Ask 411 Wrestling 10.25.06: Randy Savage is Crazy, DX Invades WCW, Toronto does the Wave, and more!

Errors…yeah, they happen sometimes. Damn it.

First, we need to get to all the stories about crowd plants that I forgot to include last week…one of the more popular ones that I’d forgotten about was the late, great John Tenta.

“Earthquake was a good plant, Dino Bravo was feuding with Warrior, and they were doing push ups with him on their backs, and thats when Earthquake attacked Warrior.” – Paul

“Glad you’re picking up the Ask 411 duties…it’s something I always look forward to catching on the site. In your inaugural edition, you talked about wrestlers being “plants” in the audience; here’s one for you. Back in 1989, the Ultimate Warrior and Dino Bravo were feuding; Warrior was IC Champ, and I believe the two were gearing up for a match at a SNME or The Main Event, possibly a cage match. Dino was known as “Canada’s Strongest Man”, and of course the Warrior had superhuman strength as well; so, to prove who was stronger, they pulled the fattest guy they could find out of the audience to sit on their back while they did push-ups. This guy, introducing himself as “John”, was none other than…Earthquake. P.S. By the way, Dino failed to do a single push-up, while Warrior did several. Of course.” – John

“I wanted to let you know that John Tenta came out as a crowd plant against the Ultimate Warrior (it was a Jimmy Hart set-up from what I remember)..” – Lester Romero

“Hey, just finished reading the ask 411 this week and noticed the plant section
and thought Id share a recent plant spotting. I was watching wm 18 on dvd a few
months ago and saw a really interesting plant that I had completly forgotten
about. During the Undertaker vs Ric Flair video recap we are reminded of the
time Flair chased after Taker and punched at him but missed and hit a fan. A
few seconds later we see the part where the fan is pointing at flair and says
yeah that is the guy who hit me to some cops. Well it is only for a split
second that you see his face but if you look closely you will notice that “fan”
is one half of the current tag team champions on smackdown, Paul London.

Just thought Id toss that in for anyone who likes spotting random stuff.” – A.G. Awesome

Now that one I hadn’t heard of before, and I’m a pretty big London mark. Good stuff.

In reference to where I stated that I’d heard of Jeremy Borash leading crowd chants…

“There is a small part of Borash doing that. During the 30minute Iron Man match between AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels(Back when Daniels first won it) it shows him playing to each side of the arena. when the audience was chanting “Fallen Angel” and “Let’s go AJ” – John Bryant

Here’s something added on the “Berzerker” issue from 2 weeks ago…

“Just wanted to let you know, in response to the question about the old WWF character the viking/berzerker, that a berzerker is a type of warhammer, or battle axe, used by the vikings during battle. its the oversized axe you often see in artwork of them. Just a lil something to add there.” Jason Runion

I did not know that. You learn something new every day. If you don’t, you’re not really living.

On Backlund “losing” the title to Inoki…

“As I understand it the reason Inoki refused the title is because he realised (after he had won) that his manager (whose name I can’t remember) had cheated. He hit Backlund with a cane or some such.

As a man of honour Antonio Inoki could not accept the belt under those circumstances and the title was vacated. They had a rematch a couple of weeks later and Backlund won that time.” – Gareth Smith

Ah, Gareth…reminds me of Gareth on the British version of The Office. Brilliant show. We have a conflicting account though…

“Anyway, in your last article you said that when Inoki won the belt from Backlund that Inoki “did not want to accept the championship.” I actually have this match (and the rematch where Backlund wins the belt back) and Inoki definitely acts happy when he gets the WWWF Belt. About 9 days later the two have a rematch and another wrestler, Tiger Jeet Singh, interferes. This distraction is enough for Backlund to get the pin, and despite what some other sites say about the title being held up, Backlund leaves the ring with the belt. The controversy in this case comes from the fact that because of the interference the WWWF President offers to reverse the decision, but Inoki has far too much pride and honor to re-accept a championship that he feels he lost. As for the interference by Singh itself, it is about as minimal as it can get (especially by today’s standards). The situation worked well for the WWWF in Japan because it put both Inoki and Backlund over and it allowed Inoki to save face by doing the honorable thing and not taking a cheap victory. As a bit of an aside: for me, the fact that Backlund leaves the ring with the belt, and the fact that Inoki refused to accept a reversed decision completely negates the idea that the title was ever actually held up, and the idea that Backlund “won” the held up title from Bobby Duncum.” – John-Peter

Having not seen the match, I can’t say for sure who’s right here. If we could get something from a fan who was there…heh, like anybody reads this in Japan.

Here’s some info on what Bob Backlund is doing these days, this from somebody from his hometown…

“Not to be annoying, but I actually see Backlund quite frequently being a resident of his hometown, and he is actually involved in real estate at the moment. Just wanted to point that out.” – Joshua Kronick

Nah, good info like that isn’t annoying. I like getting stuff like that from you guys, it keeps me on my toes. I might know some things, but I don’t know everything.

In a strange note, Kurt Angle actually addressed one of the topics that came up last week that I wasn’t all that sure about. While appearing on the Bubba the Love Sponge radio show, he said that Hulk Hogan was the one who came up with the finish of tapping out to his ankle lock at King of the Ring 2002. Thanks to everybody who sent that in to me…I don’t usually read recaps of Bubba The Love Sponge so I found out from you guys.

Another Hogan job to Lex Luger’s torture rack happened in a house show in Boston just before the title change on Monday Nitro, thanks to Chris Ryan for sending that one in.

We had some additional reasons sent in for Hogan’s matches being in the middle of shows…

“Actually, you got half of the story. While Hogan did wrestle two cards in one night occassionally (One famous instance being Hogan-Orndorff, at the height of their feud, wrestling first in Nassau, as the third match, then in Chicago, first after intermission.), the main reason for Hogan matches not being the main event was so Vince could announce a rematch, usually with a stip, for the next card, during intermission. Source: Bobby Heenan’s autobiography.” – Kerry B.

“First of all, I love the site, especially the ASK 411 section. I used to attend a ton of the MSG shows from 1982-1990 and I think I know why the Main event as usually held in the middle of the card.

Having the main event mid card let the WWF announce the next month’s matches before the night was over. Howard Finkel would always address the crowd before the last match of the night and state when the next month’s MSG matches would be. This was in the days before ticketmaster online and Finkel would announce that tickets for the next card would go on sale after the last match of the night. So in August of 1983 Snuka/Muraco wrestle to a double count out mid card and then the Fink gets on the mic just before the last match, which was usually a six man tag match or something, and announces the next card for October and the main event is Snuka/Muraco in a steel cage. The place went nuts and the MSG was buzzing. My buds and I got our tickets that same night as did a ton of other people. Other nights it was a Backlund or a Hogan return bout, so you get the idea.” – Matt O’Brien

“Someone asked about the reasoning of having the main event in the middle
of the card and I thought I would share some info. This was a common
practice all the way up to the mid to late 90’s, the primary reason was
because most fans left the show early to beat the traffic rush on the way
home. Mick Foley tells a story in his first book about seeing wrestling
with his dad that is a humorous take on this.” – Charles

“Regarding your answer to why in the 80’s Hogan would defend his title in the middle of the card, none of your answers were on the mark. In a place like Toronto (where I went to the matches) there would be a show once a month. If Hogan was wrestling and also slated to return the next month his match would be in the middle of the card. Why? Because after the successful title defense there would be an intermission and they would promote next month’s card with Hogan defending the title against insert name here. It would be hard to announce his next title defense if he hadn’t already defended the title that night. On shows where Hogan wasn’t coming back the next month the title bout would be at the end of the card. It’s all about promotion my boy!” – Andrew Hotchkies

“Shawn Michaels said in his book that the reason
Hogan’s matches were on in the middle of house shows,
was because Hogan wanted to be back to his hotel
before they would stop serving food, so that he could
eat. The Rockers got to be the last match at several
house shows because of this.” – John

“I remember reading somewhere that Vince McMahon, Sr., would regularly have the main event in the middle of the card at MSG for a good reason: to sell tickets.

In the main event (usually a title match), some kind of shenanigans would go on, and the good guy would either get cheated out of the title or a clean win. He would then threaten to get revenge at the next card. Immediately after the match, the lights would come up. The announcer would get in the ring to let everyone know it was intermission time, and luckily enough for everyone who just saw what happened in the ring, tickets for the next show are now on sale at the ticket office.

If a match was the blowoff to a feud (usually a cage match), it would end the card. Otherwise, it would be in the middle.” – 411’s Ron Gamble

Ronny boy, you know as well as I do what’s gonna happen on New Year’s Eve…and it’s not gonna be pretty for your Stillers. WHO-DEY~!

Here’s something I found interesting concerning Jim Neidhart’s tenure with WCW…

“I just wanted to post a little extra tidbit of information to..
” Well, my question is, did Jim Neidhart ever do anything of note during his WCW run(s)? In hindsight I’m surprised they didn’t stage a WCW incarnation of The Hart Foundation (Bret, Anvil, Bulldog, Jimmy Hart), ok they had obviously brought Bret Hart in as a singles star, but Anvil and Bulldog could have made good ‘Horsemen-style’ enforcers for the champion. Just a thought…”

Well unless my memory has decided to play a cruel trick on me,
Bulldog (and Anvil) jumped over to WCW pretty shortly after the Survivor Series
under protest over what had happend to bret..

now thats not the interesting thing..

the interesting thing was that Vince let them out of whatever deals they had
with the then WWF with no real arguement but with pretty much only one term..
you can’t reform the Hart Foundation in any fashion with Bret in WcW..

that was the only value Vince saw with Bulldog & Anvil so by restricting that,
as part of there release he did’nt care what they did…

thus killing a Hart Foundation reformation..

Sucks Eh ?
who else here would have loved to see those three team up with a young Benoit
and / or Jericho in WcW ?” – James

Well that would explain why Bulldog & Anvil weren’t associated with Bret in WCW…and why WCW had nothing to do with them.

“Just a few notes throughout.

The Bob Backlund title run has a little more to it
that Inoki simply not wanting the title. As it goes,
Inoki defeated Backlund in 1979 and held the title a
good week or so (possibly without defending it) before
dropping it back to Backlund following outside
interference (Tiger Jeet Singh comes to mind here but
don’t hold me to that). Backlunds win was overuled and
the belt awarded back to Inoki but it was at this
point he said he didn’t want the belt so the title was
declared vacant and Backlund won it in a one off match
against Bobby Duncum.

Further more, in 1981 the belt was declared vacant
again after a controversial match against Greg
Valentine, and Backlund duly won the rematch to win
back the title for a third (fourth if you count the
win over Inoki… I wouldn’t) reign.

Buzz Sawyer – yes he DID work in the WWE (WWF/WWWF) at
one point. God knows what he did, but I remember
reading a piece in WWF magazine about twelve years
ago, give or take, I can’t remember who the article
was about but it was about some guy whom the article
was suggesting might be a one hit wonder that was all
hype and no delivery, during which they listed a few
past examples in the WWF, one of which was Buzz
Sawyer.

Jim Neidhart I remember jobbing to someone on Nitro in
about twenty seconds, possibly Scott Norton. I only
remember because that entire show got a lot of bad
press for being a three hour Nitro with literally
about twenty minutes wrestling, this match being the
worst example of the lot.

Finally there were two more examples that come to mind
of Davey Boy Smith winning tag matches over Shawn
Michaels and in these instances, he got the pin both
times. Sadly for him, neither was over Shawn, but none
the less – first was in 1996 just before the Survivor
Series when he and Owen defeated Shawn and Sid, the
other was in 1995 when he, Owen and Yokozuna defeated
Shawn, Diesel and someone else (logic suggests Bam
Bam, but I can’t remember for certain) with the
Bulldog getting the pin on Diesel.” – Chris Page

“-My understanding of the Backlund-Inoki situation was that there was some kind of misunderstanding as to how the WWF Title situation would play out during Backlund’s trip to Japan in 1979, or that they had purposely made it confusing to intentionally create two results: a)Backlund would return to the US with the title and b)Inoki would remain strong and would have a claim to the title for a later return to Japan by Backlund or whoever held the title at the time.

Both sides were satisfied because as I recall, Backlund never got his win back from Inoki, the rematch was a DQ finish or something of that nature. The title was still technically vacant for almost a month before Backlund regained the held-up title by beating Bobby Duncum, Sr back in the US some weeks later. The fans in the US were, of course, mostly in the dark about the whole thing.

I remember that there was also some controversy after a match with Greg Valentine which resulted in the title being held up again, which would be the second break in Backlund’s run as champion. That one I seem to recall was rectified much more quickly, though you probably have more details on that one and would probably be very happy to fill in the unwashed masses on the cirumstances surrounding that one. The point is, however, that Bob Backlund certainly did not have one continuous six year reign as the World Champion.

-Lex Luger actually made Hogan submit to the Torture Rack a bunch of times throughout 1997, the series of wins was what got Luger the title shot five days before Road Wild, where he would lose the title back to Hogan. And I don’t know if this would count as a submission, but Piper put Hogan out with the sleeperhold at Starrcade 1996 and also at Halloween Havoc 1997. And though the circumstances were very suspect, Sting did officially score a submission win over Hogan at Starrcade 1997. Other than that, unless something happened overseas that I’m not aware of, only Lex Luger, Sting, Roddy Piper, Kurt Angle, and Brock Lesnar have scored official submission victories over Hogan since the birth of Hulkamania.” – Stuart Carapola

“Good shit so far. As far as time limits, I remember a few KOTR matches in the 90’s that had time limit draws, like Luger vs Tatanka in ’93 (good thing we DIDNT get 5 mroe mins.), and also HBK vs Kama (of all people), which is the year Mabel won, I think. And TV Title matches in WCW during the 90’s frequently went the distance (although they were only 15 minutes), mostly during the reign of Lord Steven Regal, and yes Earl Robert of Eaton was funny too. And if Im not mistaken, ECW had a few time limit draws during their dying days.

Squeege and scissor incidents were funny, but what about Sid sticking a fuckin squirrel in his pants! Fuckin goofball…

Oh God, I’d forgotten all about that one…Sid was a weird dude.

Buff Bagwell DID suck…but I remember seeing him in some soft core porn on Cinemax when I was like 14, true story…

So Rock vs Booker doesnt count as two African-Americans for the WCW title? So what if Rock’s half Samoan?

Bob Backlund’s most entertaining moment to me was when he tried to give Diesel a handshake in ’95 after beating Bret for the title as Surivor Series, and Nash simply kicked him in the gut and Jacknifed him for the title!

Tranquilizer gun incident was definitely not great, but hey, we’ve seen worse. This was when Angle had Reigns and Jindrak with him right?

Yes…Haas & Benjamin they weren’t.

Finally, yes Lita can prolly suck a mean dick, WCW: Revenge was the shit, as well as WM: 2000 and No Mercy, and WWE 24/7 Online has some good shit for only $4 a month! I’ve been a member for the last 6 months and it’s really worth it. I mean, just imagine drinking a 40 oz, eating a sandwich, and watching classic moments such as the Rick Steiner/Chucky incident, the Hogan/Giant monster truck challenge, or the reuninon of the Horsemen after the Benoit/Kevin Sullivan match in ’96, where the crowd EXPLODES as Benoit and Double A stomp the shit out of the Taskmaster! I mean, they dont have all the classic shit that u’d want, but the Benoit and Angle and Rock libraries are enough on their own to justify the $4 a month. I’m out..~” – Rusty Nails

OK, the big topic of discussion last week was the issue of two African-American wrestlers fighting in a main event for a world championship. Lots of people wrote in about it…basically, the main argument was that The Rock vs. Booker T was the main event of SummerSlam 2001. Looking back, I probably should have mentioned it in my answer, but I kinda look at it like David Brent of the British version of The Office does. (Yeah, I’ve been watching the DVDs of that lately…is it that obvious?) Rocky’s part African-American, but he’s also part Samoan. He’s not just one or the other, he’s both, so you can’t just refer to him as one of them. That’s the way I see it, but I understand where everybody who wrote in was coming from, even Sforcina. But the Fan Forumers think he’s a racist, so I’m not sure what to believe.

OK, time for this week’s questions! Like I said before, this is the last of the questions intended for Chris Clarke…next week it’s all about me. And you. It’s always about you. Charles Rich has a question about Hulk Hogan’s return to the WWF in 1984…

“My question is this, we all know that Hogan beat the Iron Shiek for the title but my question is, what was the lead up like? Was Hogan the underdog or was he considered a legitimate champion at that point? Who were the other major faces at that point in the fed and how did Hogan progress to that point after jumping from the AWA? Did he get pushed quick and hard or did he ever have to deal with midcard status? Thanks a lot.”

Hogan was brought into the WWF in late 1983, and had two appearances on WWF shows before his match with Iron Sheik. He made his return on an episode of Championship Wrestling in Allentown, PA on January 3, 1984, helping Bob Backlund against the Samoans and Captain Lou Albano. Backlund put Hogan over in an interview afterwards, establishing Hogan as a top babyface. Later at that taping they teamed to defeat Mr. Fuji and Tiger Chung Lee. He also appeared in St. Louis for a Wrestling at the Chase taping on January 16 to do a squash match. So yeah, none of that mid-card stuff. Hogan had been a top babyface in the AWA and had a role in Rocky III that got him over with more causal wrestling fans, so it didn’t take much for him to be established as a top contender. Other top babyfaces beside Hogan & Backlund would have included guys like Jimmy Snuka, Andre the Giant and the team of Tony Atlas & Rocky Johnson.

Thanks to hoganresults.com for helping me with that one…you can find the result of any Hulk Hogan match there ever was by looking at that website. LJH has 2 questions, so we’ll take them one at a time.

“Ok I have a 2 part question,
I was just watching old wrestlemania DVDs this weekend and in Wrestlemania 8, the WWE championship between Savage and Flair was like half way through the show and not on last, what was on last was the terrible Hogan vs Sid match. Question is WHY?”

The Hogan vs. Sid match was billed as Hulk’s “retirement match”. Yeah, I know. But due to Hogan going away for awhile and nobody knowing when exactly he would return, WWF wanted to have him go out in the main event, which I can’t really blame them for. They also expected Sid to be one of their top stars in the future…it happened briefly in 1996-97, but it wasn’t to be in this run with the company. Savage vs. Flair went on in the middle of the show because they were doing a title change and expected the match to be really good, and knew that the fans would probably be spent afterwards. When you have at least two matches that can be seen as main event quality, it’s a good idea not to put them back to back, because the fans will often be too spent from the first one to really enjoy the second one. So they put 3 matches in-between Savage/Flair & Hogan/Sid so the fans could cool down a little before the second main event.

“Second on the topic of Savage, he won the title at 2 different Wrestlemania’s and was in my opinion the best wrestler of the time, so why does Hogan get begged to come back every chance they can get him, yet Savage’s legacy seems to have been pissed on big time.”

There have been lots of rumors surrounding Randy Savage and why he hasn’t been invited back to WWE. I really don’t want to address a lot of them, so the best way to answer this is that Savage is a little crazy. Just ask TNA…they brought him in during late 2004 and it was pretty much a complete disaster due to Savage demanding too much creative control, not showing up for TV tapings that he was supposed to, and demanding way too much money to show up. Not to mention the whole incident with Hulk Hogan, who showed up to watch a TNA PPV…Savage claimed that since Hogan was there it was an unsafe working environmend, and then he had TNA pay Brian Adams to serve as a bodyguard and keep him safe…from Jimmy Hart. Yeah. Basically, I don’t think WWE wants to deal with him the way he is right now. The pity of it all is that the last 10 years or so of Savage’s career has taken away from the fact that he was one of the best wrestlers of the 1980s and one of the top draws in the WWF when he was there.

Kevin S. has a question about Japanese wrestling…

“I have a question regarding Japanese wrestling and booking. You guys seem to be in the know when it comes to the behind the scenes stuff for WWE, TNA, etc, but I see comments about being surprised, shocked, and upset wins when it comes to wins in Japan. My question is, do they book differently in Japan, are matches decided differently, are we just less in the know about the happenings behind the scenes in the Japanese promotions?”

A little bit of both, I’d think. Puroseu is a different beast from American wrestling…the closest thing to American wrestling you’d see over there is the HUSTLE promotion. Japanese audiences expect different things out of wrestlers than American wrestlers do, so wrestlers that don’t do well here can excell there, and vice versa. As far as 411 goes, we don’t do a lot of reporting on Japanese wrestling…we have some puro nuts like Ryan Mancuso who review the shows, but for most of us it’s not as accessible as American wrestling is. And certainly the backstage business isn’t as accessible as it is here in America…so there are times when they’ll book stuff and we’ll go “WTF?” because we don’t know what happened to lead up to it. If Japanese stuff was easier to be had we’d be more in touch with it, but it isn’t, so most of us are clueless.

Next is Rob Grayson with a question about Low Ki…

“I have a question about something me and a friend were wondering. We were looking through the Ring of Honor homepage looking for potential DVDs to order, and we noticed there was no “Best of Low Ki” and this surprised us. I know he was their first champion and has plenty of decent matches, so why doesn’t he warrant a Best of DVD?

I know of why he eventually left the company after the Feinstein incident, but does that prevent there from being any DVDs with Low Ki on them?”

Good question, Rob. Ki is part of “The Best of the Rottweilers” tape, but doesn’t have one of his own. The main reason for this is probably that Low Ki is notoriously tough to do business with, and ROH has had disputes with him in the past. I remember seeing him selling his own merchandise outside the Montgomery County Fairgrounds…apparently he did this because he didn’t want ROH taking money out of his pocket by taking a share of the funds. I imagine there would be a similar problem in trying to make a Best of Low Ki DVD.

Ron asks about everybody’s favorite wrestler…

“I was hoping you could clarify the whole Kanyon is gay thing. I have heard that Chris Klucsarits is not actually gay but the character of Kanyon is. Thanks for your help.”

From all recent accounts Kanyon and the man behind the Kanyon gimmick are gay. However, it should be noted that at one point Kanyon was banging ring rats according to Jim Mitchell, so he was either straight or bi-sexual when he was working in WCW as Mortis. Honestly, I don’t think anybody has proof at this point that Kanyon isn’t gay right now, the issue of dispute is whether or not that is why he was fired from WWE.

The real HBK asks about Bob Holly and a long-forgotten WWF Diva…

“I always heard rumors about Bob Holly and Barbra Bush or as some people remember as the EMT with the huge chest from 6 years ago. What exactly happend between the two or was there a third party?”

B.B. (or Kathy Dingman) dated Hardcore Holly while he was married, which caused her to be fired by WWE…you could ask why she was fired and Holly wasn’t because it takes two to tango and I’d have no good answer for that other than “women are evil”. Holly eventually got a divorce due to this affair, but it must have ended because according to OWW Holly is currently married to somebody named Sandra.

David Horadan has a question about HBK’s status as a Grand Slam Champion…

“Got a question on HBK. During the last year of his 90’s run before he had to bow out for 4 years because of back injuries and during the first few months of his come back Shawn was referred to as the “Grand Slam” Champion. He had done it all. IC Title, WWE Title, Tag Team Title, European Title, Royal Rumble Winner. Every honor in WWE at the time he had achieved. My question I always had was “Where is his King of the Ring tournament win?”. Remember they were calling him this back in ’97 when the KOTR was still active and well hyped. So my question is Did the commentators and all that overlook his lack of a KOTR win so they could push him as “Grand Slam” or was this maybe a subtle attempt to bury the tournament years before it was ended as a PPV thing? I’m sorry King Booker so does not count. – David Horadan

The King of the Ring was a prestigious award, but since it wasn’t actually a title belt and defended outside of the tournament, it wasn’t a title similar to the WWF, IC, European and Tag Team titles. I don’t think they were trying to bury the tournament by not including it in the Grand Slam…it was just different from the rest of those titles. And usually the tournament winner would go on to win a title, much like King Booker winning the World Title, or just about anybody else on the list. It was considered a stepping stone to bigger things, which isn’t a bad thing.

Travis Homewood asks about Steven Richards…

“I got a question. What is the highest belt Stevie Richards ever held? As far back as I remember everyone has always been down on him as a glorified Jobber. Has he ever not sucked? I see where he does decent moves and I guess am looking for a reason to like him. Can you help?”

Richards is a multiple time former WWF Hardcore Champion and held the ECW Tag Team titles with Raven. The high point of his singles career was probably the time period around ECW’s first PPV Barely Legal, where Richards was leader of the Blue World Order and one of the top contenders for Raven’s ECW World Title. He also had a good run as the leader of Right To Censor in WWE, and had a good stint alongside Victoria, but hasn’t done anything there in a long time. If given the chance, Richards can get an angle over with his verbal and physical skills, but is almost never placed in the position to do so.

As for a reason to like him….well, I like him because he’s funny and we have the same name. So there you go. I wouldn’t say he sucks.

Chris Brooks asks about some internet wrestling lingo…

“I have been a life long wrestling fan but have only been on wrestling websites for about a year now so please excuse me ignorance. I was just wondering if you could clear up some terminology for me. I understand what a “mark” is or what it means to “mark out” but I am not sure of what a “smark” is. Can you explain. Also, I assume IWC means international wrestling community. Would that be correct? Thanks in advance for clearing this up for me.”

A “smark” is a smart wrestling fan that’s still a mark. I would consider myself a smark if I thought I was truly smart to the business…I don’t think you are unless you’ve actually worked in the business. IWC stands for Internet Wrestling Community, which consists of every wrestling fan with an internet connection. Some people like to say they aren’t part of the IWC in an attempt to look cool and separate themselves from the pack, but if they’re a wrestling fan writing about wrestling on the Internet, they are part of the IWC. That goes from columnists to message board posters to people posting in chat rooms…all of you are one of us.

Gary from Ireland has a couple questions…

“No.1 As a fan of Edges in ring performance I have been left wondering why his in ring performance has been so watered down and less risky since he became Champion. I know that Edge wrestles in a similar level of risk to that of former World Champions Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho, but yet both their in ring performances where not as severly effected by capturing the World Title, so why was Edge’s?.”

You have to keep in mind the opponents that all three men had, and the time period where they were champion. Edge spent the great majority of his title runs feuding with John Cena, who isn’t going to have the same kind of match as a Steve Austin or Rock or Triple H. In general, Edge has been a lot more cautious since returning from his neck injury, which is something you can’t blame him too much for. A more laid-back style should be able to extend Edge’s career, while on the other hand Kurt Angle’s had lots of physical problems and Chris Jericho doesn’t care to wrestle full time anymore.

“No.2 As I watch the WWE product more and more with its lame descions, storylines and gimmicks I
feel that the WWE product is turning into what WCW product once was, especially SmackDown!, do you agree? “

Vince McMahon made plenty of stupid decisions before WCW was a factor…personally I feel a certain level of apathy towards WWE much like I had towards WCW in the last couple years they existed. I will disagree with you on one thing…Smackdown is easier for me to tolerate than Raw is. Maybe it’s because I don’t get to watch it often and I’m drunk when I do…but I think Raw reminds me more of what Monday Nitro was at its worst.

Adam Showe asks the question we all wonder about Chris Jericho…

“is y2j ever going to come back to wrestling? if yes then when?”

I believe in my heart of hearts that we will see Chris Jericho in a wrestling ring again one day. The speculation in the dirt sheets is that TNA, specifically Dixie Carter, has been pushing really hard to sign him. Jericho says he does not want to return anytime in the near future, but apparently he’s been telling friends that he will return at some point. No report on when. It will be most likely with WWE, but Jericho has said that he is a fan of TNA and Fozzy did have that music video building up the Bound For Glory show last week…so you never really know.

Brad McLaughlin asks a random question…

“Now this is probably the most random question I have ever asked anyone. Probably
too random but here it goes.

When I was a kid, (mid – late 80’s) I recall watching a wrestling show,
(possibly one of the NWA shows) as I remember the horsemen being on it. ANyway
there was a wrestler that absolutely terrified me and I have no idea who it was.
He had short black hair and wore face paint, and one of his calling cards was
kind of a claw hold to his opponents throat after the match and the opponent
would then bleed from the mouth. ANy help in identifying who this was would be
great.”

There was one guy I thought of that this could be…I could be completely wrong, but is The Missing Link the guy you were thinking of?

If anybody has other ideas, feel free to write in!

hiphopshuvit asks about the Batista/Booker fight…

“I have read that the Batista and Booker T fight was real and then i read it
wasn’t and i know if it is on TV its a work but i havent seen anything about it
on TV. So could you tell me what your thoughts are?”

The Batista/Booker T fight was a weird thing…apparently it was for real, but then WWE went out of their way to heavily promote it on WWE.com without mentioning it at all on television. It seems like it could have been something to work the internet fans, but people like Dave Meltzer insist that it did happen. Whatever happened seems to be in the past, as Batista & Booker don’t seem to have any problems with working each other. Well, there was that one time that Batista almost dropped Booker on his head, but that was most likely an accident.

Navyseal has some questions, and I always make sure to keep the military happy because they can kill me…

1. We all remember several years ago, while WCW was
still alive, DX “invaded” nitro. Vince thought this
was an awesome idea and was OK. But then last year
while shooting a Royal Rumble commercial, TNA
wrestlers “visited” the shoot and Vince had his
laywers on it like white on rice. My question is, is
why was him invading WCW OK (on live TV no less),
while TNA doing a much much less extreme stunt wrong?

Because they’re WWE and everything they do is right. What’s good for the goose is not good for the gander.

1b. And to continue on that question, when WWF(E)
invaded WCW that night, did anyone from Nitro even
make mention of what was going on ouside?

From what I can tell from reading CRZ’s archives, they didn’t, but Tony Schiavone did say “we’ve been sold out for months and thirty miles up the road they can’t GIVE tickets away!” Tony always had an interesting perspective on things. It should be noted that Nitro only aired a 1 hour show that night, and then aired for 2 hours on Tuesday night. I’m pretty sure this was due to the NBA Playoffs airing on TNT.

2. One of my favorite wrestlers right now is Johnny
Nitro. I am just trying to figure out why the IWC is
so down on him. He takes good bumps, has the charisma
and the WWE even forgot about how he lost a match and
got kicked off of Raw (remember that one?). Any
ideas?

I don’t know about anybody else, but I can tell you why I don’t think too much of him…he does take good bumps, but really has no offense to speak of. To be fair this is a problem with the great majority of the evil youngsters in the WWE, but that’s my main beef with Nitro and his push. His charisma can be debated since most of his longer interviews have been sketchy. But I have said before that Nitro could be WWE Champion one of these days…he’s young and has plenty of time to improve. I think most IWC backlash would come from the fact that there might be more deserving youngsters on the WWE roster that don’t get the same kind of opportunities. That’s usually the problem.

3. Finally, is there a good legit website out there
where fans can look up the real names and ages of
wrestlers? Thanks for any help. – NavySeal

Our friends over at ObsessedWithWrestling.com have a pretty extensive list of profiles where you can find such information as real names and birthdates. James Thomlison is a co-editor there…this is usually where I would make a joke about him, but he did what I asked him to do at the Bound For Glory Fanfest and, well, to put it in football terms he scored a touchdown. So, no JT jokes until I host the Great Positivity Debate 3 Result Show.

P. Garnher has two questions about Bill Goldberg & Chris Jericho stemming from a match on 24/7…

“1. In the match, it looks like Goldberg hurts his arm. Was he selling well for the first time ever, or did he hurt himself?”

I don’t think he took any time off after the match, so I think he was just selling really well. WWE wanted him to sell, WCW didn’t. Big difference.

“2. You here so much about backstage fights. With Batista and Booker, we all know Booker won. I heard about Jericho and Goldberg, but not about the outcome. What happened in the fight?”

From all accounts (including Goldberg’s), Jericho won with a headlock. In Goldie’s defense, he said he didn’t want to get in too much trouble since he’d only been with WWE for 2 weeks when it went down, so he didn’t try to kill Jericho or anything. And they’re friends now, so there’s no hard feelings over it.

Roadwarriorkev asks about The Patriot…

“Last week, Adam posed a question on The Patriot/Del Wilkes. You responded by saying Vince used him as a USA v Canada angle with Bret Hart. Although this may be true, (i gave up watching WWF/E from 1993-2000) I seem to recall The Patriot in WCW in the early 90s, was this the same guy?”

Yes, the Patroit in early 1990’s WCW was the same Patriot that came to the WWF in 1997. Del Wilkes no longer wrestles, and he sold the Patriot gimmick to Tom Brandi, who still uses it in the indies.

Ron Mickle asks about Vince’s theme music…

“hey love reading the column every wednesday. my question is what is the
origin of vince’s “no chance in hell” theme song? its perfect for his
character and i’m just wondering when did he start using it and is there any
storyline significance to it? Did he just randomly come out to it one week
or was there a buildup?”

“No Chance in Hell” was originally the theme song for the 1999 Royal Rumble. When Vince won the Royal Rumble match by eliminating Steve Austin at the end (with some help from The Rock), they played the song while he and the rest of his cronies celebrated in the ring. The song fit Vince’s character and motivation for that match really well, since in the weeks leading up to the show he had been telling Austin that he had “no chance in hell” of winning the Royal Rumble and getting the WrestleMania XV title shot. The phrase got over, the song was catchy and fit Vince’s character, and the rest is history.

Steve has a couple questions about Wrestlemanias…

“1.) At Wrestlemania VI, during the Jake Roberts-Ted DiBiase match, the crowd
starting doing the Wave! This lasted for about 3-4 minutes in the middle of the
match, and even the commentators were amazed that it was going on during a
match. Have you ever seen a crowd do the wave during any other wrestling event
before or since? I cannot recall ever seeing that before.”

The Toronto crowd repeated this feat at Summerslam 2004 during the JBL/Undertaker match. As mind-numbingly dull as that match (and most of the show) was, I couldn’t blame them. There may have been other attempts at a Wave since then, but this one was certainly the most memorable.

“2.) At Wrestlemania VIII, during the main event of Hulk Hogan-Sid Justice
(Hogan’s “last” match), what the HELL happened at the end? It seems like Harvey
Wippleman was not there to break up the pin on Sid, and he had to kick out of
the Hogan legdrop, and Papa Shango came way too early to the ring for his
“run-in”. Two-part question- why set up a Hogan/Warrior vs. Shango/Sid future
fued if Hogan was indeed “retiring”, and have you have seen a more screwed-up
ending to a major pay-per-view main event (not counting the Montreal Screwjob or
Kurt Angle’s Summerslam 2000 concussion).”

I don’t know this to be 100% certain, but the way I always interpreted it was that Papa Shango was actually supposed to come down earlier than he did, and due to him coming in late, Sid had to kick out of the legdrop. Maybe it should have been Whippleman doing the interference, but yeah, somebody messed that up. It wasn’t really a set-up for a tag team match as much as it was to push the Warrior as the new top super hero replacing Hulk Hogan. Of course, that didn’t work out so well, but they didn’t know that at the time. As far as the last part of the question goes…I’m not really sure. Heroes of Wrestling in 1999 comes to mind…the show ended with Jake Roberts stone cold drunk in the middle of the ring stroking his snake while Yokozuna, King Kong Bundy & Jim Neidhart had to do something resembling a match around him. I’m not sure if that’s what you mean, but to me it was pretty screwed up.

Kfir hails from Israel and has a question about the first ladder match…

“i would like to know something about the first ever ladder match. Though WWE says the first one was between Razor Ramon and Shawn Michaels, i ahve a tape of WWE which was on sale in Israel at 94′ calles ” Smack Em’ Whack Em’ ” with a few matches and one of those matches is from a show called “wrestling challange” and it is a ladder match for the IC title between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels when he was still managed by Sherri. Can you please eaplain what match was first ? i think the one with Bret & Shawn but you must know better.”

The Bret/Shawn match was first. It was during Bret’s second IC title reign in 1992, and was taped for airing on Prime Time Wrestling. It also appears on some of the WWF video tapes from that time period, including one I have called “WWF’s Most Unusual Matches Ever”. As far as why WWE insists that Razor vs. Shawn was first…well, it was the first on PPV and a lot more people have seen it, so it’s easier for them to hype up that match more by claiming it was the first ever ladder match. And it kept Shawn from having to mention that Bret did something. Previous ladder matches were held in Stampede Wrestling in the early 1980s involving Bret & the Dynamite Kid.

NYGroover82 asks about Dusty and sweet Sapphire…

“I was a huge fan of dusty rhodes and saphire in the wwf. But I hate to admit, I know very little about Saphire at all. I always wondered what her story was. Why did she leave the WWF? I remember her selling out to the million dollar man. I then remember Dusty having a crushing fued with him afterwards which Ted totally destroyed him and Dusty was gone too. But what was the reason for backstage? How was she introduced as Dusty’s manager anyway?”

Sapphire was a long-time wrestling fan from the St. Louis area that would often drive the wrestlers around when they were in town. Before her stint in the WWF, she had wrestled under the name “Princess Dark Cloud”, and was the first woman in the state of Missouri to be a referee. I haven’t seen anything about why she left, but the best guess I could make is that their angle had run its course, and Dusty was about to bring in Dustin so they could work the father/son angle. I think she was introduced by sitting in the front row wearing her polka dotted attire and Dusty saving her from harassment from whoever was feuding with him at the time. Probably Randy Savage & Sherri Martel. As always, feel free to write in if you have a better memory of that than I do…

Well, that wraps up this edition of Ask 411 Wrestling. Remember, next week we’re starting fresh with new questions for a new host at the same time as always. Of course, in order to do that I’ll need some fresh new questions, and that’s where you guys come in. E-Mail me at [email protected] and ask me anything you want to know about professional wrestling or anything relating to it. The only rule I really have is that since this thing will be posted Wednesdays at 3:00, I won’t be answering anything that shows up…let’s say after Raw on the Monday the week that the column is posted. You can send it, but it won’t be answered here until at least the next week. Oh, and make sure you have something about “Ask 411” in the subject title, so I know you’re not the feds trying to catch me in a compromising situation so they can lock me up in the big house.

And if you have any corrections, feel free to send those in too, but make sure to mention in the subject title that it is a correction so I can be sure to include it in the next edition. I haven’t been able to reply to the great majority of e-mailers yet, but rest assured that I greatly appreciate anybody who takes the time to drop me a line. OK, that sounds too sentimental…

[email protected]