wrestling / Columns

Ask 411 Wrestling: Could John Cena Have Started a Riot at ECW One Night Stand?

May 27, 2015 | Posted by Mathew Sforcina

Hey there, welcome to the 4634232345th wrestling column written by some guy on Reddit, Ask 411 Wrestling!

Obviously not a lot has happened in wrestling this week, beyond the whole TNA maybe dying, maybe not, who knows right now, please don’t sue me Dixie.

Got a question for me, or a trivia question, or just pictures of Victoria? [email protected] is where you should send it.

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Zeldas!

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Demoted from World Title: Thanks to everyone for pointing out the ones I missed due to either mistakes or because I didn’t bother to include the other midcade title the World Heavyweight Title.

The Trivia Crown

Who am I? I main evented a double first event. I hold the record of having the most reigns of a specific WWE title. Although I share an obvious connection to one Hall of Famer, it was a different Hall of Famer who helped me at the start of my career. I once won a title by DQ, although it ended up being held up days later due to a match with someone else. A guy whose son is now wrestling, who once changed his name without really changing it, and who is a member of the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame, I am who?

Darn, was kinda hoping I could reuse this one, but Zach Brinkley has the answer.

Who am I? I main evented a double first event. (WCW SuperBrawl)
I hold the record of having the most reigns of a specific WWE title (WWE International Heavyweight Championship) . Although I share an obvious connection to one Hall of Famer (Flair), it was a different Hall of Famer who helped me at the start of my career (Antonio Inoki.) I once won a title by DQ (IWGP Heavyweight Champinship), although it ended up being held up days later due to a match with someone else (Riki Choshu). A guy whose son is now wrestling (Leona in Dradition), who once changed his name without really changing it (different kanji, same pronunciation), and who is a member of the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame (Class of 1996) , I am who?

Tatsumi Fujinami

Although the obvious connection was due to his nickname being The Dragon.

Who am I? While I once took part of the name of the guy who trained me, I’m best known by another name, one that has the same number of letters in the first and last part. I’m one of only four men to have held a specific duo of titles at the same time. I once turned heel to wild cheering from the audience in attendance. I’ve worked as a commentator, working with such names as Vince McMahon and Gorilla Monsoon. I have a connection to Cheese, attempts to escape from prison, and sugar. Who am I?

Getting Down To All The Business

Pedro wants your vote. And the answer to a question.

Here I have this question: I’ve not been able to find anything regarding Yokozuna taking revenge from the beat from Vader on Raw, that night Vader “broke” yoko’s leg; what was the story here, did yoko get Vader later on, for a revenge…???

For those of you late to the party, on the April 8th, 1996 edition of Monday Night Raw, Yokozuna, now a fan favorite, wrestled the new monster on the block, Vader. And during the match, Vader ‘broke’ Yokozuna’s leg.

They did say that it wasn’t actually broken the following week, however.

The story here was pretty simple, Vader was a monster, so… Oh, you mean the actual story? Easy, Yokozuna was written off TV for a bit so he could go home and lose some weight. As you can see in the clip, he was rather large at this point, and in fact legitimately had to carried out on a forklift due to his size in that clip.

Now, was there a rematch? Sure was. After Vader beat Razor Ramon at In Your House “Good Friends, Better Enemies” event, it was revealed that Yokozuna would return at the following month’s PPV to fight Vader. Yokozuna did go on the trip to Kuwait, but at the PPV, Yokozuna returned and defeated Vader in around 3 minutes!

But this was the Beware of Dog IYH, and that was during the power outage, so no-one saw it.

At the Beware of Dog 2 event a couple days later, Yokozuna and Vader fought again, and this time Vader beat him pretty decisively.

So he never got revenge, but he did get a shot at it.

Mojotheclown has a simple enough question about the B Show.

For the longest time, Smackdown has been Diet Raw. When was the last time something IMPORTANT (in your eyes) happened on Smackdown?

Important in WWE language or actually important? In WWE lore, every Smackdown is important!

But in slightly more realistic WWE Lore, probably Alberto Del Rio winning the World Heavweight Title off Big Show in a Last Man Standing is the last ‘important’ event.

Actually important… See, the last major event I recall happening on Smackdown was April 23rd 2013 (my birthday!) when The Undertaker wrestled on Smackdown and was taken out by The Shield.

Now, I’m quite possibly forgetting something, and so there might be something more important I’ve missed, but then again, if I don’t remember it, how important could it have been?

What of you, dear readers? What was the last important thing to happen on Smackdown?

Shaun asks about this column and rioting.

… The two aren’t related.

I hope.

Do any wrestlers read Ask411 Wrestling? And if so have they ever got in touch to correct or provide additional information on a question?

Yes, although before you get too excited it’s not anyone ‘famous’ or in the major leagues as it were. A bunch of Aussie wrestlers have read the column and said stuff to me about it, but I’ve also had a few guys who wrestle in the American indy scene write in and give feedback on various topics, either because they’ve spoken with other people backstage or what have you, I have had corrections/more info given to me by other wrestlers.

But to my knowledge, although I’ve occasionally joked about certain wrestlers clearly reading my work since they’ve mentioned 411 (Hi Matt Hardy!) or because they follow me on Twitter (Hi Sugar Dunkerton!) or just interacted with me on Twitter (Hi My Goddess!) or whatever, I have no proof of anyone famous/important reading my work. Although I do remember Player Uno instantly recognizing me on Twitter due to the Botchamania ads I had. Both of which got banned from Dailymotion, dammit…

But I’m not particularly fussed that I’m not read by famous peoples. Although I still have the tiniest spark of hope in my heart that Kane’s read my ES on him. But I don’t write this for them I write this for you. Yes, you specifically.

At ECW One Night Stand 2006 if John Cena would have won, was there a real chance of an actual riot?

Hmmm… Not a full scale one, no. But certainly I think if Cena had won, there would have been a lot of thrown garbage and possibly a couple people jumping the barricade. But this isn’t old school Memphis or anything, the ECW faithful there that night were rowdy and opinionated, sure, but they weren’t quite on the level of getting THAT worked up over a Cena win, I don’t think.

Of course, the problem with this sort of thing is that there’s a wide range of Cena winning options. Sure, if Cena had no sold the 5*, smoothly hit the FU and then made RVD tap to the STFU, if there was going to be a riot, that would have set it off. But had there been an ECW style rolling run in parade, and the match ended with Mick Foley pinning Stevie Richards to ‘win’, that might have mollified the fans a bit from noticing Cena walked out with the belt.

But I’m sure no-one in the building had anything capable of causing serious damage, so while there would have been massive tantrums and such, I don’t think an actual riot would have broken out.

Probably.

jayzhoughton wants to talk about blading.

When did blading originate? When did it become popular? Last time someone bladed in WWE, and who was it? What Major Wrestlers have never bladed?

OK, let’s take these in turn.

I presume we all know what blading is, yes? I’m not going to have to explain this, right? We’ve all seen The Wrestler? OK.

So, when did blading originate? Before Wrestling, actually. Even ignoring the old practice of blood letting to heal whatever ailed you, there were several sporting events from around the turn of the century that were stopped due to blood, and it has been alleged that said blood was deliberately let loose, as it were.

However blading in wrestling has two origin dates. The concept dates back to the 1940’s/50’s, when the idea of blood helping to tell stories began. Except that, rather than cutting the skin with a blade, back then you’d break the skin over the eyebrow with a well placed knuckle punch. Wrestlers would even work on the flesh with a fork or other implement to make it easier to split with a punch.

Or at least, that’s how most people did it back then. As long as people have been bleeding in wrestling, some were using a blade. And although there’s no consensus, Lou Thesz always put the blame of the popularity of razors at the feet of one ‘Dangerous’ Danny McShain, an Irish/American brawler from Arkansas who debuted in 1930 and wrestled for at least 25 years, more if you include this time as a ref afterwards.

Danny was, supposedly, while not the first guy to bleed nor the first to use a razor, he’s the one who popularised it and did it on the semi-regular. The first reference to a McShain bloody match was 1940, so he was doing it from around then.

Doc Sarpolis is another wrestler/promoter in the Texas area in the late 20’s onwards who gets credit for popularising blading as a concept, but like a lot of wrestling stuff, there’s no one guy, no one date that began everything.

(Although McShain is also the guy who is the supposed start of the ‘Titles can’t change hands on a DQ’ rule due to a double cross attempt that ended up with cops involved.)

Last time someone bladed in WWE? Well, you often hear whispers of someone blading whenever someone bleeds in WWE these days. WWE banned the practice in July 2008. There has been some blood incidents since then, but the last one that has been said to be an actual blade job by anyone involved since then was November 3rd, 2008, the Steel Cage match on Raw where Batista lost the World Heavyweight Title back to Chris Jericho a week after winning it off him at Cyber Sunday.

We know this was a blade job because Batista talked about it on an appearance on Talk is Jericho. Basically DAVE knew that blading was a no-no, but he had an ‘old school’ mentality, and that if someone got hit in the head with a pipe, they should bleed. And since Jericho did win with a pipe to the face, DAVE bladed. And Vince then lost his shit, and eventually laid out fines, 100K to DAVE, and 5K to Jericho, the agent for the match Dean Malenko, and referee Mike Chioda. DAVE was kind enough to pay all the fines.

That was part of the reason DAVE left the WWE due to him not liking the PG direction. But certainly the severity of the fine has been something of a deterrent for anyone else to do it.

And major wrestlers who have never bladed? 95% of the women.

I really can’t answer that, simply because there’s no-one off hand I know of who was flat against the practice and held onto that belief. Even a guy like Nigel McGuinness who hates the practice and has spoken about it at some length did it once. I can’t tell you anyone for sure who has never bladed apart from myself, since I know the only times I’ve bleed have been hardway.

Speaking of myself, self-promotion!

Newlegacyinc!

And Botchamania!

Rob asks if Taker was powered by the Warrior.

I think you’d agree that Warrior’s best role was as indestructible, no-selling, upper mid-card special attraction. His title run was considered disappointing. Who else does this sound like? Undertaker, right? At least until he developed as a worker in the last 10 years or so. Undertaker’s run as indestructible, no-selling, upper mid-card special attraction began with his face turn right before Wrestlemania 8 – Warrior’s last Wrestlemania until 12. So, in hindsight, would you agree that Undertaker really inherited Warrior’s spot? Or at least, inherited the spot that would otherwise have gone to Warrior had he not left after Summerslam ’91?

Only if you use a very broad definition of ‘spot’. Warrior, even after the title run’s failure, was still supposed to be a main event player, a step behind Hogan, yes, but then everyone was at that point. So if you want to say he was upper mid, I guess you can argue that. But Taker wasn’t deliberately set out as Warrior played at quarter speed, the spot he took was Jake Roberts’ old one of the creepy mind games babyface. The fact Taker added no-selling to the gimmick wasn’t that important.

Yes, Warrior leaving caused a gap to open. But they didn’t slot Taker in there, they brought Savage out of retirement instead. The Savage reinstatement was the most obvious outcome of Warrior bailing, moreso than Taker turning face. Sure, that played a part in the fallout, and if you want to think that Taker took that spot then I guess there’s an argument there, but while Taker took the gimmick, in a way, Savage I think is the guy who took the ‘spot’. But it’s open to debate.

Andrea has a simple enough question with a simple enough answer.

I remember a period when the RAW announcer table was up near the entrance ramp instead of ringside…when was that and why?

It was right after Eric Bischoff was announced as the Raw GM, and lasted until just after he was fired from the role. So it began on July 22, 2002 exactly, the week after Eric was hired, and I believe ended on December 12th, 2005, the week after Eric was fired.

The on-air explanation that they never gave was that Eric was making the show more like Nitro, and he moved it because that was where the announce table was located on Nitro.

The actual explanation was a desire to differentiate Raw and Smackdown visually, and by moving the announce table, that was a quick and easy way to do so. Don’t just take my word for it, JR spoke about it once on his blog, and I quote…

I never heard a viable reason for the location change, but it sucked to sit next to the pyro and so far away from ringside. I think it was to differentiate the announce teams, as Smackdown stayed at ringside and Raw got moved to the back of the room. It also might have had something to do with Bischoff as the Raw G.M. and the fact that WCW oftentimes had their announcers out in left field… so to speak.

The Plumber asks about Marty Jannetty.

I know that at this point in 1993, Marty Jannetty was on about his third chance with the (at the time) WWF. He came back out of the blue and challenged Shawn Michaels to a match for the Intercontinental Championship and won it. However, a few weeks later, during the build to King of the Ring, Jannetty lost the title back to Michaels who then went on to defend it against Crush at KOTR. Is there a reason why Jannetty lost it to Michaels about a week or so before KOTR or was it just a booking decision?

First off, thank you for including the possibility it was just a choice by someone involved, some people refuse to recognize that possibility.

Anyway, it appears to be a few different factors playing into each other in this instance, with no real way of being able to say which one was more important.

Marty’s original win, coupled with The Kid beating Razor Ramon that night on Raw, helped to establish the notion that Raw was wild and unpredictable and such. But while the win did help that, and was in part, perhaps, meant to be a punishment of sorts for Shawn, there wasn’t any long term plans for Marty to be champ.

Couple that with the fact that on the night Marty lost the title back, Shawn had a brand new bodyguard called Diesel debuting, it would make sense to show that Diesel was a new force and was important with the first night he comes in leading to a title change.

Plus, WWF was trying to prop up the house show circuit a little, and what better way to get people to come to a show than by having a title change occur? After all, you better go along and see the next show live, there might be a title change!

So all of these minor things fed into the result, but there was no ‘Marty partied too much’ or ‘Shawn had a temper tantrum’ reason for it that I could find.

(Quick aside: Derek asked about this too, as he’s been watching all the old Raws, and he found it Seems odd to just make passing references to title changes (IC from Jannety to Michaels, Tag from Money Inc to the Steiners) why was that done?

So yeah, to try and bump up the house show circuit mainly)

(Another quick aside, as I was googling for that first question, check out this Ask 411 from 13 years ago. MAN, I wish I had it that easy…)

James tries to help my making it easy on me.

This is just my opinion on the top talkers in WWE past and present they are not in any order but I think that they are all equal really. There are many that I left out but I guess that is where you come i. Who would you add and who would you omit?
1. Bray Wyatt
2. Zeb Colter (Zeb is GOLD!!! ON THE MIC)
3. The Rock
4. CM Punk
5. Chris Jericho (especially Suit Wearing Jericho for all the hypocrites out there)
6. The Miz (When given the opportunity he is pretty good on the mic look at his Title run and WM promo when he faced Cena)
7. PIPER
8. Bobby Heenan(Greatest manager and commentator of all time)
9. The shield ( all three members)

… This question is quite old, for the record. If you couldn’t tell.

Anyway, I’d remove Wyatt, Colter and The Shield from the list, and in the top 10, to add 4 more, Jake Roberts, Steve Austin, Vince McMahon and Jim Ross. But that’s just me. What about you guys?

Connor wants to talk about Samu.

… Man, I’ve spent a good 10 minutes trying to make a good Sabu joke here, but I got nothing. Ah well.

Why did Samu leave the WWF? The Headshrinkers were on a roll in 1994 but then Samu left and The Barbarian/Sionne was added and it just wasn’t the same

There are two competing theories. Traditionally, it was said that his contract ran out and he wanted a raise and/or didn’t like the offer he was made, and so he left. But the commonly accepted ‘truth’ now is that he was having some health issues and so he left to heal up from his injuries.

Of course, it could be both. He was working hurt, and the money wasn’t good enough to work through it, so he left. Possibly.

But again, no juicy dirt. Just a case of a guy choosing to leave for personal reasons. Happens sometimes.

SJD (or possibly Sid, not sure) asks about the Blade Runners.

There will be eight different answers to this question, half of which will contradict the other half.

After the passing of the Ultimate Warrior I saw a match he had when he and Sting were the Blade Runners and they looked huge. They seemed if nothing else to have more mass than later on. Was that because they were right out of bodybuilding, or was that the inferior production quality of UWF compared to WWF and WCW/JCP, or is it just me?

This was maybe one or two years into Sting and Warrior’s careers, and as you can see they were giant hulking beasts, it’s not just SidJD, they were giant specimens of manhood. That was the hook, as they started off as half of Power Team USA, 4 bodybuilders turned wrestlers. The other half of the quartet quit when they didn’t get anywhere, but Rock and Sting, as they now were, kept at it and moved about, coming into UWF in 86.

But although the duo was no longer solely based around being bodybuilders, they were still, by necessity, sold and worked as giant slow brawlers, as they were still woefully green. They were both slowly becoming more mobile and less muscle bound, but yeah, even then there were still in giant muscle form. They both lost some mass later on, as well as learning how to perform and all that good stuff. Just like Ric Flair evolved from a Dusty Rhodes brawler to the technical workhorse, how Jushin Thunder Liger became a all round guy from his high flying days, people evolve as performers, styles change. Thus the magic of wrestling is in constant evolution and the wonderment of change.

… That line sucked.

Topper Bottoms wants a count, dammit!

I think this may have been answered before. If not, who has been hired and fired the most by WWE? The inspiration for the question came from news this week that Nick Dinsmore has been released. Again. Thank you,

I looked up a couple guys (Goldust is on his fifth run, Nick Dinsmore has had four or so). But the answer is always Marty Jannetty. Dude has been hired, and fired, EIGHT times.

#1: Hired: Summer 1987. Fired: Summer 1987 (two weeks later due to partying alligations)
#2: Rehired: Summer 1988. Fired: February 1992.
#3: Rehired: November 1992. Fired: February 1993.
#4: Rehired: May 1993. Fired: February 1994
#5: Rehired: September 1995. Fired: December 1996
#6: Rehired: March 2005. Fired: July 2005
#7: Rehired: February 2006. Fired: March 2006
#8: Rehired: September 15th, 2006. Fired: September 29th, 2006

There’s no possible way that can be topped. But if you, dear reader, have a possible contender, do let me know.

Rahil asks about music.

Do the WWE and JCW have some sort of deal with music, because I watched JCW BloodyMania 6 recently and the entrance music was the same tune they had in WWE?

Depends on who it was specifically, but overall, no, no they don’t.

For the most part, WWE music is, along with the gimmick names if they can get away with it and such, is owned by them and they have it under lock and key. Rob Conway can’t legally use ‘Just Look At Me’ on a wrestling show. At least, he’s not supposed to be.

But at an indy event, if Rob Conway is appearing at NWA Rocky Mountains in front of 50 people, WWE is unlikely to notice or care if they use the theme there. So there’s a grey area where small events aren’t cared about. But past a certain point, you assume WWE does take an interest. An IPPV you would think is big enough, but if they used WWE themes and WWE didn’t notice, guess not. But it’s still illegal, they just got away with it.

(The proviso is that sometimes, WWE will use a generic tune that they buy the rights to, they won’t make an inhouse theme, they’ll just buy one of the many, many songs available to rent from companies. Now if a WWE talent has one of those themes, they could turn around and also buy the rights to the music and thus be able to use it legally. But that’s rare these days.)

And with that, I bring this week’s Ask 411 to a close because I literally just fell asleep for a few minutes. I probably shouldn’t share that, but I’m too tired to come up with a proper ending so…

That’s my Momma!