Foreign Object Friday: Johnny V's cigar

Johnny V and his cigar

By Kevin Hunsperger

@kevinhunsperger & @my123cents on Twitter

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I'm starting a new weekly feature here to talk more about foreign objects. Probably better known as international objects in this day and age. We, of course, all remember Jim Cornette's tennis racket, Jimmy Hart's megaphone and Mr. Fuji's cane. For this series, I am going to look at some lesser known objects used throughout the course of wrestling.

In 1985 one of my favorite tag teams was Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo. The U.S. Express had won the WWF tag team titles for a second time that summer and was defending them against Brutus Beefcake and Greg "The Hammer" Valentine. The Dream Team was a new duo at the time and still under the direction of both Jimmy Hart and "Lucious" Johnny V. Turns out the stogie-smoking Valiant would be a game changer in this contest.

The Dream Team
Courtesy: WWE

Toward the end of the match, Beefcake was handed Johnny's lit cigar. The future barber proceeded to use the cigar as a weapon and rubbed it in the face of Windham. The action was impactful enough to render Windham unable to continue fighting and he was pinned to the mat and new champs were crowned.

I don't know that any other title ever changed hands due to a lit cigar. Nor do I recall Valiant ever using any other sort of weapon during his time as a manager. But there are plenty of other unique objects that have been used to gain the upper hand in wrestling. What is your favorite? Stay tuned each Friday.

Today's Superstars matched with 80s managers

By Kevin Hunsperger

@kevinhunsperger & @my123cents on Twitter
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A big thing missing from wrestling today that was prevalent when I was a young fan watching is the role of a manager. It's a relationship that started crumbling many years ago. I'd love to see more managers or even valets second WWE Superstars to the ring. I get that most Superstars today don't need a mouthpiece, but I miss managers at ringside. So flashing back to Survivor Series 1987, I'm going to pair up managers from that era with Superstars of today. There were seven managers on the roster at that time so I've split them up and put them on separate rosters and paired them like this.

Bobby Heenan (Raw) 
Kevin Owens, Chris Jericho, Charlotte Flair, The Shooting Stars, Bo Dallas, The Brian Kendrick and Sheamus

Slick (Raw) 
Rusev, Braun Strowman, The Club, Titus O'Neal and Nia Jax

Jimmy Hart (SmackDown Live) 
AJ Styles, Randy Orton, Natalya, Curt Hawkins and Breezango

Johnny V (SmackDown Live) 
The Vaudevillians 

Mr. Fuji (SmackDown Live)
Baron Corbin and The Ascension

Oliver Humperdink (Raw) 
Golden Truth (Goldust & R-Truth)

Elizabeth (SmackDown Live) 
Dolph Ziggler

Most of the choices are based on the similarities the Superstars of today had with the men that were managed years ago. I tried to stick with the same number of Superstars that the managers had in 1987. Obviously, this time around there are more women wrestling.

Also, not everyone on today's roster is represented as I don't think everyone needs a mouthpiece. That's not to say Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho do, but I think Heenan with those two would be amazing. It was a bit more challenging keeping managers on one show instead of sharing the entire roster.