Ask 411 04.12.06: The Undertaker, Follow-ups on Bret, Brawl For it All, What Makes a Face and More!
Posted by Gavin Napier on 04.12.2006
Information and questions about the Undertaker, follow ups on Bret Hart, Al Snow's near-miss on a world title, and a complete history on the Brawl for All!
In a week which saw RAW move back to the dark ages of wrestling when Kane heard voices that we could all hear (does that mean we're all crazy?) and Umaga can get a push but Stevie Richards can't, we needed a bright spot. We got it. AJ Styles vs. Abyss was about as good as it's going to get on free TV, especially on a one hour show. But I shill enough for TNA. Let's take care of business.
First, we need to correct the question about the Undertaker and casket matches that was asked and answered by the same person.
Nick "Ishbu" Perez, Justin Rudisill, Mike Future, and Eric Cohen all dropped a line to let me know that the '94 Undertaker vs. Undertaker 2.0 match wasn't a casket match. Mr. Cohen also included a link with a timeline of casket matches for me. Check it out:
November 24, 1992 -Survivor Series Undertaker d. Kamala
January 22, 1994 - Royal Rumble Yokozuna d. Undertaker
November 23, 1994 - Survivor Series Undertaker d.Yokozuna
July 23, 1995 -In Your House 2 Undertaker d. Kama
August 27, 1995 - Summerslam Undertaker d. Kama
December 17, 1995 - In Your House 5 Undertaker d. Mable
May 26, 1996 - In Your House 8 Goldust d. Undertaker
January , 1998 - Royal Rumble Shawn Michaels d. Undertaker
October 19, 1998 - RAW Undertaker vs. Kane NO CONTEST
May 17, 1999 - RAW Undertaker d. The Rock
January 30, 2005 - Royal Rumble Undertaker d. John Heidenreich
October 9, 2005 - No Mercy The Ortons d. Undertaker
There are others, but that's the timeline for Mr. Taker. By that count, he's 7-4-1 in "his" match. Hope that clears up any mild confusion there was from the Taker vs. Taker info.
Lynxe Raide keeps the ball rolling with the Undertaker stuff.
Has The Undertaker ever gigged? I know he has as the biker 'Taker, but as the Dead Man or Satan-Incarnate (or was that Vince... hard to tell), has The Undertaker ever shown any of the red stuff. I mean, the amount of different matches he has had, especially Hell In A Cell, you would think that he would have, but I cannot remember a single time he has. Can you help out?
Most notably would be Fully Loaded 99 when Austin defeated the Undertaker in a First Blood match to retain his WWF World Championship. There have been other occasions when 'Taker has bled, but he usually doesn't hit the gushers that guys like Cena, Michaels, and Flair are becoming known for.
Peter Cahill keeps the Undertaker love rolling.
In Buried Alive matches the loser sits under the pile the whole night. How do they stay under there or escape? i have always wondered this.
Trap doors and tunnels. I would imagine that only certain arenas can accomodate the needs for something like that which is one of the reasons that you only see the matches every so often. That, and how much sense would it make to keep throwing your roster into graves? I digress. It's just like the movies - maintain the illusion and all is well. As long as people have to ask how you're doing it, you're doing it right.
Rob moves into new territory, trying to get caught up on history.
. I became a WWE fan back at Royal Rumble 2000 and all i hear about is how godo the "attitude" era was and i obviously missed out on watching Stone Cold become a foul mouthed badass and guys like Rock and Triple H make it to the top. Where can i find dvd's or at least videos of PPV's and such between late 97' and 2000?
That, my friend, is easy. Either hit up e-bay for the DVD's, or go to www.crazymax.org and register for the forums. Once you've done that, feel free to request what you want and wait for people to let you know what they have. And you know? I'm not a bit WWF/E fan, but if you're going to pick an era, that's the one. Their roster was loaded with guys that were willing to push themselves to get an edge on WCW again, and the creative team was really starting to push the envelope. The result were good storylines and good matches for the most part. Enjoy getting caught up.
DarkNightwolf101 has an ADD question.
Whatever happened to year long Heavyweight Title Reigns, Nowadays they are short, why does the WWE do this?
It's just the climate of wrestling. The attention span of fans is such that year long reigns are frowned upon, and a lot of that has to do with Triple H dominating the title for so long. Of course, nobody complained back in the 80's when Flair was champ for nearly three calendar years in a row. Anyway, we may be seeing a trend that moves back towards longer reigns. From 2003 to 2004, Randy Orton held the IC title for seven months plus. Shelton Benjamin followed that up in 04-05 with an eight month run. With the exception of a two week period in December, MNM have held the SD! tag titles for a little over six months. JBL and John Cena each had 10 month runs with the title, which is pretty impressive. Batista ran with his strap for nine months and was showing no indications of losing it before injury sidelined him. Hopefully there can be a happy medium where we don't sit through marathon runs but don't have to see the title hotshotted back and forth so rapidly.
Bryan Jones underestimates the Dark Lord of the Sith.
there's a funny show on ESPN classic called Cheap Seats,,,(if you havent seen it,DO; its great!) that has these two guys making fun of videos of weird sports and pro wrestling. The wrestling is some regional stuff from the 80's. My ? is, would they need perm to use WWE clips,.and would the WWE give them permission. I mean...no publicity is bad, right?
I'm sure McMahon would let them use the clips if they paid his price for the rights. I'm also sure that final approval would have to be given from the McMahon family to make sure that nobody was making light of their promotion or athletes. I bet they could rip on WCW footage, though. Just saying.
Brad McLaughlin has a pair of questoins about the best worst idea ever.
1) I was watching Wrestlemania 15 and actually freaked again from the vicious blow that Bart Gunn took from butterbean. My question is were the lead up fights to this match predetermined or were they legit fights.
2) Do you have the prelimanry matches who was in them and who won?
The matches were all shoot, which is what led to so many injuries. It was thought that Dr. Death Steve Williams would win it, and that was the plan, but it wasn't scripted for him to win. As for the brackets?
Steve Blackmon defeated Marc Mero
Justin Bradshaw defeated Mark Canterbury
Savio Vega defeated (and ended the career of) Brakkus
Hawk drew with Droz
Bart Gunn defeated Bob Holly
Dan Severn defeated Kama "The Godfather" Mustafa
Steve Williams defeated Pierre Oulette
2 Cold Scorpio defeated 8-Ball
Here's where it gets fun.
Bart Gunn defeated Steve Williams in a match which saw Doc tear his quad to the bone.
The Godfather, who advanced even though he lost because Dan Severn decided he didn't want any part of this, defeated 2 Cold Scorpio
Droz, who advanced because Hawk was injured even though the match was a draw, defeated Savio Vega in a match that saw Vega's neck seriously injured.
Bradshaw defeated Marc Mero, who advanced even though he lost because Steve Blackmon was injured in the first round.
Bart Gunn defeated The Godfather.
Bradshaw defeated Droz.
Bart Gunn defeated Bradshaw.
Butterbean murdered Bart Gunn.
There's your Brawl for All history. Revel in it.
Tom Shires asks about some backstage stuff.
I was just wondering: what do the likes of Joey Styles, Jerry Lawler, The Coach, Tazz, Michael Cole and all RAW and Smackdown's backstage "reporters" do when they're not calling RAW or Smackdown? I understand that Lawler, The Coach, Maria, Krystal et al may have some wrestling duties (mostly, thank God, on house shows) but that still leaves an awful lot of time during the week where they do... what exactly? Sit around waiting for Monday or Tuesday nights? Also, what exactly does a WWE Road Agent do? It must be a half decent job if the likes of Ricky Steamboat will entertain it!
As far as I know, Styles and Michael Cole are announcers only. They may sit in on meetings or something, but for the most part, they're doing commentary and adding commentary to the taped shows. Coach, Tazz, and Lawler probably have a more active, but still minor hand in things backstage. The road agent position is better than half-decent, it's the basis of the booking team. Once the matches are set up and storylines planned, things are in the hands of the road agents. They meet with the workers and let them know how long they have in the ring, what points need to be covered, and how they're going to finish things up. I find it incredible that while Vince obviously despised NWA and WCW, the majority of his road agents have been former NWA/WCW guys, such as Johnny Ace, Terry Taylor, Dean Malenko, Arn Anderson, Ricky Steamboat and Dusty Rhodes.
The Jza sends a lengthy note about this and that.
Was watching RVD vs Balls Mahoney from the RVD DVD earlier today, I believe it is from 99, and Joey Styles mentions that one of them was standing in for a British Technical wrestler called Johnny Smith. Personally, I didn't realise that ECW ever had any English talent at any stage, I was just wondering however if this was an early alias for Johnny Storm who I think would have been just startiing to make a name for himself at this stage? Any info on this Johnny smith character at all would be appreciated, as I can't seem to turn anything up other than lists of matches he's been in.
About the garbage match debate that seems to be featuring in your column, I've always seen wrestling to be just like food. To me, The Rock vs Stone Cold, or HBK vs Jericho is like a well cooked steak meal. You take your time over it to appreciate it all the more, and ultimately it will fill you and hit in just the right spot. Now the spot monkeys in my view have just an important role to play. They are the junk food, the quick fix to whet your appetite for what is to lie ahead. A quick burger here, maybe some fried chicken there. If you have junk food alone though, you won't feel satisfied by the end of it. Man all this talk about junk food is making me hungry, I'm going to have to stop that point there and hope i've made my point before i wind up buying a big bucket of fried chicken.....hhhhmmmmm...chicken...
Back to UK wrestling for a moment, it's a shame that TNA didn't go ahead with Team UK in the form that was being spoken of a few weeks ago. I don't know if you've seen Johnny Storm or Jody Fleisch in action, but they would have taken the X division to SCHOOL! Maybe next year eh?
Johnny Smith is an English born wrestler who starred for Calgary in the 80's and was very well respected in Japan in the 90's. He was originally billed as being Davey Boy's brother, but that's all work. His run in ECW was superceded by commitments to Japan, from what I've been able to find. He was a pretty high level tag team wrestler there, holding the All Japan straps with Taiyo Kea and forming an All-Asia championship team with Wolf Hawkfield.
Your description of the various wrestling techniques is spot on. You need a little of everything to make everything else work.
As for the all UK team? I think it would have been fun. Fleisch isn't my particular favorite, but Storm can go, and Jody would do in a pinch. Doug Williams would be a bit large, but I think he could keep up. Just a shame that Burchill is in WWE and can't take part.
Danny Cohen gets by with two quick ones.
1) was al snow supposed to win the ECW world title at wrestlepalooza 98?
2) why do promoters keep around guy who really hurt people? i.e. new jack, bob holly
Al Snow was a victim of his own popularity. He got super over in ECW, so much so that just about the time he would have ran with the ECW World Title.....Vince "promoted" him to RAW.
As for keeping them around...there's a difference. Bob Holly is a jerk, and people get injured, but he's for some reason respected and liked by management. New Jack? He's just scary, and his runs have been limited to ECW, CZW, Smokey Mountain, and a breif stint in TNA that was very tame compared to his other stuff.
Justin Downing asks a question that I'm going to follow up on after the NEXT question.
So now that WWE released the Bret Hart DVD, and he's now in the Hall of Fame. Do you think we will see Bret Hart around the WWE again anytime soon?
Yes.
John in LA provides the backup.
OK SO HERE'S THE BIG QUESTION...Me and you and have had many a conversation about this, Hall of Fame has come and gone. Wrestlemania 22 is history. HBK/Vince McMahon No Holds Barred is complete. No Bret Hart (except HOF speech)...Montreal Screwjob, REAL OR WORK? Now if you say work, I'm gonna need some solid SOLID back up here because you made it pretty clear Bret Hart was appearing at WM22. Thanks
I'm still surprised that Bret didn't appear at Wrestlemania. I really am. I'm more convinced than I was that it's all legit, but the majority of me still leans towards work. I still say there's just way too much foreshadowing, coincidence, and things that don't make sense involved for it to be legit. At some point, there's going to have to be a new GM for RAW, and I woudn't be a bit surprised if the new GM was named during a stop off in Canada. Just saying.
David salvages us from Bret Hart by bringing up the Nature Boy! Whoo!
On the Ultimate Ric Flair Collection DVD set, it's made clear that Flair had a major feud with Rowdy Roddy Piper during his first WWF run. Almost all of the extras and the one match from that run focus on the feud. However, I can't find any VHS or DVD featuring a match between the two oneon-one, nor can I find a PPV listing for such a match. Did Ric Flair and Rowdy Roddy Piper ever actually have a blow-off one-on-one match to culminate their feud? Who won the feud?
I never could recall that either. I know there was interaction verbally, and there were some things in the Rumble where they were involved with each other, but Flair spent his time dealing with Savage and Mr. Perfect for the most part. It's just another part of the problem in how Flair was booked during that run. No Hogan? No Piper? No title shot for Kerry Von Erich? C'mon...that stuff was too easy to miss out on.
Andrew Critchell plays semantics with me.
Anyway, I was wondering if you could settle an argument for me regarding what makes a face/heel. I always thought that a face or heel character was defined by his actions, not the fan reaction to him. For example, right now some are calling Cena a "tweener" since he is getting both a face and heel reaction right now. I say that he is still a full blown face because he's not doing anything that a heel would do (insult the fans, take blatant cheap shots, etc.) What do you say??
It's a tricky question. Example: The Rock was getting booed as Rocky Maivia, even though he was clearly a face. Kidman was supposed to be a heel against X Pac in the InVasion, but he was cheered. Now, Cena. Actions can only go so far, though. Your actions can define what you WANT the character to be, but the fans are going to decide who they cheer for and against. If the fans turn on someone long enough and hard enough, they're going to be a heel. If they start backing someone, they're going to be a face. The final verdict rests with the fans.
Stu Carapola wraps us up for the week.
-the thing with Jimmy Rave and the toilet paper is derived from the streamers. In the same way they honor people with streamers, it has become popular to disrespect Rave by throwing toilet paper at him. But just him, ROH doesn't like when you do it to other guys, especially faces. A guy at the CZW doubleheader in Philly got ejected for throwing TP at Samoa Joe, and I saw the honorable AJ Styles embarrass a 10 year old kid in front of everybody in CT for doing it to him. As you might imagine, that didn't make the video release.
-i agree on the Beatles being way overrated. They were popular because there was really nothing like them at the time. It's like watching Wrestlemania 1 today. I think that if they came out even 10-15 years later, they wouldn't have been half as popular as they were.
-more on JBL with realistic Nazi action, I don't know for sure, but I remember hearing he got in trouble with the authorities over there because what he did is actually illegal in Germany.
Now, question time. In Hulk Hogan's WWF run from the mid 80s to 1993, how many pinfall or submission losses do you know of that he suffered? I have his first title loss to Andre (not clean, but officially a pinfall loss), his second title loss, clean pin to the Warrior, his third title loss to the Undertaker at Survivor Series 1991, and his fifth title loss to Yokozuna at the first King of the Ring in 1993. So that's four pinfall losses and no submissions by my count. My question is, do you know if he suffered any other pinfall/submission losses during that ten year run? House shows do count, tag team losses and reverse decisions do not.
We've got Andre, Warrior, Undertaker, and Yokozuna established. I'm certain that there were no submissions during that time. Tony Atlas pinned Hogan, but that was in 1981, before Hogan would be fired and return in 1983. There was also a story in an Apter mag about Dino Bravo making Hogan pass out in a bear hug in Canada, but was then disqualified for refusing to release the hold. Outside of these, I don't know of any pinfall losses that Hogan endured until his subsequent runs. If anyone else knows, feel free to let me know, along with evidence of what you're sending me.
That's it for this week. Read the rules and get in touch.
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