Ask 411 Wrestling 04.27.11: Oldest World Title Matches, Raw Replays, Top Wrestling Characters, and More!

Welcome, one and all, to Ask 411 Wrestling. I am Ryan Byers, and, as those of you who read the column every week know, I have been filling in for Matt Sforcina, your regular Ask 411 author, for the last month. This is the final installment of my most recent fill-in series, so, for those of you looking to ask questions, you can now start shooting them back to Matty at [email protected]. I will forward to him what I have received but not answered thusfar, so, if you’ve sent me anything during my run, it should get answered eventually.

Here’s some follow-up on a video game question from U Can’t CLA:

You’re not 100% right about the WWE writers’ involvement in a WWE Video Game. On Davd Lagana’s (former WWE creative member) podcast he said that he was working with THQ on stolrylines for the Raw vs. Smackdown series and that he was trying to take a position with THQ before he was released from WWE and the WWE told THQ not to hire him after his release.

On a related note, I’m trying to figure out how THQ can have Hogan in a video game and Mattel cannot produce a figure of him? Did he sign a contract with THQ prior to leaving WWE? Are they allowed to use his likeness in X amount of games, or is it a yearly license?

Several people brought up the note on Lagana’s podcast, which is technically correct, though from what I understood it was really more of a side project for Lagana and still it’s not as though the entire WWE creative team sits around writing video game stories in addition to what they’re doing for television.

Regarding Hogan, what people can and cannot use him in all depends on the contracts that he signed prior to joining TNA. He couldn’t nullify those existing deals to become part of Total Nonstop Action, unless either he or TNA would be willing to cough up a ton of money in order to get the other side of the agreement to execute some form of release. I do not know whether the specific deal Hogan has is for a number of games or number of years, but I do recall that, many years ago, when Rob Van Dam first signed with the WWF, he actually appeared in one of Acclaims’ “Legends of Wrestling” games (a non-WWF property) because, prior to his contract with the Fed, he had signed a deal with Acclaim to appear in a certain number of video games due to Acclaim having previously having held the ECW video game license. At least in that situation, the deal was for a specific number of games and not a specific period of time.

That sounded dangerously like me answering one of the questions that should have been answered below, so I suppose that we need to move forward with the column.

Your Turn, Smart Guy

As always, let’s start off with last week’s question:

I have wrestled in WWE, WCW, the AWA, and ECW but never TNA. Despite working for all of these companies and despite feuding with several main event level wrestlers, I never held a major championship. One of my most memorable angles involved me being blinded, and another involved me stealing a valuable piece of property from my rival. Who am I?

This was an interesting question in that a TON of people responded and thought that I was talking about Jake “The Snake” Roberts. Here’s the thing, though: To the best of my recollection, Roberts never wrestled in the AWA. So many people were so adamant about it in their responses that I’ve started to question myself, but, in writing the question, I certainly wasn’t aware of any AWA run by the Snake.

The answer that I had in mind (which several people also got) was “Big Cat” Curtis Hughes or simply Mr. Hughes. The angle I was referring to in which he was blinded was a story in WCW in which the Junkyard Dog headbutted him and caused his trademark sunglasses to shatter into his eyes. The angle I was referring to in which he stole from his rival was a story in which he and manager Harvey Whippleman pilfered the Undertaker’s urn in the WWF.

Matt will be back for a new question for you to answer next week.

Questions, Questions, Who’s Got the Questions?

D has a short name but a long, involved question:

I have a couple questions regarding ‘wrestling style’ that i thought about after reading from the top 10 Triple H matches on contentious ten, especially how on the RAW Dec 29 2003 show is considered ‘WWE Main Event Style 101’. Also with the last ROH ppv report saying Haas & Benjamin wrestled a ‘WWE style’ match, and from Jericho’s new book, how he ‘couldn’t work a match in the WWE style’ after he jumped from WCW and was demoted to having to run ideas by X-Pac before actually executing them.

Do you feel guys like Low Ki, CM Punk, Yoshi Tatsu, or Alberto Del Rio retain their original wrestling styles before adopting ‘WWE style’ to it? Is there a difference between a ‘Triple H match’ and a ‘CM Punk match’ just based on their in-ring work?

I don’t mean to sound condescending when I say this, but I’m almost surprised that somebody who has watched a lot of professional wrestling from different countries, promotions, and eras, can’t tell that there are differences between their styles.

WWE style (“WWE main event style” is really no more different than the style anywhere else on the WWE card) has several general characteristics that set it apart from styles elsewhere. It focuses heavily on selling and storytelling, whereas many other wrestling styles focus more on cramming as many moves as possible into the time allotted to the match. Wrestlers generally rely on five or six signature moves, and the key spots in the match are almost exclusively built around the wrestlers either hitting those moves or attempting to hit those moves and having them countered. Though not true across the board, more often than not you will see a babyface getting the “shine” or dominating the offense early in the match, followed by the heel getting the heat and dominating for a while, followed by the babyface making his comeback before they go to whatever the finish will be. In longer matches, the comeback will often be made in “threes,” with the good guy first coming back a little bit and being cut off, then making a second, longer comeback and being cut off again, before making the third and final comeback which is successful if the good guy is going to be the winner of the match in the end . . . or is thwarted if he is going to lose. There are also certain moves which you are not going to see utilized in WWE rings. For example, piledrivers and similar moves which result in a wrestler being dumped on his head are only used in the rarest of circumstances, and ultra-cutting edge high flying moves are usually frowned upon.

Lucha libre tends to be on the completely opposite side of the spectrum. If you watch lucha, it is pretty obvious that wrestlers are oftentimes just doing shit for the sake of doing shit. There’s often not an overarching “story” in the match, and U.S. style selling goes completely out the window. There are no banned moves and people have a lot more free reign to do whatever they please, though luchadores tend to work “looser,” i.e. they’re not as concerned as making their strikes realistic and they don’t apply a lot of submission holds nearly as tightly as they would be north of the border. That’s not just my opinion, either. That’s what I’ve heard in interviews from several different wrestlers who have performed in both the United States and Mexico. Minus lucha’s emphasis on high flying offense, ECW’s main event style during what are widely considered to be its glory days is oddly similar, in that the matches seemed to be a more machismo-based competition to see who could do the cooler move as opposed to focusing on telling a WWE-style story with a clear beginning, middle, and end.

Japan is a little harder to peg down as a country just because there have been so many different wrestling styles there divided up between so many different companies and eras. The phrase “strong style” gets thrown around a lot to describe Japanese wrestling as a whole, but, usually, that phrase is used by Americans when they know jack about Japanese wrestling. Strong style was a term originally used to describe the New Japan Pro Wrestling style of the 1980’s and 1990’s, thought he term was later bastardized by US indy wrestlers to describe anything that involved a lot of head dropping forearming. All Japan from the late 1980’s and early 1990’s developed a main event style commonly referred to as “King’s Road,” relying primarily on longer matches that were heavily mat-based in the early portion and later moved on to heated finisher exchanges. King’s Road matches are also known for a very deep psychology, in that rival wrestlers would have a series of bouts against one another and things that occurred in their first match would often be played off of in subsequent matches so that, though the bouts were still great to those who were coming in on the middle of the story, they were excellent to those who had been watching from the beginning.

Somewhere in the middle of this all was a style popularized by New Japan’s junior heavyweights in the early and mid-1990’s. It was in some way similar to King’s Road in that it was mat based at first and built to a crescendo of over-the-top big moves, but there was a lot more high flying, and, due to some talent travelling back between Mexico and Japan, more than a bit of a lucha libre influence. Ring of Honor’s primary wrestling style, almost since its inception, has been a product of Americans trying to emulate that junior heavyweight style from NJPW.

Is there a difference between how a wrestler executes his matches after signing with WWE? If he wants to be in that company’s good graces, then there absolutely will be. If you want an example, you need to look no further than Alberto Del Rio, who spent almost ten years wrestling in Mexico under the name Dos Caras, Jr. before signing with the E. Take a look at this match of Caras Jr. and let me know whether it looks like anything Alberto would be doing in WWE:

Though he does not have a large body of WWE work yet, I would imagine that, before long, you will also be able to compare Sin Cara’s typical WWE match to the work that he did under the name Mistico and find several notable differences.

How difficult is it to transition between different styles of wrestling? That really depends on the guy. Some folks are never able to do it successfully. Others start out in one style, change to another, and actually wind up being better at the second style they try. (Del Rio is one example of this, as he was considered fairly bland in lucha but is doing very well in WWE.) There have been a handful of wrestlers who have been able to do equally well in all styles, with the most notable examples of this being Chris Benoit and Owen Hart, who worked in Japan, the United States, and Mexico and adopted each country’s dominant wrestling style with little to no difficulty.

Stand back, there’s a Hurricane Williams coming through! He wants to know about ages and title matches:

I was writing a response in the comments to Brach about my ticket experience at Lockdown 2009 at the Liacouras Center in Philly, and I thought for old time’s sake I’d re-watch the Sting vs. Foley match, which has not improved any with time btw. Anyhow, it got me thinking how Foley was just shy of 44 at the time, and Borden had just turned the big 5-0, for a total of almost 94 years of age in their match.

What is the most recent one-on-one major title match since that match or that immediately proceeds their match with as many years of age total? And secondarily, is this the oldest one-on-one match where a title actually changed hands? If we’re including ROH, I would wonder if a Jerry Lynn match sneaks in there, although I can’t think of any older opponents he would have faced during his most recent reign. Mark Calloway-Glen Jacobs comes up short even with the recent ages, and I’m not sure I can recall Flair having a WWE title match with anyone old enough to make the math work. Hogan-UT in 2002 doesn’t make it either. How far back into history must we go? Or can I brighten my dim memory of this caged encounter with some obscure historical moment?

The first match that I thought of as a possibility was the one in which Vince McMahon won the WWF Title from Triple H, though that fell short as, even though Vince McMahon was 54 at the time, HHH was only 30 years old, meaning that the combined age of 84 is still ten years shy of the Sting/Foley bout that Williams references. Jerry Lynn’s title matches in ROH don’t even come close, as, even though Lynn was in his mid-40’s while he held that championship, virtually all of his opponents were in their 20’s or very early 30’s, meaning that the totals there miss Sting and Foley’s by twenty or thirty years.

With those potential answers not having panned out, I had to do a little bit more research. The first thing that I did was put together a rough list of the oldest men that I could think of to hold a major championship. One of the first guys who came to mind was Verne Gange, who won the AWA World Heavyweight Title for the last time in 1980, when he was 54 years old. The man who he beat for the championship was Nick Bockwinkel, who, at the time of the match, would have been 45 years old. So, that gives them a combined age of 99, making the “match” five years older than the Sting-Foley Lockdown match. So, yes, there has been at least one world title match involving two men with a greater combined age, and it was even a match in which the title changed hands.

Of course, the question was whether there was an older match than Sting-Foley that took place in relatively close proximity to it. I’m open to any suggestions that readers may have, because this is an insanely difficult question to get a comprehensive answer to, but, as near as I can tell, there have not been many and the Gange/Bockwinkel match referenced above is as close as it comes.

Michael either has four different questions or one question about four different guys, depending on how you want to look at it:

1) Did Abdullah the Butcher ever receive a world title shot in a major US promotion (preferably WWF/E, NWA/WCW or AWA but I guess you could count WCCW)? I don’t recall him getting a title shot in my lifetime (I’m 37) but he’s been around forever so he may have before my time.

The records to which I have access show Abdullah receiving a shot at the NWA World Heavyweight Title on October 16, 1967 against Gene Kiniski in Vancouver, British Columbia. He got rematches against Kiniski in Vancouver and Seattle on October 30 and November 18. He resurfaced as a challenger for Dory Funk, Jr., getting title matches on July 10 and 11, 1970 in Calgary and Edmonton, respectively. (I used it right that time.) 1973 saw Abby wrestle Jack Brisco for the title twice during a tour of New Zeland, on December 4 in Christchurch and December 6 in Wellington. Brisco and Abdullah would rematch for the belt in 1976 in Augusta, Georgia on May 26 and in Atlanta on June 6 with one more match on August 16 in St. Petersburg, Florida.

The Abby title matches keep on coming! In 1976, Terry Funk put the NWA Title on the line against him in Rome, Georgia on February 26 and in Atlanta on February 27. Harley Race gave Abby a shot at the belt on November 8, 1979 in Tokyo. This appears to have been Abdullah’s last NWA World Title match.

As far as I know, Abdullah has never been in any version of what is now known as WWE to receive any sort of title match.

2) Did Kevin Sullivan ever receive a world title shot(probably limit this to NWA or WCW as those were the two affiliations he was primarily with)? I remember him feuding with the Hulkster in WCW as the faces of Fear leader but not recall if Hogan was champ at this time or, if he was, if Sullivan ever got a title shot.

Near as I can tell, Sullivan has never received a major title shot, though there is always the possibility that he did on an obscure house show somewhere along the way. I’ve seen no record of him receiving an NWA Title shot, and, though he was briefly with the WWWF, it was as more of a midcard face who would not have been in the championship mix, especially against the predominantly face champions of the era. In fact, I don’t think that Sullivan even got an ECW Title match during his run with that company in 1993 and 1994.

3) I recall Tony Atlas maybe getting a title shot during his heyday in the 80’s, probably against Bob Backlund, but can’t say for sure. Did he ever receive a world title shot? I recall perhaps him jumping to the AWA to wrestle Nick Bockwinkle for the title but I’m hazy. And I’m not counting his 90’s WCW days nor his Samba Simba days. Just the 80’s when he was “Mr. USA” Tony Atlas.

Harley Race defended the NWA World Heavyweight Title against Tony Atlas on June 30, 1978 in Charleston, South Carolina and again on October 17 in Columbia. On April 24, 1979, he got another shot against Race in Columbia and once more on June 21 in Norfolk, Virginia. August 17, 1979 saw another of the Race/Atlas title matches, taking place in Atlanta. The two continued their program on October 21 of the same year in Macon, Georgia. Atlas got five more title shots in 1980, all against Race, specifically on March 14 in Houston, April 8 in Macon, August 1 in Houston, November 27 in Atlanta, and December 28 in Columbus, Ohio. There were two Race-Atlas title bouts in 1981, both in Atlanta, with the first being on February 8 and the second on March 1. The March 1 bout was a cage match.

Tony Atlas was also a fairly regular championship opponent of Ric Flair in 1983, with four title matches against him on four consecutive shows from April 3 through April 9. He received a similar four show run of title shots against Flair from May 1 through May 5.

4) My last wrestler is Razor Ramon. Again, this pertains to him as Razor Ramon in WWE, not Scott Hall. I obviously know he was IC champ numerous times but I never recall him getting a world title shot. I do know he wrestled HBK, Diesel, Taker and Bret Hart during his stay but I recall these matches being either IC title matches or just general matches, not world title matches. Is it possible he never received a shot? Minimum, is it safe to say he never got an extended push as a title contender?

On a side not I’ve read that the reason he was never seriously viewed as a future World Champ is that the execs were too worried about his out of the ring issues, therefore giving him the big belt would be too big of a risk. But then why make him even an IC champ? Still a big title (back then at least) so wouldn’t it lessen that title also?

At the very least, Razor Ramon wrestled Bret Hart for the WWF Title at the 1993 Royal Rumble. As far as his “out of ring” issues keeping him from being a major champion is concerned, it is entirely possible. However, I do not know whether this was the case during his Razor Ramon run because, though his problems certainly didn’t develop overnight, I haven’t heard of them existing too much during his time with WWF . . . or at least they weren’t problems any bigger than what anybody else on the roster had at the time.

Here’s a question from Rachel about crossing gender lines:

I was just watching an old episode of WCW Thunder from early 2000, when Madusa was Cruiserweight Champion, and she defended the belt against Asya in an absolutely terrible match. I was wondering if this is the only time there has been an all-female match for a men’s championship.

You were watching an episode of Thunder from 2000?

I’m so sorry.

As to the actual question, I could not find another instance of a somewhat noteworthy men’s championship being wrestled for by two women. In addition to Madusa, there were two other women who held the WWE/WCW Cruiserweight Title (Daffney in WCW and Jacqueline in WWE), though they never defended it against any ladies. Of course, Chyna also had her three reigns as Intercontinental Champion, but all of her opponents during her defenses of the belt were male.

Otherwise, it is really difficult to even find an instance of a woman holding a men’s title, let alone holding it long enough to defend it against another woman. There were, of course, several instances in which women held the WWF Hardcore Title, but all of those reigns were over with in the same night they started, so there were no successful defenses at all. I even combed the title histories of some of the Japanese independents that I follow where wackier things like this would happen, and even they haven’t had too horribly many women holding their belts. The only example I could really find was Apple Miyuki of Kaientai Dojo, who held the WEW Hardcore Tag Team Titles with male K-Dojo trainee YOSHIYA . . . though their defenses were in multi-team matches that consisted primarily of men.

As always, if you’re a reader and can think of some example that I have not, feel free to write in with it.

Joshua has a price:

What was the reason behind Ted DiBiase and IRS winning the tag team titles in 1992? If you’ll recall Jimmy Hart was managing The Natural Disasters at the time. Then one day I cut on Superstars and they announce new Tag Team Champions. I was thinking it would be The Natural Disasters since they were feuding with the LOD at the time, but it turned out to be DiBiase and IRS. That seemed kind of out of the blue since I don’t even think Dibiase and IRS were a regular tag team at that point. It was explained on TV, but, behind the scenes, was there a reason? Add the fact that it happened at a house show makes me think something backstage was going on.

You are correct that the title change was sudden and that DiBiase and IRS were not a regular team at the time . . . at least not on television. They had been working the house show circuits for some time (after rumors that DiBiase was going to form a new team with Shawn Michaels didn’t pan out) but they had not yet debuted on TV. However, even before they debuted, the plan was to put DiBiase and IRS together as a team, have them do a program with the Roadwarriors, and even win the belts off of the Roadwarriors at some point prior to Wrestlemania. This is all true despite the fact that, as Joshua notes, the Warriors were in the midst of a program with the Naturdal Disasters around the time that Money Inc. would have debuted. Presumably, the idea was that the Roadies would wrap things up with Earthquake and Typhoon, move on to DiBiase and Schyster, and then ultimately drop the straps to them.

However, the plan was tossed aside pretty quickly and, instead of blowing off their program with the Disasters and moving on to one with Money Inc., the Warriors’ program with the Disasters ended prematurely and the house show title change took place with Money Inc. winning the titles in Denver.

The reason that the Natural Disasters didn’t win the titles just seems to be that it was never in the plans for them to win the titles. Instead, the WWF wanted the titles off of Hawk and Animal for some reason and, rather they putting the belts on a team that they never planned to give the belts to, they just sped up the timing of their already-existing plan to give the championship to Money Inc. What caused the company to lose faith in the Roadwarriors? I’ve not read anything definitive, but there are two things which most likely contributed. The first is that LOD’s WWF contracts were set to expire in June 1992, and there were fairly well-founded reports that they were looking into the possibility of jumping ship back to WCW or one of the major Japanese promotions. Also, this was right around the time that the WWF had started drug testing, and word on the street was that Roadwarrior Hawk was a very vocal opponent of the new testing regime. (Shocking, I know.) Those factors no doubt combined to lead to the Fed souring on at least Hawk, if not both Hawk and Animal.

A different Josh (I think, anyway) wants to get tough:

Ever since it’s been announced that Stone Cold is hosting the new Tough Enough, I’ve found it IMPOSSIBLE to find clips of when he and Debra showed up during one of the original TE seasons at the Tough Enough house where he rang the bell and few times and nobody answered and so on and so forth. Can you provide a link or post the video or at least tell me where I can find it?

You’re talking about the very first season of Tough Enough from 2001. That entire season was released on DVD by MTV and the WWF and, though it is probably no longer in print, a quick search on eBay reveals many people who are selling used copies. There was also a “Behind Tough Enough” DVD/VHS released for that season containing highlights of the show, which I would imagine has to include the Austin stuff. That’s probably the best place to find the footage you’re looking for.

Michael wants to talk ‘Taker:

Just wondering what the build-up was to the Undertaker’s debut as a mystery team member for the ’91 Survivor Series. His style didn’t exactly jive with what you’d expect the Million Dollar Man to go after (of course, Brother Love never made sense to me as a manager for him, either). Were there any hints as to the identity in the lead up to the event? Was there any speculation that it might be the debut of someone else?

There really wasn’t a build-up, and, to the best of my knowledge, there weren’t any hints that the mystery man would be anybody in particular. It was a simpler time, one in which every heel was friends with virtually every other heel and every face was friends with virtually other face. As a result, it made perfect sense for a brand new heel, no matter who he was, to team up with a group of completely random other heels. The idea was never for DiBiase and Undertaker to have any sort of long or short term alliance . . . it was just an opportunity to get ‘Taker as a new character into a prominent match early on to put some steam behind him.

Since we just did ‘Taker, here’s a question about his WMXXVII opponent from Ken:

What exactly was the rationale behind the phantom HHH/Jericho title switch on Raw all those years ago? You know the one, where Hebner supposedly “screwed” Hunter by fast counting the pin. Now, I understand they were looking for a reason to fire Hebner on camera, but why put the belt on Jericho only to take it away so quickly? Were they trying to gauge what the crowd reaction would be to a Jericho title win? And, if so, the crowd exploded, so why was there no logical follow-up with Jericho “officially” taking the title off Triple H?

The answer is, as usual, the simplest one. They wanted to do the angle in order to put heat on Triple H by having him screw over a face that everybody loved. Jericho was a face that everybody loved, which is why the crowd exploded when he won the belt. It had nothing to do, as far as I am aware, with Jericho himself. It was an angle designed to make HHH all the more hated, with the idea being that it would add steam to whoever eventually did beat him for the championship and keep it.

If you miss this Jon from the Illidelph question, you can read it again in a couple of days:

With Raw’s number down significantly since the Attitude/Monday Night Wars era, do you think it is hurt by all the replays you can see during the week? During the Monday night wars, any true wrestling fan knew you could watch Raw Live, then watch the late night replay of Nitro afterwards because you knew aside from recap shows, Monday was the only time you could catch Raw. Now you can see it replayed on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Do you think that is overkill?

I do not think that there is any connection whatsoever between the number of replays of Monday Night Raw and its ratings. In fact, I would be willing to bet that, if you polled a random sample of pro wrestling fans, the vast majority of them wouldn’t even know that there are that many replays of Raw available. Hell, I write for this website, which indicates that I’m a pretty hardcore fan, and, aside from one weekend airing of “AM Raw” I had no clue that there were any Raw replays until I read this question.

Besides, throughout history, the “eliminate the replay” strategy has almost never increased a wrestling show’s ratings. When TNT did eventually get rid of the Monday Nitro replay during the wars, the rating of the main show didn’t go up. Adding or subtracting replays of TNA Impact didn’t help or hinder the pathetic efforts of TNA to go head-to-head with Monday Night Raw last year. Generally speaking people are going to watch or at least DVR the first showing or they’re going to miss the show, and, for 99% of people, the replays are something to watch if they’re channel surfing and catch it, not something that exists as “appointment television” as the first airing does.

Little Naitch is slithering right along:

I’m a Jake Roberts fan (who isn’t?) and I remember him getting into a lot of DQ finishes regardless of being face or heel or winning or losing. Who would you consider (without checking the annuls of course) was involved in the most DQ finishes?

Thank you, thank you, thank you for making it clear that you don’t want me to “check the annuls,” because that makes this question a thousand times easier to answer . . . i.e. I can now pretty well just make an educated guess instead of doing statistical analysis.

I would guess that anybody who has done a “wild man” style gimmick is probably going to be close to the top of the list. Specifically, I’m thinking of men like Abdullah the Butcher and Bruiser Brody, who would have a lot of wild, brawling matches that would break down and result in one or more of the competitors getting disqualified. There is also a possibility that Ric Flair would rank close to the top of the list, not because he was a wild man but rather because during his time as a touring NWA Champion he had to be in a lot of situations where he could lose a match to a local babyface without having to drop the championship to him.

Readers, feel free to make your own suggestions about who else could be near the top of the list.

Here’s Greg T.:

What is the reasoning for minimizing play-by-play and not calling certain moves by name? How does it help the wrestlers? I would figure that by calling moves by their proper names, the wrestlers would be put over as more knowledgeable and seasoned, not to mention that kids love cool-sounding stuff. I don’t think kids are any more likely to mimic what they see if there’s a name attached to a move, and I don’t see how it would make the show look any more sport-like. Not calling moves seems (to me) like the training and personality of any given performer on the roster is ignored in favor of… what, exactly? More time to shill PPVs and merch, I suppose?

I have always thought that pro wrestling announcers calling moves is horribly overrated. I’ve had more than one person try to tell me that Jim Ross is a bad announcer because he doesn’t necessarily know the proper name for a fancy hold, and those people are out of their minds. Truly good announcers are people who can put over the storyline and emotion of a match, not people who can nerdily dissect all of the miniscule differences between a Stroke and a Skullcrushing Finale.

Does it have something to do with selling pay per views and merchandise? Yes, it does, and, to paraphrase Diamond Dallas Page, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. Pro wrestling is a business, and the whole point of a pro wrestling television show is to get you to buy whatever they promotion is attempting to sell. (Unless the show is TNA Impact, in which case the point seems to be to do whatever possible to keep you from buying whatever the promotion is trying to sell.) A lead play-by-play announcer’s primary job is to be the company’s number one salesperson, telling you exactly why you should care about a storyline or a character and why you should plunk down your hard earned money to see a particular story play out or to watch a particular character accomplish his or her goals. Knowing the difference between a sidewalk slam and a spinebuster is a nice bit of icing on the cake, but, quite frankly, it’s much further down on the priority list.

My Damn Opinion

Samantha sent in this question with a lengthy introducing praising Matt Sforcina and how much she enjoys reading his opinions. Unfortunately for her, Matt sent this question to me to be answered:

I’d like your top 10-20 (or more if you so feel) list of the best characters over the years. I started watching wrestling because of my brother, but it was always the characters, not the actual wrestling, that drew me in. Sue me, I’m a chick.

Scott Steiner (2000-2001) – I know many, many, many people despised Steiner during this time, but for me, this was Steiner at his best. Sure, he was roided out of his mind, but man I was entertained by him. Had he retired after WCW closed, I would likely have remembered him much more fondly these days, but such is life.

I’m afraid that my answers are going to be fairly stereotypical and bland, for the most part. I honestly believe that the top four characters in professional wrestling’s modern era are, without a doubt, Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, the Rock, and Stone Cold Steve Austin. All four were incredibly compelling when they got into their groove, and they drove millions of fans to the box office and created countless “mark out” moments for yours truly. I am a particularly big fan of Flair in his prime, as he had a certain panache that nobody else in wrestling has replicated, either before or since.

In a tier just below those guys, I classify characters like Roddy Piper, Dusty Rhodes, and Randy Savage. They all gave off an undeniable superstar aura that has fans from their heyday still reminiscing about what used to be, though they were missing a little something which kept them from being at the same level as the top four listed above.

Rounding out my top ten would be Chris Jericho and Terry Funk. Jericho has had a variety of personas over the years, and I have supreme respect for the fact that he has been able to play them so well and create logical transitions between characters that, if you stack them up side-by-side, are very much different from one another. Terry Funk has also evolved significantly over the years, which is a necessity given how long he has been around. There is one constant over the years, though: He is one of those wrestlers who, when he walks into a room, exudes everything necessary to convince you that he’s a tough, crazy bastard, even though he is currently north of sixty-five years old.

So, there’s your top ten: Flair, Hogan, Rock, Austin, Piper, Rhodes, Savage, Jericho, and Funk. I’ve liked a ton of wrestling characters over the years (as evidenced by the fact that I’ve watched it for as long as I have) and I could talk about them for pages, but those ten are the best.

David cares about Cara:

What long-term plan do you see in WWE recruiting Sin Cara/Mistico?

Enough of my opinion. What’s your take?

I think that you’ve hit the nail squarely on the head. Misterio’s days in wrestling are numbered, and there is something pretty suspicious about bringing in another luchadore with a colorful mask and attire that is being heavily marketed at just about the same time that Rey Rey may be winding down. Even if he’s not necessarily going to be a replacement for Misterio, he is certainly somebody who has been brought in with the idea that he’s going to do a program with Misterio based on the similarities between their looks and in-ring styles.

And, with that, my most recent run on Ask 411 Wrestling will come to an end. It’s been a fun time, and I thank all of you who have contributed questions and comments. The column will return in seven days, with Matt Sforcina back in the driver’s seat.