James Mitchell (manager)

James Mitchell

Mitchell in 2006
Birth name	James Isaac Mitchell
Born	(1965-02-26) February 26, 1965 (age 52) Orlando, Florida, United States
Residence	Kissimmee, Florida, United States
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)	Daryl Van Horne Father James Mitchell James Mitchell James Vandenberg Jim Mitchell Sinister Minister
Billed height	5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)
Billed weight	210 lb (95 kg)
Trained by	Gene Anderson
Debut	1989
Retired	2013

James Isaac Mitchell (born February 26, 1965) is an American professional wrestling manager, known for his appearances with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) as James Vandenberg, Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) as The Sinister Minister, and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) under his own name.

Mitchell dropped out of high school and eventually earned his GED at the insistence of his stepmother.

Mitchell admired comic book villains when he grew up; For inspiration of his character, Mitchell attributes the curled-up eyebrows to The Punisher on The Amazing Spider-Man (issue 129); the curled-up beard was a combination of a stereotypical devil and the Green Arrow, and the laughter was from Cesar Romero's version of the Joker and the Green Goblin. Mitchell said the red suit he wore was inspired from the red suit Richard Pryor wore on his stand-up comedy performance in Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip.

Mitchell wrestled in the Carolinas and in Virginia before joining Smoky Mountain Wrestling (SMW). Mitchell, known as Daryl Van Horne, made his SMW debut by managing Prince Kharis, a 4,000-year-old mummy. Mitchell said he took the "Daryl Van Horne" name from Jack Nicholson's character name in the film The Witches of Eastwick. The gimmick was a flop in the promotion and dropped after only a few months. Van Horne went on to manage Kendo the Samurai (a masked samurai gimmick played at different points by Tim Horner, Scott Antol and Brian Logan, among others) for a brief time before disappearing from the promotion.

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