Ask 411 Wrestling: What Does WWE Still Get Wrong?

Hello! Welcome to Ask 411 Wreslting! I am your writer, Mathew Sforcina, and we got a lot to talk about this week, so let’s skip all this joking and text that’s only here to ensure that the banner is in the right place, and get down to brass tacks, why don’t we?

Do you have a tack that is brassy? Send it to [email protected] and I’ll do my best to shove it in the wall, or whatever this metaphor would have be do with it.

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Zeldas!

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WCW ‘Royal Rumble’: Well I’ll be damned. As pointed out by Jake Noble & TimDimSim there was a fully fledged Royal Rumble match on Thunder. Here’s a recap. I guess you can argue that Booker T is in there so he doesn’t have to defend his title at all on Monday. And/or given that he was defending the title on the PPV prior to that, he was ensuring he got first crack if he managed to lose the belt at the PPV.

And lots of talk about inductions, but I stand by my claim, whoever the inductee wants to induct them should be the guy or girl.

The Trivia Crown

Who am I? I trained with a God, as well as a famous wrestling family. My debut in the big leagues was delivering something to a guy most famous as a fake. My most famous ring name was taken from a guy who was a King and a Master. I once won a title off a noble and lost it to a mythical creature, I was once stripped of a title as part of a major storyline, I once hung out with a Hall of Famer’s significant other, and I once contributed a dress to a popular gimmick. Who am I?

Bob! Enlighten us!

I trained with a God (Karl Gotch) as well as a famous wrestling family (Malenkos). My debut in the big leagues was delivering something to a guy most famous as a fake (cadet delivering letters to Cobra who was the fake Sting). My most famous ring name was taken from a guy who was a King and a Master (Curtis Iaukea). I once won a title (WCW World TV) off a noble (Regal) and lost it to a mythical creature (Ultimo Dragon), I was once stripped of a title (WCW Cruiserweight title) as part of a major storyline (WCW 2000 when Russo and Bischoff reset things), I once hung out with a Hall of Famer’s significant other (Sharmell as Paisley – Booker T’s Wife), and I once contributed a dress to a popular gimmick (Jericho when he stole his Hawaiian dress along with Mysterio’s mask).

You are Prince Iaukea.

Who am I? I was trained by a WWE Hall of Famer, and I ended my career working with another WWE Hall of Famer. I was the reason why a rule was invoked in a company for the very first time. I was a part of three different groups that all shared the same number of letters in their acronyms. One of my gimmick changes involved getting into a limo. My last match in a company (at least, in one of my runs in the company) saw me beat Steve Corino, among others. Always managed by men, always winning tag titles in the big leagues, and my last match ever saw me take on two legends of the sport, albeit wildly different legends. Who am I?

Getting Down To All The Business

Chris has a bunch of questions.

Hi Matthew looong time reader I have a few questions for you while watching the Uso s heel turn? Who decided the turn wrestlers? Management? Fans( stale character) who decides on new clothes style move-sets ( finisher) new aggressive style and facial hair and the like is it why a team ( or single star is kept off tv to grow facial hair) ?

Although everyone involved has a factor in the decision, at the end of the day it’s up to management/the bookers/the writers. The wrestlers can say they really want to turn heel or face, the audience can clearly and unanimously decide they want someone in the other role, but at the end of the day if management want to push someone as something, they gotta do it, and we gotta put up with it.

With The Usos, the logic was that since the Usos are the team with the most credibility, and they wanted someone to feud with American Alpha, they fit the bill the best, hence they turned heel. The fact that were stale with the fans was just an added bonus.

As for their new look and style, that’s more of a combined effort between management and the wrestlers. There will be some consultation between the two, and management has final say, but the wrestlers have more say there at least. And yes, occasionally wrestlers are held off TV to grow hair, but it’s fairly rare, and usually it’s a by-product of being off TV for another reason, usually an injury, either legit or kayfabe.

Also in the old Wwwf how was it decided who managed who the wizard , Capt Lou or brassie? Ty great stuff as always.

I didn’t find any source, but I believe it was a moving rotation, wherein you’d take turns of the managers working for the main event, and the midcard, and the tag belts. You’d switch them around, they’d each work one position, then as the storylines ended you’d rotate, the guy working the tag teams would move to the main, then the midcard to the tag, and the main to the midcard.

Willing to be overruled here.

Jeremy asks about a lost match.

On March 5, 1978 in Knoxville, TN, Ronnie Garvin pinned Andre the Giant in a handicap match (Roy Welch was Andre’s partner). Andre did this as a favor for Garvin to further his One Man Gang gimmick at the time, and make him look like an even bigger monster heel. The condition was that the footage never be shown on TV. I’ve seen clips from of it showing Garvin throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Andre. Is there any evidence footage of this entire match exists and is stored away somewhere in the WWE vault, or was it lost like so much of the footage from that era?

Sadly it won’t be in the WWE vault, as it was in the Southeastern Championship Wrestling promotion, later renamed Continental Championship Wrestling, and most of the promotion’s history is lost, due to early attempts to limit wrestling magazines talking about the company and possibly breaking kayfabe, through to most of the video of the promotion lost, and even what little there is, it’s one of the few tape libraries not currently owned by WWE.

But supposedly, as part of the deal, Andre said he’d do the job provided the pinfall wasn’t taped. So quite possibly they didn’t tape it, or if they did, they swore not to show it/deleted it. But either way, WWE doesn’t own it, and even if they did, they’re not about to ruin the mystique of Andre prior to Hogan beating him at WM3…

Jay wanders why Paige can’t just Afroman her way out of her problems.

So Paige is staying with WWE after rumours that she was going to try and negotiate a release. How hard would it be for her to get 2 more wellness strikes and facilitate her release that way? Are independent contractors notified in advance that they will be tested? Could she just have a little toot on something a couple of times a week

She wouldn’t even have to fail the test, given that her suspension was because she wasn’t able to get the test done in time.

But that said, the issue with that is that it would take a few months, given that she’d have to wait for the second suspension to expire. But the problem is, that getting three strikes of the wellness policy makes your future career in WWE a problem. If they hire you back, you’re stuck at two strikes, unless you undergo an 18 month program which can knock out one.

If Paige really wanted to get out she could ‘retire’, and just wait out the contract, or an equivalent, but deliberately failing the drug test is a little over the top. Paige doesn’t want to leave and sit at Del Rio’s home, she wanted out and be allowed to wrestle. But given that her legal team and WWE wasn’t able to negotiate it, then wrestling FOR the WWE is the best second option, apparently.

Failing drug tests just sets up huge roadblocks in the future, and isn’t required if she just wanted out. But getting out and allowed to wrestle, that was what she wanted, but it didn’t work out.

Jesse asks about Hall of Famers with bad win/loss records.

I don’t know if you’ve tackled this one before, feel free to ignore it if you have. Is Sting the only wrestler in the Hall of Fame to have never actually won a match in the WWE? If not, how many others? I’m sure a few have been inducted that never made it to the ‘E, but how many wrestlers have gone 0-for in the WWE and still made it to the Hall?

Sting won a match in WWE. Two of them actually. Beat Big Show by DQ on Raw, then teamed with John Cena to beat Big Show and Seth Rollins that same night.

But ok, guys or girls who are in the Hall of Fame but have a 0-(X>0) record.

Drew Carey
JJ Dillon
Paul Bearer
Sunny
William ‘The Refrigerator’ Perry

You’ll see a couple themes there. Managers and celebrities. I’m pretty sure that’s all of them, I wasted enough time checking them.

Also, cheers for turning me on to AleStorm in a column a while back. Free opportunity to post some more videos of their right here!

I’m glad I’ve been able to bring you the best in Bacon Powered Pirate Core, as they call themselves. I’ll stick this one in because I believe it’s the theme of The Buccaneer, a local wrestler, and if it’s not, I’ll be suggesting he use it.

Moving on, Nick wants to ask about hypotheticals.

1. What is WWE/F’s biggest faction? This should be based on a specific point in time, not over the whole life of the faction. You can split it if necessary based on the faction with the most active wrestlers and the faction with the most people (wrestlers + managers).

The Alliance. Over 30 members at one point? I can’t imagine anyone else beating that. I guess the Corporate Ministry if you want a stable stable…

2. For the next Wrestlemania, WWE have decided to hold another Gimmick Battle Royal. Your job is to come up with the 20 or so gimmicks to go in the Battle Royal. The gimmicks should be ones created (or at least popularised) after the 2001 event. Who/what would go in?

Oh, so I can’t do an Attitude themed one? Because that would be what would be done next. But ok, post 2001…

Carlito
Danny Basham
Doug Basham
Heidenriech
Jesus
JTG
Kenny
Kenzo Suzuki
Kevin Thorn
Marcus Cor Von
Mohammad Hassan
Nathan Jones
Palmer Cannon
Rene Dupree
Santino Marella
Shad
Simon Dean
The Boogeyman
Vladimir Kozlov
Zack Gowen

3. Vince McMahon walks in to your room Dario Cueto style office. He’s desperate for an appraisal of how well WWE has been doing lately with all their changes (after all, it’s about what the audience wants. He’s a pretty good listener). So, looking back on the major complaints fans had with the WWE over the past decade or so, what’s their bigger picture scorecard like? I’m thinking of things like bringing in new wrestlers into the main event scene, bringing back cruiserweights, etc. What are they still lacking/failing at?

Why is he asking me? I’m a hardcore wrestling fan, and I’m not the audience they’re chasing, they want the casual fans back, they want all the people who were there during Attitude, I’m not that market.

But ok, Vince asks about the past decade or so…

The Network is great, but they need a few more wrestling fans involved in the process, at least in terms of deciding what to put up. Just dumping the Last Battle of Atlanta, for instance. Yes, that’s amazing that they found it, and putting it in a ‘lost gems’ section seems like a good idea. But that match should have been an event. It should have been mentioned on air, had a wrap around with Ellering and Young talking about the match, interviewing guys like Michaels and the like about the impact that match had on the sport. The Network is great value for PPVs, and the get and forget hope is all well and good. But you need to sell history as a concept if you want old farts to get it.

But that’s minor. The main problems that are still there are the ones they’d had for ages and not fixed. Kevin Dunn is still ruining the show with his choices for direction, there’s still too many McMahons, too much focus on the bosses, over scripting… Yes, they’re a publicly traded company and they want level of control, and it’s not something you can flip to overnight, but they should be moving towards more freedom with their talent to do what they do and be who they be.

For every complaint I have, Vince will have a justification, will have an excuse. And that’s the problem, depending on how you view it. Either Vince is so far up his own butt that he can and will actively ignore problems so as he doesn’t have to admit he’s wrong, or that every issue the IWC complains about has a reason why it is like it is, since as a publicly traded, international media company, they have to do things a certain way. So it’s hard to say what is and isn’t a problem that is fixable.

Except Dunn. He needs to go ASAP.

Brian asks about ASAP stuff as well.

Was that just the quickest double-turn in history during the Nikki-Carmella segment? WTF and WTH? (Who’s The Face/Who’s The Heel?)

Yes, Nikki is face, Carmella is heel. Not the quickest turn though. Big Show/Floyd Mayweather was a double turn the minute it happened at No Way Out…

Joey Joe Joe Shabadoo has a few questions.

1) I’m sure you’re familiar with Harvey Dent’s line, “you either die the hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” I was thinking about this in the context of John Cena and Steve Austin. Austin is considered the standard bearer for the Attitude Era, and is on the Mt. Rushmore of WWE greats. That said, he had a great run for what, 5 years? I know injuries played a large part in that, but at the end of the day, from losing to Bret and WM 13 to leaving at 19 (and taking away time for injuries), he just wasn’t really there very long. Compare that to Cena, who has been around for a while. If Austin had hung around (and, ostensibly, not been injured), do you think he’d still be so beloved?

Depends on if you fiddle with the heel turn or not. The heel turn was just the wrong time in the wrong place. Had they built to it, had the heel turn been at the same time as the switch to the Alliance, perhaps, it might have worked. But people were starting to tire of cheering Austin, but they didn’t want to boo him either.

If his career went the exact same way, but the night of Wrestlemania 19 a masked man hits his gimpy spine and fixes it, and he can go a lot longer… They’d eventually try the heel turn again, at the very least to help Cena, WM 21 would see Austin drop the WWE title to Cena, probably. And if that turn went well, he’d be still beloved, but if it as botched as the first one, yes, his beloved status would be hurt.

Until he started the podcasts.

2) If Austin had never been able to return from the neck injury, who do you think would have led the Attitude era and a potential fight against Mr. MacMahon?

Rock, I guess, although the Vince thing was so tied into Austin, I’m not sure anyone else outside of maybe Mick being as equally good as the everyman V boss dynamic, so Rock being front and center, or less a all-in on Austin and a more of a ensemble piece, maybe it might have broken Vince’s focus on having a face of the company.

Austin/McMahon is such a lightning in the bottle moment though, fiddling with that would probably bring everything else down with it.

3) Between the lackluster ending to the Royal Rumble (sigh, HHH came back, who didn’t see that coming?), the last match of WrestleMania (20+ mins of Reigns/HHH), and now Brock/Orton, is this the worst year for last matches on the Big 4 PPVs in a while?

Is 95 a ‘while’? Because that year SUCKED. The rushed one minute rumble, the good for what it was but still just ok at best LT/Bam Bam match, Diesel and Bam Bam teaming against Tatanka and Sid at KOTR, then Diesel/Mabel, and then ok, Bret/Diesel was awesome. So 4/5 missed there, if Survivor Series sucks this year then it’ll be strong contender for worst year ever, sure.

Unless a reader has a better idea.

MJH asks about an infamous moment in Nitro history.

My question is about Piper in WCW, as you said Piper-Hogan did big business for them. I remember a Nitro segment where Piper was trying to find a team to fight Hogan’s team and he ended up calling out random guys to spar with him to try and make the team. It was an awful segment, very long and the crowd crapped all over it which led to them scrapping the idea and him team with the Horsemen I believe. My question is – who were the guys he sparred with and was it meant to get any of them over as a guy making his debut? I can’t believe it was all a setup for Roddy and the Horsemen to get together. Thanks.

Ah yes, THAT angle…

So the second guy later on became Luther Reigns, while the sixth one was Earthquake, John Tenta. The boxer was apparently a friend/worker for Roddy, by the name of Craig Mally, while the kickboxer was called Layton Morrison.

Anyway, as you stated, they were replaced a week later by the Horsemen.

But given Tenta was under contract to WCW, and Mally was a friend of Piper’s, I suspect Piper thought this would get over, three young unknowns, ultimate underdogs, getting a chance of a lifetime, so on and so forth. And then it didn’t work out, obviously, and for once WCW saw the disaster happening and fixed it.

The plan seems to have been to give Piper’s unknowns a shot, yes.

Brendan asks why Hogan is liked.

Wait…

In January 1984, in Hulk Hogan’s first TV appearance prior to winning the title, he came out to assist Bob Backlund against the Wild Samoans. When he was announced as Backlund’s partner he received a huge pop from the TV taping audience. My question is, why/how did he receive such a big pop? Prior to this, he had been a heel as far as the WWF audience was concerned. He only became a baby-face after joining the AWA which presumably did not reach into the Northeast-WWF territory.

Most people watching probably wouldn’t remember him as a heel, and they got around that with Backlund’s promo about him being a good guy, so people would accept that. But for a lot of people, the last time they saw Hogan was in Rocky 3.

The audience in the arena saw someone who was big, charismatic, good looking, and who was helping Bob Backlund. Why wouldn’t they cheer him?

Memphis B-rad takes us back to Austin.

The build to the Rock versus Austin at X7 was amazing, but one thing was missing. There is little to no mention of their first Mania match at 15. I’ve re-watched the promos and the entire interview conducted by Jim Ross. No mention of Rock avenging a loss. No mention of Austin staying undefeated against Rock at Mania. If a fan didn’t know better, they could assume that was their first Mania match. Why did WWE choose to omit the fact that this was a sequel? What’s the reason for not acknowledging their Mania history?

WWE? Not acknowledging history? What crazy chaos is this???

Ahem.

The focus of the X7 match was on Austin’s quest for the title, given that the entire point was to turn Austin in a shocking, memorable way. And as part of that, Austin needed to be seen as having lost a step, and thus reminding people that he beat Rock for the belt before, and that Rock used to be a bad guy, that would be counter-productive.

See, ignoring history is sometimes a necessary evil in wrestling, and this is coming from a guy who used to spend all his time <a href=http://411wrestling.com/wrestling/evolution-schematic-6-20-13-kane-version-2-0-part-1/bringing up history. I’m not saying you should lie, although that does have its place, but rather sometimes in wrestling past storylines and such are… problematic to reference, if you’re trying to tell a different story. If you want to put over how Piper’s a never say die babyface against the evil Hulk Hogan, for instance, sure, mention of Hogan never ‘beat’ Piper, but don’t mention that Piper cheated and lied throughout their feud.

Sometimes you have to ignore past matches and storylines because they would muddy the waters of the storyline you’re trying to tell. Not lie about it, just don’t mention it, and hopefully your story that you’re telling now will be better for it.

P from the Q asks just why 199 was the year of Ass.

Love the column and I have been also enjoying your drabble project. My question is about Billy Gunn or, more precisely, Mr. Ass. I understand why in 1999 Vince would want to push Gunn: he was over in DX, had a good look, was serviceable in the ring and a loyal employee throught the Monday Night Wars. What I don’t get, however, is how he would think that pushing the character MR ASS as an uppder-mid-card/main-event talent could work. Was it just Vince thinking: “Well, everybody loves asses!” or what? Can you shed some light on the Mr. Ass character?

As I understand it, although most people in the power structure were high on Gunn, he was Russo’s baby, in the sense that Russo felt he would get over, and the Mr. Ass aspect was crude but not enough to be a problem, maybe. I’m having to go on memory here, but Gunn’s push was all Russo, and Russo at the time was certainly a big fan of crude humor, as is McMahon but he has to tone it down now, obviously.

So yeah, this was Vince McMahon saying ‘You want to push Billy Gunn, Russo? Ok, I trust you on this.”

At least for a few months.

And on that note, I bid you all a safe trip back to the place where you’re not reading this, and a safer journey back here next week for another go round. Until then!