Gorilla Monsoon

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For the band of the same name, see Gorilla Monsoon (band).
Gorilla Monsoon
Statistics
Ring name(s) Gorilla Monsoon
Billed height 6' 5"
Billed weight 375 lbs
Born June 4, 1937(1937-06-04)
New York, New York
Died October 6, 1999 (aged 62)
Willingboro, New Jersey
Debut 1959

Robert James "Gino" Marella (June 4, 1937 - October 6, 1999), better known by his ring name of Gorilla Monsoon, was an American professional wrestler, play-by-play announcer, and booker. He is famous for his run as one of the great super-heavyweights, and later as the voice of the World Wrestling Federation as announcer, on-screen President, and backstage manager during the 1980s and 1990s. In professional wrestling, the staging area just behind the entrance curtain at an event, a position which Marella established and where he could often be found during WWF shows late in his career, is named the Gorilla Position in his honor.

Contents

[edit] Career

[edit] Amateur career

Marella attended Jefferson High School in Rochester, New York, becoming a standout athlete in football, amateur wrestling, and track and field. At the time, he weighed over 300 pounds (136 kg), and was affectionately called "Tiny" by his teammates.

Marella was also a standout athlete after high school at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York. He continued to wrestle, now weighing over 350 pounds, and took second in the 1959 NCAA Wrestling Championships. He also held several school athletic records, including an 18-second wrestling pin, and several track-and-field distinctions. He was inducted into the Ithaca College Athletic Hall of Fame in 1973.

Marella's size and athletic ability attracted the attention of New York promoter Pedro Martinez, and he went to wrestle for Martinez after graduating from Ithaca in 1959.

[edit] Early career

Marella originally billed himself as Gino Marella, a proud Italian-American babyface who would sing in Italian prior to his matches. Even after changing his stage name, "Gino" stuck as Marella's nickname among friends and colleagues, including Jesse "The Body" Ventura, who would call Marella "Gino" on the air. Marella garnered moderate popularity, but soon realized that fans paid more attention to outlandish monster heel gimmicks, and they therefore made more money. Marella totally revamped his image, growing a long beard and billing himself as Gorilla Monsoon, a terrifying giant from Manchuria. Supposedly born on an isolated farm, "Monsoon" traveled across the countryside with a gypsy caravan wrestling bears, spoke no English, ate raw meat, and drank his victims' blood. The Monsoon character was infinitely more successful, and fans were genuinely afraid of him, sparking a huge financial windfall for Marella. In the ring, Monsoon dominated opponents with vicious chops, the dreaded Manchurian Splash, and his signature move, the Airplane Spin.

[edit] WWWF/WWF career

In 1963, Vincent J. McMahon reformed the Capitol Wrestling Corporation into the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) (currently known as World Wrestling Entertainment), breaking his territory away from the National Wrestling Alliance in an attempt to create a new national powerhouse. At the time, the WWWF was the dominant wrestling promotion in the Northeast U.S. Marella formed a friendship with McMahon, and became a 1/6th shareholder in the WWWF, controlling bookings in several WWWF territories. He also became one of the promotion's top heels, feuding with popular babyface champion Bruno Sammartino in sellout arenas across the country. Despite his huge size, which was now in excess of 400 pounds, Monsoon had great agility and stamina, often wrestling Sammartino to one-hour time-limit draws.

In 1969, Monsoon became a babyface, befriending his former arch-rival when Sammartino rescued him from an attack by The Sheik. The stage was set for Monsoon to become a fan favorite of the 1970s and feud with top heels of the decade, including champion "Superstar" Billy Graham. He also feuded with André the Giant, and the two engaged in a special boxing match in Puerto Rico (a territory which Monsoon co-owned at the time) in 1977, which André won.

On June 2, 1976, a very famous incident occurred in Philadelphia involving boxing great Muhammad Ali. Ali, preparing for his upcoming crossover bout with Antonio Inoki in Japan later that month, jumped into the ring as Monsoon was concluding a short match against Baron Mikel Scicluna. Ali removed his shirt and started dancing around Monsoon while gesturing and throwing jabs at him, to which Monsoon responded by grabbing Ali in his Airplane Spin and slamming him to the mat. Marella would never reveal whether the incident was preplanned. In an interview, he commented, "I never saw him before and haven’t seen him since."[1]

A kind of torch bearer of the Vincent J. McMahon-era WWWF, Gorilla Monsoon was rabidly supported by New York audiences. On June 16, 1980, a young and up-and-coming Hulk Hogan was booked to face him at Madison Square Garden. At the time, Hogan was a widely followed heel character, while Monsoon was still a babyface. However, in order to push the new talent, McMahon told Hulk Hogan to beat Monsoon in under a minute. Upon that outcome, the crowd became livid and chased Hogan when he was leaving the arena, turning over his car. Policemen on horses had to be summoned to quiet the mob.

As the 1980s began, Marella's in-ring career wound down. On August 23, Monsoon put his career on the line in a match against Ken Patera. Monsoon lost the match and stayed true to his word, retiring several weeks later and returning just three times: wrestling a match in 1982 as a substitute for André the Giant, taking part in Big John Studd's "Body Slam Challenge" in 1983, and participating in a special "old timers" battle royal in 1987 which was won by Lou Thesz. The next phase of his career began, as the voice and backstage manager of WWF.

[edit] After in-ring retirement

In the early 1980s, Vincent J. McMahon's son, current WWE owner Vincent K. McMahon, began assuming the reins of the promotion from his father. The elder McMahon asked his son to take care of long-time employees that had been loyal to him. The younger McMahon agreed, and in 1982, Vince bought Marella's shares in the company in exchange for a guarantee of lifetime employment. As he had been to his father, Marella became a close confidant of the younger McMahon, and assumed a prominent backstage role. In addition, McMahon needed a new announcer team to head up his television programming, and installed Marella with the recently retired Jesse "The Body" Ventura as the new announcing team. Marella and Ventura had great chemistry, with Ventura as the pro-heel color commentator and Marella as the pro-face "voice of reason." Marella and Ventura called five of the first six WrestleManias together (the notable exception was WrestleMania 2, where Marella commentated on the Chicago portion of the event with Gene Okerlund and Cathy Lee Crosby while Ventura commentated on the Los Angeles portion with Lord Alfred Hayes and Elvira). Monsoon was also paired with villainous manager Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, a duo that subsequent wrestling commentary teams have often tried to emulate. The two also formed a real-life friendship which Heenan often recalls fondly.

One of Monsoon's catchphrases was his (mis)use of the word "literally", such as "the fans are literally hanging from the rafters in here!" Presumably, this was done for humor, as Monsoon's announcing character was quite entertaining and extremely popular. Monsoon to this date still holds the record for most consecutive WrestleMania events on the commentary team, calling the first 8 WrestleManias from 1985-1992. Monsoon was the lead announcer on the syndicated show, WWF All Star Wrestling, its successor WWF Wrestling Challenge, and the USA Network weekend show, WWF All American Wrestling, as well as appearing often on the WWF weeknight show, WWF Prime Time Wrestling. Monsoon also served as co-host of Georgia Championship Wrestling on WTBS during McMahon's short-lived ownership of the promotion. Another of Monsoon's catchphrases was, "Will you Stop??" to co-broadcaster Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, usually after Heenan went off on one of his many heel-backing tangents, or other rants. Monsoon would suddenly shout, "Will you Stop??"

Marella stepped down as lead announcer at Wrestlemania IX for WCW recruit Jim Ross. He commentated with Jim Ross on Radio WWF for the broadcasts of SummerSlam 1993, Survivor Series 1993 and Royal Rumble 1994. He returned to the television broadcast team to call the King Of The Ring 1994 with Randy Savage. Marella's last Pay-Per-View as a commentator was calling the 1994 Survivor Series with Vince McMahon. Marella remained in his backstage role and appeared on-air frequently, becoming the storyline WWF President in the summer of 1995 (replacing the retiring Jack Tunney). The WWF President's role was to arbitrate disputes between wrestlers and make matches, similar to the current RAW, SmackDown! and ECW General Managers. Health concerns forced him to relinquish this role in September 1997 (replaced by Sgt. Slaughter), and Marella's health deteriorated from there. In late 1998, Marella returned to call the international version of WWF Superstars for a brief period of time. Sometime in early 1999, Marella appeared in a WWF Attitude commercial featuring Freddie Blassie, Ernie Ladd, Pat Patterson and Killer Kowalski. His final public (and WWF) appearance was as a judge for the Brawl for All at WrestleMania XV.

In April 2007, wrestler Anthony Carelli made his WWE debut as "Santino Marella," a moniker partly given in tribute to Marella.

[edit] In wrestling

  • Finishing and signature moves:

[edit] Championships and accomplishments

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
  • International Wrestling Alliance
  • IWA World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
  • World Wrestling Association (Los Angeles)

[edit] Personal life

Marella was married to his wife of over 40 years, Maureen, with whom he had two sons, Joey and Victor; and two daughters, Sharon and Valerie.

He was one of the first inductees into the WWF Hall of Fame on June 9, 1994.

[edit] Death

Marella died on October 6, 1999 of heart failure brought on by complications of diabetes, at his home in Willingboro Township, New Jersey.[2] He was 62 years old. In a tribute that aired on WWF television after his death, McMahon described Marella as "one of the greatest men I have ever known."

[edit] References

Professional wrestling
Portal
  1. ^ Ithaca College Quarterly 1999/No. 4
  2. ^ Hagenmayer, S. Joseph. "ROBERT MARELLA, 62, WRESTLER KNOWN AS 'GORILLA MONSOON'", The Philadelphia Inquirer, October 7., 1999. Accessed February 27, 2008. "Robert "Gorilla Monsoon" Marella, 62, a professional wrestler whose demeanor in the ring resembled Atilla the Hun's but whose deeds and personality were more akin to those of Santa Claus, died yesterday at his Willingboro home after being ill for the last month."

[edit] External Links

Preceded by
Jack Tunney		 President, WWF
1995-1997		 Succeeded by
Sgt. Slaughter (as Commissioner)
Preceded by
none		 WrestleMania play-by-play announcer
1985–1992		 Succeeded by
Jim Ross