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Why Terry Taylor Is Hated In The Wrestling Business, Explained

Posted: Mar 21st 2023 By: Michael Chin - TheSportster.com

Terry Taylor had a memorable career in the ring, but his work behind the scenes didn't exactly endear him to wrestling locker rooms.

Terry Taylor had a respected career in wresting, featured as one of the top stars in the Mid South and having stints working in fairly prominent roles for WWE and WCW alike in his day. In time, his work in the ring bled over to working backstage in roles as an agent who helped put matches together and coaching talents, in addition to contributing as part of the creative team in WCW in particular and stepping into other backstage roles.

Even today, Taylor notably works as trainer for WWE’s Performance Center, working with developmental talents before they make it to the main roster. For as diversified as his career has been and all his accomplishments, there’s nonetheless also no shortage of criticism for Taylor from people who once worked with him.

Eric Bischoff Criticized Terry Taylor For Talking To Dirt Sheets

Terry Taylor spent a period of years working backstage for WCW where he contributed to the creative team and served other executive functions. Eric Bischoff has spoken about Taylor’s work in these capacities in not entirely negative ways on his 83 Weeks podcast. The former head of WCW acknowledged Taylor thought outside the box and occasionally interjected important ideas to the conversation behind the scenes.

However, Bischoff has also signaled a number of times that he heavily suspected Taylor was a key source of information to Dave Meltzer and other dirt sheet writers. Bischoff has made no bones about his disrespect for Meltzer’s reporting over the years, and it appears that Bischoff came to mistrust Taylor from what he saw him being a leak to the wrestling news media.

Bruce Prichard Critiqued How Terry Taylor Handled The Red Rooster Gimmick

On his Something to Wrestle podcast, Bruce Prichard has more than once come down on Terry Taylor. The context for these conversations tends to have been co-host Conrad Thompson bringing up The Red Rooster gimmick and citing it as a particularly bad example of WWE creative, and a time when a poorly conceived gimmick really undermined the success of a talented in-ring performer.

Prichard has not accepted that the Red Rooster gimmick was to blame for Taylor’s limited success, though. On the contrary, Prichard posits that the issue was Taylor not embracing the gimmick fully enough—treating as if it were a bad gimmick and correspondingly never giving it a chance to work. While most critics seem to agree The Red Rooster gimmick had a pretty significant glass ceiling over what it might allow Taylor to accomplish, there may well be a kernel of truth to Prichard’s thoughts. After all, if the powers that be had seen Taylor giving the character his all, maybe they at least might have rewarded him with the opportunity to change over to a more appealing gimmick.

Not Everyone In Wrestling Hates Terry Taylor

Like virtually any topic in wrestling, the actual wrestlers don’t all necessarily agree in their perceptions of Terry Taylor. Disco Inferno, for one, addressed heat on Taylor in an interview with The Hannibal TV and indicated he had very positive experiences working with Taylor. Disco acknowledged that some people might have found Taylor condescending, and also referenced WCW legend Konnan referring to Taylor as a “stooge” for reporting bad behavior from the boys back to WCW management.

From Disco’s perspective, the issues that wrestlers wound up taking with Taylor stemmed less from anything wrong with how Taylor handled himself. Rather, he suggested that Taylor's heat came from the roles he had working in management positions, or often striking a balance between having a foot in each world--both an on-air talent and serving a backstage function that often came with a personal conflict of interests.

Terry Taylor has now worked for roughly a decade at the WWE Performance Center, where he at least at one point was reported to have taught the “finishing class” with Shawn Michaels for top developmental talents. That the largest wrestling company in the world would trust Taylor with such an instrumental role in shaping its future has to say something. It’s clear the former Red Rooster has a mind for the business and a good bit to offer, but it would seem a combination of personal choices, how he responded less than ideal work conditions, and positions he was in as a “player-coach” both wrestling and working with management all left him a far less than popular figure among his colleagues.