wrestling / Columns

Ask 411 Wrestling: Should Hulk Hogan Have One More Match?

May 13, 2015 | Posted by Mathew Sforcina

Hi there, welcome to the only wrestling column written by someone competing in the Australia/New Zealand Monopoly Championships later this week, Ask 411 Wrestling!

Yeah. That’s happening.

My life is odd at times.

Anyway, now that I’ve got my ‘bragging’ in, let’s get down to business, which is dodging answering questions! Got one for me? [email protected] is where you send it.

BANNER!

Zeldas!

Check out my Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture! It’s white text on a black background, so it’s easy on the eyes!

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Feedback Loop

Title Change Thing: It’s not dead, just resting. I’ll make a special edition when I finish it… Honestly, it’ll probably be the Dec 30th edition.

Winning With Opponent’s Finisher: APinOz had a few I missed.

In their house show run in 1986, Hogan would often use the piledriver to defeat Paul Orndorff.
Roddy Piper used the sleeper to beat Adrian Adonis at WM3.
I’m reasonably sure Batista beat Edge with a spear a few times.
Hulk Hogan beat Stan Hansen with a lariat at the first WWF-All Japan Super Show in 1990 (though I realise Hogan did use the “Axe Bomber” during his Japan run)
I’m more fuzzy on this one but Tito Santana and Greg Valentine traded wins with the figure four leglock in their mid 80s feud – I’m just not sure who was using it first, though I suspect the Hammer was.
At the 1989 Royal Rumble I “think” Ronnie Garvin beat Valentine in a submission match with a figure four (though there might have been some gimmickry involved with a “Hammer Jammer”)

As did the comments section, as always people, you should always read the comments section on my columns, there’s (usually) great discussions and all the stuff I missed there.

The Trivia Crown

Who am I? I was involved in a match on a major show that was the only one of it’s type on the whole show. My debut match in WWE was against a guy who’s arguably more well known for his run in ECW. My PPV debut was a win against a guy who’s most famous manager would have fit with me quite well. Apart from some guy named Shane, every one of my tag title reigns was with a different guy. I’ve been an authority figure, I’ve rebelled against… Myself, and I’ve been very demanding. Who am I?

Maraviloso has it mostly on lock.

Who am I? I was involved in a match on a major show that was the only one of it’s type on the whole show (GAUNTLET MATCH VS. KAIENTAI). My debut match in WWE was against a guy who’s arguably more well known for his run in ECW. (SCORPIO) My PPV debut was a win against a guy (JEFF JARRETT) who’s most famous manager would have fit with me quite well (PROBABLY ROBERT FULLER, WHO’S VERY. . . FULL). Apart from some guy named Shane (SHANE SEWELL, FORMER TNA REFEREE, WHO WON THE WWC TAG TITLES AS THE CANADIAN GLAMOUR BOYS), every one of my tag title reigns was with a different guy. I’ve been an authority figure (CHIEF MORLEY), I’ve rebelled against… Myself (WHEN HE JOINED RIGHT TO CENSOR), and I’ve been very demanding (PROBABLY A REFERENCE TO BE DEMANDING OF GODFATHER’S HO’S). Who am I?

THE BIG VALBOWSKI, VAL VENIS.

That said, the first part was Wrestlemania 2000, the manager was Debra and her… assets, and the demanding thing was that, in that he and Godfather’s unofficial official team name was Supply and Demand.

Maraviloso is back with this week’s trivia. (For the record, if you want to try your hand at a trivia question, do write in. More than happy to use it!)

Who am I? First of all, I’ve been called a god, a stripper, a former basketball player, an animal and a man of power. I’ve been recognized as a World champion by wrestling promotions outside of continental USA, but in the United States, I also was a World Tag Team champion alongside a former champion in WWE. In a somewhat infamous way, I beat Goldberg at something, but someone else almost lost his life because of it. I’ve feuded and teamed up with death, beat a tiger to win titles and was one of the original members of a famous stable that existed in the early 2000’s that originated from yet another stable formed by former members of an even bigger stable. One last thing: even if Wikipedia says otherwise, I have a direct connection with The Rock.

Who am I?

Getting Down To All The Business

Brian has a follow up from last week’s failed prediction.

So yes, I was clearly wrong about Cesaro. I’m now just simply concerned about him. There’s no market for a tag team without a title, and very few opportunities to be in a storyline as per the current WWE scene. For the second time, he largely got himself over due to ring performance and charisma inside the ropes, then flattened out once he was given an honor.

Whatever Vince is looking for him to do, it appears he’s done two years in a row, as an outsider. How can he make any progress up the card if this isn’t the expectation?

This is a slight issue with being a WWE fan, or at least being a wrestling fan who watches WWE as WWE insists there’s a difference. You can’t pick a favorite who isn’t the obvious, clear choice that WWE insists you love, since chances are that the guy you support will maybe get some focus and then be ruined and die out, with a second chance depending on Vince’s whimsy.

Zack Ryder might be the poster child for this, but it happens up and down the card, guys get over and popular for various things, being good at wrestling, copying another wrestler, whatever, they’ll get a bit of a push and then they get slammed back down the card.

And WWE’s attitude seems to be one of indifference, or at least superiority, in that they know better. They know who’s going to be the future, since they already decided that, and thus it’ll happen that way. There’s no room for unplanned, organic audience connection, that would get in the way.

Ah, I hear the retort, WWE does listen, look at Daniel Bryan, not WWE’s fault he’s broken! They pushed him, he got his Wrestlemania moment! And they didn’t give Roman the title he following year! That’s proof WWE knows what they are doing!

WWE can adjust, they can always dig out of the hole. Doesn’t make up for the fact that they put themselves in it though.

But I’ve been pounding this drum for a while, you’re sick of reading it, I’m sicker still of having to write it. But Cesaro, what’s going on there? Frankly, WWE has this bizarre idea that titles are bulletproof, that the second you win a title you’re instantly over and have credibility and thus can lose all the time and look like a goof because you’re still the champ and thus it’s all good. And, once you win a title and begin to look silly by losing, if you aren’t over anymore, that’s clearly on YOU, not our fault, you got a title and thus an opportunity and therefore we did all we could. So, if Cesaro could get a push and NOT win a title, maybe that will help.

But really, at the end of the day, for the foreseeable future, the only way Cesaro gets pushed is if he passes whatever test Vince has set for guys this week. We can decide who gets cheered, booed and the silent treatment, but that only counts for so much these days.

Cesaro gets pushed when Vince decides he gets pushed. That’s the way it’s always been, of course, but when the guy making the choices no longer considers the audience to have the final say…

Geez, I’ve depressed myself already. I need to cheer myself up. Jalapeno Chimichanga Dilapidating Fountain Spray, cheer me up!

What purpose did the Nitro girls reslly serve? I get it, they were pretty and killed time here snd there, but were any of them involved in any storylines on the (not counting Kimberly). Speaking of, why was she of all people head Nitro girl? Were any of these girks trained wrestlers?

… Close enough.

Anyway, although the membership of the girls changed over time, there’s two main periods of time in their run. The time before Russo got there, and after that.

See, the Nitro Girls were formed under Kimberly Page at Eric Bischoff’s request (she wasn’t doing anything else at the time) in order to make sure that Nitro crowds were entertained during commercial breaks. You couldn’t have wrestling matches going every time you went to break, but he also didn’t want the audience to sit there bored for several minutes. This is before WCW had a big Titantron equivalent, they couldn’t show videos or anything during downtimes. Raw, being taped, could just add in breaks later, but Nitro was live, baby, so pretty girls dancing to keep the audience excited in-between televised segments wasn’t a bad idea, really. And little bits on air to show you that hey, when you come to a Nitro in person, you get awesome wrestling plus this!

So come along, why don’t you?

Now then, that was fine and good, and Kimberly led the troop until she moved back into storylines and they acknowledged that she and DDP were a couple, at which point she left the Girls and they continued on dancing and such… Until Russo turned up.

Now, like a lot of things with Russo, if you come in with an open mind, you can kinda see where he’s coming from. See, the Girls were doing fairly well, they were popular and selling calendars and posters and the like, they were openly eye candy and that’s fine. But, they weren’t involved in any storylines, and thus why do you have a bunch of hot women standing, ok, dancing around when you could use them in storylines, do stuff with them?

Because, regardless of what you think about Russo, while you can debate the quality of what he wrote for women, he did write for them. Russo did indeed give Divas A Chance, albeit a highly sexual chance. So once Russo came in, then the Nitro Girls suddenly had personalities, there were heel and face Nitro Girls, they had feuds over who would lead the Girls before they split up and became valets, ranging from Madusa to Chris Kanyon to The Cat to The Filthy Animals and so on. Oh, and they also were how Stacy Keibler got into wrestling.

Of course, the problem with the Nitro Girls becoming valets and wrestlers is that none of them were trained and many of them had little to no interest to train. They were dancers, not wrestlers. So the results of them becoming characters were mixed, and then most of them were let go in cost cutting near the end of WCW’s life.

Now, I say none of them were trained, and that’s true, but then again technically it’s not, since there was one Nitro Girl who was a trained wrestler before she became a Nitro Girl. It’s just that it was Rhonda Singh, a.k.a Bertha Faye, a.k.a Nitro Girl Beef in a couple of comic relief spots.

OK, feeling a little less depressed, let’s keep this rolling. Connor?

Why does everybody hate Vince Russo?

Oh boy.

Well, for starters not everyone hates Vince Russo. I don’t hate him, which I’ll admit puts me in very slim company, but still.

Now, as always with this sort of question, the IWC is not a hive mind, we don’t all share the one opinion, one thought. A thousand voices, a million opinions. Some people might hate Russo because he’s from New York, or because Silver King didn’t win the Cruiserweight title or whatever. But basically, it usually comes down to a few key points.

You might hate Russo because of how he books. You don’t like Crash TV, or the overly long talking segments he pioneered, or the reliance on poles, or the constant ‘all of wrestling is a work except this bit right now’ attitude, or whatever. His booking is not what you like in wrestling.

You might hate Russo because of his legacy. Perhaps you blame him for the death of WCW, or you blame him for Impact not being good, or for Chyna being an IC champ or Arquette being WCW champion, something specific he did in his time as a booker erked you.

Or, you might hate Russo because of his persona, as it were. You don’t like how he never take responsibility for anything failing, or for his attitudes to wrestling in general, or that he thinks he is smart when he is, in your view, a complete git.

Or perhaps it’s some mixture of the three. But those appear to be the general tent poles most people use, how he books, what he booked, or what he’s done since then. But by all means, if you hate Russo for some other reason, do say so below.

And since I know someone will demand an answer: I don’t hate Russo because I don’t hate anyone who views wrestling differently to me, I just accept that there’s a difference there, and I try to bridge the gap. Certainly I think Russo has some good points as a booker, in that he cares about everyone and thinks everyone should be doing something which is a noble enough sentiment, it’s just an issue when you overload shows, and while 9 out of 10 ideas he has about wrestling I disagree with strongly, the 10th is often times a good one, in my view.

*awaits hatred of himself*

Emilio, try and help me regain some credibility please!

Question for you. I frequently listen to AM radio in Chicago and on one station (WIND 560 AM) I have heard commercials in the last week from “WWE Superstar” Alberto Del Rio on the importance of being a dad.

It is sponsored by the Ad Council and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is a nice spot with a positive message but would WWE allow this spot to run if Alberto Del Rio is long gone from the company and no longer a “WWE Superstar”?

WWE may not be able to stop them.

See, you probably vaguely recall the Fatherhood Involvement ads from when they were launched last year with Del Rio, Titus O’Neil and Roman Reigns. You know, Roman Reigns at tea, back when that was cute and loveable because we still liked Reigns?

Anyway, as this was a charitable thing, WWE donated their time and resources to the campaign, as did all the media outlets who ran the things for free. Thus I suspect that WWE didn’t specify ‘You can only run these for as long as we say so’, they just did it. They, probably rightly, considered it unlikely that the campaign would run again in a major way, and thus the odds of one of the men involved being gone even less likely. But, with Father’s Day slowly approaching, obviously some outlets will continue to run old ads like that in order to get their charitable numbers up, and they don’t really care that the guy speaking it no longer wrestles for the WWE.

So yeah, I strongly suspect WWE doesn’t have the right to say ‘stop running this’, they donated the rights to the Ad Council, and if the Ad Council has outlets still willing to run the ads for free, they’re not about to say no…

But hey, there a trademark/charity lawyer in the house?

Chris brings the topic closer to home.

Hi long time reader but never actually asked a question. So here it goes wondering if you where in attendance for Hulk Hogan’s recent meet and great at Westfield Knox if so your thoughts and pic of the meeting haha?

Westfield Knox is in Melbourne. I’m in Sydney. That would have been a 900 km trip. 560 miles. So no, I didn’t go. I’m not really a Hulkamaniac.

Also thoughts on the press conference and the thing that has everyone talking of one more match? As a life long hulkamaniac myself I definitely want to see one last match in his home of WWE.

He’s 61 years old, he’s had many spinal surgeries, and just… No.

Look, I totally get it, he’s Hulk Frickin’ Hogan, the most famous and important pro wrestler of all time, and he’s a hero to millions and all that, I totally get that. But you gotta know when to toss in the towel.

Especially because you know he’s not going to win. I mean, OK, if he was going to come back, you build up Hogan/Rusev and at Summerslam Rusev kicks Hogan’s head off and breaks his back in the Accolade and physically shits down Hogan’s neck, sure, fine, let’s do that. But Hogan coming back to toss around Macho Mandow for a few minutes and no-sell a gentle elbow drop with the usual… I just don’t see the point.

Well, no, I tella lie, I CAN see the point, the point is to get all the dyed in the wool Hulkamaniacs to tune in, so sure, I can see the logic there, of course. But no, I don’t think it’s a great idea, and I wouldn’t do it.

Not unless you can coax Shawn Michaels back to redo Summerslam 2005.

Ah, that match always makes me smile. Rudy, will you continue to make me smile?

How did wwe explain its perceived racial problems, the lack of colored champs, the lack of Native American on wrestling and the mistreatment of Latinos and support for the person who degraded Del Rio? Wwe has a horrible history regarding minorities… other then islanders. Lol

Guess not.

Anyway, WWE has, as part of its code of conduct, front and center, the Equal Opportunity Employment and Non-Harassment section, and I quote:

It is the policy of WWE to provide equal employment opportunity to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, age, marital status, national origin, disability, or status as a Vietnam-era or special disabled veteran in accordance with applicable Federal law. In addition, WWE complies with applicable State and Local laws prohibiting discrimination in employment in each locality in which it maintains offices or facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment including, but not limited to, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, transfer, leave of absence, compensation and training.

WWE is committed to maintaining a work environment that furthers the development of all its employees, encourages cooperation and teamwork, provides a pleasant work environment and provides fair and ethical treatment of all employment issues.

As part of this commitment, WWE is dedicated to providing a work environment that is free from harassment, whether that harassment is premised on sex, race, sexual orientation, age, religion, national origin or any other legally protected basis. Harassment creates working conditions that are wholly inconsistent with WWE’s commitment to its personnel.

When The Atlantic ran that article about Race in WWE, they quoted a spokesperson who said, again I quote:

“WWE is a global entertainment company committed to embracing and celebrating individuals from all backgrounds as demonstrated by the diversity of our employees, performers and fans worldwide.”

But that’s the legal mumbo-jumbo blather, what’s the meat of the argument?

The company line is that, basically, everything you see is a storyline and a character so it’s fictional and thus doesn’t count and besides, it isn’t racist. Akeem, HHH/Booker at WM19, Cryme Tyme, they’re not racist, they’re just storylines and thus don’t count but they’re not racist, full stop.

… I’m not even sure if I should, hell, can Chandler that or not.

As a white middle class straight male, I fully admit that I’m not really able to discuss racism (or most forms of discrimination) with personal experience. But, unfortunately, racism has been a part of wrestling for a long time simply because of the nature of the business, in that in wrestling you need to make a connection as quickly and easily as possible to the audience. And thus, due to the fact that for a long time white is considered the default state of being, anyone who is non-white instantly has a hook, since they are ‘different’, and thus if you play to the expectations of what your racial profile is like in cliché, you’ve got a gimmick done and dusted.

A white guy has to be a gambler, or a cowboy, or a time travelling band conducting MMA cowboy lawyer, whatever. A black guy just has to be angry or happy and he’s got a gimmick. That was how it was for decades, and then TV came along, and suddenly you can develop more three dimensional characters and storylines, but it took time for wrestling to realise that.

WWE claims it doesn’t have a problem, in that it does it’s best to value everyone, and anyway, what they put on TV is a storyline and thus since it’s fictional it’s ok. You don’t say James Woods is racist because he played one in Ghosts of Mississippi and so forth. That’s the basic gist of it.

Oh, and the guy involved in the Del Rio thing is no longer with the company, so there’s that too.

I feel somewhat underqualified to discuss this one, honestly. I can see where WWE doesn’t want to open the door to a racial discrimination lawsuit like WCW had, where if they admit that some of their past stuff was a little on the nose, suddenly it’ll be a lawyer’s picnic. But on the other hand, (insert whichever racial based angle or gimmick most offended you here). You’re never going to separate race from wrestling, wrestling is about broad strokes, and thus the color of your skin and your heritage can and will come into play. It’s just a case of how you do it. You can have a gimmick based on race that isn’t racist, as long as you use the racial thing to springboard somewhere else, like the concept of Mohammed Hassan we kinda got for a couple weeks, or the Rich Native American taking back their land One Nickel At A Time thing. Although there’s always going to be someone who still thinks it’s racist.

At the end of the day, as far as WWE goes, they can point to having multiple world champions of various nationalities, and champions of almost every racial group in the world, and they can and will fall back on the fact that they are telling stories, and sometimes stories involve themes that aren’t nice.

I’m sure this one’s going to be discussed below. Heck a week for discussing stuff. But let’s keep the mood whiplash coming, shall we? Shaun?

Regarding the infamous Scott Steiner maths promo has steiner ever received any ribbing about it from fellow wrestlers?

Just in case, somehow, you forgot about that promo…

Not to my (limited) knowledge. I’m sure comments and laughs were had, but I can’t find anyone on the record telling stories about ribbing after the fact. After all, it was an amusing, memorable promo. Why would you rib someone for that?

(Hell, it also predicted the future since Kurt Angle actually was a non-factor since he was pulled from the match!)

Brandon had a list at some point. Let’s finish it off.

8. Another team I really enjoyed when they first came together was the team of D’Lo Brown & Chaz, better known as Lo Down. They had very exciting matches and had great chemistry. Then suddenly they were managed by Tiger Ali Singh, wrestled in Sikh attire and took on a gimmick similar to Tiger’s. When that happened, they slowly began to disappear off TV. Why were they given a gimmick that killed their popularity?

They eventually vanished because Tiger Ali Singh got injured. But for the record, D’Lo Brown agrees with you.

As he says, he wanted to get back on TV, and the gimmick would get them back on TV, more so than just the team by themselves. As for why WWF would want to give them the gimmick in the first place…

Hey, look over there!

*runs away*

9. I remember when Raven was the WWF Hardcore Champion, a woman dressed as a black ninja was helping Raven retain, and eventually it was found out to be Tori. Was any reason given as to why she was helping Raven?

Sadly no reason was every given, since she was unmasked on the March 11 2001 edition of Heat, and that was the last ever time she appeared in WWE. The ‘next’ night on Raw, he got a European Title shot, and it was mentioned in passing that he’d dismissed his ninja woman. That was all the explanation we got.

10. In 2000, “The One” Billy Gunn returned and immediately got a push, feuding with the RTC as well as Eddie Guerrero, even winning the Intercontinental Championship. I think he was even one of the final 4 in the Royal Rumble before being eliminated. Then he just kind of drifted off TV. Any reason his push was killed?

Because he sucked?

Actually, that kinda is the answer. See, he did get a push, in that after coming back from shoulder surgery, they used the RTC to remove the silly ‘Mr Ass’ aspect and got him The One gimmick, and then he feuded with the Radicalz, and got to win the IC title off of Eddie. And then he wrestled Chris Benoit at Armageddon 2000. And the reports said that it was Billy’s make it or break it moment, as he had to knock that match out of the park, and if he did, he’d get a main event push.

But he didn’t knock it out of the park. And thus the push was killed. Supposedly.

John asks why we can’t mentally scar some kids.

I’ve been watching wrestling since WM3, and the 1 guy who terrified me the most in that time was Papa Shango. Given the current product, do you ever think there will be a possibility to bring back a character in that mould to really terrify young kids again? The black goo stuff terrified me!

I’m not sure if this was written in before or after Bray Wyatt came along, but either way, Wyatt answers that question, and the answer is not really, simply because it won’t fit with the rest of the company.

I mean, big scary guys will always, at some point, scare small children, I’m sure Big Show frightens some kids, but the idea of a character designed to be scary and frightening runs into the problem of the rest of the company being ill-equipped to interact with them in a believable way. Bray Wyatt has these promos where he rambles on about destiny or whatever and it’s just such a tonal shift from the rest of the show.

Back in the day with Hogan and Kamala and the like, when wrestling was aimed at families and was a real life comic book cartoon, a magic casting voodoo priest is all well and good, you can run with that. But these days, gimmicks have to be realistic, with the possible exceptions of Undertaker, El Torito and Mojo Rawley (no-one can be that hyped all the time, surely…).

Thus Wyatt isn’t magical, he’s a cult leader without a cult. He talks about ‘his message’ without ever actually saying that that message is, and he has to be vague and such because he can’t be cartoonish (‘I want to rule the world!’) or too realistic (‘I want to bring down the government!’) and thus he’s just wishy-washy.

WWE would have to change as a company in terms of how they approach their product to allow themselves a character who is truly frightening. Plus you’d need society to toughen up a bit, you scare a kid these days, you’re liable to get sued for mental anguish quicker than you can say ‘cotton balling a generation’.

Raza seeks to compare and contrast.

I love the column, firstly I have an observation regarding rise of careers of two wrestlers of different era’s i.e the Ultimate Warrior (of whom I always be a huge huge fan no matter what controversies associated him) and Daniel Bryan.

Now, similarities between the two is that both’s career boosted particularly due to their respective WWE Title wins i.e for Warrior it was WM VI and for Bryan it was Summerslam 2013.

Now lets suppose if WWE decided to place any of equally deserving one from the likes of Brutus Beefcake, Jake Roberts, Texas Tornado, British Bull Dog, Bog Boss Man, Roddy Piper, Mr Perfect, Jim Duggan etc as a replacement of Warrior and let Hogan put him over than obviously after WM VI, why not we would have seen the said gentlemen (none of whom ever able to lay their hand on WWE Championship) emerged as big product as Ultimate Warrior became back then.

Similarly same goes for Bryan situation with Summerslam 2013., had WWE handpicked any of the likes of Ziggler, Barrett, Kofi, Ryback, Eziquel Jackson, Cody, Swagger and made Cena job and then let Authority screw him, then I am sure that athlete would have become an overnight fan-favorite at least if not as big phenomena as Bryan have become.

So in the end if you eradicate these WWE Title win from Warrior’s and Bryan’s career, how you evaluate their career then (particularly of Warrior because Bryan had to taste success one way or the other but no in such a gigantic way) because obviously if one is put over by the likes of Hogan and Cena in their prime, the candidate would destined to reach the top then.

I disagree that getting a win over Hogan or Cena in their prime automatically means the person is destined for the top. They can clearly be positioned for the top, but booking only takes you so far. The Great Khali once pinned The Undertaker. Clean as a sheet. With ONE FOOT. The Great Khali is not now nor has he ever been at the top. Yes, pinning Hogan or Cena is a huge boost, but if you suck, you suck, regardless of who jobs to you.

But with that said, if you remove the title wins from their careers, what happens?

See, are you asking about what they did or what would happen? Because, to start with Warrior, if you remove the Hogan win, everything else he did still makes him important, but not nearly as iconic. But, if he doesn’t beat Hogan, then are you assuming someone else beats Hogan, or does Hogan stick around? Because honestly, I kinda think that if Perfect or whoever had beaten Hogan and then Warrior beat them, he’d probably have been in a better place, as he would have been more solidly positioned as the new Hogan, and I don’t see how Hogan could justify hanging around if he jobbed to a heel like that, so by removing the main reason Warrior wasn’t able to get traction, Hogan still being there, you probably get a better result for Warrior overall, what you lose in him not pinning Hogan you gain in him actually becoming the New Hogan he was supposed to become.

Bryan on the other hand, was established before the Cena win, and would have remained established without it, although perhaps had he been chasing heel Orton while never holding the title… That could go either way. Him not having the belt at all might make us all the more insistent he get it, or it could, more probably, mean we were less annoyed when he didn’t get it, as having something then having it pulled away is worse than never getting it at all.

And, sadly, Bryan’s career right now is more about the lost time and the injuries robbing us of our champion than it is about the wins he got.

And on that depressing, depressing note, we end this edition of Ask 411 Wrestling. Lots to discuss in this one, so I look forward to 100 comments about why Billy Gunn does/doesn’t suck. Until next week…