wrestling / Columns

Ask 411 Wrestling: Is WWE’s Roster Too Crowded?

May 18, 2016 | Posted by Mathew Sforcina

Image Credit: WWE

Hello there, welcome to Ask 411 Wrestling, and making a Twitterbot is quite hard!

The thing I was talking about last week, there’s an idea for a Twitterbot in my head, and there’s a way to do it that’s ok, but not quite what I want, thus I’m stuck trying to work out how to make a twitterbot with a complex find and replace system… I dunno, unless a dear reader who reads these parts of the column is a secret twitterbot programmer and wants to contact me on Twitter, the quick version will be up soonish, hopefully.

Anyway, enough stalling. Let’s get down to brass tacks. Got a question? [email protected] is where you send it.

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Sting Starrcade 97: Yes, Sting wasn’t in the best shape. Yes, he was abusing drugs and booze. Yes, he shouldn’t have been long term champion. No, that’s no excuse not to pay off the story and have Sting squash Hogan like a bug. Have the entire nWo cheat to get the belt back on Hogan a month later, if you must, but a story over a year in the making should be paid off, especially given the situation.

The Trivia Crown

Who am I? I share a title connection with a recent WWE debut. I was the first man to do a specific thing of which only two other men have achieved (and only one of them via my method). I held a title for over two years before losing it to a WWE guy in a three way with another WWE guy. I’ve had two names in my career, one I use most, and a second one that’s vaguely similar to a major WWE name. I’ve wrestled for the current ‘big 3’, I’m a fan of a guy who stopped being good after the third film, and according to urban dictionary I’m a geek. Who am I?

Seriously? That tag match got worked out but this didn’t? Huh.

Who am I? I share a title connection with a recent WWE debut (TNA 2014 World Cup winner with Eric Young). I was the first man to do a specific thing of which only two other men have achieved (and only one of them via my method) (ROH Triple Crown Holder, Jay Lethal held TV not Tag belt). I held a title for over two years before losing it to a WWE guy in a three way with another WWE guy (MWF TV Championship, lost to Tommaso Ciampa in match also with A.J. Styles). I’ve had two names in my career, one I use most, and a second one that’s vaguely similar to a major WWE name (Answer and John Cahill, John Cenaish). I’ve wrestled for the current ‘big 3’ (WWE/NXT, TNA, ROH), I’m a fan of a guy who stopped being good after the third film (Die Hard everything), and according to urban dictionary I’m a geek (EE = geek). Who am I? (Eddie Edwards)

Who are we? We’re a tag team, although we’ve both had success in singles competition. One of our members had his first ring name stolen by a major company. Our first win as a team in the big leagues was over a couple of evil guys. We’ve had four managers, two at once at one point, two of them hall of famers, one a former champion, and the fourth was just recently back on your computer screens. We’ve teamed in every major company we’ve both worked for with one notable exception. We’ve had a couple different names, and been a apart of a couple different stables, one new, one timeless. And you can thank the Greeks for our backgrounds. Who are we?

Getting Down To All The Business

Peter starts us off with a question about timing.

A longtime reader of the column, thanks for answering if you get the chance. I recently re-watched Survivor Series 2015 (probably the only one in the world) and I always wondered – why was the main event between Ambrose and Reigns only 9 minutes? The show ended at little over 2 hours and 40 minutes, so they definitely had time to give the two. It struck me and probably everyone watching as odd considering the match was the final to a WWE title tournament. Any known information about why the match was so short?

I do know that, supposedly, the decision to have Sheamus cash in was made the day of pretty much, so what I suspect happened was that WWE made the match shorter than originally planned so they could have the Sheamus cash in and stuff happen and make sure that the show was on time. Also, Reigns is strong and big and such, and so a shorter, more imposing match makes him look so much stronger.

Plus, you know, it was Reigns’ second match of the night. Dude can’t even lie about the ring for an hour in the Rumble, you think he can go hard for two mid-length matches? Come on!

Speaking of being bloated and too full, Joey Joe Joe Shabadoo wants to talk about the WWE roster.

Love the column! My favorite read on Wednesdays. Quick question for you: Even with the recent cuts (*sniff* so long, Mr. Sandow), does the WWE (not including NXT) have too big of a roster? I’m not complaining that Kane and Big Show (for instance) haven’t been heard from in a while, and obviously unforeseen injuries happen that can make the roster feel thin. But WrestleMania showed how the company needs 6+ hours to get every healthy body (plus Shaq!) on the show…and now Cena and Orton and Rollins will be returning soon, plus a potential Finn Balor call-up. Ostensibly a part-timer like Jericho will leave soon, but, even with 3-hour Raws, how do you fit everyone on regularly? Or are there just natural ebbs and flows, and right now is a good time to give various veterans time off?

I’m really hoping that we get Aaron Jones, scholar and archaeologist in Lucha Underground Season 3, who comes in to win the Aztec Medallions since they belong in a museum!

Anyway, the current WWE roster is 64 men and 15 women, but 17 men are out or not really wrestlers, as are 5 of the women. So that’s 53 talents, which is a decent number, once you take into account just how much TV WWE produces. Sure, there’s a good chunk of their shows that are recaps of Raw and self-promotion and such, but you have Raw and SD and then Main Event and Superstars, which while not on air in the US are still filmed for overseas markets and the Network, so you do need a decent amount of people to move back and forth between the two, with injuries and phase outs occurring naturally over time.

There’s no magic number as such, there isn’t a set amount of wrestlers per show. But generally, the idea should be to work out how much airtime you have, then work out how many people you need to fill that time without stretching out things or rushing stuff, then take that number and maybe add another 25% or so to cover injuries, outside projects and character refreshing (the reason given for the releases this time around mostly).

But there’s no magic formula as such, it depends on your roster make up, what sort of shows you put out, who you need to send out on PR and such…

Wrestlemania went that long for a few reasons, and the roster size isn’t really an issue, in that WWE doesn’t HAVE to include everyone, they choose to, so everyone gets a WM payday. WM is it’s own giant thing that keeps growing because they keep feeding the notion that it’s a pop culture event, which it is, but still…

Anyway, doesn’t matter, fact is you can have a huge roster and use it well, or a small roster and misuse it. WWE I think has roughly an ok roster size for now, but it absolutely can get crowded if/when they start calling people up. But then, instead of firing them, some might well go down to NXT…

Speaking of the best part of something, Will has a simple enough question.

Thanks again for writing such a great column. Chyna’s recent death made me wonder what you thought her best match was while in WWE.
The 2000 Royal Rumble.

Her WWE career was pretty consistent, for better or worse. She didn’t have a five star classic every night, but she also didn’t stink up the joint most nights either, although I’m sure someone will claim so below.

Certainly by the time she was in the Women’s division she wasn’t having great matches, but that was a power issue, if she’d stuck around a little longer, she’d probably have been great in the Trish/Victoria/Molly Golden era.

Her run against the Radicals had some decent 8 person tag matches…

I think it comes down to how you judge matches. In terms of sheer wrestling, probably something like the Chyna/Kane V HHH/X-Pac tag match at St Valentine’s Day Massacre. (18:00 in or so).

Historical significance? The Good Housekeeping match.

Reaction/Storytelling and my pick, despite the shortness of her work? The Corporate Rumble.

As always, you should have the WWE Network before watching those.

Speaking of WWE TV, Uzoma asks why someone is a part of it.

Why is Byron Saxton calling both RAW and SmackDown, as well as the PPVs beginning with the Royal Rumble event this past January?

Because he’s black.

Man, twained Chandlers everywhere…

Anyway, Saxton is a guy that WWE is high on, the thinking is that he could be the next Michael Cole, who WWE thinks is the best announcer they’ve had in the modern era, and there aren’t enough Chandlers in the world for that one.

But anyway, Saxton is what WWE wants in an announcer, plus he’s not another white male, which is a plus. Although you could have had him for longer, the night after WM 31, where Brock destroyed Cole, and Saxton called Raw for himself until Lawler went out to join him, that was supposed to be his moment, his time to shine, that his brass ring moment, where he was supposed to go out and be awesome and that would lead to him becoming a permanent part of the show. Instead he was… Eh, and thus Lawler was a last second replacement and overall he didn’t do a good job, which soured him in Vince’s eyes, according to reports.

So at the moment he’s calling Raw, SD and PPV to get experience/over with the fans so that he can one day becoming the next Michael Cole.

Yay…

Speaking of things that are possibly racist, Jeff asks about one of the possible new owners of TNA.

As you know, all the recent talk of Aurolux buying TNA has resulted in fans tweeting pictures of Ron and Don Harris sporting SS tattoos and T-shirts. This made me wonder:

1. Are/were the Harris Brothers known to be actual neo-Nazis? Certainly having SS tattoos and apparel would indicate they at least were at one time, but have they actually been known to espouse those kinds of beliefs or not work well with minorities?

First photo here, you can see how the SS symbol was altered into snakes.

That said, it’s one of those things where everyone ‘knows’ it, and certainly there’s the obvious evidence, but there’s been no from the mouth discussion about it. I’ve not heard anything beyond supposedly using a racist term to describe an African American once.

And for the record, Ron at the least is now a committed Christian and works in the Christian music industry, so perhaps they were at one point and have changed, or not… There’s not any situation where they’ve come out and been racist, as such, on the record.

2. If so, was there ever major heat on the two for this? I’ve heard vague rumors about an incident in ECW shortly after they got the SS tattoos where they showed up with Nazi shirts and were asked to leave. I also heard about an appearance one (or both?) of them made on NWA: TNA television wearing an SS shirt for which TNA was expected to apologize but never did.

Yeah, the ECW thing is a big part of the ‘proof’, that they turned up to an ECW event with new SS tats and were told to not come back till they were gone or some such. Although TNA did in fact apologize for the shirt, sort of. They put out a press release at the time.

“On the August 14 episode of NWA-TNA: Total Nonstop Action one of our performers wore a shirt to the ring that had an offensive symbol that prompted many of our fans to e-mail us.

“We were not aware of the incident until we received the response from our fans, and we agree with those who say the shirt was offensive. We do not in any way condone such things and have taken steps to make sure something like that doesn’t happen again.

“We apologize to those who were rightfully offended.”

But yeah, the two, if they are still racist, obviously never caused too many waves with it, given they were never fired for being racist or such, so while some people I’m sure disliked them, apart from the ECW thing there was never any blowback on them too much.

Speaking of stuff sticking out, Big O (no, not that one, I don’t think…) asks about spot calling.

Who is the worst at giving instruction in the ring. You can always see y2j, it’s like he’s not even trying to hide it.

Part of the issue now is that WWE’s cameras are so good and so close and the crowd is so quiet, you hear spots a lot more frequently than you used to. Except in Austin matches, he’d also be blatant about it but then finish them off with insults so it looked like he was just trash talking, which was a brilliant way to go about it.

Jericho’s pretty obvious, and probably wins on longevity and such, but there’s only one guy with his own Botchamania segment…

I wouldn’t fight Jericho too hard though. Paige, Fox and Orton are pretty bad too.

Speaking of not fighting too hard, Jordon asks where Jose went.

Hey man, big fan of your weekly column. Was wondering whatever happened to the Shawn Michaels and Jose Lothario manager connection. Last time we saw him was what the 1997 Royal Rumble? They said he was Michaels first real trainer. After that night he was never seen again or even mentioned. I do not recall WWE acknowledging him ever since and did Michaels even menton him in his Hall of Fame

He did come back for a one shot on Sunday Night Heat in January 1999, back when Heat was supposed to be important. (10 mins in)

Anyway, he was dropped because Shawn didn’t like him and hated him being there since he didn’t think he needed a manager. Jose did train Shawn at first, but according to Shawn in late 99/early 00, that training was only for a couple months, and then Jose sent him to the Mid-South territory and ‘threw him to the wolves’.

So, fast forward to 1996, and Vince wants to push Shawn Michaels as the heroic sweet guy next door pure white babyface champion, the Boyhood Dream and all that. So he gives him Jose as a manager. And Shawn hated it. He thought he should be the sexy boy cool edgy guy, and Jose was making him look ‘bad’. Jose wasn’t his childhood hero, he was just the guy who taught him how to bump, no more, no less. A mention in the Hall of Fame speech would have been nice, but Shawn never had a solid connection with him, be it as a rookie or as a client.

Like a lot of things in wrestling, while there’s an element of truth in what they said, it was BS.

Speaking of BS, Connor?

I’m just wondering why wwe has never signed The Great Muta? closest we got was The Great Kabuki at the 1994 Royal Rumble.

Actually the closest we got was in 2002, when Mutoh jumped ship to All Japan Pro Wrestling and then he met with The Rock and sent feelers out to WWE because Mutoh really, really, REALLY wanted to wrestle The Rock in Japan. Had the talks worked out, we probably would have gotten Muta in WWE in some sort of exchange deal.

But the problem is that when Muta was in the States, he ended up in the NWA, then when he went back to Japan he became a major star, and thus wouldn’t need to go to the US to make money, and WWE would want him exclusively, which he wasn’t prepared to do, given that he was in positions of power in the various companies he worked for, his current one, Wrestle-1, having a deal with TNA right now, thus he’s not coming in any time soon.

Eventually though… I can see him getting a Hall of Fame induction, and one match, probably in NXT, just so Vince can scratch one more name off that list. Hell, after Muta you’re down to who, New Jack?

Anyway, WWE wasn’t interested when they could have had him, and then he was never going to come over for any extended period since he was focused on Japan and Vince would never let him work both.

Was Rick Rude supposed to beat Ron Simmons at Starrcade 1992 for the WCW Championship? It seems strange they would replace him with Doctor Death unless his injury was real

The injury was real, sure enough. In a brawl with Simmons on the 9th of December, he injured his back, and it was a little touch and go as to if he could wrestle or not. Certainly up until the show they were promoting him as being there.

But he wasn’t going to win the title, at least not according to the Observer at the time.

The legit story is that Rude was suffering from a bulging disc in his neck, the same injury that has kept him out of action since suffering it on 12/9. While the injury occurred more than two weeks back, WCW officials so I’m told didn’t know Rude wouldn’t be able to work until 12/26. I suppose it would have been possible to get the change on the Sunday show, although it would have required extreme last minute effort like putting a crawl on the screen since the show was probably completed a few days beforehand. You can argue whether or not it was feasible when a main event world title match on a PPV is changed but I’ve got to believe it was possible and should have been done. Rude, who from all indications, despite what has been heavily rumored and reported just about everywhere, was not going to win the title from Simmons, will be out of action for an estimated eight weeks. It was pretty well said on the show that the U.S. title will be vacated because of his injury and either Rick Steamboat or Dustin Rhodes will win the title in the tournament, and you’ve got to figure with Steamboat holding the tag title, who the natural next champion will be. I’ll assume Rude won’t return until the 2/27 PPV show.

Rude would have put over Simmons on the show, and then feud with him more after Simmons dropped the belt back to Vader, and/or moved over to Sting or something. But he wasn’t going to win the title.

For my money, Dolph Ziggler is the greatest in the sport today, I have to wonder why he isn’t main eventing? I can see a lot of Mr Perfect in him

Well Mr. Perfect didn’t main event all that much either, when you think about it, so maybe that’s why…

Anyway, there’s a whole lot of reasons, there’s no one singular thing, it’s a case of WWE choosing not to push him there for an extended period of time and him not getting enough of a concerted reaction to make them change their mind to his idiosyncrasies in how he wrestles to his outspoken nature at times to the time of the year to what a butterfly has for breakfast in the Amazon or something.

He certainly thinks he should be main eventing, just ask him and he’ll tell you, and I’m sure some people below will say he should but in my mind… The problem is that unless he’s got all the bells and whistles (the Ziggler/AJ/Big E trio was gold), there’s this fundamental disconnect between how he wrestles, which is a pure babyface style, and everyone else about him, which is all heel. Heels care about putting on a show, heels care about looking good, heels are arrogant and outspoken. He’s not a heel though.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s talented, I think he should be on the card, and I’d take him over Reigns 99 times out of a 100 since he gets a good reaction, but I can see the arguments against him, at least from WWE’s side.

Speaking of WWE thinking, Nightwolf wonders if they do long term.

Is there any long term planning behind some of the decisions WWE makes? For example: Ok, we are going to have Hogan have title for 4 years before he drops it, Undertaker is going to 21 and 0 at WM before he loses, John Cena is going to hold the title 15 times.,or is it a go with flow type feel? I’ve always wondered how that worked.

Good Victoria no. Not to that degree. Usually the furthest ahead WWE plans in detail is a year, in that they will have an idea, maybe, of what they want at next year’s WM and will plan from the night after the last WM towards that, although they haven’t done that too much recently, given that the plans they did have for the last WM, for instance, changed over a dozen times due to injuries and such.

The Rock/Cena WM trilogy was the closest you’ll find to that sort of planning, since they had an idea of ‘Rock costs Cena, Rock beats Cena, Cena beats Rock’ from the get go. And WWE can have ideas of possible things, but they sure as hell aren’t planning that far ahead. I mean, people get injured, people lose steam, they fail drug tests, they get married, they quit to go join football leagues, there is just far too much uncertainty involved in wrestling to plan in detail beyond a year and rough ideas for maybe two.

Speaking of things people will disagree with me on, Randy wants to talk about themes.

Awesome list of best entrances! It led me to three more questions.

1. Who has the WORST themes (ie: X-Factor)?

That’s a pretty good list, although overall, I think Right To Censor has the worst theme as a song, but the issue is that it fits the gimmick and worked at getting heat, so it’s a bad song, but a good theme, you know? Same as Jillian Hall’s song.

But actually, I think the worst themes are the big swamp of generic rock that half the roster got in the early 00’s, since it was all so generic and samey, like the guys. American Males was stupid, but you remember it. Brie Mode is annoying, but it fits her. Conway’s is bloody stupid, but it stands out. In wrestling, the worst thing you can be is generic and not stand out.

2. Which main eventers have the worst themes of all time (ie: Scott Steiner’s Sirens)?