Jake Hager and Lord Tensai (Matt Bloom) were almost managed by Father James Mitchell.
Back in 2015, former WWE writer Kevin Eck published a story on his now-defunct website and shared details about the formation of Matt Bloom’s Lord Tensai character. He noted that the intent was to make Bloom a main-event-level monster heel.
One of the ideas for that character was to give him a mouthpiece and Kevin’s suggestion was to hire Father James Mitchell, who has managed the likes of Abyss, Paul Orndorff and Judy Martin.
Mitchell commented on that note as he was doing a virtual signing for Captain’s Corner. He then went on to reveal that he was also pitched to manage Jake Hager in WWE. He was later informed that the company went with Dutch Mantell for the role. Mitchell is not sure he could have pulled off the ‘We The People’ persona.
Yeah, [I wish I could’ve worked with WWE more] in terms of the money I could have made. But they were not manager-friendly for years. After the 80s, he [Vince McMahon] didn’t like managers, he liked tits and so, really, the only manager who’s done anything there is Paul [Heyman] and deservedly so, because he’s f*cking amazing… And you know, they called me in 2012, 2013. I was supposed to manage [Lord] Tensai and also — well I was pitched let me say. I was called by creative, the writers. One turned out to be Tensai which didn’t happen because then they put him with a — I forget the mascot they put him with. It was a Japanese little guy [Kazma Sakamoto], and then, Jack Swagger. The guy called me, he goes, ‘Yeah, I don’t know if you watched Raw last night but, the guy we were gonna put a fresh coat of paint on turned out to be Dutch Mantell’ and Dutch Mantell did that — I couldn’t have done that gimmick.
If they had asked me to go in and do the ‘We The People’, I mean, the promo they had asked me — well actually they just asked me to send something kind of generic. Had they told me to do a ‘We The People’, I don’t think I could have done that as convincingly as Dutch did and that’s who Dutch is, watch his sh*t. That’s who he is.
There was a tag team he was pitched to manage in TNA/IMPACT Wrestling. Sabu threw out the idea of him and Abyss forming a team with James Mitchell managing them.
Mitchell stated the powers that be did not let it happen, probably because they thought it would get over.
I always wanted to work with Sabu, I always wanted to manage him. In fact, Sabu tried to get IMPACT or TNA to put Abyss and himself together as a team and have me manage them but for whatever reason, they didn’t let that happen, probably because they thought it would get over.
Over the past several years, Mitchell has made appearances on IMPACT Wrestling, AEW and is currently working with the NWA as the manager of Miserably Faithful (Gaagz The Gymp, Judais & Sal The Pal).
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Captain’s Corner with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
