Black History Month: Virgil

The Million Dollar Champ!

By Kevin Hunsperger
@kevinhunsperger on Twitter

Virgil had a price for the Million Dollar Man.  For years, he played the "manservant" to Ted DiBiase's evil millionaire character.  While that's the character he's best known for, Mike Jones started off under the name Soul Train Jones and held the AWA International Heavyweight title and the AWA Southern tag team titles with Rocky Johnson.

After his brief stint in Memphis, he headed north to the WWF.  There, Jones was paired with DiBiase.  In the beginning, he did very little wrestling, which I didn't understand, as he had been successful elsewhere.  By the time he really started becoming active in the ring though, he and DiBiase split.  Virgil was aided by Roddy Piper in getting his freedom and winning the Million Dollar belt from DiBiase.  It was the only gold Virgil would hold in the WWF.

Everybody's gotta price

He played the role of the flunky well I thought.  He could always take a bump and was intimidating as DiBiase's body guard.  I wasn't a big fan of the face turn and the start of his wrestling career in the WWF.  That may contradict what I said earlier, but to me, he had been on the outside of the ring for so long, it didn't seem natural for him to be wrestling.  It was like a manager was getting in there.  In my opinion, he just did hold up against legit Superstars.

After the feud with the Million Dollar Man, Virgil pretty much became a jobber before leaving the WWF.  He came to WCW and worked as the head of security for the nWo.  Oh yeah, they changed his name to Vincent, a direct jab to WWF owner Vince McMahon.  Never the less, the I don't remember Vincent doing much wrestling there either.  At one point toward the end of his tenure in WCW, he joined the West Texas Rednecks as Curly Bill.

Back in 2010 (WWE)

Since then, Jones has showed up on indy cards and at conventions around the country.  In 2010 he reprised his role as Virgil and joined Ted DiBiase, Jr. briefly.  The two lost a tag team match to the Big Show and actor Mark Feuerstein (who was guest hosting Raw that night)  DiBiase fired Virgil soon after and started his relationship with Maryse. I don't know if we'll ever see him on WWE TV again, but it was a nice stroll back down memory lane when he returned.  As they've always said, anything can happen in the WWE.