Hello and welcome to a special MANFLU edition of Ask 411 Wrestling! I am your writer, Mathew Sforcina, and as you might have guessed from the specializes of this week’s edition, I indeed have the MANFLU.

You have to write it like that to stress just how bad it is. MANFLU!

Anyway, that explains the slight delay for this week’s edition, which I do apologies for, but, you know…

MANFLU!

Anyway, got a question for when I’m not diseased? [email protected] is where you should send it. Then wash your hands. Can’t be too careful. I mean, really, do you even know where BANNER has been?

Zeldas!

Check out my Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture! Better stock up on hand sanitiser before visiting there too…

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Henderson Peabody: I would be surprised if you got that reference, it’s another famous ‘Sforcina In-Joke Maybe A Dozen People Will Get’. In this case, that’s the name of a rookie down here in Australia.

Four Buyouts And A Funeral: I’ll discuss the WWE being bought out in the column proper.

The Trivia Crown

I come from a wrestling family and I share something with a current champion in a sport somewhat different from mine. I’ve been honored by two wrestling organizations, including a Hall of Fame induction. Between my most notorious feuds, there are some with WWE Hall of Famers, including winning a recognized World Title (at least at that time) from one of them, which then I lost it to a former WWE star and TNA trainer. A former boxing world champion was in the corner of one of my opponents in probably the most unusual wrestling match I’ve had. One of my biggest rivals and real life friends is someone who has wrestled with shadows and have worked as a trainer for WWE and WCW, including helping three former world singles and tag team champions in WWE and WCW and a former UFC champion. Oh, and I’m certainly not a fan of Robocop. Who am I?

Nova Scotia Guy has the answer.

I come from a wrestling family (brothers The Beast, Bobby Kay, and Rudy

Kay) and I share something with a current champion in a sport somewhat

different from mine (last name Cormier shared with Daniel Cormier in UFC). I’ve

been honored by two wrestling organizations, including a Hall of Fame induction

(Stampede Wrestling Hall of Fame and Cauliflower Alley Club). Between my most

notorious feuds, there are some with WWE Hall of Famers, including winning a

recognized World Title (at least at that time) from one of them (won WWC

Universal Heavyweight title from Carlos Colon), which then I lost it to a

former WWE star and TNA trainer (TNT/Savio Vega). A former boxing world

champion was in the corner of one of my opponents in probably the most unusual

wrestling match I’ve had (vs. Invader #1 with Hector Camacho). One of my

biggest rivals and real life friends is someone who has wrestled with shadows

(Bret Hart) and have worked as a trainer for WWE and WCW, including helping

three former world singles and tag team champions in WWE (Mark Henry, Edge, and

Christian) and WCW and a former UFC champion (Ken Shamrock). Oh, and I’m

certainly not a fan of Robocop. (See Video)

Who am I? You are Maritime wrestling legend Leo Burke

Who am I? I once held a position of authority in one of the big three, as well as a title here or there. I’ve feuded with someone who is currently persona non grata in a company in said company, a feud that ended with someone leaving the aforementioned company. My PPV debut lasted less than five minutes. I’ve feuded and won tag titles with current WWE commentators. I twice gave away a title, and also won a title the same night someone was given that title. One of only three men to have achieved something (well, four, if you include that kicky flippy guy), I am who?

Getting Down To All The Business

So, the buyout of WWE topic got a bit of discussion. And I think there’s a bit of confusion as to where I was coming from, due to my not making a certain point clear. Sean sent in a nice recap of the issue at hand.

Love reading the column, but I disagree with your take on what happens when Vince dies, because despite WWE being a publicly traded company, the McMahon family still owns the majority of WWE stock and hence, still control the company. It’s the same reason why Jamie Packer or Lachlan Murdoch end up in control when their fathers’ die, because the family owns enough equity to keep control of the company.

My understanding with WWE stock is that there are two kinds. The first is just an ordinary type of share and this what is traded on the market. The second type, is almost exclusively owned by people called McMahon and each one is worth ten times what the normal shares are worth. Vince controls enough of this type of share to effectively still own something like 75% of the entire company. There are enough of this type of share that it doesn’t matter how many of the normal shares end up in the hands of one owner, Vince still owns more than 51% of the company. So, as long as Vince leaves all those shares to Steph in his will, then HHH and Steph stay in charge. The issue comes if he doesn’t. But I would bet that any stock owned by people called McMahon now, will still be owned by someone called McMahon after Vince dies, because he will want to keep it in the family. The good thing would be if he split it 50/50 between Shane and Steph and then it would be up to Shane to decide if he wanted it to stay in the family or whether he sells. So it doesn’t matter how many suits there are at the big office in Stamford, if they aren’t called McMahon they ultimately won’t get a look in on the big decisions once Vince karks it.

Unless Vince has sold a lot of stock type B recently then he still owns enough to pass on control of the company. All the stock ownership info is publicly available. That’s how I found this out a few years ago.

Neil also pointed that out. But Ed asked about it directly,

In last week’s Ask411, you said, very confidently, that once Vince McMahon is gone and Triple H and Stephanie take over, that within a year or less, WWE would be bought out by another conglomerate. Why are you so positive this is what will occur?

OK, so first things first, because I didn’t make this too clear: I’m not predicting a hostile takeover. I am fully aware that that would be impossible under the current rules as to how the company’s shares are set up, at the end of the day a couple of the McMahons would have to sell out.

And that’s what I’m predicting. I’m predicting that once Vince is chosen to defend the galaxy after getting a high score on a vector graphics arcade game put in a trailer park for some reason, once Vince is off saving us the whales from the Ko-Dan Empire, then StepHunter will get a phone call.

(I will get that over dammit.)

Anyway, StepHunter will get an invitation to bring the family down to Disney World, for argument’s sake. They’ll all have a lovely time, they’ll meet all the cartoon characters they want, and then while the daughters are off having high tea with Leia and Female Thor, StepHunter will sit in nice chairs, and be told how wonderful WWE is, how they put smiles on families’ faces, and how they’ve turned wrestling into wholesome family entertainment which is wonderful, and Connor’s Cure is great, so on and so forth. They’ll be shown how Disney has the best in live event management and thus could run the day to day stuff a lot more efficiently, and how cross promotion would be wonderful, perhaps offered roles to Steph as new Chief Ombudswoman for Women across the entire Disney empire, while Triple H would become head of creative for WWE, and then they’d be shown a check with a whole lot of zeros on it.

And then they’d flip them off and leave, apparently.

The reason I’m so confident WWE will get sold off is that I don’t think Shane is coming back to run the joint, I’m fairly certain StepHunter is being groomed for that. But the thing is, WWE isn’t presented as a family operated business anymore. It’s a corporate conglomerate. And corporate conglomerates get bought and sold all the time. So do family run businesses, yes, but once you’re over that first hump, it’s a lot easier.

WWE makes a decent amount of money, gets reasonable ratings and at one point got really good ones. It gives you a whole lot of interesting and unique stars, can reinvent itself on a dime, is known all over the world, has TV and live events, and has a bunch of other unique selling points as a commercial product, which is what they are now. That’s why I think they’ll be sold once Vince is gone, because while Hunter loves the business and Shane is like his dad, StepHunter has shown that as a duo, they are corporate first, wrestling second.

And the corporate thing to do is, when offered a big ol’ check and a cushy job somewhere else, you sign on the dotted line.

Now, yes, if for some reason Vince hasn’t updated his will or changes his mind as he’s lifted up into a Starship and he puts Shane back in charge then all bets are off. But I, personally, feel that StepHunter will sell out sooner or later. I might well be wrong about them, and I’m not saying this is a bad thing.

But with their influence, WWE has gone corporate. And there’s only one outcome that way.

Now, as for who, I don’t think there’s any real comparisons to be made in the past. The Disney/WCW tapings were great for WCW in the sense of saving them money, they just ran into problems with the NWA and Sid, neither of which seemed to have gotten back to Disney as being disastrous. Likewise WCW in the Turner empire, that was bought partly out of loyalty from Turner for the product that helped solidify his Superstation nationwide and also because by buying it he made sure he had four hours of high rating programming locked in, which more than made up for the cost of running the company. If WCW was only losing six million a year in 2001, and Jamie Kellner fell down a flight of stairs at some point, they would still be around probably.

But that’s the real kicker. I bet you, somewhere deep in the Comcast actuary pit, there’s a file. Some young intern is tasked to updating it every few months, and in that file is a fairly simple equation.

This is how much it costs the company to get all of WWE’s programming on our networks, and this is how much we get out of it.

This is how much we estimate it would cost to buy WWE out.

This is how much we’d make off WWE, plus how much we save now we don’t have to pay for the programming.

Thus, this is how much time it would take to make back our investment.

Once that last number gets low enough, and Vince is learning how to enter healing status, an offer will be made.

But again, I’m not a business guru, and this is all conjecture. You want a serious business opinion, go back in time and convince JP Prag not to leave.

Actually if you could do that anyway, that’d be awesome, cheers.

Anyway, Someone Whose Name I’ve Lost Even Though They Just Sent This In Because MANFLU wants to know about the man called Steve Sting.

With the WWE mentioning that Sting has defeated nine former WWE Champions it got me to thinking “How many World Champions has he beat?”

I think the WWE Champions he beat in WCW where Hogan, Savage, Flair, Hart, Nash, Sid, Austin, Foley, and Big Show.

Pretty sure WWE doesn’t acknowledge TNA wins, but that would include at the least RVD, Hardy, and Angle.

Beat former WHC’s Goldberg and Booker T

Not sure if he ever faced Guerrero, Benoit, Jericho, or Mysterio in WCW cause when they first came in they where down the card and by the time they moved up he was in the rafters. Any ideas?

Well let’s see. First off, I’ll go down the list of WWE Champs and see which ones Sting has beaten, see if that doesn’t get our magic 9, then go from there. Sting beat the following men at at least these events…

Big Show: WCW Great American Bash ‘98

Bret Hart: WCW Nitro Oct 18th ‘99

Hulk Hogan: WCW Superbrawl VIII

Jeff Hardy: TNA Victory Road ‘11

Kevin Nash: WCW Millennium Final

Kurt Angle: TNA Bound For Glory ‘07

Mick Foley: WCW Beach Blast ‘92

Randy Savage: WCW Nitro Jun 7th ’99 (DQ)

Ric Flair: NWA Starrcade ‘89

Rob Van Dam: TNA Sacrifice ‘11

Sid Vicious: NWA Halloween Havoc ‘90

Steve Austin: WCW Great American Bash Tour ‘91 Day 40

The Iron Sheik: NWA Wrestlewar ‘89

So take out Savage, that’s still twelve. Take out the three he beat only in TNA, and voila, that’s your nine. So what about World Heavyweight Champions not listed above?

Booker T: WCW Spring Stampede ‘00

Chris Benoit: WCW Nitro Sep 20th ‘99

Christian: TNA Impact Dec 28th ’06 (Three Way Nightstick on a Pole match)

OK, what about WCW Champs?

Jeff Jarrett: WCW Nitro Jun 5th ‘00

Lex Luger: WCW Superbrawl 2

Scott Steiner: TNA Impact Jun 30 ‘11

Vader: WCW Starrcade ‘92

NWA Champs?

Abyss: TNA Against All Odds ‘07

AJ Styles: TNA Turning Point ‘08

Barry Windham: NWA Clash Of The Champions 3 (DQ)

Masahiro Chono: NJPW Live Event Sep 19th ‘96

Rhino: TNA Genesis ‘09

Shane Douglas: WWA Sydney May 21st ’03 (Three Way)

The Great Muta: NWA The Great American Bash ‘89

TNA leftovers?

Bobby Roode: TNA Impact Jul 16th ‘07

Bully Ray: TNA Impact Aug 29th ‘13

Eric Young: TNA Impact Apr 11th ‘06

James Storm: TNA Impact Mar 31st ‘08

Magnus: TNA Impact Jul 22nd ‘09

Mr. Anderson: TNA Impact Jul 11th ‘11

Samoa Joe: TNA Bound For Glory 4

… ECW?

Bam Bam Bigelow: WCW Live Event Jun 27th ’99 (Three Way)

Matt Hardy: TNA Impact Apr 19th ‘11

Mike Awesome: WCW Thunder May 2nd ‘00

So 37 world champions. 35 if you don’t count DQs. Sting has beaten 35 world champs. There you go.

Truly a Great Career.







OK, let’s go from in-depth counting to Raza.

Now we all know what state the current WWE Product is in. Let alone other things, there is not single star WWE is having who can brought maximum pop like Hogan, Austin, Warrior, Rock, Undertaker used to have in their primes. Today, Cena, the biggest so called baby-face (to me is a glorified jobber) is even by fans, who showed there dis-interest in Reigns also. Taker and Rock are part timers (even they too are not received well great level these days). Dean Ambrose failing as trying to be a new ‘the Rock’. Randy Orton is on/off as a face. Only Bryan could be an exception but unfortunately we are not sure as to whether we would see him wrestle again? So I don’t understand why WWE haven’t created a solid baby face like Goldberg or Austin?

Ambrose is what the current writing team would do with Austin, not Rock. Reigns is the guy trying to be the new Rock.

And that’s the problem, in that apart from the overarching “WWE Wants WWE Over, Not Any One Guy” issue that means everyone that didn’t get big in the past won’t be getting big now, WWE now can’t seem to work out how to make a solid babyface hero.

Well no, they know, on some level. I’m not saying the writing team is incompetent, I’m sure they know that the way to get a new babyface superstar is to have them win all the time and be awesome and not do silly stuff but instead kick ass and take names, I’m sure they are aware of that. But they can’t do that, since all babyfaces have to smile and not care about wins or losses and be nice and also can’t win all the time, they have to trade wins and can’t overshadow Cena or Orton or Reigns, of course, can’t have that…

WWE hasn’t made a solid babyface hero because they have chosen not to, pretty much. Cena’s working just fine and Reigns will be there any day now, just you wait, we’ll get him over, absolutely…

Secondly, booking antics of Kevin Nash in WCW during late 90s have always been discussed but I don’t know as to why he made booker back then in the first place. He neither married boss’ daughter nor have a past similar experience of booking things? He was just another wrestler

He didn’t marry the bosses’ daughter, but he was a very good friend of Eric Bischoff. Ever since jumping to WCW and helping them become the numbers one and two brands in wrestling in the nWo and WCW, Nash had been pitching ideas and giving suggestions about booking. Given that Nash was one of their main stars and seemed like a creative guy, these suggestions were taken warmly, although the outcomes weren’t always for the best as viewed by an outsider, if you forgive the term.

Anyway, he has a track record in the company of being a guy who is somewhat reliable and creative, and Eric Bischoff was burnt out creatively and personally at a point somewhere in late 98, the exact date is debated.

Either way, Nash didn’t immediately go from talent to boss, he was brought in in late 98 as part of the nebulous booking committee that WCW had had running for a few years under Bischoff after Hogan went on break, i.e. ‘retirement’. But then Nash quickly grew in position and power as he seemed to have a good head on his shoulders and shot down a few ideas like hotshotting Nash/Goldberg on Nitro and such.

And then, again at a point that may or may not have been before Starrcade 98, Nash, as being the freshest creative mind they had, was given the book while Bischoff went on holiday with his daughter in France for several weeks.

So the thing is, by most accounts Nash is right in the sense that he wasn’t head booker/guy in charge until after Starrcade 98. But he was part of the booking committee that decided Nash over Goldberg, plus he had Bischoff’s ear a lot too.

Like a lot of stuff online, saying ‘Nash booked himself to end the Streak’ is technically inaccurate but the general complaint/point is basically true, in that while Nash didn’t officially be the guy in charge and make that call, he sure as hell didn’t fight against it or stop it, which he could have done at the time, arguably. Not that many people in that position would, but still.

Thirdly, at around WM XII Undertaker did wear an intriguing face protecting mask/gear, as per storyline he was heavily crushed by Yokuzuna and Mable but what was the real reason?

The mask that The Undertaker wore in 1995 was worn, in kayfabe, because of an attack by Yokozuna and Mabel on Monday Night Raw where they attacked him with several shots to the head and face. This led to an injury to The Undertaker’s face.

In reality, Yokozuna and Mabel on Monday Night Raw where they attacked him with several shots to the head and face did in fact lead to an injury to The Undertaker’s face due to Mabel’s sloppy legdrops actually breaking Undertaker’s orbital bone.

Fourth, what was a the original plan post Royal Rumble 2015, was Reigns was supposed to crush Lesnar at WM31 or things changed to due to poor perception of Reigns by fans or Lesnar extended his contract and particularly why they Placed Reigns and Bryan at Fastlane 2015 when we could have had Lesnar-Bryan at WM31?

The original plan was for us fans to realise we’ve all been stupid dum-dums, and that while Bryan is ok, Roman Reigns is in fact super mega awesome and that we should all cheer for him instead since he’s just such a god among men, and then after he crushed Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania he’d lead us to the promised land where everyone cheered who WWE decided we should cheer that week, and we were all WWE fans instead of wrestling fans and life was good.

*Infinitesimal amount of a Chandler*

When most people decided that, actually, we didn’t like Reigns and would prefer Bryan, thank you, they ran Fast Lane to show that Reigns was better than Bryan and then had Bryan come out and put over Reigns as the second coming to try and get everyone onto the Reigns bandwagon.

And they still don’t quite know what went wrong there, for some reason.

Lesnar’s contract had nothing to do with the match itself, if he hadn’t renewed the contract then maybe Reigns would have won full stop but I doubt it, given the reaction. WM31 was all about going with Rollins since Reigns just was not working.

And finally, is it true that coincidentally WCW started to blow-off with the debut of Goldberg i.e ratings started flipping as he started getting momentum?

Wikipedia has a chart up now showing the ratings war.

Goldberg debuted September 22, 1997. That was deep in WCW’s 82 weeks on top. He won the US title on the April 20, 1998 edition of Nitro, which was the week after the one where Raw beat Nitro for the first time after those 82 weeks. Then Raw won/tied up to the week of the 6th of June where Goldberg beat Hogan to win the World Title live in Nitro.

The two sides would trade wins for a few months, then Nitro won the 26th of October 98 war (thanks in part to broadcasting Goldberg/DDP and Hogan/Warrior from Halloween Havoc the previous night due to the 3.5 hour PPV fiasco. That would be the last time Nitro would win (outside of weeks Raw didn’t run).

So you could say that Goldberg rose up during WCW’s victory, then when he got the US title was when they faltered, then after winning the world title WCW held on for a bit then Goldberg’s reign led to WCW dying. You could say that, and it’s somewhat accurate.

But correlation sure as hell does not mean causation.

Ed has a hypothetical.

I have a hypothetical question.

Suppose…. a tv-company, has a millionaire behind it (like Turner), wants to bring back wrestling on television. They have all the money they want, but don’t want anything to do with Vince McMahon and company. (So basically recreate a WCW-like competitor to WWE, not TNA levels bad, but an alternative to WWE like you suggested this week).

Do you think they could build up a company (within a short time) that could compete with WWE, not directly per se (llike the monday night wars), but as a company?

I have the feeling that no matter what it would fail. Maybe in the years after WCW folded it was possible, but to me it seems these days there aren’t that many credible headliners left, not under contract of WWE.

What would the roster look like if you had to choose? (can’t use anyone from current WWE, but 1 performer (not Cena).)

Really curious on your take!

Not on WWE’s scale and not in a short time, but it’s possible, yes.

The main issue is that WWE has trained a generation of fans to expect wrestling to be presented and look a certain way. Part of the reason TNA had so much money issues is having to keep a certain level of presentation and look to stay on par with WWE, a lot of people expect wrestling to look like WWE/MMA does and thus getting a casual fan to take a chance on a show that looks like ROH or CHIKARA is hard, unless it’s totally different like Lucha Underground.

So if you were insistent on a WWE level product off the bat, you’d need a billionare to afford the high set up costs to get everything going from scratch. WWE had time to slowly but surely bring in new stuff, they didn’t have to pay for the LED set and the LED screens and all the branded stuff all in one go, they could spread the costs across weeks and months and years.

And yes, you couldn’t go in with expectations of challenging WWE off the bat with main event stars, simply because anyone well known enough to challenge WWE is either on staff or over the hill.

So there’s just no way you could do it off the bat. You’d need to go in and expect a long, slow build. You’d need to get some good bookers and put on a long term plan, to not expect to make any serious indent against WWE for years at least. You build your company and your stars up, and maybe, just maybe, in a few years you might start to make inroads.

So what would the roster be? Well if you give me one guy from WWE, I take Paul Heyman to head creative, thank you. I get Jim Ross on commentary, and then everyone else has to be new and unknown to the big leagues.

Because that’s the kicker, everyone on the roster should be talented but for the most part unknown to the mainstream fans, so that my new company becomes the only place to find these new guys easily. You’d have to go around the world and cut deals with companies around the world, like Jarrett did, so as to be able to bring in talent from Japan, Mexico, Australia and so on.

Cut a deal with NJPW, Nakamura, Tanahashi, Okada, all the big names.

Go to AAA, get Pentagon Jr, get Drago, so on. Yes they’ve been in Lucha Underground, but point still stands.

Get the best of the US indies, Willie Mack, whatever Nitro wants to call himself, Sabre Jr, Young Bucks since they’d be expected.

Then get anyone relatively unknown in the US that’s overseas, starting with 95% of the female wrestling scene in Australia and build from there.

And then you present a down to earth show where the angles are simple and well told with great wrestling, and then whenever someone gets jerked around by WWE, your Ryders, your Sandows, when they get pissed, send out feelers, let them know they have an option.

And you’ll probably still fail/get bought out in a few years by WWE, but hey, worth a shot.

PR, I think, has two questions.

1) I was watching the first RAW aired and I noticed in the chart presented by a model RAW-Real Awesome Wrestling. Then, was that the concept for Raw by the time? When did ther start to change this and focus inside the development of Raw as a trademark?

That wasn’t the concept of the show, that was just a ring card. There were a bunch of them in the early days of Raw, ‘Raw Girls’ who would occasionally get up and walk about the ring with ‘witty’ statements like “Open wide and saw RAW” and the like. It was a really lame version of the Nitro Girls, where instead of dancing and putting on a show, they’d just walk around with the cards and… you’d cheer?

2) Whispers and rumors last year centered the WWE pursuing a genuine evil /heel by the time, Mr. A-ROD, but, apparently, all was just that, rumor ans smoke. Do you think the WWE missed a chance to involve both, A-ROD & The Yankees, in a series of programs such as Royal Rumble, or even Wrestlemania/Summer Slam? What would be the impact, if such thing have had happened, even with Torrie Wilson, engaged to A-ROD?

Thanks a lot

First time I’d heard of them. And I dunno, I’m not really sure what WWE could do here. I doubt A-Rod would be interested in physical contact, since he’s not a fan and thus wouldn’t be eager to do anything. Plus what angle would you run? A-Rod and Sand-Rod V Cena and Derek Jeter for captaincy of the Yankees?

The Yankees being, as I understand it, the most hated team in the MLB by everyone who isn’t a New Yorker doesn’t really lend itself to being babyfaces, even with a natural heel like A-Rod involved. But hey, perhaps someone below has an idea on how they could have worked out a storyline.

I will, instead, bring this MANFLU edition of Ask 411 to a close. Next week back to normal, hopefully.

…

MANFLU!