Ask 411 Wrestling: Who’s Winning The Royal Rumble?

Hello you, welcome to Ask 411 Wrestling! I am your host, Mathew Sforcina, and I’ll be bringing you the best in wrestling trivia this week!

Well, some of the best!

Well, stuff you can put up for nomination for the best.

Well… I tried!

Anyway, got a question for me? [email protected] is where you send it. After you check out BANNER of course!

Zeldas!

Check out my Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture! Coming in E-Book form at some point between now and the heat death of the WWE universe!

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I Got A Prediction Wrong, Alert The Media!: So way back in the heady days of June 2015, Brian asked me to play Soothsayer about WWE putting on gimmick women’s matches. And I said that WWE would never do a Hell in a Cell match with women, or as Brian’s Son thinks it should be called, ‘Belle In A Cell’.

I was wrong, obviously, although at least my Ironwoman prediction was only a couple years off…

But yes, I totally failed to predict WWE going all in on Women’s Wrestling as they have, nor did I manage to predict WWE deciding to just say to heck with it and kill off the Cell match.

Not to say putting Charlotte and Banks in the Cell kills it off, but having three matches in one night, one of them for a secondary title… Sure, let’s just make the Cell not mean anything, why not…

Mexico And Masks: As I understand it, the Mexican Commission in charge of Wrestling is a legitimate legal body, but you can work with them. But according to tradition once you unmask you cannot remask as the same gimmick, you need to change it, like how Rey Mysterio Jr. became Rey Mysterio.

The Trivia Crown

Ok, so people are mostly positive, but not liking the difficulty. Fair enough, I guess my logic was that I thought people would be sick of it being too easy? OK, starting next week I’ll try and ease back on the difficulty, see if we can’t get the right balance. This week’s I wrote last week though, before I changed my mind and ran the poll, so consider this the last hard one?

(And no, the Chandlers aren’t going anywhere. They take up far too much real estate It’s one of the defining aspects of the column, for better or worse.

What Am I? I’m a title, which has been held by at least ten world champions, and a few people famous for being really great wrestlers who were never world champion. The first champion won it after a tournament, where he beat a future Horseman to win it. The champion with the most reigns, and the champion with the longest amount of time holding the title, both of them are currently under employ by WWE. Someone has held the title under two personas. The final champion won and lost the title in different but vaguely similar ways. At least two sets of brothers have held me, as have Royalty, Misters and Men. A title that got far too close to Erik Watts, what am I?

Getting Down To All The Business

Seeing how good I did with the predictions about women up there, Joey Joe Joe Shabadoo calls on me to predict the year ahead.

Love the column. A few quick questions, and I rely on your expertise because you’re a wrestler (drink!)

Wait, does it count if you say it? Ah well, whatever.

1. Who’s winning the Royal Rumble, in your opinion? It seems much more open than the past 3 years. I will accept any answer except James Ellsworth and a Chandler.

I dunno, that 500-1 Ronda Rousey bet still looks good…

99% of a Chandler

And actually, Ellsworth… Would need one hell of a set of circumstances, but if he keeps up the 18-45 drawing ability… It’s vaguely plausible as a storyline. Not happening, yes, but not not happening enough to warrant a Chandling.

Anyway, yeah, there doesn’t seem to be an obvious storyline for the Rumble, at least not one that involves either title. I mean, I could totally see Sami Zayn winning to get another shot at Owens, or Jericho winning and instead of going after Styles he chooses to go after Owens for one last main event where Owens rips his head off and retires Jericho. Or, sadly, replace ‘Jericho’ with ‘Big Show’ or less sadly ‘Kane’.

However, I’m going to go out on a huge, huge limb. The winner of the 2017 Royal Rumble?

Yes, I’m going full Smark and picking Nakamura.

If you put NXT guys in the Rumble, which they’ve been doing, eventually one of them has to win, if only to make every future NXT Rumble spot mean something. And given how protected Nakamura is, plus given that now they have two titles so they can load up one as the ‘Main Main Event’ and give the other one the Rumble win, plus given that Nakamura V Styles at WM would be both WM’s first gajillion star match and be the sign of the apocalypse we’ve all been waiting for…

Nakamura should have a huge debut, you need to get over the hump of the average fan being wary of him because he’s odd/weird/unusual/different/interesting/*coughForeigncough*/flamboyant, he needs one big massive debut to get over that. There’s really only two places that can occur. The night after WM, or the Rumble.

Nakamura, from #27. That’s my call. I’ll be live-tweeting it this year again, so do follow me on Twitter so you can see me meltdown in either annoyance or joy when it comes time to get a winner.

2. Are they really going to run Shane v Brock? If so, do you anticipate Shane getting involved in Brock v Goldberg 2: This Time It’s Personal Because VIDEO GAME

In theory, yes, they may well run Brock/Shane. I would hope, however, that it is instead Shane signing someone to SD to fight Brock in his stead, if only because Brock/Shane is unlikely to be anything great given Brock’s seeming reluctance to do anything crazy, and Shane matches are only good to great when there’s crazy tossed in. Brock/Shane does nothing for me. Brock w/Paul V Joe w/Shane on the other hand? That has possibilities.

As for “Brock/Goldberg 2: Where’s Austin When You Need Him?”, given the stated reasons for Goldberg doing the match, I think it’s going to be more of a “Goldberg has a visual pinfall, Heyman has the ref, Brock cheats to win”, which does leave a Shane run-in at the end as a possibility, yes, but given it’s a Raw PPV, having Shane there would muddy the water.

If Brock/Shane is on, the interaction will occur at the Rumble when Shane costs Brock the Rumble match somehow.

3. What other matches do you anticipate at WM? Rollins/HHH, Cena/Taker….anything else that seems already set in stone? And any way for the show to not be 7 hours this year?

Rollins/HHH and the Andre battle royal are the only ones I’d say were set in stone, unless someone’s leg goes out again in that first one. I’m sure WWE would love to run Taker/Cena, but that one is up in the air based on how Taker is feeling at the time, so I wouldn’t say it’s set in stone.

I would say that The New Day will be involved in one of three different matches here. Either they will finally get a chance to regain some dignity by getting a gimmick match of some sort against the current champs, whichever team beat them just shy of Demolition’s record. Or, they go into WM still the champs, riding high, before getting killed in a little over three minutes. Or, it’s a three way match between the three former members after they broke up right after they beat Demolition’s record.

Styles will be defending the WWE title against the Rumble winner and/or Cena, which will be Cena’s 16th if those two options are both Cena. Brock V Shane/’s representative, Miz/Reigns, Charlotte/Bayley/Banks, Eva Marie will win the SD Women’s title… Orton/Ambrose and Owens/Jericho. Add in a giant ladder match for the IC title and Rusev/Someone for the US title… That seems fair. But then again, I’m probably tainted by thinking about what I’d do, not what WWE thinks they should do, so…

Ben wishes to talk about Paige.

Personally I am a big Paige mark. although I’m not the greatest fan of women’s wrestling, I think she has been very courageous to stand up for her feelings on Alberto (okay, I’m a romantic….. WHATEVER).

I’m all for romance and love and all that stuff. Yay love!

That being said, with neck surgery, (supposed) wellness violations and (most “gutsy”) appearing in a WWC ring (to propose marriage) even though she is still under contract to WWE, what do you think will happen to her now once she is in the position to return to ring action… Will she be fired, set up as another “jobber to the stars” or what?

I strongly suspect it’ll be another Mysterio situation, where Paige doesn’t want to return, but WWE will extend her contract for the time she missed with the neck surgery. Maybe they can work out something, but I don’t think we’ll be seeing her in a WWE ring again any time soon. If she does come back, she’ll be a JTTS for sure, but I think WWE will just let her sit home, collect her downside for as long as they can legally stop her going elsewhere, then she’ll leave and start working all the exact same shows Del Rio works.

Which is nice…

Little-Goomba takes time out of trying to stop that insane Mario chasing after his ex-girlfriend to ask about a topic currently at the forefront of my social medai feeds for some reason.

Following the Csonka’s Top 6 WWE Hell in a Cell Matches, i recently looked at some of these bouts again, including HHH vs Bastista (Vengeance 2005). I always thought barbed wire in WWE was fake or at least made less dangerous in one way or another (like rubber caps or something), except for particular events like the reviving ECW (and still, i don’t know if it’s true) or with special wrestlers like Mick Foley (for example i’ve been told about HHH vs Cactus Jack, at RR 2000, where only Foley would have been hit with a real thing, is it true ?). Coming back to HHH vs Batista, i noticed when Hunter hit Bastista’s back with the barbed wire chair, some drop of blood appeared on the skin as the tips had really pierced the skin. So, can you clarify that for me one and for all: What was the WWE’s stance on barbed wire before the PG-era ?

To start with the simpler bit first: Royal Rumble 2000 featured both real and gimmicked barbed wire. Both Foley and Hunter wanted legit stuff all the way through, but Vince said only Foley could take the real stuff, given that he had the shirt and long tights and thus was less at risk. Hence the switch off, when Hunter uses the barbed wire it’s real, then when Foley goes and gets it back from the Spanish Announce Team it’s magically back in a smooth ball again despite being misshapen after being buried in Foley’s stomach, which still bugs me, even with this match being the match to make me want to become a wrestler. No Way Out 2000 had real barbed wire all the way through though.

WWE switched back and forth between using ‘real’ and ‘fake’ barbed wire, depending on the circumstances and who took it. If someone was to take the barbed wire and they were cool with it, WWE might well let them use it, but they seemed to prefer to fake it, unless it was wire that wouldn’t come into play (like in the JBL/Big Show cage match).

Now, as for how to make fake barbed wire, there’s a couple options, the most common one listed online is rubber tipped barbed wire, a.k.a barbed wire made of rubber. Certainly if someone is being hit with it, that seems to be the thing they use. But I have seen on at least one occasion Foley’s baseball bat, for instance, with most of the barbs cut off, and the ones that are there are facing inwards, and thus are unlikely to hit you if you hit the bat, or vice versa.

So overall, the stance has been a flowchart.

So You Want To Use Barbed Wire In A WWE Match?

Q1: Will the barbed wire only be there for decoration? If so, you can use real wire, but make sure it’s safe. If not, go to Q2.

Q2: Will someone be hit with the barbed wire? If so, then use the fake stuff. If you wish to use real wire, go to Q3.

Q3: Are you sure Mick? Really? Oh alright, fine.

Mal Machine asks about WWE ignoring the death of the power.

Hi Maffew,

*Mathew gets angry*

Thank you for the best wrestling related read of the week. Long may you Reign!

*Mathew calms down*

(Seriously, one week I’m going to get Maffew to do this column just to pay off this stupidly long build up.)

Anyhoo, my question is, if you haven’t answered it before, is about the greatest President of our times, Mr Jack Tunney. I have incredibly fond memories as a child of watching this kind but assertive authority figure interfere only when his presence was required. I believe he was the kayfabe President of the WWF for at least 10 years? And I believe he had a business relationship with the McMahons for a lot longer. I was shocked that when in 2004 i believe it was, he passed away, and the WWE totally ignored it. There wasn’t even a graphic on Raw at the time and no one from the WWE attended his funeral.

Can you please tell me anything you may know about this? Why was Mr Tunney not given the respect that he deserved by the company and why would no one from the McMahon family acknowledge his passing and not even attend or send a representative to his funeral?

There’s a few different stories floating around, not helped by the fact that when Tunney left WWF, he never discussed or was involved with wrestling again until his death in 2004. So what I have is rumor, albeit rumor that fits.

OK, so Tunney came into the WWF as co-owner of Maple Leaf Wrestling, which ended up as one of the few territories WWE bought out during their expansion. WWF ended up owning MLW, through which they ran their Canadian trips, which Tunney was in charge of, although the Toronto offices were technically independent of Vince, and got percentages from all WWF tours in Canada in exchange for letting WWF run in the Maple Leaf Gardens. As well as his work in Canada, he became the figurehead WWF President, replacing Hisashi Shinma in 1984, and holding the job until 1995. He’d come out and make important announcements, change up brackets, stuff like that. He didn’t suck at the job, but he was hardly a dynamic personality or anything.

But yes, in 95 Tunney left quietly, and WWF never really discussed him again. Why? Certainly there was bad blood between the Tunney family and WWF, Jack’s brother Eddie felt cheated out of his share of MLW, and also had managed to trademark ‘Wrestlemania’ in Canada, forcing WWF to settle with him. But that was early on.

Tunney reportedly had heat with Bret, as Tunney never thought too highly of Bret, and near the end believed that Bret was trying to force him out, an idea Bret denies.

So we’re left with two conflicting theories.

One, the business option, is that in 1995, WWF was doing badly financially, and so they closed the Toronto office, and ended all association with Tunney and Maple Leaf Gardens, WWF never returning, as Tunney owned exclusive promoting rights to the building. WWF and Tunney breaking up was a business situation that was handled poorly, and WWE are just being poor sports about it.

Or two, the personal one, is the theory that says Tunney was embezzling from the office for years, supposedly to pay for gambling debts. Thus, when WWF found out, they fired him, and didn’t bother to send reps because of it. Tunney’s close associates flatly deny this as WWF propaganda, however.

Or it’s a mixture of both of these, or neither, we don’t know. But certainly WWE had an issue with him on some level, thus the cold shoulder. Although JBL has been mentioning him a bit on commentary occasionally, so they’ll mention him on air as a person, just not acknowledge him as a character.

OK, I’ve been putting this off for a while now, let’s get this over with. Nightwolf wants to talk, sigh, The Bullet Club.

1. What are your thoughts on the Bullet Club now that Balor, Styles, Gallows and Anderson are in WWE/NXT?

The same that they were prior to that point, in that the Bullet Club is very much a product of the circumstances they are in. The Bullet Club works so well because they’re doing the American style heel stable angles in Japan, where they don’t do that. The fact that they’ve had really awesome wrestlers in the group is a big plus, sure, but at the end of the day it’s using the same tricks as the Horsemen and the nWo and etcetc, but doing it in a company and a locale where no-one does that, not even other heels. And doing something differently almost always makes you stand out.

And because the gimmick of ‘American heel tactics in Japan’ is so different and yet not affiliated with just one person, it’s survived so many people leaving. But eventually, of course, it’ll have to end, but for now, it could keep going with almost anyone.

The Bullet Club I don’t have a problem with (outside the Young Bucks, but I’m still not sure if I’m being worked on that and if so, what the point of said working would be) but I’m not a huge fan as such. I get what they do, and it’s fine, but I’m about the same level of into them pre and post mass departure.

2. Who do you think are the best members of the Bullet Club?

All time? Styles, Styles and Styles. Devitt, Anderson and Gallows close seconds.

3. Who do you think should have never joined Bullet Club?

Jeff Jarrett. I get why he was included, but that’s still a bit on the nose. Out of full time members… Takahashi is… There, really. That’s all you can say about him.

4. Your thoughts on Kenny Omega leading the Bullet Club?

It fits, certainly. He embodies everything the Bullet Club stands for. Omega’s persona and everything is not aimed at me, I get that, so the fact that I’m not too crash hot on it I don’t mid, as such…

I’m waffling here, I’ll admit, mainly because I just don’t care about the Bullet Club all that much. Which is why I’ve put these questions off for so long, I’ve been hoping to start having an opinion about them. But here we are…

5. Has the Bullet Club become a joke under Omega’s leadership as opposed to when Devitt and Styles lead it?

I don’t think so, it’s different, sure, but there’s a difference between being amusing and being a joke, no matter what Cornette thinks. Any stable that’s going to stick around for a while, they have to evolve somehow. It feels different under Omega than it did under Devitt or Styles, and that’s fine. Is it a joke? I don’t think so, no…

So, now that I’m being yelled at below, let’s move on to actual facts, with Connor

Was the concession stand that was used at Uncensored 1995 fake? I vaguely remember the nasty boys and Harlem heat slipping on all the mustard

4:20 in. Which was totally meant to be, I’m sure.

Anyway, looking at them, yes, they were fake. I stake my reputation on it.

I realise I don’t have one, but I’m hoping to acquire one after this escapade.

Obscure references aside, fans weren’t allowed to be in that part of the arena, there just happened to be old timey concession stand stalls with nothing too dangerous in them, plus WCW would do this occasionally with merch desks and the like, yeah, these were fake.

Stu has a couple questions.

What were the reasons behind Bobby Heenan leaving the WWF by the end of 93? Was it his neck?

His neck was a factor, yes. Given the long hours and travelling WWF called for, and Heenan’s neck still being messed up from a decade prior, it was hard. But he’s also claimed that Vince wanted him to take a 50% paycut, and he was at a point where he wanted to commercials and such. He’s also claimed that he just wanted to take a year off, but WCW’s offer was too good, plus they offered health coverage.

He’s changed his story a little at times, but like most life choices, there’s a bunch of factors that played a part.

Do you think the current WWE product could benefit from the input from Scott Hall given his reputation as a brilliant mind or do you think the company are best to leave him alone while he continues his recovery?

If he’s able to watch the TV and send in notes and ideas, they absolutely should be doing that. Hall is on the list of brilliant wrestling minds, and even of they’re not going to do the hotel conference idea, guys like Hall, Raven, Pat Patterson, they should be getting a few bucks each week to watch the shows and give feedback. Now, that said, if Hall is not doing well, then by all means let him recover in peace. But if he’s out and doing his thang, hell, him and DDP and Jake Roberts can hang out and do yoga while watching the shows.

not_Larry_Csonka wants to talk about PPV.

What was the historical prices of WWF/E and WCW PPv’s? I remember the $29.95 piece point in the 90’s and the $14.95 price for In Your House PPv’s but I am curious what they were before then.

Well the first IYH was $9.95, as was This Tuesday In Texas. IYH moved to 19.95 at some point, although they went up to 29.95 when they went to three hours.

As for the big ones, it apparently was $24.95 prior to the mid 90’s, when 29.95 kicked in, although Wrestlemania was usually 5 buck more expensive than the others, apparently? I dunno, I’m having to rely on fractured sources here. Are there any readers who have been watching a while and remember their prices?

I always remembered the encore showings of PPv’s coming on Tuesdays. Which PPV Encore has the highest buy rate of all time?

I can’t tell you, because they include the replays in the buyrates for the PPV overall, it’s not a separate number, the buyrate for any given PPV is the buys of the live plus the replays. Supposedly for the WWE it used to be in the single digits for the percentage of the buyrate that was replays, while TNA was higher, on the basis that their buyrates were much lower, and if they put on a good PPV, more people would buy a replay to check it out.

That said though, I wonder the argument for Beware of the Dog #2 would be, as the make up airing was, I understand, given to everyone who ordered the original, so it gets the buyrate from the first one, so is the buyrate the 0.45 the original got, or the 0 new ones?

But I can’t tell you the real answer.

And finally, Brendan asks about WWF cross-promotion.

What was the reasoning from the WWF’s point of view for the cross promotion angles in the 90s. I’m sure they were all for different reasons. But at a time when the WWF’s business was down, why take the time and resources to parther with the USWA and Smokey Mountain Wrestling? The WWF had enough problems to deal with at the time. And later in the decade, what was the point of the ECW and NWA Invasion angles. Obviously, with the hardcore boom of the 90s there was some benefit to associating with ECW, but why give cable airtime to even a small competitor. And finally, why waste programming on the NWA which had essentially become a paper organization?

Four different associations, four (slightly) different reasons and logics.

USWA was pretty much a developmental league, the proto-proto-NXT. At first the WWF guys going to USWA was just part of the payment for Lawler coming in, but then the company used it as a testing ground, guys would get sent to USWA to fine tune their looks and stuff. Mankind worked out the kinks there, The Rock got his Flex Kavana out of his system, stuff like that. So even if you’re up against the wall, you need a place like USWA to give you a way to get people ready without having them get ready on your TV.

SMW was similar, in that Vince and Cornette were on better terms at that point, and SMW was another feeder system, guys could go there and get shined up, and then Vince would take a look and maybe hire them. Slightly less formal than the USWA alliance, but basically the same deal. And at a time when you need new talent…

ECW was on the payroll, as Vince respected Heyman and would slip him a few dollars here and there to make up for taking guys and the like. The ECW Invasion of 97 was both a way to help ECW, which Vince was willing to do because he respects a guy like Heyman who is like him but whom is no risk to him, and also because most of the WWF roster was in Europe on a tour, and thus they needed warm bodies to fill an hour of Raw that one time.

NWA was the outlier, as that was Russo sticking it to Cornette. Since Cornette’s shoot rants on Raw got popular, Russo had to twist it to something else.

Cornette was all about tradition and old school, so they had him bring in the NWA as a rib on his opinions, while also being an actual stable, while expecting fans to remember the Rock n Roll Express and such but also to see them and consider the WWF as being fresh and new and exciting while still having these older guys in it and god damn Russo can confuse you at times.

OK, simplify.

USWA and SMW were feeder territories, like NXT. ECW was the hot new thing that they were supporting and could use this one time, like Evolve. And the NWA was well past its use by date when they were brought in as a joke and to further prove that WWF was the best around, like WCW in 01. Clear?

And on that note, I bring this edition to a close, come back next week for more why don’t you?