Ask 411 Wrestling: Why Do Vince And Jarrett Hate Each Other?

Hello, welcome to Ask 411 Wrestling, the only column on 411mania written by a guy sweating his ass off despite it being nearly midnight! I am your host, Mathew Sforcina, and while I’m glad to say that we may well have the code issue worked out,
Sydney is currently in the middle of a heat wave and thus I am, indeed, sweating body parts off, it feels like. So, if there’s an obvious mistake, I mean one moreso than usual, blame the heat.

BANNER!

Like right there, where I forgot to include the bit about sending questions to [email protected]. That sort of error.

Zeldas!

Check out my Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture! No heat too strenuous there!

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Name that writer!: I did write last week’s column, Larry’s name was attached for a short while due to that pesky code issue we’re sorting out.

The Trivia Crown

Who am I? A multi time gold holder in WWE, WCW, and ECW, I’ve never won a Luchas de Apuestas match. Historical moments I’ve been involved in have featured boxing gloves, a bottle of beer, and a streak that technically didn’t exist (but the first matches were at house shows, so I guess that’s ok then). I’ve been animal, mineral and a chemical found in plants and fungi. I’ve embraced nothingness (in relation to time) and yet also fought against it (in relation to something you shouldn’t stare at). A guy who is the record for most title runs in a company ever, thanks to a gigantic number of a specific belt, I am who?

Zach Brinkley and D2Kvirus have the answer for us, almost. I’ve fixed the streak bit.

Who am I? A multi time gold holder in WWE, WCW, and ECW. I’ve never won a Luchas de Apuestas match (Been in 4. Lost 3, the 4th went to a No Decision). Historical moments I’ve been involved in have featured boxing gloves (Won a boxing match against Johnny B. Badd) a bottle of beer (poured beer down Punk’s throat during an angle in ROH) and a streak that technically didn’t exist (but the first matches were at house shows, so I guess that’s ok then) (Dreamer beat Raven a bunch of times on early ECW house shows) I’ve been animal (Scotty Flamingo), mineral (Part of the Diamond Mine), and a chemical found in plants and fungi (Serotonin) I’ve embraced nothingness (in relation to time) (Nevermore) and yet also fought against it (in relation to something you shouldn’t stare at) (Abyss) A guy who is the record for most title runs in a company ever, thanks to a gigantic number of a specific belt (In WWE, thanks to his 27 reigns as Hardcore champ) I am who? RAVEN!

Who am I? I’m involved in this year’s Royal Rumble, in a way. The longest reigning champion of something, I am a former ‘World’ champion and a former Comedy champion. Former ring names of mine owe something to a cowboy, a seamstress, and a Mystery. My first ever title in wrestling came from beating a guy who’s on the same brand as me currently. My current music wasn’t written by robots, my last match in an indy company was a loss to big rocks, and a rapper and a strong man helped me get into WWE. I am who?

Getting Down To All The Business

Joey Joe Joe Shabadoo has a quick prediction request.

So, who’s winning the Royal Rumble? (Kidding.)

Obviously it’s… Oh, never mind then.

Instead, as a change of pace, how about who are the first 2 entrants? And who are the final four?

Hmmm. The first two is always interesting, as usually they are two guys that WWE is looking to push in the new year, unless there’s a storyline going on they want to focus on instead. This year, I think that #1 will be Sami Zayn, to further the Underdog of Underdogs route, plus it’ll mean when Strowman or Brock or whoever tosses him at #30 or so, it’s both logical and yet heartbreaking. #2? Samoa Joe. I know that Tye Dillinger at #10 is the most logical NXT entrant, and Nakamura is the one I want the most, but Joe at #2 makes a lot of sense to me. Although him not tossing Zayn straight away seems like a plot hole, you use the first two minutes (if the show’s 4 hours, you can do 2 minute entrants) and then the last 30 seconds of the next five entrants for Joe to beat the heck out of Zayn and show off all his moves, after tossing some scrubs ASAP when they run in.

Final four? Brock, Goldberg, Roman and whoever is going to win the thing. I would have said Taker prior to last week, but honestly I think they might well be crazy enough to try Taker/Roman at WM. So that would require Roman to eliminate Taker… Brock/Goldberg is locked in stone, but given it appears to be the match they intend to build WM around for some reason, we’re left with the list of guys already in it. And you know what? You know who’s name I keep coming back to?

Miz.

I’m dead serious. Guy is giving the promo work of his life right now, and Miz dragging out choosing his title match at WM, leading to Cena/Miz 2: This Time No Rock, Promise, is a match that I can see them doing. Especially as they play off the Bellas thing, have Bryan reluctantly support Cena, Cena further delve into slight heeldom while Miz preaches of conspiracy and being held down, and then at WM, Bryan clunks Miz with the belt and proves him right, which leads to the Summer program. So yeah, that’s my official(ly insane) prediction of the winner, and what was to be the payoff to the Rumble winner gag I didn’t get to do because I refuse to set up my own lead in lines.

Ben asks who is holding the pen.

I’m wondering if anyone has a clear idea of who is booking Smackdown Live! these days. To what degree is Daniel Bryan involved? His appearances on Talking Smack suggest he’s got something to do with it (unlike Mick Foley). What about Renee Young? Thanks!

Bryan’s involvement is that he turns up in front of a camera when he’s told and says roughly what he’s told to say, which as GM occasionally involves making ‘decisions’, but he has no real input in it, he has as much as any other average talent does, which is not much if any.

The layout, at least what it was a month or so ago, was that Smackdown’s head writer is Ryan Ward, former NXT writer, with Road Dogg involved, and a few other people as well. Ward reports to Triple H, who reports to Vince. Ranjin Singh is the ‘Assignment editor’, which means he decides who works on which segments. But as far as Bryan and Renee, no, they don’t book at all, alas.

Stephen asks why J-A-Double-R-E-Double-T was P-I-C-Double-K-E-Double-D-O-N.

I think in your column you recently mentioned Jeff Jarrett being fired by name by Vince on the Raw/Nitro simulcast in 2001. Why was Jarrett singled out for that treatment? I know he held up Vince for cash in his final appearance where he lost to Chyna, but other guys had held him up for cash before and come back. Was that it, or was there something more to it?

Jeff’s leaving in 99 was a major part of it at the time, but it’s gained some added juice since that point. After all, on the same show Vince also took shots at Dustin Rhodes, talking about he wanted breast implants in the 90’s and such. And yet, he’s back in WWE as we speak. Vince also took shots at Road Warrior Animal (who came back). Buff Bagwell (who was hired), and Lex Luger (who has a legend’s contract).

At the time, yes, Vince hated Jarrett, and Jeff wasn’t too thrilled either. If there’s anything Vince hates, it’s when talent has him over a barrel. And Jarrett’s leaving in 99 involved a big ol’ barrel, as Jeff, upset at some of the content of the show and Owen Hart’s death, and for Austin getting to nix a program with him just as he was getting hot, felt he wasn’t going to sign a new contract, possibly over resentment at how JR negotiated the last one as well. So when it turned out that his contract was up the day before a PPV, he used the leverage to ensure that he got his merch fees and all his other payments up front rather than wait months for them to arrive. Thus Vince hates him because he dared to stand up for himself.

That’s the pro-Jarrett camp view. The other side is that Jarrett, being the son of an old school promoter and a dear friend of Vince, should have done the honorable thing and come back to do the job, and hey, quite probably Vince Russo and Jarrett cooked up that little scheme before Russo left, by having Russo get the belt on Jarrett then make sure he would still be champ before the PPV to force Vince and JR to agree to the balloon payment, and then Jeff demanded it get doubled, the low down snake in the grass. And then he goes to the competition and is their world champ a bunch of times and is thus the guy front and center to be trying to kill WWF!

Whichever side you agree with the most, the fact is, Vince and Jeff’s parting was not amicable, both sides had issues with the other, lots of bad blood. But even so, even with all that bad blood, Vince ended up bringing in almost everyone from WCW afterwards. Jarrett was a name, and he could work, bridges could have been built.

And then he went and made his own company.

That’s why he’s been on the blacklist for so long, Warrior held him up for money, but he didn’t start a company trying to take on WWE. The hatred between the two was bad enough, but add in that, it just prolonged and triple platinum coated it.

Although supposedly when Jeff’s first wife passed away, Vince did call him and they chatted, so maybe there’s some tiny sliver of hope there…

Next up is Williams.

i will like to know if you do scuba diving lesson And can i know if you do accept credit cards?

…

No I don’t do scuba diving lessons. But sure I accept credit cards. Send them on through.

Back to wrestling, Arthur needs clarification for the new new WWE Grand Slam.

So, recently WWE published this article on their site about grand slam champions. According to that article, going off the current title setup, those are the only 7 grand slam champions. But, looking at their credentials, I’m pretty sure that Steve Austin, Ric Flair, Bret Hart, JBL, Booker T and Dolph Ziggler (there may be others) all meet the same requirements. The only thing I can figure is they aren’t counting the World Heavyweight in the lineage of the WWE Title (Even though one would think that after the unification they would have a shared history that should be considered. They do refer to Ziggler as a former world champion.)

Ziggler and Booker T are the odd men out because of the Big Gold Belt, but at least Flair and Hart meet the criteria—unless I’m drastically overlooking something? With Flair, they may not be counting his WCW US title wins, but I thought WWE still acknowledged the WCW history of that belt. This is also where I’d lump Austin as well, because he won the US title in WCW. And they’re not just addressing active roster members because Eddie, Kurt and Edge are on the list.

Which brings me to a previous point of lineage, Edge won the title not long after it came over following the invasion when it was still recognized as s WCW title before he unified it with the IC title. In which case, Austin and Flair should both be recognized as US champions…I’m sorry, but this whole thing has completely perplexed.

OK, so what’s happening here is that WWE is applying a somewhat strict definition of the title lineage for the US and tag belts, as well saying only the two current World titles count. It appears that, as far as the US title goes, they are choosing to begin counting that one at the point where they controlled it. Although they can and will claim the US title lineage back to Harley Race and Terry Funk if/when it suits them, as far as this new definition is concerned, the title lineage begins, I presume, with Booker T when WWE Shane McMahon bought WCW.

As for the tag belts, that’s actually a long running issue that people don’t quite seem to grasp, in that although the two sets of tag belts were unified at Wrestlemania 25 in a dark match, the title lineages didn’t unify. The tag titles that are currently on Raw started with Kurt Angle and STEVEN RICHARDS at No Mercy 2002 as Smackdown’s WWE Tag Team Titles. Thus anyone who held the tag titles that go back to the 70’s and were the World Tag Team Titles, they don’t count. WWE only counts the now active titles, and Raw’s belts only date back to 2002. That’s why New Day were technically accurate when they called themselves the longest reigning tag champs months ago, before enough people started pointing out Demolition.

So, as for your list of names, Booker T and Dolph Ziggler both fail because the World Heavyweight title doesn’t count, it’s not active right now, and they also both lack the ‘correct’ tag title. Everyone else, regardless of if the WCW US title counts or not, fails due to the tag belts. Austin, Flair, Hart and JBL all held the World Tag Titles, not the WWE Tag Titles. That said, if Goldust ever wins a World Title, then we’ll know for sure if the WCW US title counts, as he’s pretty much the sole man still active who has a chance at winning it…

William has an age based question for us.

Did Tyler Bate just become the greatest teenager in the history of WWE over this weekend? If yes; any close competition?

Depends on how you define ‘greatness’. I know Jeff Hardy’s first WWF match was when he was 16, so in retrospect you could argue his 4 or so years of work as a teenager was pretty great.

Kelly Kelly was 19 when she debuted on ECW TV, and you could argue she was great, if you judge women on their looks and their propensity for taking their clothes off.

But the nearest competition to Tyler would be Rene Dupree, who won his first tag title on June 15, 2003, beating Kane and Rob Van Dam to win the belts at just 19 years, 6 months.

You can certainly make the claim that Bate’s achievement is greater, but I’m not sure I can say he’s the greatest teenager in WWE history just yet, if this is all he does. We have to wait and see what happens with the WWE UK TV show. But if you want to all him that, I understand the argument.

Alec asks about faces cheating.

It occurred to me that Roman Reigns’ finishing move – the Superman Punch – is technically a punch and, therefore, illegal. Have there been any other faces who’ve used illegal moves as a finisher? I suppose the Tombstone in a way but that was more of a real-life banned move rather than illegal by the rules of wrestling. Thanks for all the knowledge.

A punch isn’t illegal, only a closed fist punch is, and even then, the ref has discretion to allow it. Just to defend Roman there, for a microsecond. But if you count the punch as an illegal move, there’s been a few faces who used it as a finisher, Big Show on even days, Ronnie Garvin.

Guys like Eddie Guerrero made ‘cheating’ into an artform, you could argue that for a while there Eddie’s finisher was ‘cheat’. But as for a face who’s finisher was absolutely illegal? Step up to the plate, Taz/z.

The Tazzmission, also known as the Kata-Ha-Jime, is technically not a choke, in that it’s meant to be cutting off the carotid arteries, but the fact is, really, it’s a choke hold, or it can become one very easily. That’s illegal. So when Tazz is a face, he has an illegal finisher.

Anyone else I’m forgetting, readers?

LC has a few questions.

1. Growing up the only wrestling I watched was a vhs tape of Summerslam 1991. I remember there being a segment at the end of the wedding reception for Macho Man and Miss Elizabeth. Jake the Snake and Undertaker broke up the reception by attacking Macho Man. My question is: was this the undertakers debut? If so, was there follow up on this incident with Macho Man?

No, it wasn’t the Undertaker’s debut. He debuted officially at Survivor Series 1990, although actually he debuted a couple days earlier at a Superstars taping as ‘Kane The Undertaker’. This was almost a year prior to his helping ruin Savage’s wedding at Summerslam 91.

As for follow up, there wasn’t any, at least none in terms of Savage/Taker. Savage was a color commentator at this point, as he had ‘retired’ due to losing to the Ultimate Warrior at WM7, and it took Jake Roberts making more and more disparaging remarks for Savage to end up getting reinstated to wrestle. Taker and Savage didn’t really interact, as Taker worked with Sid as a replacement for Ultimate Warrior on the house shows, while on TV he became #1 Contender for the WWF title, and ended up winning it at Survivor Series. But as far as I know, Taker/Savage never went anywhere.

2. Even with the current Women’s Revolution/Evolution going on at the moment in the WWE, I can’t help but think back on the low points of the divas division (my mind ranges from 2009/2010ish to 2016). They had talented women on the roster and had moments where the fans showed interest, it just dumbfounds me how the wwe could let their product get so bad. What do you think were the main factors/forces behind this “de-evolution” and eventual ending of the Divas Division? They went from having the fans care about Trish, Lita, Mickie, Beth, Melina, etc and having them take part in main events and specialty matches to crickets when the divas would be on.

Couple of factors. Having the main nucleus of the Golden Age all leave in a shortish period of time, having Trish and Lita retire, Victoria leave, Torrie retire, Stacy leave, having all the mainstays of the division leave in a short period of time didn’t help, you needed more time to introduce and get over new talent before you lose big names.

Finlay moving into becoming a wrestler also was a factor, as Finlay was a major reason for the Divas getting over, because he was the agent put in charge of the division. And he then, in a shocking move, gave a crap about them. He trained the women to help hone their skills, and fought backstage for them to get the time needed to do their thing, to be allowed the time to tell their stories. Once he began to focus more on the in-ring stuff and work as a player-coach, his influence in pushing for the women became less, and while the women he’d worked with did well still, the upcoming ones lacked his hands on approach.

And that leads to the main problem, John Laurinatis’ reign as Vice President of Talent Relations/Senior Vice President/Executive Vice President, starting in 2004 through to 2012 in one form or another. Under his run as talent scout, WWE went from hiring women who were already wrestling (Lita, Gail Kim) or fitness models (Trish Stratus, Victoria) to offering contracts to women in swimsuit modelling such as Kelly Kelly and Alicia Fox, hired out of a bikini catalogue.

Now, it turns out that can work, Alicia Fox has become a pretty solid hand, all things considered, and actually a lot of the Diva Search style of hiring women turned out to become decent at various aspects of wrestling. But they took longer to get there, especially with the FCW start up issues, and so when you had the exodus of all the former high level talent, you had several women still coming through who were good, but then once they got there, and you needed more talent to appear… Suddenly the cupboard was bare, or worse, filled with crap. Crap that eventually became good, but it took far too long to get there.

So, in summary, at a point in time where the women’s division lost a lot of key players, as well as losing their main coach and biggest supporter backstage, the sins of the talent scout were beginning to bear fruit. And that led to the dark period, before slowly the ‘Divas’ became actually not bad, and then we got where we are today, eventually. Thanks to Ronda Rousey.

3. Do you think that the term “IWC” has grown to encompass a larger audience recently? I see people making comments that the IWC is really small and shouldn’t bother paying attention to it, but with Internet accessibility and social media rising, a lot more people have the ability to go online and not only talk about wrestling but read all of the dirtsheet “reports”. A 8 year old kid can easily get onto google and search John Cena and find all the good and bad things written about him and join the conversation. I also remember seeing on 411mania that Mick Foley got in a Twitter argument with a 14 year old about Raws booking. Not saying the WWE should listen to every comment posted, but maybe look into items that seem to be the general consensus. Just wondering your thoughts.

I need to be careful, I know Concrete Davidson wants to talk about this, among other topics, with me on his podcast with Big Fudge. So I’ll be brief.

Basically the old definition of the IWC doesn’t really work anymore. Whenever someone posts a comment or a thread or a reply about the IWC’s main attitude or idea or whatever, there’s always someone who points out that by complaining about the IWC on the internet means you’re part of the IWC.

The days where everyone who talked about wrestling online was part of the IWC is gone, because the days when to talk online you had to be a little nerdy and be of a certain disposition has gone. Thanks to smartphones and social media, the most casual fan can still talk about wrasslin’.

However, that doesn’t mean the old school definition of the IWC doesn’t exist, that small group of fans who maintain that the art of pro wrestling peaked in 1994 in the Tokyo Dome with Aja Kong and Manami Toyota, they still exist. That’s still the cliché about what the IWC is like, and that small core still exists.

So, the internet, overall, you do need to pay attention to. Not just in terms of advertising and getting info out there, but you should at least pay some small attention to the overall opinion about your show on the internet. And as for the old school IWC, if you want to court that market, then by all means engage with them, but if not, you can probably ignore them safely.

Nightwolf has a simple question.

Why all the unnecessary Heel/Face Turns with Big Show and Kane? I would think it would get extremely annoying after awhile.

Giants are hard to book with, honestly. Believe me, I know all too well the troubles with booking a guy so much bigger than everyone else, personally.

Andre’s booking for a long time, was simple, in that he’d come into a territory, wrestle for a couple weeks for sell-outs around the towns, then leave and move onto the next one. He was a draw, he’d make you money, then leave before he overstayed his welcome.

When a giant sticks around, though, you very quickly hit a wall in that there are only so many storylines you can tell with a giant. Unless they can flip like Apollo Crews or something, big guys are able to tell specific storylines very well, but the flipside is that you run out of fresh ones quickly.

Big Show thus tends to go through these cycles of turning heel, being built up for a bit, loses a big match or two or seven, then turns face, works as that for a bit, then turns heel to restart the process. Because a guy who doesn’t have the giant gimmick has more options for storytelling and stories to tell, whereas a giant has “big nasty giant” or “big loveable giant”, and that’s about it.

Kane on the other hand, the character there is such that I don’t consider him to have heel and face turns, he’s just a force of nature, he just does whatever he feels like. But others may disagree, and will do so below, perhaps.

Connor asks about the hate for a famous event.

Why does everybody hate King of the Ring 1995? there’s a decent Bob Holly/Roadie match, a good Savio/Roadie match and a good HBK/Kama match on there, at least Vince was trying to push new stars, he just chose the wrong talent like Mabel

Because of the storylines and the people featured in said storylines.

Most people at the time went into that show assuming that this was the Shawn Michaels Show featuring Shawn Michaels, that this was all a formality for Shawn to win and get a push. Failing that, Undertaker was a solid pick for a guy to get a run back near the top.

Instead, we got a Cinderella story involving Savio Vega no-one cared about, the two guys everyone did care about getting jobbed out stupidly, and a finish that was boring for a winner who no-one hated in a good way, all in front of a crowd that full bore turned on the product, all of it without a really awesome match to excuse it.

In many respects, this was Roman Reigns winning the Royal Rumble, as everyone just assumed the guy who was really over would get the win, but instead Vince went with a big dark skinned gentleman who was unable to keep up his end of the bargain, and whom no-one wanted to see in the spot he was pushed to, but whom Vince kept plugging away on for months before finally pulling the plug. Except with Mabel he pulled it all the way, Reigns he just kinda jiggled it a bit in the plug.

King Mabel was bad all round, and most people would see that coming in, and yet Vince stuck to his gun. Now, had Mabel somehow been a success, then the show would be retroactively upgraded. But the show that begins the King Mabel… Thing, that is a show that will be hated, and deservedly so.

Sadly, at this point, the heat is getting too much, I will sadly have to bring Ask 411 to a close here, and see you all next week.

Fingers crossed.