wrestling / Columns

Ask 411 Wrestling: Was Roman Reigns’ Surgery Timed?

October 1, 2014 | Posted by Mathew Sforcina

Hello, this is Ask 411 Wrestling, and I am very slowly adjusting to the new site layout! Oh, and my name is Mathew Sforcina, but you knew that via the name listed above.

So how are we all going?

Look, sometimes I got stuff to put here, and sometimes I don’t. I’m facing a week off ahead of me with some big stuff planned, albeit not wrestling related. And when the biggest news story of the week is the GFW/NJPW deal that may be happening (which as of time of writing there is nothing on) which is great but… I got nothing to say about that right now. So yeah…

I’ll be in 4PC this week. There’s that. And the whole ‘Got a question, send to [email protected]” dealy.

Enough stalling. Onto the star of the show!

Zeldas!

Check out my Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture! Slowly but surely it’s sucking less and less!

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Feedback Loop

The format: There will be a couple weeks as I get used to the new layout and sort out the formatting for the new system that we use which is much more powerful than the old one but has different parameters. I sincerely apologize for this period of adjustment, do let me know if anything is weird looking, and I’ll try and fix it for next week, thank you.

Flip-flopping on Brock/Taker: Yeah, rereading my column from two weeks ago, I did come across as a little dismissive, sorry about that. To clarify: Brock/Taker 2: Streak Harder, from a storyline perspective, makes sense and is viable, but my issues with it happening are all logistical in terms of Taker not being able to physically do it and the WWE not wanting to do it. That doesn’t mean the story is bad, just that it won’t happen. But compared to Angle/Brock, it’s much more likely than that. Better?

With Russo, No Hunter: Certainly it is possible that if Russo had stuck around then HHH and Steph wouldn’t have hung out enough to fall in love, if you want to go that route. But WWE was going to push HHH until he got over, so if it didn’t involve Steph he’d still have gotten enough chances until one of them worked. Probably.

*files idea away for later*

Massive Q: If it’s any consolation, I do not have any sort of ratio or checklist that involves referencing my wrestling once a week or anything. Instead, I tend to bring up that I wrestle in order to explain why I have some sort of authority about whatever topic it is I’m talking about. I have to ensure that every issue of this is readable for people who have never read a word I’ve said before, and may not know about me as a wrestler, or that I’m Australian or stuff. I mean, I can’t just toss in obscure references and/or jokes without some sort of explanation, now can I?

The Trivia Crown

I am a wrestling PPV event. In me, there is a current member of WWE, a current member of TNA and several former WWE, WCW, TNA and ECW wrestlers. There were three wrestlers who, at one time or another, have had a connection with dogs, there were holy men, there was a feline, there was someone who, at two different times, had a connection with horses, there was a bull AND a bullfighter, and someone who had a connection to things in the sky and recording artists. There were three former WWE world champions, a WCW World Champion, two Triple Crown champions and a Grand Slam Champion. Four wrestlers in me are no longer with us, including a tag team, who lost something they loved that night. In the arena I occurred, two Wrestlemanias also took place and someone very active in wrestling with two major promotions got to make his professional debut in me. Who am I?

Hirnklops has the answers for us.

In me, there is a current member of WWE (Rey Misterio Jr)
a current member of TNA (Mike Tenay)
and several former WWE, WCW, TNA and ECW wrestlers. (Scorpio, Guerrero, Pscicosis, Rey, Benoit, Louie Spiccolli…)
There were three wrestlers who, at one time or another, have had a connection with dogs (La Parka, Psicosis, Latin Lover from the „Los perros del mal“, „perro“ being spanish for „dog“)
there were holy men (El Hijo del Santo),
there was a feline (Blue Panther),
there was someone who, at two different times, had a connection with horses (Benoit was a horseman on their last two reincarnations)
there was a bull (Psicosis, who had horns on his mark and looked like a bull)
AND a bullfighter (Tito Santana, known as El Matador in then-WWF),
and someone who had a connection to things in the sky (Mascara Sagrada)
and recording artists (Madonna’s Boyfriend).
There were three former WWE world champions (Rey, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit),
a WCW World Champion (Benoit),
two Triple Crown champions (Benoit, Mysterio) and a Grand Slam Champion (Eddie Guerrero). Four wrestlers in me are no longer with us, (Eddie Guerrero, Art Barr, Chris Benoit, Madonna’s Boyfriend)
including a tag team, who lost something they loved that night (Barr & Guerrero lost their hair) In the arena I occurred, two Wrestlemanias also took place (Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, Wrestlemania 2 & VII)
and someone very active in wrestling with two major promotions got to make his professional debut in me.(Mike Tenay, active in WCW & TNA)
I am AAA – When World Collide

Who am I? I’m mainly known for my non-wrestling work, but I’ve been a jobber for WCW and WWF as well as winning several titles on the indy scene. I once said goodbye by blaming a future world champion for all my problems. A multi-sport wrestler, I’ve managed a few world champions, as well as trained a bunch of people. I’ve been part of a team, a club, and a world. A #2 and a nightmare, I am who?

Getting Down To All The Business

Let’s start nice and simple and non-controversial with Connor.

Do you think the Montreal Screwjob was a work?

No. Everyone involved swore under oath, in a court of law, during the inquest into Owen Hart’s death, at a time when Bret had zero reason to help Vince, that it was a shoot. I have not heard one credible reason why everyone would be willing to go to jail over this being a work.

Hell, the question of this being a work got settled for me the minute the Hebners got fired by WWE under controversial circumstances. If anyone was going to crack and reveal the ‘work’, it would have been Earl right then. But he didn’t, because it was a shoot.

I mean, I get why people might think it was a work, in a way. It’s the same as people who claim New Coke was all a giant marketing scam. You want to think that people are really clever but you’re just that little bit cleverer, that they’ve made this giant conspiracy that has most everyone fooled except you. And given that the outcome of the Screwjob was so perfect for everyone who wasn’t a Hart, surely Vince planned it, right?

But there’s a quote from the New Coke debacle I remember at times like this, in that Coca-Cola’s president, Donald Keough, when discussing the conspiracy theories, said “We’re not that dumb, and we’re not that smart”. Vince McMahon was not so stupid as to give WCW a way to make a lot of money off his product by giving them the ‘undefeated’ WWF Champion as a work, but he was also not so smart as to know that WCW would screw Bret up so badly.

Montreal was a shoot. Unless someone involved says otherwise.

Speaking of works, William has another popular theory…

I don’t know if it is just me but the Roman Reigns’ hernia injury and subsequent emergency surgery seems a little on the nose to me.
Cut back to the Friday (Tuesday in real life, yes) before Night of Champions, and Smackdown included as one of its matches RR vs Seth Rollins – the same match which was to be on PPV two days later and arguably the biggest match behind Lesnar v Cena.
Do you think the plan all along was to have RR have “emergency surgery” at some point almost exactly 3 months prior to the Royal Rumble?
Few of the things backing up my conspiracy theory:
* Match given away on Smackdown two days prior to NOC (as above)
* Ambrose conveniently able to return at the same time, providing a built-in and still active feud as a replacement match/feud
* Concerns regarding RR’s readiness for the main event slot, and lack of creative ideas for him between now and RR to keep him hot without continuing to lose steam with the fans
* Provide a kayfabe reason as to why RR won’t even attempt to challenge for the WWE Title until early 2015
* Set up for the convenient return for the so called Road to Wrestlemania
What are your thoughts? It all just seems too convenient to me. I am not doubting he had the surgery, of course not, but I think the timing of it was planned. There is also the matter of the looming return of Daniel Bryan and how his popularity would turn fans against RR if they were looking to fill the same spot.
Your thoughts?

Oh, the WWE Machine and the fans are gonna have a brutal fight on their hands assuming Bryan comes back with most of his heat, it was bad enough when the guy they wanted to push was Batista, when it’s Roman, that will be nasty, probably.

But getting back from forward speculation (once Bryan comes back and we can gauge his heat, then we can really start to predict disaster) to current, I just don’t see this as anything other than an amazing mixture of timing both good and bad. After all, if they wanted to create an injury for Roman, why in Victoria’s name would you make it something like a hernia unrelated to his in ring stuff. Why not severe whiplash from too many briefcase shots or have him get piledriven into steps or something, if you’re gonna do an injury angle, why wouldn’t you have an angle to injure him?

Plus if you do somehow know of this in advance and can plan, why do the Smackdown taping and not do the match at the PPV? Yes, WWE has done bait and switch before, but if Roman is somehow able to withstand everything until you send him away, why wouldn’t you give him a PPV payday?

I mean, I get that, beyond the usual ‘WWE can’t fool me’ mentality, there is an awful lot of coincidence and timing involved, so unlike Montreal I don’t really blame anyone if they think this is fishy. But I personally don’t buy it, simply because it’s not clean enough. I’m sure some would claim that they’ve done that to make it look more like a shoot, but to what end? Roman not being on TV isn’t the issue, if anything he needs more in-ring time, he needs to be on the road, wrestling Cesaro and Sheamus and the like every night to help him develop his in ring work. Giving him ring rust in the lead up to WM is a somewhat silly thing, given that he was getting acceptable reactions.

Overall though, I think that this is the IWC being slightly up itself, in that clearly they are the ones this is targeted at, clearly the WWE is just desperate to work us, they concocted this whole story to make us like Roman, typical WWE to chase the IWC like that and so on. No-one is thinking that consciously, really, but there is that subtle sense of superiority that WWE has to go all out to try and work us, the ‘smart’ fans.

But no, like Montreal, I think this is a shoot. But unlike Montreal, I’m not nearly as hardlined against those who believe otherwise.

Ok, let’s get into some facts, Joesph asks about a wheel.

Spin the wheel, make the deal.
How did WCW prepare for the match at the time or was the whole wheel a work?

For anyone late to the party, after Jake Roberts left the WWF over a dispute about a booking job, he went to WCW and got into a pretty decent feud with Sting, although it then got a little, ok, a lot crappy.

So, after Roberts had pinned Sting on a Clash, the two would fight at Halloween Havoc in the Spin the wheel match, where the gimmick would be chosen at ‘random’. Per the WCW Magazine, the match could have been…

* Russian Chain Match (joined at the wrists, touch 4 corners)
* Dog Collar Match (joined at the neck, pinfall/submission)
* I Quit Match (Usual)
* Barbed Wire Match (Barbed wire draped over ropes, pinfall/submission)
* Cage Match (pinfall submission)
* Lumberjack/Belts (Lumberjacks with leather straps, pinfall/submission)
* Prince of Darkness (Blindfold match, pinfall/submission)
* Texas Death Match (10 count, presumably. Magazine says ‘When one man can’t continue…’)
* First Blood Match (You bleed, you lose)
* Texas Bullrope (Joined at wrists with rope, cowbell in middle, pinfall/submission)

As well as the Spinner’s choice option… And one more. Cole Miner’s Glove. Glove on a pole, first one to get it can use it, pinfall and submission.

Now then, for the longest time, most everyone has assumed that the wheel wasn’t rigged, because look at all those options, why would they pick the worst one? Well, second worst one, because a blindfold match would have sucked hugely. Plus given that there was a gap between the choosing of the stipulation and the match, surely that was the time that Sting and Roberts had to plan the match, right?

Wrong, apparently. The wheel was rigged, and the Coal Miners glove match was the plan all along, at least according to Dave Meltzer, quote:

DM: The wheel was rigged. The reason it wasn’t a bloodbath is because those kind of matches aren’t allowed anymore. For better or for worse, that’s how wrestling is today because of fear of spreading diseases and because of the broadcast standards of the PPV industry. The Coal Miners glove was probably chosen because it hadn’t been done before by WCW, and it was one of the few gimmicks that going in management probably felt fans wouldn’t have felt ripped off by not having juice.

Plus it did allow Jake to have a large glove with which to hold the snake that could then bite him at the end of the match, so there’s that.

So yeah, one of the oldest rumors in wrestling is apparently not true. But certainly when it was used for Vader/Foley a year later, that was totally rigged as well. But yeah, the Coal Miner’s Glove match was meant to happen. There you go.

Stuff!

Alan had a bunch of questions, lets finish them off today, shall we? Wait, why am I asking you?

6) At what point did Jerry the King Lawler start being a face on commentary (not including the Right to Censor or terrorist characters?

So when was Jerry Lawler face, not including when he was a face?

Well all right, there was a moment where he ‘turned’, but it was after a long period of time where he had begun to show face tendencies, if that makes sense. He’d begun to show that he had a sense of right and wrong before that point, but the moment he officially turned face was in 2000 when Tazz, upon returning from an arm injury, began to have problems with JR, leading Lawler to stand up for him.

Again, he was still showing signs of being a good guy prior to this point, but that was the official moment where Lawler turned face.

7) A couple of weeks ago, someone asked you why the HOF essentially stopped in the mid to lat 90’s and you stated the WWE was bleeding money while WCW Nitro was crushing them in the ratings and giving away the WWE’s match results. So my question is, is why did the WWE just go to live taping every week like WCW did. This way they would have eliminated on of the issues? Also, why would they have the WWE championship, which still had prestige then, switch hands on a taped program instead of on a live Raw?

Raw began as a live show, and then the costs got too large and so they went to taping weeks in advance, but with a twist. See, the wrestling was taped, but for the most part, the commentary was live, the announcers would do it in a studio live, or at least the day of. That’s why when you watch those shows they often go out of their way to make topical references to the news and, on occasion, to the competition.

Anyway, right up until September 1999, Raw would alternate between live and taped shows, until WWE could afford to go live every week via both their own cash and help from the USA network. They couldn’t have just flipped a switch and gone live all the time, they had to wait until they could bear the costs. Even going from a monthly taping to a fortnightly one was a doubling in costs, going live every week would double it again, after all.

As for why do it on the taped Raw rather than the live one…

I wasn’t there so I don’t know for sure, like with anything else I write about here, but here’s the thing, the taping schedule was ‘do the live Raw, then tape the second one’. So, you want to do this at the end of the first show, and then try and calm everyone down and then film another show? You had to do this at the end of the night, there was no way the crowd was gonna be open to filming other stuff after that moment.

Plus, given that Foley was somewhat beloved and idolised online, and the fact that the WWF put the results up on their site when it happened, maybe that would encourage people to tune in and bump up WWF’s ratings a bit, word of mouth style. But it’s mainly the end of the taping thing, I’d say.

8) Many years ago when Shawn Michaels kicked Marty Jannetty through the barbershop glass, Jannetty disappeared for a long time only to resurface on an episode of Saturday morning Superstars. Question: Was Jannetty in any way legitimately injured? And if not, what was he doing during his hiatus? Also, can you find any video of him returning on Superstars? I have search YouTube to no avail. I remember Shawn Michaels was in the ring before a match posing in the mirror when Jannetty came running through the crowd to the ring.

He wasn’t injured, he was fired indefinitely suspended. The split was taped on December the 2nd 1991, and aired on January the 12th, 1992. After the filmed the split, the duo continued to wrestle as a team to begin the break up they’d already filmed the ending for, with their last televised match shown on December 28th, although they teamed on the house show circuit all the way to the new year.

The plan was for Jannetty to return a few weeks later, as Shawn Michaels hooked up with Sherri on the February 1st edition of WWF Superstars (taped January 7th) and during the segment it was announced that Marty would be in action the following week. The match, a just over a minute squash of Jack Owens was filmed earlier that night but was not aired, as on the 25th of January, to quote the still superb historyofwwe.com…

Marty Jannetty was arrested at 2 a.m. following an altercation outside a Tampa, FL nightclub with police. Jannetty’s female companion, Angela Ialacci, 19, was arrested by police after trying to use a fake ID, at which time Jannetty reportedly grabbed the cop. They were found to be in posession of less than a gram of cocaine. Jannetty was charged with possession of cocaine, possession of drug paraphernalia, and resisting arrest with force. Jannetty was indefinitely suspended by the WWF.

He worked the WWF/SWS cross promoted shows in February, but he wouldn’t return to the WWF proper till October, in the famous mirror reveal. Now then, is my google-fu up to the task?

Like you have to ask.

All fear my Google-Fu.

1) The obligatory CM Punk question. Lets say it’s the night after Royal Rumble. CM Punk comes the arena and before he goes to Vince, he is told Vince wants to see him, and Vince says to him “The Batista return is not working so we are going to turn him heel, and we want to add you to the Wrestlemania XXX main even and have you win the belt.” If that had taken place, do you think Punk would have stayed?

Possibly. Yes, that’s what Punk is supposed to have wanted, a Wrestlemania main event, but it’s hard to say that one sole change is going to be enough to make Punk stick around, even a big one like that.

Punk’s walking out was supposedly about the Network and payment for PPVs and the like, then the Wrestlemania main event thing came out, and now it has been said that Punk was working ultra-hurt and thus needed time off anyway. The story keeps changing, it’s hard to say which factors are true and which are false and which ones are weighted the most in Punk’s mind. There’s often several reasons why you make a specific choice, and new information will alter all of them in subtle ways.

I think Punk would stick around with that offer, but it’s not a slam dunk obvious thing.

2) Now that some people who we thought we would never see in the HOF (Warrior, Samartino, Mr. T) are in, who in your opinion, not including Randy Savage, is being omitted? I had a few wrestlers come to mind but the problem is is sever are deceased, like Rick Rude, the British Bulldog, Owen Hart and Andy Kaufman. Limiting it to living wrestlers, who do you think are not in there and should be? Also, if you were booking the HOF for next year, what deceased wrestler would you put in the first (assuming Poffo is still on bad terms)?

Living wrestlers who should be in there? I have to say Victoria should be there because of the gimmick. Although she should totally be in there.

Vince McMahon Jr is the first non-Savage name that springs to mind. Yes, he’s still active, but of course he belongs in there.

Kurt Angle might be a bit broken down and such, but he belongs in there for his short but impactful career.

Nash and Bischoff under the nWo banner belong in there, Nash by himself… Maybe.

Paul Heyman too, dude’s one of the greatest managers of all time AND a very important booker…

And as personal picks, Vader, Muta, Hansen.

And if I was booking the 2015 class, and I had to pick the deceased wrestler? Mildred Burke. All the women in there currently belong there, sure, but without Burke, they’d never have gotten in the front door. Burke was essential in developing women’s wrestling full stop, and she belongs in any serious Hall of Fame.

If that’s too esoteric and/or an old-old-timer and I can pick someone more recent as a second, Rick Rude.

Rahil has a hard question, and an easy question.

What PPV has the highest number of matches on the card ?????

It’d be a tournament PPV, surely…

The Wrestling Classic had 15.
Wrestlemania 4 had 16.
Survivor Series 98 had 14 (18 if you include Heat, which we aren’t)
King of the Ring only got up to 11.

And I can’t think of any that will beat Wrestlemania 4, so I’ll say that with 16, then wait to be corrected. (Unless you consider the entire G1 Climax as an ippv…)

and the PPV with the lowest number of matches on the card ?????

No Holds Barred: The Match/The Movie was broadcast on December 27, 1989, and featured one match, Hogan/Beefcake V Zeus/Savage in a steel cage. Unless you want to count stuff like the Nitro Girls Swimsuit PPV as a PPV with zero matches on the card…

Nightwolf takes us back to the Hall of Fame.

Whose idea was it to start including Celebrities in the WWE Hall of Fame and why? What’s your opinion on it?

I don’t know exactly who came up with the idea, but I know the reason. WWE began to induct celebrities in order to induct Pete Rose because in 2004 the controversy over his inability to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame was restoked when he published his autobiography admitting he had bet on baseball games. It didn’t change anything in terms of him getting back in, but it did remind everyone ‘Hey, Pete Rose is banned for life from Baseball!’ And thus WWE put him into their Hall of Fame to get some publicity.

And that was a one off, until the WWW got William Perry to make an appearance, and now it’s a regular deal.

Personally I have no real strong opinion one way or the other. Yes, it still seems weird that Drew Carey is in the WWE Hall of Fame but (Wrestler You Like) isn’t, but they are clearly delineated, and it allows WWE if they really want to, to double dip on The Rock is they like as they could induct him as Wrestler Rock and Movie Star Rock if they get desperate…

Kevin asks about cross-promotion.

I was watching Survivor Series ‘93, very strange to see the Smokey Mountain tag team championship match on a WWF pay-per-view. I’m kind of surprised Vince would have this on his show. What was the point of it? It didn’t seem like the crowd gave a darn as to who even won the match

The point was to get Jim Cornette.

Cornette began the company to give himself something to do and to establish an old school ‘proper’ wrestling company, and he did that and made a go of it for a while. While his booking was sometimes a little old school and sometimes just flat out weird, he had an eye for talent, and after a couple of years working with SMW, WWF wanted to bring Cornette and The Heavenly Bodies in for a few shows. But Cornette held back, not wanting to appear to abandon SMW, so he managed to convince Vince to acknowledge the company, and then enter talent sharing, SMW becoming an informal feeder system of sorts. Cornette also signed onto WWF as an agent, and that took away some of his focus.

But yeah, Vince wanted a feeder system and wanted Cornette, so Jimmy made him acknowledge SMW.

And on that bombshell, I end this week’s edition of Ask 411 Wrestling. I’m off to enjoy a week off. Hope your week’s just as good!