for him if they want to find true success in the wrestling business. It didn’t always used to be like this, though, so if you lived in a different time or place, where would you choose to work?

Question 27

Which of the following legendary wrestlers do you hate the most?

While the most important part of a manager’s job is picking the right clients, sometimes, their personalities are so strong wrestlers and fans start to hate the manager more than the person they’re supposed to support. This leads to long lasting feuds between a manager’s clients and one enemy wrestler in particular, and it’s typically about 50/50 in which side chooses to keep these wars going. Whether they provoked you or not, would you sic your clients on any of these names?

Question 28

Which of the following modern day superstars do you hate the most?

The past is the past and the future is now, so while that last question about which iconic wrestlers weren’t your favorite might relate to the managers this quiz is all about, it may not resonate that heavily with modern day fans of the industry. For that reason, we’ve added a follow up question about which wrestlers would inspire the most rage within you and your clients today.

Question 29

What type of match do your clients prefer?

Chances are most managers have very little preference in what type of matches their clients participating in, so long as the end result sees gold around their client’s waist. Unless, of course, a manager is particularly vindictive about dishing out punishment against all those who wrong them, in which case they may want their wrestler to beat the hell out of them far past the point of victory. If that were the case, in what type of match would your wrestler accomplish this goal?

Question 30

What kind of car do you drive?

Ideally, a manager will eventually become successful enough that they don’t have to drive themselves anymore, instead hiring drivers to get them and their clients around town so they don’t have to do any actual work. On the other hand, managers might take the money they earn handling high profile contracts and spend it on some pretty flashy vehicles. Either way, how do you think you’d get around town?

Question 31

Do you tip waiters/waitresses at restaurants?

It might not seem all that important to you, yet on the other hand, many waiters and waitresses are literally living off of their tips, and thus the way we treat them from day to day says a lot about who we are as people. Most managers are the greedy types who would never give a dollar to charity, even if said charity was actually a person you’re supposed to pay in exchange for a business rendered. Do you get what we’re saying here, or would you still feel tipping is optional?

Question 32

How much time would you spend with your clients?

Despite how involved they obviously have to be in a given clients career, wrestling managers actually don’t need to spend that much time with the people they manage. Unless, of course, they’re particularly controlling, or maybe they just like being around people they work with in general. There’s also the fact that the more time a manager and client spend together, the more they’ll understand one another’s needs. Are these considerations valid to you, or do you feel like you’d do a great job far away from the people you handle?

Question 33

Which of the following female wrestlers is your favorite?

Due primarily to the fact WWE in general has never been all that welcoming to women’s wrestling until very recently, a strange trend related to managers in the business is that they very rarely pick up female clients. Aside from Captain Lou Albano’s infamous union with The Fabulous Moolah, most WWE Women’s Champions have spoken for themselves, as have less lucky females who never won the gold. Does this sound right to you, or would you break the trend with one of these legendary ladies?

Question 34

Do you get along with family?

Okay, so maybe this one doesn’t look all that relevant on the surface, but think about it for a minute. Not only is it worth considering that the most famous managers of all time called their clientele their “families,” but also there’s the fact that a managers family has to put up with their irascible personalities the most. With that in mind, can your family put up with you, or do you mutually hate each other’s guts?

Question 35

Where do you want to live after you retire?

Forget what we said earlier about how every manager’s goal is ultimately to make their best client the World Champion. The real goal looming in the back of every manager’s mind is actually retirement: making enough money they can get away from the humanoids of sports entertainment once and for all, and live happily ever after in whatever slice of heaven best suits their needs. Which of the following locales would you consider such a paradise?

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