Welcome to a new website-exclusive PWTorch feature! I am PWTorch founder and editor, Wade Keller. I've been covering pro wrestling since 1987 when I started the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter while still in high school. Over 25 years later, PWTorch reaches more wrestling fans every week than any other independent brand. When we launched PWTorch.com in 1999, one of the features I enjoyed doing the most was "Ask PWTorch." I haven't done it recently on the website, but did revive it in recent years in an audio format for PWTorch VIP members on my Keller Hotline. We reintroduced it to the website audience this month.

If you have a question you'd like me to respond to, send your question to askpwtorch@gmail.com. I, along with the Torch staff, will address you questions.

SPECIAL NOTE We have launched a new FREE PWTorch Email Alert service today where you can receive BREAKING NEWS ALERTS on occasion plus TOP FIVE STORIES OF THE DAY reports. To sign up (you can easily unsubscribe anytime), click here.)

PWTorch reader Efren from Phoenix asks: If Randy Orton's contract was up this week what would you offer him? The same deal, 50% less, or good luck in your future endeavors?

PWTorch editor Wade Keller answers: I have a feeling his pay has gone down already since WWE's payroll system involves a downside guarantee, with actual pay above that based on place on card, house show attendance, PPV buy rates, and pretty much the whims of Vince McMahon and top management. So if Orton, at his peak, was making well above his downside, he's already probably absorbed a big pay cut. I still think he's valuable to WWE, especially if they ever decide to give him a big push as a heel again. In fact, he may actually be a really fresh addition to the top heel roster when that day comes, so I kind of like seeing the roster reset itself a bit as he hovers relatively covertly on Smackdown in mid-card feuds. By the time he rises to main events again, he might have new opponents and new situations to play off of. Of course, that's all ignoring the Two Strikes and the risk of a third strike coming at a bad time for WWE in the midst of a renewed push. It also ignores that McMahon and Co. may be bored with Orton's limitations and personality quirks. But if I were deciding, based on what I know, I'd keep him around if he wanted to be around and pay him appropriately for his place on the card, and lay out to him what I'd expect from him in order for him to get elevated to PPV main events again. I wouldn't fear his going to TNA, but I wouldn't invite it, either.


PWTorch reader Nick W. asks: Why does TNA, especially Dixie Carter, feel the need to be overly apologetic about scandals that weren't worked ahead of time? It makes no sense how it's business as usual for kayfabe incidents like Aces & Eights crippling wrestlers with hammers or Bully Ray psychologically torturing Brooke Hogan, yet relatively mild incidents like Austin Aries crotching Hemme or Bully Ray calling a fan a homosexual slur are treated as serious offenses.

PWTorch editor Wade Keller answers: The two situations you described were real-life incidents, so outside of the context of the TV show and the presentation of storylines, TNA (and Spike TV) felt the responsible thing to do for public relations reasons was to address their fan base and sponsors about the real-life incidents. Because Dixie is addressing the situation on Twitter where people believe her to be speaking as company president in real life and not company president in storyline land, people for the most part can differentiate. Yes, if Aces & Eights were attacking people with hammers in the real world, that would be a bigger deal than what Aries and Bully did, but fans see them as dramatizations and part of the TV world TNA creates, with a set of internal rules about how to address them. Bully Ray's anti-gay epithets and Aries' uninvited intimidation and sexual harassment of Christy Hemme were not storylines, weren't addressed on TV, but were unplanned incidents that merited official statements from top brass.


PWTorch reader Tim M. asked: I think it's getting to the point of what else can we do here to keep fans excited. I miss the days of Dr. Death Steve williams making that hot tag and clearing the house excitement. I know am wrong on this because WWE is such locomotive machine here, but when Vince McMahon passes away I won't be surprised if WWE goes with him. What do you think? I'm just a fan for 30 years.

PWTorch editor Wade Keller answers: I'm also a fan for (over) 30 years! I attended my first wrestling event in person 32 years ago as a kid, the Verne Gagne retirement match against Nick Bockwinkel for the AWA Title. It was an amazing experience in terms of the fans heat and the fact that fans either believed or much more willingly suspended any notion of disbelief. However, those who watched wrestling in the 1960s tell me that my 1981 card experience was nothing compared to then. And people who saw Ric Flair vs. Kerry Von Erich or the Freebirds vs. Von Erichs in the mid-1980s would say nothing has come close since. Those who were part of the amazing years when Steve Austin was on top in the WWF will say nothing will ever come close to that. Those who were in Chicago for the C.M. Punk vs. John Cena match will be telling their kids and grandkids about that. In other words, every generation remembers the high points and thinks nothing will ever come close. It's funny, because I don't remember Dr. Death ever being over to the degree that I'd consider his run on top in Mid-South/UWF as a peak time for crowd heat, but for you it stood out. I would point to the great pop Daniel Bryan got on Monday's Raw main event as being as intense as anything Dr. Death received, or at least in the same ballpark. Pro wrestling today still has those moments. It's a different era in 2013 than 1981 or 1986, but pro wrestling still has magical moments happening throughout every year.

As for how WWE will change when Vince McMahon isn't around anymore, we won't know until it happens. It appears Triple H and Stephanie McMahon are going to be in charge of that. They may or may not take things in a different direction than Vince McMahon has.


NOTE: You can ask PWTorch staff questions live on the PWTorch Livecast (www.PWTorchLivecast.com) Monday through Friday. Mondays the show airs at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT in the hour before Raw and Tuesday through Friday at 5:30 ET / 2:30 PT. The show airs five days a week and you can talk to PWTorch staff members Bruce Mitchell, Travis Bryant, Pat McNeill, James Caldwell, Greg Parks, Sean Radican, and me on other days during the week.

READ PREVIOUS "ASK PWTORCH" FEATURES BY CLICKING HERE.

(Send your question for PWTorch editor Wade Keller and the PWTorch staff exclusively to pwtorch@gmail.com for consideration! You can hear expanded conversation on the above topics from Wade Keller by becoming a VIP member and gaining access to the daily Wade Keller Hotline, posted every day for VIP members for over 1,000 days straight. Sign up at www.PWTorch.com/govip)

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