(9/20/05) - Batista's age, Jay Leno, prestige for title belts, rules & more..
On Tuesday, September 20, 2005 at 12:44 AM EST This is a unique ASK WV edition because I picked a couple of questions where they didn't have a simple answer, it was more of an opinionated answer. I'd like to do this again in future ASK WV posts at random.
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The following questions were answered by Paul Nemer:
I seem to notice former WCW Champions who have left WCW and go to the WWF to have a successful career at the WWF, but, for some strange reason, end up having disappointing stays at the WWF. Lex Luger, Vader, Goldberg, The Big Show, and Scott Steiner never seem to have had a good career in the WWF. Would you know why?
Now, from what I've known and seen, Vince McMahon does not like pushing a wrestler that's not his own creation. He's known to do that. Chris Benoit was World champion, sure, but even as champion he wasn't pushed the right way, he wasn't portrayed as a main eventer. Triple H was main eventing most of the shows while Benoit would wrestle before the main event, even as champion. Politics do play a lot these days. Same with the Big Show, he was a former WWF champion, but wasn't pushed the right way. As for Lex Luger... The WWF did put some effort with Luger at first, especially with the Lex Express bus and all that stuff in late 1993, early 1994, but the fans just didn't want another American Hero. Luger, Vader, Goldberg, Big Show were all main eventers in the WWF/WWE at one point or another, maybe not for a long period of time, but they were, but like I said, in my opinion, Vince didn't push them as much as they deserved.
Look at the guys that were McMahon's creations as characters.... Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart, Undertaker, The Rock, Stone Cold (character), Triple H, Shawn Michaels and several other stars.... those guys have all held the championship gold on more than one occasion, which somewhat proves my statement above that he only pushes characters he's created or helped build. Sure, Undertaker, Triple H and others didn't start in the WWF, but Vince brought them in and gave them the stage to work on and helped them work on their wrestling personas. Goldberg, "The Crippler" Chris Benoit, "Big Poppa Pump" Scott Steiner and others were established characters entering the WWE.
I have been wondering about this for a long time. What is the deal with the "holding the tights" when a wrestler does a school boy (or a roll-up). I have heard commentators exaggerate this as if the wrestler is cheating or something. (Perfect example WM 8: Flair vs. Savage). Could you tell me why commentators make this "holding the tights" thing an issue?
In the WWE "wrestling rule book" it is considered illegal to pull someone's tights during a pinfall, you can get disqualified for that. Which is why the commentators emphasize and make a big deal about it if a wrestler wins that way.
Did Jay Leno really wrestle Hulk Hogan back in WCW?
From now on, I will start answering these type of questions because I've realized that a large portion of the wrestling fans these days started watching wrestling in late 1999 or so and another reason is that some didn't watch WCW at all. To answer the question, Jay Leno teamed up with Diamond Dallas Page to take on Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff in a tag team match. It was at the WCW Road Wild PPV on August 8, 1998. Jay Leno ended up pinning Eric Bischoff to get the win.
How old is Batista?
Batista was born on January 18, 1966, which makes him 39 years of age. A couple of sites have him listed as 36 (born in 1969), but IMDB.com, which is a reliable site has him listed as 1966.
What has happened to the prestige of the WWE Intercontinental Championship? Are fans not as interested in title bouts these days?
Well, it has some prestige now that Ric Flair is holding it, and well, Shelton did a great job holding it too, but the real question is, what happened to the prestige of the World title? No offence to Batista or John Cena (current champs), great performers, both of them, but those two titles lost every single bit of credibility they ever had in my opinion since the year 2000 or so. Well I won't lie, I think all the wrestling titles lost the credibility they once had, maybe it's because the wrestling business has changed a lot in the course of the past seven or eight years, maybe it's the increase of the backstage politics or maybe it's both? I think it's both. As an old school fan, I was use to seeing a maximum of two different champions a year, but in late 1999 and entering the new decade of wrestling, I've seen like 10 champions a year (I'm slightly exaggerating). As I mentioned earlier, a large portion of the wrestling fans started watching wrestling in late 1999, meaning they got use to seeing many titles changes in one year, and if they were to have a single champion for a year straight, they would probably complain about the WWE having lame storylines. Over the past year or so, they held back on doing several titles changes a year, which in my opinion is a good thing. I would really like to hear your thoughts on this subject, send me an e-mail and tell me what you think. webmaster@wrestleview.com.