On Monday, March 13, 2006 at 2:41 PM EST Welcome to this week's edition of the Armpit wrestling quiz. It has now been 5 full years since WCW went belly up, and not a day goes by when the average wrestling fan doesn't reminisce in his/her head about the glory days of 1997 and 1998 when we'd flip channels between Raw and Nitro, gleefully watching the USA's top 2 wrestling companies fight like children. And now with Ted Turner no longer holding any power when it comes to cable network television, those days are likely gone for good unless Spike moves Impact to Mondays.
But the Turner loss is a tough one, because it was always in the back of our minds as something that could potentially materialize, even though we knew it never really would. It was a dream, but businesses are built on dreams. And in wrestling, with people in charge who don't know squat about business and/or wrestling, companies die a quick death out of sheer incompetence. This week's quiz is thus called, "Lame-Ass Attempts at Wrestling Start-Ups."
This is a tough quiz for those of you who don't follow wrestling very closely, but what the Heck, they can't all be easy. Utilize Google and you stand a very good chance of winning.
Last week's winner:
The Guru, plugging TheFinishers.com.
Last week's answers: (Click here) for last week's questions.
-Andre challenged Hulk for WM3 during Piper's Pit. When Hogan responded later with the memorable "Yessssssssssssssssss!!!" the crowd burst into cheers. But if you watch the tape, WWE spliced in footage of the crowd going crazy from a totally different segment, so it looked like they were cheering Hulk's decision, when in reality the crowd response was good, but the video footage was phony. It's a trick WWE has done for years, and to be fair, all of television plays tricks like that. That's what laugh tracks are for.
-Jack Tunney made the announcement on TV that Andre was being stripped of the title. The late Tunney was the "president" of WWE back in the days when Vince McMahon pretended he didn't own the company. And he dressed a lot better for the commissioner role than Mick Foley or Larry Zbysko ever did.
-Elizabeth was "injured" when the Twin Towers threw Randy Savage out of the ring and he landed on her. It was a great bump and helped really get the angle over. I'm just glad it wasn't Akeem who landed on Liz, because that would've been bad news.
-Slaughter won the WWF title after outside interference from Randy Savage.
-Sid turned on Hogan by reaching out his hand for the hot tag, and then pulling his hand away and walking to the back. They had teased tension between Hulk and Sid ever since the Rumble of that year. If you notice a pattern, it's running big Hogan angles on NBC in February which would set up WrestleMania months later. Planning ahead: it once wasn't a novel idea.
-At WM9, it was Hogan and Brutus Beefcake against Money Inc (Ted DiBiase & Irwin "Mike Rotunda" R. Schyster). I never really understood the IRS character until years later until when I grew up and had to pay taxes. Maybe if they re-introduce the IRS character today, he can feud with Ric Flair (sorry Ric, that was a cheapshot).
-Lawrence Taylor was sitting in the front row at Rumble '94, when Bigelow went outside and gave him the best-looking shove of all-time. LT fought back and lost his cool, and at the time it was a pretty legit looking brawl. Still, the PPV didn't do as well as expected despite the media hype. That's because very few people cared about LT outside of NY, and Bigelow was kind of stale despite how well he performed in the angle.
-"I'll beat you any day of the week, and twice on Sunday." Sunday was the word we were looking for.
-At WM18, Kevin Nash accompanied Scott Hall to the ring.
-Batista did NOT cut a roaring, intense, heated promo about how he was going to get revenge on HHH after being mistreated for several months in Evolution.
Here are this week's questions. Please email your answers to Quiz@ArmpitWrestling.com. The first person to get all the correct answers to me will be declared the winner and have his/her name listed next week along with anything he/she wants to plug. Remember, once you win, you cannot win again for 3 more weeks. That's our Dr. Keith Rule.
Question #1
1. TNA has a lot of momentum today, but that was anything but the case when they started out. Well, that's what happens when you make Vince Russo your booker. Before Panda Energy funded TNA, the main investor was HealthSouth. In what year did TNA make its debut?
Question #2
2. Another failed attempt was Jimmy Hart's XWF. They ran a few tapings, but never found a TV deal and all that remains today is a DVD. Hogan was the main star of the XWF, along with what blond-haired Minnesota native? (Hint: This man later returned to WWE and TNA, and passed away shortly thereafter.)
Question #3
3. The ill-fated UWA briefly aired on BET (Black Entertainment Television) in the early part of this decade. What did the UWA stand for?
Question #4
4. I wouldn't call ROH lame, so perhaps they don't belong in this quiz. What's so lame about ROH? Not much, except that Gabe Sapolsky insists on running shows so damn late into the night, despite countless complaints. ROH recently celebrated their anniversary. How many years has it been since ROH debuted?
Question #5
5. Roughly 10 years ago, a fellow named Paul Alperstein headed up a fledgling wrestling group. One of its main stars was Tito Santana, and they used a rounds system that American fans weren't used to. The group later had financial troubles, and basically was a big money pit for everyone involved. What was the name of this promotion? (If you just know the initials, that's acceptable.)
Question #6
6. SMW wasn't lame, nor was it ever an attempt to go national. It was just a dream for Jim Cornette, and it was a lot like watching OVW except with much more experienced talent with much less pressure to turn a profit. SMW put on some good TV and presented drastically different product than what WWE, WCW, and ECW were delivering. Ultimately, they couldn't make money and had to fold. SMW ceased operations in what year?
Question #7
7. Your best bet at running a successful wrestling promotion today is to go overseas. Rikishi is doing well with his NWE group (Nu Wrestling Evolution). NWE runs shows primarily in what European country?
Question #8
8. Joe Pedicino had the #3 wrestling promotion in the country in 1991... although it was as distant a #3 rank as distant can be. At least it had a TV slot on ESPN. Name this short-lived-yet-entertaining promotion.
Question #9
9. This women's group once ran a PPV show in 1992, which wasn't that bad and did feature the always-hilarious Jim Cornette on commentary. The promotion was called the LPWA, which stood for what?
Question #10
10. Not all that recently, a group in the Southeast was putting on some decent TV that was very reminiscent of ECW. That's because it was produced by several ex-ECW employees and used ex-ECW talent like CW Anderson. They even had the "Extreme Horsemen." Unfortunately the promotion dissolved. Which one of the promotions below am I talking about?
A. MECW (Main Event Championship Wrestling)
B. MLW (Major League Wrestling)
C. MCW (Memphis Championship Wrestling)
D. PWI (Pro Wrestling Iron)
E. APW (All Pro Wrestling)
F. UCW (Universal Championship Wrestling)
Security Code
11. Please write down this week’s security code in order to verify that you saw this quiz on WrestleView.com. This week’s code is "NIDIA." Any emails we receive that do not contain this code will not be eligible to win.
12. In case you win, please tell us how you'd like to list your name and plug. Due to time constraints, you will not be notified if you win, and instead will have to wait until next week when the winning name is posted. If you're playing just for fun and don't care about winning, you don't have to answer this question.
Please email your answers to Quiz@ArmpitWrestling.com. Results will be posted next week. Thanks to everyone for playing.
The Wrestling Professor
www.ArmpitWrestling.com
This week's features: Tom Zenk is back with a brand new sex column. Then it’s HHH vs. John Cena in a rap-off. Finally, we take a look at the momentum TNA is gaining this year. Please stop by the site today.