The WWE Hall of Fame class of 2017 got its third inductee, former Smackdown General Manager Teddy Long. FOX Sports was given the “exclusive” to reveal Long before WWE officially announced it.
Long, now 69 years old, started his professional wrestling debut in 1985 as a referee in NWA’s Jim Crockett Promotions before moving to World Championship Wrestling, where he managed Doom, Johnny B. Badd, One Man Gang, The Skyscrapers, 2 Cold Scorpio, and many others.
In 1998 he went to WWE where he started out as a referee and then in 2002 moved to a managerial role for Superstars such as Mark Henry, D’Lo Brown, and Jazz. In 2004, he was promoted to Smackdown General Manager, then ECW General Manager in 2008, before returning to Smackdown’s GM role a year later. He was released from his WWE contract in mid-2014 and last appeared on WWE television in 2016 when he tried to get another General Manager job before the draft.
Teddy Long is mostly known – and made fun of – for making six and eight-man tag team matches on Smackdown, and that happened pretty much every week during his tenure.
