Athletes - Gorilla Monsoon

Home > Listing Index > Athletes > Gorilla Monsoon

	Athletes - Gorilla Monsoon

Robert Otto Marella (June 4, 1937 – October 6, 1999), better known by his stage name of Gorilla Monsoon, was an American professional wrestler, play-by-play announcer, and booker. He is a legend in the business, famous for his run as one of the great super-heavyweights, and later as the voice of the World Wrestling Federation as announcer, on-screen President, and backstage manager during the 1980s and 1990s. In professional wrestling, the staging area just behind the entrance curtain at an event, a position which Marella established and where he could often be found during WWF shows late in his career, is named the Gorilla Position in his honor.

Career

Amateur career

Marella attended Jefferson High School in Rochester, New York, becoming a standout athlete in football, amateur wrestling, and track and field. At the time, he weighed over 300 pounds (136 kg), and was affectionately called "Tiny" by his teammates.

Marella was also a standout athlete after high school at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York. He continued to wrestle, now weighing over 350 pounds, and took second in the 1959 NCAA Wrestling Championships. He also held several school athletic records, including an 18-second wrestling pin, and several track-and-field distinctions. He was inducted into the Ithaca College Athletic Hall of Fame in 1973.

Marella's size and athletic ability attracted the attention of New York promoter Pedro Martinez, and he went to wrestle for Martinez after graduating from Ithaca in 1959.

Early career

Marella originally billed himself as Gino Marella, a proud Italian-American babyface who would sing in Italian prior to his matches. Even after changing his stage name, "Gino" stuck as Marella's nickname among friends and colleagues, including Jesse "The Body" Ventura, who would call Marella "Gino" on the air. Marella garnered moderate popularity, but soon realized that fans paid more attention to outlandish monster heel gimmicks, and they therefore made more money. Marella totally revamped his image, growing a long beard and billing himself as Gorilla Monsoon, a terrifying giant from Manchuria. Supposedly born on an isolated farm, "Monsoon" traveled across the countryside with a gypsy caravan wrestling bears, spoke no English, ate raw meat, and drank his victims' blood. The Monsoon character was infinitely more successful, and fans were genuinely afraid of him, sparking a huge financial windfall for Marella. In the ring, Monsoon dominated opponents with vicious chops, the dreaded Manchurian Splash, and his signature move, the Airplane Spin.

WWF career

In 1963, Vincent J. McMahon reformed the Capitol Wrestling Corporation into the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) (currently known as World Wrestling Entertainment), breaking his territory away from the National Wrestling Alliance in an attempt to create a new national powerhouse. At the time, the WWWF was the dominant wrestling promotion in the Northeast U.S. Marella formed a friendship with McMahon, and became a 1/6th shareholder in the WWWF, controlling bookings in several WWWF territories. He also became one of the promotion's top heels, feuding with popular babyface champion Bruno Sammartino in sellout arenas across the country. Despite his huge size, which was now in excess of 400 pounds, Monsoon had great agility and stamina, often wrestling Sammartino to one-hour time-limit draws. He also feuded with the legendary André the Giant.

In the 70s, Monsoon became a babyface, now feuding with popular heel champion "Superstar" Billy Graham among others.

In 1976, a very famous incident occurred involving boxing great Muhammad Ali. Ali, preparing for his upcoming crossover match with Antonio Inoki in Japan, jumped into the ring while Monsoon was preparing for a match, ripped off his shirt, and started screaming at him. Monsoon, not missing a beat, grabbed Ali in his Airplane Spin and slammed him to the mat. Marella would never reveal whether the incident was preplanned. In an interview, he commented, "I never saw him before and haven’t seen him since."
In the late 70's, Marella's in-ring career wound down. He retired from the ring in 1980 and began the next phase of his career, as the voice and backstage manager of the WWF.

After in-ring retirement

In the early 1980's, Vincent J. McMahon's son, current WWE owner Vincent K. McMahon, began assuming the reins of the promotion from his father. The elder McMahon asked his son to take care of long-time employees that had been loyal to him. The younger McMahon agreed, and in 1982, Vince bought Marella's shares in the company in exchange for a guarantee of lifetime employment. As he had been to his father, Marella became a close confidant of the younger McMahon, and assumed a prominent backstage role. In addition, McMahon needed a new, engaging announce team to head up his television programming, and installed Marella as Monsoon alongside fellow recently retired wrestler Jesse "The Body" Ventura as the new announcing team. Marella and Ventura had great chemistry, with Ventura as the pro-heel color commentator and Marella as the voice of reason. Marella and Ventura called the first six WrestleManias together. His oft-repeated declarations of "Can you be serious?", "Give me a break!", "Will you stop?", "The whole place has gone bananas!", "History Made in (Arena Name)", and "Are you kidding me?" were very familiar to wrestling fans of the 80's and 90's, and hearing Gorilla Monsoon on commentary is still a reminder of the golden age of modern wrestling to many fans. Monsoon was also incredibly entertaining paired with villainous manager Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, a duo that subsequent wrestling commentary teams have often tried to emulate. The two also formed a real-life friendship which Heenan still recalls fondly, years after Marella's death. One of Monsoon's most famous catch phrases was his (mis)use of the word "literally", such as "the fans are literally hanging from the rafters in here!". Presumably, this was done for humor, as Monsoon's announcing character was quite entertaining and popular.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Gorilla Monsoon ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Gorilla Monsoon; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.