Ask 411 Wrestling: Will Anyone Beat Bruno Sammartino’s Title Reign Record?

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Teddy Hart/Punk fight: I didn’t include mentioning that fight because Punk has repeatedly said it had no factor in his leaving TNA, and I found no source beyond fans that said otherwise.

The Trivia Crown

Who am I? I share a connection to the above. I’ve used the Freebird rule, and lost someone else’s hair for them. My most common ring name was based on a pop culture reference at first, although by now it’s totally disconnected from that, in part due to spelling. My first American PPV appearance isn’t on the WWE Network in full. I’ve appeared in video games for two companies, neither of them WWE. I’m currently in a major company in a non-wrestling role, although I have at least one other successful iron in the fire, albeit one involving a guy who helped kill WCW, according to another iron-firer on the same network/non-wrestling person in a different major wrestling company. Who am I?

Gutter Punk has the answer, with some minor changes, thanks in part to Kano and Bobby Wonderbread

Who am I? I share a connection to the above. (Filthy Animals) I’ve used the Freebird rule, (3live Kru) and lost someone else’s hair for them. (Arturo Rivera)
My most common ring name was based on a pop culture reference at first, although by now it’s totally disconnected from that, in part due to spelling. (Conan the Barbarian) My first American PPV appearance isn’t on the WWE Network in full. (WCW/AAA When Worlds Collide) I’ve appeared in video games for two companies, neither of them WWE. (WCW & AAA) I’m currently in a major company in a non-wrestling role, (TNA as a manager) although I have at least one other successful iron in the fire, albeit one involving a guy who helped kill WCW, according to another iron-firer on the same network/non-wrestling person in a different major wrestling company. (Keeping it 100, with Disco Inferno, who Cyrus HATES) Who am I? Konnan

What am I? I’m a PPV that the above guy wrestled on. Historically important, I saw multiple gimmick matches, one title change, and a shoe. A title match occurred prior to the event, which was shown on TV, although it ended in a DQ. I had several WWE hall of famers wrestle on me, although one of them was under a different name than what he got put into the hall of fame as, unlike his partners. Opened by a jr, ending in a no contest, and involving the man, the myth, the legend, Joe Gomez, I am what?

Getting Down To All The Business

We start with Michael, of Michael’s Spin On Things!

Hey man, I’ve got a question for you for the column that I think is somewhat interesting — what is the largest group of wrestlers who have all held tag titles with every other wrestler? Not including the Freebird rule, as I mean separate reigns (an example would be Edge, Christian, and Jericho, who have all been tag team champions with one another). It doesn’t have to be the same belts or in the same promotion. Are there any groups of four guys or other groups of three? Thought of Kane/Taker/Big Show and then Austin/HHH/HBK as well

An interesting question, indeed. The problem is basically math, in that three men only need three title reigns, which is simple enough, but four men requires six reigns, which is pushing it.

There’s a glut of the Attitude era main eventers, Taker/Kane/Rock/Mick/Austin, who don’t quite get to four between them, thanks to specific combos not having the belts (Mick/Taker, Austin/Kane).

Certainly the three trios you’ve listed are the ones that spring to mind first as trios. Big Show does have another set, as he had reigns in WCW with Lex Luger and Sting, who were also WCW tag champs as well.

Another trio would be Benoit/Jericho/Edge, which I think means that Benoit/Jericho/Edge/Christian is the closest to a perfect 4 that you’ll get, just missing a Benoit/Christian team to complete the set.

Of course, I’m sure there’s a indy fed somewhere where they’ve mixed and matched partners that can get to four. But in the big leagues? I don’t think so, unless a reader can correct me, which I welcome.

Reth Sollins asks a question that’s not quite as easy as it sounds.

Long time reader first time asker. I was wondering when was the last time in a mainstream promotion a wrestler won with a move that wasn’t their finisher or signature. I can’t remember there ever being a time in recent memory. Obviously there have been cases where injuries and botches have changed the finish (Road Dogg v Eddie comes to mind when Eddie popped his elbow and told Road Dogg to just cover him) and the classic tainted finish like low blows and weapon shots. But im talking purely a bog standard normal move where it was the planned finish.

Is a DDT a bog standard normal move now? Because if so, Alexa Bliss won at Payback with one. If not, then you start getting into the issue of if a roll up is a normal move or not, as half of the matches on Raw it seems at times end on distraction roll ups.

In terms of moves that are transitional winning matches, that’s probably down to whoever got pinned last by a clothesline at a Survivor Series or the like. Oddly enough WWE doesn’t tend to end matches on small moves all that often.

But I’ll stick to Bliss, or failing that, whoever last lost via roll up.

Speaking of making rulings, Chris asks about refs.

Besides enforcing the rules and calling the end of a match, what exactly do referees do? How much of a role or influence do they have during a bout? If a change is decided mid-match, is it relayed in through the ref? And if so, how does he relay to the wrestlers? Also, why are there no female refs? Thank you for your time.

Ok, plenty to discuss there, let’s take it one at a time.

Referees have a variety of roles, depending on what level of reality you’re looking at. Starting at the shoot level, a ref is there to pass information between the wrestlers when required, to hold onto gimmicks if needed, to pass on messages from backstage if they’re wearing ear pieces, keep people to time, help with spot calling if needed, basically they help to keep the match on track, if needed.

On a kayfabe level, they’re there to make sure the match goes on with the rules, to use their discretion about interference, illegal holds and moves, to decide a match’s outcome by their application of the rules.

And on a storytelling level, they are there to give the whole thing the air of a sporting contest which is essential for wrestling. Wrestling is not sport, as such, but in order for it to work, traditionally, it requires the wrapping of a sporting contest. Merely knocking someone out isn’t quite as satisfying if you don’t get to see your guy get his or her hand raised, to get the title, etcetc. So having a ref helps sell the notion that this is a sporting contest between two otherwise insane people.

How much role/influence do they have? The old saying goes that if you notice a ref during a match, they’re not doing it right. A ref is very important in the structure and floe of a match, but 99% of the time, they need to be invisible to a degree. It’s like having the ring set up correctly, or having your ring announcer have a loud, clear voice. You notice when it’s not there, not working. A good ref can’t save a match, but a bad ref can help tank one.

In WWE/televised wrestling, yes, in the very unlikely event something has changed mid match, the backstage people can speak into the ref’s ear and then they pass on the message. He does this by talking to them. Wrestlers and refs speak to each other all the damn time in the ring, they just do it in low voices, and/or mix in the important stuff with insults/kayfabe comments. So a ref might admonish someone for a closed fist usage, and in the middle of it drop something like “Come on, don’t make me DQ you, you’ve got 5 extra minutes will DQ you if I need to!”

As for female refs, they do exist, often in female based feds, and/or when a female wrestler goes into a storyline where they work as a ref, but they’re not too common, no. It’s partly a holdover from contact sports, where you don’t normally see female referees in football and the like, it’s just been part of sport for a long time that men ref men’s sports. Plus refs have to take bumps occasionally, which gets a little problematic if the ref is a woman. And in WWE at least, refs also help do ring crew, and so that can be a factor, historically at least.

I’d be curious to see a female ref in a major company who was just another ref, actually. I’d hope that people would accept it, but maybe not, it’s hard to tell. But like a lot of wrestling, it’s based on traditions, which are themselves based on making it look like an actual real sport.

Nightwolf asks two different questions about two kinds of streak.

1. In wrestling it is said that every streak should be broken. Wouldn’t that be a false statement? The current streaks are: Bruno Sammarntio: Longest Champ at 8 years, and Andre the Giant: Undefeated 15 years. I know Sammartino and Andre lost to Ivan Koloff and Hulk Hogan respectively. However, I don’t see Vince McMahon putting the World title on someone for 2,804 days just to beat Sammartino’s record of longest World Champion or having someone go undefeated for 16 years to beat Andre’s record.

Well yeah, especially considering that Andre record is full of crap. Andre lost prior to Wrestlemania 3 a few times, and went to draws as well, so that one is fake.

But no, not every record in wrestling has to be broken. The notion that you break streaks is sound, in the sense that it gives stories to tell, a benchmark or time limit to work towards, it’s another way to tell a different story, when done right. When done poorly, like with the New Day and their tag reign, it is very much just killing time, sure, but it can give you new stories to tell.

As for Bruno, no, no-one is ever going to match his run as champion, simply because the business has changed far too much. Bruno was champ for that long because a feud would play out over three months at a time, he didn’t have to defend the title each month on PPV, he didn’t have weekly TV time to fill. A reign that long back then, would be something akin to a Cena or Punk reign that lasted over a year or so. Bruno’s run with that title won’t ever be beaten with a world title.

I can MAYBE see some sort of gimmick where someone creates a specific PPV based ‘title’ where they only defend on said PPV, once a year, and having that last nine years and thus ‘beat’ Bruno’s record, MAYBE, but that’s pretty petty, even by Vince’s standards. He likes Bruno now, anyway, not like Demolition, which is why New Day had to beat that record.

2. I was watching the Legends of JBL report: Undertaker week. At one Point JBL says if you made a segment with the Undertaker, you’ve made it as a wrestler. He then goes on to say that Randy Orton and Batista’s careers took off after facing the Undertaker. So it got me thinking. Is this why they had Roman Reigns go over the Undertaker? Roman Reigns vs Brock Lesnar at WM 34 will be the 4th Coronation of Roman Reigns as the face of WWE. Roman Reigns going over the Undertaker would stick it to the fans who have been opposed to Roman Reigns.

Well yeah. The entire point of that was to retire Taker via having him put over the guy that WWE insists is the guy who’s gonna lead them into the future. I’m not sure it’s a matter of Reigns taking off because he was just near Taker, the notion JBL was talking about was that having a program with Taker has been a standard in WWE for a while in that if you got to work with Taker, and you won, or at least didn’t get killed, that meant WWE had faith in you, and Taker gave you the seal of approval of sorts, which was important.

Reigns on the other hand, that’s just Taker’s on his way out, he’s a company man, and so he would put the next big guy over, and WWE feels that that is Reigns. Reigns already has that tick of approval, several times over. Getting the win over Taker at WM and to retire him isn’t just about Reigns’ career taking off, it’s about establishing him as THE GUY now.

I still don’t think it’ll work how they want it to, but we’re far too gone now to do anything but ride it out…

It’s not about sticking it to the fans, it’s about attempting to set Reigns up going forward as the center of the WWE Universe.

Marcus asks about long names.

Since first seeing him in the UK tournament I’ve become a fan of Tyler Bate. There is on thing that bugs we about his matches though…the name of his finisher, Tyler Driver ’97. That’s quite a mouthful. That’s eight syllables. It just sounds awkward coming out of an announcer’s mouth. My question is, can you think of any finishers whose names are longer than eight syllables? Thanks.

Moss-Covered Three-Handled Family Gradunza.

That’s 11, which Perry Saturn learned from Chris Jericho, apparently.

That has to be the record. I mean, ‘She calls it the Rear View’ is only 6…

Oh, wait. Zack Sabre Jr. He has several submission moves he wins with. And the name of one of them, a modified double arm octopus hold? Ahem.

Hurrah! Another Year, Surely This One Will Be Better Than the Last; The Inexorable March of Progress Will Lead Us All to Happiness

He took the name as a joke from an EP of the same name by British post-rock band Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies.

But he has won matches with it, ergo it’s a finisher, ergo that’s the name of a finisher. And at 32 syllables, if there’s a longer one out there, someone is being deliberately obtuse.

Speaking of obtuseness, Brillbo Baggins asks about my writing of this very column!

Still loving the column….obviously, and thanks as always was answering my previous questions. This time I have a question about the column itself and how you do it. You’ve been doing this for a long time now and we see the questions that get asked more than once, sometimes regularly in case of Hogan’s backup, Savage’s blackballing, Muhammad Hassan etc. I was wondering do you keep some kind of massive Excel file listing all the previous topics discussed and links to the column that they were in so that your can refer back to them or do you just take each new week as it comes? Obviously you put a huge amount of work into it and I was just curious about your methods.

I don’t have a spreadsheet. I did for a while not include questions that I knew I’d answered, I’d do a quick google and send a link, but to be honest, given that the first edition of Ask 411 Wrestling I did was Xmas Eve, 2008, even with breaks and such, I’ve answered a lot of questions. So much so that even an excel sheet would be overwhelmed.

If I find a question I recall answering in the past, I’ll do a google search and depending on how long ago it was, I’ll toss in a link, or update the answer if new info has come to light, or just rework the old answer. But a lot of the time now, I’ve forgotten what I have answered, and to be fair, a good chunk of my readers, I’d suspect, have not read all my work, they’re newer than that, so to them? Totally brand new.

But yeah, just a combination of my memory and Google-Fu.

Paul wants to discuss technical details too, just of a different kind.

So, Braun Strowman pulled off three big moves the past few weeks; flipped the stretcher, flipping the ambulance and breaking the ring. My question is, how did they pull those off? I don’t see the switch the stretcher. Every way I think they could flip the ambulance wouldn’t have it landing that softly. Always been curious how they collapse the ring.

To the tape!

…

No, the other tape.

The stretcher was easy. If you watch the video, they cut viewpoints from a shot of Roman being strapped in, to a shot of Braun’s back where he grabs ‘Roman’ and rolls him off the ledge. That was a cut, from ‘live’ to the recorded bit where Braun rolled a dummy off. Add in some camera glitchiness for splicing back into live action, you’re done. While Raw plays the video of Braun dumping the dummy, Roman got off the stretcher, jumped down onto the ledge, and they reattached him to it, or basically just got him down safely. They messed up a little there, as the stretcher that got tossed landed the other way around than when they showed Roman, but for framing purposes they chose to ignore that.

It’s vaguely similar with the ambulance. As Braun walks around and closes the side door of the ambulance, Roman gets up and gets out of the back, so there’s no-one inside when it’s tipped over. To tip it, you’ll notice that you never saw the left hand side of the ambulance, it was covered by the back door and never shown on screen. Presumably that was where they attached pulleys or hydraulics or a pneumatic jack or whatever mechanical way they did the flip.

Breaking the ring, the way WWE does it, was revealed by Big Show back in 2015 on Jericho’s podcast. Basically right before the spot, in the case being discussed at the time it was Brock/Big Show, they did a double down that was filmed in a close up, and during that time, they inflated airbags under the ring that lifted the ring a couple of inches and removed the ring’s stability.

So then when they land, the airbags deflate, causing the effect of the poles shooting outwards and thus having the whole thing go down. Beyond that, in terms of specifics as to if they remove the bottom ropes and such, I presume so, and I can guess, but I can’t tell you for sure.

Speaking of Braun, Camelback BalloomBiy HuggyWuggy Sambo had a question about him.

Any word as to why Braun Strowman stopped using his reverse chokeslam? I personally thought it was stupid looking. I assume the masses did too.

On the Steve Austin podcast a year ago, he mentioned he was trying to get the move over, but obviously he’s stopped that now. I strongly suspect it was the fact that he moved from working with guys much smaller than him on a regular basis and moving onto bigger guys, both in terms of size and in name, that was why he stopped. It’s an odd bump to take, and on a bigger guy, it’s kinda hard, and doesn’t look great. Now, had it gotten over, they could have made it work. But he was over, not the move, so clearly moved to a simpler, easier, but just as impressive move in the powerslam.

Blake asks about Edge and Christian’s balls.

Thanks for finally taking the title off the man of the cave and congrats on the big win. I’m excited to see you lose that title, when ever that may be.

NEVER!!!

Anyway, since watching wrestling theres been one question thats been on my mind more than any other. You know that spot in every Christian/ Edge ladder match where they climb to the top of the ladder only for the ladder to get pushed over and edge or christian topple over with the ladder and end up nutting themselves on the top rope. How is it done? Is this truely the ultimate sacrifice on their behalf for our entertainment or are the boys wearing a cup (protection)?

I couldn’t find records of either man stating that they did or didn’t wear protection, but the way I was taught to land crotch first on ropes was to try and make the ropes hit your inner thigh first, and then slide up into the crotchal area with less momentum. Same as cage doors or corner posts, it’s not pleasant, by any means, but ropes have give, and compared to some of the other bumps you could take…

For instance, in one of the ladder matches Christian, I believe, overshot and basically went straight to the outside. I’m sure he’d have taken a dozen ropes to the crotch over that bump.

But yeah, you take the brunt of the impact on your thigh first, then slide.

APinOz talks about TV a bit.

In 1985 here in Australia, the WWF and Channel 10 put wrestling back on TV for the first time since our own late-lamented local promotion folded. By the middle of the year, local legend Ron Miller had arranged a tour by mid-card NWA stars and their show was shown on Channel 7, along with quite a few NWA matches from their Worldwide show. So my question is, did the NWA ever seriously view Australia as a place where they could send their weekly show, presumably to Network 7, as a rival to WWF? I’d heard rumours of such? Was it possible we almost had the equivalent of the Monday Night Wars in Australia more than a decade earlier?

Not really, because touring globally as a brand wasn’t on the cards for the NWA at that time, and TV time was meant to sell live events. So if there was no live event, why get TV time at a cost?

I couldn’t find any record of the NWA/WCW viewing Australia back then then as anything, despite the man who ran the Australian WCW, Jim Barnett, being involved with the NWA and Crockett (where do you think the WCW name came from?)

I mean, possibly they did show NWA Worldwide or so on TV down here, I know the WCW Disney tapings were shown on Channel 9 down here, so maybe? But if it was, it wasn’t anything more than just sending tapes to a TV station, they never planned a tour or viewed Australia as anything, I don’t think. Australian Wrestling really needs a solid book on the subject, but I’m not that guy.

Back in about 1993, when I was writing for a so-called “smart” publication, I read a report that Jim Herd had contacted Vince McMahon and proposed a co-promoted Supershow featuring NWA vs WWF matches, and Herd offered McMahon the chance to book the show himself. Supposedly, McMahon declined, ever reluctant to give ANY publicity to the competition, even though he could presumably have booked all of his wrestlers to go over. Have you ever heard of such an event being proposed? If it was true, would McMahon have been concerned that NWA stars may have “gone into business for themselves” if they were all booked to lose?

Funny I mentioned my first go round of Ask 411 earlier on, because this question actually came up in that. And yeah, I dismissed it as nonsense then, and I haven’t heard anything about it since then to change that opinion. Beyond giving publiticy to anotyher company (not named ECW), and the whole “Whoops, I just broke your champ’s ankle, what a shame…” concept, my biggest reason for assuming this is fake is that Vince never talked about it. Surely, if this offer has been floated, Vince would have sent Gorilla out on TV and talked about how other companies were begging to work with the WWF or some such.

Suffice to say, I’ve never seen a shred of evidence to support this notion. I now await lots of shreds from readers eager to prove me wrong.

Has a major promotion ever been suspended from airing for presenting content a TV station deemed unfit for viewers?

Major? No. Part of the start of Vince’s expansion of the WWF was via replacing local TV wrestling, some of which was aided by local companies putting together shows that the various networks didn’t like, sure. But major companies tend to get to be major via understanding what they can and can’t do, and when they do start to drift towards the line, they don’t tend to be suspended, they just get severely reprimanded or get the scripts rejected.

USA had major issues with Raw over the Pillman’s got a gun angle, TNN never was happy with ECW, and WCW’s Standards and Practices always had issues with Russo’s writing, but they were never really suspended, just forced to change, or kicked off eventually.

Even with the UPN/Hassan Terrorist angle, Smackdown still aired the next week, just not with Hassan on it.

The closest thing you’d find is The Score, I believe it’s called, the TV station that aired Raw during the Attitude era, they would edit out questionable material, often times removing a lot from the show. But they still would put the show out.

Again, happy to be corrected on this if you, dear reader, know better than me on this, or any subject.

One last question, from Santino Santana

Could you provide your top 10 criminally underrated matches from the 90s-now (in your opinion)? Trying to stick with WWE/WCW/ECW. Thanks!

Geez… Well, off the top of my head, in no order, my ten choices right now would be

Bulldog/Bret WWE IYH5
Juvi/Blitzkreig WCW Spring Stampede 99
Michinoku Pro 6 man ECW Barely Legal 97
Pitbulls V Raven/Stevie, ECW Gangsta’s Paradise 95
Royal Rumble 01
Steamboat/Luger NWA GAB 89
Steamboat/Rude WCW Beach Blash 92
Bret/Taker WWE One Night Only 97
Ziggler/Del Rio WWE Payback 13
Angle/Rock No Way Out 01

But that would change tomorrow. What about you, dear readers? Leave your suggestions below, and I’ll see you all next week!