WWF circa: 1989-1990

[slabinski611]

I didn't put this in armchair booking because I saw this as more of a discussion than fantasy booking.

 

As it's been said, Warrior going over Hogan at WMVI is seen by many as the point when business dropped but I've read that things began to fall apart in 1989. What I would like is to look a little deeper into why this happened and get some ideas on how they could have kept things status quo.

 

If you start at WMV and work through 1990 you will see how much the faces went over strong and the decline of credible heels. If you take the top 5 faces/heels in 4/89 it would look something like this:

 

Faces:

 

1. Hogan

2. Warrior

3. Jake Roberts

4. Duggin

5. Beefcake

 

Heels:

 

1. Savage

2. Rick Rude

3. Andre

4. Dibiase

5. Bossman

 

Hogan was untouchable at that point and wasn't jobbing to anyone after just getting the belt back. Warrior just dropped the IC belt to Rude via interference but otherwise is kept strong. Jake regularly went over Dibiase in their feud. Duggin was consistently going over in matches against haku at the time. He did jobs but was one of Hogans buddies so he was somewhat protected. Beefcake was Hogans right hand man so while he was jobbing to Savage on house shows, it was always by interference from sherri so he kept his heat.

 

As for the heels, Savage would either go over beefcake with help or job to Hogan. Rude was being kept strong with the IC title. Dibiase jobbed to Jake. Andre was doing dq losses to John Studd on house shows and the Bossman either jobbed to Hogan or wrestled in tag matches with Akeem.

 

 

Before I get to late 89, I'd like to get some thoughts on what they could have changed at the time. Savage keeping the title might sound good but there was no way Hogan wasn't going over at WM5 after not having the belt for more than a year. Maybe push some new heels or turn someone heel ? There was less new talent being brought in also. Thoughts ?

[Matt D]

Barry Windham in the Zeus role.

 

Solves everything.

[marrklarr]

No question they were hurting for heels if they brought in over-the-hill Slaughter in late 1990 to headline Mania with Hogan. Slaughter definitely had it in him to play that role, but he was so fat and balding by then it was hard to take him seriously. If I was Vince, I would of gone to him and said, "Sarge, I'm about to put the title on you and make you my top heel, so shave your head and lose 20 lbs., maggot! Oh, and stop growling in your promos." Woulda helped a lot.

[Karl]

Going from Hogan/Warrior to Sarge always amused me. It was almost like they were saying "steroids? here? No way! Look at our champ!"

[slabinski611]

OK, before I get to the second half of my post let me say that one reason I didn't notice any drop until after Warrior was on top was because I was only 6 years old in 1989 and I live in the northeast which is wwf country. I lived for the wwf. Seriously, if they advertised a Red Rooster vs Koko B Ware in a rubber chicken on a pole match, I would be begging my parents to buy the ppv for me. Now back on subject.

 

The second half of 89 saw Dusty and Piper both brought in which only added to the depth of babyfaces. With Rude dropping the belt back to Warrior at Summerslam he was then paired up with Piper and you can guess who went over in that feud. Dusty was brought in as a midcard comedy act and paired with Bossman. Dusty would get over more than expected considering his spot on the roster.

 

Since Bossman slid back down the card after Hogan and Rude losing credibility after Piper that takes us to Andre. It's kind of hard for someone the size of Andre to not have credibility as a heel but with his health he was reduced to doing 30 second jobs to Warrior at the end of 89 before being paired up with haku.

 

Dibiase kept his feud with Jake going the whole year until WM6. He was still over but he was stale. The Hogan/Savage feud was still hot in large part thanks to the Zeus angle. The guy was only in 3 matches and he couldn't wrestle but they built that whole angle perfectly. You just couldn't get around the fact that once it was time for an actual match, Zeus couldn't wrestle.

 

So at the end of 89 that leaves us with:

 

1. Hogan

2. Warrior

3. Piper

4. Beefcake

5. Jake

6. Dusty

7. Duggan

 

All of these guys were over as far as babyfaces. As far as heels go, Barry Windahm was brought in but failed. Hennig finally started getting over imo when he was paired up with the Genuis and put with Hogan. Martel would get over as a midcard heel act but not until late 1990. Earthquake would get over huge but not yet. So the heel side of things would look like this at the end of 89:

 

1. Savage (quickly losing steam)

2. Rude (needs rebuilding)

3. Dibiase (needs rebuilding)

4. Perfect

 

I can't even come up with 5 heels worth listing to be honest. While having your heels constantly fed to your faces is bad, I think the death of territories really shows here. Even in 89/90 there were not as many places to grab new talent like a few years earlier.

[Dooley]

Barry Windham in the Zeus role.

 

Solves everything.

This. Windham was set to be a main event heel for the WWF at this time but life got in the way. They were even hinting at him challenging Hogan on the syndie shows.

[JerryvonKramer]

One thing I want to flag up: looking at houseshow results can skew your perception. Take Jake vs. Ted -- DiBiase might have been doing jobs at houseshows but on TV he was kept strong. Check out Ted's TV or PPV losses to Jake by pinfall and count up how many there are. Heels often would lose at houseshows but be kept strong on TV.

[ohtani's jacket]

The problem with 1989 is that the whole No holds Barred Hogan vs. Zeus feud sucked and then they got Beefcake involved. It's too bad the Earthquake thing couldn't have happened a summer early. I think I would have gone with Boss Man instead of Zeus.

[PeteF3]

Now I'm dreaming of some alternate universe where they decide to give the No Holds Barred push to Stan Hansen instead of Tiny Lister.

[Kevin Ridge]

Now I'm dreaming of some alternate universe where they decide to give the No Holds Barred push to Stan Hansen instead of Tiny Lister.

Now that would have been awesome.

[C.S.]

Now I'm dreaming of some alternate universe where they decide to give the No Holds Barred push to Stan Hansen instead of Tiny Lister.

If you mean just putting Hansen in that spot for a big summer wrestling feud, yeah, it would have been cool.

 

However, if you mean Hansen replacing Lister's character in the movie itself, no way. Lister is no Oscar winner, but he had the look that worked for posters and the screen presence needed to appear credible in the movie itself. I can't see Hansen being effective in the way that role called for.

 

As I'm sure you already know, Hansen was in the movie too. Compare him to Zeus. Apples and oranges. Zeus looked better on screen. In the ring, different story, obviously.

[jdw]

I don't think this is isolated to 1989. Do the same for 1986 as of Mania:

 

Faces:

 

1. Hogan

2. Andre

3. Bulldogs

4. Tito

5. Orndorff

 

Heels:

 

1. Bundy

2. Piper

3. Savage

4. Dream Team

5. Studd

 

In both groups, I'm kind of pulling them out of the air. We could include Steamboat as a "near" Top 5, but I'd say Orndorff was a bit more pushed as he had the long feud against Piper that was just over around then. Steamber was feuding with Muraco, who was lower than Piper. I'm pulling Studd out of the air, but he was paired with Andre still, and Hogan on occassion. Could go with Jake, though he wasn't top of the card... perhaps Muraco, though he was clearly dropping.

 

The Bulldogs were getting a massive push, and mained a lot of non-Hogan cards. I think their push was a bit above Tito's since they had the belts, while Tito-Savage push was a bit more on the Savage side.

 

Anway... what happened to the heels?

 

Bundy was blow through by Hogan. Piper went off to do a movie, then came back a face. Savage jobbed all over the place to Hogan, then "lost" some key parts of the Tito feud despite hanging onto the title, then got in a heavily pushed but pretty silly feud with Animal, got beat up by Bruno when they faced each other, and then lost the feud with Steamboat at the following Mania. Dream Team faded over time, to the point the Beefcake was a face by the following Mania. Studd wasn't relevant by the following Mania.

 

The only heel of the bunch that was relevant as a heel by the following year was Savage... and to a degree because he had that Flair-like ability to stay over despite getting the living shit kicked out of him. Part of that was because there weren't 12 PPV a year (in addition to 52 weeks of non-squash TV matches) to fill up where Savage '86 would be getting his ass kicked a bit too much to stay over, and instead would have to be rebooked to a degree (same with Flair, by the way).

 

On the face side, two of them became heels between Manias: Orndorff for the massive house show feuds, and Andre special for the massive Mania. Orndorff was pretty much done by the end of his run with Hogan. We can blame the injury for some of that, but it wasn't like he was going to drop down to have a massive IC feud with Steamer, or something else what was as top-of-the-card as his 1984-86 run being an opponent for Hogan, siding with Piper then feuding with Piper, then turning on Hogan.

 

The WWF burned through heels. It was a pretty common thing for them. For a lot of years, they were able to (i) bring in new guys like Piper, Valentine, Bossman, Kamala, DiBiase, etc, and (ii) effectively flip folks from one side to the other like Orndorff, Savage, Andre, even Bossman becoming a face though he never was a big of a star as a face as he was as a Hogan Opponent. As the decade wore on, there was less available talent for them to bring in, and some of the flipping around didn't have the impact of say Orndorff turning on Hogan or the Mega Powers breaking up. That's not an unnatural thing 5-6 years into a "show" like the WWF had been since Expansion.

[Sidebottom]

I still feel a Warior / Hogan rematch at Mania 7 in 1991, including a slow build story to such from late 1990 would have resulted in strong business. Not getting inside that 100,000 seater LA arena business, but good business regardless.

 

The problem is the lack of top line heels Warrior had to work with as champ. Putting him with Rude was a re-run of years gone by, even though Rude was certainly a guy who could bring good matches out of Warrior. The key to me is giving Warrior the fresh Earthquake to work with in the Summer, instead of Hogan. Hogan could have done the tested, "working your way back up the card to prove yourself" gig.

[JerryvonKramer]

The problem is the lack of top line heels Warrior had to work with as champ

You have to question the booking policy.

 

The WWF had DiBiase, Rude, Savage, Jake and Curt Hennig all on the books.

 

If you ran a poll of "best ever heels" I'd expect at least 4 out of those 5 names to be in the conservation. The problem is that they booked Warrior and Hogan to the point where they were supermen and no one seemed credible or in their league. The answer eventually can't be "bring in more heels". Short of Flair, they had every top heel in the game. And by 91, they had Flair too.

[Bigelow34]

The problem is the lack of top line heels Warrior had to work with as champ

You have to question the booking policy.

 

The WWF had DiBiase, Rude, Savage, Jake and Curt Hennig all on the books.

 

If you ran a poll of "best ever heels" I'd expect at least 4 out of those 5 names to be in the conservation. The problem is that they booked Warrior and Hogan to the point where they were supermen and no one seemed credible or in their league. The answer eventually can't be "bring in more heels". Short of Flair, they had every top heel in the game. And by 91, they had Flair too.

 

I think you nailed it here. It was really tough to build credible heel challengers for these guys. Warrior/Rude seemed like a crazy mismatch at Summerslam to me at age 9. They had their world champion feuding with a tag team after that. The key would have been using Quake, as was mentioned above.

[Dooley]

Warrior-Quake was the first plan for the fall of '90, but it was nixed either due to Quake not being hot enough after losing to Hogan or Vince thinking Warrior/LOD vs Demos was going to draw much better than it did. The booking of the 6 man feud was pretty flawed in itself with the Demos being stripped of everything that made them cool (entrance music, the godawful masks instead of paint) and painted as more cowardly heels that relied on the numbers advantage rather than badasses.

 

Rude was an incredibly poor choice for Warrior's first feud as champ seeing as how he had feuded with Rude for the majority of the past year and come out on top. Rude didn't really get rehabbed at all beyond a haircut before going for round 2. Plus you had Warrior meeting Rude on the SNME prior to SummerSlam, kicking out of the Rude Awakening, hitting the big splash and getting a visual fall before winning by a weak DQ when Heenan pulled his hair. How that was supposed to make people want to see a cage match between the two is beyond me.

 

There was plenty of booking blunders in '90. Warrior wasn't presented well as champion. He was positioned as secondary to Hogan despite beating him, and again lost the allure of what brought people to him in the first place due to the WWF's attempt to "humanize" him. The toned-down paint, bringing a teddy bear on "Regis & Kathie Lee" for Kathie Lee's son, the retarded Amanda Ultimate Warrior" segment on Brother Love. If they just wanted Warrior to be Hogan, why not just use Hogan? Unfortunately Vince repeated this mistake twice more with Luger and Diesel.

 

The tag team scene was also a mess. What could have been anchored by a hot LOD-Dems feuds for the titles instead featured a Harts-Demos feud for the first half with the LOD in the background, then the Harts spent the rest of the year as directionless champs with no real feud.

 

The majority of the undercard just seemed to be spinning its wheels for the most part. With the exception of Slaughter who returned in the summer, no one really seemed to move up the card. When Nikolai Volkoff is your #3 babyface at the end of the year, you probably made a wrong turn somewhere.

[jdw]

Here's where they hit problems leading into Warrior's reign:

 

Curt Hennig

- programed to get killed by Hogan from Nov 1989 - Mar 1990

- IC Title

- wait, Hogan got to pin him on SNME before heading off to make a movie

- wait, he did do a lot of jobs to Warrior in Apr-May 1990 in a feud that wasn't strongly push

- the Beefcake feud through Beefcake getting hurt

- Von Erich

 

This kind of was the most obvious one. If they knew they were going to Warrior over Hogan at Mania 1990, then it would have made sense to "save" Hennig's bullshit perfect streak for Warrior. Instead, but the time he got to Warrior, Hogan had already used up Hennig's limited main event potential.

 

Honestly, I don't recall when they knew they were going to give Warrior the belt. It might have been after the Hennig feud started, and their plan was to have their usual "hot" Hogan feud around the horn before Mania to do business: 1986 Savage, 1987 Kamala, 1988 Ted & Andre and 1989 Bossman. They all started late in the prior year, and did good business. Perhaps that was the hope with Hennig, and the point of the build up.

 

But on the flip side, if they knew of a potential plan to go with Warrior, he was the easiest to put in the leadoff spot after Mania.

 

Ted DiBiase

- jobbing around the horn to Jake in late 1989 through Mania 1990

- jobbing to Bossman after Mania through SummerSlam

- taking over after Savage to feud with Dusty for the rest of 1990

- jobbing to Von Erich here and there

 

There never was a point where they bothered building Ted back up. If he was going to challenge Warrior right after Mania, he really needed a long build up through the second half of 1989. Actually beating the crap out of Jake might have worked. Or buying off a few mid level faces might have helped get over the Everyone Had A Price gimmick once again, leading to an attempt to buy off Warrior after Mania. But unlike Perfect, Ted had been "down" for such a long time since his run with Hogan that it would have taken work to get him back up.

 

If it were me, of course I would have invested the effort in it. But the WWF never was much of a Get The Heel Over promotion after the heel initially got over and used up. Savage was one of the exceptions.

 

Rude

- feuding with Warrior from Mania 1989 to Summer Slam 1989

- getting his ass kicked nightly by Piper after Summer Slam 1989 through March 1990

- getting his ass kicked nightly in March 1990 by people subbing for Piper when he was out

- then he got programed with Warrior.

 

Yeah... that one doesn't make a damned bit of sense. Other than the fact that if you program him with Piper, then Roddy is going to kick his ass. You don't bring back Piper as a regular like he was in that stretch to be jobbing out to Rude after Rude has just jobbed to Warrior. But that they flipped from the Piper feud to going back to Warrior right then was silly. We all get the hock of Rude having beaten him for a title before, but no one really cared for them to go right back to it.

 

Jake

- was a face

 

A popular one, and one that Vince seemed to have a soft spot as a face. It was a long time between turns for him, and they wouldn't go back to him being a heel until the big turn the following year.

 

Jake turning on Warrior would have been pretty damn interesting, especially if it was say at the end of a SummerSlam or Survivor Series match where they teamed and Jake just turned on him out of nowhere. That might have been a decent Nov 1990 - Mar 1991 feud for him. But Warrior was up to something else in that window...

 

Savage

- spend Apr-Oct getting killed by Hogan and blown off in Cage match in Dec

- King feud with Duggan from Oct 1989 - Jan 1990

- feud with Dusty from Jan 1990 - Sep 1990

- Hogan beating him again in the Main Event in Feb 1990

 

After the Dusty feud, he got paired with Warrior basically from Oct 1990 through Mania 1991.

 

So in a sense, Savage was programed with Warrior, and programed for a major feud eating up the second half of Warrior's year between Mania 1990 and Mania 1991. I'm not sure that anyone doesn't think that the feud had a big payoff.

 

The problem doesn't seem to be Oct 1990 - Mar 1991, when he had the famous Savage feud. It was more filling the time from Apr-Sep 1990 with a feud, and one that kept his reign from hitting the skids like it did with Rude.

 

We could say Perfect was the perfect one for that, especially if he hadn't been guzzled by Hogan. But Hogan was a bigger draw than Warrior by a country mile, and Hennig had issues drawing with Hogan. If it was going to be Hennig, they would have needed to work something in the Nov-Mania slot climaxing in Mania where he looks like the hot new heel.

 

So exactly which Top Face below Hogan and Warrior could they have given Hennig to go over strongly, climaxing in beating him clean at Mania?

 

I don't think Piper would want that role instead of getting to kick the crap out of Rude. But on a level, he would have been the #3 face in the company in that period. Hennig beating the crap out of Jake?

 

It's tough, because it's just not how the WWF opperated. In turn, you'd need to find someone for Hogan to draw against in Nov-to-Mania in the place of Hennig.

 

John

[Dooley]

Warrior-Hennig wasn't even mentioned on TV was it? Warrior's first TV appearance with the belt was at the April SNME where he faced Haku (underneath Hogan-Hennig I might add) and Rude got involved, kicking that off again. Hennig wasn't a viable option for a first challenger anyway, not just because he had jobbed around the horn to Hogan, but he lost clean to Beefcake at WM6.

 

Turning Piper heel might have been interesting.

[El Boricua]

If not for injury and family legal problems, Windham may have been an option.

[PeteF3]

Turning Piper heel might have been interesting.

I swear that Meltzer reported this as being on the table at one point, as a possible main event option for WM7 before the decision to go with Slaughter.

[cm funk]

The WWF burned through heels. It was a pretty common thing for them. For a lot of years, they were able to (i) bring in new guys like Piper, Valentine, Bossman, Kamala, DiBiase, etc, and (ii) effectively flip folks from one side to the other like Orndorff, Savage, Andre, even Bossman becoming a face though he never was a big of a star as a face as he was as a Hogan Opponent. As the decade wore on, there was less available talent for them to bring in, and some of the flipping around didn't have the impact of say Orndorff turning on Hogan or the Mega Powers breaking up. That's not an unnatural thing 5-6 years into a "show" like the WWF had been since Expansion.

This pretty much nails it for me. The WWF formula, and more specifically the Hogan formula called for them to cycle heels in and out to be fed to the babyfaces, "monster" heels to greatest effect with Hogan, and by the late 80's/early 90's not only did the formula start to become stale, but they ran out of credible, compelling and fresh heels.

 

Look at the guys paired with or fed to Hogan from 84-88 (this won't be a complete list): Andre, Bundy, Piper, Orndorff, Savage, Studd, Kamala, DiBiase, Terry Funk etc. A strong list with some strong monster opponents, and heated angles with great performers.

 

You also had Bobby Heenan as a main antagonist, and Hogan ran through all his guys: Orndorff, Andre, Hercules, Harley Race, Bundy, Haku etc. That well eventually ran dry too.

 

In 89-90 you had the Twin Towers (were good in this role), Savage (great angle and matchup) and Zeus (terrible) as the main opponents. They milked Savage after WM for all they could but he was clearly on his way down the card at that point. They rehashed DiBiase. You had guys like Bad News and Honky put him over on SNME. He works with Perfect & Genius but Perfect is never credible. So they're already running out of main event heels when he "passes the torch" to Warrior

 

Then you see the biggest problem when Warrior has the belt......there's nobody left who Hogan hasn't beaten thoroughly. They rebuilt and bided their time with Savage long enough to where he was a credible opponent for Warrior, but they take the belt off Warrior before they run the match. The big monster they bring in this year, Earthquake (with Dino Bravo), is fed to Hogan instead of Warrior. Warrior wrestles Rude @ Summer Slam, who he's already worked with and beat at the IC level and is not a strong challenger. Who else was he supposed to wrestle that isn't a rehash of a Hogan program? I don't think you can turn Piper or Jake at this point. Then by the end you're bringing in a retread Slaughter (who wasn't setting the world on fire in the AWA) to transition back to Hogan.

 

I really think Warrior could have had a much better run as champ and the Hogan formula would have worked with him if they'd just had some fresh, credible monsters for him to face. Undertaker would have been eventually, but by that time the belt is off of Warrior, and business is in the crapper. Looking at the landscape in 90, with the territories dying/dead and the dearth of talent beginning to show.....who could you bring in from the outside? Sid would have been perfect in 90 if they could have gotten him. Would Kokina Maximus have worked in 1990, or was he too young and not yet gigantic at this point like was as Yokozuna? What about Cactus Jack? The Warrior-Cactus dynamic would have been interesting, but was he ready and could it have drawn? He was terrible, but what if they discovered El Gigante before WCW did? Could they have made money promoting Warrior-Gigante? They had a loose relationship with AJPW, is there anyone from there they could have used? Would Warrior-Gordy have been a draw? Not a lot of options that jump out at me? And of course you have to take a while to build these guys up first before you feed them to Warrior.

 

And then you have some of the guys who were potential Hogan opponents who didn't pan out. I think Bam Bam would have eventually turned on Hogan and had a run with him, but he was out of the company before it could happen. Windham was being groomed for a run with Hogan but was in and out too quick. They'd had on and off talks with Brody for years about having a run with Hogan, and I think it would have happened eventually and done good business, but he's murdered in 88. They tried to get Flair earlier than 91, if he jumped when Arn & Tully did that could eat up a big chunk of 88-89 for Savage and Hogan.

[JerryvonKramer]

Still think there's too much emphasis being put on the house show circuit in some of this analysis. It's true that the WWF burned through heels, but if you watch the TV and the PPVs, most of the bigger name ones were protected. Doesn't matter if someone sees a heel lose at a house show so much (especially as you'll note countless BS finishes at a lot of them, they aren't telling us much), if they are built reasonably well on TV. I don't agree with the idea that none of these heels were built back up. Some of them were.

 

I don't think the house show results give you an accurate picture of how these things were presented. Look at the TV and what went down on PPV, it's all that matters. A heel can lose 20 house show matches in a row and then get a big win on SNME and the latter is the one that really counts. "Around the horn" is neither here nor there in my view. Look at Flair's WWF run for more on this. House show, schmouse show.

 

The problem is not so much that guys like Ted and Rude weren't built back up or protected -- I think they were, 1990 Yearbook watchers might want to comment on this -- it's that Hogan and Warrior were made to seem indestructable to the point where it wasn't believable that anyone could beat them.

[cm funk]

Well, you can only build someone back up so much.

 

Fans had already seen DiBiase beaten handily by both Hogan and Savage, and he was not especially big. No amount of rebuild is going to make fans buy him against Warrior.

 

Rude was already beaten handily by Warrior himself, and not especially big either. Only gonna get to a certain level of credibility against him the second time around.

 

Perfect was never going to get there after Hogan squashed him. And in fact he never did get to world title level as a heel or face.

 

That's why I think they needed to copy the Hogan formula and feed him monsters. Hogan had his guys like DiBiase and Heenan who were thorns in his side, but the real meat of his title run was the giants and monsters, because they could be built up as credible threats to "Superman". DiBiase and Heenan were more like Lex Luthors who hired goons to take him out. I just don't know who that would have been for Warrior in 1990.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'd agree with that. See my post here for more.

[El Boricua]

I think Rude would have been better as the one feuding with Hogan instead of Mr. Perfect. The Piper feud really didn't do much for him in the long run.

 

The other thing they could have done to set-up some heels for 90 would have been to have the Powers of Pain go into full time singles in the summer of 89. They were basically wrestling as singles on house shows half of the time during that period anyway and wouldn't do anything of note as a team before they split up.