It’s a new dawn for Pulse Wrestling Answers. Instead of just doing one large installment every week, we’re going to do several smaller updates on a more regular basis. This shall makes things far more prompt and tickle Widro a gayer shade of pink. The address is the same, so send in your wrestling queries and we’ll get right onto them.
“Hey, Iain, remember Xanta Claus?”
– Mr_Stay_Puft
Thankfully, no, I don’t. I know of him but was fortunate enough to never seen him. Now you’ve gone and dragged his name into this column so I’m going to have to track down a sodding video clip. Thanks a bunch. Stupid f*cking marshmallow.
Xanta Claus was of course better known to his mother as Jonathan Rechner, yet better known to the world at large as Balls Mahoney. Unless he has a particularly smart relationship with his mother, who knows? After competing as Boo Bradley in SMW, he debuted as Xanta Claus at In Your House 5 in December ’95. The story was that Savio Vega and Santa Claus were in the ring handing out gifts to the crowd, then Ted Dibiase appeared to remind us that everybody had a price as Santa’s evil brother, Xanta, jumped them from behind. Shockingly, nobody gave a shit. The character was dropped in January, with whatever booker was responsible for Xanta no doubt as mystified by this decision as Homer Simpson was when pumpkin sales fell after Halloween. Two years later ECW brought out their Balls. Xanta, meanwhile, had hooked up with the Gobbledygooker and moved into a condo previously owned by the Fleaster Bunny.
Here he is taking on a not-yet-too-hot Scott Taylor from WWF Superstars on the 23rd December 1995.
Not sure why they’d make the connection between an arctic type and the Camel Clutch but somehow it works.
“Iain,
What is the TRUE history of the WWF/E Light Heavyweight Championship, how many “junior” heavyweight titles has WWF/E had in its history, and… should WWE bring back X-Pac and his (now defunct) belt to have that Waltman/Hornswaggle Light Heavyweight/Cruiserweight title unification bout we’ve all been hoping for?
Thanks.”
– Matthew Michaels
By this point I think it’s safer if we just all agree that wrestling title lineages, much like DC Comics continuity, is an all-encompassing beast that will never fit into any set structure.
In any event, the WWF Light Heavyweight Title began as part of a working agreement with the Universal Wrestling Association. It’s a Mexican promotion but the finals of the inaugural tournament were held in Shimizu, Japan, with Perro Aguayo defeating Gran Hamada to become the first champion on the 26th March 1981. The WWF allowed the UWA to use their name for the belt but they paid no attention to it and made no on-screen references to it either. The Great Sasuke won the title on the 24th March 1996 and proceeded to defend it in Japan in his Michonoku Pro Wrestling promotion and New Japan. Still, nobody in the WWF batted an eyelid. When Sasuke began his second reign on the 4th August 1996 it was as part of the J-Crown Tournament. He defeated El Samurai in the semi-final to win the WWF title, then Ultimo Dragon in the final to win the whole thing. The J-Crown was NJPW’s attempt to unify eight various titles into one prize and the WWF title was defended as part of this for a little over a year. Reigning J-Crown holder Shinjiro Ohtani was forced to vacate the WWF Light Heavyweight Title on the 5th November 1997 however, as the WWF brought their title back home to the USA. In truth, they had forgotten all about it but remembered just in time as they prepared to launch a Light Heavyweight division aimed at matching what WCW was doing with the likes of Misterio Jr, Malenko, Guerrera et al. This brought the J Crown to an end, though many of the MPW guys came over to work in the WWF’s tournament to crown their ‘first’ champion. One of them was Taka Michinoku, who won the tournament and the title on the 7th December 1997. The WWF’s attempt to take the division seriously did not last long, to nobody’s surprise, although the Scotty 2 Hotty vs Dean Malenko match at Backlash 2000 is an overlooked classic. During the Invasion, the WCW Cruiserweight Title began to be defended in the WWF as well but it was never unified with the Light Heavyweight Title. However, they kept the Cruiserweight Title around and simply renamed it as a WWE belt. The last reigning WWF Light Heavyweight Champion was X-Pac, who won it back from Tajiri at SummerSlam 2001 and then went home injured whilst all the various unification matches were happening. He made a couple of defences at house shows before his return in early 2002 but when he was back on TV he no longer had the belt and nobody mentioned it.
There was a WWF Junior Heavyweight Title as well, which was again part of a working agreement with New Japan. Johnny De Fazio was the inaugural champion in 1967, holding it on and off until his retirement in 1972. It was vacated on quite a few other occasions as well – in 1981, when reigning champion Tatsumi Fujinami moved into the Heavyweight Division, in 1983, when reigning champion Tiger Mask was injured and on the 31st October 1985 when the WWF and NJPW went their separate ways. The last person to hold it was The Cobra and he was then defeated by Shiro Koshinaka on the 6th February 1986 in a tournament final to win what was thereafter called the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title.
Also, who could forget the prestigious WWF World Martial Arts Heavyweight Title? This one wasn’t for juniours but for shootfighters. Yes, really. Vince McMahon Sr invented the belt and awarded it to Antonio Inoki on he 18th December 1978 as part of a working agreement with New Japan. Thankfully they have now grown out of their intense curiousity about Japanese wrestling. As noted, the WWF and NJPW split in 1985 but the belt lived on long enough for Inoki to give himself a second reign in 1989. It was abandoned outright after that, although the actual title belt was resurrected to represent the short-lived Greatest 18 Championship that NJPW used in 1990-2.
All of the above makes my head hurt. Rather difficult to imagine WWE making a title and then just fobbing it off to another promotion nowadays.
And, yes, the world does have a use for Waltman/Hornswoggle… but only if Chyna is involved… and everybody’s naked and lathered… and there’s this horse… and a cowbell.
More cowbell!
If you have a question you’d like to pester us with, send it here. Look out for another update in a few days!
