Stephanie McMahon's Super Slap & The Wrong Way To Take A Pedigree: Ten Things You May Have Missed In Wrestling This Week

Another week, another round of, in many cases, inexplicable WWE releases.

While the releases of Lana, Aleister Black, Murphy and Ruby Riott all produced strong reactions for various reasons, the biggest and most shocking cut was Bruan Strowman.

The Monster Among Men was literally (on the surface at least) everything the company looks for in a main event superstar.

He had the size and the look and, to give him credit where it is due, had worked hard to improve both his physique, ring work and overall act in the last couple of years.

Reading the news of his release, you can't help but think that WWE really missed the boat with him.

In more positive news, AEW's Double or Nothing was a smashing success, welcoming fans back to Daily's Place for a tremendous card that offered much variety and many talking points.

The pay-per-view was proof - as if it were needed - just what a huge difference a passionate live audience makes to wrestling.

Those, along with the rumours of WWE preparing a sale to NBC, kept the wrestling world abuzz this week.

As always, there's a bunch of other nonsense, whimsy and hearsay that might have slipped passed your radar...

10. Unlucky Seven

WWE.com

In a career filled with outrageous matches, moments and characters, Dustin Runnels' very brief spell as 'Seven' in 1999 WCW has to rank up there as among the weirdest.

The gimmick was introduced via a series of eerie vignettes but, when it made its proper debut, Dustin immediately abandoned the act and cut a shoot promo denouncing it.

Supposedly, Runnels himself may have blamed the incoming Vince Russo for Seven getting shelved, but Russo recently set the record straight (well) on an episode of Writing with Russo.

"When I went to WCW, I adopted the Seven character. Now, Seven was Dustin [Rhodes] and that was a creation of Dusty Rhodes. He came up with Seven. I walked into WCW and they were doing the Seven character. When it came to Dusty and Dustin, I respected what they were doing before I got there. So I'm going to go along with Seven, no problem, I'm going to go along with this. 

They cut vignettes and if you remember, there were children involved in these vignettes. I remember a window and all that stuff. Standards and practices pulled it. Dustin to this day, thinks I put the kibosh on it. No bro, I did not put the kibosh on it. I told you a million times, standards and practices put the kibosh. So now, we're in no man's land. The only thing I could do that that point was... Dustin went out there as the character and he cut a shoot promo".

Russo was famously so annoyed by the behind-the-scenes censors that he created the Standards and Practices tag team in order to mock them.

As for Seven, that probably would have been pretty bad 'The Natural'. Not 'Black Reign' bad, but bad.

9. No Longer The Queen

WWE.com

When WWE relaunched ECW in the summer of 2006, they initially brought in some names from the promotion's past, including the likes of Danny Doring, Justin Credible and Tony Mamaluke, to fill out the undercards.

Inevitably, they all ended up getting their release before too long.

One of the ECW Original acquisitions that may have slipped under the radar was the signing of Francine, who endured a similar fate.

The Queen of Extreme only made a few appearances on television and was mostly relegated to house show bikini contest duty before being released after just a few months.

Francine opened up about the experience in an interview with The Hannibal TV.

According to her, she was frustrated in the organisation and requested to do stuff like taking the finisher of Kevin Thorn, then feuding with Balls Mahoney, who Francine was managing at the time.

"I walked over to Vince and I said, 'Can I take Kevin Thorn’s finisher?' instead of what we were supposed to do. He said, 'No, Francine, we don’t do that here. I was just like, 'Well, what do you do here?'. You know what I mean? I’m willing to bump and work, and [Vince McMahon] shot me right down. 

'Nope, we don’t do that here'. I was just like, 'Okay'. What can you do? There’s nothing you can do when you pitch everything under the sun and you’re just told ‘no’ over and over again. I don’t even know why they hired me, to be honest with you". 

She elaborated on her relationship with the WWE Chairman, including a frosty meeting between the two:

"He’s like, 'You have to do something to impress me and let me know', blah blah blah. And I’m like, 'Vince, I’m here to work, I just wanna work'. I was like, 'I’m sorry, sir', and he’s like, 'Stop saying sorry', and I said, 'Sorry'. He’s like, 'I told you to stop apologizing'. He started hollering at me, and I was just like, 'Okay'. Then I was afraid to say anything. 

Vince then told her to 'smack him on the back' next time she saw him, regardless of what he was doing.

"I saw him at the end of the corridor, he was so far away from me. He was with a bunch of suits. I ran up to him like an a**hole and I ran and I smacked him on the back. He looked at me and I said, 'Hey Vince! What do you got for me?'. He kind of looked at me and then he grabbed me and he hugged me, and he was like, 'That’s my girl', and he walked away". 

I'm not surprised. Everyone knows if you really want Vince's attention, you need to, at least, tackle him to the ground.

8. Way Too Tacky (Even For ECW)

WWE Network

Sticking with the ill-fated ECW relaunch for a bit, it was the subject of conversation on the latest edition of The Kurt Angle Show.

The Olympian was supposed to be the face of the brand, but ended up leaving WWE just weeks in.

While talking about his short WWECW experience, Angle brought up that the Sci-Fi Channel pitched a character idea that was immediately shot down by Vince McMahon on the grounds that it was too tacky.

Per Kurt:

"It was odd. We didn’t correlate the two, we couldn’t understand it. I know the SyFy channel is a quality TV station, a quality network, it just wasn’t the right fit. The crazy thing was the Sci-Fi channel approached Vince saying they wanted two alien wrestlers on the show and Vince said 'no' immediately. He said we’re not doing that, that’s way too tacky”.

Considering some of the shite that made its way onto the ECW programming, I'm amazed that Vince vetoed something on the grounds of taste.

7. Brutus The Barber's Butt Crack

WWE.com

Brutus Beefcake discussed his time working with the late Macho Man Randy Savage during a recent interview with The Wrestling Inc. Daily.

Though he enjoyed their matches, which were always good and easy, he found Savage's personality outside of the ring to be a bit too intense.

Gee, ya think?

In order to demonstrate his point, Brother Bruti relayed a story of an incident on a beach in Hawaii, that centred around the Barber's actions around Randy's wife Miss Elizabeth.

"I had my t-back on, bent over to get something, and the next thing you know, Randy was up and things were flying. He’s grabbing Liz and dragging her off the beach. He said I bent over with my butt in Liz’s face, which really didn’t happen, but okay. And he got on a plane and left Hawaii because of my ass".

To be fair, if I had to watch The Booty Man parading around in nothing but a thong for too long, I'd probably be inclined to hop on the next flight to anywhere, too.

6. The Anatomy Of A Pedigree

WWE.com

After someone on Twitter shared the infamous footage of Triple H spiking Marty Garner with a Pedigree (captioned 'That one time Triple H almost killed someone'), former WWE star and renowned wrestling trainer Lance Storm chimed in with a response relating to his time taking the move.

The former Intercontinental Champion tweeted:

'The one time I took a Pedigree H told me a head of time to kick my feet out not up. I looked at him and said "I know. Why wound I kick my feet up" 

H "I know, but there was this one guy...."

Storm went on to say that The Game asked him whether he could trap his arms while doing the move or whether he wanted them released, to which Lance was unfussy.

So remember, folks, next time Paul Levesque hooks your arms and jumps, kick your legs out, not up.

5. Sons Of Preachers

IMPACT Wrestling

Wrestlers don't tend to go into business for themselves much these, but if they do, it typically doesn't end well for them.

Social media and all that...

Good Brothers Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson clearly weren't concerned about ruffling feathers when they decided to unleash a full-on southern baptist gimmick at the latest set of Impact tapings, something they did without clearing it with management beforehand.

Addressing it on the Talk'n Shop podcast, Gallows and Anderson had the following exchange:

KA: We came out on IMPACT and we’re doing a full-blown preacher gimmick. We’re praising the Lord.

DG: We feel the power of the Lord flowing through our bodies!

KA: We’re walking and talking, doing a promo, and Gallows is gone full-blown preacher from the southern baptist world. Now, he has an accent. We get to the back and Scott D’Amore goes, 'When the f*ck did you guys [become] preachers?'

DG: He goes, ‘I thought I signed the badass New Japan Bullet Club, not Sex Furgerson and Chadd 2 Badd’. I said, ‘Sex Ferguson and Chadd 2 Badd don’t practice this kind of religion. You need to clean your show up. I think this is great’. He didn’t think it was funny. He said, ‘You’ve got to tell me when you’re going to try sh*t like that'.

He said, ‘I’m glad you guys took a chance, but when I look down at the screen and see the Machine Gun and Big LG talking in a country accent and praising God, you just gotta let me know’. ‘Sorry, boss'.

Damn those Good Brothers. Damn them all to hell.

4. Deadman's Ink

WWE.com

WWE Hall of Famer Charles 'The Godfather' Wright was the guest on Steve Austin's Broken Skull Sessions this week and, though it didn't get the same level of publicity or acclaim as most prior episodes, it was still an engaging, enjoyable and breezy watch.

A sizeable amount of the runtime explored Godfather's relationship with real-life best friend Mark Calaway, AKA The Undertaker.

This included an admission that Wright was responsible for getting the Deadman in hot water with Vince McMahon, after persuading him to get his first tattoo:

"It was the happiest day of my life when I got him that first tattoo. I think he only was in Vegas once. As he became a bigger celebrity, he started getting bigger-name tattoo guys tattooing him. But I’m the one, I’m the reason that he got that first one! And Vince was hot. Vince was hot about it. I got them [tattoo sleeves] but yeah, Vince was hot about it"

The Godfather had been needling 'Taker for a while (pun slightly intended), claiming that he was too 'big and white' not to have any ink. He was also the reason that Calaway began getting interested in and eventually started riding motorbikes.

So does Wright get half of the Phenom's American Badass royalties, or....?

3. A Million Dollar Idea

WWE.com

One of the surprises of 2021 has been the return of Ted DiBiase, who has been featured in storylines on the NXT brand of late.

The Million Dollar Man has popped up in the company from time to time over the years, but this is the most active he has been in a long while.

He's clearly comfortable in his surroundings, too, as he has started a petition for WWE to officially recognise him as a former WWE Champion.

While Ted had the belt around his waist in 1988, WWE don't count his reign, since he bought the title from Andre the Giant, who beat Hulk Hogan for the title thanks to some help from a crooked referee.

DiBiase tweeted:

Everyone's got a price for the #MillionDollar Man, even @TheGiant46. In 1988, Andre helped me win the championship from @HulkHogan. @WWE doesn't recognize this as an official title reign. With the help of the #WWEUniverse we can #MakeItOfficial. 

You can sign the petition here.

Though if you do, I would also like you to add your signature to my petition to recognise The Brian Kendrick as a former WWE Champion, too.

2. They Look So Good To Him

WWE.com

As a member of New Day, Xavier Woods has established himself as, arguably, one of the best tag team wrestlers in WWE history.

When asked about his favourite tag team of all time, Woods gave a surprising answer, citing an early-2000s duo that, while memorable, weren't around all that long and probably won't be remembered as one of the greats (as well as a group that most have long since forgotten about).

Speaking with Chris Van Vilet, Xavier had this to say:

"I’m bad at picking the greatest. My favourite is Billy and Chuck, mainly because of their matches with the Hardys. It was the first time I noticed that The Hardys are not huge but they could still knock the huge guys down. 

In my teen head, I was like this is how wrestling should be. This is where you put your ego aside and have this good match. I’ve always been a fan of tag team wrestling. But I like groups too. I was into 3 Count in WCW too. I love so many teams for so many reasons".

It's hardly Tough Enough's Cameron picking Alicia Fox versus Melina as her favourite match ever, but Billy & Chuck and 3 Count?!?

To each their own.

1. Steph The Super Slapper

WWE.com

Another WWE performer who was recently let go was announcer Tom Phillips, which was something of a strange call, since he's basically everything they look for in that position these days.

I'm sure he'll be fine, whatever he does next.

Anyway, Phillips opened up about his WWE experience in an interview for the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch.

During the chat, Phillips was asked if he ever got physical in WWE, an on-screen incident with Stephanie McMahon springing to mind.

"I never took a conventional bump in the ring but there was one. I think it was before Christmas in 2015, I think it was the Slammys, which was also coinciding with RAW, and Stephanie McMahon just slapped me, for lack of a better term. But yeah, knew about it and everything. It was so much fun.

It seems weird, but Corey Graves standing right off camera at the time and just staring at me like a big brother, being like, 'Yeah, this is gonna be fun'. It's a rite of passage. It was great. 

That was full contact. Stephanie is a wonderful human being. I have had nothing but great interactions with her, but if you ask anybody that's taken the Stephanie McMahon slap, she means it. And that's a good thing, because it's live. It better not look improvised". 

At the time, I remember that it was reported that the announcer was 'shaken up' by the slap, with WWE even running an angle on their website that he had flown home and would not be able to attend that week's SmackDown.

It turns out you got worked, guys. You got worked by the master. You got worked by Mr. Tom Phillips.

Ya filthy marks.