Hello and welcome to the return of the Armpit wrestling quiz for the week of August 30, 2010. We’ve been gone for 14 months, and I hope this time we can stick around with a little more regularity. We’ll keep the load lighter and try to stick to only 5 questions per week.
In light of Randy Couture’s win over James Toney this past weekend, there has been a lot of talk about boxers who have crossed over into MMA, including an excellent article Dave Meltzer wrote on Yahoo giving the entire history behind it. However, how has the crossover been of real pro athletes into pro wrestling? It’s extensive, but we’ll just touch on the basics here, as the theme of this week’s quiz is, “Sports Stars Go Wrestling.”
We never did provide answers from the last quiz in June of 2009 (based on famous lies in wrestling), so for the 0% of you who remember those questions, here are the answers:
–Hulk Hogan lied about his steroid use on the Arsenio Hall Show in 1991. At the time, it was considered one of the hottest shows on TV. Since that time, Hogan has lied about pretty much everything else on tons of talk shows.
-The significance of the figure “$1.7 billion” in 1992 was the number Vince McMahon told media outlets was the annual revenue of Titan Sports (the McMahon parent company name for the WWF and subsidiaries). Of course, this was before the WWF was a public company, and that figure was absurd. The real figure at that time was more likely around 15-20% of $1.7 billion.
-Shawn Michaels first admitted that he knew about the 1997 Montreal screwjob on “WWE Confidential,” a show that aired briefly on cable late at night.
-During the Dennis Coraluzzo (R.I.P.) screwjob, in which Paul Heyman orchestrated the official transformation of ECW from “Eastern” to “Extreme,” Shane Douglas won what Dennis thought was going to be an NWA Title tournament. Instead, Douglas threw the belt on the ground and declared himself the Extreme Championship Wrestling champion. Double-cross move to be sure, but the post-match promo from Douglas was excellent. Douglas pinned Too Cold Scorpio in the final match of the lackluster tournament.
Here are this week’s questions. No winners will be declared. We’re just doing this for fun and to honor the forgotten world of wrestling history.
1. We’ll start with an easy one. Pro boxing superstar Floyd Mayweather was the key attraction at the 2008 WrestleMania, garnering good mainstream media interest that seemed to be based more on what Mayweather’s payday than anything else. In the angle on Raw leading to the big match, Mayweather punched whom? And it was a pretty stiff shot.
2. There was big media interest in WrestleMania 11 in 1995, but most of the media was based in New York and it was universally negative toward WWE. NY Giants legend Lawrence Taylor did a decent job against the late Bam Bam Bigelow to headline the show, in one of Bigelow’s all-time great performances in carrying it to a watchable match. It did overshadow the WWF World Title match on the show, which featured whom?
3. Red-hot WCW was on fire in 1997, and still burning in 1998 when media favorite Dennis Rodman crossed over into pro wrestling. He was a natural, as he quickly adapted to the theatrics, the athletics, and the substances, if you get my drift. He showed up wasted to the much hyped match in which he teamed up with Hogan to face Karl Malone and DDP, and at times fell asleep in the corner. Which PPV did this match headline?
4. This North Carolina NFL tough guy went on the Jay Leno and called out “Pretty Boy Ric Flair.” In reality, Flair was a great friend of this man and probably still is. He also showed incredible skill inside the ring for someone who wasn’t a pro wrestler. Name the mulletted monster I’m talking about.
5. Back when UFC was losing tons of money, Ken Shamrock opted to leave and go back to pro wrestling. His timing couldn’t have been better, because pro wrestling and especially the WWF were hitting its stride in the late 90s. While adopted brother Frank was becoming an MMA legend, Ken was doing quite well in the WWF. Name the other UFC champ who also wrestled for the WWF around this time, although without anywhere near the success Ken had.
Answers will be posted next time.
Special note: I neither own nor write for The Armpit anymore. I’d still like to continue doing these quizzes, however. You’ll find the transition to new owner Jag Jefferson almost seamless and won’t notice much of a difference. Expect to see more of an MMA focus and less pro wrestling, but that’s a good thing. It’s also far more interactive, so you can freely submit stuff on Backstage Fights, Famous Quotes, Road Stories, Stupid Things Said by Stupid Marks, Dear Dr. Tom (as in Zenk, who fields your sex questions), Hypocrite Nation, Ask the Armpit, and all the sleazy old favorites like Pick My Brain, Mock My Brain, Celebrity Editorials, the latest UFC/WWE “news,” and much more.
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