Ask 411 Wrestling: Has AEW Hurt Vince McMahon’s Pride?

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.

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.

Hey, ya want a banner?

I’ve been told I should promote my Twitter account more. So, go follow me on Twitter.

Night Wolf the Wise is getting dangerously close to crossing the boss:

Do you think Vince McMahon’s pride is hurt? There’s two reasons why I ask this. The first reason is because of Adam Cole and Bryan Danielson. Here are two wrestlers that had great runs in NXT and WWE, but still chose to go to AEW despite WWE’s best efforts to resign them. The other reason I ask is because Owen Hart, the man Vince is responsible for dying is going to be honored by AEW. That has to be a big slap in Vince’s face.

No, I don’t think that Vince McMahon’s pride is hurt.

I doubt that Adam Cole signing with AEW bothers him at all, because reportedly the plan for Cole on the main roster was functioning more as a manager than a wrestler and appearing in the corner of Keith Lee, who has never been priority in WWE. If that’s all that was in the cards, Vince doesn’t consider him that big a loss.

Granted, Bryan Danielson is different. He was a top guy in WWE, holding primary championships there on two occasions and headlining Wrestlemania at one point. However, He didn’t get into that position because he was Vince McMahon’s guy. He got into that position because fans essentially demanded it and would not allow any other result. McMahon may have come around and eventually seen some value in him, but it’s not as though he felt Danielson was a vital, irreplaceable top star in the eyes of management. He was just another cog in the machine.

I also have no idea why McMahon would care about AEW honoring Owen Hart. Yes, it does eliminate one act that conceivably could have headlined a WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremony, and maybe there would have been some t-shirts or other merchandise that could have been sold off of that HOF, but the money to be made there is relatively minimal. It’s not as though we’re talking about millions or hundreds of thousands of dollars here. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a blip.

I strongly doubt that these items are seen as any sort of significant setback by Vinnie Mac.

Piggybacking off of question one, what is your opinion of Owen Hart being honored by AEW? And does this finally put to bed the debate about Owen Hart being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame? Because I personally don’t think he needs to be with what AEW is going to do.

Owen Hart going into or not going into the WWE Hall of Fame may be up there as one of the most over-discussed subjects among wrestling fans over the course of the past ten or fifteen years.

I’ve already given my opinion on it in this column, so I will keep this brief and not belabor the point.

Owen Hart is dead. Whether he does or doesn’t go into the WWE Hall of Fame has no meaning to him. The people who Owen Hart’s memory means this most to is his immediate family, i.e. his wife and his kids. If they want him to go into the WWE Hall of Fame, great. Let him in. If they don’t, that’s great too. Keep him out. The family’s opinion is far and away the controlling factor. Unless you are the man’s wife, son, or daughter, you have nothing that is worth saying about the subject.

Those three people have made their opinion clear. They don’t want him going in to the WWE Hall of Fame. The do, however, want to go along with the plan that AEW has developed. Their wishes are being honored, which is great. Your wishes as a fan still mean nothing.

Tyler from Winnipeg is the French fries:

Was Shane Douglas forced out of the WWF by The Kliq or was he not holding up his own end of the deal?

It’s actually neither. Towards the end of 1995, when Shane was still Dean Douglas, he injured his back. Specifically, he fractured two vertebrae. According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter around the time, there was a disagreement between Douglas and WWF management regarding whether he ought to work through is injury. The Fed said he should, and the wrestler was not a fan of that option. Ultimately Douglas got his way, as he was replaced by Buddy Landel in his scheduled match against Ahmed Johnson at In Your House 5, but the longer-term consequences for Douglas were not good, as he was sent packing from the company just a few weeks later.

Call David Spade a Spade is desperately searching for his bronzer:

I’ve read about Matt Taven and FTR having heat over a stolen bottle of tanning lotion at their 2012 WWE tryout. What exactly happened? What other names were involved in the tryout? What other “scandals” have went down in past tryout camps? Dish the dirt! And thanks for all your hard work.

There’s actually not too much to the story.

In January 2019, Taven was part of the stable of the Kingdom in Ring of Honor, and there was a storyline in which the group claimed that they were being held back as a result of a “conspiracy” against them perpetuated by the company’s management. Shortly after this started, FTR (then known as the Revival) were booked into a similar storyline by WWE that saw them as the victim of several questionable calls by referees, particularly in matches against the Lucha House Party.

For reasons that I do not fully understand, whether it was legitimate upset or whether he was just trying to make a good-natured joke, this caused Taven to send out a tweet in which he accused the Revival of stealing his gimmick, even though it’s far more likely that WWE creative was telling the Revival what to do as opposed to the tag team calling their own shots.

In response, Scott Dawson of the Revival, now Dax Harwood, made the allegation that, during a 2012 WWE tryout that Taven, Dawson, and Dash Wilder (Cash Wheeler) were all involved in, Taven stole tanning lotion from Dawson with Dawson saying that this somehow almost cost the entire crew that was there for the camp their shot at a job. How exactly that happened was not elaborated on, but the only reasonable guess that I can make is that friction between camp attendees over the bottle of goo caused those in attendance from the WWE side to chew them all out over the immaturity involved.

There was more commentary between the two sides after the Kingdom used the Rival’s Shatter Machine finisher during the 2019 ROH Honor Reigns Supreme show, which caused Dawson to again refer to Taven as a “stealer” and claim that Taven had been in contact with him privately to try to get him to take the original lotion tweet down. Eventually Maria Kanellis, whose husband Mike was Taven’s Kingdom stablemate, chimed in and tried to chastise Wilder for punching down at the indy wrestlers, but Dawson replied and stood firm on his position.

Aside from what was in the tweets themselves, not much has come out about this situation before or since. I did a bit of research to try to see if there was any reporting from 2012 that indicated there was a problem at a WWE tryout camp which may not have used the wrestlers’ now more famous names. However, nothing referencing lotion theft or the entire camp nearly being dismissed came up.

I did find the June 11, 2012 Wrestling Observer Newsletter, which stated that FCW was having a tryout camp that week including 23 different prospects, many of whom were amateur wrestlers scouted by Gerald Brisco. None of the attendees were mentioned by name, but this is most likely the camp that the Revival/Taven tweets were referencing, because in the July 23 Observer the signing of David Harwood was reported, and that Harwood is obviously Dash Harwood a.k.a. Scott Dawson. It was mentioned that two other wrestlers, Kevin Nickel and Ryan Collins, were signed at the same time, with the speculation being that it was out of the same camp. Nickel had previously wrestled on the indies under the name Kid Nickels and used the name Knuckles Madsen in developmental, though he has not been seen since 2013. Collins was a Harley Race trainee who wrestled under the name Brian Breaker both pre- and post-WWE, including some tours in Pro Wrestling NOAH thanks to his connections to Race. While in NXT, he was known as Brandon Traven, who I would often confuse with Matt Taven, bringing us full circle.

The Observer also noted that three “marginal ex-NFL linemen” were at the camp, but none were named. Though I do not know this to be the case, in light of the timeframe and other circumstances, it seems that one of those individuals could have been Thomas Pestock, now better known as Baron Corbin, who did play the line in the NFL for a short period and who did get signed into the WWE system in 2012.

And that’s all we know about lotion-gate.

Mohamed is poking around:

The Fingerpoke of Doom storyline didn’t kill WCW. The first five months of 1999 drew high monthly ratings. January 1999 did a 4.85 rating, Second highest ratings month in Nitro history. February 1999 did a 4.65, fourth highest and March and April 1999 did a 4.07 and 4.17 ratings. May did 4.01. So it wasn’t a drop till after the NWO dissappeared due to numerous injuries and that only did the ratings by the summer drop hard. Why do people not see that?

People absolutely see that. Go read The Death of WCW, which is the ultimate volume written on, well, the death of WCW. It’s completely acknowledged by the authors of that book as well as almost every other journalist who knows what they’re talking about that WCW in 1999 was still doing very well in terms of viewership. When people criticize the Fingerpoke of Doom, they’re typically not saying that the poke occurred and everybody tuned out. They’re typically saying that the poke occurred and it resulted in a loss of goodwill with fans that, combined with other bungles in following months, eroded people’s interest in the company over time.

There is very rarely one isolated incident in wrestling that leads to a significant uptick or downtrend in viewers immediately after it occurs. Usually historical moments, good or bad, lead to changes in momentum that play out over many weeks or months. The “Austin 3:16” promo following the 1996 King of the Ring tournament is another great example of this. People didn’t tune into Monday Night Raw in droves to see Steve Austin immediately following that interview. It just laid the table for those viewers to be gathered over the course of the next several months.

It’s rare that we get a question from somebody who used to write this column, but, when we do, it’s from Jed Shaffer:

I don’t remember if you said you were retiring the lineal title gimmick. If so, feel free to hit the delete button. But if you’re up for a different one, I’ve got a lineal title history for you.

The WWF Women’s Championship, starting with Rockin’ Robin’s reign.

This is one championship we know won’t end up in the hands of the current WWE World Champion.

It’s been a little while since I’ve done one of these, so for any newer readers, let’s set the stage.

A lineal championship is a concept taken from boxing and other legitimate combat sports, in which you trace the fictional history of a championship by starting with a particular champion and then declaring that the next champion is the first person to beat the original champion – ignoring situations such as titles being stripped, non-title matches, and so on.

In the pro wrestling context, we’ve tended to use those rules in addition to saying that only one-on-one matches count (no three-ways, four ways, etc.) and victories by count out or disqualification are also not valid ways for the title to change.

I’ve traced several of these over my time writing this column, all (obviously) based on reader request, and the trend is that most – but not all – of them seem to wind up merging into the WWE Championship, as Jed notes in his question.

But surely this wouldn’t happen with the WWF Women’s Title, right?

Right?

Jed asks us to start with the title reign of Rockin’ Robin, who was the last WWF Women’s Champion before the title was retired between 1989 and 1993, when it was revived for Alundra Blayze. Along with the title, Robin left the WWF in 1989, with her last match being a championship defense on a June 25 house show in Wheeling, West Virginia against Judy Martin. After that, she only wrestled sporadically, so she did not cleanly lose a match until a set of Global Wrestling Federation tapings on January 31, 1992 in Dallas, when she dropped a fall and the lineal WWF Women’s Championship to Miss Samantha, a woman who worked indies and small territories throughout the south in the 1990s.

On Valentine’s Day of 1992, Rockin’ Robin retakes her lineal championship by defeating Samantha, again on a GWF taping in Dallas. This time around, it’s a lumberjack match.

In what wound up being the last match of Robin’s career, she appeared on the LPWA Super Ladies Showdown pay per view on February 23, 1992, dropping a fall to Black Venus. For those not in the know, LPWA was the Ladies Professional Wrestling Association, an effort to create a new all-women’s promotion beginning in 1989.

It doesn’t take long for the lineal WWF Women’s Championship to come back to the WWF, as Vensus’ next loss (and actually HER last career match) comes on November 30, 1993 at a set of WWF Superstars tapings in Springfield, Massachusetts, where she loses to Heidi Lee Morgan in a match that was part of the tournament to crown, you guessed it, a new WWF Women’s Champion.

Heidi makes it all the way to the finals of that championship tournament, where, as referenced above, she is defeated by Alundra Blayze on December 13, 1993 at a WWF All American Wrestling taping in Poughkeepsie, New York. Thus, Blayze becomes both the lineal WWF Women’s Champion and the actual WWF Women’s Champion.

Bull Nakano becomes our lineal champion by defeating Blayze on May 7, 1994 on a WWF house show in Yokohama, Japan. Blayze’s actual WWF Women’s Championship was not on the line here.

Alunda Blayze retakes the lineal strap later in the same tour, pinning Nakano on May 9, 1994 at a WWF house show at Japan’s Osaka Jo Hall. She is still the real-world WWF Women’s Champion at the time.

Later the same year, we’re back to Bull, as Bull Nakano goes over Blayze on November 20, 1994 at an All Japan Women’s show called BIG EGG WRESTLING UNIVERSE~! at the Tokyo Dome. The real world WWF Women’s Championship is also on the line here, so the real and lineal titles remain unified.

On the April 3, 1995 Monday Night Raw tapings, Alundra Blayze retakes both the lineal and actual WWF Women’s Championships when she defeats Nakano in Poughkeepsie. What’s up with all the Poughkeepsie in this fake title history?

At Summerslam 1995, Bertha Faye a.k.a. Rhonda Singh a.k.a. Monster Ripper ends Alundra’s WWF Women’s Title reign and also becomes the lineal champion.

We basically just repeat the Blayze/Nakano pattern, as Alundra Blayze gets her belt(s) back during the October 23, 1995 Raw tapings in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada.

I don’t know if you’ve heard this story before, but, while she was still technically their Women’s Champion, the WWF let Alundra Blayze go, and she headed over to WCW, where she resumes using her pre-WWF ring name of Madusa. She throws the WWF Title belt in the trash, but you can’t do that to a lineal title. Instead, she keeps that distinction until January 29, 1996 when she loses to “Sensational” Sherri Martel, then known as Sister Sherri on an episode of Monday Nitro from Canton, Ohio.

Sherri is mostly managing during this phase of her career, so she doesn’t lose a singles match again until September 18, 1997, when she is defeated by Debbie Combs on an IWA Mid-South show in Lousiville, Kentucky. Sherri is also NWA World Women’s Champion headed into this match, so Combs picks up a real title as well.

Well this is where things get weird. On the the November 4, 1997 IWA Mid-South show in, also in Louisville, Mad Man Pondo beats Debbie Combs in an intergender match. Thus, the lineal WWF Women’s Champion is now, as Pondo’s ring name implies, a man. A mad man, to be specific.

On Veteran’s Day, November 11, 1997, also for IWA Mid-South in Louisville, Pondo loses to another male wrestler, Cash Flo. Shortly after, Flo also becomes the IWA Mid-South Television Champion, which is odd because I don’t know that IWA Mid-South ever had a television program to speak of.

Chip Fairway defeats Cash Flo for both the IWAMS TV Title and the lineal WWF Women’s Title at a December 9, 1997 IWA show in Louisville. If I’m reading the results correctly, the match is, oddly, not televised.

Cash Flo gets his win back over Fairway on January 29, 1998 for IWA Mid-South in Louisville, again with both titles changing.

Let’s keep this going. Chip Fairway beats Cash Flo for both real and fake titles on an IWA card on January 30, 1998. This match between the two mixes it up ever so slightly, as it occurs in Lexington, Kentucky instead of Louisville.

Fortunately that cycle is broken, as Bull Pain takes the IWA Mid-South TV Title and the lineal WWF Women’s Title from Fairway on February 7, 1998 at an IWA Mid-South show.

Moving up to a little bit more of a “name” talent, ECW alumnus and Chair Swinging Freak Axl Rotten defeats Bull Pain on February 13, 1998 again taking both the real and imagined championships.

Speaking of ECW, Axl is mainly wrestling in tag team matches for that company around this time, so he goes for a while without taking a singles loss. When he does, it’s to Lance Storm on May 8, 1998 at the Rochester, New York Convention Center. I’m guessing Storm would not care for the ludicrous notion of him being the lineal WWF Women’s Champion, but he is.

The very next night, May 9, 1998, Bam Bam Bigelow defeats Storm in a match taped for ECW Hardcore TV in Buffalo, New York.

Taz is the next lineal WWF Women’s Champion, as he beats the Beast from the East on August 2, 1998 at the ECW Heat Wave pay per view in Dayton, Ohio. Taz’s FTW Heavyweight Championship was also on the line here.

Taz is on a huge win streak around this time, not losing a singles match for over a year, lasting until September 3, 1999 when he drops a fall to Sabu on an ECW house show in the future home of AEW, Jacksonville, Florida.

Justin Credible takes Sabu down a peg, beating him at the 1999 Anarchy Rulz pay per view on September 19 in Villa Park, Illinois to become the lineal WWF Women’s Champion.

A week later, Sabu takes things back, defeating Credible on an ECW house show in Flint, Michigan on September 26, 1999.

Up next, Rob Van Dam snags his first reign as lineal WWF Women’s Champion, when he defeats Sabu on episode number fourteen of ECW on TNN, which was taped in Chicago, Illinois on November 18, 1999. This is also a successful defense of Van Dam’s ECW World Television Championship.

RVD remains undefeated until May 14, 2000, when he loses a singles match to Jerry Lynn at ECW’s Hardcore Heaven pay per view in Milwaukee.

Less than a week later, Justin Credible becomes a two-time lineal WWF Women’s Champion on May 20, when he defeats Lynn at an ECW Hardcore TV taping in Columbia, South Carolina, a fitting location for a Women’s Title change given that it was the home of the Fabulous Moolah. This was also a defense of Credible’s ECW World Heavyweight Title.

Jerry Lynn is right back in the mix, though, defeating Credible for both the lineal Women’s Championship and the ECW Title at Anarchy Rulz 2000 on October 10 in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Even though he drops the ECW Title on the way out, Lynn does not lose another one-on-one match until he jumps ship to the WWF, where he is defeated by Essa Rios on an April 21, 2001 house show in Waco, Texas.

Sending the lineal Women’s Championship to another ECW alumnus, Al Snow triumphs over Essa Rios on April 30 of the same year in Milwaukee, with the match being taped for an episode of the gone-but-not-forgotten television program WWF Jakked.

Snow was off WWF television for most of the spring and summer of 2001, I believe due to commitments related to Tough Enough. He returns to the ring and loses to Christian Cage on November 18, 2001 at the Survivor Series, in a match where Christian is also defending his European Championship.

When Christian loses the lineal WWF Women’s Championship, he at least keeps it in the family, as he drops it to Edge in Daytona Beach, Florida at a November 23, 2001 house show. Edge is also defending the Intercontinental Title here.

Speaking of keeping it in the family, our next Women’s Champion is also a member of the Team RECK family, with Kurt Angle defeating Edge on November 27, 2001 in Wichita, Kansas at a WWF Smackdown taping.

And now one of the biggest stars in the history of pro wrestling becomes the lineal WWF Women’s Champion, with Steve Austin winning against Angle at Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena on a December 1, 2001 house show.

Chris Jericho becomes Women’s Champ at the 2001 WWF Vengeance pay per view when he pins Steve Austin. This was also the match that unified the WWF Championship and the World Heavyweight Championship (formerly the WCW Championship) in the aftermath of the WCW/ECW Invasion.

Jericho holds the Undisputed WWF Championship and the lineal WWF Women’s Championship until Wrestlemania XVIII, when he loses it all to Triple H in the last match of the evening.

Hulk Hogan is the lineal WWF Women’s Champion as of April 21, 2002, when he defeats HHH at Backlash ’02 in Kansas City, Missouri. Of course, the WWF Undisputed Title was also on the line here.

We’re now just pretty much tracking the WWF Championship (now the WWE Championship, actually), as The Undertaker pins Hogan at Judgment Day 2002 in Nashville.

We do deviate from the WWE Title history at this point, as Kurt Angle does in the Undertaker in a non-title match on June 18, 2002, which was taped for Smackdown. Angle is now a two-time lineal WWF Women’s Champion.

Rikishi is next in line for our “championship,” pinning Angle on a June 22, 2002 house show in Huntington, West Virginia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzzFbGrxMN4

Lance Storm, who we last saw winning the lineal WWF Women’s Title when he was part of the ECW roster, is now winning it on a WWE show, as he goes over Rikishi on July 2, 2002 in a match taped for Smackdown.

Storm’s former WCW rival Booker T. pins him on the August 12, 2002 episode of Monday Night Raw emanating from Seattle, Washington, becoming our first African American lineal Women’s Champion since Black Venus back in 1992.

Chris Jericho picks up his second lineal WWF Women’s Title reign by defeating the Booker Man on September 29, 2002 at a house show in Beaumont, Texas. This is also a defense of the Intercontinental Title, which Jericho held at the time.

The very next night, Kane wrestles Jericho on Monday night Raw and wins, capturing the lineal WWF Women’s Title, the Intercontinental Title, AND the number one contendership to the World Heavyweight Title, then held by Triple H.

Spoiler: Triple H wins. He defeats Kane at the 2002 No Mercy pay per view on October 20 in Little Rock, Arkansas. This match unifies the World Heavyweight and Intercontinental Titles, not to mention the lineal WWF Women’s Title, marking Trips’ second reign.

Kane regains the lineal title on October 28, 2002’s episode of Monday Night Raw in Detroit, when he defeats HHH in a casket match. (Per our rules for these lineal championships, they can usually only change by pinfall or submission but can also change via fulfilling the stipulation of a stipulation match, such as locking your opponent in a casket during a casket match.)

Years before he would actually become a main eventer, Batista pins Kane on the November 25, 2002 Raw from North Charleston, South Carolina (talk about your confusing town names) making him the lineal WWF Women’s Champion for the first time.

On January 23, 2003, Rob Van Dam becomes the lineal champion for the second time, getting what at the time was probably an unexpected victory over Batista on a house show in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Chris Jericho is now a three-time champ, as he scores a victory over RVD in the Land of the Rising Sun, specifically on January 25, 2003 at Tokyo’s Yoyogi National Gymnasium.

Some think he just cares about his freaks and his peaks, but I’m sure Scott Steiner also cares about his time as lineal WWF Women’s Champion, which he wins in a match against Jericho on Raw on February 3, 2003 which was also for the number one contendership to the World Heavyweight Title.

Everybody knows Steiner never held the WWF version of the World Heavyweight Title, which means his run as number one contender did not go so well. In fact, Triple H defeats him to retain the WHT and win the lineal WWF Women’s Title at the 2003 No Way Out PPV in Montreal.
The Game goes on a lengthy undefeated streak in 2003, which ultimately comes to an end on September 21 of that year, with Goldberg pinning him at WWE Unforgiven to win the World Heavyweight Title and the lineal Women’s Title.

Believe it or not, Goldberg doesn’t lose another one-on-one match until April 2, 2017, when Brock Lesnar defeats him for the WWE Universal Title at Wrestlemania XXXIII.

The Mayor of Suplex City holds the championship until Summerslam 2018 at the Barclays Center in New York, when he is defeated for both the WWE Universal Title and the lineal WWE Women’s Championship by Roman Reigns.

Shane McMahon, oddly enough, is our next lineal WWE Women’s Champion, receiving the designation before his sister Stephanie. This occurs at the Super Show Down pay per view from Saudi Arabia on June 7, 2019.

McMahon is stunned and defeated by Kevin Owens at Summerslam 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Owens’ reign as a WWE Women’s Champion is remarkably short-lived, as he’s beaten two nights later by Samoa Joe on the August 13, 2019 Smackdown tapings. Owens didn’t even get to leave Toronto with his fake women’s title, as this show, much like Summerslam, was held in the New York of Canada.

If you thought Kevin Owens might be concerned about his short reign, don’t worry. He gets the championship back on August 17, 2019 at a house show in Houston, of course defeating Samoa Joe.

. . . but it’s another brief run for K.O., with Elias Samson unseats him on August 20, 2019 on Smackdown in a first round King of the Ring tournament match. Shane McMahon is the special guest referee, getting a measure of revenge for Owens taking the Women’s Title from him at Summerslam.

Due to injuries and other issues, Samson’s in-ring time over the last couple of years has been limited, so he doesn’t lose a one-on-one bout until October 26, 2020 in the WWE Thunderdome during its residency at Orlando’s Amway Center. The winner of that match is Keith Lee, who by virtue of his win here also qualifies for the Raw brand team at the upcoming Survivor Series.

Drew McIntyre becomes the lineal WWE Women’s Champion on January 4, 2021, also in the WWE Thunderdome (though it’s moved to Tropicana Field by this point) defeating Bearcat Lee on Monday Night Raw in a match with McIntyre’s WWE Championship also on the line.

Thanks to a Money in the Bank cash-in, Mike the Miz becomes the lineal Women’s Champion on February 21, 2021’s Elimination Chamber pay per view, once again at the Tropicana Field version of the Thunderdome.

On March 1, 2021, Bobby Lashley defeats Mike the Miz in a lumberjack match on Monday Night Raw to win both the WWE Championship and the lineal WWE Women’s Championship.

In a bit of an upset, Kofi Kingston gets a win over Lashley on the May 17, 2021 episode of Raw from the Thunderdome in the Yuengling Center. Though Lashley’s WWE Championship is not on the line here, the lineal WWE Women’s Championship certainly is.

Rather than Lashley getting his win back over Kingston, Drew McIntyre defeats the New Day member on the May 31, 2021 Monday Night Raw in a match also for the number one contendership to Lashley’s WWE Title.

Not surprisingly, McIntyre drops everything right back to Bobby Lashley at WWE Hell in a Cell 2021, in a cell match.

In a shocker – and a match without the WWE Title on the line – Xaiver Woods picks up a win over Lashley on the July 6, 2021 Monday Night Raw in the Yuengling Center meaning two-thirds of the New Day has now been WWE Women’s Champion.

Bobby Lashley is back in the saddle with his third lineal WWE Women’s Title reign, as he beats Woods on August 22, 2021 at a WWE house show in Denver Colorado – our first lineal title change since the company’s return to touring after we all stopped pretending the COVID-19 pandemic was a thing.

And now every member of the New Day is a lineal WWE Women’s Champion, as Big E Langston unseats Lashley on September 13, 2021’s episode of Monday Night Raw, also becoming the WWE Champion in the process.

There you go. Though Jed thought it was impossible for the lineal WWE Women’s Title to become unified with the real-world WWE Championship as so many other lineal titles have, that is exactly what has occurred, all thanks to an intergender match involving Mad Man Pondo back in 1997. Who would have guessed?

That will do it for this week’s installment of the column. 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.