Ask 411 Wrestling 09.26.07: Umaga is small, Mabel’s accidental victory, Hogan’s first World title shot and more!

It’s time to Ask 411 Wrestling! I’m Steve Cook, and we’re rushing things this week because I’ve got too much stuff to do and not enough time to do it. It’s like that every week…but especially this week.

I would give my arch-nemesis Domingo some dap, but the Bengals did far more to lose that game than the Seahawks did to win it. After the last 17 years or so, I’m used to that. On with the show!

Comments, Corrections & other “C” words

Some info on the five non-TNA participants in the Gauntlet match for the guy wondering about TNA getting more talent:

Keep up the good work, Steve. I really enjoy some of the nostalgia you bring each week. – Former 411 writer Tim Livingston

To the best of my knowledge, ODB was never under a WWE developmental contract…she was just working in OVW and trying to get one. She has since lost the OVW women’s title to Roucka. I don’t know anything about Roucka’s wrestling ability, but she’s quite nice to look at.

TNA could do worse than check out Wesna, current Chickfight champ… she’s feuding with Cheerleader Melissa at present, and doing a helluva job of it. – Spike

For the person asking about “Chessman” on AAA, here’s
a link, godbless lucha,
http://www.luchawiki.org/index.php?title=Chessman
,pretty much he’s the ex-leader of “la secta, or “the
Sect” for non spanish speakers. He’s rocked out with
NWO Wolfpac era sting facepaint, and what seems to be
old Kane Tights, sweet combo! Currently he’s in a
stable with Cibernetico and Charlie Manson, they call
themselves, literally, wait for it….the “Hell
Brothers”, some of ol’ Antonio Pena awkwardness and
crappification of Mexican wrestling, although things
have definitely picked up with Konnan booking. – Francisco

On the guy who got injured during Tough Enough 4…

He wrestled under the name “The Spartan Swinger” Brian Carlucci (Not his real name) in HWA and various other Ohio indies. Apparently, he was under contract and WWE paid for that injury and once healed, he got injured again and WWE paid for that too. Eventually they had released him, at least 1-1 1/2 years ago

I am guessing they released him because they had spent so much money and didn’t see themselves getting anything in return. They had spent money on his salary, 2 surgeries, rehab for the injuries, plus they bought the copyright to the name “‘The Spartan Swinger’ Brian Carlucci” and “Swing Time” (I think that was it) which was the name of the talk show he did on HWA TV. – M. Pelley

I received a couple of other answers, but the other people mentioned appeared on different TE shows. So I’m going to say this one is accurate.

Somebody asked you about Owen Hart befriending Jason from Friday the 13th when they were in Stampede Wrestling. I remember when “Jason the Terrible” was beating everybody up in Stampede, and being led by the mysterious masked Zodiac, and how everybody was going crazy for him. Scott Keith tells the story way better than I could, in a review he wrote for a Stampede video that covers the Jason period, but basically Jason was this unstoppable heel who beat everybody in the company, then feuded with Owen Hart, and by then he was so incredibly over as a cult figure that they had to turn him babyface. Once he got rid of his manager Zodiac (Barry O!) he started teaming with Owen. I think his career ended when he got his leg destroyed in a car accident, but somebody else can correct me if I’m wrong on that.

I miss Stampede Wrestling on TSN, and Ed Whelan’s slightly out-of-it persona and old-school catch phrases (“Malfunction at the junction…”) – Chris in Ottawa

Hey, just a quick response this week about the wrestling court. Another example of it… and I wish I can remember what video I watched it on, probably on youtube during his whole Lita/Copeland ordeal. Anyway, Matt Hardy went into a quick discussion of Taker’s court. Basically, he and Jeff were accused of being prima donnas during the initial run with the company. Matt basically said he and Jeff were fairly quiet and sort of stuck to themselves which sent some of the other wrestlers the wrong message. Jeff and Matt were found guilty and had to carry some of the other wrestler’s gym bags around to the next show or two as their sentence. Basically, Matt gave the feeling that it was basically just a test for the Hardys to see what they were like and to get them to relax and socialize more or else things would just be made more difficult. He added another good story about how Bradshaw convinced them to get back at Don Callis, which tied into the vibe. …And I think everyone has heard about Jackyl/Cyrus’s time in WWF. Although, I’m sure if someone hasn’t, you’ll be getting a question on it. 🙂 – J. Jimmy Jettison

I know it was a big, shocking revelation that heyman was on vince’s payroll all those years, but………how was WWE’s relationship with SMW and USWA more public than ECW? WWE sent their contracted wrestlers to ECW all the time (Ludvig Borga, Al Snow, Aldo Montoya), they had the ECW invasion of Raw, Jerry Lawler went over to ECW for an angle. So, in retrospect, it shouldnt be any sort of surprise that WWE and ECW were in bed. Heh, Vince, Paul, Jim, and Jerry……….and you thought the 4some michelle mccool had with super crazy, lashley, and khali around the GAB was sick ;-P

I think larry’s list in his 4R’s BFG preview special was pretty good. Angel Williams, Rebecca Knox *drool*, Cheerleader Melissa, Shantel Taylor, Sarah, and Amber O’Neal (Krissy Vaine’s former partner). I haven’t seen any of them wrestle, other than sarah, and maybe amber, but, yeah, they’re all hot. and from what ive read, good wrestlers. – Manu Bumb

ECW was more “anti-WWF” than the other companies, and the Internet fans didn’t want to recognize any connection between ECW & the WWF. Because they were outlawz, baby!

I don’t think you’ll be seeing Rebecca Knox in TNA or anywhere else anytime soon since she’s still recovering from a head injury that she suffered in a match in September 2006.

Questions!

Samer brings us 3 questions from Lebanon…

1- You answered a question about the Wrestlemania buyrates in last week’s edition. However i was really surprised by the numbers. Don’t you think it’s a little odd, that Wrestlemania 18 who had the “dream match” of Rock vs Hogan scored a relatively low number compared to the other Wrestlemanias? i was also surprised by the numbers for the 2 Wrestlemanias that followed, with one of them having Hogan vs Mcmahon, and the other being WM’s 20th anniversary. While WM 21, 22 and 23, who don’t have quite an impressive card compared to the ones before them, scored really high numbers. Can you give me a logical explanation? oh and i just find it ironic that maybe Hogan is such a big draw after all..

If I remember correctly, the buyrates prior to 2005 or so did not include countries outside the United States and possibly Canada. This probably has a lot to do with the WM numbers being higher once WM 21 came around.

2- Was there any heat between Mick Foley and Jerry Lawler? I mean during Foley’s feud with the Rock in 1999, and HHH in 2000, Lawler really buried him on commentary. I realize Lawler was still in his heel color commentary mode, but it seemed he that he buried him more than he would for someone else..

Lawler did the illustrations for Foley’s Christmas children’s book “Christmas Chaos” that came out in 2000. That suggests to me that any problems Lawler had with Foley were based in wrestling storyline. The King could respect somebody like Rock even when Rock was cheered by the fans and going against the McMahon family because Rock was a funny, cool guy. Mankind was kind of a geek and Cactus Jack was a maniac…these qualities are less endearing to bad guy wrestling announcers.

3- When HHH tore his quad in 2001 during that tag team match with him and Austin against HHH and Benoit, what was the original plans for him? I mean they were obviously playing a tension between him and Austin as stone cold cost him the IC title the previous night against Kane (accidentally) and he also accidentally hit Austin with a Sledgehammer during the tag team match, costing him and steve the tag titles. Was there supposed to be another Austin vs HHH feud with one of them turning face? Or the plan was to elevate HHH and Jericho all along? Maybe a fatal 4 way instead of a triple threat at KOTR? – Samer from Lebanon

I think the direction they were heading in was an Austin vs. HHH feud that would have headlined WWF shows during the summer months…unfortunately everything that could go wrong for the WWF did go wrong at that time. Triple H got hurt, Benoit got hurt, and they weren’t able to get WCW their own time slot due to the XFL debacle scaring TNN and other networks away from new WWF ventures. These factors led to the InVasion….I’ll assume that most of you know how that ended up. Not good.

DarkNightwolf101 has two questions…

1. I have a question that has been bugging me for quite some time. We all know that Jamal( from three minute warning) is Umaga. I remember Jamal being as tall and Big as Viscera. My Question to you is, how did he end up so small like that?

I believe that you’re the first person to ever describe Umaga as “small”. Jamal was never in the same weight range as Viscera…if he lost some weight between his stints in WWE, it wasn’t quite that much. Vis has always had at the very least a hundred pound weight advantage on the Samoan.

2. My second question is about Petey William’s Canadian Destroyer. How does he pull that move off, without seriously injuring his opponent? – DarkNightwolf101

Good question. If Petey lands the move properly, most of the impact will be on his backside, as the opponent’s head will be protected by Petey’s thighs. There’s no guarantee that will always happen, but I haven’t heard of any serious injuries resulting from the Canadian Destroyer. Yet.

Great column! Do you happen to have any recollection of Paul Bearer appearing on tv with a burnt wooden doll, shortly before Kane debuted? I remember him saying something about how UT had the other half of this thing, and that only one person could have given it to Paul Bearer. I can’t find anything on it. – Nate

I have a very slight recollection of this. The incident you refer to sounds familiar, but I don’t remember the exact Raw episode that it happened on. I couldn’t find it online, but I have a feeling that you’re not completely insane. Just partially.

Laszlo has a couple of questions…

Did the Vader/Hansen feud ever have a decisive winner? The only match I saw was the one where Hansen poked Vader’s eye out and the match ended in a double count out.

I think that was pretty much the “feud” right there. The match took place at an All Japan vs. New Japan supershow…Hansen represented All Japan while Vader was part of New Japan. I’m not sure they had other matches after the one they had with the eye incident. I could be wrong, but that might have been the end of it.

Kurt Angle recently held every title in TNA and I remember Ultimo Dragon entering WCW with a multitude of belts. What is the most amount of titles a wrestler has ever held at one time (including multiple promotions)?

We’ve discussed the J-Crown before, which was a collection of light heavyweight titles in Japan that lasted about a year or so in the mid-90s. When Ultimo Dragon added the WCW cruiserweight title to the mix, he had nine different titles at the same time. I’m guessing nobody’s topped that, but I could be wrong.

I read on Wikipedia that Hulk Hogan had a shot at the NWA World Title some time in 1979, any idea who his opponent was (Race, Rhodes or Baba)?

Terry Boulder took on Harley Race for the NWA title in early 1979 in the Knoxville territory. Ron Fuller was originally supposed to get the title shot, but Ox Baker injured Fuller with a heart punch earlier in the evening. Boulder saved Fuller from further damage and was awarded the title shot. He won the match with Race by disqualification after Baker interfered.

With more and more wrestlers venturing into acting. Are they members of SAG(the screen actor’s guild aka actor’s union) ? If so, does anyone see the irony in that besides me? – Rey

Some wrestlers have taken part in movies for the very purpose of getting in the SAG. Mick Foley admitted that was his only reason for doing the Insane Clown Posse’s movie “Big Money Hustlas”. It’s not a bad idea because pro wrestlers generally have a very difficult time getting insurance companies to back them up.

Irony? If wrestlers still claimed that wrestling was real, there would be some there. But that cat was let out of the bag a long time ago.

Hey there! Love your column. Very informative. Iw as wanting to know something about Men On A Mission’s alleged 2 day title reign in the WWF back in 1994 that was never seen. I’ve read other places where they had “accidentally” won the titles that night. What was the deal there? Also I remember them being so over with the crowds, why weren’t they given a run with the belts anyways outside of that 2 day reign? – Mike

Basically, what happened was that Mabel fell on top of Pierre Oulette and knocked him out. The referee counted the pinfall and new tag team champions were had…for two days. As for why they weren’t given a longer run, my best guess is that people backstage thought that MOM weren’t ready to be tag team champions. They were over, but they weren’t established as having matches that could justify being any higher on the card than they already were. Personally, I think that was the correct decision and the Headshrinkers were a much better choice to take the titles away from the Quebecers than MOM.

Francisco has several questions…

How do you come up with your answers, or what
sites, books, etc. do you use?

It would take forever to list all the resources I’ve used for this column. I will instead list a couple of sites that I use most often…

Wrestling Information Archive

History of WWE

Online World of Wrestling

Whenever possible, I like to use biographies and DVDs that I own. More often than not I will refer to them in answering the question. Any other questions will likely be answered by one of these sites or my own memory.

When the Blue Meanie returned to ECW as the Blue
Boy with Jamine St. Claire by his side, did he recieve
any backlash from the boys? Also, any clue if there
was anything specifically that prompted his weight
loss and then gain?

As far as backlash goes, he didn’t receive any that I’m aware of…I’m sure he got ribbed some, but Meanie was generally a pretty well liked fellow. Lots and lots of exercise prompted Meanie’s weight loss, best that I can tell. I hear that hanging out with Jasmine can be quite the workout.

What’s the 411 (pun intended) with Darren Drozdov?
I heard originally doctors believed he would walk
agian, what’s he currently up to.

He is still a quadriplegic. He remains employed by WWE and gives PPV predictions on WWE.com…his most recent on-camera appearance was on the Road Warriors DVD. I’m not sure if he does anything else at the moment, and I don’t know if he will walk again or not. All we can really do is hope for the best.

Who wrote the Val Venus choppee choppee your PP
angle, and why did Val go from literally closing the
show by the big Valbowski getting decapitated to being
the new Brooklyn Brawler? What killed his push? Has
the Brawler “passed the torch” to Val?

I feel pretty safe in saying that Vince Russo was behind the pee pee angle. Val’s push was likely killed by the lack of interest from the crowd in seeing him on a main event level. I recall a feud with him and Mick Foley that didn’t get over all that well, which led to a disappointing feud with him and the Rock…after that I think he was hampered by his gimmick changes, first as a clean-cut heel managed by Trish Stratus and then as a member of Right To Censor. Ever since, Val’s pretty much been treading water. He had a nice little run as Chief Morley in 2002-03, but he eventually fell into the role of putting people over.

I don’t think anybody will truly fill the Brooklyn Brawler’s shoes. He was one of a kind.

Hey, I’m 27 years old and have been a huge wrestling fan since 1991. When I first started watching wrestling the big fued at the moment was Hulk Hogan Gravest Challenge that lead up to his Survivor Series match against The Undertaker. The other day I was watching The Undertakes debut match at SS 1990 and I noticed something, no tattoos. Then I watched his Tuesday In Texas match against Hogan and I noticed that he had the grim reaper tattoo on his arm. So my question is, how long after the 1990 Survivor Series did the Undertaker gimmick get over? By 1991 it must have been over enough for him to get that tattoo and for Vince to have him pin Hogan, even if it was a 3 day title reign. – Joshua

Undertaker got over pretty damn quickly from what I remember. He was billed as pretty much indestructible by the WWF announcers and had a long string of squash matches on television. He didn’t lose any matches on television or PPV until This Tuesday in Texas. I’ll be honest, as a 7 year old kid watching wrestling and having no idea of the nature of the business…I was absolutely mortified by him. A lot of kids my age probably felt the same way until he turned against the even more sinister Jake “The Snake” Roberts. So yeah, Undertaker totally deserved to beat Hogan.

OK, I’ll admit it: I’m a Kevin Fertig mark. What can I say. He reminds me of a young “Mean” Mark Calloway.

Was something said during the commentary or chanted during the match that caused the WWE to delete the audio completely? – Aaron

I asked my good friend Manu Bumb about this because he’s the only person I know that still watches ECW…

heh…..you know i cant watch that show sober 😛 to the best of my knowledge, no, nothing was said or chanted to make them delete it completely. i would think if something was, they could easily edit it without getting rid of the entire thing. of course, the fact that the audio IS missing is strange. If I remember correctly, that was the week tommy got some cheers and chants of “tommy! tommy! tommy!”, but thats it.

Maybe they didn’t want Dreamer to get over online?

Clyde has four questions…

1) What was the storyline between Hulk Hogan and Mean Gene vs. Mr. Fuji and George “The Animal” Steele?

I think the story was that Hulk wanted to take on Steele & Fuji in a handicap match, but the WWF told him that he had to have a tag team partner or they wouldn’t book it. Since the match was in Minneapolis, Hogan recruited his good friend Gene Okerlund, who before joining Hogan in the WWF was a longtime AWA announcer that was very popular in the area. He’d had some problems with Steele & Fuji prior to this as well. Gene was reluctant, but Hogan promised him that he wouldn’t get hurt. This led to Hogan training Gene for the match in some entertaining segments.

2) Was that Jesse Ventura at the end of the match between Hogan/Gene vs. Fuji/Animal–the person who ran up and tried to sneak attack Hogan? If not, who was it?

Indeed it was. Though to correct you…he tried to sneak attack Okerlund, not Hogan

3) If this was Ventura, was this his last try to get the title before the blood clots?

The match took place on August 26, 1984, and Ventura was scheduled to be the next contender for Hogan’s title. He had a couple of matches with Hogan on house shows before the blood clots in his lungs struck and forced him to retire from wrestling. The last match I can find record of Jesse competing in took place on September 17, 1984 against George Wells. Jesse was scheduled to take on Hogan at the MSG show on September 22nd, but the blood clots prevented that from happening.

4) Why was the blue cage in the WWE got rid of–was it aesthetics or was it because of age?

I’d say it was a little bit of both. The big blue cage didn’t really fit in with what they were going for in the Attitude era…a darker, grungier cage was the answer. Basically, they based their new cage off the types of cages that NWA/WCW had been using for years, which were more popular with wrestling fans than the big blue cage anyway.

Do you think Ric Flair will end up in tna and do you think they would let him retire with their title? I know he would like to have a last match with his good freind Sting. – RJEVH01

I don’t think he will, and I don’t think they would. Flair has recently stated that he hasn’t quit WWE, and I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon. He’s smart enough to know that staying there is the best thing for his financial status and his legacy, both of which are very important to him.

Wow Totally Nonstop Angle. Is it me or can the Booking Committee go one year without totally building the entire company around one man, I mean the 1st 3 & a half years of TNA it was the All Jarrett All the time thing. now it’s Angle. What will it take for these guys to shape up and stop building the company’s show around one man. as for who this Former World Champion is, it could very well be, Mr. Monday Night, Rob Van Dam. no one seems to be taking that into consideration, at least not from what I read. now as for the whole Jailhouse Jones, I mean Pacman, situation, how asinine can you get? do you realize how bad it’ll hurt TNA’s credibility if this constant Police-car riding moron, and yes he is a moron if you’ve watched the Bryant Gumbel interview, if he were to I dunno, miss No Surrender due to being arrested? I mean the way TNA is booking i’m surprised they didn’t hire Michael Vick to do an Angle with Rick Steiner. oooh, too soon? TNA has failed to capitialize on Money Matches, I mean who in their right mind didn’t want to see James Storm & Chris Harris go at it one more time after the 2 awesome matches they had? and then poof the feud was over I’m guessing because Angle got jealous they did better than he did in the ring. TNA needs to shape up and fly right in the Business world otherwise the statement that TNA at the moment resembles WCW at the end, will be very very true. – John Bryant

I said they should have brought in Vick for Bound For Glory…you don’t think they could sell out an arena in Atlanta if people knew Ron Mexico was gonna be there? You have to remember that Jeff Jarrett grew up on Memphis wrestling, and in Memphis the promotion was always based around one man…Jerry Lawler. This is what Jarrett knows and what he bases his knowledge of what works off of. The difference is that Jarrett’s trying to run a national wrestling promotion…and quite frankly Jerry Lawler in his prime was a lot more entertaining than either Jeff Jarrett or Kurt Angle. There’s nobody in TNA that can carry the company on his back on a national level the way that Lawler did on a local level. You have to have a full cast of characters in order for your company to succeed…the Attitude Era may have been carried by Austin & Rock, but you also had DX, Undertaker, Mick Foley and other people that the fans wanted to see as well. That’s what TNA needs, not crappy “celebrities”.

Why did Smackdown move to Friday nights? was there a reason behind it or did the company think they’d do better Fridays than Thursdays? – TheMidnightPunk

UPN was not happy with the ratings Smackdown was doing on Thursday nights, and they were in a mode where they wanted to be more upscale, or at least not the “wrestling network”. So they shunted it over to Friday nights. Of course, Smackdown was still the highest rated show they had. Whoops.

so, ya know how TNA hasnt improved much at all over the past 5 years? well, i think thats because wrestling fans are gone. you had WWE fans, WCW/NWA fans, and wrestling fans. WWE and WCW fans have very little interest in TNA because they dont know most of the guys (although, recently, it looks like WWE fans would recognize most of the show), and it really does take an investment to get into them. ive been watching lucha for a while and, because of the language barrier, im still learning stuff.

sorry, just an observation i had while watching anarchy. – Manu Bumb

It sounds like the point you’re getting at is that TNA would be best served trying to create new fans instead of appealing to the older fans or the WWE fans. Unfortunately I’m not sure that’s part of their business plan at the moment. The opening match on their first huge two hour episode of Impact is Rhino vs. Black Reign. That’ll put butts in the seats. I won’t hate on Rhino too much, he’s been pretty useful in TNA, but Dustin Runnels outlived his usefulness years ago and is now just living off of his name. I can’t imagine that’s the image TNA wants to put out to potential viewers…is it?

Hey, first-time writer. I’m watching ROH’s “Best of the Briscoe Brothers” DVD (excellent, by the way) and I was wondering: Are Jay and Mark actually kin to Jack and Gerald Briscoe? – Sean Comer

No sir. Jack & Gerald Brisco were born and raised in Oklahoma and have spent most of their adult lives in Georgia & Florida. Jay & Mark Briscoe (not their real last name, by the way) grew up in Delaware and have spent most of their lives in the Northeast. There is no relation between these two sets of brothers.

I remember hearing about some years back, that back in
the mid-90’s, on the last ECW Hardcore TV before
Halloween, all of the wrestler’s who’d worked for the
WWF came out dressed as their WWF characters. Can you
enlighten us on this or do you know where there’s video? – Micah

I have never heard about this, but it sounds pretty darn entertaining. Readers?

Rock ‘n Roll Warrior has a bunch of questions this week…

Who sang “Together” for Macho Man & Elizabeth’s wedding at Summerslam ’91. I’m trying to download it for a soundtrack for my sister’s wedding this coming weekend. It was also played at Hunter’s and Stephanie’s nuptial renewals.

I could not locate this information. For the record, if anybody suggests playing this song at my wedding, I will knock them out. Just saying.

Who was the man who was Dr. Sigmund Ziff during the George Steele Psychiatrist skits? IIRC, he also played Bobby Heenan’s schyster lawyer on Primetime, a weird explorer in Fuji Chan and the Director of Fuji General.

Damn, 0 for 2! You’re really digging up the questions this week…all I know is that he was later revealed to be a gynecologist.

Having just watched European Rampage Tour 1991 on WWE 24/7 and also scanning skits from World Tour 1991 with Bobby Heenan and Alfred Hayes, I was instantly reminded of one of Heenan’s goofiest scams. Shortly before Wrestlemania VII, there were all these endorsements by Bobby that he personally knew the Queen and this woman dressed up as the Queen did a couple of vignettes slamming Davey Boy Smith who was feuding with The Warlord. She ordered her subjects/fans to cheer for the Warlord because he used the wrestling hold named after Lord Nelson, the Full Nelson and bashed the British Bulldog because of his “foul smelling drool”. It was later revealed by a hidden camera that Heenan was in on the whole thing with this imposter…the exchange between these 2 were absolutely priceless “Hey, I’ll call the Queen now…oh, she’s not there!” both of them laughing themselves very hard. When did these skits take place and what show and would you happen to have a link(s) on youtube etc. or scripts?

This sounds like something that would have aired on Prime Time Wrestling prior to WrestleMania VII. As for video, I had no luck in locating any.

One of the weirdest memories I have is of Mr. Fuji turning on the tag team champions, Demolition at the 1988 Survivor Series. Demolition turned face and Powers Of Pain turned heel. Then around a year later, Fuji splits up the Powers of Pain just to concentrate on the original version of the Orient Express. Getting back to Demolition, why would the writers have Mr. Fuji turn on his tag-team champions? Powers of Pain were intimidating to a degree but to me it was a poor exchange. Also, I sort of suspected something rotthen even back then, because during one of the POP’s matches (I’m presuming Baron (Von Raschke)) was still there manager), Mr. Fuji snuck down near ringside taking pictures of the POP. My injoke was that he was using Fujifilm in his camera (boo!). Can you think of other incidents where managers have turned on their champions just for someone “better” that wasn’t a champion? I think Bobby Heenan and JImmy Hart may come to mind.

Jimmy falls into that category for sure, as he turned on Hulk Hogan at Halloween Havoc 1995 in favor of the Giant and the Dungeon of Doom. To be fair, he expected Giant to be the champion after he did the turn, but WCW overturned the original decision and had the title vacated. I can’t think of other ones off the top of my head, but I’m sure it’s happened at some point. Fuji was never portrayed as the sharpest knife in the WWF manager drawer, that’s for sure.

Awhile back, I posed a question/comment on 2 examples of very vulgar promos. Example 1: Skinner was supposed to feud with Ricky Steamboat when Ricky came back in 1991 (Dragon Costume and breathing fire and monotone). Skinner did a promo during a match where he held up a tiny rubber lizard and implied that it was Ricky’s son, then bit it’s head off. “Heh, heh, what I did your “boy”, that’s what I’m going to you”…I’m paraphrasing but you get the idea. Example 2: When Owen & Davey Boy were tag-team champions in 1997, they had a brief feud with the New Blackjacks. The Blackjacks said/implied/insinuated some disgusting things about Owen and Davey’s children…almost sexual like…double entendres. No doubt it was for shock value but do you think that during promos, the children of wrestlers, particularly young children should be off limits? Heh, I’m sure you remember when Cactus Jack went insane in a shoot interview because a fan made a sign that said “Cane Dewey”?

I’m not a big fan of wrestlers threatening other wrestlers’ children, especially in feuds that aren’t going to draw any money anyway like the feuds you discussed in your question. There are easier ways to get heat that aren’t going to offend people.

Great column you put out week to week, you’ve got one of the columns I
make sure to read. Obviously with MVP being injured they WWE has
delayed his program with Hardy and decided to use the common, “enemies
become tag partners and have to learn to trust the man they were
previously facing”. MVPs heart condition hasn’t allowed him to wrestle
fully which seems to explain the delay of the program.

What I wanted to know was what happened to the 30 day title defense
rule? Has he been performing at the house shows at least? You can’t
say his beer drinking competition or his random small performances
count. If he was that injured why didn’t he just drop the title, is
the E that set on pushing Matt Hardy? Edge made a mention of the rule
when he forfeit the title on SD, what’s going on? – Mike from Edison NJ

If they plan on putting the US title on Matt Hardy, they would probably prefer that he win the title cleanly over MVP. Smackdown’s had this nasty habit of having their titles change hands in battle royals because of their champions getting injured, and I think they’re optimistic that MVP will be able to actively compete sooner rather than later. Of course, this results in them forgetting about their “rules” and looking like a bunch of jackasses…but you can justify it in a storyline perspective because General Manager Teddy Long’s been concentrating on his wedding and is currently out of commission due to overdosing on Viagra.

And people wonder why I don’t bother with the televised wrestling anymore…

Hayden Schade has three questions from Auckland…

What happened at the end of the Goldberg/Bret Hart match on Nitro for the World Title in late 1999? I’m referring to their match where Bret turned heel (for the millionth time) and reformed the NWO with Jarrett, Nash and Hall. When they did the NWO run-in where Bret took the baseball bat and started beating the crap outta Goldberg, Piper came in and covered Goldberg to protect him. The referee counted the 3 count with PIPER covering GOLDBERG and suddenly Bret Hart is declared champion?!? I know theres been a lot of screwups in the past…but what the hell??!? Do we just put that down to a referee mistake or what?

One of my favorite three word answers comes to mind here…Russo booked it. I gave up trying to make sense of most of the stuff he puts on television a long time ago because it made my head hurt.

Also – at Survivor Series 1989 – was the Warrior/Heenan family match always meant to be on last? It seemed weird that Hogan’s match was on the middle of the card. I always wondered if this was to do with trying to push the Warrior as a main eventer, or if it was just to buy more time to map out their match in light of Tully Blanchard’s noshow (due to a failed drugtest) and give Heenan and the boys more time to go over the match backstage…

I think it did have a lot to do with the Tully stuff going on backstage. But…Hogan did have a lot of his matches in the middle of the card during his time in the WWF. We discussed this in previous columns…but to answer your question it was probably due to Tully getting fired.

Lastly – is there an uncut version of the Survivor Series 1988 out there? The version I have (Coliseum video) is majorly cut down…. the Warrior one is just highlights of the eliminations….and the British Bulldogs elimination from the 10 on 10 tag match is never shown. How did they get eliminated? – Hayden Schade

Tom Billington doesn’t go into too much detail in his book “Pure Dynamite”, but he does say that Smash of Demolition pinned him towards the end of the match to eliminate the British Bulldogs. I do not know if SurSer 88 has been re-released or if it will be anytime soon.

So, I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about all things wrestling, my wealth of completely useless knowledge is something of a point of pride. But last night I’m watching one of my personal favorite matches, Joe vs Necro IWA:MS in Philly. Prazak, Kingston and Punk do ridiculously awesome commentary on this one and in it Punk repeatedly drops the name Rob Naylor (Nailor?). He even actually says, “I can’t believe I’m name dropping Rob Naylor!” My question is… who the heck is Rob Naylor? – Jeremy Sexton

Rob Naylor is pretty well known in the Internet wrestling message board community. I’m not much of a message board guy, but I have seen his name on two boards that I check semi-regularly for news and whatnot, the ROH message board and the Death Valley Driver message board. As for why Punk kept talking about him, it went back to a message board thread where Naylor was going on about the virtues of a possible Samoa Joe vs. Necro Butcher matchup. Apparently he was passionate enough about the topic for Punk to take notice and constantly mention him on commentary. You don’t see Jim Ross doing that very often, that’s for sure.