Ask 411 Wrestling 01.19.06: Part 2!

Posted by Gavin Napier on 01.19.2006

It's double the embarassment this week, as the second half of the column shows up. Thanks to Craig Osland who notified me that it got clipped!

Roseanne queries the Big Red Machine.


I've heard there were several different "KANE"s before Glen Jacobs took the role...is this true and any idea who they all were if it is? Thanks alot if you can answer this...it's been bugging me for awhile!!! P.S....Ax was Larry Hennig and I believe he's dead from a heart attack...maybe there was more than 1 Ax as well!

There's only been on Kane, I swear. Undertaker pretending to be him doesn't count. Glen Jacobs is the one and only Kane. And Larry Hennig was "The Axe", but Ax of Demolition was, just like Kane, the same guy throughout - Bill Eadie.

AdeV has a couple of interesting questions.


I have been watching a lot of late 90's wwf hardcore matches lately. Upon viewing I've noticed that no matter what wrestlers are hit on the head with; be it trashcans, stairs, shopping carts etc, the only weapon that will absolutely guarantee a pin fall is the hardcore championship belt. This of course makes the belt the hardest object in the known wrestling universe. However, if traditional wrestling lore has taught me one thing it's that the head of a Samoan wrestler is in fact the hardest object. I'm curious to know which you feel wins out in a one on one confrontation of the two.

Also, any clue whatever became of JT Southern?


Nothing is harder than a Samoan head in wrestling. Nothing. This has been proven by several other skulls, Paul E. Dangerously's cell phone, wooden chairs, steel chairs, and more. Samoan skulls trump everything. As for Mr. Southern, after his breif stint in WCW, he just went back to the indys, as the AWA wasn't really an option anymore. He got his 15 minutes by bringing Scotty Flamingo in to help feud with Van Hammer (totally nonsensical, but...fun?) and was gone as quickly as he arrived.

J has a pretty good idea.


I was reading about Vince McMahon not liking the job Joey Styles is doing on RAW, too much focus on wrestling during commentary. So I got to thinking, what about "trading" Joey Styles to Smackdown for Michael Cole. I think Joey Styles is drowned out by Coach and Jerry Lawler too much as is and I think his wrestling focused commentating style would work with the Smackdown brand. Plus he and Tazz have a history from their ECW days. Any thoughts on this? Any chance this may ever happen?

ANYTHING can happen at the draft lottery! Will it? Dunno. But several people have suggested the same move, and I don't think it would be a bad one.

Michael Joyeaux has a tough one for me.


I've been going through website after website trying to find an answer to one of Wrestlings best guarded secrets, and I cannot source the answer myself. So I have to ask you. "Why can't you powerbomb Kidman?" Good luck answering that one. In all seriousness.

I could tell you that Kidman was genetically engineered in the WCW Power Plant as an experimental counter-wrestler for guys like Kevin Nash. During the nWo's reign, WCW got tired of seeing everyone and their mother get powerbombed, so they built Kidman to counteract it. The internal structure of his DNA lent itself to a gyroscopic nature in Kidman's torso that allows him to quickly and effectively counteract the effects of the powerbomb by reversing his momentum on a time, turning the move into a huracanrana. Unfortunately, the genetic engineering didn't go through all the way, and he never grew past cruiserweight stature, making him ineffective against very large opponents.

Either that, or it's one of Kidman's "five moves of doom" to reverse a powerbomb. Pick the scenario that you have more fun with.

David Horadan remembers the predecessors for Eminem.


While thinking about the Nation of Domination the other day I came up with a question for you? Who were the two rappers that used to come down to the ring with the NOD? I remember they vanished after the Legion of Doom destroyed them in a surprise tag match. So I ask you what were there names and did they ever do anything else wrestling related?

That was JC Ice and Wolfie D, a couple of guys that made their name in the USWA. Not bad, just undersized, they had some really good matches with the likes of Jeff Jarrett, Jerry Lawler, and Public Enemy. They also did some time in ECW. Wolfie D bulked up and became Slash, who appeared on TNA quite a few times. JC Ice is the legit son of Superstar Bill Dundee. A fun gimmick tag team for the times that was simply too small to make it in the big leagues.

We wrap this big boy up with a fantastic letter from 411's own Stu Carapola. Read his stuff. Seriously. I'm not even joking.


1)My understanding of the issue with Demolition Ax was that he had some sort of heart trouble. If you notice, it's not that he was taken out of action entirely (as a back injury might have done), but working very, VERY little when he was in the ring. That's why you got stuff like Ax coming in and only working part of the third fall at Summerslam 90, Ax getting eliminated about a minute after tagging in at Survivor Series, and the "which 2 members are going to compete?" angle, which 9 times out of 10 wound up being Smash & Crush. Eventually, they must have decided that he wasn't in good enough health to keep on the roster and, rather than go with another angle I heard where he would have been a "manager who can fight" for Smash & Crush, they just dumped him entirely late in 1990 or early in 1991. However bad his health may have been, he bounced back pretty quickly and worked some early GWF shows when they first took over the Dallas territory in 1991, most notably working two matches in the TV Title tournament. Then again, he may have just been working because he needed the money that bad, and I believe he wound up as a booker for the GWF for a short time after the TV Title tournament. I do know he worked various indy promotions over the next four or five years in a team that he called Demolition, where he teamed up with a new guy named Blast. Of course, this all led to the infamous "me and Randy Culley own the Demolition gimmick" lawsuit that has dragged on for about 800 years and I believe still hasn't been settled. I haven't heard of him wrestling anywhere in the last ten years or so, but whatever health problems existed must have gone away within a year since he kept going for another five years or so after the initial health scare.

2)My understanding for the need for the "classic" big blue bar cage, instead of the traditional wire mesh cage, was simply a decision made to accomodate the types of people competing in these matches. If you look back to the time in the 80s when the blue cage debuted, you had guys like Hogan, Warrior, Andre, Bundy, and other very large and possibly less coordinated guys getting involved in these matches. These guys all may (read: most likely) would have had trouble getting out of the traditional cage, so they made the newer, bluer, much easier to climb if you're over 300 lbs model. The last match I can recall in the blue cage off the top of my head was between Bret Hart and Diesel in February of 1996, and I'm sure you have as much fun as I do picturing Kevin Nash trying to climb a wire mesh fence. Ever since then, I believe they've used the wire mesh cage.

3)My understanding on Austin Idol's "retirement" is that it was less as a result of a desire to no longer perform, but rather the fact that nobody wanted to use him anymore. Although wildly popular as both a heel and a face, he shot himself in the foot by constantly no-showing or just flat out leaving a territory and not telling anyone. Eventually the promoters just got sick of it and stopped using him, and that was basically that. Although I didn't follow the Southern territories much in those days, I again point to the GWF TV Title tournament as one of his last appearances. I think he may have also done a couple of stints in the USWA after that and I think he won the USWA Title at least once during that stretch, but the early 90s was the end of the road for him.

4)The difference between an atomic drop and a straight up low-blow is that the atomic drop (either variety) is not a low blow. You're dropping the base of a person's spine on your knee (not the crotch), and the idea is basically to compress the spine like a piledriver would, just from the other end. That's why in the old days you'd see the guy who just took an atomic drop prancing around holding his ass, not his nuts.

5)This is more of a personal opinion/rant so feel free not to include it in the column, but in response to the Alex Shelley/Generation Next/TNA thing, if I didn't know better I'd say that TNA was going out of their way to ruin any marquee matches or storylines ROH has coming or has had in the past. Already, they've had Joe squash both Austin Aries (who holds like four victories over Joe in ROH, including one for the ROH Title) and Jay Lethal (who is in a marquee feud with Joe in ROH right now), plus other stuff like putting Shelley with Aries and Strong, and this even goes back to the early days of TNA. Remember Low Ki, first ever ROH Champion, one of the most dominant wrestlers in the history of the promotion, and held two victories over AJ Styles in 2002? Yeah, they had AJ beat him in 8 minute matches a couple of times just to really rub ROH's face in it. But the really cool thing for me (as a bigtime ROH fan and part time TNA hater) is that not only does ROH take it, but then they come back with something even better, and most of the card on each ROH show easily equals or tops anything in TNA's precious X-Division.


Stu, you don't know how much I appreciate that stuff. Thanks for all the info and passing it along in such a nice, neat, organized manner. Maybe you can take the reins on this thing if public backlash keeps growing against me.

Anyway, the rules have changed. Check them out and get back in touch with me.



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.



2. Wrestling questions only, please. I'll allow the occasional exception for sports questions, movie questions, and hey...maybe even a little religion. Maybe not. Anything else may very well be answered by C-list celebrities, or impersonations thereof.



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. My therapist says I deserve some "me" time, and I'm taking it on those days.



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. However, the volume of mail that I'm receiving from this column at this point is absolutely ridiculous. Keep it short and sweet as much as possible and I'll do what I can to keep everyone happy.



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 you'll like it. And hey, if you know something I don't, send it in. I'll give you full credit.




6. I'm going to have to limit you to one question, or at least one topic. Save those other questions for next week. Why am I doing this? Because if 60 people send me five questions, I won't have the time, room, or desire to answer all of them. Spread the wealth, and don't get pissed off at me if I don't answer every question you send me at one time because you've been warned.



7. Questions for Ask 411 v3.0 MUST be sent to [e-mail] . If you ask me on IM, that's cool and all. But if I forget to answer? You've been warned.


Now, read over those puppies and make sure you understand them. Then start sending me stuff to keep me busy for next week. God bless.