Ask 411 Wrestling: Who Was the Last Wrestler to Debut Under Vince McMahon?

Welcome guys, gals, and gender non-binary pals, to Ask 411 . . . the last surviving weekly column on 411 Wrestling.

I am your party host, Ryan Byers, and I am here to answer some of your burning inquiries about professional wrestling. If you have one of those queries searing a hole in your brain, feel free to send it along to me at [email protected]. Don’t be shy about shooting those over – the more, the merrier.

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Brad is part of the old regime:

I’m curious about something that sounds like a future trivia question. Who was the last wrestler to debut (and actually wrestle) on the main roster while Vince McMahon was in power? That’s a unique footnote in wrestling history.

This one has been sitting on my list of questions for a while, as Brad actually asked it back in June 2022, when Vince McMahon stepped down from having an active role in WWE for the first time, only to later force himself back into power again in January 2023. Once word of alleged sexual assaults began to swirl, McMahon stepped down again, and now it seems like he’s really, really done with the company. The day he stepped down was January 26, 2024, so the question is now who is the last wrestler to make their main roster debut prior to that date.

I’ve tracked down the answer, and it surprised me, because the last wrestler to make their debut prior to the departure of Vince McMahon is about the furthest thing away from Vinnie Mac’s style of wrestler that you could possibly imagine.

It’s . . .

Axiom.

Though he is still primarily considered a part of the NXT roster, Axiom made a one-off appearance as an opponent for Dragon Lee on November 17, 2023 as part of an episode of Smackdown taped in Evansville, Indiana, which was his main roster debut.

Night Wolf the Wise isn’t going anywhere for a few months:

1. What year did WWE first start using the 90 day no compete cause in their contracts?

2. I was watching the Six feet Under show with Undertaker. He had Jake Roberts as his guest. During the episode Jake mentioned that when he was leaving WWE to go to WCW that Vince told him he had to wait 90 days to compete. Was Jake the Snake the first WWE wrestler to have that clause?

It’s hard to say because we don’t have reporting on the contents of every professional wrestling contract going back for time immemorial.

So, I don’t know that I can answer the direct question without having access to a database of all WWE contracts for all WWE talent ever. No such database exists . . . at least not one that’s publicly available.

Because this question is virtually unanswerable, I decided that I would look for something that would give us somewhat of a proxy to try to come up with some sort of answer. Thus, I started looking for the oldest pro wrestling contract hat I could find which included any sort of non-compete provision.

This took me to Wrestlenomics, which as we’ve seen a couple of times in the past in this column maintains scans of wrestler contracts that have become part of the public record through lawsuits and other, similar proceedings.

While there, the earliest wrestler contract I found with some sort of non-compete provision was from September 5, 1984, which was a booking contract between Ray Hernandez (a.k.a. Hercules) and Billy Watts’ Mid-South Wrestling. It says that if Hernandez wrestled fewer than six matches in his last six months with the company, then he would have a six-month non-compete “within an eighty mile radius of any television station originating any broadcast of Mid-South Sports.” However, if he wrestled more than six matches in his last six months with the company, then that six month non-compete would be expanded to a one-year non-compete within the same geographic area.

If Mid-South was putting non-competes into wrestlers’ contracts in 1984, I would say it is a virtual certainty that WWF/WWE was using them at least that far back.

The stars at night are big and bright, deep in the heart of Tyler from Winnipeg:

Top 5 wrestlers born in Texas?

Steve Austin, Dusty Rhodes, Gory Guerrero, Fitz Von Erich, Barry Windham

(I was all ready to include the Funks on this list until I remembered that they were all born in Indiana and relocated to Texas later.)

Zach is grasping his knee in pain:

Do wrestling companies have a contingency plan in place if a wrestler gets injured and can’t continue in a match in which they are supposed to win a title?

Not that I’ve ever heard of. Almost universally, when there is an unexpected injury during a match, the situation is dealt with on the fly.

Randy from Mayville, ND is catching up:

Am I dreaming or was there supposed to be an acknowledgment ceremony for Roman Reigns at the end of January?  Wasn’t that mentioned on a show or after a ppv?  What happened with that ceremony?  Where do you see the Bloodline angle going at this point?  

Yes, the “acknowledgment” ceremony was set for the January 27, 2025 episode of Raw and ultimately morphed into the segment in which Reigns was revealed as the cover star for the latest WWE video game.

As far as the current state of the Bloodline angle, at this point I think it’s time to put it on ice for a while and let everybody go their separate ways.

Dylan is going all over the place:

Have any wrestlers wrestled at least one match in all of the following promotions:

WWE/WWF
WCW
ECW (original only, not the WWE revival)
TNA/Impact
Ring of Honor
AEW

Yes. I actually answered a variation on this question back in 2023.

Christopher Daniels has definitely done this.

So has Devon “Crowbar” Storm.

There could conceivably be some others and I’m glad to have them pointed out in the comments, but those are the two best examples that I can think of.

Bryan is anything but expendable:

In 2010, the greatest film in the history of civilization, The Expendables came out. Steve Austin was a co-star. Was there a reason the WWE didn’t try to piggy back off his involvement for publicity? Were they on the outs? If they asked Sly to star on Raw to promote the film, he probably would. Any reason they didn’t jump on this opportunity?

I have a hard time believing that WWE is getting Stallone in 2010. He was a big enough star that he didn’t need their programming to promote his film.

Lee in Liverpool is taking us way back:

Could you please give a bit of biographical detail on all the (W)WF’s play-by-play announcers prior to 1984?

There are some individuals who announced for the WWWF in this era who I’m guessing you already know a fair amount about, including Bruno Sammartino, Pat Patterson, and one Vincent K. McMahon. Also, given the way the question was worded, I’m focusing only on those individuals who announced behind the desk and not delving in to ring announcers or interviewers.

Perhaps the most prominent announcer for the WWWF prior to Vince Jr. was Ray Morgan, who goes back to Vince Sr.’s Capitol Wrestling Corporation. Morgan’s career in broadcasting reaches back before the advent of television, as he was in radio in the 1930s and 1940s before switching gears to host a variety of televised programming. When Capitol Wrestling moved its television tapings from Washington D.C., where Morgan was based, to Pennsylvania, Ray left the job. This is what created the opening for Vince McMahon to serve as an announcer.

Another early announcer for Capitol Wrestling was Morris Siegel, who like many WWE announcers today began as a broadcaster for legitimate sports, including work for the Washington Redskins shortly after he returned from serving in the United States Navy in World War II.

Bill Cardille, like many wrestling announcers of the 1970s was not just a wrestling announcer but a general television personality who appeared on local stations in a variety of roles. During his career, most of which took place in Pennsylvania, Cardille was a news presenter, game show host, and sports commentator. His most noteworthy role outside of wrestling was as one of the most prolific horror hosts of the 1960s under the name “Chilly Billy.” He also had a small role in George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.

Kal Rudman mostly announced arena shows that originated in Philadelphia. He was yet another stalwart of local radio and television broadcasts who found his way into the professional wrestling world. Fans of The Today Show would also know him, as he regularly appeared on that program as a music expert.

Though we mentioned Patterson and Sammartino as two former wrestlers who served as Vince McMahon’s color commentary partners, there is a third who may not be as well known to modern fans, and that is “Argentina” Antonino Rocca, who was one of the New York wrestling territory’s biggest stars of the 1950s. He and tag team partner Miguel Perez are among the most successful headliners in the history of Madison Square Garden before becoming an announcer.

Tony Garea also hosted alongside McMahon for a time in 1984. Born in New Zealand, Garea is a five-time WWWF Tag Team Champion with a variety of partners and actually worked for the company as a road agent as recently as 2014. For most of those years, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, he could regularly be seen as part of the troupe of nameless WWF/WWE officials who would be breaking up wild brawls.

Also eking in during 1984 is Jack Reynolds, who was a play-by-play guy for many wrestling promotions prior to joining the WWWF/WWF. Like Cardille, he had a variety of roles in both television and radio throughout his career and also scored a small role in a classic film – namely The Godfather.

JM is digging in:

Do you think there’s any real chance Triple H, Pritchard, etc. were genuinely unaware of Vince’s dealings with Janel Grant? What kind of “smoking gun” evidence would it take for TKO to decide to just fully clean house, or are we at a point where nothing from the Vince era matters as long as profits are high?

We’re dealing with some pretty serious allegations against Vince here, which lead to a criminal investigation by the United States Department of Justice. Given the severity of those allegations, I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to speculate on others having knowledge of the situation that could theoretically implicate them in civil or criminal matters. Speculation of that nature would just be irresponsible.

Dragon Sleepah has the best name of anybody who reads this column. He also has a question:

I was wondering why in the 98 rumble, the 22nd entrant was vacant? I’ve never seen the full PPV, but Wikipedia stated that Skull (one the Harris twins) that was supposed to be number 22 got injured by Savio Vega’s group earlier in the night. Just wondered why they didn’t fill the spot and was this the only rumble to have a vacant entrant like that?

Oh, this kind of thing has happened pretty often in Royal Rumbles, actually. It’s like any other match. When a scheduled entrant cannot compete, they forfeit the bout and the match can be continued without them if there is more than one other competitor.

In 1991, Randy Savage failed to show up for the eighteenth slot in the Rumble match because he fled the building after costing the Ultimate Warrior the WWF Championship in his match against Sgt. Slaughter earlier in the evening.

In 1994, Bastion Booger was supposed to have the #25 spot in the match but was said to not enter because he ate something that disagreed with him.

Ten years later, in 2004, Spike Dudley drew number thirteen but could not make it to the ring due to an attack by Kane.

In 2008, Fit Finaly was actually disqualified and never officially started in the match. This resulted from him attacking Mark Henry and Viscera with his shillelagh to protect Hornswoggle. This was an odd booking decision, because historically there haven’t been disqualifications in the Royal Rumble.

In 2015, similar to what happened to Spike Dudley in ’04, Curtis Axel never made it to the ring due to an assault by the Wyatt Family.

Finally, in 2023, Rey Mysterio Jr. failed to enter in his #17 slot because he was taken out backstage by his own son Dominik.

We’ll return in seven-ish days, and, as always, you can contribute your questions by emailing [email protected]. You can also leave questions in the comments below, but please note that I do not monitor the comments as closely as I do the email account, so emailing is the better way to get things answered.