Ask 411 Wrestling: Did The Undertaker Almost Jump to WCW?

Welcome, ladies and gents, to Ask 411 Wrestling! I am Ryan Byers, and I am once again in for Mathew Sforcina. The big guy will be back next week, and hopefully I’ve done a halfway decent job of keeping things warm for him.

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The Trivia Crown

Last week’s question was:

Who am I? I was trained separately by members of two legendary professional wrestling families. Despite never having had a contract with the World Wrestling Federation, I have still managed to wrestle in promotions based on four different continents, including both major promotions in Japan in the 1990s. In the United States pro wrestling run that got me my most national exposure, I was the tag team partner of a future WWF Triple Crown holder. I had another run-in with that guy a few years later, when I took over a movie role that was originally intended for him. Who am I?

The answer was Tyler Mane, which was correctly selected by mfm420.

Now, let’s move on to a new question for a new week . . .

Who am I? Though clearly aimed at young children, I am still one of the most dominant professional wrestlers in a particular type of match. My tag team partners have included a rat and a puppet, and one of my favorite wrestling holds has a name that invokes Nazi iconography. I have logged over 30 years in professional wrestling, and my adventures don’t show any sign of stopping anytime soon. Who am I?

Getting Down To All The Business

Axl from Paris has me doing so much statistical research that I will probably be cursing his name in my sleep.

I have a somewhat crazy statistical question for you: What wrestler has the biggest ratio of days with a title / total days in WWE? I thought of some of them. Here are my calculations.

John Cena : debuted June 27, 2002 (4,807 days until today, I used this site to calculate it http://www.timeanddate.com/date/duration.html). Total days with a title (any title) : 1839. So the ratio for him would be 1839/4807 = 0.38, which means that he had some kind of gold around his waist 38% of the time we had the privilege to see him.

Another candidate I thought of is Seth Rollins: 296 days as a champ and just 1,000 days in the main roster until today, which makes his ratio quite easy to calculate: 0.29. Of course, these numbers are getting higher every day.

Another high ratio guy: Kofi Kingston. He has won 5 Tag Team Titles, 4 IC Titles and 3 US Titles, for a combined time of 858 days (as I type these words, since he just won fifth Tag Team Championship at Summerslam) with a title. He has spent 2,772 days in the main roster, which makes a 0.30 ratio.

Last but not least: Daniel Bryan. He has been a champion for 634 days. If you consider that he debuted in the main roster on February 23, 2010 (the day of the first NXT episode), he’s been here for 2,009 days, which makes for a 0.31 ratio.

So is Cena the man? I imagine that Sammartino (surely) and Hogan (probably) have better ratios, but maybe I forgot someone in the recent era?

This is the kind of question for which it is possible to provide a comprehensive answer . . . at least not without spending weeks and weeks on coming up with it. Thus, the best I could do is come up with a few wrestlers who I thought might fit the bill of having a higher ratio and then testing my theory.

In coming up with those names, I thought to myself that there were two different types of wrestler who were likely to have high ratios. The first would be wrestlers who had multi-year title reigns. The second would be wrestlers who, even if they didn’t have multi-year title reigns, had a high volume of individual title reigns. In the former category, I decided to test Hulk Hogan, Bruno Sammartino, Pedro Morales, and Bob Backlund. I the latter category, I decided to test Brock Lesnar, Kurt Angle, and Edge.

It turns out that, for the most part, the guys with multi-year title reigns all had high ratios. The wrestlers who had numerous title reigns did not do nearly as well, though. In retrospect, I suppose that’s because, despite their high number of reigns, all of their championship runs were relatively short.

Hogan, Sammartino, all had similar ratios with 0.53, 0.52, and 0.51, respectively. Morales was the outlier, as he only managed an 0.38 ratio.

The more modern wrestlers did substantially worse, with Lesnar at 0.28, Edge at 0.25, and Angle at 0.19.

And now, if for no other than I took the time to do it, here is all of the work that I did to come up with those final numbers.

Hulk Hogan

WWF Runs
November 13, 1979 – April 18, 1981 (522 days)
December 27, 1983 – April 5, 1992 (3,022 days)
February 1, 1993 – August 6, 1993 (186 days)
February 17, 2002 – June 24, 2003 (492 days)

Total of All Runs: 4,222 days

WWF Title Reigns
WWF Title: January 3, 1984 – February 5, 1988 (1,494 days)
WWF Title: April 2, 1989 – April 1, 1990 (364 days)
WWF Title: March 24, 1991 – November 27, 1991 (248 days)
WWF Title: December 3, 1991 – December 4, 1991 (1 day)
WWF Title: April 4, 1993 – June 13, 1993 (70 days)
WWF Title: April 21, 2002 – May 19, 2002 (28 days)

WWF Tag Team Titles: July 2, 2002 – July 21, 2002 (19 days)

Total of All Reigns: 2,224 days

Reigns / Runs = 0.53

Bruno Sammartino

WWF Runs
January 24, 1963 – October 4, 1981 (6,828 days)
February 16, 1985 – August 29, 1987 (924 days)

Total of All Runs: 7,752 days

WWF Title Reigns
WWF International Tag Team Titles: June 18, 1971 – July 2, 1971 (14 days)

WWF United States Tag Team Titles: July 24, 1967 – July 29, 1967 (5 days)

WWF Title: May 17, 1963 – January 18, 1971 (2,803 days)
WWF Title: December 10, 1973 – April 30, 1977 (1,237 days)

Total of All Reigns: 4,059

Reigns / Runs = 0.52

Pedro Morales

WWF Runs
January 21, 1963 – January 2, 1965 (712 days)
October 31, 1970 – March 1, 1975 (1,582 days)
April 15, 1980 – April 25, 1983 (1,105 days)
January 22, 1985 – November 16, 1987 (1,028 days)

Total of All Runs: 4,427 days

WWF Title Reigns
WWF Intercontinental Title: December 8, 1980 – June 20, 1981 (194 days)
WWF Intercontinental Title: November 23, 1981 – January 22, 1983 (425 days)

WWF Tag Team Titles: August 9, 1980 – August 10, 1980 (1 day)

WWF United States Title: January 7, 1971 – February 8, 1971 (32 days)

WWF Title: February 8, 1971 – December 1, 1973 (1,027 days)

Total of All Reigns: 1,679 days

Reigns / Runs: 0.38

Bob Backlund

WWF Runs
December 7, 1976 – August 4, 1984 (2,797 days)
July 1, 1992 – May 19, 1996 (1,418 days)

Total of All Runs: 4,215 days

WWF Title Reigns
WWF Title: February 20, 1978 – December 26, 1983 (2,135 days)
WWF Title: November 23, 1994 – November 26, 1994 (3 days)

WWF Tag Team Titles: August 9, 1980 – August 10, 1980 (1 day)

Total of All Reigns: 2,139 days

Reigns / Runs: 0.51

Brock Lesnar

WWF Runs
March 18, 2002 – March 14, 2004 (727 days)
April 2, 2012 – November 26, 2015 (1,333 days)

Total of all Runs: 2,060 days

WWF Title Reigns
WWF Title: August 25, 2002 – November 17, 2002 (84 days)
WWF Title: March 30, 2003 – July 27, 2003 (119 days)
WWF Title: September 16, 2003 – February 15, 2004 (152 days)
WWF Title: August 17, 2014 – March 29, 2015 (224 days)

Total of All Reigns: 579 days

Reigns / Runs: 0.28

Kurt Angle

WWF Runs
April 11, 1999 – August 15, 2006 (2,683 days)

Total of All Runs: 2,683 days

WWF Title Reigns
WWF Title: October 22, 2000 – February 25, 2001 (126 days)
WWF Title: September 23, 2001 – October 8, 2001 (15 days)
WWF Title: December 15, 2002 – March 30, 2003 (105 days)
WWF Title: July 27, 2003 – September 16, 2003 (55 days)

World Heavyweight Title: January 13, 2006 – April 2, 2006 (79 days)

WCW Title: July 24, 2001 – July 30, 2001 (6 days)

WCW US Title: October 22, 2001 – November 12, 2001 (21 days)

WWF Hardcore Title: September 10, 2001 – September 10, 2001 (0 days)

WWF European Title: February 8, 2000 – April 2, 2000 (54 days)

WWF Intercontinental Title: February 27, 2000 – April 2, 2000 (35 days)

WWF Tag Team Titles: October 20, 2002 – November 5, 2002 (16 days)

Total of all Reigns: 512 days

Reigns / Runs: 0.19

Edge

WWF Runs
June 22, 1998 – April 3, 2011 (4,668 days)

Total of All Runs: 4,668 days

WWF Title Reigns
WWF Title: January 8, 2006 – January 29, 2006 (21 days)
WWF Title: July 3, 2006 – September 17, 2006 (76 days)
WWF Title: November 23, 2008 – December 14, 2008 (21 days)
WWF Title: January 25, 2009 – February 15, 2009 (21 days)

World Heavyweight Title (WWF): May 9, 2007 – July 20, 2007 (72 days)
World Heavyweight Title (WWF): December 16, 2007 – March 30, 2008 (105 days)
World Heavyweight Title (WWF): June 1, 2008 – June 30, 2008 (29 days)
World Heavyweight Title (WWF): February 15, 2009 – April 5, 2009 (49 days)
World Heavyweight Title (WWF): April 26, 2009 – June 7, 2009 (42 days)
World Heavyweight Title (WWF): December 19, 2010 – February 15, 2011 (58 days)
World Heavyweight Title (WWF): February 15, 2011 – April 12, 2011 (56 days)

WWF Intercontinental Title: July 24, 1999 – July 25, 1999 (1 day)
WWF Intercontinental Title: August 19, 2001 – September 23, 2001 (35 days)
WWF Intercontinental Title: October 21, 2001 – November 5, 2001 (15 days)
WWF Intercontinental Title: November 18, 2001 – January 20, 2002 (63 days)
WWF Intercontinental Title: July 11, 2004 – September 6, 2004 (57 days)

WCW United States Title: November 12, 2001 – November 18, 2001 (6 days)

World Tag Team Title (WWF): April 2, 2000 – May 29, 2000 (57 days)
World Tag Team Title (WWF): June 25, 2000 – September 24, 2000 (91 days)
World Tag Team Title (WWF): October 22, 2000 – October 23, 2000 (1 day)
World Tag Team Title (WWF): December 10, 2000 – December 18, 2000 (8 days)
World Tag Team Title (WWF): December 19, 2000 – January 21, 2001 (33 days)
World Tag Team Title (WWF): March 19, 2001 – March 19, 2001 (0 days)
World Tag Team Title (WWF): April 1, 2001 – April 17, 2001 (16 days)
World Tag Team Title (WWF): July 2, 2002 – July 21, 2002 (19 days)
World Tag Team Title (WWF): April 19, 2004 – May 31, 2004 (42 days)
World Tag Team Title (WWF): October 19, 2004 – November 1, 2004 (13 days)
World Tag Team Title (WWF): November 13, 2006 – January 29, 2007 (77 days)
World Tag Team Title (WWF): June 28, 2009 – July 26, 2009 (28 days)

WWF Tag Team Title: November 5, 2002 – November 17, 2002 (12 days)
WWF Tag Team Title: June 28, 2009 – July 26, 2009 (28 days)

Total of All Reigns: 1,152 days

Reigns / Runs: 0.25

Raza Ali takes us back to the glory day of the Monday Night War:

In the year 1996-97, when majority of WWE/F stars were jumping ship to WCW, do you think that the Undertaker and Shawn Michaels could be able to go to WCW taking their monikers “the Undertaker” and “HBK” respectively? What I think is that I would have been OK for Shawn to go to WCW and find success in some new persona/character but rather difficult for ‘Mark William Calaway’ to join WCW in some new gimmick as fans hardly knew him outside his gimmick back then.

Though it is technically possible for a wrestler to sign over the rights to his name to a company that he is working for, the rule of thumb in situations like this is that, when you come into a promotion with a particular name, you usually get to keep that name when you go elsewhere. If the promotion comes up with the name for you or if it is otherwise developed while you are in the promotion, then it is the property of the promotion.

So, Mark Calaway wasn’t going to be the Undertaker anywhere other than the WWF. Shawn Michaels actually did use that ring name prior to joining the Fed, but he wasn’t the “Heartbreak Kid” until his early 90s heel turn, so that nickname would have been left up north, perhaps with a Fake HBK joining the stable of Fake Diesel and Fake Razor Ramon.

Connor hits two popular categories of question this week, with a “What might have been?” followed up by a “Whatever happened to . . .”

What kind of career do you think Nailz would have had in the WWF had he not allegedly choked out Vince McMahon for more money? I remember he was set to feud with the Undertaker, and they even ran a story about it in WWF magazine and it made the front cover.

Even if he didn’t strangle Vince McMahon, the guy was still nuts, and that still probably would have caught up with him at some point and caused him to get bounced from the promotion.

If we want to take the hypothetical a step further and assume that Nailz wasn’t insane, he probably would have had a pretty good shot at being a star. Believe it or not, even though they put him in a jumpsuit, he had a pretty remarkable physique in his pre-WWE gimmicks, and guys with good bodies always went far in that era of the company. Of course, he wasn’t the greatest wrestler in the world, but neither was the Undertaker at the time (95% of each of his matches consisted of nothing but choking), and he wound up having a 25 year run with the company.

Whatever happened to Damien Demento? He was an interesting character to say the least.

Ah yes, Damien Demento, the man whose primary claim to fame is being one-half of the main event of the first ever Monday Night Raw.

Before landing in the WWF, Demento was trained by WWE Hall of Famer “The Unpredictable” Johnny Rodz and worked as an east coast indy guy for several years under a variety of names, most notably “Mondo Kleen.” As Kleen, he got some early television exposure in the Savoldi family’s IWCCW promotion, and he followed that up with a WCW tryout before ultimately landing in the WWF.

Ultimately, according to Demento himself, his relationship with the WWF ended as the result of a dispute over a drug test. Specifically, he claims that he refused to take a test because he did not have to urinate at the time, and he walked out on the company due to the heat on him from that situation. Heck, why don’t we just give you the whole story in Demento’s own words, straight from his own YouTube channel (which we’ll talk about more in a second):

Even though he never had a run wrestling for a major promotion again, Damien had a few interesting occurrences in his life once he left the big stage. Initially he returned to the east coast indies during the mid-1990s, but ultimately his name faded away from that scene. He tried his hand at acting as well and somehow landed a minor role in 1995’s Die Hard: With a Vengeance under his given name of Phil Theis. If he has done any acting work since, it’s obscure enough that it’s not even been picked up on his own IMDB page.

In 2008, Demento’s name resurfaced among internet wrestling fans, as he publically overreacted to comments made about him by the proprietors of noted wrestling humor website WrestleCrap, causing the above rebuttal from our favorite Crappers. This coincided with the launch of the aforementioned YouTube channel, and, perhaps (not) surprisingly, it also coincided with Demento returning to the independent circuit and feuding with, of all people, the Musketeer. Yes, the Musketeer, the man whose biggest claim to fame is being Simon Diamond’s second, even though he’s had an eighteen year wrestling career that continues to this day.

Demento has also developed a second career as – get this – an artist. He mostly works in sculpture, and he did well enough that one of his art shows was profiled in, of all places, The New York Times, though admittedly the article seems to be built more around the “wrestler turned sculptor” gimmick than it does any genuine appreciation for the guy’s work. Again, perhaps not surprisingly, the greatest exposure for Demento’s artwork seemed to coincide with another run on the independents.

Most recently, Damien’s name popped up in connection with a New York/New Jersey-based indy called WWO, where he managed Justin Credible in a pair of matches against Jason Knight in 2014. That’s the last word that I’ve been able to find on the guy, though maybe this article will result in him threatening to beat me up on social media.

Night Wolf checks in with a trio of interesting questions:

1. I was reading an interview with Kevin Nash. In the interview, Nash states the reason the Undertaker did the biker gimmick was that he was going to jump ship to WCW. Can you shed some light on this rumor? I doubt Undertaker was going to jump ship to WCW considering that WWE was beginning to kick WCW’s butt in the Monday Night Wars and WCW was going to fold in a few years’ time.

I’ve never heard this rumor, and I agree with you that it makes absolutely zero sense. The “American Badass” version of the Undertaker debuted in May 2000. You know what else was going on during May 2000? David Arquette was the WCW World Heavyweight Champion. Monday Night Raw’s television ratings were consistently over twice those of Monday Nitro. WCW was at its must Russo-riffic, and no sane wrestler with a better opportunity would jump there, let alone a guy who was a top star in what was by far the superior promotion in just about every sense of the phrase.

2. I was thinking about something. Wasn’t the Ascension supposed to a vampire type gimmick? If so, why give them the cheap ripoff of the Road Warriors? I mean the WWE had them hold onto the NXT Tag Titles for a year only for them to job on the main roster. It sucks they got buried like that.

The answer is that the people who are handling WWE creative are not the people who are handling NXT creative. There is no real continuity between the two brands. There are different writers, and, while the buck stops with HHH in NXT, the buck stops with Vince McMahon in WWE. Those two men book things differently and perceive talent differently, and it appears that the treatment the Ascension has received while on the main roster is a byproduct of that.

3. Who are the longest serving roster members who have never: (a) bladed, (b) competed in ladder match, and (c) competed in a cage match.

Based on the way the question is worded, I’m assuming that you’re referring to current members of the WWE roster. If I’m wrong, well, take it up with Mat next week, because who knows when I’ll be back around these parts.

It’s difficult to confirm an answer to the blading question because there aren’t big databases of when wrestlers have cut themselves. (Or at least there aren’t any that I’m aware of.) However, just looking at the roster and thinking about it for a while, I cannot think of one single instance in which Mark Henry has bladed, and he has been on the WWE roster since 1996. So, that would appear to be a fairly clear cut answer.

Henry has been in both ladder matches and cage matches, though, so we have to keep looking to find those answers . . .

Having done my research, I think that the answer on the steel cage match front may actually be Hornswoggle. He made his WWE television debut on May 26, 2006, and I see no record of him ever competing in a steel cage match. However, he has been in a ladder match thanks to last year’s WeeLC encounter with El Torito, so we can’t declare him the winner in that category.

The longest standing member of the main roster without a ladder match appearance by my best count is probably Natalya. Her first WWE television appearance was on the April 4, 2008 Smackdown, over five years ago, and she has not been in a ladder match since. Debuting a few months later in the same year and also not having competed in a WWE ladder match are the Bella Twins and Primo Colon, currently known as Diego of Los Matadores.

Depending on how you want to count his tenure, Brock Lesnar may actually take the “no ladder matches” crown. He debuted in 2002 and has avoided being in any such match, though obviously he had several years away from WWE in the middle of that run, so you can count that as you like.

jayzhoughton wants me to take an inventory:

Roughly how many wrestlers does WWE have under contract? Preferably including developmental and a breakdown of where they are, e.g. main roster, developmental, injured, sitting at home, legends deals.

At the risk of making Ask 411 seem irrelevant in this day and age, the best breakdown that I could find of this information is actually contained on a Wikipedia page, namely their List of WWE Personnel article.

If we assume that article is accurate – and it appears to be largely so – I count 60 male wrestlers on the main roster (including part-timers), 15 female wrestlers on the main roster, 25 male wrestlers on the main NXT television roster, 8 female wrestlers on the NXT television roster, 16 male wrestlers on the NXT house show roster, 3 female wrestlers on the NXT house show roster, and 21 wrestlers who have signed to developmental but have yet to make their debut.

The article lists 11 people has being under WWE Legends deals, but, based on the names I see bandied about on the internet, there HAVE to be more than that. Unfortunately, I cannot find a good resource to determine precisely what the number is.

So, if you take all of those statistics as accurate, that’s 159 total wrestlers. Note that, in that total, I did not include announcers, managers, referees, or other non-wrestling employees, so the number of on-camera talents is actually a bit higher still.

Bringing us to the intersection of professional wrestling and labor law, it’s Stuart:

Following on from the CM Punk podcast and the less than favourable light he has shed on the WWE and the way in which they treat their talent, Vince McMahon and co. have come under the spotlight because of the whole independent contractor debate.

My question is this – Do other wrestling organisations use the same tactics in dealing with the wrestlers on their roster or are things done differently in TNA and the various Japanese promotions?

I understand that the WWE are the big fish and garner the most attention, but shouldn’t the industry as a whole be under scrutiny if they all act the same?

Also if things changed and these organisations had to consider the wrestlers as employees and deal with them accordingly, what would that mean for the business? WWE could survive the extra costs involved but companies such as TNA would inevitably fold and the business as a whole would suffer.

At this point, the “independent contractor versus employee” debate is really only applicable to WWE, at least in my opinion. TNA has shrunk to the point that they are running so few shows that their wrestlers ban basically work anywhere they want (as long as they don’t appear on competing television) and spend far more time every month working non-TNA dates than they do TNA dates. So, as we sit here in 2015, there’s a weaker argument that TNA wrestlers are employees than there has ever been.

As far Japanese promotions are concerned, I think that you would have to ask somebody who has more familiarity with Japanese culture and laws. For all I know, the legal landscape is so different from that in America that this could be a non-issue. What I do know generally about the conditions under which Japanese wrestlers work is that, for the most part, the major promotions lock their guys into contracts that are basically exclusive deals (though Japanese companies swap talent more regularly than those in the US). There are some “freelancers” who appear in major promotions and other, smaller groups, but even then it’s rare that a freelancer will truly work whenever and wherever he wants.

So, if we’re going to ask the question of what would happen to the wrestling world if professional wrestlers were deemed to be employees of their respective companies, the question is really only applicable to WWE. What would happen to the promotion? They would be able to survive, no doubt. It is true that certain of their expenses would go up, and they would probably react by making some cuts in nonessential areas and/or passing some of the costs along to consumers, but I doubt we would notice much change in the product presented on-screen.

Bigger issues might arise if WWE wrestlers were somehow able to form a. . .

(God, that’s a terrible song.)

Eric W. asked this question, which has literally been on the list of unanswered questions since 2010. (I have seen it many times during my fill-in runs.) Let’s finally put it to bed:

I was watching the Tony Schiavone turn heel during the early days of NWA/TNA. In that ring interview, he insulted Paul Bearer, Goldylocks and Mike Tenay. My question is: Does he really have heat with Tenay, or did he choose to leave wrestling? When Don West shot on Mike Tenay also on YouTube, is there true heat between West and Tenay, or was it a work? I would think West has to be upset with TNA management moving him out of the broadcast booth after they added Taz, which I think is a huge upgrade. Did Tenay really keep Schiavone from a broadcasting role with TNA?

No, Tenay didn’t really keep Schiavone from a job in TNA. If there’s any heat, I’m not aware of it. By virtually all accounts, Tony voluntarily left professional wrestling to pursue his other passions, namely broadcasting for legitimate sports. In fact, the man himself was just on Ric Flair’s WOOOO Nation podcast last month, and he closed by stating that he would not return to professional wrestling if offered a job because he is extremely happy where he is.

Jayden wants to follow up on this year’s WWE Title tournament, which just came to an end:

With the tournament on, and talk of past tournaments. I remember the undisputed championship tournament in 2001. Semi finals were Angle/Austin and Jericho/Rock. (Wow, awesome lineup). Now to me at the time the obvious final was Austin/Rock leading to an eventual Austin/HHH match at Mania. The background and history was there, except they went with Jericho, a great surprise at the time. My question, was there ever an Austin/HHH match planned? Was Jericho always going to win or have you heard any different? How would you have booked it?

No, I don’t believe that there was a Triple H/Austin match planned for Wrestlemania. The story as I have always heard it is that Paul Heyman had begun to develop some influence at around this time and pushed for a Chris Jericho victory in the tournament. That story makes sense if you think about it. Austin was headed into his retirement match in 2002, and HHH had just made a massive babyface return at that year’s Royal Rumble. Stone Cold wasn’t going to be a heel in his final outing, particularly after his run as a bad guy had just bombed the prior year, and it didn’t make sense to turn Trips so quickly when he could still ride the momentum that he had as a conquering hero. The matchup just wasn’t in the cards for that year.

The interestingly-named Chimpanzee Light Drizzle wants us to take a look at wrestlers’ educational backgrounds in a trifecta of questions:

a) WWE has a large roster and at times there are talent that are not used on screen. Are they used in any other capacity? As sparring partners in developmental? I would guess Ryder knows a thing or two about utilizing social media, and so on and so forth. Or are they just sitting at home collecting some form of paycheck? The same would apply for any wrestler with long time injuries, I guess.

Not every wrestler who is off of television for a protracted period of time gets assigned other job duties, but some of them do. Perhaps the most noteworthy recent example is Curtis Axel, who, when in between runs on Raw and Smackdown, served as a “sparring partner” of sorts for the Rock and Brock Lesnar when those two men were working on their in-ring comebacks. I believe that Curt Hawkins may have done the same . . . so perhaps that’s a job reserved for men named Curt.

b) Does WWE encourage their wrestling staff to take education part time so they have some form of degree to fall back on when their career is over? Not everyone can become a WWE Legend or build up a huge bank account I imagine. I ask because in many other sports, like football (i.e. soccer to all Americans), the clubs go out of their way to make sure their players plan ahead, since retirement could be only an injury away.

I don’t believe that there is a formal program for encouraging wrestlers currently on the roster to pursue an education as a backup plan. However, Jim Ross, who was the head of WWE’s talent relations department for many years, has always said that the first thing he told a prospective professional wrestler was to finish his degree before he even started training. I haven’t heard it nearly as often, but I believe that Triple H has echoed that sentiment at least once in his current role as head of developmental.

c) Xavier Woods makes a point of him working towards a PhD, which I assume means he has a Masters degree. I think I’ve read somewhere that Sheamus has a degree in computer science from Ireland, and Eve Torres has a degree in engineering. Do you know of any current wrestlers in WWE with academic aspirations or a surprising academic background?

Even though many people would be quick to apply the “dumb jock” stereotype to pro wrestlers, there are probably more of them with college degrees than you would realize. This is because wrestling wasn’t the first athletic endeavour for most of our WWE stars, and many of them were involved in college athletics in the United States, meaning they picked up degrees along the way.

In researching this question, I located plenty of articles that listed wrestlers with degrees, so feel free to Google those up. Most of the guys listed in those articles had degrees in fields that you would expect them to be studying, such as kinesiology or education. (Education is a popular major for athletes who want to go into coaching.) However, there were two current WWE wrestlers who really jumped out at me as having an education in unique fields. The first was Wade Barrett, who holds a degree in marine biology from the University of Liverpool. The second was Alberto Del Rio, who attended university in his native Mexico and earned a degree in architecture.

This means that Barrett should be the go-to guy for WWE Films’ adaptation of Free Willy and that you could call on Del Rio if the company ever acquires the movie rights to Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead.

Also, even though this question was limited to current WWE wrestlers, one of my favorite stories about educated wrestlers is the Villano family. As you may be aware, Mexican wrestler Rey Mendoza had five sons, all of whom became luchadores in their own right and performed as Villano I, Villano II, Villano III, Villano IV, and Villano V. (The “Villano” name was a reference to a character that Mendoza played in a movie.)

Mendoza wanted all of his sons to earn degrees prior to becoming wrestlers, and they did. Though I’m not sure what exactly Villano IV did, Villanos I and III were physical education teachers, Villano II was a freelance artist, and, perhaps most interestingly, Villano V was a dentist. In fact, Villano V was actually older than Villano IV, but V’s dental studies took long enough that IV got his degree first, meaning that he also became a professional wrestler first and earned his number first.

Simon has a dog of a question:

Hey, got a question about the British Bulldog. Was he brought back in 1999 and pushed in the main event scene for any reason? I know Undertaker was injured, but he just seemed right out of place fighting the Rock and Mankind.

It may have seemed odd to you to see the British Bulldog fighting the Rock and Mankind in 1999, but that’s really not much different than the position he was in when he left WWE in the wake of the Montreal Screwjob in 1997. Davey Boy Smith was an upper midcarder leaning towards being a main eventer at that point, main eventing multiple pay per views in WWF Title matches throughout 1996. So, the company was really just picking up with him where they left off, even though throughout his WCW run he couldn’t seem to buy a win.

And, with that, we wrap up my latest fill-in run! Thanks as always to Mat for the opportunity, and have some fun with him when he returns next week. He really likes answering those detailed, multi-part statistical questions for you.