Teddy Long On Why He Isn't A Big Fan Of The New Day, His SmackDown GM Role, The Best/Worst Person He's Managed

During a recent interview with the Pancakes and Powerslams Podcast, former WWE talent Teddy Long discussed a variety of topics, including the following:

Why he isn't a big fan of The New Day: "I look at them, and these are the WWE Tag Team Champions, and to me, I don’t think that they are portraying them as serious champions. There’s a lot of entertainment in the game, and there’s a lot of ha-ha from them. You know, I guess maybe times have changed. Maybe that’s what it is. As long as I remember, the world title and the tag team titles were serious positions to be in [and now] there’s so much comedy to it."

His role as SmackDown General Manager: "I really don’t know why [it] happened. I’m being honest with you. One time, I remember I came out, I did a promo on Tommy Dreamer when I walked out with D’Lo Brown, and I think that was the first time Vince had the opportunity to see my skills and see I could really talk. So I remember coming back into the Gorilla Position where Vince was sitting. He calls me over and says to me, “I can’t believe I had you right under my nose all this time.” The General Manager spot was something that they never [told] me ahead of time that I was gonna be. Nobody came to say, well this is the idea, this is what we’re thinking about, this is the direction we’re gonna go in, you’re gonna be General Manager. Nobody told me nothing. All I did is I walked in one day, and I guess maybe an hour before we got ready to go on, the writers came up to me and told me I was gonna be General Manager tonight; Vince is gonna make you General Manager. I was nervous as I could be, I was real nervous, because I’m like, Jesus Christ! I’ve never been in this position before! And I already understood working with Vince, you don’t play, you got to be able to get out there to perform. So, to me, I’m looking at it as this is a big responsibility, but I can’t say no! I can’t tell Vince I don’t want to be the General Manager and he’ll give it to somebody else. When they told me, I just thought about it, and was like, hey, I’m on and running. That’s exactly how that happened. I had no idea."

The best and worst person he has ever managed: "Everybody was really good. Butch [Reed] and Ron [Simmons], I definitely have to throw their names out there. But when I had the team of Danny Spivey and Sid Vicious, they were great. Marc Mero was great. The worst person that I managed probably was [Marcus] Bagwell, because he was hard to get along with at the time with me, him, and Scorpio. He wasn’t totally bad, but he was just hard to get along with."