Ask 411 Wrestling: Was WrestleMania 1 Really A Risk?

Hello, welcome to Ask 411 Wrestling! I am, surprisingly, Mathew Sforcina. Surprising because given how Survivor Series played out I assumed that old names were cool again, and thus expected Letawsky or Landsell or Keith or someone to be doing it. Or at least Watry. But here we are.

*waits out Pavlovian screams of terror*

Anyway, got a question for me? [email protected] is where you send it.

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Zeldas!

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Reigns Not Getting Over: The Great Roman Reigns Experiment is one of those things where no-one really comes out clean as a whistle. Yes, Roman himself didn’t rise to the occasion, nor did he endear himself with his attitude and comments outside the ring. And yes, the fans decided early on that they didn’t want Reigns and stuck to that with perhaps slightly too much enthusiasm. But overall, the fault lies with Vince and the WWE mostly, on the basis that Reigns was clearly not the guy they wanted him to be but they kept trying anyway, and worse still they cut the legs out from under him anyway. Reigns needed a bit of luck, a lot of smart booking, and guys around him who can help build him up the right way. He got none of that, and he had none of the tools needed to get by without it. Yes, the fans clinged to Daniel Bryan with an iron grip, but WWE gave them no real reason to let go of him and grab onto Roman, who wasn’t particularly grippable anyway.

Last Week: You’re right, last week wasn’t great, I take full responsibility for that. I’ll try much harder this week to get lots of Chandlers in here for you all.

See? I’m off the marks already!

The Trivia Crown

Who am I? I was born in Canada but I ‘hail’ from Texas. A man with unseen power stopped me from getting to one full year of holding a title, just. I also ended the longest reign of someone else with another title, albeit with help from someone else. Although the PWI gave me a couple of good awards, the only Wrestling Observer award I’ve ‘won’ is a negative one. I have had three male managers (two of them hall of famers) and two female (one of whom was an early foray into new territory for the time). My most famous finisher has a descriptive name. I have a daughter in the business, I’ve retired from it mostly, and I’ve busted some heads, sort of. Who am I?

Maraviloso has the answer for us.

Who am I? I was born in Canada but I ‘hail’ from Texas. (BORN IN THE PROVINCE OF ALBERTA, BUT HAILED FROM SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS) A man with unseen power stopped me from getting to one full year of holding a title, just. (DUSTY RHODES (BOOKER) BEAT YOU FOR THE NWA TV TITLE) I also ended the longest reign of someone else with another title, albeit with help from someone else. (WITH ARN ANDERSON, YOU BECAME WWE TAG TEAM CHAMPION FROM DEMOLITION) Although the PWI gave me a couple of good awards, the only Wrestling Observer award I’ve ‘won’ is a negative one. (WORST FEUD OF THE YEAR VS MIDNIGHT RIDER (MASKED DUSTY RHODES) IN 1988) I have had three male managers (two of them hall of famers) (JJ DILLON, BOBBY HEENAN AND PAUL JONES) and two female (one of whom was an early foray into new territory for the time).(BABY DOLL AND DARK JOURNEY) My most famous finisher has a descriptive name. (SLINGSHOT SUPLEX) I have a daughter in the business, (TESSA BLANCHARD) I’ve retired from it mostly, and I’ve busted some heads, sort of. (YOU WERE PART OF THE BRAINBUSTERS WITH ARN ANDERSON) Who am I? (TULLY BLANCHARD)

What am I? I’m a title, one whose total number of title holders you could count yourself, probably, if you took off your shoes. I started off under controversial beginnings, both in front of and behind the camera. I’ve changed hands via ladder matches, cage matches, special ref matches and on tape delay. I’ve been stripped due to injury, contract issues, legal issues, and due to a double fall. I’ve been won outside of North America and in a style of jazz match. I am what?

Getting Down To All The Business

Michael Ornelas has the first question for us.

Which title in WWE has had the longest string of first time champs? What’s each title’s longest streak of first timers? I’m curious as to which title is ‘best’ for a newcomer to chase.

I’ll need to research this, here’s a video to watch while I do that.

Oh look, it’s the latest one by Michael! What a coincidence!

Anyway, all the titles currently active in WWE…

Raw

WWE Universal Championship: 2 (Balor, Owens)
WWE US Championship (Including WCW): 9 (Eddie, Malenko, Jarrett, Mongo, Hennig, DDP, Raven, Goldberg, Bret Hart)
WWE US Championship (Ignoring WCW): 5 (Ziggler, Ryder, Swagger, Santino, Cesaro)
WWE Raw Women’s Championship: 2 (Charlotte, Sasha)
WWE Cruiserweight Championship: 2 (Perkins, Kendrick)
WWE Raw Tag Championship (First Time For Both Members): 5 (Hart Dynasty, McIntyre & Rhodes, Cena & Otunga, Slater & Gabriel, Santino & Kozlov)
WWE Raw Tag Championship (At Least One First Time Member): 10 (Big Show & Kane, Otunga & McGillicutty, Air Boom, Primo & Epico, Kingston & Truth, Team Hell No, The Shield, Cody & Golddust, New Age Outlaws, Usos)
WWE Raw Tag Championship (First Time As A Duo): 15 (London & Kendrick, Deuce ‘n’ Domino, MVP & Matt Hardy, Miz & Morrison, Hawkins & Ryder, The Colons, Edge & Jericho, Jeri-Show, DX, ShoMiz, Hart Dynasty, McIntyre & Rhodes, Cena & Otunga, Slater & Gabriel, Santino & Kozlov)

Smackdown

WWE World Championship: 6 (Graham, Backlund, Sheik, Hogan, Andre, Savage)
WWE Intercontinental Championship: 6 (Johnson, Mero, HHH, Rocky, Owen Hart, Austin)
WWE Smackdown Women’s Championship: 1 (Lynch)
WWE Smackdown Tag Team Championship (All): 1 (Rhyno & Slater)

NXT

NXT Championship: 9 (Rollins, Big E, Bo, Neville, Zayn, Owens, Balor, Joe, Nakamura)
NXT Women’s Championship: 5 (Paige, Charlotte, Banks, Bayley, Asuka)
NXT Tag Team Championship (First Time For Both Members/At Least One First Time Member): 6 (Ascension, Lucha Dragons, Blake & Murphy, Vaudevillians, Revival, American Alpha)
NXT Tag Team Championship (First Time As A Duo): 9 (British Ambition, Wyatt Family, Neville & Graves, Ascension, Lucha Dragons, Blake & Murphy, Vaudevillians, Revival, American Alpha)

So, unsurprisingly, your best bet for a first timer run is the NXT Title. On the main roster, you’d arguably want to be on Smackdown, given the World and IC titles.

Raza has a question that’s hot right now.

The other day I was watching Old matches of Goldberg of WCW days, first I saw him Beating Hogan on Nitro with a largest pop ever, then I watched him beating DDP at Halloween Havoc to a slightly lesser pop and finally I noticed Nash Beating him at Starrcade and fan again showed a large pop as if they were behind Nash, so what is the reason? Goldberg was still red hot then so why fan showed such attitude?

I’m not sure you can say Goldberg was ‘red hot’ if he wasn’t getting massive pops all the time, just common sense really. He obviously wasn’t red hot anymore as his reign went along, but then it’s hard to be red hot for a long time, you get peaks and valleys usually. But Goldberg did sort of trail off a little as the reign went along, although the Nash pop was, I think, not so much ‘Yay we love Nash!’, as much as Kev would claim it was, but rather a ‘OMG we just saw history!’ reaction.

As for why the fans cooled on Goldberg, the issue was that despite being World Champion, he wasn’t the focal point, he wasn’t the main event, and he didn’t do what people really wanted, which was to see him fight the big names, guys like Hogan and Bret and Sting and Nash and such, and have him truck through them like he did all the other guys. I mean, after he won the title, first PPV, Bash at the Beach, he fought Curt Hennig in the semi-main event, with the Hogan/Rodman V DDP/Malone tag match as the main. OK, the Hennig thing was what they had been building to before they put the belt on him, and the tag match was a big publicity thing, maybe you can justify that. Road Wild, semi-main again, wins a battle royal over the two warring nWo factions single handedly, which sounds good on paper, but meant he ‘beat’ without actually beating a bunch of guys, the only one he pinned was Giant, who was leaving soon anyway. Fall Brawl, he’s not on the card. Halloween Havoc, GREAT match with DDP…

You don’t need to buy anything for that one.

Anyway, that great match not a lot of people saw live thanks to the 3.5 hour PPV thing. Plus most of the advertising for the show was focused on Hogan/Warrior anyway. World War 3, not on the card, then Starrcade. Although Goldberg held the World title, he wasn’t the focal point, he wasn’t the big drawcard, he was just a guy, as it were. Thus the chanting and the heat, while still there, died out a bit, with every month where Hogan remained the focus, or Nash, or the nWo, etcetcetc.

Goldberg got pushed in WCW to the title, but he wasn’t pushed as the title holder, if that makes any sense.

Speaking of Goldberg, Jim uses him as a launchpad of sorts.

After Goldberg beat Lesnar I have read lots of negative reaction. Most of it centres around the fact that Lesnar has been built up as a monster for years now and the man to get the rub should have been an up and coming guy rather than a 49 year old who hadn’t wrestled in 12 years. This got me thinking though. When has the WWF/E ever really used the current top guy, (in this case Lesnar), to build the next one? And upon thinking/researching I am at a loss as to find any examples.

If you think of guys who actually were positioned as ‘the guy’ then: Sammartino beat an ageing Buddy Rogers more to create the WWWF title than to get a rub of any kind. Hogan beat a transitional champion in Iron Sheik. Savage beat midcarder Dibiase in a tournament final, Warrior beat Hogan but Hogan stole that heat and Warrior was never really the guy with the shadow of Hogan always politicking behind him. Diesel beat Backlund in a nothing match, (no build or momentum), and then bombed as champ. Bret was never positioned as the guy in any of his runs – they all seemed to get the belt to another guy. The only exception would be ‘Mania 10 but Yoko wasn’t seen as ‘the guy’ and business was going down the toilet at that point. Micheals beat Bret but was Bret the guy when he won from Diesel a few months earlier to be able to transition to Michaels. Rock won a tournament and Austin was still the guy at that point anyway. Batista beat HHH but Cena was the one who was being groomed as the guy at the same point, (given they switched brands a short time after Batista/HHH has finished). Even Cena only got the belt from JBL who was far from the top guy, (despite his year reign). Punk, Edge, RVD won off MITB cashin and were never really the guy. Bryan got the rub by Cena but was never booked like the top guy and was soon in the background to the authority.

The only guys I could argue was given the rub by the top guy was Austin from Michaels, (although Austin was already the guy just without the belt and Shawn was injured) and Hogan to Rock, (though Hogan came out the match more over than he whom he ‘passed the torch’ too).

Am I missing something/one? Why was it expected that Lesnar would build someone up on his way out when there is very little history of this happening in McMahon land. Top guys either leave in a huff or due to injury etc.. it’s not like passing the torch from the guy to the next guy happens, (despite it being the logical thing to do).

Hogan/Warrior was supposed to be a passing of the torch, but that failed due to Hogan not leaving, plus Warrior being Warrior, plus his opponents not being quite as good as Hogan’s. But while it’s true that WWE doesn’t like to do passing of the torch matches, they do like, on occasion, to try and make a guy into the guy. And there’s plenty of examples of them trying to make a guy via someone who, while not the guy themselves, seems capable of helping the other guy become the guy. And the most obvious, clear cut example of that is the one that WWE sometimes tries to downplay for reasons that I’m sure are not at all about ego stroking.

Foley made Triple H into the top guy, no matter what WWE may choose to tell you at various points. Backlund did his best to make Diesel into the guy, but that didn’t work out, obviously. Triple H made Batista, Benoit and Daniel Bryan, for various levels of success.

So yeah, while it’s not like WWE to make a top guy using the other top guy, they certainly do try to make guys via other guys, and even ignoring that, I can see the argument that Brock’s first big loss should have been against someone who has a long term future with the company, Ambrose for instance. I get that argument.

Especially given WWE’s inability to get people over and keep them over on TV, the great swirling mass of midcardness that holds 95% of the roster, the notion that one of the few chances they have to drag someone out of that via slaying Brock, to ‘waste’ that on Goldberg seems silly, the argument goes.

Brock’s not going anywhere though, to my knowledge, and this is not a case of Brock making Goldberg into the next Final Disc Boss of WWE. This is Brock putting Goldberg over strong here so they can do bigger business later on when Brock screws Goldberg over at the Rumble then you do Brock/Goldberg 3: No Austin This Time Please at WM for all the moneys.

But yeah, WWE doesn’t like killing one Guy to make another. But they do on occasion make a Guy. This seems like a missed chance to make a Guy, but I suspect that Brock gets the WM win, and his status as the Culex of WWE will remain.

Dave asks about the various Twists of Fates.

Hi I’ve recently started watching TNA again mainly due to the broken brilliance of Broken Matt and Brother Nero and was wondering when did Brother Nero start using the stunner variation of the of the twist of fate and if there was a reason for this?

The earliest I can find of him doing the Twist of Fate motion into a Stunner was 2011ish

Although as a full out Stunner, 2012 seems to be when it was fully transformed.

It’s been dubbed the Twist of Hate, although I’m not sure if that was Hardy renaming the original move when he went to TNA or if it’s the name solely for the Stunner variation. The name popped up in 2011, far as I can tell.

As for why the change, I couldn’t find a reason, but at a guess, possibly he finds it an easier bump to take, if he has a back or neck injury, landing in a Stunner position can be less jarring, depending on the issue. Or he just felt like changing it up a bit, and if no-one else in the company is using a Stunner variation, why not go for it?

But yeah, the variation is not a new development by any means.

Arthur has a couple questions.

First, you may have covered this at some point, I’m still a little fuzzy on how the contracts work for a WWE guy. For example, their are rumors of Orton being off after Survivor Series due to the birth of his child. Flashing back to Lana and Rusev being off for their honeymoon; Or even in regards to Cena being off for filming that other show. Is that where a downside guarantee comes in and they still get paid. I assume something like Paternity leave is involved with Orton, and they’re still getting Merchandise. But, Cena’s out for several weeks/months filming another project, and he’s just getting a WWE payday? Is that how it works? And how would this compare to a lower card guy, say Heath Slater–if for some reason he needed a few weeks off to record another show?

To Raven’s 2000 contract yet again!

So the downside guarantee is the worst case scenario but also the default, in the sense that basically you get paid the downside guarantee during the year, you get a weekly check or transfer or stack of ones in a brown paper envelope, whatever they choose, for 1/52nd of your downside. So if your downside is 52 grand, for instance, you get a check for a grand a week.

This comes rain, hail, or shine. You sit at home with a broken leg? You get that check. You main event Wrestlemania? You get that check. Everything in between, you get that check. Then, after the contract year, WWE has a period of time, in Raven’s case above 120 days, to work out how much you actually earned over that year, in terms of gates and merch fees and all the other stuff. They then have 15 days in the above contract to make up the difference, if there is one. So you get a BIG check at the end of the year if you’ve done well. But on the other hand, the contract does say if you’re injured or whatever, the downside goes down a bit for every show you miss. So in theory, the WWE checks would go down if they miss shows, but that’s only after 6 weeks in the above contract.

So WWE may well pay you bonuses ahead of time, perhaps the WM payday is quicker, but contractually, the downside is all you get each week. If WWE sends you off to make a movie or something for them, I doubt you’d get your downside going down, and likewise when you request time off for a honeymoon or whatever, I’m sure WWE is willing to work that out provided you give enough notice. Although if you have a honeymoon that lasts longer than 6 weeks, that’s a little indulgent.

But yes, while Cena is off filming his TV show, he’s getting a weekly check from WWE. But quite possibly, after a few weeks, it starts to go down.

Secondly, in regards to AJ Styles and the Styles Clash, how is it different from a normal front bump—like the Pedigree? I know the rule with the Styles Clash is to not tuck your chin, so you don’t take the hit on your forehead. But, wouldn’t Style’s Knees take most of the hit, equivalent to a person taking the impact in their arms and sometimes legs with the Pedigree? Finally, how does the Pedigree bump differ when Triple H keeps the arms of the opponent locked—I noticed this in a clip I recently watched against Benoit. I know a lot of times when Trips hits it, he lets the arms go, but how does the bump change when they stay locked?

You’re asking me about bumping? I bump like once a match, if that!

That said, the Styles Clash is less the motion as it is the rote learning. 99% of the time, if you’re upside down like that, you take a bump with your chin tucked, either because you’re taking a piledriver or a powerbomb or whatever, it becomes second nature to prepare for a back bump when you’re upside down. So having to fight that urge is the problem, because yes, if you take the bump right, most of the impact is on Styles knees and your stomach. But if you tuck the chin, then your head is forward of all of it, and you end up taking both of your weight on your neck. Hence the injuries. Ellsworth almost got it on Smackdown a month or so ago, but AJ was able to adjust and land so as not to kill him.

So yeah, if you take the Clash right, then the impact is all on your stomach and Styles’ knees. But take it wrong, and it’s all on your neck.

As for the Pedigree, keeping the arms locked basically reduces the room for error. The Pedigree is a matter of timing, jumping and kicking your legs out and turning your head at the right moment so you land flat and HHH lands right next to you. If the arms are let go, you can use them as a cushion/guide, to know when you’re about to hit the mat, maybe even hit first if you’re really worried or whatever. But when he keeps the arms locked, you have to be spot on with your jump right as he squeezes your head with his thighs (that’s the signal, apparently, for when to jump) and land flat. So if you can do that, it looks better and is cooler, but it’s got less room to not break something. The bump itself shouldn’t change, you just lose a safeguard.

An email from Someone Who’s Name I’ve Lost, sorry, asks if the promo is dead.

Is the divas segment from Raw in Glasgow prove that the art of the Promo is truly dead? None of the women in the ring knew how to combat the crowd chanting for Bayley and in attempting to get them to stop they just came across as lost and completely ineffectual because they either didn’t have the skills to shut it down or are afraid to ad lib. Personally I think that many of the men on the roster may have suffered like this too although of course there are a handful who would have shut it down in an instant such as Jericho, Owens, Cena etc.

To be fair, she tried to shut them down, couple of times, with the Queen and the accent lines. But yeah, there can be issues where crowds are just so into a chant that it’s hard to stop them. At least with ‘What’, there are options to go with, either the clever way of speeding up and slowing down to throw the chant off, or the simpler way.

But when the crowd gets into a chant like the “Hey! Bayley!” one, it’s not easy to break it, no. I wouldn’t say it signals the death of promo cutting, just that WWE’s current methodology of scripting everything has an issue in the fact that the crowd never seems to get the script and know what they’re supposed to do. Every week they put the (***) after Reigns does something cool, but the fans just never hit their cue.

So the alternative is to free everyone up a bit, stop the mass scripting, and get people more comfortable with their characters and with improv and such, so they can handle that sort of thing on the fly, or at least have a better shot at it. But then Steph would have less direct control on the show, so you obviously can’t do that.

*1/(Graham’s Number)th of a Chandler*

Again though, Charlotte did try, admirably really, to break the chant. Maybe Bayley might have been able to calm them down, but that would have thrown the whole segment off. And what good could have come from doing that?

Brendan asks if Wrestlemania 1 was the be all and end all for Vince.

We always hear that Vince had everything riding on the success of Wrestlemania 1 and if it was a failure he would be out of business. But is it totally true? Obviously WM1 helped to propel the WWF but if the event wasn’t successful would it really have put Vince out of business or just hurt the brand? Would he literally not be able to make payroll the next day or would it’s failure have been more symbolic causing the company to slowly creep back into a regional territory?

WWE will claim that Vince had his dog mortgaged to the hilt or something to get that show on, that if WM1 hadn’t worked then they’re be repo men there the next day to take all of Vince’s ties or whatever. Others claim that the WWF was going to be just fine and dandy either way and WWE is lying through their teeth and they were just rolling in money at the time.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. I’m sure if WM1 had bombed totally, Vince would have had a bit of a cash flow problem in the short to medium term, sure. But no, the company wouldn’t have gone under or anything, the problem would have been that Vince’s dream and his idea for what wrestling could be would be dead, as would his ability to draw in new talent. If Wrestlemania had died on the vine, Vince would have gone back to working the Northeast, culling the syndicated TV from places he’d never get to maybe, focus on the areas that were profitable. He’d be like Crockett, a regional company with a wide TV market.

The gates to shows in and out of WM were good, so if WM itself had failed, there was money there. If the company overall was going badly, and those shows failed as well, that’s different, obviously. But WM failing would have killed the dream of WWF going global, at least for a while. But the WWF itself? No, it would probably survive, somehow.

Agree? Disagree? Want to scream more about the Watry joke? The comment section is below, feel free to say what you like, I’ll see you all next week!