Ask 411 Wrestling 08.05.09: Lightweights Gone Heavyweight, Women Bleeding, Wrestlers’ Politics, and More!

Oddly enough, before Matthew fell ill, this was supposed to be the first week of my joining the column in a recurring role answering questions about Japanese pro wrestling that stumped everybody’s favorite Aussie. Since I was working on those anyway, you’ll see a few of them peppered throughout this column, as well as questions and answers about all of your favorite American promotions, and, hell, I might even try to sneak in some lucha libre while I’m at it!

With that said, let’s hit the banner.

Undisputed champion of 411mania graphics, right there.

Manu Bumb is here! I honestly think I’ve answered a question from this guy every time that I’ve written an Ask 411. Gotta love the regulars.

Is that Donald Trump’s hair I see front-row-center during the Savage/Warrior match from WM7? I can see a suit, tie, and really bad blondish hair. When everyone is standing up for the reunion of Savage and Liz, he’s just sitting there. If so, what was he doing there?

If not, why would anyone willingly style their hair like his, even for a joke? Some things are just NOT worth it.

Yes, that is Donald Trump. He was at Wrestlemania that year because, oddly enough, he is a wrestling fan. In addition to his recent stint as the “owner” of Raw and his appearance at Wrestlemania XXIII for the hair versus hair match involving Vince McMahon, the Trump Plaza venue that the Donald owned throughout the 1980’s hosted Wrestlemanias IV and V. He was also at ringside for Wrestlemania XX, where he was briefly interviewed by Jesse “The Body” Ventura.

Also it is worth noting that Wrestlemania VII is one of the more star-studded Manias in history, at least in terms of the sheer number of non-wrestling celebrities who were present. New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and former football player Paul Maguire were on hand to debate the use of instant replays in the WWF, while Regis Philbin, Alex Trebek, and Trump’s ex-wife Marla Maples were the guest commentator, ring announcer, and timekeeper (respectively) for the main event of Sgt. Slaughter vs. Hulk Hogan. Willie Nelson opened the show with “God Bless America,” and seated around ringside with Trump were Henry Winkler (a.k.a. The Fonz), Chuck Norris (toughest man alive), Macualay Culkin (Home Alone), and Lou Ferrigno (from The Incredible Hulk television series).

Fortunately, the answer to Manu’s question was “yes,” because otherwise I would have to explain Donald Trump’s hair . . . and I don’t think that any man, woman, or child is cut out for that task.

On the Japanese front, we’ve got a question about championships in the Land of the Rising Sun from Laszlo Takacs, who, with a name like that, is probably not from Japan.

I’ve been watching a lot of early 90’s Japanese wrestling lately and was wondering if titles changed hands on a count out or DQ in AJPW and NJPW. I haven’t seen a match where the Champion lost via count out or DQ so I don’t know what would happen. Has a Champion ever been counted out or disqualified (and the challenger not been counted out or disqualified) in a title match in AJPW or NJPW?

As to whether titles change hands on a disqualification or count out in Japan, of course the answer cannot be a simple yes or no. Like just about any “rule” in professional wrestling, it depends on the promotion that you’re looking at and the period of time that you’re looking at. Rules change all the time depending on what is convenient and what a particular booker’s tastes are. However, throughout the majority of puro history, it appears that, in the majority of matches where a champion has been disqualified or counted out, the title that is at stake has changed hands.

There are plenty of examples of this happening from numerous different Japanese promotions. Here are just a few:

– On an All Japan show in Sumo Hall on October 9, 1981, Bruiser Brody challenged Dory Funk, Jr. for the NWA International Heavyweight Title. Funk was disqualified, leading to Brody being awarded the championship. This is one of the three titles that was eventually brought together to form the All Japan Triple Crown.

– On March 12, 1987 for All Japan, the Roadwarriors beat Jumbo Tsuruta & Genichiro Tenryu by disqualification, and, in the process, won the NWA International Tag Team Titles. Less than a year later, the Roadwarriors were still the International Champs and they met PWF Tag Team Champions Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu in a title unification match on June 10, 1988. This time around, the Roadies were DQ’ed. As a result, they lost their International Titles to Tsuruta and Yatsu, and the unification of those belts with the PWF belts lead to the modern version of the All Japan Tag Team Titles being formed.

– Switching to New Japan, On October 4, 1972, Antonio Inoki beat Karl Gotch for the VERY short-lived New Japan Real World Title via count out. The title was actually introduced and abandoned in the same year.

– On April 1, 1977, North American Tag Team Champions Tiger Jeet Singh and Mr. Ito were disqualified against Antonio Inoki and Seiji Sakaguchi on a New Japan show in Sumo Hall. Frankly, I do not know what promotion’s version of the North American Tag Team Titles these were (there have been several). Despite the DQ, there was no title change. However, given that this was an outside championship, it could well be that the lack of title change was due to the other promotion’s rules as opposed to NJPW’s.

– However, six years later (8/4/1983, to be exact), Tatsumi Fujinami beat WWF International Champion Riki Choshu via count out on a New Japan show. Here, even though we were dealing with a WWF Title which normally would not have changed hands on a count out, Fujinami actually WAS declared the new champ.

Also, though they do not involve “titles” per se, there is also a history of major tournaments in Japan ending with disqualifications and count outs. The 1977 and 1982 version of All Japan’s Real World Tag League (formerly the World Open Tag League) were won by Dory Funk, Jr. and Terry Funk, with the brothers beating Abdullah the Butcher and the Sheik by DQ in ’77 and beating Bruiser Brody & Stan Hansen by DQ in ’82. In the 1986 version of the same tournament, Jumbo Tsuruta and Genichiro Tenryu won it all when they defeated Ted DiBiase and Stan Hansen in the finals via count out. New Japan is not immune to this either, as, in 1983, Hulk Hogan went over Antonio Inoki via count out to win the International Wrestling Grand Prix tournament. (The IWGP name is now used for New Japan’s main titles, but, at the time, it was simply a tournament.) Depending on whose version of history you believe, Inoki may have been legitimately KO’ed during this match leading to the finish.

Rob S. has a question that makes it difficult for the twelve year old boy inside of me to not provide a very crass answer.

Is there any place around the world where female wrestlers are allowed to bleed? I remember watching a match from Japan on a tape like eight years ago and it had barbed wire ropes in the match. The girls got somewhat cut up, most likely by accident, but who knows.

This is somewhat unrelated, but I remember there was a women’s match in the WWF where one of the women got busted open hardway, from a stiff punch or kick to the eye I think. I don’t remember who was wrestling, but i’d havta assume it was from 1999 or 2000, and I believe it was at a pay per view. If so, would it have to been edited due to possible outcry from the public, even though it was accidental? Does anyone remember this?

Offhand, I cannot think of a woman intentionally bleeding at any point in WWE/F history. (Anybody who can correct me is welcome do so.) If you think about it, this makes perfect sense. Wrestling in WWE, especially women’s wrestling, is a very cosmetic business. Any blading whatsoever has the potential to result in scarring, and it’s scarring that both WWE and the women themselves probably don’t want showing up during the next bikini photoshoot for WWE.com.

However, that does not mean that we have not seen unintentional color from the company’s female performers from time to time. I believe the match that Rob is referring to in his question is from the 2000 Survivor Series and featured Ivory defending the WWF Women’s Title against Lita. Early in the match, Ivory’s boot caught Lita just above her eyebrow while both women were falling to the mat, leading to a stream of blood down the side of the Team Extreme member’s face that almost looked like something that could have been caused by a bladejob.

This is not the only example of a woman being opened up in the company. Perhaps the most memorable instance of a woman bleeding in WWE for me was an angle that took place in 2006 involving Trish Stratus and Mickie James during the period that Mickie was portrayed as Trish’s “stalker.” Ashley Massaro was recovering from an injury at the time, and Mickie used the injured Ashley as bait to lure Stratus in to a confrontation in the squared circle. Somewhere during the scuffle that ensued between James and Stratus, Mickie got busted open before laying Trish out with a DDT. She proceeded to kiss Trish square on the lips. The blood there was probably unplanned, but it added a great extra dimension to the planned kiss, and it was made all the more sweet by the fact that Mickie was AWESOME in her role, with the most depraved heel facials that I’ve seen on any performer, man or woman.

Another notable example is a match between Aja Kong and Chaparita Asari that took place on an episode of Monday Night Raw in November 1995. Kong and Asari were wrestlers from All Japan Women’s wrestling who were visiting Raw as part of a working agreement between the two companies. They had a five minute match that was essentially a squash in favor of Kong but was simultaneously more stiff and featured more innovative offense than anything the men in the WWF were doing at the time. (It even featured a package piledriver, a move that is just now all the range on the US indy scene.) Kong won with her patented spinning back first, and that move broke Asari’s nose, causing a fair amount of blood to well up.

Of course, after listing all of those incidents, I would probably be remiss in not mentioning that TNA has had one of their own, featuring former wrestler Roxxi (now Nikki Roxx on the indy scene) suffering an inadvertent cut on the 2008 edition of the Sacrifice pay per view. The cut worsened as Nikki was being shaved bald after her bout due to a pre-match stipulation, and the whole incident left her a bloody mess. Nikki was also bloodied up in a handful of hardcore women’s matches on subsequent episodes of TNA Impact, and the blood there was more than likely intentional. Ms. Roxx has also bled intentionally in at least one of her independent matches that I am aware of, an August 13, 2006 title match against her longtime friend and frequent opponent Portuguese Princess Ariel for World Women’s Wrestling.

It is on the US indies as well as in major organizations in Japan and Mexico that female wrestlers have a bit more creative freedom and are allowed to blade whenever the situation may call for it. TNA’s Sarita (also known as “Dark Angel” Sarah Stock) has been bloodied up in her Mexican matches, and, as Rob mentioned, Japan several years ago played host to numerous women’s deathmatches featuring the likes of Megumi Kudo and Shark Tsuchiya, and those battles would just look silly without blood. The women’s deathmatches have been emulated by several female wrestlers on the US independent circuit today, perhaps most notably Mickie Knuckles, who had a brief run in TNA as “Moose” before breaking her leg in an indy match against Sara Del Rey.

Also, for what it is worth, it does not appear that there has ever been any “backlash” that prevents this footage from airing. If I recall correctly, the Mickie/Trish WWE angle referred to above was replayed in video packages, though those portions involving blood were only re-aired in black and white. Lita’s blood from the Survivor Series 2000 match was left in tact on the home video release of the show, and, in fact, the DVD contains an additional bonus feature of a bloodied up Lita having a telephone conversation with her mother after the match. Even in the Asari/Kong match, which took place in a decidedly more “family friendly” era of pro wrestling in the United States, the production team easily could have avoided including any shots of Asari bloodied up since that did not happen until the very last move of the match. However, the vermillion liquid flowing from the young lady’s nose still made TV in a manner that was clearly not accidental.

Rob McGinnis has a question that can be disposed of pretty quickly.

Have Mick Foley and Bret Hart ever wrestled one on one, or at all for that matter?

The only televised singles match that I am aware of involving the two men took place on an episode of the old WWF Shotgun Saturday Night program which aired on January 25, 1997. There were not too many opportunities for the men’s paths to cross during their careers, as Bret was in the WWF by 1984 while Foley made his pro wrestling debut in 1983. Foley did not make his way to the Federation until 1996 (as Mankind), and, of course, Bret was done with McMahon’s company in November 1997.

The Ro wants to talk title reigns, among other things.

1. How many legitimate former cruiserweight champs have gone on to win a world championship for either WWE/ECW/WCW or TNA? I’m meaning Cruiserweight, Light Heavyweight, and X-Division former champs who were legitimate cruisers (excludes Samoa Joe’s X-Division title reign).

Ro actually provided several of these for me in his question, so he gets the credit for the majority of what you are seeing here:

1) Chris Benoit held the WWF Light Heavyweight Title and then held the WWE World Title.
2) Christian held the WWF Light Heavyweight Title and then held the TNA World Title and is the current holder of the ECW Title.
3) Jerry Lynn held the WWF Light Heavyweight Title and then held the ECW Title.
4) Jeff Hardy held the WWF Light Heavyweight Title and then held the WWE Title.
5) Rey Misterio, Jr. Held the WWF/WCW Cruiserweight Title and then held the WWE World Title.
6) Chris Jericho held the WCW Cruiserweight Title and then held the WWE World Heavyweight Title.
7) Eddy Guerrero held the WCW Cruiserweight Title and then held the WWE Title.
8) Matt Hardy held the WWF Cruiserweight Title and then held the ECW Title.
9) Raven (as Scotty Flamingo) held the WCW Light Heavweight Title and then held both the ECW Title and the NWA Title in TNA.
10) AJ Styles held the TNA X Division Title and then held the TNA World Title.

I believe that is a complete list as it relates to the promotions that Ro mentioned, and I’m sure that anybody who disagrees will let me know.

2. Do you think it would be wrong for the WWE to give Mark Henry a title reign even if its a very short one? It would freshen things up a bit?

Mark Henry as WWE Champion would certainly be something that has not been done before, but doing something solely because it has not been done before is almost never a good idea. I do not dislike Henry as a performer, but he has been around for several years and has gotten fairly stale. Rather than pushing him heavily and giving him a title reign, I would prefer to see that role being given to an individual who has not been on WWE programming for over a decade.

3.Would you mind seeing Shelton Benjamin in TNA and if so do you think he would be more suitable as a Main eventer or X-Division guy?

In my opinion, if Shelton Benjamin were brought in to TNA, he would be in exactly the same position his is currently in with WWE, namely a directionless midcarder. Benjamin has proven that he is a great athlete who can have great matches with the right opponents, but he has also proven that he is completely incapable of connecting with fans on the deep, visceral, emotional level necessary to be a true superstar or main eventer. Going to TNA will not change that.

If he did jump for some reason, I would prefer to see him in the heavyweight division. The X Division is a complete waste at this point. Yes, you can usually count on them for a fun spotfest on PPV undercards, but that match never winds up being anything important in the grand scheme of the company. The X Division is just filler, and, if Benjamin were to make the jump, it would be better for him to be involved in a division that is actually meaningful.

Here is a quick series of four questions from Arup Kumar

1) I remember (or at least I think I do) 411 having a multiple part article of the greatest tag teams of all time. Am I imagining that or is that a legitimate article that was up and where can I find it?

What you are probably thinking of is the Best of the 411mania Era: Tag Teams. Part 1 can be found here, and the other four parts are available through the drop-down menu at the bottom of the column. “Best of the 411mania Era” was supposed to be a regular feature on the website, but, for some reason, it stalled out before the second edition (focusing on non-wrestling personalities) got off the ground.

2) It’s true that Bret Hart is possibly one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, definitely the greatest Canadian born wrestler . . . however don’t the current bios of stars like Edge and Chris Jericho (since they are Canadian) both surpass Bret? Is this a result of the WWE booking style of “hot potatoing the titles” or have the current crop of stars legitimately surpassed the older stars?

Obviously, if you look at the number of titles that guys like Edge and Chris Jericho have held in WWE and compare it to the number of titles that a guy like Bret Hart held in the WWF, the resumes of Jericho and Edge look more impressive because their numbers of reigns are much higher. However, Arup is correct in pointing out that booking philosophies in WWE have changed so that wrestlers have more opportunities to win championships, both because there are more titles to win and because titles change hands more frequently. As a result, the nine World Title reigns that Edge has amassed over the last three years are nowhere near as impressive as the five World Title reigns that Bret racked up over the course of five years.

Instead of looking at championships as the be all and end all of whether a wrestler has had a successful career, what fans should really look at is the extent to which the wrestler has been positioned as THE man responsible for carrying the promotion and the financial success that the promotquioion has had while the wrestler in that position. In that regard, Hart has definitely had a more successful career than either Edge or Jericho, as Hart carried the WWF as its top draw from at least 1993 to 1996 (if not longer), whereas, even though they have been World Champions, Jericho and Edge were usually positioned only as the second or third most important acts on their respective shows during their World Title reigns.

3) Why hasn’t the WWE gone out and got sponsorship deals from Nike, Underarmour etc? They WWE athletes hit a huge demographic that those kind of companies would love to bank on, so why no approach.

Trust me, WWE would love to get those deals if they could. However, even though WWE has a dedicated fanbase of several million Americans (and many more people worldwide), major advertisers usually shy away from doing business with them. This is because advertising research has repeatedly revealed that, even though there are many WWE fans, the WWE fans that do exist are generally in very low income brackets and therefore do not have excess income to spend on advertisers’ products. Combine that with the general stereotype that wrestling fans are hillbillies, and the sad fact as always been that big name companies have not seen the benefit of teaming up with Vince McMahon.

However, recent reports have indicated that Pepsi signed a deal with WWE, so perhaps the company’s fortunes in this regard are reversing.

4) What do you think about RAW putting countdowns to main event? Doesn’t that kill the interest in the matches in progress?

Absolutely. It would be one thing to have a countdown to a match during an interview segment, because at least then you could plausibly argue that the folks producing the show have only allotted a certain amount of time for the interview. However, when there’s a countdown to a match during another match, it destroys kayfabe because, realistically, the company should not know how long the match in progress will take.

The next question is brought to you by Never Acquiesce. With a name like that, I can tell you right now he’s not married (rimshot).

You covered the construction of a wrestling ring a while ago, but are boxing rings similar? I assume they’re not exactly the same since they’re constructed for different purposes, but, if need be, could a wrestler safely bump, hit the ropes, and come off the top in a similar fashion in a standard boxing ring?

Wrestling rings and boxing rings are absolutely different. The primary difference is that wrestling rings are typically designed to have more “give” in the mat, particularly in the center, so that bumps take less of a toll on the performers’ bodies. Another notable difference is that the ropes in wrestling rings will generally be more taught . . . and, while, the ropes in boxing rings are actually made out of rope, that is not the case with all pro wrestling rings. WWE rings have historically featured real rope, but the rings of most other wrestling promotions contain “ropes” that are actually made of steel cable. Finally, though wrestling rings and boxing rings have varied in size depending on the era and the promotion, boxing rings have traditionally be larger.

With that being said, pro wrestlers can and have worked wrestling matches in boxing rings. It is not common in this day and age, but, in the 1970’s in the United States and earlier, wrestling companies often did not travel with their own rings. Instead, they would have to use the house ring owned by whatever arena the event was taking place in. Sometimes these were rings specifically designed for wrestling, and sometimes they were boxing rings. In Mexico, this practice of using the house ring continued much later and was occurring in some areas as late as the 1990’s.

Steve has many questions about match rules.

The triple-threat tag team match at The Bash got me to thinking a few questions about multi-team tag matches. I’m not sure about some of the indies or TNA, but the last time that I remember a non-tornado rules tag match with more than two teams in the WWE/F was a 4-way which was on some special edition of Raw quite some time back on some sort of special edition show, either it was not on Monday, or it coincided with some special event. I’m pretty sure I remember that they had a green mat covering for that show. When was it/who was in it? Also, was that the last one of that style?

Given the green mat that you described, I think that you are most likely talking about the Raw Bowl, which was the main event of the January 1, 1996 episode of Monday Night Raw. The show was American football-themed to coincide with the several important games that take place in the United States in early January. The teams competing in the match were the Smoking Gunns, Razor Ramon & Savio Vega, Owen Hart & Yokozuna, and Sid Vicious & The 1-2-3 Kid. In addition to calling the match the Raw Bowl, all of the wrestlers wore cheap looking “jerseys” to the ring, and the rules were modified so that each team would get one time out during the course of the match. The Gunns won, and the announcers mentioned that, later in the show, they would be awarded the Lombardi Trophy, which is the name of the award given to the winners of the NFL’s Superbowl. However, when the ward was given to the Gunns, it was revealed that they were getting the STEVE Lombardi Trophy (The Brooklyn Brawler) as opposed to the VINCE Lombardi Trophy (the football coach for whom the NFL honour is named).

This is not the most recent example of a four way tag team match without tornado rules. There have been several, and I am not even going to pretend that I can list them all. In the WWF alone, examples include:

~ The Smoking Gunns defending the WWF Tag Team Titles against The New Rockers, The Godwinns, and the Bodydonnas at Summerslam 1996.

~ Billy & Chuck defending the WWF Tag Team Titles against The Dudley Boys, The Hardy Boys, and The Acolytes at Wrestlemania XVIII.

~ The Dudley Boys defending the WWF Tag Team Titles against The Hardy Boys, Lance Storm & The Hurricane, and The Big Show & Spike Dudley at Unforgiven 2001.

~ Rob Van Dam & Booker T defending the World Tag Team Titles against the Dudley Boys, La Resistance, and Mark Jindrak & Lance Cade at Wrestlemania XX.

~ Scotty II Hotty & Rikishi defending the WWE Tag Team Titles against The Basham Brothers, The World’s Greatest Tag Team, & The Acolytes also at Wrestlemania XX.

Additionally, I was kind of surprised by the “Rage in the Cage” being actual tag match rules, but are tag team cage matches, as rare as they may be, usually just two in at a time?

As with many match types in pro wrestling, the most accurate answer to your question is that the rules change depending on the promotion that you’re watching and the time at which you are watching it, because the people who book/write wrestling shows tend not to care about consistent rules and do whatever is necessary to tell the story that they want to tell on a given evening.

However, what I have seen most frequently in recent years is the situation in which tag rules “technically” apply in the match but wind up being thrown out the window halfway through because the referee stops enforcing them for no apparent reason. It’s actually pretty annoying.

Finally, a rule clarification about triple threat/four-way tag matches. Could a team potentially get themselves both tagged in at the same time and just have one guy pin his partner or go for a quick submission from like a wristlock? Obviously I’m ignoring the fact that the other teams would probably rush the ring to prevent such a move, but is it against the rules? I could have imagined a potential situation where one of the Colons and one member of Legacy ended up in Y2J/Edge’s corner, both of them do a blind tag on opposite people and well, you can do the math on the rest of the equation.

Oh, trust me, people have already thought of this one. At the 1996 version of the WCW pay per view World War III, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall were defending their World Tag Team Titles against the Nasty Boys and the Faces of Fear (Meng & The Barbarian) in what WCW referred to as a “triangle match.” Meng and Knobs were legal in the match and decided to have some fun at the nWo’s expense by tagging Hall and Nash in to the ring at the same time. The Outsiders thought about fighting but then realized that they could retain the titles with no effort whatsoever. Nash laid down, and Hall went to pin him, but the other two teams broke it up.

Some time later in a match that I do not recall, the WWF’s New Age Outlaws attempted to pull a similar trick. The fall was again broken up by the other teams, and it was mentioned on commentary the next week that, as a result of what happened, the WWF had instituted the so-called “Outlaw Rule,” which stated that team members could not pin each other in a multi-team tag match.

Since I’m having so much fun with these multi-part questions, let’s do another one! Here is Christian from Tamworth, England with a three-shot.

1) In the Attitude Era I remember vaguely the storyline of Mark Henry being “involved” with Mae Young and her falling pregnant. Eventually she gave birth to what appeared to be a hand. What the hell was creative’s idea about this and what exactly were they thinking, if anything?

The creative team was essentially trying to make a joke, but the problem was that their joke was too obscure and outdated for the majority of the fans at the time to understand. You see, in the 1940’s and 1950’s, there were sex toys sold for women which were shaped like men’s hands. The joke was supposed to be that Mae was using one of those, got it lodged inside of her, and, because she was a crazy old woman, she thought that she was pregnant.

2) Staying with the Attitude Era, and again extremely vague memory. I remember at some point on every Raw there was some grainy footage of backstage. I think it was called RTV or something like that. It basically showed wrestlers in uncomfortable/embarrassing positions and they were all getting very mad with whoever was responsible. My personal favourite was one where Val Venis and Big Show were shown in the urinals and Val looking at Show and then laughing saying “And they call you the Big Show!” It was hilarious but i cant for the life of me remember who was responsible for it or if it was ever revealed. Please put me out of my misery.

You don’t remember who was behind it because it was never revealed. The skits were called G-TV, and they had a variety of uses . . . sometimes they played in to existing feuds, sometimes they set up new matches, and sometimes they existed only for cheap laughs. At the time the segments were airing, there were all kinds of rumors swirling about who the man behind the camera would be. Some people even speculated that the mastermind would be Tom Greene, who was in the midst of his fifteen minutes of fame at the time. I also recall some people speculating that a debuting Chris Jericho would be the culprit, claiming that they “knew” he would have to change the spelling of his name to “Gericho” on WWF television due to a WCW trademark on “Chris Jericho.” Of course, both of these rumors provided to be utter B.S.
The most popular theory (and the one that I think may have been plausible) was that Goldust was going to be the man behind G-TV. It would have made sense with his previous character and the fact that he was out of action for several months while the segments were airing, but, ultimately, Dustin Rhodes wound up leaving the company and resurfacing in WCW, briefly as “Seven” and then under his real name.

Some people with poor memories mistakenly recall that the man behind G-TV was “Thrasher” Glenn Ruth of the Headbangers tag team. This is because the last appearance of G-TV involved Ruth reuniting with his tag team uiouiopartner “Mosh” Chaz Warrington. Chaz had been involved in an angle in which his girlfriend Marianna accused him of beating her, and, after several weeks of this, Ruth returned to the WWF with a G-TV video showing that the “bruises” Marianna claimed were caused by Chaz were actually the result of an elaborate makeup job. The Headbangers then reunited. The fact that this was the final use of the gimmick combined with the “G” in Ruth’s first name lead several to mistakenly believe that he was the mystery cameraman all along. However, he clearly stated in his promo on that show that he obtained the tape from another source, not that he recorded it himself.

In an interesting epilogue to the G-TV story, Vince Russo tried to recreate the angle when he became the head of creative for WCW. Billy Kidman had been carrying a video camera out to the ring for several weeks, and eventually the storyline became that somebody had stolen the “Kid Cam” and was using it to film G-TV-esque vignettes. I do not recall the thief who took the Kid Cam being revealed either.

3) Finally is a quick question about Owen/Bret. Do you think there would have ever been a chance that Bret would’ve returned to WWE(F) if Owen was still alive? Given WCW’s collapse and the possibility to have Owen vs Bret again I wonder if he ever would’ve been tempted. Funnier things have happened.

I sincerely doubt that Bret would have returned to the WWF if Owen Hart did not die. When Hart signed with WCW in 1997, it was a three year deal, meaning that he was locked in to the company until late 2000. He could not have gone back to the WWF if he wanted to until that point . . . but, before he had an opportunity to do so, he suffered the injury that ended his in-ring career. Hart has repeatedly stated that he has no interest in going back to WWF/WWE in a non-wrestling capacity, and that has always seemed to have much more to do with Montreal and the promotion’s booking as opposed to Owen.

NWA88 asks a question that is timely, albeit probably unintentionally so.

What political stances do professional wrestlers take? Are many of them Democrats? I know that Ric Flair is a Republican (he publicly supported Mike Huckabee in the previous US Presidential Election) and I have heard that The Rock and the Honky Tonk Man have both supported Republicans. I believe that Jessie Ventura is an independent voter (or at least has stated that he would not vote for either a Democrat or Republican) but other then those mentioned I’m unaware.

What about wrestling fans? Would you say they tend towards one designation or the other? Most of the wrestling fans I have known personally have been Democrats, but I’ve always wondered if wrestling is inherently more attractive to someone of a particular persuasion.

The majority of professional wrestlers that I have heard voice their opinions would be relatively conservative, at least as far as that term is used in American politics. You are correct that Ric Flair has been involved in the Republican party, which he discussed in his autobiography several years back. John “Bradshaw” Leyfield has regularly written about political topics, and he is definitely right of center. The Rock did speak at the Republican National Convention in 2000, but I always thought of that as more of a promotional stunt than I did an actual endorsement of a particular party or candidate.

In the last several months, Joey Styles has gotten political publically on his Twitter account, expressing his distaste for the current President of the United States, who he almost always refers to by his full name of “Barack Hussein Obama.” A example of Styles’ Tweets include the below, which surfaced in May:

The (Catholic) University of Notre Dame should be ashamed of themselves for having pro-abortion President Obama speak at their graduation. Even those misled Americans who voted for the Marxist Barack Hussein Obama are invited to join the Judgment Day Live Chat on WWEUNIVERSE.com.

Word has circulated that one of the reasons that Styles has been so open about his Obama-bashing lately is because Vince McMahon is also no fan of the current president and this is a means through which the former voice of ECW can get over with his boss. Jim Cornette, though he has stopped short of declaring that he has a solid democrat, has come out as a big Obama supporter in recent months, blasting Styles in commentaries like this one: