Ask 411 Wrestling: Would The Undertaker Get Over Today?

Greetings, Salutations, and G’day, welcome to Ask 411 Wrestling! I am the writer, Mathew Sforcina, and this week, we got wrestling related questions, and then answers.

Totally revolutionary concept, I know.

So, if you want in on the ground floor… Or at least the 1,349th floor, send a question to [email protected] and it’ll maybe get an answer at some point! Yay answers!

Double Yay Banner!

Zeldas!

Check out my Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture! Triple Yay!

Me On Twitter~!
WWE Turn Alerts on Twitter~~!!
http://www.twitter.com/411mania
http://www.twitter.com/411wrestling
http://www.twitter.com/411moviestv
http://www.twitter.com/411music
http://www.twitter.com/411games
http://www.twitter.com/411mma

Feedback Loop

Who’s Winning The Rumble?: A, I don’t answer questions from the comment section. And B, I’m not going to do the running gag AFTER I explain what the running gag was going to be. I may be meta, but doing a gag after showing your work… That’s meta-meta.

Finisher Debating: I can see the argument as to why the Widow Peak looks bad, but on the other hand, if you’re not tucking your legs, you end up landing with all the body weight on your one food when you’re unprepared for it, which could be worse.

Likewise, finishers that have specific set ups, while failing the ‘anywhere, anytime’ rule, I don’t mind as such provided the usual set up is logicalish. So the 619 set up of a drop toe hold into the ropes is ok, while the tree of woe double stomp sucks.

Still not sure about Rikishi always getting guys to fall down onto the bottom turnbuckle though.

To All Those Who Said Kane:

The Trivia Crown

Who Am I? I share something vaguely similar to something in the thing the intro was hyping. I live in sin. I took a couple moves from someone else based on my beating them up. Video exists of me at a indy show, possibly involving drugs, and a woman called Caroline. Despite debuting on the big leagues in a team, I’ve not held tag team gold in said big leagues. I’ve won PWI awards, Slammys, and RS awards. The longest reigning holder of a specific title (in a specific company), and a guy who got tryouts in TNA and ROH, I am who?

D2Kvirus has the answer, with one or two slight mistakes that I’ve fixed.

I live in sin – resides in Las Vegas

I took a couple moves from someone else based on my beating them up – when in FCW, after beating up William Regal he started using the Regal Stretch and knee trembler in his matches

Video exists of me at a indy show, possibly involving drugs, and a woman called Caroline

Despite debuting on the big leagues in a team, I’ve not held tag team gold in said big leagues – debuted in The Shield, yet he was US Champion while Rollins & Reigns were tag team champs

I’ve won PWI awards, Slammys, and RS awards – PWI awards for feud of the Year vs Seth Rollins and most popular star of 2014 and 2015, Slammy award for breakout star (as part of The Shield and after going solo), faction of the year as part of The Shield and hashtag of the year, and Rolling Stone awards for most likable loose cannon and best briefly resuscitated storyline vs Rollins

The longest reigning holder of a specific title – his 351 day reign as US Champion is the longest in the title’s history

and a guy who got tryouts in TNA and ROH – he competed in dark matches for ROH in 2007 and 2009, and for TNA in 2008

You are…Dean Ambrose

Who am I? I was born in Canada but I ‘hail’ from Texas. A man with unseen power stopped me from getting to one full year of holding a title, just. I also ended the longest reign of someone else with another title, albeit with help from someone else. Although the PWI gave me a couple of good awards, the only Wrestling Observer award I’ve ‘won’ is a negative one. I have had three male managers (two of them hall of famers) and two female (one of whom was an early foray into new territory for the time). My most famous finisher has a descriptive name. I have a daughter in the business, I’ve retired from it mostly, and I’ve busted some heads, sort of. Who am I?

Getting Down To All The Business

Abhinesh asks about The Undertaker to start us off.

1.) Undertaker is my favourite wrestler. But when I have to think objectively about his greatness as a wrestler, I am not sure if he is as great as people claim. The way I see it, his best matches came late in his career. I think his first match vs Batista (WM 23) is the turning point after which his matches have been simply too good. But the earlier phases had matches which were great because of the other competitor. I feel Mick Foley sacrificed a lot during his feud with Undertaker as mankind. I would hold Kane too in a similar light. UT did have a few good matches with Bret, but nothing that really sticks on from his early time. Can you state which were his best matches before WM23. I know there’s one with Kurt angle in No Way Out. But I really can’t recollect much. And I am looking for matches where he was equally good as his partner. Hope that makes sense.

Yeah, there’s a distinct break in Taker’s run between the point where he was good because he totally nailed the character and was popular as a wrestling character, and the point where he was suddenly Mr. Workrate and was putting on really great matches all the time. I’m not sure if I’d put WM23 as the turning point, I’d say the ’07 Rumble was the point where the corner was turned. If only because Kurt/Taker didn’t happen at WM22.

But good matches prior to that point, where Taker was on par with his opponent? I mean, the Hell in a Cell match with Mick Foley, yeah, Taker did a great job there, but that was Foley being a madman, sure.

The first Hell in a Cell match though, THAT was a near flawless match, and Taker was on point there.

… Why did I include that? I mean, has anyone NOT seen that?

Apart from the HBK/Taker series, there was the Final Four match for the WWF title, Summerslam 98, the Taker/Kane/Rock/Benoit and 6 way Hell in a Cell match from 2000, the really great Taker/Angle/Rock three way at Vengence 2002, and I’d say the Jeff Hardy making himself famous match would count too. But back in the Zombie Mortician days? That’s when you’re having to get technical and say stuff like the 92 Rumble to count…

2.) Undertaker is perhaps the most protected WWE wrestler ever after Hogan and Cena. Do you think if UT would have been successful at all in the current environment where fans are so aware of the internal workings? I mean fans hated Roman Reigns because he was too protected and rejected him. Do you think the booking that worked to give UT a great aura of invincibility would work in current times and the WWE audience will accept him.

Sure, because Taker was ‘protected’ but he was also pushed. The problem with Reigns is that he’s getting the big babyface monster push, but he’s not getting to just murder dudes, since he’s booked as a scrappy underdog. If you want to make him the big babyface monster, he’s gotta run through dudes in a couple minutes at best. If you want him to be the scrappy underdog, first of all you’re insane, but secondly, that means he has to lose a fair bit.

As long as you have the charisma to get over without speaking, and can work a character like he could from day 1, then absolutely a big push like he got will work. That’s what wrestling fans want, or at least is something we like in wrestling, someone who is interesting to watch kicking ass. Taking names is optional. That’s what wrestling was built on, and no matter what you call it, sports entertainment will work just the same way for a long time. Charisma infusing a good gimmick and being allowed to plow through guys will almost always equal success.

Now, yes, the Taker gimmick wouldn’t quite fly today, especially in the PG era. Just look at Bray Wyatt for how it would go. But good solid wins… That almost always works, and unless Taker gets the push over someone else that the fanbase has decided they really want in the main event, he’d get over no problem.

Jason asks about Savage’s last WCW angle.

Back in October of ’99, Randy Savage made an odd appearance on Nitro–promising to “pass the torch” to a person who would set television ratings records. He seemed to be teasing a future announcement, but (to my knowledge) no such announcement ever took place. Who was the wrestler in line for the Macho Man rub? Was there one?

We’ve covered this prior. To whit, this was his last Nitro appearance, the night after Halloween Havoc 99, and after running down Russo, Flair and Hogan, he talked about looking to pass the torch to someone who’d win lots of world titles and break rating records. At the time, I assumed it was his brother, Lanny Poffo, for lack of better options.

But then I remembered this topic, the Savage/Michaels feud that never happened.

Maybe this was Savage beginning that basic plan with someone in WCW? Savage obviously had an idea as to how the Savage/Michaels thing was to play out, so perhaps he’d picked someone in WCW at the time (… Benoit?) and was planning on running it out there instead.

I still don’t have any idea, but that occurred to me.

Manu Bumb asks about WWECW.

With the announcement that this new cruiserweight show will air live after SD on the network, that got me thinking – why did WWE stop airing WWECW live after SD, and begin taping it before SD for airing later that night?

A couple of different reasons, depending on what point you ask about.

A common aspect of it was time zones, in that depending on where the taping was being held, going on ‘live’ was impossible, so in those situations they taped first so as to allow the dark match main event to follow on directly from SD.

But I found reports about how at one point Vince decided that ECW was never going live again for whatever reason but then he changed his mind due to issues with taping and editing the show in such a short turn around change, plus competition from WSX of all companies.

Plus ECW did jump around from 10 to 9 and back at one point as well. It’s all just a mess, with lots of different ideas and changes occurring at different time frames going on, as well as jumping over to Raw at one point as well. But mostly it seems, is they would tape prior if they couldn’t go live after so as to give themselves as much time as possible to edit, and/or Vince, at least at one point, didn’t like the show and moved it around out of spite.

Johnny has a few questions.

thank you SO much for your efforts to provide the community with so much knowledge. I visit this site since the 411wrestling days and you are the best. I hope you never lose your motivation to do this. On to the questions:

1) I understand that wrestlers get paid a downside guarantee, along with a percentage of their merch sales but how EXACTLY is their position on the card compensated? What I wonder about is this: AJ, Cena and Ambrose are main eventers but did they really only get paid “opener/lower card” money for their match at No Mercy?

To Raven’s 2000 Contract again!

I have no reason to believe that WWE’s contracts don’t work basically the same way now then they did back then, so Section 7.2 A through C, the contract basically says “the wrestler gets a percentage of the paid receipts that is ‘consistent’ with the position on the card the match is, plus any standards the promoter says’. In other words, WWE decides who gets what percentage of the take, and it’s meant to scale with position. So opening guys get maybe 0.1% or whatever, and the main eventers get 1-2%, say. Some contracts in the past have had minimum amounts that these can be, Hogan’s WCW contract for instance, but basically the position on the card and thus what amount you are paid is basically down to WWE going “You get…. 0.35% tonight” via throwing a dart at the wall careful analysis of ticket sales and intense scrutiny and weighting of the importance of matches to the crowd size.

So no, Cena et al don’t get ‘just opener’ money unless Vince decides that’s all they’re worth for that show.

2) It’s been “common knowledge” that Warrior asked for more money before the Summerslam 91 match and that after the PPV, Vince handed Warrior his release (more or less). So why did Warrior feud with Undertaker for the reimainder of 91 if he was let go anyways? And didn’t it culminate in a PPV match (Survivor Series for example) because Vince thought that Warrior wouldn’t show up?

He didn’t feud with Taker for the rest of 91, or at least, that wasn’t the plan. After losing the WWF title to Sgt Slaughter at the Rumble, Warrior went after Savage for costing him the title, then retired him at WM7. Then after WM Warrior feuded with Taker, sure, after Taker locked him in a casket one time.

You may have blocked that from your memory if you’ve watched it.

Anyway, this was to set up a long Warrior/Taker house show loop, which they did, and then after that, they were planning on pivoting to Warrrior/Jake Roberts, via the three tests.

Thus, after Summerslam, Warrior/Roberts was meant to be the plan, perhaps with a Survivor Series team match at SurSer, then a one on one at the Rumble, maybe? I’ve seen some suggestions that Taker/Warrior was to get a blow off at Summerslam but that Vince just changed his mind, for no given reason, and they went with the handicap match instead.

Warrior sent the letter in demanded a renegotiated contract in July, got an “OK, we’ll pay” response a caouple days later, and then after Summerslam he was fired. So Vince knew a little ahead of time perhaps, but only a few weeks at most. So he had to do something with Warror, and the promos were filmed, so they moved forward with that despire at some point suspecting this wouldn’t be used.

3) I need your help here (once again). This scene is from a promotion called CWA in Austria/Germany and while there have been many people who later on became stars, I’m not sure if the guy in this video is the one who I think he is. My guess: Kevin Nash:

…

Well it’s better than the Wrestlerock Rumble, I’ll give it that.

Oooh, here’s another one!

Eh, the first one’s better.

Anyway, the Catch Wrestling Association was an Austria-Germany based wrestling promotion that ran from 73 through to 99, with a mix of chain wrestling and strong man contests, apparently, and had talent agreements with NJPW, AWA and others (the AWA connection not surprising given it was founded by Otto Wanz, former AWA champ). So there is an eclectic bunch of guys who have worked CWA, from Vader to Chono, Regal to Liger, Owen Hart to PN frigging News.

I presume though you’re asking about the very tall chap at 0:38 in the first video in what appears to be ski goggles and 2/3 of a mascot uniform?

Now, Nash did live in Germany for a bit, but that was when he was playing basketball, after that ended he went back to America, which is where he started wrestling. And he wasn’t on the 89 cards I found.

So it’s not Nash, and unless you think it’s one of these guys, I don’t know who it is. Readers?

Ben has a simple enough question.

Now that the election is over (THANK GOD), I have a question. Would you have any idea which wrestlers are registered voters?

I’d know a few, on the basis that anyone who’s run for political office is, you’d assume, a voter. So that’s the McMahons, Ventura, Rhyno, Backlund. Then there’d be the politically engaged, guys like Foley, JBL, Cornette, Joey Styles. Beyond that, apart from anyone who isn’t a US national being excluded, I have no idea. Does it matter, beyond the general idea that as many people should be voting as possible?

Adrian From Ireland wants to talk about the guy who ran over Austin. Well, what about him?

I’ve just finished reading RAW recaps from the year 2000 and towards the end of the year Raven comes in to assist Tazz beat Jerry Lawler. The author muses that Raven could have been a good candidate for the vehicular assault of Steve Austin in 99, but rumor has it Vince hated him for his previous work in the WWF. What do you think of this idea ? It’s the kind of thing you could see Raven thinking of, and even though casual fans may not be as aware of him as hardcore fans, he could have been built up as a big deal, and for the attitude era it could have worked ….a better option than Rikishi anyway. Keep up the great work

Almost anyone would have been better than Rikishi, in retrospect which anyone could have told you at the time.

Raven being the driver does run into the issue of Vince being alternately unaware of Raven’s employment in the company he owns and angry at the existence of Raven, so it would never happen because of that. And while you could absolutely build up Raven as the evil genius brawler with a killer DDT and manipulation powers and/or a golden tongue, there is the issue that Raven wasn’t in the company at the time Austin was run over, in fact he was in ECW, given that his release from WCW was conditional on not going to WWF for a year. So while you could construct a storyline that took that into account, (“I’ve been planning this for over a year, after I flew free of a sinking cage from down south, while I regrew my tolerance and appetite for violence in a bingo hall in Philly, I’ve been pulling the strings here, readying the battleground for my arrival”) it seems a bit of a copout to have a mystery where the solution you couldn’t possibly have guessed at the time.

I have my preferred rewrite, but Raven is sick enough as a character to do it, tough enough as a wrestler to go through a brutal match for the payoff, and can talk and talk and talk about running over the man who stole his career or however you want to swing it. Logic issues aside, it’s a good an option as any.

David, after a note hoping Trump doesn’t win, has a question about Dave Lagana leaving TNA.

There’s a possible connection between the two men, but this is a family column.

Well, no it’s not, but after what happened to Joey Styles…

So, in light of recent events involving Dave Lagana’s departure from TNA’s creative team, I went back to read about his tenure at WWE. While I remembered the storyline leaks that Lagana was apparently accused of at the time, I didn’t remember the whole story with Mordecai and the Undertaker… My question is: do we know any more about Lagana’s dalliances? Apparently he sexually harassed multiple wrestlers, male and female, during his time there… any more stories floating around?

So, since I know someone is going to ask, the Mordecai/Taker thing was from the Kendrick and London shoot interview that was full of various outlandish tales told in jokey, semi-jokey, and straight tones, so it’s hard to judge what’s true or not, even without the ‘Ask 411 Wrestling (by way of ‘Yes, Prime Minister’) Shoot Interview Rule.’

“Any statement in a wrestler’s shoot interview can represent one of six different levels of reality:

a. What happened.
b. What he believed happened.
c. What he would have liked to have happened.
d. What he wants to believe happened.
e. What he wants other people to believe happened.
f. What he wants other people to believe he believed happened.”

But the story is that Mordecai, a.k.a Kevin Thorn, was in the bathroom attending to business, and Lagana came in, and after looking over Mordecai’s ‘stats’, made an untoward and unwelcome advance. Mordecai, a little freaked out, went to Taker and he sorted it out. According to London and Kendrick, anyway. And that ‘Ring of Hell’ book, which said that after Thorn said this, more people came forward as well.

Certainly when he was fired from WWE, the firing was supposedly a lot colder than the usual firing, just a short ‘He’s gone from the company’ message, and the rumors at the time were that it wasn’t due to the rumors of him leaking rumors about storylines, but he was released over a rumored incident between himself and a talent that Undertaker got wind of.

Something something Fleetwood Mac.

Anyway, other stories about Lagana… MLW Radio doesn’t like him. Beyond that… I dunno. Readers? Anyone want to sling some mud? I can’t stop you, so if you really want to…

Connor asks about the Masterpiece.

Whatever happened to Chris Masters? the guy had a great entrance, a good body, a good gimmick with the masterlock and he also wasn’t too bad in the ring, he seemed right up Vince’s alley, he even had a feud with Shawn Michaels

He had two runs with the company. The first one ended near the end of 2007 after he failed the drug policy for a second time, coupled with some injury issues. So that’s fairly cut and dried, plus he had gotten smaller with less muscle mass, which was one of those things where they encouraged people to get clean then had DX mock him for losing muscle.

But then he came back in 09, and turned face, but he wasn’t used all that much, when he was fired again in 11 he had mostly worked Superstars for the last bunch of months, and had in fact gotten really good, but it didn’t seem to matter.

As for what happened, he came in with a specific gimmick and look, and at a guess, Vince loved that version, but then when Masters had to change for various reasons, Vince and/or the writers lost interest in him, and even when he struck a good balance, he wasn’t the same marble statute god body he was when he debuted, and you can get caught up on a first impression sometimes, when the first time you see a guy, you always assume that’s what he should be like, and change is bad.

But mostly it was just that they never had anything for him.

And on that depressing note, I bring this week’s Ask 411 to a close. Come back next week for more stuff, if you would be so kind.