Teddy Long sheds light one how one of his most popular catchphrases took off with the WWE Universe.
The Hall of Famer was a recent guest on Insight With Chris Van Vilet, where he was asked about the origin of putting opponents “One on One With The Undertaker.” Long reveals that it started at an event at Madison Square Garden in New York, and that it just grew into something that the audience latched on to.
I’ll tell you how I put so much emphasis on that. One night we were in Madison Square Garden. Stephanie went out and she introduced somebody. She came back and Vince was talking to her. He said ‘Stephanie. I want to put emphasis on that when you introduce the guy.’ I was just standing back, so next time I did Undertaker [I said] ‘One on one with The Undertaker!’ That’s how I learned to do that. When they caught on to it and saw that it was catchy, people liked it then they always wrote it and they put it in there. I’m gonna do it anyway. Not that I’m going off, not doing what I’m supposed to do. But I know Vince didn’t mind, Vince gave me free rein to say what I wanted to say. But he knew I was gonna say nothing that would get the company in trouble. They’d write stuff. I just add my stuff to it.
Later in his chat with Vilet Long spoke about his ‘Playa Playa’ catchphrase.
I had a labrador retriever, his name was Boss. I got him as a puppy but as he got bigger and bigger and started getting in the way. So every time, I’m like ‘Come on Playa. Get out of the way Playa, move.’ I’m just talking to him and one night I went to TV I started using slang, calling people Playa, that’s how I got the Playa started. The way I got the dance, my grandson, he’s 19 now. Well when he was about 2 years old, we were trying to teach him how to walk. So we bought this walker that we put him in. At that time we were taping SmackDown on Tuesday night and then you could go back home on Friday. Every time we put him in this walker, all he would do was bop up and down like that. So I went to TV one night and I think they were playing my music but I was just thinking about him and having fun. So I was having fun and just started doing the dance. I get back home and we are getting ready to watch the show I say ‘Come here, look, I’m doing your dance!’ One night, I got ready to walk out, and just as I got to the curtain right there, Vince was standing up. He’s yelling ‘Do that dance!’ [I say] ‘What dance?’ And he starts doing it! And that’s how the dance started.
Long recently appeared on WWE television to help announce picks in the 2024 WWE draft. You can check out his full interview below.
