Ask 411 Wrestling 10.07.09: Black Popes, Black Saturday and Black Mist!

Hey, how you doing? I’m Mathew Sforcina, and this would be Ask 411 Wrestling. Now, I’m going to shill here for a minute, so if you don’t live in the general area of Sydney, Australia, just skip ahead to the super cool banner.

Sydneysiders, given that you’re reading this you are probably a big wrestling fan. And believe me when I tell you, there’s nothing like going to a wrestling event live. And even if it’s a small show, you will still have a blast. To that end, this weekend my fed, Australasian Wrestling Federation, has 3 big shows in Campbelltown, Wallsend and Fairy Meadow. All the details can be found here, so come along and support Australian Wrestling!

And my quest to become YOUR AWF Australasian Champion.

Backtalking

Weed out easy questions!: For the most part most questions are long/complicated/interesting. Besides, it’s not fair for me to start doing that now.

Clean Living Wrestlers: The question was slanted towards currently active guys, but yes, guys like Owen and Lance Storm totally fit the bill.

Shawn V Rock: As far as WM15 goes, Shawn was pushing for Mankind/Austin as I understand it, given Mick saying he was pushing for a 1 on 1 with Mick in it. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the Grandmother thing was true, which wouldn’t have made him like him from the get go.

Now, it’s entirely possible Rock has indeed forgotten his old hatreds given his new status as a movie star. Or, maybe, at WM24’s HOF, he was playing to the crowd. Hard to say.

GI Joe and Slaughter: Thanks for the info.

The Sharpshooter’s EASY!: There’s a difference between being able to do a move and being able to do it confidently, well, and in such a way that it looks good while be counterable. As I said, he probably could have done it all right going in blind, but having it taught to you is much better. But what do I know? I’m just a trained wrestler…

The fake Cedric: So apparently the identity of the Fake Cedric was common knowledge despite it not being on 411 as far as I know. According to Ryan Byers, he is:

Imani Lee. He is a former kickboxer who did some work in K-1 in Japan and was briefly under a WWE developmental deal. He’s no longer in developmental but probably got the call because word is that he’s a friend of Batista.

You can also check out how Ramu (that little girl wrestler) is going nowdays in Ryan’s latest Into The Indies column, the best column on 411 to deal with the Japanese Wrestling Scene.

Future Endeavors: Jared pointed out to me that when Heyman fired Tod Gordon from ECW, on TV, he used the ‘We wish him well in his…’ phrasing. So perhaps it was just one of many things WWF ripped off Heyman.

Your Turn, Smart Guy…

As you no doubt recall, last week was a cipher puzzle.

Here is the puzzle.

Here’s the answers.

And here’s this week’s:

What am I? A professional wrestling title, I’ve been held by some greats and some not so greats in my time. Spanning over 25 years, my longest reign and my shortest reign were both the sole reign for those who held me.* 9 times I was vacated and a tournament was held to crown me, although I was vacated more than that (and one of those tournaments never happened). At least 4 title switches will almost certainly never be shown by WWE again. I’ve changed hands in Australia twice, Germany 3 times and a hell of a lot of times in North Carolina. At least one 411 running joke/meme has gotten his hands on me, as have such greats as Ricky Steamboat, Arn Anderson, Ric Flair, Sting, Bret Hart and David Flair. I was killed once and for all at a Survivor Series, I am What?

* = This ignores any reigns which, due to tape delay, are technically in negative lengths of time.

Questions, Questions, Who’s Got The Questions?

We begin with a recent question (which I don’t intend to do all the time, but this is a time factor issue here) from Texans9nfl (and, sorta, Alvin who had a very similar question from the list so it’s ok).

Whats the latest on any WrestleMania matches that may happen? I’ve heard before that John Cena wants to wrestle “The Rock.”

Well of course he does. He’s not stupid, that match would draw crazy huge lots of money, would (hopefully) elevate him ala Rock/Hogan did for Rocky, and is a dream match to boot. Of course John will occasionally drop a call out to Rocky. He’d certainty want to wrestle Rock.

But that’s almost certainly not going to happen. Frankly, the WWE doesn’t have a plan for the next couple of months, let alone Wrestlemania. Beyond maybe thinking of someone to wrestle Taker for the very last time, they’re focused more on the next few weeks, and not worrying about Wrestlemania. I don’t have any matches that I’ve heard of that jump out to me as great ones, and I’m not sure what I’d put in the main event. Although I have heard a rumor of John Cena V CM Punk at Wrestlemania 26…

Juancarlos (well, maybe that’s meant to be Juan Carlos, but that’s how it appeared in the sender name) asks about historical buyrates.

Hey Matt, I have a question for you.

For a long time now I’ve been trying to find out what the exact PPV buyrate numbers for some of the earlier WWE pay per views. I’m talking about the shows in the 80′ and 90’s and was wondering where I could find info on that. There’s a website that reports buyrates, but apparently it’s only percentage of households that have ordered PPV’s and it doesn’t give me an exact number because the reported 400 thousand for every percent point is not constant over the years. Does WWE release exact numbers on some of these PPV’s or where can I find a website dedicated to these actual buy numbers?

Well, I didn’t find a list of the PPVs broken down into real numbers. But I did find this list of cable TV holders from Nielsen. So while not being accurate, it should give you some rough idea. Unless I’m totally grabbing the wrong end of the stick here, JP didn’t answer my emails. He must still be upset that I got upset over his posting my Super Secret Writer’s Forum comments on the TNA thing…

Ah, Manu. Is it truly a 411 column without him appearing? Well, of course it is, but still, go with me here.

Any idea what the japanese green mist used to be made out of? I’m assuming now it’s just water and green food coloring (red in extreme cases, of course…and lets not even talk about the black mist…that stuff’s just evil), but it no longer sticks to the face like it used to. Back in the day, if you got sprayed with the green mist, it stayed on your face. Nowadays, it just drips off like water, hence my assumption that its just water now. I guess the water couldve been thicker back in the day, but thats a possibility I don’t want to spend too much time thinking about.

I do have some idea, yes, given that I tag with two people who use it (although only one uses it as Mist in terms of using it on her opponents, the other just has it as an entrance thing when he comes out). For the most part, it’s simply food coloring and water, as you suspect. However, you can use powdered mix drinks like Kool-Aid to make the liquid thicker and thus less likely to drip off, thicking the stuff does make it harder to get off but it looks better. If someone needs to be seen to be misted later on, you’ll use a thicker liquid so it stains, if they just go down and then leave afterwards, you can use a thinner liquid out of courtesy so it’s not as stain-inducing.

Oh, also – who is this Mike Davis guy thats been showing up on Impact as the head of security? other than the head of security, that is. It seemed like he just showed up out of nowhere and I got the feeling I was supposed to know who he was, but all I saw was an old dude that wasnt Doug Dillinger. Ever since then, he’s been seen somewhat regularly on impact. Maybe not every week, but seeing as how I first saw him a little over a month telling JJ “NOT in my house!”, if he’s shown up once since then, its still somewhat regularly given the short time-span.

Mike showed up on the July 2nd, 2009 edition of TNA Impact, saying indeed “Not In My House” to Abyss. No explanation was given, although to be fair what would you have, Foley interviewing people for the post? He would just debut one week, but it was a little odd.

As for who he is, Mike has had several names in his wrestling career, but his most well known one, if you can say that, is Bugsy McGraw. Bugsy debuted in late 1967 (yes, 67, as in over 40 years ago), and is thus fairly old. You can read about his career here.

We have Drew up next, and then further down in the Opinion section.

love the column by the way. I have 2 questions

1. During SCSA and Bret Harts historic submission match it seemed like Austin getting busted open was more of an accident when he tripped head first into the rail. My question is did he blade or was it an accident? And if it was did the improvise the finish the way it was since Austin bleeding and passing out in the sharpshooter made the finish that more cooler and more dramatic.

Well, let’s go to the tape!

Well, sadly, I can’t actually prove he bladed like I suspect he did. The famous image was thought up and planned though, it wasn’t like they went in and just hoped him passing out was enough. The visual was planned. And while to my eye you can sorta see Austin blading off camera, I can’t prove it.

Although I’m sure it talks about this in the Bret Hart book, since he seems to talk about everything in that bloody thing…

NAnn has some more questions for me.

Hey, Matt. I’m a fan of your column and here are small questions I need answers for:

1. The Great American Bash 1991 is considered one of the worst PPV of all time and happened right after Flair was let go by Herd. I’ve heard a lot of rumors that the WCW wrestlers were so upset at how Flair was let go, they tried to sabotage the entire PPV by just wrestling the worst they could. Is there any truth to this rumor?

I seriously doubt it. I mean, given that the new boss fired RIC FLAIR, you think if he heard the wrestlers had dogged a PPV on purpose he wouldn’t fire all of them? And the 6 man tag was energetic, so if there was some grand conspiracy they weren’t a part of it.

No, just a hostile crowd, a terrible start, bad booking and bad morale made that show suck. It wasn’t deliberate.

2. I remember back during the Trish/Mickie stalker angle that Trish got injured at a PPV and then they used that to bring Beth Phoenix up to the main roster. Then they started an angle where Beth was someone from Mickie’s past and that was why Trish brought her to combat Mickie. But before we out anything about Beth’s and Mickie’s past, Beth had her jaw broken. My question is what was the supposed past between Mickie and Beth and how was the whole angle going to work out in the end?

No idea. WWE probably didn’t know either. Trish Stratus, being the sole woman involved who could do a shoot interview about it, isn’t talking. The sexy possibility, that Beth and Mickie were formerly an item but Mickie dumped her, is almost certainly not the one planned, given that they introduced Mickie’s ex-boyfriend during the Trish as Mickie and Mickie as Trish period, probably to avoid getting heat for running a Lesbian storyline.

It was probably going to be a rehash of the Trish/Victoria past, wherein Mickie at some point betrayed Beth to get ahead, she sacrificed Beth to get a spot on the WWE roster or some such. But I couldn’t find a “What was planned” anywhere online.

3. What is the song played during the ending montage of the Bret Hart dvd?

Bret Hart – DVD ending.

Sadly, the song doesn’t seem to exist outside of that video. That points to it being a Jim Johnston original, in this case an original Limp Bizkit sound alike. It’s probably called “Living It Up” or some such.

4. How do people get jobs as bookers of wrestling companies? I know a lot are former wrestlers or wrestling personalities but some like Gabe Sapolsky just worked backstage for years in ECW and is now a great booker in the indy’s. Also, what are the best ways to really learn how to book well and book great storylines?

Well, there is the old school way to become a booker, as so deftly described by Jim Cornette, which is:

You were a fan of wrestling who hung around the matches, set up the ring, ran errands, etc. until your presence became accepted in the “closed society” of wrestling. An established wrestler took a liking to you and agreed to train you in the basics. After getting the crap kicked out of you in training, you started as a TV job guy or a “curtain-jerker”, got beaten like a drum, losing to everyone wherever you could get booked. You suffered through long trips and low payoffs until, IF you had any talent, you began moving up the cards, and MAYBE you would get a break if you impressed someone in power, and you would get to be involved in an angle or program. If that went well, you MIGHT get booked in a decent spot somewhere else. Over a period of years, working in many different territories, IF you were really good, you MIGHT establish yourself as a top talent.

IF you showed an interest in or aptitude for the booking end of wrestling, you might begin to get input in your own programs and angles, and IF that worked well, you MIGHT be offered a spot as an assistant to an established booker who had taken an interest in you and wanted to mentor you, and if that worked out, a promoter somewhere MIGHT have enough faith in you to give you a shot as his booker. So as you can see, it was fairly easy.

Of course, the method to get a job as a WWE writer is much harder.

‘You’re a writer, hoping one day to make it big in Hollywood. You go to college, get a degree in writing, then begin as a lowly script assistant on a soap or low budget comedy series, until you get to input a little into the scripts, write some yourself, and then you apply to WWE for a job and they hire you.’

There is a middle ground now, of guys like Gabe and, ironically enough, Russo, who are long time fans/hangers on but haven’t wrestled, but you wouldn’t call them WWE style ‘writers’. Well, you might call Russo one, but there are some differences there.

If I knew how to learn how to really book well, I’d be doing it in my fed right now. Suffice to say, trial and error is a player, which is part of the whole becoming a big star of the old school career path. If you know what works by being out there in the ring, it’s much easier.

There is a school of thought that great booking is understanding wrestling backwards, then converting great non-wrestling stories into wrestling stories. But the first step most people fail on. Wrestling is a unique story style, and must be treated as such.

Les is up next.

Hi again… I think this is the 3rd time I’m writing to you and this is one of the best columns out there on 411.

Two Questions:

1) My question deals with reading this weeks question and answer about banned moves and the shooting star press. Specifically, and I’m alittle hazy with the situation, I’ve been reading but don’t recall something about Billy Kidman and his experience with the shooting star press and WCW and WWE, what’s that all about? Is he the only one that was allowed to use it or is he one that sucks at doing it since I”ve heard stories about him using the SSP. Just wanting to know the whole history/ordeal with the SSP and Billy Kidman?

Well, Billy had a lot of experience with the move, he was part of a team called “The Shooting Stars” in the Indys with Ace Darling. He used it when he debuted in WCW as a squeaky clean babyface, then it became the Seven Year Itch when he joined Raven’s Flock and became a junkie.

Only in character though. Although with Raven around…

During his face turn, then the Filthy Animals, then the New Blood, he kept it, during his whole WCW run, he used the SSP, and he didn’t have any major problems with it. It was only after he came to WWE that something came up. Years after debuting, August 26, 2004, he mistimed the SSP and injured Chavo, kneeing him in the head and giving him a concussion. So they then made it into an angle, and went from there.

Now, as for the banned move list, it wouldn’t have helped here, as Kidman had been using it for years and thus would have been able to prove he could do it, like Evan Bourne has. But the botched move probably helped Vince decide on making the ‘list’.

2) What’s the deal with Billy Kidman and Hulk Hogan, again I’m hazy with this situation but did something happen between the two? I think Hogan let him pin him or something, I don’t know, but I know that there was some type of history, not sure if it’s good or bad regarding Hulk Hogan and Billy Kidman.

Again, a great column, Thanks!!!!

Ah, the Kidman/Hogan feud.

Ok, this was during Russo’s run in WCW, and thus it’s all shoot filled and stuff. Basically, during the New Blood storyline, Kidman was pushed in a feud with Hogan, that was meant to elevate him although he ended up looking really bad out of it, either because Hogan’s a political bastard or because Russo and Bischoff couldn’t book together well.

But the reason for their feud is one of those IWC things that gets out of hand and then Russo uses and expects the entire fanbase to get.

Basically, Hogan was being interviewed on a radio show, and he was making a point about someone totally different, Goldberg I believe. And he was making a point about how you have to build people up. And he said (paraphrasing here a smidge) that you look at Kidman. Kidman couldn’t draw at a flea market, right now. You have to build him up.

Everyone ignored the context and focused on that juicy bit. And an IWC meme was born, before we knew to call them that.

So basically, an off hand remark that was misinterpreted was used to justify a feud which didn’t do what it was designed to and no-one came out looking great. Russo in WCW really.

A great moment in Wrestling history.

RIP Brian “Giant Killer” Hildebrand.

Alex asks some questions. Shockinh I know.

1) After reading the Sex, Lies and Headlocks book, it mentions Doink as an evil slasher like clown, who would chase people in the crowd with his sidekick Dink. But as I remember, Doink recieved Dink as a christmas present from Santa (damn, wrestling was lame in the early 90´s!) after turing face. Am I wrong, or is the book mistaken?

Well, a little of both. Yes, the book is very much mistaken. It’s filled with stupid factual errors like that, like when it says that Mike Tyson joined DX and became a huge shill for DX merch, like ‘Mr. Ass action figures’.

Yeah.

However, Dink debuted on the November 27th edition of Wrestling Challenge. Jack Tunney ruled that there could only be one Doink, so Doink got around that rule by bringing in Dink.

2)I am english but also lived for a large part of my childhood in Spain, therefor never got to see the Letterman Show, so I was hoping you could shed some light on this:

Was this a 1 time deal for Vince Mcmahon or was he a regular on the Letterman Show??

This was indeed an RVD style one shot. At the time, Tuesday Night Titans was running on NBC, and so a cross-over appearance would make sense between the two shows of TNT and Late Night with David Letterman.

So Vince, as host of TNT and one of WWF’s main play by play guys, was there to advertise TNT. And since he’s normally a Wrestling Announcer, and a unique one at that, it seemed like a funny idea to have him there as a on site correspondent for a birth. And since he used somewhat wrestling style talking, and Vince style talking, it was amusing to have him talk about babies. So it’s funny and it advertises the other show on the network, so it’s win-win.

3) And also, after watching this:

In the second video, Letterman says Vince is gonna be on the show later…any luck finding a copy of that video at all? I couldn’t.

No, I couldn’t. Probably they bumped him, due to not having time, and since he was just there to sell Wrestlemania, and he wasn’t a name, they felt they didn’t have to put him on. But I would be happy to include the video if someone finds it.

Dude!

Great column!

I was watching SummerSlam 1998 the other day, and I just had to ask some questions about the Oddities…

(1) Why didn’t WWE use more Giant Silva? As big as he was, I’m sure the WWE would’ve loved to put him in a feud against The Undertaker or whoever else. Sure, he couldn’t wrestle, but The Great Khali was once a Champion on SmackDown!, so it couldn’t have stopped them. Could it?

Silva was bad enough that WWF let him go instead of pushing him. So yes, he was THAT bad at the time, he was very new and extremely stiff in terms of being unable to move about the ring comfortably. But that said, he’s still wrestling, and has history as a team with Khali, so it’s entirely possible that a Kane/Big Show V Khali/Silva match could happen.

So reread that and welcome to Vince McMahon’s Wet Dream…

(2) Inherently, put Kurrgan, Giant Silva, Golga and Luna Vachon together, and it seems to me you have a good midcard heel stable. But, I recall that the “Parade of Human Oddities” introduced by the Jackyl only lasted a couple of week before they where inextricably turned face. Why did the turn happen, onscreen and offscreen?

Onscreen: The Jackyl formed the group, ordering them to do evil. But once he left to take over managing The Acolytes (which didn’t last long), Luna Vachon took over and showed them the light and turned them into good guys, with ICP doing their theme music. Sable also joined briefly during this time to further help them on the path to goodness.

Offscreen: Golga was there as the worker, but as heels Silva and/or Kurrigan would need to do stuff. Once they showed how bad they were, they turned them so Golga could spend most of the match getting beat up then the other ones would come in for the last 30 seconds and throw out strikes and such.

(3) A quick “Where are they now”… We all know what happenned to Golga (John Tenta). But what’s up with Giant Silva? Heard he was in Japan. And with Kurrgan? Heard he had quite a movie career going on.

Silva is currently wrestling for National Wrestling Superstars, a east coast federation in the US.

Kurrigan is indeed starting an acting career, after a role in 300, he’s in the new Sherlock Holmes film (where he accidentally slugged Robert Downey Jr. one) and The Big Bang, an Antonio Banderas mystery thriller. So more power to him.

Shamit must be pretty happy right now.

Hi there,

Love your website.

Pls, what is it with the Dirt Sheet? It is really funny now especially with The Miz and Morrison taking potshots at each othere. But now it seems that it is a Miz solo show, not that I am complaining mind you, but what is the story? And “The Miz” looks like he is going to add some interest to the US Title. Hope he wins.

Well, this is the last Dirt Sheet, from September the 11th.

Well, basically, seems they ran out of ideas on how to allow the two to take pot shots at each other, so they experimented, and now they just have The Palace Of Wisdom, deciding that Morrison made a better video than Miz, at least at the moment. Clearly watching them snipe at each other over and over would get boring, so they moved on. If only WWE could do that with their TV product as well as their online…

Josh has two main questions.

Colt Cabana = Scotty Goldman
Monty Brown = Marcus Cor Von
Chris Harris = Braden Walker
Matt Sydal = Evan Bourne

How in the WORLD did the WWE not change CM PUNK into something like Phil Johnston?

But really, why did the WWE let CM Punk use his indy name but changed alot of others?

Because CM got very lucky. WWE hadn’t yet officially begun the policy of renaming everyone to a new, copyrightable name. They had done it a few times, but it wasn’t standard practice yet. So, it wasn’t automatic, AND he had a major fan in Paul Heyman on his side, who pushed hard for him and brought him in, keeping his name. And he got a big reaction in his debut dark match on a WWE show, so he got to keep his name through timing, luck and his previous work.

Hey I got a question about the Savage/Roberts feud from back in 1992. On SNME back in ’92 Savage wrestled and beat Roberts. Before the show went off they showed Roberts behind the curtain. He said something like “It’s not over yet, it’s only the beginning” then the broadcast ended.

On Superstars they showed what happened, they showed the Undertaker saving Elizabeth from a chair shot. Was this always planned? This set up a Roberts/Undertaker feud and a match at WM8. But I always wondered if they had more planned for Savage/Roberts feud.

Also, do you think they had been wanting to turn Undertaker face or was it done out of necessity to give Roberts someone to feud with so Savage could go wrestle Flair?

The card got changed around once they pulled the Flair/Hogan match. So I would have to say that no, this wasn’t the original plan, but once Hogan said he was retired, Vince had the idea to turn Taker face. While it was Vince’s basic idea, Roberts came up with a lot of the details, since once the match was booked it was about making Taker into the new Jake Roberts, a creepy but cool babyface.

When Hogan/Flair got removed, and Hogan was to retire, it changed everything…

Near the end of this section now, Greg brings us onto the final stretch.

1. Was watching a Earthquake v Bastion Booger match (don’t ask), and Earthquake did a pre match promo talking about fighting Ludwig Borga at Wrestlemania 10. If memory serves me correct he fought Adam Bomb. What was the reason for this change?

Borga suffered an Ankle injury in a match with Rick Steiner in January that year, and thus he was pulled from all shows and ended up leaving the company. But perhaps they felt he would be back by then.

2. In the Ride and Fall of WCW DVD Vince McMahon talks about getting kicked off of TBS, which resulted in the huge grudge between the two. I heard that the WWF tanked in Georgia Championship Wrestling’s former timeslot due to WWF only showing squash matches. Any truth to this?

The Boss Man Larry wrote an excellent history of Black Saturday, so I’ll not bother redoing it.

My Damm Opinion

The Ro asks about my opinion on various things.

Thanks for answering last time.

Heres my questions.

1. Do you blame a wrestlers success on the way he or she is booked or the individual? I remember when they repackaged Rob Conway and gave him Buff Bagwell’s old gimmick and it looked like it would work but he was dubbed a jobber for life so he received the ax.

It depends. Sometimes it’s clearly no fault of the talent, they’re trying their hardest, but the booker/writers/fans just don’t care. And sometimes it’s clearly their own fault, they come in with a chip on their shoulders or with a superiority complex or have gotten old and/or broken down or whatever. There’s no set rule for blame, some people debut as a failure, others achieve failure and others have failure thrust upon them.

Although I’m far less forgiving for wrestlers who fail on their own. If a wrestler isn’t pushing you, you don’t take your ball and go home, you suck it up and work hard to where they have no choice but to do so.

2.Whats your take on the X-Division title. I hear people say its TNAs secondary title since theres no limits but it comes across as being a cruiserweight title in my opinion seeing that little guys compete for it. Wouldn’t TNA be better scrapping the Legends belt and making maybe a TV title or some other type of secondary title and leave the X-Division belt for the smaller guys?

Well, the Legend’s belt is their secondary belt now, which while starting out as a vanity belt is at least a different, unique title for a secondary belt (after all, the WWF European Title began as a vanity belt…)

The X Division was a great idea in theory, bring in the American Indy style that could wow the crowd ala the Cruiserweights in WCW. And it might still be back to that one day, if they just book it right, i.e. as an antithesis to the Russo style. Most fans understand that shows can’t be totally similar in styles, but the Workrate fans tend to be happy enough with one great match or a couple good ones a week.

So yeah, keep the belts, just bring the X Division one back to it’s roots and make the storylines base around it and how much people want it. One 20 minute match a week (with maybe a picture in picture of a backstage skit during a rest hold) and you’ll satisfy some critics.

3.My last question is about Dean Malenko. Back when I was younger I used to love the cruiserweight division in WCW mainly for the spot fest and crazy moves. I remember my dislike for Malenko since he was more of a technical mat based wrestler. As I grew older I respected more technical mat submission based wrestlers and I was wondering why was his WWE run so poorly executed. He could of done great for at least midcard level and what is he up to now? I’d love to see him put a guy like Hornswoggle in the Cloverleaf haha.

Well, Dean’s now an agent for WWE. You see him occasionally running in to break up a brawl, or to try and restore order as someone goes nuts. Although officially he’s a producer. That Raw script that got leaked had him down as the ‘producer’ of the Orton/HHH confrontation and the HBK/Kozlov match for the right to fight Taker at WM25, so he’s fairly high up the food chain as agents go.

An in ring return is damm unlikely, but given Finlay and more recently Steamboat’s returns… Never say never.

Drew returns, and forces me to mix in fact with my opinion.

2. My 2nd question is with Elijah Burke heading to TNA I think the E is losing out alot being that hes very good on the mic and is capable of putting together a decent match. My questions is What do u think is the reasons for the e letting burke go and how far could he’ve gone had they used him better? and who do you think is the E’s biggest talent they let go that went on to do big things elsewhere?

Well, the reasons behind his release appeared to be that he didn’t have anyone to bat for him. Burke began as a double act with Sylvester Terkay on Smackdown, under the writing of Court Bauer, who appeared to like him. He was then transferred to ECW at Heyman’s request, since he too liked him. Then Dave Lagana took over ECW, and he pushed Burke. But then all 3 ended up gone from the company, and thus he had no backers. And, for some reason, no-one else saw anything in him, so he was pulled and then fired, eventually.

Burke was and is a little rough around the edges, but he’s clearly got that It factor, and might well break through to the next level, with a little work and effort.

And as for the one that got away, while you could argue a guy like Brock, I think Bryan Danielson would have to be up there, even if he’s been rehired now. But it’s a debateable point, given what value of big things you want to give.

What do you guys think?