wrestling / Columns

Ask 411 Wrestling: Should Dolph Ziggler Get A MizTV-Style Segment?

June 24, 2017 | Posted by Mathew Sforcina
Dolph Ziggler WWE Image Credit: WWE

Hello, and welcome to the only column hoping Honky Tonk Man somehow annoys Vince McMahon soon so Miz will get to keep the IC title for another 62 weeks or so, Ask 411 Wrestling! I am your host, Mathew Sforcina, and I’m writing this before Smackdown airs, so I hope there’s a hell of an author saving throw for the Women’s MITB thing. I mean, I get what they were going for, but we’re still in the establishing that this is important phase of building the women’s division, and if that gets so obviously screwed, we don’t hate the character involved like we’re supposed to, we hate the company.

At least, we do so far. But hey, maybe it’ll all get sorted out by the time you read this.

Got a question about that? Or anything, really? Wrestling related at least? Well then, [email protected] is where you send it!

BANNER~!~!~!

Zeldas!

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Feedback Loop

Dunn Post-Vince: You know, it didn’t occur to me that maybe Dunn does understand why some of the things he does aren’t popular with the fans, that he’s doing them because Vince likes them… I don’t think that’s accurate, but maybe it is. I still think he’ll bail sooner rather than later if only because once Vince goes the job security he’s had decreases somewhat, but you never know…

The Trivia Crown

I am a championship. Among the holders of me there are former WWE, NWA, TNA, CMLL and Lucha Underground champions. Two juniors have won me (three if you count another one who, at one time, was also a junior). I have a strange connection with Triple H, even though he’s never won me. One of the champions of me unofficially changed by name when he appeared with me in a different wrestling promotion from where I’m from. Three wrestlers have won me twice and with the exception of three, all the champions of me were born in the same country. I’ve been vacant twice, changed hands twice in triple threat matches, once in a tournament and once in a ladder match and three straight title changes happened in the same city. What am I?

A tag team answer this week, from Bobby Wonderbread & Andrij Kotyk.

I am a championship ^^^. Among the holders of me there are former WWE (Jarrett, Mundo), NWA (Jarrett, others if you include other weight class belts that are mostly defended in Mexico), TNA (Jeff Jarrett), CMLL (Wagner, Texano) and Lucha Underground (Mesias, Mundo) champions (and also a former Wrestling Society X champion! (Mesias).Two juniors have won me (three if you count another one who, at one time, was also a junior) (Wagner and Zorro, Texano)(. I have a strange connection with Triple H, even though he’s never won me. One of the champions of me unofficially changed by name when he appeared with me in a different wrestling promotion from where I’m from. (Jarrett wasn’t allowed to call it the AAA title so he just called it the Mexican Heavyweight Championship)Three wrestlers have won me twice (Mesias 4x, Texano 2x, Wagner 2x) and with the exception of three (Jarrett, Mesias, Mundo), all the champions of me were born in the same country (Mexico). I’ve been vacant twice (when Cibernetico and Alberto quit), changed hands twice in triple threat matches (Electroshock and Mundo’s wins), once in a tournament (for the inaugural champion) and once in a ladder match (the finals of the tournament) and three straight title changes happened in the same city (Zapopan). What am I?

What am I? I’m AAA Mega Championship.

Who am I? Unlike Honky Tonk, my IC title reign didn’t get into a double figure amount of weeks. My last appearance in the company that gave me my first big break was in 2000 in the audience of the Blue Show and confronting a former MMA guy. My final appearance in WWE, on the other hand, was on an obscure PPV. (Well, as obscure as WWE PPV can be, unless you collect WWE moments involving… women…) My final major wrestling appearance overall was on a TNA PPV pre-show. A guy who took on and defeated such names as Steve Austin, Steve Regal, Steve Lex Luger, and DDP, I am who?

Getting Down To All The Business

Jed gets to go first because he’s Ron Jed.

Every list of the greatest promos ever has the usual suspects: Austin 3:16, CM Punk’s pipebomb, “Cane Dewey”, Hogan’s heel turn. But one promo I never see get the attention is Paul Heyman’s worked shoot promo on Vince McMahon on the Nov 15, 2001 edition of Smackdown, the go-home show before Survivor Series. It’s a passionate diatribe, invoking real history and personal feelings, and it’s AWESOME. I have my own theory, but I’m curious to know your damned opinion on why doesn’t this promo get the attention other famous promos do.

I put in my top ten promos of all time, easy. But obviously it’s been a while since anyone has asked for such a basic aspect of my opinions on wrestling, I suppose. But yes, this is a DAMN fine promo.

Now then, why doesn’t it get attention, or at least as much as the above ones? Because it didn’t go anywhere, really.

3:16 and Hogan being bored changed wrestling, 3:16 taking it’s time to do so, Hogan being somewhat instant. Same as Bret Screwed Bret. Punk’s Pipebomb is a step back from that, in that it had a dramatic impact, but didn’t end up really changing the industry, just Punk’s career trajectory.

Cane Dewey didn’t change the business, no, but with Foley’s unique position and career and the fandom associated with it, his best promo, the best promo of a guy known for good promos, that gets traction. Same as Hard Times for Dusty.

If Heyman’s worked shoot had come on the night ECW reformed, it would be better remembered. If it had come in at a point where the InVasion angle was salvageable, it would be better remembered. If the Alliance had somehow won, then we’re in some insane bizarre universe so who knows what would have happened then. But the promo came far too late in the storyline to influence it, and Heyman vanished soon after and when he returned he was Brock’s Boy, totally different situation.

The truly greatest promos tend to have to be ones that change the business, or that are the best ever from a really awesome promo guy. It fails the first test, and the second one it arguably passes, sure, but that’s a crowded list to try and swim to the top of…

(Plus having the WWF letters featured so often within it, thus making it unable to be played for a decade or so by the WWE, that doesn’t help. Neither does the ending, the Tazz turn is a bit obvious/weak. And it being so anti-Vince doesn’t help it get mentioned by WWE much…)

Wooliver wonders how to make Flair’s record breaking more interesting.

I’ve been thinking about a good angle to run for breaking Ric Flair’s world title record. Instead of just having Cena do it in a normal match. How about Randy Orrin eventually ties Cena and Flair. Orrin loses the title again. Somehow it’s vacant. And we have Orton vs Cena one last time winner breaks Flairs record (maybe loser leaves WWE?) What do you think? How would you book the breaking of Flairs record to be “special”?

The problem with ‘Loser Leaves WWE’ with those two is that you’re assured a gimmicky, BS finish, because neither of those guys are leaving, unless there’s an obvious reason, in which case of course Cena would lose because he’s off to make “Thunder In Paradise: The Next Generation”/Orton would lose because he’s a stick figure with tattoos now.

Maybe if it was Cena/HHH, that might be slightly more doable, but I’m not sure you need to make it an angle about the breaking of the record, especially as they blew the obvious angle with Flair trying to stop Cena doing it when Jon Stewart cost Cena the title against Rollins. Flair said he was cool with it, so that avenue is closed.

The best case scenario would have been if Taker was undefeated at WM still, you get the belt on him, Cena/Taker, Cena’s 17th vs the Streak. That would have made a big pile of cash.

I think the best option now, to make it more special, if you feel the need to do that, is to make it an all or nothing thing. Cena has to win his 17th title, but his career is on the line (and you state explicitly that he’s going to go to Hollywood full time if he loses) against Brock or Reigns or both, and if Cena loses then Angle is fired as Raw GM, but if he wins then Steph is fired, or something like that, you need to raise the stakes a bit, so that Cena has to do this thing that’s never been done to make everything happy and awesome, because if he doesn’t, it all goes to shit.

Then he loses.

Seriously, point every arrow at this being the time and place for the breaking of the record, then not do it. You then spend a year building to a rematch, hopefully with some sort of even higher stakes, if possible. Because now, as a fan, you’re not sure of what will happen. They didn’t do it last time, but they wouldn’t not do it again, would they?

Add in a little uncertainty, and so when it does happen, you’re not completely prepared for it. That’s what I’d do.

Speaking of Cena and not winning stuff, Stuart asks about a moment Cena didn’t win.

The story goes that Batista was meant to win the 2005 rumble and that the ending where both he and Cena went over the top rope was an unplanned botch. If this is truly the case however then went did the referees raise both wrestlers hands and why did Cena try to claim he had won? Surely if the win was pegged for Batista they would have just said he hit the floor last and given him the win. The fact that the referees supposedly couldn’t decide and Vince made his way to ringside all just feels like it was party of the planned story (minus Vince’s quad tears that is).

They probably would have, if they’d tumbled onto the side away from the hard cam. But unfortunately, they both tumbled out right in clear view of the camera.

And of course, had they planned it, they would have landed at odd times, as every time in wrestling when you try to time a perfect landing, you mess it up, but when it’s unplanned, it’s perfect.

The plan seems to have been a riff on the 2000 ending possibly, wherein both men were supposed to go over, but DAVE was meant to grab the ropes and hold on, but also like in 2000, he hit the floor. He had his bell rung by a Cena punch, supposedly, plus he’s slippery and such.

Now, if you rewatch it, they do announce DAVE as the winner, as the SD refs seem to be indicating ‘Cena hit first’. But they do that just long enough for Vince in the back to tell them to do the refs arguing spot as you couldn’t believably say Cena hit first. While they were arguing and doing the raising hands spot, in the back, according to shoot interviews and such, Vince was calling for Eric Bischoff and Teddy Long, the GMs, to go out there and restart the match. Problem was, the arena was quite large, so even at a run they’d take a few moments to get out there, and the PPV was running really close to the cut off mark. They had only a couple minutes left to get the result done and on air, so given that Eric and Teddy couldn’t make it in time, Vince got up after three hours sitting in the one spot, and went out to restart it himself. And we all know what happened then.

That also explains why the restarted bit is so short, they had NO time to mess around, they had to get the shots in ASAP. So the restarted bit lasts a few seconds and they’re done. Thus why Cena stops DAVE from doing the bomb and instead to do the spinebuster, as it’s quicker to get up from.

So no, it was a botch, just one that was handled very well, except for the subsequent double botch that was Vince’s quads that followed.

Speaking of stuff that wasn’t planned in storyline, Brian?

Why does it feel like the Draft and now the super star shake-up were both put together in a way that inconvienenced the writing staff/bookers? Storylines were interrupted without conclusion and title pictures were still in the process of require rematches and earned contenderships. WWE is calling the shots, why not have enough lag time (at least internally) to not end up in a bind?

The Draft and the Shake Up had different timings going on with them, but also the same basic issue.

The Draft was a somewhat sudden decision based on ratings going down, and Smackdown moving to a live format, so storylines being ended back then was just down to timing, by the time the decision was made, they only had a few weeks to sodt stuff out.

Now the Shake Up, that did have a few months notice, so yes, they could have wrapped everything up nicely. But while you can argue that would have been a little unrealistic, to have everything neatly sorted out prior, the main issue remained the same.

That is, you couldn’t have really wrapped everything up well when you didn’t know who you were getting. Both sides were pitching for talent, and there wasn’t really decisions firmly made until probably the moment they occurred on screen. Everyone knew AJ was going to Raw in the Shake Up, until at the last moment they decided to switch it and put Bray over instead. If you didn’t know who was being taken and who was left, how could you know what sort of ending to do? Would you really want to risk putting someone over in a blow off if you were going to lose the winner and keep the loser?

WWE seemed to like the illusion of suddenness and confusion, in part because they were sudden moves and there was confusion about the issue. So it covered for that well, it seems.

Nakamura segment with Ziggler cued me: with Miz on Raw, maybe an interview show segment would be a useful attempt to give Dolph’s heel persona some depth/purpose.

A. Would it work?

I’m not sure.

I mean, could Ziggler do it, in terms of having the charisma and the mic skills to pull it off? Sure, I mean unless you’re giving someone a Great Khali or a Frank Williams, you don’t need too much to pull off an adequate interview segment, just an ability to talk well, and a couple of guests who can talk in complete sentences and have some issue with each other.

Would it work with Dolph Ziggler’s character at this time? That I’m less sure about, because his whole thing is about stealing the show and having great matches and… I mean, if you gave him the segment as part of a gimmick overhaul where you the character realize that stealing the show is worth less then just winning matches, sure. Or if you had a face interview segment to play it off, where Ziggler wanted to prove he was better than say, Jericho’s Highlight Reel, that could work. But Ziggler right now, with that character… I’m not sure it could pull it off, no.

B. Who (other than Kevin Owens) is more deserving on Smackdown of such a segment?

*glances at SD roster*

The New Day’s Positive Pontification
Mike & Maria’s Love Locale
Rusev’s Efficient Speaking Gathering Segment
Tye Dillinger’s Perfectg 10 Minutes
Charlotte’s Flair For The Gold
Z! True Long Island Story

C. What would you name it? Please suggest something better than my terrible efforts:

-The Show Off Show
-The Zig Show
-Dolph’s Mouth
-Stealing The Show
-Dolph In Tale

Dolph’s Domain?

No, wait, he’s always talking about Stealing The Show. So it should just be ‘The Show’. Maybe ‘The Show with Dolph Ziggler’.

That’ll do.

You have to post this (enjoy!):

Well no, you can’t. Hence the Chandler System (TM, R, C, Pat. Pending).

Chris asks about careers built on symbiosis.

I have a two part question. Hypothetically shortly after Kane debuted , had Undertaker suffered a career ending injury, would his character have been able to achieve the success and longevity that he has without Taker around to feud with? Also, what other wrestlers have obtained greater success because of a symbiotic relationship with another performer where as they might not have alone?

Yes, provided Kane did debut before the injury, then congratulations, you now have a giant who can work and who retired his older brother, a well known beloved guy, assuming he was involved in the injury, or it occurred off screen. You claim Kane took out his brother and is now going on a rampage across all of the WWF, that starts it off strong, and then you just slide him into Taker’s role, pretty much. It’d be a much different career, no question, and it assumes he would develop his promo skills much earlier than he showed them in this reality, but yes, it could work. Unless the injury occurred in a squash match on Shotgun Saturday Night against the D.O.A or something…

As for wresters obtaining greater success thanks to someone else, there’s two main types of way that occurs, three if you count family lineage results, like with a Bo Dallas or a Tamina Snuka.

Basically you have wrestlers who gain prominence thanks to being known for being part of a superb tag team, either because both members became greater than the sum of the parts of the team, like LOD or the Rock n Roll Express, or because one half of the team got greater success than they might otherwise because of the boost from being in that tag team, such as Stevie Ray, Marty Jannetty, guys like that. You then have the arguable ones, guys like D-Von Dudley, Rick Steiner, Christian, unfortunately.

Then, you have the guys who are friends with someone important. Brutus Beefcake. Brian Knobbs. Horace Hogan. Spot the pattern there?

I mean, it comes down to either looking better than you are because of teaming with someone (or perhaps fighting someone) a lot, or looking better than you are because there’s someone backstage pulling strings for you. There are plenty of guys like that, and I’m sure people below will be arguing about them.

Connor asks about a guy looking worse than he should, once.

I never understood why they has British Bulldog lose to Sid at Summerslam 96? the Bulldog had just come off back to back title matches with Shawn Michaels and having him be cannon fodder for Sid sort of made him look weak

Yeah, Bulldog had indeed just come off working a program with Shawn Michaels. A program in which they made very little money and no-one really cared all that much about him. Sid, on the other hand, people did care about. And given that Vader was about to not win the title, they needed someone big and strong to fill in the gap that Vader was meant to fill but then didn’t for various reasons.

So a guy you’re looking to move back down the card and a guy you’re looking to move up the card. They have a match, guy on way up wins strong over guy on way down. Congratulations, you’ve grasped a basic tenant of wrestling booking. Well done you.

*1/100 of a Chandler*

You can’t keep everyone strong, WWE’s 50/50 booking experiments have proven that. Thus, you use people with some strength whom failed in the role used in to help put over guys who might work in said roles. That’s how wrestling works, supposedly.

Overlaps Ho Flaps

That person, has a question.

Why is Nakamura’s finisher called Kinshasa?

Because of a series of steps based on wrestling history, wrestling business, and boxing.

OK, so, you heard of Muhammad Ali, I take it? Rather famous boxing champion, guy who basically cut wrestling promos for boxing matches? We spoke about him a little while ago in this column.

Right, well when we last brought him up, it was about a ‘match’ he had with Antonio Inoki. Well that’s part of this too, but we need to back up a step. Because, see, a very famous fight Ali took part in was the Rumble in the Jungle, where he fought George Foreman in what was then Zaire. One of the features of this fight was that the fans took to chanting “Ali Boma Ye!”

Ali took it as a catchphrase of sorts. And then, when he did whatever you want to call what he did with Inoki, he gave Inoki the phrase, wrestling fans began to chant ‘Inoki Bomaye!’ too. Fair enough so far.

Then we get to Nakamura. When Nakamura debuted the move that is now called Kinshasa, he had just turned heel, forming a stable called Chaos, and changed his style to a much more physically aggressive style, as part of his quest to ‘restore the Strong Style’ that NJPW had moved away from. Hence the nickname ‘King of Strong Style’. He also declared that he wanted the original IWGP Heavyweight Championship belt from Antonio Inoki, rather than the fourth gen one he had. And, most of all, his new finisher, which won him lots of matches and injured people and so on, a running knee? That was called the Bomaye, as a parody of Inoki.

And then Nakamura signs to WWE.

Now then, apart from all that history that WWE wouldn’t want to talk about, there’s also the fact that they don’t/can’t own the trademark on that phrase, as there’s songs and such using it, plus the fact that in all this, I failed to point out that the translation in the original Lingala language that the locals speak in what was Zaire and is now Congo, Boma Ya translates into “Kill Him!”

Which is something WWE probably doesn’t want to reference so blatantly.

So, he needs a new name for his finisher, but he’d like to keep it related. The Inoki Annoyer doesn’t quite work, but what does work is taking the name of the city where the fight took place and the city which is now the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is… Kinshasa.

And now you know.

And on that note, I must leave you, for I must go now and… Well, sleep.

Not very exciting I know, but I do gotta do it, so…