WWE Hall of Famer and former SmackDown GM Teddy Long recently sat with Sportskeeda’s Wrestling Time Machine. Whenever he comes in, there’s a tendency to reveal a little bit of how unlikeable a significant wrestling figure is. This time, he shares the time he was fired from WWE by recently terminated executive John Laurinaitis.
Teddy Long Shares Story About Being Fired by Terminated WWE Exec John Laurinaitis
Now, a firing story involving John Laurinaitis is only going to double how detestable the industry veteran has been depicted. His on-screen persona between 2011-2012 as he made life hard for John Cena, CM Punk, and others is similar to how others in the business have dealt with him in their backstage roles.
Teddy Long was a long-time Jim Crockett Promotions/NWA referee who later transitioned to being a manager. In 1998, he was signed to WWE by fellow NWA alumnus and former referee himself, AEW’s Jim Ross. The position JR was in at the time would be taken over by Laurinaitis who was assisting with the booking in All Japan Pro-Wrestling around that time.
Long came in as a referee and worked his way up to being a manager in the early 2000s before becoming the general manager of SmackDown later in the decade. However, it was while working as a referee that John Laurinaitis fired Teddy Long. As he remembers, it occurred following a Christian-Test bout when he messed up on the count.
Laurinaitis—who slotted Long in as the referee for the match—fired him later. According to Long, the late Test would tell him that he’d been set up to be fired:
“I had the opportunity to see Test before he died, and he said, ‘Hey man, they set you up. I didn’t know that they were trying to get me to help them to fire you.’ He wasn’t real thrilled … And he said they wanted to bring me back to come in as a manager.” (h/t: Wrestling Inc)
After being hired back, Teddy Long was soon presented as a manager for the likes of Jazz, Rodney Mack, Rosey, and D’Lo Brown—so this occurred around 2001-2002. Laurinaitis was released from WWE in early 2023 amidst sexual misconduct accusations.
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