Ask 411 Wrestling 10.22.08: Flattery Edition

Greetings, humanity! Welcome back to Ask 411 Wrestling with me, Chris Lansdell. I’m still laughing to myself over Santino, Miz and Morrison and Haas on Raw on Monday. It might not be your classic wrestling, but damn was it ever funny. One thing I am NOT laughing about is having to travel for work on short notice. Ah well, a week of living on their dime is worth the hassle. This week’s musical accompaniment is BBC as covered by Spider Valentine, a local band with a good deal of talent and potential, and a female drummer. Clicky clicky!

BANNER!

Banner compliments of Benjamin Colon. See more of his work at soulexodus.com.

Cleaning Up

Regarding too-short classics:

See, this is why I include opinion questions. The commenters LOVE them and they encourage discussion. After all, that’s part of the fun of the internet. Rockers-Brainbusters from SNME in Mar. 89, Owen Hart-123 Kid from KOTR 94, Mysterio vs Orton vs Angle from Mania 22, Benoit/Guerrero from J Cup 1994 and Blue Blazer-Mr Perfect from Mania V were all suggested.

Regarding Candace Michelle:

Someone mentioned she hadn’t improved at all and cited her recent match against Beth Phoenix as proof. The problem with that is that she was suffering from ring rust. Before she got injured (more than once, mind you) she was rapidly improving and has quickly got back to where she was. To see how good Finlay’s training is, you only need to look at the Diva’s tag match from this Monday’s Raw.

Regarding one-night gimmicks:

I can’t believe somebody (411mania’s own WS Thomason) actually remembered El Tecnico. God that was awesome. There was also Se7en and I guess we can include the Midnight Rider as well.

Regarding MVP/Abe “Knuckleball” Schwarz:

They were not the same gimmick, and the Goon was indeed the hockey character.

In Soviet Russia, 411 Asks You!

Yeah, I’m making another change. This is a minor one, just a question for me to throw out at you each week for fun. This week’s questions are about people with many W2’s…

Who is the only wrestler to hold gold in WWE, WCW, TNA and ECW?
Which wrestler has appeared for WWE, WCW, TNA, GWF, FIP, WSX and XPW?
Which wrestler has appeared for WWE, WCW, GWF, ECW, TNA, ROH and USWA?

Answers in the comments section. Are we ready for some trivia? Then LET’S GET DANGEROUS~!

Question Time!

Bruce wants to compare legendary trainers:

In the 9.10.08 edition of Ask411, Bob, The Killer Goldfish asked “With Killer Kowalski’s heart attack, it got me
thinking: which wrestling school has more successes, The Hart Dungeon, Shawn’s school or Killer’s?”

How does the success of those three schools compare with the Vern Gagne/Billy Robinson schools of the early
1970’s? There were some great (Flair, Steamboat) legends that came from the school in that era.

There’s no comparison. Flair and Steamboat alone put the school over any other wrestling school anywhere ever. When you include Iron Sheik, Larry and Curt Hennig, Sgt Slaughter and Baron von Raschke…well it’s not even close. And we didn’t even mention people that he helped train, like the Nasty Boys, Snuka, Bob Backlund, Scott Norton…

Trent provides me with something of a conundrum. I am pretty sure he already knows the answer to all the questions he sent me, but I won’t break my own rule about not ignoring any questions so here we go, and if I’m wrong, good:

I’ve heard that you have a knack for answering very difficult questions with relative ease. So, I though I would ask you some pretty simple questions, hoping to catch you off guard. And away we go!;

1] At one of the first Ring of Honor shows (Road to the Title, I believe) Nova’s brother (Nova!) who was commentating the event, went into the ring with a big announcement. The announcement was that RoH were starting their own television show, called High Impact TV! Of course the show was syndicated, but it was TV none-the-less. My question is, what ever became of High Impact TV? Did anything significant happen on the shows? And where did the footage come from? At first I thought it might just be edited footage from the DVD releases, but then a few later DVD releases (early 2003) feature “High Impact TV Highlights”. Did RoH hold events for taping the TV shows, or were the TV shows just made up of dark matches not featured on DVD’s?

For a few shows in 2002 and into 2003 and possibly earlier (I haven’t been able to find a concrete date for when it started, but Night of the Butcher was definitely one of them) they taped some matches for High Impact TV which were then shown as highlights on DVD releases. The show was syndicated and was mostly available in the north-east. It was briefly revived and shown on the Wrestling Channel in the UK. Because of these tapings, RoH events often went on a LONG time, which dampened crowd reaction. At a time when the north-east was crawling with Indys with their own shows (even CZW had a syndicated show!), RoH needed TV to compete. Or did they?

2] Before Full Impact Pro was booked (and owned?) by Gabe Sapolsky, and became Ring of Honor’s sister promotion, who was it owned by? On the Fallout Night One DVD release (the second FIP DVD) there is a bonus match from 2003 featuring Mike Awesome vs Justin Credible vs New Jack in a hardcore three way dance. From what I can gather, it was originally only supposed to be Justin vs Mike, but then Fonzie came out and added New Jack to the match (I say as far as I can tell, because the audio quality is pretty horrendous). Now, this looked like a very different FIP from the one we know now, and even from the one that was launched (re-launched?) back in 2004/05, being in a well lit arena (gymnasium) with a big titan-tron-esque screen showing the in-ring action (just in case any of the fifty people there missed anything). Who owned this promotion, and what was it’s (abbreviated) history? Was it, at the time, just an independent promotion trying to fill the void that ECW left, or was it a more traditional promotion trying to just get by by using ex-ECW stars (and Fonzie is a faux-commissioner type guy?) or had it been around a lot longer, and just promoted itself in the Florida “territory”?

Wow, these are NOT easy questions. FIP is owned by Sal Hamaoui, but Sapolsky is the head booker. Hamaoui brought Gabe in and that is what started the drastic change in direction from flashy money-waster with a lot of hardcore matches to a more technical-based style but with more of an edge than Ring of Honor and less spending on glitz than before. I wouldn’t say they were trying to fill the ECW void, but they were definitely trying to capitalise both on Florida’s wrestling history and the known (in IWC circles) names of the ECW guys in hardcore matches. At one point they even had Dusty Rhodes on a card (teaming with Bubba the Love Sponge).

3] What was the first televised wrestling program? I think that it was the NWA Showcase show, but I don’t know for certain…

The NWA wasn’t formed until 1948, but the earliest regular televised wrestling I’ve heard of was Catch as Catch Can on British TV, which allegedly started in 1938.

4] When did the FIP World Title belt change design? And was there any real reason for this?

Now this one I cannot answer and could not find anything on. Any Florida fans out there who can hook us up on this one?

5] Now, this one might be a bit more difficult. Or easy. I’m not really sure. With Ric Flair being a 16-time Champion, can you name the people that he won the titles from?

Yup. He won his first one from Dusty Rhodes, then Jack Veneno¹, Victor Jovica¹, The Midnight Rider², Harley Race twice, Kerry von Erich, Dusty again, Ronnie Garvin, Ricky Steamboat, Sting, Tatsumi Fujinami³, eliminating Sid from the Royal Rumble, Randy Savage, Big Van Vader, Randy Savage (twice), Hulk Hogan, Jeff Jarrett and finally Kevin Nash. Yes, that’s more than 16.

¹: These changes were not recognised by the NWA.
²: The Rider defeated Flair for the title, but refused to unmask and was forced to relinquish the belt as NWA rules prevented a masked wrestler from holding the belt.
³: Flair lost to Fujinami in March of 1991 and regained the belt in May of the same year, but it was never mentioned on WCW TV.

Brian has a question about a match we never got to see:

What’s up Chris? Great column you’ve got going on here. I have thought about this for a long time and I was wondering if you could help me out. Back in the days of the “Attitude Era” so many of the best and biggest matches came from the combination of either The Rock vs. Austin, The Rock vs. Triple H, or Triple H vs. Austin. They all had great chemistry with each other and put on some classics. My question is: Why were they never booked in a triple threat match against each other? That match would have been AWESOME if it had happened, and easily good have Main evented a Wrestlemania. I would have to think it would’ve been a huge draw because you would have had the two biggest faces and stars in the company in Rock and Austin, and the biggest heel in the company in Triple H all going at it. Didn’t Vince miss a golden opportunity here?

Great question. The main reason we never got to see this match is timing: Triple H was not at the top of the card when Rock-Austin was at its peak, and by the time HHH did get up the card, one of the three was almost always injured (and I’m including cases of sandy vagina as injuries), and by the time HHH was the top heel it was too late for this match. For example, Triple H won his first world title the day after SummerSlam 99. He had only turned heel earlier that year and was consistently playing second banana to The Rock in the Corporation/Corporate Ministry. When Rock turned face, Austin was out, then Rock went to Hollywood, then HHH tore his quad. When all 3 were healthy, HHH was always behind one of them in the pecking order and/or aligned with one of them. The WWE roster around Mania 18 (the best time to have held this match) could certainly have withstood putting all three in the same match with Taker, Flair, Hogan, Angle, Jericho and Benoit all available. The only other reason I can see would be trying to talk 2 of the 3 egos into agreeing to put the winner over…

JBradford has some questions about kayfabe:

It seems that everyone falls into two camps regarding HBK/Hart. I happen to like both wrestlers equally and own both Bret and Shawn’s DVDs. For laughs, I usually put the two DVDs side-by-side. They will forever be linked in my mind, and I find both to be at fault and both to have some valid points. Regardless, my question is this: Are there two other wrestlers who have a strong dislike for each other that had to work together? Flair and Rhodes comes to mind, but I don’t know if they hated each other.

I am of much the same mind as you are about the Bret/Shawn fiasco, and I wish they would both just grow up and shake on it. The world would have imploded if Bret had interfered in the HBK-McMahon match, especially if he’d interfered for Shawn. Can you imagine the reaction if the freshly-inducted Hall of Famer Bret came down with Vince having Shawn in the Sharpshooter, Bret looks at both men then shrugs his shoulders and cleans Vince’s clock with a chair?? I digress. The first example of people working through dislike would be Matt Hardy and Edge after Litagate. Andre the Giant never had any time for The Ultimate Warrior and stiffed him in the ring more than once.

My other question is in regards to kayfabe. I happen to love the practice of kayfabe. It’s almost like this weird 24/7 style of theatre that wrestlers have to maintain. Undertaker is one of the biggest stars to still maintain a very high degree of kayfabe. Does he get upset when people recognize him out of character at an MMA show? It was jarring to see him at one of the Affliction events, and I just wondered if fans happen to come up to him after the MMA show and try and get an autograph or even get cute and call him Mark.

For a name as huge as the Undertaker, I would be shocked if nobody asked him for an autograph when he is out at MMA events. There was certainly a time when this would have bothered him, but in recent years he has relaxed his “kayfabe at all costs” mentality. Regardless, I wouldn’t recommend calling him “Mark”, since he is one of the wrestlers who prefers to keep his real name for friends and family.

BahrainRam has questions about little guys and big pushes:

Hey Chris, good to see I’m not the only ex-pat Derby fan out there! My questions relate to smaller guys and the title. Why do guys like Kendrick, Noble, Morrison and other light heavyweights never get title runs?

Well you’ve got Michaels, Jericho and Rey Misterio all as former world champs under 230. The problem with most of them is that Vince just doesn’t think it’s credible for someone that size to beat someone the size of Big Show, Undertaker, Khali, Mark Henry, Kozlov, Umaga, Batista…to him, look and charisma are more important than pure ability. The three guys you mentioned all have charisma, but until recently they wouldn’t have been convincing as champions. Now, in the post-Benoit era of smaller guys with belts, you may well see it.

Is the failed run of Misterio part of the reason? Or better yet, is that why Misterio’s run was so horrible?

No, and kind of. Misterio was given his run because of Eddie Guerrero and because the man shifts more merchandise than Dave and Earl Hebner combined. You’ve seen all those kids in Rey masks, right? He is money, pure and simple. His failed run did nothing to hurt him and probably boosted his merch sales in the process. Nobody else in that weight class has that sort of selling power. However, Vince could not let Rey go over his monsters, it would have lacked verisimilitude in his mind.

See? Told you I’d work it in. You know who you are.

The small guys aren’t getting runs because they’re not over enough yet. If they ever get to that point, especially now, they’ll get a shot.

jbowler has a question that is more common than you’d think:

Ok, since a disgruntled reader brought up Larry, I’ve seen stuff on this site saying he is and stuff saying he isn’t. Is Larry the fella from American Gladiators who used to play football that now lives in Alaska and owns a farm and restaurant? Doesn’t look like he is but I want to hear from y’all. Thanks.

Despite knowing the answer, I put this one to Larry. I cannot print his reply. I can categorically confirm that Larry is NOT the same Larry that played in the NFL. We’re not even sure “Larry Csonka” is his real name. There are four writers (at least) on the site who do not use their real names (no I won’t tell you who), so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that he could actually be Engleford Rondelbaum. However I do know he does not live in Alaska. Or if he does, he has a NC phone number.

Another 411 regular, Dark Night wolf, has an international question.

Over the years, we have seen wrestlers from Canada, Japan, Mexico, Italy, Ireland, Etc wrestle in the WWE. Has there been a country not represented in the WWE?

Yes. Yes there has. Hundreds, in fact. It would be easier to list countries that HAVE been represented (kayfabe countries in italics):

USA, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Italy, France, Portugal, Germany, Finland, Uganda, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Ghana, US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, India, Iraq, Iran, South Africa, Samoa, Ireland, Malta, Poland, Russia, United Kingdom, and, of course, Parts Unknown. I will now wait for the comments section to fill up with countries I overlooked.

Senthil is back with a question about the awesome Hardcore Battle Royal:

I got a question regarding the finish of the Hardcore Battle royal in Wrestlemania 2000. The finish sees Hardcore Holly pinning Crash Holly. But Crash lifts his shoulder and even takes the belt with him. Can you please tell me whether the finish was botched? If so, who botched it?

I am very much amazed by the amount of knowledge you have in wrestling. Great column. Keep it up.

It wasn’t until I started writing this column that I actually realised how LITTLE I know about wrestling! To answer your question, it was botched, and the blame is partly on the ref and partly on Hardcore. After the candy jar shot (never thought I’d use that phrase…) Hardcore was supposed to wait until the timer was at 3 before making the cover, but went down too early. The ref made the count anyway and then tried to cover the mistake by stopping the count, which looked horrible because Crash didn’t move his shoulder until AFTER the ref had stopped counting, and then the buzzer went off shortly after. It’s a shame because the match itself was hilarious.

Nick Nitro starts with the inaccurate flattery and moves to the good questions:

Yo Chris, long time reader. Great column. My fav wrestling column on the net. I’ve been a 411 fan since the days of 411wrestling.com with Ashish.

Anyway, I need these questions answered. They’ve been bothering me forever. Your the smartest wrasslin dude on the net and my last resort. If you can’t answer them, than nobody can.

I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m not even the smartest wrestling dude on this site. However, I can answer these for you.

1.
I have the new Rock DVD. My question is about the Rock vs. Hogan, (Icon vs. Icon), match at WrestleMania X8. When Hollywood comes out, his music is really weird, its completely different from his VooDoo Child and nWo’s Rockhouse themes, I’ve never heard it before. Why is it different? It was for sure dubbed over, as I watched the match on YouTube and it had the Rockhouse theme. SO. why the FUCK did WWE dub it? I know they own the theme, so it makes no sense.

They own the Rockhouse theme, but unless I am totally losing my mind Hogan came out at X8 to Voodoo Chile, to which they do NOT own the rights. The YouTube you saw was dubbed too, but since the theme they chose for that dubbing made sense you probably didn’t notice it.

2.
The WCW World Championship and the WWE World Heavyweight Championship look/are obviously very similar, almost identical. But besides the WCW and WWE logos being different, is there any other difference between them? I think one of them might have a thicker black leather lining around the main part, while the other belt does not. Also, there could be different Rubies on it. The belt being changed in even the littlest way wouldn’t surprise me bc it seems like something Vince would do. Bc we all know how Vince is and his way of not using “other people’s” ideas.

The Big Gold Belt used in WCW did not have any rubies on it, and the plate was more detailed. You can see it here. The WWE version is here. The two crowns are different, and the new belt has two insets of wrestlers in mid-move either side of the middle of the main plate.

3.
How the hell do they coordinate the Royal Rumble? Do wrestlers get told “OK, you’re gonna eliminate Wrestler B first, then Wrestler C next, then Wrestler A, and after that Wrestler X is going to throw you out.”  Or is there a different system?  If its different, how the fuck do they do it? I’ve been wondering about this since i saw my first RR in ’97 when i was 10 y/o.

Simply put, Pat Patterson is a genius. Every elimination is decided beforehand, though the manner of most eliminations is left to the talent to decide. Important ones (like Maven eliminating Taker, eliminations that start feuds, giants being eliminated or people working together) are planned more in-depth, and of course the final segment is almost totally scripted. Virtually every Rumble in the past 20 years has been booked by Patterson, who has a talent for it. I guess there’s something about 30 men getting sweaty in his ring that makes his juices flow. CREATIVE juices. Sorry.

The Way I C It…

This week’s question comes from B L, a returning questioner who wants to know about THE Brian Kendrick.

Thanks for answering my last “bomb budget” question regarding angle prop budgets a few weeks ago. As far as whether I knew anything about McMahon’s “limo-explosion”? Welllllllll……….

So now I have another question for you, another whaddya think……

It would seem that the current “The Brian Kendrick” gimmick just smacks of Shawn Michaels rise to stardom. I mean singling out of a wrestler from a successful (if not at least highly talented) tag team, not to mention the huge amount of talent in the guy alone. My question… How would you think WWE would need to groom the guy as far as pushing him to the ranks of “Shawnism”. I mean the “through the window” break up has been done (not to mention shades of it on the Jericho set). What might be a good plan of action? Sooooo……….. Whaddya think?

Your “Wellllllllll” made me realise that you are Doc Hendrix and I claim my commemorative “I’m blacker than you” t-shirt. On to your question:

It’s obvious that WWE are attempting the HBK push with Kendrick, obviously with a few changes. They didn’t feel the need to split him from London violently, likely because they didn’t want to pay London for a TV appearance. Thus far this has negated the need for a feud between the two. However, they have given him a monster for a bodyguard (Shawn of course had two) and some crazy ring attire to go along with the cocky persona.

Where do they go next? Well if they’re trying to mirror the Shawn push closely, he needs a secondary title run. Oh look! The US Title is about to go to R-Truth, who would be able to put on some good matches with TBK (God even the initials are close!) before dropping the title to him. He’s already had the mini main event push that Shawn got (losing to Bret at Survivor Series 92) when he fought in the Scramble. After a decent run on and off with the US Title, he needs something to elevate him in the fans’ eyes, maybe a feud with Jeff Hardy or CM Punk over the Money in the Bank briefcase. From there, if he’s lucky and over, a title program.

That’s going to do it folks! Thanks for joining us this week and be sure to keep an eye out for the special guest star for tomorrow night’s special live Impact. The usual crowd of Small, Fact or Fiction (starring ME!!!!! crushing some jobber) and Bayani are in tomorrow too. Stay Cool, Rock Hard.

Lansdellicious – Out.