Pulse Wrestling Answers #043

Features, Q&A

“I love your answer but u all are missing out on the best hip shaker/gyrator in the business. This MAN yes MAN is

Mr.Niebla

in AAA down in Mexico. The man has a a gut like MVP when he first was in the WWE and everytime he moves it looks like he has dislocated his hips. Ask the boys who watch AAA and ask them about him.

He does not do this for the ladies either– I have seen him do it guys,midgets, and the best was when he did it from the top rope.

IF u want to see some decent wrestling you should watch AAA. High Flying,tons of fat out of shape(X pac),and some terrible storylines. But good wrestling– you think watching small Petey Williams do a filp piledriver is sick. Watch a guy name Dark Ozz who is about 6’0 225 do it!!!

But MR NIEBLA best gyration!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
– TJ

This is one of the most brilliant e-mails I’ve received since starting this column. Such enthusiasm for hip wriggling is a joy to behold. Sure, it’s not quite as enthralling as James McFadden’s thunderous strike through the heart of France but, hey, nothing is. I gather that there is a Mr Niebla MySpace up here but it seems to belong to some music producer. Unfortunately, it’s one of those garish ones that I can’t spend longer than ten seconds looking at without needing to go stare at a grey wall and recover for an hour. From what I seen it included the lyrics to “Sympathy for the Devil” and Johnny Cash giving the finger but no hip gyrations. There’s surely a sketch show somewhere that could use a segment with a masked wrestler running into random locations and wiggling his hips at people. AA meetings. Dog sanctuaries. Ann Summers parties. James McFadden’s welcome home party. Class.

Anyway, here’s some Dark Ozz action. There is no flip piledriver but ample alternative flipping, so behave:

The five-man neckbreaker at the six-minute mark simply must be ripped-off in a future Money in the Bank match. I’m sure his flip piledriver is rather impressive too but can it hold a candle to the 6’4, 240 lbs, infinitely fatter and substantially more ginger Trevor Murdoch do it?


“Hey burnside,
heres some questions I thought of about one of the
greatest wrestlers turned commentators (note irony)
ever. Taz(z). Three questions, a Tazz trifecta if you
will. Almost all have to do w/ECW’s Rise/Fall DVD.
1. Did Tazz and Sabu really hate each other? The DVD
was pretty much the guys telling what was real, but
was Tazz talking in kayfabed storyline saying that
they couldn’t stand each other, or was it real like
say Benoit & Sullivan?
2. When Tazz got that neck injury him & Dreamer walked
to the hospital. Now when Austin got hurt he could
hardly move when the match was over. Was Tazz’s injury
just not as severe as Austin’s, or is Mr.
“Rocketbuster” “I love Melina’s scream” just tougher
than the “Toughest S.O.B.”?
3. Simple, what is with “13”? I’ve always wondered
since he debuted @ Rumble 00, what did the 13 on all
his clothes and his video mean? The only guess I have
is after watching the DVD I saw the promo he cut for
Barely Legal telling Sabu, “See you on the 13th”. Was
it that simple? Was my guess right?
Thanks.”

– Mike Long

1. There was some definite heat between Sabu and pretty much everybody else in ECW when he no-showed a planned three-way dance for the tag titles in 1995, preferring to compete in a previously arranged FMW card instead. He said the ECW date would have gotten him $1,000 but the Japanese promotion would pay him $6,000 instead, which made it an easy choice. Of course, he never gave Heyman or Taz a straight answer and they weren’t certain he wouldn’t come until the match actually happened. He was also rather unhappy about working in a tag team rather than in singles, which led to some mutual resentment between him and Taz. They worked a lot of matches with Public Enemy and Sabu was not a fan of them either, so there was a lot of negativity around that time. Heyman firing him as part of the show wouldn’t have made Sabu happy either, though at the time it was a nifty move for a promoter to be so open with the fans about someone leaving the promotion. Sabu then had a brief stint in WCW, which was never likely to endear him to anybody in ECW at that time. Additionally, Sabu has said in his shoot interview that when he first started working with Taz he wanted the program changed because they were both ‘wild man’ characters and so their styles didn’t mesh. Fair point, that one. He was also upset that Taz either wouldn’t or couldn’t let Sabu get in a bunch of spots that he wanted to fit into their matches. Heyman was able to take all of this and mesh it into a substantial feud between Sabu and the revamped Taz, who by that point was billed as a shooter rather than a furry-booted nutter. Again, it was said that Sabu was reluctant about working with Taz again and that many of the comments Taz made about him on-air during the lengthy build to their eventual matches were unscripted and uncalled for. The two of them hardly seem to be bitter enemies nowadays and respect one another, yet in the ’90s they had a mutual competitive streak that spurred them on and led to some furious clashes. Taz even knocked him out in the early goings of their Barely Legal match.

2. Taz has been very honest about his neck injury. In his own words, “I f*cked up”. He was teaming with Eddie Guerrero against Dean Malenko and 2 Cold Scorpio and though Scorpio was going to powerbomb him, yet it turned out to be a spike piledriver. Having set his body a certain way for the powerbomb he realised only too late that they were going for a different move, with that second of hesitation proving a lethal difference maker. After he hit the mat, he couldn’t move. It turned out that he had hairline fractures on his spine, had popped some ligaments and had herniated a disc as well. The herniated disc was probably what led to his recovery period being a bit longer than what Steve Austin took. Well, that and the fact that Austin was being prepared to make millions of dollars all over the world. As documented on the aforementioned DVD, Tommy Dreamer took him to the hospital and the staff were shocked that Taz was even able to move at all given how shattered his spine was. Taz also said that he knew right away after Austin took the Owen Driver at SummerSlam ’97 that Austin had suffered the same injury, due to the similar ways they landed and how shot their legs were afterwards. The really cruel part of it all? Taz had only just returned from his honeymoon the week before he was injured. Hardly an ideal way to start a marriage. Anyway, you can see it as Taz being legitimately harder than Austin, which was probably true regardless of how they reacted to injury, or you can see it as the WWF having rather more medical support than ECW ever did. If Austin had even wanted to just have his mate drive him to the hospital, Vince would have judo-chopped his neck to get him into an ambulance. And to give the devil his due, Heyman did continue to pay Taz all the time that he was injured. Perhaps this closeness stemmed from the unity they may have felt from the Sabu firing.

3. Some people think it was because it took him 13 years to reach the ‘big time’ of the WWF, yet he did use the 13 logo in ECW too. Some people think it was the number of fruit baskets we should all send to James McFadden’s house. Some people think it was a reference to the FTW 13 mark used by punk bands like The Misfits. Some people say it was simply part of the design in the old FTW clothing line, though that doesn’t explain why it was on there in the first place. Maybe it was just a way to indicate the bad luck of his opponents now they had to face him. Nowadays, it’s more likely to do with the number of pizzas he eats in one sitting.

Can’t stop talking about Taz without putting in the story of how he almost beat up Green Day. In his own words:

“Green Day almost got their f*cking asses kicked! Tommy Dreamer and I were sitting in the lobby, it was late, we were in Tampa. We were in a hotel, I forget what hotel. Days Inn, whatever. We used to room together Tommy and I and it was late, we couldn’t sleep or whatever, I forget, we were just hanging out in the lobby, it was quiet. We were just talking, sitting on the couch, just hanging out. And then the girl who was working behind the desk, this young girl about 16, she was stressing out about ‘all the f*cking wrestlers’, all this shit, when all of a sudden this van pulls up. Mini van, like a rent-a-van. These guys get out. Kids, you know? Dressed shitty, beer, cursing loud… and there was this older guy with them. I say to Tommy that one guy looks familiar, the singer… forget what his name is… I think he had green hair at the time or something, cool hair, I forget and… uh, that little f*cker, you know? And they go to the desk and they’re talking and they get to arguing with the girl, start cussing, ‘where’s our room?’, ‘do you know who the f*ck we are?’, blah, blah, blah. I say, ‘Tommy, who are these f*cking guys?’ Tommy’s like dead. Just Tommy, you know how he is, just bleuurrrrgh… Jim Morrison act, you know? So, me, if I see someone is getting aggressive, I’m like a dog, I get aggressive, I want to get involved, throw my two cents in. They just keep cursing at the girl. And the girl knew, she knew right away who they were. And they just diss her big time. I just got pissed. I just stood up and said ‘why don’t you watch your f*cking mouth?’ I’m cursing too, but I’m pissed! ‘Why don’t you watch your mouth, the girl said they don’t have rooms for you, maybe you’re in the wrong hotel?’ So the kid with the green hair? The little guy? He says to me ‘maybe you should mind your f*cking business’! I said ‘so maybe I should put my foot right up your f*cking ass!’ I got right into his face and he backed up. Then Tommy got up and we almost fought ’em. Then their manager was all ‘oh, I’m sorry guys’. We’re worried cos they have their own police there on the reservation, they’ll just lock you up for anything, so Tommy was like ‘chill out’. I think they might have came and just calmed things down. That was it. Pretty funny. Oh, wait, then I found out the next day, we were sitting and MTV news was on the TV. They were talking about Green Day and I’m sitting there going ‘that’s the f*cking guy!!’ Then I knew it was them. And I actually liked one of their songs! Pissed me off.”

Beautiful. Let us celebrate with some choice Taz:


”Hey Iain

Another one for you.

What on earth has happened to the IP Top 100, it seems to have stopped at 76 for a number of weeks. This is a good feature, get it going.

Cheers”
– Nick Howells

Indeed it is a good feature and those of you who have not been following it can catch up on #100-76 here before we move on to #75-51 next week. Without spoiling anything, I can exclusively reveal that the new Indiana Jones movie is called Indiana Jones and the KOCS and that yours truly does the write-ups for #74 and #69. Neither of them is James McFadden, although they both should be. He deserves two spots, possibly more. I mean, who else scored 19 goals from 34 games and won the Young Player of the Year Award even though their crummy club came bottom of the league and only avoided relegation by having a better stadium than the dump of the team that won the next division? Nobody, that’s who. No, not even Andre the Giant. So, yeah, the countdown is being run in quarters, so after the next twenty-five there will be a little break before we crack into the Top 50, and then again before the Top 25.

Don’t ask me, I just work here.


“”However, he continued to receive orders from Signature Pharmacy after this and right up to February this year. He was also given a pay cut in April after he caused some $30,000 damage to a hotel room on the European tour. He has also been given various fines for misdemeanours, most notably due to his attitude towards women backstage. Perhaps coincidentally, he is slated to headline the next PPV against John Cena.”

I think it would be hilarious if this is what it would take for Shelton to get a push. Or if all of the developmental guys copied Orton’s behavior and started hanging around backstage like Jay and Silent Bob and shitting in any and all gym bags laying around. All of that would make for good dirtsheet reading.”
– Homercutio

Taken from the news.

Like I said to young Mr Homercutio, this would be a great premise for a WWE Animated Series. Never mind cartoons about Hulk Hogan’s mates beating the bad guys with whacky counter-schemes or comic books about The Undertaker’s primordial essence conquering the mortal realm, this is the way forward. Carlito laces the catering truck with ayahuasca, so after a nice chilled glass of grapefruit juice Vince McMahon is next found infiltrating the spectral matter of his left small toenail whilst yodelling the Belgian national anthem to his beloved pet fruitfly. Jim Duggan gets tired of all these young whippersnappers and, spurred on by Indiana Jones and the KOCS, replaces his wood with a whip to have at the wooden packages of any young men found half-naked backstage. Santino Marella keeps crank-calling Pizza Hut to make deliveries to Jimmy Snuka’s house, except of course Snuka is so wasted that he thinks he really did order pizza, so he eats them all becomes so constipated that he ruptures his stomach lining and fecal matter enters his bloodstream and, some period of time later, he suffers the most convoluted suicide of all time. Maria decides to strike back on behalf of her sisters and follows Randy Orton from a safe vertical distance so that she can piss on him… only later does she find out that he really kinda likes it. Charlie Haas experiments with black face just as Shelton Benjamin experiments with bleach, which somehow leads to a duet of “The Girl Is Mine” at a karaoke bar, which Triple H squashes by getting up with Lemmy to perform a full-on metal version of “Flower of Scotland” instead. Umaga’s attempts to explore his family tree are constantly foiled by Val Venis wriggling his hips in a distracting manner, so he noshes him off just so he’ll rest for five minutes. Batista takes to walking around naked, wearing only a mangina on his dick. Gary starts spending more and more time on the toilet and further investigation reveals that he is actually completing MENSA-level sudoku puzzles in record time, which makes him ideally suited to having Matt Striker as a manager, so he and Big Daddy V swap names, costumes and spots without it being brought to anybody’s attention. Shannon Moore. Twat. James McFadden comes backstage for a visit and Vince McMahon falls down to his knees and thanks god that he’s a man, cos now he can nosh him off without it being gay somehow. Brett Major wears a name tag saying “Hello, my name is Brian Major”. Brian Major wears a name tag saying “Hello, my name is Brett Major”. They think they’re so very clever. Nobody notices the difference but it leads to their disgraced parents writing them out of the will and leaving their estate to the reddest red Lego brick of all time. Chuck Palumbo abandons his motorbike building projects and instead starts on Kinder Egg toys. Bob Holly comes back and hides anthrax in everybody’s anus, just for laughs. Ric Flair is forced to pretend to be a celibate monk in order to get out of his alimoney payments. Balls Mahoney has it slowly explained to him just what the joke about his name is, which leaves him rather affronted but he does change it to Twatfacefeniancunt Mahoney for the next TV taping, or at least on-screen he does. Paul London gets mistaken for Dave Grohl by a horny Nacho Libre and you can imagine the rest. Tazz gets wind of Snuka’s pizza folly and bursts into tears because he wants one too. JBL cradles him in his lap to console him with soothing words of comfort and sips of lemonade, then ditches him when Hornswoggle appears, since he’s even smaller and funnier and he can just shove him headfirst down his pants for storage. Jokes about how “He’s found mah Lucky Charms, Michael!!” are well-received by nervous men. Spurred on by James McFadden’s generous request for people to donate to Wishaw General’s neo-natal unit rather than send wedding gifts to him and his new bride, Cody Runnels sends out a memo requesting people donate to KFC on behalf of his father rather than purchasing the next PPV. The news makes Mark Henry sad because he likes chicken too. Even more unfortunately, JBL is still rubbing his pubic sweat all over the Irish fella, so poor Mark can’t get no comfort there either. Mark and Tazz try a little mutual coddling in a 69 position but it just isn’t the same. It just isn’t the same. Disheartened, Mark replaces everyone’s entrance theme with “Human Touch” by Bruce Springsteen whilst jacking it to pictures of the Gobbledygooker. Then the Iron Sheik pays everyone a visit to instruct them on how to correctly roll their crack and purchase volatile urine off of illegal Mexican immigrants in order to pass drug tests, which leads to Juvi making an unexpected comeback as the most important person in the locker room even though he keeps whipping his tadger out and pissing all over the place as the wrestlers dive around with cupped hands trying to catch some of his invaluable Juice.

By the way, that old Rock ‘n’ Wrestling show has to come to DVD soon. There are just too many brilliant quotes for it to be left ignored:

Nikolai Volkoff: I think we booby trapped our own instruments Comrad Sheik.
The Iron Sheik: YOU BOBBY TRAPPED YOUR OWN BRAIN IS WHAT YOU DID!

(even in cartoon form, Sheik remains incapable of using the lower case)

Hillbilly Jim: Poor Mortimer. We’ll never save him now.
The Junkyard Dog: If it wasn’t for that stupid raccoon we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Hillbilly Jim: [shouts] Don’t talk bad about Mortimer.
The Junkyard Dog: [shouts] Who gonna stop me?
[Hillbilly and JYD start to fight]
Wendi Richter: [stops Hillbilly and JYD from fighting.] Will you stop acting like kids?
Andre the Giant: But we are kids.

(so very odd… Jim can’t be arsed trying to save his beloved coon, so he gets in a fight with a black guy instead… Wendi Richter of all people is the voice of reason and Andre… well, it boggles the mind, but I like to imagine it cutting to him saying that line whilst he’s on the beach with water-wings on, making a sandcastle and having his G.I. Joes storm it to save his ice cream from melting…)

Rowdy Roddy Piper: What’s the matter, Hogan? Afraid you might be outclassed?
Hulk Hogan: The only way you freaks could outclass us is in a dogshow!

(ironically, many years later, the Westminster Dog Show would prove a better draw than WCW Nitro when they went head-to-head in the ratings)

Hulk Hogan: [Hogan goes into a cabin on the boat, looking for Hillbilly Jim who’s been kidnapped.] Hillbilly Jim?
Man: Do I look like a Hillbilly to you, mister?
[throws a boot at Andre]
Hulk Hogan: Sorry.

(again, so much humour… Hogan can’t distinguish his friend Jim from the rest of the world without using the ‘Hillbilly’ disclaimer… poor Andre is there for no reason other than to get assaulted with a shoe, which possibly means Konnan was a big fan of this show back in the day… really, if we subbed Earl for Hogan and Randy for Andre, would anybody notice?)

Hulk Hogan: You’re making Hulk MAD!

(c’mon, you know he says this to his wife in bed)

Oh, and apparently it is on DVD. Bully. I’m still too lazy to delete what I wrote before. It’s a shoot, brah.

Let’s all enjoy an episode and Jimmy Snuka’s small waist:

Roddy Piper is so camp a villain that even Skeletor and Starscream look down on him with macho scorn. C’mon, giggling with glee over a vile scheme to get traffic wardens to dress up in kilts? Oh, Roddy. For shame.


“Heya. Thought I’d drop you a line about a mistake in your newest FAQ– Undertaker won the first Buried Alive match. You may have gotten confused because after the match Mankind was dug up and then the midcard buried Taker.

The midcard’s always hated this guy, huh?”
– Martin Ferguson

Thanks for the correction. To steal a line from Homer (n. Iliad), “this is everybody’s fault but mine”. Paying close attention to any mid ’90s Undertaker match is something that not even Vince McMahon was prepared to do – and he gets paid at least marginally more than I do to care about this so-called sport. I don’t remember exactly what I was up to on the 20th October 1996, when In Your House 11: Buried Alive was held. Possibly holding a serene celebration of the sublime skills generously shown to the world by Brian Laudrup – although he was never gallus enough to miss his flight after being called up to the international squad for the first time, like James McFadden did. Anyway, Undertaker won his little digging contest but then half of Terry Gordy’s brain ran out to hit him with a shovel. That let Mankind (future world champion) get out of his grave and bury Taker alongside Gordy (now dead), Hunter Hearst Helmsley (future world champion), Justin Bradshaw (future world champion), Crush (now dead) and, uh, Goldust (currently black). If you can think of a good reason for a pretentious aristocrat, a surly rancher, a troubled ex-con and a sexual deviant to assist an executioner and a sado-masochistic gimp bury an undertaker then I’d like to hear it. Hell, it’s not like the WWF tried to explain it. They were so far gone at that point that they had reigning world champion and poster boy for the promotion Shawn Michaels defend the belt in a dark match rather than on the PPV itself. Even more randomly, his match was against Goldust, who had already been granted a PPV match – a clean job to Marc Mero. Oh, and Bradshaw had jobbed to The Stalker on the pre-game show, Helmsley had jobbed to Steve Austin in the opener and Crush hadn’t had a damn thing to do all evening besides study medical textbooks to ensure he aimed his heart-punch correctly. Paul Bearer tended to struggle when it came to hiring goons.


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