Ask 411 Wrestling: Why Didn’t Vader Succeed in the WWF?

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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Blink and you’ll miss Kyle:

Somebody recently brought up the 24/7 title which made me wonder: what was the shortest-lived title in the WWF/WWE? And which title had the fewest holders? You can decide on what you think counts as a real title, but I’d definitely exclude the Rock’s current People’s Championship for obvious reasons.

The answer to this question is a pretty obscure title:

The WWF International Tag Team Championship.

There was a version of the WWF International Tag Team Championship which existed from 1969 through 1972, which is a short lifespan for a title but not record-settingly short.

To find the record for shortest-lived title, we have to go to the second version of the International Tag Titles, which were created on May 24, 1985 when Kengo Kimura and Tatsumi Fujinami defeated former WWF Tag Team Champions the North-South Connection of Dick Murdoch and Adrian Adonis at the World Hall in Kobe, Japan.

Kimura and Fujinami were the only titleholders in the history of that championship, which was deactivated on October 31, 1985 due to the WWF and New Japan Pro Wrestling ending the working relationship between the companies that lead to the creation of the titles.

The belts were defended a total of four times, and interestingly it was always against North American wrestlers. The first defense was a rematch against Adonis and Murdoch, the second was against Bad News Brown and King Kong Bundy, the third was against more obscure wrestlers Hacksaw Higgins and Kerry Brown, and the fourth and final was against Kerry and Kevin Von Erich.

Some other guy named Ryan wants to talk about Vader:

This may be a hard question to answer but what happened to Vader in WWE? He came in with so much hype around the ’96 Rumble but his only signature win on PPV was against Undertake at the ’97 Rumble. Other than that, he seemed to be a “job” guy. I know he had issues with HBK, but was there another reason he never had a successful run in the company?

The fact that Shawn Michaels didn’t like working with him was a huge part of the equation. Shawn wielded a lot of power in the company at the time, and once that pairing didn’t work out, there wasn’t much more for Vader to do at a high level.

Plus, as he remained in the company he started to put on a lot of weight, which the corporate brass wasn’t happy with – to the point that he was once booked to call himself a “fat piece of crap” on Raw in a cringe inducing moment.

After sending in this question, Brian plunged to his death in the Detroit River:

Do you know how WCW got monster trucks on the roof of Cobo Hall for Halloween Havoc 1995?

I remember hearing once that they used helicopters, but a monster truck would seem like a lot of weight for a helicopter to transport, wouldn’t it?

The top of Cobo Hall (now known as Huntington Place) is a parking lot regularly used for cars attending events at the venue. So it’s actually not that complicated a question – they drove up there.

Barry is dramatically revealing a new t-shirt:

What if Sting turns heel and joins the NWO?

He’d be a little late.

Seriously, though, with the benefit of hindsight, this would not be a great idea, because it would kill Hogan versus Sting at Starrcade 1997, which was the biggest money match in WCW history. Plus, the whole dynamic of the NWO invasion early on was that it was “WWF guys” taking on WCW, and inserting Sting into the storyline would have worked against that motif.

RayS brings us an interesting thought exercise:

I have a question that possibly you (and the commentators) might have fun with. Since they both consist of “larger than life” characters, how would you cast the Marvel and DC movie franchises using only wrestlers? Any character is fair game. For example, I’ve always thought if the ever made an Alpha Flight movie, the character Puck HAS to be cast to John Silver. Anyhow, whaddya think? Have fun.

This could go on FOREVER if I really ran with it, so I’m going to do two things to mitigate against that. First off, I’m going to stick to the main, classic lineups of the Justice League and Avengers rather than heading into the broader universes. Second, I’m going to focus on DC this week and do Marvel next so that this doesn’t eat up the whole column.

Also, to up the degree of difficulty a bit, I’m going to try not to use any wrestler more than once, even between the two companies.

Let’s begin:

Superman – Cody Rhodes: It might seem like low hanging fruit to cast WWE’s main babyface as DC’s main babyface, but hear me out. Classic Superman is essentially a perfect good guy with no weaknesses or character flaws. However, modern DC films seem hesitant to cast him that way due to some assumption that this will not be interesting or relatable to Twenty-First Century audiences. However, in WWE, Cody Rhodes is essentially a perfect good guy with no weaknesses or character flaws . . . and he’s making it WORK at a time when you’d expect fans to be too cynical to accept it. Thus, I’d like to see Cody bring some of his wrestling characteristics to a modern take on comics’ Big Blue Boy Scout. Plus, if they can CGI out Henry Cavill’s mustache, they can do the same for Cody’s neck tattoo.

Batman – Kazuchika Okada: He’s already got experience running with the character of a wealthy playboy and has a look to me that falls into that classic “Bruce Wayne” mold. Yes, there could be a bit of a language barrier, but it’s not as though the Dark Knight is a character that has to be out there reading lengthy monologues. Plus, if you really had to, you could perhaps overcome that with some creative dubbing. Maybe Low Ki takes over doing the voice when Okada is in the bat suit.

Wonder Woman – Jade Cargill: When I thought about current female wrestlers along with the word “Amazon,” this is the first person who came to mind. She’s statuesque, and we know that she can play an asskicker. Plus, we all know that she’s got experience working with Cody Rhodes, a plus given my other casting.

Green Lantern – Randy Orton: Though multiple characters have taken up the mantle, I tend to think of the Green Lantern as Hal Jordan, who had one of the greatest heel turns in comic book history when he became the villain Parallax in the 1990s. Thus, I think if you’re going to start him out as a hero on film to potentially build to that turn, you want somebody who can play a babyface but can portray that there’s something evil bubbling underneath his heroic persona. That says Randy Orton to me, who even when he’s a good guy plays a good guy who is a bit of a prick.

Aquaman – Kyle Fletcher: Blond guy. Not particularly interesting. Mostly known because of who he hangs out with. Always looks wet. That sounds like the Aquaman I grew up with . . . though admittedly the character has been re-imagined in more recent years.

The Flash – Xavier Woods: Thinking of the Barry Allen version of the flash, the character is a scientist who became the fastest man alive through a laboratory accident. Thus you have to have somebody who can simultaneously portray that they are a high level athlete and an intellectual. To me, that role best falls to Xavier Woods, who obviously has the athletic credentials but is also the only wrestler that I’m ever aware of to hold a PhD. Granted, it’s in education and not chemistry, but we’ll still roll with it.

Cyborg – Oba Femi: I’ve read that the original look and physique of Cyborg were based on NFL legend Jim Brown. When trying to think of a wrestler who has a modern equivalent of that look, I landed on Femi. I’ve only seen very little of him at this point. He’s also on the younger side of things, which fits the character, and seems to have an on camera presence that would allow people to connect with him naturally.

We’ll be back next time to look at the Marvel side of things.

Stu from Liverpool, doot, doot, doot:

A lot is spoken about the figureheads of wrestling and their legacies, whether positive, negative, or mixed. While not a figurehead in the strictest sense, he’s certainly someone who’s cast a great deal of influence in pro wrestling, so I’m curious as to what you think Bruce Prichard’s legacy in wrestling will be.

As with most legacies, I think that it depends on who you’re going to be talking to.

Let’s be honest: The majority of fans aren’t going to know who Bruce Prichard is at all, unless they heard at some point that it was Brother Love’s real name.

As far as internet or “smart” fans are concerned, ultimately I think that Prichard will be viewed as a cog in the WWF/WWE machine, with all the credit for what the company was able to accomplish really going to Vince McMahon. I do think that a large part of his legacy with this fanbase will actually be his podcast, which provides quite a bit of backstage insight into the company during its most profitable years . . . even if you do have to keep in mind that it usually only tells one side of any given story.

From what I can tell of an outsider, views within wrestling seem to be fairly mixed, ranging anywhere from nice guy with a good mind for the business to useless stooge for Vinnie Mac. I do think that it says something positive for the guy that he seems to have maintained a friendship or at least good working relationship with Jim Cornette after all these years, despite having pretty different philosophies towards what is acceptable in wrestling and despite Cornette hating about 90% of the people he used to work with.

Adam is a happy-go-lucky sort:

I’ve read lots of reports about certain wrestlers having a lot of heat with multiple wrestlers. My question is are there any that were generally well-liked other wrestlers?

Answering this question with current wrestlers almost seems like a cop out, because we’re now in a largely corporate wrestling environment where people generally act like professionals, aside from some immature outliers like the Jack Perrys and Hangman Pages of the world.

So, let’s get a little bit more old school.

In the recent past, you’ve got Molly Holly, who is a saint according to everyone I’ve ever heard talk about her.

Going back a way further, Beautiful Bobby Eaton was known to be a standup guy who never spoke ill of anyone, in addition to being one of the easiest opponents to have a great match with.

Terry Funk is another old school guy who seems almost universally respected, except for maybe the time when he got out of a WWF commitment by telling Vince McMahon that his horse was sick.

I’m always presented with interesting choices by Tyler from Winnipeg:

I don’t think I’ve asked you this… do you prefer Eddie Guerrero or Chris Benoit?

Eddie Guerrero didn’t kill his wife and small child, so I’m gonna go Eddie Guerrero.

HBK’s Smile moonlights as Miss Atlanta Lively:

In 1987, Ric Flair dropped the NWA title to Ron Garvin. It’s been said that many face wrestlers were approached with the idea of beating Flair for the title with Flair regaining it at Starrcade and they all declined. Using the best evidence available, who were all the wrestlers who passed before Garvin agreed?

Ric Flair was asked this question point blank on his “To Be the Man” podcast with Conrad Thompson, and he said he was not aware of anybody other than Garvin being under consideration for this title reign, though he did say that but for Magnum TA’s car accident, TA probably would have won the title in 1986 and defended it against Flair at Starrcade 1987.

I also listened to a couple of shoot interviews with Garvin, and, though he wasn’t point blank asked this question, he didn’t mention anybody else turning down a run when he was asked about his World Title reign.

On his podcast, Jim Cornette has said that the purpose of Flair dropping the title to Garvin was in fact for Flair to just win it right back on Starrcade to give the show some extra oomph, but he did not say anything about anybody else being considered for the role.

Paris endeavors to ask a question:

Do you believe more UFC stars will jump ship to WWE now that they are under the same umbrella (more lucrative contracts/Brock Lesnar proven crossover appeal)?

Also, I wrote a novella.

I have a hard time believing that, to be honest. Though there is some overlap, at the end of the day pro wrestling and MMA are different athletic endeavors with different skill sets being required, and it’s going to take a special person who can and wants to train adequately in both of them to be able to cross over. We could see one or two, but I doubt that we’ll see UFC stars coming to WWE en masse, or vice versa for that matter.

This question from AG Awesome has been kicking around in the archives for a long time, and he’ll be thrilled that I’m finally getting to it:

During your years of fandom, what company looked the most different from their start of the year to the end of the year? For example in WCW ’96 we started with the Dungeon of Doom still and ended with the NWO stuff (amongst many other changes in the company during that year). The only limit I’d put on this is that the company must have had a full year of operation.

ECW in 1993.

At the beginning of the year, they were in many ways a basic larger-than-average indy promotion for the era, where they had their own crew of established regular wrestlers but were mostly trying to make money off of the names of people who had been on WWF television in the past. If you look at their first card of the year, it’s populated by matches featuring the likes of Davey Boy Smith, The Masked Superstar, Kerry Von Erich, and Salvatore Bellomo. Don Muraco and Jimmy Snuka were also staples of the company in the early part of the calendar year.

However, by the second half of ’93, Paul Heyman had arrived and was shifting the promotion in the “extreme” direction that most fans know it for. By the end of the year, there were still some legends kicking around, but the focus was much more on men like Shane Douglas, the Sandman, the Tazmaniac, and Sabu, with other ECW staples like 911, Axl Rotten, and Balls Mahoney also having debuted.

Though Douglas throwing down the NWA, which many people consider the unofficial “birth” of Extreme Championship Wrestling didn’t happen until 1994, it is ’93 when the switch really flipped. ’94 is just what got a broader fanbase to take notice.

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.