In the late 1980’s to early 90’s, “Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiase and his bodyguard Virgil dominated the heel side of the WWF. With cocky rich-man arrogance and a trademark evil cackle, Ted was the man that audiences loved to hate. Virgil – real name Mike Jones, a Pittsburgh-era wrestler with an impressive physique and killer mean glare – was at his side for the first four years of this run, equal parts Million Dollar Man’s enforcer and servant sometimes relegated to humiliating tasks meant to incur sympathy from the audience. Backstage, Ted and Mike were actually good friends – with both of them affirming in later interviews that they were great partners and worked well together.
This dynamic continued until 1991 when Virgil got his big break – a storyline in which he turned against his villainous boss and became a “face” character, meaning someone for whom the audience cheers instead of boos. This was trouble for Million Dollar Man but Ted in real life was excited for Mike’s big opportunity – and it was a storyline that stood to bring in a lot of work for Ted if it became popular with audiences, meaning he had his own vested interest in Virgil’s new angle succeeding.
But there was a problem. As Ted has recounted in interviews years later, Mike simply didn’t have “it” – defined as both the charisma to command the audience’s attention and the drive to seek out his own success and advocate for himself. Virgil had the physique and the look but he simply failed to command memorable presence like Roddy Piper or Randy Savage. The charisma, Mike probably could have learned – Ted Dibiase was one of the most charismatic wrestlers in the business and Mike had been side-by-side with him for years. Did he ever ask Ted for help learning how to command ring presence? Maybe he did and he just couldn’t learn – but I think it more likely he never thought to ask.
As for the drive – Ted recalls that Mike simply did not step up to grab this opportunity by the horns and take initiative for his own character arc – instead waiting for people to bring ideas to HIM and tell him what to do. This made him a great second-fiddle – but once Virgil turned face and his partnership with Million Dollar Man ran it’s course, this immediately became his greatest weakness as he could not make it clear to WWF leadership that there was a place for him any longer. By the mid-90s, the Virgil character was essentially retired and Mike was no longer even a regular undercard in the WWF. He found on and off again wrestling work over the years but never again came close to the opportunity he had in 1991.
In early 2024, he passed away at the age of 71. Mike Jones, RIP.
MY OWN STORY
Life is filled with opportunity. Sometimes it is glaringly obvious and all you need is to step up and take it. Other times, opportunity is less obvious but can be found with some effort. Either way, the other key element is readiness – if you know what opportunity you want, then make sure to be qualified by the time you think it may arise.
In early 2022, I was working as a Cloud Engineer at a great company with a terrific team – but I sensed that I had more to offer from a technical standpoint and was not getting the full opportunity to utilize my potential. I don’t blame my then-employer for this, management was great and gave me what they could – they just did not have the type of position available that would give me that opportunity with a commensurate pay increase.
I knew what opportunity I wanted: a senior engineering position with more latitude and ownership over projects. To be ready for this, I dedicated a lot of personal time to improving my skillset – learning Terraform, passing more industry certs (AWS, k8s, etc), building out a personal portfolio of IaC projects, and more. This requires motivation, self-starting, and research. I examined job postings for which I would be interested in order to learn what skills were in demand and adjusted accordingly.
Once I felt prepared, I needed to actually find opportunity. The labor market was hot at the time – I was being hit up by recruiters in my industry almost daily. Most of the positions were middling, not enough to entice me away but it did clue me in that opportunity was probably out there waiting to be found.
Upon recommendation from a family member in software development, I signed up for what was then hired.com – now lhh.com – a selective employment website with stringent acceptance requirements which was reputedly a prioritized hiring source for many employers. I had tried to apply for hired.com a year or two prior but was denied because I did not have a portfolio of work I could display – working on IaC and other coding initiatives in my personal Github solved that problem and I was accepted in early 2022.
After some discussions for a few different promising opportunities, I accepted an excellent offer for a senior position which provided exactly the wing-spreading opportunity I wanted with the pay to match my new level of responsibility – It was a tremendous blessing. I am eternally grateful to the people who over the years taught me the importance of self-starting motivation and the drive to both improve & look for opportunity!
CONCLUSION
I put in work to be ready for opportunity, and then I looked for it. Rarely is opportunity dropped in your lap – and if it is, it often still requires some self-starting and motivation to take it somewhere.
Mike Jones had the big opportunity dropped in his lap – his heel-face turn against Million Dollar Man – but he wasn’t sufficiently prepared to take advantage; and according to Ted Dibiase, Mike never seemed sufficiently motivated afterward to look for more opportunity. As a result, his career petered out.
Opportunity could come your way at any time – are you ready? What kind of opportunity do you hope it would be? How can you prepare for it? I recommend envisioning what specific, realistic opportunity you would like to see come your way – then think of the top three skills you need to hone in order to be ready. If opportunity falls into your lap, be ready to take advantage.
Categories: The IT Philosopher
Austin Thomé - Cloud & DevOps Engineer 