Robert Otto Marella (June 4, 1937 – October 6, 1999), best 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, wrestling, and track and field. At the time, he weighed over 300 pounds, and was affectionately called "Tiny" by his teammates.
Marella was also a standout star 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 Andre the Giant.
In the 70's, 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." [1]
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. His oft-repeated declarations of "Can you be serious?", "Give me a break!", "Will you stop?" 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, forming a pairing 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.
Marella stepped down as lead announcer in 1994 for WCW recruit and fellow announcing great Jim Ross. Around this period, tragedy struck for Marella when on July 4, 1994, his 30 year old son Joey, at the time a WWF referee, was killed in an automobile accident. Joey fell asleep at the wheel and died in a car crash on the New Jersey turnpike just hours after refereeing matches at a WWF TV taping. Gorilla remained in his backstage role and appeared on-air frequently, becoming the storyline WWF President in 1995. The WWF President's role was to arbitrate disputes between wrestlers and make matches, similar to the current Raw and SmackDown! General Managers. Health concerns forced him to relinquish his role in 1997, and Marella's health deteriorated from there. He made his last public appearance as a judge for the Brawl for All in 1999 at WrestleMania XV to a rousing standing ovation, and passed away of heart failure on October 6 of that year. He was 62.
Legacy
Despite a 20-year-plus career as one of wrestling's most feared bad guys, most fans remember Gorilla Monsoon fondly as one of its most beloved and engaging personalities. He was one of the first inductees into the WWE Hall of Fame in 1994, and his voice brings back good memories to legions of fans. He has been sorely missed by his fans and friends, characterized by Bobby "The Brain" Heenan during his WWE Hall of Fame acceptance speech, in which he said of his old broadcast partner, "I wish Monsoon were here."
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