As the saying goes "if you remember Virgil from the 1980s in the WWF your childhood was awesome". Right, that's probably a bit of a stretch, but old school late 80s/early 90s WWF (before it was WWE) was class and Virgil was at least there! Well if you're on social media you may have seen said wrestler Virgil posing as Virgil Van Dijk on Twitter.
So for those of you who don't know or those of you who need a refresher course, Virgil was the bodyguard/man servant of the evil "Million Dollar Man" Ted Dibiase. The Million Dollar Man's character was exactly what it said on the tin, he was a really rich guy who used his millions to live a lavish wrestling lifestyle and paid people to humiliate themselves live on television.
One infamous skit saw him offer pay a young child from the crowd $500 if he could simply bounce a basketball 15 times. After the 14th try, Dibiase kicks the basketball away and refuses to pay the child. Positively villainous and I'm laughing even writing about it.
As you can see Virgil (real name Mike Jones) was ever present beside the Million Dollar Man. However, his career fell by the wayside when the partnership broke up. He is now "twitter famous" for his ridiculous online persona, like a Poundland version of The Iron Sheik. He makes his living touring the various Wrestling Conventions where people pay to meet old stars and have pictures taken.
Nobody really wanted to meet the Million Dollar Man's lackey though and Virgil received his internet fame for a picture that because very meme-able called "Lonely Virgil". Virgil now lives a gimmick of him being a desperate bum who longs for fans to bring him to American chain restaurant Olive Garden to buy him breadsticks and meat sauce. Yes, really.
Ever the opportunist, upon finding out of Liverpool's world record (for a defender) £75 million move for Virgil Van Dijk, wrestling Virgil jumped right on board. He changed his profile picture to a picture of Van Dijk:
His pinned tweet on his page, is by far the best thing he's done since his involvement in the aforementioned Basketball Skit. It's a photoshopped picture of The Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase, Virgil himself and the legendary Andre the Giant with Jurgen Klopp, John W Henry and Virgil Van Dijk's faces VERY crudely photoshopped over the originals with the caption "Fam".
Fam pic.twitter.com/73T0v9LCIs
— Virgil (@TheRealVirgil) December 28, 2017
He also seems a bit confused as to how the Transfer Window and Football's transfer dealings in general work. He seems to think that all the money from the transfer fee goes to the player and not the club.
First thing I do with my 75 mill
— Virgil (@TheRealVirgil) December 28, 2017
He's not the only one who's confused though. Given the fact that his Twitter handle is @TheRealVirgil and his profile picture is of Van Dijk, he is being tagged by many fans congratulating him on the move, on his debut goal or even better, rival fans trying to take him down a peg or two....well, not him, but the REAL Virgil Van Dijk.
“A fairy tail. In a world where there are not a lot of fairy tales.” - #JurgenKlopp
Welcome to #LFC @TheRealVirgil. A winner in the #MerseysideDerby is already worth half the money recouped. But then we said the same about Andy Carroll 😅🙊#ThisIsAnfield #Liverpool 2-1 #Everton. pic.twitter.com/xaoNvYWtlA— Sidharth Dang (@sidharth_09) January 6, 2018
Glad your a red Virgil ... money well spent 👍
— mark fowler (@markie1970) January 9, 2018
You’ve played one game! Get a grip #sap
— Reece Bray (@ReeceBray4) January 8, 2018
haha all bitterness is felt here from certain fans🤣🤣🤣 best part is he doesn’t make mistakes 🤣🤣 perfect as first luv 😜😜
— Cheggers mate (@06Liverpool) January 8, 2018
Twitter has a script policy on imitation accounts (and in fairness wrestling Virgil has the blue tick so you can see how confusing it could be) so it's kind of surprising how long he's been allowed to get away with this, but enjoy the bit of banter while he has it going, the chap clearly needs it in his life of pasta chasing and meat sauce!
