Ask 411 12.15.04: Kane/Lita, Hogan, Hart, Triple H, More

Posted by Gavin Napier on 12.15.2004

Plus Ring of Honor, Teardrops, and Early 90's WCW...

You know what? I hate sports. Justin Griffith and TJ Duckett are down for the Falcons, Jaret Wright left the Braves, Jonathan Goddard got RIPPED OFF in the Butkus Award voting, Adrian Peterson should have been the Heisman winner, and it's just been a mess. Now, on top of all this, EA buys exclusivity rights to the NFL. That means no more ESPN 2k football games, which is crap. Sega has been putting out better games than Madden as far back as Joe Montana's Sports Talk Football. They finally got some recognition for it this year, and EA promptly made sure the consumers couldn't buy anything BUT their games. Well, thanks very much, but I'll just keep updating ESPN 2k5 for as long as I have to. I've never bought a Madden game and I never will. I've played them enough to know that I don't like them. But hey, we're not here for me to rant and rave. We're here to answer questions. And awaaaaaay we go!



Steven James Kriske sends this along in reference to last week's question about Jack Evans:


"since Jack Evans has been in ROH a few times"... Hopefully lots of ROH fans have called you out on this, although I'm guessing most don't read 411 since the site is really lacking in ROH coverage. Anyway, Evans is a regular performer for ROH and has appeared on the majority of their shows in 2004, maybe 20 or so all in all.

"I'm going to send you to my personal favorite trader"... The best (and totally legal!) place to get their videos is their own site, rohwrestling.com, since selling videos is the main goal of the company. I would HIGHLY reccomend ROH to you and any wrestling fan if you're not familiar with them. Keep up the good work, Steve Kriske


Okay, okay. To get Ring of Honor tapes, go to www.rohwrestling.com first, then look around. I also have a pretty large tape collection myself but it's hard for me to dub copies since I'm down to one VCR, but if you're looking for something or have something to offer, ask me about it.

I am familiar with Ring of Honor, and they're very good. Unfortunately, funds are at a point where I have to spend them on things that aren't wrestling videos, no matter how much I want to see wrestling. But there you have it, Jack Evans is a ROH regular.

Garnert12 has a booking question about WWE. Then again, don't we all?


Do you know when Kane and Lita's Marriage is going to end in the WWE?


The only serious answer I can give to this is "Not soon enough."

Andrew Seisser gives us the first doubleheader of the week -

Hey Mr. Napier, great column here. Anywho, I have a couple quick questions from my favorite period in wrestling, the early 90's

1. I've heard 2 stories about how Hogan agreed to lose to warrior in 1990. Story 1 says that they promised him a win over warrior the next year, but story 2 says that Hogan was going to retire and wanted to pass the torch to the next most popular babyface, Which one is correct?

2. Was the "phantom title victory" for the Rockers ever shown on tv, and if so when?

I've never heard anything other than it was expected that Hogan was going to retire and focus on Hollywood, and wanted to pass the torch to Warrior much like Andre did for him. We all know that Hogan's chances of success in Hollywood were about as good as Frosty the Snowman taking a stroll through downtown Hell in mid-August and coming out alive, but it sounded good in theory. Combine that with the fact that the Warrior was nuttier than a fruitcake and execution of the concept didn't work out quite as well.

The Rockers title win has never been shown to my knowledge. Trust me, I've tried to find it. If anyone out there HAS found a copy of this, please let me know.

Chad Smith undoubtedly sends the hardest question of the week.


Question -

When did the WWF/E start calling its wrestlers "superstars?"


If you ask Vince McMahon, Jr., they've always been "superstars". Revisionist history rules. The earliest indication I can find of a reference to superstars as a company-wide term is in the early 80's, just as Hulkamania was taking off. It was around this time that the WWF had a power shift in the front office and larger than life characters were being promoted. We had gone from an era of down to earth grapplers like Bob Backlund, Pedro Morales, and Ivan Koloff to seeing people such as Roddy Piper, Junkyard Dog, and Hulk Hogan. Perception is everything in the business, and Vince has been smart enough not to pigeon-hole his wrestlers as just wrestlers. He presents them as superstars and forces that vernacular on the public enough that it becomes accepted. Think about it - how many times have you said "WWF/E Superstar" as opposed to "WWF/E wrestler"? After twenty years or so of hearing it, it becomes common.

Matthew Behrman helps prove that I'm a nice guy.

hey thanks for bring ask 411 wrestling back I missed it but anyway I was wondering if TNA ever invade WWE and jeff jarrett called out HHH for the WWE word title match and jarrett won the title will the WWE title merge the NWA title or it will still be the WWE title? oh one more thing....i'm a big trish fan and will she get the belt again?


Okay, TNA isn't going to invade WWE in any way, shape, or form. The only way it could happen would be an nWo type storyline, and Vince isn't going to buy TNA and then have AJ Styles and AMW "invade" WWE. If Jarrett calls out HHH and Jarrett managed to convince someone to put him over, then it's still going to be the WWE title - or more accurately, we'd see a revival of the "Undisputed" championship. As for Trish, I'm positive that at some point she will be the women's champion again. How positive? As positive as I am that I can't eat my own left foot.

FatalCharm410 from the magical land of AOL drops this note in -

Whatever happen to former UWF TV Champion Savanaah Jack, He was a member of Akbars Devastation Inc. And when he loss the belt they turned on him. He went on to team with Chris Adams in the UWF Tag tourney, got injured and was replaced with Terry Taylor, which would be the angle to start the Taylor-Adams Feud. The last 3 yrs I've searched for this answer asking iwc net gods(who basically seem to have no knowledge of this character) A few months ago I found out he died years back, but why did he leave UWF, where did he go, what did he die of? Its just a part of my childhood I would like to bury. No one has ever been able to answer this, so good luck if you try.

Yeesh. Savannah Jack. Talk about a blast from the past. You're lucky I lived in an area with Mid-South programming or I'd be clueless on this one. Savannah Jack's real name was Ted Russel, and he competed in both the UWF and Winnipeg. Jack became Chris Adams' partner in the UWF Tag Tournament following a disagreement between Adams and Iceman King Parsons (who I LOVED). Parsons came out later and jumped Savannah Jack after Jack's singles match and that was the injury that put him out. Adams was again without a partner, so Terry Taylor moved into the position. He would leave shortly thereafter due to a legal dispute that didn't involve wrestling to the best of my knowledge. No real word on what it was, but he was a wrestler and it was the 80's. Do the math. Honestly? I found NOTHING on his death whatsoever. I did find a page that had him reported as "missing" in the mid 1990's, but I'll keep digging for you because now I'm interested, too.

Adam Wright asks about one of wrestling's great families -

I really enjoyed your first column and I was very impressed with your knowledge, something which I am planning on tapping into on a regular basis.

At Summerslam 1994 and at Canadian Stampede 1997, a number of Hart family members interfered in Bret Hart’s match and in particular the after match shenanigans, ignoring the members who simply celebrated in the ring, etc as we would be here till next weeks column reading the answer, who were the hart family members involved?


Off the top of my head, Keith, Bruce, and Stu all got involved. You've also got Bret, Owen, and Davey Boy, obviously. Jim Neidhart and Brian Pillman were involved at Canadian Stampede. So was Wayne Hart. I believe Ross got in there, too, but I'm not sure what he looks like so I can't swear to it.

Ben Willans asks about early 90's WCW. Oh, the horror.

Back in the early 90's WCW worldwide used to air on a saturday night/sunday morning in the UK. I remember that there was one wrestler that had a (hair)metal gimmick. At some point he ended up fueding with another wrestler that was ripping off his gimmick. Then they stopped showing Worldwide in my part of the UK!


So my questions are:


1) Who were the two wrestlers.

2) What was the fued about.

3) Who won in the end and how?



Van Hammer and Maxx Payne feuded over who the "real" rocker was, but it was brief. In the end, the fans won, because there were no more atrocious matches between the two. Actually, like most early 90's WCW stuff, the feud "ended" abruptly when Payne left the promotion for God only knows what reason.

JoJo asks about one of my all time favorite workers.

As well all know, WWE is responsible for more horrid gimmicks then any other wrestling promotion ever. Out of all the gimmicks, a ex-WCWer usually gets the worst from the E. They always think they need to "RE-INVENT" a character who already has established history. Sometimes it works (See: Mankind & Goldust) and sometimes it doesn't (See: Farooq & "Man's Man" Steven Regal). Which leads me to my question. Around 96 WWF hired Barry Windham, a NWA mainstay to a contract. Windham was still in pretty good shape, and pretty young. Yet he was given the gimmick of "The Stalker" and it was played out over some horrible vingettes and then dropped after a few weeks. He was then "The Stalker" Barry Windham, and then eventually Black Jack Windham. My question is, what is up with the "Stalker" gimmick. What was it's meaning? He wore black makeup and army fatigues. He didn't "stalk" anyone. Any information on this useless WWE gimmick would be great.


Windham, actually, wasn't in very good shape and admits it in his shoot interview. His knees were bad and he was in the process of putting on a substantial amount of weight. Barry at his best was around 265 lbs., and he was probably about 15 lbs. overweight in his second WWF run. He was, however, in good enough shape. But he did things his own way, and Vince didn't like it. The Widowmaker was probably his best shot at getting over, since it was essentially Barry Windham being Barry Windham. But if you look back, Barry just wasn't a WWF kind of guy. He could work, but he didn't "look" like a WWF star. The Stalker gimmick was a punishment of sorts from Vince for showing him up at a house show if I remember correctly. I remember thinking the vignettes were cool, but also thinking it was dumb to make Barry Windham do stuff like that. There was no personal history with it with Barry, nothing in his life that made Vince think it would be a good idea, no tweaks on real instances. Just a bad idea. Nothing more, nothing less.

Ooga Chucka (great name) asks about a bit player from WCW's dying days.


Gavin,
I have greatly enjoyed your columns thus far. I did have a question regarding late 1990s
WCW. If you are a fan of the FX show "The Shield," you probably remember a character
by the name of Tio Osmond. He played a drug dealer in a five-episode arc over Seasons
1 and 2. Anyway, the guy who played him was named Cedric Pendleton. On the IMDB
website, he is credited as playing "Looney" on an old WCW broadcast. Given what WCW
was up to during this time, it is hard to say what the heck that was all about, but do you
remember this character, or anything about him? Thanks.


That was shortly after Ric Flair was sent to an asylum in Florida (where he met Scott Hall in one of my all-time WTF moments in wrestling). When he returned, there was a bus full of retards with him. Cedric Pendleton played one of the people from the asylum, whom the IMDB has dubbed "Looney".

Andre sends a question that I almost hate to answer.


Have you ever gone out and bought a CD by a band because a wrestler used one
of thier songs as thier entrance theme?


I admit to this. Drain STH did Simon Diamond's theme in ECW and I thought
the song rocked. It was a mistake. The CD blew, but what are you gonna do?


You have my sympathies. I've never bought a CD from a band because of a theme song. "Simon Says" is pretty good for theme music, but if I heard it on the radio, I'd hate it. And Drain STH is horrible. I'm sorry about your loss of funds on the CD. If it makes you feel better, though, I bought a WWF theme CD just for Billy Gunn's old music. No kidding.

John Illusionarium (...wow) brings up some find memories, hopefully sparked by the Kerry Von Erich mention in Perfect Hindsight a week and a half ago.

As a kid, I used to love watching the WCCW (World Class Championship Wrestling). I seem to recall it being on one week, then gone the next week. What happened to this fantastic promotion? Assuming they folded, why?


World Class was a wonderful territorial promotion. They had a working relationship with the NWA and everything was fine. However, the partnership with NWA ended and funds started to dwindle. It also hurt things with the deaths of the Von Erichs, who were literally worshipped in Texas. They found a way to hang on for a little while by joining up with Jerry Lawler's USWA promotion in Tennessee, but that was a big shift for a lot of the talent to make. World Class was eventually absorbed into USWA, and they did a great "promotion saving" angle with Eric Embry (who was one of the more underrated regional talents in wrestling) that transferred things neatly.

Joker13339 asks about everyone's favorite drug pusher in wedding shoes from WWF lore.


First off, great job on the column. Now, for the question. I'll be up front and say that it's obscure (I think) and I don't have the greatest memory, so the time frame may be completely off. At some point during the whole Goldust/Luna Vachon angle, I seem to remember someone coming out to help him dressed in a white suit with long white hair and doing what basically looked like the Houston Hangover. I don't recall the announcers saying who he was, and I don't recall any further appearances from him, hence the vagueness of the timeframe. The only thing I remember is that he looked like a beefy Colonol Sanders with a ponytail, and he did that move. I know it's a horrible question without a lot to go on, but it's been bugging me for years now. Who the hell was this guy?


That was none other than Vic Grimes, hardcore "wrestler" extraordinaire. His ring name in WWF was to be Ki, as in a "Ki" of Cocaine, and he was going to be a drug dealer. In one of the more merciful twists of fate, that Houston Hangover was a complete goof on his part. He somehow didn't have wrestling boots when he got to the arena that night, and the only substitute they could find in a pinch was a pair of too-small wedding shoes, which were really slick on the bottom. (I can't make this up.) As he mounted the top rope to pull of a dive that was sure to be breathtaking with his 300 plus pounds, his feet went out from under him and he nearly killed himself with the impromptu somersault to the floor. It would become par for the course, as he and New Jack would nearly kill themselves in a scaffold match with a botched dive. Remember kids, nothing's funnier than a fat guy messing things up.

Robert Nelson comes to a member of the IWC for legal advice. Interesting choice.

I have a bit of a different question for you. With
everyone talking about how HHH is "set for life" and
has the McMahon blessing to do what he wants when he
wants because he married a McMahon, has no one given a
thought as to what happens if he should divorce
Stephanie? Most statistics show that over 50% of
marriages end in divorce and the number is even higher
for "celebrities". Without knowing the details of a
prenuptial agreement (if there even is one), do you
think that his career would be over?

He'd be screwed in a way that he probably can't even imagine. I think maybe he realizes it but wouldn't want to admit it, because Chyna got a kick out of it at one point. In her words, even if he's miserable, he can't divorce Steph without commiting career suicide, so he's stuck with her for life one way or the other. He would either be jobbed out, froze out, or flat out fired. And then what? TNA? Japan? He's not a young guy anymore, and he's pissed off more than a few folks in his decade in the sport. Now's not a good time to have to start rebuilding bridges. For his sake, let's hope the marraige lasts.

JonnieKage (FINISH HIM!) passes along the following.


During Triple H first IC title reign, he was schedule to defend his title against Ahmed Johnson at some payperview. Ahmed had just returned from his rib injury sustained by the hands of faarooq. But a few weeks before the payperview, Trip lost his title to Rocky Maivia. And they changed the payperview card to Rock Maivia defending his title against Triple H as oppose to Trip Vs Ahmed.. Whats the story behind all this??? And why does Ahmed Johnson look funny?


Ahmed Johnson looks funny because the upper half of his torso is incredibly muscled and his stomach is always flabby. He's freakishly strong, which would help explain why he injured so many people. Also, Ahmed was
packing. /A> I'm straight as an arrow, but that's kind of hard not to notice. Without knowing which pay per view you're specifically talking about, I'm going to guess that Ahmed was either legit injured or released by the time this match rolled around. Rocky and Trips ended up turning each other into stars, so it's interesting to think what Ahmed could have done because they were giving him a push like no other. The guy stood in the ring for a photo op with the Ultimate Warrior AND Shawn Michaels. Try to comprehend THAT threesome.

Brian Jones voices my frustrations.


What the hell is WWE doing with Shane Helms?

His character is essentially a Sunday Night Heat Jobber.

Why did they take away his finisher, “The Vertabreaker”? That was one of the most devastating moves I have ever seen. I remember reading a Lance Storm commentary a couple of years ago where he said that the vertabreaker was a really easy bump to take.

A couple of months ago, there was indication of him doing a heel turn.

Where do you see his career going?


I ask myself the same question quite often. I really like Helms. His work is unique, because he adds "oomph" to everything he does. His clotheslines have that little jump behind them. He doesn't just do neckbreakers, he leaps and swings out with them. He's had Two finishers taken from him, and still has an awesome one. He's marketable, with plenty of charisma, and he's shown an ability to take a rub and make people get behind him (with both The Rock and Ric Flair). So why not run with the ball?

They took away the Vertebreaker because they were afraid of injury, like the piledriver. It makes no sense to me. He never injured anyone with the move. Edge, Scotty 2 Hotty, Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, and Rhyno all suffered serious neck injuries AFTER the piledriver ban was in place. You'd think they'd look at the German Suplexes that guys are still taking, but I digress. It was a preemptive strike. They they took his chokeslam because it was "unrealistic". I guess they thought the fact that he thinks he's a comic book superhero WAS realistic. Mind boggling.

As for his career, I was afraid he was going to be released when they were cutting people left and right because of the aborted heel turn. As it is, that one kid is probably wondering why Hurricane hates him. Hopefully they'll realize what they've got on their hands and break up the stupid team with Rosey, ship Hurricane to Smackdown and let him inject some life into the Cruiserweight division. I really see that as his only hope right now.

Galen Tom sends a question about everyone's favorite little promotion that could.


Glad to Ask411 is back up! Perfect timing too since I have a NWA question. I see NWA (past, present and future) as a solo promotion and teaming with other promotions (ECW, WWF, WCW, TNA…). My question is the NWA still an actually company or a franchise of a bunch of independent promotions that bigger companies can buy into? Thanks


NWA is a great concept. TNA has emerged as the figurehead promotion, but the subdivisions still exist. I know of NWA Bluegrass and NWA Wildside in this area, and I've heard mention of several other parts that share talent. While Jarrett and AJ Styles and others stay mainly in the TNA part of things, they can be loaned out to the smaller regions for special cards. Example: A couple of years ago, I drove to Kentucky to see one of my best friends, Chance Prophet, defend the NWA Bluegrass championship against then-NWA World Champion AJ Styles at a county fair. It also gives TNA scouts a great feeder system to draw from. These days, TNA is acting as the parent company for the smaller divisions. Hope that makes sense.

Dave "Freight Train" Gould sends in a shooter's question. WHOO WHOO!


I've heard interviews with various folks about the classic Andre/Hogan match
at Wrestlemania. Basically what I've heard is that some were nervous that
Andre might shoot and refuse to cooperate with Hogan. Of course, in the end
he went along, but my question is this: are you aware of any instances
where a champ refused to job and lose a title (during a match) or, likewise,
are you aware of a time when a challenger was supposed to job but went
shoot? I know it would be the kiss of death in the industry, but I thought
maybe a mid-card guy with a screw loose might decide he had nothing to lose
and just shoot to try to win the title during a live event.

Probably the best example I know of is The Iron Sheik. Sheik was very proud of his status as an amateur wrestler and shooter, and Bob Backlund didn't want to lose the title to him via submission. Sheik told Vince McMahon, Sr. that if Backlund didn't submit to the Camel Clutch, he'd break his back. If an older brother or friend has ever put you in the camel clutch legit, you know that he could have done it. So basically, he was telling Backlund that if he wouldn't go along with the bookers, he'd break his back and force him to. That's how they got Skaaland throwing in the towel instead of a true submission.

Charles Miron sends in a question about The Bad Guy.


what's the deal with Scott Hall ? Razor Ramon was the coolest character back
in the early 90's, He was a real bad a** in WCW and when he came back to the
WWE a couple of years ago I think people started to really catch on to his
Hey yo! thing. I don't know enough about wrestling to understand it all but
if a wrestler is entertaining why get rid of him? would he not be good
fighting against Kurt Angle right now?

I'm assuming you're a young wrestling fan, and I don't mean that in a bad way. If you were as old as I am, you'd realize that Scott Hall has been wrestling for over twenty years now, and then you'd feel really, really old. Scott kind of bounced around aimlessly until the Razor Ramon thing caught on, and his natural charisma finally got a chance to shine through. Scott, when he's just being Scott, really connects with the fans. He lost his chances in WCW and WWF because of some severe personal problems with drugs and alcohol that affected his performance and health. He's back in TNA and can still put on a solid match, and I really think they could do a solid program with Kurt Angle and Scott Hall on Smackdown if he could ever find his way back into WWE, however unlikely that is. Clean living Kurt Angle against the known druggie and alcoholic Scott Hall. Sure beats JBL vs. The Undertaker.

Scott Williams sends this in, helping me out with a question from last time about a WWF tag title change.


This is not a question but a response to the person asking about the 1-2-3
Kid/Marty Janetty title swith that happened on RAW. If my memory is correct
it was a special show like the 1 year aniversary, or their 50th episode (I
think 1 year anniversary is correct). and then the next week they had
someone calling in from a house show that the rematch was happening saying
the 1-2-3 Kid and Marty Jannety lost the titles.


Nick Robinson adds in about the HBK and Diesel half of things -


I just want to comment on Nick Rusch's question about Diesel and HBK winning the tag titles from the Headshrinkers a week before Summer Slam '94. From what I heard years after, one of the Headshrinkers (I believe it was Samu) had either been fired or had quit around this time. Therefore, they had to get the titles off the Headshrinnkers.

Many thanks to both of you for providing information that I didn't have.
Now then, thanks to Terrell Yelder, David Cox, and BK who tell me that HBK's suplex finisher was called the Teardrop Suplex. I found out that the Elevator Suplex that I remembered came from a video game. Bad source of info if there ever was one. Thanks guys.

For the new kids, here's the rules to this little party.

1. If you ask a question that's already been asked, I will refer you to that column instead of answering again. Why? That's what column archives are for. Now, I don't know what's been asked in older columns, so this rule applies only for MY Ask 411 columns. What those other guys wrote frankly isn't important because now I'M THE ONE WITH THE SPOTLIGHT.


2. Wrestling questions only, please. I'll allow the occasional exception for a well-written porn or sports question.



3. 11:59 PM Sunday night through 11:59 PM Tuesday night is a "dead time" on questions. If you send me a question between those times, I will NOT answer it. Not in this week's column, not in next week's column. I may give you a personal, non-column response, but that's no gaurantee. Often, it will be deleted with no response whatsoever. You've been warned. There's too much time to be spent on learning html for the column because I'm illiterate at the stuff and doing research on other questions to try and cram in last minute stuff. So there.



4. If you send me a novel, I'm going to edit it. Don't cry to me if I cut out half of your e-mail that has nothing to do with the question. I love your praise, I love your bashing, I love all feedback. But the volume of e-mail I've gotten has quite literally quadrupled since starting this. I can't feasibly reply to everyone, and I'm sorry. But I do love you all.


5. I will work my butt off to find the answers for you. But if I honestly can't find the information anywhere, I'll be straight up with you. I'll keep looking and answer you personally and through the column as soon as I DO find the answer. But if you flame me, you get nothing. And hey, if you know something I don't, send it in. I'll give you full credit.


6. Questions for Ask 411 v3.0 MUST be sent to
[e-mail] . I got a LOT of questions at my other address this week, but I'm making an exception because that's where the link went so it's not really your fault. Hopefully this week that's corrected, though, and everything is going to the right place.


That's it for this week. And my closing line? Courtesy of FatalCharm...
Remember, I love your questions like a donkey loves waffles. Keep em comin, fresh and hot. I'll catch you cats and kittens this weekend in Perfect Hindsight.