Ask 411 Wrestling: Why Hasn’t Vince McMahon Been Ousted?

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ryan Byers, and I am your fill-in for Mathew Sforcina at Ask 411 Wrestling.

Some people have been asking me where Mat has gone. The short version is this: In 2016, a crack Australian professional wrestler was sent to prison by a military court for a crime he didn’t commit. He promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the New South Wales underground. Today, still wanted by the government, he is surviving as a soldier of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and I fyou can find him . . . maybe you can hire the Q-Man.

Seriously, though, Mat will be gone next week as well, so feel free to shoot any questions you have to me.

Sausages!

Check out Mat’s Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture!

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On Roadwarrior Knockoffs: Kudos to Armando Rodriguez for pointing out the Giant Warrior, a singles knockoff of the Roadies who I had overlooked. Warrior was a seven footer who donned some face paint and spikes for a run in Puerto Rico’s WWC promotion, though he also had stints in many other promotions under different gimmicks, including All Japan, UWA Mexico, the GWF, AAA, and FMW. Armando also mentioned Doomsday, a gimmick that the man now known as Kane used early in his career in WWC and the USWA, though I would consider Doomsday more of a Lord Humongous clone than a Roadwarrior clone.

The Trivia Crown

Last week’s question was:

Who am I? I was trained by a man who held the NWA World Heavyweight Title during the championship’s glory days. Some of my earliest recorded matches were with ECW and the WWF, and I was part of a bout that established a national promotion in the United States. I held two championships during my relatively brief career, one of which was a singles title that I lost to a man who was once confused with Kurt Angle and one of which was a tag title that I held with a former superhero. Who am I?

Nobody tried to answer this one, but the wrestler that I was going for was Jorge Estrada. He was trained by Dusty Rhodes and had matches in the WWF and ECW shortly after debuting, though he is probably best known for being part of the Flying Elvises in the early days of TNA, including in the promotion’s first match. The two titles that he held during his career are the NWA North American Heavyweight Title, which he lost to future TNA star Hernadez (who once did a Kurt Angle impersonator gimmick) and the Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling Tag Team Titles with Glacier (who did a superhero gimmick in the final days of WCW).

Let’s try it again this week . . .

Who am I? I am a retired professional wrestler who has not seen any action since 2010. I am a former star of Stampede Wrestling, where I had two consecutive gimmicks in which I played characters that had nationalities different than my own. However, I spent the vast majority of my career in a promotion other than Stampede. I did technically compete in one match promoted by the WWF during my storied career, but it was outside the WWF where I had my most absurd gimmick, which saw me displaying my musical talents . . . or lack thereof. Who am I?

Getting Down To All The Business

NightWolfTheWise wants to put our favorite Genetic Jackhammer out to stud:

We’ve all talked about how Vince Mcmahon needs to step down. He’s too old, he’s out of touch with today’s product, etc. Do you feel that the reason Triple H and Stephanie don’t say enough to Vince is because Vince holds most of the stock and voting power? I would assume that’s why they don’t say enough and oust him from his position like most corporations would do if their CEO is performing badly.

Kane disagrees with you.

Getting to the real question, though, Vince McMahon owns a heck of a lot of WWE stock. By just about every estimate I’ve read, he owns roughly half of the shares in the company, while the next largest individual stockholder has less than an 8% cut of the company. However, I doubt that Vinnie Mac’s continued control over creative and the general direction of WWE has much to do with his level of stock ownership. Though he would be easier to oust if he had a lesser stake in the promotion, what is probably keeping him in power more than anything else is the perception that the promotion is “his” baby as a result of all the history he has with the company. This is magnified by the fact that the people who would be best-positioned to challenge his leadership are members of his own family. Put yourself in their shoes. If your father (or your father-in-law) had run the family business for thirty-five years and you thought that you could do a better job, would you really step up to take the reigns away from him so long as he wasn’t completely tanking things, or would you just way for him to fade out of his position naturally?

Chance are good that you’d do the latter. That’s where HHH and Stephanie are too. As wacky as this family is, they’re still human beings.

Jonathan Moon takes us to the land of Sailor Moon:

1) Has NJPW ever had gimmick matches like steel cage, ladder, etc?

They are very rare, but, yes, there are occasionally gimmick matches in New Japan. Since you asked specifically about ladder and cage matches, I am assuming that you are asking about bouts that include some kind of signature weapon or rules that greatly depart from standard wrestling, so I’m not convering matches that are simply no DQ or have relaxed rules . . . but, to be sure, those have happened as well.

This question is actually pretty timely, because NJPW just had the first ladder match in company history this past weekend. On the 2016 edition of the Dominion show, held on June 19, Michael Elgin defeated Kenny Omega in the bout to become the new IWGP Intercontinental Champion. The match was originally supposed to be Omega defending against Hiroshi Tanahashi, but Tanahashi had to back out of the match due to some nagging injuries.

As far as cage matches go, New Japan held out a looooong time before they finally had one. Specifically, the first NJPW cage battle didn’t occur until August 28, 2003, when Yoshihiro Takayama beat Masahiro Chono by knockout to win the vacant IWGP World Heavyweight Title.

Really, though, gimmick matches go back to the earliest days of the promotion. Just five years after NJPW was formed, Antonio Inoki took on Tiger Ali Singh in a “fence death match” on February 10, 1977 and then Umanosuke Ueda in a bed of nails match on February 8, 1978.

Tiger Jeet Singh was one of the first major heels in the company, and he was a blood and guts brawler, which lead to him working an Indian death match against Antonio Inoki on October 4, 1979 and a chain match against Seiji Sakaguchi on December 6, 1979.

For a period of time, New Japan veteran Takashi Iizuka competed in a series of chain or dog collar matches as his signature bout. He fought Hiroyoshi Tenzan to a double KO in one such match on October 13, 2008 and had another against Yuji Nagata on May 3, 2009 and then again against Togi Makabe on November 8 of the same year.

There have also been lumberjack matches in NJPW, going all the way back to Antonio Inoki facing Rusher Kumura on November 5, 1981. A tag team lumberjack match took place on an October 9, 2004 show with the awesome name “Pro Wrestlers Be Strongest,” as Masa Chono and Don Frye defeated Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Yuji Nagata. A notable recent example ocurred between Hiroshi Tanahashi and Prince Devitt (now Finn Balor) on September 29, 2013, with the gimmick being brought into play because of the repeated interference of the Bullet Club in Devitt’s matches during that period.

Perhaps the most extreme gimmick match ever held on an NJPW card took place on April 10, 1999, when Masahiro Chono, one of the promotion’s biggest stars of the 90s, took on FMW founder Atsushi Onita in Onita’s trademark exploding barbed wire match in the Tokyo Dome. Not to be outdone by Chono, the legendary Great Muta had the same match against Onita on August 28, 1999, which saw Onita dawn his Muta-knockoff “Great Nita” gimmick. Since three is the magic number, Riki Choshu also had the same match against Onita on July 30, 2000.

2) Do they have a no blood policy? I’ve never seen any.

I do not believe that there is a “no blood” policy as such, but, as with gimmick matches, bleeding is exceptionally rare and used for maximum effect. You’re far more likely to see unplanned, “hardway” blood due to the physical nature of some of the wrestlers’ matches.

3) Do they have a weekly show in Japan? Is it live? Is it like the AXS show or more like Raw?

Yes, there is weekly New Japan television program, which is called World Pro Wrestling. It airs on the network TV Asahi at a fairly odd hour of the evening. It is not live but rather consists of pre-taped matches which are usually but not always taped on the same show. You’ve asked if it’s like the New Japan on AXS show that airs in the United States. If you want to get technical, it’s not LIKE the New Japan on AXS show. It IS the New Japan on AXS show. New Japan on AXS is just World Pro Wrestling with some minor edits and English commentary dubbed over the top of it.

In addition to that program, full “special” New Japan cards will air elsewhere on Japanese television, including on TV Asashi’s secondary channel (creatively called “Channel 2”) and on the cable/satellite network Samurai TV, which has an all pro wrestling and combat sports format.

Glenn takes us back to 1997, a damn fine year for professional wrestling:

Longtime reader first time writer, big fan of the column. My question has a couple of parts, specifically relating to booking in 1997:

1. Why wasn’t the WCW title defended more regularly on PPV in 1997 when Hogan was the champ? Was it laziness? A part time deal? Was it defended more on Nitro? It just seems bizarre that for a lot of the year you had your champion either not wrestle or even appear on ppv’s and not really address it (cough cough)

Hogan definitely had a deal that only required him to work a relatively limited number of dates, and, if he wasn’t on a pay per view, it was his prerogative.

2. How did the WWF ppvs fare in comparison where they were defending the title more regularly?

Honestly, the championship matches didn’t seem to matter all that much. Throughout the year of 1997, the WWF pulled in an average pay per view buyrate of 0.61, while WCW had an average PPV buyrate of 0.79. However, that may not be an entirely fair comparison, because 1997 was a transitional year for the WWF’s pay per view business, as just the year before they were still running “In Your House” branded pay per views, which were clearly booked and marketed as b-level shows. So, the company’s fanbase may not have been in the habit yet of shelling out cash for a PPV every single month.

CRISS has a passion for fashion:

I’ve been re-watching a lot of the much-maligned mid-90’s WWF. I’m talking 1993-1996, The Dark Ages. Horrible gimmicks, cheesy presentation. All over these shows is Double J, Jeff Jarrett with that ring gear he wore in the 90’s – you know the stuff: collar, “suspender” ribbons, crazy colour combinations. Plus that mullet. In my opinion, the most ludicrous gear I’ve ever seen. I’ve always wondered if he wore it on purpose for heel heat, since there’s no way we could have taken him seriously with that gear.

So, in your opinion, who has had the worst ring gear in mainstream wrestling. You can do a Top 5 if you like, or even just name a couple from each major promotion over the years. This doesn’t have to be a list of WrestleCrap inductees, just your opinion on the ugliest gear ever.

This one could turn into a column unto itself if I’m not careful.

First, let me say that, in most cases, I give heels the benefit of the doubt and assume that, if they’re wearing something that is over-the-top-hideous (such as the Jarrett example listed in the question), they’re doing it intentionally because they’re the bad guys and they’re not supposed to look cool. Even if they aren’t looking like doofuses on purpose and just have bad fashion sense, they’re still getting the effect of additional heat, regardless of the intention.

Also, as suggested by the question, I’m going to try to stay away from your traditional “Wrestlecrap”-style answers to this question. For the most part, I’m going to stick with gear that is hideous separate and apart from a stupid gimmick.

With all of that said, let me first introduce you to my good friend the Sandman . . .

If you weren’t around in the early 1990s and never understood why ECW icon the Sandman was called “The Sandman,” it’s because he started off not as the beer-swilling trailer trash that we all came to know and love but rather as a stereotypical surfing beach bum. This meant that his ring gear of choice was a literal wetsuit. I can forgive the loud neon colors on the outfit because it was the early 90s and, for better or for worse, that was just the kind of thing we were doing as a society at the time. However, from a kayfabe standpoint, it makes no sense to me that a man competing in one sport would wear athletic gear from a completely different sport. You wouldn’t wear football gear to compete in the triple jump, because that’s not the outfit is designed for.

On a related topic that will probably get me some negative reaction, why the hell does Becky Lynch wear goggles? I half expect her to stop wrestling in the middle of a segment to break out a set of welding equipment.

The video above gives us two examples of ring gear that never should have existed. First off, we’ve got the Southern Boys. Their ring jackets weren’t poorly designed based on the look that they were going for . . . but then you have to take a second to think about the look that they were going for. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is a babyface tag team wearing attire inspired by the military regalia of CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS. Yes, I know that WCW was a promotion based in the American South, and, yes, I know that there are some people in that area who cling to the mistaken notion that there was something noble about what the Confederate Army was doing in the U.S. Civil War, but the fact of the matter is that these outfits were glorifying the the faction in a war that was on the wrong side of history and literally advocating for the trade and abuse of human beings as property. That’s “ugly” in a whole different sense of the world, even if the gear is well-designed.

Following the Southern Boys is “El Gigante” Jorge Gonzalez, the 7′ tall Argentinian basketball player who was recruited by the Ted Turner-owned Altana Falcons and repurposed as a WCW professional wrestler when his basketball career went south. Initially, he wore generic black trunks, but then somebody in the company’s power structure decided to gussy him up a bit. The result was the bedazzled tank top, aluminum foil headband, and bargain basement Roadwarrior vest that you see before you now. Though the man was never Andre the Giant, he now looked like the world’s largest drag queen. Of course, he later became the Giant Gonzales in the WWF, so really he only went from bad to worse . . .

In another opinion about a contemporary WWE performer that probably won’t win me many fans, I’ve never enjoyed Kevin Owens’ look, going back to the time that he was Kevin Steen on the independent circuit. I don’t think that wrestlers always need to have elaborate, expensive gear, but Steen/Owens goes too far in the other direction for my taste. He’s walking around a multi-million dollar company wearing a cutoff t-shirt and athletic shorts, basically the same getup that half the fanbase is wearing while they’re sitting on their couches watching the show while covered in Cheeto dust. He doesn’t look like a “prize fighter” or high level athlete, which is what he’s supposed to be. It’d be one thing if his gimmick were that of a solvenly retch, sort of a modern day Bastion Booger, but it’s not.

Moving back to something that will put me more in line with conventional wisdom, what in the world was going on with the Rock’s gear during his WWF debut? The actual trunks, kneepads, boots, etc. weren’t all that bad, but then there was that . . . thing . . . that he wore out to the ring. I’m not even entirely sure what to call it. It’s not a jacket. It’s not a robe. It’s not even really a cape. It’s just sort of a . . . set of feathered shoulderpads with a bunch of streamers hanging off of it. If he were supposed to be a doofus heel with no fashion sense, that would have worked perfectly, but this guy was supposed to be the company’s new blue chip babyface.

Oh, speaking of dressing like a doofus for heel heat, be sure that you also take a look at Jim Cornette in that video. As always, his outfit is awful, but that’s also clearly the point.

Everybody loves the classic “pink and black attack” look of the original Hart Foundation, which later came to define Bret Hart as a big singles star. However, when the WWF made its first attempt at reviving the Hart Foundation with original member Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart and his brother-in-law “The Rocket” Owen Hart, the company put them in to hammer pants and bizarre jackets that looked like the offspring of a checkered flag and a citrus smoothie. It seemed like a blatant attempt to appeal with children by using bright, flashy colors, but it just went too far. Eventually, Neidhart would leave the company, and Owen would start teaming with veteran Koko B. Ware, using the same basic look.

Of course, Neidhart eventually went from bad to worse, as a few years later he attacked Virgil on an indy show while dressed as a Klansman.

I wish I was making that up.

I know that the question asked about mainstream wrestling, but I just wouldn’t be me if I didn’t throw out some international answers as well. When I first got into Japanese wrestling in the late 1990s, one of the first shows that I watched was the 1995 edition of the Super J Cup tournament, which, though not as epic as the 1994 installment that was required viewing in the VHS tape trading days, is stil pretty damn good in its own right. In that tournament, a young junior heavyweight named Gedo would have a rocket strapped to his ass and make it all the way to the finals before losing to Jushin Thunder Liger. Gedo was in no way, shape, or form a bad wrestler (and he went on to become one of the best bookers in history), but I had a hard time taking him seriously at first, in part because of his tubbier physique but also because he appeared to be wrestling the entire tournament in his pajamas. Hopefully there’s something about the gear that just didn’t translate across cultures.

Going south of the border, one of my least favorite lucha libre costumes was donned by an early 1990s performer in AAA who called himself Winners. Referring to yourself as “Winners” is lame enough, but he kicked things up a notch by dressing as a hybrid of Psicosis’ goodie-two-shoes brother and the Good Humor man. Fortunately for Winners, he would eventually losers his pathetic mask to Super Calo, after which he would have a career-reviving transformation into the badass Abismo Negro.

As an aside, while looking for information about Winners for this article, I ran across a photograph of an obscure 1980s luchador named only “Yanko,” who has very little information about him available online, at least on the English-speaking web. Though I’m hesitant to judge it too harshly because I’ve only seen it in one photograph, Yanko may have one of the more bizarre costumes I’ve seen from a wrestler, as he sports flesh-colored pants which make it appear as though he’s naked from the waist down, aside from a codpiece that is held in place by god only knows what. You can check out that picture on Yanko’s bare bones Luchawiki entry, which is here.

Finally, though he’s a fine wrestler and every interview I’ve heard with him makes him sound like a really nice guy, somebody really needs to give former Chikara star and current indy wrestler Arik Cannon a makeover. Though he’s gotten better over the years, he remains the highest level wrestler that I’ve ever seen to still somewhat regularly sport the oft-derided “trash bag” pants that are a staple of low level independent guys.

That will conclude my look at some of wrestling’s ugliest gear. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of additional suggestions in the comments.

Steve from Boston is a money mark:

I always loved the Million Dollar Man character. How come his main event push lasted not even a year? It started around January 1988 until SummerSlam 1988 and then he was mid carding WM 5. Did Vince not think he was over enough as a heel to be “the guy” against Hogan/Savage/Warrior?

I think this question has something to do with viewing older wrestling through the lens of today’s booking. Today, a wrestler can be a top heel for years and years and years with no interruption. However, from the time of its formation through the end of the Hulk Hogan era, the WWWF/WWF was really based around a top babyface who would cycle through one heel challenger every few months to a year. The heel would show up, get a series of wins on his way up the card, work a program with the champion, and then drop back down the card for the rest of his time with the company. Sammartino, Morales, Backlund, and Hogan’s championship reigns all more or less followed this pattern, and DiBiase was just another one of the guys plugged into that system when Hulkamania ran wild. If anything, the Million Dollar Man’s time as the top heel in the company was unusually long compared to what most bad guys got.

Aaron is the greatest reader in the history of our sport:

I was watching videos from a previous Ask 411 column and got to one of Tony Schivonie and Mike Tenay yelling at each other in a TNA ring for 10 minutes or so. Vince Russo eventually got involved. What the hell was that about? And did it lead to a match?

The segment that you’re asking about comes from the January 29, 2003 TNA show, back in the era when the company was still running weekly pay per views with no traditional television outlet. The segment was a classic example of Vince Russo booking, in that it was done for shock value and one-off entertainment with no real thought given to follow-through or how it would build to the next show. The idea appeared to be that a heel Schiavone would become the personal announcer for Russo’s stable “Sports Entertainment X-treme” (yes, S.E.X.), which was feuding with the main TNA roster at the time. However, Schiavone hadn’t committed to be a part of the promotion over the longer haul, and he was never seen again.

Jeff is gonna make himself look all pretty:

I had some questions about face paint in wrestling. It stems from a promo I vaguely remember from the Legion of Doom probably circa early 90s where they referred to another painted wrestler–the Ultimate Warrior, perhaps?–as their “brother in paint.” It could just be my faulty memory making this up, but nevertheless, randomly thinking about this got me wondering about wrestlers who use face paint as part of their look. What’s the history of face paint in wrestling? Who was the first to use it, and how did its use develop? Is there really any kind of “brotherhood” around it, or did the LOD just throw that out there in the moment? Like anything else, how much of a wrestler using face paint is their own decision to stand out, and how much of it is their being told to do so?

It’s hard to pinpoint who the the true first facepainted wrestler came on to the scene. However, I think that it’s fair to give the Roadwarriors credit for popularizing the look in the early 1980s, even if they were not the true originators. The Roadies themselves are probably two of the four most iconic pro wrestlers to wear face paint in the United States, and the other two wrestlers that I would put in that category – Sting and the Ultimate Warrior – started wearing face paint because of the direct influence of Hawk and Animal, as I covered in more detail in last week’s column when discussing Road Warrior clones.

Another early adopter of face paint was Japanese wrestler Kendo Nagasaki (not to be confused with the British wrestler of the same gimmick name), who donned it when working as a heel in the U.S. in the early 1980s. Nagasaki in turn inspired the painted look of the Great Muta, as in early incarnations of the Muta character, he was said to have been a relative of Nagasaki’s. Of course, Muta’s popularity would lead to almost as many clones in Japan as there have been Roadwarriors clones in the United States.

As far as a “brotherhood” of painted wrestlers is concerned, no, I haven’t heard of any such group existing behind the scenes, at least not any more so than there would be a brotherhood of wrestlers who all wear kick pads or who all wear Zubaz. That was most likely just a line thrown out by Hawk to make the promo more compelling, thought he “brothers in paint” line has been used more than once in pro wrestling. I seem to recall Vampiro directing similar language towards Sting during their feud in the dying days of WCW, which also involved Muta, the KISS Demon, and the Insane Clown Posse at various points.

Regarding how much control a wrestler has over whether he wears paint, it’s pretty much the same as the amount of control that a wrestler has over any aspect of his persona, which is to say that it varies greatly depending on the promotion the wrestler is working in and the era of wrestling he is working in. For example, in today’s super-micromanaged WWE, guys are going to have less freedom to come up with their own ideas (which is not to say it never happens), whereas thirty years ago in the territorial system, a performer would generally have had more flexibility to control aspects of his look.

Dancin’ Stevie K brings the monkey business.

1) If Vince McMahon had been sent to jail as a direct result of the steroid trial and Gorilla Monsoon had taken over the running of the WWF with Linda, how do you feel that would have worked out overall for the business? Would Vince have been barking orders etc. from his cell and Gorilla would be running and overseeing his plans, or would it have been possible that Gorilla would have naturally stepped up to the mark and led the company in a different direction?

That question raises a moot point, because Gorilla Monsoon wasn’t tapped to run the company if Vince wound up behind bars. Jerry Jarrett was under the WWF’s employ at the time, and most accounts point to him being the one who would have taken the reigns of the promotion.

2) Had Gorilla not sadly passed away in 1999 and assuming that he kept in adequate health for many more years to come, where would you have seen his role going from 1996 onwards? It was good to see the confrontations between Gorilla and Stone Cold around that era – I’m guessing that maybe he would have stayed as a commentator and not president (due to good health). In your opinion, how would his style of commentary have fitted into the Attitude era?

I don’t think that Monsoon would have had that much of a role in the WWF during the Attitude Era, even if he were healthy. The man entered his 60s in the late 1990s and was worn down from a twenty-plus year career of wrestling at over 350 pounds, to say nothing of having been on the road as an announcer for many years after that. I suspect that, had he remained in decent health and lived much longer, he probably would have been a “legend” periodically featured on shows, in much the same way we would see Freddie Blassie pop up on television to be revered from time-to-time.

As far as his commentary style is concerned, even if he were capable I don’t see it being a good fit for the late 1990s. As a matter of fact, I never really thought that Monsoon was that great of a commentator in any era, as he often went off on weird tangents that had nothing to do with the match and made wrestlers look incompetent by blantantly calling out things that they did which made no sense. We wre far better off with good ole’ Jim Ross, who focused more on wrestlers’ strengths as opposed to their weaknesses and went out of his way to make wrestling storylines and wrestlers’ personas appeal to fans.

Questions about guys getting into the Hall of Fame seem to have become a staple of Ask 411. Here’s another one, from Victor Li:

I was wondering why Jim Crockett hasn’t been inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Vince has shown that he will put past grudges aside and has inducted rival promoters into the Hall of Fame (like Verne Gagne, Eddie Graham and Fritz von Erich). Certainly, Crockett did a lot more for pro wrestling than some of the promoters that have been honored by the WWE. Is there some bad blood between the two? Or is it a case where his number simply hasn’t been called yet.

One of the things that you have to keep in mind when it comes to the WWE Hall of Fame is that it’s not a “hall of fame” in the traditional sense of the phrase. Generally, the purpose of a hall of fame would be to make sure that the elite of the sport are in and recognized before all others. Granted, there may occasionally be a political issue that keeps an individual out when he might deserve to be in, but, by and large, a traditional hall of fame is merit-based.

The WWE Hall of Fame, meanwhile, has a different model. Though the inductees are genuinely honored and while I’m sure many of them consider it a highlight of their career, the fact remains that the WWE Hall of Fame is more about hosting an event for fans to attend during Wrestlemania weekend and more about marketing WWE merchandise than it is about running a traditional hall of fame. If that weren’t the case, there would be no way that Bruno Sammartino wouldn’t be a first ballot inductee or that Koko B. Ware would go in before Randy Savage.

The other thing to keep in mind is that, seemingly, there is no degree of bad blood that will keep an individual out if WWE wants them in badly enough. Sammartino, Savage, Bret Hart, and the Ultimate Warrior are all examples of that. So, I sincerely doubt that a grudge between the Crocketts and the McMahons would keep Jim out if the E were set on it. I would suspect that he will find his way up on the short list should the promotion ever host another Wrestlemania in a city that was a Crockett stronghold or should the company release a new DVD or collection of content on their Network which focuses on Jim Crockett Promotions ore Mid-Atlantic Wrestling more generally.

There is one other factor which may impact a potential Crockett induction, and it’s something that I just realized when contemplating the answer to this question. Aside from Vince McMahon, Sr., who obviously has some other reasons for being inducted, there are no promoters in the WWE Hall of Fame who weren’t also wrestlers. Bill Watts, Eddie Graham, and Verne Gagne are all legendary wrestlers who have received the honor, but they also had in-ring careers that were worthy of a hall of fame ring separate and apart from anything that they did running their own territories. There is also the outside possiblity that WWE simply isn’t interested in placing purely backstage players into the HOF, which could explain Crockett’s absence.

Raza is taking us back to the Bash:

Back at 1996 at Bash at the Beach, Hogan was revealed to be the third mystery partner, but who were the prime suspects leading up to the event keeping in view the facts that internet/social media was not there in full as they are today and number of WWE/F performers were jumping ships to WCW at that time?

The prime suspect for the turn heading into the Bash was none other than . . . Hulk Hogan. Seriously. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter published the news that Hogan would be the third man several weeks before it happened. Though internet news tidbits didn’t circulate then like they do now, fans who were truly in the know were aware of what was coming.

Dave Ward from the comment section had a question last week that we’ll let close us out:

What wrestling spots do you really not enjoy? Spots that just personally take you out of the action? For me it has to be the tower of doom. It’s just so contrived and it’s oversold by commentators and audiences as something amazing, when it’s seen all the time and looks awful.

This one already generated quite a bit of discussion in the comments, with many agreeing on the Tower of Doom, others mentioning the 619, and still others bringing up the Canadian Destroyer, a move that is a favorite whipping boy when it comes to questions like this.

While most of the answers previously generated focus on complex or convoluted spots, my first answer is actually going to be very basic and old school. I don’t even know if this spot has a name, but it involves the attacking wrestler doubling his opponent over, sticking the opponent’s head in between his legs, jumping a little bit, and landing on his own feet. That’s it. The attacked wrestler’s body doesn’t come into contact with anything aside from his opponent’s balls, and he sells it as though he was injured. Goldust was the last guy who I saw using the move on a regular basis. It has to be my least favorite spot of all time.

And that’ll do it for next week. I’ve got one last fill-in for Mat coming in seven days, so shoot some questions my way if you’re so inclined.