I was thinking about this the other day and I'm not sure if I have a fully baked answer yet, but how much of Mike Felger's career does he owe to Glen Ordway?
As you all may remember for many years, Felger was a member of the Big Show. And as Ordway was so fond of saying everyone on the Big Show had their role to play and for Felger, that was the douchebag*.
* When Ordway said this, it reminded me of Vince McMahon giving wrestlers their gimicks: Hogan, you're the All-American star, Calloway, you're a dead guy. I imagined Ordway handing out roles the same way: Felger, you're the douchebag; Smerlas, you're the drooling ex-jock; DeOssie, you're the asshole ex-jock; Johnson, you're the tracing moron.
Felger has evolved past this gimmick and I don't think that he really loved it (I remember times on EEI or in interviews where he would say that he wasn't really like that or would get fed up with callers dismissing his opinions because he was a DB) and when he went to ESPN radio, he seemed to tone it down. When he made his way to TSH, he revved it up a bit but it's not as insufferable as his EEI days.
My logic is this: if Ordway didn't choose to "highlight" this part of his personality, would Felger have done so? There are a few examples of folks loving the role of the bad guy but I don't think that Felger does. So if Felger wouldn't position himself like that, what would he have done? He's obviously smart and can play the game so I'm not suggesting that he'd be the next Michael Gee, but at the same time would he be Media Mogul Michael Felger?