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WEDNESDAY’S ASK PWTORCH ALL-STARS 3/25: Did announcers and ref really not know the finish of Taker-Lesnar last year? Will Taker be inducted in HOF next year or wrestle? Plus Sandow, Heyman, Rotunda topics

Mar 25, 2015 - 10:10:07 PM
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The PWTorch All-Star Panel features an array of contributors answering your questions who have worked in various facets of the pro wrestling industry, plus PWTorch contributors join in. You get an unmatched mix of perspectives including first-hand insights from people who have worked in the ring and behind the curtain.

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PWTorch reader Alejandro B. asks: Hi team, wish you a happy new year. I am fan of Mike Rotundo, and wanted to know which you consider is his best run and match. Also, what kept him out of a big title picture? He was a good in ring worker and a good talker (of course, not in a Flair level).

INDY PROMOTER & ANNOUNCER Brad Stutts (Follow @cwfmidatlantic and @stuttsy and listen to his podcast at www.WrestlingWithOptimism) answers: I like his match against Undertaker from the 1995 Royal Rumble a lot.

PROFESSIONAL BROADCASTER Jim Valley (Long time wrestling fan, Torch subscriber, and currently PWTorch Livecast guest host. He won a National Edward R. Murrow Award and several regional awards during his 20 year broadcast career. He has done TV announcing for several independent wrestling promotions, hosted his own wrestling radio show, interviewed many top stars, and was flown out to Stamford to audition for WWE. He took second to Todd Grisham.) Mike Rotunda is a fascinating person. When he started he was an all American boy with an amateur wrestling background, not as accomplished, but promoted in the mold of a Jack Brisco. Then the business changed. Amateur credentials didn't mean as much at the box office. He started as a bland but talented wrestler and retired as an evil tax collector. His run as the captain of the college themed Varsity Club fit him perfectly. I liked his tag matches with Barry Windham, particularly against Dick Murdoch & Adrian Adonis.

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PWTorch reader Jeff from Michigan asks: Is it pretty much a given that Undertaker will not have a match next year at Mania and instead be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame?

EX-ECW CHAMPION AND LONGTIME WWE WRESTLER Justin Credible (also current IWE Champion, visit www.TheJustinCredible.com and on YouTube here including his ongoing Wrestling 101 Series) answers: I disagree. I think that Dallas, Texas will be the place that he has his last match and possibly his greatest.

PROFESSIONAL BROADCASTER Jim Valley (Long time wrestling fan, Torch subscriber, and currently PWTorch Livecast guest host. He won a National Edward R. Murrow Award and several regional awards during his 20 year broadcast career. He has done TV announcing for several independent wrestling promotions, hosted his own wrestling radio show, interviewed many top stars, and was flown out to Stamford to audition for WWE. He took second to Todd Grisham.) I think Undertaker's retirement match will headline "The Biggest WrestleMania of All Time" in his home state of Texas next year.

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PWTorch reader Jeff from Michigan asks: If Lesnar had left after WrestleMania, would Paul Heyman have simply retired or stayed with WWE? Would he have resumed his managing of Cesaro or an NXT star?

EX-ECW CHAMPION AND LONGTIME WWE WRESTLER Justin Credible (also current IWE Champion, visit www.TheJustinCredible.com and on YouTube here including his ongoing Wrestling 101 Series) answers: I'm sure Paul would have stayed on with WWE. He is one of their best performers, hands-down.

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PWTorch reader Jeff from Michigan asks: Will WWE drop the ball on Damien Sandow's eventual face turn? How can they go about it without losing fans or having Sandow stuck in the mid-card?

PROFESSIONAL BROADCASTER Jim Valley (Long time wrestling fan, Torch subscriber, and currently PWTorch Livecast guest host. He won a National Edward R. Murrow Award and several regional awards during his 20 year broadcast career. He has done TV announcing for several independent wrestling promotions, hosted his own wrestling radio show, interviewed many top stars, and was flown out to Stamford to audition for WWE. He took second to Todd Grisham.) Sandow is the first talent since Santino who has the ability to take terrible material and somehow make it work. I agree he has the talent and confidence, I'm not sure if he can overcome being a seen as strictly a comedy act in the eyes of the fans and management.

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PWTorch reader Jon in Philadelphia, Pa. asks: After Brock Lesnar beat Undertaker at WrestleMania I remember reading in a few places that the announcers may not have known about the finish. (Also heard the ref was in the dark, but that can't be possible, can it?) Anyway, I was wondering if you could shed some light on how common it is for the announcers to be left in the dark on the finish of a match?

INDY PROMOTER & ANNOUNCER Brad Stutts (Follow @cwfmidatlantic and @stuttsy and listen to his podcast at www.WrestlingWithOptimism) answers: The ref being in the dark to me sounds more like folklore than fact. He may have been one of the only ones to know but, in my mind, he had to know. You can't run the risk of the ref not counting three on the biggest finish in history. If he didn't "know" for sure, he HAD to have been told at some point in the day to count three no matter what if there is no kick out, or something to that extent. There was NO hesitation on the third count whatsoever and we're talking about the Undertaker's Streak here. If he didn't know, I gotta think he would have dove on Taker to check and see if he was alright as soon as he called for the bell, thinking something had gone wrong. Considering it's the WrestleMania streak, I think the ref was too cool under pressure to have not known.

EX-ECW CHAMPION AND LONGTIME WWE WRESTLER Justin Credible (also current IWE Champion, visit www.TheJustinCredible.com and on YouTube here including his ongoing Wrestling 101 Series) answers: Lots of announcers don't like to know what the match is going to be. I know Jim Ross does not like to know very much about the matches. They do, however, know the outcome as far as winners and losers and how it is to be presented. I say the stories out there are probably 50-50 true.

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(Send questions for a future Ask PWTorch to: askpwtorch@gmail.com. If you have a particular person on the All-Star Panel you'd in particular like to direct your question to, include that in the subject line, but multiple panelists may also answer.)

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Catch up on past Ask PWTorch articles...

-ASK PWTORCH - FREE WEBSITE.
-CLICKING HERE - ASK PWTORCH - VIP VERSION

===

In case you are new to this feature, let me introduce you to our All-Star Panel…

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION: By Wade Keller, PWTorch editor

We have assembled a wide range of contributors, which may expand or change over time, with the goal being to give PWTorch readers new perspectives from people who have particular areas of expertise.

Let me introduce you to our panel…

Justin Credible: Current pro wrestler and former ECW Champion and longtime WWE wrestler in the 1990s and 2000s, Justin Credible (P.J. Polaco) currently is the IWE Champion. He travels as indy champion from Maine to Mexico with the title. He posts new Wrestling 101 YouTube videos at www.TheJustinCredible.com or on YouTube at his YouTube Channel.

John Piermarini: Ex-WWE Creative Team member who will provide a behind-the-scenes perspective from his years working for WWE including alongside Vince McMahon, Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, and John Cena. He has been a frequent PWTorch Livecast guest and was the subject of a comprehensive five-hour Torch Talk interview several years ago about his experience with WWE for most of 2009-2010.

Greg Oliver: SLAM! Wrestling reporter and wrestling book author (and hockey book author), Greg will provide a Canadian perspective on many wrestling topics. If you are a fan from Canada or have Canadian-related wrestling questions, Greg can help you. He is a wrestling historian who published a wrestling newsletter during the boom period of insider wrestling newsletters starting in the late 1980s. We were pen pals in the early 1990s and first met at a 1989 wrestling convention in Chicago run by Jon Gallagher of the Wrestling Forum (the first insider wrestling newsletter I ever received in the mail in early 1987).

George Schire: Author of "Minnesota's Golden Age of Wrestling," former Pro Wrestling Focus radio cohost with me in the early 1990s on KFAN, former contributor of history pieces to the PWTorch Newsletter, and multi-time guest on PWTorch Livecast "Interview Friday," he will be providing a historical perspective to Ask PWTorch.

Johnny Fairplay: Reality Star and Wrestling Manager, perhaps best known as Pat McNeill's Regis Philbin. He was an old neighbor of PWTorch senior columnist Bruce Mitchell who watched PPVs at his house long before he became a contestant on Survivor twice. He has been on many reality TV shows, the PWTorch Livecast numerous times, and follows wrestling very closely. You can read more about him on Wikipedia.

Brian Fritz: Host of the long-running "Between the Ropes" podcast, and now working for Yahoo! Sports radio, he also has been a guest on the PWTorch Livecast (and I've been a guest on his podcast), he brings years of reporting on wrestling including on-site interviews with wrestlers at major press events over the years. He follows today's wrestling and will provide his perspective and take on your questions.

Mick Karch: An early PWTorch Newsletter columnist over 20 years ago, Mick has been an announcer for virtually every national wrestling promotion other than the WWF, WCW, and TNA in the last 25 years. He currently works as an announcer on Minnesota indy wrestling shows. He got his start in wrestling running the Nick Bockwinkel Fan Club in the 1970s and is known for his sense of humor, strong opinions, and tremendous insight into wrestling's past dating back many decades, but he also watches today's wrestling regularly and can provide valuable perspective as a result of that span of time following and participating in the industry.

Brad Stutts: He has worked behind the scenes in wrestling in many roles, including taking jackets to the back, setting up and tearing down rings, running websites for indy promoters, running lights and music at live events, and performing as a manager, announcer, wrestler, and promoter. He currently is the lead announcer for CWF Mid-Atlantic Wrestling in North Carolina.

Jim Valley: Long time wrestling fan and Torch subscriber. He won a National Edward R. Murrow Award and several regional awards during his 20 year broadcast career. He has done TV announcing for several independent wrestling promotions, hosted his own wrestling radio show, interviewed many top stars and was flown our to Stamford to audition for WWE. He took second to Todd Grisham.

Current PWTorch Contributors: A mix of current PWTorch contributors will provide their opinion on today's wrestling scene and modern wrestling history questions, including Shawn Valentino, Michael Moore, Ben Tucker, Jon Mezzera, Brian Leahy, Jimmy Eaton, and Mike Roe.

You can send your questions for the All-Star Panel to the same address as always: askpwtorch@gmail.com. We will make sure they are directed to the appropriate panelist for potential inclusion in a published Ask PWTorch feature here on the PWTorch App or VIP Website. You may see your question asked in both versions of Ask PWTorch (the Afternoon original website-exclusive version and app-exclusive All-Stars version) so check both versions. Different groups of panelists may tackle your question on different days, so keep checking back. Because they all come from different backgrounds and have different experiences as both fans and working in some capacity in the business or covering it for the Torch, you're going to get some strong specific points of view from them.


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PWTorch editor Wade Keller has covered pro wrestling full time since 1987 starting with the Pro Wrestling Torch print newsletter. PWTorch.com launched in 1999 and the PWTorch Apps launched in 2008.

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He hosted the weekly Pro Wrestling Focus radio show on KFAN in the early 1990s and hosted the Ultimate Insiders DVD series distributed in retail stories internationally in the mid-2000s including interviews filmed in Los Angeles with Vince Russo & Ed Ferrara and Matt & Jeff Hardy. He currently hosts the most listened to pro wrestling audio show in the world, (the PWTorch Livecast, top ranked in iTunes)


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