What If Vince Ran With Slaughter Instead Of Hogan

[KrisZ]

In working on the AWA project I've watched a good bit of Slaughter in 1985 and he was still at the top of his game when he came into the AWA cutting promos about how he was a victim of favoritism in his former job and couldn't get a world title shot because the promoter was scared he was bigger than the champion. I then started to think about it and let's say that Sheik beats Backlund for the title and they do the Slaughter turn still in February but they don't bring in Hogan and they let Sheik have another couple of months as champion beating Backlund in rematches before Slaughter was ready in March to take the title. We all know how awesome the Slaughter/Sheik matches were and if you add the title to the fray they would've been legendary instead of basically being forgotten treasures by the mainstream.

 

The question is with Slaughter as champion would he have had the extended drawing power that he had in 1984 where he was outdrawing Hogan on occasion prompting some jealousy between the two and Vince having to pick a side. Slaughter moving on from Sheik to new feuds with the likes of Volkoff, Patera, Orndorff, Piper, whoever would have been very intriguing as Slaughter was way better as a worker than Hogan was at the time.

 

Some food for thought.

[Dylan Waco]

This is an interesting question because Slaughter was a draw, could work and was already a crossover star by that point with GI Joe. I do think his gimmick was more limited than Hogan's was in some respects as even though both were jingoistic rah-rah America characters, Slaughter being a military figure was even more cartoony on some level. On the other hand that may have been a plus during that era. No way in hell I can see Sarge as a RockNWrestling vanguard leader though.

 

On the other hand it is possible that Sarge could have opened up some of Crockett area quicker with the right opponent. I would have loved to see him work Patera and think it would have drawn.

[Log]

If Vince goes with Slaughter, that probably cuts out a lot of the mainstream exposure they got. I mean, besides the whole Rock 'n' Wrestling thing, the Mr. T stuff was what really brought the media calling. Wasn't Hogan tight with T from Rocky?

 

Then you have to wonder if Hogan goes back to the AWA. Does he take Mr. T with him? If so, maybe Verne gets a few more good years.

 

I gotta think that no matter who Vince used (if not Hogan), wrestling doesn't blow up like it did. Hogan was just that push that got the ball rolling.

[KrisZ]

Hogan had more appeal yeah and was more versatile gimmick wise as he really didn't have a gimmick other than a big muscled hero while Sarge had the military gimmick but like Dylan said he had the crossover with GI Joe plus he had other commercials in the era and he was a great talker so he could've carried the load. He may not have been as good looking as Hogan so Hollywood wasn't in his future but given the chance who knows how big he would've gotten.

 

Regarding Hogan, I think he would've left AWA anyway hanging in Japan while working wherever in the US. I know that Crockett was wanting to use him at Starrcade so JCP could've been a destination but I wouldn't have counted out a return to Florida taking over for Dusty.

[Dylan Waco]

I should be clear. Slaughter could not have been Hogan and would never have worked THAT well. I do think Sarge is one of a handful of guys who could have had a really big peak run "in his place" though if that makes sense.

[KrisZ]

Plus in the end Hogan would've been in the WWF anyway and probably would've been the guy to take the title off of whoever beat Slaughter.

[Log]

Plus in the end Hogan would've been in the WWF anyway and probably would've been the guy to take the title off of whoever beat Slaughter.

To keep this going a bit, who would that have been? Let's say Sarge doesn't get the years-long reign Hogan got. Who beats him? Orndorff? Piper? Kinda interesting to think about that, too.

[Dylan Waco]

I'm trying to wrap my head around Slaughter v. Piper. I imagine it would have been great but it would have been interesting to see how they would have booked it. I wonder if they would have even worked Sarge opposite Piper or if they would have tried to pair him off with another foreign heel right out of the Iron Sheik feud. I will say that Sarge v. Kamala seems like it would have been an awesome feud on paper for Vince

[Dylan Waco]

Plus in the end Hogan would've been in the WWF anyway and probably would've been the guy to take the title off of whoever beat Slaughter.

To keep this going a bit, who would that have been? Let's say Sarge doesn't get the years-long reign Hogan got. Who beats him? Orndorff? Piper? Kinda interesting to think about that, too.

 

No heel would have kept the belt for long and I think the answer of who the transition champ would have been depends on who the planned next recipient was. If it was Hogan I could almost seen them giving the title to someone like a Kamala or a Bundy. If it was someone like JYD I could see it being Piper

[KrisZ]

If it's 1985 I think it would be either Muraco or Bundy.

 

If it's 1986 it's Savage.

[KrisZ]

I'm trying to wrap my head around Slaughter v. Piper. I imagine it would have been great but it would have been interesting to see how they would have booked it. I wonder if they would have even worked Sarge opposite Piper or if they would have tried to pair him off with another foreign heel right out of the Iron Sheik feud. I will say that Sarge v. Kamala seems like it would have been an awesome feud on paper for Vince

Volkoff would've come off the Sheik run and I think Valentine would've been around as well plus you had Orndorff, Patera, Studd, & Ventura.

[Matt D]

I'm trying to wrap my head around Slaughter v. Piper. I imagine it would have been great but it would have been interesting to see how they would have booked it. I wonder if they would have even worked Sarge opposite Piper or if they would have tried to pair him off with another foreign heel right out of the Iron Sheik feud. I will say that Sarge v. Kamala seems like it would have been an awesome feud on paper for Vince

In my mind, the Rock 'n' Wrestling stuff was really all about the Piper/Captain Lou/Lauper in ring angle. Hogan came in on promos after that and he was important because he was a guy you believed would appreciate/hang out with Lauper, and Sarge wouldn't be, but I feel like the Mr. T stuff just took it over the top. IT AMAZES me to go back and look at just how unpredictable Piper was then.

[Dooley]

If Vince goes with Slaughter, that probably cuts out a lot of the mainstream exposure they got. I mean, besides the whole Rock 'n' Wrestling thing, the Mr. T stuff was what really brought the media calling. Wasn't Hogan tight with T from Rocky?

 

Then you have to wonder if Hogan goes back to the AWA. Does he take Mr. T with him? If so, maybe Verne gets a few more good years.

Hogan and T were never in the same scenes in Rocky III, so I don't think they were tight coming out of that. As far as the AWA goes, Verne had already rejected T's idea to wrestle, which is what led to him bringing the idea to Vince. I doubt Verne would have changed his mind, he was too set in his ways at that point.

[Ricky Jackson]

Interesting. I always assumed Vince sought out T, not the other way around.

[Log]

I never realized Verne had a shot at Mr. T. Wow. He really was set in his ways.

 

I know that Hogan and T never shared a scene in Rocky. I just figured being in the same movie made the connection easier.

[JerryvonKramer]

Fascinating thread.

 

The trouble with the Sarge face character is that it was tied into American patriotism in a way that Hogan wasn't.

 

US patriotism was ONE facet of Hogan's persona but he was, as people have said, also a guy who seems like he could have legit hung out with Mr. T and Cyndi Lauper.

 

Hogan could work US vs. foreign invader feuds, but he could also work vs. monsters (Andre, Bundy) and vs. any evil masterminds (Heenan, DiBiase)

 

Where are the exmamples of Sarge working against monsters or generic villains?

 

The babyface Slaughter character was quite limited. The sadistic heel Slaughter could work any angle, but face Slaughter was locked into foreign invasion stuff. Which is why the Sheik feud worked so well.

 

------

 

On the transitional champ stuff, I think 86 was too early for Savage. In 85 it would have been Piper for sure -- although I don't see how a heel Piper, face Sarge angle would work unless Piper started with anti-US rhetoric. Same with Orndorff. I just don't see why Sarge would have beef with a "normal" heel.

 

The thing is that if Sarge had got the belt, the booking after the Sheik match would have been different. Sheik would have had some sort of rematch and his push would have been maintained. Volkoff would have been booked stronger coming in and rather than being in a tag with Sheik, would have worked some sort of singles feud with Sarge. I see Mr. Fuji being more prominent as a manager and brining in various "anti-US" stars from abroad.

 

From all that, weirdly, I'd see the belt going back to Sheik to transition to Hogan in 85. The alternative is a Snuka heel turn -- maybe he falls under the spell of "The Devious One" or something along those lines. Muraco could also be in that spot.

 

If it happened as late as 86, then -- here's an interesting idea -- what about Terry Funk working some sort of American turned Japanese angle? Build for months with Fuji saying he's "got a big star coming from Japan", and it turns out to be Funk. Not that WWF would book that in a million years, but it's fun to imagine.

[Al]

Slaughter always worked better as a heel. I honestly think Vince had the right idea turning Slaughter heel and feuding him with Hogan. The Iraqi sympathizer angle is where it went south. I think Backlund would've held the title before Vince found a better option. Likely JYD.

[Guest DWS]

Sarge was definitely over and, yes, was probably the #1 babyface in the WWF from 1984 to 1985, 4 days of the week.

 

One thing to keep in mind with Sarge and his GI Joe deal is that it didn't hit the streets until early 1986 (with the "fifth wave" of GI Joe crap; Beachhead, Serpentor, the HAVOC, second season of the daily cartoon, etc). I only remember because I was a HUGE GI Joe fan and even did the exclusive mail-in offer for the new Sarge figure at this time. So if he had won the WWF belt in early 1984, we would've had about 2 years before Sarge started saying "Yo Joe" in his promos and such.

 

It scares me to think that if Slaughter had taken Hogan's WWF place from 1984 on, then WrestleMania 2 might've been headlined by something like Sgt. Slaughter vs. "Serpentor". Hey, it wouldn't have been all that different from Hogan vs. Zeus (although those two never did a plain one-on-one match).

 

I also don't think he would've had as much impact or appeal as Hogan. I was in junior high/middle school and I remember a LOT of kids showing up to school in Hulk Hogan gear for the February 1988 "Main Event" on NBC. 12-14 is an awkward age and I don't see kids dressing up like Sgt. Slaughter, who was firmly aligned with "little kids' toys". Hulk Hogan had a wider appeal.

 

At the same time, my big brother talked about how he'd routinely hang out with his college friends on late nights to watch SNME with Hulk Hogan.

 

Finally, if you had Slaughter, I think a heel turn for him would've arrived in 1988 or so. I could see him waning on audiences by then. Maybe Macho Man beats him at WM4 to cement his reputation? I could not see Sarge having a strangle-hold on the WWF Championship and main event scene until April 1992, the way Hogan did.

[Jingus]

One important thing which hasn't been mentioned yet is the cosmetic look. Even losing his hair, Hulk Hogan looked like a comic-book superhero. Slaughter already looked like a fat bald old man.

[jdw]

Short term, it might have worked. 1984 was the height of jingoism in the country for the decade with the Olympics and RR's re-election. Even a song critical of the US became a wildly misunderstood hit: Born in the USA.

 

A correction to the notion that people have: Sarge had zero mainstream at the time. As other point out, the Joe stuff didn't really hit until 1986. His appearance in the cartoons didn't happen until August 1986. Hogan already had Rocky back in 1982.

 

When the Vinces made their plans back in late 1983 to go national, you're looking at these two in this light:

 

* The Top Face of the #2 Territory in the Country that you *must* defeat

 

* A Heel making his second losing run through your promotion

 

So you'd have to turn the second guy, who had never worked face in your promotion before, and who basically spent the past four years as a top heel in the WWF and Mid-Atlantic. And hope that it takes off across the country. In turn, you've got a guy who already is a massive face in the territory your must break into. He's been a hot face for the past two years. It's not like Verne was doing an off the charts job of promotion: it's the WWF that had the long history of Dynastic Anchor Babyface Champs going back to Bruno.

 

Speaking of Bruno, a Dynastic Anchor Strongman Babyface Champ. Hulk was right up Vince's wheelhouse. That's not even getting into the "look", with Hogan being part of the ideal that Vince would push for ages, while Slaughter was a sloppy fat guy. People pointed to work. Any evidence that work played a role in who Vince decided to push hard in that era? At least in how we view work? I don't think he would have cared if Sarge was a better worker or not. He certainly didn't care when selecting Sarge's replacement.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

Sarge probably would have done decent business in 1984. But where does it leave expansion?

 

Does Vince beat Verne in AWA Country with Sarge vs Hogan?

 

That's an interesting one. I doubt it. In fact, Vince would eventually steal Hogan and push him instead of Sarge.

 

Does Sarge play as well in taking over the largely empty West as Hogan did?

 

Does leaving Hogan in the AWA open up the AWA for stronger expansion?

 

Also interesting. I don't think Sarge plays to Cali like Hogan did. Verne often looked west, though not with a ton of success.

 

Or does leaving Hogan in the AWA open up *someone else* expanding by grabbing Hogan as their anchor?

 

Hard to think of who would do that, since the NWA was very work-centric other than the folks intent on pushing themselves. It's hard to see an outsider coming in, especially before the NWA was completely dead: there really weren't a lot of open areas to promote in other than the West and the Non-AWA midwest that Vince gobbled up. Not easy to do a start up.

 

That said, Vince would have needed to completely rethink the path that expansion took, where the key elements were:

 

* taking on the right population of AWA Country

* moving into the rich population in the open area between the AWA and WWF

* taking the largely open West

 

By occupying the AWA in AWA Country, it freed up Vince in the other two... which he largely rolled uncontested.

 

Does he do the same with Sarge while Hogan is in the AWA?

 

Much harder. Of course we don't know if Verne would see an invasion and decide it was time to push Hogan as the anchor, and build a promotion around him (i.e. not just push Hogan, but also opponents that best fit Hogan).

 

Vince's other key push in expansion was going after a certain kid base. While G.I. Joe was aimed at kids, I've got to say that in 1984 there sure seemed to be a hell of a lot less kids playing War than when I was a kid in 1974. For all the talk we have of the GJ Joe series, there were just two seasons of the original one: 1985-86. There were two mini-series before that in the prior years. The movie went straight to video. They didn't reboot it until 1989/90, and that one just went two seasons.

 

In contrast:

 

Transformers: 4 seasons from 1984-87

Smurfs: 9 seasons from 1981-89

He-Man: 2 seasons from 1983-85

Voltron: 2 seasons from 1984-85

She-Ra: 2 seasons from 1985-86

ThunderCats: 4 seasons from 1985-89 (yikes!)

Real Ghostbusters: 7 seasons from 1986-91

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: 10 seasons from 1987-96 (core of 5 seasons from 1989-93)

 

I could go on... but the point is: GI Joe wasn't that massive relatively speaking. I'm not sure that Joe and Army Stuff sold as much as other kid stuff. That was part of the beauty of Hogan: you could roll out his jingoism, but he played to the new fan base Vince wanted across more than just jingoism. Hogan-Orndorff and Hogan-Savage had nothing to do with U-S-A~! U-S-A~!

 

* * * * *

 

Vince could have made money off Sarge in 1984. The time was right to make money off him.

 

Would expansion have gone the same way?

 

No... not unless Vince signed Hogan to replace Sarge when his tank went empty. That would have been a risk though.

 

Would Sarge have sustained business like Hogan did (all the way into 1992)?

 

I don't think anyone believes that.

 

Could Vince have made good money off Sarge being the #2 to Hogan in 1984?

 

Quite possibly. It's possible that there was money to be made having two strong draws working two different cards a night. Focus Hogan where he needs to be, and use Sarge as a change of pace to keep Hogan from being run into the ground in cities... which is what Vince ended up doing anyway.

 

Could it have been sustained?

 

Hard to say... nothing ever was sustained other than Hogan in that era. Hogan was gold, other issues were hit and miss.

 

In 1983 should Vince have seen Sarge as a viable option instead of Hogan, or in the event Hogan didn't bite?

 

I don't think so given Sarge's turn was late in the year when it was likely Vince already set on Hogan. I'm not sold it was clear in October or November 1983 that Sarge would get over as a face as strongly as he did.

 

Even if Vince thought he was a miracle worker, the idea of sustaining it for several years?

 

I don't think that would have crossed his mind. Vince was looking for his National Bruno. Someone who carry the companies flag into every market, often times against fierce opposition, and keep that flag planted for years to come. Sarge certainly didn't look like that in October 1983.

 

I think other than Hogan... there really weren't any other truly viable options out there for what Vince wanted to get done. Vince pretty much is the only promoter at the time who could have pulled off what he did. The WWF probably was the only "territory" from which it could be done to the degree that he did it, though arguably the AWA had a good base to do something similar if it had the vision. Hogan really was the only wrestler at the time who could have anchored it in the fashion he did: from 1984-92, from coast to coast. It's tough to think of who even could have gotten if off the ground to the degree that he did.

 

This is basically a Babe Ruth type of question. After Ruth started going long, others did as well... though not to his level. Could someone else have been Babe Ruth if there wasn't Babe Ruth? It's really hard to see because Ruth literally challenged the way the game was played, was slagged for it, flipped the bird at the criticism, changed the way the game was played, was such a massive personality that he not only pulled the fans onto his side but kept them there... and was the anchor upon which the greatest "territory" in American Sports was built.

 

Could someone else have done what Babe did in baseball? No. That doesn't mean that more HR's wouldn't have been hit, or that the dead ball era wouldn't have eventually died. But we likely would have seen a gradual change, as we have with bullpen usage over the years. Simply because there was no Babe(s) of Relief who completely revolutionized the game, and refused to knuckle under criticism.

 

Hogan and Vince were the same. There is no one else who could have been either.

 

John

[Jingus]

I could go on... but the point is: GI Joe wasn't that massive relatively speaking. I'm not sure that Joe and Army Stuff sold as much as other kid stuff.

Speaking as a child of that era: GI Joe was huge. And Slaughter was a pretty famous guy among kids. I never watched either GI Joe or pro wrestling back then, but even I knew exactly who the Sarge was. At times it seemed like you couldn't get through a single commercial break during any cartoon without an ad featuring Slaughter popping up. (But still, fame amongst six-year-olds isn't a compelling argument for becoming a national mainstream sensation like Hogan did.)

[rainmakerrtv]

Just touching on one point of jdw's post :

 

Looking back on it now, for all that Hogan's big WWF run started with a title win over Sheik and ended with a title loss to Yokozuna, I am hard pressed to think of too many main Hogan storylines in between that were based on jingoistic patriotism. I don't think Volkoff or the Sheik got more than isolated shots, most of the main foreign heels he faced (Kamala, Killer Khan, Dino Bravo) there didn't seem to be a big "USA! USA!" element to them. For all that two of his biggest feuds were against a "Scotsman" and a Frenchman, the first was about Piper being an obnoxious devious asshole and the second was about Hogan's unbeatable huge best friend turning on him. The most jingoistic storyline of that run was not against a foreign wrestler, but rather an American turncoat (Sgt. Slaughter).

[Matt D]

I could go on... but the point is: GI Joe wasn't that massive relatively speaking. I'm not sure that Joe and Army Stuff sold as much as other kid stuff.

Speaking as a child of that era: GI Joe was huge. And Slaughter was a pretty famous guy among kids. I never watched either GI Joe or pro wrestling back then, but even I knew exactly who the Sarge was. At times it seemed like you couldn't get through a single commercial break during any cartoon without an ad featuring Slaughter popping up. (But still, fame amongst six-year-olds isn't a compelling argument for becoming a national mainstream sensation like Hogan did.)

 

I was a contrary 6-9 year old. I hated Hogan because everyone hated Hogan. I hated Gi Joe because EVERYONE loved GiJoe. For my age group it was a huge deal.

 

I THOUGHT that he wasn't introduced into Gi Joe until 85 though.

[ohtani's jacket]

GI Joe was the top selling toy in America in 1985.

[Mad Dog]

Here's a link to his original mail-in toy:

 

http://www.yojoe.com/action/85/sgtslaughter.shtml