Ask 411 Wrestling 11.05.08: Michaels, HHH, Nash, Hall…Rooster?

BANNER!

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Cleaning Up

Regarding Pillman’s tights: I love it when we get questions where even the Comments section can’t agree on how wrong I am. Some of you think the symbol was a modified 4 to symbolise breaking away from the Horsemen. Some think it was a hammer and sickle to signify death and destruction. Still others think it was a cross and sickle.

Regarding Bret’s brothers: Yeah, I did forget Ross who reportedly would have made a great booker. Also, I knew the cage match was against Owen, but for some reason I typed Diesel. I must have been watching Impact at the time.

Regarding the Hart-Luger coin toss: My mind is playing tricks on me. Most of you thought the toss was in fact in the ring. They would have done this by switching camera feeds when they focused on the coin to a feed of the coin being heads up.

Regarding BikerTaker: Lots of opinions on him, mostly valid. The Dead Man gimmick has its place and is certainly iconic, but in terms of my personal tastes and his in-ring performance I preferred “I’ll make you famous” to “Rest…in…peace”

In Soviet Russia, 411 Ask You!

Last week’s question was supposed to be limited to North America, to which the answer would have been Jeff Jarrett. Notice that the first question does NOT say third generation, since Jeff’s maternal grandmother was a wrestler, and we all know about his father. This isn’t 3rd Gen because it’s not a straight line. As I forgot to include the qualifying “North American”, Fit Finlay wins. The second question was a trick because I wanted everyone to include Nattie and DH Smith. Mike and Ted DiBiase, Randy Orton, Manu, Windham and Taylor Rotunda, Lacey von Erich, Joe Hennig and Chavo Guerrero Jr would be the answer.

This week’s question is hopefully a tough one. As always, answers in the Comments:

I had title shots against two huge names, despite being a midcarder myself. I fought one of the biggest names in the business, while he was a world champion, on Heat. I won a world title shot in the Royal Rumble match and I had one of the most shocking moments in Rumble history. Who am I?

Are we ready for some trivia? Then LET’S GET DANGEROUS~!

Question Time!

Paul is wondering about the aftermath of the screwjob:

Hey man, I imagine my question has probably been asked before, but I’ll ask it anyway! It’s very simple – in the aftermath of the Montreal screwjob (everyone’s favourite subject), why did Owen, Bulldog and Neidhart stay with the WWE? I know they would have been signed to contracts, but would Vince really have begrudged them leaving after what happened? And seeing as WCW was spending money like Amy Winehouse in a crack factory (thought I’d slip that in), surely they could have found room on their roster for these guys, and could have led to a rather cool Hart Foundation vs nWo feud, rather than the crap that Bret got stuck with at the start.

Special thanks to the ever-awesome J-Thom for the assist on this question. I have lent out my Bret Hart autobiography which has a great answer to this question. Anyway, it’s important to realise first that both Bulldog and Neidhart did get releases from their contracts eventually, though not immediately. Davey Boy paid $150,000 to get out of his contract, but there has been no confirmation of the amount Neidhart paid. Owen, however, did not get a release. According to Davey Boy, Owen stayed with Vince rather then pay out the huge buyout sum; this jives with Owen’s reputation for being very careful with his money. His sol reason for staying in the business at all was to provide for his family. Owen also felt he had a better chance at success in WWF. He always seemed understand the business and he was smart enough to know that to WCW Bret was the star, not him, and that getting him would be more a way for WCW to hurt the WWF. Vince was the one who gave Owen his chance and he realised that staying would probably result in a program with the new champ.

Les has a question about the original Mercy Drive fan, Maven:

I just have a quick question about Maven late in 2004. Do you know why he got a surprise push to the main event at Survivors Series? It was built up to be HBK, but then he suffered an injury, at which point Maven came out of Jobs-ville to get a clean win over Batista and a spot in the main event. Regardless, because of the “Inmates Running the Asylum” stipulation(which really should be done again) Maven ran an episode of Raw and I actually cared if he was going to join Evolution or not!

So my questions are: Why did management feel like Maven deserved the push, and what derailed the momentum afterwards?

Really, Maven was the next biggest Raw face who made sense in the match and who they could drop back down the card after the fact without looking dumb. The win over Batista made people care about him, and the comeback from the Snitsky beatdown was supposed to do more of the same. The story is that the complete lack of pop when he limped out of the dressing room was the reason Snitsky got DQ’d instead of Maven getting a pin on him. It’s also the reason that the push went nowhere, despite a good match against Triple H for the title on Raw and a fairly decent following fan-wise. I guess nobody wanted a Maven t-shirt. The angle was indeed good fun and they didn’t “blow their load” by doing everything possible with it, so we may well see it again.

Tony wants to know about lack of pushes for two IWC darlings:

1) If I’m not mistaken, the only guy to eliminate Shelton Benjamin not named Lesnar in the Royal Rumble has been Shawn Michaels. With the chemistry they’ve had in the ring together why hasn’t there been an extended feud between the two? (While Benjamin was still on Raw, this is probably rendered moot since his return to Smackdown!)

Bah. If they wanted to do the feud, they would forget the brand thing in a heartbeat. God knows they’ve done it enough in the past. The problem with Benjamin is that he hasn’t been able to maintain a high enough level of performance to warrant a prolonged push at the level that an HBK feud would require. As much as the IWC like to tout his abilities and cite his lack of main-event push as an example of misused talent, he just hasn’t shown the consistency for this to happen. That’s not to say the feud wouldn’t rock, in the ring at least.

2)Why does William Regal continue to be punished for having two strikes and Jeff Hardy is in a main event slot on Smackdown? The man won King of the Ring for pete’s sake and he’s losing to Batista and Jericho in 0:30? I realize this is probably to do with how over Hardy is compared to Regal, but the man was on a roll as GM and King.

Overness may have something to do with it, but don’t forget that Regal was pulling solar heat after winning King of the Ring and doing things like blacking out main events. The main reason is likely longevity. Regal is in his late forties and if he’s lucky has one good run left in him. Hardy is in his mid thirties and could easily go for ten more years.

Darrell has 3 old-school questions, including one about a criminal misuse of talent:

Whaddup!!! Great column. Thanks to you guys, I now am addicted to going on YouTube and looking up classic matches, reliving the good ole’ days!!!! I have 3 questions if you don’t mind. Actually, 2 questions and the last one, would like your opinion to clear up a debate I’m having with a co-worker!!

1)It’s safe to say that Ric Flair had the NWA in the 80s locked down! But, was there ever a time that there was a strong “#2 guy” that the company ever thought having run with the rock, so to speak? I know Windham had some classic 60 minute-time limit matches, so did Luger. Was Magnum, pre-accident a contender? Please tell me there was more than Dusty!!!

Apart from Ricky Steamboat you mean? Flair and Steamboat during the late 80s had what many consider to be the greatest sequence of matches anywhere ever. The rest of the decade was spent travelling the various NWA territories and fighting the biggest face in the area. Flair had notable matches with the likes of Harley Race, Dusty Rhodes, Roddy Piper and, yes, Magnum TA prior to the accident.

2)Someone brought up the name “Red Rooster” and we all busted out laughing, but I had to point out that at one point and time, TT was the man over at UWF, the television champion, and had some epic matched in the old NWA. Question is, after he dropped the TV unification match with Koloff and went to the WWE, what in the Red Rooster happened?

Taylor was so talented that he was originally considered for the Mr Perfect role, but turned it down. How different the wrestling world could have been then! Basically Taylor did very little in WWF until being put with Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, who renamed him The Red Rooster. The gimmick was that he couldn’t do anything in the ring without constant coaching from Heenan. Taylor kayfabe grew tired of the treatment and turned on Heenan, sporting a red fauxhawk and calling his fans “Rooster Boosters”. No, seriously. The idea of someone needing to be constantly coached wasn’t a bad one, and I could even have lived with the Weasel/Rooster reference if it hadn’t been so cheesy. Part of the reason he never went anywhere was that he was a tremendous talent evaluator (he is head of Talent Relations in TNA now) and people in that role often stay near the bottom of the card to wrestle the new guys when they come in. Val Venis plays this role right now, for example.

And lastly, I posed this question to my boys and everyone had a different answer, all with their own spin and whatnot. Question is, if we were to have a time capsule the world were to bury and there was to be only one person’s memorabilia to represent what pro wrestling was, who would that lucky person be?

This guy. Jim Ross also has quite the collection in his restaurant. Other than that I wouldn’t know where to begin looking. Most wrestling memorabilia sites on the web are stores and not individuals. I would like to think that Michael Bauer’s awesome RoH hat and my less awesome but still cool table fragment would be included, but that’s probably wishful thinking.

Jim has a music question:

I am watching WWE 24/7 online, and they have the broadcast of the 9/23/96 and during a match with Pat Tanaka and Glacier, Pat Tanaka comes out to Goldberg’s music. Why is that so? Was it dubbed in there or did he use the music before Goldberg? Hope you can help. By the way this episode of Nitro sucks. If you can get past the Scott Armstrong and Juvi vs Konnan and Kevin Sullivan -***** opener, you are a better man than I. Hope you can help man. Thanks for your time.

Scott Armstrong and Kevin Sullivan involved in a bad Nitro match? Perish the thought! The whole Dungeon of Doom stable were a weird bunch. Anyway, woohoo! A theme music question. Normally when WWE 24/7, WWE DVD releases or any other flashbacks show music that doesn’t seem to fit, it is dubbed. In this case though it wasn’t. Tanaka did indeed use Invasion as his theme while Goldberg was still putting on shoulder pads. Also, I want to see Tanaka vs Glacier. Savate kick vs Cryogenic kick!

Thomas is wondering about the weather in Shawn’s world:

I was watching some old WWE (WWF) videos from the attitude era and stumbled across the 1997 Slammy Awards bikini contest. After Sunny paraded in front of every one, HHH got on the podium to tell the crowd that Chyna was not going to model in a bikini because her talent was to take care of business. He then made a comment that the only talent Sunny had could not be shown on national television, and his best friend told him that she’ not even good at that either. Since then Tammy Sytch aka Sunny admitted to an affair with Shawn Michaels during that time that no one else has verified. Was Hunter’s comment meant to be a joke or was he shooting on Sunny to get revenge for HBK. Was Tammy telling the truth about her affair with Michaels or was HHH spreading rumours.

I’m sure you realise that Sunny’s admission happened years after this event. Did it happen? Presumably only two people know the truth of that. Sunny says it did, but Shawn has never confessed. I had completely forgotten those comments but given the “worked shoot” environment that existed in WWF at the time, it would not surprise me if there was a nugget of truth to it. Perhaps HHH was talking about Nash, Hall, Waltman… unless Shawn comes clean, we will only have Tammy’s word for it.

Rob is playing the name game:

I have a three questions for you about names. During the invasion, I read on 411 that Shane Helms had to change to Gregory Helms because there was already one Shane: Shane McMahon. Likewise, Steve Regal became William Regal because of Steve Austin and Lance Cade became Garrison Cade because of Lance Storm, but then he changed back to Lance after Storm retired. Did the people in charge of WWE actually think that the fans are so stupid that they can’t tell the difference between two guys with the same first name, or did it have something to do with trademarks? I know they like to change wrestlers’ names so they can own the trademark, but Gregory Helms and Lance Cade are both their real names, so that can’t be the reason. Plus, right now there’s John Cena, John Bradshaw Layfield, and John Morrison; there’s Paul London and Paul Burchill; and there’s Matt Hardy and Matt Striker, just off the top of my head, so it doesn’t seem to be an issue any more.

At least in part the changes were due to trademark issues, but the main motivator behind the name change was indeed the desire to avoid confusion. They certainly seem to have got over the nonsense as you pointed out. I don’t think it was a case of them thinking fans were that stupid as much as they wanted to be able to refer to a wrestler by his first name without the audience wondering which one. Still stupid (especially since they had Chris Jericho AND Chris Benoit at the time), but the name of a wrestler isn’t terribly important. Unless it’s something stupid like Quackenbush or Hickenbottom. Now there’s a match…

The second part is in thinking about this, I was trying to think of the most people on one roster who used the same first name, and the best I could come up with was circa 1997 WCW when there was Scott Hall, Scott Steiner, Scott Norton, and Scott(y) Riggs. Can you think of another name that was used by more people in a promotion at the same time?

You’d have to go a long way to find more than the Jims in WWE in 1987: Jim Powers, Jumpin’ Jim Brunzell Jim “The Anvil”Neidhart, “Superfly” Jimmy Snuka, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Jimmy Jack Funk and Jimmy Hart were all active that year. Sadly, Macho Man hadn’t yet started endorsing Slim Jims.

Finally, what name (real or not) has been used by more wrestlers that any other?

It’s a really close one between Bill/Billy, Jim/Jimmy, Bob/Bobby and John/Johnny. Unless you want to count “The” as a first name.

A.G Awesome, who is clearly not afflicted with self-esteem issues, wonders if people wished well in their future endeavours might find those endeavours in WWE:

I was chatting with my room-mate the other day about the WWE wellness policy and its “3 strikes your out” rule. He thinks that it is 3 infractions and you are fired forever (Chris Nowinski and Nick Dinsmore come to mind) but I said that maybe it works that once you are fired you are gone but can possibly come back again some day, starting over with a clean slate. The only problem with this is the Jeff Hardy situation, he was suspended once and quit, then when he came back a few years later he still had that first strike counted against him (at least I think that was the situation with him). Do you know how it works for a wrestler once hitting their three strikes and being fired?

Let me correct a few inaccuracies first. It has never been confirmed that Nowinski was fired due to Wellness (indeed, this is the first I’ve heard in that regard), and Dinsmore did not have 3 strikes against him. Jeff Hardy was suspended, quit, went to RoH and TNA, and then came back. However, the Wellness Program started in February 2006 and Jeff returned in September 2006. At the time of his first suspension (which was as much for no-shows as drugs), the Wellness policy was not in effect. He got his first strike at the end of July 2007 and his most recent one in late March of this year.

That said, we really don’t know if someone fired for Wellness (for example Dinsmore or Chris Masters) would be able to come back. There is nothing in the policy that forbids it, but you have to believe that Vince and company would think twice before rehiring someone who had proven to have issues staying clean. There also hasn’t been anyone fired for the third strike, and once again the policy does not expressly say that such a person would be prevented from being rehired. It’s likely because WWE want to keep their options open with regards to rehiring, especially with the open offer of paid rehab for present and past employees.

Lee has a question about everyone’s favourite topic, The Undertaker.

We all know about Triple H’s backstage power but would he ever mess with Taker? Even Shawn Michaels at peak brat never crossed him. I remember how Hogan would talk about even though he was the champ/main draw he would still pay his respects to Andre, could this be a similar relationship? In your opinion if a conflict arose between Triple H and the Undertaker how would it play out?

Everyone backstage respects Taker. His longevity at the top of the card alone would command that, without considering his size or his in-ring skills or his overness. You are right in saying that Shawn never crossed Taker, and even Vince was intimidated by him (see the Screwjob, when Taker demanded Vince go and apologise to Bret). Although HHH in all likelihood wields more power than Taker, he also has a tremendous respect for rhinoplasty the business and the way things used to be done. As such he would more than likely defer to Taker in the event that they disagreed.

DarkNightwolf is back with some gimmick questions. I used to love playing Nightwolf in MK2. Those were the days…

1. Who’s the dumb ass who came up the gimmick that Kip James is current using?

I don’t think it’s that bad! I mean anything involving Monty Sopp is hard to watch, especially an ambiguously gay “fashionist” character, but it works perfectly with Love and Sky and he’s not doing a bad job of pulling it off. As for who came up with it…he’s in TNA. Russo is in TNA. Russo loves that sort of thing. Draw your own conclusion.

2. Which gimmick do you think was the worst: Dude Love or Disco Inferno?

I enjoyed both. Dude Love was done more as a favour to Foley than a real gimmick, and it worked in the context of the story at the time. Disco Inferno was never meant to be taken seriously (at least not in WCW) and was great fun to watch, especially when teamed with Alex Wright. I suppose if I had to pick one over the other, I’d rather watch Dude Love just because of the tie dye shirt and Sweet Shin Music. How can you dislike a guy who uses Sweet Shin Music?!?!!!?!???!

3. Is the Amazing Red and Rey Mysterio Related, because they almost look the same, have the same move set, and finishers, expect that Amazing Red’s finisher is the 718 and Rey Mysterio’s is the 619?

They are not related. For one they don’t look particularly alike, and also Rey is from Mexico. The similar movesets and finishers aren’t particularly reliable indicators that two people are or are not related: CM Punk is not related to KENTA for instance, but Deuce and Jimmy Snuka are related and have different styles.

Charles is short and to the point:

Why has Kane stopped using the ring Pyro?

Gas prices.

No, it’s just due to the change in character direction. He’s also changed theme music for the first time in AGES. The Kane character has been around for so long that it is often in need of refreshing, and really the only way they can do that is with minor things like this. Unless they mask him up again.

The Disciple of MATTitude wonders about the validity of ratings. You’d think Shannon Moore would be better informed…

With all the analysing that goes on each week for the various viewing figures for all the wrestling TV programmes and the buy rates for PPVs, i was wondering what effect you think the internet has on these supposed viewing figures. I record all the shows each week on sky plus, and I’m sure there’s an equivalent in the states – would this be counted in the viewing figures. Also my mate doesn’t have sky so he downloads raw each week plus the PPVs. If he does it then I’m sure thousands of others do too. Obviously this kind of technology wasn’t around 10 or so years ago, so if you wanted to watch a show you had to sit in front of your TV when it was on. Also, as we know, quite a few wrestling fans are also good on the old computer so I’m sure there’s a lot of downloading goes on. If all this information is taken into account, is wrestling really in as bad a state than some people claim, compared to the ‘wrestling boom’ of the late 90’s when the technology wasn’t there as much?

Keep up the great work

This is an excellent question and a perfect opportunity for me to put some paranoia about ratings to rest. Although it is possible to tell how many people record a show to DVR, these figures are not available normally when a show rating is released, and are certainly not included in the rating. The reason for this is that the rating only takes into account the percentage of households watching a given show at a given time, and this does not include people recording the show. Also, advertisers tend to ignore the DVR numbers since the vast majority of people who watch recorded shows will skip commercials.

The downloading/streaming issue is a sticky one. It’s not exactly a state secret that almost every PPV and even free TV show is streamed free online (no I will NOT give you any sites, even if I know some, which may or may not be the case) and often available to download through torrent sites within a day or so of the event. As you correctly mentioned, a lot of wrestling fans, particularly the IWC who are the ones humming and hawing over ratings and the state of the industry, are handy enough with a computer to know this, MAAAAAAANNN. They’re also smarky enough to get that reference. I think it’s safe to say that wrestling has more viewers than the numbers suggest, BUT if they aren’t watching the commercials or buying the PPVs, then wrestling really is in a bad state. That’s the reason that ratings are important.

The Way I C It…

This week we’ll give you two opinion questions, since they’re both pretty short. First up is Jaime:

I wanted to know which current wrestlers are Atheists? And also which wrestlers are vegetarian or vegan?

Religion and dietary habits aren’t things that pro wrestlers tend to discuss. The only wrestler I know of who WAS a vegetarian was Killer Kowalski, but since you said “current” that rules him out. There was a rumour that CM Punk was an atheist but he has a couple of religious tattoos which makes that rumour unlikely too. Anyone?

And I also had an opinion question: What wrestlers do you think might stand a chance if they went over to MMA?

Nowadays there are very, very few since the days of the legit tough guy seem to be gone. People like Regal, Tazz, Angle and Finlay would have been good in their primes. Today the only ones that would stand a snowball’s chance would be Low Ki and possibly Bryan Danielson and CM Punk. People like Big Show would never meet a weight class.

Oscar is wondering about the Cliq and booking habits:

I’ve been thinking about the following some time now and wish to hear your opinion on it:
Several sources state that Nash had booking power when he defeated Goldberg. Kevin denies such claims but admits to have held that booking power at some point. Knowing that, I also recall reading in a 1997 edition of PWI that 1997 would be the year for Scott Hall to win the big one. For some reason, I am fascinated over the list of wrestlers who could’ve been champions but were denied such claim. With Hall going over to WCW, why do you think he never held the World title? Merits aside, why would his friend Nash not book him to have at least a one day title reign?

Even when he had booking power, Nash still had to defer to the almighty Hogan Veto, not to mention people above him to keep happy. Plus even then Hall was not the most reliable of people. Nash had control of the book in 98/99 and that was when Hall’s demons were really becoming prevalent. Nash may have played favourites, but he was never an idiot.

I think of all the people who were hot at some point and the bookers could just not capitalize on that. Owen Hart in 1994 and 1998 comes to mind; Owen could have been given the belt in place of Backlund! Think Rick Rude, though he held the Big Gold Belt; it was only when it was known as the International Heavyweight Title and it was not the World Title held by Vader. Mr. Perfect during his hot feud with Hogan, someone hand me a hammer so I can shatter that WWE Title. Ken Shamrock was on a roll in 1997-1998, the British Bulldog was a great choice in 1992 and 1995 in WWE and 1993 in WCW. Akeem….well, I just liked his dance to the ring to the Slickster’s tune…but you get my point. Can any one else think of greats who could’ve and should’ve been champions but were denied that claim despite their talent, popularity or ‘friends atop’?

Jive Soul Bro is THE greatest wrestling song EVER. The list of people who were over and never got titles is a long one, mainly due to Hulk Hogan. People like Roddy Piper, Ted DiBiase, Mr Perfect (although he won it in AWA), the aforementioned Scott Hall, Paul Orndorff…I’m sure the readers will come up with a whole bunch.