PRO DEBUT:1980
TITLES HELD:
GEORGIA NATIONAL TV TITLE:....is awarded the title 8/22/80....lost to Terry Funk 10/80
NWA WORLD JR.HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE:....def.Les Thorton 6/7/81....lost to Les Thorton 6/20/81
SOUTHERN TITLE(Memphis):....(1)def.Jacques Rougeau 11-29-82...lost to Jacques Rougeau 1-30-83....(2)def.Jacques Rougeau 2-14-83....lost to Bill Dundee 3-21-83
MID-AMERICA TITLE(Memphis):....def.Buddy Landell 12-1-83....lost to Randy Savage 12-26-83
MID-SOUTH TV TITLE:....(1)def.Khrusher Khrushchev 6-16-84....lost to Adrian Street 9-26-84.....(2)def.Buddy Landell 1-2-85.....vacates title when he wins the North American Title 3-13-85
AWA INTERNATIONAL TITLE(Memphis):....(1)def.Eddie Gilbert 12-30-84...lost to Phil Henkerson 7-7-85.....(2)def.Phil Henkerson 7-15-85....lost to Phil Henkerson 7-22-85
MID-SOUTH NORTH AMERICAN TITLE:....def.Ted DiBiase 3-13-85.....lost to The Nightmare 5-22-85
NWA NATIONAL TITLE:....def.Black Bart 9-22-85....lost to Buddy Landell 11-28-85
UWF TV TITLE:....(1)def.Buzz Sawyer 5-25-86....lost to Buddy Roberts 9-28-86......(2)def.Shane Douglas 9-2-87......lost to NWA TV Champion Nikita Koloff 11-26-87
UWF TAG TEAM TITLES:....(1)w/Hacksaw Duggan def.Bill Irwin & Leroy Brown 12-27-86....titles vacant when Duggan loses loser-leave UWF match to One Man Gang 1-23-87......(2)w/Chris Adams def.Sting & Rick Steiner in tournament final 2-7-87....lost to Sting & Rick Steiner 4-12-87
WORLD CLASS TEXAS TITLE:....def.Matt Borne 2-26-88...vacates title when Taylor leaves the area 7-4-88
WCW SIX-MAN TAG TITLES:....w/Thomas Rich, & Richard Morton def.Dustin Rhodes, Tom Zenk, & Big Josh 10-8-91....titles abandoned 11-91
WCW U.S TAG TEAM TITLES:....w/Greg Valentine def.Ron Simmons & Big Josh 2-17-92....lost to The Freebirds 5-17-92
NWA NORTH AMERICAN TITLE:....def.Colorado Kid & Jerry Lawler in a three-way match 11-6-99....lost to Colorado Kid 12-25-99
PWI AWARDS:Rookie of the Year(1980)
CARRER OVERVIEW
Terry Taylor has had one hell of a career which has had a lot of highs & lows.
He made his wrestling debut in 1980 & made a huge impact as he won title after title in nearly every territory he appeared in. Taylor became a huge star in Bill Watts' Mid-South promotion where he was the huge underdog in a territory dominated by 300+lbs monsters & brawlers the likes of Ernie Ladd,Dick Murdoch,Steve Williams,Terry Gordy,Jake Roberts etc.etc.
Terry would also travel to several NWA territories as well & received several matches against NWA World Champion Ric Flair & Terry came so close to winning the championship of the world in mid-80's.
Taylor was also a great heel as well. In 1987 he turned against his tag partner Chris Adams, costing the team the UWF Tag Titles. They would have a wild feud in following months.
As the WWF & the WCW became the two major promotions in the U.S, Taylor found success a little harder to come by due to horrible gimmicks & politics.
Taylor came to the WWF in late summer of 1988. At WrestleFest'88 he had a great match with another WWF newcomer Curt Hennig,a match that Vince McMahon would determine which of the two would be given the "Mr.Perfect" gimmick. Hennig won the match & the Mr.Perfect gimmick.
Taylor would have Bobby "the Brain" Hennan as his manager. The deal was that Hennan touted Taylor as a "good, but not great wrestler" & that if Taylor would follow his directions,Taylor would be a WWF star. Hennan would even call Taylor "a little red rooster" & that name stuck. During Terry's matches he would stop & ask the Brain what he should do next. This was stupid as Taylor already had a reputation as a great wrestler.
In early 1989 during a match vs. Tito Santana on Saturday Night Main Event,Taylor had enough & got rid of Hennan. He was a face however he still The Red Rooster except he would act like a rooster complete with a huge red mohawk on top of his head & Taylor actually walked like a rooster & would cuck like a rooster during interviews. Then Terry beat Hennan at Wrestlemania 5 in 30 seconds,then he would feud with long time jobber Steve Lombardi who had the "Brooklyn Brawler" gimmick for this feud. All of this didn't go over with fans & Taylor was stuck jobbing for over a year untill he was released in 1990.
In 1990, Terry went to WCW, it started out good, after a couple of months, he was put in a program against Tom Zenk for the TV Title after Zenk won it from Arn Anderson in December of that year. After Anderson won it back in January of 1991, Taylor wrestled Arn for the title in some pretty great matches, however Taylor came up short.
Then Taylor joined the York Foundation, and he bacame Terrence Taylor the "computerized man of the 90's". His manager was Alexandra York (now known as Terri in the WWF), and she would program her laptop computer to devise a stragedy for victory for Taylor, when in reality Taylor would just use the laptop itself as a weapon. Taylor would feud with Zenk beating him at Wrestle War'91 in Feburary.
Politics reared its ugly head, when Dusty Rhodes was made the head booker for WCW that year, and Taylor was put in a feud with Dustin Rhodes, and as you can guess Taylor jobbed to Dustin that whole feud, as well as other mid card heels, were told to make Dustin look good. Meanwhile the York Foundation was watered down when Ricky Morton and Tommy Rich were turned heel and was put in the Foundation (so as not to take Dustin's heat as a face), and by the end of the year The York Foundation would be broken up due to the fans not caring.
Taylor then teamed with Greg Valentine and in early 1992 they defeated Ron Simmons (aka Farooq), & Big Josh (aka Matt Borne aka Doink the Clown) to win the WCW U.S Tag Team Titles. However, the titles had lost prestige, & the fans didn't care who held those belts, so it did nothing for Taylors carrer. After 3 months, Taylor & Valentine lost them to the Freebirds at Wrestle War 92 in May of 1992. In the meanwhile Taylor was also jobbing & putting over green rookies like Marcus Bagwell & Van Hammer. When Bill Watts took control of WCW in the early summer of 1992, Taylor was released from WCW.
Taylor would return to the WWF as "Terrific" Terry Taylor, however Taylor would mainly job to the likes of Virgil, Bob Backlund, & other mid card faces. After a few months Taylor would return to WCW as just plain old Terry Taylor, however he was once again stuck in the mid card, the only significant role he had was as a special referee in the Rick Rude-Ric Flair match at Halloween Havoc'93 in October. By the early summer of 1994 he was released from WCW again, and would tour the indy circuit. Injuries began to slow down Taylor however, and soon Taylor was facing retirement from the ring all together.
By 1996 Taylor was hired as a booker for Monday Nitro for WCW, and the show was a huge success going head to head to the WWF's Monday Night Raw. It was Taylor and fellow booker Paul Orndorff who came up with the ideal of the New World Order (NwO), with the symbols, and hand gestures and colors, and with Taylor booking the NWO became a juggernaut in the WCW, with the result being that the WCW had removed the WWF as the number one promotion in the U.S.
However with the egos with the likes of Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and after constant clashes with WCW President Eric Bischoff, Taylor left WCW in early 1999, and became a writer for the WWF. Once again though, Taylor would have problems with other WWF writers namely Bruce Pritchard, Gerald Brisco, & Pat Patterson. Another thing that hurt Taylor's cause in the WWF, was that he suggested that the WWF hire the Public Enemy, due to him working with them in WCW. Public Enemy was a total flop and after just a few weeks, they were fired & Taylor took the heat for the PE's faliure.
Later in the year after Vince Russo left the WWF to become Creative Director for WCW after Eric Bishoff was fired, Taylor left the WWF to return to WCW to once again be a writer for Nitro. By this point, though WCW was far behind the WWF in the rankings, and Russo's booking didn't help WCW out and put the company further behind the WWF. Taylor stayed all the way as a booker to the bitter end when the WWF bought out WCW in March of 2001.
Terry is still touring several indy promotions and he had a column for Al Issacs web page. The people he had heat with in the WWF are still there, and even though Taylor has stated he would love to go back to the WWF to help write, as of now, that is not possible. To bad because the sure as hell could use the experience that Taylor would bring to the creative team.
Taylor had a promising career that was underminded by stupid gimmicks, politics, and bad choices. However Terry gave his life to the business, and he doesn't have any regrets, and you can't help but to admire someone like Terry Taylor
