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Ask 411 Wrestling 04.24.13: Flair’s Flopping, WCW Dying, Vince Blowing Up, More!

April 24, 2013 | Posted by Mathew Sforcina

By the time you read this, it’ll be long past, but right now, as I’m writing this, it’s my birthday. I’ve spent some time already enjoying myself watching some of my favorite vids and what have you and now I’m ready for Ask 411 Wrestling! Yay!

I am Mathew Sforcina, and I am now 31 years old. Which… Yep. I’m an old bugger. But hey, not dead yet. That’s a plus. Anyway, due to it being my birthday, I’m doing a Total Opinion Week since the time I usually do the meat of the column will instead be used to go watch Iron Man 3 in Gold Class at a midnight screening as part of my birthday presents. So yay me.

Feel free to leave positive or negative comments about my not dying in the past arbitrary time division below, and if you have a question, email to me at [email protected]

If you want to make my day, I did a guest spot on the CC Powerslam podcast, talking about myself and my career and a bunch of other stuff, go check it out. Also, every week there is Cheap Heat Radio, with last week’s a very special look at the rise and fall of Crossfire Wrestling, so go check it out if you haven’t, very interesting stuff, and like real journalism and what have you. Also Wrestling PodClash is awesome too.

And, as always, BANNER!

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Backtalking

Escaping the Torture Rack: According to Charles, Dusty also escaped the Torture Rack at Starrcade 87. Because of course Dusty did. Reviewing the tape,, it is a case of Dusty just being too damn fat, and Luger can’t get the rack on, Dusty gets to the ropes.

Calling an Audible: So yeah, OK, I probably should have made passing reference to the origins of the term in American Football, but to be honest? I didn’t know that’s where it comes from. I’ve only ever come across it from wrestling. But yeah, ok, my bad on that one. But still, my basic point was correct and sound.

Plus, as an Australian, I’m legally obligated to make fun of American Football as isn’t ‘real’ football, that being AFL, or League, or Union, or Soccer, depending on who else is in the room at the time.

Flair Working Hard: … Yeah, sorry, didn’t make myself clear, I was referring to Flair’s work

Your Turn, Smart Guy…

I’m a Pay Per View event that did not always take place on Pay Per view. My main event this particular year was a match between competitors that main evented the year after. I featured 3 championship matches, one of which saw a title change hands. I also featured a squash match and a screwjob finish. In addition, my card saw 2 gimmick matches, consisting of participants in the promotion’s main storyline at that time. The event also saw appearances from wrestlers that were part of another promotion. What am I?

Team J-Rod has the answer.

– an event not on PPV prior to 1997

– Main event: Shane Douglas vs Bam Bam Bigelow, both main evented N2R 1998 with Chris Candido vs Sabu/RVD/Taz…that match was the only title change (ECW Heavyweight Championship), also Taz vs Pitbull 2 for ECW TV Title, and 4-way for ECW Tag Team Titles which FBI retained.

– Taz beat Pitbull 2 in under two minutes = squash match

– Tommy Dreamer vs RVD ended in a screwjob when Stevie Richards returned.

– Two gimmick matches; Flag Match (RVD vs Dreamer) and Tables and Ladder Match (Sandman vs Sabu)

– Wrestlers from other promotions: WWF’s Doug Furnas and Phil Lafon also interfered in the Dreamer match.

You are: ECW NOVEMBER TO REMEMBER 1997

Maravilloso has this week’s question!

We are a tag team. One of us was an original member of a very famous tag team and formed a memorable tag team with a veteran wrestler which was very famous for fighting for our rights. The other one of us was the first person to do something that many other wrestlers would die for it. Our name and image was a tribute to an iconic figure in modern history. Besides that, we used, as single competitors, wrestling names that a more famous wrestler also used and made more famous and one of used used a gimmick that was terminated following a tragedy.

Who are we?

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

We begin with Bill who wants to talk about Rick Martel. And why not?

Love the column, it is my lunch time reading every Wednesday…

My question is in 3 parts…

1) In 1985, still in the height of kayfabe, Rick Martel lost the AWA World Heavyweight Title to Stan Hansen via submitting to his version of the Boston Crab “Brazos Valley Backbreaker”. My question is why would the AWA, and ultimately Martel agreeing to it, take one of their top faces and make him submit to Stan Hansen, as opposed to a pin fall or even the face saving “pass out” during the hold to keep him looking at least somewhat strong?

Let’s go to the tape!

Now, to be fair, it’s not exactly a clean loss. Hansen is cheating, using the turnbuckle to stop Martel getting out. But, yes, he submits. So why would they do that? I don’t know for sure, I can’t say that they did it for this specific reason, but Martel has gone on the record saying that he was actually in many ways glad to lose the belt, he was sick of having to be on the road so much, away from Quebec, which he was in the process of moving back to at the time. He wasn’t losing the belt to regain it later, the belt was moving on. And so, the wrestling tradition is that when you leave, or when you pass the torch, you do so cleanly. Or near enough as to make no difference.

Martel losing the belt in such a way would establish Hansen as a mean tough cheating son of a bitch, and would then in theory make the next champ look much better. Considering that Martel wasn’t that strong a champ, he wasn’t drawing the fans, possibly because while he was a great wrestler he couldn’t cut that really good babyface promo you need as a face champ, so he didn’t really have that much heat to protect. But it was very old school to sacrifice him in such a way, I give you that. You’d almost think Gagne was old fashioned and didn’t have his finger on the pulse of the fans…

2) I heard this hurt Martel’s career a bit as fans now viewed him as weak. Is their any truth to that as he seemed to somewhat bounce back with his WWF run?

I can’t say for sure about AWA fans at the time, but he was on his way out regardless. He wasn’t going to stay in the AWA, he was gone once his deal was up, so if he was ‘weak’ during that time, so be it, let the other company build him back up. And as far as the WWF was concerned, he was never a world champ since he didn’t hold their belt, so him being in the midcard was just fine.

But I wasn’t around at that point, I was 3-4 years old. Anyone out there older than me who was around at that point? No? Fine…

3) Were there any other face champions in the WWF, AWA and NWA/WCW in the 70s, 80s or early 90s that submitted to a hold (not passed out from) to lose their title?

Thanks for answering,

So we’re not including stuff like Backlund then, I take it? Fair enough.

I’m only going to include ‘major’ titles. So if you have one not listed here, do feel free to share, just don’t bitch that I didn’t include it. I have only so much time to do this in, you understand.

WWE: WWE title, no. IC title, no. Women’s, no. Tag belts, not that I could find.

NWA: Well, let’s see… I’m not sure who the face/heel is here, but Harley Race won the NWA World Title by submission from Terry Funk on Feb 6, 1977…

But with the NWA, a couple of title changes were 2/3 falls, like Flair regaining the title off Kerry Von Erich. Fall 2 was submission via figure four. That count?

US title has none… TV title, Regal and Ultimo Dragon swapped it in 1997 by submission, not sure which was face but one of them must have been, surely… And Martel’s TV title win was technically face/face at the time…

That’s all I could find. Anyone else know of one?

Matthew wants to talk about the death of WCW.

Mathew,

As ever great work keep it up, a couple of questions about the demise of WCW if you will please?

1) Why did Eric Bischoff give up so easily on his purchase of WCW when he found out that AOL/TimeWarner would not carry the programming anymore? I know that TV is a fundamental part of running a successful wrestling company, but Nitro’s ratings were no worse than what the average episode of Smackdown was getting so surely one cable company would have took him up on a deal to screen Nitro, even if it meant moving to a different day of the week. I know RAW switched from USA to TNN at a similar time to when this was all happening so you’d have to imagine whoever lost out on RAW would have been happy to pick up Nitro.

Bischoff didn’t give up, his backers did. See, although Bischoff was the guy spearheading it, the guy who would take over, he wasn’t the guy fronting the cash. They were already unhappy when the financials of WCW were shown to them, when they saw the books, they almost pulled out, but ended up just renegotiating the deal. So the backers who were giving Bischoff the money were only there because WCW had TV.

But when Jamie Kellner cancelled Nitro and Thunder (although Thunder was on the chopping block before he got there), the backers then had no reason to support Bischoff, unless he could get a new network. And then thing is, although the ratings themselves weren’t bad, they were at the end of a long fall, and attached to a brand name that was ruined. WCW, through years of mismanagement and various booking and business disasters, was a company losing millions for only barely reasonable ratings. And worse, wrestling, despite being ‘popular’, still had a stigma attached to it, that it was for rednecks and kids. It wasn’t a high class demographic, so it would have to be a very large rating to make it worth going downtown and having wrestling on your channel.

So no, no network was willing or interested in WCW at that time. USA did just lose WWF, but their head, Barry Diller, said at the time “[An] audience of twelve-to-nineteen-year-old pimply face, mean-spirited males came, watched, and went on to whatever God-awful other pursuits”. So no, he was over wrestling at the time. (Bonnie Hammer obviously wasn’t willing to go into bat for Vince’s competitors at the time…)

There is a trap with wrestling fans to assume that ratings are king, that the numbers are all that matters. That’s a remnant of Bischoff and his thinking, ratings aren’t the sole consideration with TV, there’s demographics and company branding and cash flow and a whole lot of factors. WCW’s ratings, in a vacuum, sure, they didn’t suck. But when coupled with the slide they were on, and the damage to the brand name, and the stigma wrestling had, and coupled with the desperation… No, no company was interested, or at least no company that could make a deal.

2) Did Vince really pay a massively reduced amount for WCW or is this urban legend? I’ve heard stories that Vince was able to get hold of WCW on the cheap from the settlement of the lawsuit that concerned the similarity of Hall and Nash’s characters when they defected. Is this really true? If so, Vince must truly be a genius for thinking that at some point he could pick up WCW, especially when they were getting tanked by them at the time?

Thanks,

The deal is locked up under confidentiality agreements, but the generally accepted numbers are about $2.5 Million for the name, the video library and all the copyrights and the like. There was also, the story goes, about $1.8 Million in legal fees and administration costs, so $4.3 Million totalish, plus the total amount for the 27 contracts they picked up. So yeah, considering $500 Million was tossed around at one point (SFX had offered to buy WCW at one point for that), yeah, he got it at a major discount.

As for the right to buy the company, remember that although the lawsuit was filed in 1996, it wasn’t until 2000 when it was settled, so possibly at that point Vince could see WCW was on the way down. However, the details of the settlement are sealed and the WWE lawyers did go on record denying the rumor that the settlement had a “first right to buy” clause. I’ve seen some people claim the suit was still going and so part of the sweetheart deal was for Vince to drop the lawsuit, but this is false.

Andron asks about my opinion.

Just want to submit this question.. but do you think it was wise on the part of WWE to turn Ryback into a heel?

It’s a tough question to answer, given that we don’t know where it’s going to end up. It’s entirely possible that they hook Ryback up with… *throws dart at NXT roster* Summer Rae and it’s somehow catches on and becomes the new hot heel couple of the year and makes millions. Or he might end up losing all his heat and getting fired in a few months.

However, it is very much a Hogan style heel turn, wherein Cena is Hogan (naturally) and Ryback is Sid, or Orndorff or Savage or whoever. They become friends, and then the other guy turns on Hogan, and you run with Hogan V Bitter Former Friend for months on the house show circuit. But the problem is that they’ve changed up the Ryback gimmick too much, and Cena’s not selling it. Hogan always won, but he always made it clear that he needed the fans to support him, and he sold like death in the ring. Cena says how he never gives up and never acts like he’s gonna lose, and blows it off if he does. I think long term they would have been wiser to keep Ryback as he was. Giant pissed off big guy. Why wouldn’t he want to fight Cena? Cena’s the champ, he’s the top dog! So Ryback wanting the title, makes sense. The whole “You abandoned me to The Shield” thing isn’t needed. I’m fine with Ryback as a heel, but Ryback as the heel he is right now? No, not wise.

Give him a manager to explain that he wants the gold, no more, no less.

Hey, newLEGACY Inc. is back! It really is my birthday!


And here’s something cool I was part of!

Paul has a few questions as well.

Hello Two-Face! Er, Matt. Um, Massive Q?

Here is a question about WWE Hall of Fame inductees: with news that the H’s convinced Bruno Sammartino to accept, the question becomes why did Bruno even have a choice? It seems to me that if a sports or pseudo-sports company or league wanted to induct someone into their Hall, they would induct them. End of story. Yes, WWE wants to have Bruno there in person, but in the end, that shouldn’t matter in the slightest.

OK, WWE isn’t going to induct anyone they can’t get there, or alternatively someone representing them there. So if they can’t get Bruno there, they won’t induct him, obviously. But legally? The problem is that the WWE Hall of Fame is televised and is a merchandise/money making exercise. So if they did induct someone who didn’t give permission, they could then sue, since that arguably isn’t part of the contract they signed to allow the WWE to use their likeness in video form. WWE would have to pay them regardless, but some people will sue because they don’t want their name associated with WWE, or the name they control anyway. (Hi Martha!)

So yes, although it’s arguably possible to forcibly induct someone, there’s legal issues, and given that it can’t claim to be an independent body, nor that it’s a charitable function, just because it might be possible doesn’t mean they should test it. In the unlikely event JP Prag is reading this, feel free to correct me dude.

Next, did Nathan Jones spoil Australian and New Zealanders’ chances of joining WWE? I bet Vince was mighty upset about the way Jones bailed.

Well he certainly didn’t help the chances, sure. However, whatever negatives Nathan delivered, it’s passed clearly, given that Emma (Tenille Dashwood) is now firmly in NXT and Matt Silva is on his way, whatever negatives are now gone.

Of course, there’s plenty of talent to choose from, so we’ll have to see if Vince or Hunter or whoever does end up picking up more talent. And I’ll say now, if I had to guess who would be the next ones in, I’d pick Tama Williams and Shazza McKenzie. But then knowing my luck with picking winners it’ll be…

Hmmm. Who do I not care about pissing off? Hmmm.

It’ll be… Two people I’ve never heard of. Yes, that’ll do.

If you were hired by TNA or WWE, which would you prefer and why? I’d rather see you in WWE, but Massive Q seems a better fit for TNA. Would you get to keep the name? Would you be given a new name anyway?

I’d like to think that I’d go with TNA because I think I’d be a better fit, but believe me, I know that if WWE came calling, I’d sign quicker than you could say “Here’s a pen”. Hell, I’d work for anyone willing to pay me a liveable wage to wrestle. WWE I’d probably end up as a comedic jobber, although you never know. I think TNA would be more willing to let me go out there and piss people off, they’d be more likely to let me do my ‘thing’, whatever that is.

As for the name, might be dangerous to say this, but I don’t own the rights to the name. No-one does, to my knowledge, unless someone reading this has a very nasty sense of humor and some cash to spare. So it would possible that if I did get to WWE or TNA, that they could then turn around and trademark the name and so I’d be able to use it but then be unable to use it afterwards.

However, I think that if I did get to WWE, I’d want a new name anyway, because the Q gimmick isn’t suitable for WWE, at least as is. I have a bunch of names in my head, and a major gimmick overhaul in mind, but either way I’d be more likely to become Bruno Killjoy in TNA or Brendan Sforza in WWE or whatever than I would stay as Massive Q. But who knows…

Rob Van Dam is a free agent. If Vince hires him, what are his chances of getting big gold again? I’d say next to none, given he still smokes up. On the other hand, he is money…

RVD would have no hope of becoming WWE Champion again. World Champ… If they needed a transitional champ, maybe. But I just don’t see Vince trusting RVD, plus Rob’s getting up there, and he’s not really up to the standards he once set. By all means, he’s still a good guy to have on the roster, but he’s not World Champ material. Midcard, sure. But World Titles? I just don’t see that happening. Nor do I see him back in WWE, although never say never.

Jeremiah asks about ring construction.

Odd question here, but I figure you’ve assembled a ring or two in your day so may know. Is there a name for the part that connects the turnbuckle to the post? Every other part of the ring has a known moniker except that one. While we’re on the subject, are their common names for the bits that make up the ring we can’t see like the frame, the wood planks, and the cushion under the canvas?

Actually technically that bit IS the turnbuckle. It’s the buckle that allows the ring rope to turn the corner, you see. The bit most people think as the turnbuckle is the turnbuckle pad. Unless I’m misreading the question, and you want to know the name for the bit that holds the turnbuckle (the long metal spike) to the post. In which case that is an anchor shackle, or at least that’s the proper name. Usually it’s just called a bolt or connector or whatever, it doesn’t have a gimmick name.

As for the bits under the ring, there’s no real gimmick name, since each ring is different. Some people call the metal beams that run the ring poles, some call them beams. Some people call it padding, some mats. Wooden planks or just the wood? There’s no established, business wide terminology.

Someone whose name I have lost, for which I apologize, asks about piledrivers.

During the 2013/25/02 Raw match between John Cena and CM Punk, it was reported that Vince McMahon was apparently quite upset backstage at the sight of the piledriver spot, on account of WWE having partially banned the move, for the sake of neck safety.

Would it be a stretch to theorize that this perhaps specifically stems from Vince being haunted by the memory of almost losing Steve Austin, permanently or even fatally, to a botched piledriver at SummerSlam 1997?

That is certainly a big part, sure, but it’s not the sole reason. The piledriver is a dangerous move, anything where someone is upside down and landing possibly right on their head is dangerous. Like most things you can learn how to take it and deliver it with some degree of safety, but as Austin showed, it can go wrong. And since the WWE is very keen on neck safety, they banned the piledriver. And German suplexes as well. Of course, this has a nice side effect of the piledriver now being a totally deadly move, so that if/when someone does begin to use it on a semi-regular basis, they become the most evil man ever. And/or when it does appear, you mark out. Which is a good thing.

Josh has a nice simple one.

I have a quick question on this…..

When Vince “stepped” into the limo and it blew up what was supposed to be the story with that? Who was going to be behind it? I know the story got shut down when Benoit did his thing.

I covered this before, I’m sure. Hell, let’s do that rarest of things, a cut and paste!

OK, Vince has a Night of Appreciation for himself in 2007 (really? That long ago?), as well as it being the WWE Draft. Vince goes… Well, a little odd.

And then blows up. So, the entire roster was there, any of them could have done it. So, they then bring in investigators, and on the Smackdown prior to Raw two weeks later, it’s announced that, as well as Vince and the Driver, there’s a third strand of DNA in the limo. And then Benoit went and did what he did, thus throwing the thing out.

And yes, on that night that they did the Chris Benoit appreciation Raw, the entire WWE roster was at Raw, and they all had suits and stuff since it was scheduled to be a memorial service for Vince McMahon, who was dead. But that got thrown out, and they did the Memorial show. And then 26 hours later they had to go into overdrive to correct it.

But what was the plan? What were they going to do?

The plan was for at the end of Raw, in a shocking development, Linda McMahon would be arrested for the crime. She’d be charged with killing her husband. Then, across a few months, there would be more twists and turns, and then it would be revealed that Mr. Kennedy had actually ‘done’ it, and then it would be the shocking reveal that Mr. McMahon was actually behind it, and had faked his own death, with Kennedy’s help. Thus both would be horribly hated.

Anyway, that was the original plan. Of course, it was never going to end well. Not because of Benoit specifically, but because if you use a death angle in wrestling seriously, it’s inevitable that someone important would die during it. That’s not a knock as such against Wrestling, mostly, it’s just that there are so many wrestlers, it’s statistically likely that in any long period of time, one of them will die. True, the odds of it being an active roster member and going in the way Benoit did would be unlikely, but the angle would end up in bad taste at some point regardless.

Yep, that’s still right.

…

Hey, it’s my birthday! Cut me some small amount of slack!

Speaking of the limo explosion… Sigh.

Eleven Root Beer Gimme Dat Banana Bread has a follow up.

What was the whole point of Paul London smiling big at Vince during the whole limo explosion bit? Was he eventually going to be part of the angle?

No, that was Paul London being a dick. Or at least not following the script properly. Everyone was supposed to look calm and serious, so that everyone would be a suspect in the crime. But London, either not knowing the camera was on him, or playing a joke, or not caring, or being high or whatever, decided to have a big ol’ smile on his face. Hence the ‘keep smiling’ like in the Limo 2 where Vince found out about his ‘child’.

Ty has one of those (double) questions that’s very much open to debate and discussion.

Hi there,

What do you think was the single worst heel turn in wrestling history?

How about face turn?

Worst in terms of business or worst in terms of execution? Eh, we’ll go with execution, give more leeway for debate.

Worst heel turn in history… Well, I think that it’s fairly clear cut, but hey, I’m sure someone will disagree with me, but Rikishi as The Driver? Yeah, that was BAD…

And as for worse face turn? The worst in history? I dunno, it’s harder to pick there… But the Orton turn in 2004 was pretty sucky.

But that one I know someone will have a better choice than that. Do tell me why I’m wrong on that one.

Alan has a few different questions.

Hey great column man. I have a few questions I was hoping you could answer.

1.) Several years ago there was a PPV where Miss Kitty took off her top after a match in a pool. For years I’ve heard both that it was planned and not planned. As Sgt. Slaughter came out so fast to cover her up I would think it was not unplanned. Can you confirm if this was or not planned?

Apart from the UK only PPVs that featured nudity (Page 3 means something over there you know), the only PPV with Miss Kitty getting the, well, Kitties out was Armageddon 1999. And at the start of that PPV, there was the rating for the PPV. And that included a small N for nudity. So yeah, it was planned. If it wasn’t, she’d have been fired immediately.

2.) I noticed in the last couple years of Ric Flair’s wrestling career in WWE, before Shawn Michaels “retired” him, he stopped doing the “Flai Flop.” Was there a reason he stopped doing this? Did it hurt him doing this?

… You can find tributes to ANYTHING online.

Anyway, he did bust it out occasionally, and while it probably wasn’t the most pleasant thing to do, I suspect it was more because it is somewhat silly at it’s heart, so maybe they asked him to tone it down for realism sake. But as you see in the vid, he didn’t totally drop it. But I don’t know of any reason why he couldn’t do it.

3.) Is there any Kayfabe reason as to how Mick Foley could still wrestle if he wanted? He has had several matches since HHH “retired” him several years ago in a Hell in the Cell match. Is there any possible way, while maintaining Kayfabe, that this can be explained?

Given that he was back almost immediately after that match thanks to Linda McMahon, there’s clearly a level of power that can overrule the stipulations. However, if you want some sort of concrete reason? Back when Mick was Commissioner, right before he was fired, he sat down with Linda and signed a big fat stack of contracts. This was shown on-air, although I can’t find the vid. So let’s just say that one of them was a contract saying that Foley could wrestle whenever he wanted now.

Man, that would be a hell of an angle today, have someone go through the WWE HQ and come across the pile, and begin to use them to overrule all the authority figures and run rampart… Someone book that!

4.) After Brock Lesner messed up badly on his Shooting Star Press on Kurt Angle and Wrestlemania 19, why could they have not just had Kurt Angle cover him as Lesner was obviously hurt? I know they wanted Lesner to win the belt at Mania but they could have had a rematch at the next PPV and have Lesner win then. Basically, why would they risk further injury to Lesner just so he could win that night?

If Lesnar was seriously injured, like unable to continue injured, then yeah, Angle would have pinned him. But remember, at the time, they thought Angle would be out for months as well. And you never change booking of a match result unless there’s a major injury. Lesnar was loopy, but he was still OK enough to not ruin the match, especially given that Angle would be out for the foreseeable future. Yes, he was back in weeks, but they didn’t know that at the time.

You never call an audible on that level unless you have no choice. Lesnar was able to move, therefore he was going over, even if Angle had to drag him onto his body.

And on that note, I have to leave now to go to see Iron Man 3 at a midnight screening, so I bid you all goodbye for now. We’ll be back to normal next week, I swear.

But for now, we end this right.

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Mathew Sforcina

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