Just watching Mick today on World of Sport, in the bout where he appointed himself as the one to unmask Kung Fu on tv.
We have mentioned over these many years all sorts of privileges that Mick accorded himself.
In fairness, he seems to have got the balance right as he always protected wrestling's interest and gave value for money.
But I thought it might just be fun to group together here the various VIP treatments he accorded himself, and perhaps to try to identify just when his VIP status began.
Any thoughts?
It's easy for us on the outside, to judge someone still hanging around when it appears to be obvious he should go. However, if you have been working at the same career for so long as McManus had, I would guess, that unless he disliked what he did and could afford to retire, then to give it up, would be difficult. How do you go about it, do you take yourself off the tele, start to lose matches here and there? Wouldn't that lower your value to the game and thus to the promoters? Wouldn't people comment 'McManus hasn't been on t.v. for a while, well he is getting on' or 'McManus is on, but he's lost on t.v. the last couple of times and then again when I saw him at the Hall a few weeks ago, so I won't bother going'
In all entertainment as well as many sports, there are those who just don't want to go and won't be pushed out either. Sometimes it appears that getting into showbiz/sports is much harder than staying in, until a crippling disease or death finishes the performer off. Mick would have been proud of what he achieved and hung around as long as he could, as did Max Bygraves, Sinatra, Jackie Pallo and a multitude of others in the entertainment business. (In the mid-seventies a girlfriend laughed at me for being a Shirley Bassey fan, saying she was over the hill. Yeah, I wonder what became of Shirl)? Most people at the top of their game, will accept any 'privileges' that they feel entitled to. Most of us can just look on in envy. Mick didn't travel in luxury chauffeur driven cars, nor fly around the country in jets, live in a palatial home or, book himself to win the Heavyweight Title, he just took what he could and what was given to him. I don't think we can begrudge him that, can we?