Ask 411 Wrestling 08.06.08: The Did X Ever Face Y Edition

Posted by Chris Lansdell on 08.06.2008

Did Warrior ever face Flair? Batista and Lesnar? Plus, what titles are unified, Who's Dating Who: WWE Edition and a look back at Mr Perfect.

Greetings, humanity! Welcome back to Ask 411 and week 3 of my hopefully long stay. I've really enjoyed writing the column so far and I hope to be able to carry on. We're getting through the emails at a decent clip, so keep 'em coming!

Nothing interesting to report this week, too busy working. On that note....BANNER!



From The Peanut Gallery

A few readers contacted and/or commented to his effect:

Hogan was talking about the fact that Warrior said he already beat Hogan.

Hogan said, on the Warrior DVD, that just made the fans wonder why Warrior would even bother challenging Hogan again since he already beat Hogan in 1990.

Posted By: Guest#7443 (Guest)  on July 30, 2008 at 12:00 AM

Normally, I disagree with Hogan on principle, what with him being an enormous mark for himself. This kind of makes sense though. If I had the DVD, I would have seen this.

Re: Heavy Metal-
Is the person asking the question sure he doesn't mean the Heavy Metal-Nancy Benoit story? It's a well known IWC "Scummiest wrestling story" regarding Woman going on a tour of Mexico, getting "involved" with Heavy Metal, who ended up taking a bite out of her ass and beating her up. Konnan tells the story as apparently Nancy ran to his hotel room for protection after the fact.

The punch line to the whole thing, in the shoot interviews anyway, is Konnan assuming that Kevin Sullivan probably did worse to her.

Posted By: Hawkeye (Guest)  on July 30, 2008 at 08:21 AM

I legit had not heard that one, and I've read most of those "scummiest wrestling stories" sites. Kind of an uncomfortable topic about a woman who was murdered though, so let us move along.

"Rock has sued McMahon for use of the "The Rock" name, he walked away from wrestling leaving many fans feeling jilted, and could only deliver one style of promo, as good as he was at delivering it."

OK this line alone means you NOT be doing this column and your 411 posting ablity should be revoked.

Can we find someon with a clue please????? Anyone????

Posted By: Guest#7859 (Guest)  on July 30, 2008 at 11:06 AM

I have a clue, it's called my opinion. Rock was very, very good at comedy promos. Even his "I'm going to kick your ass" promos were littered with catchphrases and came across as funny. He never once cut a promo like Shawn Michaels or Ric Flair did that brought a tear to the eye, nor did he ever cut a promo like Colt Cabana did on Homicide, where he cast off the joker and just sounded like he legit wanted to kill a bitch. Might have been ABLE to do it, but he didn't.

I don't think Wooder likes me...

Seriously...can we get a real writer for this column?!? One who knows something about wrestling and its history?

If the WWE had 12 hrs a day to fill for a channel do you really think they would run 3 Raws and 3 Smackdowns? Apparently you do, which makes me think you don't even have 24/7. Just from 24/7 you could find could find besides say 2 Raws/Smackdowns a week, 1 WCW Nitro/Thunder, NWA WCW/WCCW/CWfF, AWA, Stampede, WWF TNT/Prime Time, History of ECW per week. 1 Legends Roundtable, Clash of Champions, SNME, Old School (House Show taped for cable from one of the strongholds), DVD Documentry per month, 2 WWE and 2 Non-WWE PPVS per month, 4 1 hour HoF per month on one HoF'er, turn Shorties into 2 2 hr shows (+ uneven time fillers).

Plus there is still WCW Saturday Night, WWE Superstars, Smoky Mountain, OVW, DSW, FCW, Georgia Championship Wrestling, Mid-Atlantic, all those old Colosseum Home Video Releases and Koch releases.

They might even make/acquire new programs. Maybe Mrs. Baba, Lawler and the Hardys want to sell/license their libraries. Or Inoki or the Funks, or Sasuke or Ultimo. Maybe a Roast every 3 or 4 months.

Just think on that: The Sabu Roast, The Roddy Piper Roast, the Jake Roberts Roast!!!

But no, im sure you are right...if the got a channel they'd just run 3 Raws and 3 Smackdowns a week.

Remember when Scott Keith had this column and not some 15 year old who started watching after seeing The Scorpion King and can only answer questions he can look up on wikipedia?

Posted By: Wooder (Guest)  on July 30, 2008 at 09:14 PM

First, I'm 29. Not 15. Second, I know plenty about wrestling and its history. I may not have the "insider contacts" that other people on other, inferior sites claim to have, but then again 80% of those contacts are bullshit. Oh, and Wikipedia has to be THE worst source for a column like this. Now, if you'd care to read my response again, what I ACTUALLY said was that IF they ran 3 of each a day (not a week...), it would not take long to run through a year of programming. I also said that those numbers would be based on a 12-hour broadcast day. Of course they would not do that if they had a channel, but then again they also would not be likely to broadcast only 12 hours a day. All of the things you mentioned would make a great channel, but it already exists and is making Vince a ton of money without the added hassle of attracting advertisers.

This is going to be my final word on the "Taker doesn't break kayfabe" issue. I KNOW he goes out in public. I never said he didn't. He goes to a lot of MMA shows, he has been seen with Michelle, and so on. What I said was he goes out of his way to AVOID being seen out of character. When was the last time you saw an Undertaker autograph session? Fan fest? Anything like that? Exactly.

Some info on obscure title reigns:

"Well, this is a tricky question. Backlund lost the title in Japan to Antonio Inoki for several days in November 1979 before getting the title back at the end of the tour. However, WWE does not recognize the Inoki title reign and says that Backlund held the title from 1978 to 1983. So by WWE's records, Backlund is the second longest reigning champion behind Bruno. If you count Inoki's reign as having happened, Hogan's first reign would pass Backlund's reigns. I think it's easier for everybody involved to accept WWE's version of history here. Hopefully Inoki won't come to Kentucky and slap the taste out of my mouth."

There was one other title change during the Backlund reign that almost nobody talks about. In 1981, there was a match at MSG between Backlund and Greg Valentine. Somehow, even though Backlund won the match, the ref got confused and raised Valentine's hand and gave him the title. In response, the title was declared vacant and a rematch was signed for the next MSG show, which Backlund won. Some believe this was the result of legitimate confusion, and some believe it was a promotional ploy to boost ticket sales to the next show, but technically that gives Backlund another reign, breaking up his five year reign as champion even further. I'm not real sure of the details, as this was WAY before my time. Nonetheless, WWE doesn't recognize this title change either.

-Nykk

Wow, that's tremendously messed up. Thanks for that. I'd like to think that with all the communication between the guys in the back and the ref, this situation could not happen today. Not by accident anyway.

To the questions!

Laszlo is asking about turns.

I know with so many promotions and characters it's virtually impossible to count the turns a specific wrestler had. But off the top of your head who is the guys that flopped from heel to face and vice versa most often? Mr. Wonderful did a bunch of it in the 80's when it was less common but I'd guess guys nowadays are doing it way more often.

In recent times, Big Show has turned more times than Bayani's head at the Playboy mansion. Shelton Benjamin has been pretty inconsistent too. Shawn Michaels has done a TON of turns, but he's had almost 25 years of a career in which to do it. HHH and Rock had a fair few turns. Over three feds, Savage and Nash have turned a bunch of times, in Nash's case I believe he turned twice in one night. It's a really tough one to answer because of the prevalence of tweeners since the Attitude era, and the situation with people like Bret Hart who could put random grannies in hospital and still be a face in Canada.

Davis has a trio of questions for me:

1. does it take any written agreement for a wrestling company to recognize another promotion's title? for example WWE recognizes the NWA title when putting over Hall of Famers, TNA counts NWA and WWE title reigns, and ROH recently had a match against The ROH and NWA champions. Do these companies have to pay each other or anything to legitly say it's a title. or is it informal and a matter of opinion?

I can almost guarantee you there is no formal agreement required, simply because TNA and WWE would not be giving each other money just to recognise title reigns. In WWE's situation, they have nothing to fear from the NWA nowadays in terms of competition, so recognising those title reigns does them no harm and serves to highlight the accomplishments of the honoree. TNA recognising WWE reigns is something that many writers on this site, myself included, feel they would be better served not doing. They are only bringing attention to what right now is the more popular product. With indies it is a touch different. The NWA and ROH have a working agreement around their title, as RoH is the biggest indy right now and the NWA title still has a certain amount of prestige behind it. With indy talent normally working shows for several promotions, it makes sense for some of them to recognise each other's titles. The NWA Junior Heavyweight title, for example, is recognised in CHIKARA, and FIP, SHIMMER and RoH recognise each other's belts, although that's largely because SHIMMER is owned by a RoH announcer and the chief booker for FIP is a part owner of RoH. In these cases, the mutual advertising and promotion is enough of a payment.

2. What exactly does a title unification do to the prestige of the belt? I know that the WWE title is technically a unified title for the WCW and WWF belts, as well as any titles that were unified into the WCW belt. does that mean that the current title holder can claim to carry legacy of both promotions, or only WWE champs?

I hate to sound snotty, but it's pretty much whatever Vince wants it to be. He owns WCW, so he owns their titles and at any point could decide to recognise their legacies and title lineages. It's unlikely to happen, simply because the only belts that stayed unified were the WCW Tag, the WWE Light Heavyweight and the Hardcore and European belts. Technically, the WCW title is still unified with the WWE one, but the belt design still exists around CM Punk's waist. The prestige of the unified titles pretty much gets wiped and forgotten by the casual fan.

3. Was the WCW hardcore title ever unified with WWE's before the Hardcore title was unified into the IC belt (yeah I take this way too seriously.)
No, you don't. I'm the one ANSWERING it, so I guess I take it too seriously. It was never unified, and in fact I don't recall it ever being shown on WWE programming, similar to the TV Title and the Cruiserweight Tag titles. I don't think the WCW Women's title was active at the merger, but if it was then that title was never unified either.
Phillis is asking about everyone's favourite asthmatic:

My question is has Don West ever appeared on WWE television? I'm sure i seem him on ECW One Night Stand 2006?

Not to my knowledge. You may be thinking of Joel Gertner, who appeared at the first One Night Stand and vaguely resembles ol' Weezy West. That was in 2005 though. He certainly never appeared as an announcer or manager in the WWE, and has been with TNA since 2002.

Jones has two questions:

was there ever any match between Brock Lesnar and Batista? I think that would be a great draw...maybe not exactly Flair vs Steamboat but I think it would be nice to see...did they ever have a match?


Only one I could find was at a house show in February 2003. It would be an interesting matchup, but I'd rather see Black Lesnar, I mean Bobby Lashley, face Brock Lesnar.

second...i heard that pro wrestling is big in Puerto Rico, does it have lucha libre type matches like Mexico, is it similar because they are both Hispanic countries, or do they have their own style?

The Puerto Rican style is heavily lucha-influenced, but it does have a touch more of the North American sports entertainment style than the Mexican lucha promotions. When the NWA was still a force they had an affiliate in Puerto Rico (and the may still be affiliated, I'm not sure), and Ric Flair defended the belt there on a couple of occasions. In those matches the style was more North American.

Casey is flashing back to SummerSlam '97, which was a great PPV if memory serves:

At Summer Slam '97, I seem to remember that each member of the Hart Foundation had a stipulation on his match. If Bret lost, he'd never wrestle in the US again, etc. And I seem to remember that Jim's stip was that if any member of the Foundation lost, he'd shave his goatee.

I have two questions: 1) What were the other members' stipulations? and 2) How did Jim avoid shaving his goatee when at least one member lost his match (Owen)? (I can't remember if Bulldog or Pillman won their matches.)

Bulldog was going to eat dog food if he lost to Shamrock. He won by DQ and rubbed Shamrock's face in the dog food post-match. Pillman would have to wrestle in a dress if he lost to Golddust, which he did. Owen's stipulation was the IC title, and of course he ended up breaking Austin's neck in their match. You were correct about both Bret and Anvil's stipulations. Anvil had only just been signed by the WWE and had some independent work to finish up before returning full-time, so the excuse given was that it grew back before he returned.

Johnny Polo, who continues the theme of Raven's former personalities writing in, wants to know about the future Mrs Layfield:

I am curious about all these mentions of the Undertaker when referring to Michelle McCool. Did he train her? Are there rumours that they are secretly dating when UT is married to "Sara?" Or are they divorced/separated? Or is McCool really Sara (although I do remember Sara not looking like McCool so that might not be it)? Thanks and great column as always.


Michelle McCool is most definitely not Sara. As you rightly said, they don't look alike. There was no big announcement about ‘Taker and Sara splitting, but you may have noticed that the tattoo is no longer on his neck in any photo, and if you can catch a view of the area in his matches, it's not there either. McCool and ‘Taker are in fact dating, and have been photographed together several times so it's not exactly secret. She was not officially trained by him, but I'm sure he's shown her a few moves.

Oh shut up you perverts.

Isn't it kinda funny that the woman who's "loving life" is hooked up with someone who characterises death?

Alvin has a bunch of questions to perplex and vex:

1. I was just wondering about a potential match at Survivor Series 2006. I remember hearing that it was supposed to be Team Raw (DX, Cena) vs Team ECW (Big Show, RVD and Sabu) vs Team Smackdown (who I have no idea who it was). Am I going mad or was there a particular reason why this was changed?!

I have no recollection of hearing this. Putting DX and Cena in the same match would not make a lot of sense, especially with only 3 people per team when Survivor Series is either 4 or 5. A 3 way match would have been chaotic too.

2. What was the reason why Booker T didn't win the title at Wrestlemania 19? He really seemed to click with the fans and it seemed the way to go (and what have been more entertaining than HHH on a bad year vs Nash and Goldberg).

To be fair, the crap matches HHH had that year were due to the opponents and not HHH himself. Sure, having him in the matches made them boring AND stale, but Booker wouldn't have been able to do much better. Except with Steiner, who you forgot and with whom Booker has always had good chemistry. That really was the year of WCW Burial. As for why he lost…take your pick from the following:

A ) He's black
B) He wasn't boning Stephanie
C) He was a WCW creation
D) He was a face, and the prospective challengers were all likely to come in as faces
E) The money is in the chase
F) All of the above

He was over, he wasn't lacking experience and he could work the mic and work in the ring, so none of those would apply. Personally, I think option F applies.

3. Have been any major cases when wrestlers are told to change their status as either a face or heel, and they strongly don't want to do. Or vice versa; where they want to change, but creative refuse.

Wow. I am drawing a total blank. Randy Orton hates being a face, but I think that stems from his failed face champion run. Nothing else is coming to mind. Of course the comments section will now fill up with obvious ones that I forgot, and I will feel stupid. But hey, I never claimed to know it all.

4. A random hey but what has been the best question ever to be asked for ask 411 Wrestling?

Best question? That covers so much potential ground. I'll have to contact Cook and see what he thinks, because I've only been here a couple of weeks. I'll get back to you.

Mike, who rejoices in the nickname "Balls", has a question about the greatest goofy heel promo of all time.

Quick (multiple part) question to ask. Back in '98 I believe when Chris Jericho was feuding with Dean Malenko and cut that hilarious 1,004 holds promo, he mentioned a few that I have never heard of and have been dying to know ever since. They sound over the top so maybe he made them up for comedy's sake, but please help me out. He referenced:
A) the "Moss-covered, Three-handled, Family Gradunzel"
B) the "Saskatchewan Spinning Nerve Hold"
C) the "Shooting Star Staple Superplex"

Of those, only "A" has ever been used as a hold/move in the mainstream. This was the name given to a finisher briefly used by Saturn, which was a spinning Fisherman's neckbreaker normally called the 3-handled credenza. Paul Heyman coined the name on commentary and I instantly marked. I can see "C" being used to describe the Cyclorama/Flux Capacitor, but it hasn't been. Yet.

A question about Battle Royales:


What's up new sir? I've got a question for ya that I haven't seen asked yet in the while I've been reading this column, so hear goes. I'm a huge fan of Battle Royals, always have been, so the question is I've seen 2 40 man battle royals on the old Colosseum Videos, one being Rampage 92' where the British Bulldog wins and another I can't recall the name but the victor was Tatanka. Do you know of any other 40 man battle royals? Do you happen to know what the largest 1 ring Battle Royal was? Thanks if you can help, keep up the FUN!

40 is the biggest I can honestly remember, but for some reason there is something tickling the back of my mind about a 60-man one. I might just be thinking of the 3-ring World War 3 ones from WCW though. I remember both the 40-man ones you mention, but I don't believe there were any more. Only WWF/E and WCW had a big enough roster most of the time to pull one off. Logistics also play a part...how many more people could you fit in one ring?

Fred appears to have been watching some old school tapes:

1.Did Ric Flair and The Ultimate Warrior ever face each other in a one on one contest?I assume they wrestled in tag matches but cant think of any one on one encounters.

They had a house show match for the WWF title right after Flair won it from Savage. Part 1 is here.

2.Any Truth in the matter that Simon Cowell and Vince McMahon worked with each other after SummerSlam 92? I think it was for the Wrestlemania Album released the next year. That would be quite the partnership!!

Simon was responsible for the release of that album, but whether or not he actually worked with Vince I cannot be sure. Cowell is credited with attracting WWF to the label for which he was working. Then again, he is also responsible for the Teletubbies single that hit number 3 one Christmas in the UK. No, I am not kidding.



3.What Happen to the proposed Luger/Perfect feud that started happening after Wrestlemania 10? Why did Perfect disappear? Was he released or he quit? Did Curt not think he was ready to get back into the ring?

4.Along the same lines,when Curt did return in 95 and became an announcer,why did he never wrestle?Was he injured still or Vince just wanted him to be an announcer?

None of the above. Perfect was taken off the air because his back injury, which was keeping him out of the ring in the first place, flared up again. It wouldn't be the last time that his back injury would cause problems for WWF, as it was the reason for him defecting to WCW in late 96 / early 97.WWF told Lloyds of London, who were paying Hennig rather handsomely each month because he couldn't wrestle, that Hennig would be returning to the ring.

That's game, set and match boys and girls. Don't forget the Round Table on Saturday, the Brunch on Sunday, and all the other wonderful stuff between now and then.

Lansdellicious – Out.