In an industry built on kayfabe, caricature, and cauliflower ears, few men managed to transcend all three quite like Skandor Akbar. Born Jimmy Saied Wehba in 1934 in Wichita Falls, Texas—a town whose main exports were cattle and unresolved aggression—he would become one of wrestling’s most enduring villains. And not the cool kind of villain with a motorcycle and a catchphrase. No, Skandor Akbar was a throw-fireballs-at-your-face, puff-a-cigar-at-ringside-while-your-spine-snapped kind of villain. The kind of villain who made kids cry, old ladies swing purses, and patriotism surge in Southern wrestling halls like a hot grease fire at a Fourth of July barbecue.
This, of course, was all by design.
From Vernon to Villainy
Akbar (Arabic for “The Great,” in case you were too busy booing to Google it) was not, in fact, a sultan or an oil tycoon or even mildly connected to a sheikh. He was a Texas kid with Lebanese and Syrian roots who bench-pressed small automobiles in his teens and worked security before slipping into the spandex trade. When Fritz Von Erich suggested he Arab-up his name to rile up audiences, Jimmy said yes. Because Jimmy was a professional. And in 1966, being a vaguely Middle Eastern bad guy was the fast lane to headlining every barn, arena, and bingo hall from Tulsa to Shreveport.
As a wrestler, Akbar was serviceable. He could brawl, bleed, and scowl with the best of them. He once teamed with Danny Hodge before turning on him—an early glimpse of the man’s instinct for betrayal that would soon become legend. But it wasn’t until 1977, when he swapped boots for a suit and lit his first cigar at ringside, that Skandor Akbar truly became Skandor Akbar.
Devastation, Incorporated
Forget the Four Horsemen. Forget D-Generation X. If you were a wrestler in the 1980s who wanted to sell out the Sportatorium and also possibly get firebombed by a grandmother from Fort Worth, you joined Devastation, Inc. Managed by Akbar, Devastation, Inc. was a rotating cast of monstrous behemoths, foreign menaces, and ex-convicts that made the Legion of Doom look like the Boy Scouts. Kamala, The Missing Link, Abdullah the Butcher, One Man Gang—if you had at least three missing teeth and a rap sheet, Skandor had a contract for you.
And the fans? They hated him. Viscerally. Physically. With great joy.
It helped that Akbar smoked cigars during matches like he was waiting for a high-stakes poker hand to resolve, occasionally throwing fireballs at faces, referees, or whoever looked at him wrong. It helped that he wore tailored suits while his charges beat babyfaces into tapioca. And it helped that he committed to the bit harder than any manager this side of Paul Heyman’s anxiety disorder.
Wrestling was real in Mid-South. Not because of the moves, but because of how people reacted to Akbar. There are stories of children trying to slash his tires, of fans spitting in his face at the merch table, of Vietnam vets telling him to “go back to Beirut.” Akbar ate it all up. He was the conductor of chaos, conducting every boo, every thrown beer, like a symphony of redneck rage.
The Dark Arts of Heat
If pro wrestling is America’s most underappreciated performance art, Akbar was its resident warlock. He understood the nuance of heat—not just being hated, but being trusted to be hated. Fans knew they were supposed to boo, and they did it with gusto. But what made Akbar special was that even smart marks—those in on the act—still wanted to see him get punched in the mouth.
There was nothing cool or edgy about his gimmick. He wasn’t trying to sell merch. He was there to sell the match. He wasn’t a meme. He was menace.
One week he’d be managing a seven-foot monster from Parts Unknown. The next week he’d show up on a Puerto Rican beach managing a man who looked like he was built in a laboratory from spare ham hocks and barbed wire. There was no arena too small. No role beneath him. That’s why he endured. While other gimmicks expired with the Reagan administration, Akbar kept smoldering long into the VHS era.
The Slow Burn
When the wrestling world started to shift—more lights, less logic; more soap opera, less suplex—Skandor didn’t complain. He just kept doing what he’d always done: showing up, chewing scenery and cigars, and making good guys look like a million bucks. He trained younger wrestlers. He still managed in regional promotions, still threw the occasional fireball like a man who couldn’t find the lighter fluid but damn sure had a Zippo.
He popped up in documentaries like Heroes of World Class and Triumph and Tragedies, a walking monument to a wrestling era soaked in Marlboro smoke and Southern heat. Akbar never needed a WWE Hall of Fame ring or a “Thank You Skandor” chant. The boos were enough. They always were.
Exit Stage Inferno
On August 19, 2010, Skandor Akbar passed away at 75. Officially, it was either a fall or complications from cancer. Unofficially, the wrestling gods realized they were down one general of chaos and sent for reinforcements. His death didn’t make front-page news, but it should have. Because when you write the history of pro wrestling, you cannot skip the chapter titled “How to Be Hated 101: The Skandor Akbar Method.”
Akbar was never the hero. But without villains like him, heroes don’t matter.
Epilogue: Smoke Signals
If you close your eyes and listen hard enough, you can still hear it—the hiss of a fireball lighting up the air, the hoarse rasp of “Devastation, Incorporated!” shouted through a busted mic, the collective roar of a thousand fans losing their collective minds over a man in a $39 suit managing a Samoan savage with a chain.
Skandor Akbar didn’t need pyrotechnics or catchphrases. He had a cigar, a sneer, and a purpose. And in professional wrestling, that’s more than enough.
May he rest in heat.