Teddy Long on his first job as a referee:

Teddy Long: One night I took the ring to Cobb Civic Center in Marietta, Georgia. We set the ring up and it was almost 30 minutes before showtime and there was no referee. The referee didn’t show up. So the promoter, Louise Manning was her name, she got a referee shirt and brought it back and she said ‘Teddy you’re going to have to get in and referee tonight, we don’t have a referee.’

… As I stayed around, refereed, put the ring up, took the ring down, I got a chance to start riding with Kevin Sullivan and “Hot Stuff” Eddie Gilbert, God rest his soul. These two guys were great minds for the wrestling business. I mean, they knew the ins and outs and they knew the business real well. By me riding with them, they finally wanted to know my background is, what did I do? In my younger days I was a disc jockey on a radio station, so I used to turn the radio down and I would DJ for them. They found out I could talk, so once they found out I could talk, they went to Jim Ross - I think Jim Ross was doing the booking at that time - and they told them that I could talk and Teddy Long needs to be a manager.

I didn’t have a clue about any of this. So next thing I know, I got fired on TV from being a referee because I made a fast count, but that was they way they were going to bring me in to have me start managing. The next thing I know, I started managing Butch Reed and Ron Simmons, they were called Doom, they were the first African-American World Tag Team Champions. I had Marc Mero, who was known back in the day as Johnny B. Badd. Also Sid Vicious, Danny Spivey, they were The Skyscrapers. I had Norman the Lunatic.. I had a bunch of guys. Ice Train. Scott Norton. I’m trying to give credit, I don’t want anybody to say ‘well you managed me and you didn’t say my name!’ Anyway, that’s kind of how my career started.