Stars That Might Have Been: Terry Taylor

by Bob Morris

If anybody defines the term have been," it was Terry Taylor."stars that might

Looking back, it still amazes me that both WWF and WCW managed to take a talented guy and mostly flush his career down the toilet thanks to horrible gimmicks. The fact Taylor has stuck it out in the business behind the scenes, despite such poor treatment in the past, really indicates just how much the guy loves the business.

But it's still boggled the mind to think that Taylor could have been so much more in his career, rather than just a midcard joke for the majority of his career, and why certain bookers never seemed to have a clue what he could offer to them.

Let's take a look back at how unfortunate Terry Taylor was in his career in both WWF and WCW…but first, let's do a brief background on him,

Taylor was one of the guys who came over to Jim Crockett Promotions after the NWA's top promoter bought out Bill Watts' UWF promotion. To bring the UWF guys into the fold, various title unification matches were set for Starrcade '87, including Terry Taylor defending his UWF TV title, and Nikita Koloff defending his NWA TV title. However, instead of actually working to put the guys from both UWF and Crockett Promotions on the same level, the champions were made to look bad…including Taylor, who lost a near-squash to Koloff.

Taylor didn't stick around for long, bouncing around various promotions, including a stint in the World Class territory in Texas, before the WWF came calling.

And so, in mid-1988, Taylor was signed by the World Wrestling Federation, and was featured on a summer wrestling supercard called Wrestlefest, which wasn't televised to my knowledge (correct me if I'm wrong), but was taped for Coliseum Video. Taylor faced another new WWF recruit, Curt Hennig, freshly signed from the AWA. The two proceeded to have a very good match, so it was obvious that Vince McMahon had just found two guys who could really add a lot to the WWF roster.

Meanwhile, Vince and company had cooked up a new gimmick for a wrestler who would consider himself to be "the perfect athlete." Of course, that was the Mr. Perfect gimmick, and both Taylor and Hennig were considered the top candidates for the gimmick. As we all know, the WWF decided to give Hennig the gimmick, so they obviously needed to come up with something else for Taylor to do.

Taylor didn't do particularly much for the first couple of months in the WWF, as he was primarily featured in short matches on Superstars until the WWF figured out what to do with him. And it just so happened, around September, that Vince McMahon came up with an idea: Taylor would be positioned as a young, up-and-coming wrestler who would be tabbed as the newest protégé of Bobby "The Brain" Heenan.

The set-up went like this: Heenan introduced Taylor as the newest Heenan family member during the Brother Love show. Heenan played it off that Taylor was "good, but not good enough" to make it in the WWF, and that the missing ingredient was a great mind to lead Taylor to stardom…Heenan, of course. Later on, Heenan proclaimed Taylor was "just a little red rooster," and so, the Red Rooster name was branded on Taylor.

The problem with the gimmick was this: On one hand, Taylor was positioned as a guy who would do anything for Heenan, which would make him a heel…but on the other hand, it was evident Heenan was just using Taylor to further his own agenda, which would seem to make Taylor deserving of some sympathy for that. As a result, Taylor didn't generate any heat. It didn't help matters that most of Taylor's matches would involve Taylor looking over for Heenan to advice, often disrupting the flow of matches.

So the WWF figured they'd go with the "sympathetic babyface" route by having Taylor becoming more agitated about Heenan and his constant coaching, and Heenan becoming more agitated with Taylor not doing as well as he should. It came to a head on a Saturday Night's Main Event taping, where Taylor lost to Tito Santana when Taylor was distracted with an argument with Heenan. After the match, Heenan slapped Taylor, and Taylor responded by beating the hell out of Heenan and chasing him back to the dressing room.

OK, so we've established that Taylor is going to be the babyface who fired his heel manager, right? Well, let's just say the way the WWF followed up on this is proof that while Vince McMahon may know a lot about wrestling, he is certainly not a genius.

First of all, they decided to stick with the route of Heenan taking a wrestler who was "good but not good enough," only to make this wrestler very willing to do whatever Heenan wanted, and have him feud with Taylor. The man picked for the job was Steve Lombardi, who was given the gimmick that he is most identified with today, The Brooklyn Brawler. Of course, up until this point, Lombarid was a perennial jobber for the WWF and had no credibility, so it didn't really give Taylor any credibility either.

But that wasn't the worst thing the WWF did to Taylor. Oh no…they did MUCH worse.

Rather than just having Taylor drop the Red Rooster gimmick entirely, the WWF decided he would start BELIEVING in the Red Rooster gimmick. So Taylor was made to dye part of his hair red and style it like a rooster comb (only it ended up looking like a really bad Mohawk), have him strut around the ring and bob his head like he was a rooster, and crow like a rooster during interviews.

Yes, you heard right…they made Terry Taylor CROW LIKE A ROOSTER during his interviews. And the WWF wondered WHY he didn't get over?

All that aside, the Taylor/Brawler feud never drew any fan interest, Taylor wound up wrestling Heenan in a one-minute squash at Wrestlemania V, and now the WWF had to step back and figure out what to do to get Taylor over.

And the WWF came up with the obvious solution…let's have him wrestle! Trouble was, they never got rid of the Rooster gimmick, which was the real problem, and Taylor floundered in the undercard as a result. The WWF booked a match with Taylor facing Mr. Perfect at Summerslam 1989, but the match got cut short when Taylor injured his knee. They tried again with another match on Saturday Night's Main Event soon after to re-capture the magic they worked back at the Wrestlefest show, but it was too late…Taylor was no longer inspired to work, having grown to HATE the gimmick given to him. He spent the rest of his WWF days jobbing out until he was finally allowed to leave in early 1990.

WCW saw some interest in Taylor and signed him up in mid-1990. For the first few months of his WCW career, he didn't have a gimmick in particular…he was just a wrestler, and a good one at that. But just as it seemed he was about to shake off the stigma of the Red Rooster, yet another bad gimmick came his way.

Let's backtrack a bit…in late 1990, Mike Rotundo had been repackaged as Michael Wallstreet, and was paired up with Alexandra York (who is better know today as WWF diva Terri) to form the York Foundation. The gimmick was supposed to be that Michael was using computers through some big business to help him prepare for matches. Taylor even feuded with Michael briefly…but then the WWF snatched up Michael, meaning that the York Foundation gimmick was now in limbo.

Rather than just forget about the gimmick entirely, WCW was determined to make it work. So they had Alexandra scouting wrestlers, most notably, Tom Zenk and Terry Taylor. This ended up leading to a match between the two men, where Alexandra York came out to scout them, and while Zenk was distracted, Taylor attacked him from behind, revealing that he was the new member of the York Foundation.

So, yes indeed, Taylor got to have the silly gimmick of the "computerized man of the 1990's" who used his computer knowledge to defeat his opponents. Not only that, but he insisted on being billed as "Terrence Taylor" which I guess was supposed to make people boo him because he'd rather be called by his full first name rather than a nickname.

The silliness continued, as Ricky Morton, one half of the Rock N' Roll Express, turned on his partner Robert Gibson and sided with the York Foundation, being billed as "Richard Morton." Of course, the whole gimmick of the Foundation members wanting to be billed by their full first names look even sillier when you consider that Robert Gibson was being billed by his first full name as well, when he wasn't even a member. They even added the rapidly deteriorating Tommy Rich, who, of course, became "Thomas Rich," and then they repackaged AWA refugee "Big Cat" Curtis Hughes as the Foundation's bodyguard Mr. Hughes (and ironically enough, that would be the gimmick Hughes would use for most of his wrestling career from that point on).

At any rate, the fans never bought into the gimmick (big surprise there). And to make matters worse, Taylor spent most of his time putting over Dustin Rhodes, son of WCW booker Dusty Rhodes. The York Foundation was given the WCW six-man tag team titles as some sort of a consolation to Taylor (and yes, WCW had six-man titles at one point…don't ask why, because I don't think ANYBODY could ever figure out why), but it didn't matter…Taylor's career was sinking again, thanks to politics and a bad gimmick.

What may have been one of the lowest points for Taylor in WCW was at the 1991 Great American Bash…well, let's not kid ourselves here, that show was the low point for just about everyone on the WCW roster at the time. Anyway, Taylor was teamed with Steve Austin to face Bobby Eaton and that oh-so-brilliant acquistion of WCW, "Rap Master" P.N. News…in a scaffold match. As you could probably guess, it was a horrible match to open up what is widely considered to be one of the worst PPVs of all time.

Taylor wasn't just used to put over Dustin Rhodes, though…in another low point of his WCW career, he got to put over a newcomer to WCW on a Clash of the Champions taping…heavy-metal-guitarist-turned-wrestler Van Hammer. Boy, you can just imagine how thrilled Taylor must have been with the direction of his wrestling career at that point.

Finally, in late 1991, the York Foundation gimmick was scrapped by WCW, and most of the wrestlers involved with it ended up departing…all but Taylor, that is. And so, WCW repackaged him, billing him as The Taylor Made Man…and he wore a tuxedo to the ring! Ha ha ha, get it?

Actually, things could have been looking up for Taylor, as the character he incorporated was similar to the Mr. Perfect gimmick that was so successful in the WWF. A pairing with Greg "The Hammer" Valentine also showed promise, but once again, politics reared its ugly head.

Rather than being given a serious push this time, Taylor got to put over the very green Marcus Alexander Bagwell (you know him as Buff Bagwell), the latter who WCW was determined to get over. He and Valentine were briefly given the U.S. tag team titles as consolation, but by this time, nobody particularly cared about those titles anymore. Taylor spent most of 1992 putting over other guys, before becoming a victim of roster cuts under Bill Watts. I'm sure if you took the time to look, you'll probably find a match where Taylor had to put over Eric Watts just because Bill wanted it that way.

At any rate, for all practical purposes, Taylor's wrestling career was over. He re-signed with the WWF and spent a few months there putting over other guys, and doing nothing else of note, before retiring from active competition in mid-1993. He later returned to WCW when Eric Bischoff came into power, and of course, was an off-and-on booker in WCW for most of his wrestling involvement from that point on, save for a brief stop in the WWF in 1999 doing behind-the-scenes work.

Considering how much most promoters and bookers pretty much trampled all over Taylor's career, it's amazing that he did choose to stick it out in the business. Certainly it reflects just how much Taylor, just like Ric Flair, loves the wrestling business to stick it out for so long despite mostly bad treatment as an active wrestler.

Still, Taylor had the in-ring ability and charisma to be a major player, so it's pretty sad to see such a talented guy never really got his opportunity to shine in either WWF or WCW.