Ask 411 Wrestling 04.13.11: Austin Walks Out on WWE, New Age Outlaws, Intergender Matches, and More!

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to Ask 411 Wrestling. I am Ryan Byers, and, for those of you who missed last week’s column, your regular party host Matt Sforcina is away for the month of April, so I am here for week two of a four week fill-in stint. We had a good time seven days ago, and hopefully this week’s column is just as fun.

Your Turn, Smart Guy

Here is last week’s question:

I’m a former WWE Tag Team Champion who has had significant legal trouble but recovered to seek political office later in life. In addition to that, when I wrestled overseas, I had a ring name which I never really used in the United States that I stole from a member of the WWE Hall of Fame.

Who am I?

Unless there was a late comment that I missed, nobody got this one. The answer is “Sailor” Ed White, who held the WWF Tag Team Titles as Moondog King in 1981. The “legal trouble” line is a reference to the fact that, during his WWF Tag Title reign, he was stopped at the Canadian border and denied entry into the United States due to his (allegedly) trying to carry drugs into the country. That incident is actually what lead to his championship run coming to an end, as he was replaced in the Moondog team by Moondog Spot shortly thereafter. Despite his legal troubles, later on down the road, Sailor White ran twice for the Canadian House of Commons, though he lost both of his bids. He also wrestled under the name “Big” John Strongbow (stolen from Chief Jay Strongbow) in South Africa during the late 1970’s.

Let’s see if anybody can get this week’s question right:

I am a former ECW star who at one point had a ring name based on a legendary set of NWA World Tag Team Champions. A former TNA Knockout plays the role of my daughter in one promotion, and I have had matches against both rap stars and rock stars. Who am I?

With that, let’s get to the heart of this column . . . the questions from you guys!

Questions, Questions, Who’s Got the Questions?

STONE COLD! STONE COLD! STONE COLD! A nameless reader asks:

I know that in 2002 Stone Cold Steve Austin left the WWE because of, various things, but what led to his return in 2003? Did he finally cool down one day, or did JR call him or what?

You pretty much hit the nail on the head. When Steve Austin walked out on the company in 2002, it was because of frustration with the writing team that had been building for some time. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when they asked him to drop the fall in a match to Brock Lesnar, which was occurring on free television with no prior advertising. Austin had no problem losing to Lesnar in theory but didn’t think that the company should be giving away a match of that stature for free to hotshot a television rating when it could’ve been saved for down the road and built up significantly, at which point it would have not only drawn money but probably also meant much more for Lensar’s career than pinning Austin cold would have. For what it’s worth, I’ve long been of the opinion that Austin was completely in the right on this one.

As far as his return is concerned, it was really more a matter of time than anything else. Though Austin walked out on an episode of Monday Night Raw and refused to return to the company’s television program, he was always under contract to WWE during that period. (WWE wouldn’t release him no matter how big of a horse’s ass they thought he was being, because he would’ve been far too valuable to anybody trying to form a startup promotion in the wake of WCW’s demise.) Under those circumstances, he had no choice but to return if he wanted to do anything in professional wrestling, because he couldn’t go anywhere else. Besides, it’s not as though the blowup between the two sides was the result of some deep-seated personal issue. Vince McMahon didn’t sleep with Steve Austin’s wife. Steve Austin didn’t run over Vince’s dog with his ATV. It was just a dispute over the best way to book a pro wrestling television show, which is pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things and the type of scrape that can be smoothed over pretty quickly between professionals once they’ve had adequate time to cool down.

Mark doesn’t live up to his name. He knows what’s up:

What caused Vince’s change in mentality when it comes to calling WWF/WWE wrestling? In the 80’s throughout the 90’s commentators (including himself on many occasions) would call match ups wrestling . . . they’d also call the “WWE Superstars” wrestlers.

I know Vince always viewed his company as sport entertainment, but still utilized wrestling as a term. What caused that shift? The Attitude Era? If Vince is trying to recreate the 80’s mentality with PG storylines and characters, wouldn’t it be beneficial to treat the company like he did in the 80’s? Wrestling included?

This is a pretty loaded question, and it’s one that has picked up even more meaning since it was asked, as there are now reports that the company has mandated that the abbreviation “WWE” be used wherever possible in lieu of “World Wrestling Entertainment” and that WWE Hall of Fame inductees this year were asked to refrain from using the word “wrestling” during their acceptance speeches.

With that being said, I do not know that we can point to an exact moment where the switch flipped and the transition from “wrestling” to “entertainment” was made. However, I am fairly confident that I know the motive. I obviously do not know Vince McMahon personally, but everything that I have read about him indicates that he has for quite some time wanted to have his product accepted by the mainstream entertainment industry. (This is a mentality very much shared by Kevin Dunn, one of Vince’s number one flunkies and the top guy in the E’s television production department.) However, for whatever reason, McMahon feels that he has never been truly accepted and has been snubbed by Hollywood. The mentality is that, if you take the “wrestling” out of “professional wrestling,” it might not necessarily carry some of the stigma that pro wrestling has historically carried with it and thus the door might open for WWE to become mainstream entertainment.

Why would professional wrestling have a negative stigma, you ask? Well, it’s largely because, for whatever reason, there is persistent stereotype that our favourite pseudo-sport is viewed exclusively (or at least primarily) by the dregs of society, the unwashed masses, rednecks, whatever you want to call them. Though that stereotype is not entirely true, there is at least a kernel of truth to it, as every few years there seems to be a marketing/advertising study which confirms that wrestling viewers have a lower median income than viewers of other shows, which has always made selling advertising time during wrestling programs is always more difficult than selling advertising time on other TV shows.

As far as tying the use of the word “wrestling” in with the “PG era” is concerned, I don’t think that the two are related at all. WWE has toned down its content because they want to keep their very lucrative action figure deal with Mattel in place and because they want to keep landing major sponsors like they just did with K-Mart. It’s not motivated by a desire to make today’s wrestling more like wrestling in the 1980’s.

411mania’s own lucha expert Francisco Ramierz wants to ask me a question about puroresu:

What was the point of Hayabusa unmasking and wrestling under another name? Do you think that hurt him in any way?

First off, I should note that the angle you’re most likely referring to wasn’t really the first time that Hayabusa wrestled unmasked in Japan. From 1991 through about 1993, prior to the creation of the Hayabusa gimmick, he wrestled under his real name of Eiji Ezaki without the hood. Also, in the first several years after he adopted the Hayabusa gimmick, there were several hardcore matches in which his mask was ripped off in order to add more drama. Furthermore, there was a somewhat infamous angle in which he wrestled career rival Mr. Gannnosuke in a hair vs. mask match, with Gannosuke losing but attacking ‘Busa after the match and ripping his hood off anyway.

As far as the big transition from masked Hayabusa to unmasked Hayabusa is concerned, it all went down in 1999, with a “real life” explanation and a storyline explanation that are markedly different.

As far as the storyline was concerned, veteran wrestler Kodo Fuyuki was named head booker of the promotion in ’99, and Fuyuki had a significantly different take on how to run a company than the prior management. He was much more in favor of over-the-top, Vince Russo-esque storylines and went as far to suggest that the name of FMW be changed to World Entertainment Wrestling or WEW. (Keep in mind that this was several years before the World Wrestling Federation became World Wrestling Entertainment.) In storyline, Fuyuki was made the commissioner of FMW, and in that position he largely played a heel role. In that role, he announced that he did not want “superheroes” in his version of FMW and thus he was going to force Hayabusa to unmask and take on a new persona. The company did a month and a half long build to Hayabusa’s last match with the character, which again wound up being against Mr. Gannosuke. ‘Busa won the match but was laid out by FMW’s top heel stable afterwards, setting him up to take on a new persona upon his return, wrestling under the name “H.”

In a step to keep their feud alive, Mr. Gannosuke actually began wearing a mask and referring to himself as the new Hayabusa after H made his debut. He did whatever possible to demean Hayabusa’s legacy, including licensing the mask out to be worn by an actor in a pornographic movie.

The behind the scenes reason for the change in gimmicks was actually motivated by Eiji Ezaki himself. Ezaki had wrestled as the high-flying Hayabusa for five years, and the style was taking a toll on his body. He wanted to tone things down and wrestle more ground-based matches that caused less damage. However, he knew that fans would not accept Hayabusa without the high flying, as it was an integral part of the character. Thus, he wanted to retire the character so that he could tone things down in the ring a little bit.

After about a year of the H gimmick, Eiji Ezaki and FMW management sat down and realized that, though the fans still reacted to H, they weren’t reacting to him nearly as well as they were the original Hayabusa. As a result, the character as played by Ezaki made its return in 2000 and was kept alive until 2001, when Ezaki suffered the tragic in-ring accident that ended his career and keeps him almost completely paralyzed from the waist down to this day.

Did the change from Hayabusa to H hurt FMW’s business? It probably didn’t help, but it wasn’t the only issue . . . and, of all the issues, it was most likely a minor one given the facts that: a) Ezaki was still popular without the gimmick and b) they changed things back relatively quickly after they realized that the Hayabusa gimmick worked out better than H. The change in direction created by Fuyuki’s booking was one of the big reasons for the company’s death, as it chased off many hardcore fans and didn’t really attract new ones. A bigger problem was the failure of DirecTV in Japan. DirecTV had signed on a major sponsor of FMW and was also giving them pay per view time, but, when the company went belly up, FMW was without a lot of money that it was counting on in order to keep itself going.

Greg T. likes hot man-on-woman action:

How many inter-gender matches have there been in the WWE? With the recent influx of smaller guys, would it be believable for Divas to be able to compete for men’s titles? Will there ever a time when it could be? I admit I’d love to see an AJ Lee/Daniel Bryan match, among other interesting possibilities. It’s a whole world of stories that could be explored.

Also, is there an etiquette for competing in intergender matches? Like, do the guys have to be extra careful or do the girls feel they have to prove themselves?

Going back through every show in the history of the promotion searching for inter-gender matches is more than a little bit time consuming, so I don’t know that I’ll be able to give a 100% complete answer to your question. However, if you look back at WWE pay per views (not including mixed tag team matches), there have been ten intergender matches on PPV from the ‘E.

The matches are:

1) Marc Mero vs. Sable from Over the Edge 1998
2) Road Dogg vs. Chyna at the 1999 King of the Ring
3) Jeff Jarrett vs. Chyna at No Mercy 1999
4) Chyna vs. Chris Jericho from the 1999 Survivor Series
5) Chyna vs. Bob Holly vs. Chris Jericho from the 2000 Royal Rumble
6) Val Venis vs. Chyna from Armageddon 2000
7) Stephanie McMahon vs. Vince McMahon from No Mercy 2003
8) Chris Jericho & Christian vs. Trish Stratus & Lita at Armageddon 2003
9) Jamie Noble vs. Nidia from No Way Out 2004
10) Chavo Guerrero, Jr. vs. Jacqueline from Judgment Day 2004

As far as your second question is concerned, I don’t think that it will ever be believable for female wrestlers to compete for men’s titles in WWE on a consistent basis. Women like Kelly Kelly, Alicia Fox, and Melina look much more like models than they do legitimate athletes, and, in the ring, they hardly look like credible wrestlers against one another let alone what they would look like if you put them in against the likes of a Bryan Danielson or an Alberto Del Rio. There ARE women who can look like credible threats to the right male opponents. For an example, go look at the work of Sara Del Rey and Daizee Haze against the mostly-male and mostly-smaller tag team division of CHIKARA in 2010. However, there are two problems with that sort of act making it big in the ‘E: 1) Even the most intimidating female wrestlers would look out of place if you put them in against a guy on the scale of a Triple H or an Undertaker and 2) as noted earlier, WWE hiring women like this is the exception and not the rule.

On an “etiquette” of men working with women is concerned, I’ve heard several interviews with women who have trained in predominantly male wrestling camps. The majority of them wanted to be treated like “one of the boys,” meaning that they didn’t want any of their male counterparts to hold back on them in any way. Of course, intentionally copping a feel during the course of a match wouldn’t be tolerated, but that would also be the case during a match involving two men. (Unless, of course, the two men were Steve Lombardi and Pat Patterson.) In perhaps the most extreme example of this, it was rumored that, prior to the angle in which she was powerbombed through a table by him on Monday Night Raw in 2000, Mae Young approached Brother Ray Deadly and told him to “really lay it in” or words to that effect. Fortunately for everybody involved, Mr. Deadly ignored her.

Scott from Chicago sends in a ridiculously detailed question about the New Age Outlaws:

My first question is actually a two-parter and it pertains to the first breakup of The New Age Outlaws. I was clicking around on youtube and came across a lot of clips leading into Wrestlemania 15. One that caught my interest the most was Road Dogg winning the Intercontinental Title two weeks before WM, then afterwards Billy Gunn comes out and congratulates his partner.

2. My second question is what’s going on in the background of clips one and two above. You’ll notice that in clip one, a pair of carpenters are building something in front of the announce desk. Then in the second clip, which takes later that night you’ll notice JR sitting at a table in front of the announce table. What’s the deal with that? I think I remember JR being on hiatus for some months leading into Mania that year but what was the point of constructing a separate table in front of the announce table for him?

Regarding the situation with Billy Gunn, the Road Dogg, the Hardcore Title, and the Intercontinental Title headed into Wrestlemania XV, you’ve basically recapped things correctly as far as the storylines are concerned. As far as WHY the storylines played out the way that they did, with the Outlaws trading places in their ‘Mania title matches, your speculation is a little bit off. The explanation I have always heard is that there is really no good reason for things playing out the way that they did. Mr. Dogg and Mr. Ass won the title that the other one was going after just because it was the kind of “swerve” that a certain Mr. Vince Russo liked to book to surprise audiences, even if it made absolutely no sense based on what the company had previously built and wound up costing the company money by destroying the build to matches that fans wanted to see. That’s all it was. No political maneuverings. No changing to accommodate other plans. Just doing the opposite of what people expected for the sake of doing the opposite of what people expected. Yes, it’s as dumb as it sounds.

On question number two, Jim Ross’ separate announce table was part of a heel turn that he had undergone during the time. Just like his 1996 heel turn (which involved the fake Diesel and fake Razor Ramon), Ross became a bad guy and started lashing out at the WWF for discriminating against him because of his Bell’s palsy. He would do his own play-by-play from his own table and hire “Dr. Death” Steve Williams to act as his heavy. However, the angle dropped before it ever really lead anywhere, in large part because it involved Ross targeting Michael Cole, who had replaced him during his palsy-related absence. Just like what happens in 2011 when Cole and Ross squared off, the fans were solidly behind Ross, even though JR was supposed to be the bad guy. Fortunately, the creative team went with it and quickly restored the man in the black Resistol hat to his role as head play-by-play man for Raw.

You know, exactly like what they should be doing today.

Asking a significantly more concise question is Little Naitch:

Why did it take so long for Jerry Lawler to sign with either the WWF or WCW? Did he get offers to leave Memphis?

Jerry Lawler didn’t go to the big leagues because he didn’t have to. His Memphis wrestling territory was one of the last territories to maintain popularity in its home base, with its television program drawing higher ratings in the city than either WWF or WCW’s and with the Mid-South Coliseum drawing respectable live crowds on a weekly basis for a non-televised show well into the late 1980’s. In addition to Lawler being the promotion’s top drawing wrestler, he was also part-owner of the company (with Jeff Jarrett’s father Jerry), so he was making a handsome sum of money each year without having to go on the road. By 1993, when he finally did sign with the WWF, Memphis wrestling was still going but not nearly on the level that it was during the glory days, so the jump didn’t really occur until the King had more of a financial incentive.

Another factor which may have kept Lawler out of the WWF for several years was the fact that, in about 1987, the King sued the Fed. The WWF ran Memphis that year with Harley Race, in his “King of Wrestling” gimmick, headlining against Hulk Hogan. Lawler had trademarked the “King” name and gimmick for wrestling some time ago, and he alleged in the suit that the Fed was infringing on his intellectual property by bringing Race, an identical character, into Lawler’s home market. Not only did Lawler sue, but he also won, which could have potentially lead to some ill-will for a period of time.

Ornelas says that it’s ROH-time, folks:

What are the odds of Kevin Steen, Austin Aries, Delirious coming back to RoH shows in the near future (I know Deli is booking)?

I’m just basing this answer on my personal thoughts and not any sort of “inside” information, because, near as I can tell, none is available.

As far as Delirious is concerned, I could see him coming back to the ring for a shot or two here and there but not on a regular basis so long as he has the book. His character is obviously incredibly popular and will always generate a reaction from ROH fans, which is why I say I could still seeing him do a shot or two. Adding Delirious as a surprise wrestler, a mystery partner, or something of that nature would be an easy way to get a quick pop or buoy a card that winds up being weaker than usual due to an unforeseen injury or difficulties with travel. (A la C.M. Punk showing up for a match at ROH’s Unscripted II while he was under WWE contract.) I don’t see him doing an extended run as a character, though, just because he’s made it apparent that he does not want to wrestle and book at the same time, similar to Adam Pearce before him.

I feel like I can almost definitely say that Steen won’t come back anytime soon. Jim Cornette has a hand in ROH’s booking these days, and Steen lost a “loser leaves town” match under Cornette’s watch. Corny is a guy who sees the value in honoring stipulations more often than not, so he wouldn’t have gone along with that stipulation being added to the Steen/Generico Final Battle match unless everybody involved was fairly certain that Steen was done for a substantial period of time. I would be willing to bet that we’ve got an absolute minimum of a year before we see Steen in an ROH ring again.

Aries is probably the hardest of the lot to figure out. However, he has been featured on Dragon Gate USA shows lately, and, for the most part, the top stars of DGUSA aren’t being featured in ROH and vice versa. As such, I doubt he’ll be around until he has a falling out with Gabe and company . . . and even then it’s doubtful given that, though I don’t know specifics, it sounds like he didn’t leave Ring of Honor on the best of terms.

Darren is down in the dumps:

At Wrestlemania XIV Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie won the tag titles over the Outlaws in a dumpster match. But sometime between then and Raw the next night the titles were declared vacant for not using the right dumpster. Was there any reasoning behind this? Seems like a weird stipulation as in ladder matches for example there isn’t the designated ladder they have to climb. Or is this just a random booking decision no one can explain?

It was a random booking decision no one can explain.

On the Monday Night Raw after Wrestlemania XIV, the titles were “held up” and a steel cage match was booked between Jack & Charlie and the New Age Outlaws for the “vacant” championship. The Outlaws won the match and the belts due to the interference of D-Generation X, marking the Road Dogg and Billy Gunn’s officially joining that stable.

I don’t think there really is a sound explanation as to why the championships were vacated because you didn’t have to vacate them in order to get the same result that you reached at the end of Raw. The Outlaws could have just as easily gone into the cage match with Foley & Funk as champions and beaten them for the titles with DX’s help.

Here’s the man called Steve:

While reading an article on Bobby Heenan, I was reminded of the infamous “debate” that he had with Ken Patera on TV in the late 80’s. There was even a youtube clip of it in the article. Which brings me to my question: there is about a 60-second period where Heenan rants to Patera about Patera’s time in prison that is totally censored by the WWF (they even run a disclaimer on the bottom of the screen apologizing for Heenan’s comments). I have never seen or heard what Bobby actually said during that period of the debate, and it is impossible to read lips with the camera angles on WWF TV. Is there anywhere that the actual dialogue is known? Would Heenan really have said something that bad, knowing they were taping for TV?

This information appears to have been lost to the ages. I didn’t know off the top of my head and I didn’t turn up anything in my research aside from an unsourced comment in a column from somebody I’ve never heard of who made the claim that Heenan during the debate mentioned the name of the judge and some other individuals who were actually involved in the criminal case brought against Patera which WWF highers up later thought better of airing. However, I’ve not found anything that would corroborate that claim, so take it with a grain of salt.

Another strong possibility is that the “censoring” was done not to actually cover up something the WWF didn’t want to be heard but rather to make the angle seem like it pushed the envelope more than it actually did. The WWF had a history of doing that sort of thing during this era, as evidenced by such incidents as: 1) blurring Rick Rude’s crotch in the angle where Jake Roberts ripped his pants off, even though Rude was wearing underwear; 2) cutting away to Sean Mooney in the WWF Event Center in some versions of the angle in which Earthquake squashed Jake’s snake, even though no animals were really harmed; and 3) censoring Ron Bass bloodying up Brutus Beefcake with his spurs in what was a pretty tame bladejob by most standards.

Steve just asked about Heenan, so it seems appropriate for Dave to ask about Gorilla:

Why did Gorilla Monsoon not commentate at Summer Slam ’89, Royal Rumble ’90, Summer Slam ’90, Summer Slam ’92, and Survivor Series ’92?

He was so great with Jesse Ventura and of course with Bobby Heenan as well. Heenan still commentated but with Vince, and Tony Schiavone was the commentator at SS ’89 and RR ’90 with Jesse. Why not have Gorilla do those events? (unless he had some health problems then, which I knew he had).

There isn’t much of an explanation aside from the fact that WWF announce teams were a lot less static in those days than they are now. Though there were frequent pairings of Monsoon-Heenan and Monsoon-Ventura, the fact of the matter is that, a lot of the time, when you tuned into a particular show, you never really knew who was going to be calling the action, and the powers that be were a lot more open to trying out a less-proven commodity than Schiavone than they would be today.

I should also note that, though the person asking this question thought that Gorilla Monsoon was great, there are actually a lot of fans who despised him as a play-by-play guy. Gorilla was voted “Worst Television Announcer” in the 1985 Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards and won that “honor” again in every year between 1991 and 1995.

My Damn Opinion

Here’s Michael Ornelas with a talent question:

With both NXT and Tough Enough as ongoing WWE shows, do you think we’ll see a raid of Indy talents in RoH, CHIKARA, PWG, or any other big Indies?

No.

The fact of the matter is that all of the indy companies you just named are, for the most part, not producing wrestlers that WWE would be interested in. The E will pick up a Bryan Danielson or a Misitco here or there, but they are still primarily interested in larger than life heavyweight wrestlers, which is not what you’re going to find comprising the majority of the rosters of ROH, CHIKARA, or PWG. Don’t get me wrong, I can see the company snagging an indy guy here or there. Claudio Castagnoli and Brodie Lee would probably fit their bill, and the company did recently give a developmental deal to Dragon Gate USA’s Jon Moxley. However, in order for a true raid to occur, there would have to be numerous wrestlers on a given roster that the E would want to pick up, and I just don’t see that happening.

Plus, as we all know, WWE within the last couple of weeks issued a press release which stated that Triple H is now in charge of talent acquisition and that the company now as a philosophy of more aggressively pursuing international stars. That makes it even less likely that a large number of US independent guys will get signed, as competition for WWE roster slots is now, more than ever, global in its scope. With Europe and Japan cranking out as many large heavyweight wrestlers on a regular basis as the United States, ROH and similar companies are most likely not in WWE’s crosshairs.

Bertie gets in the obligatory fantasy booking question of the week:

As a watcher of both WWE and TNA, I often try and compare them with each other. My general feeling when watching the two, is that the TNA main event crew are basically on the same level as WWE upper midcarders.

I just had this image of Hulk Hogan leading the invasion (hopefully not as a wrestler) before siding with Vince when it turned out he’d been working for Vince since day 1 in TNA to bring the company down.

I think that an attempt at a TNA invasion of WWE would be a miserable failure. The average episode of Monday Night Raw is viewed by anywhere between four and five million people. The average episode of TNA Impact is viewed by slightly over one million people. This means that over three-quarters of WWE’s audience is not watching TNA on a regular basis and, as a result, probably does not have enough familiarity with the product in order to make them care in the slightest about the company “invading.” The other problem is that the majority of TNA’s top stars are guys who have been in WWE before, so it’s not as though there are a ton of fresh matchups that can be put on by having TNA invade. We would probably just see reruns of things that we’ve seen before, including Kurt Angle against John Cena, Randy Orton against Ken Kennedy, and Jeff Hardy against CM Punk.

There are some matches between “home grown” TNA wrestlers and members of the WWE roster that I think would be interesting, but, again, because of the differences in popularity between the two companies you would probably be better served by bringing the TNA guys in individually as new WWE characters instead of having them come in as a unified TNA army.

For example, after his matches with Danielson and Low Ki turned out to be excellent, I would love to see what Dolph Ziggler could do with other ROH alums who are kicking around TNA, like Samoa Joe or AJ Styles. I have always thought that Hernandez is a heavyweight who could make a real go of things in WWE, and I think that his style would make him a great opponent for either John Morrison or Sheamus, depending on whether Hernandez would be a heel or a face. On the women’s side of things, I would really want to see Sara “Sarita” Stock against either Nattie Neidhart or Beth Phoenix, as either of those women would be a good base for Sara’s lucha libre inspired offense, which is her biggest strength.

And that will do it for this week, ladies and gentlemen. I’ve got two more columns left in me before Matt Sforcina returns . . . so come back next week to see what’s up my sleeve!