Ask 411 Wrestling 09.30.09: Money Drawing Feuds, Clean Living Wrestlers and That Little Japanese Girl!

Posted by Mathew Sforcina on 09.30.2009

Why does The Rock hate Shawn Michaels? How badly did AWA suck at the end? Where did WWE PPV DVD bonuses go? Do some wrestlers have 'Tells'? Is a double knockout a double countout? And why do Demolition Ax and WWE hate each other? All these, and I defend Wrestlers sleeping about, only inside!

Welcome to another edition of Ask 411 Wrestling. My name is Mathew Sforcina, and I'm pissed off right now. And not just because the Wrong Date puzzle in Professor Layton and Pandora's Box is very annoyingly stupid.

I mean, I understand on one level. Small's got a lot on his plate, what with the alcoholism, and court case, and his restraining order from every Indian in the US over 6 foot to deal with.

But to so blatantly rip off me from last week is digging deep, even for him.

Still, it is an obvious joke. Plus it says something about how impactful those promos were that no-one in wrestling can talk in a white room without that reference being made.

Quick Notes: Before we get going, just a friendly reminder. Please don't post proper questions in the comments section, they won't get answered. Feedback on the questions given/calling me out on mistakes is fine, but brand new questions will be ignored. And second, I am running about 2 months behind in terms of you sending a question and me getting to it. Please keep this in mind. If you wish me to acknoldge my receiving the mail (which is quite reasonable) please say so in the mail and I'll send you back a note about it being in the list.

And now your regularly scheduled programming.

Backtalking

Uh… apart from the next bit, last week was pretty good actually. Go Me!

Your Turn, Smart Guy…

…

Stupid bloody American legal system.

OK, so this one's a wash given I stuffed up. Still, here was last week's question:

Who am I? A WWE Grand Slam holder who can't run for US President, I've teamed with and feuded with many of the best this industry has to offer. Hogan, Taker, Rock, Austin, Jericho, HHH, RVD, McMahon, Hart, Foley, I've teamed with 7 of them and feuded with 8 of them. A 2 time world champion, it took me a while to find the groove, find the right combination of name, character and outfit/s, but once I found that winning formula, I've stuck with it for a while. Holder of a few Royal Rumble statistical highpoints, I'm still around, and might be YOUR next Intercontinental Champion. Who am I?

And this is who I intended the answer to be (in a way).

OK, given the last couple of weeks, let's go for something more concrete.

Here we have an image with a simple cipher in it. Each letter has been replaced with another letter (any punctuation is left unchanged). Work out what it says. You get two clues. One, F in the code = the letter A. And two, all the terms are linked, and the added image is a clue as to how.

Questions, Questions, Who's Got The Questions?

And it takes me all of one question to break my own rules about skipping questions ahead. But to be fair, Paul is in the US Air Force. Or at least, his email address is…

I'm tapped out trying to identify the fake "Cedric the Entertainer" from RAW last Monday. Any ideas?



Clearly that was Hornswoggle.

Oh, you meant the big one! Well, we don't have confirmation, but at an educated guess, Ezekiel Jackson. He's big, black, on roster and it would explain why he wore a t-shirt (to cover his tattoo) and kept the mask on (self-explanatory). If it had been someone from FCW (Dawson Alexander or Michael Tarver or someone) there would have been a newsbyte about them being at the show. It could always have been some local worker, but Jackson is the obvious probable culprit.

Spoon gets his second question answered first since the first part is more opinion.

I've also heard a rumor, that Shawn Michaels tried to hold The Rock back in the 90's when the Rock was still coming up and he didn't want to vs The Rock because he thought that he wasn't credible enogh. I've also heard that Michaels was scared that The Rock might take over HHH's push. Is this true? Is there something between them?

Well, there is heat between them, but not any of what you suggested.

The (rumor mill's) story goes like this. When Rocky debuted, Hunter and Michaels (more Shawn) constantly talked bad of him, saying that he sucked and didn't deserve to be there. Now at the time he was Rocky Miavia, Smiling Blue Chipper, but still. He was the new guy, and Bret Hart loved him, so Shawn hated him. HHH having to drop the IC title to him (which was a parody

Then there was the Bret/Rocky match on 03/31/97. The rumor-mill has it that the match, Bret Hart challenging for the IC title held by Rocky, was pitched by Shawn Michaels who asked super nicely with triple sugar on top demanded that Bret win the title, which would both depush Rocky (since he lost) AND tie up Bret (since as IC champ, he couldn't challenge for the World Title). Bret, upon being told the booking, threw a fit of his own and demanded to lose. The compromise was Bret losing by DQ. Rocky would go on to lose the title to Owen Hart, himself a last second replacement when Vader, the original choice, went and got in legal troubles in Kuwait.

But after that, Bret pushed and pushed hard backstage for Rocky, and he got enough time to turn heel and then rise.

And that's the apparent reason why Rock/HBK was never done after Shawn came back. Rocky has a long term memory, apparently.

But again, that's all hearsay. But it's widely believed hearsay.

Rick gets a cut and paste job since I've already answered his main question.

I remember a long time ago the wrestlers mainly one I do not remember his name (Might have been Hercules) used to do a heart punch and knock people out. Then it disappeared I heard that he accidently killed someone. Has there ever been someone killed in a major promotion? I know there has been a couple killed in minor promotions. I also know of Bruiser Brodie getting stabbed. I am talking accident in the ring during a match.

Again, the list of guys who have died in ring: "Iron" Mike DiBiase, Gary Albright, Larry Cameron, Mitsuharu Misawa, Moondog Spot, Owen Hart. Owen's the only one in a ‘major' US promotion. Misawa you can include as a Major Japan one.

As for a Heart Punch killing a man, which you kinda didn't ask about, I'm not even going to try and top this excellent article by Mike Rickard on the subject of Ox Baker and his ‘killer' heart punch.

Next up is Steve and his questions.

Hey man, sweet column

Got a few questions for you.

1. In the early 90's when the AWA was near death, is it true that their last few episodes on ESPN were taped in a empty salmon colored warehouse ?

Yes, as you can see in this unembeddable video. Included in the video is the kayfabe explanation, after Greg Gagne had his leg broken by a young Yokozuna, the President ordered all AWA matches to take place in a secured facility to avoid sneak attacks. The real reason was poor attendance, of course. However, that was only for some of their matches, others were filmed at the Rochester Civic Center, which was one of their few remaining strongholds. They were still drawing badly, but they had a (barely) acceptable audience there.

2. Also, was one of their last attempts at garnering any interest an angle caled "The Great American Turkey Hunt" were the wrestlers all chased around a turkey ?

Not really. This whole thing was covered by Wrestlecrap back in the day and thus certain aspects are well known but confused.

Basically the last ditch effort to gain attention/momentum was the ‘Team Challenge Series", where the entire AWA roster was split into three teams, Larry's Legends (as lead by Larry Zybysko), Baron's Blitzers (as lead by Baron Von Raschke) and DeBeers' Diamondcutters, formerly Slaughter's Snipers (lead by Sgt. Slaughter until he left for WWF, and then Col. DeBeers took over). The teams ignored the face/heel lines, as hated rivals were forced to fight along side each other. See, every match in the AWA was a Team Challenge match, where the winners would get points, and after a certain period of time, the winning team would get One Million Dollars.

It's credited to Eric Bischoff, but he has disavowed all responsibility for the storyline, Greg Gagne and his father the true masterminds, supposedly.

And it's actually not a bad idea, in theory. You make the entire company revolve around one central storyline, giving you a place to start from for all the other storylines. Certainly when WCW ‘restarted' with Bischoff and Russo, at first the Millionare's Club/New Blood storyline worked well.

However, the execution of the angle failed, as the matches themselves were mostly gimmicky messes and/or boring matches with stupid names. A "Behind the 8 Ball Battle Royal", with it just being an 8 man over the top battle royal? Or "The Great American Turkey Hunt", which saw perennial jobber Jake "The Milkman" Milliman defeated Colonel DeBeers in said match by obtaining a dead, stuffed turkey off a pole first, with a young Vince Russo looking on perhaps.

However, that was not the ‘finals' of the Challenge Series, a battle royal finished it up, giving Larry's team the money.

3. Also I remember a PPV from World Wrestling Allstars from about 7 years ago, where Larry Zybysko came out and called out Vince Mcmahon for some ridiculous reason. Was there ever any legitimate heat between the two or was this just a very lame attempt to get the company some attention ?

By the time that PPV was held (WWA Revolution 02.24.02), he did have a somewhat legitimate grudge. See, after Chris Jericho unified the WCW, sorry, World and WWF titles, he began to call himself the ‘Living Legend'. Larry Zybysko has a common law trademark over that term, and called WWF up to say "Hey, I'm still around, that's mine". According to him, WWF then tried to strongarm him into signing a release, and so he sued them.

Hence why he also lashed out at Jericho in the shoot promo, although he didn't really have heat with him as such.

Next up is three quarters of Brandon's questions.

You've been doing an awesome job. Love the column.

1. Back in 1995, Mabel won the King of the Ring. Of all the people, why Mabel (now Viscera)? What did WWE see in him that made them think he's be the next big thing (no pun intended)?

Because he was huge.

Seriously, that's all I got. Vince <3's big guys, and Mabel is pretty bloody big. And there is the fact that Hogan drew by having bigger guys beat him down, and thus Vince tried the same thing with Diesel, and Bret, and Shawn…

2. Why has WWE PPV dvds gone from having a decent amount of extras, sometimes even around 10, to now maybe one backstage interview? Where did the extras go?

Cost cutting, perhaps? Although to be honest, most of the time the extras weren't exactly thrilling. The old system was to have Heat from before the show, a bunch of interviews, some promos, a match (perhaps), a ‘relevant‘ segment from Raw the following night and a ‘relevant' segment from Confidential. Now Heat and Confidential are gone, and the rest seem to only get stuck on every once in a while.

I can't say why WWE isn't putting out decent PPV DVDs (you have all this tape library going to waste…), but it's almost certainly about cost cutting. Less extras mean you can use a less detailed disc, you don't have to pay for editing, and building, and such. It's petty, but watch the pennies, and pounds just buy Wrestler compilations.

Wait, what?

4. Why did WWE never really capitalize on Kane having "mental scars" issue? It sounded like a great idea and something they could work with for a long time but then after a few weeks it wasn't mentioned again.

Because WWE just wanted a way out. They had to explain why Kane wasn't scarred despite him saying he was (and DX and Chyna and Tori reacting like he was). They weren't worrying themselves about making interesting plot points, they just needed a get out of jail free card, and that worked.

Manu asks a nice simple one.

I'm watching the SNME dvd set, and Vince and Jesse say that if Honky Tonk regains the title from the Ultimate Warrior, it'll be the first time in history that someone has regained the IC title.

Honky loses.

Given that, who was the first person to have 2 IC title reigns?

Manu

PS Jesus - warrior was a freak! He gorilla pressed HTM in the aisle and carried him back to the ring over his head. impressive. he also had a good big boot, but weak punches. I kinda want to watch the warrior dvd set now. sure, its called "the self-destruction of the ultimate warrior", but it still has a lot of his good matches on it (good being a relative term), and I was a fan of his as a kid.

Yeah, that's WAY off. Pedro Morales is the first 2 time IC champ, and he won the title back off the man he lost it to, Don Muraco, who then beat him back for it to become the second 2 time champion.

A double dip this week, given that the first one is the Best of Botchamania. I probably shouldn't post it after last week, but come on, Super Dragon AND Dragon Dragon? How can you go wrong?


And then, for some new stuff, here's a quick little video thingy.

I smell Spin-Off Live Action Movie!

Drew asks about a little girl.

My question is this. I've seen on Youtube videos of a little girl named Kaicho Ramu who does make up like all the ghosts in Japanes Horror films and wrestles (only in Japan). How'd she get involved at wrestling at her age, what company does she work for, is she still arround and...well, I have to ask, what's her win/loss record?

For the sake of completeness (and because someone else asked about this), here's a video of the girl in question.



And now, to answer this, once again welcome the man who saves me from having to learn Japanese (hey, I only took it in High School because the teacher was hot), Ryan Byers!

Yes, Ramu is still around. Her home promotion is known as 666 (sometimes also written as Triple 6), though she has branched out and competed for other promotions such as UWAI STATION and DDT throughout her career. I believe that she is currently eight years old, and the earliest match result that I have seen from her lists the date as 2007, so she was six at the youngest when she made her professional wrestling debt. A proper win-loss record is virtually impossible to compile for her, just because the promotions that she competes for are SO small (literally drawing less than 300 people per show regularly) that their results only sporadically make their way online. With that being said, though, I have seen her victorious in the vast majority of the matches that have made their way online, and, when she loses, it is generally in tag team action with one of her adult partners being pinned.

As far as how she got in to the wrestling business is concerned, I have heard a variety of conflicting stories. However, the most frequently repeated one - which is also the most plausible - is that she is the relative of either Crazy SKB or Onryo, the two men who are largely responsible for the 666 promotion.

I'll tell you what, if she sticks around, I'd wager she'll end up in the States eventually as a ‘serious' wrestler. A 20 year old with over 10 years experience? She'd give Regal a run for his money…

ausjimmy asks about tells.

Hey Matt, love your work! Sending you some question love from a fellow Aussie.

Something I noticed quite early is that when Kane made his ring entrance, you could often tell whether he'd be winning or losing. He of course does that pose where he brings his arms down and the pyro on the corners went off – if he did it before the match, you knew he wouldn't be winning. If he didn't, you knew he'd be winning because then he'd do it after the match.

My question is, do you (or did you) know of any other wrestlers with "tells"?

Well, you used to be able to tell if Kurt Angle would win or lose by looking at his teeth. If he had his caps in, he'd be winning and thus smiling, if he didn't he'd lose. And The Rock had a promo tell, if he'd win he'd "Guaran-Damn-Tee" it. But if he was to lose, he'd talk about how he'd give all he had, leave everything in the ring, and basically say everything except that magic double hyphenated word.

Beyond that, none spring to mind. Readers?

Next up is Schmidty and a question about learning a move.

Hey Sforcina, I appreciate the great work you do every week. I've been into this column for years and I've thoroughly enjoyed your stint as The Askman so I thought I'd try posing my own question.

I was reading Bret Hart's book recently and it confirmed for me the bit of wrestle-lore that it was Konnan who taught The Hitman how to do The Sharpshooter. What's always confused me about this detail is that it was already a fairly prominent move since Sting had been doing it for years at that point and Terry Taylor (during the tail end of the Red Rooster gimmick) and Ronnie Garvin (calling it The Hammer Jammer during his feud with Greg Valentine) had both used it in the WWF not too long before hand. Was this just a matter of Bret never really taking note of how the move was executed or is there more to learning a move like The Sharpshooter than just immitating it? Did Bret need to work with Konnan first hand because the safest manner in which to the move is applied isn't evident by just seeing it done?

Thanks again, keep that knowledge coming,

Believe me when I say this, that watching a move being applied in the ring is not enough to be able to apply it properly. Obviously with simple moves like a front face lock or a Dragon Sleeper you can probably get it mostly right, albeit not the safest application of it. But with such a relatively complex move as the Sharpshooter, you need to learn how to do it properly from someone who knows it. With any move involving legs crossing and/or pressure on the back, you can't just go in and hope, you have to practice it, and so Konnan showed Bret how to apply it properly, watched him do it and gave him the pointers in order to be able to do it.

And yes, you can injure someone in a Sharpshooter if you have no idea what you are doing, especially if you're clumsy and fall over. If Konnan hadn't been there Bret might well have gone in and done it all right, but being able to do it well needs training.

Next up is Josh.

I'm sure this has been covered before, but I've never actually seen a very deep explanation. I know that Demolition Ax and the WWF/E had a falling out, but I have no clue what it was about. If you know anything about it, please let me know. I know that years later there was more trouble between the two over the use of the name Demolition Ax and Ax still having a WWF Tag Team Title in his possession, but I don't know what the initial ordeal was that caused the bad blood between the two sides.

Well, the initial falling out was about a backstage job falling through.

Bill Eadie (Ax) and Randy Collery (Original Smash) debuted the Demolition gimmick in Jan 1987, although after a few matches Randy was replaced by Barry Darsow as Smash. Mass success followed as heels and faces.

Speed ahead to 1990, and Brian Adams' debut as Crush, and the Demolition 3 man rule (a.k.a the Freebird rule) kicking in, where all three could defend the title. This occurred because Bill developed a Shellfish allergy (which he attributes to trips to Japan), and thus was in and out of hospital for a while there. So, Crush was brought in to get the belts off them should Bill be hospitalized for an extended period.

Due in part to this, Ax was phased out, and became more of a manager, Smash and Crush becoming the regular team. Now, as part of this, Bill was promised an agent's/backstage roll, to compensate for the lack of wrestling. But this fell through, and he left over it.

At first, it was just a minor issue. But then Bill began working as "Axis The Demolisher", with the original Crush and Carmine Azzato as Demolition Blast on the Indy scene. As soon as WWF found out about this, they sent a cease and desist letter. Ax then sued them, claiming he was the creator and thus owner of the Demolition gimmick. He lost the case, hence the bad blood between the two sides.

Luis has spotted some flaws.

I was watching the triple threat match between Benoit-HBK-HHH when I saw that when Benoit put HHH in the crossface HHH went for the ropes, where in a regular match he would need to break the hold or else get disqualified. And I actually have two questions involving non-disqualification matches.

1) In triple threat matches they are always billed as non-DQ. In regular matches going for the ropes gives you 5 seconds to break the hold or else get DQ. But even though the matches are non-DQ they still go for the ropes even though the person putting the hold doesn't need to let go. The question is why do they go for the rope even though the person holding them doesn't have to let go?

Because it's instinctual. Like kicking out of covers, and running on irish whips, some things are engraned into a wrestler's subconscious enough that even if it's stupid, they still go for it because usually it's logical.

That, and some refs also instinctively count to 5 even when it's not legally binding, so they hope that the ref will do that.

And/or the fact that with a hand on the ropes, you have leverage. If you're trying to break a hold, having some leverage with the ropes is a very useful thing. Supposedly.

2) During the rage in the cage a few weeks back was it necessary for the non-legal man to just wait in his corner even though they could get in on the action without the fear of being disqualified? Cage matches are non-DQ after all.

I could say Instinct again, but instead I'll try this tactic: By staying in the corner, their partner could keep an eye on everything, and thus could shout a warning if someone tried something underhanded. If they both got into the action, they might not see someone scale the cage and interfere. Keep one guy out of the action, he can think, as well as regain some strength.

Dicko takes time out from being an Australian Idol judge to ask a question.

With Kurt Angle flipping out big style, I was wondering; are there any legitimately "clean living" and non-controversial wrestlers out there, the sort of guys that turn up and wrestle, then go home to the wife and kids and take nothing more dangerous than a protein shake? By this I mean any that haven't
a)been on the juice at any point
b)got criminal convictions or been arrested
c)beat women
d)slept with divas/had affairs
e)likely to die in the ring as they are slightly insane and can't leave it alone (i.e. Mick Foley)

I honestly reckon the list of wrestlers who have passed away due to wrestling related activity will be longer than those who are entirely wholesome...

Well, as a general rule, the young athletic Indy type tends to be like you describe, guys like AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels and so on. They tend to be more likely to be at home playing COD4 than out ploughing some random Rat. Samoa Joe, Jay Lethal, Colt Cabana etc. As a general rule.

Although I think most successful wrestlers will fail D. Not so much the affairs, but sleeping around. But it's somewhat defendable, in a way.

100,000 condoms were supplied to the Athletes at the Beijing Olympics. And why? Because there was a large number of attractive, fit young people in a small area for 2 weeks who had 4 years worth of steam to blow off. Of course a lot of them would go out and ‘party'. Same with wrestlers and divas/knockouts. A bunch of mostly attractive, fit young people travelling around together for weeks on end, with no consistency apart from each other. Is it really unexpected that some would turn to bed hopping? Sure, not all of them are on a CM Punk or Batista level, but for the most part wrestlers sleep with each other. That's not automatically a bad thing.

Next up, some more Kayfabe questions from APinOz

Hi Matt, how's the wrestling career? A couple of questions for you:

1st one might require kind of a kayfabe answer: When two wrestlers in a match collide mid-ring, and cannot get off the mat after a count of ten, is the result a double knockout or a double countout? I thought double countout refers to both wrestlers getting counted out of the ring.

Well, some people tend to use the terms interchangeably for that occurrence. Double knock out, double count out, same thing!

It tends to be announced something like "The referee has declared that neither man has answered the 10 count, hence the match is declared a draw".

Technically it's a double knockout. But given that, as yet, wrestlers can't win titles via knockout, it amounts to the same thing.

Now, what would happen if two wrestlers collided, one fell to the mat but the other fell out of the ring, the ref counted to 10, and the wrestler inside the ring never managed to get back to his feet, while the guy on the outside never made it back into the ring? Is this a form of double countout or does the guy inside the ring win?

Unless it's a last man standing match, the guy inside the ring wins. A referee should be focused on the man outside the ring, that overrules what is happening in the ring. Being counted out outside the ring is worse than lying down inside it. Guy in ring wins by Count Out.

What was the WWF's biggest money-making rivalry prior to the proliferation of PPV? Was it Sergeant Slaughter vs Iron Sheik? Or maybe Hoga vs Orndorff?

Hogan/Orndorff. While Bruno, Pedro and Bob had all drawn well, Bruno and Pedro tended to draw solid regardless, while Bob was more a blow off guy, he always made money on the big blow off rather than the chase. Hogan/Orndoff was the first major rivalry for WWF that they milked where both sides were important, as they both made out very well for the matches. I'm sure someone will disagree with me, but from where I sit, they drew the most (Sheik/Slaughter did gangbusters, but Hogan/Orndorff did more)

Do the wrestlers have any input into the design of their merchandise T-shirts? I know Austin did but what about the rest?

They can if they want. Guys like HHH and Orton push for certain looks and styles, and most guys take some interest since so much of their pay is based off it. It's give and take.

And finally for this section, a huge chunk of questions from JLAJRC

I just got done watching WCW's Beach Blast 92 on WWE Classics 24/7 and found it to be a strangely booked PPV for the following reasons:

1.) Sting is the Heavyweight Champ, but doesn't defend the belt. Instead, he is in the midcard with Cactus Jack in a pretty boring "Falls Count Anywhere" match. Sting wins, so I have no idea why he didn't defend it.

2.) Rick Rude is the US Champ, but doesn't defend the belt against Ricky Steamboat in their pretty good Iron Man match. Steamboat wins, but since the belt isn't on the line why should we care. Steamboat even did the whole "Bring his Family to ringside" stuff he used to do.

3.) An over-the hill Greg Valentine beats Marcus Bagwell. Granted, they played it up as a veteran beating a rookie, but Valentine?

4.) They keep mentioning that Sting will defend his title against Vader at the upcoming "Great American Bash" PPV, but Vader doesn't even make an appearence here. You would think they would have him come down to injure Sting during his match, since it is NO DQ, to help himself for their title match, but that doesn't happen. Was Vader injured/overseas at the time?

5.) Finally, there's not really a main event. The final match is just the Steiners defending the tag titles against Terry Gordy and Dr. Death Steve Williams and they end the match on a DRAW???

Any reasons why they would book it like this? I can't think of a more weirdly booked PPV from top to bottom.

1: Cactus Jack as a character was insane. Or at the very least, he was not playing with a full deck, hence he didn't care about the World Title, he just wanted to injure and punish Sting. And thus, despite not ‘having' to fight him, Sting did fight Jack, injured ribs and all, to prove he's a man's man who is good and just and pure and what have you.

2: Well, Rude had brought some women out on TV that claimed that they were sleeping with Steamboat, hence his family there to show they were loyal. And Steamboat didn't get a shot since for the past couple months he had been wrestling Rude at live events and most of the time got himself DQed by blasting Rude with a weapon. That, and Paul E Dangerously was a weasel and refused to sign a title match. But Steamboat proved he was the better man!

3: He was part of a tag team with Terry Taylor, so it's not like he was totally useless. Plus it was a learning experience for Bagwell, and furthered the fact that Valentine was a vet and Bagwell a rookie.

4: Nah, Vader not appearing makes him look like MORE of a monster when he pins Sting at GAB. Vader sneak attacking Sting would make him look weak, having to attack Sting to weaken him. Jack was just insane, picking on a guy with hurt ribs.

5: That I can't defend. Bill Watts just got a big fat chubby over that match-up.

Recently on a WWE 24/7 "Legends of Wrestling" discussion on patriotism in wrestling, Sgt. Slaughter mentioned that one of the reasons he left the WWF in the 80s was because his deal with GI Joe was a conflict of interest with Vince. What would that conflict be? You would think they would see it as a huge opportunity to get kids watching the WWF using one the the biggest cartoons and toylines at the time.

Yeah, but GI Joe is out of Vince's control. What if GI decides that Slaughter has a liking for crumpets all of a sudden? Or GI want to turn him heel? Vince is, if nothing else, a control freak. It's not a one off appearance he can milk, it's a regular appearance. And, maybe, Vince wanted too much money out of him. He might have demanded half the profits or something else insane.

2.) There was a couple times in the early 90s where the WWF seemed to want to push Rick Martel as more than a midcard heel, but for some reason abandoned it. He was the first man to go over 60 minutes in the Royal Rumble, although he never won it (in fact, Martel always did great in the RR). But the most obvious was with his feud with Shawn Michaels. The crowd is clearly behind him during their Summerslam 92 match, but for some reason they never did a full face turn. How come?

Ah, Rick Martel, my pick for "most stunning comeback ever cut short" for his WCW TV title run.

As for why WWF stopped pushing him, Martel himself was losing interest in the business. His property business was doing well, and hence he wasn't driven to succeed enough for the WWF's tastes. Although they didn't do a face turn because he was having too much fun as a heel. He'd been a face for almost his entire career before he became a model, so he had a lot of steam to blow off.

3.) Why did Paul Heyman choose Taz, who was a WWE wrestler at that time, to take the ECW title off of Mike Awesome, who was leaving for WCW? Did he not have faith in anyone on the ECW roster to do it?

He chose Tazz for the sheer mind-fuckocity of it. There's a reason everyone remembers that title change, the sheer insanity of it. Heyman needed something big, and WWF was willing to help ECW out, so the historic moment occurred. ECW was both doing well and sinking fast at this point, so Heyman got desperate. And hey, it drew attention.

Even if Vince went and pissed away the goodwill on Smackdown.

My Damm Opinion

Spoon is back.

hey i was wondering if you could answer some questions for me on 411. They are:

If the screwjob never happened and Bret stayed in the WWF/E, how would it have turned out? Would Vince have still done the evil boss gimmick? and How long would Bret have continue wrestling for? And when would he have retired? Would it have taken the likes of The Rock, HHH and Mankind to rise to the Main Event?

See, the thing is, negating the screwjob doesn't mean Bret would have stayed, that needs a lot to happen earlier on, like months before.

So, let's assume that Bret doesn't leave. Honestly? WWF quite possibly dies within 12 months. It was clear that Bret couldn't co-exist with Attitude, and was holding the company back from that. And with that, comes the company not gaining momentum. Montreal saved the WWF, since it caused people to switch back to see what the hell was going on AND created Vince McMahon, Uber-Heel. Maybe having Bret as an anchor may have slowed Russo down and thus created a less insane Attitude that would still be going on today and be making trillions, but it's unlikely.

There were no plans to make Vince a heel. He only ‘turned' once he started getting booed, and someone then came up with the idea of doing Vince/Austin as a fued.

Bret's contract said he's wrestle for 3 years then become an agent, so he seemed to have pegged 1999/2000 as the time to hang the boots up. Wrestlemania 2000 seemed like a good place to do it.

As for Rock, HHH and Mankind making it to the main event? Rock would get elevated no matter what, Mankind probably (although losing McMahon as a heel reduces his chances) and HHH would probably have been pushed eventually, although if Bret had any sort of control…

Piperfan01 asks if stars should be knocked off a classic.

I suppose you can put this in the "my own damn opinion" section, since that is what I am asking for, and others as well. A simple question really, should the interference of George "The Animal" Steele prevent the match from Wrestlemania 3, (Randy Savage vs Ricky Steamboat), from being considered a true 5 star perfect match. It is an amazing match, one of my favorites, but does the outside interference disqualify it from being the all-time greatest match?

Only if you choose it to. Some people HATE outside interference, they generally despise flashy, showy wrestling and prefer the pure, straight up wrestling style. Those types might well personally knock a half star off for George Steele's interference.

Now personally, I don't mind outside interference if it's done right, if it's logical, not over the top and helps tell the story. And George's interference does do that. He stops Savage from destroying Steamboat's throat again and that's it. And certainly the vast majority of people view that match as a ***** classic of epic proportions. I view it as that, interference is only a problem if it's badly done, like anything in wrestling. Blood is ok, if it's used right. Weapon shots are fine, if it's done well enough, so on and so forth.

But I'm hoping we get a debate about this in the comments section. We don't get good discussions in there as a rule, it's all unfunny memes and pointing out my mistakes…

Brandon's last question.

3. This is more of an opinion question, but do you think WWE should allow wrestlers to have more input on their character? I don't mean to control their character completely, but just give the creative team ideas. I mean Austin came up with the Austin 3:16 speech outta nowhere as well as the actual Stone Cold character, HHH came up with marrying Steph (in story) and it helped push him as the ultimate heel, The Rock came up with all his stuff he said in backstage interviews. Now pretty much all interviews are scripted and you're just given a character and gotta make it work. Why not give A LITTLE more freedom to work with their character, or come up with ideas or suggestions to help make their character better and/or make the company a better product?

Well, Steph has supposedly said as much recently, but the thing is, the WWE writer thinks he knows better than the wrestlers since he's a professional writer and wrestlers aren't. And thus, CLEARLY, they know how to write better than wrestlers, so why bother listening to them?



Just to make sure we're all clear here. I'm totally in favour of firing all the writers who aren't wrestlers OR life long fans (I'm not about to toss out babies, bathwater and/or fancy sponges at the same time) and letting the talent have some more control.

And I'll wait patiently for that to happen in WWE. It'll go nicely with pigs flying and a 5 star Hornswoggle/Chavo match…