Guest Alfdogg Posted April 8, 2005 Report Share Posted April 8, 2005 Cena/JBL, WM21 - I gave my thoughts on this one in the WM21 thoughts thread. Brock/RVD, KOTR 2002 - In hindsight, it's not a bad decision, but at the time Brock had barely any heat at all despite the Goldberg-esque push, while RVD was over like crazy despite being buried in the midcard by politics. Had Rock not come back for a couple months at the time, this would have been a total flop, as none of the other main eventers would truly put him over, with Austin of course walking out over it and the titles being split again for no apparent reason other than HHH getting out of jobbing to him*. Add thoughts and other matches as you wish. * - I'm sure there is a reason for it, that's just my jaded, anti-HHH interpretation of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Posted April 8, 2005 Report Share Posted April 8, 2005 Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho - WrestleMania XIX: Been mentioned a million times, but Jericho really, really, REALLY should've gone over here. Chris Benoit vs. Randy Orton - SummerSlam 2004: I think Benoit should've gone over and kept the title. There was no supreme backlash against Benoit being champ and no need to take the title off of him. It's REALLY debatable whether or not Orton was really over (I don't think he was), and the trigger-happy face turn buried his character dead. He wound up being one of the most forgettable champions in recent memory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coffey Posted April 8, 2005 Report Share Posted April 8, 2005 "Macho Man" Randy Savage Vs. "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase - Wrestlemania IV: I don't care what anyone says about 'Manias ending with a face going over to send the crowd home happy, DiBiase should've won. It would've been great to see a face chasing a heel for a change. At least a change at that time. Hogan was always the champion. Bam Bam Bigelow Vs. Lawrence Taylor - Wrestlemania XI: Obviously LT wasn't going to be around after the win and it could've really helped Bam Bam. Especially since it was in the main event slot (I think). Bam Bam could've been a big star in WWE again. Sting Vs. "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan - Starrcade 1997?: This is basically what started the death of WCW. Two years of build-up or so, only for the heel to go over on a screw job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted April 8, 2005 Report Share Posted April 8, 2005 Bill Goldberg v Kevin Nash - Starrcade '98 is one of the most obvious answers. Nash wanted to end Goldberg's streak though, and he was booking, so who was going to stop him. Kevin Nash v Diamond Dallas Page - Slamboree '99 is another one. Page was having good matches, drawing heel heat and was the best working world champ they'd had in ages, and nearly everyone else in the company felt they should have let DDP have the ball for a while, but Nash wanted the title and he ended up winning out. War Games - Fall Brawl '97 - The Horsemen parody was fine for what it was, and was actually very entertaining, but the babyfaces should have decimated the heels after that. The booking called for it, but instead, we got Curt Hennig turning on Ric Flair in the Carolinas. WCW always ran these incredibly depressing shows where Flair was just buried to no end when they were in his home area, and it finally killed the market. HHH v Booker T - Wrestlemania XIX - The booking called for Booker to get revenge after that HHH promo, he didn't, and Booker's career died a miserable death that very night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted April 8, 2005 Report Share Posted April 8, 2005 The Road Warriors v Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard - Starrcade '87 - It's Chicago, it's the Road Warriors being put in a match where everyone expects them to *finally* win the gold, and what happens? A Dusty finish. Nice. They didn't come back to Chicago until 1989 because this was market suicide and even then, they had trouble drawing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Posted April 8, 2005 Report Share Posted April 8, 2005 Bret Hart vs. Yokozuna - WrestleMania IX: You have two wrestlers, one being someone who is built as your future main event face, and the other being a perfectly capable heel, and what happens? The 1980s return and Hulk Hogan stands tall in the end, before shitting on the promotion and taking a couple months off to make a movie and refusing to put over that new face before leaving on his way out for good. Bad, bad, bad on so many levels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted April 8, 2005 Report Share Posted April 8, 2005 People in wrestling have short memories too. That should have forever burned the bridge between Hogan and Vince, but he was welcomed back in 2002. Then, he quit the company when his request to win the title from Brock Lesnar was turned down, and he was brought back again. Then, he quit the company because he didn't like the direction of his character and recently, he was brought back again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Some Guy Posted April 8, 2005 Report Share Posted April 8, 2005 * - I'm sure there is a reason for it, that's just my jaded, anti-HHH interpretation of it. Raw's top title was going to be the IC belt and HHH didn't want to be IC champ, he wanted to be World Champ so that's what he became. Chris Jericho vs. HHH from Raw in 2000 - When they did they did the Dusty Finish and then jobbed Jericho to HHH afterwards it was the begining of the decline for the company IMO. From 97 to that point WWF had been consistantly giving the fans what they wanted as far as winners and losers. This was a clear example or not giving the fans what they wanted and spitting in their face because they wanted it. Jericho was way more over than HHH was at that point despite HHH getting a Jesus push for a year while Jericho was co-IC champ with Chyna. Jealousy is a bitch. Jericho, RVD, Rock, Booker T, etc... have all found out that HHH is a very jealous man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Posted April 8, 2005 Report Share Posted April 8, 2005 I think the Dusty Finish to Jericho-HHH wasn't necessarily bad, but not following up on it was. Jericho never really got a rematch (unless I'm forgetting something), and spent the next few months until July spinning his wheels in the midcard. The stuff with Benoit was fine, but the reaction for Jericho getting pushed was THERE and they never bothered responding to it after the false title win. There was only one other time where Jericho was the focus on the show (the night he was booked in three matches) but it was only because Rock had the night off to work on The Mummy Returns, IIRC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted April 8, 2005 Report Share Posted April 8, 2005 More than the wrong person going over in that HHH/Jericho match was HHH getting his win back from Jericho in the six-man at the end of the evening. The first win looked like a fluke, which is fine, considering where they both were on the totem pole at the time. You take the belt back and put it on HHH so he can drop it to Rock. No problem. Then, you run the main event with HHH & DX against Jericho & the APA, but you have Jericho beat HHH again. That's two wins in one night, and it would have shot Jericho into title contention. When HHH won the belt back from Rock, he really should not have dropped it at King of the Ring. Dropping it to Jericho at Fully Loaded and making the LMS match a title match would have been the right decision. Even involve Angle in the finish if you're wanting to build that feud. It wouldn't have hurt HHH one bit, since he'd be turning face anyway, and it would have helped Jericho and Angle. I guess that's why it didn't happen. 2000 really should have also had Benoit decimate Foley after Foley screwed him over in the title match against the Rock. Mick wanted to do a match at X-7, but he turned down a match with Regal because he wanted it to be a bigger deal. Foley/Benoit would have been a bigger deal, and it's a feud people would have been more likely to get into. The storyline was there. So, in 2000, you could have had Jericho be the one to finally end the Game, maybe even turning him heel afterward when it's revealed that he ran over Steve Austin (and also dropped the cinderblock on his head). HHH and Angle could have conceivably feuded until Wrestlemania, which would be the point when HHH would get his heat back officially and go on a chase for the title, leading to a big Austin/HHH match in 2001, and Rock is the one to beat Jericho before Mania. Jericho sidelines him out of anger so he can go film The Scorpion King, and you have a built in feud when he gets back. 2001 could have seen Rock/HHH/Benoit v Austin/Jericho/Angle, or some combination of that, depending on the face-heel alignments, and everyone involved would have benefitted, and you could have gotten two years of feuds out of that group. Keep 'Taker as a sideshow act feuding with other giants like Kane and Show, and let other guys who are over, like E & C, or the Hardyz, or Rikishi, have occasional runs on top. I also would have had the Royal Rumble in '01 come down to Austin, Rock, Edge and Christian, with Austin winning in the end. Rock beats Jericho for the title the next night on RAW, and Austin and Rock feud with Edge and Christian at No Way Out, and E & C get the win because of miscommunication between Austin and Rock. SO many possibilities there that just weren't explored at all that could have made all the new stars they wanted, and maybe they wouldn't be in this situation now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Flyboy Posted April 8, 2005 Report Share Posted April 8, 2005 I always thought that the RVD Vs. Steve Austin Vs. Kurt Angle match had a pretty bad finish and probably was when I realized things weren't going to get better in the future which led to me not watching wrestling anymore (well, actually the last whole wrestling show I watched was a Raw where the ME was RVD Vs. HBK). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted April 8, 2005 Report Share Posted April 8, 2005 RVD **so** should have won. Austin was bombing, and RVD was the most over guy in the company. He and Jericho winning the titles in the same night would have signified a new era. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Hunter's Torn Quad Posted April 8, 2005 Report Share Posted April 8, 2005 This thread is depressing me. That is all. And Lesnar should have gotten the pinfall win originally booked for the finish to his match with Undertaker at Unforgiven in 2002. It wasn't going to be totally clean, so there was no reason not to do it, seeing as it gives a credible reason to order a rematch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted April 8, 2005 Report Share Posted April 8, 2005 LOD-Arn/Tully and Hogan-Sting are what leaps to my mind immediately, since they pretty much killed years of booking. I also vote for Angle-Austin from Unforgiven 2001. Not that Kurt didn't deserve to win, but the whole thing seemed forced having the All-American win the belt a few weeks after 9/11. It was actually kinda sad to see Kurt celebrating in the ring with his family in front of an apathetic crowd. (it was funny to see Taker join the celebration late then leave early, still pissed over the Taker/Kane - Kronik match) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Posted April 8, 2005 Report Share Posted April 8, 2005 More than the wrong person going over in that HHH/Jericho match was HHH getting his win back from Jericho in the six-man at the end of the evening. The first win looked like a fluke, which is fine, considering where they both were on the totem pole at the time. You take the belt back and put it on HHH so he can drop it to Rock. No problem. Then, you run the main event with HHH & DX against Jericho & the APA, but you have Jericho beat HHH again. That's two wins in one night, and it would have shot Jericho into title contention. When HHH won the belt back from Rock, he really should not have dropped it at King of the Ring. Dropping it to Jericho at Fully Loaded and making the LMS match a title match would have been the right decision. Even involve Angle in the finish if you're wanting to build that feud. It wouldn't have hurt HHH one bit, since he'd be turning face anyway, and it would have helped Jericho and Angle. I guess that's why it didn't happen. 2000 really should have also had Benoit decimate Foley after Foley screwed him over in the title match against the Rock. Mick wanted to do a match at X-7, but he turned down a match with Regal because he wanted it to be a bigger deal. Foley/Benoit would have been a bigger deal, and it's a feud people would have been more likely to get into. The storyline was there. So, in 2000, you could have had Jericho be the one to finally end the Game, maybe even turning him heel afterward when it's revealed that he ran over Steve Austin (and also dropped the cinderblock on his head). HHH and Angle could have conceivably feuded until Wrestlemania, which would be the point when HHH would get his heat back officially and go on a chase for the title, leading to a big Austin/HHH match in 2001, and Rock is the one to beat Jericho before Mania. Jericho sidelines him out of anger so he can go film The Scorpion King, and you have a built in feud when he gets back. 2001 could have seen Rock/HHH/Benoit v Austin/Jericho/Angle, or some combination of that, depending on the face-heel alignments, and everyone involved would have benefitted, and you could have gotten two years of feuds out of that group. Keep 'Taker as a sideshow act feuding with other giants like Kane and Show, and let other guys who are over, like E & C, or the Hardyz, or Rikishi, have occasional runs on top. I also would have had the Royal Rumble in '01 come down to Austin, Rock, Edge and Christian, with Austin winning in the end. Rock beats Jericho for the title the next night on RAW, and Austin and Rock feud with Edge and Christian at No Way Out, and E & C get the win because of miscommunication between Austin and Rock. SO many possibilities there that just weren't explored at all that could have made all the new stars they wanted, and maybe they wouldn't be in this situation now. ...and I was looking forward to a good weekend until I read all of that. You're absolutely right, of course, and your style of long-term booking is unfortunately something I don't think we'll see close to in the WWE. Rather than give guys who NEED a rub a flash-in-the-pan push to the main event, you're giving them a full-fledged push and giving the guys next in line that type of push that a Jericho wound up receiving. That's a good thing, of course, because your Edges and Christians at the time are good, but not quite ready for the main event, but this sort of thing preps 'em good for the future. Very well-written, Loss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyOwnSummer Posted April 8, 2005 Report Share Posted April 8, 2005 Brock/RVD, KOTR 2002 - In hindsight, it's not a bad decision, but at the time Brock had barely any heat at all despite the Goldberg-esque push, while RVD was over like crazy despite being buried in the midcard by politics. Had Rock not come back for a couple months at the time, this would have been a total flop, as none of the other main eventers would truly put him over, with Austin of course walking out over it and the titles being split again for no apparent reason other than HHH getting out of jobbing to him*. * - I'm sure there is a reason for it, that's just my jaded, anti-HHH interpretation of it. I'm pretty sure Austin was willing to put Brock over but that his problem was that when it was proposed to him it was going to happen that night on Raw with no build. Austin wanted it to mean something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Alfdogg Posted April 9, 2005 Report Share Posted April 9, 2005 IIRC, the match finish was also supposed to advance the Austin-Eddie feud, which Austin had asked for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strummer Posted April 9, 2005 Report Share Posted April 9, 2005 I think Austin asking for the Eddie program is one of those Net myths, he thought Eddie was a great worker and wanted to have good matches, that was really the extent of Austin's wishes. I don't think it was about Austin elevating Eddie or anything like that. Austin wanted to feud with Undertaker and Vince more. He loved working with Taker and didn't see why they couldn't just go back to that program. He also thought the Austin- McMahon angle still had legs. There were conflicting reports on this issue on the net in 2002, so if anybody has the real answers (HTQ maybe) that would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Some Guy Posted April 10, 2005 Report Share Posted April 10, 2005 HTQ did a post explaining the whole Austin situation in some thread. I think it was "Fact or Fiction" or something like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Hunter's Torn Quad Posted April 10, 2005 Report Share Posted April 10, 2005 Austin asked for a program with Eddie because he liked and respected Eddie, and thought Eddie could have good matches with him. However, there were still potential problems with it because Austin didn't think Eddie was over enough to warrant a PPV blowoff match, and apaprently felt it should have been ended on TV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strummer Posted April 10, 2005 Report Share Posted April 10, 2005 thanks HTQ, that's what I thought, it was done so Austin could have good matches, it was never about making Eddie a star or anything Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted April 10, 2005 Report Share Posted April 10, 2005 Austin and Eddie having good matches would have gone a long way toward making Eddie a star no matter if they had a long term program or not. One day WWE will learn that all you need to do to make someone a star is have them face a main event guy who's got mark cred to spare (Rock, Austin, HHH, Taker) and have the main event guy make him look like a million bucks. The main eventer doesn't even have to job as long as he makes the guy look credible. Then (and this is the part they haven't figured out yet) you let the guy try out his newly minted credibility before you have the main eventer who "made" him squishing the guy right out of the box. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted April 13, 2005 Report Share Posted April 13, 2005 From what I can gather, Austin felt that Benoit was the best worker of the guys climbing the ladder (which is accurate). He also felt that between Jericho and Angle, Angle was the better worker (which is arguable) while Jericho had more potential to draw and had more star quality (which is also arguable). He didn't think much of Jericho in the ring, but he thought he could be a headliner anyway. With Angle, he initially thought he had everything he needed to succeed, but changed his tune over time and felt that he didn't have the mass appeal he needed to become a bonafide top guy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted April 13, 2005 Report Share Posted April 13, 2005 Looking back, Austin was pretty much right about everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Posted April 13, 2005 Report Share Posted April 13, 2005 Austin and Eddie having good matches would have gone a long way toward making Eddie a star no matter if they had a long term program or not. One day WWE will learn that all you need to do to make someone a star is have them face a main event guy who's got mark cred to spare (Rock, Austin, HHH, Taker) and have the main event guy make him look like a million bucks. The main eventer doesn't even have to job as long as he makes the guy look credible. Indeed. This reminds me of Austin's matches with Benoit (5/31/01) and Angle (Summerslam 2001) where I thought he made them look like gold without actually losing. He didn't think much of Jericho in the ring, but he thought he could be a headliner anyway.IIRC, he said something along the lines of Jericho being too "flippy-floppy" for his tastes. ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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