Ask 411 Wrestling 05.20.09: Cena's Fingers, Colored Ring Ropes and Regal Bleeding Like A Stuck Pig!

Posted by Mathew Sforcina on 05.20.2009

Who booked WMXIV? Who's done the best with someone else's gimmick? What's the most important match of the Naughties? Why does Rey Mysterio run the middle rope? Will we see Stan Hansen Jr in the future? And how is HBK's Overselling a Political Move? All these, plus a couple of others, and videos, my word, do we have videos!

Hello all. I'm Mathew Sforcina, the guy who's writing this column.

That becomes important later on.

Regardless, I hope you're enjoying yourself this day/week/month/time period since you last read my stuff.

I've not got a lot to fill this gap here, nothing really has happened recently that warrants talking about, apart from my stellar appearance in Fact Or Fiction, of course, but that goes without saying. And The Dunn List is back! And Working! Huzzah! So, let's just get on with the xxxxxxxxxx PW2.0… Control-Alt-Wrestling? xxxxxxxxxxxx show!

Banner's around here somewhere…

Backtalking

Anus Explosion Match: I've had a surprising number of people email me and ask me for video of this match, either out of disbelief that such a match occurred, or out of some sort of morbid fascination. Well, I managed to find some crazy idiot who put up highlights of the match (complete with, uh, ‘money shot') on Youtube, so if you really want to see it, and it's still up, click on the embedded player at your own risk…

Radio Edit: Or not, since Larry has a problem with me putting it up. "The sponsors won't like it, we can't have it here, so on and so forth". He at least let me link to it, so, NSFW, assuming it's still there. But really, if you watch this video you deserve the mental scars.

A Hart In The Mafia: I meant Owen, not Bret. Owen was very frugal, and I imagine TNA's lighter schedule but somewhat similar pay would appeal to him. Bret would probably be running the Hart Family Dungeon at this point, if things had gone better.

Buying Old Tapes: I didn't say Ebay since the site the question mentioned was a subsidiary of Ebay, so I assumed that the guy asking it probably knew about Ebay if he was looking at one of their sub sites. Ioffer.com was also suggested.

Snitsky's Foot Fetish: According to Manu Bumb, it was either pulled from Real Life or he lived the gimmick, and after the Flair/Edge TLC Raw, a bunch of the wrestlers went to Hooters where Snitsky did lick the bartender's feet.

Hopefully it was one of the hot female ones.

Chandler: Stays, since there was no clear consensus about who should replace him. But hey, at least I was democratic about it.



Rudeness over Larry: Sorry if you didn't find it funny, but as you said, it was already answered, and Larry gave me free reign, so I went off the deep end. My bad, I guess…

Proof: Ok, if you're not one of the haters who post comments, just take this point from me here: Any question about backstage politics, booking changes and such, should be taken with a grain of salt, as they should if anyone else on the site writes them, or someone says so in a shoot video. I give the best answer I have, based on what I've read, what I've heard, logic and what I know of how wrestling works. If it didn't happen on TV, then only those involved know the truth, and not even then sometimes.

For the trolls: No, I will not post ‘proof'. If I did, the column would be a third as long, take 10 times as much time, and be filled with only the stupid/easy questions. A good fraction of the time my answers are based on threads, posts, chats, and various other internet sources, few of which are still there and none that are ‘official'. Which I can assure you, is exactly the same as you, most of the time. It's just that, if you're in a tizzy, then I've probably said something that you don't think is true. You've chosen to believe something else. Fine, but if you want to say I'm wrong, the onus of proof is on you, not me.

If I make a factual error, like the cage turnover, you can freely attack me, and I'll cop to it and amend it ASAP. But I say something happened backstage that you don't think is right, you give me a link that says otherwise. I'm the one with the column, hence I've proven to those running the show that I have some idea what I'm talking about. You haven't.

Again, this is not directed to the vast majority of you, just the few poor souls who keep posting about how much I suck, thus increasing my hit count and solidifying my position.

Your Turn, Smart Guy…

For those of you still with me, the answer was indeed Paul Roma. Sadly, the joke seems to still be going on. My problem is that unlike RVD, there's never going to be a payoff here. Roma will never appear on WWE TV again, so eventually the joke will just wear out. I gave you a chance to go out on a bang. Ah well.

What am I? A title tournament, I was held to inaugurate a new championship. 16 men competed, including a then current World Champion (although a current NOW World Champion was also involved). The first round saw as many submission victories as it did pinfall ones. Every match had a clean ending, with only one substitution in the entire thing. Two of the participants are now deceased (with one of them someone we don't talk about anymore), and at least one is in TNA. Fought across 3 US states and one foreign nation, my final was a clear contender for match of the year, and The Undertaker, while not officially entered, was involved in at least one of the matches, even if it was after the bell had run. What am I?

Questions, Questions, Who's Got The Questions?

We'll start with an easy one, since it's cross promotion. Josh?

I remember 411mania.com used to have a column called In Defense of. It was a column that defended wrestlers that had bad reputations like Ultimate Warrior, DDP, and Chyna. What ever happened to it. Will they ever bring it back.

To answer this, and save myself some time, I forwarded it to JP Prag, in amongst all the financial ones I send him.

*** Well, Josh, as the author of "In Defense Of..." I'd like to first point out you can catch me every Monday in Hidden Highlights and every Thursday in The Hamilton Ave Journal. In other words, I'm doing quite enough right now without a third article, but thank you.

Of course, if you were up to date on The Hamilton Ave Journal, you would have read this in Issue #75:

JF wanted to know:

So... whatever happened to "IN DEFENSE OF..."?

The author of the piece had to spend 8-15 hours preparing and writing each issue. Unfortunately, his time schedule made it impossible to keep up. Originally, the idea was to take a hiatus to see is the article could fit into a different schedule, but that hiatus has been going on for over two years. Perhaps it will return some day? There is no lack of material available!

As you can see, it is not 411mania's decision whether or not to bring back In Defense Of..., just my own. But considering my schedule is not getting better, I would not count on it. Every once in a while I think I might sit down and do a special (I had topics planning out until Issue #100 and potential topics for well beyond that that I had not yet scheduled), so that could still happen. As a regular weekly feature, though, it is just too much work to keep up. You can read the archive at any time, which I do believe covers quite a bit.

And as far as letting someone else use the concept, I do not trust anyone to do it justice (pun intended). Mathew Sforcina here is the closest since he has the research skills, knows how to write, and understands multi-issue spanning topics, but I'm quite sure Ask411 is driving him insane enough! ***

And no, I did not pay him to say that last bit.



Honestabe1712 asks about booking, but in the way I can answer.

I was wondering who booked wm 14. It is known that wm 15 was the first and only wm that vince russo booked. But I am pretty sure that russo was booking the wwf at that time.

Well, there's a difference between "Booked" and "Had Input From".

Russo's WWF career began in 92, when began writing for WWF Magazine as a freelancer. By 94, he had become Editor. As Editor, and ‘Vic Venom', he began to basically treat WWF like, well, reality. He wrote columns asking why guys suddenly liked each other after years of hatred just because one of them was turned on by the fans, he basically wrote the magazine with something akin to logic and reason. Now, there's some haziness about what happened next. I've read that Bill Watts invited Russo to creative meetings and traded ideas, which to me sounds ludicrous, in that if you tried to pick two guys on different ends of the booking spectrum, you'd need to look pretty hard to find two guys further apart then those two.

Russo claims that at some point Vince, sick to death of the bad writing, tossed the WWF Magazine on the desk and said we need stuff like this, and Russo was asked along that way.

Something akin to that is also floating out there, in that there's a story that says Russo wormed his way into meetings, under guise of ‘needing to be in the loop so he could plan the magazine better' or some such. Then, during the meeting, he'd make comments under his breath about how stupid an idea was, until finally someone asked for his opinion out of spite, he gave it, and things ran from there.

Whichever story is true (probably some mixture of them), Russo was on the writing team by late 1996. And if you look back, and you know what you're looking for, his influence is fairly easy to spot, in that pretty quickly everyone in the main event scene began to act for their own self interest and not band together under the banner of goodness or badness. ‘IYH: It's Time', for instance, features a heel vs. heel match, an IC champ attacking both the guy he hated and the other guy in the ring, Mick Foley being Mick Foley and a main event with 4 guys involved with not a white hat between them.

So Russo wasn't as in control as he would get later on, but WM 13 and XIV both had input from Russo, it's just that he was still rising from Creative Team Member to Head Of Creative. WMXIV was booked by Russo (if you have to pick one guy), just Russo without the free reign that he'd eventually have.

Patrick begins with a rumor I haven't heard.

1) I heard Owen Hart was supposed to be given "The Game" gimmick, which went to HHH, and we all know was quite successful for him. I don't know if that's true or not, but my question is has there ever been a gimmick originally planned for 1 guy, only to be given to someone else, and for it to be very successful?

Hmm. Gimmick. Pushes that were meant for one guy but ended up with someone else in the role are common place enough, but gimmickwise… Well, I suppose you could argue that Suicide was an example of this, sort of. But the king of the small hill that is this question is Jeff Jarrett, if you stretch the definition a fair way. Bret Hart was originally going to be Cowboy Bret Hart, complete with horse and lights on his hat. He eventually refused, and the idea was shelved for a decade or so, when it was brushed off, reworked slightly, and became Jeff Jarrett, Evil Country Music Singer. Anyone else readers?

2) Why do so many people forget to mention Wrestlemania 14 as being one of the best WMs of all time. It really was a turning point for the WWE in the war with WCW, WWE gained a ton of momentum after it. Austin being the top guy in the company, tons of publicity from Tyson's involvement, Rock and HHH showing a glimpse of the future, they built Kane great, etc.

Probably because the show's very important in terms of the shift and the story behind it, this being the ‘birth' of Attitude and the start of the WWE Phoenix Rebirth, but the show itself isn't that great in terms of in ring work. It's similar to WM1, in many ways. Historically significant, and a show you should see as a fan, but not, for most people, a great show wrestling wise. It's a good show, and if you like it, my words shouldn't stop you, but it's not the best aged show on the WWE Tape Library. Unlike stuff like X and X7, which were both important and had great wrestling.

Steve-0 (I assume not that Jackass Guy) has a couple of HBK questions.

Just want to say great column, I read it every week, and thanks for introducing me to Botchamania some the funniest crap i've ever seen!

Also I love HBK, I always have, And I dont want the following to look like im a bitter Canadian (I'm British).

Firstly, I was inspired after seeing Taker vs HBK at WM25 to watch their classic, Bad Blood 97, First ever HIAC match (still the best 1 eva), in the pre match interview Shawn says ultra sarcastically summit along the lines of 'the match isn't for my converted European title, that will stay around the waist of HBK...phew' was this just due to his recent heel turn i.e. being a jerk or was it Kayfabe if so why's he so negative about the belt?

Well, let's have a look.



It was Kayfabe, kinda. This was during the period where Shawn and to a lesser extent Hunter were pretty much just saying whatever the hell they wanted. Shawn knew that the Euro title wasn't that important (it began as a vanity plate for the Bulldog after all), and so, gasp, he said so! From a pure Kayfabe position, you can argue that he didn't care about the belt in of itself, he just wanted it at the time to piss off the Hart family. Once he had it, he didn't care, as you could tell when he eventually ‘lost' it. So Kayfabe, but in that DX style that was so ‘In' at the time.

The second question is again about HBK again at Summerslam 2005 against Hogan, HBK massively oversold everything Hogan did, I mean it was embarrassing, he was jumping and rolling around everywhere, too the point you could clearly see Hogan get madder and madder with him as the match went on. Why do you think he did it? and Did HBK ever get punished/sanctioned or anything for it?

Well, let's go to the tape there as well.



To answer the second part, no, HBK didn't get any fines or official sanctions, probably because despite his antics the match was still pretty good, considering.

As for why, it's all about Politics.

HBK went into the feud thinking that he had enough pull to get his own way to some degree. He thought he could fight Hogan head to head and win, or at least get to a draw. So, he pitched the idea, HBK V Hogan, Face V Face. "I have to know, can I do it, can I defeat Hulk Hogan?" That was the original idea.

Then it came back that Hulk wanted Face/Heel. Shawn fought against it, but eventually he dug down and brought out 1997 Shawn Michaels, and proceeded to tear Hogan a new asshole each week on Raw. And, not co-incidentally, was instantly that much more entertaining and interesting a character.




Yeah, I think I've got enough videos this week to not post a comedy one…

But regardless, Shawn still went along with it, thinking he'd be ok, that he'd get some say in the match and the outcome.

Yeah, bad mistake. Apparently Hogan refused anything other than a clean win (some say because he's an egotistical bastard, or maybe because he didn't think Shawn's comments were appropriate, although to Shawn's face he said he didn't mind, apparently). A rematch for Unforgiven was floated, inside a steel cage. But after Shawn found out that Hogan would demand to win that as well, he just gave up and agreed to lose at Summerslam.

Bus Shawn, not happy with Hogan's attitude and tapping into his 97 attitude led him to basically sabotage the match, via overselling. But hey, even with that, he still had a decent match with Hogan, so there's some level of professionalism still in him.

We finally move away from Shawn and onto Mysterio, and Chris

Great Column (except for your damn opinions, of course),

I don't watch wrestling regularly anymore but caught a WWE show the other night and Rey Mysterio was running the ropes and bounced off the middle rope. I know he didn't always do that and was wondering when/why he started. When he bounced off of the top rope he'd have to jump a little to catch it on his shoulders and not his neck. That's the only reason I can think of is to avoid a nagging injury because bouncing off the middle really emphasizes his short stature. After all, the Divas don't even bounce off the middle rope.

…

Is that ‘You don't read them' or ‘you think my opinions suck'?

Well, I didn't recall Rey's running the ropes, so I went back and watches some old videos. And indeed, in WCW, he would run off the top rope, and even back in ECW, he would touch the top rope with his hands and upper back.

And in his WWE debut, he used the top rope. So his second rope thing has been somewhat recent. At Great American Bash where he lost the World Title to King Booker, Rey ran the top rope and the medium rope at different times. But after his knee injury, from Summerslam 2007, he has tended to run the middle rope more often, so it seems to be a knee issue, in that he used to run the middle ropes for speed, now he runs them most of the time, perhaps in part due to the knee. Certainly bending it might be less painful and stressful then having to straighten it out to reach the top rope.

W. S. Thompson asks about WCW PPV.

Since I'm writing, a question I have been wondering about for a while: in his book, Eric Bischoff mentions that Bill Watts pulled some PPVs off of the 1992 schedule. Bischoff does not say what those shows were, though. WCW added a new show in 1992, Beach Blast, in June, which was the precursor to Bash at the Beach. WCW obviously was not afraid of doing three PPVs in three months (they had the last Wrestlewar in May and the Great American Bash in July). Any idea what those pulled PPVs were going to be? Would such a theory lend credence to the idea that someone at Turner saw the value of expanding PPV early on, as that type of move certainly would not fit in with the Bill Watts approach?

Impressive job with the column - you certainly have a lot of work to put in each week.

6-8 hours, depending on what is asked and how distracted I get. All in one sitting, too.

As to the shows Bill cancelled, there were 2 scheduled between The Great American Bash and Halloween Havoc that Watts cancelled. Considering the ratings, attendance and such, cancelling the shows might well have been a good move, and certainly it fit with how Bill Watts saw Wrestling. Just that no-one else seemed to agree with him.

There's no record of what the shows were to be called, nor who booked them to begin with. Probably Kip Frye is your man, in the couple of months that he ran WCW between Watts and Jim Herd. Kip did actually spend some money, giving out raises and the famous "$5K to the best match" bonus which sadly never caught on. Presumably he decided to bump up the number of PPVs, then Watts took over and cancelled them. Frye didn't really know what he was doing, but unlike other men who didn't know what they were doing when they ran WCW, he KNEW his limitations, and let the wrestlers do their thing, which worked out well. Shame it didn't last.

A-Ron wants Blood. Well, if you want blood, you got it…

Back in the days of Evolution, Eugene came into the picture and Regal was involved as well, looking out for Eugene's well-being. Regal ended up in a match against Triple H where he was brutalized and put in a stretcher after the match. I was wondering if this match, or better yet, the post match beat down on Regal was available anywhere? The only HHH/Regal match I've been able to find is their first blood match from 2008, and that's not it.

Well, the Raw you're thinking of was August 2nd, 2004. (Thanks newly redesigned History Of WWE site!) But sadly I couldn't find any video of that online, even with the date. Readers?

This is a weird one. It got sent to JP Prag, with the subject of ‘Stan Hansen', from ONEON316

he said he had 9 kids and a big fat wife in texas. any of his boys trying to get into wrestling.

So, if I understand the question right, it's about Stan Hansen's kids. Well, he actually only has 2 sons, not 9. And his wife's weight is at the time of publication unknown. But what is known, recently an article appeared about one of his sons, his eldest son named… Shaver, with a brief mention of his younger brother Sam. However, you're unlikely to see them in the wrestling ring any time soon.

Since they're Baseball players right now.

But given that Stan's wife is Japanese, I doubt they're going to end up like Stan in terms of being giant hard as nails brawlers. Now, a couple of boys with Stan's attitude but high flying skills…

Carlos asks about ring rope colors. Did this get sent to me instead od Hidden Highlights or something?

Yo Matt For Cena! What is up my home fly! My name is Carlos and I got a question for you!

What do the ring rope colors in WWE PPV's mean now a days. I remember back when the pay-per-views were still brand exclusive, Raw shows had red ring ropes, Smackdown PPVs had blue ring ropes, and ECW shows had gray ring ropes, while the Big Four PPV's had black ropes.

Then things started to get out of hand in 2007. Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania 23 had white ring ropes, but then went back to black for the other big four shows. The other PPV's on the other hand became tri-branded but maintained the sam ring rope colors thay've always had. Then in 2008, Royal Rumble, which is one of the Big Four, No Way Out, which was naturally a Smackdown show but now was tri-branded, and Wrestlemania now had red ropes, and then Backlash had blue ropes, which was usually a Raw show. This years Wrestlemania had blue ropes and not the traditional black.

My question is, how does the WWE decide what color the ring ropes are for PPV's, and do they mean anything now a days?

Nowadays the color is strictly determined by the décor for the show. Whatever color ropes the artistic designers feel is best for the set, is what they go with. So Extreme Rules will probably be black or grey, to fit with the HC nature of the show. Basically since all PPVs are Tri-Branded, the ring ropes no longer stick with brands, just with what looks good.

Shawn asks about gestures.

Matt,

Great job on the column. Question: Why does John Cena hold up three fingers in the air on both hands when he walks to the ring (like the Dudleys)? I've noticed it just recently and I'm not clear what the significance is.

Well, I originally thought you meant his Salute, which is from The Marine movie. His usage of it I mean. Salutes have been around for a fair old while But that's 4 fingers, so I'm not sure that's what you mean. Because I don't see him using any other hand gestures. So, yeah…

And lastly for the facts section, Mateo wants to turn out the lights.

Great work on the column. I was recently watching clips of WCW shows and
one subject peaked my curiosity regarding Booker T. This was during
2000, I believe, when he would make references to "Midnight". Eventually
that would end up being a female wrestler named Midnight who would back
him up. My question is who was she and has she surfaced anywhere else
post-WCW?

Ah, Midnight. I'll admit, I kinda liked that gimmick. When the lights go out, Midnight strikes and all that. Midnight, real name Ann Marie Crooks, was a body builder for many years before being hired by Eric Bischoff and then pushed as Booker T's sister by Vince Russo (although her first night out, she took a guitar shot from Jarrett…).

She soon realised that WCW was going downhill, and requested her release, and got it. She immediately went to the WWF, who chose not to hire her. Her last official match was in 2001, when she wrestled Nicole Bass.

Nowadays she owns a store, sorry, boutique in Florida that sells mid-century modern furniture, whatever that means. She's also a realtor, which a LOT of former Wrestlers seem to end up doing for some reason.

My Damm Opinion

Chris continues the theme from last week (that I cut off due to not wanting to get too maudlin).

I was just wondering how do you think Edge's career as far as storyline would be if Eddie Guerrero was still with us. Also do you think Rey Mysterio would ever have won a world title if Eddie was still alive.

I think Edge would still be the same, pretty much. Eddie was always the cool heel, the heel that you loved to hate, whereas Edge tries so very, very hard to not have a single redeeming quality. If both were around and on the same show, they'd have a constant low level feud, wherein they help each other out but unwillingly, and if/when they fought, we'd side with Eddie.

Rey… honestly? Yes he would. He'd be a transitional champion, but Rey as World Champ does have some logic to it, with the amount he appeals to kids, especially in this day and age. And if anything, his run would have been better, given the Eddie cloud that hung over him in his reign. Expect him to be a World Champ again at some point, provided his knees hold up.

Manu pops up again.

Now that WM25 is in the books, what in your opinion was the biggest WM match of this decade (2000-2009)?

for me, its hogan vs rock. dont get me wrong, that wasnt my favorite WM mach of the past decade, but to me, it was the biggest.

It depends on your definition. Certainly Hogan/Rock is a contender, being the match that turned Rock into a star too big for Wrestling to support. Cena/JBL should have been a contender, but the match kinda stunk, which while not automiatically a DQ, doesn't help it's chances.

I think in terms of the match that had the most impact overall, Austin/Rock, X7. The impact from that match is still being felt today, just not a good impact. But Rock/Hogan is a very close second.

And finally, Bryan asks something that is cropping up a fair bit.

First off I love the column.

I have been a huge wrestling fan for over 30 years and have, like many, come up with my own dream card for a wrestlemania or super event. Some would be instant classics and some are just match ups I would like to see with guys in their prime. Just wondering your thoughts and what your super dream mania card would be? Thanks.

Cactus Jack vs. Bruiser Brody-Two of the craziest men in the history of the business brawling all over the arena/stadium.

Terry Funk vs Roddy Piper-Although I am sure these two may have crossed paths at some point I have never seen a match between them. Two of the biggest names and draws with a huge unpredictability element. Could be fun!

Shawn Michael vs Ricky Steamboat-Obviously a classic that would have people talking for years. Two of the absolute greatest performers of all-time. Would love to sit back and watch it.

Undertaker vs Andre the Giant-The Phenom vs The Eighth Wonder of the World. Probably would sell a ticket or two. Put this at a Mania with both men in their prime. Speculation of the undefeated streak vs the Undefeated Career of Andre(although Mania 3 was his biggest match his prime was prior I believe).

Bret Hart vs Kurt Angle-I know this one is on a lot of people's dream match list. Makes mine too. How great could this have been?

Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard vs The British Bulldogs-Two of the greatest if not the greatest teams of all-time. Ring generals and master psychologists in AA and Tully and pure Dynamite (pun intended) in the B-dogs.

Mr Perfect vs Chris Benoit-I know the Benoit history and know these two men had bouts in WCW but in their prime with no horrible family tragedy these two men could steal the show from anyone.

Ric Flair vs Bruno Sammartino-in the storied career of Flair- Sammartino is one of the few legendary men I don't believe he was ever in the ring with. This has Ali vs Marciano written all over it. Flair at his flamboyant best against the everyman Bruno. WOW!

Randy Savage vs The Rock-Two of the biggest names of all-time who usually found themselves playing second fiddle to larger stars of their era. However, both have carved out huge careers for themselves and are on the short list of great ones! Oh Yeah!

Hulk Hogan vs Stone Cold Steve Austin-The two biggest stars in the history of the business. People can argue about the best all the want (cough-Flair-cough) but when it comes to selling tickets and mainstream cross over appeal these two men are in a class of their own.

Honorable mention-HHH vs Harley Race, Sting vs Ultimate Warrior, Goldberg vs Stan Hansen, Chris Jericho vs Great Muta, Dusty Rhodes vs Iran Shiek, Eddie Guerrerro vs Owen Hart.

Obviously there are huge stars I have omitted which is kind of the fun with it. Everyone would have their own favorites. I respect the column and was curious of yours.

Whoo boy. Ok, fine. I'm not going to explain the card, just give you what I'd book. If you have questions/insults, ask/give them and I'll explain next week.

My dream card.

Hulk Hogan V Steve Austin
The Rock V Ric Flair- They have to talk at each other for a while first.
HHH/HBK/Angle/Savage/Rude V Bret/Owen/Steamboat/Sting/Vader- Survivor Series
Rey Mysterio V The Great Muta- 2/3 Falls
Arn/Tully V The Hardys
Edge V Christian V Jericho V Raven V Dreamer V Shelton- MITB
Cactus/Terry Funk V Sabu/RVD- Hardcore Rules
Stevie/Victoria V Chyna/Kane
Trish V Madusa
Piper's Pit with Jake Roberts and CM Punk

And on that note, good day to you all.