wrestling / Columns

Ask 411 Wrestling: How Many Pole Matches Did Vince Russo Book?

December 23, 2019 | Posted by Ryan Byers
San Francisco 49ers Pole Match

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.

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Dylan is asking a brief question with a potentially complicated answer:

When was the first ever triple threat match?

That depends a bit on exactly what the question is. The phrase “triple threat match” is WWE’s branded, trademarked term for a match involving three competitors or teams. Thus, I’m not 100% certain whether Dylan is asking just about WWE’s version of the match or whether he’s asking about three-way matches in wrestling more generally.

If we’re talking about three-way matches in general, the earliest record of one that I was able to find comes to us from a show promoted by Jim Cornette’s Smoky Mountain Wrestling on March 28, 1993 when the Rock n’ Roll Express defeated the Heavenly Bodies (Stan Lane & Dr. Tom Prichard) and Jimmy Golden & Dutch Mantell.

There’s always the possibility that there was another three-way at some earlier point in history in a small promotion or something in a foreign promotion that we don’t have solid records for, so I would be open to being corrected. However, at this point, it looks like the SMW match takes the honors.

If the question relates merely to the WWF/WWE, a video on WWE’s website claims that their first-ever triple threat match was Owen Hart vs. Triple H vs. Goldust for Hart’s Intercontinental Championship on the June 23, 1997 episode of Monday Night Raw.

However, the WWF had already been running triple threat matches on house shows for some time prior to that, with the earliest one that I could find record of being Bret Hart defending the WWF Championship against Diesel and the Undertaker on March 16, 1996 in Landover, Maryland. That match did differ somewhat from a modern WWE triple threat in that Hart had to pin both of his opponents whereas current triple threats are one fall to a finish, but they were definitely calling it a triple threat match. Interestingly, there were several more triple threats between the same three men that were supposed to have occurred on the circuit in February and early March of that year, but they were turned into singles matches due to an injury suffered by Diesel.

Only Teddy R. can prevent forest fires:

What was the deal with Burnard the Business Bear? Why did he come out with Cody every time for a while? Is there a storyline reason for it? What started this?

Originally, Cody Rhodes and the Bullet Club introduced Bury the Drug Fee Bear as a mascot for the group, but, during the feud between Cody and Kenny Omega, Omega jumped Cody while wearing the Bury costume. After that, Bury was no more and Cody replaced him with Burnard the Business Bear, with the idea being that Burnard, as his name implied, was “all business” and wasn’t going to engage in the kind of hijinks that his predecessor did.

Of course, as soon as the new bear showed up, people immediately began to speculate as to who (if anybody notable) was under the mask. Chris Jericho claimed on his podcast that, at one point, it was pitched that he would pop up from underneath the bear head during All In, while Matt Jackson has, perhaps tongue in cheek, claimed he wanted Batista to play Burnard. Eventually, however, the whole angle was dropped out of nowhere with no real explanation.

Tyler from Winnipeg is trying to garner some sympathy:

What was the deal with Vince McMahon’s neck brace during the steroid trial?

When McMahon was facing federal criminal charges for illegally distributing anabolic steroids (charges he was eventually acquitted of), he did in fact wear a neck brace during portions of the trial. Though he is often accused of donning the cervical collar in order to gain sympathy and thereby sway the jury in his favor, the fact of the matter is that he legitimately did have surgery to address a herniated disc around this same time. So, at the very least, you could say that he had a plausible reason to be wearing the brace in court.

Wyatt has a question, or it may be a swerve:

With all the shit Vince Russo gets for constantly booking “X on a Pole” matches where X is some random item (or wrestler’s mom) I was wondering how many of these matches were actually booked on his watch in the various wrestling promotions he found himself employed by.

Vince Russo began serving as the head writer for the WWF in early 1997 and remained affiliated with the promotion through the end of September 1999. During that period of time, I was only able to find record of three “pole” matches taking place, two of them actually being capture the flag matches between the Hart Foundation and their various adversaries. The first saw Bret and Owen Hart and Davey Boy Smith defeating the Undertaker, Steve Austin, and Dude Love on the July 21, 1997 edition of Monday Night Raw. The second took place at the In Your House: Bad Blood pay per view on October 5 of that year and saw Bret Hart and Davey Boy Smith defeat Vader and the Patriot, though that match had an interesting additional stipulation in that it could not just be won by capturing the flag but also via pinfall or submission.

The third pole match during Russo’s primary WWF tenure came on May 10, 1999, when the Big Boss Man got the better of Test in a nightstick on a pole match.

Fortunately, the next part of this answer has already been written for me (which should delight the guy who posts “All you do is Google stuff!” in the comments every week). Reddit user BamaBoyJosh compiled a list of the pole matches that Vince Russo booked when he was part of the WCW creative team, with there being ten in total.

Those matches were: Eddie Guerrero vs. Perry Saturn (Key on a Pole, 11/1/99 Nitro); Juventud Guerrera vs. El Dandy vs. Psicosis vs. Silver King (Piñata on a Pole, 11/15/99 Nitro); Dean Malenko vs. Chris Benoit (Flag Match, 11/22/99 Nitro); Diamond Dallas Page vs. David Flair (Crowbar on a Pole, 12/1999 Starrcade); Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Chris “Champagne” Kanyon (Champagne Bottle on a Pole, 1/12/00 Thunder); Shane Douglas vs. Billy Kidman (Viagra on a Pole, 7/31/00 Nitro); Scott Steiner vs. Sting (Pipe on a Pole, 8/7/00 Nitro); Buff Bagwell vs. Chris Kanyon (Judy Bagwell on a “Pole,” 8/13/00 New Blood Rising); Reno vs. Big Vito (Stickball Bat on a Pole, 9/11/00 Nitro); and Booker T. vs. Jeff Jarrett (San Francisco 49ers Match/Four Boxes on Poles, 10/2/00 Nitro).

That brings us to . . . hooo boy, here it goes . . . TNA. I was reminded of some very bad professional wrestling when I went back through to review the results for this leg of the answer.

Russo had three distinct runs with this promotion. The first was from July 2002 through November 2004, the second was from September 2006 through Valentine’s Day 2012, and the third and final was October 2013 through July 2014.

During that time, there were nine pole matches in the company.

Those matches were: Curt Hennig vs. David Flair (Ax Handle on a Pole, 1/8/03 Weekly PPV); Jeff Jarrett vs. Joe E. Legend (Baseball Bat & Guitar on Poles, 7/30/03 Weekly PPV); Kid Kash vs. Abyss (Chair on a Pole First Blood Match, 10/29/03 Weekly PPV); Julio Dinero & CM Punk vs. The Sandman (Handicap Singapore Canes on Poles, 1/14/04 Weekly PPV); Kid Kash & Dallas (a.k.a. Lance Archer) vs. D-Lo Brown & El Gran Apolo (Nightstick on a Pole, 4/28/04 Weekly PPV); Dusty Rhodes, Larry Zbyszko, & 3 Live Kru vs. Jeff Jarrett, Ken Shamrock, Chad Collyer, Onyx, & Hotstuff Hernandez (Guitar on a Pole, 7/14/04 Weekly PPV); Frankie Kazarian vs. Black Reign (Rat on a Pole, Impact 2/7/08 – Taped 2/4/08); Scott Steiner vs. Petey Williams (Headdress on a Pole, Impact 2/12/09 – Taped 2/9/09); and Kurt Angle vs. Mick Foley (Keys on a Pole, Impact 7/30/09 – Taped 7/20/09).

Adding those nine to our prior thirteen gets us twenty-two pole matches booked during times that Vince Russo was heavily involved in creative for a company, which is a time period spanning roughly eleven years. That results in an approximate average of two pole matches per year. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not terrible, but the fact that some of the matches are pretty ridiculous – including Judy Bagwell on a pole, Viagra on a pole, and a first blood match also involving a pole – make them memorable and result in Russo being heavily associated with the match type in fans’ minds.

JCL wants to do a deep-dive into the booking surrounding Summerslam 1992, with a multi-part question:

The accepted narrative for Summerslam ’92 is that Warrior was going to turn heel, but balked at the idea. Since the angle with Mr. Perfect offering his services to one of the two was already running (and correct me if I’m wrong on that) the WWE basically decided not to turn Savage or Warrior which lead to the weak payoff we got. I have a couple of questions.

A) What’s the timeline on all of this?

I’ve read the same rumors about the possibility of an Ultimate Warrior heel turn in late 1992 or early 1993, though to be quite honest with you I’ve never been able to confirm those rumors through any source that I believe to be credible. If you go through the Wrestling Observer newsletter back issues from the time, there’s zero reference to Warrior going to the dark side ever being a possibility. In fact, there are reports of a house show program between the Ultimate Warrior and Ric Flair in matches for the WWF Title (held by Flair) following Summerslam, so, if the heel turn was something that was in the cards, it was not going to occur at Wembley Stadium.

Though it’s true that Mr. Perfect offering his services to both Savage and Warrior leading in to the main event of Summerslam 1992 could have been an opening to turn one of the two wrestlers, it’s equally plausible that it was just a setup for the Warrior/Flair house show program and the originally announced main event of the company’s next pay per view, Survivor Series, which was Savage and Warrior teaming against Ric Flair and Razor Ramon, a heel team that would have had Perfect in their corner.

B) I feel like you might have said this, but at what point do they make the decision to put the strap on Bret? Does that decision have any influence at all over the Savage/Warrior/Perfect angle?

The decision to put the WWF Championship on Bret Hart was, by all accounts, a very last minute decision. The Hitman captured that championship on October 12, 1992, and, in the October 19, 1992 edition of the Wrestling Observer, it’s reported that the decision to go with Bret had been made “within the last week,” in large part because there was concern about the Warrior leaving the company and a resultant need to create a new babyface star to replace him.

At the time the belt was transitioned from Flair to Hart, the aforementioned Survivor Series tag team match was already being built up, so it’s hard to believe that the title change would have impacted Savage/Warrior/Perfect storyline, because its direction was already pretty well locked in by the time of that fateful night in Saskatoon. The Observer did report that, when it became apparent that the Warrior wouldn’t participate at the Survivor Series, Hart was briefly considered to replace him in the tag match, but ultimately that slot was given to Mr. Perfect himself, who hastily turned face and returned to the ring after an injury-induced hiatus. This is about the only connection between the Hitman and the Hennig/Savage/Warrior storyline that I’m aware of.

C) It’s been said that Bret advocated for the Bulldog match as opposed to a match with him against Michaels (I think in a ladder match). Part of the rationale was that in Wembley the Bulldog would get a huge hometown pop and would be a great way to close out the evening. Did the weak payoff of the Heavyweight Championship have any influence over this? Ending the night with the dud of neither man turning OR the heel victory of a turned Warrior seems like an awfully out-of-character major risk at that time, so the IC match as a closer seems like a perfect solution.

In the United Kingdom, Davey Boy Smith was the biggest babyface star that the company had, and he was going to win the Intercontinental Title. You would have to be a dunderhead of epic proportions to NOT close the show with that moment, and I’m sure that’s what lead to Hart/Bulldog going on last, with no consideration to what the finish to Savage/Warrior would have been.

D) Let’s say Warrior turns and wins the strap. What does the run to Wrestlemania look like or the next couple of months at least? The answer might be “not much different at all”, and I can see that given Vince’s desire to put the strap on a little guy like Bret ASAP, but what could you see happening?

That depends entirely on what Warrior’s stability would have been. If the concerns about him leaving the promotion that actually lead to Hart winning the title still would have arisen, then chances are good that things might not have been that much different than what we actually got, since the champion wasn’t appearing and wrestling on television much during that era. Had he won the title, turned heel, AND remained with the promotion, then chances are good that you could have seen him defending against the likes of Hart, Savage, and possibly even the Undertaker (though he was sidelined with a shoulder injury around this time) for the next few months.

Another interesting question would be whether, with the Warrior on the roster, McMahon and company would have made the play that it did to bring Hulk Hogan back in 1993. They very well could have decided that they had enough star power with Warrior in the promotion and didn’t need Hogan, or perhaps they could have attempted to bring Hogan in anyway, perhaps for a rematch of Wrestlemania VI at Wrestlemania IX. (And you know the Hulkster probably would have had at least some interest in that, since part of the rationale for bringing the Warrior into WCW in 1998 was allegedly so that Hogan could get his win back.)

E) Let’s say Warrior turns but does not win the strap. What do the next couple of months or so look like?

I know he’s basically on his way out soon anyway, but indulge me here. You can imagine he stays or goes, whatever fits your vision. Thanks.

Probably not that much different than what I mentioned above. The roster was very limited at this time in terms of top babyface stars, so you’re again probably looking at a program between the Warrior and either Savage, Hart, or the Undertaker, just without the title on the line.

That will do it for this week’s installment of the column. We’ll return in seven days, and, as always, you can contribute your questions by emailing [email protected].