Rumored returns, arrivals, matches, etc..

[jpchicago23]

What are some of the rumored returns, arrivals, matches, angles, etc. that never happened? They dont have to be dream matches or angles just stuff that slipped through the cracks or things you would have liked to see happen. I personally would have loved to see Sid come back to the WWE three years ago when the rumors kept coming about him signing with Vince. Although they were probably started by Sid himself its something i would have loved to see. Would also liked to have sen Vader in ECW circa 98. There were rumors that he would show up as soon as he was released from WWE.

[Dylan Waco]

Heyman was allegedly trying to bring in Kobashi and maybe others from AJPW to ECW around 96/97.

[Loss]

The big answer for me is seeing Flair's plan in 1989 of WCW doing a big money WWF raid, but only going after the good workers. Imagine the WWF at that point without Bret Hart, the Rockers, Roddy Piper, Randy Savage or Curt Hennig.

[Bix]

Papa Shango was a character in an otherwise current WWF board game in the mid-'90s. It seemed like the gimmick was going to be revived but got cancelled.

[jpchicago23]

Yea Papa Shango was supposed to come back but with the Kane character taking off i heard they didnt want to have too many dark characters. Makes no sense as they eventually started the Ministry of Darkness. How awesome would it have been had Taker abducted the Godfather and turned him back into Papa Shango

[FLIK]

The big answer for me is seeing Flair's plan in 1989 of WCW doing a big money WWF raid, but only going after the good workers. Imagine the WWF at that point without Bret Hart, the Rockers, Roddy Piper, Randy Savage or Curt Hennig.

Would have strengthened WCW significantly but outside of Savage I don't think any of those guys leaving would have been a huge blow to WWF in 89/90.

[Loss]

Not individually, no, but there would have been no one left to make everyone look good, and there would have been some terrible shows. Wrestling wasn't a priority in the WWF at the time, so I agree that the benefit would have been greater to WCW, but I think they would have had a really hard time keeping a crowd engaged for a three-hour show with the people that would be left.

[Victator]

Yea Papa Shango was supposed to come back but with the Kane character taking off i heard they didnt want to have too many dark characters. Makes no sense as they eventually started the Ministry of Darkness. How awesome would it have been had Taker abducted the Godfather and turned him back into Papa Shango

I kept waiting for a big angle with the Godfather turning back into Papa Shango. Preferably after a Flintstones esque head wound.

[Jingus]

Heyman was allegedly trying to bring in Kobashi and maybe others from AJPW to ECW around 96/97.

I'm trying to imagine how that would've looked, and failing. How the hell would you try to marry King's Road style with ECW's bloody brawling? Okay, we've seen a few things like that where Cactus worked most of those guys at various times, and plenty of ECW dudes did at least one or two tours in AJPW at some point. But I'm trying to imagine throwing Kobashi in the ring with Sandman or New Jack or Raven or the other garbage guys and wondering exactly what's supposed to happen.

[Loss]

Heyman was allegedly trying to bring in Kobashi and maybe others from AJPW to ECW around 96/97.

I'm trying to imagine how that would've looked, and failing. How the hell would you try to marry King's Road style with ECW's bloody brawling? Okay, we've seen a few things like that where Cactus worked most of those guys at various times, and plenty of ECW dudes did at least one or two tours in AJPW at some point. But I'm trying to imagine throwing Kobashi in the ring with Sandman or New Jack or Raven or the other garbage guys and wondering exactly what's supposed to happen.

 

I'm thinking it would have to be a showcase match with someone brought along from AJ to put Kobashi over and have good matches with him. Think Michinoku Pro.

[Jingus]

I'm thinking it would have to be a showcase match with someone brought along from AJ to put Kobashi over and have good matches with him. Think Michinoku Pro.

Yeah, probably. But even with the Michinoku deal, they still had Sasuke job to Credible and (theoretically) got something out of it for the home team. Also, how much would such a thing cost? I doubt that All Japan would have been willing to degrade themselves with the same the-check's-in-the-mail bullshit that MPro was forced to accept.

 

Also, how would the impatient ECW crowd react to the standard AJPW slow burn in starting most of their matches? I suppose they could try to vary their style a little and hit the ring hot, but there aren't many groups of wrestlers in the world who tended to work a narrower and less variable style than Baba's boys.

 

Too bad they couldn't have had access to New Japan instead. Plenty of their workers would've fit in perfectly in ECW, both the flying juniors and brawling heavyweights. A guy like Muta makes a lot more sense in ECW than a guy like Kobashi.

[flyonthewall2983]

In retrospect, it would have been awesome if Randy Savage came back to WWE after Halloween Havoc '96, and returned as a heel. I can see it now, how he makes his big come back segment. The crowd is going wild, and Vince is standing in the ring smiling like an idiot at his classic posing from the second turnbuckle, the waving of the finger. They shoot the shit for a few minutes about how good it is to be back, and out of nowhere Vince blurts out "Nacho Man", likely a mistake on his part. But Randy capitalizes on it saying he was going to let it go and "what it is is what it is", but no. He talks about being benched all those years he could have been on top, being a sidekick to Vince in the broadcast booth instead. This inevitably leads to a contempt of the fans which causes some boos, and ultimately a physical beatdown on McMahon until Shawn Michaels makes the save.

[Victator]

I don't see why Kobashi would not of fit into ECW. Not like AJPW did not have the best brawler ever in Stan Hansen, and in 98 Vader had a big run.

 

Plus Kobashi would have looked huge in ECW. Have him come in and trash Spike Dudley or Mikey Whipwreck. Then you can build to a match with Taz and have it end in a schmozz or something. Maybe they get attacked by the Dudleys or something. Then you do a tag match.

[Loss]

The value of Kobashi is in great matches, not in putting people over. When you have an audience like ECW's, they aren't really influenced enough by wins and losses to treat someone like a star who beats him. I'm not sure Paul E. ever got that, as no one bought Credible beating Sasuke. Not that Baba would let Kobashi do a job to Taz or whoever anyway, and not like it would mean anything even if it did happen. Best case scenario, Kobashi and another AJ guy come in for 1-2 shows and have a great showcase match. But even that I'm not sure would work. So much of All Japan is about context.

[Jingus]

In retrospect, it would have been awesome if Randy Savage came back to WWE after Halloween Havoc '96, and returned as a heel.

Savage in the Attitude era would've been pretty neat. He was really the only guy in WCW's crew of aging has-beens on top who could still get out there and seriously bust his ass when it was necessary. Remember his psychotic leap off the gigantic cage at Halloween Havoc 97? In WCW that was a throwaway moment, retardedly forgotten by the next evening's Nitro; in the WWF, they would've made that jump legendary with endless highlight video clips. And him as a pissed-off psyched-up profanity-spewing heel would've been a hell of a feud to have with Stone Cold. He probably also could've done interesting stuff with Bret, Shawn, Taker, Mankind, etcetera.

 

I don't see why Kobashi would not of fit into ECW. Not like AJPW did not have the best brawler ever in Stan Hansen, and in 98 Vader had a big run.

Absolutely, but it's still not really close to the ECW style. Hansen's matches were a different kind of brawling than whacking people with stop signs or walking through the crowd for half the match or a hundred nutshots or a thousand DDTs like you tended to get in Philly. In an AJPW match, powerbombing someone on the floor is a huge deal, the central bump of the match and something which would be referenced and teased in every one of their rematches; in ECW, something like that tends to be just another spot, and the crowd quickly gets impatient and wants them to get up and do something else.

 

Plus Kobashi would have looked huge in ECW. Have him come in and trash Spike Dudley or Mikey Whipwreck. Then you can build to a match with Taz and have it end in a schmozz or something. Maybe they get attacked by the Dudleys or something. Then you do a tag match.

That's probably how I would've booked it, if circumstances allowed. Considering the extremely chaotic nature of interpromotional cooperation, especially in ECW, I kinda doubt that circumstances would've allowed.

 

The value of Kobashi is in great matches, not in putting people over. When you have an audience like ECW's, they aren't really influenced enough by wins and losses to treat someone like a star who beats him. I'm not sure Paul E. ever got that, as no one bought Credible beating Sasuke. Not that Baba would let Kobashi do a job to Taz or whoever anyway, and not like it would mean anything even if it did happen. Best case scenario, Kobashi and another AJ guy come in for 1-2 shows and have a great showcase match. But even that I'm not sure would work. So much of All Japan is about context.

Can't disagree with any of that. The fans never bought Justin, no matter how many guys laid down for him. Hell, the company's top babyface Dreamer was defined by his feud in which he never won a match. But I think you're especially right about the context. Like I said before, All Japan's best matches often tend to have long feeling-out segments in the opening, where references would be made to previous matches. The Philly fans wouldn't get any of that stuff, and I could easily see them chanting a bunch of bullshit which could throw the workers off their game.

[Loss]

Plenty of AJ matches don't have the feeling out, so I'm not sure that would be an issue. The point is that there are many things that work in specific environments or time periods in wrestling that wouldn't work in other environments or time periods. All Japan in ECW is one of those things.

 

AJW and/or JWP doing showcase matches I could see fitting in with ECW much better. Aja Kong probably would have gotten over huge in ECW. Not sure about Toyota, but her doing table spots may have been something they could work with.

[Loss]

To add, I recall Paul Heyman doing a Torch Talk late in '93 saying he wanted to establish a working relationship with AJW. Not sure why it never happened.

[KrisZ]

Greg Valentine was being rumored for months in late 87/early 88 to be going to JCP to replace Luger in the Horsemen.

[Mr Wrestling X]

Well there was a substantial amount of buzz earlier this year when it was rumored that Sting was close to signing a contract with WWE. As we all know, it never came to fruition but Sting has said in interviews that he was very close to inking the deal.

 

Wasn't it already public knowledge as far back as spring 1997 that Bret Hart was on his way out of the WWF and into WCW? If I recall correctly, McMahon had already released Bret a month or so prior to the MSJ and he was being kept on with a PPA until they could find someone to drop the title to. Also around this time WWF was looking to sign Kurt Angle to a contract, but the initial deal fell through and it was over a year before they managed to sign him.

 

As for matches, well it's been debated for years whether Vader was supposed to win the WWF Championship from Shawn Michaels at Summerslam 1996. Some people claim that Michaels refused to lose the championship to Vader because he didn't seem him as "championship material", others claim that Vince McMahon simply decided it was too soon to strap Vader and aborted the original plans. Whatever the case, the WWF would have been a whole different place in 1996 had Vader been champion. The sad thing is, I doubt that it would have made much difference to the ratings - WCW was at the beginning of destroying the WWF's ratings and although a behemoth champion is intriguing enough for some to switch over to Raw, it wouldn't have been enough to divert the attention from the NWO angle.

 

I think the award for largest amount of rumored matches has to go to Jim "Ultimate Warrior" Hellwig. First of all it was assumed multiple times that Warrior and Hogan would have a rematch in WWF - perhaps at the following years Wrestlemania, but Hogan didn't want any of that so Warrior was put into a programme with Rick Rude and Hogan feuded with the likes of Earthquake throughout 1990. Eventually it was decided to stick the belt on Sgt. Slaughter and Hogan got the Wrestlemania match. Warrior was then fired by the company and I'd imagine there was all sorts of rumors floating around that he was going to sign with WCW, etc. After all, WCW's biggest star - Ric Flair, had jumped ship to the WWF leaving WCW with a big empty spot on the roster. Sure they had Sting and the others, but they were missing someone with phenomenal drawing power that was still a hot commodity. I'd be very surprirsed if Warrior wasn't approached and offered a large (but not large enough) contract to sign with the company. When Warrior did eventually sign with WCW in 1998 (following two more stints with the WWF) he was immediately put into a programme with Hogan that resulted in a terrible match between the two at BATB which existed only so Hogan could get the win back. There were all sorts of rumors going round about Warrior having matches with Sting, Goldberg and even continuing the feud with Hogan, but it never panned out.

[Victator]

Doug Furnas and Dan Kroffat had a good enough run in ECW. Dr.Death fit in fine too.

 

Really Kobashi would just come in and beat the shit out of guys for ten minutes. Easiest thing in the world. The bigger problem would be Heyman fucking over All Japan like he did FMW.

[Mr Wrestling X]

Really Kobashi would just come in and beat the shit out of guys for ten minutes. Easiest thing in the world. The bigger problem would be Heyman fucking over All Japan like he did FMW.

I don't even think that Baba would have loaned ECW one of his biggest draws at that stage of ECW's existence...

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

WCW aired a Steiners video on a Worldwide in the Spring of '95 announcing that they would be soon returning, but the deal fell through and they didn't come back until March of '96.

[Loss]

WCW aired a Steiners video on a Worldwide in the Spring of '95 announcing that they would be soon returning, but the deal fell through and they didn't come back until March of '96.

Good one. It always amuses/baffles me when wrestling companies announce things that aren't a done deal.

[Loss]

Larry Zbyszko was supposed to appear on a few TV shows for WCW in 1990 as the AWA champion. Jim Herd decided he didn't want anyone but Sting being billed as the world champ on their TV and pulled it. Problem was, they had already announced he would be appearing the following week on a few shows.

[Bix]

Steiners clips were also in the Uncensored ads before they showed that video.