Ask 411 Wrestling: What Should The Next WrestleMania Card Be?

Hello, welcome to Ask 411 Wrestling! I’m the inexplicably popular for some reason Mathew Sforcina, and No Man’s Sky is pretty cool for me so far. I totally get why some people might not like it, but I’m enjoying it. Good time filler until the new Fire Pro game comes out and the whole reason I got a PS4 is activated. If you have a PS4 and want to be friends with me on there for some reason, mlsq42 is my handle.

Anyway, enough boring filler you don’t care about, let’s get down to the questions. If you happen to have one, I’d love to hear it! Send it on over to [email protected] and I’ll give it a go!

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Canadian Censoring: Thank you to Frank and Elvis Foley for correcting me that it was TSN rather than The Score that would take the scissors to Raw.

Konnan’s PPV Debut: … Huh. Well… OK, let’s say that given that he was ‘Konan’ on Starrcade 90, that doesn’t count.

…

You don’t buy that, do you? Sigh.

The Trivia Crown

What am I? I’m a PPV that the above guy wrestled on. Historically important, I saw multiple gimmick matches, one title change, and a shoe. A title match occurred prior to the event, which was shown on TV, although it ended in a DQ. I had several WWE hall of famers wrestle on me, although one of them was under a different name than what he got put into the hall of fame as, unlike his partners. Opened by a jr, ending in a no contest, and involving the man, the myth, the legend, Joe Gomez, I am what?

Lots of people got this one, but here’s Gutter Punk’s answer.

What am I? I’m a PPV that the above guy wrestled on. (Konnan vs Flair) Historically important, (“But who’s side is he on”), I saw multiple gimmick matches,
(taped fist match, double dog collar, Carson City Silver dollar match) one title change, (US title) and a shoe. (Woman hit Konnan with her shoe to help Flair win) A title match occurred prior to the event, which was shown on TV, although it ended in a DQ. (Steiners vs Harlem Heat was filmed for a later tv episode) I had several WWE hall of famers wrestle on me, (Flair, Savage, Hogan, Sting, Nash, Hall, DDP, probably more) although one of them was under a different name than what he got put into the hall of fame as, unlike his partners. (Scott Hall was inducted as Razor Ramon, unlike Kevin Nash & Hulk Hogan) Opened by a jr, (Rey Mysterio Jr. vs Psychosis) ending in a no contest, (match got thrown out after Hogan turned) and involving the man, the myth, the legend, Joe Gomez, (vs Steve McMicheal) I am what? Bash at The Beach ’96

Who am I? I didn’t wrestle on the exact version of the above, but a different one. I became a heel for the first time after I was turned on by my partner for his heel turn. I had a celebrity interaction on PPV, I was an authority figure, and I once caused someone to do an act that is deemed racist by most standards these days. I never hed gold in terms of wrestling titles, but I did hold items that were golden, as well as jeweled. A guy who got ripped off after he was gone, I am who?

Getting Down To All The Business

Joey Joe Joe Shabadoo starts us off when he wants to talk about the next WM. Sure, why not.

Love the column, as always, and thanks for answering my (many) questions in the past! Obviously, it’s never too early to look ahead to next year’s WrestleMania. With the caveat that we may see Roman v. Brock II: Electric Bugaloo, I tried to come up with a card more exciting (on paper) than this year’s version. I did this with the idea that everyone would remain on the brand to which he or she is assigned now, with interbrand matches noted as such. What do you think? What would be your card for WM 34?

Brock v. Brawn (RAW)
Shield Explodes: Rollins v. Ambrose v. Reigns (RAW)
AJ Styles v. Nakamura (WWE Championship)
Miz v. Balor (Universal Title)
Triple H v. Samoa Joe (RAW)
John Cena v. Baron Corbin (Smackdown)
Ladder Match: Kevin Owens v. Dolph Ziggler v. Zack Ryder v. Mojo Rawley v. Sami Zayn (US Championship)
Hardy Boyz v. American Alpha (Champion v. Champion)
Charlotte and Becky v. Bayley and Sasha (two heel/face pairs, interbrand)
Big Cass v. Big Show (IC Title v. Show’s Career)

The problem is that trying to predict that far ahead isn’t quite as easy as it used to be, given how often injuries seem to occur now, plus you have the question of if people get over, and you don’t have any call ups from NXT there, even if you assume there’ll be one or two in the Andre thing. This would be two great PPVs right now, but off the top of my head, by the time we get to next WM, I assume Matt Hardy will have Broken come up with a legally dissimilar substitute, Corbin will have flopped, Show will be gone, and I expect at least one or two of the NXT names to be brought in after Summerslam. Right now, that’s a good card, sure. And given your parameters to try and put together a strong card, that’s all you need.

Put me in charge of the booking until then, though? My good WM card? Assuming things happen how I expect them to/would want them to go…

Universal Title: Reigns (C) w/HHH & Steph V Rollins w/Angle V Ambrose w/??? (Foley)
WWE Title: Styles (C) V Broken Reborn Matt Hardy w/ The Reborn Ones
Raw Tag Titles, 2/3 Falls: The Revival (C) V Jeff Hardy/Apollo Crews
Brock V Strowman w/Heyman
Street Fight: Sheamus V Cesaro
Kevin Owens V Shinsuke Nakamura V Chris Jericho V Sami Zayn
US Title Ladder Match: Luke Harper (c) V Tye Dillinger V Mojo Rawley V Jinder Mahal V Rusev V John Cena
IC title 30 Minute Iron Man match: The Miz w/ Maryse (c) V Finn Balor
Raw Women’s: Sasha Banks (c) V Bayley
SD Women’s: Charlotte (c) w/ Four Horsewomen V Askua

Pre Show:

SD Tag Titles: The Usos (c) V The New Day V #DIY
Andre the Giant Battle Royal (Every other male)
The Fabulous Moolah Battle Royal (Every other woman)

At least, that’d be my plan today. I know that won’t be the card (we’re probably getting HHH/Angle if WWE thinks he can handle it) but that’d be my ‘good’ card right now. How about you guys?

MJH asks about a guy jumping the rails to become… Something that stops people.

I was reading Pantoja’s fun reviews of Raw and Nitro from the same night where he mentioned that Roadblock (kind of resembles some other wrestler who know a lot of history) got his start in wrestling by jumping the gates and going after one Man Gang at a wrestling show. Apparently Bruce Pritchard has told the story and it was a guy who saw Hogan at the gym, but Hogan blew him off so he wanted to prove a point and take on Hogan’s opponent that night. Is there any truth to this story? It sure seems reckless for the WWF (E, whatever?) to reward that behavior. Thanks in advance. This is still my favorite read of the week even if i have no idea when it is going to be posted……

If you want to make sure you know when this is up, follow myself or 411mania or 411wrestling on the twitter machines.

Anyway, this is a story that is legendary around the old school Rochester wrestling fan scene, although it’s rarely told from the perspective of someone who was actually there, beyond Roadblock himself telling the story in a Rolling Stone article he was featured in as “The Rochester Road Block”, just a guy trying to make it on the indy scene. That said, thehistoryofwwe.com does give a date, October 28, 1987, at a TV taping in Rochester:

WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan pinned the One Man Gang; prior to the bout, OMG was attacked by a fan by the name of Joe D’Aquisto before the fan was subdued by security

That would be Roadblock’s shoot name. So I assume that this actually happened, given that I trust Graham Cawthon’s record keeping. But yes, it would be quite inappropriate for WWE to reward such behaviour. Which is why they didn’t.

This was his start in wrestling technically, but all he got out of it was an arrest on his record. He didn’t get a contract or anything from the WWE out of it, he came up through the ranks like anyone else, via the New England/East Coast indy scene, until he finally got a gig as a jobber in WCW in the late 90’s. His most famous match was this one on Nitro, for all the wrong reasons.

Start at 6:45 for the infamous bit.

So yeah, according to a few sources he did indeed jump the rail to impress Hulk Hogan, but it didn’t work. Years of hard work wrestling in bingo halls and such, that did.

Nelson asks about a lack of a blowoff.

Anyhow, I was wondering why didn’t The Ultimate Warrior and Undertaker have a proper blowoff in 1991? I realize that Warrior left after SummerSlam, but if you believe in Undertaker, then why not give him the rub and put him over Warrior? If Warrior still needs to be protected, why? I don’t imagine at the time the WWF realized what Taker would become, but it was clear they were pushing him hard from the get go. Were there plans to properly finish off the feud, or was it always the plan that they’d basically just run the House Show loop and be done with it? Just seems odd.

A combination of the backstage politics as well as booking philosophy. Although he would claim that Warrior put a ‘gun to his head’ over pay and such in order to do the Summerslam match, the Warrior raise request was sent in July, and Vince agreed to it a few days later, a month prior to Summerslam. Presumably Vince decided that he was going to ‘suspend’ Warrior right afterwards, but he had to hold off. But if so, if he suddenly started putting Taker over Warrior, that would be suspicious. It’s not like the two were trading wins back and forth, the Taker/Warrior program was built for the house shows, to go along and see Warrior, the supposed #1/2 babyface depending on who you asked, beat Taker. Putting Taker over would help Taker, sure, but it would set off alarm bells in Warrior’s head.

Plus booking wise back then, you just don’t have your biggest face lose to the biggest heel on a house show, unless it’s a DQ to set up the rematch the following loop. Taker going over would be highly unusual and again, set off alarm bells.

And there was a blow off, of sorts, the Warrior/Roberts promos, in all their ‘glory’, they were meant to be the point where the Warrior/Taker program switched over to the Warrior/Roberts one, perhaps with a short tag run of Taker/Roberts V Warrior/Sid in the middle to set off the Taker/Sid program. Or swap Sid for Hogan, both were rumoured for Taker at the time.

So yeah, there probably wasn’t going to be a blow off as such, Taker/Warrior was a house show loop, which would then transition to another loop with Warrior/Roberts. Maybe you’d have a SNME match between them with a Roberts interference, but there wasn’t going to be any sort of big Taker win. WWE was still in the babyface superman logic phase, and Taker winning didn’t play into that. And then add in possibly tipping off Warrior… Just too difficult.

Ryan is all over the joint.

What’s the deal with eagles and title belts? It seems to be a common motif and I can’t think of anything other than ‘Murica!

I think it’s more just “Vince!” than anything. Eagles were a fixture of the WWF title, starting with the original WWWF title, with a small eagle on top of the USA that was the main plate, featuring in most of the WWF title belts, the Spinner having one, but not the Logo one. There’s not any sort of specific reason why eagles should feature on the title belt, although in heraldry the Eagle is a powerful symbol of courage, action, protection, etc. The American Eagle fixation also helps, but it seems that it’s just a feature that Vince likes on his title belts. And if Vince likes something, then that usually leads to a lot of people in wrestling also liking it, or at least ripping it off. So most other eagles that would feature in wrestling title belts, in some respects, are following WWE’s eagle fixation which is just one of those things that Vince likes.

Speaking of title belts… other than from a marketing perspective, is there any other reason the WWE’s current batch of titles lack any creativity? I miss the days when the belts were a little more elaborate. Other than the IC (and US to an extent), it seems you can slap a giant logo on something and move along.

Nope, it’s all about branding. You want to make all four world titles equal, you want, in theory, to present the WWE, the Universal, the Raw Women’s and the SD’s Women’s titles as all being equal to each other. Likewise the tag titles on both brands are meant to be equal to each other. And these days, thanks to UFC, the concept of title belts looking identical is acceptable. So, by making the title belts all look the same other than the color branding, you make sure everyone understands the equality, and you sell the branding of the brands, and it’s cheaper to get new ones made if they suddenly decide to launch a Thursday brand, you’d have the WWE All-Comers and Suplex City Women’s/tag titles in green and call it a day.

Branding and cost, simple as that.

Do wrestlers have any preference to ring size and ropes used? I’ve always thought about if the WCW to WWF ship jumpers (or the other way around) ever had problems adjusting to size and all of that stuff. Is this a fan perspective that pro’s don’t think even think about?

No, there’s absolutely preferences, and jumping ship from company to company does have an impact. Part of the reason AJ Styles struggled a little when he first started in WWE was that he had to get used to the ring size. That’s part of the reason almost all signees go through NXT, is to adjust to working in a WWE, which is larger than most. WWE’s 20’ by 20’ is the largest in regular use of a square configuration, and it absolutely makes a difference in how you wrestle. A big part of wrestling is about spatial awareness, about knowing where you and your opponent are in relation to the ring ropes, and the corner, and the ref, and the camera. Changing dimensions makes a difference, as does the tightness of the ropes, the barricades around the ring, the hard cam… It’s all things you have to keep in mind as you wrestle.

Now, that said, there is no universal preference. Like anything, different wrestlers like different ring set ups. Smaller guys usually like smaller rings with tight ropes, so they can jump off the ropes easier and go all the way across the ring and look cooler. Big guys generally prefer bigger rings, gives them more space to work. But that’s not a universal thing, some big guys will prefer small rings, and vice versa, and some people just won’t care.

But yes, it is something wrestlers do care and think about, or at least they’re supposed to…

Speaking of rings… What’s lying under WWE’s canvas these days? I think I heard something a while ago about moving away from springs and plywood to be softer or more safe, but I miss that old WCW ring sound of wood banging around (can you miss something if you’re currently re-living it on WWE Network?).

What’s under WWE’s ring? Little People’s Court.

The WWE ring, back in 2013 at least, used to be fairly traditional, albeit with non-traditional corner support beams in the corners.

Further back than that, yes, WWE rings used to be notoriously hard, given that they weren’t designed for the high flying/hard hitting styles, so WWE rings used to be very hard and stiff. But then after 98 they switched to a more traditional and softer ring set up, Foley crediting the injuries he took at KOTR 98 as being a major reason for the changes.

Now, 2015, it’s still that traditional set up, but I do wonder about the set up right now, mainly because now there’s cameras in the posts, and LCD displays on the sides. They shouldn’t, in theory, change anything of the ring’s construction, but it would not surprise me if the rings were now designed differently to give added support to the sides in order to make sure the displays don’t fall off. But I was unable to find any source on the new WWE ring’s construction, and if it led to a change in the softness of it.

But WWE hasn’t used springs under the ring in years. That is a viable format to build a ring with, but WWE just uses steel beams and plywood, just a bit padded for TV.

Mark has a simple enough question.

Did WWE ever run a British Bulldog tribute after he died in 2002? I searched the usual places, (Youtube, Dailymotion, WWE Network etc..), but no joy. I feel they must’ve done but, alas, I find nothing.

You’d think so, but 2002 was still firmly in the ‘Screw The Hart Family’ period of WWE, so…

Let’s see, Bulldog died May 18th, 2002. The first televised event after that was the Judgment Day PPV, so it would be there, or on Raw the next night, you’d think…

So this would be the one they did.

Yesterday morning… So the 19th, which would be the day of the PPV, but I strongly suspect this was part of the Sunday Night Heat shown prior to that event. And since I don’t think Heats have been added to the Network so far, at least not in an easily searchable format, that’d be why you haven’t found it on the Network.

phillis2K has a few questions.

How do they decide who has reigns with the DDT Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship? For example when Joey Ryan has the belt travelling the world does he have to clear all the title changes with DDT first? Or is it a case of them saying aslong as you’re Champion when you come back, anything goes?

I don’t know for sure, given that Mr. Ryan hasn’t given any interviews about it. But I can hazard a guess, based on the fact that I am currently the Wrestling Go 24/7 Watermelon Champion, after beating six men last weekend, albeit with a minor leg injury out of it. And thus I am in a vaguely similar situation, and I know that I have permission to be challenged for the title whenever I feel like, as long as I walk back into the next Wrestling go event as Champion, it’s all ok. Thus, I presume Mr. Ryan is under a similar situation. And besides, no title change he’s been involved with compares to losing the title to a bus, or a ladder, or a small dog.

Oh yeah, drinking song.

Although I will say, one of my wrestling life goals is to somehow get the Watermelon and the DDT Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship to win each other. I’d like that to happen, very much so.

Keeping on the Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship subject, does that belt have the most recognised title changes for a Wrestling Championship any in the world?

It’s currently up to 1249 official title reigns. The WWE Hardcore title is only 240, 241/2 if you count the Foley/Edge honorary ones. I would be shocked if there was a title that came anywhere close to having 1000 reigns other than the DDT one. But if a reader wants to shock me…

What’s the difference between a WWE doctor and a regular doctor? How can one say it’s okay to wrestle and the other say it’s not (Think the Daniel Bryan situation) both kind of doctors are qualified the same right?!

Well this can quickly lead to lawsuits if I don’t choose my words carefully.

OK, so officially, there is no difference as such between a WWE doctor and a ‘regular’ doctor in terms of there being some sort of Wrestling Doctorial Degree you can get at the Parts Unknown Medical School. A WWE Doctor is just a doctor, but one whom the WWE trusts/will send you to. For example, if you need surgery to repair a ligament or some such that occurred on the job, WWE will send you to Dr. James Andrews, who is the premier sports surgeon in the USA. He’s performed surgery on CM Punk, Edge, Randy Orton, Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Batista, John Cena, and others. In fact, he was at one point floated as a possible WWE Hall of Fame inductee.

So, WWE has their own preferred doctors, both in terms of specialists they will send you to, as well as some on the WWE payroll, for various terms of the word.

Now doctors can and will disagree all the time. That’s why second opinions are a thing. Sure, 99.9% of them will agree that you should try and stop an artery bleeding or you should vaccinate your children or whatever, but once you get into grey areas, some will disagree with each other. One doctor will think you should have surgery to repair the ligaments in your knee, while another might say that with exercise and support items you can avoid surgery. That’s part of the overall medical field, different doctors will have different opinions.

Thus you will find situations where a wrestler might have a doctor that they go to say that they are good to go, they can wrestle, no problem, but the doctor WWE uses, the one they trust, they say that they can’t wrestle. Or vice versa. This could be just a simple matter of opinion. The pro-WWE side is that WWE hires the best doctors in the country and possibly the world, their working with the ImPACT system for concussions, for instance, and that’s the best in the world. And thus if a WWE doctor says someone isn’t up to wrestling, they’ll have to listen to the best advice, if only for insurance reasons.

The anti-WWE side, however, will say that of course that anyone WWE pays to work for them will be biased, and thus a WWE Doctor will inherently side with WWE’s view on a worker and their health, and thus an independent doctor is clearly a better choice.

The truth is probably a mixture of all of the above, and none of it, as these things tend to go. But the fundamental issue is that WWE has their preferred doctors whom they trust, and they can, and will, disagree with the diagnostic decisions of other doctors. And for a combination of trust, and insurance, and maybe a half dozen other reasons, WWE will only accept clearance from their guys, not anyone else.

Brendan asks about the paydays in the old days.

Can you shed some light on how wrestlers were paid in the days before guaranteed contracts? I know wrestlers were paid per show and their pay was determined by the spot on the card and the size of the house,etc. But are you able to go into more detail? Did the main event guys get a standard percentage? Were they paid at the end of the month, after each show? Does an agent at the show decide the payouts, or is it all somehow handled by Vince? Basically was there any sort of standard that they tried to follow?

To Raven’s Old Contract!

…

Sorry, force of habit.

Anyway, different bookers would handle this stuff differently, there’s no consistent method of paying guys. Smaller companies have usually always worked on a pay on the night deal, you get the cash each night, possibly from the takings of the show, possibly just out of their accounts. Some companies would pay you weekly, or monthly, and some of those would allow you to draw ahead of time, to get some money up front, for a fee, if you need the cash right now.

Vince and WWE I don’t have details as such, but from what I understand, it’s pretty much all down to Vince in terms of your pay. Kevin Nash in one shoot interview said his contract was for 12 dates at $100 a pop minimum, but of course it could be much higher. Basically it all would come down to Vince, unless you had a contract that specified a set amount of the gate, it was up to Vince to decide who got how much of the gate. Supposedly it was based on who drew the crowd, so the opening guys would get barely anything and the main a good little chunk, but again, it would be up to Vince to decide the numbers. Still is, to some degree, in terms of dividing up some bonuses.

I suspect they were paid weekly for shows, and then any other payments would come in as they went, I’m not sure. But suffice to say, there was no ‘standard’, just what Vince decided that night.

But by all means, if there’s a shoot interview or such I’m unaware of, do let me know…

We finish this week with Proton Petie JelloJiggly HamburgerFace who asks about double turns.

Everyone refers to Rock/Hogan as a big double face/heel turn. Were there any other major matches in WWE or WCW where there was a double turn? Also, what was likely the most recent one? Also, smark crowds chanting for their vanilla midget like Punk or Bryan against Cena doesn’t count.

… Rock/Hogan wasn’t a double turn. There’s a difference between a match where the wrestlers play into the crowd reactions and one where both of them turn at the end. Rock/Hogan saw Rock work heel during it, yes, but he didn’t turn heel, he stayed face, Hogan was the sole turner.

It’s more obvious to say that everyone refers to Bret/Austin as THE big double turn.

There have been a few double turns in WWE/WCW history involving a specific match. The last major one would be Del Rio/Ziggler in 2013, which I could walk you through, but why bother when there’s a perfectly excellent recap by Maffew available?

You can argue that the Nikki Bella/Carmella one is more recent, but that didn’t happen in a match as such, that was more a short trio of events over Summerslam 16, SD and Talking Smack.

Other big double turns in a match would include Demolition/Powers of Pain at Survivor Series 88, Dudleys/T&A Backlash 2000, Roberts/HTM at WM3, arguably, and maybe Rock/Foley at Survivor Series 98, maybe.

In WCW, their big main one was Hogan/Flair at Uncensored 99. Beyond that, WCW didn’t tend to do them in matches.

So readers, any I’m forgetting? Remember, the rule is it has to be in a major match, so the InVasion stuff doesn’t really count if it wasn’t on PPV or a title match. We’ll see if there’s any the dear readers can come up with, and we’ll meet up back next week. Until then, dear readers, thanks for reading!