Pulse Wrestling Answers #048

Features, Q&A

For a PPV that held so much potential for the unexpected, No Mercy sure did make itself cosy in amongst the expected. Even without having any real idea of what was going to happen in the WWE Championship scene, most of us wound up predicting 83% of the matches correctly in our Roundtable. All credit to us but c’mon, it shouldn’t have been that easy, not when presented with so grand a chance to do something invigorating. For instance, most people expected a Chris Jericho appearance but the only comeback was made by Shawn Michaels the following night on Raw. Michaels’ return wasn’t advertised in advance so it won’t mean a damn thing for the Raw rating. Had it happened at No Mercy then it almost certainly would have helped pop that rating after all, not to mention it would have allowed them to book the Cyber Sunday main event in a more organic manner than just posting it on WWE.com. It would also have placated people who decided to check out No Mercy in the hope that they might get a surprise of sorts. An arbitrary Triple H title run is surprising to nobody these days.

Basically, this is how it ought to have gone down:

– Vince McMahon unveils a decent-looking new WWE Championship belt and says he’s going to award it to Randy Orton.

– Triple H comes out to protest this decision. In one of those nudging and winking remarks that the Hs are rather fond of delivering, he says that if there’s one thing he’s learned, it’s that championships have to be won and not awarded. Vince says that he’ll book the Hs against Orton for the title tonight but only if the Hs can beat Umaga, otherwise Orton simply gets the title.

– Triple H fights Umaga and, of course, Orton tries to interfere wherever he can. Ultimately, it backfires and the referee catches him and disqualifies Umaga. Afterwards, since its fair game now, Umaga and Orton beat the shit out of the Hs.

– In light of the above, the ending to the ECW title match is completely redone. For one thing, there would actually be a match instead of a squash.

– Vince sees the injured Hs backstage and informs each one of them that the Orton match is on but it’s Last Man Standing.

– Orton and the Hs do their thing and have their match and it goes down more or less as it did. Afterwards, Triple H gets back in the ring and tries to congratulate Orton on a fine effort (such a gentleman). Orton tells him to get the fuck out of the ring and hits the RKO then stands back up, turns around and promptly gets kicked in the head by Shawn Michaels, who came from a special place known to wrestling commentators as Out Of Nowhere. Michaels stands tall, looks at Orton, looks at the Hs and then picks up the title belt as the show goes off the air and the temperature in the arena is elevated by the moistness of female undergarments…

Doesn’t that sound so much better?

Oh and there’d be a Hardy/Porter vs Taker/Kane match for the WWE Tag Team Titles as well. Nobody who gets paid to think of this stuff would prefer to see a pizza eating contest instead would they? I mean, what use is it to book a pizza eating contest hosted by Tazz and not have him take off his pants, get on the table and dry hump one set of pies as he titillates the rest with his tongue? That’s how they do it in Brooklyn. The only known way to stop him is by playing a Green Day song, though it has to be one of their earlier tunes. Anything from American Idiot just gets him started on the salami.

Anyway, this is Pulse Wrestling Answers, your friendly resident Q&A column that now seems to have a relevant logo. If you have a wrestling question for us, feel free to send it in. If you have a pizza, even better.


“How can your forget about Psicosis or as he is known in Mexico NOW– Nicho de Millionaro LOL(Never knew that coming to America for a few years made u a millionare but whatever). He might have the best mask of all as the mask is connected to a wig and not only that but there are 2 of them that wrestle in Mexico. 1 is the original and the other 1 is some guy who they gave his mask too so they can still use his name

Also how can you make fun at the Anvil’s face when he made that hot piece of ass that will soon be on the WWE roster?

Am I the only one that thinks that TNA is doing great by adding women?? No not so I can watch them wrestle, but so I can see some more ass on Thursday Nights!!! I am sick of tuning into TNA and seeing 45 yr old Miss Texas,that fat ass Tracy Brooks,or what ever that thing is that hangs with oldKM. I would love to see Talia Madison,Ariel(especially when seen them NUDE pics that are out on web of her), and So Cal Val MORE!!! At least I dont have to see that busted face Candice Michelle Thank GOD.”
– TJ

Well, technically, it’s not that hard to see ass on Thursday nights. Eric Young has an ass. Earl Hebner has an ass. Kip James, as he is eternally pleased to tell us, has an ass. I have an ass, although I’m not on Impact or am I? Now perhaps cute female ass is a little harder to find on a Thursday night but as we all know that’s why the US military invented the internet. In an ideal world we’d all be sitting around with porn on one screen and a decent wrestling show on another, so whenever we get tired of cutaways to Don West we can just turn our heads and see a more pleasing type of fuck. It sounds a lot better than TNA wasting yet more screen time on things that aren’t going to persuade anybody to purchase a PPV. That’s what they should be concerning themselves with now that they have as good a TV deal as they are ever likely to get. Adding a new title belt when they continue to forget how popular the X Division once and could easily be again is not helping. Introducing a whole slew of new on-screen characters when they already have too many genuinely talented ones being slighted is not helping. Signing Ariel could help a little if she turned out to be Abyss’ girlfriend or Mesias’ sister or something but even that would hinge on them constructing a decent storyline rather than just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. Leave the likes of So Cal Val to their own devices.

Still, to keep TJ happy, here’s some of that internet ass goodness:


”I was looking at Chikara’s wikipedia entry and I saw that it lists Bob Saget as their commissioner. I don’t watch a lot of wrestling aside from WWE and TNA, so I was wondering if you could tell me what’s up with that?”
– Edward

First of all, let me find out who the hell Bob Saget is

Ah, okay, he’s some sort of a funnyman from Americaland. Now, has he been in anything I might have actually seen? 1 vs 100? We’ve got, or had, our own version in the UK, hosted by some lad named Dermot who looks and acts as though he was the one Muppet that Jim Henson managed to make out of flesh and bone. How I Met Your Mother? I watched that once but wanted to punch every single one of the characters in the face. Well, not Alison Hannigan, her I would just have to hold hostage until Fox agreed to do another Buffy spin-off. Joey? Oh, dear. Hey, remember when Scott Keith got on his high horse about not watching wrestling TV programs anymore but spent far too much time recapping that show instead? Even NBC learned quicker than him on that front.

The rest of Saget’s work just seems to go from worse to painful, by the way. Dumb & Dumberer is the December to Dismember of Hollywood.

Now, to find out what the hell Chikara is…

“Japanese word meaning power, capability or influence.” So, Bob Dylan on steroids. Glorious. It would also appear to be a wrestling promotion from Philadelphia that has somebody called Jimmy Olsen on the roster. Oh, and Ice Cream Jr. If I was Superman then I know which one I’d want as my best mate. I also wouldn’t waste my time developing a mild-mannered Clark Kent persona and would totally enter a pizza eating contest.

So, yes, Bob Saget has appeared as the Chikara Commissioner. He comes from the Philadelphia area too and it was something of a running joke that he was the commissioner for the promotion after it was founded in 2002. Then, at the fourth night of the Young Lions Cup IV show on 25 June 2006, he appeared on their big-screen to announce a mask versus hair match between Jigsaw and Icarus at the next Chikara show. Icarus lost the match and so lost his hair. Saget doesn’t appear on Chikara shows very much at all but it still sounds like a better way to book authority figures than WWE’s endless supply of Chairmen, CEOs, General Managers, Co-General Managers, Executive Assistants and, uh, Sheriffs. Keep them all off-screen altogether, announce that Adam West or Kenny Baker is the new commissioner and then just call them up all Tunney-like whenever an important announcement actually has to be made.

Some video evidence:

Don’t forget you can check out Chikara’s podcast series here and book Bob Saget for speaking appearances here.

By the way, after seeing all the comic book cover analogies here, I must now love Chikara like an experienced gentleman to an innocent young lady.


Finally, because some thing are too damn important to let go, Fingers asked me to incorporate the pre-1991 AWA world title into the list of longest cumulative reigns. ”What if you added the (pre-1991) AWA World Title to the mix?” he said. It was very exciting, as you no doubt agree. You can see the previous version here, covering WWE, WCW, NWA and even TNA. Without further ado, here is the Gange banging version:

01/ Verne Gagne – 4,690 days from 10 reigns
02/ Bruno Sammartino – 4,040 days from 2 reigns
03/ Lou Thesz – 3,749 days from 3 reigns
04/ Ric Flair – 3,744 days from many reigns
05/ Hulk Hogan – 3,362 days from 12 reigns
06/ Nick Bockwinkel – 2984 days from 4 reigns
07/ Bob Backlund – 2,138 days from 2 reigns
08/ Harley Race – 1,801 days from 8 reigns
09/ Dory Funk Jr – 1,563 days from 1 reign
10/ Dan Severn – 1,559 days from 2 reigns
11/ Pat O’Connor – 1,488 days from 2 reigns
12/ Gene Kiniski – 1,131 days from 1 reign
13/ Jeff Jarrett – 1,063 days from 10 reigns
14/ Pedro Morales – 1,027 days from 1 reign
15/ Triple H – 875 days from 11 reigns
16/ Jack Brisco – 867 days from 2 reigns
17/ John Cena – 793 days from 3 reigns
18/ Maurice Vachon – 775 days from 5 reigns
19/ Bret Hart – 710 days from 7 reigns
20/ Orville Brown – 692 days from 1 reign
21/ Larry Zbysko – 616 days from 2 reigns
22/ Rick Martel – 595 days from 1 reign
23/ Buddy Rogers – 573 days from 1 reign
24/ Randy Savage – 573 days from 6 reigns
25/ Steve Austin – 529 days from 6 reigns
26/ Kurt Angle – 499 days from 7 reigns [as of 09.10.07]
27/ Naoya Ogawa – 469 days from 2 reigns
28/ Sting – 466 days from 8 reigns
29/ Kevin Nash – 456 days from 6 reigns
30/ Batista – 431 days from 3 reigns [as of 09.10.07]
31/ Terry Funk – 424 days from 1 reign
32/ Shawn Michaels – 424 days from 4 reigns
33/ Dick Hutton – 421 days from 1 reign
34/ The Rock – 394 days from 9 reigns
35/ Vader – 387 days from 3 reigns

No list can be improved by adding Larry Zbysko unless that list is of the biggest cockballers in the world.

I suppose the next step is to break it all down into eras. Some other time, perhaps. At the moment my eyes just really, really need to not be looking at a computer screen.

Now, to finish with Bob Saget’s day job – being a dirty wee shite:


Remember you can send your wrestling questions over here and we’ll take the utmost care of them, honest.