Ask 411 Wrestling: Why Didn’t The nWo Lose More?

Hello and welcome to Ask 411 Wrestling, the only column written this week by a guy who won’t be in for two weeks!

Well, at least the only one who’s planning to not be in for two weeks.

Yes, I am Mathew Sforcina, and for the next two weeks I will be gearing up for and then recovering from a trip to Brisbane for the Supanova Pop Culture convention, where I’ll be wrestling and spending far too much money on nerdish stuff. So do come along and say hi if you are in Brisbane.

But regardless, Ryan ‘Lamenting’ Byers will be doing his usual superb job of making me look bad filling my huge shoes.

So if you want a question answered by Ryan specifically, don’t send it to [email protected], no no, send it to [email protected] instead.

But Banner will, of course, still be here.

Zeldas!

Check out my Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture! Right in the middle of Challenge Week!

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Mongo > Roma: I’m not going to try and tell you that Mongo was a better wrestler than Roma. Roma, if he felt like it, could give you a decently serviceable match, while Mongo had to work bloody hard to get to not-Botchamania worthy. However, Mongo was big, tough, and fit the partying/jet setting concept of the Horsemen, while Roma was just a total styles clash. Plus he came along during the low point for the company as well, so that doesn’t do him any favors.

Long Running Themes: The issue with the question is that most of the debate boils down to arguing over semantics of the question. Does adding a ‘Woo’ change Ric Flair’s theme, for instance? Does using a tag theme mean you have changed your theme? What if it’s one of those mash ups? That’s why I went with Vince, he’s one of the few guys I can think of who got the perfect theme off the bat and never looked back. But other good suggestions were made, and Matt86, Gold Star there.

Defending/Hating The Network: Okay.

*cracks knuckles*

First of all, I openly and repeatedly refer to the fact that I am just a guy with Google, and honestly that is not that much of an exaggeration. So by all means, you want to just use Google and cut out the middle man, feel free.

But as for the main issue of the Network, my personal circumstances aren’t particularly conductive to getting it as I have little spare time left to watch wrestling for the sake of watching wrestling, but then almost everyone has that problem, so whatever.

Is the Network a good deal? Theoretically, yes. The concept of the Network is sound, I’m not denying that.

What I am denying is the fact that I have some obligation as a wrestling fan to get it, or that as a fan of the WWE I owe it to them to get it because it’s such a good deal, and that not getting it because of it lacking something is somehow wrong of me.

If I was expecting Victoria to come round to my place and watch old Halloween Havocs with me immediately upon signing up, that would be wrong.

But I’ve looked at the feedback online, and what I’ve seen doesn’t fill me with confidence. No regular, consistent uploading schedule. Little original programming that isn’t just rehashing old interviews. A clunky engine that has a horrible search engine, no way to delineate segments within a show, technical issues on top of that. Stuff that I don’t want to reward.

WWE, as much as they wish otherwise, is not the be all, end all of wrestling. You can be a wrestling fan, even one who enjoys parts of WWE’s history, and not spend one dime on them, and that’s totally fine. And if you want to spend all your wrestling dimes on WWE, that’s fine too.

I don’t have enough questions in here to warrant getting it for research purposes, I don’t watch PPVs so there’s no incentive to save money there, NXT is on TV over here, I don’t have much free time and I don’t have any moral obligation to give WWE money just because I like wrestling. So I don’t have the Network.

However, if it makes you feel better, baring unforseen incidents, I’ll be signing up in January, in order to do my annual ‘Get drunk early, eat junk food and live tweet the Rumble’ deal that people seem to like. So the Network will have a month to wow me, and if it does, great, if not, I’ll cancel on the 31st of January. OK?

The Trivia Crown

Who am I? All but one of my ring names were along the same rough idea, although I went by another totally separate name away from the ring but still in wrestling. I was part of an important first match ever for something with a guy with a familiar last name. Despite mainly being a wrestler, I managed World Champions, both sexes, as well as at one point controlling two titles. The total number of WWE title reigns I’ve had is one less than the total number of title reigns I’ve had outside of WWE. A man who once used propofol, sodium thiopental, etomidate, and/or ketamine as a finisher, I am who?

RBloodworth has the answer.

“Who am I? All but one of my ring names were along the same rough idea, although I went by another totally separate name away from the ring but still in wrestling (You once wrestled as an imposter Dude Love, but also played the role of “Lloyd Van Buren” on the ECW Hotline). I was part of an important first match ever for something with a guy with a familiar last name (You were in the main event of ECW’s first-ever PPV, Barely Legal: a Three-Way Dance to determine the number-one contender for the ECW World Heavyweight Championship with Terry Funk and the Sandman). Despite mainly being a wrestler, I managed World Champions, both sexes, as well as at one point controlling two titles (You once managed ECW World Heavyweight Champion Raven and WWE Women’s Champions Ivory and Victoria. As the manager of the Right to Censor faction, you controlled both the WWE Women’s Championship- held by Ivory- and the WWE Tag Team Championships- held by Bull Buchanan and the GoodFather). The total number of WWE title reigns I’ve had is one less than the total number of title reigns I’ve had outside of WWE (You held 22 total titles outside of WWE, and were WWE Hardcore Champion 21 times). A man who once used propofol, sodium thiopental, etomidate, and/or ketamine as a finisher (One of your finishing moves was called General Anesthesia- though, admittedly, this clue had me looking for a guy who died of a drug overdose), I am who?”

You are…Stevie Richards.

Well done, although as usual one thing was slightly off. Stevie was in the first ever ECW match, wrestling a guy called Jimmy Jannetty.

Who am I? I hold a record for the longest reign of a somewhat mainstream title, as well as at least one other record in relation to that title. I’ve had two female managers to one male manager, although most everyone I’ve managed has been male. My most well known ring name was born in WCW. I’ve regained a title in a ladder match, although that’s not without some debate. A tag team I was in was dissolved over a singles title, I’ve served in an army and lived up to the standards of a Rock I was put against. I am who?

Getting Down To All The Business

Kevin starts us off with a whole lotta questions.

Thank you for taking my question…

At Royal Rumble 1989, the winner was Big John Studd. To me, that would indicate the WWF had big plans for him. Yet, by WrestleMania V, he was relegated to being a special referee for the Andre the Giant vs. Jake Roberts match and disappeared shortly afterward.

1. What were the original plans for Studd (if there were any)?

What happened, pretty much, it just got cut off too early. See, it’s a very common trip up to look at old things like the Rumble and assume that WWE had the same attitude to it then as they do now. That since winning the Rumble now is a huge deal, must have been a huge deal back then. And it was to some extent, but not nearly to the level as it is today.

The plan was to make a lot of money by running Andre/Studd on the house show circuit. A few years prior, they’d feuded over Studd being unslammable, with Andre wanting to prove he could do it, and they had a successful house show tour with that. So, when Studd came back in 89, and Andre was a heel, well hey, they had chemisty before, now we can run it but flip the roles!

So the plan was Studd would guest ref the Andre/Jake match, get involved and that would kick off a Studd/Andre program all over the house shows, and then eventually once it was cool they’d finish it on SNME or something. Beyond that, not even WWE knew probably. But the plan was to run Andre/Studd, and so that wasn’t a demotion, it was a next step in the story. Stories tended to be played out over longer periods back then, you see…

2. I also noticed that his theme music sounds a lot like the music Hacksaw Jim Duggan used in the 1990’s. Are there any other instances where a theme song meant for someone was used for someone else (i.e. Kurt Angle’s music was used by the Patriot originally)?

For many years, whenever anyone who was Japanese or Asian would come into the WWF, they’d get the exact same theme, the Orient Express music.

The classic example would be Hulk Hogan, as Real American was originally used for U.S Express, Barry Windham and Mike Rotunda.

Other examples are Randy Orton was the original intended user of CM Punk’s non-In Living Color theme, Michelle McCool reusing a Torrie Wilson theme, Ezekiel Jackson’s theme, without the rapping, was the Brawl for All music, although that was used a few times in various places.

Derrick Bateman reused The Major Brothers, Santina Marella used Billy and Chuck, Michael Cole used Kerwin White, Darren Young used (a very slight remix of) Tyler Reks, Luke Gallows used Big Show… Recycling theme songs is an age old practice.

2. One of the things that annoys the holy hell out of me when it comes to WCW is that they tease the face getting revenge against the nWo and they always lose. Case in point: Konnan. Konnan was OVER in 98 and going into 99 and he was always talking about getting revenge, and never getting it. Case in point: Souled Out 99. Sure Luger cheated, but Jesus. Luger lost all the time, it would not have hurt him or the Elite had they lost, sometimes. Why not give Konnan and others their win?

There’s two ways to answer that.

The diplomatic answer is that Bischoff was playing the long game. In the build up of the nWo, he wanted to create two brands, and to do that, the nWo had to be in control for a long time, in order to establish them as being equal of WCW. Then, he was aiming at the Hogan/Sting focal point, and wanted all the hatred of the nWo to be settled there in one huge glorious moment… Twice. And then after that, the various nWo factions were the big story, and when they remerged, they had to stay strong in order to build up for Goldberg to run through them. So, in every case, the nWo had to remain strong due to the storylines.

The dirtsheet answer is that when you had Hogan and Nash and their buddies involved, and then soon enough the guy booking the shows also being involved as being part of the group, you think they’ll ever look bad? If Luger jobbed, and Luger was aligned with Hogan, then Hogan might look bad! Can’t have that! So, the nWo was constantly pushed as being better and stronger and rarely jobbed so that the head guys looked super kewl.

It’s probably a mixture of those two.

3. Why did Wrath all of a sudden get buried? I think he could have recovered from the Nash loss. Yet he then got beaten by Bigelow…and then pretty much done for.

http://youtu.be/03tuMcL3n7Q

He lost to Nash in order to establish Nash could beat big muscular undefeated guys, and then he lost to Bam Bam because later that night Bam Bam was to start the feud with Goldberg, after that he was in the midcard until he tore his ACL in April was out for a fair old while.

As for why he got buried… It was WCW. WCW wasn’t exactly a haven for giving midcarders a spotlight, at that point, most of the time. There wasn’t anything specific Wrath did, he just was the flavour of the month and then he wasn’t anymore.

4. It seems to me that Bischoff was averse to taking chances (after the nWo) and change. He is like Vince today. A new guy comes along, and gets over, and he panics letting the older guys take him out. So I never understood the thinking of that…not that he did it all the time, but there were plenty of opportunities there.

… OK?

5. I know WCW gets shit on for what they did with Buff Bagwell in 98. However, part of me thinks that Bischoff knew what a cancer he could be. The guy was not that great in the ring, and every time he got a push he got in trouble…Hell even Vince realized that.

Uh…

6. One more: Why doesn’t TNA just wrestle? Why have so many promos…They don’t hook the viewers, and the matches are short…They have talent, so why not use it and have some nice, long matches?

See, the thing is, you say that promos don’t hook viewers… Do you know that? OK, yes, TNA might well be dead soon so it obviously hasn’t worked, but the problem is that most people who want to book wrestling want to be successful, and by that they mean they want the Attitude Era level crowds, and to do that they assume they need to book how the Attitude era was booked, with lots of talking and violence and sex and stuff. And if they can’t do the sex or the violence or whatever, they double down on what they CAN do, which is the talking.

I mean, I’m in favour of longer matches and more focus on wrestling no matter the company, but we don’t have the rating sheets, we don’t have all the info they do, it just might be that the average ‘fan’ doesn’t want longer matches. I don’t know, I know I want them, but maybe I’m abnormal here…

Rahil has a simple question this week.

Has there ever been a PPV were none of the matches have been announced ?????

Fall Brawl 99 is probably the show that comes closest, as it was the one that infamously had advertising a week before the show that read “We’re the advertising agency and they won’t even tell us who’s going to be there. Tune in!” and then below that “Sunday, September 12. Insert Time Here.”

Although, unfortunately, they announced a few matches for that on the TV shows, Hogan/Sting, Benoit/Vicious, Bagwell/Berlyn and so on were announced on the last Nitro before the show at least, they just didn’t tell the advertisers this.

But a full bore “No matches announced”? Nope, that has never happened, to my knowledge. Even the World War 3 PPVs WCW had, they announced the WW3 match would happen, at least… But maybe a reader knows something I don’t.

The Trilogy Ends!

http://youtu.be/FqdwSqxQ8oE

And here’s a history lesson.

Juan wants to talk about the belt now around the waist of Luke Harper.

1) In 87/88 Why did the Honky Tonk Man hold the title for so long, that could not have always been the plan. Did people really hate him or hated that he held the title and kept it from more popular wrestler. Honestly by Summer Slam 88, Ted Dibase could have beat him for the title and gotten a huge pop.

Well no, the original plan was for Steamboat to be champ for a while, but he then asked for time off and Vince hated that so with Butch Reed not being there that night, Honky got the belt.

And even when he got it, it was meant to be transitional, he’d be the lucky stiff to get a fall on Steamboat and then drop the belt quick smart to someone else, reports differ as to who it was that was meant to get the belt. But Vince wasn’t someone who booked everything months in advance, he gave Honky a chance and Honky ran with it.

Honky was always positioned as the lucky stiff, the guy who wasn’t really that good, he just got lucky to get a quick fall on Steamboat one day. And then guys would line up to beat on him, he’d take a beating, and then he’d dumb luck his way to a DQ or a count out or some other escape with the belt in hand. Or they’d get a non-title match and win clean. And soon enough, Honky drew because everyone knew the lucky streak had to end at some point, it could be this weekend’s house show, we better go! And so he drew money, so Vince kept putting him dropping the belt further and further until eventually Warrior was decided to be the guy, and get that massive pop for crushing HTM like a bug.

But yes, Honky WAS that hated by the end of the reign, people were willing to pay money to see Honky get beat up and maybe, just maybe, lose the title.

2) In 95 what was the plan had Shawn Michaels not been attacked in Syracuse? Why did they hand the title to Dean Douglas and then have him immediately lose to Razor Ramon? Why didn’t Douglas get a month or two with the title?

The original plan appears to be Shawn loses to Dean, Razor wins #1 contendership, squashed Dean within the week. With Shawn getting beat up, they just fast forwarded the process.

As for why, I’m sure Douglas will tell you, at length, about how the Clique were/are horrible, horrible people, but the reality is much less anti-Douglas. Shawn was getting set for the World title, but they wanted the belt on Razor, and instead of going direct and splitting the fans, they did a transitional reign for the Dean. Douglas wasn’t champ because of his work, just that he was the guy who they chose to use as the bridge.

Raza asks about time from debut to the big one.

I see Alberto Del Rio’s WWE Title win in August 2011 I guess that he only debut in July 2010 and manages to win coveted WWE Title within 12-13 month. Now over the year we have heard the youngest WWE Championship like Orton, Lesnar but my questions is who are the top five in terms of their debut and quickly wining WWE Championship (not World Heavyweight Championship) within no time. I think top of the lot would be Ric Flair wining in 1992

So we’re talking debut in WWE then? Because by that logic, the winner is Buddy Rogers, as he debuted and was given the title at the same moment, pretty much…

See, sometimes I find someone who does something really cool on a topic with great timing. In this case, Ampatent has created a list for us all, and added in some comedy and such as well. And so, ignoring the Buddy Rogers issue, all those under a year are:

Alberto Del Rio, 11 months, 25 days.
Big Show, 9 months, 5 days.
Brock Lesnar, 5 months, 7 days.
Pedro Morales: 2 months, 18 days.
Yokozuna, 5 months, 4 days.

Hey, how convenient. So from shortest to longest, the top 5 are Pedro, Yoko, Brock, Big Show, Del Rio. Buddy is #0.

DarthMortis wishes to go back to the Hall of Fame.

I am one, maybe the only one, who seems to get why KoKo B Ware has a place in the HoF. I see the induction criteria as the sum of the whole of a career and not not isolated to just the bits that took place in the Fed. Where do you stand? Should KoKo be in or out? What about his career, in your opinion, justifies his inclusion?

Thanks, and keep up the good work.

OK, let’s try for a definitive answer here, as this kinda keeps cropping up.

As always, the reality is that the WWE Hall of Fame is run by Vince and the WWE, funnily enough, and so inclusion is really solely based on if they think you should get in, no more, no less.

So should Koko be in the WWE HOF? Sure, he’s a memorable character from the 80’s-90’s, he was very much the prototype for the WWE smiling midcarder.

Should Koko be in an independent, unaligned and thus hopefully impartial Hall of Fame? Not really. Even taking his full career into account, if his career is enough to justify a HOF place, then the HOF will get awfully crowded as that would mean over half of all wrestlers ever would have enough of a career to get in.

But personally? I’m really over the whole issue. It’s not like Koko is taking up a spot that Savage or Owen or Mildred Burke would take and thus no longer can. Koko is a punchline, sure, but that’s all. His inclusion doesn’t limit any further inclusions, and you can’t take away respect or dignity from an institution that doesn’t really exist and only runs as long as WWE thinks they can make money off it.

*3/8th Chandler*

From my take on the WWE HOF to my take on other stuff. Nightwolf?

1. Your top 10 wrestlers who are excellent on the mic in the last 14 years?

Limiting it to wrestlers (so no Heyman at 1, alas…)

1. Shawn Michaels
2. CM Punk
3. William Regal
4. Triple H
5. Chris Jericho
6. The Rock
7. Edge
8. Mark Henry
9. Christian
10. The Miz

Tell me I’m wrong in my opinions below!

2. Recently, WWE lost a lot of money and have to release wrestlers and what have you. What can WWE do to save itself?

If I knew what WWE could do to stop the decline, I’d not be here, I’d be running my own company or trying for a takeover bid or something. I don’t know what WWE could do to save itself simply because I don’t know how badly they are in trouble.

However, it couldn’t hurt to scale back the writers and try and improve the storytelling, develop characters more fully and not rely on John Cena so much, but they are boring and parroted by thousands of people online.

Doesn’t mean they aren’t true though…

3. Is Shane McMahon the only one who can fix the WWE?

I’m not sure he can fix WWE full stop. After all, if Shane comes back, he’s still in a position of weakness in order to rectify change. Triple H and Steph are the people with their hands on the controls, they are the ones who will have the best chance to save or doom the company. So they’d be capable of fixing the WWE.

As could Vince, you know. Sure, he’s stuck in his ways, but you never know when enlightenment might come. Maybe he’ll trip and land on a dumbbell rack and gently knock his head and end up realising that just assuming John Cena will be around to make you money might be a bad idea.

And there’s all the writers and agents in the company, any of them could be the guy or girl to step up and lay out a bold new plan for the company moving forward.

Shane McMahon is just a guy. A guy who every days is further away from wrestling and who we have to stop hero worshipping as if he can do no wrong and would solve everything if he came back. I’d like him back, sure, but his return would not in any way automatically mean we’re all enjoying puppy dog massages.

Michael wonders why we don’t see fake blood more.

Question regarding “blood” in wrestling. I don’t recall if this has been discussed but did wrestling ever use fake blood or blood capsules instead of wrestlers bleeding for real? I seem to recall that back in the 80’s, whenever we saw color, it was fake but I was always curious about this. If the answer is yes, then why wouldn’t the WWE today in its current product use fake blood every now and again to further drive home rivalries or send off matches. Its safer than real blood, and given today’s kid and family friend product, the use of fake blood isn’t as shocking as blading. I think it could have a place in today’s product.

I covered this recently, I can’t say for sure no-one has ever used fake blood regularly but apart from a few isolated incidents, I don’t know any old timers who did.

As for why doesn’t WWE use fake blood, the problem with that idea is that the PG guidelines don’t specify any difference between fake blood and real blood. If it’s been presented as blood, doesn’t matter if it’s actual blood or red dye and corn starch, they can’t do it.

Well OK, obviously they can get away with a little blood showing as they try to cover it up, so hardway events are ok provided they try to make it look presentable and stop it ASAP. But copious blood oozing down a face, that’s not allowed at all, regardless of the source of the blood.

Wally brings us back to reality with questions about Survivor Series 1993.

Obligatory “I love the column message” you do an awesome job each week. I have been reliving my childhood through the network and have a few questions regarding the 1993 Survivor Series.

1. I am aware that Jerry “The King” Lawler was pulled because of legal issues, but any idea why they stayed with the exact same storyline with his replacement, Shawn Michaels?

Because the entire point of the match was to set up the Bret/Owen thing, so they needed someone to piss off the whole family, and Shawn fit the bill well enough that they could just run with it without needing to come up with a reason for why now all the Harts hated long blonde hair or something.

2. What was the purpose/reason fro Doink not appearing in the Doink match?

It was right around the time that Matt Borne had left, and I strongly suspect that they weren’t sure about their replacement Doink yet, so they pulled him in order to avoid fans getting to look closely at the new Doink and realise he’s changed.

3. When did the WWF stop paying attention/enforcing to Luger not wearing the protective covering over his “loaded: forearm?

A very good question. I know he had it at Summerslam, hence the forearm shot before Yoko could get in the ring. He had it at Survivor Series 94 too, but the day they stopped referring to it… I don’t know.

Do you? Tell us below and look much smarter than me, for two whole weeks. See you all in December!