Ask 411 Wrestling: Is CM Punk the Savior of WWE?

Welcome guys, gals, and gender non-binary pals, to Ask 411 Wrestling. I am your party host, Ryan Byers, and I am here to answer some of your burning inquiries about professional wrestling.

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Mohamed makes his return after ticking a bunch of people off a couple of columns ago:

What was the wrestling boom period of the late 90s like for fans like you?

I got in to wrestling in the early 1990s when I was in elementary school. I lived in a rural area in the middle of nowhere, and we didn’t have the ability to subscribe to cable television at the time, so we got four channels, five on a good day. I was flipping through them one Saturday afternoon and came across a Roddy Piper promo on the syndicated WWF Superstars program and was immediately hooked.

With our four channels, I only had that one hour of wrestling a week, until we moved a year or two later and got access to cable, at which point I started watching other WWF programming, most notably WWF Mania on Saturday mornings, All American Wrestling on Sundays, and Prime Time Wrestling on Monday nights (shortly thereafter replaced with Raw). I had no concept that WCW existed until a year or two after that, when I stumbled across their programming on TBS by to accident. From there, my weekly wrestling consumption doubled, as I started watching WCW Saturday Night, Main Event, and {Pro}.

I have a very distinct memory of watching Saturday Night one evening, when they aired a promo for a new WCW show called Nitro. I was thrilled at first, because I couldn’t get enough wrestling, but, when I paid more attention to the night and time, I felt a sudden sense of dread as I realized that I couldn’t possibly both watch Raw and Nitro, as they were going head-to-head with one another.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do at first, because, at that time in my life, if there was wrestling going I on, I couldn’t NOT watch it. (This is a condition that is now referred to as “Larry Csonka Syndrome.”) Ultimately, though, I figured out what I was going to do. I wasn’t going to pick a side. I was going to constantly flip back and forth between them, trying to catch as much of both shows as possible. That’s legitimately what I did the entire time that both programs were on the air, even though, during the beginning of the “war,” the WWF was way behind the curve in terms of delivering an engaging product and, during the end of the “war,” WCW was so insipidly booked that it might have insulted my intelligence even more than Vince Russo-era TNA.

During this period, I was probably more excited about wrestling than I was at any point prior and more than I have at any point since. After the first few months, both companies were pulling out all of the stops to innovate and draw fans away from the other program. The results of this brought us things like the nWo, the WCW cruiserweight division, constant talent jumps, the rise of Steve Austin and the Rock, and, so, so much more. Granted, there were also new directions that both companies tried that were miserable failures (e.g. nWo Nitro, Brawl for All), but, even when things failed, they failed in such a spectacular fashion that it was almost never boring.

There was also an interesting social effect of wrestling suddenly becoming popular. Growing up in a small town, I went to school with, more or less, the same set of kids from kindergarten all the way up through high school, and most of them knew from a fairly early point that wrestling was one of the things that I was in to. There were only one or two other people in school who cared during those early days, but, when the late 1990s rolled around and wrestling was mainstream, many more people were interested, and I became the one that everybody was checking in with for additional backstory and information. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that it made me popular (nothing was going to do that), but it allowed me to be the resident “expert” something that people cared about.

Then, of course, there was the internet. Again, because of the relatively isolated place where I grew up, we were fairly late adopters of the ‘net, and I didn’t have it in my home until 1998. Much like cable TV expanded my world of wrestling so that it included WCW, the internet expanded my view even further. I still remember the first day we got internet access. One of the first things that I did was type the word “wrestling” in to Yahoo to see what came up. More specific searches followed, with several of them focused on wrestlers who I had briefly seen on television but who had vanished relatively quickly, especially foreign wrestlers like Jushin Liger and Aja Kong. That eventually lead me to tape trading websites, and, before the end of the decade, there were poorly dubbed second and third generation VHS tapes of things like the Super J Cup showing up in my physical mail.

To summarize it all, I suppose that I would say that late 1990s period was an incredibly exciting time to be a fan, because there was so much product being generated, representing a variety of different styles and featuring some of the most talented performers that the game has ever seen. (Though I may catch some hell for saying this, I think that, even though the best wrestlres today are better than the best wrestlers then, overall there were more top-level talented wrestlers in the 1990s than there are today.) Plus, being a fan was still new enough to me that just about every show was fresh, whereas now I feel like I’ve seen it all, particularly when it comes to the American scene, which has become dominated by WWE’s fairly repetitive vision of sports entertainment.

Tyler from Winnipeg has lost is marbles, but he’s also got a theory as to where they went:

Did Tajiri have marbles in the base of his boot sole which would rattle around and improve the sound when throwing his lethal sounding kick strikes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0WzXK3LQPQ

Not that I’m aware of. If you watch a lot of Tajiri kicks in a row (which the above video allows you to do), it’s pretty apparent how he got the sound that he did when he kicked people in the head. Every time he kicks and “connects,” he slaps his right hip/thigh. There are a lot of wrestlers who slap themselves in order to make strikes sound more impressive, but Tajiri was particularly good at it, in part because the gear he typically wore was made of a material that could have sounded louder than most ring gear and in part because he usually does a little spin in conjunction with his trademark buzzsaw kick, which, combined with good camera work, goes a long way to masking the fact that the slap is occurring.

I’ve heard people other than Tyler speculate over the years that maybe Tajiri had some sort of mechanism in his boots that lead to the kicking noise (though this is the first I’ve heard marbles mentioned), but the slaps are apparent in the video. Plus, if he had something loaded in his boots that made the noise, you’d hear the same thing when he threw a kick that missed, which has never occurred to my knowledge.

Oh, and because I enjoyed it so much, here’s an obscure match that features Tajiri wrestling the Godwinns:

Adrian from Ireland is holding out for a hero:

WWE seems to be holding out hope that CM Punk is the guy to turn around their current ratings and storyline slump what with Seth calling him out online and now on this week’s RAW (11/25/19) . Do you think this is a tad desperate? He may not be interested in wrestling again. But, if he does return when do you see it happening and how would you book it?

I don’t know that I would call what I’ve seen desperate, though I’m writing this answer about a month after the question was originally asked. (Specifically, I’m writing this column on December 21.) In that time, there’s not been much teasing of Punk beyond what was referenced in the question, which makes sense because, until you know that a match or return is going to happen, you really shouldn’t get fans’ hopes up by promoting it.

That being said, if Punk were to return to the ring, I don’t know that it would do much for WWE outside of an initial curiosity bump in the ratings for a week or two. Though I’m not watching much of the current product, what I’m hearing is that the shows are being written in a very formulaic manner, to the point that anybody, no matter how talented they are, just becomes another cog in their machine and gets booked so poorly that fans eventually turn on them. It happened with Roman Reigns, who was once a mega-hot rising star that organically connected with fans in the Shield, and it happened with Seth Rollins, who was once the guy (other than Daniel Bryan) who fans wanted to see pushed instead of Reigns but has now been forced into a heel turn because people rejected him as a main event babyface. I’d be willing to bet that Punk would, eventually, meet the same fate.

How would I book him? I’m not much of a fantasy booking guy, but I think that you need to use him as a special attraction. Don’t make him a regular part of the roster. Don’t let him appear on television every week. Bring him in about once a quarter to compete in “dream matches” that we haven’t seen on WWE television before, whether it’s against Rollins, Kevin Owens, or perhaps even Alexander Rusev.

Of course, that sounds a lot like how WWE is currently booking another main-event level wrestler who has also competed in the UFC (though much more successfully), namely one Mr. Brockington Q. Lesnar. Though there are quite a few people out there in 411mania comment section land who like to bellyache about “part timers” taking spots on major shows from “deserving” full-time roster members, the fact of the matter is there’s a track record of wrestling being pretty darn successful when its top stars weren’t on television every week. My concern is that, if you overexpose Punk, his effectiveness will be severely limited. Let him maintain some of the mystique that he’s been able to build up by being out of wrestling altogether over the last several years, and that’s what will give him the best opportunity to make a difference in modern wrestling.

Michael is going to the pay windah:

For all the talk over the last 30 so years of wrestling of guys playing politics/booking themselves strong, and all the ridicule that performers like Hogan, HHH, Nash, HBK, Cena, etc. have gotten, don’t you find that generally, 1) Dusty Rhodes gets off the hook easy and also, 2) might have booked himself the strongest?

If you go back and look at insider newsletters and the like from at or just after the time that Dusty was booking himself on top, he absolutely did not get off easy. “Smart” fans of the time and other wrestlers absolutely skewered him for promoting himself as the top guy and later also gave him some flak for promoting his son Dustin as an up-and-comer in early 1990s WCW. However, now that we’re thirty or forty years removed from those days, I think you’re absolutely correct that his name isn’t in the conversation with those other people who booked or politicked themselves in to main slots. I think that there are three main reasons for this:

1. WWE won the wrestling war, so they write the history books. This means that, generally, there is a lot less emphasis on Mid-Atlantic/Jim Crockett Promotions/WCW when fans talk about wrestling history.

2. Though Dusty always promoted himself in a top position, it’s difficult to name somebody whose career he actively hurt through doing so. Sting and Lex Luger, for example, still did just fine for themselves, and Dusty really was grooming Magnum TA to be THE guy prior to his accident. On the other side of the coin, you can list numerous guys who Hogan, Nash, and HHH cut off at the knees at various points.

3. It’s been a few years since the American Dream passed away at this point, but some of this may also be the “don’t speak ill of the recently dead” effect. There is a lot of reverence for Dusty among a generation of fans that didn’t even see him wrestling at his peak because so many NXT talents he coached and obviously his sons speak so highly of him. This creates a little bit of a halo effect that immunizes him from criticism.

Do I think that Dusty booked himself more strongly than the Hogans and the HHHs of the world? I tipped my hand on this answer a couple of paragraphs ago, but my immediate reaction is “no.” The guy legitimately became one of the most popular wrestlers in the world even before he engaged in any politicking, and he was largely out of the ring after a couple of decades (legends matches excepted), never really kneecapping young wrestlers who were a threat to his spot and in fact actively promoting them on a few different occasions. Yes, he did keep himself in a top spot when other bookers might have downplayed him due to his age, his ring work, or his physique, but from a pure charisma standpoint he generally belonged where he was on cards.

APinOZ is here to make us humble:

Was there ever heat between Andre the Giant and the Iron Sheik? There were some murmurs and a 1984 match from Nassau Coliseum saw Andre sell nothing for Sheik in a 20 minute match and handle him roughly, even dumping guest referee Friday (Kamala’s handler) on Sheik’s head. Sheik looked legit pissed off after the match.

First off, the match in question is online. Here it is:

The exact date was September 7, 1984, and it aired on the MSG Network, hence the video that we’ve got here.

As far as heat between the Sheik and the Giant is concerned, I believe Hulk Hogan mentioned in the HBO documentary about Andre that dropped in 2018 that the Frenchman was no fan of Shieky baby, though there weren’t many details given as to why. The source of online comments about heat between the two men seems to be a 2002 shoot interview that RF Video conducted with Bobby Heenan, in which the Brain claimed that Andre didn’t care for the Sheik due to Sheik’s taking advantage of enhancement talent in matches. This did lead to Andre giving Sheik a taste of his own medicine when they got in the ring together, not just in the match linked to above, but also in a match where Heenan claimed that Andre sat on the Sheik’s back and rowed his arms like they were the oars of a boat.

For what it’s worth, Sheik has also gone on the record claiming not to care for Andre, allegedly due to Andre not caring to interact with fans despite being a babyface. (For what it’s worth, Sheik isn’t the only guy who has said this about Andre.) Here’s a brief example:

It’s time. It’s time. It’s Connor time:

I know Vader always had a reputation for working stiff, but just how dangerous and reckless was he in the ring? It didn’t look like he would protect you at all in there

Vader was definitely a wrestler who would hit people pretty darn hard, but that’s largely a result of his being trained by the old school Verne Gagne at his camp and spending his formative years as a wrestler in Japan facing guys like Stan Hansen. However, despite the man from the Rocky Mountains working pretty snug, it’s not as though he showed a lot of disregard for his opponents’ well-being or intentionally went out of his way to injure them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__p8g1WQL_4

Probably the most infamous moment of Vader’s career as it relates to one of his opponents being injured is the “broken back” that he inflicted on enhancement talent Joe Thurman during a 1992 squash match. However, reports have come out since that, even though Thurman wasn’t in great shape after the match, he was up and moving around later the same evening, so the back issues may have been a bit overblown to make Vader out to be an even bigger monster than he was. (Also, Thurman was pretty green, so some of the issue may have been his inability to take the bumps in question.)

Vader also sometimes gets flak for ending the career of Nikita Koloff, but Koloff had an incentive to stay out of the ring once he got hurt due to a fairly lucrative Lloyd’s of London insurance policy, similar to the ones that kept Curt Hennig and Rick Rude out of the ring for quite a while and had an impact on what Bret Hart was allowed to do when he returned to WWE for Wrestlemania XXVI. So, even though Koloff may have had his last match with Vader and may have been hurt somewhat in that match, claiming that Vader “retired him” might be a bit of a stretch.

That will do it for this week’s installment of the column. We’ll return in seven days, and, as always, you can contribute your questions by emailing [email protected].