Ask Wrestling Rumors Week 5 – July 7, 2018

We’re back again with more questions being answered. In case you weren’t around last week, you might want to check out last week’s edition, which can be found right here:

https://wrestlingrumors.net/ask-wrestling-rumors-week-4-june-30-2018/

In short, my name is Thomas Hall and I’ve been watching wrestling for over thirty years. I thought some of you might find my knowledge of wrestling to be a bit of a resource and therefore opened the floor for whatever wrestling questions you might want to ask. It can be historical, trivia, modern, fantasy booking or pretty much anything you would like. As always, you can use the Facebook comments section to ask whatever you would like to see answered next week. Let’s get to it.

From nightmare

1. Cody Rhodes. One WWE Championship run, less than 4 months before never holding it again. Logical or crazy talk?

I knew I’d have to get to Cody eventually. The more I think about him the less sure I am about the things he’s done. Cody was far from a failure in WWE, winning multiple Tag Team and Intercontinental Titles. However, he was one of those guys who swore up and down that he was being underutilized in WWE and could be so much more if he was given the chance. Do you know how many people have said that over the years after leaving WWE and never done anything with it?

Well here’s the thing: Cody actually started to pull it off. He became a hot commodity on the independent circuit thanks to a wish list, showing a variety of names that he wanted to face outside of WWE. Cody went around the world wrestling almost every name on his list, including Kurt Angle, Adam Cole, Dalton Castle, the Young Bucks and several others, not limited to wrestling in various companies.

Like this company for instance.

My First Day: Cody

Cody wrestled all over the world, mainly focusing on the independent circuit before moving to New Japan and Ring of Honor full time. He became the Ring of Honor World Champion and put together a heck of an act with his wife Brandi Rhodes, who had only been a ring announcer in WWE. It turned out that she had some solid charisma and was a perfect choice to second Cody on his worldwide romps.

The high point of Cody’s indy run came when he joined the Bullet Club, leading to a heck of a rivalry with Kenny Omega over the leadership of the team. Cody eventually defeated Omega, turning the story into a more interesting battle than most thought was possible. The story also saw Cody becoming closer with the Young Bucks, forming a rather powerful indy trio. The three of them decided to put on the biggest independent wrestling show of all time, called All In, which will take place later this year. In other words, it’s a good time to be Cody right now and that doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon.

But is that enough to make it work in WWE? I’m not sure about that. A major part of Cody’s appeal is that he’s no longer in WWE and is seeing what he can do without them. Cody did have a successful run with the company, but I’m not sure if that’s enough to bring the interest level up high enough to make him worthy of the spot. Just being the guy who left WWE and became a big star before coming back to the company isn’t exactly a thrilling story.

If this isn’t his career highlight, I don’t know what is.

Cody Rhodes & Goldust vs. Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns - WWE Tag Team Title Match: Raw, Oct. 14, 2013

It’s not like this is AJ Styles who was the best wrestler in the world or Omega who has the reputation for wrestling the best matches in the world over and over. This is just Cody, who was fine in the role he had with the company but never exactly set the ring on fire with one great match after another. He’s certainly talented and has found an indy act that works like a charm but that’s a very different situation than having him be one of the top stars in the biggest wrestling company in the world.

There’s a difference between wrestling on the independent circuit with the Bullet Club behind you and being Cody, the guy who used to be a mid level star. It’s lacking the spark that such a push would require and I don’t think that’s enough to have Cody become one of the top stars in WWE. It’s not impossible and Cody being there again one day certainly wouldn’t surprise me, but I don’t think it’s exactly the big, hot story that would catapult him to the top.

From Cereal Killer

2. Which site do you recommend I go on to get all the big news? Preferably a site that doesn’t report things waaay after the news first breaks through.

Wrestlingrumors.net of course.

From GreenPopcorn

3. What do we have to do to get the announcers quite being bullies loudmouths and arguing just like JBL I am about ready to quit watching because of Corey.

The problem here is the short version of the answer: until Vince McMahon is either gone or retired from running things. For reasons that continue to elude me, McMahon loves hearing this one specific kind of commentary with the announcers being “characters” with personalities instead of having them just call the match with a basic face/heel dynamic. I certainly agree that it gets annoying because the announcers are busier trying to get themselves over than focusing on the match. You know, the thing that the fans are likely trying to watch.

The whole issue comes down to the simple fact that the announcers aren’t the focal point of the show. Commentators, especially the lead play by play announcer (Michael Cole on Monday Night Raw and Tom Phillips on SmackDown Live) are supposed to be neutral and right in the middle. It’s fine to have someone on their side as a color analyst, whose job description is right in the title: add color to the shows. That makes sense in theory, but as is so often the case for WWE, they don’t know when to pull back on the reins.

This is what modern commentary has become.

Corey Graves Can't Stand Byron Saxton #2

Commentary booths have to have some personality. You can’t just have people listing off moves like a radio commentator (though Joey Styles is considered great for doing basically this exact thing) but there’s a fine line showing a personality and having that personality be treated as something more important than what is going on in the ring. This is something that happens so often in WWE and it’s rather annoying, especially when there are jokes that only the commentators get or are only about them.

Case in point, Titus O’Neil, Jerry Lawler and the washcloths. What is this you ask? Well that’s the problem. One night the two of them got into a discussion of washcloths and it became a running joke for a few weeks. Now if you haven’t heard that discussion, all you have is Lawler randomly talking about a washcloth during a match, making him sound like an out of touch old man. Why this was going on instead of what was going on in the ring, like an analyst is supposed to do, was just unthinkable, which is another major commentary issue.

At least do it with some style.

Main Event Wrestling best intro

For some reason, WWE seems to think that commentary needs to be talking about every other thing that could be going on other than what they’re seeing. Yes I know that something big is coming up later in the night, but at the moment I could go for a discussion of what I’m seeing. If the commentators, our guides for the night, don’t care about what is happening on the screen right now, why should I? NXT can get this right every single week and, amazingly enough, commentary there is far more tolerable more often than not. I’ll take a discussion of a match over Corey Graves ripping on Byron Saxton any day.

Commentary is a very important part of a wrestling show, and that has been the case for a long time. You can all come up with some famous line that has enhanced your time watching a match but for some reason anymore it’s all about the commentators getting themselves over or whatever McMahon thinks needs to be said. If you question this, you can be replaced pretty easily. If you need proof of who is in charge, just check out this leaked audio.

LEAKED Michael Cole unedited commentary (talking to Vince)

From #MrScissorsKick

4. Man, how accomplished would A.J. Styles be if he entered the WWE about 10 years earlier?

Oh now this could be fun and the answer might surprise you. The answer is he wouldn’t be nearly as accomplished or successful and really, he would be lucky to have survived in the company as long as he did. Styles doesn’t have any kind of size advantage and the accent wasn’t going to do him any favors. In other words, WWE would probably see him as a smaller, though more talented Heath Slater. As ridiculous as that may sound, do you really think it’s wrong?

Styles came into WWE with two major points in his favor: the fact that he had never been in WWE and the fact that he had never been in WWE (not a typo). This was easily his strongest asset coming into WWE and depending on how you look at it, this could mean a major benefit in different ways. As big as it may be to have a long term WWE career, it certainly doesn’t make you into some sort of wrestling superstar.

He did well here.

5 Greatest AJ Styles Slammiversary Moments | GWN Top 5

There are two ways of looking at never been in WWE and we’ll start with the more important one: he didn’t learn to wrestle in and get stuck with the WWE style. If you follow wrestling outside of WWE, you know that there are different styles of wrestling, many of which you’ll never see WWE wrestlers use.

If you learned your craft down in WWE developmental (as so many have and which is becoming more and more common), you’re only going to know what you can be taught from the coaches there. Now that’s not the worst thing in the world as you have a bunch of incredibly talented, knowledgeable coaches on the training staff in WWE developmental. However, the WWE developmental system, at least the one now, is very much a controlled environment. Instead of learning on the job in front of people around the world, you’re mainly in the Performance Center and in front of fans in Florida only.

And he did ok here too.

AJ Styles & Air Paris vs. The Boogie Knights: WCW Thunder, Feb. 21, 2001

That’s where Styles was different. NWA Wildside, Impact Wrestling, Ring of Honor, New Japan, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla and countless indies. That’s where Styles learned his craft for about fifteen years before he made his way to WWE. How many other kinds of wrestling against so many different wrestlers did he encounter and learn from over the years? It turns you into a much more complete performer because you have to learn what works in front of each style of crowd. What you do to get over in New Japan isn’t the same as what you would do in England or Georgia or New York City.

Therefore, when Styles came to WWE, he was one of the most well rounded performers in the world. If you can do the same stuff as everyone else, you’re not going to stand out from the pack. On the other hand, if you can do things that no one else can do, people are going to want to see you because you can mix things up enough to keep them entertained. Maybe you wrestle a high flying match or a brawl or a mat based match or some combination of all of them. That makes you more versatile and the best way to learn that is to wrestle around the world and absorb all of the different styles out there.

In addition to never working for WWE, the other major reason Styles worked so well is because he had never worked for WWE. This one is a little more simplistic: fans wanted to see Styles come to WWE because they had thought about it for so long. There was anticipation built up and fans immediately started talking about all of the matches that Styles could have and wondering how far he could go on the grandest stage of them all in WWE.

Which is why this worked so well.

Unseen footage of AJ Styles’ Royal Rumble debut on WWE Network

It’s such a built in advantage and Styles knew how to make it work. He debuted in the Royal Rumble, made a big splash, had a good feud with Chris Jericho and was feuding with Roman Reigns for the WWE Championship less than four months after he debuted in some great matches. Do you think that happens if he doesn’t have the background and reputation he had built up over the years? It’s a built in advantage and a major reason why he’s such a big star. He did the work earlier in his career and now it’s paying off in WWE.

I can’t imagine Styles would have been a complete failure in WWE due to pure talent alone. Even if he had come up through developmental and not had all of the success that he had elsewhere, he would have at least done something of note on the big stage. However, he never would have reached the heights that he’s already reached as he took a completely different route to get here. That’s not a bad thing and it’s worked like a charm for him, making Styles one of the biggest stars in the biggest company in the world.

From Jordon B.

5. How do you feel about Shelton Benjamin? Do you think he could have been a main event player? Also I believe he should have went to RAW with Chad Gable and form a heel stable with Jason Jordan. Do you think the stable could have work?

For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to assume that this is about Benjamin’s original run with the company rather than the second run, which has seen Benjamin as much more of an older name that you know did something at some point. The original run felt like he was on the brink of breaking through to the main event scene and he got very close to doing just that more than once.

I was a big Benjamin fan for a long time and wanted to see what he could have done in the main event scene. He had all the tools that you needed with a great amateur wrestling background, an awesome look and some charisma. I’m not sure if he had the talking abilities to become a top name but he wasn’t the worst in the world by any stretch. That sounds like quite the package and all he needed were some great performances.

If you’ve never seen this, check out some high quality professional wrestling and my favorite match.

FULL-LENGTH MATCH - Raw - Shawn Michaels vs. Shelton Benjamin

Then he beat Triple H twice in a row (including a pin) and went to a draw in their third match. That was followed by winning the Intercontinental Title from Chris Jericho and the instant classic with Shawn Michaels on Monday Night Raw in May 2005 (the one with the springboard into the superkick). If that wasn’t the sign that he was ready to become the new hot shot star, I don’t know what was.

After losing the Intercontinental Title (at 244 days, the eighth longest reign ever, the longest since 1998 and a reign that hasn’t been surpassed in the thirteen years since), Benjamin went on a losing streak because that’s just what you do in WWE. He was given a “Mama”, played by a rather large comedienne who kept taking about how Benjamin needed to make her proud.

Then he dyed his hair gold and called himself the Gold Standard to exactly the results you would expect. After a few years of doing nothing save for toiling in the midcard, Benjamin was released and did well enough on the indies as a tag wrestler and in Japan as a singles star to get back to WWE.

In case you need a rapid fire introduction to Benjamin’s best days.

30-Second Fury - Shelton Benjamin

In other words, Benjamin is another example of WWE building someone up, having no idea what to do with them because they weren’t going to be moved up to the main event scene, and then sabotaging his career with two stupid ideas that weren’t going to get over. What is he supposed to do when his mom is the star of the pairing and then his whole gimmick is built around the color of his hair? No one was going to be able to make that work and it’s hard to blame Benjamin for something like that.

So without all that could he have been a major player in WWE? Yeah I think so. With all of the tools that he had at his disposal and the fans liking him as much as they did, there was no reason to think that he couldn’t have pulled it off. Was he ready to do it right then? Of course not, but there aren’t many people who are ready to do something that big at such a fast pace. Benjamin was pushed very well over his younger years and should have been a big star, but WWE would rather go with “comedy” than a serious push at times and as usual, it was a disaster.

As for modern Benjamin, this is probably as high of a level as he’s going to get. He turns 43 years old next week and while he’s still one of the best athletes and in some of the best shape in the promotion, I’m not sure what else he can do. The idea of a shooter/amateur wrestling stable is interesting though and it would certainly be better than having Gable jobbing left and right and Jordan trying to make people care about him. It’s certainly not a bad idea and it’s not like he has anything else going on at the moment.

From #MrScissorsKick

6. Which WWE “Superstar” is having the best run in 2018; Rollins, Styles or Strowman?

Now this one could go places. The main thing here is how strong the three of them have been, albeit in different ways. You could make a very legitimate argument for all three of them as they all have a different style which could be considered better than the rest. There are different ways to go about becoming the best and well take a look at each one of them with their different strengths.

Seth Rollins

If there is anyone who is on more of a roll on the main roster than Rollins, I can’t think of them at the moment. He’s having good to great matches with almost anyone he’s out there with, even getting a good match out of Jinder Mahal a few weeks back. The roll managed to get him the Intercontinental Title, which he lost to Dolph Ziggler for reasons that I still don’t quite comprehend.

The thing with Rollins is he’s become a treat to watch. It’s no longer about will he have a very good match but how great can he make this one. Rollins has turned it back up to the level that he was at before his knee injury in 2015 and that’s a very valuable place to be. Not many people in the world are as good as Rollins when he’s on his game and he hasn’t been nailing it like this for a long time now, if ever in his career.

It took a long way to get here but the journey was amazing.

How Tyler Black became Seth Rollins: WWE Formerly Known As

The main benefit to what Rollins is doing though is the fire in him. It’s like he’s out there to prove something and when you’re wrestling with that kind of drive and intensity, there’s very little that is going to be able to hold you back. It makes me want to see how far he can go on this run and if he stays healthy, the sky is the limit for just how good he could become again.

AJ Styles

I don’t think there’s any secret to the fact that Styles is one of if not the best in the world right now. He’s one of the most consistent performers WWE has seen in a very long time and I don’t remember the last time he had a bad match. Not to beat a horrible wrestler of a horse but he carried Mahal to the best matches of his career. That’s a minor miracle in its own right and more proof of how excellent Styles really is.

The other benefit to Styles is he can be put into the top level of any show and you’re going to get a great performance. There’s no one you can put in the ring against and get anything less than good, which allows you to put him in almost any position on a card. Having Styles around means you’re at least guaranteed one bright spot, which is going to help draw some attention to the show. It’s so valuable to have that one guaranteed match as it can be quite the breath of fresh air on a weaker show, which is the case far too often in WWE.

Styles can speed it up if he needs to.

Daniel Bryan vs. AJ Styles: SmackDown LIVE, April 10, 2018

In a word, Style is SmackDown’s ace. You can make him the go to guy and you know exactly what you’re going to get. He’s been WWE Champion for about eight months now and could hold the title a good bit longer than that. It takes a serious level of trust to keep the title on someone that long and shows just how good Styles can be. He might not have the blow away match that gets your attention so far this year, but an average Styles match is still better than almost anyone else around at the moment and that’s a great thing to have on your card.

Braun Strowman

This is a little unfair as Strowman hasn’t won any titles this year, but what exactly is there for him to win? He’s too big of a deal to win or even chase the Intercontinental Title and Brock Lesnar being gone leaves him with little more to do than fight random people for whatever reason there is that week. Or put them in a portable toilet and spend five minutes carrying it to the stage for a single sight gag, but that’s another story.

Strowman has become an attraction, and that’s a very valuable thing. He has spots that people like to see and the power game is something that people care about. It’s also not like he hasn’t won anything, as he picked up the Greatest Royal Rumble and is currently Mr. Money in the Bank. Now if Lesnar ever actually shows up again, there’s a good chance that Strowman becomes Universal Champion by the end of the year. Or they have Roman Reigns beat Lesnar and Strowman in the same night to REALLY make Reigns the big star, which has worked oh so well before.

He can do comedy too.  This one still works as a sight gag.

Braun Strowman bashes Elias with a bass: Raw, Feb. 12, 2018

As you might be able to tell, I’m not a fan of how Strowman has been booked and so much of that isn’t his fault. There isn’t much he can do when there’s no World Title for him to chase and he’s stuck going from one feud to another while we wait on Lesnar to grace us with his presence. Strowman is stuck in the middle like so many others are and he’s done quite a bit from that spot, which tells you just how impressive he really has been this year so far.

Overall though, I have to take Styles. Just being able to be that consistent and valuable to the show makes him so important and someone you can depend on. The main thing I see with him is that it’s not so much a great roll that he’s on but rather just who he is. Styles isn’t just great right now because he’s great all the time. That’s something that not a lot of people can say but he does it better than anyone, making him the best of these three options.

From BestSportsEntertainer

7. Which wrestler has been misused the most by WWE in the last 4 years?

For the sake of simplicity, I’ll go with a cutoff point of the night after WrestleMania 30, on April 7, 2014. The night before was a changing of the guard for the company and the Monday Night Raw that came the night after was a pretty big show with names being announced. It’s as easy of a point to start as anyone else. The following four names are in no specific order.

Jinder Mahal

As you might have noticed by now, I do not get why WWE stuck with Mahal for so long. I understand the concept of trying to tap into the Indian market but egads it just did not work. Some people tried to claim that Mahal was actually a good heel and getting somewhere with the character but I certainly didn’t see it. Now to his credit, I did see someone who was clearly trying as hard as he could and had sculpted his body into a very impressive physique. Mahal was making an effort and that’s an important step.

This is as good as he got.

Jinder Mahal vs. AJ Styles - WWE Championship Match: SmackDown LIVE, Nov. 7, 2017

The problem though is he as the WWE Champion and I expect a little more out of the top name on the show than average. Other than the match where he lost the title to Styles, I don’t remember Mahal ever being anything above average. He had some passable matches, but some of his efforts were just downright atrocious, including the Punjabi Prison match in particular. I need more out of the World Champion that average, and I never got that with Mahal.

Rusev

If this was 1987, Rusev would have been one of the top challengers to face Hulk Hogan for the WWF Title at every house show you could imagine. He has a great look, he can talk, he’s an athletic freak, and he’s had two different managers/lackeys, both of whom had great chemistry with him (being his wife had something to do with it in Lana’s case).

Rusev?  Held back?  Perish the thought.

Is Rusev being held back?: SmackDown LIVE, May 1, 2018

Yet for some reason, we’re coming up on Rusev’s first singles World Title match. Aside from challenging for the title in the 2016 Royal Rumble, Rusev has never had a World Title match on pay per view. How in the world do you have someone that popular and that skilled and never give him a chance? Not even in a token four way or something like that? It’s not like Rusev is a hard character to push and it never happened once? That’s ridiculous on so many levels.

Revival

Maybe this is me just being a big Revival fan but this team’s booking baffles me. They’re the most successful and quite possibly the best NXT tag team of all time and now I’m breathing a sigh of relief when they’re not getting squashed by a thrown together tag team who don’t like each other. Revival is so much better than that but for some reason they’re barely able to get any time on Monday Night Raw every single week.

Just listen to that pop.

The New Day vs. The Revival: Raw, April 3, 2017

The problem here is Revival wasn’t set up for the main roster after all of their NXT success. They were set up as a team who wrestles long matches and work on a body part instead of running out there and having their match as fast as they can. For some reason we get to see Revival every now and then for the sake of putting over some other team. After seeing them do so well in NXT and knowing exactly how good they could be, it’s so frustrating to watch them be put out there in this role that any low level team could be. You might be seeing why this was almost the Ascension instead.

Roman Reigns

The key word here is misused and that’s where Reigns comes in. If you don’t understand that Reigns is talented, I don’t know how to help you. Reigns is an incredibly talented wrestler and someone who can have some awesome matches. The Shield connection gives him some instant popularity and he belongs at or near the top of the card. Just watch his performances and you should be able to understand that.

See?  He can be awesome.

Roman Reigns vs. Sheamus - WWE World Heavyweight Championship Match: Raw, December 14, 2015

The problem is how hard he’s pushed and the character he’s pushed as. For some reason WWE thinks that Reigns is this generation’s Hulk Hogan and that just does not work. When that was a failure, WWE tried pushing him as Daniel Bryan, but a 6’3 270lb former college football star from one of the most famous wrestling families ever didn’t quite fit as an underdog. Now Reigns is just that guy who is always on top and that’s not working by any real standard. It’s not the right fit for him now and it never will be.

That’s all for now so until next week,

Thomas Hall

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his Amazon author page with 27 wrestling books. His latest book is the NXT: The Full Sail Years Volume III: From Dallas To New Orleans.

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