Ask 411 Wrestling: Will Brock Lesnar Be a Face Against Roman Reigns?

Hello, welcome to Ask 411 Wrestling, the only wrestling column that thinks WWE might as well recreate WM 28’s 18 Seconds at Fast Lane, given that the fans will turn on the result and at least that way Roman looks Really Strong!

I’m serious, by the way.

Anyway, things are moving ever closer to Wrestlemania, which is set to be a major show for one reason or another, so let us get right down to business.

And business, in this case, is questions. If you have a question for the column, [email protected] should be your first port of call!

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Zeldas!

Check out my Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture! Some of the things on there are ok.

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Regal As Champ: While you always have to take what any wrestler says at any time with a grain of salt, I think that even if Regal wasn’t going to be champ he sure as hell was in line for a serious push as the King/GM thing, but stuff happened, obviously.

I’ll be discussing Roman/Bryan below, for the record.

The Trivia Crown

Who am I? I’ve been involved in a Money In The Bank ladder match. I trained under a man who trained many wrestlers, two of whom have posed nude in their careers. My first match in a company was a losing effort against a vampire. Like many a wrestler, after turning heel I lengthened my first name. I was once outsmarted by Howard Finkel. I have used chloroform to get what I want, although it went badly for me overall. I’ve been handcuffed, weird, and my current persona debuted in-ring on a Big 4 PPV. Who am I?

Anna had the answer via email.

Who am I? I’ve been involved in a Money In The Bank ladder match ( Money In The Bank 2013). I trained under a man who trained many wrestlers (Killer Kowalski), two of whom have posed nude in their careers (Chyna and April Hunter). My first match in a company was a losing effort against a vampire (Gangrel). Like many a wrestler, after turning heel I lengthened my first name (Jonathan Curtis). I was once outsmarted by Howard Finkel (Outthink The Fink NXT Challenge). I have used chloroform to get what I want, although it went badly for me overall(Used on Matt Striker in NXT). I’ve been handcuffed (To Maxine), weird (Catchphrase in NXT), and my current persona debuted in-ring on a Big 4 PPV (WM 29). Who am I? FANDANGO!

Who am I? I was involved in a fictional tournament (albeit as an April Fools joke). I was the first guy to fight a very famous wrestler in a very famous place. I’ve been a king, and a rat. I’ve beaten gods and demons. I managed an infamous future world champion, but only in the dark, while in the light I have over a half dozen of world champs under my managerial services (technically). I once underwent multiplication, I once booked Orton V Cena V HHH, and my last televised match was a victory, albeit under dubious circumstances. Who am I?

Getting Down To All The Business

Jon saves me having to wade into the comments section with the topic on everyone’s minds.

Yep: same line of thought: now that we’ve seen the Rumble and the crowd (as well as the Smackdown crowd) reacted exactly as expected, what happens next? And if, I fear, the answer is “Vince is absolutely sticking to his guns”, then isn’t Brock Lesnar about to get the biggest face reaction since, well, Daniel Bryan last year?

Thanks again.

It’s worse than that, Vince is ‘listening’ to us and setting Reigns up for even MORE hatred when he beats Bryan at Fast Lane. Because apparently the issue is that we think Bryan can beat Reigns one on one or some such and that’s why we’re upset.

But the problem with WM isn’t just that Reigns is the Golden Child most of the fanbase has rejected, it’s also that Brock, if the rumors are true, is set to bail as well. And thus quite possibly we will get a crowd that will make MSG in 2004 look like a crowd full of Make A Wish kids seeing John Cena.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9D0h8K2feg

And thus the guy who will be a super face in this match will be Paul Heyman.

Assuming, of course, that Bryan loses at Fast Lane, in a way that makes him look like a chump, which really comes down to anything clean, or anything involving outside interference from someone not named Brock, Punk or Austin.

I mean, best case scenario, Bryan counters spear into Yes Lock after a 20 minute match were Reigns looks awesome, Reigns looks like he’s about to get out or tap, A Wild Brock appears and kills both men before dumping Reigns on Bryan, with Heyman saying that Reigns now owes him and that if he can’t beat Bryan how can he beat Brock, so on and so forth, then Reigns beats Brock and you build to Reigns/Bryan at Summerslam on the “We never settled this” issue.

At least, that’s one way to do it. Again, like any topic, there are some people who won’t be satisfied unless Bryan is Champ forever and ever, but they are in the minority. I think the majority of people are upset that the talented guys who entertain us are being shoved aside or made to look silly. Bryan not being in the title match would be fine if he had a solid program that was entertaining and was treated with respect.

Bryan vs. Ziggler for shits and giggles is not that match.

Bryan vs. Big Show for respect or something is not that match

Sheamus costing Bryan the match at Fast Lane is a good idea in theory but just has too much backstory and tainted history involved.

But that’s what we’ll be getting, I fear, the Sheamus heel turn and joining the Authority, with the Ziggler thing a deliberate tease to throw us off the scent. And it’ll be hated, but it’ll be a dry hate, and everyone will be maybe 2% less disgusted at Reigns as Champ and that’ll be enough for them, for a while.

Still, could be worse. Could be Orton/Bryan V Sheamus/Show…

The problem is consistent, no matter what the opinion about the ability of everyone involved, at the end of the day, the storyline is not engaging, and the characters aren’t matching up to how they are being used. You can force the issue, and it may work, or you can try and fix it, and it may go even worse.

Roman Reigns, the character, is not fitting the “Royal Rumble and Future God King” role he’s being put in. There’s plenty of options to try and fix this, heel turns, more time to develop, total revamp of the storyline, but at the end of the day, it’s up to the WWE and up to Vince. And if they want to plough ahead as planned, they are within their rights to do so, and maybe, just maybe, it’ll work out in the end.

But the odds, right now, don’t look good. And either way, Vince will get yelled at by members of the IWC.

He just has to decide how many members that is.

Raza is all about Brock. And Shawn. And Taker. And Brock again.

I would throw light on Brock’s current tenure with WWE and his handful WWE PPV matches. Now, Brock contract is near end and he will wrestler probably his last match ever in WWE against Reigns, don’t you think that WWE missed opportunities in setting his big matches against the likes of Sheamus, Orton, Ziggler, Cesaro, Batista or Bryan anytime during these three years, instead of making him wrestle repeatedly with Cena on four occasions and Triple-H twice, we could have Brock-Sheamus at NOC 2014 or it could have be Brock-Orton-Rollins at RR 2015. Now it must either be Brock decision/ego not to wrestle any thing other the likes of Cenas, Takers, Punks, Triple-H or is it WWE not trusting others to have a marketable showdown with him or is it an example of WWE’s sheer mismanagement?

Hey, he fought Big Show that one time, that makes it ok, right?

Brock wouldn’t have cared if they booked him to fight Titus O’Neil every show for the past three years, Brock is by all accounts in this for the money, and that’s a perfectly legitmate position to hold, especially when you’re as good as he is at being, well, Brock Lesnar.

Likewise, Brock would be happy to wrestle more often, it’s just that past the number of dates in the contract, WWE has to pay through the nose, and they don’t want to do that, especially as he didn’t move the needle on PPV/Network subscriptions as much as he had to to make it worth the money.

As for his opponents, that’s all on WWE. They felt that Brock was so far ahead of everyone else on the power scale that only Triple H and Cena were big enough stars to go up against him, with Big Show/Punk one offs that just reinforced his status, and then taking the Streak to set him up as the Ultimate Big Bad who won’t be around anymore.

Now, of course, in the old days, big stars would work with lesser stars to make those lesser stars into bigger stars, since if they were presented as being on a same level the fans would see them as equals, assuming they didn’t smell a fix or there was a massive disconnection between position and talent (as happened often with sons of promoters). But in the modern WWE era, that doesn’t work because… Uh… Reasons. Yes, reasons.

So yeah, Brock’s pretty blameless here, it’s all WWE, from what I’ve read.

Secondly, Shawn Michaels, as well know, won the Rumble in 1995 for the first time but WWE made his ‘boyhood dream’ come true at WMXII instead, what was the reason for not putting WWE Championship on his shoulders at WM XI?

Because the entire point of that PPV was to get a bunch of mainstream publicity via LT in the ring and then show everyone watching ‘Hey, this Diesel guy is awesome! You should make him an international hero like that Hogan fellow!’

The idea was still, at that point, to make Diesel into the next Hogan, and Shawn was just the logical pick of who to take on Diesel due to their shared history, and because he’d get a good match out of him, but he wasn’t there to win, he was there to put over Diesel.

Now, in retrospect they might as well have tried Heel Shawn then given how badly Diesel went in the summer, and also they overdid it on making Shawn into a viable threat in the lead in such that most people assumed Shawn was gonna win, but either way, Shawn wasn’t going to win the belt at any stage, because he was smaller than Diesel, and thus he couldn’t possibly be more popular than Diesel. Similar to how a couple years prior, Hogan had to be more popular than Bret since Hogan was larger and such.

Vince sticking to his guns in the face of logic isn’t a totally new phenomenon you know…

Thirdly, Taker won his first WWE Championship at 1991 Survivor Series, I want to know how he managed to get qualified for the said title match, did he won any Battle Royal/Tournament or something?

No, he got the title match for being undefeated and such.

And also because he attacked Hulk Hogan that one time.

Despite having lost many bodybag matches leading up to the show, Taker hadn’t lost on air since his debut. Thus he was said to be undefeated and was given a title shot based on that, plus Hogan wanted a piece of him after the attack.

Not every title shot has to have an explanation, given that everyone is logically supposed to want it, sometimes you can just announce a title match and go from there.

And finally , I still think that Reigns will not walk out WM31 as WWE Champion owing to following reasons 1) Brock last appearance as per his current contract is at the Raw night after WM31 (what’s the point in making final appearance at Raw after losing title just last night 2) Reigns would win but Rollins would cashes-in MITB

WWE has tried ending WrestleMania on a downer, twice. First in 2000, where it is widely regarded as the sole low point in an otherwise stellar year of PPV goodness (but at least led to Backlash 2000 making a monster amount of cash) and 2001, where the fans didn’t react properly but it still managed to destroy the drawing power of what had been one of, if not the most popular performers ever. I don’t see Rollins standing tall as being the moment they want to end the PPV on. Reigns having beaten Brock and then manages to defeat Rollins as well, sure. But not Rollins cashing in and winning.

As for why Brock would turn up on Raw? His rematch for the title (‘My Client doesn’t want to wait, he wants it here tonight!’) which ends in 30 seconds as Taker’s mind games play and Brock is caught off guard, pinned, and then leaves the company in shame for having lost in such a way.

Brock is going to lose at WM, to Reigns. Short the ever possible medical emergency/lottery win which is forced to alter plans, that is going to happen, regardless of what we think.

Craig asks about a rather delicate subject.

Hey how did the wwf explain to the wrestling world the Jim duggan/iron sheik arrest?

For those who aren’t aware of what happened, here’s Sheik telling the story.

Although most accounts say that Sheik was the one with the harder stuff.

Anyway, although they made the show that night (where Jim Duggan & Ken Patera defeated Nikolai Volkoff & the Iron Sheik), they were fired the next day, as much due to the breaking of kayfabe then the whole drug stuff. Sheik wouldn’t return full time until 91, while Duggan was back in September after impressing people with a match against Ted DiBiase at the Paul Boesch Retirement Show in August, similar to how Regal got a job back with the company at the Brian Pillman Memorial Show.

To my knowledge, they never addressed the issue on air, but in WWF Magazine they skirted around the drug issue, but did say that Duggan was travelling with Sheik to try and convert him to a good guy, he was trying to convince Sheik of the error of his ways, I believe was their justification.

This was all sorts of awesome.

Todd asks this week’s question that I know I’ll leave people off of.

Sting recently made his Raw debut, putting him on what I assume to be a pretty short list of stars who have appeared on Nitro, Impact, and Raw. Can you give us the list of stars who have appeared on all 3? Sting couldn’t have been the first, right?

Jeff Jarrett would be the logical choice of a guy who beat him. But let’s go down the TNA alumni list (starting in 2004), and see who I know has been on a Raw and a Nitro…

Bobby Heenan
Booker T
Brian Knobbs
Chavo Guerrero
Diamond Dallas Page
Don Harris
Dustin Runnels
Dusty Rhodes
Eric Bischoff
Hulk Hogan
Jacqueline
Jeff Jarrett
Jerry Lynn
Jerry Sags
Jim Neidhart
Jimmy Hart
Kevin Nash
Marc Mero
Raven
Ric Flair
Rick Steiner
Roddy Piper
Ron Harris
Sabu
Scott Hall
Scott Steiner
Sean Waltman
Shane Douglas (Kinda)
Sharmell
Sherri Martel
Stevie Richards
Sting
Tara

So no, Sting is not the first, not by a long shot.

(I forget anyone? Or did I mistakenly given someone an appearance they didn’t make? Tell me below!)

Let’s move onto a simpler question, from Brian.

Do you think the camera phone and the idea of “everything is being filmed” has ruined the spontaneity of the house show and having fun for the fans sake?

It shouldn’t have, in fact it should have been a positive. If you make house shows fun and spontaneous and generally a fun environment, people filming themselves having a good time should be nothing but positive word of mouth and lead to more people coming.

However, whatever possible benefit that might have had has been swamped by the overarching issue of the internet as a whole having a major impact on how the business had been run and the way fans interact. Whereas in the old days you could get away with running the same title change and gimmick spot in each show each night for three weeks, now you have to keep track of live events because if you try and sneak a title change somewhere, it’ll be online in 15 minutes.

But the thing is, that would be the same with or without camera phones, it’s just a question of transmission details in that case.

You should still be able to run spontaneous, fun live shows, you just have to make sure they keep within the lines since it’ll be online, with or without video.

(Hmmm, the history of Wrestling and The Internet, that’s a deep, rich topic. Someone should write a book about that. Oh right.)

Ben wants to talk about Da Mun-Ey.

Eric Bischoff talked during the “War Days” about putting “butts in seats”. That got me thinking….

During the territory days (yes I’m still “territory driven”) it would make sense to me that a high percentage of a promotion’s take was from those “butts” (not taking into account any draw they got from merchandising). That most obviously has to have changed in recent years with the profits from DVD’s, mainstream appearances, and any other “non-butt” oriented money makers.

My question is what percentage of WWE’s profits comes from show attendance only?

In the 2013 Annual Report, Live Events, in total, made the company $111.5 Million dollars in the 2013 calendar year, up from $103.7 Million the previous year. The OIBDA of the live events (‘The operating income before depreciation and amortization’, which is a slightly controversial way to express cash flow via operating profit (operating income minus operating expenses)) which is what you’re interested in, was $30.1 Million, up from $26.5 Million.

As a percentage of their total profits, Show Attendance (and/or any fees they might have gotten from venues or some such), minus the costs of putting on shows, earned 31% of their profits in 2013, down from 36% in 2012.

…

I miss Prag.

Jesse wonders if it’s time to do something properly.

This may sound out of left field but do you think now is the right time to re-do the Invasion angle but do it correctly? Hogan, Flair, and Sting are all in the WWE. Nash and Hall are around. Basically all the names they didn’t have last time are in the company. I don’t mean have them wrestle but maybe have them mentor young guys with less than stellar mic skills to set up a storyline where they’re trying to take over WWE as revenge, or because they dislike HHH, etc…

The Monday Night Wars are being played on WWE Network, it feeds into nostalgia, and they have all the star power. Plus, up and coming guys like Reigns, Cesaro, and Ziggler would have more experienced mouth pieces if they were the chosen representatives. Heck, they could even use it to hype why you should buy the Network; to see the backstory.

I’m not feeling it, simply because everyone involved is far too ingrained into the WWE Legend Syndrome, where everyone old is now a face and are all good buddies. No matter how badly Edge screwed John Cena and made his life hell, all that past hatred is now water under the bridge and cool.

So why would the nWo, to pick a potential invasion force at random, want to turn around and take over now? Why would people sign up to be led by a bunch of old timers? Plus, fans are trained to have leaders eventually step into the ring, and I don’t need to see Nash or Hogan wrestle again.

Maybe I could see someone go for a takeover, but there’s not enough brand loyalty to any of the older possibilities, WCW, ECW, nWo, they’re all just names in the Network. You’re better off doing something like having Heyman, having lost Brock as a client, gather a bunch of young/pissed off faces (Owens, Neville, Cesaro/Kidd/Natalya, Ascension as silent muscle) and intend to take over by force, that could work, just redo the Dangerous Alliance. But the InVasion ship has sailed far, far away by now, alas.

Quan makes me bust out my Japanese Wrestling knowledge.

This will be pretty tough. The Island Death Match between Antonio Inoki and Masa Saito is still a mystery to me even though I watched Puroresu for 20 years or so. What was the inspiration, the build-up, the background of that match? How the match went? The aftermath, the post-match reaction? I even heard a story that Inoki signed his divorce paper right before leaving the ship or something. Still a big mystery, and I couldn’t buy any DVDs containing this match.

Ah, the Ganryujima Island Death Match.

Well, someone uploaded the most complete version available onto the Youtubes, here’s the first part, you can find the rest via there.

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

OK, so let’s start with the basics and go from there.

After Masa Saito was arrested alongside Ken Patera in 1984 due to a confrontation with police after they were refused service at a McDonald’s that was closed and they responded by tossing a boulder through a window. When the cops turned up, they fought with them, leading to them serving two years in prison, although Patera disputes the details and claims Saito was never there.

Regardless, once he was out of jail he went back to Japan, and wrestled there for New Japan. He quickly entered a feud with Antonio Inoki, which ran for a few months and did fairly big business. And so the blow off to the feud had to be big, especially as it was to be broadcast on Japanese TV in October 1987, with that being the equivalent of sweeps as Japanese TV running on two seasons starting April and October.

So, Inoki came up with the idea of doing a death match on Ganryujima Island, billing it as the longest match ever, with the match lasting over 2 hours.

But why that Island? That’s part of Japanese folklore, as that was the island on which a very famous swordsman from the 1600’s, Musashi Miyamoto, had a duel to the death with another famous swordsman, Kojiro Sasaki, in 1612. It’s one of the famous fights in Japanese history.

So the idea was to establish that this feud was on par with that one, that this fight was just as important and historical as that famous one. It would be not unlike having two teams of five people hate each other so much you have to settle it in an all out brawl and holding it at the O.K. Corral.

(Yes, I know that was 5 on 4, but work with me here.)

Anyway, those swordsmen duelled to the death, and Inoki played it up, staying in his tent despite the match starting for a half hour in a callback to how Miyamoto was several hours late to the duel in order to gain the mental edge. But in the end, after a long, rather boring match that had a TON of stalling, Inoki won via knockout.

The match wasn’t that well received, but it did stick in the memory of those who saw it. Afterwards Inoki continued to be Inoki. Saito jumped between promotions a bit, there wasn’t really any sort of long lasting historical impact. There was a second match from New Japan a few years later, Hiro Hase vs. Tiger Jeet Singh on the 18th of December, 1991. FMW did a more famous follow up, a Jungle Death Match on the 30th of June, 1992 in Sekigawa, Onita V Singh again, although that one had the ring surrounded by explosive barbed wire, which I guess is natural foliage in Sekigawa.

And beyond that, the name Ganryujima is as much to do with wrestling as it does swordfighting.

Anything beyond that will need Ryan, who might be below to call me a total idiot if I’m lucky.

Victor asks about Mr. Perfect in the Rumble.

Welcome back! Glad to see you’re writing the column again. And thanks for answering my question about heel Sting.

In that vein, I have a question about face Mr. Perfect. I always thought his face turn on Flair made sense since they were both arrogant and believed they were the best. Perfect wasn’t going to be content to stay in his shadow forever (and there was a nice bit of foreshadowing prior to the 1992 Rumble that Perfect would eventually turn on Flair).

Anyway, in the 1993 Rumble, Perfect was probably as over as any face in the field. Was there any thought to giving him the win (maybe not, since Hart was champ, but Hart could have dropped the title prior to WM)? During the match, he and Lawler seemed to be setting up for a feud after they were both eliminated. Did the WWF just drop it?

Not at all. The Rumble was always going to be Yokozuna’s, that’s why they invented the ‘Winner gets a title shot’ deal, they used it as a way to give Yoko a title shot, as he was always the plan to go to Wrestlemania, win the title, goodnight folks!

As for Lawler/Perfect? That appears to have been done to set up a USWA match, as the two wrestled for the USWA Unified World Heavyweight Championship on February 1st, where Perfect played heel, and, per historyofwwe.com…

Jerry Lawler defeated Mr. Perfect via reverse decision; Hennig originally won the match and title when Lawler was disqualified for attempting the illegal piledriver but referee Frank Morrell came out and told originally referee Paul Neighbors that Perfect had done the same earlier when he was knocked out

Perhaps WWF intended to have it continue on their programming as well, but on the other hand, it might well have just been for a one off.

And on that note, I bring this edition to a close. Come back next week where more questions will be answered! Probably including one about Roman Reigns!

Shocking, I know…