Ask 411 Wrestling: Which PPV Features the Most Dead Wrestlers?

Welcome guys, gals, and gender non-binary pals to Ask 411 Wrestling, the column that pays homage to Skinner even when it is completely inappropriate to do so.

In case this is your first time here (which is difficult for me to imagine), we need YOU to ask ME questions about professional wrestling in order to keep this column going, and you can send those questions to [email protected]. You can also find me on Twitter if you’re into that sort of thing.

And there’s a banner.

Colin has a taste for the macabre:

Slightly sinister question: Which PPV from WWE, WCW, or ECW from Wrestlemania I onwards has the most amount of deceased performers on the card? I have a feeling that it will be a late 90s card.

Okay, that’s creepy. I’ll do it, but it’s still creepy.

First, a few ground rules: I’m only counting people who wrestled in matches on these shows. No managers, no announcers, no wrestlers who only run-in or appear in backstage skits. If you’re not a regular wrestler (e.g. a celebrity or a manager); you do count towards the tally as long as you were an official participant in a match. Also, believe it or not, there are some incredibly obscure wrestlers on PPVs in the 1980s and the 1990s who it is difficult to dig up information on (e.g. several of the mini wrestlers in the 1994 Doink vs. Jerry Lawler Survivor Series match). Thus, I’m presuming all wrestlers to be alive unless I can find something explicitly reporting their deaths. Finally, we’re talking strictly about the main PPV card here. Dark matches, pre-show matches, and the like do not count.

With all that being said, Colin’s prediction did not come true. It is a card from the 1990s that tops the list, but it’s from the early part of the decade. Even more specifically, it’s from the very first year of the decade.

Wrestlemania VI, held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on April 1, 1990 tops the list with fifteen deceased wrestlers appearing on the card, namely: Andre the Giant, Earthquake, Hercules, Mr. Perfect, Bad News Brown, Roddy Piper, Dusty Rhodes, Sapphire, Randy Savage, Sherri Martel, Dino Bravo, Big Boss Man, Rick Rude, Jimmy Snuka and the Ultimate Warrior.

There are two factors that lead to Mania VI having the most deceased wrestlers of any pay per view card. The first is that it was a massive show in terms of number of matches, with fifteen bouts on the card, four of which were tag team matches. The second factor is that two deceased competitors not regularly wrestling on WWF shows of the era – Sherri Martel and Sapphire – appear to wrestle here.

Those two names are the difference between Wrestlemania VI topping the list and falling below the next closest contenders, as there are four pay per view shows that feature fourteen deceased wrestlers: Wrestlemania II, Wrestlemania IV, Survivor Series 1989, and WCW World War 3 1997.

The deceased rosters of those shows are as follows.

Wrestlemania II: Randy Savage, George Steele, Roddy Piper, Fabulous Moolah, Davey Boy Smith, Andre the Giant, Bruno Sammartino, John Studd, Ernie Holmes, Harvey Martin, Hercules Hernandez, Adrian Adonis, Uncle Elmer, and the Junkyard Dog (Holmes and Martin were football players who participated in the WWF vs. NFL battle royale)

Wrestlemania IV: Bad News Brown, Ron Bass, Junkyard Dog, George Steele, Dino Bravo, Randy Savage, Bam Bam Bigelow, Rick Rude, Ultimate Warrior, Hercules, Andre the Giant, Randy Savage, Bobby Heenan, and Davey Boy Smith

Survivor Series 1989: Dusty Rhodes, Big Boss Man, Bad News Brown, Randy Savage, Earthquake, Dino Bravo, Hercules, Rick Rude, Mr. Perfect, Roddy Piper, Jimmy Snuka, Ultimate Warrior, Bobby Heenan, and Andre the Giant

World War 3 1997: Eddie Guerrero, Curt Hennig, Chris Adams, Brad Armstrong, Chris Benoit, Hector Garza, Eddie Guerrero, Mortis, Rocco Rock, Johnny Grunge, The Renegade, Randy Savage, Louie Spicolli, Ray Traylor

Of course, all four of these shows have something in common – each one of them features a match or matches that cause an unusually high number of wrestlers to be on the card. Manias II and IV both included battles royale, the Survivor Series included several five-on-five elimination matches, and World War 3 was headlined by a 60-man battle royale.

Royal Rumble 1990 features thirteen deceased wrestlers, while there are five more shows that feature twelve deceased wrestlers each: Royal Rumble 1991, Wrestlemania VII, Summerslam 1990, Survivor Series 1988, and World War 3 1995.

There are quite a few shows that feature ten and eleven dead wrestlers each, so many that I will not list them all here.

In case you’re curious, Wrestlemania 2000 is the most recent show that I would consider to have a substantial number of deceased wrestlers on it with seven (Big Boss Man, Crash Holly, Viscera, Test, Chyna, Eddie Guerrero, and Chris Benoit).

Also, despite the fact that it is somewhat infamous for having a hard-partying locker room, ECW barely even enters the conversation on this list, as the most deceased wrestlers it has on a single pay per view is six on November to Remember 1997 (Bam Bam Bigelow, John Kronus, Axl Rotten, Balls Mahoney, Pitbull #2, and Chris Candido). There are numerous WCW and WWE shows that contain a similar amount of dead participants, so I wouldn’t consider this to be particularly significant. However, I suspect that if you went back to “major” ECW shows that pre-dated their PPV era, you might be able to find some higher numbers.

Gavin is not content with WWE’s content:

WWE’s main product is clearly a family friendly show now with the PG Era in full effect, thanks to sponsorships, etc. WWE now has the tough job of keeping their product friendly for kids while keeping the older generations, who grew up through the 80s and 90s entertained. I think most will agree this is a tough job for anyone, Having watched NXT Takeover, the older, smart fans were, for example, cheering for Undisputed Era so supporting the anti-hero culture and the people who they think are cool, not who WWE wants everyone to, e.g. Roman Reigns.

Now that the WWE has the Network, which has parental controls to allow parents to restrict their kids watching anything non-PG, and with TV-14 content already present, would it be a good idea for WWE to run a brand non-PG on the Network?

Keep NXT as developmental with the Takeovers, but create a new, edgy, TV-14 brand aimed at the older, smart fans – one for the fans that, quoting Vince McMahon, “are tired of having our intelligence insulted”.

I’m aware the brand content is getting stacked, with Raw, Smackdown, NXT, 205 and potential UK brand, etc. but do you think this would be a good idea for WWE to run?

Eh. Honestly, I’m not that keen on the idea.

There are a couple of reasons for my ambivalence. The first is that, as you allude to in your question, WWE is producing a LOT of content right now. In fact, I’d even be willing to say that they’re producing too much content. I have a hard time watching three hours of Raw right now, let alone three hours of Raw, two hours of Smackdown, an hour of 205 Live, an hour of Total Divas/Bellas, an hour of NXT, and whatever additional content they’re pumping out on the Network in a given week. I don’t see how adding yet another program to their regular rotation will help with the current issues of fan burnout or a roster and creative team that are stretched too thin.

The bigger issue, though, is that this concept arises from a fallacy that has gripped wrestling fandom for several years now. It assumes that WWE’s product is turning off older fans because it doesn’t contain more mature themes like the wrestling of the 1990s did. That’s not the problem. The modern WWE product doesn’t fall flat with long-time fans because it’s PG-rated. The modern WWE product falls flat with long-time fans because it’s over-produced, it’s poorly-written, and the characters aren’t relatable.

Just look at other forms of entertainment. There are scads and scads of programs that are PG-rated or even G-rated that appeal to both adults and children alike. The Goldbergs, The Simpsons, Jaws, Friends, The Office, Modern Family, most episodes of Seinfeld, pretty much everything Pixar does. All of these prove that you can do shows that have major appeal to adults without incorporating edgy or “adult” content. Hell, even the 1980s WWF product, though it contained some aspects that we would consider problematic today due to differing sensibilities, would probably be rated TV-PG under modern rating systems, and they had no problem attracting and retaining an adult audience.

If WWE wants to restore its appeal to the fans that it’s lost over the last several years, they don’t need to focus on creating new, niche shoes with different content. They need to focus on fixing the content they currently have.

Besides, the last time the WWF tried to create an “adult” show while keeping their main product kiddie-friendly, we got Shotgun Saturday Night, featuring skits like this:

Nooooooo thanks.

King Crimson is talking smack:

Is there some kind of heat with both Renee Young and Dean Ambrose presently? When the draft happened, the WWE was great about keeping married couples (Miz and Maryse, John/Niki, Jimmy Uso/Naomi) together on the same brands. When the shake up happened, Ambrose moved to RAW and Renee stayed on Smackdown. Most recently, most of what Renee Young does has been axed, such as Unfiltered and Talking Smack. Any inside info on this?

There has never been any confirmation of there being any “heat” on the couple around the time that they were moved to separate brands. In fact, it seems rather unlikely that their being placed on separate shows was malicious. First off, Young and Ambrose kept their relationship under wraps for quite a while and were only married a week or two prior to the roster split, meaning that it’s entirely possible the decision on their brands was made by people who were not aware that they were an item, let alone married. Also, because Young is an announcer and not a wrestler, her travel while on Smackdown consisted only of going to TV tapings every Tuesday and pay per views roughly once per month. She wasn’t going to house shows as Ambrose was. This meant that there would be more flexibility for the two to be together than there would have been if Young was trying to make SD live events in addition to her television duties.

Don’t step to Ron:

What do you think was in the plans for after Summerslam ’91 before warrior and Vince had money problems and if Ric Flair never showed up? Wrestlemania that year probably would have been entirely different. Do you think Hogan would of still fought Undertaker at Survivor Series?

According to the September 6, 1991 edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Warrior was going to be working primarily with the Undertaker immediately following Summerslam, with the program switching over to Warrior vs. Jake Roberts sometime around mid-October. That would presumably have continued through the end of the year.

It was already known by the time that Summerslam happened that Flair was coming into the company, so it’s not as though both the Nature Boy’s arrival and the Warrior’s departure caused plans to change at the same time. Instead, Flair showed up in mid-August, Warrior left by the end of the month, and it appears that none of the plans for Ric were shuffled as a result of Mr. Hellwig’s return to Parts Unknown. Flair was always planned to be programmed with Roddy Piper and Hulk Hogan in the fall of 1991, which is exactly what happened.

Though I am basing this on my own personal read on the situation and not anything that was in the Observer, I suspect that Hogan would have wrestled the Undertaker at the Survivor Series regardless of what happened with Warrior, because the Hogan/Taker match really wasn’t about a continuing feud between the two wrestlers. It was just a setup to get the WWF Championship off of the Hulkster so that Flair could win it in the Royal Rumble.

Connor will take us home this week:

Why did Hakushi not last longer in the WWF? He was an excellent wrestler with an interesting and unique persona, he even had a feud with Bret Hart.

Well, you see, Hakushi was Japanese.

I know, I know, I’m breaking some major ground here by revealing that.

Seriously, though, as near as I can tell that’s the main reason that he left the WWF after debuting with the company in late 1994 and wrapping up in February 1996. He simply wanted to go back home and work there as opposed to in a foreign country. Immediately upon returning to the Land of the Rising Sun, Hakushi (working once again under his pre-WWF ring name of Jinsei Shinzaki) had a hot match against the Great Muta for New Japan Wrestling but primarily worked for Michinoku Pro, the company that he was affiliated with before his run in the United States.

Hakushi/Shinzaki also did guest shots for FMW and All Japan over the years, and you can still find him wrestling to this very day.

And that will do it for another week. As always, if you have questions, be sure to send them on to [email protected].