Ask 411 Wrestling: Why Is Goldberg Forgotten From Eddie Guerrero’s WWE Title Win?

Welcome guys, gals, and gender non-binary pals, to Ask 411 Wrestling. I am your party host, Ryan Byers, and I am here to answer some of your burning inquiries about professional wrestling.

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Gary wants to do Mania by the numbers:

After watching the latest wwe top ten on Wrestlemania tap outs I got thinking. The video showed two tap outs from Mania 25 (I think) Cena vs Batista and Bret Hart vs Vince.

So my question is: Which Wrestlemania has had the most submissions wins?

And, if possible which, Wrestlemania has the most victories that are not a pinfall or submission (e.g. disqualification, count out, unable to make a ten count or grabbing a title/contract)?

As I often do when answering these stats-heavy questions, let’s start by laying down some ground rules. I’m not counting dark matches or pre-show matches. Also, rather than counting matches, I’ll be counting falls, because there have been several matches in Wrestlemania history that have consisted of multiple falls, for example gauntlet matches or elimination three or four-ways. So, a show that technically only had eight matches could have ten or twelve falls depending on the type of matches booked.

With all that said, let’s go on to the answer proper:

In compiling this data, one of the things that I was surprised by was just how few submission finishes there have been in Wrestlemania history. In thirty-five shows, there have only been twenty-five submission finishes, an average of less than one per show. Also in the first nineteen Wrestlemanias, there were only three submission finishes, one of them on Wrestlemania III, one of them at Wrestlemania XI, and one of them in the very first match in Wrestlemania history, Tito Santana defeating Buddy Rose under a hood as the Executioner.

So, which show has the most submissions?

It’s Wrestlemania XXXIV (2018), which saw Charlotte Flair submit Asuka, Ronda Rousey tap out Stephane McMahon in their tag team match with Kurt Angle and Triple H, and Daniel Bryan making a triumphant return to the ring to down Sami Zayn with the Yes Lock in a tag match with Shane McMahon and Kevin Owens. That’s only three submissions, which goes to show you just how few submissions there are in Wrestlemania history overall.

Though Mania XXXIV had the largest number of submissions, Wrestlemania XXX (2014) actually takes the prize for having the highest percentage of submission finishes, as there were seven finishes on the show and two were submissions, for a 28.6% submission finish rate. Though Mania XXXIV has one more submission on the card, the three submissions are spread out over eleven finishes, making the percentage 27.3%.

Then we get into non-pinfall finishes.

The clear champion in that category is Wrestlemania IV, which a lot of fans these days forget about but legitimately has to be among the three worst Manias of all time. That show has a whopping seven non-pinfall finishes, and none of them are particularly good finishes, either. They are: 1) Bad News Brown winning a battle royale; 2) Dino Bravo getting disqualified against Don Muraco; 3) One Man Gang beating Bam Bam Bigelow by count out; 4) Jake Roberts and Rick Rude wrestling to a fifteen minute time limit draw; 5) Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan going to a double disqualification; 6) Brutus Beefcake beating Intercontinental Champion the Honky Tonk Man by disqualification; and 7) Randy Savage beating the One Man Gang by disqualification.

The majority of these screwy finishes were brought on by the show being built around a one-night tournament for the vacant WWF Championship. In two cases, they were finishes designed to eliminate both wrestlers from the tournament, because they didn’t want to spend the time to have the full number of matches that would have otherwise been required for the brackets to play out. Also, there were some count out and disqualification finishes thrown in there to avoid certain wrestlers losing more decisively.

Though Mania IV has the most non-pinfall finishes, there are three Manias that have a higher percentage of non-pinfall finishes. There are sixteen total finishes on WMIV and with seven of them being non-pinfall, the percentage is 43.75%. However, Wrestlemania I, X, and XIII all had nine finishes with four of them being non-pinfall for a 44.4% rate of non-pinfall finishes.

Mohamed knows who’s really oppressed around here:

Why do the current female roster get pushed like the best ever icons or so while the men’s roster is treated like crap and buried by part timers?

Example: Charlotte vs Trish. Charralote goes over.

Goldberg vs Bray. Goldberg goes over.

First off, I think you’re comparing apples and oranges to a degree, because Charlotte versus Trish was Trish coming in for just one match. Under those circumstances, the only result that made sense was her giving the rub to Charlotte. Meanwhile, though Goldberg beat Bray Wyatt and it seems unlikely that Wyatt will get his win back at any point, at the time the decision for Goldberg to go over was made, it was known that it would be part of a longer string of appearances for him and that he would be putting over one of the current roster members in the end. Beating Wyatt was just done to get some additional credibility and the championship on Goldberg so that he could eventually be even more effective in putting over the guy who will be tapped to vanquish him. (Presumably that was Roman Reigns at first, though it appears we’ve now moved on to Wyatt’s former toady Bruan Strowman.)

The other difference is that, when it comes to the women’s division, there really aren’t that many legends that can come back to do a match like the one Trish Stratus did. Because the women’s division was a joke for so long and because the company went for many years without much of a women’s division at all between the Wendi Richter and Alundra Blayze eras, there aren’t that many female “legends” who are still capable of putting on a match. Trish Stratus and Lita are pretty much it. Even though other female wrestlers from the past can (and have) popped in for cameos, those are the only two who would be comparable to a Bill Goldberg or Undertaker within the context of their division. If there were more ladies who had been legitimate stars in the past, you would probably see more part-timers in to mess with the Charlotte Flairs and Becky Lynches of the world.

Night Wolf the Wise likes to ask questions in twos, and he likes them to be completely unrelated:

1. What wrestling school has trained the most wrestlers?

This is a difficult one to answer, for a few different reasons. First, I’m not aware of a source that keeps one central listing of who trained what wrestler. Second, what qualifies as a “wrestler” for purposes of this question? Are we counting the guy who just had one or two low-level indy matches, are we only talking about wrestlers who made it to major promotions, or are we landing somewhere in the middle? Third, what level of training are we talking about? If a guy completes his initial training and has a career for a few years but then goes through the WWE developmental program, who “trained” him? Was it the original trainers? Was it WWE? Was it both?

Thus, probably the best thing that I can do to answer this question is point out a few major contenders based primarily on their longevity and reputations.

The first name that came to my mind when I read the question was that of the Monster Factory. Its founder, journeyman wrestler “Pretty Boy” Larry Sharpe, started training guys in the 1970s, and the school had an affiliation with “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers in the early days before eventually being sold in 2011 to an indy wrestler name Danny Cage, who is most famous for . . . well . . . buying the Monster Factory. Over the years, the Monster Factory churned out quite a few major names, probably in part because they were located in the northeast and, as a result, had an easy means of getting their students in front of the WWF. Sharpe broke in a long list of major stars, including but not limited to Bam Bam Bigelow, Tony Atlas, King Kong Budy, and Chris Candido. He even provided some very early training to the Big Show, though Show was snapped up by WCW very quickly and eventually wound up at the Power Plant.

Another strong contender – perhaps even more stronger than the Monster Factory – is the Ohio Valley Wrestling school, which was founded by “Nightmare” Danny Davis in 1993 and continues to present day, though it is currently owned by Al Snow. A strong majority of WWE’s main event stars over the last twenty years came through OVW in some form, including John Cena, Batista, and Randy Orton, though each of those three had at least some degree of training in other places before coming to Ohio Valley. OVW also trained Brock Lesnar, Bobby Lashley, and John Morrison from the ground up, along with countless others.

However, I suspect that the most prolific wrestling school in the world is likely not even in the United States. I suspect that it’s the New Japan Pro Wrestling Dojo. NJPW started as a company in 1972, and it began training its own wrestlers almost immediately. If you know anything about Japanese wrestling, you know that there is some jumping from promotion-to-promotion, but, until recent years, it was incredibly rare. This means that, for 40 years, New Japan has been training 80% or better of its own roster, which has to be over hundreds of wrestlers and includes all-time greats like Riki Choshu, Hiroshi Hase, Keiji Muto, Shinya Hashimoto, Masahiro Chono, Hiroshi Tanahashi, and tons more.

If anybody else knows of a contender that could be added to the list, feel free to mention it in the comments.

2. WWE like to do a lot of contact signings between two wrestlers who are feuding. What’s the logic behind doing contact signings for wrestling matches and why so many?

It’s pretty straightforward, really. In order to build up a major professional wrestling match, you need a series of different angles that see the two wrestlers interacting with each other. An easy way to get two wrestlers in the same place at the same time would be to have them sign a contract for their upcoming fight.

Asking this question is sort of like asking why two guys who are going to have a singles match on a big show often wrestle each other in tag team matches leading up to their one-on-one bout. The promotion just needs excuses in order for them to be in the same place at the same time for the sake of promoting the later encounter.

Tyler from Winnipeg is cheating death and stealing life:

Eddie Guerrero wins the WWE Championship over Lesnar at the Cow Palace. Why does almost everyone omit Goldberg’s cool involvement in the match?

When the match originally took place in 2004, Bill Goldberg and Brock Lesnar was going to be one of the biggest programs if not the biggest program in the entire company. That’s why Goldberg’s interference was featured in a pay per view main event in which the WWE Championship was on the line. It was the main story, and anything going on with Eddie Guerrero was at best in second place and probably even in third place behind the concurrent World Heavyweight Title program featuring Triple H, Shawn Michaels, and Stevie Richards.

However, within a few weeks of that pay per view occurring, Brock Lesnar and Bill Goldberg both decided that they were going to be leaving WWE, and the company’s fanbase turned on them . . . hard. Meanwhile, Guerrero performed beyond anybody’s expectations for him and captured fans’ attention as an underdog hero.

Thus, even though Goldberg and Lesnar were the focus of the match at the time that it took place, as time went on it made more sense to shift the historical narrative of the match towards Guerrero, who of the three men had become the headlining star while the other two were nowhere to be found. As a result, you can see plenty of highlight reels from No Way Out 2004 in which Eddie wins the championship with zero footage of Goldberg being used and zero mention of Goldberg being made.

Bryan is a shameful thing, lobsterhead:

Do you think if they booked him as their top babyface, WWE could have made Sheamus the Irish version of Bruno Sammartino, i.e., someone who appeals to everyone but ESPECIALLY one demographic of immigrants, or has the cultural landscape changed to much for that to work?

I think the cultural landscape has changed too much for that to work. Though there are some noteworthy exceptions, for the most part U.S. residents who are descended from a specific Eurpoean ethnic group no longer feel strong affinities towards that ethnic group. This is in part a product of those different groups having intermingled and inter-bred to the point that very few white people have just one ethnic identity and in part a product of particular European-based ethnic groups no longer being isolated to certain cities or even neighborhoods within cities. You’re just not going to have enough Irish American wrestling fans in the same place a the same time in order to get Sheamus over with them to anywhere near the level that Sammartino was over with Italian Americans.

I do think that Sheamus is one of the more underrated members of today’s WWE roster and that he could have gotten a more sustained singles push than he did, but this just isn’t the role to place him in to bring that about.

The Ghost of Meekins Moobs (no, seriously) is the best that money can buy:

What was the deal with the Million Dollar Man’s white tights at Summerslam ’92? Is this the only time he ever wore them or is there evidence of additional outings for the costume? Has Ted ever commented on his outfit? Thanks.

The answer is . . . Ted DiBiase bought some white trunks one day and decided to wear them.

Seriously, that’s it. This doesn’t appear to be a situation where there is some greater or deeper meaning. The guy decided that he would slightly change up his look for a major show, which is not an unusual decision for wrestlers to make.

I was not able to find hard evidence of DiBiase wearing the white trunks for any other match, though he did wear the corresponding white entrance gear on several other occasions, just with black trunks underneath it.

That will do it for this week’s installment of the column. We’ll return in seven-ish days, and, as always, you can contribute your questions by emailing [email protected].