Ask 411 Wrestling: Is HHH King of the Gimmick Match?

Hello, welcome to the only column that wishes Randle was still writing so we could see him totally flip his format right now, Ask 411 Wrestling!

Obviously a big triple shot long weekend for WWE, with Takeover being awesome, Raw being surprising and Summerslam being there, and there’s a lot to talk about coming out of those events. Let’s ignore all that and talk about Tom F’n Zenk!

If you have a question about an equally obscure topic, or you want to talk about Summerslam for some reason, you can send your email to [email protected] and it’ll be filed away for consideration.

BANNER!

Zeldas!

Check out my Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture! I didn’t end up doing the Summerslam thing, but the blog is still good!

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The Most PPV Losses Thing: So fun fact, that was the last bit I did for last week’s column, and my explanation didn’t, well, explain it. So, here’s what it was: That was a list of the people who’ve had the most WWE PPV matches, and then their total PPV losses, which includes WCW PPV, ECW PPV, and TNA PPV (but not the weekly stuff). Thus how Kurt Angle appears to have only won seven WWE PPVs, since that loss total includes all his TNA losses. The question didn’t specify only WWE PPV, but I used WWE’s list because I didn’t want to have to slog through all the Japanese ones and work out the numbers there. Again, last question. But I stand by that list.

The Trivia Crown

Who am I? I share a link with John Cena, a Tough Enough Winner, and the Anoa’I family (multiple times). My first match on TV in the big leagues was a six man tag match, where one of the men my team beat would be my first tag team title partner in the company. I helped orchestrate Stephanie McMahon getting beat up one time. I also played a part in the formation of Evolution, sort of. I’m a fan of the street but not of the enigma, I am who?

Maravilloso has the answer!

Who am I? I share a link with John Cena, (I WAS HIS MANAGER AT ONE TIME, WHEN CENA WAS THE PROTOTYPE) a Tough Enough Winner (JACKIE GAYDA WAS MY VALET/MANAGER), and the Anoa’I family (multiple times) (3-MINUTE WARNING AS A MANAGER AND RIKISHI AS A TAG TEAM PARTNER). My first match on TV in the big leagues was a six man tag match, where one of the men my team beat would be my first tag team title partner in the company (RIKISHI). I helped orchestrate Stephanie McMahon getting beat up one time (AT BILLY AND CHUCK’S “WEDDING CEREMONY”). I also played a part in the formation of Evolution (AFTER UPSETTING RIC FLAIR IN A MATCH, I GUESS), sort of. I’m a fan of the street (I HAD A GIMMICK INSPIRED BY ADRIAN STREET) but not of the enigma (FEUDED WITH JEFF HARDY), I am who?

RICO!!!

Who am I? I was brought into the world of professional wresting by a tag team specialist, although I was ‘brought in’ by a ‘relative’. My first title was one whose style hasn’t existed for years. My favorite match of my career actually involved an unscheduled run in. I once won the 8th match in a series, I’ve invoked the Freebird rule, I’ve turned face by helping to beat up a manager (and someone else, to be fair), I’ve unified belts on more than one occasion, and had to learn another language to make it in the States. Who am I?

Getting Down To All The Business

Jeb starts us off with a discussion about NXT and Divas.

With three of the four Horsewomen called up to Raw and Smackdown (and their presence on NXT presumably decreasing soon), it strikes me that NXT could maybe use one or two solid female onscreen vets to work with the remaining talent and give Bayley someone she can flat out go with. That’s not to say I don’t have faith in the remaining female talent but a little extra experience and roster depth would never hurt. Rhyno’s current gig is a great example.

So, if it were your call, which two to four female wrestlers would you bring in to really help bring the next generation of the NXT Divas division to its fullest potential? We’ll call anyone alive and physically fit for the job (but also okay with a lighter schedule) fair game. My personal selections are Cheerleader Melissa, Beth Phoenix, Roxxi and Kong.

Rhyno’s not just there to be a veteran hand (although I agree that he’s there to fill that role), he’s also there to be a draw for the NXT tour dates, if someone doesn’t have the Network and doesn’t know what NXT is, they might come along if they see Rhyno on the card as well, draw in older fans who aren’t hip to the hot new stuff and what have you. So if you went with that criteria, then you’d want Trish, Lita, Molly Holly and Madusa.

That said, if you assume that Kana, sorry, Kanna is coming in as talent, then my four would be Victoria (because of course I’m going to recommend her), Cheerleader Melissa, Beth Phoenix and then transition Sara Del Rey into a trainer/wrestler role which I’m kinda shocked hasn’t happened yet in some form. If you don’t think Del Rey counts, then Molly is you can lure her back into the business and she’s not too rusty, Gail Kim otherwise.

Dollhouse Ponytail Minion Faced EggSalad Man thinks I’m gonna hate him.

You’re going to hate me for this…but what wrestler has participated in the most amount of different gimmick matches. In other words, who is the King of Gimmick Matches? For example, Taker has been involved in numerous Casket Matches. But that only counts as 1 gimmick match. So if a guy has only been in a Contract on a Pole match, a Strap match, and loser retired match, then he has effectively been in 3 different gimmick matches. So again, who has been in the most? (not counting handipcap, six man tags, etc).

… You’re right, I do hate you for this.

Let’s see…

Triple H has been in:

2/3 Falls
3 Stages of Hell
Battle Royale
Beat The Clock
Blindfold
Boiler Room Brawl
Casket
Cast
Chain
Championship Scramble
Elimination Chamber
Falls Count Anywhere
First Blood
Gauntlet
Hell In A Cell
Hog Pen
I Quit
Inferno
Intergender
Iron Man
Ladder
Last Man Standing
Lion’s Den
Lumberjack
Move
Retirement
Royal Rumble
Slopbucket
Special Referee
Steel Cage
Strap
Street Fight/Hardcore/No Holds Barred/Boot Camp/No DQ/Anything Goes etc
Survivor Series/Elimination Tag
Table
Texas Tornado Tag
TLC
Tug O War

Or 37 different gimmick matches, and pretty much every WWE Gimmick match ever not involving MITB. If anyone else can beat that, I’m happy to hear it but I’d be shocked.

William had a few questions leading out of TakeOver: Brooklyn, I’ll deal with the easy one first off.

One of the things I wondered after the brilliant NXT TakeOver in Brooklyn was how it was perhaps the first PPV (or should I say, “PPVs”) I have seen where all of the winners were faces, not including the pre-show matches (with Emma and Eva Marie taking out wins). Can you think of any other WWE PPV where every one of the winners was a face?

Off the top of my head, there’s been at least two, one legit, one slightly cheating.

The cheating one would be the “No Holds Barred: The Match/The Movie” PPV, aired on December 27, 1989. The PPV consisted of the No Holds Barred movie show in its entirety, followed by a steel cage tag match where Hulk Hogan and Brutus Beefcake beat Randy Savage and Zeus in a match taped a few weeks prior at a Wrestling Challenge taping. Thus the PPV had a total of one match, and the faces won, ergo the faces won 100%.

The legit one would be Taboo Tuesday 2005, where there were 8 matches, and faces won all of them. Mysterio/Matt Hardy, Eugene/Jimmy Snuka, Mankind, Big Show/Kane, Batista, Trish Stratus, Ric Flair and John Cena, all faces, all winners.

I don’t recall another PPV where the faces went a clean sweep. Readers?

Mark also had a few questions, but based on old school WWF. Here’s one of them as well!

1) What happened with Tom Zenk? I know that his WWF run came to an end, (according to Rick Martel’s shoot interview), after Zenk behaved like a spoilt brat over dress code, money and other things; basically the story being that Zenk thought he was above the rules of the company and very selfish despite it being Martel who got him his break with the company. After he left the WWF he appeared in the AWA, fighting Zbyszko for the World Tittle, and then he goes on to WCW. He was featured heavily on WCW Saturday TV, (most weeks he was on the winning side on the ITV UK version of the show on Saturday afternoons). This would be around 1992 and then he was gone from my TV. Even later getting WCW PPV’s or tv shows on youtube there is little to nothing of Zenk after 1992. According to Wikipedia he was contracted to WCW until 1994, and then nothing? I find no shoot interviews with him, youtube brings up nothing and, other than Martel and Ole Anderson, no-one mentions the guy. Good look, good in the ring, (at least to my 12 year old self), and somewhat over with the kids and women it seemed like he would have at least a Bagwell level career. So what happened?

… Huh, they actually acknowledged Zenk leaving WWF on air.

Anyway, what happened depends on what side of the fence you sit on.

If you’re like Tom Zenk’s fanbase, then what happened was that Tom was screwed over constantly by the front office and all the old men who wouldn’t pass the torch.

If you’re like, to be fair, the rest of the wrestling world, Tom Zenk made Shane Douglas look like Brooklyn Brawler. The Z-Man has a reputation as being one of the most self-absorbed and bitter men in wrestling history, whose rants on his website and on Dave Meltzer’s old Eyada radio show are legendary for being both vicious and also insanely self-absorbed.

I think the problem was that although he, as you say, had a decent look and could go to some extent, his attitude didn’t endear him to higher ups, who for various reasons didn’t use him as anything above midcard, which would further drive his attitude into the ground, which causes a feedback loop, as it were. Certainly in WCW there was a merry go round of bosses, with one or two liking him (Ross pushed him a bit) and others not liking him at all (Ole thought he was flighty, Bischoff thought he was a dick).

There was no major incident, no smoking gun as such. Just that, for whatever reason, Tom seemed to rub people backstage the wrong way.

Matt wants me to find specific shows for him.

Although my father revealed “the magic” of pro wrestling to me at an early age, there was a feud that took place in the late 80’s between Brutus Beefcake (my favorite Superstar at the time) and Ron Bass (underrated heel) that really got my blood boiling. I’ve been searching for 2 particular moments of this feud on The Network, with no luck as of yet, and wanted your assistance:

A) Can you tell me the show/episode where Bass bladed Beefcake with his spur at center ring, followed by the production team cutting to a studio segment (think it was hosted by Sean Mooney) due to the “graphic nature” of the blade-job?

B) What was the show/episode where Beefcake got revenge and shaved Bass’ head after a sleeper-hold victory?

Thanks in advance!

A) It was only censored in the US and possibly some overseas markets, as in Canada, it was shown in all its bloody glory.

Anyway, this attack is actually pretty important, as while it was filmed on August the 3rd, 1988, it was shown on TV on WWF Superstars on the 27th of August that year, two nights before Summerslam that year.

Yeah, this is the ‘injury’ that ‘forced’ Beefcake to ‘lose’ ‘his’ IC Title shot against The Honky Tonk Man at Summerslam, and thus led to a rather famous moment in Summerslam history.

As for when Beefcake got his revenge and cut Ron Bass’ hair, that was on Saturday Night’s Main Event 19, taped December 7th 1988, shown the 7th of January, 1989.

Mike has a simple enough question, all about the Mun-Ay.

Hey Matt..long time reader first time question……………I just came across a VERY VERY cool documentary on the Kliq that I guess the BBC made. I recommend anyone reading this right now youtube and watch it, it is about 2 hours with so SO many behind the scenes clips that I, and all you have NEVER seen, anyways, brings me to my question.

1. When they did the Curtin Call at MSG, the WWF had no cameras rolling, only the 2 guys who brought their video camera in, do you know if the WWF paid them or they made any money off being the only ones with the actual footage?? just curious.

Weirdly enough, WWF could easily have had footage of that, they had cameras there in the building, as they filmed an early tag match on the card since they had the Godwinns beat the Bodydonnas to win the tag straps. But they either didn’t record it or did but destroyed the tape later.

Anyway, the two fans who filmed the incident, Mani Mohtadi and Jason Cosmides, were interviewed for the ‘Kliq Rules’ DVD/Blu-ray that recently came out. They were then interviewed about giving their interviews, and in that interview about the interview, Jason, who owned the camcorder (Mani is the guy screaming about how ‘This is the Kliq!’), he mentions that WWF had a copy as they’d played it on air that didn’t come from him, although they apparently knew he’d recorded it since after he posted a comment about being the guy who recorded it they contacted him quickly about it, which led to the interview, during which, and I quote…

They also asked me for the original, I said I would give it to them (which was on VHS). I wasn’t sure if it would still play after all these years but I did convert the videos to DVD a few years ago. I decided to give WWE all of my bootlegs, starting from June 1995 at Nassau to our last show that I recorded which was August 1996 at MSG.

So short answer is no, they didn’t pay for the footage, since they found a copy somehow before getting in touch with the guys who recorded it, and when they did find them they got all the videos for free, although they did interview them and thus may well have paid/covered costs for that…

HBK’s Smile wants to rewrite history.

Hello, Mat. Thanks again for taking my question, this time a total opinion one.

If you could go back in time and change the outcome of one match per decade beginning with the 1980’s, which matches would they be and why? Bear in mind, you could not add/remove stipulations or make the match quality better (or worse).

My quick picks below:

1980’s – Savage pins Hogan at WM5. Savage as champ could have kept that feud hot and would have given him much more cred than Hogan would have lost in losing.
1990’s – Razor Ramon pins Bret Hart at the 1993 Rumble. Scott Hall may be the best wrestler to not have been World Champion in the 90’s or since and should have gotten at least one run. Plus, Hart-Yoko was one of the least-anticipated WM title matches ever.
2000’s – Booker T pins HHH at WM19. Book deserved the win, especially considering the build.
2010’s – HBK beats Taker at WM26. I did not want HBK to retire!

Hmmmm…

80’s: Savage over Hogan at WMV is a very strong choice, Summerslam having Hogan finally put down Savage to win the belt would have done all the buys. But I’ll go with The Original Screwjob, in the sense that I’d reneg that one and keep Wendi Richter as champ and going with WWF. In this hypothetical situation she’d continue gaining popularity and thus WWF would have a thirty year history of Women’s Wrestling being important as opposed to what we’ve had.

90’s: Can I change the outcome in the sense that the same guy wins but the way it occurs is different? If I can, then Starrcade 97 main event every day, twice on Sundays, Sting makes Hogan tap like Shirley Temple on speed cleanly in the center of the Victoria-damn ring. If not, then again I take a choice that causes a ripple effect, as Hogan and Beefcake win the tag titles at Wrestlemania IX, thus meaning Hogan can’t do the run in/WWF title win at the end of the show. Hogan as a tag champ at that point is just fine and dandy, and you can spend a year building to Bret getting his win back from Yoko easy.

00’s: Agreed on Booker T/HHH. If you want to put HHH over, fine, but the second you brought racial overtones, intended or otherwise since I know some people will still argue HHH was talking about WCW guys when he told Booker to dance for him and then lynched Maven later on, once that came into it, you can’t put the racist/WCWist over.

10’s: So many choices… The vast majority of them revolving around Punk for some reason… But I’ll go with Zack Ryder losing the US title to Jack Swagger. Again, butterfly effect, but that point was the start of WWE killing off Ryder’s momentum because he wasn’t the guy they wanted to have momentum, so hopefully if he isn’t cut off at the knees, maybe that leads to more brass ring grabbing.

Abhijit probably didn’t like the last question much.

Hi , long time reader ,love your column. Except for the fantasy booking:) okay so my question is pretty basic how do u rate a wrestler? By the amount of moves they perform, or the way they engage the audience, stamina, promo capability?? Bray wyatt for example has a good promo.ability that becomes repetitive but his in ring work can be marked as average. But the iwc loves him.

Everyone will naturally have a different criteria on how they rate wrestlers, there’s no universal criteria, hell in the IWC there will be 1000 ways to judge per 100 voices, to paraphrase my own damn saying.

However, I have two main schools of thought, since I’m in the IWC and thus I have to have different opinions even when it’s just me.

As a fan, I value storytelling ability in all its forms above all else. Physically I rate how good a wrestler is able to work at reacting and telling a story through their moves and how they act/react, while I put an equal value on the charisma and promo cutting skills so that they can progress the story that way too. While I can appreciate flashy moves and the like, I’d honestly prefer to watch William Regal work a match totally on the mat than I would see Kalisto fly about the ring like a superball. Pro Wrestling is, in my mind, a medium that uses conflict as the format to tell stories, not a stunt show built around feats of acrobatic skill.

As a wrestler? The ability to draw.

Or at least, a judgement based on storytelling ability, charisma, look, momentum, sellability, PR skills, the general grouping of factors that factor into how much money someone can make me in the theoretical situation where I’m booking.

Also how did the taker matches at wrestlemania improve hugely when the opponents remained.more or less. The same I.e triple h and Shawn..is it because he wrestled only once?? That cant be it as the last two.matches were pretty average.???

Remember a few seconds ago when I talked about storytelling? A major part of wrestling is story, and how two matches with the same people involved, with a similar gimmick and such, can be wildly different quality based solely on how one builds to the other, and/or how better or worse the story going in and coming out is. The first HBK/Taker match was great, based solely on HBK being Mr. Wrestlemania and Taker having the Streak, what with Shawn never having lost to Taker (apart from that Rumble). But the second one, with Shawn’s career on the line, and the drama of the last match added in, the story was that much more intense, and thus the match was that much better.

Mike, a different one from before, I hope, asks about The Hebners. And fair enough too.

Why did the Hebners (or Earl anyway) leave WWE? He was there for so long and I always thought he would be around like Howard Finkle. He was in some of the greatest matches of all time. Then one day he disappeared. Shortly after that he appeared in TNA in the crowd with a notepad and was taking notes. I don’t know if they ever went anywhere with that story line or not as I didn’t watch TNA on a regular basis. He just seemed to be the kind of person who would finish out in WWE.

They left because they were fired.

As for why they were fired, it again depends on who you believe.

Earl Hebner has said in interviews that John Laurinaitis didn’t like Dave Hebner, either personally or professionally, and thus came up with an excuse to fire both Earl and Dave, with Brian Hebner leaving over the issue as well.

The WWE side, a.k.a the ‘excuse’, was that there was a store that Earl Hebner co-owned, the Pro Shirt Shop in St. Louis. And WWE alleged that the store was selling unlicensed WWE merchandise, and thus Earl was profiting off the connection to the company and not giving the WWE a fair share etc. This at first was just Earl being fired and Dave ‘disciplined’, but Dave was let go shortly after, followed by Brian quitting soon after that. (Dave was the one taking notes for TNA, by the way, Earl just turned up one week, reffing a Team 3D V Diamonds In The Rough tag match).

Which is why WWE doesn’t mention them at all now, since they left on such bad terms, as Earl’s been pretty vocal about how much he dislikes WWE and the way they handled it since then. But he has hit 100K matches reffed, so that’s something.

Andron wants to talk about a nice, safe topic.

Do we have any successful African American individuals in the WWE? Or have most been shall we say Mid Card?

Well, let’s get the obvious out of the way first. The Rock, you could say, has had some success.

But it comes down to how you define success in WWE. I mean, there’s only been 45 men to hold the WWE Title, does that mean only 45 men have succeeded? Can you honestly say that Stan Stasiak is more successful than Curt Hennig or Scott Hall? And that no woman can be successful?

You mention midcard though, so we’re talking guys who got to the main event then? In a one on one sense? One Cain Knight made a count of all one on one main eventers of all WWE PPVs (excluding region only ones) from the start through to Night of Champions 2014, which I’ve then added in the (non-NXT) PPVs since then, including Elimination Chamber, which gives us…

39 matches: John Cena
37 matches: The Undertaker
29 matches: Triple H
21 matches: Shawn Michaels
20 matches: Steve Austin
18 matches: Randy Orton
17 matches: The Rock
14 matches: Bret Hart, Brock Lesnar
11 matches: Hulk Hogan, Batista
10 matches: CM Punk
9 matches: Edge
8 matches: Diesel
7 matches: Sid, Kurt Angle
6 matches: Mick Foley, Chris Jericho, JBL, Daniel Bryan
5 matches: British Bulldog, Kane, Seth Rollins
4 matches: Yokozuna, Big Show, Jeff Hardy, Dean Ambrose
3 matches: Randy Savage, Chris Benoit, Booker T, Goldberg, Eddie Guerrero, Wade Barrett
2 matches: Warrior, Bigelow, Mr. McMahon, Henry, Mysterio, Khali, Miz, Ryback
1 match: JYD, Bundy, Andre, DiBiase, Rude, Slaughter, Luger, Piper, Lawler, Fake Undertaker, Lawrence Taylor, Mabel, Goldust, Vader, Faarooq, Shamrock, Flair, RVD, Umaga, Lashley, Sheamus, Truth, Del Rio, Laurinaitis, Ziggler, Reigns, Wyatt

So by that criteria, there have been nine main event African-Americans (assuming tou count Rock). But I’ll admit that’s a somewhat useless way to look at it, but I found it interesting so there.

Anyway, right now, I’d say that while there are several successful African-Americans on the roster, they are also mostly midcard. But New Day is killing it, Sasha Banks had a strong contender for match of the weekend, and Mark Henry’s had a long career that has had some pretty high highs.

However, as always, it becomes a question of whether correlation and causation are the same thing. Yes, there are very few African-American bonefide main eventers. But is that because African-Americans are being held back because of their race or is it for the same reason there’s been no Australian main eventers, or no main eventers called Tarquin, that there’s just been few African-Americans who have had all the tools needed to main event?

I doubt we’re going to answer that question here, given that that windmill is pretty much all lance now. So suffice to say, I’ll say that Rock, Henry and Booker are three African-Americans who are by any standard successful, at the very least.

Nightwolf finishes us off with two questions about the Road Warriors, and one about Chuck Freaking Norris.

1. The Survivor Series 1994 Undertaker vs Yokuzuna match featured Chuck Norris as the special enforcer for that match. How did Chuck Norris become involved in this feud? Also whose decision was it for him to lay out Jeff Jarrett with a side kick? I think it would have been more impressive for him to lay out King Kong Bundy or Bam Bam Bigelow

In storyline, it came about because this was a rematch from the 1994 Royal Rumble casket match, wherein over a dozen men had interfered to help Yokozuna beat Taker. So they needed a ref who could handle himself against massive outside interference, and Chuck Norris, as a karate superstar, could do that. They just announced it a few weeks out.

Really, Walker, Texas Ranger was a new hot TV show, and Survivor Series was in Texas, so they brought him as cross-promotion, no more, no less. As for why Jeff Jarrett, I’d like for you to look at the sell job here.

Nothing against Bundy or Bam Bam, but I don’t see them being able to sell the kick like that.

2. During the Attitude Era, the Road Warriors wrestled in the WWF. It was during this time the WWF started incorporating Hawk’s real life issues with Alcohol and drug abuse in storylines. My question is why would the WWF go against Hawk and Animals wishes and use his real life problems on T.V.?

Apparently Animal doesn’t know why, so I’m not sure I can tell you.

At a guess, it was meant to be ‘realistic’, and given that the angle was about Droz joining the group and then trying to split them off, the idea I guess was to make Droz look like a complete and utter douchebag since he was trying to injure a man with a drug problem just to become closer to his best friend, what a horrible human being that Droz guy is.

Russo has a… unique take on logic, at times.

3. Speaking of Road Warrior’s, I remember watching the 5/12/03 episode of Raw. The Road Warriors faced off against RVD and Kane only to lose. Was there really talks of having the Road Warriors return to the WWF? Also why lose to RVD and Kane of all people?

Yes, there was real talk of bringing them back, that was a tryout of sorts. And the reason they lost to Kane and RVD was because Kane and RVD were the World Tag Team Champions at the time.

And on that night, I bid you goodbye for now, see you all next week!