Ask 411 Wrestling 09.10.08: Tod, Tom and Tazz!

Greetings, humanity! Welcome to the rebooted Ask 411 Wrestling with me, Chris Lansdell. Before we get into the column, allow me to take a minute and point out that today marks my one year anniversary with 411mania. It’s hard to believe all that’s happened in that year, and I’ve enjoyed almost every second of it. For posterity, here is my first ever article.

My poor beloved Derby County. Worry not, one day you shall win again.

Musical accompaniment this week: Do No Wrong, by Azrael. Tremendous tune. And now, the brand new…

BANNER!

A thousand thousand thank yous to Benjamin Colon, whose awesome work is displayed above. With very little direction to work with (basically, “Keep Neidhart in it”), he came up with the above in short order. To see more of his work you can check out the awesome graphic novel series SoulExodus. Which deserves a look if only for the name.

Cleaning Up

Your words have been heard! Starting this week, I will be limiting opinion questions to one person per column. I’ve changed the name of the feedback section as well. A special reminder to people complaining that I haven’t answered their questions yet: I WILL get to them. I do not ignore questions. If I don’t feel your question can be answered in the column for whatever reason, I will email you. So far I haven’t done that, but it might come up. The important thing to remember is that I work through the emails in the order they were received. Right now you’re looking at about a 3 week delay to get your question answered. As good as Cook was, he always had a similar delay.

Thanks to all who offered comments and corrections last week. Here we go with the summary:

• Marty Jannetty has been fired and rehired more than 3 Ultimate Warriors.
• Nobody really knows for sure what the mark on Stevie Ray’s shoulder is.
• Kanyon was the fan who attacked Raven

Shall we get to the questions then? Yes, let’s! Site regular JLAJRC has two good questions.

1.) On the “Rise and Fall of ECW” DVD, they briefly mention something about Todd Gordon being a traitor. Can you go into more detail on this?

It’s one of those wrestling stories that some believe and some don’t. After Eddie Gilbert left ECW, it was run by Paul Heyman and Tod (one “D”) Gordon. Heyman handled the booking while Gordon did the financial stuff. When several ECW stars started jumping to WCW, suspicions arose that Gordon was a WCW mole and was facilitating the moves. It turned into internet legend and Gordon left ECW soon after, citing the desire to be with his new wife and his family. To this day Gordon swears it was all a work, but a large segment of the IWC believes it was true.

2.) What was the purpose of Kane’s one-day reign as WWE Champion if he was just going to lose it back to Austin (and cleanly, too) the next night on RAW? Seems like a waste of time.

Crash TV, also known as Russo booking. Russo was always known for having a short attention span with angles, title runs and alliances. Taking the title off the biggest fan favourite in the industry and giving it to a new evil heel on PPV was a way to make people tune in the next night, thus spiking their ratings against Nitro. In that era the PPVs were merely in place to sell the TV show, since the 6s and 7s they were getting were worth more than PPV buyrates. Everyone who watched the PPV knew that Austin had lost, and those who didn’t would have read it on the internet, making them want to watch Raw. Mission accomplished.

Aaron is asking about a blast from the past:

Whatever happened to Tom Zenk? I used to read his columns on his site and literally be in tears at the stories he was telling. Then suddenly his site was only selling tapes and pics of him. It smells of WWF “cease and desist” action. Any ideas? I’ve been trying to figure this one out for years.

Keep up the good work.

Zenk is no longer involved with wrestling, and apparently is working with an international film distributor. I hope it’s not Red Light District. I do remember hearing that Zenk was getting a lot of heat from guys who used to call him friend over his columns, so that may well have been the reason he stopped. Then again, legal threats from WWE would not surprise me either.

EasterRambo, which presents all sorts of interesting and somewhat disturbing images, is questioning his mental faculties. When you see the questions, you’ll understand:

I have a recollection of two old men fighting in drag, and one attacking the other with a banana. Nobody I know wants to admit they remember this, but can you tell me if I’m right or insane?

I’m not qualified to comment on your sanity, but I can tell you that you’re right. In fact I was discussing this match with Byers just the other day. King of the Ring 2000, Gerry “Geraldine” Brisco vs Pat “Patricia” Patterson in a Hardcore Evening Gown match for the WWE Hardcore Championship. Patterson removed the banana from his/her “cleavage”, peeled it halfway and said “You want a banana Gerry? Here, have my banana!” and proceeded to mash it into Brisco’s face. In case you are wondering, that was possibly the LEAST disturbing part of the match. Disturbing, yet hilarious and with a marktastic ending. See for yourself:

Something else I remember is a big black guy, gold chains, walked like a gorilla and dressed like MVP. Was this the inspiration for the MVP gimmick? I remember he fought Undertaker, but every big guy did around this time.

Any help?

Ahh now this one is a lot more manly. You’re remembering the Supreme Fighting Machine, Kama. He was part of the Million Dollar Team and stole the Undertaker’s urn, melting it down into the chains you mention. He did indeed feud with Taker. He would later go on to be Kama Mustafa of the Nation, then the Godfather. Prior to this gimmick he was everyone’s favourite witch doctor, Papa Shango.

The MVP gimmick was more inspired by people like Terrell Owens who think they are bigger than their sport. Although their ring attire was similar, there weren’t really any other parallels between the 2 characters. Well, except for skin colour.

Raul has a question about a historic moment:

What was the deal with Tazz beating Mike Awesome for the ECW belt? I heard it was something special but the match was pretty shite. Was it because Tazz was with WWE at the time?

Well I don’t know that it was shite, it certainly wasn’t the most amazing match ever but it was better than, say, the Extreme Elimination Chamber or a Nathan Jones match. I’d rather watch a man get hit by a truck than either of those.

Your guess is part right. It was the first incidence in North America of a wrestler under contract to one company beating a wrestler under contract to another company for the title of a third company. Mike Awesome had just signed a deal with WCW, and was ECW Champion at the time. Because he “did business the right way”, he didn’t want to leave the company high and dry without a champion, and he had no intention of “pulling a Madusa” and dumping the title in the garbage on Nitro. Heyman made some calls, got permission from Vince to use Tazz, and set up the match. Tazz said in an interview that he was worried at first that the ECW fans would react negatively, since he came out to his WWE music and was met with “You sold out!” chants on his way out of the company.

The whole thing is full of irony and coincidence. When Tazz left ECW for WWE, it was Mike Awesome who won the title from him in a Triple Threat Elimination also featuring Masato Tanaka. Despite the crowd being on his case up until he was eliminated from the match (first, as it happens), the entire ECW roster was waiting on the entrance ramp to greet Tazz, and Heyman embraced him. It’s also probably the only time Vince, Paul and Eric collaborated while being rivals, and for Eric to allow one of his guys (albeit a new signing) to get beaten clean by one of Vince’s guys was huge. Finally, Mike Awesome would later become the first non-contracted wrestler (in kayfabe terms, and excluding the Godfather’s ho) to win a WWE title when he won the Hardcore title at the start of the Invasion angle.

Arron is a younger fan who has some understandable questions about some of wrestling’s more questionable moments:

1. What’s the fingerpoke of doom? Was it a finisher? It sounds pretty lame if it is.

In a way, it is a finisher. And it is lame. Very lame. The phrase normally refers to the highly anticipated showdown for the WCW Title between Hollywood Hulk Hogan, leader of the nWo Black and White, and Kevin Nash, WCW champion and leader of nWo Wolfpac. The feud had been building for months as Nash led a splinter group away from the heels in the original now and made them into strong faces. Nash had won the WCW title from Goldberg, breaking his fabled undefeated streak in the process (thanks to Scott Hall and a cattle prod). With the state WCW was in at the time, this was a big money feud for them and a huge match, and several thought it strange that it would be done on Nitro, but nobody was complaining. The bell rang, they faced off, they talked trash, Hogan pointed at Nash to emphasize his words and jabbed him in the chest with his finger, as we often see in wrestling. Only this time, Nash went down like Lindsay Lohan on a boat and Hogan covered him for the 3 and the win.

The real-life story behind this was that Hogan wanted to be the one to end Goldberg’s streak, but Nash used his leverage with the booking team to convince Hogan otherwise. Nash broke the streak in return for jobbing to Hogan at a later date. Why they couldn’t have done it as a proper match is a whole other story. Essentially, the most storied streak in wrestling in many many years ended so that Hogan could jab Nash in the chest with his finger. Somehow I doubt that Undertaker’s streak will end in a similar way.

2. My dad says there was a garbage man who wrestled, and a pig farmer, and a racecar driver. I don’t believe him. Is he right?

Alas, Arron, he is. The garbage man was Duke ‘The Dumpster’ Droese, who once feuded with Triple H and did not much else. The pig farmers were Henry O and Phineas I Godwinn (get it? HOG and PIG! HAHAHA…), who enjoyed a fair degree of success as former tag team champions. Phineas would go on to become Mideon and would become European champion in a most unique way. The racecar driver started off as Thurman “Sparky” Plugg, then was just Sparky Plugg, then Bob “Spark Plug” Holly, then Bodacious Bob of the New Midnight Express, then Bob Holly of the JOB Squad, and finally Bob “Hardcore” Holly. I wish I was making this stuff up.

Reminding me fondly of my childhood is Bob, The Killer Goldfish. Earthworm Jim ruled all. He has two great questions:

1. With Killer Kowalski’s heart attack, it got me thinking: which wrestling school has more successes, The Hart Dungeon, Shawn’s school or Killer’s?

This is not an easy one to answer, for several reasons. We’ll define “success” as winning any title in one of the major promotions (WWE, WCW, ECW, TNA, RoH), that seems as good a yardstick as any. The problem comes with figuring out who actually went through the Dungeon, and who was trained by Bruce Hart. Shawn’s school, for all the great talents that have been through it, is not on a level with the other two: Bryan Danielson, Brian Kendrick, Paul London and Lance Cade came through and are still active today, but they don’t come close to the Hart list: Bret, Owen, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Lance Storm, Mark Henry, Jim Neidhart, Davey Boy Smith…
Kowalski’s list is very impressive (Triple H, Chyna, Saturn, Kaz) but there’s a clear winner here, and it’s the Harts.

2. What’s the source of the heat between Foley and Flair?

Whee, fun story time. Basically, Flair has never rated Foley as anything more than a sideshow freak, an attraction if you will. He credits Foley with being a great Hardcore wrestler, and with going a long way on a little talent, but refuses to acknowledge him as anything more than that. Back when Foley was in WCW, Flair was on the booking committee and refused to push the then Cactus Jack any further than the midcard. This ultimately led to Foley going to WWF when Jim Ross went to bat for him with Vince McMahon. In Flair’s autobiography, he calls Foley a “glorified stuntman” and says he was a creation of Vince’s magic. Foley has understandably taken offence to this over the years and I would not be at all surprised to learn that they were semi-shooting in their feud about a year ago.

voodoojames has three diverse questions:
Fantastic column- look forward to it every week. Thought I would take the liberty of asking a few of my own, apologies if some of them sound a bit markish..

I love marks. They send the best questions.

I first got really into wrestling towards the end of the attitude era. I was a particularly big fan of the time around the invasion angle. I began to lose interest around 2004 however and my hiatus lasted until about 12 months ago. I am disappointed with the overall product these days though and my questions relate to the changes that have occurred between 2004 and 2008.

1. When did the high flying/high risk become so rare? Was this a conscious decision by the WWE to prevent injury or has just the sort of talent capable of it dried up? Tables/ladders matches were common back then and whilst I wouldn’t want to see Bubba Ray anywhere near the WWE again- I do kind of miss the high risk stuff. The HIAC match at Summerslam was brilliant- and even more so as it seems so rare that performers such as Edge put their bodies through that kind of stuff these days. I do like Evan Bourne though……

High flying and risky moves have been toned down gradually since the Droz incident, and nowadays many of the more dangerous moves are banned: Death Valley Drivers, piledrivers, 450 splashes and so on. In a way, the lack of high-risk, high-impact stuff these days makes it even more special when it does happen. Bourne had to demonstrate that he could perform the SSP safely several times in a row before getting permission to use it regularly, and doing so should be considered a bigger deal than it is. The high-risk matches are much the same as the moves: less is more. They were used so often in the Attitude era that people started to expect them all the time, and it lessened their effectiveness.

There’s certainly no shortage of people in WWE today who can do high-risk stuff: Bourne, Morrison, Rey, Jeff Hardy, JTG, Kendrick, London…really, it’s for their own good as much as for the freshness of the product that such moves are heavily restricted.

2. Who was doing the main writing back in 2000/01/02? I realise that there simply isn’t anyone around now that could compare with The Rock/Austin/Jericho etc but some of the segments involving these guys as well as Booker T and (apologies) Golddust were absolutely superb. Do you agree the writing has deteriorated?

The early 00s was the time Stephanie started having a major role in WWE Creative, along with Michael Hayes, Brian Gewirtz, Ed Koskey, Dave Lagana and for a while, Greg Gagne. I’m not sure why you’re apologising for Golddust, but there were some great promos and vignettes in this period. For sure. I’d also agree that the writing has declined recently, but I think a lot of that might be down to trying to find new ideas and to satisfy Vince’s ever-changing whims.

3. Unrelated this one but I have always wondered what the hell is beneath the ring? How did they set the ring up so that Edge fell through at HIAC? Where do wrestlers actually come from when they appear from under the ring, or when they appear in the ring suddenly (i.e. Undertaker after a lights out and gong)?

What’s beneath the ring varies, depending on whether or not there are gimmick matches planned, whether or not someone needs to go under there at some point, and how many heels Triple H needs to fight off. There will always be tools and other things used in the construction and deconstruction of the ring under there. If someone is going to be under the ring at some point, there will normally be a fan, a monitor, some drinks and other amenities under there too. It wasn’t always this way, and there is a famous story of Curt Hennig performing various digestive functions under the ring when being stuck there for a whole show. Obviously if there are plans for tables, chairs and so on, they keep spares under the ring too.

Wrestlers normally get under the ring during commercial breaks (for TV shows) or backstage skits/long entrances (for other events). They’ll run down (hence why Foley never got under the ring…) while the lights are out and hide. The Edge stunt, as the others like it, would have been achieved with a trapdoor, likely one that was reinforced, with the reinforced bars being removed before the match started. Guys who appear suddenly with the lights out are usually under the ring.

WhiteDerek2000 has HBK questions…and one about Who.

first of all nice work on taking over yada, yada, long time reader, yada, yada.
Now, for some strange reason, I have these two burning memories of ladder matches that may or may not have taken place. The first would be between HBK and Goldust that might have happened on a big house show in Canada for the WWF title in 1996. I remember it being hyped on RAW or may have aired on RAW, it stands out because the ladder was painted gold or yellow. The second was between Jeff Jarrett and HBK for the IC Title maybe in 1995. Am I trippin?

You ain’t trippin’. Well, not about the first match. The Golddust-HBK match, complete with gold ladder, took place on August 24, 1996 in Toronto. The second match you may have your wires crossed. Razor Ramon and Jeff Jarrett had several ladder matches at house shows throughout 2005, and of course SummerSlam 95 had the Michaels-Ramon Ladder match, which would be repeated a few times on house shows later in the year. Michaels did PIN Jarrett to win the IC title though.

Second question: Has HBK and Stevie Richards ever faced one on one? Or have they ever been in the same ring together? The reason I ask is because I think it might be neat to see, considering Stevie is a HBK mark and all.

With the caveat that they may have crossed paths in a Rumble, it doesn’t look like it. Unless it was on a house show somewhere.

And lastly:Your picture of WHO got me thinking…Has Neidhart ever appeared on TV without his beard? (Bonus Question…do you think he tucked it in the mask?)

Neidhart hasn’t been seen without that trademark goatee in YEARS, and certainly never on TV. It would not surprise me to hear he was born with it. Even when a stipulation required him to shave it, they just removed him from TV long enough for it to have grown back.

Clyde wants to know about the Ax and the Smasher. Demolition, walking disasters. Pain and Destruction are their middle names.

Can you give me some information on how Demolition was formed, why they switched from Johnny V to Fuji (I can imagine why) and how they got to be in the title shot against Strike Force in WM IV?

Vince McMahon tried, and failed, to lure the Road Warriors to WWF. As his favourite saying goes, if you can’t buy them, parody them. Demolition were created as a Road Warrior ripoff that became very popular very quickly and pretty much wrote their own tickets. The Strike Force match was really nothing more than filler; they hadn’t been wrestling each other on the house show circuit until the match was announced on a show in late February. Johnny Valiant wasn’t Demolition’s manager for long, really only to introduce them before handing them off to Fuji.

In my opinion…

Those of you who hate opinion questions can just skip this segment. This week’s questions come from Jesse:

1.What the hell happened to the chest chop? I know Benoit perfected it and his horrible death forced WWE to erase all history of him, but it wasn’t called the Benoit Chest Chop. I remember when it was used as commonly as right hook, and now I can’t remember the last time someone used it, I mean just plain used it, not like Big Show with his whole bell-and-whistle show in the corner. I used to love that move, it was like a subtle bitch slap. I used to love when the camera would focus on the chest afterwards and you could see the finger welts on the guy’s chest. I remember one WWE match where blood was drawn because of it. Why isn’t it used anymore?

It is still used, just not as frequently. I’d like to think this is mostly in tribute to Ric Flair, since the chop will forever be associated with him in North American wrestling. I watched WrestleMania V earlier this week and it was weird to see the chops flying in the Blue Blazer-Hennig match with nobody going “WOO!” If you’re a fan of nasty, stiff chest chops, check out Roderick Strong and Go Shiozaki. Enough to make you cringe.

2. If memory serves me right, there was a video montage about Randy Orton during a shoulder injury. I think he was face and they were trying to build sympathy for him, thus the video. But I remember WWE showing video from “the surgery”, and he was on what looked like a dentist chair with his back to the camera, and the surgeon was working away on his shoulder, and I just remember thinking how fake it looked. “Randy Orton” looked like a fleshy mannequin, and the whole thing just came off as very fake. (If you know what I am talking about) Was the surgery video real, or was it just a staged act for dramatic purposes?

No, it was real. Every now and then they’ll do a video montage and show some clips of surgeries performed on the stars and yes, it is normally to garner sympathy. However the best part of Orton’s shoulder injury was the awesome RNN stuff.

3. Do you think the WWE will ever again put an entire belt around a gimmick match, much like TNA has with the Ultimate X. The ‘E used to have the Hardcore Belt, which was a championship built around a gimmick match, but without that, they don’t have anything close to that? Do you think there will ever be something like a Ladder Championship, or a “2 out of 3” Belt, or a 4-Corners Belt, or anything like that in the future of WWE?

I doubt it. WWE has tried to move away from too many gimmick matches in recent years, as explained above. Building a title around one would be a step in the wrong direction. As an aside, the X-Division title is not built around Ultimate X, it’s just a feature match in that division.

4. Speaking of new Championship Belts, do you think the WWE will add any, or bring back old ones, any time soon? Beyond the three Big Ones, and the WWE doesn’t have anything of value. They treat the women’s division AND the tag team division like crap, that’s four belts of no value. All you got left is the IC and the US Belts. Granted, the first thing they need to do is treat their current belts with some prestige, but barring that, do you think they will ever add some (or bring some back) to the current list?

As you said, they need to start treating their secondary titles like things that people want to have first. Even then, the only title I can ever see coming back would be the Cruiserweight title, since the trend now seems to be towards smaller, more athletic guys. Until the last few monsters retire, those smaller guys are going to have a hard time being put over as legit threats to the likes of Big Show, Khali, Kane and Mark Henry, so they’ll need their own belt to keep their profile high.

OK people, that’s the lot. Keep the questions coming, and remember: I WILL ANSWER THEM as soon as I can. I’m off to rock some Soul Calibur IV on 360 before I pass out. Small, Bayani and company are all in tomorrow, I’ll be back this weekend with Buy or Sell, the TNA Round Table and of course everyone’s favourite weekend read, Lansdell’s Sunday Brunch! Rock hard, stay safe.

Lansdellicious – Out.