Ask 411 Wrestling: Why Didn’t Vince Make Himself WCW Champion?

Hello, and welcome to the thousandth wrestling column written with Bobby Roode’s new theme on loop, Ask 411 Wrestling! But can you blame me? Damn thing is a major earworm, I’m not sure I’ll ever get it out of my head. And I bet you can’t either.

And just in case you don’t….

Now you do.

This week’s edition of Ask 411 Wrestling is special, not just for GLORIOUS, but also because it’s a special MANFLU edition. I have the MANFLU, ergo this column has it. These always go so well.

Anyway, got a question for me for when I’m not sick? [email protected] is where you send it. But for now, BANNER!!!

Zeldas!

Check out my Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture! I really liked Devil/Details 2016.

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Uh… How about that sporting contest?

The Trivia Crown

I was a wrestling tournament. In me, there were four Canadians, there were former members of the nWo, DX, and The Four Horsemen. All of the participants in me were World Tag Team champions at one time and all of them were recognized as World champions by different promotions and all won or successfully defended at least one of their World championships at Wrestlemania except for one. All of the matches in me ended by pinfall except for one. The two finalists of me also were involved in the last feud for one of them. The longest match of me is still considered a classic, even when one of the participants had vertigo during it. The person who won in me fought two wrestlers who are currently active and the “runner up” fought three guys who are NOT active. Oh, and one of them is a godfather. What was I?

Scott had it, but I’ll use Maraviloso’s answer since he wrote it.

I was a wrestling tournament. In me, there were four Canadians (Edge, Benoit, Jericho and Christian) there were former members of the nWo (Shawn Michaels), DX (Shawn and Triple H) and The Four Horsemen (Chris Benoit). All of the participants in me were World Tag Team champions at one time and all of them were recognized as World champions by different promotions (WWE, WCW and WWC) and all won or successfully defended at least one of their World championships at Wrestlemania except for one (Shelton Benjamin, who never won any WWE world singles championship). All of the matches in me ended by pinfall except for one (Benoit made Triple H tap in the first round). The two finalists of me also were involved in the last feud for one of them (Edge and Kane). The longest match of me is still considered a classic (HBK vs Shelton Benjamin), even when one of the participants had vertigo during it (Shelton admitted to that in a shoot interview). The person who won in me (Edge) fought two wrestlers who are currently active (Jericho and Kane) and the “runner up” (Kane) fought three guys who are NOT active (Benoit, Christian and Edge). Oh, and one of them is a godfather (Shelton’s the godfather of Brock Lesnar’s sons). What was I?

World Heavyweight Championship #1 contenders Gold Rush tournament (2005)

Who am I? I’ve been a part of ECW, WWE and NXT. I’ve had four different tag partners on the big stage that I’ve won gold with, but only one of them has managed to obtain a couple of other title related accolades I’ve done (although the last guy to get those is associated with me in another way). You might think I’ve teamed up with Christian, but you’d be wrong, albeit understandably. One of my old nicknames was used by several different people. I’ve got a lot of stroke, I’ve got a girl, and I’ve had three of something at once. A guy you can see every week, and who used to make war vets crazy, I am who?

Getting Down To All The Business

Let’s get this MANFLU edition underway!

First of all, Connor?

Do you think having Hogan drop the wcw title to Luger on Nitro in 97 and then have him lose the Cage match to Piper at Halloween Havoc made him look weak for his big showdown with Sting at Starrcade? I mean if Luger and Piper can beat Hogan then anyone can, I thought it took away from the mystique of the title match

… You’re Hulk Hogan? That would explain a lot.

I can see the argument there, but there were two strong arguments for both of those losses. Luger first, as he’s the easier to explain.

Have the WWE network before you watch that, of course.

Although there is the persistent rumor that Luger had a World Title run guaranteed in his contract, there are more mundane factors at play here. Namely, that this was the 100th episode of Nitro, and was the first to go for 3 hours. So if you have the first show that is going for the length of a PPV, and it’s a special big deal show, do you want to end the show on another nWo run in schmozz? No, you’d want a big celebration to pop the crowd, to get anyone tuning in because it’s the 100th to come back, and also to pop a buyrate for the PPV a few days later to see if Luger can keep the belt, where, by putting it back on Hogan, you can show he’s cunning and smart and thus WCW needs a big damn hero to squash him like a bug! If WCW wasn’t so stuck on the Hogan/Sting match, maybe Luger would have got a longer reign, but they had to have a big face win here, and with the PPV so close, it was deemed short enough to not matter.

Piper on the other hand…

Get the WWE network before you watch that. It’s pretty cool!

So, in WCW’s defence, this was WCW’s most successful PPV of all time, albeit only for a couple months until Starrcade 97 happened. And you can argue that since everyone was hyped for Starrcade anyway, this result didn’t matter as much. Plus, it was the rubber match between the two, and faces usually win rubber matches. And, the Piper/Hogan feud was always presented as being less about the title and more about egos, so it allowed Hogan to lose and appear vulnerable but keep the belt. AND, in theory, if the end spot had worked properly, it would have set up the later Savage/Hogan blow up after Savage takes Hogan out by accident from the cage top.

But yeah, I can see the point that it was a bit too soon for Hogan to lose given the Hogan/Sting match, but then again, see above, there’s a lot of pluses there. Hogan/Piper did tremendous business for WCW, after all.

Speaking of Hogan, Pedro has a question about him.

I just read in a site that Bruno Sanmartino & Hulk Hogan teamed up once, being that the only time they worked together; the match, supposedly, was neither taped nor photographed… Would you, please, give us some details about this topic…Did they worked more than only one time…??

… You can say Blog Of Doom. As a former Ask 411 guy, Keith can be plugged. Plus I taught him about Russian Leg Sweeps, so I’m clearly smarter than he is.

The match took place August 29th, 1987, in Baltimore. Bruno spent the first few months in 87 working as a sort of standby fill-in. He wrestled Honky Tonk Man, in battle royals and against Randy Savage. But what was Bruno’s last match was this tag match, teaming with Hogan against One Man Gang and King Kong Bundy. Hogan took the heat, then Bruno came in, and Hogan pinned Bundy to end the match.

This was just a WWE house show, and for whatever reason, it wasn’t recorded, although at least one photo exists. And yes, this was a one time pairing. When Hogan first came into WWF he was a heel, and when Hogan came round again, Bruno was midcard and would normally team with lower down guys. So yeah, it was a oncer, no footage, just one photo. Sometimes history is like that, alas.

Dan has a couple questions that he felt were stupid but wanted to ask anyway.

1. I have read a few times that wrestlers are not allowed to wear a certin color of tights or pants because say, “Triple H wears that color, or John Cena wears jean shorts, so you cant”…..With that said, how the hell was Danny Spivey, in 1986, allowed to wear yellow trunks and his long golden hair?????..at the VERY VERY height of Hulkamania, you would think this is something Vince would be ALL OVER making Spivey change color..thanks

… Born in the USA is ANTI-patriotic for goodness’ sake…

Anyway, Vince did eventually put a stop to it, but Spivey had an idea of sorts. From an interview he gave last year.

“No, that was my stupid idea. Looking back on it, I should have dyed my hair black. It cost me a lot of money. Hulk Hogan was making a lot of money, and in the back of my mind I was hoping for some sort of lookalike angle. Vince called me (to fire me) and said ‘Dan, it’s not your fault, you’re 6’6 with blonde hair and look like Hulk Hogan.’ If I’d have been smart, I’d have dyed it black.”

So yeah, back then Vince was a lot less hands on about this sort of thing, and the Golden Boy concept got a lot further than it should have. Although a “Stop ripping me off/Fuck You Hogan!” feud based on it could have worked, but it wasn’t to be.

So yeah, Vince did eventually get round to fixing this, via firing him.

Benjamin asks about cross-company PPV matches.

AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura had a great match at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom this year. Both are now with WWE, and could conceivably wrestle each other this year at a WWE PPV. Has the same match between any two (4 if a tag team match) competitors happened on two competing companies’ PPVs in the same calendar year? Working agreements would be excluded.

In one of his many fine fill-ins for me, Ryan Byers brought the research and gave us a huge list of matches that took place on PPV for multiple companies. Going through the list, none of them fit the criteria of having occurred within the same calendar year, with two nearly getting there.

Jeff Jarrett fought Goldust at WWF’s Rock Bottom 1998 event, December 13, then Jeff Jarrett fought Dustin Rhodes at WCW’s Starrcade 1999, December 19. So very close.

But the weird one is that in the same year, 1993, Smoky Mountain Wrestling got a match on both WCW and WWF PPVs, WCW Superbrawl 3, February 21, and WWF WWF Survivor Series, November 24. And in both matches, The Heavenly Bodies fought The Rock n Roll Express, non-title at Superbrawl (RnR winning over the tag champs) and then for the belts at Survivor Series (The Bodies winning the tag belts off the RnR). But the thing is, this would count… Except that at Superbrawl, the Bodies were Tom Prichard and Stan Lane, while at Survivor Series, Lane had been replaced by Jimmy Del Ray.

Of course, having said that, I’m sure there has to be some match that has streamed on a couple of American indy companies in the same year, surely. Readers?

2. What do wrestlers usually do at house shows to kill time??? say they are the main Event, they are there hours before the show, so you figure they have like 4-6 hours before their match, what do they do??

Well speaking as a wrestler…

You spend that time going through the match, first in ring then just talking about it, shooting the breeze with other wrestlers/related people, talking about future matches/plans, maybe film promos or interviews for later on, record a podcast or shoot a vlog or something, or play Pokemon Go, listen to music, read a book (that’s mostly just me though, to be honest), stuff like that. Anything that kills time before the hour or so ahead where you get dressed then start getting warmed up and all that. Think of a way to kill an hour, there’s been a wrestler whose done it, from playing cards to taking drugs.

You know, aspirin and paracetamol and stuff…

Jorge has a bunch of questions. Let’s answer them, shall we?

1- If the British Bulldog was leaving shortly after Summerslam 92, why have him main event against Bret and why have him win?

Because it was held in London, in front of 80,000+ fans of his. What kind on selfish prick would beat a guy like that in his home town with gold on the line?

Oh.

Own New Japan Pro Wrestling World before watching that, or something.

Anyway, although Bulldog’s reign was always going to be short (the original plan was for Bret to drop it to Michaels directly, but after putting Summerslam in London, Davey had to win it, then he dropped it to Michaels later), he wasn’t planned to leave the company, he was meant to stay around for a while, but then he and Ultimate Warrior were found to be getting shipments of Human Growth Hormone from a pharmacy in England, and since steroids and drug taking were becoming more and more of a hot button issue, they were both fired. Had he not taken those drugs, or perhaps not been caught, he would have stuck around, albeit not as champ.

2- In 1995 when Luger appeared at the first Nitro, why would WWE bring him back for Summerslam if he’d already gone to WCW? Were there any plan for a Bulldog v. Luger program?

… I think you have your timeline muddled there dude.

OK, so Luger’s contract with WWF expires in February or March or so, and while both sides want to keep working together, there is disagreement over the long term contract. So Luger moves to a per-appearance/very short term contract system while the two sides hammer out the agreement, basically each week WWF goes “You still good for this week?” and Luger says “Yeah” or some such. He’s not under contract as such, but he remains on TV as a star since they’re working out the deal.

Then, while talking with his good pal Sting in late August, he mentions that he’s without a contract, and thus could turn up in WCW tomorrow. Sting gets in Bischoff’s ear, who offers Luger a lowball deal, which Sting tells Luger to take since it’ll go up quickly. Luger agrees and then, while he would choose otherwise, is ordered by Bischoff not to give notice as such. So, WWF, still thinking he was good and would sign a deal eventually, use him at Summerslam, and the week afterwards, his last match being a house show a week after Summerslam, then he went home and then flew to Minnesota in order to appear on the first episode of WCW Nitro, and set the tone of the show being full of surprises.

Own CHIKARAtopia before clicking play there.

3- Vader was announced as a participant for War Games against the DOD, was the reason for Luger replacing him that Vader was going to WWF? If so, why WWF took so long to bring him up?

So yeah, in 1995, as Hogan was putting together a team for a Wargames match against the Dungeon of Doom, he needed the strongest team possible, and so Hogan asked Vader to be on his team.

Own Smash Wrestling On Demand before watching that.

The idea was meant to be that Vader would stand with Hogan in Wargames at Fall Brawl, and then get a title match, planned to be on the second ever episode of Nitro. However, Vader left the company before Fall Brawl, after getting involved in a brawl with Paul Orndorff backstage. So while he did end up in WWF later, it wasn’t that he chose to leave because he had a new deal lined up, he got fired because of a backstage incident, and then a while later WWF picked him up.

4- I remember reading an article stating that Shawn Michaels refused to work with Owen Hart after the Montreal screwjob, is this so? If it is, what was the plan for Owen? It’s obvious that Austin was winning the Royal Rumble,so what was planned for Owen?

Yeah, Michaels back in 97/98 wasn’t a particularly nice person, but there’s conflicting reports on this.

What isn’t in dispute is that Owen asked for his release alongside Bulldog and Anvil, but while Anvil was deemed to be dead weight, and Bulldog paid out his contract, Owen was refused point blank since he was such a good hand.

At this point, things get sketchy.

The anti-HBK ’98 crowd will say that Owen was meant to come back as the all conquering Canadian Hero, basically slide into the role his brother had, and with it a feud with Shawn Michaels over the whole “You Screwed My Brother” idea. Then Shawn, as he didn’t like Owen, had it nixed because he didn’t like Owen for reasons and wouldn’t put him over.

The pro-HBK ’98 crowd say it was out of their hands, and that Shawn actually wanted to work with Owen. But the Vinces wanted to further the Taker/Kane angle, and to properly finish off the HBK/Taker feud, they needed one more match, so the Owen/HBK idea was moved to Owen/HHH while Shawn fought Taker in a casket match, which as well all know went just fine.

Either way, the plan for Owen was to be a solid upper-midcard guy, since he could talk and wrestle and such. But then Russo came up with a sexual angle involving Jarrett and Debra which Owen refused, which then led to the Blue Blazer gimmick, which also went just fine.

So yeah, either Shawn killed the Owen/HBK angle, or it got changed due to a better idea by the bosses. (Cornette says the first, near as an ‘unbiased’ account from the time there is) Either way, he was set to stick to the upper-midcard.

5- On that note, I’ve read that the British Bulldog had to pay a large amount of money to leave WWE in 1997,is this the case? How much money did he have to pay? Where there any plans for him after Survivor Series,maybe to takeover the Hart foundation, he did win the match as the only survivor in Survivor Series?

The original amount WWF wanted was, I believe, $250K, but he negotiated it down to $150K, and he was released when he paid this over on Xmas Eve/Day that year, although he was already off the road after having to have arthorscopic knee surgery at the beginning of December.

And the Hart Foundation was DOA (not the stable) after Survivor Series either way, so I don’t see him leading it. Probably he would have been another midcarder, maybe teaming still with Owen as the righteous babyfaces, or maybe turn on Owen out of greed or something. But there wasn’t any big plans for him, I don’t think.

6- When Bulldog came back in 1999, it looked as he was being heavily pushed, what happened to that push? He worked a program with the Rock and then was downsized to the European Championship and all of a sudden he just disappeared.

A combination of his in-ring abilities being curtailed due to the injuries he’d sustained at the end of his WCW run, coupled with his new ‘Attitude Era’ gimmick of jeans and boots and such not catching on, coupled with the general concept of there being only so many times you can rework a guy’s image. WWF hired him, in part, probably, in order to look better for the lawsuit over Owen Hart’s death (“We don’t hate the family, see, we’re hired Bulldog!”) and pushed him at first with that, then when he didn’t work out, he got depushed and then let go, although he was training for a comeback at the time of his death, working tag matches with his son the weekend beforehand.

Adrian from Ireland has no chance, except he’ll be answered this week.

Why did Vince never crown himself WCW champion when he had the chance in 2001 ? Its seems like the small petty thing he would do and he did win the WWF title and later the ECW title. It would have been the final FU to his old rivals.

I’m sure on some level he would have, but the times when he could have won the WCW title were different to when he won the WWF and ECW titles.

When he won the WWF title, it was part of the overall storyline to explain why Vince could come back onto WWF TV after the End of an Era match where he was banished for life, and to further cement Triple H as a conniving but brilliant heel, and to establish just how much Austin hated Triple H, as Austin would rather than VINCE as champ than Hunter. You can argue that it was stupid or some such, but the logic is there. You have Hunter attack Linda, Vince defends Linda, Hunter chooses to defend title against Vince to fuck Vince up, Austin helps Vince win, Austin then gets a title shot by allowing Vince to come back. There’s method to the madness there.

Likewise, with the ECW title win, that was to establish the belt as being important, as unbelievably backwards as that sounds. Vince was still over, and by establishing that he wanted the ECW Title and feuding over it with Bobby Lashley, why, the ECW title must be as good as the WWF one! And Lashley must be as good as Steve Austin!

*Infinity-1 Chandlers*

But again, there’s logic there, help out ECW and its title and the guy Vince wanted to be a superstar, plus Vince McMahon as ECW Champion is the good kind of trolling your audience, like Eva Marie as Female Champion or Bobby Roode’s NXT promo/

But the WCW title? As ass-backwards and horrible as the InVasion was, at the end of the day, Vince’s desire for money > his pettiness. Not his ego, obviously, as you can see that clear as a bell throughout all the InVasion, but him holding the WCW title is petty for the sake of it, and at the time, he wanted WCW to be successful, he just didn’t see he was making sure that it could never be.

And on that downer ending, I bring this MANFLU edition to a close. See you all next week, assuming my MANFLU doesn’t become actual flu…