Ask 411 Wrestling: What Will Wrestlemania 31’s Card Be?

Hello, and welcome to the only column that really hopes the current Miz/Sheamus angle ends with Damien Mizdow winning the US Title for The Miz himself, Ask 411 Wrestling!

Sure, he’d get squashed by Rusev on the next Raw, but still!

Anyway, not much to say about the last week, as I spent my weekend at home. Although my cousin from Mexico City, Peru, El Grande Q was in Sydney at the Fiesta Darling Harbour festival, with much hip swivelling and such. I’d invite him to do a column if he wasn’t horribly racist in written form.

Anyway, got a question I can answer without being racist? [email protected] is the place to send it, and it’ll be answered, right after BANNER!

Zeldas!

Check out my Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture! There’s a contest for 100 word fiction, so I’ll be training really hard by… Doing what I’d do anyway.

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WCW Legal: I’ll cop to not knowing the legality of what Bischoff had to deal with, however you can keep it vague. Have Bret talk about being screwed out of his rightful place and go from there. Of course, misusing Bret is like #13 on WCW screw ups.

The Trivia Crown

Who am I? I’m linked to Hulk Hogan in a lot of people’s minds, even though I spent more time onscreen with Ric Flair. When I wrestled in South America, I used a last name that is now more famous as the name of a game designer. I once held tag team gold with one of the guys in the plane crash that broke Ric Flair’s back. I once made the ‘inventor’ of a move bleed by putting them in my own version of the move. I died due to cancer in the 90’s. A man not born in America but who spent most of his career there, and the man who introduced the world to a gimmick that the man using me has maintained, on and off, for nearly 25 years, I am who?

I’ll give IAmLars the duke because Maravilloso and DarthDaver knowing the answer are like Austin drinking beers and Victoria being awesome…

Linked to Hulk Hogan: Trained Hogan
Onscreen time with Flair: Managing the Yamazaki Corporation (Four Horseman)
South American wrestling name: Ernesto Kojima (like Kojima Productions)
Held tag gold with survivor of Flair’s plane crash: NWA Florida Tag Titles (Mr. Wrestling)
Applied a move to the inventor until he bled: Johnny Weaver (Sleeper hold)
Cancer victim: Colon cancer (1999)
Born outside the U.S. : Japan
Introduced the world to….THE GREAT MUTA!!

You are HIRO MATSUDA!

Vegasdonk has this week’s question for us all.

I had stints in 2 of the 3 major promotions, though most of my success came on the regional scene. I was a part of a legendary group …. BEFORE they became legendary. I was involved in something that is credited for being an inspiration for a now WWE staple, though very few people actually saw it. I’ve been brainwashed, I feuded with a warrior, I screwed with a legend, and I won tag team belts with a clown. My death was ruled accidental, but some feel differently about it. I am who?

Getting Down To All The Business

By the way, there’s a bloody heavy storm outside with lightning and stuff, so if this seems short then my computer went down for a while. And if it’s not up at all, then… You’re not reading this, so I can say what I like.

*tries to come up with a metajoke about deleting horrible things, can’t, sadly eats bag of chips and goes back to writing*

So anyway, Patrick starts us off with a follow on from last week.

1) I was interested by the question posed a week or so ago about most unlikely world champions and I recently had my memory jogged about Dusty’s supposed plan to have Rick Steiner beat Flair for the NWA title at Starrcade (in 5 minutes no less!), so I was wondering: who do you think is/are the most unlikely proposed world champion(s)? Someone who (for better or worse, but probably better) never got the nod, but had someone on the booking team seriously considering them/pitching plans to have them win the title?

My own vote goes to Tank Abbott, Russo’s would be king of 21st century WCW.

How close to being champion are we talking? I mean, Chyna was never going to win, but Chyna V Austin at Summerslam 1999 was actually pitched to be followed through on at one point, supposedly, during the bouncing #1 Contendership thing.

The problem is, your vote is the one I’d go with, Tank Abbott winning the belt would have been insane, and in a way, it highlights the issues Russo had/has with booking.

For those unaware, Souled Out 2000 was forced to be radically altered a couple days out when Bret Hart, WCW Champion, had to forfeit the title due to injury and Jeff Jarrett, US Champion, had to forfeit the title due to injury, and messed up 4 matches, as Bret was scheduled to face Sid Vicious and Jarrett was set to fight Chris Benoit 3 times.

So, what to do with the World Title? Russo’s pitch was to book a Royal Rumble ripoff for the belt. During the match, Sid Vicious would get an early number, and last all the way up till the end, where after #29 comes out Sid tosses the last guy, and he’s dead on his feet.

#30 is Tank Abbott, and with one punch he knocks Sid out and over the top rope to win the belt. He’d then drop the belt the following night on Nitro, or at the very least in a week or two.

Now then, here’s the thing. That booking is unpredictable, and yet makes some logical sense in that Abbott, as a former UFC guy and a puncher, you can see that in reality that could happen. It’s logical, unpredictable, and involves new faces.

The thing is, it’s also bloody stupid, devalues the belt, doesn’t really help anyone involved, and would not make the company money.

Russo books things logically, for a given value of the term, instead of booking stuff to make money. Wrestling has internal logic, some of it needing updates, some not, but in the end of the day you book to tell a story that will make you money, rather than one that’s logical.

But that booking is what got Russo turfed, so in the long term it could be argued that it served a purpose. But yeah, Abbott is my pick too.

2) What was the story with Austin’s cameo return at Backlash ’00? Surely WWF must have known that he wasn’t ready to come back full time at that stage? I remember watching the PPV as a bright eyed pre-teen and my excitement turning to confusion when Austin was no where to be seen on Raw or Smackdown the following week. Did they ever explain that at the time?

The reason he came back, according to Austin, apparently, was that he was getting antsy just sitting at home, and needed to do something, anything, to get out of the house. The fact that he got to be part of a major angle and helped to deliver a HUGE buyrate and add to the moment of Rock finally beating HHH, icing on the cake. I’ve read that maybe Austin/WWE thought he’d be healed up better than he was, but I doubt that, it was more just to be able to do something, and why not do something spectacular and memorable?

The next night on Raw, JR said Austin was ‘not scheduled’ to be there, and Rock thanked him for his help.

Beyond that, it was just assumed that Austin wasn’t back full time yet, he just came back to help Rock get his revenge, and then didn’t care when Triple H won the title back the next month at Judgement Day because… Taker?

But yeah, they did give lip service to it, at least.

Michael follows on with more Austin questions arising from last week.

You made this comment in the recent “Ask411” section:

“Austin then proceeded to pull out when he found out that the plan was for him to lose the match due to interference from Mark Henry.”

Did Austin have a history of pulling out of matches if he didn’t like it i.e., get his way?

I knew about the whole walkout due to the way his match with Lesnar was being booked but I never knew about this Henry walkout.

While Austin may have had his reasons, it comes across like he was unwilling to push other talent.

So, I guess I have another question: Why isn’t Austin lumped into the same category as guys like Warrior, HTM, and Jarrett who were basically ostracized from WWE for holding Vince hostage and changing wrestling shows on the fly? Granted he didn’t do it last second or demand more cash but he still walked out on the show which, in a way, might be worse. Least the other guys showed up and wrestled.

Short Answer: Money.

Long Answer: He Made Lots Of Money.

Even Longer Answer:

There’s the old Golden Rule, whoever has the gold makes the rules. But in wrestling, it’s slightly different, in that whoever draws the fans makes the rules. If you’re the hottest act on the card, if everyone knows that you’re making the majority of the audience turn up and buy concessions and t-shirts and the like, then you’re going to get more of a say in what you’re going to do. After all, if you tell the booker you don’t want to work with AC Marsh or whoever, what’s he going to do, try and force you? You walk out the door, he suddenly loses his payday.

Doesn’t always work like that, some guys who draw don’t play games, and some bookers are hardasses, but usually the hot act can call some shots.

And it is safe to say that Stone Cold was pretty hot as acts go. Austin 3:16 made Vince McMahon millions and millions and millions and a few more millions of dollars, and so if Austin said he didn’t want to work with a guy, he wouldn’t, 9 times out of 10.

Of course, there’s the flip side, in defence of Austin is that Steve, the argument goes, never refused a storyline or an angle for petty reasons (apart form Jeff Jarrett), it was always for ‘sound’ booking choices. Like, for instance, the Brock thing, as told on Chris Jericho’s podcast, and I quote:

“Well I handled the [Brock Lesnar] situation like a total ass. What had happened, I was working Columbus the night before Monday Night RAW, I was working Flair in a cage. Jim Ross calls me. I’m laying in a hotel, just kind of resting up for the match because I got into town early and made the drive. He told me creative and he told me that they wanted Brock to beat me. And I’m thinking, okay hold it. I’m drawing stupid money right now. Obviously WWF had spent a lot of money getting me into this position. I busted my ass getting myself in this position. Guys that draw stupid money don’t just happen overnight. So now all of a sudden you want me to do a job for a guy, now I love Brock Lesnar and he’s a monster, and as soon as he walked in the door everybody saw massive potential in the guy, but for me to do a job for him without any kind of buildup? A match but no two or three weeks talking about it? A pay per view match is what it was.

So anyway, he told me creative. I said, ‘well, if that’s going to be the case I won’t be there.’ He said, ‘okay. I’m just telling you what the old man told me. ‘So he calls the old man and tells him. Jim calls me back. Hey, call the old man when you get through working. Vince gives me the scenario when I call and I say that’s what we’re doing, huh? He goes, ‘that’s what we’re doing,’ and I said, ‘okay.’ Well, when I said okay, you can’t see my eyes, I mean okay. I’m not going to be there. That’s why I don’t like phone calls when we’re talking business.

So anyway, me being in the place I was in my head at the time, hell, I was drinking a lot of damn whiskey and beer. I showed up every night. I was the first guy in the dressing room and the last guy to leave and I worked my ass off. But hey, man. We were running hard back then, Chris. I just said, ‘piss on these guys. Why would they try and do this to me?’ I got back on an airplane and flew to San Antonio.”

Basically with Austin, he always pitched a fit about booking in terms of long term benefit. He refuses to drop a match to Rock for the IC Title because he’s on his way up, jobbing then would derail him on his way to the main event of WM. Austin doesn’t drop the belt to HHH direct at Summerslam 99 because he feels the job should mean something and be built to. Brock, same thing. Billy Gunn, he felt that Gunn was far too below him. Henry was because he didn’t like the idea of JR not being kept around.

Austin doesn’t get lumped in with the other guys you mentioned, because he didn’t hold Vince up for more money (Warrior) or refuse to drop a belt in order to stick around (HTM) or demand back due money in order to drop a belt (Jarrett), Austin has always had somewhat legitimate booking reasons why he refuses to job. So he gets more of a free pass on that from some people.

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Doug asks about Sami Zayn compared to… Mohammed Hassan?

Do you feel that the current political climate in this country, and in fact worldwide, may have anything to do with the fact that Sami Zayn is still toiling in NXT and has not been called up to the main roster? Is the WWE trying to avoid another potential Muhammed Hassan?

No, I don’t think that’s a problem, if anything if the current political climate gets worse, Sami might well get called up sooner.

See, the problem with Hassan was that the original idea got lost in translation. The intent was to debut him as a face, then when the fans turned on him because he’s Italian Muslim, he’d have a perfect justification for turning heel, since he tried to be a nice guy and look what happened. Of course, it didn’t work out that way as he debuted already heel, and then WWE went too far with the guys in ski masks, and really, at the end of the day, they had it round the wrong way, Daviri should have been the focal point with Hassan as the silent muscle.

Zayn on the other hand has been established as a nice guy who can kick you really hard but will be apologetic about it and who’s just an all round great guy who’s skilled at this wrestling thing but can’t quite win the big one and he’s Canadian and he also has Syrian heritage, oh and he’s got a nice beard!

See, this sounds racist, but the fact is that he doesn’t really look Middle Eastern, and given that he is not, to my knowledge, Muslim, means that he should be able to avoid any backlash. Most of the time backlash is less about who you are than what you look like and what you do. Hassan straddled the line right up until he brought in terrorist buddies the same week bombs went off in London. That was what made a controversial gimmick into a ‘Not On My Channel’ situation.

Sami will be fine, unless they bring him in with a rehired Davari as The Islamic Nation or something…

From potential future violence to actual past violence with MJH.

My question is about a match I recall when I was little as my parents (non-wrestling fans) took me to the Spectrum. One of the matches was Slaughter and JYD versus Sheik and Volkoff. During the match Slaughter bled heavily, and my mother swears to this day that she saw him drop blood caplets (we had good seats) at ringside. Knowing what I know now I assume he had to have bladed and she was just being jaded and wanting to show the blood wasn’t real like the wrestling wasn’t “real”. My question is whether or not wrestlers did in fact use fake blood back in the day instead of blading sometimes? Thanks in advance.

Technically yes, blood capsules are used, but not in that way.

I cannot categorically say that no-one in wrestling history has ever used a blood capsule or ketchup bottle or any of the cliché things non-fans say they use to make blood. It’s never been the norm, certainly it has never been done on a major stage by a major player outside of the Mankind/Big Show Boiler Room Brawl at Backlash 1999 according to Mick himself.

Blading is however relatively new, as the old technique in the 50’s and 60’s was a well delivered knuckle punch to the eyebrow. Certainly when I got busted open, it was in the eyebrow, albeit a stiff knee lift to the face.

You can mark ‘Mention I’m a Wrestler’ off the bingo card.

Anyway, soon wrestlers got smarter and began to use a small blade to make the cut. And that often is what people see and assume is a blood capsule. After all, they see a wrestler bend over, wipe a hand across their forehead, drop something and suddenly they’re bleeding! Must be a capsule! I mean, what, you think they actually cut their foreheads open? Why on earth would you do that?

So yeah, I strongly suspect that’s what your mother saw, Slaughter dropping his blade after cutting himself open. But obviously she’s not going to believe me, but feel free to try and convince her.

Oh, and where blood capsules are used? Internal bleeding. Wrestlers may be self destructive at times, but no-one is silly enough to blade in the mouth, if we need to bleed from the mouth, that would be a blood capsule or a condom full of blood as Ken Shamrock was so beloved of using.

Speaking of eating, Uzoma asks about weight gain.

Over the months, Chris Hero (the former Kassius Ohno) has shown considerable weight gain as he continues to compete in the independent circuit. Does this further put the kibosh on him ever returning to WWE?

Yeah, what a fatass.

Maybe I’m missing a hilarious message board joke here, like that Bailey is thick or that Jack Swagger went to Mars or that the entire video game journalism industry is so rife with corruption that a bunch of people deserve death and rape threats for making video games and being either blatantly female or being not anti-female enough.

But I would not say Chris Hero has had considerable weight gain. Is he a rake? No, but even without the throwing glasses in stone houses issue, he’s not fat. And even if he was, if he gained lots of weight but could still wrestle and talk, he’d maybe be more likely to get rehired if he’s bigger.

WWE seems to have moved past the cookie-cutter factory issue right now, and thus it’s possible to look different and get hired if you show talent and passion and ability. Hero’s problems with WWE seem to be slightly more complicated than just how many Happy Meals he has consumed. But that’s just me.

Speaking of being finished, Andron wants to discuss finishers.

Are there instances in your view where the finishing move doesn’t suit the wrestler or the finishing move suits the wrestler but not the name of the finisher?

Sure. Anyone using the Overdrive, that doesn’t suit because that move always sucks.

I think that if your gimmick is based on being 2nd/3rd/4th/xth generation, you should use either the move that the most famous person in your lineage used, or a variation. The Million Dollar Nightmare for Ted DiBiase Jr, for instance, was perfect, even if he wasn’t at all. So Charlotte not using the bridged Figure 4 she’s shown off is just silly to me. I don’t care if Miz is using it, take it from him. And speaking of him, Skull Crushing Finale doesn’t work any more either, at least change the name to a Moneymaker pun, or call it the Wipe Out or use a Box Office Bomb or something.

Beyond those… I could probably think of a whole bunch if you give me enough time, but those are the main ones right this second. Feel free, dear readers, to suggest others below.

Is there some names in your opinion that just don’t suit being names of a finisher? Like it isn’t really all that catchy? I know a name a better than calling it a “Modified version of ‘move here'” like they did with Paige Finisher. But take for example John Cena with the Attitude Adjustment, maybe it’s just me but Attitude Adjustment isn’t really something i’ll consider to be a name of a finisher.. Michael Cole: “He hit the attitude adjustment” it was much more funnier when they was saying “FU. FU for the win”

I’ll admit that some move names take longer to get over than others, but almost any move name can get over if you push it hard enough and if it’s good enough. I mean, the Extremely Good Abdominal Distorter is a mouthful to get over, but if you were working a proper English gentleman gimmick and used the acronym, you could get that over with work.

Whereas something like a DDT into a front facelock, call it the KOD, Knock Out Drop, that’s an easier sell. Three choices, get knocked out, you tap out, or you pass out, and so on, that’s much easier to get over.

And yes, I’ve been thinking about that for a while and was looking for a reason to put it in, shut up.

But overall no matter how stupid a name is, if you win with it and it’s at least memorable, it can get over. But it’ll be harder than a good name.

Names I don’t like, Bow Down To The Queen, anything lazy like (Wrestler Name) (General Term For Move), and all the moves they tried for Rollins’ Curb Stomp. But again, I’m sure the Readers have other ideas.

Axl from Paris asks about WWE overseas.

Greatest column on the Internet, but you already know that. I have a question regarding WWE tours overseas, namely in Saudi Arabia, UAE or Qatar: these countries, especially Saudi Arabia, are known for being “very conservative”, to use an euphemism. Do you know if that does affect the content of the WWE house shows? Do they bring divas there at all? Are there things they normally do but don’t do when they’re there? On a related topic, do you think that if they go back to Russia one of these days, they will keep the Putin Titantron for Rusev, even if the result might be exactly the opposite? More broadly, anything you might want to add about the way the house shows are adapted to local countries (except the mandatory Cena posing with the local flag, I get that he does it systematically…) would be most welcome!

I checked the photos WWE put on their site for their visit to Saudi Arabia, and I didn’t see any Divas. In fact, turns out that the April 17th show was for males only, and had no females on the show. None of the Saudi Arabia shows had Divas, and I guess that answers the question, they don’t bring them.

The recaps didn’t mention anything about them being different in terms of working, the results read like any other live event, albeit with Sami Zayn speaking Arabic and asking to be announced from Syria and such.

And they don’t bring the giant tron around with them, so they’d never run the “Putin Is Awesome” gimmick at a house show. They’ll just swallow Rusev getting cheered and roll with it, and thus if they have a tron showing Putin and he gets cheered, awesome..

WWE wants to make everyone want the same thing, the perfect model for WWE is to run the same show in Des Moines and in Mumbai and get the same reaction, with maybe some window dressing and a hometown boy/girl if they have one. The shows are inoffensive and universal, with some modifiers obviously, but mostly they want to be able to just go out there and run the same show every time.

Or am I totally wrong on this? I’ve not been to multiple countries’ house shows, so maybe there are differences I’m not knowing about. Happy to be corrected here dear readers.

James asks about Cena and selling.

I am an admitted Cena mark but I must admit that the thing that bothers me the most about Cena is his lack of selling. I think that that is the main thing that separates him from the Hogan league that the E is trying to put him in. Even though Hogan would win the majority of his matches he always made you feel that there was a chance that he would lose. I just finished watching Cena/Wyatt at payback and while it was a good match at the end of the match Cena stands up and runs to the ring smiling as to say “o this was easy I’m fine now” . I wonder is this a Cena thing or is it how he is told his character is to be by Vince or Creative?

That’s a problem that isn’t limited to Cena, or at least for a while it wasn’t, as there was the edict handed down that faces shouldn’t sell defeats because they don’t want to make kids sad so faces have to remain bubbly and upbeat. Plus, Cena isn’t the only guy who seems to not grasp the idea that being on offence means you ignore everything else up till that point.

It’s getting better, as more guys are coming up like Rusev who sell on offence, which is important, but given that Cena is front and center and also people already don’t like him and so when he makes the same mistake repeatedly and consistently he gets call out on it more than guys who aren’t front and center but make the same mistake repeatedly and consistently.

Which is not to downplay the fact that it’s a mistake and he should stop doing it, be it selling in the ring or selling in storyline, but in either case, I think it is Cena the wrestler doing what Creative is telling him Vince told them. Vince wants Cena strong, wants him Superman, so to be Superman, you go out and win and be awesome. So he does that.

And so the cycle continues. But hey, when he does sell, you remember it, so that’s something, I guess…

And let’s end with a forever popular topic, predicting Wrestlemania! Nightwolf has his card…

1. So here is my fantasy Wrestlemania 31 booking. Tell me what you think

1. The Animal Vs the Beast: Batista vs Brock Lesnar

2. Who is the best in the World: Daniel Bryan vs CM Punk

3. 3 Generations of Excellence: The Rock vs Randy Orton

4. 2 decades in the making: The Undertaker vs Sting

5. Dawn of Justice: Roman Reigns vs Dean Ambrose vs Seth Rollins

6. Cold War reemergence : Kurt Angle vs Rusev

7. New Blood Rising: Sami Zayn vs Kenta vs Kevin Steen vs Adrian
Nevelle vs Prince Devitt

8: Brother vs Brother: Goldust vs Stardust

9. Battle of the Bizarre: The Ascension vs The Wyatt Family ( Luke
Harper vs Erik Rowan )

10. Authority vs the Occult: Triple H vs Bray Wyatt

Well, I think that it isn’t going to happen, given that far too many people are not going to be at WM31 (Batista, Punk, Rock, Angle… Bryan) and some of the other matches don’t make sense to me (HHH V Wyatt? Really?) Of course, some of this is due to the delay in asking and posting (Wyatt split) but even so, I’m not that optimistic for this. Plus you have no women on here. Apart form Lana, and she doesn’t count.

And, uh… Cena?

So anyway, since you can’t criticise without being able to do the thing yourself, apparently, here’s what I expect it to be.

WWE World Title: Brock Lesnar (c) w/ Paul Heyman V Roman Reigns

John Cena V Rusev w/Lana

WWE Divas Championship, Lumberjill Match: AJ Lee (c) V Paige V Charlotte

Intercontinental Championship: Mark Henry (c) V Damien Sandow

Retirement Match: Kane V Dean Ambrose w/The Undertaker

Seth Rollins w/Triple H V Randy Orton

Cesaro V Sami Zayn w/All of NXT

Tag Team Title Match: Dust Brothers (c) V Chris Jericho/Winner of Battle Royal

Preshow Battle Royal: Everyone not in another match.

But that’s me making wild predictions that I kinda hope are true. What about you guys? What’s Wrestlemania 31 going to be? Write it down below, whoever is closest wins an Ask 411 Official Anti-Prize! Get those entries in and I’ll see you all next week!