Career
In the early and mid 1960s, John Sutton began to get to know several wrestlers while working as an usher in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He eventually landed a job as a sort of security guard for the American Wrestling Association (AWA). In 1973, he met Paul Vachon when he went to work at Grand Prix Wrestling (GPW) in Montreal. At GPW, Sutton worked as a manager and an occasional wrestler. He also refereed for a time. Sutton began managing the Hollywood Blonds after they split with their manager, Johnny Rougeau.Don Jardine came up with the "Sir Oliver Humperdink" name, which he thought would draw heat from francophone fans in Quebec who hated anything English. Both Don Jardine and Dale Hey are credited with coming up with his new moniker.
In 1974, Humperdink went to Florida Championship Wrestling and was put into an angle with Mike Graham and Kevin Sullivan. Two years later, he began working with the Hollywood Blondes once again.
He worked for the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA)'s Jim Crockett Promotions in the 1980s where he managed Greg Valentine, Paul Jones and The One Man Gang. He left the company in 1983 but returned five years later before the company folded. While still in the NWA, he formed a stable known as the "House of Humperdink". As a singles wrestler, he held the NWA Florida Heavyweight Championship and NWA Central States Television Championship.
In 1987, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) approached Humperdink and offered him a job. As a part of the WWF, he managed Bam Bam Bigelow. That same year, he also began managing Paul Orndorff during his feud with Rick Rude. His gimmick was that of a face, but Sutton did not like the gimmick off-screen. He managed the duo during the first ever Survivor Series in a match that they lost when Bigelow was pinned by André the Giant. Humperdink also managed Bigelow during WrestleMania IV when he lost in the first round of a WWF Championship tournament.
When he returned to the NWA in 1988, he managed The New Wild Samoans (Solofa Fatu, Samu, and the Tonga Kid). He also returned to the side of Bigelow in his feud with Barry Windham in a match at Starrcade.
He worked for World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in the early 1990s as "Big Daddy Dink", a biker-type gimmick. In WCW, he managed the Fabulous Freebirds (Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin). Off-screen, Sutton hated his new gimmick and WCW's office politics. He retired in 1993. In 1995 he returned to manage Bob Orton Jr and The Hangmen in the American Wrestling Federation.
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“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
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