The Armpit Wrestling Quiz for the Week of March 6, 2017

by | Mar 7, 2017 | Behind the Scenes

Welcome to The Armpit wrestling quiz for the week of March 6, 2017.

Will he or won’t he?  That was the big question last week regarding Shaquille O’Neal’s involvement in WrestleMania 33, where he was supposed to face fellow giant Big Show.

Celebrities and wrestling go hand in hand.  We already did a quiz on celebrities in wrestling, but never one that focused on athletes.  Thus the theme for this week’s quiz is “Pro Athletes in Wrestling.”

Unfortunately there were no winners to last week’s quiz.  Most of you missed the same question, so it was probably too hard of a quiz.  Hopefully this week’s will be a little easier.

 

Last week’s answers:

 

1) Mark Henry was the one who read a tearful poem to Owen Hart on the Raw following his death.  Some of you missed this, thinking it was Jeff Jarrett since they two did team up for awhile.  Jarrett and Debra were also in tears that night, as was pretty much everyone.

 

2) Steve Austin paid tribute to Owen that night by cracking a beer and toasting a drink to him in front of the live audience.

 

3) True, WWE DID get word before the Chris Benoit “tribute” episode of Raw before it aired that he had likely killed his family and himself.  This is the one most of you missed.  WWE got the word late, but there was still enough time to have changed things.  It became a controversial decision and they received a good amount of criticism for it.  A lot of the production had already been done and everyone was in a state of shock, and not all the details were known.  I’m sure some in the company have regrets, but the past is the past.  WWE was put in a bad spot so I’m willing to cut them some slack.

 

4) The brief clip of Andre the Giant that WCW showed following his death was of his interview with Gordon Solie.  Very obscure question but you all nailed it.

 

5) The wrestler feuding with Louie Spicolli at the time of his death was Nitro announcer Larry Zbysko.  All these decades and I still have to double check the spelling of his name every time I type it.

 

6) The TV show that covered the death of Elizabeth, and hinted Lex Luger may have been involved, was WWE Confidential.  A show like that would be nothing special today, but at the time it was considered must-see because of some of the topics they covered in an often honest fashion.

 

7) To honor the Ultimate Warrior, WWE created the annual Warrior Award, given to people with inspiring stories.  It’s a good award to give, however when Warrior came up with the idea, that was not his intention.  It was meant for people behind the scenes who do so much work but never get the recognition for it.  His first pick was Jimmy Miranda, who unfortunately is no longer with us but you hear Steve Austin sing his praises all the time on his podcast.

 

8) Chris Benoit gave a tearful, memorable promo on SmackDown on one of his best friends, Eddie Guerrero.  We’ll never quite know why Benoit snapped and did what he did, although many have pointed to his concussions as a possible reason.  Maybe yes, maybe no, but one aspect few ever talk about was the emotional toll all these deaths took on him, with so many of his closest friends dying so often.  Eddie was one of them, but so was Johnny Grunge, one of his neighbors who very few people knew he was so close with.  The irony is that Benoit committed suicide likely before he even found out his old tag team partner Beef Wellington had just passed away.

 

9) At ECW One Night Stand in 2005, they paid tribute to former ECW stars who had passed away by showing a short video tribute.  If there’s ever another ECW PPV, they’ll have to add Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Mike Awesome, Axl Rotten, Nicole Bass, and Balls Mahoney to the list.  And that’s just off the top of my head.

 

10) Thanks to those who sent in their thoughts on which wrestlers affected them the most.  Answers were across the board, but clearly the deaths of Eddie Guerrero, Roddy Piper, Randy Savage, and Ultimate Warrior had a lot of impact on you guys.  It’s never easy losing someone we watched growing up and emotionally invested in, no matter how many times it happens.  It can ruin our whole day, and you guys reading this know what I’m talking about, because people will ask us what’s wrong, and then when we tell them, they just don’t understand.

 

This week’s questions:

 

  1. Shaq may not do WrestleMania 33, but he’s no stranger to pro wrestling. In 1994 he accompanied Hulk Hogan to the ring for which match?

 

  1. a) vs Ric Flair, at Bash at the Beach
  2. b) vs Ric Flair, at Halloween Havoc
  3. c) vs Brutus “The Butcher” Beefcake, at Starrcade

 

  1. Ric Flair recruited his good friend Kevin Greene to do a few shots in WCW. With his flowing long hair and maniacal eyes, Greene was tailor made for pro wrestling. In fact, he took to it so well that many were comparing him to Owen Hart (when rookies learn super quickly in the ring, like Matt Riddle today, they’re always compared to Owen Hart, Kurt Angle, or Jun Akiyama).  His first match was at the historical Great American Bash PPV in 1996, when he teamed with another football great, Steve “Mongo” McMichael, to face Flair and Arn Anderson.  What was notable about hat match?

 

  1. a) Greene and Mongo won clean in the middle of the ring, causing hardcore fans to get upset that Arn & Flair did the job for two celebrities.
  2. b) Flair & Arn won clean, causing the NFL to get upset that two of their own lost to “fake” pro wrestlers.
  3. c) Greene and Mongo were blowing spots left and right, causing fans to boo uncontrollably and the show never recovered.
  4. d) Mongo turned on Greene and joined the 4 Horsemen.

 

  1. Without question, the most famous WCW match involving pro athletes was the 1998 Bash at the Beach, pitting Karl Malone and DDP against Hulk Hogan and Dennis Rodman. The Chicago Bulls and Utah Jazz made it to the NBA finals just before the match, so the feud was semi real and got a lot of media attention. Rodman even got in trouble for skipping practice due to his wrestling duties.  The match, unfortunately, left a lot to be desired.  Why?

 

  1. a) Malone didn’t take it seriously and hardly trained, so he didn’t know how to take bumps or do any moves.
  2. b) DDP went into business for himself, refusing to sell or work hard at all.
  3. c) Rodman had partied too hard the night before, and was almost asleep and hungover at certain points in the match.
  4. d) Hogan wouldn’t sell for Malone or DDP, rendering the match unworkable.

 

  1. Hawaiian wrestling promoter Ed Francis passed away late last year. His son Russ was a big star in the NFL, and he, along with several other NFL stars, made an appearance in a battle royal at which WrestleMania?

 

  1. a) WrestleMania I
  2. b) WrestleMania II
  3. c) WrestleMania III
  4. d) WrestleMania VI

 

  1. Ridiculously wealthy boxer extraordinaire Floyd Mayweather has a history with pro wrestling, doing a match with Big Show at WrestleMania. In the buildup to the match, Mayweather punched Show in the face and “broke” his nose. Was that a work or a shoot?

 

  1. a) Shoot; he didn’t mean to break his nose but he really did, by accident.
  2. b) Work; he didn’t break his nose but WWE tried to make it seem like he did to build heat for the match.

 

  1. Desperate for any mainstream media attention at all, Jeff Jarrett and TNA signed NFL star Adam “Pacman” Jones in 2007. He did a few appearances for them, but the match they were building up to at Bound for Glory never happened because the NFL wouldn’t let him wrestle. Pacman Jones was supposed to team with another wrestler, and Consequences Creed, now Xavier Woods in the New Day, took his place.   Who was the other tag team partner? Hint: He too is now in WWE.

 

  1. a) Big E
  2. b) Kofi Kingston
  3. c) R-Truth
  4. d) Rich Swann

 

  1. The WWF brought in NFL legend Lawrence Taylor in 1995 to headline WrestleMania XI against Bam Bam Bigelow. Bigelow did a tremendous job in the match, and LT was quite passable considering he had never done it before. What was the angle that started the feud?

 

  1. a) Bigelow did a promo making fun of the football players in the front row, causing LT to hope the rail and challenge him.
  2. b) LT laughed at Bigelow losing at the Rumble, causing Bigelow to shove him hard.
  3. c) LT made disparaging comments in the media about wrestling being fake, causing Bigelow to challenge him.
  4. d) WWF showed pics of Bigelow with LT’s wife, causing LT to show up on Raw and vow revenge for Bigelow stealing his woman.

 

  1. It’s funny whenever some MMA fans complain about fighters doing “fake” pro wrestling, as they seem oblivious to the scores and scores of fighting legends who have done pro wrestling for years. Which fighter on this list has NOT ever done pro wrestling?

 

  1. a) Josh Barnett
  2. b) Ken Shamrock
  3. c) Dan Severn
  4. d) Bas Rutten
  5. e) Chuck Liddell
  6. f) Brock Lesnar
  7. g) Bobby Lashley
  8. h) Alberto Del Rio

 

  1. What do Tonya Harding and Eddie Guerrero have in common? Only in pro wrestling would the two ever have anything to do with each other. Harding was the hottest heel in the world coming off the pro wrestling style sneak attack on her opponent Nancy Kerrigan.  Which wrestling promotion later signed her to manage one of their tag teams (of which Eddie Guerrero was part of), hoping to cash in on her notoriety?  (As a side note, Jay Leno made fun of her for doing pro wrestling, saying “Oh how the mighty have fallen.”  Obviously Jay is a super hypocrite, given he himself got involved with wrestling just 4 years later).

 

  1. a) AAA
  2. b) ECW
  3. c) WCW
  4. d) WWF
  5. e) New Japan

 

There are three ways to send us your answers to the quiz:

1) Email them to quiz@armpit-wrestling.com
2) Find me on Facebook under the name “Pit WP” and send your answers to me there.
3) Find me on Twitter at ArmpitWP and send me a direct message with your answers.
4) Use the Contact form at armpit-wrestling.com

We will randomly generate a number to determine the winner.  For example, if the number is 25 and you’re the 25th person to contact us with correct answers, you win.  Winners receive a free copy of our brand new e-book, “The Armpit Wrestling Quiz Archives: Volume 1.”  It features 128 quizzes we’ve written over the years and clocks in at 420 pages and a whopping 1,079 questions on pro wrestling history dating back to the 1980s.  We’ll also announce your name here next week as the winner.

Answers will be posted next week.  Have fun and good luck.

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