Ask 411 Wrestling 03.28.07: Flair vs. Bockwinkel, Rock Gets The F Out, Guys in Pig Masks, and More!

Posted by Steve Cook on 03.28.2007

Including WWF/E Champions that weren't over...no, I'm not talking about Cena.

It's time to Ask 411 Wrestling! I'm Steve Cook, and after a long week of working for and with people that don't appreciate anything that I do, it's great to be somewhere where I am appreciated. Thanks so much for reading, let's go on and get it started...52 e-mails are currently in the in-box, so if your submission doesn't make the cut this week, hang in there.

Corrections, Comments and other "C" words...

"Cena, Rocky, Austin might slice and dice and bleed like bastards, but let's see them take TLC bumps. Take Foley/Edge Wrestlemania bumps. Take HBK superkick in a street fight that does absolutely nothing but make Michaels think he still matters bumps. Hate Edge if you please. But give me another main eventer who's willing to get himself killed." - Dave

Right off the bat I want to say that I'm a big Edge fan, and one of the only good things WWE does anymore is keeping Edge at the top of the card. But in response to this comment from Dave, The Rock and Austin never had to take those kind of bumps, nor should they. The Rock was an (pardon the pun) electric worker and had so much charisma that big risky bumps were never needed. Austin was physically unable to take such bumps because of his neck (and other) problems. But he was great in the ring so there was never a need to do that type of stuff anyway. One of Austin's strengths in the ring was his psychology and the way he worked a pace. This is what made him an excellent worker and made his matches so entertaining. When it comes to Cena, he does not have the reputation of a great worker at this point, although he is vastly improving, especially since the second half of last year. He may feel that he needs some of the b! ig bumps to further establish himself as a wrestler at this point to make up for what he lacks in other areas. I sure gained a ton of respect for him taking those bumps in that TLC match in September. The guy obviously works very hard and wants to entertain.

I enjoy Edge's work all around and I feel that he is very deserving of his position. He is a consistent highlight of a company that has mainly produced garbage for the past 5 years. Edge probably feels like he wants to do it all, including take the big bumps. In my opinion, bumps like that are best if they are saved for the right occasion so they get the most out of them and that the performers aren't forced to take those risks that often.

Just some friendly commentary. - Joe Mastronardo

When it comes to Grand Slam Champions, one can argue that RVD was a Grand Slam Champion. With a WWE Championship reign (granted, it was five years too late), 6 times holding the IC Championship, 2 reigns as World Tag Team Champ (and a reign as WWE Tag Champ), and of course, the fact that he won the European Championship off Jeff Hardy, unifying the belts. Granted, some might argue the European Championship reign didn't count because the belt dissolved, but to me, the dude still won it. Oh, and as for some more close but no cigars... Jeff Jarrett, Christian, William Regal, Val Venis, Test and Owen Hart are/were a World Title away from the Grand Slam (in addition to Jeff Hardy as you mentioned).

As for Vader's eye injury, a similar one happened to Afa of the Wild Samoans. This was mentioned in some footage for Beyond the Mat that didn't make the film's final cut. He relates a story of another Samoan going to headbutt him and when he went to grab Afa's head to deliver it, his thumb dug down into his eye and popped it out. Afa said he managed to pop the eyeball back into the socket himself, still in the ring, but it felt like something was tickling him. It turned out a few strands of hair had gotten behind his eye. Using his hand to hold them flat against his face, he managed to slide the strands up and out from behind. So I'm guessing, if nothing bad happens to the veins and junk behind the eye or the eye itself when it's popped out, everything will be good. - Jimmy K

Hey Steve! I love your Ask 411 column. A reader asked you "Other than AJ Styles and now Abyss, has TNA ever let anyone else who didn't come from WWE or one of the companies they now own be world champ?" . Really, Abyss is the only non-WWE/WCW/ECW guy to have one the TNA heavyweight belt since Styles was briefly in WCW in 2001 before it died. - Dee

I had forgotten about that...much of late-period WCW falls into the category of "things I try to forget about". As Matt Amazo pointed out to me, Styles was part of the cruiserweight tag team division alongside Air Paris, who I think was last seen on the side of a milk carton.

About the Von Erich question... In either Piper or Lawler's book, they talk about this... He had the blade taped to his finger (which from what I gathered was actually a standard thing to do at that time) and as they were going over the match title vs. title unification match he had with Lawler before hand, he started scratching and ended up busting himself up pretty good and they had to quickly tape him up before he went out for the match. So no first blood match, just a dumb move... - Chris

Also I remember that unoffical rule book that one of the Apter mags put out. It seemed like it was in the summer of '95 or '96. I too have that magazine buried somewhere where isn't to get at currently. - Mark Allen

Also the concept was the brawl for all was for Dr Death to get over-
once he went out there was really no plan- but when butterbean signed
witht the WWE it was a 3 fight deal (vs Marc Mero till he got hurt)
people kept getting hurt so Vince was trying to find a "finals" for
Wrestlemania but naturally there were no takers - so vince simply took
a legit fighter that he already had under contract to give WM a
special fight, problem was Bart was WAY out of his league going
against butterbean- trying to take him down was asking for trouble
unless you really knew how. but to sum-up once Steve Williams was gone
JR didn;t care who won, and he was the one pushing it.

and when I need to look up the rules on wrestling, I just ask Jericho,
he has the only rulebook I am aware of." - David

Speaking of rulebooks, I have heard about AJ Styles & CM Punk reading passages from the Official NWA Wrestling Rulebook while commentating on an IWA Mid-South show, but I have not seen the show or the official rulebook. If anybody has seen it, let me know.

"After Benoit left WCW, Sid used the crossface on a couple of occasions. I think one was when he won the title, and I think one was in a title defense. Was this done as a tribute to Benoit, or was it a knock on him? - Casey Johnson"

AH-HA! I knew Cena's STFU looked familiar. I seem to remember Sid's crossface looking equally weak back in the day.

the ricky steamboat question reminded me of a question i had - ive read in various places that he finally got (some) control of his name back, but i couldve sworn he's already used that name in the WWE since returning as an agent. I know it was on the website in one of those old "agent confidential" pieces, back in june 06, and i couldve sworn he's been on dvds commenting on the past as ricky steamboat (might be wrong on that one, but the agent confidential one i know im right about). So.....whats going on here?

Ricky and his ex-wife recently came to an agreement where he could use his wrestling name again. I think WWE was cool with using the Ricky Steamboat name in articles on the website or for cameos he made on DVDs, but if they had tried to use it in something that would have drawn money like a wrestling match or a Ricky Steamboat DVD, they could have been open to a lawsuit. I think that's why ROH got away with using his name on their DVDs back in 2004...the beauty of flying under the radar.

and can I say that his real name "Richard Blood" totally kicks ass? i understand why they wouldnt want him as a face using it back in the 80s, but now, it would totally kick ass! hell, dye his hair black and let him have a run as a heel manager. might be hard to do, since he's recognized, but it cant be worse than other crap that makes tv.

"And yes, that probably wouldn't be the best way to carry a blade on you...but legend has it that Randy Savage used to carry his blade inside his wrestling trunks."

Actually, lots of guys still do it (or at the very least, put them down there when done with them). I know I've seen HHH do it post-quad-tear1, as well as other guys. and I'm with you - seems like a bad place to put them.

I love watching old-school guys guest commentate on their matches and act like their blade job wasnt more blatant than a tit job at a west virginia strip club. Best example I can think of this is Sgt. Slaughter. - Manu

Your last comment reminds me of a recent conversation I had at a bar...we were discussing the breasts of another woman in the bar, and I said that they were probably fake, but the more important question was "why would she bother getting a boob job when she's bar hopping in Kentucky?". I mean, I can see it if you're getting into movies or another form of entertainment, but there's just not that much to do with fake boobs in Kentucky. Or West Virginia, for that matter.

"One would think they would have a more effective way of telling the wrestlers
the finish than having Austin run down to the ring a couple of times."

That was so unexpectedly funny. You make me laugh, Mr Cook!

Anyway, just thought I'd mention that Ken Patera certainly does NOT go into the
McDonald's incident that got him locked up in the ROH shoot. On the contrrary,
Gabe asks him about it and he flipped out and started yelling, so Gabe cut the
tape. Clearly it's not something he feels like bringing up in casual
conversation, although I will say that I think he might have been working that
since he seemed to get a little TOO angry in that early 80s WWF, loud yelling
heel way. You know what I mean. Besides, I would imagine that he knew there
was no way he was going to do a shoot interview and have that not come up. - Stuart Carapola

Well, obviously the two pertinent questions for Mr. Patera in any shoot interview would be the McDonald's incident and his involvement with Maccabee Mania & Maccabee Mania 2. I bet Jim Cornette could have got the information out of him.

Question Time!

Whenever Leonard Hayhurst sends a question in, you have to bump him to the top of the line because he's Leonard Hayhurst. It only makes sense.

Have Ric Flair and Nick Bockwinkle ever wrestled each other? I'm thinking those would be some sweet ass matches.

Flair & Bockwinkel wrestled on at least one occasion...it was on January 16, 1986 at the Winnipeg Arena on the AWA's last show in Winnipeg before the WWF took the area over. Don "Cyrus" Callis wrote a column for Slam Wrestling talking about a match between Flair & Bockwinkel at the Winnipeg Arena that was a 60 minute draw and the best match in the venue's history. Unfortunately he doesn't provide us with a date, but since Bockwinkel was AWA Champion in that match and he wasn't when the January 1986 match took place, it could have been another match. Unfortunately, footage of the match is either lost or non-existant, so it probably won't be popping up on WWE 24/7 any time soon.

Love your column. I remember watching RAW sometime when the WWF became the
WWE and the slogan was "get the F out". What I remember is that Stone Cold
had either no-showed or walked out on Raw and they called the Rock in to cut
a promo. The Rock, who wasn't on TV so much because he was out doing the
Hollywood thing, cut this promo and without saying his name, really laid
into Austin. Can you find that promo and give me a transcript? For whatever
reason, I seem to remember my jaw hitting the floor while watching it and
would love to read it again... Thanks. - Marc Rosario

Here's a transcription courtesy of IWC Legend CRZ's recap of the June 17, 2002 edition of Raw...

"FINALLY the Rock has come back to Oakland! Vince McMahon what's wrong - you look a little surprised. Were you not expecting the Rock? Were you expecting Steve Austin? Did you think that Steve Austin was just gonna walk down that ramp? Is that what you thought?" "As a matter of fact--" "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU THOUGHT! Because you see, what you're bound to realise - it was NOT Stone Cold Steve Austin that came walkin' down that ramp, no no no, it was the living full Brahma bull, jabrone eatin', pie, beatin', eatin', the Rock says, he's walking fast, whoopin' ass, People's Champ THE ROCK!" "Rock E!" "And seein' as the Rock is the People's Champ, and he came out here to address the People, and only the People, you've got fifteen seconds to get out of this ring starting now - 1..." and he uses fingers to help the crowd pick up the count. Vince hightails it, leaving his beer behind. "Oh, and before you leave - take this with you." And he hurls it at him - ah, surely THERE'S the symbolism. Vince gone, it's the Rock...and you. "Now we all know that the Rock's supposed to be on SmackDown!, we all know that the Rock wasn't supposed to return until next month - but considering what happened last week, The Rock'll be damned if he didn't come here at the very first opportunity he had and speak to each and every single one of you, LIVE. Okay, five years ago when The Rock first walked into this company, he had one idea - ONE idea and that idea was really simple, and that was just to become the absolute BEST this industry had ever seen. And I will continue to work my ass off to make sure that happens. Because you see, the Rock says this: that very same passion, that very same fire that I have in my eyes is the very same fire that I see every time I walk in the back of that locker room - every single time I walk into a RAW locker room, every single time I step into a SmackDown! locker room, all those guys are here because they *want* to be here. Everyone on SmackDown!, all those guys on SmackDown!, they are there because they want to be there, they get in this ring, they bust their ass, you love them for that, and they do it because they love to do it. So The Rock says this: if there is anybody in the back, I swear to God, I honestly mean this, if there's anybody in the back that does not wanta be with this company, if there's anyone on SmackDown! that does not wanta be with this company, then just like the slogan says, YOU get the F out! And you see, Vince McMahon, if you're really serious about movin' on, well The Rock'll do you one better. Not only does The Rock wanta move on but he wants to move up. So The Rock'll tell ya what: The Rock is scheduled to return July 11th on SmackDown! but guess what, newsflash, change of plans, this Sunday, the Rock: King of the Ring.This is really simple. I've got WWE in my blood. The Rock was BORN WWE. The Rock goes back - history with the WWE. With the Rock - you know, it's really simple, like this - fifty years from now, when the Rock is eighty years old, when he's gotta put in the People's Dentures, he's gotta use the People's Walker to come WALKIN' down that ramp, just like that. The Rock will still step right in the middle of this ring and say '(old man voice) just bring it.' The Rock has WWE in his blood. From his late grandfather, my grandfater, the late High Chief Peter Maivia who started his career right here in the Bay Area...to my dad, my dad 'Soul Man' Rocky Johnson, all the way down to the Most Electrifying Man in Sports & Entertainment. The fact of the matter is this: Austin can take his ball and go home - but as far as The Rock is concerned, as far as I'm concerned...this - THIS IS HOME...IF YA SUH-MELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL WHAT THE ROCK IS COOKIN'."

I was thinking the other day about that One Legged wrestler Zack Gowen (hope that's his name)

Am I right in thinking that if he was to participate in the Royal Rumble he could never lose,, (due to both feet having to touch the ground)???????

Lets hope Heather Mills doesn't make her way into the Rumble!! - Savva

I think Gowen would be out when his foot touched the ground...he participated in at least one battle royal that I can think of, an X-Division Gauntlet at a TNA PPV, and he was declared eliminated when he hit the ground. He might be able to take legal action saying that the "both feet must touch the ground" rule can't possibly apply to him, but I don't see that going anywhere.

The last answer you gave last week brought up a question for me. My first memory of Heyman and Cornette were as managers and my first memory of Bischoff was as an announcer. What positions did they occupy before that?" - Billy, Wichita Falls, Texas

Heyman & Cornette both started out as ringside photographers, Heyman in the WWWF & Cornette in Memphis. I remember hearing or reading that Heyman spent some time working as an intern at Pro Wrestling Illustrated, but can't find any evidence of that in front of me at the moment. I'm pretty sure that's true though. Bischoff started out as an announcer and syndicator for the AWA.

What are the names of the two japaneese wrestlers that are featured in ICP's "Stranglemania?" The names used on the tape are "Lama Nama Numee" and "Deadly Fred."

Also, if you are familiar with the tape, what are your personal opinions of it? Thanks. - Travis Smith

Oddly enough, though I own several ICP albums and have been to two of their concerts, I have never seen the Stranglemania tape. If there are any Juggalos out there with this information, it'd be greatly appreciated...

During the period of a little of before the invasion and through i didn't watch much wrestling but when I did I noticed raven was used poorly. Was this because Vince didn't like him or were they having problems, because raven was a big part of ECW and he never got a big push in WWE. - Brandon

Well, Raven said in a shoot interview that when Vince saw him in the WWE locker room right after he got re-hired, he asked "Who the fuck hired Raven?". I think that pretty much answers your question.

I have a question about wrestling attire that I've been curious about. I
noticed when Shawn Michaels used to wear tights instead of those ugly
ass pants, that he would wear the long tights, and then a separate pair
of brief-like trunks over top. Its is noticeable during his Hell in a
Cell match against 'Taker when Taker pulls down the trunk and you can
see the plain area of his tights. He also removed the trunks after his
1996 Royal Rumble win. And there is a video of him pulling up the second
layer that was towards the beginning of his career retrospective that
was shown prior to WrestleMania 21 and is an extra on the WrestleMania
21 DVD. I noticed that Eric Young had the same thing going on during an
episode of IMPACT. My question is what is the purpose of the dual
trunks? Thanks. - Matt Rawlik

I would speculate that the main purpose of wearing another set of trunks underneath your regular trunks would be for comfort reasons, or to keep from exposing yourself on a rollup or something. It also probably keeps you from having the old carpenter syndrome, where your buttcrack's hanging out whenever you bend over. And it's never the people you want to see that have that going on, trust me.

I know that when Johnny Nitro first appeared on the WWE scene , he was with
Eric Bischoff. But didn't he use a different name then. This was before he was
sent back to OVW and became part of MNM.

And it also seemed as though he premiered with one name and then changed the
next week also.

Which brings up another point...............why did Kennedy change from
Anderson? - Danny

Nitro was originally known as Johnny Blaze, which was changed to Johnny Spade and eventually Johnny Nitro in reference to the WCW show that Bischoff created. I'm not sure why he kept changing his name other than it might have been a joke.

Ken Anderson changed his last name to Kennedy because wrestling already has enough Andersons and he didn't want to be compared to that group. Also, I think there's a law that anybody with the last name Anderson in wrestling has to be at least balding, and he hasn't gotten to that point yet. The name Kennedy was chosen because it's Vince McMahon's middle name.

I was watching raw during the falls count anywhere match between Melina and Mickie James and either the King or J.R. said it was the first falls count anywhere match for the Women's Championship. I thought that there was one between Ivory and someone else or was that a hardcore match? - Brandon

Ivory defended the Women's title in at least three hardcore matches...one with Tori and two with Luna Vachon in September & November 1999. I did not see any Women's title matches officially listed as "falls count anywhere", though there have been street fights and matches in various foods and liquids where falls could presumably count anywhere.

Hey, I tried my best to figure this out, but I couldn't find anything on the current whereabouts of Chris Chetti. I doubt many people remember him, but he's Taz's cousin and he was in ECW. He was teamed with NOVA for a while and he had a pretty impressive arsenal of moves. Last I heard he was in the old XPW. Any clues as to whether or not he's still wrestling? - Paul

The most recent appearance of Chetti that I can find is in NYWC, where he won a Tag Team Gauntlet in 2004. Nothing since then though, so I'll open that one up to you guys.

Luke brings us two questions all the way from New Zealand...

1) What is your view on so many wrestlers in a promotion having been previous World champions? I remember back in mid/late '97 or so the WWF/E had Bret Hart, Undertaker and Shawn Michaels as former champions. Now Smackdown has Chris Benoit, Batista, King Booker, Rey Mysterio, The Undertaker and Kane as former World Champions while Raw has Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Randy Orton, Edge, John Cena, and Ric Flair, TNA also has many former champions on the roster. I feel that it takes something away from the title when there are so many former champions and remeber it menaing much more when a title changed hands back in '97 and '98. Do you think there should be more former champions with many of them only having one or two reigns or only a few former champions who have multiple reigns?

I have to disagree with your take on it...personally I would prefer to see more former champions with not very many reigns per person. First of all, it indicates that the competition in the promotion is at an equal level, and that anybody on any given night is capable of winning the title. When one or two guys dominate the world title scene, you start to think that nobody on the outside has a chance of beating them. If you have more guys on your roster that have been champions, that gives your promotion's roster more credibility than if you just have a select few hold titles while everybody else chases after them. In TNA's case, sure, there are a few guys with title reigns on the roster, but there's one guy who's held the title six times and there are only three other guys with two or more. So they've also had the problem of one guy dominating the title scene and making the rest of the roster look bad. I think parity is the way to go, unless you've got a guy like Ric Flair in his prime that can make his opponents look great and still manage to keep the title away from them.

2) Coming from New Zealand I'm curious as to how your average American wrestling fan views wrestlers from this country. Did the Bushwackers create a horrible expectation of how a New Zealand wrestler will act or does another stereotype exist? Also, what type of a wrestler was Tony Gaera (I've read that he was from New Zealand).

Honestly, I don't think we've seen enough wrestlers from New Zealand in recent years to form an opinion one way or the other. Yes, the Bushwhackers were kinda embarassing, but I don't think that most wrestling fans think that all people from New Zealand act that way. Garea was a noted tag team wrestler, holding the WWWF tag team titles on 5 different occasions with 4 different partners. I haven't seen too much of him in his prime...mostly I've just seen the later stages of his career where he was jobbing for all the WWF heels. He seemed decent enough at the technical side of wrestling, but nothing to write home about.

My question is, what exactly is the difference between a booker,
an agent, and a writer?
Seems like everytime I think I have it figured out, someone drops a term like
"booker" in a spot where I would have thought it was a writers job. Help?!? - dmak

Booker - The booker puts the matches together, decides who will win, how long it will go, and sets the storyline that the match is based around.

Agent - Agents relay instructions from the booker to the wrestlers involved in the matches, and help the wrestlers come up with ways to work the match that will fit what the booker wants.

Writer - Writers tend to work more in groups than bookers do...the head writer has the powers of a booker, but they generally seem to run shows that are less wrestling oriented. Writer is basically a more modern or general term for "booker", but people from the old school generally dislike the term because it's associated with the WWF/E's brand of sports entertainment.

Since I live in Sweden and haven't kept track of the WWF since I was a kid (and started following it again a few years ago) I have some pretty big gaps in my knowledge of WWE matters. I'm wondering, and I know that this is a highly subjective question but I'm interested in your opinion at least: Who's been the least over WWF/E champion over the years? I mean knowing Vince's ego there must have been cases where he would try to push someone even to the extent of giving them the belt and the fans still not having any of it. Right? - Viktor

Good question. In recent years, I would have to go with Big Show...both times that he won the WWE title at Survivor Series 1999 & Survivor Series 2002, it wasn't really expected and people didn't really think he deserved it. Show's 1999 title reign was pretty much treated as an afterthought, as he defended in the mid-card against guys like Big Bossman & Hardcore Holly while Triple H & Vince McMahon were main eventing. That title reign was also hurt by the fact that just before winning the title Show had been in a "memorable" feud with Big Bossman that didn't do much to help either guy's status as a contender, and he won the title by getting thrown into a 3-way with Rock & Triple H for no real reason. It just didn't work very well. Heck, Show's ECW title reign didn't exactly set the world on fire either.

Bob Backlund's never-ending title reign in the late 70s and early 80s met a lot of detractors as well, as some thought he was too bland to draw serious money. I think he started out all right, but as the reign got longer and longer, people were ready for a change and Vince Sr. didn't want to give it to them, so Backlund lost a lot of his overness with the fans. He regained it in the mid 90s working the Mr. Backlund gimmick that really got under peoples' skin.

Kevin "Diesel" Nash's title reign coincided with the WWF losing a lot of its popularity in the mid-90s, but I think that really had more to do with the fact that they had him facing slugs like Sid & Mabel than anything he did. That being said, his title reign should have been a lot shorter than it was, and everybody knew it.

Is it true that Randy Savage was in talks with the WWE after Haloween Havoc 96 was even rumored to appear at the Royal Rumble as a surprise entrant in 97? But appear in Nitro the next after the Rumble to everyone surprise. - Conor O'Boyle

I believe that is at least partially true...Savage's deal with WCW expired after Halloween Havoc 1996 and he did have talks with the WWF about returning. But this was during the time where Vince McMahon was afraid of going out of business, and he did not have the money that Savage was asking for. So he went back to WCW in January 1997. I don't remember the Royal Rumble rumors, but it sounds like something that the Internet would make up and speculate about.

Our friend John Bryant has two questions...

Yo Cooklyn my Question invovles one Member of LAX, not Homicide but Hernandez. is it true or false that Hernandez was trained at the Shawn Michaels Wrestling Academy or is that just false because every page i've read has listed him as a student of HBK/SMWA and I keep getting told it's false. please clear this matter up

Hernandez was trained at the Texas Wrestling Academy that was run by Shawn Michaels, with the head trainer being Rudy Boy Gonzalez. You can see him very early on in his career with other TWA students on early Ring of Honor shows. Whoever said that is false is wrong.

Also what is the difference between a Frankensteiner and a Hurracanrana?

A Hurricanrana ends in a pinning combination while a Frankensteiner does not. You will often hear Frankensteiners referred to as Hurricanranas all the time because "Hurricanrana" is more fun for the announcer to say.

I always wanted to know if wrestlers are told what moves to do like how Batista
uses the spinebuster and how The Rock uses the spinebuster and Stone Cold using
that Lou Thes press. Not like their finisher, but moves they use in almost all
their matches or do they do the moves they want? Oh and my brother always says
that no matter who it is that all the wrestlers take steroids like even small
guys, so what are your thoughts on that? I told him about the wellness thing and
i disagree with him every time except with dudes like Masters. Thanks - hiphopshuvit

Wrestlers certainly receive advice from other people on moves they should use, but usually they start doing a move because they want to do it. Whether the move gets over or not decides whether they keep using it. In the case of the spinebuster, there was a period in 2002-03 or so where every single WWE main event wrestler (and most of the mid-carders) used the spinebuster. That could be explained by the fact that Arn Anderson was on the staff.

And no, not ALL wrestlers take steroids. But a good portion of the ones on TV have...and that certainly includes small guys like Rey Mysterio.

Hey. I read a while back that some mid-card WWE wrestlers wanted the current IC title switched back to the old school IC belt, because it holds more prestige. My question to you is, why doesn't WWE do that? I mean, the current IC belt looks like a damn egg, while the original belt is quite lovely. What do you think? - Mike Doro

I used to think the new IC belt was pretty lame when they replaced the old version with it, but eventually it grew on me and I think the fact that the old belt holds more "prestige" has more to do with how the booking of the Intercontinental Title has changed over the years. You can change the belt back, but it's not going to make it any more important. I mean, if the importance of a title depended on how pretty it looked, who the hell would go after John Cena and his WWE title belt?

I recently was reading the match listing for the Royal Rumble Anthology and saw "Ultimate Warrior vs Sgt Slaughter (Title change)" which of course set up Hulk Hogan vs Sgt Slaughter @ WM 7. It got me thinking two things
1)Was the title change just to set up the WM match or were they disappointed in Warrior's reign that they ended it then? Because he didnt even get a full year (from WM 6 to 7). And

2)I know the whole Iraq War was the backdrop for the match but wouldnt Warrior-Hogan 2 been the BIGGEST match ever at that point? And trying to sell out the LA Colisium that wouldve been right up there with Hogan-Andre. I mean think about it...Hogan loses to Warrior at the Skydome in front of 67,000+. Warrior keeps the title for a year and then Hogan wins the Rumble to setup the dream rematch. Sounds like money to me. So my two questions are

1) Were they disappointed in Warrior's reign and ended it abruptly with the Rumble loss?

2) Besides the Iraq War was their any other reason they didnt book Hogan-Warrior 2 with Hogan getting his win back? - Steve D.

1. I don't know if the ending was abrupt or not...Warrior was not the draw that Hulk Hogan was, and since the WWF suits were hoping that he would be, obviously they were disappointed. Their expectations for Warrior might have been a little bit too high.

2. I think the WWF brass really thought that their angle with Sgt. Slaughter joining up with the Iraqis would set the world on fire...they fully expected to draw a big crowd at the Coliseum based on good ol' American jingoism. Obviously that didn't happen. That being said, I think Hogan vs. Slaughter was a better way to go than Hogan vs. Warrior 2...for one thing, sequels generally don't do as well as the original, and it was a miracle that Hogan & Warrior had a good match the first time. Their eventual second match that took place in WCW eight years later was a complete disaster. Also, it led to Warrior's greatest match ever, his match with Randy Savage at WM VII.

And here's the immortal Manu Bumb to close things out this week...

so i saw a commercial for Korn Unplugged in between episodes of WSX tonight, and saw a guy in a pig mask, and i remembered back when fozzy appeared on Raw, a guy in a pig mask introduced them - was this the same guy?

yeah, i know, weak link to wrestling, but its probably not the weakest link youve seen....right?

No sir...YOU are the weakest link. Goodbye. Seriously though, Arthur from Fozzy has a Myspace page...I haven't seen the Korn Unplugged because I generally don't watch MTV unless I'm dying of boredom, but that's what he looks like.

Who was the masked chick in WSX that helped out vic grimes and....the other guy?

I missed the big ol' WSX marathon, but Csonka's recap tells me that the masked chick was Sara Del Rey. Del Rey is an accomplished wrestler that has so far probably achieved her biggest fame working in the SHIMMER promotion. She won ObsessedWithWrestling's award for Best Women's Wrestler in 2006, which is quite the feat considering that JT stuffed the ballot box for Stacy Keibler. Never mind the fact that Stacy didn't wrestle in 2006...JT's just weird like that. Back to Sara...she has also appeared on several ROH shows, including one I went to in Dayton...

*makes sure Ms. Brooks isn't reading this*

and yeah, she's a total cutie. Too bad she'd probably kick my ass if I tried anything. Not that I wouldn't like it...but WE'RE OUTTA TIME! Send all questions to [e-mail], and until next week...keep your stick on the ice.