Theodore Robert Rufus Long (born September 15, 1947)[3] is an American former professional wrestling referee, manager and authority figure best known for his tenures in NWA, WCW and WWE.

[5] In 1989, at the Chi-Town Rumble event, Long was the replacement referee when Ricky Steamboat won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship.

On April 2, 1989, at Clash of the Champions VI in New Orleans, Long blatantly made a fast count allowing Mike Rotunda and "Dr. Death" Steve Williams to defeat The Road Warriors for the NWA World Tag Team Championship.

This was actually a story lifted from Championship Wrestling from Florida, where Long had been a referee and did several heel-decisions in the ring, including one for Ron Simmons over Skip Young.

[5] Long became the manager of Doom (Ron Simmons and Butch Reed) and led them to the World Tag Team Titles.

He also managed Johnny B. Badd, One Man Gang, Norman the Lunatic, The Skyscrapers (Sid Vicious, Dan Spivey and "Mean" Mark Callous), Marcus Bagwell, 2 Cold Scorpio, Joey Maggs, Craig Pittman, Jim Powers, Bobby Walker, Ice Train and Bobby Eaton while in Jim Crockett Promotions and WCW.

Long was the referee when Darren Drozdov ended up paralyzed and can be seen in WWE's Don't Try This At Home warning looking at the paramedics lift Droz up on a stretcher.

He wrestled in a 3 on 2 handicap match with The Rock and Jack Doan defeating Kane and Rikishi on Monday Night Raw on January 8, 2001.

By late 2002, Vince McMahon wanted Long to become a heel manager like he was in NWA and WCW and decided to take Long off of television and the road for a while and by late summer 2003, He returned under his full name, and perhaps his most notable managing stint in this period came when managing D'Lo Brown, Rodney Mack, Christopher Nowinski, Rosey, Mark Henry and Jazz at different times, telling fans to "Get down wit' da Brown" and to "Back da Mack".

Long would also introduce the New Talent Initiative during this time, which saw the likes of Bobby Lashley and Mr. Kennedy debut in 2005 and Montel Vontavious Porter in 2006, among others.

The New Talent Initiative would continue, with a name-change to the New Superstar Initiative, when Long moved to ECW in 2008 and would see the debuts of Sheamus, Jack Swagger, Kofi Kingston, Evan Bourne, Tyler Reks, Trent Baretta, Caylen Croft, DJ Gabriel, Ricky Ortiz, Gavin Spears, Braden Walker and ECW referee Aaron Davis.

Eventually, Long got tired of these shenanigans, and at No Way Out, Booker T was told to face Chris Benoit or be stripped of the title.

During a six-person, intergender tag match between Randy Orton, Edge, and Lita against Trish Stratus, Carlito, and John Cena, some fans chanted Theodore's name.

On the September 18, 2009 episode of SmackDown, WWE chairman Mr. McMahon instructed Long to go down to the ring and explain his actions regarding the conclusion of the World Heavyweight Championship Submission match between champion CM Punk and The Undertaker in which Long, as well as referee Scott Armstrong and CM Punk played key roles in recreating the infamous Montreal Screwjob at Breaking Point (held at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, site of the 1997 fiasco), this time, with The Undertaker being the target of a planned conspiracy.

As he returned from the ring to the back stage area, he entered his waiting limousine only to be kidnapped by The Undertaker, who was in the driver's seat.

Thus, Long issued the Intercontinental Championship tournament involving Christian, Kofi Kingston, Cody Rhodes and Dolph Ziggler.

On the May 6 episode of SmackDown, Long scheduled a World Heavyweight Championship match between Randy Orton and Christian who had just won it for the first time five nights previous at Extreme Rules.

On the November 25, 2011 episode of SmackDown, after Daniel Bryan seemingly successfully cashed in the SmackDown Money in the Bank briefcase on Mark Henry to win his first World Heavyweight Championship, Long rushed down to the ring and declared the title change void, as Mark Henry had not yet been medically cleared to compete in an official match.

After TLC: Tables, Ladders, and Chairs, Santino Marella replaced Zack Ryder (who had just won his first United States Championship) as the assistant SmackDown general manager.

Long chose Santino Marella as his team captain, along with Kofi Kingston, R-Truth, Zack Ryder, The Great Khali and Booker T over the following weeks.

Eve found the role to be a power trip and enjoyed abusing her position by bullying and humiliating Teddy on numerous occasions.

She took great pleasure in humiliating him by forcing him to do menial, degrading tasks; such as making him wear an apron and name tag at all times, like a maid.

At Over the Limit he mocked David Otunga and Eve Torres ahead of Laurinaitis' bout with John Cena which if he lost he would be fired.

However, from mid April onwards, Long began running SmackDown again temporarily with Booker T away due to surgery.

After the announcement of the restored WWE brand extension, on the June 6, 2016 episode of Raw, Long returned in the opening segment between the Money in the Bank participants, requesting another run as general manager of SmackDown, only to be turned away by Stephanie McMahon.

On January 23, 2023, Long appeared on Raw is XXX, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Monday Night Raw, where he booked a six-man tag match between Seth Rollins with The Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) and Imperium (Gunther, Ludwig Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci), after Imperium disrespected D-Generation X.

In 2014, Booker T had announced that Long would serve as the general manager for his Reality of Wrestling promotion's Summer of Champions iPPV.

[20] Teddy Long acted as the general manager for SWE Fury, a nationally televised wrestling promotion based in Plano, Texas.