Ask 411 Wrestling: Was Randy Savage Actually Meant to Retire After WrestleMania VII?

Welcome guys, gals, and gender non-binary pals, to Ask 411 . . . the last surviving weekly column on 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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HBK’s Smile is winding down:

Knowing that Vince was later trying to shoehorn Randy Savage into an early retirement and full-time commentating gig, was there ever a chance that Savage was planning on staying retired after WM VII?

No.

The thing is, Savage didn’t actually retire at all. Less than a week after Wrestlemania, the Macho Man was in Japan wrestling on a show co-promoted by the WWF and the short-lived SWS promotion, who were their Japanese partners at the time. He continued working for SWS throughout April, May, and June of 1991 as part of the group’s relationship with the Fed.

Granted, when he got back to the United States, his schedule did slow down quite a bit, but he did have non-televised matches on WWF shows in July, August, and October with his official reinstatement and return as a full-time in-ring performer coming in November.

It’s generally accepted that Savage was never really going to retire and was just slowing down for a few months to let nagging injuries heal and/or start a family. In fact, in covering Wrestlemania VII, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter in its April 3, 1991 edition outright said that in the coming months after the “retirement” we could expect to see an on-camera wedding between Savage and Miss Elizabeth, followed by a petition to reinstate Savage.

(But don’t forget that even though he called that story beat-for-beat months before it happened, Dave Meltzer is an idiot who’s never known what he’s talking about. That’s what the comment section and Bruce Prichard told me, anyway.)

Jonfw2 roots, roots, roots for the home team:

Assuming we consider John Cena a part of the active WWE roster, when was the last time there were no guest wrestlers or celebrities in a Wrestlemania match?

This is a harder question to answer than you might think at first blush because it depends on how you characterize a few different individuals.

The first one is Logan Paul. Would you consider him a guest or celebrity wrestler? I can see the argument against doing that, because he is under a talent contract to the company and has held a championship in addition to challenging for a World Title. However, he had three matches in 2022, five matches in 2023, and seven matches in 2025, which is significantly less than any regular member of the roster barring injuries or other extenuating circumstances.

And where is the cutoff on the Undertaker? When does he switch from regular roster member to special guest? He was under a regular contract the whole time to the best of my knowledge, but he was down to one or two matches a year at the end.

What about Goldberg’s occasional brief runs in his late career? Are they all that different from what Cena is doing now?

With all that said, let’s see what we can figure out.

Wrestlemania XLI wound up having a guest wrestler due to Impact Wrestling Heavyweight Champion Joe Hendry answering Randy Orton’s open challenge.

Wrestlemania XL clearly has a special guest in the form of the Rock.

Wrestlemania XXXIX features Pat McAfee and Snoop Dogg as guest wrestlers.

Wrestlemania XXXVIII includes a Pat McAfee match, so there’s a celebrity.

Wrestlemania XXXVII features Bad Bunny in the ring, a clear cut guest star.

Wrestlemania XXXVI is weird. This was the 2020 show impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Undertaker and Goldberg are both on the show, so it depends in part on how you’re going to classify them. The other oddity is Rob Gronkowski. He was the host of the show and not in a match as such, but he did win the 24/7 Championship. Does that make him a celebrity wrestler? That depends on your perspective.

Wrestlemania XXXV sees a post-retirement Dave Batista in the ring for a one-off, so I’d say it unquestionably has a guest wrestler.

Wrestlemania XXXIV saw Nicholas Cone win a Tag Team Championship. I don’t think the ten-year-old was a regular part of the roster, so he’s a special guest. He was also more dominant in his Wrestlemania debut than Joe Hendry was. Think about that.

Wrestlemania XXXIII. Again, we have the question of how we categorize Goldberg and the Undertaker. That being said, I do think Maryse is unquestionably a guest wrestler since this was her first match in almost six years, so perhaps Goldberg and Taker don’t matter after all.

Wrestlemania XXXII included the Rock squashing Erick Rowan, so there’s a special guest.

Wrestlemania XXXI saw Triple H vs. Sting. I’m going to say Sting was a guest wrestler for this one even though he was under a WWE contract for a fair amount of time, because this run involved three matches in six months.

Wrestlemania XXX hinges on how you classify the Undertaker, as he’s the only potential guest wrestler. I would be inclined to call him a special guest during this phase of his career, because this bout – in which he streak was broken – was his only match in all of 2014.

Wrestlemania XXIX and Wrestlemania XXVIII are the Rock versus Cena shows, so they easily qualify as having a guest wrestler on the card.

Wrestlemania XXVII gave us the in-ring debut of Snooki, who the way American politics are going I’m pretty sure will be our first female president. In any event, that makes the show an easy one to classify.

Wrestlemania XXVI included a special guest, as it was the in-ring return of Bret Hart, who had his sights set on Vince McMahon.

Wrestlemania XXV had several special guests on the card, as Chris Jericho wrestled his gauntlet match against legends Roddy Piper, Jimmy Snuka, and Ricky Steamboat.

Wrestlemaia XXIV was main evented by Floyd Mayweather.

And NOW I think we finally have an answer where there are no caveats, asterisks, or questions. It’s Wrestlemania XXIII. Everybody who wrestled in a sanctioned match was, without a doubt, part of the regular roster. Granted, they had one Donald John Trump in the corner of Bobby Lashley for the biggest attraction of the show, but he was not a competitor.

So, there you go. If you want to use a very strict definition of who counts as a special guest, Wrestlemania XXIII is your answer. However, if you change that definition ever so slightly, you can select one of many more recent shows.

Also, while I’m here and it is somewhat relevant, let me go on a little bit of a rant.

Though I don’t think this is as big a phenomenon as it used to be, there are quite a few fans online who complain about part-time wrestlers or celebrities being featured heavily at Wrestlemania because it takes time away from main roster wrestlers who they argue should be featured due to their devotion to the company throughout the year.

However, that line of argument ignores one important fact.

Wrestlemania was BUILT on having special guest attractions. It started on the very first show with Mr. T main eventing alongside Hulk Hogan. This sort of thing is baked into the very DNA of the show and has been since its very beginning. If you don’t like celebrities and part-timers being featured on Wrestlemania, then you simply don’t like Wrestlemania.

Mr. Ace Crusher was the breakout star of Lucha Underground:

In your opinion, why is Jeff Cobb not a bigger deal in any national promotion? He is an athletic (though squat) big man who can conceivably be booked like an absolute monster (like we was in Lucha Underground), while having the pedigree of being able to say he is a former Olympian.

It seems to have largely been his own choice. According to Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter just last month, Jeff Cobb turned down an offer from AEW several years ago because he was just that satisfied with his position in New Japan. In fact, Cobb actually moved to Fukuoka full time and has been residing there rather than living stateside and traveling back and forth for NJPW tours.

However, in the last few weeks, there have been rumors that WWE is to sign the man following the expiration of his most recent New Japan contract in January. (And given the lead time that I give to these columns, he may have already debuted between my writing this and it getting published on 411.) At 42, this may be the last big run of his career, and I’m excited to see how he does.

Tyler from Winnipeg is breaking the walls down:

Who did Chris Jericho win his IC title belts from?

Chris Jericho won his first WWE Intercontinental Title from Chyna on December 12, 1999 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The start of his second IC Title reign is a bit convoluted. Originally, on December 28, 1999 in Richmond, Virginia, the title was held up as a result of a controversial finish in a Jericho/Chyna rematch. On January 3, 2000, the WWF declared them to be co-champions, and then on January 23 in New York, Jericho defeated both Chyna and Bob Holly in a triple threat match to become the undisputed Intercontinental Champion. The entirety of that mess is recognized as Y2J’s second run with the belt.

Reign number three was a bit more straightforward, as Jericho defeated Chris Benoit on May 2, 2000 in Richmond, Virginia.

Reign number four also resulted from Jericho picking up a win against his countryman Chris Benoit, this time on January 21, 2001 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

On September 16, 2002 in Denver, Colorado, Chris Jericho picked up a win over Rob Van Dam and also picked up his fifth reign as champion of the continents.

Poor Rob Van Dam. Chris Jericho beat him for the Intercontinental Championship a second time on October 27, 2003 in Fayetteville, North Carolina, bringing Jericho’s total number of reigns up to six.

The seventh reign for Jericho began on September 12, 2004 in Portland, Oregon. He defeated Christian Cage in the match, but Cage was not the champion. Instead, the two men were wrestling for the vacant title, with the vacancy coming after Edge was stripped of the belt due to an injury.

Reign eight got going on March 10, 2008 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with a win over Jeff Hardy.

The Millennium Man’s ninth and final WWE Intercontinental Title victory took place in New Orleans – the second time he won the title in that city – on July 6, 2009.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! The question didn’t limit us to WWE Intercontinental Titles, so I feel the need to point out that Chris Jericho is also a one-time IWPG Intercontinental Champion in New Japan Pro Wrestling. That championship came when Jericho defeated Tetsuya Naito on June 9, 2018 in Osaka, Japan.

Sim wasn’t supposed to be here!

I’ve been wondering, when a wrestler debuts as a surprise, say Cody Rhodes vs. Seth Rollins at Wrestlemania XXXVIII, what’s the process of structuring the match? Do they meet in secret beforehand? Days? Hours? Or maybe call everything on the fly? Mixture of both?

I’m wondering especially for instances where it all seems to happen VERY last minute, like the Hardys return at WM for the 4way ladder match or when it’s a multiple men match like AJ’s debut at the Rumble 2016.

The answer is “all of the above.”

There are as many different answers to this question as there have been surprise returns.

Of course, I do feel the need to point out that “structuring the match” in advance is a relatively new phenomenon in professional wrestling. Though there were some exceptions like Randy Savage, prior to the 2010s virtually everything you saw on a wrestling show was called in the ring, with perhaps only the finish or one or two key spots being discussed in advance.

So, if you saw a surprise return before then, there probably was no meeting. There didn’t need to be, because everybody was accustomed to doing things on the fly. More recently, it is highly dependent on the circumstances.

Bret is rushing around:

Do you know why when the Road Warriors went to the WWF in 1990 why they were just called the Legion of Doom? I remember correctly they never were called The Road Warriors.

According to an interview with Paul Ellering on the Two Man Power Trip podcast in 2020, the answer is that Vince McMahon wanted the WWF to own the tag team’s name, except Hawk and Animal already owned “The Road Warriors” and apparently didn’t want to sign it over. Thus, they went with the Legion of Doom so that the WWF would have something that they could own and market themselves.

Another Ryan may regret asking this question:

I know Haku/Meng was/is considered to be someone you didn’t want to get in a fight with in real life.  However, were there any examples of his toughness behind the scenes in wrestling, or was it all based on reputation? 

There are many, many, many stories about Meng/Haku being an insanely tough fighter. I could gather a bunch of them and print them here, but I don’t need to because blog crazymax.org has already done it.

The vast majority of these stories involve Haku getting into altercations with non-wrestlers, often in bars . . . and sometimes police officers. The one noteworthy story of him actually getting into it with another grappler was his altercation with Jesse Barr (a.k.a. Jimmy Jack Funk) which resulted in the Tongan badass nearly pulling out one of Barr’s eyes before thinking better of it.

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.