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Was Goldberg really undefeated in WCW prior to his loss to Kevin Nash at Starrcade ‘97? On the subject of unbeaten streaks, did Asuka ever taste defeat in NXT before she was called up to Raw?
Jessie Traytor
Alas, no. Like the myths of Andre the Giant’s 15 years without defeat prior to WrestleMania III, Goldberg’s invincibility was a fabrication. Our Bill lost his sixth ever bout, a dark match held prior to WCW Saturday Night against Chad Fortune, aka the former Travis in short-lived WWF duo Tekno Team 2000.
Asuka’s unbeaten streak, on the other hand, is legitimate, unless you count her failure to win a number one contenders battle royal in January 2016, which was won by Carmella.
Where and against whom were the final matches of Andre The Giant, Bret Hart, The Ultimate Warrior, and Rick Rude?
Ricky Dyson
Andre the Giant’s swansong was for AJPW on 4/12/92, less than two months before he died. Andre teamed with Rusher Kimura and promoter Giant Baba to defeat Motoshi Okuma, Haruka Eigen and Masanobu Fuchi. His final match for the WWF was on 10/5/91, when he competed in a 17-man battle royal in Uniondale, New York, won by Kerry Von Erich.
The final match of Bret Hart’s full-time career came on the 10/1/00 episode of WCW Monday Nitro against Kevin Nash, which ended in a no-contest. Including his 2010-11 WWE run (in which he wrestled 11 matches, remarkably), Hart’s last match to date was teaming with John Cena against Alberto Del Rio and Ricardo Rodriguez on the 12/9/11 episode of Monday Night Raw.
Ultimate Warrior wrestled his last match for European promotion NWE in Badalona, Spain on 25/6/08. In front of a mammoth crowd of 14,000, Warrior defeated Orlando Jordan in a dire outing to capture the group’s World title. Warrior, who was 49 at the time, wrestled for 17 torturous minutes before putting Jordan away with a shoulder tackle.
Rick Rude’s swansong came at the ECW Arena on 19/7/97, teaming with Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman in a steel cage six man tag against Rob Van Dam, Sabu and Jerry Lawler. The match ended in a no contest after Rude turned heel on his team.
Why was the bell rung so often during introductions at WWF shows in the ’80s? Was it to get people’s attention?
Pete Sackaris
Essentially. In an era before entrance music and giant video screens with lavish graphics were commonplace, the only way anyone knew who was heading down the aisle was via the ring announcer. The ringing of the bell was to get the crowd to quieten down so the announcer could be heard over the assembled throng. Earpieces were a rare luxury in those days, making communication with the production truck or the Gorilla position near impossible, so the tolling also informed the announcer when it was time to speak.
Where did the term “marks” come from?
@Walu2go
Like several pro wrestling terms, it is borrowed from carnival slang. Upon finding a victim who could be enticed into playing their rigged games, carnival operators would pat the unwitting sucker on the back with a chalk-covered hand, thus “marking” them for other operators to exploit. Hence, the term “mark” was born to describe someone who was gullible and believed that the trick / work / kayfabe they were seeing was real.
What happened to the NWA World title between Shane Douglas throwing it down in 1994 and Ken Shamrock winning it at the first NWA-TNA show in 2002?
@AJBIsHere
After Douglas disavowed the NWA and declared himself the first ECW World Champion on 27/8/94, the NWA title was left vacant for three months. Chris Candido was the next incumbent, defeating Tracy Smothers in a tournament final on an SMW/NWA joint event on 19/11/94. Candido dropped the strap to Dan Severn three months later.
‘The Beast’ embarked upon a mammoth 1,479 day reign, carrying the belt while competing for UFC and during his Attitude Era WWF run. He lost the championship in Japan to Olympic judo star and occasional pro wrestler Naoya Ogawa, who traded it with little-known Englishman Gary Steele in 1999. To this day, Steele is the only Brit to ever wear the title.
Ogawa vacated the gold 274 days into his second reign due to injury, leading to another tournament. This one was won by journeyman indy star Mike ‘The Colorado Kid’ Rapada, who downed WCW jobber Jerry Flynn on 19/9/00 in front of 623 fans in Tampa, Florida. Two months later, Rapada dropped the strap to Sabu, but quickly won it back in Nashville.
ECW regular Steve Corino was the next man to carry the gold, beginning his only run with the title on 24/4/01 after dethroning Rapada in a No DQ, Count Out or Time-Limit Match. Controversy reigned in October when Japanese superstar Shinya Hashimoto beat Corino for the belt on NWA’s 53rd Anniversary Show due to referee stoppage. NWA President Jim Miller announced that the belt was held up pending a rematch.
However, when Corino travelled to England two weeks later and met former champion Steele on a Hammerlock card in Hampshire, he brought the title with him and allowed it to be suspended above the ring for their TLC match. When atop the ladder, Corino dropped the title and it landed in Steele’s hands. He was declared the match winner and the new champion. The NWA was not amused. In their eyes Corino was not the champion, so he could not defend a title he did not have.
Refusing to recognize Corino, Steele, or Hashimoto as champion, the organisation vacated the gold and held a three-way round robin match on 15/12/01 to determine the undisputed champion. Hashimoto emerged victorious (begging the question as to why they didn’t just acknowledge his win two months earlier in the first place), only to be attacked by former champion Severn at the conclusion of the bout. When they met four months later on a Zero-One card, Severn defeated Hashimoto to start his second run with the belt.
This one was far shorter than the first: on 29/5/02, the NWA stripped Severn because he was unable to make the first NWA-TNA taping to defend it, declaring the title vacant once more and announcing that the winner of a 20-man gauntlet at the inaugural TNA show would be declared the champion.
I know it never happened in WWE, but have Sting and The Undertaker ever met in singles competition anywhere else?
Katie Farmer
Indeed they have. Only once, mind you, on a WCW house show at the Greensboro Coliseum held on 1/9/90—just over two months before The Undertaker’s WWF television debut at Survivor Series. ‘Taker—working as Mark Callous—lost to ‘the Stinger’ in the main event
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