Ask 411 Wrestling: Why Don’t Wrestlers Qualify For SAG?

Greetings from Down Under, this is Ask 411 Wrestling! I am your host, Mathew Sforcina, and I’m sure you’re all still buzzing over the major wrestling thing that hit the internet from down here in the last few days, that being, of course, An Evening with Fudge & Ricky.

#YoureGonnaNoticeUs indeed.

Oh, and then there was this match, Robbie Eagles V Will Ospreay.

That’s why I team up with Robbie, and why I got the manflu and stayed home with my titles while Ospreay was nearby. But hey, he’s gone, so I can go on and defend my Heavyweight Title at the Newy Pro Rumble, and then my 24/7 Watermelon Championship the week after at Wrestling Go’s Birthday Extravaganza and so on and so forth. All hail me!

…

Well hey, been a while since I’ve done some direct shilling in here.

If you want to ask a question and not hear a bunch of shilling, then click this link here: [email protected]

Until then, BANNER~!

Zeldas!

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Flair V Luger: I suppose the problem with Flair’s screwing of Luger was that it was a by-product of his wars with other people rather than a direct problem like with McMahon. I should have gone into that more, yes, but I think Summerslam is still a much more direct issue to Luger’s career than Flair’s issues with putting him over.

Calling The Hardys: Curcio pointed out to me that he asked a question a few months ago about the Hardys just changing the term Broken for Destroyed or something similar, and recently they’ve been teasing that they are ‘Awoken’.

It’s early days, but sure, if that’s how they get around the trademark, well done you.

The Trivia Crown

Who am I? I’ve beaten Shawn Michaels, Demolition, Sting, Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan, The Great Muta, Steve Austin, Ric Flair, Chris Jericho, AND David Flair!

Captain Mcgloo has the answer.

Who am I? I’ve beaten Shawn Michaels, (Brainbusters vs Rockers) Demolition (Brainbusters beat them for the tag belts), Sting, (a few times by dastardly means) Bret Hart, (brainbusters vs the hart foundation) Hulk Hogan (twice in early 96) The Great Muta (tv title match 1990, actually a really good match) Steve Austin (with Flair vs Hollywood Blondes) Ric Flair (Fall Brawl 95) Chris Jericho (sometime just before his retirement) AND David Flair (not really a match but one of those Vince Russo booked thingies, he got the pin the bell rang, it’s a win) You’re Arn Anderson!

Who am I? A member of the WWE roster right now, I’m the only guy who was in both a specific important stable in TNA history and another stable you’ve probably heard of. I’ve won tag gold with natural formations, weapons, and a guy with a weak connection to the guy directly above here. A member of the SRW team, and someone who has been a medical professional, a religious figure, and a fraud, I am who?

Getting Down To All The Business

Let’s start with the question I teased last week, as Nelson has a follow on from a couple weeks ago.

Can you also give kayfabe/shoot reasons for short WWE/World/WWECW title reigns from the point you left off until now? There’s gotta be more. I’m thinking Mysterio couple hour reign, Hardy/Bryan couple minute reigns, Orton one month reign. Stuff like that.

Yeah, ok. Let me get the list together then, of ones following on from the list I did previously. I’ll include any reign shorter than 7 days, as most reigns beyond that generally fall into being either transitional reigns or titles bouncing between rivals, maybe a couple being just because they needed a face to win at an event, and if I put the number up to a few weeks the list quadruples. Also ignoring the unification/brand ending reigns of Orton and Jackson.

WWE Title

Randy Orton & Triple H, October 7, 2007, <1 day

So, Orton is set to get a title match against champion John Cena at the No Mercy PPV. But then, a week prior to the event, Orton beat up Cena too much and injured him. So, on the PPV, Vince McMahon, who was at the time a total jerk, just gave the title to Orton. He and Raw GM William Regal were then going to allow Orton to pick his challenger (he would have to defend it on the show), but Triple H came out, and using his knowledge of how to push Vince’s buttons, got a title match, and won it. Then Vince forced him to still have his scheduled match of the evening against Umaga, which was now a title match, which HHH won. And THEN Vince declared that Orton was cashing in his rematch clause, and that it would happen in the main event, and that it would be a Last Man Standing match. Given HHH was tired, Orton’s RKO through an announce table was enough to get the ten count and his title back, giving them both a reign of less than a day.

Cena got hurt in a match with Mr. Kennedy. Triple H was pretty much the only other big babyface on Raw at the time (since Shawn wasn’t coming back till the next night). By having Orton be handed the title, lose it, then win it back over a tired HHH, you ended up with more heat on him than a straight title match for the vacant belt, as he gets heat for being handed a title, then more heat for beating a beat up man to win it. Plus hey, look, Triple H gets another reign, fancy that…

Batista, June 7, 2009, 2 days

Batista wins the WWE title at Extreme Rules in a cage match off Randy Orton, then is assaulted the next night on Raw by Orton and the rest of Legacy, injuring him and forcing him to vacate the title.

Actually, the injury occurred in the cage match, I believe. It was a similar tear to his bicep that he suffered in a match with Mark Henry a few years prior.

John Cena, February 21, 2010, <1 day

John Cena wins the WWE title in a brutal Elimination Chamber match, having entered… Uh, last, and wrestling for a solid ten minutes, maybe, and getting a single fall to make HHH tap out to win back the WWE Title, he is then forced to defend his newly won title by Vince McMahon against Smackdown wrestler Batista, Cena can’t fight, loses title. DAVE had seemed ambivalent to fighting for a spot in the World Title Elimination Chamber match earlier, and this made it clear, that in exchange for helping Vince McMahon beat up Bret Hart prior to this, Vince gave him a gimme title shot.

Batista had switched to Smackdown after returning from the injury in the previous entry, and then he’d turned heel on Rey Mysterio, and then gotten pretty over as Douchebag Batista. So they wanted him in a big match at WM. But the SD World title was the returning Edge taking on his former partner, Chris Jericho. Taker had Shawn, and HHH was working Sheamus. But the WWE title, and John Cena, that seemed like a solid match. But that was on Raw, and Batista couldn’t win the Rumble to switch brands. So they had him help out Vince to explain Vince giving him a gimme title shot, and switch him that way.

Rey Mysterio July 25, 2011, <1 day

O…K.

So, CM Punk wins the WWE title on his last night in the company and then leaves, in major part because Vince pissed him off. The next night on Raw, Vince sets up a tournament to crown a new WWE Champion, a one night 8 man tourney, excluding Cena as punishment for losing the title to Punk the night prior. The final match in the tourney comes down to Rey V Miz, but Vince, to be a dick, pushes that match back, and then is about to fire Cena, before HHH comes out and say Vince has had a no confidence vote on him by the board and his family, so he is stepped down and Triple H is set to take over the day to day operations of the WWE. The following week, the finals of the tourney happen, with Rey beating Miz. He then stops Alberto from cashing in, and is all set to go home to enjoy his new title with his kids… When HHH, in a State of the WWE address, says that Rey will defend the title again that night against… John Cena. Cena wins.

LOL.

And then Punk returned at the end of the night, so everyone forgot about Mysterio…

So, this is a mess of various booking ideas running into each other. The original plans were that Punk would ‘leave’ with the WWE title, Miz would win the title, hold it for a bit, then probably lose it to Cena in time for when Punk returned (Summerslam seems to be their preferred return date), finish that, then have Del Rio cash in in time for the Mexican tour. But then they decided that Punk’s storyline was too hot for him to be gone for that long and that he needed to be in the title match at Summerslam, so they had him return after a couple of weeks, and run Punk/Cena rather than the planned Cena/Del Rio and Miz/Mysterio? matches at Summerslam (Rey’s knee was dodgy, so that might have one multi-man). But then you have the issue of getting the belt onto Cena ASAP in order to set up the unification match at Summerslam. Miz could have still been champ there, but the character would complain and whine about having to wrestle again. Mysterio, on the other hand, being noble, would defend his title and not complain about losing it so quickly. So Rey wins the title in order to drop it to Cena so they can immedatly run Cena/Punk to unify the WWE title belts.

Clear?

Daniel Bryan, August 18, 2013, <1 day, Daniel Bryan, September 15, 2013, 1 day

Triple H had decided that Daniel Bryan just wasn’t the sort of guy that the WWE could afford to have as Champion. So, after he won the title off Cena at Summerslam, he helped screw him over by getting the belt onto Orton via MITB, and then in the subsequent wars between Orton and Bryan, he also makes sure that Bryan’s victory over Randy at Night of Champions didn’t stand, so he stripped him of the title due to the controversy over the match’s result.

The WWE pretty much did have that attitude to Bryan. They didn’t think he was headline, main star material. He was a solid upper mid face. The angle with Orton was to build up Orton as a bastard, so that when they got to Orton/Batista at Wrestlemania, that would be a massively massive match with the hated Orton and the beloved DAVE, with Bryan maybe turning face at WM against the Wyatts as a ‘big’ WM moment. Bryan would get jerked around for the title then move down the card again. Didn’t work out that way.

Roman Reigns, November 22, 2015 <1 day

Wins the title in a tournament final over Dean Ambrose, is then ambushed and beaten by Sheamus via MITB.

See, by having Reigns win the title, and then get screwed out of it, everyone will get behind him like they got behind Bryan, and they’ll all love Reigns like they did Bryan, and Reigns will make them all the money Bryan couldn’t make them since Reigns will be as popular as Bryan while also being good looking and having lots of T-shirts and merch and just being super mega awesome.

Seth Rollins, June 19, 2016, <1 day

Ambrose said he was going to win MITB, and cash in that night. He won MITB. He cashed in that night. Rollins was just the unlucky SOB holding the gold at the time. Ambrose didn’t want to lose the briefcase in a bar or something if he held onto it for too long.

You have two thirds of the Shield fighting for the title in the main event, with the other third in the MITB match, and you’re perhaps contemplating a brand split and/or maybe moving MITB back to WM, both of which were rumoured at the time. Thus, Ambrose cashes in that night to make sure the briefcase isn’t floating around.

Universal Title

Finn Bálor, August 21, 2016, 1 day

Wins the title but injured his shoulder in the match, so he had to vacate it the following night.

“

World Title

Jeff Hardy, June 7, 2009, <1 day

CM Punk cashed in MITB.

In order to start his heel run.

Dolph Ziggler, February 15, 2011, <1 day

Dolph is in a relationship with Vickie Guerrero, Acting SD GM, holding down the role after Teddy Long, Actual SD GM, was found unconscious backstage a few weeks prior to this date. During her reign, she places an unfair rule on current World Champ, Edge, that his spear is banned. In a match, he uses said Spear. Vickie thus strips Edge of the title on the 600th episode of SD, and awards it to her hand chosen #1 Contender. Dolph. Then Teddy Long returns, reveals Dolph and Vickie were the ones who attacked him, gives Edge a rematch, Edge wins, Teddy fires Dolph.

600th episode. They wanted a title win, and a big reveal, and this killed two birds with one stone. Typical authority feuding angle.

Christian, May 1, 2011, 2 days

Christian gets the big, heroic, emotional title win at Extreme Rules, beating Del Rio in a ladder match to win the title his brother tag partner long time friend Edge had been forced to give up upon retirement. He then fought Orton on the first Smackdown after the PPV with the belt on the line and lost. Although he was sure he could win it back, with just one more match…

The original plans seemed to have been to run with Edge and Christian as the main event faces doing an updated version of the old E&C stuff, until Christian turned on Edge, and then beat and retired him at WM 28. Then when Edge had to retire, they then decided to go with the plan of having Christian win the big emotional win, then lose it almost immediately to set off the Christian/Orton program where Christian would turn heel and they’d fight for several months, in a series Orton LOVED and which both Christian and Edge were cool with. Not all short reigns are bad, as such…

Big Show, December 18, 2011, <1 day

Daniel Bryan lied and cashed in MITB long before he said he would.

Bryan was meant to be the annoying loud mouth tiny guy in a land of giants with a girlfriend way out of his league, which is all what you’re supposed to hate, apparently. Thus Bryan lies and steals the title here, so when Sheamus kicks his head off at WM in 18 seconds, we all love Sheamus.

WWECW Title

None.

Any slightly longer ones, dear readers, that you really need to know about?

Sachin wishes to discuss the dropping of the F.

Great articles, I read each and every week! I Have one for you this week.

Let’s go back to May 6, 2002. The WWF lost its match with the Panda’s and now are rebranding to WWE. Explain the atmosphere in the company. Did anyone call doom on the company? I bet there are some that agree that WWE never did fully recover from it. It went from “The world wrestling federation, the revolutionary force in sports entertainment” to “WWE some pandas took our name so I guess ugh, I guess we’re this now” The sound of WWE just doesn’t sound like a professional wrestling company. With movie stars being born the WWE no longer was a niche product that fans adored. No longer would it be regarded as wrestling guys, instead an entertainment company trying to make it outside of wrestling. It felt like WWE was cutting ties to their roots for the sake of attracting more exposure in the entertainment business. But it was the stars of the attitude era and that type of wrestling that garnered attention in the first place.

But I heard that Vince wanted to change names before the lawsuit reached a decision. Do you have some alternatives to the WWE name that came up during those discussions? After hearing that I began thinking if we would still be called WWF had the pandas lost, and still live in the PG era, still watch ratings tumble. Was this the inevitable future of wrestling?

Obviously I can’t speak for what the mood was inside the WWF, now WWE, at the time. From what I remember of being online at the time, there wasn’t really a sense of doom and gloom, at least not on the name change. Certainly a lot of people were still angry at the result of the InVasion angle, and them losing the rights to their name was viewed with laughter and finger pointing, maybe a bit of issues with people realising how this might impact old vision and such.

I certainly don’t recall them wanting to change the name prior to that, maybe they might have been considering some sort of new overall name for the WWF/WCW combined umbrella, but beyond that I think they really wanted to keep the WWF name, it’s just that they broke the deal they’d set up themselves, coupled with their product at the time.

See, you have to remember, the lawsuit may have been motivated by the World Wide Fund for Nature not wanting to be associated with what the WWF had been putting out in terms of content and such, but the legal framework was based on the World Wrestling Federation breaking a deal the two had made back in the 90’s. The Fund has existed since 1961, and had the copyright on the ‘WWF’ initials since then, but only in regards to charity, and moved to the full name with ‘for Nature’ on the end in most parts of the world in 1989, although they maintained the WWF logo/initials. Vince applied for WWF for wrestling in 1980, and got it.

The two had sniped each other for years, lawsuits flying occasionally, until in 1994 they sat down and worked a deal, where the Federation was supposed to limit the usage of the initials on live TV and not use it at all on products and such. In exchange, the occasional slip would be forgiven, and the block WWF logo would be allowed. The deal was focused on the English market, as the Fund was English, but applied worldwide.

Then the Federation got popular, and totally ignored the deal. The Fund sued, and eventually won, after a few appeals. The Federation might have possibly been able to work out a deal to keep using it in some markets, but it was simpler just to rebrand and be done with it.

Now, if the deal hadn’t been reached, maybe this all would have come to a head sooner, although I do feel that the Fund would have lost without the deal that the Federation broke, but regardless, changing their name in the late 90’s would have hurt, but not too much more than when it did in ’03. And if they had won, the company would still be in the same position today, as there’s only so long you can push the Attitude model and not have it grow old and stale, and so refocusing to a family friendly PG model, while not inevitable, was certainly a possibility. More so when you are a publicly traded company and thus having reliable, safe money in terms of all the deals they now have for being PG… It’s pretty safe bet, all things considered. The ratings slide though… That wasn’t inevitable, but then that’s old ground.

So, to recap: I don’t know of any desire by Vince to change the name prior to being forced to, nor any other considered names. And even without the name change, the WWF today would still probably be PG, as it’s just good business to do so.

But hey, thanks to the PG thing, in part, they don’t have to blur anything anymore in the old stuff, which is nice…

Jeremy has a simple question.

Why is it announced that matches are scheduled for one fall? Isn’t that assumed unless match stipulations state otherwise?

While it’s the most common today, it wasn’t always the default. It used to be that normal matches were one fall and title matches were by default 2 out of 3. And that’s just in America, different countries have different standards, historically.

But the logic is that you announce the rules prior to the match to avoid the participants being confused. While this does lead to a lot of repetition, it allows for a standard flow to your announcing, for when you put special stips in, you have to have somewhere to put it, and that means most of the time you have normal stips.

It’s just one of those hold overs of pretending it’s still a sporting contest. And/or a new way for British fans to try and get themselves over.

Doubling back to legal questions now with Peter.

Are commentators/announcers/backstage interviewers considered contractors by WWE? What about refs and the production crew (camera men, people who build the set, etc)?

WWE has two types of people working for them, employees and independent contractors. It used to be that most on air talent were independent contractors and employees, but Michael Cole was actually the first announcer to be hired as an employee and they’re all employees now. Pretty much everyone other than in-ring talent is an employee, with the wrestlers and managers being contractors. Unless they do something else in the company, then they’ll be an employee with a talent contract, like William Regal for instance is, I presume, an employee with a talent contract.

The refs do ring crew, they’re employees. It’s only the wrestlers who are contractors, unless you count contractors of the arena or what have you.

And slightly related, why aren’t managers eligible for SAG? True managers, like Maryse, Paul Heyman, Lana (previously), and Maria, all they do is act. Other than Paul Heyman, I’m assuming they all have a script to follow.

Because to become a member of the Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), you have to either work for three days under a SAG-AFTRA or SAG or AFTRA collective bargaining agreement, or be a member of an affiliated union for a year and work in that field once during said year. WWE is not union affiliated in any way, if you’re on air with WWE, you’re an independent contractor for that part, no matter how physical it is or isn’t.

Now, if someone under a WWE contract gets a role in a movie, even a WWE sponsored one, that will absolutely be a SAG covered project, and thus they will become members, unless they don’t pay the dues or what have you. But many do, specially for the health cover and such.

WWE calls their wrestlers ‘entertainers’ but the show is ‘sports programming’, thus avoiding state athletic commissions and SAG and the like on either end. Maybe SAG could make a push and force the issue, but that would require pretty much all the wrestlers to stand together and strike, pretty much, and at that point you’re left with the same problem as just building your own wrestlers union, too many people will see too much money in crossing the picket line and not striking. So you’re back to square one.

Christopher wants to talk interpromotional.

Bit of a super-nerd here and I guess a mark for inter-promotional type matches. During the years of say ’88 – ’91, and lets include Harley Race & Terry Funk, there was a huge influx of Crockett talent jumping to Titan…..Funks & Race, Arn & Tully, Dusty, Windham, Powers of Pain, Sheepherders, Ron Garvin, Flair, Sid and L.o.D. Crockett got some talent back but mostly scraps in JYD, Bob Orton, Butch Reed, One Man Gang, Valentine, Orndorff, Bigelow & Steamboat. But if one, such as myself, was a wrestling nerd, there is a Jericho sized list of “legit” “dream matches” here between JCP & Titan. This jumping bled a bit more into the early ’90’s until the MNW’s, obviously.

So did you geek-out over any matches during this time where it had a rival promotion feel? Which ones? And what was with the Mass Exodus from JCP anyway? EVERY heavy hitter made the jump, all but Sting. Eventually Luger & the Steiners landed as well.

Few examples for me…..Arn Anderson v Orndorff, Windham v Bigelow, Steamboat v Luger, Arn & Tully v Strike Force, L.o.D. v Hart Foundation, Flair v Piper, Dusty v Savage, Sting v Roberts, Race v Santana, Valentine v Garvin, Sting v Rude, Koloff v Roberts. Other promotions provided Bulldogs v RnR Express, Orndorff v Dr Death, Steamboat v Muta, Ron Garvin v Sheik. Hogan faced Race, Flair, Sid, then Hansen & Muta overseas which still had a nice NwA/WcW vibe. Even before Race, there was Hulk v Terry Funk, who was always NwA to me. My list is endless, those were the more popular/recognizable choices, but I even dig the less popular/obscure matches, including jobbers, lower mid-card guys, like Horowitz v Tim Horner, Arn & Tully v Koko & Blue Blazer, Andre & JYD v Funks, Steamboat v Eaton, Dusty v Honky, Terry Taylor v Patera, Race v Morales, One Man Gang v Tommy Rich, Flair v Slaughter, Rick Steiner v Iron Sheik….you get it, super-nerd deep cuts. Any favorites while suspending disbelief?

As always, great work, must read material, All Should Hail This Q That Is Massive

Honestly I wasn’t really into wrestling back then, if only because it was pretty hard to follow the sport down here back then. I saw the occasional show on TV, the 91 Rumble match was shown in sections on one Saturday’s episode of Channel Nine’s Wide World Of Sport, for instance, and I really remember a Vader squash over a jobber that looked like Hogan from I assume the Disney tapings…

…

*checks historyofwwe.com*

Yep, the 1/22/94 episode, Vader V Randy Hogan.

Right to my childhood.

Anyway, back to the question at hand. I’m not that big into interpromotional matches taken out of context, by themselves. As part of an angle, doing a full invasion thing or whatever, I can appreciate that, but I’ve never been much of a massive fan of them for the sake of them. Good matches between people, awesome, but I don’t get too worked up over matches based on people never interacting for long periods of time. But what about you, dear readers? Do you love a good interpromotional fight? What was your favorite?

As for why so many people jumped ship from JCP to WWF, the reasons vary from person to person, but at the end it usually comes down to people needing to leave JCP due to running their course, or getting on the bad side of management, or new management coming in, or just getting better offers, at least in terms of money. You might be happier with your efforts in JCP, but WWF would pay you more, maybe. But then again, if you’re not liked by the new booker, why not leave? There’s no one reason, just several consistent, regular ones.

Speaking of regularity, Ben?

I have to ask an opinion on something that has bothered me for a while regarding “selling”. Is it me or has the art of “being a good sales(wo)man” gone the way of the dinosaurs. I mean anymore it appears like everyone sells almost the exact same way. If they “hurt” their heads… They all hold the head the same way (Trish Stratus was “notorious” for doing this). If they “injured” a leg… Well, you get the point. Now, don’t get me wrong. There are still some of those wrestlers taught “old school” that seem to give a little more thought about how to approach this. But, for the most part. Are the “up-and-comings” becoming “cookie-cutter”?

Overall? No, if only because there’s far too much variety in wrestling companies and styles to say that there’s a cookie-cutter approach. In WWE though? That’s… I can see the argument.

The problem is that there’s only so many ways you can sell that works on both TV and in a giant arena at the same time. I know WWE focuses mostly on TV, but their style is the style they want, and I guess that can lead to too much similarity in certain aspects. Promo style, movesets, and so on, selling is another aspect they teach, so there is the possibility to become too similar.

But honestly I haven’t seen it. But I’ll end this week and ask you, dear readers, have you noticed too much cookie cutter selling? Or is it not a problem? Discuss below, and we’ll be back next week with more Ask 411 Wrestling!

Assuming I’m not dragged back to the stone age…