Stephen A. Smith is wired like a professional wrestler, a showman above all else who performs in front of millions — and millions — of folks on television. This makes it pretty unsurprising that Smith, on Tuesday’s edition of First Take, revealed that he is both going to WrestleMania 39 in Los Angeles next year and really, really wants to have a role as a heel manager in the entire thing.
“I’m looking forward to going to WrestleMania in a few months, no doubt about that,” Smith said to the show’s guest, Ric Flair.
“Stephen A., I just got the word passed along,” Flair said. “Because WrestleMania’s in California, they know you love California, I think they’re entertaining the idea of having you manage one of these guys that can’t talk too well.”
Smith seems extremely open to the idea, but it comes with two extremely important conditions: he is allowed to work as a heel and he doesn’t get hit.
“Listen man, Bobby ‘The Brain’ Heenan, Paul Heyman and these guys, I would love to be one of these bad guy manager,” Smith replied. “I don’t know if you know that about me, Molly. I want to be the bad guy. I don’t want to be one of the goodie two-shoes guy. I wanna be the troublemaking, bad manager. I think I could pull it off, Ric Flair!”
Smith explains he’d need it in his contract that “no one can touch me” because “I’m too fragile,” which would take away from the dream of fans seeing Stephen A. getting hit with someone’s finisher. That said, Smith doing some mic work on the stage at WrestleMania could be great and given Smith was among the ones who broke the news Mania was headed to L.A., it feels like this could very well be already in the works.
