10 WWE Authority Figures Who Weren’t Actually All Bad
9. Gorilla Monsoon
Gorilla Monsoon made the jump from beloved announcer to top brass in WWF's much simpler 1990s hierarchy after one-too-many questionable calls from the former President.
Monsoon immediately made his fan-friendly impact felt , kicking the arse out of a lacklustre SummerSlam '95 card by replacing Sid with Razor Ramon as Shawn Michaels' Intercontinental Title opponent and engineering one of the best WWF matches of the 1990s in the process. Firm but fair, he stripped Michaels of that very title a couple of months later after HBK took a kicking from a Marine at a bar, but again slotted Razor in against incumbent champion Dean Douglas, who looked at the lights for the Bad Guy in a brilliantly 'Clique' bit of politicking from the WWF's big lads.
His innovative heel/face Wild Card Match at Survivor Series '95 is very fondly remembered too, and he was the public face of a WWF that was actually beginning to experiment its way out of the toilet in ways we hadn't seen for years.
A physical presence when necessary, Monsoon even stepped in to stand down the vicious Vader as he pulverized Savio Vega on his second night with the company, which led to a beatdown of the boss considered quite edgy for the time.
Monsoon was phased out of an authoritative role as the familiar heel trope took hold in late-1997 and his health began to fail, but his tenure reflects the exciting and unpredictable time in which the company moved closer to the enormous prosperity it would later enjoy.