The King of the Ring is an iconic wrestling tournament. Becoming the King of the Ring has changed several careers. Stars such as ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart and more elevated their careers by winning the tournament. For some, winning the King of the Ring was their biggest achievement in WWE.
Harley Race was an 8-time world champion in NWA. However, his 1986 King Of The Ring win was arguably his biggest accomplishment in WWE. Ted DiBiase seems to think that the whole reason Race won the crown was because it was a rib by Vince McMahon.
The Million Dollar Man recently spoke on the Everybody’s Got A Pod podcast about Harley Race winning the crown. He noted Race’s tough persona, and wondered if the King gimmick was supposed to be a rib from Vince McMahon.
“I would say it this way. If you walked down a dark alley at night and you knew there were a bunch of thugs in the alley. If you had your choice of having one person to go with you, it would be Harley Race,” DiBiase said. “But sometimes I wonder if that was Vince, like a rib. Like, ‘Okay, this big, tough Harley Race and I’m going to make him king.’ Here’s the thing that’s hard for me, it’s like, I think Jake [Roberts] would probably agree with me in this case.
“We grew up in the old-school way. Our fathers were old-school wrestlers. And so this new thing with the WWF and trying to market toward children and toys and stuff like that, you’re bigger than life, [a] hero, you know, Hulk Hogan … it was kind of cartoonish and so I have to keep that in mind in terms of what Vince had in mind for Harley.” [H/T Wrestling Inc.]
Do you agree with The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase?
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