Legendary WWE manager Slick recently appeared on Sean Mooney's podcast, Prime Time Wrestling. on the podcast, Slick discusses working with names like Rick Martel, Akeem, and more. Mooney's team passed along the following highlights to Fightful:
On being inducted into WWE Hall of Fame:
"I think, that I can say with certainty, that I would be in the Hall of Fame, ahead of Teddy Long, had I not have been a part of that lawsuit. I think I still will (get into the Hall of Fame) because I know Vince... he's mad now, but as time goes by, he'll cool off, and we'll get a chance to talk, and I still believe I will be. If they never put me in there, they're still not going to take away the fact that I was very, very successful, and that my name had become a household name within wrestling circles."
On any regrets about being a part of the lawsuit:
"Of course not. No, I don't regret it. It's only fair. I mean, we made him millions of dollars, and we've not been fairly compensated. And we have people who get hurt all the time. I don't want to go into that part, but I have great difficulty, even with my memory. Even now, as we've been doing this interview, sometimes I can't remember what it is I want to say."
On the treatment of One Man Gang/Akeem:
“I thought George was treated unfairly in the WWE. We even talked about that yesterday, and, to some degree, it was his (George's) fault because, right in the middle of having a big, big push with Hogan, he requested some time off. He had a young kid, and my kids were just a little bit older than George's... young kid, maybe 3 or 4, and he just missed his wife and kid, you know? And Vince has given you the big push that everybody wants. After that, I thought Vince was extremely brutal in his dealings with George. George was a former world champion in the UWF and everything. He was a big star in World Class, everywhere he went, you know? But they brutalized him, and butchered his career, and I always thought it was in retaliation for that.”
On the creation of the Akeem character:
“Vince would not have achieved, in my humble opinion, the gigantically enormous success that he has, without being an opportunist. They were really getting ready to end the One Man Gang contract. So when I came up, I went to George, cause we were very close, and I said 'Man, I think I came up with a way to convince Vince of how you can really blow up and make money'. He's about making money, you know? And I said 'We'll just call you Akeem, say you're from Africa. You come to the ring dancing, and acting black, it'll go over.' So I went to him... he was enamored by it. That's how that came about, and that added another 2 or 3 years to George's career.”
On pairing with Rick Martel:
“Rick Martel liked me as a person, but he did not like me professionally. He thought I took away from him, rather than add to him. He pretty much ended our time together by going to Vince and saying 'this just isn't working'. He wasn't really used to having a manager.
"When Vince came to notify me, I was relieved, because I didn't think it was going any place anyway.”
Check out the full podcast below:
