Ask 411 February 21 2003
– Man is that a boring title now or what?
– What with the nightclub tragedy in Rhode Island, I guess it’s only fitting that we have some Great White as the soundtrack for this outing into the feedbag. I imagine that’ll be the last time Great White ever plays, too. I mean, geez, if you thought the Rolling Stones got grief over Altamont, wait until the lawsuits start flying here. How stupid was it to ignite pyro in a NIGHTCLUB? I’m a fan, but man, someone’s gonna be paying millions in damages because of this and I bet Jack Russell will be foremost.
– So anyway, this is once again an attempt on my part to stall for time before actually sitting down and starting the next book. It’s inevitable that I start typing this weekend, but how long I can hold off doing so is another matter entirely. After playing as much Sly Cooper as I could squeeze into an afternoon, I figure that cleaning out the Feedbag box could waste another couple of quality hours before starting.
“I just ordered the book from Buy.com. Really looking forward to reading loved the other one. One question. What do you think is the most likely situation.
- That an established star that seems to be held back will break out this year and rescue the WWE from this creative slump i.e. Booker, Jericho, RVD, the list goes on.
- That a returning star will rekindle a long-term ratings increase i.e. Austin, Goldberg the rumors go on.
- One of Vince’s pet projects will break through and actually truly get over with the crowd sparking an upturn for the WWE.
- Lastly, The WWE will continue it’s downward spiral until the fans pick the next thing to put the spark back in the WWE.”
I’m gonna go with #3. I think if Vince pushes Brock & Team Angle hard enough, they’ll eventually bring the fans with them. Plus once you get mat wrestling over, there’s a MILLION more things you can do to pop the fans and keep it interesting, since amateur wrestling has a whole history and psychology to it that you can teach the fanbase and work into matches as well. At the very least, I think that Brock can spark something as long as they don’t give up on him.
“Could you see ex-OVW guys like Cena main-eventing a
Wrestlemania down the road? Why is it that every time there’s a cool
ground-breaking tag team, you can always tell they’ve
become watered down once they start wearing shirts
with their own team on it? I can think of the
Headbangers, the Hardy Boyz, the New Age Outlaws, and
the Dudley’s as all fitting that category. Does Vince
insist that his guys wear shirts that can be
merchandised? This would explain why the Bangers lost
their Manson type shirts and the Outlaws switched from
their original South Park-inspired shirts.”
Well, as for the first question, Brock Lesnar is main-eventing this year’s show, so I’d guess that he counts.
And I can honestly say I’ve never considered the t-shirt theory of diluting tag teams, mainly because the Rock N Roll Express and Horsemen both wore their own shirts during their peak periods. As did the Rockers, I believe. Perhaps it’s a more recent phenomenon worthy of government-funded study, so if there’s any federal employees out there who want to give me a $25,000 grant to look into it, I’ll get back to you in a few years.
“I f*cking loved the book! Your witty and easy flowing writing style kept me up till 4:00 AM for two days. The sections on the Invasion and Vince Russo were gold and had me laughing out loud. Everything you wrote about was straight telling it like it is, no bullshit. I’m happy to hear that it is selling well, and I hope that it sells a ton . . . you have a serious gift man.
You mention the deterioration of Jeff Hardy, it seems like a known fact that he is on drugs, what kind and why? Do you see him becoming another victim of the business, and is he really gay? Or is that just a running gag, and if so where did he get the stigma from?
Funny how he was such a hot prospect, and now sucks ass. I think he could use a heel turn and get rid of the heroin addict attire and image he has. “
See, glowing praise for the book is pretty much a guaranteed way to get printed in the feedbags.
Anyway, Jeff Hardy is known to use large amounts of painkillers, much like every other bumptaking maniac in the business. The guesses at harder drugs are just speculation because his behavior and deteriorating physique match the same patterns as other drug users. The gay thing is just a running gag because he happens to dress and behave in ways that evoke gay stereotypes (ie, the hankie jokes) and is a pretty boy wrestler, which is a genre that generally appeals as much to gay males as teen girls.
Way to suck the fun out of that joke, though, thanks man.
“Do you think there is anyone in Japan who gould fit in the WWE today? If
at some point Angle and Haas/Benjamin dump Paul E., how about him bringing in
some “evil foreigners” to battle team angle? The three that come to my head
that could get over (especially with Paul E as a mouthpiece) are Tenzan (he’s
either a new face, or may be remembered for wrestling the deciding match in
the Starrcade tournament, or he who wrestled on the first Thunder) Kojima
(bring them in as TenKoji, he hasn’t been damaged in the US either) and
Masato Tanaka (ex-ECW champ). I think guys like Muto and Chono may be a
little to old to redebut in the States, and its too bad Yuji Nagata was so
buried in WCW…I’d love to see Nagata vs Angle or Benoit. Your thoughts?”
As I’ve noted a few times now, Satoshi Kojima, given a manager or an English dictionary, could adjust to US style so fast that he’d be a star (given the right push) within months of debuting. He has the look, moveset and personality to pull it off. He’s exactly the kind of guy that the WWE should be looking at in terms of new talent to bring in and still be able to work with the established guys. I think Tanaka would be WAY too small for the WWE — he was short compared to Mike Awesome, and Awesome in turn looked short outside of ECW — but I think Muto could get over on a nostalgia kick, because he always got the short-term pop in WCW whenever they brought him back.
“I have read your past rants, and I have a question about the 1994 wcw bash at the beach.
“while this show did a decent 1.0 buy rate, the next show did a laughable 0.5 buy rate without Hogan, showing that he had very little effect on the promotion as a whole.”
I don’t know much about ratings but it seems that when the wcw had Hogan on the bash at the beach the company brought in twice the amount of viewers in that show than they did with out Hogan in the show right after. From that statement it seems that Hogan had more effect than you are trying to convey. but maybe not. My question is why would Hogan have little effect on the promotion if when he was on the show more people ordered the pay per views and less people ordered the shows when wcw doesn’t advertise him?”
My point there was that Hogan’s effect was like a last place team signing a big star player and expecting him to carry them to the top by himself — no matter what the huge amount of viewership for Hogan was, there just wasn’t any way to translate that star power into additional star power for the OTHER wrestlers. Hogan basically paid for his own contract with the initial BATB buyrate, but the goal of spending all that money on him was to give the rub to WCW as a whole and thus allow them to draw buyrates on their own just by being associated with Hogan. Well, that didn’t happen, and the company wasn’t able to sustain any kind of momentum without Hogan until Savage & Flair got people interested nearly two years later. If Hogan had come in and done business with someone like Flair or Vader — that is, put them over and made them out to be a big threat to him — then they could have created new stars instead of everyone looking like second-rate next to Hogan.
“THE BOOK KICKS ASS! Why was steamboat held down in the WWF? Do you think he could have been as big as Hogan with the right booking?”
Steamboat wasn’t really held back as much as he was screwed over by Vince in 1987. The market wasn’t really right for someone like Steamboat to be a main guy in the Hogan era (outside of the NWA, of course), but nonetheless Hogan was still pissed at him for upstaging him at Wrestlemania III with the Savage match. To make Steamboat’s life worse, he asked Vince for six weeks off to help his wife with the baby, and got six MONTHS off, unpaid, instead. So basically Rick didn’t make any friends in high places at that point. Could he have been bigger? Maybe — the Shawn/Bret era was coming to fruition in the early 90s and the steroid freaks were going the way of the dinosaur thanks to Vince’s trial, so who’s to say? I don’t think he was really happy there, though.
” I hadn’t been able to watch a whole lot of wrestling over the past two years and am wondering why the WWE is split between SmackDown! and Raw? Also, how did it eventuate? Finally, what happened to the Intercontinental belt? Why was it scrapped?”
The split is based on the theory that the WWE can’t survive in a monopoly and they need to create their own competition for their own long-term health. This theory is something that I, and many others, agree with. However, communism works in theory, too. The problem has been that no one is actually committed to seriously making the split a reality. The way it started is that Linda McMahon came onto a RAW after Wrestlemania X-8 and basically announced they were splitting and a draft would be held the next week. No real explanation was ever given outside of that and vague mentions that Ric Flair and Vince McMahon couldn’t get along. I’ll be covering all this in insane amounts of detail in the next book, which I’m avoiding starting work on by writing this column. Ironic, no?
Anyway, as for the second question, the demise of the I-C title was a rather interesting power play by HHH. He was going to be moved down to #2 heel on RAW (under World champion Brock Lesnar) and put into a feud with RVD over the I-C title, but AMAZINGLY he pitched the idea of splitting up the title again and making himself into RAW’s version of the World champion. What a classy and selfless guy he is. Then, in order to make sure that no one (ie, RVD) was able to usurp his position and Lord and Master of the Belt and thus confuse the poor common folk who might exercise free thought and consider his “World title” to be a joke, he pitched the idea of getting rid of the I-C title and thus having one singles belt only. And of course the best way to do that is to put it on his challenger for that month (Kane) and then go over him to unify the titles. If only he’d use his powers for good and not just evil and hair care.
“What was the storyline between Chris Benoit and the Taskmaster Kevin Sullivan during their hellacious feuds? Also, sometime in 97 i guess, Bischoff came out on PPV and called out Vince McMahon. They had all these Vinnie Mac-cams set up throughout the MGM Casino, looking to get a glimpse of Vince walking in the casino. Bischoff declared winning by forfeit. How did Vince take this, and did he ever intend to wrestle Bisch?”
See, questions like these are why I keep trying to get that WCW book sold, because it’s hard to do them justice in a few sentences.
Okay, first question: What was up with Benoit & Sullivan? That is actually the root of one of the funniest running jokes in wrestling, at Sullivan’s expense, and the precursor to the death of the entire promotion. For those who don’t know, Kevin Sullivan was one of the primary bookers at that point in 1996, and he was married to Nancy Daus (Woman). Kevin was one of the biggest supporters of getting Benoit into a higher position on the card, so he came up with a storyline that was written for both marks and smarts (an early example of his tendancy to do that sort of thing, along with the Bookerman angle): Benoit would begin putting the moves on Nancy (who was managing Flair at that point if memory serves), at which point the announcers would freak out and be like “Oh my god, that’s Kevin Sullivan’s real wife!”, thus blurring the line between shoot and work and thus selling millions of tickets. Of course, no one cared, but that’s another rant. Anyway, in order to really f*ck with the minds of “insiders”, Kevin instructed Nancy to start spending time with Benoit outside of the arenas, as a way of both reinforcing kayfabe and shattering it — See, fans leaving the arena would think they really were together, and fans reading the WON would also think that they were an item in real life and jump to the appropriate conclusions. Ho ho, those stupid smarts, thinking such a thing. Funny thing — They really DID become an item and Nancy filed for divorce and started banging Benoit, for real. Now Kevin was REALLY pissed off, because it was a no-win situation for him — not only does he lose his wife, but it’s clearly his own fault for letting her spend time with a strapping Canadian Mack Daddy like Benoit to begin with. Plus, he didn’t let the rest of the dressing room in on his work (he was trying to “work the boys” with this stuff as well as the fans), so what’s he gonna do, talk about how it’s all a work gone wrong? “Oh, yeah, Kevin, SURE you booked your own divorce on purpose.” So now all he can do is maliciously book himself in endless matches with Benoit and hope to keep him from advancing anywhere that way. And of course Benoit figured out that he’d get a raw deal from then on with Sullivan, so when Kevin got the book back in January 2000 after Vince Russo departed, Benoit decided to head to the WWF instead, where at least he wouldn’t have to worry about conspiracies in the writing team against him. And with the midcard decimated, WCW fell apart completely and died soon after. Thus, whenever someone breaks up on TV and then breaks up in real life, they’re said to be following the precedent set by Kevin Sullivan.
As for the second question, that’s even STRANGER. In 1998, desperate to stop the WWF’s ratings momentum, Bischoff threw out a grandstand challenge to Vince McMahon for a match between them to “settle things”. The intention was never to actually get Vince there to wrestle him, it was just a buyrate ploy. However, that’s not the weird part, this is — The WWF sent a letter to Turner’s lawyers, stating that Vince McMahon would absolutely NOT be attending the Slamboree PPV, and to please stop using his name on TV in an attempt to fool fans into thinking that he might be there. Bischoff read that letter on TV, word for word, as a way of showing what a wuss Vince was for ducking him. However, the WWF’s legal department then SUED WCW for reading that letter, because wrestling fans are trained to think that if you announce someone isn’t going to be there, then they actually ARE going to be there, so by reading an official letter from the WWF stating that Vince wasn’t going to attend, they were actually making an indirect claim that Vince McMahon WAS going to be attending. At least in the minds of wrestling fans. I could drop acid while watching Dexter’s Lab and not think up stuff this weird in my dreams. This mess was eventually settled out of court in the same settlement as the Razor/Diesel lawsuit.
“A friend was asking me about Curt Hennig the other day, after we saw the
video tribute to him on RAW. I filled him in as best as I could, but I
was a little cloudy on a couple of things:
- Were those hilarious “Perfect” sports vignettes run prior to his
arrival, or as he was making his way up the WWF ladder? - How long into his WWF run was Mr. Perfect before he suffered his first
defeat? - And how close was Hennig to ever being considered for a run with the
WWF title?”
1. A bit of both. He debuted as plain Curt Hennig against Terry Taylor at Wrestlefest ’88, and then did mainly house shows and dark matches while they started running the “Mr. Perfect” vignettes to repackage him.
2. He debuted in May 88 and didn’t suffer a pinfall loss until Hulk Hogan beat him cleanly with the usual in January 1990.
3. He was never in serious consideration that I know of. I’ve heard stories about Vince wanting to transition the title from Hogan to him to Warrior in 1990 instead of rolling the dice with the Hogan-Warrior match, but nothing serious. I think he was also on the short-list of people in line to get the title from Flair on the night in Saskatchewan in 1992 when Vince decided that he wanted a new champion (which ended up being Bret). Other than that, he was never close.
“what is the plan with austin post-wrestlemania..a feud with hunter for the belt? i personally think he should fight goldberg at mania then build to a face vs face for the belt at summerslam vs booker t”
I doubt they’ve even thought about it at this point. The logical feud would be with Goldberg, but current rumors have Austin ending up on Smackdown, and I can see Vince using him to put over guys like Lesnar and Benoit in order to get his revenge for Austin walking out.
“Oh yeah, you remember when Kronic came to the WWF, and they had a really really horrible match against Undertaker and Kane, and after that they were fired, even though they were Undertaker’s friends backstage? Uh, why didn’t that happen to Scott Steiner? Who’s he friends with?”
Dr. George Zahorian, from the looks of it.
The difference is that Kronic were brought in as a favor to Undertaker, on Undertaker’s word. Steiner has been courted by the WWE literally since the day WCW died, and it was only medical clearance that has prevented him from coming in before now.
“what is the no holds barred ppv you mentioned before? i’ve been searching the web for anything that i could read up on it, but no luck can you help me out on it. Also, I live near nashville and have been to every house show ppv since 1992, but only once (*Starrcade 1995) was I able to get front row ringside…..smackdown is coming april 22, and i had to ask….whats the best way to get the best tickets….call box office, sound shop internet? i would really like to know or i’m camping out.”
The No Holds Barred PPV was another brilliant Vince McMahon innovation, whereby he would show the No Holds Barred movie starring Hulk Hogan and Zeus on PPV, and as an added bonus, include an actual MATCH with Hogan/Beefcake v. Zeus/Savage. That classic can be found on the very first “Supertape” issued by Coliseum Video. It was about -**1/2 for those keeping track.
As for the second question, I just get tickets to TV tapings through WWE PR people these days, but I’d imagine the internet is the best way to get good seats. Personally the novelty of sitting ringside wore out a while ago for me and I just like having a good view, but if you’re determined to get the absolute best, then you might have to camp out.
“Hi, I was at www.thq.com and they are offering a survey that allows gamers to put their input as to what the next wrestling games should be about. Could yo please post this on the site so that hardcore wrestling/videogame fans can let them know that we want games like No Mercy instead of crap like WMX8. www.thq.com/fanfeedback/wwe/
That is the site, check it out, it is a good opportunity to let THQ know what wrestling gamers want, thanks.”
Done.
“What a smark or smart mark? I don’t understand.”
A smart mark is someone who knows the star rating of everything and the value of nothing. Ho, Oscar Wilde humor, it’s almost like actual literature around here today.
Anyway, a mark is someone who spends money on the product and thinks it’s real. A smart mark (or smark for short) would be someone who spends money on the product but knows it’s fake.
“Hey.. I’ve been reading your reviews for years now… and I’ve always loved them. I was reading some of the 91-92 wwf reviews earlier today… and a thought struck me. With Flair in a main event push, and some *great* heels (like Jake…) was there ever any thought of doing an incarnation of the Horsemen during Flair’s first wwf stint? I had always fantasized about how potentially great that could have been… watching the horsemen battle Hogan and Savage in 1992…… Was this ever discussed or proposed by anyone? “
Nope — in fact the WWF went to ludicrous extremes to make sure NO ONE mentioned the Horsemen in any form. When Tully & Arn were in the WWF in 1989, they would regularly confiscate TONS of Horsemen signs at TV tapings, and cut away from any fans who flashed the four fingers. That was just how things were back then.
“I’m writing to ask you about the Chris Benoit and Booker T best of 7 series
that happened in WCW. I didn’t watch much of WCW during that time so I have a
few questions about it. First, how did it take place? Was it all on one
event, or was it spread out over different Nitro’s, or different PPV’s? Also,
was it for any belt’s, and was the belt up for grabs in each match, or did
whoever win the entire series get the belt. ALSO, were they all just regular
one on one matches, or were there any gimmick matches thrown in? “
It was spaced out over three Nitros and three Thunders, and then the final match was on PPV. The deal was essentially that they were fighting over #1 contendership to the TV title, and in fact Booker won the series 4-3 and then went on to beat Fit Finlay for the belt later in the evening. They were all straight one-on-one wrestling matches, no gimmicks.
“I’ve got a couple questions for you: Firstly, what is
meant by the term “catch-as-catch can”?
Secondly, what was the deal with This Tuesday In Texas
in November 91? It was held less than a week after
Survivor Series, and this was way back in the day when
the WWF had only 4 PPV’s a year, and was still almost 5
years away from making it a monthly thing. Also, the
whole thing seemed kind of thrown together at the last
minute, as no promotion was done on the event until
after Survivor Series. Was this just because the WWF
thought it would hurt the Survivor Series buyrate if
they announced TTIT beforehand, or were they just
flying by the seats of their pants on this one?”
“Catch as catch can” is a very old term that basically refers to the style of amateur wrestling where “anything goes” in terms of moves and holds used. In collegiate wrestling or other forms of martial arts like jiu jitsu, you can’t do certain things due to the restrictions imposed by the rules. In the 1800s, wrestling exhibitions tended to be under Greco-Roman rules. Catch as Catch Can evolved into what became American professional wrestling in the 1900s. If you go to a website like ask.com and search for the term, you can find all sorts of resources on the differences between the amateur wrestling styles.
The deal with Tuesday in Texas is that Vince wanted to try something like NWA-TNA years before Jerry Jarrett thought of it. He was going to start running weekly PPVs in 1991 if TTIT had been a success, but it flopped and the idea was never pitched again. The show, while not advertised, had been planned months in advance and was listed in all major cable and satellite previews as “WWF TBA” or words to that effect. It was just an experiment to see if they could do a screwjob and then get fans to pay another $15 to see Hogan get his revenge a few days later.
“Anyway, I watched both NWA and WWF in the 86-90 range, but only really remember WWF stuff. Can you clear up for me who the Midnight Express, Midnight Rockers, and Rock N Roll Express were, who was heel, who was face, and where Cornette fit in managing? You talking mostly about his managing the Midnight Express, but I remember somebody talking about him being able to rile up the crowd by slapping his tennis raquette to a beat to get them to chant “Rock and Roll”. Thanks.”
He managed the Midnight Express exclusively — the Rock N Roll Express were the quintessential pretty boy babyface team and the Midnight Express were their long-running evil nemesis. The Midnight Rockers were a totally different team — Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty — and they just picked that name to cause confusion with the RNR and the MX. And I guess it worked.
Cornette slapping his tennis racket is part of the general technique of old-school heel managers — their job is to get the fans riled up, whether it’s booing his team or cheering the other team. You have to think outside the box and realize that wrestling is fake and everyone’s job is for the greater good, so when Cornette goes “bang-bang-BANG” with the racket on the mat, he’s helping HIS team in the storyline while actually trying to encourage the fans to cheer the opposition in reality.
“I’ve noticed that you seem to call a move known as “The Mehshugganator” during Albert/A-Train matches a lot. What exactly is this move you’re referring to?”
The Baldobomb / Trainwreck / whatever goofy name it has this week. His two-handed choke into a powerbomb. Paul Heyman, outspoken Jew, used to call it the Mehshugganator during his stint as color guy on RAW as a sort of mangled Yiddish.
And on that note, we’ll stop the kvetching and wrap this one up for another week. Until next time, BUY THE BOOK!
