Ask 411 Wrestling 10.26.11: Wrestlemania XVIII, Muslim Wrestlers, Hulk Hogan’s Length, More!

Heya, this is Ask 411 Wrestling, and I am Doctor Hugo Strange.

No, wait, that’s wrong.

This is Arkham City, and I’m Mathew Sforcina.

No, wait, wait, sorry, had this written down somewhere… Ah yes, here we go.

Batman: Arkham City is awesome. Play it now.

Yes, that’s right.

Here’s some other awesome stuff. Tom Tom Club, 411mania’s pocasts, Wrestling PodClash.

And banner.

411 on Twitter!

Me On Twitter~!
http://www.twitter.com/411mania
http://www.twitter.com/411wrestling
http://www.twitter.com/411moviestv
http://www.twitter.com/411music
http://www.twitter.com/411games
http://www.twitter.com/411mma

Backtalking

Hart V Backlund: That wasn’t listed as a submission win in the original list, but as a towel being tossed in, that and Backlund’s first title loss. You wanna include them as submissions, go ahead.

World Title Changes on Smackdown: … Yeah, my bad. Orton did pin Christian for the World Title recently.

And Edge beat Dolph.

Pointing out my mistakes: Please do not take offence, I fully support and WANT, seriously, people to point out errors. I want this to be as accurate as possible, in all aspects. So please do not be upset at my ‘jokes’ about it. Regardless of what I say at the time, I do want you to point out errors.

But not in my opinion section. That’s my opinion after all.

Cena’s Last Clean Loss: Well, thankfully I don’t need to go into the archives again, as Mark found the last absolute, no possible controversy clean loss Cena had, October 19th, 2009 on Raw. History of wwe says..

Triple H pinned John Cena with the Pedigree at 20:17; after the bout, the two men shook hands; moments later, Cena stood alone in the ring and saluted the crowd while WWE World Champion Randy Orton was shown watching on backstage’.

Your Turn, Smart Guy…

Who am I? Once managed by Jim Cornette, every one of my tag title reigns was with a different partner. I have given CM Punk a permanent injury. My last match in a major company saw me lose a title. I’ve been in an Elimination Chamber match, was once known as ‘Hollywood’ and was, briefly and unofficially IC champion. I was the last entrant in a special Royal Rumble, and I’ve won titles off The Rock, Mick Foley and Raven. Who am I?

SHADE got it on the head.

You are Hardcore Holly

You were managed by Cornette during the NWA angle in the WWF in the New Midnight Express as Bombtastic Bob

You were tag champs with Bart Gunn, Crash, 1-2-3 Kid, Cody Rhodes, and Ron Starr.

You gave CM Punk a dead spot in his eye.

You lost the tag titles to Ted DiBiase (and Rhodes sort of) in your last WWE match.

You were in the Extreme Elimination Chamber.

You were Hollywood Bob Holly in SMW.

You unoficially won the IC Title against Jeff Jarrett on an episode of Action Zone, but Jarrett had his foot on the ropes so the title was vacated.

You were #15 in the 2004 SmackDown Rumble.

You won the tag team titles from Rock & Sock and the Hardcore Title from Raven.

And best of all, no mistakes this time! That’s the important thing after all…

…

OK, this is too far. Lange has the gall to steal MY Mascot/Sarcasm Indicator and then has the balls to send me this picture? How dare he. How Dare He!

Well two can play at this game. Sadly, he has nothing to steal since MMA doesn’t do mascots (if I could steal Gina Carano I already would have) but I can play dirty. By the time you read this, his next column should be up. I’m sure he’ll find it oh so funny to toss MY Chandler into another fight.

So, my loyal readers, go there, and comment and give Chandler the win. Maybe that way I’ll get him back. Or suggest some way to get back at him below.

Or not. It’s a free country, probably.

Oh yeah, the question.

Who am I? I’m featured in one of the videos in the middle of this column. I’ve lost to such superstars as The Rock, Kurt Angle, Arn Anderson, Andre The Giant and Christian. I’ve had three managers, and teamed with a Canadian and a Floridian. I’ve been in a few companies, and I’ve had to supplement my wrestling with other jobs. Trained by a Horseman, I am who?

Questions, Questions, Who’s Got The Questions?

Adam begins… Without a question.

Your my favorite writer on 411, always look forward to reading your Ask 411 every week. Anyways I’ve never written a writer before but since your my favorite I figured I would pass this along. I was watching Raw last night 10/17 and they were advertising Smackdown coming to my town “Greenville, SC” during one of the comercials and the main event for the show that they are going to have here at the Bilo Center on 11/1 is going to be Randy Orton vs. Mark Henry and they are advertising that Orton is the champion. I know he’s facing Cody Rhodes at the Vengence payperview so I guess he’s going to win the belt at a Smackdown or Raw show before they get to town. Thank you for your time Mathew.

Well thank you for the kind words, but I think this is a case of ‘Card Subject To Change’. Clearly they made the ad before Henry won the title, then they’ve been putting them out without checking. I don’t think Orton’s gonna win the title any time soon, but I include this on the off chance that something happens in the next few days.

We begin with the first question from… Ahem, Sandstorm Boogie Woogie Cyclops.

X-Pac recently tweeted
the following during the 10/24 edition of Monday Night RAW…

From: @TheRealXPac
Sent: Oct 24, 2011 10:28p

Eventually they will take Morrison out of the dog house. He brought it
on himself with the way he treated Trish Stratus at WM.

What exactly did he mean by this??? What did Morrisson do to treat her badly?

Again, it’s to do with Melina. Basically, he got upset that Trish got the WM spot over Melina, feeling that Melina should have got the spot and the payday. So much so that when it came time to put together the 6 person tag at WM, Morrison wasn’t receptive to working with her, and gave her a cold shoulder. This explains why he was barely involved. Given that Trish is both a veteran, and well liked and respected, especially by the top guys in the company, this was a major blunder.

And normally I’d prefix this sort of stuff with ‘allegedly’ but Trish confirmed it in an interview.

“I got a bit of cold shoulder action, correct. John Morrison himself is amazing. He’s a great athlete. I was really looking forward to working with him. I thought it would be cool if we could do some stuff together. He didn’t think it would be that cool. It happens.

Hey whatever. It happens. You know he’s into his thing and just didn’t think that I should part of his thing I guess, but I still admire him as an athlete, as a performer. I think he does a great job out there. Cold shoulder? Yeah I felt it. I was shunned. Some people are not smart maybe? You know they wrestle well, but maybe they’re not smart. I don’t know.”

So yeah. John Morrison, incredible athlete, not very smart man. And I disagree with X-Pac. Morrison’s only leaving the doghouse via leaving the company, in that I really doubt he’ll re-sign with the company. If he did, I’m fairly sure that would get him some brownie points for toughing it out, but I just don’t see him doing that…

Matt takes me to task somewhat.

I read your article all the time. However, lately you have been in love with MY DAMM OPINION than answering real historic questions so I’m gonna ask these questions and you better come up with actual answers that are fact..

How long has Hulk Hogan gone in a singles match?(time wise) He always came out late in Royal Rumbles probably just for the pop…But what is the longest Hulk Hogan match vs anyone?

Ultimate Warrior, Wrestlemania VI, title for title. 22 minutes, 51 seconds.

Hey, if I am fairly sure of the answer, I give it.

…

*has a look at History of WWE just to check*

Except that I’m wrong. He had a 29:00 match with Bob Backlund, 4/12/80 in the Philadelphia Spectrum.

So there you go. Anyone beat 29:00?

Is there any legitimate sources or documentation (people who made the decsions and have left the WWF) behind the claim that Owen Hart was supposed to be given the Cerebral Assasin (HHH gimmick) and a big push as the last true heel in the business after he died a humiliating death as the Blue Blazer.And was Vince not taking out his anger and resentment for Bret on Owen making him do this ridiculous gimmick after Owen had established himself already as a great singles wrestler?

No. It got put into his Wikipedia page at one point, and supposedly he’s said it in an interview, but I’ve never seen actual proof as to Owen Hart being The Game.

As for the gimmick… See, it’s hard to discuss this topic given how it ended up, and how it led to Owen’s death. Plus Vince hasn’t really spoken openly about the topic. However, given that Owen was going to win the IC title that night, I don’t think he was being punished. He was being a heel, he ‘quit’ but was sticking around on a technicality because he’s a bad guy. Not because he was being punished for what his brother had done.

But I’m sure people will disagree.

Why did WWF have The Warlord, The Barbarian and The Bezerker on the roster at the same time? They were pretty much the same thing…The Bezerker was a Bruiser Brody rip off but how did they not find a conflict with all these large dumb strong man type characters?

Because it’s the WWF, and they love large dumb strong man characters.

Seriously, that’s pretty much it. They were just different enough to be different. Sure, they are all similar in style, but one was bald, one was long hair, the other dark skinned. That’s enough when they’re all big and strong.

Who in A SINGLE TITLE REIGN in the WWF/WWE era has the most title defenses in a single championship reign? They claimed Bret Hart was the fighting champ who defended his title every other day during his originalrun.But officialy give me the top 3.

No.

I mean, I cannot even begin to approach this question with anything resembling official status. There are just far too many titles to count.

And besides, take the Hardcore title, under 24/7 rules. How many title defences do I include there?

No, sorry, that’s far beyond my scope.

LAST QUESTION….How in the fuck do you pronounce your last name?

Much love on the column and glad its on 411….

“4 Cena”.

Botchamania!

And EricMinnesota does mash ups. They are awesome. Like this new one.

Bertie is all over the place.

Hello,

You’re great…

…now onto questions.

1. I watched wrestlemania last night and although I’ve seen it before, I really noticed that Randy Orton was salivating 10times more than normal last night. Do you ever get wrestlers who aren’t happy to work with someone like that because they don’t want to get spit on so much? And in the same ilk, with Steve Austin spilling beer all over the ring, does anyone ever bring up the fact that he makes the ring stink of stale beer for whoever goes on next?

Not really. By all means wrestlers don’t like getting spat on or things thrown at them or rings that smell like stuff, but you also accept that your gear will get smelly and dirty due to stuff like spit and beer. You accept it as part of the business, and move on.

I’m sure some wrestlers somewhere do complain and aren’t happy, but the majority don’t care. It’s part of being a wrestler, same as working in little towns for bad payoffs and jobbing.

2. Sticking to wrestlemania, having just watched Undertaker vs Triple H. Interesting match, good but slow. But what I was thinking about was that when Undertaker has HHH in the Hells Gate, there were a couple of moments when HHH was trying to pick undertaker up from that position as though he was going to try and powerbomb him, but wasn’t strong enough. This made me think that maybe it had been booked that if HHH was able to pick Undertaker up from that position they’d let him win, if not the streak continues.

Does anything like that happen in booking? As in if a certain person is able to complete some amazing feat on his own, then he’ll be aloud to win?

No, you have that backwards. If you’re booking someone to win a match and they have some dangerous or risky spot in mind, you might have a back up in place (like, say, in a Rumble, where your winner is set to jump onto the announce table at one point), the outcome if said plan doesn’t work out (so if they slip and fall and clearly touch the floor, then they’ll have the back up winner).

You’d never let guys go out there without knowing what they are doing. Suppose you do that, and then he kinda does it but not really. In his mind, he’s now winning since he did it, whereas his opponent is thinking he’s winning since the other guy didn’t do it.

Suffice to say, it’d cause problems, lead to fights, so no, it’s not done.

3. Last question is about the Royal Rumble 2000. Loved that PPV. I was rewatching the actual rumble and there’s a moment when the ring starts to fill up that the big bossman and british bulldog are brawling. I think the big bossman is on his knees, and then he punches bossman in the stomach to bring him to his knees, and then bulldog reaches in and kisses him. Was there any information about this, as to why they did it? Just seemed weird.

That’s all for me. Thanks in advance

You want it at 3:30ish.

There’s no information about it, but I can make a good guess.

Kayfabe, he was going for a bite and Bossman countered.

In reality, he was probably saying something quickly, calling a spot. Notice how Bossman leans down when he grabs the front face lock? That was the reply. Guys talk in the ring all the time, it’s just that this time it was a little obvious.

John asks about a face turn.

Well actually now that I have you, I have never really seen Roddy Piper’s face turn. I have always known it as he was a heel for a while then he was magically a face. What were the events that led to his face turn?

I’m assuming you mean in WWF. After Wrestlemania 2, Piper took some time away from the ring. During his time away, Adrian Adonis began to host a replacement for Piper’s Pit, The Flower Shop. (Jesse Ventura also began to host The Body Shop, but that’s not relevant here). Anyway, here’s the relevant segments.

Although on the night he wrestled AJ, he had already appeared by crashing a Flower Shop.

So by the time the match started, the fans in the arena knew the score, but to the fans at home, it seemed that Roddy’s return was to massive cheers. So technically Roddy’s face turn was that interview, but officially it was the match with AJ.

Craig takes us back to Hogan.

Hello:

Kevin Sullivan headed the Dungeon of Doom that first started to end Hulk-A-Mania. However, I don’t ever recall Kevin Sullivan going one on one with Hulk Hogan after Hogan wrestled and beat some of Dungeon of Doom members. Was there a reason for this?

Thanks,

For the record, yes, Hogan never had a one on one match with Sullivan during this time, it was all 6 man and normal tags or handicap matches with Arn Anderson. As for the reasoning, it seems to be that Sullivan was a leader, a manager sort. After all, Hogan’s team winning Wargames got Hogan 5 minutes with Sullivan. You don’t have that sort of stip for a full wrestler. Sullivan wasn’t pushed as a wrestler until the Dungeon of Doom began to feud with The Four Horsemen, and he lost the lackeys and was forced to step back into the ring himself.

But given the spectacular build up maybe it’s for the best we didn’t get it…

Ace has a simple question.

1) At what point did Stephanie McMahon’s voice change? If you go back to 1999, 2000, and watch clips her voice is of a normal female her age. Then sometime in 2003ish, her voice became hoarse, or deeper. Any idea why this was? Did she have surgery to correct an illness, or is her change in tone or voice a gimmick because she’s head of the writing team?

It was pretty much when she became Smackdown GM in 2002. Her voice went from whiny spoilt rich girl to what it is now. There’s a few reasons for this. In part, she grew up. She didn’t go through puberty or anything, but you don’t sound the same as you did ten years ago, puberty or not. Her years of whiny and screechy voice work also took, perhaps, some toll on her voice. Plus when she did come back, her gimmick was now a grown up businesswoman rather than a whiny spoilt rich girl. So she began to speak differently because of it.

However, the major reason was surgical. She’s had nasal surgery, corrective to fix some breathing problems. The problems led to her voice change, and after it was fixed, she’s kept the different voice due to the change in her breathing.

Khaled wishes to talk religion.

Yo long time reader first time asker, I’ve been hearing for a while that MVP is a muslim but ive never heard anyone confirm it, is there any truth to it?

Yes, yes there is. The Florida Department of Corrections listed his new name, Hassan Hamin Assad, on it’s databanks. He converted in prison, and I have not read anything that says he’s no longer a follower of Islam.

and also, are there any well know muslim wrestlers? Only one I can think of is the iron sheik

Well known, apart from MVP and Sheik, it’s just Shawn Daivari. Muhammad Hassan was of Italian heritage.

Josh asks a question I’m sure has been asked before.

Great column, I learn a lot from reading it. My question is that with all the close finishes that WWE uses, has anyone ever won when they weren’t suppose to? Particularly in a title match? Example being referee accidentally counting too fast on the third count, or the opponent kicking out just a tad too late trying to draw out the suspense?

Off the top of my head, Men on a Mission’s tag reign, Mickie James’ 1 hour reign as Women’s Champion at a house show, Hardcore Holly winning the Hardcore Title at Wrestlemania 2000, and that’s it. Readers?

My Damn Opinion

David has a couple of questions.

Hi Mat,

A couple of questions for you.

1) Everyone is up in arms at the moment about the James Storm ‘swerve’
title win. I was interested to see Weyer’s ‘Shining a Spotlight’
article note that quite a few people are happy Storm won, just not the
execution. Are TNA copying WWE’s ‘Long Service World Title Reign’ of
Mark Henry (who is doing bloody well with it)? Do you believe the
concept a bad idea?

I think the concept is stupid on some level, yes. The idea that just because a guy is loyal and has been around for a while, you give him a title, that implies that if you don’t actively work at your craft, if you’re just competent, eventually you’ll be rewarded. You don’t want to award complacency.

And to add to that, if you want to keep the world title as meaningful, then you have to build up your long standing employee up, more so than anyone else since they’ve been around so long and, given the assumption of the title run, hasn’t been a main event guy during said time. So if you’re gonna spend all that time to build a guy up, why not build up a new one who will have a longer career and is fresher?

But I’m not objecting to Mark Henry or James Storm or anyone being world champion, you understand. I just feel the “They’ve been here a while, give them a title” is not a great idea. If they earn it, by all mean give them one. But not just because they’ve been there a while.

(Non-World Titles, that’s ok. Funaki’s Cruiserweight title run was fine, and I’m still holding out for a Brooklyn Brawler Tag Title reign at some point… Oooh, Johnny Ace could force Cena to team with him in a title match! Brilliant!)

As for specifics, namely the Storm title win, I think Storm is a fine choice, but like Weyer said, TNA (and WWE) have this problem in that the PPV is building to the weekly show, not the other way around. But as for Storm and Roode… I’m holding judgement till we see where they are going with it. Roode got screwed out of the title by a heel, which is fine. Angle had to cheat outrageously to keep the title. Which, you know, is what heels do when faced with better faces. Then Storm wins the title.

Now, it depends on where they go. The obvious choice is Roode turns heel out of frustration. I’d lean more towards Storm slowly but surely lured to the dark side by a desire to keep the title, and have him turn heel by joining Immortal or something. Or hell, they could be ballsy and do Storm V Roode for the title, and keep them face.

It’s just if they end up taking the belt off Storm and putting it on Hogan or Flair or something that I’ll be upset. I’m not about to rag on TNA for putting their faith in someone with an upside.

2) The WWE have thrown out there the idea of the ‘secondary’ PPV’s
being shown on the WWE Network. That sounds like a good incentive to
subscribe, as it would improve WWE’s revenues and possibly even allow
3-month storylines again. Could you see the Network also being useful
from a storyline perspective? Hype shows could be enormously useful.
Two easy examples: A ‘Road to Wrestlemania’ show following the careers
of Rock and Cena, or a show building a new Title contender as a threat
(Christian and Mark Henry could have used it in their build-ups). How
would you use the soon-to-be-ample WWE Network airtime?

Thanks,

I’m very sceptical of putting the secondary PPVs on the network. If you leave them on normal PPV as well, then you’re going to reduce your numbers for the PPVs even more, cannibalizing one for the other. And if you take them off PPV, then you’re losing a lot of money for both you and the PPV providers, since I’m fairly sure the Network will cost less per month than a PPV. Either way, it seems to me that WWE will lose money. And right now can they really afford that?

I dunno, we need Prag back for this sort of stuff.

As for your ideas, they are both very good. That is the sort of stuff they should be doing. As for how I’d fill the time, that’s easy. You have so much on tape, you can run for months with just a simple “AWA-WWWF-ECW-WCW-SMW-WWF-WWE” formula. But that said, there are two approaches I recommend.

One is to go to Bonnie Hammer and ask her for suggestions of people she knows who can help set up a network. I am sure she knows dozens of smart, experienced people who have set up network identities before. Hire those people, give them full access to the archives, and then only do what they ask. Let the experts do it, don’t interfere.

But since Vince would never let that happen, you have option two. Basically treat the first 3 months, say, as a test run, and thus toss everything against the wall and see what sticks. Greenlight everything. Wrestler/Feud spotlights, PPV retrospectives, Roundtables, old videos, music video collections, give Zack Ryder a half hour a week, make that Santino sitcom idea, just try everything. Some won’t work, but others will, and then you ‘relaunch/improve’ the network and focus on what does work and what doesn’t.

I can give you a breakdown if you really want it. It starts with Monday’s becoming Victoria Day…

Aguyin thinks wrestlers need to get out more.

Just watched the E:60 piece on Scott Hall. Very sad. In the story they brought up how this newer generation of wrestlers are more likely to play video games than enjoy the night life that stars of the past did. While this is a good decision the wrestlers make in terms of their health and the direction the business wants to go in, but is there also a negative effect, meaning since if wrestlers are bland and generic in real life their characters will be bland and generic? I’m not advocating wrestlers going on binges every night solely to improve the product (I’ll probably get a lot of shit in the comments section for this question), but it seems if the larger than life personas are fading. Thanks

I dunno, I’m not sure I agree with the idea that personality = drug use. That would imply CM Punk was incredibly boring. And besides, FCW has plenty of booze, every other month another FCW talent gets arrested for drunken escapades. And yet, when they come up, they are all the same look, same talent, same everything.

The problem is not that the wrestlers aren’t party animals, it’s that the system in place right now is set up to look for and train towards an ideal. And that ideal is John Cena/Randy Orton.

Not every wrestler is John Cena or Randy Orton. And yet, most wrestlers who come up are that look and that style. That’s the problem, guys are hired and molded into the same shape and look. The ideal should not be a physical one, it should be who is entertaining. Who is a good wrestler. Who can make money for the company. The ideal should be skills and ability, not tattoos and haircut.

So no, I don’t think wrestlers should be going out and getting drunk and that this will lead to them being allowed to express themselves creatively. The two are not related.

Finally, Nick has the annual question.

Hey,

I send this same question every year about this time cause I like to see your answers now and to see what actually happens.

What matches do you see coming for Wrestlemania, aside from the Rock and Cena. Also, what do you think the Daniel Bryan MITB situation will be?

We’ll go with Bryan first, and end on the WM card that will be laughed at, insulted and replaced below.

I’m still up in the air about Bryan. It’s a case of working out if the WWE writing team is playing a brilliant game of slow burn or if they really are that stupid. Basically are they making it seem like Bryan is just another guy and he has no hope at all in beating the big scary monster Mark Henry, are they setting it up that Bryan is the ultimate underdog and he has nothing but heart and determination against the sheer size, strength and raw power of Mark Henry… Or have they forgotten that they gave him the shot and are just using him as a jobber and then have him lose to Orton in 5 seconds at WM since Orton’s the star. Or something in the middle, like he loses the shot and turns heel or something.

Regardless, I’ll give it a shot at predicting the card now…

WWE Title: John Cena (c) V The Rock.
World Heavyweight Title: Mark Henry (c) V Daniel Bryan
The Undertaker/Triple H V Kevin Nash/Mick Foley
Unified Tag Team Titles: Awesome Truth (c) V CM Punk/Sheamus
Randy Orton V Alberto Del Rio
United States Title: Jack Swagger (c) V Dolph Ziggler
Lumberjill match: Divas of Doom V Kelly Kelly/Trish Stratus
World Record Attempt: Christian V Sin Cara Azul
Giant battle royal to give everyone a payday.

What do you guys think? Tell me below, and we’ll discuss it next week.