Lord Alfred Hayes

In the mid-1970's, Hayes wrestled in brief stints for the WWWF, battling Bruno Sammartino for the World Heavyweight Championship on occasion.

Hayes joined the World Wrestling Federation in 1982. Hayes started as a road agent but then started doing television for Vince McMahon as well, starting work as an interviewer during the December 26, 1983 edition of wrestling at Madison Square Garden. He was a sidekick to Vince McMahon on *Tuesday Night Titans*, a WWF-style talk show from 1984 to 1986. Hayes became familiar to WWF viewers as a light-spoken Englishman with an uproarious laugh. On *TNT*, Hayes usually was the victim of several slapsticks; some instances included getting a face-full of powder, being slopped with pumpkin-innards by "Captain" Lou Albano, drinking one of Hulk Hogan's diet shakes, then promptly vomiting, being nearly bitten by one of Hillbilly Jim's goats, and getting slapped in the face by "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. He would later become the introductory announcer on *Prime Time Wrestling*, on which he would give rousing and complimentary introductions to the face hosts and slightly less flattering but coolly worded intros to Bobby "The Brain" Heenan. He was once "taken hostage" from the show by Sgt. Slaughter and his "Iraqi" allies.

Hayes appeared at WrestleMania in 1985 where he was the backstage commentator introducing matches and pre-recorded comments by the wrestlers. As Hayes was announcing the upcoming WWF Women's Championship match to the TV audience, he was affectionately kissed on the cheek by The Fabulous Moolah as she and her charge, WWF Women's Champion Leilani Kai walked to the ring for Kai's title defense against Wendi Richter (Kai also kissed a visibly blushing Hayes). Moolah would also kiss Hayes full on the lips during an episode of *Tuesday Night Titans*. At WrestleMania 2, he served as commentator alongside Jesse "The Body" Ventura and the "Mistress of the Dark" Elvira for the Los Angeles portion of the event. This was the only WWF pay-per-view on which Hayes commentated on the main event (Hulk Hogan versus King Kong Bundy in a steel cage for Hogan's WWF World Heavyweight Championship belt). For the Coliseum Video release of WrestleMania III, Hayes briefly appeared alongside Gorilla Monsoon hyping the event.

As the WWF's video library began to expand, Hayes became a mainstay in many of the releases; such as "Etiquette With Lord Alfred Hayes", a short segment on the WWF World Tour 1991 tape, where he attempted to teach table manners to Sensational Sherri and The Brooklyn Brawler. Another great segment on the tape collections took place on the "Supertape" series when Lord Alfred Hayes would voice "The Call of the Action" in which a match or two would be slowed down and each manoeuvre named and explained (for instance, the audience could learn what a reverse crescent kick was, long before it became more famously known as "Sweet Chin Music"). He later appeared on the video releases of WrestleMania VII where he had a corny part regarding the reunion of "Macho Man" Randy Savage and his former manager Miss Elizabeth following Savage's career-ending loss to The Ultimate Warrior, WrestleMania VIII, and Royal Rumble 1993 where he famously asked to watch Sensational Sherri put on her stockings while interviewing her in her dressing room, prompting Sherri to mockingly call him a "dirty old man". He also appeared on some early episodes of *Monday Night Raw*). WrestleMania VII also saw the last WrestleMania match called by Hayes when he joined Monsoon in calling the Intercontinental Championship match between champion Mr. Perfect and challenger the Big Boss Man. This was due to Monsoon's co-commentator for the event Bobby Heenan being Perfect's manager at the time and he was required to be at ringside.

Lord Alfred also appeared on many episodes of *Saturday Night's Main Event*, often performing silly recorded acts with fellow WWF commentator/interviewer "Mean" Gene Okerlund. One skit involved Hayes and Okerlund (referred to as "Jim" by Hayes despite Okerlund protesting his name was "Gene") taking a safari through Africa, encountering many strange sights along the way (Akeem "The African Dream" and his manager Slick, Koko B. Ware and his parrot "Frankie", The Bushwhackers, and Jake "The Snake" Roberts and his pet python "Damien").

As a commentator, Hayes maintained his reserved mannerisms; though not specifically a heel, he would be quicker to give praise to heelish characters, though disapproving of underhanded methods (in one match, after being told by Gorilla Monsoon that the Hart Foundation had "broken every rule in the book," he replied with a conceding "yes, they've done that"). He was jokingly referred to by Hulk Hogan as "Awful Alfred" during interviews. It was during this time that his hearty uproarious laugh would become his trademark, bursting into laughter after a witty comment by his regular broadcast partner Gorilla Monsoon. He would quietly absorb criticism and insults from heel commentators such as Heenan and The Honky Tonk Man. However, toward the end of his WWF run he quietly shifted to a more heelish style, where he would be quicker to take the sides of heels (such as Owen Hart after he turned on Bret) and quicker to insult the faces (calling Paul Bearer a "little toad"). His final famous WWF promo took place in November 1994, when The Headshrinkers did a promo for "Left Guard Sport stick" and Fatu and Sione ate the deodorant causing Alfred to keep telling them to stop.

Hayes' various roles for the WWF included co-hosting *All American Wrestling* with Gene Okerlund and doing commentary for shows at Madison Square Garden with Gorilla Monsoon sporadically from 1984–1990. Hayes' most common broadcast partner was Sean Mooney, whom was paired with Hayes on *Prime Time Wrestling*, *WWF Mania*, as well as most all releases for Coliseum Video starting in 1989 until 1993. Hayes and Mooney often participated in comedic skits together. Hayes was also the announcer for Bobby Heenan's *The Bobby Heenan Show*, which aired briefly in the Summer of 1989.

At one point, he also assisted Edouard Carpentier, Raymond Rougeau and Guy Hauray as a commentator on the French-language broadcasts of the WWF in the province of Quebec and throughout Canada.

On July 21, 2005, Hayes passed away. On the first episode of *Monday Night Raw* to air after his death, WWE paid tribute to Hayes with a ten-bell salute and a video memorial. On the 15 November 2010 "Old School" edition of *Raw*, his voice-over was a part of the broadcast.

In 2018, Hayes was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as part of their Legacy wing.