Ask 411 Wrestling 01.30.08: Scars, Real Names, Scripted Promos and more!

It’s time to Ask 411 Wrestling! I’m Steve Cook, and I hope you all are having a fantastic week. Mine has been pretty darn good, thanks for asking! I went to the ROH show in Dayton last Friday night and had a splendid time…I know some of you don’t know what this “ROH” stuff is and would rather get on with reading about Ultimate Warrior and Shawn Michaels, so feel free to scroll on down to the “Questions” section.

For those of you sticking around, here’s the bullet points…

· Match of the night was Bryan Danielson vs. Tyler Black. Everybody loved it except the friend I attended the show with…he’s biased against Black for some reason and didn’t think that Danielson got enough offense early on. I thought Black needed to get the offense early to show that he could be a credible threat to AmDrag, and it might have worked a little bit too well. The DVD purchase may be worth it for that match…and the fact that you’ll probably see me during the Albright/Whitmer vs. Delirious/Generico match. I hear Dayton DVDs sell well based on my presence alone. Of course, I hear that from myself…not somebody that’s actually in the know.

· The Aries Q & A was a train wreck, but we expected that before it happened. Aries is probably the last guy on the ROH roster that could carry an interesting Q & A session, so we didn’t know why they were having him do it. The fans mostly asked some pretty dumb questions, but Aries wasn’t even interested in answering the good ones. I could have told you before Friday that he wasn’t a very personable guy, and that did little to change my opinion.

· The most annoying wrestling fan of all time sat behind my friend. The section wasn’t exactly the best, but there was a little girl that yelled for people to punch other people in the balls that made me laugh my ass off. About midway through the show she beat up a man who I figure was either her dad or brother…he tapped out to an armbar and it got one of the bigger pops of the night. You don’t see that at every wrestling show.

· The preshows just aren’t what they used to be. Back in the day you’d get three matches, and one of them would have somebody you’d actually heard of. Now you get two student matches where the only redeeming value is Adam Pearce’s hilarious ring announcing.

· I got a picture of myself with Sara Del Rey on my cell phone. My legal team has advised me not to comment further on this matter…if you read Ari’s Column of Honor you know that Sweet & Sour Inc. is not afraid to take legal action. Only 411’s Larry Csonka & CHIKARA expert Steve “Ghetto” Montoya have seen this picture, and that is how it shall remain. Mostly because my face is about 17 different shades of red, and I wasn’t even drinking. Sara’s smile is rather breathtaking though…I better move on with the column before Larry Sweeney’s lawyers sue me into oblivion.

Ari, you were a noble competitor and I look forward to working with you in the future to further the cause of 411wrestling.com.

Programming Note: Don’t forget to check out 411Mania tomorrow. The boss…is back.

Comments, Corrections & Other “C” Words

If I may recall correctly, and I’m pretty confident in this.. HBK was feuding with Jeff Jarrett. Prior to this, HBK’s finisher was simply the Superkick. Jarrett had this gimmick where he was using the WWF as a “stepping stone” to launch his country music career, and Jarrett had country songs recorded. HBK then said that he would make some music of his own – some sweet chin music, alluding that he’d hit Jarrett with the superkick. That’s how it started being called Sweet Chin Music. – Patrick

I’m sure this is becoming a tired bit but I’ve enjoyed the stories from
your readers about experiences with wrestlers and I kind of felt like I
ought to share but I’ve held back for some reason or another but I
figured I might as well share if you’re still looking for stuff like
this.

That show was one of many that led to No Mercy of that year which had
Batista vs. Eddie Guerrero in the main event. After the show my friends
and I stop at a Denny’s on the way back to San Antonio where they live.
No more than 5 minutes go by after we’re seated before Johnny Nitro
(John Morrison) and Melina pop in for a bite. My friends were a tad too
timid but I kind of felt like I had driven a good distance for a PPV so
I might as well try to milk the experience so I politely asked for an
autograph on my ticket stub. Neither had a problem with it and joked a
bit when my pen was giving Nitro some trouble. That stub is one of my
most prized possessions and remains locked up when I’m not showing it to
people. After that we continued on back on the road when we notice a
limo riding along beside us. Naturally we’re curious to see who’s inside
so we maintain a pace with the limo and discover it’s Eddie Guerrero!
Watching Carlito’s Way on his DVD player no less. Were it possible we’d
have followed him the entire time to San Antonio but we had to stop for
gas. It’s an odd feeling now looking back because no more than a few
weeks later he passed away but at the time it was one of those WTF
moments. There have been others but those are the ones that stand out
most of all. – Mateo

Also as an aside, i met Ric Flair in the Louis Vuitton section of a Dublin (Ireland) department store in May 2004. He was really cool, i went up, excused myself and said i was a fan, he shook my hand and hoped i enjoyed the show that night. Awesome meeting such a legend. – Simone

The Raw announce booth was moved to the stage by Bischoff I think a few weeks after he arrived on Raw, and he blatantly said that it was an attempt to get Raw to look more like Nitro, as those days were still fresh in everyone’s head.

While I’m here I might as well share my meet-the-wrestler story. Many years ago (I want to say 1991) there was a local show promoted by Sonny Beach at the Staten Island JCC. The main event for one of the shows was Cactus Jack v Sonny Beach it what turned out to be your typical Cactus Jack bloodbath, which to see in the front row at the age of 11 was quite the spectacle. Anyway, some of the wrestlers were available to meet after the show, not in a signing session, but they were just hanging out around the building afterwards. So I went up to Mick and I was so scared of him because I had seen him on some WCW programs and he didn’t come off as the most amicable of people (ahh I long for the days of kayfabe). I simply asked him “Jack, what happened to the NWA? (He left WCW in its infancy so i still thought of it as NWA) and he just looks at me really evil-like and goes “I QUIT! AHGHGH!” I ran away almost crying. Between the show that year and the one show they did the next there was a fair few names that I met after the shows- Paul Ornorff (came off as a dickhead), Iron Mike Sharpe (got me confused because he completely broke kayfabe after the show and was totally a nice guy, and when I asked him if his forearm is ever gonna heal he said “It’s ok, my arm’s been fine for 10 years, I just use it to win matches– he actually did win that nite and won a battle royal later in the show), Haiti Kid, Chief Jay Strongbow (had no idea how old he actually was because he was really on that nite), and SD Jones who didn’t say much. – Alex

“Eric Bischoff panicked and Hogan vs. Goldberg was booked for the next week’s Nitro. It was a great moment, but ultimately one of the dumbest things any wrestling promoter has ever done. Had they built up Hogan vs. Goldberg properly and put it on PPV, the buyrate would have been huge, certainly comparable with Starrcade 1997, which if memory serves me correctly was WCW’s biggest PPV buyrate.”

This seems to be the go-to response anytime anyone asks about what killed WCW. Hogan v. Goldberg was one of the dumbest things any wrestling promoter has ever done?? I guess giving away Austin-Rock, Austin-Angle, Rock-Angle, Austin-Undertaker, Triple H-Jericho, and Austin-Triple H would have to be numbers two through seven then. All of the aforementioned blockbuster matches happened on RAW before they ever happened on PPV. No one seems to remember that the WWF gave away Austin – Rock on free TV mere MONTHS before it headlined Wrestlemania XV (the most profitable WWF PPV ever up till that point). Could Hogan-Goldberg have made huge money headlining a major PPV? Of course. But by showing it on Nitro, Goldberg’s first title win was seen by the largest possible audience. It also nicely set up the Bash at the Beach PPV a few weeks later that, if I remember correctly, actually grossed more than Starrcade 97 even though the buyrate was slightly lower. Seriously man, you need to be less short-sighted in the future and start looking at the bigger picture before responding with “stock” answers such as the one above. – Bobby

I checked with my brother, who works in royalties with Universal Music,
about the ROH copyrighted music issue. Basically, most arenas have a
music performance license that allows, for example, bands to do covers
and DJs to play songs. Selling these performances falls under the
arena’s license. When they are broadcast, however, it falls into a
different category. Given that he took a 3-year degree course to know
the answers, he didn’t go into detail, but that might enlighten your
readers. – 411’s Chris Landsell

I saw where Fransisco wanted to know where he could get up to date Lucha information.

It’s a blog that is updated almost daily with lucha results and happenings. – Blehschmidt

To be fair they used aluminum trash cans, street signs, and cookie sheets way more than chairs. They sounded cool, and had awesome crushing effects when they hit people. I would be happy with just that.

If the dude is spendin bucks on a rec room, and wants a poster, have him go somewere to get it custome made, shit happens all the time. – Chris

I think Daily Hotness has been deemed the exclusive property of the Music section…maybe we should get Csonka to put up some Steph pictures for you in his news column.

Steve, if you’re still checking these, you have your dates a bit mixed up. Raw ended Nitro’s 84-week winning streak in the ratings in mid-April 1998 (the Vince vs. Austin title “match”). The Goldberg-Hogan match didn’t occur until three months later (July 1998) after RAW managed to win the ratings battle often during that stretch. – Jason S.

I believe there’s a bit more to the Hogan-Goldberg Nitro story. The Georgia Dome event attracted a huge advance and apparently when Hogan got wind of this, he volunteered to put Goldberg over in a dark non-title match so he could claim to have drawn the gate. However, when word got out that Hogan-Goldberg was on the card, Bischoff decided it needed to be on TV. Once that happened, they went all the way and made it a title match. And after Hogan lost the title, he still main-evented PPVs, usually in tag teams with non-wrestling celebrities like Dennis Rodman. – ApinOZ

“Before the match they showed a beautiful blonde in the front row of whom Jerry Lawler remarked, ‘Did she step on a rake?’ After Michaels won the match he went over and kissed her on the lips. She didn’t seem to have much of a shocked reaction. Who was this woman?” I’m guessing that the blonde woman was just some ringrat that Shawn bagged. I’ve watched tapes and noticed her at other PPVs and Raws during that same time period. – Kid Cairo

Another week of Ask411 and another week of no editing. Was Christopher Homoski’s question really necessary to print and take the time to answer? Did anyone with an IQ above 5 actually laugh at this nonsense? – Brad B.

Sometimes I print things just to show people the kind of questions I receive sometimes. For example…

Hi Steve;

Thank you!! – J Bob Eddy

He moved thirty years before I was born. If that Steve Cook is reading this column, please write in. On with the show!

Questions!

Brandon has a few questions about Goldberg’s time in the WWE…

1) I don’t know if Goldberg was ever used in the WCW/ECW Alliance vs WWE storyline, If he was, what did he do? If he was not, why?

Goldberg did not make it into WWE until March 2003, which was well after the Alliance storyline fizzled out in November 2001. The reason quite simply was that Goldberg’s contract was not one of the contracts WWE picked up when they purchased WCW from Time Warner. Goldberg remained under contract with Time Warner until May 2002, and then he did some other things including wrestling in Japan. Goldberg was one of WCW’s highest paid performers and people believed that he had a big ego, which were two strikes against him coming in with the rest of the WCW guys.

2) Did Goldberg leave on his own or did the WWE kick him out? Did they try to get him to renew his contract?

Goldberg had no interest in coming back to WWE, one year there was more than enough for him as he’s been very critical of how they used him while he was there in various interviews. WWE did make him an offer, but I don’t think they were too broken up over his departure.

3) Do you think if Goldberg would have stayed after WM 20 (and was still there today) and maybe got darfted to Smackdown and fueded with Angle or Undertaker or stay on Raw and go for the World Title again it would have been good for the WWE today.

If Goldberg didn’t want to be there, it wasn’t going to work. We can play fantasy booking and go back in time and change things around so Goldberg could have saved wrestling and it’d still be a big mainstream hit today, but in reality it just wasn’t meant to be. If Goldberg wanted to be there and they sent him to Smackdown and feuded with Kurt Angle, could it have worked? Sure, if it was done right. There’s no guarantee that it would have worked, and the way they used him while he was there I doubt they could have used him better if he stuck around longer.

Nick has two questions…

Got a question for you. What’s with Johnny Devine’s massive scar on his abdomen?

Devine acquired his scar on the night of September 26, 2004. He and fellow TNA competitor Andy Douglas were at a bar in Nashville, Tennessee when they were involved in an altercation and he was stabbed in the abdomen. He had his gallbladder removed as a result of the injury, and it led to him being out of action on and off for about a year and a half. In October 2005, Devine had surgery to repair several hernias that had been caused by the doctors that had performed his original surgery. Gotta love American health care.

Oh, and because I don’t know who else to ask, but is there any pro=wrestling going on in the Northern Virginia/Washington DC area?

The only promotion in that area that I can find information on is KYDA Pro Wrestling. From their site:

“KYDA Pro Wrestling was created in 1998 by KYDA Pro owner Jimmy Z. The KYDA Pro training school quickly become the premier training facility on the East Coast having trained such stars as former WWE Woman’s champion Mickie James, TNA star Sonjay Dutt, and many top independent wrestlers such as Sean Lei, Dirty Money, John Kermon, Snatch Haggis, Chucky Wynn, Brock Singleton, and Jake Damian! KYDA Pro is currently running shows in Virginia, West Virginia and Washington DC.”

I couldn’t find any other promotions, but that one may be worth a shot.

Is it true that the Ultimate Warrior was supposed to face Bret Hart for the WWF title at Royal Rumble 1993? Wikipedia says:

I knew Warrior was supposed to be Savage’s partner at SS ’92, but he was fired prior to the event. – Eddie

This information apparently came from Bret Hart himself, and I had never heard this before but it sounds feasible. Warrior had been the top challenger for the belt after Ric Flair won it back from Randy Savage, so it would make sense for him to still be the top contender even though Hart had won the title from Flair. They were not against booking face vs. face title matches at this point in time, as Warrior had challenged Savage for the title at SummerSlam 1992. Sounds good to me…it sure would have been interesting to see how that match would have worked out.

Luke has two questions…

I’m a big fan of the column and there’re a couple of things that have been bothering me recently.

Firstly, real names. you mentioned a few weeks ago that if you meet a wrestler, call them by their ring name. On CMPunk.com, there’s a section called Ask Punk, where one of the questions starts “hey, Phil…”. Punk ignores the question and refers to something that Raven wrote, ranting about fans calling wrestlers by their real names. I’ve tried looking for this, but I can’t find it. Can you help? If you don’t know about Raven’s rant, why do the wrestlers get pissed off? I can understand Punk, Raven, Taker etc being annoyed, but would someone who’s gone through multiple gimmicks really care?

Raven’s take on fans calling wrestlers by their real names has been documented in his blog on January 10 & 23, 2004. I include the link so you can read it for yourself…basically he says that if you come up to him and call him by his real name, he’ll think you’re some guy trying to show how “smart” and how “inside” you are, and a lot of wrestlers don’t like that. There is a difference between the wrestler you see performing their craft in the ring and on the cameras than the human being who’s just trying to make a living and get through life. Just because you see Raven or CM Punk on television or in your arena on a fairly regular basis doesn’t mean you know the people behind those personas. Different people have different preferences, and there are probably some wrestlers who won’t get pissed off at you if you call them by their real name. I’d go with their ring name just to be safe.

Secondly, do wrestlers in WWE/TNA get to choose (or at least veto) their music? Most WWE music seems to fit the wrestlers rather well, but TNA (and RoH PPVs) have some really random interchangeable stuff.

I get the impression that they don’t have much of a say in it. At least Alex Shelley didn’t have a say in the music TNA chose for him because he complained about it once in his Live Journal.

Kevin McCarthy has three questions…

1) When you pay $40 for a pay-per-view, how much of that actually goes to the WWE? I ask this because I notice that the Hi-Def PPVs are going to be $50, and I think that the price is more due to the PPV company than it is the WWE.

I don’t know the exact numbers, but I have to believe that WWE is behind raising the prices even more than the PPV companies because they’re the ones spending the money to produce stuff in HD. That type of production costs more money than regular TV production does, so they want to make more money off of it. I’m not throwing the cable/satellite companies under the bus for this one, even though they do plenty of other things to screw us.

2) I watched the Black Saturday show on WWE 24-7 and I noticed that the show was Vince introducing WWF(E) footage from the WCW set using WCW bumper music and graphics. Was that only for that first episode or did the use the WCW Music and Graphics for the entire WWF run on TBS before selling the timeslot to Crockett?

I was not watching wrestling at this point because I was less than a year old. So I asked my colleague Larry Csonka…unfortunately he didn’t know either. I need somebody who is old enough to remember watching that schiznit to write in and tell me.

3) Whatever happened to members of the Crockett Family? I read that a few were working for Vince but I would figure some Crocketts are still in the industry in some capacity.

Jim Crockett Jr. tried to get back into wrestling with the World Wrestling Network in 1994, but it only lasted two shows before failing. Interestingly enough, one of the men Crockett worked on that venture with was Paul Heyman, who was named head booker. It didn’t work out, and Crockett has not been seen in wrestling since. David Crockett has not been involved in wrestling either, but he did make an appearance on WWE Confidential in 2002 to discuss the plane crash in 1975 that broke Ric Flair’s back and ended the career of Johnny Valentine.

Isaac has three questions…

1) Why is Hogan not on the cover of The Wrestling Album? He was a big part of Rock n Wrestling, his song is on the record and it just seems like a huge miss that he’s not on the cover, while a lot of the mid-card is.

To be fair, Hulk Hogan was on the cover of almost everything else during this time period, including Piledriver: The Wrestling Album 2. He even got a picture in the liner notes. Why not spread the love? As for the actual reason, I figure he was out of town doing something else when the cover was show.

2 ) Isn’t the current WWE Tag Team Championship actually the old WCW one? I don’t believe WWE acknowledges the WCW lineage for these belts, nor the World Heavyweight, but they do for the US belt. Any theories?

Smackdown’s WWE Tag Team Championship was established shortly after Stephanie McMahon became General Manager of Smackdown and the World Tag Team Championship (which has the old WWF lineage) went to Raw. There was a tournament for the title shortly afterwards that culminated at No Mercy 2002. Kurt Angle & He Who Shall Not Be Named defeated Edge & Rey Mysterio to become your first WWE Tag Team Champions, which has no relation to the WCW Tag Team Championship. The US Championship retains the WCW lineage because they admitted that’s where they got the idea for it.

3) How do you think the WWE got into the mindset of having promos scripted in advance almost word for word? If I think back, it seems like when they did the most business (mid 80s and late 90s) things where much more adlibbed. Guys were given an idea and basically allowed to do and say what they wanted (more or less). I can’t imagine guys like Piper, Jake, Rocky or Heenan really taking off if they had been made to read lines all the time.

Not everybody has the gift of gab. Back in the days of the territories, promoters would put wrestlers incapable of cutting promos with managers that would talk for them. This practice continued until the late 90s, when male managers were phased out of the business in favor of valets. Valets were more attractive than the male managers, but most of them couldn’t talk. So the practice of scripted promos started becoming really popular…with a wrestler that can’t come up with anything good to say that’s pretty much the only choice you have. On the downside, that’s led to guys who might be able to cut good promos and draw big business with practice not being given a chance to work on their craft and get better at it. Instead they go through their career reading scripts.

I’m not a fan of scripted promos at all, but I understand why WWE & TNA think they’re necessary. As a look at any indy DVD will show you, not everybody should be allowed to ad-lib.

I had a few questions about Shawn Michaels’ drawing power. I would think that Shawn would be far ahead of Bret Hart and closer to the top tier drawing power guys that you listed, for a few reasons. The headlining that he has done in the past 6 years, including headlining ‘mania 23 that drew 80,000 + and the major success of old and new DX merchandise. I know that Penguin stated that Michaels was “good” for merchandise on his own, but If I remember right DX shirts were a marginally close second to the insanely popular Austin 3:16 shirts (Not to mention current DX merch); having said that I would categorize his merch sales as “great”. (I do understand that HBK was not present for much of the initial DX run but it never would have started without him) I might be wrong but I don’t think that Bret ever drew 80,000+ or had any major merch sales. Am I accurate? – Dom

Bret was in the main event with the British Bulldog at SummerSlam 1992, which drew over 80,000 people to Wembley Stadium. Now, you can argue that Davey was the favorite of that crowd, but there wouldn’t have been 80,000 there if he was taking on the Repo Man. I want to argue your point about HBK main eventing WM 23 for the simple reason that the show was a sellout long before the main event was announced. In this day and age, the name “WrestleMania” is enough to put asses in the seats. Who main events the show is really quite irrelevant….WrestleMania is an established event and fans know that WWE is going to try and have their best show of the year there every time. If you’re going to buy one PPV a year, WWE wants it to be WrestleMania. So I’m not buying the argument that Shawn Michaels sold out Ford Field.

Nothing was marginally close to the Austin 3:16 shirt when it was the top seller. Everybody wanted that shirt. That being said, Bret’s merch sales were never all that great. I can’t think of one item he had that ranks among the top sellers of all time. Maybe the sunglasses.

I talked to the Penguin about this, and he pretty much arrived at the same conclusion that I did…

Penguin says:
yeah but giving shawn all the credit for drawing 80k fans or for dx merch sales is a bit unfair .
Penguin says:
I think both HHH and John Cena would take issue with it, not to mention the Undertaker and Batista. Besides, WM will sell out every year well before the card is announced, so it’s not like people bought the tickets just to see shawn
Steve “Bourbon Drinking God” Cook says:
I can’t give him much credit for that WM number because WM itself is the draw and Ford Field was sold out long before a main event or any matches were announced
Penguin says:
yeah, the main event could have been maria vs hornswaggle and the tickets had already been paid for either way
Steve “Bourbon Drinking God” Cook says:
indeed
Steve “Bourbon Drinking God” Cook says:
and even if you wanted to make that argument, I would reply that Bret was in the main event of SummerSlam 1992, which packed more than 80,000 into Wembley Stadium
Penguin says:
and am I wrong in remembering that when original dx was at it’s most popular shawn was sitting at home with a back injury?
Steve “Bourbon Drinking God” Cook says:
no you are not
Steve “Bourbon Drinking God” Cook says:
it was at it’s most popular with HHH, X-Pac, the NAO & Chyna
Steve “Bourbon Drinking God” Cook says:
Shawn got it started, but they really took off with it
Penguin says:
thats that i thought
Penguin says:
i mean, rick rude was cool….but they were at their hottest with the nao

Then we started talking about Rick Rude, which led to an Ultimate Warrior discussion and the state of the union, which Penguin believes is strong.

My favorite wrestler of all time is Ric Flair. Most people argue that he is the greatest wrestler of all time. Few people have been able to match his intensity ( HBK, Triple H, Undertaker, Stone Cold, Rock (maybe), Batista and John Cena.

My question to you is, why has it taken Undertaker, HBK, and Ric Flair 10, 20 and 30 years respectively to become legends, and Stone cold and the Rock only 4 years? Do you believe Batista and John Cena have reached this status yet. – DarkNightWolf101

It’s tough to quantify what makes somebody a legend…it’s like Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ take on pornography: “I know it when I see it.” I’ll give Flair more credit than you do here and say that he reached legendary status long before 30 years into his career. The reason I think Austin & Rock reached that status before Undertaker or HBK or Flair did was because they were on top when the product got really hot. People who were around in those days and watched Austin & Rock in the late 90s knew that they were seeing something special. They took wrestling places that it had never been and brought it more mainstream acceptance than anytime other than maybe the Rock n’ Wrestling Era. Even people who didn’t watch wrestling couldn’t help hearing about The Rock unless they were living under one. Unfortunately wrestling is not at that level right now, which is why I don’t see John Cena or Batista as legends. If Cena can bring wrestling back to mainstream and achieve great success, he’ll be a legend. I’m not sure Batista will ever get there, to be honest with you.

Hey Steve, long time read, first time writer. I was reading over CM Punk’s info on wikipedia trying to find the name of the AFI song he used for his ring entrance for a while, and stumbled across a paragraph or so about his feud with Chris Hero in IWA: Mid-south. It mentions that they had several noteable matches, including a 55 minute TLC match, several 60 minute draws, and a 93 minute 2 out of three falls match. I was wondering if you had seen any of these matches, and if you knew whether or not these happend and whether or not they were that length? Wikipedia has a few errors from time to time, and 93 minutes is very rare, especially in the last decade of wrestling. Also, I was wondering if you knew of anywhere to purchase these matches? Thanks – Travis

The matches did happen…I can’t be 100% sure on the lengths because I haven’t seen them, but most of them are available on smartmarkvideo.com, where IWA Mid-South does most of their VHS/DVD sale business. Here’s the link to the VHS of When Hero Met Punk.

Here’s the ladder match…for now.

Hey man, hope you had a great Holiday season. Got another quick question for you:

I remember a guy in CZW called the Messiah, who had his thumb cut off at some point. My question is, what happened? Was it a wrestling accident, did he get into debt with the wrong people, or did he just slip and fall in the kitchen or something? – Iain

This is a good one. The story goes like this…Rob Black, who was the owner of XPW and an all-around good guy *snicker*, had reason to believe that his wife, Lizzy Borden, was sleeping with Messiah. So he had a couple of guys attack Messiah at his home and cut off his thumb. It could have been worse, as the guys apparently really did a number on Messiah and even tried to cut off his Domingo before settling for the thumb and leaving him for dead. Now, it’s never been officially proven that Rob Black was behind the attack and nobody has been found guilty of it…but New Jack told me that Rob Black was behind it and I don’t argue with New Jack.

Here is something I just thought about recently while watching old WWF stuff on 24/7. Bobby Heenan and Jimmy Hart were two of the best managers ever simply because of how much they cared about the titles their men held. When Jimmy Hart had the Hart Foundation and Honky Tonk Man dominating the Tag and IC Titles he flaunted them around, and you could hear how jealous Heenan was on commentary. I also remember how amazing it was hearing Heenan gloat about Rick Rude winning the IC Title in 1989. Which leads me to this question…
Since the goal of the 1980s heel manager was to possess Championships, why did Mr. Fuji turn on Demolition when THEY WERE THE CHAMPIONS?!?! That goes against all logic of being a manager. Then he went managed the Powers of Pain and what did he do? WENT RIGHT AFTER THE TITLES HE ALREADY HELD!!! I loved the double turn at Survivor Series 88 but thinking back it made no sense. I would have booked the double turn after on a SNME and had him cheat to help POP win the belts so Demolition could get revenge and the titles back at WM V. When Paul Heyman helped Big Show beat Brock Lesnar 14 years after, he took the title with him. That made sense? So why did WWF book such a bizarre turn for a heel? If Demolition was truly getting too over to be heel, then wouldn’t it have benefited everyone to change the titles and build to a WM rematch? – Dan from Brooklyn

I believe we talked about this angle at some point in the history of this column, and nobody was able to make any sense of Fuji’s motivation here. The best thing I can think of is that Fuji wanted to prove to Demolition that they were nothing without him, and he could manage anybody to the Tag Team titles. Obviously he couldn’t, and Demolition did quite well without him. Whoops!

Hi Steve, i was thinking while watching Raw on Monday night, which wrestlers could handle themselves in a real fight? And which ones would be totally useless? I’m thinking Regal, Umaga, Undertaker would be pretty tough, while Batista would be a bit of a wimp. – Simone

I think we’ll just stick with WWE guys on this one because otherwise this could take all day. The toughest guy on the WWE roster just may be Finlay. Regal’s certainly up there. Ron Simmons, JBL & Hardcore Holly are known for beating people up for real. Umaga could probably hold his own. Undertaker’s a known tough guy. Great Khali’s just so damn big that I don’t think you’d want to fight him, guys like Kane, Mark Henry, Big Daddy V & Big Show also fit into that category. Elijah Burke used to box, so I figure he’d be a good puncher. I don’t want to say that anybody on the roster is weak, but the guys I listed here are probably the ones you’d least want to mess with.

OK, maybe that Colin Delaney kid is a bit of a wimp.

Hi, I am hoping you can clear this up for or at least shed some light on it. My brother once told me that, in the lead up to Bash at the Beach 1997, WCW management attempted to contact a whole bunch of talent to be the third member of the nWo including guys like Sid, Taker, Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart before settling on turning Hogan. Do you know if there is any truth to this and if so how differently do you think things would have been if Hogan hadn’t joined the faction? – Frankie

Bret Hart was WCW’s original idea for the third member of what would become the New World Order. His contract with WWF was set to expire in mid-1996, and WCW had made him a very lucrative offer to jump ship. However, Hart opted to stay with the WWF, so WCW’s next idea was Sting. Sting was the franchise player of WCW for many years, and his turning heel would have certainly been unexpected. However, Hogan stepped into the picture not too long before the show and took the spot. Which honestly was for the best, as I don’t think anybody would have had the impact in that role that Hollywood Hogan did. It’s funny, most of you know my disdain for Hulk Hogan, but I loved the Hollywood Hogan persona. It just fit him so perfectly, you know? I don’t think the New World Order would have had the same amount of success that they did if Hogan wasn’t the third man. They needed that little extra shock factor to really get things cooking, and Hogan provided that. Sure, they could have done it without Hogan, but it wouldn’t have been the same.

From one Rumble to the Next Undertaker goes from having Brother Love in his corner, to having Paul Bearer, my first question, did the WWE ever explain the switch in managers for the dead man? If so, what was the storyline reason, and the backstage reason? – Todd Vote

Paul Bearer was introduced as Undertaker’s manager on an edition of The Brother Love Show, where it was explained that Brother Love was too busy spreading the message of love to dedicate himself to managing Undertaker full time. So he hired Paul Bearer to guide the career of Undertaker…of course, Undertaker & Paul Bearer’s relationship before that would be expanded on in the future, but that was all we knew at the time. As for the “backstage reason”…Paul Bearer wasn’t hired by the WWF until Christmas 1990, which was a month after Undertaker debuted. Bearer, who was previously known as Percy Pringle III in World Class, Florida and other territories, came in for an interview with the WWF, and when Vince McMahon read his resume and found out that he was also a licensed mortician…well, who better to have in the Undertaker’s corner than an actual mortician? In an odd note, Pringle was actually Undertaker’s first manager when he started out as Texas Red in World Class.

Oh, and here’s Paul Bearer’s debut…until YouTube takes it down.

I am writing to follow up a comment a fellow reader made about TNA’s champions, and the fact that only one champion in their history was not formerly affiliated with WWE or WCW. I’m not going to go to any great lengths to defend TNA and their decision-making, but I did find the comment worth exploring. When comparing TNA to other promotions, I think it would be fair to compare their formative years with those of WCW since: 1) they both were recognized by the majority of America as the #2 promotions after WWF/E, and 2) unlike most typical brand-new feds, both had frequent TV (and/or PPV) exposure pretty much from their initial stages. With all that said, here come my actual questions – after the official formation of WCW and their split from the NWA, I want to know how long it took WCW to crown a champion who was not either a former member of the NWA, or with the competition in WWF/AWA/World Class (basically any other promotions with weekly national TV exposure during the late ’80’s). Did WCW’s first “homegrown” champion occur before or after the amount of time it took TNA to give the belt to Abyss, and how many of WCW’s talents would you consider homegrown? – Reichou

If you don’t want to count Sting because of his time with the UWF before getting to WCW/NWA in 1988 (I’d count him, but I’m sure somebody would try and correct me on that), Ron Simmons was the first WCW Champion that hadn’t been exposed to the public via another wrestling promotion’s television. He won the WCW title on August 2, 1992, which was about four years after Turner Broadcasting bought out Jim Crockett Promotions. But, it should be pointed out that the WCW title didn’t originate until 1991, when WCW severed ties with the National Wrestling Alliance and stopped recognizing the NWA title as their world championship. The more I think of it, I’m not sure you can equate WCW with TNA, because WCW was basically the remains of Jim Crockett Promotions and took most if not all of their talent from the NWA. TNA didn’t have a promotion to inherit fans & TV from because WWE bought all of the promotions that had fans.

I would consider guys who came up in the JCP/NWA era WCW homegrown talent. Even though Sting had been in the UWF, WCW was where he made his name. And as much as people want to claim AJ Styles is a WCW guy…he was there for what, a cup of coffee? TNA’s where he became what he is today, so I consider him a homegrown TNA talent. But my definition may be more liberal than yours.

Long time reader, first time submitter, love the column by the way one of the highlights of my online week (along with the fantastic Meehan column).

Loving the K-Nox revolution sweeping its way through 411 at the moment, she really is one of a highly talented group of young British female wrestlers, but I was just wondering if you knew anything about when she’s due back from the horrendous injury she suffered? – Rikki

According to Rebecca Knox’s MySpace she hopes to get back into wrestling one day, but for now she’s working as a personal trainer and a nutrition consultant while living in Dublin. There is no word on when she’ll be returning to wrestling, but fans can still hold out hope. Meanwhile I’m wondering how much it would cost to move to Dublin…I sure could use a personal trainer.

What?

I was recently watching ROH Survival of the Fittest 2007 and I noticed Roderick Strong was wearing a Nigel McGuinness shirt during his qualifying match, even though he had just run down Nigel as a lesser champion to open the show. Any reason behind this? – Chris

I haven’t seen this show, but sometimes wrestlers wear other wrestlers’ attire as a way of mocking them. That’s probably what Strong was going for there…a combination of mocking Nigel and sending a message.

Tarek has six questions…

1. Why are some many IWC members so down with people like Cena and Warriror and Hogan getting the push??? I understand they cant wrestle except Cena and Hogan used politics to stop pushes for people like Hart, Austin and Taker and Iron Sheikh but really they were so over with the crowd and to be fair usually you dont need to be a great wrestler to get over look at Batista. Isnt getting a push all about just being really over with the crowd???

It’s quite simple really…us Internet people hate guys that get too popular. For example…last Friday night at the ROH show Chris Hero had a lot of supporters. Most of the audience, as a matter of fact. I happen to be a fan of the guy (when he isn’t spreading lies about me in Ari’s column), but I turned against him and supported ROH Champion Nigel McGuinness, who isn’t getting nearly enough credit from ROH fans these days. You see…I identify with the wrestlers that don’t get enough credit because I myself don’t get enough love and respect from people in my everyday life. And I have reason to believe that most of my fellow Internet wrestling writers are in the same boat. Otherwise…would we be here? Probably not.

And yes, people generally receive pushes because the crowd reacts well to them and wants to see them wrestle. Unless they’re on the good side of the writing staff or promoter, which is another reason why people get pushed.

2. When Austin does his beer spraying on people like Santino do people in the front row get splashed??? and if so does the WWE warn them b4hand?

I’m sure the possibility exists that you may get splashed with beer when Steve Austin comes down to the ring. Much like how you may get splashed with water when you go to Sea World and see Shamu. No, there is no warning by the ring announcer beforehand, so the possibility exists that somebody could get sprayed in the eye with beer and sue WWE for negligence.

3. Another thing I always wanted to know is that if you are champ and Vince comes and says to you to put over someone how does the champ change his mind? I have heard countless times that certain wrestlers did not want to job but how do they have a choice??? Do all champs have a character control clause and if so does that mean they could be champ forever???

Champions generally do not have creative control clauses. Sometimes promoters have soft spots for guys and that’s how they can get out of losing to somebody. Obviously Vince had a soft spot for Shawn Michaels back in the day when Michaels wouldn’t lay down for anybody. I don’t think it had much to do with what Michaels said as it did with Vince just liking the guy and not wanting to hurt his feelings.

4. I heard that there are like 3 or 4 bonifide 5 star matches which everyone agrees on which are they???

I think the only thing we can all agree on is that the Flair vs. Steamboat series in 1989 kicked major ass. Honestly though, you’re always going to find somebody who differs from the mainstream opinion and hate a match that everybody else loves. Hell, you’ll probably find somebody who thinks that Steamboat & Flair never had a good match together. Some people think Steamboat vs. Savage from WM III was overrated. You’ll never find a universal opinion on any given wrestling match…different people have different tastes.

5. My question is about falling ratings and writers. I am not sucking up to IWC people here but when I read your columns like 3 R’s and Could They Be Champ and Mike LaFave’s plans for Getting them Over i think it all makes sense. The product right now is in the toilet compared to the late 90’s where an episode of Heat reached over 7 million viewers. So why doesnt the E read and recruit from the IWC to help write the shows??? Surely the experts should be consulted when things are bad right? And if its an ego thing and being on top why does TNA continue down the stupid road of Russo be different and hire you guys???

If wrestling companies hired IWC guys to write their shows…what would we complain about? That’s the main reason why your suggestion wouldn’t work. I won’t get into the fact that most of us would really have no idea how to book a wrestling promotion that people would want to watch. I mean, I can come up with a good idea, but not enough of them to make an interesting show. And I wouldn’t be able to make that good idea work past…two weeks? There may be some people out there in the IWC world that might do a good job with it, but WWE doesn’t look for wrestling knowledge from their writers and TNA hates people that don’t think that everything they do is the greatest thing ever.

6. My last question is how do people find out rumours about the WWE? Like the Save_Us thing how did they figure out it was Jericho (right from the start) or who is going to win the Rumble, nothing is ever a surprise. I remember knowing beforehand Eddie was going to beat Brock for the title and when it happened I was overjoyed but not surprised. Why cant the writers just tell the superstars involved whats going down and a few key people and therefore things will be a lot more interesting and ratings will climb?

There are people within the company that are willing to give up such information to wrestling reporters that they get along with. 411 is certainly not on WWE’s list of favorite people, but Dave Meltzer (one example) has friends within the company…you can probably tell who they are by the way he reports things. The best way to continue being surprised by what you see on television is to avoid reading Internet articles.

As for the Jericho thing, it was pretty obvious if you saw the Save Us commercial and read between the lines.

What are HHH’s colors? Black and white? Black and neon green when he’s in DX? so no wrestlers can use black and white? I understand black and neon green, as that is definitely the trademark of DX, especially on the random weeks where DX exists, but black and white? Looking at pics of Umaga from 2007, I see him wearing both black and red tights (kane’s colors), AND black and white. So what the hell could he have asked for in iraq that wasn’t his normal colors, but were HHH’s colors?

And what the heck was umaga doing asking a seamstress to make him new tights in IRAQ? And why was a seamstress even there??? I don’t think they even take commentators there other than Cole to report for WWE.com (I’ve never seen the announce team at the shows, so I’m assuming they add commentary after the fact so they can just take the necessary people, such as the divas and the wrestlers), why take a seamstress? Don’t they wear their wrestling gear only during the raw taping? how are they going to screw them up? and why wouldnt they just bring a back-up pair just in case? its not like wrestling tights take up that much room. dont ask why I know…………. – Manu Bumb

This was one of the stranger backstage rumors I’ve heard in a long time that didn’t involve drugs or somebody’s bag getting crapped in. Considering the fact that Umaga wears black all the time I can’t really imagine what he asked for. The only thing I can think of is that he asked for something with a big skull on it, which Triple H may take offense to because he always likes to have skulls on his t-shirts and tights.

And you know I have to ask why you know how much room wrestling tights take up.

I was just wondering if the Ultimate Warrior (My all time favourite!) will ever be releasing his DVD “The Ultimate Truth?” as a sort of retaliation to “The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior” DVD.

It was mentioned some time ago … but nothing has been mentioned for years. – Alexis

I haven’t heard anything about this in a long time either. My best guess is that Warrior got sidetracked with the many other things going on in his life. I’m not really sure he ever really intended on releasing his own DVD…it may have just been a ploy in his ongoing legal feud with WWE. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting on this DVD to come out, but stay tuned. You never know what he’ll come up with next.