Ask 411 Wrestling: Could Terry Taylor Have Made the Black Scorpion Work?

Welcome guys, gals, and gender non-binary pals . . . through Hel Stryer and brimstone, it’s 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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Ignacio came to the world in the usual way:

There is the issue with father and son. Wrestling fans like to see a father-son duo to win the Tag Team title (Rey and Dom) or wining the same title (Curtis Axel and Mr Perfect as IC Champions, Cody and Dusty as NWA World Champions). There is any grandfather-grandson duo to win tag team titles or winning the same title?

Given the long and storied history of professional wrestling, it is rare that I get a factual question where the answer is just a straight “no,” but we may have two of them here.

I’m open to any additions or corrections in the comments, but I could not come up with a single instance of a grandfather-grandson tag team winning a set of tag titles or a grandfather and grandson holding the same championship.

In fact, I could only find one instance of grandfather and grandson even tag teaming together. That occurred on March 1, 2014 in Allentown, Pennsylvania for World Xtreme Wrestling. Long-time indy wrestling fans will probably recognize that promotion as being owned by the Anoa’i family and associated with their Wild Samoan Pro Wrestling Training Center. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the match in question involves the Anoa’is.

Specifically, it was an ten-man tag match that saw Afa, Afa Jr., Lance Anoa’i, LA Smooth, and Samu teaming together. The grandfather-grandson is pair is Afa and Lance. Samu would be Lance’s father and Afa’s son, while Afa Jr. (Manu in WWE) and LA Smooth were additional sons of Afa and thus Samu’s brothers and Lance’s uncles.

For the record, in this match the Anoa’i clan defeated a team consisting of Homicide, AC Anderson, Eric Cobain, Havoc, and Musafa Aziz.

Nick is the master of the Pyrrhic victory:

What championship do you think was-is the most useless title belt in pro wrestling? For example, I hate gimmick titles; the Impact Grand Championship the NXT Heritage Cup, the Speed Titles, etc. But the one that took the cake for me was the TNA King Of The Mountain Championship. How that horrible gimmick made them want to make a title belt out of that, I’ll never know.

Before we get to the substance of the question, let’s talk a little bit about some of the words used here, because I think we’ve got some confusion based on WWE’s efforts to pervert the English language.

You’re not asking about the most useless title belt. You’re asking about the most useless championship. A championship is an abstract concept. It’s not something you can see, feel, or touch. The abstract concept of a championship can be represented by a physical thing, most often a belt but sometimes a trophy or a medal.

Vince McMahon and WWE have attempted to rebrand the belt so it is referred to as a “championship.” However, that is a misuse of the word if you look it up in an reputable dictionary.

Looping back around to the actual question, what is wrestling’s most useless championship?

I’m going to go with one that Nick didn’t mention:

The WCW Women’s Cruiserweight Championship, at least as it was used in WCW.

In 1997, WCW had a working relationship with GAEA, an all-women’s promotion in Japan. Many GAEA wrestlers were in the tournament to establish the WCW Women’s Championship in 1996, and then the two promotions decided they were going to do something similar in 1997 to create the Women’s Cruiserweight Title.

However, it was clear from jump that WCW didn’t really care much about the project. There was a four-woman tournament for the title, and of the three matches that made up the affair, only one of them got on to WCW’s a-show, Nitro, while the other two were buried on WCW Main Event. For those not watching at the time, WCW had five shows on either TNT or TBS – Nitro, Thunder, Saturday Night, {Pro}, and Main Event. {Pro} and Main Event were not b-shows or even c-shows. They were d-shows beneath Saturday Night.

Oh, and that one match that did get on Nitro? It lasted two minutes and twenty seconds.

Another indication that WCW didn’t really care about the Women’s Cruiserweight Title was that, of the four women in the tournament, three of them had been in the WCW Women’s Title tournament the year before. On the men’s side of things, the heavyweights and cruiserweights had distinct rosters and distinct wrestling styles, but when it came to the women they didn’t bother to create separate divisions.

Ultimately, Toshie Uematsu was crowned the first WCW Women’s Cruiserweight Champion, and then the title was never defended or even mentioned on WCW television ever again. To be fair, it did travel over to GAEA where it was defended and traded hands on their shows for close to a year, but the promotion it supposedly belonged to couldn’t be bothered.

Come to think of it, I’m now very curious about whatever became of the physical belt. If Sugar Sato, the former champion, still has it, somebody put her in contact with me and maybe I’ll buy it.

Bryan feels the rush:

Having grown up in Columbus, Ohio, I had the pleasure of watching Road Warrior Animal’s son James Laurinaitis play at Ohio State. I’m curious: Did he ever have interest in the wrestling business or did the business ever have interest in him?  He went from college to the St. Louis Rams to New Orleans Saints and back to college as Notre Dame and then Ohio State’s linebacker coach. I realize nepotism isn’t a sure thing but his uncle was head of talent relations, was there ever any plan?

Fun fact: His freshman year his teammate included future Green Bay packer AJ Hawk so he and his dad both had teammates with that name.

I was able to find a 2010 interview with James Laurinaitis and The Lantern, which is the student newspaper at THE Ohio State University. In that interview, Laurinaitis claimed that Vince McMahon himself had once talked to him about getting into the “family business,” but the son of Road Warrior Hawk declined, opting to stay in football. As part of his reasoning, he cited the physical toll he saw wrestling take on his father, indicating he didn’t want to have his body fall apart in the same way.

Fun fact: Now that I know regular Ask 411 questioner Bryan grew up in Columbus, Ohio, I can now declare him my second-favorite Bryan from that city, behind Bryan Quinby of Street Fight Radio and Guys fame.

Jase has trouble following through:

Was there a dropped storyline you wish had played out? For instance, mine would be when a heel Eddie Guerrero started teaming with the face Hardy Boyz for no apparent reason in 2001. Guerrero proved himself time and again to the skeptical Hardys for weeks. Then, when it seemed to be reaching a conclusion, Eddie was fired for substance abuse issues. When he returned to the WWE the next year, the storyline was dropped.

Mine might also involve Eddy Guerrero, though it comes from from shortly after WWE rehired him as opposed to before WWE fired him.

In 2002, the company put the wheels in motion on new feud for Guerrero against none other than “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, with the two men having an altercation at a bar. Though their interactions were brief and some have criticized the setup for being a bit hokey, when the two get in each other’s faces you can see the intensity that they were both known for oozing out.

It had all the potential in the world, but then our hopes and dreams were dashed when WWE made the idiotic decision to ask Austin to lose to Brock Lesnar in a throwaway match, leading to a creative spat that took Stone Cold out of the company for some time. Upon his return, there was no resumption of tensions with Latino Heat.

For what it’s worth, the two men did have one televised singles match against each other, though it was in 2000, a couple of years before the feud was teased, and it was a scant three minutes long.

Donny from Allentown, PA turned a woman into a tiger:

The Black Scorpion angle in WCW in 1990 was a dud, and I do believe a lot of that had to do with Ric Flair being revealed as the Scorpion himself – the most obvious person. I was thinking if there were any other guys who could have pulled it off and as crazy as it sounds one wrestler who comes to my mind is Terry Taylor. He was coming off a less then spectacular WWF run, and he absolutely needed something new and fresh to shed that Red Rooster gimmick. He and Sting were in the UWF in 1986 so there was a history there. Plus, he was a solid worker. He did join WCW in late summer of 1990 right when the Scorpion angle started. So my question to you is do you think Terry Taylor could have made the Black Scorpion work in 1990.

Donny, I like ya, and you’ve sent in some good questions over the years, but I don’t think you could be any more wrong on this one.

The proof is in what happened to Terry Taylor anytime any promotion tried to push him in even a semi-serious role after the Red Rooster gimmick came to an end. Fans just didn’t accept him. That WWF run permanently damaged his credibility and wrecked his entire career. With the Black Scorpion being revealed to be Ric Flair, at least Sting had been tormented by one of the most successful wrestlers to ever lace up a pair of boots. If at the end of Starrcade it was revealed that the Stinger had been going toe-to-toe with the guy who used to cluck like a chicken in WWF rings, you would have made your top babyface look like an absolute goof.

That being said, as an in-ring performer, I do think that Taylor would have been capable of pulling off that main event level match with Sting, and perhaps the angle could have been reworked to eliminate the mystery of who the Black Scorpion was so that the hood never came off of him. If that was the case, perhaps the new persona could have helped rehab the Rooster’s career.

A guy whose name I lost has another Black Scorpion-related question, so we may as well keep this train a-rollin’:

I was recently watching Starrcade ‘90 and the conclusion to the horrible Black Scorpion angle. As you know, originally Ric Flair was supposed to tag with Arn Anderson to face Doom, but was “kidnapped” so Barry Windham had to replace him in the match. Was there ever any follow up to the “kidnapping?” I don’t recall seeing one, and don’t recall Teddy Long/Doom admitting to being in cahoots with Flair, so he could pull off his coup and show up to the show as Black Scorpion. Did it just get swept under the rug, since the focus was on Sting, Flair, and the title?

The idea was supposed to be that Flair’s “kidnapping” was something he manufactured so that he could wrestle Sting in the main event.

Grant is a professional:

How in a Royal Rumble match does WWE keep all the participants happy? Obviously, there can only be one winner but are the other 29 wrestlers promised something? Do they get bonus? Is there any incentive for them?

The answer is just that they’re doing their jobs. More often than not, people aren’t going to be upset by getting eliminated from a battle royale just like, more often than not, people aren’t going to be upset by taking a pinfall in a singles or tag match.

Tyler from Winnipeg is reflecting on Summerslam 1991:

Is your preference Curt Hennig or Bret Hart?

Of the two, I’ve always preferred the Hitman, because his style of wrestling was more smashmouth and realistic. Though Hennig had a ton of great matches, occasionally he crossed the line into being a bit too cartoony for my tastes.

Redmondthe2nd is on the outside looking in:

Lower-mid-upper card guys who usually did the job but were not jobbers per se – not sure if they qualify as jobbers to the stars, but maybe a slot above that – think Tito Santana in the latter half of his WWF run, or more recently Dolph Ziggler – who would you have on your Mt Rushmore of such guys?

I essentially covered this back in January, when I was asked to list wrestling’s best gatekeepers.

Matt, like Cher, is turning back time:

My questions are if it had been Austin and Hogan at Wrestlemania XVIII do you think the fans would have cheered Hogan and booed Austin like they did with Rock or would it have been more mixed, or do you think they would have booed Hogan and cheered Austin?

You have to keep in mind that the reason we never saw Steve Austin versus Hulk Hogan one-on-one is that Austin didn’t want to do it, in part because he didn’t think the match would be any good and in part because of lingering mistrust of Hogan from the time that they overlapped in WCW.

As a result, I suspect that if the match were to happen, Austin would have worked it in such a way that it would have been, to the extent possible, the match he wanted rather than the match Hogan wanted. One of the reasons that the fans got so into booing the Rock in the Skydome was that, once he sensed it was starting to happen, he went with it and played a subtle heel role.

My guess is that Austin, on the other hand, would have been savvy enough to keep the flow of the match moving in such a way that anybody who may have been inclined to boo him early on would have gotten behind him in the end, likely by making Hogan look like the slower and less dynamic performer – which Austin easily could have done.

That does it for this week. 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.