Ask 411 Wrestling: Which Combination of the WWE Four Horsewomen Has Wrestled the Most?

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.

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.

Hey, ya want a banner?

I’ve been told I should promote my Twitter account more. So, go follow me on Twitter.

I’m going to answer this question from James in the next five installments of the column:

Since their arrivals on the main roster, which combination of Bayley, Becky, Charlotte, and Sasha have faced each other one-on-one the most often? Which combination has the fewest matches?

For those of you who may not recall, July 13, 2015 was the main roster debut date for three of these four women: Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch, and Charlotte Flair. Bayley (who I still really think needs a last name), came up a bit later, on July 24, 2016. For purposes of this question, I am using the July 13 date as the starting point, but I am counting only main roster matches between the four women.

If you use those criteria and count up the matches – including pay per view, television, and house show matches – the one-on-one bout that has occurred most frequently among these four women is:

Charlotte Flair versus Becky Lynch, which has taken place a whopping FIFTY-NINE times.

Somewhat surprisingly to me, the singles encounter that has taken place the fewest times has only happened ONCE. That is Becky Lynch versus Bayley.

Of the remaining combinations, Flair/Bayley has occurred 52 times, Banks/Flair 34 times, Lynch/Banks 17 times, and Banks/Bayley 8 times, with that last one also being a bit of a surprise since Banks/Bayley is the feud among these four women that sticks out to me as being the most memorable but yet it has relatively few matches.

Looking at all of those numbers, I am hoping some additional talent beyond just Bianca Belair can shortly be added to the main women’s mix sooner rather than later to freshen things up.

Uzoma 3:16 says I just broke your neck:

If he was still alive, would Owen Hart had apologized to Stone Cold Steve Austin for breaking his neck?

I suspect that he would have. The fact that Austin was upset by the lack of apology (or insufficient apology – stories seemed mixed on whether Owen ever offered anything) has been oft-repeated, particularly in this era where everybody who has ever wrestled seemingly has at least one podcast interview per month. This would no doubt result in the incident being a frequent topic of conversation in Hart’s own modern-day shoot interviews, and, at a certain point, they only reasonable and mature thing that he could have done in response would be to issue an unequivocal apology, hopefully privately in addition to publicly.

Mohamed is back and asking about something other than the women’s revolution for once:

What do you think of Booker T and his legacy in TNA?

I don’t think he has much of a legacy in TNA to speak of. He was there for about two-and-a-half years and could be categorized as a higher tier midcard wrestler or lower tier main event wrestler depending on your perspective. Granted, I was not watching TNA week-to-week during any of his run as far as I recall, but if he had done anything particularly memorable, I feel as though I would have heard of it, just as word of the more noteworthy exploits of Kurt Angle and Mick Foley made its way to me during the same period.

As with many – if not most – big stars who left WWE for TNA, his stint there was a totally forgettable portion of his career. In fact, I was surprised when doing research for this column that it lasted 2.5 years. I could have sworn he was there for one year, tops.

Sadly, the most memorable part of Booker T. appearing in TNA and perhaps his true legacy is that Book’s time in the promotion also brought his wife Sharmell there, which gave us one of the most legendarily bad matches in history, as she faced Survivor, um, “star” Jenna Morasca at the 2009 Victory Road pay per view.

A whole lotta lovin’ is what HBK’s Smile is bringin’:

Why was a Z-level celebrity wrestling match between Danny Bonaduce and Christopher Knight put on an otherwise mainstream pay-per-view card at Spring Stampede in 1994? And if the idea was to get a few more buys from a different audience base, why was it a dark match?

There’s an easy answer to this one. Spring Stampede ’94 was held at the Rosemont Horizon in Rosemont, Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago. From the late 1980s through the early 2010s, Bonaduce’s primary employment was as a radio personality, bouncing back and forth between several major markets with his show. In 1994, he was on the air in Chicago. The idea behind the dark match is that it would get the WCW card extra promotion in the local market to help sell tickets – not PPV buys as referenced in the question, but tickets. However, because it was not really promoted anywhere other than Bonaduce’s radio show, it did not make sense to put the bout on the main card, as the larger PPV audience would have no idea what was going on.

For the record, Bonaduce pinned Knight. On a 2019 episode of the TV show Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, which featured a Brady Bunch reunion, Knight was asked about Spring Stampede and mentioned that, in the match, Bonaduce wound up breaking a rib.

You know what?

That answer was pretty short, and the question piqued my interest, so I’m going to give you . . .

THE HISTORY OF DANNY BONADUCE IN PRO WRESTLING~!

Believe it or not, there is actually a history to recount.

Also, believe it or not, Danny Bonaduce’s biggest contribution to the mat game is none other than the Big Show, Paul Wight. According to Wight’s appearance on Steve Austin’s podcast (among other sources), he and Bonaduce met through Bonaduce’s radio show while Wight was working for a karaoke company. This lead to Bonaduce bringing in Wight as a ringer for a celebrity basketball game that Bonaduce was participating in. Also involved in that game was Hulk Hogan, and, as a result of his interaction with the future Big Show at the ball game, the Hulkster made the calls that ultimately resulted in the seven footer signing with World Championship Wrestling.

The former Danny Partridge would have another brush with professional wrestling in 2002, when he was the co-host of a daytime television talk show called The Other Half with Mario Lopez of Saved by the Bell fame, and Dick Clark of American Banstand fame. On a January episode of the show, Chyna was a guest, attempting to build up her career after leaving the WWF the preceding November. As part of her segment on the show, she competed with Lopez and Bonaduce in push-up, bicep curl, and arm wrestling competitions. The male hosts beat Chyna in all three competitions, which was a blow to her super-athletic “Amazon” persona. It would have been even more of a blow to her persona if anybody ever actually watched The Other Half.

In 2007, Bonaduce had a run-in with Survivor contestant and former TNA personality Jonny Fairplay on the Fox Reality Awards, an attempt by the Fox network to establish an award show for reality television. In a segment involving the two men, Fairplay ran and jumped at Bonaduce in an attempt to hug him, which was not scripted. Bonaduce’s reaction in the heat of the moment was to throw the Survivor alum off of him, with Fairplay hitting the floor hard and allegedly losing teeth. Jonny reported the incident to law enforcement, but their investigation revealed that Bonaduce was acting in self-defense, and no criminal charges were pursued. Fairplay also filed a civil lawsuit against Bonaduce, which was reportedly settled out of court.

On January 25, 2009, Bonaduce switched over from professional wrestling to boxing, though there is still a wrestling connection. He faced former professional baseball player Jose Canseco in a celebrity boxing bout in what was a bit of an embarrassment for Canseco because he could only fight Bonaduce to a draw and not finish him despite having an approximately eighty pound weight advantage.

The pro wrestling connection is that, in the semi-main event of the show, ECW alumnus the Sandman had a boxing match against a man named Tom Robinson, a long-time pro wrestling fan and later podcaster. According to the February 2, 2009 issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Robinson, Sandman, and the show’s promoter originally agreed that the match would be a work, thought he competitors would hit each other with a few hard shots to give it a veneer of credibility. However, the Sandman allegedly went into business for himself in the second round and connected with far more legit shots than were agreed in a bid to legitimately win the fight. The promoter suddenly called the match and declared Robinson the winner, despite the fact that everybody just watched him get destroyed. Robinson was apparently too caught off guard to fight back while in the ring but was livid in the dressing room and tried to get his own legit shots in on the former ECW Champion but apparently could not find him.

Getting back to Danny Bonaduce, it’s worth noting that he’s won two other celebrity boxing matches, beating Donny Osmond on January 17, 1994 and Barry Williams, also of The Brady Bunch, on March 13, 2002.

Bonaduce’s next foray into the squared circle came in 2008, when he participated in Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Championship Wrestling, a reality show in which Brutus Beefcake, Brian Knobs, and UPW/ZERO1 wrestler Tom Howard trained celebrities in everybody’s favorite pseudo-sport with the Hulkster acting as a judge of their performance. Bonaduce was around for most of the run of the series and participated in a series of tag team matches with the rest of the cast, in addition to a singles match against Saved by the Bell‘s Dustin Diamond and a triple threat match against Diamond and Todd Bridges from Diff’rent Strokes. According to Bonaduce on subsequent installments of his radio show, there were at one point plans to turn Celebrity Championship Wrestling into a touring show, but that never materialized.

The very next year, 2009, Bonaduce made his return to wrestling for a somewhat major promotion, as he wrestled Eric Young in the pre-show match of that year’s TNA Lockdown pay per view. Much like the match with Christopher Knight fifteen years earlier, the match was booked because Lockdown was emanating from Philadelphia, where Bonaduce’s radio career was based at that point. And, yes, Young versus Bonaduce was in a steel cage. EY won the match when he avoided a nunchaku shot and caught Bonaduce in a small package. After the bell, Bonaduce recaptured his nunchaku ad began choking Young, only for Rhino to make the save and gore Bonaduce back to the 1970s.

In September 2009, Bonaduce was announced as facing independent wrestler Nick Berk for Pro Wrestling Unplugged, a promotion that had backing of former ECW executive Tod Gordon. However, it was later claimed that the match was never booked and only ever announced due to a “miscommunication.” Al Snow took Bonduce’s place against Berk.

According to the October 5, 2009 Observer, Danny was offered a job as talent on the Hulkamania tour of wrestling events that Hulk Hogan promoted in Australia during November of that year. However, Bonaduce reportedly turned down the spot, citing low pay. Ultimately, that tour was headlined by a series of Ric Flair/Hulk Hogan matches, with no involvement from any celebrities from outside of wrestling.

Finally, according to a post on The Fan Website of Danny Bonaduce, which incredibly was updated as recently as August of this year, Bonaduce had a (worked) altercation with Tommy Dreamer on the November 2009 edition of Bonaduce’s radio show, with Dreamer hitting the host over the head with a guitar to help promote upcoming WWE Smackdown and ECW tapings in Philadelphia.

And, to my knowledge, that ends the run of Danny Bonaduce in professional wrestling. Maybe we’ll see him again if AEW gets really desperate to bring in that over-50 demographic that has eluded them for so long.

M.N.M.N.B. is counting his lucky stars:

In New Japan Pro Wrestling, why does the ring announcer do the 20 count in English?

Pro wrestling was essentially imported from the United States to Japan during the U.S. occupation of the country following World War II. As a result, when the first Japanese wrestlers were taught the business, they were taught certain parts of it in English, and tradition has dictated that some of those items remain in English today. It’s not just the count, either. If you watch a Japanese match with the Japanese commentary on, several of the moves get called in English as well. You don’t hear the term “dropkick” translated into Japanese . . . they just call it a dropkick. This is one of the reasons why, when English-speaking wrestlers who have worked against Japanese opponents have been asked if the language barrier presents any difficulties, they typically say it does not. If the wrestlers are calling it in the ring, the names of most common spots are going to be communicated in English, even when it’s two Japanese wrestlers facing each other.

Tyler from Winnipeg wants you to smash that subscribe button and hit the notification bell:

This is about TV ratings. YouTube views can have 10 million for a match and even the largest Nielson ratings don’t compare with YouTube eyeballs. Shouldn’t YouTube views be the main focus when determining what is drawing?

No. TV ratings remain far more important than YouTube for any U.S. wrestling promotion of significance, because the main revenue stream for those promotions – and definitely WWE and AEW – are the fees that networks pay for those television shows. Thus the primary goal of the promotions should be keeping the networks happy, and what keeps the networks happy will be what compels people to tune in to television shows, not what compels people to go online and watch YouTube content.

Chris asks his questions five minutes before the other questioners do:

Why was Jim Crockett able to exert so much control over the NWA usage? Of all the territories that had TV presence in the mid 80s,why was JCP able to control all the major titles and identify?

Even though a lot of NWA territories during this era had some degree of television exposure, Jim Crockett Promotions is the only one that had truly NATIONAL television exposure, thanks to their positioning on WTCG, Ted Turner’s Atlanta television station that would eventually become TBS. WTCG was available on cable and satellite as early as 1976, and it was much more readily available when cable exploded in the early and mid-1980s. There were just more eyeballs on JCP than any other promotion, which made them the most significant member of the NWA by a longshot.

Jinder Nakamura is globe trotting:

Should a title really be considered a “world” title if it’s defended all around the world, but only against the same people?

IMO, if a champ is defending the title against the same people every week, it doesn’t matter which country they’re in. IMO, to be considered a world title, it should have to be defended against competitors local to the area.

Having said that, I know wrestling companies can do whatever they want, so I don’t expect any of them to change how they handle their world titles (or god-awful blue titles), but what do you think? What are your requirements for a title to be considered a true world title?

This isn’t just an issue in professional wrestling. It’s an issue in many sports, particularly those that have leagues based on the United States. Major League Baseball’s set of championship games is referred to as the “World Series,” despite there being only one team in the league based outside of the States, and the National Basketball Association and there are “world” boxing championships that do not leave the U.S. or North America much if at all.

As far as my own requirements for a “world” title . . . I stopped caring years ago. It’s all fake, and, as you’ve noted, wrestling companies can do whatever they want with their titles.

If you wanted to come up with criteria for a world title that made sense given the current state of professional wrestling, my suggestion would be that a world title is a world title that is recognized in multiple countries, regardless of where it is defended or who it is defended against. For example, the WWE Championship would be a “world title” because, even though it spends the vast majority of its time residing in the United States and is primarily defended against competitors signed to a U.S.-based company, WWE and its primary championship are viewed by individuals in 180 countries, per the promotion’s own corporate website. Thus, it has the exposure that you would expect for a world championship.

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]. 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.