Ask 411 Wrestling 02.21.07: Fast Rumble Exits, Feinstein Incidents, Jobbing to Kurrgan and More!

I’m in a bit of a rush, so we’ll get right to the corrections and additional info, then go to the questions. I’ve got about 50 in the inbox, so there’s still a lot to go through.

Errors, Corrections and Whatnot

“You mentioned that in 1989, when Vince testified to outcomes being predetermined, and the “veil being lifted”… There’s a little bit to add to that as well. In Oregon, there was a gentleman that “had it in” for professional wrestling. I forget his name at this time, but he was able to to almost single-handedly drive the business of Oregon for YEARS. He went on to form the Oregon Boxing and Wrestling commission. In order to promote, perform and market professional wrestling events, everyone in the promotion had to be licensed. Here’s the kicker… In order to get licensed, you had to pass a drug test. In the late ’80s and early ’90’s, it was hard to find a wrestler that WASN’T on some type of now-banned/illegal substance. This was just after the whole McMahon steroid trial. (Please forgive me if my timelines are a little skewed as I’m running on little sleep and just finished a 12-hour shift) By this time, the Boxing and Wrestling Commission was in full swing and everyone was “gasping in disbelief” that this great sport was “staged” and it’s athletes were taking COPIOUS amounts of performance enhancing “supplements”. Portland Wrestling (which, for YEARS was the one of the HOTTEST NWA territories outside of Georgia and Florida) effectively was shuttered and Vince and the WWF were nowhere to be found in Oregon for YEARS. After the “removal of kayfabe” by Vinnie Mac, the Boxing and Wrestling Commission had a hard time drawing any licensing revenue, as his ulterior motives were revealed. His one-man crusade was brought to a screeching halt, but it took over 10 years for the business to return with any regularity to Oregon. Al Isaacs had a wrestling website called Scoops Central (which became part of IGN, if I remember correctly) and was instrumental in helping get the Commission dissolved as well.

Not an earthshaking revelation, but a little “nugget” to add to the veil being lifted.” – Caleb Smith, Eugene, Oregon

“I’ve seen Daniels’ ROH shoot interview(good watch if you ever get the
chance). In it, he says that back in the early days he was part of a
babyface tag team, and when they were going to turn heel and were looking
for names, he felt that they’d be taking a fall from grace, thus, the Fallen
Angels. They decided to not go with that and he kept it for himself down
the road.” – Micah

“DDP is not one of the main characters in the movie, he plays a mercenary, alongside Danny Trejo (Yes, the bartender in From Dusk Till Dawn), he has in the range of 5-10 minutes of screen time, I believe there are 3 sceens with him, one being major. Either way, its a really good movie, this is coming from a guy who hates House of 1000 corpses, this may be a sequel, but it is very different and really well done.” – Curtis

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Questions!

Rock n’ Roll Warrior had some other questions that will be addressed later, but I wanted to talk about this stuff this week…

“These are some observations I’ve made from people who think I’m nuts to love wrestling. I have to admit, some of it does ring true but to me, it’s like television and movies. Movies and TV aren’t real. Most people do NOT behave like the characters you see in comedy/police/spy flicks in real life. All 3 are meant to entertain, right?

Fancy clothes and robes:What’s the deal with that? It is a what, a 5 minute walk from the locker room to the ring and they have to wear fancy robes, hats, suits and take them off to give to an attendant? Takes too much time from the match.

I wanted to cover this because Domingo wrote a column last week talking about embracing your inner wrestling geekdom. It was pretty good, but I’m not giving him too much credit because I don’t want to sound like Tully Blanchard feuding with Dusty Rhodes in the mid-80s with amazing promos like “Dusty, you’re a hell of a man!” That’s what happens when you’re feuding with the booker…anywho, I’ll cover these points one by one…

Referees: This one’s pretty easy…in all sports referees really have no chance at containing the athletes if they really want to go at it unless there’s like 3 of them at once. Not to mention that the officiating in other sports is so bad that it almost makes your typical wrestling referee look competent.

Winning Streaks: Not meaningless at all. If a guy is always getting put over, eventually they’re going to get over. And if you’re going to whine about it being fixed, you’re just never going to like wrestling no matter what you’re told.

Title Belts: In most cases, wrestlers aren’t going to be given belts unless somebody thinks they deserve it and can be a credible champion. I believe it was Mick Foley who compared the WWE title to an Academy Award…if a wrestler has a belt, it’s likely that they have a better chance than most other people on the show of entertaining you or putting on a good match.

Managers & Valets: Heels need managers or other people to win matches for them because they need to cheat in order to beat the babyface. And valets are there to be hot. I don’t see a problem with that.

Promos: Hey, other athletes do the same thing. Except it’s usually after the game and they used tired cliches like “both teams played hard”.

Is it gay?: Well, if somebody is complaining about valets, I don’t think wrestling being gay would be a problem for them. It’s only “gay” if they’re naked or doing sex acts, and fortunately the only naked wrestler I’ve seen is Naked Mideon. Fortunately the sex acts usually don’t make it to television.

Fancy clothes and robes: All part of the style, man. Wrestling is not just sport, it’s also show. You gotta look the part too, and really, who doesn’t like to wear a robe?

The thing is, people are always going to have reasons not to like wrestling. If you like it, don’t worry about them. Be like Bayani and accept the fact that you’re a wrestling geek. Other people don’t have to like it if they don’t want to.

Here’s a tip for you guys…next time you’re reading one of Bayani’s columns, take a drink everytime he mentions his girlfriend. You’ll be plastered at least halfway through, which really increases the TBT enjoyment level. At least, that’s what washed up MTV personalities tell me.

“i would say each rumble has probably 3 or 4 possible winners, and about the
same amount who could seemingly win. but the other wrestlers who you know
wont win (eg shelton, kane, sabu) do you think they actually draw their
entry numbers? or is every entry planned out beforehand?” – Patrick

Every entry is meticiously planned out. The Royal Rumble is probably the most planned match of each WWE year because everything has to be just right to make it work. That’s why it’s usually one of the best matches in WWE each year.

Nathyn Gibson has seven questions…

1) Do you know what Ian Rotton, owner of IWA-MS, has against Ring of Honor

I think Ian’s problem with ROH mainly stems from the fact that a lot of talent has drifted over to ROH from IWA-MS, and ROH gets the credit for developing guys like CM Punk, Colt Cabana, BJ Whitmer and others that got their first “break” in IWA-MS. And once these guys become bigger factors in ROH, they tend not to work IWA-MS shows. Nothing really unusual, most indy wrestling promoters hate each other for stuff like this.

2) There was a rumor, during the John Cena got stabbed angle, that the WWE was going to hire New Jack. If this is true, than why did they change their minds.

It all depends who you believe…if you believe New Jack, they were considering bringing him in as the guy who stabbed Cena. WWE would probably tell you otherwise. Do you believe everything New Jack says? I don’t, but he’s a funny SOB.

3) What would you consider TNA to be as a company? National? Global? Regional? Same with WSX.

TNA has run shows in places like Mexico and Portugal, so you could call it a global company. It’s certainly not the strongest of global companies, but technically that label fits them. As for WSX, I consider it a television show, not a wrestling promotion. That’s not an insult.

4) Is OVW directly owned by WWE?

No…the last I heard, OVW ownership was split between trainer Danny Davis & Jim Cornette. Cornette was saying that he still retained part of the ownership in the company despite being released by WWE, but his involvement with the company is nowhere near what it used to be. WWE does not own OVW, they send them wrestlers to train and help gain experience.

5) What happened to Doug Furnas and Phil Lafon?

Furnas & Lafon have both retired from wrestling, and I haven’t been able to uncover anything about their whereabouts.

6) Vince Russo is one of the most hated men in the IWC. Since he has been in TNA recently, it can be argued that the product has changed for the worse. If TNA has noticed a negitive reaction, than why do they keep Vince Russo around. Than again, do you believe that Vince Russo is the one that’s causing the bad storylines or do you think he is an escape goat to the other writers.

I believe it’s Russo because the guys he’s working with were involved in the process before he got there, and you didn’t see the kind of shit you see now back when Russo wasn’t there. Why do they keep him around? Well, the ratings are up for now (when they aren’t head to head with Raw), so things aren’t that bad yet. And when you make an investment to make Russo (or anybody else) your head writer, you have to give them some time to make something happen. It hasn’t been long enough yet to decide whether he needs to go or not…though right now it isn’t looking good for him.

7) Do you think TNA can financially afford to expand to 2 hours. On one side, they can produce more action, but on the other side, how do you think they should handle tv tapings. In a normal TV taping, they usually tape 2 to 3 episodes which would equal about 2-3 hours. However, if they expand to 2 hour shows and continue with normal taping, that would equal 4-6 hours. There is a possibility that the audience would eventually go dead. Could they afford to do seprate tapings, and if they can, should they?

If they couldn’t, I don’t think they would have been pushing Spike TV for it since they’ve been there. Your logic makes sense, but I think they would simply change the taping schedule to not have three weeks at a time taped at once. I would have tapings once a week…I say that without knowing the particulars of when they can have shows at the Impact Zone, but it would make a lot more sense than what they do right now, though it might inconvience the workers to have to be down in Orlando more often.

Chase has some questions about big guys…

Do you think they will ever put out a yokozuna dvd or put him in the hall of
fame? He was pretty awesome in his day.

Yoko might go in the HOF, as far as a DVD goes I don’t think he’ll get his own, but he could be part of one chronlicing the stars of the 1990s.

What about the big men of wrestling, guys like viscera, zuna, bam bam or
vader dvd.

That could be interesting, but I’d hate to see the special features for it.

Do you think vader deserves to be in the hall of fame? – Chase

I’m not sure about the WWE Hall of Fame, because he really didn’t have that great of a run there. But he would belong in a general wrestling hall of fame for his accomplishments in WCW, Japan, Mexico and Europe. He did have quite the career.

Was Ric Flair’s elimination from the Royal Rumble a record for the shortiest
and fastiest elimination for a past rumble winner? Ex-world champ? – Evan

As far as ex-world champs go, Kurt Angle was eliminated from the 2005 Royal Rumble in 37 seconds by Shawn Michaels. Flair was eliminated at 5:40, which puts him ahead of Shawn Michaels’ mark of 4:56 in the aformentioned 2005 Royal Rumble.

Don’t know if I’m sending this to the right place but what the hell. Ok heres a question that has been bothering the hell outta me for some time. I stumbled into the 411 site and thought you might give me some insight. In the 97 Royal Rumble Steve Austin was eliminated, but sneaked his way back in to eliminate Bret Hart, the Undertaked and Vader, thus winning the rumble. Seeing as how he had been eliminated a 4 way match was made for In Your House, the winner would be the number one contender. At that same time, the current champ, Shawn Michaels suffered an injury and had to drop the belt, the winner of the 4 way would become the new champ. Bret Hart won the 4way, but immediately dropped the belt to Psycho Sid, which led to the Psycho Sid versus Undertaker main event at Wrestlemania 13. My question is what was originally planned? Seeing as Shawn was taken out of the picture? Was the Undertaker supposed to win the 4 way and be in the main event with Michaels? Any clue? – Francisco

The original plan was to have Bret vs. Shawn main event WM 13, and have Shawn put Bret over. That didn’t happen because Shawn lost his smile. I’m not really sure why they went with UT vs. Sid instead of…..well, anything else, but the WWF’s decision making wasn’t always the best in the mid-90s.

I’ve got a question that’s been bugging me for some time now. It seems like at least half of the wrestlers on TV — whether it be Raw, Smackdown, TNA, or even WSX are wearing these t-shirts that say “Affliction” on them with some sort of design as well. What is with these damn t-shirts? Are they made/marketed by some wrestler that I’m unaware of, because I’ve never seen anybody outside of wrestling wearing these? – Dave, St. Louis

Affliction Clothing is the company making these shirts. The clothing is pretty popular among wrestlers, rock bands, and ultimate fighters. Hell, I’d buy the Randy Couture shirt. I’m not sure who owns the company though.

Gotta ask. What exactly is the Feinstein Incident i always hear about
regarding ROH? – Andy

Ah, the Feinstein incident. To make a long story kind of short, ROH founder Rob Feinstein was caught on Philadelphia television in March 2004 in one of those things where they ambush dudes that think they’re meeting up with teenagers that they met online. In Rob’s case, he thought he was meeting up with a 14 year old boy. Well, actually, he pretended the kid said he was 18. lol. It was pretty embarassing for everybody involved with the company and resulted in a lot of bad publicity and TNA refusing to allow most of their wrestlers to work for ROH for well over a year after they found out Rob was still involved with the company in June despite his claim that he wasn’t. Rob sold his stake in the company to current owner Cary Silkin, and to this day you can’t mention him on the ROH message board.

Our friend John Bryant has a few questions…

“Keeping the spirit with the Royal Rumble I figured I’d ask you this. who has
record for the most Royal Rumble appearances in history. and as a little
bonus fact with my question: Did cha know the number 24 is the only number to
have back-to-back winners. Bret Hart when he & Luger won, was number 24 if I
remember correctly. who won with the number 24 the year before?”

Well, Yokozuna won the Rumble the year before…but he was number 27. Whoops.

Now I was reading the Triple Threat column and Alex of the group actually said, if you believe this, that Batista should be the one to end the Deadman’s streak. I STILL haven’t figured out what the hell he was thinking. in my opinion the only man who’s credible enough to do it would be the only Main rival Taker hasn’t faced at WM, that being the Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels. what are your thoughts on who’s credible to end the 14-0 streak?

I agree with you in that it shouldn’t be Batista, who hasn’t looked credible in the ring since he stopped feuding with Triple H in 2005. Michaels would be credible, but I think if they need to end Taker’s WM streak, it needs to be to somebody that they can build around for years to come. WCW had a similar chance to make somebody’s career by having them end Goldberg’s streak, but young gun Kevin Nash decided he wanted to do it instead. As for who it actually should be…I would say Kennedy if I wasn’t already sick of seeing him wrestle Undertaker. Cena would be believable in the eyes of the marks, Edge could be a possibility as well.

Is Johnny Nitro & Melina the only former Tough Enough Alumni to win major WWE gold?

I believe so, unless you consider the Hardcore title to be major WWE gold, in which case Chris Nowinski won that title two times.

everyone bitches about the Pounce being a lackluster finisher? are their any finishing moves that you’d rate worse than the Pounce and what are your thoughts on the Alpha Male’s High-Impact move?

Two words: The Worm. I think the Pounce gets a bad rap, actually. With Monty’s experience as an NFL football player, he should be able to tackle pretty good, and that’s pretty much what the Pounce is. With the right guy taking it, it looks like a million bucks.

“i was thinking the other day randomly about the austin/hhh 2001 survivor series 3 stages of hell match. at the end when austin dumped HHH upside down in the car…how the hell did they do that? i dont remember seeing HHH have any way out, and at one point u saw him in the car at the climax of the lift from the crane. do you know how they managed to do this stunt?” – Sean O’Brien

Eh, it wouldn’t be too hard to pull something like this off with the magic of pre-taping. You tape HHH screaming at the top, cut, lower him down, raise it back up after he gets out, turn the camera back on, and drop the car.

Though it should be pointed out that SurSer 2000 was just a singles match, the 3 stages of hell match was at No Way Out 2001.

“I was reading Mick Foley’s first book and there was a bit where he mention about the same night Ahmed Johnston refused to put over Kurrgan.My question is what’s the story surronding Ahmed refusing to put over Kurrgan?For some reason ive always wanted to know!!” – Conor O’Boyle

As was alluded to in last week’s column, Ahmed left the WWF after being asked to have Kurrgan squash him on an episode of Raw. He had a pretty high opinion of himself and thought he was above things like jobbing to big 7 foot guys with clawholds.

“Part of the promotion or Big Show’s tedious reign as WWECW champion was the fact the was the only man to have held the WWF(E), WCW and ECW titles.

While this claim is clearly a lot of crap is there anyone who has held a world title in 3 different major (big enough to put on PPVs and have a regular TV Show) wrestling organisations in either the States, Japan or Mexico?” – Michael F.

One guy that immediately comes to mind is Vader, who held the WCW title, the All Japan Triple Crown and New Japan’s IWGP title.

“I have a question regarding to why ECW hasn’t brought back the television and tag team titles. Is it due to the fact that they only have one hour of air time and with all the “great” promos they don’t have the time? Or is it that they don’t feel that they have a tag team or mid-carder established enough to carry the belts? Could you please clarify this for me? thanks.” – Eddie

ECW only has one hour of television time to work with each week, which doesn’t give them a lot of time to develop lots of characters and issues and titles and things of that nature. The tag team and television titles aren’t really necessary at this point because they don’t have very many tag teams and already have one singles title. If you have too many titles with such a small roster, it takes away the importance of said titles.

Paul has two questions…

1) is there a list of matches (regardless of promotion) that he’s (Dave Meltzer) given 5 stars too?

Yes, there is. Click here.

2) did any of the recent samoa joe/kurt angle matches get 5 stars?

None of the Joe vs. Angle matches scored 5 snowflakes…I don’t know what they got, but if it was 5, we all would have heard about it.

I was wondering, when was the last time the Undertaker got pinned CLEAN, 1-2-3 shoulders down on the mat?? no cages, no buried alive, no cells, no weapons, no “switching brothers” no nothing??

Just one v one in the middle of the ring??? – Savva

In a singles match? Good Lord….the No Way Out 2006 match he had with Kurt Angle comes to mind, though it wasn’t the most dominating victory for Angle, it was clean. I can’t think of anything since then.

EDIT: I had managed to block the atrocious match Taker had with Great Khali at Judgment Day out of my head until I was reminded by several of you. I wish I could forget it all over again.

It’s been 6 years, and I prefer to think that the current World Heavyweight Championship on SmackDown! has its roots to the WCW World Title. Seeing as how there is already a WWE Champ, and and ECW Champ, why doesn’t the E use the WCW name with the SD! Brand? It would seem to make more sense to me that each ‘brand’ were a company (WWE, WCW, ECW) under the larger World Wrestling Federation banner as opposed to what we have now – 2 ‘brands’ and 1 ‘company’ (ecw)… – Virgil Wade

Because WCW is not a viable brand according to Vince McMahon. He might be right, but he had a lot to do with that with the shitty Invasion angle he booked where all the WCW guys looked like crap.

In Mick Foley’s first book he mentions how he told his wife that the fatal four way match at Wrestlemania 2000 would probably suck “due to a philosophical difference [he] was having with one of the match participants.” Any idea what he’s referrng to? – Tyler

Foley was not happy with the Rock at that point in time, partially because he felt Rock took advantage of him during the 1999 Royal Rumble match and partially because he felt Rock was tough to work with when they were tag teaming later that year. They eventually talked it out and get along fine now.

My question is, what wrestlers do you expect to see return to WWE in 2007. And also, is the arena for WSX supposed to look crappy, or is it just because they don’t have too much money. – Earl M., Niagra Falls

Who do I expect to see return in 2007? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. How about B.G. & Kip James? I’m only saying this because I want Meehan’s head to explode when he watches them cut a 10 minute promo on Raw.

The WSX arena was designed to look “crappy” on purpose, to give it a more gritty feel.

Just curious, was there any heat between Hogan and Rude? Because I don’t remember a feud or even matches between the two. They seem they would had great chemistry and made a great feud. Also what would your all-time dream match be? Mine would be B.Hart Vs Angle. – Ray J.

I don’t remember hearing about any heat between them, I think it was just a matter of them being involved in separate programs during the time both men were in the WWF. Hogan was on top feuding with Randy Savage while Rude was on the undercard feuding with guys like Jake Roberts and Ultimate Warrior. By the time Rude was ready to challenge for the WWF title, Hogan had lost the title to Warrior. Now, there is a rumor that Hogan rejected the idea of a title feud with Rude that would have culminated at Summerslam 1989, but there’s no real proof of that.