Ask 411 Wrestling 07.18.07: Shooters, Schiavone, Worst Match Ever and More!
Posted by Steve Cook on 07.18.2007
I ran out of S words for the title. Well, S words that Larry would let me use in the title anyway...
It's time to Ask 411 Wrestling! I'm Steve Cook, and as you read this, I'm most likely in the Windy City of Chicago, watching the Chicago Cubs take on the San Francisco Giants from a rooftop behind Wrigley Field! 46 e-mails sit in the in-box, and yours can join them if you wish. I enjoy getting e-mail because it makes me feel like I almost have a social life. You wouldn't take that away from me, would you?
Eh?
Lots of feedback and questions to get to this week, so let's get right to business.
Comments, Corrections & other "C" Words
Ok, the question about people who have remained babyface or heel their whole career brings to mind one person for me, other than the two previous mentions: Rey Misterio Jr. I'm not entirely sure about his run in Mexico, but I think every since being in the States he has been babyface. Honesty, I don't think a guy he's size can get over as anything other than the high-flying underdog. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm like 95% sure he's always been a good guy. And I mean in kayfabe land obviously, since the IWC started booing him after WM22. - Aaron Hubbard
Mysterio was briefly a heel as part of the Filthy Animals in WCW in late 1999. It didn't really get over, but the heelish intentions were there. They buried Ric Flair in a desert!
I just wanted to comment on the question of the 6
sided ring, If I'm not mistaken it was debuted at the
same time as TNA's debut on Fox sports, although some
time prior to that, TNA wrestlers had been and
continue to tour Mexico, (which they actually
currently have a stable named "La Ligion Extranjera"
loosely translated to the "Foriegn Legion" FYI)
anyways, I just wanted to point out that AAA
implemented the 6 sided wrestling ring long before TNA
did. RIP Antonio Pena. -Francisco
Hey Steve,
This is Al Alven, staff writer for Pro Wrestling Illustrated magazine. I'm a longtime reader and fan of your work. You do a great job with the 'Ask 411' feature. It's always informative and very entertaining reading; keep it up, bro!
With regard to the question about the meaning of the term '4-Up' Elijah Burke writes on his wristbands, it is a reference to his pugalistic ability/days as an amateur boxer. Basically, the term '4-Up' is short for 'four upside your head,' as in 'four knuckles.' I'm not sure whether Burke himself coined the phrase or not, but that's what it means.
I hope this helps! - Al Alven
Lots and lots and lots of people responded to this question, more than any question in the history of Ask 411! Well, I don't know about the entire history of Ask 411, but certainly more than any question in one of my editions of the column. Bravo to all of you that responded. I also liked Al Fucsko's answer that it might have had something to do with Super Mario Brothers, but alas, it's the boxing thing.
As to why I chose that response? Well, I'm a PWI mark from back in the 90s, and I'm wondering if Al Alven is actually his real name. Say hi to Matt Brock for me, Al!
And to some people who were wondering...no, I don't watch ECW. I gave up on the show once the new season of Boston Legal started back in September, and I haven't really seen any reason to watch it since then.
The reason the WWE stopped using the Badd Blood name for PPVs was because Brian Pillman died previous to the 1997 Badd Blood. Out of respect they changed the name the following year. The name wasn't used again until 2003, but only lasted through 2004 as ECW One Night Stand took its place the following year.
In regards to Matt Hardy's Angelic Diablo gimmick - it was something of a Punisher-type gimmick, where he was supposed to be a vigilante, a renegade that stood up for the little guy. His "The Scar will be a symbol…" catch phrase also had a double meaning, as he wasn't just referring to the scar on his knee, but also the scar on his heart from the wrongs that were done to him (awww….).
The "Olympic Slam" was changed to "Angle Slam" by the WWE so they could trademark it. Same thing for the Ankle Lock to Angle Lock, but that one I'd debate because it sometimes sounds like Mike Tenay says "Angle" not ‘ankle'… though his speech could just be slurred. J For obvious reasons, "Olympic Slam" can't be trademarked by the WWE or TNA. - Virgil Wade
"the scar on his heart"....that's the most emo thing I've heard all week.
I remember someone asking about when HHH used the sledge hammer for the first
time and well i came across this video on youtube and you were right he first used it when
he hit The Rock when he was in the coffin. - hiphopshuvit
I'd like to help with information about the Joey Styles questions about whether he had color commentators. He normally did the shows by himself. There was a rare occasion that Taz did commentary under his real name, and Styles did have color commentators in the latter days of ECW when on TNN, normally Cyrus. He did the first pay per view himself except for the main event for the ECW title when Tommy Dreamer joined him. Later pay per views it was insisted he have color guys. Normally it was Cyrus or Shane Douglas, but in the early days when it was tough to find when it was airing, Styles would do the commentary himself and do a great job.
Also, when speaking of Matt Hardy, his gimmick of Matt Hardy 2.0 was great. May have been one of the better gimmicks of the new millenium. I think they gave up on the Spirit Squad a bit too soon. - Steve from PA
I think you're talking about Matt Hardy Version One, which indeed was a pretty darn good gimmick. I liked the Matt Facts. The Spirit Squad I didn't have much use for...I think they pushed them too hard early on with the never-ending main event feud with DX, and when they couldn't make themselves seem like they were on DX's level, it hurt them a lot. Sure, the booking didn't help, but they weren't ready for that spot.
As far as the question asking why Heenan jumped to WCW...
Heenan has said in his autobiography and in some interviews that it was an opportunity to get closer to home, closer to his daughter who was going to school, easy money and WCW had insurance. Heenan said he had broken his neck in '83 in Japan and he hadn't taken care of it since he didn't have insurance. In WCW he had insurance since he was considered an employee of Turner Broadcasting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO0af7fl-J0 has the interview where he mentions this. It's around the 10:50 mark. - Edgar
I forgot about the insurance part. It's been awhile since I listened to his shoot interview...it's currently in a giant pile of crap in the basement that I really don't want to go through.
On the subject of flag matches, Bret Hart and Bulldog were heels when they beat Vader and The Patriot in a flag match at Bad Blood 97. Manu Bumb and others helped with that information.
Tito was I think very briefly a heel, about five years ago, for I *think* the WWA promotion. I'm not sure which... I think that Jarrett, Steiner, Bret Hart and Nathan Jones all made appearances or wrestled for it, but I might be combining another promotion in there by mistake.
Anyway, I dimly recall reading a recap of one of the events. I think Tito played an on-screen back-stage role, kind of like Jim Cornette does (or did) in TNA. I believe he turned heel in this role, but I don't remember anymore than that. - Andrew
I don't recall Tito appearing in any of the early WWA shows, but I didn't see most of the ones towards the end. I don't see any information confirming this though, so I'm going to need a bit more evidence than that.
Was tommy dreamer ever a heel in ECW?
I don't know if this counts, but during the WCW/ECW angle, wasn't everyone in the "invasion" technically supposed to be heels? - Reichou Shinsake
Technically...but did they really do anything evil? They spent most of the invasion getting their asses kicked if memory serves me correctly. You can get booed without being a heel...just ask John Cena.
Have their been any other instances of one wrestler winning tag titles on his own?
Earlier in '98 Sting beat The Giant for the WCW tag titles after they split up and vacated the titles.
Has a heel ever won a flag match?
I'm pretty sure I remember Team Canada beating either Jim Duggan or the Misfits In Action in a flag match, however I tend to drink a bit... - D
Join the club!
And a quick question: For some reason unbeknownst to me, they have yet to release a Funaki # 1 Announcer Ringer T-shirt. Despite multiple emails to shopzone, I can't even get a reply. If you can pass this on to your readers, maybe we can get a bunch of people harassing shopzone, and hopefully they will consider it. Poor Sho is 39 next month and has been in the company since 1998. The least they can do is give this former cruiserwieght and hardcore champion a t-shirt, like the one featured here: http://www.wwe.com/superstars/smackdown/funaki/photos1/photos/
Thanks a lot bro. - Les Bakker
I have a Kaientai t-shirt from back in the day...it got shrunk in the wash so I cut it up Kaientai style. I had a lot of free time. I'm all for people harassing WWE & ShopZone, so knock yourselves out!
""And I don't think anybody really considers the ECW title to be on the same level as the WWE or World titles because the competition for the ECW title isn't nearly as difficult as the competition for the WWE or World title."
i agree with you, but Lashley went from ECW champ to main eventing 2 ppvs in a row against John Cena. Sure, he didnt/wont win, but thats because no one beats cena, so its not really his fault, nor does it reflect poorly on the ECW title.
So, while I agree with you that the ECW title pales in comparison to the world and wwe titles, at least the WWE seems to actually be taking it seriously (for the first few months, RVD and Big Show were defending it against main event guys...not from ECW, sure, but that should only lessen the brand, not the title itself). Otherwise, Lashley would've picked up his feud with Umaga once moving to Raw.
Its amazing that they think Lashley and Nitro are ready for the title, but god forbid Punk gets it. Granted, he's now WWE-over, as opposed to Heyman-over, so maybe he'll win it soon.
Is the ECW title cursed? RVD won it, got busted, and left the WWE a year later. Big Show won it, and retired when he lost it. Lashley won it, and left ECW when he "lost" it." - Manu Bumb
I think the best evidence of the ECW title being cursed would be the fact that Chris Benoit was going to win it at Vengeance. Lashley's current situation would be the opposite of a curse since he moved up to the A show and is now main-eventing there, even though most of us would argue that he doesn't deserve it. Having guys like Ric Flair & Undertaker challenge Big Show for the ECW title should have made the belt mean more, but on the other hand it showed how weak the rest of the ECW roster was that none of them except maybe Sabu & RVD were worth Big Show's attention. Lashley appearing on Raw every week didn't help ECW look too strong either. When a promotion is weak, who cares who holds their title? That's why the NWA title doesn't mean anything now in spite of how long it's been around. It had some meaning added to it when it was defended on PPV & Spike TV, but now there's a tournament for it in high school gymnasiums featuring a bunch of guys nobody knows or cares about. I'm rambling here, but hopefully there's a point in there somewhere.
Oh, and as far as titles being cursed...the ECW title's got nothing on Smackdown's title.
Questions!
i always knew about David Von Erich's heel run in Florida.Now did Fritz send him there or did David go on his own after an argument with Fritz?How did he turn heel,who did he feud with and what months of 1982 was he there - Wade Hill
David went to Florida in order to test himself against new talent and learn from wrestlers outside his own stomping grounds. I don't think Fritz had a problem with David going there for a little while, at least I haven't seen any evidence that he did. David entered Florida as a protege of the hated Dory Funk Jr. and feuded with Mike Graham, another second-generation wrestler. He spent most of his time there teaming with Dory and would occaisonally cheat to win against guys like Sweet Brown Sugar. Dory turned against David just before his departure, so there was a brief feud with David & the Funk brothers before David headed back to World Class. I believe he entered Florida very late in 1981, and was back in World Class regularly by September 1982.
The shadiest one has two questions for us...
1.) I remember hearing a rumor but i dont remember
where i heard it , the rumor being that when Bill
Goldberg played in the NFL, him & a couple of players
went to a bar and JBL & some other wrestlers were
there and a fight broke out between JBL & Goldberg and
JBL won, have you heard of this?
I have not heard of this, and Google wasn't much help with informing me about this altercation. I'm fairly certain it's just a rumor.
2.) I'm A Big Dean Malenko fan and i love the
cruiserweight matches he had in WCW and i've seen some
highlights of a match he had with Liger in japan that
looks great, and i would like to know in what
promotion did he have his best Matches?
Any promotion that wasn't WWE. Seriously though, it's a tossup for me to decide whether Malenko's best matches were in ECW or WCW. In ECW, he had the memorable feud with Eddie Guerrero & tag team matches alongside Chris Benoit against guys like Sabu & Taz. In WCW Malenko had a long run as cruiserweight champion and had memorable matches with Rey Mysterio Jr., Chris Jericho, Eddie, Benoit & many others. I'm inclined to go with his WCW run as being just a little bit better.
I have a vague memory of Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar having a "real" wrestling match backstage many years ago. I also remember tempers flaring as a result. Did this wrestling match ever happen or am I imagining it? - Jesse
I remember Angle telling a story about how Brock challenged him to a "real" match backstage...it was amateur style and according to Angle, he took Brock down and Brock was not happy about it. If tempers flared, it wasn't anything too serious. I believe he wrote about this in his book.
I just got 1 question: When I was watching WCW and WWF back in the late 90's, I always thought that WCW's commentary team was alot stronger than the WWF's. I think it was Mike Tenay, Tony Schiavione and Bobby Heenan. I know Mike commentates for TNA now and, I don't know about you, but frankly Tenay and West's commentary REALLY annoy me, but whatever happened to Schiavione? And is there any reason why Heenan wouldn't do commentary again? I just think that they called matches alot better in my opinion. Appreciate any insight and opinion you can give me :) - Frenzal
Tony is currently doing sports talk radio in Georgia. You can hear him weekdays from 4-6 PM on SportsRadio 1240 AM in the Atlanta area. He co-hosts a show with Gene Anderson...unfortunately I don't think it's the wrestler. He's also the sports director for WSB AM and appears on their airwaves every morning with sports news. He also does some work on the University of Georgia and Atlanta Braves radio telecasts. He seems to be doing pretty well for himself.
As for Heenan, I don't think his voice could hold up well enough to commentate a wrestling show these days. He did survive throat cancer, but it took quite a toll on his voice. Still a funny SOB, no doubt about it, but sometimes it's hard to understand what he's saying. It wouldn't work, though I wouldn't mind seeing him around more often than he is now.
Kevin has a couple of questions...
What is the Million Dollar Man up to? Last I heard, he quit the WWE then I hear he was backstage at the Raw after Benoit's death. What's the WWE going to do now that the "Who Killed Mr. McMahon" angle is blown out of the water with his appearances on Raw and ECW? Do you think anyone will trust the WWE again? I personally preferred the all wrestling and no angle shows.
Right now he's making the rounds on all the cable news shows and trying to get his kid a job with WWE by kissing their ass. As for what WWE's going to do as far as a "main storyline" goes, I don't see them coming up with anything too huge for the summer months. They're gonna push Triple H's return pretty hard on Raw, probably lots of stuff with Cena & Lashley too. Smackdown will probably feature...well, I don't want to spoil things, but it doesn't look like anything good. And ECW is pretty much the Nit-errrr...Morrison & Punk show these days. I don't think you're going to see anything spanning all three shows or anything too "shocking" as far as angles go because WWE has to be really careful about what kind of stuff they televise right now. The media is just waiting for them to slip up...it could be any day now.
Did anybody trust WWE to begin with? I think anybody outside the most positive/brainwashed wrestling fans knew that they were a bunch of carny hucksters long before now.
Something to pass along to the 411 techies: ever thought of creating a mobile version of the site?
I don't think that's something in the works...there was talk of some podcasting some months ago and Csonka's allegedly going to do a regular podcast pretty soon, but I don't see 411 Mobile in the immediate future. I'm not sure how all that mobile stuff works...I'm still trying to figure out how to receive calls on my cell phone. It seems like nobody ever calls me, but that can't be right!
I always wondered this. Since Gorilla Monsoon was part owner of the WWWF and also a booker. How come he was never given the belt? Every wrestling booker ever has booked themselves as world champions. - Rey
Gorilla wrestled in the times when Bruno Sammartino would hold the belt for years and it always drew big money and nothing ever needed to change. I don't know if Gorilla ever pushed to have himself as champion or not, but he was the kind of guy who knew that the most important thing was making money. He knew that Bruno was a better draw than he was, and would put more butts in the seats. Business was much more important than ego to him...some bookers would serve themselves well to learn from that.
Did Ms. Elizabeth ever have any children? - Jerry
Elizabeth did not have any children, I presume this is at least partially because she and her long-time husband Randy Savage were on the road all the time wrestling through most of their marriage, and with her serving as Savage's valet, becoming pregnant wouldn't have been good for her career. You generally don't see a lot of the women involved in wrestling having children until their career is over, and Elizabeth was almost always connected to the business somehow throughout her adult life.
TNA is a wrestling company that is slowly creeping up on WWE. Do you think that in the near future (in a year or 2) that there will be a WWE vs. TNA war? I mean Samoa Joe vs. Umaga, and John Cena vs. Jeff Jarrett. That would be great. - Brian
It might be great from a fan standpoint to see the matches you mention there, but it wouldn't be great for wrestling fans that want more than one major wrestling company. If a WWE/TNA storyline war was to happen, it'd probably result from TNA going out of business. I don't expect that to happen in the next year or two, though I'm sure you'll find plenty of "experts" that will tell you that TNA has about three months left.
I dont quite recall many details, but I remember that towards the last incarnation of the 4 horsemen, they were trying to acquire Jeff Jarrett. During this time he wrestled with them etc etc. Later on , I believe after leaving, he made a comment insulting each horsemen. Without naming names, he says he wrestled with a has been (Flair), an ex football player who didnt know how to wrestle(Mongo) and a drug addict( Apparently Benoit). Does anyone remember this or am I on something. - Aldo
I remember Jarrett cutting a promo upon his return to the WWF in October 1997 that openly bashed his time in WCW and his previous stint in the WWF. I believe that's where the statements you cite come from, though it's tough to say if he specifically meant Benoit when he said that he wrestled with a drug addict. Honestly, that statement could cover at least half of WCW's roster at that point.
The more notable aspect of that promo was when he bashed the "Austin 3:16" gimmick as being sacreligious, which led to Steve Austin later refusing to work with Jarrett in a main event program.
When wrestling used to be based on the territory system, there were wrestlers known as "shooters". These shooters would be called in by promoters when one of their workers started developing an attitude problem. Shooters would be booked against these problem workers and either out-wrestle them to the point of exaustion are pound the snot out of them. Harley Race and Brusier Brody were shooters. Do you know of any other notable problem-solver shooters? - David Burcham
Well, Lou Thesz has to be brought up in any conversation about "shooters". The NWA always had shooters as their World Champion back in the day because there was a fear that regional promoters would try to have their top guy shoot on the champ and wrest the title away for the regional promotion. I can tell you about some more recent shooters...Bradshaw & Faarooq's roles as "guys WWF had rough up people that were causing problems backstage during matches" was pretty well known. I think Hardcore Holly has tried to fill this role in the past, with mixed results. His attempt to shoot on Brock Lesnar didn't go very well, as Holly got dropped on his head when he tried to keep Brock from powerbombing him. Kurt Angle was considered to be the toughest shooter in WWE during his time there...despite his injury problems in recent years he would probably still rank pretty far up there.
Rob has a couple of questions...
Firstly in the old ECW, Taz had the catchphrase "See you on the 13th", what does that mean?
13 was a number that Taz associated with himself and has as part of one of his tattoos. I think he used it because 13 is thought of as an unlucky number, and Taz figured that his opponents were unlucky to be booked against him.
And secondly, the main difference between WWE and TNA to me seems to be that WWE has a core of 2 or 3 guys they push to the moon, at the moment being Cena, Lashley and Edge. TNA seems afraid to really get behind anyone not named Jeff Jarrett. Do you think TNA needs to take 2 or 3 wrestlers and really push them hard? - Rob
I think TNA is getting better at pushing guys not named Jeff Jarrett. Christian Cage has still yet to suffer a pinfall loss in TNA. Kurt Angle's had a couple bumps in the road but is now on top as their champion. Samoa Joe has the X division and tag team titles right now, so no matter what jilted indy wrestling fans will tell you, for the most part they're giving Joe the ball to run with. Sting's push has been pretty strong since he entered TNA. I think if TNA does have a problem as far as pushing guys to the moon goes, they tend to rely too much on guys who are already established due to their stints in WWE or WCW, and seem afraid to really get behind anybody that they developed themselves. AJ Styles has held more championships in TNA than just about anybody, but right now he's Christian's lackey.
I think TNA has been much better at pushing "new" talent lately, but I reckon we'll have to wait until Jarrett returns to see if they're really serious about it. He did put over Robert Roode on a PPV, so he seems open to putting new talent over. Too bad they wasted Roode in the weeks afterwards by continuing his never-ending feud with Eric Young, so basically everybody's forgotten that he beat Jarrett.
1) Where is Armando Alejandro Estrada? He's been missing since he got beat up by Lashley. Although, I'm pretty sure I saw him amongst the superstars on the draft episode of Raw, when Mr. McMahon was walking to his limo.
I just saw Armando the other night on the Ohio Valley Wrestling television show, he was hosting a segment with the OVW ladies using "Your Mama" jokes on each other. I figure he's doing all right because I'd rather associate with the OVW ladies than Umaga.
2) Isn't that DDT-like move that Edge uses called 'The Edgecution'? If it is, then why does J.R. insist on calling it the 'Impaler'? I've only heard him call it the Edgecution once (During the Elimination Chamber at New Years Revolution 2005). - Paul Quinn
The Impaler was the name that Gangrel used for the move when he used it as his finisher in the WWF. Edge took the move after his former rival/friend left the promotion and did call it the Edgecution. JR probably forgot about that or didn't watch Smackdown when Edge was there in 2002 using the move, and calls it the Impaler because that's what he knows it as. Or maybe he just thinks "Edgecution" is a dumb name. That's a possibility.
A comment and a question - the former dealing with diet soda!
I too would to know the explanation (if any) as to why diet soda no longer tastes as horrible as it used to. In my younger and more formative years (i.e. 4 years ago), I worked in a kitchen where the only beverage available to those under 21 was diet soda. After destroying my taste buds with it for a month, I suddenly realized not only that diet soda wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered but also that regular soda tasted sweet to the point of absurdity.
Now, the question. I remember an incident in WCW where a fan nailed Scott Hall's head dead-on with a full cup of arena swill. He responded with something like "the hair's still perfect." Do you remember when this happened and what the details were? Obscure, to be certain! - Matt
I will include any comments putting over diet soda.
Unfortunately I don't remember the incident you mention, but it doesn't surprise me that Hall's hair would remain intact despite being drenched with beer. Hall always had nice hair back in the day. The Hector "Macho" Camacho single hair hanging in the front was always a nice touch. Unfortunately it's gone to crap (with the rest of his body) since he decided to dye it blond.
Francisco has five questions...
1. Hulk Hogan in the U.S, El Santo in Mexico, and
Antonio Inoki in Japan. All huge in their respective
countries, but who do you think is actually bigger,
better wrestler, etc.
As far as who would be the better wrestler, I've never seen Santo wrestle. So coming down to Hogan & Inoki...I'd actually have to give the edge to Hogan on that one. What I've seen of Inkoi has mostly been dreadful, I've actually seen Hogan have some good matches. Not anytime in the last nine years or so, but still. Who's the bigger deal in their country? That really is a toss-up. I think Hogan ranks below Santo & Inoki there because wrestling isn't as "geeky" over in Mexico & Japan. Inoki is a cultural icon in Japan, but I think El Santo might be even more so in Mexico. I'm probably going to start quite the debate here, but I'll go with El Santo as being the biggest star in his country out of these three.
2. Pro wrestling started out as a sideshow, evolved to
a sport of sorts, then family entertainment with Vince
Jr., to a phenom with the attitude era. Now it's
debatable, what do you think the next step is? Do we
go back to pro wrestling as a sport due to ROH and
TNA's style?
Terry Funk has postulated the theory of wrestling going back to a sport, but not so much to do with ROH & TNA as with mixed martial-arts. UFC and other fighting groups find it much easier to suspend disbelief than wrestling promotions do, because what they do is real. If wrestling wants to be able to suspend disbelief again, the best way to do that would be to push the "wrestling as a sport" thing. I think that's the way things will go, though I don't know if it'll be very appealing to the casual wrestling fans out there. As long as they have some entertaining characters, I think you can get them to watch.
3. Sunny has been rumored to have slept with both Bret
Hart and Shawn Michaels, but wasn't she married or in
a relationship with Candido at the time? Anybody else
who has experienced "Sunny Days" as Shawn Michaels put
it?
Chris Candido & Tammy Sytch were never officially married. I believe they split up for a time while they were in the WWF, but got back together eventually and remained that way until Candido's death. Tammy did confirm her relationship with Michaels, but I don't believe she has said she had one with Bret. As a general rule, I try to avoid making long lists of wrestlers that valets have slept with. I realize that sort of thing is interesting to a lot of you, but I strongly believe that personal business should remain personal business.
4. What wrestler's have benifitted more from
performing in other countries, or are "bigger" than
they are in the U.S. for example, Stan Hanson was huge
in Japan, Konnan is huge in Mexico, and one of my
favorites Dr. Wagner Jr. is apparently like the
terminator in Japan.
There have been quite a few Americans that have found success in Japan. Scott Norton comes to mind as a guy that couldn't get over in America but got over huge in Japan. More recently, Giant "A-Train" Bernard is a top competitor in Japan that never really got over that big in WWE. Japanese audiences love big scary American wrestlers. British wrestlers generally go to other countries in order to find more success and make more money. I think all Canadian wrestlers are most beloved in Canada no matter what fame they find elsewhere.
5. Finally, Vince Russo to wrestling fans seems to be
like the Olive Garden to native Italians, yet at one
point he seemed to have all the right moves. What
caused him to become Satan in the eyes of many? What
were some of his "good" contributions? and any
background info on him.
Vince Russo started out co-hosting a wrestling radio show in the Northeast...somebody in the WWF heard him on there and offered him a job. He wrote WWF Magazine for awhile, until Vince McMahon decided that he liked what Russo was doing in the magazine and offered him a spot on the creative team. The rest is internet history...he had some good contributions during his time in the WWF, and ratings went through the roof. but it's tough to say whether they can soley be credited to him or not. What can be said is that when Russo went to WCW and no longer had McMahon to edit out his bad ideas, WCW went into the shitter. I think that contributed a lot to the hatred of him, along with his abrasive personality back in the day and some controversial statements about how he didn't care about foreign wrestlers and nobody wanted to see them. Russo's time in TNA has been somewhat mixed, but again, it's tough to say which ideas are his and which aren't. People blamed him for a crappy Sting/Abyss match, but apparently that whole feud was Dutch Mantel's idea. Simply put, Russo makes a fun scapegoat.
In your opinion, what is the worst wrestling match you've ever seen? Im not talking about gimmicky bad like Fake Trump versus Fake Rosey O'Donnell cause everybody knows thats just for laughs but what is the worst match youve seen with real wrestlers? - Joel
I'm going to go with Sabu vs. Terry Funk from XPW's Go Funk Yourself show. I have probably seen worse displays of wrestling, but I never thought that Sabu & Funk could have as bad of a match as they did on that show. Check it out on YouTube and see what I mean. Horrendous.
Red has a couple of questions...
Had a couple of quick questions if you have the time: First, what was the WWF's TV taping schedule like in the mid-80's, right around Wrestlemania I, but before they traveled nationwide and taped several weeks? I know they used to do tapings at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center in Poughkeepsie, but did they go there once a month and tape 4 shows? Perhaps more than 4 shows? I went to school at Marist which is in Poughkeepsie, and it's always interested me that if you lived there how much WWF history you got to see.
From what I can tell, the WWF generally did three weeks of TV tapings at a time early in 1984...the tapings for Championship Wrestling and All-Star Wrestling were held in Allentown, PA & Hamburg, PA. This appears to have been the pattern for the time prior to Vince Jr. expanding the company, going at least back to 1983. Towards the end of 84, they started to do four weeks at a time, and branched out to places like Poughkeepsie, NY, and London & Hamilton in Ontario. This isn't counting MSG shows, Spectrum shows, and shows like Wrestling at the Chase and Maple Leaf Wrestling that they took over during this time. They ran tapings in Poghkeepsie pretty regularly through 1985 and a good portion of 1986 until they started taking the show on the road. I'm pretty sure they came back on a semi-regular basis because I remember episodes of Raw being taped there in the mid to early 90s.
Also, why did Beefcake never break through and win the IC Title? Was it because of Honky's ego and/or threats? Was it because of Beefcake's ego? It just seemed like he was over enough but they never gave him that final nudge as a singles guy when he without Hogan.
I don't remember Beefcake ever really being in the running for the IC title...he contended for it on a couple of occasions, but I don't think they considered putting it on him. His injury issues didn't help, as he missed a shot at Honky Tonk at Summerslam 1988 due to injury, and the parasailing accident in 1990 pretty much ended his career as a serious title threat. Beefcake wasn't a great worker and the WWF probably didn't see him as a draw without Hogan by his side.
I am the Sports Director at a TV-Station in Glens Falls, NY. I've already interviewed Duggan (GF native) and I want to work on a story about the WWF's history at the Glens Falls Civic Center. It was a very big venue for them from the early to late 80's, but eventually fell off the face of WWE's planet after Albany built the Pepsi Arena. I actually advance storylines and do highlights on my sportscast. It's fun stuff.
Did you talk about Hacksaw's new tag team with Sandman? I think that has promise.
Ol' Manu Bumb has a couple of questions...
how many times in TLC matches has Edge gone from the top of the ladder through a table on the floor? I'm watching the ladder match dvd right now, and, without going back and re-watching the matches ive already seen to verify, he usually goes from the top of the ladder into the ropes, not all the way down like matt, bubba, christian, etc. in the ric flair TLC match (from Raleigh ;-) ), he did it, which is what got me thinking, because I don't remember him doing it in the other ones i saw.
I think it was just that one...he had other people to do those kind of bumps in the TLC matches. I haven't seen the Cena one in awhile, he could have done it in that one too. I'm sure somebody will tell me if he did or not.
again, watching the ladder match dvd, and it occurred to me that edge has held - WWE championship, World Championship, WWE tag team championship (with rey), World tag team championship, IC title, US title) - who else has held all 6 of the main belts (im excluding ECW for now, until it proves it'll stick around, and not including defunct titles like euro or hardcore, and no one counts the womens or CW titles as real, so why should I?)? - Manu Bumb
I'm pretty sure that Edge is the only guy to do that. Which is amazing since I still don't really think of the guy as a legend or anything like that. That either says that I'm overlooking Edge or that titles just don't mean what they used to. Maybe it's a little bit of both.
I'd like to know why WCW always had such a small ring compared to the WWF wrestling ring. When I started getting fed up with WWF back in the days of King Mabel, Diesel, etc., I gave WCW a try, and I always thought the shows seemed a little small-time, because of the small ring. Later, when WCW Nitro was beating Raw for 80 weeks straight or whatever it was, and everybody was making huge salaries, the ring still looked small to me. Maybe it was the lighting, I don't know. It seemed to take some of the drama out of a tag match when it looked like Kevin Nash could walk across the mat in two steps and slug the other team. I guess my questions are; was the WCW ring indeed tiny, and if so, why did they do that? - Chris McCue, Ottawa, Ontario
The WCW ring measured at 18X18, while the WWF ring was 20X20. I'm not sure if there's a great reason for that other than "that's just the way it was", but one good business reason to do it is that you can fit a few more seats on the floor.
Arturo Vandelay has one of the cooler names I've seen on the Interweb...
Hi, I have some questions on a couple random wrestling topics for the Ask 411 Wrestling column. I am in my twenties now but I have been watching wrestling since 1999 when the Rock and Stone Cold were on fire and I couldn't go a day in high school without hearing a catchphrase or a reference to last night's show. I still watch the shows now, but I also read these websites on a daily basis, so I feel like I get a different perspective on the whole deal.
My first question is: What was the feeling in the "internet wrestling community" about the Rock during his career? I remember watching the shows and feeling like this was a guy who could do no wrong, but I didn't know then what I know now about work ethic and ring ability, so I'm fearful that I was just too young and naive to see that I was cheering for the samoan John Cena. And what's the general opinion of the guy now-- is he a sellout or not?
There were a lot of Rock-haters online. People bitched that he couldn't do awesome moves, that his Sharpshooter looked horrible, that his promos were soooooooooooo immature. There were people that liked Rock and thought he got a bad rap from the people bitching about him. I don't think Rock was as despised online as Cena is. In fact, some will tell you that Cena is a poor man's Rock.
Nowadays, I think most people have come around on Rocky and realized that he wasn't so bad. There are people out there that think he's a sellout, but you'll see a lot more people saying that they wish that he would come back. Don't consider yourself naive for being a fan of the Rock...every single smart mark internet wrestling fan had favorites when they first became fans that they wouldn't dare talk about now because they didn't have WORKRATE~!
My second question involves a discussion I had with a friend about the WWE in the past ten years. I have been a fan for a majority of these years and I have seen a lot of really big names in the wrestling business come and go through the company, but what kind of shape would we be in today if all of those names had stuck around? If you had to draft a fantasy roster of wrestlers who had been in the company since 1997, who would they be? Stipulations- six main eventers, six midcarders, and four tag teams.
I picked: The Rock, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Kurt Angle, and the Undertaker; Rob Van Dam, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Owen Hart, and Rey Mysterio; Edge and Christian, Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy, Brian Kendrick and Paul London, and Road Dogg and Billy Gunn.
Assuming all of these guys would be in their primes?
Main eventers: Steve Austin, The Rock, Mick Foley, Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart
Mid-carders: Chris Jericho, Jeff Jarrett, Rey Mysterio, The Godfather, Finlay, Ric Flair
Jarrett was a damn good heel during his later run in the WWF. Why Godfather? The motherfucker was over like rover and just plain fun, you gotta have a guy like that around.
Tag Teams: Los Guerreros, Edge & Christian, Dudley Boys, New Age Outlaws
Yeah, I cheated so I wouldn't have to list some of these guys as singles wrestlers. What about it?
My third and final question is about the professional wrestling industry itself: How does a company like the WWE or TNA hire its writers? For all the criticism I hear on the internet about the people who write the shows, I hear very little about who these people actually are. How many writers actually have input on the shows we see on television and how did they get that job? Are they all former wrestlers or McMahons? I would really be interested to know.
WWE advertises job openings on their corporate website...
Qualified candidates should possess:
BA/BS in Film, TV, Drama, Media Studies, Communications or equivalent
Minimum of three to five years writing and production experience in network television
Professional TV staff experience in drama and comedy a plus
Experience in all aspects of live TV production a plus
Highly creative (a prolific idea generator)
Plugged into pop culture and trends
Able to work closely and effectively with talent, writers, and producers throughout the creative process
Strong understanding of WWE's audience (demographic and psychographic) a plus
Must live in Stamford, CT area or be willing to relocate there
Knowledge of WWE shows, talent, and storylines
Excellent communication skills and the ability to work in a team environment
You can apply online at their website...though obviously you better have some TV writing experience. TNA tends to stick with hiring guys with wrestling backgrounds that have experience booking or writing wrestling shows. Their creative team currently consists of Vince Russo & Dutch Mantel. Jeff Jarrett is also on the creative team, but I believe his current hiatus from TNA includes taking time off from that as well.
WWE's creative team is a bit bigger. Stephanie McMahon is the head of creative...the Raw team is headed up by Brian Gewirtz, Smackdown by Michael Hayes, and ECW by Dave Lagana. Other writers include Court Bauer, Dusty Rhodes, John Carle, Christopher DeJoseph, Jen Hunt, Ed Koskey, Zachary Zoto & Pantelis Ypsilantis. Some of those names sound familiar, a lot of them don't. So you don't have to be a former wrestler or a McMahon to get into wrestling writing...but it sure as hell doesn't hurt.
Well, that's all I got time for this week...it's getting late and I gotta get up early. Send any comments, corrections or porn to scook411@hotmail.com. Until next time, keep your stick on the ice!
