Ask 411 Wrestling: Is This The Best Way For Undertaker To Go Out?

Hello, welcome to a very special Wrestlemania edition of Ask 411 Wrestling! Well, somewhat special, as I’m sure I’ll probably run out of WM themed questions and have to go back to other topics halfway through the edition, but hope springs eternal.

Got a question for me? Send it through to [email protected] although I warn you, the time you read these things isn’t correlated with when they’re written, so there may be delays and such, and if it’s a topical question… Apologies in advance for everything.

No apologies needed for BANNER~! though!

Still waiting for someone to make an ECW Desire video so I can steal their ECW Champions thing at the end for a third BANNER~!

Zeldas!

Check out my Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture! Picking up steam, why not hop on the bandwagon now?

Me On Twitter~!
WWE Turn Alerts 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

Feedback Loop

Victoria’s Photos: I’ve gone back and forth on what to put here, but I’ll just keep it short. Yes, last week’s edition was written before I was made aware of her being part of the hacking thing. I’m very much on the ‘this is an invasion of privacy’ side of the issue, and we’ll leave it at that, hopefully.

The Trivia Crown

Who am I? I’m a seven time major leagues tag team gold holder, although my (arguably) greatest achievement involving titles was with singles gold. My first last match’ was against an ECW guy, while my second ‘last match’ was also ECW themed. I was once stripped of a title but then was immediately handed it back. I have a special rule book, a win over The Rock, and an impact, as it were, on both brands (when they show up). A guy with a special body part, canonically, I am who?

Joey517 has it, with a little help from Matt Boogie.

Who am I? I’m a seven time major leagues tag team gold holder (WITH CREDIBLE, CANDIDO, MORLEY, CHRISTIAN & REGAL), although my (arguably) greatest achievement involving titles was with singles gold (TRIPLE CHAMPION IN WCW). My first ‘last match’ was against an ECW guy (STEVIE RICHARDS), while my second ‘last match’ was also ECW themed (Y2J AT THE FIRST ONE NIGHT STAND). I was once stripped of a title but then was immediately handed it back (Storm/Regal > Storm/Morley). I have a special rule book (VS. MIKE AWESOME IN WCW), a win over The Rock, and an impact, as it were, on both brands (TRAINED EMMA AND TYLER BREEZE). A guy with a special body part (Val Venis and ‘friends’ in a backstage skit), canonically, I am who? LANCE STORM!

Who am I? I once acted as a ref for a match with the above on PPV. I was trained by a WWE Hall Of Famer (one not really known as a trainer), supposedly, and I’ve trained people in WWE and ROH right now, definitely. I once lost a title to a man more well known as a manager than a wrestler. I once became a #1 Contender by tossing a guy over the ropes, that guy being famous for being tossed in another context. I’m second to only Lou Thesz in something. Although most famous for working in one of them, I’ve wrestled in WWE, WCW, ECW, ROH, and TNA. I’ve debuted into a title shot, I’m a triple crown champion, and I’ve never worked Wrestlemania. Who am I?

Getting Down To All The Business

We start our WM questions with one that… Isn’t automatically about WM. Jon?

With WrestleMania approaching, what are the best sets in wrestling history? Feel free to use either a one-off PPV set or a TV set that was used on a specific show.

Off the top of my head, I always liked Wrestlemania X7’s set, although that may well be the whole ‘Best PPV Ever!’ thing playing tricks on me. Backlash’s hooks was a cool set design, in terms of stuff that crossed multiple PPVs. Stuff WWE did at MSG was always memorable, usually because it was so different from everything else. And while the show itself stank, WM9 actually was a cool set…

But TV sets? I actually think WCW Nitro, the big letters in steel set, that one was a nice balance of cool looking but not distracting or stupidly big. And my all time favorite wrestling setup? The WCW Spring Break set.

Dead serious, I LOVED that set up. Silly as hell, sure, but I really miss having variety in wrestling shows. I totally understand WWE wanting their uniformity and how the giant LED thing is great for what they want, but having shows set up totally different is fine, it gives variety, and that’s a good thing. But that’s a well worn record there.

What about you, dear readers? What are your favorite wrestling sets?

Onto actual questions about WM with nightwolf starting with a question about a match we’re… Not getting.

From a business point, wouldn’t it have made more sense for Roman Reigns to face John Cena at Wrestlemania? They always talk about the passing of the torch to the next generation. John Cena’s been on top for over 10 years now. Why not have Roman Reigns go over Cena if you want to establish him as the next Face of the company? It would have more impact then him facing Undertaker who already lost his mystique when Lesnar ended the streak?

Cena’s not leaving though.

Well, ok, he is, but he’s not leaving leaving. He’s just going away for a little while. And thus you want the Cena brand and the Reigns brand to not ruin each other. What I mean by that is that if you put those two against each other and force people to choose, people will side with one of them, in theory, and then you risk alienating them to one of the brands, which is not ideal. Not while Cena could, in theory, still work something resembling a full time schedule in the future, at least for a bit.

Don’t get me wrong, I expect this match in a couple WMs, once Cena has replaced Taker as the once a year special attraction to the show, and WWE thinks they finally settle the Reigns thing with him winning the title off Brock at next year’s WM, but right now you don’t want either Reigns or Cena to look bad, so you don’t force yourself into making that choice.

Reigns over Taker is a big deal, and while you can argue that Cena would be bigger, you gotta strike while Taker is still able to move. And I kinda think that beating Taker is bigger than Cena.

WWE doesn’t want you cheering Reigns at the expense of Cena. They want you cheering both, until Reigns is the Guy, this time for sure, and then they can run the Reigns/Cena meetup and make all the money.

Seeing that this might be Undertaker’s last match( I know, we’ve heard it before), would this really be the best way to end at 25+ year career?

From Taker’s point of view? Probably not. From a business/company standpoint? Yes, absolutely.

Wrestling bookers and owners have, at times, struggled with knowing when to pull triggers and which horses to press the muzzle against. There’s always a temptation to just keep riding, there’s been so much money made, why risk killing the horse that made you all that?

And sometimes, you pull the trigger at the wrong time, in the wrong head, for all the right reasons.

But this is probably as clear a time as any to see that Taker’s probably not lasting too much longer. Certainly at most maybe one more match? MAYBE? So it’s time for the ultimate company man to do one last thing for the company, and help establish the guy that they clearly have built their future plans around. You know Taker’s pretty much done, so you use him to put over a guy who’s the long term investment.

Now yes, you can trot out all the problems with Roman, but WWE clearly sees him as the guy, and this is the move you make for the guy. Roman ending the streak might have been better, but then again that’s a heel thing to do, and this is so ending with the respect handshake thing, you just know it.

Helping to build the company is what you’re supposed to do on the way out, and that’s what this is. In theory. They might swerve us, maybe Taker does have one more in him, and we’ll get the double retirement match with Kane next year like we should.

Jason takes us on a quick detour to ask about TV screens.

While watching raw this past week, there was a match between Baylee and Nia Jax. Sasha banks and Charlotte were watching from backstage, this is something we see all the time but it got me thinking…..when the camera goes back to the people watching backstage, how can they still be watching the match in the ring? wouldnt they just see themselves since that is what is on the broadcast?

Actually they’d be seeing themselves seven seconds or so prior, as like almost all live telecasts WWE is on a very slight delay to allow for bleeping and yanking off air in extreme circumstances, if someone decided to get out the fishing tackle and wave it around or something.

Thus, I would assume that the kayfabe answer is also the real one, in that WWE has their camera feed showing on TVs backstage for the other wrestlers to watch, since they don’t want people coming out into the crowd if they want to watch a match. At some wrestling shows I’m on they have that set up, and…

Oh, wait, I don’t have the list from before. Huh… Well, let’s take a stab at it.

Anyway, that’s the justification, backstage has a direct feed of the ring camera, so when they switch there for TV, doesn’t alter the feed the wrestlers are watching.

Evil Jeff keeps us distracted with a simple enough idea.

According to the promotional spiel for WWE2K17 Papa Shango vs The Godfather is a ‘Dream match’. Well that got me thinking, in your opinion which wrestler (who has had more than one *distinct* gimmick) would have the most interesting theoretical ‘Dream match’ with him/her self, playing different characters?

Distinct gimmicks? Dammit. I mean, my first, second, and third choices were Conspiracy Victim Jericho V 2000 Jericho V Best In The World Jericho V Today Jericho, but that’s all the one gimmick…

… Oh, yeah, of course, Cactus Jack V Dude Love V Mankind V Mick Foley. Obviously.

But if you want it where they didn’t say at the time of the gimmick being worked that the people involved were the same guy… Raven vs Scotty Flamingo would be interesting. As would Stevie Richards V Steven Richards…

Black Tiger 2 V WWE Champion Eddie Guerrero. That’s a keeper. What about you, dear readers?

OK, back to WM, with Red, talking WM3.

I just realized that the Silverdome for WM 3 wasn’t officially announced and ticket sales didn’t begin until about 8 weeks before the date. Was there a reason for the delay, aside from that being how things were done 30 years ago? Did they want to certain that Andre was healthy (as much as he could be) before announcing it and the venue?

Actually at the time people were assuming it was going to end up like WM2, and run from multiple venues again, maybe just two of them this time around. And quite possibly, since they’d managed to pull it off a year before, perhaps that was on the cards. But the venue choice had nothing to do with Andre, they’d have probably run it with Hogan/Orndorff or whatever, given that at that point Toronto was the most successful city for wrestling in North America, and by running Pontiac, they could count on thousands of people driving over from Ontario to fill the place, and since they wouldn’t have to pay Canadian taxes, they’d make lots more money.

The venue and the card were unrelated, although obviously having Hogan/Andre and Savage/Steamboat on there helped ensure it would be full.

Also, ever notice the ‘AIDS Adonis’ sign during Adrian’s entrance in WM 3? He sees it and flips out in the ring. Surprised it hasn’t been edited by WWE on the Network.

Can’t say that I did. Classy. And I guess it’s not a swear word or a direct insult as such… Maybe he was just trying to get a job as a Personal Assistant for Mr. Adonis?

AC wonders why we got a certain WM match last year.

Now what was the reason for Undertaker Shane match at WM, was undertaker was not willing to wrestle any one from the available rosters?

No, he was willing to wrestle other people. The original plan appears to have been Cena/Taker, but then Cena, along with half the roster, got injured. That’s part of the reason Shane was brought back, so many people going down with injuries, Shane was thought to be the last big name left who could come back and draw while not being overdone or broken down. And Shane/Taker did draw, possibly was the major drawcard for the event.

I’m sure Taker would have been willing to fight almost anyone who was left, but Shane was the biggest name, I suppose. Why waste Taker on wrestling Miz or Ziggler or something? At least with Shane and the stips there was some doubt…

Stuart wonders about people who had to put up or shut up to get to the big dance.

I was watching table for three with madusa, ivory and nora greenwald (molly holly) on the wwe network and something nora said got me thinking. She claims that to get a place on the card at wrestlemania 20 she actually went to the office and offered to put her hair on the line just to ensure her chance to perform. Have there been any other well documentary cases where talent had come up with their own angles or stipulations just to make sure they get to compete at the highest level like this or is it just a case of nora being the only one brazen enough to take a punt and use her voice?

There’s been cases where people have made suggestions or gotten matches they’ve wanted, yes. I’m pretty sure Eddie V Mysterio at WM21 was booked because Eddie really wanted the match. Money In The Bank exists because Chris Jericho spitballed around the idea that began as a match to get RVD to bring back ECW.

And heck, occasionally people get stuff booked for other people. The story goes that last year, every other guy in the IC title match at WM (Owens, Zayn, Ziggler, Stardust, Miz, Sin Cara) all said that Ryder should get the win there, given that the plan was to have Miz win it the next night anyway. So that wasn’t much skin off Miz’s nose, sure, but that was still a heck of a thing.

I’m probably missing a whole lot, and I suppose nothing much comes close to putting up your hair, especially when you’re female, but yes, wrestlers do come up with stuff to get them on cards, including WM.

Adrian from Ireland has an evergreen WM topic for us.

Concerning the nixed Hogan vs. Flair WM match of 92. As we know the house shows matches was what stopped the match happening. Was this the only way of judging crowd reaction back then ? Could they not have Flair attack Hogan during superstars or whatever TV they had going on leading up to WM ? It seems strange looking back at it now. Did they run some Hogan vs. Sid house shows and find they were a roaring success ? or was this the program they had as back up ?

Well that’s not entirely true, perhaps. Certainly the house shows not drawing well didn’t help the chances of the match happening, but as we’ve looked at this a few times over the past months, it was more a matter of Flair not being kept distinct enough as a concept, and thus the drawing power of the match being eroded. Now some of that was out of WWE’s hands (the Belt issue) and some of it was on them (not making it clear that Flair was anything other than just a guy with a belt). But Sid/Hogan seems to have been the original plan that they then shelved for Hogan/Flair and then got back down after Flair/Hogan didn’t draw more money than God, plus Hogan taking a leave after the event, it just no longer made sense. If they had no other choice, they could have heated it up a bit with some angles and then explained away Hogan’s absence (“Hogan’s on a world tour!”) but they had alternatives that were acceptable, so they went with them. The house shows just confirmed the theory, they weren’t the be all end all.

Raza asks about Warrior and his WM moments.

I have two questions regarding Ultimate Warrior return to WWE in the past one at Wrestlemania VIII and other at WM XII. Firstly when he made his way back at WM8 to save Hogan from Pappa Shango and Sid for appearance of hardly 2-3 minutes, it is around time when Vince was struggling to find a suitable opponent for Ric Flair’s title match at WM8 as Hogan was all set for a long leave so why did WWE/F not negotiated with Warrior bit earlier before WM8 so that we could have Ric Flair defending the WWE Title against the returning Ultimate Warrior (should have been certainly a hell of a match) instead of presenting Warrior unadvertised at the event which still makes no sense.

No sense? You still remember that moment, don’t you? It’s been dulled due to various WWE silent periods about one or both of them, but it was still a shocking, amazing moment.

But bringing him back early runs into a problem in that his leaving right around Summerslam was messy, in that Warrior laid out his demands weeks prior, Vince agreed, and then suspended him, Warrior then quit but WWE refused to accept it… Him coming back was something they had to be careful about. Now sure, technically they could have begun the talks earlier and maybe run that match, but the thing is, they’re weren’t going to put the belt on him right away, given his past issues and the whole steroid issue, and if you were Warrior, and Vince, a man who said one thing to get you to a PPV, then turned around and screwed you over, if he came back and asked you to come back and start with a job to the champ on PPV… Would you trust him not to turn round and suspend you again right after?

Savage was the best choice available at the time, all things considered.

Secondly, in 1996, Warrior again departed and was replaced by Sycho Sid at In Your House 9 and latter gone on to win WWE Championship subsequently from Shawn Michaels at 96’s Survivor Series and their feud lasted till Royal Rumble 1997. Now it is difficult to answer after such a long time, would Warrior too put in a WWE Championship feud with Shawn Michaels then, had he not have left (did WWE had same WWE Championship path for Warrior as they devised it for Sid then?

No, Warrior wasn’t meant to be champ in 96. He was meant to be a special attraction, and help the bottom line a little, but doctored flyers notwithstanding, he was not going to be champ. Sid stole Vader’s reign, not Warrior’s.

(Well, arguably Sid took two reigns, in that the original plan was meant to be HBK-Vader-Bret-Vader-HBK, but then after HBK threw a fit and got that changed but they still wanted HBK to win the belt at the Rumble in his home town, Vader would have been the first choice to take the belt off HBK but he got injured so they went with Sid instead.)

Nightwolf comes back around.

Does Triple H take the crown for worse wrestling entrance ( WM 31) or is there one worse then that?

There was an entrance so memorably bad it’s become a meme…

But HHH’s Terminator entrance did at least look vaguely cool. His WM22 entrance, with the throne and the cartoonish hammer and such, that just looked silly.

Like a lot of things though, this is in the eye of the beholder. I personally feel Cena’s Bootlegger entrance was stupid pap, but I’m sure someone out there loves it. I feel that Sting’s entrance at Starrcade 97 was the worst waste of potential ever, but I’m sure someone will defend it. If you think T-888 at WM31 is the stupidest, that’s fine. I’m sure someone below will agree, and someone will disagree.

Possibly the same person.

Connor is all about Wrestlemanias past.

Why does everybody hate Wrestlemania 4? sure the tournament is long and a bit of a drag but it has a great story with Randy Savage and some of the other matches are fun like the battle royal and the two tag team matches

They hate it because it only wrapped up a week ago.

Actually I’m fairly sure that the hate that one gets for being so long and boring is becoming less and less of an issue as WWE keeps making WM longer and longer now. 4 seems like a brisk, fast paced short show compared to the hard slog that is modern WM. Hell, it seems quick compared to your average episode of Raw.

There is also the fact that Hogan has to still be the center of attention, as it were, as you couldn’t have Savage win the day by himself, no, Hogan had to get involved. But then again, that gets counter-balanced by that leading into V nicely.

So yeah, I don’t know why 4 is hated. I don’t think it is that much now, honestly.

what’s with Roddy Piper painting himself half black for his match with ad News Brown at Wrestlemania 6? he’s lucky the judo trained Brown didn’t beat him to an inch of his life

He was asked about this often, and he would give the same basic story, something along these lines, this recap taken from an interview by The Score, recapped by Wrestlinginc.

“First of all, you know, I was born in Saskatoon. There are no Black people that I know of that are dumb enough to go to a place that cold. [Laughs.] So, there’s no racism in me at all.

“At the time, I was walking down the hall of some arena. Maybe the Hoosier Dome — some place. I’m not sure. Vince McMahon says, ‘Hot Rod, I need to speak with you.’ I walked into a room and you could have cut the air with a knife. It was Bad News Brown, Pat Patterson and Vince McMahon. I said, ‘What’s going on?’ He says, ‘I want you to wrestle Bad News Brown at [WrestleMania VI].

“I’m looking at Bad News, who was a really good judo player and just a so-so professional wrestler. And here’s what’s going through my mind. I’m looking at him and I’m going, ‘I’m going to have 45 interviews about this guy.’ And I’m thinking Nelson Mandela at that time had said something that really stuck with me.

“Nelson Mandela was put in jail for 20-some years for political crimes. Every morning, he was the first man when the guard came to extend his hand to the guard. What a hell of a man. At the same time, Cindy Lauper had ‘True Colors’ out. In my mind, what I was trying to do — there is no difference. I needed material on Bad News Brown. I did something where I sang ‘True Colors’ and I did a thing about Nelson Mandela. But, they don’t seem to remember that. [Laughs.] The thing I didn’t do so well was when I came down, I pretended to be Michael Jackson. I don’t quite dance like Michael does, I guess. [Laughs.]

“So, [I got] just about the same reaction from you as I came out. Nothing. So, I had the match. I came back and the stuff they had painted me with, Vince had made special. So, when I broke a sweat, it wouldn’t come off. There was a special clear solution to take this special black off. When I got there, the lady started rubbing my cheeks and in about five minutes, I started bleeding. Andre The Giant had taken that solution, poured it out and put water in it.

“Now, I’m in Toronto, half-Black. I decided that’s there nothing much to do other than to go out drinking. So, I go and I’m drinking and I’m half-Black in the bar. Next morning — and don’t judge me — I wake up and the door of my hotel room is blown completely off and there’s a cowboy hat in the middle of my room. I don’t know who’s. [Laughs.] I wake up and I’m half Black. I got to go from Toronto to Portland, Oregon. I got a four foot Mickey Mouse with me that I bought for my daughter.

“So, because I didn’t know — I put the hat on, and I’ve got a four foot Mickey Mouse, a Halliburton and a hang over. And I’m half Black. … I’m completely half black other than the scar under my eye. So, I’m going through Chicago and I’m going through customs. When you’re half black and half white, they just go, ‘Go right ahead.’ They part like the Nile. In Chicago, I had to change planes and the flight attendant — that I later called waitress, which really gets over — wanted me to check Mickey because it was too big. So, I bought Mickey a first class seat and me and Mickey drank all the way to Portland, Oregon.

“The way I got it off was that I had to sit in the sauna. Took me about a month of rubbing this stuff off. But, what am I going to do? Go beat up Andre? [Laughs.] But the reason I painted myself half Black was more the meshing. I did the Nelson Mandela, I did the ‘True Colors’. Bad News Brown didn’t take it that way. So, I’m glad you asked me.”

The TL:DR version – Piper didn’t have a hook to really cut promos on Bad News, so he focused on the race thing and tried to portray himself as being a unifier, as being above it all, and the half black thing was meant to symbolise that. It didn’t work, and Andre The Giant made sure he paid for it.

And on that note, excuse me, I have to go write blurbs for the Wrestlemania roundtable, see you all next week!