Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
We all remember the WWF tag team called ‘Men on a Mission’ which consisted of Mo, Mabel and their rapping manager Oscar. They were pushed as fan favorites or babyfaces during their initial run. Vince McMahon saw big things for the tag team in the mid 1990’s. While Men on a Mission were getting cheered by fans in the arenas…..the team weren’t exactly fan favorites in the locker room.
For the most part, many other wrestlers went to Vince and complained that Men on a Mission were very dangerous to work with. Some claimed they were injured at the hands of Mo and Mabel and refused to work matches with them. To add to that, they were targeted by the backstage group known as the Kliq. Mo and Oscar took the brunt of the Kliq’s pranks and abuse.
After a while, this once red hot team was being used less and less. The Kliq and other wrestlers started getting in the ear of McMahon and the Men on a Mission were ultimately shelved for a number of months. Whether it was a punishment or McMahon’s way of letting Men on a Mission’s heat cool off is not entirely clear. What was clear, was the team were no longer being used at WwF events.
As expected, this frustrated both Mabel and Mo as they weren’t on the road making money. The duo approached McMahon and requested to be released from the company. According to Mo, Vince was taken aback by the release request and refused to let them go elsewhere. Vince still saw value in Men on a Mission and asked the team what he could do to keep them happy.
The obvious answer was to put them back on the road and start using them again. Mo and Mabel added to that by suggesting their team become heels. It was something Mo and Mabel were comfortable with as they played villains most of their careers as a tag team before coming to the WWF. It was a way in their minds of freshening up their act and start new. McMahon agreed to their terms and the plans were booked.
The plan was originally to have all three members of M.O.M turn heel, but it was their manager Oscar who relented. Oscar simply didn’t feel comfortable in the role of a bad guy. He had a career outside of wrestling as a rapper and wanted to instill a positive image…not be seen as a thug.
When M.O.M returned to WWF television, they were immediately put in the tag team title picture. They challenged the then current WWF tag team champions The Smoking Gunns to a friendly title match. The Smoking Gunns would defeat Men on a Mission cleanly and fairly. As Billy and Bart Gunn celebrated….Mo and Mabel attacked the champs leaving them lying. Men on a Mission then stormed off backstage.
The following week Oscar issued a public apology to the Smoking Gunns as he didn’t know what got into his team. A week later after that….Men on a Mission returned to action. After defeating a couple of jobbers, Mo and Mabel wanted to issue their own public apology to the Gunns. They called Billy and Bart down to the ring and apologized…leading all four men to embrace. Then Mo and Mabel attacked the Gunns and beat them down again.
Oscar tried to get his team off of the Gunns and make them stop. That led Men on a Mission to turn on Oscar and had Mabel do a leg drop on Oscar…thus ending their partnership. Oscar would leave the company after that segment and never returned to wrestling. The heel turn of Men on a Mission was complete.
Eventually, Mabel was pushed and won the 1995 King of the Ring tournament and Mo was used more as Mabel’s sidekick rather than his tag team partner. Behind the scenes this frustrated Mo who felt that the two should have continued as a team. Alas, the team eventually dissolved completely with Mo out of the WWF.
