20 More Surprising WWE Facts You Probably Didn't Know
10. The Original Big Boss Man
On November 14th 1975, while working for Jim Crockett Promotions (the precursor to WCW), Ric Flair was on his way to WRAL Studios in Raleigh, North Carolina to cut some promos when he heard Jerry Lee Lewis singing ‘Great Balls Of Fire’ on the car radio.
He liked the way Jerry Lee sang “WOOO!” in the middle-eight, and decided to incorporate it into the body of the interview he intended to record against Sonny King and Tiger Conway Jr, two popular African-American wrestlers who’d recently joined the promotion.
For maximum heat, during that brief feud Flair was calling himself The Big Boss Man, fourteen years or so before Ray Traylor would debut in the WWF under that name. Why? Well, in the absence of video footage, I’ll have to quote a transcript of the promo in question...
“Let me tell you something daddy - I’ve got a new name for myself! Everywhere I go the people are shouting “WOOO! there goes the Big Boss Man!” You know why? Because every boy like Conway and like King - they gotta have a boss! And when they see me they say, “WOOO! what’s happening Big Boss Man”, that’s what they say to me! When they get in the ring with me they say “WOOO! what’s happening Big Boss Man?” They say “Please, Big Boss Man, don’t hurt me! Please don’t hit me too hard!”
The racially charged ‘Big Boss Man’ existed purely to get a rise out of the two wrestlers of colour he was feuding with, and once King and Conway left JCP, the nickname was no longer needed and was quietly dropped. The ‘WOOO!’, on the other hand, stayed in the act a little bit longer...