Ask 411 Wrestling: Did Kevin Sullivan Ever Comment on the Benoit Tragedy?

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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OZ wants to take us back to wrestling’s darkest day:

Has Kevin Sullivan ever spoken about the Benoit tragedy? I know he & Nancy were divorced, but that was his ex-wife. I can imagine the feelings were strong regardless.

Yeah, he’s mentioned it in some shoot interviews and even though I think you are right to suspect he would have strong feelings, he’s actually pretty chill about the whole thing. His attitude appears to be that nobody truly knows or can know what happened. He also seemingly has no ill will towards Chris Benoit for the breakup of his marriage to Nancy, as he’s said he’s always been able to separate his business and personal lives and still credits Benoit for giving him the best match of his career, the falls count anywhere bout from the 1996 Great American Bash.

Some have recently asked on a moratorium on questions from Tyler from Winnipeg. I have scheduled that moratorium to begin at some point in 2028:

Did Mike Tenay ever get a WWF/WWE paycheck?

Not that I’m aware of. Per Dave Meltzer (who is a long-time friend of Tenay), WWE did approach the Professor about commentating the recent WWE/AAA Worlds Collide event, but Tenay turned them down over the financial end of the deal, as he is comfortable in retirement and thus had a higher asking price to do the show than what WWE was willing to pay.

James is the voice of a new generation:

Limiting yourself to only those whose careers began after 2000, who would be on your wrestling Mt. Rushmore?

This is a difficult question, because that year 2000 cutoff eliminates some of the biggest stars of the last twenty years, including John Cena, Dave Batista, Kenny Omega, and Brock Lesnar, as they all just barely miss it by having debuted in the year 2000 itself or the very late 1990s. That being said, here’s who I was able to come up with:

Kazuchika Okada (debuted 2004)

Tetsuya Naito (debuted 2006)

Gunther (debuted 2005)

Roman Reigns (debuted 2010)

Dave A. is pitting brother against brother:

Penta or Fenix: Who gets to a title first in WWE?

It really could go either way, and there’s always a possibility that their first titles are tag team titles that they win together, but if I have to pick one I’ll go for Fenix, since Penta has already been in the mix for the Intercontinental Title for a while and the company didn’t pull the trigger on him, which makes me think that there’s some reason they’re holding back.

Mirko takes us to well-trod ground of the Invasion, but hey I answered a Montreal Screwjob question not that long ago, so why not:

Let’s pretend that every WCW star (Goldberg, Scott Steiner, Sting etc.) was available to be used by WWF for the invasion angle. Let’s also pretend that Wrestlemania X-8 would have been the end of it with a big stacked WWE vs. WCW card. How would you have booked it?

First off, let me say that I don’t think that the biggest problem with the Invasion was not that there weren’t stars available. I think that the biggest problem with the Invasion was that the wrestlers from WCW that the WWF actually had access to were not booked as stars. If you had a Booker T, a DDP, a Lance Storm, a Mike Awesome, a Sean O’Haire, and a Mark Jindrak and you actually booked them like they were legitimate competition to the WWF’s top stars, it would have worked a heck of a lot better than it did.

That being said, I’ll play Mirko’s game and put together the Invasion supercard that everybody wanted, nay, that every one deserved. In doing so, I will stick with other real world constraints that existed at the time. In other words, I’m not magically bringing back people who were injured at the time of the actual Wrestlemania XVIII, nor am I booking the show to run any longer than a PPV would have run in 2002. Also, my assumption is that with a roster full of WCW stars, the ECW component of the Invasion would not have been necessary, so we’re dealing with a straight up WWF vs. WCW card.

0. Pre-Show Battle Royale featuring Rikishi, Albert, Scotty II Hotty, Mr. Perfect, Lance Storm, Test, William Regal, Maven, Spike Dudley, The Natural Bory Thrillaz, The APA, Billy Kidman, Buff Bagwell, Kaientai, Dean Malenko, Perry Saturn, Jeff Jarrett, Sid Vicious, and Vampiro Also, add in your favorite wrestlers who you believe that I have “forgotten” from the rest of the card. Final three are Rikishi, Sid, and Sean O’Haire with Rikishi and O’Haire teaming up to get rid of Sid before O’Haire picks up the victory, because I always thought that guy had a ton of untapped potential.

1. Booker T. vs. Rob Van Dam: I know I just said that the ECW aspect of the Invasion would not be a factor here, but I have a hard time believing that RVD would not be signed up by the WWF one way or the other – so I’m actually envisioning him as a WWF representative on this show rather than an ECW or WCW representative. Pairing him with Booker T. is a good way to showcase two guys who have the potential to be main event acts for the promotion in the post-Invasion landscape. I don’t know that a winner matters much here and would depend more on plans for each of them following the show.

2. The Filthy Animals (Rey Misterio Jr. & Juventud Guerrera) w/ Konnan vs. The Hardy Boys (Matt & Jeff) w/ Lita: Though people who talk about talent not brought in for the Invasion often focus on the Hogans and Goldbergs of the world, let’s not forget that we were also denied Rey Misterio’s WWF debut there for a while. This would be a solid match getting him into the mix, and I wouldn’t be offended if you added in a ladder stipulation. I’d probably have the Hardys win here since Juvi is a bit of a wildcard and you never know how long he’ll be around. However, the real matchup might be at ringside, as Konnan and Lita battle to see whose pants sag the lowest.

3. The Steiner Brothers (Rick & Scott) vs. The Dudley Boys (Bubba Ray & D-Von): Good, old fashioned tag team wrestling featuring two of the most dominant teams in their respective promotions. We did eventually get this matchup in Impact Wrestling years later, but doing it here gets it to us when everybody involved was much closer to their primes. Plus, with there still being a few hints of “Attitude” in the WWF product in 2002, perhaps we could get some edgy promos between Scott and Bubba in the buildup, as neither guy was a stranger to that.

4. Lex Luger vs. Kane: I fully admit it. These guys are wrestling each other on my made up card because, after I booked all the other top stars, they were the ones “left over.” However, it still works in a sense because (spoiler alert) we’ve got their close allies, Sting and the Undertaker, facing each other further up the card, so there are storyline possibilities in that regard. In the ring, there is an interesting power versus power dynamic if you can get Luger to put on what was left of his working boots at that point rather than coasting by as he often was during his late career. Plus, you could probably structure the match around whether Luger’s bionic forearm could do any damage through Kane’s mask. I would have Lex pick up the victory.

5. Edge & Christian & Chris Jericho vs. The Jersey Triad (Diamond Dallas Page, Bam Bam Bigelow, & Chris Kanyon): I was originally hoping for Edge & Christian & Rhyno to be the WWF team here, but then I remembered Rhyno was shelved during Wrestlemania in 2002 due to spinal fusion surgery. Bigelow, Kanyon, and DDP were always favorites of mine in WCW (and even earlier than that for Bigelow), and I was disappointed with the opportunities they got after the company folded. Given all the bigger stars on this show I don’t now that you can put them beyond the midcard, but a bout with E&C plus Jericho gives them something to do with an acts that are over and can play to their strengths in the ring. I’d say the Triad wins here.

6. D-Generation X (Triple H & Billy Gunn) vs. The Outsiders (Scott Hall & Kevin Nash) with X-Pac at ringside: You have to put the two big factions of the Monday Night War up against each other in some way, and given who was available from the two groups at the time, this may have been the best configuration. My thought is that you could build part of the story here around the fact that Sean “X-Pac” Waltman had history with both groups and considered them friends, leading to him having torn loyalties that could play into the finish. You would probably have to go with DX as the victors here, since they had more left in the tank than Hall and Nash.

7. Ric Flair w/ Stacy Keibler vs. Kurt Angle: The greatest amateur wrestler to ever turn pro versus the dirtiest player in the game. Pure technique vs. cheating your ass off. There’s no doubt that these two could put on a great in-ring match that would help provide something different on a card that, once we get past this point, is more focused on spectacle than it is quality wrestling action. Plus, I put Stacy Keibler in Flair’s corner because she was previously tied to David Flair in WCW storylines, and the Nature Boy striking up a relationship with a guy that used to date his son seems to fit with his character. I would give Angle the victory because, at this point, Flair was a guy you could have get pinned constantly without him losing any steam.

8. The Undertaker vs. Sting: Given fan demand towards the end of both men’s careers, this seems like a no brainer to the point I don’t even have to explain it that much. If I were making the decision as to a winner at the time, I would probably have Sting pick up the victory to even out the number of WWF versus WCW wins on the show, plus the Streak wasn’t a huge thing yet in ’02. However, if I had the benefit of full hindsight, you’d have to keep the Streak alive.

9. Hulk Hogan vs. The Rock: It wasn’t part of the Invasion as such, but the real life Wrestlemania XVIII absolutely got this one right. Though in some respects Hogan versus Steve Austin would have been the match fans wanted more before Hogan/Rock happened, this turned into such a legendary encounter that I don’t know how you don’t preserve it even when re-booking the card. Plus, if I play by my rules stated above and keep real world constraints in place other than the one Mirko’s question removes, Austin isn’t going to work with Hogan. That didn’t work for Stone Cold, brother. As far as a result is concerned, this has been debated over the years, but I don’t know how you don’t go with Hogan passing the torch.

10. Steve Austin vs. Bill Goldberg: If you’re not going to do Austin/Hogan, then you have to pull the trigger on this one, which is the encounter of the two promotions’ big, bald, goateed ass-kickers. Goldberg was never a great in-ring technician, but when paired with the right opponent – for example a DDP or a Sting – he pulled off some surprisingly good matches in comparison to the rest of his repertoire, and Austin had the mind for the business that easily could have smooth over some of his less experienced opponent’s weaknesses. However, much like the Hogan/Rock match we got in the real world, fans would be willing to overlook technical deficiencies here in favor of the atmosphere. I would book Goldberg to win here to solidify his status in front of WWF fans who wouldn’t necessarily have been that into him previously.

R.W. has his head in a sock:

I’ve been a wrestling fan since kayfabe ruled the business. Gives you an idea of how long I’ve followed the sport. Although there are many masked Lucha Libre wrestlers today (i.e., CMLL, AAA and NJPW), none can compare to the masked wrestlers from “back in the day.” I have fond memories of great heel wrestlers like the Masked Superstar, The Assassins, the Super Destroyer, and others. They were skillful in the ring, with a mystique and great mic work. Their actions could draw heat from an entire arena. One would watch them with the hope that someone would unmask them. Given today’s era, do you think we will ever see this ilk again? We need someone you love to hate like the Masked Superstar.

Unfortunately, I think that this might be something of a bygone era, for a couple of different reasons.

First off, we live in a world in which people are constantly surrounded by cameras and anybody with even the smallest level of celebrity is tracked down by others to snap a picture with them. This would make it quite difficult for a masked wrestler of the type that you’re mentioning to maintain the secret of their identity as they could in years gone by, and eliminating the mystique surrounding the persona takes with it a lot of the appeal behind these gimmicks.

Second, I think that masks are seen as such a marketing opportunity that wrestling companies are going to be more likely to use them for babyface wrestlers who are more likely to sell merchandise than guys on the other side of the locker room.

Also, I wanted to give a shout out to Maybach Taniguchi of Pro Wrestling NOAH who, though he is unmasked these days as I understand it, is probably one of the last guys on the face of the earth to adopt the sort of gimmick that R.W. Is talking about in his question.

I’m still reeling from Joel‘s brutal murder at the hands of Abby:

With the popularity of WWE Most Wanted Treasures and recent events on TV, it has me wondering . . . what happens to the ‘contracts’ that wrestlers sign in those in ring segments?

Is there a collectibles market for those? Even if the pages are filled with gibberish having both wrestlers signatures together relating to some pretty historic matches seems like it should be something important.

Also, what exactly is written on those contracts they sign?

I think this is one of those questions where there is no consistent answer and things vary on a case-by-case basis. I would presume that most of those contracts are just dumped in the recycling bin when they’re no longer in use. After some searching, I have been unable to find any record of one of them entering the collector’s market, but it’s not impossible. For many years, WWE has maintained a memorabilia auction website to sell off autographed merch, most of which these days seems to consist of photos though also includes some items used on camera.

(Side note: I actually won one of these auctions more than 20 years ago and own a t-shirt autographed by Sho Funaki that he wore on a Thanksgiving episode of Smackdown.)

It strikes me as entirely possible that one of the contracts Joel mentioned could have wound up being auctioned off by WWE over the years but, again, I haven’t actually seen it.

As to the contents of the contracts, again I suspect that’s a case-by-case situation, though I am sure more attention has been paid to things like that in the years after WWE switched to high definition television, since details like that are more readily picked up on in the HD format than they were previously.

A Different Ryan is finishing up here after accepting a big money deal to go ask questions over at Inside Pulse:

Was the watching the “Last Days of Diesel” doc on the WWE’s vault YouTube channel. HIs feud with the Undertaker seemed to be all about the casket (Diesel destroying the casket, his “body” inside the casket), yet the match at Wrestlemania was just a standard one-on-one match. What gives? Were there ever plans for it to be a “Casket Match?”

I was not able to find any indication that was ever the plan.

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.