Whooooooooooo! Ian Hunter here, strolling on out to the theme from "2001: A Space Odyssey." Now of course I could join the rest of the staff and wrap up the week long tribute to Ric Flair by doing some Flair trivia. But something else caught my eye this week... the odd stipulation to Flair's career. Next time he loses... he's gone. So with that in mind, this week's theme is strange stipulations in wrestling. But before we delve into those questions, we need to answer last week's Jericho questions.
1: B. Corazón de León. Or in translation, Heart Of Lion. What is it with Jericho and lions early in his career?
2: D. That's right, Cactus Jack himself. Foley caught Jericho working for New Japan while he was doing work for the IWA promotion.
3: C. $119,000. Further reflection on Jericho's part made him think that if he bid for that much and got more, maybe he should have bid higher and gotten the most they would have offered. Which at some reports would have been $175,000 yearly.
4: C. Jericho wanted to carry the feud all the way to the World War 3 PPV, but management wanted to conclude the feud on Nitro. Jericho felt strongly that it could have been a good draw to let people see him get beat quickly by Goldberg after months of taunting. Since an agreement couldn't be made, the feud was killed quickly.
5: A. Ken was on his way out the door anyway expressing interest to go back to MMA fighting. But the WWF wanted a "legitimate" reason for his departure. On one of the early episodes of Smackdown, Jericho came out in full hockey gear to fight Shamrock in a first blood match. He eventually won by jumping off the top rope in his gear, causing "internal bleeding" in Shamrock.
Now with that out of the way, one last thing. We want to know what you know! Answer the questions and email your answers to TorchTrivia@gmail.com. We'll post the names of those who got ALL FIVE correct. Good luck to you all. Now, let's start the show.
1. Bill Watts. One of the early bad influences on WCW, he tried to bring his old ring style and rules into the new age of wrestling, and in turn was met with opposition from both the locker room and the fans. One of the biggest travesties of his term was the "Top Rope" rule, which at first banned most maneuvers from the top rope and from throwing your opponent over the top the rope to the floor. The rule was viewed as so stupid, some talent like Rick Rude and Steve Austin would break character and throw opponents over the top rope just to see if the referee would break form and end the match early. Before the rule was thrown out all together, it was reduced to only outlaw specific maneuvers. What were they?
A: No big splashes from the top rope.
B: No flying elbows to the head or throat from the top rope.
C: No moves of any kind from the top rope to the outside floor.
D: No knee moves to the head or throat from the top rope.
E: No leg drops across the crotch area.
2. One of the more strange stipulations matches to take place during the Attitude era was the Empty Arena match between Mankind and The Rock during halftime of Superbowl XXXIII. The entire point of this match was so that no one would be around to interfere on behalf of either man, even though McMahon came to the ring and it was clear that the arena wasn't completely empty. The two basically took advantage of every area they could, going through the empty audience, the kitchen, the offices, everywhere they could go until the badly coordinated ending with Mankind pinning Rock under a running forklift. Our question to you, where did this match take place?
A: Salt Lake City, UT
B: Tucson, AZ
C: Birmingham, AL
D: Denver, CO
E: Anaheim, CA
3. Wrestlemania VII played host to a stipulation match that got a bigger reaction than most of the matches that night. The Blindfold Match between Jake "The Snake" Roberts and Rick Martel during his "The Model" years. During an interview Martel sprayed Jake in the eye with some "perfume" that apparently blinded Jake in one eye for several months. Jake wore sunglasses, stumbled around, even went to far as to wear a glass eye in the ring. At Wrestlemania the two had what Jake later called "The easiest match of my life. We could see through the blindfolds. All we had to do was crawl around for fifteen minutes and the crowd went wild." Going back to the original incident, on what interview show was Jake blinded on?
A: The Snake Pit
B: The Funeral Parlor
C: Piper's Pit
D: The Brother Love Show
E: The Barber Shop
4. Dog Collar matches, while quite brutal, have somehow lost their place in today's action. The first Dog Collar matches took place in the NWA between Roddy Piper and Greg Valentine during one of Greg's U.S. Championship runs. Everything from choking with the collar to whiping each other with the chain became staples in their matches. Of course they became bloody very quickly, not for the fact that they would use the collars to their advantage, but for the fact that they knew where to hit each other to get the blood flowing. Piper had no problem going for Valentine's forehead to make him gush, but there was a specific part of Piper's head that would make whatever Piper did to him look like a scrape. Where would Valentine usually go for the blood?
A: Nose
B: Lips
C: Ears
D: Neck
E: Forehead
5. The WarGames match. Created by Dusty Rhodes to accommodate the Four Horsemen, made it's debut at The Great American Bash in 1987. Since then it had become a staple of the NWA and later WCW when it was introduced into Wrestle War and eventually Fall Brawl. For those who don't know it, the concept is simple. Two men start off in a double-ring inside a cage. Every 5 minutes a random teammate comes out until everyone is in. The match was often the pre-cursor to the eventual main event at Starcade, and was often recognized for being one of the best matches every year. The first ever WarGames match ended when one of the members of the Horsemen fell awkwardly after the Road Warriors nailed him with the Doomsday Device, and he eventually submitted. Who submitted?
LATEST PRO WRESTLING TORCH NEWSLETTER #1037 (16 PAGES)
This issue begins with a cover story on the annoucement on Raw that Mike Adamle is the new Raw G.M... Wade Keller's BBL features a number of other shocking G.M. possibilities for WWE to consider... Page 2 Buzz with Jason Powell features his exclusive insider news galore... Pat McNeill continues his series of articles reviewing the history of Summerslam... Bruce Mitchell continues his series of Ric Flair DVD Liner Notes with a focus on "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers htis week... Part four of the "Torch Talk" with Doug Basham... Sean Radican reviews in detail the ROH PPV before it's offered nationally on PPV... Plus the Torch Newswire, Top Five Stories, reports on Raw, Smackdown, and Impact, and more......
