Top-Down Smackdown: Iron Sheik’s Managers Are Trying Again, This Time With Virgil

Before we get fully into the topic at hand, I went to a WWE house show this past weekend for my birthday and thought there were a couple of details worth noting:

-Brad Maddox is back as a wrestler, teaming here with Adam Rose. Maddox did all the talking, using a fitness gimmick and insisting on addressing the L.A. audience as “San Diego.” The team lost to Damien Sandow and Curtis Axel, who’ve had to drop the fake Hogan/Savage gimmick and now wear generic black ring gear.

-New Day sang a hilariously off-key, cracked falsetto version of “We Are the Champions” to get heat. It worked. Cesaro (wrestling as a good guy) managed to spin Kofi around 43 times.

-Jimmy Uso wrestled solo, losing to Luke Harper.

-The John Cena/Kevin Owens hardcore match was the best Cena match I’ve seen in years. Owens went through two tables at one point.

-The superstar souvenir cup still depicts Roman Reigns with brown eyes.

Now, on to the Virgil.

Anyone who follows the Iron Sheik on Twitter knows that one of his most frequent targets of abuse is semi-retired wrestler Virgil. Virgil, real-name Mike Jones, is known for milking his limited in-ring career dry – initially a valet for the Million Dollar Man, and insultingly named as a jab at Dusty Rhodes (real name: Virgil Runnels), his career petered out in WCW, where he was insultingly named Vincent as a jab back at Vince McMahon. Nowadays he’s known for setting up autograph booths, both at comic conventions where he is an invited guest, and indie wrestling show parking lots where he is not, asking $25 for autographs.

When I asked the Iron Sheik two years ago why he hates Virgil, his response, in all-caps, was, “VIRGIL CHEAP SON OF A BITCH NEVER EVEN BUY HOT DOG. THAT WAY I FUCKING HATE HIM.” But per Sports Illustrated, earlier this year the Iron Sheik’s managers decided to make Virgil their next project to turn into a cult hero, taking over his Twitter account just like Sheikie’s, and feeding the feud (which has real origins) into a larger work.

Springboarding off of Virgil’s reputation for being cheap, they launched a GoFundMe page in which Virgil asks fans to give him a million dollars, in exchange for nothing at all. Many of the comments on it are priceless:

– my kid is having a bday party, I think there is room at the end of the drive way for your table…

– I am Virgl’s manager at Arby’s & I am very upset he is using company time to beg people for money. Especially when we had a discussion with him this past week about his time management & inability to salt curley fries properly. Not mention the cases of melted cheese that have come up missing. Virgil, million dollar belts and dropping Brutus Beefcake’s name to customers doesn’t do shit. They just want to know why you didn’t put Arby’s sauce in the bag. GET BACK TO WORK OR YOU WILL HEAR “YOU’RE FIRED!” coming from me & not Vince…

– I need my anus bleached, and since you’re obviously out of work, I’m gonna need you to hop on down to Sally’s House Of Anal Bleach and pick some up. You may be asking, “why does this crazy white boy need his balloon knot to be pretty?” Well that’s because I’m an ass model. I thought you might need this gig since youre obviously knowledgeable about assholes. I know you prob had a lot of tender locker room moments when you were actually allowed in a real wrestling locker room, but my ass is not the place for that. Just clean up my turd cutter and leave…

Some fans, however, are donating. And just for them, Virgil made this terrible music video:

A few folks are outraged that the Magen brothers are writing Virgil’s Tweets for him, but I said it before with the Iron Sheik and I’ll say it again – it’s really no different from today’s active wrestlers having promos written for them. Maybe Mike Jones the person isn’t writing the Tweet, but Virgil, the character created by him and his management, absolutely is.

Virgil does not now and never has had the charisma of the Iron Sheik, however. Even if “the legend” puts him over, this can’t last long.

Talk back about this or Raw below.