Ask 411 Wrestling: Did Vince Ask Hogan to Turn in the 1990s?

Hello and welcome to (possibly) the only column that now worries that Damien Mizdow is about to be ruined by what almost always kills entertaining things in WWE, Vince McMahon taking interest, Ask 411 Wrestling!

So Hell in a Cell happened, and had a really spooky ending with R-Truth dancing, that was really disturbing and… Oh yeah, Wyatt’s back.

Anyway, got a question for this Q&A column thing? Send it to [email protected] for an A to the Q.

And now the B.

Zeldas!

Check out my Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture! It’s getting more hits, so hop on now while the bandwagon is young!

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Feedback Loop

American Face Undertaker: This is my view on this subject.

So yeah. My bad.

Rocks in Wrestling: I knew this would lead to someone putting up a hand. In this case, Tim let me know I was both right and wrong.

I don’t about many, but a guy goes by the name “John E Rock” and has the tag phrase “The Rock-A-Fire Experience.” If I remember right his shoot name is Rockholt or Rockford or something.

He wrestles for the Harley Race promotion in Missouri. So they are out there.

Vince’s Perversion: Look, I totally understand where people are coming from, certainly coming up with stuff like Katie Vick and the Steph Incest thing for a wrestling show is not exactly standard storytelling. So if your definition of perversion is based on what someone comes up with, then sure, you can say he is. But the thing is, as a writer/gamer, I’ve come up and played out a whole lot of sick/weird stuff for characterisation and plot, but I would never do any of it. I view artistic output as a separate thing from personal preference. You might not, and that’s valid enough. But at the end of the day, no-one has ever proven Vince likes (some perverted act that you personally think is weird).

Always Bringing Back Punk: Punk is always coming back in fantasy booking because he could be at Raw next week if he wanted to. It’s an easy, simple thing that gives you a main eventer right away. I get why people keep using him in that role. It’s just that you can’t pretend that he’s away because WWE wants him to be away.

The Trivia Crown

I was trained by a Hall of Famer, who also trained other wrestlers who became Hall of Famers themselves. I’ve won tag titles alongside Hall of Famers and only one of them trained by the same guy who trained me, one of those victories against two other Hall of Famers, and many would argue I should be a Hall of Famer, too. I gave a future Hall of Famer a not so pleasant welcome to the world of wrestling and I was the first one being inducted to a lesser-known Hall of Fame. But enough of Halls of Fame!! I have a connection with a wrecking crew, Floyd Mayweather and Hulk Hogan. Who am I?

DarthDaver has the answer that I was given.

I was trained by a Hall of Famer (Verne Gagne)
who also trained other wrestlers who became Hall of Famers themselves (Ric Flair, Curt Hennig, Sgt Slaughter, Iron Sheik, among others).
I’ve won tag titles alongside Hall of Famers (Harley Race, Curt Hennig)
and only one of them trained by the same guy who trained me (Curt),
one of those victories against two other Hall of Famers(The Crusher and Dick The Bruiser are in the WCW HOF),
and many would argue I should be a Hall of Famer, too. I gave a future Hall of Famer a not so pleasant welcome to the world of wrestling (Beat Piper in 10 seconds on Piper’s debut)
and I was the first one being inducted to a lesser-known Hall of Fame (George Tragos/Lou Thesz Hall of Fame).
But enough of Halls of Fame!! I have a connection with a wrecking crew (Won a tag title with Lars Anderson)
Floyd Mayweather (The nickname “Pretty Boy”)
and Hulk Hogan (?????).
Who am I? Larry “The Axe” Hennig?

The Hogan thing was that they both use the Axe Bomber as a finisher. Apparently.

Maravilloso has yet another one for us!

I’m a international wrestling star and former world champion. I’ve feuded with Hall of Famers, managed Hall of Famers and teamed with Hall of Famers. The angle that brought me to stardom was my first heel turn, which was booked almost exactly like one of the most famous heel turns in wrestling, which occurred five years before my heel turn. And speaking of angles, I did something to a rival basically the same thing Bret Hart did 4 months before to a former world champion . I have a connection with Billy Graham, Roddy Piper and Jerry Lawler. A very well known tag team of the 80’s was part of one of my most embarrassing moments as a wrestler. My biggest victory in singles competition was against a former WWE titleholder. I’m probably one of the greatest promo guys in any language in the history of pro wrestling who is still a pop culture icon in my native land and one of my dearest persons have been in Olympic Games more than once. And although my wrestling time in the USA was short I won titles with someone with connections with Buzz Sawyer and beating a man once managed by a Hall of Famer. Oh, and I started a “religious” movement and my wrestling name sounds just exactly like the nickname of a Hall of Famer. Who am I?

Getting Down To All The Business

Mick would like a top 10 list, but one with a difference.

It’s a “massive” In Your Opinion question, but who are the greatest WWE wrestlers to never hold any title in the WWE?

Not “Who hasn’t held the World Title”, but who hasn’t held ANY title (So, Hennig, Piper, Rude etc don’t count as they’ve had I.C. Title reigns)

People who haven’t been in WWE also don’t count (so no Sting, Mutoh etc).

Do the rules make sense? I’d like a top 10 if I may?

Geez.

The rules make sense, it just hits a problem in that how do you count stuff that is and isn’t a title? Like the Million Dollar Championship, that a title or not? What about Money In The Bank?

So, I’m going to assume that only official titles count, but even so, you’ve got a really obtuse list, to whit:

1. Jake Roberts
2. Jerry Lawler
3. Aja Kong
4. The Fabulous Freebirds
5. Jimmy Snuka
6. The NXT 5 who aren’t Adrian Neville
7. The Great Sasuke
8. Damien Sandow
9. Rusev
10. Derrick Bateman

But that’s with me focusing on the best wrestlers who I know never held a belt, which leads to a few obscure choices who had cups of coffee in the company. By all means, if you, dear reader, have a better name to include, do let me know.

Although anyone other than Roberts in first is wrong.

Brian has a few… Interesting questions.

To start an argument, what would you consider as the greatest promo ever?

Purely for the purposes of starting an argument, Jumping Jeff Farmer in IPW discussing Motley Cruz.

Actually, I’m going to have to side with WWE on this one, they did a list a while back and their #1 was… Austin 3:16.

There have been better acted promos, better written promos, more passionate ones, better heat getters, but at the end of the day, no other promo in history can claim to have made Hundreds of Millions of dollars. Austin 3:16 made Hundreds of Millions of dollars.

That was the best. Heyman before Survivor Series is still my favorite by a mile though.

Did ROH ever try to, or think of, suing WWE for ripping off the summer of punk story. In looking at it, CM Punk gave the same line “in my hands this is a pipebomb” in ROH many years beforehand.

To my knowledge they never thought about it, no. And of course there’s going to be similarities, given that it was pretty much a direct redo of the angle. So sure, you can think, that means that ROH could say, hey, our Summer of Punk…

Was totally ripped off by WWE’s Summer of Punk!

Except that if you do that, if you file a lawsuit over a wrestling angle, that is a can of worms with no bottom. I mean, can WWE turn around and say ROH ripped them off with Jay Briscoe claiming he was the Real ROH Champion, that’s a rip off of HBK/Razor?

There’s an agreement in wrestling, that basically says ‘All bets are off’. You try to not be blatant, but at the end of the day everyone rips everyone else off. Sometimes it is obvious, sometimes it is subtle. Sometimes it is your competition, sometimes it is yourself. Occasionally you might have an original idea, good for you, but you need what, a dozen ideas every week? You think you can make every one of them fresh? Totally? Every week?

But that’s generic, in the specific, ROH just wasn’t in a position to sue, WWE is far too big and powerful, they’d have it tied up for years in the courts and bleed ROH dry. So no, I don’t think there was any talk or chance of ROH suing.

Given that Halloween is approaching who would you cast as the justice league for said holiday? Villains and heroes, your call…

… OK… I presume you mean wrestlers, right?

Superman: John Cena
Batman: Bad News Barrett
Wonder Woman: AJ Lee
Flash: Stardust
Green Lantern: The Miz
Aquaman: Damien Sandow
Martian Manhunter: Goldust

I eagerly await comic book fans to tell me why I’m totally wrong on most of them.

Axl From Paris asks about lost title shots, to bring us back to actual wrestling talk.

has anybody lost more title matches in a Raw than Cesaro in the history of the WWE?

Cesaro has lost his US Title to Kofi Kingston on the April,15 2013 episode of Raw. Since then, he has had title shots:
– Lost his rematch against Kingston (Main Event, May 1st)
– Lost a NXT Title Match against champion Bo Dalls (NXT, July, 3rd)
– Lost a WWEWHC Title Match at Elimination Chamber 2014
– Lost a Tag Team Fatal Fourway Match for the Tag Team Championshp (with Jack Swagger) at Wrestlemania XXX
– Lost a US Title match against champion Sheamus at Payback
– Lost the WWEWC Ladder Match at Money in the Bank
– Lost in the Battleground International Championship Battle Royale at Battleground
– Lost a US Title Match to champion Sheamus at Night of Champions
– Lost an Intercontinental Title Match to champion Dolph Ziggler at Smackwon, September 26.
– Lost a Triple Threat Intercontinental Title Match to champion Dolph Ziggler (the Miz was also involved) at Raw, September 29.

If I haven’t missed something, that makes 11 Title Matches in a row (for five different titles! 10 if you don’t count the NXT Title Match against Dallas). Has anyone else had a streak like that in the past? I don’t know if you can possibly answer that question with absolute certainty, but maybe you have some examples from the top of your head?

13 now with the IC title losses.

Well, when in doubt, go to a guy who’s never won a belt. Sandow, assuming you don’t count MITB as a title, has had 9 losses so far, the 10th being a DQ win over Bryan and Kane at Hell in a Cell.

That was my pick, and with that a failure, I can’t think of one, unless there’s a Hardcore situation where someone was involved in matches in a bunch of 24/7 things but never won. But that’s not a satisfactory answer, so let’s do a do over here in the first Ask 411 Reader Narrowment Initiative!

Dear Readers, there are many, many, MANY wrestlers in WWE history. I obviously cannot check out all of them. But if you think you know somewhat who had more title losses than Cesaro’s 13, please submit your idea below. All serious ideas I will then check and next week I’ll report my findings.

And if it works out, this’ll become a regular thing, if not, it’s another Streak thing that we don’t talk about.

Darren wishes to talk about Hogan turning heel… In WWF.

Did Vince ever ask Hulk Hogan to turn heel during the 90s.And how you think a Shawn Michaels and Hulk Hogan heel group in early 90s would of done.

What an odd pairing.

Anyway, Hogan has said that he went to Vince and pitched bringing Sting in and turning heel to put Sting over, and that he went to Vince and pitched turning heel against Warrior, and Vince said no. But to be honest, I take Hogan’s recollections of that sort of thing with a grain of salt the same size as the 16 tonne Andre The Giant Hogan bodyslammed in Antarctica in front of 11 billion fans on the international date line so he had to do it twice and ended up turning every bone in Hogan’s body into a thin paste the color and consistency of half-melted Lime Jello.

At the end of the day, I don’t think Vince ever asked Hogan to turn heel simply because that would be killing the Golden Goose. Vince went out of his way to not force the fans to pick the side other than Hogan other than Wrestlemania VI, which then went south, partly because Hogan stuck around too much.

It is so easy to sit in the crowd, or behind a computer, with time and distance, and ask why promoters didn’t turn their tired, over-exposed face heel, especially now with Cena front and center. And the answer is always the same, in that promoters will ride a horse until they’re sure that the horse is dead.

After all, if you turn Hogan heel and the fans don’t take to it, or if he doesn’t work, or if he’s unable to get over your new babyface, BAM, all that money from merch and stuff is gone. So why would you risk that, when you could still make some money from them as a face?

It wasn’t until Wrestlemania IX where the gulf between what Hogan could do and what Vince wanted was such that maybe he might have considered doing it, but Hogan was gone and then he was only really back long enough to drop the belt and leave. Heck, maybe the Hogan/Bret match would have been a heel turn…

But remember, whenever you want to turn a megaface heel, sure, it could be Hogan in 96. But it could also be Austin in 01.

As for Hogan and Shawn as a group… I really don’t want to live in a world where Party Boy Shawn learned politics from Hogan. And I really can’t see them working out well as a duo. I know they’re both talents and I’m sure they’d find a way to not suck, maybe adding in a few bodies but then you’re what, New World X? Eh, I guess it could work, but I’m not seeing it, if that makes sense.

Botchamania! Who doesn’t love Botchamania?

Speaking of Heel turns, involving Hulk Hogan, Ed?

. In November of 1996 Eric Bischoff was revealed as the inner genius of the NWO. As I was watching Nitro on the WWE Network and knowing the Bischoff reveal, I started to wonder when did Bischoff decided to make himself the onscreen leader of the NWO? I wondered because in October leading into Halloween Havoc, Bischoff showed Randy Savage a video from Elizabeth where she professed her love for him and apologized for what she’d put him through earlier in the year and this clearly upset Savage who was on the cusp of a huge match with the now Hollywood Hogan. After that Bobby Heenan and Mike Tenay were both angry at Bischoff for possibly screwing up Savage’s head before such a huge match. Knowing that the Bischoff turn was coming now in retrospect, this seems like an early seed that Bischoff wasn’t on the level. Was that part of the plan or did Bischoff decide to become the onscreen leader weeks after this happened and it was just a coincidence?

In storyline, Bischoff began working for the nWo after he got powerbombed by Nash through a table at the Great American Bash 96. In booking, given the state of WCW booking at the time, and considering what has been said by Bischoff, I suspect it wasn’t a carefully laid out plan months in advance, but in looking over reports from the time, I cannot say for sure, but I think that that was a deliberate hint that Bischoff wasn’t on the level, and thus they’d decided at the latest by the 14th of October to turn him heel.

I apologize for not having harder info, but most of the time people focus on the whys of heel turns and less on the logistics. But I’d say in the week leading up to that Nitro, the idea was floated then agreed upon.

Jeremiah keeps us in WCW.

What did Miss Elizabeth get up to between leaving the WWF in ’92 and debuting for WCW in ’96? Wikipedia says she worked for ESPN as a Speedboat commentator (with no source link) but that’s it. Is anything else known? Also, did Savage play a role in getting her hired, and did Vince ever try and bring her back?

Pre-internet articles do back up the ESPN thing, she did, assuming they are accurate, work for an off-shore powerboat racing show on ESPN, although I was unable to find video, alas.

She may have worked in a friend’s clothing store as well, but the main thing she did was move to South Florida and meet Cary Lubetsky, whom she had a relationship for several years, ending with a brief marriage that occurred after she had come back to work to WCW.

Savage absolutely played a role in bringing her back, he and Hogan both contacted her and made overtures to her, given how well WCW was doing with bringing in older names to attract the 18-45 male demo who remembered Miss Elizabeth very warmly. Despite the divorce the two were still on good terms, and so he was a big part in getting her brought in.

Vince on the other hand… There doesn’t seem to be any attempts after WCW let her go in 2000. She was gone by the time Vince began to bring back old timers more often, and she seemed unwilling to handle the grind of a full time spot by the end. I’m sure Vince would have brought her back for a HOF induction and the occasional one shot if she were still alive, but she’s not so he doesn’t.

Speaking of burials-

… Forgive me, that was in extremely poor taste.

Anyway, Willy Dope has a question.

What was with the burial of nXt by the commentators in the early seasons, (especially the Diva season)

It’s one of those things where I heard the supposed logic but never quite believed it.

NXT was WWE’s attempt to merge reality TV and their own product, with the contests and eliminations and such. And a part of Reality TV is that you have good guys and bad guys. You have people who the fans get behind, and people the fans hate.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, that sounds like wrestling as well, you stupid big fat Aussie, but you’re only three quarters right there, as the idea from the first season was, supposedly, to tune in for Daniel Bryan but think he sucked and start going for the guys WWE wanted. Or, alternatively, if you believe other reports, the goal was to make Cole the bad guy and Bryan the good guy and build up to Bryan winning the US title and everything being sunshine and lollypops when Cole admitted he was wrong.

I really don’t know which was true at this point.

What I do know is that Heel Cole, sadly, took off, and after a certain point NXT was left for dead, so Cole and Mathews were allowed to just say whatever they liked, so they went full bore MST3K on it. Unfortunately they just weren’t very good at it.

But in the end it was meant to be like Reality TV, and all the snarky negative comments you get on those shows, apparently. But I still don’t quite believe that…

Connor takes us to another thing that sucked.

What was up with the Shawn Michaels/Mr Perfect match at Summerslam 1993?, it was hyped up as the greatest Intercontinental title match of all time and it should have been, yet what we got was disappointing, was it just too much a clash of styles or was Shawn just dicking around and making sure the match sucked?

It was far too much pressure. The build to the match was basically “These are two AWESOME wrestlers, the bestest ever IC Champs, and they’re going to have THE MOST AWESOMELY AWESOME match of all time! Buy the PPV! *******~!”.

And then they had a match that was just ok.

It wasn’t Shawn dicking around, he was clearly trying hard, and that’s the problem, both guys were coming in with some pressure on them given the build. They were already in trouble as they clearly didn’t have any chemistry, which is a notorious problem, you can’t predict who’s gonna have chemistry until you see it. So they’re already behind the 8 ball, so they go in and try too hard, botching too many moves and having too many dead spots as they try to create a classic rather than just have a good match and let the classic happen.

That was the problem, it was sold as a match of the year, before it happened. You should never do that, always sell the story and let the classic part come later. You’ll notice WWE rarely sells anything on the quality of the match any more. If HBK and Perfect couldn’t deliver on cue, can anyone?

Oh, and the count out ending? That made sure it wouldn’t work. Who the hell books a MOTYC attempt to end on a count out?
RammaLammaDingDong FujiFaceFlyGuy goes from Summerslam to Wrestlemania.

The Rock said in an interview last week that the original plans for Wrestlemania 30 and 31 were to feud with Brock Lesnar. If that was the case, what were the original plans for the Undertaker at Wrestlemania 30? And was that person, whoever it may be, supposed to break the streak? Clearly they had Brock booked up for 2 years with The Rock. If Brock was never “the guy”, does this mean someone else was jipped out of breaking the streak? And if Brock always was to be “the guy”, that would mean Taker had planned on continuong to perform to at least Wrestlemania 32, because that would have been the soonest he could have faces Brock.
Thoughts?

Brock was the lucky stiff who happened to be wrestling Taker the year it was decided the Streak should end. If it had been someone else, maybe the Streak wouldn’t have been broken, but maybe it would have, it’s hard to say how much of the Streak ending was Vince deciding it was to be now and how much was because it was to be Brock. But given that the decision wasn’t finalised till 4 hours before the show, it’s much more a ‘Brock got lucky’ rather than ‘Brock’s the one with the one behind the one that was the one in one and twenty one encompassing Snuka as One, King Kong Bundy at Wrestlemania Ten and One, more than one opponent at one less than twenty, with one DQ and one WWF Title’.

As for who Taker would fight, the answer to that would be the guy who just came back, Ryback. He would be the big muscular guy Heyman brought in to beat Undertaker due to the small skinny fat ass Punk losing the year before. At the time the plans were floating, Heyman’s managing of Ryback was just starting, and if it had gone well and if Brock fought Rock, Ryback might well have ended the Streak.

Think about that.

nightwolf actually managed to predict something…

If there was one wrestling stable you could bring back ( Not Evolution) in today’s wrestling, which would you choose? I’d probably say nation of Domination ( Put Big E, Xavier Woods, Rtruth, Kofi Kingston together with Mark Henry as manager)

The Triple Threat was basically The Horsemen, but with a harder edge, more anger and frustration than glory and gold. I guess The Shield was something similar, but then you can argue that The Shield’s going to be close to almost any group you could pick. But I stick to the Triple Threat, focusing on the guys who have been jerked around too much. Cesaro, Ryder, Otunga to talk and Layla to manage.

But what of your ideas, dear readers?

Brad has a very popular idea, which leads to… Unkind words.

Do you think it would be a good idea for WWE to go back to the brand split? Here is what I think would be awesome, but maybe it wouldn’t work. Take one brand (Let’s say Raw) and have the IC Belt be the main belt, have the womens belt be secondary. Have Smackdowns main belt be the US Title with the tag straps being the secondary. The Heavyweight strap becomes a travelling belt where the main event wrestlers are split onto the two shows battling for the Main belt of that show with the eventual lead into a main event feud with the champ. This would allow some of these mid card acts an opportunity to shine, separate some of the big dogs and might freshen things up? Maybe it wouldn’t work, I am just sick of seeing the US and IC belts mean nothing and miss the old days of the tag division. Back in the days of NWA Flair would have the strap and Sting would be the big dog chasing while Luger and Windham would battle for the US etc..

Like anything, it’s not a bad idea, and building the midcard belts is what they should be doing right now, now that Brock’s off F5ing bears or whatever it is he is doing. Sure, the end result is Cena beating Rusev at WM, but a major story going on right now should be everyone throwing themselves at US Champ Rusev, trying to bring the belt back to Freedom and Liberty after Rusev crushed Sheamus on the 4th of July Smackdown. And the IC title should be sought after by everyone else, it should be main eventing shows since it’s the main title of the company, in effect.

But that’s the rub, the brand split, bringing back Punk, focusing on wrestling, focusing on tag teams, bringing back Shane, doing an NXT invasion, all the ideas and
Concepts aren’t going to fix WWE. WWE is broken far beyond the repair of a simple structural change. As Andron asks…

Good night, just want to send this question to you but is wwe losing their touch? What is making them lose their magic? Are we too much old School fans? Is it the wrestlers or maybe they have good wrestlers but bad creativity? I’ve been looking at all of wwe’s delivery as of late. I don’t know if its just tio old or lack of something new, but what do you think, do you think wwe is losing its touch like the magic it had during the Monday wars etc? Do you feel wwe product is same?

WWE has the single greatest talent roster it’s ever had (arguably), and has never had such an awesomely powerful tool as the Network to gain, keep and entertain fans. And they’re as cold as a well running refrigerator. They’re making money, sure, but they should be making more money than the Mint right now.

Instead, they have mistaken new opportunities for new structures, they’ve mistaken the need to adapt with the need to crash and burn. They’ve sacrificed everything on an altar of a God they don’t know the name of, nor how to summon.

The PPV market is dead in terms of making money mostly from that, fine. But you still need to build to those events, and make them important. Giving us the matches ahead of time does not do that. Belts are important historical devices that make those who hold them important, but that doesn’t mean they can job all the time. Talented wrestlers wrestling good to great matches is good to great. But if that was all you needed to be successful, ROH would be battling NJPW for the Wrestling world right now.

WWE has stopped running wrestling like wrestling, but they’re not running it like a TV show either. They’ve mistaken activity for progression, mistaken status quo for stability and whatever the hell they think they are doing for writing.

And the most frustrating part is that they clearly DO understand what they could be doing. NXT, most of the time. The Reigns push, until the fans and his gut got in the way. Rusev, sometimes. The occasional flash of competence is the really annoying thing, it gives you false hope.

Maybe I’m just in a bad mood right now, and I’m probably not making this too clear, but the thing is, no matter what your solution or fix is, it probably won’t change the underlying issue of WWE’s structure being horribly broken, at least in terms of application. And solutions that would change it, like shoot everyone, are too messy and unrealistic.

WWE isn’t nearly as bad as detractors claim, thanks to the talent and the occasional brilliant moment. But it’s not nearly as good as it should be, because they don’t have a tired booker, or an egomaniacal talent, or a dead region. They have a fractured business model, held together by goodwill, hard work and string but with no-one seeming to rush to fix it.

Maybe WWE is smarter than me, and this is just growing pains and they’ll right the ship, they’ll get this sorted, I just don’t see the big picture, wins and losses on PPV don’t matter any more, story trumps logic, I’m wrong, I’m old fashioned, I’m behind the times, I’m stuck in the mud.

But to grow flowers, you need the mud.

Agree, disagree, wondering what drugs I’m on right now? Leave your guesses below, and I’ll tell you next week, till then, ciao!