Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
In this latest ‘A Moment In Time‘ we look at when the WWF took a monster who had been tearing it up on the territories prior to joining the company and, turning him, well, into a dancing ‘African Dream’. Yeah, we know…
As we all know, during he World Wrestling Federation’s national expansion in the 1980’s, it was scooping up other territories top talent. One of those talents was a wrestler named George Gray most known by the name: The One Man Gang. One Man Gang stood over 6 ft 9 inches tall and weighed over 400 pounds. He tore through several territories including World Class and Mid South wreaking havoc everywhere he competed.
It only made natural sense that Vince McMahon would love to get his hands on a wrestler the size and reputation that the One Man Gang had. He was indeed signed by the WWF in 1987. For over a year, George Gray wrestled as One Man Gang under the WWF banner. He even competed in the WWF world title tournament held at Wrestlemania IV as OMG. Things, however, slowly began to shift through the eyes of Vince McMahon and the One Man Gang character.
He allegedly began to become bored with it and didn’t see any real marketing advantages to that gimmick. McMahon first approached One Man Gang’s “manager” the ‘Doctor of Style’ Slick and pitched some ideas to him about how they could better utilize Gray as a character. Once they settled on an idea, George Gray remembered how he was approached with the new gimmick. He recalls walking backstage in an arena and Vince walking up to him with a big, cheesy smile.
Vince asked Gray point blank if he knew how to dance and Gray honestly answered: “No I do not. As a matter of fact, I am a terrible dancer.” McMahon, no longer smiling then said: “Well, you have three weeks to learn” and just like that, walked away. Confused, Gray went up to his manager Slick and asked what McMahon meant by what he said. Slick seemed extremely excited and said that he and McMahon came up with a great idea how to improve the One Man Gang character. Gray that he was being ribbed at first but it wasn’t Gray who was going to get the rib. More on that later.
The date was September 24th, 1988, WWE interviewer ‘Mean’ Gene Okerlund was sent on assignment to some dark, back alley. Okerlund met up with Slick and asked him what was this all about. Slick with a boom box atop of his shoulder said that One Man Gang had been reborn! Before you knew it, a host of dancers dressed in what looked like African tribal garb started dancing around a bonfire. As the flames rose, out appeared the One Man Gang.
Only it certainly didn’t look like what fans had been accustomed to. He was dressed from head to toe in a blue and yellow Aftican wardrobe. Gray would start talking “jive” and announced he went back to his roots and is now to be called Akeem. After which, Akeem and Slick began dancing around the bonfire and disappeared into the night. Akeem, The African Dream was born. It was a complete 180 from the One Man Gang gimmick. Akeem would dance to the sounds of “Jive Soul Bro” to the ring and would dance while he wrestled as well.
Apparently, Vince loved this gimmick and would often laugh and enjoy playing up the character. According to George Gray himself, he realized that if he had said no to the Akeem gimmick, he would’ve most certainly been fired. So, he did what he could to make the character as outlandish and gimmicky as Vince wanted it to be. Gray even admitted in an interview, that he actually had fun with it but couldn’t bring himself to watch him doing that stuff nowadays.
That brings us to the rib and who was it really meant for. Vince McMahon during the 1980’s had a serious hatred for ‘The American Dream’ Dusty Rhodes. Rhodes was a booker to Vince’s arch rival at the time in the National Wrestling Alliance. The Akeem gimmick was supposedly an indirect shot at Dusty and all of his mannerisms in and out of the ring.
Looking back at the gimmick and how it played on television, there is no question something like this in Vince’s PG era, publicly owned company would ever be allowed. It certainly had a lot of racial overtones and stereotypes to it. Make no mistake though, that it was George Gray who made the character memorable and more WWF/WWE fans remember him as Akeem than One Man Gang.