wrestling / Columns

Ask 411 Wrestling: Who Should Retire The Undertaker?

April 15, 2015 | Posted by Mathew Sforcina

Hi there, welcome to Ask 411 Wrestling, and I am once again your host, Mathew Sforcina. Huge thanks to Jed Shaffer for coving for me, he did do a fantastic job. Certainly made me look like a jerk, huh?

Oh wait…

Anyway, got a question for his jerk? [email protected] is where you should send it.

But until then, the one thing that we can all agree remains totally, unquestionably awesome, BANNER!

Zeldas!

Check out my Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture! My Tuesday one was so awesome it couldn’t be contained!

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Nothing from two weeks ago apart from the Consideration talk, (I’m not thrilled at Orton being on top for another 10 years, but it’s probable, short a major injury or major screw up) and I’m not about to cover last week’s beyond saying how awesome it was.

It was awesome. Do go follow Jed on Twitter, now with working link!

The Trivia Crown

Who am I? I’m one of only two people who can claim something, and eventually we’ll probably both lose the claim (although the other guy doesn’t have to gloss over a name change). I have a very famous wrestling home town. My two most famous gimmicks have finishers involving ends, albeit wildly different ones. I’ve held a belt talked about briefly below. I’ve been eliminated by moonsault. A god, a monster, and a popcorn enthusiast, I am who?

Jayden has the answer.

I’m one of only two people who can claim something, and eventually we’ll probably both lose the claim (although the other guy doesn’t have to gloss over a name change) – Hulk Hogans hall of fame ring.
I have a very famous wrestling home town – Parts Unknown; home of Ultimate Warrior, Papa Shango, The Executioner, Kane, Demolition and more
My two most famous gimmicks have finishers involving ends, albeit wildly different ones – Closing Argument and the Death Penalty
I’ve held a belt talked about briefly below – NWA Title (in TNA)
I’ve been eliminated by moonsault- from Jack Evans on RoH, in Steel Cage Warfare.
A god (wrestling god dubbed by Hogan)
a monster (‘The Monster’ nickname)
and a popcorn enthusiast – not quite sure here…
I am who? You Are Abyss!

The popcorn thing was when he was eating popcorn and got called out by Bully Ray.

Who am I? I’ve beaten at least two guys who have beaten Hulk Hogan. I’ve managed to get almost every title that goes with a specific title. I’ve been a politically incorrect champion, the holder of a feast, and I’ve gotten involved with a blow up doll. I lost to the same guy in my ‘last’ match in one company and my first match in another. I’ve teamed with my father, had one female manager but am currently managed by a man, and three of my main finishers were pretty much stolen directly from other guys. Who am I?

Getting Down To All The Business

Let’s get some Wrestlemania fallout out of the way, starting with Michael.

When I was reading the recap of this past Mania and read about the whole NWO vs. DX confrontation during the HHH vs. Sting match, my first thought was “that’s pretty cool” but that immediately changed to “Hang on, why would the NWO all of a sudden care about Sting and why would Nash/Hall turn on clique buddy HHH?”

Ive read several summaries and posts since Mania and Ive yet to see someone touch on this. I get the concept: NWO defined WCW during the Monday Night Wars and DX was the strongest WWF/E faction during the wars so it makes sense they would battle. But since Sting was perhaps the NWO ‘s #1 rival and since everyone knows Nash/Hall/HHH are butt-buddies, it seems odd that the NWO would be involved the way they were.

Yeah, yeah I know, wrestling and logic don’t mix but it seemed doubly odd that the NWO would support Sting and be against HHH.

You’re not the only person to complain about this, and it’s not without some merit. They needed to overbook Sting/HHH, and having DX v nWo is one of those things that people wanted without actually wanting it, you know? It’s a dream match sort of thing, and we finally got it at WM, sort of, kind of.

But why would the nWo help Sting? Why would Hall and Nash side against Triple H?

Obviously WWE doesn’t really care about answering this, but certainly I can try and fill this plot hole (insert obscure meta-teaser here). It basically revolves around ego, and the fact that Triple H continually made this thing about WWE V WCW. If he was just fighting off Sting in order to remain on top of the food chain as the Authority, then Hall and Nash would have been Triple H’s third call, behind Shawn and the rest of DX, and they’d have happily helped him crush Sting.

But Triple H kept saying he had to beat WCW, had to kill the legacy of it. And the legacy of WCW is intertwined with the legacy of the nWo. After all, in the end, WCW beat nWo. Barely, but they did. So if Triple H kills the symbol of WCW, then WWE > WCW > nWo. And while Hall and Nash love Hunter, they love themselves more. So they, and Hogan, helped out Sting (who Nash has teamed up with in the past) in order to try and help WCW beat WWE, and thus they can say that the nWo was pretty strong, they did better than WWE did against WCW!

(And we shove the InVasion in a hole for all this, which is fair enough I think).

So yeah, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Helping Sting helped their legacy.

Alejandro starts us off at Wrestlemania and then moves on.

Hi Matthew. Today I have a question that I tried researching myself but was unable to find a definitive answer to, so hopefully you have better luck at finding an answer. It has been making its rounds on the internet that Seth Rollins thanked Roman Reigns during the pinfall of the main event of Wrestlemania. I was reading online that that seems to be a tradition, to thank your opponent for putting you over. My question is, is this customary for all matches or just major matches. And also when and where did this tradition start.

Wrestling has a lot of dos and don’ts, there’s a whole bunch of things you’re supposed to do as a wrestler. Shake everyone’s hands when you arrive, but not too hard, respect those more veteran than you, and so on. But there’s also a whole bunch of stuff that is traditional but not universal. Wiping your boots before you enter a ring, not bringing partners backstage, wearing a muffler, thanking people mid ring, these are rules that are old school but they aren’t applied universally, or even in the same situation every time.

You’re supposed to be grateful when someone puts you over strong, yes. And thanking them is expected. But there’s no universal rule that you have to do it mid ring, mid pinfall. Some guys aren’t good at talking in the ring and will wait till they are backstage, some guys don’t thank jobbers, etcetc. Everyone is different.

Personally, I was thanked the very first match I had, and I try to thank guys when I beat them regardless of the match’s stakes. But it’s not customary, it’s just something some guys do.

And I couldn’t even guess where it began, most wrestling traditions have nebulous beginnings, and this is one of them.

My second question is I was watching, or hearing, a Stone Cold podcast with Scott Hall where Hall states that delivering the Stunner was extremely painful. I believe he says that after giving Stone Cold the stunner his back hurt for a while. My question is is there any other moves that hurt the person that delivers it more than the person that receives it.

Every move can hurt you more if you mess it up.

The thing is, there’s a difference between knowing how to do a move and being proficient at it. To dip again into the ‘Personal Experience’ bag, I know how to do a falling reverse neckbreaker. I’ve done it precisely once in a match, as when I tried it I ended up getting clunked in the head when the other guy landed with the back of his head on my forehead.

The Stunner, in Hall’s example, is a move where you land in a seated position, and that can be jarring as hell if you don’t absorb it right. And that requires training and experience. So busting it out once would hurt, sure.

And that applies to almost every move. If you don’t do it well, every move can hurt the deliverer more than the taker. But as for moves that hurt more when done right, there’s a few moves, stuff like the Tombstone Piledriver, any splash where you land on knees and elbows, any move where the person giving it, in order to deliver it safely, has to take more of the impact, that hurts more. A Tombstone done right is nothing but a simple back bump to the taker since their head doesn’t touch the ground, while the person doing it takes all that weight on the knees.

Last question is more of an opinion question. Do you believe kayfabe is pretty much dead. This day and age pretty much everyone knows that matches are predetermined and that feuding wrestler, or sports entertainers depending on which promotion you are watching, don’t really dislike each other as much as they portray on tv. So do you think kayfabe to be dead.

99.99% dead, yeah. The idea that wrestling is a real sport has been stabbed, shot, poisoned, frozen, hung, electrocuted, and burned. Only the most deluded, young, young at heart, stupid or combination of the above think it’s ‘real’. But really, it’s not exactly been alive and kicking for a long time. Kayfabe was an in-joke for years, where the fans and the wrestlers both knew the score but played along. But now due to certain events and actions, coupled with the new attitudes to media and fandom, it’s become a lot more important to be clear it’s entertainment.

And that’s fine, and any attempt to bring it back, to try and play off that what you’re seeing is a legit fight… You can do it the right way, a.k.a Being Brock Lesnar. Or you can do it the wrong way, a.k.a Russo in WCW.

When given the choice, be Brock Lesnar.

Grant brings us back to Wrestlemania just long enough to springboard away from it.

With Big Show winning the Wrestlemania Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, and perhaps in the final years of his career I thought now would be a good time to ask about an objective evaluation of his legacy. Do you feel he reached his potential after leaving WCW where he accomplished everything he realistically could? How do you feel his fifteen years in WWE have played out? Have the numerous turns and comedy devalued him? Lastly should he realistically have achieved more given his size and attributes? In addition do you feel there were any glaring omissions from his opponents? It always seemed strange to me that they gave away the first Show v Stone Cold match on free TV and never really followed through with it again as a result of a combination of Big Show’s forced demotion to increase his work ethic and Austin’s absence then retirement. I am also struggling to come up with an HBK v Show programme on PPV, although my memory is a little hazy having taken a sabbatical from viewing from 2001-2008. Do you think that not main eventing a Wrestlemania in a 1 on 1 contest ( I am excluding the 2000 McMahon in four corners match) is a blemish on his record plus what do you see his role as in the next few years?

Lots of questions there, let’s take them in turn.

Has he reached his potential? Multiple world title reigns and many more non-world title reigns, main evented Wrestlemania, both legit (2000) and in marketing (XXIV), helped in some way to establish Benoit, Eddie, Cena, Miz, Bryan and Henry in one way or another… He’s surpassed it, given everything he’s managed based on a one note gimmick (he’s big!) and his admittedly impressive charisma, when he gets to use it.

How has the time played out, has the constant turns and comedy hurt? Certainly the comedy and stuff has hurt his ability to be taken seriously, but it’s more the constant push/depush that really hurt. Big Show, when WWE doesn’t care about him, is a giant goof who loses all the time. When they care, suddenly he’s a giant monster crushing all he sees. Now sure, that’s the same as a lot of people, but with Show, when the entire gimmick rests on his size, when you remove that impressiveness, there’s not a lot left to sell. The comedy has hurt, sure, but it’s the depushing that is the major killing. The turning fits the character of Big Show, being a guy who deep down, is a gentle soul who is easily led/manipulated.

Should he have gained more due to the size? If this were the 80’s, absolutely. Big Show V Andre would have sold out every building it would run in, they could have run in every territory and made a killing for years off that. But with the modern era comes the modern style of business. If Big Show could have been kept as a special, rare attraction, he’d be more famous as a mythical figure like Andre, sure. But today, you have to wrestle twice a week on TV, and thus any chance of making Big Show another Andre is just not possible.

Glaring omissions from his match list? Not really, no. He worked all the tiny guys you’d want to see…

And all the big names.

Shawn Michaels he fought one on one just the once, on Raw.

Although they had a bunch of tag/handicap matches on PPV, even inside the Hell in a Cell.

Not having worked a ‘true’ one on one Wrestlemania main event isn’t that much of a black mark as only 30 men have main evented Wrestlemania, and a few of them were in tags/multimans. Being one of the 30 is pretty special, honestly.

His role in the next few years… Ideally it would be as a midcard guy who helps build a few new stars before gracefully retiring after failing to defend his Andre trophy at next year’s Wrestlemania, the issue is that regardless of what value he may or may not have left, he’s just been there too long and is kind of in the way of new guys coming up. But we’ll probably have him a few more years in an upper-mid role, doing roughly what he is doing now. Because if you don’t see Big Show live you just don’t realise how big his typewriters are, or whatever.

But to me, Big Show will always have one match, above all else, as his legacy.

Following on, ME! Talking about how I got screwed out of MY tag titles!

And Botchamania!

And nightwolf finishes our WM fallout.

1. I read somewhere that Vince McMahon would choose the next Face of WWE before he retires. We all know he chose Roman Reigns. Here’s my question to you: If Roman Reigns crashes and burns and fans don’t accept him as the Golden Boy, does Vince McMahon choose another Golden Boy or does he retire and Triple H chooses the next Face of WWE?

What do you mean, ‘if’?

Given that Reigns didn’t walk out of Wrestlemania as champ shows that Vince isn’t totally set in his ways, he does appear, on the whole, to see something resembling reality. So, what does he do now?

I strongly suspect that he’ll try with Reigns again, Reigns will be WWE Champ at some point in the next year. But if that doesn’t work for whatever reason… He’ll try again. And again, until one of them works or he dies retires dies.

And Triple H? I don’t think he’ll pick a Face of the Company. Triple H is old school, old school NWA, and that means you have a strong heel as your lead. Triple H taking over will lead to heels winning most of the time, and the babyfaces become slightly less important, at least in terms of having one guy above all else. The company is the important thing, and thus instead of one Cena you have half a dozen Ortons.

2. What are your thoughts on WWE fans getting enshrined in the WWE Hall of Fame as we saw with Connor the Crusher? Could Average Joes like me and you get enshrined in the Hall of Fame if we live how the Ultimate Warrior did or is there more to it then that?

It’s got nothing to do with Warrior as such (he was referring to cameramen and tech guys and the like in his speech), but all to do with anyone WWE thinks they can get good publicity from. If an Average Joe fan does something really important/cool/heartwarming, and WWE likes it, they’ll induct him.

Which is not, I should say, a bad thing. You can argue it’s cynical and publicity seeking and all that, but at the end of the day that’s all the Hall is, a promotional thing, and to use it to recognize someone who’s done something great is perfectly valid and I’m cool with.

But you will have to do something major. Rick the Sign Guy won’t get in as is, but if Rick the Sign Guy saves a busload of orphans and kittens, then he’d get in.

3. With rumors of his retirement coming up at Wrestlemania 32, who would you like to see Undertaker face in his sendoff? My top choice is Sting. It makes better sense then Sting and Triple H did since they are both cornerstones of their companies, Harbingers of Justice, and straight up Masters of the Mindgames

Kane, in a double retirement match. The two have been so intertwined for obvious reasons, and in my mind the Brothers of Destruction destroying each other at Wrestlemania, Kane finally getting a big win before the two vanish in a giant fireball and ascend to hell or whatever, it’s silly and stupid but a fitting end to their combined careers and to the final vestiges of the Attitude Era as it stands.

Not that Sting would be a bad choice, far from it. But I’ll go to my grave thinking it should be Kane.

Speaking of The Undertaker, Kyle wants to talk about him.

So what’s the deal with Undertaker in street clothes during a ’98 Raw? Was that the first time he’d been seen like that since debuting in the WWF? Why was he so unceremoniously shown out of character?

I presume you mean this night?

That wasn’t the very first time he was in street clothing, the first one was the UK only PPV Mayhem In Manchester where, supposedly, Taker’s luggage was lost in transit, and thus he had to wrestle in the Phenom character while wearing street clothing.

But why the switch? It was, I believe, meant to be so shocking, as the idea was that Undertaker wanted a title shot, and was pissed off, so much so that he wasn’t bothering with the theatrics, he just wanted his hands on Vince. And if he was that pissed off, why would he dress up to run interference?

The Taker character had begun, slowly, to show some humanity, he’d weaned off the original Dead Man stuff, but this was a giant switch, true. But if he’d continued it, it wouldn’t have been so weird, as it just would have been the start of a new persona for Taker. Instead, Taker switched back and went all in on the Ministry gimmick, which proves this was being booked on the fly was quite clever, as it showed that since Taker didn’t get his way via beating people up, he needed to go further into mind games to get what he wanted, this didn’t work, so he went the other way.

Yet more (tangential) Taker, this time from the surely real name of Elsa Anna Olaf CabbagePatch DingalingFace.

There was an interview that surfaced in 1997 with Vader and the Undertaker being interviewed somewhere in the Middle East. The host asked Undertaker if wrestling was fake, in which Taker responded diplomatically. However, Vader took offense and flipped the table in front of him upside down and grabbed the interviewer by his tie and threatened him. Was this a work, or was it legitimate? I remember WWE actually showing this on RAW, and if they showed it makes me think it was a work. What are your thoughts?

Ah, the Vader/Kuwait incident.

The WWF was doing a tour of the Middle East, and so Vader and Taker went on Good Morning Kuwait and after being asked if wrestling was fake, the above happened where Vader flipped a table and ‘attacked’ the host. Vader was then detained in Kuwait for a week, before being allowed to leave, eventually being hit with a huge $200 fine and an order not to do it again.

WWF did show it on Raw and such as a way to explain where Vader was, and maybe to get over he’s crazy and mean and such. (Although the host, Bassam Al Otham, sued WWF for using the footage of him on their programming. They settled out of court in 2000.) But was it a work or a shoot?

According to Vader, it was a work that became a shoot. From a interview with PWmania last year, and I quote…

I was standing backstage watching a show on the air. The representative for the WWF was next to me. The producer of the show was a friend of the interviewer. He came over to me and said the interviewer was going to ask me if wrestling was fake. He told me to stand up, act insulted, kick over the coffee table and scare him, don’t hurt him. I said that we were told not to do anything of that nature in this country. And he said “No, this guy’s a good guy, he knows it’s gonna happen, he’s a good friend of mine and it’ll be funny.” The manager from the agent in charge from WWF said, “Leon, do what they want you to do.”

I was acting under orders from the producer, not the agent in charge. But when I did what I did, the interviewer was caught off guard and was frightened. The cops were called and I went to jail. I took the heat. But the point is that it was a skit. They wanted to use this thing to increase ratings, but it just wasn’t the case.

So there you go.

Connor has a simple question that has no relation to the last one. At all.

Whatever happened to Norman Smiley? good wrestler and very entertaining during WCW.

*calmly waits for everyone to stop doing the Big Wiggle*

Anyway, after WCW folded, Smiley worked for a few independent companies and some of the attempted new ‘big’ ones, before eventually having a few tryouts with WWE and TNA. TNA used him a few times on TV, before he took a job with WWE in 2007 as a trainer in FCW. In this role he became an on-air talent for FCW as Lt. General Manager.

He’s still training for WWE, now working in NXT.

Katamari Damacy takes us back to Wrestlemania, albeit a what if…

Assuming the Rock went through with his oral agreement to show up the night after WM29 and call out Brock Lesnar, what would the WM30 card likely have been assuming all the Daniel Bryan stuff still happens in the year leading up to WM30. Would they have went with Daniel Bryan’s story of redemption or would they have shoehorned everything and have Brock v Rock in the Main for no rhyme or reason? Would Taker still have lost?

The rumors at the time before WM30 was that the thinking was that if Rock/Brock went ahead, then Taker would fight Ryback, with the assumption that would happen if the Heyman/Ryback pairing worked, the logic being that Punk was just far too weak and scrawny to beat Taker, and Heyman now had a physically huge star to beat The Undertaker. And, according to those same reports, Ryback could have been the streak-breaker.

But those reports didn’t mention the rest of the card. But if WWE had Rock/Brock, then honestly, the Bryan thing probably wouldn’t have happened, since Batista/Orton was no longer as essential a match and thus Bryan’s original opponent, a heel Sheamus, would probably have occurred.

Rock/Brock, Orton/Batista, Ryback/Taker, HHH/Punk, Cena/Wyatt, Bryan/Sheamus. In roughly that order of importance. If Punk still bails, then you have Bryan/HHH, but without the title shot stip.

Rahil has a couple questions.

Why did a Taker vs Page match never happen in the summer of 01, Taker/Kane vs Page/Kanyon happened at sslam 01, it could have been at invasion 1 on 1 then a 4 on 4 main event (booker, rhyno and dudleys vs austin, angle, jericho and kane) ?????

They did have a Street Fight on Raw that ended in a no contest (somehow), but the match never really took place because that would have given DDP too much credit, since the point was to bury him, because he hugged Vince or something. But the DDP/Sara match was pretty much Taker/Page but making Page look weaker.

Basically politics were played and DDP wasn’t allowed to look good because reasons.

Is there a website that i can find a complete list of all matches a particular wrestler has been in ?????

The Internet Wrestling Database isn’t complete, but it’s damn close.

Kr asks about an Attitude Era guy.

Firstly, great column. been reading it every week for at least a couple of years now. Cheers.

My question is about the late Big Boss Man. I’m simply trying to figure out exactly who was behind some of his more ”interesting” storylines that he encountered during his attitude era return. I know there were many absurd things going on during that time but I feel like Boss Man was usually in the middle of some of the more infamously questionable/rough. Such as when he stormed into Big Show’s fathers funeral, ultimately chaining up and dragging the coffin out of the grave with his car, and of course when he killed Al Snow’s dog and thus tricked him into eating it, followed by one of the earlier Cell matches, but with dogs filling the cage. So… Who was writing these? Why were they possibly green-lit? I understand the audiences were into the ridiculous shock value aspects perhaps, but… were any of these bits ever actually over with anyone? Even as a much of a diehard I was when they aired (still am) I couldn’t help but consider them completely and ruthlessly stupid, especially considering how seriously they were portrayed. In my opinion these came off worse than anything else I can recall during that time. Agreed?
Hey, who doesn’t love that famous poem by Bossman?

With the deepest regrets, and tears that are soaked
I’m sorry to hear that your dad finally croaked
He lived a full life on his own terms
Soon he’ll be buried and eaten by worms
But if I could have a son as stupid as you
I’d have wished for cancer so I would die too
So be brave, and be strong, get your life on track
‘Cause the old bastard’s DEAD and he ain’t never comin’ back!

But anyway, who wrote these?

Russo.

Who green lit them?

McMahon.

Were they the worst thing going at the time?

Kinda.

Russo has written about the Kennel from Hell match before, and in that he includes his stance on his ideas, in that if he felt he had a bad idea, it wouldn’t have made it on air, and thus if it made it on air he must have thought it was a good idea, so any idea he’s had, it being bad is just an opinion thing. Plus he doesn’t remember a lot of his ideas, and also ‘if I didn’t think the idea was “bad” then, I’m not going to think it’s bad now’.

Yeah, no.

Anyway, Vince Russo is the guy who has to take the credit, probably, on the basis that he was the main writer, although of course Vince McMahon approved of them so if you want to blame Vince, do ahead. And Vince’s sense of humor is said to be very broad and at time juvenile, so he probably found all that amusing. Or at least found it entertaining enough on that level to warrant putting on his show.

Comedy in wrestling is unlikely to be Fraiser level of word play, as part of the overall package of wrestling painting in broad strokes is that the comedy will often be lowest common denominator. That’s not something to be proud of, obviously, but at the end of the day, wrestling comedy will always be lowbrow, so as to appeal to as many people as possible.

So says the guy who accidentally headbutted his tag partner’s groin last Sunday.

Kyle, possibly the same one from before, asks about TNA’s rule changes.

When did TNA change the rules to their cage matches? I remember watching the first one and Tenay saying “this is a wrestling contest, not a climbing contest” to drive home that TNA cage matches could only be won by pinfall or submission, not escape. Then they started having a handful of X-Scape matches in the X Division but the regular 1-on-1 or tag-team cage matches still didn’t allow escape. Then suddenly they switched to WWE cage rules where escaping counted. When was the switch? Let’s assume the first cage match won via escape was also the first one where that counted as they probably changed the rule just to book an escape win for a specific match where they’d otherwise booked themselves into a corner. The first escape win I clearly remember was Christian Cage being knocked through a cage wall that gave way (via spear or gore, I think) but I suspect there were more traditional escapes prior to that.

The first time I could find a TNA cage match ending with escape rules was on Impact, and it was in order to allow a close thing. Kurt Angle fought Christian Cage in a steel cage, where the winner would gain the advantage in the six man tag match at Destination X, on the March 6, 2008 edition of Impact. The two eventually climbed up the side together and both fell at the same time, with Cage, the face, being judged the winner, giving the good guys the advantage in the tag match of Cage/Joe/Nash V Angle/Tomko/AJ.

So yeah, 2008 is when they switched, so they could book a ‘both guys hit’ finish.

For Your Consideration

OK, I’m gonna half-pull the plug here. I’m going to work on this in my own time and then bring you the full results later on. Give me something to focus on while I listen to podcasts.

So until next week, dear readers…