Ask 411 Wrestling 11.07.12: Ted Turner Returns, Kane Does Politics, WWE Goes Private, More!

Hey there, welcome to Ask 411 Wrestling. I am hopefully $100 Million dollars richer thanks to the lottery tonight and…

Oh sorry, wrong tack. I’m Mathew Sforcina. Yeah.

Anyway, this should alleviate fears that I would be dropping this along with Ask 411 Games, which I’ve had to pull up stumps on for the foreseeable future due to other commitments. But relax, dear readers, I am still here for this. Although it’s a Total Opinion Week because… Well, because.

Oh, before I go any further, linkage will now occur. Loyal reader Jon Judy is working on a Wrestling Comic Series, Swerve, which I’ve sampled and found to be most interesting and enjoyable. And each issue is like $1, so how can you go wrong there? You can find them online at right here, and I highly encourage you to do so. Tell them I sent you. Nothing will happen, but it would be kinda cool for me.

If you want to feel kinda cool, you can email me a question here. Or not. Up to you.

But you should really listen to Just Another God Damned Rasslin’ Show and 411mania’s shows and Wrestling PodClash!

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Backtalking

Austin had bigger pops: I’ll be the first to admit that there were louder crowd reactions to various people. But I take the moment as a whole, and that shatter/pop is what makes that moment work fully, it’s the cherry on the top. There were louder, but on free TV, that’s still my favourite moment that wasn’t Heyman talking.

An All Aussie Ask 411 Wrestling!: … Would suck because I would refuse to answer anything juicy and/or incriminating, and the answers I did give wouldn’t be understood by 95% of my audience.

And yes, Aussie Wrestling doesn’t draw the same crowds as WWE does. That’s a problem almost every company down here has. If I could solve that, believe me, I would.

Your Turn, Smart Guy…

Who am I? I am a former holder of a title that is current vacant. While I changed my ring name slightly, I always kept the same first name in all my various gimmick names (and it was also my shoot first name as well, sort of). My finisher was a submission hold, and my most famous signature move is as basic as you get in wrestling. In one of my world title runs, I won and lost the title to the same guy. In another, I lost it to that same guy, although it was a different world title in a different wrestling group. I once stood for public office, and I had to retire due to a car accident. From Up North, I am who?

Some Jerk–

Hey, that’s his name! Honest! He had it.

Who am I? I am a former holder of a title that is current vacant – The NWA World Title

While I changed my ring name slightly, I always kept the same first name in all my various gimmick names (and it was also my shoot first name as well, sort of).- William Potts, Bill Potts

My finisher was a submission hold, and my most famous signature move is as basic as you get in wrestling. – The sleeper and the Irish whip.

In one of my world title runs, I won and lost the title to the same guy. In another, I lost it to that same guy, although it was a different world title in a different wrestling group.- Lou Thesz

I once stood for public office- in Toronto
and I had to retire due to a car accident. From Up North, I am who?- You are Whipper Billy Watson

Who am I? One of my former tag team title holders was in the news recently. One of my former mentors isn’t really well liked by anyone any more. I once pinned Hawk of the Road Warriors twice, in a row. In my first match in a company, I won tag titles off a verified hall of famer (although not a WWE Hall of Famer) and a legendary tag team wrestler who is better known for teaming with his brother. I had the option to join the WWF on Black Saturday, but chose not to. A guy who once worked under a mask and who once was a promoter, I am who?

Questions, Questions, Who’s Got The Questions?/My Damn Opinion

Jitterbug Farfalle Cologne starts us off with something that wouldn’t quite fit in either camp anyway.

Living somewhere in the damp recesses between Fact and Opinion, I ask of you, an Advice Question!

It’s bucket list time. Wrestlemania 29 is less than a three hour drive from where I live, so my buddies are locked in to attending and I’m glad to be along for this one. To my knowledge ticket prices haven’t yet been announced (as of 25/10/12, that’s aussie date shorthand, yes?), but nonetheless my friends are trying to pin me down on a number as to how high I’m willing to pay for the ticket.

Nevermind what will surely be insanely inflated prices for EVERYTHING there (parking, beers, souvenirs, etc.), but my question has to do with diminishing returns.

I’ve never attended a wrestling show in a stadium of this size, I would imagine few people have other than each year’s wrestlemania attendees. I’ve sat in the top row in Philadelphia at the CoreStatesCenter/FirstUnionCenter/WachoviaCenter/WellsFargoArena (silly US banks always crumbling), but that is not a relatable experience. So what should I be expecting here? Barring fancy-shmancy seats, will I mostly be watching the TitanTron? Is there really any advantage to sitting lower, and how much should be worth how much (crazy subjective, I know, but that’s what damn opinions are for). Would there be some logic in trying to sit somewhere specific, for example near the entrance to at least see the Superstars with bare eyes for a moment; or perhaps directly opposite the Titantron for the best viewing angle? What price point should I tell my friends isn’t worth the upgrade? I’m convinced the experience is probably worth it, so I do want to go, but is watching the wrestling almost secondary for this event?

(also, if you wanted to cull the thoughts of one of your colleagues that has hit a couple of stadium-style shows, the more the merrier. Thanks!)

Well, there’s the standard rule that attending a wrestling event live is always preferable to seeing it on TV, but Wrestlemania is a special circumstance. So is it worth the money?

I can’t speak from personal experience, given that I have yet to attend a WWE PPV, However, from what I’ve read from others, I can answer your general concerns.

Yes, unless you have damn good seats, you will be watching the big screens for most of the show. The value of getting those damn good seats is… Well it pretty much depends on if you consider watching it on a screen horrible or merely an inconvenience. I would probably say it’s not worth it, but others may say it is different. But my opinion is judge what you’re willing to pay, and then maybe consider one upgrade if you can afford it.

The actual show is very much a secondary thing to the event as a whole, but that’s not a bad thing, it’s just that the weekend of festivities that WWE has built up is very good, so if you’re going to WM, you pretty much owe it to yourself to go the whole hog and go to the Axxess and do everything, then finish with WM. Or Raw maybe if you’re really rich.

As far as actual position, if you care about being on camera, then go near the entrance, but beyond that, it doesn’t really matter.

Suffice to say, overall, my stance is to attend, but treat the whole weekend as one giant wrestling extravaganza, with WM as the finale. Don’t go overboard on buying the ticket, unless you really don’t like watching it on a screen, although you’ll be doing that for most of the show anyway. Attend the weekend with your buddies and just enjoy yourself is the main thing.

But I’m sure someone below will have testimony from attending a WM to share, and/or some sort of price formula to determine the best location to sit according to price.

APinOz has feedback and questions.

Hi Mathew

Just thought I’d add some background to the Hogan-Goldberg match on Nitro that you covered last week. There was a really strong advance on the crowd at the Georgia Dome and WCW realised they were going to get a big crowd. Hogan suggested advertising a dark match between he and Goldberg in the local market to really ramp up the sales (although cynics believe the show was going to sell out regardless and Hogan, in revisionist history, could claim that HE was the cause of the sellout). So the match was originally set to be a non-title dark match. But the buzz created ensured that couldn’t stay the case. Remember this was 1998 and the internet was only just starting to spawn the “IWC” so a massive word-of-mouth campaign commenced and officials quickly decided to move the match onto the televised part of the show. And that was when they decided to try and pop the huge rating and beat out the WWF by making it a title match. So the decision was taken only about a week out from the show to do the title change and this might explain in part why there were no ready challengers for Goldberg after he won the title. (You can insert any long-term WCW booking joke you like at this point).

Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard, but I try to avoid going too deep into that sort of thing without proof or a question specifally about that. Which later on…

So a couple of questions, if you can get to them:

On CM Punk’s DVD he says that the WWE gave him an “open mike” and that he could say whatever he wanted in relation to that now-famous promo on Raw prior to the Money In the Bank PPV of 2011. How exactly does that work? Surely the bookers/writers would need to know a little of what he intended to say – the doofus son-in-law stuff as an example – to know where they were going to go in relation to storyline. And I have a hard time believing that a control freak like Vince McMahon would let someone say ANYTHING without having a certain idea about what was going to be said. I assume Punk’s mike being cut off was a work?

There’s a few possible levels of work and shoot here.

First of all, you have to take the source material into consideration. You’re basing this off a WWE produced DVD. It might be a doco, it might be hard hitting, but at the end of the day, it’s still a WWE produced DVD. He’s unlikely to say “Yeah, I was working everyone, fans are so easy to work” on it.

That said, he did have notes on his wrist when he did this, he had the points he wanted to cover. So it’s possible he merely gave them these, he gave the writers a rough outline and then they went from there. Or, maybe, just maybe, they trusted him enough that when they gave him directions for this, he was allowed to do it himself.

As for why, Vince is a control freak, but I could see it wherein enough people in command would tell him that Punk had to shoot on this, he had to sound and talk different to everyone else in order for the fans to really buy it. That he had to, on this one, trust Punk.

Overall, I would suspect that Punk gave them a very rough outline and WWE let him go, both agreeing that when he got too far they’d cut him off, probably at the Bully thing.

Where have Raw’s red ropes gone? Raw was the red brand and Smackdown the blue brand and the rope colours helped emphasise that. PPV rope colours were black and things were simple. Now it seems that we have random PPV rope colours and are stuck with Raw’s white ropes.

Cheers Mathew

The ring ropes used to be part of the differentiation between the brands. Red for Raw, Blue for SD, Black for ECW and PPV. But that was back when they bothered to have separate brands. Today, given how many shows WWE is putting out, all filmed at various points, the ring ropes no longer are for differentiation purposes. Now, the ropes are merely whatever color fits the décor of the event. Whatever color ropes look best with the set for the PPV or show, that’s the color they go with. And/or just whatever is there, if there’s no time to swap.

Paul asks about the fall of a hero.

Hey,
I would say this may be bit opinion, bit rant. Hulk Hogan: I grew up a HUGE Hulk Hogan fan. I mean anything he did, was on, or selling I wanted to be a part of. I remember the old SNL skit he did, I remember the Sat. morning cartoon, Hogan on the A-Team. I remember Fuji bringing in exotic villains from Asia and beyond to challenge him. I had on tape The Main Event which the famous “which is the real Earl Hebner” moment. I LOVED when he stood on stage and when The Million Dollar Man tried to buy the belt said, “Oh behalf of all the Hulk-a-maniacs..and he starts to shake his head yes, than slowly the body trembles and he starts shaking his head left and right..HEEELLLLLLL NOOOOOOO!!!!” That is the Hulk Hogan I wanted to go to my grave remembering. Now my memories are cluttered w/ VH1 Hogan, Divorce Hogan, D Bag Son at the Sonic w/ Dad Hogan, TNA and the lame tattoos Hogan and now the final straw..Sex Tape Hogan. Talk about taking a steamer on ones childhood memories. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO HIM!? Was this really him all along it just happens he’s magnified by the times we live in? Does anyone feel the same that unfortunately this is what he has become?

I certainly wish I didn’t know as much about Hogan’s private life as I did. However, it seems to me that it’s a by-product of the world we live in, and a mindset that hasn’t really altered enough. In today’s world, sleaze and tawdy reality sell, and Hogan, at times, appears to still be stuck in the same mindset as he was at the peak of Hulkamania. And that leads to an attitude towards the media and to attention that perhaps isn’t the most healthy.

Of course, part of the issue is that Hogan is a unique figure in pop culture, as he isn’t just a beloved childhood icon, for many people, Hogan IS wrestling. Sure, they know of The Rock, maybe even that Austin guy who flips people off, but to the mass media, Hogan is and always will be what Wrestling is. And he encourages this. But that means that there’s a lot more attention on him than other wrestlers. And so his indiscretions are more widely shared than, say, other wrestlers who get divorced or who beat up women or whatever.

A man who seeks publicity and who uniquely in the media’s mind represents an entire genre of entertainment, that leads to trouble in this day and age.

I don’t think Hogan is any more or less moral than anyone else, in that I don’t know him personally. All I can say is that I wish I knew less about his private life. I wish that about most celebrities overall really…

Kevin has a bunch of ideas he wants to lay out.

I did not know what the fuck to title this. Thanks for your responses. I thought I would offer somethings that would improve WWE.

1. Stronger heels: To me this is the most important. You need strong heels. The face should be chasing the heel. I miss the big moments such as Austin winning the title or Foley or hell Sting. Yes, Starrcade 97 was a clusterfuck but I do think that WCW did a fine job in covering it. The next two months leading to SuperBrawl were pretty great.

I agree, although I understand that personal preference plays a part here, since I much prefer strong heels as a writing model. But even under the Hogan Booking system, you make the heels strong up until Hogan beat them. The last heel to really be strong was, no pun intended, Mark Henry, and what do you know, he got over…

2. Everything seems to be too canned, too shiny and glossy. I miss the industrial look of the older RAW. The matches are often too sterile. The same moves over and over. I would like to see a better flow.

That seems counter-intuitive. If things are too glossy, then the alternative is for the show to sometimes stop, to be choppy, to be less flowing. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for that, I want the show to become more realistic and less obviously structured, but that doesn’t lead to a better flow. Sometimes to tell a story, matches go wrong. Sometimes, heels take over the show. And sometimes GMs have to take the show off the air suddenly.

3. Yes, a Cruiserweight Division. Give the young guys a title to vie for and get them air time. The show is three hours. You have time.

But not the talent, nor the ability/willingness to let the cruiserweights do what the cruiserweights did to get over, NOR is adding another belt a good idea at this point.

4. The Social Media shit has to end.

Toned down, certainly. But it’s here to stay, alas. Although it has it’s uses (Twitter polls are actually a halfway decent way to gauge where the fans’ heads are at any one point.)

5. The overlong promos and recaps need to be minimized. Tell the story in the ring (Same goes for TNA). Less is more.

Recaps yes. Promos… Not automatically. Flair’s promos could go all over the place and take minutes but they rocked. A 20 minute promo isn’t automatically a bad thing. A bad 20 minute promo…

6. The childish antics need to end.

7. I get that it is PG but that is not the problem. They need to find a way to balance the show for adults and children better.

I think that most people agree on this, but then most people saying that can use the term ‘childish antics’ appropriately. What’s really important is how the kids view the show. Until they tire of said antics, they aren’t going anywhere.

And it’s not about ‘balancing’ the show between the adults and kids. This isn’t a kids movie, it is wrestling. Wrestling can appeal to both groups equally, at the same time. Sometimes it is for different reasons. But most of the time, the adult and the child both want to cheer the good guy, boo the bad guy.

8. Sheamus should not be champ. The happy go lucky giant face has gotten so stale. It is the same thing year after year. Stop putting Orton over. He sucks. It does not help the heels when they always lose and then win by getting lucky a la Ziggler.

Well, you got your wish there then since this was sent.

9. Shake things up. Also, there seems to be too many cooks in the kitchen when it comes to writing etc. Give some young guys a signature win. It would not hurt a Cena or Orton or Sheamus or Show to lose cleanly to a guy and then push the hell out of him. I could see Ryback or Sandow or Ziggler thriving.

Well actually it COULD hurt, and probably will hurt short term, they just need to bite the bullet and take the short term hit for the long term gain.

10. Actually you may indeed have to turn Cena heel. If done right he would sell merch. Then again…..Give him some extended time off, or give him an edge like against the Rock. RAW would not dip in ratings. It didn’t when Austin was gone in 00.

Yeah, but when Austin was gone, WWF had two hot as hell acts in Rock and Hunter to both make each other, AND was riding a wave of popularity from 99, AND looked so much better than the competition, AND had a really awesome head writer. It is apples to oranges here.

And again, people say “Turn Cena Heel” when really it’s “Turn Cena Interesting”. And that I fully agree with, since it’s feasible. Turning heel isn’t happening.

11. It may seem like I am bitching a lot but there is so much potential. It is like watching a shitty NFL team that goes 2-14, you live for those two wins and salivate for the draft. You bitch and moan but still watch. Punk could be so much more if allowed. Lesnar could have gone apeshit. I actually love Ryback and Sandow. Ryder is great. Rey and Cara and Gabriel and Kidd and others could spearhead a new division. Give the characters an edge and not just stupid platitudes. I hate shit like Summer of Punk, Lesnar or Nexus, such great ideas that get killed in weeks. It is like drafting RGIII but he gets hurt in week two and is out for the year.

One last thing:

Watching RAW with my five year old. Punk comes out and he points at him and says that he is his favorite. Awesome.

I have more but that would take too much time. I get that none of this will happen but it is a wishlist.

What ideas do you have to improve the product?

Stop trying to appeal to the kids, as if the kids are a totally separate group of consumers from adults. Stop making the shows look so slick and recap heavy and shiny. Treat what goes on in the ring as serious, with the backstage stuff as the cream, not the other way around. Get more input from wrestling minds rather than writers who’ve never watched the show.

WWE is a wrestling company. Put out a wrestling product, one that is rated PG but isn’t written as if the viewer has the mental age of 6. Kids are both not as dumb as you think, and happy and willing to tag along if they think they are getting away with something. Don’t go out of the way to swear or bleed, but just put on good wrestling. It’s not that hard a concept, most companies get it at some point, and it’s held true for over 60 years now…

This is pretty awesome. Kane and Daniel Bryan on a radio show, just chilling and having fun with it.

Man, Kane is awesome. When did he ever get so smart and funny? I mean, man, he could probably talk politics and be awesome with it, right?

… Wow.

From problems to promos, with Sean.

Hey Matt

Everyone always bangs on about the best matches of all time, but for me, I’ve got just as much entertainment out of a great promo as I have out of a great match. There are guys like Flair who can always whack out a great promo, but I’m interested in what you think are the best promos in the history of wrestling? Not who are the best promo guys (coz that’s easy to answer) but what are the best individual promos that were used to sell a match? I’m talking about a wrestler standing up in front of a camera and doing a good old fashioned promo, rather than a stage managed vignette. For mine the number one would be Dusty Rhodes’ “Hard Times” promo, but what are yours?

Cheers

Selling a match… That might be too nebulous a concept to really get a good list. So, instead, here’s a bunch of promos that I think rank up there as the best of all times. In no particular order…

Dusty Rhodes: Hard Times.

Cactus Jack: Cane Dewey

Ric Flair: Winning The WWF Title.

Steve Austin: Austin 3:16.

The Rock: Armageddon 2000.

Jim Cornette: Icons.

Any I’ve missed readers?

Lee has a bunch of questions.

Hello Mathew,

5 – Any clue who will be picking up Silvervisions contract for UK DVD/Bluray rights?

Not yet, they haven’t announced anything yet. But my guess will be that they might just go in house, and set up a WWE UK DVD distributor themselves. Hell, all they need is a warehouse and a computer, and a guy to sit at the computer and pack.

(OK, they actually need a lot more than that, but you know what I mean.)

4 – What are the chances of Silvervision picking up TNA or ROH?

Well, Silvervision is just a subsidiary of Clear Vision, and Clear Vision sells UFC, among other sports and Marvel DVDs, so actually it’s possible. TNA does have a European store already set up, but I guess is Clear Vision doesn’t have some sort of contract issue wherein they can’t sell anyone else’s DVDs while they still sell WWE, it’s certainly possible. Be a good coup for TNA…

3 – Wrestlers always talk about getting a degree before going professional. Can you name some examples of wrestlers using their degress after they’ve retired?

Ah, retired? Darn, there goes my MsChif spiel.

Don Callis, when he’s not busy running The Honor Guard, uses his degree, an MBA (although he did earn that in 2003, after being involved in wrestling for several years) as he is now President, CEO and Executive Director of the Manitoba Trade and Investment Corporation.

George Steele actually continued to teach and use his degree during his career, but then that’s in the same boat as MsChif…

I mean, there’s probably a whole lot of wrestlers who do end up using their degrees, the problem is that they are the guys who never get anywhere. Once you’re at the point where it’s conceivable that you’re known, you’re known, obviously, and thus you can coast in the indies for the rest of your life if you so wish, you don’t need to fall back. And guys who do have to fall back, often times they are the ones without degrees, and so they become real estate brokers.

But I’m sure I’m forgetting several.

2 – With WWE a public company I can’t help but feel one day it will go ‘corporate’ rather than McMahon. Is there any legal way to go private again or would they need to create a new company?

Well sure, Vince can just buyback all the Class A stock and voilà, WWE is private again.

Well, OK, slightly more complicated than that, but roughly that’s the idea. The McMahons already own almost all the Class B stock, which is the powerful stock, and which is converted to Class A if sold to anyone else, which removes most of its power. (Class B has 10 votes per share, Class A one).

But yeah, to go private, Vince would have to pony up $624.74 Million, roughly, to buy back all the outstanding shares (minus any he already owns) and then WWE is private again.

1 – This isn’t a question for yourself, I’d like to ask the ‘411 universe’ it instead. If you could make a poll though? Which of these dream matches would you most have liked to watch

many thanks!

… I can do that now?

Huh.

Ben asks about pre-planning.

A lot of posts I have seen on Ask411 make mention of particular wrestlers that heavily choreograph each and every match they have. Randy Savage seems to spring to mind. I believe one post even talked about how maddeningly “anal” Savage could be, God rest his soul.

My question is, are there any other wrestlers considered to be this “detailed”? It would seem that there would be others. Who might they be?

Sure there are, I’ve worked with a couple of them, one up coming. But let’s look it up.

*looks up Anal Wrestlers*

…

Well that I should have expected.

*refines search a great deal*

I know DDP was like that, he liked to have every move laid out, which is probably why he and Savage worked so well together, they worked the same style.

I recall the Pitbulls also tended to be like this, albeit from the totally other end of the spectrum, which is why Douglas (who works loose) had such abysmal matches with them.

But for the most part, it tends to be the newer guys who plan out everything due to nerves and lack of experience. But then again, on the other hand, even the best loose worker, if there’s a really big match upcoming, will rehearse and plan a big match in full. See Hogan/Warrior 1.

But yeah, DDP is pretty much the only other major name who was as detail focused as Savage that I know off the top of my head and/or from a safesearch Google search.

Matt had a couple of questions.

Hi Matt, as always great column as ever, thanks for answering my first question a while back, 2 more questions if I may.

1) How close has Ted Turner ever gotten to re-entering the ‘wrasslin’ business? His love of the industry was well documented so I was wondering why we have never heard of him since? I’m thinking he either got burned by the whole AOL merger or maybe he signed some no compete clause?

Pretty much zero. While I’m sure Ted still has some deep seated passion for the business, he’s not really in a position to re-enter the business at the drop of a hat.

Well, actually (in what is clearly the running gage this week) he COULD, but he won’t. Ted lost a LOT of money after the AOL/Time-Warner merger, and while he’s still worth more than I’ll ever see, he couldn’t afford to rebuy back his old media properties.

Instead, he’s focusing on his expanding chain of restaurants, several charity functions, and going on TV and making statements for people to misconstrue into thinking he’s for suicide. So he’s a busy chap, and so starting a wrestling company isn’t exactly in the books.

However, if he woke up one morning and decided that he really, just absolutely had to get back in the company, one phone call to Dixie Carter, and one meeting with her (with or without quotation marks) and he could own TNA, I’m fairly sure. And that would lead to an interest phone call to Vince, “Hey Vince, I’m Back In The Rasslin’ Business!”…

2) The Monday Night Wars is widely regarded as the zenith of wrestling. I was watching the Vince McMahon DVD a couple of weeks ago and there is a section on it where Vince and his family admit the lack of competition being bad for the business. I know they tried to get around this by creating the brand extension but now that has fizzled out has Vince ever looked to try and help his rivals – TNA for example – elevate their product so as to re-start competition? The logic being that wrestling would return to the mainstream and help both companies to do better numbers. I for one would love to see a talent exchange or invasion angle run between WWE and TNA but could you ever see it happening?

Thanks, keep up the great work.

Some people genuinely believe Vince is already doing this, that he’s somehow secretly helping TNA out. These would be the same sort of people who think the moon landings are hoaxes, that Coca-Cola planned the New Coke disaster, and that Randy Savage once had a really nice picnic with Stephanie McMahon.

But that said, there’s a difference between missing competition and supporting your enemy. If TNA didn’t exist, and ROH/CHIKARA (delete whichever you believe is smaller/less successful depending on you personally judge it) was the nearest #2, Vince would actually probably help them out, ala ECW. When he took a wrestler, he’d send them a check, maybe.

But TNA is just too big for Vince’s taste, and so while on one intellectual level he knows competition is good, he would still like to crush TNA if the chance came up. But right now it’s just big enough to not be push-aroundable, and small enough to not be THAT much of a threat.

The day TNA is a threat, the day Vince goes on a hiring spree, or buys the company, or whatever. Fact is that while he’d like competition, he’s not willing to have it, if that makes any sense.

Ty asks about some footage.

Hey man, love the column.

Back in the 80’s, when Super Star Billy Graham was going to make his return, I remember seeing some pretty graphic clips of him going through some type of surgery. As a little kid back then, it really disturbed me. The next time I saw WWF on TV, they played the clip again, but all blurred out. What was the story behind this? Did they get a lot of complaints about the video being too graphic and then blur it out?

Thanks man!

That would be in May 87, in his third run with the company, and his hip surgery.

Sadly I couldn’t find video of the actual clips, they were run in Special Reports on the various WWF TV shows. And thus I cannot confirm or deny, sadly, if people complained or not. Possibly they did, or possibly you saw two different shows and one was on a show that could show it, while the other was earlier and thus couldn’t show it. But sadly I can’t confirm it either way.

Chuck asks about a moment.

Hey,

Thanks for keeping up this column! I’m sure it is a lot of work to
track down things.

Anyhow, reading your comments about the funniest moments you have seen
reminded me of a moment that I loved. Kane and Undertaker were
teaming with or against the Dudleys, or something. I just remember
Kane going up top, and with prompting from the Dudleys, did the
“wassup?” Dudley style. It was hilarious. And if I recall correctly,
Undertaker looked like he broke as they were going up the ramp and
he’s looking at Kane and laughing like “WTF”.

Anyhow, I would love video of this moment if your resources of
internet scouring exceed mine. Or at least a mention of when it
happened (I think it was on RAW at one point)

That was the last era I loved wrestling. When Kevin Nash would come
out and say “A lot of people promise big surprises and don’t deliver.
So here’s my surprise…the newest member of the NWO!” (and HBK shows
up). Or when Bishoff came out for the first time and hugged McMahon
in one of the most surreal moments in wrestling. Or when Mcik Foley
came out as commissioner and said that there were too many titles out
there, and he was going to get rid of some of them. “If you’re in the
back and you don’t have a title, there’s something wrong with you” 🙂

Just a trip down memory lane before my knowledge of spoilers and
wrestling sites ruined the element of surprise.

Thanks for your help with the Kane question!

That was on the first Smackdown after No Way Out 2001, filmed Feb 27th 2001. Bubba Ray Dudley was taken out earlier in the night by Christian, and so when Christian teamed with Rikishi and Haky, D-Von Dudley got back up in Kane and The Undertaker. And during it, Kane took the place of Bubba Ray during the Wassup headbutt…

Starts at 9:00. So there you go.

Wow, I got a question totally, 100%, undeniably correct. That’s rare. So I might end on that high note! See you all next week, although I’ll be in Four Player Co-Op this week. And Wrestling Fact or Fiction. And Just Another God Damned Rasslin’ Show. And I’ll be on Twitter….