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8. You've Gotta Be Farooqing Kidding Me

Ever wonder why Ron Simmons had his name changed to Farooq, started wearing a powder blue singlet with a helmet and had Sunny as a manager when he showed up in WWE in 1996? 

Of course you have! 

Well, Bruce Prichard explained the thought process behind it all during a recent episode of the Something to Wrestling With podcast. 

According to big Brucey P, Vince McMahon had the very specific vision in mind when he signed the former WCW Heavyweight Champion. 

"Vince had this idea of Ron. I think that when he looked at Ron, from basically the eyebrows down, you had this incredible specimen, but yet, Ron had a receding hairline.  

Vince thought if we could put something on Ron’s head that he could work in like a helmet of sorts that it would take 20 years off his look. He would look 20 years younger. Actually, it really kind of did, but Ron was Ron. Ron looked like a badass man that would kick your ass if you crossed him in general because Ron's the real deal.  

Vince explained that he saw Ron, he had a whole vision of the character of what he saw, Faarooq Asaad, of what he saw there. 

He said, 'I want to change your name. I want you to be Faarooq. I want different gear'. He saw the blue, and 'You will pop in the blue'. Vince had a very specific vision, and the cool thing about it was as we were pitching this, we weren’t just pitching Ron, we were pitching Lottie (his wife) too.

Ron brought Lottie to hear this thing out as well to make sure that she was comfortable with Ron going back on the road and that she was comfortable with him continuing his career. Then we got to Sunny.  

Vince explained, 'I would like for you to have a manager. The manager is Sunny. She's a heat seeking missile because I think there's going to be a lot of people that are going to look at you and want to cheer you, but they won't cheer you with this heat seeking missile next to you. Let her stir the sh*t and you do the work'.  

It was a package and it was a vision that was one of those that Vince clearly had in his head".  

I think I can hazard as guess as to what Simmons' reaction was after hearing the pitch...