MONEY INCORPORATED

MONEY INC VS BOSSMAN AND VIRGIL

Slowly but surely I wrap my head around the mindfuck that is Million Dollar Man forming a tagteam alliance with Irwin R. Schyster in 1992. Money Incorporated--later called Million Dollar Incorporated.

1. Ten years prior you wouldn't have seen these two men be such buds: The tax rates for the wealthy were around the 60% mark; depending on when DiBiase made his millions, my guess is he probably wasn't too keen on the IRS, or the IRS.

2. By 92, courtesy Reagan and Papa Bush, that rate was relaxed, so maybe things weren't so tense anymore between the two.

3. But! Irwin's pet peeve among wrestlers, fans, and commentators, was that they were all tax cheats--working the system, withholding income, stuffing numbers in the nook-cranny loop holes of the increasingly unwieldy tax code.

4. This scheming was undoubtedly what allowed DiBiase to become a Million Dollar Man in the late 80s!

5. You will notice Million Dollar Man slips I.R.S. some cash after I.R.S.--this being what I believe to be the beginning of I.R.S.'s shtick becoming entirely too complicated, at least for me. He makes out with Million Dollar Man's Sherri, but he's the one who gets paid off? And doesn't I.R.S. hate people like Million Dollar Man?

6. This match becomes increasingly more complicated when you factor in that one law enforcer, Big Boss Man, is pitted against another (i.e. I.R.S.). Somehow Big Boss Man is the face here--but 1992 was only a year away from 1991, the year American cops got dealt quite a blow in the form of the Rodney King beating. All of this is occurring to me just now. You have Big Boss Man wrestling alongside the only black wrestler in the WWF at the time, Virgil, who lest we forget was a former slave to Million Dollar Man--only recently had he wrestled for his freedom. Somehow Virgil is OK wrestling alongside a character who in the American popular mindset is at one of its most corrupt and racist peaks.

7. I'm in the writing room right now, 1992, trying to figure out what to do with the alliance between Big Boss Man and Virgil. Do I make Virgil a cop too? Do I feel bad when I give Boss Man the authority to wield his billy club, you know, considering?

8. It's three in the fucking morning and I'm still here, in my trailer, writing out this storyline. This is what I got so far. I have the Rich Man, the Boss Man, the Tax Man, and the Black Man. The Boss Man is more/less an incorruptible force, a vector of justice who just so happens to be in the guise of a New York police officer. I wouldn't say Boss Man is gullible, but my guess is he gives everyone a fair shot. It's not in his character to act outside the law though; matches show Boss Man having incredible crises of conscience when faced with such heinous cheating in the ring. For Boss Man, two wrongs do not make a right.

9. Maybe Boss Man hates Million Dollar Man for fudging his taxes? So he enlists Virgil?

10. Complication: Virgil is the least qualified person in WWF when it comes to taxes, on account of the fact that Virgil has not collected a salary from Million Dollar Man for several years now, on account of being Million Dollar Man's slave. The numbers 1-0-4-0 mean nothing to him, nada.