Ask 411 Wrestling: Whose Idea Was the Hulk Hogan & Zeus Feud?

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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Clyde is still trying to shave the perfect “Z” into the side of his head:

Who thought Zeus was a good idea—that he could defeat Hogan—easily, but Hulk could only beat him with Sherri’s loaded purse? Where was this all leading?

Before his passing, Tiny Lister – a.k.a. Zeus – did a shoot interview with noted piece of shit Hannibal. In the interview, he said that when he originally auditioned for No Holds Barred, there was no talk about him eventually doing matches. However, Vince McMahon came up with the idea of a Hogan/Zeus in-ring feud for the purpose of promoting the movie and keeping it in theaters longer by putting the main antagonist front and center in fans’ minds.

That’s where it was leading. Promoting a movie. In fact, the feud was blown off at the December 27, 1989 pay per view event “No Holds Barred: The Match, The Movie” in which fans would pay one price to watch the film on PPV along with an exclusive cage match pitting Hogan and Brutus Beefcake against Zeus and Randy Savage.

Lister also claims in the shoot interview that he was consider for a WWF Championship reign at the time, though I am less inclined to believe that because it seems like every third wrestler from that era has a story about how they could or should have been world champion.

Lee in Liverpool will not stop, thank you very much:

Was Survivor Series 1994 the only time that Vince McMahon and Gorilla Monsoon commentated together?

Nope. Admittedly, it was a rare combination, but it did happen on other occasions, perhaps most notably the April 4, 1994 episode of Monday Night Raw.

Also, in looking into this question, I learned an interesting piece of trivia that I never knew before, which is that Gorilla was actually doing commentary for the WWF until about a month before he died in 1999, as there was an international version of WWF Superstars that featured announcing by the odd trio of Monsoon, Bruce Prichard, and Michael Cole.

You can find clips of this on Twitter, though I wasn’t able to find anything on YouTube or another platform that I can embed easily in this article.

Mark is all wet:

My random question today is this – when HHH was a babyface and would do his water spit entrance on the apron, did a heel ever jump him? It seems the most logical thing for a heel to do and would surely generate huge heat at the beginning of the match for both catching HHH off guard and ruining the entrance for the crowd.

I wasn’t able to find an instance of a heel physically cutting off babyface Triple H’s water spitting. The closest thing that I did come across was the May 19, 2003 episode of Monday Night Raw when Steve Austin, at the time a babyface general manager, was standing in the ring during heel HHH’s entrance and basically shut the entire thing down before any spitting could occur, because he was sick of seeing it.

For what it’s worth, Trips had taken the water into his mouth before Austin interrupted him, and he did spit it out in a less dramatic fashion when Stone Cold prevented his standard entrance.

Why he didn’t just swallow, we’ll never know.

Tyler from Winnipeg isn’t feeling as phenomenal as he used to:

Why is AJ Styles currently not doing his best work?

There are several factors likely at play. Some of it probably has to do with slowing down as a result of age and injuries. However, even more prominent is the fact that Styles is not being featured in a main event capacity at this point in time, meaning that he has fewer opportunities to showcase everything that he can do.

HBK’s Smile transports his soda cans to Michigan to get ten cents for them:

When Ric Flair was fired from WCW, he famously took the title belt with him to the WWF, due to Jim Herd refusing to pay him back the $25,000 deposit he had paid, as was the obligation of the titleholder. However, I heard that the times before when Flair had lost the title, he never bothered to get the deposit back since he knew he would be regaining the title and would just have to repay the deposit at that point anyway. Is it true that Flair never got his deposits back on these occasions? If that is true, doesn’t that mean that he knew all along that he would be regaining the title from Sting after dropping it to him at the 1990 Great American Bash? And if THAT’S the case, what was his real motivation in agreeing to become the Black Scorpion at Starrcade 1990?

Yes, it appears that Flair never bothered to get his deposit back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He said as much in his autobiography, and I’m not finding anything that contradicts it.

When Flair says he “knew he would be regaining the title,” I don’t think he means that he definitively knew of dates and times when he would be dropping and regaining the belt. I think he means that he knew he was an elite level performer who the company would come back to time and time again when they needed somebody reliable. (And he was right.) So, saying he “knew” he was getting the championship back might not be the best word if you’re going for precision. It may be more correct to say that he was very confident he was getting the championship back.

Regarding Starrcade 1990, this was covered in the January 21, 1991 issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Sting had been champion for a few months heading into Starrcade, and business was not doing too well with him on top, so WCW wanted to move the belt back to the Nature Boy. Originally, their plan was for Flair to be revealed as the Black Scorpion at Starrcade and for him to defeat Sting for the belt at that time. However, the Singer balked at that finish, thinking that with the way the Black Scorpion storyline had been booked up to that point, he would be risking his credibility as a babyface if he didn’t win the blowoff. (And I can’t say I disagree with him on that one.)

When Sting originally said no to losing to the Scorpion/Flair at Starrcade, WCW actually considered making Barry Windham the Black Scorpion and having him lose to Sting. However, once Sting saw the writing on the wall and realized the title was eventually going back to Flair anyway, he agreed to drop the belt to him on January 11, 1991 in New Jersey. When Sting agreed to do the honors in Jersey, Naitch at that point was willing to put on the Scorpion hood and drop the fall at Starrcade.

Let’s jam with The Jim:

I’ve been reading this column for over 20 years and here’s something I never remember being asked.

In the days before Hulk Hogan’s first WWF title run, we often heard or read that other promoters didn’t want to put their belt on Hogan with one reason being that he “wasn’t legit.” In other words, without some legitimate fighting/wrestling credentials, somebody could shoot on him, going into business for themselves and injure or embarrass him, and kill that territory and go and make a killing somewhere else.

Was there any justification for promoters being this paranoid?

Has there ever been a case of a challenger successfully or unsuccessfully trying to shoot on a territory champion, in this era, and if so what happened? Did this sort of thing happen overseas?

There weren’t really shoot or attempted shoot world title changes in Hogan’s era, but there was still some lingering concern about the fact that there used to be shoot world title changes and double crosses in professional wrestling.

Perhaps the most infamous example occurred on April 15, 1925, when former University of Nebraska football star Wayne Munn faced Stanislaus Zbyszko. One of the most prominent pro wrestling circuits in the time was promoted by the so-called “Gold Dust Trio” of Strangler Lewis, Billy Sandow, and Toots Mondt. The Trio put their version of the World Title on Munn, and the April 15 match between Munn and Zbyszko was meant to be a successful defense by Munn in order to help establish him, given that Zbyszko at that point was a respected veteran and 47 years of age.

However, Zbyszko had other plans. Without the knowledge of the Gold Dust Trio, he made a deal with competing promoter Tony Stecher to jump to Stecher’s stable of wrestlers . . . and Stecher’s brother, Joe, had bad blood with the Trio going back to his time wrestling for them. Zbyszko dominated Munn in the ring so thoroughly that the referee, who likely would have been clued in on the planned finish of Munn retaining, had no choice but the award the championship to Zbyszko in order to maintain the credibility of wrestling.

Zbyszko then took the Trio’s version of the world championship to Tony Stecher’s group and very quickly dropped it to Joe Stecher.

Even though it was over a half century later, when Hogan was coming up there were definitely some promoters who felt that a world champion should be able to take care of himself.

(And, yes, Larry Zbyszko took his ring name from Stanislaus Zbyszko.)

(And, yes, Goldust’s ring name comes from the Gold Dust Trio.)

Steve knows it’s his own damn fault:

Prior to the 2001 Survivor Series, the Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin had one of the greatest promo segments ever. It ended with a duet of the Rock and Stone Cold singing “Margaritaville.” At the start of this impromptu concert, Austin sings Delta Dawn, after dedicating it to “a little boy there in San Antonio, Texas, with a busted leg, little Jimmy Barris.” Was this an inside joke, or is there an actual story behind little Jimmy Barris?

My research turns up nothing, so I would be inclined to apply Occam’s razor and make the educated guess that Austin really was just shouting out a kid with a broken leg.

Richard U. is taking us back:

Of the 102 still-living WWWF wrestlers, which are still active in wrestling? Not in the ring, just in general, e.g. promoters, producers, backstage officials, ringside announcers. etc.

For those who may not know, Richard is referencing a question that I answered last March about how many wrestlers who competed for WWE when it was still known as the WWWF were living.

In that column, I was able to identify 102 living WWWF alumni. However, in researching the answer to Steve’s new question, I found that I made one error in that undercard wrestler Ron Lee died in 2001 according to WrestlingData, which I somehow missed. So, if you scratch him, we’re down to 101.

Also, when I wrote the original column, I gave the caveat that there were a ton of other lower card wrestlers who I could find absolutely no biographical information about, so 102 (now 101) was probably the minimum number of living wrestlers.

Unfortunately, in the last year-and-a-half that 101 number has decreased even more, as the following individuals have passed since I wrote the original column:

1) Superstar Billy Graham, 2) The Iron Sheik, 3) Kevin Sullivan, 4) Butcher Vachon, 5) Joyce Grable, 6) Billy White Wolf (a.k.a. Adnan Al-Kaissie), 7) Sonny King, 8) Terry Funk, 9) Abe Jacobs, 10) Jerry Novak, 11) Pete Sanchez

So now we’re down in the two-digit zone, with only 90 surviving WWWF alumni.

But how many are still active in wrestling in some way?

Believe it or not, some of them are still competing in the ring. Tatsumi Fujinami, who had his first match in 1971 and is 70 years old, has wrestled ten matches in 2024 at the time I’m writing this column, the last of which was within the last week. Most of them are tag matches with his son LEONA as his partner.

Meanwhile, Dory Funk Jr., who is 83 freaking years old, not only wrestled a match in August of this year, but it was a “Double Hell Current Explosion Death Match” in Japan involving Atsushi Onita. The entire show that the match took place on has been uploaded to Dory’s YouTube account in case you have a burning desire to watch a bout that involves both exploding barbed wire and a great grandfather. Dory also has a new audio book about his career out, narrated by Steve Corino, and he still operates the Funking Conservatory wrestling school in Ocala, Florida.

In addition to being a talking head in the recently released Mr. McMahon docuseries on Netflix, “Mr. USA” Tony Atlas has had a handful of independent matches in 2024 at the age of 70.

Though he’s not wrestled in 2024 that I’m aware of, I have seen reports of ”Handsome” Jimmy Valiant wrestling in 2023 and making appearances at indy shows still today.

Seiji Sakaguchi spent most of his in-ring career with New Japan Pro Wrestling rather than the WWF. He is still involved with NJPW to this day. After many years training wrestlers for the company, now that he’s in his 80s he has the more nebulous title of “advisor” to New Japan.

”Universal Heartthrob” Austin Idol‘s in-ring days are behind him, but he has been on camera again for the last several years, working as a manager in Billy Corgan’s version of the NWA.

WWE Hall of Famer ”Unpredictable” Johnny Rodz is still training wrestlers, promoting indy shows featuring the wrestlers he’s trained, and uploading some of his classic matches to his YouTube channel. He’s based out of Brooklyn.

After retiring from in-ring competition, Bobby Fulton became one of the owners and operators of the indy group World Classic Professional Big Time Wrestling – perhaps one of the longest promotion names in the history of the business. From what I can gather from their website, WCPBTW is no longer running wrestling cards but does promote fan fests that feature gatherings of wrestling legends.

Another WWWF alum turned indy promoter is Mario Mancini, who co-owns Paradise Alley Pro Wrestling in Connecticut with Paul Roma.

Ted DiBiase is podcasting about his career and modern goings on in wrestling, and you can say the same about Jerry Brisco, who tells some stories with Bradshaw. Ron Fuller is another podcaster, bringing you the Stud Cast. Similarly, Steve Keirn has written two books about his career, the most recent one coming out earlier this year.

Speaking of projects recapping careers, Baron Von Raschke was recently the subject of a documentary available on Amazon which was produced in part by his son Karl. The Baron has been on the wrestling media circuit promoting that project.

Some might say that this is a bit of a stretch in terms of saying that somebody is still active in wrestling, but Greg “The Hammer” Valentine is still on the autograph signing and personal appearance circuit related to his wrestling past, as are B. Brian Blair and Sgt. Slaughter, who gets more convention appearances than your average wrestler thanks to his association with GI Joe. You can say the same of Ric Flair at this point, though he was very recently on AEW television and I feel like is just in between larger projects.

Hector Guerrero maintains a website that says he is available to act as a consultant for people who want to start wrestling promotions as well as being available for voiceover work. I haven’t seen word of any recent projects, though.

Thunderbolt Patterson was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame this year as most reading this will know. I’m not seeing him as having much other involvement in wrestling these days, though.

And that’s everybody I could find who worked under the WWWF banner that still has some connection to the wrestling industry, defined as broadly as I could. For the record, the remaining names with no apparent wrestling activity are:

Bob Backlund, Ivan Putski, Dory Dixon, Larry Zbyszko, Tony Garea, Victor Rivera, Bill Watts, Mil Mascaras, Ken Patera, Yukon Lumberjack Pierre, Haiti Kid, Jose Estrada Sr., Don Muraco, Stan Hansen, Bob Boyer (a.k.a. Bobby Bold Eagle), JJ Dillon, Leilani Kai, Bobby Duncum, Pete Doherty, Judy Martin, Carlos Colon, Fred Curry, Sweet Daddy Siki, Jose Gonzalez, Diamond Lil, Jose Luis Rivera. Louis Cyr, Toni Rose, Earl Maynard, Davey O’Hannon (a.k.a. Sonny Love), Vicki Williams, Gus Kalas, Eddie Mansfield, Susan Green, Abdullah the Butcher, Frenchy Lamont, Jim Garvin, Bugsy McGraw, Prince Tonga (a.k.a. Haku), Debbie Johnson, Black Gordman, Greg Gagne, Al Madril, Twin Devil #1, Twin Devil #2, Yoshino Sato (a.k.a. The Great Kabuki), Lenny Solomon (a.k.a. Jack Armstrong), Sammy Rubin (a.k.a. Ed Summers), Al Nelson (a.k.a. Porkchop Cash), Princess Little Dove, Alan Pinfold, Bob Roop, Rita Boucher, Bette Boucher, Robert Fuller, Bill Dundee, Sandy Parker, Jim Dorsey, Omar Atlas, Chuck Wepner, Bill Eadie, Hank James, Irish Mickey Doyle, Jim Lancaster, Paul LeDuc, Ron Mikolajczyk, Bill Crouch, Brian Mackney, Ron Pritchard, Halcon Dorado

Also, though he has no further involvement with wrestling that I know of, I do have to give a special shout out to Ed Summers, known by the ring name Sammy Rubin, who after he was done with wrestling became a judge in one of the more unusual career transitions of all time.

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.