Ask 411 Wrestling 07.25.07: 80s Wrestling, Renaissances, Garbage Cans and More!

Comments, Corrections & other “C words”

Hey man. Just some feedback about the Beefcake/IC title question. According to multiple sources, the Barber was actually slated twice to win the IC title. First time they had him booked as chasing Honky over almost 6 months from WM4 to Summer Slam ‘88. The original plan was actually for Beefcake to finally beat HTM in a squash match similar to the one that Ultimate Warrior got, as the payoff (this back in the day of story arcs lasting longer than a month). But Warrior pulled politics & got the squash instead (Beefcake’s “injury” at the hands of Ron Bass leading to Warrior getting the match was a work). Despite the common view of Warrior now, probably not a bad idea at the time: Beefcake’s chase may have been viewed as getting stale & they ended up pushing Warrior all the way to the top, which Beefcake probably wouldn’t have got. HTM & Beefcake were both Hogan buddies so they weren’t playing politics with each other.

Second time he was booked to beat Curt Hennig at Summer Slam ‘90 but the parasailing accident ended that plan. Some people say “no way they would have had Beefcake go over Hennig” but Beefcake was actually given Hennig’s first televised clean pinfall loss at WM6 six months earlier. Plus, they had to get Kerry Von Erich to go over at the last minute as another late replacement because they already had Hennig booked to lose (and then had Von Erich drop the belt back to Hennig less than 3 months later). – Ossie

I agree that having Warrior replace Beefcake in the IC title match was a great idea. It sent Warrior right up to the top, and I don’t think that Beefcake would have been able to boost himself up to the level that Warrior got to. I’m sure Hogan wouldn’t have minded passing the torch to him, but hindsight being 20/20, Warrior was the right call. At least over the barber. Lots of Beefcake feedback was similar to this, thanks to everybody who wrote in about it.

to answer the question, edge took a bump from the ladder to the outside of the ring through a table at unforgiven against cena. it was supposed to be 2, but he missed the first and grazed the 2nd, had he not he wouldve most certainly been seriously injured. a very crazy bump indeed. – Sean O’Brien

I thought he had done something like that in the Cena match, but I wasn’t 100% sure. Much thanks for the confirmation.

If Edge wins the World Championship one more time, he would have held those 6 titles Twice. Maybe there are to many titles.

So if Pedro Morales was the first “Triple Crown” winner, and Shawn Michaels (or was it Bret Hart?) the first “Grand Slam” winner, what can we name Edge’s feat?
The “Sweet Six”? – Alan

I think the Super Six has a better ring to it. Or maybe the Six-Pack. HBK was the first Grand Slam winner, Bret never got around to winning the European title, though some will tell you that his KOTR victory in 1993 should be in there as a title of sorts. When we start having those conversations, my eyes start to glaze over. But I do like the idea of coming up with a name for all these belts Edge has won. I’m sure WWE would appreciate the help. 🙂

What about Ric Flair and Bret Hart? true, they didn’t hold all 6 titles while in the WWE but they have held all 6 in their careers. quite a few with 5 including HBK and Nash (missing US title), and Big Show (missing IC) – obi wan

Flair & Hart didn’t hold both versions of the tag team titles. They each held the World tag team titles, which is Raw’s version that goes back to when the company started, but neither have held Smackdown’s version of the tag belts. Flair has a much better chance of doing so at the moment.

Worst matches ever?

Bob Holly vs Test on ECW
This match was brutal and the fact they “wrestled” for around 20 minutes made it 10x worse. They messed up at least 10 different spots and after the last mess up the whole crowd just started boo’ing. This match HAS to recognized as one of the Top 3 worst matches of All Time. – Kevin

In your last Ask 411 Wrestling column, a reader asked what you thought the worst match of all time was. I feel the need to show you a match beyond bad. It was held at a a small indy show in england and called “THE BIGGIN’ IN WIGGAN” by the commentator(who treated the match as a joke). I’ve never seen a match as bad as this one. (NOTE: Some sources have told me it actually took place in Whickham, England. Not Wiggan.) – Patrick

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LUMuX8MIkk

I heard a couple of stories about the JBL/Goldberg “altercation”…

In response to a couple of the question on the 7/18/07 edition of 411, I have heard of the JBL/Goldberg altercation. The story I remember is that the WWF/E boys were at a bar, WCW was booked in the same city, the WCW guys came in, JBL was a little under the influence and welcomed Bill Goldberg with a chop across the chest. The altercation was then broken up and that’s all that happened. Also, the Sabu vs. Terry Funk match was horrible, but I can’t remember the last time Sabu has had a good match without missing at least five spots in a match. The thing that made it really bad was the commentating, the shittiest I have ever heard. – Randy O.

I had heard about a confrontation between JBL and Golberg as well except that it took place after WCW was bought in a bar in Atlanta. In this version, after words were exchanged JBL challenged Goldberg to a fight but Goldberg declined. – RM

In your latest column, shadiest one asked about a Goldberg/Bradshaw legit bar-room brawl. I’ve heard of this but think the timeframe might’ve actually been when Goldberg was actively wrestling for WCW. One of the WWF magazines around the time alluded to this without mentioning Goldberg by name; they simply said that he was ‘the competition’s world champion’ or some such, said that Bradshaw issued the challenge, Goldberg backed down, and onlookers were amazed at how much bigger Bradshaw looked than Goldberg. This would be at the height of the WWF/WCW war, when Bradshaw was working his Stan Hansen gimmick.

Anyway, hope this helps to some degree. – Nick

just a quick note on the wrestlers who’ve remained face the whole time theve worked. in the rocks book he mentions his father rocky johnson stayed a face his entire career and off the top of my head hes the only guy to achieve this – Ross

Rock’s book isn’t exactly a gold mine as far as historical information goes, but I can’t remember Rocky Johnson ever being a heel. Of course, I wasn’t alive during his career, so that doesn’t help my memories of it.

the rings (in WCW) were smaller because it was a belief that a
smaller ring made for faster action. – Tom

And it’s true. Less length to run around in the ring meant that the wrestlers could run the ropes and stuff longer before getting blown up.

First thing’s first- great column. Anyway, going back two or so editions, a question was posed about wrestlers who never switched fan alignment [e.g. heel to face or face to heel]. If I’m not mistaken, hasn’t Marty Jannetty always been a face? I mean, it’s quite easy to forget ol’ Marty, but I’m sure he has never been a bad guy. I don’t think Sting has ever been a heel either, though he did have a few times where he was tweener, but never solidly a heel. Kevin Sullivan has always been a heel, as well. Going a bit more old-school, I believe Ivan Koloff and “Big Cat” Ernie Ladd had never been faces and Bruno Sammartino, Chief Jay Strongbow, and Pedro Morales had never been heels, but then again, I guess that depended on the territories they competed in, but to my understanding, they’ve always played those parts as heels and faces.

It’s at the end of the clip. – Luis M.

“He co-hosts a show with Gene Anderson…unfortunately I don’t think it’s the wrestler.”

It’s not..He passed away back in ’91 while attending a sheriff’s convention. – Chris G.

Just a correction. Taz’s “See You on the 13th” was only used
leading up to Barely Legal which was on April 13th agaisnt
Sabu. While he did go on to have a connection with the #13
in WWE, that was not the case with “See You on the 13th”. – Joseph Leotta

Well, that would make sense. And since 13 was Taz’s number, Sabu should have known better than to fight Taz on the 13th. Talk about a bad omen…

As far as the WWA question… It was not TITO but
Richard Blood (Ricky Steamboat) the person they were
refering too…

On the questions about wrestlers finding fame
elsewhere.. The same applies for Mark Jindrak who
actually got quite a bit of attention at CMLL in
mexico and Vampiro too… – Quinto Hombre G

Vampiro is an interesting case because he was born in Canada, went down to Mexico to wrestle and got over huge there, and then found some success in America.

Chris Jacobs closes out our feedback section this week…

I was just watching Victory Road, and I swear that the commentators said Angle Lock, and Slam, almost positive they did.

one more, if Inoki is such a bad wrestler, and you guys give tribute to GOOD wrestlers, then why is he in your hall of fame?

Lots of factors go into deciding who should be in the 411 Wrestling Hall of Fame. Being a “good wrestler” is just part of it…Inoki’s influence on pro wrestling in Japan can’t be denied, even if I don’t really care to watch his matches. I honestly don’t remember if I voted for him or not, but I’m not offended that he’s in it or anything.

Questions!

I had a question. I know the wwe can’t use unliscensed songs for entrance music, what is the difference when they use it on UFC? – Danny P.

Basically, UFC doesn’t give a fuck. You’ll notice that outside of the top fighters, most of their guys use songs that aren’t very popular. I also have to think that musicians would be cooler with UFC using their songs than they would be with pro wrestling. Say you’re Eminem…who would you want your music associated with: Tito Ortiz or one of them fake wrestler dudes? I don’t think ol’ Slim Shady’s gonna call up Team Punishment headquarters and say “Hey, quit using my song, yo!”

Manu Bumb has a couple of questions this week…

What were the NWA ring ropes made of? because im watching flair/morton right now, and one of the ropes is…..bent, for lack of a better term. I had heard WCW used elevator cable, but im not sure if this is the same thing.

Larry Csonka tells me that they were actually ropes. I’ll take his word for it since he was around when Jim Crockett Sr. was promoting shows.

do you think wrestling from the 80s is over-hyped, given that back then everyone thought it was real, and therefore you pretty much always had a WM type crowd with the fans going insane for anything the main event faces did? or do you think, if we plucked Flair, Arn, Hogan, Tully, Sting, Koloff, the Midnight Express, Rock’n’roll express, barry windham, Dusty, and all the other superstars of that era, and dumped them in todays wrestling scene as newbs, they’d still get over to the degree they were back then? or do you think a big part of the reason it was SO GREAT was because the fans believed it was a legit fight, and the good guys were really good, and the bad guys were really bad?

and middle-of-the-road wont suffice, im curious your opinion one way or the other.

I love watching 80s pro wrestling. The thing that made it great, which you kind of hint at here, is that the good guys were good, the bad guys were bad, and they hated each others’ guts. The Attitude Era changed that, and even today you don’t often see true good guys and true bad guys, which I think really hurts the product and makes it harder for fans to support wrestlers. I think the fans believing in what they were seeing had a great deal to do with it. As for the question of if those guys could get over in this day and age…I don’t see why most of them wouldn’t. Guys like Flair, Hogan & Dusty have so much charisma that they could get over on Mars speaking to Marshians that have no idea what the hell they’re talking about. The Rock & Roll and the Midnights would work circles around any other tag team out there right now and we’d actually have a tag team division. Sting was a damn exciting wrestler early in his career and had great charisma even if his mike work wasn’t the best. Those guys for sure wouldn’t have any problem adapting to this day and age. I don’t know if they’d get over quite as well because of the way that the wrestling fanbase has changed over the years, but they’d do at least as well as the guys you see on TV now. Likely better.

Richard brings us 3 questions from across the pond.

1) Do you think it would work if the WWE had an off season? I know this is discussed a lot but I think I have a new take on it. Say for 6 months of the year both Monday and Friday were RAW shows then the other half of the year is all SMACKDOWN shows. ECW could maybe go all year since they only have 1 TV a week (I came up with this idea before ECW was revived). That way each roster gets 6 months off but a full years wage for twice as much weekly TV (kinda like before the brand split when everyone was on both shows) There can be bigger build to storylines for PPV and everyone gets 6 months off to rest up. I guess guys would lose out on PPV pay offs (which they were doing on brand only PPV’s anyway) and merch might take a dip but can you imagine the exciting build up when its coming to the season change over? I doubt WWE will ever do it but I think its a cool idea.

I don’t think they have enough marketable guys on both brands to make this idea work for WWE as far as making money goes. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about…money money money moneyyyyy. There’s more money to be made doing things the way they’re done now than there is sending half of your roster home for six months. And the wrestlers would get shortchanged on their salaries the way they’re currently done, so I don’t think it’d be the godsend that people think it might be.

2) When wrestlers use trash cans in a match and they crumple like tinfoil, are they legit cans or are they gimmicked? It’s got to hurt like hell if they are real. I see New Jack use them a lot which makes me think they might be real, which leads me on to…

Trent *bgca says:
the trashcans and folding chairs are generally real as real can be
D.I.F.T. says:
I never tried hitting somebody with a garbage can
Trent *bgca says:
They’re shitting garbage cans
Trent *bgca says:
shitty
Trent *bgca says:
dollar store
Trent *bgca says:
but they’re real…
D.I.F.T. says:
where do you buy trash cans anyway?
Trent *bgca says:
walmart personally
Trent *bgca says:
though ive never seen any of those metal ones
Trent *bgca says:
READERS?

How dare he steal my line.

3) Has anyone made a Best of New Jack DVD featuring his best matches? I guess that might be hard since he works for so many indies. – Richard

RF Video has a Best of New Jack tape for sale. I’m not too sure what’s on it because I didn’t feel like clicking the link, but RF has access to all sorts of indy wrestling material. So they probably have a pretty good selection of his stuff on there.

I have one question: Have Ric Flair and Jerry The King Lawler ever wrestled each other over the years in a title match? If so, what promotions were they with and who holds the upper hand in victories? – Dave from St. Louis

When they faced each other on Raw in November 2004, Jim Ross stated that they had only faced each other three times before then. One was on Memphis television back in the early 80s or so. I have no information on the record between the two.

“He made a name for himself in Japan while visiting the country in 1972. He got into a brawl with the bodyguards of Antonio Inoki’s wife in a shopping centre, after he slapped Inoki’s wife in the face; the resulting publicity propelled Tiger into the limelight. He immediately began wrestling in New Japan Pro Wrestling in 1973, and would feud with Inoki as a result of the shopping centre incident; Inoki would avenge his wife by breaking Singh’s arm in a 1974 match, but Tiger defeated Inoki to win the NWF world title in 1975, only to lose it back to Inoki three months later.”

Question- Just read the above- the question is this must be kayfabe, otherwise this guy really is as bad as i’ve heard? – Kurt27bo

That’s the story behind how Tiger Jeet Singh got into pro wrestling. He was a terrible wrestler, but his backstory was pretty cool. And he did draw a hell of a lot of money against Inoki in Japan and against the original Sheik in Toronto. I think it was Dave Meltzer that called him the worst in-ring main eventer of all time, and the matches I’ve seen with him seem to back that up.

Bash has two questions…

1. Who played the role of Shinja (Hakushi’s manager) when he was in the WWF? He looks like a Chinese Ted Dibiase.

Shinja was played by Akio Sato, who you may remember as Sato from the Orient Express, who preceded Kato in the tag team from Japan.

2. What was the purpose of having Bret job the WWF Championship to Bob Backlund? Was it for shock value? Was it to continue the feud with Owen? Was it because Bob would be a “transitional champion” only to job to Diesel?

Transitional champ all the way. They wanted Diesel to destroy somebody to win the title, but understandably they didn’t want it to be Bret, who they were still counting on as one of their top draws. Backlund had gotten over big as a heel, but there were no long-term plans for him to do anything worthwhile. It did have the side benefits of continuing the Bret/Owen feud and surprising the fanbase, but the main reason was to get the title on Diesel without having him beat Bret for it.

Bronbron402 has 402 questions, but we can only get to 3 this week…

1. I was watching Summerslam 2002 where HBK came back from retirement to face HHH in a non sactioned match. They were on the outside and HBK grabbed one of the announcers shoes and hit HHH with the heel. Jerry Lawler said ” Look J.R., a heel for a heel.” So i thought, has the term heel been used in as a legit word in kayfabe or was that a slip up for the King? I know WCW used to say all the inside terms during 2000-ish but that doesnt count because WCW sucked an unbelievable amount by that time.

Knowing that Lawler is a pretty old-school kind of guy, I’m guessing that he slipped up on that one. I don’t recall the word “heel” being used often in WWE promos, I do remember the Dudley Boyz using the word a lot in ECW and of course WCW had a bunch of guys claiming to be heels or whatever inside term was the word of the week.

2. More of an opinoin question but I thought i would ask it. Why was Dean Malenko never given the push he was deserving of? He’s my personal favorite wrestler and he was MEGA over in WCW. Just watch the match between him and Jericho where he has the mask, wins the battle royal, and takes the mask off and beats Jericho. Crazy pop. Or just watch him put the cloverleaf on anybody. Again huge pop. He’s just like Benoit if not better and at least Benoit got a World Title. Also, if he can still wrestle, why doesnt he? He’s an ECW original who could help the kids like Elijah and Punk immensly.

Politics. The guys at the top of WCW at the time thought of guys like Malenko as nothing more than vanilla midgets who could have good matches and get the crowd ready for their main events. They weren’t going to let those guys rise up and take their spots. One major thing Malenko had working against him was his lack of charisma. He was a great in-ring talent but he couldn’t talk people into an arena, know what I mean? He probably could still wrestle if he wanted to, but he prefers to work as a producer and not spend his whole life in the ring like some other guys. coughflaircough I believe he works on the ECW brand, as a matter of fact.

3. One more opinion. Iv’e been watching the new ECW since about december and ive come to think Elijah has huge potential. He has jobbed alot and is a hidden highlight machine [ just ask JT!] and I think he deserves the ECW Title much more than Nitro, a guy who’s gimmick is basically dead since the only thing he does with it is wear the coat to the ring, and isnt nearly as good as a promo guy or even in a match as Burke. So my question is do you think Elijah Burke should be ECW World Champion?

Someday, yes. Burke has a lot of potential and rose up through the ranks of Ohio Valley Wrestling in impressive fashion, but he’s not quite ready to be the top guy on any brand, even ECW. Say what you will about John Morrison, but he has experience on Raw & Smackdown and has held titles on both shows. I’m not a huge fan, but he’s as good a choice as anybody else to lead that show right now. Burke could get to that point, but he needs more time on the big stage first.

Ok, so I recently purchased and viewed the Ladder Match DVD. When it comes to Unforgiven of last year, with the Edge-Cena TLC match, Edge (and JR) both mention that Edge has never lost a TLC match. My question is this: why? On the second disc, from Smackdown, there is the E&C/Hardyz/Dudleys/Jericho & Benoit 4-Way TLC match for the Tag Titles, and Edge and Christian do not win the match. During one of the later matches on the DVD (either the Jericho-Christian or RAW 4-way TLC match), JR mentions that Christian won 2 out of the 3 TLC matches he had been in. So is there just the lack of continuity or what, where JR will say that Christian got a TLC loss, but not Edge? I just assumed Edge was trying to make himself sound good, so JR played along, but is there something else to it? – Ian Colwell

JR probably forgot and Edge was using the short-term memory of most wrestling fans to make himself sound better than he actually is. It’s a brilliant strategy, one that made the penguin a pretty big Edge mark.

Wong has 3 questions…

1. I started watching wrestling in about 2004, and I wasn’t a ‘smart’ that time, so I have some question about Randy Orton’s World Title reign. He had the title for about a month then lost it to Triple H. From what I read, it seems like his title reign is not believable & the fans don’t buy into it. What actually happened?

This was pretty funny when it happened…during the spring and summer of 2004, a lot of the people I knew online were loving themselves some Randy Orton. I was pretty much the only guy who wasn’t, and wrote a column talking about how they would turn against Orton once WWE pushed him to the moon. They thought I was crazy…well, in August Orton won the World title and they immediately turned against him because he was being pushed too hard. In Orton’s defense, his failure on top had a lot to do with the back-asswards way WWE booked him as champion, having his old friends in Evolution beat the crap out of him the night after winning the title and making him look like Triple H’s bitch-boy. Had they kept him as a cocky, arrogant young heel, the reign might have ended up doing more business. But it was irrelevant since they needed to get the title back on Triple H anyway.

It’s just too bad the site I wrote that column on was taken over by Internet terrorists. That was some good shit.

2. I remembered hearing wrestlers in WWE saying facing others in “a 18 foot high steel cage”. Now it seems like they changed their phrase to “a 16 foot high steel cage”. Did they lowered the cage for any reason? The cage actually looks not as tall nowadays as those when Eddie jumped off to hit a frog splash on JBL (SmackDown) or any other cage matches I watched before.

I think the height of the WWE cage has remained the same over the years…it’s likely that the announcers just changed what they said. The cage doesn’t look like it’s 16 or 18 feet tall. Oddly enough, I thought they always said the cage was 15 feet high.

3. Also, what is the actual height of TNA six sides of steel cage? It seems like it is more than double the height of WWE ones.

I don’t have any information on the height of this cage. It does look bigger than the WWE cage, but I have no official word on that. Csonka thinks its somewhere from 12 to 15 feet high legitimately.

I just have two pretty random non-connected questions. #1 both myself, my brother and my friend Jon all believe the first vignette of Val Venis his name was “Vic” Venis… have we convinced ourselves of this or did this really happen? #2 I remember a vignette where Dusty Rhodes for some reason did some plumbing and took a #2 out of the toilet bowl and ate it. Do you recall this at all? What was the story behind this? – Repo Man

I think Val was always Val. As for Dusty, I don’t think he ate the doo doo, but there was a segment where he was working as a plumber and cleaned some doo doo out of the toilet. This was when Dusty was being introduced to the WWF as the “Common Man”…each week he would do a different job that common folk do. One week he was a plumber, another he was a butcher, one week he was a garbage man…it was pretty entertaining stuff.

“You can’t beat our prices, but you sure can beat our meat!” – Common Man Dusty Rhodes

I want to know if you think that Teddy Long is going to get fired in a storyline with hem and Kristal and Vickie Guerero? If that happens that will suck. If I can recall, he’s the best damn GM ever better than curt angle, Paul Haymon, and of course better than Eric Biscoff. Well, Stephanie McMahon was great as well But do you think Teddy long will take over raw? – Kay

Teddy getting fired somehow seems to be what they’re building to. I could see them changing their minds and going a different direction with it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what goes down. If he were to get fired from Smackdown, I can’t see them moving him over to Raw, at least not as a general manager. I have to disagree with you on one point and say that Bischoff was a damn good GM on Raw. It says a lot that they still haven’t truly filled his slot on that show. I’ll give Long credit for lasting much longer than anybody else in the position, and he has done a good job with it. Not having the tired heel authority figure has been a good thing for Smackdown.

Isaac has 3 questions…

1. Who booked the final episode of Nitro? Did WWF guys swarm in like Stormtroopers and start calling the shots on who would and would not be champion after that night or did they just schedule in the Shane McMahon bit and let the regular WCW crew have one more go?

The Monday Night War DVD gives the impression that once the WWF guys showed up, they were pretty much in charge. They let the WCW guys do their work, but they had the final say over everything.

2. I recently watched a match from Japan where Bob Backlund took on Hulk Hogan. This is in the old days when Hulk had Blassie and that gay-ass cape. Anyways, throughout the course of this awkward and terrible match, you can clearly see a gross “discolouration” all over Hulk’s back. What the hell is that? Back hair? A bad sunburn or maybe the most insane bruise of all time?

Trent *bgca says:
I haven’t seen the match, but I would think it might be an iritant from them using a different type of mat, or perhaps a tanning bed gone horribly wrong.
Trent *bgca says:
Also remember that steroids cause back acne
D.I.F.T. says:
Hulk on steroids?
Trent *bgca says:
shocking I know

3. Does Y2J stand for anything? I mean, I know it’s a play on Y2K. But if that’s it, that’s pretty stupid. Especially considering how Y2K is less and less culturally relevant every year.

It’s just a play on Y2K. And yes, it became a pretty dumb nickname after a couple of years.

My question is simple: After reading Larrold’s R’s about he is psyched over Little Dust III, is there any time in the history of wrestling that a father/son teaming has really gotten the son “over” with the fanbase? As much as I love The Big Tub of Goo, I don’t recall Little Dust Jr. really being propelled to WWF stardom as a result of him teaming with daddy against Dibiase/Virgil. I don’t recall Bruno getting his son over this way or Ivan Putski getting his son over. Outside of the Von Erich’s (which don’t count because they owned WCCW wrestling in the 70s/80s) has their ever been an instance or is my old age just getting to me again? – thegunisgood

Just on regional levels with the aformentioned Von Erichs and the Hart family. I don’t expect Cody to remain on the side of Big Dust for too much longer, and after this week’s Raw it doesn’t look like Dusty will be wrestling anytime soon either. Colby Corino got over pretty well in Japan & England…in fact, some say that he’s more over than his father Steve.

As I’m reading this week’s Evolution Schematic about Mean gene Okerlund, it states that he cursed during the broadcast of Summerslam 89. Do you remember this happening, and when? Was it while he was interviewing someone? – Steve

Gene was backstage interviewing Rick Rude & Bobby Heenan when the SummerSlam sign that was on the wall behind them fell to the ground. Gene let out a “Fuck!” before the director cut away to the announce team. It’s appeared on a couple of WWF blooper tapes since then.

I had always thoght that the injury to Chavo Guerrero caused by a Billy Kidman Shooting Star Press was real and not kayfabe, and it seems most others do as well. But then if that was a real injury, and the move was banned, why did WWE go with the London/Kidman storyline that focused on the move? Or was the injury kayfabe just to set up the feud? – 411’s Daniel Wilcox

It was real, and the SSP was later banned. But before they ultimately decided to ban the move, they took the opportunity to make a pretty darn good storyline out of it by having Kidman “injure” Paul London with the move the way he legitimately did injure Chavo. When you can use real life events to work a storyline, it usually works pretty well, and that was an instance where it did.

Why dont wwe ever have a diva cage match is it cause they dont think they can handle that type of match?I would love to see mickie james and melina in a hell in a cell. – RJEVH01

There has been one women’s cage match in WWE history…on the November 24, 2003 edition of Raw, Victoria defeated Lita in a cage match that was made by the Raw Roulette wheel. I don’t think having women compete in cage matches meshes well with how WWE presents their Divas. I’m not going to be a sexist and say that they couldn’t handle being in a cage, because they could, but the ugliness of cage matches is a stark contrast from the beauty generally associated with the Divas. And having seen some of Mickie & Melina’s regular matches, I think putting them in a dangerous enviroment like HIAC would be a really, really bad idea.

Conor O’Boyle has some questions…

It is true in WCW 2000 that Tito Santana actually pin Jeff Jarrett??Also did Sting,Kevin Nash and Ric Flair all have title regin for like 1 day or something during that period?If so,are these title regin still count today??

The Tito pinning Jarrett thing was part of a one night deal on WCW Monday Nitro where Jarrett faced three different legends: Santana, Jimmy Snuka & George Steele. During the Snuka match, Jarrett suffered a concussion that caused him to miss a couple weeks of action.

To explain these one day reigns briefly:

Sting defeated DDP for the WCW title during the first hour of Monday Nitro on Apr. 26, 1999. In the main event, Sting lost the title in a four-way match…to DDP.

Kevin Nash was serving as commissioner in early 2000 and decided to strip Sid Vicious of the WCW title and awarded it to himself. Sid defeated Nash & Ron Harris later in the evening to win the title back.

Ric Flair was awarded the title by Kevin Nash at the opening of a Monday Nitro in May of 2000, days after Nash won it because Flair had been stripped of the belt a couple of weeks prior and had never actually lost it. So of course he lost it later that evening to Jeff Jarrett.

They all still count.

WCW was very strange in 1999 & 2000.

Plus during there run in WWE in 91 did Flair and Ricky Steamboat ever face each other?I know Flair did face Kerry Von Eirch during is run.
Also did Bret Hart and Rick Rude ever face each other one on one?If so do u have any info about the match.

I don’t think Flair ever wrestled “The Dragon”. Steamboat returned to WCW in November 1991, so I don’t think he and Flair were together in the WWF long enough to have a match.

According to Hart in a column he wrote upon Rude’s death, they faced each other on only one occasion. Rude got the victory in the match that was held in Italy sometime in 1989. I am going to guess it was in April because the WWF toured Italy shortly after WrestleMania V.

I see coverage on 411 for so many independent and international promotions, big and small, and I was wondering why I never read anything about the NWA, other than everyone shitting on them when they took back their belts from TNA. I’ve been reading online, and they are doing arena shows in Vegas and Texas with thousands of people, and have plenty more planned for the rest of the year around the world…are any indy feds doing this kind of business? Joey Ryan and Karl Anderson, who got so much heat from the Mexican crowd it caused a riot in McAllen, TX, a couple months back, just won the NWA World Tag Team Championships, last held by LAX, by defeating X-Pac and Billy Kidman, two former Vince champions on TV. The NWA is in the second round of a Heavyweight Tournament for the globally recognized World Title they took back from TNA, and it even features indy-darling American Dragon as the favorite. I read everyone shitting on what the NWA means now and how it will never be what it was, but here they are with an Anderson as a Tag Champ, doing traveling arena shows, and they just a TV deal on the DIsh Network starting in Sept. (not to mention current NWA Heritage champ “Scrap Iron” Adam Pearce, who is as old-school NWA as it gets). It just seems like this is a lot of news that I am not reading about on the site that actually seems like the NWA is moving forward, and I was wondering what you thought about the current “NWA renaissance.” – Mr. Kaufman

You won’t see me hating on Machine Gun Anderson…he came up through my favorite Greater Cincinnati wrestling promotion, the NWF. And he’s damn good. A lot of this news you read about the NWA comes from the NWA themselves…they are doing a good job of promoting themselves on the Internet. Questions have been raised about some of the attendance counts for these shows in Vegas & Texas, which hardly makes them the first promotion to lie about attendance, but I wouldn’t put too much stock in those numbers as meaning something. The TV deal on Dish isn’t all that impressive, as it’s on a channel that most Dish subscribers don’t even know they have. It ain’t Spike TV.

As for an NWA renaissance, I think everybody is in a “wait and see” mode. I don’t tend to get hyped up on a wrestling promotion unless I see plenty of evidence that it’s something worth checking out and it stays consistent for a good period of time. I waited quite awhile before hopping on the ROH bandwagon…once I saw their shows in Dayton, I was a believer in their product. I still criticize some aspects of what they do, but that’s just being fair and balanced. This new NWA is going to have to give us something to talk about, we’re not going to act like sheep and say they’re great just because they have Bryan Danielson in their tournament or their title belt goes back to 1948.

We’ve seen a lot of talk from NWA promoters before that led to nothing. If they can build up their product into something good, that can only be good for wrestling as a whole. I won’t root against them, but I’m going to have to see more action before I declare it a renaissance.

Brandon has 3 questions…

1. I have no way of seeing any indys wrestling, though I would love to, but I don’t know of it coming on TV anywhere or anything like that. So saying that, I’ve heard many people comment on Ring of Honor and so many indy wrestlers, but the main two I keep hearing about are Nigel McGuinness and Bryan Danielson. So I’m curious, what makes them (the way most people make it sound) the two best indy wrestlers out there? I mean do they wrestle real good like Jericho/Benoit or are they crazy like Sabu? Why are they considered two of the best wrestlers? I’m curious since I’ve never seen them.

You can see ROH on pay per view right now. I’m going to answer your question in a lazy sort of way and quote a column I wrote almost 11 months ago.

6) Nigel McGuinness
This HWA product is as good as it gets when it comes to the European style of wrestling, and has also been honing his game over in Japan while wrestling for Pro Wrestling NOAH. Nigel has become one of ROH’s top talents as their Pure Champion, and has had a well-received series of matches there with Bryan Danielson in 2006. Nigel had a total of one match with TNA and also had a short stint with OVW before leaving, but he’s got the skills and charisma to make it big in either of the big two within the next five years. He’s in it to win it!

Nigel has gotten even better in the last 11 months, as he’s working more of a heavyweight style and has added a vicious lariat as a solid finishing move.

1) “American Dragon” Bryan Danielson
Without a doubt, the best wrestler in the world that doesn’t appear on national television in his home country has to be the American Dragon. Danielson is currently the ROH & FIP heavyweight champions, and recently he’s been wrestling 60 minutes with everybody under the sun. Danielson’s style isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, as some find his technical wrestling to be a little bit boring. But hell, this is the Internet, where technical wrestling gives us wet dreams and other things too disgusting to talk about in a family column. If you were on the “Benoit is God” bandwagon in the mid-90s, certainly you should be on the “Danielson is God” bandwagon now. It’s not a question of should Bryan Danielson get a chance to shine on a national stage…it’s if he’ll get the proper chance to.

Danielson’s taken most of this year off to recover from injuries, but he doesn’t seem to have lost a step. To answer your question, they’re both technical wrestlers, nothing like Sabu. Hopefully those passages there cover why people think they’re great talents, perhaps the best two in the indies. I’d definitely say Danielson’s there, and Nigel’s moved up closer to that spot since I did that list last year.

2. I was watching a Bret Hart match the other day, and he put someone in the Sharpshooter, and for some reason it reminded me of his match with Stone Cold at Wrestlemania 13. If you remember, Austin lost by TKO, he never tapped out, he just lost consciousness, and that made me wonder something: I’ve seen title changes by pinfall and submission, but in the WWE, has there ever been a title change by TKO? If there has, when did it happen? Any times it happened outside of WWE like TNA or ECW or wherever?

There are two instances that I can remember in the WWF…you can argue whether they count as TKOs, but Bob Backlund lost the WWF title in 1983 due to Arnold Skaaland throwing in the towel while Backlund was in Iron Sheik’s camel clutch. I can’t remember any other title changes occurring due to a TKO, but perhaps somebody can jog my memory…

3. WWE is obviously not as good as it use to be. But when it comes to when I loved WWE the most, it had to be the year 2000. It seemed like it never got dull or boring, and it was always exciting. The IC title meaning something, tag division was incredible, everything. So my question is, I’m not sure how WWE works with storylines and all, if it’s a whole team of people or just a couple, but who came up with the feuds and storylines at that time since they were so good? Do any of them still work in that department, and if not what happened to them?

I answered this question at least partially in May when I talked about former WWE head writer Chris Kreski, who was responsible for a lot of what you saw in 2000.

The head writer between the Russo & Stephanie eras was Chris Kreski, who had previously written for shows like Remote Control, Beavis & Butthead & The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. One main thing that separated Kreski from those who had previously written for WWE was his use of storyboards. He had the history of each character written out so they would be able to write storylines that wouldn’t contradict previous events, and possibly even play off of them. They also helped him keep track of what people were doing at the time and who could use something to do. Of course, this didn’t make sense to most within WWE, and the practice was not continued when Stephanie took over. His storylines did have continuity and were widely praised, and he also had the benefit of having an insanely deep roster of talent to work with. Kreski left WWE in 2002, sadly he died of cancer on May 9, 2005 at the age of 42.

i’ve got a quick question for you, this one has been bugging me for years: was the late and great owen hart in the soundgarden video for “black hole sun”? i haven’t seen the video in years, but i recall someone looking just like owen in the video doing push-ups, please tell me i’m not going crazy! – Adam

The man doing the push-ups seems to have a similar hairstyle to the one Owen had at the time…but I don’t believe it was Owen.