Ask 411 Wrestling: Why Is Shane McMahon Still On TV?

Hey, welcome to a very slightly rushed edition of Ask 411 Wrestling! I am your host, question answerer and all round good guy Mathew Sforcina, and if you don’t believe that, just ask me.

A question that is, via dropping me a line at [email protected] for all your wrestling trivia needs!

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The Trivia Crown

Who am I? A former World Champion (legit!), I’ve main evented at least one WWE PPV, one WCW PPV, and an ECW show that would eventually become a PPV for them. My first title came after I ditched my female manager and picked up a male one. I once forced someone to vacate a title and nearly won it myself, losing in the finals of the tourney to find a new champ. I once won a tag title when my team pinned someone who wasn’t the champ, but it wasn’t a multi-team match. I’ve been managed by Hall of Famers, Authority Figures, Color Commentators, Pop Culture References and someone WWE doesn’t like talking about right now. With half of Jack Swagger in one regard, and tag partners that range from future World Champs to future face painters, I am Who?

Guest has the answer, for the most part)

Who am I? A former World Champion (WCW Heavyweight) I’ve main evented at least one WWE PPV (King of the Ring 97) one WCW PPV (Halloween Havoc) and an ECW show that would eventually become a PPV for them (November to Remember) My first title came after I ditched my female manager (Woman) and picked up a male one (Teddy Long) I once forced someone to vacate a title and nearly won it myself, losing in the finals of the tourney to find a new champ (forced Ahmed Johnson to drop IC title but lost in finals to Marc Mero). I once won a tag title when my team pinned someone who wasn’t the champ (Pinned Michael Hayes in handicap match against Hardy Boys) I’ve been managed by Hall of Famers (Sunny, Jacqueline & Dusty Rhode) Authority Figures (Teddy Long) Color Commentators (Cyrus) and someone WWE doesn’t like talking about right now (Woman) With half of Jack Swagger in one regard (All American), and tag partners that range from future World Champs (JBL) to future face painters (Big Josh/Doink), I am Who? Ron Simmons (Faarooq)

Who am I? An Icon who once lost to an Idol, I share a nickname with a company. Billed mainly from somewhere that exists both everywhere and nowhere, I’ve only ever held tag gold with one guy, although I’m mostly known as a singles guy, if you know me as a wrestler. Because really, despite my holding a different position in the wrestling business for a long time, I’m most famous for something more blasphemous. A guy who once booked himself to receive an honor simply because he could, and who has come out of retirement to both replace AND fight a now retired movie star, I am who?

Getting Down To All The Business

Lots of questions, no time to lose! Oscar starts us off!

I recently watched Wrestling Isn’t Wrestling, again, because I like how the author explained the evolution of Triple H: From his Greenwhich rich pretty-boy to COO. A thing of beauty. It got me thinking about Undertaker and Kane. I really enjoyed their rivalry in the late 90s and appreciated the plot twists as it added depth to the Undertaker character. We all know Paul Bearer was revealed to be Kane’s father, but when you take into account their dates of birth it gets even more complex. Yes, I know they are not related at all. But canon-storyline-wise, how would you explain Paul being Kane’s dad? The way I see it, there are a couple of possibilities:

1) If we use their real birthdates, Kane was 30 in 1997 and Paul Bearer was 43. That means Undertaker/Kane’s mother got pregnant by a 12 year old Paul Bearer when Taker was 1.

2) In wrestling, since we don’t take into account their real places of birth (Madrid, Spain for Kane), then it’s safe to assume that storyline-wise, Paul Bearer was much older than his real age since we don’t use his real birth date either.

How would you describe the evolution of Taker from being ‘dead’ in 1991, to where we are today? I am really curious about your take on Kane as described above.

Can I just stick the Kane Evolution Schematic here and call it a day?

No?

Dammit.

OK, so they did actually talk about this on Raw one time…

Via the magic of a camera not being turned off for some reason, we got the story of Paul Bearer getting freaky with Undertaker’s Mother when he was 19, which we presume was the time when Kane was conceived. He was a virgin and was seduced by Undertaker’s Mother one night after Paul had gone to wrestling.

Now, that means they are fudging someone’s age by 7 years. But given that they’ve admitted Bearer’s age on air as part of the tributes to him when he passed, by process of elimination, in WWE canon, Kane is only 42 years old, not 49. At least until he dies, and they have his age on screen, and at that point all bets are off.

As for the evolution, I really want to just Schematic it, but instead…

91: Undertaker is an actual undead wizard being.
93: Undertaker is an AMERICAN undead wizard being.
97: Undertaker is the Lord Of Darkness, with a burnt little brother out there.
99: Mark is getting too deep into his character.
00: Undertaker is a biker.
01: Undertaker is an evil biker.
04: Undertaker is all of the above.
11: Undertaker is a special attraction.
16: Undertaker is retired.

That’s the shorthand version. Does anyone want the longhand?

Nightwolf has a couple questions.

1. I know the WWE did the draft because their talent pool is very diverse and deep and they want to give the talent as much t.v. time as possible. My question to you is why do the draft and why put Shane McMahon as GM of Smackdown? We all know Stephanie is going to inherit the WWE when Vince finally croaks. Why bother doing a draft if that’s going to be the case?

Because he’s a character that was popular when he came back before Wrestlemania when WWE was desperate, so they’re keeping him around as a character because people like him, and WWE needs McMahons around because they can’t think of how to structure wrestling without the easy out of them there’s a rich history of the family being tied up in the business.

As for the draft, USA Network wanted Smackdown to be higher rated, and WWE was all “Exclusive and Live! That’s the ticket!” and went for the draft without a second thought.

Literally, I think.

(I choose to remember him like that, and not the meme going around right now…)

So yeah, in both cases, WWE thinks it’ll be popular, so they did a Draft and kept Shane around.

2. Why did the WWE abandon the Light Heavyweight title for the Cruiserweight Title?

The Cruiserweight Title was a big part of WCW establishing dominance in the Monday Night Wars, with a style of wrestling that WWF couldn’t touch. It took a while, but Vince cottoned on that these small guys could be popular, and so he went out and got… Small guys who wrestled like big guys.

The Light Heavyweight title had a stigma, rightly or wrongly, mostly rightly, of being a pale knock off that failed to achieve what it set out to do. Plus, look at the lineage. At the time, guys like Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio and Chris Jericho were main eventers or at the very least upper mid card guys in WWE, as opposed to the lineage of the Light Heavyweight title that included Christian and Jeff Hardy and… Gillberg, who held it 453 days. Which isn’t exactly a sterling resume for a title there.

So yeah, the Cruiserweight title had a better lineage, better memories associated with it, and at the time of the Great Belt Merger of 2001, the Light Heavyweight Champion, X-Pac, was injured, so it was easier to just drop it and continue with the Cruiserweight title than it was to delay a merger until he was back.

Jeremy has a simple question.

Why are the WWE heel commentators more gullible than the face commentators (i.e believing Eva Marie’s excuses)?

Because their job is to reiterate/defend the heel logic so that the face commentators can mock and question it. In wrestling you need to constantly reinforce the storylines and gimmicks at play, and that means explaining the (ideally) twisted logic of the heels so that you, the viewer, is left in no doubt as to why it sucks.

After all, in wrestling, the actions of a good guy…

Are often near identical to the actions of a bad guy.

So you need heel announcers to fully embrace the heel’s logic and actions so they can argue the point and leave you in no doubt as to what’s going on.

Although, that said, in current WWE booking, most heels are rational adults and the babyfaces all act like entitled 5 year olds having mainlined their first 5 Hour Energy shot, so heel commentators believing the heels is arguably the right thing to do, really…

ShadowmrJ has a simple question.

Ok, I’ve got Tazz and I think perhaps Kurt Angle but who are the previous 8 mayors of suplex city?

So in the reveal trailer for WWE 2K17, Paul Heyman fails to annunciate clearly for some people, and he appears to state that Brock Lesnar is the ‘9th Mayor’ of Suplex City. In fact, he’s saying ‘Night Mayor’, which is both a play on ‘Nightmare’ and an actual thing now in some cities, where the Night Mayor is resposnsible for making the city awesome at night. So Brock is both a nightmare and is making Suplex City happen at night. Punny.

But alright, previous mayors?

Lou Thesz
Gary Albright
Scott Steiner (Rick was Deputy)
Curt Hennig
Kenta Kobashi
Steven Regal
Tazz
Kurt Angle

But that leaves off Dr Death and Vader, which seems wrong. But again, this isn’t the list as such, Suplex City was a meritocracy for a long time, democratic elections are new, even if at the moment there’s just two men with votes…

So Nelson has a question for the column.

What if the Undertaker went to Ring of Honor?

The more important question is ‘What if Trish Stratus joined the Four Horsemen?’

(I’ve upgraded to using other people’s obscure in-jokes now!)

But alright, if Undertaker went to ROH, first off he wouldn’t be The Undertaker. For Mark Calaway to go to ROH, assuming WWE isn’t doing cross-promotion, he’d have to have got out of his WWE contract, and if/when that happens, if he doesn’t re-sign, then WWE keeps the name, since they came up with it. So we get the return of Mean Mark or Texas Red or some such.

If ROH would want to hire him, I’d be 99% sure it would be solely for an autograph signing rather than anything in-ring, but if they did really put together Mean Mark in the ring… I’m not sure who you’d put him in there with. Elgin maybe, they’d have the best shot at a power match, given that Mark would probably have to avoid overt Taker moves for fear of a lawsuit… Maybe work an Icon match, him vs Tanahashi or something…

I just wouldn’t see it. Taker is retired now, at least he thinks so, and I can’t see ROH having anywhere near the money to lure him to them, nor have any use for him there. Maybe at the peak of his World Title run, maybe, but modern day Taker? In Modern day ROH? Nope, I just can’t see that working out.

Brian has a few thoughts.

Quick take/juxtaposition of the new shows through four weeks:

-RAW: Worried about the women’s division. Yes, the two biggest/best talents are there, and I love what they’re doing with Nia Jax. However, with 60 percent of the roster and three hours to use, the women only got two short segments this week. One segment included Alicia Fox and Dana Brooke in addition to Sasha and Charlotte, but the other segment was a Nia jobber squash, so that means five roster women wrestlers got about 11 minutes total out of 180. Perhaps Nikki or Bailey (or Victoria? . . . I’ll wait for you to compose yourself) end up there soon and that changes things, but that’s just speculative–what we do know is that the Cruiserweights are coming, so if the women can only get 11 minutes now, what happens then? You can even argue that the cruiserweights might take away from the women, because if you want to be impressed by what smaller wrestlers can do, it’s right in front of you, but even without that conjecture this does not represent growth.

-SMACKDOWN: Excited about the tag division. Beyond the obvious awesome that is AmAlpha, the whole division feels really loose and open. With this particular group I could buy just about any of them as Smackdown tag champs, and could also buy any new team or paired singles wrestlers with the belts eventually as well. It reminds me of when Kendrick and London held the titles at the beginning–it was fun and you knew they’d deliver great wrestling, even though you didn’t really think they were “champs” on the level that RAW had (although now that I check, Spirit Squad held the tag titles for the first half of their reign, before an epic eight all future Hall of Famers list in their second half–Ric Flair/Roddy Piper, Rated RKO, John Cena/Shawn Michaels, and the Hardy Boyz). I’d like to see heel Usos eventually against Jordan/Gable, and in the meantime a bunch of fresh matchups are in store.

Thoughts?

Both shows have positives and negatives going for it, and both shows have problems coming up that they seem to be drifting towards like the Titanic heading towards the iceberg but they’re making no real effort to correct. But at least on Raw, Reigns winning the Universal Title will make everything just fine I’m sure!

What about you, dear readers? What’s your take on Raw and Smackdown so far? Comment below, why don’t you?

One more question: In reviewing the London/Kendrick title run, I also see that during the South Africa tour in September 2007, they won the World Tag straps from Cade/Murdoch on a house show, and dropped it back to them three days later at another South Africa house show. Is this the most recent example of WWE transferring belts and then transferring them back on the house show circuit? I remember the Colons winning or losing a title on a house show more recently, but not the classic “we switched the titles back and forth so when we resume tv nothing has really changed”. Any more recent WWE examples?

So not actual title changes at houseshows, like Joe winning the NXT title at one, but the old “title goes back and forth between two guys in time for TV” bit? OK…

Go back far enough, there was the Jarrett/Razor/Jarrett IC title series in 95, but the thing about those was that they were brought up a lot on TV, but they fit the criteria regardless. But actual back and forth ones, WWE doesn’t tend to do them. The last time they did one was in April 2007, where Mickie James won the Women’s Title in a three way match when she pinned Victoria in Paris, which gave the former champ, Melina, a reason to come out later and demand a rematch which she got and then won the title, the belt changing hands twice in one night. (The thing being that the first title switch was a mistake, Melina didn’t break up the pinfall fast enough you see.)

But yeah, the South Africa was the most recent one, WWE doesn’t tend to do this… Unless you count the Hardcore title. Then it occurred a few hundred times thanks to the 24/7 rule.

And one last one: June 22nd, 2007, OVW house show “Jay Bradley b Paul Burchill (put his house on the line) and Idol Stevens (put his car on the line) in a 3-WAY No-DQ match to retain the OVW Heavyweight title” Can you find me any more info about this and/or video? I think those are hilarious luchas de apuestas and I can’t recall ever hearing either of those types of things as stakes before.

If video exists, WWE has it, as WWE owns the OVW library between Aug 99 and Feb 08. But given OVW still exists, WWE hasn’t put all the OVW stuff online. After all, they got it mostly for DVDs of guys who came up through the company…

Sadly in terms of build and such I have nothing concrete. Perhaps a reader does?

Michael has a bunch of questions.

1) For all the talk of Ric Flair’s figure four being a legendary finishing move, I don’t recall him winning a lot of big matches with it especially world titles. If memory serves, he regained the WWF title from Savage using it and regained the NWA from Rhodes in 1986 using it but, I believe in both cases, those guys came in with bum legs due to sneak attacks by Flair so it wasn’t like Flair won due to the move being that devastating.

That being said, how many world titles(only NWA/WWF world titles not tag, U.S., etc.) has Flair won with the figure four?

Well that depends on which ones you count, you see-

*is beat up*

Let’s go through them in turn.

NWA

September 17, 1981: Dusty Rhodes – Suplex Counter
November 24, 1983: Harley Race – Cross Body Press
May 24, 1984: Kerry Von Erich – Roll Up Counter
August 9, 1986: Dusty Rhodes – Rope Assisted Figure Four Leg Lock
November 26, 1987: Ron Garvin – Cage Shot
May 7, 1989: Ricky Steamboat – Inside Cradle
January 11, 1991: Sting – Headbutt
May 19, 1991: Tatsumi Fujinami – Schoolboy
July 18, 1993: Barry Windham – Figure Four Leg Lock

WCW World

December 27, 1993: Vader – Leg Clip Into Roll Up
May 14, 1994: Vacant (Ricky Steamboat) – Headbutt
December 27, 1995: Randy Savage – Arn Anderson’s Brass Knuckles
February 11, 1996: Randy Savage – Liz’s Shoe
March 14, 1999: Hulk Hogan – Figure Four/Screwjob
May 15, 2000: Jeff Jarrett – Inside Cradle
May 29, 2000: Kevin Nash – Belt Handing

WCW International

June 23, 1994: Sting – Roll Up

WWF

January 19, 1992: Vacant (Rumble) – Toss Over Top Rope
September 14, 1992: Randy Savage – Figure Four Leg Lock

So yeah, only 3 title wins with the Figure Four, one of which was a screwjob.

2) As a tie in, do you find this move to be severely overrated as a finishing move? Most big names, when they hit their move it was generally game over(Hogan legdrop, Savage elbow, Austin Stunner, etc.) but Flair it seems has the move reversed more often than not. Granted nowadays finishers are kicked out of a tad more often than they used to be but even in the 80’s/early 90’s guys weren’t submitting to the figure four.

Different time, different attitude. In Flair’s heyday, in the NWA, you didn’t have bulletproof finishers like Hogan’s leg drop and so on. You had your big moves, sure, but the NWA was much more about unpredictability, about matches ending multiple ways, and honestly, a guy like Flair, he shouldn’t be winning clean all that often anyway. The Figure Four is Flair’s Finisher, Frankly, by (de)Fault. He doesn’t have any other ‘finisher’, so the Figure Four gets upgraded to one.

Taken as a WWF style Finisher, yeah, it’s overrated. For what it is? It’s fine.

3) Did Cody Rhodes legit break his nose against Rey Mysterio leading to the “hideous,” plastic mask Rhodes or was it all a work?

It was a legit injury that happened to work perfectly for the people involved and the gimmicks. Sometimes things just fall into place, albeit with pain and injury involved. But as well as it all worked out, Cody in every shoot interview has claimed it was a legit broken nose.

4) Do you find Bruiser Brody to be as overrated as I do? I mean, dude had the crazed lunatic down pat but I never thought he was anything special in the ring. I think he was more aura than anything. The fact that he bounced around promotions every month didn’t help IMO but I’ve read for years how difficult he was to work with and would stiff opponents if they crossed him etc. Add all that together and I think he’s more myth than actual legendary wrestler.

I think he’s rated pretty much on par by most people. Certainly the way he died played a factor in the myth of Brody, whenever someone dies suddenly and unexpectedly and such, they get a mythos attached to them, the gone too soon mentality, certainly Brody has that going for him.

But you talk about how he wasn’t anything special in the ring, that’s kind of the point, like a lot of guys who are the forefathers of a style, you can get lost in the later versions and forget how revolutionary the original was. Brody was never a 5 star mat technician, no. But he pioneered the brawling style that eventually, among other things, formed the bedrock of the Attitude Era. So many people try to copy and imitate Brody, not for his technical skill, but for his aura, his charisma, and his style.

You don’t have to like it, by any means. But he’s not overrated, or underrated. He’s rated.

5) I saw footage not long ago of George Steele in the WWF in the early 80’s and he was doing his own interviews. When did he become the non-verbal idiot who just ate turnbuckles?

Mostly when Vince McMahon Jr got a hold of him.

Prior to his arrival in WWF, George started as a masked man, The Student, and then eventually becoming George Steele, both characters being wild, out of control and with great strength. He got the tongue and the turnbuckle pads prior to WWF, after eating mints to hide him being a little drunk before a show, and after a pillow was thrown into the ring one time.

But when he first came into WWWF, he was an Intelligent Mad Man, he spoke about how he had an amateur wrestling background and was a teacher and stuff, which explained the ability to work the arm, and was an odd fit with the wild man image and style in the ring.

So much so that during one promo, after he cut a normal one, Vince McMahon told him that he was being too eloquent and smart sounding. So, as a joke, he cut another promo where he just spoke in duh-duh-duhs. To his surprise, Vince loved it, and he was stuck like that.

He was eating turnbuckles before he went totally inaudible, but the full package came in shortly after he became full time in WWE in the early 80’s.

6) Why did Mike Rotundo’s in ring name fluctuate from Rotundo to Rotunda?

Because his shoot name is Mike Rotunda, and you can’t trademark a shoot name, so Vince changed it to Rotundo so he could own the trademark. Hence the flip flopping back and forth, whenever he worked for Vince he’d be Rotundo, elsewhere he should be Rotunda.

7) As a follow up, don’t you think IRS basically ruined people’s overall image of him as a wrestler? Dude was super respected in Florida then goes to WWF where he and Barry Windham form an awesome tag team then to NWA where he’s in the great Varsity Club and he’s considered an amazing technician, then he’s all of a sudden IRS, some accountant wearing a tie and scolding people about paying taxes.

And is an over upper-midcard guy who got a solid push as tag champ and had a solid career for a while there, so I can see why he’d be fine with it. Yeah, it would be hard to buy him as a main eventer after the gimmick, but he wasn’t going to be one in WWF anyway, so why not play an over the top gimmick while you’re there and then go ‘serious’ if/when you leave? Certainly I’m sure some people could never take him seriously again, but wrestling is a weird thing, you never know which comedy character might suddenly work as a serious money maker, if you let it…

8) Where did the IRS gimmick come from and why?

From Vince McMahon’s mind in April when he was doing his tax returns.

But yeah, it was an obvious gimmick, few people enjoy paying taxes, so it was an easy idea to riff on. The exact origin is lost, however, but it came about as cheap but solid heat. And it worked, obviously.

And on that slightly buck passing note, I bid you good bye for now, until next time, pay your taxes!