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PWINSIDER Q&A: SHAWN MICHAELS, HITTING THE 'RESET BUTTON', THE JOHNSONS, WWE DRAFT AND MORE

Answered on 5/30

Do you guys have any idea as to when Shawn Michaels is supposed to come back from his knee surgery?

Michaels had his knee surgery just last week, and it is expected to be well over a month before he can even start rehabbing it, much less working out for an in-ring return.  Some in WWE are hopeful that he will be able to return by the end of the summer, but I think a Fall return, barring any unforeseen complications, is far more likely.

With the multitude of jibes and head-shaking directed at WCWs hitting of the "reset button", how has WWEs draft lottery got away without a similar comparison? It is, after all, just a big reset button under a different name. Or am I missing something obvious?

I don't see the draft lottery as being the same as WCW's "reset".  For starters, WWE isn't vacating all the championships and "starting over" the way WCW did.  WCW also abandoned their storylines and feuds in order to create a whole new scenario (Millionaire's Club vs. New Blood).  Suddenly, enemies were friends and friends were enemies, with no explanation at all.  WWE doesn't change their characters with the draft lottery, they just place the existing characters on new shows to (in theory) create new possible matches and situations.

My question is about the "15 Minute Hardcore Battle Royal" at WrestleMania 2000. With about 40 seconds left Tazz puts the champ Crash Holly in the Tazzmission; then, with only a few seconds left, Hardcore Holly hits them both over the head with a glass jar and covers Crash. The ref counts 2 and then stops his hand from coming down for the 3 count even though Crash does not kick out and there is still a second or 2 left in the match. Then time expires and there is a look of confusion on the ref and Hardcore Holly's face. Next Finkel awkwardly announces the winner as Hardcore Holly. It seems like they intended for the ref to start his count in a manner where the time expiring would prevent him from making the 3 count, thus furthering Crash's "Houdini of hardcore" gimmick. Was this the case? If so couldn't they just have had Crash hit Hardcore over the head with something as he left the ring with the belt and then win it back since the title could change hands at any time? Lastly, isn't it sad that this one match alone was Hart v. Hart at WM X compared to what WCW was doing at the time?

There definitely was some sort of miscommunication during the finish, and it did appear that Crash was supposed to "escape" with the belt.  As for why they didn't have Crash quickly win it back, my guess is that since things were being done on the fly, and it had been stressed that, for Wrestlemania, the title would only be on the line for 15 minutes, that no one was going to try to go down that route to correct things. 

I seem to remember the WWE having a tag team a few years ago, I believe they were called "the Johnson's". They were dressed in flesh colored tights if I recall. Who were those guys and where are they now? I really hope I did not just create this on my own they did do this right?

Nope, WWE didn't have the Johnsons (although they did have a team called The Dicks, they didn't wear flesh colored suits).  The Johnsons, who were the Shane Twins, wrestled in flesh-colored outfits in TNA.  Thankfully, someone decided to not let a 14 year old create anymore characters for them and the concept was dropped.

Say you had the opportunity to run the upcoming WWE Draft. Which one superstar from each brand do you think you would move to make the biggest impact on the brand that wrester would be going to?

I'd move Umaga to Smackdown, where he can wrestle Kane, Undertaker, Mark Henry, Finlay and others, while also getting him out of the "McMahon lackey" rut he is in.  I'd move Batista to Raw, so WWE can have the "Cena vs. Batista showdown" that would probably do a lot to help Cena and also motivate Batista.  From ECW, I'd move Snitsky to OVW, so I wouldn't have to watch his boring squash matches anymore. 

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