Ask 411 Wrestling 04.14.10: Best World Title Wins, Hall & Nash in the HOF, MITB, and more!

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to week two of my three week run filling in for Matthew Sforcina here at Ask 411 Wrestling. Last week’s crack at the column was quite fun for yours truly, and let’s hope that the second shot is just as nice. We won’t know, though, until we get past the . . .

Guest #0103 wanted to add to my examples of kayfabe being broken in a pre-“Attitude” wrestling industry:

Kayfabe was frequently broken in the South well before the ’90s. Often “outlaw promotions” would spring up around successful territories when a dispute arose between the territory’s promoter and one of its stars, or when some dude just felt like being a douche. The outlaw promotions would frequently reveal the real names and phone numbers of its rivals’ wrestlers on local TV to try and kill their business. They never outright said wrestling itself was fake, just that the other guys were.

There’s also the Lance Von Erich debacle in WCCW where Fritz had to go on TV and admit they were lying about him being a Von Erich, and then try to spin it back into kayfabe.

Both of these are absolutely correct, and I would point out that one of the most infamous “outlaw promotions” to which our anonymous commenter is referring is the Tennessee-based ICW, which was run by the recently deceased Angelo Poffo, the father of Randy Savage and Lanny “The Genius” Poffo. Their promotional wars with the Jerry Jarrett/Jerry Lawler Memphis wrestling promotion were the stuff of legend, which paid off in the ring big time when ICW folded and the Macho Man himself showed up in the Jarrett-booked promotion to feud with Lawler.

G. Jonah Jameson, who, unlike his brother, loves Spider-Man, had very solid points on several of lat week’s questions:

Regarding crossover between onscreen and offscreen rivalries: Isn’t this sort of what happened with Jeff Jarrett and Kurt Angle? You could also make a case for Edge vs. Matt Hardy and Ric Flair vs. Mick Foley, though those were more offscreen rivalries that became onscreen rivalries. What about Booker T vs. Batista, Ken Kennedy vs. Hardcore Holly, or Scott Steiner vs. anyone toward the end of his WCW run? I’m sure a few of those are reaching, but . . .

Regarding the Regal Stretch: Beyond William Regal’s status as a midcarder, I think his various angles over the years have also worked against the idea of his having a submission finisher. For his first run after being rehired in 2000, he was a conniving heel who won more through skulduggery than via actual wrestling moves — recall Carlito after his debut in 2004, and how it took him a year and a half to get an official finisher. Then Regal became commissioner, which limited his in-ring time. Then he got that “Power of the Punch” gimmick, an extension of his win-only-by-cheating-and-not-by-wrestling gimmick from earlier. And from then until his move to ECW in 2009, he wrestled almost exclusively as a tag team wrestler — and it’s unusual for submission moves to end tag matches, unless applied by established singles wrestlers like Chris Benoit.

And that’ll close out the feedback for this week!

Your Turn, Smart Guy

Last week’s question was:

I am a professional wrestler known for my brightly colored ring gear, fringed armbards, and facepaint. I gained a great deal of my popularity as part of a tag team. Even though the promotion we worked for billed us as having the same last name, my partner and I were not relatives. I have been in several main events during the course of my career, and perhaps my biggest main event saw me challenging for a title against one of the most talented professional wrestlers of all time in front of a crowd that was more than twice the size of the biggest audience that TNA has ever drawn for a live event. I have appeared on WWF/E pay per view, but I have never had a singles match on one of those shows. Who am I?

And your answer, of course, was Kyoko Inoue. As of the time that I had stopped reading the comments, only one person, who posted under the handle AJPW Fan knew the correct answer.

This week, we ask . . .

I was trained by the same wrestler who trained current WWE star Triple H. Even though I was born and raised in the United States, the fact that I am not Caucasian has lead to be being promoted as a “foreigner” at various points in my career. I have appeared on shows promoted by WWE, WCW, ECW, and TNA. One of my regular opponents in WCW would go on to become a WWE Hardcore Champion. At one point, I was under contract to WWE for approximately one full year even though I only appeared on television once during that period of time. Who am I?

Questions, Questions, Who’s Got the Questions?

Alex starts us off with a very short question that has a very involved answer:

Who has participated in the most Royal Rumble matches without ever having eliminated an opponent?

Ahhh, this question is the kind of statistical nightmare that I simultaneously love and hate researching, because on one hand it tends to yield some pretty interesting results, but, on the other hand, takes FOREVER to come up with any answer.

Anyway, despite the time that it took, I did the leg work, and the answer surprised me. The man who has been in the most Royal Rumble matches without scoring a single elimination is none other than Matt Bloom, who at various points in his career would have competed in the Rumble under the names Prince Albert and A-Train. Despite five Rumble appearances, he never threw another competitor over the top rope. I say that I find this surprising mainly because there were several instances in which WWE attempted to get the guy over as a high midcard/main event level threat, and you would think given those pushes he would have had at least one year in which he had the opportunity to toss a few wrestlers.

The Former A-Train with a Piledriver in New Japan Pro Wrestling

There are several wrestlers who have been in four Royal Rumble matches without eliminating an opponent, and they are: The Warlord, Steve Blackman, The Honky Tonk Man, Scotty II Hotty, Gregory Helms, and Mike the Miz. Honky is an interesting case because I did not realize until doing research for this question that he had just as many Royal Rumble appearances after his “retirement” as a full-time wrestler as he did during his regular WWF career.

Coming in with three Royal Rumble appearances without an elimination are the Red Rooster, both of the Bushwackers, Bart Gunn, Jeff Jarrett, Tommy Dreamer, Fit Finlay, and the man currently known as R-Truth, who actually competed in his first Royal Rumble as K-Kwik. Now there’s a blast from the past.

Readers Pat and Rick asked two very similar questions, so I’m going to go ahead and answer them together:

[From Rick]: Why wasn’t the SummerSlam 1999 Main Event just Austin vs. Triple H? Watching the build up video to the match shows just how crazy the Attitude Era was. I mean for a second Chyna was the number one contender. It seemed like Vince had no idea what he wanted for SummerSlam 1999. To add on to it they add Foley who wins the match but loses it the next night against Triple H?

[From Pat]: Summerslam ’99 was a triple threat between Austin, HHH, and Mankind. I recall hearing that Austin was not cool with the idea of jobbing to HHH that night, so Mankind went over Austin. The very next night on Raw, HHH went over Mankind. Why didn’t they just have HHH pin Mankind at the PPV? Austin wouldn’t have done the job, it would have sold the threat of a triple threat match, and there would have been no one-day title reign.

First of all, Pat is correct that there is at least one source from the time which reported that Steve Austin did not want to drop the championship to Triple H, which takes care of Rick’s question. As far as Pat’s question about why Triple H did not pin Foley on the night of Summerslam ’99 is concerned, there are really only two possible answers which make sense. The first is that Austin, for whatever reason, did not want to lose the match in any way, shape, or form to HHH, even if he was not pinned. Though some people view a guy as having not “done the job” if he doesn’t eat the pinfall in a triple threat, other folks are a lot more particular and consider a loss a loss regardless of who is pinned, which may have been Austin’s mindset. The second possibility is that the company didn’t want Triple H to win 100% clean in the middle, especially in light of the fact that any undetected cheating he did would have made special guest referee Jesse Ventura look ineffective and/or incompetent.

Holding off the HHH title victory until the following evening on Monday Night Raw meant that Austin was in no way, shape, or form losing to Helmsley and also meant that Trips could cheat to win without making Ventura look like a boob.

Frequent writer JLAJRC has a trifecta of questions:

1.) Why was Bam Bam Biegelow’s original stint in the WWF so short? He seemed to be heading to the upper midcard at least and was super popular, but he was gone in less in a year along with Oliver Humperdink.

Bigelow was required to step out of the WWF limelight because of an injury to his knee that required surgery. He was laid up for several months and his momentum was derailed, and wrestlers did not have guaranteed contracts as they do today. By the time that he returned, the WWF had moved on, and he was able to do better for himself through a combination of dates with Jim Crockett Promotions and New Japan Pro Wrestling.

2.) What exactly was the injury that referee Tim White suffered that caused him to retire and later subject us to those “suicide” skits?

At Judgment Day 2002, White was the referee for a Hell in a Cell match between Chris Jericho and Triple H. White took a bump in the match and severely injured his shoulder and required surgery and many months of rehabilitation before he could return to the ring. He tried to referee again in 2004 but re-injured himself in his first match back. He reappeared onscreen in 2005 as part of the buildup to a Hell in a Cell match between Randy Orton and the Undertaker to be held at the Armageddon pay per view. The company played off of his legitimate HIAC injury from years prior and claimed that the match ruined White’s life, leading to the botched off-camera suicide attempt, with the concept that they were attempting to get across being that the Cell match was something that could take a serious toll upon those who participated in it.

The skits continued afterwards, turning in to comedic fodder instead of being part of a serious angle. The majority of them aired on exclusively WWE.com, though a few made television as well. The whole while, White was working as an agent and in other backstage roles for the company, which he continued in before being released by the promotion in 2009.

3.) If Mr. Perfect had stayed in the WWF instead of going to WCW, do you think he would have been in the original DX instead of Rick Rude? Rude just didn’t seem to belong with them, while I could totally see Perfect fitting in.

It’s certainly possible, especially given that Perfect was managing Triple H at the time of his departure and therefore would have had a natural connection to the group . . . assuming that the managerial relationship would have lasted until 1998 when D-Generation X ultimately formed. However, it strikes me as highly unlikely that Perfect would have hung around in the WWF much longer than he did. He only had a limited shelf-life as a non-wrestling character, but wresting again meant that he would have to forfeit a hefty payout that he was receiving from a Lloyd’s of London disability insurance policy that he made a claim on when he was originally sidelined with a back injury. From 1996 through early 1998, the WWF was on very shaky financial ground and probably couldn’t have paid Perfect enough to make it worthwhile for him to give up the Lloyd’s of London payments. WCW, however, was handing out multi-million dollar contracts like they were Dixie cups of water, making a jump there much more tempting for the Perfect One.

One of these days I’ll be able to write an edition of this column without somebody asking about the WWE Hall of Fame. Until then, here’s John:

Do you think Scott Hall and Kevin Nash will ever be in the WWE Hall of Fame? Koko B. Ware made it, so I think anyone can . . . or is there too much baggage?

I would be amazed if Hall and Nash do not wind up in the Hall of Fame at some point. Obviously they would have to wrap up their commitments with TNA first, but, aside from those contracts with Carter and company, I don’t see anything that would prevent them from getting in. I’ve heard nothing about any bad blood existing between Nash and WWE, with his last release in 2004 being more for economic reasons than anything personal, as they were paying him much more than he was worth given how age had affected his in-ring performances and his injury rate. There might be a little bit more ill will directed towards Hall, as his last departure from the promotion was due to his personal issues and his behavior on the infamous “Plane Ride from Hell” in 2002. However, WWE has continued to do business on a limited basis with guys like Jake Roberts and the Iron Sheik despite their personal demons, so I doubt that Hall’s now eight year old actions would cost him a HOF induction.

While I’m on the subject, I may as well ask another HOF question, this time from Conor:

Was the WWE Hall of Fame 1995 and 1996 ever shown on TV or is there any TV footage of these events or were they released on video? I think they should release them for DVD with extras!

The WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremonies that were held in the years 1994, 1995, and 1996 have never been aired in full by the company or released on cassette tape or DVD. They were at least taped in part, though, as highlights from the induction ceremonies would always air on WWE television in brief video packages about the event. If you’re interested in seeing the footage that exists, I would suggest hunting down copies of shows like Monday Night Raw and WWF Superstars that aired in the week or two after each ceremony occurred, and keep in mind that, in those years, the ceremonies did not take place the same weekend as Wrestlemania.

After a little bit of digging, I was able to find a video package of highlights from the 1995 ceremony on YouTube:

Steven recently watched Wrestlemania 23 and has some questions about it:

MVP came to the ring for his match with Chris Benoit flanked by cheerleaders. He proceeded to lose that match. That made me think of Brian Pillman’s match against Lex Luger at Halloween Havoc ’89 (coincidentally also for the US Title), in which Brian came to the ring surrounded by cheerleaders, and he also lost by pinfall. Has there ever been a wrestler who has entered a match surrounded by cheerleaders that has actually won their contest?

Porter Enters, Sans Cheerleaders

Absolutely. In WCW in the late 1990’s, Rick Steiner, Steve Williams, Kevin Sullivan, and Mike Rotundo brought back their decade-old Varsity Club gimmick and were regularly accompanied to the ring by their “cheerleader,” Leia Meow. (Meow was previously known as Kimona Wanalaya in ECW.) She was a standard part of their act, so they won and lost several matches with her in their corner. The same could be said for the Ballard Brothers, a southern California-based independent wrestling tag team who for several years were managed by current indy darling Cheerleader Melissa, back when cheerleading was actually part of her gimmick and not just part of her name as it is now.

During the Money in the Bank match at Wrestlemania 23, there appeared to be several storyline threads that were never continued, unless I am forgetting them. Was anything ever made out of Booker T sacrificing getting the briefcase in order to save Sharmell from Matt Hardy? Also, was there ever supposed to be dissension between the Hardys after Matt convinced Jeff to fly onto Edge and essentially take himself out of the match? For that matter, did Jeff and Edge ever have a return match later that spring?

There wasn’t that much of a follow-up on the Booker T./Matt Hardy situation. Wrestlemania occurred on April 1, 2007, and there was a match between Matt and Booker on the April 6 edition of Smackdown. Matt was able to defeat his opponent, and Sharmell did lay into her husband afterwards, labeling him as a disappointment. That set up an angle later in the show in which Booker attacked the Undertaker in an attempt to impress his woman, only for UT to get the upper hand and lay out T, which was a cover for the Bookman taking a couple of months off for neck surgery. By the time Booker was ready to return, any issue that they might have considered building with Hardy had long been forgotten about.

There was never any dissension between the Hardys as result of the match. In fact, they won the Tag Team Titles together the very next night on Monday Night Raw. To the extent that you saw or perceived any ill will between the two during the course of the ladder match itself, it was probably meant to be a story in that match and that match alone. It’s not uncommon for matches involving two regular tag team partners to include a spot in which they are not on the best of terms, only for them to have patched up their differences by the time that the next show roles around. That sort of spot was very common in battles royale back in the day, and, given that Money in the Bank is now essentially the modern version of the battle royale that used to be on the undercard of every Wrestlemania, it only makes sense that standard battle royale spots are being coopted by MITB.

Here’s an off the wall question from Manu:

Is there any truth to the rumor that TNA made the ramp go all the way up to the ring because Hogan’s contract specifies the total number of steps he’ll have to climb over the next year, and TNA didn’t want another WCW/Sting situation where Hogan fulfills his contractual obligations long before it ends?

I have no clue where that rumor came from, but I have to give kudos to whoever made it up, because it’s one of the most delightfully ridiculous fake newsbits I’ve ever read.

Steven has two questions, one serious and the other not so much:

1. Have Ric Flair and Tully Blanchard ever wrestled in a one-on-one match? I would assume that, if they ever did, it would be pre-Four Horsemen.

Tully Blanchard was a fairly regular opponent of Flair’s during his fourth NWA Title reign in 1984. The two clashed over the belt on June 4 in Greenville, South Carolina; on July 1 in Charlotte, North Carolina; on December 5 in Raleigh, North Carolina; on December 8 in Greensboro, North Carolina; on December 9 in Charlotte; and on December 15 in Hampton, Virginia. They locked it up again for the belt on May 29, 1985 in Raleigh and on September 9, 1985 in Greenville. Of course, Tully never took the championship away from the Nature Boy, or this question wouldn’t even have to be asked.

2. Your thoughts on a potential “superstar” stable based on an outer space theme: Joey MERCURY, Val VENUS, Perry SATURN, the ROCKET Owen Hart, Max MOON, and the Masked SuperSTAR, all managed by SUNny of course!!! Did I forget anyone, and could they beat the Horsemen, or at least the Dudes with Attitudes?

Well, it’s not a bad pun based on his ring name, but, if you’re talking about doing an outer space-themed stable, I don’t think that you can exclude NXT’s Justin Gabriel if he’s going to wear the outfit that he had on for his first tag team match with Matt Hardy.

This guy represents South Africa? Col. DeBeers is rolling in his grave.

Sturges is taking us to All Japan:

Just finished reading Dr. Death Steve Williams’ book, “How Dr. Death Because Dr. Life”. At the end of the book they do the name association thing and under Del Wilkes/Patriot, Doc says, “I don’t know how he sleeps at night after what he (Patriot) did to Giant Baba”. Any idea what he’s talking about?

Frankly, I’m not sure at all. Perhaps some of our readers can help us out, as the passages in Williams’ book are very vague. The Patriot – also known as Del Wilkes – has, in the days since he left professional wrestling, been very frank about the high levels of drugs that he was using while an active, in-ring competitor and the criminal charges that he faced as a result of his drug use. For proof, look no further than the CNN special Death Grip that was released not long after the Benoit murder-suicide or the episodes of HBO’s Real Sports dealing with drug use in professional wrestling. The only thing that I can think of is that Wilkes behaved poorly on a particular evening because of his drug use and/or left Baba’s promotion, All Japan Pro Wrestling, in an unprofessional manner.

Want more Japanese questions? Turn to Kenny:

I was searching on Wikipedia the other day on Marufuji information when i saw it say that he was one of two NOAH grand slam champions. I already knew he was one, but who is the other?

Because NOAH has no honor that I am aware of called a “grand slam,” I am assuming that you are referring to Marufuji as a grand slam champion because he has held all five titles which exist in NOAH. Actually, nobody else in the history of the company has done this. The person who has come the closest is reigning GHC Heavyweight Champion Takashi Sugiura, who has held four of NOAH’s five championships. In addition to his current title reign, he was the GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion twice (once in 2003 and once in 2006), one half of the GHC Tag Team Champions once with Marufuji (in 2007), and on two occasions one half of the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions with Yoshinobu Kanemura (once in 2005 and once in 2006). He has never held the Global Hardcore Crown Openweight Title, which is the fifth NOAH championship.

Here’s a quickie from Ced:

What came first, the TapouT brand for MMA or Taz tapout shirt for ECW?

The Tapout clothing brand was founded in 1997. Unfortunately, there aren’t a heck of a lot of resources which list the specific release dates for pieces of professional wrestling merchandise. However, if you take a look at November to Remember 1996 (which I did in researching the answer to this question), Taz’s gear clearly has “Tap Out” emblazoned across its chest. Given the prominent placement of the phrase on the Human Suplex Machine’s singlet, it is safe to assume that it was already appearing on his ECW released t-shirts by that point. As a result, Taz’s use of the phrase for his merchandise probably predates the MMA clothing line, though the phrase “tap out” was generic enough by the time that either group was using it that I doubt they would have been able to have any sort of legitimate dispute.

Some things about Ronnie Garvin just don’t add up for Joe:

Just wanted to know what reason Ronnie Garvin would have for appearing on AWA Superclash 3, considering this:

If he was already in the WWF, working on TV at the time of the PPV why would he go back? Especially if he wouldn’t put over Gagne? Contractual obligations to Verne is my guess, but I don’t remember if he was smart enough to sign his wrestlers to contracts at that point.

Given the odd timing of it all, my working assumption has always been that it was a matter of Garvin going back to finish up a major date that he had committed to before deciding to leave for the World Wrestling Federation. Even tody, Vince McMahon and company are fairly good about letting wrestlers wrap up their obligations elsewhere before making the jump to the E. For a modern example, take a look at Ring of Honor’s “Night to Appreciation” for Eddie Guerrero, a show that he committed to before signing a new WWE deal which was, as a result, built entirely around his departing for the bigger promotion.

In the case of Garvin, he had been feuding with Greg Gange for quite some time over Gange’s AWA Television Title, which probably made it particularly important that he honor the booking, so that the program could have some sort of conclusion . . . even if the only conclusion that could be worked out from a political standpoint was a count out.

Keith puts this week’s fact-based questions to bed with the following:

Looking back, I can only think of one guy who didn’t flip from WWE/WWF to WCW in the good old days and that was Shawn Michaels. Practically everyone else has worked for both companies at one point.

Knowing that, is there anyone else you can think of? Also, I know that Sting, Nikita Koloff, Magnum TA and a few others are on the opposite side of the coin, but am I missing anyone else?

There are actually a ton of wrestlers who worked exclusively for the WWF while the company was competing with WCW and never once jumped ship to Mr. Turner’s promotion. Probably the most prominent of the group is the Rock, who worked on the WWF/WWE side of things beginning in 1996 and was still with the company when WCW folded in 2001. The other top level star to never jump was Kurt Angle, though the WWF/WCW war only lasted less than a year and a half after his debut as a regular television character. Another multi-time World Champion to add to the list, albeit one who is not quite thought of as being on the same level as Rock and Angle, is Yokozuna, who debuted with the Fed in 1992 and stayed under contract to them until 1998 despite being seen on TV only infrequently within the last year or so of his tenure. Former WWF Champion Bob Backlund is also a part of this group, with his second run in the WWF kicking off in 1992 and lasting until 1997 with no run in WCW thereafter.

Plenty of midcard wrestlers from the Attitude era and beyond never jumped ship from the WWF to WCW. In short order, that list would include Billy Gunn, Ken Shamrock, Steve Blackman, A-Train, Bull Buchanan, D-Lo Brown, Viscera (a.k.a. Mabel and Big Daddy V), Owen Hart, the Hardy Boys, Gangrel, Edge, Christian, the Dudley Boys, Too Cool, Bradshaw, Test, Val Venis, Al Snow, Savio Vega, and the Godfather.

Early 1990’s wrestlers Kerry Von Erich, Tatanka, Ludvig Borga, Brian Lee (a.k.a. the Fake Undertaker and Chainz of DOA), King Kong Bundy, Tito Santana, and Koko B. Ware were all in the WWF during the first few years of WCW’s existence but never wound up working for the rival promotion on a full-time basis . . . though Santana did show up for a guest appearance on one episode of Monday Nitro.

Finally, though you often don’t think of female wrestlers when it comes to questions like these, very few of the WWF’s Divas ever transitioned to WCW, including perhaps the four biggest stars in the history of the divison: Chyna, Sable, Lita, and Trish Stratus. However, like Santana, Sable did have a brief cameo on one episode of Nitro, sitting, unnamed, in the audience shortly after her departure from the WWF as a promotional stunt.

My Damn Opinion

Rick has a couple of opinion questions:

When I think of first world title wins I think of Edge at New Years Revolution 2006 or Orton at SummerSlam 2004. What is your favorite first time world title win moment?

I know that it’s the stereotypical internet smark answer, but, at the time it happened, my favorite was most definitely Chris Benoit winning his first World Heavyweight Title at Wrestlemania XX. I had followed Benoit since his first appearance in WCW in the mid-1990’s, and I became a fan of his almost immediately once I laid eyes on the guy. As a result, by the time he got his Royal Rumble victory in 2004, I had been following him pretty heavily for almost ten years, and I had even gone back and picked up footage of some of his work in Japan once I figured out how somebody in the United States could do such a thing Of course, as we all know, events that have transpired since Benoit’s title victory have tainted it, and I will never be able to look at it in the same way again, nor do I think that anybody should.

How do you feel about WWE having two world champions? In some ways it’s a good thing because Guerrero and Benoit would never have held the title with one roster. However we had to go through a title reign with the Great Khali and a very long title reign with JBL who wasn’t even considered upper-midcard region less than two months earlier.

The dual championships wouldn’t bother me if the brand split was more strictly adhered to. If Raw and Smackdown really were seen as entirely separate entities and their wrestlers only mixed it up once every two to three years, the two shows would feel much more like two distinct companies and, as a result, it would make sense for them to have two separate champions. However, as things stand now, wrestlers pass back and forth between the shows whenever it is convenient, and the two title holders are the guys most likely to jump back and forth because they’re the biggest stars and therefore involved in the storylines that the company deems the most important. The whole point of having a world heavyweight champion when I was growing up was that, according to the company who was promoting him as champ, he was the single best wrestler on the planet. WWE is missing that dynamic, because they have two essentially “equal” world champions, which runs contrary to the idea of declaring that one man is the best wrestler going today. Again, this would be a completely different story if Raw and Smackdown were portrayed much more as distinct companies, as then we would have a situation that – at least in kayfabe terms – is more akin to the WWF and the NWA each having their own world champion.

A reader whose name that I have inadvertently lost, asks:

In your opinion, seeing as Stone Cold only won the King of the Ring because Triple H was eating it over the goodbye at MSG, what would have happened to the WWF or have you heard what the plans for Triple H were?

I doubt that much would have changed. Yes, Austin’s “3:16” speech after his King of the Ring victory gets a lot of credit for putting him over the top as a star, and his popularity rapidly shot up after that. However, if you watch the several months worth of WWF television prior to KOTR ’96, Austin was ALREADY on his way to that level in terms of the reactions the crowd was giving him. The man was almost destined to become what he became, though it might have taken a little bit longer if the company derailed itself for a year or so attempting to establish HHH as the next major pro wrestling star.

Luke wants to talk indy ‘rasslin:

One thing the original ECW was known for was its eclectic roster. The major stars like Raven, Sabu, Sandman, Taz, Mikey Whipwreck etc. all had unique gimmicks that made the viewer think “now that’s different”. My question is, in your opinion, are there currently any wrestlers outside of the WWE and TNA that wrestle similar styles and have successfully come up with gimmicks as unique as these? All I can think of is Jun Kasai’s ‘Crazy Monkey’ gimmick which is highly original and fits in with his risk taking/hardcore style much like Sabu’s “Arabian highlight reel” gimmick did.

There are a lot of guys in Ring of Honor who I would say fit the bill. If you’re talking about insane, over the top highspots combined with an unusual gimmick that nobody else is doing, look no further than the Briscoe Brothers. In terms of their aerial moves, they are doing many things which are just as insane as Sabu used to do, and they know how to mix it up in a straight brawl when they’re not focusing on doing spectacular flips. Plus they combine it with the perfect character for guys who just don’t give a fuck about their bodies and will take every risk in the book: THEY’RE HUGE REDNECKS~! A similar fellow, albeit one who may not necessarily be as athletically gifted, is the Necro Butcher, who has an almost Mick Foley-esque gimmick in that he’s the deathmatch wrestler who is rather well-read and well-spoken when he’s not picking himself out of beds of barbed wire and glass.

Crazy SKB

Luke has already mentioned Japan’s Jun Kasai, who I think absolutely fits the criteria that he’s looking for. However, just as hardcore and just as off the wall in terms of his gimmick is Kasai’s frequent partner in crime “Black Angel” Jaki Numazawa. Other ECW-esque characters floating around the indies include Crazy SKB and Senpai from a group called 666, with SKB being a part-time pro wrestler and a full-time front man for his own punk band and Senpai being a masked man whose gimmick is that he is a violent criminal and a drug addict. Plus there’s an entire independent wrestling promotion known as the “Fighting Ultimate Crazy Kings” – or F.U.C.K. – and a name like that should earn the entire company a mention here.

Also, how do you feel the current caliber of technical wrestlers on the indy circuit stacks up against those before them? Are the technical skills of the Bryan Danielson’s, Chris Hero’s and Mike Quackenbush’s up to par with the Chris Benoit’s, Dean Malenko’s and Eddie Guerrero’s before they made it big?

Simply put: No.

I am a huge fan of all of the current indy guys who you mentioned, don’t get me wrong. However, the Benoits, Malenkos, and Guerreros of the world were in a completely different league than anybody currently in Ring of Honor or anywhere else on the United States independent scene. The reason for it is simple: Guys from the Chris Benoit generation were significantly more experienced in the pre-“Big Three” stages of their careers than almost anybody on the independent circuit today. Even a guy like Mike Quackenbush, who technically had his first professional wrestling match in 1991, has wrestled a modern independent schedule where, for the vast majority of his career, he has been in the ring an average of two or three nights per week in front of very small crowds, and his opponents are mostly guys who are at the same level he is at as a professional wrestler or somewhat worse. Meanwhile, when you were dealing with, for example, Eddie Guerrero prior to his time in the WWF, WCW, or ECW, he was working in a combination of regional US promotions and international groups in such a way that he was able to consistently work a schedule that was closer to four, five, or even six nights a week, and, in the international big leagues, he was working that schedule in front of crowds just as big as those in the US majors and he was able to work regularly against many opponents who were themselves polished veterans with a thing or two to teach the younger wrestler.

Yes, a guy like Chris Hero will occasionally get tapped for a tour of NOAH, and Ring of Honor has progressed to the level where they at least have some limited television exposure. However, the modern Japanese scene and limited cable exposure is not enough to make up for the fact that the up and comers of the 1990’s had significantly more opportunities to learn and grow as performers than their modern counterparts, and, as a result, they were quicker to become top notch performers.

And with that answer, which will probably be enough to get Michael Bauer to hunt me down and kill me, I sign off for this week. I’ll be back in seven for the last installment of my three week run filling in for Matt Sforcina. Until then, take care of yourselves . . . and each other.