Ask 411 Wrestling: What If HHH And Steph Never Married?

Hello, and welcome to a post 4th of July edition of Ask 411 Wrestling! A lot has happened in wrestling this past week, with company name changes, new titles won, and all sorts of events. I am your host, Mathew Sforcina, and I’ll be discussing none of them below!

Got a question about stuff that happened this past week, month, year, century, existence? Send it on over to [email protected] and we’ll see if we can’t cobble together an answer.

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My Aim: So Acel wanted to point something out.

Well, that’s awkward. Promotes Shazza McKenzie to the women’s tournament by using a video vs Evie. Evie gets in.

Yes, the week I told you to go sign a petition to get Shazza into the Mae Young thing, I used a video of a match of her V Evie. Evie, now known as Dakota Kai, is in the Mae Young tournament, while Shazza is not.

Yet.

But hey, if you’re saying my word is so powerful that I can get people I mention in passing jobs, then that’s good for me, right? As well as guys like Mick Moretti, Jack Bonza, Robbie Eagles, Caveman Ugg, Big Fudge, and everyone else who is Australian and deserves to be wrestling for worldwide audiences and who now hate me because I didn’t mention them specifically.

Although actually, the only people who brings this thing up is Shazza, actually. Maybe because she’s the most commonly mentioned since I can claim 0.00001% of her career, and she’s just on the cusp of being super-mega famous and thus I really want to hitch my bandwagon early. Or not, maybe it’s just she’s the only one who reads this. Hell, maybe this weekend they’ll finally say something, or just punch me a bunch. Either/or.

Oh, wait…

The Trivia Crown

Who am I? I was involved in the last match on TV of someone from last week who the author thought should have a talk show segment. If it wasn’t for The Undertaker, all my tag title reigns would follow a pattern. Heck, if it wasn’t for Heyman’s baby, you could say the same for another type of title. I had theme music that was someone else’s for one night. I’ve represented the USA, while also changed brands via t-shirt rippage. A guy who has a record we’ve established in this very column, I am who?

El Atomico has it mostly, with help from Daniel Wilcox and Jonah.

I was involved in the last match on TV of someone from last week who the author thought should have a talk show segment. (Defeated Rusev, of last week’s “Rusev’s Efficient Speaking Gathering Segment”, at Fastlane) If it wasn’t for The Undertaker, all my tag title reigns would follow a pattern. (Held WWE and World tag team championships once each with Miz, Kane, and Chris Jericho, but held only the World tag with the Undertaker, and twice at that.) Heck, if it wasn’t for Heyman’s baby, you could say the same for another type of title. (Held the WWE and WCW titles twice each, the ECW title just once. I had theme music that was someone else’s for one night. (Used “Real American” as “the Showster.) I’ve represented the USA (Team USA in July 4th tag match on Raw last year) while also changed brands via t-shirt rippage. (defecting to WWECW) A guy who has a record we’ve established in this very column (This one just screams heel/face turns!) I am who? You are the Big Show.

Who am I? I am connected by body parts to the above. A former DDT Ironman Heavymetalweight Champion, I never held a true World Title, although I did once win a big match to get a shot at one. My main finisher’s first name is sorta similar to the name of one that no-one has ever kicked out of, except for Masato Tanaka and Chris Sabin and maybe a couple other guys. My last appearance in WCW was a PPV loss in a three way, while my last match in WWE was a six man tag on Raw, although I’ve made a few appearances since then. A guy who technically can claim he was at one point every nWo color (although the red and black was for one night, if that), and a guy who is in the WWE Hall of Fame but then sort of isn’t, I am who?

Getting Down To All The Business

Lev starts us off with two questions.

Two part question – both to do with fear and insanity in the ring. Firstly, with the Danbury fall it was reported that Vic Grimes chickened out of the fall from the scaffold which caused New Jack to pull him off and led to their injuries from the incident. My first question is are there any other famous / infamous incidents of a wrestler agreeing to a move / stunt beforehand but bailing when the time came because they were too afraid to take it?

I’ll admit none spring to mind, in that most of the time the wrestler will say no ahead of time, or it’ll be tested and then not used so we don’t hear about it, or if they do call an audible they aren’t penalised for it…

I know the DDP/Jarrett/Arquette Triple Cage supposedly had some sort of thing where a planned bump couldn’t happen, like supposedly someone was supposed to fall through the cage or something, and so the Arquette heel turn was an audible to cover it? Maybe? I’ve never been clear on that.

I’d say you should have the WWE Network before you watch that, but given that quality, I think WWE wouldn’t really care.

But as for bailing at the time, nothing notable that I know of. Perhaps a dear reader has an obvious one I’m forgetting.

And my second question is, as a wrestler yourself, are there any moves / stunts you see or hear about which you think are too unsafe / crazy / just not worth the risk? Specifically thinking Japan and the propensity to drop people on their heads, deathmatch stuff like weedwhackers to the chest, etc.

Uh, rewatch the Fruit Punch vid.

Yes, there is plenty I hear/see/read/think up that is high risk and/or high impact, the Deathmatch stuff especially. Weedwackers and syringes through the cheek and stuff like that, it’s not wrestling, and I really, really, REALLY don’t like it.

However…

If I was in a position where it was a main event match, on the biggest card in wrestling history, and I was heel, and I was about to put over a face big time, and I was being paid well, and would have time off to recover… If the company pitched a weedwhacker to my stomach, I wouldn’t immediately say no.

You have to accept pain, discomfort, the risk of injury in wrestling. It’s just not something you can avoid. I bump once a match if that, I don’t do anything more complicated than a fallaway slam, and I’ve been busted open, broke my shoulder, I tore a leg muscle stepping to the right! There’s a default level of risk involved in just stepping through the ropes.

Now, in theory, there is a trade off at play. While you never go in there to deliberately hurt someone, you can view wrestling as having a balance, in that you can make a match more memorable, more intense, more money making, with some added impact/risk. You keep things grounded and safe if you’re second match in, but if you’re semi-main then you might jump off the top rope, and if you’re main eventing, you might take a tombstone, say. If you’re being paid more, or it’s an important match, or whatever, you can take on more of the possible damage.

So, stuff like the head drops and such, the stiff moves, that’s something that is a trade-off, if the crowd demands it and the match warrants it, and you’re confident in your opponent to protect you, then I don’t have a problem with people going for the head drop moves.

Deathmatch crap, there is a theoretical point where it’s worth it, and I don’t think 995 of the matches they’re involved in are worth it, but different people have different standards.

There’s a lot of stuff in wrestling I can’t or won’t do, and there’s stuff that I don’t think people should. But I understand the logic they’re using, and thus I don’t like making blanket statements about how head drops and weedwhackers are killing the business and should be banned. I just think they’re severely overused.

The Ray asks about life without a power couple.

Long time First time here. Congrats on all the success and please never leave 411 and have the other guy W take over again, as we all still have nightmares about that period. You are the greatest, the best, the massivenesses and all the other good things. I think that should be enough kissing up to get my question in. What if Stephanie never started dating Triple H, who would be running the E? Test (insert Chandler)? Would NXT exist? Would Chyna still be alive (and Test)? This is assuming Shane still decided to leave for a decade, as that answer is too easy. Thanks and keep up the great work!

OK, so I’m going to just step back to something you said at the end there, in that if StepHunter doesn’t exist, there’s a good chance Shane would have won the power struggle or at least gotten his way a bit more, and possibly wouldn’t have left, and he’d now be the guy, focusing on the business side while leaving the creative stuff to Heyman and Ross and Flair and Austin and Patterson and Anderson and…

…

You can’t make me leave this dream! No!

…

OK, fine. The thing is, if Shane leaves, it’s because he loses. So you’re back where you started, with Steph winning the power struggle, which honestly was probably going to happen anyway, since she was closer to Vince’s methods and style and such. Thus either Steph is the Matriarch of the company now, with no time for a husband or, more likely, whoever she ended up marrying being the guy who helps her, either because she marries a businessman and he comes on to work as a suit, or she marries a different wrestler and they get the grooming to take over and such. Not Test, they never actually dated, to my knowledge, while the HHH/Steph relationship only started after they started working together regularly.

Would Test and Chyna still be alive? Test, probably not, as his career wasn’t ruined because of HHH and Steph, it was ruined because Russo left WWF before he’d written out the ending of that storyline, so the “HHH ruins the wedding” thing was the solution they came up with, rather than what Russo was apparently planning, ie Test dumps Steph at the alter, joins DX. If StepHunter doesn’t happen, Test’s career still flounders, and he probably takes the same drugs and such and so on until he’s a humorous twitter account subject.

Chyna on the other hand… If the HHH/Steph relationship doesn’t start with HHH cheating on Chyna, according to her accounts on the subject, that does put her on a different career path. I’m not sure if her and Hunter would last, but if the break up was amicable, and Hunter has no perceived power advantage, then maybe if the contract stuff still goes down, she doesn’t take it so hard, and that sets her up for a later return, since there’s no heat between her and Steph… I can’t say for sure, obviously, but unlike Test I can see enough stuff changing that the odds are reduced.

But maybe this is all Final Destination stuff and they have to die at that time or else they end up getting blown up by a BBQ or slipping on spaghetti or whatever.

NXT… Maybe not in the same form, but maybe? Shane was always meant to get his own brand to run, be it WCW, ECW, Global Domination, UFC, Strikeforce, whatever. So if there was a replacement for both him and HHH, the new Steph Husband, they’d have a brand to be running. Maybe not the hybrid developmental/indy killer NXT is meant to be, but a minor brand nonetheless.

If Shane still leaves, it means Steph wins, and thus stuff probably doesn’t change too much, as you just sub in whoever for HHH, maybe Big Show STEVEN RICHARDS.

Ryan is just all over the shop here.

Has there ever been a first blood match where the wrestler set to win gets busted open hard way?

Maybe. Although he was set to lose, if you go back to King of the Ring 1998, Austin/Kane First Blood, you see Austin is bleeding from his back in like 3 minutes, so JR says that it has to be a real gusher or some such, that the ref won’t stopped this for a bloody nose or skinned elbow. So there’s always an out.

The most famous example is apparently the Flair/Hogan double turn match from WCW Uncensored 99, according to Dave Meltzer, who says that wasn’t in the plans, so they just ignored Flair bleeding. I always assumed it was part of the booking, but supposedly not, it was just convenient for the storyline they were telling. Beyond that, I don’t know of any major ones, if you’re working a first blood match you take care not to hardway as much as possible, so it should be avoidable.

Although back in the day, when the concept first began, they did have a cover for it, as you’d have German Blood matches, where the winner was the first man to soak a white handkerchief/towel in his opponent’s blood. Thus if someone does get busted open hardway, they just avoid the towel like the plague.

Has there ever been a scenario where someone wins a title without them knowing ahead of time? As in, during the match it’s called, or maybe the eventual winner goes for a cover and the losing champion purposely doesn’t kick out? (Not counting any screwjobs here lol)

Multiple times. Off the top of my head, ignoring times when someone was stunned (MOM’s tag reign), or when a pinfall wasn’t broken up (Mickie James/Victoria/Melina in Paris), Edge’s first IC title was an audible during the match by Michael Hayes supposedly, Gail Kim winning the Women’s title in her first match was an audible due to Jazz suffering an injury, Hardcore Holly at WM2000 was more a botch than a decision, Trish beating Lita at NYR for the title due to injury… There’s been a few.

A sweet one was in CHIKARA where the Campeones de Parejas, their tag titles, were being defended by Team F.I.S.T with a substitute against 3.0 in Canada. 3.0 were told the plan was FIST over, but that was changed without 3.0 knowing so when 3.0 won the belts their shock was genuine.

But yeah, plenty of title changes have occurred due to injury. Screwing over the company via not kicking out, that I don’t know of, usually it’s the other way round, the person winning is the one doing the screwing, but maybe a reader knows.

What was the arrangement with The Godfather’s ho’s? Was it local escort service + Amy Dumas one time? Was there more potential wrestlers/ indie girls who didn’t break? I did recognize one girl consecutive weeks, she was probably East Indian if I’m guessing, tall-ish but not my cup of tea personally. Was she anybody of note?

Ah, the Ho Train. The precursor to the Rosebuds in a way, just way more over and way more misogynistic, or at the very least problematic. Someone better suited to the task than I can probably write a long diatribe about how this was really awful for women in wrestling, and then someone else can write another long diatribe why it’s fine, but suffice to say it was a thing that happened.

As for the composition of the Hos, the Rosebud comparison above was deliberate, as there were two types of Ho used, basically, ignoring times when other wrestlers had to dress up as Hos.

The majority of the Hos were in fact strippers and other such entertainers, the story goes that Undertaker and Godfather would tour the local Adult Entertainment establishments in the area and find ladies in said places willing to rock up in skimpy clothing on TV for a payday. I know I’ve read a few posts in my day of fans talking to strippers and finding out they were a Godfather’s Ho for a night.

But the other type of Ho, well in that video above, at about the 1:20 mark, you see Lita, Amy Dumas, as a Ho. This was actually something that happened a bit, in that if WWF had a female talent they were interested in, or had just hired, and they wanted to give them some experience in front of the camera, congrats, you’re a Ho tonight! Ivory had a few appearances as well as a Ho, possibly some of the other women from that era might have had a couple appearances as well.

Flowing on from that, if they needed a Ho to do something physical, then that was a wrestler from the developmental feds. The one who won the Hardcore title in the above video was Cynthia Lynch, who wrestled as Bobcat in Memphis Championship Wrestling, one of WWF’s developmental feds at the time. And, of course, the end of the Hos came with Godfather joining RTC as The Goodfather, which in turn led to two Hos coming along as the head of the ‘Save The Hos’ campaign, with Mandy as the lesser, blonde one, and Victoria, my Goddess, as the Head Ho.

At the time she was basically on an extended tryout, right up until this point.

That got her the contract. Well, actually the moment when, after she was stretchered out to the back, she then sat up and went ‘Ta Da!’ and took a bow. That got her the contract.

So yeah, the main three former Hos turned stars were Lita, Ivory, and Victoria. But there were a few more.

Mike has two quick questions.

1. This is a question to you, and the people reading this question, do you have a pawn shop in your city that has a lot of WWE DVDs, I gotta ask because my local pawn shop here in Ontario Canada just got over 60 WWE DVDs, and they are selling for a $1…one dollar!!!

… Do you own this pawn shop, by any chance? Or have a financial stake in its operation? It’s fine if you do, and hey, if they’re good DVDs, that’s a great deal. But I’m happy with the WWE Network and NJPW World and DDT Universe and CHIKARAtopia and FloSlam and… Wait, what was the question?

Oh yeah, pawn shops. I guess their might be, but I’m not so desperate for wrestling DVDs that I need to trawl pawn shops. I’m a wrestler, we trade tapes all the time.

*1/1000000000th of a chandler*

2. so I am watching my favorite WWE DVD EVER: The best of early RAW Chapters from 1993 and 1994, which leads me to my first observation..Vince and Macho Man on RAW commentary, LOL I think Randy Savage just may be the funniest color man with Vince EVER, they were so good together and Savage was funny, Do you think Vince just really liked working with Randy doing RAW that he held a grudge he just up and left??..

That was certainly a part of it, yes. I mean, one of the main impetuses for Savage leaving was that Vince saw him as a commentator, while Savage still wanted to work in the ring. So while Savage wasn’t that happy, Vince clearly was, and that was part of the overall fandom Vince had for Savage, in a way.

I don’t think it was the sole reason for Vince’s blackballing him for so long, it’s not like Vince was just so upset Savage broke up their commentating duo, but it played a part, sure.

Erik floats a rumor about an event close to Savage, and a man he wasn’t to face on the night.

We all know the story about how Ricky Steamboat was supposed to be the long-term IC Champ after defeating Randy Savage at WrestleMania III. And when he asked for time away to be with his wife, who was pregnant with child, he was punished by losing the belt to Honkytonk Man.

Fast-forward a few months. Steamboat returns for Survivor Series in late ’87 and is relegated to the mid-card up through the following spring. He shows up at WrestleMania IV, brings his infant son to the ring, loses in the first round to Greg Valentine, and then disappears for NWA a few months later.

Do you think Steamboat saw the writing on the wall (that he wasn’t going to return to prominence in WWF) and elected to bring his son to the ring as a metaphorical middle finger to WWF management (“Here’s why you morons demoted a great wrestler!”), knowing full well (a.) the WWF wasn’t going to give Steamboat his rematch with Savage in the second round of the WM4 tournament and (b.) Steamboat was going to bail in the weeks immediately following the event? I always thought Steamboat bringing his son to the ring was a bit odd considering the circumstances and considering the facts about his IC Title run that have been revealed since 1987-88. Thoughts?

This isn’t quite as clear cut as I once thought it was, given that I’ve read some resources that said that Steamboat didn’t know till the day of that they weren’t doing Savage/Steamboat 2: MOTY Harder. That having that moment taken from him, plus him having no merch being sold at the event was what solidified his decision to leave. I’m not sure I can vouch for the accuracy of that, but regardless, this isn’t a Steamboat finger as it was a Bonnie thing.

Bonnie Steamboat, Ricky’s wife at the time, was very big on the family man image, as I understand it. Ricky was always family focused too, don’t get me wrong, but she was the one pushing for the family coming to ringside angle all the time. Plus given the time it took to get the outfits made, and how WWE could easily have said no to it, I just don’t see Steamboat being that vindictive, even in this mild fashion. The worst Steamboat does is say how he doesn’t really like the WM3 match since it was so choreographed. He’s not a politician, nor a trouble maker. If he was, he might not have left for the birth of his son in the first instance, or kicked up more of a stink about not getting pushed in the second.

I think in this case it was more just Steamboat believing it would be a good idea, make him identifiable and relatable. It wasn’t a middle finger, just a kodak moment deal. But I could be wrong, sure.

Tim wants to revisit a question.

I was reading some of your older stuff and cam across this question and answer:

1) Has anyone who’s debuted in the last 20 years stayed a heel/face during their entire career? (I guess we would have to set a minimum for their tenure, let’s go with 5+ years)

Steamboat for face, Rick Rude for heel. Everyone else big has turned at some point, but since they both debuted outside your time frame, no, no-one has stayed on one side for that sort of time frame recently

I was wondering if you could revisit the same question giving its been a little while, and extending it to the past 30 years? Kofi Kingston springs to mind. Thanks a lot.

Well, I could, but the answer is pretty much the same. Kofi did some heel work on the indies, but more importantly, he turned heel in 2015 as part of The New Day. This is somewhat like Rey Mysterio, in that while Kofi didn’t really work heel as such, sort of, and the stable he was in was well liked, he was still nominally a heel for a while.

Hillbilly Jim is a name I’ve seen floated, but he was heelish as Harley Davidson, apparently. In the last thirty years with at least five years running, I don’t know anyone who could realistically be added to the list. I eagerly await correction below.

Scott wants names dammit!

Hey man. Great column,

I’m using the Network to relive the nightmare that was the summer of 1999 in WCW: the unanswered hummer angle; the Rottweiler finish; Master P and the No Limit Soldiers vs. The West Texas Rednecks / Rap is Crap; the junkyard battle royal; David Flair as US Champion; Van Hammer in a PPV title match; Mills Lane and Judy Bagwell. It was depressing at the time and it hasn’t gotten any better with time.

Who was responsible for this? I know that Kevin Nash was head booker and that Kevin Sullivan was involved. But who else hand their hands in this festering pie? Any idea who came up with specific angles? Bischoff has said in multiple sources that he had largely stepped away from creative by this point.

Past Ask 411 columnists haven’t been able to uncover the responsible parties. We need names – these people must be held accountable. Thanks for all of your work each week.

Part of the problem is a lack of a clear command structure, at least one visible from the outside. WWF, you always start with Vince and then work down. WCW, it can get complicated, as they had booking committees, and sometimes guys would move up and down in the ranks but since they were on the committee prior, and still were after, it’s hard to judge the changes. But for the year 1999, let me try to lay it all out.

1999 started with Bischoff as the head of the company, and Nash, according to almost everyone other than himself, as the head booker, with guys like Kevin Sullivan and Terry Taylor on the committee below him. However, after Bischoff’s first few attempts to right the ship, the Fingerpoke, going full bore into pre-taped skits, then abandoning that, he started to pull away from WCW and focus on Hollywood, supposedly to try and mainstream WCW but according to most people, he was looking for an escape hatch.

So Nash and Hogan (Nash had to play ball with Hogan at this point since Hogan had control and Bischoff was a fan of Hogan so if Nash wanted power he had to be pro-Hulk) ran the ship, with Bischoff laying down the overall direction, such as that all the undercard guys didn’t know how to work, or in March, saying WCW was going squeaky clean to counter Russo’s WWF. Although Nash was the one doing the week to week stuff, the celebs, Rodman, Master P and so on, that was all Bischoff. Other stuff like the Junkyard thing, those were ideas from wrestlers or writers (Mikey Whipwreck suggested the junkyard) that were mangled by the committee (Mikey’s thought was to tape it the night before and edit it together so it all worked, rather than the live mess we got).

Then the Road Wild Bischoff tantrum occurred, which led to Raven walking out and nearly several others leaving as well. But the problem was the ratings, as they had slipped further and further with every attempt to hotshot titles or divisions or directions. After the Kiss concert disaster, and the totally unopposed Nitro losing to the very late Raw, plus Smackdown debuting to destroy Thunder in the ratings too, that was the point where the brass had enough, and Bischoff was ‘reassigned’ on September 9th, 1999. This basically meant he was sent home to Colorado to hunt and fish and collect checks for doing nothing.

Bill Busch, a Turner executive who began in the company as an accountant, was given Bischoff’s job as Executive Vice President (Dr. Harvey Schiller was the President and overseer of WCW). Under him, since he wasn’t a TV guy, WCW producer Craig Leathers was put in charge of creative, and under him, creative was three main men. Dusty Rhodes, Kevin Sullivan, and Kevin Nash, aka the main guys who had been booking for the past few months of crap.

This lasted a few weeks, and then on October 3rd, Busch signed Vince Russo and Ed Ferrera to contracts. The previous committee was lame duck booking for a little while, and Russo/Ed began with the October 18th edition of Nitro. A week later, after the Halloween Havoc PPV, was the first of many decrees from above, in this case Busch, that Standards and Practices were having fits about the show, and it had to be cleaned up. A couple weeks later, Schiller, the guy who fired Bischoff, quit to go work with George Steinbrenner, and was replaced by Brad Siegel.

This was the set up that lasted, barely, into the new year.

So, to recap:

The start and summer of 99 was nominally Bischoff, but was basically Sullivan/Dusty/Hogan/Nash, in roughly that ascending order of control/power, although Hogan only cared about himself. Bischoff brought the celebs and crazy spending, Hogan brought the ego, Nash brought everything else bad.

This lasted until September, when after too many losses in the ratings and the profits, Bischoff was sent home, and a reorg happened, but it didn’t change much, not until October, when Russo took over, and it all went to shit.

Well, shittier shit.

And on that charming note, I bid you goodbye for now. See you next week, hopefully!